Mar 13, 2013

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Flagstaff Almanac:  Week: 11/ Day: 72   Today: H 56°…L 19°

Averages: H  50° L 23° Records: H   72°(1900)…L -1°(1917)

Wind: ave:   8mph; Gusts:  23mph  Ave. humidity:  51%

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

27th shuttle, Discovery 8, launched, 1st woman to do the countdown►1989

Clyde Tombaugh announces discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory►1930

Dunblane massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 children and 1 teacher are

     shot dead by a spree killer who then commits suicide►1996

Encyclopedia Britannica announces that it will no longer public printed

    versions of its encyclopedia►2012 

First group of NAVAJOs finish the "Long Walk" to Fort Sumner on the Bosque Redondo

    Reservation, in east-central New Mexico, on this date. During their march, 13 of

    the 1,430 who started the trip will be kidnapped by Mexicans or will die►1864

France: the length of the workday for women and children is limited to 11 hours by law►1900

Kansas legislature approved censorship of motion pictures►1913

San Diego State University is founded►1897

Senate begins US President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial►1868

Sir William Herschel sees "comet" (really discovered Uranus) ►1781

Tennessee makes it unlawful to teach evolution►1925

Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the NY Lantern weekly►1852

♪  ♪   Happy Birthday To: ♪. ♪   

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

Free Rambling Thoughts   

A spring weather, at least for a little while. Snow melting rapidly. A little muddy around, but so nice to have cloudless sky and warm-er temperatures. So looking forward to being able to open windows during the day.

A couple of things have been making the tour of FB this week that are just weird. I am not Native American, do I wish to be, however I did spend my career with the Navajo and have a great respect for their culture, for their lives, and for their history. The first one is the ‘Mike and Molly’ show. I have been a fan. Last week one of the mothers, known for her red neck, lower class attitude, made a statement that has upset many. Her boyfriend wanted them to move to AZ. Her reply ‘Why would anyone want to move to a furnace full of drunk Indians?” As a resident of AZ, it is not that funny. Much of AZ is NOT a furnace…and those who think so are just uneducated. The drunk Indian comment has many natives upset…and I certainly understand why. Alcohol abuse is a real problem and certainly not a joke. Several Native groups contacted the show and according to them, CBS and the production company does not plan to issue any kind of apology. Stereotypes will never disappear when people with some power continue to use them in jokes. Sad for sure. I did watch that show, and none of the cast said anything to dispel the stereotypes. I would feel a lot better if one of the cast had simply said ‘Mother, come on.’ The second thing is a group in California calling itself the Navajo Tribe of Irvine. It is a group for kids who go camping, do dances, wear costumes, and have presentations. This one is much worse than the first. It is using the Navajo Tribe name and the Navajo Nation Seal in its advertizing. This is a violation of Federal Law. Worse yet, they wear feather headdresses and war paint. I looked at their website earlier this week and all the members are given ‘Navajo Names’ that sound more like white people who have watched too many 1950’s movies. I just checked the site, so you could judge, but thankfully it has been ‘temporarily disabled’. Teaching young children about Native Americans is a good thing…but what you teach them should be appropriate. The group claims to have been around for over a decade but just recently decided to go on line. Thankfully they did, or their organization could have been around teaching stereotypes to children for many more years. I have a feeling that the Navajo Nation became involved and it will be interesting to hear what the outcome is. More interesting will be how the leaders of the group will explain the disbanding of their group to the children. With all the problems in today’s world, this may seem like something unimportant, but I believe that respect should be given to the Native people…and called out when it doesn’t happen.

It was interesting to watch the beginning of the selection of the Pope. For the first time in history, cameras were in the Sistine Chapel as the first pomp started. Then the doors were closed and the selection process began. Now the news channels have lots of cameras pointing at the place where the smoke will come out, and tons of reporters interviewing anyone who will talk. With all the problems on the Catholic Church, this selection will certainly allow the church to decide who they think they should deal with the various crises of the church. On another religious note—the series on the Bible that is currently playing on Sunday evenings is pretty interesting. Worth a watch. Everyone who thinks Christians were not violent need to watch this show.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

You are in a room that is an 8x8x8 perfect cube. There are no windows, or doors (don't ask me how you got in there!) In the center of the floor there is a 12 inch pipe that is sticking 6 inches out of the floor. In the bottom of the pipe is a ping pong ball with a diameter that is one millimeter smaller than the inner diameter of the pipe. You have a 12 inch piece of string, a match, a magnifying glass, a 6" ruler and a paper clip. How do you get the ping pong ball out of the hole?

*******

Hint

You don't need any of the listed items!

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• The Long Walk-Navajo

• Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do - Neil Sedaka

• Red Planet Mars (1952) and Percival Lowell

from Cracked.com

Rules of Convenience Store Etiquette (Everyone Breaks)

• Do Not Park at the Gas Pump and go inside to buy snacks

• Do Not Loiter in the Restroom

• Do Not Gamble With Your Fellow Shoppers' Time by standing a scratching your lottery tickets at the counter

• Do Learn Your Way Around the Credit Card Machine

Ok, then?

