TomSito.com - TOM SITO'S BLOG

July 24th, 2008 thurs

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Registered at the Comicon yesterday. It's already a mob scene there, and today's supposed to be the slow day. A sea of people already.

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Question: Who are called the Jews of China?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What was Winston Churchill’s Black Dog?
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History for 7/24/2008
Birthdays: Simon Bolivar, Aemilia Earhart, Alexander Dumas fils, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Graves, Pat Oliphant, Bela Abzug, Zelda Fitzgerald, Ruth Buzzi, Lynda Carter, Chief Dan George, Robert Hays, Gus Van Sant, Anna Paquin, Michael “Kramer” Richards, J-Lo Jennifer Lopez is 39

1656- Jewish philosopher Benedict Spinoza was excommunicated by the Rabbis of the Portuguese Synagogue in the Hague. His radical ideas of God made Jews, Catholics, Protestants and even some other humanists attack him, but his ideas formed the basis for modern rationalist philosophy. A German writer called Spinoza “Der Gott bedrunken Mensch” The Man Drunk on God. Albert Einstein, Kant, Goethe and Voltaire were all inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza.

1701- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTOWN!- After paddling in birchbark canoes 49 days from Quebec, French explorer Antoine de al Mothe-Cadillac and several families found the City of Detroit.

1794-The End of the "Reign of Terror". After tens of thousands of deaths and fear rampant, a group of French politicians called the Directorate overthrow Maximillien Robespierre and have him and his Jacobin followers guillotined. Robespierre didn't go quietly, a soldier named Charles Merda shot him in the face shouting Vive la Republique!" His brother Augustin Robespierre tried to escape out a window but just succeeded in breaking his hip.
At the guillotine Robespierre’s second in command Saint-Just was defiant to the end:
" I curse the dust I'm made of! I give it to you! Scatter my bones and Republics shall spring from them!" Robespierre wasn't so eloquent on the scaffold. He just bellowed in pain from the jaw wound. A woman shouted at him:" Go to Hell, Villain, and go knowing with you go the curses and maledictions of every wife, every mother !" When his head plopped into the basket Parisians cheered and applauded for 15 minutes. Then they overthrew and smashed the fearsome guillotine. Napoleon was careful to keep few political prisoners and if he executed any he used a firing squad. He shrank from ever using the hated guillotine. He renamed the place where the Guillotine was set up Place de la Concord.

1824- The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian published the results of the first ever US public opinion poll- a clear lead for Andrew Jackson for president.

1847- The Mormons reach the Great Salt Lake. After trekking 1500 miles for17 months since Illinois, leader Brigham Young said :"Enough. This is the place.'

1901- William Porter, also known as O.Henry, was released from jail after doing time for embezzlement. While in jail he found he had a talent for writing.

1934- Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film Cleopatra premiered. It starred Claudette Colbert wearing skimpy metal brassieres that Madonna could envy.

1938 - Instant coffee invented.

1948-HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARVIN THE MARTIAN- Warner's "Haredevil Hare" featuring the first Marvin the Martian.

1965- Bob Dylan released the song “Like a Rolling Stone”.

1966- Actor Montgomery Clift died at age 45.

1969- After successfully landing on the moon and returning, Apollo 11 safely splashes down in the ocean.

1980- In London’s Dorchester Hotel, comedian and actor Peter Sellers died of a heart attack. He was 46.

1984-Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" premiered. PigBoy!! Munchins and Crunchins!

2005- American Lance Armstrong won the Tour du France bicycle race for an unprecedented 7th time, even after surviving testicular cancer that had spread to his spine and brain.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was Winston Churchill’s Black Dog.

Answer: It was his name for a deep depression that took hold of him from time to time.

Posted by:Tom

July 23rd, 2008 weds/ OFF TO THE COMICON !

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Click to enlarge

It's time once more to take the road down to San Diego for the annual orgy of mass- toon consumption THE SAN DIEGO COMICON. Since 1972 cartoonists, fantasy sci-fi fans and just generally weird people gather by the tens of thousands to fill the convention center there and see sneaks of future Comic inspired blockbusters.

Highlights this year will be Eric Goldberg and his daughter J.R. Goldberg both with booths signing their newest books. Eric's great new how-to on animation principles Character Animation Crash Course just came out. Jenny will be signing her work at Dark Horse Comics.

WHO IS ROCKET JOHNSON?- the book done by a dozen Walt Disney animators with too much time on their hands, will be available for signing as well. I'm teasing, it's all in a good cause, because the proceeds from the work will go for Muscular Dystrophy.

My own CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS will have a panel of the creative heads moderated by yours truly, on Thurs Morning at 10:00AM at Room 2. We'll be hosting an invitation-only hospitality suite at the Marriott Gaslamp that evening.

A new episode is playing tonight, so there'll be much to talk about. Maybe I'll bring some copies of Drawing the Line to sign. com'on and drop in on us!

I'll also do some volunteer work at ASIFA/Hollywood's table and will be Friday on the State of the Industry Panel. If you've never been to a Comicon, it's worth going at least once for the social phenomenon.

Hmm...I wonder if the Imperial Stormtrooper-Elvis Impersonator and Buddy Jesus will be there again...?

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Quiz: What was Winston Churchill’s Black Dog?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In Hollywood, what are the Coogan Laws?
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History for 7/23/2008
Birthdays: Ethiopian Emperor Rastafari Halie Selassie "the Lion of Judah", Raymond Chandler, Raymond Booth, Don Drysdale, Gloria DeHaven, Arthur Treacher, Woody Harrelson, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Fosse, Harry Cohn, Don Imus, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charisma Carpenter, Slash, Marlon Wayans, Monica Lewinsky, Daniel Radcliffe the Harry Potter star is 19

Today is the Ancient Roman Festival of Neptune, God of the Sea.

1866- The Cincinnatti Reds Baseball club formed. The oldest continual professional baseball team in the U.S.

1886- This was the day Bowery saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.

1888 - John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic rubber tire.

1904 – The Ice Cream Cone created by Charles E Menches during the LA Purchase Expo.

1908 -Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid IV is deposed by a group of militant army officers demanding modern reforms called the Young Turks.

1919- At the request of his Secretary of War McAdoo President Woodrow Wilson named the recently concluded great war against Germany as the "World War." It wasn’t called World War One until Time magazine labeled the conflict of 1939-45 World War Two. Franklin Roosevelt thought it" too depressing, like we were bound to have more."

1927 – Reacting to a public finally tired of the Tin Lizzy Model T and increased competition, the Ford Motor Co sells 1st the first Model A car.

1932-The Birthday of Fritos. Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin buys a recipe for corn chips from a Mexican fry cook for $100 dollars and starts the Frito-Lay Company.

1937-TENNIS DIPLOMACY- The US and Nazis Germany spent much of the late 1930’s testing their competing philosophies on sports playing fields- Democracy vs Aryan Racial Purity. First Jesse Owens at the Olympics, then prizefighters Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, this day even the semi-finals of the Davis Cup Tennis championship became a Yankees vs Nazis test. At Wimbeldon England American Dan Budge and German Baron Gottfried Von Krom played the game of their lives. Hitler had personally telephoned Von Krom the night before and ordered him to win. Ironically Von Krom was anti-Nazi. Dan Budge won after 6 nail biting tied sets. At one point American tennis great Bill Tilden who had been hired to coach the German team signaled that the match was in the bag. This provoked such an angry reaction from the audience that entertainers Jack Benny and Ed Sullivan tried to climb the fence to kick Tilden’s ass. But Budge came from behind to win. Von Krom took defeat like a gentleman but Hitler didn’t. Shortly upon his return to the fatherland the Gestapo arrested him for homosexual activity.

1962- The first simultaneous television broadcast via the new TelStar communications satellite from America to Europe.

1966- The comedy song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha, Ha!" released. The singer was Napoleon XIV.

1968- Fred Blasie won an unprecedented fifth World Wrestling Championship belt. Blasie later gained more fame for recording the comedy song "Pencil Necked Geeks" and beating up comedian Andy Kaufman in the ring for calling wrestling a hoax.

1982- Actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed by a stunt helicopter while filming "Twilight Zone, the movie". The last scripted line before his death was "I’ll Keep you safe kids, I swear to God!" The children were being worked into the early morning hours without a caretaker supervisor in defiance of the Coogan Laws. Director John Landis was investigated but exonerated. The only filmworker to dare to testify against Landis, the wardrobe supervisor, was blacklisted and never worked in Hollywood again.

1984- Vanessa Williams the first black Miss America resigned after a photo spread of her in a nude lesbian scenario in Penthouse magazine. She denied any impropriety until the facts were obvious and she resigned. At the same time it was pointed out to Sylvester Stallone that he starred in a trashy porno called The Italian Stallion. Sly's reaction:" Eh, I was young, unemployed, and had to eat." Scandal over.

2003-THE DOWNING STREET MEMO- British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet have a meeting about Iraq. During that meeting Blairs’ people discuss as fact that the Bush Administration cooked the data to bring about a cassus-belli, the excuse for invasion. This story is buried by the media in the USA.

2004- Two armed men enter the Munch Museum in Norway and steal Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream at gunpoint. It was recovered with some water damage in 2007.
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Yesterday’s Question: In Hollywood, what are the Coogan Laws?

Answer: Regulations regarding the welfare of child film stars. That they not lose school time, and their monies are kept in trust until they are of legal age. Named for Jackie Coogan, the child who acted with Charlie Chaplin in the silent classic: “The Kid”.

Posted by:Tom

July 22,2008 tues. Remembering Charlie Downs

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

.

I just heard about the death of Charlie Downs. Charlie was one of the young animators promoted by Ward Kimball to build his TV animation crew. Charlie did beautiful work on the Disneyland Show, as well as Beany & Cecil, the Pink Panther, the Banana Splits, the Taarna Seq of Heavy Metal and the Pirate Captain in Raggedy Ann & Andy.

I didn't know him as well as I knew other animators, but I did do some of his inbetweens on Ann. Barney Posner and Mitch Rochon were doing his cleanups. The work was intricate and challenging. I learned a lot from it. Later during the citywide cartoonist strike of 1982, Charlie kept us all laughing doing the picketline in a pith helmet and roller skates, and later playing Dixieland Jazz with John Sperry.

Charlie suffered from debilitating illnesses in late life and spent his final years in a home. He was 81. But I will prefer to remember him in his youth as Charlie Downs,wild free spirit, and Charlie Downs, Disney Animator.

