July 31

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Flagstaff Almanac

Week: 31 / Day: 213

Today: High   72°…Low 57°

Records: High   92°(1943)…Low 40°(1913) 

Averages: High 80°…Low 52°

Wind:  3mph;  Gusts: 17mph

Some clouds  Today’s humidity:  88%

Quote of the Day

Today’s  Historical  Highlights

2007 - Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and 

            longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end

1981 - 42 day old, 2nd major league baseball strike ends

1972 - Thomas Eagleton withdraws as Democratic VP candidate

1970 - Chet Huntley retires from NBC, ends "Huntley-Brinkley Report"

1970 - Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the

            Royal Navy

1960 - Elijah Muhammad, leader of Nation of Islam, calls for a black state

1958 - Anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet

1928 - 1st woman to win a track and field Olympic gold medal, Halina Konopacka 

             of Poland

1876 - US Coast Guard officers' training school established (New Bedford MA)

1779 - General John Sullivan leads an expedition in retaliation against the Iroquois’ 

             actions in the Wyoming Valley Massacre.

781 - The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji 

♪Happy Birthday To: ♪  How many can you identify…answers in Today’s Birthdays

                      

Free Rambling Thoughts   

We had a lot of rain last night and a few clouds today, but no rain where I live. Some showers would have been nice.

The Olympics is in full swing, and I’m enjoying watching lots of events. This level of competition is great to watch. There are so many athletes giving 100% for the moments of success. Even those who don’t medal have a great deal of class through their emotions. Watching the Chinese in the swimming and diving is great…they have never been this good in the water events. With 5 channels on my cable carrying events, there will lots more to watch. My only complaint (whine) is that NBC seldom shows medal ceremonies unless the US in on the podium. I think it would be good for all Americans to hear other National Anthems and see other athlete’s emotions during the medal ceremony. In 2012 we are global and it’s time to see how alike we are. With 5 channels, it seems one of them could be devoted to the medal ceremony.

Game   Center: (answers at the end of post)

What is the answer?

What do the following words have in common?

REST  PIECE  BAND  LAND  STAND

5X5 Word Boxes

The answer to 1 across is the same word as the answer to 1 down; 2 across is the same as 2 down; etc. Can you solve these Word Boxes? Each answer is 5 letters.

1.      inclosure, plural
2.      volatile liquid
3.      communications device
4.      wood projection
5.      ring
Hint: upper left to lower right letters are: S-T-O-O-A

Lifestyle  Substance     

Do you remember this?

Do you know what this word means?

What is this not so common name of a common object?

Ferrule

My Latest Adventure—

Great Overlooked Folk-Rock Songs

• Phil Ochs,"I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" (1966 electric single version). Ochs had previously done this protest classic as a solo acoustic track. For a 1966 non-LP single, it was totally redone as a galvanizing electric number, with bursts of bagpipes at the beginning and end, and roadhouse piano runs throughout. Inexplicably only released in England, this could have been a hit if it had been promoted properly.

• The Byrds,"I Knew I'd Want You." The B-side of "Mr. Tambourine Man," this is one of many gorgeously melodic, sensitively sung early Byrds songs written by Gene Clark that could have qualified for this list.

• Bob Dylan,"If You Gotta Go, Go Now." Recorded in January 1965, but only released as a European single in 1967, and then later (in an alternate take) on his Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3box. A great hard-rocking number with an infectious chorus that could have been a big hit. (And in fact a pop-oriented cover by Manfred Mann got to #2 in 1965 in Britain; an even more unlikely French-language cover by Fairport Convention, "Si Tu Dois Partir," made #21 in the UK in 1969.) The decision not only not to put it out as a single, but not to release it at all, is one of many such curious decisions on the part of Dylan and Columbia throughout the singer's career. Incidentally, Manfred Mann and Fairport Convention were not the only well-known performers to give the song an airing. Warren Zevon, as half of the folk-rockish duo Lyme & Cybelle, covered it on an obscure 1966 single that seemed to be trying its hardest to make it into a clapalong good-time pop song, while the Flying Burrito Brothers put it on their second album.

• The Jefferson Airplane,"Today." Perhaps the greatest folk-rock ballad ever, and a hit single that should have been, but never got released as a 45. From their classic Surrealistic Pillow album, with Jerry Garcia contributing guitar.

Harper’s Index         

Cost of one day course at the Institute for Civility in Government in Houston: $50

Found on You Tube 

Oleg Popov       

Joke-of-the-day

A police officer sees a man driving around with a pickup truck full of penguins. He pulls the guy over and says, "You can't drive around with penguins in this town! Take them to the zoo immediately."The guy says okay, and drives away. The next day, the officer sees the guy still driving around with the truck full of penguins -- and they're all wearing sunglasses. He pulls the guy over and demands, "I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo yesterday?" The guy replies, "I did. Today I'm taking them to the beach!"

Rules of Thumb   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

If a choking person can verbally request the Heimlich maneuver, he or she doesn't need it.

Yeah, It Really Happened

PALM BAY, Fla. - Police in Florida said a man arrested on robbery charges told them he was upset because his fiancée refused to have sex with him.
Palm Bay police said James Seehaus, 25, used a white cloth to make his BB gun appear to be a real gun when he robbed a 7-Eleven store in Palm Bay June 28, Florida Today reported Wednesday. Seehaus was pulled over by a police officer responding to the robbery and the officer discovered the BB gun in the suspect's car and $55 in his wallet. Seehaus, who was identified as the robber by the store's clerk and another witness, said the $55 belonged to the convenience store, police said. Seehaus, who was charged with armed robbery and theft, told police he committed the crime because he was upset about his fiancée’s refusal to have sex with him and he needed to buy car insurance.               

