TODAY’s “Geez”: 1267 - Vienna's church orders all Jews to wear a distinctive garb
Free Rambling Thoughts…
Somehow I missed the weather forecast that said rain and hail today in Flagstaff. It was a windy day, as expected, but when I got up at 6am it was raining. Throughout the day it rained, it hailed with tiny pellets, and it even snowed a little. The moisture is really nice as the humidity is now above 50% instead of the single digits where it has been. The 30° temperature drop was not expected.
I went out to run some errands this morning, drove out of our complex, made it to 89 and found my vehicle was being pelted with tiny hail. By the time I got to the mall—about 2 miles, it was worse, so I turned around and came back home. Tomorrow is another day.
Last night after posting my blog, I spilled a small amount of wine on the keyboard. No, not drunk, the glass slipped and tipped. Anyway, I tried to dry the keyboard with everything I had. When I turned off the keyboard, it was working fine. Then this morning, when I turned on the computer the space bar kept sticking. Luckily I had an old backup keyboard, so I am doing fine. I guess I will look for a new one as they aren’t that expensive and I’m not mechanically inclined to take out the twelve screws and try to salvage it.
I hope you are all following the AZ Immigration news. Our governor just signed a bill that will allow us to build our own dang fence. If enough people donate money to a special fund—soon to be available over the web—she will buy the materials. Then she will send minimum security prisoners to the work site to build the dang fence. I hope the prisoners have some knowledge about building fences. It you have never ‘built’ a fence, it is not just digging some holes and putting in the boards. Of course no one has talked to the landowners who will have the fence…and the convicts…on their property. No one has looked at the migration patterns of the wild animals that may be altered. Right now the law doesn’t say if the dang fence will be ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet high. It doesn’t deal with people and or animals digging under the fence. It doesn’t deal with anything except ‘building the dang fence.’
President Calderon of Mexico is having problems with drug lords. There was a big demonstration of people in Mexico City yesterday against the killings and corruption in government that continues to allow these powerful cartels to exist. I started wondering…
What if the Mexican government had credible evidence that a drug lord was living on our side of the border, or that they had credible sources that found that our AZ lax gun laws allowed a Mexican National to purchase guns and send them to the drug lord. With this credible information, the Mexican police or military crossed the border, hunted this person down and killed the seller. What would the US response be? If the Mexican government then wanted to interview those living in the house or in the neighborhood or wanted to run forensic tests at the house, what would the US say?
Before we get all upset about our sovereignty, look at Pakistan. The Pakistani government seems to be doing a lot of double talk about BL. However, there has to be some issue with sovereignty. We were not invited in and we most certainly did. Let our President make the decisions, and please, no second guessing from the media.
Trivia Quiz…(answers at the end of post)
Who wrote Breakfast At Tiffany's?
What was the title of the 1951 autobiography by Lionel Barrymore?
What was the particular link between Jean Plaidy, Phillipa Carr and Victoria Holt?
Which fictional detective refers to using the little gray cells?
What is the real name of the author of Miss Manners Guide For the Turn of the Millennium?
Under which name did American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens write?
Whose novel, published at the very end of the 19th century, produced the most-filmed horror character of the 20th century?
Whose novels include Go Tell It On The Mountain?
What was the first name of New Zealand novelist Ms. Marsh?
Who wrote Winesburg, Ohio?
Who won a Booker Prize for Midnight's Children?
In which decade of the century did HG Wells die?
Zoom-ed in Picture…Can you Identify what this is? (Answer at end of post)
Hmmmmm…
~Percentage increase since 2004 in the estimated median household net worth of members of congress: 22
~Percentage o GDP lst year that went to Federal job-training programs and job-search programs: 0.05
~Percentage that went to unemployment insurance: 1
The First Time…
Mary Walker 1865 --- 1st (and only) woman to receive the US Medal of Honor. She was a Civil War surgeon. Her medal was rescinded in 1916, however, when the Army purged its files to cut down on what they thought were "unwarranted" issues. It wasn't re-instated until 1976.
David Glasgow Farragut 1866 --- 1st Admiral in US Navy.
Frank, Simeon, and William 1866 --- Committed the first US train robbery. On October 6, 1866, the Reno brothers boarded an eastbound train in Indiana wearing masks and toting guns. After emptying one safe and tossing the other out the window, the robbers jumped off the train and made an easy getaway.
Somewhat Useless Information…
***Elephants use their large ears like fans to cool themselves down. The ears of an adult African elephant range from 5 to 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. Elephants have excellent hearing and can hear sounds that humans cannot.
*** Elephants have been known to recognize other elephants or even humans that they haven't seen in years. They are highly intelligent animals.
*** Elephants live in matriarchal families called a herd. The leader of the herd is the oldest female. Young males remain with the herd until approximately 15 years before going out on their own.
Yeah, It Really Happened…
While stealing nacho cheese may sound like the punch line to an old joke, a Chicago man learned Sunday it's actually no laughing matter.
Michael Richards, 50, is being held in lieu of $10,000 bail on robbery charges.
Prosecutors say Richards bought a bag of potato chips from the 7-Eleven store on the 1300 block of South Halsted, then began pumping nacho cheese — which he had not paid for — into the bag.
When the store clerk told him the cheese was for customers who bought it as part of a nacho tray, he allegedly pulled the man’s arm behind his back and threatened him.
Police arrested Richards Saturday a block away from the store.
