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How to Remove Scratches from CDs and DVDs
Get your old CDs or DVDs working again by removing scratches using one of two simple methods.
The concept of the compact disk has definitely stood the test of time and with new technologies such as Blu-Ray still choosing to incorporate similar optical technology, it looks like CDs are here to stay….well, at least for a while anyway.
The versatility of the CD/DVD made home recording a breeze for even the most incompetent computer user, but one major downfall of a media with such a lengthy history, is the ease in which the disks can be scratched and damaged rendering the data unreadable.
With its long standing history as the first and foremost media format, many of us have hundreds even thousands of CD's and DVD's all storing our own precious documents, music, videos and photos. And as so many of you know, one tiny scratch can result in the loss of a lot of data.
So is there anything you can do to help remove troublesome scratches from your old disks? Luckily an informative article we found on the net suggests two great ways to help revive your damaged CDs/DVDs.
How to Remove Scratches from CDs and DVDs:
First of all, if you haven't already, you should try cleaning the surface of the CD thoroughly. Even lightly scratched disks may be able to play if they are cleaned properly.
To do this, use a piece of Microfiber cloth and clean you disk using eye-glass cleaner.
Be sure to wipe the CD from the inside out and take care not to touch the reflective surface while doing so.
Note: Do not clean the disk using circular motions. Doing so may worsen the condition of the CD if you accidentally scratch it. It is always better to have a scratch bisecting one location on several tracks rather than affecting the entire length of a single track.
If this method does not solve the problem, you may need to try a slightly more drastic approach.
All that you will need is a soft cotton swab and bit of mild abrasive such as Brasso (Apparently white tooth paste and car rubbing compound may also be effective).
Note: Brasso emits harmful fumes so be sure to perform the task in a well ventilated area.
First collect a small amount of Brasso with your cotton swab.
Gently apply the abrasive to the damaged area of your CD or DVD using small circular motions until the scratch disappears or at least subdues.
Finally rinse the media.
Hopefully your disk should now work, if not, then you may repeat the process and hope for the best!
Don't forget that these methods can be applied to any type of CD including PS2, PS3 and Xbox games.
House Hold Hacker
Below is a house hold hack for removing CD scratches:
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28 Comments
can i do that to games 2
PS2 and Computer Games will work the same.
i tried the toothpaste but didnt have much success but i did try using Mothers carnuba wax cleaner,terry cloth,and some elbow grease Put the wax on sparingly with some pressure depending on severity it took me 3X for the scratches to almost completly disappear hope this helps.
the first one worked i had bad scratches on my final fantasy IX it worked afterwords i was soooooooooo happpyyyy
it worked great (:
I just tried this method on my NBA2K10 game and it worked! thnx god it worked! I will definitely recommend this method to anyone who ever asks me about this subject!
I can't believe this worked, there was a huge scratch in a game I got used, it didn't work at all. I used arm and hammer toothpaste, a q-tip, and after two applications the game worked. Thanks!
can it work for Xbox 360 Games
Does it work for PS3 games?
does it works on ps3 games ?
Does the soda have to be dirt coke?
does it work with blu ray disks
Does this work with red ray?
I am not sure about Red-Ray but it will for Blu-Ray 🙂
does it have to be coke or it can be any type of soda???
none of these work
only works if your blind
what any item that requires a disk clean plz tell me
what stuff you need
My C.O.D. Black Ops game was scratched pretty bad, and i had no idea how it got scratched and when i tried to play it, it would freeze so i called around about disc repairs and i found out that Blockbuster Video does disc repairs. so i took my game in and the employee asked if my xbox console was standing or laying flat, i told him mine was laying flat but my friends was standing and he asked if i was playing the black ops game on my friends standing xbox console n i said yes so he said thats how it got scratched cause xbox consoles are not made to stand and when they are they usually scratch the hell out of games (recommend you don't stand your xbox up). so the nice blockbuster employee put my game in the repair machine and said it would take about 12 mins so i waited and i got it back and gave her a test (thinking it wasn't going to work and id have to buy a new copy) and to my surprise the game worked like new. So if u have a scratched disc of any kind (music, dvd, game) i recommend u go to your local Blockbuster Video for disc repair.
Please do not try these methods on Ps3 or Blue ray, it will not help and it will destroy the disk, I used to resurface damaged disks where I worked and you CANNOT rub scratches out of these.
Bluray and PS3 dics CAN have scratches renoved….. Basically, if you can see a REFLECTION to the scratch, on any type of disc (i.e. Bluray, XB360, PS3, WII 'U', DVD, etc), by holding it up to the light on an angle, then it is repairable. You just need to find someone with a machine capable of performing the 'delicate' removal of the said scratch. If you can't see a reflection to the scratch, then that indicates that the scratch is so deep, it has perforated the foil, which the laser reads data from, and that is then unrepairable. A scratch that has perforated the foil indicates VERY rough treatment of the disc. Most discs, as 'irrepairable' as they seem, CAN be returned to 'as new' condition. You need to find someone with a Disc-Go-Devil disc cleaning machine. I own a Blockbuster DVD store in Australia and use this machine. It gets what appear to be 'irrepairable' discs back to a condition no different to when they were first opened. An amazing machine. Absolutely amazing. And I've cleaned close to 2000-3000 discs in it (all types) and they now all work as they should……continuously without stopping and starting!
i agree, don't use this on blue ray!! effs them up.
just got my ps3 problems fixed with THIS! i'm not gonna go destroying my games now 😉
now now it worked on my ps3 game for black ops i loved it…my little brothers scratched the disc to hell and i put it on 3 times and let it soak for about 10 minutes. the game worked and i was hella happy thanks dude
Ok… so I tried it with the best hopes. Did it twice… I believe that I did it right, but I ended up with a lot of tiny light curcular scratches on my disk, and the bigger scratches did not come out. I used the video method. (sigh). Any feed back? Will try Carnuba Wax cleaner next. I really do appreciate this blog. It gives us hope to resurrect games. BTW used Aquafresh toothpaste extra whitening. Don't know if that is why it didn't work. Good luck to the rest of you!
Yea, this DOES NOT WORK on PS3 games, I cleaned my copy of Bad Company 2 like that, and its damaged beyond repair now. Now I have to buy a new copy.
I tried this on my grand theft auto iv for the ps3 and neither of these solutions worked, in fact i believe they made the matter worse. I don't know if this is only the case for playstation 3 games but i would not advise these methods, but thanks for the advise anyway.
Thanks I just got a used copy of Modern Warfare 2 and followed all the steps. Worked perfectly.


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On behalf of the PEI Potato Board
A Rainbow of Colours
PEI Potatoes come in white, red, yellow, and blue? Which do you love?
Fields of Gold
The rich, red soil and clear air of Prince Edward Island - the perfect recipe for growing potatoes.
Must be something in the air.
Prince Edward Island Potatoes are recognized all over the world for their unique taste and excellent quality.
Salt of the Earth
Generations of farmers have honed their skills producing potatoes for consumers around the world.

subset: commoncrawl


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Made In USA
You can feel great knowing that your purchase goes to support a job right here in America. 100% of the Salt Strong apparel is printed, cut, sewn, embroidered, packaged, and handled with a little slice of American love. With Salt Strong apparel, you feel good both on and off the water.
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Sun Protection For Your Legs
These Salt Strong leggings not only make you look and feel amazing while outside, but they also help prevent sun damage on your legs.
Permanent Sublimation Design. No Screen Printing! Super Breathable.
We have taken the extra time and money to permanently sublimate all of the designs, logos, etc right into the performance gear fabric instead of plastering on a layer of screen print like many apparel companies do. The "permanent process" is called sublimation and it makes your leggings incredibly lightweight, super breathable, and it makes you feel cooler without having extra print/weight on your legs. The permanent design also ensures that your leggings unique design will NEVER crack, peel, or fall off like screen printed shirts eventually do.
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Wide Waistband
These amazing leggings come with a wide waistband for ultimate comfort. Note that they wear best with seamless underwear.
30-Day "Love" Trial
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Runs slightly small. If unsure after seeing the size chart, we recommend ordering a size up.


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The Egyptian Brotherhood of Assassins was the Guild of Assassins located in Egypt, one of the few Brotherhoods to have existed for over a thousand years.
Ancient EgyptEdit
The Egyptian branch of Assassin Brotherhood seems to exist at least since the 2nd century before the common era, as the Rosetta Stone contains information about the Assassins.[1]
On 12 August 30 BCE, the Egyptian Assassin Amunet infiltrated the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra's palace, and killed her with a venomous asp.[2]
Islamic EraEdit
In the early 11th century, the Egyptian Assassins acquired the Scepter of Aset after it was discovered by fishermen after it was lost in a Roman shipwreck during Antiquity. Two centuries later, in 1250, still in Egypt, the Brotherhood gave the artifact to the Mamluks in an effort to help them in their slave revolt against the rule of their Ayyubid overlords.[3]
In 1257, Darim Ibn-La'Ahad, son of the Mentor of the Levantine Assassins, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, moved to Alexandria after the Levantine Assassins were disbanded.[4] Darim joined the widow of his deceased brother and her children,[5] which led to their bloodline integrating into the Egyptian Assassins.[4]
In 1340, after the Scepter of Aset remained for nearly a century in the possession of the Mamluks Sultans, the Templars stole it from the Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad and the Assassins entrusted Numa Al'Khamsin and his apprentice Ali Al-Ghraib with the task to find the artifact.[6] One year later, Numa Al'Khamsin eventually retrieved the Scepter from the Templars but he soon lost it again as well as his life during a Templar ambush in Edfu. However, his apprentice escaped with the Scepter, which he threw in a well near Edfu but died before he could reach the Brotherhood and the Scepter remained hidden to all.[7]
By 1511, the Egyptian Assassins were under the leadership of their Mentor Iskender, a descendant of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. He was captured to be executed that year, but was saved by Ottoman Assassins sent from Constantinople by the Mentor of the Italian Assassins, Ezio Auditore da Firenze.[4]
By 1794, the Egyptian Assassins were led by an individual who was known as Al Mualim, who was based in Cairo. Arno Dorian sent one of his fellow French Assassins to the city with the Apple of Eden he had taken from the Head of Saint Denis to keep it safe.[8]
Ptolemaic Egypt
Mamluk Sultanate
- Ali Al-Ghraib
- Assassin Elder
- Darim Ibn-La'Ahad (Levantine Assassins)
- Unidentified Assassin
- Iskender
- Numa Al'Khamsin
Ottoman Empire
Ptolemaic Egypt


