In article <1197986499snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) said:

> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?

The Wiki entry on the Ford Model T says things like:

Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back". The crank handle was
cupped in the palm, rather than grabbed with the thumb over the top of
the handle, so that if the engine did kick back, the rapid reverse
motion of the crank would throw the hand away from the handle, rather
than violently twisting the wrist or breaking the thumb. Most Model T
Fords had the choke operated by a wire emerging from the bottom of the
radiator where it could be operated with the left hand while cranking
the engine with the right hand.

and

The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a
planetary gear type billed as "three speed". By today's standards it
would be considered a two speed, since one of the three speeds was
actually reverse.

The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a
lever that was mounted to the left of the driver's seat. The throttle
was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was
used to engage the gear. When pressed and held forward the car entered
low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral,
a state that could also be achieved by pulling the floor-mounted lever
to an upright position. If the lever was pushed forward and the driver
took their foot off the left pedal, the Model T entered high gear. The
car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the
pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal, so the Model T was somewhat
like a modern automatic transmission vehicle to drive.

The middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal
operated the engine brake. The floor lever also controlled the parking
brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This
doubled as an emergency brake.

Hell, I pride myself on driving a *real* car -- i.e., one with a
manual transmission -- but having to deal with all that would have
me choosing to walk a lot.

--
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com>

In article <fkae15$l8e$1@panix2.panix.com>,
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>
> Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
> manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back".....

[many details snipped]

>Hell, I pride myself on driving a *real* car -- i.e., one with a
>manual transmission -- but having to deal with all that would have
>me choosing to walk a lot.

The BBC's _The Nine Tailors_ has a lovely scene, a little
earlier, right at the beginning of WWI. The burglar is fleeing
the scene, with Lt. Wimsey in hot pursuit. The burglar leaps the
wall and ... spends what seems like forever cranking up his car
and getting it moving. He finally gets it started and begins
rumbling off, just as Ld. Peter arrives on the scene. He, too,
has to start his car, but it's a Mercedes or a Daimler or
something, and "goes like gee-whiz," and it takes him only maybe
fifteen seconds to get started. Reminds me of the old joke about
the day it was so hot, there was a coyote chasing a rabbit and
they were both walking.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <fkae15$l8e$1@panix2.panix.com>,
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>In article <1197986499snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
>ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) said:
>
>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>
>The Wiki entry on the Ford Model T says things like:
>
> Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
> manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back". The crank handle was
> cupped in the palm, rather than grabbed with the thumb over the top of
> the handle, so that if the engine did kick back, the rapid reverse
> motion of the crank would throw the hand away from the handle, rather
> than violently twisting the wrist or breaking the thumb. Most Model T
> Fords had the choke operated by a wire emerging from the bottom of the
> radiator where it could be operated with the left hand while cranking
> the engine with the right hand.
>
>and
>
> The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a
> planetary gear type billed as "three speed". By today's standards it
> would be considered a two speed, since one of the three speeds was
> actually reverse.
>
> The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a
> lever that was mounted to the left of the driver's seat. The throttle
> was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was
> used to engage the gear. When pressed and held forward the car entered
> low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral,
> a state that could also be achieved by pulling the floor-mounted lever
> to an upright position. If the lever was pushed forward and the driver
> took their foot off the left pedal, the Model T entered high gear. The
> car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the
> pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal, so the Model T was somewhat
> like a modern automatic transmission vehicle to drive.
>
> The middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal
> operated the engine brake. The floor lever also controlled the parking
> brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This
> doubled as an emergency brake.
>
>Hell, I pride myself on driving a *real* car -- i.e., one with a
>manual transmission -- but having to deal with all that would have
>me choosing to walk a lot.
>
>--
>William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com>

Harry Turtledove riffs on this in one of his USA/CSA books, where some
of the above is described. I forget the exact circumstances, but I believe
it is one of the male characters, who knows only Fords, being surprised that
a woman could operate a car (not a Ford).

The bit about kickback was common enough that such a wrist break was called
a 'Ford Fracture'. Even back in the day, Model Ts were an object of
some (sometimes good-natured, sometimes not) derision. In the house of
one of my aunts (born 1905) I found a book of Ford jokes from about 1916.
I don't have it with me, but these are approximately how some of them went:

Q: Why will all new Fords be red instead of black?
A: Because the law says that any tin can containing gasolene must be
painted red.

Q: Why is a Ford the only automobile mentioned in the Bible?
A: Because no other can 'ascend to Heaven on High'.

A farmer was renting out a pasture for ball game parking. A Ford driver,
thinking that parking was free, parked his car and walked away. The farmer
ran after him yelling "50 cents! 50 cents!". "Sold!" said the Ford owner.



Ted

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:01:39 GMT, ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew
Stephenson) wrote:

>And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America? (Assume
>he/she is unable to convey any post-20s developments, including
>discoveries of pre-20s facts still lost at that date.)

I'd be dead.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com

On 19 Dec 2007 01:34:13 -0500, wdstarr@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:

>In article <1197986499snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
>ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) said:
>
>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>
>The Wiki entry on the Ford Model T says things like:
>
> Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
> manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back". The crank handle was
> cupped in the palm, rather than grabbed with the thumb over the top of
> the handle, so that if the engine did kick back, the rapid reverse
> motion of the crank would throw the hand away from the handle, rather
> than violently twisting the wrist or breaking the thumb. Most Model T
> Fords had the choke operated by a wire emerging from the bottom of the
> radiator where it could be operated with the left hand while cranking
> the engine with the right hand.
>
>and
>
> The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a
> planetary gear type billed as "three speed". By today's standards it
> would be considered a two speed, since one of the three speeds was
> actually reverse.
>
> The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a
> lever that was mounted to the left of the driver's seat. The throttle
> was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was
> used to engage the gear. When pressed and held forward the car entered
> low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral,
> a state that could also be achieved by pulling the floor-mounted lever
> to an upright position. If the lever was pushed forward and the driver
> took their foot off the left pedal, the Model T entered high gear. The
> car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the
> pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal, so the Model T was somewhat
> like a modern automatic transmission vehicle to drive.
>
> The middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal
> operated the engine brake. The floor lever also controlled the parking
> brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This
> doubled as an emergency brake.
>
>Hell, I pride myself on driving a *real* car -- i.e., one with a
>manual transmission -- but having to deal with all that would have
>me choosing to walk a lot.

It also had quite a vibration. When I was a kid, in the early 40's, a family
friend still drove one. He was very deaf, and always said that it was the only
car that he could tell when the engine was running.

On 19 Dec 2007 01:34:13 -0500, William December Starr wrote:

> In article <1197986499snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
> ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) said:
>
>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>
> The Wiki entry on the Ford Model T says things like:
>
> Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
> manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back". The crank handle was
> cupped in the palm, rather than grabbed with the thumb over the top of
> the handle, so that if the engine did kick back, the rapid reverse
> motion of the crank would throw the hand away from the handle, rather
> than violently twisting the wrist or breaking the thumb. Most Model T
> Fords had the choke operated by a wire emerging from the bottom of the
> radiator where it could be operated with the left hand while cranking
> the engine with the right hand.
>
> and
>
> The Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a
> planetary gear type billed as "three speed". By today's standards it
> would be considered a two speed, since one of the three speeds was
> actually reverse.
>
> The Model T's transmission was controlled with three foot pedals and a
> lever that was mounted to the left of the driver's seat. The throttle
> was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel. The left pedal was
> used to engage the gear. When pressed and held forward the car entered
> low gear. When held in an intermediate position the car was in neutral,
> a state that could also be achieved by pulling the floor-mounted lever
> to an upright position. If the lever was pushed forward and the driver
> took their foot off the left pedal, the Model T entered high gear. The
> car could thus cruise without the driver having to press any of the
> pedals. There was no separate clutch pedal, so the Model T was somewhat
> like a modern automatic transmission vehicle to drive.
>
> The middle pedal was used to engage reverse gear, and the right pedal
> operated the engine brake. The floor lever also controlled the parking
> brake, which was activated by pulling the lever all the way back. This
> doubled as an emergency brake.
>
> Hell, I pride myself on driving a *real* car -- i.e., one with a
> manual transmission -- but having to deal with all that would have
> me choosing to walk a lot.

Bah.

Approach the vehicle, which is sitting there with pedals up and lever
aft, i.e. in "neutral" (actually, no transmission bands engaged) and the
parking brake on. Set half throttle and ******ed spark. Go around front,
insert the crank in the hole, set the choke. Give the crank a couple of
brisk strokes, observing the precaution of /not/ wrapping your thumb
around the handle. When the engine starts, stow the handle (it is gauche
to leave the handle in place when the engine is running) and release the
choke.

