Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
When you joke about smarmy snake oil salesmen, did you know that there really were such people? Back in 1905, an American cowboy named Clark Stanley billed himself as the “Rattlesnake King”, gathering crowds by killing rattlesnakes while delivering his miracle cure sales pitch. For 50 cents a bottle (at a time when your income averaged $1 a day), you could cure your toothaches, neuralgia, ankle sprains and pretty much everything else that ailed you by using Stanley’s snake oil liniment.
Stanley kept making his magical promises – right up until the federal government seized one of his shipments in 1917 and tested it. Continue reading
I believe it was British actor/author Joan Collins who once said that she doesn’t drink diet soda “because you never see skinny people drinking it!” Think about that truism for a moment. Ever since I read that, I’ve undertaken my own small and non-scientific observational study of my own, and I have to say that Joan may be on to something. Lots of people, however, are indeed drinking the stuff, both fat and skinny alike: Diet Coke is now the #2 top-selling soft drink in the world by volume, second only to regular Coke, and – surprisingly! – ahead of regular Pepsi (formerly in #2 place worldwide). The Guardian’s Katie Baker once referred to Diet Coke as “the world’s liquid crack of choice”. Continue reading
