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America Is Full Of Weird, Isolated, Occasionally Creepy Communities
July and August are designated hardcore drinking months. Something about the summerthe sun, the holidays, the freedom of wearing less clothes makes it perfect for downing drinks at unacceptable hours (a bit like Christmas, except you can sit outside). But then it happens. September draws closer, the fatigued, chubbier version of yourself has arrived, and yourealize there are consequences for your actions (again, a bit like the aftermath of Christmas). The smell of tequila haunts your dreams, and you utter the words “I am never drinking again.” Usually, in the midst of Dry January, this is a rule broken three days after New Year’s Eve atyour local bar’s Wine Wednesday. But, if another hungover Thursday dizzily sat at your desk isn’t enough to convince you to clamber onto the sober wagon, then here are sevenother reasons you should indulge in a detox month during the month of September: 1. Your weekends feel at least half as long as they should.In the fall, you usually only have the weekends to rage. So, every Saturday, you wake up waypast midday after a fierce battle with your pounding head to lie back down after bursting awake, confused and dry-mouthed at 9 am. And then, you spend the last few hours of your weekend hidden underneath your duvet. You move for three things, and three things only: dashes to the toilet, water and to stretch to your laptop to play the next episode after Netflix so rudely asks if you’re still watching. But if you’re sober, you get your whole weekend back. 2. You’ve been bloated for slightly too long now to actually call it bloating.Your trusty Topshop ripped skinnies (that usually feel as if they were painted onto your body by angels) aren’t just tight after an all-you-can-eat buffet, two beers and maybe even a dessert anymore. The zip requires a little extra pull when you wriggle yourself into them first thing in the morning. Bloated for over a month? What’s the wine equivalent of a beer belly?! Stop drinking in September, and your skinnies will never fail to fit again. 3. Your version of the “Sunday Scaries”is looking at the receipts in your purse the next day.… From four different bars. How come you only remember being in two of them? And how come more and more keep appearing as the week goes on? Why do they always fall out of your purse whilst paying for your morning coffee? Will the shame ever end?! Yes. The shame will end when you finally take a drinking break for both you AND your wallet. 4. Your skin is waging a 15-year-old style battle against you.No amount of tee tree oil and overnight seaweed gels will bring your skin back into its 20s. And apparently NO amount of makeup will cover the chaos that crate of beer unleashed upon your skin. Do your face a favor, and let the crisp Fall air of September sooth it back to sober health. 5. No one believes you can do it (and they have fairly good evidence to back up their claim).There’s nothing more annoying than your friends thinking they know best and trying to bully you into temptation, but there’s also nothing better than proving them wrong. So, why don’t you prove to them that you can take a break from the partying? Use the month of September to cleanse your liver of the alcohol, and your friends of the judgment and doubt. 6. You want to actually do something with your free time.Maybe giving up drinking and attempting to start that Saturday morning yogalates class is too much of a transition all in one go, but what else are you going to do now that you’re not spending your weekend mornings pining for a McDonald’sdelivery? Saying goodbye to the delicious, greasy McDonald’s will be hard during your sober month, but it’ll be worth it. 7. You want to do something worthwhile.Give yourself that little extra motivation to hang up your boozing shoes by raising money whilst doing it. It may not be as inspiring as running a marathon or diving out of a plane, but it’s a great challenge to set for yourself in the name of charity. Plus, it will keep you on the straight and narrow. Think of the guilt you’d feel sneaking that cheeky sip of rum and coke right before you get applauded for *ahem* selflessly helping others by resisting the drink. Imagine a brunch without retching, bedding that’s not ruined by last night’s makeup, a purse full of dollar bills (well, a couple, but it’s quite a small purse so…). Bring it on, Sober September. Source: http://allofbeer.com/7-reasons-you-should-ditch-the-drink-and-have-a-sober-september/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/7-reasons-you-should-ditch-the-drink-and-have-a-sober-september/
