Historical Drinking Stories

an interesting article on CNN....

"Drinking stories that put yours to shame"


1. Admiral Edward Russell's 17th-Century throwdown

Think you can drink like a sailor? Maybe you should take a moment to reflect on what that truly means.

The record for history's largest cocktail belongs to British Lord Admiral Edward Russell. In 1694, he threw an officer's party that employed a garden's fountain as the punch bowl.

The concoction? A mixture that included 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg.

A series of bartenders actually paddled around in a small wooden canoe, filling up guests' cups. Not only that, but they had to work in 15-minute shifts to avoid being overcome by the fumes and falling overboard.

The party continued nonstop for a full week, pausing only briefly during rainstorms to erect a silk canopy over the punch to keep it from getting watered down. In fact, the festivities didn't end until the fountain had been drunk completely dry.


2. The London Brew-nami of 1814

The Industrial Revolution wasn't all steam engines and textile mills. Beer production increased exponentially, as well. Fortunately, the good people of England were up to the challenge and drained kegs as fast as they were made. Brewery owners became known as "beer barons," and they spent their newfound wealth in an age-old manner -- by trying to party more than the next guy.

Case in point: In 1814, Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery in London constructed a brewing vat that was 22 feet tall and 60 feet in diameter, with an interior big enough to seat 200 for dinner -- which is exactly how its completion was celebrated. (Why 200? Because a rival had built a vat that seated 100, of course.)

After the dinner, the vat was filled to its 4,000-barrel capacity. Pretty impressive, given the grand scale of the project, but pretty unfortunate given that they overlooked a faulty supporting hoop. Yup, the vat ruptured, causing other vats to break, and the resulting commotion was heard up to 5 miles away.

A wall of 1.3 million gallons of dark beer washed down the street, caving in two buildings and killing nine people by means of "drowning, injury, poisoning by the porter fumes, or drunkenness."

The story gets even more unbelievable, though. Rescue attempts were blocked and delayed by the thousands who flocked to the area to drink directly off the road. And when survivors were finally brought to the hospital, the other patients became convinced from the smell that the hospital was serving beer to every ward except theirs. A riot broke out, and even more people were left injured.

Sadly, this incident was not deemed tragic enough at the time to merit an annual memorial service and/or reenactment.

(skipped #3, thought it did not meet the same level as the others)


4. The worst aftertaste in history

In 1805, British Admiral Horatio Nelson was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain. Most sailors were simply put to rest at sea, but as an admiral, Nelson had to be brought back to England for an official burial.

To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.

Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.


5. Indian elephants raid the liquor cabinet

No wonder they don't sell beer at the circus. Apparently, elephants like to get wasted. In fact, an outpost of the Indian army in the jungle region of Bagdogra has been under attack ever since a local herd of elephants raided the base in search of food and discovered the soldiers' entire winter rations of rum.

Since then, the pachyderms have regularly raided the base for a drink and have smashed down all defenses put up by the army, including electrified fences and firewalls.

According to The Daily Telegraph, "An officer recently posted there explained that the elephants broke the rum bottles by cleverly curling their trunks around the bottom. Then they empty the contents down their throats. They soon got drunk, he said, and swayed around. They enjoy themselves and then return to the jungle."

This is by no means a singular incident, though. The animal kingdom is well-known for its ability to identify fruit that's begun to ferment. Anthropologists even believe this is how early man discovered alcohol -- by observing the strange behavior of animals on a fruit bender.

Cutest Grim Reaper Ever

I'm not a big cat person, but this article was interesting:

When death comes calling, so does Oscar the cat

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

Oscar the cat doesn't like to be put out in the hall when a patient is dying.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," Dr. David Dosa said in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one," said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.

The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other illnesses.

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He'd sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours.

Dosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room, though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don't know he's there, so patients aren't aware he's a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advance warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

No one's certain if Oscar's behavior is scientifically significant or points to a cause. Teno wonders if the cat notices telltale scents or reads something into the behavior of the nurses who raised him.

Nicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa's article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.

If Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it's also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said.

Nursing home staffers aren't concerned with explaining Oscar, so long as he gives families a better chance at saying goodbye to the dying.

Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his "compassionate hospice care."

music on the street

Occasionally, this old man will sit on the corner of Wilshire and Vermont and play a horn/trumpet. He is homeless or crazy, maybe/probably both. He plays a variation of the same tune over and over again. If this were in person I would sing it to you, but it's that classic do-dededede-do-dededede-do-dedededeDEde sound... I think they play it before races start? Maybe in the morning to jolt you awake? Anyway when I first heard it I found it pretty annoying. But it's growing on me. I mean this guy just sits out there randomly and starts tooting at his horn in his crazy manner. Yes a little sad but also a little endearing.

A little related but mostly unrelated: I read an interesting story about how famous violinist Joshua Bell was performing one of Bach's most complicated pieces on a Stradivarius (violin worth millions).... in a DC subway station one busy weekday morning. He pretended he was just one of those street performers playing for a little money. Hardly anyone paid any attention to him. No crowds gathered. A few people stopped for a minute or two. That's crazy, considering people have paid, would pay hundreds of dollars to see such a performance in a concert hall. But to be honest, I can't say that I would have necessarily stopped to listen to the music either. I'd hope so though.

Found the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=artslot

Criminal Law is OVER

I'm done with criminal law!!! YAY. Except... I'm thinking about taking Crim Procedure as an elective next year. But that's pretty different, I suppose. Now on to Con Law and Torts... O_O

ANYWAY there is an interesting article in the economist that I learned many things from. It's not about politics or the economy or the politcal economy, but rather about... DUCKS! hahah

Googled a pic that illustrates the article nicely.

"Sexual selection

A game of ducks and drakes

May 3rd 2007
From The Economist print edition

The evolutionary battle of the sexes has some curious consequences

SEX, in most species of bird, is a consensual activity. It has to be. Males have no penises and are armed with a genital opening which looks little different from that of a female. Intercourse happens when these two openings are brought together in what ornithologists refer to as a cloacal kiss. In these circumstances, rape is a difficult option.

Drakes, however, are notorious rapists—forcing their attentions on ducks indiscriminately—and it is surely no coincidence that they are among the 3% of male birds that do have a penis. In fact, drake penises come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes that are thought by students of the subject to be part of an arms race to ensure that it is the owner's sperm that fertilise the next generation of ducklings, rather than anybody else's.

The question is, an arms race against whom? The males of many species of insect have similarly elaborate genitalia. These seem designed to compete directly against other males—for example by scraping out the sperm of previous suitors or breaking off and blocking the female's genital opening. But Patricia Brennan, of Yale University, and her colleagues suspected that in ducks and drakes the arms race might be between the sexes rather than between members of the same sex. Females, in other words, would rather choose which males inseminate them. And if rape is inevitable, evolution might provide them with other ways of making this choice.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the male-dominated nature of science) the elaborate cataloguing of drake genitalia had not been extended to ducks. So Dr Brennan got out her scalpel and started looking. As she reports in the Public Library of Science, she discovered that the sexual passages of ducks are every bit as elaborate as the penises of drakes are. Indeed, for every species, the more elaborate the latter were, the more elaborate were the former. In particular, duck vaginas are often equipped with additional passages that have blind endings, and frequently corkscrew in a clockwise direction, in contradistinction to the anticlockwise thread of a drake's penis.

Dr Brennan interprets these anatomical flourishes as anti-insemination mechanisms. The contrary threads of the genitalia make successful penetration much harder if the female is not co-operating. The blind passages make it likely that sperm will be ejaculated into the wrong place and thus fail to fertilise the duck's eggs. Conversely, a willing female should be more easily inseminated.

That interpretation is backed up by the fact that ducks with the most elaborate genitalia are those from species where the drakes have the largest penises. These species are also the ones where rape is most often observed. In ducks and drakes, it seems, size matters. But not in a way that is good for females."

Rape is wrong.
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school vouchers

also of interest in the issue was a school voucher article. I don't know that much about school vouchers besides the general idea of giving parents the choice of where to send their kids to school, but from the little I know, I don't think it is such a bad idea. I would worry about parents who don't care about their children, or don't know enough to care, though.

Economist's School Voucher Article


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