September 8, 2012

Black licorice! Potty training! Emily Dickinson!

Now that I've wandered over to the San Francisco Chronicle web page — I was looking for info on that "Star Trek" doodle, I find some intriguing headlines:

1. "State expands warning on eating black licorice." (A particular brand has lead in it. It's not the old story that glycyrrhizin is dangerous.)

2. "Photo of mom potty-training kids at restaurant table sparks outrage."
Kimberly Decker [who took a photo and posted it on Facebook] says the mother in question lugged portable potties into the restaurant, placed them on chairs and sat her children down on them. At first Decker thought the potties were booster seats but when the mother stripped off her children’s clothes, she realized the twins were going to the bathroom—in the middle of the restaurant in front of other diners.

“She had to undo the jumpsuits, and take them all the way down so they were completely nude, with the jumpsuits down to their ankles just eating their chicken nuggets, sitting on little toddler potties”...
You have to question whether Decker made the right choice in posting the photo online.
3. "Scholars may have 2nd photo of poet Dickinson."
Kelly said perhaps the best evidence [that it's really Emily Dickinson] is an ophthalmological report that compared similarities in the eyes and facial features of the women in the photos....

That could shift some perceptions about the Amherst native...  For instance, a book in the 1950s was the first to propose Dickinson had a lesbian relationship with [the other woman in the photograph, Kate Scott] Turner....

39 comments:

kentuckyliz said...

I babysat for my next door neighbors one time (pre teen or early teen years).

They had fed their kids black licorice ALL DAY.

It was a shit festival. I couldn't get new diapers on them before more shit was spraying out of their little sorry asses.

That was the last time I ever babysat.

I do not have children.

I don't even hold them.

Saint Croix said...

I don't know what cracks me up more, the toilet training in the restaurant or the hot lesbian sex life of Emily Dickinson.

Oh, she's on fire!

But is she naked and shitting in a restaurant in Utah? No.

Don't tell me Mormons don't know how to party.

Hagar said...

Well, it beats having to talk about that convention.

Sorun said...

Who has an anecdote that includes licorice, baby poop, and lesbians?

rhhardin said...

If it's like puppies, you can just take the kids outside often enough so that the backyard seems like the appropriate place to poop.

Sleep with your clothes on so a midnight visit is easily accomplished.

edutcher said...

Is there any woman even slightly prominent in history, especially Victorian times, who wasn't a lesbian?

And licorice is an old remedy for digestive problems.

KCFleming said...

Licorice, baby poop, and lesbians?

Shoot! A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.


The Crack Emcee said...

You have to question whether Decker made the right choice in posting the photo online.

Oh yeah - putting the photo online - THAT was the problem,...

bagoh20 said...

1) When I was a kid we used to melt lead in a pan on the kitchen stove to make fishing sinkers, but it wasn't until this year that I had to stop buying shoes with laces.

2) Don't poop where you eat is lesson number one for the kids.

3) It's a miracle the species didn't go extinct in the 1860s with the way those women dolled themselves up.

Ann Althouse said...

"Who has an anecdote that includes licorice, baby poop, and lesbians?"

I've given you the raw material. Write your own stories!

It could be the next "50 Shades of Gray" (gray/black/brown).

Freeman Hunt said...

How would you have time to take a photo? Surely you would be putting a quick stop to that nonsense.

Freeman Hunt said...

Why would there be lead in it? To punish people for liking such a gross candy?

rhhardin said...

The fire that melts lead tempers steel.

That's why they don't put steel in licorice.

The Crack Emcee said...

Ann Althouse,

I've given you the raw material. Write your own stories!

It could be the next "50 Shades of Gray" (gray/black/brown).


Fuck THAT, leave me out of this!

rhhardin said...

Solder still has lead in it, if you shop around.

I was soldering leads on a solar panel just last night.

A familiar smell from childhood.

Solder without lead simply doesn't work, like modern bicycle tire patch glues don't work. They're worried some kid will sniff it and make it nonfunctional instead.

Where is the quick drying model airplane cement of old, too.

John Burgess said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

John Burgess said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

Saint Croix said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

I've heard it leads to repetitive diarrhea.

Saint Croix said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

I've heard it leads to repetitive diarrhea.

Saint Croix said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

I've heard it leads to repetitive diarrhea.

wildswan said...