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Step aside, cat cafs, because New York City is about to get its very owncaf. The dog-friendly coffee shop and community space,called Boris & Horton, is set to openin the East Village in December 2017. Do youknow what that means? Puppy cuddles for the holidays! DNAInfo reports Boris & Horton’s father-daughter owners, Coppy and Logan Holzman, fittingly named the spot after their own pups: Boris, a pitbull mix, and Horton, a terrier mix. SO CUTE. When the dog-friendly caf opens, anyone will be welcome to bring their dog. Butsimilar to feline-friendly locales before it, the caf itself will reportedlyfeature a glass wall to separate the dogs from the food space, per Department of Health rules. Not in a weird way, though. Coppy told DNAInfo,
So basically, you just have to grab your food and drinks on one side of the glass, but you’re totally free to dine withyour dog (and everyone else’s) on the other side. Perhaps you’rethinking, Who’s going to watch my dog while I order a latte and some grub? If that’s the case, you’ll be pleased to know that Boris & Horton’s staffers will be available to look after your pooch while you’re on the food side. Speaking of food, the caf will be serving up your standard coffee, pastries, and sandwiches in addition to beer and wine. You don’t need to own a dog to stop by. However, if you’re in the market for a new best friend, owners Coppy and Logan have partnered with Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue to host adoption events. I’m pretty much counting down the days until I can have my cake and pet other people’s dogs, too. Source: http://allofbeer.com/a-dog-cafe-is-finally-coming-to-nyc-and-you-need-to-plan-your-trip-right-now/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/a-dog-cafe-is-finally-coming-to-nyc-and-you-need-to-plan-your-trip-right-now/ People don’t like to talk to creditors. People screen their phone calls, and toss out the bills. But it’s harder to ignore someone standing on your doorstep, especially when you don’t know why they’re there until they tell you. That’s me: I’m a debt collector. I’m not authorized to hold you upside down and shake the coins out of your pockets, but I do carry some scary-looking paperwork. And in my travels, I’ve found that … 5America Is Full Of Weird, Isolated, Occasionally Creepy Communities A few years ago, I did a two-day stint in West Virginia. The hills play havoc with GPS signals out there. Plus the maps aren’t all that accurate, and the roads are not maintained. Some aren’t even drivable. They don’t always bother putting up a sign to say so. traveler1116 /iStock Driving down a road that had degenerated into a dirt track, my Jeep sank right up to its undercarriage in a mud pond, and when I trekked up to a farmhouse, the folks there said, “Why, everyone knows that road’s been out for years!” The farmer got one of his tractors and hauled my Jeep out. Months later, my water pump died. When the mechanics called me, they said, “We’ve never seen anything like it! It’s like your water pump was full of swamp water!” That’s generally how it goes: Rural areas are the worst to get around in, but anytime I’ve needed help, someone always chipped in — whether it was from me knocking on a farmhouse door, or someone just happening to drive past at the right time. werner22brigitte/Pixabay One time I was called to a nudist colony. The office building had a board in place of a door. On the other side of a hill were a couple dozen campers and mobile homes. No people. Several more trailers had their doors kicked in. One was on its side, and another had been on fire at some point. It looked like the apocalypse hit this place. If anyone was left, I didn’t want to meet him or her. “Hey, could you tell me which trailer belongs to this almost certainly dead person? Oh, no, I can’t tell you why I’m looking for them. Hey, could you put down that chainsaw?” When I checked the web later, Yelp was inconclusive about whether the place was open or closed, but it did specify that it was a “boys’ nudist camp,” which just added to the creep factor. Vintervit/iStock 4People Want To Kill You It was late autumn, and the sun was going down when I arrived at a single-family home in a working-class neighborhood. I heard shouting. A man and a woman. I knocked anyways, and the shouting stopped. An athletic man in his late 20s opened the door, and I could see a woman just leaving the room. Another man around the same age sat on the couch behind a coffee table covered in empty beer bottles.
I was already apprehensive, but I was new and didn’t really know what to do. So I went into my standard script. I introduced myself and explained that I was there about a late car payment. He nodded and invited me in, usually a good sign. Some clients require that we never enter a debtor’s house for liability reasons, but that wasn’t the case on this job. When someone invites you in, that’s usually an extension of trust. If you refuse, that could be taken as a rejection of their trust. Once I was inside, he sat down and said: “You know I’m an Army Ranger. I’ve been to Afghanistan. It wouldn’t be anything to me to kill you right now.” Turns out that his friend was an Army Ranger too. After only a few moments, the friend left, which at first I took to be a good thing. Then I realized he was moving his car to block me into the driveway.
