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History, Politics and Popular Culture
db metzger
This weblog is meant to look into the past in order to change the future. We'll try to give
you more then merely dates and events and hopefully take you to interesting web pages for context that will put History
into a broader perspective. Tired of hearing how "the more things change, the more they remain the same?"
Take a look at That was Then, This was Now.
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December 31, 2005
1762 Mozart family moves from Vienna to Salzburg. Was his death in 1791 Murder, accident or disease? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1304957
1776 Rhode Island establishes wage & price controls to curb inflation: Limit is 70¢ a day for carpenters, 42¢ for
tailors Here’s more on RI http://www.rootsweb.com/~rigenweb/history.html
1781 the first U.S. Bank opens. The Bank of North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_North_America
1857 Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as Capital of Canada. http://ottawa.wyldware.com/setting.shtml
1879 Edison demonstrates his electric incandescent light at Menlo Park, N.J. http://www.jhalpin.com/metuchen/tae/taeindex.htm
1890 New York’s Ellis Island opens. http://www.ellisislandimmigrants.org/ellis_island_history.htm
1897 Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898) http://www.amiannoying.com/(5xjiqh45ty0xug55nrozwu34)/view.aspx?id=10002
1907 the Ball drops in Times Square NY for the first time. http://www.timessquare.com/guide/guide_newyear_new.html
1914 Colonel Jacob Ruppert & Captain Huston purchase New York Yankees for $460,000 http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Ruppert_Jake.stm
1921 Last San Francisco firehorses retired http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist1/horses.html
1924 Edwin Hubble announces existence of distant galactic systems http://www.edwinhubble.com/hubble_bio_001.htm
1935 Charles Darrow patents Monopoly http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/monopoly.html
1943 a near riot of bobby- soxers takes place in Times Square when Frank Sinatra appears at the Paramount. Here’s more
data mining from 1943. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_in_music
1947 Dale and Roy marry after having appeared in movies together for 4 years. The merger includes three children
from their previous marriages.. http://www.petcaretips.net/roy_rogers.html
1961 The Beach Boys perform for the first time at a Richie Valens Memorial concert in California. http://www.history-of-rock.com/beach_boys.htm And the Marshall Plan expires after 12 billion dollars in reconstruction costs.
1962 the Match Game premiered on NBC with Gene Rayburn. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0069608/trivia
1963 Jerry Garcia & Bob Weir played music together for the 1st time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead
1972 Roberto Clemente Pittsburgh Pirate slugger, dies in a plane crash at 38 while delivering earthquake aid to Nicaragua.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0818.html
1981 CNN Headline news debuted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN
1984 The Nations first mandatory seat belt law went into effect. http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/press/pr111903.htm It happened in NY first.
1985 Rick Nelson and six others die in a plane fire while on their way to a New Years eve performance in Dallas. http://avstop.com/news/ric.html
1990 the Sci-Fi Channel begins broadcasting. Here’s a look back at cable http://www.tv-technology.com/features/inside-broadband/a_two_decades_will_workman_.shtml
1991 USSR, last day of existence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union
1998 US movie box office hits record $6.24 billion for year. For those into the numbers http://www.the-numbers.com/index.php
Birthdays
(General) George Marshal (1880-1959) author of the Marshal Plan http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmarshallG.htm
1930 Folk Singer Odetta http://www.oafb.net/once256.html
1946 Patti Smith who some consider the mother of punk. http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?020311on_onlineonly01
1938 Disco Diva Donna Summer. http://www.warr.org/summer.html
That was then, this was 2006
Two more American soldier deaths in Vietnam (uhh, Iraq) brings total for 2005 to 841. Here’s 2005 in Review according
to OpEd News.
The horrific fall of the most basic rights and strengths of America-- democracy, privacy, truth and trust in government,
transparency-- did not happen at once. But 2005 was the year when we the people, and the rest of the world were finally able
to see clearly that the Bush Administration and its rubber stamp republican sycophants were not just a little, but outrageously,
historically corrupt, brazenly breaking laws and flaunting their criminal actions.
-------
Speaking of box office, T he National Film Registry updated it’s film list being preserved
for the National Library of Congress.
The 2005 selections bring to 425 the total number of films being preserved by the Library of Congress or other institutions
involved in the project.
The 25 films selected for the 2005 National Film Registry:
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/19842.html
December 30, 2005
10:10 am est
December 29, 2005
1890 The last massacre of the Indian wars took place at Wounded Knee S. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/knee.htm
1848 gaslights were installed in the Polk White House., except for one room http://www.usatrivia.com/flbipolk.html
1851 the first YMCA opens in Boston. http://www.ascent.net/ymca/ymca.htm
1852 Emma Snodgrass arrested in Boston for wearing pants
1862 Bowling ball invented. Well, a semi-modern version anyway. Here’s more. http://www.tenpinbowling.org/view.php?page=the_game.history
1891 Edison received a patent for wireless radio transmission. http://www.oldradio.com/current/bc_roots.htm
1913 the first movie serial "Adventures of Kathlyn". http://www.filmsite.org/serialfilms.html
1949 the first UHF station opens in CT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_frequency
1952 the first transistorized hearing Aid goes on sale in Elmsford, NY. Here’s the history http://www.odc.state.or.us/tadoc/techha15.htm
1955 Barbra Streisand made her first recording "You’ll never know" at age 13. http://www.barbra-streisand.com/bio_bio.html
1957 Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme were married in Las Vegas, as was Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They served
as witnesses.
1958 TV soap "Young Dr Malone" debuts. No relation to Sam Malone http://www.classicthemes.com/50sTVThemes/themePages/youngDrMalone.html
1972 Life magazine ceases publication http://www.life.com/Life/lifeabout.html
1980 Tim Hardin US singer (Bird on a Wire), dies of a drug overdose at 39 http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-deaths-by-accidental-drug-overdose
1989 Jane Pauley says goodbye to the Today Show, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/pauleyjane/pauleyjane.htm as she co-hosted for the last time.
Birthdays
1876-1973 musician Pablo Casals, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Casals
1936 Mary Tyler Moore http://www.transparencynow.com/mary.htm
1938 Jon Voight the Midnight Cowboy. He’s also Angelina Jolie’s father http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000685/
1947 Ted Danson San Diego CA, actor (Sam Malone-Cheers, 3 Men & a Baby)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Danson
That was then, This was Now
If you really want to know what’s happening in the present try these sites
http://politicalwire.com/aggregator/ Taegan Goddadrd's Political Wire.
http://www.slate.com/ includes an article on Iraqi Vote fraud being unsubstantiated and male circumcision making a comeback. Ouch.
http://www.aldaily.com/ Arts and Letters Daily for longer think pieces
It’s the second week of doing without The Daily Show and the Colbert Report who are on vacation. I think I’m going through
news withdrawl.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ For real news junkie
And Utne Magazine has a piece on the recent WTO Summitt in Hong Kong
In the end, say WTO critics, the world's farmers and poor people lost out, while US and European corporations won big,
extracting major concessions from developing countries on trade in services and industrial products. "Total failure of the
WTO Doha round [in Qatar in 2001] was averted," Indian activist Vandana Shiva writes on ZNet, "by the fig leaf of withdrawal of export subsidies in agriculture by 2013 (while most of the $400 billion
subsidies of the rich country industrialized corporatized agriculture will remain) and the fig leaf of 'aid-for-trade.'"
.
December 28, 2005
8:20 am est
December 27, 2005
9:50 am est
December 26, 2005
Tsunami anniversary
1620 the Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth. While you’re their check out the story of the Wampanoag tribe who inhabited the
land. http://pilgrams.net/plymouth/history/
1825 the Erie Canal opens. http://www.eriecanal.org/UnionCollege/175th.html
1877 the Socialist Labor Party holds its first convention. http://www.course-notes.org/parties/socialist.htm
1878 the first store (Wanamaker’s) begins the use of electric lights in Philadelphia. http://www.voltnet.com/arclamps/brush.shtml
1919 the Boston Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees. http://www.baseballhistorian.com/html/babe_curse.htm The curse of the Bambino ends 85 years later.
1924 Judy Garland, age 2½, billed as Baby Frances, show business debut http://www.jgdb.com/bio.htm
1954 "The Shadow" airs for last time on radio http://www.shadowsanctum.net/radio/radio.html
1955 Bill Haley and the Comets release " See You Later Alligator" http://www.history-of-rock.com/haley.htm
1955 RKO is 1st to announce sale of its film library to TV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RKO_Studios
1963 Capitol records releases the first Beatle song. "I want to hold your hand". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_To_Hold_Your_Hand
1968 Timothy Leary is arrested in California for drug possession. He was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison.
http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/leary_timothy/leary_timothy.shtml That same day in 1968 Led Zeppelin made its concert debut in Boston, opening for The Vanilla Fudge. http://www.personal.usyd.edu.au/~aturman/4person/42music/422ledz/4221lzh/mlzh00.htm
1969 Dick Cavett replaces Joey Bishop on ABC to compete against Johnny Carson. http://talkshows.about.com/library/weekly/aa050399.htm?once=true&
1973 The Exorcist Premieres. Click here for 1973 in Review http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/1/1973.html
1982 TIME's Man of the Year is a computer http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Time.MOTY.1982.html
1991 Talk Soup premieres On E! Entertainment TV with Greg Kinnear. http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9934,00.html
On the death watch.
1972 Harry Truman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Truman
1974 Jack Benny comedian (Jack Benny Show), dies at 80
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/bennyjack/bennyjack.htm
1982 Samuel Beckett. http://www.levity.com/corduroy/beckett.htm
Birthdays
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) inventor of the calculating machine http://www.cbi.umn.edu/exhibits/cb.html
China’s Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
Henry Miller (1891-1980) http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hmiller.htm
TV host Steve Allen (1921-2000 ) http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/allensteve/allensteve.htm
Alan King (1921-2004) http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=654
1940 Phil Spector http://www.salon.com/bc/1998/11/cov_10bc.html
That was then, this was now
Domestic Spying and Privacy will be the issue for 2006. Iran-Contra redoux. And executive power of the presidency.
Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, would not confirm the meeting with Bush before publishing reporter Dana
Priest's Nov. 2 article disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe used to interrogate terror suspects.
Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau
chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and Eric
Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on Americans and others within the United States without court orders.
But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them but are not authorized to comment because both
sides had agreed to keep the sessions off the record.
December 25, 2005
9:48 am est
December 24, 2005
1814 Treaty of Ghent (end of the War of 1812) is signed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Ghent
1818 " Silent Night " is composed by Franz Joseph Gruber.and debuted the next evening. http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/museum/59/gruber.html
1832 first Negro hospital is founded by whites in Savannah Georgia. Here’s more on the history and future of Black
Hospitals. http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/943/On_the_brink_of_extinction_the_Black_hospital
1865 veterans of the Confederate Army form a private social club in Pulaski, TN, the Ku Klux Klan. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_kkk.html
1889 the Bicycle is patented http://www.jimlangley.net/ride/bicyclehistorywh.html
1920 Enrico Caruso Italian tenor gives his last public performance in New York
http://www.answers.com/topic/enrico-caruso
1942 the first flight of the German V-I Buzz bomb http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWv1.htm
1951 Libya gains it’s independence from Italy. http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0859277.html
1954 Laos gains its independence. Formerly known as Siam. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/la.html
1981 Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa & Lisa Evers marry http://www.guardianangels.org/history.html
1984 rat packer Peter Lawford dies of cardiac failure. http://www.bigbandsandbignames.com/Lawford.html
1991 Walter Hudson dies. He weighed 1,025 pounds http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/hudson.html
1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
1992 President Bush I pardons Caspar Weinberger of Iran-contra affair http://www.fas.org/news/iran/1992/921224-260039.htm
Birthdays
1809-1868 western scout Kit Carson http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/jan/papr/kitcarson.html
Howard Hughes (1905-1976) http://www.socalhistory.org/Biographies/h_hughes.htm
Journalist I.F. Stone (1907-1989) http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtm1?=20030721&s=navasky
Actress Ava Gardner (1922- 1990) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ava_Gardner
1929 Mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-clark-mary.asp
And here’s more interesting events from this day in History from The Daily Bleed http://www.oz.net/~recall/bleed/1224.htm
That was then, This was Now
The latest on (vast) Wiretap America via the Boston Globe which is owned by the NY Times which broke the story today on it’s front page. .
The National Security Agency, in carrying out President Bush's order to intercept the international phone calls and e-mails
of Americans suspected of links to Al Qaeda, has probably been using computers to monitor all other Americans' international
communications as well, according to specialists familiar with the workings of the NSA.
The Bush administration and the NSA have declined to provide details about the program the president authorized in 2001,
but specialists said the agency serves as a vast data collection and sorting operation. It captures reams of data from satellites,
fiberoptic lines, and Internet switching stations, and then uses a computer to check for names, numbers, and words that have
been identified as suspicious.
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Supreme Court Nominee Alito and wiretaps
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito defended the right of government officials to order domestic wiretaps for national security
when he worked at the Reagan Justice Department
------
Glad Tidings. According to early Iraqi voter returns Ahmad Chalabi received less then 1% of vote. Remember, he was Judith Millers source
on WMD’s and later linked to passing information to Iran, according to the CIA.
The politician and onetime administration and U.S. newspaper source, Ahmed Chalabi, "appears to have suffered a humiliating
defeat at the recent Iraq polls," NBC News reports today, according to the uncertified preliminary results.
It said
that preliminary results in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad indicate that Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress scored a minuscule
0.36 percent of the votes.
----
And to keep up with the Season. An article in Slate Asks What If Mary wasn’t a Virgin?
At Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of God's only son. Some believers, however, wonder if Jesus Christ is God's
son only. The ancient "illegitimacy tradition" and its modern proponents propose that Jesus may have had a
human father. That idea upsets one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith—the virgin conception. But it's entirely
in keeping with more essential tenets: Jesus' role as the Messiah, and God's love for the poor and downtrodden. What's more,
the illegitimacy tradition responds to many strange utterances about Jesus' birth in the Scriptures themselves
December 23, 2005
On this day in 1776 Tom Paine writes “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Here’s
a website of alternative opinion. http://www.tompaine.com
1779 Benedict Arnold is court marshaled. http://www.benedictarnold.org/
1823 Clement Moore writes about the visit from St. Nicholas in the Troy Sentinel. http://www.americagallery.com/controversy.shtml
1867 Sarah Breedlove (CJ Walker) becomes the first black
self made Millionairess. http://www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/walker.html
1888 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/
1919 Alice H Parker patents gas heating furnace http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blaliceparker.htm
1922 BBC Radio began daily newscasts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio
1928 NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast radio network
http://imonthe.net/66wnbc/network.htm here’s another broadcasting timeline
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/television5.html
1947 the transistor is invented by Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley in Bell Labs. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa061698.htm
1948 Japanese Prime Minister Tojo is hung for war crimes.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWtojo.htm
1968 82-crew members of the Intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo
1968 Borman, Lovell & Anders become 1st men to orbit Moon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/24/newsid_4083000/4083587.stm
1978 The Young & Restless Premieres. http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/showmainservlet/showid-100/
1975 Congress passes the Metric conversion act. http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm
1982 Jack Webb Dies. “Just the facts Ma’m”.
1983 The Journal Science
publishes 1st report on nuclear winter http://nyny.essortment.com/whatisnuclear_rioc.htm
1986 Voyager ends its historic nine day trip around the world. . http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/
1987 Lynette Squeaky Fromme (Manson girl) escapes from Alderson
prison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynette_Fromme
1997 Woody Allen, 62 weds Soon-Yi Previn 27, adopted daughter of Mia Farrow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen
Birthdays
1834 Thomas R Malthus English
vicar/economist credited as being first demographer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus
1916-2001 Flamenco Dancer Jose Greco http://www.streetswing.com/histmai2/d2greco1.htm
1926 Poet Robert Bly author of Iron John http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/interv/bly.html
1943 Harry Shearer comedian from SNL, The Simpsons http://www.sportshollywood.com/askshearer.html
That
was then, This was Now
New York Mass Transit strike is ended. What’s the damage?
So the
first transit strike in a quarter-century -- with its commuter chaos and traffic-choked roadways, grim and muttering New Yorkers
and bitter mudslinging, frozen zones, HOV-4 restrictions and police roadblocks -- ended.
City Comptroller William Thompson
said the economic impact of the strike was closing in on $1 billion. City officials said the strike cost $10 million a day
in overtime, and an estimated $12 million in sales tax revenue was lost
The Dover PA ruling against Intelligent Design came down on Monday. What’s the ripples?
William Dembski, an ID proponent who teaches science and theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
in Louisville, says evolution supporters lost the Scopes trial of 1925 and turned it into a rallying cry. He suggested backers
of intelligent design may do the same with the Jones opinion: "There are cultural voices in play that can render that verdict
obsolete."
Although Rick Santorum said he would resign
from the Board of the Thomas More Law Center which represented the rebuked Dover Board.
From Marketplace radio: The 1 billionth person went online
today. Asia was the location of the 26 year old woman. 33 per cent
of all internet users come from Asia.
December 22, 2005
Day 3 Mass Transit strike
1880 George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) Victorian novelist (Adam Bede), dies on 61st birthday http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm
1882 the first Christmas Tree with electric lights was turned on at the home of Ed Johnson an associate of Thomas Edison.
1894 French officer Alfred Dreyfus court-martialed for treason, triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus
later vindicated) http://www.bartleby.com/65/dr/DreyfusA.html
1919 Government of Ireland Act of Power (Home Rule for Ireland) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army
1919 the US deports 250 radicals in what became known as the Palmer raids. http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues02/feb02/red_scare.html
1937 the Lincoln tunnel opens to traffic. http://home.nyc.rr.com/jkn/nysonglines/39st.htm
1962 "Telstar" by the Tornadoes becomes the first song by a British group to be #1 on the United States chart. http://www.euronet.nl/users/wvbrecht/tornados.htm
1974 2nd cease-fire between IRA & British; lasts until approximately April 1975
1976 35 Unification church couples wed in New York NY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church
1984 Bernard Goetz shoots 4 teenagers on a New York Subway. http://www.courttv.com/archive/verdicts/goetz.html and
1984 Madonna's "Like a Virgin" single goes #1 for 6 weeks http://www.answers.com/topic/madonna-singer-actor
1989 Samuel Beckett Irish/French writer (Waiting for Godot, Molloy, Nobel 1969), dies at 83 http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/beckett.htm
1990 Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland's 1st popularly elected president http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/walesa/
1993 Michael Jackson denied allegations of being a child molester (for 1st time) The family was paid 20
million and charges were dropped. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/24/newsid_2512000/2512077.stm
1971 Movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck died http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0953123/bio
Birthdays
1862-1956 Baseball manager Connie Mack who always saw baseball as a business. http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/M/Mack_Connie.stm
1917-1999 Game show host Gene Rayburn http://www.leonardsview.com/gene.html
1943 Billie Jean King, tennis star http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016060.html
1945 Diane Sawyer http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/sawyerdiane/sawyerdiane.htm
1949 Maurice and Robin Gibb (younger brother of Barry) http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=66
That was then, This was Now
A big win for mother nature and loss for Bush and Frist. (they agree to 6 month extension of Patriot Act)
The Senate blocked an effort today to use a Pentagon spending bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling,
but it passed a $40 billion budget-cutting plan as lawmakers traded legislative moves in a tense end-of-session chess match.
Advocates of opening the refuge to exploration fell four votes short of cutting off debate on the $453.3 billion Pentagon
measure as Senate Democrats, joined by two Republicans, thwarted the attempt by Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican
and long-time champion of Arctic drilling, to use an essential military bill to win approval of the plan
----
Talking Points memo following news on Abramoff and his testifying against lawmakers .
----
Secret Court judge resigns over not being told about Domestic spying. Now the court will be briefed.
Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration
believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal.
Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program
may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court.
December 21, 2005
1375 Boccaccio, the author of The Decameron dies. http://www.ilnarratore.com/anthology/boccaccio/boccaccio.html
1898 Scientists Pierre & Marie Curie discover radium http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/radium/RaDisc.html
1909 1st junior high school established in Columbus Ohio. Now they’re "middle" schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_school
1913 the first crossword puzzle appears in the New York World Newspaper. http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.crosswordtournament.com/more/wynne.html
1914 1st feature-length silent film comedy, "Tillie's Punctured Romance" released (starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand
& Charles Chaplin) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004707/
1919 J Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/
1921 The Supreme Court rules that Labor injunctions and Picketing is unconstitutional. http://www.libertyhaven.com/politicsandcurrentevents/unionsandotherorganizations/rightstrike.html
1925 Eisenstein's movie Potemkin premieres in Moscow http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/00/4/potemkin.html
1929 1st US group hospital insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield) plan instituted in Dallas TX http://www.bcbstx.com/about/history.htm
1932 Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, 1st joint movie (Flying Down to Rio) http://www.classicmovies.org/articles/aa050999b.htm
1937 the first feature length color sound cartoon premieres. Yep, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. http://www.mousetyme.com/TheWaltDisneyStory.html .
1940 F. Scott Fitzgerald dies at the age of 40. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm
1945 George S. Patton dies from car accident injuries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Patton
1951 Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_DiMaggio
1954 Sam Shepphard’s wife Marilyn is murdered. It was the model for The Fugitive TV series and Harrison Ford movie
http://www.crfc.org/americanjury/lessons/issues/sheppard_lesson1.html
1959 Tom Landry accepts coaching job with Dallas Cowboys (stays until 1988) http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/landry/coach.html
1967 The Rolling Stones release "Satanic Majesties Request." As a response to Sgt. Pepper released by that other British
Band http://www.classicbands.com/stones.html
1968 Crosby, Stills and Nash perform together for the first time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby,_Stills,_Nash_&_Young
1970 Elvis meets privately with President Richard Nixon and says he wants to be a Drug enforcement agent. http://www.elvis2001.net/elvis_meets_president_nixon.htm
1988 a Boeing 747 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Lockerbie%20disaster
also 1988 Drexel pleads guilty to a security felony in selling junk bonds. http://www.riskglossary.com/articles/junk_bond.htm
1991 the Soviet Union formerly dissolves into a commonwealth of states. http://www.answers.com/topic/commonwealth-of-independent-states
1991 US actress Jane Fonda marries CNN-director Ted Turner http://archives.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/04/turner.fonda.02/
Birthdays
Joseph Stalin (1879- 1953) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalin.htm
1922 ventriloquist, inventor Paul Winchell http://www.paulwinchell.com/biography.htm
1935 Talk show host Phil Donahue. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/donahuephil/donahuephil.htm
1937 Actress Jane Fonda. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1287787.stm
1940 Frank Zappa Baltimore MD, composer/musician/satirist (Mothers of Invention, Catholic Girls) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa
That was then, This was now.
The New York Times still isn’t talking about why it took a year to release the NRA spying story.
The weekly's writer, Gabriel Sherman, also confirmed in the story, published Wednesday, various revelations that have emerged
in recent days in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Newsweek, including the fact that the story first surfaced before
election day 2004.
Sherman noted that the co-author of the spy scoop, James Risen, "has had difficulties in the past
getting traction with Times editors on a disputed topic. In fall 2003, he unsuccessfully pressed for more skeptical coverage
of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, to counterbalance the work of Judith Miller."
------
The final tally isn’t yet in, but Robert Scheer has an article on Iran’s victory in Iraq. Could be titled "Democracy Shite style"
Soon after Bush spoke of the Iraqi election as "a landmark day in the history of liberty," early returns representing 90
percent of the ballots cast in the Iraq election established that the clear winners were Shiite and Sunni religious parties
not the least bit interested in Western-style democracy or individual freedom -- including such extremists as Muqtada al-Sadr,
whose fanatical followers have fought pitched battles with U.S. troops.
------
It’s day 2 of New York Transit Strike. Would there have been a Strike if Pataki wasn’t running for President with the NY Post running his talking Points?
------
TAP (The American Project) as a number of interesting articles on the state of our National Government. From John Bolton at the UN, Ralph Reed’s unraveling future and Robert Reich on the Middle Class and Medicaid.
December 20, 2005
New York Transit Workers go on Strike.
1669 the first jury trial took place in Delaware where Marcus Jacobson was convicted of insurrection. http://www.delcohistory.org/ashmead/ashmead_pg158.htm he was sentenced to flogging, branding and being returned to slavery
1803 pays France 15 million for 827, 987 square miles of land known as The Louisiana Purchase. http://www.napoleonseries.org/reference/diplomatic/louisiana.cfm
1892 the pneumatic (air filled) automobile tire is patented. Who is John Dunlop?
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltires.htm
1965 The Dating Game first aired. Remember Chuck Barris? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dating_Game
1967 Bobby Darin dies on the operating table during heart surgery. http://www.history-of-rock.com/bobby_darin.htm
1967 "The Graduate", starring Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft, premieres http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061722/maindetails
1968 John Steinbeck author (Grapes of Wrath, Nobel 1962), dies in New York at 66 http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html
1969 Peter, Paul & Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" reaches #1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter,_Paul_and_Mary
1974 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley died http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Daley
Remember? "The police are not here to create disorder. The police
are here to preserve disorder."
1980 NBC broadcasts New York Jets' 24-17 win over Dolphins without audio. Here’s more football firsts http://www.profootballhof.com/history/release.jsp?release_id=1476
1982 Congress Passes the Boland Amendment halting aid to Nicaraguan contras. Which led to Ronald Reagan’s Iran Contra.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html
1983 Yasir Arafat and 600 loyalists evacuate Lebanon. http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue1/brubin.pdf
1987 the Dona Paz collides with the Vector. http://www.swishweb.com/Disasters/Shipwrecks/disaster02sw.htm
1988 Max Robinson, first black network TV anchor dies. http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bior2/robi08.html
1989 Operation Just Cause is launched against Noriega in Panama. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/just_cause.htm
1996 Carl Sagan scientist (Contact), dies at 62 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
1997 Denise Levertov poet, dies at 74 http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/41
Birthdays
1868-1938 Harvey S. Firestone http://www.firestoneag.com/about/history_1900.asp
1881-1965 Baseball owner Branch Rickey who brought Jackie Robinson into MLB.http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Rickey_Branch.stm
1902-1989 Communist turned neo-conservative Sidney Hook. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/04/09/neocons/
1922-2002 Director George Roy Hill http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001351/
1926 David Levine US painter
That was Then, This was Now
Speaking of The Graduate A sequel of sorts, Rumor has it, came out this week. Prior to filming an article
was written in the LA Times about this "hair brained" idea.
Next month, filming begins on what is certain to be one of the most controversial films ever: a sort-of un-sequel to the
seminal classic The Graduate. None of the players in the previous film are back: not Dustin Hoffman, not Anne Bancroft, not
Katharine Ross, not Mike Nichols, not Buck Henry. It all sounds as blasphemous as a sequel to Casablanca. The end result could
be like that suckfest The Sting II, in which different actors played the characters from the original. (Replacing Paul Newman,
Robert Redford and Robert Shaw were Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis and Oliver Reed, respectively.)
-------
In the present time warp Ebert and Roeper gave Rumor has it two thumbs up. Here’s the video. Review.
------
From the Celluloid Screen to NSA wiretapping. www.cursor.org has that story and more..
President Bush used a live radio address on Saturday to confirm that he authorized domestic wiretaps without warrants, and in a Monday morning press conference he called the disclosure of the ongoing program "a shameful act" and provoked Reuters to ask, 'What's in a name?'
December 19, 2005
Lets go with Bush & Bolivia
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his Island after 28 years, according to Defoe.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/defoe.htm for free download http://www.deadmentellnotales.com/onlinetexts/robinson/crusoe.shtml
1732 Benjamin Franklin begins publication of “Poor Richard’s almanac.” http://www.fact-index.com/p/po/poor_richard_s_almanac.html
1776 Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try
men's souls” http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/
1823 Georgia becomes first state to require birth registration. Here’s where to go for birth and health information
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm
1843 “A Christmas Carol.” http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/christmas.html by Charles Dickens is first published.
1854 Allan Wilson patents the sewing machine. Was he the first? Not really. http://www.dincum.com/articles/history_res.html
1871 Albert L Jones (New York NY), patents corrugated paper
http://www.closkey.com/mybrilliantmistakes/archives/000295.html
1903 The Williamsburg Bridge opens between Brooklyn and Queens. http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/williamsburg/
1907 an explosion at Jacobs Creek kills 239 coal miners. It was one of many mine disasters http://www.emergency-management.net/mine_fire.htm
1910 Rayon is commercially produced for the first time in PA
Here’s more on fabricating fabrics http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfabric.htm#swiss
1918 Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column (New York Globe) Originally titled champs and chumps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Ripley's_Believe_It_or_Not%22
1950 Tibet's
Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion Here’s the government in exile website
http://www.tibet.com/
1957 "The Music Man", starring Robert Preston, opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 1375 performances. Here’s
more on Musical Theater. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theatre
1971 CBS airs "Homecoming - A Christmas Story" (introducing the Waltons)
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/waltonsthe/waltonsthe.htm
1971 Stanley Kubrick's
X-rated "A Clockwork Orange" premieres
http://www.filmsite.org/cloc.html
1972 Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific ending the program of moon landings.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html
1974 Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as the 41st VP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nelson_Rockefeller
1980 Mutual Broadcasting cancels Sears Radio Theater
http://www.audio-classics.com/lsearsradiotheater.html
Birthdays
1790-1855 Arctic explorer William Parry http://www.allthingsarctic.com/exploration/parry.aspx
Edith Piaf (1915-1963) http://www.edithpiaf.com/
Television producer David Susskind (1920-1987) http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/susskinddav/susskinddav.htm
1939 Actress Cicely Tyson born in Harlem http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001807/
1940-1976 Phil Ochs anti-war folk singer (Joe Hill, War is
Over)
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/nov97carter.htm
1946 Singer Marianne Faithful. http://www.angelfire.com/moon/darkchamber/music/mu_ma.htm
That
was then, This was Now
President Bush spoke from the Oval Office last
night. Slate looks at how Operation Candor is
being reported from around the Country
In his
speech, President Bush highlighted last week's elections in Iraq as a step toward peace and stability, but warned that "this election will not mean the end of violence."
