Opera singer Leontyne Price is 85.
Actor Robert Wagner is 82.
Grammy-winning singer Roberta Flack (“Killing Me Softly”) is 73.
Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz is 62.
Journalist George Stephanopoulos is 51.
Talk show host Glenn Beck is 48.
Actress Laura Dern is 45.
Filed under Birthdays
1763 – The “Seven Years’ War,” also known as the “French – Indian War,” ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by France, Great Britain and Spain.
1846 – Mormons begin their exodus from Illinois to Utah.
1863 – Two of the world’s most famous little people, General Tom Thumb (real name Charles S. Stratton, 3’, 4”) and, Lavinia Warren, (2’, 8”), exchanged vows before a small gathering of 2,000 of their closest friends in New York City – most of them standing on the church pews to catch a glimpse of the couple.
1863 – Alanson Crane received a patent for the fire extinguisher.
1933 – The singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City.
1934 – The first imperforated, ungummed sheets of postage stamps were issued by the U.S. Postal Service in New York City. One had to cut the stamps out of the sheet and then put some glue on the back to get them to stick on an envelope. Fortunately, the Postal Service changed this idea after many complaints.
1935 – The Pennsylvania Railroad began passenger service with its new ‘streamlined’ electric locomotive. This engine was 79-1/2 feet long and weighed in at a hefty 230 tons.
1962 – The Soviet Union released Francis Gary Powers, an American pilot who was shot down two years earlier while flying a CIA spy plane over Russia.
1967 – The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified by the U.S. Congress.
Filed under History
Survivalist Tip: Collect large bags of pure salt to fight off zombies. Many apocalypse survivors will be zombified in the aftermath. Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Fundamentalist Muslims and most residents of East Texas are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon. Mormons won’t survive the fury, so you won’t have to worry about them. Zombies are defenseless against a barrage of sodium granules. Just make sure there’s no wind blowing in your direction when you hurl the salt into their faces. Otherwise it’ll blind you, and the zombies will take that as an invitation to dinner.
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum in a “prayer circle” at a church in Allen, Texas. This is so odd – a bunch of Texas evangelicals surrounding a Roman Catholic from Pennsylvania. It’s sort of like Custer being surrounded by the Sioux.
Filed under News
“I think this week’s outrage over the Komen decision should be a warning to the Republican party about how quickly there was a mass outrage over further and further attacks on general women’s health. You could see the same backlash on attacks on contraception.”
— Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for Choice, cautioning her own party not to pick a fight over contraception.
Republicans for choice?! They must feel like rabbis at a Nazi roundtable.
Filed under News
“SLAVERY by Another Name” is based on a book by Douglas A. Blackmon and produced and directed by Sam Pollard. Laurence Fishburne narrates this 90-minute documentary that challenges the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. It airs Monday, February 13, 2012 at 9:00 PM EST on PBS.
This chart tracks the four-week moving average of initial jobless claims, beginning in January of 2008.
Filed under News
There’s never been a shortage of distinguished German-language writers: Heinrich Böll, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek and Herta Müller – all winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. But in the United States, there’s a shortage of German-language readers, and very little German-language fiction gets translated into English. Spanish and French are taught more often than German in American schools – in part because of our proximity to Latin America, but also because of the growing numbers of U.S. immigrants from Spanish- and French-speaking countries. But the literary output of Germany, Austria and Switzerland has had a harder time crossing over. It’s ironic in that, while the U.S. is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, most Americans trace their ancestry to Germany than any other particular country. And although the Chinese were the first to invent the printing press, Germany’s Johannes Gutenberg was the first to invent movable type in Europe. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 exposed the world to more of Eastern Europe’s literary greats, and increased Internet usage in the past decade has drawn writers and readers closer. But, German scribes still seem relegated to some antiquitous past. An annual festival in New York City, Festival Neue Literatur, has been trying to change that for the past three years.
Filed under News
Mimi Alford, who served as a White House intern in 1962, now claims she had an 18-month affair with John F. Kennedy in her new memoir, “Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath.” First of all, you actually have to be known for something significant to write a memoir; a clandestine love affair doesn’t qualify. Second, Kennedy has been dead for almost half a century – even his wife and son are dead – and Alford literally comes out of nowhere to talk about this! Kennedy, a WWII hero and a true American, accomplished more in his short life than most people – including most presidents – do in a lifetime. If you want a more thorough examination of Kennedy’s life, either visit the official JFK web site, or read Chris Matthews book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.”
Filed under News
