Some time ago I got the idea of tracking down and memorializing various unsung heroes whose work had made significant contributions to America’s march toward idiocy. The author of “Winstons Taste Good, Like a Cigarette Should.” The designer who put that first small bump on the tail fin of the Cadillac. The inventor of the brassiere. That sort of thing.
Nothing ever came of this but my eye was nevertheless caught by the recent obituary of Joseph L Owades, a biochemist who discovered the enzyme which made it possible to brew light beer. In a civilized society this would have caused him to be barred from life from the brewing industry and thenceforth shunned by all decent men. Here it caused Miller Lite.
No very bright future can be possible for a nation with a citizenry so simple that it can be persuaded, in the tens of millions, to buy a fluid scientifically stripped of every good thing but alcohol that distinguishes beer from pasteurized swill.
Another Unsung Hero of the 20th Century---
From a 1992 issue of Remodeling Magazine:
The siding industry lost one of its pioneers in January, with the death of Jerome J. Kaufman, developer of the prepainting process that made aluminum siding a viable exterior covering. While serving in the Army in the 1940s Kaufman was impressed by the way paint bonded to metal on transport planes. He knew that unpainted aluminum siding had been on the market for a few years but that reception was poor. Kaufman worked with technicians at Alcoa, Sidney, Ohio; Reynolds Metals Company, Richmond, Va.; and Sherwin Williams, Cleveland, Ohio, to refine the metallurgical and finishing processes. In 1947 he formed his own company, Alside, Inc., in Akron, Ohio, and introduced the white-painted residential aluminum siding we know today.
Demand for aluminum siding increased steadily from that point through the 1970s. Since then, vinyl has taken over a substantial portion of its market share but aluminum still is the material of choice for trims, corner posts, down spouts, gutters and other accessories.
Perhaps it is a good thing. We may, by the grace of Manna from heaven, be only consigned to becoming Lite Nazi's, or Nazi Lites. From the look of things, we are well on our way.
... it might be better if we chose to take the advice of Poor Richard:
http://earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/chapt5/
Posted by: Buck on December 31, 2005 7:10 PMThe process of generating such heros, or monsters, depending on your definition, is documented in detail, which some find excruciating but I thought was hilarious, in Thomas Frank’s One Market, Under God, the book he wrote before he wrote What’s the Matter With Kansas?.
He describes the system of propaganda development so well that he leaves room to hope that the population of the US is not composed entirely of idiots.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree (Belisarius) on December 31, 2005 10:12 PM