On this day in 1824, Liberia was founded as a project of the American Colonization Society which believed that black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born African Americans, along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia. Gradually developing an Americo-Liberian identity,
Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta (“Pepper Coast”) but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast, due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains.
In the United States, there was a movement to settle African Americans, both free-born and formerly enslaved, in Africa. This was partially because they faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement and the denial of civil, religious, and social rights. It was also partially because slave owners and politicians feared uprisings and rebellions of enslaved peoples.
Believing themselves different from and culturally and educationally superior to the indigenous peoples, the Americo-Liberians developed as an elite minority that created and held on to political power. The Americo-Liberian settlers adopted clothing such as hoop skirts and tailcoats and generally viewed themselves as culturally and socially superior to indigenous Africans. Indigenous people did not enjoy birthright citizenship in their own land until 1904.
African Americans depart for Liberia, 1896. The ACS sent its last emigrants to Liberia in 1904.
Ambition and self-confidence…
Don’t piss off your baggage handler…
That first sip…
and now….TRASH PANDAS!!!
How people communicated before the digital era…
(Thanks, Bob)
SIGNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
On this day in 1976, ABBA released ‘Dancing Queen’ as the lead single from their fourth studio album, Arrival. Dancing Queen’ (which had the working title of ‘Boogaloo’) went on to top the charts in more than a dozen countries including the United States where it became ABBA’s only No.1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s
On this day in 1934, the Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal domestic program.
By 1930, the United States was one of the few industrialized countries without any national social security system.[1] Amid the Great Depression, the physician Francis Townsend galvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to older people. Responding to that movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935 and signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The Supreme Court upheld the act in two major cases decided in 1937.
The law established the Social Security program. The old-age program is funded by payroll taxes, and over the ensuing decades, it contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among older people, and spending on Social Security became a significant part of the federal budget. The Social Security Act also established an unemployment insurance program administered by the states and the Aid to Dependent Children program, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers. The law was later amended by acts such as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which established two major healthcare programs: Medicare and Medicaid.
Roosevelt signs Social Security Bill
Thomas has been kidnapped!
FYI…
How the world sees the U.S. these days…
CHEEP!!
(Thanks, Bob!)
Today is the birthday, in 1948, of English bass guitarist Bruce Thomas, from Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Thomas was a member of Quiver, The Sutherland Brothers, Moonrider and Al Stewart in the early 1970s and has also worked with Billy Bragg, John Wesley Harding, Suzanne Vega, and Tasmin Archer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y71iDvCYXA&list=RD3Y71iDvCYXA&start_radio=1
Today is the birthday, in 1818, of Lucy Stone. She was was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer of promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name, after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband’s surname.
Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, and she supported and sustained it, annually, along with a number of other local, regional, and state activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment and thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the local and state levels.
Stone wrote, extensively, about a wide range of women’s rights, publishing and distributing speeches by herself and others, and convention proceedings. In the long-running and influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded and promoted, Stone aired both her own and differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star,” and the “heart and soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.” Together, Anthony, Stanton, and Stone have been called the 19th-century “triumvirate” of women’s suffrage and feminism.
Daguerreotype of Lucy Stone, American suffragist
Coldplay Cam…
I guess we all have to be more cost-conscious…
Teachers must behave!!!!
Hoarder Barbie…
Screenshot
Today is the birthday, in 1938, of American musician Scott Powell, best known as one of the founders of the rock and roll group Sha Na Na. They played at Woodstock Festival, made possible with help from their friend Jimi Hendrix. The group hosted Sha Na Na, a syndicated variety series that ran from 1977 to 1981. The group also appeared in the movie Grease as Johnny Casino & The Gamblers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isvK4PzeA4c
On this day in 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, last of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty, committed suicide rather than be displayed in a triumphal parade in Rome. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period in the Mediterranean, which had begun during the reign of Alexander.
Cleopatra began her reign alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, but falling-out between them led to a civil war. Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus against his rival Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, in Caesar’s civil war. Ptolemy XIII died in the Battle of the Nile. Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers, and maintained a private affair with Cleopatra which produced a son, Caesarion.
In the Liberators’ civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Caesar’s heir Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. After their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, the queen had an affair with Antony which produced three children. Antony became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia.
After defeating Antony and Cleopatra’s naval fleet at the 31 BC Battle of Actium, Octavian’s forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC and defeated Antony, leading to Antony’s suicide. After his death, Cleopatra killed herself, probably by poisoning, to avoid being publicly displayed by Octavian in Roman triumphal procession.
When a spy informed her that Octavian planned to move her and her children to Rome in three days, she prepared for suicide as she had no intentions of being paraded in a Roman triumph like her sister Arsinoe IV. Cleopatra’s physician, Olympos, did not explain her cause of death, although the popular belief is that she allowed an asp or Egyptian cobra to bite and poison her. Plutarch relates this tale, but then suggests an implement (κνῆστις, knêstis, ‘spine, cheese-grater’) was used to introduce the toxin by scratching,; Dio says that she injected the poison with a needle, and Strabo argued for an ointment of some kind. Horace corroborates the common belief that it was a venomous snake, but instead states that it was several (serpentēs, ‘serpents’). Vergil agrees that it was several serpents.
