Sunday, July 31, 2011
TODAY IN HISTORY
July 31
1498:Columbus arrived at the island of Trinidad.
1777:The Marquis de Lafayette became a major-general in the American Continental Army.
1790:The first U.S. patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a process of making fertilizer.
1954:Mount Godwin-Austen (K2), the world's second-highest peak, was climbed for the first time, by an Italian team led by Ardito Desio.
1964:The U.S. space probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the Moon’s surface.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
SPACE
Explanation:
What's that below the Milky Way?
Historic kilns.
Built in the 1870s in rural
Nevada,
USA to process local wood into
charcoal, the kilns were soon abandoned due to a town fire and flooding, but remain in good condition even today.
The above panorama is a digital conglomerate of five separate images taken in early June from the same location.
Visible above the unusual
kilns is a colorful star field, highlighted by the central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy appearing along a diagonal toward the lower right.
Many famous sites in our Galaxy are visible, including the
Pipe Nebula and the
Dark River to Antares,
seen to the right of the Milky Way.
The origin of the green mist on the lower left, however, is
currently unexplained.
TUNE IN TONIGHT
Cover via Amazon
TCM, 8 p.m. ET
TCM
salutes Lew Ayres tonight, and starts off by showing two vintage movies
of note. First up: This 1930 classic, one of the first great sound films
after the transition from silent movies, shown in a newly restored
version. Essentially, it’s the WWI equivalent of Band of Brothers,
throwing us into the foxhole-level action – and, faithfully reproducing
the message in the original novel by Erich Marie Remarque, presenting a
strong anti-war sentiment just a dozen years after that war had ended.
TODAY IN HISTORY
JULY 30
1619:The House of Burgesses meets for the first time in Jamestown, Va.,
becoming the first elected legislative assembly in America. The
assembly’s 22 representatives decide to prohibit drunkenness, idleness
and gambling, and require tobacco to be sold for three shillings per
pound.
1965: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare and Medicaid programs into law, providing health coverage to older and low-income Americans, respectively. Former President Harry S. Truman is enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary.
1968: Washington Senators shortstop Ron Hansen singlehandedly makes three putouts, claiming the first unassisted triple play in Major League Baseball in 41 years. Hansen’s quick reflexes in the field are not enough to help the Senators at bat, and they lose the game 10-1 to the Cleveland Indians. No other MLB player will score a triple play until Mickey Morandini of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1992.
1965: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare and Medicaid programs into law, providing health coverage to older and low-income Americans, respectively. Former President Harry S. Truman is enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary.
1968: Washington Senators shortstop Ron Hansen singlehandedly makes three putouts, claiming the first unassisted triple play in Major League Baseball in 41 years. Hansen’s quick reflexes in the field are not enough to help the Senators at bat, and they lose the game 10-1 to the Cleveland Indians. No other MLB player will score a triple play until Mickey Morandini of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1992.
Friday, July 29, 2011
DO YOU REMEMBER?
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
The era of the modern summer blockbuster came riding in on the fins of a great white shark. Jaws was not only the most successful film of 1975, it was the most successful film the world had yet seen. With an unforgettable cast, a delightfully ominous musical score, and two hours of white-knuckled suspense, Jaws did for the beach what Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho had done for showers 15 years earlier. (click below to read more)
The era of the modern summer blockbuster came riding in on the fins of a great white shark. Jaws was not only the most successful film of 1975, it was the most successful film the world had yet seen. With an unforgettable cast, a delightfully ominous musical score, and two hours of white-knuckled suspense, Jaws did for the beach what Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho had done for showers 15 years earlier. (click below to read more)
PEOPLE BEING PEOPLE
John Luckett filed lawsuits on
11 different complaints earlier this year against the Las Vegas arcade
Pinball Hall of Fame, claiming that he was wrongfully barred from the
premises for obnoxiously complaining about out-of-service machines,
especially "Xenon," which he says he has mastered so well that he can
play almost indefinitely on an initial 50 cents. Among the damages
requested, Luckett is demanding $300 for each "therapy" session he might
have to undergo to overcome the trauma of being ejected. Luckett has
filed more than 40 lawsuits in his role of, as he put it, avenging
people's attempts to "screw" him. [Las Vegas Weekly, 6-30-2011]
A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT OSAKA, JAPAN
Time Lapse (Umeda Sky Building2011) HD from jusojin on Vimeo.
