Hey, we celebrate a whole bunch of things

If you are anywhere in North America today, go outside when it is noon, face south, and yell "fudge!" You will be doing your part to make sure Cobras do not advance and take over North America.

Any Cobras that have already made it to North America will turn around and go home.

So now you know.


June 2, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Room and Bird, directed by Friz Freleng, starring Sylvester and Tweety Bird, debuted on this date.



Tweety actually sings like a bird, and Sylvester actually meows like a cat while communicating with their respective owners.


June 2, 1956 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Unexpected Pest, directed by Bob McKimson, starring Sylvester, debuted on this date.



The names Marsha and John are a reference to the 1951 Stan Freberg song John and Marsha.


June 2, 1957 -
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was interviewed on US television for the very first time when CBS's Face the Nation aired on this date.



With Cold War tensions running high, some government officials accused CBS of putting out Communist propaganda. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, love god of Carol Burnett, refused to watch the interview.


June 2, 1972 -
A nearly-forgotten film based of the writing of James Thurber, The War Between Men and Women, directed by Melville Shavelson, and starring Jack Lemmon, Barbara Harris, Jason Robards, and Lisa Gerritsen, opened on this date.



Lisa Gerritsen played the same character (different name) in the 1969 TV series My World and Welcome to It.


June 2, 1973 -
Paul McCartney and Wings' song My Love, from the album Red Rose Freeway, hit No. 1 on the US singles chart on this date.



This is one of three songs of the same title to top the American singles chart. Petula Clark's My Love, was # 1 in 1966 whilst Justin Timberlake's song of the same title reached the peak position in 2006.


June 2, 1981 -
Barbara Walters famously asks Katharine Hepburn “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”, on this date.



After the interview, Walters' "tree" question was remembered, but the context in which it was asked was not. The so-called "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" question quickly became the equivalent of a television urban legend, often spoofed or (wrongly) cited as one of Walters' most outlandish interview questions. Over the years, even interview subjects ranging from Johnny Carson and Glenn Beck to Sandra Bullock brought up the infamous "tree" question during sit-downs with Walters.


June 2, 1983 -
The 12-inch remix of The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats goes to #1 on the Billboard Dance chart. MTV begins playing the huzzah-worthy video, and the song soon rose up the Hot 100.



Though music fans have often interpreted the song as a metaphor for nuclear war or a call for safe sex, Men Without Hats guitarist Stefan Doroschuk said in an online interview that The Safety Dance is about nonconformism and everyone's ability to leave their friends behind and strike out on their own.


June 2, 1984 -
Wham! had their first UK No.1 with Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, on this date.



Written and produced by George Michael, one half of the duo. Inspiration for the song was a scribbled note left by his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley for Andrew's parents, originally intended to read "wake me up before you go" but with "up" accidentally written twice, so Ridgeley wrote "go" twice on purpose.


June 2, 1987 -
The Paramount Picture Brian De Palma film, The Untouchables starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro premiered in NYC on this date.



An envelope is dropped on the desk of Eliot Ness in one scene. It is assumed to be a bribe, but the amount inside is never revealed. In real life, Al Capone promised Eliot Ness that two $1,000 bills would be on his desk every Monday morning if he turned a blind eye to his bootlegging activities (an enormous amount of money then; more than $30,000 today). Ness refused the bribe, and in later years struggled with money. He died almost broke at the age of fifty-four.


June 2, 1989 -
Peter Weir's take on the classic film Goodbye Mr. Chips, Dead Poets Society, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, and Ethan Hawke opened in limited release on this date.



Peter Weir chose to shoot the film in chronological order to better capture the development of the relationships between the boys and their growing respect for Mr. Keating.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
June 2, 1740 -
The Marquis de Sade was born on this date and his sexual proclivities made his name a noun.



His sexual proclivities themselves have been preserved in a mason jar at the Louvre.


June 2, 1793 -
Jean Paul Marat recites names of 29 people to the French Assembly, virtually all of whom will be guillotined. The Rain of Terror officially began in France.

This was one of the worst meteorological events in French history and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. (I will not stop discussing this event.)


June 2, 1886 -
President (Steven) Grover Cleveland, 49 and weighing over 300 lbs. (think William Barr with a walrus mustache) married Frances Folsom (his legal ward) in a White House ceremony on this date. Ms.Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom.



The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present (those who could get over the entire ick factor.) To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.



Here's a great bar bet: One of Cleveland's first political post was when he was elected Sheriff of Erie County in New York State in 1870. While in office, he presided over the hanging of two convicted murderers. So when he was elected President in 1884 (and in 1892), he was the only President to have personally executed anyone.


