Did You Know.....

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....that a Lincoln Assassination Witness appears on "I've Got a Secret". The panelists on this show were, left to right (in order of appearance): Bill Cullen, Jayne Meadows, Henry Morgan, and Lucille Ball. The host was Garry Moore. 

More info:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/49050/one-witness-lincoln-assassination-might-have-been-alive-during-your-lifetime

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/samuel-j-seymour-lincoln-assassination_n_918381.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/13/last-witness-to-assassination/?page=all

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17 Bizarre Natural Remedies From the 1700's

.... that in the late 1740s, John Wesley — a British evangelist and the co-founder of Methodism—published Primitive Physick, or, An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. The tome gave regular people ways to cure themselves, using items they could find in their own homes.

When in doubt, Welsey thought that drinking cold water or taking cold baths could cure most illnesses (including breast cancer); some of his suggestions, like using chamomile tea to soothe an upset stomach, have survived today. Other cures he whipped up, though, are decidedly strange.

Here are a few of them:
1. To Cure An Ague
Wesley describes an ague as "an intermitting fever, each fit of which is preceded by a cold shivering and goes off in a sweat." There are many natural remedies for curing it, but all must be preceded by taking a "gentle vomit," which, if taken two hours before the fit, Wesley says will generally prevent it, and may even cure the ague. If the vomiting fails, however, Wesley suggests wearing a bag of groundsel, a weed, "on the pit of the stomach, renewing it two hours before the fit." The weed should be shredded small, and the side of the bag facing the skin should have holes in it.

Should this not work, Wesley suggests a remedy that requires a stronger stomach: "Make six middling pills of cobwebs, take one a little before the cold fit: Two a little before the next fit: The other three, if Need be, a little before the third fit. I never knew this fail."

2. To Cure a Canine Appetite
Wesley turns to a Dr. Scomberg for the cure to this condition, which is defined by Wesley as "an insatiable desire of eating": If there's no vomiting, canine appetite "is often cured by a small Bit of Bread dipt in Wine, and applied to the Nostrils."

3. To Cure Asthma
Tar water, sea water, nettle juice, and quicksilver are all acceptable cures for what Wesley calls "moist Asthma" (which is characterized by "a difficulty of breathing ... the patient spits much"). But a method that "seldom fails," Wesley says, is living "a fortnight on boiled carrots only."

Dry and convulsive asthma, meanwhile, can be treated with toad, dried and powdered. "Make it into small pills," Wesley writes, "and take one every hour until the convulsions fade."

4. To Prevent/Cure Nose Bleeds
Drinking whey and eating raisins every day, Wesley says, can help prevent nose bleeds. Other methods for preventing or curing the phenomenon include "hold[ing] a red hot poker under the nose" and "steep[ing] a linnen rag in sharp vinegar, burn[ing] it, and blow[ing] it up the nose with a Quill."

5. To cure a "cold in the head"
Getting rid of this common ailment is easy, according to Wesley: Just "pare very thin the yellow rind of an orange," he writes. "Roll it up inside out, and thrust a roll inside each nostril."

6. To cure "An habitual colic"
Today's doctors define colic as a condition suffered by "a healthy, well-fed infant who cries for more than three hours per day, for more than three days per week, for more than three weeks." But adults can get it, too; it's characterized by severe stomach pains and spasms (which, we now know, can be an indication of other conditions, like Crohn's disease and irritable bowel syndrome). To cure it, Wesley suggests this odd remedy: "Wear a thin soft Flannel on the part."

6. To cure "white specks in the eye"
While it's unclear exactly what "white specks in the eye" actually is—eye floaters, maybe—Wesley suggests that, when "going to bed, put a little ear-wax on the Speck.—This has cured many."

7. To cure the falling sickness
Those who suffer from this illness "fall to the ground, either quite stiff, or convulsed all over, utterly senseless, gnashing his teeth, and foaming at the mouth." To cure the condition, Wesley recommends "an entire milk diet for three months: It rarely fails." During fits, though, "blow up the nose a little powder'd ginger."

