TomSito.com - TOM SITO'S BLOG

July 19th, 2008 sat

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is Newspeak?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is the difference between Shiite and Sunni?
--------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/19/2008
Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Col. Samuel Colt, Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vicki Carr, Max Fleischer, Lizzie Borden, Ille Nastase, George McGovern, Brian Harold May of Queen, Atom Egoyan, Anthony Edwards, Campbell Scott

64 A.D. THE BURNING OF ROME- Mad emperor Nero didn't fiddle as the fire raged ,but he was inspired to run up to an observation platform and sing an elegy on the destruction of Troy while accompanying himself on the lyre. Romans later became suspicious when the areas most affected by the fire on the Palatine Hill were expropriated by the Emperor to build the Golden House, a sort of Palace-theme park complex Nero dedicated to himself. The fire had started to die out after six days but flared up again on the grounds of the estate of Tigellinus, an aide to Nero. The fire burned for nine days total and destroyed two thirds of the city, including a temple built by Romulus the Founder and the shrine of the Vestal Virgins.

711 A.D. Battle of Medina-Sidonia- The Moors conquer most of Spain. When he first landed the Moorish commander Tarik Bin Ziyad ordered his landing ships burned and addressed his soldiers saying : " ...The enemy is in front of you and the sea behind you... You have no choice but victory ! Christian Spain was reduced to a thin strip up against the Pyrenees Mountains and in Galicia. The Moors weren’t driven out until 1492. Until then the Emirs of Granada and Cordoba set up lavish courts where great sums were spent on poets, artists, mathematicians and scientists.

1500-In the Vatican Lucretzia Borgia’s second husband Duke Alfonso of Naples was stabbed to death by men sent by her brother Caesar Borgia. Enemies of the Borgias said Caesar was jealous and had an incestuous passion for his sister, but the real reasons for the murder were political. Alfonso was angry about Caesar’s alliance with France, the enemy of Naples. Caesar had sent men attack Alfonso as he was leaving Saint Peters but he fought them off and recovered. While convalescing he spotted Caesar from his sickbed window, grabbed a bow and arrow and tried to shoot him. Then Caesar had him whacked. Cardinal Sforza, who arranged the marriage was later poisoned.

1717- George Frederich Handel premiered his suite the Water Music for a procession of King George II on pleasure boats from Whitehall to Lambeth Palace.

1799- THE ROSETTA STONE DISCOVERED. During Napoleons campaign in Egypt several soldiers digging a latrine uncover a black basalt slab with several forms of writing all over it. In 1821 Francois Champolion figured it out. The stone was the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, sort of an ancient Berlitz Guide. The document in honor of Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy is written three times in Hieroglyphs (sacred letters of Ancient Egypt), in Hieratic (governmental cursive type, a simpler form of Hieroglyphs used for texts unrelated to the Temple and Religion) and in Coptic, the same Egyptian language written in Greek letters. Since Champolion knew Greek, and had contacts with Egyptian Christian priests who spoke Coptic... The rest was the proverbial piece of cake... Before the Rosetta Stone people thought Egyptian hieroglyphics were just magical symbols, but after the stones discovery the long mute voice of Ancient Egyptian civilization was heard again. Prayers, Literature and Poetry could now be understood. It was like the discovery of a long dead world.

1879- Doc Holiday had opened a saloon with a partner in Las Vegas, New Mexico. An army scout named Mike Gordon got mad at one of his dance hall girls, went out into the street and started firing wildly into the saloon. Doc Holiday came out, shot Gordon dead with one bullet, went back in and calmly resumed his poker game.

1941 - British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign. By coincidence the letter"V" in morse code corresponded with the opening notes of Beethoven ‘s 5th symphony "Dit-Dit-Dit Daaah."making it the musical theme of the BBC overseas radio service war news. If you ever lived in England you would know that reversing the two fingers sign is an insult akin to flashing someone the middle finger.

1952- Several UFO’s appeared on the radar of Washington DC’s National Airport. So many in fact that the Air Force was obliged to hold a news conference to calm public fears. They were dismissed as temperature inversions. Uh, huh…

1957- That great movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF starring Michael Landon premiered.

1966- 50 year old Frank Sinatra married 21 year old Mia Farrow. Frankie’s ex Ava Gardner commented:” Hah! I always knew Frank would one day wind up in bed with a little boy. “ Two years later when Mia Farrow was offered the lead role in Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” Frank gave her an ultimatum "Baby, it's either me or your career”. She took the part and he sent her a divorce notice on the set. Mia got an Oscar nomination and Frank recorded “Strangers in the Night”.

1990- The Richard Nixon Library dedicated in Yorba Linda California. Nixon's Western White House of San Clemente first refused the honor of being the site as well as his real birthplace town of Whittier . The little wood frame house where he was born was moved to the Yorba Linda site. At the dedication the five living Presidents were present. Senator Bob Dole pointed at former Presidents Ford, Reagan and Nixon and joked to a friend: "Look, there’s Hear no Evil, See No Evil, and- Evil.”

1991- Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson raped a contestant for the Miss Black America Pageant Desiree Washington. He got 3 years in jail.

1993- President Clinton launched his Gays in the military initiative called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." It caused a storm of controversy, and probably rooted more gay men and women out of their military careers than if nothing was done. The concept that homosexuality or bisexuality and the profession of arms are incompatible does not stand up to the historical record: Richard the Lionheart, Frederick the Great, Alexander the Great, Kitchener of Omdurman, The Sacred Band of Thebes, Shaka Zulu, Nicholson the Tiger of the Punjab and most of the Roman Emperors were gay or bisexual.
----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s quiz: What is the difference between Sunni and Shiite?

Answer from my old pal Hani in Egypt:
The Sunnis, literally 'Followers of the Sunnah', or the Tradition as set by the Prophet Mohammad. They form the large majority of Muslims. Soon after the death of Mohammad, some Muslims wanted Ali Bin-Abu-Talib, the prophet's cousin and son-in-law to succeed him as Calif and ruler of the Believers. These were the Shiite, literally
'Sectarians of Ali'. Several bloody battles later, Ali was assassinated, and his sons Hassan and Hussein were massacred. The Shiite developed as an independent sect of Islam (like Protestant vs. Catholic in Christianity). Shiites are mainly concentrated in Iran and parts of Iraq and the Gulf countries and even formed a dynasty of rulers in Egypt in the Xth to XIth Century, the Fatimids. They founded Cairo.

Posted by:Tom

July 18th, 2008 Fri

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

A new Simon's Cat cartoon on U-Tube. pretty funny stuff. Bravo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg

--------------------------------------
Quiz: So no more American candidates sound stupid, what is the difference between Shiites and Sunnis?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who first coined the term OnLine-?
-------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/18/2008
Birthdays: William Makepeace Thackeray, Chill Wills, Nelson Mandela, James Brolin, Elizabeth McGovern, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hume Cronyn, Red Skelton, Hunter H. Thompson, Clifford Odets, Paul Verhoeven, John Glenn is 87, Vin Diesel is 41.

Happy Ancient Egyptian New Year! The day when Cirius the Dog Star is seen in the Southern skies heralds the coming of the Nile’s flood. In modern times we call it the Dog Days of Summer.

390 B.C.- THE GAULS SACK ROME.-THE BIRTH OF MONEY- Migrating tribes of Gauls crossed the Alps, defeated the young republic's legions and stormed into the city as the population fled. When Gauls beheld aging, white haired Roman senators at first they thought they were gods. But when a Gaul pulled one of their beards and the man clopped him on the head , they knew they were just old men and slew them. The Gauls took ransom and migrated back up to where France is today. The Romans would not meet them again until 300 years later when their empire expanded north. At one point the Romans holding out on the Capitoline Hill were alerted to a Gaulish surprise attack when the Sacred Geese of Juno started squawking. The Romans knew this must be the Goddess' intervention. St. Augustine, the Seinfeld of evangelists, when told this story, said: "Right.., your geese were awake while your gods were asleep !

1870- The Vatican published the bull Pater Aeternus, that declared Papal Infallibility. That even when the Pope is wrong he is still right because he’s the Pope and you are not.,

1877- Thomas Edison recorded sound on tin foil cylinder `Mary Had a Little Lamb-'

1925- The First volume of Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler was published. The original title was "My Four and a Half Years Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice". But publisher Max Aman prevailed upon him to edit it down to My Struggle. Around this time a friend asked him:" Why don’t you shave that silly little mustache? You look like Charlie Chaplin." Adolf replied:" Soon the whole world will know this mustache!"

1939-MGM tried a sneak preview of the film The Wizard of Oz. Afterwards they debated cutting the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow as slowing down the pace but finally decided to leave it in. The film debuted in August to wild success and acclaim.

1939- RKO pictures signed Orson Welles to direct movies in Hollywood. That Hollywood signed a 24 year old radio star who never directed a movie, and gave him final cut and complete freedom is amazing.

1966- Bobby Fuller who made the hit song "I fought the Law and the Law Won" was found in LA in his mothers Oldsmobile beaten and dead from "forcible inhalation of gasoline"- huffing.

1981- John Henry Abbott was a murderer and bank robber doing hard time in prison. He started writing famous author Norman Mailor about life in prison and it turned out he was a pretty good author himself. Through Mailors’ influence Random House published his book "In the Belly of the Beast" and it got him released. Well, this day despite his literary celebrity status Abbott fell back into his bad habits and murdered another person- a Richard Adan at the Bonibon Café in New York. He was went back to prison for life and committed suicide in 2001. Norman Mailor refused to concede it may all have been a mistake- "Culture is worth a little risk."
----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Who first coined the term On Line-?

Answer: In 1963 Professor Douglas Englebart of the Stamford Research Institute (SRI) coined the term for his early computer program system oNLineSystem or NLS. By 1969 scientists associated with Englebart developing the ARPANET, later called the INTERNET, became used to using the term on line to mean connected together to share files.

Posted by:Tom

TIME TO SPEAK UP FOR CLICK & CLACK!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Well gang, I never ask you for much, but I can use some help right now.

In Washington, the Dark Lords of PBS are analyzing the numbers on our show Click & Clack As the Wrench Turns, and are trying to decide whether to give us another season.

If you like the show, and want to see more of Tom & Ray, Beth and Zuzu, please take a minute and send some feedback to PBS now.

http://www.pbs.org/wrenchturns

Just click on the link, then click on ABOUT the show, then on the FEEDBACK button, and tell them you love our show, and your life would not be complete without more.

We'd love to do another season. I got plans for a faux Ken Burns documentary, CLick & Clack take on Homeland Security, CLick and Clack meet Mr D'Arcy from Jane Austen, Beth and her Volvo hybrid that runs on moccachinos falls into the clutches of a nefarious mechanic while on her way to work. There are a number of well known stars, I can't say publicly who, that want to do cameos on the show like Garrison Keilor did. And more intelligent schtick, more Sylvia Pogoli jokes, more polka music!

