25 Days until Christmas
Flagstaff Weather:
All the really valuable things you own are things you can't photograph.
FREE RAMBLING THOUGHTS
The past few days have been very cold. This is fairly unusual for this early in the winter season. I only hope that we won’t look back on the last week of November as being warm. We are usually in the low 20’s for an average low temperature in November. I won’t be surprised it this year it is in the high teens. I know other places have been hit harder, but we just aren’t used to this many days of really cold nights.
I had lunch with Mary and Cheryl. We all had a great Thanksgiving. Cheryl had her son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids and Mary went to Phoenix where her Chicago daughter, son-in-law and grandson joined her son and his family. Mary was happy to get back to Flag as the Phoenix twins (aged 4) and the Chicago boy (2) had more than their fair share of territory issues. Cheryl is doing very well and had soup with us. She discovered another benefit; lunch is now much less expensive. We had some great conversation, a few laughs, and a good time.
Obama seems ready to piss off just about everybody with his latest announcement. He has frozen Federal salaries for two years. Except for the military. We retirees had already been warned not to expect much more than coal this year in our Christmas stocking. Now it is official. President Ronnie did the same thing when I was working. I am not against doing my fair share—either as a retiree or as a Federal worker. Of course, this freeze doesn’t freeze our health care costs for two years. So in actuality we had our salary reduced. This won’t make many headlines. It certainly won’t bring the brightest and the best to Federal service. It may let some know that our economy is still in the ditch. Federal employees, in general, make much less than their counterparts in the private sector. Now, for two years, even less than less. Whatever this announcement does in politics, it means that if will be even harder to recruit the best and brightest. I fully admit that when I joined the Federal Service I was happy to have a job. My career was successful by any measurement. I probably could have made more money if I had become a principal or a superintendent. However, I wouldn’t have been as happy. The caveat to this announcement is that the non-civilian military personnel will continue to get pay raises. There is quite a cadre of civilian military personnel throughout the world. They won’t get raises, but the soldiers will continue to get raises. Why they were singled out is beyond me. It is a voluntary military. The sell lines for joining the military include good education for easy movement to the private sector, being one of the ‘few’, helping the world citizens live in democracy, helping citizens in third world countries. I agree that no one working full time for the Federal government should have to get food stamps to survive. I know families that are separated for months and months during deployment. I know the grief of families when their son or daughter die fighting. I know quite a few who have joined the military and come back with the discipline and mind set to be successful. I just wonder why a president who campaigned to get us out of two wars hasn’t done it. I wonder why that president now believes that only our military personnel deserve to be paid more. If everyone has to continue to tighten their belts, then everyone has to do that.
HOLY MACKEREL: 1958 Our Lady of Angels School burns, killing 92 students & 3 nuns (Chicago)
∞ JEOPARDY PUZZLE—(SuperJeopardy Answers) from 1990 COOKING
►Snail butter, which can be served on other foods, is usually made with 1 or 2 cloves of this
►Traditionally, this vegetable put the “red” in red flannel hash
►This school was founded in 1895 to teach cooking to wealthy young Frenchwomen
►This Penn. dish, made with scraps of pork mixed with corn meal, is shaped into loaves & then sliced & fried
►In Mexican cooking this spicy sauce made with chilies & chocolate is often served over poultry
SOMEWHAT USELESS INFORMATION—Thanksgivng
The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, to commemorate the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony after a harsh winter. In that year Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. The colonists celebrated it as a traditional English harvest feast, to which they invited the local Wampanoag Indians.
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During the mid-1800s, poet and editor Sarah J. Hale began lobbying for a national Thanksgiving holiday. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November a day of thanksgiving.
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At one time, the turkey and the bald eagle were each considered as the national symbol of America. Benjamin Franklin was one of those who argued passionately on behalf of the turkey. Franklin felt the turkey, although "vain and silly", was a better choice than the bald eagle, whom he felt was "a coward".
UNUSUAL NEWS ITEM
LONDON — Author Rowan Somerville won literature's little-coveted Bad Sex in Fiction Prize Monday for the use of unsettling insect imagery in his novel "The Shape of Her."
