Susan B. Anthony – Who is she?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on March 29th, 2011
Good morning!
Another gem that I found on Wikipedia. Hard not to be familiar with this woman, Susan B. Anthony, as her name seems to be noted everywhere, especially during this time of year.
But do you really know anything about her?
Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women’s rights movement to introduce women’s suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women’s Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President.[1] She also co-founded the women’s rights journal,The Revolution. She traveled the United States and Europe, and averaged 75 to 100 speeches per year.[2] She was one of the important advocates in leading the way for women’s rights to be acknowledged and instituted in the American government.
Early life
Susan B. Anthony was born and raised in West Grove, Adams, Massachusetts. She was the second oldest of seven children-Guelma Penn (1818-1873), Hannah Lapham (1821-1877), Daniel Read (1824-1904), Mary Stafford (1827-1907), Eliza Tefft (1832-1834), and Jacob Merritt (1834-1900)-born to Daniel Anthony (1794-1862) and Lucy Read (1793-1880). One brother, publisher Daniel Read Anthony, would become active in the anti-slavery movement in Kansas, while a sister, Mary Stafford Anthony, became a teacher and a woman’s rights activist. Anthony remained close to her sisters throughout her life.
Her earliest American ancestors were the immigrants John Anthony (1607 – 1675), who was from Hempstead, Essex and his wife Susanna Potter (c. 1623 – 1674), who was from London, Middlesex.[3]
Anthony’s father Daniel was a cotton manufacturer and abolitionist, a stern but open-minded man who was born into the Quaker religion.[4] He did not allow toys or amusements into the household, claiming that they would distract the soul from the “inner light.” Her mother, Lucy, was a student in Daniel’s school; the two fell in love and agreed to marry in 1817, but Lucy was less sure about marrying into the Society of Friends (Quakers). Lucy attended the Rochester women’s rights convention held in August 1848, two weeks after the historicSeneca Falls Convention, and signed the Rochester convention’s Declaration of Sentiments. Lucy and Daniel Anthony enforced self-discipline, principled convictions, and belief in one’s own self-worth.
Susan was a precocious child, having learned to read and write at age three.[5] In 1826, when she was six years old, the Anthony family moved from Massachusettsto Battenville, New York. Susan was sent to attend a local district school, where a teacher refused to teach her long division because of her gender. Upon learning of the weak education she was receiving, her father promptly had her placed in a group home school, where he taught Susan himself. Mary Perkins, another teacher there, conveyed a progressive image of womanhood to Anthony, further fostering her growing belief in women’s equality.
In 1837, Anthony was sent to Deborah Moulson’s Female Seminary, a Quakerboarding school in Philadelphia. She was not happy at Moulson’s, but she did not have to stay there long. She was forced to end her formal studies because her family, like many others, was financially ruined during the Panic of 1837. Their losses were so great that they attempted to sell everything in an auction, even their most personal belongings, which were saved at the last minute when Susan’s uncle, Joshua Read, stepped up and bid for them in order to restore them to the family.
In 1839, the family moved to Hardscrabble, New York, in the wake of the panic and economic depression that followed. That same year, Anthony left home to teach and pay off her father’s debts. She taught first at Eunice Kenyon’s Friends’ Seminary, and then at the Canajoharie Academy in 1846, where she rose to become headmistress of the Female Department. Anthony’s first occupation inspired her to fight for wages equivalent to those of male teachers, since men earned roughly four times more than women for the same duties.
In 1849, at age 29, Anthony quit teaching and moved to the family farm inRochester, New York. She began to take part in conventions and gatherings related to the temperance movement. In Rochester, she attended the localUnitarian Church and began to distance herself from the Quakers, in part because she had frequently witnessed instances of hypocritical behavior such as the use ofalcohol amongst Quaker preachers. As she got older, Anthony continued to move further away from organized religion in general, and she was later chastised by various Christian religious groups for displaying irreligious tendencies.
In her youth, Anthony was very self-conscious of her appearance and speaking abilities. She long resisted public speaking for fear she would not be sufficientlyeloquent. Despite these insecurities, she became a renowned public presence, eventually helping to lead the women’s movement.
Early social activism
Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son. The aristocracies of the old world are based upon birth, wealth, refinement, education, nobility, brave deeds of chivalry; in this nation, on sex alone; exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above education, and the son above the mother who bore him.
National Woman Suffrage Association.[6]
In the era before the American Civil War, Anthony took a prominent role in the New York anti-slavery and temperance movements. In 1836, at age 16, Susan collected two boxes of petitions opposing slavery, in response to the gag rule prohibiting such petitions in the House of Representatives.[7] In 1849, at age 29, she became secretary for the Daughters of Temperance, which gave her a forum to speak out against alcohol abuse, and served as the beginning of Anthony’s movement towards the public limelight.
