Tom

Today is the birthday, in 1779, of Joel Roberts Poinsett, an American physician, botanist, politician, and diplomat. He was the first U.S. agent in Hispanic America, a member of the South Carolina Legislature, and later a United States Representative from 1821 to 1825. In 1825, he was appointed by John Quincy Adams as the first United States Minister to Mexico and serving through the first year of Andrew Jackson’s administration in 1829. He represented the United States government to the First Mexican Empire and the First Mexican Republic in Mexico City.

Poinsett was a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson and Jacksonian democracy. He was a Unionist leader in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis in 1832 and 1833, when the state refused to enforce federal tariffs, declaring them unconstitutional. Poinsett was subsequently appointed 15th U.S. Secretary of War under Martin Van Buren. He was a co-founder of the earlier National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts in 1840, a predecessor of the modern Smithsonian Institution.

Beginning in 1801, Poinsett traveled the European continent. In the spring of 1803 he arrived in Switzerland and stayed at the home of Jacques Necker and his daughter, Madame de Stael. On one occasion, Robert Livingston, the United States minister to France, was invited for a visit. Poinsett was compelled to assume the role of interpreter between the deaf Livingston and the aged Necker, whose lack of teeth made his speech almost incomprehensible. Fortunately, Madame de Stael tactfully assumed the duty of translation for her elderly father.

Poinsett arrived in the Russian capital of Saint Petersburg in November 1806. Learning that Poinsett was from South Carolina, the Empress asked him if he would inspect the cotton factories under her patronage. Poinsett made some suggestions on improvement, which the Dowager Empress accepted. In January 1807, Czar Alexander and Poinsett dined at the Palace. Czar Alexander attempted to entice Poinsett into the Russian civil or military service. Poinsett was hesitant, which prompted Alexander to advise him to “see the Empire, acquire the language, study the people”, and then decide. Always interested in travel, Poinsett accepted the invitation and left Saint Petersburg in March 1807 on a journey through southern Russia. He was accompanied by his English friend Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston and eight others. They were among the last westerners to see Moscow before its burning in October 1812 by Napoleon’s forces.

They were provided with a Cossack escort as they traveled in Dagestan, but when a Tartar dignitary claimed that this would only provoke danger, the escort was bypassed for the security of the Tartar chiefs. This new security increased the numbers in Poinsett’s company, which they believed made it less vulnerable to attack as it passed out of Russia proper. Thus, they were joined by a Persian merchant, who was transporting young girls he had acquired in Circassia to harems in Turkey. With a strong Persian and Kopak guard, the party left Derbent and entered the realm of the Khan of Kuban.

Upon his return to Moscow, Czar Alexander discussed the details of Poinsett’s trip with him and offered him a position as colonel in the Russian Army. However, news had reached Russia of the attack of the Chesapeake affair, and war between the United States and Great Britain seemed certain. Poinsett eagerly sought to return to his homeland.

He served as a “special agent” to two South American countries from 1810 to 1814, Chile and Argentina. President James Madison appointed him in 1809 as Consul in General. Poinsett was to investigate the prospects of the revolutionists, in their struggle for independence from Spain.

In 1820, Poinsett won a seat in the United States House of Representatives for the Charleston district. As a congressman, Poinsett continued to call for internal improvements, but he also advocated the maintenance of a strong army and navy. Poinsett simultaneously served as a special envoy to Mexico from 1822 to 1823, when the government of James Monroe became concerned about the stability of newly independent Mexico. On January 12, 1828, in Mexico City, Poinsett signed the first treaty between the United States and Mexico, the Treaty of Limits, a treaty that recognized the U.S.-Mexico border established by the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty between Spain and the U.S.

After visiting an area south of Mexico City near Taxco de Alarcón, Poinsett saw what later became known in the United States as the poinsettia. (In Mexico it is called Flor de Nochebuena, Christmas Eve flower, or Catarina). Poinsett, an avid amateur botanist, sent samples of the plant to the United States, and by 1836 the plant was widely known as the “poinsettia”. Also a species of Mexican lizard, Sceloporus poinsettii, is named in Poinsett’s honor.

Poinsett served as Secretary of War from March 7, 1837, to March 5, 1841, overseeing the forced ethnic cleansing and dispossession of land from Native Americans to European settlers known as the Trail of Tears. reduced the fragmentation of the army by concentrating elements at central locations; equipped the light batteries of artillery regiments as authorized by the 1821 army organization act; and again retired to his plantation at Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1841. He died of tuberculosis, hastened by an attack of pneumonia and is buried at the Church of the Holy Cross Episcopal Cemetery.