Take the seat. Gradually move the spark lever to normal position, i.e.
toward advance until the now-warming engine speeds up a bit. Bring the
lever forward to the center position. Depress the center pedal. The
vehicle moves backwards out of the parking slot. When free of
obstructions, release the center pedal, depressing the right pedal as
necessary to kill unwanted momentum.

Press the left pedal. When the vehicle has gained some forward speed,
bring the lever forward and release the pedal. You are now in "cruise"
mode, with speed controlled by the throttle and spark levers. For
maximum speed, bring both to the forwardmost position.

To stop, press the left pedal and bring the lever back upright, then
release the pedal. Hold the vehicle on slopes, etc. using the right
pedal. It is good form to bring the engine back to idle at halts; note
that this requires ******ing the spark somewhat.

Child could do it (and did, quite often). Once learned it actually
requires a good deal less hand-eye coordination than "three on the
tree", let alone a multigear floor shift. The only real complexity
involved lay in manipulating the throttle and spark levers: essentially,
for any throttle position, advance the spark until the engine knocks,
then back it off slightly. If Ford had invented centrifugal advance and
vacuum ******, we might well be using the same system today.

Regards,
Ric

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article <fka48b$nnt$1@panix3.panix.com>
kfl@KeithLynch.net "Keith F. Lynch" writes:

> Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today take
> > to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>
> I can't speak for the average, but for myself, I would dislike all the
> smoking. At least I'm old enough that I wouldn't have to worry about
> the draft. (Both these concerns continue to apply until the mid-1970s.)

Having had brushes myself with dental problems, some USians might
regret the lack of better medical facilities. Fancy having teeth
drilled and capped old-style?

> > (Assume he/she is unable to convey any post-20s developments,
> > including discoveries of pre-20s facts still lost at that date.)
>
> Would I be allowed to work in electronics at all? Or to make
> investments based on my knowledge of what's to come?
>
> How about conveying late-'20s development, such as inventing
> superheterodyne and FM radio during the early '20s?

I think that knowing which ideas would turn out to be winners (a
lot like knowing what shares to buy) would count as "convey"ing,
if one acted on that knowledge pro or con. (See much past SF.)
--
Andrew Stephenson

In article <78bdb094-0690-4fd2-9fce-9a6186a2c95c@
1g2000hsl.googlegroups.com>, Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com says...
> On Dec 18, 11:47 am, DougL <lampert.d...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > This was all MILD compared to the American Civil War where we did much
> > worse things constitutionally.
>
> And that was MILD compared to previous acts of other countries. So?
> I thought the idea was to progress forward to show how civilized you
> are, not go backwards to show how uncivilized you can be.
>
> > But I'm told that the current war on terror stuff is new and different
> > and would horrify our ancestors. Apperantly waterboarding is clearly
> > worse than people being killed "trying to escape" or massive injuries
> > from "falling down the stairs".
>
> You are either making that up or talking to morons. Even beyond the
> acts themselves is the two worst aspects: codifying this as active
> official policy rather than looking the other way at unofficial acts

I am sure that those conducting interrogations would prefer if the
latter option were still available. But since the legislative branch
of the government, in its wisdom, has decided that it must be spelt out
exactly what interrogation techniques are permissable, then either some
interrogation methods that are uncomfortable for prisoners must be
'official policy' or no interrogation methods that are uncomfortable
for prisoners can be allowed at all.

So who do you blame for the above "worst aspect"?

> and doing it as part of an unending bogus(*) "war on terror" in which
> there is no clear end to hostilities after which these acts will no
> longer be tolerated in the slightest.

This is a more arguable point, except that given the nature of the
conflict, it is difficult to see it as doing other than petering out
without a definitive termination date.

- Gerry Quinn

In article <47687ac4$0$31164$607ed4bc@cv.net>, jwkenne@attglobal.net
says...
> Thomas Armagost wrote:
> > Why not build a time machine and bring an American from the 1920s
> > to the present-day United States?
> >
> > How would the person react to...
>
> ...
>
> > And what about TV? What would the person think of Jerry Springer?
> > Ozzie Osborne? Howard Stern? Ann Coulter? Infomercials?
>
> Someone from the 1920s would be horrified, but someone from the 30s
> wouldn't be surprised at all.
>
> <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Coughlin>

And those who worry about censorship in the modern era might be
horrified at what happened to him. Unless, of course, their concern
varies with the politics of the victim...

- Gerry Quinn

"William December Starr" <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fkae15$l8e$1@panix2.panix.com...
> In article <1197986499snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
> ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) said:
>
>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>
> The Wiki entry on the Ford Model T says things like:
>
> Before starting a Model T with the hand crank, the spark had to be
> manually ******ed or the engine might "kick back". The crank
> handle was
> cupped in the palm, rather than grabbed with the thumb over the
> top of
> the handle, so that if the engine did kick back, the rapid reverse
> motion of the crank would throw the hand away from the handle,
> rather
> than violently twisting the wrist or breaking the thumb. Most
> Model T
> Fords had the choke operated by a wire emerging from the bottom of
> the
> radiator where it could be operated with the left hand while
> cranking
> the engine with the right hand.

All lovingly described in the "Da Capo" section of _Time Enough for
Love_.

"Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:2l0hm3d1sfbbvtjom8ljjp6uvojhs2fasr@4ax.com...
> My grandmother remembered the first time she saw a car, the first time
> she saw a phone, the first time she flew a jet to a foreign country,
> the first time she saw someone walking on the moon, and my first home
> computer.

I remember all but the first two.

In message
<d430a511-4ce6-445a-85ae-5193ad1faa14@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
J.Pascal <julie@pascal.org> writes
>On Dec 18, 11:18 am, Mark_Reich...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> On Dec 18, 11:47 am, DougL <lampert.d...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > This was all MILD compared to the American Civil War where we did much
>> > worse things constitutionally.
>>
>> And that was MILD compared to previous acts of other countries. So?
>> I thought the idea was to progress forward to show how civilized you
>> are, not go backwards to show how uncivilized you can be.
>
>Of course, getting credit for progressing forward would be nice.
>
>Anyhow, the context of this was bringing someone from the past
>to today and how would they react. I think it far more likely that
>they'd see the improvements compared to their own time and would
>likely (but not necessarily) view our concerns about such things
>as naive.
>
>-Julie

Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:
* soft toilet paper
* central heating
* their first refrigerator
* colour television (or even television at all)
* putting a man into space
* fitted carpets
* the concept of home video recording
* ensuite bathrooms
* fitted kitchens
* automatic washing machines

Anyone coming forward from the 1920s would be stunned at mod cons first
and only secondly look at comparative politics and human rights.

And when they look at human rights it kinda depends on what colour they
are and what 'class' they are as to what bias they put on advances
balanced against losses

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

Marilee J. Layman wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:01:39 GMT, ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew
> Stephenson) wrote:
>
>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America? (Assume
>> he/she is unable to convey any post-20s developments, including
>> discoveries of pre-20s facts still lost at that date.)
>
> I'd be dead.
Pre-penicillin, most of us would probably be in bad straights, shortly.

Bill

In article <EveuKfpx5UaHFwU1@parkhead.demon.co.uk>,
Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> * colour television (or even television at all)

I first saw Color TV as a futuristic device at the David Taylor Model
Basin (later NSRDC) open house.

I was the first kid on my block to have regular TV a giant 13" screen
which was the family TV until 1968. My father remarked it was easier to
follow football on color TV. I think the giant 19" screen cost over
$300, in 1968 money.

In message <9ephm396agupbe6dqc1emcfj1api02opms@4ax.com>, Marilee J.
Layman <marilee@mjlayman.com> writes
>On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:01:39 GMT, ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew
>Stephenson) wrote:
>
>>And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>>take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America? (Assume
>>he/she is unable to convey any post-20s developments, including
>>discoveries of pre-20s facts still lost at that date.)
>
>I'd be dead.

With a fairly complicated delivery of my firstborn the possibility is
that I would be as well.

For various other medical reasons that probably applies to a fair number
of us

Jacey

--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

Gerry Quinn <gerryq@indigo.ie> wrote:

> In article <47687ac4$0$31164$607ed4bc@cv.net>, jwkenne@attglobal.net
> says...
> > Someone from the 1920s would be horrified, but someone from the 30s
> > wouldn't be surprised at all.
> >
> > <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Coughlin>
>
> And those who worry about censorship in the modern era might be
> horrified at what happened to him. Unless, of course, their concern
> varies with the politics of the victim...

