2-26-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 057   / Week: 08  

Today: L 25°…H 57°… Ave. humidity: 44%

Wind: ave:   16mph; Gusts:  27mph  

Average Low: 20° Record Low:  -7° (1977)

Average High: 47° Record High:  71° (1986)

Quote of the Day

 

Today’s Historical Highlights

1616 - Spanish Inquisition delivers injunction to Galileo

1794 - Christiansborg Castle, Copenhagen burns down.

1870 - 1st NYC subway line opens (pneumatic powered)

1891 - 1st buffalo purchased for Golden Gate Park

1914 - New York Museum of Science & Industry incorporated

1919 - Congress forms Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona

1929 - Pres Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park

1933 - Golden Gate Bridge ground-breaking ceremony held at Crissy Field

1938 - 1st passenger ship equipped with radar

1941 - Cowboys' Amateur Association of America organized (California)

1962 - US Supreme court disallows race separation on public transportation

1973 - Triple Crown horse Secretariat bought for a record $5.7m

1979 - Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for continental US

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

What a day…high clouds but still nice outside.

 

Last night I got a call from Ellie regarding our Cuba trip. It turns out that the Charter Company has our health insurance, since it is required to get into the country and is included in the flight cost. It is only for medical, which is all that is required. It doesn’t include lost luggage, evacuation, or other issues. Thinking about it, I’m keeping the insurance for the whole thing. This is the first time the tour operator has ever had the ability to travel to Cuba, so we are the ‘virgins’ or ‘guinea pigs’, depending on how you look at it. I’m OK with all this as this is going to be a great adventure.  My trip to Ethiopia was also the first time that tour operator had used the local tour company, and the local tour company went out of their way to make it a great trip.

 

To add to my frustration, I needed to order some meds for my angio-edema (tongue/mouth swelling). I got to the pharmacy and they claimed that the 16mg were not available from their distributor so they gave me 4 times as many 4mg tablets. Meaning that I would be taking 4 pills instead of one. Normally not a problem, but if I don’t take the pills at the first sign of the swelling, it is difficult to swallow even one pill. Not difficult to swallow, just to get the tiny pill around the swollen tongue and down the throat. So I called the number and talked to a pharm assistant at ‘central office’. She said that the Walgreens across town had the 16mg pills. And she said that maybe because my store was not a high volume store, that is why they couldn’t get the pills. Hardly a good excuse. She was little help beyond that and connected me to my pharmacy. This lady says that ‘central’ doesn’t know what is in stock at the stores. She rechecked the magic computer and somehow between 10a this morning and 2pm this afternoon, the 16mg pills suddenly became available. So tomorrow I will switch the pills. Way too much hassle.

 

Our infamous governor still hasn’t decided what to do about SB1062. Saw a great internet post of ‘religious freedom’ from Huffington Post: How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

Can you decode these stupid quotes said by different people?

1.      "Sniomkg klils. fi yru'oe kleild, yvuo'e solt a ryev iotpnarmt rapt fo uyro eifl." - Brooke Shields

2.      "Het ienrtnet si a teagr ayw ot etg no teh ent." - Bob Dole

3.      "I velo Cnrlifaoia, I pirtlcalcay wreg pu ni Pnohiex." - Dan Quayle

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• Fats Domino - Blueberry Hill

• Fred & Ethel: "Carolina in the Morning"

• MITCH RYDER (Live) - Devil With The Blue Dress

• Tribute to "The Great One" - Jackie Gleason

Remembering TV’s great shows:

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"--Joss Whedon's teen saga slayed us with stake-sharp dialogue, emotionally resonant shocks and even a stunningly hummable musical episode.

Bizarre Punishments

The Therapy Bag

Just looking at the title, “The Therapy Bag” seems like some sort of relaxing new age relaxation technique. In reality, the “Therapy Bag” is actually just a small duffel bag that a Kentucky schoolteacher used to stuff a nine-year-old autistic boy into as punishment. Third-grader Christopher Baker was faced with this inhumane punishment simply for not doing his work. While school officials claim he was in there for no more than 20 minutes, the boy was still tied up tight in the bag when his mom arrived at the school. She was outraged to walk up and see her son calling out for her as he tried to wiggle his way out of the bag. The teachers involved have since been fired and the extremely bizarre punishment prompted a storm of outrage from the local community.

Look back at History

Vietnam War

In many ways, the Vietnam War was a product of decades of lousy politics, not just American, but including the global spread of Communism. Communism works on paper, but when you add human desires to it, it fails. But America entered the Vietnam conflict largely because it felt threatened by Communism’s spread into democratic South Vietnam, and has sworn to defend democracy.

Unfortunately, the only president who stepped back and looked at the whole picture was shot in the head in Dallas, plausibly to stop him from removing all American activity from Southeast Asia. The president who came after him wanted the War at all costs, and various motives have been put forth, including his own selfish oil interests. War is big business and historically improved an economy by motivating people to enter the workforce and construct weapons.

But no one wanted the war in Vietnam. There was no obvious villain to fight. And America had had enough of war over the last 60 years, from WWI to WWII to Korea. The hawks clamored for a quick end with a few atomic bombs, but that would have infuriated and terrified China and Russia (both Communist). The smart argument was to remove the American military and civilian population from the area before they stayed long enough to have to save face after losing personnel and material.

On the bright side, the Vietnam War established something good: peace rallies. Tens of thousands of U. S. citizens paraded, marched, and crowded into various public places, especially Washington D. C., to protest the War, and these rallies worked. Most scholars credit them with shortening U. S. involvement in Vietnam. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Gerald Ford’s administration seriously considered various re-invasion plans (to save face), but the American public was so sick of the War in the news, with all its dead Americans, napalmed little Vietnamese girls, My Lai massacres, and lack of purpose, that the U. S. government decided to cut its losses. The War was over. America had lost. 58,000 Americans had died for no good reason.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

Percentage change in the portion of uninsured young adults in Massachusetts since the stat’s health care reform: -67

Unusual Fact of the Day

"If you jump out of an airplane without a parachute, does that make you brave, or stupid?" asked Jacques Plante. In 1959, he became the first NHL goalie to regularly wear a protective mask.