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Question: In Hollywood, what are the Coogan Laws?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: What was the name of Winston Churchill’s bulldog?
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History for 7/22/2007
Birthdays: Emma Lazarus, Eduard Hopper, Gregor Mendel, Alexander Calder, James Whale, Oscar De La Renta, Rose Kennedy, Stephen Vincent Benet, Jason Robards, Bob Dole, David Spade, Terence Stamp, Danny Glover, Alex Trebek, Bobby Sherman, Don Henley, William Dafoe, John Leguizamo, Albert Brooks- real name Albert Einstein, a nice name but already taken

1502- Amerigo Vespucci and a Portuguese expedition return from exploring the coast
of Brazil. It's popular nowadays to claim Columbus was ripped off by a German mapmaker from the credit of discovering America, but there's more to it than that. Columbus went to his grave believing he had discovered the outer coastline of Asia. Vespucci, after exploring from Brazil to South Carolina was the first to press the idea that this new coastline was not Asia, but something quite different. A new continent.

1793- THE MACKENZIE EXPEDITION- No, I’m sorry, but Louis & Clark weren’t the first white men to explore the American Continent to the Pacific. This day a party
of French-Canadian voyageurs and Scottish trappers led by Alexander Mackenzie reached the Georgian Straights in British Columbia ten years earlier. MacKenzie had been trying since 1789 to find the Pacific shore of Canada and stake British claims to
the great Canadian Northwest. In 1790 Mackenzie started out from Lake Athabasca
and followed a river that took him to the Arctic ocean instead of the Pacific -oops!
don’t you hate when that happens !? This time he reached the right salt water. His
1801 book "Travels to the Pacific" was studied and debated intensively by President Thomas Jefferson and his aide Meriwhether Lewis. It is the prime reason the U.S. plans for the Lewis & Clark expedition to the Pacific were given a top priority. For the first time since Christopher Columbus white settlers at last understood just how big the North American continent was-Mackenzie correctly estimated it was about three thousand miles wide.

1862- EMANCIPATION- President Abraham Lincoln called a secret cabinet meeting at
the White House in the dead of night. Abe opened the session by reading jokes from
a newspaper by humorist Artemus Ward. The cabinet officers exchanged confused glances. Secretary of State William Seward found Abe’s folksy-hillbilly humor annoying. He wondered if the Old Tycoon would ever get to the point. Lincoln then shocked them
all when he said that he intended to free the slaves by presidential proclamation
without the consent of Congress. Seward convinced him not do it until there was
a Union battle victory, because to do so at the then bad state of affairs would
look more like a last act of desperation. In a few weeks the Battle of Antietam
was fought, which wasn’t a great victory, but it was at least it wasn’t an embarrassing defeat, so then the Emancipation Proclamation was announced.

1864- THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA- Confederate leader John Bell Hood attempted to break the siege of the Atlanta by William Tecumseh Sherman. At the beginning of the fight Sherman’s gifted corps commander General Dan MacPherson was killed by a sniper. MacPherson was admired by the generals of both sides. Had he lived, many predicted he would have been President of the US. When MacPherson’s successor General John Logan asked for orders, Sherman told him "Just Fight’em. Fight them like Hell!" Hoods attempts at a break out failed and when Sherman threatened his last escape
route Hood abandoned Atlanta Sept. 2nd.

1921- Artist Man Ray arrived in Paris determined to go Dada!

1933- Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world. The following
year Post would die in the same plane crash as writer Will Rogers.

1934- Public Enemy #1-John Dillinger was shot down by G-Man Melvin Purvis coming
out of the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Ave. in Chicago. He had just seen Clark
Gable and Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama. Dillinger 's identity was betrayed
by Anna Sage, the Woman in Red, a German-Romanian prostitute who didn't want
to be deported. As they came out of the theater Purvis shouted “STICKEM UP JOHNNIE!” Dillenger went into a crouch and went for his gun. Purvis and his men blew him away. Anna Sage was deported anyway. Melvin Purvis became the most famous lawman in America and in so doing earned the enmity of his publicity-hungry boss J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover slowly hounded Purvis out of the bureau and ruined his career. In 1961 Purvis took his own life with the same gun used to kill Dillinger. The F.B.I. sent no flowers or condolences to his family despite his being their greatest single field agent.

1967- Jimi Hendrix quits as opening act of the Monkees' tour.

1977- Walt Disney’s film "The Rescuers" featuring the last work of Disney
master animator Milt Kahl.

2002- Worldcom files for Chapter 11, the largest bankruptcy in US history. This
while the CEO Bernard Ebbers was building himself a new $94 million mansion. Ebbers got 25 years in the pen, and Worldcom reorganized as MCI. In 2003 the US Government awarded them a no-bid contract to build a cellular telephone system in Iraq.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What was the name of Winston Churchill’s bulldog?

Answer: He didn’t own one. He had a tabby cat named Nelson, a budgy named Toby and standard black poodle named Rufus.

Posted by:Tom

July 21th, 2008 mon

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What was the name of Winston Churchill’s bulldog?

Yesteraday’ Quiz Answered below: In honor of Diana Riggs’ Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?
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History for 7/21/2008
Birthdays: Ernest Hemingway, Issac Stern, Marshal McCluhan,Norman Jewison, Don Knotts, Janet Reno, Jon Lovitz, Gary Trudeau, Ernst Shuftan- inventor of the "Shuftan Effect", a cheap way of combining actors with miniatures by shooting through mirrors. All those "Lost World" Cesar Romero fighting the giant Iguanas were done that way. Tony Scott, Robin Williams, Josh Harnett is 26

Happy National Zippo Lighter Day. Smoking is bad but Zippos are cool- another one of life’s mysteries.

1588-the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon, Seville, Corunna and Cadiz to attack England. One of the sailors was playwright and poet Lope De Vega.

1798- "Soldiers! Forty Centuries look down upon you! “The Battle of the Pyramids- Napoleon's cannon mowed down the Mamelukes, who had ruled Egypt since the Crusades. He was so impressed with their courage that he later enlisted a corps of them in his own army. It was speculated around this time the Sphinx lost it's nose. French troops used the Sphinx for target practice. The battle was actually fought a distance from the Pyramids, but Nappy disliked the title Battle of Embaba’s Melon Patch, so Battle of the Pyramids it was.

1821- George IV crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, but without his Queen Caroline. They couldn't stand one another and he was trying to get a divorce. So when she showed up in her state carriage for the coronation, on the kings orders the Lords and Peers rushed to shut the cathedral doors, leaving her out in the crowd of spectators. A glimpse into his state of mind at the time was when courtiers brought him word of Napoleon’s death at Saint Helena. They said: "Sire, your greatest enemy lies dead!" To which George replied:" IS SHE? OH, THANK THE LORD!"

1861- BATTLE OF BULL RUN or FIRST MANASSAS- First major engagement of the Civil War. Irwin McDowell's Yankees and Pierre Beauregard's Confederates had unknowingly adopted the exact same battle plan, feint with right and strike around the left. They would have completely marched around each other if they hadn't blundered together. Rebel General Thomas Jackson was holding off union assaults when a dying general shouted : "Look, there stands Jackson like a stone wall!" The nickname stuck. Stonewall Jackson had told his men:" When you charge, howl like furies." For the first time the famous Rebel Yell was heard.

The North was so confident of victory Washington society turned out with picnic baskets to watch the fun. What they saw was a horrible Union defeat and they were caught in the mob of panicked soldiers running back to the Capitol called the Great Skeedadddle. Bull Run could have been an American Waterloo, because the Yankee army was completely destroyed and nothing stood between the southerners and the White House, only 40 miles away. But the greybacks were also disorganized and exhausted, and the pursuit was called off. The Civil War would not be won in one big battle, but would drag on for four bloody years.

1884- In one of the dirtiest elections in U.S. history the New York Post broke the story of Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock and abandoning the mother. Cleveland admitted the story and won election anyway because the Republican James G. Blaine was even worse. Just as Cleveland pioneered the Democratic preoccupation with sex scandals Blaine pioneered the cozy relationship between the Republican Party and big business. He had taken so many kickbacks his nickname was the Tatooed Man. Republicans chanted "Ma, Ma! Where’s My Pa!- Dems countered" He’s Going to the White House, Ha Ha Ha!" another ditty was: "Mary is healthy and so is the Kid, We Voted for Cleveland and we’re damn glad we did!" Aren’t you glad we don’t have name-calling negative election campaigns like that today, boys & girls?

1917-Ford introduces their first truck, the Model TT. It weighed one ton and had a new innovation not in regular automobiles, a reverse gear.

1959- Judge Frederick van Pelt-Bryan ruled that Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence was not pornography and therefore could be sent through the postal system. What do you think of that, John Thomas?

1969- THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN...Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step onto the Moon.-In his autobiography "Return to Earth" Aldrin said: "Neil was the first man to walk on the Moon, but I was the first to pee on the Moon." He had to go (in more ways than one) and it was time for them descend the ladder onto the Lunar surface. At one point Houston Control said: "Buzz, I see you're smiling.."

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Yesterday’s Question: In honor of Diana Riggs’ Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?

Answer: The writers wanted the female agent to appeal to men, so they listed the potential auditions like Ms Rigg under No Appeal, or M Appeal.
So she became Emma Peel.

Posted by:Tom

July 20, 2008 sun

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: In honor of Diana Rigg’s Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?

Yesterday: What is Newspeak?
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history for 7/20/2008
Birthdays: Petrarch, Sir Edmund Hilary, Lord Elgin, Anne Hutchinson, Diana Rigg is 69, Natalie Wood, Theda Bara the Vamp, Carlos Santana, 1889- John, Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC. Giselle Bunchen is 28, Sandra Oh is 37

She's 69? Nyaah!!!

1773-The Vatican outlaws the Society of Jesus aka the Jesuits. The pope had gotten tired of all their intrigues and foreign entanglements. They went into hiding but were reformed in 1820. I noticed that at this time all their missionaries were withdrawn from the New World and replaced with Franciscans like Fra Junipero Serra. I wonder if a Jesuit had founded Los Angeles he might have named it "Ignatius Loyola" and we'd all have to sing:" I Love I.L. !"

1881- Sitting Bull returns to U.S. territory and surrenders. He and his people had been residing in Canada since the Little Big Horn. When Canadian officials first challenged them being in Canada, Bull produced out of his medicine bag old treaty medals stamped with King George III on them and said "We also are the children of the Great Redcoat Mother."

1919- Pancho Villa assassinated while driving in his new Dodge. Even with 16 bullets in him he still managed to kill one of his attackers. Three years later someone broke into his grave and stole his head.

1920- On the last day of testimony at the Scopes Monkey Trial defense attorney Clarence Darrow surprised everyone by calling prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan to the witness stand. In a dramatic all day debate Darrow and Bryan grappled over the validity of the Bible vs, Charles Darwin’s theory. The confrontation was dramatized in Stanley Kramer’s 1965 film “Inherit the Wind”.

