The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

Today also happens to be Be Bald and Be Free Day ...! 

 

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Today in History

1066		William of Normandy defeats King Harold in the Battle of Hastings.
1651		Laws are passed in Massachusetts forbidding the poor to adopt excessive styles of dress.
1705		The English Navy captures Barcelona in Spain.
1773		Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo is burned at Annapolis, Md.
1806		Napoleon Bonaparte crushes the Prussian army at Jena, Germany.
1832		Blackfeet Indians attack American Fur Company trappers near Montana's Jefferson River, killing one.
1884		Transparent paper-strip photographic film is patented by George Eastman.
1912		Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is shot and wounded in assassination attempt in Milwaukee. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and, though wounded, insisted on finishing his speech.
1930		Singer Ethel Merman stuns the audience when she holds a high C for sixteen bars while singing "I Got Rhythm" during her Broadway debut in Gershwin's Girl Crazy.
1933		The Geneva disarmament conference breaks up as Germany proclaims withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23. This begins German policy of independent action in foreign affairs.
1944		German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, is visited at home by two of Hitler's staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chooses suicide and it is announced that he died of wounds.
1947		Test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier aboard a Bell X-1 rocket plane.
1950		Chinese Communist Forces begin to infiltrate the North Korean Army.
1962		Cuban Missile Crisis begins; USAF U-2 reconnaissance pilot photographs Cubans installing Soviet-made missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
1964		Rev. Martin Luther King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of non-violence.
1966		Montreal, Quebec, Canada, opens its underground Montreal Metro rapid-transit system.
1968		US Defense Department announces 24,000 soldiers and Marines will be sent back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty.
1968		Jim Hines, USA, breaks the "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint at the Olympics in Mexico City; his time was 9.95.
1969		The British 50-pence coin enters the UK's currency, the first step toward covering to a decimal system, which was planned for 1971.
1983		Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop overthrown and later executed by a military coup.
1994		Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for establishing the Oslo Accords and preparing for Palestinian Self Government.
1998		Eric Robert Rudolph charged with the 1996 bombing during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; It was one of several bombing incidents Rudolph carried out to protest legalized abortion in the US.
2012		Felix Baumgartner breaks the world record for highest manned balloon flight, highest parachute jump, and greatest free-fall velocity, parachuting from an altitude of approximately 24 miles (39km).

Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize In Literature

A surprise from Sweden...

The Swedish Academy has announced the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 is awarded to Bob Dylan
"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

It was certainly an untraditional choice, and the first Nobel in Literature won by an American since 1993. The oddsmakers had predicted a half-dozen other possible winners, so Dylan will be a surprise. The award comes with 8 million kroner, or about $900,000. -

5 Ways to Eat Healthier Even When You’ve Failed Before

5 Ways to Eat Healthier Even When You’ve Failed Before

Apparently fed-up construction sign displayed 'Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah' message

A construction sign in front of the Cincinnati Music Hall had apparently had enough.
The sign read "Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah" on Monday evening, giving the impression it, or whoever was behind it, was tired of life.
The Ohio Department of Transportation and the police were seemingly unaware of the message.
ODOT said that none of the overhead signs on the interstates seemed to be tampered with and were unaffected. The sign gave no further comment other than "Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah." It is not known what the sign's original message read.

Traveling Through Transylvania With 'Dracula' as a Guide

Luke Spencer went on a quest to trace the steps of Jonathan Harker, the protagonist of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Harker went from Munich to Transylvania to purchase land for a client. While this trip sounds like a fun time, it was also a research project. Bram Stoker never went to Transylvania himself, but he did plenty of research, so Spencer wanted to see how accurate his descriptions were. The first thing he found out was that places that existed (or not) in 1897 aren’t necessarily easy to find today. For one thing, Transylvania is no longer a country, but a region of Romania. And that wasn’t the only name that changed. 

My first stop on the vampire trail was meant to be the Hotel Royale, where Harker stayed the night in the old city of Klausenburg. But looking at an atlas today, there is no city by that name.
Located roughly halfway between Budapest, Hungary, and Bucharest, Romania, the city shed the name Stoker knew it by after World War I, when Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Romania. Today it’s known as Cluj-Napoca, and it’s a bustling, bohemian university town.
The Hotel Royale doesn’t exist today, and maybe it never did. But nestled near the train station is an historic inn that claims to have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker. The Hotel Transilvania, located on Ferdinand Street, is one of the oldest in the city, and has been an inn since the Middles Ages.
When the Klausenburg railway station was built in 1870, the venerable old hotel went by another name, the Queen of England—perhaps a regal sounding inspiration for a Hotel Royale.