On Sunday in court, when Judge James Brown asked, “So what was stolen was the cheese?” The Chicago Sun-Times reports Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Dan Piwowarczyk kept an admirably straight face as he replied, “The defendant was informed that it was 'not yo’ cheese.'”
Guffaw…or at least smile…
My wife, a real estate agent, wrote an ad for a house she was listing. The house had a second-floor suite that could be accessed using a lift chair that slid along the staircase. Quickly describing this feature, she inadvertently made it sound even more attractive: "Mother-in-law suite comes with an electric chair."
Searchin’ “You Tube” I found…
Daybook Information
…Happening This Week:
6-12 National Nurses Day and Week
7-15National Tourism Week:
8-14
National Hospital Week * National Nursing Home Week * Reading is Fun Week * Salute to Moms 35+ Week
9-15
National Return To Work Week * National Women's Health Week * National Etiquette Week * National Stuttering Awareness Week * Universal Family Week
«TODAY IS
Clean Up Your Room Day
Lupus Day
Windmill Day
Library Legislative Days and Virtual Library Legislative Days
China: Birthday of Lord Buddha
Singapore: Vesak Day (Bringing Happiness to Others to honor Buddha)
US: NC, SC: Confederate Day
Today’s Events:
… IN ARTS
1954 - Bolshoi-ballet fails to appear in Paris
1983 - "Laverne & Shirley," last airs on ABC-TV
1993 - Paul Cezannes still life sells for $28,600,000 in NYC
… IN ATHLETICS
1967 - Hank Aaron only inside the park HR (vs Jim Bunning)
2001 - In Ghana, a stampede at a football (soccer) game kills over 120 spectators
… IN BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1869 - Golden Spike driven, completes Promontory Pt Ut-Transcontinental RR
1910 - 1st aircraft air display held (Hendon, England)
… FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
1832 - Settlers start construction of what is called Fort Blue Mounds, near modern Madison, Wisconsin, the fort is built to protect the settlers from attacks by the Winnebago
1864 - Cherokee Stand Watie is promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate army. He is the first Indian to reach that rank. He will also be the last Confederate General to surrender at the end of the Civil War.
… IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
1291 - Scottish nobles recognize authority of English king Edward I
1534 - French navigator Jacques Cartier reaches Newfoundland
1559 - Scottish Protestants under John Knox uprise against queen-mother Mary
1801 - First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America
1941 - Adolph Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland
… IN SCIENCE & RELIGION
1752 - Benjamin Franklins 1st tests the lightning rod
1930 - 1st US planetarium opens (Adler-Chicago)
1960 - US atomic sub USS Triton completes 1st around world under water trip
… IN US POLITICS
1676 - Bacon's Rebellion, frontiersmen vs Virginia gov’t begins
1775 - Green Mountain Boys capture Ft Ticonderoga NY-American Revolution
1924 - J Edgar Hoover appointed head of FBI
… ARTISTS: AUTHORS: COMPOSERS…
1838 - John Wilkes Booth, American stage actor and assassin
1902 - David O Selznick, Pittsburgh Pa, producer (Gone With the Wind)
…ATHLETES
Pat Summerall, Sportscaster, turns 81
…ENTERTAINERS (ACTORS/SINGERS…)
1899 - Fred Astaire American dancer and actor
1909 - Maybelle Carter American singer, songwriter and guitarist
Donovan (Donovan Philips Leitch), Folk, rock singer, turns 65
Gary Owens, Announcer ("Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In"), turns 72
1922 - Nancy Walker American movie and television actress
… ENTREPRENEUR & EDUCATORS
1832 - William Grace Irish-born American shipowner; founder of W. R. Grace & Company
1850 - Thomas Johnstone Lipton, Glasgow, yachtsman/tea magnate (Lipton Tea)
…POLITICIANS
1908 - Carl Albert, (D) speaker of the House
1837 - Pinckney B S Pinchback, Lt Gov (Louisiana)
…SCIENTISTS / THEOLOGISTS
1788 - Augustin-Jean Fresnel, optics pioneer/physicist
Today’s Obits:
1994 - John Wayne Gacy, mass murderer, executed in Illinois at 52
1863 - Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, Conf general (Civil War), dies of pneumonia after having arm amputated in battle at 39
1973 - Jack E Leonard, comedian, dies following heart surgery at 62
1818 - Paul Revere, American patriot, dies at 83
1999 - Shel Silverstein, American poet and composer dies of heart attack at 68
1904 - Henry M Stanley, [John Rowlands], British explorer, dies of pleurisy at 63
ANSWERS:
Trivia Quiz
Who wrote Breakfast At Tiffany's?
Truman Capote
What was the title of the 1951 autobiography by Lionel Barrymore?
We Barrymores
What was the particular link between Jean Plaidy, Phillipa Carr and Victoria Holt?
They are the same person
Which fictional detective refers to using the little gray cells?
Hercule Poirot
What is the real name of the author of Miss Manners Guide For the Turn of the Millennium?
Judith Martin
Under which name did American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens write?
Mark Twain
Whose novel, published at the very end of the 19th century, produced the most-filmed horror character of the 20th century?
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
Whose novels include Go Tell It On The Mountain?
James Baldwin
What was the first name of New Zealand novelist Ms. Marsh?
Ngaio
Who wrote Winesburg, Ohio?
Sherwood Anderson
Who won a Booker Prize for Midnight's Children?
Salmam Rushdie
In which decade of the century did HG Wells die?
1940s
Close Up Picture
…AND THAT’S ALL FOR NOW