Judges of the annual literary award said they were especially impressed by a passage comparing lovemaking to "a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect."
The animal imagery continues elsewhere in the novel, a tale of desire and memory set on a Greek island. One character's fingers are described as "tender enough to hold a tiny bird."
The prize, founded in 1993 by Literary Review magazine, aims to draw attention to "the crude, tasteless, and often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in contemporary novels."
Somerville, who was born in Britain and lives in Ireland, took his victory in good humor, noting that "there is nothing more English than bad sex."
He said he was honored to be shortlisted alongside authors like Australia's Christos Tsiolkas — for "The Slap" — and American writer Jonathan Franzen, nominated for the best-selling "Freedom."
Previous winners include such literary heavyweights as Sebastian Faulks, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and the late John Updike, who was awarded a lifetime achievement Bad Sex prize in 2008.
Last year's winner was "The Kindly Ones" by American author Jonathan Littell, which described a sex act as "a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg."
A LITTLE LAUGH
I'm the postmaster for a small town in Pennsylvania. One of my regular customers, Jeff, bought several sheets of newly released commemorative stamps.
Soon after he left, a woman came in carrying two crisp sheets of Harry Houdini stamps she'd found in the parking lot.
The next morning, I gave Jeff the sheets of stamps he'd lost. "You know," Jeff said to me, "I'm not at all that surprised the Houdini stamps reappeared."
FOUND ON ‘YOU TUBE’
∞ UP CLOSE PICTURE
This is a close up of what object?
CALENDAR INFORMATION
♦ December Observances ♦
December's flower is the narcissus or holly. December's birthstones are turquoise, lapis lazuli, zircon, topaz (blue), or tanzanite. In Latin, decem means "ten". December was also the tenth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period was divided between January and February. December is the month with the shortest daylight hours of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest daylight hours of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological winter is 1 December.
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World Aids Month►Bingo's Birthday Month►Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month►Love Your Neighbor Month►National Drunk & Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month►National Write A Business Plan Month►National Tie Month►Operation Santa Paws►Quince and Watermelon Month►Rising Star Month►Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month►Safe Toys and Gifts Month►Spiritual Literacy Month►Take a New Year's Resolution to Stop Smoking (TANYRSS)►Tomato and Winter Squash Month►Universal Human Rights Month►
World Aids Month►Bingo's Birthday Month►Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month►Love Your Neighbor Month►National Drunk & Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month►National Write A Business Plan Month►National Tie Month►Operation Santa Paws►Quince and Watermelon Month►Rising Star Month►Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month►Safe Toys and Gifts Month►Spiritual Literacy Month►Take a New Year's Resolution to Stop Smoking (TANYRSS)►Tomato and Winter Squash Month►Universal Human Rights Month►
♦ Weekly Observances ♦
1-7: Cookie Cutter Week ¤ Tolerance Week ¤ Recipe Greetings For The Holidays Week
1-9: Chanukah (Hanukkah)
♦ Today’s Observances ♦
National Pie Day
Eat A Red Apple Day
Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day
Day With(out) Art Day
Special Kids Day
World Aids Day (since 1991)
Hanukkah begins at sundown
Rosa Parks Day arrested in 1955 for not sitting in the back of the bus
Azores: Independence Day (Administrative from Portugal 1895)
Cape Verde: Restoration Day (1968)
Central African Republic: Independence Day (1958 from France)
Costa Rica: Military Abolition Day
Iceland: Independence Day (1918 from Denmark)
Liberia: Matilda Newport Day (1822 an ex-slave who helped build Liberia)
Myanmar: National Day
Portugal: Independence Day (1640 from Spain)
Portuguese Guinea: Youth Day
Romania: National Day
Thailand: Damrong Rajanubhab Day: to honor the founder of Thailand education
♫ One Hit Wonders—1966 ♫
Click on Song Title to see and hear the original
♦Today’s Births♦
ARTS
1933 Lou Rawls (Louis Allen), Grammy Award-winning singer
