FDR's "Green Light Letter," 1942; dedicated to Angie, for the reasons explained below

FDR's "Green Light Letter," 1942; dedicated to Angie, for the reasons explained below

Image by gwilmore
I was talking to one of the judicial clerks today when Commissioner Roger Hartsell passed by and motioned for me to come into his chambers. He is an avid baseball fan, and his chambers are decorated with all sorts of photos, trading cards, autographed baseballs, books, and other memorabilia related to the sport; moreover, he knows that I also love the game (although I haven't followed it much in recent years), and that I am a history enthusiast as well. (I'm even known to have historical dreams on occasion, but that is another story.)

This is what he wanted to show me. It is a new acquisition, hanging on his wall in a frame. My interest perked up when I approached it closely enough to recognize the signature of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and when I started reading the text, I immediately knew what this was. Here is the story behind it, which he and I discussed for a few minutes:

In January, 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and amid some of the darkest days of World War II, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who served at the time as Commissioner of Baseball, wrote to President Roosevelt and asked if he thought the upcoming baseball season should be cancelled, in view of the pressures and exigiencies associated with the war effort. There had been precedent for such an action; President Woodrow Wilson, a rather dour, humorless man and no baseball fan himself, had requested that the 1918 season be cut short because of American involvement in World War I, which, in Wilson's view, had reduced the game to a useless and inappropriate distraction. (As a result of that request, the 1918 World Series was held in September of that year, a full month earlier than usual.) Roosevelt, however, was a very different man, and he enjoyed the game. He responded to Judge Landis's question by sending him this famous letter, reproduced here. As a result, baseball continued throughout the war years as an annual April-to-October American ritual, although the overall quality of play was reduced rather substantially because so many of the game's top stars -- Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, Ted Williams, and Hank Greenberg, among dozens of others -- served in the military during the conflict. (It might say something about the quality of wartime baseball that the last time the Chicago Cubs have appeared in a World Series was in 1945!)

As an afterthought, and with a touch of humor, I am dedicating this image to my dance instructor, Miss Angie, for whom I have such enormous respect and affection. Football is definitely her sport of choice, and I really don't think she cares all that much for baseball. Why, then, do I do this? Well, it's because I tend to think in terms of historical analogies and comparisons, and there is a very good one here that applies perfectly to her. It is this: I recently went through a Great Depression of my own, and Angie has sort of been the FDR of my personal New Deal. :-)

(Update: I have changed the title of this image in order to ensure that Angie looks at it, as it would not attract her attention otherwise. As of one hour ago as I write this, I know she had not looked at my photostream recently enough to have noticed this little tribute.)

MOUNT AN DO ME .. China Consolidates Grip on Rare Earths -- forcing prices to rise eightfold to fortyfold (September 15, 2011) ...item 2.. Eatery employee charged with scam -- keep more than ,300 in cash for himself. (Feb. 4, 2012) ...

Image by marsmet523
An 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulb — the lighting equivalent of a 40-watt incandescent bulb — was priced on Thursday ..(9/15/2011).. at .88 on Wal-Mart’s Web site for pickup in a Nashville, Ark., store.
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.....item 1).... website ... Yahoo! Finance ...

The New York Times

KEITH BRADSHER, On Thursday September 15, 2011, 7:46 pm EDT

finance.yahoo.com/news/China-Consolidates-Grip-on-nytimes...

BEIJING — In the name of fighting pollution, China has sent the price of compact fluorescent light bulbs soaring in the United States.

By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals — which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products — China is temporarily shutting down most of the industry and crimping the global supply of the vital resources.

China produces nearly 95 percent of the world’s rare earth materials, and it is taking the steps to improve pollution controls in a notoriously toxic mining and processing industry. But the moves also have potential international trade implications and have started yet another round of price increases for rare earths, which are vital for green-energy products including giant wind turbines, hybrid gasoline-electric cars and compact fluorescent bulbs.

General Electric, facing complaints in the United States about rising prices for its compact fluorescent bulbs, recently noted in a statement that if the rate of inflation over the last 12 months on the rare earth element europium oxide had been applied to a cup of coffee, that coffee would now cost .55.