8. To cure the gout
"Regard not them who say the gout ought not to be cured. They mean, it cannot," Wesley writes. (They, here, might be referring to regular practitioners of medicine.) "I know it cannot by their regular prescriptions. But I have known it cured in many cases, without any ill effect following." Gout in the foot or hand can be cured by "apply[ing] a raw lean beef-steak. Change it once in twelve hours, 'till cured."

Curing the gout in any limb can be accomplished by beginning this ritual at six in the evening: "Undress and wrap yourself up in Blankets. — Then put your Legs up to the Knees in Water, as hot as you can bear it. As it cools, let hot Water be poured in, so as to keep you in a strong Sweat till ten. Then go into a Bed well warm'd and sweat till Morning. — I have known this to cure an inveterate Gout."

9. To cure Jaundice
Wesley suggests curing jaundice—which turns the skin and whites of the eyes yellow (thanks to too much bilirubin in the blood, we now know)—by wearing "leaves of Celandine upon and under the feet." Other possible cures include taking a small pill of Castile soap in the morning for eight to 10 days, or "as much lies on a shilling of calcin'd egg-shells, three mornings fasting; and walk till you sweat."

10. To cure "The Iliac Passion"
This decidedly unpleasant condition—which Wesley defines as a "violent kind of Colic ... the Excrements are thrown up by the mouth in vomiting," yuck—has a few cures, including "apply[ing] warm Flannel soaked in Spirits of Wine." Most delightful, however, is the cure recommended by a Dr. Sydenham: "Hold a live Puppy constantly on the Belly."

11. To cure "the palpitation or beating of the heart"
Among the remedies for this ailment are the mundane "drink a Pint of cold Water," the stinky-but-probably-not-effective "apply outwardly a Rag dipt In vinegar," and the very exciting "be electrified" (which is suggested for a few other illnesses as well).

12. To Cure the Pleurisy
This illness is characterized by "a Fever attended with a violent pain in the Side, and a Pulse remarkably hard." (It's caused, we now know, when the double membrane that surrounds the lungs inside the chest cavity becomes inflamed.) Wesley's first suggested remedy involves applying "to the Side Onions roasted in the Embers, mixt with Cream." Next up is filling the core of an apple with frankincense "stop[ping] it close with the Piece you cut out and roast[ing] it in Ashes. Mash and eat it." Sounds delicious!

13. To cure the Quinsy
"A quinsy," Wesley explains, "is a Fever attended with Difficulty of Swallowing, and often Breathing." (Today, the condition is called "peritonsillar abscess" and it's known to be a complication of tonsillitis.) He suggests applying "a large White-bread Toast, half an Inch thick, dipt in Brandy, to the crown of the Head till it dries."

14. To Cure "A Windy Rupture"
Wesley doesn't say what, exactly, this condition is, though a Google search brings up the term hernia ventosa, which another medical book of the same time defines as a "false hernia ... where the wind is pent up by the coats of the Testes, inflating and blowing up the inguen," or the groin area. Wesley prescribes the following method to cure it: "Warm Cow-dung well. Spread it thick on Leather, [throwing] some cummin seeds on it, and apply it hot. When cold, put on a new one." This, he says, "commonly cures a Child (keeping his Bed) in two Days."

15. To Cure a "Tooth-ache"
Wesley suggests being electrified through the tooth. If that's too extreme for you, try "rub[bing] the Cheek a Quarter of an Hour ... Or, put[ting] a Clove of Garlick into the Ear."

16. To Stop Vomiting
Induced vomiting was an important part of Wesley's medical theories (remember the "gentle vomit" that could stop the ague?). But if a patient was vomiting and it wasn't a part of the prescribed method for curing him, Wesley advised "after every Vomiting, drink a pint of warm water; or, apply a large onion slit, to the Pit of the Stomach."

