Mar 12, 2013

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Flagstaff Almanac:  Week: 11/ Day: 71    Today: H   53°…L 24°

Averages: H  49° L 23° Records: H   69°(1990)…L -5°(1940)

Wind: ave:   10mph; Gusts:  11mph  Ave. humidity:  61%

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1st US $20 gold piece issued►1850

British Empire celebrates it's 1st British Empire Day►1945

British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth Day"►1958

Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time Vicksburg, Mississippi ►1894

Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax►1868

Elizabeth Smart, was found after having been missing for 9 months►2003

FDR conducts his 1st "fireside chat"►1933

Malcolm X resigns from Nation of Islam►1964

Mohandas Gandhi begins 200m (300km) march protesting British salt tax►1930

♪  ♪   Happy Birthday To: ♪. ♪   

How many can you identify?…answers in Today’s Birthdays

Free Rambling Thoughts   

A good day as most of the snow is quickly melting. I usually wake up around 6am and listen to NPR for while before getting up. This morning, there was constant ‘breaks’ in the feed with static each time. Very frustrating way to start the day. About 7 I got up and checked my other radio. Same thing. Called the station and it was a problem with the satellite feed. One would think that our local NPR station would have said something about the problem over the airwaves. Nope. They knew what was happening but didn’t tell their listeners. Oh Well.

 

I’ve gone over two months without my angioedema, but it returned this afternoon in full force. It reminds me so much of the movie Jaws…just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…Pill is working but this time it’s my tongue and my lower lip. Such a waste of time.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Eliminate all 26 letters of the alphabet in alphabetical order, but not necessarily starting with 'A', to reveal a sentence.

sohmeitjkimlemsnthopeseqtresasteursvwcaxnydrziaveybcoduesifllgy

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• FDR Fireside Chat 1

• Liza Minnelli - NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1991

• Jack Kerouac Reads from "On The Road"

from Cracked.com

Scottish Hansel and Gretel Make the Monster Murder His Own Family

The Version You've Heard

Hansel and Gretel are two young siblings who stumble upon a wondrous house made of gingerbread and candy. But inside the house is a flesh-eating witch who uses her gumdrop cottage to lure dumbass children to their doom. Hansel and Gretel manage to trick the witch into crawling into the oven, then slam it shut and roast her alive, because to be perfectly honest, she goddamn deserved it.

There are a bunch of stories like this, all probably variations of the same ancient tales of lost/curious children outsmarting and killing monsters ("Jack and the Beanstalk" is another one). These are already pretty gruesome stories -- cautionary tales warning kids about strangers without having to explain to them what pedophilia is. It's going to be hard to make this darker, considering it already involves a cannibalistic witch getting burned alive.

But in the Scottish Version

In the Scottish tale "Molly Whuppie," a family decides that they have too many children and leave three of the daughters out in the middle of the woods to die. The three girls wander around until they discover a house where, instead of a witch, a family of ogres lives. The mother ogre tells them they are welcome to come in, but that her husband will be home soon and will probably kill them all if they stay. The three agree to roll the dice on Ogre Dad, even though the house is not made of candy. And here is where things take a turn for the traumatic.

You see, the ogres have three children of their own. Knowing that Ogre Dad is probably going to murder them in the night, the human girls trick the dad into thinking his own children are the visitors. That's right -- Ogre Dad slips into the room in the middle of the night and, due to the human girls' ploy, inadvertently strangles his own daughters to death.

Are you picturing your mother reading this story to you at your bedside from a pop-up book? Anyway, now the human kids escape, which you will note they could have done before they sacrificed three innocent children, but Molly herself is recaptured by the ogre. And at this point, you know that you should be more worried for the ogre.

He asks his captive what kind of punishment she deserves, and she tells him to put her in a bag and beat her to death with the biggest stick he can find. Ignoring how oddly specific this is, he tosses her into a bag and leaves to find a girl-jellying club. While he's gone, Molly convinces the ogre's wife to get into the bag. When Ogre Dad returns with his giant murder stick, he bludgeons the bag into a soup rag, having once again been tricked into killing a loved one.