Harper’s Index    

• Number of signatures a petition posted on whitehouse.gov must obtain within 30 days to ‘require a response’: 25,000

• Number of petitions calling for Texas to secede from the Union obtained within a week of being posted in November: 100,000

Picture of the Day: Mammals of the Sea

Unusual Fact of the Day

Since octopi have no bones, their bodies are incredibly flexible. They can squeeze through openings not much bigger than their eyeballs.

Joke-of-the-day

A doctor examining a woman who had been rushed to the Emergency Room, took the husband aside, and said, "I don't like the looks of your wife at all.”
"Me neither doc," said the husband. "But she's a great cook and really good with the kids."

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

CROSSED ARMS

Crossing your arms will make you appear less open to be approached.   

Yeah, It Really Happened

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Evan Davidson lived with his wife for 51 years. But when he told morticians that the woman in the open casket wasn't Darlene Davidson, they politely told him he was mistaken.

"I looked at her and said, `Well this don't look like my wife at all,'" Davidson, 73, told KABC-TV ( ). "They kept telling me it was, but it's just because she had been embalmed and she was sick."

They were wrong.

Simpson Family Mortuary of Inglewood acknowledged Monday that the woman it buried on March 1 was not Davidson's 82-year-old wife.

Three days after the funeral, an employee called and asked Davidson to come and identify a body. The worker said a woman was "jumping up and down" and claiming that a body on view wasn't her departed mother's, Davidson said.

He went to the mortuary.

"I saw my wife, and the shock just knocked me down," he said.

The mortuary has offered to exhume the body and to pay the costs of burying both women. Davidson's wife was scheduled to be reburied on Wednesday.

"Our main concern is for these people to receive the dignity and respect they deserve, and put the individual to rest. We are not sweeping it under the rug," mortuary spokesman Reginald Black said in a statement. "We made an error and we want to rectify our error and do whatever we can do to make them feel better."

Davidson has obtained an attorney to ask the state Cemetery and Funeral Bureau to investigate.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Spiderwort flowers have a very short life - only a single morning - after which the petals wilt and turn to a jelly-like fluid. However, each plant will produce 20 or more flowers per stem.

• The False Hallebore or Indian Poke is a plant which grows in eastern and western America but not central. Native American tribes used it to determine their chiefs. If one was able to survive eating the very toxic plant (the roots and foliage are poisonous), they were worthy. 

• Low-pollen sunflowers have been developed in recent years which not only help asthma sufferers, but also extend the flower's life. Before the advent of modern materials, sunflower stems were used to fill life-jackets.

• Pliny the Elder, a Roman scientist of the first century AD named the Gladioli flower. Struck by the resemblance between the sheath of the flower and the weapon that was carried by Roman soldiers, he called the flower "gladiolus" from the Latin word "gladius" which means sword.

• The Rafflesia arnoldii, which can be found in the rainforests of Indonesia, is the flower with the world's largest bloom; it can grow three feet across and can weigh up to 15 pounds and a strong odor of decaying flesh

• The Amorphophallus titanium has also been called the "corpse flower" for its unpleasant odor, which smells of rotting flesh to attract pollinators. The "corpse flower" is not a single flower but a cluster of many tiny flowers, called an inflorescence. The plant can reach heights of seven to 12 ft and can weigh as much as 170 lbs.

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                                                                      

Donald Duck Day

Earmuffs Day patented in 1887

Good Samaritan Involvement Day

K-9 Veterans Day

Ken Day-Barbie’s boyfriend

L. Ron Hubbard Day

National Open An Umbrella Indoors Day

Registered Dietitian Day

Smart Sexy Day

Planet Uranus Day 1781

Today’s Events through History  

"Brigadoon" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 581 performances►1947

Cortez lands in Mexico►1519

Ford Motor Co found innocent in death of 3 women in a fiery Pinto►1980

Jews are denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam►1656

Microsoft has its Initial public offering►1986

Phoenix lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and 
      by millions on television►1997

Treaty is concluded today between the United States and the KANSA Indians►1862

US Confederate Congress calls on black slaves for field service►1865

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

In their 70’s

Neil Sedaka, singer/songwriter (Breaking Up is Hard to Do) is 74

In their 60’s

William H. Macy, actor, screenwriter, teacher and director is 63

Robert S Woods, actor (Bo-One Life to Live, Waltons) is 65

In their 50’s

Dana Delany, film, stage, and TV actress, producer, presenter, and health activist is 57

Remembered for being born today

William J Casey, headed CIA during Iran-contra scandal [1913-1987]

James Curtis Hepburn, American missionary and linguist [1815-1911]

Sammy Kaye, orchestra leader (Sammy Kaye Show) [1910-1987]

Percival "Percy" Lowell, US astronomer (predicted discovery of Pluto) [1855-1916]

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Susan Brownell Anthony, American suffragist-1906-at 85

Robert C. Baker, Inventor of the chicken nugget-2006-at 85

Stephen Vincent Benét, American author-heart attack-1943-at 44

Bruno Bettelhelm, Austrian/US psychoanalyst-suicide1990-at 86

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, French poet and critic-1711-at 74

Clarence S Darrow, Scopes Monkey Trial attorney-1938-at 80

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd pres (1889-1893)- pneumonia-1901-at 67

Elizabeth Madox Roberts, American poet and novelist-1941-at 60

Answer: Brain Teasers

Pee in the hole.

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  §