Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The Best Job I Ever Had

    
 
 
Tucson Weather Today

____________________


Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
--Pablo Picasso


I have worked a good many different jobs in my long life before reaching the age of retirement, and the one position I really felt I was meant to do was cruelly taken from me by circumstances completely beyond my control.

But that's a story for another day.

Many stories for many days.

The wind picked up yesterday afternoon and once again the mountains to the north were obscured by dust in the air. The wind blew with gustlike regularity through the night. And yes, the surface of the swimming pool again was (not covered) littered with leaves and other foliage.

And the wind is now moderate.

Writing about myself. Good God Almighty! Why do I keep this up?

_____


Did You Know . . .?
You would have to consume 1,500 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes to overdose.
Note: You don't believe it... give it a try.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1915 at 2:12 p.m., in the waters of the Celtic Sea, the 32,000-ton ship Lusitania was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship's boilers. The Lusitania sank within 20 minutes. Germany justified the attack by stating, correctly, that the Lusitania was an enemy ship, and that it was carrying munitions.

Though the United States was officially neutral at this point in the war, Britain was one of the nation's closest trading partners. The United States formally entered World War I on April 6, 1917.

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WORD FOR TODAY

dichotomy
noun
1.  division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2.  division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action. 
3.  Botany: a mode of branching by constant forking, as in some stems, in veins of leaves, etc.
4.  Astronomy: the phase of the moon or of an inferior planet when half of its disk is visible.

Wikipedia says: A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts. It is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts...

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
 

Darren McGavin
(May 7, 1922 - Feb 25, 2006)
Darren McGavin was an American actor best known for his portrayal of the grumpy father in the film A Christmas Story, as well as for the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He appeared as the tough-talking, funny detective in the 1950s television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. From 1959-1961, McGavin starred in the NBC western series Riverboat, first with Burt Reynolds and then with Noah Beery, Jr., and in later years, he had a recurring role in the sitcom Murphy Brown, as the title character's father.



Anne Baxter
(May 7, 1923 - Dec 12, 1985)
Anne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Razor's Edge (1946), All About Eve (1950) and The Ten Commandments (1956).



Ivan Sergei
(born May 7, 1971)
Ivan Sergei is an American actor known for his work in television. He first became well known when he starred in John Woo's 1996 film Once a Thief. His next series was starring with Amanda Peet in Jack & Jill. From 2003 to 2004, he starred on Crossing Jordan, and then in 2004 was part of the cast of the NBC series Hawaii.

Sergei has also had roles in If Someone Had Known, Dangerous Minds, Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?, The Opposite of Sex, and 10.5. He has guest starred on Touched by an Angel, Cybill and Party of Five. In 2005 and 2006, he starred in Charmed. He also had a minor role in The Break-Up. He co-starred with Jenny McCarthy in Santa Baby and guest-starred in the October 2008 CSI: Miami episode "Raging Cannibal".



Traci Elizabeth Lords
(born May 7, 1968)
Tracy Lords is an American film actress. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic videos (she was 16 years old in her first movie in 1984) and Penthouse magazine, later becoming a television and B-movie actress. Lords starred in Not of This Earth. In 1990, she appeared in John Waters' Cry-Baby. Other movies on her resume include Shock 'Em Dead, Blade, Tommyknockers, Black Mask 2: City of Masks and Chump Change.

In addition to movies, Lords has also made many appearances in television series, including Wiseguy, Married... with Children, MacGyver, Highlander: The Series, Tales from the Crypt, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Gilmore Girls, and Will & Grace among others, along with recurring roles in Profiler, Melrose Place and Roseanne.

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The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy.
--George R. R. Martin

NASA TV
    

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Takin' It Easy With Eva

    
 
Tucson Weather Today

____________________


"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
--Horace Mann


I asked Eva what I should write about today. She licked my hand, turned around in place a couple of times, lay down on the carpet, yawned and closed her eyes.

