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This day in 1631 saw the death of Mumtaz Mahal, beloved wife of the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. She died of postpartum hemorrhage while giving birth to her 14th child, after a prolonged labor of around 30 hours. She had been accompanying her husband while he was fighting a campaign in the Deccan Plateau. The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of the Wonders of the World, was commissioned by her husband to act as her tomb.

Mumtaz was remarkable in the field of learning and was a talented and cultured lady. She was well-versed in Arabic and Persian, and could compose poems in the latter. She was reputed to have a combination of modesty and candor, a woman warmly straightforward yet bemusedly self-possessed. Early in adolescence, she attracted the attention of important nobles of the realm. Jahangir must have heard about her, since he readily consented to Shah Jahan’s engagement with her.

Mumtaz Mahal was betrothed to Shah Jahan around 5 April 1607, when she was 14 years old and he was 15. They were, however, married five years after their betrothal on 10 May 1612 or 7 June 1612 in Agra. After their wedding celebrations, Shah Jahan, “finding her in appearance and character elect among all the women of the time”, gave her the title Mumtaz Mahal. ‘the exalted one of the Palace).

Mumtaz had a loving marriage with Shah Jahan. Even during her lifetime, poets would extol her beauty, grace, and compassion. Despite her frequent pregnancies, Mumtaz travelled with Shah Jahan’s entourage throughout his earlier military campaigns and the subsequent rebellion against his father. She was his constant companion and trusted confidant, leading court historians to go to unheard lengths to document the intimate and erotic relationship the couple enjoyed. In their 19 years of marriage, they had 14 children together.

Shah Jahan consulted Mumtaz in both private matters and the affairs of the state, and she served as his close confidant and trusted adviser and because of this, she had enormous political power. Like her predecessor and aunt Nur Jahan, Mumtaz sat next to the emperor in the Hall of Private Audience and Hall of Public Audience. She was hidden behind a curtain; if she did not agree with something, she would place her hand on his back, out of sight. At her intercession, he forgave enemies or commuted death sentences.

The Taj Mahal was commissioned by Shah Jahan to be built as a mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal. It is seen as an embodiment of undying love and marital devotion. English poet Sir Edwin Arnold describes it as “Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.”

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BADA BING!

My granddaughter asked me, “Grampa, today I watched someone do 50 pushups – do you think you could do that?” I said, “Of course, sweetheart. Don’t want to brag, but I could probably watch someone do 100 pushups.”

Bacon and eggs walk into a bar together. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast here.”

The police have spent hours questioning the egg. I think it’s about to crack.

I expect the people who have guns to defend themselves from a tyrannical government will be keeping the people of Los Angeles safe. Unless they were lying this whole time.

“Sorry I’m late”, I said as I got home from work. “Some guy lost a $50 dollar bill at the grocery store.” “Were you helping him look for it?”, asked my wife. “No, I was standing on it”.

The wheels came off their bromance so fast you’d think it was a Cybertruck.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than watching America’s two worst human beings finally turn on each other.

Never leave home without a kiss, a hug, and an “I love you.” Then remove the pet hair from your mouth as you walk to the car.

Welcome to your senior years – Where life is a delicate balance between trying to stay awake and trying to fall asleep.

It sickens me to hear Spanish being spoken on the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Santa Ana, San Jose, Santa Barbera, San Bernadino, El Cerrito, La Miranda, and San Luis Obispo.

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Leftover Fathers’ Day stuff…

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Today is the birthday, in 1952, of Austin, Texas-based drummer Mike Buck who was a member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds who had two hit songs in the 1980s, ‘Tuff Enuff’ and ‘Wrap It Up.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcXT1clXc04

On this day in 1755, the French surrendered Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians (Le Grand Dérangement)). Acadia was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. Acadia was not under the political control of New France and the Acadians frequently found themselves caught in the middle between the English and the French. The English suspected that the Acadians were helping the French and, when the opportunity presented itself, they forcefully deported approximately 11,500 Acadians from the maritime region. Approximately one-third perished from disease and drowning.

After being expelled to France, many Acadians were eventually recruited by the Spanish government to migrate to Luisiana (present-day Louisiana). These Acadians settled into or alongside the existing Louisiana Creole settlements, sometimes intermarrying with Creoles, and gradually developed what became known as Cajun culture.

Deportation of the Acadians By Henri Beau – ameriquefrancaise.org

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Florida People…

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Waiting for my doctor to prescribe hot dogs…

Today is the birthday, in 1958, of Patrick Waite, Musical Youth, best remembered for their successful 1982 single ‘Pass the Dutchie’, which became a No.1 hit around the world. It was a cover version of two songs: ‘Gimme the Music’ by U Brown, and ‘Pass the Kouchie’ by Mighty Diamonds, which deals with the recreational use of cannabis (kouchie being slang for a cannabis pipe). Waite died on 13th February 1993. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsyUa63NM1E

On this day in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. When confirmed by the Senate he would be the court’s first African-American justice.

Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which rejected the separate but equal doctrine and held segregation in public education to be unconstitutional.

Thoroughgood (he changed his name to Thurgood when he was in second grade) Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Norma and William Canfield Marshall. His father held various jobs as a waiter in hotels, in clubs, and on railroad cars, and his mother was an elementary school teacher.

Marshall attended the Colored High and Training School (later Frederick Douglass High School) in Baltimore, graduating in 1925 with honors. He then enrolled at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the oldest college for African Americans in the United States. Upon his graduation with honors in 1930 with a bachelor’s degree in American literature and philosophy, Marshall—being unable to attend the all-white University of Maryland Law School—applied to Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and was admitted. Marshall graduated in June 1933 ranked first in his class, and he passed the Maryland bar examination later that year.

In one of his first cases as a Lawyer, he sued the University of Marylandon behalf of Donald Gaines Murray, an African American whose application to the university’s law school had been rejected on account of his race. In that case—Murray v. Pearson—Judge Eugene O’Dunne ordered that Murray be admitted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it violated equal protection to admit white students to the law school while keeping blacks from being educated in-state.

He went on from there to become one of the greatest leaders in the history of the African-American struggle for freedom and equality and spearheaded the creation of the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.

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Uh oh…the rabbi is at it again…

SIGNS and SIGNS

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Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Dennis Locorriere, with American rock band Dr Hook who had the 1970s hits ‘The Cover of Rolling Stone’, ‘A Little Bit More’, ‘When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman’ and ‘Sylvia’s Mother’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVXVO_vF2Io

Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. By unanimous decision the court ruled that Virginia’s law banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The case involved Richard Loving, a white man, and his wife Mildred Loving, a woman of color. In 1959, the Lovings were convicted of violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as “white” and people classified as “colored”. Caroline County circuit court judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to prison but suspended the sentence on the condition that they leave Virginia and not return. The Lovings filed a motion to vacate their convictions on the ground that the Racial Integrity Act was unconstitutional, but Bazile denied it. After unsuccessfully appealing to the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Lovings appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.

According to the Supreme Court:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.

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Coping…

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I was saddened to read of the death of Brian Wilson – we all loved his music with the Beach Boys. Here is one of the first songs he wrote to the tune of Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Sixteeen’. Brian is on the far right in the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s4slliAtQU

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On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed the Committee of Five, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The Committee was charged with authoring a Declaration of Independence. Adams, a leading proponent of independence, persuaded the Committee to charge Jefferson with writing the document’s original draft, which the Second Continental Congress then edited. Jefferson largely wrote the Declaration in isolation between June 11 and June 28, 1776. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why the Continental Congress voted to declare American independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Declaration justified the independence of the colonies, citing 27 colonial grievances against King George III and asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. The Declaration was unanimously ratified on July 4 by the Second Continental Congress, whose delegates represented each of the Thirteen Colonies.

It is worth noting some of the grievances outlined in the Declaration:

• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

The Declaration has become one of the most circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history.

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How to spice up your life!

When your microwave asks for a sacrifice…

SIGNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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Today is the birthday, in 1940, of Joseph DiNicola, from American group Joey and the Starlighters. who scored the 1962 US No.1 single ‘Peppermint Twist, Part 1’. Jimi Hendrix was a member of the band during 1964. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wEORnZxdg