11/25/13

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Flagstaff Almanac:

Week: 48 / Day: 329   

Today: L 30°…H 32°… Ave. humidity: 91%

Wind: ave:   3mph; Gusts:  8mph  

Average Low: 20° Record Low:  -8° (1906)

Average High: 48° Record High:  70° (1949)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

"Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" appears on music charts…1949

1st sword swallower in US performs (NYC)…1817

1st Thanksgiving Parade (Phila)…1920

35 Amistad survivors return to Africa…1841

Alfred Nobel patents dynamite…1867

Archaeologist Howard Carter enters King Tut's tomb…1922

Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade ends after 24 years..1996

Farmer's Almanac 1st published…1792

Group of nineteen Hopi "hostiles" are placed under arrest by the army for 

    interfering with "friendly" Hopi Indian activities on their Arizona reservation…1894

Irish Republican Army is outlawed in Britain following deaths of 21…1974

JFK laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery…1963

Lech Walesa wins in Poland's 1st popular election…1990

Pres Eisenhower suffers a mild stroke, impairing his speech…1957

Race segregation forbidden on trains & buses between US states…1955

Woody Woodpecker debuts with release of Walter Lantz's "Knock Knock"…1940

World's greatest robbery 25,000,000 pounds of gold, Heathrow, England…1983

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

How many can you identify? Answers in Today’s Birthdays

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Yet another overcast day with light snow. Nothing is sticking, but we are sure getting a lot of moisture. Reading this morning’s paper I discovered that 100 years ago, the weather was basically the same…rain mixed with snow. Interesting.

 

Mary got back to town, so we are having lunch tomorrow, before she and Mike head back to Phoenix for Thanksgiving with their families. Our discussion group was quite a good discussion. It is interesting to hear the changes in demographics around the world in the past 25 years. The Japanese are hiring Chinese laborers because they don’t have the youth to do the jobs and sadly paying them very low wages, so once they get there, it is impossible for them to leave. Countries that are trying to move people from rural areas to urban areas (China, Viet Nam, and others) are finding they are simply creating ghettos of people who have no idea how urban life really works. This rural to urban movement reminds me of the problems with the Navajo Relocation of the 1980’s, where many families lost their land to the Hopi and the Feds bought them houses in Flagstaff and other border towns. Many of the elderly could not adjust to the new environment after spending a lifetime on the rez. Many of the adults also had problems with the lack of jobs, high taxes and many distractions of urban life. The youngsters seemed to enjoy all these new amenities, but lost their culture and their language. All the ‘good intentions’ of moving from rural to urban life never considered what the people were giving up. The same is now true in other countries as they try to urbanize their countries. Our history of the industrial revolution also created the same problems. Man never seems to learn.  

 

Always nice when Broncos are winning, they are on AZ TV a whole lot more…looking for another win tonight. Cards won again too.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Take the given words, and by moving a single letter from one word to the other, make a pair of synonyms, or near synonyms. For example, given: Boast - Hip, move the 's' from 'Boast' to 'Hip' creating two synonyms: Boat - Ship.

1. Eat - Fact 2. Fist - Spam 3. Ham - Smock 4. Tilde - Food 5. Sale - Cranking

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• FLIP WILSON! Man, no man ever did drag as hilariously as HE did drag

• Bill " Bojangles " ROBINSON " The Sand Dance "

• Ricardo Montalban on the inspiration for "Khan"

• John F Kennedy Jr- Powerful Speech

• Christina Applegate hot and sexy Kelly Bundy

• Superman--The Dreamer

Very Strange Laws…West Virginia

• A person may not hold public office if he or she has ever participated in a duel.

• For each act of public swearing a person shall be fined one dollar.

• According to the state constitution, it is unlawful for anyone to own a red or a black flag (Repealed 2010)

• If you wear a hat inside a theater, you may be fined(Repealed 2010)

• Unmarried couple who live together and “lewdly associate” with one another may face up to a year in prison. (Repealed: 2010)

• Roadkill may be taken home for supper.

• When a railroad passes within 1 mile of a community of 100 or more people in it, they must build a station and stop there regularly to pick up and drop off passengers.

• Whistling underwater is prohibited.

• Any person who commits adultery shall be fined at least twenty dollars. (Repealed 2010)

• It is legal for a male to have sex with an animal as long as it does not exceed 40 lbs.

• A tax of 1 cent is levied for every 16 and 9 ounces of coke sold in a store.

• A person may be placed in jail for up to six months for making fun of someone who does not accept a challege.(Repealed 2010)

• It is illegal to snooze on a train.

• Alderson--One may not walk a lion, tiger or leopard, even on a leash.

• Huntington--Firemen may not whistle or flirt at any woman passing a firehouse. /It is legal to beat your wife so long as it is done in public on Sunday, on the courthouse steps.

• Nicholas County--No member of the clergy is allowed to tell jokes or humorous stories from the pulpit during a church service.

 OK Then…

Harper’s Index 

• Percentage increase of private security guards employed in Europe since 2004: 73

• Percentage by which the private guards outnumber police there: 23

Unusual Fact of the Day

A report by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1995 indicated that between 1978 and 1995 no less than 37 deaths in the U.S. were credited to vending machines.

Joke-of-the-day

The sergeant-major growled at the young soldier: “I didn’t see you at camouflage training this morning.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

CARING FOR AN INSECT STING

Ammonia for a bee sting; vinegar for a wasp sting.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

Wisconsin, land of cheese, is test-driving a new material for de-icing the roads this year: the liquid by-product of cheese-making, known as "cheese brine." The method has been around for a few years, but this is the first time a major city, Milwaukee, is trying it out, the Journal Sentinel reports.

