3-11-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 070   / Week: 11  

Today: L 20°…H 59°… Ave. humidity: 42%

     Wind: ave:   13mph; Gusts:  27mph  

     Average Low: 22° Record Low:  -5° (1948)

    Average High: 49° Record High:  69° (1900)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1779 - US army Corps of Engineers established

1789 - Benjamin Banneker with L'Enfant begin to lay out Washington DC

1823 - 1st normal school in US opens, Concord Academy, Concord, Vt

1824 - US War Dept creates the Bureau of Indian Affair

1918 - Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia

1918 - Save the Redwoods League founded

1927 - 1st golden gloves tournament

1927 - Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens famous Roxy Theater (NYC)

1941 - FDR signs Lend-Lease Bill (lend money to Britain)

1959 - "Raisin in the Sun", 1st Broadway play by a black woman, opens

1968 - Otis Redding posthumously receives gold record for " Dock of the Bay"

1982 - Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat sign peace treaty in Washington DC

1995 - Sinn Fein party leader, Gerry Adams, arrives in US

1997 - Ashes of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry are launched into space

2009 - Winnenden school shooting - 17 people are killed at a school in Germany.

2013 - European Union bans the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

A really nice Monday.

 

I watched the new Cosmos series last night…very nice. I remember the original with Carl Sagan. It was very eye opening back then…and now some 30 years later, we have only learned more about our world. I’m sure the far right Christians didn’t watch and hate that such a series could be on…believing that the world is only 6000 years old. But this knowledge is so fascinating. Can’t wait for the rest of the series. Strange that it is on Fox…not one of my favorite channels.

 

Today Rupert Murdock, head of Fox, says that the missing plane is ‘work of jihadists and this is time for US to make friends with China while Russia bullies’…another reason I dislike Fox…jumping to conclusions is not a way to report the news. Of course, many of us are thinking ‘terrorists’, but we don’t need a news outlet speculating like that…it feeds the fears of the right and does no one any benefit.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

What expression is hidden here?

time+time you dough manipulation take take pets take take step step

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• BEN CASEY Tribute to Vince Edwards

• Betty Hutton -- Murder, He Says

• Johnny Knoxville's Incredibly Inbred Family

• Merlin Olsen Tribute

• Murdoch of Fox News Admits Manipulating the News

Remembering TV’s great shows

"St. Elsewhere"--Anyone checking in was treated with a healthy dose of future megastars (Denzel Washington, Mark Harmon) and seriocomic drama.

Bizarre Facts about World’s Dictators

Saparmurat Niayzov, Space Cadets

Turkmenistan was ruled by “president for life” Saparmurat Niyazov, with results that would range from the comical to absurd had there not been greater tragedy involved. The President ranked among the oddest individuals to assume power, with a combination of childlike naivety and megalomaniacal recklessness. Having ruled from Soviet times with a growing cult of personality, the dictator published the Rhunama, or “Book of Soul” that “taught the right path and protected against negative influences.” Saturdays were national reading day and the book had to be memorized in order to qualify for basic privileges such as a driver’s license. Niyazov also believed in his version of space development. In order to ensure that his book with answers to all the problems in the universe reached beyond the human sphere, he encased a copy of Part One in a space capsule along with a national flag, launched 2005 by a Russian Dnepr rocket. The official Neitralny Turkmenistan newspaper stated “The book that conquered the hearts of millions on Earth is now conquering space.”

Misconceptions of Medieval Figures

William Wallace Wasn’t Gibson’s Face-Painted Commoner

Legendary Scottish rebel William Wallace became a household name thanks to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart—a 1995 film that recounts Wallace’s leadership during the First Scottish War of Independence in the late 13th century. In Braveheart, viewers are introduced to a short, peasant Wallace who wears kilts and blue face paint, loses his wife in defiance of the horrifying prima nocta law, has an affair with a French princess, and inspires the Scots to fight for freedom. The problem with Braveheart is that it’s incredibly inaccurate. While the basic framework of Wallace’s life remains intact, the film is a relatively poor depiction of Scotland’s medieval hero. Wallace was no serf—he was a lesser nobleman whose father was a landowner. He was later knighted and made Guardian of Scotland by King John Baliol, Robert the Bruce’s predecessor. He was also much taller than his cinematic portrayal, standing at around 198 centimeters (6’6”) to Gibson’s 178 centimeters (5’10”). What about Wallace’s love interests? Wallace’s wife was a woman named Marion Braidfute, who lived in the English-controlled Lanark Castle and married Wallace in secret. When the English found out about the marriage, they did kill Marion, but the reason seems to have been more territorial than anything. Prima nocta is almost certainly a long-standing fabrication, used to convey questions of morality to audiences. The French princess, Isabella, was around nine years old at the time of the events of the film and was living in France. Braveheart also does a great injustice to Wallace’s brothers-in-arms, Sir Andrew de Moray and Richard of Lundie. They were actually co-leaders of the band that attacked Lanark. While Richard of Lundie eventually defected to the English, de Moray was made Guardian of Scotland alongside Wallace, meaning that they were both effectively given the powers of the King. De Moray was as important as Wallace, but was killed in 1297.As important as Wallace and Andrew de Moray were to the conflict—and their contributions were by no means trivial—they are overshadowed by Robert the Bruce. The Scottish surrendered in 1302 and Wallace was executed in 1305. That left Bruce to win Scotland’s independence without their help in 1306. It was Bruce’s efforts that actually led to the independence of Scotland in 1314, rather than the residual effects of Wallace’s. Last but not least, the film’s costuming is a farce of time travel. Kilts weren’t worn until several centuries after the film takes place, while blue face paint stopped being used several centuries before.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Portion of Tajikistan’s GDP that is composed of migrant remittances: 1/2

