"You cannot wake up someone who is only pretending to be asleep”--political proverb
Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 on a mission to send back images of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere and volcanic eruptions on one of its moons, Io. Then it was due to travel on to Saturn to examine that planet's intricate system of rings and moons. 36 years later no one is sure where it is but studies suggest it is beyond heliosphere-produced particles and within galactic cosmic rays from outside the solar system. That is, it has left our solar system.
Debbie Macomber, an author The Sacramento Bee has dubbed "the reigning queen of women's fiction," has 170 million books in print but rarely is reviewed.
In 1602, printer James Robertes entered this in the Stationers' Register: "A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." This was a stolen play, before copy-write.
Procrustes: noun: A person imposing conformity without concern for individuality. Etymology: After Procrustes, a giant in Greek mythology, who stretched or cut his victims to make them fit his bed. He was killed by Theseus. From Greek Procroustes (stretcher). The word is more often used in its adjective form Procrustean. Earliest documented use: 1581.
A "large number" of Americans had their telephone calls accidentally intercepted by the NSA when a top secret order to eavesdrop on multiple phone lines for reasons of national security confused the international code for Egypt (20) with the area code for Washington (202) according to WashPo.
Who was....Edward Carl "Eddie" Gaedel?
More than two-thirds of those released from prison are rearrested within three years of release, and 42% of parolees return to prison or jail within 24 months of their release.
"...what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another." ---Walter Williams
Al Jazeera bought CurrentTV for $500 million. It has seemingly limitless financing from an energy-rich government and a staff of 900, including 400 newsroom employees. It is one of the most significant investments in television journalism in modern times.
Chester Himes, "the father of black American crime writing," wrote the "Harlem Domestic" novels featuring the detectives "Coffin" Ed Jones and "Gravedigger" Johnston. Absurdity and racism characterizes many of his books. He learned to write in prison (armed robbery after failing out of Ohio State) where he saw one convict murdered for not passing the bread, two who killed each other over whether Paris was in France or France in Paris. He was responsible for the accidental blinding of his teenage brother and never escaped the guilt.
Susan Sontag thought homosexuals and Jews had a common political nature. As traditional outsiders in Western culture the artistic and political agendas they pursue are means of emancipation and integration. With their liberalism, “Jews pinned their hopes for integrating into modern society on promoting the moral sense.” With Camp "Homosexuals have pinned their hopes for integrating into society on promoting the aesthetic sense.”
The poet John Hollander has died. The poet J. D. McClatchy told the Times, "It is said of a man like John Hollander that when he dies it is like the burning of the library at Alexandria."
Hawking writes in "A Brief History of Time" that "scientific determinism" means "something that will happen in the future can be predicted." Many argue that mysteries that do not conform to this idea are just a result of our own error or primitive technology. The concept of radioactivity gives a good insight into the question: "All uranium found on earth is thought to have been synthesized during a supernova explosion that occurred roughly 5 billion years ago. Even before the laws of quantum mechanics were developed to their present level, the radioactivity of such elements has posed a challenge to determinism due to its unpredictability. One gram of uranium-238, a commonly occurring radioactive substance, contains some 2.5 x 1021 atoms. Each of these atoms are identical and indistinguishable according to all tests known to modern science. Yet about 12600 times a second, one of the atoms in that gram will decay, giving off an alpha particle. The challenge for determinism is to explain why and when decay occurs, since it does not seem to depend on external stimulus. Indeed, no extant theory of physics makes testable predictions of exactly when any given atom will decay. At best scientists can discover determined probabilities in the form of the element's half life."--wiki
Another important man of letters has died as well, black jazz critic, essayist and novelist Albert Murry. A vocal opponent of black separatism, he argued in his seminal 1970 book The Omni-Americans that in the United States, black and white were permanently intertwined, and that "American culture, even in its most rigidly segregated precincts ... is incontestably mulatto."
Golden Oldie:
The Bill of Rights was actually an afterthought. The Federalists opposed the idea because they feared it would paralyze the government and was unneeded as the government had no king, only those prerogatives surrendered by the people. The anti-Federalists were more numerous and worried about possible abuse. James Madison, a Federalist, had been against a Bill of Rights, but in his hard-fought electoral campaign for the House of Representatives in the winter of 1788-1789, had made a public pledge, if elected, to work in the Congress for the adoption of a bill of rights. Jefferson supported it from France. When Madison was elected, he campaigned for the legislation and his prestige carried the day.
Jim Lacey of the Marine Corps War College notes that Gen. David Petraeus has said there are perhaps about 100 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. 'Did anyone,' Lacey asks, 'do the math?' There are, he says, more than 140,000 coalition soldiers in Afghanistan, or 1,400 for every al-Qaida fighter. It costs about $1 million a year to deploy and support every soldier — or up to $140 billion, or close to $1.5 billion a year, for each al-Qaida fighter.
'In what universe do we find strategists to whom this makes sense?'"
AAAaaaaaannnnddddd..........Miss America 1924:
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