Archive for the ‘History’ Category
I’ve always proclaimed my love for Sci-Fi. It’s been a consistent part of my life since I first watched my mother cover the walls of my bedroom with rocket ships and planets. Next came Sputnik and the space race began, and I was hooked. I read everything I could get my hands on that was sci-fi related and the first real book I devoured was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I found the book in a garbage can along the road as I was walking home from school one afternoon. My mind became instantly expanded in 1965 when the novel Dune was released. It was a complicated read for a young kid, but it was mind blowing as well. I read it two additional times with the book in one hand and a dictionary in the other. I wanted to understand it all.
In 1984 I was sent reeling when it was announced that a movie had been made. I loved the movie but as all movies do, they fall well short of the book. I saw that first movie a number of times over the years and still enjoy it to this day. That being said, I’ve read the entire five book series of Dune at least six times in the intervening years and it still blows my mind. Every time I reread it; I find things I missed before. As with J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, and Frank Herbert it staggers my imagination that they could sit down and write such epic works.
There was a TV series in 2000 but it gets no mention here. It sucked! I’ve recently began reading the original series again prompted by the release of the new movie. I’ve just finished The Children of Dune and I can’t wait to get started on the final two novels. I haven’t yet decided whether to see the new movie because I know in my heart it will disappoint me. Here are two quotes from the books I particularly liked. It’s this kind of writing that doesn’t translate well to a movie.
“The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the Wolf within your fences. The pacts ranging outside may not even exist.”
“Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.”
IF YOU GET A CHANCE, READ THE BOOK
Yesterday I posted a few tidbits concerning sexual weirdness laws still being enforced here in our country. With weirdness being the operative word, I thought I would continue with a few more obscure and weird facts that you may not be aware of. It seems that the list grows longer and longer each year.
- The first step on the moon by astronaut Neil Armstrong was made with his left foot.
- More Americans choke on toothpicks than on any other item. Ballpoint pens are running a close second.
- The “gag” rule was instituted in the Senate in 1836 so the Senators would not have to accept, debate, or vote on anti-slavery petitions.
- Fingernails grow faster on your dominant hand.
- Tickling requires surprise. Since you can’t surprise yourself, you can’t tickle yourself, either.
- Fifteen million blood cells are produced and destroyed in the human body every second.
- The human body has enough fat to produce seven bars of soap.
- Investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Warren Buffett began his illustrious career by collecting and selling lost golf balls.
- Over a lifetime, an average human being spends approximately 6 months on the toilet.
- Ironically the official motto of the state of New Hampshire, printed on its license plates, is “Live Free or Die”, and those license plates are made at a state prison.
This quote belongs to Nancy Reagan and is one of my favorites.
“I think more people would be alive
today if there were a death penalty.”
I’ve been associated with Law Enforcement both as a police officer and also as a private citizen. I’ve seen a lot of things that were more than a little strange and some more than a little scary. So, when I stumbled upon this list that I’m about to post I wasn’t all that surprised. In the past I’ve posted about some strange laws still on the books in this country, but this list takes the cake. This is about weird sex laws gathered from a number of states and to say they’re a little bizarre is an understatement. Here we go . . .
- In Harrisburg, PA, there’s a law against having sex with a truck driver in a toll booth.
- In Newcastle, WY, there’s a law against having sex in a butcher shop freezer.
- In Clinton, OK, it’s illegal to masturbate while watching two people having sex in a car.
- In Tremonton, UT, you aren’t permitted to have sex in an ambulance.
- In Alexandria, MN, it’s illegal for a man to have sex with his wife if he has the smell of onions, sardines, or garlic on his breath.
- In Willowdale, OR a husband cannot talk dirty in his wife’s ear during sex.
- In Ames, IA, there’s a law against a man drinking more than three slugs of beer while lying in bed with a woman.
- In Ventura, CA, there’s a law against cats and dogs having sex without a permit.
- In Kingsville, TX there’s a law against two pigs having sex on Kingsville Airport property.
WELCOME TO THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE WEIRD
As someone who’s crazy for limericks of all kinds, I thought I’d introduce a new contributor to this blog. The name is John Ciardi, and he was a close friend of Isaac Azimov, my favorite limerick author. They partnered up back in the 70’s and wrote a book of their limericks. It was a limerick war between the two as part of their competitive friendship. I’ve blogged many of Azimov’s limericks and I think it’s only fair to give Mr. Ciardi equal time. Here are a few of his gems.
😂😂😂
There once was a girl who intended
To keep herself morally splendid
And ascend into Glory,
Which is not a bad story,
Except that that’s not how it ended.
😫😫😫
One semester a young prof named Innis
Taught two hundred coeds’ what sin is.
Not, bad, I acknowledge,
For a small country college,
But not worth recording in Guinness.
🤪🤪🤪
A businesslike lady once baited
The door of her flat with X-rated
Interior views,
And, in neon, FREE BOOZE.
Then stretched out on a bearskin and waited.
😎😎😎
A word spout named Howard Cosell
Set his sights on the language Nobel
By over inflating
His confabulating,
But to blow hard is not to blow well.
THANK YOU MR. CIARDI
I’ve spent most of my life obeying and enforcing the laws of the land. First, as a cop, and then as a private cop for companies throughout the country. I’ve always believed in what I did and felt proud as I dedicated my time and energy to something bigger than myself. That was ‘yesterday’ and unfortunately ‘today’ it’s become something less noble. I can’t praise our law enforcement officers enough because the job has become almost impossible to do. Between the bleeding-heart liberal judges and the thousands of attorneys doing their level best every day to muddy the waters of what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s no wonder the society is suffering.
