This is Week 44 of 2010►Day 310 with 55 days left.
Flagstaff Weather: H—68°; L—25°; RH—33%; —fair sky and wind—8 mph
QUOTE FOR THE DAY—Henry David Thoreau
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
FREE RAMBLING THOUGHTS
What a story: Edison Peña was trapped in a mine for 69 days. During that time he ran daily and led his fellow trapped miners in Elvis sing-a-longs. Then 17 days after coming out of that mine he competed in a triathlon in Chile. The organizers of the NY Marathon decided to invite and pay for the trip so Edison could watch the marathon. He responded with “I want to run the marathon, not watch it.” So he will. What an amazing man.
A WT_? story: I am a big fan on MSNBC. I realize that their air personalities are liberal and progressive. I have seldom considered MSNBC as a news source—it is a source of stories that are commented on. And their evening show comments are liberal. Always. I learned today that NBC News has a policy that its employees are not to work for or donate to political campaigns without getting special exception. It seems that Keith Olbermann has been indefinitely suspended without pay for donating $2500 to each of two campaigns in AZ and one in KY. As much as I enjoy his commentary on the news, he broke the rules and should be reprimanded. Oddly or not, he has been hounding corporations for their donations to the Republicans and demanding that donation lists become public record so we know who is donating to whom. Well, I don’t know what led him to donate to elections outside his home state and why he didn’t announce them—at least to his bosses. Anyway, I will miss his James Thurber readings every Friday. He made some very good commentary while he watched his father die, in a hospital, over about four months. He put into words what many of us go through when we lose a parent. He hit the good, the bad, and the ugly parts and always with professionalism. I’m sure there is more to the donation story, but again, he admits making the donations and didn’t follow the rules and he should be reprimanded. If he wanted to question the rule, or change the rule, I think he took the wrong approach. I await, as conservative Paul Harvey would be saying, the rest of the story.
Have you heard of Zenyatta? She is the an amazing race horse. If she wins again tomorrow, everyone will know her. She is undefeated in her racing career. She also has one Guinness along with her oats and carrots after her morning workout. That right, every day one Guinness. The trainer says they have tried other beers, but for Zenyatta—she will only drink the Guinness. I was going to say “Isn’t that a horse’s patoot” but wasn’t sure how to spell it, Google said I was right in the spelling, but when I found out what it means, I won’t be using that phrase again.
The weekend is upon us, and I am going to keep myself busy. We are still having grrrrrreat fall weather and I should be able to get some outside work done. I ran a few errands today and discovered that my supermarket price war will probably not come to pass. I tried to do my weekly shopping at the new WalMart. Sorry to say, the prices aren’t any better than other grocery stores, and they certainly don’t have the selection. To top it off, they don’t have ‘weekly specials’. So without prices lower than other stores, less selection than other stores, and no specials I won’t be doing a lot of shopping in their supermarket. It will save me a trip to the other side of town for household staples but I’m afraid that will be it.
HOLY MACKEREL: 1936 RCA displays TV for the press
JEOPARDY PUZZLE—(1984 games)(answers below) Ancient Greece
$200-The Greeks' word for world or Sagan's word for universe
$400-"Amazing" home of the Minotaur
$600-City-state ruled by Pericles
$800-The name of poetry with a lyre accompaniment
$1000-Founder of "Lyceum", his students walked with him as he taught
SOMEWHAT USELESS INFORMATION—Music Test Results
Maybe this is why they don't teach music in high school any more. Following are actual answers from students on music tests...
- The principal singer of nineteenth century opera was called pre-Madonna.
- Gregorian chant has no music, just singers singing the same lines.
- Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.
- All female parts were sung by castrati. We don't know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.
- Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven's Erotica, Tchaikovsky Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin's Rap City in Blue.
- Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco.
- A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
- Contralto is a low sort of music that only ladies sing.
- Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
- I know what a sextet is but I'd rather not say.
- Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.
- Rock Monanoff was a famous post-romantic composer of piano concerti.
