4/20/13

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Flagstaff Almanac:  Week: 16/ Day: 110   Today: H 60°…L 17°

Wind: ave:   4mph; Gusts:  25mph  Ave. humidity:  40%

*Averages: H  59° L 29° Records: H 77°(1989)…L 10°(1917)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents, killing 22 detainees 

      and wounding 92…2004

1st detective story (Poe's "Murders in Rue Morgue") published…1841

1st electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia, Pa…1940

1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus…1879

1st pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard…1862

33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow, CO…1914

7th modern Olympic games opens in Antwerp Belgium…1920

86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools…1964

Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride…1902

Michael Jordan sets NBA playoff record with 63 points in a game…1986

People's Republic China offers North Vietnam military aid…1965

Territory of Wisconsin created…1836

US accuses Renamo of killing 100,000 Mozambiquians…1988

US Assay Office in Deadwood, South Dakota opens…1898

♪  ♪   Happy Birthday To: ♪. ♪   

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

Free Rambling Thoughts   

Finally a nice spring day…little wind, warm-er temperatures…hmmm wonder how long this will last.

 

I spent way too much time with CNN and ABC today. Seemed like something was going to happen, then quiet, then big movement, then waiting. Right now, they have said the suspect is probably cornered in a house. My thoughts are for the many people in the area, who must be freaking out. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a ‘lock down’ for the entire day. Also can’t imagine what it must be like to close a metro area of more than 7 million people. I also can’t imagine what it was like to search the millions of photos and hours of video tape to actually locate the two suspects. Another thing that is amazing is how well all the departments, bureaus, and agencies are working so well together as one unit. Things certainly have changed since 9/11 and the formation of Homeland Security. This must be sending a message to any potential terrorists…if nothing else, even if you do get through our security and do something, you will be found. So many people that were interviewed today were talking about how they never expected to be living in a war zone. The video of last night’s gun shootout sure looked like the same video we see from Iraq or Afghanistan. I guess one big difference is that our media is able to send out so much information. While we keep hearing that there is lots going on that we don’t know, the press conferences have been very professional. What a day.

 

During all the TV noise, I did five loads of laundry. While I hate to do laundry, I am so glad that I can do it in my home. For the year I was in Pine Ridge, I had to go to a Laundromat in Rapid City on Sat or Sun. I guess it took less time, as I could use several washers and dryers at the same time, but sure got tired of the quarter’s game at the dryer. I was able to find a new place that had clean washers and dryers, but it was still a terrible way to spend half a day on my day off. It is so much less stressful to be able to do other things while doing the laundry.  I still know quite a few Natives who still do the Laundromat thing or are in complexes where there is a communal area where everyone does laundry. When my mom moved to independent living in a retirement home, she did the communal laundry thing for a couple of months, then paid the staff to do it for her. She was quite capable of doing it herself, but said that she hated sitting in the laundry room waiting for clothes to get washed and dried. Even in her upscale retirement home, residents would ‘accidently’ take things from unwatched machines. When she moved into a full care facility, she still ate in a communal dining room. The residents had to ask for butter, jelly, sugar, etc. Turns out that some of the residents were ‘hoarding’ it in their rooms if the staff just put it on the table. She told me about one lady who had a whole drawer by her bed that the cleaning lady found was full of rancid butter. Guess there are weird people everywhere.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

A man is sitting in a pub feeling rather poor. He sees the man next to him pull a wad of £50 notes out of his wallet.  He turns to the rich man and says to him,  "I have an amazing talent; I know almost every song that has ever existed."  The rich man laughs. The poor man says, "I am willing to bet you all the money you have in your wallet that I can sing a genuine song with a lady's name of your choice in it."  The rich man laughs again and says, "OK, how about my daughter's name, Joanna Armstrong-Miller?"  The rich man goes home poor. The poor man goes home rich.  What song did he sing?

*****

Hint

It is a genuine song that almost everyone should know.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Porque Cantinflas es Cantinflas?

• How To Avoid Purgatory :by Mother Angelica

Origins of Phrases

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

Meaning

Literal meaning.

Origin

Absolute monarchies are those in which all power is given to or, as is more often the case, taken by, the monarch. Examples of absolute power corrupting are Roman emperors (who declared themselves gods) and Napoleon Bonaparte (who declared himself an emperor).

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely" arose as part of a quotation by the expansively named and impressively hirsute John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902). The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The text is a favorite of collectors of quotations and is always included in anthologies. If you are looking for the exact "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" wording, then Acton is your man. He didn't invent the idea though; quotations very like it had been uttered by several authors well before 1887. Primary amongst them was another English politician with no shortage of names - William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778, who said something similar in a speech to the UK House of Lords in 1770:

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"

Acton is likely to have taken his lead from the writings of the French republican poet and politician, again a generously titled individual - Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine. An English translation of Lamartine's essay France and England: a Vision of the Future was published in London in 1848 and included this text:

It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in becoming free... the master himself did not gain less in every point of view,... for absolute power corrupts the best natures.

Whether it is Lamartine or his anonymous English translator that can claim to have coined 'absolute power corrupts' we can't be sure, but we can be sure that it wasn't Lord Acton.

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

Number of states that restrict men who father children through rape from obtaining parental rights: 20

Ruminations:

What if the meaning of life is clearly written in the terms and conditions, and no one would every know because no one reads it.

Picture of the Day: North Korea

Unusual Fact of the Day

John Batterson Stetson improved upon the basic design of the ten-gallon hat by forming the brim so that it kept the wind out of his face, and the rain off of his neck. He also allowed for an air chamber above the head to help keep it cool, and constructed the hat in such a way that it could be used to haul water and fan fires.

