Day Brightener – The World According To Maxine
Author: lorenberg
Day Brightener – History, Some Fairly Recent And Others Ancient
A number of historical figures have distinguished themselves in the Greek War of Independence. Georgios Karaiskakis, Odysseas Androutsos, Markos Botsaris and Laskarina Bouboulina are some of the most famous among these personalities, but one name usually stands out: Theodoros Kolokotronis, the archetypal “hero of 1821”.
The mid-1800s witnessed the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad, a monumental project that linked the east and west coasts of the United States. As the Union Pacific Railroad pushed westward with its construction, it was accompanied by temporary settlements often called “Hell on Wheels” towns. These makeshift towns were primarily composed of canvas tents and served as essential hubs for railroad construction activities. While most of these temporary settlements vanished as the railroad progressed, a few established themselves as permanent communities.
In the 1870s, another interesting phenomenon emerged in the form of boomtowns in Kansas. These boomtowns experienced rapid growth and prosperity for a brief period, typically a year or two, thanks to their status as railheads. However, their prosperity was short-lived, as the rail lines extended further westward, creating new endpoints for the Chisholm Trail and causing the decline of these towns.
Occasionally, a railroad company would establish a railroad town, often working with a separate city or land company. This scenario sometimes unfolded even if another town already existed nearby. In such cases, the population in the preexisting city would shift to the newly established railroad town, which would significantly boost the fortunes of the town company and the railroad founder. These entities would capitalize on the opportunity by selling lots near the railway station at substantial profits, often before the actual arrival of the railroad at the new townsite.
The impact of becoming major rail hubs was profound for certain cities. Notably, Chicago and Los Angeles transformed from relatively small towns into large, bustling cities due to their strategic positions as pivotal points in the railway network. This transformative growth was a hallmark of the railroad era in American history.
The Theopetra Cave is an archaeological site located in Meteora, in the central Greek region of Thessaly, Greece.
Radiocarbon evidence shows for human presence at least 50,000 years ago.
Excavations began in 1987 under the direction of Ν. Kyparissi-Apostolika, which were meant to answer questions about Paleolithic Thessaly, Greece.
As a result of archaeological excavations that have been conducted over the years, it has been revealed that the Theopetra Cave has been occupied by human beings as early as 130000 years ago.
In addition, evidence for human habitation in the Theopetra Cave can be traced without interruption from the Middle Palaeolithic to the end of the Neolithic period.
This is significant, as it allows archaeologists to have a better understanding of the prehistoric period in Greece.!!
Day Brightener – On The 8th Day God Created Seniors And 10 Things To Ponder
Now most seniors never get enough exercise;
So God decreed that Seniors should become forgetful so they would have to search for their glasses, keys, and other things, thus doing more walking. And God looked down and saw that it was good.
Then God saw there was another need.
So God made Seniors lose coordination so they would drop things, requiring them to bend, reach, and stretch. And God looked down and saw that it was good.
Then God considered the function of our bladders and decided that seniors would have additional calls of nature, requiring more trips to the bathroom, thus providing more exercise. God looked down and saw that it was good.
So if you find, that as you age, you’re getting up and down more and more, just remember that this is the way God designed us. It’s in your best interests, even though you mutter complaints under your breath.
Here are ten important facts to remember as we grow older:
Number 10 – Life is a sexually transmitted condition that inevitably results in death.
Number 9 – Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Number 8 – Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.
Number 7 – Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.
Number 6 – Some people are like a Slinky–not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.
Number 5 – Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospitals, dying of nothing.
Number 4 – All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Number 3 – Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800, and a substantial tax cut save you $30?
Number 2 – In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
Number 1 – Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers–what you do today might burn your ass tomorrow.
– – – and as someone recently said to me: “Don’t worry about old age–
it doesn’t last that long.”
A Real Bonus Day Brightener – Bet You Didn’t Know, An Incredible, Mostly Unknown Story.
In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods, naked. She swam in a lake, naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.
Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere, which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.
The star of the film, called “Ecstasy,” was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was “to stand there and look stupid.” In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She’d grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.
Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history. Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made – and spent – $30 million in her life.
But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect, and her invention continues to shape the world we live in today.
You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler’s nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star, her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called “long-term evolution” or “LTE” technology), you’ll be using an extension of the technology a 20 year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler.
At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria’s leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis. Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl’s favorite topics at these gatherings – which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini – was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes.
Wireless weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners “looking stupid,” while absorbing everything she heard. As a Jew, Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband’s business ambitions. Mandl responded to his willful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of the castle wearing the maid’s clothes and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London.
(She got out just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl’s factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. (Later, he became an adviser to Argentina’s iconic populist president, Juan Peron.)
In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of MGM’s biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster. But Kiesler cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies.