I'm personally all for censorship. I vote we start with censoring all
talk of politics on rec.arts.sf.*.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In message <proto-15665D.12471119122007@news.panix.com>, Walter Bushell
<proto@oanix.com> writes
>In article <EveuKfpx5UaHFwU1@parkhead.demon.co.uk>,
> Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>> * colour television (or even television at all)
>
>I first saw Color TV as a futuristic device at the David Taylor Model
>Basin (later NSRDC) open house.
>
>I was the first kid on my block to have regular TV a giant 13" screen
>which was the family TV until 1968. My father remarked it was easier to
>follow football on color TV. I think the giant 19" screen cost over
>$300, in 1968 money.


My grandma was the first person in the village with a telly - a little
12 inch black and white box bought for the Coronation in 1953. I was 3
so I don't remember that TV arriving (though I do remember the TV itself
as it stayed in the family for a few years). I remember our own first TV
arriving and the excitement that it had a switchable channels ready for
the introduction of the second TV channel (1955).

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:01:37 +0000, Jacey Bedford
<lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

>Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:
>* soft toilet paper
Nope, for most values of soft. :)
>* central heating
Depends, do you mean one heater in the center of a house, or
ducted/plumbed heat througout the house?
>* their first refrigerator
Nope. Electrical refrigerators were the first tiny step in the
ruination of the American South, dagnabbit. Air conditioning finished
it off. :)
>* colour television (or even television at all)
Yep - I had to trek over to my neighbor's house to watch the original
Star Trek in color.
>* putting a man into space
Yes, barely. I was seven.
>* fitted carpets
Yes, and I still don't like them. That's an aestheic choice, however
not a statement about modernity.
>* the concept of home video recording
Yes, easily. I didn't actually buy one until about 1984. I'm still
looking for something I really want to record for posterity.
>* ensuite bathrooms
Yes, although I thought it was no big deal.
>* fitted kitchens
I'm not sure I've seen one yet. What are they? Do they come in
long/tall sizes? I take an XL Tall.
>* automatic washing machines
With or without the power wringers? You should ask about automatic
clothes dryers, instead.

>Anyone coming forward from the 1920s would be stunned at mod cons first
>and only secondly look at comparative politics and human rights.
>
>And when they look at human rights it kinda depends on what colour they
>are and what 'class' they are as to what bias they put on advances
>balanced against losses

I guess I have a slightly (very slightly) better view of mankind in
general. I think they'd be more impressed (or appalled, depending on
their POV) by the modest improvements we've made in not screwing our
fellow man so easily.

American blacks probably would have been one of the least optimistic
groups, therefore most favorably impressed by today, though they'd
have some qualms about crime and hopelessness among young black males.
Highly educated WASP males like me might not look on the modern world
quite so favorably.The horrifying things would probably fall under
"immorality". Even there -- 'Boston marriage' is a little more formal
today, but still fundamentally the same, for example.

In 1920, most people looked at the near future with optimism. The
Great War was over, people had some money for minor luxuries,
commercial radio began linking up people and continents, and women
could vote in the US. They would expect washing machines, better cars,
radio and TV.

They might be disappointed that we don't have clothes that don't
_need_ washing, nor flying cars, and that TV is still 2D. WMD's?
Terrorists? Feh. They'd just gassed the flower of European manhood,
rotting their lungs out, breaking their bodies, and saddling a
generation with massive PTSD without understanding it. Today might
seem like a rather bland cakewalk.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

In article <EveuKfpx5UaHFwU1@parkhead.demon.co.uk>,
Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

....

> Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:

....

> * colour television (or even television at all)

Sort of.

We didn't have television when I was little, but our relatives did. They
were in New Jersey, we were in Chicago, so we only occasionally visited
them. I have a rather vague memory of sitting in what I think was their
living room--I'm pretty sure the kitchen was next to it, and that the
whole apartment was above their store--watching a small screen black and
white television showing a cowboy story. I don't remember it as being
astonishing--just something rare and new that I enjoyed.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now

In article <slrnfmisab.ar7.dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:

> I'd probably be more horrified at the general state of medicine back then.
> They
> had anesthesia, okay, but no antibiotics, not even penicillin or sulfa drugs,
> and the various germ- and virus-spread diseases were not yet as mellowed out
> as they got by today even without that factor. Measles, mumps, whooping
> cough,
> polio, rubella, tuberculosis, etc. ... sure, you've been vaccinated and
> immunized, but that might not last the rest of your life.

It would almost certainly last until they had sulfa drugs, and probably
penicillin as well.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now

Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> kfl@KeithLynch.net "Keith F. Lynch" writes:
>> Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> > And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today take
>> > to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?
>>
>> I can't speak for the average, but for myself, I would dislike all the
>> smoking. At least I'm old enough that I wouldn't have to worry about
>> the draft. (Both these concerns continue to apply until the mid-1970s.)
>
>Having had brushes myself with dental problems, some USians might
>regret the lack of better medical facilities. Fancy having teeth
>drilled and capped old-style?

I'd probably be more horrified at the general state of medicine back then. They
had anesthesia, okay, but no antibiotics, not even penicillin or sulfa drugs,
and the various germ- and virus-spread diseases were not yet as mellowed out
as they got by today even without that factor. Measles, mumps, whooping cough,
polio, rubella, tuberculosis, etc. ... sure, you've been vaccinated and
immunized, but that might not last the rest of your life. Next to that,
toothaches might well count as 'minor'.

And there'd be a bit of leftover 1918 influenza virus still running around,
remember...

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> writes:

>
> Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:

> * soft toilet paper

What is this paper stuff?

> * central heating

Grand idea. A pinacle of Roman craftmanship.

In article <slrnfmisab.ar7.dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:

>
> I'd probably be more horrified at the general state of medicine back then.
> They
> had anesthesia, okay, but no antibiotics, not even penicillin or sulfa drugs,
> and the various germ- and virus-spread diseases were not yet as mellowed out
> as they got by today even without that factor. Measles, mumps, whooping
> cough,
> polio, rubella, tuberculosis, etc. ... sure, you've been vaccinated and
> immunized, but that might not last the rest of your life. Next to that,
> toothaches might well count as 'minor'.

In a major sort of way. Toothaches drove people crazy. My mother worked
in a TB sanatorium and when sulfa drugs came in it was _wonderful_,
patients could be expected to recover. Actually they started closing
them and she joined the Air Force as a nurse. And I went through measles
and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.

On 2007-12-19 09:01:37 -0800, Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> said:

> Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:
> * soft toilet paper
> * central heating
> * their first refrigerator
> * colour television (or even television at all)

My father's initial reaction to fabric softener was, "Ghaaa, it feels
like someone's worn my T-shirts already!"

And he and his friends referred to automatic transmission vehicles as
"shiftless bitches."

kdb

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:44:07 -0800, David Friedman
<ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

>In article <slrnfmisab.ar7.dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
> dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
>> I'd probably be more horrified at the general state of medicine back then.
>> They
>> had anesthesia, okay, but no antibiotics, not even penicillin or sulfa drugs,
>> and the various germ- and virus-spread diseases were not yet as mellowed out
>> as they got by today even without that factor. Measles, mumps, whooping
>> cough,
>> polio, rubella, tuberculosis, etc. ... sure, you've been vaccinated and
>> immunized, but that might not last the rest of your life.
>
>It would almost certainly last until they had sulfa drugs, and probably
>penicillin as well.

With me it would END with sulfa drugs. I'm allergic to them.
ANAPHYLACTICALLY allergic. The only reason I am still alive today is
because they acted, like, *really* fast the last time they tried to
give me sulfa when I was something like seven - and even then I keeled
over into an 8-hour coma, from half a teaspoon of the stuff, and htey
had a tough time trying to wake me up.

A.

In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
[...]
> And I went through measles
>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.

Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.

--
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk

In article <2007121913065143658-kurt@busiekcomics>,
Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics> wrote:
>On 2007-12-19 09:01:37 -0800, Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> said:
>
>> Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:
>> * soft toilet paper
>> * central heating
>> * their first refrigerator
>> * colour television (or even television at all)

I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we
watched the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of
Queen Elizabeth's coronation several times.

We didn't get a television of our own till several years later,
when my father got a job that paid just slightly better than
peanuts. It involved our moving out to a tiny spot in the road
called Kettleman City in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley.
There was only one channel we could get (in Bakersfield, I
think), until we bought a UHF/VHF converter that enabled us to
get two more, from Fresno. There I watched Howdy Doody and
another kids' show called Pinky Lee (and one day the show paused
for a commercial break, and instead of resuming there was an
announcer telling us that Lee had just had a heart attack and
couldn't finish the show. They broadcast LIVE in those days). A
little later on there was the Mickey Mouse Club. It was there
that I got to see "Things to Come" for the first time, and as my
father and I watched it, and that long montage of dates crawling
over the battlefield went by, and they came to "1954" or
thereabouts and my father commented, "We're supposed to be still
fighting it."

