Welcome one and all to the 3rd Thursday of the Month Round Up here at the Gnuville Spa, Breakfast Nook & Ceramic-and-CDB dispensary called “Gone to Pot.”
Well here we go with another hearing by the J6 Committee, so tune in today! Who knows what will drop in today’s testimony? Of course, OTHER people have been asked to testify…..like members of Congress…...Like Georgia’s Loudermilk.
Those January 5 Recon tours/ extended family members/ordinary tourist groups are getting a lot of scrutiny to go with all the changing cover stories. Oh, and BTW, if you are going to take a picture of an “historic” inside stairway with “a gold eagle”, why ….. WHY…… do you need 4 (count ‘em 4!---as Photoshop types have done after they have enlarged the face and hands) phone/cameras to do it, like this guy with the Adolf Hitler throwback haircut? (To be fair, even though I really don’t want to be, the guy’s Freedom Mask has slipped down enough to show he does NOT have an Adolf Hitler moustache…….but he WANTS one, I am sure.)
Yes the hearings will be live and worth watching, 1 pm Eastern last I heard.
Good News from Science
Despite the fact no famous or obscure scientists were born this day in History or invented/discovered/patented something cool on a June 16, there is still Good Stuff happening in the labs.
Why do we come to the Good News Round Up? For hope, comfort, joy, giggles, balance, even courage…...all Good Things for our mental and emotional and even spiritual life. But a new study from Harvard HERE shows higher levels of optimism leads to longer life. Go around like a MAGA with a sour outlook, surly attitude, imagined or provoked outrage, and in an angry fettle, and you too can fulfill Thomas Hobbs’ notation that life is “nasty, brutish and short.” But if you hope (“a good thing, maybe the best thing”----Red, Shawshank Redemption) and laugh, and love, and pray, if you “Come dance with the west wind/ and touch all the mountain tops// Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars/ And reach for the heavens and hope for the future/ And all that we can be, not what we are….(John Denver)” it looks like will indeed “live long and prosper.”
Renewables are coming on strong, saving the planet from ourselves. We’ve all seen those 3-bladed giant windmills turning on the prairies in the breeze. But now comes THIS STORY from Sweden taking things a Green step farther into the future…...by revisiting the past. What if the Dutch famously got it right the first time? Build windmills out of wood? So how about Re-Cycled, formed wood? Could be another Green step forward…..and if it catches on, you just KNOW there will be artists wanting to work in Windmill Wood and decorate and maybe carve these…..
This morning features a Round Up of recent Good News and Historic Items from June 16ths of Years Gone By masquerading as today’s History Corner, so let’s see what we’ve got.
Bits of June 16th History
1738 Southern Connecticut Birth of Mary Katharine Goddard, printer, publisher and bookseller. Daughter of the postmaster for New London, CT. Older brother William apprenticed as a printer, then moved to Baltimore to begin printing a patriot newspaper, the Maryland Journal. Mary went with him and kept up the printery when William joined the Continental Army. She became postmistress of Baltimore and opened a bookshop connected with her printery. In early 1777 Congress moved the Declaration of Independence be widely distributed and Mary bravely offered her press (if the Americans lost the war she would be hanged for treason.) The ‘Goddard Broadside’ (the second printed version) was the first printed version to carry all the names of the signers. In 1789, under the new Constitution, the Postmaster General removed her as postmistress on grounds she was a woman despite petitions and public demonstrations in Baltimore. Lived the rest of her life there as proprietor of the bookstore.
1843 Prague, Bohemia (now Czechia) Birth of David Popper, cellist, composer. Surprised his Jewish family by taking up the at a young age. Was good enough to be admitted to the Prague Conservatory at about 15 and make a concert tour already at age 20. Became principal cellist with the Vienna Opera at age 24. Left to join the faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory for 8 years, then helped found the Budapest Conservatory in the 1880s. Wrote a raft of pieces of cello and piano, concertos, a Requiem for 3 cellos and orchestra, and whimsical sonatas like ‘Tarantella’ and ‘Dance of the Elves.’ His instructional manual for cello, the ‘Higher School for Cello Playing,’ is still in use by advanced students of the instrument.
