Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   8

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196
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
Current Level of Scariness:
 moderate. Most of the chief play-
ers from the cartel are in jail, but a series of warring “baby 
cartels” have sprung up in its place.
How to Say “Your little friend, he sleeps with the fishes”:
 
“Tu amigo pequeño, él duerme con los peces.”
Media Saturation Level:
 lowish. Pablo Escobar and his Me-
dellín cartel got way more press. Really, Orejuela and Lon-
doño should be just as famous as Escobar. Speaking of people 
who ought to be more famous . . .
03
  Righting History’s Wrongs: 
People Who Should Be More Famous
Sure, there’s a bad rock band named after him, but Serbian-
American Nikola Tesla doesn’t get nearly the credit he de-
serves. Tesla’s discoveries made alternating current—the 
form of electricity much more reliable than direct current—
possible, and both Th
  omas Edison and George Westinghouse 
repeatedly bought, or stole, Tesla’s work. Edison and West-
inghouse ended up with fortunes and Nobel Prizes, while 
Tesla ended up toiling in obscurity. In his later years, he 
started seeking messages from outer space and falling in 
quasi-romantic love with pigeons (really—see p. 119), but 
who can blame him? He was always denied his rightful place 
in history—although he is now featured on the 100 Serbian 
dinars bill. Last we checked, neither Edison nor Westing-
house had made it onto anybody’s money.
✖  ✖  ✖
With a name like Philo T. Farnsworth and an invention like 
television, it’s amazing he’s not more famous. Th
  e son of a 

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197
sharecropper, Farnsworth 
(1906–1971) was always fas-
cinated by technology. He was 
only 14 when he conceived the 
basic idea for a television, and 
by the time he was 21, his con-
traption had transmitted its 
fi rst image (a single straight 
line—like Pong, except more 
boring). Sadly, Farnsworth’s 
unwavering  beam  of  light, 
which presaged everything 
from 
Th
 e OC
 to Tivo, was the 
last great accomplishment of 
his life. He grew depressed 
and spent the last decades of 
his life in a drunken stupor. If 
only Philo had realized the power of his own invention: Who 
needs booze to treat depression when there’s a 
Laguna Beach
 
marathon on MTV?
✖  ✖  ✖
It’s a crying shame when the discoverer of history’s greatest 
miracle drug isn’t even the world’s most famous Felix. (Th
 at 
would, of course, be Th
  e Cat.) Felix Hoff mann (1868–1946) 
was a shy chemist who never married, had no children, and 
was never well known. But he discovered the fi rst stable form 
of acetylsalicylic acid, now known as aspirin. Hoff mann’s fi rst 
test subject was his arthritic father, who pronounced the medi-
cation a success. It became the fi rst reliable, non-narcotic pain 
medication—and, as a bonus, it can slow the progress of heart 
disease. Th
  is was great for people everywhere—except opium 
manufacturers, who, pushed out of the aches-and-pains racket, 
Bringing Up Baby
In 1946, former 
Vogue
 editor 
Marion Donovan invented the 
fi rst reusable, leakproof plas-
tic diaper. Like an awesome 
mix between Martha Stewart 
and MacGyver, Donovan built 
the prototype with nothing but 
her shower curtain and a sew-
ing machine. Donovan then 
went on to invent the fi rst  dis-
posable diaper in 1951. Sure, 
diapers now account for near-
ly 1 percent of landfi ll  waste, 
but that’s not Marion’s fault.