Author Archives: Bert

10 Baby Names That Will Not Be Making A Comeback

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Ten Boys Baby Names That Are Permanently Out Of Fashion And Will Never be Used Again

Actor Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge

Baby names go in and out of vogue. Some cycle through long and short terms of popularity. Other names are popular for a few years and then fade into oblivion. At the end of the article see the ten most popular male and female names given in 1880, 1950 and 2017.

One of my close relatives was named Adolph. Unless you are a big admirer of the Third Reich, most parents would avoid naming their child after the Führer. Yet there are people who do name their children Adolf or Adolph.

For every Benjamin, Lucas and Jacob (2017 popular names according to the Social Security Administration), there will be “unique” names such as Jaxx, Reign and Ledger.

While many parents want to give their child a unique name, most don’t want a really weird or antiquated name.

Here are ten male names that will not be making a comeback in the 21st century.

  1. Ebenezer – You could call him Eb for short, but no one is beating down the doors to start naming their children after Dickens’ miserly character Scrooge.

 

  1. Preserved – Some verbs can be used as a name, but Preserved? Yes, Preserved was a 19th century name. Preserved Fish mentioned in the famous Hone Diary, was a merchant who lived from 1766-1846.

 

  1. Telemachus – A somewhat unusual name even for the 19th century. But there were people with this name in the United States.  Greek mythology not withstanding, a name that is completely unused today and for the foreseeable future.

 

  1. Grover – Maybe you are a huge fan of the show Sesame Street or the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, Grover Cleveland. If not, it is highly doubtful that anyone will be naming their child Grover in this century.

 

  1. Egbert – A name guaranteed to incite endless name-calling, bullying and ass kicking once enrolled in school. To be avoided at all costs.

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France Has Got Talent!

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Paris Acrobats Show Unusual Talent – 1953

Paris Acrobats April 14, 1953 photo: Acme

It would be nice to add some context to this 1953 Acme news photograph besides the date and title caption, unfortunately I couldn’t find any information on it. Not even if the photo was taken in Paris, France, or that is where the circus or performers are from. If the circus is from Paris, it might be Cirque Medrano. Continue reading →

Marketing To Consumers So You Can Get Less Product For The Same Price

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Look Closely And You’ll Notice Changes In Packaging

As late, great comedian Bill Hicks once pointed out, marketing is one the banes of human existence.

Marketers are people who find a way to monetize everything and convince you that you need things that you don’t. Or worse they assume many consumers have suffered a bout of amnesia, and will believe that paying more for less product is a good thing.

The rising cost of raw materials has driven companies and their marketers to slyly pass along their increased costs.

The understanding among packaging and marketing people is that consumers do not like price increases under any circumstances. Therefore if you reduce the amount of product you are getting and keep the price the same, consumers either won’t notice or mind.

Whether it’s coffee, cleaning fluids, potato chips, chocolate, canned vegetables or paper towels; packages have been shrinking.

Where else does six equal twelve, except in the Mr. Mxyzptlk math world of Bounty paper towels?

A few years ago Tropicana reduced the packaging of their juice from 96 oz. to 89 oz. and the 64oz. container to 59 oz.

I called the 800 customer service number and foolishly asked Tropicana why they had done this.

The customer service representative replied to me with a supposedly straight face, that customers wanted new ergonomic packaging and preferred less juice! Continue reading →

Hugh Hefner Will Be Remembered – New York Times Hatchet Writers Will Be Forgotten

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There Goes The New York Times Again

Attacking The Late Hugh Hefner

Hugh Hefner and playboy bunnies

Hugh Hefner is dead. Yet it took less than 48 hours for the New York Times to besmirch and defile the Playboy Magazine founder’s life.

In an article entitled “Let’s Talk About Hugh Hefner and His Political Legacy” the writers have come not to praise Hefner nor bury him but to throw dirt upon his memory.

Jennifer Schuessler along with New York Times culture writers Taffy Brodhesser-Akner, Amanda Hess and Wesley Morris wine and complain in their attempt to put a political spin on Hugh Hefner’s perceived faux pas and dismantle his social and cultural legacy.