In late 1850, Anthony read a detailed account in the New York Tribune of the firstNational Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the article,Horace Greeley wrote an especially admiring description of the final speech, one given by Lucy Stone. Stone’s words catalyzed Anthony to devote her life towomen’s rights.[8] In the summer of 1852, Anthony met both Greeley and Stone in Seneca Falls.[9]
In 1851, on a street in Seneca Falls, Anthony was introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by a mutual acquaintance, as well as fellow feminist Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined with Stanton in organizing the first women’s state temperance society in America after being refused admission to a previous convention on account of her sex, in 1851. Stanton remained a close friend and colleague of Anthony’s for the remainder of their lives, but Stanton longed for a broader, more radical women’s rights platform. Together, the two women traversed the United States giving speeches and attempting to persuade the government that society should treat men and women equally.
Anthony was invited to speak at the third annual National Women’s Rights Convention held in Syracuse, New York in September 1852. She and Matilda Joslyn Gage both made their first public speeches for women’s rights at the convention.[10] Anthony began to gain notice as a powerful public advocate of women’s rights and as a new and stirring voice for change. Anthony participated in every subsequent annual National Women’s Rights Convention, and served as convention president in 1858.
In 1856, Anthony further attempted to unify the African-American and women’s rights movements when, recruited by abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster,[11] she became an agent for William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society of New York. Speaking at the Ninth National Women’s Rights Convention on May 12, 1859, Anthony asked “Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights?”
[edit]
The Revolution
On January 8, 1868, Anthony first published the women’s rights weekly journal The Revolution. Printed in New York City, its motto was: “The true republic-men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”Anthony worked as the publisher and business manager, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton acted as editor.[12]The main thrust of The Revolution was to promote women’s and African-Americans’ right to suffrage, but it also discussed issues of equal pay for equal work, more liberal divorce laws and the church’s position on women’s issues. The journal was backed by independently wealthy George Francis Train, who provided $600 in starting funds. His financial support ceased by May 1869, and the paper began to operate in debt. Anthony insisted on expensive, high-quality printing equipment, and she paid women workers the high wages she thought they deserved. She banned any advertisements for alcohol- and morphine-laden patent medicines; all such medicines were abhorrent to her. However, revenue from non-patent-medicine advertisements was too low to cover costs.[13] In addition, Anthony got President Johnson to subscribe to the weekly journal before the first publication.[14]
In June 1870, Laura Curtis Bullard, a Brooklyn-based writer whose parents became wealthy from selling a popular morphine-containing patent medicine called “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup”, bought The Revolution for one dollar, with Anthony assuming its $10,000 debt, an amount equal to $173,000 in current value. Anthony used her lecture fees to repay the debt, completing the task in six years. Under Bullard, the journal adopted a literary orientation and accepted patent medicine ads, but it folded in February 1872.[15]
American Equal Rights Association
In 1869, long-time friends Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony found themselves, for the first time, on opposing sides of a debate. The American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which had originally fought for both blacks’ and women’s right to suffrage, voted to support the 15th Amendment to theConstitution, granting suffrage to black men, but not women. Anthony questioned why women should support this amendment when black men were not continuing to show support for women’s voting rights. Partially as a result of the decision by the AERA, Anthony soon thereafter devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women’s rights.
United States v. Susan B. Anthony
On November 18, 1872, Anthony was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential Election two weeks earlier. She had written to Stanton on the night of the election that she had “positively voted the Republican ticket-straight…”. She was tried and convicted seven months later, despite the stirring and eloquent presentation of her arguments that the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” the privileges of citizenship, and which contained no gender qualification, gave women the constitutional right to vote in federal elections. Her trial took place at the Ontario County courthouse in Canandaigua, New York, before Supreme Court Associate Justice Ward Hunt. Justice Hunt refused to allow Anthony to testify on her own behalf, allowed statements given by her at the time of her arrest to be allowed as “testimony,” explicitly ordered the jury to return a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury afterwards, and read an opinion he had written before the trial even started. The sentence was a $100 fine, but not imprisonment; true to her word in court (“I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty”), she never paid the fine for the rest of her life, and an embarrassed U.S. Government took no collection action against her. The trial gave Anthony the opportunity to spread her arguments to a wider audience than ever before.[16] [17]
Anthony toured Europe in 1883 and visited many charitable organizations. She wrote of a poor mother she saw in Killarney that had “six ragged, dirty children” to say that “the evidences were that ‘God’ was about to add a No. 7 to her flock. What a dreadful creature their God must be to keep sending hungry mouths while he withholds the bread to fill them!”[18]
In 1893, she joined with Helen Barrett Montgomery in forming a chapter of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU)[19] in Rochester. In 1898, she also worked with Montgomery to raise funds to open opportunities for women students to study at the University of Rochester.
