10-27-14

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Almanac: Day: 300 / Week: 44 
October Averages: 63° \ 31°
  


Holiday Observances Today:
Cranky Co-workers Day
Navy Day-founded 1775
Sylvia Plath Day-Bostonian Poet & Writer
World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

Independence Day (Turkmenistan)
National Tell a Story Day (Scotland\U.K.)
           
Quote of the Day



Historical Highlights for Today
1275 - Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam
1651 - English troops occupy Limerick, Ireland
1682 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded
1838 - Missouri issues the Extermination Order, orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated
1871 - Boss Tweed (William Macy Tweed), Democratic leader arrested after NY Times exposed his corruption
1904 - IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit), opens in NYC
1913 - Pres Wilson says US will never attack another country
1916 - 1st published reference to "jazz" appears (Variety)
1919 - US Congress sign Volstead Act
1925 - Water skis patented by Fred Waller
1938 - DuPont announces its new synthetic fiber will be called "nylon"
1947 - "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx premieres on ABC radio
1959 - Rare Pacific hurricane kills 2,000 in Western Mexico
1967 - Expo '67 closes in Montreal, Canada
1968 - 19th Olympic Games close at Mexico City, Mexico
1969 - Ralph Nader sets up a consumer organization - Nader's Raiders
1978 - Begin & Sadat win Nobel Peace prize
1982 - China announces its population at 1 billion people plus
2005 - Riots begin in Paris after the deaths of two Muslim teenagers
·         
  Birthdays Today:
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today



My Rambling Thoughts
A quiet Sunday. Caught some football games, watched some movies on Netflix, and cleaned the bathrooms. Listened to the news programs and am amazed at how the Ebola thing is being handled by local governments. Quarantining healthy nurse who is very vocal about her isolation and what she believes is mistreatment. She is very articulate for sure. Then the NYC Mayor came on and thanked all the health care people and asked that the citizens stop the mistreatment of nurses from Belleview by refusing them service at restaurants or harassing their children at public schools.
It was windy today. When I got up my deck, front area, and gutters were covered with about an inch of pine needles. When the wind finally died down this afternoon, I did sweep the front sidewalk as it looked like one of those abandoned houses from a horror movie. Will do the back deck later…and probably will do the gutters, since the HOA doesn’t really take care of them.
·         
Game  Center (answers at the end of post)
Brain Teasers
Fill in the missing words in the movie titles below. Those six words form a group, but the seventh member is missing. Can you find the missing word?

1. _____s with Morrie
2. Freaky _____
3. Ash _____
4. First _____ in October
5. Any Given _____
6. _____ Night Fever

           
Found on You Tube with some relevance to today




           
OK Then…


·         
Paraphernalia 4 the Brain:     
Brief History…
Thomas Jefferson Freed His Slaves When He Died
Hardly.  Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves and freed only 5 upon his death.  The rest were sold as part of his estate.  In spite of his stated abhorrence of slavery, Jefferson kept slaves like the other rich people of his time, and furthermore thought that Africans were inferior to white people, although he admitted he did not know if that was because of race or the circumstances that found Africans enslaved without education and freedom.  The rumor of Jefferson fathering a child with a slave woman has been proven to be true in modern times through DNA testing.

Educator’s Answers…
“When I retire, I still want to do something, so I think I might take up teaching.”
Teaching is not a hobby, like gardening or sailing. Teaching will likely make your old job feel like a vacation.

Flagstaff, AZ History…
From 1889
Three attempts were made Thursday night at incendiary. Two to burn up railroad cars and one to burn G. A. Woods' new home on the south side of the railroad. The fiend was successful in burning one box car loaded with a mix of merchandise, the bulk of which belonged to The Arizona Lumber Co. Our citizens should wake up to this matter and make strenuous effort to capture these fiends.
           
