Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, photographs, videos and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

What colourful butterflies!

Photo by Böhringer Friedrich

Opinion Warning Signs. Sometimes opinions are more a sign of group loyalty than they are an individual’s genuine interpretation of the truth. This list includes warning signs to look out for when this sort of thing may be happening. Many behaviours on the list are also compelling reasons why I get to know new friends really well before opening up to them about certain topics.

We Agree to be Offended by Certain Words. Not sure what I think about this yet. It’s definitely a good thing to have thick skin and give ignorant people the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, why do we so often expect the person being harassed to be a perpetual object lesson/good representative of his or her group? Isn’t there something to be said for holding everyone to high standards?

From Killing Donald Evans:

The day before I killed Donald Evans I did not even know he existed.

From How I Read:

Give other genres a chance. Do you mostly read literary fiction? Read a sci-fi. Do you mostly read fantasy? Read something by Jane Austen. Do you mostly read Christian fiction? Read a book on Buddhist spirituality.

What a creative way to tell a love story:

Here’s another Dr. Seuss book you may not have read before –  You’re Only Old Once! It’s a lighthearted look at something many of us will be/are lucky enough to live to see: old age.

What have you been reading?

Forgotten Heroes is a series of posts about extraordinary men and women who are (probably) not remembered by the average person.  Previous heroes include   Ghandl and Skaay, Laura Secord and Elijah McCoy. 

If you know of a forgotten hero who should be included in this series let me know about him or her in the comment section or via my contact form. 

Time: 1887

Place: New York City.

One night a 23-year-old woman named Nellie Bly checked into a working class boarding house but refused to go to bed, telling fellow boarders that she was afraid they thought she was crazy.

Her behaviour was so unusual that they quickly came to the conclusion Nellie was mentally ill. The police were summoned the next morning. When Nellie stood before the judge she said she didn’t remember anything that had happened that night.

The judge thought she’d been drugged. Several doctors examined Nellie and decided that she was insane. Nellie was sent to the Woman’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in the hope that she could be cured.

Her undercover assignment for the New York World had finally begun.

Nellie’s days consisted of sitting on hard benches in frigid temperatures while rats crawled around piles of human (and other) waste decomposing on the floor. Patients drank dirty water and ate spoiled meat, gruel and “bread” that was basically dried out dough. The most dangerous patients were tied to one another with ropes.

No one wasn’t allowed to speak or move. Anyone who broke these rules ran the risk of being verbally or physically abused by the nurses. Nellie broke them anyway. She wasn’t a medical professional but many of the women she spoke to seemed no more mentally ill than the average person outside of the asylum.

The conditions of the asylum weren’t created only out of malice – 125 years ago our understanding of mental illness was embryonic. We didn’t realize that depression and other diseases are involuntary, that someone with one of these illnesses cannot just snap out of it.

Nellie was released from the asylum after ten days at the request of her employers. Ten Days in a Mad-House, her report on these experiences, brought so much attention to the conditions these women lived in that a grand jury launched it’s own investigation into the asylum.

As a result of this report the funding for the asylum was increased by $850,000 and the criteria for the examinations that lead women to being committed to that asylum were revamped. This lead to fewer people without mental illness being committed.

None of these changes happened overnight and there was (and is) still a lot of work to do in the destigmatization and effective treatment of chronic mental illness.

But we’ve come a long way thanks to Nellie Bly.

The trees are bare now, each day is colder and shorter than the last and three long months of ice and snow are just around the corner.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “When the Year Grows Old” captures the tinge of melancholy I often feel at this time of year. 

        I cannot but remember
When the year grows old–
October–November–
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget–
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old–
October–November–
How she disliked the cold!

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, illustrations, photographs, comics, articles and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Virginia Francie Sterrett’s Fairy Tale Illustrations are magical. If only she could have lived to know her own happy ending.

Young, Gay and Homeless. I was blinking back tears halfway through the article. Had I been born into a different family this so easily could have been my life.

