Weekend QoD: Saturday, October 25
Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 8:10 am
Resources: Natural and Unnatural
In keeping with this month’s weekend them of stuff related to government and politics and countries, let’s explore the stuff that countries fight over.
Same old, same old: please use spoilers for your answers, and this will be open until noon on Tuesday.
1. Juratė, daughter of the Lithuanian sky god, Perkūnas, lived in a palace beneath the Baltic Sea that her father built for her. Juratė fell in love with Kastytis, a fisherman, and brought him to live with her in her palace. This ticked off her old man, because he (1) wanted her to marry Patrimpas, the water god, and (2) didn’t like the idea of his daughter having the hots for a mortal. So Perkūnas let fly with one of his thunderbolts and blew the palace to smithereens, killing Kastytis and leaving Juratė chained to the ruins forEVER. To this day, fragments of the palace wash up on the Baltic shore, where they are known as Lithuanian Gold (Lithuania doesn’t have any of the real stuff, so this has to do). The fragments are commonly seen as small polished bits that are used in jewelry, but there are some substantial chunks: I have a piece on my wall that is about the size of two large fists. The Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I gave to Peter the Great a room that was made out of this same stuff; the Russians expanded it, until it covered a space of 55 square meters, and contained something like six tons of this stuff. Alas, the Germans looted it during World War II, and most of it has been lost. If you burn this stuff, it gives a wonderful pine forest smell; it also has electrostatic properties, and the modern word ‘electron’ comes from the Greek word for this stuff, which was, well, ‘electron.’
2. Aphrodite was born on a Mediterranean island famous for a particular metal, so famous in fact that the metal takes its name from the island. The very first Roman coinage, in about the 4th Century BC, was made out of chunks of this stuff (I have one); they later used cast ingots of this stuff in financial transactions (I do not have any of that-- it runs like $25,000 for a nice piece), then they made coins by pouring molten metal into molds, and finally, they struck real coins from ‘blanks’ made of this stuff. The first US coins, minted in 1793, were made from this same metal; somewhat ironically, the US mint had to buy the coinage ‘blanks’ from a British firm, because no one in the US could make them properly; that was a real problem during the War or 1812, such that no coins were made of this metal in 1815.
3. This substance, which is made from a combination of an alkaline metal and poisonous gas, has historically been very valuable. You are probably not paid with this substance, but the word for your pay suggests that, in fact, you ARE paid in this substance, and you darn well better be worth it. Mozart was born in a town that took its name from this stuff: in the early medieval period it was famous for the enormous number of barges of this stuff that passed through (subject to a mighty toll).
4. The oldest treaty in the world that is currently in force dates to 1373. Although it is primarily a political alliance, subsequent treaties that the two countries entered into dealt primarily with one country’s export of a particular product to the other country: the multi-eponymous product (I like to say ‘eponymous’) takes its name from the city from which the product was originally shipped, but then, the exporting country itself also takes its name from that same city, and that city takes its name from a Latin word that means ‘harbor’ or ‘haven,’ and we routinely use the word to refer to harbors (and to refer to the product that was shipped from one country to the other).
5. For a time, Nauru was one of the wealthiest countries in the world, as measured by per capita income (it doesn’t actually take that much income, when you are the smallest island nation in the world, and the least populated member nation of the UN; did you know that Nauru doesn’t even have a capital city?) Where was I… oh, yes, they were loaded, and all because of a particular resource that they exported. But unfortunately for the Nauruans, although this resource is renewable, they took it out much faster than it could renew itself, so it’s pretty much all gone, leaving Nauru pretty much in the toilet. Nauru has more recently become a haven for off-shore banks, money-laundering, tax scams, etc., because Nauru is pretty much just a crappy little island without much going for it.
