TV host Hugh Downs (Today, 20/20) is 91.
Emmy Award-winning composer, conductor, arranger, musical director Elliot Lawrence (Kennedy Center Honors) is 87.
Singer Phyllis McGuire (The McGuire Sisters) is 81.
Actress Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch) is 78.
Golf champion Mickey (Mary) Wright (U.S. Open 1958, 1959, 1961, 1964) is 77.
Journalist Carl Bernstein is 68.
Guitarist Roger Fisher (Heart) is 62.
Actress Meg Tilly (Agnes of God, The Big Chill) is 52.
Filed under Birthdays
270 – Valentine, a priest in Rome under Claudius II, was executed for officiating marriages.
1779 – British explorer Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii on his third visit to the islands.
1849 – Matthew B. Brady – who became known for his photographs of the Civil War – took the first photograph of a U.S. President, James K. Polk, in New York City.
1859 – Oregon entered the union as the 33rd state, exactly ten years and six months to the day since it was organized as a territory.
1899 – The U.S. Congress approved voting machines for use in federal elections.
1912 – Arizona (a name probably derived from the Papago Indian word “arizonac,” a term meaning ‘place of the young spring’) entered the union as the 48th state.
1932 – The U.S. won its first Olympic bobsled competition (both the two-man and four-man races) at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY.
1962 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave the first televised tour of the White House.
1966 – Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association record as he reached a career high of 20,884 points after seven seasons as a pro basketball player.
1972 – The musical, Grease, opened at the Eden Theatre in New York City.
Filed under History
Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, which stands 2,723 feet and boasts 209 stories, plus 2 parking levels in the basement, in Dubai. Currently, the Mitsubishi Corporation is designing a high-speed “bullet elevator” to be installed in the structure. I’ll stay with my 1-story house, thank you! It’s easier to vacate when the power goes out.
Filed under News
“I want to create every opportunity for women to be able to serve this country …but I do have concerns about women in front-line combat. I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.”
– GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum expressing his views on women in military combat
He later backtracked and said he was talking about the emotions of the men in the military. I think I understand his logic. The men will be too upset at the sight of women alongside them in the front lines, especially if the women get hurt, because it’s the natural instinct of men to protect women at all costs (think Titanic or Valentine’s Day). And, if men in combat are too overwhelmed with emotions at the sight of injured females, then they won’t be able to focus on the mission at hand, which will be to kill other men who are trying to do harm to Americans; e.g. Al Qaeda, PETA. So, in a sense, placing women in combat is a liberal plot to destroy the U.S. Of course, any woman who’s given birth knows a thing or two about pain and agony, especially Catholic women like…well, like Mrs. Santorum.
…but I don’t hold that against them!
Filed under Curiosities
Alfred Stieglitz was a New Jersey-born photographer who espoused a belief in the aesthetic potential of photography in early 20th century America. Autochrome was a photographic transparency film patented by the Lumiére brothers in 1903. The process initially recorded images as standard black and white and then reconfigured them into color using filters. These photos are courtesy of the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Frank Eugene c. 1907
Frank Eugene drinking beer c. 1907
Man in red sweater c. 1907
Selma Schubart c. 1907
Unidentified couple playing chess c. 1907
Edward Stieglitz c. 1910
Emmeline O. Stieglitz c. 1910
Katherine Stieglitz c. 1910
Katherine Stieglitz c. 1910 II
Katherine Stieglitz c. 1910 III
Hedwig Stieglitz c. 1910
Oaklawn c. 1910
Katherine Stieglitz c.1911
Alfred and Emmeline O. Stieglitz c. 1915
Dorothy O. Schubart c. 1915
Flora Stieglitz Straus c. 1915
Flora Stieglitz Straus c. 1915 II
Flora Stieglitz Straus c. 1915 III
Hugh Grant Straus c. 1915
Jacobina Staerk Stieffel c. 1915
Joseph Obermeyer c. 1917
Joseph Obermeyer and Katherine Stieglitz c. 1917
Filed under Classics
“Candidate Obama, he promised to fundamentally transform America, and that’s one promise he’s kept; he transformed a shining city on a hill into a sinking ship.”
– Sarah Palin berating President Obama
As if the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) isn’t filled with enough distorted facts and race-baiting rhetoric, this year’s clown fest finished with a speech from former half-ass Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. It doesn’t surprise me staunch conservatives give credence to Palin; after all, they go into orgasmic frenzies every time they mention Ronald Reagan, so their standards aren’t too high. Since Palin can’t seem to find her way back to that trailer park where she lives with her brood, she makes frequent appearances at these events; squawking about what she thinks is wrong with America, but – like Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas and other conservative gas bags – doesn’t offer any valid solutions.
Belgium photojournalist Teun Voeten has been documenting some of the most heinous images across the globe for nearly a quarter century, from extreme poverty in Harlem to the little-publicized civil war in Sierra Leone that took some 50,000 lives. Sometimes he’s barely escaped with his life. His 2010 book Narco Nihilism – The Days of the Dead focuses on México’s bloody drug war. For a year, beginning in 2009, Voeten visited the epicenter of the violence, Ciudad Juarez, as well as other places in México where the conflict has entwined itself into daily life. It’s especially pertinent, considering that México seems to be losing ground to the cartels; in part because of that nation’s notoriously corrupt law enforcement entities, but also because of the strong appetite for drugs in the U.S. While people lament Whitney Houston’s allegedly drug-addled death, for example, she and others like Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and Darryl Strawberry could sit in the luxury of their own homes (or a hotel) and order up drugs in the same manner most of us would order room service without facing the gritty reality of a dead body. It’s the average citizen in México – and the U.S. – who doesn’t have the money or the power to fight back against the violence that drug trafficking brings who end up suffering the most.
Filed under News
