No Diet Day

Today, May 6, is International No Diet Day (INDD). It's set aside as a day of relief from the stress of dieting. Instead, there is an opportunity for purposeful body image acceptance.



Kids, it fun to go off your diet now and then but for heaven sakes don't be like Mr. Creosote.

Say no to the last thin mint.


Funny man, Dom DeLuise died Monday night, passing away in his sleep after a long illness. He was 75.



R.I.P. Dom


Today in History
May 6, 1915 -
Orson Welles, Orson Welles, magician, director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio, was born on this date.



Considered washed up by age 28, Welles had to struggle the rest of his life to complete some of film history's most complex films.

It must have sucked to be Orson Welles.


May 6, 1937 -
At 7:25 pm, the German dirigible The Hindenburg (Pride of the Nazi Zeppelin fleet) burned while landing at the naval air station at Lakehurst, NJ. On board were 6l crew and 36 passengers. The landing approach seemed normal, when suddenly a tongue of flame appeared near the stern. Fire spread rapidly through the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen that filled the balloon.



Within a few seconds the zeppelin exploded in a huge ball of fire. The ship fell tail first with flames shooting out the nose. It crashed into the ground 32 seconds after the flame was first spotted; 36 people died. Captain Ernst Lehmann survived the crash but died the next day. He muttered 'I can't understand it,' The cause remains the subject of debate even today.

May 6, 1961 -
George Clooney, award-winning actor, director, producer, screenwriter and humanitarian, was born on this date.



He was also named People's 2006 Sexiest Man.

It must totally suck to be George Clooney


May 6, 1962 -
The first US nuclear warhead fired from a Polaris submarine was launched. The submerged USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) test-fired a Polaris A-2 missile with a live nuclear warhead across the Pacific Ocean toward Christmas Island, 1,700 miles (2,700 km) away.



The test, code-named Frigate Bird, was the only one the US ever conducted of any nuclear ballistic missile from launch through detonation. After a 12.5-minute, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) flight, the warhead exploded in the air between 10,000 and 15,000-ft (3,000 and 4,600-m) high with a yield of 600 kilotons.


Karl Marx (the unknown Marx Brother)

It's the birthday of Karl Marx, born in Trier, Prussia (1818). He went to school at a time of severe repression. Pianos had to have skirts on for fear young men would become aroused by the sight of their bare legs. The Prussian government kept the teachers under police surveillance to make sure they wouldn't teach anything too radical like 2 + 2= 4 and so the students, including Marx, became extremely radical.

As a result of his beliefs, Marx was not able to get a job as a chicken inspector after he got his doctorate in philosophy. And without a job, he spent his time analyzing history and stealing tips left for waiters at the coffeehouses he frequented and came to the conclusion that all historical events were caused by economic forces.



He got involved in communism, the belief that all private property should be abolished, men and women should not bathe or shave and pickled herring should be used as a cologne, moved around Europe, writing for newspapers and pornographic pamphets, studying, wanting to write a book about his economic ideas. But Marx was an obsessive researcher, and never knew when to stop reading and start writing. He only became productive after he met Friedrich Engels, a socialist who was also wealthy—the heir to a textile business and primative whoopee cushion novelty item.

Their main theory was that the economic system was a perpetual conflict between those who controlled the capital and those who provided the labor, that the conflict would never be resolved peacefully, that in a free market, workers would continue periodically to lose their jobs, their standard of living would fall, and this would inevitably lead to violent revolution. He believed that giant corporations would dominate the world's industries, that globalism in trade would make markets even more unstable. He also believed that you could hard boil an egg by holding it under one's armpit for a week thus saving money by not paying the gas bill.



Marx and Engels published their Communist Manifesto and Mr. Peepers and the Amorous French Maid in 1848, and revolution did break out afterward in France, Italy, and Austria. Marx's newspaper was shut down. He had to flee the country. He moved to London, worked for years on his last book, Das Kapital. His family in poverty, Marx said, "I don't suppose anyone has ever written about 'money' when so short of the stuff." A spy from Prussia was keeping tabs on him and wrote, "Washing, grooming and changing his clothes are things he does rarely. He does not shave at all. But he does have an unnatural obsession watching Amenian women clip their toenails!"

He fed his family on bread and potatoes, and when one of his children died, his wife had to borrow money from a neighbor to buy a coffin.

When Marx died in 1883, only 11 persons came to his funeral. And they were all charged a mourners tax!




And so it goes.