Mother’s Day

May 11, 2026

Good morning! Happy Feast of Holy Motherhood! No feast ever invented was more intrinsically warranted. Who do you suppose is the most famous/ impactful mother of all time — not including Mary of Nazareth? There appears to be SOME agreement it might have been Marie Curie, but c’mon, can you ever really answer that question?!

• With temperatures (F) dipping below-freezing the last several nights in Central Minnesota, the arrival of spring has realllly slowed down.
  • Slow is better for spring… each moment lasts longer and life is more sustainable.
• Batteries.  It’s not plastics, it’s batteries.
  • The manufacture, installation, and implementation of additional batteries is expected to increase overall by as much as 50% annually in the near future.  (Global Energy Perspectives, Etc., et al., 2026)
• We’re wondering whether the E-Mail Out-of-Office feature is out of vogue — and perhaps a bit disingenuous?
• What do you suppose is the ratio of pianos (purchased/ donated — new or used) moved into homes for purposes of making music vs. those now silent and collecting dust?
• It will soon have been 250 years since the North American colonies declared sovereign independence from Great Britain.
  • “Let us create, manage, and struggle with our own problems,” we said to George at the time.
    • Have you read the document?
  • I’m wondering how many of our grievances would rise to the level of a civil war and/or a revolution nowadays?
  • The occasion of 250 years seems to invite retrospection and lots of Liszts, Franz that is.
    • Best porridge in New England
    • Best grits in South Carolina
    • Best crabs in Maryland
    • Best pub fare in Virginia
    • Best scrapple in Pennsylvania
    • Best oysters in Delaware
    • Best blueberries in Maine… wait, that wasn’t a colony yet.
    • Best performance of Hamilton in New York
      • You get the idea.
• Martinez, Etc., et al. have gone to all the trouble of declaring the Top 25 U.S. Inventions/ Innovations of the last 250 years.
  • How would you rank-order these?
    • Light bulb — telephone — airplane — refrigeration — polio vaccine — birth control pill — air conditioning — Roomba
      • Those up above are a few of the specific innovations/ inventions, but how about humans?
• Which human do you suppose made the biggest entrepreneurial impact the last 250 years?  (McCormick, Bean)
  • By a lonnng shot, according to these two guys and their research:  Hank Ford
    • That’s right, none other than Hank himself.
    • More-or-less almost tied for 2nd place:
      • J. D. Rockefeller
      • Steve Jobs
      • Andrew Carnegie
      • Bill Gates
      • Tom Edison
      • Sam Walton
  • Who is on YOUR Liszt?
    • No women, which is awkward/ embarrassing/ troubling, though if you noted in an earlier section, the Roomba was invented by a woman.  (Helen Greiner)
    • Oh, back to the greatest innovations of all time, part of the narrative was purposefully obfuscated.
    • The #1 most impactful innovation:  Internet (Credit Al Gore )
• Compare and contrast to today:
  • Ben Franklin, Tom Jefferson, John Adams, Jim Madison and others not only promoted, but URGED — and signed into law — vaccinations against diseases, most notably at the time, smallpox.
    • Ben Franklin believed ALL diseases could be eradicated given time and research.
    • These leaders and others, Congress of course, were the founders of what became The United States Public Health Service.  (Abrams)
• For our readers in the big city:
  • We all know about vertical transportation, right?  Credit Elisha Otis.
• Of course, rarely does one human act alone.
  • Almost all innovations — if not all — are a result of teamwork.
  • One person gets the credit because s/he has a better publicist and/or because our brains can’t process the names of all those who labored endlessly at Menlo Park and elsewhere.
• What’s next?
  • According to Blackman’s research w
  • e will soon be able to control the weather in micro environments, such as for the picnic in your backyard, maybe.
• As you know by now, The Smithsonian rarely disappoints.
  • The latest edition features a few of the pubs, road houses, and saloons where the colonists and loyalists talked big, plotted tactics, and drank LOTS of ale.
  • At one New York saloon, George and his buddies ran up a $26,000 tab — in today’s equivalent U.S. dollars.  (Whoa!)
    • 109 bottles of wine at Fraunces Tavern… check it out:   Geo. Washington $26,000
    • For some of our readers that might seem like a small amount for a revolutionary smack-down?
• “Constructive dialogue and debate will set the best-performing companies apart from competitors.”  (Sternfels)