National Flags Made Out of Food. Delicious and educational!

The 75 Best LIFE Photos. Not every photograph in this collection seemed worthy of inclusion in this sort of list. The vast majority of them, though, were absolutely incredible.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault. A spine-tingling tale of what happens when human-shaped holes are discovered near a fault line.

So it turns out that I didn’t actually read all of Dr. Seuss’ books as a kid. Recently I stumbled across a few of his less known works. Everyone – young, old and somewhere in-between – should read I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. The narrator of this book wants to escape his troubles by finding Solla Sollew. The question is, will he make it?

What have you been reading?

Photo by garyjwood.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, videos, comics, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From Back in Dallas:

Detroit always had a bit of a depressed feel, and it’s cloudy and grey so damn often it’s easy to see why, plus the 5 months of winter cold. …I wonder what others have to say about this, about where they live in comparison to other places. Have you felt this effect?

Tragedy #292. This would make a great short story. It’s also how I imagine life would be if supernatural abilities actually existed: awesome at first but perpetually boring thereafter.

Coon-Suit Riot. One of the funniest satires I’ve read in a long time. (Or at least I hope it’s satire….)

Interview with My Bully. As my parents used to say, “hurt people hurt people.”

Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.

Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton tells the true story of a musician who was born female and began living as a man at age 19. Sexism influenced his decision – it was nearly impossible for female Jazz musicians to be taken seriously in communities he lived in during the 1930s and 1940s. But he (probably) also felt more comfortable as a man than as a woman.

Or at least that’s a theory. Unfortunately Billy Tipton never talked to his wife or children about this. I wonder what he would have said to them?

What have you been reading?

Forgotten Heroes is a series of posts about extraordinary men and women who are (probably) not remembered by the average person.  Previous heroes include Fred and Cela Sloman,  Ghandl and Skaay and Laura Secord. 

If you know of a forgotten hero who should be included in this series let me know about him or her in the comment section or via my contact form. 

Time: July 12, 1872

Places: Colchester, Ontario; Ypsilanti, Michigan.

The son of escaped slaves who fled from Kentucky to Canada, Elijah McCoy knew all about setbacks.

As a teenager he temporarily moved to Scotland in order to become certified as a mechanical engineer but back in North America could only find work as a fireman and oiler once his apprenticeship ended.

Despite his education business owners could not see past the colour of his skin.

Because he couldn’t convince the outside world to give him opportunities he created his own. Working as an oiler gave Elijah time to think as he walked up and down the length of the train oiling the axles, bearings and other moving parts. It was a fairly inefficient and time-consuming way to keep a train lubricated. Not only did someone have to do it manually but the train needed to be stopped periodically in order for Elijah to do his job!

Over the course of the next two years he figured out a new method for lubricating steam engines in ships and locomotives that could be done automatically – he called it an oil cup and on July 12, 1872 he received a patent for this idea.

Others patents include ideas for improved lawn sprinklers and ironing boards (not to mention about 50 patents for lubricating devices). If you’ve ever used a car, locomotive train, ship or rocket there’s a good chance that a descendent of one of Elijah’s inventions is quietly working away inside of it.

Elijah’s personal life was as challenging as his professional one. His first wife, Elizabeth Stewart, died four years into their marriage. About a year after her death he married Mary Eleanor Delaney.

In 1922 Elijah and Mary were involved in a car accident. She died and he sustained permanent injuries. Elijah died in 1929.

Before learning about Elijah’s inventions I’d always assumed patents were generally filed for inventions of entirely new stuff. It was a bit of a surprise to learn that patents can be filed for a small part of a machine or even for an improved version of an old part.

What interests me the most about Elijah’s story is his persistance. Many people were (and are) thwarted by far less in life. And working at a job for which he was grossly overqualified year after year must have been incredibly frustrating.

If only he was still alive. I’d love to hear his stories.