National suffrage organizations
In 1869, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization dedicated to gaining women’s suffrage. Anthony insisted that Stanton become president as long as possible; Anthony served as vice-president-at-large until 1892 when she became president.[20]
In the early years of the NWSA, Anthony made many attempts to unite women in the labor movement with the suffragist cause, but with little success. She and Stanton were delegates at the 1868 convention of the National Labor Union. However, Anthony inadvertently alienated the labor movement not only because suffrage was seen as a concern for middle-class rather thanworking-class women, but because she openly encouraged women to achieve economic independence by entering the printing trades, where male workers were on strike at the time. Anthony was later expelled from the National Labor Union over this controversy.
In February 1890, Anthony orchestrated the merger of the NWSA with Lucy Stone’s more moderate American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).This merger was partially done because Anthony admired Anna Howard Shaw, who worked with the AWSA and was a great speaker.[21] Prior to the controversial merge, Anthony had created a special NWSA executive committee to vote on whether they should merge with the AWSA, despite the fact that using a committee instead of an all-member vote went against the NWSA constitution. Motions to make it possible for members to vote by mail were strenuously opposed by Anthony and her adherents, and the committee was stacked with members who favored the merger. (Two members who voted against the merger were asked to resign).
Anthony’s pursuit of alliances with moderate suffragists created long-lasting tension between herself and more radical suffragists like Stanton. Stanton openly criticized Anthony’s stance, writing that Anthony and AWSA leader Lucy Stone “see suffrage only. They do not see woman’s religious and social bondage.”[22]Anthony responded to Stanton: “We number over ten thousand women and each one has opinions … and we can only hold them together to work for the ballot by letting alone their whims and prejudices on other subjects!”[23]
The creation of the NAWSA effectively marginalized the more radical elements within the women’s movement, including Stanton. Anthony pushed for Stanton to be voted in as the first NAWSA president, and stood by her as Stanton was belittled by the large factions of less-radical members within the new organization.[24]
In collaboration with Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, Anthony published The History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., New York, 1884-1887). Anthony also befriended Josephine Brawley Hughes, an advocate of women’s rights and Prohibition in Arizona, and Carrie Chapman Catt, whom Anthony endorsed for the presidency of the NAWSA when Anthony formally retired in 1900.
Later personal life, death
Before retiring, Anthony was asked if all women in the United states would ever be given the vote. She replied by stating, “it will come, but I shall not see it…It is inevitable.” We can no more deny forever the right of self-government to one-half our people than we could keep the Negro forever in bondage. It will not be wrought by the same disrupting forces that freed the slave, but come it will, and I believe within a generation.[25] “Failure is impossible” was the words she left with her “girls” to encourage them on in the long discouraging struggle ahead.[26] Fourteen years later after assiduous campaigning, women were given the right vote on August 26, 1920, by the nineteenth amendment to the constitution.[27
After retiring in 1900, Anthony remained in Rochester, where she died of heart disease and pneumonia in her house at 17 Madison Street on March 13, 1906.[28]She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery. Following her death, the New York State Senate passed a resolution remembering her “unceasing labor, undaunted courage and unselfish devotion to many philanthropic purposes and to the cause of equal political rights for women.”[29]
Legacy
Susan B. Anthony, who died 14 years before passage of the 19th Amendmentgiving women the right to vote, was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on theSusan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, approximately the size of a U.S.quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were minted for circulation at thePhiladelphia and Denver mints for all four years, and at the San Francisco mint for the first three production years. She was featured on a 3¢ U.S. commemorative stamp in 1936 and a 50¢ Liberty Issue regular issue stamp on August 25, 1955.
Anthony’s birthplace in Adams was purchased in August 2006 by Carol Crossed, founder of the New York chapter of Democrats for Life of America, affiliated with Feminists for Life(FFL).[30] Anthony’s childhood home inBattenville, New York, was placed on the New York State Historic Register in 2006, and the National Historic Register in 2007.[31]
The Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and was operated as a museum.[32]
In 2006 the house where Anthony was born was purchased with plans to transform it into a museum; in 2010 it was opened as the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum.[33]
The American composer Virgil Thomsonand poet Gertrude Stein wrote an opera,The Mother of Us All, that abstractly explores Anthony’s life and mission. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, she is commemorated inThe Woman Movement, a sculpture byAdelaide Johnson, unveiled in 1921 at the United States Capitol.