June 2, 1896 -
The first radio patent was issued to Guglielmo Marconi in England for his wireless telegraphy apparatus, described as “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor.” (UK No. 12,039)









I wonder what will become of that new fangled thing?


June 2, 1897 -
Mark Twain, at age 61, was quoted by the New York Journal on this date, as saying "the report of my death was an exaggeration."

He was responding to the rumors that he had died.

That always puts a crimp in your day.


June 2, 1910 -
Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, became the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways, on this date.

He became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane broke up in midair; he did not immediate return to his seat when the fasten your seat light was illuminated.


June 2, 1924 -
President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as the Snyder Act, after the bill's sponsor, Representative Homer P. Snyder, of New York,) granting full citizenship to all indigenous people born in the U.S. on this date.

Even Native Americans who were granted citizenship rights under the 1924 Act may not have had full citizenship and suffrage rights until 1948. Some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957.


June 2, 1941 -
Baseball great, Lou Gehrig, died at 37 at his home in the Bronx on this date.



You would have thought someone might have mentioned to him that he had Lou Gehrig's disease earlier in his career.


June 2, 1953 -
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten officially became the head of her family's business and had her coronation on this date.



The entire ceremony was, save for the anointing and communion, televised throughout the Commonwealth, and was watched by an estimated 20 million people, with 12 million more listening on the radio.




The Queen's reign was longer than those of her four immediate predecessors combined (Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII and George VI). She was the longest reigning British or English monarch, and the second-longest-serving monarch of a sovereign state, having reigned for 70 years, 214 days (after King Louis XIV of France, who reigned for 72 years, 110 days) and the oldest reigning British monarch.

Here were the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom who served QEII

Sir Winston Churchill *    1952 – 1955
Sir Anthony Eden              1955 – 1957
Harold Macmillan             1957 – 1963
Sir Alec Douglas-Home     1963 – 1964
Harold Wilson                    1964 – 1970
Edward Heath                    1970 – 1974
Harold Wilson                    1974 – 1976
James Callaghan                1976 – 1979
Margaret Thatcher            1979 – 1990
John Major                         1990 – 1997
Tony Blair **                      1997 - 2007
Gordon Brown                    2007 - 2010
David Cameron ***           2010 - 2016
Theresa May                       2016 - 2019
Boris Johnson                     2019 - 2022
Elizabeth Truss               September 6, 2022 - October 6, 2022

* Incredibly Churchill had the distinction of being the only MP to be elected under both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.
** Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to have been born during the Queen's reign. He was born in early May, 1953 - a month before the Coronation.
*** David Cameron was born in 1966; Prince Andrew, the Queen's third child was already 6 years old at the time.

Charles became the head of the firm with the passing of his mother, making him one of the oldest people to get their first job at his age, in history. Let's have a good thought for Charles and Kate, for that matter, today.


June 2, 1966 -
NASA had it's first successful moon landing with the Space Surveyor 1's soft landing, on this date.



The Soviet Union was the first when the Russian probe Luna 9 had a successful soft landing on the moon on February 3rd earlier in 1966 .



And so it goes.

A love song written by nature

June is the sixth month of the year and consists of thirty days. The ancient Romans gave it 29 days until 46 BC, when Julius Caesar added the thirtieth for reasons known only to himself. (Caesar's hobbies seem to have been conquering the known world, sleeping with some very rich North African teenager, and making calendars.)

The last day of the month is therefore referred to as its "Caesarean section" by calendar insiders.

(Calendar insiders need to get out more often.)



The month is believed to derive its name from either the Roman goddess Juno, patron goddess of marriage, or the Latin word iuniores ("the younger ones").



June marks the transition from spring to summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and from fall to winter in the Southern Hemisphere. (It is not a transitional month in other hemispheres.)



June has usually been the most popular month for weddings, but it's commonly overlooked that it's also one of the top twelve months for bathtub drownings and spontaneous combustion.



June is traditionally considered the poet's month because, with the warming of the earth and the lengthening light of fragrant evenings, thoughts inevitably turn to romance as hearts and passions swell. Also, June rhymes with a lot of words. For example: afternoon, aswoon, autoimmune, baboon, balloon, bassoon, bestrewn, boon, buffoon, Cameroon, cocoon, contrabassoon, croon, doubloon, dragoon, dune, entomb, excommune, festoon, floroon, granfalloon, harpoon, honeymoon, immune, inopportune, impugn, jejune, kaboom, lampoon, loon, macaroon, maroon, midafternoon, monsoon, moon, noon, pantaloons, picayune, platoon, poltroon, pontoon, prune, raccoon, rune, saloon, Schmigadoon, spittoon, spermatozoon, strewn, swoon, tune, tycoon, typhoon, ultramaroon, and vinegarroon.

