the magical coffee cup

 A few years ago, Sharon and I had breakfast at the home of our daughter and son-in-law. After we finished the meal, Kelly and Chris left to go to Home Depot in order to get some more supplies for the house. Since we consider ourselves to be good house guests, I decided to clean up the kitchen. After loading the dishwasher, and washing the pots and pans, I noticed a coffee cup that looked unusually dirty. Since I did not think the that dishwasher could clean it adequately, I decided to clean it by hand. 

The inside of the cup was covered with a hard, brown substance, so I had to use a scrub brush in order to make it clean. 

 Wrong move. 

 When Kelly and Chris got home, he was less than pleased that I had cleaned his coffee cup – and a lot of his displeasure stems from the fact that he spend some time in the Navy.

 Like Army coffee, Navy coffee is not particularly good. In the words of a Navy blogger, “it was hot and strong. Very strong. The thickness of it closely resembled crude oil. It tasted both wonderful and terrible at the same time. Your mind can trick you into believing anything. When a supreme pot of joe is brewed, many of the volunteers would call it “Signal Bridge Coffee,” recalling the nostalgia of long nights and many cups consumed.

” https://www.navyhistory.org/2013/11/dont-wash-that-coffee-mug/ “

The 1945 Cookbook of the United States Navy lists several reasons why a clean mug and pot of coffee is essential to a flavorful experience. All parts of the coffee mess had to be “scrupulously clean,” according to the cook book. 

 Sailors today might read those guidelines and laugh at the rules and regulations. 

Several recent articles about the practice surfaced on the internet on message boards and military news blogs. One blogger from the Military Times (Broadside Blog) wrote about it this past August. “There are only a few things you need to know about Navy coffee, and most of it involves the cup,” the blogger writes. “You do not wash a Navy coffee cup. Ever.” 

 I took Chief Martin’s advice, but not at first. For the first few weeks following our confrontation, I washed my cup out after he left for the day. But I got lazy after a while. I starting noticing dark brown rings inside my cup. My mug started to look like the inside of a tree, and I started to like it. The mug was white, so it was easy to measure my progress. The rings grew larger and darker until the entire inside was jet back. Although I was never in the military, I felt a swelling of pride at my Frankenstein creation. Unfortunately, that mug did not survive. My latest and greatest creation came about in 2009. It has not been washed or cleaned since its purchase. I don’t know if my peers understand it. My wife surely doesn’t. I have a similar mug at home that she avoids looking at, and, on rare occasions, will clean when I am not looking. 

 Here is my (meager) contribution to this fine naval tradition. I warn you, if you are unfamiliar with the practice, you might be shocked. Behold: My four year “seasoned” mug:”

 According to The Wall Street Journal, you don’t need to wash your coffee cup every day, unless you happen to share your coffee cup with someone else, or if you add cream and sugar to your coffee cup (cream and sugar can lead to mold). 

 Before you run away screaming from the germ-tastic idea, let’s break this down to figure out if it’s actually OK to do. Infectious disease expert Jeffrey Starke, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine, tells The Wall Street Journal that even though there might technically be germs in an unwashed coffee cup, it’s fine because they are yours. These germs, even if you’re sick, won’t hurt you again if you drink out of the same mug. “Very few viruses can exist for more than an hour on an inert object” 

Starke said. In fact, Starke says that washing your coffee mug every day might actually be worse for you, especially if you’re using an old sponge at your office. The sponge in the break room probably has the highest bacteria count of anything in the office,” Starke explains. If you are washing your coffee mug with said sponge, it might benefit from a quick ride in the microwave to kill off germs.

 https://www.thekitchn.com/is-it-really-ok-to-not-wash-your-coffee-cup-238581 

 It’s up to you if you want to wash your coffee cup (or not) but you NEVER want to drink your coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. 

Styrofoam is a brand name for a material called polystyrene. Polystyrene is injected with gas to get polystyrene foam which is then used for food packaging. So now you know what you are drinking if you drink your coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. Polystyrene from Styrofoam cups and containers can easily get into the food or beverages carried in them. Styrene is a carcinogen that can cause irritation and secretion of mucous from the eyes and nose, increase the level of fatigue, decrease the ability to concentrate, and disrupt the hormone functions resulting in thyroid problems.