"You're right," I said.

_____


Did You Know . . .?

Two Domino's Pizza employees in North Carolina were arrested in 2009 after a video surfaced on the internet that showed one of them putting cheese up his nose while preparing sandwiches, farting on salami slices, and blowing his nose on the food as the second employee filmed.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1937 the airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew members. Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenburg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, "Oh, the humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenburg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

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WORD FOR TODAY

education
noun
1.  the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
2.  an enlightening experience.

Wikipedia defines education as being, in its general sense  a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of others, but may also be autodidactic.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


George Timothy Clooney
(born May 6, 1961)
George Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. He  made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998). In 1999 Clooney took the lead role in Three Kings. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of Ocean's Eleven.

He made his directorial debut with the biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently gained Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). In 2013, he received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the film Argo, alongside Ben Affleck and Grant Heslov.



Amy Hunter
(born May 6, 1966)
Amy Hunter is an American actress. She has had roles on a number of television series and daytime soaps, co-hosted The Comedy Channel's Night After Night, and went on location for ESPN's Women in Sports. Her theater work includes the starring role as Maria in West Side Story, Beneathea in A Raisin in the Sun, and the green-eyed sister in Words of Women.



Anthony Charles Lynton Blair
(born May 6, 1953)
Tony Blair is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007.



Adrianne Palicki
(born May 6, 1983)
Adrianne Palicki is an American actress best known for her roles in Legion (2010), Red Dawn (2012) and in the television series Friday Night Lights (2006–2011). In 2013, she played Lady Jaye in G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

__________

"The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet."
--Yehuda Amichai

NASA TV

    

Monday, May 5, 2014

Today Is Cinco De Mayo

 
 
    
Tucson Weather Today

____________________


"Every year thousands of Americans mistakenly refer to cinco de mayo as Mexico’s Independence Day."
--Joe Baca


The day before yesterday (Saturday) I noticed a typed letter posted on the wall above the boxes of the mail station at my apartment complex, Toscana Cove. It was affixed so high that it was difficult for me to read, even with using my strong, Dollar Store reading glasses. But the gist of it was that the day before a man had jumped the fence around the swimming pool in the late-night darkness and gone for a swim, a swim that was his last. By some accidental means the interloper had drowned.

The police were called, but that was all the information on the message. I tried to find more info by checking the internet - News, Police, etc. - but found nothing. I will check in with the office staff when I return to the apartment next weekend.

It seems that life does indeed go on in the world, even when I am not present.

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Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is a subject about which I had no knowledge until recently. After viewing an eye-opening Bill Moyers video things changed. Now I know what it is and why it is so important.

According to Moyers, the U.S. government has upheld the principle of “Net neutrality,” the belief that everyone should have equal access to the web without preferential treatment. But now, Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and a former cable and telecommunications top gun, is circulating potential new rules that reportedly would put a price tag on climbing aboard the Internet.

But be warned: If you are one of the few who are able to think more than minimally, this short video will reinforce any government distaste you may already harbor.

View Net Neutrality

Also,

Slate has something to say about this latest affront to the American People.

_____


Did You Know . . .?

After their relationship turned sour, Adolph Hitler's only male heir, hie nephew William Patrick Hitler, fled to the United States, joined the navy and fought against Nazi Germany in World War II.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, May 5 in 1862, during the French-Mexican War, a poorly supplied and outnumbered Mexican army under General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated a French army attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. Victory at the Battle of Puebla represented a great moral victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful foreign nation.

Today, Mexicans celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla as Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in Mexico.

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WORD FOR TODAY

quiff
noun
1.  a lock or curl of hair brought forward over the forehead.
2.  ( slang) a woman, especially one who is promiscuous.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


Brian Douglas Williams
(born May 5, 1959)
Brian Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004.