I don't remember when we got color television. Much later.

I can also remember a house (it would've been right after the
war, maybe 1946 or -7) which, when we moved into it, didn't have
indoor plumbing. The smell of the privy in the back yard was
very strange, not what you'd expect from what went into it; the
result of fermentation or something maybe. Of course, my father
immediately set to and built on a bathroom, two bedrooms, and I
think he expanded the kitchen.

I can also remember seeing "This is Cinerama" on a proper
Cinerama screen.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <fkc3mb$rhq$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
Chris Thompson <cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
>Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
>[...]
>> And I went through measles
>>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
>>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
>>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
>>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.
>
>Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
>The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
>a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
>the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.

Please note, however, that the longer you wait before catching
the measles, the worse they get. I had 'em at around seventeen
and I had very high fevers and acute photophobia. Two weeks in a
darkened room.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:59:03 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote in <news:JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>
in rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> In article <2007121913065143658-kurt@busiekcomics>,
> Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics> wrote:

>>On 2007-12-19 09:01:37 -0800, Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> said:

>>> Can anyone remember their own first reaction to:
>>> * soft toilet paper
>>> * central heating
>>> * their first refrigerator
>>> * colour television (or even television at all)

> I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
> We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
> fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we
> watched the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of
> Queen Elizabeth's coronation several times.

> We didn't get a television of our own till several years later,
> when my father got a job that paid just slightly better than
> peanuts. [...]

> I don't remember when we got color television. Much later.

I don't know when I first saw television; my family didn't
get it until after I went away to college, and we did very
little visiting. The earliest occasion that I actually
remember was a Perry Como Christmas concert that I saw in
color when I was 12 or 13; that may be the first time that I
saw color TV. But I'm sure that I must have seen b&w TV a
time or two before that, even if I don't remember it.

[...]

Brian

::: I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.

:: We didn't get a television of our own till several years later,

: I don't know when I first saw television; my family didn't get it
: until after I went away to college,

Our family had television since before I can remember. I'm pretty
sure it didn't totally pre-date me, but I can remember lying on the
living room rug watching it, very early on indeed.

On the other hand, I think the house I'm sitting in now has more TVs
than my family went through until I left for college. And when I left
for college, the TV the family watched 15 years before was still there.
And still worked, sort of. It was in a storage room and wasn't used much,
but my family never threw *any*thing out. Often even if it *didn't* work
anymore. Two black and white (the original one built into the big cabinet),
and a back-breakingly "portable" one), and ... three... ish color sets.

I do remember the first time we got a parabolic antenna. Mid-60s or so.
No, not satellite. The nifty thing about TV in my family's home is that
it was approached quite systematically. If that's the word I want.
Maybe "technologically". I think my father's notion was, if you're going
to do it, you might as well *do* it. We had a UHF parabolic dish antenna
on a... what, 50 foot tall mast (maybe more...), with a significant guy
wire system. The mast was retractable, two segments that fit one inside
the other, so that the antenna(s) with aiming motor(s) could be taken down
to rooftop level for maintainance. Once the signal got into the house,
it went through a switchbox in the basement, which was in turn wired to
the (eventually) four locations in the house that (eventually) had TVs,
so that the antenna could be jacked into the TV that most needed it.
Though oddly enough, I think the aiming motors could only be operated
from one location...

All of this in aid of being sure to be able to get all three networks
plus PBS. And, I think, eventually one or two independent stations.
We would have lost reception from over the hill to the west without
the mast.

Eventually a big windstorm took the antenna down. We woke up one morning
with the dish dangling in front of the kitchen window, and went out to
find the mast bent double like a drooping daisy. When it went back up,
it wasn't put quite so high again. Or maybe we only gave up after the
Nth such dawn, I don't remember clearly, and probably conflate many
"antenna repair adventures" in my mind... I recall sometimes being
the team member at the bottom of the ladder leading to the operational
theatre proper at the masthead, and sometimes at the top of the ladder,
and both locations had their... exciting moments.

Hm. I don't really know what the neighbors thought of all this.
Doubtless they considedred us dangerous lunatics. But kept this
information to themselves.

But I nostalgiate.


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

On 2007-12-19 13:59:03 -0800, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:

> I don't remember when we got color television. Much later.

I don't remember when we first got a color TV either, but I do remember
being very surprised to discover that the Wicked Witch of the West, in
THE WIZARD OF OZ, was green.

One of my younger sisters was so terrified by Green Margaret Hamilton
that she went and hid at the base of the stairs anytime the Witch
showed up.

kdb

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:19:08 -0800, Alma Hromic Deckert
<anghara@vaxer.net> wrote:

>
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:44:07 -0800, David Friedman
><ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <slrnfmisab.ar7.dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
>> dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>>
>>> I'd probably be more horrified at the general state of medicine back then.
>>> They
>>> had anesthesia, okay, but no antibiotics, not even penicillin or sulfa drugs,
>>> and the various germ- and virus-spread diseases were not yet as mellowed out
>>> as they got by today even without that factor. Measles, mumps, whooping
>>> cough,
>>> polio, rubella, tuberculosis, etc. ... sure, you've been vaccinated and
>>> immunized, but that might not last the rest of your life.
>>
>>It would almost certainly last until they had sulfa drugs, and probably
>>penicillin as well.
>
>With me it would END with sulfa drugs. I'm allergic to them.
>ANAPHYLACTICALLY allergic. The only reason I am still alive today is
>because they acted, like, *really* fast the last time they tried to
>give me sulfa when I was something like seven - and even then I keeled
>over into an 8-hour coma, from half a teaspoon of the stuff, and htey
>had a tough time trying to wake me up.

I just turned purple when I had my first (and last) sulfa med and they
kept me in Urgent Care until I went back to pinky-brown. I do use
sulfa in a cream, though, and don't have problems with that.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com

In message <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>, Dorothy J Heydt
<djheydt@kithrup.com> writes
>I can also remember a house (it would've been right after the
>war, maybe 1946 or -7) which, when we moved into it, didn't have
>indoor plumbing. The smell of the privy in the back yard was
>very strange, not what you'd expect from what went into it; the
>result of fermentation or something maybe.

My grandparents didn't have indoor sanitation. They lived in a little
terrace (row house) in a Yorkshire mining village. The bath was a tin
bath in front of the fire on a Saturday night (filled with kettles of
hot water) and there was always a g'sunder in the bedrooms (the thing
the _goes under_ the bed for middle of the night toilet emergencies).
The privy was up the yard and was shared with the house next door. It
had hot and cold running spiders and squares of newspaper threaded on
string hanging from a nail on the back of the door. The only light came
from a broken roof-tile or a torch.

The trouble with using newspaper to wipe your bum was that the ink came
off - though the big question was... how were you to know?

:-)

We had a bathroom inside the house. We were posh.

Of course it was an unheated bathroom. Bloody freezing in winter and
pretty cold in spring and autumn. We didn't have central heating - which
for Merkans who don't understand that term it means - in the UK -
radiators in every room of the house run from a central boiler
(furnace). It's mostly hot water radiators. It's very rare to find
ducted air heating - or aircon - in private homes here.

There were fireplaces in the bedrooms, but fires were only ever lit if
you were sick and confined to bed all day.

In 1962 we moved to a new-build house that had a gas-fired central
heating system, a fitted kitchen and - whoo-hoo - I got a bedroom to
myself instead of sharing with my grandparents.

Again for Merkans, fitted kitchens are kitchen with all the cupboards
screwed to the walls and worktops and sinks and appliances all
contiguous. Prior to 'fitted kitchens' most folks had a freestanding
cooker and a freestanding cupboard unit that could be moved. Storage was
in the pantry or cellar and you worked/cooked/chopped/baked on the
kitchen table.

We actually didn't even have that. Before moving to the new house our
'kitchen' was a sink in the corner of the back room with a two-burner
gas ring on the draining board (with a metal hood round it for safety)
and a fire-back oven and hotplate. The fire was coal. One of the perks
for miners and their families (and retired miners) was four tons of coal
a year - free. My grandad's coal kept us warm until he died age 82 and
the coal allowance stopped.

When I think back it seems like we lived in the stone-age compared to
what we expect from life now - and that's only from the 1950s to now,
not the 1920s. But the technology and standard of living gap between
1920 and 1960 was minute compared to the gap between 1960 and 2000.

