Archive for March 2024
Here’s a collection of facts concerning some of the history of the battle for women’s rights. Some good ones, some bad ones, but all are certainly interesting.
- Epicurus (341-241 BC), to whom good and pleasure were synonymous, was the first important philosopher to accept women as students.
- In 17th and 18th century America, women were employed in all of the same occupations that men worked, and men and women earned equal pay. A female blacksmith charged the same as a man to shoe a horse. Women sextons and printers were paid at the same rate as men. Women were also silversmiths, gunsmiths, shipwrights, and undertakers.
- The first woman governor in U.S. history was Mrs. Nelly Taylor Ross. She was elected governor of Wyoming in 1925.
- $10,000 was offered by Marion Hovey, of Boston, to the Harvard Medical School, to be used to educate women on equal terms with men. A committee approved the proposal, but the Hovey offer was rejected by the board of overseers. The year was 1878.
- Though she was a Nobel Prize winner (and soon would become the first person to win two), Marie Curie (1867-1934) was denied membership in the august French Academy simply because she was a woman.
- A woman agreed in 1952 to play in organized baseball, with the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Senators of the Interstate League. However, minor league commissioner George Trautman, with the support of major league baseball commissioner Ford Frick, unilaterally voided Mrs. Eleanor Angles contract.
- During the American Revolution, many brides did not wear white wedding gowns; instead, they wore red as a symbol of the rebellion.
- She was 87 years old when she became the first woman U.S. Senator, and she served for only one day, November 21, 1922. Rebecca Lattimer Felton, a Democrat and the widow of a Georgia representative who had opposed reactionary machine politics, had long worked for women’s suffrage, which became national law in 1920. She was appointed for a day to the Senate in a token gesture by the governor of Georgia, who had opposed the suffrage movement. “The word ‘sex’ has been obliterated from the Constitution,” Mrs. Felton said on excepting her appointment. There are now no limitations upon the ambitions of women.
- There are 15 nations that had given women the right to vote before the U.S. did in 1920. The earliest were New Zealand, in 1893, Australia, in 1902, and Finland, in 1906.
- Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, in 1776: “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
ONE IS NOT BORN A WOMAN, ONE BECOMES ONE
Now that we’re a few days into the month of March I began getting those terrible Spring Fever feelings. I know it’s wishful thinking this early but I’m sick and tired of this cold weather and snow and power outages and all of the other benefits of living in Maine. Let me brighten up your day a little with a few jokes that might just make you smile and forget it still effing March.
- Two prim and proper southern rural sisters, Georgia and Loreen, were sitting on the porch in rocking chairs discussing Loreen’s recent trip to New York City. Loreen says, “Sister, did you know that in New York City there are women who kiss other women on the lips?” Georgette gasps and exclaims, “Oh, sister! What do they call them?” “They call them lesbians,” Loreen replies. “And, sister, did you know that in New York City there are men who kiss other men on the lips?” “Oh, sister,” says Georgia, fanning herself in a startled frenzy. “What do they call them?” “They call them gay, “Loreen says. “And, sister, did you know that in New York City there are men who kiss women on their private parts?” To this, Georgia’s face turns bright red, and she nearly falls out of her chair as she explains,”Ohhhhh, sister! What do they call them?” Loreen smiles a secretive smile and proudly announces, “Well, I don’t know but when he looked up, I called him Precious!”
- Little Johnny is taking a shower with his mother and says, “What are those things on your chest?” Unsure of how to reply she tells Johnny to ask his dad at breakfast tomorrow, quite certain the matter will be forgotten. Johnny didn’t forget. The following morning, he asked his father the same question. His father, always quick with the answers, says, “Why, Johnny, those are balloons. When your mommy dies, we can blow them up and she’ll float away to heaven.” Johnny thinks that’s neat and asks no further questions. A few weeks later, Johnny’s dad comes home from work a few hours early. Johnny runs out of the house crying hysterically, “Daddy! Daddy! Mommy is dying!” “Uncle Harry is blowing up mommy’s balloons and she’s screaming, Oh God, I’m coming!”
- Mr. Smith owned a small business. He had two employees, Sarah and Jack. They were both extremely good employees, always willing to work overtime and chip in where needed. Mr. Smith was looking over his books one day and decided that he wasn’t making enough money to warrant two employees and he would have to lay someone off. But both Sarah and Jack were such good workers he was having trouble finding a fair way to do it. After much thought, he eventually decided he would watch them work and the first one to take a break would be the one he would lay off. So, he sat in his office and watched them work. Suddenly, Sarah got a terrible headache and needed to take an aspirin. She got the aspirin out of her purse and went to the water cooler to get something to wash it down. Mr. Smith followed her to the water cooler, placed his hand on here shoulder and said, “Sarah, I’m going to have to lay you, or Jack, off.” Sarah said, “You’ll just have to jackoff – I have a terrible headache!”
297 SHOPPING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS
That should wipe that smile off your face.
I’m feeling a little weird today as you’ll see when you read the following post. I always like to have a reasonable amount of weirdness in my life but today I have more than my share. Therefore, I’ll pass the following items on to you to help me shed some of my current level of weirdness. Oh yeah, “You’re welcome.”
- An agoraphobic man who had vowed never to leave his house again after he was assaulted at age 18 decided, after 30 years of self-induced imprisonment, to take a walk outside. But the strain of being outside was too much for him and he suffered a heart attack while strolling along.
- A man was speeding down the highway at 110 mph when he struck the rear of a car, immediately killing the two people inside. The victims? The man’s mother and her elderly neighbor, who she was taking on a leisurely drive to see the town’s Christmas lights.
- Author Morgan Robertson wrote his story of a gigantic luxury ship, the Titan, in 1898. In his fictional tale, the ship, advertised as unsinkable, hits an iceberg and tragic tragically goes down, killing many passengers and crew. In 1912, the real-life ship the Titanic met a shockingly similar fate.
- A man attempting to rob a convenience store in Cherry Hill, North Carolina, thwarted his own plans when he dropped his gun. The gun hit the ground, went off, and the bullet lodged in the robber’s foot.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
Edgar Allen Poe
- A wealthy Connecticut woman named Helen Dow Peck believed messages she received from Ouija boards. One day in 1919, the board spelled out that she should leave her entire estate to a man named John Gale Forbes. She did but the only problem was she didn’t know anybody by that name. In fact, after she died in 1956, her lawyer did a search throughout the world and discovered that, despite what all the all-knowing spirits had said, there was nobody with that name.
- Four men dressed like Elvis Presley jumped out of a plane to promote a Boston nightclub opening in 1996. Three of them lived, but one unlucky Elvis died when he caught a gust of wind and was blown out to sea.
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many
things that escape those who dream only at night.”
Edgar Allan Poe
HUMAN RIGHTS SHOULD INCLUDE WEIRDNESS
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