What does "innovation" mean to you? Most of us at this conference think it has a connotation of not only being new, but also of being something that is better. If one doesn't agree with the innovator, he or she is often thought of as "stodgy." Therefore, many of us suggested not using that word when talking about suggestions for improvement. It must be understood that the suggestions need to be tested first. However, what happens is that the health care center introduces their "innovations" and expects everyone will go along with them because of course all "innovations" are for the better...and therefore good.

What are your thoughts?

It may be another US/UK thing but if someone describes a plan as "innovative" over here my first thought is that they mean that it's complete nonsense.

The Government plans for dealing with terrorism include the innovative measure of mandatory ID cards for which we will have to each pay a figure that some place as high as several hundred pounds. (Incidentally all of the recent suicide bombers would have legally had such cards - innovative and effective, then!)

Their plans for enforcing the speed limit include the innovative suggestion that every car be fitted with a device that is monitored by satelite. (Of course the fact that this would also mean that for every one of us they would know exactly where we were whenever we use the car has been played down, that's truly innovative.)

See what I mean about the word being negative? It's the kind of word Sir Humphrey used to Jim Hacker when he disapproved severely of one of his plans.

Innovative is almost always an improvement on something. However, it is hard to come up with something new that isn't innovative. For example, Solar panels are an innovative source of power. Obviously, they aren't improving on solar power, they are improving on power. It is hard to think of something which is created which is not an improvement on something else.

If someone had a truly new idea, I wouldn't call it innovative.

quote:

Innovative is almost always an improvement on something.

There, I fear, I disagree. Innovative is new, not necessarily better. Indeed, by definition anything new must be innovative.

Here are a few innovations:

Sliced bread
Processed cheese
Budweiser type beer
E-tickets

Better than the things they replaced? For their suppliers, maybe, but for customers - I don't think so!

These examples rather reinforce my view that the British view innovation with suspicion, especailly when the word is used by

a) someone whose job is marketing
b) a politician

(although now I think of it b) is just a special case of a) )

There used to be something which would drop through everyone's letter box occasionally called "The Innovations Catalogue". It was selling all kinds of weird junk. Ear-hair trimmers. Devices for recharging non-rechargable batteries. Things that claimed to magnetically clean both sides of your windows at once. Plastic doughnut makers. And for eall I know edible socks, electric toothpicks and vibrating underpants.

It sort of summarises the whole British view of the word "innovation". (Although it is view rather nostalgically by those who remember it, though nobody ever bought anything from it!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I rather suspect that this is true. For an innovatative nation - which we surely are - we are suspicious of many things that are new. Although that suspicion is often justified, it can be a disadvantage.

Probably the best ever put-down is attributed to Micheal Faraday (the inventor of the dynamo) who, when asked what use it was, said, "...What use is a baby...?" Just imagine life without dynamos - it's a good job that people listened to Faraday and not to his questioner!

quote:

Here are a few innovations:

Sliced bread

I was thinking about this one yesterday. Was there honestly a time when everybody had bread, but didn't think to cut it? Technologically speaking, the cavemen weren't making bread. I would think any culture with the ability to make bread would have by that point developed some sort of knife. This leads me to the question of at what point did this become a saying?

As for the others, processed cheese is probably safer and definitely cheaper. Budweiser type beer is cheaper, and E-tickets are great, they make like easy, unless they are done by Ticketmaster, which charges ridiculous surcharges. There is an extra fee to send E-tickets over sending them via land mail. Now, the cost of sending some day on the internet has to be hundreths that of paying for stamps, but as we all know, Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly.

All the things you mentioned were (except sliced bread) were innovations in one form. I would consider E-tickets an innovation in general, and the others in cost, safety, etc. Certainly they don't taste better, but they're cheaper, which accounts for a lot.

quote:

E-tickets

Hey, what's wrong with electronic, i.e., paperless ticketing? (I'm talking here about the airline industry, and not ticketmaster.) I think it was a great innovation. As for Wonder Bread, Velveeta, and Bud: to each his own. (I'll take my current situation over subsistence farming or hunting / gathering any day ...)

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Certainly they don't taste better, but they're cheaper, which accounts for a lot.

