Monthly Archives: July 2017
Today in History – July 31
1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
1774 – Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen. Before this, people just breathed any old thing that blew in…
1914 – Oil discovered in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. 2016 – Oil money isn’t enough to keep the socialist government afloat any more.
1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (which comes into force on August 14). It’s a pretty good Constitution, too. For example, Germans are entitled to free expression of opinion in word, writing, print, image, etc. This right cannot be obstructed by job contract, nor can exercise of this right create a disadvantage. Censorship is prohibited. And we all know how this turned out when people started following a charismatic, smooth-talking leader with radical ideas.
1941 – Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” This is a lesson in incrementalism, among other things.
1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy. 1945 in Tokyo Bay, HMS King George V had rum. The US Navy had ice cream. The Brits wanted ice cream. Dad helped make the exchange possible with the landing craft he ran as a taxi around the bay.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1981 – 42-day strike of Major League Baseball ends in the United States. Yawwwnnnnn!
Food for Thought – 30 July 2017
Today in History – July 30
1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time. Being all white, they’re under investigation by the Holder ‘Justice Department’.
1866 – New Orleans’s Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. Republicans in New Orleans today wouldn’t fare much better.
1898 – Will Kellogg invents Corn Flakes.
1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, NJ was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materials from being used by the Allies in World War I. Today we have the anti-American Left happy to thwart war efforts on our enemies’ behalf.
1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen. Sharks play a major role, as recounted in Jaws.
1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto. Then in 1965 US President Lyndon B. (Lyin’ B*stard) Johnson says, “Why fret over all that “god” stuff? We’re the government and WE’LL take care of you”, and he signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, giving us a taste of how well the government can handle health care.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission – David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon, adding tire tracks to the American footprints.
1974 – Six Royal Canadian Army Cadets killed and fifty-four injured in an accidental grenade blast at CFB Valcartier Cadet Camp. Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is NOT your friend.
1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again. I have looked inside Chrissy’s purse. His body could be in there and nobody’d ever know…
1984 – Alvenus, a British tanker at Cameron La, spills 2.8 million gallons of oil. This, then the BP thing, that’s the Brits trying to get even for that Battle of New Orleans thing.
2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line. Ferdinand Porsche’s pre-WW II design was quite successful as the first foreign compact car to gain wide acceptance in America. I owned a couple myself.
2012 – A power grid failure in Delhi leaves more than 300 million people without power in northern India.
The Name Game #487
Nailed the ‘eighty by eight’ thing this morning. It was eighty degrees at 0800, but it was pleasant when I walked out to pick up the paper. We had a rare ‘cool’ front move through to the Gulf Coast. In July they’re not so much cool as dry, so the humidity, in stead of being near saturation, was only in the low seventy percent range.
Opening the paper over breakfast, we find that the big hospital across the river reports twenty-nine new babies from between July 11 and July 17. Of those, seventeen are to unwed parents and there’s one new mommy who doesn’t name a baby daddy because he’s a double-naught spy doing undercover work in defense of our nation.
Let’s just peek into the brambles:
Kendrick A. & Shayla(!) V. show that they know their geography by naming their daughter Malaysia Louise.
Anthony P. & ShaTonya(!!)B. tag a son with Sha’Qad Kamar.
Stephen B. & Serenity(!) V. do their son with Xander James, leading him to a life of explaining that it’s pronounced ‘Zander’ and not ‘Ex-sander’. Or maybe not.
Christopher Albelo & Cid Diaz show their son Christopher Yahir. “Hey, Christopher!” “Yeah?” “Yahir?” “Smartass!”
Michael F. & Amber H. triple up on their daughter Ella-Kate Marie. Another triple shows up when James & Kawana(!) Y. do their daughter up with Paisley-Belle Evangeline, and yet another appears as Dory J. & Brandy K. do their daughter with Mahlih Nowa Piper.
Morone(!) W. Jr. & Adrieanna(!) F. apostrophicate their little girl, Avah Mone’.
Miss D’Andra(!) W. names her son Daylin Jackson. Baby daddy? Nope.
Frederick L. III & Khala H. know that ‘k’ and ‘y’ are immensely more sophisticated than ‘c’ and plain ol’ vowels, so their daughter is Kamryn Nichole.
And thus endeth the list for this week.
Food for Thought – 29 July 2017
Saturday Song #202
Ennio Morricone – Gabriel’s Oboe
Today in History – July 29
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the “invincible” Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.
1836 – Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Gives the Germans something to march under when they conquer the country. or for other foreign armies to look at when they rescue France from the Germans. This picture is of an 1871 parade of the Prussian Army celebrating a French “triomphe”.
And another in 1940:
The next likely example appears to be a string of Japanese pickup trucks flying ISIS flags.
1901 – The Socialist Party of America founded. Its positions have since been co-opted by the dimmocrat party.
1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp ran from August 1-9, 1907, and is regarded as the founding of the Scouting movement.
1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established, providing yet another toothless featherbed front for international bureaucrats at the UN.
1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And it’s eleven years to the moon.
1965 – Vietnam War: the first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. Dimmocrat L.B. (Lyin’ B*stard) Johnson is in the White House.
1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Today a large number of American girls still use this as a pattern for their own ‘princess for a day’ weddings. Daddy’s still paying the bills from it two years after the divorce and the little princess is on her third tattooed biker since the breakup.
