New word of the day

Spermologer - n: collector of seeds, but for our interest, many sites also define the word as a collector of trivia. 

I'm not sure I want to refer to myself like that.


December 2, 1972 -
Carly Simon released her hit, You're So Vain, with background harmonies supplied by Mick Jagger (who just happened to be in an adjoining studio at the time,) on this date.



In 2003, Simon held an auction for a charity on Martha's Vineyard where she offered to tell the high bidder who this song is about. The winning bidder was Dick Ebersol, the then president of NBC Sports, who paid $50,000. Carly Simon sang a duet with Taylor Swift last summer and told her who the mystery person was for free.


December 2, 1988 -
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! premiered on this date.



During Vincent Ludwig's first encounter with Frank Drebin, Ludwig is feeding his "fighting fish" small minnows. This is identical to a scene in the Bruce Lee movie Game of Death where we see Dr. Land (the main villain) feeding the same fish.


Today's Christmas theme (on our other channel) - War sucks, especially during the holidays.


Today in History:
December 2, 1763 -
The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island  was dedicated on this date.



Touro is the only surviving synagogue from the colonial era in the US and has operated more or less continually since its dedication.


December 2, 1814 -
Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, Marquis de Sade, died in a lunatic asylum at Charenton on this date.



The Marquis must have been a panic at parties - talk about getting carried away at orgies.


The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed on this day in 1823.



The doctrine set forth the principle that meddling European bastards should keep their meddling goddam hands out of the Americas.

It should not be confused with the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine, which stated that fondling European bastards should keep their fondling goddamn hands out of ...


December 2, 1859 -
At Charlestown in Western Virginia, abolitionist John Brown was hanged for treason on this date.



His body is still moulding in the grave.


December 2, 1908 -
John Baxter Taylor Jr. was an American track and field athlete and member of the Irish American Athletic Club (yes, they were integrated) notable as the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal.



According to the Winged Fist Website: Less than five months after returning from the Olympic Games in London, Taylor died of typhoid fever on this date, at the age of 26. In his obituary, The New York Times called him "the world's greatest negro runner."


December 2, 1939 -
New York's La Guardia Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago landed at 12:01 a.m. on this date.

The TSA is still hoping to screening most of the luggage for some of those passengers from those original flights.


December 2, 1942 -
On the squash court underneath a football stadium of the University of Chicago, at 3:45 p.m., control rods were removed from the "nuclear pile" of uranium and graphite, revealing that neutrons from fissioning uranium split other atoms, which in turn split others in a chain reaction. The Atomic Age was born when scientists, led by Enrico Fermi, demonstrated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.



The reaction was part of the Manhattan Project, the United States' top-secret plan to develop an atomic bomb. This little event led to nuclear power and nuclear weapons and had an incalculable effect on geopolitics, the economy, and art.


December 2, 1954 -
The US Senate voted 67-22 to condemned Joseph R. McCarthy (Sen-R-WI) for misconduct after his ruthless investigations of thousands of suspected communists, for 'conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.'



This followed the McCarthy investigation of the Army. Roy Cohn was McCarthy's aide and Joseph Welch was the attorney for the army.


December 2, 1956 -
George P. Metesky, better known as The Mad Bomber, struck again. Angry and resentful about events surrounding a workplace injury suffered years earlier, Metesky plants yet another bomber at Brooklyn's Paramount Theater, injuring seven, on this date.



Metesky planted at least 33 bombs, of which 22 exploded, injuring 15 people in New York City theaters, terminals, libraries and offices, including Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the RCA Building, as well as in the New York City Subway between 1940 and 1956.

Metesky was finally arrested in January of 1957. After undergoing extensive psychiatric examinations, for the time, he was found to be legally insane and incompetent to stand trial.


December 2, 1986 -
Desi Arnaz died from lung cancer, on this date.



Although recognized as a great innovator of television, I guess he might have had second thoughts about that Philip Morris sponsorship of the I Love Lucy show.


And so it goes


There are 14 days until the start of Hanukkah.