HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIKE

 

Tucson Weather Today


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TRIVIA

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, May 23, in 1934, wanted outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police officers as they attempt to escape apprehension in a stolen 1934 Ford Deluxe near Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

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WORD FOR TODAY
    
austerian
noun
 Pejorative. A person who advocates austerity, that is, the cutting government expenditures, particularly social expenditures, in an effort to cut governmental deficits. (A comic formation based on the word "austerity" blended with the word "Austrian," since austerity policies are associated with the "Austrian School of Economics")
adjective
of or pertaining to policies advocated by austerians or to austerians themselves.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


Michael William Chambers
(Born May 23, 1960)

Drew Allison Carey
(born May 23, 1958)

Drew Carey is an American actor, comedian, sports executive, and game show host. After making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey eventually gained popularity starring on his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and serving as host of the U.S. version of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both of which aired on ABC.

Karen Duffy
(born May 23, 1962)

Karen Duffy is an American model, television personality, and actress. She has had small roles in a handful of films including Dumb & Dumber, and by 1995 she was working as a correspondent for documentary film-maker Michael Moore on his television shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth.

Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers
(May 23, 1910 - November 22, 1986)

Scatman Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980. He was also a prolific voiceover artist, and provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the animated TV version of The Harlem Globetrotters, Jazz the Autobot in The Transformers, the title character in Hong Kong Phooey, and Scat Cat in the 1970 film The Aristocats.

Joan Henrietta Collins
(born 23 May 1933)

Joan Collins is a British actress, author and columnist. After making her stage debut in A Doll's House at the age of 9, she was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.

At the age of 22, Collins headed to Hollywood and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958).  She starred in two films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins: The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979). Returning to her theatrical roots, she played the title role in the 1980 British revival of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and later had a lead role in the 1990 revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. In 1981, Collins landed Alexis Carrington Colby, the role for which she is perhaps best known, in the long-running 1980s television soap opera Dynasty.

By the time the soap opera had been cancelled, Collins followed in her sister's footsteps and published her first novel Prime Time (1988) which became a bestseller despite critical pans. Despite a protracted legal battle with Random House in 1996, she has since published many books: both fictional, non-fictional and autobiographical. Flamboyant in her personal life and in roles she pursues, Collins continues to act in theatre, film and television in a career that has spanned more than 60 years.


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“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
--Tacitus

Adam's First Wife

 

Tucson Weather Today


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Teach Not Preach is the title of a blog written by Jim Morrison, a World Religion teacher in a public school who willingly shares his thoughts and experiences. "For nearly eighteen years," he writes, "I have taught a world religion course in a public high school in Red Wing, Minnesota." He continues: "What I do is very rare and controversial, and people often assume that what I am doing is illegal. It is not. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that teaching about religion in public schools is not only legal but necessary for a student’s understanding of the world."

In his May 1, 2013 entry he  writes: "My students are completely surprised to learn about Lilith, Adam’s first wife."

More

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The Writer's Almanac Bookshelf has a short interview with Faith Shearin. Just a wee bit of insight into the mind of a poet.

Faith Shearin’s first collection, The Owl Question (2004), won the May Swenson Award, and her second book, The Empty House (2008), helped earn her a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has appeared regularly in Ploughshares, Poetry East, and North American Review, and in several anthologies, including Sweeping Beauty: Contemporary Women Poets Do Housework and The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poets.

Interview

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TRIVIA

Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, May 16 in 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its first awards, at a dinner party for around 250 people held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California.

At the time of the first Oscar ceremony, sound had just been introduced into film. The Warner Bros. movie The Jazz Singer--one of the first "talkies"--was not allowed to compete for Best Picture because the Academy decided it was unfair to let movies with sound compete with silent films.

The first official Best Picture winner (and the only silent film to win Best Picture) was Wings, directed by William Wellman. German actor Emil Jannings won the Best Actor honor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh, while 22-year-old Janet Gaynor was the only female winner. After receiving three out of the five Best Actress nods, she won for all three roles, in Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise.

A special honorary award was presented to Charlie Chaplin.

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WORD FOR TODAY

equivocate
Verb
Use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself.
Synonyms
prevaricate

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Megan Denise Fox
(born May 16, 1986)

Megan Fox is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001, with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the Hope & Faith television show. In 2004, she made her film debut with a role in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. In 2007, she co-starred as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster film, Transformers, which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Later in 2009, she starred as the eponymous lead in the film Jennifer's Body.

Fox is also considered one of the modern female sex symbols and has appeared in magazines such as Maxim, Rolling Stone and FHM.

Henry Jaynes Fonda
(May 16, 1905 - August 12, 1982)

 Henry Fonda was an American film and stage actor. He made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins.

Fonda made his Hollywood debut in 1935, and his career gained momentum after his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, a 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel about an Oklahoma family who moved west during the Dust Bowl. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts and 12 Angry Men. Later, Fonda moved both toward darker epics as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and lighter roles in family comedies like Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball.

Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity

Janet Damita Jo Jackson
(born May 16, 1966)

 Janet Jackson is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television appearances, and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture since the early 1970s. The youngest child of the Jackson family, she began her career appearing on the variety television series The Jacksons in 1976 and went on to appear on other television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times and Fame.

Tracey Gold
(born May 16, 1969)

Tracey Gold is an American actress and former child star best known for playing Carol Seaver on the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains. In early 2009, she co-hosted with Fred Roggin on the live show GSN Live.

