Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford
TODAY – OCTOBER 15th – THURSDAY
288th day of 2015 with 77 days to follow. The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.
Holidays for Today:
*Global Handwashing Day
*National Chicken Cacciatore Day
*National Mushroom Day
*National Red Wine Day
*National Roast Pheasant Day
*White Cane Safety Day
*Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day (Canada/US)
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
70 BC Virgil, Roman poet (Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid)
1844 Friedrich Nietzsche, German composer, poet, and philosopher (The Dawn, Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols)
1881 P. G. Wodehouse, British author (Blandings Castle, Drones Club, Jeeves and Wooster stories)
1919 Malcolm Ross, Momence, Illinois, balloonist and atmospheric physicist (Scientific and record-breaking manned balloon flights)
1920 Mario Puzo, Manhattan, New York, author (The Godfather)
1924 Lee Iacocca, Allentown, Pennsylvania, businessman (revived Chrysler in 1980s, named 18th greatest America CEO of all time by Portfolio)
1937 Linda Lavin, Portland, Maine, actress (Alice, The Back-up Plan, Wanderlust, Sean Saves the World, The Intern)
1940 Peter Doherty, Brisbane (Queensland), immunologist (known for major histocompatibility complex )
1943 Penny Marshall, NYC, New York, actress (Laverne & Shirley), director (Big, A League of Their Own, Bewitched)
1946 Richard Carpenter, New Haven, Connecticut, musician (The Carpenters)
1949 Laurie McBain, American author (Devil’s Desire, Moonstruck Madness, Tears of Gold)
1955 Tanya Roberts, The Bronx, New York City, NY, actress (The Beastmaster, Sheena, A View to a Kill, That ’70s Show)
1959 Emeril Lagasse, Fall River, Massachusetts, celebrity chef (Emeril Live, Essence of Emeril)
1969 Dominic West, English actor (Detective Jimmy McNulty on The Wire, Centurion, The Hour, Burton and Taylor, Genius)
1978 Devon Gummersall, Durango, Colorado, actor (My So-Called Life, Independence Day, Relativity, Roswell, State of Mind, The Guru & the Gypsy)
1979 Jaci Velasquez, Houston, Texas, singer (contemporary Christian & Latin pop)
1992 Vincent Martella, Rochester, New York, actor (the voice of Phineas Flynn in Disney Channel’s original animated show Phineas and Ferb)
1995 Billy Unger, Palm Beach County, Florida, actor (National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, Crank: High Voltage, You Again, Lab Rats)
1999 Bailee Madison, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, actress (Bridge to Terabithia, Brothers, Just Go With It, Wizards of Waverly Place, Trophy Wife, The Fosters, Good Witch)
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Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally. – David Frost
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1783 Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier went up in the Montgolfier brothers’ tethered hot air balloon, making the first human ascent.
1878 Operations began of The Edison Electric Light Company.
1910 Airship America launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.
1917 World War I: At Vincennes outside of Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire.
1928 The airship, Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.
1932 Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
1951 The first episode of I Love Lucy, an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley, airs on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
1953 British nuclear test Totem 1 detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
1956 Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.
1989 Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL.
1990 Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
1997 The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), exactly 50 years and 1 day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth’s atmosphere.
1997 The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.
2001 NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter’s moon Io.
2003 The Staten Island Ferry boat Andrew J. Barberi runs into a pier at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island, killing 11 people and injuring 43.
2005 A riot in Toledo, Ohio breaks out during a National Socialist/Neo-Nazi protest; over 100 are arrested.
2007 Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country’s first post 9/11 anti-terrorism raids.
2008 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst day in the Dow’s history based on a percentage drop.
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During our church’s worship service, the pastor invites all the young children to join him near the altar for the “Children’s Moments Sermon.”
One day, with seven small children in attendance, he spoke about the ingredients required to make up a church, using a chocolate-chip cookie as an example.
He explained to the children that, as with a cookie requiring ingredients such as sugar and eggs, the church needed ingredients to make up the congregation.
Holding a cookie aloft, he asked, “If I took the chocolate chips out of this cookie, what would I have?”
A shy six-year-old raised his hand. “Six less grams of fat,” he replied.
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I was taking a tour of a college campus. One of the highlights was the Hemmingway Library. “How nice,” I remarked, “to see a building named for Ernest Hemingway.”
The guide corrected me. “Actually, it’s named for Joshua Hemingway. No relation.”
“Was Joshua Hemingway a writer also?”
“Yes. He wrote a check.”
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ONE-LINERS: Funny Signs
At a Santa Fe gas station: “We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.”
In a New York restaurant: “Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager.”
On the wall of a Baltimore estate: “Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. –Sisters of Mercy”
On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners: “38 years on the same spot.”
In a Los Angeles dance hall: “Good clean dancing every night but Sunday.”
In a Florida maternity ward: “No children allowed.”
In a New York drugstore: “We dispense with accuracy.”
In the offices of a loan company: “Ask about our plans for owning your home.”
In a New York medical building: “Mental Health Prevention Center”
On a New York convalescent home: “For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church.”
On a Maine shop: “Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices, and workmanship.”
At a number of military bases: “Restricted to unauthorized personnel.”
