Thursday, October 6, 2011

Some days it's just too busy to keep up with the news

Aeschylus was the first Greek playwright to produce tragedies as we would know them today., but that's not important to our story today.



According to legend, Aeschylus died when an eagle, mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a tortoise on it, killing him instantly on this date in 456BC (that was tragedy for Aeschylus but it's comedy to us.)


... Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart - Steve Jobs at Stanford University’s 114th Commencement Address on June 12, 2005.



Apple is a little less bright - Steve Jobs, Apple's charismatic & founder CEO finally succumbed to his battle with pancreatic cancer last night. He was 56.


The pit bull with lipstick, the women Roger Ailes hired because she's 'hot' - Sarah Palin has decided not to enter the 2012 presidential race.

The titleless help-do-it gal can continue to say whatever it is she says and collect big fat checks from Mr. Ailes.


Today is Armed Forces Day in Egypt (we'll get back to Armed Forced Day in a moment) and Ivy Day in Ireland. (Ivy Day is not a horticultural celebration. The date marks the anniversary of the 1891 death of Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell;



Irish favoring home rule traditionally pin a bit of ivy to their lapels in his honor. Ivy Day should not be confused with I.V. Day,

celebrated only by drips.)


October 6, 1966 -
LSD was declared illegal in the US on this date.



Hopefully you timed your intake accordingly.


Today in History -
October 6, 1014 -
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria died of a heart attach after an army of 15,000 of his men returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home.

For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars.

I guess we shouldn't complain.


October 6 is the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of literary criticism. It was on that date in 1536 that William Tyndale was recognized for his important contribution to world literature—the first translation of the New Testament into English—by being tied to the stake, strangled, and his dead body then burnt.



Ah, when men were men, women were women, and critics were murderous, torch-wielding fanatics!


October 6, 1976 -
During a televised debate, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.



Ford loses the election. (I wonder if He and Michele Bachmann ever had lunch.)


October 6, 1927 -
Good, bad or indifferent to it, The Jazz Singer (the first feature-length movie with audible dialogue), premiered in NYC on this date.



George Jessel, star of the stage version, was asked to play the role in the film, but refused over a pay dispute. Eddie Cantor was also asked, and also refused.


October 6, 1963 -
The wonderful adaption of the classic 18th Century novel, Tom Jones premiered in NYC on this date.



Much of the scene in which Tom Jones and Mrs. Waters are eating together was improvised during the three hours it took to shoot, and the actors felt the effects from the food for days.


October 6, 1981 -
During Armed Forces Day (commemorating Egypt's participation in the Arab-Israeli War,) armed gunmen leap from a truck and begin shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.



The assassination had been approved by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the US for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.



And so it goes.

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