Among the things we celebrate this month are::

National Accordion Awareness Month
Aquarium Month
Dairy Alternatives Month
National DJ Month
National Iced Tea Month
Fireworks Safety Months
National Pest Control Month
National Seafood Month


June 1, 1957 -
Another great drive in movie, The Giant Claw, directed by Fred F. Sears, and starring Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Robert Shayne, Morris Ankrum, and Dabbs Greer was released on this date.



In an interview, Jeff Morrow said that no one in the cast saw the title monster until they went to the film's premiere in Morrow's home town. Producer Sam Katzman had contracted with a low-budget model-maker in Mexico City to construct the "Giant Claw," and no one in the cast or crew had any idea it would come out looking as bizarre as it did. Morrow said the audience roared with laughter every time the monster made an appearance. He wound up slinking out of the theater in embarrassment before the film was over so no one who knew him would recognize him.


June 1, 1966 -
Dick Van Dyke tripped over the ottoman for the last time when CBS aired the last episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Last Chapter on this date.



In the show, Rob writes his autobiography and shows it to everyone. At the end of the show Alan decides to buy the rights to the manuscript and turn it into a TV series with him as the star after he finishes the variety series - which is what Carl Reiner did when he starred in the first unaired pilot for this series.


June 1, 1968 -
The British television series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS-TV, as a summer replacement for a Jackie Gleason series, on this date.



At the end of the run of Secret Agent, there was a party, and some members of Parliament attended. Someone said to McGoohan, "So, what does a secret agent do when he retires?" meaning McGoohan. McGoohan took it literally and asked the question to some Parliament members. "Oh, we take care of them. We give them a house, a car, some pocket money, and that way they don't defect." This inspired McGoohan to create the show.


June 1, 1968 -
The Simon & Garfunkel release Mrs. Robinson hit No. 1 on the Billboard #100 list on this date.





Paul Simon began writing this as Mrs. Roosevelt, and had just the line, Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt when he changed it to Mrs. Robinson for The Graduate. Simon did not originally write a full-length version of this song, only the verses that are heard in the movie. After the movie became a hit, he finished the lyrics and recorded the full version that is known today.


June 1, 1980 -
Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut as the first all-news station.



How sad, Darth Vader had to do voice over work to rebuild the death star


June 1, 1984 -
The third feature film of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, starring the usually cast of characters on this date.



When negotiating Kirstie Alley's contract for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Paramount Studios did not offer or include any options or clauses regarding any possible sequels. According to director Leonard Nimoy, this left Alley open to negotiate a new contract for this film, resulting in Alley's excessive salary demands, which led to her being dropped and replaced by Robin Curtis.


June 1, 1984 -
The severly altered and shorten masterpiece by Sergio Leone, Once Upon a Time in America, starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, and Treat Williams, opened in the US on this date.



A few days before the film's premiere in 1984, Treat Williams found out the two-hour version, not the three hour and forty-nine minute version, would be shown in theaters. He was heard to have said that no one would understand the movie in the shortened version. Indeed, the film did not do well at theaters, and was shut out of the Oscars, and received no nominations. When the video cassette and DVD versions were released in the original three hour and forty-nine minute version, the film ultimately found commercial and critical success.


June 1, 1985 -
David Lee Roth's cover of two Louis Prima songs - Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody peaks at No. 12 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Roth's love of quirky songs from a bygone era stems from his childhood, when he would listen to the underground radio station KPPC out of Pasadena, California. In their "anything goes" format, they played lots of fun, adventurous songs by the likes of Cab Calloway and Louis Prima.


June 1, 2001 -
Baz Luhrmann's jukebox musical fantasy, Moulin Rouge!, starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and Richard Roxburgh, opens nationwide in theaters, on this date.



Various tricks were used to make John Leguizamo's (Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa) legs appear shorter. Some shots are of his stand-in who was of the correct height, while in others he walked on his knees in special leg braces and wearing blue socks so that his lower legs could be digitally removed. Leguizamo did the entire climactic scene from a squatting position to give him greater mobility in his role. Consequently he had to endure several weeks of physical therapy afterwards.