An 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulb — the lighting equivalent of a 40-watt incandescent bulb — was priced on Thursday at .88 on Wal-Mart’s Web site for pickup in a Nashville, Ark., store.

Wal-Mart, which has made a big push for compact fluorescent bulbs, acknowledged that it needed to raise prices on some brands lately. “Obviously we don’t want to pass along price increases to our customers, but occasionally market conditions require it,” Tara Raddohl, a spokeswoman, said. The Chinese actions on rare earths were a prime topic of conversation at a conference here on Thursday that was organized by Metal-Pages, an industry data firm based in London.

Soaring prices are rippling through a long list of industries.

“The high cost of rare earths is having a significant chilling effect on wind turbine and electric motor production in spite of offsetting government subsidies for green tech products,” said one of the conference attendees, Michael N. Silver, chairman and chief executive of American Elements, a chemical company based in Los Angeles. It supplies rare earths and other high-tech materials to a wide range of American and foreign businesses.

But with light bulbs, especially, the timing of the latest price increases is politically awkward for the lighting industry and for environmentalists who backed a shift to energy-efficient lighting.

In January, legislation that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007 will begin phasing out traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of spiral compact fluorescent bulbs, light-emitting diodes and other technologies. The European Union has also mandated a switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-efficient lighting.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is running for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform that includes strong opposition to the new lighting rules in the United States and has been a leader of efforts by House Republicans to repeal it.

China says it has largely shut down its rare earth industry for three months to address pollution problems. By invoking environmental concerns, China could potentially try to circumvent international trade rules that are supposed to prohibit export restrictions of vital materials.

In July, the European Union said in a statement on rare earth policy that the organization supported efforts to protect the environment, but that discrimination against foreign buyers of rare earths was not allowed under World Trade Organization rules.

China has been imposing tariffs and quotas on its rare earth exports for the last several years, curtailing global supplies and forcing prices to rise eightfold to fortyfold during that period for the various 17 rare earth elements.

Even before this latest move by China, the United States and the European Union were preparing to file a case at the W.T.O. this winter that would challenge Chinese export taxes and export quotas on rare earths.

Chinese officials here at the conference said the government was worried about polluted water, polluted air and radioactive residues from the rare earth industry, particularly among many small and private companies, some of which operate without the proper licenses. While rare earths themselves are not radioactive, they are always found in ore containing radioactive thorium and require careful handling and processing to avoid contaminating the environment.

Most of the country’s rare earth factories have been closed since early August, including those under government control, to allow for installation of pollution control equipment that must be in place by Oct. 1, executives and regulators said.

The government is determined to clean up the industry, said Xu Xu, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, a government-controlled group that oversees the rare earth industry. “The entrepreneurs don’t care about environmental problems, don’t care about labor problems and don’t care about their social responsibility,” he said. “And now we have to educate them.”

Beijing authorities are creating a single government-controlled monopoly, Bao Gang Rare Earth, to mine and process ore in northern China, the region that accounts for two-thirds of China’s output. The government is ordering 31 mostly private rare earth processing companies to close this year in that region and is forcing four other companies into mergers with Bao Gang, said Li Zhong, the vice general manager of Bao Gang Rare Earth.

The government also plans to consolidate 80 percent of the production from southern China, which produces the rest of China’s rare earths, into three companies within the next year or two, Mr. Li said. All three of these companies are former ministries of the Chinese government that were spun out as corporations, and the central government still owns most of the shares.

The taxes and quotas China had in place to restrict rare earth exports caused many companies to move their factories to China from the United States and Europe so that they could secure a reliable and inexpensive source of raw materials.

China promised when it joined the W.T.O. in 2001 that it would not restrict exports except for a handful of obscure materials. Rare earths were not among the exceptions.

But even if the W.T.O. orders China to dismantle its export tariffs and quotas, the industry consolidation now under way could enable China to retain tight control over exports and continue to put pressure on foreign companies to relocate to China.

The four state-owned companies might limit sales to foreign buyers, a tactic that would be hard to address through the W.T.O., Western trade officials said.

