Now we're into Baltimore summer weather.. 90 degrees and sunny.
"The Sun shall not be up so soon as I, to test the fair adventure of the day!"
Henry VI (Shakespeare)
01. Important Information
National Geographic: The heaviest potato on record weighed ten pounds 14 ounces.
02. Why?
The Week: Oregon police got a call to report that a chicken was trying to cross the road. The chicken's attempt to cross an extremely busy highway had snarled traffic for miles. By the time that the police got there, the chicken had apparently answered the question and disappeared.
03. Agonistic misotheists
Free Inquiry: Some people who struggle with a negative relationship with God, but who believe in that God, are called agonistic misotheists. People like Mark Twain, Rebecca West and Elie Wiesel. Joyce Salisbury writes that she feels it would be easier for such people to become atheists, especially Elie, based on his Holocaust experience. However, such people are not able to give up their faith, and instead, curse the deity that has such a stranglehold on them.
04. An Amazing Newspaperman
In 1835, editor James Gordon Bennett issued the first edition of the New York Morning Herald, a sheet devoted to colorful and in-depth reporting of crime. Bennett was the first to publish that kind of material, which is now more or less the norm.
He led a campaign against prudery in 1840. At that time, the word "petticoat" was taboo. Bennett thought that was ridiculous and wrote: "Petticoats--Petticoats--petticoats-- there, you fastidious fools, vent your mawkishness on that." Thereafter, he was called some interesting names: obscene vagabond; leprous slanderer; profligate wretch; turkey buzzard.
After a gang beat him senseless in the street, his wife left him, saying: "He had no friends at the beginning, he has made none since, and he has none now." He died in 1871.
05. Result of Deportation
Baltimore Sun: At least five undocumented immigrants recently deported back to their homes in Honduras have turned up dead at the morgue in San Pedro Sula. (What do you think will happen to children that we return?)
06. I love you, boss!
Funny Paper: The new York customer service company United Health Programs of America was blessed with a federal lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its requirements that employees pray to God on the job and say "I Love You!" to their managers. The EEOC reported that this activity was suggested by an aunt of United's owner, who got the idea from an obscure "truth and compassion" movement called: "Onionhead."
07. I didn't know that!
Harvard Medical School: Although tea sellers want us to belief that decaffeinated tea is just as rich in beneficial flavonoids as regular tea, that is not true, because the decaffeination process reduces the flavonoid content drastically. (Now, if I just knew what the hell a flavonoid is...)
08. Turn me off
California Institute of Technology scientists accidently found that by manipulating neurons in mouse brains, they could cause them to lose interest in eating. They hope that similar neurons are in human brains.. this could be the solution all of us chubby persons are longing for.
09. Birth of the blues?
BBC Music: Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, in c.545 BC, was passing a blacksmith's shop and noticed how hammers of different weights striking against anvils could create agreeable harmonies. This caused him to experiment by plucking a string. He found that a string's vibrations, moving in sync, produced pleasurable sounds. (And the rest is musical history.)
10. The Future is Here
New York Times: Fifty years ago (1964) guests to the New York World's Fair experienced GM's Futurama II and G.E.'s Progressland, which gave them a view of a future that was full of promise. Isaac Asimov (fellow Mensan and famous SciFi writer) made predictions about the world of 2014. I will try to get a copy of it. I'm told that his prophecies have been "taken apart" or "laughed at" and I want to know why.
11. How to know
Funny Paper: Jo Brand sez: "How do you know if it's time to wash the dishes and clean your house? Look inside your pants. If you find a penis in there, it's not time."
12. The Opera
Victor Book of Musical Fun: "Eugene Goossens reports this incident during his engagement as conductor of an opera company in Liverpool. In the last act of Die Goetterdaemmerung there are two drops, one showing the Gods in Valhalla being consumed by the flames and a lower drop which accounts for the fire. Something went wrong at this particular performance and -- though the top appeared, showing the Old Gods being merrily toasted.. the bottom drop failed in its duty, and instead the rear wall of the stage was exposed on which was printed a tremendous NO SMOKING sign. Needless to say the bottom dropped out of that performance in more ways than one."
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1 comment:
Here's Isaac's article: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html
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