The Cyclone Files Categories

Around 1985, the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were empowered with tough new laws that enabled them to crack down on the impact of asbestos on the health of the population.  It was during this time frame that the use of asbestos in construction and in just about any time of production came to a complete halt.  However, both agencies continue to seek more specific laws to restrict the use of asbestos so the possibility of more asbestos related lung diseases can be eliminated.

It possible that in the history of 20th century crime, there may be no two bank robbers that achieved such a tremendous fan club as Bonnie and Clyde.  These two criminals have been able to touch that place in the public imagination that adores notorious criminals in the same way that we have made heroes out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Jessie James.  Their stories have become full of myth and lore that captures our imaginations.

When we enjoy entertainment or festivals that celebrate medieval life and times, it is the life of royalty, traveling bards, monks of knights that are most often the focus of our attention.  Few of us would want to celebrate the lives of peasants and surfs during the middle ages.  There is good reason for that.  There was little to celebrate about the harsh life poor people endured during this time in history.

The stories and images that have come down to us from medieval times have become so morally simplistic as to make them more parables or fables than genuine history.   Of the many characters where that is true, the knights that represented the elite of the military of medieval castles are perhaps the most romanticized.  We have allowed the idea of good knights and bad knights to become quite entrenched in our culture.  Even in the ancient game of chess, we know right away that it is the white knight who is “good” and the black knight who is “bad.”

It should come as no surprise that during medieval times, a big indicator of where you stood on the social hierarchy was your clothing.  Even today, clothes tell us much about where a person is in society.  A bricklayer dresses much differently from a policeman and both dress very differently from entertainers or the wealthy or people in politics.  The lines of distinction are not as strict now as they were in medieval times.  But using clothing as a measure of social rank is just as valid now as then.