The Daily Drift

Now that is one considerate canine.

Carolina Naturally is read in 191 countries around the world daily.

Today we say farewell to a beloved friend who past into the realm of the fairy. 
The local Renaissance Faire has lost one of its shining lights ...

Today is Spring Fairy Fun Day
 

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Today in History

630		Heraclius restores the True Cross, which he has recaptured from the Persians.
1556		Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.
1617		Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe.
1788		Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.
1806		Lewis and Clark begin their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.
1865		The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman.
1851		Emperor Tu Duc orders that Christian priests are to put to death.
1858		British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
1906		Ohio passes a law that prohibits hazing by fraternities.
1908		Frenchman Henri Farman carries a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
1910		The U.S. Senate grants ex-President Teddy Roosevelt an annual pension of $10,000.
1918		The Germans launch the 'Michael' offensive, better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.
1928		President Calvin Coolidge gives the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
1939		Singer Kate Smith records "God Bless America" for Victor Records.
1941		The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, falls to the British.
1951		Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.
1963		Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California, closes.
1965		The United States launches Ranger 9, last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.
1971		Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.
1975		As North Vietnamese forces advance, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam are evacuated.
1980		President Jimmy Carter announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
1984		A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.

Non Sequitur

Gay Rights Center Faces Westboro Baptist Cult

Karma always finds its way

The new gays rights center in Topeka, Kansas, got a paint job and a sign on Tuesday to let everyone know what they're about. The house is directly across the street from Fred Phelps' infamous Westboro Baptist Cult.

The center is the work of a roving do-gooder named Aaron Jackson, a 31-year-old community-college dropout whose other projects have included opening orphanages in India and Haiti and buying a thousand acres of endangered rain forest in Peru. This year, his charity, Planting Peace, also intends to de-worm every child in Guatemala.

Jackson was drawn to Topeka after reading about Josef Miles, the local boy who last year, at the age of nine, photobombed one of the Westboro protests with a handmade sign that read "God Hates No One." Jackson had been looking for a way to support equality, anti-bullying programs, and some sort of pro-LGBT initiative, he said.

"I've been accused in the past of being all over the place, and they're probably right on some level," Jackson told me last night by phone. "Right now we are standing up to bigotry and promoting equality."

The house was purchased six months ago, but the rainbow paint job is the first indication to the Westboro congregation, with several members living in the neighborhood, of what the new neighbors are up to. More
The facility is called Equality House.

Daily Funny

Man banned from saying bingo for 6 months

An 18-year-old man from Covington, Kentucky, who falsely yelled “bingo” last month has been cited for second-degree disorderly conduct. As part of Austin Whaley’s punishment, Kenton District Judge Douglas Grothaus recently ordered him not to say the word “bingo” for six months.
“Just like you can’t run into a theater and yell ‘fire’ when it’s not on fire, you can’t run into a crowded bingo hall and yell ‘bingo’ when there isn’t one,” said Park Hills Police Sgt. Richard Webster, the officer who cited Whaley. On Feb. 9, Webster was working an off-duty security detail at a Covington bingo hall when Whaley entered the hall with several other youths and yelled “bingo,” Webster said. “This caused the hall to quit operating since they thought someone had won,” Webster wrote on his citation.

“This delayed the game by several minutes and caused alarm to patrons.” Webster said the crowd of mostly elderly women did not take kindly to Whaley’s bingo call. “At first, everybody started moaning and groaning when they thought they’d lost,” Webster said. “When they realized it wasn’t a real bingo, they started hooting and hollering and yelling and cussing. People take their bingo very seriously.” Had Whaley apologized for his actions, Webster said he probably would have sent him on his way with a warning. “But he refused to say he was sorry,” Webster said.

“He seemed to think he could say whatever he wanted because it was a public building. I tried to explain that that’s not the case.” When Whaley appeared in Kenton District Court last week, the judge ordered Whaley: “Do not say the word ‘bingo’ for six months.” The youthful defendant could have faced up to 90 days in a jail and a $250 fine on the misdemeanor charge. So long as Whaley, who had no prior criminal record, doesn’t get into any more trouble within six months, though, the charge will be dismissed.

Europe’s Wild Men

The custom of dressing up as wild animals and monsters dates back to pagan rites surrounding the winter solstice in Europe. These traditions continue today, centered around festivals from midwinter to Easter, evoking the hope of spring renewal.

Photographer Charles Fréger set out to capture what he calls “tribal Europe” over two winters of travel through 19 countries. The forms of the costumes that he chronicled vary between regions and even between villages. In Corlata, Romania, men dress as stags reenacting a hunt with dancers. In Sardinia, Italy, goats, deer, boars, or bears may play the sacrificial role. Throughout Austria, Krampus, the beastly counterpart to St. Nicholas, frightens naughty children.

But everywhere there is the wild man. In France, he is l’Homme Sauvage; in Germany, Wilder Mann; in Poland, Macidula is the clownish version. He dresses in animal skins or lichen or straw or tree branches. Half man and half beast, the wild man stands in for the complicated relationship that human communities, especially rural ones, have with nature.    

Read more about these traditions and see a photo gallery of Fréger's photographs at National Geographic magazine: Here.

Daily Comic Relief

Curiosity Mars Rover Breaks Rock To Reveal White Interior

A rock crushed under the Curiosity Mars Rover's wheels has dazzled mission scientists in more ways than one. Mars is supposed to be the Red Planet, but the rock - dubbed 'Tintina' - is a brilliant shade of white.

The unusual color indicates the presence of hydrated minerals that formed when water flowed through the robot's landing site in ancient times. Water-bearing minerals in Tintina and elsewhere add to the growing catalogue of water evidence at this location.

Animal Pictures