She was an amazing woman who cleverly twisted many leaders of the Roman Empire around her fingers.
The Death of Cleopatra (1658), by Guido Cagnacci
I’ve devised a perfect method to transform beer, wine, and liquor into urine…
Pimp my ride, the early years…
Welcomne…
Dee-Deee-Da-Dee-Dee
Kristi Noem’s brother???
Misogyny…
BADA BING!!!!!
I called my mom to see if she could come pick me up from this sleepover that I wasn’t having fun at. She told me “No way. You’re 38 now and that’s your wife and kids. You have to stay!”
I’m an alpha MAGA. I fear nothing — except trans, gay, Brown, Black, Muslim, and non-American people. Oh, and job numbers, fair elections, vaccines, rainbows, cities, education, socialism, pronouns, democracy, Taylor Swift, and Sesame Street.
True conversation heard at Applebee’s, “She would really like him if it wasn’t for his personality”.
My son proposed to his girlfriend about six months ago. They’re super happy, we love her family too. I just found out today that another girl is in love with him and plans to propose next week. Should I say anything? Oh and also, he’s 4. They’re all 4.
Marriage is realizing that your wife wants you to be quiet, but also talk to her, but also leave her alone, but also give her attention.
I think it’s foolish to spend so much on clothes to impress someone we want to be naked with.
Today I’m choosing kindness, but we’ll see. It’s still early.
My daughter told me she didn’t want to eat pork tongue because it came out of a pigs mouth. So I gave her an egg.
We have instant access to limitless information. It’s SO easy to not be wrong and yet some people stubbornly insist on it.
If we’re ever in a situation where I am the voice of reason, you’d better get yourself an attorney. (Bilbo)
Comedian Steve Hofstetter’s FB page…Gordan to Steve: Your and idiot. Steve: Holy hell. You wrote three words and you got two of them wrong. Bravo.
I took my suit to the cleaners, who wanted to charge me $15.00. So I gave my suit to the charity shop next door. They cleaned and pressed it and put it in the window. I bought it for $4.50!
I just saw this online: “I thought the White House already had a ballroom where they store the testicles of Congressional republicans.”
If you’re trying to distract us from the Epstein files and the fact you’re a rapist, maybe don’t go onto the White House roof. Cuz we’re all gonna call you the “Diddler on the Roof”.
Be decisive. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.
Boobs are natures stress balls. Ironically they come attached to the greatest stress creating device known to man.
BEFORE THE INTERNET, MOST PEOPLE THOUGHT VILLAGES ONLY HAD ONE IDIOT. WOW, WE DID NOT HAVE THAT RIGHT.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola can’t even be in the same restaurant. And we want world peace.
I saw a guy at Starbucks today with no iPhone, no tablet, no laptop. He just sat there, drinking coffee, like a psychopath!
My grandson asked, “Do trees poop?”. I said, “That’s where #2 pencils comes from“.
The day they handed out patience, I left because it was taking too long.
Hooked all my wrist watches together and made a belt. Turned out to be a waist of time.
Saw someone taking a leek in the produce section today.
If you exchange two ten cent coins for 4 nickels you have a paradime shift.
Them: I eat mostly whole foods. Me: So do I. Whole pizzas, whole can of biscuits, whole cakes, whole bags of Doritos, whole tub of ice cream.
You can lead a person to the Internet, but you can’t make them think.
Eye drops are technically blinker fluid.
Me in HR office: “Does this rule apply to me?” HR: “A lot of these rules are because of you, so yes.”
Brain dead??
Today is the birthday, in 1963, of Sir Mix-A-Lot, American rapper, songwriter, and record producer who had the 1992 US No.1 single https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59e20ijOpE
Today is the birthday, in 1667, of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, last of the Medicis. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medicis’ large art collection, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and the Medici villas, which she inherited upon her brother Gian Gastone’s death in 1737, and her Palatine treasures to the Tuscan state, on the condition that no part of it could be removed from “the Capital of the grand ducal State….[and from] the succession of His Serene Grand Duke”.
The House of Medici was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first consolidated power in the Republic of Florence under Cosimo de’ Medici and his grandson Lorenzo “the Magnificent” during the first half of the 15th century. The Medici family financed the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica and Florence Cathedral, and were patrons of Donatello, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Francesco Redi, among many others in the arts and sciences. They funded the invention of the piano, and arguably that of opera.
Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (1667-1743), Electress of the Palatinate
Ice Cream!
Parking for fat guys who like to grill…
If famous composers were cats…
On July 24th, 1953, American writer Shirley Jackson responded to a reader who was disappointed by her story “The Lottery”.
KIDS!
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Eric Carmen, American singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist, who with The Raspberries had the 1972 US No.5 single ‘Go All The Way’ and the 1976 solo US No.2 single, ‘All By Myself’, plus other hits with ‘She Did It’, ‘Hungry Eyes’, and ‘Make Me Lose Control. He died on 11 March 2024 age 74. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssCL292DQA
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