mid- century. But while washstands became common, bathtubs were still a nov- elty; in 1860, Boston had only 3,910 of them for a population of 177,840. Full-body bathing provided an adventure to those who tested it out. As New York socialite George Templeton Strong commented after building himself a bathroom in 1843, "I've led rather an amphibious life for the last week-paddling in the bathing tub every night and constantly making new discoveries in the art and mystery of ablutions."
the...
David Bollier, in
Channels (Mar. 1988), 19 West 44th St., New
York, N.Y. 10036.
"Only one thing is impossible for God," Mark Twain once remarked. It is "to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."
Twain's quip, notes Bollier, a Channels contributing editor, aptly de- scribes the current imbroglio over the ownership of TV programs. Televi- sion copyright law, he argues, has become a "baroque monstrosity."
Even using photocopiers, reproducing printed material...
John
F. Lawrence, in Fortune (Apr. 25, 19881, Time Economics and Life Building, Rockefeller Center, New
York, N.Y. 10020-1393.
"ECONOMY WEAKENING, EXPERTS SAY," was the headline of the lead front-page story in the February 2, 1988 Miami Herald. "For once, economists are in agreement," the story began. "The big chill everyone feared is here."
A month later, the Herald changed its mind. In a story buried on the business page, the Herald reported that America's gross...
Simon Frank-
lin, in The World Today (April 1988), Royal
Institute of International Affairs, 10 St. James's
Square, London, SW1Y 4LE, United Kingdom.
Last June, the Soviets celebrated the millennium of Christianity in Russia, commemorating Prince Vladimir of Kiev's mass conversion of his subjects, who were baptized in the Dnieper River in 988.
As both The Economist's editors and Franklin, a fellow of Clare Col- lege, Cambridge, point out, most Soviet Christians have had little reason to celebrate...
Znanie ("Knowledge"), a nominally private, but state-sponsored organization.
Church attendance has become more popular since Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church has 6,800 churches, 6,000 priests, and an estimated 50 million members. (The sec- ond largest Christian denomination in the Soviet Union is the Roman Cath- olic, with 4.5 million members.)
Gorbachev's glasnost policies promise more open discussion of reli- gious issues. Some figures from...
Catherine Wilson, in Journal of the History of Ideas (Jan.-Mar. 1988), Temple Univ., Philadel-phia, Pa. 19122.
In 1691, English physicist Robert Hooke wrote that few scientists were using microscopes in their research. Hooke complained that his colleagues thought nothing more could be discovered with the microscope. Only ama- teurs were using the instrument, Hooke claimed, and then merely "for Diversion and Pastime."
Wilson, a philosopher at the University of Oregon, notes that many...
providing evidence of life unseeable the naked eye, microscopes, in Leibnitz's view, provided evidence of the exis- tence of "monads," the invisible particles that he believed were the basic building blocks of life.
Not until the 19th century were achromatic lenses perfected that could convey images without distortion. By then, however, the instrument's irn-portance was beyond dispute.
and Destiny "Daughters or Sons" by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, in Natural History (Apr. 1988), Central...
Robert S. Root-Bernstein, in The Sciences (May-June 1988), New York Academy of Sciences, 2 East 63rd St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
A common truism about science is that many great discoveries occur as a result of fortunate accidents. Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), for ex- ample, is said to have discovered the bacteria-killing enzyme lysozyme (present in tears, mucus, and saliva) after drippings from his nose killed germs in a Petri dish Fleming was examining.
Such "accidents" have led...
Daniel
M.Bluestone, in American Quarterly (Winter 19871, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 701 West 40th St., Ste. 275, Baltimore, Md. 21211.
Most scholars have assumed that urban parks were established to satisfy city-dwellers eager to create pastoral oases in the middle of the bustling metropolis. For example, Lewis Murnford, in Sticks and Stones (1924), argued that such parks were designed as a "means of escape" from "the soiled, bedraggled works of man's creation."
Bluestone,...
carriage to produce what Olrn- sted described as a "concourse of animated life." The goal was not Arca- dia, but an attractive and diverting "spectacle."
Nor did the people who flocked to Prospect Park for concerts and ice cream seek unspoiled nature, according to Bluestone. He agrees with ar-chitect Horace Cleveland, who wrote in 1889 that "to the great mass of the so-called cultivated people, nature has no attraction except when aided the merest clap traps of fashionable...