That was only the beginning. What he found was charming, and even spooky in parts. Read about the retracing of Dracula at Atlas Obscura.

Tussie-Mussies

Have you ever heard of a tussie-mussie? Spellcheck certainly hasn’t. Before cities had adequate fresh water and sewers, when horses filled the roads, the air was full of the foul smells of body odor and worse. A tussie-mussie was a fancy container that 18th- and 19th-century ladies could carry sweet-smelling flowers in to fight the ambient stench. Collector Irene Deitsch, who wrote Tussie-Mussies: A Collector’s Guide to Victorian Posy Holders, tells us about them.   

In her book, Deitsch organizes her tussie-mussies by their materials—sterling silver, silverplate, gold, ivory, glass, porcelain, mother-of-pearl, straw—as well as their styles—handheld vs. lapel pin, bosom bottle vs. three-legged tripod. While some of these objects may be admired for their beautiful enameling or intricate etching, many are also windows into the courtship customs of privileged young ladies during the Victorian Era, particularly in England. “Some have flirting mirrors on them,” Deitsch says, “so a young women carrying a tussie-mussie could see who was behind her.” Others sport small flat surfaces holding thin sheets of ivory, upon which the names of gentlemen desiring a dance would be written.

Learn more about tussie-mussies and how they were used, and see a gallery of lovely examples, at Collectors Weekly.

Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf is 'retiring'

Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf is 'retiring'

With a Platinum parachute ...

The All-Woman City Council of 1920

The state of Oregon extended the right to vote to women in 1912, eight years before the 19th Amendment guaranteed that right to all American women. In 1920, the small city of Yoncalla, Oregon, elected a woman mayor and put women in all the city council slots. They were prominent citizens already; some were the spouses of the incumbents they replaced. The municipal election became a sensation in the national press.

The story of the women spread: They had held secret meetings, in which they voiced frustration with the current administration. Upset by broken sidewalk planks and misaligned outhouses, they had hatched a plan to run for office themselves. And, because they were elected just two months after women in the United States received the right to vote, their new administration made headlines all the way to the East Coast. Most publications treated it like a coup d’état: “Campaign secretly organized,” Morning Oregonian declared; “Sex uprising in Yoncalla,” asserted The New York Times.

The real story behind the election of five women is murkier. Local sources believe that the previous council just gave up their part-time unpaid jobs to let the women give it a try. The women, who were used to unpaid work, set out to fix the town’s problems. Read about the all-woman Yoncalla city council at the Atlantic.

Veterans Live in More Diverse Neighborhoods than Civilian Counterparts

Veterans Live in More Diverse Neighborhoods than Civilian Counterparts

When members of the U.S. military leave the service, they tend to settle in neighborhoods with greater overall diversity than their civilian counterparts of the same race, according to a new study by a UConn sociologist published in the November edition of the journal...

Racist pilot has passenger removed from United flight because he's ‘uncomfortable’ with her hat

Racist pilot has passenger removed from United flight because he's ‘uncomfortable’ with her hat

Secret Nazi cabal uncovered after Colorado teen kills himself to prove his commitment to killing Jews

Secret Nazi cabal uncovered after Colorado teen kills himself to prove his commitment to killing Jews

One cabal member wrote, “You can hang Jews on trees, shoot them right in the knees. Gas as many as you please.”

Pennsylvania youth pastor demands divorce after raping and impregnating 15-year-old girl

Pennsylvania youth pastor demands divorce after raping and impregnating 15-year-old girl

Wesley Ryan Blackburn, who served until last week as youth pastor at Faith Brethren Bible Cult in New Paris, was charged with 84 felony counts of statutory sexual assault, 84 misdemeanor counts of indecent assault and one felony count of corruption of minors.

Pennsylvania Cult Demonstrates How To Deal With A Child-Molesting Pastor

While many cults defend pastors who have raped or molested children in their congregations, a cult in Pennsylvania is showing them what doing the right thing looks like.