Not “Republican’t”
It’s “Republi-won’t”.
For seven years while Obama was in office the Republican congress threw one repeal bill after another together, going through the motions because – you know – Obama…
They knew that anything that happened to make it to the White House was dead, defeated, vetoed. It was theater.
“We keep trying, but unless we have the White House, we can’t repeal.”
America gave them the White House.
I’d say it was like a dog chasing a car and finally catching it and not knowing what to do next, but that’s unkind to dogs everywhere.
It becomes readily apparent that the previous attempts were posturing. Now we’re seeing the true establishment at work – status quo – don’t do anything that’ll get us taken off the invitation list to the good parties – the peasants will keep sending us here anyway. We’ll go through the motions of creating the illusion of a two-party system, but we KNOW the truth.
Folks, I’ve said it before and I will repeat it once more – we’re not voting our way out of this mess.
Food for Thought – 28 July 2017
Today in History – July 28
1540 – Thomas Cromwell is beheaded at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day. There are some obvious “head” jokes that decorum prevents me from making.
1794 – Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France during the French Revolution, victims of the bloodbath they helped bring about.
1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated with a population of 300. Coincidentally, that’s the total number of real Floridians there today.
1942 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately executed. “The shootings will continue until morale improves.”
1965 – Vietnam War: Dimmocrat U.S. President Lyndon B. “Lyin’ B*stard” Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. Nothing like an inept, crooked dimmocrat playing with a real army…
1978 – Price of gold tops $200-an-oz level for 1st time. It’s at $1200+ right now.
1984 – The 1984 Summer Olympics officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad were opened in Los Angeles USA. three words – Mary Lou Retton.
1993 – Andorra joins the United Nations. Despite not being involved in any fighting, Andorra was technically the longest combatant in the first World War, as the country was left out of the Versailles Peace Conference and technically remained at war with Germany from 1914 until 1939.
D.L. Menard – 1932 – 2017
Louisiana Proud KBON is saddened to report the passing of Cajun music legend D.L. Menard today at the age of 85.
Wikipedia describes the legendary Acadiana treasure as “a notable songwriter, performer, and recording artist in contemporary Cajun music. He has been called the “Cajun Hank Williams.”
Menard was born in Erath, Louisiana, the only child of Ophy and Helena Primeaux Menard. He was part of a Cajun farming family. He took up the guitar at 16 and started playing dances in Louisiana clubs at 17. He is strongly influenced by the late Hank Williams, who he met in 1951 at the Teche Club shortly before Williams’s death. Since then Menard has performed in more than 30 countries and served as a good-will ambassador for Cajun culture.
Menard and his late wife Louella had seven children, leading to 17 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.He still lived in Erath up until the time of his death. He has maintained a separate career as a craftsman, noted for his handmade ash-wood chairs.
Menard is best known for the song “La Porte En Arrière” (“The Back Door”), which he both composed and regularly performed. Cajun folklorist Barry Jean Ancelet has called this the most played and recorded Cajun song ever, selling over 500,000 copies in 1962 alone. It has been covered by dozens of Cajun and zydeco bands and by other francophone artists such as Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Menard has said he modeled it on Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues.” He says that he composed it in less than an hour, while working at a gas station in Erath.
Stay tuned to KBON for details on funeral arrangements as they become available.
R.I.P. Mr. D. L. Menard.
A piece of my music is gone.
Food for Thought – 27 July 2017
Today in History – July 27
1586 – Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia.
1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 “enemies of the Revolution.” Guess who’s got the next ride on “Mr. Guillotine”. Way to go there, Pierre!
1866 – The Atlantic Cable is successfully completed, allowing transatlantic telegraph communication for the first time. The first cable, in 1858, only lasts a couple of months before failing, but it cut communication from Europe to North America from a couple of weeks to seconds. We in the electrical biz know all about the heartbreak of a premature cable failure. This one works better. You could ask a question and get an answer the same day!
1940 – The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny. Mickey Mouse is a wimp!
1941 – Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China. What were the French gonna do? They’d ALREADY surrendered to Germany.
1944 – First British jet fighter used in combat (Gloster Meteor). It isn’t allowed over German-held territory because of secrecy. Of course, the Germans had beat the Brits into jet combat with the Me-262 already and theirs was technologically much more advanced.
1945 – US Communist Party forms. With today’s dimmocrat party, they are rendered superfluous.
1949 – Initial flight of the de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner. Some inattention to minor engineering details causes them to fall out of the sky in alarming fashion. By the time they’re fixed, Boeing’s 707 and Douglas’ DC-8 were ready to roll out and they took the market over..
1953 – Korean War ends: The United States, People’s Republic of China, and North Korea, sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice. To this day, that’s all we have with North Korea: an armistice. Like they honor any written agreement anyway… I spent a year on that DMZ and just south of it myself: 1969-70
1964 – Vietnam War: 5,000 more American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000. Curse those war-mongering Republican presidents. Wait! What? That was Lyndon Baines “Lyin’ my ass off!” Johnson, a DIMMOCRAT?!?!?! Ain’t nothing like a dimmocrat getting all feisty.
1974 – Watergate scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon. Compared to Hillary Clinton, Nixon was a petty shoplifter, but today’s ‘majority’ nutless wonders in Congress can’t bear to officially sanction her. Tell me how the game’s not rigged.