Bush maintained that the U.S.
is making steady gains in Iraq,
and raised the possibility of troop withdrawals in 2006. But responding to mounting skepticism about an unpopular war, President
Bush acknowledged the objections of war opponents, saying, "I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt."
A leftward trend in South America
continues with the election in Bolivia of Anti-Imperialist Evo
Morales
Evo Morales, known simply as Evo to his supporters, has promised to give
the country's indigenous people, who make up more than 50% of the population, a greater say in the running of Bolivia's affairs.
Many have felt left out, that a small group of elite businessmen and wealthy
families had been running the country for their own benefit for too long.
December 18, 2005
11:31 am est
December 17, 2005
1718 England declares war on Spain. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/sceptred_isle/1702.shtml meanwhile, in the Colonies http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/rev-col.htm
1791 the first one way street traffic regulation takes effect in NYC. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/transportation/newpage5.html
1821 Kentucky abolishes debtor prisons. http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/ObjectID/AC2120E1-EF35-4F59-B0BE3F47887A22DB/catID/575C3BE9-F0C1-448E-B5F43D22FE36E9F2
1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s "Nutcracker Suite" premiered in St. Petersburg. It was poorly received. http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/NutHist.html
1900 1st prize of 100,000 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too
easy http://www.mysteriousreality.com/UFO/ufo_history.asp
1900 New Ellis Island Immigration station completed costing $1.5 million. 2,125 immigrants were received that
day. http://brownvboard.org/brwnqurt/04-1/04-1a.htm
1903 the Wright Brothers motorized aircraft sustained flight for 12 seconds. http://www.first-to-fly.com/
1924 1st US diesel electric locomotive enters service for the Jersey Central. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/steamtown/shs5.htm For locophileshere’s more http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/loco/locohs03.shtml
1936 ventriloquist Edger Bergen kidded around with his friend Charlie McCarthy for the first time on TV. http://www.tvacres.com/puppets_charliiemccarthy.htm
1944 Japanese Americans are released from detention camps. http://www.jainternment.org/camps/court.html
1953 FCC approves RCA's black & white-compatible color TV specifications http://www.tvhandbook.com/History/History_timeline.htm here’s more from the IEEE http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history%5Fcenter/milestones%5Fphotos/colortv.html
1954 1st fully automated railroad freight yard (Gary IN) For train junkies http://www.railserve.com/Freight/North_America/Central/
1957 "Jingle Bell Rock" by Bobby Helms enters the charts. First rock and roll christmas song. http://www.railserve.com/Freight/North_America/Central/
1966 The Royal Guardsman Released "Snoopy versus the Red Baron." http://www.webfitz.com/lyrics/xmas.html
1969 Tiny Tim married Miss Vicky on The Tonight Show. http://www.tinytim.org/articles/carson.html
1976 Superstation WTBS in Atlanta went national http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBS_Superstation
Birthdays
1903-1987 Novelist Erskine Caldwell http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-521
poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASwhittier.htm
conductor Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pops/background/bios/fiedler.html
Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) http://www.queer-arts.org/archive/9809/cadmus/cadmus.html
1930 Robert Guccione http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/pornographers/bob-guccione/
1937 New Orleans Musician Art Neville. http://www.funkymeters.com/bio.html#art_neville
That was then, This was now
The renewal of the Patriot Act was filibustered and remains stalled in Congressional limbo.
Critics of the House-backed bill, which would extend 16 expiring provisions of the act, say it doesn't include adequate
safeguards for civil liberties. They have proposed a three-month extension of the law in its current form to work out differences.
But supporters of the law have said they might prefer to have it expire than subject it to future tinkering.
Frist
indicated that he would try to corral more votes over the weekend before Congress adjourns in the next few days for the holidays.
"The debate will continue on this very important bill," he said. "We will not see a short-term extension."
----
Shock Jock Howard Stern performed his final terrestial radio show yesterday before moving onto Sirius Satellite.
After Howard Stern addressed his fans for the last half hour of his show, the festivities moved to the Hard Rock Cafe in
Times Square, which was surrounded by a horde of 20-something men who spilled out into the street trying to get a glimpse
of the self-described King of All Media, who arrived atop a double-decker bus. The lucky ones who managed to get inside mingled
with the usual Stern dignitaries like Jeff the Drunk, Wendy the Retard, High-Pitch Eric, several strippers and Lady Bunny,
a drag queen
The smoking gun bids adieu to Howard. Here’s their favorite documents from the archives including a diagram of his
new penthouse bachelor pad.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/kingstern/kingstern.html?link=rssfeed
December 16, 2005
1653 Oliver Cromwell becomes lord protector of England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
1689 the British Parliament passes a bill of rights "the glorious revolution". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/stu_glorious_rev.shtml
1773 the Boston Tea Party took place http://www.americanrevolution.com/BostonTeaParty.htm
1838 the Boers defeat Zulu Chief Dingann in S. Africa. http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h37-af.html#s6 known as the battle of Blood River.
1893 Anton Dvorak's "New World Symphony" premieres http://www.answers.com/topic/antonin-dvorak
1916 Gregory Rasputin finally died Here’s more on the mad monk http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id291/pg1/
1903 the Majestic Theater in NYC employs female ushers for the first time. http://www.undelete.org/woa/woa12-16.html
1905 the first issue of Variety is published. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(magazine)
1915 Albert Einstein publishes his "General Theory of Relativity" http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html
1953 1st White House Press Conference (President Eisenhower & 161 reporters)
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/U/htmlU/uspresiden/uspresiden.htm
1965 W. Somerset Maughan died http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/maugham.htm
1969 British House of Commons votes 343-185 abolishing the death penalty http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/capital_hist.htm
1971 Don Mclean releases his classic 8 minute "American Pie." http://www.rareexception.com/Garden/Pie.php
1975 1st broadcast of "One Day at a Time" on CBS TV. Produced 209 episodes. http://www.angelfire.com/trek/proutsy/
1998 Lyndon Larouche is convicted of tax and mail fraud. http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc1.html
1991 UN reverses ruling that Zionism is racism by 111-25 vote. (13 abstain) . Here’s more on the UN and Israel http://www.cicweb.ca/publications/ForTheRecord/un.cfm .
Birthdays
1770-1827 Ludwig Van Beethoven http://www.lucare.com/immortal/bio.html
1901-1978 Anthropologist Margaret Mead http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/mead-shaping.html
1917 Science fiction writer Arthur Clarke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Clarke
1928-1982 Philip K. Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
1943 Stephen Bochco http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/bochcosteve/bochcosteve.htm
That was then, This was Now
Bush caves in on Torture Ban
Thursday's agreement, experts say, marked a recognition by the White House that the U.S. image overseas mattered in world
diplomacy, particularly in the aftermath of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the denial of U.S. court trials
to detainees held at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and headlines around the world about the secret prisons
-----
National Security agency secretly spied on US citizens without warrants after 9/11.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a
major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is
to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether
the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches
December 15, 2005
37 AD Rome burns. However, Nero did not play the fiddle. Neither was he in Rome. http://www.roman-empire.net/emperors/nero.html
1593 State of Holland grants patent on windmill with crankshaft. First windmills dated to 1200 http://webserv.nhl.nl/~smits/windmill.htm
1675 John Vermeer Dutch painter (Love Letter), dies at 43 http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/vermeer_jan.html
1791 the Bill of Rights is ratified when Virginia gives its approval. http://www.billofrights.com/
1810 1st Irish magazine in US, The Shamrock, an illustrated weekly is published until 1817. http://www.euroamericans.net/irish.htm and here’s some other publication dates by State. http://firestone.princeton.edu/microforms/npuslist/npusny.html
1877 Edison receives a Patent for the phonograph. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edcyldr.html
1890 Sioux Chief Sitting bull and 11 others are killed in Grand River SD. http://www.indigenouspeople.net/sittbull.htm
1915 British begin evacuation of Gallipoli in the Ottoman (turkey) empire. http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=worldwari&month=10272964&day=10272980
1944 the plane carrying Bandleader Glenn Miller disappears over the English Channel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Miller
1950 the NYC Port Authority opens. http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch4en/appl4en/ch4a2en.html It included the Port Authority Bus terminal.
1952 Christine Jorgenson undergoes the first sex change operation. http://www.mrjoel.com/christine_jorgensen.htm
1964 American Radio Relay League (organization for hams) founded http://www.ac6v.com/history.htm
1965 Beatles 65 is released. And the others from that year http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/1965a.htm
1969 Nixon announces 50,000 additional U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam. http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=vietnamwar&month=10272964&day=10272980
1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declared that Homosexuality is not a disease. http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/issues.html#21
1982 Football coach Paul "Bear " Bryant announces his retirement.. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1739&pt=Paul%20'Bear'%20Bryant
1995 Playboy goes back on sale after 36 year ban in Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playboy_(magazine)
Interesting Death dates the ides of December -. 31 years apart.
1966 Walt Disney animator, dies at 65, put in suspended animation
1997 Lillian Disney widow of Walt Disney, dies at 98
Birthdays
1832- Alexandre Gustave-Eiffel French engineer and architect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Eiffel
1892-1976 John .Paul Getty (http://www.cnn.com/travel/news/921216/getty.opening/getty.man/
1933 Comedian Tim Conway http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Tim%20Conway
That was then, This was Now
Will their be a Transit strike in NYC or will the MTA and TWU find a last minute settlement?