Unusual Fact of the Day

The USDA allows the term "wyngz" for wing-like chicken products that contain no wing meat.

Joke-of-the-day

Men are like a pack of Cards: A "heart" to love them A "diamond" to marry them A "club" to smack them and A "spade" to bury the body...  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

WRITING AN ADVERTISEMENTWhen writing an ad, use sentences of less than 12 words.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

TAMPA, Fla. - Police in Florida said they arrested a man who allegedly engaged in a sex act with a dog in his yard in full view of shocked neighbors. Tampa police said witnesses flagged down officers early Wednesday and told them Bernard Marsonek, 57, was committing a sex act with a pit bull in his yard and ignoring the pleas of neighbors begging him to stop, the Tampa Tribune reported Thursday. Police said Marsonek was inside his house when officers arrived to question him. Officers and Hillsborough County Animal Services executed a search warrant on the home and discovered a gun and ammunition inside the house. Marsonek was arrested on felony charges of aggravated animal cruelty and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was also charged with a misdemeanor count of sexual activity involving animals. Animal services officials seized eight pit bulls from Marsonek's home, police said.  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• In 1921, American novelist Edith Wharton was the first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She won the award for her novel The Age of Innocence.

• Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.

• Ruth Graves Wakefield was the inventor of the Toll House Cookie, which was the first chocolate-chip cookie? Her original recipe is still printed on the back of all Nestlé chocolate bars today.

• Sandra Day O'Connor was the first female Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served until her retirement in 2006.

• Edith Cummings, a golfer, was the first female athlete to appear on the cover of Time magazine, in 1924.

• Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree. She received her MD from the Medical Institution of Geneva, New York, in 1849.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
1-16

Iditarod Race
8-11

American Council on Education

8-14
National Procrastination Week
Universal Women's Week
National Agriculture Week

9-15

Teen Tech Week
Girl Scout Week

International Brain Awareness Week
Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Week
11-17

Turkey Vultures Return to the Living Sign (Canisteo, NY)

Today Is                                                                      

·        Dream 2014 Day

·        Johnny Appleseed Day

·        Organize Your Home Office Day

·        World Plumbing Day

Today’s Events through History  

1702 - 1st English daily newspaper "Daily Courant" publishes

1851 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Rigoletto" premieres in Venice

1867 - Great Mauna Loa eruption (Hawaiian volcano)

1948 - 1st black in the US Tennis Open (Reginald Weir)

1987 - Wayne Gretzky scores 1,500th NHL point

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Rupert Murdoch, Australia, publisher (NY Post)/CEO (FOX-TV) is 83

Sam Donaldson, American reporter is 80

Gale Norton, 48th United States Secretary of the Interior is 60

Johnny Knoxville, American television personality is 43

Remembered for being born today

1903-1992 - Lawrence Welk, Strasburg ND, orchestra leader

1916-1995 - [James] Harold Wilson, (L) British PM

1917-2012 - Robert L Carter, judge (Brown v. Board of Education)

1926-1990 - Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader (Southern Christian Leadership)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Oscar Mayer, Bavarian-born American meat packer, 1955, @95

Sid Couchey, comic book artist (Richie Rich), 2012, @92

Betty Hutton, actress and singer, 2007, @86

Erle Stanley Gardner, US writer (Perry Mason), 1970, @80

Alexander Fleming, English bacteriologist (penicillin), heart attack, 1955, @73

Merlin Olsen, football player / Actor, mesothelioma, 2010, @69 

Vince Edwards, actor (Ben Casey), cancer, 1996, @67

Charles Sumner, a white civil rights leader, heart attack, 1874, @63

Brain Teasers

Sometimes you need to take one step backwards to take two steps forwards

Sometimes: time+time = sum times or 'sometimes' you need: dough manipulation = knead or 'need' to take: take take = two take or 'to take' one step backwards: pets = step written backwards once to take: as above two steps forwards: step step = step written forwards twice

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  §