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SMALLRUS TAKES PHOENIX OPEN
daily links
By Torleif Sorenson on 2/3/14
Kevin Stadler captured his first PGA Tour victory on Sunday at the Phoenix Open — his tenth victory as a professional. Nicknamed "Smallrus" as a nod to his father, 1982 Masters champion Craig Stadler (famously nicknamed "The Walrus"), Kevin Stadler dodged a bullet on the 18th green when Bubba Watson could not get a five-foot putt to fall, which would have resulted in a playoff.
Interestingly, the senior Stadler said that this year will be the final time he competes in the Masters Tournament. We can only hope that Augusta National Golf Club chairman Billy Payne and his tournament committee pair father and son together in April. The proud 61-year-old father commented on his son's victory Sunday:
"It's awesome. I never doubted him for a minute. I'm his biggest fan. I'm proud of him. He probably doesn't know it, but I love watching him play on TV and on the Internet.
"I kept saying, you know, when he gets in, that's my last (Masters). I'm going to have to get in a little better shape for the next three months. It's going to be great."
Stadler's nine other victories have come in a wide variety of places; he won the Colorado Open in 2002 with his father on the bag, then racked up four victories on the PGA Tour's minor-league circuit (currently known as the Web.com Tour). He also captured the European Tour's Johnnie Walker Classic in 2006.
Canadian golfer Graham DeLaet finished tied for second with Watson by virtue of carding seven birdies in the final round, including at the closing hole. It is the Saskatchewan native's second consecutive 2nd-place finish; he was runner-up to Scott Stallings last week at Torrey Pines in San Diego. Last season, he finished in a tie for second at the Barclays, so DeLaet's golf game is absolutely heading in the right direction. Given his continued excellent play, we expect to see DeLaet in the winner's circle sooner than later; his T-2 in Phoenix moves him up five spots to 34th in the Official World Golf Rankings. Afterward, he acknowledged as much:
"I have been playing well for the last few months. I really feel like I worked super hard in the off-season. It's nice to see it paying off."
Phil Mickelson managed to stave off his back pain and get to the weekend, finishing T-42. Mickelson captured his third Phoenix Open last year, to go along with wins in 1996 and 2005.
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The Wedge Guy


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Dr Dillner's health dilemmas
Could my face cream cause dermatitis?
The increasing use of the preservative methylisothiazolinone in face creams may be responsible for an epidemic of contact dermatitis, according to experts
Luisa Dillner
Sun 14 Jul 2013 15.00 EDT First published on Sun 14 Jul 2013 15.00 EDT
Face cream … a dermatitis epidemic? Photograph: Alamy
Go to a dermatology clinic and chances are you'll see more than one person with a sore, red, swollen or blistering face. The most likely cause? An allergy to their face cream. Dermatologists at their annual conference last week warned of an epidemic of what they call allergic contact dermatitis (inflammation of the skin caused by allergic reactions). They warn it's caused by a preservative in face cream which is also found in many other products, including suntan lotion, soap, deodorant and even baby wipes. The name of this preservative? Methylisothiazolinone – or MI for short.
It's not a new compound but it has only been used on its own, instead of with other preservatives, for the past five years – therefore its concentration in individual products has increased. In one clinic at St Thomas's hospital in London there was just one case of allergy to MI in 2010, but 33 in 2012.
People typically develop an allergy to MI over a few days, but it can be delayed. The allergy is caused by your immune system waging war against a specific substance on the surface of your skin – making it oversensitive when the chemical is applied again. No one knows why allergies develop in some people and not others, or why you can develop allergic dermatitis from a substance you've been using happily for years. So should you start checking labels, just in case?
You should definitely check, says Dr Jason Williams, consultant dermatologist and director of the contact dermatitis investigation unit at Salford Royal Foundation NHS Trust. He said that 10% of his clinic patients who have patch tests are shown to have allergies to MI. Sometimes, he says, people don't realise it's the cream that's to blame for their itchy skin, and rub even more on. "MI is being used on its own in 100 parts per million. This is a much higher concentration in creams than there used to be – which was five parts per million," he says. "I would look at labels; reactions can be severe. Generally, the fewer chemicals on the label the better. But organic creams are not always better, as plant extracts contain fragrance allergens that can cause contact dermatitis. It is better to go for unfragranced creams."
Treatment consists of stopping use and usually applying steroid cream to your skin – but it can take some weeks for things to get back to normal. If you do develop a red, swollen, itchy, rash-ridden face, then you should get patch tested (results take a week) so you can avoid whatever caused it.
Are trampolines safe for children?
Luisa Dillner: Some experts are warning against letting children play on garden trampolines, but what's the best way to minimise the risk of injury from their use?
Should I take up e-cigarettes in order to stop smoking?
The medical community is divided on the matter of e-cigarettes, but they can't be as bad for you as the real thing
Should I breastfeed my baby to make him or her smarter?
Some studies show an association between breastfeeding and intelligence, yet the amount of mothers doing it is falling
Published: 5 Aug 2013
Should I believe calorie counts?
Luisa Dillner: There may be a difference between a food's listed calorific value, and the amount of calories it actually delivers – but only a small one
How do I know if my local hospital is any good?
Should I stop using lipstick?
Should I have a facelift?
Should I take drugs to prevent breast cancer?
Published: 7 Jul 2013

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


There is so much mis-information in print and on line I decided to try to set the story straight. The following has been gleaned and cross checked thoroughly, then submitted to two descendents I am in contact with. It is the most correct history we can come up with.
William Oscar Cardin was born in Miami Township, Miami County Kansas in 1879 to Thomas Jefferson and Esther Archangel (LaFontaine) Cardin. Thomas was born in 1843 in Fayette County, Georgia to Besley and Antoinette Cardin. In 1856, the Cardin family moved to Southeast Kansas near Osawatomie. Esther was born Feb 11, 1852 in Huntington Indiana to Louis and Mary ( Bordeau) LaFontaine. Louis was Chief of the western Miami Tribe. His father, Francis was the principal chief of the Miami Indians in Indiana and Ohio until his death in 1847. Esther's great grandfather, John B. Richardville was the principal chief before Francis. The LaFontaine family moved to Miami County, Kansas in 1856. It has been reported that the LaFontaines and the Richardvilles were among the wealthiest Indians of the time.
Thomas served in Company E, 12th Missouri Cavalry, Shank's Regiment during the Civil War. He was mustered out June 14, 1865 at Shreveport, La.
Thomas and Esther were married Dec 24, 1869 in Miami County Kansas. John Alexander was born in 1871, Atha Josephine (Josephine Alta?) in 1872, and Louis LaFontaine in 1876. W. O. in 1879, and Felicia Magdalene in 1884, still in Kansas. The family moved to Miami, Indian Territory in 1885, where Sarah C. was born July 9, 1886.
Esther and the children were adopted into the Quapaw tribe since they were of Indian blood. Each of them (except Atha, (Josephine?) who died in 1892) received 240 acre allotments in 1895. John Alexander and Esther's allotments were contiguous and neither was mineral laden. Alexander's was east of Spring River while Esther's was south of Commerce. Louis had 200 acres south of Picher; Felicia, 200 acres east of Stringtown Road (River Street), and Sarah had 200 acres south of Cardin. Wm. Oscar had scattered 40 acre tracts and one 80 acre tract south of Commerce containing the New State mine, which was a rich one. He also owned the 40 acre tract that became the town of Cardin. Stories vary on how this was achieved. One has him agreeing to pave the streets which seem unlikely since in those days "paving" consisted if graveling. The other, which seems more likely is that he construct sidewalks in the business district. According to Velma Neiberding's book "History of Ottawa County", he agreed to build one half mile of sidewalks. I have a picture that shows sidewalks in front of business in the teens. Esther died Aug 16, 1895, only a year after she received her allotment; Thomas, Jan. 18, 1921 and both are buried in a family plot in G. A. R. Cemetery at Miami, Oklahoma. Thomas bought an eight place plot, and there are still three open. It has a large upright stone in the center, with Cardin on one side along with Esther, Atha (Alta?), T. J., and W. O.'s stones. The other side says Kenoyer, and has Felicia's stone along with the three empty spaces..
Atha (Alta?) Josephine died in 1892 and is believed to be one of the first buried in G. A. R. Cemetery, Miami, Oklahoma.
William Oscar married Isa Wade.
Since Isa also received an allotment of 240 acres, that gave Oscar control of a large area. Among other things, he constructed the Cardin Building in Miami, in 1917 (Later to be Security Bank) and served as Vice President of the Miami Trust and Savings Bank. Isa was active in many civic groups including the Red Cross. They divorced in 1919. William died Nov. 19, 1949.
Sarah married Frank Staton April 12, 1903. Frank was the son of Abner and Emeline (Pooler) Staton. Emeline's father was Moses, an Ottawa Chief. Sarah and Frank had the following children: Traverse "Bo" Staton, born July 28, 1903, Lloyd A. born Jan19, 1905, Leland Earle born Oct. 5, 1906, Randolph born Aug. 30, 1908 and Esther Emeline born July 21, 1911. They built the Staton Building in Miami. Sarah and Frank were divorced April 28, 1925, and Sarah married Claude Corbett Oct. 29, 1925. Sarah and Claude built two Corbett buildings, back to back between Main and A Streets on1st S. E. Sarah donated the Main Street building to the American Legion. It has been said that the Staton building was a wooden building, and was torn down and replaced with one of the Corbett buildings. Sarah Died in Washington State Feb. 7, 1942, with her brother Wm. Oscar at her side.


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Home新闻与活动新闻稿2012AEM taps JLG executive as new director
AEM taps JLG executive as new director
Frank Nerenhausen, executive vice president Oshkosh Corp. and president, access segment, JLG Industries, Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation company [NYSE:OSK] and a leading manufacturer of aerial work platforms and telescopic material handlers, has been elected as a director of the Construction Equipment (CE) Sector Board of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM).
AEM is a North American-based international trade group for companies that manufacture equipment, products and services used worldwide in the agricultural, construction, forestry, mining, and utility sectors. AEM's directors, led by the officers, set the guidelines and operating policies of the association on behalf of members in areas including public policy, equipment statistics and market information, trade shows, technical and product safety support, global business development, education/training, workforce development, and worksite safety/educational materials.
"I am honored to join the CE Sector Board, which provides strategic and operational direction for the construction equipment sector of AEM," said Nerenhausen. "I look forward to representing JLG and other CE members, and am excited about the opportunity to apply JLG's global perspective to the challenges that face our industry in a variety of markets around the world."
Nerenhausen was named president of JLG's access equipment sector in August, bringing to the position 26 years of experience in key executive sales and finance positions with Oshkosh Corporation. He also serves as Oshkosh Corporation executive vice president and previously, was the president of the commercial segment and McNeilus, positions he held since 2010.
For more information about JLG, please visit the company website at www.jlg.com.