I think that photo of Emily Dickinson will be proved to be a fake. I think they took a previous picture, (the one at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson) and used the hair and the forehead to get the width between the eyes right.
If you look at the good picture you see that the hair is little off center around the face. It is a little more forward on ED's right. And it is off center the same way in the new picture. And there is a sort of square line around the left eye in the new picture. And there is this sort of haloed blurring in different parts of the picture around the head.
Plus this Emily Dickinson has no sense of humor or fun - she would not disturb a feminazi.
Summary:
This picture was faked by a feminazi who never forgave her mother for toilet training her in a restaurant. Wins the Black licorice on your teeth award for ineptness.

PatCA said...

From what I can see of the photo, it's okay to put on line. The parents obviously have no shame or even good manners. Maybe they can learn something.

A homeless guy walked into the library with a dog the other day. I said to the clerk, there's a guy with a dog over there. He said, yeah, but it's a helping dog so we can't say anything.

As Insty says, middle class anarchy. I don't like it.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I would get a bag of Red Vines black licorice and take it down to the local police station. I would fling it on the counter and shout,

"Eat lead, copper!"

I would, too.

Darrell said...

You think just talking to a woman who potty trains her kids in a restaurant will work?

Tim said...

SF Chronicle.

The "TMZ" of newspapers, without the pretense of actually covering, you know, "news."

They employ the loathsome Mark Morford, he of the "Obama is a Lightworker" cultism.

If it weren't for the 'Niners and Giants, that paper wouldn't be worth toilet paper.

Scott said...

Darrell said...

An 1859 daguerreotype "photoshopped?"
Yeah, right.
It may not be ED, but the process of confirming that it dates to that time shouldn't be too hard.

MadisonMan said...

Why would that potty-training picture spark anything but disgust?

People actually get outraged at something like that? Really?

ad hoc said...

I think that is much better picture of Emily Dickinson than the one that serves as one of the screensavers on the Kindle that was the late 19th-early 20th equivalent of photoshopped. The wavy hair and big ruffly collar, shown on the Kindle picture, do not appear the original photgraph. They also "edited" her poems.

I have grown to appreciate the propriety of the Victorians. Especially when thinking about someone's children using potty seats in the middle of a restaurant.

Don't see the licorice aspect.

wyo sis said...

I really don't get the need people have to assume famous people in history were gay or lesbian based on photos or writings. It was very common at different times in history for women to hold hands and for men to sleep in the same bed. We need to be careful about placing modern meaning on historic events.

wildswan said...

Darrell,
It's possible to do daguerreotypes right now so if one faked a picture and put it in front of the daguerreotype camera with the silver plate in it - well, there would be a fake picture.
Do some reading on famous fakes. There's money in fakes and whole academic careers can be built on a fake one has access to.

Unknown said...

The term black licorice makes an unnecessary distinction. There isn't any other kind of licorice. Licorice is a flavor. Not a color. The red stuff is not only repulsive, it's not licorice. Ignorant people should not be allowed licorice.

Darrell said...

You can analyze the coatings to see if it were made now or then. Yes, you can make modern ones. Try and make one that presents correctly to an expert with modern test equipment (gas chromatograph, for example). Visual inspection doesn't count and that, I suspect, is what counterfeiters are fooling.

john martell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peter said...

It would have been much funnier if the mom had used the potty seat herself to show the children how it's done. Though it wouldn't be as funny as the video on You Porn with the naked woman and the fishbowl,* now that's an all-time classic!

* = no cruelty involved, there were no fish in the bowl

yashu said...

ODing on licorice leads to green poop, not brown.

I can attest this is true.

yashu said...

"I babysat for my next door neighbors" by kentuckyliz dickinson

I babysat for my next door neighbors--
One Time, pre teen or early teen years;
They had fed their kids black licorice--
All Day, it was a shit festival.

I couldn't get new diapers
On them, before more shit
Was spraying, out--
Of their little sorry asses.

That was the Last Time--
I ever, babysat;
I do not have children,--
I don't even hold them.

AlanKH said...

"State expands warning on eating black licorice."

RAAAAAAAAAACIST!

wildswan said...

Art forgers use canvas from the era so if you had daguerreotype plates from the era they would test out. Remember this is potentially a wealth producer plus a lot of art forgers are just trying to fool people to show what they can do.
The story doesn't say whether any scientific tests were done on the daguerreotype.
Still I must admit that I thought the thing was a fake as soon as I looked at it. 1. Emily Dickinson had a sense of humor all her life; the women in the picture does not 2. I've seen hundreds of old pictures and never seen a pose like that in an early photo or daguerreotype. 3. The pose of the hand is artificial. Then after I looked closely I saw that the outline of the hair in the picture in just like the hair in the early picture. 4. I can see marks around the eyes that are like the marks I have gotten from trying to correct red-eye and over-correcting.