Being stuck in this house and this bed is driving me crazier than usual. Now that the Cov-19 has come and gone I still have a twenty-pound cast on my leg. I’m still limited by some door sizes which are too small for this freaking wheelchair to get through. Let me apologize, I immediately start to whine and feel sorry for myself when things aren’t going my way. It’s just human nature I suppose. I decided I would find a few items of trivia to help breakup your day. These are a mish-mosh of items collected totally at random. I hope you enjoy them.
An Egyptian papyrus, dated at approximately 1850 B.C., gives us the earliest record of a method to prevent pregnancies. It required putting into the vagina a concoction of honey, soda, crocodile excrement, and some sort of gummy substance.
Between the mid-1860’s and 1883, the bison population in North America was reduced from an estimated 13 million to a few hundred.
Not a single bank existed anywhere in the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution. Anyone needing money had to borrow from an individual.
After twenty years as a faithful unpaid servant of the Duke of Windsor, Walter Monckton was rewarded with a cigarette case on which his name was engraved – and misspelled.
In the seventeenth century, and principally during the period of the Thirty Years War, approximately sixty million people in Europe died from smallpox.
A conventional sign of virginity in Tudor England was a high exposed bosom and a sleeve full to the wrists.
If all of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere were condensed at the same time, there would be enough water to cover the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) with twenty-five feet of water.
The British erected in London’s Trafalgar Square a statue of U.S President George Washington, whose armies overthrew British rule in the colonies.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal felony to kill a President of the United States.
For fear he might conceal a joke in it was one reason why Benjamin Franklin was not entrusted by his peers with the assignment of writing the Declaration of Independence.
When I woke up this morning, I immediately decided to ignore Christmas for a few more days. The decision was caused by a combination of things but primarily due to the last 25 Christmas Rom-Com’s I had to watch at the insistence of my better half. One more passionate but interrupted kiss and I will run screaming from the room. Let’s just amuse ourselves for a little while longer before the Christmas elf makes the next 2 weeks a green and red nightmare.
The insults “moron, “idiot”, “imbecile,” and “cretin” were all once official medical diagnoses.
The penis of a Barnicle may reach up to 20 times its body size.
The highest possible legal score on a first turn in Scrabble is given by the word “muzjiks,” scoring 128 points. The world record for the highest score on a single turn is “quixotry” for 365 points.
The FBI had a 1427-page dossier on Albert Einstein.
“Queueing” is the only word in English with five consecutive vowels.
A cow burps up to 280 liters of methane per day.
Two thirds of the world’s people never seen snow.
Woodrow Wilson is the only president to have had a PhD.
Aldous Huxley died on the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
From a height of 3 kilometers, it takes 30 minutes for a snowflake to reach the ground.
In the United States, 12% of women with MBAs are divorced or separated, compared with 5% of men with MBAs.
In any given day, more people in India travel by train then by plane in the entire year.
One American in 6500 is injured by a toilet seat during their lifetime.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is larger than Manhattan.
Ladders are dropped on Los Angeles freeways more than any other item.
Every year, an average of 12 Japanese tourists in Paris have to be repatriated due to severe culture shock.
It’s 7am and I’m sitting here drinking my coffee and staring out the window. It’s a sky full or gray and dark clouds and a light annoying rain. I get to top that off with another annoying doctors visit later in the day. How did I ever manage to stay alive this long before I had all these experts making me pay for the privilege?
I feel better now that I’ve gotten that whine out of the way. I think todays post should consist of a general list of interesting oddities. It’s just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended). Enjoy . . .
In the 10th century, the Grand Viser of Persia, carried 117,000 books with him as he traveled. It took 400 camels to carry all of the volumes.
Sportscaster Foster Hewitt is credited with being the first person to say, “He shoots! He scores!” It happened at a hockey game between 1931 and 1935.
In 1985, 300 people who were alive in 1910 gathered to watch Haley’s Comet make its first return to Earth in 75 years.
In 1967, the town of St. Paul, Alberta, built the world’s first UFO landing pad as a project to mark Canada’s 100th birthday.
A typical child laughs 26.67 times more per day than the typical adult.
Vatican City claims the honor of having both the lowest divorce rate and the lowest birth rate of anywhere in the world.
The first snowboard was called a “snurfer” and was made with two skis attached together.
The “Spirit of Ecstasy” is the name of the sculpture on the hood ornament of a Rolls-Royce.
Each of your nostril’s registers smell differently. Your right nostril detects the more pleasant smells, but your left one is more accurate.
It has been reported in Ripley’s Believe It or Not that the toe tag from the corpse of Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy’s alleged assassin, sold at auction for $9500.
I’ve stated on many occasions that I was done writing about politics and politicians. I’m afraid after watching the Biden administration in recent weeks I can’t remain quiet any longer or I will lose my effing mind.