Styrene can take about 500 years to decompose so remember that most of the food products we purchase today could be disposable but not decomposable. If you are looking for alternatives to Styrofoam cups, you can use these environmentally friendly options. Biodegradable cups: Unlike most cups, these cups do not use a paper jacket but cardboard on the interior of the mug to keep the heat inside. Also, these cups have lower toxicity levels than traditional go-to cups. Reusable coffee mugs: Just go ahead and purchase a reusable coffee mug such as stainless steel or aluminum. Wash your coffee cup each day, and you will have a clean, attractive and environmentally friendly alternative.

 https://www.today.com/health/why-it-s-ok-not-wash-your-favorite-coffee-mug-t104698  

Oh … If you are wondering where coffee came from in the first place - you can thank the Muslims.

 https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2009/03/muslims-and-dancing-goats.html

kill the Christians !

 

More than a decade ago, I wrote about the Crusades, which turned out to be 9 military assaults on the most advanced people in the world at that time (the Muslims). In all, the Crusades lasted nearly 200 years, and finally came to a conclusion in the year 1272.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2009/06/book-of-signs.html

Christian persecutions of “the other” did not end with the Crusades, since the Spanish Inquisition lasted longer than the Crusades, from 1478 to 1834. The primary target for the Inquisition was the Jewish population of Spain, but also included the Muslims as well. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, which gave Jews the choice of either conversion or exile. As a result, more than 160,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. (In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to the entire Sephardic Jewish diaspora. In 2014, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past." Thus, Sephardi Jews who can prove they are the descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain because of the Alhambra Decree can "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Spanish-Inquisition

 If you read enough fiction, you’ll discover that you can learn a lot of FACTS by reading a good fiction novel. Many of my favorite authors (John Grisham, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, and Steve Berry) are all masters at wrapping intriguing story lines around historical facts – and Steve Berry is the best of the bunch.

I just finished reading “The Lake of Learning”, which focused on the only Crusade (the Albigensian Crusade) where the Christians were killing Christians. The target in this Crusade were the Christians who practiced a variation of Christianity called the religion of the Cathars, and it took the lives of nearly 1,000,000 people. The “last stand” for the Cathars was a place in southern France named Montesgur (pictured below)

 

History lies at the heart of every Steve Berry novel. It’s his passion, one he shares with his wife, Elizabeth, which led them to create History Matters, a foundation dedicated to historic preservation. Since 2009 Steve and Elizabeth have crossed the country to save endangered historic treasures, raising money via lectures, receptions, galas, luncheons, dinners and their popular writers’ workshops. To date, 3,500 students have attended those workshops with over $1.5 million dollars raised.

Berry was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 4,200 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its co-president. Berry first appeared in print with his historical thrillers The Amber Room and The Romanov Prophecy in 2003 and 2004. A practicing attorney at the time, Berry had been writing fiction since 1990, and it took him 12 years and 85 rejections before selling a manuscript to Ballantine Books. Berry credits the nuns who taught him in Catholic school with instilling the discipline needed both to craft a novel and to find a publisher.

 

The website for History Matters (see below) includes a list of the past events for the organization. One of the events was at the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, which I have actually been to.

 

https://history-matters.org/

 

Steve Berry has written more than 20 novels – and I have read nearly all of them. If you’re looking for a good read, grab one of his books.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Why I don't watch television, part 4

 

Life keeps getting more complicated. Since I published the article posted below, we’d made a few more changes in our technology.

http://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-i-dont-watch-television-part-3.html

After Brian’s old laptop flamed out, I was forced to buy another desktop computer. By now, the bugs have been worked out of the Windows 10 operating system, so everything worked fine when I put it all together in our home office.

Our current system of CenturyLink and Direct TV worked fine - until about a week ago. Since Kim will be starting work again in the new future, she needed HIGH SPEED internet to do her job. Since CenturyLink could not provide a service that was fast enough, we went to Xfinity, which also necessitated switching back to Comcast for our television service, at least for now.