1941-One of my personal favorite cartoons- Bob Clampett's cartoon"the Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Daffy Duck as Duck Tracy premiered this day. "i'm gonna rrrrrrrrrrrubbb ya out, see !"

lipsync with lots of spit, courtesy of the great Rod Scribner

1944- THE GENERALS PLOT- A group of German generals plot to kill Adolph Hitler, take over the Third Reich and declare a ceasefire with the Allies before all Germany was destroyed. During a conference at Hitlers strategic HQ at Rastenberg Prussia one-eyed one armed Count von Stauffenburg planted a suitcase-bomb next to Hitler's feet and excused himself. But someone bumped against it and moved it out of the way. After watching the massive explosion Stauffenburg then relayed the code word "Valkyrie". This meant the plotters could begin to arrest key Nazis, disarm the SS and form a provisional government with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as President. In the explosion many were killed but amazingly Hitler only suffered a punctured eardrum and a stiff left arm. He went on nationwide radio to announce he was all right and even read the weather in today's newspaper to prove it was not a pre-recording. The coup plotters were rounded up and executed, some hung with piano wire. Their deaths were filmed for Hitler's amusement at home. Rommel the Desert Fox was forced to commit suicide. After 5000 arrests the purge was halted only when an allied bomb hit the courtroom and blew up the judge.

Hollywood's idea of the plotters from the upcoming movie Valkyrie. Tom Cruise does not play a Nazi-Pirate, as Stephen Colbert noted, but Von Stauffenberg.

1964 - 1st surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"

1968 - Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" becomes the first heavy metal song to
hit charts, it comes in at #117 The song got it’s unique name because frontman Doug Ingle wrote it as “In the Garden of Eden” but was so drunk and stoned that all that came out was “Inagaddadavida” The album sold millions, was the first to win the new Platinum record and stayed in the top 100 for four years.

1969-Tranquility Base- The Eagle has Landed. Apollo11’s Lunar Module the LEM first landed on the Moon. The astronauts spent a night’s sleep and preparing and stepped out on the Lunar surface the next day.

1973- Bruce Lee died of cerebral endema one month before his last film Enter the Dragon premiered. The handsome martial arts movie star single-handedly made Kung Fu a national craze and the Chop-Socky genre film a regular in world movie theaters. He was buried in his Enter The Dragon Chinese outfit. Bruce Lee was 33.

1976-Warner\Lambert, makers of Trident sugarless gum, comes out with their famous slogan "Sugarless gum is recommended by four out of five dentists who chew gum". When people asked what gum did the fifth dentist recommend, they were brushed.

1976- The Viking I probe successfully landed on Mars.

1984 - Jim Fixx, creator of the Jogging craze through his hit book Running, died at 52 of a heart attack. Apologists for a health nut dying so young say Fixx would have died even younger without his physical routine. The creator of PowerBars also died in his fifties. Pass me another donut.

1994 - OJ Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife Nicole’s killer. No clues or suspects other than himself ever appeared. As David Letterman later said" OJ began to vigorously search for the real killer on all the major golf courses of the nation."

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Yesterday’s Question: What it Newspeak?

Answer: George Orwell in his book on future technological tyranny- 1984, speculated that our language would corrupt into corporate acronyms, and such a destruction of the language would aid in the dumbing down of society. Doublethink, thoughtcrime- Citicorp, Petco, groupthink, downsizing, etc.

Posted by:Tom

July 19th, 2008 sat

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is Newspeak?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is the difference between Shiite and Sunni?
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History for 7/19/2008
Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Col. Samuel Colt, Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vicki Carr, Max Fleischer, Lizzie Borden, Ille Nastase, George McGovern, Brian Harold May of Queen, Atom Egoyan, Anthony Edwards, Campbell Scott

64 A.D. THE BURNING OF ROME- Mad emperor Nero didn't fiddle as the fire raged ,but he was inspired to run up to an observation platform and sing an elegy on the destruction of Troy while accompanying himself on the lyre. Romans later became suspicious when the areas most affected by the fire on the Palatine Hill were expropriated by the Emperor to build the Golden House, a sort of Palace-theme park complex Nero dedicated to himself. The fire had started to die out after six days but flared up again on the grounds of the estate of Tigellinus, an aide to Nero. The fire burned for nine days total and destroyed two thirds of the city, including a temple built by Romulus the Founder and the shrine of the Vestal Virgins.

711 A.D. Battle of Medina-Sidonia- The Moors conquer most of Spain. When he first landed the Moorish commander Tarik Bin Ziyad ordered his landing ships burned and addressed his soldiers saying : " ...The enemy is in front of you and the sea behind you... You have no choice but victory ! Christian Spain was reduced to a thin strip up against the Pyrenees Mountains and in Galicia. The Moors weren’t driven out until 1492. Until then the Emirs of Granada and Cordoba set up lavish courts where great sums were spent on poets, artists, mathematicians and scientists.

1500-In the Vatican Lucretzia Borgia’s second husband Duke Alfonso of Naples was stabbed to death by men sent by her brother Caesar Borgia. Enemies of the Borgias said Caesar was jealous and had an incestuous passion for his sister, but the real reasons for the murder were political. Alfonso was angry about Caesar’s alliance with France, the enemy of Naples. Caesar had sent men attack Alfonso as he was leaving Saint Peters but he fought them off and recovered. While convalescing he spotted Caesar from his sickbed window, grabbed a bow and arrow and tried to shoot him. Then Caesar had him whacked. Cardinal Sforza, who arranged the marriage was later poisoned.

1717- George Frederich Handel premiered his suite the Water Music for a procession of King George II on pleasure boats from Whitehall to Lambeth Palace.

1799- THE ROSETTA STONE DISCOVERED. During Napoleons campaign in Egypt several soldiers digging a latrine uncover a black basalt slab with several forms of writing all over it. In 1821 Francois Champolion figured it out. The stone was the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, sort of an ancient Berlitz Guide. The document in honor of Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy is written three times in Hieroglyphs (sacred letters of Ancient Egypt), in Hieratic (governmental cursive type, a simpler form of Hieroglyphs used for texts unrelated to the Temple and Religion) and in Coptic, the same Egyptian language written in Greek letters. Since Champolion knew Greek, and had contacts with Egyptian Christian priests who spoke Coptic... The rest was the proverbial piece of cake... Before the Rosetta Stone people thought Egyptian hieroglyphics were just magical symbols, but after the stones discovery the long mute voice of Ancient Egyptian civilization was heard again. Prayers, Literature and Poetry could now be understood. It was like the discovery of a long dead world.

1879- Doc Holiday had opened a saloon with a partner in Las Vegas, New Mexico. An army scout named Mike Gordon got mad at one of his dance hall girls, went out into the street and started firing wildly into the saloon. Doc Holiday came out, shot Gordon dead with one bullet, went back in and calmly resumed his poker game.

1941 - British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign. By coincidence the letter"V" in morse code corresponded with the opening notes of Beethoven ‘s 5th symphony "Dit-Dit-Dit Daaah."making it the musical theme of the BBC overseas radio service war news. If you ever lived in England you would know that reversing the two fingers sign is an insult akin to flashing someone the middle finger.

1952- Several UFO’s appeared on the radar of Washington DC’s National Airport. So many in fact that the Air Force was obliged to hold a news conference to calm public fears. They were dismissed as temperature inversions. Uh, huh…

1957- That great movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF starring Michael Landon premiered.

1966- 50 year old Frank Sinatra married 21 year old Mia Farrow. Frankie’s ex Ava Gardner commented:” Hah! I always knew Frank would one day wind up in bed with a little boy. “ Two years later when Mia Farrow was offered the lead role in Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” Frank gave her an ultimatum "Baby, it's either me or your career”. She took the part and he sent her a divorce notice on the set. Mia got an Oscar nomination and Frank recorded “Strangers in the Night”.

1990- The Richard Nixon Library dedicated in Yorba Linda California. Nixon's Western White House of San Clemente first refused the honor of being the site as well as his real birthplace town of Whittier . The little wood frame house where he was born was moved to the Yorba Linda site. At the dedication the five living Presidents were present. Senator Bob Dole pointed at former Presidents Ford, Reagan and Nixon and joked to a friend: "Look, there’s Hear no Evil, See No Evil, and- Evil.”

1991- Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson raped a contestant for the Miss Black America Pageant Desiree Washington. He got 3 years in jail.

1993- President Clinton launched his Gays in the military initiative called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." It caused a storm of controversy, and probably rooted more gay men and women out of their military careers than if nothing was done. The concept that homosexuality or bisexuality and the profession of arms are incompatible does not stand up to the historical record: Richard the Lionheart, Frederick the Great, Alexander the Great, Kitchener of Omdurman, The Sacred Band of Thebes, Shaka Zulu, Nicholson the Tiger of the Punjab and most of the Roman Emperors were gay or bisexual.
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Yesterday’s quiz: What is the difference between Sunni and Shiite?

Answer from my old pal Hani in Egypt:
The Sunnis, literally 'Followers of the Sunnah', or the Tradition as set by the Prophet Mohammad. They form the large majority of Muslims. Soon after the death of Mohammad, some Muslims wanted Ali Bin-Abu-Talib, the prophet's cousin and son-in-law to succeed him as Calif and ruler of the Believers. These were the Shiite, literally
'Sectarians of Ali'. Several bloody battles later, Ali was assassinated, and his sons Hassan and Hussein were massacred. The Shiite developed as an independent sect of Islam (like Protestant vs. Catholic in Christianity). Shiites are mainly concentrated in Iran and parts of Iraq and the Gulf countries and even formed a dynasty of rulers in Egypt in the Xth to XIth Century, the Fatimids. They founded Cairo.

Posted by:Tom

July 18th, 2008 Fri

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

A new Simon's Cat cartoon on U-Tube. pretty funny stuff. Bravo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg

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Quiz: So no more American candidates sound stupid, what is the difference between Shiites and Sunnis?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who first coined the term OnLine-?
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History for 7/18/2008
Birthdays: William Makepeace Thackeray, Chill Wills, Nelson Mandela, James Brolin, Elizabeth McGovern, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hume Cronyn, Red Skelton, Hunter H. Thompson, Clifford Odets, Paul Verhoeven, John Glenn is 87, Vin Diesel is 41.

Happy Ancient Egyptian New Year! The day when Cirius the Dog Star is seen in the Southern skies heralds the coming of the Nile’s flood. In modern times we call it the Dog Days of Summer.