As we all know the Ides of March can be a dangerous time as can be verified by Julius Caesar. In celebrating that infamous day today, I thought a short discussion on Presidents was in order. With Russia and the Ukraine battling it out and Biden and his socialist vice-president doing absolutely nothing. It made me wonder where Biden will be listed as compared to past presidents. We’ve had some dunces, some fools, and a large number of incompetents. Many American lives have been sacrificed when presidential decisions went sideways. The following information was recently commissioned by C-SPAN to answer that question definitively and the results are fascinating. They ranked each president according to a number of different factors such as public persuasion, crisis leadership, international relations, and vision while in office. Here are their top ten.
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt
Dwight David Eisenhower
Harry S. Truman
Thomas Jefferson
John F. Kennedy
Ronald Reagan
Lyndon B. Johnson
Obviously, I don’t see the name Trump, Obama, Bush, or Carter listed in the top ten. After observing Biden since he took office, I would rank him around #40. He’s had a number of opportunities to make life a bit more difficult for the Russians but hasn’t done it. Either he’s an old fool or his advisors are incompetent. It seems their more concerned with party politics than international affairs. Maybe if gas reaches $6.00 a gallon someone will begin paying attention. This situation is getting out of hand and could turn dangerous at any time. Keep sitting on your hands Joe.
Life to me is nothing more than a series of connections of actions and words between individuals. What I do or say on any given day has some effect on others. They in turn take actions and say things prompted by what I’ve said or done. Therefore my actions and words will ripple through great numbers of people allowing me the ability to indirectly create change. That’s one of the many reasons I enjoy blogging. On most days the majority of citizens feel disenfranchised by the system because they believe they cannot effect change. Many people fear change but I don’t. I’ll keep writing and voicing my opinions and they will be read by others, not just in the United States, but worldwide. My records indicate that the things I’ve written have been read in over eighty countries. It’s the best solution I can offer as I try to effect change. What blogs offer is considerably more interesting than what Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are supplying us with. Find some blogs you can relate to and get involved.
“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were home.” – Thornton Wilder
āYou cannot change anyone, but you can be the reason someone changes.ā – Roy T. Bennett
āLife is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Donāt resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.ā – Lao Tzu
āChange is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.ā – John F. Kennedy
“Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people. – Jim Rohn
āYou canāt just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.ā – Sam Walton (Walmart)
āEveryone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy
I’ve collected a large amount of miscellaneous information over the years and have saved only a small percentage of it. I only keep things that are interesting to me and a little unusual. Many of you may have seen the following information in the past in one form or another but many have not. Since it’s a lazy day here in Maine I’m sending this along for your amusement and also because of my inability to motivate myself this morning. These facts are truly strange and go well beyond the level of coincidence. Read on and enjoy some gruesome American history.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contains seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names were composed of 15 letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named Ford.
Kennedy was shot in a car called Lincoln.
Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before their trials.
And here’s the kicker
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.
As I prepare for the exit of Barack Obama as President my mind naturally turns to politics. Iām not going to get into the expected arguments concerning the current roster of candidates because itās pointless. People make up their own minds and then spend all of their leisure time trying to convince everyone else to vote like they do because theyāre smarter than everyone else. Itās those kinds of discussions I donāt want taking place on this blog.
I honestly donāt care a wit for who any of you may vote for. Just like I wonāt tell you what Iām going to do. If I agree with your selection Iām smart and intelligent and if I donāt then Iām a dumb ass without a clue about politics. Itās a lose . . . lose for me and not worth my time.
As much as I dislike politics and politicians I still love trivia. So Iāll delve into my archives to find a few interesting political tidbits from past Presidents and presidencies. Here they are.
* * *
Herbert Hoover was the only president to turn over 40 years of his government paychecks to charity.
A $5.7 million dollar renovation of the White House during the Truman administration was caused when the leg of Margaret Trumanās piano broke through the floor of v\her sitting room into the room below.
President Lyndon Johnson and his wife named their dogs Him & Her. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife named their pistols His & Hers.
Camp David located in the Catoctin Mountains was originally named Shangri- La before renaming by FDR.
James Madison, the fourth President was 5ā4ā tall and never weighed more than 100 pounds.
George Washingtonās second inaugural address was the shortest in history. It contained only 135 words.
William Howard Taft had a bathtub installed in the White House large enough to hold four men. He weighed in at the time at 325 pounds.
During his 12 years as President FDR used his veto powers 635 times.
Alexander Hamilton is credited with writing George Washingtonās famous Farewell Address.
The average age that Presidents have taken office is 54.
First Lady Barbara Bushās great-great-great uncle was President Franklin Pierce.
FDR was the only President who never used the word āIā in his inaugural speech.
