Schmidt Meister's Grab Bag

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Where did the weekend go ?!?

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When Mother Nature smokes a bowl ...

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This reminds me of those times when I'm driving and my wife freaks because she thinks I'm too close and I tell her, "I know how far my stuff sticks out." So does this longhorn.

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Morris gets a text message from his next door neighbor, Saul:

Hi, Morris. This is Saul, next door. I've been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. When you're not around, I've been sharing your wife, day and night, probably much more than you. I haven't been getting it at home recently. I know that's no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can't live with the guilt and hope you'll accept my sincere apology and forgive me. Please suggest a fee for usage and I'll pay you. - Saul.

Morris, feeling enraged and betrayed, grabbed his gun, went next door, and shot Saul dead. He returned home, shot his wife, poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. Morris then looked at his phone and discovered a second text message from Saul:

Hi, Morris. Saul again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I assume you figured it out and noticed that the damned spell-check had changed "wi-fi" to "wife." Technology, hey? It'll be the death of us. - Saul

[Schmidt Meister]

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for this post up front ... cause you deserve it. I just found this photo of John and Yoko, whom I've always considered useless tools. But after studying this photo for a second, I'm wondering if their psych issues might have been caused by accidentally or purposely checking out their arse cracks in the mirror and having mental issues about what they saw. If this picture looks normal to you, please disregard.

[Schmidt Meister]

This is an 2006 Blaupunkt stereo commercial. I think the first link is to the version that was eventually shown in the US. The 2nd link is to the original version that was shown overseas:

Blaupunkt Bunny & Bear (official) Commercial 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkVXg_r70YI

Blaupunkt Bunny & Bear Commercial 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGqr7vBpnl0

[Schmidt Meister]

Railway Crossings For Cane Trains - Australia

South of Rockhampton in Queensland, Australia, are a number of drawbridge-like crossings that carry 2-feet tracks of the Sugar Cane Railway operated by private sugar mills over the electrified North Coast Line of the Queensland Railway. When locomotives of the Sugar Cane Railway, also known as Tramways, need to cross the mainline, the drawbridges are lowered, and after the trains have passed, the two leaves of the bridges are raised up again. Queensland is (possibly) the only place in the world where drawbridges carrying railway tracks over another pair of railway tracks are found.
From the engineering point of view, drawbridges for tracks-over-tracks crossings are not necessary because such crossovers are easily handled by junctions, sometimes also called diamond crossing in reference to the diamond-shaped center. The two tracks need not necessarily be of the same gauge.
In Queensland, however, the North Coast Line is crossed by the Sugar Cane Railway in no less than 15 locations. Three of these crossings have either an underpass or overpass, but in the remaining 12 crossings drawbridges are used. If regular diamond crossings were implemented in each of these 12 locations, the high-speed “Tilt Trains” operating the North Coast Line would have never ran at its desired speeds, since diamond crossings impose speed restrictions.
So, in order to allow the Electric Tilt Trains, which are one of the fastest trains in Australia having a top speed of 160 km/h, to run at high speed, drawbridges were built instead of level crossings.
The drawbridge is always in the upright position allowing Queensland Railway trains to pass. As a cane train approaches the drawbridge, the driver activates the drawbridge by a remote control in the locomotive cabin. This changes the Queensland Railway signals to stop and starts lowering the drawbridge. Once the drawbridge is in place, the cane train can cross the Queensland Railway line. Once the cane train has passed, the drawbridge automatically lifts to clear the mainline track and returns the line signals to proceed. If a Queensland Railway train is approaching the drawbridge, the drawbridge will not lower even if attempted to by the cane train driver. If the cane train does not stop at the red signal, a “catch point” will derail the cane train to prevent it from crossing the path of the high speed train.

Article and more photos at:
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/unusual-drawbridge-railway-crossing-in.html

[railfancwb]