Harper’s Index…
Percentage change since 1997 in the number of US businesses with no employees: +47
           
Halloween Facts…
-Mexico celebrates the Days of the Dead (Días de los Muertos) on the Christian holidays All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2) instead of Halloween. The townspeople dress up like ghouls and parade down the street.
-During the pre-Halloween celebration of Samhain, bonfires were lit to ensure the sun would return after the long, hard winter. Often Druid priests would throw the bones of cattle into the flames and, hence, “bone fire” became “bonfire.”
-Dressing up as ghouls and other spooks originated from the ancient Celtic tradition of townspeople disguising themselves as demons and spirits. The Celts believed that disguising themselves this way would allow them to escape the notice of the real spirits wandering the streets during Samhain.

Law Facts…
-In Scotland it is illegal to be a drunk in possession of a cow.
-Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol in Missouri.
           
Religious Facts…
-According to the Bible, God killed 2,476,633 people whereas Satan killed 10.
-Unicorns were mentioned in the Bible…  Job (Chapter 39:9,10), Deuteronomy 33:17, Numbers 23:22 and 24:8; Psalm 22:21, 29:6 and 92:10; and Isaiah 34:7. 

Rules of Thumb…
PICKING YOUR BEVERAGES
Get the orange juice for free on the airplane and buy the coffee in the terminal after you land. OJ is pricier in the airport than decent coffee, and you'll certainly never find decent coffee in the air.           
Unusual Fact of the Day…
The first TV show to use “open captions,” or captioning for the hearing-impaired available on all television sets, was The French Chef on PBS.
·         
Joke-of-the-day
There was this little guy sitting in a bar, drinking his beer, minding his own business when all of a sudden this great big dude comes in and -- WHACK!! -- knocks him off the bar stool and onto the floor.
The big dude says, "That was a karate chop from Korea."
The little guy thinks "GEEZ," but he gets back up on the stool and starts drinking again when all of a sudden -- WHACK!! -- the big dude knocks him down AGAIN and says,
"That was a judo chop from Japan."
So the little guy has had enough of this... He gets up, brushes himself off and quietly leaves. The little guy is gone for an hour or so when he returned. Without saying a word, he walks up behind the big dude and -- WHAM!!!" -- knocks the big dude off his stool, knocking him out cold!!!
The little guy looks at the bartender and says, "When he gets up, tell him that's a crowbar from Sears. 

Yep, It Really Happened
MANKATO, Minn. (UPI)
A U.S. Airman on leave in Minnesota said he was "sorely mistaken" when he "thought it would be incredibly funny to give a police officer a wet Willy." Riley Louis Swearingen, 24, of Goldsboro, N.C., pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disruptive intoxication charge Monday in connection with a Saturday incident involving the defendant, two moistened fingers and both of a Mankato police sergeant's ears. District Judge Kurt Johnson heard Swearingen, who is visiting Minnesota while on leave from the Air Force, was boarding the "drunk bus" after the downtown bars closed early Saturday, when he decided to carry out a "wet Willy" prank when he spotted a uniformed police sergeant. Swearingen licked a finger on each hand and then inserted them into both of the sergeant's ears, the court heard. Cmdr. Jeremy Clifton said Swearingen was immediately arrested. A charge of assaulting a police officer with bodily fluids was dropped in exchange for Swearingen's guilty plea.
"I thought it would be incredibly funny to give a police officer a wet Willy, to which I was sorely mistaken," Swearingen told Johnson. "I'm incredibly sorry for what I did. I never thought I would be going to jail for the weekend."
Swearingen was sentenced to the three days he had already spent in jail and ordered to pay $77 in court costs.         

