The phrase is no longer politically correct

but it is apt



Newt got bitch-slapped and hard. (I would have also accepted that he got pimp-slapped.)


March 12, 1953 - John Huston's very off-beat comedy starring Humphrey Bogart, Beat the Devil, premiered in New York City on this date.



Humphrey Bogart was involved in a serious automobile accident during production of this film, which knocked out several of his teeth and hindered his ability to speak. John Huston hired a young British actor, Peter Sellers (yes, that Peter Sellers) to rerecord some of Bogart's spoken lines during post-production looping.


March 12, 1971 - Robert Wise's taut Sci-Fi Thriller, The Andromeda Strain, opened on this date.



Michael Crichton, author of the novel, was invited to take a tour of Universal Studios during the production of this film. His guide was none other than Steven Spielberg, who would go on to adapt his most successful novel, Jurassic Park

March 12, 1971 -
John Lennon released Power to the People in the United Kingdom on this date.



The song was released as a single credited to "John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band." Phil Spector produced it with Lennon.


Today in History -
At the end of the Second World War, America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Each bomb killed so many people so quickly and made the world so safe for peace-loving democracies that America began feeling pretty good about things and forgot all about being Depressed, etc. This caused the hula-hoop, the soda fountain, and Annette Funicello.

Not everyone could master the hula-hoop, however, and the alienation experienced by those who couldn't resulted in the development of an American counterculture.



Scoffing the traditional values of mainstream America, the counterculturalists experimented with bold new ideas. They forsook the established middle-class pleasures, such as wine, woman, and song, in favor of radical new ones, such as sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll.

Born 89 years ago today, Jack Kerouac was a child of the Depression and a veteran of the second world war. He was therefore torn between these competing value systems and roamed the country aimlessly in search of grammar and punctuation.



The adventures described in On the Road were based loosely on his real-life travels with the infamous Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, whose insatiable appetite for borscht led Kerouac to dub them "The Beet Generation."


March 12, 1918 -
Today episode on the Wacky World of the Russian Revolution -

Russia's peasants and workers are still exhausted by the war and its attendant famine. The Tsar and Tsarina are past caring about their suffering - they were under arrest The Russia's peasants and workers are still furious with the government, which had become two governments and therefore twice as bad. And they were tired of all this nonsense about March being February, St. Petersburg being Petrograd, the Czar being Tsar, and all those crazy, mixed-up fronts.

So what does the country do - move the capital from Petrograd to Moscow on this date

March 12, 1932 - Ivar Kreuger, the so-called Swedish Match King, (at one time, he controlled two thirds of the worldwide match production) committed suicide in Paris, leaving behind a financial empire that turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme.



The 'Kreuger crash’ shook Wall Street and led to a 1933 Securities Act, which strengthened disclosure requirements for all companies selling stock.

Madoff was a piker compared to Kreuger.


March 12, 1938 -
Germany enters Austria in the Anschluss, to annex it as part of Grossdeutchland.



Oh those wacky Germans and their World Domination Tour.


March 12, 1945 -
...I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness; I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too; I can feel the sufferings of millions; and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again ... I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out....



Anne Frank died at Auschwitz on this date.


March 12, 1955 -
Charles Parker, Jr., one of the most influential jazz musicians, died on this date while while watching Tommy Dorsey on television.



Due to many years of drug and alcohol abuse, the coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.

Bird Lives.


March 12, 2000 -
Pope John Paul II asks God's forgiveness for the many wrongs committed by the Roman Catholic Church. The pardon he requested divided into seven categories of Church sin, including sins against the Jews, against native peoples of the world, the crimes of the Inquisition, and general crimes against humanity.

This pardon was requested only for past sins, and apparently does not apply to the Church's many, many, many ongoing sins.


Remember to start your drinking early today, so you can get all of it done before you set the clocks ahead tomorrow morning.



And so it goes.