From high above the city, jusojin captured this time-lapse AND tilt-shift video that miniaturizes the bustling city of Osaka, Japan. Trivializing every aspect of the Osaka hustle provides a toyish cityscape where people are reduced to ants and cars look like turbocharged micro machines in a lavish play-set.
Jusojin shot the video from the roof of the Umeda Sky Building - a two towered structure that boasts a sky garden called the "Floating Garden Observatory," and an underground market designed to resemble the Osaka of a century ago. With modernity clashing with old school Japan in such a cool location, the 40 floor skyscraper is a must visit in Osaka.
Jusojin shot the video from the roof of the Umeda Sky Building - a two towered structure that boasts a sky garden called the "Floating Garden Observatory," and an underground market designed to resemble the Osaka of a century ago. With modernity clashing with old school Japan in such a cool location, the 40 floor skyscraper is a must visit in Osaka.
15 WORDS WITH NO ENGLISH EQUIVALENT
The Global Language Monitor estimates that there are currently 1,009,753 words in the English language. Despite this large lexicon, many nuances of human experience still leave us tongue-tied. And that’s why sometimes it’s necessary to turn to other languages to find le mot juste. Here are fifteen foreign words with no direct English equivalent. (click below to read more)
TODAY IN HISTORY
JULY 29
1890:Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France.
1958:President Eisenhower signed the congressional act that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was authorized by Congress.
1961:In Humanae Vitae (of Human Life), Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Catholic Church's prohibition on artificial methods of birth control.
1981:Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, married Lady Diana Spencer.
2003:Red sox switch hitter Bill Mueller became the first baseball player to hit grand slam home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
A REAL HOUSE ON A TIGHT BUDGET
For many people with modest incomes, trailers are the only real option for home ownership. But trailers deteriorate quickly and depreciate over time. Six years ago, the Rural Studio, a program based in western Alabama and run by Auburn University's architecture school, launched the $20K House Project, with the goal of producing a model home for $20,000. (At that cost, the resident's monthly payment would be about $100 under the federal Section 502 Direct Loan program.) Last month, a team of four postgraduate students completed the latest home, the 10th one developed by the project. (click below to read more)
TODAY IN HISTORY
JULY 28
1939:Seventeen-year-old Judy Garland records the studio version of “Over the
Rainbow” with the Victor Young Orchestra for Decca Records, a month
before the young singer-actress hits movie theaters as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “Over the Rainbow,”
composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg, will win the Oscar
for best original song at the 12th Annual Academy Awards.
1932: President Herbert Hoover makes a controversial decision to forcibly evict the World War I veterans known as the “Bonus Army,” who were camped out in Washington, D.C., to demand the early payment of their wartime service certificates. Troops led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Maj. George S. Patton, and armed with tanks and tear gas, force the vets and their families out of the nation’s capital without receiving their desired pensions.
1973: In a match made in prime-time television heaven, The Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors marries actress Farrah Fawcett of future Charlie’s Angels fame, in a ceremony at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.
1932: President Herbert Hoover makes a controversial decision to forcibly evict the World War I veterans known as the “Bonus Army,” who were camped out in Washington, D.C., to demand the early payment of their wartime service certificates. Troops led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Maj. George S. Patton, and armed with tanks and tear gas, force the vets and their families out of the nation’s capital without receiving their desired pensions.
1973: In a match made in prime-time television heaven, The Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors marries actress Farrah Fawcett of future Charlie’s Angels fame, in a ceremony at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.
AND I QUOTE
- "Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology."-Rebecca West
FOUNDATION ALUMNI HELP TO EMPOWER COMMUNITIES
From developing a music program for at-risk children to generating employment opportunities for women in India, former Rotary Peace Fellows and Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholars are promoting economic development in regions that need it most.
Yashar Keramati, a 2009-10 Ambassadorial Scholar from Canada, recently returned to Fisantekraal, South Africa, to launch his Peace & Love International initiative. “If it were not for the Foundation, I would not be able to have come here to do what I have been doing,” he says. (click below to read more)
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