The Daily Drift

Welcome to Today's Edition of  
Carolina Naturally

Tonight also happens to be Howl at the Moon Night ...! 

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.   

  
Mules Rule ... !

Today is - Mule Day

 You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Antigua - Argentina - Aruba - Bahamas - Barbados - Belize - Bolivia - Brazil - Canada - Chile  Colombia - Costa Rica - Dominican Republic- Ecuador - El Salvador - French Guiana - Guatemala Haiti - Honduras - Jamaica - Mexico - Nicaragua - Paraguay - Peru - Puerto Rico
Sint Eustatius and Saba - Sint Maartin - Trinidad and Tobago - Turks and Caicos - United States  Uruguay - Venezuela - Virgin Islands
Europe
Albania - Armenia - Austria - Belarus - Belgium - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia  Cyprus -  Czech Republic - Denmark - England - Estonia - Finland - France - Georgia - Germany Greece -  Hungary - Iceland - Ireland - Isle of Mann - Italy - Jersey - Latvia - Lithuania - Macedonia  Malta - Moldova - Monaco - Montenegro - Netherlands - Northern Ireland - Norway - Poland Portugal - Romania - Russia - San Marino - Scotland - Serbia - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden  Switzerland - Turkey - Ukraine - Wales
Asia
Afghanistan - Azerbaijan - Bangladesh - Brunei - Burma - Cambodia - China - Hong Kong - India  Indonesia  Iran - Iraq - Israel - Japan - Jordan - Kazakhstan - Korea -  Lebanon - Malaysia - Mauritius
Mongolia - Nepal - Oman - Pakistan - Plestine - Saudi Arabia - Singapore - Sri Lanka - Taiwan Thailand - Tibet - United Arab Emirates - Uzbekistan - Vietnam - Yemen
Africa
Algeria - Chad - Congo - Egypt - Ethiopia - Ivory Coast - Kenya - Libya - Madagascar - Morocco  Mozambique - Nigeria - South Africa - Sudan - Tunisia - Zambia - Zimbabwe
The Pacific
Australia - French Polynesia - Guam - Marshall Islands - New Zealand - Papua New Guinea Philippines

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1774		The first Continental Congress, which protested British measures and called for civil disobedience, concludes in Philadelphia.
1795		General Paul Barras resigns his commission as head of France’s Army of the Interior to become head of the Directory; his second-in-command becomes the army’s commander—Napoleon Bonaparte.
1825		The first boat on the Erie Canal leaves Buffalo, N.Y.
1881		Three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday have a shootout with the Clantons and McLaurys at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
1905		Norway signs a treaty of separation with Sweden. Norway chooses Prince Charles of Denmark as the new king; he becomes King Haakon VII.
1918		Germany’s supreme commander, General Erich Ludendorff, resigns, protesting the terms to which the German Government has agreed in negotiating the armistice. This sets the stage for his later support for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, who claim that Germany did not lose the war on the battlefield but were “stabbed in the back” by politicians.
1942		Japanese attack Guadalcanal, sinking two U.S. carriers.
1942		The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Hornet is sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz Island, in the South Pacific.
1950		A reconnaissance platoon for a South Korean division reaches the Yalu River. They are the only elements of the U.N. force to reach the river before the Chinese offensive pushes the whole army down into South Korea.
1955		The Village Voice is first published, backed in part by Norman Mailer.
1955		Ngo Dinh Diem declares himself Premier of South Vietnam.
1957		The Russian government announces that Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the nation’s most prominent military hero, has been relieved of his duties as Minister of Defense. Khrushchev accuses Zhukov as promoting his own “cult of personality” and sees him as a threat to his own popularity.
1958		The first New York – Paris transatlantic jet passenger service is inaugurated by Pan Am, while the first New York – London transatlantic jet passenger service is inaugurated by BOAC.
1967		Mohammad Reza Pahlavi crowns himself Emperor of Iran and his wife Farah as empress.
1970		Garry Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury first appears.
1979		The President of South Korea, Park Chung-hee, is asssasinated by Kim Jae-kyu, head of the country’s Central intelligence Agency; Choi Kyu-ha is named acting president.
1994		Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty.
2001		The USA PATRIOT Act is signed into law by Pres. George W. Bush, greatly expanding intelligence and legal agencies’ ability to utilize wiretaps, records searches and surveillance.
2002		Russian Spetsnaz storm the Moscow Theatre, where Chechen terrorists had taken the audience and performers hostage three days earlier; 50 terrorists and 150 hostages die in the assault.