Anthony’s position on abortion (or lack thereof) has been the subject of a long-running dispute.
A quote from Susan B. Anthony in honor of Women’s History Month:
“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens;
nor yet we, the male citizens;
but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.”
~Susan B. Anthony
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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March 29th, 2011 at 7:00 am
Bravo! Michelle.
Loved the quote. “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens;
nor yet we, the male citizens;
but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.”
~Susan B. Anthony
Now, all we have to do is to drive that fact down the throats of the white bastards who refuse to change.
I’m ready for the battle.
Linda
March 29th, 2011 at 7:03 am
I wasn’t able to get in yesterday. So I wanted to say today. I admire the work Keith has done. It is nice to see people like you making an effort to keep Fox from totaling ruining his reputation.
Nell
March 29th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Get Your Way Without Saying Anything
Joe Navarro
We’re being watched. Our body language, our actions and our facial expressions send signals that others receive and evaluate.
I learned as an FBI agent to quickly and assuredly assess the meaning of these signals so that appropriate action — at times, lifesaving action — could be taken.
Psychologists estimate that between 60% and 80% of all communication is nonverbal — yet most people put no thought into the messages their bodies are sending. Here, five vital nonverbal messages and how to send them…
“I’M IN CHARGE HERE”
You don’t necessarily have to be smarter or more experienced than the rest of a group to be accepted as its leader. Some leaders send nonverbal signals that encourage others to follow…
Claim territory. When standing, hold your arms slightly away from your sides, feet slightly apart.
When you sit at a shared space, such as a conference table, spread your materials out slightly farther than the width of your shoulders, claiming the space as your own.
Organized, polite people tend to arrange their papers in a neat pile, then fold their hands on top. Unfortunately, this sends the message to others that you can be dominated.
Many young men instinctively claim territory in these ways, but most women and older men must remind themselves to do so.
To let people know that you are standing your ground and that your decision is final, stand behind a table or desk, lean forward slightly, spread your arms a little away from your body, spread your fingers apart and plant your fingertips firmly on the surface. This stance sends an unmistakable message of authority and should be used by men and women only as a last resort.
Hold your fingers wide when you make hand gestures. Spreading your fingers sends a strong signal of confidence, control and domination.
Put on a performance of “cool and collected” even when you don’t feel it. People gravitate toward those who remain calm in difficult situations… and avoid those who seem overemotional and prone to panic.
At the start of a potentially difficult day, silently say to yourself, I might face problems today, but even if there is yelling and screaming, I am going to transcend it.
When difficult moments arrive, silently tell yourself, I have a responsibility to be calm to help maintain the calm.
Sending yourself these messages increases the odds that you will send the nonverbal message, I’m cool, collected and worth following.
“I’M CONFIDENT.
YOU CAN TRUST WHAT I SAY.”
Our signals help determine whether others trust our words…
Steeple your outspread fingers. Steepling — touching the fingertips together with hands pointed up and fingers spread wide — is an extremely powerful nonverbal signal of confidence. Jurors are more likely to believe testimony when the witness steeples, for example. Women, in particular, tend to underuse steepling.
Warning: Hand wringing or rubbing interlaced fingers together sends the opposite signal — that you lack confidence or feel stress.
Enter rooms without hesitation. Striding into a room with confidence creates a crucial first impression that you believe in yourself, so others should believe in you, too.
If you pause or slow down when entering — even for just a moment to get your bearings or find your assigned seat — your hesitation could be taken as a sign of uncertainty.
Keep your chin up. Holding your chin high shows that you have the confidence to expose your neck, something primates don’t do when they feel threatened.
Remove your thumbs from your pockets. Hooking your thumbs in your pockets when standing will make you appear insecure. (Hands in the pockets are okay, but preferably just one, not both.)
“YOU SHOULD HIRE ME”
There are many qualified applicants for almost every job opening these days. The nonverbal messages applicants send to interviewers often help determine whether or not they get the job…
Use hand steepling to convey confidence, as previously discussed.
Sit forward on your chair with both feet on the floor. Sit back and cross your legs only after the interviewer does so.
Remain focused on the interviewer’s face. Your gaze can move around his/her face, but not around the room, even if the interviewer allows his gaze to wander.
A wandering gaze can send a message of disrespect and is acceptable only for the higher-status individual in a conversation.
Review where your résumé or other documents are within your briefcase before the interview.
This should help you retrieve them quickly and smoothly during the interview, if necessary. People are less likely to trust people who seem disorganized.