A few years back, rural highway employee Emil Norby suggested to his employer, the Polk County Highway Commission, that it try using cheese brine to help with ice on the roads. F&A Dairy offered its by-product, and the first cheese-brine-for-the-road was born.

Cheese brine is typically difficult and expensive to dispose, costing cheese-makers up to thousands of dollars each year, according to MSN. Repurposing the waste product could save cheese-makers time and money.

It could save highway commissions money as well. In the first year that Polk County Highway Commission tried F&A Dairy's cheese brine on the roads, the company saved $40,000 it would have spent on rock salts. “Everybody wins,” Chuck Engdahl, F&A Dairy’s wastewater manager, told Modern Farmer.

In addition to being cost-effective, cheese brine could offer a greener alternative to salting the roads, which comes with its own set of problems. Twenty million tons of salt are used on the roads each year, according to Slate, and it can pollute drinking wells and erode soil.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The largest of all mollusks, the giant clam prefers the warm waters around Australia's Great Barrier Reef. 

• The giant clam gets only one chance to find a nice home. Once it fastens itself to a spot on a reef, there it sits for the rest of its life. 

• These bottom-dwelling behemoths are the largest mollusks on Earth, capable of reaching 4 feet (1.2 meters) in length and weighing more than 500 pounds (227 kg). They live in the warm waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. 

• Giant clams achieve their enormous proportions by consuming the sugars and proteins produced by the billions of algae that live in their tissues. In exchange, they offer the algae a safe home and regular access to sunlight for photosynthesis, basking by day below the water's surface with their fluted shells open and their multi-colored mantles exposed. They also use a siphon to draw in water to filter and consume passing plankton. 

• Giant clams have a wildly undeserved reputation as man-eaters, with South Pacific legends describing clams that lie in wait to trap unsuspecting swimmers or swallow them whole. No account of a human death by giant clam has ever been substantiated, and scientists say its adductor muscles, used to close the shell, move far too slowly to take a swimmer by surprise. Even the largest specimen would simply retreat into its shell rather than attempt to sample human prey. 

• The adductor muscle of the giant clam is actually considered a delicacy, and overharvesting of the species for food, shells, and the aquarium trade have landed it on at least one group's "vulnerable" list. 

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:

22-28: National Farm-City Week
24-30: Better Conversation Week / Church-State Separation Week / National Bible Week / National Family Week  /National Game & Puzzle Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        International Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women Day

·        National Flossing Day

·        Native American Heritage Day

·        Shopping Reminder Day

~~~~

·        Suriname: Independence Day (1975 from Netherlands)

·        Bosnia and Herzegovina: National Day (1990 from USSR)

Today’s Events through History  

3 Palestinians hijack KLM B747 above Iraq, to Dubai…1973

Delmonico's, one of NY's finest restaurants, provides a meal of soup, steak, 

     coffee & half a pie for 12 cents…1834

Great Storm of 1703, greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of 

     Great Britain, winds gust up to 120 mph, 9,000 people perish…1703

Greenback (Independent) Party organizes in Indianapolis…1894

In retaliation of Battle of the Little Bighorn, US Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's 

     sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River…1876

Siege of Granada, last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins…1491

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Noel Neill, actress (TV-Lois Lane) is 93

Percy Sledge, soul singer (When A Man Loves A Woman) is 73

John Larroquette, actor (Dan Fielding-Night Court) is 66

Amy Grant, gospel/rock singer (Glory of Love, Baby Baby) is 53

Dougray Scott, Scottish television and film actor is 48

Christina Applegate, actress (Kelly-Married With Children) is 42

Barbara and Jenna Bush, twin daughters of U.S. President George W. Bush are 32

Remembered for being born today

Carrie Nation, temperance advocate [1846-1911]

Andrew Carnegie, Scottish/US industrialist/philanthropist [1835-1919]

Pope John XXIII [Angelo Roncalli], 261st pope [1881-1963]

Jeffrey Hunter, actor (Star Trek Cage, The Searchers) [1926-1969]

"Joltin'" Joe DiMaggio, Yankee Clipper (56 game hitting streak) [1914-1999]

John F Kennedy Jr, lawyer, magazine publisher (George) and son of JFK [1960-1999]

Ricardo Montalban, Mexican actor (Fantasy Island, Star Trek II, Naked Gun) [1920-2009]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Clarence Kolb, actor (Mr Honeywell-My Little Margie)…1964…@90

Upton Beall Sinclair, US author (The Jungle)…1968…@90

Jack Albertson, actor (Chico & the Man)…cancer…1981…@74

Robert Coote, actor (MacBeth)…heart attack…1982…@73

Luther "Bill" Robinson, "Bojangles" famed tap dancer…heart failure…1949…@71

Thomas A Hendricks, 21st US VP…while in office…1885…@66 

Harold Washington, 1st black mayor of Chicago…heart attack…1987…@65

[Sithu] U Thant, UN Sec-General (1961-72)…cancer…1974…@65

Flip Wilson, actor and comedian…cancer…1998…@64

Albert DeSalvo, Boston strangler…stabbed in prison…1973…@42

Brain Teasers

1. Feat - Act 2. Fit - Spasm 3. Sham - Mock 4. Tide - Flood 5. Scale - Ranking

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  §