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At least 58 people were killed in Iraq after two explosions hit a Sunni mosque another struck a Sunni funeral procession [2] and bomb exploded in a commericial Sunni area in western Baghdad.
The first bomb exploded as worshippers were departing the Saria mosque in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad. A second bomb later exploded after people gathered at the site of the first blast, claiming the lives of at least 41 people and wounding 57, officials told AFP.
In Madain, south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a funeral procession for a Sunni man, killing eight people and wounding at least 25, security and medical officials said, according to AFP.
Meanwhile, Iraqi officials told AP that a bomb exploded in a mainly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing at least seven people and wounding 20.
The attacks on Friday are the latest in a series of bombing that have targeted Sunni and Shiite places, security forces and tribal leaders [3], since security forces raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk a month ago.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 12 people at the entrance of Al-Zahraa Husseiniyah, a Shiite place of worship in the city of Kirkuk.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has blamed the recent spike in violence on religious intolerance [4]."The bloodshed... is a result of sectarian hatred," Maliki said. "These crimes are a natural result of the sectarian mindset."
Tensions between the Shiite prime minister's government [5] and members of the Sunni minority have increased lately as Sunnis accuse Iraqi authorities of targeting their own community.
[1] http://www.syndigate.info
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/middleeast/bomb-blasts-in-iraq.html?_r=0
[3] http://www.albawaba.com/news/iraq-hawija-487255
[4] http://www.albawaba.com/news/iraq-civil-war--487367
[5] http://www.albawaba.com/news/iraq-bombings-471222
[6] http://www.alarabiya.net/english


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Death In Vegas' Electric Brixton gig gives fans chance to experience 1990s
The electro-rock hybrid of Death In Vegas really came to life in the late 1990s, and even now, their sound still has something of that era's spirit.
The electro-rock hybrid of Death In Vegas really came to life in the late 1990s (and in particular via 1999's guest-studded second album The Contino Sessions), and even now, their sound still has something of that era's spirit.
It's partly in the great devilish swagger of frontman Richard Fearless, and also in their heavy-riffing, tech-mashing, genre-splicing approach to grooves (DIV always seemed intrepidly psychedelic before that term was generally revived as a buzzword).
Fearless has dabbled in a few other projects over the years, such as the punky prog of Black Acid, but they've never come across with quite as much conviction as this outfit.
The band's original appeal owed much to their gutsy, properly rock'n'roll gigs, and tonight feels like a fine time to rediscover that. Their latest album, 2011's Trans-Love Energies seizes the underground intensity that marked out their breakthrough work, with deliciously trippy tracks such as Your Loft My Acid, or the brooding, booming downtempo of Silver Time Machine.
The support acts should be a draw in their own right – rising Brighton combo TOY (whose self-titled new album is worth checking), and Brooklyn duo Von Haze (whose darkly dreamy indie-electronica has been produced by Fearless). There's a DJ set from Fearless as well – all in an atmospheric venue (formerly legendary Brixton club The Fridge) that evokes nightlife history and raucous live energy.
Tomorrow, Electric Brixton. http://www.electricbrixton.com