Fortunately, I’d spent eight years managing a customer service call center, dealing with the angriest of callers. Those same skills applied here. I emphasized that I was a private contractor and didn’t actually care if he ever made another car payment again. I also pointed out that I wasn’t the repo guy, and me being there was actually a good thing, because the bank was still trying to work with him. And for the only time ever, I pointed out that even if he killed me, his debt wasn’t going anywhere. A risky move, but it seemed to deflate him.
That was the first time a customer threatened to kill me. It wasn’t the last. But while I can reason with angry customers, well … 3You Can’t Reason With Dogs I get attacked by dogs a lot. It’s a professional problem, not a personal one. Luckily, I have a defense method that, so far, has had a 100 percent success rating: my clipboard. As the dog rushes toward me, I grab my clipboard with both hands and put it between us, metal clip towards the dog. The dog doesn’t want to bite the metal, so it starts trying to dodge past it. I just keep moving the clipboard around until the dog gets frustrated and retreats a few steps.
Then I back off of the property and get in my car. If I can, I photograph the dog. Most of the clients that hire me to collect on the debt end up paying me anyways, and then blacklisting the property from future field-service reps. About halfway to one house, I heard barking and saw a pit bull tear out of the woods. Now, I know it can be an unfairly maligned breed, and I’ve known some real sweetheart pit bulls. This was not one of them. Still, I had my clipboard and I thought to myself, “another day in paradise.” Then I saw the second one. And the third, and the fourth.
They surrounded me, and started lunging. I kept spinning, trying to keep them from a clear shot, clipboarding whichever was closest. Somehow I got out and got home. I kissed my wife, and then immediately got blackout drunk. 2No One Likes A Debt Collector Sometimes, the bank sends out paperwork, and all the homeowner has to do is fill it out, then the bank lowers their monthly payment instead of foreclosing. But most people still won’t do it. Filling out the paperwork means acknowledging the problem, and people would rather just not deal with it.
So the bank sends me. I spoke with one woman who said that she hadn’t made a house payment in seven years. She was retired, unexpected expenses had depleted her savings, and she couldn’t afford her home on her Social Security. I was gathering info to lower her payments, but she was so ashamed of her situation that I had to drag everything out of her. Now, I know predatory loans exist. I know some banks are eager to foreclose, to the point that they’ll do it prematurely, or even go after the wrong property. But those ones rarely hire me — my clients would rather have the payment than the collateral. You don’t hire someone like me if you just want to foreclose.
I talk to middle-class people who have never had serious financial trouble before. The emotions involved are so strong, that even when the bank wants to work with them, they’ll dodge phone calls and ignore letters. One guy took one look at the paperwork and said: “You can get the fuck out of my house.” “You know I’m here to help, right?” “I know. Now get the fuck out.” About this time, you’re probably wondering, “What do you carry for protection?”
The answer is: Nothing. When I first started this job, I thought about getting a concealed carry permit. But most clients specifically forbid me from carrying a weapon of any kind, even mace. The reason: I’m there to collect a debt. If the debtor sees any weapon, that can be an attempt at coercion, an implied threat. You can’t threaten or coerce with physical violence as part of debt collection. As scary as that sounds … 1Every Weird Encounter Just Increases My Sympathy For People Every once in a while, I’ll be talking to someone and see the newest Call Of Duty game paused on their new PS4 on their new giant-ass TV. I don’t say it, but I can’t help but think I know where at least some of that car payment went. “Comfort” purchases go up during recessions. And honestly, I don’t blame them.
I used to work for little more than minimum wage, so I’ve had to play the “which bill can I let slide this month” game. When you’ve been chronically behind on bills for a while, you can’t just cut out all recreation. You’d kill yourself or go mad. Anyone who hears about debtors going out on a Friday and thinks, “they shouldn’t be spending money if they’re behind on the house” — well, they should be spending less money, perhaps, but they also need to keep themselves sane. I’d like to say I’ve learned a lot about people from looking into their homes. But the real thing I’ve learned is that you can’t truly know what’s going on in other people’s lives just from appearances, so it’s best not to judge.