9 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

Railway Crossings For Cane Trains - Australia

South of Rockhampton in Queensland, Australia, are a number of drawbridge-like crossings that carry 2-feet tracks of the Sugar Cane Railway operated by private sugar mills over the electrified North Coast Line of the Queensland Railway. When locomotives of the Sugar Cane Railway, also known as Tramways, need to cross the mainline, the drawbridges are lowered, and after the trains have passed, the two leaves of the bridges are raised up again. Queensland is (possibly) the only place in the world where drawbridges carrying railway tracks over another pair of railway tracks are found.
From the engineering point of view, drawbridges for tracks-over-tracks crossings are not necessary because such crossovers are easily handled by junctions, sometimes also called diamond crossing in reference to the diamond-shaped center. The two tracks need not necessarily be of the same gauge.
In Queensland, however, the North Coast Line is crossed by the Sugar Cane Railway in no less than 15 locations. Three of these crossings have either an underpass or overpass, but in the remaining 12 crossings drawbridges are used. If regular diamond crossings were implemented in each of these 12 locations, the high-speed “Tilt Trains” operating the North Coast Line would have never ran at its desired speeds, since diamond crossings impose speed restrictions.
So, in order to allow the Electric Tilt Trains, which are one of the fastest trains in Australia having a top speed of 160 km/h, to run at high speed, drawbridges were built instead of level crossings.
The drawbridge is always in the upright position allowing Queensland Railway trains to pass. As a cane train approaches the drawbridge, the driver activates the drawbridge by a remote control in the locomotive cabin. This changes the Queensland Railway signals to stop and starts lowering the drawbridge. Once the drawbridge is in place, the cane train can cross the Queensland Railway line. Once the cane train has passed, the drawbridge automatically lifts to clear the mainline track and returns the line signals to proceed. If a Queensland Railway train is approaching the drawbridge, the drawbridge will not lower even if attempted to by the cane train driver. If the cane train does not stop at the red signal, a “catch point” will derail the cane train to prevent it from crossing the path of the high speed train.

Article and more photos at:
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/unusual-drawbridge-railway-crossing-in.html

Thanks for the link!

[Schmidt Meister]

Graphics and Tag make this Cooper my favorite Cooper ever.

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

DON’T get me wrong. It was wrong, in my opinion, to remove Nancy Green as the spokeswoman for Aunt Jemima and we haven’t bought any products since then under the new name, Pearl Milling. But the story that circulates on the internet is sadly misleading. Not the part about people loving the product or the spokeswoman but all the stories about her becoming famous and rich, those are all wrong. The company that made her “likeness” famous, General Mills, bought out by Quaker Oats/PepsiCo, didn’t really do anything else for Nancy Green. They hired many, many, “Aunt Jemima’s” to travel the country and make public appearances.
The sad truth about Aunt Jemima and Nancy Green:
Aunt Jemima:
The initial recipe for the pancake mix was the brainchild of Chris Rutt, a former editorial writer for the now-defunct St. Joseph Gazette. Rutt and business partner Charles Underwood had acquired a flour mill and, by trial-and-error, perfected a recipe for self-rising, premixed pancake flour.
According to M. M. Manring, author of "Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima," despite the novelty of their new product, Rutt and Underwood encountered difficulty branding it. While wandering the streets of St. Joseph, Missouri, Rutt happened upon a performance of "Old Aunt Jemima," a popular minstrel song written by Black musician Billy Kersands in 1875. The song features a mammy, a racial stereotype of the Black female caretaker figure devoted to her white family. This image of supposed Southern hospitality inspired the hopeful entrepreneur.   Aunt Jemima was seen as a “mammy” character, a racial stereotype of a slave happy to please her white masters.
Unfortunately, Manring wrote, Rutt and Underwood were unable to sell their new Aunt Jemima breakfast product.
The partners eventually sold their company and the recipe to R.T. Davis, owner of R.T. Davis Milling Co., the largest flour mill in Buchanan County, Missouri.
As a 50-year veteran of the flour industry, Davis was not only able to invest the necessary capital in improving the Aunt Jemima recipe, he also knew how to successfully market.
"R.T. Davis decided to promote Aunt Jemima pancake mix by creating Aunt Jemima, in person. He mixed the mammy and the mass market," Manring wrote.
After merging his company with the Pearl Milling Co. in 1890, Davis sent a casting call for a gregarious, theatrical Black woman who could cook the pancake mix at big demonstrations.
Nancy Green, a 59-year-old servant for a Chicago judge, fit the bill. Born on a slave plantation in Montgomery County, Kentucky, Green had the lively personality and cooking skills Davis sought. She debuted at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.
Green worked a booth at the Expo designed to resemble a giant flour barrel, cooking pancakes, singing and regaling guests with stories of her childhood in slavery. She became a sensation and was awarded a medal by world's fair officials.
Green's personification of Aunt Jemima and the character's mythology built by advertising executives, earned Davis, and later Quaker Oats, a great deal of profit. However, there is no evidence to suggest Green ever saw any of that revenue.
Although she played a character, Green was a notable woman in her own right. She served as one of the founding members of Olivet Baptist Church, the oldest active Black Baptist church in Chicago, was a minister and a philanthropist. She enjoyed a kind of social and economic mobility unavailable to Black women of her time, according to reporting by public radio station WBEZ Chicago.
Nancy Green was hit by a car while walking along 46th Street in Chicago when she was killed in 1923. She was 89 years old.
Nancy Green lived with her grand nephew at the end of her life.
Nancy Green was buried in an unmarked, pauper’s grave in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. Through the dogged efforts of supporters, a proper headstone was finally placed at her grave in 2020.
After 137 years of using Green’s image, the Aunt Jemima brand name and image was discontinued in 2020. Quaker Oats in its announcement acknowledged the long history of racism “We recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype,” the company said.

