[ExI] road to wellville, was: RE: morality

[William Flynn Wallace]

There is a book called Frozen in Time, about Clarence Birdseye - author
Mark Kurlansky (who has written several excellent nonfiction books).  Very
interesting man, Birdseye - very inventive.  Perhaps the main man in
developing frozen food for shipping.  We still have his brand in the
stores.   bill w

On Sat, May 20, 2023 at 4:52 AM efc--- via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Thank you very much for the story and the recommendation! I am generally
> more of a book reader than a movie watcher, so I will definitely add it to
> my "to buy" list. =)
>
> But the story does remind me of sugar filled Tony Tiger moments of my
> childhood. ;)
>
> But that's another aspect I find very fascinating with US business life.
> Some companies have such a strong connection with Christianity. I read up
> on chik-fil-a and apparently the CEO was very strongly against gay
> marriage and spoke up, and cause a lot of controversy (according to
> wikipedia).
>
> I received a Buck knife as a gift some years ago, and on a note in the box
> it said that Jesus was their most important board member who they turn to
> in difficult moments.
>
> I have never experienced such a strong religious connection in any company
> I worked for in europe.
>
> There's also this web site: https://www.weboycott.net/ and I imagine that
> there are plenty of "value driven" companies there.
>
> Best regards,
> Daniel
>
>
> On Fri, 19 May 2023, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com>
> > ...
> >
> >> ...Next post.  spike
> >
> >
> >> ...Daniel, there is a book called Road to Wellville by Coraghessan
> Boyle, a
> > very talented writer who produced a fine historical comedy as his rooky
> > card.  The movie version was entertaining as all hell and was filled with
> > carefully-researched historical accuracy.  It was about John Harvey
> Kellogg
> > and his quirky ways, how he started the breakfast food industry...spike
> >
> >
> > It has been nearly 30 years since I saw the Wellville movie, so I rented
> it
> > and found my perspective has changed a lot.  I remembered the movie as
> much
> > funnier than it is: if it is to be called historical comedy, it is dark
> > comedy indeed.  Back in those more carefree days 30 years ago, everything
> > was funny to me.  I read the book after seeing the film and realized the
> > film contains a number of fairly big historical inaccuracies that were
> not
> > in the book.  Kellogg didn't die in his 70s demonstrating a dive.  He
> died
> > of pneumonia at age 91.
> >
> > In the book, Kellogg tried to cure asthma by having patients breathe...
> > radon.  That part is historically accurate: Kellogg really did that at
> his
> > health institution.  It is unclear how many patients he killed that way,
> for
> > many of them would have developed lung cancer some few years later.  In
> the
> > movie version, Matthew Broderick's love interest (Lara Flynn Boyle) was
> > suffering "green sickness" which is now called chlorosis or hypochromic
> > anemia.  In those days it was thought green sickness was caused by female
> > virginity.  So... Boyle arranges with Broderick to cure that, but in the
> > book she was being treated by inhaling radon.  When the cure makes the
> > problem worse, they compensate by using more of it until Ida Muntz
> perishes.
> > Hey, Hollywood.  They needed to sex up a good book in order to make a
> movie.
> >
> > In retrospect, I am hesitant to recommend the movie.  The book is
> excellent
> > however, if one is interested in that kind of thing.
> >
> > spike
> >
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> >
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