92 years ago yesterday, molasses invaded Boston when a holding tank exploded:
To this day on hot summer days in an old Boston neighborhood, residents swear that they can smell a vague odor of molasses. It’s a sweet-smelling reminder of a day when some 150 people were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed by a sudden flood of molasses.
It was an an unusually warm day on January 15, 1919 — 40 F. Back then, molasses was the standard sweetener in the United States; Molasses can also be fermented to produce rum and ethyl alcohol, the active ingredient in other alcoholic beverages and a key component in the manufacturing of munitions at the time.
The writer at the above link quotes from Yankee magazine, 1965:
Like madmen they fought the on-rushing tide, trying to swim in the sticky stuff that sucked them down. Tons of freight—shoes, potatoes—barrels and boxes—tumbled and splashed on the frothy-foaming mass, now so heavy the floors gave way, letting tons of the stuff into the cellar. Down there the workers died like rats in a trap. Some tried to dash up the stairs but they slipped and fell—and disappeared.
As the fifty-eight-foot-high tank split wide open, more molasses poured out under a pressure of two tons per square foot. Men, women, children and animals were caught, hurled into the air, or dashed against freight cars only to fall back and sink from sight in the slowly moving mass.
ADDITIONAL: An insider discussion about why more American journalists aren’t defending Julian Assange:
The problem with speaking up for WikiLeaks now, said Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, one of the country’s most prominent defenders of press freedom and one of the groups that backed WikiLeaks in its 2008 court case, is that she doesn’t consider Assange to be a journalist.
…
WikiLeaks “takes secrets. But they are secretive. We don’t know who they are. I think one thing journalists pride themselves on is transparency. I think people are a little apprehensive because he was releasing information last summer he had an agenda to bring down the U.S. government,” she said. “I think that makes people reluctant to jump into making a statement.”
[Glenn] Greenwald rejects that argument. He noted that U.S. journalists often don’t reveal their sources or how they gather information for stories.
Greenwald said he thinks journalists aren’t rallying to defend WikiLeaks because it has no building, no ties to the U.S. and doesn’t feel obliged to consult with the U.S. government before publishing. The issue, he said, is that American journalists too often befriend the government and seek its approval for their work.