Joke-of-the-day

A man placed some flowers on the grave of his departed mother and started back for his car, parked on the cemetery road. His attention was diverted to a man kneeling at a grave.

The man seemed to be praying with profound intensity, and kept repeating, "Why did you die? Why did you die?"

The first man approached him and said, "Sir, I don't want to interfere with your private grief, but this demonstration of hurt and pain is more than I've ever seen before. For whom do you mourn so deeply? Your Child? A parent? Who, may I ask, lies in that grave?"

The mourner answered, "My wife's first husband! ... Why did you die? Why did you die?"  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

CHECKING YOUR CHARCOAL

Your fire is ready when the charcoal is light gray. Test the heat by holding your hand, palm side down, over the coals at grid level and counting the seconds you can hold it there. Five seconds indicates a low temperature fire, four seconds - medium temperature, three seconds - medium-high, two seconds - hot, and one second indicates a fire that is too hot.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

-- Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have made clear that only in the case of murder can a juvenile be given a life sentence "without possibility of parole" (and never a death sentence). Under-18s, the court said, must get a "meaningful opportunity" to mature and redeem themselves behind bars. The U.S. Constitution aside, apparently some Florida judges disagree and have subsequently sentenced juveniles to 50 years or longer for non-murders, in some cases assuring that the release date will be beyond the inmate's natural life expectancy. In one case found by a Barry University law school program, a juvenile convicted of gun robbery and rape had his earlier life-without-parole sentence "reduced" to consecutive sentences totaling 170 years. Critics said the Supreme Court should recognize that some juveniles are already "thoroughly incorrigible." [New York Times, 1-19-2014]  

Somewhat Useless Information   

• Stanley Kublick, the producer and director of the 1980 British-American psychological horror film ”The Shining”, was highly protective of the child Danny Lloyd and he didn’t want to make him feel scared. For this reason Lloyd was not told that he was making a horror movie, but a drama. In fact, when Wendy  (Shelley Duvall) carries Danny away while shouting at Jack in the hotel’ s lounge, she is actually carrying a life-size dummy so Lloyd would not have to be in the scene. He didn’t see the uncut version of the film until he was 17 and it was then when he  realized the truth.

• Through the loudspeakers of short-wave radios like AM people can hear Jupiter’s intense radio storms  late at night when Jupiter is high in the sky. We can listen to this online, thanks to a live audio link to the University of Florida Radio Observatory, supported by NASA. According to NASA, Jovian radio storms, first noticed in 1955, are beamed to Earth by radio lasers near Jupiter’s magnetic poles. Lasers on Earth are man-made from wires, crystals and other electronics, whereas Jupiter’s radio lasers are natural, made of plasmas (ionized gases) and magnetic fields.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
☼22-28☼

National FFA Week
Read Me Week
Bird Health Awareness Week 
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
National Secondhand Wardrobe Week 
Peace Corps Week 

Today Is                                                                      

·        For Pete's Sake Day (celebrates one example of a ‘minced oath’, where an offensive word or phrase is substituted by something more acceptable in society-St Peter)

·        Inconvenience Yourself Day

·        International Sword Swallowers Day

·        Levi Strauss Day

·        National Personal Chef's Day

·        Open That Bottle Night

·        World Pistachio Day

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·        Liberation Day (Kuwait—1991—from Iraq)

Today’s Events through History  

1732 - 1st mass celebrated in 1st American Catholic church, St Joseph's, Philadelphia

1848 - Marx & Engels publish "Communist Manifesto"

1907 - Royal Oil & Shell merge to form British Petroleum (BP)

1998 - Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Tom Kennedy, quiz host (You Don't Say, Name That Tune) is 87

Antione "Fats" Domino, rhythm & blues pianist (Blueberry Hill) is 86

Mitch Ryder, rocker (& Detroit Wheels-Devil With the Blue Dress) is 69

Mark Dacascos, American actor and martial artist is 50

Remembered for being born today

1802 - Victor Hugo, France, author (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Miserables)

1829 - Levi Strauss, German-born clothing designer (d. 1902)

1846 - William F "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Davenport Iowa, killed 4000 buffaloes

1866 - Herbert Henry Dow, pioneer in US chemical industry (Dow Chemical)

1893 - William Frawley, actor (I Love Lucy, Bub-My 3 Sons)

1916 - Jackie Gleason, comedian, actor

1919 - Mason Adams, actor (Charlie Hume-Lou Grant, Deadliest Season)

1920 - Tony Randall, actor, producer, director

1932 - Johnny Cash, country singer (I Hear the Train Coming)

1931 - Robert D Novak, Joliet Ill, news reporter (CNN-Evans & Novak)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

1994 - Avery Fisher, US audio manufacturer (1st hi-fi), 1994, @87

1931 - Otto Wallach, German chemist (Nobel 1910), 1931, @83

1997 - David Doyle, actor (Charlie's Angels), heart attack, 1997, @67

2008 - Buddy Miles, drummer (Band of Gypsies), heart disease, 2008, @60

1965 - Jimmie Lee Jackson, civil rights activist, police injuries, 1965, @27

Brain Teasers

1.      "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." - Brooke Shields (actress)

2.      "The internet is a great way to get on the net." - Bob Dole (U.S. Senator from Kansas)

3.      "I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix." - Dan Quayle (former U.S. Vice President)

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  §