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Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally
Today also happens to be Serendipity Day ...! 
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.   
  
Roses are red, aw hell, you know the rest ... !
Today is - Bad Poetry Day

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Today in History

1587
In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States.
1590
John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returns from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers is ever found.
1698
After invading Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forces Frederick IV of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.
1759
The French fleet is destroyed by the British under “Old Dreadnought” Boscawen at the Battle of Lagos Bay.
1782
Poet and artist William Blake marries Catherine Sophia Boucher.
1862
Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart‘s headquarters is raided by Union troops of the 5th New York and 1st Michigan cavalries.
1864
Union General William T. Sherman sends General Judson Kilpatrick to raid Confederate lines of communication outside Atlanta. The raid is unsuccessful.
1870
Prussian forces defeat the French at the Battle of Gravelotte during the Franco-Prussian War.
1898
Adolph Ochs takes over the New York Times, saying his aim is to give “the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium.”
1914
Germany declares war on Russia while President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality.
1920
Tennessee becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women’s suffrage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect.
1929
The first cross-country women’s air derby begins. Louise McPhetridge Thaden wins first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie finishes first in the lighter-plane category.
1939
The film The Wizard of Oz opens in New York City.
1942
Japan sends a crack army to Guadalcanal to repulse the U.S. Marines fighting there.
1943
The Royal Air Force Bomber Command completes the first major strike against the German missile development facility at Peenemunde.
1963
James Meredith, the first African American to attend University of Mississippi, graduates.
1965
Operation Starlite marks the beginning of major U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam.
1966
Australian troops repulse a Viet Cong attack at Long Tan.
1969
Two concert goers die at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York, one from an overdose of heroin, the other from a burst appendix.
1973
Hank Aaron makes his 1,378 extra-base hit, surpassing Stan Musial’s record.
1974
Luna 24, the USSR’s final major lunar exploration mission, soft-lands on moon.
1979
Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini demands a “Saint War” against Kurds.
1982
Pete Rose sets record with his 13,941st plate appearance.
1987
Ohio nurse Donald Harvey sentenced to triple life terms for poisoning 24 patients.
1988
Wingnut Coven in New Orleans nominate the George H.W. Bush-Dan Quayle ticket.
1991
A group of hard-line communist leaders unhappy with the drift toward the collapse of the Soviet Union seize control of the government in Moscow and place President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest
1993
Historic Kapelbrug (chapel bridge) in Luzern, Switzerland, burns, destroying 147 of its decorative paintings. It was built in 1365.
1992
Dennis Rader, the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) killer receives 10 consecutive life sentences. He had terrorized Wichita, Kansas, murdering 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
2010
Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, Nuevo Leon, is found handcuffed, blindfolded and dead following his abduction three days earlier. He had championed crackdowns on organized crime and police corruption.
2011
Gold hits a record price of $1,826 per ounce.

10 Facts About Growing Old That May Surprise You

Why Are They Called “Trailers" If They're Shown Before the Film?