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The University of Saskatchewan in the World
The University of Saskatchewan has relationships with institutions all over the world. Use the menus below to discover some of these, past and present.
To search by institution, select the country first, and then the institution.
You can set multiple criteria in a search. This will mean the system will only return results that fit all criteria.
The International Research and Partnerships Office is responsible for developing and maintaining the University of Saskatchewan's international relationships. These relationships are divided into five different types:
Partnerships - these are agreements to work towards collaboration, made between the University of Saskatchewan and an institution in another country. Note: within a general Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) faculty collaboration can occur.
Stay Opportunities - these are agreements that involve members of our community spending time at a partner institution, or members of a partner's community spending time at the University of Saskatchewan.
Networks - these are groups of institutions who have decided to collaborate, either because of a common area of interest or a geographical region.
Visits - these are visits that have been made by members of our community (faculty, staff, and students) to partner institutions in another country, or members of a partner's community paying a visit to the University of Saskatchewan. Please note that not all visits have been entered into the system.
Projects - these are research projects undertaken by University of Saskatchewan faculty in collaboration with faculty at an institution in another country. Please note that not all of our research projects have been entered into the system.
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The California Assembly Bill (AB) 1245, also known as the e-file and e-pay mandate requires all employers to electronically submit employment tax returns, wage reports and payroll tax deposits to the Employment Development Department (EDD). This mandate is effective January 1, 2017 for employers with 10 or more employees and effective for all remaining employers January 1, 2018. Employers that are already required by law to electronically submit wage and/or electronic funds transfer to EDD will remain subject to those requirements in addition to this new mandate.
Our OCIE SBDC consultants can provide you with additional guidance regarding this new employer requirement and are trained through EDD to assist you with enrollment in the e-Services for Business platform. Schedule an appointment with one of our consultants to learn more about the e-file and e-pay mandate, get help with electronically filing the required documents for your business and more. View our various locations or use the sign up button to schedule your consultation.
Quarterly Contribution Return and Report of Wages (DE 9).
Note: These penalties are in addition to any other penalties that may apply.
The EDD encourages employers to use e-Service for Business to file electronic documents in compliance with the e-file and e-pay mandate. e-Service for Business helps employers, employer representatives and payroll agents manage an employer paytoll tax account online 24/7 – at no cost. There is no additional software requirement needed to access these services. For more information or to create an e-Service for Business account, please visit http://www.edd.ca.gov/e-Services_for_Business.


The Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee announced the nominees for its annual "Izzies" Awards and among the honorees are CalArts alumni Crystaldawn Bell (Dance BFA 08) and Norma Fong (Dance BFA 08).
Bell and Fong are nominated in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Performance – Ensemble, for their performance in First Stab at Closure. First Stab at Closure, created by choreographer Todd Eckert, is "an exploration of weight inside a space that resides between antagonism and intimacy, togetherness and departure, sharing and difference."
Now in its 31st year, the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, or "Izzies," honors San Francisco Bay Area dance artists by acknowledging their outstanding achievements in dance. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on March 27 at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco.


Persians are a popular breed of cat known for their long fur coats and their flattened faces. Though smaller than the real thing, this Persian Cat figure still embodies the fluffy cuteness of these kitties.
Characteristics: This Persian Cat figure features all the hallmarks of the breed – the bushy tail, fluffy coat and flattened face are all created in exacting, accurate detail.
Size and Color: At 3 inches long and 2 inches tall, the Persian Cat figure is about the size of a credit card. Its coat is white, its ears and nose are peach-colored, and its eyes are green.
This popular breed is named for the country in which its ancestral breed was first documented (Iran - formerly Persia). However, it is not known exactly where it originally developed.


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Правови́й ста́тус — становище того чи іншого суб'єкта в правовій реальності, що відображається у його взаєминах з суспільством і державою; сукупність прав і обов'язків.

Правовим статусом наділені, наприклад, особа взагалі, члени парламенту, державні службовці.

В залежності від суб'єкта, його правовий статус наповнюється тими чи іншими елементами.

Можна говорити і про правовий статус об'єктів — землі, органів місцевого самоврядування, адвокатури тощо.

Правовий статус суб'єктів права складається з об'єктивних, фактично існуючих елементів, виявивши та проаналізувавши які, в цілому можна пізнати явище комплексно. Усвідомивши правовий статус як цілісну систему, серед структурних елементів якої можна виділити головні, можна з'ясувати характер її взаємозв'язків з середовищем функціонування. Застосовуючи системний метод дослідження, можна визначити поняття «правовий статус» як комплексне юридичне явище, що визначає статус (становище) суб'єкта у відповідній системі, відокремити його статистичні й допоміжні елементи [16, с 109]. А. М. Куліш зазначає, що питання правового статусу державного органу в юридичній літературі донедавна зводилося, головним чином, до визначення його компетенції, встановленого законодавством кола прав та обов'язків [17, с 86], що не розкриває повністю зміст поняття «правовий статус». Під правовим статусом державного органу, як правило, розуміють певну сукупність повноважень юридично-владного характеру, реалізація яких забезпечує виконання покладе-них на нього завдань [18, с 95]. Але О. М. Бандурка застерігає, що таке визначення є досить вузьким, воно не охоплює значної частини питань організації і діяльності державних органів, які визначають їх правовий стан або статус (ці два поняття часто ототожнюються, розглядаються як синоніми) [19, с 125].

Ми вважаємо, що більш доцільною є позиція тих авторів, які розглядають правовий статус суб'єктів права через їх правосуб'єктивність, тобто включають у правовий статус призначення органів, їх завдання, функції, компетенцію і повноваження, форми, методи та цілі діяльності [20, с 13-21].

О. Я. Якимов вважає за необхідне виділяти у правовому статусі державного органу певні блоки - цільовий, до якого включає призначення та завдання органу (в тому числі і його функції); структурно-організаційний, до якого відносить питання утворення органу, його структуру, штати; компетенцію та відповідальність [21, c. 34]. Спірним є віднесення як самостійного блоку компетенції та відповідальності, адже під компетенцією, як було вказано вище, розуміють коло питань, які уповноважений вирішувати державний орган. Компетенція нерозривно пов'язана з функціями та завданнями. О. Я. Якимов не виділяє обв'язки і права, які в науковій літературі розглядають спільно й об'єднують терміном «повноваження» [22, с 319], а також форми і методи діяльності, які можна було б умовно назвати, за пропозицією О. О. Бандурки, функціональним блоком, об'єднавши функції та повноваження.

Т. В. Сараскіна основними характеристиками правового статусу державних органів називає: встановлення призначення органу та його місця в системі органів виконавчої влади, мету утворення орану; визначення сфери його діяльності, формулювання його завдань і функцій; встановлення прав та обов'язків (повноважень) щодо здійснення поставлених перед ним завдань та функцій у певній галузі чи сфері його відання; наділення його правом приймати відповідні правові акти, міру відповідальності органу та його посадових осіб за порушення законності в діяльності органу; порядок формування структури, штатів фінансування, порядку ліквідації; компетенція в прийнятті, реалізації і , контролі за виконанням власних рішень; інформаційне забезпечення органу виконавчої влади та його структурних підрозділів [23, с 73-74].

Для визначення правового статусу державного органу А. Т. Комзюк вважає за необхідне з'ясувати його місце в загальній системі виконавчої влади, рівень і форму його правового регулювання; визначити межі його відання, визначити сферу суспільних відносин, які регулюються даним органом, перелічити об'єкти, йому підпорядковані, з'ясувати коло завдань, на нього покладених, сукупність прав і обов'язків (правомочностей) та його посадових осіб при виконанні покладених на орган функцій, тобто визначити міру, можливої поведінки органу та його посадових осіб при виконанні ними своїх функцій (права), а також міру їх обов'язкової поведінки (обов'язки) [24, с 63].

Правовий статус державного органу з'ясовується, на думку Д. А. Вечерні на, через відповіді на такі запитання: органом якого рівня влади є даний орган; до, якого виду органів влади він належить за своїм призначенням; хто утворює даний орган; кому орган підпорядкований, піднаглядний, перед ким відповідальний; яку компетенцію має даний орган; хто йому підзвітний та підконтрольний; якою є юридична природа актів даного органу; якими державними символами може користуватись; які джерела фінансування органу; чи володіє орган правами юридичної особи [25, с 26-29].

Правовий статус визначає характер, при-значення, вид та місце державного органу у системі органів виконавчої влади, у зв'язку з чим Д. Д. Цабрія вважає, що правовий статус характеризується: а) офіційною назвою органу; б) порядком та способом його утворення; в) територією діяльності; г) метою діяльності, завдань і функцій; д) обсягом та характером влад-них повноважень; є) порядком вирішення в органі підвідомчих питань; ж) відповідальністю; з) джерелами фінансування органу; и) наявністю, або відсутністю прав юридичної особи; і) правом і обов'язком мати певну внутрішню структуру; ї) правом та обов'язком користуватися державними символами [26, с 126131].

Розглядаючи різні визначення поняття правового статусу, можна узагальнити, що правовий статус – це регламентоване нормами права існуюче становище суб'єкта в певній системі, яке залежить від структури, прав, завдань і відповідальності. Але Ю. П. Єременко дає дефініцію правового статусу, виходячи з його структури: «правовий статус - це юридичний вираз соціальної свободи особистості у вигляді системи прав та обов'язків» [27], а А. Б. Венгеров вважає, що «правовий статус сукупність прав, свобод, обов'язків та відповідальності особистості» [28]. М. І. Мату зов писав, що правовий статус являє собою не лише сукупність прав, свобод та обов'язків особистості, а й її законних інтересів, гарантованих державою [29, с 114].

У юридичній літературі існують і такі поняття, як «спеціальний правовий статус», під яким розуміють правовий статус особи у сфері професійної трудової діяльності [30], «правовий статус службовців», який являє собою сукупність прав, обов'язків, обмежень, заборон, відповідальності, встановлених законодавством для окремих категорій посадових осіб.