Tammy Wynette
(May 5, 1942 - Apr 6, 1998)
Tammy Wynette was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of country music's best-known artists and biggest-selling female singers. She was a country music icon. Wynette was called the "First Lady of Country Music", and her best-known song, "Stand by Your Man", was one of the best-selling hit singles by a woman in the history of country music.



Vincent Paul Kartheiser
(born May 5, 1979)
Vincent Kartheiser is an American actor known for playing Connor in Angel and Pete Campbell in Mad Men.



Tina Yothers is an American actress and singer. Beginning a career as a child actor at the age of three, she is best known for her role as Jennifer Keaton on the hit NBC series Family Ties, as well as for her roles in numerous television films throughout the 1980s and early 1990s including The Cherokee Trail, Crash Course, and Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story among others.

__________

"After all these years, it’s still embarrassing for me to play on the American golf tour. Like the time I asked my caddie for a sand wedge and he came back ten minutes later with a ham and rye."
--Chi Chi Rodriguez

NASA TV

    

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Guest Blogger 5-4-14


Electric Fanatic

Part of our whole-house makeover was a large generator. After we'd put so much money into the glorified fish tank (our 125-gallon reef aquarium), we hated to see a prolonged power outage destroy it, and the power does go out here quite often. Usually only for a couple of hours, but once for twelve, and a blackout like that would kill all our coral, and possibly our fish.

I was skeptical, but if Harry wanted a generator, sure, we'd get one. My only question was whether it would run my computer.

So Harry got us a generator. (For you electronic nuts, it's a Briggs & Stratton 10KW unit, about four feet by five feet in size.) Some nice man came and hooked it up to power and gas (if the electricity and natural gas are both out, we're out of luck, but at least we don't have to buy diesel) and set it to do it's weekly cycle on Sunday morning.

Weekly cycle? My generator lessons had begun: the generator, once a week, kicks itself into gear for about half an hour (sounds like me on the weekend). It runs and then shuts itself down. Making sure it still works, I guess.

We went along that way for a good, long while. Then the time changed, and I thought maybe the generator ran too early in the morning on Sunday. It's not a really noisy unit, but it does make noise. I asked Harry to reset the time on the weekly cycle, and he set it for Thursdays at 5pm. I wrote in my planner to check the next Thursday to see if it ran.

The next Thursday I got home, brought in the mail, let the dog out, marveled over the blue lights on the aquarium (the "dawn" cycle starts at 3pm), got my email, sorted through all the paper mail, and did assorted other chores. Soon the dog wanted out a second time (his routine) and this time I waited at the back door for him. As I was leaning there, I heard a monotonous hum. Puzzled, I tracked it down to the (you guessed it) generator. I checked the time.

3:36 p.m.

I checked my planner. Yep, "check the generator at 5." Why was the generator running at 3:30? I scratched my head and wondered about it for a minute, then decided maybe we'd not got the time right. I let the dog back in and went back to the things I needed to do. Then I realized I was hungry, and went to nuke some frozen food. Standing at the microwave, I again noticed a monotonous hum. Incredulous, I looked outside, and sure enough, the generator was still merrily thrumming along. The time was 4:45pm.

With an absent look on my face, I closed the outside door and went back inside. "Ding!" The microwave proclaimed my food ready-to-eat. I shook my head. Why would the generator be running? It was well past the time the weekly cycle should have been over, if the thing started between 3 and 3:30, like I thought, and not the 5 we'd expected.

Unless...

I ran to the Green Room window and looked out. The bar, however, is gone, so I couldn't check whether I had power by noting their neon Budweiser sign. Looking around, I realized I couldn't see any lights at all which would tell me if my section of the world had power. The sun still shone, so the house way over there across two streets wasn't lit up yet. I dug out my electric bill and called the number of my electric company.

After pushing several numeric choices, I was treated to a recording which stated they were aware of my power outage. The power had been off since 3:06pm.