17. Dealing with a cut
Wesley suggests holding the cut closed "with your thumb for a quarter of an hour" (what we might call applying pressure these days), then dipping a rag in cold water and wrapping the cut in it. Another method: "Bind on toasted cheese," Wesley writes. "This will cure a deep cut." Pounded grass, applied fresh every 12 hours, will also do the trick.

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Your Brain On Alcohol

Your Brain on Marijuana

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...that within our lexicon lives a library of forgotten stories, developed over centuries and tucked away in words. Thanks to the dirty impulses of our forefathers, quite a few of them also contain filthy chapters, making us the unwittingly foul-mouthed butt of their humor.

Here are some of our language's naughtier practical jokes:

1. Orchid
Oops, you just said: Testicles
Take a look at certain orchids' roots, and you'll probably notice that they look like testicles. If not, you've set yourself apart from multiple generations of language-makers that simply couldn't help but name the whole plant family after this snicker-worthy observation. Our contemporary word for the flower, introduced in 1845, comes from the Greek orchis, which literally translates as "testicle." Speakers of Middle English in the 1300s came up with a phonologically different word—inspired by the same exact dirty thought. They called the flower ballockwort from ballocks, or testicles, which itself evolved from beallucas, the Old English word for balls.

2. Porcelain
Oops, you just said: Pig's vagina
The word "porcelain" comes from the material's Italian name, porcellana, which literally translates as a "cowrie shell" and refers to porcelain's similarly smooth surface. But the Italian cowrie shell in turn takes its name from porcella, a young sow, because the shell's shape is reminiscent of a small, female pig's vulva.

3. Vanilla
Oops, you just said: Vagina
During Hernando Cortes' conquest of the Aztec empire, his men discovered the vanilla plant and dubbed it vainilla, literally "little pod" or "little sheath," from the Latin vagina, "sheath." The conquistadors drew the name from the shape of the plants' bodies, which need to be split open in order to extract the beans they enclose—still a bit of a stretch as they more closely resemble tough, dark string beans. Funny enough, the '70s slang sense of vanilla as "conventional" or "of ordinary sexual preferences" has nothing to do with its original etymology; instead, it refers to the unadventurous choice of vanilla ice cream and the blandness of the color white.

4. Seminar
Oops, you just said: Semen
"Seminar" comes from the Latin seminarium, meaning "breeding ground" or "plant nursery," which itself comes from the Latin seminarius, meaning "of seed." Given the words' phonological likeness, it's pretty obvious that they all come down to the Latin semen, "seed."

5. Fundamental
Oops, you just said: Buttocks
The 15th-century word "fundamental" is derived from the Late Latin fundamentalis, meaning "of the foundation," which itself is from the earlier Latin fundamentum. While taking another step back won't lead you to the buttocks, a small, crooked step forward will take you to fundamentum's more immediate descendent, fundament, which has meant "anus" or "buttocks" since the 13th century.

6. Avocado
Oops, you just said: Testicle
Yet another generation that looked at plants and saw balls, 18th-century Spaniards took the vegetable fruit's name from an earlier Spanish version, aquacate, which evolved from the region's pre-conquest Nahuatl ahuakati, meaning "testicle."

7. Pencil
Oops, you just said: Penis
In the 14th century, "pencil" took on the meaning "an artist's fine brush of camel hair" from the French pincel, meaning the same thing minus the camel part. Pincel came from the Latin penicillus, which means "paintbrush" or "pencil" but literally translates as "little tail," the diminutive of the Latin penis, "tail."

8. Musk
Oops, you just said: Scrotum
Again we return to the testicles. "Musk," the substance secreted from a male deer's glandular sac, traces back to the Sanskrit muska-s, meaning "testicle," because of its origin's resemblance to a scrotum. For more evidence of our forefathers' far-fetched visual association games, one need only trace muska-s back to its origin, mus, meaning "mouse," which allegedly also looks like a scrotum. But why stop there when the same root gives us "muscle" from the Latin musculus, literally "little mouse." How, you ask? Well, muscles, too, allegedly look like mice... which look like scrotums, which look like deer glands.