“LET’S CALM DOWN”
Saying “calm down” tends to make people more upset, not calmer. Better to send nonverbal calming signals including the following…
Position yourself at an angle to the upset individual. You are likely to make tense situations even worse if you position yourself directly face-to-face. Like all primates, humans tend to feel threatened when “squared off.”
Alternative: Take a walk with this person.
Tilt your head slightly to one side. Tilting the head exposes the throat, one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body.
When you do it, you send a strong subconscious message that you feel comfortable and safe, so everyone else should, too. Tilting your head also communicates that you are listening intently.
Step back or lean back in your chair. Creating a few inches of extra space during a tense moment can lower everyone’s blood pressure.
Uncross your arms or remove your hands from your hips. These arm positions seem aggressive and angry, aggravating tense situations.
If you are most comfortable standing with your hands on your hips, turn your hands so that your thumbs are forward. This makes you seem inquisitive, not angry.
Cross your legs at the ankles when standing. The primitive part of the human brain avoids crossing the legs when it senses danger, in case we need to flee quickly.
When you cross your legs, it says that you are neither anxious nor distrustful, so no one else present should be either.
Speak slowly. This will calm you, increasing the odds that you will convey a sense of calm to others.
Take a deep breath, then exhale even slower than you inhaled. This, too, will calm you and encourage those around you to be calm.
Keep your hands in view. Those around you are likely to become more anxious during confrontations if your hands are not where they can be seen.
The human brain worries that a hidden hand could be holding a weapon during a disagreement even if, rationally, this is extremely unlikely.
Use slow, calm hand movements when you make pacifying statements. People are more likely to trust and believe you when your hand motions match your words.
“LET’S BE FRIENDS”
Our nonverbal signals can encourage people to feel a connection with us — or these signals can accidentally push them away…
Flash your eyebrows. Immediately upon making eye contact with someone you want to know better, very dramatically arch your eyebrows at them for just an instant. This sends a strong nonverbal signal that he/she matters to you.
Match handshakes and hand movements. People tend to form positive first impressions about those who have handshakes like their own.
Start your handshake with moderate pressure, then tighten or lighten your grip to match the handshake you receive. Mirror the nature and intensity of this person’s hand movements during the ensuing conversation, too.
Avoid face-to-face conversations. People are most likely to feel a close, personal connection with you if you are positioned at right angles or side by side.
If you cross your legs while seated, cross toward, not away from, the person you are speaking with. Crossing away sends the message that you are closed off.
Personal interviewed Joe Navarro, retired FBI counterintelligence and counterterrorism special agent and supervisor who has studied nonverbal communications extensively, Tampa, Florida.
He now consults with the FBI, the State Department and corporations. Navarro is author of Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence (HarperBusiness). http://www.JNForensics.com
March 29th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Paid nuclear experts are lying to the american people. They are telling them that Chernobyl was no big deal. They are claiming less that 60 deaths and the scare was more in your mind that in reality.
Here is another account: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/21/japans-nuclear-disaster-contaminate-global-food-chain-say-experts/
March 29th, 2011 at 8:02 am
My bad. This is the one: Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Raises Concerns About Contamination of the Global Food Chain
By William Lajeunesse
Published March 21, 2011
| FoxNews.com
Print Email Share
After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, radiation contaminated 3 million acres of farmland. Up to 9,000 died or will die from thyroid cancer after drinking milk laced with radioactive iodine, according to World Health Organization estimates.
The radiation leaks at Fukushima don’t come close to that of Chernobyl. Still, Japanese officials admit their food chain is also contaminated with harmful levels of radiation, in some cases up to 90 miles from the nuclear site.
“You have to make sure that if there’s a question about any aspect of the food supply that that part of the food supply doesn’t reach consumers. That’s the No. 1 objective,” says Brian Wright, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley.
There are two risks: direct contamination from the radioactive fallout, like water supplies; or indirectly, when consumers eat foods from livestock consuming contaminated grasses or feed.
“I would say it’s going to be a long time before you’ll be able to eat either animals raised in that area or plants,” says University of California Berkeley plant biologist Peggy Lemaux.
RELATED LINKS
Workers Pulled at Japan Nuclear Plant as Smoke Rises
Over the weekend, Japan closed 19 dairy farms in the Fukushima prefecture after finding milk with five times the legal limit of radiation. They also halted the spinach harvest in neighboring Ibaraki prefecture after finding radiation seven times higher than safe. The Gunma and Chiba provinces closer to Tokyo also found elevated levels of radiation in kakina and chrysanthemum, both widely consumed local leafy vegetables.
Gamma rays from cesium can break down internal organs, while the intake of radioactive iodine can cause thyroid cancer. Radioactive iodine has a half-life of about 8 days and decays naturally within a matter of weeks. Cesium 137 and strontium can last for decades.
