The actual quote was . . . the government was “submerged in a bowl
of alphabet soup”.

Let’s see if you were paying attention in history class . . .

Give the names for these depression era acronyms:

AAA
CCC
CWA
FERA
FHA
FSA
HOLC
NRA
NYA
NRA
PWA
REA
SSA
TVA
WPA

Please scroll down!

AAA Agricultural Adjustment Administration
CCC Civilian Conservation Corps
CWA Civil Works Administration
FERA Federal Emergency Relief Administration
FHA Federal Housing Administration
FSA Farm Security Administration
HOLC Home Owners Loan Corporation
NRA National Recovery Administration
NYA National Youth Administration
PWA Public Works Administration
REA Rural Electrification Administration
SSA Social Security Administration
TVA Tennessee Valley Authority
WPA Work Projects (Progress) Administration

The quote came from democrat Alfred E. Smith. Even though he was
from Roosevelt’s party, he was no fan of the New Deal. Smith was
the Governor of New York before Franklin held that job and he was
also the unsuccessful democratic Presidential candidate in 1928.

Interesting side note on one of these popular programs . . .

It turned out that some people believed the government had gone too
far and had the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 challenged
in the Supreme Court. This is the act that created the NRA or
National Recovery Administration.

The NRA had a blue eagle symbol with the letters NRA and patriotic firms
were asked to display this logo. In May, 1935, in the case of the
Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court
invalidated the NRA’s compulsory-code system on the grounds that the
NRA improperly delegated legislative powers to the executive.

This was obviously the most radical change in cooking food since
the discovery of fire! Most references credit Dr. Percy Spencer, an
engineer with Raytheon. He stumbled onto the idea of microwave
cooking when he inadvertently melted some candy in his pocket while
testing a special radar tube called a magnetron. This happened back
in 1946.

After he melted the candy, he put some popcorn kernels in the beam
and they popped all over his lab. From this beginning, Raytheon
created a product called the Radar Range. The first home unit was
available in 1952.

These stories are typical of corporate histories written around
various popular consumer products and ultimately become part of
U.S. industrial legend.

However, I have some inside information. During WWII, my father
was a young engineer in his early 20s working for General Electric
of Bridgeport, CT. They would take large trailers with radar sets
up to a remote place in Trumbull called Tashua Hill. They would go
up there for several days and run secret tests on various military
aircraft flying around Southern New England. Ten years later he
told me on how they used to cook hot dogs by holding them on long
sticks in the radar beam coming from the dish antennas. Thus,
microwave cooking was already going on at least several years
before the Raytheon “discovery” in 1946. Actually, it was well know
even before the war that radio waves could heat up various objects.

As with most commercial products, Raytheon deserves credit for
recognizing the commercial value of microwave cooking devices.

Hundreds of years ago the world carol meant a round dance, a ring
of people, a circle of pillars.

Old French: Carole Provincial: corola Latin: corolla, garland

A few associate the word with chorus. I suspect that Christmas carol
go its name as the chorus sang their songs while formed in circles
or semicircles, and the name just transferred over from the older
ring dance to the songs themselves.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

OK, so your true love is going to get you all the gifts for the
12 days of Christmas . . . guess what the most expensive item is!

Every year someone keeps an estimate of the 12 days of Christmas as
a tongue-in-cheek way of keeping track of inflation. As you might
guess the emphasis over the years has shifted from things to
services . . . well this is a service based economy, isn’t it?

There are two ways to look at this, cost of the category or the cost
for each individual piece.

If you go by categories, here are the top three . . .

9 Ladies dancing - - - $4,019.24
10 Lords-a-Leaping - - - $3,770.62
7 Swans-a-swimming - - - $3,50.00

But . . . if you go by the cost of each item . . . the swans win!

1 Swan - - - $500
1 Dancing Lady - - - $446.58
1 Leaping Lord - - - $377.06

What did you guess? I went for the gold . . . but I would never
have thought the swans cost that much!

If you said Winston Churchill's famous March 5, 1946 speech in
Fulton, Missouri, you're wrong!

Several people using the phrase “iron curtain” were quoted in the
media in the years before 1946. The earliest recorded use of “iron
curtain” was from Ethel Snowden, the wife of labor leader Philip
Snowden. She used it in a 1920 book titled “Through Bolshevik
Russia”. It is not clear if she coined the phrase. The phrase
appeared in the media again in 1924. A 1945 appearance of the phrase
was attributed to Josef Goebbels, the German propaganda minister.

However, it was Churchill's speech that made the term a lasting
part of history, outliving the Soviet Union!