UNUSUAL NEWS ITEM
TAMPA, FL. — Lizabeth the terrier experienced the canine terror of being dragged underwater in an alligator's jaws — and lived to bark the tale.
The gator wasn't so fortunate.
Tom Martino said he and his Jack Russell terrier were taking their afternoon walk along the Hillsborough River in Tampa on Thursday when he heard splashing — the alligator had snatched the 15-pound dog off riverside rocks and pulled her into the water.
Martino, who has a concealed weapons permit, pulled out his handgun and started shooting at the water around the alligator to frighten it into releasing the dog, he told WFLA-TV.
The 6-foot-4 alligator eventually let her go. Using a rod, Martino was able to rescue his dog, he told WFLA. He then performed CPR on her.
"She coughed up a bunch of water," said Martino, who had never performed CPR on a dog. "I was scared. That's my little baby."
Nine-year-old Lizabeth, who is named after Fred Sanford's deceased wife from the 1970s sitcom "Sanford and Son," is in critical but stable condition and is being cared for at Florida Veterinary Specialists in Tampa.
Veterinarian Miryam Reems told WFLA that the dog suffered bites and lung injuries from being underwater. Before the alligator attack, Lizabeth was being treated for a suppressed immune system. Reems told WFLA the CPR saved Lizabeth's life. At about 7 p.m. Thursday, a trapper contracted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission used a treble hook and fish line to capture the alligator, WFLA reported.
Martino took photos of the capture as neighbors watched and news crews filmed the action. The alligator was taped, roped and placed in the back of the trapper's pickup truck.
The animal was declared a nuisance and was to be euthanized, WFLA reported.
"I'm glad he's gone and nobody else got hurt," Martino said.
A LITTLE LAUGH
I was traveling through Georgia last summer and stopped at a little backwoods country store. In the men's room there was a handwritten sign above the malfunctioning potty which said, "Please Wiggel Handel".
Below that some wit had written, "If I do, will it wiggel Bach?"
FOUND ON ‘YOU TUBE’
GREY MATTER PICTURE
This is a close up of what object?
SOME CALENDAR INFORMATION
¤ Weekly Observances ¤
1-7: Intimate Apparel Market Week
Give Wildlife A Break Week
National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week
Give Wildlife A Break Week
National Patient Accessibility Week
World Communication Week
7-13: National Nurse Practioner's Week, Pursuit of Happiness Week, National Rad Tech Week , Fraud Awareness Week, Dear Santa Letter Week, National Young Reader's Week, World Kindness Week
14-20: American Education Week, Geography Awareness Week, National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week, National Global Entrepreneurship Week
19-25:National Farm-City Week
21-28: National Bible Week, National Family Week, National Game & Puzzle Week, National Teens Don't Text and Drive Week, Better Conversation Week, Church/State Separation Week
¤ Today’s Observances ¤
Saxophone Day
Marooned Without A Compass Day
International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict
Sadie Hawkins Day
Dominican Republic: Constitution Day (1884)
Finland: Finnish Swedish Heritage Day, a flag day
Mauritius: Ganga Asnam (First Aide Training)
Morocco: Green March
Sweden: Gustavus Adolphus Day, death of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and official flag day
Tajikistan: Constitution Day (1994)
Tatarstan: Constitution Day (1992)
¤ Top 10 songs of 1962 ¤
Click on Song Title to see and hear the original
¤ Today’s Births ¤
╬ THE ARTS
Ray Conniff, chorus director (Ray Conniff Singers), born in 1916
Glenn Frey, 62, musician, songwriter, singer (The Eagles)
James Jones, novelist (From Here to Eternity), born in 1921
Jim Jordan, radio comedian (Fibber McGee), born in 1896
Mike Nichols (Michael Igor Peschkowsky), 79, film and stage director and producer (Oscar for The Graduate)
Adolphe Sax, musician/inventor (saxophone) , born in 1814
John Phillip Sousa, march king (Stars & Stripes Forever), born in 1854
♦♦Actors♦♦
Sally Field, 64, actress (Oscars for Norma Rae, Places in the Heart; Emmy for Sybil)
Nigel Havers, 61, actor (Chariots of Fire, Empire of the Sun)
Ethan Hawke, 40, actor (Training Day, Dead Poets Society), novelist
╬ ATHLETICS
James A Naismith, inventor (basketball), born in 1861
╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
Arne Duncan, 46, US Secretary of Education
Alois Senefelder, inventor (lithography), born in 1771
Charles H Dow, co-founded Dow Jones/1st editor of Wall St Journal, born in 1851
╬ POLITICS
Maria Owings Shriver, 55, First Lady of California, broadcast journalist
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
Dieter F. Uchtdorf, 70, LDS apostle
Jerry Yang, 42,Chinese American entrepreneur (Yahoo!, Inc.)
