Earmuffs - Ear, ear: Maine town commends designer of the ear protector

Earmuffs have make some amazing progress in 142 years.

Chester Greenwood was a 15-year-old offered with liberal ears when he chose he had enough of the gnawing cool while ice skating in 1873. The principal ear protectors were then conceived, designed from homestead wire with hide sewn on them by his grandma.

Greenwood made changes with a steel band and flexible pivots, and sold a huge number of "Champion Ear Protectors."

Nowadays, comparable renditions are still sold. Others wrap around the back of the neck, taking out mussed hair. There are variants with downy, hide and down. Some have constructed in ear buds for music.

It merits celebrating. So Greenwood's main residence of Farmington is doing only this weekend, as it has for almost 40 years, with a parade in which occupants gladly wear ear protectors.


"It's remarkable. What number of other little towns can commend ear covers? Truly," said Nancy Porter, creator of the independently published "Chester: More Than Earmuffs."

While Greenwood is perpetually connected to his mark innovation, he additionally made different things. By a few records, he thought of more than 100 contraptions, however he got licenses for just five of them. Notwithstanding his ear defenders, he protected a rake, a promoting matchbox, a tea pot and a gadget intended to penetrate openings in the closures of wooden spools, Porter said.

"He was of the Yankee resourcefulness breed," Porter said.

He additionally was a representative. He ran a bike shop, manufactured a pipes and warming business, and made a nearby phone organization. His ear protector manufacturing plant shut a couple of years after his demise in 1937.

The legacy of the smart dressed nondrinker and innovator blurred throughout the years. Be that as it may, it was restored when the Maine Legislature proclaimed Chester Greenwood Day on the first day of winter in 1977.

Fittingly, the first parade was held in a snowstorm. A snowplow drove the parade to clear a way, and understudies from the University of Maine at Farmington took part on skis.

"It was snowing and individuals were in the city nonetheless, both sides. The parade turned out really great," said 75-year-old Ronald Greenwood, Chester Greenwood's extraordinary grandson.

Nowadays, the occasion is hung on the first Saturday in December.

All parade members must fuse ear covers in their buoys. A short time later, an ear protector banner is raised at the courthouse. There's likewise a polar plunge on Clearwater Lake, and the town Christmas tree will be lit.

In years past, there was a false lockup where youths got without ear protectors would be imprisoned, Ronald Greenwood said, however coordinators aren't going that far amid the current year's celebrations.

A short time later, numerous people will put their ear protectors into capacity.

Ronald Greenwood, a locksmith and building temporary worker, said ear protectors don't work so well for him.

Furthermore, Porter said she had a wool cap with ear folds that she lean towards. "I have a unique pair of Chesters," Porter said. "I wear them on Chester Greenwood Day."
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Taking after Paris assaults, NYC ventures up effort to Muslims 



 In the fallout of a month ago's dread assaults in Paris, New York City authorities have supported security and discreetly ventured up effort endeavors to Muslim occupants, attempting to quiet reasons for alarm of conceivable disdain filled striking back while attempting to stretch out taxpayer driven organizations to a group that frequently has felt ignored.

The city has expanded its vicinity in Muslim neighborhoods, sending staff members to visit mosques and fabricate better associations with imams and admirers. Police authorities have advised group pioneers on new counterterrorism systems. Other city authorities have asked Muslims to report any disdain violations, the quantity of which - notwithstanding dread filled features and the incendiary talk of some national government officials - is pointedly lower in New York in 2015 than right now a year prior.

Leader Bill de Blasio on Friday is to convey a discourse at an Islamic group focus, reaffirming that the city's 800,000 Muslims have the same rights as all New Yorkers while swearing assurance from any contempt violations, the chairman's assistants told The Associated Press on Thursday.

De Blasio's discourse at the Jamaica Muslim Center, or Masjid Al-Mamoor in Queens, is the most prominent move the organization has made to quiet unsteady Muslims since the Nov. 13 assaults that executed no less than 129 individuals in Paris, and the current week's killing of 14 individuals in San Bernardino, California. In any case, it's a long way from the main step the organization has taken to connect with Muslims, some of whom profoundly dreaded separation after 9/11.