Joke-of-the-day

Three young boys were boasting about their grandpas. The first boy said: "My grandpa is a great swimmer. He can swim for hours before getting out of the water!"

The second boy said, "That's nothing. My grandpa always goes swimming at 6:00 in the morning every day, and only comes back at 9:00 pm because my mom says he has to!"

The third boy says, "Your grandpas are both bad at swimming! My grandpa started swimming in this pond 20 years ago, and he hasn't come out since!!!"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

DRIVING SAFELY

 If you think your front tire is low, find out by taking your hands off the steering wheel. A low tire will cause the car to drift in the direction of the low tire.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

Authorities say a woman attempting to rob an 86-year-old man ended up brawling with him for eight hours in his southern New Jersey home. Eight hours!

A Millville man let 46-year-old Kay Carty into his home after she knocked asking for a glass of water. Authorities say the man asked Carty to leave when she attempted to take items from his home.

Police say the two then brawled on and off for nearly eight hours until the victim's son came home and found the man holding Carty down on the floor.

Both Carty and the alleged victim were hospitalized with broken bones.

Police have charged Carty with burglary, assault and weapons possession.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Tulips are native to Central Asia. Although they are the quintessential Dutch flower, they actually originated in Central Asia, including Turkey, where the tulip is the national flower.

• The English word tulip is derived from a Persian word, delband, which means turban. The flower was seen as turban-shaped, hence the name.

• Tulips have been cultivated for over 500 years, starting at the point of origin.

• The tulip was likely introduced to Europeans in 1554 via a gift from the Ottoman Empire. A European Ambassador was gifted seeds and bulbs, which he then passed to Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and his royal botanist, Carolus Clusius.

• In the 1600s when tulips where introduced to Holland, the waxy flower became so wildly popular that an economy of trading known as tulipmania burgeoned nearly overnight. At the peak of tulip mania, some single bulbs sold for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman.

• Tulips did not arrive to the United States until the 1800s. The first referenced account of tulips growing in the U.S. pinpoints Salem and Lynn, Massachusetts. A wealthy land owner, Richard Sullivan Fay, Esq., settled on 500 acres straddling the two towns and here he planted trees and flowers from all over the world.

 Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

14-20
Bat Appreciation Week

Health Information Privacy and Security Week

National Crime Victims Rights Week
National Environmental Education Week
National Robotics Week
National Library Week
National Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 Operators) Week

Pan American Week
(Spring) Astronomy Week

Week of The Young Child

Undergraduate Research Week
17-24
International Whistlers Week
Cleaning For A Reason Week
Consumer Awareness Week
Police Officers Who Gave Their Lives In The Line of Duty Week

20-28
National Park Week

Money Smart Week
Administrative Professionals Week

Coin Week
Fibroid Awareness Week
National Karaoke Week
National Volunteer Week
National Pet ID Week
National Paperboard Packaging Week
National Playground Safety Week 
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week

Preservation Week-Libraries
Sky Awareness Week
National Work Zone Safety Awareness Week
Safe Kids Week
Mariachi Week

Today Is                                                                      

Auctioneers Day

Husband Appreciation Day

Look Alike Day

National Equal Pay Day

National Pot Smokers Day

Record Store Day

Spring Astronomy Day

Today’s Events through History  

100th episode of "Murphy Brown" airs…1992

 1^st charter of Virginia, issued today, part of the colonists goals are to civilize the 

     natives. "...and may in time bring the infidels and savages, living in those parts, 

     to human civility."…1606

British begin siege of Boston…1775

Chicago Bulls win record 72 games in a season…1996

Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and 

     injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School located 

     in Jefferson County, CO…1999

Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion kills 11 and causes rig to sink, initiating a 

     massive oil discharge in the Gulf of Mexico…2010

George Frideric Handel is buried in Westminster Abbey…1759

Hernado de Soto receives royal permission to "conquer, pacify, and people" the 

     land from Rio de las Palmas to Cape Fear (Florida) on the Atlantic…1537

Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA's

     Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself….2007

Pete Rose pleads guilty to hiding $300,000 in income…1990

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 90’s

Mother Angelica, American nun and broadcaster is 90

John Paul Stevens, Illinois, 103rd Supreme Court Justice is 93

In their 70’s

Ryan O'Neal, TV and film actor is 72

George Takei, actor (Sulu-Star Trek, Green Berets) is 76

In their 60’s

Jessica Lange, actress (King Kong, Tootsie) is 64

In their 40’s

Carmen Electra [Tara Leigh Patrick], model and actress (Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans) is 41

Shemar Moore, actor [Criminal Minds] and former fashion model is 43

In their 30’s

Joey Lawrence, actor (Gimme a Break, Blossom, Summer Rental) is 37

Remembered for being born today

Adolph Hitler, Braunau, Austria, dictator and Führer [1889-1945]

Tito Puente, Puerto Rico, bandleader (Dance Mania) [1923-2000]

Luther Vandross, NYC, rock vocalist (Dance with my Father), [1951-2005]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Cantinflas, [Mario Moreno], Mexican actor (Pepe)…1993…at 81

George Clinton, 4th US VP, dies 1st VP to die in office…1812…at 73

Benny Hill, comedian (Benny Hill Show)…heart attack…1992…at 68

Bernard Katz, biophysicist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine…2003…at 92

Agnes Moorehead, actress (Endora-Bewitched)…cancer…1974…at 73

Pontiac [Obwandiyag], chief of Ottawa…murdered by enemy Indian…1769…at 49

Bram Stoker, Irish theater manager/writer (Dracula)…stroke…1912…at 64

Answer: Brain Teasers

"Happy Birthday"

This song can be sung with anyone's name in it.
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  §