The roundtable hatchet job on Mr. Hefner is the latest Times lunacy of spewing the paper’s vitriolic equalizing agenda into the record and rewriting history. The angry tone at this great man and his achievements are misplaced.

No one is saying Hugh Hefner was Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or even Walt Disney. But Hugh Hefner was one of the most important progenitors of societal and political change in the 20th century. Hefner’s questioning of social mores and values made the world a better place. Hefner stood up to politicians, holy rollers and those who condemned everything sexual. Hugh Hefner was a hedonist, but he was an intellectual hedonist. If you doubt that, read the series of editorials Hefner wrote in the early 1960s entitled The Playboy Philosophy.

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I Guess You Could Call It A Bikini

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Circa 1910 Model Wearing A Unique Version Of A “Bikini?”

Honestly our headline is misleading. Our circa 1910 model is technically not wearing a bikini as her top looks more like coconut shells. While we can’t fully see the bottom of her costume, it is definitely not a bikini. It looks to be more like a Hawaiian hula outfit.

Even so, a photograph in 1910 of a woman in a two piece of any kind is unusual.

If you know your garment history, you know that the bathing suit called a “bikini” was coined in 1946 by French designer Louis Reard.  The bathing attire was named after the Bikini Atoll, where the testing of the Atomic bomb was taking place at the time.

A bikini is defined as a two piece swimsuit usually in the shape of triangles. The material on the top covers the breasts much like a brassiere. The bottom is similar to panties.

Denise Milani and her…bikini

When it was introduced Continue reading →

Immigration Enforcement In 1921 & Immigration Battles Today

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Immigrants Inspected – Keeping America “Safe” 1921

Immigrants Examined By New York City Health Officials For Typhus Symptoms

To ward off a possible spread of the dread typhus in New York, Dr. Royal S. Copeland, Health Commissioner, has assigned a squad of inspectors to examine all immigrants released from Ellis Island on their arrival in New York City. The immigrants must pass two inspections before being permitted to land. The Federal health authorities examine them at Ellis Isalnd and Dr. Copeland’s squad assisted by New York police round them up at the Battery and take them to a nearby ferry house where another examination is made. Several carriers of the typhus lice  according to reports have been discovered by the Copeland squad after the Ellis Island officials had permitted them to pass through.

The photo shows Dr. Copeland’s squad examining newly landed immigrants. photo: International News 2-14-21

Today there is much more than typhus to worry about when deciding who shall be admitted to the United States. “Extreme vetting” to thwart terrorists is one of the big debates. And of course there is that contentious issue of the estimated 11 million people that are in the United States illegally.

In all the arguments that have been brought up about amnesty for illegals, I have not seen anyone saying they are against legal immigrants and immigration. Continue reading →

Why You Should NEVER Switch To Spectrum (Formerly Time Warner Cable)

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In New York City, If You Thought Cable TV, Internet & Phone Services Were Bad, Just Wait Until You Deal With Spectrum

       

Let’s start out by saying all internet / cable TV / satellite providers are not known for their great customer service. They usually are very good at eliciting complaints.

I’ve previously been a customer of Cablevision, Verizon Fios and Time Warner Cable. No one but stockholders can possibly like these companies.

But Time Warner cable had actually improved their overall service in the last few years and their prices became somewhat reasonable thanks to the good old American free market system known as competition.

Then Charter Communications acquired Time Warner and in 2016 created a merged monster called Spectrum. This new company would be more aptly named after James Bond’s arch enemy Spectre. Continue reading →

May Day, New York City In The Past And Today

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Those Old May Day Gatherings In New York

SOCIALISTS HOLD MAY DAY CELEBRATION IN CENTRAL PARK – Shown above is a general scene showing the large crowd of socialists as they listened to the speakers during the meeting held in Central Park, New York City on May Day. (May 1, 1935 credit: Acme)

Today is May Day which for anyone who went to elementary school in New York City pre-1980 used to be a joyous holiday, celebrated by dancing around a Maypole.

May Day, a centuries old Pagan holiday whose origins and meaning are debated, is now a day of protest. In many parts of England, Wales, Germany and a few other European countries, the Maypole dance and tradition continues. In the United States the day has sunk into a free-for-all for any group to call attention to all their perceived slights and injustices.