So, please do me a favor and drop em a line. I gotta keep up my cat's Fancy Feast habit. Thanks!

Posted by:Tom

July 17th, 2008 thur

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Click & Clack fan

-------------------------------------------------------------
Quiz: Who first coined the term OnLine-?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?
---------------------------------------------
History for 7/17/2008
Birthdays: James Cagney, John Jacob Astor Ist, Hyacinth Rigaud, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills, Brian Trottier, Phoebe Snow, Donald Sutherland is 73, Phyllis Diller, Prof. Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, David Hasslehoff is 56, Art Linkletter is 96

In ancient Rome, today was the feast of the god of Honor, Honorous.

924 – The death of Edward "the Elder", king of the West Saxons who during his reign annexed Wessex and the Danelaw up to the Humber River. Danelaw was the name for English territory governed by Danish Vikings.

1429- Charles the Dauphin of France is crowned King Charles VII at Rheims thanks to the astounding military success of the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc.

1453 Battle of Chatillon. The last battle of the Hundred Years War. English knight Sir John Talbot was blown away by the French with their newfangled cannons.. Other names for the cannon were bombardons, culverins, and a variation on the catapult name for rock thrower- Mangonnel, shortened to Gonne or Gun.

1793- Charlotte Corday, the assassin of French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat, went to the guillotine. When her decapitated head was lifted out of the basket the executioner gave it a smack on her cheek for being a naughty little girl to the laughter of the mob.

1803- James T. Calendar, editor of the Aurora newspaper, was among the worst scandal mongering journalists in early America. He broke the story of Alexander Hamilton’s extramarital affairs and Thomas Jefferson’s sleeping with his slaves. He called John Adams a "pernicious Hermaphrodite" and George Washington the "American Dali Lama". Everyone hated him. This night his body was found floating the James River in three feet of water. A court decided he fell in while drunk, but many wonder if his end was not aided by other hands?

1841 - British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published.

1876- Battle of Warbonnet Gorge. Skirmish between the US 5th Cavalry pursuing hostile Indians soon after Custers Last Stand. The battle is remembered chiefly because Gen Phil Sheridan asked his old friend Buffalo Bill to return from his play acting back east and scout for the army one more time. He looked rather incredible riding the prairie in his theatrical black velvet silver studded Mexican Vaquero britches and coat. Bill was challenged to single combat by a Cheyenne Chief named Yellow Tail. Bill killed the chief and scalped him, waving the hair in the air to the troopers and announcing "The first scalp for Custer!" Buffalo Bill then returned to the East where his new stage production "The First Scalp for Custer" ran to sold out audiences.

1893- Representatives of fourteen stage unions meet to form IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Screen Engineers of the U.S. & Canada.

1928- President of Mexico Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet gathering of all former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having an artist stroll about making caricatures of the guests of honor. Obregon said to cartoonist Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh, I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death.

1935 - Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" meaning audiences in rural areas were not attending movies with a rustic theme.

1936-. The Spanish Civil War begins. A Spanish Fascist army led by Francisco Franco invades Spain from North Africa. The first moves were to occupy the Canary Islands. The Phalangist generals figured the takeover would only take a few days but all over Spain the common people- workers, farmers, artists and poets, even women and children took up guns to fight.

1937- the Nazis open an art exhibit of banned artworks and artists called Entartete Kunst- Degenerate Art.- Works of Dali and Duchamp, Grosz, Lippschitz, Kandinsky and Miro, with appropriate insults underneath. The next day Hitler dedicates the Great German Art Collection, having cleansed the German art world for National Socialist art, mostly bad deco-greco nudes and dumb Nordic medieval fantasy scenes.

1938- WRONG WAY CORRIGAN was the last of the pioneering aviators. A former mechanic for Lindbergh, Douglas Corrigan bought a plane out of a junk heap and modified it for long distance travel. He asked permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly from New York City to Ireland. They denied his request, on the grounds that his plane was in poor condition. He seemed to accept the ruling, but when he took off for California, he banked sharply to the east and headed over the ocean. He landed in Ireland, and complained of a faulty compass. No one believed his excuse, and he lost his pilot's license, but he was greeted as a hero back in New York. Over a million people came out for a ticker-tape parade. Supposedly his first words to the locals upon landing were. "I’m Corrigan, Where am I?"

1944- Top German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was strafed by an Allied fighter plane as his open car sped down a French country road. Germans nicknamed these roaming planes JABOS, jager-bomber or hunter bombers. By now Rommel was committed to the Generals Plot to overthrow Hitler and make immediate peace with the Allies. His last conversation before this car ride was with an SS Panzer Division General named Sepp Deitrich. Rommel asked him cryptically": Would you obey an order from me, even if it ran counter to the wishes of the Fuehrer?" Deitrich said he would. But the plane attack cut short his career as a conspirator. When the General's Plot to kill Hitler went off in three days Rommel, who the conspirators planned to make President of the new Reich, was comatose in a hospital.
Even though the bomb failed to kill Hitler, if a healthy Rommel, who's fame was second only to Hitler, went on nationwide radio and announced an army coup against the Nazis and an immediate unilateral ceasefire, it's intriguing to think what might have happened.

1944- The Port Chicago explosion. In Oakland Harbor African American sailors were given the dreary but dangerous duty of loading ammunition onto ships. This day an accident with high explosives blew up 321 men. The blast broke windows in San Francisco across the bay and was heard as far away as Boulder City Nevada. When the base commander ordered the men to immediately resume loading with no change in pattern or promise of investigation- the black sailors refused. They were courts-martialed for mutiny and treason.

1955 DISNEYLAND OPENED- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family them park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with movie celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. Walt Disney expected to get 10,000 visitors that first day. He got 100,000. Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built. Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". Despite all, Disneyland became a huge success.

1967 – The Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix was their opening act.

1968- In Iraq the Bath party seized power under President Zia al Haq. His chief of police Saddam Hussein would seize the presidency the following year.

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Look Out ! It’s the Blue Meanies!!

1975-The Apollo-Soyuz space linkup. A second linkup would not happen until 1985.

----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Answer: Yes. For oceanographers the Twilight Zone is the area just below where sunlight mingles with the sea water, and a variety of unusual fish live. For pilots the Twilight Zone is the period at dusk just before the first stars come out, when haze make the horizon and sky indistinguishable.

Posted by:Tom

July 16th, 2008 weds. More CLick & CLack tonight!

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

DAY THREE IN NEW YORK CITY. Last night I went with Bill Plympton to see Mama Mia!
Sounds like the beginning of a gag, but there it is. Take a Chance on Meeee...!
--------------------------------
Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In Africa what is meant by juju?
===============================
History for 7/16/2008
Birthdays: Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman,
Orville Redenbacher, Roald Amundsen, Sunny Tufts, Barbara Stanwyck, Phoebe Cates, Corey Feldman, Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Will Farrell

1099- JERUSALEM CAPTURED BY CRUSADERS-The Christian’s first attack was repulsed from the walls. Crusader chiefs like Geoffrey De Boullion, Tancred and Bohemond decided it was because God thought they were too sunk in sin to be worthy, so the entire army marched barefoot around the walls chanting. On the next attack the Crusaders broke into the city and committed horrible massacres of the population. The rampaging knights even chopped up Armenian and Georgian Christians because they looked dark. In an ironic twist of history the Jewish population fought shoulder to shoulder alongside their Arab cousins. When the massacre started they withdrew to a central synagogue where the Christians barred he doors and set the building on fire. The Crusaders then declared the Holy City free, and Geoffrey de Boullion declared himself "Protector of the Holy Sepulchre" instead of king, since in his opinion :"There is no King here but Christ". After he died his younger brother Baldwin said:” My brother was a knucklehead, I am King of Jerusalem!” I’m uh..paraphrasing slightly here.

1877- THE GREAT UPHEAVAL- The B&O Railroad cuts their workers wages 10% for the second time that year. (there had been a recession raging in the U.S. economy since 1873 ). Workers and engineers at Martinsburg Virginia went out on strike and started sabotaging trains. The strike soon spread coast to coast and became America's first Nationwide Strike. The laws protecting workers union rights were still far in the future so strikes were put down by troops randomly shooting into crowds, mass firings and vigilante murder of union leaders. The violence shocked the rest of the world. Karl Marx wrote Engels "did you hear what is happening in America ? He always thought industrialized countries like America and England would go communist long before Russia and China.

1918-CZAR NICHOLAS ROMANOV AND FAMILY SHOT. After abdicating the Czar's family was imprisoned in a house in Siberia. The anti-Communist While armies were about to capture the area. So from Moscow Vladimir Lenin sent orders that they all be killed. In the middle of the night commissar Yakov Sverdlov told the Czar they were to be moved and were ordered to wait in a basement room of their house. Outside Red guards revved a truck motor to mask the sound of the guns. Then a group of soldiers came in the room pulled out their pistols. Nicholas’ last word before the guns went off was "Schto? " What the-? They even shot the family doctor, the boys sailor bodyguard and the family dog. The anti-Communist forces captured the area two weeks later and told the world of the crime. Seeing what happened to the Russian Czar may be part of the reason the Kaiser and Austrian Emperor slipped away quietly into exile after losing the Great War. Remains weren't discovered until 1988 and in 1993 DNA testing proved them to be the true remains of the Czar and his family. DNA Testing on the remains of a woman who died in 1984 named Anna Andersen, who claimed to be the child Duchess Anastasia was negative. The reason the children's remains weren't in with the others was because the Bolsheviks first tried destroying their remains with sulfuric acid but found it took too long, so they cremated the rest. Czar Nicholas II and his family were made saints of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994.

1932- In one of the sexiest scenes in pre-code Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with erotic scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a moral tale from the Good Book? This story of Jesus opens with an orgy at Mary Magdalene’s house.

this is what your grandfather was getting off on, while telling you todays films are full of smut.

1935- The first parking meter set up in Oklahoma City.

1936 - 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY

1945-THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODED at Alamagordo New Mexico (site code name was "Trinity'). Called at first the Super Cosmic Bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget". The Manhattan Project scientists weren't sure that once you started the chain reaction detonating particles of light when it would stop, if ever. Physicists Richard Fenyman and Enrico Fermi wagered a case of beer that they would incinerate the state of New Mexico.(funny guys). They were led by General Leslie Groves, a by-the-book army engineer who supervised the construction of the Pentagon, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Berkeley radical who read Sanskrit to relax. When he saw the force of the blast Oppenheimer recalled the Hindu verse: "Now have I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."

1951-J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1956 –The Last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent.

1963-Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6.

1964 Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until the late 1980's and the last gasp of Termite Terrace.