Please help JSH Placie get attacked by fewer dogs. Check out his short fiction here and here. Fair warning, it’s not comedy, but it is good. Ryan Menezes is on Twitter for stuff cut from this article and other things no one should see. Also check out 5 Disturbing New Ways Debt Collectors Are Getting Your Money and 6 Creepy Schemes Companies Use To Bury You In Debt. Hey Cracked Podcast fans: Join Alex Schmidt, Daniel O’Brien, Katie Goldin, and our favorite LA comedians for a deep dive into which animals could conquer the world if they tried. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Credit Cards Are A Scam, and other videos you won’t see on the site! Follow us on Facebook, and we’ll follow you everywhere. If we’ve ever made you laugh or think, we now have a way where you can thank and support us! Source: http://allofbeer.com/im-here-to-collect-the-debt-you-owe-please-dont-kill-me/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/23/im-here-to-collect-the-debt-you-owe-please-dont-kill-me/ Thanks to new advertising rules, you won’t be seeing the clueless dad tropes on British TV.You know the type. Mom’s on a trip/taking a rest day/somehow escaped from the Stepford wives and left Dad (gasp!) to take care of the chores. He bumbles around the house, burning dinner, and acting as if the laundry machine were impossible alien technology. Well, there’ll be no more of that nonsense. New regulations proposed by the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Agency will nix dated gender stereotypes in television commercials. Advertisers will face tougher guidelines around images of diaper-phobic dads or glorified-maid moms. The agency won’t ban all stereotypes they point out it’d be “inappropriate and unrealistic” to try to wipe out traditionally gendered imagery but they do want to change some of the cringeworthy gendered stereotypes we’re used to seeing in ads. Basically, if a mop company wants to have a dad in their commercial, he’s going to have to act as if he’s actually seen a mop before. These new rules came after a review following a controversial 2015 “beach body” advertisement and, if adopted, would go into effect next year, as the BBC reports. A single ad, image, or story isn’t itself a problem, but it can get overwhelming when every single paper towel, mop, or diaper company seems to fall back on the same old tropes.
Research hints that these kinds of stereotypes can actually affect people in real life. The agency hopes that guiding advertisers away from them might in turn have real world benefits. The United Kingdom notably has stronger limitations on what can appear on TV compared with the United States. But the best reason to wave goodbye to those old ads might be that they just don’t match the real world anymore.Men who change diapers or take their kids to the park aren’t chipping in or babysitting. They’re being dads. And the idea that Mom is destined to be the sole housekeeper is something better left in the 1950s and on ’50s television. from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/bumbling-dad-commercials-are-cringeworthy-so-the-u-k-s-doing-something-about-them/ Rajesh Korde, a data tinker and software programmer who runs the blog Significant Digits, has mapped the per capita beer and wine consumption of all states using information in the Brewers almanac from the Beer Institute website. He then created a beer wine index by dividing the wine consumption rate by the beer consumption rate. The purple areas in the map above consume a greater proportion of wine, while the yellow areas prefer beer. According to Korde, Washington, D.C., is the nations wine capital, with a wine consumption that is 2.85 times the national average. New Hampshire tops the beer charts, consuming 1.57 times the national average of beer. Its also the booziest state overall, with the second-highest wine consumption in the nation. The least boozy state is, of course, Utah, which drinks only about two-thirds as much beer as the national average and one-third as much wine. Thanks to Korde for letting us republish the map. Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-united-states-of-beer-vs-wine/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/the-united-states-of-beer-vs-wine/ From free samples of sweet drinks to Italian kitchen displays, brands in the DPRK are learning to compete with the state, writes Choson Exchange How do you teach the craft of advertising in North Korea, a country which has for decades been indoctrinated against capitalism by the ruling Kim dynasty? And how do you get people to connect with your products when most advertising space is monopolised by the state? If companies cant get their wares into newspapers, or onto the sides of buildings or buses, how do people know they exist? For Tina Kanagaratnam, who works at PR firm Asia MediaTina, the answer is to link adverts to the communist propaganda citizens have grown up with. During a recent trip to the secretive state to teach a business workshop, Kanagaratnam says she explained that PR was essentially propaganda for brands, the lights came on, she explains. For the past decade or so the only evidence of advertising in Pyongyang had been the handful of billboards for Pyonghwa Motors, which borrow popular slogans from state propaganda campaigns. But advertising space now seems to be expanding as the capital, home to the countrys elite, develops signs of becoming a nascent consumer society. Source: http://allofbeer.com/rise-in-advertising-as-north-korea-embraces-nascent-consumerism/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/rise-in-advertising-as-north-korea-embraces-nascent-consumerism/ I received a call Monday night from Roger Stone, the infamous political prankster and Donald Trump confidant. He wanted to talk about Anthony Scaramucci, whose 10-day tenure as White House communications director had just ended in ignominy. Stone said that Scaramucci reminded him of “a suicide bomber,” then switched centuries for his next metaphor. “The administration is like the French Revolution,” Stone said. “You never know who will be beheaded next.” But Stone didn’t believe that Scaramucci would stay far from the president for long. “As you know, none of us are ever really gone. He still has the president’s cellphone, the president’s private number. Just because he’s not in the White House, no one should think his influence has gone.” When I spoke to Scaramucci on Tuesday afternoon, the financier was more interested in justifying his recent past. From the beginning of his time in the Trump White House, way back on July 20, critics said that Scaramucci was too similar to Trump, too eager to be on TV, to last. Scaramucci was keenly aware of that particular liability. It explains why his opening news conference was so filled with compliments for the president. He knew there was only one person watching whose opinion of him mattered. “The president thought I killed it,” Scaramucci told me the following day, still clearly hyped up by his experience in the White House briefing room.
