[NNagain] water infrastructure and much more

Sun Nov 19 19:52:17 EST 2023

Have a song - Tom Lehrer's 'Pollution with animation from 1967":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCojBngA--s to read this by. Actually
it works as a great soundtrack to what I write below.

Removing debbie, from this thread, per her request, please do not cc
her further.

I was not aware of the effects of the teetotaler movement, thank you robert!

I am aware of the intertwining details of the abolitionist and women's
suffrage movements, which were interestingly intertwined during this
period, as well as tidbits as to how copyright (d)evolved from 14
years renewable once *by the original author*, to the present day
near-infinite monopoly by the owner., and of works for hire.

Recently, in the song I wrote about surveillance capitalism, I had put
in a line about the kindle I have. I had great hopes many years ago
that every book ever published would end up on the internet one day,
and not only is that not happening, but we have had intensive battles
over archive.org's storage and scanning of all books they could
possibly get, to the point to where I have serious doubts if that
organization will survive much longer. Farenheit 451, writ large,
replaced by a "service" that can retroactively remove, redact, or
otherwise modify history at a previously inconceivable scale. So the
line was:

...
Kindle servers save your every page
So I turned off mine, turned to "the days of rage".
Stop baby, log off now, get offline and get on down.
...

To keep myself laughing this week I have been going through my dad's
1886, beautifully preserved, first edition copy of "Mark Twains
library of humor", which has stories in it, like Uncle Remus (with
wonderful dialect of Brier Rabbit), and his concept of a "Tar-Baby",
which applies today to so many other concepts and communications.
There are so many Tar Babies in our lives!

That line I wrote about the "days of rage" was merely a rhyme from
1969's half remembered incident of history (I was four! I do remember
the 1972 moon landings and my parents spewing rage at the tv over
Nixon, but that's about it - and love the music of 1968-72), and thus
I felt compelled to research "the days of rage", where, in 1989,
multiple groups schismed as to the "right" approach to meet their
goals. The root organisation it came from was only 9 years old and had
morphed multiple times, and had had some good, and some "odd" values
in the beginning of its existence, morphed by the events of the times
that culminated in the violence of the "days of rage".

It started here, rather idealistically;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society

I'm still reflecting about how what was meant by Network Neutrality
has morphed between 2003,2011,2015, and now. It is so hard to see the
future, when the names for things keep shifting out from under us. I
cannot even slap a label on myself about where I stand politically
without being painfully aware of how I might differ from someone
else's definition. This week, also, I tried out "Eisenhower
Republican", because in part of his respect for "his scientists", in
laying out the interstates, an age where we beat polio... and in too
many reflections and reverbations I keep feeling as to how the late
50s resembled today (in books like Vonnegut's "Player Piano" and in
"mad" advertising men)

And Eisenhower's last speech, is always worth thinking about, if you
have not read it.

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address

(please read the whole thing, but)

"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over
shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing
fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the
fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge
costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute
for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now
hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal
employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever
present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we
should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that
public policy could itself become the captive of a
scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate
these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our
democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free
society."

and

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time.
As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our
government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering,
for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.
We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without
risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We
want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become
the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

Have a good week!

On Sun, Nov 19, 2023 at 5:54 PM rjmcmahon <rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon.com> wrote:
>
> The initial phase of potable water in Boston wasn't because of germ
> theory but rather about the temperance movement. Also, water
> infrastructure was used to support fire departments in cities in the US.
> Our cities tended to experience a lot of conflagrations. Rich people had
> access to piped water infrastructure way ahead of poor people in Boston
> for sure. It was a doctor who led Boston to provide universal access to
> clean, potable water in the name of public health. There are a lot of
> books written by trained historians on this - no need to for us to
> guess.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement#:~:text=People%20were%20instructed%20to%20only,had%20gained%201.5%20million%20members.
>
> Teetotalism (1830s)
> See also: Blue ribbon badge
> As a response to rising social problems in urbanized areas, a stricter
> form of temperance emerged called teetotalism, which promoted the
> complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages, this time including wine
> and beer, not just ardent spirits. The term teetotaler came from the
> capital "T"s that were written next to the names of people who pledged
> complete abstinence from alcohol. People were instructed to only drink
> pure water and the teetotalists were known as the "pure-water army". In
> the US, the American Temperance Union advocated total abstinence from
> distilled and fermented liquors. By 1835, they had gained 1.5 million
> members.
>
> Bob
> > I have not had much time to write anything long form, but I enjoy
> > reading long, thoughtful pieces on Sundays, and this one might
> > ultimately yield analogies for internet infrastructure also.
> >
> > https://comment.org/care-at-scale/
> >
> > "In the late nineteenth century, the wealthy taxpayers of Boston were
> > convinced to build out water and sewage systems by a straightforward
> > logic: every person in the city, rich or poor, needed clean water to
> > drink every day. Without it, they would be at risk of contracting
> > water-borne diseases like cholera. And with so many people in
> > proximity, wealth alone couldn’t provide protection from contagious
> > disease."
> >
> > While otherwise a wonderful read - go read it!! -
> >
> > Me being me, I  disagree that "the wealthy taxpayers of boston
> > recognized the need for common water infrastructure"  because the germ
> > theory of disease was not well accepted, and the organism behind the
> > epidemic was first described in 1854 and not again until 1884. I
> > imagine there was great - AGW-esq - sturm und drang - and attempts to
> > shift the blame for cholera to merely "being poor", or "foreign", or
> > "the will of the gods", or rats - and  attempts to shift the costs
> > onto various other parties before safer water distribution systems
> > were built, but! I freely admit, I have not done the research into the
> > controversies that IMHO, must have existed back then. I think that
> > practical problems, like enough city water in the first place to
> > support the population density therein, also were a factor.
> >
> > The need for sound water and septic systems was recognized by many
> > cities two millenia prior to this... and not by many others. I
> > remember when the Delaware river and Boston Harbor were sewers, and
> > have lived many places  around the world where that was still the case
> > for many rivers.
> >
> > From some history (that I already knew) see this:
> >
> > https://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html
> >
> > (It is remarkable how many expired SSL certificates there are in the
> > world, also.)
> >
> > The Boston river caught fire many times before 1969, and until then,
> > no-body cared:
> >
> > https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/

-- 
:( My old R&D campus is up for sale: https://tinyurl.com/yurtlab
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos