Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.
The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.
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I joined this group that’s training for the Austin Marathon & Half Marathon. I’m doing the Half – walking the Half. The team raises money for the Austin Children’s Shelter, and each of us pledges to raise $750. having just finished an amazingly successful fundraising campaign for AIDS Walk Austin, I’m fresh out of ideas, and that’s where you come in. Help me come up with another way to raise the money? Unless you just want to donate to my Austin Childrens’ Shelter page
Here’s what my team says about the Austin Childrens’ Shelter:
In 1984, a group of concerned citizens joined together to do something about the lack of shelter space for abused and neglected children in Austin and Travis County; thus the Austin-Travis County Shelter for infants and Children was born. The shelter has continually grown in response to the needs of the children of Central Texas, adding new programs to help children lay a foundation to build upon. Through the years, the Austin Children’s Shelter has received only the highest ratings on all inspections and evaluations. Because of leadership’s strong commitment to providing high quality care, it gained a reputation as one of the very best agencies in the state for children in crisis, a reputation still held today.
For 27 years, it has been the dedication of leadership and staff, and the tremendous support of donors, volunteers and the community at large that has given ACS the ability to make a significant and positive difference in the lives of literally thousands of children who have suffered abuse and neglect.
As we look to the future, it is with the vision that we will, one day, be able to care for every child who needs ACS services. We believe that we cannot turn our backs on our most valuable, and most vulnerable resource, our children. Helping these children is not only important to their future, it’s important to yours.
So – super worthy cause. What I was going to do was e-bay some of my schence fiction action figures, I have several that are still in the box, etc. Then I looked at what they’re going for. Not gonna get near $750 that way. (though, if anyone wants to pay more than $10 for an X-Files action figure, a Darth Maul from Star Wars, or $25 for a Star Trek Ken & Barbie, let me know — the money will go to this worthy cause, it just has to be worthwhile to sell them)
Anyway, what I need is an idea. I’m not very crafty, so that’s pretty much out. Throwing a party won’t work unless I can find a place besides mine, as there is no guest parking in my complex. I’ve asked people if they have stuff I could e-bay, but that hasn’t gotten very far. There’s a lot of people in this site — y’all got any ideas?
In 1519, Moctezuma (not yet vengeful) made the mistake of welcoming Hernán Cortés and his men to Tenochtitlán.
In 1889, Montana became the 41st U.S. state.
In 1892, black and white workers and unions teamed up for what is now called the New Orleans General Strike. In spite of attempts by anti-labor forces to turn the workers against each other, they held firm, and eventually had most of their demands met (quite a rare thing at that time).
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civil Works Administration in order to create jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. Too bad Repubs and ConservaDems don’t believe in government creating jobs, or we could do this now and repair our badly decaying infrastructure.
In 1960, Richard Nixon was defeated by John F. Kennedy in an extremely close election for the Presidency of the United States.
In 1966, an antitrust exemption that allowed the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1966, B movie actor Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California.
In 2000, Florida began a statewide recount of presidential ballots.
Born on This Day
1777 – Désirée Clary, reluctant queen of Sweden (d. 1860)
1817 – Théophile Hamel, Canadian painter (d. 1870)
1883 – Charles Demuth, U.S. Precisionist painter (d. 1935)
1836 – Milton Bradley, American game manufacturer (d. 1911)
1847 – Bram Stoker, Irish novelist (d. 1912)
1876 – Jean Puy, French Fauvist painter (d. 1960)
1881 – Clarence Gagnon, Canadian painter (d.1942)
1884 – Hermann Rorschach, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1922) (this will be on the test)
1898 – Marie Prevost, Canadian actress (d. 1937)
1900 – Margaret Mitchell, American author of “Gone With the Wind” (d. 1949)
1908 – Martha Gellhorn, American war correspondent and author. (d. 1998) ”
1912 – June Havoc, American actress (d. 2010)
1920 – Esther Rolle, American actress (d. 1998)
1922 – Christiaan Barnard, South African heart surgeon (d. 2001)
1935 – Alain Delon, French actor
1936 – Virna Lisi, Italian actress
1944 – Bonnie Bramlett, American singer (Delaney, Bonnie & Friends)
1946 – Roy Wood, English songwriter and musician (Electric Light Orchestra, The Move, Wizzard)
1947 – Minnie Riperton, American singer (d. 1979)
1949 – Bonnie Raitt, American singer
1949 – Wayne LaPierre, whackjob wingnut Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association whose insanity grows stronger with each passing day.
1952 – Alfre Woodard, American actress
1954 – Rickie Lee Jones, American singer
1966 – Gordon Ramsay, Scottish chef and television host
1968 – Parker Posey, American actress
1975 – Tara Reid, American “actress” (Sharknado!)
1980 – Laura Jane Grace (born Tom Gabel), American punk rock musician (Against Me!)
Died on This Day
1621 – Gerolamo da Ponte, Italian painter (b. 1566)
Recs on the weather jar comment are still welcome.
Friday Coffee Hour and check-in is an open thread and general social hour. Come back when time allows through the day – the conversation continues.
It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:
Recs on the weather jar comment are still welcome.
Friday Coffee Hour and check-in is an open thread and general social hour. Come back when time allows through the day – the conversation continues.
It’s traditional but not obligatory to give us a weather check where you are and let us know what’s new, interesting, challenging or even routine in your life lately. Nothing is particularly obligatory here except:
A look at America’s first interracial stand-up comedy duo and – sadly – its last, after the jump …..
Five years ago, one of the most rewarding non-fiction books I have ever read was published … and is one that I encourage you to read (which may be in your public library, or available by inter-loan). Tim & Tom tells the story of two men from different backgrounds who somehow came together and formed the first black-white stand-up comedy duo. The stand-up comedy business is notoriously difficult and while they had successes, they had to split due to their inability to get that big break. Mercifully, they both made it in show business, but had to do it separately – and this book chronicles their struggles as well as hoping that someday, an interracial duo will follow in their footsteps … and make it.
Tim Reid is an African-American from Roanoke, Virginia who became a marketing manager at DuPont, yet who also had an interest in film and television. Tom Dreesen is a white man who grew-up in a hardscrabble town south of Chicago in a large family – often a source of comedy – who became an insurance salesman. They were paired up in a school anti-drug program organized by the Jaycees in the late 1960’s and – while preaching a serious message to kids – had so much fun and laughter talking to a group near Chicago that one girl in the audience suggested they form a comedy duo.
Which they did: not following a traditional comic/straight man model, but incorporating a good deal of late-60’s to early 70’s topical material in their act. Tim Reid was something of a loner, and when people ask him if Tom was his first white friend: he replies that Tom was the first close male friend he had, period. Racial issues were certainly part of (though not all of) their routine and when they were able to get in front of open-minded audiences: they succeeded.
The first chapter of the book recounted a Moment of Truth – at an all-black nightclub in Atlantic City, some in the audience were startled to see them, and one patron stood-up to accuse Tom Dreesen (in so many words) of having Tim Reid as a sort of minstrel accompanist. The (risky) ad-lib Tom delivered resulted in moments of silence … then raucous laughter, and the audience was theirs for the rest of the night.
Yet promoters did not know how to handle them, being such a unique act – and the comedy club circuit was notoriously haphazard at that time (with Jay Leno working his way up the ranks often being an opening act at strip clubs) before the comedy club circuit that exists today came into being. And for years, they tried to appear on the one TV show that could have changed history ….. but the Tonight Show (during Johnny Carson’s heyday) would not book them. Today, late-night comedy offers many outlets to break-through … but not then. And after years of struggle financially, they split.
Tim Reid decided that nightclubs were not his thing, and landed the job as the disk jockey Venus Flytrap on the hit television series WKRP in Cincinnati – with the photo (right) of him smiling at Tom Dreesen during one episode, as Tom garnered a guest appearance, a few years later.
And that is because Tom decided that he did want to remain as a stand-up: and did make it as a solo performer: getting-the-call to appear on the Tonight Show.
And for those of you of-a-certain-age, he got the ultimate compliment for a standup comic on that show. Normally, one had to make more-than-one successful appearance on that show to have Johnny wave-you-over to his desk after the end of your routine – for most on their debut, you usually just went offstage. Johnny invited Tom Dreesen to the couch his first time – with Tim Reid watching at home, happy for his friend … but saying out loud, “Damnit, Tommy: that should have been us!”
After WKRP, Tim Reid went on to appear on the show “Snoops” and during the late 80’s both starred in – and directed – the CBS ‘dramedy’ show Frank’s Place – about a college professor who takes over his father’s restaurant – that along with The Cosby Show portrayed African-Americans in a variety of roles. After two Emmy nominations, it was due to have a second season … but was cancelled due to a strange reason: related to Tim Reid by Walter Cronkite of all people.
Tom Dreesen was eventually offered the job of being Frank Sinatra’s opening act in the last fourteen years of his singing life, and the book tells of some interesting tales. One dramatic scene came when Tom learned that he was, in fact, an illegitimate child: that the man he thought was his father was not his biological father.
He spoke to his actual biological father, who begged Tom not to reveal the secret (which he honored). In telling Frank Sinatra about this, the singer replied “Tommy, that happens in more families than you might think”. And years later, when Tom’s biological father was near death, he told Tom of his greatest regret: not being able to point to the TV screen (as he was a bar owner) when Tom Dreesen was performing and exclaim, “That’s my boy!”
Tom Dreesen finally wore down Tim Reid about having their story told in a book – written by Chicago sportswriter Ron Rappoport. A compact disc of a 1973 comedy performance of theirs is also available.
Tim Reid will turn age 69 in a few weeks, and is an award-winning filmmaker (and sculptor) in his native Virginia.
Tom Dreesen is age 72 and continues to perform onstage and on television, with a Frank Sinatra tribute show as part of his schedule.
In their book tour, Jay Leno invited them on the Tonight Show: finally appearing there forty years later. The two men are friends and are honorary uncles to each other’s children. They talk about how President Obama would have given them lots of material were they performing today … and hope that someone will follow in their footsteps.
Do yourself a favor and read this book. In the meantime, here is a short video of their routine dealing with race.
Among the icons associated with the Pacific Northwest are evergreen trees, rain, streams, and salmon. These PNW icons have existed in symbiotic relations with one another for probably millions of years. A change in one can affect the others. But apparently this fact was unknown or at least unappreciated by the early American settlers of this region. They over-logged the trees which allowed the abundant rain to wash mud and whole hillsides into the streams which became uninhabitable for the salmon that had used these streams for eons to maintain their life cycles. They also dammed up spawning rivers to provide electricity to run their sawmills and salmon canneries. The irony is that they destroyed the very things that made them wealthy.
The salmon’s life cycle not only sustained the settlers until they degraded it, but also was the primary source food of indigenous populations to whom they were sacred. Further, salmon were critical to the very environment itself as they were an integral component of the larger ecosystem. As they returned to their native streams, they became food for bears and eagles. After spawning, their decayed bodies provided nutrients for the stream’s adjacent riparian flora that protected it.
The salmon life cycle is illustrated in this video and outlined below.They begin as eggs and hatch into fry, and grow to smolts. They begin maturation in the streams, lakes or in an estuary until ready to migrate out into the ocean. In the ocean they feed, mature, and grow for two to five or more years depending on species. At their appointed time they migrate to their home creek or river where they go through physiological and morphological changes that prepare them to live in freshwater and spawn. (The homing instinct and directionality are probably magnetically based while finding their birth stream is probably a chemically based sense of smell. This is a fascinating story in itself and not fully understood.) The female enters her stream, and heads up against the current against huge odds until she finds a suitable spot where she clears a 6 to 10 foot by 6 foot space in the stream bed with her tail. This nest-like area is called a redd where she deposits her eggs. Meanwhile the male will protect the area from intruders and fertilize the eggs. The pair may do this several times over a couple of days. The female lays between two and 10 thousand eggs that will hatch in 50 to 150 days. Out of every 1,000 eggs laid, only about one survives to return to the home stream for the spawn.
1. Salmon eggs, 2. Alevins, 3. Coho fry, 4. Smolts, 5. The Elwha River draining into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 6. Coho migrating to spawn, 7. Sockeye spawning, 8. Dead salmon after spawning.
Salmon habitat degradation began with the early white settlers and continues to this day although thanks to many ecology and conservation conscious groups, including the EPA, various State agencies, Native American Tribes, cities and local non-profit organizations, many long degraded streams are being restored and many with great success.
A major example of one attempt to remedy a large scale salmon habitat degradation is occurring on the Olympic Peninsula within the Olympic National Park where the Elwha River was dammed for over 100 years for electricity that is no longer needed. One dam came down last year and the habitat is rapidly restoring itself. A second dam is scheduled to come down next year. A large stretch of the Elwha is now again running free and river bed and the riparian zones are being reclaimed by nature, inviting the salmon back home.
On a much smaller scale, hundreds of rivers and streams throughout the region have suffered and continue to suffer similar fates, but there might now be hope for significant reclamation. One such stream is in my backyard, actually about 10 blocks to the south. This is Padden Creek in Bellingham WA.
Padden Creek drains in part from Lake Padden and now runs about 2.7 miles before flowing into Bellingham Bay. Before being tampered with it ran 5 miles. The entire creek is within the Bellingham city limits. It also drains about 6 square miles of watershed beginning at the north end of Chuckanut Mountain. On its short journey, it runs through forest, residential, commercial, and farming areas, under Interstate 5, and along and under SR 11. It runs through culverts that direct it under several side streets, by a city park, and along jogging and riding pathways. Finally it reaches its estuary from which it discharges into Bellingham Bay.
Lake Padden
Padden Creek flows here from Lake Paden
Headwaters of Padden Creek
So here begins this little salmon spawning stream as it rolls though, by, and under forest, streets, bridges, culverts, fish ladders, freeways, apartments, houses, businesses, and parks. Finally it empties into the Padden Creek estuary and flows under a train trestle into Bellingham Bay.
Padden Creek through the 24th St. culvert
The Padden Creek estuary where fresh water meets salt water is vastly changed from before industry settled in the area. According to a sign at the estuary, it was once 10 times its present size. When the tide is out the estuary is now essentially a mud flat with a stream running through it. (See photos below.) However, just outside this estuary are large eel grass meadows full of all sorts of near-shore sea life.These lush meadows provide nourishment for the growing smolts before their journey to the sea. Prior to the coming of industry and the railroad, this was a large, productive estuary that nurtured many young salmon. You might note on the sign the astounding fact that estuaries contain half of the life in oceans.
Padden Creek flows into the estuary under the Harris St. Bridge
Sign post where Padden Creek enters the estuary
The estuary shown from Harris St. Bridge toward train tracks
Looking back to creek entrance and urban encroachment
Looking toward train trestle under which estuary flows into Bellingham Bay
The estuary at low tide is a stream through a mud flat – Notice old wood pilings in mud bed
Eel grass meadow just outside the tracks that serves as part of the estuary
the rocks with green vegetation are part of the Chuckanut Formation)
The primary salmonids that have frequented this stream for spawning and nurturing the young are Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) aka, silver salmon, and Chum (Oncorhynchus keta) aka dog salmon or keta salmon. Some Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) aka King salmon have been known to frequent this creek as well. These salmon are anadromous, adapting physically to live in both salt and fresh water. Pacific Salmon are semelparous(die after spawning). Two other salmonids found in Padden Creek are species of trout: the Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) or Seagoing rainbow and searun cutthroat, (Oncorhynchus clarkii ).
Oncorhynchus is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmons and Pacific trouts. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek onkos (“hook”) and rynchos (“nose”), in reference to the hooked jaws of males in the mating season (the “kype”).
Adult ocean phase and spawning phase pink salmon (male)
Padden Creek’s problems began soon after the white settlers arrived and founded the town of Fairhaven (now part of Bellingham) in the 1880s. The area grew quickly with forest and marine industry of fishing/canning, and cutting and shipping logs. Among the usual encroachments of building and industry, the railroad wanted to build a spur where the pesky creek was. Progress is progress, so in 1892, the railroad put in a 2,200 foot long brick tunnel under streets to accommodate the salmon and save the fish. This long straight tunnel replaced and shortened a meandering stream. Even though they thought they were going to save the fish, this tunnel began the demise of their spawning grounds. The tunnel was too long and caused the water to run too fast for the salmon to traverse. There were no quiet pools in the tunnel where the fish could get out of the rapid stream and rest as they made their way to their ancestral spawning grounds. Perhaps with intent to help the salmon, they actually destroyed major parts of salmon habitat. It was rare that any salmon got through the tunnel. Salmon still use the lower part of the stream for spawning, although over half of their ancestral spawning grounds are gone. In some good years the lower stream can still be seen to teem with salmon as their bodies prepare for spawning.
Now for some good news. Starting in 1997, the Padden Creek Alliance began to restore the creek. This alliance includes the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, local community and citizens’ groups such as the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association and later the Department of Transportation and the City of Bellingham. This alliance thus far has built a fish ladder and restored the riparian zone along the creek by replanting native vegetation and moving walking paths back away from the creek.
Fish ladder built by Padden Creek Alliance in lower creek
Replanted riparian zone along Padden Creek
One of the final pieces of the restoration is now underway as the State Department of Transportation is constructing a new bridge on State Route 11 that will allow the creek to flow freely in daylight when the city frees the stream from the 124 year old tunnel. This new stream bed will allow the salmonids to swim once again the full length of the creek and up its tributaries.
Construction on new bridge over Padden Creek to replace tunnel
This project will be completed in the next few months, but the salmon’s problem are not yet over. The largest pollutants of the stream come from automobiles and runoff from residential and industrial lands. As noted, this creek runs along and under highways, through residential and commercial areas.
The coming of climate change will also affect the salmon’s life cycle. As both stream and ocean temperature change, so will the food sources of the salmon at sea. Further, the cues that trigger their instinct to return to their streams to spawn may also be affected. If climate change is slow enough perhaps these wondrous creatures might be able to adapt and survive.
Global warming and climate change will soon cause warmer temperatures resulting in more precipitation falling as rain than as snow thus diminishing snowpacks and altering with the timing of stream flows. As more rain than snow occurs, there will be an increase in river flows, as there will be more water released from previously ice and/or snowpacks. This increase in temperature will also cause water temperature to rise overall. Not all of these anticipated effects are necessarily detrimental to the habitat of pacific salmon but they do have severe implications on the salmon population. However, as global temperature increases there will be a higher frequency of severe floods which will result in increased egg mortality since salmon eggs are laid in the gravel at the bottom of streams/lakes/oceans and disturbance of the stream bed will kill the salmon eggs.[7] This flooding will also greatly disrupt the cycles for fall and winter spawning because Pacific salmon spend 2-3 years feeding in the North Pacific and then migrate to their home lake-stream system where they spawn and die.
After years of degrading salmon habitat, we are finally coming around to repair some of the damage on the local level. At the same time, also in the name of progress and economic growth, we are now starting to destroy it at a global level. If this continues, there is little that can be done to fix local streams.
Some possible good news is that in the recent election, we voted in a County Council majority that will likely vote against a major coal port being built in our backyards. In this case, the big coal money was unable to swing the election to the right leaning candidates who strongly supported the coal terminal by dangling non-existent jobs before the electorate. Perhaps there is room for a little hope for us and the salmon.
Here is another part of what we want to preserve:
Great Blue Heron fishing at the Padden Creek estuary
In 1893, Colorado gave women the right to vote in state and local elections.
In 1908, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were rumored to have been killed in Bolivia.
In 1914, The New Republic magazine was first published.
In 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman to be elected to the United States Congress.
In 1929, New York’s wonderful Museum of Modern Art opened to the public.
In 1940, four months after its completion, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Tacoma, Washington, collapsed in a windstorm.
In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America. The Republicans made damn sure that would never happen again!
In 1967, Carl B. Stokes became Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, making him the first African American mayor of a major American city.
In 1973, President Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Resolution, limiting presidential power to wage war without congressional approval, was overridden by Congress.
In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first elected African American governor in the United States when he won the governor’s seat in Virginia.
In 2002, Iran banned all advertising of American-made products.
Born on This Day
1598 – Francisco Zurbarán, Spanish painter (d. 1664)
1728 – Captain James Cook, British naval officer, explorer, and cartographer (d. 1779)
1808 – Hermann Kauffmann, German painter (d. 1889)
1811 – Jan Jacob Spohler, Dutch landscape painter (d. 1866)
1820 – Frans Lebret, Dutch painter (d. 1909)
1828 – Paul-Jacques Aimé Baudry, French painter (d. 1886)
1849 – Józef Chelmonski, Polish painter and illustrator (d. 1914)
1859 – Henri Marius Camille Bouvet, French painter (d. 1945)
1861 – Lesser Ury, German impressionist painter (d. 1931)
1867 – Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Polish chemist and physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics and in chemistry (d. 1934)
1879 – Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary (d. 1940)
1879 – King Baggot, American actor (d. 1948)
1890 – Jan Matulka American painter (d. 1972)
1893 – Leatrice Joy, American actress (d. 1985)
1901 – Norah McGuinness, Northern Irish painter and illustrator (d. 1980)
1913 – Albert Camus, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)
1918 – Billy Graham, American evangelist
1942 – Jean Shrimpton, British supermodel and actress
1943 – Joni Mitchell, Canadian musician
1949 – Stephen Bruton, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2009)
1949 – David S. Ware, American saxophonist (d. 2012)
1951 – Lawrence O’Donnell, American political analyst
1952 – David Petraeus, American military officer, ex-CIA Director, and idiot where women are concerned
1954 – Guy Gavriel Kay, Canadian fantasy author
1964 – Sandra Denton, American rapper and actress (Salt-N-Pepa)
1964 – Liam Ó Maonlaí, Irish keyboard player and songwriter (Hothouse Flowers)
1970 – Morgan Spurlock, American director and producer
1989 – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Russian singer and activist (Pussy Riot)
Died on This Day
1528 – Andrea Previtali, Italian painter (b. 1470)
1678 – Erasmus Quellinus II, Flemish painter (b. 1607)
Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are obligatory welcome.
The morning check-in is an open thread posted to give you a place to visit with the meeses. Feel free to chat about your weather, share a bit of your life, grump (if you must), rave (if you can). The diarist du jour sometimes posts and runs, other times sticks around for a bit, often returns throughout the day and always cares that meeses are happy … or at least contented.
For those new to the Moose, Kysen left a Moose Welcome Mat (Part Deux) so, please, wipe your feet before you walk in the front door start posting.
The important stuff to get you started:
– Comments do not Auto-refresh. Click the refresh/reload on your tab to see new ones. Only click Post once for comments. When a diary’s comment threads grow, the page takes longer to refresh and the comment may not display right away.
– To check for replies to your comments, click the “My Comments” link in the right-hand column (or go to “My Moose”). Comments will be listed and a link to Recent Replies will be shown. (Note: Tending comments builds community)
– Ratings: Fierce means Thumbs Up, Fail means Thumbs Down, Meh means one of three things: I am unFailing you but I can’t Fierce you, I am unFiercing after a mistaken Fierce, or Meh. Just Meh. (p.s. Ratings don’t bestow mojo, online behaviour does).