“If you were 7 inches taller, I’d be worried,” Trump told Scaramucci, according to someone familiar with the conversation who asked not to be named quoting the president. The euphoria wouldn’t last long. A Politico reporter alerted Scaramucci that Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker tweeted Wednesday night that Scaramucci was at dinner with the president, first lady Melania Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News co-president Bill Shine.
Scaramucci was livid about the information being passed on to a reporter. For one thing, he said the guest list was incomplete. The tweets didn’t mention the presence of Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, co-hosts of “Fox & Friends,” as well as White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Vice President Mike Pence, who, he said, left before the sit-down dinner. For another, he knew that the full guest list also included Kimberly Guilfoyle, co-host of “The Five” on Fox News. Early the next morning, Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine confirmed that Guilfoyle was there. Scaramucci realized that the inclusion of Guilfoyle would raise suspicion. He said he was aware that some associates and members of the media were gossiping about his friendship with the Fox host and feared this particular connection would only make matters worse. He said he took it as “an attack.” Scaramucci strongly denies having a sexual relationship with Guilfoyle. Stone, a friend of Guilfoyle’s, explained that Scaramucci and Guilfoyle “are very close friends but nothing more.” He added, “He is way too short for Kimberly.” Through a Fox News spokesperson, Guilfoyle said she’s known Scaramucci for years through her work at Fox News and the two are “good friends.” As soon as Scaramucci returned from Wednesday night’s dinner, he called Lizza and gave his now-infamous interview, published Thursday, in which he suggested that former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was a “paranoid schizophrenic” and that White House chief strategist Steve Bannon practiced auto-fellatio. Scaramucci said he felt burned by the interview. “The Lizzas and Scaramuccis have been friends for over 50 years. My dad knew his dad from construction, and we were building a personal relationship. Most of what I said was humorous and joking. Legally, it may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And he knew that.” Still, Scaramucci told me, he has plans to take Lizza out for a beer.
