#fact checking

aeide-thea:

dictionnaire-infernal:

Memento Mori watch owned by Mary, Queen of Scots. 16th century. Engraved along the base of the skull is a verse from Horace: “Pale death visits with impartial foot the cottages of the poor and the castles of the rich.“ 

OP’s caption misidentifies this very interesting piece! i initially grew suspicious because the visible portion of the inscription along the base of the skull is quite clearly in christo omnes uiuificabūtur, or ‘in christ all will be restored to life,’ which forms no part of the quote OP cites and certainly is nothing a pre-christian latin poet would have written—horace died in 8 BC, and while i don’t pretend to be an expert on jesus, wikipedia says scholarly consensus sets his date of birth between 6 and 4 BC. so unless we’re going to claim a gift of anachronistic prophecy for horace in the way some people like to for vergil, this is clearly not horace’s writing.

however! what it is is a thoroughly googleable quote: what we’re looking at here is 1 corinthians 15:22 as rendered in the vulgate, et sicut in Adam omnes moriuntur ita et in Christo omnes vivificabuntur. which is the inscription on the 17^th-centurymontre en forme de tête de mort by genevan watchmaker jean rousseau (grandfather of the more famous jean-jacques!), now in the collection of the louvre; the listing on the museum’s website has more, higher-quality pictures of what is without question a very beautiful, very fascinating objet d'art, and equally without question the selfsame one pictured here.

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that said, the OP wasn’t inventing things out of whole cloth: a memento mori watch associated with mary, queen of scots, which features the quotation described, does exist. in fact, there seem to have been multiple such watches, at least one of which is now in the collection of, and on display in, the worshipful company of clockmakers’museum in london. their website provides some nicely clear images of watch and accompanying leather case:

tumblr’s rendering is of course fuzzier, but i think it’s still clear that (a) this is not the same watch as the first, if you pay careful attention to the details of the decoration; and that (b) this one, unlike the other, is visibly engraved with the quote OP mentions: around its forehead you can make out pallida · mors · æquo · pulsat · pede · pauperum · tabernas… before the curve of the skull conceals the rest.

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so! multiple very neat death’s-head watches. the one in the louvre seems to have traveled from geneva (where it was made) to its current home in paris by way of besançon, which is logical enough from a geographical perspective; i wasn’t able to find any information about owners before the penultimate collector, or about the original commissioner, although i suppose it’s always possible a master watchmaker might have produced something like this of his own accord as a showpiece, to be displayed in his shop rather than sold? the one in london is inscribed ‘moysant, blois,’ and the only real conjecture as to its provenance i found was this admittedly very fanciful confection: the idea that perhaps mary stuart, then living in orléans, commissioned the piece from a watchmaker in the next town over, in somewhat-macabre memory of her dead husband, and brought it back with her to scotland and thence to england, is a pleasingly tidy fantasy! unfortunately it seems to be just that, as the museum’s description of the watch dates it to the ‘late 18th century or early 19th century,’ well after the former queen’s execution in 1587.

I was searching for a spearmint tea after hearing a tip that spearmint is good for your skin. It was tough to track anything down in my local grocery stores, but this box of Celestial Seasonings tea was one of only a few teas I found with a blend that included spearmint leaves. (Couldn’t even find anything in bulk.)

In the spirit of looking for environmentally-friendly options, I wanted to see if the tea packaging for this brand would be recyclable, but I came across a quote on the back of the box that struck me as odd: “Sustainable Packaging. We use tea bags without strings, tags, or staples, keeping tons of material out of landfills every year.”

Upon first read, that sounds great, right? But it didn’t answer my question: can I recycle the packaging and compost the tea bags? The answer would determine my purchasing the object or not, yet the box made no clear note of it.

That leads me to my ultimate question: Why can’t companies make it more transparent whether or not their products are recyclable? Nowhere on this box could I find out whether or not the packaging or bags could be recycled or composted.

The more I dig into going zero waste, the more I find myself standing in the grocery store study packaging to look for recycling instructions. It’d be nice to see a standardized (and required) line or symbol indicating the recyclability of the packaging and its components — both for my convenience and the sake of the recycling center in town. In my mind, it makes just as much sense as putting the nutrition label on the box.

You’ll see on plastics the number indicating which type of recyclable plastic it is, but often almond milk cartons, produce containers, and box packaging, for example, don’t mention anything and I’m left to guess whether or not the packaging can in fact be recycled.