To the manufacturers it might not matter what they taste like, but to those that eat them it surely does. And the price they are sold at is a marketing device; it bears no relationship to the cost of production. Dudweiser beer is cheap in the USA because that's the way the choose to market it; it is sold as a premium brand in the UK and costs more than proper beer.

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processed cheese is probably safer and definitely cheaper

And how many people do you know who've been poisoned by proper cheese? Processed cheese tastes like the rubbish it is and as for its price, see above.

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E-tickets are great

Why? What benefit do they offer to the traveller? (Leave aside the artificial pricing distinctions, which exist solely to try to discourage travellers from using normal tickets)

I prefer e-tickets because that means there is one less thing I need to keep track of on the way to the airport.

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
I prefer e-tickets because that means there is one less thing I need to keep track of on the way to the airport.

Until you get there and the desk staff say "Sorry there's no record of your booking."

This has actually happened to me and the "convenience" suddenly doesn't seem all thet convenient after all.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
Processed cheese tastes like the rubbish it is and as for its price, see above.

It's a close call but I think on the whole I'd prefer to drink Budweiser to having to eat processed cheese which tastes like polystyrene.

(But remember that the two most popular varieties of US cheese are the ubiquitous American White and American Yellow which have marginally less appeal than that fluorescent stuff that comes in a tube that I can't remember the name of right now.)

quote:

It's a close call but I think on the whole I'd prefer to drink Budweiser to having to eat processed cheese which tastes like polystyrene.

Bob, you're supposed to REMOVE the polystyrene wrapper.

I thought that you were referring to the old Disneyland tickets when you said, "E-ticket." back in the early days of Walt's Fairy Farm, an "E-ticket ride" was the most exciting one, and the most expensive.

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Innovative is almost always an improvement on something.

I, and many at this quality improvement conference, disagree with you. Many of us would like to change that word to something more like "experimental." Boards of nursing often have to wrestle with new nursing programs that are allegedly "innovative," when actually they are merely looking at their bottom line. The want to have all their courses online, giving their students absolutely no experiences with patients. That is not innovative!

It was an articulate British physician here who gave a superb example. A few years ago some surgeons experimented with treating certain breast cancers with a lumpectomy, instead of the more invasive mastectomy. Their studies all showed similar results to a mastectomy, and of course women with breast cancer were ecstatic! They all beseeched their docs to perform lumpectomies (this great innovation), and many hesitated, wanting more evidence. Studies had supported it, and they were called "stodgy" and "resistant." Soon surgeons began to follow suit and performed lumpectomies for this type of breast cancer. Then the insurance companies balked. This is experimental! Women groups responded that this was an innovation, and they were being sexist! Well, they gave in and paid for lumpectomies. What happened? Soon, as more and more women had lumpectomies for this type of breast cancer, we began to see significant differences in outcomes. The original research had been flawed. This supposed innovation was in no way an improvement. There are many medical examples like that.

As for the examples you gave, Richard, I do think most of them are preferences only. And by the way, I think E-tickets are fantastic! Bob, I travel a lot and have never had one fail to go through.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:

quote:

It's a close call but I think on the whole I'd prefer to drink Budweiser to having to eat processed cheese which tastes like polystyrene.

Bob, you're supposed to REMOVE the polystyrene wrapper.

I thought that you were referring to the old Disneyland tickets when you said, "E-ticket." back in the early days of Walt's Fairy Farm, an "E-ticket ride" was the most exciting one, and the most expensive.

Ah, got you.

Instructions for processed cheese.

1. Remove wrapper and eat it.
2. Throw away cheese.

quote:

I prefer e-tickets because that means there is one less thing I need to keep track of on the way to the airport.

I had hoped not to have to become technical about travel but I fear I have to.

A ticket is a receipt for payment, a confirmation of entitlement to the service for which it has been issued, and a form of identification that proves that the holder is the entitled person. Regardless of what form of ticket is issued it has to do that.

"E-ticket" is an oxymoron since there can be no such thing as a "ticket" that has only electronic existence. A booking can thus exists but a ticket cannot. So, to prove entitlement the entitled person must have some entitling document and, as there's no paper ticket, what do the airlines do? Easy, they get the passenger to print out 14 pages of A4 that contain the details of the booking and which he or she can use to chek in. So, instead of a one-third A4, four part document paid for by the themselves, the passenger has to carry 14 A4 pages printed at his or her own expense.

