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Genii aka Robin Williams walks the line

Gang, those of you who want to help the WGA writers in their strike, now is the time when they can really use your support. When the hububb and publicity is gone, when no settlement seems near, when picketers start to despair and turn on each other. Now if you see a picket line of WGA, go over and lend a hand. Shoulder a sign for awhile, or just wish them good luck. I've walked the pavement on a couple of picket lines. You'd be surprised how those good wishes go a long way.

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QUIZ: Why is a bunch of tubs of food along a wall where you serve yourself, called a buffet meal?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: What is the oldest snackfood known to mankind?
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History for 11/27/2007
Birthdays: Cornelius Vanderbuilt, Jimi Hendrix would have been 66, Bruce Lee- real name Lee Jun Fan would have been 67, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is 51, James Agee, Chaim Weizmann, Alexander Dubcheck, David Merrick, Marshal Thompson, Robin Givens, Judd Nelson, Buffalo Bob Smith

43BC-THE SECOND TRIUMVERATE- Marc Anthony, Octavian Caesar and Marcus Lepidus compel the Roman Senate to declare them The Board of Three with Consular Powers for the Organizing of the State. This legitimized what they were in fact anyway, the real rulers of the Roman Empire. They used this new pact to hunt down the killers of Julius Caesar, and they published a list of "Proscribed Persons". People who they declared enemies of the state. An estimated 4,000 Roman politicians and noblemen were executed including the philosopher Cicero.

176 AD- Marcus Aurelius named his son Commodus as co ruler and heir to the Roman Empire. Romes second Golden Age of Peace and prosperity called the Augustan Age ends. The Augustan Age was successful because the Emperors, who were mostly gay or bi-sexual, would adopt the best man for the job of emperor instead of picking a family member. So Rome enjoyed a series of excellent leaders- Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. But Marcus Aurelius spoiled the whole system by letting his natural son Commodus succeed him. Commodus turned into another sicko-tyrant like Nero and Caligula. It was rumored Commodus wasn’t even Marcus’ son but the Empress Faustina sired him with a gladiator, thus his fondness for their profession.

221AD- Today is the Feast Day of Saint James Intercisus, or Saint James 'Cut up into tiny pieces", which leaves but little speculation about the method of his martyrdom.

1519- Martin Luther squared off with Catholic scholar Dr. Johann Eck in a grand public debate in Liepzig. Audiences sat in bleachers and cheered like a sports match. The debate about Luther’s new Protestant views would go on until July 8th. Luther won the audience with his superior eloquence and logic but Eck succeeded in getting Luther to publicly speak heresy against Rome. The Reformation now moved from a small local argument about indulgences to a major challenge to the authority of the Vatican to rule the Christian world.

1582- William Shakespeare 27 married Ann Hathaway 25. They had a son who died and two daughters. In 1585 Shakespeare left his wife in Stratford on Avon, and by 1591 was known as an actor in London. He invested in land in Stratford and in 1616 retired to the country to spend time with his daughters and grandchildren but he never went back to Ann. It’s been speculated that she was a Puritan while Shakespeare enjoyed making fun of Puritans in Comedys like "Twelfth Night"."Just because thou art Virtuous thinks there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?"

1868- THE GREAT BATTLE ON THE WASHITA -as it was called in those days. Generals Sherman and Sheridan had had enough of chasing small bands of Indian warriors all over the prairie. They now ordered George Armstrong Custer to introduce to the plains their style of "Hard War"- that burned Atlanta and brought the Confederacy to it’s knees.
With the sound of a band playing " Gary Owen" shattering the pre-dawn quiet Custer and his 7th Cavalry surprise attacked the village of Chief Black Kettle. One name Indians had for Custer was Son of the Morning Star, not for poetic effect, but because his preferred time of attack was an hour before sunrise when everyone was still asleep. The warriors were out foraging anyway, so they mostly killed women and children. They even shot the Indian’s ponies. Chief Black Kettle had recently signed a peace treaty with the white-eyes and felt so safe he flew a U.S. flag over his teepee. Black Kettle had survived a similar attack in 1864 called the Sand Creek Massacre. The excuse for the attack was that a white woman homesteader kidnapped by renegade Cheyenne may have been deposited for awhile at Black Kettle's encampment. The Victorian horror over inferred sexual outrages committed on Christian maidens goaded the troopers to ruthless fury, however after the battle Custer freely encouraged his officers to divide up the prettiest squaws for themselves.
One legend says Custer took a mistress named Meotzsi who bore him a child. So when Custer died at the Little Big Horn the reason his body was not scalped and mutilated like the others was the Cheyenne considered him family.

