The Year was l906

THE YEAR 1906 <<

This will boggle your mind.
The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906:

************************************

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City
cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles
of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more
heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st
most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the US. was 22 cents per hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year .

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per
year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used
borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.
Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and
Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea
hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over
the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists
said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,
regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian
of health." ( Shocking? DUH! )

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least
one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

--

ter Phillips
> Date: September 7, 2006 9:52:35 PM EDT
> To: Kate Sims
> Subject: Project Censored Announces the Release of the Top 25 Most
> Censored Stories for 2005-06
>
> Project Censored Announces the Release of the Top 25 Most Censored
> Stories for 2005-06
>
> For thirty years Project Censored at Sonoma State University has
> been reporting the real news that corporate media refuses to cover.
> The 250 student researchers and faculty find cutting-edge news
> stories that go under-reported in the mainstream corporate media.
> Real news is not there for the selling of material goods or
> entertainment. Real news can only be measured through its success
> in building democracy, stimulating grassroots activism, and
> motivating resistance to top-down institutions. Democratic activism
> underlies the purpose, reason, and message of free speech. Here
> again is Project Censored’s release of the news that didn’t make
> the news—a compilation of the best examples of journalism that the
> corporate media marginalized in 2005-06.
>
> Full reviews of the stories are published in Censored 2007: 30th
> Anniversary Edition from Seven Stories Press, available at: http://
> www.projectcensored.org/
>
> 1. Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
>
> Throughout 2005 and 2006, a large underground debate raged
> regarding the future of the Internet. Referred to as “network
> neutrality,” the issue has become a tug of war with cable companies
> on the one hand and consumers and Internet service providers on the
> other.
>
> 2. Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
> As recently as January of 2005 and a decade before Halliburton sold
> key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development
> company in violations of US sanctions.
>
> 3. Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
> Sea temperature and chemistry changes, along with contamination and
> reckless fishing practices intertwine to imperil the world’s
> largest communal life source.
> 4. Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
>
> The number of hungry and homeless people in US cities continued to
> grow in 2005.
>
> 5. High-Tech Genocide in Congo
> The world's most neglected emergency is the ongoing tragedy of the
> Congo, where six to seven million have died since 1996 as a
> consequence of invasions and wars sponsored by western powers
> trying to gain control of the region's mineral wealth
> 6. Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
>
> Special Counsel Scott Bloch, appointed by President Bush in 2004,
> is overseeing the virtual elimination of federal whistleblower
> rights in the US government.
>
> 7. US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
>
> The American Civil Liberties Union released documents of forty-four
> autopsies held in Afghanistan and Iraq October 25, 2005. Twenty-one
> of those deaths were listed as homicides. These documents present
> irrefutable evidence that US operatives tortured detainees to death
> during interrogation.
>
> 8. Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
> In December 2005, Congress passed the 2006 Defense Authorization
> Act which renders Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) “operational
> files” fully immune to FOIA requests, the main mechanism by which
> watchdog groups, journalists and individuals can access federal
> documents.
>
> 9. The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
> Despite the 2004 International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision that
> called for tearing down the Israel-Palestinian Wall—construction of
> the Wall has accelerated using World Bank funds.
> 10. Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
>
> A key element of Bush’s drawdown plans in Iraq includes increased
> uses of airpower. Expanded air strikes will likely lead to
> increased civilian deaths.
>
> 11. Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
> Several recent studies confirm fears that genetically modified (GM)
> foods damage human health.
>
> 12. Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
> The US plans to resume production of antipersonnel landmines.
>
> #13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
> New studies reveal that Roundup, the most widely used weed killer
> in the world, poses serious human health threats.
>
> 14. Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in
> the US
> Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR has been awarded a $385 million
> contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to
> build detention camps in the United States for immigrations surges
> and “news programs.”
>
> 15. Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
> The American Chemical Council is now EPA’s leading research partner
> 16. Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
>
> Ecuador and Mexico have refused to sign bilateral immunity
> agreements (BIA) with the US, in ratification of the International
> Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, despite the Bush Administration’s
> threat to withhold economic aid
>
> 17. Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
> The US occupation of Iraq has been used by the US to acquire access
> to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
> 18. Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
>
> Research by Brigham Young University physics professor, Steven E.
> Jones, concludes that the official 9/11 explanation for the
> collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is implausible
> according to laws of physics
>
> 19. Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
> New developments in satellite imaging technology reveal that the
> Amazon rainforest is being destroyed twice as quickly as previously
> estimated
>
> 20. Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
> Consumers spend a collective $100 billion every year on bottled
> water in the belief—often mistaken—that it is better for us than
> what flows from our taps. Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of
> plastic are used to bottle water each year.
>
> 21. Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
> Barrick Gold, a powerful multinational gold mining company, planned
> to melt three Andean glaciers in order to access gold deposits
> through open pit mining.
> 22. Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
>
> More than $8 billion in Homeland Security funds has been doled out
> to states since the September 11, 2001 attacks, but the public has
> little chance of knowing how this money is actually being spent.
>
> 23. US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
> Lobbyists funded by the US oil industry have launched a campaign in
> Europe aimed at derailing efforts to enforce the Kyoto Protocol
> against global warming
>
> 24. Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
>
> Vice President Dick Cheney’s stock options in Halliburton rose from
> $241,498 in 2004 to over $8 million in 2005, an increase of more
> than 3,000 percent
>
> 25. US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region
>
> South American countries are concerned that a massive air base at
> Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is designed to be a US military
> stronghold in the region.
>
>
> Contact Information:
>
>
> Project Censored
>
> Sonoma State University
>
> 1801 East Cotati Ave.
>
> Rohnert Park, CA 94928
>
> 707-664-2500
>
> censored@sonoma.edu
>
> Full reviews of the stories are available at:
>
> http://www.projectcensored.org/
>
>
>




