Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Yes, the change is going to come!

This is National Service Day, Bloggers!

Happy New Year!

Onward, Christmas Soldiers!

Bloggers, this card was used with the permission of Jess Wundrun. Thanks, Jess!

Dictionary Day

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Today when we spell the word "color" instead of "colour" we can thank a crotchety, humorless man for saving wear on our fingers, not to mention savings on paper and those obscenely expensive inkjet printer cartridges. Oct 16 marks the 250th birth anniversary of Noah Webster (1758-1843), lexicographer extraordinaire, who compiled the American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), the first authoritative lexicon of American English.

Webster believed in establishing cultural independence from Britain and as such he emphasized a distinct American spelling and pronunciation. His dictionary listed various unusual and shortened spellings of words. He would hardly have imagined how the tide would turn one day. According to reports, more British children today spell "color" instead of "colour", for example. Webster's suggestion of using "tung" instead of "tongue" didn't stick, though.

Today Webster's name is synonymous with dictionaries and the date of his birth is observed as Dictionary Day. In his honor, this week we'll present words about words. As Webster said, "the process of a living language is like the motion of a broad river which flows with a slow, silent, irresistible current."

Tomorrow: Look for a fun contest with a chance to win an autographed copy of my latest book.
epeolatry
PRONUNCIATION:
(ep-i-OL-uh-tree)

MEANING:
noun: The worship of words.


ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek epos (word) + -latry (worship). The first citation of the word is from Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his 1860 book Professor at the Breakfast Table.


USAGE:
"I read my dictionary for a few more minutes, until tiredness eventually bought my epeolatry to an end for the day."
Roger Day; Anurada Negotiates Our Wobbly Planet; Lulu; 2006.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him. -Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)

Groundhog Day!

Looking for answers to your Groundhog Day questions? You've come to the right spot! Learn about various aspects of the Groundhog Day holiday, and how we've been celebrating it in Punxsutawney since 1886.

Here are some answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the holiday:

Yes! Punxsutawney Phil is the only true weather forecasting groundhog. The others are just impostors.

How often is Phil's prediction correct? 100% of the time, of course!

How many "Phils" have there been over the years? There has been only one Punxsutawney Phil. He has been making predictions for over 120 years!

Punxsutawney Phil gets his longevity from drinking the "elixir of life," a secret recipe. Phil takes one sip every summer at the Groundhog Picnic and it magically gives him seven more years of life.

On February 2, Phil comes out of his burrow on Gobbler's Knob - in front of thousands of followers from all over the world - to predict the weather for the rest of winter.

According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring.

No! Phil's forecasts are not made in advance by the Inner Circle. After Phil emerges from his burrow on February 2, he speaks to the Groundhog Club president in "Groundhogese"(a language understood only by the current president of the Inner Circle). His proclamation is then translated for the world.

The celebration of Groundhog Day began with Pennsylvania's earliest settlers. They brought with them the legend of Candlemas Day, which states, "For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, so far will the snow swirl in May..."

Punxsutawney held its first Groundhog Day in the 1800s. The first official trek to Gobbler's Knob was made on February 2, 1887.

So the story goes, Punxsutawney Phil was named after King Phillip. Prior to being called Phil, he was called Br'er Groundhog.

Groundhog.org

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008, Bloggers! We must continue to move forward to make progress against the Uber Nazis.

Buy Nothing Day

Buy Nothing Day is an informal day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. In 2007, Buy Nothing Day falls on November 23rd in North America and November 24th internationally.[1] It was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by the Canadian Adbusters magazine.

The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Vancouver in September of 1992 "as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption."[2] In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, which is one of the top 10 busiest shopping days in the United States. Outside of North America, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated on the following Saturday. Despite controversies, Adbusters managed to advertise Buy Nothing Day on CNN, but many other major television networks declined to air their ads.[3] Soon, campaigns started appearing in United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. Participation now includes more than 65 nations.[4]

While critics of the day charge that Buy Nothing Day simply causes participants to buy the next day,[5] Adbusters states that it "isn't just about changing your habits for one day" but "about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste."[6]*

*Wiki

Happy Tofurkey Day!

"In the United States, Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks to God for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The period from Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Day is often collectively referred to as the 'holiday season', and the holiday itself is often nicknamed Turkey Day.

Thanksgiving is generally considered a secular holiday, and is not directly based in religious canon or dogma."*

As the single remaining reader knows, this is a secular blog. While tolerant of the superstitious, this writer does not proselytize his rudimentary understanding of science. The laws of nature, aka the laws of physics, govern his life.

For those of my generation, which is to say too young to have been drafted for Vietnam, who love politics, one must always hear "Alice's Restaurant" on this day. This is the masterpiece by Arlo Guthrie; you can read the rest here:

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (commonly referred to simply as "Alice's Restaurant") is one of singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie's most prominent works, a musical monologue based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the same name.