I marveled. I laughed. I kicked up my heels and danced around the house. I went and visited every piece of equipment I'd used since I came home: house lights, aquarium lights, computer, trash compactor, microwave. I visited the ones we never think about, which are always there: aquarium pumps, refrigerator, beer dispenser.

Each and every one worked just fine.

I reveled in the feeling of control and power, and I delighted in the knowledge that my house - alaHouse, the house with something extra - had electrical power when every other house on my block was dark. I microwaved my food again, to reheat it, and ate.

At 5:36pm, there was a minor flicker in the lights. I wondered what had happened and went to check on the generator. I looked out and there it was, humming along. So what was the flicker? As I stood watching, the generator gave out a couple of chortles and powered down. Apparently, the flicker was my wonderful generator giving control back to the electric company. I was once again just like everyone else on the block.

But inside, I knew I was special. Inside, I knew alaHouse was special, and all the work we'd done throughout 2005 was special, too. I laughed and went back inside.

Yesterday I found out it wasn't a fluke, either. At about 4:45pm, the power went out. A huge thunderstorm massaged our valley with lightning, and one of the bolts found an electrical substation. Three towns were plunged into relative darkness.

Inside alaHouse, Harry and I paused and began to count. At 30, the generator rumbled to life. At 60, the lights came back on. For nearly three hours, we played pool, ate dinner, and watched television, while the rest of the area went out to eat or wondered what to do.

The generator at alaHouse rocks.


Copyright 2014 Michelle Hakala
http://www.winebird.com/








   

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Home Again, Temporarily...

     



____________________


When you write non-fiction, you sit down at your desk with a pile of notebooks, newspaper clippings, and books and you research and put a book together the way you would a jigsaw puzzle.
--Janine di Giovanni

I'm back home for the weekend but will return Sunday evening to reside with Eva for another week. She will be accompanied in her home for the next two days by Cedric and Tycho.

A curious thing happened yesterday. I received an email from a man who asked me to remove a semi-nude photo of a celebrity from one of my earlier blog entries. He said he had taken the (autographed) picture and he owned the copyright, and that he would rather it not be bandied around the internet. I removed it immediately and replied to his email letting him know that I had complied with his wishes.

_____

Did You Know . . .?

The population of Ireland still hasn't returned to where it was before the Potato Famine of 1845 to 1852.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomed approximately 4,000 women attending a women's division meeting of the Democratic National Committee to Washington D.C. He and his wife Eleanor's plans to host the event at the White House, however, had to be modified at the last minute, as they had originally expected only 100 guests. Documents recounting that day do not reveal exactly how many women showed up at the White House on May 3, nor where on the grounds FDR addressed them.

FDR's openness to the idea, originally Eleanor's, reflected his support for women's political advocacy.

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WORD FOR TODAY

conundrum  [kuh-NUHN-druhm]
noun
1.  anything that puzzles.
2.  a puzzling question or problem
3.  a riddle, the answer to which involves a pun or play on words, as What is black and white and read all over? A newspaper.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


(May 3, 1933 - Dec 25, 2006)
James Brown was an American recording artist and musician. One of the founding fathers of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century popular music and dance, he is often referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" in a career that spanned six decades,



(born May 3, 1975)
Christina Hendricks is an American actress. She is most known for her role as Joan Harris on the AMC television series Mad Men and as Saffron on the FOX series Firefly.



(born May 3, 1975)
Dule Hill is an American actor. He is known for his roles as personal presidential aide Charlie Young on the NBC drama television series The West Wing, and as pharmaceutical salesman-private detective Burton "Gus" Guster on the USA Network television comedy-drama Psych. He has also had minor roles in the movies Holes and She's All That.



(born May 3, 1979)
Genevieve Nnaji is a Nigerian actress and singer. In 2005 she won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Nnaji started her acting career as a child actress in the then popular TV soap opera Ripples. In 1998 at the age of 19 she was introduced into the growing Nigerian film industry with the movie "Most Wanted". Her subsequent movies include Last Party, Mark of the Beast and Ijele. Nnaji has starred in over 80 Nollywood movies.