Continue Reading 

Teacher accused of distracting cashier while student stole case of beer

A teacher from Reston, Virginia, has been arrested along with a student from her school after they were caught on surveillance camera stealing a case of beer from a gas station, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
Police arrested Fabiana Alicia Ciammaichella, 30, of Reston, who is a Spanish teacher at South Lakes High School, as well as a sophomore from the school, 18-year-old Adelmo Ernesto Arias Guillen, also of Reston. Both face drug, alcohol and larceny charges.
Police say that on Monday at around 11pm, video footage shows Ciammaichella distracting a cashier while Guillen steals a case of beer and then leaves. Ciammaichella followed soon afterwards, picking up Guillen in her car and then driving away, the police report states.
Police later found Ciammaichella at her home along with Guillen, the stolen beer and a "variety of illegal narcotics," the report notes. "Fairfax County Public School officials are aware of this incident and have suspended Ciammaichella," the report adds.

Man arrested after shooting at 'zombie' and nearly striking a man asleep in his home

A man from North St. Paul, Minnesota, has been arrested after a bullet he allegedly intended to take out a zombie ended up nearly striking a man asleep in his home. Police who were summoned at about 5am on Saturday were told by the resident he was awakened by a gunshot and the sound of glass breaking in his room. Investigators determined the bullet had entered through a window, ricocheted near the head of the man’s bed, and struck a second wall.
Just outside the residence, police noted 24-year-old Ryan Mathew Stanislaw walking with an AR-15 rifle slung over his neck. “I’m out here making sure my neighborhood is safe,” he told officers, allegedly smelling of alcohol. “I didn’t see the cops, so I figured I’d do something.” Stanislaw told police that he was shooting at “a zombie” up the road.
His rifle was taken. It had green-tipped Hornady .223-calibre bullets, which are marketed as zombie-killing bullets. "Each round is loaded with a special, neon green, polymer-tipped Z-Max bullet that delivers devastating expansion and was specifically designed for zombie elimination." The complaint says that Stanislaw’s mother claimed he had no history of mental illness. He had been convicted of making terroristic threats in Ramsey County last month.

Man arrested for DUI used a pig's ear in attempt to deceive alcohol monitor

A man from Alberton, Montana, arrested on Friday and charged with what would be his eighth DUI allegedly put a pig’s ear and a piece of buckskin between his leg and an alcohol monitoring bracelet to avoid detection. John Walker Jr., 45, made his initial appearance in Missoula County Justice Court on Tuesday on his latest felony charge. According to a court affidavit, a sheriff’s deputy was called to Interstate 90 near Huson on Friday after receiving a report of a man passed out in the driver’s seat of his truck. When the officer knocked on the window, Walker woke up. The deputy said he had difficulty speaking, his eyes were watery and he smelled of alcohol. Walker made conflicting claims about where he was going to or coming from and admitted to drinking earlier in the day, the affidavit said. The deputy reported there were several empty beer cans and something that appeared to be a liquor bottle in the truck. Walker was unable to stand and refused to participate in two field sobriety tests. He also refused to provide a breath sample. The officer obtained a warrant to collect a blood sample.
In court on Tuesday, deputy county attorney Brittany Santorno asked for a $25,000 bail for Walker, adding that he had allegedly been wearing an alcohol monitoring bracelet at the time of his arrest, put there after a previous DUI charge. Santorno said Walker had placed a pig’s ear and a piece of buckskin between his leg and the sensor to prevent it from detecting alcohol in his system. According to a court affidavit, Walker has six prior DUI convictions dating back to 1995. He also has a seventh open felony DUI case in Missoula County after being arrested in August 2015.
In that case, a person called 911 after allegedly seeing Walker vomit on himself and pass out in his vehicle. He pleaded guilty to the felony DUI in June. On Tuesday, public defense attorney Johnna Sutton asked for a $5,000 bail, saying Walker was set to be sentenced on his 2015 offense soon and didn’t want a larger bail to hold him from going to treatment at the Department of Corrections. Acting Justice of the Peace Darla Keck set a $50,000 bail, twice the amount the prosecutor had requested, saying she found the thought Walker put into avoiding detection 'unbelievable.' “I think that the safety of the public is paramount,” she said.

Plant diversity could provide natural repellent for crop pests

Plant diversity could provide natural repellent for crop pests

A new study has unveiled why a field with a variety of plants seems to attract fewer plant-eating insects than farm land with just one type of crop. Scientists and farmers have puzzled over this pattern that makes protecting crops from pests a challenge. Research...

Dinosaurs couldn’t sing

Dinosaurs couldn’t sing

The oldest-known vocal organ of a bird has been found in an Antarctic fossil that is related to ducks and geese and lived during the age of the dinosaurs, more than 66 million years ago. The discovery of the Mesozoic Era vocal organ -- called a syrinx -- and its...

Animal Pictures