Too much knowledge can kill you (or not)

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Sometimes, it's not so great to be king



Mithridates VI of Pontus (modern-day northeastern Turkey,) lived in pathological fear of being poisoned to death. So he regularly ate poison in small doses to develop a nature tolerance and immunity. Then, corned by murderous mob when his province rebelled, he attempted suicide by injesting poison. Unfortunately for him, he developed such a high tolerance by this point that it didn't work.


The Dog Days of Summer are officially over today.



Mark your calendar for the upcoming 'Murder Wasp days of Autumn'.


It's the Feast of St. Clare today. St. Clare of Assisi (or Clair or Claire - spelling wasn't a major issue back then. Living past 29 years old was considered miraculous) didn't want to marry the rich young man her parents picked out for her and ran away from home to become the biggest Francis of Assisi groupie in the world. St Clare was too ill to attend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room (she had phenomenal reception for the Middle Ages.) This led to her becoming the patron saint of television.

But I'm not sure if you pray to her for quality TV or to deliver you from all the bad TV out there. I'm sure we should pray that after the president leaves office, we may never see him on TV again.

Always about this time of year, management has reminded me that this is not a blog about the lives of the saints, so I'll remember the lives of the saints quietly to myself for awhile. In that vein, I will remind everyone that today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Green Ingersoll, known as the greatest orator of the 19th century.

He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic".


August 11, 1962 -
Booker T and the MG's released Green Onions on Stax Records, on this date.



This is an instrumental with a simple but unusual 2/4 time signature. Booker T. and the MG's were the house band for the Memphis soul music label Stax Records. They recorded with many of the Stax artists, including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes, but they also recorded their own material between sessions.


August 11, 1962 -
Tony Bennett released the single Once Upon A Time (the b side being I Left My Heart in San Francisco,) on this date.





When DJs begin flipping over the record and playing the b-side, San Francisco climbs to #19 on the charts and eventually wins Bennett Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance.


August 11, 1972 -
Mott the Hoople's Glam Rock Anthem, All The Young Dudes was released in the UK on this date.



Even though the band was heterosexual, this became a gay anthem, at least in America, thanks to lyrics like "Lucy looks sweet 'cause he dresses like a queen." This was the nature of glam rock, a style that emerged in England in the early '70s where singers performed in makeup and feminine clothes while playing bombastic rock songs. The performers were not necessarily gay, but they definitely blurred gender roles. Bowie may have been the biggest influence on glam rock.


August 11, 1991 -
The first regularly scheduled episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show premiered on this date.



Originally, the microphone was planned to go into Stimpy's mouth during the end of part one (Stimpy's Big Day.) However, it seemed to remind Nickelodeon executives of a certain sexual act, so the scene was animated with the microphone going into his nose. The microphone in the mouth was never animated.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
August 11, 3114 BC -
The Mayan Long Count Calendar started on this date. A second long cycle of the calendar ended on December 21, 2012.

We are currently operating in the third long cycle, although I think they may have been off by 8 years.


August 11, 1772 -
The summit of Papandayan volcano in West Java suddenly implodes, unleashing a catastrophic debris avalanche which blankets an area of 250 square km. Tumbling boulders flatten 40 villages and their 2,957 inhabitants.

Alright, let's  go over this one more time: virgins, island gods, volcano pit.

I don't think I need to say any more on the topic.


August 11, 1919 -
Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, philanthropist, and founder of Carnegie Steel, died on this date. Carnegie became a philanthropist in later life, giving away more than $350 million and building 2,509 public libraries. His value in 1999 dollars totaled $100 billion.

The man who dies rich dies disgraced, was the motto of Andrew Carnegie.



Carnegie‘s last years were spent giving away as much money as possible in an effort to shed his image as one of the era‘s leading “robber barons.” Among other bequests to good causes, he established the Carnegie Institute of Technology and hundreds of Carnegie Free Public Libraries across the U.S.


August 11, 1929 -
Booze hound and notorious whore monger Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run at Cleveland's League Park on this date, becoming the first baseball player to do so.

He ended his career in 1935 with 714 career home runs - still the third best in Major League Baseball history.


August 11, 1937 -
On this day, expatriate Edith Wharton died in France, and ex-expatriate Ernest Hemingway didn't, in New York. Edith Wharton died in Paris, in the quiet, Old World style she liked to live and describe.

Also on this day, and in New World, by contrast, ex-expatriate Ernest Hemingway bared his hairy chest to Max Eastman's unhairy one, demanded "What do you mean accusing me of impotence?" and then wrestled Eastman to the floor.

I'm not accusing Hemingway of anything, it's just that he liked to strip to the waist, grease his body and wrestle smaller, slender men to the ground - sweating and grunting, stiffening, then becoming quite still.



That's perfectly normal.


August 11, 1942 -
Actress Hedy Lamarr (that's Hedy not Hedley) and composer George Antheil received a patent for a frequency hopping, spread spectrum communication system that will later became the basis for the technology behind Wi-Fi and wireless telephones.



In 1997, she and George Anthiel were honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award. And later in the same year, Lamarr became the first female recipient of the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, a prestigious lifetime accomplishment prize for inventors that is dubbed "The Oscars of Inventing."  It's rumored that when told of her being given these awards, Miss Lamarr told her son, "It's about time."


August 11, 1956 -
Jackson Pollock famous abstract artist and public urinator, died in an alcohol-related, single car crash on this date at the age of only 44, also killing one of his passengers, Edith Metzger.



The other passenger, his girlfriend Ruth Kligman, survived.


August 11, 1965 -
California Highway Patrolman, Lee W. Minikus (who was white) pulled over and arrested Marquette Frye (who was black), for suspicion of driving while intoxicated on this date.  This event led to the "Watts Riots" in Los Angeles, California.  The riots were the worst in the history of Los Angeles until the riots in 1992.



Riots began as spectators watched the arrests; violence spread over a 50-mile area and lasted six days, causing more than $40 million dollars in damage. 34 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.


August 11, 1984 -
Not realizing that his weekly radio address is already on the air, President Ronald Reagan quipped into his live microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."



It wasn't supposed to go out, but it did. The Kremlin was not pleased . Oh that rascally dead President, such a kidder. I'm sure our current President would never do this.


There are 136 days until Christmas



Secure your position on the naughty/ nice list accordingly



And so it goes.


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