1964- Conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was nominated to run against Lyndon Johnson for president. Goldwater set the tone by his speech:" Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." LBJ’s campaign portrayed him as a dangerous warmonger and he lost in a landslide. In later years Goldwater’s conservative views were eclipsed by the even more conservative Reagan and Bush, and his being ignored by them, annoyed him.

1966- Mao Tse Tung takes a swim in the Yangtzse River and gives permission for his young Red Guards to start the Cultural Revolution.

1969- Passed this day Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

1973- WHO HAS THE TAPES ! Presidential attorney Alexander Butterfield admitted to the Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had bugged the Oval Office and had recorded tapes of all of his conversations. The tape system was actually installed by Lyndon Johnson. When Nixon took office he was going to have it all removed. But his aides convinced him to keep the system to document his place in history. Why Nixon never destroyed these tapes that brought him down remains one of the mysteries of history.

1994- Comet Schoendacher-Levy 6 impacted with the Planet Jupiter, giving scientists a spectacular ringside seat to the processes of the creation of the Universe.

1999- JOHN-JOHN -Thirty years after the death of his father and uncle 38 year old John Kennedy Jr. fell victim to the Kennedy curse when his small plane crashed on the way to a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard. His wife had delayed to have a pedicure, so he had to take off at dusk. He was too inexperienced to fly on instruments at dusk in fog and he lost his bearings, hitting the water at 150 miles per hour. The Kennedy’s have a history of bad luck with planes- Kathleen Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy’s parents and JFK’s older brother Joe Kennedy all died in small plane crashes. Senator Ted Kennedy barely survived a crash. Teddy refused to ever fly with John Jr.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: In Africa what is meant by juju?

Answer: In West African folklore it was a loose term for luck or spirits endowed within an inanimate object. The term pops up in a lot of 1930’s Hollywood jungle movies, where a chief tells Tarzan:” Bad Juju!” In the 1980s when AfroPop was called Juju music, King Sunny Ade laughed: “ Juju is a word the White People think we say.”

Posted by:Tom

July 15th, 2008 tues.

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: In Africa what is meant by juju?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below- Did Noah’s flood really happen?
===================================
History for 7/15/2008
Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Sir Thomas Bullfinch, Mother Cabrini, Clemont Moore, Julian Bream, Linda Rondstadt, Alex Karras, Jan Michael Vincent, The Sultan of Brunei, Lola Davidovich, Forrest Whitaker, Brigette Neilsen, Jesse Ventura

765 A.D.- Mayan Scientists hold a conference at Copan to discuss astronomy and adjust their calendar. By 1492 the Mayan civilization was already 2,000 years old. Their calendar was so perfect, the difference between it and our modern atomic clocks calculation of a lunar month is just 24 seconds! They used hieroglyphic writing but also a system of numbers including zero which the Greeks and Romans never figured out. Among their surviving documents are calculations on the orbit of Venus. Tikal, one of their cities, covered 23 square miles ( Imperial Rome covered 8 ) and had a temple that was the tallest structure in America until the completion of the U.S. Capitol dome in 1863.

1780- American Colonial General Benedict Arnold sneaked a coded message to British General Sir Henry Clinton. In it, he offered to betray the fortress of West Point to the British for 20,000 English pounds. Arnold wasn’t even West Point’s commander yet, but he expected Gen. George Washington to confirm him in the job any day. The only person who warned that Gen. Arnold might be up to something fishy was a female spy planted in British Headquarters in occupied New York. Her cover was kept so complete, that her name is lost to history. We only know her as agent “355”.

1815- Napoleon boards HMS Bellerophon for the trip to St.Helena. On the trip he teaches himself English and makes friends with the British sailors to such an extent that they are reprimanded by their officers for being too friendly with him. He says to his Irish doctor O'Meara:" So you are a doctor and I am a general. How many men have you killed? I'll wager more than me!"

1915- A Secret Service agent was presented with a suitcase left by a German diplomat on a New York City subway seat. In the satchel was a complete list of known German spies and saboteurs working in the U.S., a nation still officially neutral in the war between Britain, France and Germany.

1938- Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The funny little character later gave it’s name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1953- English serial killer Jack Christie was executed. In his home at Number 10 Rillington Place police found the bodies of several women buried in the garden. Two bodies weren’t even Christies, they were credited to an abortionist who was a previous tenant who had botched two and they died of internal bleeding.

1953- The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, to be directed by newcomer Ralph Bakshi.

1979- In a nationwide address, President Jimmy Carter laid out the oil/gas crisis. He stated flatly that the U.S. and the world would be trapped in a dependence on diminishing stocks of foreign oil unless we moved fast to develop solar and other alternative fuels now. The next President, Ronald Reagan, ignored Carter’s initiatives and tore off the solar panels from the White House and renewed subsidies to oil companies for drilling.

And things have been fine since then, eh, boys & girls?

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well.( duh..?)

1997- Famed clothing designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami mansion by a deranged serial killer on a spree since leaving Minnesota. The killer, Andrew Cunanan, was later found in a houseboat with a self inflicted bullet in his head.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Did Noah’s flood really happen?

Answer: Similar stories of the Babylonians and Sumerians like The Epic of Gilgamesh tell of a great flood sent by the gods to destroy all things. But there is a difference of translation between the Sumerians account of a flood that destroyed nearly everything around, and the Hebrew Bible account of a flood that destroyed the entire world. It is acknowledged today that the Hebrew version was written after the Sumerian. It might have been a story picked up by the Israelites during the years of the Babylonian Captivity as a warning about disobeying God.

Posted by:Tom

July 14th 2008 mon Bastille Day

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Well, I'm back in New York City, this time to teach a workshop at my old Alma MAtrix, the School of Visual Arts. Originally called the Cartoonists and Illustrators School when cartoonists like Al Kapp, Tom Gil and Bill Gallo were there.

I always have a little ritual in my mind whenever I see the skyline once more. I say to myself;' Hello New York! I'm back again. Did you miss me? Inevitably, the city answers "No." But I am nevertheless happy to be there anyway.

When buying some stuff at the pharmacy, I by chance picked up a little book- THE MARVEL COMICS GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY. By Peter Sanderson (Simon & Schuster, 2007) It is a treat written by someone with too much time on his hands to know about the locations involving the classic Marvel heroes. So if you want to know where the Baxter Building is, headquarters of the Fantastic Four,- it's on East 42nd St and Madison Ave, The Daily Bugle- 39th and Second Ave. Dr Doom's Counsulate of Latveria.-upper East Side; Peter Parker's apartment- Between Riverside Church and Columbia Univ. It's a fun little guide to the real Gotham City.

-----------------------------------
Quiz: Did Noah’s flood really happen?

Yesterday’s Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/14/2008
Birthdays: Issac Bashevis Singer, Mr. Maytag, inventor of the electronic washing machine-1857, Emiline Pankhurst, Woody Guthrie, Gerald Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Scott Rudin, Rosie Grier, Harry Dean Stanton, Polly Bergen, Gustav Klimt, Terry Thomas, Jimmy Hoffa, Dave Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Walt Stanchfield, Joel Silver producer of the Matrix movies.

1415-Joanna II, Queen of Naples called Joanna la Loca (Crazy Joanie), allows the prostitutes of Avignon to form their own guild. Solidarity Forever.

1756- In the opening moves of the French and Indian War, the French cross Lake Ontario and captured Fort Oswego. The French commander Vaudreuil wrote: The cries and howlings of our Canadians and Indians soon made the defenders decide to surrender."
Gee, howling Canadians scare me too.

1789-BASTILLE DAY-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In France the anger of the common people over economic hardship and arrogant indifference of the King and nobility finally exploded in mass violence. While poor people literally starved to death all King Louis XVI could think of was to trim the yearly allowance for the Royal Lapdogs. The focus of the people’s hate was the Bastille, a huge fortress- prison that towered over Paris rooftops, her cannon aimed at the people in the streets. The Parisians got guns from the Invalides and stormed the prison. Ironically the government was intending to phase out the prison anyway. When the gates were opened only a handful of petty thieves came out including a lunatic who shouted:" I am God! " But the symbolism was what counted. If you ever visit Paris don't try and look for the remains of the Bastille, the people demolished the building and paved streets over it. It’s key was given by Lafayette to George Washington, and its at Mt. Vernon. Miles away at Versailles Louis XVI had just written in his diary- July 14th 1789-" Nothing" when he heard the commotion he said:" What is that ? A revolt?" The Duke de la Rochfoucauld said:" No Sire, a revolution!"

1793- Charlotte Corday stabs French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat in his bathtub. Marat had to receive callers in his tub because of a skin affliction. He was known for sayings like "If we cut off a thousand heads today, it saves us cutting off ten thousand tomorrow!" and:"We'll strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest!" Corday was the daughter of one of his victims, a moderate politician called a Girondist. Young artist Madame Tussaud was allowed to make a death mask of Marat while still in the tub and David's painting shows him expiring with a Christ-like calm.

1798- President John Adams signed the ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS, which stated you could be jailed and if an immigrant deported, just for saying anything critical of the U.S. government. Thomas Jefferson said he was afraid to write down his views anymore in the face of such a law. The Adams’ administration was panicked over partisan politics and a perceived threat from Revolutionary France. Paris had no intention of attacking America and flew a Stars and Stripes in their Estates General. There was also the tricky problem of the hostile British Navy in the Atlantic. Yet President Adams still imagined at any moment an amphibious landing of furious Frenchmen dragging guillotines behind them and hanging businessmen from every lamppost. Congress authorized the raising of a standing army, led by elderly retired George Washington against the imaginary threat. Despite the obvious conflict with basic Constitutional rights, the Alien & Sedition Acts were never successfully challenged in court. In 1801 the time limit on the Acts were allowed to elapse without renewal, and incoming President Jefferson pardoned all those jailed under them.

1849-BLACK SHIP DAY-Commodore Perry sailed into Yedo Bay and convinced the Japanese to open trade by threatening to shell Yokohama. This ends Japan's 300 year old isolation from the outside world. The Shogun's envoys receive the Americans by laying straw mattes under their feet and talking to them in a special pavilion. The Yankees thought this was special treatment, but actually after they left, the mattes and building were burned so they could say the foreigner's feet never polluted Japanese soil.

1850 - 1st public demonstration of ice made by freon-refrigeration

1853 – In emulation of the London World Exposition at the Crystal Palace the 1st US World's fair opens at the Crystal Palace NY.

1862- Every old sailors worst nightmare came true. This day the US Navy did away with the sailors daily rum ration, in effect outlawing all alcohol on a ship except for medicinal purposes. Spirits were the preferred drink on ships since ancient times because drinking water could give you a myriad of diseases: cholera, dysentery, etc. but no bugs can live in alcohol.

1868-Seward's Folly- Congress authorized the purchase of Alaska from Russia.

