Month: November 2024

Happy Sunday. Here is a cute flashmob video I happened upon with some great opera favorites. It’s very well done and interesting how they managed without an orchestra. Enjoy!

Today is Azerbaijani Victory Day, a public holiday in Azerbaijan. Aliyev had declared November 10th, the day when Armenia accepted defeat and ended six weeks of fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Victory Day.

However, taking into account that Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s death anniversary is commemorated in Turkey on November 10th, Aliyev decided to change the date of Victory Day to November 8th, when Shusha, known as the pearl of Nagorno-Karabakh, was liberated after nearly three decades of Armenian occupation.

Shusha, referred to by Armenians as Shushi, is the second-largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Caucasus. It is de jure part of the Shusha District of Azerbaijan, although it had been controlled by the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh since the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, as part of its Shushi Province.

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Missing some context…

Found on the shelves…

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Should have used his…

rode it out of town?

Today is the birthday, in 1929, of American songwriter and producer Bert Berns. He wrote many classic songs including ‘Twist and Shout’ ‘Hang On Sloopy’, ‘Here Comes the Night’, ‘I Want Candy’, ‘Under the Boardwalk’, ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’, ‘Piece of my Heart’ and ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. Berns had rheumatic fever as a child and it caused damage to his heart. He died of heart failure in 1967 at the age of 38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VAxGJdJeQ

Today is October Revolution Day, a public holiday in Belarus. The holiday marks the Great October Socialist Revolution that began on this day in 1917.

Under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolsheviks initiated the October Revolution, an armed insurrection in Petrograd on November 7th 1917. This revolution established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world’s first self-proclaimed socialist state.

You may have noticed this holiday is called October Revolution Day yet celebrates an event that took place in November. The reason is that in 1917, Russia was still using the Julian calendar which was 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar at that time, so the revolution took place on October 25th.

Belarus is the only country that was part of the Soviet Union that still observes a public holiday to mark the October Revolution. During the period of the Soviet Union, November 7th was a public holiday across the union and was one of the biggest state celebrations of the year. In Russia, the day is a normal working day. The public holiday has been replaced by National Unity Day, celebrated on November 4th.

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election results…

MOVE TOWARD THE LIGHT!

Late one evening a man walked into a dentist’s office.

“Can I help you?” asked the dentist.

“I keep thinking I’m a moth,” said the man.

“You think you’re a moth?” said the dentist. “You don’t need a dentist.
You need a psychiatrist!”

“I know,” said the man.

“So why did you come here?” asked the dentist.

“Well,” said the man, “the light was on.”

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Sound up!!

Cheech does the YMCA
byu/TihetrisWeathersby infunny

Today is the birthday, in 1943, of Joni Mitchell (Roberta Anderson), Canadian singer, songwriter, 1970 UK No.11 single ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, 1974 US No.7 single ‘Help Me’. She wrote ‘Both Sides Now’ a hit for Judy Collins and ‘Woodstock’ a hit for Crosby, Stills Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort. Mitchell’s work is highly respected by critics, and she has deeply influenced fellow musicians in a diverse range of genres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlWLRHsHdV4

Today is Green March Day, a public holiday in Morocco. This holiday marks the anniversary of a march that began on this day in 1975.

Spain had occupied Western Sahara since 1884. Morocco had made a claim on the land highlighting a long-standing allegiance between the Moroccan Throne and the local Sahrawi tribes. Mauritania had made similar claims and some of the Sahrawi tribes had declared an interest in independence from everyone else.

In mid-October 1975, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague declared that there were legal ties of allegiance between Moroccan Throne and some of the Sahrawi population, but that the local population should determine their own future.

Following the ICJ verdict, King Hassan II announced the organization of the Green March, on October 16th 1975, to liberate the Moroccan southern provinces from Spanish colonialism.

On November 6th 1975, in a significant show of national unity, about 350,000 unarmed Moroccan men and women, accompanied by 20,000 Moroccan troops headed towards the Sahara and met in Tarfaia.

On entering Spanish Sahara, the Spanish forces did not open fire. Partly, this was to avoid killing thousands of innocent marchers, but also it was the last days of the rule of General Franco and after seeing Portugal lose its colonies the year before, the Spanish had no appetite to start a major conflict in its territories, especially over territory they had already agreed to give up. 

As a result of the march, on November 14th 1975, Morocco, Spain and Mauritania signed an agreement in Madrid, whereby Morocco regained its southern provinces. 

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The tools are useless unless you know how to use them…

SIGNZZZZZZZ

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Today is the birthday, in 1854, of John Phillip Sousa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-7XWhyvIpE

Today is Guy Fawkes Night. It commemorates the arrest of Guy Fawkes and the failure of the so-called ‘Gunpowder plot’ to blow up the English Houses of Parliament in 1605.

On the night of November 4th 1605, following a tip-off through an anonymous letter, Guy Fawkes was caught guarding thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in a cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament in London.

The conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot were Roman Catholics who opposed the lack of religious tolerance under King James I. They planned to assassinate James and his government by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on November 5th 1605. This was to be the start of a series of actions across England that would lead to the installation of James’ daughter Elizabeth as a new Catholic head of state.

Fawkes and seven others were tried and convicted of treason and executed in January 1606. His head was among those displayed on pikes at London Bridge. Within months Parliament established November 5th as a national day of thanksgiving and it was made illegal not to join in the celebrations. The act remained in force until 1859.

A tradition was that children would make a dummy of Guy Fawkes and ask people for money (A‘Penny for the Guy’) which they spend on fireworks. This custom of going from door to door asking for money was already a custom for the poor on All Souls Day (November 2nd) and a similar tradition existed in Ireland during Halloween (October 31st).

As the tradition of making a dummy grew in popularity, ‘Guy’ became a word to mean any oddly dressed person, then in the 20th century it became the commonly used slang word of today as a way of referring to any male person.

Fireworks, Lighting bonfires (on which the ‘Guys’ were placed) and ringing church bells on November 5th also became common traditions. It seems odd to light a fire and set off explosives to mark an event which stopped exactly that happening, but the bonfire tradition at this time of year is a much older custom echoing pagan customs of lighting fires to mark the end of harvest. Bonfires were part of the Irish Halloween tradition that didn’t make it across the Atlantic into the American customs.

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BADA BING!!!!!

Interesting reading…Making Marriage Work by Henry VIII

I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and have lost 14 days of happiness.

You know you’re getting old when the clothes you used to wear are now Halloween costumes.

I am often mistaken for an adult because of my age.

My house isn’t messy. It’s just creatively expressing that I live a very busy and interesting life.

According to my height to weight ratio, I should be 9 feet 4 inches. So my weight is okay, it’s my height that’s the problem.

Once all the illegals have been removed, you can finally realize your dream of replacing roofs in the scorching 102-degree summer heat.

Dear Puerto Ricans, trash day is November 5th, 2024. Don’t forget.

He climbed into the wrong end of the garbage truck.

As you get older, “PAID OFF” sounds so much better than “BRAND NEW”.

The inventor of yodeling died recently. Sadly, so did his little old lady too.

My fear of tsunamis comes over me in waves.

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Today is the birthday, in 1957, of David Moyse, guitarist for the Australian soft rock band Air Supply who scored the 1980 UK No.11 single ‘All Out Of Love’ and the 1981 US No.1 single ‘The One That You Love’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY31ZH6hAFI