What? You say this isn’t June 6? Of course not. That’s why the title says 7-17-10. And you aren’t seeing double, either. I named this the D-Day Edition Edition for the purpose of grammatic symmetry. Symmetry? Sure.
I’ll explain that more later, but for today’s purposes, suffice to say that D-Day is a military term in which the D stands for "day." So D-Day is "Day-Day" and this is the Day-Day Edition Edition. Symmetry. See?
In the military, D-Day generally marks the commencement of an operation, but in this diary it also stands for disaster, because today marks the beginning of an operation that would turn out to be one of the greatest disasters to befall this country.
THE GOOD
To be sure, July 17 hasn’t only marked disasters. Some really good things have happened on July 17, such as:
1889 Erle Stanley Gardner (author and creator of Perry Mason) was born,
1898 The end of the Spanish-American war.
1955 Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif.
1968 Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premiered in London.
1975 The American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft linked up for the first time.
And some really funny things have happened, too. For example:
1967 Monkees perform at Forest Hills, New York, Jimi Hendrix is opening act
for the last time.
Psychedelic rocker Jimi Hendrix loathed the made-for-television group the Monkees (quelle surprise). However, Hendrix’s manager, Mike Jeffery, was wanting greater public exposure for his young client who, was a star in the UK, but nearly unknown here. The Monkees, OTOH, were hotter than hot that summer, thanks in large part to a heavily financed tour to promote the start of the second season of their wildly popular TV show.
Hendrix joined the tour in progress in Jacksonville, Florida, on July 8. Predictably, the reception given to the now-legendary rock icon by the young fans of the Monkees was less than worshipful. As the Monkees’ drummerMickey Dolenz, a major Hendrix fan, later recalled, "Jimi would amble out onto the stage, fire up the amps and break out into 'Purple Haze,' and the kids in the audience would instantly drown him out with 'We want Daaavy!' God, was it embarrassing."
Jimi Hendrix managed to get through a total of only seven dates with the Monkees, culminating in his final show on July 17, 1967, which may have ended with Hendrix saluting the crowd with his middle finger.
THE BAD
But a lot of bad things happened on July 17.
1914 Giants outfielder Red Murray is knocked unconscious by lightning
after catching a flyball, ending 21 inning game, Giants win 3-1
1942 3' of rain falls on Pennsylvania, flooding kills 15
1942 Estimated 34.5" (87.5 cm) of rainfall, Smethport, Pennsylvania
1988 Highest temperature ever recorded in San Francisco, 103 degrees F
(39 degrees C)
1962 Senate rejects Medicare for the aged
Although some of them were kinda funny, too. Like:
1938 Aviator "Wrong Way Corrigan" took off from New York, he was aiming for
California and landed in Ireland.
THE UGLY
And July 17 has had its share of really awful happenings, too.
1958 U.S. performs atmospheric nuclear Test at Enwetak atoll.
Along with the rest of the Marshalls, Enewetak atoll, which comprises around 40 small islands, was captured by Japan in 1914 and liberated by the allies in February, 1942. After the war, the residents were evacuated, often involuntarily, and the atoll was used for nuclear testing as part of the U.S. Pacific Proving Grounds. There were 43 tests at Enewetak, including the first hydrogen bomb test, which vaporized the island of Elugelab.
In 1977, the U.S. government directed the military to decontaminate the islands. This was done by mixing the contaminated soil and debris from the various islands with Portland cement and burying it in one of the blast craters on the eastern side of the atoll. This continued until the crater became a spherical mound 25 ft (7.6 m) high. The crater was then covered with an 18-inch (460 mm) thick concrete cap. The U.S. government declared the islands safe for habitation in 1980.
1962 U.S. performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
1964 Great Britain performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
1981 Lobby Walkways at Kansas City's Hyatt Regency collapsed,
killing 114 people and injuring an additional 200.
1996 230 people died when TWA 800 crashed outside of New York City
THE DISASTEROUS
But the worst thing to happen on July 17 was an actual D-Day, because it marked the commencement of an operation that has nearly destroyed the government of the United States, and destroyed most of the American middle class. From this day it is possible to draw a straight line to the destruction of the American labor movement, the usurping of the United States government by corporate interests, the DLC, the horrific presidencies of Bush I and II, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, on this day in 1980 Ronald Reagan formally accepted the Republican nomination for president. His election initiated an era of union-busting, corporate raiding, soaring deficits, and destruction of the social network that had served to lift the American people from the Great Depression to a country where the middle class thrived and Civil Rights became the law of the land.
Reagan and his successors and abettors set about to systematically dismantle not only the social safety net created by the New Deal, but the regulations that prevented corporations from seizing control of the government. And by gutting the labor unions, Reagan removed the Democrat’s strongest base of support. Without the unions’ campaign contributions, the Democrats were forced to turn to the corporations for financial support, heralding the rise of the Democratic Leadership Conference and the taking over of the party by corporatist Dems.
THE RIDICULOUS
Depressing, isn’t it? But I promised to tell you about grammatic symmetry? Wiki describes it as:
Grammatic symmetry:
Categorial theories of syntax and semantics, show an intuitionistic bias: derivability is modeled asymmetrically as a relation between a tree (with preterminal formulas at the leaves) and a single formula. As a result of this one-sidedness the analysis of deep dependencies (eg in scope construal, displacement, conjoinability) is suboptimal, in that it relies on structural rules and/or special-purpose combinators. In this course, we restore the symmetry by considering a vocabulary with both residuated and dual residuated families of type-forming operations. Symmetry allows us to freely shift between a fusion and a fission perspective on grammatical composition.