Now, who was it said that there's less to carry?

quote:

Easy, they get the passenger to print out 14 pages of A4 that contain the details of the booking and which he or she can use to chek in.

I've never had more than a page or two of 8.5x11 that I bring along to the Airport. And now in the US, most of the checkin counters are self-serve, having ATM-like machines that you run a credit card thru which pulls up your flight info. These machines print out your boarding passes and luggage routing tags.

Regardless of what the airline industry means when it says a ticket, passengers in the days of yore used to be issued with a paper booklet that was called a ticket by the passenger, the travel agent, and the airline agents at the checkin counter. ("May I see your ticket, please?") That's why most people say e-ticket and understand it, travel professionals not withstanding ...

quote:

I've never had more than a page or two of 8.5x11 that I bring along to the Airport.

If that's all you are getting then you are not getting the perhipheral information that must, by airline regulation, be supplied to every passenger. That will not fit onto a mere two pages.

And the paper document is, of course, a ticket - not an e-ticket. The reservation is held in electronic form but the paper document is a ticket. The main difference between that type of ticket and a traditional ticket is that it is much cheaper for the airline to issue since the printing and distribution costs are now borne by the passenger or his agent.

I have been unable to identify a single benefit to the customer.

quote:

So, instead of a one-third A4, four part document paid for by the themselves, the passenger has to carry 14 A4 pages printed at his or her own expense.

As you know, Richard, I travel a lot for my job. In the last year I have never brought a paper with me to any airport. I have only either given my driver's license to the Red Caps or used my credit card in the machine they have. It is a huge advantage over the fools who have tickets or who choose not to use self-serve check-in because I don't have to wait in a long line as the rest of the people do. For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't prefer an e-ticket. I suspect we do it differently here in the states than you do.

BTW, if I ever would need a "paper trace" (which I don't), the travel agent sends one over to me using their paper.

quote:

As you know, Richard, I travel a lot for my job. In the last year I have never brought a paper with me to any airport.

Remember, you are speaking about domestic travel where the airlines are not bound by international regulations. I am surprised, though, that the US authorities are so casual about domestic travellers; they put incoming foreign travellers through all sorts of hoops. Every airline uplifting passengers to the USA must, no later than 60 minutes prior to departure, send full (and I mean full) details of every passenger to the US authorities. And, if they are unhappy about a passenger, then the aircraft won't be allowed to enter US air space, to the extent of being turned back. Last week an Air France flight was turned back because one of the passengers was on the USA's list of "suspected terrorists".

Quite mad, of course. There are already hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in the USA who want to do it harm. Like the September 11 terrorists did they need only to get on a US domestic flight and, if identification security is as lax as it would seem, travel under any false name thay want to use. When flying in the UK, every passenger must prove his or her identity and correct travel documentation is part of that process. We don't need passports to travel within the UK, of coure, but I generally take mine since it's good identification. If I don't, then I am photographed at checkin and my picture is checked at the gate. This is obviously to prevent my passing my boarding pass onto someone else.

But for international travel all airlines are bound by international regulations, one of which is that passengers are all provided with details of the rules of international air carriage (as determined by the Warsaw Convention and the Guatemala Protocol) and, as I said, they need several pages of A4 or US letter to fit onto.

So far as check-in is concerned, it makes no difference at all what kind of documentation you have; providing you have your record locator you can use electronic checkin - even to the extent of checking in before you leave home. I happen to think that's daft, actually, since you've not checked in until you're there, to my mind. Still, BA seem happy with the idea and I can seen no disadvantage to the passenger (except that you can't try to get a free upgrade by chatting up the checkin lady!)

quote:

you can't try to get a free upgrade by chatting up the checkin lady

Does that actually work?

