Did you know?

So why did Coca Cola have cocaine as an ingredient ? When did the manufacters change the formula and why ?

Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?​

The medical profession saw nothing wrong with offering a cocaine-laced cola to white, middle-class consumers. Selling it to Black Americans was another matter.

We all know that Coca-Cola once contained cocaine. But why? And why did they take it out? As Michael M. Cohen writes, the answer is all about the way authorities perceive drugs differently depending on the race and class of the people using them.

Cohen writes that Coke was the brainchild of Dr. John Stith Pemberton, who was injured while fighting for the Confederacy and then became addicted to the morphine prescribed for pain relief. Living in Atlanta after the war, the physician tried the new wonder drug cocaine and found it cured his morphine problem. Like many other medical professionals of his time, he identified cocaine as a safe solution to conditions including the “nervousness” that plagued the white middle class—not to mention impotence and sexual dysfunction.
In 1884, Pemberton began selling cocaine-laced wine.

After Atlanta passed a temperance law the next year, he switched gears and started producing a soft drink named for its two key medicinal ingredients—coca leaf and the caffeine-containing African kola nut. Coca-Cola was an immediate hit at soda fountains, a space catering to middle-class white customers. After Pemberton’s death in 1888, the brand continued to grow under the leadership of his business partner, Asa Grigs Candler.

But, Cohen writes, within just a decade, public attitudes regarding cocaine changed dramatically. This had everything to do with the drug’s adoption by the southern Black working class. Around the time Candler assumed control of Coca-Cola, Black laborers in the New Orleans area began using cocaine to help them get through long, hard days of physical work. Cocaine use spread to workers at plantations and in urban areas around the South. It also became a popular recreational drug in Black and mixed-race neighborhoods.


While the medical profession had seen nothing wrong with tonics such as Coca-Cola advertising themselves to white, middle-class consumers for their aphrodisiac qualities, it became an entirely different matter when Black people used cocaine. Medical journals warned of the “Negro cocaine menace.” Newspapers claimed that the drug caused Black men to commit crimes—most notably, raping white women.

Cohen writes that Candler fought back against the damage that cocaine’s declining reputation did to his brand’s reputation, arguing that the small quantity of coca extract in Coke was merely energizing. He also leaned into an emphasis on the soda as a “refreshing” and “great tasting” drink, downplaying its supposed medicinal qualities.

Bit more history on how amphetamines become the go to "mummys little helper " (But that was Valium of course.)

The UK winter of 1962/1963

noirua said:

View attachment 178907 The UK winter of 1962/1963

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I remember as a kid in Yorkshire, my father climbing out of the upstairs bedroom window with a shovel, to dig out the snow from the front door so we could get out.

In Australia, in 1970, it took 500,000 farmers to feed the nation; these days, a rural workforce one fifth that size produces three times the volume of food.

Tomorrow the Earth will reach aphelion, the farthest point from the Sun.

On this day, the Sun will appear to be the smallest disk of the entire year.

How much is a child worth in the UK ?
What is the economic value of a child in severe distress in the UK who needs special residential care ? Check out this story on how our economic systems have monetized the lives of children who have fallen through the cracks. (This was totally new to me)

How to Sell a Child​

Posted on 22nd May 2024

There’s a new asset class being traded between corporations. It’s called children in care.

basilio said:

How much is a child worth in the UK ?
What is the economic value of a child in severe distress in the UK who needs special residential care ? Check out this story on how our economic systems have monetized the lives of children who have fallen through the cracks. (This was totally new to me)

How to Sell a Child​

Posted on 22nd May 2024

There’s a new asset class being traded between corporations. It’s called children in care.

How to Sell a Child

There’s a new asset class being traded between corporations. It’s called children in care.

www.monbiot.com

Final report

www.gov.uk

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Yes everything these days is down to dollars and cents, it really is shocking.
I remember when I was attending negotiations, in the 1990's, it was brought to our attention that for every job they made redundant they could borrow an extra $1m for the project, I thought that was a pretty mercenary approach.
I bet there is a dollar value for every NDIS recipient that can be poached by private sector providers, just look at the aged care, child care sector.

I did wonder about this. Looking back two funerals I attended meant the coffin was carried up steps. There was no one behind the coffin. Common folk don't matter as we do not feel as much about death as those above us who obtain of course the highest positions in heaven. In the case of Aolph Hitler, he sits on the right-hand side of satan.
Queen Victoria's Funeral was described in the newspaper, Vanity Fair, 'as almost a Majestic Mess'.