Особливості правового статусу різних категорій посадових осіб визначаються покладеними на них обов'язками й характером службових повноважень, специфікою діяльності органів, в яких вони служать [31]. Під адміністративно-правовим статусом посадової особи А. М. Костюков пропонує, розуміти регульоване нормами права становище посадової особи в органі управління, що характеризує найменування посадової особи та її місце у службовій ієрархії, функції, повноваження, гарантії реалізації повноважень і відповідальність [32, с 21-23]. До елементів правового статусу посадових осіб можна включити трудову правосуб'єктність службовців, їх основні (статутні) трудові права й обов'язки, гарантії цих прав і відповідальність за невиконання обов'язків. Під трудовою правосуб'єктністю службовців розуміють встановлена законодавством здатність виконувати певні службові обов'язки з настанням відповідного віку. Трудова правосуб'єктність встановлюється діючим законодавством, як правило, з досягненням громадянами 16-річного віку.

Як бачимо, поряд із «правовим статусом» державного органу в науковій літературі використовуються поняття «правовий статус особистості» та «правове становище особистості». Н. В. Вітрук [33], В. О. Кубинський [34] за-пропонували розмежовувати поняття правового статусу органу та правового становища посадової особи, оскільки перше є частиною (ядром), другого. У цьому випадку, як вони вважають, розбіжності в термінології призводять до нечіткого розуміння правового статусу як однієї з ключових категорій юридичної науки.

Див. також

 Правовий статус особи
 компетенція
 статус
 адміністративно-правовий статус
 спеціальний правовий статус
 режим
 правосуб'єктність

Примітки

Посилання

Джерела
Політологічний  енциклопедичний  словник  /  уклад.:  Л.  М.  Герасіна,  В. Л. Погрібна,  І. О. Поліщук  та  ін. За ред. М. П. Требіна. — Х.: Право, 2015.;
Ю. С. Шемшученко, Н. М. Пархоменко. Правовий статус //

Література
Правовий статус //

Правознавство
Адміністративне право

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Progressive Radiology is a locally owned and operated diagnostic imaging company serving the Harford County community for over 20 years. As health care providers, we dedicate our daily lives to diagnosing all types of cancers and improving the quality of life for thousands of patients every year.
This fall we are sponsoring our second annual 5K Purple/Pink event to benefit the American Cancer Society (ACS) and its efforts to fund research for a cure.
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In one of my earliest and most vivid memories, I sat watching a cartoon about an alligator. Something sad happened to the alligator and I started to cry. Upset, I ran to my father for comfort. He asked if I was crying because of the cartoon or because I felt sick. For whatever reason, I quickly felt ashamed, and lied, saying my stomach hurt. Ever since that moment I learned to keep my emotions to myself.
We were a fairly strict Roman Catholic family and, while never stated, strong emotions other than happiness/contentment, were kept hidden and really never spoke of. As usual, pretending things are other than they actually are never turns out well. Having no idea how to deal with these emotions as a child I let them build up until they exploded in a tantrum of one sort or another. It wasn't until somewhere shortly before/during/after my voice changed that I found writing emotion filled purges was a much more positive way to deal with them and so it was that I started writing in a journal. Thus, with that foundation, most of the entries were nothing more than emotional garbage spewed onto a page as quickly as possible to get it out of my head and were never meant for anything else.
And so, a stack of journals has sat in a drawer for years. Occasionally I'd open one up and shake my head at whatever nonsense I found. I still find writing in a journal a useful exercise, but (I'd like to think) they go deeper than the ones I kept as a teenager (which is admittedly doubtful). Yet for a long time I've wanted to do something with them. The earliest surviving journal dates from 1999, giving me some 13 years of material to work with. And so the other day I came up with an idea for a project called 13 years.
The goal (challenge) is to take all of these and turn them into an interesting year-long journey. My method is to identify all entries from a certain date, say for example June 25, from all of the journals. Using only the materials from these entries I'll create a post entitled 13 years: June 25 and do the same for each date that has journal entries from at least two different years. I can arrange the sentences/phrases in any way, but cannot add anything that is not there. I may, however, remove/change names to protect the innocent (but mostly to protect myself from embarrassment and potentially awkward situations).
The project will go from today, August 1, 2013 to July 31, 2014. The first date with at least 2 entries is tomorrow. Going through and outlining all the August entries I found only 4 days will not have posts due to only one entry being available to work with. Some days have up to six entries, while a handful have just two. Thus the amount of material to work with each time will vary greatly. What will come of it, I have no idea. Surely some will be better than others, but hopefully it will be a worthwhile experiment and journey to take.
In my obsession with time since I was little, I have always put a time stamp on every journal entry and so will post them at the exact time corresponding to the earliest journal entry for that date. So tomorrow at 1:13 A.M. the first post in this project will go up.
I'm excited and hope you are too.


