Grey-Rock Brake Linings - Free avatars... better than that stupid movie!

Boy, I tell you, Asbestos was the wonder-material du jour back in '49. They made brake linings out of it, which, come to think of it, is one of the least horrifying uses for the stuff, back in the days before anybody cared that asbestos basically wanted everybody to die all the time. Brake linings are a comparatively sensible application for asbestos, as opposed to, say, retainers or diapers or something.

And, history doesn't get to use the ignorance plea. As early as 1898, factory inspectors noticed that asbestos had a weird "kinda sicky-killy" effect on workers. But I'm sure the good people at Raybestos made sure their workers were well looked-after, right?

Anyhoo, the reason this spot color ad found it's way onto my desk today is this great picture of a terrified driver. You could use him for lots of things. Because of his mind-boggling utility, we'll present him to you in a bunch of formats. Don't miss the avatar-friendly (NO, not that stupid movie written by a fifth grade girl!) 64x64, 96x96, and 128x128 sizes - just right for your favorite automotive forum. Just be sure and tell your jealous pals where you got it. Who's your buddy?

 Something very weird happens whenever I save these as JPEGs. His eyes turn grey. I can't figure why that's happening, so all these images below are PNGs. If the Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade can't give me an answer by high lunch, I'm sacking them and going back to the Commodore 64 for all my graphicking.

Click for 400px.

Click for 1000px.

64 x 64

96 x 96

128 x 128

Zonolite Insulating Fill - Swelter skelter.

Today's ad for Zonolite insulating fill was chosen for the great sweaty/comfortable man in the picture. He's funny. But what's vermiculite? Research and Googling Team, assemble!!!

Vermiculite is a mineral that can be mined, and has the weird property that it "exfoliates" or puffs up when heated to about 1200 degrees. It then has a light airy density, kind of like fiber fill, which makes it a good insulator. Hence, its use in homes.

Trouble is, where you mine vermiculite, you often find our old friend asbestos. The biggest vermiculite mine in America was located in Libby, Montana, and produced more than half of the world's vermiculite from 1925 to 1990. The other trouble is, there's some accusation that the operators of the mine knew their product had asbestos contamination and kept that information on the down low. Zonolite was made from vermiculite at the Libby mine. Wups. Lots of employees  at the mine died of cancer and related health problems. Here's a downer of a PDF if you want to read about the details of the workers' fucked-ness, but I won't blame you if you choose not to pour over the details. So, yeah. This ad was trying to sell you stuff that could make you sick and kill you if you used it exactly as directed by the manufacturer. It was sold in a form that you could pour in-between the rafters in your attic, where unwanted asbestos fibers could become airborne and inhaled, where they would lovingly embrace the alveoli in your lungs forever and ever and ever, until death do you part.

Vermiculite is also used as a soil conditioner for plants, because it aerates the soil and promotes growth. However, since the closing of the Libby mine, regulators have been pretty much on top of the whole asbestos thing and if you have a jar of vermiculite on your potting bench that was made after 1990, it's probably not going to kill you.

So, that was a weird little distraction. All I wanted was this sweaty guy as clip art. The "cool and comfy" version of him isn't complete enough to isolate and use separately, but  his miserable version is perfect. Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Squad, assemble!!! Bam.

What's he good for? Well, you can paste him in an email down to the building manager asking is the AC is broken, for example. Or, you can send him in an inappropriate email to a coworker asking if it's "hot in here or is it just you?" This will probably win you a trip over to the HR office for a little sexual harassment discussion. Don't say we didn't warn you. There must be other uses for this guy.

You're welcome.

Fram Air Filters - Fibers in your diet.

Phil Are GO! has presented hard-hitting journalistic expose's on the hazards of asbestos in the past, and today is kind of another one, sort of. In 1957, Fram offered this send-away promotion for a pizza kit, featuring a gaily decorated asbestos cushioned stove mat. I try to keep asbestos away from my food, but... you say it's gaily decorated? Okay, sign me up.

Dear Fram: Please get your racial stereotypes right. Chef Sepe is clearly wearing a French moustache, when everybody knows pizza is commonly misunderstood to be an Italian creation.

It's not like Fram is asking us to rub asbestos ON our pizza. It's only a gaily decorated asbestos cushioned stove mat. But to our ears, this is like inviting us to pull our piping-hot pizza from the oven, and place it on a mat made from the Ebola virus. It's not like you're eating Ebola. You're only using it to cool off your pizza, so calm the eff down.

Sure, we could judge Fram, with all our modern knowledge and understanding, but maybe we should take the high road? Maybe we should try and understand that, at the time, Fram didn't have the benefit of our decades of research. After all, the first observed asbestos-related health issues were only observed by the Greeks around 100 A.D., and medical articles documenting the hazards of asbestos only date back to 1898. Sure, it's easy for us to be hard on Fram with our 1,913 years of perspective. But, try and imagine how hard it must have been to truly understand the dangers of asbestos with only 1,857 years of evidence behind you?

By way of example, we barely know that Ford Pintos explode. After all, that information only came to
light in 1972, which was only thirtywhatever years ago. We need more time to grasp the danger of driving an exploding vehicle whose design flaws were judged "too expensive" to be fixed properly by the manufacturer, who decided that it was more cost effective to allow people to die in fiery explosions and pay the legal fees than to pay for a vehicle recall for around $100 $11 per car.

In another 1,883 years, we will definitely be able to say for sure that the Pinto was a poorly designed car whose appalling safety issues were covered up by the manufacturer so that it could be sold to families who would meet their fiery doom in them. But for now, because the information is so new, we can only assume that Pintos are completely safe. Why, just last night, I used a Ford Pinto to beat out a kitchen fire when I left my bread in the toaster too long. I won't really understand the foolishness of my actions for another 1,800 years.