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Just like yesterday night, April 7th, it was raining in Detroit on the night of April 7,1947. There was extensive flooding on the Rouge River and 83 year old Henry Ford had spent part of the day at he beloved Greenfield Village, making sure that it was not damaged. The next day he was planning on touring Ford facilities in southeastern Michigan to see how the flood had affected his factories. After returning to Fair Lane, the estate that Henry and Clara built on the Rouge, the two had dinner by candlelight, as the flood had also knocked out the estate's powerhouse. That must have been a disappointment to Henry, as his primary interest seems to have been power. Before his automotive ventures, Ford was chief operating engineer of the Edison Illuminating Co. of Detroit.
At dinner, Henry and Clara discussed the 100 mile trip he was planning for the next day. As was his custom, he retired to his bedroom at 9 p.m. A little bit after 11, Henry called Clara to his bedside. He complained of a bad headache and said that his throat was dry. He was having a stroke, though Clara did not know that. She gave him a glass of water. Clara then sent her maid, Rosa Buhler, to wake Robert Rankin, the Fords' chauffeur who had an apartment above the estate's garage, to tell him to fetch a doctor. The phone lines were out from the flood and Rankin had to drive over to the Ford Engineering Laboratories, about a half mile from Fair Line find a working phone. Rankin called Dr. John Mateer of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Clara Ford also sent for two other people to come to Henry's deathbead. Her grandson, Henry Ford II, and Evangeline Dahlinger. Henry the second lived at his parents' estate on Lake Ste Claire, north of Grosse Pointe. It's probably not coincidental that Edsel and Eleanor built their home about as far away from Fair Lane as they could and still be somewhere in the Detroit area. Henry alternately doted on Edsel and, afraid that he'd be the effete and soft son of a rich man, Ford would embarrass his son in front of others, supposedly to toughen him up.
Henry was a bit more consistent with the way he treated Evangeline Dahlinger. Unlike Edsel and Eleanor, Evangeline, lived close by to Henry in a stately home just up the Rouge from Fair Lane, a home that Henry built for her and her husband Ray, Ford's former driver. She first met Henry, 30 years her senior, when she got a job in 1909 as a 16 year old stenographer in Ford's Highland Park factory. After the Dahlinger's marriage, Ray was given the job of traveling the world scouting out locations for Ford factories. That made it convenient for Henry's nocturnal cruises up the Rouge in the quiet little electric boat he had made for Clara. A private staircase led from the Dahlinger's boat well to Mrs. Dahlinger's separate bedroom.
It's said that the only time Clara ever stood up to Henry, an indomitable man if there ever was one, was after the death of their only son Edsel in 1943. Years earlier, after buying out his partners and investors following the huge success of the Model T, Henry distributed Ford stuck thusly: 49% for himself, 48% for Edsel, and the remaining 3% for Clara. After Edsel died in 1943 and Henry reasserted operational control of Ford Motor Company, Clara and Eleanor threatened Henry that they would sell the 51% of Ford that they owned if he would not abdicate and let his grandson and namesake run the company. Though she stood up for her grandson, Clara was more tolerant of her husband's behavior when it came to Evangeline Dahlinger, Henry's longtime mistress and likely mother of a second Ford son. By his death, Clara obviously had made her peace with the role Evangeline played in Henry's life.
After waking the chauffeur, the maid returned to Henry's bedroom where she heard Clara say, "Henry, speak to me." He seemed to have stopped breathing and Mrs. Ford asked Buhler, "What do you think of it?" Rosa replied, "I think Mr. Ford will be leaving us." By the time Dr. Mateer got to Fair Lane, the man who put the world on wheels was dead.
Unlike the Egyptian style tomb, complete with sphinxes were the Dodge brothers' widows interred them, Clara buried Henry in a simple grave in the still well-kept private cemetery that had been used by her adoptive family, the Aherns (also spelled O'Hern) since before William Ford, Henry's father, immigrated from Ireland. It's on the south side of Joy Road (named after another automotive pioneer, Henry Joy, who made Packard a great marque), just west of Greenfield Road. The oldest date on a stone there that I could find was 1821. Before her death Clara left an endowment for an Episcopal church to be built next to the small cemetery. It's called St. Martha's and it's still consecrated, and maintained, though it looks inactive and I haven't been able to determine if it ever functioned with a congregation. Clara looks to have been the last person buried there. Most people assume the wrought iron above and around Clara and Henry's final resting places is not for decoration but rather to prevent vandalism. The truth, though, is that only a relative handful of people who drive by have any clue who's buried there.
When I visited Ford's grave site yesterday, at least one other person remembered the date. Someone had left some kind of makeshift memorial at the foot of Henry's grave consisting of two cups each of two different liquids, and four small pieces of what looked like bread. I'm not sure of the significance but I didn't want to disturb it. I'm not sure if any Ford family members came to pay their respects, or if any have been there in years. Eleanor and her children are said to have blamed Henry at least in part for Edsel's death.
As if to put an exclamation point on the location she and Edsel chose for their home, though it was a certainty that Henry would rest with his ancestors, Eleanor decided to bury Edsel at Woodlawn Cemetery on Woodward, near the grave of his good friend Hudson chief Roy Chapin. None of Henry's five grandchildren are buried with him.
Henry, who had some backwards notions regarding ethnicity and religion, might show some surprise at his current neighbors. Across the street from the cemetery there's an Obama branded gas station whose owners have named it after the first black president of the United State. From Henry's grave site you can also see the green dome and minaret of the mosque next door to the church. On the other hand, if Henry's spinning, it's more likely because one great grandkid married a Jew and another married a black man.
Edsel, chief thug Harry Bennett and production whiz Peter Martin were about the only people who worked closely with Ford and didn't eventually come to a parting of the ways with the man. Perhaps Henry's most significant talent was surrounding himself with some people who were not just exceptionally talented but that could also work with a megalomaniac and get him to see things their way. One of my favorite books about Henry Ford was written by Samuel Marquis, an Episcopal clergyman who was the Ford family pastor. Ford eventually put his pastor on his payroll, heading Ford's Sociology Department, but that didn't prevent Marquis from seeing the truth about his parishioner and boss. Eventually, after Ford felt that Marquis spoke out of turn concerning Ford business he fired him. Bitter from his dismissal, Marquis published a book, Henry Ford: An Interpretation. It's a nuanced but almost unvarnished look at the man. That's undoubtedly why the Ford company and family actively suppressed it for decades. I say almost unvarnished because Marquis is uncharacteristically reticent when it came to Ford's Jew-hatred. Still, it was the only critical book about Ford written by a close associate of his that was published during Ford's lifetime.
Henry Ford undoubtedly changed the world. Pastor Marquis had his own interpretation of the man's life. What's yours? Did Henry Ford make the world a better place, or would we all have been better off if he'd stayed at Edison instead of tinkering around with his Quadricycle?
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don't worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
Tagged as Clara Ford, death of henry ford, evangeline dahlinger, henry ford, Henry Ford II
79 Comments on "Henry Ford: An Interpretation. Did He Make the World A Better Place, Or Not?..."
carguy67April 8th, 2014 at 8:48 am
It's my understanding–caveat: I'm not an historian–that Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone conspired to suppress public transit in the US. I like cars as much as anybody but, in the big picture we'd probably be better off with more large and efficient public transit systems and fewer roads and cars.
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LokiApril 8th, 2014 at 9:32 am
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did – but so did a crapton of other people with a vested interest: road construction, rubber suppliers, oil suppliers, carmakers, parking authorities…and however many other interests I may forget that undoubtedly had a hand in the pot. That's capitalism, with a dash of corruption and cronyism.
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doublechiliApril 8th, 2014 at 9:42 am
I'm no historian either (I'm an architect/marine biologist – j/k), but I suspect the only conspiring-to-suppress-public-transit that Ford and Firestone needed to engage in was to produce cars and tires. The marketplace took care of the rest. People like cars.
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05lgtApril 8th, 2014 at 10:32 am
They liked the street cars too. Busses, tires etc. dumped on the market at below cost until the street cars are affordable to buy and destroy is only one interpretation of the "free market".
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 11:06 am
Ridership on street car lines was declining in the 1920s and 1930s, so fewer people liked them enough to ride them each year.
Even more importantly, street cars lines LOST money, which is why they were generally owned by holding companies, and were subsidized by the parent company's other businesses. This was particularly true of electric utilities, which owned many street car lines in the 1920s and early 1930s.
When the federal government passed legislation barring utility companies from using other businesses to hide or reduce profits, many utilities sold their street car subsidiaries.
Street car lines were hardly an example of the free market in action, nor were they destroyed by deliberately underpriced bus service.
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rudigerApril 8th, 2014 at 9:43 am
Supposedly, GM was also heavily instrumental in the suppression of US public transit to increase auto sales.
As to Ford's often questionable decisions, one of my favorites is the Robertson screw story. The Robertson screw uses a square-drive socket and is a very good, practical design. It was initially what Ford wanted to use to replace the slot-head screw on the Model T but Robertson (a Canadian) refused to grant Ford an exclusive license. So, Ford, instead, went with the Philips head, cross-design screw where he could get his exclusive license.
The result is that the Robertson screw, while common in Canada, is almost unheard of in the US, where the inferior Phillips head screw dominates.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 12:57 pm
That's very interesting! Never had heard that.
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April 9th, 2014 at 2:45 am
The sources I've found say that Ford indeed used the Robertson fasteners, hundreds on each Model T. The Phillips screw and drive system wasn't developed until the 1930s, after the Model T went out of production. Cadillac apparently was the first car company to use Phillips head screws, in 1937.
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celebrity208April 8th, 2014 at 10:14 am
Please consider, also, that it's not as if the bus lines and railroad powers of the time didn't lobby/conspire to suppress cars. It's also not as if Ford was rich to begin with, and suppressed public transit and that's why his company grew. Rather his company grew without conspiracy or government coercion only then did he have the $ to lobby or suppress something he'd already beaten. As such I doubt what ever they did or didn't do would have changed where we are today much.
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 10:20 am
Henry Ford I, GM, Harvey Firestone and the Standard Oil Company did not conspire to replace street car lines with buses. It was a combination of public preferences, along with the passage of a federal law in 1935 that barred electric utilities from using wholly owned street car subsidiaries as "loss leaders" to raise electric rates for residential and business customers.
Ridership on mass transit lines had been declining throughout the 1920s and 1930s as more people bought cars. Most of those lines were not profitable even in the 1920s, but utilities and other companies wanted them for other (i.e., accounting) reasons.
Also note that most municipalities were glad to get rid of street car lines, as they made repaving roads more difficult.
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nikyApril 9th, 2014 at 4:40 am
Yeah. The whole conspiracy theory thing just doesn't pan out. Granted, car companies tend to lobby against their opponents, but public utilities and their suppliers do, too.
And then there are public utility vehicles which those same manufacturers sell… voluntarily… to fleets… often at a loss or a very low margin.
The problem with rail is it's inflexible and requires extremely high start-up capital. While subsidy can get you the rail lines, you still have to pay for the trains, their maintenance and etcetera. And you have to charge a price low enough to get people to put up with the fixed routes and fixed time schedules. That only works in limited situations, but with America's growing prosperity over the decades and the desire to have a big backyard away from the hustle and bustle of city life, suburban sprawl and car ownership simply trumped practicality.
You can see this in newly developing nations. People commute when they can't afford anything else. They buy cars when they can. That's the biz.
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Josh_HowardApril 8th, 2014 at 8:50 am
Henry Ford was a great man, not without his faults. He did change the world. However, he failed just as much as he succeeded. It's more important to note his hard work and ability to shrug off failure I think. He knew he had great ideas and pursued them. Though, from social standpoints, he was as backwards as any I've ever read about. It just goes to show you: Money and power and fame definitely don't mean you won't have those same faults magnified from before you had any of that stuff.
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bfisch81April 8th, 2014 at 9:14 am
If Henry Ford's only accomplishment had been the breaking of the patent on cars that was crippling the nascent US auto industry, he would still be remembered as a hero.
I think, like all human beings he was flawed and in his case specifically, his success got the better of him.
His wages fed and clothed hundreds of thousands and philosophy on cars fundamentally changed not just the US but the world.
The freedom that an affordable car gives to the average man is something so radical in human history that its effects will be studied for centuries to come.
We now take it for granted, that freedom and it would do well for us to remember it.
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HalftruthApril 8th, 2014 at 11:21 am
Great post.
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Johnny CanadaApril 8th, 2014 at 11:54 am
Nailed it.
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ToadApril 8th, 2014 at 2:56 pm
There are very few of us who:
-had a brilliant idea and executed it in a way the completely changed society;
-built a company, suppliers, and subsidiaries that employed tens of thousands of people;
-became one of the most wealthy, powerful, and feared men of his time;
…would not also have some major personal flaws that our wealth and power would reveal to the world.
Henry Ford accomplished what VERY few individuals have been able to do. His equals are Thomas Edison (GE, many utility companies), Vanderbilt (railroads), JP Morgan (banking), and Steve Jobs.
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ZykotecApril 8th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Steve Jobs ? If you had said Bill Gates I would really have been OK with it, but Steve Jobs did even less than Edsel Ford did….
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KevinApril 9th, 2014 at 12:49 am
Yes, Steve Jobs. Jobs helped usher in the era of personal computing in the late 70's and early 80's, along with a few of his contemporaries. Then in the 2000's he helped kill it with the advent of the iPad. He also overhauled how media was distributed.
All Gates did was build an OS, and a pretty lousy one at that. Jobs had his hands in all aspects of computing. Between founding Apple, his work at NeXT (which laid the foundation for Apple OS X), and his return to Apple which will be remembered mostly for the iPod/iPad, Jobs has Gates beaten hands-down.
