Miscellaneous

One of the two visitors to this blog today (a good day, traffic wise!) came from google; apparently a curious Gainesville, Florida resident wanted to know: “was benjamin franklin a poon hound?” As it turns out, my screenplay on General Washington’s Tavern Porter (which featured Franklin as a character) comes up third on the list of google results for such a query. Score!

Of course, there isn’t much substance to my claim of poon-houndery in that post, so I figured it might be worth expanding on Franklin’s love of women. For instance, he had at least one illegitimate child, William, who Franklin blames on his tendency to consort with “low women.” I have a biography of Franklin on my shelf, and a quick look at the index shows no less than 12 references throughout the book that concern Franklin’s “flirtatious relationships” with women. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that anything illicit was going on, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire… Perhaps the several sections on his “sexual appetites” are more indicative of his love of poon.

But I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Franklin’s attitude towards women was somewhat enlightened for his time (somewhat… for his time). He seemed to truly enjoy the company of women, and while it is true that he spent a lot of time flirting with them, he also took them seriously, often discussing important issues of the day with them. Speaking of which, Franklin was obviously also an instrumental Founding Father of the nation, and, of course, he brewed beer too! (Gee, I wonder what this post will do to the search terms that lead here?)

Update: It seems I’m not the only one having fun with our Founding Fathers and the beers they make/drink. This post is brilliant and funny, and features Franklin, Adams, Kennedy and Lincoln. Certainly more substantive and accurate than my original screenplay…

Twitter continues to be the most entertaining source on the controversy (see previous post on the subject). My favorite recent tweet:

Overheard near ReasonHQ kitchen: “There is definitely some evidence of people drinking Four Loko out of wine glasses.”

Heh.

I’ve never had any Four Loco (and from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty foul), but the recent news that the FDA will be effectively banning caffeinated alcoholic beverages has caused a bit of a stir in the beer bloggery world (as it turns out, much of the hand-wringing seems to be a bit overblown – don’t worry, our coffee stouts are safe). I don’t really have much to say about this, but I did want to point to the best insight anyone has had about the whole flap:

People are actually acting about Four Loko the way people in the movie should’ve acted toward The Stuff.

Brilliant. Now I want to watch The Stuff again.

Over at Badass Digest, Devin Faraci adds an unlikely member to their Badass Hall of Fame:

A Sumerian godess, Ninkasi was a specialist god. She let other gods deal with the mundane shit like creating the world or healing the sick or governing the rains. Ninkasi got down to business, and her business was brewing. Ninkasi was the Sumerian goddess of beer.

He then goes into the Hymn of Ninkasi, which apparently doubles as a recipe for beer itself (paging Dogfish Head: I think you have a new candidate for your Ancient Ales series). The post also goes into the oft-repeated rumor of beer helping create civilization, a subject that is apparently gaining credibility (it’s probably still wishful thinking, but whatever). In any case, here’s to Ninkasi, the brewing god.

Update: Apparently there’s a brewery called Ninkasi Brewing Company in Oregon. Go figure. Looks like they make some good stuff too, though I don’t recall seeing any of them around here (they seem to be West Coast only at this point, and of course since I’m in PA, no shipping to me either).