3-2-14

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Flagstaff Almanac: Day: 061   / Week: 10  

Today: L 36°…H 43°… Ave. humidity: 75%

     Wind: ave:   8mph; Gusts:  48mph  

     Average Low: 21° Record Low:  -1° (1971)

    Average High: 48° Record High:  65° (1910)

Quote of the Day

Today’s Historical Highlights

1789 - Pennsylvania ends prohibition of theatrical performances

1799 - Congress standardizes US weights & measures

1817 - 1st Evangelical church building dedicated, New Berlin, Penn

1819 - US passed its 1st immigration law

1867 - US Congress created the Department of Education

1876 - Secretary of War is impeached for taking bribes to make political appointments.

1899 - Pres McKinley signs bill creating Mt Rainier Natl Park (5th in US)

1903 - Martha Washington Hotel, catering to women only, opens in NYC

1917 - Jones Act: Puerto Rico territory created, US citizenship granted

1929 - Congress creates Court of Customs & Patent Appeals

1946 - Ho Chi Minh elected president of North Vietnam

1953 - The Academy Awards are first broadcast on television by NBC.

1976 - Walt Disney World logged its 50 millionth guest

1978 - 1st broadcast of "Dallas" on CBS TV

1985 - US approves screening test for AIDS

1989 - NAVAJO Code Talker Monument is erected.

2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins

♫  Today’s Birthdays: ♫   

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

 

My Free Rambling Thoughts   

Rain, rain, and more rain…light rain this morning, much heavier rain in the afternoon. Watering our forest very nicely.  They say it will turn to snow tonight.  Nice!

 

Not sure where the Ukraine and Crimea is headed, but it sure doesn’t look good for those people. Not real familiar with that part of the world, but it seems that this has been a hot spot for quite some time.

 

On a lighter side, it’s Dr. Seuss’ birthday…what memories I have of reading those books to 3^rd and 4^th graders at Shonto AZ.

Game  Center (answers at the end of post)

Brain Teasers

This is another of my rhyming word ladders. Most people will have to work forwards and backwards to get all ten words.
-----------

The old adage says to do this again. Add one, make a city of fame way back when. <> OY becomes IP and you'll have a nice fall. Change I to A and you'll catch it all. <>
Insert an M: make an invention of Chaplin. Change T to C and with pain you'll be grapplin'. <> Replace second with H: a winner for sure! Lose second to last: you'll want balm for a cure. <> Drop the H to make something to go on your head. Change one and an adage will leave this thing dead.

Lifestyle  Substance:     

Found on You Tube with some relevance to today

• A Documentary of Theodore Geisel

• A Tribute To Randolph Scott

• D. H. Lawrence - Top 10 Quotes

• Jon Bon Jovi about himself

Remembering TV’s great shows

"The West Wing"--There was never a better platform for Aaron Sorkin's passionate rhetoric to take flight than President Josiah Bartlet's bully pulpit.

Look back at History

The Civil War

This war ranks higher than that of #3 because #3 left one question unanswered after the drafting of the Constitution: if all men are created equal, why are blacks bought and sold, families of them broken up, and in other ways inhumanely treated for the purpose of using them like farm animals? Why aren’t blacks allowed to vote? Are they, at long last, men?

In order to circumvent this last question, most white citizens, especially in the South, actually argued that black people were not humans, but slightly subhuman. They weren’t even counted in censuses until 1787, and even then, only 3/5 of all blacks would be counted in a given area. The causes of the Civil War, or more properly, the War over States’ Rights, include much more than slavery, but the sustenance or abolition of slavery was the result everyone watched for, and what all the politicians fought for. At no other time in American history was the nation more polarized over any issue. In hindsight, fighting over it was the only resolution. No compromise could avail itself forever.

Many war experts consider it the first modern war, not because of the Gatling gun, but because of musket rifling and the Minie ball. As said in #10, 600,000 Americans died. This was horror on a scale no American ever saw before or since. Most of the common soldiers enlisted and fought for the money and three square meals a day. This was a job, and the promise of adventure, for the price of possible death or injury. By the time it was over, Richmond had been bombed into a moonscape, General Sherman had burned Atlanta to the ground, and the President was killed.

But with the unconditional surrender of the South, the Union was able to welcome back all seceded states, per Lincoln’s wishes, and permanently outlaw slavery of any kind. The Constitution was amended to this effect, Blacks were given the right to vote and hold office, and a nation much more similar to that of the present finally existed in the Western Hemisphere.

Lexiophiles Delights

. A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

. When the smog lifts in LosAngeles--U.C.L.A.

Ancient Sports

Harpastum--Culture: Roman

An early predecessor to the modern sport of rugby, harpastum was an ancient Roman game played with a small, hard ball of the same name. Derived from two early Greek games, the goal of the game varied often, but each version included two teams. Some variations involved a single player in the middle of a scrum, attempting to grasp the harpastum and escape, with the opponents trying to keep him inside and away from the ball.

Other versions were more like rugby, with two evenly matched teams squaring off on a field, with goals on either side. Passes, as well as feints, were common, as the goal was to get the ball to the opposite end of the field, and injuries abounded since there were no rules on grappling. A predetermined amount of time was agreed upon and the winner was the team with the most points at the end.

Galen, the famous Roman physician, claimed that harpastum was one of the greatest exercises, because it was cheap, easy, and could be tailored to fit the skill level of any player.

