Happy Birthday Mearth

November 11, 1925
Jonathan Winters, the great improvisational comedian and actor, was born on this date.




November 11 is one of the twelve days of each calendar year I've come to love the most, since it's "11/11" in American and European notation.



It's Veterans Day in the United States and Armistice Day for many of our World War II allies (The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month ...). I'd like to thank our veterans for having fought, and in many cases died, to preserve my liberties—and I'd like to apologizes for having made such foolish use of them.


November 11, 1215 -


The Fourth Lateran Council meets. They adopt the doctrine of transubstantiation, meaning that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. This means all Catholics are essentially cannibals on a feeding schedule, but who am I to judge a theology I am arranging religious instructions for my daughter.

November 11, 1499 -


A young man claiming to be the son of Edward IV landed in Cornwall, England, and declared himself King Richard IV. Unfortunately England already a king, the young man wasn't really the son of Edward IV, and his name wasn't Richard. He was in fact Perkin Warbeck, and was therefore hanged to death on this date.

November 11, 1634 -
Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery". Seven years later, the good Bishop Atherton is himself is found well hanged under the Act.



I guess the religious right has always been a little loose on this issue.


November 11, 1821 -


Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on this date. Mr. Dostoyevsky is universally recognized as one of the pre-eminent authors of nineteenth-century Russia and perhaps one of the finest novelists of all time. As mentioned yesterday, on November 10, 1969, public television broadcast the Children's Television Network's first episode of Sesame Street.

I like to take advantage of this serendipitous occassion by celebrating both of these cultural icons, who have more in common than you might think.



One of Mr. Dostoyevsky's most enduring characters is that of the angst-ridden student, Raskolnikov, who brutally murders an old woman with an axe in order to confirm his own intellectual freedom. One of the most popular characters on Sesame Street is Big Bird, an eight-foot-tall, easily flustered, flightless yellow bird of indeterminate species.



Mr. Dostoyevsky's novels deal with a broad range of complex issues such as as parricide, political philosophy, epilepsy, freedom of the will, suicide, theosophy, revolution, addiction, dissipation, forgiveness, and the legitimacy of absolutist rule. Sesame Street deals frequently with the alphabet and the numbers one through ten.



Mr. Dostoyevsky was once sentenced to death, blindfolded before a firing squad, then reprieved at the very last moment and exiled to Siberia, where he overcame great obstacles to produce some of his finest work. On Sesame Street, Ernie and Bert often bicker over household chores.



Mr. Dostoyevsky was a devout Russian Orthodox Catholic, and in The Idiot he explores the practical difficulties of living a life according to the principles of love, tolerance, and forgiveness set forth by Jesus Christ. Sesame Street features a grumpy green monster named Oscar, who lives in a garbage can and frequently breaks into song to proclaim his love of trash.



Imagine all of those similarities. Now write a two hundred page essay discussing all of this and your have a doctoral thesis.


November 11, 1959 -


Many of you know this famous line, "Hey Rocky want to see me pull a rabbit out of my hat?". The first episode of "Rocky & His Friends" airs. But what you probably don't know is the line was originally, "Hey Rocky, want to see me pull a hamster out of my ass?"



TV censors were not amused.


November 11, 1969 -
Jim Morrison is arrested by FBI for a disturbance (drunkeness) abroad a flight from LA to Phoenix. He was on his was to see a Rolling Stones Concert.

Mr. Mojo Rising indeed.


November 11, 1978 -


A perennial favorite suicide location, the renovated Hollywood Sign is unveiled, due in large part to the public campaign to restore the landmark by shock rocker Alice Cooper . The original sign was built in 1923, and said "Hollywoodland".


And so it goes