5-23-14


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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 143  / Week: 21 
May Averages: 68° \ 34°
Today: Average Sky Cover: 8%
    H 64° L 37° Ave. humidity: 23%
    Wind: ave:   6mph; Gusts:  29mph  
    Average High: 70° Record High:  85° (2000)
    Average Low: 36° Record Low:  23° (1927)
       
Quote of the Day
Today’s Historical Highlights

1275 - King Edward I of England orders cessation of persecution of French Jews
1430 - Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne & sold to the English
1785 - Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals
1863 - Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan
1873 - 1st Preakness: G Barbee aboard Survivor wins in 2:43
1922 - Walt Disney incorporates his 1st film company Laugh-O-Gram Films
1958 - US schools 1st use Cliff's Notes
1958 - Mao Tse-tung start "Great leap forward" movement in China
1960 - Israel announces capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina
1969 - Who release rock opera "Tommy"
1990 - Cost of rescuing savings & loan failures is put at up to $130 billion
1992 - President Bush orders Coast Guard to intercept boats with Haitian refugees

  Today’s Birthdays:   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays below
My Free Rambling Thoughts   

While our Slide Fire continues to grow…it continues to grow…now about 5000 acres or a little over 7 sq miles. The wind is not as bad today, the smoke, while still present, is not as bad as yesterday. The fire has over 500 people fighting it and they are more encouraging with every hourly update. This is a very serious situation and has made the national news on most news channels. Partly it because this area is one of the great tourist attractions to AZ. Oak Creek Canyon is beautiful and makes the 40 minute drive to Sedona one of the best in the state. The road is scheduled to be closed for repairs starting next week…nothing to do with the fire…for most of the summer. Thankfully, so far, the hot shot crews and the many firefighters have prevented the loss of any structures.  Hopefully there will be even better news tomorrow.

Cheryl is still in CA and when I called Mary she was heading out of town for a wedding, so no lunch group this week. Both are doing great and enjoying their time away from Flagstaff.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers
Awkward is your first,
But something you never forget.
Gross if you just ate Liverwurst,
But the best while watching a sunset.
**
The more of me you get,
The more of me you thirst.
I appear in Shakespeare's sonnets;
I make you so happy you could burst.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today






OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

Number of telephone lines on a terrorist ‘alert list’ that were monitored daily by the NSA from 2006-2009: 17,835

Percentage of those lines that met the agency’s legal standard by ‘reasonable articulable suspension’ of terrorists: 11

Unusual Fact of the Day

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, leans slightly toward the shade on sunny days!

Top 5 Most Educated Movie Stars in Hollywood…

#4 - Ken Jeong
Probably best-known as the creepy janitor on "Community," Ken Jeong has also starred in movies like "The Hangover" and "Pineapple Express," and he's one of the few actors in Hollywood who is a real-life medical doctor. Jeong was a member of the High IQ team in high school and graduated early at the age of 16. After receiving his undergraduate degree at Duke University, Jeong completed his medical degree at the University of North Carolina and performed his residency at the New Orleans Ochsner Medical Center. It was in New Orleans that Jeong began doing stand-up and eventually decided to pursue comedy in Los Angeles.

Travel Destination Info… 

8) Australia - $25.6 billion
Some $25.6 billion dollars was spent by international tourists visiting the continent and country of Australia in 2009. Great tourist attractions in Australia include Ayers Rock, the Sydney Opera House and the Great Barrier Reef.

Top 5 Poorest Countries…

4 - Burundi
Twice as many people live in Burundi as in the state of Maryland, although the two are similar in size. Nine out of 10 Burundians rely on farming to survive. Droughts and commodity prices affect their income from major crops such as tea and coffee, one reason why the country's per capita PPP gross national product of $640 makes it the world's fourth poorest. Less than 2 percent of the population has electricity in this rural society.

Joke-of-the-day

Teacher: Now, Sam, tell me frankly do you say prayers before eating?

Sam: No sir, I don't have to, my mom is a good cook.

Rules of Thumb:   

CALLIGRAPHY
The most pleasing height for lower-case italic letters is five times the width of the pen point, or nib.

Yeah, It Really Happened

MERIDA, Mexico (UPI) - Archaeologists say they've found the oldest skull and skeleton in the Americas, and it's evidence that Native Americans -- whether modern or ancient -- trace their lineage to a single migration of people across the land bridge that once connected North America and Asia.
It's the skull of a 16-year-old girl, dubbed Naia, who some 13,000 years ago fell into a deep cave on the Yucatan Peninsula while fetching water. Since flooded by rising sea levels, the underground layer is now called the Outland Cave and is part of a vast network called the Sac Actun cave system -- one of the largest underwater cave systems ever surveyed.
In 2007, divers exploring the system came upon a giant underwater chamber full of fossils -- including the bones of saber-toothed tigers, giant ground sloths, and other Ice Age mammals. They also found the skeleton of Naia.
"It was a small cranium laying upside down with a perfect set of teeth and dark eye sockets looking back at us," Alberto Nava, one of the divers, recalled.
Little did Nava or the the divers know, the perfectly preserved skeleton would help solve a migration mystery.
For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have remained puzzled by the appearance of modern Native Americans, whose facial structure most closely resembles the peoples of China, Korea or Japan. Meanwhile, the skulls of ancient Americans, often referred to as Paleoamericans, are narrower and more forward-projecting, recalling the native peoples of Africa, Australia, and the southern Pacific Rim.
The discrepancy lead some scientists to surmise that the Americas were populated by two separate migrations, first by people hailing from Polynesia or western Asia and later by people from East Asia.
But the skeleton, and a new study, offer some clarity. Naia's skull features facial characteristics of ancient Americans and the DNA lineage of modern Native Americans -- a lineage that traces to Beringia, the ancient region of grassland steppe that connected modern-day Alaska with Siberia during the last ice age. Lead archaeologist James Chatters says it's proof that both sets of Native Americans originate from the same place.
But although the new study -- published this week in the journal Science -- settles the problem of Native American migration, questions remain.
As Rasmus Nielsen, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, explained to USA Today: "It's interesting, because it raises a new question: Why are there (skull and facial) changes? Is it really true that Native Americans have evolved ... in such a short amount of time?"