The TWU, which represents almost 34,000 bus and subway workers, is pushing for an 8 percent annual raise. The MTA is
offering 3 percent. The union wants more respect from management. The MTA wants more productivity from workers. The union
claims the MTA has a billion-dollar surplus. The mayor calls that amount "mythical."
-----
The Iraqi vote was heavy. Still too early to know the results. Stay tuned.
But what about those forged ballots coming in from Iran via tank trucks.
The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra,
after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found
several thousand partly completed ballots inside.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian
truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran
at different spots along the border.
The official, who did not attend the interrogation, said he did not know where the driver was headed, or what he intended
to do with the ballots
December 14, 2005
1793 1st state road authorized, Frankfort KY to Cincinnati OH
1849 1st chamber music group in US gives their 1st concert (Boston)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_music
1915 Jack Johnson becomes first black heavyweight boxing champion.
http://www.infiniteboxing.com/articles/jsands/071404.htm
1927 Iraq gains independence from Britain. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/countries/iq/iq_full.html
1933 Josephine Baker performs in Amsterdam
http://www.answers.com/topic/josephine-baker
1934 the streamlined steam locomotive goes into operation. http://www.steamlocomotive.com/streamlined/surviving/
1955 Tappan Zee Bridge
in New York opens to traffic
http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/tappan-zee/
1962 Mariner 2 flies past Venus. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past_missions.cfm
1963 Dinah Washington dies from an overdose of sleeping pills. http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?aid=2851
1964
actor William Bendix dies at 58. Remember
the Life of Riley? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000904/
1967 DNA is created in a test tube. Want to know more? Click
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/resources.html
1969 The Jackson Five make their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackson_Five
1976 Barbara Walters first special is aired. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/waltersbarb/waltersbarb.htm
1977 Saturday Night Fever premieres. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Fever
1984 Howard Cosell retires from Monday Night football. http://espn.go.com/abcsports/mnf/fromthebooth/s/throughtheyears.html
Birthdays
1503-1566 Nostradamus
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/nostradamus.htm
1922 60 minutes producer Don Hewitt. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hewittdon/hewittdon.htm
1946 Patty Duke Astin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Duke
1946 Jane Birkin London England, actress (Mrs Don Juan, Dark Places, Dust)
http://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6157.asp
That was then, This was Now
Are the elections fixed? If so
why don’t we hear about it from the Democrats?
Republicans build the voting machines,
Republicans write the secret software, Republicans count and compile the totals. The Republican machines allow no auditing
of the vote totals they report. So Republicans have the ability to “win” elections, regardless of the will of the voters.
There is compelling evidence that they have done just that.
Speaking of Democrats, Helen Thomas questions their lack of Courage. Hillary raised $500,000 at a New York fundraiser last night, introduced by Hubby Bill and
taking weak jabs at the President. Meanwhile Senator McCain (Torture legislation)
and that old conservative Democratic war hawk Murtha (The war is not winnable) are doing all the heavy lifting.
Instead of endorsing universal health care -- a topic that she knows a lot about -- Clinton is
busy co-sponsoring with Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, a law to bar desecration of the flag. Has anyone burned a flag lately?
Clinton is
a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, which might explain why she's busy pandering to conservatives
instead of staking out a leadership role on more important issues
The word is Cointelpro. It goes back to the 60’s and involves Government spying on anti-war protestors. “Deju Vu all over again” A 400 page defense department document has surfaced which includes notes on
a meeting of Quakers planning to peacefully oppose military recruitment at schools. Glad to see Homeland security has
it’s priorities in order. Allow New Orleans to sink and keep an eye on pacifists.
The DOD
database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place
far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war
protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident
mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s
National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
I wonder what Eugene McCarthy thought about all this before he died on Saturday
You do not have to have backed McCarthy in 1968 to see the parallels to
Vietnam, with its shifting military goals and the
empty promise of "peace with honor." But there will not now be another McCarthy.
Few Republicans question Bush's conduct of the Iraq War, and they quibble mostly over details.
Democrats are split. They fear the inevitable label of being called "soft on Iraq."
December 13, 2005
1204 Jewish Philosopher Maimonedes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides
1545 The council of Trent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent
1755 Sir Francis Drake sets sell from England to navigate the globe. http://www.sirfrancisdrakehistory.net/
1759 the first music store opens in Philadelphia.
1843 "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens published, 6,000 copies sold
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/46
1903 Italo Marcioni patents the ice cream cone. http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/icecream.html
1908 the Clip on Tie is invented. Here’s a history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cravat
1920 League of Nations establishes International Court of Justice in The Hague
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice
1924 Samuel Gompers organizer (American Federation of Labor), dies at 74
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgompers.htm
1937 The Rape of Nanking was begun in which 80,000 Chinese women were raped by the Japanese and 369,366 killed. http://www.tribo.org/nanking/pressrelease.html
1949 an attempt to revive the throwing of the Spitball is rejected by the American league. Here’s more from 1949 baseball
happenings http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/chronology/1949DECEMBER.stm
1950 James Dean begins his career by appearing in a Pepsi commercial. http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/133:0/James_Byron_Dean.htm
1956 Dodgers trade Jackie Robinson to Giants for pitcher Dick Littlefield & $35,000 Robinson retires
1961 Jimmy Dean's Big Bad John album is country music's 1st million $ seller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dean
1969 Arlo Guthrie releases Alice’s Restaurant. http://www.guthriecenter.org/main.shtml
1975 1st time Saturday Night Live uses a time delay (Richard Pryor hosts). On the same show. John Belushi performs
his first Samurai sketch on SNL. Here’s an interesting site on addiction. http://www.peele.net/lib/belushi.html and where he can be found on celluloid this month http://www.tv-now.com/stars/jonbelus.html
1978 the Susan B. Anthony coin is minted. http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/mint_history/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=Production
1981 Comedian Pigmeat Markham. http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2327/Pigmeat_Markham_comedian_extraordinaire
1993 Saddam Hussein is captured, hiding in a "spider" hole. Here’s more on the propaganda after the capture. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO312B.html
Birthdays
1903 Spanish guitarist Carlos Montoya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Montoya
1913-1998 Heavyweight fighter Archie Moore http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1998/Dec-10-Thu-1998/sports/10210771.html
1915-1983 Mystery writer Ross Mcdonald http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rossmacd.htm
1925 Actor Dick Van Dyke http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/V/htmlV/vandykedic/vandykedic.htm
That was then, This was now
Crips founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams was not pardoned by The Governator. Here’s an interview done two weeks ago on Democracy Now
AMY GOODMAN: And so, when do you feel like you started to change?
STANLEY TOOKIE WILLIAMS: Between the years of 1988 to 1994, and it's a continuous -- it's an incessant reality for
me. My redemptive transition began in solitary confinement, and unlike other people who express their experiences of an epiphany
or a satori, I never experienced anything of that ilk. Mine -- that wouldn't have been enough. I often tell people that I
didn't have a 360-degree turnaround; I had a 720-degree turnaround. It took me twice as much. Just one spin around wouldn't
have done it. I was that messed up, that lost, that mentacided, brainwashed. So, I was able to gradually in a piecemeal fashion
change my life slowly but surely through education, through edification, through spiritual cultivation, battling my demons.
And eventually, that led to me embracing redemption.
---
President Bush was asked the number of civilians killed in Iraq at his third "Victory" in Iraq speech
yesterday. Here’s the numbers from Iraqi Body count.http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
10:20 am est
December 12, 2005
1098 1st
Crusaders capture & plunder Mara Syria
http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/first_crusade.htm
1800 Washington DC established as capital of US
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/capital.htm
1897 Rudolph
Dirks' 1st Katzenjammer cartoon strip in New York Journal
http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/katzies/katzdex.html
1915 1st
all-metal aircraft (Junkers J.1) test flown at Dessau Germany
http://cip.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~vernalek/JunkersUS.html
1925 Last
Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rexa Shah Pahlavi takes over
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qajar_dynasty
1937 NBC
& RCA sends 1st mobile-TV vans onto the streets of New York.
http://www.newsday.com/features/custom/ithappened/newyork/ny-ihiny080404story,0,7632507.htmlstory?coll=ny-rightrail-bottompromo
1946 Tide detergent is introduced http://www.old-time.com/commercials/tides_in_soaps_out.html
1947 The Howdy Doody Show debuts
as a weekly show on NBC. http://www.howdydoodytime.com/
1953 Chuck Yeager floors his Bell
X-1A rocket plane to 2.5 times the speed of sound. http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/early_X_planes/Tech27.htm
1957 Jerry
Lee Lewis weds his cousin Myra Gale Brown, 13, while still married to his 1st wife, Jane Mitcham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lee_Lewis
1964 The Righteous Brothers release “You’ve lost that Lovin’ feeling.” http://www.righteousbrothers.com/bio.htm
1965 Vivian
Beaumont Theater opens at 65th St & Amsterdam Ave NYC
http://www.lct.org/history.html
1968 Arthur Ashe becomes 1st #1 black rated tennis player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe
1970 the Doors play their last
concert together in New Orleans. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/morrison.htm
1971 David Sarnoff US TV pioneer (RCA), dies at 80
http://www.time.com/time/time100/builder/profile/sarnoff.html
1976 Joe Namath plays last game
as a Jets. http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Namath_Joe.html
Birthdays
1745-1829
John Jay NY Chief Court Justice and member of Continental Congress http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/archives/jay/biography.html
1821-1880 Gustave Flaubert French novelist (Madame
Bovary) http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/flaubert.htm
1893-1973 Edward G. Robinson http://www.moderntimes.com/egr/egrb.htm
1915-1999 Frank Sinatra http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/sinatra.html
1918-1999 Jazz Singer Joe Williams
http://www.riverwalk.org/profiles/williams.htm
1923 Game show host Bob Barker.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barker
1924 Former Mayor Ed Koch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Koch
1929-1994 British writer John Osborne
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/452881/
That was then, This was now
From the Nation a Dictionary of Republicanisms.
