Aug 20

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Aug 20, 2018 Week: 34\ Day: 232

86004 Today: H84 ° \ L 55° \ Average Sky Cover: 5% 

Nearest Lightning:  421 miles away

Wind ave.:   1mph\Gusts:  11mph Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 90°[2009]   Record Low: 35°[1979]

Aug Averages: 80°\49°

Today’s Quote

  People really don't have to give you anything,  

  so appreciate what people give you.

    Aretha Franklin

Harper’s Index

  +391

  Percentage change since 2009 in reports of

  human waste on San Francisco streets

Observances This Week

15-21  National Aviation Week  

16-26  Little League World Series

18-24  Minority Enterprise Development Week

National Chef's Appreciation Week  Link  Link  

20-24  National Safe at Home Week 

Observances for Today

Cupcake Day Link  
National Radio Day Link
World Mosquito Day Link

Today’s Significant US Historical Events

Today’s Significant International Historical Events 

1600’s                                         

1619 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia. They are then sold or traded into servitude.

1800’s                                         

1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War over

1886 Second Salon exhibition by Society of Independent Artists held in Paris; includes Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"

1896 Dial telephone patented

1900’s                                         

1908 America's Great White Fleet arrives in Sydney, Australia, to be greeted with a tremendous welcome; 221 American sailors desert to remain in Australia

1920 1st US commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), Detroit begins daily broadcasting

1939 1st black bowling league formed (National Bowling Assoc)

1940 British PM Churchill says of Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

1953 General Fazlollah Zahedi arrests Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in a CIA supported coup d'état

1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, an anti-poverty measure totaling nearly $1 billion

1980 UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital

1990 Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations (human shields)

1998 The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

2000’s                                         

2015 30 students at West Point Military Academy are injured in a mass pillow fight

My Rambling Thoughts

Our discussion group had a good talk about China Today. China is working to expand its influence in the region and beyond. Since the US administration does not have a clear policy on China, it looks like their expansion will just keep happening. Hopefully there will be some policy before it is too late.

Looks like our monsoon is taking a break. No rain yesterday, and with this almost cloudless sky it doesn’t look good for any rain today or tonight.

One of the biggest issues in our small mountain college town is the growth of the University. The University keeps adding more and more students, which allows the President to get big bonuses from the Board of Regents. This has been going on for several years and is reaching a boiling point. While the University increases students, they are not increasing dorm spaces. So builders have come in from everywhere to build huge housing complexes near campus. And these ain’t the dorms of yesteryear. They are luxury apartments with many amenities and come at quite the cost. These new structures do not have adequate parking nor is there an offer of transportation to campus. On top of that, the roads in our town are not ready for all the new traffic congestion. [Back in the day when I was in undergrad school in Boulder, the University bought some land away from campus and built a huge dormitory complex (Williams Village). It came with free bus transportation by the University to campus. I lived there my sophomore year and really like it. Getting to and from campus was no problem.] This is a small town and we don’t seem to need to study other ‘big’ campuses around the country, the University will just keep growing, the town will complain, infrastructure will not meet the needs, and life will go on. SAD!

Birthdays Today

@-  indicates age at death

80’s

83►Ron Paul, US Congressman, 1988 and 2008 presidential candidate

70’s

70►Robert Plant, singer (Led Zepplin)

60’s

@67►Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (Republican: 1889-93), born in North Bend, Ohio (d. 1901) pneumonia

@64►Bernardo O'Higgins, Chillán, Chile, South American independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule (1817-1823 Supreme Director of Chile) (d. 1842) heart problems

@64- Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia (1991-97) and Yugoslavia (1997-2000), (d. 2006) heart attack in prison

64►Al Roker, TV weather guy

50’s

58- Sally Yates, American lawyer and Acting Attorney General (Jan 2017), born in Atlanta, Georgia

@56►Jacqueline Susann, author (Valley of the Dolls), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1974) cancers

20’s

26-Demi Lovato, Disney singer/actress

Historical Obits Today

90’s

@91-1980 Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank

80’s

@87-2007 Leona Helmsley, American real estate billionaire and convicted of federal income tax evasion

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 contains mistakes and sadly once 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…☼☼☼☼