OK Then…

 

Harper’s Index 

• Minimum percentage of all federal background chiecks handled by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM): 90

• Percentage of OPM employees who are private contractors: 76

Unusual Fact of the Day

In 1979, Oscar host Johnny Carson joked, "I see a lot of new faces here. Especially on the old faces."

Joke-of-the-day

A famous art collector is walking through the city when he notices a mangy cat lapping milk from a saucer in the doorway of a store and he does a double take. He recognizes that the saucer is extremely old and very valuable, so he walks casually into the store and offers to buy the cat for two dollars. 

The storeowner replies "I'm sorry, but the cat isn't for sale. 

The collector says, "Please, I need a hungry cat around the house to catch mice. I'll pay you twenty dollars for that cat." 

And the owner says "Sold," and hands over the cat. 

The collector continues, "Hey, for the twenty bucks I wonder if you could throw in that old saucer. The cat's used to it and it'll save me from having to get a dish." 

And the owner says, "Sorry buddy, but that's my lucky saucer. So far this week I've sold sixty-eight cats."  

Rules of Thumb:   

Easy shortcuts to make an ‘educated’ guess

GETTING A JOB

Never send a resume longer than one page unless you're in the entertainment field, or think you are.    

Yeah, It Really Happened

Little Daddy is a 1931 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan.[1] It was the 105th (17th talking episode) Our Gang short that was released. Farina and Stymie are orphans and staying in a small flat near a black community church. The authorities want to put Stymie into an orphanage. Farina is sad about this but attempts to have a goodbye for Stymie with help from the gang. As Farina gets the food set up, Stymie eats it quicker than the gang could arrive. As the gang arrives, a man from the orphanage arrives to take Stymie to the home. The gang then attacks him in order to stop him from taking Stymie away. Miss Crabtree, their teacher, arrives on the scene and presumably settles matters. Little Daddy was removed from the Little Rascals television package due to perceived racism toward African Americans.

Somewhat Useless Information   

• The male mosquitoes are vegetarians and live on eating the lives of the plants and the trees.

• Tongue of the blue whale’s weight is equal to the total body weight of the elephant.

• Rats and horses can’t have the power of vomiting, which is why the rats can’t survive, even after taking the small quantity of zinc sulphate (rat-poisoning).

• Taking 1 chips pocket per day is equal to taking 5 liters of oil in a year.

• The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.

• Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.

• Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.

• Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967 – the patient lived for 18 days.

• Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14 and crayfish have 200.

• An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

• One million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang the Universe was the size of a …pea.

Calendar Information        

Happening This Week:
1-16

Iditarod Race
1-2

National Maple Syrup Days

1-7

National Cheerleading Week
National Ghostwriters Week
National Write A Letter of Appreciation Week
Universal Human Beings Week 
Will Eisner Week
2-8

Celebrate Your Name Week
National Consumer Protection Week
National Invasive Species Awareness Week
National Pancake Week
National Pet Sitters Week
National Schools Social Work Week
National Severe Storm Preparedness Week
National Sleep Awareness Week
National Words Matter Week
Professional Pet Sitters Week
Read an E-Book Week
Return The Borrowed Books Week
Save Your Vision Week
Severe Weather Preparedness Week:
Telecommuter Appreciation Week

Women in Construction Week

Today Is                                                                      

·        Academy Awards Night

·        Daughters' and Sons' Day

·        Dr. Seuss Day

·        Iditarod Begins

·        Namesake Day

·        National Frozen Food Day

·        National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day

Today’s Events through History  

1819 - Territory of Arkansas organized

1853 - Territory of Washington organized after separating from Oregon Ter

1861 - US creates Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah ter

1867 - Act is passed today which will purchase a reserve for SAUK and FOX of 

     4.5 square miles.

1889 - Kansas passes 1st US antitrust

1949 - 1st automatic street light (New Milford, Ct)

1990 - Greyhound Bus goes on strike

Today’s Birthdays                                                           

Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union is 83

Tom Wolfe, journalist/author (Right Stuff) is 83

John Cowsill, rock drummer (Cowsills-We Can Fly) is 58

Jon Bon Jovi, rocker (Bon Jovi-Give Love a Bad Name) is 52

Daniel Craig, actor (007) is 46

Remembered for being born today

1793 - Sam[uel] Houston, 1st president of Texas (1836-38, 1841-44)

1876 - Pius XII, [Euhenio MGG Pacelli], 260th Pope (1939-58)

1904 - Dr. Seuss, [Theodor Geisel], children's author (Horton Hears a Who!)

1917 - Desi Arnaz, Santiago Cuba, actor (I Love Lucy)

1950 - Karen Carpenter, vocalist/drummer (We Only Just Begun)

Today’s Historical Obits                                                           

Randolph Scott, actor (Fort Worth, Gung Ho, Jesse James), 1987, @89

John Wesley, English co-founder of Methodism, 1791, @87 

Horace [Horatio] Walpole, British horror writer, 1797, @79

Dusty Springfield, English singer, breast cancer, 1999, @59

David Herbert Lawrence (DH), poet/writer (Lady Chatterley's Lover),TB, 1930, @44

Brain Teasers

TRY: From the adage "If, at first, you don't succeed, try, try again." TROY: The Greek city which was the site of the Trojan War. <> TRIP: and fall. TRAP: to catch it all. <> TRAMP: Charlie Chaplin's famous character was the tramp. CRAMP: can be very painful. <> CHAMP: a winner! CHAP: Chapped lips or hands can be cured with a balm <> CAP: goes on your head. CAT: is left dead in the adage "Curiosity killed the cat."

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  §