I have two Masters degrees and a PhD in engineering, and I have absolutely no idea what that means. But in grammar, symmetry means that one part of a phrase should be symmetrical with the rest of a phrase. For example, if a phrase lists three items, each item should start with the same type of word – a noun, a verb, a gerund, etc. I’m sure that is what the above quote is describing, even though I can’t figure out how it is doing so.
But before you rush off to reread your dog-eared copy of Strunk and White, a word from our sponsors. . . .
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Tonight’s Top Comments. . . .
From JanF:
In a comment in Saturday's Morning Feature where I was grappling with whether or not the end justifies the means when it comes to adopting republican tactics, etbnc cuts through it all with this great comment: "Every "end" is also the beginning of something else. And we might want to think about how we want things to begin. To me it seems difficult to achieve something good by beginning it with something bad"
This comment from phonegery blockquotes a great line from the Al Franken floor speech highlighted in shpilk's diary. From Franken: "My colleagues across the aisle will argue that the estate tax punishes our nation's most productive members - the children of the extremely wealthy. And this gift to our most fortunate sons and daughters costs the rest of us $14 billion this year alone. That tab for that $14 billion in lost revenues from America's multi-millionaires and billionaires will be passed to all of our kids. And not just the $14 billion, but the interest on it as well."
From bronte17:
A history lesson and perspective by MsGrin clarifies the emphasis of Lincoln's famous words... of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE in Alan Grayson's diary Lies, Damned Lies and Rupert Murdoch.
From BlackSheep1 :
I want to nominate this comment by Fishgrease because it explains success so well without regard for the fungible value of money. It expands on his previous comment in the same diary.
From me:
The Red Phone Is Ringing nails the folwers of Glen Beck and theirturnkey patriotism.
renzo capetti describes the impact of the prison and combat industries on small-town America in Tara the Anti-Social Social Worker's excellent Methland diary.
Tonight’s Top Mojo . . . .
Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars, first diary comments, and C&J comments:
1 - Hasn't the person of color........Greasy Grant.....144
2 - Surely you mean.....Fixed Point Theorem.....132
3 - Congresswoman Carolyn B Maloney has.....JesseCW.....127
4 - Great results, but pretty sad.....Casual Wednesday.....117
5 - 21st century energy grid.....bluestatedem84.....113
6 - How about some high-speed f****ng rail that.....St Louis Woman.....101
7 - I love you bwd!.....GlowNZ.....100
8 - Alan Grayson's Reaction to the WSJ.....JekyllnHyde.....92
9 - i was going to be this type of minister.....AntonBursch.....89
10 - Hey, Mr "You are an atheist?".....smileycreek.....88
11 - I realize this is far from my usual time to post.....teacherken.....85
12 - Cnn has a poll now,.....christine20.....85
13 - another factor.....dark daze.....84
14 - The fact that they created the list over time........Jonze.....81
15 - According to the link:.....palachia.....77
16 - I like a national high-speed rail network.....alba.....77
17 - I work with four other "supervisors" of the........Meteor Blades.....76
18 - Well thank god he got the order right......Crashing Vor.....76
19 - Playing patriot.....FiredUpInCA.....74
20 - Funny thing I have noticed.....LaFeminista.....71
21 - It would be so awesome.....xxdr zombiexx.....71
22 - Keep These Diaries Coming. It's a Warning.....Gooserock.....71
23 - Funny thing........Casual Wednesday.....69
24 - Yup......smileycreek.....67
25 - Nobody farts in Utah.....Azazello.....65
26 - since the big fucking problem is oil.....wu ming.....65
27 - I have NEVER seen people so angry.....GlowNZ.....65
28 - I love "Barack Obama's failed Presidency"!!!.....Kat 4 Obama.....64
29 - A hate crime if I ever saw one......skindig55.....63
30 - You must have been hot when you wrote this.....walkshills.....63
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1 - Tip Jar.....Meteor Blades.....358
2 - Tip Jar.....blackwaterdog.....334
3 - Tip Jar.....Phil T Duck.....332
4 - Tip Jar.....teacherken.....295
5 - Tip Jar.....Troutfishing.....288
6 - Tip Jar.....Alan Grayson.....232
7 - Tip Jar.....bobswern.....228
8 - Tip Jar.....Tara the Antisocial Social Worker.....219
9 - Hasn't the person of color........Greasy Grant.....144
10 - So few will see this, and yet Franken cuts.....shpilk.....133
11 - Surely you mean.....Fixed Point Theorem.....132
12 - Congresswoman Carolyn B Maloney has.....JesseCW.....127
13 - Great results, but pretty sad.....Casual Wednesday.....118
14 - 21st century energy grid.....bluestatedem84.....113
15 - Tip Jar.....Bill Prendergast.....112
16 - Tip Jar.....Ojibwa.....107
17 - How about some high-speed f****ng rail that.....St Louis Woman.....101
18 - I love you bwd!.....GlowNZ.....100
19 - Scritchie Jar.....triciawyse.....93
20 - Global warming?.....noweasels.....92
21 - Alan Grayson's Reaction to the WSJ.....JekyllnHyde.....92
22 - i was going to be this type of minister.....AntonBursch.....89
23 - Hey, Mr "You are an atheist?".....smileycreek.....88
24 - I realize this is far from my usual time to post.....teacherken.....85
25 - Tip Jar REPEAL the GOP......LaFeminista.....85
26 - Cnn has a poll now,.....christine20.....85
27 - another factor.....dark daze.....84
28 - I like a national high-speed rail network.....alba.....77
29 - I work with four other "supervisors" of the........Meteor Blades.....76
30 - Well thank god he got the order right......Crashing Vor.....76