I'll give him this - the kid's got nerve

Here's a novel way to ask a girl to the prom:



I don't think they sell those booty pants at Robert Hall's.


Today is World Health Day. World Health Day celebrates the founding of WHO (World Health Organization) in 1948 on this date. This years topic of World Health Day 2013 is high blood pressure (hypertension.)



While preventable, high blood pressure remains a leading risk factor for heart disease and stroke and a major cause of morbidity and mortality.  I know this may be shocking but I, myself suffer from hypertension.  And it puts a nasty crimp in my drinking


April 7, 1805 -
Beethoven conducted the premiere of his Eroica Symphony No. 3 in E flat major on this date. Beethoven uses the symphony to convey popular notions about heroism and revolution, which were prevalent throughout Europe at the time.



He was full of enthusiasm and respect for the French Revolution's ideals, and especially (at first) Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven, like a teenage groupie, scrawled Napoleon's name all over the dedication page of the symphony.



But then Napoleon went on a world tour and started conquering random European countries. When he became a truly evil bastard, finally declared himself Emperor of the French in 1804, Beethoven flew into a rage. He ripped through the paper as he scratched out Napoleon's name with a knife.


April 7, 1915 -
Eleanora Fagan, considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, was born on this day. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since.







Eleanora's (or as she was professionally known, Billie Holiday) vocal style — strongly inspired by instrumentalists — pioneered a new way of manipulating wording and tempo, and also popularized a more personal and intimate approach to singing.


April 7, 1927 -
An audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. Hoover’s image and voice were transmitted across telephone lines. Edna Mae Horner, an operator at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, assisted the transmission and became the first woman on television

Unfortunately, this was not a demonstration of a time machine and Hoover didn't get a message about the upcoming Great Depression.


In March of 1933, President Roosevelt signed the Cullen–Harrison Act allowing the sale of beer once again with the proviso, the beer remain no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight.



On April 7th of that year, the act became law, and beer production began – thus marking the imminent end of Prohibition. April 7th does NOT signify the end of National Prohibition. National Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933. New Beer's Eve (which was celebrated last night) occurs the day before National Alcohol-Free Weekend begins.

Celebrate either as you see fit.


April 7, 1939 -
That little old Italian wine maker, Francis Ford Coppola, (who is also a magazine publisher and hotelier) was born on this date.



Like Martin Scorsese, Coppola was a sickly youth, a case of polio which allowed him time to indulge in puppet theater and home movies.


April 7, 1954 -
President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia on this date.



The so-called "domino theory" dominated U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade.

Who know that the President was so afraid of the Pizza boy?


April 7, 1970 -
John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy won the Oscar for Best Picture on this date. It remains the only X-rated film to win an Academy Award.



The film was rated "X" (no one under 17 admitted) upon its original release in 1969, but the unrestricted use of that rating by pornographic filmmakers caused the rating to quickly become associated with hardcore sex films. Because of the stigma that developed around the "X" rating in the ratings system's early years, many theaters refused to run "X" films and many newspapers would not run ads for them. The film was given a new "R" (children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian) rating in 1971, without having anything changed or removed.


April 7, 1989 -
Soviet nuclear submarine K-278 Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian sea, with two nuclear reactors and two nuclear torpedoes aboard on this date. 41 crew members died,



and the submarine remains one mile below the surface of the ocean, with its nuclear weapons intact.

When was the last time you had Norwegian smoked salmon?


April 7, 1990 -
A display of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs opened at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center, the same day the center and its director, Dennis Barrie were indicted on obscenity charges on this date.



Both were later acquitted.


April 7, 1998 -
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou was arrested by an undercover police officer after pleasuring himself in front him in a public toilet.



If George only realized how many of his fans would have happily dons uniforms and stood before him in any restroom of his choice.



And so it goes.