Whether you agree with Jobs' model of controlling both the hardware and the software is up to you.
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an innocent manApril 8th, 2014 at 9:19 am
Lord, Mr. Ford, what have you done?
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KenmoreApril 8th, 2014 at 9:34 am
Did He Make the World A Better Place?
No! He was a poo-poo nazi and a Bad Man.
(How'd I do?)
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Pch101April 8th, 2014 at 10:58 am
Are there any other kind of Nazis?
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FreedMikeApril 8th, 2014 at 11:12 am
Well, there's always Dr. Strangelove.
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GeekcarloverApril 8th, 2014 at 11:45 am
There's Illinois Nazis, but they fear Dodge Monacos, not Fords.
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Blackcloud_9April 8th, 2014 at 3:38 pm
+1 for the Blues Brothers reference
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PrincipalDanApril 8th, 2014 at 10:20 am
The thing we often forget about leaders is we are only human and we are fallible. Is the world better off for having had Henry Ford a part of it? Undoubtedly. Does almost every invention/discovery come with some other problem that needs to be solved? Undoubtedly.
As humans we create, we produce, we discover, we invent. Sometimes we are our own best friends, sometimes we are our own worst enemies. If you have no regrets than you really haven't lived.
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-NateApril 8th, 2014 at 10:28 am
How did Edsel die in 1943 ? .
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 11:07 am
I believe it was stomach cancer, although mistreatment by his father hardly helped his overall health.
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Pastor GlennApril 8th, 2014 at 10:36 am
Nate, technically Edsel Ford died of undulant fever caused by the unpasteurized (i.e. raw) milk provided by Henry Ford's insistance to his family through (his?) farm, as well as stomach ulcers which allowed the bacteria to enter his body.
In reality, Edsel died of humiliation and heartbreak from being so maltreated by the person who fathered him.
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-NateApril 8th, 2014 at 11:49 am
Thank you , this is why I enjoy reading the comments , they're often more illuminating than the article .
Henry was a poor Father then , that's a shame .
He had some really interesting ideas like the Stainless Steel 'A' Models I nearly bought one of when they were cheap oddities and the soy bean 1941 Sedan….
He certainly transformed America then the world , I suppose someone else would have eventually but *he* did it in his own way , first , nothing can ever take away from that .
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Pch101April 8th, 2014 at 10:57 am
"Did He Make the World A Better Place, Or Not?"
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April 8th, 2014 at 3:29 pm
It's a philosophical question.
On the plus side, he set the stage for decades of decently paying manufacturing jobs. Also on the plus side, I suspect the car contributed to women's equality.
On the minus side, I could list a lot of things, and I could probably list more on the plus side. but the car is so pervasive, both for good and for ill that I'd have to spend a lot of time thinking before I could come up with my own answer.
Either way, I'm still going to keep enjoying the hell out of my car both for the fun I have driving it, and the mobility it gives me.
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FreedMikeApril 8th, 2014 at 11:17 am
Sometimes, men are great because of their character; others have major character issues but are great because of what they contribute. Ford is definitely in the latter category. His behaviors cannot be excused, but his work helped create a better world.
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Mr ImperialApril 8th, 2014 at 11:25 am
I don't have any factual basis for this claim; I feel that if Henry had not invented the assembly line, someone else would have shortly thereafter. Between the Dodge Brothers, Henry Leland, Billy Durant, Johnathan Maxwell, Walter Chrysler, etc…someone would have started the automotive industry as Henry did.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:00 pm
That's my opinion as well – there were lots of people thinking about this at the same time in Detroit/Midwest, he just came upon the real solution first.
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 1:15 pm
It wasn't just his adoption of mass production that is significant. It's that the car he produced using that method was an excellent car for that time considering the price.
Plus, he purposely designed the Model T for use in rural areas, where roads were either terrible or virtually nonexistent.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Citroen did the same thing for modern France, in the 1970s!
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April 8th, 2014 at 3:31 pm
right, except your timing is wrong. The 2CV came out soon after WWII. By the time I lived in Paris, 1965-66, they were all over the place. Along with the almost equally basic Ami 6.
CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 3:48 pm
I was more commenting about how rudimentary France was into the 1970s, and the Citroen liquid hydraulic suspensions.
April 8th, 2014 at 6:10 pm
Oh. I'm not sure in what way you found it rudimentary, but I'm assuming automobiles. But those liquid hydraulic suspensions (and the ability to raise and lower the Citroen DSs came about in the (possibly late) '50s. My family of origin got a Peugeot 404 wagon upon arrival. The car held the road and handled amazingly well, even after a Massachusetts winter had pocked the roads with potholes (we brought the car back). It had rack & pinion steering. It also had synchromesh for first gear, something that American cars of that era mostly lacked. The only thing rudimentary about it was the hole in the bumper where you could fit a crank in case the starter motor crapped out.
Of course, the Deux Chevaux were basic, indeed, as were the Renault 4s, and various other cars, as well as the solexes.
RussycleApril 8th, 2014 at 4:04 pm
More than that, the Model T was the first car that could be mass produced, due to innovation by Ford in many of the components. It was the first car with a head cast separately from the block, among other things.
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dahammerApril 8th, 2014 at 1:31 pm
But why didn't they?
Sorry to go on tilt, but when I hear this statement, my blood boils. For some reason, the term "thumb sucker" comes to mind, probably the only thing I remembered from an all day sales training seminar 20 years ago. Like when a former manager said to me "we would have gotten that order without you, dahammer". Maybe so, but I got the customer to commit and place an order.
Henry Ford took the risk and made it happen. He did not invent the assembly line, he adapted it to automobile manufacturing.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:33 pm
(Well that's why I had said he came upon it first.)
But agree on the risk taking. It was a big one.
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Mr ImperialApril 8th, 2014 at 1:46 pm
Replying to: Dahammer
History does remember the risk takers, for better or for worse. Agreed, Henry made the choice.
My opinion is just that. I still feel the "planets were aligned" just right, enough so that someone would have done what Henry did eventually.
America was in the start of a manufacturing boom in the early 1900's, rife with plenty of entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators. Would the world today be the same without Henry's input? We'll never know.
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ToadApril 8th, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Somebody else eventually would have invented the light bulb, but Edison actually did it. Somebody else would have eventually would have invented a iphone type device, but Steve Jobs did it. The Allies would probably have eventually defeated Germany, but Eisenhower actually led the army that did it.
Just because somebody else might have eventually come up with a similar idea does not make the person who actually did it less great. Is reducing people of great accomplishment some new form of post modernism that I missed in college?
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mcsApril 9th, 2014 at 7:58 am
>> Somebody else would have eventually would have invented a iphone type device, but Steve Jobs did it.
Actually, others did beat him to it. The earliest I used were clunky conceptual prototypes based on Palm Pilots paired with cell phones (Panasonic EB-3551 at 1st, later the Mitsubishi T-250 PocketNet) as early as 1997 (although the 1997 prototype was data only). I used the 1997 version to read email and had an app that could turn on and off lights in my home using the internet.
Eventually Skype came out on Windows mobile based PDAs and you had iPhone like functionality though a data capable cell phone (Toshiba PDA paired with Sony Ericsson 1130203). With a WiFi connection, you didn't even need the cell phone. The next step was integrating the phone into the PDA which multiple manufacturers were doing. I was part of one of the product teams and still have 1997 and 2003 prototypes. So, Steve Jobs was not the first to put a phone app on a PDA.
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andrewallenApril 30th, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Errr no, that's a popular misconception. Mr Swan patented the electric light bulb in the U.K long before Edison came up with his carbon filament. What Mr. Edison invented was the phonograph and an organised R & D management system.
As for mass production on an assembly line using purpose built machinery that was invented by Isambard Kingdom Brunels dad, Marc Brunel (a Frenchman while in the U.S.)to make pulleys for the Royal Navy in 1799.
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Pch101April 8th, 2014 at 6:17 pm
Ford didn't invent the assembly line. He was the first to use a conveyor belt in an assembly line, which was a tremendous improvement that was widely copied.
What Ford really invented was mass production. That was a tremendous advance because it increased throughput while reducing costs, which made it possible to get a lot more cars to a lot more people. That transformed the car from being a novelty into something that could (and did) change the world.
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April 8th, 2014 at 11:31 pm
Ransom Olds was building automobiles on an assembly line long before Henry Ford did it. I think Ford's primary contribution to the process was breaking assembly down to very simple tasks that could be done with minimal training. That made it a mind numbing job, forcing Ford to hire something like 45,000 new hires to keep 13,000 on the job in just one year. So he started paying $5/day (with conditions, of course).
Speaking of Olds, I've been told it was the fire in his Lansing factory in March 1901 that gave Henry Ford a window of opportunity after the failure of the Detroit Automobile Co. To gain credibility with backers, he raced Alexander Winton with what Ford named the Sweepstakes car. After Ford won he was able to start the Henry Ford Company and was successful enough there while Olds was temporarily out of production and starting a new factory that after he was forced out by his backers (with Leland helping them turn it into Cadillac) he was able to get backers for FoMoCo.
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ZykotecApril 8th, 2014 at 11:54 am
For better or worse, he is one of the men who made the world what it is today. He didn't only put the world on wheels, but also was of importance when it comes to all kinds of modern mass-production and industria-lisation, even modern politics and economics have been inspired by him (sadly only different parts, used by different sides), him and his methods are still being used today.
He sadly also was a great inspiration for Hitler, so by a stretch (even if he hated war) he could be blamed for both WW2 and the cold war (because he helped both the USA and Russia become superpowers through industrialisation.)
Edsel Ford, who more or less saved Ford by forcing his dad to accept that you needed fast good looking cars to survive in the market, probably saved us all from having to drive cheap, boring, high quality cars…(and as a car enthusiast, if it weren't for him I would have had some other random hobby)
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50mercApril 8th, 2014 at 12:25 pm
Wonderful article, Mr. Schreiber. About old Henry's long affair with Mrs. Dahlinger and their son: interesting that–as far as I remember–the authorized history of FoMoCo, "World on Wheels," doesn't mention it. When the Deuce took over the Dahlingers were run off.
Greenies and the Left cherish the myth that streetcar lines were destroyed by auto, oil and tire companies. It's true that GM (not Ford) and allies joined to acquire streetcar lines for conversion to motor buses. But the great majority converted to buses on their own, if they hadn't already gone broke. Streetcars were obnoxious dinosaurs in the motor age.
Romanticism about rail, "light" or not, ignores streetcars' often-troubled past. From Wikipedia:
"Between 1895 and 1929, almost every major city in the United States suffered at least one streetcar strike. Sometimes lasting only a few days, more often these strikes were "marked by almost continuous and often spectacular violent conflict," at times amounting to prolonged riots and civil insurrection.
Streetcar strikes rank among the deadliest armed conflicts in American labor union history. Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor called the St. Louis Streetcar Strike of 1900 "the fiercest struggle ever waged by the organized toilers" up to that point, with a total casualty count of 14 dead and about 200 wounded. The San Francisco Streetcar Strike of 1907 saw 30 killed and about 1000 injured. Many of the casualties were passengers and innocent bystanders.
The 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike was one of the last of its kind. The rise of private automobile ownership took the edge off its impact, as an article in the Chicago Tribune observed as early as 1915."
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:02 pm
And nobody knows who the illegitimate son is? He's been that well hidden by the Dahlinger family?
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 1:10 pm
His name was John Dahlinger, and he wrote a book about his family and Henry Ford I titled "The Secret Life of Henry Ford" that was published in 1978.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:12 pm
Thanks! The article made it seem all secret-y.
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stingray65April 8th, 2014 at 12:46 pm
If you have traveled more than 30 miles from your birthplace during your life and enjoyed it – you can thank Henry Ford. Before the mass-market Model T, most people never ventured farther from the family farm than a day's journey by horse. The Ford Tri-Motor was also the first safe and cost effective airliner, so it might be argued that he also played a major role in the development of air travel. It is also important to remember that the car was seen as the savior of the city because of the hundreds of thousands of annual deaths attributed diseases spread via horse manure and improperly "recycled" dead horses – not to mention the smell on a warm summer day.
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 12:55 pm
Excellent point about the problems with horses. Also note that it wasn't uncommon for overworked horses to literally drop dead in the street during the summer months in most cities. For this reason, animal welfare advocates of the time praised the use of trucks instead of horses.
As for the smell – during the late 19th century, it was said that you could smell New York City long before you could actually see it.
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CoreyDLApril 8th, 2014 at 1:05 pm
I shudder when I read about public sanitation [lack of] before let's say 1940.
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 1:12 pm
There was a good reason that virtually everyone who could afford to leave the city during the summer months in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did so.
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April 8th, 2014 at 6:22 pm
HUndreds of thousands sounds like a huge overstatement to me, since populations of major cities during that era were in the low millions. In 1900, the population of NYC, the biggest city, was 3.4 million. It was followed by Chicago, at 1.7 million, and Philly, at 1.2 million, and St. Louis, at a little over half a million. But i you have any data to that effect, it would be very interesting.
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stingray65April 9th, 2014 at 5:56 am