1634 John-Erasmus Quellinus [Quellien] Flemish painter
1886 Rex Stout mystery writer (Nero Wolf)
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Woody Allen (Allen Stewart Konigsberg), 75, filmmaker (Oscar for Annie Hall; Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters), actor
1929 David Doyle, actor: Charlie’s Angels
1913 Mary Martin actress (Peter Pan) Larry Hagman's mom
Bette Midler, 65, singer, actress (Beaches, For the Boys, Down and Out in Beverly Hills)
1940 Richard Pryor, comedian, actor
1923 Dick Shawn (Richard Schulefand), comedian, actor
Treat Williams, 58, actor (“Everwood”; Hair, Smooth Talk)
ATHLETICS
1925 Cal ‘Buster’ McLish (Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish), baseball: pitcher: Dodgers, Pirates, Cubs, Indians [all-star: 1959], Reds, White Sox, Phillies
Reggie Sanders, 43, baseball (Reds, Padres, Braves, Diamondbacks, Giant, Cardinals, Pirates, Royals)
Lee Buck Trevino, 71, golfer
BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1904 W A "Tony" Boyle United Mine Workers president
1912 Minoru Yamasaki architect (World Trade Center, New York)
POLITICS
1844 Alexandra Danish princess/Queen of Great Britain/Ireland
SCIENCE & RELIGION
1932 Robert T Herres USAF/astronaut
1743 Martin H Klaproth German chemist (uranium)
♦Today’s Obituaries♦
Henry I Beauclerc, king of England (1st king that could read), food poisoning @ 67 in 1135
Aleksandr I Romanov, czar of Russia (1801-25), mysteriously @ 47 in 1825
James Arthur Baldwin, writer (Another Country), esophageal cancer @ 63 in 1987
David Ben-Gurion, founding father of Israel, @ 87 in 1973
Philip Spencer, 1st US naval officer condemned for mutiny, hanged @ 19 in 1842
♦Today’s Events♦
ARTS
1879 Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, opened
1982 Michael Jackson releases "Thriller"
ATHLETICS
1981 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Oscar Robertson as pro basketball’s second all-time leading scorer (second to Wilt Chamberlain)
BUSINESS & EDUCATION
1913 1st drive-up gasoline station opens (Pittsburgh)
1913 Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford
1917 Boys Town founded by Father Edward Flanagan, west of Omaha NE
1921 US Post Office establishes philatelic agency
1929 Game of BINGO invented by Edwin S Lowe
1951 Golden Gate Bridge closes due to high winds
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
1805 To renegotiate the flint River Treaty of November 3, 1804, the United States invites 6 CREEK Chiefs to Washington to meet with Secretary of War Henry Dearborn. They agree to pay the CREEKs $206,000 for their two million acres instead of $200,000. But, the payments will be made over ten years, instead of in cash. The CREEK also agree to allowing a road through their lands.
1831 Peter Pitchlynn, and 400 other CHOCTAWs, board the steamer Brandywine in Memphis today. The steamer will transport them up to the Arkansas Post on the White River.
POLITICS (US)
1824 U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate had received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1942 Gasoline rationed in US
1978 President Carter more than doubles national park system size
POLITICS (International)
1919 Lady Nancy Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of British Parliament
1943 FDR, Churchill & Stalin agree to Operation Overlord (D-Day)
1965 South Africa government says children of white fathers are white
SCIENCE & RELIGION
1909 1st Israeli kibbutz founded, Deganya Alef
1930 Ruth Nichols becomes 1st woman pilot to cross the continent
1941 US Civil Air Patrol (CAP) organizes
1959 12 nations sign a treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica
1959 The 1st color photograph of Earth received from outer space
1982 Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
1987 Digging begins to link England & France under the English Channel
ANSWERS
∞ JEOPARDY
Snail butter, which can be served on other foods, is usually made with 1 or 2 cloves of this
What is garlic?
Traditionally, this vegetable put the “red” in red flannel hash
What are beets?
This school was founded in 1895 to teach cooking to wealthy young Frenchwomen
What is the Le Cordon Bleu?
This Penn. dish, made with scraps of pork mixed with corn meal, is shaped into loaves & then sliced & fried
What is scrapple?
In Mexican cooking this spicy sauce made with chilies & chocolate is often served over poultry
What is mole?
∞ PICTURE
A Rutabaga
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