Crabs and Beer!

Around this day in 1945, newspapers began to report a blight affecting the potato crop in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. This was the beginning of The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger. It was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. It constituted a major historical social crisis and had a significant impact on Irish society and history.

The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as “Black ’47”. The population of Ireland on the eve of the famine was approximately 8.5 million; by 1901, it was 4.4 million. During the Great Hunger, roughly one million people died and over one million more emigrated.

Long-term reasons for the scale of the famine’s impact included the system of absentee landlordism and single-crop dependence. Initial government actions to alleviate famine distress, which were constructive but limited, were ended by a new Whig administration in London that pursued a laissez-faire economic doctrine. Additionally, some members of the British government believed that the famine was divine judgement or that the Irish lacked moral character.

Large quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England during the famine, and the refusal of London to bar such exports was an immediate and continuing source of controversy. This controversy contributed to the exacerbation of the Irish issue in British politics, the intensification of anti-British sentiment, the intensification of Irish nationalism and the campaign for independence. Additionally, the famine indirectly resulted in the eviction of tens of thousands of households, a situation exacerbated by a provision that forbade access to workhouse aid for those possessing more than one-quarter acre of land.

Famine Memorial in Dublin

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not nice!

BADA BING!!

Hell hath no fury like an Internet commenter who hasn’t read the article but wants to disagree anyway.

A man just called me evil, I needed that. Thought I was losing my spark for a minute.

WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’RE DEAD. THE PAIN IS FELT BY OTHERS. THE SAME THING HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE STUPID.

It’s “Lake Ontario” not Lake America. It’s “Gulf of Mexico” not Gulf of America. It’s “convicted felon” not president.

Them: “You’re so quiet!” Autistic person: “Correct. I’ve analyzed your patterns and decided you’re not safe.”

If you could just snap your fingers and make five people disappear for good with absolutely no consequences to you, who would be the other four?

“I talk to an invisible man who controls the universe.”  If uttered in a psychiatric ward, it’s a symptom.  If proclaimed in a church, it’s a sermon.  

Any stairway can be a stairway to heaven if you’re clumsy enough.

St. Upid, Patron saint of economic collapse.

Whenever someone asks what I’m doing later and my answer is “nothing,” please understand “nothing” is not an opening in my schedule. “Nothing” is the event. It’s the plan.

Am I Fat? Boomers: You Could Lose A few Pounds Millennials: “No You’re Beautiful” Gen Z :” We Don’t Body Shame Of Course You’re Not. Gen X: ” I Know 5 Fat People and You’re 4 of them’

“If stupidity got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out?” (Will Rogers)

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WARNING!

Today is the birthday, in 1941, of Otis Redding, American singer-songwriter, record producer. After appearing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival Redding wrote and recorded his iconic ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay’ with Steve Cropper. The song became the first posthumous No.1 record on the Billboard Hot 100 and The Dock of the Bay became the first posthumous album to reach No.1 on the UK Albums Chart. Redding was killed in a plane crash on 10th December 1967. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug

On this day in 1504, Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. With a height of 5.17 metres (17 ft 0 in), the David was not only the first colossal marble statue made in the High Renaissance, but also the first since classical antiquity, setting a precedent for the 16th century and beyond. David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of twelve prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, but was instead placed in the public square in front of the Piazza della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence. In 1873, the statue was moved to the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence. In 1910 a replica was installed at the original site on the public square.

he biblical figure David was a favored subject in the art of Florence. Because of the nature of the figure it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defense of civil liberties embodied in the 1494 constitution of the Republic of Florence.

Michelangelo regarded a single block of stone as containing all the possible conceptions for a work of art, and believed that the artist’s task is sculpting the marble block to reveal the ideal form within, an expression of his Neo-Platonic belief that body and mind are separate, and must work in concert and strive to attain union with one another and with the divine.

Michelangelo’s David has become one of the most recognized works of Renaissance sculpture; a symbol of strength and youthful beauty.

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Today is the birthday, in 1979, of Pink, (Alicia Moore), who had the 2001 UK No.2 single ‘Get The Party Started’, the 2001 US & UK No.1 single with Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim and Mya Lady Marmalade. Pink has become one of the most successful artists of her generation, having sold over 110 million records worldwide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW1dbiD_zDk

On this day in 1781, 44 Spanish settlers founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, shortened to the Pueblo de los Ángeles. It grew into the modern American metropolis of Los Angeles. The pueblo was built using labor from the adjacent village of Yaanga and was totally dependent on local Indigenous labor for its survival.

The original settlement consisted of forty-four people in eleven families, recruited mostly from Estado de Occidente. As new settlers arrived and soldiers retired to civilian life in Los Angeles, the town became the principal urban center of southern Alta California, whose social and economic life revolved around the raising of livestock on the expansive ranchos.

La Plaza, as seen from the Pico House, c. 1869. The “Old Plaza Church” is to the left, the brick reservoir on the right, and in the center of the plaza, was the original terminus of the Zanja Madre aqueduct.

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signzzzzzzzz

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This is Helen Reddy… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptW7zOPX2E

On this day in 1944, the last transport train left the Westerbork Transit Camp in the Netherlands for Auschwitz Concentration Camp with some thousand persons including diarist Anne Frank. The train arrived in Auschwitz 3 days later.

Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the Northeastern Netherlands, during World War II. It was used as a staging location for sending Jews, Sinti and Roma to concentration camps elsewhere.

Transport trains arrived at Westerbork every Tuesday from July 1942 to September 1944; an estimated 97,776 Jews, Sinti and Roma were deported during the period. Jewish, Sinti and Roma inmates were deported in waves to Auschwitz concentration camp, Sobibór and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Almost all of the 94,643 persons deported to Auschwitz and Sobibór in German-occupied Poland were killed upon arrival. No more transport occurred after September 1944 as allied armies approached.

Anne Frank in 1940

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Today is the birthday, in 1942, of American musician, singer and songwriter Al Jardine, who co-founded The Beach Boys. He is best known as the band’s rhythm guitarist, and for occasionally singing lead vocals, on singles such as ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ (1965), ‘Then I Kissed Her’ (1965) and ‘Come Go with Me’ (1978). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDCHTgWxj1g

On this day in 1945, The Japanese Instrument of Surrender, the printed agreement that formalized the surrender of Japan, marking the end of hostilities in World War II, was signed by representatives from Japan and from the Allied nations: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

The signing took place on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay just after 09:00 Japan Standard Time (JST) and took effect at 09:25 JST on 2 September 1945.

The date is sometimes known as Victory over Japan Day. However, that designation more frequently refers to the date of Emperor Hirohito’s Gyokuon-hōsō (Imperial Rescript of Surrender), the radio broadcast announcement of the acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration at noon Japan Standard Time on 15 August.

Representatives of the Empire of Japan stand aboard USS Missouri prior to signing of the Instrument of Surrender.

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This is what happens when you rely on machine translation. The Russian word for protein can also mean squirrel.

SIGNZZZZZZZZZZ

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Today is the birthday, in 1959, of Paul Deakin, drummer from the American band The Mavericks who had the 1998 UK No.4 single ‘Dance The Night Away’. The Mavericks won a Grammy Award for the song ‘Here Comes the Rain’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UajuBAUkBs