The pieces of paper you print out and (sometimes) bring to the airport is not a ticket. The ticket is stored in the airline's computer reservation system. All you need to bring with you to the airport is some kind of identification. The last time I flew to Europe, I forgot the paper printout, but after identifying myself at the airline's checkin counter, I checked in my baggage and received my boarding pass. Note that this was a foreign carrier. I just looked at the paperwork that I forgot to bring with me. Printed out, it is probably two 8.5x11 pages. Near the bottom is a URL for the carrier's legal conditions for the flight. (I seriously doubt that many people read the conditions that used to be printed on the paper ticket (coupon) booklets, and I know that I didn't look at this latter-day web version until today, many months after the flight.)

quote:

if identification security is as lax as it would seem,

Richard, I think you are definitely reading into the laxity. Security, through e-tickets, can be just as good as without it. Also, I can tell you with supreme confidence that in the U.S. you cannot get a free upgrade at the airlines, even if you offer to sleep with the ticket agent (just an example, of course!). They are very strict about that here.

quote:

The pieces of paper you print out and (sometimes) bring to the airport is not a ticket. The ticket is stored in the airline's computer reservation system.

I'm sorry but this is not true. A reservation is stored in the airline's reservations computer, not a ticket. A ticket is evidence of identity and entitlement to travel - but not necessarily evidence of a reservation.

It is quite possible to travel without a reservation on most forms of transport - a million people do it every day on London's public transport - but it is not possible to travel without some form of ticket or authority.

It is possible to have a reservation and no ticket or a ticket with no reservation. The two things are not the same.

Call it what you will, the piece of paper printed out as evidence of your entitlement to travel is a ticket - and it is a less secure one that would be a proper security-printed (and largely unalterable) traditional ticket. And remember, security does not onlt mean security against terrorism; it also mean security against theft and fraud and that is easier to commit when no proper ticket is issued (the simple illegal transfer of travel rights to an unauthorised person, for example).

quote:

Also, I can tell you with supreme confidence that in the U.S. you cannot get a free upgrade at the airlines, even if you offer to sleep with the ticket agent (just an example, of course!). They are very strict about that here.

And they are very strict about it here, too, unless you happen to be a VIP - then it happens, just like that!

Do you imagine that any major Hollywood star or top-ranking politician wouldn't get a free upgrade? They can, and do, and what's more expect it as of right. I'm not saying I agree; I'm saying it's a fact. One thing I learnt many years ago about airline regulations is that the airlines only keep to them if it suits them to do so. If it suits them to disregard them, then that's what they do.

Did you know that, according to airline regulations, any passenger not showing for a flight (even on a full-fare ticket) is charged a cancellation fee? Or that any person travelling with more than the official baggage allowance is charged 1% of the first class one-way fare, per kilo or part thereof excess? Or that anyone travelling on a ticket sold for less than the published fare is liable to be refused boarding? No? And most people don't, because it suits the airlines to break these rules.

I don't want to appear off-topic, but on the subject of the word 'innovation'; its being used as a psychological Trojan horse is despicable. However, I can see why an insurer might have a problem with a hospital that trials new and untested procedures.

How close are the boundaries of 'innovation' and that old foxymoron 'unknown quantity'?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: beans,

Reviving a thread...

This same question is coming up during my lovely strategic planning discussions. I still disagree that "innovation" means something better. Here's a WordNet definition: "ahead of the times; 'the advanced teaching methods'; 'had advanced views on the subject'; 'a forward-looking corporation'; 'is British industry innovative enough?'" That definition seems to indicate it's something "better," but I still don't think that an "innovation" is an improvement or something of quality. It is derived from the Latin word innovare, meaning to "renew" or "alter." I can alter something and not make it better.

Any other thoughts on this word that I could bring back to the group (not that they'll listen )?

Here are the WordNet definitions from dictionary.com:

quote:

innovation

noun
1. a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation [syn: invention]
2. the creation of something in the mind [syn: invention]
3. the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new; "she looked forward to her initiation as an adult"; "the foundation of a new scientific society"; "he regards the fork as a modern introduction" [syn: initiation]

WordNet® 2.1, © 2005 Princeton University

Nowhere in those definitions does it say an innovation is an improvement. Innovation simply means something new, an invention, a new way of doing something. The implication is that it's better, that is, new and improved. But, as we know, innovative things aren't always better. They're often just different and more expensive. We've talked about denotation vs. connotation before, here, here, and here.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Chemical fizz beers were an innovation and an improvement only insofar as they made more profit for the manufacturers of the rubbish.

The craft beers that are now appearing in US bars are not innovations - but they are improvements.