Good (?* Hmmm) News from the War
Since 2014 when Russia grabbed Crimea and Donbass from Ukraine, Ukraine has been overhauling its military: training, equipment, tactics, strategy, improvising and adapting new and old technology to their situation. Now, on February 24, the real test began and after 100+ days a lot of that overhauling is paying dividends. Still, a bit of advice from an old pro can really help. THIS STORY recounts a Ukrainian guy, in combat, using his phone and calling up his old training vet in Washington State! He’s having a problem launching his Javelin missile; it didn’t jam up at the practice range like this. Can you tell me what I’m missing? The WA National Guard guy talks him through it….and a Russian tank bites the dust! (‘Nice shootin’, Tex’ sounds the same in Ukrainian!)
Speaking of the air power arm, aerial recon, and state-of-the-art technology, on this day the Commander in Chief gets a personal look…..on the White House Lawn:
1861 Washington DC There’s a War on, and things have changed: rifles far deadlier, steam power that can move troops and supplies by rail or by steamboat, telegraph lines. But now AIR POWER will become part of this war. On the White House Lawn (!) President Lincoln and others come out to watch as Professor Thaddeus Lowe demonstrates his balloon.
Dr. Lowe has tethered his craft, inflated it with hydrogen (from a machine he invented that broke water down into hydrogen and oxygen) and then personally rode it up to about 500 feet. From there, from the bridge of the Enterprise, (Cue music! No kidding! Lowe painted the name in 12-inch letters on the gas bag) he sends a telegraph message down a wire wrapped around the rope to the ground. The message is in a museum, the first military aerial reconnaissance report in history. (Lincoln approves; Lowe’s balloons were used in the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. The Confederates tried to shoot them down (without success) but thereby invented anti-aircraft fire.)
(Photo right shows sister ship ‘Intrepid’, built to the same specs as ‘Enterprise’ at Star Fleet Shipyards…...no word if, on today’s flight at the helm of the ‘Enterprise’ , if Dr. Lowe brought along a flask of tea…..Earl Gray…..hot…..)
Good News Saving the Lost…….Or Not
1865 London. William Booth, an ordained Methodist minister who is dissatisfied with his denomination, sets up a tent and preaches a gospel directed at the poor, calling his group the Salvation Army. To this day the body focuses on practical help for the poor as a first step toward helping them become Christians. Fun sideline #1: A few years later, William’s daughter Evangeline Booth would drive a hay wagon through the streets of New York collecting alcoholics, offering them a ride to the Salvation Army Mission for a hot meal and a chance to dry out. Alcoholics who accepted were said to be “on the wagon.” Fun sideline #2: A lot of years later John Lennon (Beatles) had several childhood friends he played with who were orphans living at a Salvation Army orphanage. He tipped his hat to them and his boyhood when he recalled the orphanage name in a song: “Strawberry Fields” forever…..sniff!
In the above entry the intrepid and enterprising Evangeline Booth had to keep a sharp eye in the back streets of New York to spot prospective souls who really needed some help. Dr. Lowe’s White House Lawn dispatch was similarly sharp eyed and shrewd. Recon and intel are not just for war settings but cover he civilian side too, right? OTOH Esquire magazine is reporting in some depth on the J6 coup rebels and their recon of the Capital Building (with guided tours from GQP members of Congress) and their intel on just which windows were still un-reinforced in a long-term remodel/upgrade project. Infuriating, but important.
OTOH if there is 1 Senator we all hope (besides Hawley) would get thrown under the bus/Evangeline Booth hay wagon and dragged through the horse-pooped streets of 19th Century New York, its Ted Cruz. Well we may get our wish. THIS MSNBC story digs into Cruz’s ties on January 6th to the Mango Menace, but also Cruz’s links in the planning stages to John Eastman, writer of the Coup Memo. If Eastman is sunk, Cruz is caught in his whirlpool of big legal trouble.
Good News worth Laughing with and about
For Laughs #1 1884 Coney Island, New York On this day America’s 1st roller coaster opens…..to screaming success, shrieking laughter and imitators everywhere. (All you need is that motor and cable to pull it up the first big hill; if the math is right, the momentum will let it coast all the rest of the way back to start.)
