scoundrels part one
The Alberton Papers, Vol II, #16
By Dick Darne 9-25-06
"No scoundrel is so stupid as to not find a reason for his vile conduct"
S. Gawain
Today’s lesson will be on famous scoundrels in history. Most successful scoundrels go down in history with bridges, schools and hospitals named after them. Since a short time ago it was fashionable to bash all things french, we will start with Pierre and Ir’en’ee duPont. (Yes, that is how it is spelled).
Lets go back to the thrilling , early days of autos, about 1921, when one of the big problems facing the fledgling auto manufacturer General Motors was pre-ignition, or "knocking". If they could solve this, they could raise the compression and obtain better performance. The best brains worked hard and came up with some viable solutions. Alcohol. Shades of Willie Nelson. Plain old ethanol, raises the "octane", prevents "knocking", allows better performance. Easily available and cheap.
Enter the duPonts. In those days, they owned about a third of GM. "Sacre-bleu , how we gonna make any money this way?" It couldn’t be patented, any farmer could make it, so back to the drawing board. Back about 1854, the German scientists discovered tetraethyl lead. No use at the time, but they noted that it was very toxic, like, dip your finger in it and go into convulsions. It did work as an antiknock additive but best of all, it could be patented. Market cornered. Big profits. First production was in New Jersey, where most of the toxic waste dumps are. New York got all the lawyers ,( but N.J. had first pick.) Workers got sick some died. The chief researcher, Thomas Midgely, who also gave us the hole in the ozone layer, almost died from lead poisoning. New York banned the stuff. It was sold everywhere else until the NY state legislature was finally bought off. Then came the ads: "Ethel is back".
The stuff was sold for decades, until overwhelming evidence of it’s harm forced it off the market. In the first world, that is. It is still sold in the third world countries. Funny, air knows no boundaries. dd
By Dick Darne 9-25-06
"No scoundrel is so stupid as to not find a reason for his vile conduct"
S. Gawain
Today’s lesson will be on famous scoundrels in history. Most successful scoundrels go down in history with bridges, schools and hospitals named after them. Since a short time ago it was fashionable to bash all things french, we will start with Pierre and Ir’en’ee duPont. (Yes, that is how it is spelled).
Lets go back to the thrilling , early days of autos, about 1921, when one of the big problems facing the fledgling auto manufacturer General Motors was pre-ignition, or "knocking". If they could solve this, they could raise the compression and obtain better performance. The best brains worked hard and came up with some viable solutions. Alcohol. Shades of Willie Nelson. Plain old ethanol, raises the "octane", prevents "knocking", allows better performance. Easily available and cheap.
Enter the duPonts. In those days, they owned about a third of GM. "Sacre-bleu , how we gonna make any money this way?" It couldn’t be patented, any farmer could make it, so back to the drawing board. Back about 1854, the German scientists discovered tetraethyl lead. No use at the time, but they noted that it was very toxic, like, dip your finger in it and go into convulsions. It did work as an antiknock additive but best of all, it could be patented. Market cornered. Big profits. First production was in New Jersey, where most of the toxic waste dumps are. New York got all the lawyers ,( but N.J. had first pick.) Workers got sick some died. The chief researcher, Thomas Midgely, who also gave us the hole in the ozone layer, almost died from lead poisoning. New York banned the stuff. It was sold everywhere else until the NY state legislature was finally bought off. Then came the ads: "Ethel is back".
The stuff was sold for decades, until overwhelming evidence of it’s harm forced it off the market. In the first world, that is. It is still sold in the third world countries. Funny, air knows no boundaries. dd
posted by aldermandarne | 10:37 PM
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