Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Almanacs “The Almanac - OfficialWire” plus 3 more

Almanacs “The Almanac - OfficialWire” plus 3 more

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The Almanac - OfficialWire

Posted: 07 Dec 2009 09:40 PM PST

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1598; Theodor Schwann, German physiologist and co-originator of cell theory, in 1810; novelist Willa Cather in 1873; composer Rudolf Friml ("Indian Love Call") in 1879; actor Eli Wallach in 1915 (age 94); actor Ted Knight in 1923; linguist Noam Chomsky in 1928 (age 81); actress Ellen Burstyn in 1932 (age 77); rock/folksinger Harry Chapin in 1942; Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Bench in 1947 (age 62); former basketball star and coach Larry Bird in 1956 (age 53); and actor C. Thomas Howell in 1966 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1909, Leo Baekeland patented the process for making Bakelite, giving birth to the modern plastics industry.

In 1925, five-time Olympic gold medalist and future movie Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in 150-yard free-style swimming.

In 1931, U.S. President Herbert Hoover refused to see a group of "hunger marchers" at the White House.

In 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, catapulting the United States into World War II. The Japanese attack left a 2,403 dead, destroyed 188 planes and a crippled U.S. Pacific Fleet. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it as "a date that will live in infamy."

In 1972, Apollo 17 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the last scheduled manned mission to the moon.

In 1983, the first execution by lethal injection took place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

In 1986, the speaker of Iran's parliament said his country would help free more U.S. hostages in Lebanon in exchange for more U.S. arms.

In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Washington, the first Soviet leader to officially visit the United States since 1973.

In 1988, as many as 60,000 people were killed when a powerful earthquake rocked Armenia.

In 1991, on the 50th anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for an end to recriminations and sought the healing of old wounds.

In 1992, the destruction of a 16th-century mosque by militant Hindus touched off five days of violence across India that left more than 1,100 people dead.

In 1993, U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary revealed the United States had conducted 204 underground nuclear tests from 1963-90 without informing the public.

Also in 1993, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavor fixed the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

In 1995, a two-week strike by hundreds of thousands of French public-sector workers protesting planned cuts in welfare spending spread to cities throughout France.

In 2001, the U.S. Labor Department announced the loss of nearly 1 million jobs over the previous three months.

In 2002, Azra Akin, a 21-year-old model from Turkey, won the Miss World competition, two weeks after Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria forced organizers to move the pageant to London. More than 200 people were killed in the religious riots.

In 2003, during a visit to the United States, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said "we will never tolerate" Taiwan splitting away from China.

In 2004, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president.

In 2007, the South Korean coast guard struggled to contain the largest ever oil spill in Korea following a collision between a barge and an oil tanker that spilled 10,000 tons of oil into coastal waters.

In 2008, Afghan officials said the fact that most of the 5,000 expected fresh troops were ticketed for the capital of Kabul was proof of the country's vulnerability.

 

A thought for the day: Roscoe Pound said, "The law must be stable but it must not stand still."

 

Celebrity birthdays - News-Democrat

Posted: 03 Dec 2009 01:00 AM PST

Director Jean-Luc Godard is 79.

Singer Jaye P. Morgan ("The Gong Show") is 78.

Actress Mary Alice is 68.

Singer Ozzy Osbourne is 61.

Singer Mickey Thomas of Jefferson Starship is 60.

Bassist Paul Gregg of Restless Heart is 55.

Actor Steven Culp ("Desperate Housewives") is 54.

Actress Daryl Hannah is 49.

Actress Julianne Moore is 49.

Actor Brendan Fraser is 41.

Singer Montell Jordan is 41.

Actor-comedian Royale Watkins is 40.

Actress Holly Marie Combs ("Charmed") is 36.

Musician Daniel Bedingfield is 30.

Actress Anna Chlumsky is 29.

Actor Brian Bonsall ("Family Ties") is 28.

Actor Jake T. Austin ("Wizards of Waverly Place") is 15.

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Bess Lomax Hawes, Musical Folklorist, Dies - NPR News

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 06:30 AM PST

December 6, 2009 - Bess Lomax Hawes, a folklorist, musician and teacher, has died. In the 1970s, as the head of the folk arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts, she increased federal funding for traditional music and folk arts across the United States.

Hawes was part of a folk dynasty. Her father, John Lomax, traveled across the American South, collecting traditional music. Her brother, Alan Lomax, made thousands of recordings in the United States and abroad.

Folklore was the Lomax family business, and Hawes followed in their footsteps. But she did not live in their shadow, according to Bill Ivey, who worked with Hawes at the NEA.

