Open Thread Wednesday

By on December 9, 2020 7:28 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    “those anti-battery stories might be propaganda”

    I hope you’re right! What makes you say so?

  • Bornhere

    I think you’re right. Sadly, one brother was lost a few years ago—hard-wired, old-time, back-in-the-day Heights dwellers….

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    The track record of the fossil fuel industry launching smear campaigns against renewable energy sources. I.e. the ton of anti wind power propaganda that’s out there,”clean coal” etc. Not to mention climate change denial as a whole.

  • Mary Kim

    I saw the surviving brother earlier this year. He said he was poor and lonely, but went to church for help. When the twin was still alive, they were more insular and not open to talking. Everyday that he’s alive and kicking is a good day!

  • Bornhere

    Henry and Joralemon are light a nightlight for truck moths. They barrel down Henry and often turn east on Joralemon. Yee-haw. The sign graciously posted by the City at Remsen/Henry about no trucks is useless.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    No doubt there’s a lot of anti-climate propaganda out there. No doubt much of it comes from the fossil fuels industry. That said, my cursory search (this evening) comparing the relative ecological impact of lithium battery production with carbon emissions revealed that both were awful, and what I recalled about mineral mining turned out to be true. Links: 1 2 3

    This is also interesting: a couple articles about ridiculous pickup truck design trends. Link 1 Link 2

  • Abigail

    I’ve had several conversations w him since his brother died. (They were NOT twins tho appeared to be, especially when wearing matching goggles for an eye condition. What a sweet, gentle soul the surviving brother is. He loved his brother dearly. He said his bro died of malnutrition.

  • B.

    Columbus was all right. His landing on this side of the Atlantic eventually allowed many millions to flee persecution or simply to seek better lives — perhaps no comfort to those displaced or killed when westward expansion was the order of the day, but there we are. All peoples have engaged in warfare and the enslavement of others. Oh, well.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Oh man…I just followed this thread, gradually realizing who it was about. Thank you everyone who talked to the surviving brother…it’s neighborhood fixtures like these who, among many others, make this such a wonderful and interesting place. If only I had the time I’d love to do all their portraits.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    “[M]oral standards were quite different 500 years ago”? Most Europeans of that time purported to live by the principles of “do unto others”; “love thy neighbor as thyself” (with the question “Who is my neighbor?” answered in the parable of the Good Samaritan); and all the precepts of the Beatitudes. These had been set out almost 1,500 years before Columbus, and were central to European religion at that time.

    Why did supposedly different moral standards in the past century not prevent the Holocaust? Can we not judge those Europeans who slaughtered and enslaved the indigenous people of the Americas just as we do the Nazis?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    “My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer.”

  • Andrew Porter

    ..

  • Andrew Porter

    Do you see something she wrote? I just see a blank space. Twice.

  • cool
  • CassieVonMontague

    I’ve linked to a tweet. You should see a “view” link to click on mobile, unless Twitter is blocked/unavailable on your device

  • Cranberry Beret

    Apropos of this week’s photo above:
    “CIVIC GURUS CALL FOR REMOVAL OF DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN COLUMBUS STATUE”
    https://www.brooklynpaper.com/downtown-brooklyn-columbus-statue-removal/

  • Bornhere

    Before flying off to college in the fall, my summer job that year was working on the order board for Rheingold: specific pencil, rotary phone, two lines of woman facing each other, and … “Good morning! Rheingold calling for tomorrow!” I lasted one week.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn
  • Mr. Hicks

    Perhaps the only attractive photo you’ve posted.

  • Daddyo

    How do they manage that? Joralemon runs to the WEST, not east…

  • CassieVonMontague

    So many questions. What’s an “order board”? Why a “specific” pencil? Two lines of women sitting at desks also on the order board? Why are you “calling for tomorrow”?

  • Bornhere

    The same way they manage to drive down Henry beyond Remsen, despite the sign forbidding that: there is no one to stop them. And at 2 AM, Joralemon is empty enough to allow a turn to the east. And it’s almost always private sanitation.

  • Bornhere

    I should have asked those questions before I thought it would be a fun summer experience: the order board was a group of women, calling bars, grocery stores, and such, asking which Rheingold products the shop would need for the next day. (I learned the terms “pony” and “half.”) The pencil “head” HAD to be used to dial the phone and then deftly turned, point down, to check off the items needed on the preprinted pad. There was also “the matron,” who would pace from one end of the group to the other, making sure that there were no departures from the rules. Actually, a friend from school (Friends) and I tried this gig together, and we both retired after the first week.

  • Andrew Porter

    Not blocked on my 27″ iMac, and I see links to Twitter all the time. Just not here.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer.
    Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer.
    It’s not bitter, not sweet; it’s the dry flavored treat.
    Won’t you try extra dry Rheingold beer?

    Every Met fan, back in the day, knows these lyrics by heart. RIP Linsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    One only needs a basic understanding of European history to know how the much they didn’t actually follow any of those lofty “Moral standards”…

    I like the Nazi analogy, it reinforces my point. However, the big difference I see between Hitler and Columbus is intent. Hitler set out to do the evil atrocities he committed Columbus did not, he was looking for a new trade route to India. Yes did do some atrocious acts to the indigenous people he found here, but his actions were pretty much in sync with accepted practice at the time.
    I’m not saying he be forgiven for those actions but the current “PC” attempt to paint him as an evil monster are IMHO, misguided. Setting sail into the unknown required an Astronaut’s level of bravery. Thus he changed the course of human history, giving us the place we call home. Let’s not forget that.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Extra Dry Treat.

    “My beer is Rheingold the dry beer.
    Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer.
    It’s not bitter, not sweet, it’s the extra dry treat
    Won’t you try extra dry Rheingold beer”

    With the polka music background.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    While I’m not an expert on European history, I’m generally aware of its broad sweep, including the Crusades, religious and dynastic wars, the Inquisition, pogroms, and the sybaritic lifestyles of the Medici. My point was that those who participated in these acts – perhaps especially the Medici, four of whom attained the Papacy – at least paid some lip service to the precepts mentioned in my previous comment. Accordingly, I don’t think it’s wrong for us to judge their actions in light of those precepts, just as we judge the actions of our contemporaries and near ancestors.

    What disturbed me about your post was its apparently cynical “get over it” tone that implies a resignation to the inevitability of evil and a naked consequentialism, a topic with which I have wrestled for some time: https://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/2007/11/paul-tibbets-and-consequentialism.html

  • Andrew Porter

    How much to tip the staff in your building this holiday season: this link might prove useful:

    https://www.triplemint.com/tips/

  • Andrew Porter

    But I learned a different, cynical one:

    My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer.
    It’s not bitter, not sweet.
    But what do you expect for two bits?

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