text:
Paul Bragg & The Rise of Apple Cider Vinegar
Health claims about apple cider vinegar are everywhere. But are they true? This week, we hop into the wayback machine for the story of America's first health influencer. (That's not true, but neither is anything else in this episode.)
Thanks to David Johnston for providing sources for this week's episode!
Hear bonus episodes on Patreon
Donate on PayPal
Get Maintenance Phase T-shirts, stickers and more
A Longstanding Legacy of Promoting Healthy Living
About Paul (Internet Archive)
100 Years of Health with Patricia Bragg
Patricia Bragg: Born to do her father's work
In the Name of the 'Father' (part 2, part 3)
FDA report on enforcement & compliance
FTC decisions, 1941
How Americans Became Obsessed With Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar
Debunking the health benefits of apple cider vinegar
Orlando Bloom Bonded with Katy Perry over Apple Cider Vinegar
Investor group acquires Bragg Live Food Products
Thanks to Doctor Dreamchip for our lovely theme song!
Show Notes Transcript
Mike: Welcome to Maintenance Phase, the show that turns your hippie parents into mean weirdos.
Aubrey: [laughs]
Mike: Is that what we're doing? Is that what the show is about today?
Aubrey: That's not quite it, but definitely hippie parents' territory.
Mike: That's what I was told about this. I'm Michael Hobbes.
Aubrey: I'm Aubrey Gordon. If you would like to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com/maintenancephase or you can buy t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, whatever you like at TeePublic. Both of those are linked for you in the show notes. Also, fun update. I have written another book and it's coming out in January.
Mike: Yay. Go buy it, go buy Aubrey's book. What's it called, Aubrey?
Aubrey: It's called You Just Need to Lose Weight": And 19 Other Myths About Fat People. The idea is that it's organizing a bunch of prompts for deeper thinking and research and history and a bunch of other things. You can get that at aubreygordon.net/myths. And we will link it for you in the show notes.
Mike: And we're going to talk about it a lot when it comes out. And are you going to read the audiobook this time? [Aubrey laughs] This is the number one comment we get from listeners.
Aubrey: [laughs] It's the number one comment we get from listeners. It's the number one comment I get in my email inbox. It's number one comment that my publisher gets. Yes, I am reading the audiobook, I start recording tomorrow.
Mike: So, you have Aubrey in your ears different ways. Starting in January.
Aubrey: Maybe more than you want. We'll find out. [laughs]
Mike: Yay.
Aubrey: And today, Michael, you alluded to it. We are talking about a topic near and dear to many a hippie vegan heart, and that is Braggs.
Mike: I am the fresh maker on an episode [Aubrey laughs] I have no fucking idea what we're talking about.
Aubrey: You're rolling around in a suit on a wet paint bench, even [crosstalk] pinstripes.
Mike: You told me a couple of weeks ago that we were doing this. I've never heard of this brand. I've never heard of this story. I'm ready to be taken in your arms [Aubrey laughs] and pulled along on a path of information.
Aubrey: Okay, Bragg Live Food is a natural foods company based in Santa Barbara in California. They are all told a pretty small company, but they have a fairly big impact, people who know them and love them, extremely know them and love them. I'm going to send you an image of their nutritional yeast, just so that you can see, "Oh, that's the bag." Click through and see the little picture of the canister.
Mike: Nutritional yeast. Packed with protein and B vitamins Bragg Nutritional-- Oh, fuck off, there's pop-ups. Argh. I don't want your newsletter.
Aubrey: The main reason I'm sending this to you is to look at the packaging. This, the apple cider vinegar and the liquid aminos, all come with this bright yellow label. It's got the two leaders of the company in portrait on the label, and there's a big red banner that says Bragg.
Mike: Nutritious, great taste, vegetarian, gluten-free, salt-free sugar-free. It's just claiming a lot of stuff at me.
Aubrey: Sodium-free, delicious flavors added to [Michael laughs] foods and recipes. That is ideally the goal of most foods is to add flavor.
Mike: Oh, and then it's got more information on the founder. So, it says Patricia Bragg, ND?
Aubrey: Yeah, naturopathic.
Mike: Oh, naturopathic doctor PhD, pioneer health crusader, health educator, author, and it's got Paul C. Bragg, originator health spores. It's making claims, I can't read that.
Aubrey: Originator of health stores.
Mike: Okay.
Aubrey: And then life extension specialist.
Mike: Oh, no. Okay.
Aubrey: On this packaging. It has those spiky bubbles that show up on sensationalized packaging for foods.
Mike: Yeah, it's like the Batman pow sign.
Aubrey: [[laughs] Yes, there you go, that's exactly it.
Mike: It's like BaP.
Aubrey: The things they have chosen to highlight in those big green bubbles are sodium-free and shaker top.
Mike: Yeah, [Aubrey laughs] these are weird choices.
Aubrey: Lots of seasonings come with a Shaker Top, Paul and Patricia.
Mike: It's like how when they used to list special features on DVDs. They would always say "interactive menu." [Aubrey laughs] Yeah, that's my expectation.
Aubrey: Bragg's has made its name selling nutritional yeast sometimes called Brewer's yeast. It really is a good source of B vitamins. I think it's fucking delicious.
Mike: Yeah.
Aubrey: They also have their liquid aminos which are billed as a healthier alternative to soy sauce.
Aubrey: And then the last one is good old-fashioned Apple Cider Vinegar, which has about one million health claims.
Aubrey: In 2007, according to Hoover's corporate database, they did about $3.1 million in sales. And they employed about 25 people. So, it is a small company.
Mike: Yeah, pretty small.
Aubrey: The company was founded by Paul Bragg and then later run by his daughter, Patricia Bragg. Paul and Patricia have written a lot of books about health and wellness. I am going to send you some of the titles of these books, some of the words are in all caps. That's because that's how they're stylized on the cover of the book.
Aubrey: And because I think it makes it funnier to leave those in.
Mike: "Water: The Shocking Truth, the water you're drinking may look safe, but is it?" Oh, no.
Aubrey: Yeah.
Mike: "Healthy heart, learn the facts, building powerful nerve force and positive energy, the miracle of fasting proven throughout history for physical, mental and spiritual rejuvenation." Okay, so we're in Gerson Therapy adjacent [Aubrey laughs] like, "Here's the secret to health stuff and how our yeasts are gonna solve it."
Aubrey: I was thinking about knowing that you didn't know a ton about this company or their products. I was like, "How do I shorthand the vibe here to Mike?"
Aubrey: And then I looked at their list of books and I was like, "Thank you for doing it for me."
Mike: I'm dealing with a lot of unforeseeable nerves right now. This might actually be helpful for me [Aubrey laughs] my nerves lack force.
Aubrey: Their most popular books are one about Apple Cider Vinegar unsurprisingly, and this The Miracle of Fasting, I did read The Miracle of Fasting, I think, it may be due for a diet book deep dive at some point because every single page is bananas. At one point, Paul writes, "You have nine doctors at your command, Dr. Sunshine, Dr. Fresh Air, Dr. Pure Water.
Mike: Oh, no. [laughs] Dr. Muscles, Dr. Stretching. Dr. Fruits.
Aubrey: Dr. Good Natural Food, Dr. fasting.
Mike: Oh, my God.
Aubrey: Dr. Exercise, Dr. Rest, Dr. Good Posture, and Dr. Human Mind.
Mike: Not how doctors work, but thank you, Paul. I like how he has a doctor of foods and a doctor of how not to eat.
Aubrey: In the introduction, there are these phrases that appear as subheads. And one that appears a couple of times in this book is, "Sickness is a crime, don't be a criminal."
Mike: It's weird marketing stuff. They're just reframing these extremely banal points of, "try not to be sick," which is most of us are already doing.
Aubrey: Yes.
Mike: But then they're reframing it in these weirdly stigmatizing, but also overly elaborate ways. "Don't read the sickness Bible, be a sickness atheist."
Aubrey: I feel what you just said about they have this weirdly Baroque and needlessly complicated way of talking about pretty basic things, and then just throw in some wild cards in there. They have a plan called The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle.
Aubrey: These are some of the do's and don'ts that Paul Bragg created, and that Patricia Bragg follows and champions. I picked a few of those and I'm going to send those along to you.
Mike: Ooh, okay. "Do fast one day a week to detoxify your system. Don't eat refined sugar, distilled vinegar, salty foods, white rice or flour, fried foods, saturated fats or hydrogenated oils, coffee or caffeinated teas, pork, smoked fish, and meat, canned soups or food with preserve chemicals." Jesus Christ. Okay, "Don't eat or drink food. Don't drink cow's milk. Do go out in the sun regularly. Sun has healing and germ-killing energy."
Aubrey: Uh-huh, sun has it.
Mike: "Don't eat meat more than twice a week or fish more than several times a week." More than several.
Aubrey: Don't do it.
Mike: "Get your protein from vegetable sources instead. Don't rely on enemas, or high colonics unless you're sick or have extreme constipation." That sounds reasonable advice to me.
Mike: Don't wash out your butt unless there's a reason for you to wash out your butt.
Aubrey: Also, unusual advice from this particular sector. This is the colonic sector.
Mike: It's like when you're talking to a conspiracy theorist, and they tell you about the one that they don't believe.
Aubrey: [laughs] Yes.
Mike: Moon landing is faked, Princess Diana was killed by MI6. And then you're like, "What about Bigfoot?" And they're like, "You know what? I don't see the evidence."
Aubrey: It is also worth noting that the company is proud to report that it has a Patricia & Paul Bragg Foundation where they do charitable giving. And if you go to that website, most of that money goes to rescue missions and wildlife centers and that sort of thing.
Aubrey: They also have given a couple of times to GMO-free campaigns and anti-GMO organizations.
Mike: Okay, we're nearing the Gwynethverse.
Aubrey: The gravity is pulling us closer. I spent some quality time, I remembered a skill that I have for my previous job, which is navigating a bunch of political contribution databases. And I spent a solid hour last night just searching for people that we've covered on the show and their respective states and being like, "Why did they give money to politically?" One of the things that came out of that is that Braggs gave to GMO-Free Mendocino campaign.
Aubrey: That's our lady of Goop Gwyneth Paltrow gave a personal $15,000 contribution too.
Mike: Which you texted me about and now I'm prompting you to talk about, yes.
Aubrey: Thank you.
Mike: [laughs]
Aubrey: Thank you so much.
Mike: [crosstalk] -you a reason.
Aubrey: And I love it. The story of Bragg Live Foods is, for all intents and purposes, the story of Paul and Patricia Bragg. Paul Bragg was born in 1881. We're getting in the Wayback Machine.
Aubrey: He was born in 1881 to farmers in Virginia. He was raised on that farm. He talks a lot about growing up on a farm and how that formed his relationship to food. He says he had two brothers and a sister named Louise. In The Miracle of Fasting, he talks about teaching Louise about clean, healthy living, and tutoring her to good health after she had some kind of sickness that he doesn't really specify.
Mike: So, as a child, he's already into this stuff.
Aubrey: Absolutely. He also talks about this pivotal moment in his own life. He says that when he was 16, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Aubrey: He says he was sent to a sanitarium or he was treated by a Swiss nurse who recommended a Swiss doctor. Bragg went to see that doctor who treated tuberculosis, "With natural foods and exercise."
Mike: Oh, no. Okay, this is the origin story. I text myself.
Aubrey: Here is a little quote from an archived version of the Bragg's website.
Mike: It says, "Crippled by tuberculosis as a teenager, Bragg developed his own eating, breathing, and exercising program to rebuild his body into an ageless, tireless pain-free citadel of glowing super health." He excelled in running, swimming, biking, progressive weights training, and mountain climbing. He made an early pledge to God in return for his renewed health to spend the rest of his life showing others the road to super health." So, he appointed himself as God's Messenger to mansplain, like, "This is what worked for me," to other people his whole life.
Aubrey: By age 18, it's 1899, Paul Bragg is tuberculosis free, he comes back to the US from his Swiss doctor. When he returns to the US, he meets a figure who will prove really, really, formative for him in that pursuit of a health and wellness career.
Mike: Blake Lively.
Aubrey: Ooh, do you have any predictions about who it is?
Mike: Wait, when are we now, we're in 1899?
Aubrey: 1899. We have talked about this person before on the show.
Mike: Oh, is that the diaper guy?
Mike: Is this the fighting diaper guy?
Aubrey: I love that you remembered. Yes, he meets Bernarr Macfadden.
Mike: We had one or a couple of photos of him, I think, we looked at in the Keto episode. He's a small ropey man in this boxing pose of put up your dukes. Like, meh, [Aubrey laughs] that's how I imagine everybody talking like then.
Aubrey: Yes, a couple more little color details for Bernarr Macfadden. He changed his name from Barnard to Bernarr with two R's, because he thought it sounded like a lion roaring.
Mike: Grrr.
Aubrey: He was also, I think most notably was the publisher of Physical Culture, which was the first big bodybuilding and fitness magazine in the United States. These two as far as I can tell like a lock eyes, the music swells, fireworks go off, like they are just meant to be. And they start collaborating on all sorts of health and wellness projects. Most notably, Bernarr Macfadden hires Paul Bragg as an editor at Physical Culture.
Mike: Oh, they're doing a collab.
Aubrey: While those two were working together, Bragg accomplishes something truly remarkable. He becomes an Olympian.
Mike: What? Oh, in like ping pong, like one of the sports [crosstalk] he does?
Aubrey: No, wrestling. He competes with the US Olympic team in wrestling in the 1908 and 1912 Olympics.
Mike: Wow.
Aubrey: The same year that he's in the Olympics, he says he opens the country's first health food store.
Mike: Okay, probably not true, but fine.
Aubrey: So, around this time, the outgrowth of the health food store is Bragg Live Food Products. That's where the company starts. He talks around this time about how he's worried about the refinement and processing of American food.
Mike: It's fascinating that the term processed was around that long ago and that-
Aubrey: Fascinating.
Mike: -then same arguments were being made like, "We have these natural things that come out of the earth, but then we'd processed them into something unhealthy."
Aubrey: Yeah, there was a whole piece that I read about the history of health claims around apple cider vinegar and how it's been used. At this point, in history, there's quite a bit of hand-wringing, because normally, apples are grown by grafting, not by planting seeds.
Aubrey: When you plant apple seeds, generally the fruit that you get is gnarlier, it's more sour, it's more fibrous. There's a bunch of stuff about it that's not great. But it was killer for making hard apple cider and apple cider vinegar, like these super gnarly apples just fermented beautifully apparently. In the US, we have genuine real actual historical figure Johnny Appleseed, who is a Swedenborgian, I don't know if this is a Christian sect that you are familiar with.
Mike: No.
Aubrey: But according to Swedenborgians, grafting a plant would be akin to torturing that plant.
Mike: Oh.
Aubrey: So, he starts planting these seeded apple trees that give these gnarly ass apples. And folks really develop a taste for fermented products made with this particular kind of apple.
Mike: Was his wife's name Granny Smith or something? I [crosstalk] origin story of everything.
Aubrey: [laughs] Yeah, absolutely. So that could be where some of the processed food stuff is coming from. Their food systems are legitimately changing. And with any change, there is often a level of uncertainty or distrust, or sometimes straight-up panic. And it seems to me, Paul Bragg is articulating some of those anxieties.
Mike: And also, this is the time of the jungle and a lot more awareness of genuinely bad practices in the American food processing industry. Some of this anxiety is extremely justified.
Aubrey: Absolutely. After he opens the health food store, he starts, what he says is the "nation's first health and wellness lecture tour."
Mike: It's a medicine show. It's the same thing we saw on the Snake Oil episode.
Aubrey: Mike, why are you spoiling? [laughs]
Mike: Oh, am I doing it? Okay, sorry.
Aubrey: No, it's okay. He calls it Bragg Health Crusade. This was the quote I was going to give you to be like, "Isn't it like a medicine show, doesn't this sound familiar?"
Mike: Okay, you were leading me on a path and I got to the destination too fast, I'm sorry.
Aubrey: I did consider this possibility last night where I was like, "This is only full of twists and turns if you haven't hosted this show with me for two years."
Aubrey: One of the attendees of a Bragg Health Crusade lecture remembers this particular part of it. This is a direct quote from someone who was there.
Mike: It says, "Paul had this great big pot he take on stage and he put 20 to 25 jars of different chemicals you find in food. Stuff from white bread, coke, you name it, and he'd say, 'I'm going to cook dinner for everyone tonight.' Then he'd put everything in the pot, stir it up and shout 'Who's ready to eat? Folks, that's what you're putting in your body.'" Oh, this is the Jamie Oliver' Chicken Nuggets thing from 70 years later.
Aubrey: It is Turkey Twizzlers?
Aubrey: It is pink slime. It is also medicine showmen like pulling a tooth.
Mike: I think of it as similar to-- you have to go to the seminars to buy a timeshare.
Mike: They make you go to the seminar. And the only reason to go to the seminar is like, "Yes, I would to be tricked into buying this thing."
Aubrey: You have really cracked the code on this business model because-- after the lecture is free, and then afterward, you can get a private health consultation with Paul Bragg in the 1935 Health Crusade Series, that health consultation costs $20.
Mike: That sounds expensive in 1935.
Aubrey: In today's dollars, that is $425.
Mike: Yeah, it's a good grift.
Aubrey: And he's doing all of this during and just after the Depression. Opened the first health food store, starting the first Health Lecture Series are just two of his many, many, many firsts in the natural foods and health foods world. According to Bragg's website, he was the first to introduce pineapple juice and tomato juice to the US.
Aubrey: He was the first to introduce and distribute honey and date sugar nationwide.
Aubrey: He hosted the first health TV show, which he co-hosted with Patricia called Health & Happiness. And he says he opened one of the first health restaurants and health spas.
Mike: I mean, I like juice. Thank you for the juice, Paul.
Aubrey: Sure. Pineapple juice, delicious.
Mike: Delicious, yeah.
Aubrey: And through the health crusades, in particular, Bragg gets a lot of famous supporters. So, are you familiar with Jack LaLanne?
Mike: He's like the quintessential exercise guru. He's the first exercise influencer to break through to the mainstream.
Aubrey: Yeah, he's like a TV and magazine muscle man-
Aubrey: -in the way that people in the 40s would be muscle men.
Aubrey: Where you're like, Oh, he looks like a dude who is popping his chest out."
Mike: Dude, I'm looking, as you're talking, I'm doing a google image search for physical culture for this magazine. And there are all these spreads of bodybuilders. And, yeah, it's so fascinating to me how the people that were considered the ideal of male athleticism back then would be considered dudes with dad bods now.
Aubrey: And what you're talking about here is not comments on these particular dudes' bodies, but what they represent in terms of how our standards have changed and our visual indicators of fitness have changed.
Mike: Totally.
Aubrey: This is a decidedly pre-Chris Hemsworth world se.
Aubrey: So, Jack LaLanne says that he attended one of the health crusade lectures as a teenager when he was 15. And credits Paul Bragg with, "Saving his life."
Mike: That doesn't sound true but okay.
Aubrey: But Jack LaLanne has also said, "Paul's the best salesman I ever knew. Paul could sell shoelaces to the barefoot." [chuckles]
Mike: Okay, so, "Also he tricked me into a bunch of stuff I didn't need."
Aubrey: He also appears to have inspired a generation of health and wellness leaders in reading profiles about him and about Patricia. You'll get quotes from the people who run eating foods, and the guy who founded Gardenburger. And the founder of GNC reportedly went to one of his health crusades lectures. Dr. Scholl. He's really the ground zero of a whole generation of health woo-woo stuff.
Aubrey: You know what? He's The Velvet Underground of health and wellness world.
Aubrey: Not everybody bought his albums, but everyone who did started a band.
Mike: Rapper's Delight, he's Sugarhill Gang.
Aubrey: No, it's not--[crosstalk] [laughs]
Mike: Everything that comes afterwards.
Aubrey: Did you ever go over to a friend's house and the food just ain't no good.
Mike: [laughs].
Aubrey: [crosstalk]
Mike: That's what we're talking about.
Aubrey: So, Paul Bragg has a long and storied career. There are one million little anecdotes and other firsts that he throws in there. He ultimately passed away in 1976. His death certificate lists, his birth date is February 6th, 1881. So that means he was 95 when he died.
Mike: It's all the vinegar.
Aubrey: 95, he did it.
Mike: He made it.
Aubrey: After he dies, Bragg gets all these buyout offers from Ovaltine and Kroger and all of these big deal companies at the time. Despite all those offers, they keep it in the family, and the company is passed along to his daughter Patricia. She is a character.
Aubrey: I am sending you a picture of Patricia Bragg's regular everyday look.
Mike: Oh, wow.
Aubrey: Yeah. Hey.
Mike: She looks like one of those America dolls that comes with a tea set.
Aubrey: She looks like she is from another era.
Aubrey: That's for sure.
Mike: She's wearing a pink sweater with flowers sewn into it, huge pearl necklace. And then something like a wool almost, like cowboy hat, bright pink also with flowers on it.
Aubrey: I sent this picture to a friend and was like "Oh, so she was strawberry shortcake?
Mike: Yeah, I mean--
Aubrey: And I was like that is totally the vibe.
Mike: She looks a kooky rich lady.
Aubrey: She famously hates swearing and she loves to tell the story about how she fired someone for swearing on the job once.
Mike: I've read a number of her reviews of our show on iTunes.
Aubrey: Oh, no. [laughs]
Mike: [crosstalk] -her feedback. One star, tried to listen, couldn't do it.
Aubrey: She is my aunt who has stopped listening to the show because too much swearing.
Mike: Due to the cursing, due to the Lord's name in vain.
Aubrey: She also, as you predicted is a kooky lady. There's a great little graph from one of these profiles called, "Patricia Bragg born to do her father's work."
Mike: It says, "She's never shaved her legs, painted her fingernails or worn makeup. Her father advised her to never wear a bra because it impedes circulation. But everything still stands up by itself. She says proudly demonstrating the pectoral exercises she does three times a day in two-minute sessions. She's never pierced her ears because it exposes nerve endings and doesn't wear a wristwatch because she believes it cuts off circulation. She never had the desire to rebel against her father's teachings and sneak a cigarette or even an aspirin. I always knew the consequence of living an unhealthy lifestyle is sickness, you pay for your sins." [laughs] I see why you picked this. She's afraid of sick crimes, illness crimes.
Aubrey: Sick crimes, bras, shaved legs, fingernails painted. Also, there is this part where she says according to this profile, she's never worn makeup. Please do look at the picture that I sent you-
Mike: Yeah, I was going to say--
Aubrey: -of a lady very clearly wearing eyeliner and lipstick.
Mike: Hello makeup.
Aubrey: What are we doing?
Mike: Yeah, but then there's also this weird conflation of sin and morality too. Even as she's also lying, about not wearing makeup.
Aubrey: Totally.
Mike: Which is also pretty immoral.
Aubrey: When Paul Bragg suggests to Patricia Bragg that she should consider being a "health missionary," many of the people that they know and that know Paul Bragg say that he was so strong-willed that a suggestion wasn't really a suggestion so much as, "I'm telling you this and you're going to do it now."
Mike: Oh, so he's just a dick. Okay.
Aubrey: Kind of, yeah. From there, Patricia Bragg pretty much directly moves into working at the company supporting Paul's work. And that is where she spends the duration of her career. She follows in Paul's footsteps, she starts writing their family books, she starts inventing things. She has this claim that she loves to talk about, about how she's the youngest woman ever to be issued a patent in US history.
Aubrey: She co-hosts his TV show with him. There is a quote from one of these profiles that says "Today, Brad crusades mainly through radio talk shows recording as many as five a day."