390 B.C.- THE GAULS SACK ROME.-THE BIRTH OF MONEY- Migrating tribes of Gauls crossed the Alps, defeated the young republic's legions and stormed into the city as the population fled. When Gauls beheld aging, white haired Roman senators at first they thought they were gods. But when a Gaul pulled one of their beards and the man clopped him on the head , they knew they were just old men and slew them. The Gauls took ransom and migrated back up to where France is today. The Romans would not meet them again until 300 years later when their empire expanded north. At one point the Romans holding out on the Capitoline Hill were alerted to a Gaulish surprise attack when the Sacred Geese of Juno started squawking. The Romans knew this must be the Goddess' intervention. St. Augustine, the Seinfeld of evangelists, when told this story, said: "Right.., your geese were awake while your gods were asleep !

1870- The Vatican published the bull Pater Aeternus, that declared Papal Infallibility. That even when the Pope is wrong he is still right because he’s the Pope and you are not.,

1877- Thomas Edison recorded sound on tin foil cylinder `Mary Had a Little Lamb-'

1925- The First volume of Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler was published. The original title was "My Four and a Half Years Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice". But publisher Max Aman prevailed upon him to edit it down to My Struggle. Around this time a friend asked him:" Why don’t you shave that silly little mustache? You look like Charlie Chaplin." Adolf replied:" Soon the whole world will know this mustache!"

1939-MGM tried a sneak preview of the film The Wizard of Oz. Afterwards they debated cutting the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow as slowing down the pace but finally decided to leave it in. The film debuted in August to wild success and acclaim.

1939- RKO pictures signed Orson Welles to direct movies in Hollywood. That Hollywood signed a 24 year old radio star who never directed a movie, and gave him final cut and complete freedom is amazing.

1966- Bobby Fuller who made the hit song "I fought the Law and the Law Won" was found in LA in his mothers Oldsmobile beaten and dead from "forcible inhalation of gasoline"- huffing.

1981- John Henry Abbott was a murderer and bank robber doing hard time in prison. He started writing famous author Norman Mailor about life in prison and it turned out he was a pretty good author himself. Through Mailors’ influence Random House published his book "In the Belly of the Beast" and it got him released. Well, this day despite his literary celebrity status Abbott fell back into his bad habits and murdered another person- a Richard Adan at the Bonibon Café in New York. He was went back to prison for life and committed suicide in 2001. Norman Mailor refused to concede it may all have been a mistake- "Culture is worth a little risk."
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who first coined the term On Line-?

Answer: In 1963 Professor Douglas Englebart of the Stamford Research Institute (SRI) coined the term for his early computer program system oNLineSystem or NLS. By 1969 scientists associated with Englebart developing the ARPANET, later called the INTERNET, became used to using the term on line to mean connected together to share files.

Posted by:Tom

TIME TO SPEAK UP FOR CLICK & CLACK!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Well gang, I never ask you for much, but I can use some help right now.

In Washington, the Dark Lords of PBS are analyzing the numbers on our show Click & Clack As the Wrench Turns, and are trying to decide whether to give us another season.

If you like the show, and want to see more of Tom & Ray, Beth and Zuzu, please take a minute and send some feedback to PBS now.

http://www.pbs.org/wrenchturns

Just click on the link, then click on ABOUT the show, then on the FEEDBACK button, and tell them you love our show, and your life would not be complete without more.

We'd love to do another season. I got plans for a faux Ken Burns documentary, CLick & Clack take on Homeland Security, CLick and Clack meet Mr D'Arcy from Jane Austen, Beth and her Volvo hybrid that runs on moccachinos falls into the clutches of a nefarious mechanic while on her way to work. There are a number of well known stars, I can't say publicly who, that want to do cameos on the show like Garrison Keilor did. And more intelligent schtick, more Sylvia Pogoli jokes, more polka music!

So, please do me a favor and drop em a line. I gotta keep up my cat's Fancy Feast habit. Thanks!

Posted by:Tom

July 17th, 2008 thur

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Click & Clack fan

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Quiz: Who first coined the term OnLine-?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?
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History for 7/17/2008
Birthdays: James Cagney, John Jacob Astor Ist, Hyacinth Rigaud, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills, Brian Trottier, Phoebe Snow, Donald Sutherland is 73, Phyllis Diller, Prof. Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, David Hasslehoff is 56, Art Linkletter is 96

In ancient Rome, today was the feast of the god of Honor, Honorous.

924 – The death of Edward "the Elder", king of the West Saxons who during his reign annexed Wessex and the Danelaw up to the Humber River. Danelaw was the name for English territory governed by Danish Vikings.

1429- Charles the Dauphin of France is crowned King Charles VII at Rheims thanks to the astounding military success of the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc.

1453 Battle of Chatillon. The last battle of the Hundred Years War. English knight Sir John Talbot was blown away by the French with their newfangled cannons.. Other names for the cannon were bombardons, culverins, and a variation on the catapult name for rock thrower- Mangonnel, shortened to Gonne or Gun.

1793- Charlotte Corday, the assassin of French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat, went to the guillotine. When her decapitated head was lifted out of the basket the executioner gave it a smack on her cheek for being a naughty little girl to the laughter of the mob.

1803- James T. Calendar, editor of the Aurora newspaper, was among the worst scandal mongering journalists in early America. He broke the story of Alexander Hamilton’s extramarital affairs and Thomas Jefferson’s sleeping with his slaves. He called John Adams a "pernicious Hermaphrodite" and George Washington the "American Dali Lama". Everyone hated him. This night his body was found floating the James River in three feet of water. A court decided he fell in while drunk, but many wonder if his end was not aided by other hands?

1841 - British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published.

1876- Battle of Warbonnet Gorge. Skirmish between the US 5th Cavalry pursuing hostile Indians soon after Custers Last Stand. The battle is remembered chiefly because Gen Phil Sheridan asked his old friend Buffalo Bill to return from his play acting back east and scout for the army one more time. He looked rather incredible riding the prairie in his theatrical black velvet silver studded Mexican Vaquero britches and coat. Bill was challenged to single combat by a Cheyenne Chief named Yellow Tail. Bill killed the chief and scalped him, waving the hair in the air to the troopers and announcing "The first scalp for Custer!" Buffalo Bill then returned to the East where his new stage production "The First Scalp for Custer" ran to sold out audiences.

1893- Representatives of fourteen stage unions meet to form IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Screen Engineers of the U.S. & Canada.

1928- President of Mexico Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet gathering of all former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having an artist stroll about making caricatures of the guests of honor. Obregon said to cartoonist Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh, I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death.

1935 - Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" meaning audiences in rural areas were not attending movies with a rustic theme.

1936-. The Spanish Civil War begins. A Spanish Fascist army led by Francisco Franco invades Spain from North Africa. The first moves were to occupy the Canary Islands. The Phalangist generals figured the takeover would only take a few days but all over Spain the common people- workers, farmers, artists and poets, even women and children took up guns to fight.

1937- the Nazis open an art exhibit of banned artworks and artists called Entartete Kunst- Degenerate Art.- Works of Dali and Duchamp, Grosz, Lippschitz, Kandinsky and Miro, with appropriate insults underneath. The next day Hitler dedicates the Great German Art Collection, having cleansed the German art world for National Socialist art, mostly bad deco-greco nudes and dumb Nordic medieval fantasy scenes.

1938- WRONG WAY CORRIGAN was the last of the pioneering aviators. A former mechanic for Lindbergh, Douglas Corrigan bought a plane out of a junk heap and modified it for long distance travel. He asked permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly from New York City to Ireland. They denied his request, on the grounds that his plane was in poor condition. He seemed to accept the ruling, but when he took off for California, he banked sharply to the east and headed over the ocean. He landed in Ireland, and complained of a faulty compass. No one believed his excuse, and he lost his pilot's license, but he was greeted as a hero back in New York. Over a million people came out for a ticker-tape parade. Supposedly his first words to the locals upon landing were. "I’m Corrigan, Where am I?"

1944- Top German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was strafed by an Allied fighter plane as his open car sped down a French country road. Germans nicknamed these roaming planes JABOS, jager-bomber or hunter bombers. By now Rommel was committed to the Generals Plot to overthrow Hitler and make immediate peace with the Allies. His last conversation before this car ride was with an SS Panzer Division General named Sepp Deitrich. Rommel asked him cryptically": Would you obey an order from me, even if it ran counter to the wishes of the Fuehrer?" Deitrich said he would. But the plane attack cut short his career as a conspirator. When the General's Plot to kill Hitler went off in three days Rommel, who the conspirators planned to make President of the new Reich, was comatose in a hospital.
Even though the bomb failed to kill Hitler, if a healthy Rommel, who's fame was second only to Hitler, went on nationwide radio and announced an army coup against the Nazis and an immediate unilateral ceasefire, it's intriguing to think what might have happened.

1944- The Port Chicago explosion. In Oakland Harbor African American sailors were given the dreary but dangerous duty of loading ammunition onto ships. This day an accident with high explosives blew up 321 men. The blast broke windows in San Francisco across the bay and was heard as far away as Boulder City Nevada. When the base commander ordered the men to immediately resume loading with no change in pattern or promise of investigation- the black sailors refused. They were courts-martialed for mutiny and treason.

1955 DISNEYLAND OPENED- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family them park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with movie celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. Walt Disney expected to get 10,000 visitors that first day. He got 100,000. Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built. Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". Despite all, Disneyland became a huge success.

1967 – The Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix was their opening act.

1968- In Iraq the Bath party seized power under President Zia al Haq. His chief of police Saddam Hussein would seize the presidency the following year.

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Look Out ! It’s the Blue Meanies!!

1975-The Apollo-Soyuz space linkup. A second linkup would not happen until 1985.

----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Answer: Yes. For oceanographers the Twilight Zone is the area just below where sunlight mingles with the sea water, and a variety of unusual fish live. For pilots the Twilight Zone is the period at dusk just before the first stars come out, when haze make the horizon and sky indistinguishable.

Posted by:Tom

July 16th, 2008 weds. More CLick & CLack tonight!