Tinman, despite my rather extensive experience with WordNet, I'm not certain that I trust it as a source of definitions.

Here's what the OED says:

1. a. The action of innovating; the introduction of novelties; the alteration of what is established by the introduction of new elements or forms. Formerly const. of (the thing altered or introduced).

2. a. A change made in the nature or fashion of anything; something newly introduced; a novel practice, method, etc.

3. spec. in Sc. Law. The alteration of an obligation; the substitution of a new obligation for the old: see quot.

4. Bot. The formation of a new shoot at the apex of a stem or branch; esp. that which takes place at the apex of the thallus or leaf-bearing stem of mosses, the older parts dying off behind; also (with pl.) a new shoot thus formed.

5. Comm. The action of introducing a new product into the market; a product newly brought on to the market.

6. innovation trunk, a kind of wardrobe trunk.

At any rate, I've lost this one. It turns our one of our Board members just started a "Center of Innovation." She purported to have "4 pages" of definitions about innovations being "improvements." I decided not to die on that hill.

quote:

Originally posted by Seanahan:
Tinman, despite my rather extensive experience with WordNet, I'm not certain that I trust it as a source of definitions.

Kalleh said

quote:

Here's a WordNet definition: "ahead of the times; 'the advanced teaching methods'; 'had advanced views on the subject'; 'a forward-looking corporation'; 'is British industry innovative enough?'"

The WordNet definitions I read were different, which is why I posted them. I don't generally rely on WordNet; rather the AHD and the OED are my primary sources.

I see I forgot to leave a link to my WordNet quote, so I edited my message to include one.

Tinman

So...WordNet's not all that reliable? I didn't know that.

In general, WordNet synonym sets are accurate. As an ontology, it is fairly accurate. I don't know that the definitions are constructed like dictionaries definitions. As far as I understand, the definitions are used to aid in the annotating of the other tasks, and are not the primary goal of WordNet. Quoting their website:

quote:

Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations.

I'm not saying anything is wrong with WordNet, or that the data is unreliable. I have used if for a variety of different projects, and it is a state of the art system. I'm just saying that if the choice is between WordNet or dictionaries like MW, AHD, or OED, I'll take the dictionaries.

quote:

She purported to have "4 pages" of definitions about innovations being "improvements."

I reckon she's lying. Ask her to let you see her "4 pages of definitions".

quote:

Originally posted by Seanahan:

quote:

Here are a few innovations:

Sliced bread

I was thinking about this one yesterday. Was there honestly a time when everybody had bread, but didn't think to cut it? Technologically speaking, the cavemen weren't making bread. I would think any culture with the ability to make bread would have by that point developed some sort of knife. This leads me to the question of at what point did this become a saying?

Bread has been around since Neolithic times and, yes, people have been slicing it themselves. Though some simply tear a chunk from a loaf. The saying, though, refers to pre-sliced store-bought bread. Previous to 1928 bread was sold in whole, unsliced loaves. In 1912 Otto Frederick Rohwedder began working on a machine that would slice bread. On July 7, 1928, the first machine-sliced bread was sold at the Frank Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri. "'Frank Bench's bakery increased its bread sales by 2,000 percent in two weeks,' said Rohwedder [the inventor's son], now 88 years old."
There are several newspaper articles on that site. The following quote is from the Arkansas Gazette (no date given).

quote:

While the machine was still in the idea stage, the elder Rohwedder traveled to several cities because, his son explained, “he had to sell the world on sliced bread.” But “that was when the bankers said he was crazy,” said Rohwedder, who was in his teens at the time. “No one would take a chance on selling sliced bread… (they thought) the bread would dry out.” Yet the inventor’s surveys showed housewives fell in love at first slice.

And it was a lasting love affair. During World War II, when the government tried to halt the making of bread slicers because of the need for steel, “Mrs. Housewife wouldn’t let them.” Rohwedder said. “It was the only thing (the government) tried to stop and didn’t.” The first bread slicing machine was installed in 1928 in a friend’s foundering bakery in Chillicothe, Mo. “We all went down there,” the younger Rohwedder said. The family “took the slicer down there, and I fed the first loaf of bread into the slicer.”

About 5 years later Wonder Bread came on the scene.