Shouldn’t companies have an obligation to fully inform their consumers not just what they’re consuming in terms of the food, but the packaging that comes with it?

For the record, I found out later from the company’s website that the box and the tea bags are able to be recycled and composted. But because I couldn’t find it on the box while I was staring at a wall of tea options, I made the in-store decision to go with the box of tea that was more expensive, but was up front about the recyclability of the packaging and tea bags.

Considering the tea I went with and the tea pictured had the same recycling/composting ability, this would’ve been an easy win for the less expensive Celestial Seasonings, if only they’d just included a single line with the information I needed. The same rule applies beyond tea boxes — and man, would it save me so much time in the grocery store.

Do any of you have thoughts on a standardized recyclability index for food packaging? Is there something I’ve missed? My ears (and asks) are open!

betterworldrebel:

#13 bamboo toothbrushes

Bamboo grows very fast, so it is the perfect material for an item that needs to be replaced every three month. Unlike plastic. A plastic toothbrush is used for a couple of weeks and then stays on this planet for several hundred years, since it will not biodegrade. That makes no sense. Switch to bamboo. Plus: You can just burry the old brushes in the backyard. 

Before I reblog, I always do a little fact-checking and research first to make sure I’m not disseminating inaccurate information.

I found the above post to be a bit misleading. It says you can “just burry (sic) the old brushes in the backyard,” seemingly implying that the entire brush is biodegradable.

This isn’t the case. While it’s certainly a good step to buy a bamboo brush rather than a landfill-destined plastic brush, even a bamboo brush isn’t fully biodegradable.

I found that currently, no one has been able to create toothbrushes that are fully biodegradable because the bristles are typically made of some inorganic material like nylon — unless they use boar bristles. This doesn’t necessarily make boar bristle brushes the go-to option: some people who use these types of brushes complain of an odor, in addition to the fact that these brushes may not be considered vegan since they’re made with a hair harvested from an animal.

Within the realm of bamboo brushes, one of the seemingly best options is made by a company called Brush With Bamboo. According to their website, the bristles of their sustainably-made brushes are made with 62% castor bean oil and 38% nylon, rendering them “biobased, but still not biodegradable,” since nylon doesn’t decompose.

So if you bury your bamboo brush, sure, most of it will decompose. But the bristles won’t. In fact, most bamboo brush companies advise you to tweeze out the bristles before attempting to compost.

Sure, the bristles are small and seemingly insignificant, but you should know what you’re getting into before telling all your friends you’ve got a fully biodegradable toothbrush graveyard buried in your garden.

I’d be remiss not to include that there is one option, and it’s been around for centuries: the neem chew stick. It’s the only truly biodegradable option, since it’s made from a neem plant and is a literal stick. It’s exactly what it sounds like. To use it, you chew on the end of the stick until it frays into bristles, then you brush.

The downside? You have to chew your toothbrush down before you can use it. And when it comes to brushing your teeth, the more inconvenient it is, the less likely you are to do it. And one thing I really want to emphasize on my own blog is making more sustainable choices easier, not harder.

Until someone creates the perfect toothbrush — ergonomic, wallet-friendly, biodegradable, and not made from pig hair — it looks like the best option on the market is a bamboo brush. Just make sure to tweeze out those bristles before you toss them in the dirt.

Have you seen any other notable sustainably-made or biodegradable toothbrushes? My ears (and asks) are open.

Claim: Michael Jackson’s music video for “Black or White”provoked outrage for scenes where the musician destroys racist graffiti.

Notes on Tumblr: ~900

Verdict: False

Buried in a post rightfully attacking the casting of a white actor as Michael Jackson and people using the lyrics to his song “Black or White” in a misguided attempt to defend it is this claim about the ending sequence to the song’s music video. Unfortunately, while the overall point is correct, this claim is not true.

The post contains a link to the rare full version of the video, which it is dubbed “Black or White: The Complete Version”. We’ll see why this is the case later. It indeed does contain scenes of Michael Jackson destroying racist graffiti. But these scenes were not the same when the video debuted on November 21st, 1991 on FOX, MTV, and BET, when this post claims people were outraged by the scene because of its anti-white supremecy statement.