Since we have now added a TV to the living room, we needed add another DirectTV box for the living room. Due to the switch shown above, it will be dormant until (and if) we switch back to DirectTV.

Since the DVD player in the master bedroom is a bit rickety, we bought a DVD/Blu- Ray/streaming device for the TV in the living room. From what I can tell, it did not come with an owner’s manual, and I had Brian install it for us. It IS possible to download the entire 62 page owner’s manual for free, but that would necessitate the printing costs. If you are willing to spend the time, you can view the owner’s manual in a PDF file for free.

http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/8/8b625c2e-dca3-4376-8c70-2aaa6e5720da.pdf

The remote for our DVD/Blu-Ray unit has 38 buttons, which includes the TWO “power buttons”. The new Xfinity box has its own remote, which has 30 buttons. The Samsung TV also has a remote, which has 47 buttons.

Television, naturally, is not the only thing that has gotten more complicated – and it’s all due to the coronavirus. In order to pick up a book from the library, I need to send a text from outside the building, and the librarian will then bring my books to me.

My sister attends church services by ZOOM, because going to church services inside a building is still too dangerous.

Even more dangerous than going to church, though, is going to school, and I have not worked as a sub teacher since the middle of March. You may have read that 166 students contracted the virus the first day of school in Mississippi, but neither political party will have live conventions because it is not safe to do so.

Sub teachers will soon the option of subbing remotely, but I have no idea how that will work. Another option is acting as a proctor for a classroom with a limited number of students.

Although I’m reasonably competent when it comes to computers, when it comes to television, I’m going to have to get by with a little help from my friends – and that’s why I don’t watch much television

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg

The American dream is not dead

Our history is littered with stories of men , often immigrants, who had ideas that would transform society, and they became very rich in the process.

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire.

During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away $350 million (conservatively $65 billion in 2019 dollars, based on percentage of GDP) to charities, foundations, and universities – almost 90 percent of his fortune. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.

At the time of his death, he was worth $372 billion in 2014 dollars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

Although Andrew and Dale Carnegie were not related, they both shared a desire to help improve the prospects of their fellow man. Although Andrew Carnegie founded numerous charitable organizations, his most lasting legacy is  the Carnegie libraries. Between 1883 and 1929, he used his vast fortune to fund a total of 2509 Carnegie libraries.

Carnegie’s philosophy of life can be summed up by “the Andrew Carnegie Dictum”:

·         To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.

·         To spend the next third making all the money one can.

·         To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.

Dale Carnegie was born in rural Missouri in 1888, and was the second son of farmers James Carnegie and his wife Amanda Harbison. His first job after college was selling correspondence courses to ranchers. He moved on to selling bacon, soap, and lard for Armour & Company ^[He was successful to the point of making his sales territory of South Omaha, Nebraska, the national leader for the firm.

After saving $500, Dale Carnegie quit sales in 1911 in order to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a Chautauqua lecturer. He ended up instead attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, but found little success as an actor, though it is written that he played the role of Dr. Hartley in a road show of Polly of the Circus. When the production ended, he returned to New York, living at the YMCA on 125th Street. There he got the idea to teach public speaking, and he persuaded the YMCA manager to allow him to instruct a class in return for 80% of the net proceeds. In his first session, he had run out of material. Improvising, he suggested that students speak about "something that made them angry", and discovered that the technique made speakers unafraid to address a public audience. From this 1912 debut, the Dale Carnegie Course evolved. Carnegie had tapped into the average American's desire to have more self-confidence, and by 1914, he was earning $500 (about $12800 today) every week. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie 

William Henry Gates III is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer, president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. As of 2020, his net worth is $113 billion, which makes him the SECOND richest man in the world, after Jeff Bezos.

  Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Gates co-founded Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it went on to become the world's largest personal computer software company. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world all but four of those years. In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion compared to Gates's net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time. As of July 2020, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$111.8 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in the world, behind Bezos.  

