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Almanac: Week: 03 \ Day: 016
January
Averages: 43°\16°
86004 Today: H 43°\L 22°
Ave. humidity: 52% Average Sky Cover: 0%
Wind ave: 11mph\Gusts: 25mph
Ave. High: 43° Record
High: 60° (1974)
Ave. Low: 16° Record Low: -8° (1915)
Observances
Today:
US-VA-Lee
Jackson Day-for birthdays of Robert
E. and Stonewall
\/
Appreciate
A Dragon Day
Hot and Spicy Food
International Day
International
Fetish Day
National Nothing Day
Nothing
Day
Religious
Freedom Day
Observances This
Week:
Cuckoo
Dancing Week
National Vocation Awareness Week
14-18
National
Soccer Coaches of America Week
No Tillage Week
« »
Quote of
the Day
Historical
Highlights for Today
1412 - The Medici family is appointed official
banker of the Papacy.
1492 - The 1st grammar of a modern language,
Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.
1831 - Mushulatubbe
("Determined to Kill") says he will step down as Chief when the
removal of the CHOCTAWs to Indian Territory begins.
1868 - Refrigerator car patented by William Davis,
a fish dealer in Detroit
1877 - Color organ (for light shows) patented, by
Bainbridge Bishop
1883 - Pendleton Act creates basis of US Civil
Service system
1920 - The 18th Amendment is ratified, prohibiting
the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages (repealed 1933)
1936 - 1st photo finish camera installed at Hialeah
Race track in Hialeah Fla
1936 - Screen Actors Guild incorporates with King
Vidor as president
1938 - 1st jazz concert held at Carnegie Hall
(Benny Goodman)
1951 - World's largest gas pipeline opens
(Brownsville Tx, to 134th St, NYC)
1969 - Soviet Soyuz 4 & Soyuz 5 perform 1st
transfer of crew in space
1970 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal
award from the American Institute of Architects
1974 - "Jaws" by Peter
Benchley is published
1985 - "Playboy" announces end of
stapling centerfolds
« »
♫
Birthdays Today: ♫
How many can you identify? Answers below in Birthday’s Today
My
Rambling Thoughts
Sun, clear blue sky, a little wind…nice day for melting our snow.
This has been a crazy week for lunches…today Cheryl and I went to
the new Mexican place. Another good meal.
Cheryl had pics of Christmas with her family in CA. some really
great pics.
The worldwide terror thing is just getting worse. An interesting
story on NPR…back in August a Frenchman did a political cartoon about a
politician and his Jewish girlfriend. He was fired from the newspaper for the
cartoon. In another story about Muslims, it was pointed out that many times
people feel it is OK to make jokes about Muslims while not OK to make jokes
about Christians or Jews. And finally, starting tomorrow, the chapel on the Duke
University campus will do the ‘call to prayer’ for Muslims on campus every
Friday at noon. They already ring a bell on Sunday for Christians. Lots of on
campus discussion about that decision.
« »
Brain
Teasers
(answers at the end of post)
I'm
quite a show
And people know;
Spinning threads
For capture of heads.
My limbs are many,
But I may be less than a penny.
One prick of me,
And in pain you will be.
I may fly and float as a baby,
And I swing when I'm older, maybe.
I can live in dark,
And have homes of bark.
I peel and fight,
Some people eat me in a bite.
What am I?
Found on
You Tube with some relevance to today
« »
Paraphernalia
4 the Brain:
60’s
Inventions…
1964
Acrylic paint invented.
Permanent-press fabric invented.
BASIC (an early computer language) is
invented by John George Kemeny and Tom Kurtz.
Emotion
Facts…
--Most people smile when they are frustrated, according to a
study.
--The use of emoticons affects our corresponding brain areas and
can actually trigger emotions.
Flagstaff,
AZ History…
50 YEARS
AGO
Flagstaff greeted the New Year with 4 feet of snow. There were 13
accidents and six cars just plain left running in middle of the street when
they could go on further. They were towed.
Flagstaff’s
Iconic 50…
Joe
Sorren Mural
During the last decade, Flagstaff has seen a wondrous flourish of
public art and murals — from the Centennial mural at the train station to the
Route 66 mural along Phoenix Avenue at the Lumberyard and more. But one of the
originals is a standout of storytelling and surreal wonder.
