Breaching The Web

Regular gum has been around forever, but bubble gum is just 76 years old. It was accidentally invented by Walter Diemer in 1928 — he was trying to do something else — and personally marketed by him for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company. He taught salesmen how to blow bubbles so that they could demonstrate to store owners, and he had parties for kids where he gave them gum and told them the history of its invention. And why is bubble gum pink? Because that’s the only shade of food coloring Diemer had at hand when he first created the new gum.

This cool slow motion clip of dandelion fluff blowing off a dandelion gone to seed is fascinating. You can see each little fluffy bit separating from the plant and flying away. The question of how far dandelion fluff can travel is suddenly important due to an invasion of dandelion-like weeds that are resistant to round-up pesticide.

The Ledo Road was a massive World War II effort to connect the English and American troops in India with their allies in China, who had been cut off by the Japanese occupation of Burma. Completed in 1945, the road was over 1,078 miles long, cost about $150 million to build, and took 1,133 lives — “a man a mile.” Over 60% of the engineers who built the road were African American, and they and their white officers were some of the most influential voices in the fight to integrate the military after WWII. Much of the manual labor on the road was done by workers from Indian tea gardens; most of the histories overlook the near slave-labor conditions these workers were forced into in building the road.

The China-Burma-India (CBI) theater in World War II is often referred to as “the forgotten theater” because it has been overshadowed in the history books by events in the Pacific and Europe.

Maybe if I go back to bed and wake up again I’ll discover that this was all just a nightmare. Because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it’s real.

“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” — Joseph Stalin

“Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom” — Friedrich August Hayek

Today I believe that Stalin and Hayek are wrong. Their vision is not my vision. However, a tiny voice in my head wonders — what will I believe tomorrow?