Jacey

--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

In article <200712191515218930-kurt@busiekcomics>,
Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics> wrote:
>
>One of my younger sisters was so terrified by Green Margaret Hamilton
>that she went and hid at the base of the stairs anytime the Witch
>showed up.
>
>kdb
>

It wasn't the color! We only had B&W, and I would still run from
the room every time she came on. In fact, I never saw WOZ all the
way through until they had 50th or 60th anniv theatrical re-issue

Ted

Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> kfl@KeithLynch.net "Keith F. Lynch" writes:
>> Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> And how well, I wonder, would the average street-USian of today
>>> take to the culture and technologies of 1920s America?

>> I can't speak for the average, but for myself, I would dislike all
>> the smoking. At least I'm old enough that I wouldn't have to worry
>> about the draft. (Both these concerns continue to apply until the
>> mid-1970s.)

> Having had brushes myself with dental problems,

I thought if you brush you won't have dental problems.

> some USians might regret the lack of better medical facilities.
> Fancy having teeth drilled and capped old-style?

Has dentistry changed all that much since 1920? In details, perhaps,
but it was basically the same as today. I'd be more concerned about
getting an infection or a chronic condition such as hypertension,
heart disease, or diabetes. There was basically no treatment for
any of those in 1920.

I wonder if the polio vaccination I got in the 1960s would still work
40 years later -- I mean 40 years earlier. And as far as I know I've
never been vaccinated against smallpox, scarlet fever, or tuberculosis.
Or against the 1918 flu that killed more people than WWI.

>> How about conveying late-'20s development, such as inventing
>> superheterodyne and FM radio during the early '20s?

> I think that knowing which ideas would turn out to be winners (a
> lot like knowing what shares to buy) would count as "convey"ing,
> if one acted on that knowledge pro or con. (See much past SF.)

I could hardly fail to act on my knowledge, unless my memory was
wiped, in which case I wouldn't be me.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:01:37 +0000, Jacey Bedford
<lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:


*stuff snipped*
>
>Anyone coming forward from the 1920s would be stunned at mod cons first
>and only secondly look at comparative politics and human rights.
>
>And when they look at human rights it kinda depends on what colour they
>are and what 'class' they are as to what bias they put on advances
>balanced against losses
>
My mom was telling me recently about how, back when my parents bought
their first house, a woman's income wouldn't even be considered toward
the mortgage, because of course she was going to quit working and
raise babies. And that when my dad died, it was only due to some law
passed between then and now that she had a credit rating at all, since
all of the bills, loans, credit cards, etc. were in my dad's name,
even though my mom was the one who handled all the finances in the
family.

She also remembers the good old days when it was perfectly ok to
discriminate based on sex and family. Their landlord came flat out
and told them that they were going to have to move when my mom was
pregnant, since he didn't want a kid in the apartment.

Rebecca

On 19 Dec 2007 21:50:03 GMT, cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson)
wrote:

>In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
>Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
>[...]
>> And I went through measles
>>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
>>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
>>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
>>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.
>
>Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
>The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
>a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
>the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.

And which is the one that has the possibility of making men sterile if
they get it as an adult instead of a kid?

Rebecca

In article <64ijm39om4hur28ls2ec5krvcrrb4eifnv@4ax.com>,
philospher77@yahoo.com wrote:

> On 19 Dec 2007 21:50:03 GMT, cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
> >Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
> >[...]
> >> And I went through measles
> >>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
> >>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
> >>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
> >>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.
> >
> >Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
> >The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
> >a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
> >the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.
>
> And which is the one that has the possibility of making men sterile if
> they get it as an adult instead of a kid?
>
> Rebecca

Mumps

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@sonic.net - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd> for more info

On 2007-12-19 16:55:59 -0800, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) said:

> In article <200712191515218930-kurt@busiekcomics>,
> Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics> wrote:
>>
>> One of my younger sisters was so terrified by Green Margaret Hamilton
>> that she went and hid at the base of the stairs anytime the Witch
>> showed up.
>
> It wasn't the color!

Yes, it was.

> We only had B&W, and I would still run from
> the room every time she came on.

You may have reacted that way. But we'd been seeing it about once a
year, and my little sister had been just fine when it was in back and
white. It wasn't until we saw it in color that she freaked.

kdb

In article <64ijm39om4hur28ls2ec5krvcrrb4eifnv@4ax.com>,
<philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>On 19 Dec 2007 21:50:03 GMT, cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
>>Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
>>[...]
>>> And I went through measles
>>>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
>>>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
>>>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
>>>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.
>>
>>Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
>>The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
>>a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
>>the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.
>
>And which is the one that has the possibility of making men sterile if
>they get it as an adult instead of a kid?

That's mumps.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:58:10 -0500, Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
>And I went through measles
>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.

Similar considerations for men and mumps - if you get it after puberty you
can probably wave goodbye to an orchid or two.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from dbd@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

"David DeLaney" <dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message
news:slrnfmisab.ar7.dbd@gatekeeper.vic.com...


> And there'd be a bit of leftover 1918 influenza virus still running
> around,
> remember...

The term 'Superflu' would probably give them nightmares.

<ErictheTolle@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fa31f5eb-28d7-4e63-8ce6-fba99d0572b2@b40g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 17, 5:19 pm, Thomas Armagost <si...@well.com> wrote:
>> Why not build a time machine and bring an American from the 1920s
>> to the present-day United States?
>
> No need to go to all that trouble. I'll just ask my mother when she
> visits for Christmas.

I'd say having lived through the changes in real time would be significantly
different than being pulled instantaneously from on to the other.

In message <1i9er6h.7sxt99o7yorwN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gerry Quinn <gerryq@indigo.ie> wrote:
>
>> jwkenne@attglobal.net says...
>>> Someone from the 1920s would be horrified, but someone from
>>> the 30s wouldn't be surprised at all.

The 1920s saw the rise of Al Capone in Chicago. Capone had a
publicist. He made high profile public appearances. He founded
charitable organizations. But he never bragged in public about his
criminal activities. He kept these hidden. So a resident of 1920s
Chicago would likely be shocked by MTV. Gangsta videos would be
shocking because of their social acceptability. "You allow your
children to watch this...?"

The U.S. government is threatening a crackdown in the present day.
So eventually organized crime may go underground again.

>>> <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Coughlin>
>
>> And those who worry about censorship in the modern era might be
>> horrified at what happened to him. Unless, of course, their
>> concern varies with the politics of the victim...
>
> I'm personally all for censorship. I vote we start with censoring
> all talk of politics on rec.arts.sf.*.

Heh.

When a major candidate in the Republican Party primaries says that he
doesn't accept the theory of evolution, how can rec.arts.sf.* ignore
it?

When the President of the United States says that cloning stem cells
is unethical, why would rec.arts.sf.* want to censor discussion of
it?

The United States may be losing its leadership in science and
technology. Isn't that an appropriate topic of discussion? It's
certainly a good subject for sci-fi stories.

Anyway, I didn't intend to go off on a political rant. Sorry.

--
http://sillyblog.net

Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm personally all for censorship. I vote we start with censoring
> all talk of politics on rec.arts.sf.*.

It's not off topic in rec.arts.sf.fandom, since nothing is off topic
there except things that are *on* topic in some other rec.arts.sf.*
group.

I don't understand why traffic has dropped so much in rasff, and why
all these threads that belong there are in rasfw and rasfc instead.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

Jack Tingle <wjtingle@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> And when they look at human rights it kinda depends on what colour
>> they are and what 'class' they are as to what bias they put on
>> advances balanced against losses

In the 1920s the Jim Crow laws were very recent. Most of them date to
the Progressive Movement, not to Reconstruction. They were phrased as
reforms to prevent fraud, and were analogous to the present push to
disenfranchise and disemploy everyone who doesn't have government-
issued picture ID -- which is of course never phrased that way.

> In 1920, most people looked at the near future with optimism. The
> Great War was over, people had some money for minor luxuries,
> commercial radio began linking up people and continents, ...

Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

<philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> She also remembers the good old days when it was perfectly ok to
> discriminate based on sex and family. Their landlord came flat out
> and told them that they were going to have to move when my mom was
> pregnant, since he didn't want a kid in the apartment.

There are plenty of adults-only apartment complexes here in Virginia.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:47:23 -0500, Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com>
wrote:

>> * colour television (or even television at all)
>
>I first saw Color TV as a futuristic device at the David Taylor Model
>Basin (later NSRDC) open house.
>
>I was the first kid on my block to have regular TV a giant 13" screen
>which was the family TV until 1968. My father remarked it was easier to
>follow football on color TV. I think the giant 19" screen cost over
>$300, in 1968 money.

I must have been around 8-9 when we got our first TV. We had to put
a 40' pole on top of our 3 story house to hold its antenna, even
though we were in a suburb of Oakland (Orinda).

