If your birthday is today, “Happy Birthday!”
Author Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) is 86.
Actress Ann-Margret (Carnal Knowledge, Tommy, Viva Las Vegas, Grumpy Old Men) is 71.
Actress Marcia Strassman (Welcome Back Kotter, Honey I Shrunk the Kids) is 64.
TV talk show host Jay Leno, The Tonight Show, is 62.
Filed under Birthdays
1758 – James Monroe, the 5th President of the United States, was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
1788 – Maryland entered the United States of America, as the 7th state.
1789 – A rebel crew took over the British ship H.M.S. Bounty and set sail to Pitcairn Island.
1897 – The Chickasaw and Choctaw nations become the first to agree to abolish tribal government and communal land ownership.
1932 – Max Theiler and Eugen Haagen announced they’d discovered a vaccine against yellow fever.
1945 – Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed.
1947 – Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl set sail from the Peruvian coast in the 45-foot Kon Tiki to prove that early Peruvian and Polynesian seafarers traversed the Pacific Ocean. The 4,300-mile voyage concluded 101 days later when Heyerdahl arrived on Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands.
Filed under History
Shuttle Enterprise being flown over Manhattan. See more photos here.
Filed under News
“If you are to give us aid for men and men or for women and women to marry, leave it; we don’t need your aid because, as long as I am the President of The Gambia, you will never see that happen in this country. One thing we will never compromise, for whatever reason, is the integrity of our culture, our dignity and our sovereignty. As a member of the international community, we would abide by the international conventions that we have signed, but as a country, we will pass legislation that will preserve our culture, our humanity, our dignity and our identity as Africans, West Africans and Gambians.”
– Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, adding that no amount of foreign aid would compel him to “offend God” by endorsing what is “evil and unholy;” that is, accepting homosexuals as they are.
Filed under News
PEN International is an organization founded in 1921 to promote freedom of expression through literature. It has 140 affiliates in more than 100 countries and a gallery of more than 20,000 writers across the globe; some who are just starting out and others who are well-established and well-known. Their more notable members include:
Chinua Achebe; Margaret Atwood; Isabel Allende; Aung San Suu Kyi; Josef Brodsky; J. M. Coetzee; Joseph Conrad; Anatole France; Nadine Gordimer; Vaclav Havel; Hu Shih; Danilo Kiš; Halldor Laxness; Liu Xiaobo; Mario Vargas Llosa; Amin Maalouf; François Mauriac; Naguib Mahfouz; Thomas Mann; Arthur Miller; Czesław Miłosz; Alberto Moravia; Toni Morrison; Kenzaburo Oe; Harold Pinter; and Salman Rushdie.
They promote the freedom to write and the freedom to read. Recently, PEN International re-launched the PEN Atlas, “its portal for international news.”
“The PEN Atlas is your gateway to a world of literature. Every Thursday, we post literary dispatches from around the world, showcasing the very best international writers. We hope to bring new insights into the rich literary landscape that may be found beyond the English language. The amount of foreign literature published in English is far too low. We hope the PEN Atlas inspire literature lovers to sample new writing from other countries, and encourage publishers to bring that writing to the British market. The goals of the PEN Atlas:
All content is commissioned and edited by Tasja Dorkofikis, who will be inviting a wide range of contributors from around the world about to give their views on contemporary and emerging literature.”
I’m so glad to have discovered this organization. As an avid reader and free speech advocate, I know nothing liberates people from political, religious and economic oppression like the freedom to speak out and read and write what they want. We take these basic human rights for granted in developed nations, but even just a cursory glance at such places like China and Syria will make anyone realize how significant free speech is.
Filed under News
Survivalist Tip: Yesterday I mentioned adding wine to your beverage supply, and since wine is made mostly from grapes, I wanted to discuss the value of them. I know this is going ass backwards, but since I was a breach baby, that explains a lot about me. Grapes are among the most universally loved fruits. They grow on most every continent in the world. They also are among the healthiest of foods you can eat. Because of their high concentrations of Vitamins A, B6 and C, science has proven grapes possess many health benefits.
Grapes actually last a while, even in warm weather. But, of course, they taste better cold. This might be challenging, as power is likely to be out for a while at the start of the new Baktun. But, don’t worry! Enjoy all the grapes you can tolerate. Your insides will be grateful.
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
If your birthday is today, “Happy Birthday!”
Actor Jack Klugman (The Odd Couple, Quincy, M.E., Twelve Angry Men, Days of Wine and Roses) is 90.
Actress Anouk Aimee (La Dolce Vita, Lola, A Man and a Woman) is 80.
Radio announcer Casey Kasem (American Top 40) is 80.
Actress – comedienne Judy Carne (Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, The Americanization of Emily, Only with Married Men) is 73.
Singer – organist Kate Pierson (The B-52’s) is 64.
Guitarist Paul Daniel ‘Ace’ Frehley (Kiss) is 61.
Singer Sheena Easton (Modern Girl, Morning Train, Strut) is 53.
1667 – Blind poet John Milton sold the copyright to Paradise Lost for 10 pounds.
1759 – Author Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Vindication of the Rights of Women) was born in London.
1791 – Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the electromagnetic telegraph, was born in Charlestown, MA.
1822 – Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, was born in Point Pleasant, OH.
1865 – The steamship Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River, en route from New Orleans to Cairo, IL. Around 1,700 passengers, including several discharged Union soldiers, died. The cause of the explosion never was determined, and the disaster remains the worst of its kind in the U.S.
1994 – South Africa held its first multiracial parliamentary elections.
Filed under History
Chief Writing Wolf 