The song lasts 18 minutes and 20 seconds, occupying the entire A-side of Guthrie's 1967 debut record album, titled Alice's Restaurant (Warner Reprise Records). It is notable as a satirical, first-person account of 1960s counterculture, in addition to being a hit song in its own right. The final part of the song is an encouragement for the listeners to sing along, to resist the draft, and to end war."**

Next post: Buy Nothing Day, tomorrow!

*Wiki
**Wiki

Bastille Day

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year. In France, it is called "Fête Nationale" ("National Holiday"), in official parlance, or more commonly "quatorze juillet" ("14th of July"). It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the storming of the Bastille was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French "nation", and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.


1 Current festivities
2 History
2.1 The Storming of the Bastille
2.2 The Fête de la Fédération
2.3 Origin of the present holiday
3 References
4 Trivia
5 External links
//

Current festivities

Jacques Chirac reviewing troops on the 2003 Bastille Day parade.
14 July is the French Bastille day, simply called 14 Juillet or less commonly but more officially Fête nationale (though it is generally referred to as Bastille Day in English). Many cities hold fireworks during the night. Many dancing parties are organised (bals du 14 juillet) and it is customary that firefighters organise them (bals des pompiers). Those celebrations take place from 13 July at night to 14 July.


The day officially celebrates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, though it is often associated, even in France, with the Storming of the Bastille. Military parades, called Défilés du 14 juillet, are held on the morning of 14 July, the largest of which takes place on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic.


The parade opens with cadets from certain schools (École Polytechnique, Saint-Cyr, École Navale, and so forth), then other infantry troops, then motorised troops; aviation of the Patrouille de France flies above. In recent times, it has become customary to invite units from France's close allies into the parade; for instance, in 2004 during the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, British troops (the band of the Royal Marines, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, Grenadier Guards and King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery) led the Bastille Day parade in Paris for the first time, with the Red Arrows flying overhead.



The parade also involves the French Republican Guard, and occasionally (non-military) police units; it always ends with the much-cheered and popular Paris Fire Brigade (which, exceptionally, has military status in France). Traditionally, the students of the École Polytechnique set up some form of joke.


The president then gives an interview to members of the press, discussing the situation of the country, recent events and projects for the future. He also holds a garden party at the Palais de l'Elysée.


Bastille Day also falls during the running of the Tour de France, and is traditionally the day upon which French riders will make a special effort to take a stage victory for France.

History

Storming of the Bastille

On 5 May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General to hear their grievances. The deputies of the Third Estate representing the common people (the two others were clergy and nobility) decided to break away and form a National Assembly. On 20 June the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, swearing not to separate until a Constitution had been established. They were gradually joined by delegates of the other estates; Louis started to recognize their validity on 27 June. The Assembly re-named itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and began to function as a legislature and to draft a constitution.


In the wake of the 11 July dismissal of the royal finance minister Jacques Necker, the people of Paris, fearful that they and their representatives would be attacked by the royal military, and seeking to gain arms for the general populace, stormed the Bastille, a prison which had often held people arbitrarily jailed on the basis of lettre de cachet. Besides holding a large cache of arms, the Bastille had long been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government, and was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy. As it happened, though, at the time of the siege in mid-July 1789 there were only 7 inmates, none of great political significance.


When the crowd—eventually reinforced by mutinous gardes françaises—proved to be a fair match for the fort's defenders, the commander of the Bastille, Governor de Launay capitulated and opened the gates in order to avoid a mutual massacre. However, possibly because of a misunderstanding, fighting resumed. Ninety-eight attackers and just one defender had died in the actual fighting, but in the aftermath, De Launay and seven other defenders were killed, as was the 'prévôt es marchands' (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles.


The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance.


Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, on 4 August feudalism was abolished and on 26 August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proclaimed.

The Fête de la Fédération


Main article: Fête de la Fédération

The Fête de la Fédération of the 14 July 1790 was a huge feast and official event to celebrate the uprising of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France and what people of the time considered to be the happy conclusion of the French Revolution.


The event took place on the Champ de Mars, which was at the time outside of Paris. The place had been transformed on a voluntary basis by the population of Paris itself, in what was recalled as the Journée des brouettes ("Wheelbarrow Day").


A mass was celebrated by Talleyrand, bishop of Autun. The very popular General La Fayette, as both captain of the National Guard of Paris and confidant of the king, took his oath to the Constitution, followed by the King Louis XVI.


After the end of the official celebration, the day ended in a huge four day popular feast.

Origin of the present holiday

On 30 June 1878, a feast had been set in Paris by official decision to honour the Republic (the event was immortalised by a painting by Claude Monet). On the 14 July 1879, another feast took place, with a semi-official aspect; the events of the day included a military review in Longchamp, a reception in the Chambre of Deputies, organised and presided by Léon Gambetta, and a Republican Feast in the pré Catelan with Louis Blanc and Victor Hugo. All through France, as Le Figaro wrote on the 16, "people feasted a lot to honour the Bastille".