– The Recommended list has a prominent place on the Front Page because it reflects the interests of the Moose. When people drive-by, we want them to see what we are talking about: news, politics, science, history, personal stories, culture. The list is based on number of recs and days on the list. Per Kysen: “The best way to control Rec List content is to ONLY rec diaries you WANT to see ON the list.”
– Finally, the posting rules for a new diary: “Be excellent to each other… or else”
(Some other commenting/posting/tending notes for newbies can be found in this past check-in and, of course, consult Meese Mehta for all your questions on meesely decorum.)
In 1528 – Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked Spanish conquistador, became the first known European to set foot in Texas.
In 1789, Father John Carroll was made a bishop by Pope Pius VI, thus becoming the first United States bishop of the Catholic Church.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis won the election for president of the Confederate States of America.
In 1913, Mohandas Gandhi was arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
In 1947, Meet the Press made its television debut (the show went to a weekly schedule on September 12, 1948).
In 1962, a resolution was passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations that condemned South Africa’s racist apartheid policies, calling for all UN members to end relations with the country. (I wonder if there was similar condemnation of racist policies still extant in the deep South of the good old U.S.A.?)
In 1965, the U.S. and Cuba forged an agreement allowing an airlift of Cubans who wished to move to the United States. I am trying to comprehend such a thing happening today. Anyway, an estimated quarter of a million Cubans took advantage of the offer.
Born on This Day
1479 – Queen Joanna, or Juana of Castile of Spain (called “the Mad”), who was also the sister of Henry VIII’s first wife (d. 1555)
1494 – Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1566)
1678 – Coenraet Roepel, Dutch flower painter (d. 1748)
1753 – Mikhail Kozlovsky, Russian sculptor (d. 1802)
1838 – Mary Ellen Edwards, British illustrator (d. 1934)
1854 – John Philip Sousa, American composer (d. 1932)
1857 – Tony Tollet, French painter (d. 1953)
1857 – Louis John Rhead, English born American illustrator (d. 1926)
1861 – Dennis Miller Bunker, American painter (d. 1890)
1876 – Everett Shinn, U.S. painter of the Ashcan School (d. 1953)
1882 – Thomas H. Ince, American movie actor, director, producer (d. 1924)
1899 – Francis Lederer, Czech-born actor (d. 2000)
1903 – June Marlowe, American actress (d. 1984)
1904 – Selena Royle, American actress (d. 1983)
1907 – Rafael Zabaleta, Spanish painter (d. 1960)
1914 – Jonathan Harris, American actor (d. 2002)
1937 – Garry Gross, American fashion photographer turned dog portraitist (d. 2010)
1937 – Eugene Pitt, American singer (The Jive Five)
1941 – Doug Sahm, San Antonio Texas, country singer (Texas Tornadoes-Dinero)
1946 – Sally Field, American actress
1947 – George Young, Australian musician (Easybeats)
1948 – Glenn Frey, American singer (Eagles)
1949 – Brad Davis, American actor (d. 1991)
1949 – Joseph C. Wilson, American diplomat; husband of Valerie Plame
1950 – Chris Glen, Scottish bass player (The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Michael Schenker Group)
1955 – Maria Shriver, American journalist
1962 – Annette Zilinskas, American musician and singer, who was the original bass guitarist for The Bangles then later lead vocalist with Blood on the Saddle
1963 – Rozz Williams, American singer-songwriter (Christian Death, Shadow Project, and Premature Ejaculation) (d. 1998)
1964 – Corey Glover, American musician (Living Color)
1964 – Greg Graffin, American singer (Bad Religion)
1976 – Pat Tillman, American football player (d. 2004)
1988 – Emma Stone, American actress
Died on This Day
1793 – Dominic Serres, French-born English marine painter (b. 1722)
