Did You Know

The idea of cats having multiple lives is found around the world, but the number of lives is inconsistent. While Americans say a cat has nine lives, Germans and Italians say a cat has seven lives, and in many regions of the Middle East, they are believed to have only six.

February, thanks to its already short length and leap days, has missed a full moon several times in recorded history. In 1999, not only did February have no full moon, but a misalignment between the human and lunar calendars led to January and April having two full moons.

95 percent of cranberries are processed immediately after harvest into juice and cranberry sauce. The remaining 5 percent are sold fresh or dried and sweetened.

The English idiom “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” was originally said as “you can’t eat your cake and have it too”. The word order was reversed sometime around the 1930s.

Thanks to metal shortages during World War II, there was a three-year span of time where Oscar recipients received a plaster statue painted gold; after the war, the Academy replaced the plaster statues with the traditional gold-plated metal ones.

The very first Saturday Night Live host was George Carlin; the first female host (and first person to host the show more than once) was Candice Bergen.

In the original version of Pac-Man, each level had 240 little dots for Pac-Man to munch on.

The house edge, the percentage the casino wins over the player, is lowest for Blackjack (less than 1 percent) and highest for Keno (25-29 percent).

Only four nations have national anthems with no official lyrics: Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and San Marino.

Compliments of http://www.howtogeek.com/

Independence Day

 

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain. The Constitution provides the legal and governmental framework for the United States. However, the Declaration, with its eloquent assertion “all Men are created equal,” is equally beloved by the American people.

Philadelphians marked the first anniversary of American independence with a spontaneous celebration, which is described in a letter by John Adams to his daughter, Abigail. However, observing Independence Day only became commonplace after the War of 1812. Soon, events such as groundbreaking ceremonies for the Erie Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were scheduled to coincide with July 4th festivities.

In 1859, the Banneker Institute of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, urged African Americans to celebrate Independence Day while bearing witness to the inconsistencies between the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the practice of slavery. Chairman of the meeting, Mr. Jacob C. White Jr., also promised his audience a brighter future:

We have learned by experience and by the comparison of ourselves with people similarly situated, to hope that, at some day not very far in futurity, our grievances will be redressed, that our long lost rights will be restored to us, and that, in the full stature of men, we will stand up, and with our once cruel opponents and oppressors rejoice in the Declaration of our common country, and hail with them the approach of the glorious natal day of the Great Republic.

By the 1870s, the Fourth of July was the most important secular holiday on the calendar. Congress passed a law making Independence Day a federal holiday on June 28, 1870. Even far-flung communities on the western frontier managed to congregate on Independence Day.

In an American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940 interview, Miss Nettie Spencer remembered the Fourth as the “big event of the year. Everyone in the countryside got together on that day for the only time in the year.” She continued:

There would be floats in the morning and the one that got the [girls?] eye was the Goddess of Liberty. She was supposed to be the most wholesome and prettiest girl in the countryside — if she wasn’t she had friends who thought she was. But the rest of us weren’t always in agreement on that…Following the float would be the Oregon Agricultural College cadets, and some kind of a band. Sometimes there would be political effigies.

Just before lunch – and we’d always hold lunch up for an hour – some Senator or lawyer would speak. These speeches always had one pattern. First the speaker would challenge England to a fight and berate the King and say that he was a skunk. This was known as twisting the lion’s tail. Then the next theme was that any one could find freedom and liberty on our shores. The speaker would invite those who were heavy laden in other lands to come to us and find peace. The speeches were pretty fiery and by that time the men who drank got into fights and called each other Englishmen. In the afternoon we had what we called the ‘plug uglies’ — funny floats and clowns who took off on the political subjects of the day…The Fourth was the day of the year that really counted then. Christmas wasn’t much; a Church tree or something, but no one twisted the lion’s tail.

Now you know the rest of the story!    Thanks to the Library of Congress!!

Happy 4th of July to you all!

*The Library of Congress posts a wealth of online information pertaining to the Declaration of Independence and its principal author, Thomas Jefferson. Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents provides a Timeline leading up to the revolution and a fragment of an early draft of the Declaration. Also, see the Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827, which includes Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence.

I’ve had some questions about the tag line in the header portion of the website…’The Wise Bamboo Bends With The Wind’.

During the Korean war I was in Japan for 3 years and that’s where I got that saying.  The story that was told to me was, there was a large typhoon coming and the people working in the fields ran for cover.  Some ran into the forest with the large Oak trees for shelter and some ran into the forest of bamboo trees.  After the typhoon had blown through, they found that the people who ran to the Oak trees had mostly all been killed as the trees were uprooted or cracked.  The people in the bamboo grove were all saved as they had tied themselves to the large bamboo trees, the trees had bent with the wind and when the typhoon had left, they became upright again!

I have used that phrase throughout my own life and found it to be a fine guiding light. 

Just for the heck of it, I googled it and this is what I got…..