Senate n. Exclusive club; entry
fee $10 million to $30 million
simplify v. To cut the taxes of
Republican donors.
staying the course interj. Slang. Saying and doing the
same stupid thing over and over, regardless of the result
stuff happens interj. Slang. Donald Rumsfeld as
master historian
voter fraud n. A significant minority
turnout
Arriana Huffington on yesterdays Meet the press Iraq round table. Former secretary
Albright.
It didn't seem to faze Tim that he had an unnecessary guest who
as well as having no portfolio broke no new ground and brought no new insight into the debate. He went right into his flaccid
"you said this in the past... you are saying something different now" gotcha thing
Political Animal on top books of the year for the Political Wonk. Here’s a few.
1. An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek
2. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King
3. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon
4. Collapse, by Jared Diamond
5. The Oxford History of the American People, Volume 2, by Samuel Eliot Morison
6. The Oxford History of the American People, Volume 3, by Samuel Eliot Morison
7. The Cartoon History of the United States,
by Larry Gonick
8. A Peace to End All Peace, by David Fromkin
9. Twilight in the Desert, by Matthew Simmons
10. The Pentagon's New Map, by Thomas P.M. Barnett
11. When Presidents Lie, by Eric Alterman
12.Before the Storm, by Rick Perlstein
13.Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
14.The World is Flat, by Thomas
Friedman
15.The Age of Sacred Terror, by
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon
16.The Working Poor, by David Shipler
17. Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
18.Perfectly Legal, by David Cay
Johnston
19.The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo,
by Rick Perlstein
20. The Law in Shambles, by Thomas Geoghegan
21.The Plot Against Social Security,
by Michael Hiltzik
22. The Sling and the Stone, by Thomas X. Hammes
23. The End of Equality, by Mickey Kaus
24. Survivor, by John Harris
25. America the Book, by Jon Stewart & Co.
Site of Note. Political Money line is a data base of money and lobbyists in Politics. Also known as legal bribery.
December 11, 2005
Eugene McArthey dies as does Richard Pryor
1620 Mayflower Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock. Here’s more on the most visited rock in New England. http://gonewengland.about.com/cs/sbostonsights/a/aaplymouthrock.htm
1844 is the date for the first dental use of Nitrous Oxide. http://www.anesthesia-nursing.com/ether.html
1882 the Bijou theater in Boston opens, entirely lit by electricity. Here’s more about Boston firsts. http://www.umkc.edu/imc/boston.htm
1901 Marconi sends first transatlantic cable from Cornwall to Newfdland. http://www.marconicalling.com/museum/html/events/events-i=30-s=6.html
1934 National League votes to permit night baseball (up to 7 games per home team) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_television_contracts#1930s
1936 King Edward VIII abdicates. http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page143.asp
1941 Germany and Italy declare war on US and the Japanese occupy Guam.
1953 KTVA TV channel 11 in Anchorage (CBS) becomes Alaska's 1st TV station http://www.jeaniegreene.com/akb.htm
1957 Jerry Lee Lewis marries his 13 year old third cousin Myra Gale Brown. http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/entertainers/music/jerry-lee-lewis/
1961 America’s first involvement in Vietnam as JFK provides helicopters and crews. Had he lived would he have remained
in Vietnam? http://hnn.us/articles/3446.html
1961 Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii" album goes to #1 & stays #1 for 20 weeks http://www.alaskajim.com/charts/weeklysingles/1961.asp
1961 "Please, Mr. Postman" by Marvelettes, released http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvelettes
1975 1st class postage rises from 10¢ to 13¢ . Here’s a postal timeline. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmailustimeline.htm
1981 Muhammad Ali loses his last fight, (61st) to Trevor Berbick. http://dvd-1.aldokkan.com/items/B00005YUP4.html
1984 Sam Cooke is shot in a Hollywood Motel. http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/c/Sam%20Cooke/sam_cooke.htm
1991 Robert Q. Lewis dies.. http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-44660
1992 WNEW AM radio on 1130 in NYC ends transmitting after 58 years http://www.wnew1130.com/history.shtml
Birthdays.
1803-1869 Hector Lou Berlioz French, composer (Manqué) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz
1918 Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSsolzhenitsyn.htm
1922 Writer Grace Paley. http://www.reaaward.org/html/grace_paley.html
1926-1984 Big Mama Thornton http://www.alovesuprememusic.com/BigMamaThornton.html
1931 Actress Rita Moreno. http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/vol4n32/ProfileMoreno-en.shtml
1939 Tom Hayden. http://www.tomhayden.com
That was then, This was now
For the last week regarding developments in Iraq check out http://www.cursor.org/
"Mr. Victory" is "talking as fast as he can," writes Richard Reeves, while laying out a "strategy to mask defeat" in Iraq.
-----
For pretty much everything else http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ The Huffington Post is a busy little site with a myriad of contributors. .
----
NPR’s On the Media for …. What the media isn’t or is doing. This week includes the Saddam Hussein Trial in Iraq. (listen online or via
ipod, mp3)
The trial of Saddam Hussein was back in session this week. Here we saw brief excerpts of courtroom theatrics. But in Baghdad,
viewers followed the trial's every twist and turn on TVs throughout the city. Brooke talks to L.A. Times correspondent Borzou
Daragahi about the spectacle of the Saddam trial as well as its larger backdrop - the heated campaigning of candidates in
next week's parliamentary elections
December 10, 2005
1869 women voted for the first time in the territory of Wyoming. Yep, Dick Cheney’s backwater state. http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suffrage_wy.html
1799 Metric system established in France http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=47&l=&c3=
1896 Alfred Nobel dies which becomes the date of the Nobel ceremony. Here’s more on how it came about http://www.irwinabrams.com/articles/oddcouple.html
1898 the Spanish Civil War ends and the U.S. acquires Guam from Spain. http://www.smplanet.com/imperialism/splendid.html
1919 National League votes to ban the spitball's use by all new pitchers http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/lispit.shtml
1927 Grand Ole Opry makes its 1st radio broadcast, in Nashville TN http://www.opry.com/MeetTheOpry/Intro.aspx
1931 Jane Addams (1st US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbiansinhistory/p/JaneAddams.htm
1936 King Edward VIII abdicates throne to marry Mrs. Wallis Simpson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson
1945 Preston Tucker reveals plan to produce the Torpedo, a new 150 MPH car http://www.tuckerclub.org/index.php
1953 Playboy magazine first goes on sale http://www.playboy.com/worldofplayboy/faq/firstissue.html with Marilyn Monroe Hefner’s first centerfold. http://www.marilynfineart.com/storyv2.html
1958 the first domestic passenger jet embarks from New York http://www.aviation-history.com/boeing/707.html
1959 the 4 male members of The Platters are acquitted of charges of aiding and abetting prostitution. Here’s more arcane
info from the Daily Bleed. http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/1210.htm
1961 Dr Ruth marries Fred Westheimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Westheimer
1964 Martin Luther King Jr. becomes the youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize.
1965 the Fillmore Opens in San Francisco. http://www.pbs.org/kqed/fillmore/learning/time.html
1967 Otis Reading and Bar-Kays die in a plane crash. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/237911p-204188c.html
1983 Last NFL game at Shea Stadium; Steelers beat New York Jets 34-7
1990 Armand Hammer dies. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_198.html here’s a bit more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer
1995 Worst snowstorm in Buffalo history, 37.9" in 24 hours (Starting Dec 9 at 7 PM, breaks previous record of 25.3"
in 1982. Here’s more extreme records. http://www.keno.org/vws/weather_records_2.htm
Birthdays
1914-1996 actress Dorothy Lamour (Mary Kraumeyer) http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/crosby/lamoubio.htm
1941-1996 Child actors Tommy Rettig (Lassie) http://www.lassie.net/tommy.htm
1941 Tommy Kirk Disney"s (Old Yeller) http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=38495&mod=bio
1941 Tim Considine (My Three Sons ) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0175919/
That was then, This was Now
Speaking of extreme weather, 150 Nations (not the US) agreed to continue the Kyoto Protocols on Greenhouse gas emissions
For its part the Bush administration, which rejects the emissions cutbacks of the current Kyoto Protocol, accepted only
a watered-down proposal to enter an exploratory global "dialogue" on future steps to combat climate change. That proposal
specifically rules out "negotiations leading to new commitments."
----
The Social Contract in the United States continued to erode (like the environment) as corporate pensions are either being frozen or frozen out. Take your choice. Verizon
is the most recent example
Last year, 71 of the nation's 1,000 largest companies froze or terminated pension plans, up sharply from 45 in 2003, according
to consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Nearly all were freezes, in which workers do not earn any new pension benefits,
but retain the right to eventually retire with benefits already earned.
Verizon's move drew attention partly for its
scope. Many companies have capped pensions incrementally, grandfathering older workers or current employees, while cutting
off pension benefits for new hires or younger members of the ranks.
December 9, 2005
10:29 am est
December 8, 2005
1894 Pope Pius IX proclaims Mary free of original sin.thanks to the dogma of immaculate conception. http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/immacu.htm
1886 the American Federation of Labor is organized in Columbus Ohio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Federation_of_Labor
1949 Chinese Nationalists move to Taiwan. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tw.html
1952 a pregnancy is depicted on TV for the first time. Thank you Lucy. 207 letters did come in against depicting pregnancy
on TV. http://www.tvacres.com/censorship_lucy.htm
1961 The Beach Boys release their first single "Surfin". http://www.classicbands.com/beachboys.html
1963 Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/root/12.html?sect=13
1978 Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir dies at the age of 80. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/meir.html
1980 John Lennon is shot by Mark David Chapman. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_2536000/2536321.stm
1980 The Bravo TV network premieres on cable that same day. Here’s more on Cable TV http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/cablenetwork/cablenetwork.htm
1984 Robert Mathews, leader of the White Supremacist group "The Order" is killed in a shootout with FBI agents. http://www.adl.org/backgrounders/an_phineas.asp
1985 Richard Secord asks Oliver North what he should do with left over covert arms funds from Iran. North says to send
it to the Contra’s. http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_09.htm
1992 David Letterman accepts CBS offer for a late night talk show. That same day we sent troops to Somolia.. The results
weren’t pretty. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/so.html
1995 The Grateful Dead disband. http://www.sfmission.com/gratefuldead/grateful_dead_history.htm
Birthdays.
