Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Kids, remember to pay your city tab

In rural Obion County, homeowners must pay $75 annually for fire protection services from the nearby city of South Fulton. If they don't pay the fee and their home catches fire, tough luck -- even if firefighters are positioned just outside the home with hoses at the ready.



When Gene Cranick's house caught fire last week, and he couldn't contain the blaze with garden hoses, he called 911. During the emergency call, he offered to pay all expenses related to the Fire Department's defense of his home, but the South Fulton firefighters refused to do anything.



They did, however, come out when Cranick's neighbor -- who'd already paid the fee -- called 911 because he worried that the fire might spread to his property. Once they arrived, members of the South Fulton department stood by and watched Cranick's home burn; they sprang into action only when the fire reached the neighbor's property.


Today is Armed Forces Day in Egypt and Ivy Day in Ireland. (Ivy Day is not a horticultural celebration. The date marks the anniversary of the 1891 death of Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell;

Irish favoring home rule traditionally pin a bit of ivy to their lapels in his honor. Ivy Day should not be confused with I.V. Day,

celebrated only by drips.)


October 6, 1966 -
LSD was declared illegal in the US on this date.



Hopefully you timed your intake accordingly.


Today in History -
October 6, 1014 -
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria dies of a heart attach after an army of 15,000 of his men is returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home.

For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars.

I guess we shouldn't complain.


October 6 is the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of literary criticism. It was on that date in 1536 that William Tyndale was recognized for his important contribution to world literature—the first translation of the New Testament into English—by being tied to the stake, strangled, and his dead body then burnt.



Ah, when men were men, women were women, and critics were murderous, torch-wielding fanatics!


October 6, 1976 -
During a televised debate, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.



Ford loses the election. (I wonder if He and Dan Quayle ever had lunch.)


October 6, 1927 -
Good, bad or indifferent to it, The Jazz Singer (the first feature-length movie with audible dialogue), premiered in NYC on this date.



Al Jolson's famous line "you ain't heard nothin' yet" was an ad-lib. The intention was that the film should only have synchronized music, not speech, but Jolson dropped in the line (which he used in his stage act) after the song Dirty Hands, Dirty Face. The director wisely left it in.


October 6, 1963 -
The wonderful adaption of the classic 18th Century novel, Tom Jones premiered in NYC on this date.



Hugh Griffith was reportedly drunk through much of the production; the scene in which his horse falls on him was not planned, and many believed he was saved by virtue of his inebriated condition. The film incorporated every frame of footage before rescuers entered the frame to save him.


October 6, 1981 -
During a commemoration of the Yom Kippur War, armed gunmen leap from a truck and begin shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.



Along with Sadat, the assassins kill eight others.



And so it goes.

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