The Popcorn Palace Economy - The thirsty moviegoer fuels the business.

Interesting brief article on the movie theater business. As an aside, I swear the popcorn doesn't taste as good as it did 5-10 years ago.

Not too many surprises in this article. However, one thing did jump out at me: "in 1948, the government forced the studios to divest themselves of the theaters". That doesn't seem right to me. Why does the federal government have the authority to decide whom gets to own a movie theater?

The Popcorn Palace Economy - The thirsty moviegoer fuels the business. By Edward Jay Epstein: "The Popcorn Palace Economy
The thirsty moviegoer fuels the business.
By Edward Jay Epstein

Once upon a time, movie studios and movie theaters were in the same business. The studios made films for theater chains that they either owned or controlled, and they harvested almost all their revenue from ticket sales. Then, in 1948, the government forced the studios to divest themselves of the theaters. Nowadays, the two are in very different businesses. Theater chains, in fact, are in three different businesses."

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Thomas Jefferson quill and dip Pens

Great article by Dr. Ron Dutcher on presidential pens, this one specifically of Thomas Jefferson. Worth a read, and some nice pics too.

Thomas Jefferson quill and dip Pens: "The modern fountain pen can actually trace its roots back to Thomas Jefferson. It was he who talked with John Isaac Hawkins about his problems with letter writing. Jefferson was a prolific writer and he went through quills painfully fast. He wished for a a pen with the same elasticity as a quill, but something that would last. Hawkins was a young inventor, and moved to London to study the pen making industry there. Hawkins with Samson Mordan developed and patented the first Mechanical pencil. Hawkins heard of a pensmith named Doughty who had experimented with soldering rubies to gold pens."