Somewhat Useless Information
An Earth-like planet with familiar to Earth conditions has been discovered in the galaxy by astronomers, located just 16 light years away from our planet.
 Gliese 832c is a super-Earth with a mass 5.4 times that of our own planet orbiting a red dwarf star every 36 days, meaning that it is much closer to its host star than we are to ours.
“If the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme,” said Professor Chris Tinney of the University of New South Wales.
+++
Did you know that while orbiting the Earth astronauts had previously enjoyed applesauce and that peaches were the first fruit to be eaten on the moon?
But that was not the only food. The astronauts during the United States’ Apollo 11 moon mission, enjoyed two meals. Along with canned peaches, the first meal included bacon squares, sugar cookie cubes, coffee and a beverage made with pineapple and grapefruit juices.
+++
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the average Greek worker toils away for 2,017 hours per year, the highest in Europe. Hungary and Poland are next. Germans work 1,408 hours a year on average, which is 40% less than the average Greek, according to the same organization.
“The Greek labor market is composed of a large number of people who are self-employed, meaning farmers and – on the other hand – shop-keepers who are working long hours”, Pascal Marianna, a labor markets statistician at the OECD says.      
·         
Check Your Calendar
Observances This Week:
--- 24-30
Disarmament Week
Prescription Errors Education & Awareness Week

World Origami Days
International Magic Week
Asexuality Week
Give Wildlife a Brake! Week 
Kids Care Week
National Infertility Awareness Week 

·         
Today’s Events through History
   312 - Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross
1787 - Federalist letters start appearing in New York newspapers
1941 - Chicago Daily Tribune editorialize there will not be war with Japan
1954 - Pres Eisenhower offers aid to S Vietnam Pres Ngo Dinh Diem
1971 - Republic of Congo-Kinshasa becomes Republic of Zaire
1981 - Andrew Young, former UN Ambassador, elected mayor of Atlanta, Georgia
1988 - Larry Flynt paid hitman $1M to kill Hefner, Guccione & Sinatra
·         
Birthday’s Today
Nanette Fabray, actress (Katherine-One Day at a Time) is 93
John Cleese, comedian (Monty Python) is 75
Lee Greenwood, country singer (God Bless the USA) is 72

Terry Anderson, AP correspondent/US hostage held in Lebanon is 67
Fran Lebowitz, author/actress (Resident Alien) is 64
Patty Sheehan, LPGA golfer (1994 US Women's Open) is 58
Matt Drudge, American conservative blogger is 48
Kelly Osbourne, English television personality is 30

Remembered for being born today
James Cook, captain/explorer, discovered Sandwich Islands (1728-1779)
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th Pres (Nobel 1906), (1858-1919)
Emily Post, authority on social behavior/writer (Etiquette) (1872-1960)
Fred de Cordova, film/TV producer (Tonight Show) (1910-2001)
Dylan Thomas, Wales, poet (Child's Christmas in Wales) (1914-1953)
Roy Lichtenstein, NYC, Pop art painter (painted comic book panels) (1923-1997)
Ruby Dee, actress (A Raisin in the Sun) (1922-2014)
H R Haldeman, former White House Chief of Staff (Watergate figure) (1926-1993)
Sylvia Plath, Bostonian poet (Colossus, 3 Women, Bell Jar) (1932-1963)
Floyd Cramer, hall of fame pianist (Last Date) (1933-1997)
John Gotti, Bronx, mafia head of the Gambino family (1940-2002)
Carrie Snodgress, actress (Diary of Mad Housewife) (1945-2004)
·         
Historical Obits Today
Xavier Cugart, bandleader, 1990, @90
Rex Stout, US detective writer (Nero Wolfe), 1975, @88
James M Cain, US writer (Postman Always Rings Twice), 1977, @85
James Hillman, founder of Archetypal Psychology, 2011, @85
Lou Reed, musician (Velvet Underground), liver disease, 2013, @71
Ivan III, [Ivan the Great], Grand Prince of Moscow and Russia, 1505 @65
Rudolph Anderson, U-2 pilot, shot down over Cuba, 1962, @35

 ·         
Brain Teasers Answers
1.      Tuesdays with Morrie
2. Freaky Friday
3. Ash Wednesday
4. First Monday in October
5. Any Given Sunday
6. Saturday Night Fever

2.      Missing word-Thursday         
·         
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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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.