Here is a link to an article estimating annual deaths in NYC at 20,000 from horse manure related diseases. I think on a national level it would easily be 100,000 per year.
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hiApril 8th, 2014 at 2:00 pm
The Captains of Industry were men with personal goals and great ideas that built America into a world power and a Nation that its citizens prospered.
Today, there is a paucity of business men of the Henry Ford caliber.
He CREATED JOBS for America and paid his employees well. Building the middle class in the process. Creating futures for Americans and America.
He and others icons of business had their faults, but they managed to do things that better America, its citizens and the world.
Ford and others used their monies to aid countries abroad as well as in America. Their munificence help make the world a better lot.
Now, we have GREEDY CEO's running the big companies today. Moving jobs overseas for cheap labor and destroying the middle class in the process. The have no loyalty to this Nation, Its Citizens, or their customers. Just taking care of themselves and have purchased the political clout to get out of paying taxes or helping America or its citizens. Even the Supreme Court has forsaken the citizens of this Nation for the benefit of the Money Crowd.
They do not want to share the wealth with the employees that do all their sweating in making their products. Sad state of affairs in today's working environment.
Politicians are helping them in destroying wages and benefits for its workers. Yet, the politicians keep increasing their pay and benefits, big and quick pensions for themselves.
If the elected leaders of this country and it business leaders do not put this Nation and its citizens as paramount in their actions, we will become a Third World country.
Like Mexico, Wealthy and the very poor.
That is not Democracy.
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April 8th, 2014 at 3:51 pm
I don't know if the CEOs of yore had better motivations than those of today. While it is certainly true that a lot of manufacturing jobs are now shipped overseas, I suspect that in much of the last century it would have been too expensive to do so, rather than that CEOs didn't do it out of loyalty to our nation. Additionally, there are a lot of types of jobs that exist today, which didn't exist in most of hte last century that are very easy to ship overseas (call centers).
Nonetheless, the motivation behind CEOs generally and silicon valley ceos seeking "immigration reform" is to flood the market with cheap labor.
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hiApril 8th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
WE should Stop ALL immigration when the employment level is down below a agreed percentage. We can educate and trail Americans for these jobs that Tech wants to bring into this country to replace more expensive labor.
Business are bring in cheap laborers to keep the wages low and lower why do you thing the BIGGEST LOBBYIST AGAINST CLOSING THE BOARDERS IS THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. They want the cheap laborers. When business pay low wages, the taxpayers is supporting this company with food stamps and health care for its employees. Wal mart is a prime example of low wages employees and high % on food stamps.
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danio3834April 8th, 2014 at 4:47 pm
This line of thinking seems to be based on the assumption that there is a finite amount of jobs, and once they're filled, there are no more. Scarcity mentality at its worst.
Net immigration grows the economy and creates jobs. More people = greater need for goods and services = more trade and employment opportunities. If the US of A had closed the borders a century ago, it never would have grown into what it is today. Stopping all immigration now would stifle the economy even more.
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April 8th, 2014 at 7:03 pm
Read the article for which I provided the URL. WE have unemployed tech workers in the hundreds of thousands, who are qualified for available jobs, and the Mark Zuckerbergs of Silicon Valley want to bring in more so that they can keep wages down. They are laying off people even while they are calling for immigration reform.
Meanwhile, those unemployed are having to get unemployment insurance and Obamacare subsidies, which is, of course, a drain on the economy.
Sure, you add people and the overall GDP grows. But the GDP per capita shrinks, and we become more like Indian and China, and less like Scandinavia.
There is nothing wrong with immigration, but as President Clinton said about the economy, it's the numbers, stupid! And the "immigration reform" bill from the senate would double legal immigration, to the equivalent of one New York State every decade, not including guest workers, who will probably be allowed to stay, or illegal immigrants, which the senate bill does nothing to stop.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate bill wouild raise unemployment and reduce wages during the first ten years. And that's comparing it to business as usual–a half a New York State's worth of legal immigrants and another half a NYS of illegal immigrants every decade. If you were to compare it to reducing legal immigration to a couple of hundred thousand, and passing a national mandatory E-Verify, which would do more than any other policy to reduce illegal immigration, there would be huge benefits.
This notion that you can bring in people and things will get prosperous, given that this is a mature economy, and that tech jobs produce an order of magnitude fewer jobs than the industrial jobs of the post war era, is nonsense.
April 8th, 2014 at 7:19 pm
I generally find what you have to say very interesting, and respect your point of view. In this case, I strongly suggest you read the article from the URL I posted, by a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the well-respected Columbia Journalism Review.
In any case consider:
1. Silicon Valley and similar tech creates very few jobs, maybe 2 orders of magnitude fewer per dollar than the industrial companies of the post-war era.
2. More generally, we are a mature economy, without the frontier we used to have, and jobs just don't grow on trees anymore. We have huge unemployment in the tech sector, and huge unemployment among the low-skilled, no-skilled workers. At present, and for the last 4 decades or so, most immigrants have been low-skilled, no skilled workers. All this unemployment is a drain on the economy that is not suddenly going to get better when we start importing even more workers to compete with them.
In the case of low-skilled, no-skilled workers, you might want to google "compassion that hurts," for Nicholas Kristof's analysis of how mass immigration of these workers has taken American jobs. Kristof, a NYT columnist, changed his mind on this issue after he examined it carefully.
3. No-one is advocating stopping immigration. But 2 million a year (one New York State a decade), which has been the rate of immigration in many of the last 20 years, and more than 3 million a year (the Senate bill would double legal immigration to 2 million a year; some of the 750k annual guest workers under that bill would probably find a way to stay, and the bill would do little to stop illegal immigration, 500k-1m/year, since it has absolutely no teeth) is way too much for our economy to absorb.
200k a year would be fine.
Too much immigration may boost GDP, but it will shrink GDP per capita, and make us more like China and India, and less like Scandinavia.
chevronApril 9th, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Sure, but does net immigration grow the economy and create more jobs Per Capita?
Clearly it depends on the character of the immigration.
The Australian/Canadian model of mostly wealthy educated asians immigrating seems to keep Real Estate markets afloat and doesn't obviously depress per capita incomes, like the American model appears to.
Also note that the USG did act to restrict immigration 90 years ago, generally to privilege wealthy north and western europeans over impoverished south and eastern europeans, as well as others.
This law was in place straight through to 1965, and it would be difficult to construct a narrative for American cohesion and middle class prosperity during this period that didn't largely attribute it to these immigration policies. This is, if you'll recall, the period when the USA grew into what it is today.
Enacted in 1968. Gee I wonder why we've had growing income inequality since then.
RussycleApril 8th, 2014 at 4:09 pm
If you believe business leaders of the late 19th centuries were fine upstanding individuals, please google "robber barons". What do they teach in history these days?
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hiApril 8th, 2014 at 4:37 pm
Agree that Robbers Barons were bad but they created jobs, too. Today's Robber Barons are Greedy CEO's that are destroying jobs, taking away benefits and paying lowest wages possible, even in low wage countries.
I would take the ones of yore, if I had to choose. Teddy Roosevelt, we need someone like that today and business that want to create jobs and businesses in this country.
While we are at it, do away with these FREE TRADE Zones, is just really TAX FREE ZONES for businesses to escape taxes, period. They have not created jobs and have destroyed Mexico with their cheap factories.
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hiApril 8th, 2014 at 4:57 pm
We do not bring in the people with the skills we actually need and people that would not be the dole or with criminal records. WE bring in all types mostly unskilled uneducated and not needed, except by crooked businesses that want to force wages down.
Until we get control of the boarders, close them up. If you are illegal, ship them back and are never allowed to acquire citizenship.
Put the business leaders that hire them in jail along with the illegals.
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wmbaApril 8th, 2014 at 6:14 pm
The man was a bit of a country boy to begin with. After introducing "mass production" of large crude castings put together by men with mallets, he thought he could stop WW1 by chartering a peace ship to Stockholm in 1915. That went well. After that he went more and more off the rails. Jews were bad he thought in the 1920s, customers needed only a Model T not a more modern alternative in the late 1920s, and those workers had better toe the line or get their heads cracked in during the 1930s.
A looney tune by then if not before.
Plus as I've said before US watch manufacturing from the 57 Waltham on was mass production, making stuff requiring real tolerances and bespoke machines mak e the parts 50 years before Ford and his blacksmith grade machinery. It was obvious that mass production and the moving line would happen.
Probably chocolate candy bar production and wrapping beat Ford by 20 years. But the publicity machine goes on and on, hallowing Ford for doing the obvious. Kind of like making Daimler the first car maker rather than that obscure Austrian. Incorrect, just popular lore aided by official state revisionism, or corporate revisionism, they're much the same to me.
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haroldingpatrickApril 8th, 2014 at 6:34 pm
I think the world is a better place overall in part due to Henry Ford. Was he perfect? No. By the standards of the day, he was a pretty good fellow.
The world was much larger then with the average person knowing and experiencing much less outside of the circles of their own lives – naturally making them more fearful of the unknown and more conservative in general. The funny thing is, despite his conservatism, Henry Ford made the world a lot smaller and less conservative.
Taphophile trivia question: What was the make of the automobile that Henry took his very last ride in (to the cemetery)?
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geeberApril 8th, 2014 at 8:07 pm
It was a Packard hearse, shipped to Detroit just for his funeral so that he wouldn't take his final ride in a Cadillac.
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PrincipalDanApril 8th, 2014 at 8:13 pm
There were no Lincoln hearses available?
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mcsApril 8th, 2014 at 8:25 pm
I found an image:
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haroldingpatrickApril 8th, 2014 at 8:49 pm
My understanding is that Lincoln did not produce commercial chassis' from which to build hearse and ambulance bodies on. Cadillac and Packard did. I'm sure Lincoln hearses existed, but probably were not common due to the trouble and expense of taking a regular car and converting it.
Who wouldn't want to take their last ride in a Packard!
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css28April 8th, 2014 at 9:52 pm
St. Martha's was a functioning parish until about 5 or 6 years ago.
As you noted, the building's still in use. It's very difficult to keep mainstream churches going in an area that has sunk to the extent that that area has.
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supremebroughamApril 8th, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Thank you Ronnie, for sharing this!
I decided to take a ride over there today, and my little dog and I paid our respects to Mr. Ford.
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Dave M.April 9th, 2014 at 11:00 pm
Great history lesson, Ronnie – thanks!
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andrewallenApril 30th, 2014 at 2:37 pm
Say what you want about Henry but the model T Ford was "the machine that changed the world"
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text:
PORTLAND, Ore. (TheStreet) -- Heading off of Interstate 5 onto Russell Street in North Portland, the first landmark a traveler sees before hitting the Portland TrailBlazers' home arena, the bridges across the Willamette River or Downtown Portland itself is the Widmer Brothers brewing facility and Gasthaus.
It isn't the oldest brewery in a city filled with dozens of them, but it's been a landmark here since brothers Rob and Kurt Widmer brewed their first batch at a much smaller location in 1984. In the three decades that followed, the brothers helped brewpubs become an Oregon staple, revived small German brewing on the West Coast in an era of mass-produced light lager and nearly lost everything in the process.
Today, the Gasthaus sits newly renovated as tractor-trailers filled with Widmer Brothers beer wind their way up Russell Street to I-5. A selection of beers that consisted only of dark Altbier and a golden, wheaty Weizenbier in the brewery's earliest years has expanded to a broad portfolio that fills dozens of taps in the brothers' home base.
In the brewpub store just behind those taps hangs a photo of the fresh-faced brothers -- Kurt in his early 30s and Rob in his late 20s -- working at their first brewing facility that's since been converted into a bank branch. Since then, Kurt, 62, and Rob, 57, have made their brewery part of the more than 600,000-barrel Craft Brew Alliance that includes Hawaii's Kona Brewing and Washington neighbor Redhook, as well as breweries in Washington, Hawaii, Portland and Portsmouth, N.H.
That decision gave them a big hand with distribution, courtesy of a 32% stake in the company owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, but also saw the Widmer Brothers kicked out of the Brewers Association craft beer trade group in 2007 by colleagues who weren't in business when the brothers brewed their first batch. As a result, there are corners of the beer community that refuse to consider Widmer Brothers a craft brewer.
Other industry observers -- and the brothers' large slate of offerings that only expands with its 30 Beers For 30 Years anniversary event this year -- allude to the contrary. The brewery has already released versions of its 1984 Altbier, its 1985 Weizenbier and its 1986 Hefeweizen to mark the occasion and continues to collaborate with brewers including Tampa, Fla.-based Cigar City and Bend, Ore.-base Boneyard on limited releases. The brothers, meanwhile, can still be found leading the supporters of Major League Soccer's Portland Timbers in a pregame toast, hanging their banner in the Timbers' home stadium, filling tap handles in local pubs and spreading their expanding array of styles from coast to coast.
As one of the few craft brewers with their family name attached to their brewery, the Widmer Brothers continue to take their brewing, their business and their public image personally. They pride themselves on being the Craft Brew Alliance's experimental, inventive creative engine and being able to more than hold their own on a coast saturated with bold craft brewers. Beer snobs, backstabbing colleagues and near-bankruptcy haven't rid the industry of the Widmer Brothers in three decades, and it doesn't look as if they're going anywhere as long as they draw breath.
Though we had the chance to speak with Rob Widmer at length a few years ago, we were able to get time with both Kurt and Rob to talk about their history, their 30-beer party plans and how it feels to spend three decades brewing craft beer only to have certain craft beer comrades only acknowledge 23 years of that history:


text:
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| Our Team at Sensational Kids offer a wide range of services to help children and adolescents of all abilities to maximise their potential to participate fully in daily activities at home and at school. The only dedicated, national event in Ireland for those working with and caring for children and adolescents with special educational needs. With world class speakers on Autism, Dyspraxia/DCD, Dyslexia, SPD, ADHD and the excellent handwriting without tears workshop.
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Citywest Hotel Dublin


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Tigers clinch series over Wake Forest
Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:01:38 GMT —
Winston Salem, N.C. (WACH)- Clemson pounded out 14 hits and took the series with a 7-4 win over Wake Forest in game two of their doubleheader Sunday. The Tigers improved to 12-6 overall and 5-1 in ACC play.
Tyler Krieger hit his first home run of his career.
Jake Long (2-0) picked up the win pitching 5.1 innings allowing just three hits and struck out four. Matt Campbell earned his third save of the season.
Clemson continues their road trip with a two-game set at Georgia Southern starting Tuesday. First pitch is at 6 p.m.


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Agusta officials have revealed they are currently negotiating with Bell to increase the share the Italian manufacturer holds in the BA609 tiltrotor program. Currently at 25 percent for Agusta and 75 percent for Bell, the workshare may eventually become "close to 50/50," Agusta CEO Amedeo Caporaletti said. The Cascina Costa-based company has been providing more resources to the BA609 program than expected, as Bell has put its efforts into the troubled MV-22 Osprey military tiltrotor. Agusta's move is aimed at maintaining the BA609 program schedule and costs within reasonable limits. As a consequence of the deeper involvement in the BA609 program, Agusta's share in the Bell/Agusta Aerospace Co. should reach "50 percent" within one year. The BA609 made its first flight on March 7 in Arlington, Texas. One of the four prototypes should come to Agusta's test facilities early next year. Certification of the $8 to 10 million (in 1997 dollars), nine-passenger aircraft is pegged for 2007.
- October 12, 2007, 7:40 AM