When I asked Lizza for his response, he wrote back: “I’ve only known Anthony in his capacity as a Trump surrogate and then White House communications director. We are not and have never been ‘old family friends,’ though I think our fathers knew each other, so maybe that’s what he’s talking about. (The Long Island Italian world in that generation is relatively small.) But again, that would not be a reason to suppress an explosive on-the-record interview.” According to several sources close to the White House, the president was initially amused by the Lizza exchange but changed his opinion when he saw how much negative attention it was bringing. Scaramucci said he offered to resign before the weekend. The president told him that wouldn’t be necessary, but he instructed Scaramucci to “watch it” in the future, according to someone familiar with the conversation. I spoke with Scaramucci on Saturday morning, and he sounded defeated. “I think I have strep,” he said. On top of everything else, the night before, The New York Post had broken the news of his impending divorce from his second wife, Deidre Ball.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
That Scaramucci’s marriage was in trouble was hardly a secret. Long before Ball filed for divorce on July 6, Scaramucci was open with friends and associates about what he believed to be the sorry state of their union and how they were struggling through regular counseling sessions. He just hated that his relationship was being discussed in public. A follow-up report from the Post said that Scaramucci didn’t attend the birth of their son last week. Instead, he sent Ball a short congratulatory text. Scaramucci said this is an unfair characterization of events. He told me that Ball’s due date was Aug. 9, so when he boarded Air Force One to West Virginia last Monday to attend the president’s address at the National Scout Jamboree, he didn’t think he’d be in danger of missing the birth. As soon as she texted him that she was going into labor, he said, he looked into chartering a plane from West Virginia but discovered that there was a wide no fly-zone around Air Force One. He explained that he decided to wait to fly back to Washington with the president, then travel to New York from there. As of Tuesday afternoon, he still hadn’t met his son. Scaramucci claimed that right after the birth Ball texted him her request for some space. When I asked about this text, Ball’s lawyer, Jill Stone, responded: “Any texts of that nature had nothing to do with the baby or seeing the baby.” (Jill Stone said she couldn’t comment on the rest of Scaramucci’s version of events.) When I spoke to Scaramucci on Saturday, he didn’t have much to say about the collapse of his marriage. “It’s fine. I mean, what am I going to do?” He perked up when he started talking about the fantastic team he was going to bring into the White House’s communications shop and the big plans he was going to enact after a tumultuous first week. But on Monday morning, Scaramucci knew he was cooked. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the new chief of staff, who insisted that all White House staff report to him, asked for his resignation. “It was a very polite conversation,” Scaramucci says. Scaramucci then went to see Trump, who was unavailable. He ended up speaking with the president, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, separately later in the day by telephone. All were gracious, he said. “The president told me he knows I have his back, but he has to try to tighten the ship.” So what are you going to do next, I asked him. “I am now going to go dark,” he said. And then? “Then I will reemerge.” He paused. “As me.” CLARIFICATION: The section about Ryan Lizza’s and Olivia Nuzzi’s tweets was changed to more accurately reflect the night’s sequence of events. Source: http://allofbeer.com/why-the-mooch-lost-his-cool/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/why-the-mooch-lost-his-cool/ (CNN)An archeological find in China may be the first evidence that beer was an important product in China many years before the experts originally thought. It may have even inspired the development of a sophisticated society.
Archeologists from Stanford University unearthed what they think is an ancient brewery at the Mijiaya site in China’s Shaanxi province. Their findings were published in the latest edition of PNAS.
The team found two subterranean pits with beer-making equipment that included funnels, pots and amphorae holding the residue of what probably was 5,000-year-old beer.
“The shapes and styles of the vessels show stylistic similarities to the brewing equipment in the historical period and modern ethnographic records,” said study co-author Jiajing Wang.
The archeologists believe the pits would have acted like an ancient cooler, helping in the beer-making process and with storage.
Archeologists have found evidence of 11,000-year-old brewing troughs at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
Beer was also the national drink in Mesopotamia and Egypt, according to research from Xavier University theologist Michael Homan. You could get paid in beer or pay for your bride with it. It was used as medicine and as a cosmetic.
There are ancient gods dedicated to beer, like the Sumerian goddess Ninkasi, who has her own drinking hymn. Temples kept their own brewers on the payroll.
Even the modern God (i.e. Yahweh), was believed to have a sizable drinking habit. The ancients were encouraged to offer it as a daily libation as is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, Numbers 28: 7-10.
The benefits of beer
Beer in the ancient world was used much like it is now, as a kind of social lubricant. (“Hey, handsome ancient Sumarian stonecutter, let me buy you a beer. You come here often?”). Beer has also been found in paintings at ancient brothels.
But it also served in a more important everyday role: Beer was a much safer alternative to drinking water in the pre-Brita-filter era. The alcohol killed many of the microorganisms you’d find in your local watering hole.
In this study, the authors suggest that beer drinking, often a habit we associate more with frat parties than with sophisticated ftes, may have actually spawned a social complexity not seen in Chinese culture previously.
Public buildings from that time period suggest a kind of hierarchy in the culture. It may have had an elite class that engaged in a kind of competitive feasting and drinking.
Beer, the researchers argue, “may have contributed to the emergence of hierarchical societies.” In other words, it may have been one of the driving forces behind the development of sophisticated cultures in an area known as the cradle of Chinese civilization.
The development of beer bellies, however, is probably a more modern phenomenon.
Source: http://allofbeer.com/5000-year-old-brewery-discovered-in-china/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/5000-year-old-brewery-discovered-in-china/ |
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