Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

December 2, 1763: members of the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island witnessed the dedication of the Touro Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue building in what is now the United States, and sole survivor from the colonial era. Designed in the Georgian style by English architect Peter Harrison, the synagogue was named for Isaac Touro, its first Hazzan (prayer leader).

Organized Jewish community life in Newport dates to 1658, when fifteen families emigrated and established a congregation in the growing seaport. Then called Nephuse Israel (Scattered of Israel), it was the second Jewish congregation in the future USA, and the first in a British colony.

Touro Synagogue was one of the only public buildings in Newport to survive the Revolution undamaged. It served as the meeting place for the Rhode Island General Assembly and for sessions of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1781-84. George Washington attended a Town meeting in the synagogue on March 13, 1781.


On August 17, 1790, the Hebrew congregation of Newport welcomed George Washington to their city. In a pair of letters exchanged with the congregation’s president, Washington penned his most memorable statement on the place of religious freedom in America: “To Bigotry No Sanction, To Persecution No Assistance”

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Newport’s temperate climate and scenic location made it a favorite vacation spot for the rich. Newport is filled with “cottages” like Belcourt Castle and The Breakers. Designed by architects like Richard Morris Hunt and landscaped by professionals including Frederick Law Olmsted these mansions provided imposing settings for wealthy Americans like Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Still in use as a synagogue today, the building was designated a National Historic Site in 1946.


"SHE WAS ONCE SOLD TO ARABS FOR $5" (The Washington Times, Dec 2, 1924)
December 2, 1986: The General Assembly of the Useless Nutters passed the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. It’s commemorated as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, focused on ending modern slavery.




December 2, 1929: Britain’s public telephone boxes went into national service, with the white and red K3 model. It was designed as was the more well known later red version by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960), who also designed Liverpool’s towering Anglican Cathedral among many other iconic buildings. Exit portal outta the Matrix!


The Story of Kiosk No 3

Scott came from a family of architects. His father George Gilbert Scott Jr. was a co-founder of Watts & Co., which Scott became the second chairman of. He was noted for his blending of Gothic tradition with modernism, making what might otherwise have been functionally designed buildings into popular landmarks.

UK Parliament Historic Furniture Collection


On the afternoon of December 2, 1942, the Atomic Age began inside an enormous tent on a squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. There, headed by Italian scientist Enrico Fermi, the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction was engineered. The result—sustainable nuclear energy—led to creation of the atomic bomb and nuclear power plants—two of the 20th century’s most powerful and controversial achievements.

    “...the Italian Navigator has just landed in the New World...”

    Coded telephone message confirming first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, December 2, 1942.


Four years earlier, Fermi had received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Like so many intellectuals who had left fascist Europe, Fermi came to the United States and worked at Columbia University.

Fermi learned from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr about the findings of Lise Meitner. Meitner had worked in Germany with physicists Otto Hahn (Hahn later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry) and Fritz Strassmann and had discovered the process of nuclear disintegration. She worked in the field of nuclear physics and chemistry with her nephew, Otto Frisch; they named the process fission.

Fermi and the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard (who left Hungary for Germany, then fled to London, before moving to the U.S.) realized that the first split or fission could cause a second, and so on–in a series of chain reactions expanding in geometric progression. Szilard and fellow Hungarian émigré Eugene Wigner persuaded Albert Einstein to write President Franklin D. Roosevelt and request that atomic research receive a high priority. In fact, Szilard was responsible for the establishment of the Manhattan Project.

Preparing the nation for war, Roosevelt agreed. In December 1941, as the U.S. entered World War II, the project moved to Chicago where Fermi, Walter Zinn, Herbert Anderson, Arthur Compton, and Leo Szilard were the principal team members. Within four years, the Manhattan Project, supervised by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Compton, and Fermi, developed the atomic bomb.


December 2, 1966: The Mini skirt was banned from being worn in the UK Houses of Parliament. When the ban was imposed there were only 26 female MPs in the House of Commons.

The miniskirt was a controversial fashion item that was both praised and criticized. Some critics blamed the miniskirt for corrupting the morals of young people, damaging women's health, and destroying their feminine charm and respectability. However, the miniskirt was also a symbol of female independence and a rejection of traditional gender roles. The young women who wore the short skirts in Britain in 1962 were called "Ya-Ya girls", a term derived from "yeah, yeah" which was a popular catcall at the time.

In 1965 skirts continued to rise as British miniskirts were officially introduced to the US in a New York show whose models’ thigh-high skirts stopped traffic.


Remembering the Miniskirt: A Glimpse into 1960s Miniskirt Fashion and Feminine Rebellion

The Rise (and Rise, and Rise) of the Mini Skirt

1970: Down With the Midi! Wait, what?

As Miami Fashion Week hits the runway, we can't help but wonder if, for all the bijou and bling, the styles on show this week will provoke the kind of passion recorded in this clip.

It's 1970 and if you're an American with a problem your course is clear -- paint a sign, hit the street, and form a picket line! In this clip a number of Miami women come together at Northside Shopping Center to register their opposition to the midi skirt.

And what, you ask, is a "midi skirt?" The "midi," with its hemline somewhere between the knee and the ankle, was a response to the super-short mini skirt of the late 1960s. A none too popular reaction, if the mini skirt supporters in this clip are any indication.

In the heady, activist days of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the Women's Movement taking shape, a "fashion statement" was often a political statement.

Many found the mini skirt comfortable, sexy, even liberating. In contrast, the longer, more conservative midi looked like a step backward. And some women -- such as the women in this clip -- were not having it.

Here's a good 5 minute compilation of Mini skirt fashion (60s-70s) that will make the rain stop! Can't guarantee it'll stop the snow, sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmVW4dOUgeg


More Ya-Ya & rah-rah & I Want Candy! And related The Yé-Yé Girls of same era, different country.

The Strangeloves - I Want Candy (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4LQYNZdY9U



"Salut Les Copains!" In this episode, we're heading to '60s Paris to meet the teens who helped bring the Youthquake to France; the Yé-Yé Girls! (This vid actually explains how the Yé-Yé culture movement took Paris by storm or rather bright colors quite well)




Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman were really channeling something when they made Shock Treatment in 1981. It foretold reality TV by two decades. Although, An American Family (1973) is seen as the first reality TV show. 43 years later and it feels more relevant than ever.


The missing link between Rocky Horror and Twin Peaks in atmosphere; the missing link between Rocky Horror and The Truman Show in ideas. This is sitcom Americana, picking up the pastiche of American pop culture that Rocky Horror did so well and filtering it through the oncoming televisual decay of culture.

The original script took place in locations around the town of Denton, like Brad and Janet's house, and Cosmo and Nation's "hospital." It was set to be filmed in the real-life town of Denton, TX, but the 1979-80 Screen Actors Guild strike meant no American actor was allowed to act at any location. Filming moved to the UK, but no English locations could pass for an American suburb, so director Jim Sharman set the entire film inside the Denton television studio.


A tie-in promotional television show publicizing this movie was entitled "The Rocky Horror Treatment" (1981). The funny bit is I lived about 30 miles east of Denton, TX for a few years back in the 80s.

Title Song from the movie "Shock Treatment"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuNRopIJRgo

You can find the full movie on Youtube.

1984 flashback: How you can tell which is which.







New week, new words and apparently the astute Oxford lexicographer's haven't noticed we're in December.