__________

Golf is a puzzle without an answer. I've played the game for 40 years and I still haven't the slightest idea how to play.
--Gary Player

NASA TV

   

Friday, May 2, 2014

Death Penalty And A Funny Poem

    
    
Tucson Weather Today

____________________
 

"Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments."
--Guy de Maupassant


After watching and listening to the various TV News reports about the recent botched execution in Oklahoma I was shocked at the media response, especially those using the incident to promote the seemingly inhumane aspects of the death penalty and using it to call for abolishing the death penalty.

After all, this event was just another one of the many examples of governmental and institutional incompetence.

More at Botched Execution


Don't get me wrong; I am neither for or against the death penalty. I don't have to have an opinion; I am not a judge. But...

It seems a bit surprising (to me) that after all these years Medical Science could not have developed a simple and effective method to painlessly perform a surgical procedure that will almost instantly transform a living human being into a non-living cadaver.

As they do in most hospital-based major surgeries, a doctor can administer sufficient anesthetics to render the patient unconscious and completely oblivious to pain. The doctor can then surgically sever the nervous system between the brain and the remainder of the body, stop the beating of the heart, and thereby deliver the patient into a permanent state of death.

I'm just sayin'...

_____


Yesterday I found a funny poem that was featured at The Writer's Almanac. It was titled The Pig. Since it is in the public domain and the poet is unknown, I am reproducing it here:

 The Pig
 by Anonymous
 
 It was the first of May
 A lovely warm spring day
 I was strolling down the street in drunken pride,
 But my knees were all a-flutter,
 And I landed in the gutter
 And a pig came up and lay down by my side.

 Yes, I lay there in the gutter
 Thinking thoughts I could not utter
 When a lady passing by did softly say
 'You can tell a man who boozes
 By the company he chooses' --
 And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

_____


Did You Know . . .?

Standing for one hour, watering your plants, and kissing for 10 minutes a day burns about 120 calories each.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

After nearly five decades as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover died, leaving the powerful government agency without the administrator who had been largely responsible for its existence and shape. In 1956, Hoover initiated Cointelpro, a secret counterintelligence program that initially targeted the U.S. Communist Party but later was expanded to infiltrate and disrupt any radical organization in America. During the 1960s, the immense resources of Cointelpro were used against dangerous groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, but also against African American civil rights organizations and liberal anti-war organizations. One figure especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who endured systematic harassment from the FBI.

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WORD FOR TODAY

humane  [hyu-MAYN]
adjective
characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


Engelbert Humperdinck
(born May 2, 1936)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British Indian pop singer, best known for his UK number-one hits "Release Me" and "The Last Waltz", as well as "After the Lovin'" and "A Man Without Love".



Christine Jane Baranski
(born May 2, 1952)
Christine Baranski is an American stage and screen actress. She made her stage debut in 1974 and her Broadway debut in Hide and Seek in 1980, The Real Thing in 1984 and Rumors in 1989. On television, she is known for her role as Maryanne Thorpe in the sitcom Cybill and her portrayals of Dr. Beverly Hofstadter in The Big Bang Theory and Diane Lockhart in The Good Wife. Her film roles include, 9 1/2 Weeks, Legal Eagles, Reversal of Fortune, Addams Family Values, Jeffrey, The Birdcage, Bulworth, Cruel Intentions, Chicago, and Mamma Mia!.



Theodore Meir Bikel
(born 2 May 1924)
Theodore Bikel is an Austrian-American actor, musician, and composer. He made his film debut in The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones (1958).