Artist Joe Sorren added his wondrous artistic strokes to the
downtown Flagstaff scene with “The Veridic Gardens of Effie Leroux.” Completed
in 2000, the famed mural draws people for repeated visits, as they discover new
characters and moments in the complex world of Effie.
People who sit outside to eat at Diablo Burger at Old Town Shops
get the best view, as the mural wraps around the cylindrical wall outside of
the eatery. It measures 20 feet by 45 feet and took Sorren approximately one
year to complete.
The mural is full of clever visual references, including miniature
representations of paintings from old masters such as Picasso’s “Guernica” and
a tiny version of Klimt’s “The Kiss,” but it takes a clever eye to spot them.
The mischievous-looking boy in the red represents Sorren’s son and the girl in
the oversized shirt symbolizes his daughter.
Harper’s
Index…
$3,731,057
Amount Americans spent last year on UNICEF donations to
trick-or-treaters
$330,000,000
On Halloween costumes for their pets
Rules of
Thumb…
KEEPING
UP WITH MEDICINE
The half-life of knowledge in medical
school is four years. Fifty percent of what you learn as a freshman is obsolete
when you graduate.
Unusual
Fact of the Day…
Michael Jackson wanted to do a Harry Potter musical. J.K. Rowling
said no.
« »
Joke-of-the-day
Jim, a collections specialist, was on his
first day of work for his new employer and was assigned to collect a past due
balance from a company that was a customer of his employer. He had been
provided with a standard script that he was to use where he was to ask for
"Accounts Payable" when calling the customer so that he could talk
with someone about the payment of the past due bill.
He made the call, asked the receptionist for
"Accounts Payable", and waited for what seemed to be forever on hold.
Finally, after a very long time, the receptionist, who was also on her first
day on the job and new to the world of business, came back on the phone and
stated, "I am sorry, but I have looked down our list of employees and I do
not find anyone named Accounts Payable."
Yep, It
Really Happened
SAN DIEGO
(UPI)
A full-sized boa constrictor slithered out of a toilet at a public
relations firm in Southern California last week, according to a press release
from the company. When Stephanie Lacsa, co-founder for Vertical PR + Marketing,
noticed a higher-than-usual water level in one of the San Diego office
building's toilets last Wednesday, she went to work with a plunger. Something
then began to emerge from the toilet drain.
"I thought my eyes were deceiving me," Lacsa said,
according to a statement from the firm published on San Diego Animal Control's
Facebook page. "But as soon I saw the flicker of its tongue, I definitely
knew that it was in fact a large snake heading straight toward me." The
snake was a Colombian Rainbow Boa, a non-venomous constrictor native to South
America. At 5-feet long, the boa was at average full-grown length. Lasca said
she shrieked and ran from the bathroom, taping up the door until animal control
arrived and captured the snake.
"The animal control officer said that she had never witnessed
anything like this in her career," Lasca said, according to the statement.
"She referred to the incident as 'The Stuff of Urban Legends' and I would
have to agree." Holly Wells, Lasca's co-worker and the co-founder of
Vertical PR + Marketing, noted that the office was very old. "Our
building, which is the Old San Diego City Hall, was built in 1886 so we are
accustomed to the old pipes and stubborn plumbing," she said, according to
the release. "But we were definitely not prepared for this." San
Diego Animal Control said Friday in a comment on its Facebook page that the boa
was claimed by a friend of the owner, and that its name was "Bella."
Boa constrictors are considered an invasive species in places such as Florida,
according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where they
thrive in the subtropical climate and are mostly introduced through
"escape or release by pet owners." While it does not list boa
constrictors as one of the state's invasive species, the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife notes, "Some of the animals that are currently, or
were in the past, brought into California as sources of food, fur, or pets have
turned into major pests."
Somewhat
Useless Information
Did
you know that somewhere in the world a cat is the honorary mayor since
July 1997 and that every afternoon it goes to a nearby restaurant and drinks
water out of a wineglass laden with catnip?
This
city is Talkeetna, Alaska and the cat is ‘Stubbs’ born in 1997.