June 1, 2009 –
Coco thought he succeeded Jay Leno when The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien premiered on NBC, on this date.



Many members of the Late Night cast and crew made the transition to The Tonight Show. The Max Weinberg 7, the house band from O'Brien's Late Night, served as the house band under the new name, Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. Andy Richter returned to the show as announcer, and also began resuming his role as sidekick, shortly before the show's conclusion. The opening and closing theme song from Late Night was also carried over to Tonight, in a slightly altered form.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
June 1, 1494 -
The first written record of Scotch Whisky appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland on this date. (The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies.)



It is generally agreed that Dalriadan Scots monks brought distillation with them when they came to Caledonia to convert the Picts to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A Friar John Cor was the distiller of the first known batch.


June 1, 1571 -
The "Triple Tree" gallows was installed at Tyburn, England in time for the execution of John Storey, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for committing treason.

The Triple Tree consists of an equilateral triangle nine feet long on each side, 18 feet off the ground. It can hang as many as 24 prisoners at once, and would remain in place for almost 200 years.


June 1, 1660 -
After having received a last-minute reprieve seven months earlier, Mary Dyer was hanged for heresy after returning to Boston on this date.



Dyer was guilty of the heinous crime of being a member of the Quakers, a subversive religious sect which had been banned by the Puritan colony under "pain of death" for their religious views of warm breakfast foods.


June 1, 1813 -
The U.S. Navy gained its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence was heard to say, "Don't give up the ship!", during a losing battle with a British frigate Shannon; his ship was captured by the British frigate.



James Lawrence died of his wounds on June 4th, while the Chesapeake was being taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her captors. His body was later repatriated to New York for burial.


June 1, 1926 -
Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live.



Gladys Baker gave birth to Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on this date.

Unfortunately, things did not quite work out for little Norma Jean.


June 1, 1938 -
Superman made his first appearance in D.C. Comics' Action Comics Series issue #1. The comic book sold for 10 cents. Jerry Siegel created Superman in 1933 after he dreamed about the Biblical story of Moses, whose parents abandoned him as a baby in order to save his life. This became the plot of the first Superman story.



It has been estimated that there are only 50 to 100 original copies of Action Comics #1 still in existence, and a smaller number of such exceptional quality as to be at the very high end of collectibility. One copy was stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, an avid comic book collector, in 2000. In March 2011, it was found in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley and was verified by ComicConnect.com to be exactly the same copy that they sold to him previously. Cage had previously received an insurance payment for the item.


June 1, 1954 -
In the Peanuts comic strip, Linus' security blanket made its debut, on this date.

Although one of the things most associated with Linus is his obsessive need for the comfort provided by his security blanket, the intensity of that need clearly ebbs, as he is often (probably most frequently) shown without the beloved blanket.


June 1, 1967 -
It was 59 years ago today, The Beatles blew the collective world's mind away. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK on this date





The album was quite complex to produced and took 129 days and about 700 hours to complete. The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in less than 10 hours.


June 1, 1968 -
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.



Helen Keller - America's all-time favorite deaf and blind Socialist - died in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 87, on this date.


June 1, 1974 -
The procedure, the Heimlich maneuver (named after Dr. Henry Heimlich) was first mentioned in an article on this date in the journal, Emergency Medicine.



It's a maneuver that has largely replaced the old fashioned back-blows that people used to perform on choking victims.


It's Oscar the Grouch's birthday today.



Remember to leave something nice out in the trash today. (Please note: when Oscar first moved into his trash can he was orange. Then the gangrene set in.)


It's also my sister's birthday.

She doesn't usually make a big fuss about it but since she is the oldest relationship I have other than my parents, I will.

Happy Birthday.



And so it goes.

Please DON'T smoke em if you got em

World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world every year on May 31. The member states of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987. It draws global attention to the tobacco epidemic and to the preventable death and disease it causes.





It aims to reduce the 3.5 million yearly deaths from tobacco related health problems. Since 1988 the WHO has presented one or more World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) Awards to organizations or individuals who have made exceptional contributions to reducing tobacco consumption.


May 31, 1958 -
The Looney Tunes short, Now Hare This, directed by Bob McKimson, starring Bugs Bunny, debuted on this date.



The Big Bad Wolf and his nephew would later appear in False Hare the final Bugs Bunny short from the original theatrical era.


May 31, 1975 -
The first single from the Isley Brothers hit album, The Heat Is On, Fight the Power, was released on this date. (The song is notable for the use of the word bullshit, which is usually censored during radio airplay.)



