Intl. Notebook | Jan 28 2009 |
It’s almost quaint to consider the naiveté folks had about the atomic bomb back in the 1960s. Long before they knew about nuclear winter, or electromagnetic pulse—indeed even before a certain ex-U.S. president began pronouncing the word “nucular”, thus rendering the entire subject something of a joke—people thought they could actually survive an atomic bombardment. Families built fallout shelters stocked with food, water, and medical necessities. But after the big clambake topside ended, how would the subterraneans know it was safe to stick their heads above ground again?
Thus the good people at Bendix Corporation, in the year of our delusion 1961, began manufacturing an indispensable little doodad called the Family Radiation Measurement Kit. For a mere $24.95 you got two small dosimeters, plus a charger/reader, along with two instruction booklets and, best of all—batteries were included! The Family Radiation Measurement Kit was even approved and recommended by the U.S. Office of Civil Defense, which is nice, but sort of a moot point, since if it malfunctioned you’d turn into a radioactive zombie and as we all know, they don’t litigate. You can find more info at the Civil Defense Museum website.
Vintage Pulp | Nov 6 2008 |
Film noir star Kirk Douglas and heavyweight director William Wyler teamed up for Detective Story, a hard-edged police procedural based on a stage play by Sidney Kingsley. In the course of a day at a typical precinct house, a tough guy detective mixes it up with all sorts of lowlifes, saving particular scorn for an abortionist. Yep, our detective is feeling pretty high and mighty until he discovers his beloved wife was once the man’s patient. Oops. This laugh-a-minute joyride, which comes off a little stagy more than half a century later but is still worth a viewing, premiered today in 1951.