Teflon
Trump?
The news today: Donald Trump
Has skipped some taxes.
We’re not talking hundreds,
thousands.
(speculate for poem’s sake)
We are talking millions –
money millions.
Now we know that each of us
Wants money we can christen
ours,
Most of us not prone to share
Or give away. But let’s
be clear –
These millions can help many
poor:
Many, many, many poor!
There he sits with nothing
more
Than sites aimed at more, more
and more:
Expand! Collect! – focus lost;
A blindered horse on blindered
course,
Priorities askew and wrong.
(observation and opinion)
Yet he seems to skip away,
slip away, a Teflon Trump
That no one seem to strip away
Whose gotten far - so far…
One’s hope is that with aims
made pure,
And as he storms, norms queer,
unclear –
His love for folk (which he
declares)
Will force – at least induce –
reform.
And if I find that this is so,
I’ll change my mind and just
might go
In his direction.
Dr. Roy Plunkett was hired as a research chemist by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company at their Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey, USA, in 1936. Two years later, trying to make a new chlorofluorocarbon refrigerant (he would later end his career as as Dupont's director of Freon production), he was measuring the amount of gas used by weighing the pressure bottle containing it and noticed that the tetrafluoroethylene gas stopped flowing before the pressure bottle's weight dropped to the "empty" point; curious as to the source of the weight, he sawed the bottle apart and found its interior coated with a waxy, white, slippery material. Analysis showed that it was polymerized perfluoroethylene (PTFE), with the iron from the inside of the container having acted as a catalyst at high pressure. PTFE, a high-molecular-weight compound consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine, is a hydrophobic fluorocarbon solid; since fluorocarbons mitigate London dispersion forces (which acts between atoms and molecules), it cannot be made wet by water or water-containing substances. Among solids PTFE has the third-lowest coefficient of friction and has high heat and corrosion resistance. It is the only known surface to which a gecko cannot stick. Kinetic Chemicals, which DuPont had founded in partnership with General Motors, patented the new fluorinated plastic in 1941 and registered the Teflon trademark in 1945. An early use was as a material to coat valves and seals in the pipes holding highly reactive uranium hexafluoride at the Manhattan Project's K-25 uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By 1948 DuPont was producing over two million pounds (900 tons) of it per year. Its major application, consuming about 50% of production, is for wiring in aerospace and computer applications, and it is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals; as a lubricant to reduce friction, wear, and energy consumption of machinery; as a graft material in surgical interventions; and as coating on catheters, since it interferes with the ability of bacteria to adhere to them. In the 1990s it was found that PTFE could be radiation cross-linked above its melting point in an oxygen-free environment; cross-linked PTFE has improved high-temperature mechanical properties and radiation stability.
ReplyDeleteBut Teflon is best known for its use as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware: In 1954, the wife of French engineer Marc Grégoire, who had been using it on fishing tackle, urged him to try it on her cooking pans; he subsequently created the first Teflon-coated, non-stick pans under the brandname Tefal (combining "Tef" from "Teflon" and "al" from aluminum). Marion A. Trozzolo, founder of Laboratory Plasticware Fabricators in 1957, made plastic-coated scientific utensils, including a Teflon-coated magnetic stirring rod; in 1961 he unveiled the Teflon-coated frying pan, "Happy Pan." The term "Teflon" has come to be a nickname for people to whom criticism does not seem to stick or to whom normal rules do not apply. Trozzolo, for instance, marketed Teflon-coated mementos in honor of Ronald reagan, the "Teflon president," and John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family in New York, the most powerful Mafia oganization in the US, was tagged the "Teflon Don" after three high-profile trials in the 1980s resulted in his acquittal due to jury tampering, juror misconduct, and witness intimidation. In the illustration, the puppeteering symbol above "Don" was inspired by the logo for "The Godfather," a 1969 crime novel by Mario Puzo that inspired Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy of Godfather films (1972, 1974, and 1990). [In addition, "Teflon mind" is a technique within the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) treatment of borderline personality disorders which can be adapted for people with problematic emotional states. The technique consists in noticing what is happening around one without reacting immediately or reflexively; allowing thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences to pass through the mind "like clouds passing over a clear sky;" focusing on the present experience without allowing past disappointments or future fears to affect it; and dispassionately attending to thoughts and feelings as they arise.]
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