Weekend Open thread

… a beloved children’s book was banned in one city in Poland? The city of Tuszyn, Poland, banned the classic Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne (1882-1956) because the illustrated depiction of Pooh shows him not wearing pants. (Wonder how the town feels about Donald Duck, then?)

… watering down beer once carried a death sentence? Under the Code of Hammurabi (1810 BC-1750 BC), sixth Amorite king of the old Babylonian Empire, watering down beer was a capital crime. (Talk about being strict!)

… the world’s record for largest coffee cup was set in 2019? In June of that year, the Mayor’s office in the city of Chinchiná, Colombia, created a coffee cup that will hold about 6,000 gallons of the brew. The cup was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest coffee cup in the world. (Six thousand gallons of coffee … sounds about right for my average Monday morning.)

… prisoners of war once held the commander of their camp hostage? In the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, North Korean prisoners of war were being held in a United Nations camp commanded by U.S. Army Brigadier General Francis T. Dodd (1899-1973). On May 7, 1952, Dodd visited one of the compounds in the camp to listen to complaints by the prisoners. But when the gate opened to allow a work detail through, Dodd and one of his subordinates were grabbed by the prisoners. The subordinate got away, but the general was taken to the center of the camp and held hostage by the prisoners for 78 hours. He was finally released after negotiators gave in to a demand from the prisoners that the U.N. admit responsibility for bloodshed in the camps. Dodd was heavily criticized for handing the North Koreans a propaganda victory and an Army review board removed him from command and reduced him in rank to colonel. He was forced to retire the following year. Additional trivia note: Dodd was not even informed that the review board was meeting. He was thus not allowed to present any evidence on his behalf, and was even denied a copy of the review board’s report since the material was classified as Top Secret.

… U.S. currency lasts a while? Coins, for example, can last in circulation up to 30 years. But paper currency has different rates: a one-dollar bill lasts about 18 months; the five-dollar bill, two years; the ten-dollar bill, four years; and fifty- and hundred-dollar bills last about nine years. (But those two-dollar bills last forever!)

… a French nobleman’s wife became a pirate after his death? Jeanne de Clisson (1300-1359) was the wife of a nobleman, Olivier IV de Clisson (1300-1343), who was beheaded for treason. Jeanne was more than a little unhappy about that, and she sold the family lands and used the funds to purchase three warships. For the next thirteen years, Jeanne’s pirate fleet waged war against the ships of King Philip VI (1293-1350) and when she captured any French noblemen, she personally would behead them with an axe. Her practice was to leave one person on each ship alive, just to spread the tale. (Remind me to stay on her good side.)

… movies about space get a lot wrong? Sure, they’re supposed to be entertainment above all, but think on this: space is a vacuum. In films depicting space battle sequences such as the Star Wars series, the laser beams would not be visible, nor would the explosions be heard. (Yeah, but who wants to watch that in a theatre?)

… the population of the world is expected to double by 2080? Estimates say that our current 8 billion people will have become more than 16 billion by that year – assuming, of course, that something awful doesn’t happen. (Which is not to say that doubling our population itself isn’t something awful.)

… the highest point in North America is in Alaska? Denali, also called Mt. McKinley, stands 20,310 feet above sea level. Which is impressive, but … 38 peaks in South America are taller. (So there.)

Now … you know!

CW – in the GB Compound AO the pine pollen has coated everything thicker than Col Sander’s batter on a drumstick.
Spring is definitely here, regardless of what the calendar says.

Her grave will look like an Agent Orange test site.