1881-BILLY THE KID SHOT- Fort Sumner New Mexico sheriff Pat Garrett hid in a closet in the Kid's hotel room and shot him in the back as he was taking his boots off. Billy's last words were:" Who's there?" Backshooting was how Billy killed most of his victims. He was 21. After firing off his guns Pat Garret panicked and rushed out into the street without waiting to see their effect. Billy had such a lethal reputation that a small crowd stood in fear outside his room for nearly an hour until they were sure the Kid wasn't just playing possum but was really dead. Even though Garret was practically illiterate he wrote several best selling books on the incident, heavily exaggerated by pulp ghostwriter Ned Buntine. Eventually Pat Garret too was backshot, this time in an argument over some goats on his ranch.

1882- Gunfighter Johnny Ringo found dead in Turkey Canyon Arizona. Ringo was not part of the Gunfight at the OK Corral but he later called out Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp claimed he had hunted down Ringo and killed him but the court ruled it a suicide.

1892- Civil War veterans who were wounded in service were awarded a $50 pension by the government. Female nurses of that conflict were awarded a $12 pension. Satirical writer and social critic Ambrose Bierce returned his money with the note" Thank you but this was not part of the original contract when I signed on to become an assassin for my Country."

1908- The Adventures of Dollie premiered, the first movie of D.W. Griffith.

1921-Sacco & Vancetti convicted. These men were Italian immigrants and socialists who were accused of the murder of a Massachusetts storeowner. The evidence was slight but hey, they were foreigners and espoused lefty politics. Despite protests around the world from folks like Picasso, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller they were electrocuted. Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote a dozen ballads in tribute to Sacco & Vancetti." Let me sing you a ballad of Sacco-Vancetti, pour me some wine and eat some spaghetti..."

1933- "Well Blow Me Down"- Max Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. Vaudvillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who was the voice ever after.

1946 - Dr Ben Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published

1955-The Kaarman Ghia debuted. Volkswagen wanted an "image car" to compete with the sleek American designs like the Corvette and Thunderbird. So they subcontracted the Kaarman motorbus company who engaged an Italian design firm named Ghia and the distinctive little coupe was born.

1967 - The new band called the Who began a US tour as the opening act for Herman’s Hermits.

1980- The Republican Convention nominated former California Governor, actor and SAG president Ronald Reagan. The GOP under Robert Strauss & Lee Atwater completed restructuring itself after the disaster of Watergate by creating a new-conservative alliance of Sunbelt rightwingers, Evangelicals and Southern Dixiecrats. Regular Republican stalwarts who disagreed with the ultra conservative agenda- Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and Lowell Weicker, were out in the cold. At 69 Reagan was the oldest man to ever run for the presidency (Note: John McCain is 71). Reagan said of the convention:" It’s the first time in a long while I saw myself on television in prime time." Someone asked old Hollywood mogul Jack Warner "what do you think of Ronald Reagan for President?" Warner replied:" Nah, Jimmy Stuart for President. Ronald Reagan for his best friend!"
------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?

Answer: they are all left-handed.

Posted by:Tom

July 13th, 2008 sun

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

More good reviews for Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns, and many folks whose PBS station didn't run it on Weds are seeing it now. We hope you like it.

-----------------------------------------------------

Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Has there ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/13/2008
Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka,Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 67, Harrison Ford is 65

1704- BLENHEIM-the great battle where the Duke of Marlborough destroyed the French army of Louis XIV then attacking Bavaria. In the three centuries since Agincourt the reputation of English arms had faded in Continental Europe, preoccupied as they were by their internal Wars of the Roses and English Civil Wars. While the British Navy's reputation was growing, on land King William III trusted his Dutch generals more than his British. Blenheim changed all that. In one day Britain became the dominant powerbroker in Europe. John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough was the great ancestor of Winston Churchill.

1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.

1865- P.T.Banham’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barham rebuilt but after that one burned as well he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum , more a sitting menagerie and sideshow than a museum as we know it, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees.

1898-Giusseppi Marconi patents wireless transmissions, the Radio. Marconi believed that sound never dies, it just grows fainter. In his old age he was trying to invent a machine that could pick up the traces of the voice of Jesus.

1923- Paleontologist George Olsen while digging in the Gobi Desert discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs.

1925- Walt and Lillian Disney marry.

1930- Six thousand people in formal evening wear crowded into London’s Albert Hall to hear a special message from Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. It was extra special because everyone knew Conan-Doyle had died just five days ago. Arthur Conan-Doyle was a champion of spiritualism. He declared if anyone could get a message through from beyond the grave, he would. An empty chair was placed on stage in hopes of his apparition would take a seat. Hymns were sung and after long embarrassing silences, a clairvoyant medium claimed she could see Sir Arthur. Others saw nothing and thought it was all a big humbug.

1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times that " The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long.

1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.

1960- Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nominated for President by the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The day continued with rounds of fierce backroom deals to decide the running mate. Although the Kennedys wanted Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri it finally was decided to go with Lyndon Johnson. He was the powerful Senate leader from Texas. Johnson had asked his Texas mentor Cactus Jack Garner if he should accept the job. Cactus Jack was Franklin Roosevelt’s Veep for his first two terms. The 90 year old Garner said:” Lyndon, the Vice Presidency ain’t worth a bucket a warm spit!” Bobby Kennedy considered offering Lyndon the Vice Presidency a token gesture to mollify his anger at losing the nomination. But he was surprised when Johnson accepted. Before going to Ciro’s with Frank Sinatra to celebrate the nomination, Presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled JFK making the best of it:” The Vice Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m forty three and I don’t plan to die in office….”

1977- The Great New York City Blackout of '77. For the second time in 20 years the whole darn East Coast power grid breaks down. Unlike the 1964 Blackout it was much longer, much hotter, and there was no full moon to illuminate the city. My wife Pat remembers being in the Bronx on the phone to her boyfriend in Hoboken, when her lights went out. She told him and he raced to the Jersey shore just in time to see the Skyline of Manhattan blacking out a section at a time like a huge set of dominoes. The next day posh Eastside clubs had guys drive to Jersey for ice so they could offer a cold cocktail on the sidewalk for $25 each. There was some looting and other civil disturbances and at the same time the lunatic killer the Son of Sam was on the prowl. No wonder they called it Fun City!

1985- Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldorf organized a massive live concert called LIVE AID. Televised and seen by 1.5 billion people, it raised money for African famine relief. Madonna, Santanna, Paul MacCartney, The Beach Boys and reunions of Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who and Led Zeppelin.

1985- A cancerous polyp was removed from President Ronald Reagan’s colon. Comic Paul Rodriguez said:” Reagan is amazing: He got cancer in his nose, he got cancer in his butt, he got shot full of bullets- he’s like the Terminator President..”
----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Has there ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?

Answer: Yes. In 1778 during the Revolutionary War, Count Casimir Pulaski organized the U.S. Cavalry as a separate arm of the army, and was the only one to hold the archaic rank Master of Horse. In 1945 Douglas Macarthur was appointed US Proconsul Plenipotentiary over occupied Japan, a term not used since the days of Ancient Rome. In 2003 L Paul Bremer III was named US Executive Administrator over occupied Iraq, but was referred to also as Viceroy. If that sounds confusing, according to contemporary accounts, it was. US generals in Baghdad and even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were never quite sure who had authority over whom.

Posted by:Tom

July 12th,2008 sat

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Question: Has their ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?

Yesterday’s question answered below: what is a Quonset hut?
-------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/12/2008
Birthdays: Gaius Julius Caesar is 2,108 years old, Henry David Thoreau, Oscar Hammerstein, Kirsten Flagstad, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Neruda, George Eastman, Milton Berle, Cheryl Ladd, Van Cliburn, Buckminster Fuller, George Washington Carver, Josiah Wedgewood- of Wedgewood china and pottery, Richard Simmons, Krysty Yamaguchi, Bill Cosby is 71

783AD – Queen Bertha "with the big feet", wife of French king Pippin III, died.

1817- For the first time in many years America wasn’t at war with anyone and political feuding had died down. James Monroe was elected President in what was considered a decidedly low-key election. A Boston newspaper named the Columbian Sentinel described the climate of the times as “The Era of Good Feeling”. The name stuck.

1861- The McCandles Massacre, the most famous Western shootout until the OK Corral. James Hickock earns his nickname Wild Bill by killing ten desperadoes in a free for all with sixguns and bowie knives. Interviewed by Harpers Weekly Mr. Hickock said :”I was wild and I struck savage blows.”

1863-The NEW YORK CITY DRAFT RIOTS- Arguably the largest civil disturbance in American History. Poor immigrant laborers, sick of the Civil War, and being forced into the army while rich men bought their way out, run wild in the streets in three days of looting. Labor history mentions that most of these laborers worked a 12-14 hour day, seven days a week, so fighting slavery seemed a moot point to them. The Harvard-Yale games went on throughout the Civil War and rich men like J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Roosevelt bought substitutes. The riot was sparked by a new draft office opening on 46th St & 3rd Ave. They started calling names just as the first lists of the dead from the Battle of Gettysburg were being published. A mob of 15,000 attacked and burned the Draft Board offices and overwhelmed the police. Writer Herman Melville watching the flames from a rooftop, said: “The Rats have taken over the City.” The mob attacked well dressed men “There goes a three hundred-dollar man!” Newspaperman and abolitionist Horace Greeley defended his New York World office with a small cannon in his lobby. The New York Times posted Gatling Guns on it’s roof and Wall St. banks boiled oil to drop from the rooftops like something out of the Middle Ages. Modern apologists for the rich prefer to focus on the racism of the mob. Indeed the Irish poor, targets of racism themselves, singled out black people as the cause of all their misfortunes and hanged many from lampposts as they burned and looted. They even torched a black little girl’s orphanage. The children had to be escorted by bayonet wielding militia to a barge in the East River for safety.
N.Y. Governor Horatio Seymour who’s own public contempt for Pres. Lincoln's policies help encourage the riots, had to borrow Union Army regiments from the battlefields of Gettysburg to restore order in New York City. Most of these soldiers were also Irish immigrants.

1863- After the defeat at Gettysburg Robert E. Lee's retreating army was pinned for awhile against the rain swollen Potomac River. As the surrounding Union army prepared to attack, a local minister went up to Yankee General Meade and protested fighting a battle on a Sunday. When Meade tried to reason with him, the minister replied:" As God's emissary I denounce the defiling of His day! Look ye to the heavens!" Almost as if on command a rainstorm burst out over their heads. Meade suspended the attack for that day.