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

DAY THREE IN NEW YORK CITY. Last night I went with Bill Plympton to see Mama Mia!
Sounds like the beginning of a gag, but there it is. Take a Chance on Meeee...!
--------------------------------
Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In Africa what is meant by juju?
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History for 7/16/2008
Birthdays: Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman,
Orville Redenbacher, Roald Amundsen, Sunny Tufts, Barbara Stanwyck, Phoebe Cates, Corey Feldman, Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Will Farrell

1099- JERUSALEM CAPTURED BY CRUSADERS-The Christian’s first attack was repulsed from the walls. Crusader chiefs like Geoffrey De Boullion, Tancred and Bohemond decided it was because God thought they were too sunk in sin to be worthy, so the entire army marched barefoot around the walls chanting. On the next attack the Crusaders broke into the city and committed horrible massacres of the population. The rampaging knights even chopped up Armenian and Georgian Christians because they looked dark. In an ironic twist of history the Jewish population fought shoulder to shoulder alongside their Arab cousins. When the massacre started they withdrew to a central synagogue where the Christians barred he doors and set the building on fire. The Crusaders then declared the Holy City free, and Geoffrey de Boullion declared himself "Protector of the Holy Sepulchre" instead of king, since in his opinion :"There is no King here but Christ". After he died his younger brother Baldwin said:” My brother was a knucklehead, I am King of Jerusalem!” I’m uh..paraphrasing slightly here.

1877- THE GREAT UPHEAVAL- The B&O Railroad cuts their workers wages 10% for the second time that year. (there had been a recession raging in the U.S. economy since 1873 ). Workers and engineers at Martinsburg Virginia went out on strike and started sabotaging trains. The strike soon spread coast to coast and became America's first Nationwide Strike. The laws protecting workers union rights were still far in the future so strikes were put down by troops randomly shooting into crowds, mass firings and vigilante murder of union leaders. The violence shocked the rest of the world. Karl Marx wrote Engels "did you hear what is happening in America ? He always thought industrialized countries like America and England would go communist long before Russia and China.

1918-CZAR NICHOLAS ROMANOV AND FAMILY SHOT. After abdicating the Czar's family was imprisoned in a house in Siberia. The anti-Communist While armies were about to capture the area. So from Moscow Vladimir Lenin sent orders that they all be killed. In the middle of the night commissar Yakov Sverdlov told the Czar they were to be moved and were ordered to wait in a basement room of their house. Outside Red guards revved a truck motor to mask the sound of the guns. Then a group of soldiers came in the room pulled out their pistols. Nicholas’ last word before the guns went off was "Schto? " What the-? They even shot the family doctor, the boys sailor bodyguard and the family dog. The anti-Communist forces captured the area two weeks later and told the world of the crime. Seeing what happened to the Russian Czar may be part of the reason the Kaiser and Austrian Emperor slipped away quietly into exile after losing the Great War. Remains weren't discovered until 1988 and in 1993 DNA testing proved them to be the true remains of the Czar and his family. DNA Testing on the remains of a woman who died in 1984 named Anna Andersen, who claimed to be the child Duchess Anastasia was negative. The reason the children's remains weren't in with the others was because the Bolsheviks first tried destroying their remains with sulfuric acid but found it took too long, so they cremated the rest. Czar Nicholas II and his family were made saints of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994.

1932- In one of the sexiest scenes in pre-code Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with erotic scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a moral tale from the Good Book? This story of Jesus opens with an orgy at Mary Magdalene’s house.

this is what your grandfather was getting off on, while telling you todays films are full of smut.

1935- The first parking meter set up in Oklahoma City.

1936 - 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY

1945-THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODED at Alamagordo New Mexico (site code name was "Trinity'). Called at first the Super Cosmic Bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget". The Manhattan Project scientists weren't sure that once you started the chain reaction detonating particles of light when it would stop, if ever. Physicists Richard Fenyman and Enrico Fermi wagered a case of beer that they would incinerate the state of New Mexico.(funny guys). They were led by General Leslie Groves, a by-the-book army engineer who supervised the construction of the Pentagon, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Berkeley radical who read Sanskrit to relax. When he saw the force of the blast Oppenheimer recalled the Hindu verse: "Now have I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."

1951-J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1956 –The Last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent.

1963-Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6.

1964 Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until the late 1980's and the last gasp of Termite Terrace.

1964- Conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was nominated to run against Lyndon Johnson for president. Goldwater set the tone by his speech:" Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." LBJ’s campaign portrayed him as a dangerous warmonger and he lost in a landslide. In later years Goldwater’s conservative views were eclipsed by the even more conservative Reagan and Bush, and his being ignored by them, annoyed him.

1966- Mao Tse Tung takes a swim in the Yangtzse River and gives permission for his young Red Guards to start the Cultural Revolution.

1969- Passed this day Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

1973- WHO HAS THE TAPES ! Presidential attorney Alexander Butterfield admitted to the Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had bugged the Oval Office and had recorded tapes of all of his conversations. The tape system was actually installed by Lyndon Johnson. When Nixon took office he was going to have it all removed. But his aides convinced him to keep the system to document his place in history. Why Nixon never destroyed these tapes that brought him down remains one of the mysteries of history.

1994- Comet Schoendacher-Levy 6 impacted with the Planet Jupiter, giving scientists a spectacular ringside seat to the processes of the creation of the Universe.

1999- JOHN-JOHN -Thirty years after the death of his father and uncle 38 year old John Kennedy Jr. fell victim to the Kennedy curse when his small plane crashed on the way to a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard. His wife had delayed to have a pedicure, so he had to take off at dusk. He was too inexperienced to fly on instruments at dusk in fog and he lost his bearings, hitting the water at 150 miles per hour. The Kennedy’s have a history of bad luck with planes- Kathleen Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy’s parents and JFK’s older brother Joe Kennedy all died in small plane crashes. Senator Ted Kennedy barely survived a crash. Teddy refused to ever fly with John Jr.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In Africa what is meant by juju?

Answer: In West African folklore it was a loose term for luck or spirits endowed within an inanimate object. The term pops up in a lot of 1930’s Hollywood jungle movies, where a chief tells Tarzan:” Bad Juju!” In the 1980s when AfroPop was called Juju music, King Sunny Ade laughed: “ Juju is a word the White People think we say.”

Posted by:Tom

July 15th, 2008 tues.

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: In Africa what is meant by juju?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below- Did Noah’s flood really happen?
===================================
History for 7/15/2008
Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Sir Thomas Bullfinch, Mother Cabrini, Clemont Moore, Julian Bream, Linda Rondstadt, Alex Karras, Jan Michael Vincent, The Sultan of Brunei, Lola Davidovich, Forrest Whitaker, Brigette Neilsen, Jesse Ventura

765 A.D.- Mayan Scientists hold a conference at Copan to discuss astronomy and adjust their calendar. By 1492 the Mayan civilization was already 2,000 years old. Their calendar was so perfect, the difference between it and our modern atomic clocks calculation of a lunar month is just 24 seconds! They used hieroglyphic writing but also a system of numbers including zero which the Greeks and Romans never figured out. Among their surviving documents are calculations on the orbit of Venus. Tikal, one of their cities, covered 23 square miles ( Imperial Rome covered 8 ) and had a temple that was the tallest structure in America until the completion of the U.S. Capitol dome in 1863.

1780- American Colonial General Benedict Arnold sneaked a coded message to British General Sir Henry Clinton. In it, he offered to betray the fortress of West Point to the British for 20,000 English pounds. Arnold wasn’t even West Point’s commander yet, but he expected Gen. George Washington to confirm him in the job any day. The only person who warned that Gen. Arnold might be up to something fishy was a female spy planted in British Headquarters in occupied New York. Her cover was kept so complete, that her name is lost to history. We only know her as agent “355”.

1815- Napoleon boards HMS Bellerophon for the trip to St.Helena. On the trip he teaches himself English and makes friends with the British sailors to such an extent that they are reprimanded by their officers for being too friendly with him. He says to his Irish doctor O'Meara:" So you are a doctor and I am a general. How many men have you killed? I'll wager more than me!"

1915- A Secret Service agent was presented with a suitcase left by a German diplomat on a New York City subway seat. In the satchel was a complete list of known German spies and saboteurs working in the U.S., a nation still officially neutral in the war between Britain, France and Germany.

1938- Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The funny little character later gave it’s name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1953- English serial killer Jack Christie was executed. In his home at Number 10 Rillington Place police found the bodies of several women buried in the garden. Two bodies weren’t even Christies, they were credited to an abortionist who was a previous tenant who had botched two and they died of internal bleeding.

1953- The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, to be directed by newcomer Ralph Bakshi.

1979- In a nationwide address, President Jimmy Carter laid out the oil/gas crisis. He stated flatly that the U.S. and the world would be trapped in a dependence on diminishing stocks of foreign oil unless we moved fast to develop solar and other alternative fuels now. The next President, Ronald Reagan, ignored Carter’s initiatives and tore off the solar panels from the White House and renewed subsidies to oil companies for drilling.

And things have been fine since then, eh, boys & girls?

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well.( duh..?)

1997- Famed clothing designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami mansion by a deranged serial killer on a spree since leaving Minnesota. The killer, Andrew Cunanan, was later found in a houseboat with a self inflicted bullet in his head.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Did Noah’s flood really happen?

Answer: Similar stories of the Babylonians and Sumerians like The Epic of Gilgamesh tell of a great flood sent by the gods to destroy all things. But there is a difference of translation between the Sumerians account of a flood that destroyed nearly everything around, and the Hebrew Bible account of a flood that destroyed the entire world. It is acknowledged today that the Hebrew version was written after the Sumerian. It might have been a story picked up by the Israelites during the years of the Babylonian Captivity as a warning about disobeying God.

Posted by:Tom

July 14th 2008 mon Bastille Day

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Well, I'm back in New York City, this time to teach a workshop at my old Alma MAtrix, the School of Visual Arts. Originally called the Cartoonists and Illustrators School when cartoonists like Al Kapp, Tom Gil and Bill Gallo were there.

I always have a little ritual in my mind whenever I see the skyline once more. I say to myself;' Hello New York! I'm back again. Did you miss me? Inevitably, the city answers "No." But I am nevertheless happy to be there anyway.

When buying some stuff at the pharmacy, I by chance picked up a little book- THE MARVEL COMICS GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY. By Peter Sanderson (Simon & Schuster, 2007) It is a treat written by someone with too much time on his hands to know about the locations involving the classic Marvel heroes. So if you want to know where the Baxter Building is, headquarters of the Fantastic Four,- it's on East 42nd St and Madison Ave, The Daily Bugle- 39th and Second Ave. Dr Doom's Counsulate of Latveria.-upper East Side; Peter Parker's apartment- Between Riverside Church and Columbia Univ. It's a fun little guide to the real Gotham City.

-----------------------------------
Quiz: Did Noah’s flood really happen?

Yesterday’s Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?
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History for 7/14/2008
Birthdays: Issac Bashevis Singer, Mr. Maytag, inventor of the electronic washing machine-1857, Emiline Pankhurst, Woody Guthrie, Gerald Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Scott Rudin, Rosie Grier, Harry Dean Stanton, Polly Bergen, Gustav Klimt, Terry Thomas, Jimmy Hoffa, Dave Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Walt Stanchfield, Joel Silver producer of the Matrix movies.