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:53:30 -0800, "Mike Schilling"
<mscottschilling@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> My grandmother remembered the first time she saw a car, the first time
>> she saw a phone, the first time she flew a jet to a foreign country,
>> the first time she saw someone walking on the moon, and my first home
>> computer.
>
>I remember all but the first two.

Well me too - and the first time I saw a TV. But it seems that the
impact of all of the changes she saw were bigger.

In article <ifnjm3d4upgr2881ld4v14uraselk73avo@4ax.com>,
Howard Brazee <howard@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:47:23 -0500, Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com>
>wrote:
>
>>> * colour television (or even television at all)
>>
>>I first saw Color TV as a futuristic device at the David Taylor Model
>>Basin (later NSRDC) open house.
>>
>>I was the first kid on my block to have regular TV a giant 13" screen
>>which was the family TV until 1968. My father remarked it was easier to
>>follow football on color TV. I think the giant 19" screen cost over
>>$300, in 1968 money.
>
>I must have been around 8-9 when we got our first TV. We had to put
>a 40' pole on top of our 3 story house to hold its antenna, even
>though we were in a suburb of Oakland (Orinda).

You're talking about the ones in California? Orinda can be
considered a suburb of Oakland only in the vaguest sense and it
helps if your map is flat. I'm not at all surprised that you
needed to boost your antenna to get signals from Oakland. For
the information of others, the East Bay Hills are in the way.
1500 t0 1800 feet, which doesn't sound like much till you try to
put a signal through them.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:15:21 -0800, Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics>
wrote:

>> I don't remember when we got color television. Much later.
>
>I don't remember when we first got a color TV either, but I do remember
>being very surprised to discover that the Wicked Witch of the West, in
>THE WIZARD OF OZ, was green.

I do remember my mother telling us kids the point in the showing of
_The Wizard of Oz_ where it switched to color.

Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> Jack Tingle <wjtingle@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> >> And when they look at human rights it kinda depends on what colour
> >> they are and what 'class' they are as to what bias they put on
> >> advances balanced against losses
>
> In the 1920s the Jim Crow laws were very recent. Most of them date to
> the Progressive Movement, not to Reconstruction. They were phrased as
> reforms to prevent fraud, and were analogous to the present push to
> disenfranchise and disemploy everyone who doesn't have government-
> issued picture ID -- which is of course never phrased that way.
>
> > In 1920, most people looked at the near future with optimism. The
> > Great War was over, people had some money for minor luxuries,
> > commercial radio began linking up people and continents, ...
>
> Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.

In the US, or in the world?

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers.".
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood

Dan Goodman <dsgood@iphouse.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.

> In the US, or in the world?

Both. Commercial radio broadcasting was invented in the US.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

:: commercial radio began linking up people and continents, ...

: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
: Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.

I think there's a vocabulary mismatch. I take "commercial radio"
to mean "operating a radio for profit". Not "inserts advertising in
signals". That is, "commercial radio" is not commutative.

Or so I expect.

(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right!)...
And so you've got thirteen tens
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five...

Well, six actually... But the idea is the important thing!

--- Tom Lehrer, "New Math"


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

On 19 Dec 2007 22:15:17 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
wrote:

><philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> She also remembers the good old days when it was perfectly ok to
>> discriminate based on sex and family. Their landlord came flat out
>> and told them that they were going to have to move when my mom was
>> pregnant, since he didn't want a kid in the apartment.
>
>There are plenty of adults-only apartment complexes here in Virginia.

That's generally legal only for seniors.

Dan, ad nauseam

In article <otpjm3hj51v9af3fasqagblsu759fhj98n@4ax.com>,
Howard Brazee <howard@brazee.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:15:21 -0800, Kurt Busiek <kurt@busiek.comics>
>wrote:
>
>>> I don't remember when we got color television. Much later.
>>
>>I don't remember when we first got a color TV either, but I do remember
>>being very surprised to discover that the Wicked Witch of the West, in
>>THE WIZARD OF OZ, was green.
>
>I do remember my mother telling us kids the point in the showing of
>_The Wizard of Oz_ where it switched to color.

Right ... kind of hard to bring that off on a black and white TV.
I know I saw it in theatres as a rerun sometime in the 1950s.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <JtBsA8.My0@kithrup.com>,
djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

> In article <64ijm39om4hur28ls2ec5krvcrrb4eifnv@4ax.com>,
> <philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >On 19 Dec 2007 21:50:03 GMT, cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Chris Thompson)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>In article <proto-7D0A6A.15581019122007@news.panix.com>,
> >>Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
> >>[...]
> >>> And I went through measles
> >>>and mumps not nice, not nice at all, but _everyone_ got them sooner or
> >>>later, and it was even a good idea because if you were of the female
> >>>religion and didn't catch measles until you were pregnant it could
> >>>affect the fetus, in a very non-good way.
> >>
> >>Some confusion here between Measles (Rubeola) and German Measles (Rubella).
> >>The former is unpleasant, highly infectious, but not AFAIK damaging to
> >>a fetus. The latter is mild, not very infectious, and very damaging to
> >>the fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.
> >
> >And which is the one that has the possibility of making men sterile if
> >they get it as an adult instead of a kid?
>
> That's mumps.
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Albany, California
> djheydt@kithrup.com

I thought mumps was software for hospitals.

In article <oEQVgk4LLbaHFwj7@parkhead.demon.co.uk>,
Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

....

> We didn't have central heating - which
> for Merkans who don't understand that term it means - in the UK -
> radiators in every room of the house run from a central boiler
> (furnace). It's mostly hot water radiators. It's very rare to find
> ducted air heating - or aircon - in private homes here.

When we spent a year in Cambridge, England, c 1953, the house we rented
was described as having central heating, and that meant, not a central
boiler, but a gas fireplace in every bedroom.

> There were fireplaces in the bedrooms, but fires were only ever lit if
> you were sick and confined to bed all day.

....

> When I think back it seems like we lived in the stone-age compared to
> what we expect from life now - and that's only from the 1950s to now,
> not the 1920s. But the technology and standard of living gap between
> 1920 and 1960 was minute compared to the gap between 1960 and 2000.

I suspect that's more true of the U.K. than the U.S., that the U.S. in
1960 was a substantially more comfortable place to live than the U.K.,
and the difference, if it still exists, is much less now. I have the
impression from reading Orwell that c. 1945, people in England thought
all Americans lived in relative luxury.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now

In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

> There I watched Howdy Doody and
> another kids' show called Pinky Lee (and one day the show paused
> for a commercial break, and instead of resuming there was an
> announcer telling us that Lee had just had a heart attack and
> couldn't finish the show. They broadcast LIVE in those days)

Ha! There I saw Buffalo Bob Smith chew out Clarabell for knocking out a
camera that was a feed for a network. It sounded like it was real. And
the Mr. Bluster TV channel with Danny Kaye which you need an antenna
made of elk horns to pick up. Of course, Howdy had Danny Kaye in person.
Good times. Meatballs and spaghetti, Flubadub, Princess Summmer, Fall,
Winter Spring.

In article <oEQVgk4LLbaHFwj7@parkhead.demon.co.uk>,
Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> When I think back it seems like we lived in the stone-age compared to
> what we expect from life now - and that's only from the 1950s to now,
> not the 1920s. But the technology and standard of living gap between
> 1920 and 1960 was minute compared to the gap between 1960 and 2000.
>
> Jacey

No, indoor toilets and hot water for showers is bigger than computers.
By 1960 we had antibiotics even if in Maryland condoms could only be
sold in bars. Roman Church you know.

In article <proto-BC1E0C.00231520122007@news.panix.com>,
Walter Bushell <proto@oanix.com> wrote:
>In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
> djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> There I watched Howdy Doody and
>> another kids' show called Pinky Lee (and one day the show paused
>> for a commercial break, and instead of resuming there was an
>> announcer telling us that Lee had just had a heart attack and
>> couldn't finish the show. They broadcast LIVE in those days)
>
>Ha! There I saw Buffalo Bob Smith chew out Clarabell for knocking out a
>camera that was a feed for a network. It sounded like it was real. And
>the Mr. Bluster TV channel with Danny Kaye which you need an antenna
>made of elk horns to pick up. Of course, Howdy had Danny Kaye in person.
>Good times. Meatballs and spaghetti, Flubadub, Princess Summmer, Fall,
>Winter Spring.

Summerfall Winterspring.

Uh-huh. And I recall reading an interview with the Buffalo Bob
actor who told the tale of one broadcast where one of the kids
kept waving his hand and crying, "Buffalo Bob! Buffalo Bob!"
till he finally asked him what it was all about, and the kid
wailed, "Buffalo Bob, I gotta go." On live TV. After that, he
said, he never again answered any kids on camera.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In rec.arts.sf.written Wayne Throop <throopw@sheol.org> wrote:
> :: commercial radio began linking up people and continents, ...
> :
> : "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
> : Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.
>
> I think there's a vocabulary mismatch. I take "commercial radio"
> to mean "operating a radio for profit". Not "inserts advertising in
> signals". That is, "commercial radio" is not commutative.