Joel Roberts Poinsett, Secretary of War

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(this image does not depict a horngus (or anything else) attached to a dongfish — a creature that does not exist. It’s an altered version of a Wikipedia entry for Aristotle’s theory of biology, which includes a site note describing that “Aristotle recorded that the embryo of a dogfish was attached by a cord to a kind of placenta (the yolk sac)”)

Snow Sculpture Contest…

Don’t order the pineapple pizza…

TEA??

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Spring is in the air!

SIGNZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Today is the birthday, in 1950, of American singer and drummer Karen Carpenter, who with The Carpenters had the 1973 UK No.2 single ‘Yesterday Once More’ plus 3 US No.1’s including the 1975 US No.1 single ‘Please Mr Postman’. Their 1974 UK & US No.1 album ‘The Singles 1969-1973 spent 125 weeks on the UK chart. The Carpenters album and single sales total more than 90 million making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She died on 4 February 1983 of anorexia nervosa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJCr9cq5co

Today is the birthday, in 1891, of David Sarnoff, a Russian-born American businessman who played an important role in the American history of radio broadcasting and television. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of his career in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his retirement in 1970.

David Sarnoff was born to a Jewish family in Uzlian, a small town in Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire, the son of Abraham Sarnoff and Leah Privin. Abraham emigrated to the United States and raised funds to bring the family. Sarnoff spent much of his early childhood in a yeshiva studying and memorizing the Torah. He emigrated with his mother and three brothers and one sister to New York City in 1900, where he helped support his family by selling newspapers.

At age 15 Sarnoff went to work to support the family. He had planned to pursue a full-time career in the newspaper business, but a chance encounter led to a position as an office boy at the Commercial Cable Company. When his superior refused him leave for Rosh Hashanah, he joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America on September 30, 1906, and started a career of over 60 years in electronic communications. Over the next 13 years, Sarnoff rose from office boy to commercial manager of the company, learning about the technology and the business of electronic communications on the job and in libraries. He also served at Marconi stations on ships and posts on Siasconset, Nantucket and the New York Wanamaker Department Store.

Over the next two years, Sarnoff earned promotions to chief inspector and contracts manager for a company. Sarnoff also demonstrated the first use of radio on a railroad line, the Lackawanna Railroad Company’s link between Binghamton, New York, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sarnoff used H. J. Round’s hydrogen arc transmitter to demonstrate the broadcast of music from the New York Wanamaker station.

Unlike many who were involved with early radio communications, who often viewed radio as point-to-point, Sarnoff saw the potential of radio as point-to-mass. One person (the broadcaster) could speak to many (the listeners). When General Electric arranged the purchase of American Marconi and reorganized it as the Radio Corporation of America, Sarnoff realized his dream and revived his proposal in a lengthy memo on the company’s business and prospects. Although his superiors again ignored him, he contributed to the rising postwar radio boom by helping arrange for the broadcast of a heavyweight boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier in July 1921. Up to 300,000 people listened to the broadcast of the fight, and demand for home radio equipment bloomed that winter.

In 1925, RCA purchased its first radio station (WEAF, New York) and launched the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the first radio network in America. Four years later, Sarnoff became president of RCA. NBC had by that time split into two networks, the Red and the Blue. The Blue Network eventually became ABC Radio. In 1929, Sarnoff engineered the purchase of the Victor Talking Machine Company, the nation’s largest manufacturer of gramophone records and phonographs, merging radio-phonograph production at Victor’s large manufacturing facility in Camden, New Jersey. The acquisition became known as RCA Records.

in April 1939, regularly scheduled, electronic television in America was initiated by RCA under the name of their broadcasting division at the time, The National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Opening day ceremonies at The World’s Fair were telecast in the medium’s first major production, featuring a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first US president to appear on television. Sarnoff served on Eisenhower’s communications staff, arranging expanded radio circuits for NBC to transmit news from the invasion of France in June 1944. In France, Sarnoff oversaw the construction of a radio transmitter powerful enough to reach all of the allied forces in Europe, called Radio Free Europe.

Sarnoff retired in 1970, at the age of 79 and died the following year, aged 80. He is interred in a mausoleum featuring a stained-glass vacuum tube in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His son, Robert succeeded him as chairman of RCA. Sarnoff was one of the many immigrants who helped build America.