At the height of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded messages that couldn’t be “jammed.” She was building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building a system to kill Nazis. By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single frequency radio-controlled technology Kiesler’s ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and “jam” or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile’s intended path.
Kiesler’s key innovation was to “change the channel.” It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the world’s first techno-musician, George Anthiel.
Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel’s technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon’s receiver and its transmitter. On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and “Hedy Kiesler Markey,” which was Kiesler’s married name at the time.
Most of you won’t recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it’s a fair bet than anyone reading this post of a certain age, will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood’s golden age – Hedy Lamarr. That’s the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That’s the name his movie company made famous. Almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler – a/k/a Hedy Lamarr – was one of the great pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it ever since.
You are probably using Lamarr’s technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of “spread spectrum technology,” which you use every day when you log on to a wi-fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation “LTE” wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler invented.
Day Brightener – History
The Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It’s said that to grow its collection, the library would seize all books from ships that came into port, make copies of them, and then return the copies to the owners while keeping the originals for its collection. This aggressive acquisition strategy helped amass knowledge from across the known world.
Day Brightener – The Year 1907 – This Will Boggle Your Mind; I Know It Did Me!
The year is 1907. One hundred and 17 years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907:
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The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City
cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage in the U.S. Was 22 Cents per hour.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year.
A dentist made $2,500 per year.
A veterinarian $1,500 per year.
And a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all U.S. Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as ‘substandard.’
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. Were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was only 30!!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Two out of every 10 US. Adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, ‘Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.’
There were about 230 reported Murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
Now I sent it to you and others all over the United States, Possibly the world, in a matter of just Seconds!!!!!!!!!
PASS THIS ALONG!!!!!
Just try to imagine….
What it may be like
IT STAGGERS THE MIND!!!!!!!!!
Day Brightener – A Day In The Life Of Seniors
Barb was lying in bed one night. Larry was falling asleep, but Barb was in a romantic mood and wanted to talk. She said: “You used to hold my hand when we were courting.” Wearily he reached across, held her hand for a second and tried to get back to sleep.
A few moments later she said: “Then you used to kiss me… ” Mildly irritated, Larry reached across, gave her a peck on the cheek and settled down to sleep.
Thirty seconds later she said: “Then you used to bite my Neck…” Angrily, Larry threw back the bed clothes and got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Barb asked. “To get my teeth!”
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DOWN AT THE RETIREMENT CENTRE
80-year old Bessie bursts into the rec room at the retirement home. She holds her clenched fist in the air and announces, “Anyone who can guess what’s in my hand can have sex with me tonight!!” An elderly gentleman in the rear shouts out, “An elephant?” Bessie thinks a minute and says, “Close enough.”
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OLD FRIENDS
Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.
One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, “Now don’t get mad at me… I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but I just can’t think of your name. I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t remember it. Please tell me what your name is.”
Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally, she said, “How soon do you need to know?”
______________________________ _______
SENIOR DRIVING
As a senior citizen was driving down the motorway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Vernon, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on I-25. Please be careful!” “Hell,” said Vernon, “It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!”
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SUPERSEX
A little old lady who had lost her marbles was running up and down the halls in a nursing home. As she ran, she would flip up the hem of her nightgown and say “Supersex.” She ran up to an elderly man in a wheelchair, flipping her gown at him, she said, “Supersex.”
He sat silently for a moment or two and finally answered, “I’ll take the soup.”
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DRIVING
Two elderly women were out driving in a large car – both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to major crossroad. The stop light was red, but they just went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself, “I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light.”
After a few more minutes, they came to another major junction and the light was red again. Again, they went right through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous. At the next junction, sure enough, the light was red, and they went on through.
So, she turned to the other woman and said, “Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!”
Mildred turned to her and said, “Oh! Am I driving?”
Day Brightener – An Oldie But Goodie, Dear Abby Admitted She Was At A Loss As How To Answer The Following Questions
(You can’t make up this stuff)
Dear Abby,
A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together, and I’ve never seen a man go into or leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese?
Dear Abby,
What can I do about all the Sex, Nudity, Fowl Language and Violence I see on my VCR?
Dear Abby,
I am a twenty-three-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It’s getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don’t know him well enough to discuss money issues with him.
Dear Abby,
I’ve suspected that my husband has been fooling around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied everything and said it would never happen again.
Dear Abby,
Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own family like this?!
Dear Abby,
I joined the Navy to see the world. I’ve seen it. Now how do I get out?
Dear Abby,
My forty-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50.00 an hour every week for two and a half years. He must be crazy.
Dear Abby,
I have a man I can’t trust. He cheats so much and it’s gotten so bad, I’m not even sure the baby I’m carrying is his.
Remember, these people stand in line with you to cast their votes…