9. Amazon
Oops, you just said: Breastless woman
In the late 1300s, the Greek spoke of the Amazones, a Scythian race of female warriors that, according to popular folk etymology, had an interesting custom of cutting or burning off one breast in order to draw bowstrings more easily. They stood out quite starkly as a- mazos, "without breasts."

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5 Reasons Pets are Great for the Workplace

....that the idea that pets are good for workplace productivity is counterintuitive: Pets are noisy and rambunctious, and they need to be fed, walked, and cuddled throughout the day. If anything, they sound like they would distract from work.

Yet a growing number of companies, from Ben & Jerry's to Google, are allowing employees to bring their pets to work. Some, like Village Green, a Detroit-based property management company, actually pay workers to bring their pets to work.
Here, five ways pets can improve the workplace:

1. They lower stress levels
Many work environments are inherently stressful: There are deadlines and quotas to meet, bosses and coworkers to please, and often very little sunlight and opportunity to get out from behind the computer screen. All these factors can elevate stress and lower workplace satisfaction, taking a bite out of worker productivity.

The antidote to all that stress? Research shows that four-legged furry friends can be of great help.

Recent studies in hospitals and nursing homes have shown the powerful effect animals can have on human health. Interspecies interaction can contribute to lower blood pressure, relief from depression and anxiety, and even faster recovery after surgeries. Similar benefits have been proven in the office setting, too.

In 2012, a Virginia Commonwealth University study took a look at a 550-person manufacturing-retail office in Greensboro, N.C., where about 20 to 30 dogs came to work each day, says Science Daily. Using surveys and saliva samples to evaluate stress levels, researchers found that self-reported stress declined throughout the day for employees who brought their pets to the office.

Meanwhile, those who left their dogs at home experienced an increase of self-reported stress throughout the day. By the end of the day, the group had "significantly higher stress" than the group with dogs.


2. They help break the ice
Like a cute baby or an offensive T-shirt, pets have a way of instigating conversation among humans. This can be clutch in the modern workplace, where many employees interact only through screens, and offices can be quiet, except for the noisy typers.

Pets pull people away from their screens long enough to answer questions about, well, their pets—the breed, the story behind the name, etc. These face-to-face conversations can help team members bond and boost morale.

A 2010 study out of the University of Central Michigan showed how pets can foster bonding in the workplace:

The CMU study involved several experiments; one involving groups of four individuals, some with or without dogs. Each group member was charged with a fake crime, and surveyed to see if they would report their fellow group members. Groups with dogs present made employees 30 percent less likely to report each other, showing that canine co-workers make for a more cohesive and trustworthy workplace environment. [The Humane Society]


3. They force breaks
Most jobs don't require workers to take breaks, and in a competitive, fast-paced environment, that can mean full days where workers don't leave their desks for more than the occasional trip to the water cooler.

Having a dog in the office requires the owner to occasionally peel herself away from her computer and take the dog for a walk, essentially forcing a break.

Though it sounds counterintuitive, these breaks can boost productivity. Studies show that sustained mental effort over multiple hours, like the kind required for data entry jobs, for example, can cause mental fatigue and stress, resulting in more mistakes and lower productivity. Occasionally breaking away, however, can boost focus and creativity, and lower mistakes.

It also helps that the dog owners are taking the breaks outside and moving around—also good for mental clarity.


4. They remove pests for free
At Civitas, an urban design, planning, and landscape architecture firm in Denver, a gray and white cat named Gonzo performs a vital task: Mice removal.

"The mice came back when the cat before him died, but disappeared again when Gonzo showed up," says Amirah Shahid, a landscape architect at the firm. "He recently left a dead mouse carcass as a present at someone's desk."

Beyond the free gifts, the cat means not having to hire an exterminator to spray chemicals around the office.