The nickname of the first Presidential plane (a C-45 piloted by Major Henry T. Myers in 1944) was the, āSacred Cowā.
John Tyler was the only President to serve as a member of of the Congress of the Confederate States.
John Quincy Adams was the first President to wear long pants rather than knee breeches to his inauguration in 1825.
* * *
I think thatās about enough politics for me today. Anymore and Iāll become nauseous and violently ill.
For most of my life Iāve been lectured about religion by an oh-so Catholic mother. Part or her lecture series was to make sure I kept the Sabbath, āA Day of Restā. It wasnāt until this morning, 60 years later, that I decided to remember that. According to my Mom it was a day to relax, reexamine your week, and be sorry for every rotten thing you did or even thought about doing. I always had more than enough things to review that it usually took me the entire day.
Since I no longer do bad things or think bad things it puts me into a quandary. What do I do with my Sundays these days? Being a well behaved and sinless person really opens up my Sundays for other activities. One of which is posting more useless, uninformative, and silly items of trivia.
Some of these tidbits are really and truly interesting but the other 99% are a waste of time. If youāre a clean living person like me then you too will have plenty of time today to read this nonsense. Since Iāve been watching a lot of English historical programs of late, I thought we should begin with these.
As a prince, King Edward VI had a āwhipping boyā named Barnaby Fitzpatrick, who was beaten every time the prince misbehaved during his lessons.
The sirloin was introduced when King James I knighted a joint of beef (a loin), which was particularly tasty.
King Charles Iās favorite joke was to place his court dwarf, Jeffrey Hudson, who was eighteen inches tall, between two halves of a loaf of bread and pretend to eat him.
King Edward III died of gonorrhea, which he caught from his mistress when he was sixty-five years of age. Henry VIII and Edward VI also died of venereal disease.
So much for so-called royalty. Theyāre just plain disgusting pervs like the rest of us. Now onto some strikingly stupid mis-statements released by the Media. This should convince you just how overrated and inaccurate they really can be.
āAnd now the sequence of events in no particular order.ā ā Dan Rather
āWe are unable to announce the weather. We depend on weather reports from the airport, which is closed, due to the weather. Whether we will be able to give you a weather report tomorrow will depend on the weather. ā Actual Arab news report.
āPassive activity income does not include the following income for an activity that is not a passive activity.ā ā I.R.S. form.
āThe Supreme Court rules that murderers shall not be electrocuted twice for the same crime.ā ā Cleveland Daily News
Now a few miscellaneous items in no particular order of importance.
More than 200 people in West Virginia returned their license plates to the Motor Vehicle Bureau because they began with the letters āOJā.
Henry Ford never had a driverās license.
A survey of career women who had tattoos revealed that they preferred to adorn their left breast rather than their right by a ratio of three to one.
In the early days of Hollywood, Western sets were made to seven-eighth scale to make the heroes seem larger.
There are now said to be more Samoans in Los Angeles than in American Samoa.
When W.C. Fields was caught glancing through the Bible, he explained it with, āLooking for loopholes.ā
In New Mexico more than eleven thousand people have visited a tortilla chip that has the face of Jesus Christ burned on it.
And for all of you dieters out these, hereās my favorite food quotation from Miss Piggy. āNever eat more than you can lift.ā
Being a history buff has been a lifelong pleasure for me. I’ve always believed that individuals and governments have much to learn from their past mistakes and by studying those mistakes can improve their future circumstances. With that in mind I thought Iād step back in time to review and pass on to all of you a few interesting factoids on notable occurrences for March 1.
Some of you may find these items interesting and others not so much. My better-half will more often than not just roll her eyes and then turn up the volume of the music she’s listening to when I start spouting historical facts. I guess I can’t please everyone all of the time but I’ll keep trying. Here we go.
This Day In History – March 1st
1954 U.S.A. – US tests hydrogen bomb in the Pacific archipelago of Bikini, part of the Marshall Islands.
1961 U.S.A. – President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State.
1932 U.S.A. – The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped when stolen from his crib at the family estate in Hopewell, New Jersey,
1936 U.S.A. – The Hoover Dam ( Boulder Dam ) is completed and turned over to the U.S. government. It supplies hydroelectricity, irrigation and fresh water to homes in California and Nevada.
1941 U.S.A. – Nashville, Tennessee becomes the home of the very first FM radio station in the country. While the FM band had less static and more range, it didnāt become popular until the early 1960s.
1954 U.S.A. – Five U.S. congressmen were shot and injured during a House session today when Puerto Rican spectators who yelled "Free Puerto Rico" fired shots into the United States Capitol building.
1962 U.S.A. – On this day, 95 people were killed in a plane crash that occurred along the South shore of Long Island, New York. The irony of it all is that this plane crash happened after the end of a long stretch of bad weather (rain and fog) that had continued for about a week-on a clear day.