For Laughs #2 1890 Ulverston, England Birth of Arthur Stanley Jefferson, actor. Son of a theater manager and an actress, when Arthur was 10 the family moved to Glasgow. He learned acting and comedy from several music hall stars and had his own premiere at age 16. Joined a
touring troupe doing comedy as half of a pair of Romans looking at modern life. Caught on with an American tour in 1913 in a troupe that included Charlie Chaplin. Made several 2-reel comedies in the 1920s (all silents) and in 1926 signed on with Hal Roach Studios. Having carried a stage name of Stan Jefferson, an actress friend suggested he change it since that had an unlucky 13 letters in it. He hoped to be a writer and director but instead was paired as Stan Laurel with partner Oliver Hardy. They made 107 short films, features and cameos together. Stan taught us how to carry the world’s longest board on a construction job all by himself….
For Laughs #3 2022 Ah, Laurel and Hardy: exquisite timing, sight gags, slapstick…….we are still laughing. Last Thursday night was the first of the J6 prime time hearings, with various video portions, and all of it damned serious stuff, and was taken seriously. But…..then…...one segment featured Ivanka Trump carefully distancing herself from her dad. Her voice was on tape but there was only a still picture on the screen. Some photographer from the back of the room got an odd angle of the screen so a photo looked like Ivanka was ‘wearing’ the room’s chandelier like a crown. This has gone viral, with tons of people chuckling Ivanka looked like Cher on a ….. um….. STRIKING concert night. Well HERE Cher herself not only includes the picture, but channels her inner Stan Laurel with a snark comment for the MONTH!
For Laughs #4 1893 Chicago, IL The World exposition. Local candy and treat maker Frederick Wilheim Rueckheim packages his mixture of popcorn and peanuts held together with molasses (thinned a bit with cooking oil to keep it from being too sticky, the secret ingredient!) in little boxes and touts it to Expo attenders as “Excellent”. He uses the slang of the day and says the taste is a “real Cracker Jack!” (Added “the prize inside” a few years later.)
For Laughs #5 2022 “Break out the popcorn” is the on-line meme for entertaining moments in the news. For many a religious skeptic (and even some of us not-so-skeptical but heartily tired of fundamentalists) here’s a chance to break out the Cracker Jack and munch through THIS STORY noting troubles at Biola College, a fundagelical ‘higher learning’ place in LA that has been around for decades churning out graduates in fleecing and lying (‘but its SINCERE lying…..”). Seems Trumpism is claiming another victim; enrollment is off, dropouts are soaring and they may have to close. (My dose of ‘shadenfreude’----a fine Lutheran/German term: ‘rejoicing at another’s misfortune.’)
1963 Earth orbit Aboard Vostok 6, the USSR space program launches 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova into orbit, the first woman in space. Leads to Sally Ride, Commander Lewis of the Ares III Mars Mission (for whom Mark Watney was forever grateful) Lt. Uhura, Captain Janeway in space. Unknown if Valentina’s great-great-great-great-great-grand nephew will be weapons officer aboard the Federation Starship Enterprise as Ensign Chekov, but it could be…..
Good News about Economic Stuff
We all need some talking points to answer the Doom-spewers. Here’s an article with the Good News title of ‘Debunking the 5 Top inflation myths’ and worth a careful, satisfying read.
And our favorite Progressive Senators are back with some great legislation: Sanders and Warren offer a PLAN to (contra Scott & Moscow Mitch) to EXTEND the life of Social Security by 75 years AND give everyone on it now a $2400/year raise…...all paid for by the villains of the modern economy!
AAAANNNDDDD…..since we like to open the doors, the floor, the dining room, the chandeliers, the bongo boards, and the disco floor to ALL the Gnusies bringing the Good News this morning (see comments below….all day!)…...AND we like to do that by a couple of light moments to send you there with smiles, the last 2 History entries for today are DEFINITELY historic…...and with a sidelong, raised-eyebrow stare of Goofy…...
1988 Santa Barbara, CA, A team of 32 scuba divers begin cycling underwater on a standard tricycle, to complete 116.66 miles in 75 hours 20 mins. WHY they did this……
1992 Flekkefjord, Norway Scandinavians can go a little bonkers as the Summer solstice approaches. Too much sunshine and too little sleep throws people off and causes them to do things like: on this day the local butcher shop and good folks in town combine to produce the world’s longest salami: 68 feet, 9 inches, with a circumference of 25 inches. The whole thing (before lunch began) weighed in at 1492 lbs, 5 ounces. The rest of the province was invited over for sandwiches…
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.