Wishing You Happiness Throughout This Day

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Tucson Weather Today

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I recently read a short biographical piece about Lenny Bruce which contained two sentences that both startled and started me to thinking. Those two sentences were: "He died in 1966 of a heroin overdose, still waiting to hear an appeal of his case. It wasn't until 2003 that Governor George Pataki granted him a posthumous pardon."

How do you make sense of a "posthumous" pardon, or for that matter, a posthumous anything?

When a person is dead, he (or she) is dead. He (or she) is unable to recognize a change in his (or her) earthly status. Or for that matter, he (or she), no longer having a functional brain, no longer can care about such mundane and strictly earthly matters.

So, what does it matter that George Pataki pardoned him?

I can only imagine with what utter contempt Lenny Bruce might have responded to Pataki's seeming beneficence.

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Christmas Sparrow is the title of a poem by Billy Collins, and it's a good one.

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Did You Know . . .?

stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

Supposedly, on this day in the year 0, Jesus was born.

Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born. The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in a Roman almanac that tells of a Christ's Nativity festival led by the church of Rome in 336 A.D. The precise reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 remains obscure, but most researchers believe that Christmas originated as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

The word Christmas entered the English language originally as Christes maesse, meaning "Christ's mass" or "festival of Christ" in Old English. A popular medieval feast was that of St. Nicholas of Myra, a saint said to visit children with gifts and admonitions just before Christmas. This story evolved into the modern practice of leaving gifts for children said to be brought by "Santa Claus," a derivative of the Dutch name for St. Nicholas--Sinterklaas.

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WORD FOR TODAY

beneficence
noun
1.  The state or quality of being kind, charitable, or beneficial.
2.  A charitable act or gift.

Beneficence comes from the Latin word benefactum, meaning "good deed." That's exactly what beneficence is -- helping someone just because you care, not because you want to be praised for being nice. Giving your time, skills, or even a donation of money or items shows beneficence. This word can also describe the character of a person who is helpful, caring, and compassionate.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Humphrey DeForest Bogart

(Dec 25, 1899 - Jan 14, 1957)

Humphrey Bogart was an American actor and is widely regarded as an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.

Sissy Spacek

(born December 25, 1949)

Sissy Spaceck is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her roles as Holly Sargis in Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands, and as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie (based on the first novel by Stephen King) for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as country star Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter. She also received Oscar nominations for her roles in Missing (1982), The River (1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986) and In the Bedroom (2001).

Rodman E. "Rod" Serling

(Dec 25, 1924 - June 28, 1975)

Rod Serling was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone.

Sir Isaac Newton

(Dec 25, 1642 - March 20, 1727)

Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of the infinitesimal calculus.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos.

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The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
--George Carlin

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The Coward In Winter

Winter officially began today, December 21, 2013 at 12:11 a.m. EST, marking the slow return of the sun making the days become longer for those north of the equator. The day itself is the darkest and shortest day of the year, when the sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky. On this day, the United States will receive only 9 hours and 32 minutes of daylight.

Why is Christmas tied to the Winter Solstice?

Long before there was a man called Jesus, the winter solstice was celebrated as a the return of the sun. In Scandinavia, the time would be marked by burning large logs -- believing that each spark from the fire would represent a new pig or calf in the new year. In Rome, early Romans observed Saturnalia, a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, and Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome.

The early Christian Church decided to "adopt" December 25 as the day to celebrate the birth of Christ in an effort to absorb pagan celebrations and popularize the holiday.


Note: How Jesus Got His Name is the title of an interesting piece I read yesterday.

Tucson Weather Today

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"A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once."
--William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar


"'The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one...' (The man who first said that) was probably a coward.... He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them."
--Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms


The concept of cowardice should probably be deprecated, because really what it boils down to is having a certain set of priorities and a certain level of risk averseness that cannot necessarily be objectively proven better or worse than someone else's.
--Essay: Courage and cowardice


I have nothing to say, at this time, regarding my personal thoughts on courage or cowardice. I was going to; had it pretty well prepared in my thoughts. But then I realized that to do so could be hurtful to close friends and especially to family members. Also, I do not feel that I am intelligent enough yet to offer a true and definitive opinion that makes much sense.

If ever I feel a pressing need to expound in print upon these traits I will do so in fictional form.

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Did You Know . . .?

When lightning strikes it can reach up to 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1970, rock star Elvis Presley was greeted at the White House by President Richard M. Nixon. Presley's visit was not just a social call: He wanted to meet Nixon in order to offer his services in the government's war on drugs.

On December 31, Nixon wrote a thank-you note to Presley for the gift of a World War II-era Colt .45 pistol, and for visiting him at the White House. He said nothing about enlisting Presley's aid in the war on drugs, however.

Presley died from heart failure in 1977, which the coroner's report said was due to "undetermined causes."

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WORD FOR TODAY

craven
adjective
1.  cowardly; contemptibly timid.
2.  lacking even the rudiments of courage; abjectly fearful.
noun
a coward.

A craven man is no Superman or Spiderman, nor is he a firefighter or a soldier. A craven man is the opposite of those guys: he has not an ounce of courage.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Jane Fonda

(born December 21, 1937)

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She won two Academy Awards, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and received movie awards and nominations in more than 50 years as an actress.

After 15 years in retirement, she returned to film in 2005 with Monster-in-Law, followed by Georgia Rule two years later. She produced and starred in exercise videos released between 1982 and 1995, and again in 2010.

Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland

(born 21 December 1966)

Kiefer Sutherland is an actor, film producer, and film director. He is best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox series 24 for which he won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Satellite Awards. He also starred as Martin Bohm in the Fox drama Touch.

Stand by Me was the first film Sutherland made in the United States. He played the neighborhood bully in this coming of age story about the search for a dead body. Sutherland has appeared in more than 70 films, most notably Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, A Few Good Men, Flatliners, Young Guns, The Vanishing, The Three Musketeers, Eye for an Eye, Dark City, A Time To Kill, and The Sentinel.

Sutherland was born in London, the son of Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, both of whom are successful Canadian actors.

Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano

(born December 21, 1957)

Ray Romano is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter and voice actor, best known for his roles on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and voicing Manny in the Ice Age film series. He appeared in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age.

Samuel Leroy Jackson

(born December 21, 1948)

Samuel L. Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor, Morgan Freeman, and the director Spike Lee. After gaining critical acclaim for his role in Jungle Fever in 1991, he appeared in films such as Patriot Games, Amos & Andrew, True Romance and Jurassic Park. In 1994, he was cast as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.

Jackson has since appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance, The 51st State, Jackie Brown, Unbreakable, The Incredibles, Black Snake Moan, Shaft, Snakes on a Plane, Django Unchained, as well as the Star Wars prequel trilogy and small roles in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Inglourious Basterds.

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"The world was full of cravens who pretended to be heroes."
--George R.R. Martin

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Christmas Day 2011

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Wishing all who read this a happy holiday!

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Again,

Wishing all who read this a happy holiday!

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