by Eddie Deezen
A great paradox, isn't it? Those movie scenes from future films they always show before the actual film is shown are called "trailers.” But why?
The first ever movie trailer was screened at Rye Beach, a New York area amusement park in 1912. Lou Harris, a Paramount executive, was quoted in the L.A. Times on October 25, 1966, regarding this historic incident:
“One of the concessions hung up a white sheet and showed the serial Adventures of Kathlyn. At the end of the reel Kathlyn was thrown in the lion's den. After this ‘trailed’ a piece of film asking ‘does she escape the lion's pit? See next week's thrilling chapter!’ Hence, the word ‘trailer,’ an advertisement for a coming picture.”
These earliest future glimpses were actually screened after the featured films and thus were dubbed "trailers.” Hollywood now calls these brief scenes "previews" or "previews of coming attractions.” “Trailer" is, however, still the preferred term in the industry.
The early days of movies were quite a bit different from what we accustomed to today. Movies were not one film i.e. Casablanca, Grease, The Avengers or The Wizard of Oz.
Early films were more like a vaudeville show. Several different, and very short, films, were shown over and over. A wide variety of films each lasting a few minutes, were shown on a continuous loop. Unlike today, where we all arrive before the start of the main film, patrons could enter the theater at any time and stay as long as they wanted.
In cinema's early days, "chasers" were actually employed by theaters. These were literally men hired to "chase" the lazy stragglers who just wanted to hang around inside the theaters and watch these same movies again and again out of the theaters. Of course, this was not only a "fair is fair" matter, but a financial decision. Getting rid of the stragglers meant more empty seats for patrons at the next film showing.
An entry for the word "trailer" in the Oxford English Dictionary provides quotes showing the word used in the sense meaning "promotional clips" from as far back as 1928. The New York Times of June 2, 1917, described the U.S. campaign to sell war bonds:
A committee of the national association of motion picture industry yesterday began sending films known as trailers (advertising the bonds) to all of the 15,000 or more movie theaters in the U.S. are 70 feet in length and will be attached to longer films that will be shown at every performance.
Film scholar Lisa Kernan, in her 2004 book Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers says:
The National Screen Service, in 1919, began making crude 35mm film ads from transferred film stills (without the studios permission) and sold them to exhibitors to run following the films.
By the 1930's, movie trailers had evolved into a semi-art form of its own. Taken beyond simple newsreels and actual brief movie clips, they now often included animation, narration, and musical scores. Sometimes the trailers would include a personal plug from one of the film's stars or even someone who didn't even appear in the film. Also by this time, someone had the brainstorm to still include the "trailers," but put them on before the main film, not after.
Another major change has occurred in recent years. Instead of the for years usual of one or two trailers shown before the main film, in recent times, we have all grown accustomed to seeing as many as six, seven or eight trailers. (I hate them myself, I’d just rather just see the film, but most people I talk to seem to enjoy them and don't mind.) This is a matter of the studios not only hyping their products, but giving us "our money's worth" in time.
From the 1930's on into 1960's and beyond, cartoons and/or newsreels were shown before a film, then maybe one trailer or two. Popeye, Mickey Mouse, and best of all, those wonderful Warner Bros. cartoons would be shown before the main attraction.
Even better, actual shorts, like the Three Stooges, would often be shown before the feature. (The Three Stooges were so popular in the 1930's and 40's, Columbia Studios would often only be able to sell their features on the condition of including a new Stooges short with it.)
Gradually over the years, the cartoons, shorts and newsreels were gradually phased out and more and more trailers were added. We get the illusion that we are being "entertained" as by a cartoon, but all we are actually seeing is a two or three minutes of future film clips.

How Zzyzx Road Got Its Name

Zzyzx Road in San Bernardino County, California, is famous for its spelling and for an awful movie of the same name. Zzyzx Road is named after the community of Zzyzx, which was once Camp Soda and Soda Springs. But why the name change? Road Trippers has the story.
Well, that's where things get a little weird. Curtis Howe Springer was one of those old-timey radio evangelists, way back in the day. However, he wasn't actually a minister of any kind. He was born in 1896 in Birmingham, Alabama, and spent much of his early life convincing people he was a doctor.  He proclaimed himself to be the "last of the old-time medicine men", but the American Medical Association disagreed. They proclaimed him "King of the Quacks" in 1969.
Throughout his life Curtis also claimed to be a boxing teacher in the U.S. Army, the "Dean of Greer College" (a defunct/bankrupt school in Chicago), he was a rabble-rouser during Prohibition (he was in favor of it, and railed against "Demon Rum"). He also loved making up universities. Like "National Academy, The Springer School of Humanism, the American College of Doctors and Surgeons, the Westlake West Virginia College, and two non-existent osteopathy schools in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania and New Jersey." He sounds like a real catch. My favorite though is how he'd write his name on pamphlets for speaking engagements: Curtis Howe Springer, M.D., N.D., D.O., Ph.D.
You can see where this is going: Curtis Howe Springer came up with the name. But his story is both fascinating and outrageous, and you should go read the whole thing.

Why Trains Suck in America

At one time, America’s railroads were king. It was once a very pleasant way to travel. You have more legroom than planes or buses, you don’t have to drive or navigate pr pump gas, and the view along the way is unique. But the last time I rode a train was in the 1970s, and I hear that riding a train now is as expensive as a airline flight and slower than driving. There aren’t many passenger trains available anymore. Wendover Productions looks at the reasons why.
Of course, it boils down to money and infrastructure (which costs money). Even freight trains don’t carry as much cargo as they should, but that’s a subject for another day.