“We won’t know until there are measurements taken on terrestrial environments, grasses, plant material and in coastal environments to see how those radioactive materials are working their way into the food chain,” says marine biologist David Caron.
Another concern is cattle and fish, especially exports of high grade Kobe beef and sushi. A cash-strapped Japan needs all exports and foreign currency it can get. Yet consumer fears — legitimate or not — are expected to damage those exports.
“There will be a demand for certified safe sushi and other fish and that might mean it will increase the cost of those fish for a while,” says Wright.
Japan imports most foods but produces 80 percent of their own vegetables and rice. If forced to import more, it will cost consumers more. Experts say the real worry comes in the following days, as more epidemiologists get into the fields to test more crops in more places.
More than 130,000 people lived in the 18-mile ‘hot zone’ around the plant, but hundreds of thousands more are beginning to move south, away from the reactors.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/21/japans-nuclear-disaster-contaminate-global-food-chain-say-experts/#ixzz1I07zjGSm
March 29th, 2011 at 8:10 am
Fair is fair. = Why is Gaffafi being held to a different standard than your criminal president Bush?
Britain says that Gaffafi must face the ICC(International Criminal Court), but no such proposal was made for Bush after it was discovered that he made up the reason he had millions of Iraqi citizens bombed.
Afaf
March 29th, 2011 at 8:26 am
Let’s hope that your President Obama doesn’t do what Bush did when he invaded Iraq. We do not want Libya to end up like Iraq and Somalia. The people of Libya deserve better that to wake up with a country with no government to prevent rioting, looting, and murder.
The country needs to maintain a enough government to continue to guarantee some measure of public services and rule of law.
Sar-e Pol
March 29th, 2011 at 8:34 am
We are being told that we will have to evacuate our homes. We have heard that now plutonium has been found in the soil.
I looked up plutonium and it said that plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet.
This is terrible
March 29th, 2011 at 9:30 am
No cow’s like a horse, and no horse like a cow. That’s one similarity, anyhow. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
March 29th, 2011 at 10:05 am
Anon 4 … why can’t you get laid? whats your obstacle?
March 29th, 2011 at 10:40 am
Mischa, good one, we often hear her name but I didn’t know all that about her, thanks : )
Mable, thank you so much for the compliment, I appreciate that.
Robert, you are so right on, if I thought it was funny I’d be laughing out loud at the bullshit the talking heads are reporting about how it’s not that bad…well, I hope anyone who can get off the island of Japan will do it, everything is or will be contaminated and it could already be traveling elsewhere. I’m not an alarmist but it is clear they do not have anything under control but I believe the govt of Japan is being tight-lipped about what’s going on to avoid panic of its citizenry and I also think the talking heads know that what they’re reporting is bullshit.
Libya is about to turn into the war that will bring the US out of this recession/depression and I don’t think there is anything Pres Obama can do about that. He’s being pressured to come up with an ‘end game’ goal, well – hmm, saying we’re going to oust Kadafi is inflammatory and not what his humanitarian goal was/is…though as usual with the US we have the most troops in the region, so you can say ‘French led’ but look at the numbers, ieyeyiyyi…
…and I fear for the women of the middle east – big time, the men – oh hell no, but I wish we could air lift the women out of harms way…I keep seeing the face of that woman who testified that she’d been held and raped by Libyan troops and the hood they put over her head on the way out of the CNN room, she’s either in prison or dead today.
That’s my two, Luv, Zen Lill
PS Hey Howie, Hey Al – happy freakin’ Tuesday, just wanted you two to know I’ve been reading the archives looking for a particular piece from last year, and it just made me glad that you two are back! Al, you are one very funny man : ) and Howie, you have so much info it must be ahrd to contain yourself at times, no? That’s gotta be tough, such a fine line of disclosure…
March 29th, 2011 at 11:19 am
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted – “Open then the Door!
You know how little time we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more.”
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
“Fools! your reward is neither Here nor There!”
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their mouths are stopt with Dust.
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d -
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
March 29th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential candidate Republican Rick Santorum was asked about Social Security during an interview on WESZ-AM radio in Laconia on Tuesday morning. He said the Social Security system would be in much better shape if there were fewer abortions.
He says the system has design flaws, but the reason it is in big trouble is that there aren’t enough workers to support retirees. He blamed that on what he called the nation’s abortion culture. He says that culture, coupled with policies that do not support families, deny America what it needs _ more people.
—
OMG is all I can say. Another attack on a woman’s right to choose. Republicans would love to make abortion illegal while at the same time cut funding to all the social services poor women having babies will desperately need. The republican motto should be: “I know better than you how to control your body. I take Viagra so I can control mine and yours.”