David Sarnoff, in 1922 he was the general manager and vice-president of RCA, the Radio Corporation of America. Photo taken and published in September 1922

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Today is the birthday, in 1960, of Johnny Roy Van Zant, American musician and the current lead vocalist of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He is the younger brother of the late Lynyrd Skynyrd co-founder and former lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant and of the 38 Special founder Donnie Van Zant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJZrXhMBG1E

On this day in 1616, Galileo Galilei was formally banned by the church from teaching that the earth revolves around the sun (heliocentrism). In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger) describing the observations that he had made with his new, much stronger telescope, amongst them the Galilean moons of Jupiter. With these observations and additional observations that followed, such as the phases of Venus, he promoted the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. Galileo’s opinions were met with opposition within the Catholic Church, and in 1616 the Inquisition declared heliocentrism to be both scientifically indefensible and heretical.

In the Catholic world prior to Galileo’s conflict with the Church, the majority of educated people subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the Earth was the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth, though Copernican theories were used to reform the calendar in 1582. Geostaticism agreed with a literal interpretation of Scripture in several places, such as 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5.

On February 19, 1616, the Inquisition asked a commission of theologians, known as qualifiers, about the propositions of the heliocentric view of the universe. On February 24 the Qualifiers delivered their unanimous report: the proposition that the Sun is stationary at the center of the universe is “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture”.

On February 26, Galileo was ordered: “to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it… to abandon completely… the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition by Cristiano Banti (1857)

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Well, of course…

Today is the birthday, in 1932, of Johnny Cash US country singer, songwriter who was considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is remembered as a country icon, his songs spanned other genres including rock and roll and rockabilly and blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of induction in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th-century rock artists, most notably ‘Hurt’ by Nine Inch Nails. Cash died of respiratory failure on September 12th 2003, aged 71. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG0fS4DoGUc

Today is the birthday, in 1841, of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. It has been said that, as a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, “Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”

He was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, in 1841. His father, Léonard Renoir, was a tailor of modest means, so, in 1844, Renoir’s family moved to Paris in search of more favorable prospects. The location of their home, in rue d’Argenteuil in central Paris, placed Renoir in proximity to the Louvre. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed at a porcelain factory.^[3][4]

Although Renoir displayed a talent for his work, he frequently tired of the subject matter and sought refuge in the galleries of the Louvre. The owner of the factory recognized his apprentice’s talent and communicated this to Renoir’s family. Following this, Renoir started taking lessons to prepare for entry into Ecole des Beaux Arts.

Renoir was inspired by the style and subject matter of the previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Édouard Manet. After a series of rejections by the Salon juries, he joined forces with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and several other artists to mount the First Impressionist Exhibition in April 1874, in which Renoir displayed six paintings. By the end of the 1870s, particularly after the success of his painting Mme Charpentier and her Children (1878) at the Salon of 1879, Renoir was a successful and fashionable painter.

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of “Les Collettes”, a farm at the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted during the last twenty years of his life even after his arthritis severely limited his mobility. Renoir died in Cagnes-sur-Mer on 3 December 1919 at the age of 78.

When I was a small child, I was fortunate that my mother was able to take me regularly to visit some of the great institutions of Washington, DC, including the National Art Gallery where I fell in love with the impressionists including Renoir. Here are a few of his works that I saw and loved there:

Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880–1881, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. Note that the woman on the far left was Renoir’s wife, Aline Victorine Charigot

The Dancer, 1874, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Pont-Neuf, 1872, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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Babysitting…

BADA BING!!

Them: We’re disgusted by the amount of hate Pam Bondi is getting at the moment. Us: It’s nowhere near enough, we can do better.

My body came with a lot of terms and conditions I did not agree to.

It would be nice if all the people wearing “Don’t Tread On Me” shirts stopped treading on everyone else, wouldn’t it?

My children watched the halftime show. Now they’re gay AND Puerto Rican! Darn you Bad Bunny!

12% of Americans believe Noah of Noah’s Ark is married to Joan of Arc. (They must be the core of the MAGAt movement.)

Funny how the US voting system worked well for 44 presidents and suddenly went bad when tRUMP lost an election.

Doctors discover a new link between rising measles cases among children and their parents being gullible morons.

Let’s have illegal immigrants hunt down sex offenders for a chance at citizenship. We’ll call it aliens vs predators.

Last week my wife put together an earthquake plan. She and the kids are supposed to stand together in a doorway. I’m supposed to go in the front hall and stand under the chandelier. 

I can’t believe people are comparing tRUMP to Satan. Yes, he’s evil, but he’s certainly not as evil as tRUMP.

I’m staying home today. I have mood poisoning.

“Well, well,” said Dr. Bigbill, as he met a former patient on the street, “I’m glad to see you again, Mr. Brown.  How are you this morning?” “First, Doctor,” said Mr. Brown cautiously,  “does it cost anything to tell you?”