1864- Jubal Early's Confederates are turned back from the gates of Washington D.C. Early didn’t think he could hold Washington but he was determined to loot and burn it and maybe in so doing draw Grant away from Richmond. Rebel skirmishers were reported to be as close as Georgetown and the greybacks said they could see the gleaming white dome of the US Capitol. Despite Union forces in the area being pathetically unprepared, Quartermaster General Meigs had to arm his accountants and they bussed out hospital invalids with guns, they still managed to turn Early away. President Lincoln went out to Fort Stevens near present day Walter Reade Medical Center to watch the fight. During the shooting Col. Oliver Wendel Holmes a future Chief Justice called out to the man in the 8 dollar stovepipe hat peering over the parapet:" Get down ya damn fool! You’re drawing fire. You wanna get us all Killed?!" The last time a sitting U.S. President was under enemy fire.

1870- Celluloid film patented. The inventor had been trying to find a substitute for ivory billiard balls. Inventor George Eastman later perfected the sprocket and hole system of roll film for cameras, replacing the large glass plates.

1876- Gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock arrived in Deadwood South Dakota to prospect for gold, see some old friends like Calamity Jane, and play a little poker.

1914 – Young reform school graduate Babe Ruth makes his baseball debut, as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

1928 - 1st televised tennis match.

1948 - 1st jets to fly across the Atlantic -6 RAF de Havilland Vampires.

1962 – The Rolling Stones 1st performance at the Marquee Club, London. One band member named Elmo Lewis changed his name to Brian Jones.

1979- Carmine "The Cigar" Galante, boss of the Gambino Mafia family, was blown away over coffee and spumoni at a small Brooklyn restaurant called Joe & Marys. He was finished off with a 45 cal. slug through the eye, his cigar still in his lips. The hit was ordered by Paul Castellano. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post set a new journalistic low when a reporter shimmied up a drainpipe and got a photo of the Don's bullet riddled body before the cops could throw a sheet over it. Murdoch of course, put it in color on the front page.

1979- Disco Demolition Night. Chicago Fans could get into Comisky Park for 98 cents if they each brought a Disco record to burn. Thousands of records were thrown at the players like Frisbees while they were trying to play, so Chicago was forced to forfeit the game. “I love the Nightlife, I love the Nightlife…”

1984- Geraldine Ferrarro named the Vice Presidential running mate of Walter Mondale. They lose in a landslide to Reagan-Bush.

1990- TV series Northern Exposure premiered.
-------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s question: what is a Quonset hut?

Answer: A simple prefabricated corrugated steel structure that could be set up quickly. In 1941 the Navy wanted something like the British Davis huts. This design was made at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. Quonset huts served a variety of purposes from military airfields, settlements at Antarctica, to war surplus college annex buildings.

Posted by:Tom

July 11th, 2008 fri.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is a Quonset hut?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?
------------------------------------------------------------------

History for 7/11/2008
Birthdays: Scottish King Robert the Bruce, John Quincy Adams, Sir Thomas Bowdler, E.B. White, Yul Brynner- real name Tadjhe Khan, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leon Spinks, Tab Hunter, Susan Vega, Giorgio Armani, Sela Ward, Kimberly “Little Kim’ Jones

480 a.d.- Today is the Feast of SAINT BENEDICT, the monk who established the first rules for monks, convents and abbeys. Before this people who wished to express Christian zeal renounced the world and ran off into the hills to become hermits. Benedict said “Idleness is the Enemy of the Soul” and encouraged his followers to serve the community- make jam, milk goats, whatever, just do something useful. He ordered that monks wear the same uniform cowl and do not eat animal flesh. In the same year the last Pagan schools of philosophy were being closed down he established the first great monastery of Monte Cassino on the site of an old temple to Apollo.

1798- The Birthday of the U.S. Marine Band, the most famous military band in the U.S.. Called the 'President's Own" it achieved world fame in 1881 under it's director John Philip Sousa.

1804 THE HAMILTON-BURR DUEL- The only other Vice President other than Dick Cheney shot someone while still in office. Aaron Burr shot and killed the former Secretary of the Treasury in a duel. The guy currently on the ten dollar bill.
Aaron Burr was a lieutenant under Alexander Hamilton during the Revolution, later in politics they became bitter foes. No one was sure what one word or incident sparked this duel but they spent years ruining each others political schemes: Hamilton withheld support from Burr in the presidential election of 1800 even though they were in the same party, Burr arranged Hamilton would lose the race for governor of New York. Finally they couldn't stand each other any more. They rowed across the Hudson to have the duel in Weehawken New Jersey, this way the winner would only be wanted for murder in one state. The site was the same field that Hamilton's son had died in a duel three years earlier. Friends of Hamilton insist he deliberately shot wide as a gesture while Burr shot to kill. Burr said baloney, he was just nervous. Hamilton died the next day. Amazingly, Burr was allowed to finish his term as Vice President, because there weren't any laws on what to do with a Vice President who kills somebody. He presided over Congress and even had dinner with President Jefferson - Tom didn't like Hamilton either. Burr never went to trial, but his political career was as dead as Hamilton.

1922- The first regular concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The natural amphitheater called Bolton Canyon, had been used for Easter morning services and some concerts before, but now on a regular basis. Frank Lloyd Wright’s bandshell was built in 1927.

1936- The Triboro Bridge project opens in New York City. A massive WPA project to link the various boroughs of New York by highways, it was begun in 1933 but delayed for years by corruption, and the fact that Franklin Roosevelt personally despised it's chief architect, Robert Moses. Moses had referred to the handicapped Roosevelt as a "gimp" and "half-man". FDR denied any federal money for the project until Moses was fired. Mayor Fiorello Laguardia used all of his personal charisma and friendship with FDR to keep the project moving. Robert Moses was not only retained but created other engineering marvels like Jones Beach and the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964. The first Disney animatronic Mr. Lincoln, for a demonstration was programmed to say "How do you do, Mr. Moses."

1938- The radio show The Mercury Theater of the Air with Orson Welles and John Houseman premiered.

1943- OPERATION HUSKIE-During the invasion of Sicily American strategists decided to drop parachute troops behind German lines to trap them before they could evacuate to Italy. The first drop was successful, the second less so and today's was a complete disaster. For some reason ships of the U.S. Navy mistook the flying transports for the enemy and began shooting down their own planes. Planes full of paratroops of the 82nd Airborne crashed and burned and prematurely cut gliders that smashed into the ocean. Afterwards there was a news blackout and from then on parachute planes wing's were painted with three broad white 'invasion stripes' to prevent similar accidents. The secret was so well kept it’s still not mentioned in many popular histories of World War Two. One C-47 transport that peeled off, and ran for base avoiding the carnage contained Sergeant George Sito, who survived the war to sire this author.
Go Dad!

1944- Despite being ill and frail, Franklin Roosevelt announced he would be a candidate for an unprecedented 4th term in office as President. After his death Congress passed the 22nd amendment forbidding any other President to have more than two terms.

1945- Napalm first used on Japanese positions in Luzon in the Philippines.

1952- The Republican Convention nominated Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to be their candidate for President. No body was sure until then what Eisenhower’s political affiliation even was and there is evidence that Truman wanted Ike to run as a Democrat in 1948. The nomination came as a great shock to the ambitions of the other republican World War Two hero, General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur reacted ungraciously when he heard the news and called Ike: “ He was the best damn orderly I ever had!”

1962-The Tellstar I satellite transmitted the first television images from France to USA.

1969 - Rolling Stones release "Honky Tonk Woman".

1970- “Mama Told Me Not to Come” by Three Dog Night hits #1 in the pop charts. The song was written by young composer Randy Newman. Despite all the success and Oscars nominations Randy Newmans had with songs like Short People and I Love LA, this song was his only one to be #1.

1975- Chinese archaeologists excavating at the ancient site of XIAN discover an entire army of 6,000 terra cotta statues buried in formation with chariots and cavalry. Each statue was an individual portrait. They were buried in 221 BC to protect the tomb of China's first emperor Chi Yuan Zsi, who’s name is where the name China came from.

1979- The world holds it’s breath and covers it’s head as the first U.S. space station SKYLAB falls from orbit. 77 tons of space debris in 500 pieces falling around Australia and the Indian Ocean. Luckily it didn’t hit any one although chunks were stuck in an office building in Perth.

1991- Disney announced it would enter into a distribution deal with a Bay area digital offshoot of Lucasfilm named PIXAR. Nine hit films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo and Wall-E are the result.

1997- A fruitcake named Jonathan Norman was arrested for trying to break into Steven Speilbergs Malibu home. He believed Speilberg “wanted to be raped” and had on him chloroform, duct tape and S&M paraphernalia.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Quiz: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?

Answer: Named for author George Orwell, whose books, 1984 and Animal Farm, described how modern technological tyranny will warp political discourse with twisted euphemisms to hide outrages they commit on human rights. So War is Peace, and the place where you are tortured is called the Ministry of Love.

Posted by:Tom

July 10th 2008 Thurs. Max Ginsburg

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Last month, at my High School of Art & Design 35th Reunion, I had a good fortune of meeting up once again with my old illustration teacher Mr Max Ginsburg. Funny how in retrospect, you don't realize how some people influence you until way later.

coffee break, by Max Ginsburg

Max Ginsburg came out of a particular philosophy of painting in New York called the AshCan School. He taught us all to see beauty in the most unlikely of places, namely urban squalor. Where Rockwell or Benton or Grant Wood celebrated the American outdoors and the small town, Max Ginsburg saw the beauty of the inner streets, broken fire hydrants, the canyons of steel, where the sky is only visible where two buildings part. Mr Ginsburg once took us all out on a field trip to where a row of brownstone row houses were being demolished. He had us draw the rubble. I remember spending a day drawing the plane breaks and shadows on an alleyway dumpster. For models he would go to 23rd St Park and hire a homeless person with a pint of cheap wine, to come upstairs and pose for us.
Pretty heavy stuff for an 11th grader!

Art Babbitt used to teach us, once you know how to animate, the Goddess of Animation wants you to bring something of yourself to your work.

In directing animation, I have ever been drawn to urban landscapes. Many of my fellow directors grew up in suburbs or rural areas. I am unashamed to say I was a child of the New York City Streets. I ran between subway cars, hung on the back of city buses, played in abandoned buildings, got chased by junkies and street freaks and made out with girls in the bushes of Central Park. Rural life was a one time Hudson River Dayline cruise to Bear Mountain.

So in CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS, and earlier in OSMOSIS JONES, I tried to capture that sense of fascinating clutter, a Fleischer-esque paean to city life.

click to enlarge

If I know anything about this business, it was because I was fortunate to have great teachers like Gil Miret, Howard Beckerman, Babbitt, Dick Williams, Harvey Kurtzman and Robert Beverly Hale.

