Oct 16

FYI: Any blue text is a link. Click to check it out!

Oct. 16, 2019 Week: 42  Day: 289

86004:   H 67° \ L 32° \ Average Sky Cover: 5% 

Nearest active fire:  87mi.  Nearest lightning:  428mi

Wind:   9mph\Gusts:  13mph  Visibility: 10 mi

Record High: 78°[1991]   Record Low: 13°[1984]

Oct. Averages: 63°\32° ( 4 days with moisture)

Today’s Quote

The absence of alternatives

clears the mind marvelously.

Henry Kissinger

Bonus

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

- Oscar Wilde

Random Tidbits

Acronyms…

PAM stands for Product of Arthur Meyerhoff.

NECCO stands for New England Confectionery Company.

YAHOO stands for Yet Another Hierarchical Official Oracle

Observances This Week

10-17

Take Your Medicine Americans Week

12-20

Bone and Joint Health National Awareness Week Link

12-18

World Rainforest Week

13-19

Bullying Bystanders Unite Week
Drink Local Wine Week  
Earth Science Week
National Chestnut Week
International Infection Prevention Week Link
Mediation Week Link  
National Food Bank Week
Teen Read Week
Veterinary Technicians Week Link

14-18

Choose To Be G.R.E.A.T. Week Link
National School Lunch Week
YWCA Week Without Violence Link

Observances for Today

Boss's Day (or National Boss's Day)  Link
BRA Day USA  Link   
Department Store Day
Dictionary Day
Global Cat Day
Hagfish Day Link  
Information Overload Day Link 
National Feral Cat Day Link
National Fossil Day  Link 
National Liqueur Day

National Take Your Parents To Lunch Day

National World Food Day

Thank Your Cleaner Day Link
Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce  
World Food Day
World Spine Day  Link

My Rambling Thoughts

Nice fall day. Headed out and got some necessary items and returned home. Changed my front door decoration to represent fall, and put up some decorations on various interior doors. Slowly accepting that fall has really arrived. There are still decent ‘warm’ days, by noon, but early morning temperatures are getting real chilly.

I got a great article from my traveling buddy, Ed. It was in Sec. B from the Denver Post of 9/15/19. It came in the US mail. My grandmother tried so hard to get me into stamp collecting decades ago. It never caught on with me, but I do pay attention to stamps on my mail. This one had 3-10-cent and 5-5-cent stamps. Very cool, and only one stamp had the cancellation mark. 

The article was fascinating about a guy who bought a few acres of undeveloped land in S. Colorado, had a strange dream, built a small cabin, stayed for a while, and then after finding some Ute artifacts contacted the tribe and returned the land to the tribe. It is part of movement that is returning land to the tribes that had their land stolen. Most impressive was Edred Secakuku’s, the Ute who accepted the land, comment:

           

Our ancestors are there. Their spirits are still there.

          Their history is still there. Our medicine, our songs

          are still there, in the way we believe

I have heard many Natives try to explain what makes a place sacred to Non-Natives. This is one of the best explanations I have ever heard. Such an amazing act of human understanding.

About two decades ago, the AZ legislature passed a bill that basically stopped Bilingual Education in AZ. Public schools could no longer have classes that taught students in their Native language for science, math, social studies, etc. Students who didn’t pass an English Proficiency Test were placed in Immersion classes and ESL classes.  The legislature never asked linguists what a bad idea this really was. They obviously didn’t read any of the literature on bilingual education. Now, after test scores for these students have not risen, several in the legislature are starting a movement to revoke this law. All I can say is: It’s about time.

Today’s Puzzle

Answer at the bottom of this page

I wear you down, yet you will mourn me once I fly.

You can kill me, but I will never die.

Historical Events

On October 16, 1958 Patricia Bay Haroski an employee of State Farm Insurance Company registered Boss’s Day with US Chamber of Commerce. Haroski chose the date because it was the date of her boss’s birthday who was also her father.

1793 - Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, was guillotined at the height of the French Revolution. The phrase "Let them eat cake" is often attributed to Marie but there is no evidence she ever said it.

1814 - The Great Beer Flood. More than 323,000 gallons of beer burst out of the Meux and Company Brewery and poured into the streets of St. Giles, London, England.

1847 Charlotte Brontë's book "Jane Eyre" published

1859 Abolitionist John Brown leads 21 in raid on federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Viringia

1869 - The Cardiff Giant was "discovered" in Cardiff, New York.

1875 - Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah.

1913 George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" premieres in Hofburg Theatre in Vienna, Austria

1916 - In Brooklyn, New York, Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning clinic in the United States.

1921 - Frank Coughlin, the head coach of the Rock Island Independents, was fired in the middle of a game against the Chicago Cardinals. The Independents were leading the game 14-7 at the time. Coughlin is the only coach in NFL history to be fired in the middle of a game.

1934 Mao Zedong and 25,000 troops begin their 6,000 mile Long March from the south of China to the north and west

1946 10 Nazi leaders are hanged as war criminals after Nuremberg war trials, including Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Alfred Jodl

1950 The first edition of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" is released in London

1962 Cuban missile crisis begins as JFK is shown photos confirming the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba

1968 - Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

1976 - #1 Hit: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck (part 1)

1978 - Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523.

1984 - Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 - The Million Man March took place in Washington, DC. Between 400,000 and 850,000 people marched.

1998 Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a Spanish warrant requesting his extradition on murder charges

2013 The United States ends its 16-day government shut down and avoids default in a Bi-partisan deal in the Senate

2018 Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denies knowledge of the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi according to President Trump

Birthdays Today

Angela Lansbury, actor (94)

Tim Robbins, actor, director, producer, singer (61)

Oscar Wilde, novelist

(d. 1900 @46; meningitis)

John Mayer, singer (41)

Puzzle answer:

Time