Goldfish aren’t exactly the best-treated pets — did you know, for instance, that they shouldn’t be kept in bowls? But at least they no longer have to contend with the goldfish-swallowing craze of 1939. It began, like so many bad ideas, with a dorm room bet. After boasting to his friends that he had once consumed a live fish, Harvard freshman Lothrop Withington Jr. was told to put his money where his mouth was and do it again for $10. He did so on March 3 with at least one reporter and an ill-fated 3-inch goldfish present, remarking that “the scales caught a bit on my throat as it went down.”

The event was picked up by LIFEmagazine, which kicked off the craze among college students nationwide. Marie Hensen of the University of Missouri School of Journalism was among the first women known to have joined in on the strange trend, and a number of records were set and just as quickly broken. A student at the University of Pennsylvania swallowed 25 fish, an MIT student claimed the “new world’s record for piscine deglutition” by downing 42, and Joseph Deliberato of Clark University is said to have bested them all by swallowing 89 innocent goldies in one session. The trend began to die down after the Animal Rescue League stepped in and Massachusetts state Senator George Krapf filed a bill “to preserve the fish from cruel and wanton consumption.”

Bathrooms didn’t exist till 1900s

As difficult as it is to imagine, access to a full bathroom wasn’t a household norm until well into the 19th century. Though the flush toilet was invented in England in 1596, the general public still used chamber pots and outhouses for centuries after, as most houses didn’t have indoor plumbing. It wasn’t until the end of the 1800s — after inventor Alexander Cumming improved toilet design with the S-bend, which trapped smells — that toilets became common in homes, especially in upper-class households, and even then they were initially kept separate from the bathtub and sink, in a room referred to as the “water closet.” Noting the lack of sanitation caused by pipes and traps running from room to room, health care professionals began urging architects to streamline their plumbing into a single location. Architects relented, and the “bathroom” was born.

https://f6ba7228734aa793223d9cd1dd4e08bd.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

By the late 1800s, most upper-class homes in the United States and the U.K. were outfitted with a tub, toilet, and sink, and middle-class homes followed soon after. In the wake of the First World War, bathrooms became increasingly common in working-class households, but still weren’t universal in the United States until the middle of the 20th century. Advances in plumbing led to the mass-production of the affordable, two-piece toilets still used today, and made the bathroom a household staple.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The Supreme Court was created with some definite oversights built into the process. It seems that the only way to get rid of one is to impeach and that has to start in the House of Representatives.  It is unlikely that the process of impeachment will begin as long as the Republican Party holds the majority. When the opportunity provides, all the justices that have upheld Trump need to be impeached for Treason. 

  The events of Jan 6 clearly show that the followers of Trump were intent on stopping the peaceful transfer of power. That entire bonfire was built and stoked by Trump and that is also very obvious from the tapes of the event. Not voting to remove Trump from the ballot is supporting a treason act and it needs to be put to the judges that they also will face a day of reckoning for their crimes.

  Our country is being torn apart because of one persons over inflated ego and his ability to stir up trouble. The charges he is facing and the efforts he has made to get people to threaten anyone that says anything against him are ripping our democracy apart. This should not happen and the threat of violence needs to land on the doorstep of every fool that supports Trump. None of them are prepared to accept that violence can also be used against them.

  We teach children in Scouting Codes of Conduct and expect them to adhere to those rules. At every level when anyone is brought into an organization of any kind there are rules that are presented and expected to maintain. It is hard to believe that our highest court has no rules that they are required to or expected to obey.  The current court is supposed to be so righteous and yet the hypocrisy of their actions tells the world that they are anything but what they claim to be. At this point in time it is hard to believe that any of them has a mother that would approve of their actions.

  The nation has survived a great many things in it’s short history. A revolution, and then an attack to reverse that result, a civil war, and WWI the depression and WWII followed by the Cold War. The Korean Conflict and Vietnam as well as all the other times we have sent troops to fight and die on foreign soil for no good reason other than to make someone rich, or so it seems. Now we have a lone man and his ego to overcome and he has a following of individuals that are brave enough in a crowd but total cowards one on one. This person is saying that he will become a dictator if elected this time around. For most that should be enough to put a stop to this hope, most of us don’t need a belligerent father figure in our lives.

  If we can make this issue die on the vine then hopefully we can go back and fix some other issues such as gun control, voting rights, women’s health care, LGPQ matters as well as a host of other things that have been proven to be positive for the majority of citizens of most free nations. Moving forward with justice and equality and honor is far more important than one man’s wish to rule.