I'm Sick of the So-Called 'News' on TV

How the Gig Economy Destroyed Workers' 9-To-5 Attention Spans

Gun Nuts Threaten Priest Who Plans To Destroy AR-15 Won In Raffle

Gun Nuts Threaten Priest Who Plans To Destroy AR-15 Won In Raffle

Girl rescued by firefighters after getting stuck between anti-tank bollards

A girl had to be rescued by firefighters after becoming stuck between anti-tank bollards over the weekend.
Firefighters received a call at about 5.35pm on Saturday evening after reports of a girl stuck between the bollards, near Scoughall, East Lothian, Scotland.
The crew from East Linton removed sand to help free the girl and an ambulance was also requested but eventually stood down.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: “There were no broken bones, just a bit of fright and no signs of injury.”

Hilarious Honest Sex-Ed Answers Gets 14 Year Old Suspended

I guess the truth really hurts sometimes.
Jordan Fridman posted a throwback photo of her sister supposedly getting suspended for submitting brutally honest answers for a sex education class assignment. 
The assignment was in part to provide a few responses to someone objecting to using a condom. The assignment asked to write out possible responses to when people don't want to use condoms. 
The photo has been viewed over 2 million times since and her family says they are extremely proud of her. Sure, these answers are a little graphic, but shouldn't we be encouraging children to be honest and firm about condom usage?

The Defiant Lives That Paved the Way For Stonewall

The Stonewall Riots in New York City, fifty years ago this month, are often cited as the beginning of the LGBT rights movement. Indeed, the site of the Stonewall Inn is a National Historic Landmark. But there were events even earlier that fed into the urge for gay and gender-nonconforming people to stand up to the abuse and harassment that was so common. In San Francisco, the Tenderloin District was the area that was most welcoming to gays, drag queens, and transgender people, although “welcoming” was a relative term. Trans activist Felicia “Flames” Elizondo tells about about those days.
In the thick of the Tenderloin at 101 Turk Street, Compton’s Cafeteria became a popular hangout spot for the neighborhood’s queer residents, particularly in the late hours of the night when sex work was most active. “It was open 24 hours a day, and you could see everybody you knew and parade your fashion or your boyfriend around,” Elizondo says. “It was our social gathering place at that time.”
Around the same time, a nearby section of Polk Street was transforming into a queer commercial corridor, though mostly aimed at middle-class gay men. In 1962, a group of bar owners in the area formed the Tavern Guild—the country’s first gay business association—to work against harassment and protect their businesses from unwarranted police closures. Yet many of these same bars closed their doors to transgender or gender-nonconforming customers. “None of the gay bars allowed us in,” says Elizondo. “The mixed bars did, like the Body Shot, the Rendezvous, the Frolic Room, the 181, and Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. But the rest of the bars, they wouldn’t allow queens in if we looked like sissies.”
One of Elizondo’s earliest friends in the neighborhood, Ciro, was a self-proclaimed hair fairy, meaning he wore his hair long, rather than relying on wigs. “Ciro told us he was a ‘hair fairy’ because it was against the law to dress like a girl,” she says, though he showed Elizondo how to do makeup, rat her hair, and pick out the latest angora sweaters and skin-tight pants. “There were men who performed as female impersonators and dressed like women, but they had to go into the club looking like a boy and come out as a boy, or they’d be arrested.”
The riot at Compton’s in 1966 was just one of several incidents in San Francisco that focused attention on the Tenderloin, but it was still decades before gays, transgender individuals, and other factions joined together to add weight and numbers to the movement. Collectors Weekly looks at transgender history and the various gender-nonconforming folks who lived through those days in San Francisco before and after the 1966 riot. 

Naked man allegedly squeezed police officer's testicles

A naked man was arrested after fighting with police in Fargo, North Dakota, at around 8pm on Thursday. Officers responded to a call of a man with no clothes running down a sidewalk.
23-year old Jeb Black, from Fargo, was found in a nearby parking lot. He attempted to push an officer and resisted as police attempted to take him into custody.
During the struggle, Black assaulted one of the officers by grabbing and squeezing the officer's testicles. He then grabbed the officer's pepper spray canister. Police tasered Black, who continued to grab at the officers' clothing and limbs.
The officers were eventually able to handcuff and restrain Black until more officers arrived to assist. Police say a witness told them Black had taken LSD prior to the incident. Black was arrested for assault on a peace officer and preventing arrest. Other charges, including indecent exposure are pending. The officer and Black were both treated and released at a hospital emergency room.

