Today the New York Times reported on the alarming number of Safe Drinking Water Act violations that have occurred in the past five years, including “illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.”
If the Bush administration goes down in the kind of infamy it deserves, it won’t be for being too conservative — it will be for being criminally lazy.
Anyway, the mention of uranium reminds me that it’s high time to tell the story of the glowing green cocktail glasses at the top of this blog. Actually, they were probably meant to be berry dishes, and sold as part of a genteel set of glassware of a style known as Depression glass, or vaseline glass, or uranium glass. The distinctive feature of this type of glass is its green color, which was achieved by glassmakers in the 1880s through 1960s by adding uranium to the glass. In regular light, it’s a pretty, clear, pale green that looks just right in grandma’s kitchen. But under black light, it glows like the Chevy Malibu at the end of “Repo Man.”
According to my extensive Wikipedia research, it’s safe to drink out of, but it’s not recommended that you drink liquids that have been stored in it. It will set off a Geiger counter.
If you happen to be in Japan, you can check out the Fairywood Glass Museum, http://kanko.town.kagamino.lg.jp/fairywood%20english%20ver/ dedicated to uranium glass “with mysterious shine,” which they manufacture in an adjoining studio. You can also find uranium glass in pretty much every antique mall in America.
Oh dear...remembering all the fruit cocktail I ate out of my green depression glass berry dishes in the preceding decade. Passed them on to another unsuspecting nibbler in Texas at an estate sale before I moved to Portland...hope her kids don't begin to glow.
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