1894 – 1961 James Thurber Writer remember the secret life of Walter Mitty. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/thurber.htm
1925-1990 rat packer Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Davis_Jr.
1933 Flip Wilson Comedian http://www.tvparty.com/flip.html
1936 Actor David Carradine . http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-14910
That was then, this was now
A Palestinian activist was found not guilty on abetting terrorism charges
Al-Arian didn't call a single witness on his behalf. That might have been because prosecutors, who had tapped Al-Arian's
phone for years and collected 20,000 hours of conversations, failed to present a single phone call in which violent terrorist
acts were plotted. As has become something of a post-9/11 custom, the terror indictments were a lot more convincing than the
actual terror trial.
--------
Also in Florida, an airline passenger was short fatally by air marshals at Miami International Airport. No explosives were found and he reportedly suffered from
bi-polar disorder. Is this going to turn into a case similar to the immigrant shot by undercover police in the London Underground?
Stay tuned.
Robert Scheer on the corruption investigations in Washington.
Selling firewater to the natives -- or in this case charging them $82 million for government breaks on slot machine and
other gaming licenses -- is not exactly what the high-minded prophets of the Republican revolution promised. And to see behind
the scenes as Christian right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grassroots
"pro-family" followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives,
is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportion
--------
The high minded Religious right played out the Religious correctness card with the President. Here’s a piece from commondreams on putting Christ back in Christmas.
So it seems to me that rather than waste tons of money and energy on worrying about whether we call this time of year "Christmas"
or just the "Holidays", I would suggest instead that these same people who are getting their knickers in a twist over that
whole issue go to some social service agency, sign up to volunteer and spend a day in a soup kitchen doling out meals to the
homeless, or sort clothing that goes out to the needy, or spend time in a nursing home visiting some lonely elderly people
whose family might live too far away to visit regularly, or go to a prison and talk to some of the prisoners and make them
feel a bit of dignity despite their incarceration
December 7, 2005
43
BC Roman writer Cicero(Marcus Tillius) is decapitated by Marc Antony. http://sangha.net/messengers/Cicero.htm
1661 the Colony of Massachusetts suspended its Corporal Punishment
Act which had been imposed on Quakers and other religious nonconformists. http://members.aol.com/WDWylie/1600-1699.htm
1783 William
Pitt Jr (24) becomes British premier
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRpitt.htm
1817 Captain Bligh (The Bounty)
dies in London.
http://www.plantexplorers.com/Explorers/Biographies/Captain/Bligh.htm
1842 the NY Philharmonic plays
its first concert. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/New%20York%20Philharmonic
1872 the HMS Challenger sets sail
on a three year oceanographic cruise. http://www.challengeroceanic.com/chal.htm
1912 Bust
of Queen Nefertiti found in El-Amarna, Egypt
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/nefertiti/p/nefertiti.htm
1941
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
is attacked by Japanese. “A day that will live in infamy”.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm
1945 Microwave
oven patented. First commercial oven cost $5000 weighed 750 lbs.
http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html
1972 America’s last moon mission is launched from
Cape Canaveral. Apollo 17. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1972-096A
1975 Thornton N Wilder US writer (Bridge of San Luis Rey), dies at 78
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/twilder.htm
1975 Indonesian
army occupies East Timor
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/EastTimor.asp
1986 President
Jean-Claude Duvalier flees Haïti
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1202857.stm
1987 Palestinian
(intifada) uprising against Israel in the West
Bank
http://www.pna.gov.ps/subject_details2.asp?DocId=1014 and another version
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/intifada.html
Birthdays
1542-1567 Mary Queen of Scots http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page134.asp
1761-1850 Marie Tussard creator of the wax museum. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Marie-Tussaud
Novelist Willa Cather (1873-1947)
http://www.gustavus.edu/oncampus/academics/english/cather/
1915 Actor Eli Wallach http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue06/features/eliwallach.htm
1917 Helen Gurley Brown editor-in-chief (Cosmopolitan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gurley_Brown
1919 Ellen Stewart actress/founder (La Mama Theatre Group)
http://www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/lamamatheater/theater.html
1928 dissident, linguist Noam Chomsky.
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
1956 Basketball’s Larry Bird http://www.nba.com/history/players/bird_summary.html
That was then, This was Now
History goes on as does the weather.
The Saddam Hussein trial continues with Saddam himself boycotting his own trial.
Saddam Hussein boycotted his own trial in Baghdad on
Wednesday, causing hours of chaotic delay before the court resumed with the former Iraqi president's chair empty.
His lead counsel told the judge Saddam, who had ended Tuesday's fourth session
by telling his judges to 'Go to hell', would be absent; the judge called the first witness of the day.Saddam's attorney, Khalil
al-Dulaimi, also said he would meet court officials after the day's hearings to discuss security for his team, following the
killings of two defense attorneys after the trial opened on October 19.
Saddam's place at the front of the penned-in dock, where he sits with seven
other defendants charged with crimes against humanity, was conspicuously vacant.
ABC finally announced (actually Dec. 5th) replacements (yes 2) for Peter Jennings on World News Tonight who died earlier this year from Cancer. Elizabeth
Vargas and Bob Woodruff
NPR had an interesting piece on a Pearl Harbor survivor’s attempt to find the identity of the unnamed
soldiers still remaining unidentified from the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
Sixty-four years ago today, just before
8 a.m. local time, Japanese forces attacked the U.S. Naval Station at Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii. By 9:45 a.m. the battle was over, but for the United States, World War II was just beginning.
The attack killed some 2,400 U.S. personnel, sending many of them to a watery grave. Of the bodies that were recovered,
25 percent were never identified. And they might have remained so, if not for the tireless work of 84-year-old retiree Ray
Emory
Condi Rice continues her European tour and her attempt to explain how the US is against Torture
(extraordinary Rendition) while at
home Vice President Chaney remains the point man on giving the CIA the right to use Torture. A German man has filed a suit against the CIA for his false rendition.
The case of Khaled al-Masri, 41, a German citizen
allegedly handed over to the US by Macedonian agents in 2004, helped spark controversy over so-called
"ghost flights" and secret "torture prisons".
Kuwaiti-born Mr Masri was seized close to the Macedonian
border as he headed towards Albania following what he has described as a row with his
wife in Germany. After being held for three weeks in the Macedonian capital,
Skopje, Mr Masri says he was beaten, handcuffed, blindfolded, drugged, and flown to a CIA prison in
Afghanistan.
Ford has dropped Ads for Jaguar and Landrover in Gay publications after pressure
from pro-family groups. www.fauxboycottofford.org ???
And that’s a taste of the News. For more listen to the BBC on the radio on
some public radio and TV stations. The Lehrer report proves useful and of course
the Faux news show known as The Daily Show is good for one’s sanity.
December 6, 2005
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes slavery. http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm
1865 the thirteenth amendment is finally ratified. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/help/constRedir.html That’s the abolition of slavery.
1876 1st crematorium in US begins operation, Washington PA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crematorium
1877 the Washington Post publishes its first edition. http://www.ketupa.com/wpost2.htm
1921 Huddie Ledbetter (leadbelly) dies at the age of 60. http://www.paddyg.f9.co.uk/igas/leadbelly.htm
1921 the Irish free state gains independence from Britain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland
1922 1st electric power line commercial carrier in US, Utica NY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
1956 Nelson Mandela is. arrested http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/etc/cron.html along with 150 South African activists.
1969 The Rolling Stones give a concert at Altamont speedway with the Hells Angels running security and three die. .
http://www.echoes.com/rememberaday/altamont.html A year later the documentary is released.
1982 an IRA bomb goes off in Bally Kelly disco Here’s an IRA timeline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/etc/cron.html
1983 a bomb on a Jerusalem Bus kills 6 Israeli’s. Here’s a middle east timeline http://www.merip.org/palestine-israel_primer/MERIP-I-P-timeline11-06-03.html
1985 the UK joins the star wars program. From the defense department a history http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/missiledefense/history.html
1988 Roy Orbison dies. at age 32. http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=160
Birthdays.
1822-1879 John Eberhard opened the first pencil factory in 1861 http://www.officemuseum.com/pencil_history.htm
1870-1946 Silent cowboy star William S. Hart http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pringle/silent/ssotm/Dec96/
1896-1983 Lyricist Ira Gershwin http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0314857/
1898-1995 Alfred Eisenstaedt photo journalist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Eisenstaedt
1932 Don King Cleveland OH, boxing promoter (Muhammud Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_King
That was then, This was Now
I suppose I should have something on the Alito Supreme Court Nomination. Let’s go to The Daily Kos who has been following the drama
. . You would think that Alito and his supporters would welcome a principled discussion of Roe. In fact, they want to change
the subject. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Alito about that letter seeking a promotion, she said he told her:
"First of all, it was different then. . . . I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job. And that was 1985." Rather
than defend his letter, in other words, Alito preferred to leave the impression that he might have been engaging in a bit
of opportunism. Does that mean that 20 years from now, he will say that his statements to members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee were simply those of an appeals court judge seeking a promotion and were never intended to be taken too seriously?
