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So those of the dearly departed who didn’t make the cut yesterday for All Saint’s Day, take heart; remember today is All Souls Day (the second day of Día de los Muertos.) In the late tenth or early eleventh century, Saint Odilo of Cluny decided that All Souls’ Day would take place after All Saints’Continue reading “The past is dead; the future unborn”

If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children. – Coretta Scott King Don’t forget – if you’re in NY, there are 5 ballot measures you should vote on – go to the otherContinue reading “Just Vote – you have no excuse today.”

November 2, 1995 –Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders guest stars on the Friends episode The One with the Baby on the Bus, on this date. She sings Angel of the Morning and learns Smelly Cat from Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow).

In 1783, a volcanic eruption killed 80% of the Earth’s sheep. The Laki volcanic fissure in the South of Iceland erupted over an eight-month period back in 1783, releasing some straight-up nasty hydrogen fluoride into the atmosphere to shower down on the Earth’s inhabitants. Because of this, roughly 25% of the world’s human population died.Continue reading “Think of all the mint jelly gone to waste”

No matter who you’re going to vote for, even writing Cookies Monster as a write-in candidate – Remember that voting is one of the only civic responsibilities you have as a citizen. (a brief aside – Apparently on Election Day in 1758, George Washington used his campaign budget (50 pounds) to purchase 160 gallons ofContinue reading “Don’t forget to vote tomorrow”

The name November comes from the Latin “novem” which is the Latin for the nine. In the early Roman calendar, it was the ninth month. According to the Gregorian calendar, November is the eleventh month of the year. Go figure. The Roman Senate elected to name the eleventh month for Tiberus Caesar and since AugustusContinue reading “We begin to know how long winter will be”

Today is also All Saints Day, the feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, honoring all the saints, known and unknown. It’s also the first day of celebration The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos in Spanish), a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) livingContinue reading “All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation.”

November 1, 1967 –Warner Brothers released one of Paul Newman’s signature films, Cool Hand Luke on this date. While passing by the prison camp set, a San Joaquin County building inspector thought it was a recently constructed migrant workers’ complex, and posted “condemned” notices on the buildings for not being up to code.

November 1, 1951 – US Soldiers were exposed to an atomic explosion for the first time in training exercises, at Desert Rock, Nevada on this date. Participation was not voluntary and served both to train and indoctrinate. The next year:November 1, 1952 –The United States successfully detonated the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Ivy Mike,”Continue reading “Your tax dollars at work in the 1950s –”

Two stealth nuclear submarines once bumped into each other by accident. Late at night on February 3, 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean, two stealth-cloaked nuclear submarines (the Triomphant from France and HMS Vanguard from Britain) bumped into each other out of sheer coincidence. They were both cloaked so well from each other that neither submarineContinue reading “Strangers in the night”