[pipedreams]

11 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

DON’T get me wrong. It was wrong, in my opinion, to remove Nancy Green as the spokeswoman for Aunt Jemima and we haven’t bought any products since then under the new name, Pearl Milling. But the story that circulates on the internet is sadly misleading. Not the part about people loving the product or the spokeswoman but all the stories about her becoming famous and rich, those are all wrong. The company that made her “likeness” famous, General Mills, bought out by Quaker Oats/PepsiCo, didn’t really do anything else for Nancy Green. They hired many, many, “Aunt Jemima’s” to travel the country and make public appearances.
The sad truth about Aunt Jemima and Nancy Green:
Aunt Jemima:
The initial recipe for the pancake mix was the brainchild of Chris Rutt, a former editorial writer for the now-defunct St. Joseph Gazette. Rutt and business partner Charles Underwood had acquired a flour mill and, by trial-and-error, perfected a recipe for self-rising, premixed pancake flour.
According to M. M. Manring, author of "Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima," despite the novelty of their new product, Rutt and Underwood encountered difficulty branding it. While wandering the streets of St. Joseph, Missouri, Rutt happened upon a performance of "Old Aunt Jemima," a popular minstrel song written by Black musician Billy Kersands in 1875. The song features a mammy, a racial stereotype of the Black female caretaker figure devoted to her white family. This image of supposed Southern hospitality inspired the hopeful entrepreneur.   Aunt Jemima was seen as a “mammy” character, a racial stereotype of a slave happy to please her white masters.
Unfortunately, Manring wrote, Rutt and Underwood were unable to sell their new Aunt Jemima breakfast product.
The partners eventually sold their company and the recipe to R.T. Davis, owner of R.T. Davis Milling Co., the largest flour mill in Buchanan County, Missouri.
As a 50-year veteran of the flour industry, Davis was not only able to invest the necessary capital in improving the Aunt Jemima recipe, he also knew how to successfully market.
"R.T. Davis decided to promote Aunt Jemima pancake mix by creating Aunt Jemima, in person. He mixed the mammy and the mass market," Manring wrote.
After merging his company with the Pearl Milling Co. in 1890, Davis sent a casting call for a gregarious, theatrical Black woman who could cook the pancake mix at big demonstrations.
Nancy Green, a 59-year-old servant for a Chicago judge, fit the bill. Born on a slave plantation in Montgomery County, Kentucky, Green had the lively personality and cooking skills Davis sought. She debuted at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.
Green worked a booth at the Expo designed to resemble a giant flour barrel, cooking pancakes, singing and regaling guests with stories of her childhood in slavery. She became a sensation and was awarded a medal by world's fair officials.
Green's personification of Aunt Jemima and the character's mythology built by advertising executives, earned Davis, and later Quaker Oats, a great deal of profit. However, there is no evidence to suggest Green ever saw any of that revenue.
Although she played a character, Green was a notable woman in her own right. She served as one of the founding members of Olivet Baptist Church, the oldest active Black Baptist church in Chicago, was a minister and a philanthropist. She enjoyed a kind of social and economic mobility unavailable to Black women of her time, according to reporting by public radio station WBEZ Chicago.
Nancy Green was hit by a car while walking along 46th Street in Chicago when she was killed in 1923. She was 89 years old.
Nancy Green lived with her grand nephew at the end of her life.
Nancy Green was buried in an unmarked, pauper’s grave in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. Through the dogged efforts of supporters, a proper headstone was finally placed at her grave in 2020.
After 137 years of using Green’s image, the Aunt Jemima brand name and image was discontinued in 2020. Quaker Oats in its announcement acknowledged the long history of racism “We recognize Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype,” the company said.

OK I can buy that, is the same true for "Uncle Ben"?

[Schmidt Meister]

1 hour ago, pipedreams said:

OK I can buy that, is the same true for "Uncle Ben"?

As far as Uncle Ben’s is concerned all I could find out a couple of year’s ago when the ‘woke’ movement started eliminating black stereotypes is:
Frank Brown was the man whose image became the face of Uncle Ben’s in 1946.
Brown was a maitre d' in a Chicago restaurant. Not much else is known about him.
The name Uncle Ben came from an African American farmer in Texas who was renowned for his high-quality rice.
Gordon Harwell was a Texas food broker who co-founded the grains line decided to change the name of what was called Converted Brand Rice in the late 1940s to draw in new customers. Gordon knew Frank Brown from eating in the restaurant where Frank worked and he paid him, supposedly $50, to use his likeness on the box.
Uncle Ben’s was originally given the name Uncle Ben’s Plantation Rice in 1937. This information is hard to find, but old newspaper clippings reveal the original name that Harwell used to promote the company in one of his attempts at rebranding. It was not until 1946 that it became known simply as Uncle Ben’s.
The clipping is from the May 7, 1937 issue of the Corpus Cristi Caller-Times.

[Schmidt Meister]