1910- New York’s Penn Station opened.

1921- English writer Alastair Crowley proclaimed himself Outer Head of the Order Templeis Orientalis- or Order of the Temple of the East. Alastair Crowley had spent years studying and mastering various occult devotions- Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Gnosticism, Iluminati in order to fuse them into his own form of black magick devotion- Thelema he called it based on the satires of the 1500’s French poet Rabelais. He boasted often that he wanted Crowleyism to eventually replace Christianity. He sold virility pills to men that contained a drop of his own semen in the formula. His own mother called him:"The Wickedest Man in the World".

1924- The First Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. The marvel of the parade were large displays that moved down the street thanks to small automobiles concealed under them. They seemed to "float",so they are called parade floats today. The huge balloons were added in 1934. Originally after the parade the balloons were let go to float away into the sky. Macy’s offered a bounty to people who found them after they landed, sometimes in rural New Jersey.

1933- Former Terrytoons animator Art Babbitt, now at Disney's, writes to fellow animator Bill Tytla encouraging him to move to California. "Terry owes you a lot and Disney has plans for a full length color cartoon!"

1936- Max Fleischer's cartoon featurette, "Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor".

1941-While Admiral Yamamoto’s carrier fleet was getting it’s final orders to put to sea, at Pearl Harbor the U.S. army commander General Short got a top secret coded message from Washington: " Negotiations with Japan seem at an end for all practical purposes...future moves unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act...Measures should be carried out so as not to alarm the civilian population or disclose intent."

1942- Admiral Laborde had received orders from Vichy to put the French fleet at the Nazis disposal so they attack the Allied beachheads in North Africa. Instead Laborde scuttled the French fleet in Toulon Harbor.

1950- THE CHOSIN RESEVOIR- In Korea this day the US First Marine Division and British Commando 411 was cut off and attacked on all sides by massed Red Chinese armies. Commander Chesty Puller, a veteran of Guadalcanal, when told he was surrounded replied: "That just simplifies our problems of finding these people and killing them." The Marines slowly fought their way the trap in subzero cold across the frozen ice bringing out most of their wounded and some POWs. Survivors of the epic march refuse to call their campaign a retreat, they said they merely attacked in another direction. They called themselves "The Chosin Few" and the "Frozen-Choisin".

1953- Playwright Eugene O'Neill died of pneumonia and Parkinson's Disease at 65. He had been writing on cardboard laundry shirt boards because he needed something large to write on because his hands trembled so violently. When O’Neill realize his end was near he tore up six plays he was writing because he wanted no one else to complete them. He was staying at the Shelton Hotel in Boston. As his father was an actor his family traveled frequently. O'Neill's last words were : "I knew it! Born in a hotel room and G-ddammit I'm dying in a hotel room! "

1960 – Gordie Howe becomes the first NHL player to score 1000 goals.

1967- The Beatles release Magical Mystery Tour.

1973- According to the X-Files this was the night Fox Mulder’s sister Samantha was abducted by aliens.

1975- Ross McWhirter, publisher of the Guinness Book of World Records, was killed by the IRA.

1985- Steven Speilberg married Amy Irving. They later divorced.
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Quiz: What is the oldest snackfood known to mankind?

Answer: Popcorn. Kernels of Popcorn have been found in Ice Age graves and campsites in the Americas.


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