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Box Office Suicide

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060917/asp/opinion/story_6749706.asp
BOX-OFFICE SUICIDE
- Bombed cultures and the pin-minded First-Worldist
THE THIN EDGE - RUCHIR JOSHI


Often simple moments are the most revealing. In 1993, I made a film called Tales from Planet Kolkata and was invited to show it at the Oberhausen Film Festival in Germany. The film was a take-off on the different image-straight-jackets Western media have constantly tried to fit around Calcutta, and an examination of the motives from which these attempts came, whether the culprit be a brilliant cineaste like Louis Malle in 1969 or a no-hoper, kino-carpetbagger such as Roland Joffe in 1992. In putting together the film, we used a variety of cinematic quotes and visual languages, from tongue-in-cheek quotes of Ray, Ghatak, Coppola and Antonioni to clips from Sixties British TV newsreels to patua performances by Dukhhoshyam Chitrakar. The film showed in competition at Oberhausen, and the response from the viewers and the jury was gratifying.
As I went into the question-and-answer session the day after the final screening, I had every reason to assume that this international audience and I were on the same page, at least as far as this kind of cinema was concerned: we were all au fait with different non-commercial, anti-narrative strands of cinema that included film-makers such as Dziga-Vertov and (Calcutta’s beloved) J.L. Godard; we accepted that a modern film-maker had not only the right but, somewhere, a moral duty to explore and push the form; we had all, I assumed, gone far beyond the need for simple join-the-dots explanations to be woven into a film itself. It was a foolish assumption on my part. Among the intelligent questions — and the praise, from which no artist’s ego is immune — came this one from a German film critic: ‘How can you make a film like this? How are we here supposed to understand all these obscure references to your culture!?!’ The man wasn’t being merely sharp, he was well and truly furious, completely and utterly incensed. It took me a few moments to process it, and, in turn, his question suddenly turned me incandescent with rage.
I thought of all those film-society screenings, of watching Bergman, Godard, Fassbinder, Tarkovsky et al, and coming out and trying to decipher and decode all those references completely internal to the cultures from which those films had emerged. Why was I, a Calcuttan, supposed to try and make sense of an extremely long-drawn-out slow motion shot of a wooden table in a pine forest overturning, throwing off a loaf of bread and a jug of water as it flipped? What the hell were these marionette-like figures doing, frozen decoratively in a vast palace garden, and why should I have been interested? What was the significance of a woman blowing up herself and her house as she bent forward to light her cigarette from the gas range? What journey had I taken that brought me to a point of thrill when a woman came out of a photo-booth and said, blandly, the words: “Masculin. Feminin.”? I had a good answer to these questions, but my own question was: why were we, all of us, as Indian or Asian or Third World artists, supposed to stay corraled in the narrow pen of the ‘universal humanism’ i.e easily readable, mainstream, Western-structured narrative?
I can’t recall the exact answer I gave the cretinous critic, but I remember it was satisfyingly scathing. Most of the audience laughed and applauded, one or two others even taking issue with the man in impassioned German. But if I thought I was participating in a new dawn of free exchange and fluid transfer of expression between the North by North-west and the South, I was going to be comprehensively and repeatedly disillusioned. What the man had signposted by the tone and content of that single question was the following:
a) The rules applicable to you of the South are different from the rules applicable to us in the West.
b) This is true not just of politics and economics but also of art or any creative endeavour.
c) Political and economic power resides with us — the customers. You, as a supplier from a needy part of the world, are also the supplicant. We, therefore, have a right not only to demand that all exotic artistic fruits of the world be brought to us, but also that they meet our stringent conditions in terms of shape and size. Or, to put it differently, we want a home-delivery of meaning, just as we want home-delivery of pizza, chow mein or tandoori chicken. In future, please make sure we don’t have to make any unseemly extra effort such as reading connected books, seeing additional films, attending lectures or checking the net in order to decipher what you are trying to say.