See? Now don't you feel bad? Maybe the real monsters are you and me?

Click for big.

Click for big.

Johns-Manville Asbestos Products - Roofing wiiiiith the deviiiiiiillll.

Hooray! More asbestos! We love asbestos advertising here 'round the office. There's nothing like laughing at the ignorance of the past to make yourself feel smart, even though I wasn't the one who discovered the health threat of asbestos and don't have the know-how to figur eit out. Yep. Standing on the shoulders of giants just to be a jerk is a great way to start the day.

This ad came in the form of two half page verticals, on opposing pages. So, that's why it's in two parts here. Fascinating, huh? Not really.

Back in '52, they understood that asbestos was a great material, suited to more than just diapers, napkins, and adhesive bandages. Why, Johns-Manville wanted you to cover your whole house in the stuff! And why not? It's weatherproof and colorful. It wants to keep you warm and snuggly. In fact, asbestos love you so much, it wants to climb into your lungs and hug you from the inside for the rest of your life - so what if that's about three years?

The left page ad was for asbestos shingles. Fair enough. The asbestos would mostly be a threat to the guys installing it, I guess. We don't use asbestos as a roofing material any more because of its general awfulness, but there have been worse applications for it than roofing.

The right hand ad promoted asbestos siding. Now there's a sinister product. Having asbestos down on the sides of the house in what we call the "lickable, rub-your-face-on-it zone" is a seriously bad idea.

Of course, nobody knew it was so bad back then, right? Not right. The threat of asbestos was publicized and documented as early as 1907. So how did people get away with basically making houses out of asbestos as late as the 1980s? You got me.

What a bummer, eh? Time for a movie to cheer everyone up again! Here's a promotional film called According to Plan, produced by the hilarious Jam Handy organization for a housing developer. Enjoy the excitement of a young couple planning the construction of their new house incorporating fireproof, durable asbestos.




If you're a real weirdo, you can also download it from good old Archive.Org. I did.

 Other Johns-Manville products thought perfectly reasonable at the time:

-Alberto VOh5n1 grooming products.
-Sarin Lee pastries. Nobody doesn't like Sarin Lee!
-Wisk. No more "ring around the cholera".
-Uncle Benzine long grain rice.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to go take a Silkwood shower now, just from typing this.

Science Update - Trains and Asbestos Breakthroughs / Breaksthrough.

New advancements in the science of model train enjoyment have left children incontinent with glee. Various animated trackside accessories bring added realism to model train layouts. See below.

The children at left can be seen enjoying the enhancements to their model train. Boy stares at wonderful new freight yard while girl fantasizes about exciting new outfits the train may wear. Next Christmas, they hope to get a larger table so that the train can move.

The miniature conductor's shack next to this immobile train set is pants-wettingly exciting to this sad, sheltered boy. The train's control unit doubles as a defibrillator.

This new humidifier wick is made from asbestos, which will not rot, rust, or burn, aiding in humidifcation and cancerizing throughout the home.

A new synthetic asbestos substitute can be made from ceramic fiber, freeing up the world's precious asbestos supplies for more important uses, like, holding without safety equipment, snuggling, and rubbing on one's lungs.

Household Inventions - Asbestos we can make them!

In 1945, Popular Mechanics ran this piece about new household inventions. There is no mention of who invented them, if they were ever sent to market, or even if these were working models in the photographs. They could easily be mockups put together just to demonstrate the idea for the photo shoot.

The combination clothes/dish washer is something I've wondered about before. Why buy two large machines to do what is more or less the same job? You'd think it'd be possible to make one machine that can do either. I guess it's not so easy, or the idea would have caught on. I'm not sure why, though.

It's kind of weird that somebody saw the need to design a thing that dries out clogged salt shakers. I'm a pretty astute observer of the physical world, and I like to find out little bits of domestic scientific trivia, but I didn't know that glogged salt shakers were a big problem. Also, I didn't know that the problem was caused by moisture. So, I guess we need to invent a salt shaker dryer to take up space on your kitchen counter for 364 days out of the year when you don't need it. Well, actually, it seems we don't need that, or you'd see them in stores by now, wouldn't you?

And now for the real star of the show: the Asbeston ironing board. No no no. Don't say "asbestos"! Asbestos was already beginning to gain attention as Something Seriously Bad For You in the 1940's. Let's see if I can summarize why it's bad. Asbestos is a natural mineral that forms very long, very thin crystalline fibers that don't burn, which is pretty neat. Much less neat is the fact that, if you get them on or in your body, your body can't get rid of them because the fibers are too thin, and as a reaction, forms an inflammation that never goes away. On the surface of the skin, it forms warts around the asbestos fibers. In your lungs, it becomes mesothelioma and kills you in fifteen years.

Anyhoo, this ironing board is made from "Asbeston". See what they did there? They changed the last letter of "asbestos" into an N. So, it's really a totally different material that has identical properties to asbestos, but with a trademarkable name and probably none of the icky drawbacks of the letter S version of the stuff, as far as you know. So, you're ironing your clothes on a fabric called "Asbeston". Put on that shirt. Rub it on your skin. Breathe all you want, because there's no S!

Also great household ideas...

"Ebolan" Disinfectant Spray - Safe until we discover it in 1976!
Bright Bottom Baby Powder -  Now with "Uraniun", for a little extra comforting warmth!
Leprosyn Dish Soap - Baked on food just melts away!
Cancerol Pain Reliever - You only take it once!
Cirrhosin Country Ale - Embrace the inevitable... in Cirrhosin Country!