"Despite their importance, I think in some ways, Bess may be the most influential of all the Lomaxes," Ivey says.

She grew up in Texas, and after attending college, moved to New York City. There, she joined The Almanac Singers, a band with a rotating cast of great musicians: Cisco Houston, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger.

"We were a very loose group," Seeger says. "Woody used to say we were the only group he was in that rehearsed on stage."

According to Seeger, Hawes was a skilled musician â€"- and became a good songwriter, weaving together traditional music with her Popular Front politics. She and Jacqueline Steiner co-wrote "MTA," which became a hit song for the Kingston Trio.

Hawes was also a teacher. Seeger recalls a trip to her home, in southern California, where she taught huge groups.

"She said, 'I'll put all the banjo pickers in one room, and I'll put all the beginning guitar pickers in another room, and the advanced guitar pickers I'll put in the bedroom, and then we'll all get together and play what we learned for each other,' " Seeger says. "And it worked so well."

The founders of the influential Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago adopted her teaching technique. John Szwed, an Alan Lomax biographer who worked with Hawes, says she applied the same approach to politicians as she did to her students.

"When she dealt with Congress, she dealt with them as neighbors or people she'd known all her life," Szwed says. "And if she knew them even slightly, they'd be called 'honey' or whatever in a kind of motherly way. It was very hard to argue with her."

Ivey, who went on to head the NEA, believes Hawes preserved many folk traditions for future generations. In her tenure, Hawes established the National Heritage Fellowships for artists and musicians, which awarded hundreds of grants.

"There will never be a time when there is an effort to push the folk arts aside in preference to some other priorities," Ivey says.

In 1993, Hawes was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She died Nov. 27 of complications from a stroke. She was 88.

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The Almanac - Dec. 8 - Post Chronicle

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 04:43 AM PST

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 8, the 342nd day of 2009 with 23 to follow.

The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Sagittarius. They include Mary Queen of Scots in 1542; Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, in 1765; General Motors founder William Durant in 1861; Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in 1865; Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in 1886; humorist and artist James Thurber in 1894; actor Lee J. Cobb in 1911; entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in 1925; actor Maximilian Schell in 1930 (age 79); comedian Flip Wilson in 1933; actors David Carradine in 1936 and James MacArthur in 1937 (age 72); Irish flutist James Galway in 1939 (age 70); rock musicians Jim Morrison in 1943 and Gregg Allman in 1947 (age 62); actresses Kim Basinger in 1953 (age 54) and Teri Hatcher in 1964 (age 45); and Irish pop singer/songwriter Sinead O'Connor in 1966 (age 43).

On this date in history:

In 1886, delegates from 25 unions founded the American Federation of Labor, forerunner of the modern AFL-CIO, in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1941, the United States, Britain and Australia declared war on Japan.

In 1949, the Chinese Nationalist government, defeated by the Communists, retreated from the mainland to the island of Taiwan.

In 1980, former Beatle John Lennon was shot to death outside his apartment building in New York City. He was 40.

In 1986, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told the House Foreign Affairs Committee the transfer of Iran arms money to the Nicaraguan Contras was illegal.

In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first treaty between the two superpowers to reduce their massive nuclear arsenals.

In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist when the republics of Russia, Byelorussia (now known as Belarus) and Ukraine signed an agreement creating the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In 1997, Jenny Shipley was sworn in as the first woman prime minister of New Zealand.

In 2002, Iraq said all its chemical and biological weapons programs ended in 1991 and that the country had never reached the assembly or testing stage for nuclear weapons.

In 2004, International Business Machines Corp. reported it was selling its personal computer business to Chinese rival Lenovo Group for $1.25 billion in cash and stock.

In 2005, a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a crowded bus in Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding 27 others.

Also in 2005, a Southwest Airlines jetliner overshot a runway at Chicago's Midway International Airport in a snowstorm, crashing through a fence into a city street. A 6-year-old boy in a car hit by the plane was killed and at least 11 others were hurt.

In 2007, dozens of dead and injured seabirds coated in black goo were the most visible victims of a 58,000-gallon oil spill in San Francisco Bay that fouled miles of coastline. The spill was caused when a South Korea-bound container ship hit a tower supporting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in dense fog.

Also in 2007, Afghanistan was in official mourning after a suicide bombing at a school in the north killed at least 52 people and injured 102 others. The dead included 18 children.

In 2008, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and four co-defendants told a military judge at Guantanamo Bay that they want to confess to all charges of murder and war crimes.

Also in 2008, five employees of Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. contractor hired to provide security guards in Iraq, were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter.

A thought for the day: Saki, the pen name for Hector Hugh Munro, said, "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation." (c) UPI

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