¤ Today’s Obituaries ¤
King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden killed in battle @ 38 in 1632
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer, cholera or suicide @ 53 in 1893
Gene Tierney, actress, emphysema @ 70 in 1991
¤ Today’s Events ¤
╬ THE ARTS
1905-The original stage production of Sir James Barrie’s Peter Pan opened in New York
1966-1st entire lineup televised in color (NBC)
1967-Phil Donahue began a TV talk show in Dayton, Ohio.
╬ ATHLETICS
1956-Holland & Spain withdraw from Olympics, protest Soviets in Hungary
1961-US government issues a stamp honoring 100th anniv. of James Naismith’s birth
╬ BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1850-1st Hawaiian fire engine
╬ INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
1864-Colonel Kit Carson, and his troops, leave Fort Bascom, in western New Mexico, en route for the Texas panhandle to "punish" the "hostile" Comanches, and Kiowas
1868-Four "Ogallalah Sioux," including Red Cloud, two "Brule Sioux," eighteen "Uncpapa Sioux," ten "Blackfeet Sioux," five "Cuthead Sioux," three "Two Kettle Sioux," four "Sans Arch Sioux," and seven "Santee Sioux" sign the Fort Laramie treaty (15 stat. 635).
╬ POLITICS (US)
1850-Yerba Buena & Angel Islands (San Francisco Bay) reserved for military use
1885-US mint at Carson City, Nevada directed to close
1973-Abe Beame elected 1st jewish mayor on NYC
1973-Coleman Young elected mayor of Detroit
1986-Reagan signs landmark immigration reform bill
--Presidents elected today-
1860-Abraham Lincoln (R-Ill-Rep) elected 16th President
1861-Jefferson Davis elected to 6 year term as Confederate President
1888-Benjamin Harrison (R-Sen-Indiana) beats President Grover Cleveland (D), 233 electoral votes to 168, Cleveland received slightly more votes
1900-President William McKinley (R) re-elected, beating William Jennings Bryan
1928-Herbert Hoover (R) beats Alfred E Smith (D) for President
1956-President Eisenhower (D) re-elected defeating Adlai E Stevenson (R)
1984-President Reagan (R) landslide (won 49 states) re-election over Mondale (D)
╬ POLITICS (International)
1813-Chilpancingo congress declares Mexico independent of Spain
1917-Bolshevik revolution begins with the capture of the Winter Palace
╬ SCIENCE & RELIGION
1572-Supernova is observed in the constellation known as Cassiopeia
1789-Pope Pius VI appointed the Rt. Rev. John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States (in the diocese of Baltimore)
GREY MATTER ANSWERS
↔ JEOPARDY
$200-The Greeks' word for world or Sagan's word for universe
What is cosmos?
$400-"Amazing" home of the Minotaur
What is a maze or labyrinth?
$600-City-state ruled by Pericles
What is Athens?
$800-The name of poetry with a lyre accompaniment
What is lyric poetry?
$1000-Founder of "Lyceum", his students walked with him as he taught
Who is Aristotle?
↔ PICTURE
Inside a washing machine
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