Did you know how the circular saw blade was first thought of. It came from the fish the Edestus and Helicoprion

Helicoprion​

The mystery of this bizarre fish starts with a weird fossil and numerous attempts to figure out what it was and how to classify it. Helicoprion puzzled paleontologists and ichthyologists for over a century.
The only remains of this creature, up until 2013, were from a fossilized whorl of teeth. While most scientists agreed that the teeth belonged to the lower jaw, that didn’t prevent the presumed location of the teeth from migrating around the body in sometimes fanciful arrangements that can be seen in numerous illustrations and reconstructions.
With the later discovery of some portions of a jaw, the location of its buzzsaw-like teeth were finally determined to fill the lower jaw. Strangely, there were no upper teeth; so this creature could disgustingly gum and bite you at the same time. The jaw would close, rotating the teeth backwards, much like a circular saw blade.
It probably fed on the soft bodies of squid and other cephalopods. The whorl of teeth was formed as they continuously grew outwards, creating a spiral as it aged; the teeth at the beginning of the whorl being small and gradually increasing in size toward the end. Another fish with an equally odd and terrifying face, Edestus, had offset scissor like jaws that protrude out of its face.

At the beginning of the 17th century Dutch explorers began to uncover the secrets of the Australian continent. Willem Jansz and his crew of the Duyfken made history in 1606 by being the first recorded Europeans to set foot on Australian soil at the Pennefather River on Cape York Peninsula.

Last Saturday, 13 July, the remains of Captain Matthew Flinders, the explorer who famously circumnavigated Australia with local Aboriginal man Bungaree, was re-interred in his birthplace of Donington, Lincolnshire.

The village, located about 185km north of London, saw thousands lining its streets to honour the explorer.

Among the attendees were descendants of Bugaree Shad Tyler from the Central Coast and Uncle Laurie Bimson.

The remains of Flinders, lost in the mid-1800s and rediscovered in 2019 during the HS2 high-speed rail excavations in London, were laid to rest in an event marked by deep emotions and historical reverence.

Royal Navy sailors and officers marched through Donington, accompanying the coffin to the local church, where the ceremony took place.

Tyler and Bimson travelled to London after being invited to attend the ceremony as representatives of the descendants of Bungaree, who became a close friend and confidant of the English explorer.
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Flinders was 40 years old at the time of his passing . Six of those years were spent as a guest of the French in a Mauritius gaol. He is credited as being the first person to utilise the name Australia to describe the entirety of the continent.

One of the greatest world travellers of the medieval ages. (Move over Marco Polo)

Biography: Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan explorer and scholar. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest travelers of the medieval period, covering around 73,000 miles across Africa, Asia, and parts of Europe between 1325 and 1354.

Born in Tangier in 1304, Ibn Battuta set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca at age 21 that sparked his passion for travel. From 1325 to 1332, he journeyed across North Africa, Arabia, East Africa, and the Swahili Coast. He then served as a judge for the Sultan of Delhi from 1332 to 1347, which let him travel across the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

In 1345, Ibn Battuta visited China under the Mongol Yuan dynasty, reaching Beijing and meeting with the Yuan emperor. His return journey from 1348 to 1349 took him across the Middle East during the Black Death pandemic. From 1349 to 1354, he explored Muslim Spain, the Sahara desert, the Mali Empire, and Timbuktu.

After nearly 30 years of travel, Ibn Battuta returned to Morocco in 1354 and dictated his famous account, the Rihla, to Ibn Juzayy. He worked as a judge in Morocco until his death in 1368 or 1369.

The Rihla features vivid descriptions of the diverse peoples and civilizations of the 14th-century world, establishing Ibn Battuta's legacy alongside figures such as Marco Polo as a travel writer and ethnographer.


Born: February 24, 1304
Birthplace: Tangier, Morocco
Age: 720 years old

The Rihla - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

basilio said:

One of the greatest world travellers of the medieval ages.

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no need to shout., bas.

"Travels with a Tangerine" .. a good read

Dona Ferentes said:

no need to shout., bas.

"Travels with a Tangerine" .. a good read

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Good find. I was just surprised to come across the story of Ibn Battuta. Thought it was interesting enough to give it a boost. A European centric education (understandably) rarely acknowledges other cultures.

Seriously... did you know that.

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The Arkadiko Bridge or Kazarma Bridge in the Peloponnese is dated to the Greek Bronze Age and one of the oldest crossable arch bridges still in existence. It is the oldest preserved bridge in Europe.

It was constructed during the Mycenaean Period as part of a military highway between the cities of Tiryns and Epidauros, forming part of a wider Hellenic road network. The sophisticated layout of the bridge and the alignment of the road indicate that the bridge could be used by chariots. Three thousand years later, the bridge remains in local use.