1966 Soviet Union – An unmanned Soviet probe called Venera 3 crashes on Venus in the pursuit of the conquest of space.
1971 U.S.A. – The radical left organization Weather Underground bombs the United States Capitol on March 1, 1971. A bomb was placed in the senate wing causing $300,000 damage and no injuries.
1972 Syria - This was one of the significant days of the attack by Israel against the Arabs. The Israeli army launched attacks against Arab Guerrilla camps that operated in southern Syria at this time. Fighting back and forth continued on at different times after this until the present day.
1973 Sudan – The Palestinian terrorist group Black September storm the Saudi Arabian embassy in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, taking diplomats hostage. ( This was the same terrorist organization that murdered nine Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics).
1978 Switzerland - The coffin of Charlie Chaplin was stolen from a small, unguarded village cemetery in Switzerland .
1997 U.S.A. – Massive flooding occurred throughout the state of Kentucky with thousands left homeless and more than 50 people dead.
2002 U.S.A – The possibility of water still existing on Mars was made known. According to NASA, a spacecraft called Odyssey had detected it on this planet.
2005 U.S.A. – Dennis Rader, accused of leading a double life as the BTK ( Bind, Torture and Kill, ) serial killer, was charged in Wichita, Kan., with 10 counts of first-degree murder between 1974 and 1991.. (Rader later pleaded guilty and received multiple life sentences.)
2007 U.S.A. – A series of 55 Tornadoes strike the southern United States that began in Kansas on February 28th, 2007 and included Alabama and Georgia, the tornadoes leave 20 dead with the worst effected area being Enterprise, Alabama where a section of the Enterprise High School was destroyed during the middle of the school day killing 8 and injuring many more.
2008 Afghanistan - Prince Harry who was sent secretly to Afghanistan with his regiment in December at his request is forced to return to Britain following the American website, The Drudge Report, making his deployment public.
2008 United States – People have been watching the naming of the warship that was built from parts of the steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. The families of the 9/11 victims were among the thousands of spectators at the naming of the U.S.S. New York, in Avondale, Louisiana. The bow contains 7.5 tons of steel taken from Ground Zero. It bears a shield with two bars to symbolize the towers, and a banner with the slogan āNever Forgetā. The New York is an amphibious landing ship with a crew of 360, and complement of 700 marines.
āNever Forgetā
2012 United States – Thursday, 1st March, 2012 : The suspected gunman, TJ Lane, in a deadly school shooting will face charges as a juvenile in the US state of Ohio. Lane was suspected of killing three students and wounding two at Chardon High School.
Thereās your history lesson for today. Whoever said that March was a slow winter month was badly mistaken. Just ask Julius Caesar.
I decided to step away from a journal entry today and offer up some unusual tidbits of presidential trivia. Since the political winds are once again beginning to blow I thought it might interest some of you. This information has been chosen at random and Iām not picking on any one party. To be sure, thereās enough useless information coming out of both parties to make everyone happy. Here we go. . .
Edith Wilson, the wife of Woodrow Wilson, often rode a bicycle in the corridors of the White House.
Richard M. Nixon once worked as a carnival barker.
Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird that followed him upstairs to bed every night.
First Lady Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, used to hang laundry in the White House East Room to dry.
David Rice Atchison, a state senator from Missouri (1843-1855), was President of the United States for one day.
Who knew we had a president for just one day? I can think of quite a few others I would have loved to have for only one day.
Calvin Coolidge, President from 1923 to 929, was the last President to write his own speeches.
President Jimmy Carter was the first president born in a hospital.
Ronald Reagan received over seventy-five thousand gifts, including three hundred seventy-two belt buckles, a dog house, a six foot long pencil, and a four-square-foot portrait made out of ten thousand jelly beans.
When Zachary Taylor became President in 1849, he kept his horse āOld Whiteyā on the front lawn of the White House.
Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested near the White House and fined twenty dollars for driving a team of horses too fast.
I donāt doubt for a minute that Grant was probably under the influence of some unknown alcoholic beverage. Thatās the same guy who once upon a time allegedly threw up on one of his officers .
The middle initial āSā in President Harry S. Trumanās name didnāt stand for anything.
John Tyler (1790-1862), 10th president, was unable to get a decent job after leaving office and worked at a village pound tending cows and horses.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), once delivered a one-hour speech in spite of being shot moments before by a would-be assassin.
President George H.W. Bush banned broccoli from the White House in March 1990, the California broccoli growers delivered nine tons of the vegetable to Washington.
President Millard Fillmore, in 1851, became the first chief executive to use a bathtub in the White House.
Hereās a special bonus entry for JFK. He was known for a lot of questionable shenanigans but Iāll be nice and take the high road today. He was also the first President born in the twentieth century.
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