5. The decor
Another benefit: Some cats and dogs can make the space more attractive. "[Gonzo's] very handsome to look at," says Shahid. "And he makes us take much needed breaks to acknowledge his presence when he's making his rounds around the studio."

"Clients, consultants, and other office visitors think we're super cool because we have him roaming around."

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Did you know we have the technology to be 'Iron Man'! We can rebuild...ourselves!

Will You be Iron Man?

Human interface technologies like Google Glass, robotic prosthetics, and bionic eyes have the potential to help people recover lost abilities, but also to grant us new abilities.  Will you someday be able to turn on your super-human hearing just by thinking about it?  Maybe... if you live long enough.  The question of whether we /should/ well, we'll leave that to the philosophers.

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...these six things about "Bonnie and Clyde?

You've probably heard of Bonnie and Clyde, but have you heard of Bonnie and Roy?

This month marks the 79th anniversary of the deaths of notorious crime duo Bonnie and Clyde on May 23, 1934.  The young gangsters in love tore across the American Southwest during the Great Depression, leaving a trail of robberies and murders.

Newspapers demonized Clyde Barrow and his "gunwoman" Bonnie Parker as "notorious desperados" and "dangerous killers," so the following six facts might surprise you.

1. Although Barrow and Parker claimed to be married, Parker remained legally married to her first husband, Roy Thornton. On the day she died, she still wore his wedding ring and bore a tattoo on her knee with intertwined hearts and their names, Bonnie and Roy. http://texashideout.tripod.com/bonroy.html

2. Bonnie and Clyde were both short. Parker was only 4'11″ and Barrow 5'4″ at a time when average heights for women and men were about 5'3″ and 5'8″. (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who played Bonnie and Clyde in the famous 1967 film stood 5'7″ and 6'2″ respectively.)

3. Parker was an honor student and a poet, and life as one of America's most wanted didn't stifle those interests. Shortly before her death, Parker wrote a poem called "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde," which was published in several newspapers and immortalized their tale.

***See Poem Below


4. Parker and Barrow remained close to their families, even on the run. In fact, it was their predictable pattern of stopping to visit family that aided the team of Texas Rangers and deputies who ambushed and killed them.

5. The pair attained such notoriety that hordes of people flocked to the scene of their death and later to the coroner's to retrieve "souvenirs." Some attempted to cut off Barrow's ear or finger; others took snippets of Parker's blood-soaked dress or shattered window glass. One man offered Barrow's father over $30,000 for Barrow's body—the equivalent of over $600,000 today.

6. Eight decades later, the morbidly curious can see Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-ridden death car on display at Whiskey Pete's Casino in Primm, Nevada, outside of Las Vegas.

***The Story of Bonnie and Clyde
You've read the story of Jesse James
Of how he lived and died;
      If you're still in need
      Of something to read,
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang,
I'm sure you all have read
      How they rob and steal
      And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.

There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
      Their nature is raw;
      They hate all the law
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.

They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
      But I say this with pride,
      That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.

But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
      Till he said to me,
      "I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."

The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
      But they made up their minds
      If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.

The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
      But it's fight, man to man,
      And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.

From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
      But take it all in all,
      Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
      If they can't find a fiend,
      They just wipe their slate clean
And hand it on Bonnie and Clyde.

There's two crimes committed in America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
      They had no hand
      In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City depot job.

A newsboy once said to his buddy;
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
      In these awful hard times
      We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."

The police haven't got the report yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
      He said, "Don't start any fights
      We aren't working nights
We're joining the NRA."

From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
      Where the women are kin,
      And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
      About the third night
      They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

They don't think they're too tough or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
      They've been shot at before,
      But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.

Some day they'll go down together;
And they'll bury them side by side;
      To few it'll be grief
      To the law a relief
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

-- Bonnie Parker

[Bullwinkle]

      Saw the car at the Kansas State fair. Don't recall the year, I was pretty young.