6. There is an OB/GYN in Northern Virginia by the name of Harry Beaver; I suspect that when his patients have a gynecological problem, they feel comfortable if they can just ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ As everyone knows, there is no such thing as too much beaver. There is a lot of money to be made selling beaver, in fact, the very first American multi-millionaire actually made his fortune selling beaver (and other furs). His family was somewhat legendary for their wealth and social position, although I doubt that they told people ‘We made our money peddling beaver’; the first American mult0millionaire’s eponymous great-grandson was one of the more famous passengers who died when the Titanic sank.
7. The Hormel company sells Spam, but you will probably never receive an e-mail from them. On the other hand, you probably do receive a lot of spam offering to make you rich, erect and thin.
8. Comparing imports to exports can be a lot of fun: for example, Iran is one of the world’s leader exporters of petroleum, but it is also one of the major importers of petroleum products-- it seems they have no refineries, so they must import gasoline. Saudi Arabia also exports a lot of petroleum, but somewhat surprisingly, it imports another product that is vital to the construction projects that are going on there.
9. King Midas is the main character in several myths, in one of which he was given the ‘gift’ of the golden touch: all that he touched turned to gold. When he found that he could not eat or drink, because all the food and drink he touched turned to gold, he asked for the ‘gift’ to be taken away, and this wish was granted: he was told to wash his hands in the Pactolus River, and the golden touch washed away, leaving rich deposits of golden sands in the river, which enriched Midas’ kingdom. Some of this is true: there actually was a King Midas (several, actually-- it was a dynastic name used for many generations), and the Pactolus was famous for the gold in its bed.
1. The substance that Perkūnas used to build Juratė’s palace was:
2. The metal that takes its name from Aphrodite’s birth place is:
3. The substance that was transported on barges through Mozart’s hometown is:
4. a. The country that exports the eponymous product is:
b. The country that imports the product is:
c. The eponymous product is:
5. The natural resource that once made Nauru wealthy is:
6. The beaver-peddling multi-millionaire was:
7. The country that is the biggest source of non-Hormel spam is:
8. Saudi Arabian construction products have caused Saudi Arabia to import a lot of:
9. Midas was king of:
In keeping with this month’s weekend them of stuff related to government and politics and countries, let’s explore the stuff that countries fight over.
Same old, same old: please use spoilers for your answers, and this will be open until noon on Tuesday.
1. Juratė, daughter of the Lithuanian sky god, Perkūnas, lived in a palace beneath the Baltic Sea that her father built for her. Juratė fell in love with Kastytis, a fisherman, and brought him to live with her in her palace. This ticked off her old man, because he (1) wanted her to marry Patrimpas, the water god, and (2) didn’t like the idea of his daughter having the hots for a mortal. So Perkūnas let fly with one of his thunderbolts and blew the palace to smithereens, killing Kastytis and leaving Juratė chained to the ruins forEVER. To this day, fragments of the palace wash up on the Baltic shore, where they are known as Lithuanian Gold (Lithuania doesn’t have any of the real stuff, so this has to do). The fragments are commonly seen as small polished bits that are used in jewelry, but there are some substantial chunks: I have a piece on my wall that is about the size of two large fists. The Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I gave to Peter the Great a room that was made out of this same stuff; the Russians expanded it, until it covered a space of 55 square meters, and contained something like six tons of this stuff. Alas, the Germans looted it during World War II, and most of it has been lost. If you burn this stuff, it gives a wonderful pine forest smell; it also has electrostatic properties, and the modern word ‘electron’ comes from the Greek word for this stuff, which was, well, ‘electron.’
2. Aphrodite was born on a Mediterranean island famous for a particular metal, so famous in fact that the metal takes its name from the island. The very first Roman coinage, in about the 4th Century BC, was made out of chunks of this stuff (I have one); they later used cast ingots of this stuff in financial transactions (I do not have any of that-- it runs like $25,000 for a nice piece), then they made coins by pouring molten metal into molds, and finally, they struck real coins from ‘blanks’ made of this stuff. The first US coins, minted in 1793, were made from this same metal; somewhat ironically, the US mint had to buy the coinage ‘blanks’ from a British firm, because no one in the US could make them properly; that was a real problem during the War or 1812, such that no coins were made of this metal in 1815.