Stubbs
is still mayor, as well as a tourist attraction, having been flooded with
cards and letters, and drawing 30 to 40 tourists each day!
Gizmos
BOSTON (UPI)
An
international team of scientists claim to have created one of the most powerful
antibiotic drugs in decades, capable of killing the microorganisms that cause
pneumonia, staph, tuberculosis, blood infections and more. And they found it in
a pile of dirt.
The new antibiotic, teixobactin, operates differently than previous
antibiotics; its power and uniqueness has moved some scientists to suggest
germs may never be able to develop resistance to it.
"Our impression is that nature produced a compound that evolved to be
free of resistance," explained lead researcher Kim Lewis, a professor at
Northeastern University. "This challenges the dogma that we've operated
under that bacteria will always develop resistance. Well, maybe not in this
case."
While that notion has been dismissed by a number of other researchers who
believe that eventually, bacteria will develop a resistance to anything, the
new drug still holds great promise in the medical field. Given the growing concerns
over resistance to today's common antibiotics, the new discovery has many
health researchers, doctors and officials excited.
"It brings back the notion that there are lots of unanticipated surprises
still lurking in the soil," Gerald Fink, a microbiologist at the Whitehead
Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the MIT Technology
Review.
Researchers at MIT, Boston University and Northeastern teamed up with
scientists in Germany and England in order to develop the new antibiotic. Most
of the world's bacterial resistance strategies are hidden in the dirt, but less
than one percent can be recreated in the lab. Researchers have long been
looking for a way to utilize the other 99 percent.
Now there is a way to grow uncultured bacteria in their natural environment,
thanks to a device called the iChip that was developed by Lewis and his
colleague, Northeastern biology professor Slava Epstein. The iChip has allowed
scienitsts to grow single cell organisms in their natural environments.
Teixobactin is one of more than two dozen new antibiotics discovered using the
technique -- it's also the latest and most promising. Though it is yet to be
tested on humans, it has cured a variety of bacterial infections in mice. Lewis
told MIT that it may be two years before teixobactin is tested on human
volunteers.
« »
Today’s
Events through History
1547 - Ivan IV the Terrible (17) crowns himself 1st
tsar of Moscow
1908 - Pinnacles National Monument, California
established
1954 - "South Pacific" closes at Majestic
Theater NYC after 1928 performances
1965 - "Outer Limits" last airs on ABC-TV
« »
Birthday’s
Today
Jim Berry,
cartoonist (Berry's World) is 83
A. J.
Foyt, racing driver (Indy 500 - 1961, 64, 67 & 77), is 80
Jim
Stafford, singer (Spiders & Snakes) is 72
Ronnie
Milsap, country singer (Legend in My Time) is 72
John
Carpenter, director (Halloween, The Thing) is 67
Debbie
Allen, dancer/actress (Lydia-Fame), is 65
Sade (Helen
Folasade Adu), Nigerian-born singer is 56
David
Chokachi, actor (Baywatch) is 47
Kate Moss, English
model (Calvin Klein) is 41
« »
Remembered
for being born today
Fulgencio
Batista, president/dictator of Cuba 1901-1973@72
Ethel
Merman, stage & screen actress (Anything Goes) 1908-1984@76
Jay Hanna "Dizzy"
Dean, HOF baseball pitcher (St Louis Cardinals) 1910-1974@64
Susan
Sontag, author/film director (Benefactor, 1966 Pol Award), 1933-2004@71
« »
Historical
Obits Today
Pauline
Phillips, American advice columnist ‘Dear Abby’, 2013, @94
Russell
Johnson, actor, "The Professor"-Gilligan's Island, 2014, @89
Arturo
Toscanini, Italian US conductor (NBC), 1957, @89
Robert R "Bob"
Jones, founder (Bob Jones University), 1968, @84
Marshall
Field, founder of Marshall Field and Company, pneumonia, 1906, @71
Ma Barker (Arizona
Donnie Barker), American criminal, shot, 1935, @61
Edward
Gibbon, English historian (The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire), infection, 1794, @56
Ted
Cassidy, actor (Lurch-Addams Family), surgery complications, 1979, @46
Carole
Lombard, actress (To Be or Not to Be), plane crash, 1942, @33
« »
Brain Teasers Answers
A spider.
« »
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…§