The First Known Depiction of a Witch on a Broomstick

The first time a witch rode a broom in popular culture could have been in the illustrations of a book published in 1451. French poet Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (The Defender of Ladies) shows two women flying with sticks between their legs, although only one is clearly a broom. At least, that is the oldest evidence we have of the legend of witches flying on brooms.

According to Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700: A Documentary History, edited by University of Pennsylvania history professors Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters, Le Champion des Dames has “the first such illustration in the pictorial history of witchcraft.” Le Franc’s long poem about virtuous women is interrupted by a discussion of witchcraft, and the covered heads of the two women marks them as Waldensians. This Christian movement emerged in the 12th-century. With its tenet that any member could be a priest, even a woman, and perform sacraments and preach, the bloody ire of the Catholic Church soon followed. That these heretics would also meddle with the supernatural was not a leap, but why the broomstick?

What people said about witches and what they did with their brooms is pretty suggestive, if not downright prurient. Read more about witches and their brooms at Hyperallergic. Link contains some art nudity.

Treasure Hunting at Italy's Premier Antiques Fair

Lisa Hix and Hunter Oatman-Stanford of Collectors Weekly went to Mercanteinfiera in Parma. It’s the largest antique fair in Italy, a country where antiques for sale can be several hundred years old. Over a thousand vendors filled the 45,000 square meter market space, selling goods with classic names like Murano glass, Fiat race cars, Fornasetti porcelain, and even reliquaries containing pieces of saints. 

For first-time attendees, the fair’s crucial first two days can be a bit of a shock. “It’s like the Tsukiji Fish Market in Japan,” explained Iacopo Napoli, one of Mercanteinfiera’s project managers. “People wake up early in order to be there first, in order to grab the best pieces.” And grab they do, which is why Clark Haines believes serious buyers need a savvy local at their side, like her Diva Guides.
“In Italy, to get a good price, you have to have a conversation forever,” Clark Haines says. “As an American, when I want a price, I say, ‘How much is it? Will you take a better price?’ Deal done. That’s it—three seconds. But that’s not how you get the best price in Italy. For an Italian, before you even ask how much it is, you ask eight other questions about the piece. You’ve talked about the history, you know where it came from, you know what it does. You’ve talked about the vendor, where the vendor’s from, what the vendor had for dinner, what the vendor’s sister ate for dinner, is eating tomorrow for dinner, and then you discuss the price. It’s all about the conversation.”

Take a virtual tour of Mercanteinfiera and see plenty of pictures at Collectors Weekly.

Top secret Nazi military base discovered near the North Pole

Top secret Nazi military base discovered near the North Pole

Four Science

1. In September, skeletons of Asian ancestry were discovered in a Roman Britain burial site.
2. Footprint of a titanosaur.

3. Opposition to Galileo was not just religious - it was also scientific.
4. A map (and discussion thread) of the 14 drill holes in Mars made by Curiosity.

Climate Change and Our Shared Planet

Beyond Debate: Climate Change and Our Shared Planet

Climate change is the greatest threat to life as we know it. It is the most urgent and important issue of our day.…

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

1. Canities subita is the medical term for hair turning white overnight.

2. The benefits of going bald.  "While the bald and balding men were not considered as physically attractive as the other men, one category of scores was far higher. The men were consistently rated as more intelligent, influential, knowledgeable, well-educated, high social status, honest and helpful – traits collectively known as social maturity."  (and there's more...)