Often thought of as a song about the black experience, Fight The Power is more of a general statement on rising above the powers that be. The youngest Isley Brother, Marvin, explained in a 1976 interview with Blues & Soul: "We don't close ourselves away like some entertainers do – we listen to the radio, read the newspapers and generally get into what's happening out there in an attempt to reflect the world as it is. With The Heat Is On, we wanted to be as funky as possible musically, and yet for the lyrics to say something unusual. 'Fight The Power'? Well, we decided not to be passive, to take a stand. And we met hardly any resistance because that power could be anything – we all have our different conceptions of what it is to each of us. And just letting it out – about the bullshit that does go down – is something that everyone wants to do."


May 31, 1976 -
Tom Waits begins a two-week stint performing at Ronnie Scott's Club in Soho, London, England, run by Pete King, on this date.



The experience inspired Waits to write The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)(An Evening with Pete King). Waits recorded this song, along with the rest of the album, Small Change, a month after this stint was complete.


May 31, 1976 -
Ten years after it appeared on The Beatles' Revolver album, Capitol Records issues Got To Get You Into My Life as a single on this date.



A British rock group called Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers released this song as a single around the same time it appeared on The Beatles Revolver album. Bennett & The Rebel Rousers were an opening act for The Beatles on their European tour in early 1966; since there were no plans to release Got To Get You Into My Life as a single, Paul McCartney encouraged them to record it and produced the session. Earth, Wind & Fire recorded a funky new version for the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Beatles producer George Martin was in charge of the music, and the soundtrack was a success, but the movie, which starred Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees and Aerosmith, was a huge flop. Earth, Wind & Fire's version of this hit #9 in the US.


May 31, 1980 -
Casablanca Records released the Lipps Inc./ Steven Greenberg song, Funkytown, on this date.



Lipps Inc. (pronounced "Lip Synch") was formed especially for this song. The vocals were by Cynthia Johnson, who was Miss Black Minnesota 1976. The group continued to record until 1985 with a changing lineup, but they failed to see the success they'd had with their first hit.


May 31, 1983 -
After a break in which David Byrne and Jerry Harrison release solo albums and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth form Tom Tom Club, Talking Heads return with their fifth album, Speaking In Tongues.



It contains their biggest hit, Burning Down The House. Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz and bass player Tina Weymouth, married since 1977, are big fans of funk. When they went to a P-Funk show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the crowd started chanting, "Burn down the house, burn down the house" (this is before The Roof Is on Fire), which gave Frantz the idea for the title.


The first Seinfeld episode (referred to as episode #2 The Stakeout) created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld premiered on Thursday, May 31, 1990 on NBC-TV. The show often described as "about nothing" was not an immediate success.



After the pilot was shown, on July 5, 1989, a pickup by the NBC network did not seem likely and the show was actually offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. However, Rick Ludwin, head of late night and special events for NBC, diverted money from his budget, and the next four episodes were filmed.

I wonder what ever happened to those guys?


May 31, 1992 -
The last episode of the original series, Night Court: The 1992 Boat Show aired on NBC-TV, on this date.



This episode was actually aired out of order. The two parter, Opportunity Knocks, which aired before this episode, was the finale of the series. This episode never aired on its original air date and was held over to the end of the season confusingly airing after the series finale.


May 31, 1999 -
The VH1 documentary series Behind the Music began airing nightly with their premiere episode The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Behind the Music.



Anthony Kiedis and Flea (bass guitar) first met when they were both 15 and attending high school together. (20 years after the program, the band is still going strong.)


Another selection from the discount bin at ACME's Record Shoppe today


Today in History:
May 31, 455 -
Petronius Maximus, emperor for less than three month, was having an extremely bad day. News reached Rome that Vandals were planning on sacking Rome (besides vigorous bouts of sodomy; sacking was the favorite pastime for Vandals.) The level headed Petronius attempted to organize an orderly evacuation of the Senate and his cronies. Panic, unfortunately set in and Petronius Maximus was completely abandoned by his bodyguard and entourage and was left to fend for himself.



As he rode out of the city on his own, he was set upon by an angry mob who stoned him to death. His body was mutilated and flung into the Tiber.

Sometimes, it isn't every worth getting out of bed, even if you're the ruler of all the known world.


May 31, 1678 -
The lovely young Lady Godiva, aged 17, rode naked on horseback through Coventry, England, to protest the high tax rate established by her own husband, Earl Leofric of Mercia. Her protest worked and he lowered taxes.