Everyone seems to complain that the system is broken but no one knows or even tries to fix it. It’s much easier to just send cops out into the streets knowing that if they make one solitary move or say one solitary thing to a citizen, they’ll be ridiculed or worse within minutes. There are times when it’s justified but all cops don’t deserve that kind of ridicule. Our forefathers are a joke to many people these days, but they saw this coming over three hundred years ago. Read on.
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) & James Madison (1751-1836)
“The Federalist Papers”
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood, if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.”
TAKE TIME TO THANK A COP FOR HIS SERVICE
First, a retro bumper sticker from the 1970’s:
SORRY, I DON’T DATE OUTSIDE MY SPECIES
Secondly, an off-the-wall NY Yankee headline:
A-Rod Goes Deep, Wang Hurt.
Thirdly, a quote all Americans should read and remember:
“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
Adlai Stevenson
And last but not least a memorable limerick about limericks:
The limerick’s an art form complex,
Whose contents run chiefly to sex.
It’s famous for virgins
And masculine urgings,
And vulgar, erotic effects.
Today is the start of a better day than yesterday. Today I’m assured of at least another year before the cancer might return. A good doctor’s report makes for better days ahead. I can stop obsessing over this whole cancer deal until October when I’m due to be scanned again. So, what better way to pass the time than throwing some bad poetry your way. I wrote this many years ago during what I used to call the I-don’t-give-a-shit days. And believe me, I had plenty of them.
❤❤ It’s near in the mist. ❤❤
It watches and waits,
as its urges flicker to life.
A stroke of the hand,
a kiss in the dark,
and a seed is spilled
near your wife.
Some call it desire,
others haven’t a clue,
I see it near you!
Today is Thursday but it just feels like a dreary Monday. I was awakened at 4:30 am by my better-half who was preparing to leave at 6:00 am for a drive to Florida. She was accompanied by her daughter and two grandsons both under the age of ten (OMFG). She tried desperately to convince me to ride along but fortunately for me I had other plans today. My other plans consist of some quality time with my least favorite doctor, the oncologist. I’ve always thought that being a proctologist might be the worst job on the planet but after the last three years I’ve changed my mind about that. Being an oncologist has to be the worst. Their job is vitally important but dealing with cancer and death on a regular basis is grueling for both the patients, nurses, and doctors. I’m hoping for good news today as always when dealing with them. So while I sit here preparing myself for that visit I thought I’d post a few things about four truly dumb asses.
DEADHEADS
A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted. The judge ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.
LICENSE TO STEAL Two Kentucky men tried to pull the front cover from an ATM by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off the truck. They panicked and fled, leaving the chain still attached to the machine, their bumper still attached to the chain, and their license plate still attached to the bumper.
MADE FOR TV
Guns For Hire, an Arizona company specializing in staged gunfights for western movies, got a call from a 47-year-old woman who wanted to have her husband shot. She was later sentenced to four years in jail.
OKAY, SO YOU’RE A MAN
A 38-year-old man passed away in Pennsylvania a couple of hours after going to the home of a friend to see his snakes. According to the friend, the man had playfully reached into a cobra’s tank and picked up the snake and was bitten. Refusing a ride to the hospital, the man said, “I’m a man, I can handle it,” and instead went to a bar, where he had three drinks and bragged to patrons that he had just been bitten by a cobra. An hour later, he was dead.
READING ABOUT DUMB ASSES ALWAYS CHEERS ME UP
I’m a lover of history, and I’m absolutely crazy about obscure historical trivia facts. I’ve collected quite a few over the years and I’m going to begin today with what I hope will be a number of postings with more of these little tidbits. Enjoy!
- “Take this script,” Rudyard Kipling said to the nurse who cared for his firstborn child, “and someday if you are in need of money, you may be able to sell it at a handsome price.” Years later, when the nurse was actually in want, she sold the manuscript of the first Jungle Book and lived in comfort for the rest of her life.
- After writing the runaway bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe was bombarded with hate mail. Out of one package that she received fell the ear of a slave.
- The author of the best-known document in the United States, and perhaps in the world, published only one book. Thomas Jefferson’s answers to a set of 23 questions about the American continent, circulated in 1780 by the French emissary François Marbois, appeared as Notes on the State of Virginia.
- Walt Whitman was dismissed from his clerical post in the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, read a portion of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and deemed it “pernicious poetry”.
- Heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney lectured on Shakespeare at Yale University.
- The electric automobile self-starter, which was perfected in 1911 by Charles F Kettering, made it possible for women to drive without the companion previously needed for cranking the engine.
- In the early 1860s, a New York firm offered a prize of $10,000 for a satisfactory substitute for ivory in the manufacture of billiard balls. The prize was won by an American inventor, John Wesley Hyatt, who devised for the purpose what came to be known as celluloid. It was the first synthetic plastic.
- Somewhere out there in space, amid all of the junk, is the Hasselblad camera dropped during a spacewalk by the United States astronaut Michael Collins. It will orbit the earth indefinitely.
- A manned rocket reaches the moon in less time than it took a stagecoach to travel the length of England.
- In 1930, Ellen Church recruited seven other young nurses to work 5000 feet above the Earth. They were the first airline stewardesses, flying on Boeing’s San Francisco to Chicago route, a trip that, in good weather, took 20 hours and made 13 stops.
WHO DOESN’T LOVE HISTORICAL TRIVIA?
“To believe everything is to be an imbecile.
To deny everything is to be a fool.”
Charles Nodier 1844
He was born at Besançon in France, near the border with Switzerland. His father, on the outbreak of the French Revolution, was appointed mayor of Besançon and consequently chief police magistrate. Charles was an influential French author and librarian who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the conte fantastique, gothic literature, and vampire tales. His dream related writings influenced many later authors.
