Take you dog to work

Yeah, it's Take your dog to work day - let me tell you a story (and I swear that it's true.)

Another life time ago, when I was a Vice-President at a Major Television Venue and I was having the Murphy Brown problem of hiring and retaining an administrative assistant. I thought No. 17 would be a keeper - very intelligent and funny recent college graduate.

No. 17 was an excellent assistance for the first few weeks. The only problem was, I kept hearing barking coming somewhere from outside of my office but I couldn't figure it out. I would run out of my office, trying to track down the source of the noise and couldn't find the dog. No. 17 swore that she didn't hear anything. This went on for a couple of weeks. I thought my drinking had finally gotten the better of me.

I had to go to a meeting and walked out at the same time No. 17 had to run a quick errand for me out of the office. I forgot something in my office and came back before No. 17 did and heard the soft, faint barking sounds coming from her desk. I opened up the bottom drawer of the desk and there was a very cute, very nervous Yorkie puppy. And then, No. 17 came back to her desk.

No. 17 explained that she had been given the puppy by her sister's boyfriend and didn't want to leave it home alone. While I sympathized with her, I told her to collected her things, including her puppy and sent her directly to Human Resources and told her to explain to them why she felt the need to hide a dog in her desk.

No. 17 was gone from the office shortly thereafter but shed not a tear for her - she and her sister became backup dancers for a short performer from Minneapolis and her sister was briefly married to said singer.

So I've had my fill of bring your dog to work - thank you.


It's Midsummer day throughout most of Europe (it's also the feast day of St. John the Baptist.)





Hey, it's a European thing.


June 24, 1967 -
Procol Harum released their classic A Whiter Shade of Pale on this date.



It was the most played song in the last 75 years in public places in the UK, as of 2009.

Again, it's a European thing


Today In History:
June 24, 1374 -
In a sudden outbreak of Dancing Mania (aka St. John's Dance), people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia experience terrible hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.



Many of the sufferers are afflicted with frothing at the mouth, diabolical screaming, and sexual frenzy. The phenomenon lasts well into the month of July. Nowadays, ergot madness is suspected as being the ultimate cause of the disorder.

To paraphrase one of my faithful readers advice - Please titrate your ergot carefully, a little sexual frenzy is good and all, but ...


June 24, 1812 -
Napoleon, ever the French cuisine booster, wants to spread his enjoyment of meals with heavy cream sauces and decides to invade Russia (ultimately with mixed results.)



He has to wait 70 years before Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky decides to write an Overture about the entire incident.


June 24, 1947 -
Businessman pilot Kenneth Arnold encounters a formation of nine flying saucers near Mt. Ranier, Washington, exhibiting unusual movements and velocities of 1,700 mph.



No explanation is found for this first report of flying saucers in the recent era, but it does earn Mr. Arnold legions of skeptics and an eventual IRS tax audit.


June 24, 1948 -
Communist forces with 30 military divisions cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the United States to organize the massive Berlin airlift.East Germany blockades the city of West Berlin.



During the Berlin Airlift, American and British planes flew about 278,000 flights, delivering 2.3 million tons of food, coal and medical supplies. General Lucius Clay, the local American commander, ordered the air supply effort.


June 24, 1957 -
The U.S. Supreme Court rules, Roth v. United States, that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, though a dissenting opinion included with the ruling notes the issue of prior restraint renders this a terrible decision.

By 1973, another case, Miller v. California, a five-person majority agreed for the first time since Roth as to a test for determining constitutionally unprotected obscenity, superseding the Roth test. By the time Miller was considered in 1973, Justice Brennan had abandoned the Roth test and argued that all obscenity was constitutionally protected, unless distributed to minors or unwilling third-parties.

Now you know.


June 24, 1967 -
Pope Paul VI published his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (priestly celibacy) on this date.

I would bet here's when things really came to a head with that whole 'inappropriate' touching situation in the church.


June 24, 1970 -
Mike Nichols' adaptation of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 was released on this date .



Orson Welles tried to acquire the rights to the novel so that he could film it. He had to be content with playing the part of General Dreedle.


And on a personal note: Congratulations SOS and all of your friends at PS 3, Allie, Frankie and everyone else who is graduating today.

Have the best of days!



And so it goes.