Somewhat Useless Information   

It's thought that the practice of chucking one's cap to the heavens at the end of the ceremony started in 1912 at the U.S. Naval Academy's graduation. For the first time the Navy gave the newly commissioned graduates their officers' hats at graduation, so they no longer needed the midshipmen's caps they'd been wearing for the previous four years. To show how pleased they were, the new officers tossed their old headgear up in the air. When other students heard about the practice, they followed suit.

The graduation song is often known as "Pomp and Circumstance," but it's actually a small piece of Sir Edward Elgar's 1901 composition "March No. 1 in D Major," part of his "Pomp and Circumstance Military March" series that spanned nearly 30 years of his career.

Diplomas were originally written on a sheep's skin. Early paper was pretty fragile and difficult to make, but parchment was much more plentiful and durable. Parchment, of course, is made from the skin of a sheep, goat, or calf, and its durability made it ideal for a keepsake like a diploma.

Originally, academic gowns served a practical purpose, not a ceremonial one. In the 12th and 13th centuries, teachers and students wore gowns and hoods to keep warm in cold school buildings. In 1321, the University of Coimbra in Portugal became the first school to require that its students wear robes. Oxford University organized the first baccalaureate ceremony in 1432, and students in attendance wore robes and recited sermons.

Oxford University debuted the first cap and gown---the graduation attire that students still use today. Though other universities used round caps, Oxford's mortar board-style cap is the most popular and traditional form of academic regalia.

Tassels often adorn today's mortarboard graduation caps. The earliest graduation caps used in Oxford, Cambridge, and other European universities had a tuft in the center. Today's tassels are a modern-day interpretation of these original tufts. It has become symbolic for a student to turn the tassel from one side to the other after graduating to signify a passing into the next phase of life.

Calendar Information        

This Week’s Observances:
18-24
National Safe Boating Week
EMS (Emergency Medical Services) Week
National New Friends, Old Friends Week

World Trade Week 

19-26
National Backyard Games Week
National Educational Bosses' Week 
National Medical Transcription Week  
International Coaching Week
Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week


20-23                       
National Stationery Week

22-25
Mudbug Madness Week
National Polka Weekend

 
Old-Time Player Piano Weekend

Today Is  

Don't Fry Day 
Heat Awareness Safety Day 
International World Turtle Day

National Polka Day
National Taffy Day  

National Wig Out Day
Penny Day
World Crohn's and Colitis Day 
Heat Awareness Day
][
Linnaeus Day (Sweden-for Carl Linnaeus- foundations for the modern biological naming scheme)
National Day (Morocco-1980)
Victoria Day (Canada-
honors Queen Victoria)


Today’s Events through History  

1568 - The Netherlands declare independence from Spain.
1940 - 1st great dogfight between Spitfires and Luftwaffe
1943 - Thomas Mann begins writing his novel Dr Faustus

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Barbara Barrie, actress (Barney Miller) is 83
Joan Collins, actress is 81
Anatoli Karpov, USSR, world chess champion is 63
"Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, middleweight boxing champ is 60
Drew Carey, actor/comedian (Drew Carey Show, TPIR) is 56
Ken Jennings, American game show contestant is 40
Jewel Kilcher, singer-songwriter (Pieces of You) is 40

Remembered for being born today

1707-1778 - Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist and the Father of Taxonomy
1889 -1960- José Padilla, Spanish composer and pianist
1908-2004 - Max Abramovitz, US architect (Lincoln Center, UN Building)
1910-2004 - Artie Shaw, [Arthur Arshawsky], bandleader
1910-1986 - Scatman Crothers, [Benjamin], actor (Zapped, Shining)
1920-2011 - Sid Melton, actor (Alf-Green Acres)
1928-2002 - Rosemary Clooney, singer

Today’s Historical Obits

John D Rockefeller, industrialist and philanthropist, 1937, @97
Sam Snead, American golfer, 2002, @89 
George Jessel, US comic/toastmaster, 1981, @83
Jackie "Moms" Mabley, comedienne, 1975, @81
Kit Carson, trapper, scout, and Indian agent, aneurism, 1868, @58
William Kidd, Scottish pirate, hanged, 1701, @56
Clyde Barrow, outlaw, killed in police ambush, 1934, @25
Bonnie Parker, outlaw, killed in police ambush, 1934. @23

Brain Teasers                                         

A Kiss

Disclaimer: All opinions are mine…feel free to agree or disagree.

All ‘data’ info is from the internet sites and is usually checked with at least one other source, but I have learned that every site has mistakes and sadly once out the information is out there, many sites simply copy it and is therefore difficult to verify. Also for events occurring before the Gregorian calendar was adopted [1582] the dates may not be totally accurate.

§    And That Is All for Now  §

 

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Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
I retired in '06--at the ripe old age of 57. I enjoy blogging, photography, traveling, and living life to it's fullest.