And thanks to you, Max Ginsburg, for being such an inspiration to me as a teacher and an artist.
http://www.maxginsburg.com/index.htm

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you liked CLick & Clack. Some of the reviews have not been kind, but thats from people who only watched one episode. As Noel Coward said: "A critic is someone who comes on the battlefield after the danger is past, and shoots the wounded."
----------------------------------------------------------

Quiz: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Thinking of my new TV series debuting tonight on PBS, who used to say: “ Those who are about to die, salute you!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

History for 7/10/2008
Birthdays: John Calvin, Marcel Proust, James McNeill Whistler, Carl Orff, Camille Pissarro, Adolphus Busch the founder of Budweiser beer, George DiChirico, Jacky "Legs" Diamond, Arlo Guthrie is 61, Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta, Joe Shuster- one of the creators of Superman, Fred Gywnne, David Brinkley, Arthur Ashe, Camilla Parker Bowles, Jessica Simpson is 28

138AD- Death of the Roman Emperor Hadrian at age 62. Antoninus Pius became emperor after promising to adopt as his heir young Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian, although suffering a last lingering illness, had arranged that Antoninus would have no rivals by ordering the deaths of anyone even thinking of wanting to be emperor. He even ordered the suicide of his brother-in-law Servianus, who although ninety years old had sworn to outlive Hadrian.

1040 - Lady Godiva goes for a ride on horseback in the nude to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes on the poor.

1099- The magical-mystical knight of Spain Rodrigo de Bivar, called El Cid, died at the castle of Valencia. The Cid had taken a loosely written promise from King Alfonso of Castile that he could keep any territory he took from the Moors, and used it to build a private army, capture the city of Valencia and rule it as an independent prince. Nine years after his death his wife Jimena surrendered Valencia to the Almohavid Moors but the legend of El Cid Campeador, the Conquerer-Champion lived on.

1588- French philosopher Michel de la Montaigne spent one night in the Bastille prison. The Bordeaux native had arrived in Paris in the midst of the nasty political fight between Huguenots and Catholics and was arrested as a traitor. Queen Mother Catherine de Medici ordered his prompt release.

1815- After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the allied armies occupying Paris start to squabble with one another. The Prussians (Germans) were disappointed they didn’t get to shoot Napoleon, burn Paris or do any other fun stuff. At least they wanted to blow up a Seine River bridge Nappy named for their humiliating defeat, the Pont du Jena. When the Duke of Wellington denounced this action as barbaric, General Von Gneisenau sneered: “you would do the same if there was a Pont du Yorktown here!” the big British defeat in the American Revolution. Wellington wouldn’t speak to von Gneisenau afterwards. The Prussians got to set off gunpowder charges but the bridge was built too solid and wouldn’t collapse, so they settled for renaming it the Pont du Louvre.

1892 - 1st concrete-paved street built in Bellefountaine, Ohio.

1925- THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL-Tennessee school teacher John Thomas Scopes went on trial for violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution to children. Scopes was defended by famed lawyer Clarence Darrow sent by the ACLU, the prosecutor was William Jennings Bryan. The trial evolved (forgive the pun) from a small claims misdemeanor to a debate on Charles Darwin’s theory itself. This day the media descended upon the little town of Dayton Tennessee, which had hoped to attract attention for its slumping economy. It was the first trial broadcast live on Chicago radio WGN nationwide. Hundreds of spectators attended from hillbillies with squirrel rifles, a chimpanzee in a suit called Mr. Joe Mendy to famous newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken, packing 4 bottles of bootleg scotch and a typewriter. Darrow humiliated Bryan in the debate but Scopes was found guilty and fined. The ban on teaching evolution remained on the books in Tennessee until 1967. Evolution is still under attack in the U.S. today, now by the issue of Intelligent Design.

1940- THEIR FINEST HOUR- First German bombing raids over London known as the "Battle of Britain". The Luftwaffe's mission, in preparation for a Nazi amphibious invasion of England- Operation Sea Lion, was to destroy the RAF and British industrial and supply areas, mostly around southeast London. This is why today the areas east of the Tower of London have so many modern buildings. The British had an advantage in developing a superior radar early warning system , which the Germans tried to confuse by dropping pounds of tin foil out of planes. Despite being outnumbered by three to one, the RAF prevailed, prompting Churchill's famous: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many, to so few."

1941- Jazz great Jelly Roll Morton died at 50 in Los Angeles from complications of asthma. He called himself the inventor of jazz but that is debatable. He was one of the first musicians to develop a solo style distinct from the rest of his band. His mother had practiced voodoo in New Orleans. She told him the reason for his fame and fortune was because she had promised his soul to the Devil for it. He spent his last hours in a panic with his wife anointing his head with Holy oil.

1950 - "Your Hit Parade" premieres on NBC (later CBS) TV.

1953- NIKITA KHRUSCHEV takes power in Moscow. After the death of Josef Stalin there was the inevitable shuffle of bureaucrats jockeying for top job. Commissars Bulganin, Malenkov and Molotov tried to hold power but the little bald Ukrainian with the big smile had the last laugh. At a secret meeting of the Presidium Khruschev arrested Laventi Beria, Stalin's dreaded chief executioner. Beria, who liked black silk sheets, underage girls and personally torturing prisoners, broke down and wept for his life before he was shot. Khruschev was more merciful with his other rivals: Bulganin was made manager of a Siberian power station, Molotov was made ambassador to Outer Mongolia. Comrade Khruschev held power until 1964.

Myeh-heh-heh. Now ve go get Moose and Squirrel!

1985 - Coca-Cola Co admits New Coke was a big mistake and announces it will resume selling old formula Coke.

1987- The environmental group Greenpeace first called attention to themselves by a large ship called the Rainbow Warrior used to enter atomic tests sites to protest. This day in Auckland Harbor, The Rainbow Warrior was sunk by a bomb placed on her hull by French commandos. The blast killed a photographer. Rainbow Warrior had been in the Pacific to protest France’s nuclear testing there. The Government of New Zealand determined the French were responsible. In the ensuing scandal the French Defense minister resigned and the commandos went to jail.

1979 - Chuck Berry sentenced to 4 months for $200,000 in tax evasion. The old rocker said:” It never fails, every ten years I wind up in jail for something.”

1991-Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as first popularly elected President of Russia.

1992-A U.S. federal judge sentenced Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega to 40 years in prison for being a drug pusher, dictator and never returning the CIA washroom keys.
-----------------------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Quiz: Thinking of my new TV series debuting tonight on PBS, who used to say: “ Those who are about to die, salute you!”

Answer: The gladiators of ancient Rome. Before fighting, they raised their arm and said:
Ave Caesar, Morituri te Salutant! Hail Caesar, those who are about to die, Salute You.

Posted by:Tom

July 9th, 2008 weds- Finally! As the Wrench Turns debuts

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

MY SHOW PREMIERES TONIGHT!!! ARGH!!

Stephen Silver designs

After busting our butts for a year and a half, it all comes down to now.

Richard Williams once told me, some times what is almost as good as striving to do better than your best work yourself, it's creating a climate where other people can do go beyond their best work.

On Osmosis Jones, it felt real good to make it so Michel Gagne could go wild on effects, Steve Pilcher on art direction, and Deam Wellins, D Brewster and Wendy Perdue did some wonderful animation.
Click's mouthchart and scene at the premiere.

On this project, getting to work with Stephen Silver, and watching what he came up with, and board artists Floyd Norman and Karl Torge, and the animators at Atomic, and Carl Finch and Brave Combo. Brainstorming with Doug Berman, Bill Kroyer and Tom Minton. Chris Foster was a fantastic sound effects editor, great voicework from Kellie O'Hara, Barbara Rosenblat, Cornell Womack, Paul Christie, Juan Hernandez, Jim Ward, and of course, Tom & Ray themselves. Antran and Helen and Wyatt and the interns. What a great crew!

Like an old Italian fireworks family, after months and months of designing and building the big show, now it's time to strike a match, light the fuse and stand back....

We hope you enjoy CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS. We tried to do something different, and we are pretty happy with the results. We hope you like it too.

The Real Harvard Yard, and how we saw it.

----------------------------------------------------
Quiz: Thinking of my new TV series debuting tonight, who used to say: “ Those who are about to die, salute you!”

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: The California town of Goleta ( north of Santa Barbara) is in the news because of the brush fires. But Goleta has a connection with events in World War Two. What is it?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/9/2008
Birthdays: Shopenhauer, Elias Howe, Ottorino Respighi, Nicholas Tesla, David Hockney, Samuel Elliot Morrison, Sir Edward Heath,, Kelly McGillis, Barbera Cartland, J.Paul Getty II, H.V. Kaltenborn, Daniel Guggenheim, John Tesch, Fred Savage, Chris Cooper, O.J.Simpson, Courtenay Love is 44, Debbie Sludge is 54, Tom Hanks is 51

586 BCE. -Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnessar II, he removes the Israelites to Babylon and the 'Babylonian Captivity' begins.

1540-Henry VIII had his marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled. Because the match was made for political reasons, in contrast to Henry's other queens she was not beheaded but had a nice quiet life afterwards.

1815 -1st natural gas well in US is discovered.

1918- Depressed after his sweetheart Estelle married another man, writer William Faulkner left his Oxford Mississippi home to go to Canada and enlist in the RAF. He never saw combat because World War One ended before his training was completed.

1942- Anne Frank and her family go into hiding from the Nazis in the warehouse attic above her fathers office.

1955 - "Rock Around Clock" , arguably the first Rock and Roll song, hits #1 on Top 100 chart

1956 - Dick Clark's 1st appearance as host of American Bandstand.

1972-David Bowie first appeared as his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust.

1980 - Walt Disney's the "Fox & The Hound," released. The first film Walt Disney had no influence on. Although the film has brief screen credits it marks the torch being passed from the Nine Old Men golden age generation to the modern generation of animators. A complete personnel roster would include Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Tim Burton, John Lassiter, Bill Kroyer, Don Bluth, Lorna Cook, Henry Sellick, Brad, Bird, Steve Hulett, John Musker, Glen Keane and many more.

1983- The Police’s single "Every Breath You Take" goes to #1.

1993- Industrial Light & Magic completes it’s transition to digital technology by shutting down it’s Anderson Optical Printer. The Optical Printer system of mattes had been the way Motion Picture visual effects had been done since Melies in 1909, but the Digital Revolution had changed everything.
----------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Quiz: The California town of Goleta ( north of Santa Barbara) is in the news because of the brush fires. But Goleta has a connection with events in World War Two. What is it?

Answer: Shortly after Pearl Harbor, when California feared invasion, a long range Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast near Goleta and fired it’s cannon at an oil refinery, thinking it was Los Angeles. The first time US soil had come under enemy fire since the War of 1812.

Posted by:Tom

July 08, 2008

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Yesterday, The National Rifle Association, attacked the Walt Disney Company for its policy of not allowing park employees to bring their guns to work.

The late, great, Ollie Johnston told me once:" There is more humor in the streets than you could ever write. You just have to listen."

Amazing.

Yo Thumper, you got any Glock 9mm hollowpoint... .

final color of engineers booth.