Is Your Office Tech Making You Sick?

Is Your Office Tech Making You Sick?

A Couple of US Stories

1. Forbes Magazine released its annual list of the 400 richest Americans, a record 42 of whom are immigrants.
(Ouch, that's got to hurt, doesn't it, wingnuts?!)

2. "The U.S.’s largest pneumonic plague outbreak in nearly a century has been identified, and it all started with a sick dog... The CDC also found that one of the cases may have resulted from human-to-human transmission, something that hasn’t happened in the States since 1924."

Greedy relatives want to evict gay man from home after partner of 55 years dies

They were only ‘friends’: Greedy relatives want to evict gay man from home after partner of 55 years dies

“In 1961, we heard about this garden apartment on Horatio St. It was the Meat Market back then. Trucks would roll up the street and bones would fall off the back. The landlord was asking $95 a month and we took it.”

Victory For Reproductive Rights As Wingnut Abortion Restrictions Get Scrapped in Virginia

Victory For Reproductive Rights As Wingnut Abortion Restrictions Get Scrapped in Virginia

In an 11 to 4 vote, the board scrapped Virginia's regulations which would have required abortion clinics to adhere to the same regulations as surgical centers.…

Straight Girls Do Kiss on Campus, but What About Those Who Don't Go to College?

Straight Girls Do Kiss on Campus, but What About Those Who Don't Go to College?

Why men harass women

Why men harass women: It isn't just about sex

Woman publicly shames alleged plane groper after police dismiss it as ‘not the crime of the century’

Woman publicly shames alleged plane groper after police dismiss it as ‘not the crime of the century’

Unfortunately for Lenarsky and other women, complaints of sexual harassment, groping and even sexual assault are still not taken seriously, even by law enforcement.

Man gets just 10 days in jail after throwing a woman off a balcony after she refused sex with him

Man gets just 10 days in jail after throwing a woman off a balcony after she refused sex with him

24-year-old Wesley Dylan Marshall will serve less than two weeks in jail after he angrily pushed a 19-year-old woman from a second-story balcony.

Suspected drunk driver arrested after crashing into fire truck and medical helicopter

McKinley County Sheriffs Office deputies responded to a crash early on Sunday morning after a suspected drunk driver crashed into a medical helicopter and a fire truck on Highway 566 near Gallup in New Mexico.
Deputies say a landing zone for a medical transport helicopter had been set up by the fire department for transport of a patient from a separate crash on Navajo route 1149, when the reported drunk driver went around the barricade on Highway 566 crashing into the helicopter and fire truck.
The helicopter was unoccupied, not running and rotors were not spinning, according to McKinely County Sheriff’s Office. McKinley County sheriff’s say the suspected drunk driver, identified as 26-year-old Glenn Livingston of Gallup, has been arrested.

YouTube link.

He faces several charges, including aggravated DWI, driving with an open container of alcohol inside his car and resisting, evading and or obstructing an officer. No injuries were reported at the time of the crash. The patient made it safely to the hospital. MCSO says all vehicles involved were rendered inoperable and towed from the crash scene.

Snake appears to sport sunglasses and a mustache

A snake spotted in north Texas appears to look like it's wearing a pair of sunglasses and sport a mustache.

The unique scale pattern belongs to a Western rat snake, a nonvenomous species of snake found throughout North America.
The pictures, which were given to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department by Karlie Gray, were posted on the agency's Twitter account.

The rodent-eating reptile is also known as the black rat snake and pilot black snake.

A Pair of Animals

1. Police have issued an appeal for information about why a chicken was seen crossing the road in Dundee.

2. "Almost half of a 50-strong herd of cows in western France ate themselves to death after chomping on the equivalent of a whole winter’s rations in just one night."

Animal Pictures