Six days after the Paris assaults, the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit sorted out a meeting between 40 group pioneers - most by far from the Muslim group - and the NYPD's Hate Crimes Unit with points of building the trust important for Muslims to swing to law requirement to report violations.

Groups from the leader's office and city board have invested energy at mosques and group focuses, planning to enhance relations with imams who could likewise advocate city administrations, for example, free pre-kindergarten and civil distinguishing proof cards, that would enhance some Muslims' level of municipal engagement and possibly avoid estrangement.

"This is a group that has not generally had the best association with city government," said Marco Carrion, leader of the chairman's group issues unit. "Some have never seen a supportive government and invited us with open arms. Be that as it may, different times we confront genuine resistance and doubt."

NYPD authorities said there has not been an uptick in inclination wrongdoings against Muslims since the Paris assaults. So far this year, there have been 14 loathe wrongdoings against Muslims, a 39 percent diminish from this time a year back, as per NYPD measurements. Be that as it may, authorities recognize that some disdain violations go unreported.

The NYPD, which has 900 Muslim officers, utilizes its Community Affairs Bureau to cultivate better associations with the greater part of the city's assorted groups by staffing road celebrations, giving administrations to mishap casualties and attempting "to make individuals who don't typically converse with cops feel good coming to us," said the leader of the unit, Chief Joanne Jaffe.

This mid year, the unit circled fliers offering backing to Muslim-possessed shops in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

After the Paris assaults, the NYPD expanded security at mosques, and additionally synagogues, and connected with more than 40 Muslim associations. On Monday, Police Commissioner William Bratton will have a meeting for pastorate individuals concentrating on group inclusion and the NYPD's counterterrorism danger evaluation program.

"Outreach by the city to the Muslim group is fundamentally imperative, particularly now," said Donna Lieberman, official chief of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "In any case, there must be clear qualifications between the effort and hostile to terrorism endeavors. Else, it will debilitate Muslims from going to law authorization and simply breed further doubt."

After September 11, the NYPD utilized its insight division to distinguish dread dangers by developing sources and leading observation in Muslim groups. Throughout the years, the practice brought about a modest bunch of arraignments of homegrown terrorists and, all the more as of late, turned into the subject of a progression of articles by The Associated Press uncovering that the knowledge division had invaded many mosques and Muslim understudy aggregates and researched hundreds.

A year ago, in the midst of grievances of religious and racial profiling, the NYPD disbanded a group of analysts alloted to make databases yet has proceeded with its utilization of witnesses and covert specialists to battle fear.

Some Muslims say they have felt cruel gazes as of late.

"I don't care for the thought that standard regular Muslims are being lumped together with terrorists," said Maryam Mohiuddin, a hijab-wearing American craftsman from Bangladesh who was going to the Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn. "I'd like it better if individuals don't take a gander at me with suspicion. I'd rather them make inquiries."

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With a couple folds of his arms, Kip Fenton took off into the New York City horizon, veering around an ocean of high rises as the wind shrieked in his ears.

At that point, very soon, the goggles fell off and he return in a splendid white room close Boston, no more a winged creature however a 59-year-old programming engineer in pants and a green plaid shirt. Outside a tall window, a man with a cellphone ceased to snap a photograph of Fenton and the odd contraption that had given him the feeling of flight.

"I've for the longest time been itching to fly," said Fenton, of Holliston, Massachusetts. "It's kind of one of those dream things where, in the event that I could be a creature, I would be a winged creature."

The human interest with flight is the thing that enlivened Max Rheiner, a Swiss craftsman and researcher, to create the pilot training program that Fenton tried on Thursday. Called Birdly, the model is being shown through Saturday at Le Laboratoire, a little workmanship and outline focus tucked in Cambridge's sprawling innovation center point.

"Birdly is really the fantasy of flying materialize," said Rheiner, who has been taking his innovation around the globe since the late spring of 2014.

It would seem that an advanced examination table with wings. Clients hop on, stomach down, and extend their arms to either side, resting their palms level against tilting loads up that go about as the flight quills. After they slip on an arrangement of earphones and virtual reality goggles, the machine tilts forward to bring their legs more remote off the ground.

All of a sudden, the goggles top off with a 10,000 foot perspective of Manhattan and everything is moving. Amid his test run, Fenton turned his palms upward to move toward the s