Woman accused of repeatedly kicking boyfriend in the face after he refused to have sex with her

When her boyfriend refused to have sex with her, a Florida woman allegedly repeatedly kicked him in the face, an attack that has landed her in jail for battery, police say.
According to an arrest affidavit, Jennifer Furguson, 34, sought a 6:30am tryst on Wednesday with her beau inside the couple’s Port St. Lucie residence.
The victim, who has been in a relationship with Furguson for two years, told police that “Jennifer became upset at him when he refused to have sex with her this morning.” After being rejected, Furguson began kicking her boyfriend in the face “while he was laying on the bed,” investigators charge.
Responding officers noted that the man had “significant swelling to his right cheek bone and redness to his left cheek bone.” Furguson was arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge and booked into the county jail, where she remains locked up in lieu of $500 bond. Furguson is scheduled to be arraigned on August 25, according to court records.

Why Harvard Should Just Say Sorry For How It Handled My Sexual Assault

No Trial for Tennis Star Who Sexually Abused Autistic Teen

Woman worried after man took picture of her with miniature horse

A horse owner has warned others to be on their guard after a worrying incident. Amanda Polkinghorne, from Bisley, Gloucestershire, was walking her miniature horse when she was approached by a man who wanted to buy him - he followed her to see a horse which was for sale but he vanished. She fears the man may have been planning to return and steal the animal at a later date. She said: "A bloke stopped and asked if I would sell my horses and I said he wasn't for sale but may have another one available which he wanted to see.
"He took a picture of me and the horse I was walking, and he followed me to the field which was about a 10 minute walk. He had to go past as the traffic built up and he pulled up ahead of me, then he turned round. I said 'It's just up there' and he said 'I'll turn around and meet you back there'. I ran back, grabbed the other pony and walked back up to the gate.
"There was no sign of him but he spoke to my daughter. I'm not really sure what he said to her but he never saw the pony we came all the way back for. It seemed really weird,so my thought was to hide them in case he came back to try and steal them." She said he was driving a white estate car and would definitely recognize him again. She has not informed police, as she believes there is little they could do at this stage.

Researchers enchanted by googly-eyed squid spotted on ocean floor

A research vessel exploring the ocean off the California coast recently captured footage of a “googly-eyed” Stubby squid. The video was shot by a team from the E/V Nautilus, which uses a remotely operated underwater vehicle to explore the ocean floor.
As the vessel approaches the cephalopod, the team can be heard trying to determine at first whether it is an octopus or cuttlefish. As the ROV got closer to the creature, the team’s attention quickly shifted to its unusual-looking eyes. “They look like googly eyes. It looks so fake!” one woman exclaims in the video.
“It’s like some little kid dropped their toy.” Two others in the video comment that the eyes look as though they were painted on. The team later determined the cephalopod was a Stubby squid, also known as Rossia pacifica, which is closely related to cuttlefish.

The species spends life on the seafloor, activating a sticky mucus jacket and burrowing into the sediment to camouflage, leaving their eyes poking out to spot prey like shrimp and small fish. Stubby squid live in the Northern Pacific between Japan and Southern California, and are usually spotted at a depth of about 300 meters, though sightings have occurred at much lower depths. The one in the video was located 900 meters below the ocean surface.

Diaper-wearing monkey scuffled with Walmart employee in parking lot

An unusual confrontation took place in a parking lot on Sunday night. An employee of Walmart in in Lancaster, Ohio, came face to face with a monkey wearing a diaper.
It was all caught on camera by customer Richelle Stewart. She says her and her husband were arriving at the store, when she spotted a monkey attacking an employee. “I saw the monkey and he was just standing on the carts, and this lady was trying to come over and get him,” said Stewart.
“The monkey had escaped from a nearby camper. And we saw the cart guy from Walmart coming over to help her.” The monkey’s owner ran towards the employee shouting, “Let her go, let her go. Did she bite you?” “All of a sudden the monkey jumped on him and she pushed him out the way,” Stewart says. A spokesperson from Walmart says the employee was not bitten.

The retailer says the monkey escaped from the camper, and the employee grabbed the monkey’s leash and returned the monkey to the owner. Walmart said the owner was “grateful.” The Department of Agriculture is now trying to track down the woman and the monkey. It is concerned that if the woman is a resident of Ohio, the monkey may not registered.
You can watch Richelle Stewart's original Facebook video here.

Animal Pictures