While I can't say whether or not the MAGA crowd strongly endorse this type of civil disobedience, I'd like to remind the ladies out there that taxes are pretty damn high just about everywhere these days.


May 31, 1819 -
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.







A great New Yorker and even greater poet, Walt Whitman was born on this date.


May 31, 1859 -
The iconic clock in the clock tower attached to the Palace at Westminister first began to keep time on this date.



The name Big Ben is often used to describe the tower or the clock but it's actually is the name of the carillon inside. The tower itself was formally known as St. Stephen’s Tower until 2012, when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower on the occasion of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 60 years on the British throne. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, the work which had been scheduled to end at the end of this year, now stretches into 2022.


May 30, 1879 -
The Gilmore's Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and opens to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

Originally it was a railroad passenger depot located at East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, the New York and Harlem Railroad, before they would move in 1871. Then, with tented roof, it would become P.T. Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome. In 1876, the theatre became Gilmore's Garden, after Patrick Gilmore, a band leader. The building under his name housed flower shows, pedestrian marathons, the first Westminster Kennel Club Show in 1877, beauty contests, and concerts. Owned by the Vanderbilt family, William renamed it Madison Square Garden in 1879, continuing to present a variety of shows; boxing, track and field, and Barnum back with the elephant Jumbo. The first building had a capacity of ten thousand and was open-air.


May 31, 1889 -
Relentless rain and inadequate maintenance causes the South Fork Dam to fail, unleashing a 35-foot-high wall of water on Johnstown, Pennsylvania.



The wall of flood water grew at times to 60 feet high, tearing downhill at 40 miles per hour, leveling everything in its path and killing 2,209 people.


May 31, 1895 -
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, head of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, patented corn flakes on this date. The good doctor believed in a vegetarian diet and a regimen of exercise. The good doctor also believed in proper elimination. At his sanitarium, Kellogg made sure that the bowel of each and every patient was plied with water, from above and below. His favorite device was an enema machine that could run 15 gallons of cold water through an unfortunate bowel in a matter of seconds.



Every water enema was followed by a pint of yogurt — half was eaten, the other half was administered by enema “thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service”. The yogurt served to replace the intestinal flora of the bowel, creating what Kellogg claimed was a squeaky clean intestine.



Bet you'll never look at a carton of yogurt the same way again.


May 31, 1902 -
The Treaty of Vereeniging was signed on this date, canceling the Bore War for lack of interest.

(The Bore War should not be confused with the Boar War, which was much more exciting on account of tusks.)


May 21, 1921 -
Following an accusation of improper conduct between Dick Rowland, a black shoeshiner and Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, hundreds of white people gather and start to form what looks like a lynch mob which ends with the traditionally black district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma being burnt to the ground with many black citizens choose or were forced to relocate after the riot which ended on June 1st 1921 after the National Guard troops from Oklahoma City declare martial law.



As many as 10,000 white men and boys attacked the black community and 35 blocks of the black business district were burned with participation by police officers and a local unit of the National Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed to have been killed. In 2000 the Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors of the riots and their descendants.


May 31, 1957 -
The House for Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convicts the playwright Arthur Miller of contempt of Congress, on this date.

He had refused to answer two questions at a hearing before the committee:

1. "Can you tell us who were there when you walked into the room?"
2. "Was Arnaud D'Usseau chairman of the meeting of the Communist party writers which took place in 1947 at which you were in attendance?"

Although he testified frankly about his own relationships with persons of Communist bent or membership, he said that his conscience had forbidden him to tell about others.


May 31, 1963 -
Nun Nu Thanh Quang, a Buddhist monk, immolated himself on this date at the Dieu de Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam.

That has got to hurt.


May 31, 1969 -
The National Legume Collective negotiated intensely all through the early part of 1969 with John Lennon and his new wife, Yoko Ono to record their new promotional song, Give Peas a Chance. The agreement ends abruptly when the organization actually heard Ms. Ono's voice.



John Lennon and Yoko Ono then decide not to waste the experience and record Give Peace a Chance, the first single recorded by a solo Beatle, from their hotel bed (not as a political statement as some have argued but because of the bloated feeling from eating a non-stop diet of peas for the past five months).


May 31, 1996 -
Timothy Leary died quietly in his sleep on this date, thereby failing his intended mission of killing himself live on the Internet.



On a brighter note, a longstanding Moody Blues prophecy was fulfilled.


Before you go - I would be remiss if I didn't remember to wish one of our bunkies a very Happy Birthday!

Hope you've enjoyed your Birthday Jim



And so it goes.