Killer Bees, Poetry, Etc.

    
Tucson Weather Today
 

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The bees are active in Arizona these days. Both Tucson and Phoenix have suffered attacks from huge swarms of killer bees (africanized honey bees) during the last few days. Some victims have reportedly been taken to area hospitals with hundreds of stings over their bodies.

 

Killer bees are really Africanized Honey Bees. They have come by their "killer" moniker because they will viciously attack people or animals that unintentionally stray into their territory. The Africanized Honey Bee colony does not have to be disturbed to provoke the bees; even simple noises or vibrations have been known to cause an attack.

The sting of the Africanized Honey Bee is no more potent than your garden variety honey bee and they look pretty much the same. What makes AHBs more dangerous is that they are more easily provoked, quick to swarm, attack in greater numbers, and pursue their victims for greater distances. The AHB colony can remain agitated longer and may attack up to a quarter of a mile away from the hive. AHB colonies can be very large, and they are not particularly selective about the location of their hives. The Queen Africanized bee can lay up to 1,500 eggs a day.

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The Writer's Almanac recently featured a poem that stirred forgotten ashes of dampened, long cooled and buried recollections from my discarded memory pit and brought then swirling into my here-and-now realm of consciousness. It is titled 'Smoke,' written by Faith Shear and it invokes in me the sad but true atmosphere of a particular era, the middle of the twentieth century.

 

Even though I don't expect anyone to click the poem's link, I simply can't stop myself from providing it.

LINK

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FRIVOLOUS FACTOID

On this day, May 4, in 1990, Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida after his electric chair malfunctioned three times, causing flames to leap from his head. Tafero's death sparked a new debate on humane methods of execution. Several states ceased use of the electric chair and adopted lethal injection as their means of capital punishment.

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WORD FOR TODAY

nicotine
noun
-  a colorless, poisonous alkaloid, C10H14N2, derived from the tobacco plant and used as an insecticide. It is the substance in tobacco to which smokers can become addicted.
-  a harmful substance contained in tobacco.

Nicotine is a potent parasympathomimetic alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants (Solanaceae). It acts as a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist. It is made in the roots and accumulates in the leaves of the plants. It constitutes approximately 0.6–3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco and is present in the range of 2–7 µg/kg of various edible plants. It functions as an antiherbivore chemical; therefore, nicotine was widely used as an insecticide in the past and nicotine analogs such as imidacloprid are currently widely used.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

 

George Frederick Will
(born May 4, 1941)

George Will is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics. In 1986, the Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America."

Will has also written two best-selling books on the game of baseball, three books on political philosophy, and has published eleven compilations of his columns for the Washington Post and Newsweek and of various book reviews and lectures.

His column is syndicated to 450 newspapers.

Will is also a news analyst for ABC since the early 1980s and was a founding member on the panel of ABC's This Week with David Brinkley in 1981, now titled This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Will was also a regular panelist on television's Agronsky & Company from 1977 through 1984 and on NBC's Meet the Press in the middle and late 1970s.

Audrey Hepburn
(May 4, 1929 – January 20, 1993

 

Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen Ruston) was a British actress and humanitarian.

 

Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She has since been ranked as the third greatest female screen legend in the history of American cinema and been placed in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

After appearing in several British films and starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi, Hepburn played the Academy Award-winning lead role in Roman Holiday (1953), later performing in successful films like Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Switzerland in early 1993 at the age of 63.

Randy Travis
(born May 4, 1959)

 

Randy Travis is an American country music singer and actor. Since 1985, he has recorded 20 studio albums and charted more than 50 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and 16 of these were number one hits. Considered a pivotal figure in the history of country music, Travis broke through in the mid-1980s with the release of his album Storms of Life, which sold more than three million copies. The album established him as a major force in the Neotraditional country movement.

Paul Xavier Gleason
(May 4, 1939 – May 27, 2006)

 

Paul Gleason was an American film and television actor, known for his roles on television series such as All My Children and films such as The Breakfast Club, Trading Places and Die Hard.

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It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life.
--Jackie Mason

EXTRA

Cinematic trailer for 'Injustice: Gods Among Us'

I don't get it.
    

