Making Kids Love Brushing Teeth

Way back  before the internet ruled when newspapers thrived, editors would receive free copy courtesy of North American Precis Syndicate with plugs for businesses wrapped in useful advice.

The smaller papers were special targets.

By 2001, the copy was arriving on CDs. We recently found one from May of that year and we share for the sake of history this tidbit from Crest concerning how to make children love brushing their teeth.

We kind of like the idea of getting the recommended three minutes of brushing by timing it to a favorite song.

We also take comfort in learning that North American Precis Syndicate remains with us.

Oral health can have a significant impact on overall health and well being of kids yet more than 50 percent of 5- to 9-year old children have at least one cavity or filling, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s report on oral health in America. The report also states that tooth decay is the single most common chronic childhood disease, five times more common than asthma.
Every family needs to make oral health a priority. These simple tips from Crest make brushing a fun and enjoyable routine for kids.
•    Brush with the right tools
Kid-inspired toothbrushes come in fun shapes, colors and patterns that are specially sized with smaller heads and larger handles to aid in control. Select a toothbrush with soft bristles and rounded ends that provide gentle cleaning.
•    Fun-flavored toothpaste means fun brushing
Children’s toothpaste comes in an array of flavors and colors, such as bubble gum and sparkles, so let the kids choose their own tubes. Make sure to choose toothpaste that has fluoride to help strengthen tooth enamel and prevent cavities. Children under 6 should brush twice a day using a pea-size dab of toothpaste.
•    Music Makes the Minutes Go By
One of the best ways to make sure kids are brushing for the recommended three minutes is to pick a fun song of the same length to play while they brush. Start the song as soon as the toothbrush touches the first tooth and continue to brush for the duration of the song.
•    Award gold stars for outstanding oral practices
Children should brush their teeth twice a day, so keep track of their daily brushing on a calendar by using gold stars. At the end of each week, award a special prize if there are two stars for each day of the week.
•    Keep toothbrushes in view and within reach in the bathroom
Make sure the kids can reach their toothbrushes and toothpaste by keeping them on the counter or in a stick-on cup attached to the wall. If the dental tools are always in sight, they act as reminders that it’s brushing time.
•    Get the kids in the right frame of mind
Trips to the dentist can be a scary experience for some young children, so prepare them beforehand. Give kids an idea of what to expect during a dental visit with role-playing exercises, or using picture books to familiarize kids with dental tools. Children should see the dentist every six months for a complete oral checkup.
•    Brush with your kids
The more the merrier! Lead by example to teach your kids that brushing and flossing is an important part of their daily routine.

In response to the U.S. Surgeon General’s report, Crest has teamed up with Boys & Girls Clubs of America on Crest Healthy Smiles 2010, a program designed to provide oral health education and tools to underprivileged children nationwide.

The paragraphs below would have likely been snipped out as the publication wasn’t the one getting paid for by Crest for the publicity. For the sake of history we are including them with a link to the Crest site for April 2001, the nearest match available via Wayback Machine. Putting an actionable link in an article was not something that would have been possible on newsprint, of course. And we wonder how Healthy Smiles 2010 worked out.

For a free brochure with oral health tips and more information on Crest Healthy Smiles 2010, call 1-877-289-6322. Also, check out the Crest Family Care Center on the Web at www.crest.com.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America kids practice good oral health skills in a giant way by brushing a 25-foot mouth.

 

Making Kids Love Brushing Teeth

Making Kids Love Brushing Teeth

SS United States Gets $200G Gift

SS United StatesSS United States in her glory days

The storied SS United States that has been rusting at Pier 82 in Philadelphia since 1996 has receive a shot of life from businessman Jim Pollin, who  has given a $220,000 check to the SS United States Conservancy, the non-profit dedicated to is preservation.

The ship, built in 1952, still holds the speed record for a westbound trip from the Britain to the United States at 34.51 knots which is 40 m.p.h.

It also continues to hold the Blue Riband,  which is given to fastest passenger liner crossing the Atlantic in regular service.

The United States, would be an excellent tourist attraction for the area. It would make a great floating hotel or a place to watch fireworks on the Delaware River. It certainly would be a more interesting casino than the existing ones in these environs.

The eastbound Atlantic speed record, by the way, is now held by Hoverspeed Great Britain, an ocean-going catamaran, which set it in 1990 with a speed of 36.6 knots.

Thank you again, Mr. Pollin. Hopefully, someone with a similar interest in our heritage can be found to help save the USS Olympia.

 

 

 

Normandy Invasion 70 Years Ago

Normandy Invasion 70 Years Ago

By Victor Davis Hanson

Seventy years ago this June 6, the Americans, British, and Canadians stormed the beaches of Normandy in the largest amphibious invasion of Europe since the Persian king Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 B.C.

About 160,000 troops landed on five Normandy beaches and linked up with airborne troops in a masterful display of planning and courage. Within a month, almost a million Allied troops had landed in France and were heading eastward toward the German border. Within eleven months the war with Germany was over.

The western front required the diversion of hundreds of thousands of German troops. It weakened Nazi resistance to the Russians while robbing the Third Reich of its valuable occupied European territory.

The impatient and long-suffering Russians had demanded of their allies a second front commensurate with their own sacrifices. Their Herculean efforts by war’s end would account for two out of every three dead German soldiers — at a cost of 20 million Russian civilian and military casualties.

Yet for all the sacrifices of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin was largely responsible for his war with Nazi Germany. In 1939, he signed a foolish non-aggression pact with Hitler that allowed the Nazis to gobble up Western democracies. Hitler’s Panzers were aided by Russians in Poland and overran Western Europe fueled by supplies from the Soviets.

The Western Allies had hardly been idle before D-Day. They had taken North Africa and Sicily from the Germans and Italians. They were bogged down in brutal fighting in Italy. The Western Allies and China fought the Japanese in the Pacific, Burma, and China.

The U.S. and the British Empire fought almost everywhere. They waged a multiform war on and under the seas. They eventually destroyed Japanese and German heavy industry with a costly and controversial strategic-bombing campaign.

The Allies sent friends such as the Russians and Chinese billions of dollars worth of food and war matériel.

In sum, while Russia bore the brunt of the German land army, the Western Allies fought all three Axis powers everywhere else and in every conceivable fashion.

Yet if D-Day was brilliantly planned and executed, the follow-up advance through France in June 1944 was not always so. The Allies seemed to know the texture of every beach in Normandy, but nothing about the thick bocage just a few miles inland from Omaha Beach. The result was that the Americans were bogged down in the French hedgerows for almost seven weeks until late July — suffering about 10 times as many casualties as were lost from the Normandy landings.

So how did the Allies get from the beaches of Normandy to Germany in less than a year? Largely by overwhelming the Wehrmacht with lots of good soldiers and practical war matériel. If German tanks, mines, machine guns, and artillery were superbly crafted, their more utilitarian American counterparts were good enough — and about 10 times as numerous. Mechanically intricate German Tiger and Panther tanks could usually knock out durable American Sherman tanks, but the Americans produced almost 50,000 of the latter, and the Germans fewer than 8,000 of the former.

Over Normandy, British and American fighter aircraft not only were as good as or better than German models but were far more numerous. By mid 1944, Germany had produced almost no four-engine bombers. The British and Americans had built almost 50,000 that by 1944 were systematically leveling German cities.

Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt were far more pragmatic supreme commanders than the increasingly delusional and sick Adolf Hitler. American war planners such as George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Alan Brooke understood grand strategy better than the more experienced German chief of staff. Allied field generals such as George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery were comparable to German legends like Gerd von Rundstedt or Erwin Rommel, who were worn out by 1944.

The German soldier was the more disciplined, experienced, armed, and deadly warrior of World War II. But his cause was bad, and by 1944 his enemies were far more numerous and far better supplied. No soldiers fought better on their home soil than did the Russians, and none more resourcefully abroad than the British Tommy and the American G.I., when bolstered by ample air, armor, and artillery support.

Omaha Beach to central Germany was about the same distance as the Russian front to Berlin. But the Western Allies covered the same approximate ground in about a quarter of the time as had the beleaguered Russians.

D-Day ushered in the end of the Third Reich. It was the most brilliantly conducted invasion in military history, and probably no one but a unique generation of British, Canadians, and Americans could have pulled it off.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. He can be reached by emailing  author@victorhanson.com .

 

Normandy Invasion 70 Years Ago

American Liberty Tours

Carris Kocher of Concord, Pa. is   embarking on a new venture this summer called American Liberty Tours. The tours will explore our legacy of liberty and faith.

The first tour, Philadelphia’s Foundation of Faith, is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, and Saturday, July 12.

The second tour, Philadelphia’s Legacy of Liberty, is scheduled for Saturday, July 26, and Thursday, July 31.

Each tour concludes with an evening dinner featuring a guest speaker and a  question and answer session.

Cost is $125 per person. For information visit American Liberty Tours online at http://americanlibertytours.com/

 

American Liberty Tours

American Liberty Tours to be held this summer.

Foxcatcher, Delco Shines Again

Foxcatcher, Delco Shines Again Du Pont portrait

John du Pont’s official portrait in Foxcatcher sweats on display at his estate sale in 2011 for which he paid artist Hubert Shuptrine $100,000.

 

Delaware County, Pa. on Feb. 22 has a better than even chance of making another Oscar appearance  — Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook — as Foxcatcher was a finalist for the Palme d’Or at the recently ended Cannes Film Festival.

The prize went to Winter Sleep, a Turkish film about class struggle (or something) in that country. Don’t expect it to compete for Best Picture.

Foxcatcher concerns the Jan. 26, 1996 murder of Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Shultz by John du Pont at du Pont’s Foxcatcher estate and training facility in Newtown Township. It’s based on the autobiography of Shultz’s brother Mark, who was also an Olympic gold medalist that trained at the estate.

I knew du Pont. I even have an autographed copy of his book Off The Mat, which was clearly created by an abjectly bored ghost writer granted unwise access to a list of cliches.

He was nuts. You would never believe his answering machine.

I did not know Shultz who had a reputation of being a decent family man who sent his kids to the local public school, Culbertson.

Hopefully, that comes through.

 

 

 

 

Pennsylvania Witch Trial

Pennsylvania Witch Trial — Pennsylvania had its own witch trial that beat the more famous — and far more deadly  — ones in Massachusetts by a decade.

It was presided over by William Penn, himself, and it happened in Delaware County in Ridley.

Margaret Mattson, the wife of Neals, was accused of bewitching cows and indicted for the dastardly deed on Feb. 27, 1683. She pleaded not guilty and was remanded to trial with a jury of 12 and Penn as the judge.

Penn asked her “Art thou a witch? Has thou ridden through the air on a broomstick?” Margaret, a Swede who did not speak English very well, answered “yes.” Penn pointed out that riding a broomstick was not illegal. The jury went out and came back with verdict of guilty  of “having the common frame of being a witch” but not guilty of bewitching the cows. Her husband and son-in-law pledged 50 pounds each to guarantee her good behavior for the next six months. Presumably they never lost their money and Margaret lived to a nice old age.

This was Pennsylvania’s first and only witch trial.

Just gives us one more reason to feel superior to New England, we feel. Quidditch is cool in The Keystone State.

Pennsylvania Witch Trial

 

Pennsylvania Witch Trial

Birth Word

The Oxford English Dictionary has a site that will reveal the word that came into use the year you were born. Birth Word -- The Oxford English Dictionary has a site that will reveal the word that came into use the year you were born. For instance the word that is as old as those born in 1924 is "radio star". If one was born in 1999 the word would be "bling". If you were born in 2002 it would be "parkour" Check it out here.

For instance the word that is as old as those born in 1924 is “radio star”. If one was born in 1999 the word would be “bling”. If you were born in 2002 it would be “parkour”

Check it out here.

Birth Word

Ignore Howard Zinn, Celebrate Columbus

Ignore Howard Zinn, Celebrate ColumbusIgnore Howard Zinn, Celebrate Columbus –Let us today, this Columbus Day — granted the official observation is Monday — ignore Howard Zinn and celebrate the guy who, for all intents and purposes, discovered America.

Vinland, after all, never really took.

Howard Zinn was a socialist who wrote a book call “A People’s History of the United States” which can be read free online at a site, appropriately enough regarding Zinn, called HistoryIsAWeapon.com.

Zinn claims that America has always been ruled by oppressors — the 1 percenters who own a third of the wealth and keep control by fermenting dissent among the 99 percent who are the rest of us  — and starts his claim with Columbus who he says committed genocide on the residents of the West Indies.

It seems to be the theme pushed by the hipster crowd this 2013.

Well, the truth is the Spanish were pretty rough on the native peoples of the Caribbean, something we know from Spanish sources, but the cruelty was obviously not done at the direction of Spanish authorities as steps were taken to stop it when complaints reached them. Further, the native peoples of the Caribbean were not without their flaws either. The name for the Caribbean comes from the Carib tribe, from whence we also get the word cannibal.

And while Columbus was  far from perfect he does not appear to be the gratuitously cruel tyrant Zinn and our hipster friend claim him to be. In Columbus’ own words this is what he says about the Lucayan peoples of the Bahamas who Zinn et al alleges he mutilated and slaughtered: “They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they
murder or steal… . Your Highness may believe that in all the world
there can be no better people … they have the sweetest talk in the
world, and are always laughing.

It seems the revisionists are getting their signals crossed somewhere, which is understandable as Zinn is a rather bad historian.

America is a place that allowed tens of millions of Europeans and Asians to escape the feudalism that infected their homelands and her discovery only deserves to be celebrated. Even Africans should celebrate. Slavery existed in Africa — it wasn’t Europeans doing the slavecatching — before the trans-Atlantic slave trade and it was only after the founding of the United States did the push begin to end it. Pennsylvania was the first recognized government in the world, maybe in history, to ban slavery which happened in 1780 in the middle of the Revolutionary War.

Our hipster ironically wants a day named for Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas and there is a point to that as the Bishop is one of history’s good guys.  On the other hand, he was the one who suggested that the labor lost due to the death of Indians be replaced by Africans and some credit him with the start of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

History is a bit more nuanced than Zinn and the hipster crowd make it out to be.

One more bit of irony:  Zinn’s work was popularized by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who grew up near Zinn and were family friends. Damon and Affleck are now part of the one-percenter crowd. They have yet to give most of their money to the rest of us, and certainly have not led any crusades to end the tax breaks for performing artists who receive mega millions per film.

 

Visit BillLawrenceDittos.com for another story Ignore Howard Zinn, Celebrate Columbus

Blessed Virgin Mary Born May 1, 22 BC

Blessed Virgin Mary Born May 1, 22 BC — Reader Tom C writes that a friend who was a Biblical scholar once told him that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born on May 1, 22 BC and died on May 13, 42 AD at the age of 64 most likely in  Ephesus which is now part of Turkey.

He says she would have been  16 years old at the birth of Jesus.

 

Blessed Virgin Mary Born May 1, 22 BC

Germans, Yanks Defended Castle Against Nazis

Germans, Yanks Defended Castle Against Nazis — As this crazy but true World War II story creeps into the public eye due to a recent book expect to soon see a movie.

On May 5, 1945, a unit of American tanks, German soldiers and two former French prime ministers along other VIPs and their ladyfolk defended a medieval castle from a Nazi attack.

Hitler had been dead dead five days when the incident occurred but VE Day was still three days away,

Castle Itter in Austria was being used as a prison for French leaders captured after France’s surrender including prime ministers Édouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud, who hated each other; and generals Maurice Gamelin and Maxime Weygand.

A German SS unit was sent to execute the prisoners. The Germans guarding them chose to defend them. A small American tank unit arrived. The prisoners were armed. A battle raged.

With ammunition nearly out, a rescue by the American army occurs.

It was the only time a medieval castle was defended during the war. It was the only time Americans and Germans fought as allies. Some sarcastic person might say it was one of the few times the French actually fought.

Expect a movie.

Germans, Yanks Defended Castle Against Nazis

Germans, Yanks Defended Castle Against Nazis