December 5, 2005
1776 Phi Beta Kapa fraternity is founded. http://www.pbk.org/about/history.htm
1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies. http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb00/Mozart.death.html
1854 Aaron
Allen of Boston patents folding theater chair. Here’s
more on science inventions from Today in Science. http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/12/12_05.htm
1876 Daniel
Stillson of Massachusetts
patents first practical pipe
wrench
http://www.adjustable.archivist.info/sstill.html
1876 Fire
at Brooklyn Theater kills 295, trampled or burned to death.
http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Newspaper/BSU/1876.Bklyn.Theatre.Fire.html Is this where the expression “Shouting fire in a crowded theater” originated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
1929 the first Nudist Organization,
The Nudist League for Physical Culture, is founded. Volleyball anyone. J http://www.nudiepants.net/history.html
1932 German
physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/eins-s03.shtml
1933 the 18th amendment
is repealed. Can I offer you a drink? http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/progress/prohib/prohib.html
1951 Dragnet Premieres. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/dragnet/dragnet.htm
1955 the AFL-CIO merge http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/laborday/laborleaders_pg5.html
1957 NYC passes the fair practices
law prohibiting discrimination in housing.
http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/article/collins.fair.housing
1964 “She’s not there” by The Zombies
and the Kinks “You really got me” entered the charts. Here’s more… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_in_music
1968 Graham Nash quits the Hollies
leading to Cosby, Stills and Nash. . http://www.graham-nash.com/
1974 "Monty
Python's Flying Circus" final episode airs on BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/m/montypythonsflyi_1299002137.shtml
1978 Pioneer Venus 1 begins orbiting
Venus after a May launch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Venus_project
1978 European
Union establishes EMS, European
Monetary System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
1991 Charles Keating Jr. is found
guilty of Savings and Loan Fraud. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Charles%20Keating
Birthdays
George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876)
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Charles%20Keating
Film director Fritz Lang (1890-1976
) http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2000_01/lang.html
Walter Elias Disney (1901-1966
) http://www.snopes.com/disney/waltdisn/frozen.htm .the creator of the uncertainty principal Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
Strom Thurmond (1902-2003 ) http://stromwatch.com/ Calvin Trillin in 1935. http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/bio.mhtml?id=18
Oh, and we can’t forget mass murderer Richard Speck who passed in 1991. http://www.crimelibrary.com/serials/speck/speckmain.htm
And here’s a more elaborate anarchist timeline history of this date known as The Daily Bleed. http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/1205.htm
That was then, This was Now
HNN has an interesting article on the role of the Christian Peacemakers in Iraq, 4 of whom are currently
being held captive.
Imagine
if Sunni insurgents decided to face down the greatest power on earth with a human chain of non-violent resistance. Or if Hamas
threw human shields rather than human bombs at Israel.
This is the kind of movement that the four member of the Christian
Peacemaker Teams currently held hostage in Iraq are trying to build, and it's precisely the model that the peace movement
should have, but didn't, take as its strategy for challenging the Bush Administration and its imperial ambitions after the
invasion. Instead, less than a dozen CPTers have stood virtually alone against 150,000 "coalition forces" and an equally violent
and unscrupulous insurgency--a scandal whose reflection on the movement is every bit as devastating as Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo
are for the US army.
.
Bulgaria and the Ukraine will be withdrawing their troops from Iraq
this month and Secretary of State Rice is headed for Europe where she will have to deal with the protests
against secret CIA Prisons and Rendition. Here’s a taste
Rice broadly defended the practice known as rendition, in
which terror suspects are whisked away from countries without formal extradition. She said rendition was recognized by international
law and has been used by many countries even before the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Rice asserted that the U.S. does
not transport terrorism suspects "for the purpose of interrogation using torture" and "will not transport anyone to a country
when we believe he will be tortured."
In NJ the joys of bear hunting to alleviate Suburban Sprawl has begun.
December 4, 2005
First snow of season in NYC - See more weather below
1621 The date of the first thanksgiving. http://pilgrims.net/plymouth/thanksgiving.htm
1807 Prince Hall the black Masonic leader dies. http://www.mindspring.com/~johnsonx/whoisph.htm
1833 the anti-slavery society is organized. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAantislavery.htm
1915 the Ku Klux Klan receives a charter http://www.africanaonline.com/orga_ku_klux_klan_knights.htm
1918 President Wilson sails for Versailles Peace Conference in France, 1st chief executive to travel outside US while
in office http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_league.html
1923 Cecil B DeMille's 1st version of "Ten Commandments" premieres http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014532/
1927 Duke Ellington opens at The cotton Club in Harlem. http://www.abbeville.com/jazz/062.asp
1931 "Frankenstein" opens at Mayfair http://www.filmsite.org/fran.html
1942 James Hoey became the first alien granted citizenship on foreign soil..
1942 FDR orders the dismantling of the WPA (Works Progress Administration).
1952 is the year of the Killer Fog in London. http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session4/27/greatsmog52.htm
1961 Gene Chandler released "Duke of Earl." http://www.tsimon.com/chandler.htm and 1961 Smallest New York Knicks crowd at 49th St Madison Square Garden-1,300 (due to snowstorm) Here’s more on MSG.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/madisonsquare.htm
1964 Baseball approves a free-agent draft http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/baseball/mlb/12/02/landmark.freeagency/
1981 Falcon Crest premieres on CBS http://www.popculturemadness.com/Music/The-80s-TV.html and President Reagan allows CIA to engage in domestic surveillance. http://www.saveourcivilliberties.org/en/2004/10/770.shtml also known as executive order 12333.
1990 Madonna appears on Nightline to defend "justify my love" after it was banned on MTV. And gas prices in
NYC hits $1.60 per gallon due to Gulf Crisis.
1993 Frank Zappa dies from cancer. http://www.hotshotdigital.com/WellAlwaysRemember.3/FrankZappa.html
1997 NBA suspends Latrell Sprewell for 1 year for attacking his coach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrell_Sprewell
Birthdays
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881 ) essayist http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/carlyle.htm
1822 English feminist Francis Crabbe England was born She founded the anti-vivisection society. http://www.navs.org/
Abstract painter Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) http://www.artelino.com/articles/wassily_kandinsky.asp
1948 Southside Johnny http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/southside/
That was then, This was Now
1882 10øF lowest temperature for this date in NYC 1982 72øF highest temperature for December in NYC
The left coaster on the numbers behind President Bush’s proclamations of a healthy economy.
Just a note about this morning’s jobs report. According to the Economic Policy Institute, of the 215,000 jobs that the Labor Department reported being added in the month of November, nearly 77%
of them were in services (165,000), of which nearly 40,000 of that was in food services. As to be expected, there was also
an increase in construction, arising in part from the post-Katrina reconstruction boom in the South. And there was an expected
uptick in retail hiring heading into the holiday season. However, manufacturing went up only 26,000 jobs in the last
two months.
December 3, 2005
10:16 am est
December 2, 2005
1804 Napoleon becomes Emperor,
placing a crown on his own head.
1816 the first Savings Bank opens
in Philadelphia.
(Savings Fund Society) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSFS
1823 James Madison makes his doctrine.
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/history/A0833774.html
1887 Charles Dickens does his first
public reading in the U.S. in NYC.
1927 the First Model A Ford is
sold for $385.00. http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/bv/model_a.htm
1929 Peking man is discovered.
1929 Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer
was born in a Montgomery Ward Christmas Brochure. http://www.umkc.edu/imc/reindeer.htm
1932 "Adventures
of Charlie Chan" 1st heard on NBC-Blue radio network http://www.otr.com/tl_oct_dec.shtml
1933 Fred Astaire's first film, "Dancing Lady" is released
http://www.answers.com/topic/fred-astaire
1939 New York's La Guardia Airport began operations as an airliner
from Chicago
lands, 1 minute after midnight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport
1949 the only known non-accidental
release of radiation takes place In Hanford Oregon. known as The Green Run Experiment. http://archive.tri-cityherald.com/thyroid/history.html
1957 the first Atomic Energy Power
plant opens in Shippingport PA. http://www.asme.org/history/roster/H047.html and Frank Gannett Newspaper publisher dies. http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/gannett.html
1966 the Pope says it’s okay to
eat meat on Fridays.
1970 the Environmental Protection
Agency begins operation http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/faqsaboutehso.htm#create operation headed by William Ruckleshouse.
1974 Cowhide,
rather than just horsehide, can be used to make baseballs. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7713scit3.html
1986 Desi Arnez dies of lung cancer.
He also drank too much. http://www.abacci.com/art/category2.aspx?cat=Desi+Arnaz&catID=7397
1994 Jury
finds Heidi Fleiss guilty of running a call girl ring. Now she’s moved her act to a stud farm in the desert. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/17/people.fleiss.ap/
Birthdays
1859-1891 French Painter George Seuret http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/seurat/
1863-1951 William Randolph Hearst.
http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/willh.html
1914-1999 Actor Ray Walston http://obits.com/walstonray.html also known as My Favorite Martian
1923-1977 Opera Singer Maria Callas http://www.serendipity.li/callas/steegbio.html
1931 Former Attorney General Edwin
Meese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese He’s now with the Heritage Foundation..
That was then, This was Now
The 1000th person (Kenneth Boyd in N. Carolina)
was put to death today since the Death Penalty
was put back on the table by the Supreme Court n 1977.
Public opinion polls show that nearly
two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, but that is a significant drop from the peak, in 1994, when 80 percent
of respondents told Gallup pollsters they were in favor of capital punishment. When asked if they would endorse executions if the alternative
sentence of life without parole were available, support fell to 50 percent.
According to an Insight Magazine story Vice Pres. Cheney is no longer the point man on security policies.
The sources said the indictment and resignation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby marked the final straw
in the deterioration of relations between President Bush and Mr. Cheney. They said Bush aides expect that any trial of Mr.
Libby, Mr. Cheney's long-time chief of staff, would open a closet of skeletons regarding such issues as Iraq, the CIA and the conduct
of White House aides
Speaking of sources the Pentagon has gotten into Journalism in Iraq. Paying off Iraqi’s to print positive stories about progress being made in Iraq.
Is Karen Hughes behind the beautifying of the war?
The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication
in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future."Western press and frequently those self-styled
'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our
nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.
But far from being the heartfelt opinion of
an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar
covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military
contractors and officials said."
Could this be the brainchild of Bush advisor Karen Hughes who learned
a lot of what she knows from White House domestic policy advisor Karl Rove, and who is currently in charge of selling the
U.S. image in the Arab world?
December 1, 2005
Aids awareness Day
4:15 pm est
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