Mike: How many talk shows are there?
Aubrey: This is astonishing. So like I say, she is cranking out books, she's cranking out all this stuff. She does a revisit of one of their books that she writes with Kenny Loggins wife.
Mike: Oh-kay.
Aubrey: She also has even more than her dad one million stories about famous people and how much they love Braggs. There's a whole story where she talks about being a nutritional advisor to Steve Jobs at one point.
Mike: Good sign. A man who never made mistakes when it comes to health and wellness.
Aubrey: Patricia keeps on keeping on and eventually sells the company in 2019 to an investor group.
Mike: Great.
Aubrey: Since then, she's been retired and the new owners have taken over.
Mike: It's weird to me that it-- I think this company's bullshit, but also it bums me out that it's now a private equity-owned company.
Aubrey: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike: I'm feeling complicated feelings right now.
Aubrey: You're like, "I wanted to stay with its original kooky family."
Mike: "I want it to be grifting locally."
Aubrey: [laughs] So, what do you think so far? Talk to me about like, what are your impressions of this business? How are you feeling?
Mike: Well, I know you and I know this show, so I feel the third chapter has to be like, this is all the stuff they were lying about and you go back and debunk.
Aubrey: Okay, Mike. You already called it.
Aubrey: The catch here is in fact, almost none of what I just told you is true.
Mike: Yo.
Aubrey: There is no evidence that Paul Bragg had a sister named Louise. He did not grow up in a farm in Virginia. He grew up in DC where his father worked for the US printing office. [Michael laughs] The big, big, one is, he wasn't born in 1881 a birth certificate that is very likely his, says that he was born fully 14 years later.
Mike: Oh, so he was saying like, "I'm so old and yet I'm in such good health," but he's actually not that old.
Aubrey: That's his entire pitch is like, "Look, how youthful and vital I am. Don't you want to be like me? You got to have this apple cider vinegar. It's got to be unfiltered, here we go."
Mike: This is the opposite of my online dating profile. "I'm 24. [Aubrey laughs] Those photos are new."
Aubrey: Whole Bragg built a career out of this. He ran a fitness program in his 20s and actually, I'm going to send you a picture of this fitness program because there's a little caption with this picture.
Mike: If I could go back, the tagline would be, "Welcome to Maintenance Phase. Don't believe anything in the first 45 minutes."
Mike: It's all crumbling down.
Aubrey: That is often our show.
Mike: Okay, so this is a photo that says, "26-year-old Bragg with a class in 1920. He had them convinced that he was 41."
Aubrey: The thing that I kept thinking about with all of this stuff he's lying about roughly 15 years of his life, depending on what date you go with. He offered three different birth years for himself over the course of his life, and multiple different locations to different press outlets. But the thing that I keep coming back to is, if you think about what a 26-year-old looks like and then you think about what a 41-year-old looks like.
Mike: Yeah, it's wild.
Aubrey: You have to want to believe that-
Aubrey: -so much.
Mike: God, it's such a simple grift though. I can't believe how basic it is. Just tell people you're 40 when you're 25.
Aubrey: I have these moments where I am like, "Do I respect this?" I don't. To be clear I don't. This is like when someone figured out that you should put salt on caramel.
Mike: Yeah. [laughs]
Aubrey: So that's the whole thing that's the "evidence" for all of his claims. It's like, look at this 40-year-old, he looks like he's 25.
Mike: So my word.
Aubrey: There's a quote from a fantastic three-part piece from MauiTime, called In the Name of the 'Father.' And that piece reads, "That means his 1976 death came at the age of 81, not 95."
Mike: Of course.
Aubrey: Remember, the packaging of the food says "life extension specialists."
Mike: Right. God.
Aubrey: This dude died at 81, which is only a few years older than the average American life expectancy at this point.
Mike: It is really incredible that nobody was just like, "Wait, sorry, how old are you?"
Aubrey: "Come on. You said you were 40. Come on."
Mike: Because if I was hanging out with a 25-year-old who was claiming to be 40, I feel I could sniff it out.
Mike: I'd be like, "You can't name any of the characters from Saved by the Bell."
Aubrey: You don't love Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe, like they are very simple questions.
Mike: Exactly. [laughs]
Aubrey: So, we could ask to get to the bottom of this. What are your opinions on new jack swing as a genre? No. So, that is not the only lie that he told. And it's not the only lie that Patricia told.
Aubrey: Please enjoy, the next quote from In the Name of the 'Father' this outstanding MauiTime piece.
Mike: "Patricia must have used the words 'my dad' in reference to the late Paul Bragg at least a dozen times during the course of our interview, but he was not her biological father." What? [Aubrey laughs] "According to her California birth certificate, she was born Patricia Pendleton at Oakland's Peralta Hospital. Patricia's use of the Bragg name comes from her marriage to Robert E. Bragg, a chiropractor, and son of Paul Bragg. That makes Paul Bragg Patricia's father-in-law." Okay, so she married into this family, and then, for no real reason invented the story. I don't think anyone would particularly care honestly if she's the non-biological daughter. I mean, yeah, it seems a weird own goal.
Aubrey: This is the natural foods world equivalent of what is the relationship between Jack and Meg White.
Mike: Another thing that a 40-year-old would know, and would baffle the year-olds.
Mike: Wait, what? Who?
Aubrey: So, in this MauiTime piece, this is the bombshell drop paragraph, but the lead up to that is this reporter goes, "Oh, hey, I was checking into it, I've been doing some research for this piece. I didn't actually find any records of a daughter born to Paul Bragg.
Mike: Amazing.
Aubrey: At first, she goes, "Oh, yeah, he adopted me." I wasn't his daughter by birth. I was his daughter by adoption, so he adopted me." And then the reporter comes back and is like, "I didn't see any adoption records." And then she goes, "Oh, yeah, actually, I married into the family."
Aubrey: I was his son's wife, they were married for a few years and then got divorced.
Aubrey: "Paul and I basically really hit it off and he feels like my dad and I call him my dad and he was a family friend going way back," and da, da, da. Every time she gives him one of these partial or just fully false explanations, she tells this reporter, "You don't need to check into that. I'm not some Hollywood celebrity."
Mike: I love it when public figures are like, "I'm not a public figure."
Aubrey: I'm going to start using that in interviews.
Aubrey: "You don't need to in fact check me. You don't need to look at it this, I'm not some-- save that for George Clooney."
Mike: That's wild that they got divorced, and they kept the weird charade going. I guess he just liked her more than his own son.
Aubrey: So they kept the weird charade going. He really did leave the company to Patricia, not to his son.
Mike: Why? Do you have a sense of why.
Aubrey: No sense. So, part of this is, this whole story has really broken and been talked about much more in the last 10 or 20 years, which is fully hundred years after Paul Bragg was born. So, we are talking about old musty dusty old records.
Aubrey: Most of the characters in these stories have passed. So, it's extremely hard to fact-check. There are some folks mostly WordPress sites and personal blogs who are like, "I found a record of their will and they cut out the son and left everything to Patricia," blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of that out in the world. What I'm trying to stick to here is stuff that we pretty well know for sure, including, there is no record of Paul wrestling in the Olympics. He said he was in the 1908 Olympics, he would have been 12 at the time. [Michael laughs]
Mike: Oops.
Aubrey: There are also some Patricia claims to fact-check. Patricia is not in fact the youngest woman to hold a patent in US history.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Aubrey: She got a patent in 1957 when she was 28 years old for a douching device is what she created. In 1914 decades earlier, Mary Phelps Jacob later known as Caresse Crosby patented the brassiere.
Mike: Oh, really?
Aubrey: It's like you're by decades you are wrong.
Aubrey: Same thing with not the first health food store. There was a health food store fully 50 years before Bragg opened his. Not the first any of the first. All of the firsts are wrong.
Mike: Whoa.
Aubrey: He did a lot, and he could have been like, I did the biggest one or I did the most successful or the longest running. You could pick other superlatives. But he seemed really hooked on or the company seemed really hooked on him being the first of all of these things.
Mike: A lot of these lies have a weird Belle Gibson quality to them, where a lot of them are just baffling.
Mike: I don't know that people needed you to have been an Olympic athlete, particularly.
Aubrey: It is a perplexing set of things to mislead people about.
Aubrey: The age stuff, I get. That straight-up money in his pocket. A bunch of this other stuff, I'm just like, "What is happening here?"
Aubrey: One of the other weird, deeply weird lies that Patricia Bragg appears to tell is she talks about seeing Jack LaLanne attend her father's health lecture for the first time. And she was like, "I just watched how much he soaked that up. And it was so clear that it mattered a lot to him." And she has all these little details about how he responded to it. By her account, and by his, Jack LaLanne attended that lecture when he was 15. Jack LaLanne was 15, the year that Patricia Bragg was born.
Mike: That's a weird lie, you can just tell the story.
Aubrey: In addition to saying things that are not true. In the Bragg's story, there is a lot of leaving out of things that are true.
Aubrey: Early in the 60s, Paul Bragg was on the receiving end of an FDA seizure.
Mike: Oh, back when the FDA seized stuff. I love it.
Aubrey: According to the FDA, Paul Bragg made, "False and misleading claims to provide freedom from disease, improve youthful appearance and life expectancy, etc.; No adequate directions for use." So, they are straight up like, "He's not telling people how to use it and he's saying a bunch of shit that's not true." And as part of that seizure, he had to say that he wasn't going to make more claims about this particular product.
Aubrey: S that happened in the 60s. In 1941, he also gets in trouble with the FTC.
Aubrey: He gets in trouble for selling something called Bragg's Grass Tablets. And he gets in trouble for saying that they would, "Prevent sickness, promote health or stimulate activity," and that they were "Rich and vitamin A." So apparently, these were not rich and vitamin A, which is a very weird claim to make. And again, he had to promise that he wasn't going to make those claims again. But as we can see, 19 years later, in the 60s, he is fully doing it again up to his old tricks.
Mike: This is why we just need adequately funded and staffed federal agencies to crack down on repeat known grifters who continue grifting because there are no consequences for any of this shit.
Aubrey: Absolutely. Are you ready to take one step further back in time?
Mike: Did he lie about tuberculosis? I am on the edge of my seat about this.
Aubrey: Basically, the TV stuff is, again some amateur internet sleuths went back and looked at the immigration records from the years that he said that he left and came back and they were like, "Not one record of that guy going to Switzerland and coming back."
Aubrey: But again, that's like internet sleuths, do you know what I mean?
Aubrey: I wouldn't cite that as a hard and fast source in the same way that I wouldn't cite like Reddit threads speculating about YouTubers say as a hard and fast source. This is according to KCET, in Los Angeles. "Outside Los Angeles, Bragg was a controversial figure. In 1930, the postal service barred the self-styled 'professor' from the mail alleging fraud. The American Medical Association denounced him as a 'food faddist.'" So the US Postal Service and the American Medical Association are both like, "Boo this guy, get him out of here." And then he has 40 more years of career.
Mike: Dude, imagine getting banned from mailing things.
Aubrey: From the mail.
Mike: it's like getting banned from the grocery store or something, it's a whole genre of activity. It's a category.
Aubrey: It's extremely weird. So, the next thing I want to talk about is their charitable giving.
Mike: Of course, God I should have known that literally every single fact that you told me in the first 30 minutes, it was wrong.
Aubrey: I mean, Mike, I am sticking to the big ones here. There is debunking of truly almost every sense of the first part of this episode.
Mike: I love this.
Aubrey: So, they do indeed appear to do the giving that they have disclosed to animal shelters and missions and regular down the line kinds of charitable contributions that you would expect from this crispy crunchy peanut buttery health food company. The challenge here is that there is also giving that they are not reporting out publicly from the foundation.
Aubrey: Until they redesign every bottle and package from Bragg Live Food products has the Christian little fish symbol. It includes a Bible verse. They are deeply, deeply Christian and deeply, deeply evangelical people. In 2004 and 2005, so situate yourself in this particular cultural moment of 2004-2005, they reportedly according to MauiTime, they gave $750 to the deeply conservative Crystal Cathedral Ministries.
Mike: Oh, my God, I've been there. We went there as a kid.
Aubrey: What?
Mike: We were visiting California. Yeah.
Aubrey: They give money to Crystal Cathedral Ministries.
Mike: The architecture was lovely.
Aubrey: They give money to the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Aubrey: They give money to Pat Robertson and family.
Mike: Ooh, good stuff, trying to stop the great replacement of the whites, kind of stop that.
Aubrey: They give money to Focus on the Family.
Mike: Of course. We're done with the twists now. This isn't even a fucking twist. It's the weird Christian health grifters are into nightmare Christian bullshit.
Aubrey: This was the point for me that was like, "Man, the next time I get nutritional yeast, I will be checking out some other brands.
Mike: I love the version of Christianity, where it's not okay to marry somebody who you're in love with. But it is okay to spend your entire career telling lies in order to profit.
Aubrey: Becoming a false idol.
Mike: Yeah. This seems like a cool way that you understand this religion. Awesome.
Aubrey: The last one that I wanted to talk about is actually the ways in which they misled folks through specific health claims. And particularly health claims around Apple Cider Vinegar.
Aubrey: This is something that's been popular amongst famous people in the US for the last 10ish years folks have been talking about it with the press, but it also goes back further than that. Drinking apple cider vinegar every day is favored by Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, Victoria Beckham. Elizabeth Hurley is like, "I drink it every day. It tastes disgusting," is what she keeps telling the press.
Aubrey: Apple cider vinegar has been used in folk healing for ages. But in the US its biggest boost of popularity in the last century, mostly came from Paul Bragg.
Mike: Oh, yeah.
Aubrey: Who wrote a whole fucking book about it. He suggested it for weight gain, for weight loss, for heart disease, for "female troubles," for hair loss, for kidney issues. This is like celery juice levels of claims. Basically, the evidence for some of those claims is overblown based on very limited studies by today's standards based on the evidence we have today. Most of those studies have been small and most of them have only been in rats.
Aubrey: Most of those claims have no evidence at all. Some of them are overblown, most of them, the evidence is non-existent. There are also quite a few claims that Bragg made and that have caught on more recently about the gut health aspects of apple cider vinegar that it's good for your microbiome, blah, blah, blah. Braggs in particular prides themselves on selling unfiltered apple cider vinegar. On the package it says With the "Mother." The mother as in kombucha refers to this yeast bacteria colony that's produced during fermentation.
Aubrey: Apple cider vinegar is touted as a major source of probiotics. But, Michael, there is one catch. This is from an outstanding piece written by a food historian for Epicurious of all places.
Mike: Get some recipes, get some history.
Aubrey: Delightful. The piece is called How Americans Became Obsessed With Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar. And here is what they have to say about this claim about probiotics.
Mike: "And what about the mother? Why is she such a big deal? Technically, a vinegar mother is not a probiotic as the acetic acid bacteria that comprise it can't survive in our guts. Its main components cellulose is not digestible. Shockey and Smith point out that there could be benefits to its consumption that have yet to be measured or quantified. But many artisanal vinegar makers don't include the mother in their products because it doesn't contribute anything to the flavor." Yeah, basically, there's no reason to think this does fucking anything. But the people who are debunking it have to be careful because you can't prove a negative, you can't prove that something doesn't have magical health benefits because how would you even do that?
Aubrey: Well, and also, I feel the real fucking chestnut in that paragraph is, it's a probiotic, but that probiotic can't survive in your body.
Mike: Yeah, the gut health stuff, it's not as easy as drink bacteria and then you'll have new bacteria in your tummy.
Aubrey: No, and the science is way too fucking new to even know most of how it works, it's bonkers.
Mike: Yeah, we don't know that stuff.
Aubrey: Here's the other thing I'll say about apple cider vinegar. I won't say it. The University of Chicago School of Medicine will say it. "Aside from probiotics, apple cider vinegar has a vitamin profile similar to apple juice.
Mike: Hey, so we're drinking grape juice and apple juice on Maintenance Phase.
Aubrey: Resveratrol and probiotics.
Mike: We're finally becoming influencers, Aubrey, we're finally giving out individual health advice.
Mike: Drink apple juice and grape juice.
Aubrey: There is evidence of some of the claims related to apple cider vinegar and its health benefits. There is limited evidence that drinking apple cider vinegar after a meal may help people with diabetes moderately lower their blood sugar, but there's nothing definitive. It specifically does not according to the University of Chicago School of Medicine, help manage hypertension, which is a claim that has been made about that. It does not do that. It also can erode the enamel of your teeth. There have been some wild case studies about tooth decay of people who have been drinking straight apple cider vinegar all the time. And it is specifically very bad for people with kidney issues who may struggle to process all of the acid.
Aubrey: The University of Chicago School of Medicine is quick to point out that it's anti microbials. So, if you use it in a salad dressing, it kills the bacteria on your salad, you're welcome.
Mike: That's great. Okay, so you're un-probiotic-ing yourself by doing this.
Aubrey: It's just interesting to dive into the science on this stuff and go, "Oh, this thing that everyone I know has been yelling about for a full decade is just a weird, it is a house built on a foundation of sand."
Mike: It really feels like, if you try to piece together the timeline in chronological order of these things, what it sounds to me is that a guy who's a carnival ass grifter, basically made up this thing about apple cider vinegar, and then other people have since looked into it, and by coincidence, they have found that maybe there's a couple of benefits to this thing just because, I don't know, it's an edible substance. So, it probably has some benefits and some drawbacks everything else. And then people are now using that to backfill like, "Oh, yeah, the guy, the decades long liar guy, he was actually right but on what basis would he have said this at the time?"
Aubrey: And like what he's telling folks is a Scientific-ish explanation for what they were already doing. Again, this was part of an American folk healing tradition. If this offered people the sense that what they had already been doing was a really good thing to do, not just for their own health, but for their own virtue and character because of this sort of deeply Christian language that Paul and Patricia Bragg use. It's not just a matter of caring for your body, it's a matter of your piety and your ability to resist temptation. And all of these deeply, deeply Christian constructs.
Mike: He's selling people's pre-existing beliefs and behaviors back to them, essentially.
Aubrey: He's doing a thing that happens to this very day, which is getting very comfortable muddling up people's perceived health with their character and morality and worth as people. All of that is getting dumped into the same bucket.
Mike: It's a weird little kombucha of culture and capitalism and lies, and you just leave it there to ferment. [Aubrey laughs] I mean, what I can't get over is the specificity of apple cider vinegar. There is a million vinegars in the world. It doesn't make any sense that this would have magical properties.
Aubrey: I'll tell you what, I love the taste of apple cider vinegar.
Mike: Same. Oh, my God, I use it in rice and the salads all the time, it's really good.
Aubrey: Oh, my God, salad dressing, it's the best. I also make shrub at home.
Mike: Do you mean you're eating edibles?
Aubrey: No. [laughs] No, shrub is a drinking vinegar. It's like you infuse vinegar, you add some sugar or sweetener of your choice-
Mike: Oh, okay.
Aubrey: -and a bunch of fruit and let it macerate. And then strain out the solids and you add that to club soda or something. It's extremely refreshing and delicious.
Mike: My parents always told me if you macerate, you go blind. [Aubrey laughs] That was abysmal, I'm sorry.
Aubrey: Are you ready for a little coda to the Bragg's story?
Mike: Yeah, denou me.
Aubrey: First things first, we're just going to watch a little clip. I sent it to you in the Zoom chat.
Mike: A clip time.
Aubrey: Let me know when you're queued up and ready.
Mike: Why are we-- Oh, no. Okay. I saw it's loading slowly, and it loaded this screengrab of Orlando Bloom on Jimmy Fallon.
Aubrey: Get ready.
Mike: And then the title loaded. I was very confused but now I understand. The title of the clip is Orlando Bloom Bonded with Katy Perry over Apple Cider Vinegar.
[video clip]
Orlando: A crazy story. When I met Katy, one of our first days, she had a bottle of water, and when you pour it in the water, it makes it go slightly off color. And we both have bottles of apple cider vinegar, because I said, "Wait, what have you got in your water?" And she was like, "Apple cider vinegar." I was like, "No."
Jimmy: "We are made for each other."
Orlando: "This is it." And then the really crazy part is that her mother had actually been part of a church group in Santa Barbara when she was growing up. And Katy got her first guitar from Patricia Bragg, who's now 90, who runs that company. And then the crazy part is that her mom said, "You know, Patricia is getting up there and she wants to offload the company. She was about to sell it, and we were like, "No, let us get in there. Let us help. Let us find somebody." So, we brought some people in. It was a lot of money. We brought some people in to help put the money forward and then we're going to take it through to the next chapter through its life because we believe in it that much.
[video ends]
Mike: Aubrey, do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting in the wind, hoping to start again? [Aubrey laughs] That's how I feel now. Don't understand what's happening.
Aubrey: Your ears do not deceive you. The new owners of Braggs are Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom.
Mike: Legolas and I Kissed a Girl are now [Aubrey laughs] in charge of Braggs?
Aubrey: Left Shark herself and hot elf-
Aubrey: -own a company together. Not only did Patricia Bragg and Katy Perry's family go to the same church, according to one of the profiles of Patricia Bragg, so grain of salt, it was actually the church where Katy's parents were the pastors.
Mike: Oh, okay. This is now my emotions are all over the place. I don't know what to think about this shit anymore.
Aubrey: It's wild. This is a Mad Lib of a coda to the story.
Mike: I know. It's weird. It's the end of clue. It's like in the study with the candlestick, like this celebrity and this other celebrity.
Aubrey: I don't have a ton to say about Katy Perry or Orlando Bloom or Pressed Juicery.
Mike: Yeah, I have no analysis on this.
Aubrey: I have no analysis to add here.
Mike: I'm just like, "Okay."
Aubrey: It's too weird not to talk about.
Mike: Yeah. I just feel good that it's now in the hands of people who are much more qualified to prevent sickness crime. [Aubrey laughs] The Batman and sickness crime.
[Maintenance Phase Podcast theme]
[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]
All content © 2023 Maintenance Phase.