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Glenn Beck will no longer be at Fox News' call
Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune
When the chalk dust settles at Fox News Channel, Glenn Beck will be gone and advertisers, perhaps, will come back.
Other factors may be made the scapegoats, but it's the age-old conspiracy between commerce and television that's truly to blame for Wednesday's announcement that Beck will "transition off of his daily program," the third-most popular show in cable news, by the end of the year.
Popularity doesn't always translate to profitability, and the "Glenn Beck" program was becoming a better business proposition for Beck than for FNC.
It wasn't just that ratings for the first quarter of 2011 showed Beck's show had lost close to a third of its audience compared with the same stretch a year ago, when his viewership peaked at 2.78 million. Among advertiser-prized viewers ages 25 to 54, he was down almost 40 percent, and advertisers increasingly were shunning him in any case.
"There was an advertising push-back, and he said some things that made them uncomfortable," said Brad Adgate, an industry analyst for Horizon Media. "That made it difficult to get premium ad rates, and you had more inventory to sell than what you should for the kind of audience he had."
Not knowing what Beck might say next on live TV may well have been part of the lure for viewers, who flocked to his program in numbers CNN, HLN, MSNBC and CNBC combined couldn't match in his time slot. But that uncertainty had just the opposite effect on would-be sponsors and his Fox News bosses.
So the incendiary host who just last summer led the much-publicized "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial — attended by anywhere from 87,000 to 500,000, depending on whose estimate you believed — was judged more trouble than he was worth.
Fox News will partner with Beck's production company, Mercury Radio Arts, in developing and producing various potential TV projects for FNC as well as other platforms, including Fox News' digital properties, and it will head into next year's political primary season without one of its top draws.
Similarly, MSNBC will enter the presidential campaign cycle without its own provocative top draw, Keith Olbermann, who hopes his fans follow him to Current TV. And CBS presumably will go into the election year without its current lead anchor, Katie Couric, who is expected to test the marketability of her own brand with a syndicated daytime effort.
"Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody's standards," Roger Ailes, Fox News' chairman and chief executive, said in the announcement. "I look forward to continuing to work with him."
Even though marketers didn't want to go near Beck, who earlier this year apologized for equating radical Islam with reform Judaism, Fox News benefited from Beck's prime-time-size audience numbers in a late-afternoon time slot, which provided a strong lead-in to Bret Baier's newscast.
But ratings were largely unaffected when former Judge Andrew Napolitano filled in for Beck earlier last month. Another likely to be considered for Beck's slot would be Megyn Kelly.
Beck, who suggested that President Barack Obama was racist, was a magnet for criticism. He sometimes alienated Democrats and Republicans alike. Ailes told the Daily Beast in November that he had told the host to be mindful of his tone. "I've said to him: 'Where the hell are you going to get your audience if you keep this up?'" Ailes told the website.
Yet Beck's most devoutly loyal hard-core following doesn't just buy what he has to say on TV and on his nationally syndicated radio show, heard locally on WIND-AM 560. His fans purchase his books, pay up to $9.95 a month for special content on his website and shell out $95 for tickets to personal appearances, such as his scheduled tour stop April 14 at the Chicago Theatre.
Not having the daily TV exposure could undercut Beck. A New York Times story last month floated the idea of Beck launching his own cable channel to leverage his popularity, a la Chicago-based syndicated talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who has partnered with Discovery Communications on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN, however, has struggled to find its footing in its first few months.
Beck, in a statement, said that "America owes a lot" to Ailes and Fox News and that he "cannot repay Roger for the lessons" he has learned since joining FNC in 2009. "I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership," he said.
Joel Cheatwood, the former WMAQ-Ch. 5 news director who helped raise Beck's TV profile first at HLN and then FNC, is leaving his Fox News senior vice president of development post later this month to work for Beck full time, as expected. Cheatwood's duties will include managing the partnership with News Corp.-owned FNC.
"Joel is a good friend and one of the most talented and creative executives in the business," Ailes said in the announcement. "Over the past four years I have consistently valued his input and advice and that will not stop as we work with him in his new role."
Cheatwood is remembered in Chicago as the Channel 5 news boss on whose watch in the 1990s a series of affronts occurred — including using trash-TV host Jerry Springer as a commentator — that precipitated the loss of both the station's lead anchors, many viewers and a good deal of revenue.
"Maybe (Beck) feels he's going on to bigger and better things," Adgate said.
Then, half-joking, Adgate offered his own suggestion: "He should go on Current TV and do a kind of 'Crossfire' with Keith Olbermann."
Expect the apocalypse sooner.
Follow @phil_rosenthal on Twitter // //


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Can someone explain in regards to Germany and WW II . . . .
View Single Post
March 12, 2013, 07:12 PM
James K
Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,133
That is not quite correct on the Garand. Garand's rifle was originally made to handle the .30-'06 M1 ball cartridge. Pedersen (of Pedersen device fame, and Remington's chief designer) had developed a rifle that operated on a delayed blowback (unlocked breech) system. It could not be made to work with the powerful .30 ammunition, so he designed the .276 Pedersen* round, an intermediate cartridge, firing a 125 gr bullet at about 2600 fps.
The army board decided to adopt the .276 caliber as the service rifle cartridge and both Garand and Pedersen rifles were made up for that caliber for testing. The result was that the Garand design was selected as the better of the two and production approved.
So when MacArthur, well aware of the billions of rounds of .30 ammunition on hand, plus the inadvisability of the proposed retention of .30 for machineguns, thus adding a supply headache in case of war, cancelled the change of ammunition, it meant the end for the Pedersen design, where Garand simply reverted to his original .30 rifle, which was further tested and ultimately adopted.
The decision was not only good from the standpoint of economy, but the .30 was needed for penetration of vehicles and light armor, something the lighter .276 bullet would not have done as well.
*Not to be confused with the British .276 Enfield, a very large cartridge with a base over .52"; that was the cartridge the Pattern 1913 was made for and the reason the Pattern 1914 and U.S. Model 1917 have that huge magazine bulge.
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Our Data
I extracted our 100k last visits because I didn't want to expose our exact numbers (you can use Alexa or My Site Cost -very accurate site in our case!) and because 100k is a round number -and we have less than 1m :)
I couldn't make out correct stats because Analytics doesn't let you to count Unique Visitors when you run its Technology Views. So I got the last 100k visits..
Visits: 101.449
Unique: 41.194
Returning: 46,836 or 46,17%
New Visitors: 54.613 or 53.83%
Web Browsers
Firefox is clearly a winner by ~8% from second Chrome. IE percentage is very low, but IE isn't working on this page anyway :)
Firefox 15 was released a few days ago and these data are gathered from about the last 20 days. So basically you can assume that almost all 14 FF are now 15 because most of the Linux Distros have already updated it and Windows 7 have silent updates. So we get around a 72% to upstream FF which is a good score.
Chrome and Chromium, with many varieties. 21.23% is absent from the first 10 results. I know that Chrome=Google, but in any case will be extremely hard to maintain all these different versions. Google=Chrome is a bit funny, because Chrome crashes occasionally (personal experience) on Google services :)
I don't have a clue about Android browsers, but I only see 2 versions here. This is a huge advantage of Mobile Devices against Desktop. They manage to maintain less Apps (versions) -and hardware of course. As Gnome designers say, Less is More :)
Operating Systems
It's official. Linux Desktop share is double the size of Windows :)
Welcome to the 64bit era! Fedora 17 has default 64bit download while Ubuntu 12.04 recommends 32bit. I am not sure, but I think 12.10 will come with 64bit default download.
Windows 98 are alive and Windows 8 are going to be release in October, 26. I am curious to watch the sales of Windows 8. Most people predict that they will fail. I tried their Free (as a beer) Customer Preview and ..hmm. I don't think they are so bad as they present them..
Mobile Devices
Apple, Apple …and
..more Apple :)
So people here like Open Source ..and Apple? And then you blame Gnome UX team that copies Apple? :)
Operating Systems
Where is Tizen? This monopoly of Android starts to become annoying. Having one and one only open source mobile OS (with many varieties but still Android) even if it has 100% market share, is a win for Open Source in general?
Add Java, the proprietary drivers, the 90% of closed-source Android Apps and the court battles among companies about patents. Great victory for Open Source; or Free Software or Libre, or whatever..


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Welcome to Knife COUNTRY
We are a three generation Family of Knifemakers. Automatics are our specialty. The use of Ecotic material is stanard practice.
Like many hobbies this one got out of hand and I was soon spending more time at it than I should. Needing money to replenish my materials and primitive equipment I began selling knives. I met some people along the way that suggested that if my knives were prettier and more professional they might bring a little more that just material replacement.
Always being a gadget freak I was always experimenting with actions and other unusual stuff even my first fixed blade knives had hollow handles accessed by a pivoting pommel. The Automatic actions came easy and I educated my self as to what was already being done. It was a natural step to modify them or adapt my customers desires to them, many of the actions were simply a customer saying I want the button here, they didn't care if it wasn't possible. My background is as diverse as can be with a natural mechanical ability and great interest in most things mechanical I am having fun.
I have been a full time knifemaker sense 1984. I started making Auto's in 1987 and it became the major part of my business. Encouraged by the late Larry Hogan I began making simple double notch folders and some Italian style folders, the Italian pick-locks soon became my most sought after knives. My friend Chuck Karwan suggested that I make a form of Chute knife which were very large single action folders in heavy stock.
This progressed to a series of knives we called the SOF series starting 1992 we introduced the first 30 knives at the Soldier Of Fortune show in Las Vegas and sold out. The next eight years we produced 50 regular, 10 officers and 5 generals a new desigh every year and had a repeat customer list.
I made one of the first, if not, the first custom draw-bar OTF knives in 1993 called the Viper and many of these are still around. In 1987 I came up with a action I called the Drop Bar action that assisted the blade in opening and it was written up in fighting knives in 1992.
I was asked by Bill Harsey to help with a project for Col. Rex Applegate and he and I came up with the Applegate-Fairbane folder that Gerber Legendary Blades has been producing sense 1996. I did not start making knives until my late 30's and did not know that the custom industry even existed until a year or so after I started making my own knives. At first I was only interested in high quality blade materials and there edge holding ability, Holt Heat Treating was close and had what was considered the best steels around then for sale with other knife making materials in a small shop.
I have been making a sliding blade knife I call the Two Step which works well as a boot, neck, and horizontal belt knife.
I am presently working with Gerber Legendary Blades and they are using one of my actions on there FAST technology knives. I have had the good fortune to work with Lone Wolf Knives, Timberline Knives, and Microtech. Spyderco is presently using many of my designs.


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Pico Arriel
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The Lago helado de Arriel with the peaks of Arriel from the corridor to climb to the Cave Michaud and gran diagonal. Behind is the silouet of Midi d'Ossau. Sept 2004.
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text:
Mahjong Solitaire - Three Kingdoms Saga
Summer Big Thanks Sale!! Check our special discount offer for the shanghai puzzle contents.(Term: Aug.8-Aug.20)To reciprocate your favor, the all priced shanghai related contents are available at special price!!This is unrepeatable chance to get our popular puzzles with this price.Don't miss out!!Mahjong Solitaire is a puzzle game. You can play the game by directly touching the unique multi-touch panel with your fingers. The player erases tiles by selecting matching pairs from pile of tiles displayed on-screen.