In the original video, the sequence where Michael Jackson destroys cars and windows did not feature any graffiti and carried no political message. According to Michael Jackson, the video was meant to represent “the panther’s animalistic behavior“. It was the scene’s context-free destruction and suggestive imagery that provoked complaints, not any anti-racism message.

That brings us to the Complete Version. Far from being the object of outrage, the racist graffiti was added digitally to this later release of the video to quell outrage by making the destruction more understandable:

As the full video is infrequently shown (even the official upload on Youtube is a short version) and the edited version of the long video has long supplanted the controversial original when shown on TV or released in compilations, it’s easy to assume that the more popular form of the video is the original. However, this is not the case.

Did the video for Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” inspire anger among white viewers for its statement against racism when it aired on the FOX network in 1991? Not quite.

Claim:The French offered the United States a statue paying homage to slaves; the American government refused it and made their own statue with a white woman.

Verdict: FALSE

Tumblr Source: Natural Bods; 72,000 notes.

The statue on the left was sculpted in 2007 and is of no relation to the Statue of Liberty. None of the models for the Statue of Liberty were black; information can be found on Snopes.com.

Claim: A Fargo man cleared out snow with a flamethrower.

Verdict: Satire

This story originates from the FM Observer; that site’s Twitter feed describes it as “The Fargo-Moorhead area’s only satire news and entertainment website.”

Claim: This photo shows the Sphinx covered in snow after a unexpected snowfall.

Verdict: FALSE

On December 13th 2013 Egypt was hit by a extremely rare snow storm.

However, the widely-circulated photo above shows not the recent snow fall but a replica of the Sphinx in a Japanese theme park. Keen eyes may spot what appears to be the tip of the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Those interested in real photos of this snow storm can find them on social media; some examples can be found in this Huffington Post article. 

Claim: While a college student, David Cameron was a member of a group that made Hang Mandela posters.

Verdict: FALSE

While the Hang Mandela posters were produced by the Federation of Conservative Students, Cameron had just started college and was never active in politics during his time as a student.

Claim: David Cameron went on a fact-finding mission in South Africa on behalf of an anti-sactions group.

Verdict: TRUE

This trip is documented and Cameron has commented on it, saying his party was wrong to oppose sanctions.

Source:Buzzfeed, which in turn cites Cameron’s biographers and the Telegraph.

Claim: Yahoo claimed on Twitter that they would be filtering out explicit content on Tumblr.

Verdict: FALSE

Google and Twitter searches cannot locate this Tweet, just reactions to it.

In fact, a day before this supposed Tweet was made Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stated that she admired the diversity of content on Tumblr (including “not…brand safe” material, a oblique reference to pornography) and reiterated that Tumblr would operate as a independent company.

Finally, while Tumblr has introduced optional NSFW filtering of tags and marked certain blogs “NSFW” pornography has remained intact since the May post-date of this supposed Tweet.

Claim:Only two people in history have ever had their own symbols - Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler.

Verdict: FALSE

This Facebook forward cites a site called Start Impeachement Now, which warns about imminent financial collapse and national disaster before advising you to buy his survival kit.

The claim that only two people have had a symbol in history is laughable and the idea that Obama must be a fascist because he has a circular symbol and so did the Nazis is specious.

However, the question is: have only two people in history had their own symbols?

The answer is no.

Obama is not unique in creating a campaign symbol. He’s not even alone in creating a symbol modeled on the first letter of his name.

There’s the stylized “R” Mitt Romney used in 2012:

Much like the Obama symbol, it’s a stylized take on the first letter of his last name, and similarly draws on red, white and blue colors.

Throughout history many people have used symbols to represent themselves.

It is the whole concept behind medieval heraldry and family coat-of-arms. Here is the symbol of the British House of Windsor:

And in a different kind of royalty, an American Prince also used a symbol to represent himself:

Also many religious icons are represented with a symbol, such as the cross representing Jesus.

Far from just two people, the use of a symbol to represent oneself is common and accepted, and in no way designates a link to the fascism of Adolf Hitler.

Claim: Christian couple remains abstinent years after they’re married.

Verdict: Satire

This story has spread on Tumblr, and has been taken seriously by multiplewebsites, often reposted in its entirety as “news”.

The story originates from Lark News, a comedy website satirizing Christianity with invented stories. According to a interview with the site’s creator, people have taken their stories seriously enough to discuss them on radio shows and call their unaware subjects without a hint of irony.