Your points are good, it just seems thoroughly bizarre to lump in a multi-location local thing with global franchises.
I think it's mainly about which one prefers to give one's cash to, a small independent business, recognisably human in scale, or a vast anonymous multinational given to elaborate tax avoidance, unreasonably squeezing suppliers, and eliminating competition. For the moment we are free to choose, but not if the multinationals get what they want (and so do we really want to help them?).


Nigeria and 180 other countries meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, for the Eighth Conference of the Parties (COP8) of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) have expressed worry about tobacco industry influencing the talks.
At the conference which began on Monday and runs through October 6, calls for live-streaming of the discussions to supposedly guarantee transparency met stiff resistance from countries that felt such a move will backfire and, instead, open the talks to the interference of tobacco industry.
Discussions at previous conferences had been plagued with tobacco industry interference.
The African bloc supported the live-streaming of only the opening and closing plenaries while the technical deliberations remain closed to avoid pressure from the tobacco industry, which had in the past slowed or caused stalemate in talks.
But, after Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and the other African countries spoke during the deliberations and stood firmly behind the stronger African bloc's position, all the parties – including Canada- supported the stronger position.
Among a host of issues, parties will advance a provision that prohibits the tobacco industry from exploiting public badges, which are primarily used by tobacco industry representatives to delay, block, and weaken the treaty.
In the past year, in advance of COP8, the tobacco industry had escalated its attempts to re-normalise the deadly industry: doubling down on promoting heat-not-burn products and launching a billion dollar foundation in hopes of regaining lost footing in policy making spaces.
This year, governments will also advance policies to eliminate illicit trade.
The policy to kick the tobacco industry out stems from a broader treaty directive called Article 5.3 that prevents industry interference in the halls of government.
Internal industry documents show that when the tobacco industry successfully gains access to the talks by attending public badges, they obtain confidential information, lobby government delegates, and attempt to water down public health policy.
"The number one barrier to fully implementing this life-saving treaty is industry interference," said Michéel Legendre, associate campaign director with Corporate Accountability.
The policy decision to truly eliminate the industry from the halls of negotiation will have resounding implications for policy making spaces in other arenas, like the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, where industry interference inside of the negotiating spaces has been a significant barrier to real success.
"We support consensus on insulating the talks from Big Tobacco promoted by the African bloc today," said Akinbode Oluwafemi, deputy executive director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN).
The global tobacco treaty, known formally as the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), entered into force in 2005.
To date, 181 countries and the European Union have become parties to the treaty. It contains the world's most effective tobacco control and corporate accountability measures—estimated to save more than 200 million lives by 2050 when fully implemented.
Earlier, Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyeseus, said the treaty talks has witnessed progress in previous years which the ongoing talks will build upon.
Mr Ghebreyeseus expressed worry about low and middle-income countries that bear the brunt of the tobacco burden in terms of healthcare costs and deaths.
He urged parties to do more in three critical areas: Increase tobacco taxes to save lives and raise revenue; initiate a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising promotion and sponsorships, and commit to universal health coverage for citizens.
The global civil society movement is urging delegates to remain firm in the face of mounting tobacco industry attempts to derail the talks and influence outcomes.