-----------------------------------------------------------

My early concept for Beth's office

the Premiere of Click & Clacks As the Wrench Turns is tomorrow!
Good News!If we do have to premiere at 10pm in NY and LA, at least the Daily Show and Colbert are still on vacation!!

---------------------------------------------------------------

Quiz: The California town of Goleta ( north of Santa Barbara) is in the news because of the brush fires. But Goleta has a connection with events in World War Two. What is it?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Which American leaders were given these Indian names? A- Son of the Morning Star. B-Sharp Knife, C-Dark Eagle, D- Burner of Villages.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/8/2008
B-Dazes: Jean de LaFontaine the creator of Puss & Boots, John D. Rockefeller Sr, Nelson Rockefeller, Kathe Kollwitz, Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, Louis Jordan, Billy Eckstine, Steve Lawrence, Percy Grainger, Cynthia Gregory, Phillip Johnson, Kim Darby, Marty Feldman, Roone Arledge, Kevin Bacon, Billy Crudup, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Angelica Huston, Raffi

951AD Happy Birthday Paris!. The Roman city of Lutetia-muddy place- was built on the site of a Gaulish village inhabited by a tribe called the Parisi. This date was when the Franks established a castle on the present day site of the Louvre. Despite Viking raids and floods the city slowly began to grow.

1386- The Battle of Sembach- Leopold of Austria discovers why you leave the Swiss alone and let them stay neutral. His army of knights were intent on chastising this land of uppity goat herders and was destroyed instead. They at first held off the raging Schwyzers with a wall of spears. But then legend has it that great hero and really big schwyzer Arnold von Winkelreid shouted "Brothers! Take care of my wife and children!" and gathered up a dozen enemy spear points and shoved them into his own chest. As he pulled them down with him that opened a gap in the Austrian line that the Swiss swarmed through to victory.
Duke Leopold was found in a ditch with a battleaxe stuck in his face and two more rammed up his ass. The Hapsburg family, who entombed him a huge cathedral, made him the martyred saint of the family.

1822- Poet Percy Shelley drowned when a storm sank his yacht the Simon Bolivar off Leghorn, Italy. His body was cremated but his heart was embalmed in lead and presented to his wife Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley. Lord Byron swam offshore during the cremation so they could observe Shelley's spirit rising to Heaven.

1835- The Liberty Bell cracked. It rang for the Declaration of Independence and was being rung for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.

1838- THE TRAIL OF TEARS- Cherokee Removal Treaty goes into effect. President Andrew Jackson, Indian name: "Sharp Knife", forced the entire Cherokee Nation to evacuate Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. 17,000 people were marched to Oklahoma. One third died along the way. The token amounts paid for their land could not help their heartbreak at leaving their ancestral home. Large warriors would touch or kiss trees as they trudged away to the amusement of the soldiers. The Supreme Court ruled the harassment of the Cherokee Nation was unconstitutional but President Jackson ignored them. Jackson said:" Chief Justice Marshal has ruled, now let him try to enforce it." One Georgia man later said:" I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered in the thousands, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."

1889-The Wall Street Journal first published.

1889- The last great bareknuckle championship fight. John L. Sullivan defeated Jack Kilrain in Mississippi for a purse of $20,000. After 60 rounds one of Sullivan’s eyes was shut, he was covered with welts and blood was showing above his shoes. When his manager recommended declaring a draw Sullivan said:" Hell no. I want to kill him!" He won after 75 rounds. Sullivan was one of the first flamboyant prizefighters and the first American fighter to declare himself Champion of the World. He’d travel from town to town building his legend:"I’m John L. Sullivan and I can lick any man in the house!"

1896- William Jennings Bryan"the Son of the Plains", electrifies listeners at the Democratic Convention with a speech denouncing the gold standard: "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" Whether federal currency should be backed by gold or cheaper silver divided Americans along class lines. Modern people only recall Bryan as the attorney Clarence Darrow made look silly in the Scopes "Monkey Trials". But Bryan was a fiery populist orator and strong rogue political force who made several tries at the Presidency. He was a Ralph Nader with Pat Robertson and some Ethel Merman thrown in.

1907-The First Ziegfield Follies, staged on the roof of the New York Theater, now called the New Amsterdam Theater.

1911- Burbank incorporated as a city.

1918- A young American ambulance driver serving in Italy during the First World War gets badly wounded by shrapnel fire. His name was Ernest Hemingway. His long recovery and love affair with his nurse he later worked into his novel "A Farewell To Arms".

1922- Horn player Louis Armstrong left his hometown of New Orleans to go to Chicago and play in King Oliver’s Jazz band.

1932- THE DEPRESSION STOCK MARKET HITS ROCK BOTTOM - free falling since the Great Crash of October 1929, and compounded by the Harley-Smoot trade act of 1931, which started a trade war that killed off overseas exports. From a Dow Jones high in the Roaring Twenties of 262, today’s average hit bottom at 58 (today the Dow is routinely over 10,000 ).Only 720,278 shares exchanged. One local club wallpapered the bar with unsold bond certificates. The Bond market lost around ten million in value, Total output of heavy industries like steel production were working at only 12% of capacity. 20% of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, 50% of New York City, 80% of industrial cities like Detroit and Toledo. Top Wall Street securities firms like Morgan and Salomon Brothers encouraged "Apple Days"- one day a week for brokers to go on the street to sell apples to supplement their income. One songwriter wrote a song about the unpopularity of stock traders: " Please Don't Tell Mother I Work on Wall Street, She Thinks I Play Piano in a WhoreHouse. " The just completed Empire State Building was nicknamed the "Empty State Building." because there were no businesses to move into it. Yet President Herbert Hoover could only spout unrealistic slogans like "the economy is fundamentally sound" and "prosperity is just around the corner." Mt. Rushmore sculptor Judson Borglum said: "If you put a flower in Hoover's hand, it would wilt !"

1932- Tod Brownings disturbing movie "Freaks" about a family of circus sideshow performers, premiered. One of Us, One of Us!

1951- The first meeting of American, United Nations, North Korean and Chinese officials to discuss peace terms to end the Korean War. The talks dragged on for months and eventually signed as the Treaty of Panmunjom. At this first meeting the reds and allies noted little psychological victories. The North Koreans drove up in a captured American jeep. When the chief Communist negotiator General Nom Il wanted a smoke he pulled out a Russian cigarette. But after striking 14 Peoples Democratic Chinese matches he still couldn’t get it to light. So he was finally forced to light his cigarette by borrowing from the Americans a good old capitalist Zippo lighter.

1961-YEAH, BABY YEAH!! Upon arriving at Cliveden, Estate of Lord and Lady Astor, Britains Secretary for War Sir John Profumo was introduced to Christine Keilor, a 19 year old party girl swimming nude in the pool. Profumo and Lord Astor chased Christine around the pool trying to pull her towel away while bejeweled guests arrived for a party. It was bad enough that the married Profumo started a hot affair with Christine but also her manager Stephen Ward was connected to an East German Communist spy ring. The Profumo Scandal brought down the MacMillan Tory Government in 1963.

1969 - Thor Heyerdahl and his raft Ra II landed in Barbados 57 days from Morocco. He was trying to prove ancient mariners could have traveled from Africa to the Americas using a ship made from papyrus reeds. It also may explain the phenomenon that some Egyptian mummies have been found to have traces of tobacco and chocolate in their stomachs.

1978- 100,000 rallied in Washington D.C. in support of the Equal Rights Amendment- the ERA.

1982- Walt Disney's TRON- the first film claiming to be made chiefly with computer graphics premiered. It only was about 20 minutes of actual CGI and the computer images were still printed onto traditional animation cells and painted, but it was still a significant achievement. Remember in 1981 there were no off the shelf graphics software. Everything written was proprietary. Wavefront wouldn't exist for several years and Parallel processing didn't really get going until '84. Warping or morphing was about 4 years away in the future. The big deal at the time was that MAGI had just solved the "hidden Line" problem. Modern artists making KUNG FU PANDA or WALL-E would shake their heads at this, because now this is all so basic that it isn't even thought about anymore. But back then even a slight change in design could take days to compute.
---------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Which American leaders were given these Indian names? A- Son of the Morning Star. B-Sharp Knife, C-Dark Eagle, D- Burner of Villages.

Answer a- George Armstrong Custer, B- Andrew Jackson, C-Benedict Arnold, D- George Washington. Washington got that name because as President in 1794 he sent the army to drive out the Iroquois Five Nations Confederacy out of New York State and burn their villages.

Posted by:Tom

July 7th, 2008 Mon

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Which American leaders were given these Indian names? A- Son of the Morning Star. B-Sharp Knife, C-Dark Eagle, D- Burner of Villages.

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Italian writer Umberto Eco once said:” English is a confusing language. If a He is a Him, why isn’t a She a Shim? Why is it Her? So, how do we answer Signore Eco?
----------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/7/2008
Birthdays: Gustav Mahler, Satchel Page, Ringo Starr is 68, Doc Severinsen, Robert Heinlein, William Kuntsler, Gian Carlo Menotti, Ken Harris, Shelley Duva is 58, Ted Cassidy-Lurch in the Adams Family, Michelle Kwan, David McCullough, Pierre Cardin, and according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this is the birthday of Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. John Watson

750 BC -? This was the Roman Feast of Quirinus, then day when Romulus the founder of Rome was taken up to heaven in a cloud and assumed his place beside the Gods as the deified god Quirinus.

1569- Sir Francis Drake boldly sailed into the harbor of Cartagena, the largest port on the Spanish Main, and carried off a treasure galleon.

1607- The English anthem God Save the King first sung in honor of King James Ist.

1666- King Charles II and his court quit London in the wake of the Great Plague.

1814- Sir Walter Scott published his first novel Waverly. He wrote it under a pseudonym because he worried it would damage his reputation as a poet.

1865- Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators were all hanged Lewis Payne, George Atzenrodt and David Herold. Even weeping old Mary Surrat, who's involvement is still debatable. She may have known of some kind of plot but all they could prove was she the landlady of the boardinghouse where the plotters met. Everyone expected that a last minute amnesty would come from President Johnson but the President stayed silent and she was hanged with the others. Mary Surrat was the first woman executed in the U.S. Large Lewis Payne’s neck didn’t break at first and he kicked and danced in the air for five minutes before he choked. General Dan Sickles said afterwards "We do not want to know their names anymore." The large gallows was then broken up and the splinters sold off as souvenirs to tourists.