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New Delhi, Aug. 18 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Rajnath Singh on Sunday urged party workers to work hard to win more than half the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, in order to get a majority.
He was speaking at a meeting of BJP spokespersons and office bearers from across the country. The meeting has been convened to chalk out a strategy for the upcoming state and general elections.
Singh said the BJP must aim for more than 272 seats to get the majority.
"In the beginning of the meeting, our party President Rajnath Singh said 'we will go for polls with full confidence and we will try to win more than 272 seats alone. We will approach people with a mission of securing 272 plus'," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.
The BJP's likely prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, has claimed that people want to throw the ruling Congress Party out of power due to its mis-governance.
"Narendra Modi spoke about the election campaign. He said the 'mood is against the Congress, people want to throw the Congress Party out of power and the BJP is the only alternative before them'," Javadekar added.
Five states will go to polls in November, while the general elections are likely to be held in April-May 2014. (ANI)


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SEFFNER —Seffner Christian won its fourth district championship in eight years, defeating Bradenton Christian 61-47 in Saturday's Class A, District 8 final.
Coach Greg Fawbush, with the team for all those championships, says this year's stands out.
"All wins feel different and special in their own way," Fawbush said. "But to get this young team together and win feels very special to me."
A team made up of freshmen and sophomores did the job for the Crusaders (21-6), showing composure in an evenly matched game.
With five straight Crusader points to open the game, there was a quick response by the Panthers to score just as many on turnovers.
Neither team built a substantial lead, but the Crusaders found themselves ahead 26-20 at halftime.
It was not until the Crusaders defensive plan kicked in that they started to pull away from the Panthers (21-7). That plan included freshman Sabrina Whiting, who had seven steals.
"I knew coming out that we had to play good defense and that I had to be aggressive," said Whiting.
The Panthers trailed 46-34 late in the third quarter. With sophomore Hailey Dearlove held to eight points, it was tough for the Panthers to generate much offense.
Whiting had 21 points for the Crusaders and Tesha Henson chipped in 14. Panthers junior Rachel Brown added 14 points.
The Crusaders host Winter Haven All Saints' in the region quarterfinals Thursday.


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Sheffield Theatres' BOEING BOEING Appears at Robin Hood Airport; Play Runs Through June 7
The cast of Sheffield Theatres' production of Boeing Boeing made a flying visit to Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield this week.
Stars, including Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead actress Julia Deakin, travelled to the Yorkshire airport to celebrate the start of the play which is running at the Crucible Theatre until Saturday 7 June.
Boeing Boeing, which is sponsored by Doncaster Sheffield Airport and Thomson, is an hilarious comedy written by the French playwright Marc Camoletti. One of the most performed French plays throughout the world, it tells the story of Bernard, who has three air hostess girlfriends - none of whom know about each other! Hilarity ensues as all three land in his apartment at the same time.
The cast visited the airport to meet staff and members of cabin crew from Thomson, the largest airline that operates out of Doncaster.
Steve Gill, managing director of Doncaster Sheffield Airport, said: 'We are delighted to support this production at Sheffield Theatres. Boeing Boeing has an obvious aviation connection to ourselves and Thomson, so we are delighted the cast has been able to take the time to visit the airport. It's great to see that the interest and response in the play from the public has been excellent already. It's fantastically funny and a great evening of entertainment.'
Thomson and First Choice offer flights to 20 destinations from Doncaster Sheffield Airport. It recently announced once-a-week flights to Antalya in Turkey and the Greek island of Zante which start from May 2015.
Boeing Boeing is on stage at the Crucible Theatre until Saturday 7 June. Tickets are on sale now, priced from £10.00 - £23.00 and are available from Sheffield Theatres' Box Office on 0114 249 6000 or online at www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk. A transaction fee of £1.50 (£1.00 online) applies to all bookings made at the Box Office excluding cash.
Pictured: Kelly Price, Natalie Thomas, Christian McKay and Lizzie Winkler.


text: Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear, Academy Award winner Alan Arkin, and Billy Crudup lead a celebrated cast in the most critically acclaimed caper of the year. An insurance agent (Greg Kinnear) is looking for a way to jump-start his business, reunite with his estranged wife (Lea Thompson), and escape the dismal midwestern weather. This self-proclaimed master of duplicity believes that salesmanship is all about selling a story-all he needs is a sucker willing to buy it. He hits pay dirt with a lonely retired farmer (Alan Arkin), who is sitting on something much bigger than an insurance commission: a rare violin collecting dust in the corner of the farmhouse. His attempt to con the old man spins out of control, however, trapping him in a web of deceit and moral ambiguity.Check stock and price


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Jean Besset dit Brisetout
because his daughter Marie-Marguerite married Jacques Poissant dit Lasaline, all Poissant descendants
also share this common ancestor from whom most Bessettes in North America today are descended.
click to see larger image
Much of this information about Jean Besset dit Brisetout is excerpted from "Our French-Canadian Ancestors" translated from the French "Nos Ancestres" by Thomas J. Laforest.
Very little is known about the French origins of Jean. From his marriage contract to Anne LeSeigneur, we learn that he was from the town of Cahors, today the head town of the arrondissement of the department Lot, in the Midi-Pyrenees, in Guyenne.
Cahors is located about 100 miles east of Bordeaux at the south end of a peninsula formed by the Lot river. The surrounding region, known as Aquataine, was colonized by the Romans during the period beginning around 40 B.C. A fortified town, Cahors quickly became the prey of invaders. Italian bankers from Lombardy established the first banks there. King Henri IV abolished the privileges of the wine warehouses, which the town enjoyed, ending the source of its prosperity.
By the time of Jean Besset's youth, Cahors was in full decline. Perhaps because of this, he decided to leave the region and join the army. His enlistment, probably in the early 1660's, placed him in the Carignan Regiment assigned to Captain de LaTour in the Loire Valley, about 100 miles north of Cahors.
Jean Besset came to New France in 1665, sent to protect the French settlers from the Iroquois Indians. Between June and September of that year, some 1,200 soldiers arrived in Quebec, under the leadership of Lt. General Alexander de Prouville. Four, fifty-man companies left the port of LaRochelle, France. After a difficult crossing lasting more than 100 days, the company headed by Captain LaTour and seven other companies spent the winter in Quebec.
The first official mention of Jean Besset in Canadian history was in the spring of 1688. On May 20, Msgr de Laval appeared at Fort Chambly to meet the soldiers. He administered the sacrament of confirmation to 66 people, all men, including Jean Besset. On July 3, 1668, Antoine Adhemar dit Saint-Martin drew up his first notarial act, a marriage contract between Jean Besset, "soldier at present living at fort St-Louis" and Anne le Signeur. The names of the groom's parents were omitted; Anne was listed as the daughter of the late Guillaume and Marguerite Serre, native of the Saint-Maclou parish in Rouen, Normandy.
Jean and Anne spent the winter of 1668/1669 at Fort Saint-Louis, which was used primarily as a warehouse for supplies and munitions. After the breakup of the Carignan Regiment, many of the ex-soldiers received land concessions to induce them to remain in the colony and take up farming. On October 14, 1673, Jean Besset received title to land in Chambly. A notarized document reveals that Monsieur de Chambly ceded him a tract with nineteen perches of frontage along the basin by forty arpents in depth on the Huron coast, today in the territory of St-Mathias de Rouville.
On July 22, 1674, Jean sold this land to Jean Brocherieux dit LaSoulaye and a week later on July 29, 1674, he bought a concession from François Prudhomme, consisting of 80 arpents of land in Sault St-Louis. This land was bordered on one side by Pierre Godin dit Chatillon, and on the other side by Jean Roy dit LaPensee, all of it in the district of the island of Montreal. He bought this at the price of 80 silver livres.
The Bessets returned to Chambly when, on July 19, 1678, a contract was executed stating Jean Besset would henceforth own half of the concession of four arpents of frontage abandoned by Arnaud Piat dit LaFleur in exchange for 70 livres, an amount he did not possess at that time. By 1681 the Besset's were living in Chambly between Étienne Raimbault and Louis Bariteau. At that time, they owned a gun, 3 head of cattle and 6 arpents of land under cultivation.
Nine children were born to Jean Besset and Anne le Signeur. Jean was buried at Chambly, in the parish of St-Joseph on January 7, 1707, in the presence of a Recollet missionary, Pierre Dublaron. Anne died 26 years later on July 4, 1733 at the age of 84 years.
"dit" names were not necessarily what a person chose for himself, but what he was called by others as a distinguishing name. "Brise-tout" is French for a rough, clumsy fellow -- literally, "break all" -- equivalent to "bull in a china shop." Perhaps that was Jean Besset's manner and the name stuck. The "dit Brisetout" name was limited to Jean and was not associated with his descendants.
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Rev. Jim Bell is Recruitment Director for International Ministries
Rev. Jim Bell
Call Retreat Track leader for "Cross-cultural Global Mission Service" May 18 -20
Jim Bell has served on the staff of American Baptist International Ministries since June of 2005, first as a Mission Partnership Coordinator and now as Director of Recruitment. Jim earned his BA in Youth Ministries and Biblical Studies at Barrington College and his M.Div./CE degree at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Prior to working with International Ministries, Jim served as a Youth Pastor and as a Church Planter/Pastor in Southwest Ohio, and made involvement in missions a focal point of those ministries. Jim also served in a variety of leadership and volunteer ministry roles with the American Baptist Churches of Ohio and the Miami Baptist Association. Jim lives with his wife Karen and children, Jonathan and Katie, near Cincinnati, Ohio.