When safety standards were more interesting….

In 1912, testing the ruggedness and protective features of a football helmet was a fairly straightforward process:

1912 helmet safety test

Find someone who knew how to simulate diving through the defensive line, strap the helmet on him and do the test.

William "Pudge" Heffelfinger

Football already was starting to hit the big time in 1912. You might say that professional football got started on November 12, 1892, when the Allegheny Athletic Association paid William “Pudge” Heffelfinger $500 under the table to help the AAA team beat the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, 4-0 (touchdowns were worth 4 points at that time). Nobody worried too much about head or brain injuries back then.

The thing that bothers me most about the safety test picture is that the three safety consultants appear to be enjoying themselves a bit overmuch. Of course, they didn’t have TV back then.

"...led by donkeys..."

Technology 'R" Us

What it doesn't say....

Book review: Classic Writings on Poetry

Populism: just say no

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Social Security….not for everyone

Social Security is with us for the long haul. I think it’s a vital foundation element of a reasonably secure society. I think high-income earners should pay a lot more in Social Security taxes (we should raise the maximum for taxable earnings). I think the full-benefit retirement age should be raised.

One of the reasons for the parlous state of Social Security finances is that people are living a lot longer than any politician or policy maker could have imagined in 1935.

The average life expectancy of folks being born now is about 79 years. Thus, the average newborn can expect to collect Social Security benefits for quite a few years under current law.

In 1935, when the Social Security Act was signed into law, the average life expectancy for newborns was about 61 years.

The act provided for benefits to be paid starting at age 65. Thus, the average person born that year wouldn’t live long enough to collect anything.

Think about that.

The official assumption was that a majority of the folks who lived all their lives with an anticipation of Social Security benefits would never get a dime.

The increase in longevity in the last 80 years has been spectacularly greater than any scientist or statistician or politician imagined during much of that time.

Another footnote in Social Security history:

Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, VT, received the first monthly benefit on January 31, 1940. During her work career she paid a total of $24.75 in Social Security taxes. She died when she was 100 years old after collecting total benefits of $22,888.9s.

Think yin and yang.

"See the [segregated] USA, in your Chevrolet..."

readin', writin', 'rithmetic....a little history

Gen. Grant kicked out the Jews....wha?

Doing the right thing....

Dance  in the night

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

When “the poorhouse” was a place….

Before the middle of the 20^th century, “the poorhouse” wasn’t an abstract concept.

Through the World War II era, mostly county governments in the U. S. provided much of the care for the indigent and elderly folks who could not afford medical care or couldn’t take care of themselves. 

The facilities—“poorhouses” or, in some areas, “poor farms”—were often marginal or wretched.

They were systematically closed by mid-century, in tandem with a massive, federally-sponsored buildout of hospitals after WWII. In 1954 the federal government started providing funds so hospitals could build separate custodial units for patients who needed an extended period of “recovery,” and people who couldn’t take care of themselves increasingly ended up in extended stays in the expanded hospital facilities. That was the beginning of modern nursing homes.(1)

In the present time, economic constraints in the hospital health care system are reducing a patient’s time in hospital, and steadily pushing the indigent, elderly, helpless and terminal people toward retirement homes, nursing homes, hospice care, private care or no care.

(1) Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2014), 68-71.

America's first history prof, Jared Sparks

Have you "seen the elephant"?

There's no place like home....

"...long, slow, thoughtful reading."

"Aimons toujours!"

"Cultural authenticity"....huh?

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015