March 29th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
AND, I just want to add a further comment about Santorum’s BS statement that abortion, culture and anti-family policy is responsible for the population decline. Many women want to have children. Perhaps even the majority like being mothers. But it has become too expensive for women to raise large families. His party’s politics of being pro-corporate and war oriented have greatly contributed to the decline of the American population.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Zen Lill:
Happy Freakin’ Tuesday to you too. Reading the archives brings me many memories of when I first popped onto Michelle’s Blog until the present. It makes me reminisce about ALL the amazing things that have transpired in the past 3 or so years — A Lot!
In those very same archives I remember being asked how it feels to be friends with Carr and I mentioned that although I would never have it any other way, it is a big burden to carry around. It is not always pleasant. Sometimes reality can be stranger than fiction.
HOWIE
March 29th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Zen Lill: So you think I’m funny. You’re kinda funny too. How am I funny. Funny how? Funny looking, funny like in stupid, funny like in ridiculous.
I will ask Joe Pesci what he thinks I oughta do. Oh you can be such a wiseguy sometimes. Am I gonna have to buy another new shovel…………….
Al Capone
March 29th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
nice Al…
March 29th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Yes, that’s exactly what I was talking about, Howie.
You 2 Al Capone! Funny as in – I could not stop laughing at your endless commentary on my favorite joke (the one about the exotic or should I say erotic pet frog that eats pussy, remember that?!) oh…boy…ahhahaha…
G’nite! ZL
March 29th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Sorry, Dolly, I put your name in the wrong box.
March 29th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Anon 12:
I have always loved that poem. I can never read it enough. Thanks for reminding me of my favorite verse. “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.”
Dan
March 29th, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I hope this makes it in. How do you people get in? What am I doing wrong, Michelle?
All I wanted to do was to comment on Allison’s thought about the republican party. It is interesting that they want more babies to guarantee workers to support the elderly. When it was them that took the money that the elders contributed to Social Security and squandered it.
Why not force super rich and the corporation to pay their fair share? That would be easier and more equitable than forcing women to have babies to pay the tab.
Lena
March 30th, 2011 at 5:57 am
Anon4 she must be missing you if you were made only for her. Sometimes I facilitate meetings between others. If you can use my assistance I am here for you
March 30th, 2011 at 7:24 am
Lena: Good point. Who will force the “super rich” to pay for anything. They own the courts, the government too. Along with everything else, there is nobody to prosecute them or even to say NO to them.
Pay their fair share? Who would be the one to force them to pay for anything, they take what ever they want. I think that they should be taxed heavily, but then I also think there should be a limit on ones property and holdings. We are being robbed blind.
Maybe a hunting season after every April 16th, for those who did not pay their “FAIR” SHARE. They are out of control and I don’t think the people will take much more of this.
Al
March 30th, 2011 at 7:29 am
We are in the year 1862. Adam wants to move from England to the Americas to discover the synchronicity of events that have previously been related in the cause and effect field.
I just want to see and be part of recording events in certain fields. I will honor requests that have been made that occur in the time period that we are in.
===========
The Civil War in America allows crime to masquerade as derring-do. Before the outbreak of hostilities, bands of abolitionist copied John Brown by raiding slave territory in Missouri and forcibly freeing the negroes.
These “Jayhawkers” and “Redlegs” provoked reprisal raids by Missouri “Bushwackers.” Now, surprisingly some of these horsemen have stayed together as mounted guerrillas attaching themselves either to the Union or the Confederate cause.
One time schoolteacher turned horse thief, William Quantrill has seen how this cover can legitimize his crimes. His “Raiders” bid fair to prove one of the bloodiest bands in the war.
The fight under a piratical black flag – not the “Stars and Bars” of their alleged masters, the Confederate Army. They do not confront the Union Army directly, but confine themselves to night time depredations on encampments and civilians, whose stock they loot and buildings they burn. Then, like the old Scottish borderers they gallop away into the night.
Union generals do not recognize “Quantrill Raiders” as a fighting unit, and have declared Quantrill an outlaw. Some southern generals endorse this view, and Quantrill’s men risk being hanged out of hand without the benefit of a court-martial if they are captured.
Quantrill is a handsome but ruthless young man. His uncouth impudence was well instanced this year when he kidnapped – 20 year-old Kate King – from her father’s Kansas ranch. Unhappily, the young woman, with the weakness of her sex, found this “rough wooing” acceptable, and has willingly settled into a life of sin with this swashbuckling bandit leader.
=============
I found nothing else of interest in that year. On to 1863.
