Please rise (or not) while we sing

A Hymn for the non-believer - Atheists Don't Have No Songs



Steve Martin is still a funny guy.


November 9, 1946 -
Another classic Bugs Bunny outing, Rhapsody Rabbit, premiered on this date (We'll talk about the controversy later.)



A long-standing controversy exists between the previous cartoon and the Tom & Jerry short, The Cat Concerto (1946).



Both sides (WB & MGM) claim that theirs was the original, and the other was a rip-off. Nobody knows for sure who is correct and it is, of course, entirely conceivable that the similarities are pure coincidence.


November 9, 1951 -
The zenith of Hollywood Musical film making (I'll let you argue about whether this or Singing in the Rain is better), An American in Paris, opened in California on this date.



The 17-minute dance sequence at the end took a month to film. It cost half a million dollars to film.


November 9, 1964 -
Another under-appreciated film that you should see, The Pumpkin Eater, opened in the US on this date.



This film will remind you what a phenomenal actor Anne Bancroft was.


Today in History-
It was 21 years ago today ...



Duyba, in 2001, declared this date to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe from communism.



The French are still casting a leery eye at their reunified neighbor.


November 9, 1906 -
Teddy Roosevelt went against more than a century of tradition and became the first American president ever to leave the country while in office, on this date. He went to view the construction site of the Panama Canal.

Before Roosevelt, it was assumed that a President of the United States couldn't oversee the country effectively if he traveled abroad. It would take too long for him to communicate with government officials back home. But with the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, high speed communication had grown much more feasible.

So on this day in 1906, Roosevelt and his wife climbed aboard the U.S.S. Louisiana and sailed south. The journey to Panama made Roosevelt happier than he'd been in a long while. He strolled the decks with his wife, read a stack of books he'd brought with him, including Tacitus and Milton, and the captain even let him steer the ship at one point. When he got to Panama itself, he was so impressed by the jungle and the tropical wildlife that he didn't even mind the torrential rains.

The chief engineer had the incredibly difficult task of accompanying Roosevelt everywhere he went. He said, "I have blisters on both feet and am worn out…Scaling a hill with Roosevelt is like taking a fort by storm." They took a train to the construction site, but when Roosevelt saw the first 95-ton steam shovel, he ordered that the train be stopped so that he could hike through the mud to see the steam shovel up close. It was a new invention at the time, and Roosevelt spent a half an hour asking about its operation. He then took a turn at the controls.



Although, King Louis (Mel Brooks) said, "It's good to be the king", it must have been a blast to be Teddy.

Bully, bully.


November 9, 1953 -



Dylan Thomas drinks himself to death, at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan .



Sometimes it is not good to be a drunken Welsh poet.


November 9, 1965 -
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a major power outage affecting Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States.

Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to twelve hours. Although human error was the official blame, there is another theory that UFO's visiting the Northeast were to blame.

Who knows?


November 9, 1967 -

First issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published on this date.




November 9, 2346 -
Romulans commit an atrocity now known as the Khitomer Massacre, slaughtering over 4,000 Klingons on an agricultural colony.

Worf and Kahlest are the only two to survive.



And so it goes