Stephanie Kay Panabaker
(born May 2, 1990)
Kay Panabaker is a retired American film and television actress now working as a zoologist. She portrayed "Alice Brand" in 7th Heaven; "Melissa Rue" in ER; "Sara" in Port Charles; "Carrie Bauer" in The Brothers GarcĂ­a; "Ellisha" in Medium; "Lindsey Willows" in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

In film, she appeared in Dead Heat as "Sam LaRoche".. Panabaker's breakout role came when she starred in The WB's Summerland as "Nikki Westerly", in the 2004-2005 season. She also appeared as "George" in the 2007 Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills.

__________

"You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him"
--George Plimpton

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Thursday, May 1, 2014

Today Is LAW DAY

    
 
 
Tucson Weather Today

____________________


We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
--Ronald Reagan


How many laws are there in the United States? Good question, and the best answer I have found is "It is not possible to answer that question since there are thousands of Federal laws, which are constantly being changed/added to, as well as state and community laws that each state and community makes."

So, the answer, it seems, is: NO ONE KNOWS THE EXACT NUMBER..

Not that it matters.

As every American knows, laws are made to be broken.

_____


The wind late yesterday was fierce. Standing out there by the pool and looking to the North one could barely see the Catalina Mountains because of all the flying dust. And the howling wind overnight woke me up several times, with the house creaking and the windows rattling, etc.

Below is what I saw when I went out at 5:30 this morning. (Click the pic for full size view)
 
Aftereffect Of The Wind Blowing
Foliage Onto The Pool's Surface
 
Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

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Yesterday I reported on the progress of a pair of woodpeckers in their intention to build a nest, over Eva's vociferous objections.

Note: The definition of vociferous is: vehement or clamorous.

I managed to snap a few shots of those admirable woodpeckers that are constructing a nest in a hole near the top of a saguaro cactus out in the back yard, a few feet west of the pool deck.
 

Male Woodpecker Giving Twig
Or Bit Of Fluff To The Female
 
Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014
 
 
Result Of Eva Barking At The Base Of The Saguaro
 
Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014
 
 
Off To Find More Building Material For The Nest
 
Tucson, AZ   May 1, 2014

By the way, these birds had a nest in the same spot last year. When we listened closely we could hear the cheeping of the youngsters in the nest inside the hole.


Eva, Responding To My Shout Of,
"EVA, Leave Those Birds Alone!"

_____


Did You Know . . .?

There are cults in the South Pacific that believe if they paint USA on their chest and make wooded guns, that God will rain cargo from the skies.

_____


HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1958, President Eisenhower proclaimed Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. Three years later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day. The American Bar Association defines Law Day as: "A national day set aside to celebrate the rule of law.

Law Day celebrates the legal construct for the determination of rights that the revolutionary leaders of the 1770s, hoping to prevent the sort of class warfare that went on to rack Europe from 1789 to 1917, were so eager to create.

_____


WORD FOR TODAY

jurisprudence
noun
1.  the science or philosophy of law
2.  a system or body of law
3.  a branch of law: medical jurisprudence

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
 

Ezekial Dann Florek
(born May 1, 1950)
Dann Florek is an American actor and director. He is best known for his role as Donald Cragen on NBC's Law & Order and its spinoff Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.



Julie M. Benz
(born May 1, 1972)
Julie Benz is an American actress, known for her roles as Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (1997–2004) and Rita Bennett on Dexter (2006–2010).



James "Jamie" Dornan
(born May 1, 1982)
Jamie Dornan is a Northern Irish actor, model and musician. He played Axel von Fersen in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette, Sheriff Graham Humbert in the ABC series Once Upon a Time and serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC Two crime drama series The Fall. He is set to portray the titular character of Christian Grey in the feature film adaptation of the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey.



Joanna Lamond Lumley
(born 1 May 1946)
 Joanna Lumley is an English actress and author who starred in the British television series Absolutely Fabulous as well as in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, Jam & Jerusalem and Sensitive Skin. In film she has appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). She later appeared in Maybe Baby (2000), Ella Enchanted (2004) and Corpse Bride (2005). She appeared alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the Martin Scorsese crime drama, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

__________

Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.
--Arcesilaus

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