1415-Joanna II, Queen of Naples called Joanna la Loca (Crazy Joanie), allows the prostitutes of Avignon to form their own guild. Solidarity Forever.

1756- In the opening moves of the French and Indian War, the French cross Lake Ontario and captured Fort Oswego. The French commander Vaudreuil wrote: The cries and howlings of our Canadians and Indians soon made the defenders decide to surrender."
Gee, howling Canadians scare me too.

1789-BASTILLE DAY-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In France the anger of the common people over economic hardship and arrogant indifference of the King and nobility finally exploded in mass violence. While poor people literally starved to death all King Louis XVI could think of was to trim the yearly allowance for the Royal Lapdogs. The focus of the people’s hate was the Bastille, a huge fortress- prison that towered over Paris rooftops, her cannon aimed at the people in the streets. The Parisians got guns from the Invalides and stormed the prison. Ironically the government was intending to phase out the prison anyway. When the gates were opened only a handful of petty thieves came out including a lunatic who shouted:" I am God! " But the symbolism was what counted. If you ever visit Paris don't try and look for the remains of the Bastille, the people demolished the building and paved streets over it. It’s key was given by Lafayette to George Washington, and its at Mt. Vernon. Miles away at Versailles Louis XVI had just written in his diary- July 14th 1789-" Nothing" when he heard the commotion he said:" What is that ? A revolt?" The Duke de la Rochfoucauld said:" No Sire, a revolution!"

1793- Charlotte Corday stabs French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat in his bathtub. Marat had to receive callers in his tub because of a skin affliction. He was known for sayings like "If we cut off a thousand heads today, it saves us cutting off ten thousand tomorrow!" and:"We'll strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest!" Corday was the daughter of one of his victims, a moderate politician called a Girondist. Young artist Madame Tussaud was allowed to make a death mask of Marat while still in the tub and David's painting shows him expiring with a Christ-like calm.

1798- President John Adams signed the ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS, which stated you could be jailed and if an immigrant deported, just for saying anything critical of the U.S. government. Thomas Jefferson said he was afraid to write down his views anymore in the face of such a law. The Adams’ administration was panicked over partisan politics and a perceived threat from Revolutionary France. Paris had no intention of attacking America and flew a Stars and Stripes in their Estates General. There was also the tricky problem of the hostile British Navy in the Atlantic. Yet President Adams still imagined at any moment an amphibious landing of furious Frenchmen dragging guillotines behind them and hanging businessmen from every lamppost. Congress authorized the raising of a standing army, led by elderly retired George Washington against the imaginary threat. Despite the obvious conflict with basic Constitutional rights, the Alien & Sedition Acts were never successfully challenged in court. In 1801 the time limit on the Acts were allowed to elapse without renewal, and incoming President Jefferson pardoned all those jailed under them.

1849-BLACK SHIP DAY-Commodore Perry sailed into Yedo Bay and convinced the Japanese to open trade by threatening to shell Yokohama. This ends Japan's 300 year old isolation from the outside world. The Shogun's envoys receive the Americans by laying straw mattes under their feet and talking to them in a special pavilion. The Yankees thought this was special treatment, but actually after they left, the mattes and building were burned so they could say the foreigner's feet never polluted Japanese soil.

1850 - 1st public demonstration of ice made by freon-refrigeration

1853 – In emulation of the London World Exposition at the Crystal Palace the 1st US World's fair opens at the Crystal Palace NY.

1862- Every old sailors worst nightmare came true. This day the US Navy did away with the sailors daily rum ration, in effect outlawing all alcohol on a ship except for medicinal purposes. Spirits were the preferred drink on ships since ancient times because drinking water could give you a myriad of diseases: cholera, dysentery, etc. but no bugs can live in alcohol.

1868-Seward's Folly- Congress authorized the purchase of Alaska from Russia.

1881-BILLY THE KID SHOT- Fort Sumner New Mexico sheriff Pat Garrett hid in a closet in the Kid's hotel room and shot him in the back as he was taking his boots off. Billy's last words were:" Who's there?" Backshooting was how Billy killed most of his victims. He was 21. After firing off his guns Pat Garret panicked and rushed out into the street without waiting to see their effect. Billy had such a lethal reputation that a small crowd stood in fear outside his room for nearly an hour until they were sure the Kid wasn't just playing possum but was really dead. Even though Garret was practically illiterate he wrote several best selling books on the incident, heavily exaggerated by pulp ghostwriter Ned Buntine. Eventually Pat Garret too was backshot, this time in an argument over some goats on his ranch.

1882- Gunfighter Johnny Ringo found dead in Turkey Canyon Arizona. Ringo was not part of the Gunfight at the OK Corral but he later called out Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp claimed he had hunted down Ringo and killed him but the court ruled it a suicide.

1892- Civil War veterans who were wounded in service were awarded a $50 pension by the government. Female nurses of that conflict were awarded a $12 pension. Satirical writer and social critic Ambrose Bierce returned his money with the note" Thank you but this was not part of the original contract when I signed on to become an assassin for my Country."

1908- The Adventures of Dollie premiered, the first movie of D.W. Griffith.

1921-Sacco & Vancetti convicted. These men were Italian immigrants and socialists who were accused of the murder of a Massachusetts storeowner. The evidence was slight but hey, they were foreigners and espoused lefty politics. Despite protests around the world from folks like Picasso, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller they were electrocuted. Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote a dozen ballads in tribute to Sacco & Vancetti." Let me sing you a ballad of Sacco-Vancetti, pour me some wine and eat some spaghetti..."

1933- "Well Blow Me Down"- Max Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. Vaudvillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who was the voice ever after.

1946 - Dr Ben Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published

1955-The Kaarman Ghia debuted. Volkswagen wanted an "image car" to compete with the sleek American designs like the Corvette and Thunderbird. So they subcontracted the Kaarman motorbus company who engaged an Italian design firm named Ghia and the distinctive little coupe was born.

1967 - The new band called the Who began a US tour as the opening act for Herman’s Hermits.

1980- The Republican Convention nominated former California Governor, actor and SAG president Ronald Reagan. The GOP under Robert Strauss & Lee Atwater completed restructuring itself after the disaster of Watergate by creating a new-conservative alliance of Sunbelt rightwingers, Evangelicals and Southern Dixiecrats. Regular Republican stalwarts who disagreed with the ultra conservative agenda- Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and Lowell Weicker, were out in the cold. At 69 Reagan was the oldest man to ever run for the presidency (Note: John McCain is 71). Reagan said of the convention:" It’s the first time in a long while I saw myself on television in prime time." Someone asked old Hollywood mogul Jack Warner "what do you think of Ronald Reagan for President?" Warner replied:" Nah, Jimmy Stuart for President. Ronald Reagan for his best friend!"
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?

Answer: they are all left-handed.

Posted by:Tom

July 13th, 2008 sun

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

More good reviews for Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns, and many folks whose PBS station didn't run it on Weds are seeing it now. We hope you like it.

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Quiz: What do Leonardo DaVinci, Barack Obama, John McCain and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Has there ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?
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History for 7/13/2008
Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka,Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 67, Harrison Ford is 65

1704- BLENHEIM-the great battle where the Duke of Marlborough destroyed the French army of Louis XIV then attacking Bavaria. In the three centuries since Agincourt the reputation of English arms had faded in Continental Europe, preoccupied as they were by their internal Wars of the Roses and English Civil Wars. While the British Navy's reputation was growing, on land King William III trusted his Dutch generals more than his British. Blenheim changed all that. In one day Britain became the dominant powerbroker in Europe. John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough was the great ancestor of Winston Churchill.

1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.

1865- P.T.Banham’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barham rebuilt but after that one burned as well he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum , more a sitting menagerie and sideshow than a museum as we know it, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees.

1898-Giusseppi Marconi patents wireless transmissions, the Radio. Marconi believed that sound never dies, it just grows fainter. In his old age he was trying to invent a machine that could pick up the traces of the voice of Jesus.

1923- Paleontologist George Olsen while digging in the Gobi Desert discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs.

1925- Walt and Lillian Disney marry.

1930- Six thousand people in formal evening wear crowded into London’s Albert Hall to hear a special message from Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. It was extra special because everyone knew Conan-Doyle had died just five days ago. Arthur Conan-Doyle was a champion of spiritualism. He declared if anyone could get a message through from beyond the grave, he would. An empty chair was placed on stage in hopes of his apparition would take a seat. Hymns were sung and after long embarrassing silences, a clairvoyant medium claimed she could see Sir Arthur. Others saw nothing and thought it was all a big humbug.

1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times that " The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long.

1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.

1960- Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nominated for President by the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The day continued with rounds of fierce backroom deals to decide the running mate. Although the Kennedys wanted Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri it finally was decided to go with Lyndon Johnson. He was the powerful Senate leader from Texas. Johnson had asked his Texas mentor Cactus Jack Garner if he should accept the job. Cactus Jack was Franklin Roosevelt’s Veep for his first two terms. The 90 year old Garner said:” Lyndon, the Vice Presidency ain’t worth a bucket a warm spit!” Bobby Kennedy considered offering Lyndon the Vice Presidency a token gesture to mollify his anger at losing the nomination. But he was surprised when Johnson accepted. Before going to Ciro’s with Frank Sinatra to celebrate the nomination, Presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled JFK making the best of it:” The Vice Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m forty three and I don’t plan to die in office….”

1977- The Great New York City Blackout of '77. For the second time in 20 years the whole darn East Coast power grid breaks down. Unlike the 1964 Blackout it was much longer, much hotter, and there was no full moon to illuminate the city. My wife Pat remembers being in the Bronx on the phone to her boyfriend in Hoboken, when her lights went out. She told him and he raced to the Jersey shore just in time to see the Skyline of Manhattan blacking out a section at a time like a huge set of dominoes. The next day posh Eastside clubs had guys drive to Jersey for ice so they could offer a cold cocktail on the sidewalk for $25 each. There was some looting and other civil disturbances and at the same time the lunatic killer the Son of Sam was on the prowl. No wonder they called it Fun City!

1985- Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldorf organized a massive live concert called LIVE AID. Televised and seen by 1.5 billion people, it raised money for African famine relief. Madonna, Santanna, Paul MacCartney, The Beach Boys and reunions of Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who and Led Zeppelin.

1985- A cancerous polyp was removed from President Ronald Reagan’s colon. Comic Paul Rodriguez said:” Reagan is amazing: He got cancer in his nose, he got cancer in his butt, he got shot full of bullets- he’s like the Terminator President..”
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Yesterday’s Question: Has there ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?