Hedge funds and other speculators have been buying and hoarding rare earths this year, with prices rising particularly quickly through early August, and dipping since then as some have sold their inventories to take profits, said Constantine Karayannopoulos, the chief executive of Neo Material Technologies, a Canadian company that is one of the largest processors in China of raw rare earths.

“The real hot money got into the industry building neodymium and europium inventories in Shanghai warehouses,” he said.

Stephanie Clifford contributed reporting from New York.
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.....item 2)... Florida Today.com ... www.floridatoday.com ... Eatery employee charged with scam
12:16 AM, Feb. 4, 2012

Written by
J.D. Gallop
FLORIDA TODAY

FILED UNDER
News
Local News

www.floridatoday.com/article/20120204/NEWS01/302040012/Ea...|newswell|text|Home|s

An assistant manager at a Palm Bay barbecue restaurant was jailed after police said he confessed to secretly voiding out customer gift cards and comp tickets to keep more than ,300 in cash for himself.

Anthony Justin Bellafonte, 24, was charged with grand theft after Palm Bay Police were called by the vice-president of operations for Sonny’s Barbecue, 1020 Malabar Road, to investigate the missing money.

Police said a financial audit found evidence of Bellafonte handling a number of comp tickets and gift cards at the restaurant.

The investigation by the restaurant’s management began Jan. 23 after a customer walked in to complain that they had bought two gift cards that did not work.
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img code photo ... Anthony Justin Bellafonte

cmsimg.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=A9&...

Anthony Justin Bellafonte

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Accoring to reports, management determined that Bellefonte had gone in shortly after the sales and voided the gift cards, allowing him to open the cash drawer and keep the money without the day’s receipts coming up short.

Police reported that Bellafonte started comping tickets in early November leading up to the Christmas holidays.

Bellafonte, who admitted to the theft, was arrested and taken to the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes.

Contact Gallop at 321-242-3642 or jgallop@floridatoday.com
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Moo mini cards

Image by Life As Art
Yay! I love them!!! 100 little cards, all different photos!
I'm going to try to keep track of who I give them to, we'll see how long that lasts. Ran into Opus, Ffej, and their cute friend on Wednesday night and gave them the first three, and forgot which one I gave the cute girl though.

blogged here: tamaraweikel.com/2006/11/20/moo/

My Free Business "Green" Moo Cards

Image by Kim.Wood
I ordered a sample pack of free business cards so I could see the texture of the "green" ones. They aren't too much different - a tad bit lighter and a less glossy. Still not sure which I want to order :)

Also got 100 new Mini Moos - I'll have fun laying them out for a photo.

I :heart: Moo! Yes, I took the pictures - they're in my Flickr stream somewhere :)

(Taken with mobile phone)

Photo365-Day035-ScrapDazzle-FLICKR

Image by AntTree
Day 35 (August 7th, 2010)
Title: Scrapbooker's Dazzle

Went to the Scrapbook Expo this weekend, and as with many of the other Expos/Conventions/Shows that I have attended, everyone there was completely crazy. Scrap crazy, but crazy none-the-less. I'd say the only other type of conventions that I've gone do that has an equal level of "hobby insanity" are coin shows. If you've never been to one, well... Count yourself lucky! (And don't get me wrong, I'm a crazy nut about coins, so I am going to be one of those people you see at said coin shows arguing the impact that changing the copper-zinc ratio in cents back in 1982 was one of the starting points of the recession and the downfall of capitalism as we know it. I told you I was crazy). The Scrapbook Expo was exactly the same, but with different subject matter. I heard brief snippets of conversations that included the following (sadly, these are all true):

"Which glue is the best for sticking old animal hair onto a new ceramic pet?"
"I only have my ex-husbands credit card, is it ok if I use it?"
"I can't believe they only had the 'Basic' and 'Intermediate' blue inks!" (I checked the wall that they were talking about, that ONLY had inks on it. I counted over 30 blue inks before I decided I didn't want my brain to get trapped in a scrap-hole (like a black-hole) and I walked away).
"Do you think these scissors can cut through bone?"

After that last one, I decided that my first experience of Scrapbook Expo was done.

Oh, I did win a .00 gift certificate for a booth. A booth who's cheapest item was .00. Doh.