3. This substance, which is made from a combination of an alkaline metal and poisonous gas, has historically been very valuable. You are probably not paid with this substance, but the word for your pay suggests that, in fact, you ARE paid in this substance, and you darn well better be worth it. Mozart was born in a town that took its name from this stuff: in the early medieval period it was famous for the enormous number of barges of this stuff that passed through (subject to a mighty toll).
4. The oldest treaty in the world that is currently in force dates to 1373. Although it is primarily a political alliance, subsequent treaties that the two countries entered into dealt primarily with one country’s export of a particular product to the other country: the multi-eponymous product (I like to say ‘eponymous’) takes its name from the city from which the product was originally shipped, but then, the exporting country itself also takes its name from that same city, and that city takes its name from a Latin word that means ‘harbor’ or ‘haven,’ and we routinely use the word to refer to harbors (and to refer to the product that was shipped from one country to the other).
5. For a time, Nauru was one of the wealthiest countries in the world, as measured by per capita income (it doesn’t actually take that much income, when you are the smallest island nation in the world, and the least populated member nation of the UN; did you know that Nauru doesn’t even have a capital city?) Where was I… oh, yes, they were loaded, and all because of a particular resource that they exported. But unfortunately for the Nauruans, although this resource is renewable, they took it out much faster than it could renew itself, so it’s pretty much all gone, leaving Nauru pretty much in the toilet. Nauru has more recently become a haven for off-shore banks, money-laundering, tax scams, etc., because Nauru is pretty much just a crappy little island without much going for it.
6. There is an OB/GYN in Northern Virginia by the name of Harry Beaver; I suspect that when his patients have a gynecological problem, they feel comfortable if they can just ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ As everyone knows, there is no such thing as too much beaver. There is a lot of money to be made selling beaver, in fact, the very first American multi-millionaire actually made his fortune selling beaver (and other furs). His family was somewhat legendary for their wealth and social position, although I doubt that they told people ‘We made our money peddling beaver’; the first American mult0millionaire’s eponymous great-grandson was one of the more famous passengers who died when the Titanic sank.
7. The Hormel company sells Spam, but you will probably never receive an e-mail from them. On the other hand, you probably do receive a lot of spam offering to make you rich, erect and thin.
8. Comparing imports to exports can be a lot of fun: for example, Iran is one of the world’s leader exporters of petroleum, but it is also one of the major importers of petroleum products-- it seems they have no refineries, so they must import gasoline. Saudi Arabia also exports a lot of petroleum, but somewhat surprisingly, it imports another product that is vital to the construction projects that are going on there.
9. King Midas is the main character in several myths, in one of which he was given the ‘gift’ of the golden touch: all that he touched turned to gold. When he found that he could not eat or drink, because all the food and drink he touched turned to gold, he asked for the ‘gift’ to be taken away, and this wish was granted: he was told to wash his hands in the Pactolus River, and the golden touch washed away, leaving rich deposits of golden sands in the river, which enriched Midas’ kingdom. Some of this is true: there actually was a King Midas (several, actually-- it was a dynastic name used for many generations), and the Pactolus was famous for the gold in its bed.
1. The substance that Perkūnas used to build Juratė’s palace was:
2. The metal that takes its name from Aphrodite’s birth place is:
3. The substance that was transported on barges through Mozart’s hometown is:
4. a. The country that exports the eponymous product is:
b. The country that imports the product is:
c. The eponymous product is:
5. The natural resource that once made Nauru wealthy is:
6. The beaver-peddling multi-millionaire was:
7. The country that is the biggest source of non-Hormel spam is:
8. Saudi Arabian construction products have caused Saudi Arabia to import a lot of:
9. Midas was king of:
sand. Wonderful questions!