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"I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones."
L. Frank Baum

Pursuit Of The Trivial

Tucson Weather Today


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While walking past the Emeritus Assisted Living and Retirement Home on Speedway Boulevard near Pantano, I couldn't help noticing how young, vibrant, and alive was the greenery surrounding the facility. All except for one tree, way to the back of the building. It stood alone, as close to death as could be but somehow still clinging to a shred of life.

It's weird, isn't it, how an ancient leafless tree, bent, gnarled, and dry, reaching for the lifegiving light of the limitless sky outside an Old Folks Home can be a visual metaphor picturing the last days of a human life.

And how one old man, observing such a thing, can feel a kind of kinship -- with an ugly old tree.

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I have been watching the television show Jeopardy ever since it began. And while playing along I have demonstrated again and again, both to myself and to whomsoever watched with me, that I possessed a nearly eidetic memory. But as I have aged, I find myself unable to retrieve the answers swiftly enough to beat the contestants. And it's getting worse as the years fly by. It won't be long, I fear, before I will have to stop watching that show. For the sake of my ever failing self-image, my fading feelings of self-worth.

Slowly dying is a sorrowful thing to experience.

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Why Is Trivia Good For You?

Your brain is like a muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it. Taking tests, especially those on topics with which you are unfamiliar, forces you to use your brain. The television show, Jeopardy is a good example of trivia tests. It's a fact that people who remain mentally active are less likely to have dementia and will have better memory into old age, Searching for answers is more active than simply reading a book

Here is an easy trivia question:

In which year did Japan attack the United States, leading to American entry into World War II?

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, May 15 in 1942, gasoline rationing began in 17 Eastern states as an attempt to help the American war effort during World War II. By the end of the year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ensured that mandatory gasoline rationing was in effect in all 50 states.

Ration stamps for gasoline were issued by local boards and pasted to the windshield of a family or individual's automobile. The type of stamp determined the gasoline allotment for that automobile. Black stamps, for example, signified non-essential travel and mandated no more than three gallons per week, while red stamps were for workers who needed more gas, including policemen and mail carriers. As a result of the restrictions, gasoline became a hot commodity on the black market, while legal measures of conserving gas--such as carpooling--also flourished. In a separate attempt to reduce gas consumption, the government passed a mandatory wartime speed limit of 35 mph, known as the "Victory Speed."

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WORD FOR TODAY

eidetic
adjective
of, pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail.

Eidetic memory, commonly but erroneously referred to as photographic memory or total recall, is a psychological or medical term, popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with extreme precision. The distinction between photographic memory and eidetic memory is simple. Perfect visual recall is photographic memory such as reading a newspaper once and remembering it 10 years later as mentioned above, while eidetic memory is recalling more than just the visual information.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


James Neville Mason 

(15 May 1909 - 27 July 1984)

James Mason was an English actor. After achieving stardom in his native Great Britain, he made the transition to the United States and became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, starring in iconic films such as A Star Is Born, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Lolita, North by Northwest, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Bigger Than Life and Julius Caesar.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler
(born May 15, 1981)

Jamie-Lynn Sigler is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as young Meadow Soprano on the HBO television series The Sopranos.

Joseph Cheshire Cotten
(May 15, 1905 - February 6, 1994)

Joseph Cotten was an American film, stage and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair. He first gained worldwide fame in the Orson Welles films Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), for which Cotten was also credited with the screenplay. He went on to star in such popular films as Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Duel in the Sun (which remains one of the top 100 highest grossing films of all time when adjusted for inflation), Love Letters (1945), Portrait of Jennie (1948) and The Third Man (1949).

Madeleine Korbelová Albright
(born May 15, 1937)

Madeleine Albright was the first woman to become the United States Secretary of State. She was nominated by US President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0. She was sworn in on January 23, 1997.

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Why is it trivia? People call it trivia because they know nothing and they are embarrassed about it.
--Robbie Coltrane

Answer to Trivia Question:
The year was 1941

5-13-13

 

Tucson Weather Today


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TRIVIA

While on a walk across America to prove that people are basically good, Fred Turner was robbed and pushed off a bridge. He said he'll try again someday.

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WORD FOR TODAY

allocate
Verb
Distribute for a particular purpose.
Synonyms
allot - assign - apportion - appropriate

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On May 13, 1985 Police Burned Down a Philadelphia Neighborhood. Eleven people were killed and more than 60 homes were destroyed as a result of the police bombing the heavily-armed home of the radical group "MOVE."  The police were attempting to end a two-day siege.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


Beatrice "Bea" Arthur
(May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009)

Bea Arthur was an American actress, comedienne, and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both roles.

Stevie Wonder
(born May 13, 1950)

Stevie Wonder (born Stevland Hardaway Judkins) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and was a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day. Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You".

Stephen Tyrone Colbert
(born May 13, 1964)

Stephen Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.

Joe Louis
(May 13, 1914 - April 12, 1981)

Joe Louis (born Joseph Louis Barrow) was an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber, Louis helped elevate boxing from a nadir in popularity in the post-Jack Dempsey era by establishing a reputation as an honest, hardworking fighter at a time when the sport was dominated by gambling interests.

Louis' championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 26 championship fights; a 27th fight, against Ezzard Charles, was a challenge to Charles' Heavyweight title and so is not included in Louis' reign. All in all, Joe was victorious in 25 successful title defenses, a record for the heavyweight division. In 2005, Louis was ranked as the #1 heavyweight of all-time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked #1 on The Ring's list of the 100 Greatest Punchers of All-Time.

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"The career of J.M. Barrie shows how useless schools of journalism or literature are to produce the real writing man or woman."
--The Writer's Almanac