What was the business model for operating for profit, if not advertising?
Paid programming?

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "This is not a funny signature... or is it?"
posting domain |

In rec.arts.sf.written Keith F. Lynch <kfl@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > She also remembers the good old days when it was perfectly ok to
> > discriminate based on sex and family. Their landlord came flat out
> > and told them that they were going to have to move when my mom was
> > pregnant, since he didn't want a kid in the apartment.
>
> There are plenty of adults-only apartment complexes here in Virginia.

Designated seniors-only ones? I didn't think excluding kids were legal,
except for the seniors-only ones... I used to occasionally see ads that SAID
"no kids" out here as recently as 10 years ago, but was under the impression
it was illegal even that long ago.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "This is not a funny signature... or is it?"
posting domain |

In rec.arts.sf.written Keith F. Lynch <kfl@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > Having had brushes myself with dental problems,
>
> I thought if you brush you won't have dental problems.

*roflol*

More seriously, a lot of it's innate(*) - my wife pretty scrupulous care of
her teeth than I do, and STILL has had more dental work needed than I can
keep track of. While I have gone to the dentist FAR less than recommended,
brush once a day before bed... well, only _most_ days... and still have had
only three fillings, none before age 30.

(* whether it's genetics or early developmental or some combination, I don't
know.)

> > I think that knowing which ideas would turn out to be winners (a
> > lot like knowing what shares to buy) would count as "convey"ing,
> > if one acted on that knowledge pro or con. (See much past SF.)
>
> I could hardly fail to act on my knowledge, unless my memory was
> wiped, in which case I wouldn't be me.

OTOH, you could be threatened with severe consequences if you acted on it...
although I suppose being stuck back in 1920 is a pretty sever consequence to
begin with.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "This is not a funny signature... or is it?"
posting domain |

In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:

> I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
> We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
> fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we watched
> the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of Queen
> Elizabeth's coronation several times.

Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?

--
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com>

In article <06jp35xq4j.ln2@mail.sfchat.org>,
archmage@sfchat.org (Nate Edel) wrote:

> In rec.arts.sf.written Keith F. Lynch <kfl@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> > <philospher77@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > She also remembers the good old days when it was perfectly ok to
> > > discriminate based on sex and family. Their landlord came flat out
> > > and told them that they were going to have to move when my mom was
> > > pregnant, since he didn't want a kid in the apartment.
> >
> > There are plenty of adults-only apartment complexes here in Virginia.
>
> Designated seniors-only ones? I didn't think excluding kids were legal,
> except for the seniors-only ones... I used to occasionally see ads that SAID
> "no kids" out here as recently as 10 years ago, but was under the impression
> it was illegal even that long ago.

So one way in which things have gotten worse.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now

: archmage@sfchat.org (Nate Edel)
: What was the business model for operating for profit, if not advertising?
: Paid programming?

Note that it also didn't really say "broadcast". Well, sure, radio is
sort of inherrently "broadcast", for the most part, but you don't necessarily
have an audience to show the commercials to.

Since the original notion was it was "linking up the continents", I
imagine point-to-point message traffic for money. Just a guess. Hrm. Not
sure how it fits historically with the development of the transatlantic
cables. But still, I mean, how would advertising "link up continents"?

So. I could of course be wrong, but I think it's still true that
"commercial radio" doesn't imply "radio commercial".


Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

In article <fkd9db$412$1@panix2.panix.com>,
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
>djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
>
>> I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
>> We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
>> fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we watched
>> the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of Queen
>> Elizabeth's coronation several times.
>
>Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
>coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?

Why, no. At least not to us Yanks. We never have that kind of
pomp&circumstance over here, let alone with such clothes. I
watched it maybe five or six times? However often they
rebroadcast it. I didn't get tired of it.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <JtCC88.My3@kithrup.com>,
djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:

> In article <fkd9db$412$1@panix2.panix.com>,
> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
>> coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?
>
> Why, no. At least not to us Yanks. We never have that kind of
> pomp&circumstance over here, let alone with such clothes.

Yes, but I thought that was a *good* thing.

--
William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com>

Nate Edel wrote:
> In rec.arts.sf.written Wayne Throop <throopw@sheol.org> wrote:
>>>> commercial radio began linking up people and continents, ...
>>>
>>> "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
>>> Nitpick: The first radio commercial dates to 1922.
>>
>> I think there's a vocabulary mismatch. I take "commercial radio"
>> to mean "operating a radio for profit". Not "inserts advertising in
>> signals". That is, "commercial radio" is not commutative.
>
> What was the business model for operating for profit, if not
> advertising? Paid programming?

Product placement.

--
Because of heavy computing requirements we are currently using some of
your unallocated brain capacity for backup processing. Please ignore
any hallucinations, voices, or unusual dreams you may experience.
Please avoid concentration intensive tasks until further notice. Thank
you.

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:18:42 -0800, David Friedman wrote:
> I suspect that's more true of the U.K. than the U.S., that the U.S. in
> 1960 was a substantially more comfortable place to live than the U.K.,
> and the difference, if it still exists, is much less now. I have the
> impression from reading Orwell that c. 1945, people in England thought
> all Americans lived in relative luxury.

Oh. My. I *do* hope this post makes it through:

Your level of comfort in 1960 depended on your income level and where you
lived. I remember open wells and outhouses in the 1960s, and houses where
the only source of heat was the fireplace. Gas space heaters were up-town.
Central heat was a luxury. Lights were often a single bare light-bulb hung
from the ceiling, and you had to plug small appliances into an adapter in
the socket.

Some of those houses were abandoned in the 1980s and 1990s for house
trailers, because the trailers were far more comfortable and energy
efficient and it was cheaper than remodeling those houses.

Now: Shall we discuss summers? In the South? Without air conditioning? I
remember when we installed a house fan in a window and thought it was up
town.

Most people did have TVs. You had your selection of two clear channels and,
if lucky, one or two others that had more snow than a Christmas card.

- Kevin J. Cheek

In article <ddfr-3F30C4.21182719122007@sfo.news.speakeasy.net>
ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com "David Friedman" writes:

> When we spent a year in Cambridge, England, c 1953, the house we rented
> was described as having central heating, and that meant, not a central
> boiler, but a gas fireplace in every bedroom.

In the minds of the describers, maybe.
--
Andrew Stephenson

In article <JtCC88.My3@kithrup.com> djheydt@kithrup.com "Dorothy J Heydt" writes:

> In article <fkd9db$412$1@panix2.panix.com>,
> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
> >coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?
>
> Why, no. At least not to us Yanks. We never have that kind of
> pomp&circumstance over here, let alone with such clothes. I
> watched it maybe five or six times? However often they
> rebroadcast it. I didn't get tired of it.

We enjoyed it, too. There was also a colour film made, which was
distributed widely around the world to appreciative audiences. A
glittery, good humoured show, basically.
--
Andrew Stephenson

In article <1qcldajm7kn27$.xcq17mws7x68$.dlg@40tude.net>
warlocke@hyperusa.com "Ric Locke" writes:

> [...] When the engine starts, stow the handle (it is gauche to
> leave the handle in place when the engine is running) [...]

A gentleman would of course instruct his chauffeur accordingly.
A person of quality would engage staff who did not require such
instructions. A person of class would never suspect the handle
existed.
--
Andrew Stephenson

djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

> In article <fkd9db$412$1@panix2.panix.com>,
> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
>>djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
>>
>>> I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
>>> We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
>>> fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we watched
>>> the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of Queen
>>> Elizabeth's coronation several times.
>>
>>Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
>>coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?
>
> Why, no. At least not to us Yanks. We never have that kind of
> pomp&circumstance over here, let alone with such clothes.

You don't? As a German, Americans seem to be very into pomp and
circumstance to me. Not on an individual level, but generally.

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:40:05 GMT, ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew
Stephenson) wrote:

>In article <1qcldajm7kn27$.xcq17mws7x68$.dlg@40tude.net>
> warlocke@hyperusa.com "Ric Locke" writes:
>
>> [...] When the engine starts, stow the handle (it is gauche to
>> leave the handle in place when the engine is running) [...]
>
>A gentleman would of course instruct his chauffeur accordingly.
>A person of quality would engage staff who did not require such
>instructions. A person of class would never suspect the handle
>existed.