Answer: Yes. In 1778 during the Revolutionary War, Count Casimir Pulaski organized the U.S. Cavalry as a separate arm of the army, and was the only one to hold the archaic rank Master of Horse. In 1945 Douglas Macarthur was appointed US Proconsul Plenipotentiary over occupied Japan, a term not used since the days of Ancient Rome. In 2003 L Paul Bremer III was named US Executive Administrator over occupied Iraq, but was referred to also as Viceroy. If that sounds confusing, according to contemporary accounts, it was. US generals in Baghdad and even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were never quite sure who had authority over whom.

Posted by:Tom

July 12th,2008 sat

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Question: Has their ever been a position in the American government of Proconsul, Master of Horse or Viceroy?

Yesterday’s question answered below: what is a Quonset hut?
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History for 7/12/2008
Birthdays: Gaius Julius Caesar is 2,108 years old, Henry David Thoreau, Oscar Hammerstein, Kirsten Flagstad, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Neruda, George Eastman, Milton Berle, Cheryl Ladd, Van Cliburn, Buckminster Fuller, George Washington Carver, Josiah Wedgewood- of Wedgewood china and pottery, Richard Simmons, Krysty Yamaguchi, Bill Cosby is 71

783AD – Queen Bertha "with the big feet", wife of French king Pippin III, died.

1817- For the first time in many years America wasn’t at war with anyone and political feuding had died down. James Monroe was elected President in what was considered a decidedly low-key election. A Boston newspaper named the Columbian Sentinel described the climate of the times as “The Era of Good Feeling”. The name stuck.

1861- The McCandles Massacre, the most famous Western shootout until the OK Corral. James Hickock earns his nickname Wild Bill by killing ten desperadoes in a free for all with sixguns and bowie knives. Interviewed by Harpers Weekly Mr. Hickock said :”I was wild and I struck savage blows.”

1863-The NEW YORK CITY DRAFT RIOTS- Arguably the largest civil disturbance in American History. Poor immigrant laborers, sick of the Civil War, and being forced into the army while rich men bought their way out, run wild in the streets in three days of looting. Labor history mentions that most of these laborers worked a 12-14 hour day, seven days a week, so fighting slavery seemed a moot point to them. The Harvard-Yale games went on throughout the Civil War and rich men like J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Roosevelt bought substitutes. The riot was sparked by a new draft office opening on 46th St & 3rd Ave. They started calling names just as the first lists of the dead from the Battle of Gettysburg were being published. A mob of 15,000 attacked and burned the Draft Board offices and overwhelmed the police. Writer Herman Melville watching the flames from a rooftop, said: “The Rats have taken over the City.” The mob attacked well dressed men “There goes a three hundred-dollar man!” Newspaperman and abolitionist Horace Greeley defended his New York World office with a small cannon in his lobby. The New York Times posted Gatling Guns on it’s roof and Wall St. banks boiled oil to drop from the rooftops like something out of the Middle Ages. Modern apologists for the rich prefer to focus on the racism of the mob. Indeed the Irish poor, targets of racism themselves, singled out black people as the cause of all their misfortunes and hanged many from lampposts as they burned and looted. They even torched a black little girl’s orphanage. The children had to be escorted by bayonet wielding militia to a barge in the East River for safety.
N.Y. Governor Horatio Seymour who’s own public contempt for Pres. Lincoln's policies help encourage the riots, had to borrow Union Army regiments from the battlefields of Gettysburg to restore order in New York City. Most of these soldiers were also Irish immigrants.

1863- After the defeat at Gettysburg Robert E. Lee's retreating army was pinned for awhile against the rain swollen Potomac River. As the surrounding Union army prepared to attack, a local minister went up to Yankee General Meade and protested fighting a battle on a Sunday. When Meade tried to reason with him, the minister replied:" As God's emissary I denounce the defiling of His day! Look ye to the heavens!" Almost as if on command a rainstorm burst out over their heads. Meade suspended the attack for that day.

1864- Jubal Early's Confederates are turned back from the gates of Washington D.C. Early didn’t think he could hold Washington but he was determined to loot and burn it and maybe in so doing draw Grant away from Richmond. Rebel skirmishers were reported to be as close as Georgetown and the greybacks said they could see the gleaming white dome of the US Capitol. Despite Union forces in the area being pathetically unprepared, Quartermaster General Meigs had to arm his accountants and they bussed out hospital invalids with guns, they still managed to turn Early away. President Lincoln went out to Fort Stevens near present day Walter Reade Medical Center to watch the fight. During the shooting Col. Oliver Wendel Holmes a future Chief Justice called out to the man in the 8 dollar stovepipe hat peering over the parapet:" Get down ya damn fool! You’re drawing fire. You wanna get us all Killed?!" The last time a sitting U.S. President was under enemy fire.

1870- Celluloid film patented. The inventor had been trying to find a substitute for ivory billiard balls. Inventor George Eastman later perfected the sprocket and hole system of roll film for cameras, replacing the large glass plates.

1876- Gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock arrived in Deadwood South Dakota to prospect for gold, see some old friends like Calamity Jane, and play a little poker.

1914 – Young reform school graduate Babe Ruth makes his baseball debut, as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

1928 - 1st televised tennis match.

1948 - 1st jets to fly across the Atlantic -6 RAF de Havilland Vampires.

1962 – The Rolling Stones 1st performance at the Marquee Club, London. One band member named Elmo Lewis changed his name to Brian Jones.

1979- Carmine "The Cigar" Galante, boss of the Gambino Mafia family, was blown away over coffee and spumoni at a small Brooklyn restaurant called Joe & Marys. He was finished off with a 45 cal. slug through the eye, his cigar still in his lips. The hit was ordered by Paul Castellano. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post set a new journalistic low when a reporter shimmied up a drainpipe and got a photo of the Don's bullet riddled body before the cops could throw a sheet over it. Murdoch of course, put it in color on the front page.

1979- Disco Demolition Night. Chicago Fans could get into Comisky Park for 98 cents if they each brought a Disco record to burn. Thousands of records were thrown at the players like Frisbees while they were trying to play, so Chicago was forced to forfeit the game. “I love the Nightlife, I love the Nightlife…”

1984- Geraldine Ferrarro named the Vice Presidential running mate of Walter Mondale. They lose in a landslide to Reagan-Bush.

1990- TV series Northern Exposure premiered.
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Yesterday’s question: what is a Quonset hut?

Answer: A simple prefabricated corrugated steel structure that could be set up quickly. In 1941 the Navy wanted something like the British Davis huts. This design was made at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. Quonset huts served a variety of purposes from military airfields, settlements at Antarctica, to war surplus college annex buildings.

Posted by:Tom

July 11th, 2008 fri.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is a Quonset hut?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?
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History for 7/11/2008
Birthdays: Scottish King Robert the Bruce, John Quincy Adams, Sir Thomas Bowdler, E.B. White, Yul Brynner- real name Tadjhe Khan, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leon Spinks, Tab Hunter, Susan Vega, Giorgio Armani, Sela Ward, Kimberly “Little Kim’ Jones

480 a.d.- Today is the Feast of SAINT BENEDICT, the monk who established the first rules for monks, convents and abbeys. Before this people who wished to express Christian zeal renounced the world and ran off into the hills to become hermits. Benedict said “Idleness is the Enemy of the Soul” and encouraged his followers to serve the community- make jam, milk goats, whatever, just do something useful. He ordered that monks wear the same uniform cowl and do not eat animal flesh. In the same year the last Pagan schools of philosophy were being closed down he established the first great monastery of Monte Cassino on the site of an old temple to Apollo.

1798- The Birthday of the U.S. Marine Band, the most famous military band in the U.S.. Called the 'President's Own" it achieved world fame in 1881 under it's director John Philip Sousa.

1804 THE HAMILTON-BURR DUEL- The only other Vice President other than Dick Cheney shot someone while still in office. Aaron Burr shot and killed the former Secretary of the Treasury in a duel. The guy currently on the ten dollar bill.
Aaron Burr was a lieutenant under Alexander Hamilton during the Revolution, later in politics they became bitter foes. No one was sure what one word or incident sparked this duel but they spent years ruining each others political schemes: Hamilton withheld support from Burr in the presidential election of 1800 even though they were in the same party, Burr arranged Hamilton would lose the race for governor of New York. Finally they couldn't stand each other any more. They rowed across the Hudson to have the duel in Weehawken New Jersey, this way the winner would only be wanted for murder in one state. The site was the same field that Hamilton's son had died in a duel three years earlier. Friends of Hamilton insist he deliberately shot wide as a gesture while Burr shot to kill. Burr said baloney, he was just nervous. Hamilton died the next day. Amazingly, Burr was allowed to finish his term as Vice President, because there weren't any laws on what to do with a Vice President who kills somebody. He presided over Congress and even had dinner with President Jefferson - Tom didn't like Hamilton either. Burr never went to trial, but his political career was as dead as Hamilton.

1922- The first regular concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The natural amphitheater called Bolton Canyon, had been used for Easter morning services and some concerts before, but now on a regular basis. Frank Lloyd Wright’s bandshell was built in 1927.

1936- The Triboro Bridge project opens in New York City. A massive WPA project to link the various boroughs of New York by highways, it was begun in 1933 but delayed for years by corruption, and the fact that Franklin Roosevelt personally despised it's chief architect, Robert Moses. Moses had referred to the handicapped Roosevelt as a "gimp" and "half-man". FDR denied any federal money for the project until Moses was fired. Mayor Fiorello Laguardia used all of his personal charisma and friendship with FDR to keep the project moving. Robert Moses was not only retained but created other engineering marvels like Jones Beach and the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964. The first Disney animatronic Mr. Lincoln, for a demonstration was programmed to say "How do you do, Mr. Moses."

1938- The radio show The Mercury Theater of the Air with Orson Welles and John Houseman premiered.

1943- OPERATION HUSKIE-During the invasion of Sicily American strategists decided to drop parachute troops behind German lines to trap them before they could evacuate to Italy. The first drop was successful, the second less so and today's was a complete disaster. For some reason ships of the U.S. Navy mistook the flying transports for the enemy and began shooting down their own planes. Planes full of paratroops of the 82nd Airborne crashed and burned and prematurely cut gliders that smashed into the ocean. Afterwards there was a news blackout and from then on parachute planes wing's were painted with three broad white 'invasion stripes' to prevent similar accidents. The secret was so well kept it’s still not mentioned in many popular histories of World War Two. One C-47 transport that peeled off, and ran for base avoiding the carnage contained Sergeant George Sito, who survived the war to sire this author.
Go Dad!

1944- Despite being ill and frail, Franklin Roosevelt announced he would be a candidate for an unprecedented 4th term in office as President. After his death Congress passed the 22nd amendment forbidding any other President to have more than two terms.