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Opened in 1927, Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a Tinseltown landmark, with a "who's who of celebrities" inscribed in slabs of concrete in the sidewalk out front. Less well known is the foreign-themed movie house Sid built five years prior: Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, located just down the street on Hollywood Boulevard.

• The initials of the AMC theater chain stand for American Multi-Cinema. In 1963, Stanley Durwood opened the first multiplex, a single theatre offering movies on two or more screens, in Kansas City, Missouri. The first megaplex was the 24-screen AMC Grand in Dallas, opened in 1995.

• An antitrust suit against Paramount led to a 1948 Supreme Court decision that forced movie studios nationwide to divest their movie theater holdings. Studios had begun keeping their popular releases away from competing theater chains, to the detriment of Hollywood. Paramount alone had to sell off its interests in nearly 1,400 theaters.

• The Nickelodeon television network got its name from a term used for movie theaters of the early 20th century; such establishments typically charged five cents - a nickel - for admission.

• Just as Denver's landmark Mayan Theatre was due for demolition in 1986, the city's Museum of Natural History opened a new display of centuries-old Mayan artifacts from Mexico. A local group stepped in and saved the historic 1930 theatre, which underwent a $2 million facelift.

• In 1953, movie theaters nationwide began to employ new tricks in an attempt to regain the audiences they had lost to television. The Cinemascope technique combined an extra-wide image with stereophonic sound, neither of which could be duplicated on TV sets of the era.

Calendar Information        

Today Is                                                                      

Anniversary - US Patent Office-1790  

Parent's Day

Uncommon Instruments Awareness Day (Here’s a list)

Today’s Events Through History  

2000’s

2006 - Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother Raúl Castro 

1900’s

1984 - US men's gymnastics team won team gold medal at LA Summer Olympics

1971 - Apollo 15 astronauts take 6½ hour electric car ride on Moon

1964 - US Ranger 7 takes 4,316 pictures before crashing on Moon

1961 - Israel welcomes its 1,000,000th immigrant

1953 - Dept of Health, Education & Welfare created

1948 - Pres Harry Truman dedicates Idlewild Field (Kennedy Airport), NY

1942 - U boats sank 96 allied ships this month

1941 - U boats sink 21 allied ships this month

1940 - 38 U boats sinks this month

1938 - Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius 

            in Persepolis

1932 - George Washington quarter goes into circulation

1922 - 18-year-old Ralph Samuelson rides world's 1st water skis (Minn)

1912 - US government prohibits movies & photos of prize fights (censorship)

1800’s

1865 - The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, 

            Australia

1809 - 1st practical US railroad track (wooden, for horse-drawn cars), Phila

1700’s

1774 - Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen

1763 - Captain James Dalyell, and 280 soldiers attack Pontiac's village at 2:30 am this

           morning. Pontiac is informed of Dalyell's plans, so he sets up an ambush at the 

           Parent's Creek bridge with 400 Indians. When Dalyell's troops approach the 

           bridge, the Indians attack. Twenty soldiers, including Dalyell, and seven Indians 

           are killed in the fighting. The creek, near Detroit, is now called Bloody Run.

1751 - Fire in Stockholm destroys 1,000 houses

1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing

            a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers

1500’s

1588 - English fleet beats Spanish Armada

Before 1000CE

768 - [Phillip] begins & ends his reign as Catholic Pope

30 BC - Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's 

              forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 40’s

Dean Cain, actor (Clark-Lois & Clark) is 46

J.K. Rowling, Gloucestershire England, writer (Harry Potter) is 47

In their 50’s

Michael Biehn, Anniston AL, actor (Rampage, Hog Wild, Aliens, Abyss) is 56

Wesley Snipes, actor, film producer, and martial artist, is 50

In their 60’s

William Bennett, US Secretary of Education (1985-88)/drug tsar is 69

Gary Lewis, Jerry's son, singer, (& The Playboys-This Diamond Ring) is 66

Barry Van Dyke, actor (Battlestar Galactica, Diagnosis Murder) is 61

In their 80’s

Oleg Popov (Оле́г Константи́нович Попо́в), Russian clown is 82

Remembered for being born today

Ted Cassidy, Pittsburgh PA, American actor (Lurch-Addams Family) - 1932

Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician (paradox of Cramer) - 1704

John Ericsson, US, inventor (screw propeller)/shipbuilder-USS Monitor - 1803

Milton Friedman, Brooklyn New York, economist (Nobel 1976) - 1912

Curt Gowdy, Green River Wyo, sportscaster (ABC) - 1919

Isaak Ouwater, Amsterdam painter/cartoonist - 1748

Elmo Roper, pollster (Roper Poll) - 1900

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Muslim Jurisprudent dies in 855 at 75

St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of Society of Jesus (Jesuit), dies of malaria

       in 1556 at 64

Franz Liszt [Ferencz], Hungarian pianist/composer, dies of pneumonia in 1886 at 74

Na'od, Emperor of Ethiopia killed fighting Muslims in 1508 at 14

Jim Reeves, US country singer, dies in private plane crash in 1964 at 40

Robert Taft, (Sen-R-Oh) "Mr Republican", dies of cancer in 1953 at 63

Answers                                                                                                                                            

Do you know what this word means?

The metal band on a pencil

What is the answer?

Each can be preceded by HEAD to form a new word.

5X5 boxes

SEPTA

ETHER

PHONE

TENON

ARENA

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  ☺