Tobacco -- U.S. Govermental Shame

Glamorous Photos of Kids Smoking

The elected lawmakers of the government of the United States of America are complicit in the murder of American citizens; they continue to aid and abet the growing, manufacturing, and marketing of tobacco products even though they (and every 21st century American) now know that smoking tobacco kills smokers.

Why? Because tobacco usage is so wonderfully profitable. Tobacco is highly addictive. Tobacco addiction is unbelievably lucrative. The industry provides jobs. The sales provide outlandish profits to multi-millionaire company owners. The taxes levied on tobacco products provide many, many dollars to corrupt government officials and uncaring lobbyists.

That's Why!

Except for the follow the money motive, there is no legitimate excuse for this or any other government-sanctioned wholesale murder.

And History will surely reveal the shameful truth.

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Tucson Weather Today


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Regarding HISTORY: On this day, March 27 in 1973, the actor Marlon Brando declined the Academy Award for Best Actor for his career-reviving performance in The Godfather. The Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather attended the ceremony in Brando’s place, stating that the actor “very regretfully” could not accept the award, as he was protesting Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans in film.

Brando was the second performer to turn down a Best Actor Oscar; the first was George C. Scott, who politely declined to accept his award for Patton in 1971 and reportedly said of the Academy Awards hoopla: “I don’t want any part of it.” Scott had previously declined a Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Hustler (1961).

Interesting details about this subject here

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WORD FOR TODAY

complicit  (kuhm-plis-it)
adjective
Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime.

An individual or group of individuals is complicit in a crime if he/she is aware of its occurrence and has the ability to report or stop the crime, but fails to do so. As such, the individual or group effectively allows criminals to carry out a crime despite possibly being able to stop them, thus making the individual or group a de facto accessory to the crime rather than an innocent bystander.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


David Janssen

 Born Mar 27, 1931
Died  Feb 13, 1980

David Janssen was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive (1963–1967), the starring role in the 1950s hit detective series Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957–1960), and as Harry Orwell on Harry O.

Mariah Carey

 Born Mar 27, 1970
Age:   42 years old

Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and philanthropist. Carey released her self-titled debut studio album Mariah Carey in 1990; it went multi-platinum and spawned four consecutive number one singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

With her success with hit records Emotions (1991), Music Box (1993), and Merry Christmas (1994), Carey was established as Columbia's highest-selling act. Daydream (1995) made music history when its second single "One Sweet Day".

In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Quentin Tarantino

Born Mar 27, 1963
Age:   49 years old

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor.

His career began in the late 1980s, when he wrote and directed My Best Friend's Birthday; its screenplay would form the basis for True Romance. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of Reservoir Dogs (1992); regarded as a classic and cult hit, it was opined as the "Greatest Independent Film of All Time" by Empire magazine. Its popularity was boosted by the release of his second film, Pulp Fiction (1994), a neo-noir crime film that became a major critical and commercial success, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Paying homage to 1970s blaxploitation films, Tarantino released Jackie Brown in 1997, an adaptation of the novel Rum Punch.

Kill Bill followed six years later -- released as two films, Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004) -- a highly stylized "revenge flick" in the cinematic traditions of Chinese martial arts, spaghetti westerns and Italian horror. He released Death Proof (2007) as part of a double feature with friend Robert Rodriguez under the collective title Grindhouse. His long-postponed Inglourious Basterds (2009) became Tarantino's second highest-grossing film to date ($321 million), which tells the fictional alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's political leadership. His most recent and highest grossing work is Django Unchained (2012), a western film set in the antebellum era of the Deep South, receiving critical acclaim.

Sarah Vaughan

Born Mar 27, 1924
Died:  Apr 3, 1990

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century." Nicknamed "Sailor" (for her salty speech), "Sassy" and "The Divine One", Sarah Vaughan was a Grammy Award winner. The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her its "highest honor in jazz", the NEA Jazz Masters Award, in 1989.


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A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
--Everett Dirksen
(U.S. Senator, 1950–1969)

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.
--Sophocles