1945- Napalm first used on Japanese positions in Luzon in the Philippines.

1952- The Republican Convention nominated Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to be their candidate for President. No body was sure until then what Eisenhower’s political affiliation even was and there is evidence that Truman wanted Ike to run as a Democrat in 1948. The nomination came as a great shock to the ambitions of the other republican World War Two hero, General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur reacted ungraciously when he heard the news and called Ike: “ He was the best damn orderly I ever had!”

1962-The Tellstar I satellite transmitted the first television images from France to USA.

1969 - Rolling Stones release "Honky Tonk Woman".

1970- “Mama Told Me Not to Come” by Three Dog Night hits #1 in the pop charts. The song was written by young composer Randy Newman. Despite all the success and Oscars nominations Randy Newmans had with songs like Short People and I Love LA, this song was his only one to be #1.

1975- Chinese archaeologists excavating at the ancient site of XIAN discover an entire army of 6,000 terra cotta statues buried in formation with chariots and cavalry. Each statue was an individual portrait. They were buried in 221 BC to protect the tomb of China's first emperor Chi Yuan Zsi, who’s name is where the name China came from.

1979- The world holds it’s breath and covers it’s head as the first U.S. space station SKYLAB falls from orbit. 77 tons of space debris in 500 pieces falling around Australia and the Indian Ocean. Luckily it didn’t hit any one although chunks were stuck in an office building in Perth.

1991- Disney announced it would enter into a distribution deal with a Bay area digital offshoot of Lucasfilm named PIXAR. Nine hit films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo and Wall-E are the result.

1997- A fruitcake named Jonathan Norman was arrested for trying to break into Steven Speilbergs Malibu home. He believed Speilberg “wanted to be raped” and had on him chloroform, duct tape and S&M paraphernalia.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?

Answer: Named for author George Orwell, whose books, 1984 and Animal Farm, described how modern technological tyranny will warp political discourse with twisted euphemisms to hide outrages they commit on human rights. So War is Peace, and the place where you are tortured is called the Ministry of Love.

Posted by:Tom

July 10th 2008 Thurs. Max Ginsburg

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PST

Last month, at my High School of Art & Design 35th Reunion, I had a good fortune of meeting up once again with my old illustration teacher Mr Max Ginsburg. Funny how in retrospect, you don't realize how some people influence you until way later.

coffee break, by Max Ginsburg

Max Ginsburg came out of a particular philosophy of painting in New York called the AshCan School. He taught us all to see beauty in the most unlikely of places, namely urban squalor. Where Rockwell or Benton or Grant Wood celebrated the American outdoors and the small town, Max Ginsburg saw the beauty of the inner streets, broken fire hydrants, the canyons of steel, where the sky is only visible where two buildings part. Mr Ginsburg once took us all out on a field trip to where a row of brownstone row houses were being demolished. He had us draw the rubble. I remember spending a day drawing the plane breaks and shadows on an alleyway dumpster. For models he would go to 23rd St Park and hire a homeless person with a pint of cheap wine, to come upstairs and pose for us.
Pretty heavy stuff for an 11th grader!

Art Babbitt used to teach us, once you know how to animate, the Goddess of Animation wants you to bring something of yourself to your work.

In directing animation, I have ever been drawn to urban landscapes. Many of my fellow directors grew up in suburbs or rural areas. I am unashamed to say I was a child of the New York City Streets. I ran between subway cars, hung on the back of city buses, played in abandoned buildings, got chased by junkies and street freaks and made out with girls in the bushes of Central Park. Rural life was a one time Hudson River Dayline cruise to Bear Mountain.

So in CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS, and earlier in OSMOSIS JONES, I tried to capture that sense of fascinating clutter, a Fleischer-esque paean to city life.

click to enlarge

If I know anything about this business, it was because I was fortunate to have great teachers like Gil Miret, Howard Beckerman, Babbitt, Dick Williams, Harvey Kurtzman and Robert Beverly Hale.

And thanks to you, Max Ginsburg, for being such an inspiration to me as a teacher and an artist.
http://www.maxginsburg.com/index.htm

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Hope you liked CLick & Clack. Some of the reviews have not been kind, but thats from people who only watched one episode. As Noel Coward said: "A critic is someone who comes on the battlefield after the danger is past, and shoots the wounded."
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Quiz: When someone describes something as Orwellian, what does that mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Thinking of my new TV series debuting tonight on PBS, who used to say: “ Those who are about to die, salute you!”
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History for 7/10/2008
Birthdays: John Calvin, Marcel Proust, James McNeill Whistler, Carl Orff, Camille Pissarro, Adolphus Busch the founder of Budweiser beer, George DiChirico, Jacky "Legs" Diamond, Arlo Guthrie is 61, Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta, Joe Shuster- one of the creators of Superman, Fred Gywnne, David Brinkley, Arthur Ashe, Camilla Parker Bowles, Jessica Simpson is 28

138AD- Death of the Roman Emperor Hadrian at age 62. Antoninus Pius became emperor after promising to adopt as his heir young Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian, although suffering a last lingering illness, had arranged that Antoninus would have no rivals by ordering the deaths of anyone even thinking of wanting to be emperor. He even ordered the suicide of his brother-in-law Servianus, who although ninety years old had sworn to outlive Hadrian.

1040 - Lady Godiva goes for a ride on horseback in the nude to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes on the poor.

1099- The magical-mystical knight of Spain Rodrigo de Bivar, called El Cid, died at the castle of Valencia. The Cid had taken a loosely written promise from King Alfonso of Castile that he could keep any territory he took from the Moors, and used it to build a private army, capture the city of Valencia and rule it as an independent prince. Nine years after his death his wife Jimena surrendered Valencia to the Almohavid Moors but the legend of El Cid Campeador, the Conquerer-Champion lived on.

1588- French philosopher Michel de la Montaigne spent one night in the Bastille prison. The Bordeaux native had arrived in Paris in the midst of the nasty political fight between Huguenots and Catholics and was arrested as a traitor. Queen Mother Catherine de Medici ordered his prompt release.

1815- After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the allied armies occupying Paris start to squabble with one another. The Prussians (Germans) were disappointed they didn’t get to shoot Napoleon, burn Paris or do any other fun stuff. At least they wanted to blow up a Seine River bridge Nappy named for their humiliating defeat, the Pont du Jena. When the Duke of Wellington denounced this action as barbaric, General Von Gneisenau sneered: “you would do the same if there was a Pont du Yorktown here!” the big British defeat in the American Revolution. Wellington wouldn’t speak to von Gneisenau afterwards. The Prussians got to set off gunpowder charges but the bridge was built too solid and wouldn’t collapse, so they settled for renaming it the Pont du Louvre.

1892 - 1st concrete-paved street built in Bellefountaine, Ohio.

1925- THE SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL-Tennessee school teacher John Thomas Scopes went on trial for violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution to children. Scopes was defended by famed lawyer Clarence Darrow sent by the ACLU, the prosecutor was William Jennings Bryan. The trial evolved (forgive the pun) from a small claims misdemeanor to a debate on Charles Darwin’s theory itself. This day the media descended upon the little town of Dayton Tennessee, which had hoped to attract attention for its slumping economy. It was the first trial broadcast live on Chicago radio WGN nationwide. Hundreds of spectators attended from hillbillies with squirrel rifles, a chimpanzee in a suit called Mr. Joe Mendy to famous newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken, packing 4 bottles of bootleg scotch and a typewriter. Darrow humiliated Bryan in the debate but Scopes was found guilty and fined. The ban on teaching evolution remained on the books in Tennessee until 1967. Evolution is still under attack in the U.S. today, now by the issue of Intelligent Design.

1940- THEIR FINEST HOUR- First German bombing raids over London known as the "Battle of Britain". The Luftwaffe's mission, in preparation for a Nazi amphibious invasion of England- Operation Sea Lion, was to destroy the RAF and British industrial and supply areas, mostly around southeast London. This is why today the areas east of the Tower of London have so many modern buildings. The British had an advantage in developing a superior radar early warning system , which the Germans tried to confuse by dropping pounds of tin foil out of planes. Despite being outnumbered by three to one, the RAF prevailed, prompting Churchill's famous: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many, to so few."

1941- Jazz great Jelly Roll Morton died at 50 in Los Angeles from complications of asthma. He called himself the inventor of jazz but that is debatable. He was one of the first musicians to develop a solo style distinct from the rest of his band. His mother had practiced voodoo in New Orleans. She told him the reason for his fame and fortune was because she had promised his soul to the Devil for it. He spent his last hours in a panic with his wife anointing his head with Holy oil.

1950 - "Your Hit Parade" premieres on NBC (later CBS) TV.

1953- NIKITA KHRUSCHEV takes power in Moscow. After the death of Josef Stalin there was the inevitable shuffle of bureaucrats jockeying for top job. Commissars Bulganin, Malenkov and Molotov tried to hold power but the little bald Ukrainian with the big smile had the last laugh. At a secret meeting of the Presidium Khruschev arrested Laventi Beria, Stalin's dreaded chief executioner. Beria, who liked black silk sheets, underage girls and personally torturing prisoners, broke down and wept for his life before he was shot. Khruschev was more merciful with his other rivals: Bulganin was made manager of a Siberian power station, Molotov was made ambassador to Outer Mongolia. Comrade Khruschev held power until 1964.

Myeh-heh-heh. Now ve go get Moose and Squirrel!

1985 - Coca-Cola Co admits New Coke was a big mistake and announces it will resume selling old formula Coke.

1987- The environmental group Greenpeace first called attention to themselves by a large ship called the Rainbow Warrior used to enter atomic tests sites to protest. This day in Auckland Harbor, The Rainbow Warrior was sunk by a bomb placed on her hull by French commandos. The blast killed a photographer. Rainbow Warrior had been in the Pacific to protest France’s nuclear testing there. The Government of New Zealand determined the French were responsible. In the ensuing scandal the French Defense minister resigned and the commandos went to jail.

1979 - Chuck Berry sentenced to 4 months for $200,000 in tax evasion. The old rocker said:” It never fails, every ten years I wind up in jail for something.”

1991-Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as first popularly elected President of Russia.

1992-A U.S. federal judge sentenced Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega to 40 years in prison for being a drug pusher, dictator and never returning the CIA washroom keys.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Thinking of my new TV series debuting tonight on PBS, who used to say: “ Those who are about to die, salute you!”

Answer: The gladiators of ancient Rome. Before fighting, they raised their arm and said:
Ave Caesar, Morituri te Salutant! Hail Caesar, those who are about to die, Salute You.

Posted by:Tom