The wartime ban was evidently to conserve steel for the war effort.

quote:

In January 1943, at the height of World War II, the government ordered bakeries to stop slicing bread. The country needed airplanes more than it needed bread-slicing blades.

The ban did not go over well. It was lifted three months later.

A story March 9, 1943, in the Constitution-Tribune announced the lifting of the ban under a headline that read: "Mrs. Housewife Can Relieve Herself of Troublesome Task."

So the expression "greatest thing since sliced bread" began either with Wonder Bread (a truly terrible bread) or after the ill-fated World War II ban. I expect the latter.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

quote:

So the expression "greatest thing since sliced bread" began either with Wonder Bread (a truly terrible bread)........

So bad, that around here it is commonly referred to as "baker's fog".

quote:

Ask her to let you see her "4 pages of definitions".

I have, Richard. We'll see.

Yes, Wonderbread is so bad that it sticks to your mouth.

I suspect that the knife was an innovation not meant for bread, but more for getting to the "meat" of the matter. Flint and obsidian knives have been around long before the loaf.

quote:

greatest thing since sliced bread

It's very difficult to get good sliced bread - although, to be fair, there are many bakeries now that produce sliced wholemeal that does have some taste.

But I far prefer proper bread, made with a proper crust and tasting as bread should. As I prefer proper cheese (not sweaty, yellow, waxy lumps of shrink-wrapped anonymity) and of course, proper beer.

Those who have never tried good food are to be pitied and, I should like to think, converted.

Our supermarket has a bakery where they serve many different types of loaves unsliced. Of course, if you would like them to slice it up for you, they will at no extra cost. If you like bread it is well worth the price. Of course, the kids still prefer the bland soft stuff.

quote:

Of course, the kids still prefer the bland soft stuff.

It is to be hoped that their tastes will grow up alongside their bodies.

It is to be hoped that their tastes will grow up alongside their bodies.

How strange to see it standing alongside!

[hic runs for cover]

Seanahan: This leads me to the question of at what point did this become a saying?

The earliest usage I can find, for "_____ thing since sliced bread," is 1946.

But uncovered, in the course of checking that, was the datum that the no-sliced bread order was not to save steel, but to save packaging material.

Lucky Strike Green Has Gone To War (1942)

Your link led me to more links to newspaper archives that I wasn't able to access. All I got was this:

quote:

The no-slicing order was issued primarily on the grounds that waxed paper could be saved, since sliced bread requires considerably more protection than ...

I've never heard the no-sliced bread order was to save packaging material and, apparently, neither has Wikipedia. Here's Wikipedia's comment:

quote:

America's entry into World War II prompted a ban on sliced bread starting in January 1943. The ban was intended to reduce wastage, possibly on the theory that sliced bread goes stale faster than unsliced.[5] Alternatively, the ban may have been to conserve the metal parts needed to repair slicing machines for war use.[6]

Perhaps you might want to submit your information to Wikipedia.

There are a number of "This Day in History"-type
sites that promote the idea that the ban was to save metal. For example, the South Bend Tribune says this:

quote:

Jan. 18, 1943: A wartime ban on the sale of pre-sliced bread in the United States -- aimed at reducing bakeries' demand for metal replacement parts -- went into effect.

It would be nice to get to the truth, once in a while.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

tinman, that is very interesting.

I don't know what source the 'this-day-in-history' sites are using. The few I checked did not say, although this one suggests that the source was "a booklet titled, 'Remember When, 1943.'" In other words, a much-later report.

My link gave blurbs from the wartime years themselves, but the links in those blurbs require that you (or your local library) have a non-free subscription service. I'll look into that once our local library opens.

tinman, that is very interesting.

I don't know what source the 'this-day-in-history' sites are using. The few I checked did not say, although [URL=http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/living

Shufitz, I'm not doubting your sources. They appear to be authentic copies of newspapers printed at the time, while mine were later links looking back at history. I'm saying it would be nice if all versions of the "truth" be narrowed down to one. That's why I suggested you might want to contact Wikipedia.

Tinman

I know that I am unpopular for saying this, but I just don't, at this point, trust Wikipedia. At least now they are beginning to put remarks in some of their entries questioning their reliability (see larrikin.) That's a good beginning.