On a display of “I love you only” Valentine cards: “Now available in multi-packs.”
In the window of a Kentucky appliance store: “Don’t kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work.”
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Every Easter our church stages an elaborate pageant. Last year the man who played Pontius Pilate had to work on the night of the dress rehearsal, and a chorus member substituted for him. As we began rehearsing Pilate’s solo, the conductor stopped the orchestra. “Pilate, I don’t hear you,” he called out. “You’re not loud enough.”
“Pilate is at work,” a voice from the rear of the stage shouted back. “Tonight we’ve got our co-Pilate.”
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pic of the day: Autumn Color
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
The Abbot had made his decision. The vows of silence in the abbey had to be obeyed. No caroling would be allowed during Christmas season.
One monk, who had been a beekeeper before he joined the brotherhood, had an amazing idea. He knew that the pitch
of each bee’s “buzz” was determined by the rate at which it beat its wings. He asked the Abbot, “If I could place
groups of bees of the same pitch in tiny cages in a row, I may be able to get an octave of frequencies. By carefully agitating these cages in tempo, the bees will fly, their specific buzz will be picked up by microphones and we can create a simple tune.”
The Abbot gave his approval.
After weeks of hard work the bees were ready. Opening night was a resounding success as the bees buzzed out a slow and simple version of “Silent Night”. Everybody agreed that there’s nothing more fun than a carol of monk bees.
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I have a friend who grew up in Appalachia. He asserts that the following story is true.
Rev. Sam, the local Methodist preacher, had two sons who had the responsibility of bringing in the stove wood for church each Sunday morning. Several church members who were poor cut the firewood and delivered it to the church on Saturday afternoon as a way of making up for their inability to support the church with cash contributions.
Over a period of some weeks the boys noticed that someone had been stealing much of the firewood. So much so, that some Sundays there was barely enough to keep the church sanctuary warm during the service.
When the boys reported the thefts to their dad a crusty old coal miner was standing nearby. The miner told the preacher not to worry that he would take care of the problem.
The miner told the boys that until further notice he would bring in the stove wood himself. About a week later as the boys were walking home from school there was a loud explosion at a nearby house. The owner ran out of the house followed by a belch of boiling smoke and soot. The boys ran home to report to their dad that the neighbors
stove had just blown up.
The following Sunday the coal miner reported to the pastor that he knew who was stealing the firewood and it wasn’t likely to happen again. Rev. Sam asked the miner how he knew this.
The Minor smiled and said, “I picked up some blasting caps over at the mine and hid them in the firewood. The thief eventually picked up one of the loaded pieces of firewood and carried it home. That’s what caused the explosion the boys witnessed this week. I doubt we’ll have any more problems with stolen firewood.”
The next Sunday the boys resumed their duties bringing in the stove wood for Sunday services. There were no more thefts of church firewood.
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LATE NIGHT QUIPS. . .
* The new FBI drama “Blindspot” aired its fourth episode on NBC tonight and the creator is already teasing that episode 10 will have a big cliffhanger. Which is better than the USUAL NBC cliffhanger: “Will this show still be on next week?” – Jimmy Fallon
* Tyler Perry announced that he bought an army base in Atlanta and plans to turn it into a movie studio. And when they heard Madea was taking over an army base, ISIS immediately surrendered. – Jimmy Fallon
* Dr. Ben Carson made news last week by saying that the holocaust could have been averted if European Jews had had guns. Though I’m pretty sure what he meant to say was, “I don’t want to be president.” – Seth Meyers
* A 22 year old Connecticut man has been sentenced to a year in prison for calling in fake emergencies which led to false deployments of SWAT teams. Said the man, “I get one phone call, right?” – Seth Meyers
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Greg, the three year old, put his shoes on by himself. His father, Barry, noticed that the left shoe was on the right foot and vice-versa. He sat Greg down on a chair and said quietly, ‘Greg, your shoes are on the wrong feet.’
He looked up at his father with a quizzical expression and replied, ‘Don’t mess me about, Dad, I know they’re my feet.’
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TODAY IN TRIVIA: Who provided the voice of Cap’n Crunch? Daws Butler, the voice of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound for Hanna Barbera, and literally dozens of characters in the Fractured Fairy Tales segments for Ward, was the original voice of The Cap’n. June Foray (Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Little Nell, Witch Hazel) played all the female characters as well as two of the kids on the Guppy’s crew. Paul Frees (Boris Badenov, Inspector Fenwick, and most of the pirate voices in “Pirates of the Caribbean” at the Disney theme parks) was the narrator.
~ Why do whales rub their bellies? Researchers don’t know why killer whales like to rub their sensitive stomachs on the bottom of shallow beaches, but they think it may be a form of grooming. ~Where is Montezuma’s Castle? Tucked into a limestone recess high above the Verde Valley of Arizona stands Montezuma’s Castle, one of the best preserved and most easily accessible cliff ruins in all of North America. This five-story, twenty-room cliff dwelling served as a “high-rise apartment building” for prehistoric Sinagua Indians more than 600 years ago. Early settlers assumed that the imposing structure was connected to the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but this “castle” was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.
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QUIP OF THE DAY: Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this stuff before.
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. – Bruce Lee