The phrase “the wise bamboo bends with the wind” (often part of a proverb comparing bamboo to a rigid oak tree) means that true strength comes from resilience and adaptability, not stubborn resistance. By bending, you yield to life’s challenges without breaking, allowing you to bounce back once the storm passes.

 There is another phrase that I have followed religiously, from my father, a very wise man, that he told me when I was a very young boy, in the 1930s.  I’ve never forgotten it. He said, “You never learn anything while your talking”.  How true that is.

This is what AI says about that phrase:

AI Overview

You never learn anything while your talking.

The exact phrasing of this wisdom has been attributed to several notable figures across different disciplines:

Broadcasting & Interviews: Legendary interviewer Larry King lived by the rule: “My first rule of conversation is this: I never learn a thing while I’m talking.” 

Politics & Leadership: President Lyndon B. Johnson famously kept a similar maxim framed in his office: “You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.”

 Sports & Motivation: College football coach Lou Holtz adapted the philosophy: “I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

 While the sentiment is widely cited to prioritize listening, the online Quora community points out an interesting caveat. Many note that verbalizing, teaching, or explaining concepts can actually be powerful tools for revealing gaps in your own knowledge and cementing new ideas.

 Ultimately, the best approach is a balance: listen to absorb fresh information, and ask questions to spark deeper dialogue. 

Now you know the rest of the story! 

 

 

Happy Father’s Day to all you Fathers out there!

It was a sunny morning, a little before 8:00 AM, on the first hole of a busy course, and I was beginning my pre-shot routine, visualizing my upcoming shot when a piercing voice came over the clubhouse loudspeaker:

“Would the gentleman on the women’s tee please back up to the men’s tee, please?”

I could feel every eye on the course looking at me. I was still deep in my routine, seemingly impervious to the interruption.

Again the announcement: “Would the man on the women’s tee please back up to the men’s tee, please!”

I simply ignored the guy and kept concentrating, when once more the man yelled, “Would the man on the women’s tee please back up to the men’s tee, please!”

I finally stopped, turned, cupped my hands and shouted back….

“Would the asshole with the microphone kindly keep quiet and let me play my second shot?!”

I mean, really….

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”— Benjamin Franklin

                       “The 10 Cannots” by William J. . Boetcker

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.

• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Checkout his website….very interesting:  https://yourwealthymind.com/ten-cannots-boetcker/

Dear Lord, so far today, I am doing alright.  I have  not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or self-indulgent.  I have not whined, cursed or eaten any chocolate.  However, I am going to get out of bed in a few minutes and I will need a lot more help after that.  Amen.

I found this list of thoughts from a Washington D.C. travel agent in a website I had back in 2006.  I thought they were kinda cute so decided to share them with you.  You may not recognize any of the names but it doesn’t take away from the point I’m trying to make.  Hope you enjoy them!

I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!)

I got a call from a Kansas Congressman’s (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, “I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts.”  Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, “Cape Cod is in Massachusetts , Capetown is in Africa” his response — click.

A senior Vermont Congressman (Bernie Sanders) called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that’s not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, ‘don’t lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!” (OMG)

I got a call from a lawmaker’s wife (Landra Reid) who asked, “Is it possible to see England from Canada ?” I said, “No”, she said, “But they look so close on the map.” (OMG, again!)

An aide for a cabinet member (Janet Napolitano) once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas . I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas . When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, “I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.” (Aghhhh!)

An Illinois Congresswoman (Jan Schakowsky) called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m. and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.   I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but she couldn’t understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.  Huh?

A New York lawmaker, (Jerrold Nadler) called and asked, “Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?” I said, “No, why do you ask?” he replied, “Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I’m overweight. I think that’s very rude!”   After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno , Ca. is (FAT – Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage..

A Senator John Kerry aide (Lindsay Ross) called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii . After going over all the cost info, she asked, “Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii ?”  Whaaaa.

I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman, Bobby Bright (D) from Ala who asked, “How do I know which plane to get on?”  I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, “I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) called and said, “I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , Florida . Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?”I asked if she meant, fly to Pensacola , FL. on a commuter plane.  She said, “Yeah, whatever, smarty!”

Mary Landrieu (D) La. Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. “Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”  I double checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, “Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have always accepted my American Express!   So I shouldn’t need Visa.”

A New Jersey Congressman (John Adler) called to make reservations, “I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York .”  I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, “Are you sure that’s the name of the town?”  “Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the man.  After some searching, I came back with, “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can’t find a rhino anywhere”  The man retorted, “Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”   So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, “You don’t mean Buffalo , do you?”  The reply,  “Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.”

Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it’s in!

Could anyone be this DUMB?   

YES, THEY WALK AMONG US, ARE IN POLITICS, AND THEY CONTINUE TO BREED.

You can’t make this stuff up. I just offer it for your consideration. Like manure, you just gotta spread it around. Maybe, just maybe something will grow. 😉