text:
Three Minutes in the Prison of their Lives
By Michal Levy
Arutz 7 – 17/5/2018
Passersby entered the cage on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall to experience three minutes in captivity, just a tiny taste of what agunot and women imprisoned in marriage experience daily at the hands of their recalcitrant husbands.
Passersby who walked along the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem yesterday were confronted with an unusual sight: a huge birdcage with a little sitting parlor inside.
The cage was part of a unique display organized by Yad La'isha, a Legal Aid Center and Hotline for women which operates under the auspices of Ohr Torah Stone, and set up in the heart of the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. Inside the cage sat agunot (women "chained" to abusive or unviable marriages) and mesuravot get, women whose husbands are denying them a Jewish divorce document.
Throughout the day, hundreds of people enveloped the cage and many passersby entered for a three minute "challenge" in an attempt to experience the feelings of captivity felt by women who are trapped in the cage of matrimony day after day, without the ability to free themselves.
The display, which was planned weeks in advance with the aim of "going live" at the beginning of the official wedding season (after the festival of Shavuot) in the hope of raising public awareness to the phenomenon of recalcitrant husbands denying their wives divorces, could not have come at a better time – just as the Rabbinical Court proclaimed Yaron Attias to be a sarvan get, a recalcitrant, get-refusing husband. The court ordered that Attias' name, picture and personal information be made public, and went so far as to impose upon him social and halakhic sanctions such as forbidding anyone to give him a sitting place in synagogue, call him up to the Torah and more.
A, one of the agunot sitting inside the display, said as follows: "During the past two years I have been busy raising the children, holding down a job in order to provide for them since I don't get child support, and trying constantly to obtain full custody. I have had no time to care for myself or focus on my personal life and marital status. I have not exposed my story till now. Now the time has come to tell it."
Pnina Omer, Yad La'isha's director, said the cage exemplifies the daily living experience of women chained to marriage, and by placing it in the middle of a busy street the women's captivity is juxtaposed to ordinary life that just goes on without people being sufficiently aware of the great distress these women have been experiencing for years. "It is our public duty not to leave these women alone on the battlefield. A moment before the counting of the Omer ends and the wedding season begins, let us remember that this display has a powerful message to convey: every woman is susceptible to becoming an aguna, a woman chained to her marriage."
Originally published in Hebrew
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text:
Q: C# Serialization Surrogate - Cannot access a disposed object I have an image class (VisionImage) that is a black box to me. I'm attempting to serialize the image object to file using Serialization Surrogates as explained on this page. Below is my surrogate code.
sealed class VisionImageSerializationSurrogate : ISerializationSurrogate
{
    public void GetObjectData(Object obj, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)
    {
        VisionImage image = (VisionImage)obj;
        byte[,] temp = image.ImageToArray().U8;
        info.AddValue("width", image.Width);
        info.AddValue("height", image.Height);
        info.AddValue("pixelvalues", temp, temp.GetType());
    }