d) We, on the other hand, retain the right to make and say exactly what we want in the arenas of art and culture, and we expect you, you little parochials, to see, admire, aspire to understand and to genuflect. Because, of course, we are and forever shall be the centre of the universe.
Now, it’s true that for every pin-minded First-Worldist, there are many many Westerners who absolutely do not share this ‘value-system’. But what continues to shock is the way some people, people you would least expect to, unconsciously fall into the trap of cultural racism. Currently, I’m reading a wonderful book called Heat by Bill Buford who was the editor of Granta magazine for 16 years and, before that, the fiction editor of The New Yorker. In this book, Buford’s recounting of his foray into a high-pressure NYC restaurant kitchen is marvellous, his exploration of traditional Italian food fascinating, and some of his dscriptions, of food, of humans, and of the strange processes linking the them, are gripping. But there’s a tiny but telling blip. While researching the development of the Italian corn cereal called polenta, Buford tries out a pre-Columbus, i.e pre-corn, recipe: ‘Traditionally polenta is a winter dish…but after a bowl in its barley form I came away with a grim historical picture of what January and February must have been like for most of humanity, miserably sustained by foods that were colourless and sad, like the season’s sky.’
Most of humanity, Bill? January and February colourless and grey for most of our ancestors? All our food, then, sad? Or do you, by ‘humanity’, mean only the sorry, backward, post-medieval, primarily Caucasian, population of Northern Europe? Yes, he meant just that, and yes, if pushed, Buffardo Bill may even correct himself. And anyway, you could argue, this is trivial, or, if you like bad puns, a trifle. But the fact is, it’s but a short transit from most of humanity eating grey polenta to the words of a widow of a WTC victim speaking to BBC World on the fifth anniversary of nine-eleven: “2, 749 people were murdered that day, and I want a world-class memorial to commemorate those lives,” says the woman, quite understandably in sorrow, yet quite remarkably poised and articulate, “…young, healthy, able people who were murdered here that day, and I want the world to come here and pay its respects.”
Yup. Uh-huh. Sure. Me too, I want the world to pay its respects to innocent victims of butchery. And pay its respects especially at each and every one of those locations wherever young, healthy and possibly able people were cut down in their thousands, never mind all those places where the old, infirm and disabled met an arguably less untimely albeit sudden end. Where shall we start? And from how long ago is allowed? Johnson and Nixon’s Vietnam and Cambodia? Menachem Begin’s Palestine? Ronald Reagan’s Africa? Madeline Allbright’s ‘acceptable collateral damage’ of a 100,000 dead kids in Iraq? Or do you insist we stick solely to Osama bin Laden and George bin Texas’s downtown Manhattan?
Some might find the connection between a critic’s reaction to an Indian art film and a grieving widow at Ground Zero a bit tenuous. So let me put it another way: what Osama and gang did that day was the ultimate kow-tow to Hollywood narrative, a ginormous climax with crashing planes, smoke, fire, collapsing towers, screaming crowds running down the avenues, they took the finale from a mainstream blockbuster (how eerily ironic that word now becomes) movie to its ultimate logic; on the other hand, the slow and meticulous ten-year-long blockage of crucial medicines to Iraq is, perhaps, a hard-to-follow, minimalist, avant-garde performance, and a B-52 bomber, sitting many thousands of feet above the earth, dropping napalm on a carpet of green tropical jungle doesn’t quite have the same narrative payload; perhaps what is also created by these and other acts by Western agencies is a set of references internal to each bombed culture, references which are hard for outsiders to decipher — box-office suicide, in other words, and not something that can compete with the mother of all box-office suicides