The Moral

Where the original stories all seem to be about stranger danger, this one seems to be teaching children that in dangerous situations, mass collateral damage is far better than retreat.

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

Minimum number of miniature liquor bottles stolen by employees at JFK International Airport: 117,000

Picture of the Day: Mammals of the Sea

Unusual Fact of the Day

Calvin Coolidge's Vice President, Charles Gates Dawes, was also a songwriter. In 1951, a tune he’d composed called  “Melody in A Major” became a number one pop hit

Joke-of-the-day

A man solves the problem of too many visiting relatives. He borrowed money from the rich ones and loaned it to the poor ones. Now none of them come back.

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

PLANNING A PARTY FOR CHILDREN

Plan on one hour of party for every three years of age.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

A federal grant which was just given to the University of California San Diego in the amount of $550,000 to research "safer sex intervention for male clients of female sex workers in Tijuana."  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• In the U.S., daylight saving time was first used during World War I to conserve resources. It was reinstated again during World War II until Sept. 1945. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 created a standardized system to observe daylight saving time.

• The Department of Energy studied the energy savings in 2008. They found that during daylight saving time, U.S. electricity use decreased by 0.5 percent per day, which added up to 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours, enough to power about 122,000 average U.S. homes for a year.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

8-14 

Universal Women's Week
10-16 

Girl Scout Week
National Agriculture Week
Teen Tech Week
Turkey Vultures Return to the Living Sign
Flood Safety Awareness Week
International Brain Awareness Week

Today Is                                                                      

Genealogy Day

Girl Scout Birthday Day

International Fanny Pack Day

Organize Your Home Office Day

~Mauritius: Independence Day (1968 from UK)

Today’s Events through History  

1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine►1755

Bermuda becomes an English colony►1609

Church of England ordains 1st 33 women priests►1994

Communist troops driven out of Seoul►1951

Eric Heiden skates world record 1000m (1:14.99) ►1978

Girl Guides (Girl Scouts) forms in Savannah, by Juliette Gordon Low►1912

Jews are expelled from Syria►1496

Mississippi establishes 1st US state college for women►1884

New Jersey becomes a British colony►1664

NY is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race & creed in employment►1945

PONCAs sign a treaty (12 stat.997) on this date which grants them a permanent home on the Niobrara River, and protection from their enemies, both white and Indians. For these privileges, the PONCAs give up a part of their ancestral lands. Unfortunately, several years later, a mistake by a government bureaucrat will force them to share land with the SIOUX. Repeated protestations over this error will go unheard. The PONCAs would live in constant fears of attacks from the SIOUX►1858

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 80’s

Edward Albee, Washington, DC, playwright (Virgina Woolfe, Zoo Story) is 84

Barbara Feldon, actress (Agent 99-Get Smart) is 80

In their 60’s

Liza Minnelli, singer/actress (Sterile Cuckoo, Cabaret) is 67

Jon Provost, actor (Timmy-Lassie) is 63

In their 50’s

Darryl Strawberry, LA California, baseball right fielder (Mets, Dodgers, Yankees) is 51

In their 40’s

Jake Tapper, American journalist is 44

Remembered for being born today

Jack Kerouac, Beat writer (On the Road, Mexico Blues) [1922-1969]

Gordon MacRae, East Orange NJ, singer/actor (Oklahoma, Carousel) [1921-1986]

George W. Mason, American industrialist [1891-1954]

Walter M Schirra Jr, Hackensack NJ, Capt USN/ast (Mer 8, Gem 6, Ap 7)[1923-2007]

Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer (Studebaker) [1831-1901]

William "Buckwheat" Thomas, actor (Little Rascals) [1931-1980]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Morton Downey, Jr., American television talk show host-lung cancer-2001-at 68

Anne Frank, diarist (Diary of Anne Frank)-killed in Belsen Camp-1945[exact date unknown]

     -at 15

Charlie "Bird" Parker, US jazz saxophonist- cirrhosis-1955-at 34

Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary president-liver cancer-1925-at 58

Answer: Brain Teasers

Sometimes these teasers can drive you silly.

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  §