A farm girl brought a bull to a pasture in order that it might service the cow there.  The farm boy in charge of the cow joined her and they watched the process. After a while, the farm boy turned to the farm girl and said, “That just makes me itch to do the same thing. How about it?” And the farm girl said, “Go ahead. It’s your cow.”

Two communists are sitting together at a nudist colony. One turns to the other and says, “Have you read Marx?” The other replies, “Yes, it’s these damn wicker chairs!”

Today is the birthday, in 1943, of George Harrison guitarist and vocalist with The Beatles The all-time bestselling album in the UK is The Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, with over 4.5 million copies sold. Harrison wrote the 1969 US No.1 & UK No.4 Beatles single ’Something’. As a solo artist he had the 1971 US No.1 album ‘All Things Must Pass’ and the 1970 worldwide No.1 single ‘My Sweet Lord’. He was also a member of the Traveling Wilburys with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. He organized the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles’ Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974. He co-founded HandMade Films in 1978, initially to produce the Monty Python troupe’s comedy film The Life of Brian (1979). Harrison died of cancer on November 29th 2001 age 58. ‘Something is generally considered a love song to Pattie Boyd, his first wife. As recorded by the Beatles, the track features a guitar solo that several music critics identify among Harrison’s finest playing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UelDrZ1aFeY

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Los Angeles in 1942. The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to a rumored attack on the continental United States by Imperial Japan and the subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late February 24, to early February 25, 1942, over Los Angeles, California.

In the months following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, public outrage and paranoia intensified across the country and especially on the West Coast, where fears of a Japanese attack on or invasion of the U.S. continent were acknowledged as realistic possibilities. In Juneau, Alaska, residents were told to cover their windows for a nightly blackout after rumors spread that Japanese submarines were lurking along the southeast Alaskan coast. Rumors that a Japanese aircraft carrier was cruising off the coast of the San Francisco Bay Area resulted in the city of Oakland closing its schools and issuing a blackout; civil defense sirens mounted on patrol cars from the Oakland Police Department blared through the city, and radio silence was ordered. The city of Seattle also imposed a blackout of all buildings and vehicles, and owners who left the lights on in their buildings had their businesses smashed by a mob of 2,000 residents. The rumors were taken so seriously that 500 United States Army troops moved into the Walt Disney Studios lot to defend the famed Hollywood facility and nearby factories against enemy sabotage or air attacks.

As the U.S. began mobilizing for the war, anti-aircraft guns were installed, bunkers built, and air raid precautions drilled into the populace all over the country. Contributing to the paranoia was the fact that many American merchant ships were indeed attacked by Japanese submarines in waters off the West Coast, especially from the last half of December 1941 through February 1942. As the hysteria continued to mount, on 23 February 1942, at 7:15 pm, during one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats, Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced near Santa Barbara, California, and shelled Ellwood Oil field in Goleta.

On 24 February 1942, the Office of Naval Intelligence issued a warning that an attack on mainland California could be expected within the next ten hours. That evening, many flares and blinking lights were reported from the vicinity of defense plants. An alert was called at 7:18 pm, and was lifted at 10:23 pm. Renewed activity began early in the morning of 25 February. Air raid sirens sounded at 2:25 am throughout Los Angeles County.^[13] A total blackout was ordered and thousands of air raid wardens were summoned to their positions. At 3:16 am, the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing .50-caliber machine guns and 12.8-pound (5.8 kg) anti-aircraft shells into the air at reported aircraft; over 1,400 shells were eventually fired. Pilots of the 4th Interceptor Command were alerted but their aircraft remained grounded. The artillery fire continued sporadically until 4:14 am. The “all clear” was sounded and the blackout order was lifted at 7:21 am.

Several buildings and vehicles were damaged by shell fragments, and five civilians died as an indirect result of the anti-aircraft fire: three were killed in car crashes in the ensuing chaos and two of heart attacks attributed to the stress of the hour-long action. The incident was front-page news along the West Coast and across the nation.

After the war ended in 1945, the Japanese government declared that they had flown no airplanes over Los Angeles during the war. In 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History concluded that an analysis of the evidence points to meteorological balloons as the cause of the initial alarm.

More details

Page B of the February 26, 1942, Los Angeles Times, showing the coverage of the so-called Battle of Los Angeles

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How he will return…

When cornered, the Pope can spray holy water up to 25 feet. Don’t ignore the warning signs…

keep hoping…

blame catnip…

According to the Secretary of HHS…

Today is the birthday, in 1950, of George Thorogood, American musician, singer and songwriter. His high-energy boogie-blues sound became a staple of 1980s rock radio, with hits like his original songs ‘Bad to the Bone’ and ‘I Drink Alone’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyhJ69mD7xI