Jots & Tittles: The Light Of Her Smile

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While wandering the intentional wilderness of the whimsical Web I paused at the picture of an anonymous woman astride a spirited horse. I had a good reason for downloading and saving it, but I do not now remember what that reason was. My mindset has changed (as it so often seems to do these days) - and yet the image continues to fascinate me. Could it be the silent cowgirl's enigmatic smile? I have heard that this has happened before, this far-ranging curiosity engendered in the viewer by a simple complex smile on an unobtrusive lady of the times.

There is a story here that needs to be told. The lady and her horse... and her smile.

I want so much to have written this story.

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The Bringer Of Light

There are surprisingly many devout (though ignorant) Christians who believe that Lucifer (the Morning Star) is another name for Satan and is also called the Bringer Of Light - that this creature is a fallen angel and brought 'sin' into the world... in the form of knowledge.

Who then, is this bringer of light? And why do we assume that light represents knowledge?

Thomas Jefferson said, "He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."

I might be closer to the truth, then, than are most of Earth's human beings.

Get it?

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Did You Know . . .?

Mormons love Jello so much that it is Utah's official state snack food and the biggest region where the Mormons live is called the "Jell-O Belt."

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, January 29 in 1979 Brenda Spencer killed two men and wounded nine children as they entered the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. Spencer blazed away with rifle shots from her home directly across the street from the school. After 20 minutes of shooting, police surrounded Spencer's home for six hours before she surrendered. Asked for some explanation for the attack, Spencer allegedly said, "I just don't like Mondays. I did this because it's a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays."

Spencer, who pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, is currently serving a term of 25 years to life at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California. She has been denied parole four times, most recently in 2005.

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WORD FOR TODAY

illumination
noun
1. lighting or light. "higher levels of illumination are needed for reading"
2. a display of lights on a building or other structure.
3. PHYSICS: another term for luminance.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck

(born January 29, 1945)

Tom Selleck is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as the private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum, P.I. (1980 to 1988), based in Hawaii. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker novels. Since 2010, he has appeared as NYPD Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the drama Blue Bloods on CBS-TV.

Oprah Winfrey

(born January 29, 1954)

Oprah Winfrey is an American talk show host, actress, and producer. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Katharine Juliet Ross

(born January 29, 1940)

Katharine Ross is an American film and stage actress. She rose to fame for starring in two of the most popular films of the late 1960s: as Elaine Robinson in The Graduate, and as Etta Place in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She also starred in The Stepford Wives in 1975 and won another Golden Globe for Voyage of the Damned in 1976.

Sara Gilbert

(born January 29, 1975)

Sara Gilbert is an American actress, best known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1988 to 1997, as co-host and creator of the daytime talk show The Talk and for her recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory.

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There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
--James Thurber

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