1895-THE FIRST SUNDAY COMICS - The first modern comic strip Hogan’s Alley featuring "The Yellow Kid" by Richard Felton Outcault, debuts in the Sunday edition of Pulitzer's New York World. The strip was so popular it gave the name "Yellow Journalism" to the sensationalist tabloid press. Comic strips at this time became the mass media of the day. For people who couldn’t afford a theater ticket and couldn’t yet speak English, the little characters in the penny papers were extremely popular and made celebrities out of cartoonists like Outcault, Bud Selig George McManus and Winsor McCay. Richard Outcault later inventing the backend deal when he asked for a percentage of all sales from his new comic strip "Buster Brown and his dog Tige"

1943-BANZAI- Climax of the Battle of Saipan- 4,300 Japanese troops stream out of the jungle in a massed Banzai charge on U.S. Marine positions. Fighting devolved into insane hand to hand combat with Samurai swords and rifle-bayonets, more reminiscent of the Civil War than World War Two. One of the Marines wounded in the attack was future movie star Lee Marvin, nicknamed Captain Marvel by his buddies for his gung-ho attitude. Almost all the Japanese were killed. Later in a cave the Marines found the bodies of General Saito and Admiral Nagumo, the fleet commander at the Pearl Harbor attack. They had committed hari kari when the attack had failed.

1947-THE ROSSWELL INCIDENT- An official news report from the U.S. Airforce 509th bomber command -the same unit that dropped the Hiroshima bomb- stated they had recovered the wreckage of a UFO in the New Mexico desert near Rosswell and were examining it. The next day the commanding general of the 8th Air Force flew to Rosswell and stated to the press that the earlier report was in error and it was only a downed weather balloon. The wreckage was removed under heavy-armed guard and complete secrecy was then imposed and maintained to this day. The communications officer Major Jesse Marcey who posed for an official photo showing him with the balloon wreckage later told his son it was faked. Marcey, who died in 1967 and his adjutant Lt. Haut still stick to the original version of their story. Lt. Haut also claimed the base commander Col. William Blanchard thought it was UFO debris. This report coming only two weeks after the first modern sighting of "flying saucers" over Mt. Reynier in Oregon sparked the Flying Saucer craze that gripped America throughout the 1950’s. In 1994 and 1997 the Pentagon tried to explain away the story by saying at Rosswell and the base Area 51 they were experimenting with high altitude balloons carrying sniffer devices to detect Russian nuclear tests and the rumored alien remains recovered were test dummies. But then the military just added to the mystery when they still refused any access to the mysterious Area 51. When asked now that the Cold War was over what is done there the Army spokesman said : "Uh, Secret Stuff...."

1949-"I’m Friday"- The program Dragnet first debuted on radio. Jack Webb conceived, wrote, directed and starred in the show. His hardest job was urging actors "not to act" but to speak the lines normally like the average person does.

1960- First demonstration of a practical laser beam. In Russia it had been theorized since 1951. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or LASER.

1967- Vivien Leigh, the actress who played Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, died in a mental institution at age 53.

1967 - Beatles' "All You Need is Love" is released. In 2002 for her Jubilee Queen Elizabeth II requested it because it was one of her favorite songs.

1967 – The Doors' "Light My Fire" hits #1.

1981- Judge Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1982- A drunken lunatic named Michael Fagin with a bleeding left hand broke into Buckingham Palace, got past all the security and startled Queen Elizabeth in her bed. Her personal bodyguard was out walking the royal dogs. The Queen kept the man engaged in conversation at the foot of her bed until guards dragged him away.

2005- Four Al Qaeda terrorist bombs exploded in the London subway Tube and a doubledecker bus, killing 50 and injuring one thousand..

---------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Italian writer Umberto Eco once said:” English is a confusing language. If a He is a Him, why isn’t a She a Shim? Why is it Her? So, how do we answer Signore Eco?

Answer: The discrepancy is because of the conflux of Danish and Saxon in English.
The Old Norse- Dutch ( Frisan) word for female is zij or sio, in Old Saxon hjo or heo. They all got mixed up in the Northumbrian stew and this problem is the result.

Posted by:Tom

Overture, Hit the Lights,....etc.

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

click to enlarge, Early pass on the garage kitchen area.

The news articles keep rolling in on CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS

Here is today's from CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/07/apontv.click.clack.ap/index.html

Also check out the Washington Post from yesterday and this week's TIME Magazine.

Hmm..all this hype...dis show better be good!

Posted by:Tom

July 6th, 2008 Sunday

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Another article about Click & Clack, this one from Dallas Texas-

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_Brave_Combo_0706.2984932a.html

----------------------------------------
Quiz: Italian writer Umberto Ecco once said:” English is a confusing language. If a He is a Him, why isn’t a She a Shim? Why is it Her? So, how do we answer Signore Ecco?

Yesterday’s questions answered below: What is meant by keel-hauling?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 7/6/2008
Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Czar Nicholas Ist the Iron Czar, Frida Kahlo, Della Reese
Nancy Reagan, Ned Beatty is 71, Sylvester Stallone is 61, Merv Griffin, Janet Leigh, Bill Haley, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sebastian Cabot, James Bordrero, The Dalai Lama, LaVerne Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Geoffrey Rush is 57, President George W. Bush is 62, 50 Cent is 33

Happy St. Fermin's Day, the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Remember when running the trick to it is keeping ones self directly in front of the bull’s head. This area between his eyes is his blind spot.

83 B.C. Sulla the Dictator stormed Rome and defeated the supporters of Marius. This first civil war amongst powerful Roman factions is known as the" Wars of Marius & Sulla" or “the Social Wars”. No one had ever dared take soldiers into Rome itself and it spelled the death of the democratic Republic. Sulla published lists of hundreds of political enemies called the Proscribed. If you were on that list anybody could kill you without trial or appeal. Even a slave could kill his master and get the reward. Sulla had on his staff a kid who recently changed sides. His name was Gaius Julius Caesar.

1685- THE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR AND THE BLOODY ASSIZES.-The Illegitimate son of King Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, tried to overthrow his Catholic uncle King James II with the help of many Protestant Englishmen, angry that the Catholic monarch was planning to subvert the liberties won by Cromwell in the English Civil War. This day Monmouth hightailed it for the hills while his army was cut to pieces in battle.
After the battle the punishment of the rebels under Judge Jefferies was so brutal it was nicknamed the Bloody Assizes. An assize was another name for circuit court. Hundreds were beheaded, tongues cut out, limbs branded with hot irons then transported as slaves to the Bahamas and Barbados to cut sugar cane. White sugar was a new delicacy sweeping the nation. To this day many white skinned Bahamians can claim descendant from these condemned rebels. In the 1890s Rafael Sabatini wrote a novel about one slave who escaped to become a pirate named Captain Blood, later made into an Errol Flynn movie.

180-? THE IMMORTAL BELOVED LETTERS.- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven never married but not for want of trying. The bad tempered loner loved several women but never had a serious relationship. After his death several love letters were found. The letters written this day were of a supremely passionate nature where he begged some unknown woman to keep an appointment with him at some unstated rendezvous in Hungary. “Though still in bed my thoughts go out to you, My Immortal Beloved…” The letters were never sent and have no addresses or names. Who is this Immortal Beloved Beethoven yearns for?

1853- In Ripon, Wisconsin Free-Soil Whigs and other lefty radicals form the new Republican Party. They were called the Anti-Nebraska Men, then Black-Republicans for awhile because of their strong anti-slavery stance.

1885- Louis Pasteur gave the first inoculation to cure rabies.

1886 - Horlick's of Wisconsin offers the1st malted milk to public. It began as an attempt to create a new type of baby formula.

1895- A businessman named William Sydney Porter returned from Honduras where he had fled after being indicted for embezzlement. He had returned because he had learned of the illness of his wife. Porter was sent to prison and while there began writing little stories which he later published under the name O. Henry.

1906- THE GREAT FUNERAL OF JOHN PAUL JONES- The heroic sea captain of the American Revolution died a bitter old man in Paris in 1792. Ill and forgotten, he had no friends. Writer Thomas Carlyle said Jones “resembled an empty wineskin.” The few mourners at the little Paris cemetery were he was interred were all admiring Frenchmen and children he had given coins to on the street during his walks through the Luxembourg Gardens. The American ambassador skipped his funeral because of a dinner party he didn’t want to miss. A Frenchman named Simonot had embalmed Jones in brandy in a lead sealed coffin because he figured the American government wanted to take him home. He was amazed when they were too cheap to cover the transport fees. Jones’ sword and medals were pawned to pay for the funeral. A century later America had become a great power. Scientists set about to look for John Paul Jones remains. They discovered the lead casket in Paris’ Old Protestant Cemetery. The brandy embalming kept him so well preserved they could do an autopsy on the body. Jones had died of bronchial pneumonia and kidney failure at age 45. President Teddy Roosevelt shared Jone’s dream of a powerful US Navy and used the occasion to stage a grand re-internment in Annapolis Naval Academy.
So on his birthday rows of battleships booming salutes and mile-long processions of marching US Marine and French honor guards gave John Paul Jones the grand funeral he always felt he deserved, just 113 years late.

1917 – As Lowell Thomas’ news reel cameras rolled, Lawrence of Arabia and Bedouin Sheik Ouda Abu-Tai captures the Red Sea Port of Acqaba from Turkish troops. The battle was dramatized in the 1962 David Lean epic Lawrence of Arabia.

1928- The film "The Lights of New York" premiered at the Strand theater on Broadway. 1927's the Jazz Singer popularized sound movies while still being half silent. This film was the first with an all dialogue track.

1944- A fire broke out in the main tent of Ringling Bros Circus during a children’s matinee in Hartford Connecticut . The big top had been waterproofed with a paraffin solution thinned with gasoline and now that mixture engulfed the tent in flames. 168 died and 682 more were injured, mostly children. In 1950 a deranged arsonist named Robert Segee admitted setting the Hartford Circus Fire.

1957-Chuck Jones short "Whats Opera, Doc?" debuts. “Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..."

1957-16 year old John Lennon first met 15 year old Paul McCartney at a church picnic near Woolton, England. Lennon invited McCartney to join his first band called the Quarrymen, but MacCartney missed their first engagement because of a boy scout trip.

1964 - Beatles' film "Hard Day's Night" premieres in London. The bands iconoclastic, antics portrayed by Richard Lesters surreal free style direction set the style for the music videos of the future.

1965- TV sitcom F-Troop premiered. Shortly after the series began production it was learned that lead actress Melody Patterson (Wrangler Jane) was actually underage- barely 16. She kept her part but the writers had to tone down any sexual innuendo in the scripts.

1965 - Rock group "Jefferson Airplane" formed.

1974- The first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keilor’s ode to a small town in Minnesota.

1998- French workers at Disney’s Paris theme park went on strike for better pay, and not having to smile like idiots all the time, like the Americans do.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: What is meant by keel-hauling?

Answer: An extreme form of punishment in navys during the Age of Sail. The accused seaman was tied to a rope, thrown overboard and a team pulled him down and around under the keel (bottom) of the ship and back up to the other side. If he didn’t drown, he got scraped up by all the barnacles and other crud on the ships bottom. Like flogging, keelahauling began in Elizabethan times, but was outlawed by the 1850s.

Posted by:Tom