    public Object SetObjectData(Object obj, SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context, ISurrogateSelector selector)
    {
        VisionImage image = (VisionImage)obj;
        Int32 width = info.GetInt32("width");
        Int32 height = info.GetInt32("height");
        byte[,] temp = new byte[height, width];
        temp = (byte[,])info.GetValue("pixelvalues", temp.GetType());
        PixelValue2D tempPixels = new PixelValue2D(temp);
        image.ArrayToImage(tempPixels);
        return image;
    }
}

I've stepped through it to write to binary. It seems to be working fine (file is getting bigger as the images are captured). I tried to test it read the file back in. The values read back in are correct as far as the "info" object is concerned. When I get to the line
image.ArrayToImage(tempPixels);

It throws the "Cannot access a disposed object" exception. Upon further inspection, the object and the resulting image are both marked as disposed.
My code behind the form spawns an "acquisitionWorker" and runs the following code.
void acquisitionWorker_LoadImages(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
    {
        //  This is the main function of the acquisition background worker thread.
        //  Perform image processing here instead of the UI thread to avoid a
        //  sluggish or unresponsive UI.
        BackgroundWorker worker = (BackgroundWorker)sender;
        try
        {
            uint bufferNumber = 0;
            //  Loop until we tell the thread to cancel or we get an error.  When this
            //  function completes the acquisitionWorker_RunWorkerCompleted method will
            //  be called.
            while (!worker.CancellationPending)
            {
                VisionImage savedImage = (VisionImage) formatter.Deserialize(fs);

                CommonAlgorithms.Copy(savedImage, imageViewer.Image);
                //  Update the UI by calling ReportProgress on the background worker.
                //  This will call the acquisition_ProgressChanged method in the UI
                //  thread, where it is safe to update UI elements.  Do not update UI
                //  elements directly in this thread as doing so could result in a
                //  deadlock.
                worker.ReportProgress(0, bufferNumber);
                bufferNumber++;
            }
        }
        catch (ImaqException ex)
        {
            //  If an error occurs and the background worker thread is not being
            //  cancelled, then pass the exception along in the result so that
            //  it can be handled in the acquisition_RunWorkerCompleted method.
            if (!worker.CancellationPending)
                e.Result = ex;
        }
    }

What am I missing here? Why would the object be immediately disposed?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


For generations the music industry has been chalk full of some pretty crazy urban legends. Stories have been passed around about music's most popular artists that sound preposterous or insanely far-fetched, yet are still believed and spread around as the truth. Some of them even are. Here is our latest installment of Urban Legends Debunked.
1. James Brown's wife Adrienne once tried to beat traffic charges by claiming she was entitled to diplomatic immunity for being married to the "Ambassador of Soul."
Throughout his career, James Brown acquired numerous nicknames during his more than fifty years in the music business: the Godfather of Soul, the Ambassador of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. In 1987, It was his wife, however, who made the most creative use of one of these sobriquets, when it was offered in her defense in an attempt to beat misdemeanor traffic charges. James Brown's wife, Adrienne, was pulled over by police and charged with speeding, driving under the influence, and criminal trespass. Her lawyer cited a U.S. congressman who'd described Brown as "our number one ambassador" at a town celebration. Mrs. Brown's lawyer claimed that this gave the "Ambassador of Soul" diplomatic immunity and that this immunity extended to his wife; but later withdrew his motion and lost the case.
"Crossroads", written by Robert Johnson is one of the best-known examples of the Delta Blues. But in a strange twist of fate, some would say that the song is cursed. Often referred to as the Crossroads Curse, popular musicians who have performed Johnson's song have been the target of intense professional and personal misfortunes. Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Allman Brothers Band have all released their own versions of Crossroads and all have experienced tragedy. In late 1976, Lynard Skynyrd had decided to record a series of concerts at the Fox Theater in Atlanta and one of the songs featured in the set list was Skynyrd's rendition of Crossroads. But on October 20th, 1977, as the band traveled from Greenville, SC to their next show on the campus of L.S.U. on what would be their last flight on their aging Convair 240 plane. They were planning to purchase a Lear Jet for themselves and a new bus for their roadies. Regrettably though, this decision came too late. The plane crashed down in a swamp near Gillsburg, MS.
3. The line "Tin roof rusted" in the B-52's song Love Shack is a Southern slang term for pregnancy.
On October 29, 1970 Duane Allman was rushed to a Nashville hospital suffering from a drug overdose. Allman's vital signs were not promising and Emergency Room Doctors did not give much hope for Duane's recovery. According to an interview with band member Butch Trucks, "it was then that Berry Oakley entered into a personal bargain with God. Oakley pleaded with God to give Duane just one more year of life, one more year to play his music and live his dream." Amazingly, and seemingly against all medical odds, Allman survived his OD that night in that Nashville hospital. But there is an old fable that states "Be careful what you wish for. You may just get what you asked for." Tragically, and exactly one year to the exact date of Allman's overdose and Oakley's pact with God, Duane Allman was killed on October 29, 1971 in a motorcycle accident at the intersection of Bartlett Avenue and Hillcrest Avenue in Macon.
5. Otis Redding Dies Before He Can Finish "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay"
For a musician who was celebrated for his soulful verve on songs like "Respect" and "Satisfaction," Otis Redding's biggest claim to fame is "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," a gentle song about contemplation and reflection. Redding wrote the first verse of the song, under the abbreviated title "Dock of the Bay," on a houseboat at Waldo Point in Sausalito, California a short time after his appearance at The Monterey pop festival. When Otis recorded "Dock of the Bay", he and Cropper didn't have a last verse written, so he whistled it. Redding intended on returning to the Memphis studio to fill in the verse after performing in Madison, Wisconsin, but he died in a plane crash before he had the chance. When Cropper produced the song, he left the whistling in, and it posthumously became a hit.