In the late 19th century May Day began to be associated with organized marches and assemblies for worker’s rights, unions and socialism. By the 1930s, communists took the day as theirs to celebrate.

Today you will not see any New York City school children doing Maypole dances.

Brooklyn May Day celebration 10,000 girls at Prospect Park 1919

You will not see the veterans of foreign wars praising the freedoms of the United States and protesting communists.

VETERANS HOLD RALLY ON MAY DAY – Photo shows general view of crowd in Union Square , New York City, scene of recent Communist riots, to participate in rally held by the Veterans of Foreign Wars on May 1st. Later the Reds held a demonstration at the same spot. (May 1, 1930 credit P&A photos)

You probably will not see Continue reading →

103 Years Ago A Muslim-American Writer Warned of “A Gigantic Day of Reckoning” That Islam Would Inflict On Europe and America

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In 1914 Muslim-American Writer Achmed Abdullah Warned The World That Islam Would One Day Violently Take On Europe and America

Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945) was not a psychic, but over a hundred years ago he foresaw the future of Islam’s battle with the West.

Abdullah was born on the borderland between Afghanistan and India. Of mixed parentage, Abdullah was raised Muslim. He claimed to be educated on the continent and received a college degree in England, though the schools Abdullah supposedly went to have no record of him being there. Abdullah immigrated to America sometime around 1910. College degree or not he was well versed, educated and opinionated.

In the mid-teens he became a writer of some note, penning many articles for major magazines. Over the course of his writing career he wrote over two dozen books and by 1920 was also writing for the cinema. His two most famous screenplays are The Thief of Baghdad (1924) starring Douglas Fairbanks and The Lives of A Bengal Lancer (1935) starring Gary Cooper. Abdullah’s autobiography, The Cat had Nine Lives (1933) is extremely dubious as he professed to be related to Russian royalty among many of his unsubstantiated claims.

Early in his writing career Abdullah wrote a piece of non-fiction that you can tell is from the heart. In this story, he tells of the racial prejudice he encountered in his travels around the world. He recounts the historic injustices inflicted upon Asians and Muslims. Abdullah writes of his frustration with Christian and Western civilization’s assumption of superiority over any other culture. Abdullah saw the west’s attitude as racist and driven by subjugation and greed.  Ironic, considering Abdullah was on his way to making a very good living from Western civilization.

From the article:

“You Westerns feel so sure of your superiority over us Easterns that you refuse even to attempt a fair or correct interpretation of past and present historical events. You deliberately stuff the minds of your growing generations with a series of ostensible events and shallow generalities, because you wish to convince them for the rest of their lives how immeasurably superior you are to us, how there towers a range of differences between the two civilizations, how East is only East, and the West such a glorious, wonderful, unique West.”

Abdullah’s article  “Seen Through Mohammedan Spectacles,” was published in October 1914 by a very influential monthly scholarly magazine, The Forum.

The 13 page article which can be read here in its entirety, ran just months after the outbreak of World War I.

The article is forgotten today. Now is a good time to re-read it to better understand long held grievances from a non-western perspective. Continue reading →

Thomas Jefferson On Foreign Ideas and Immigration

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In 1782, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the dangers of unrestricted immigration.

What we can apply today from his words of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson circa 1780 the 3rd President of the United States. Born in Virginia, he drafted the Declaration of Independence,

The United States faced a population problem in 1782. There simply weren’t enough people living in the U.S.: just over 2.7 million according to the census.

Some citizens proposed increasing population by inviting foreigners to settle in the United States.

Thomas Jefferson was firmly against using immigration by “inviting (foreigners) by extraordinary encouragements” as a means of increasing population. Jefferson was not against immigration for people who wanted to come to the United States on their own.

Jefferson’s belief was to allow population to increase naturally through its native stock and continue to allow immigration at its natural pace. While Jefferson wasn’t speaking against any particular group of immigrants flooding our shores, he knew that foreign allegiances and ideas could cause great upheavals. Jefferson questioned whether increasing population just for the sake of increasing population was a wise move for our young country.

Jefferson espoused civilized values, the current “Western ideals” that the United States was founded upon and that are currently under attack by terrorists. Continue reading →