They don't come pre-warmed? How extrordinary.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:09:47 +0000, Jacey Bedford
<lookinsig@nospam.invalid> wrote in
<news:oEQVgk4LLbaHFwj7@parkhead.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> In message <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>, Dorothy J Heydt
> <djheydt@kithrup.com> writes

>>I can also remember a house (it would've been right after the
>>war, maybe 1946 or -7) which, when we moved into it, didn't have
>>indoor plumbing. The smell of the privy in the back yard was
>>very strange, not what you'd expect from what went into it; the
>>result of fermentation or something maybe.

> My grandparents didn't have indoor sanitation. They lived
> in a little terrace (row house) in a Yorkshire mining
> village.

As a child my father didn't have indoor sanitation. That
was in Neilburg, a little village in Saskatchewan; with a
2001 population of 366, it's grown by more than a factor of
two since his day. One bitterly cold winter night he
succumbed to temptation and used the coal scuttle instead,
thereby earning a pretty good walloping by his mother the
next morning.

[...]

Brian

On 19 Dec 2007 20:22:20 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch"
<kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote in
<news:fkcg4c$6g3$1@panix2.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.composition:

> Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:

[...]

>> Having had brushes myself with dental problems,

> I thought if you brush you won't have dental problems.

Ha. My dentist takes excellent care of his teeth, and
they're still almost as bad as mine. My father took good
care of his teeth, and they were quite possibly worse than
mine. How bad is that? I think that I still have 25 real
teeth, though it might be only 24, and about half of those
are dead. (I can't be more precise: I simply don't remember
how many root canals I've had.)

>> some USians might regret the lack of better medical facilities.
>> Fancy having teeth drilled and capped old-style?

> Has dentistry changed all that much since 1920?

Yes.

[...]

Brian

>>>>> "TA" == Thomas Armagost <silly@well.com> writes:

TA> When a major candidate in the Republican Party primaries says
TA> that he doesn't accept the theory of evolution, how can
TA> rec.arts.sf.* ignore it?

If it's not written science fiction, it doesn't belong in rasfw.

TA> When the President of the United States says that cloning stem
TA> cells is unethical, why would rec.arts.sf.* want to censor
TA> discussion of it?

Because it belongs in rasf.science or rasf.fandom, not rasf.written
(unless there's written sf about a President doing that) or
rasf.movies (unless there's a movie about it).

TA> The United States may be losing its leadership in science and
TA> technology. Isn't that an appropriate topic of discussion?
TA> It's certainly a good subject for sci-fi stories.

And when there is such a story, it will be on-topic in rasfw. Until
then, it's better off in rasf.fandom or rasf.science.

Charlton


--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur@chromatico.net

In article <m2d4t1fob6.fsf@rogue.de>, Peter Bruells <usernet@rogue.de> wrote:
>djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> In article <fkd9db$412$1@panix2.panix.com>,
>> William December Starr <wdstarr@panix.com> wrote:
>>>In article <JtBH2F.8w1@kithrup.com>,
>>>djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) said:
>>>
>>>> I can remember seeing very early television at a neighbor's house.
>>>> We used to see something called "The Unexpected," mildly
>>>> fantasyoid stories (one based on the Monkey's Paw), and we watched
>>>> the filmed-and-rushed-across-the-Atlantic footage of Queen
>>>> Elizabeth's coronation several times.
>>>
>>>Even taking into account the novelty of television, wasn't the
>>>coronation about as exciting as watching slow-drying paint dry?
>>
>> Why, no. At least not to us Yanks. We never have that kind of
>> pomp&circumstance over here, let alone with such clothes.
>
>You don't? As a German, Americans seem to be very into pomp and
>circumstance to me. Not on an individual level, but generally.

Not on a national scale. And ... at that point in time ... not
on television. We certainly have occasions when people dress up
flashy, from movie premieres to opening night at the opera. But
there's no ceremony, just dressed-up people walking down red
carpets.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <1198158005snz@deltrak.demon.co.uk>,
Andrew Stephenson <ames@deltrak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <1qcldajm7kn27$.xcq17mws7x68$.dlg@40tude.net>
> warlocke@hyperusa.com "Ric Locke" writes:
>
>> [...] When the engine starts, stow the handle (it is gauche to
>> leave the handle in place when the engine is running) [...]
>
>A gentleman would of course instruct his chauffeur accordingly.
>A person of quality would engage staff who did not require such
>instructions. A person of class would never suspect the handle
>existed.

Except for e.g. Lord Peter Wimsey, who insisted on driving
himself, because he liked it. He did not employ a personal
mechanic, either, though he probably had one on retainer at the
local garage, whom we never saw in the stories because the
various Mesdames Merdle broke down so seldom.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <qmk8hdanseab.1gqhrojhdrc8c.dlg@40tude.net>,
Kevin J. Cheek <kevinc@planttel.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:18:42 -0800, David Friedman wrote:
>> I suspect that's more true of the U.K. than the U.S., that the U.S. in
>> 1960 was a substantially more comfortable place to live than the U.K.,
>> and the difference, if it still exists, is much less now. I have the
>> impression from reading Orwell that c. 1945, people in England thought
>> all Americans lived in relative luxury.
>
>Oh. My. I *do* hope this post makes it through:
>
>Your level of comfort in 1960 depended on your income level and where you
>lived. I remember open wells and outhouses in the 1960s, and houses where
>the only source of heat was the fireplace. Gas space heaters were up-town.
>Central heat was a luxury. Lights were often a single bare light-bulb hung
>from the ceiling, and you had to plug small appliances into an adapter in
>the socket.
>
>Some of those houses were abandoned in the 1980s and 1990s for house
>trailers, because the trailers were far more comfortable and energy
>efficient and it was cheaper than remodeling those houses.
>
>Now: Shall we discuss summers? In the South? Without air conditioning? I
>remember when we installed a house fan in a window and thought it was up
>town.
>
>Most people did have TVs. You had your selection of two clear channels and,
>if lucky, one or two others that had more snow than a Christmas card.

Corroborating, sort of: the house we lived in in Kettleman City
belonged to the school my father worked for, and we got it at a
nice low rent. But it was in fairly good condition, because the
Reef-Sunset school district was in the same location as a lot of
then-bountiful oil fields and property taxes of various kinds
supported it lavishly. That school had a new building every
year. But the town around it, such as it was, was shabby and
most of the people were farm workers and poor. I forget what
kind of heating our house had: there must have been something.
And there was an evaporative cooler in the front room, "swamp
cooler" they were called. They worked because the air outside
was not only hot, but dry. And we did have indoor plumbing.
(This was 1954-57, by the way.)

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <8eff562a-3b6d-4e22-9643-
d818d6c34c5f@l32g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, Mark_Reichert@hotmail.com
says...
> On Dec 19, 8:29 am, Gerry Quinn <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote:
> > In article <78bdb094-0690-4fd2-9fce-9a6186a2c95c@
> > 1g2000hsl.googlegroups.com>, Mark_Reich...@hotmail.com says...

> > > You are either making that up or talking to morons. Even beyond the
> > > acts themselves is the two worst aspects: codifying this as active
> > > official policy rather than looking the other way at unofficial acts
> >
> > I am sure that those conducting interrogations would prefer if the
> > latter option were still available. But since the legislative branch
> > of the government, in its wisdom, has decided that it must be spelt out
> > exactly what interrogation techniques are permissable, then either some
> > interrogation methods that are uncomfortable for prisoners must be
> > 'official policy' or no interrogation methods that are uncomfortable
> > for prisoners can be allowed at all.
> >
> > So who do you blame for the above "worst aspect"?
>
> The Administration who saw it as the perfect opportunity to pander to
> the harshest elements without regard to whether it would actually be
> effective, as they were being advised against by people who actually
> do interrogations. Anything to edge one step further down the
> slippery slope.

I thought you said that the problem was it being made official policy.
Now you seeem to be saying that the Administration should have made it
so, rather than turning a blind eye. You contradict yourself.

- Gerry Quinn

In article <4769d0b5$0$36332$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, silly@well.com
says...
> In message <1i9er6h.7sxt99o7yorwN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
> Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I'm personally all for censorship. I vote we start with censoring
> > all talk of politics on rec.arts.sf.*.
>
> Heh.
>
> When a major candidate in the Republican Party primaries says that he
> doesn't accept the theory of evolution, how can rec.arts.sf.* ignore
> it?
>
> When the President of the United States says that cloning stem cells
> is unethical, why would rec.arts.sf.* want to censor discussion of
> it?
>
> The United States may be losing its leadership in science and
> technology. Isn't that an appropriate topic of discussion? It's
> certainly a good subject for sci-fi stories.

Not really; you'd want something a little more drastic than