On the 21 May 1880, Benjamin Raspail presented a law proposal to have "the Republic choose the 14 July as a yearly national holiday". The Assembly voted the text on 21 May and 8 June. The Senate approved on 27 and 29 June, favouring 14 July against 4 August (honouring the end of the feudal system on 4 August 1789). The law was made official on 6 July 1880, and the Ministry of the Interior recommended to the prefects that the day should be "celebrated with all the brilliance that the local resources allow". Indeed, the celebrations of the new holiday in 1880 were particularly magnificent.


In the debate leading up to the adoption of the holiday, Henri Martin, chairman of the French Senate, addressed that chamber 29 June 1880. "Do not forget that behind this 14 July, where victory of the new era over the ancien régime was bought by fighting, do not forget that after the day of 14 July 1789, there was the day of 14 July 1790. … This [latter] day cannot be blamed for having shed a drop of blood, for having divided the country. It was the consecration of unity of France. … If some of you might have scruples against the first 14 July, they certainly hold none against the second. Whatever difference which might part us, something hovers over them, it is the great images of national unity, which we all desire, for which we would all stand, willing to die if necessary."

Friday the 13th!

A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece and Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia (a word that is derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Παρασκευή, δεκατρείς, and φοβία, meaning Friday, thirteen, and phobia respectively; alternate spellings include paraskevodekatriaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia) or friggatriskaidekaphobia, and is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen. *

Bad luck for whom?

Earlier Thursday, Bush said a report on U.S.-set benchmarks for Iraq shows "satisfactory progress" in eight areas. He admitted that there is "more work to be done."**

George Bush! It seems his "principle" is only as deep as the Republicans' numbers to keep Dems from voting us out of an unwinnable war and impeachment for him and Cheney! Awww!

Wiki*
CNN**

Happy 07/07/07!

As luck would have it, weddings soar 7/7/07

Friday, July 06, 2007
Bill Lubinger
Plain Dealer Reporter

The calendar has dealt a hand Saturday that has tens of thousands of hopeful brides and grooms, birthday celebrators and the numerically superstitious betting the house.

It's July 7 - 7/7/07 - the ideal sequence for a day (and maybe a lifetime?) of luck extraordinaire.
With so many lucky sevens falling on a Saturday, the hopeful are letting it ride.

About 12,000 couples get married on a typical Saturday in July, said Melissa Bauer, spokeswoman for theknot.com, a wedding-planning site. Tomorrow, almost three times as many will walk the aisle, she said, partly because of an extended holiday weekend, but mostly it's the promise that the number 7 holds.

Oh, and Bloggers, if the luck doesn't hold I know a good lawyer!

Independence Day

In the United States, Independence Day (commonly known as "the Fourth of July","July Fourth", or even simply "The Fourth") is a federal holiday celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain.
Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics, baseball games, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Fireworks have been associated with the Fourth of July since 1777.

Why the fourth?

Though the Fourth of July is iconic to Americans, some claim the date itself is somewhat arbitrary. New Englanders had been fighting Britain since April 1775. The first motion in the Continental Congress for independence was made on June 4, 1776. After hard debate, the Congress voted unanimously, but secretly, for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 2 (see Lee Resolution). The Congress reworked the text of the Declaration until a little after eleven o'clock, July 4, when the twelve colonies voted for adoption and released a copy signed only by John Hancock, President of the Congress, to the printers. (The New York delegation abstained from both votes.) Philadelphia celebrated the Declaration with public readings and bonfires on July 8. Not until August 2 would a fair printing be signed by the members of the Congress, but even that was kept secret to protect the members from British reprisals.*

John Adams, credited by Thomas Jefferson as the unofficial, tireless whip of the independence-minded, wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Adams was off by two days, however. Certainly, the vote on July 2 was the decisive act. But July 4, 1776 is the date on the Declaration itself. Jefferson's stirring prose, as edited by the Congress, was first adopted by the July 4th vote. It was also the first day Philadelphians heard the official news of independence from the Continental Congress, as opposed to rumors in the street about secret votes.

Wiki

Happy Independence Day, Bloggers! Remember, we have survived much worse than the corrupt Bush Administration.

*Where have we heard this before--Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame?

Earth Day!

The sun sets over New York on October 21, 2000, as seen by space shuttle astronauts. The picture, taken looking toward the southwest from southern Canada, shows a layer of smog extending across central New York, western Lake Erie and Ohio, and farther west. The bodies of water are highlighted by the glint of the sun. “I got more of a sense of Earth as home, a place where we live,” recalled two-time shuttle astronaut Winston Scott. “And of course you want to take care of your home. You want it clean. You want it safe,” he said.


Happy Earth Day, Earth!

It's a rare day in Ohio when we have clear skies and warm temps. Gotta go outside!