^{Looking at the picture shown below (from 1975) it's hard to imagine that the man on the left would one day be the richest man in the world.} 

 

^{Like Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates believes in philanthropy.}

Later in his career and since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors. He has given sizable amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity. In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Jeff Bezos is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and president of the multi-national technology company Amazon. The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos has been the world's richest person since 2017 and was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018. In September 2018, Forbes described him as "far richer than anyone else on the planet" as he added $1.8 billion to his net worth when Amazon became the second company in history to reach a market cap of $1 trillion.

Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964, the son of Jacklyn (née Gise) and Ted Jorgensen. At the time of his birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high school student and his father was a bike shop owner. After his parents divorced, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos in April 1968. Shortly after the wedding, Mike adopted four-year-old Jorgensen, whose surname was then changed to Bezos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They incorporated Google as a California privately held company on September 4, 1998, in California. Google was then reincorporated in Delaware on October 22, 2002. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's leading subsidiary and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page who became the CEO of Alphabet. It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.

Larry Page was born in Michigan, but Sergey Brin and his family emigrated from Russia when he was 6. As of 2020, Brin is the 7^th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $67.6 billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

Apple is now the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, passing Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco. As of close of business Friday, July 31, Apple has a market valuation of $1.84 trillion, while Saudi Aramco’s is $1.76 trillion, according to CNBC. Apple’s stock, which has been on a largely-steady climb since the end of March, closed up more than 10 percent on Friday following the company’s record-breaking third-quarter earnings on Thursday, ending the day at $425.04.

Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a business partnership.  The company's first product is the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak . To finance its creation, Jobs sold his only motorized means of transportation, a VW Microbus, for a few hundred dollars, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for US$500 (equivalent to $2,246 in 2019). Wozniak debuted the first prototype at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976 .The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer.It went on sale soon after debut for US$666.66 (equivalent to $2,995 in 2019). Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21350154/apple-worlds-most-valuable-company-saudi-aramco

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, to Abdulfattah Jandali and Joanne Schieble, and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian).

His biological father, Abdulfattah "John" (al-)Jandali, grew up in Homs, Syria, and was born into an Arab Muslim household. While an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, he was a student activist and spent time in prison for his political activities He pursued a PhD at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Joanne Carole Schieble, a Catholic of Swiss and German descent As a doctoral candidate, Jandali was a teaching assistant for a course Schieble was taking, although both were the same age. Mona Simpson, 

Jobs's biological sister, notes that her maternal grandparents were not happy that their daughter was dating a Muslim. Walter Isaacson, author of the Steve Jobs biography, additionally states that Schieble's father "threatened to cut Joanne off completely" if she continued the relationship. Jobs’s adoptive father, Paul Reinhold Jobs, was a Coast Guard mechanic. After leaving the Coast Guard, Paul Jobs married Clara Hagopian in 1946. Their attempts to start a family were halted after Clara had an ectopic pregnancy, leading them to consider adoption in 1955. 

 Schieble became pregnant with Jobs in 1954, when she and Jandali spent the summer with his family in Homs, Syria. According to Jandali, Schieble deliberately did not involve him in the process: "without telling me, Joanne upped and left to move to San Francisco to have the baby without anyone knowing, including me."

Schieble gave birth to Jobs on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco and chose an adoptive couple for him that was "Catholic, well-educated, and wealthy, but the couple later changed their mind. Jobs was then placed with Paul and Clara Jobs, neither of whom had a college education, and Schieble refused to sign the adoption papers. She then took the matter to court in an attempt to have her baby placed with a different family, and only consented to releasing the baby to Paul and Clara after the couple pledged to pay for the boy's college education.

YouTube is an American video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

Chad  Hurley founded YouTube in 2005 with Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. On October 16, 2006, Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google Inc. for $1.65 billion. Although Hurley was born in Pennsylvania, Steve Chen was born in Taiwan, and Jawed Karim was born in   East Germany. At the time of the company’s sale to Google, Hurley was 30 years old, Cen was 28, and Karim was 26.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

Although all of the stories shown above are remarkable, I’m of the opinion that YouTube is the most fantastic. In little more than a year after its founding, the company was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, which instantly made the three founders mulit-bilionaires.


Who said that the American dream is dead?