AH
March 30th, 2011 at 7:31 am
ZL: I forgot the pussy eating frog joke. Refresh my memory please.
Al
March 30th, 2011 at 7:46 am
Even Small Skin Moles Can Be Cancerous
Stuart M. Goldsmith, MD
Current guidelines from the American Academy of Dermatology, Skin Cancer Foundation and American Cancer Society state that only moles larger than a pencil eraser (about six millimeters) may indicate melanoma.
But: One recent study shows that 22% of invasive melanomas are smaller than that.
Best: You and your doctor should check all moles, regardless of size. In particular, small moles that are dark-colored with irregular borders should be checked.
Give yourself a full body exam and/or check with your dermatologist.
Personal interviewed Stuart M. Goldsmith, MD, dermatologist, Southwest Georgia Dermatology, Albany, Georgia.
March 30th, 2011 at 9:38 am
I found a few other items of interesting coming out of 1862 America, nothing nefarious like you are seeking AH but interesting none the less:
The US established its first Income Tax. Congress formed the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing. Greenbacks were introduced. First U.S. paper money was issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000. The first US federal tax on beer was levied to finance the Civil War. The Choctaw Indians issued a 75 cent note and the Cherokee Indians issued a $1 bill.
Mary Jane Patterson (1840-1894) received a degree from Oberlin College, Ohio, becoming the 1st black female college graduate in the US.
Louisa May Alcott, American author, went to Washington, D.C., in the winter to serve as a nurse in the newly established United States Sanitary Commission. She tended wounded soldiers, but after only a few weeks she became ill. In accordance with army medical practice of the time, Alcott was given large doses of calomel, an emetic containing mercury, which rendered her a semi-invalid. Alcott was a semi-invalid for the last 20 years of life.
The Rhea County Spartans, an all-girl cavalry company in Tennessee, began as a lark during the American Civil War, but soon attracted the attention of unamused Union officers. The Rhea County Girls’ Company was created through a combination of boredom and the desire to be a part of the war for Southern independence. Almost all of the “sidesaddle soldiers” had fathers or brothers in the Confederate military, and the young ladies evidently felt frustrated because their gender prevented them from enlisting. Since they could not actually join the Confederate Army, they did the next best thing: They created an army of their own.
William Mumford became the 1st US citizen to be hanged for treason.
Odore R. Timby patented a revolving gun turret.
Charles Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician whose penname of Lewis Carroll would make him world famous, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy tale he had dreamed up for her called “Alice’s Adventures Underground.” He later wrote it out for her and it became the classic children’s tale, “Alice in Wonderland.”
German-born illustrator Thomas Nast, is perhaps best remembered for his imaginative Christmas drawings that first appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1862 and continued for 30 years. Inspired by Clement Moore’s poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” Nast pictured Santa Claus as a jolly, white-bearded elf who lived at the North Pole and brought gifts only to good children. His drawings also portrayed many modern symbols we associate with Christmas–holly, toys under the Christmas tree and the reindeer-drawn sleigh on a snowy roof.
The Washington DC bordello of Mary Ann Hall at 349 Maryland Ave. was rated at the top of a list of 450 brothels catalogued by the office of the federal provost marshal. The city had an estimated 5,000 prostitutes, 18 of whom resided at the 3-story brick Hall house.
Bernard Maybeck was born. He designed the Palace of Fine Arts in SF
Jerry Thomas authored “How to Mix Drinks, or the Bon-Vivant’s Companion.” It also became known as the “Bar-Tenders Guide.”
Merck patented cocaine
and of course President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in the Confederacy henceforth and forever free. Though this has no immediate impact – the Confederacy, after all, is not in Lincoln’s control – emancipation becomes inextricably linked with war aims from this point on. Units made up of ex-slaves start to fight in the Union Army. It was the second year of the American Civil War. A bill was eventually passed to abolish slavery in Washington, D.C. President Lincoln also signed the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West. It officially opened the Nebraska territory for settlement, leading to statehood in 1867. The US government passed the Homestead Act to stop the spread of slavery to the Western territories. Public land was awarded to any head of a family on condition that the settlers improve the land and live there for 5 years.
March 30th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Japan has reneged on their agreement to be honest about the degree of nuclear pollution they have exposed the rest of the world to via the sea.
Sea food coming from Japan is deadly.
Urte
March 30th, 2011 at 10:02 am
Librarian: EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!
Now follow me as I make my rounds. It is also interesting to know what humans find significant about their history. Me I’m heading back to 1842 to visit Washington D.C.
Thanks for the heads-up.
AH
March 30th, 2011 at 10:03 am
oops, I meant 1862. See how excited that bit about the brothels made me.
November 7th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
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