Author: Michael Falkner

The Thing About Today – February 5

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February 5, 2020
Day 36 of 366

 

February 5th is the thirty-sixth day of the year. It is Constitution Day in Mexico and Crown Princess Mary’s birthday in Denmark.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Shower with a Friend Day, National Weatherperson’s Day, World Nutella Day, and National Girls and Women in Sports Day. The last one is typically observed on the first Wednesday in February.

Shower with a Friend Day reminds me of one of my dad’s sayings during my childhood: “Save water and shower with a steady.”

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 62 AD, the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were severely damaged by strong earthquake. Some consider it a precursor event to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which destroyed the same towns seventeen years later.
  • In 1807, the ship of the line HMS Blenheim and the frigate HMS Java disappeared off the coast of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean.
  • In 1852, the New Hermitage Museum opened to the public in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world.
  • In 1913, Greek military aviators Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis performed the first naval air mission in history. The mission was flown with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane.
  • In 1917, the current constitution of Mexico was adopted. It established a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
  • In 1918, Stephen W. Thompson shot down a German airplane during World War I. It was the first aerial victory by the United States military.
  • Also in 1918, the luxury liner SS Tuscania was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by German U-boat UB-77. It was carrying 384 crew 2,013 United States Army personnel. About 210 troops and crew were lost in the attack, making the Tuscania the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
  • In 1919, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launched United Artists.
  • In 1921, British film production designer Ken Adam was born.
  • In 1924, the Royal Greenwich Observatory began broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC Pips”.
  • In 1934, American baseball player Hank Aaron was born. He held the career home run record for thirty-three years, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, and holds front office roles with his home team, the Atlanta Braves.
  • In 1941, actor, producer, and screenwriter Stephen J. Cannell was born. His creations include The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, and The Commish.
  • In 1943, Nolan Bushnell was born. An American engineer and businessman, he founded Atari, Inc.
  • In 1944, the Captain America serial premiered. It was the most expensive serial that Republic Pictures ever made. It was also the first theatrical release connected to a Marvel character and would hold that status for more than 40 years.
  • In 1958, a hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb was lost by the United States Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. It was never recovered.
  • In 1971, astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell from the Apollo 14 mission successfully landed on the lunar surface.
  • In 1988, Manuel Noriega was indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

 

In 1940, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer H. R. Giger was born.

Giger was well-known for his stylistic images of humans and machines connected in biomechanical relationships. He was part of the special effects team for 1979’s Alien, which won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

His design for the titular xenomorphic alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II continued to propel his international recognition, as well as his frequent publication in Omni magazine. He was admitted to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013.

Giger’s work has been seen on several recording albums as well as several films. Aside from the Alien franchise, he worked on an unproduced version of Dune, Poltergeist II, Species, Future-Kill, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, and an unused version of the Batmobile from Batman Forever. He also directed several films.

Giger died on May 12, 2014, after suffering injuries in a fall. His work is on permanent display at the H.R. Giger Museum at the Saint-Germain Castle in Gruyères, Switzerland, which he acquired in 1998.

On 11 July 2018, the asteroid 109712 Giger was named in his memory.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 4

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February 4, 2020
Day 35 of 366

 

February 4th is the thirty-fifth day of the year. It is World Cancer Day, a day to raise awareness of the disease and encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Create a Vacuum Day, National Hemp Day, National Homemade Soup Day, National Thank a Mail Carrier Day, and Safer Internet Day. The last one is typically observed on the first Tuesday in February.

National Soup Day, eh? Perhaps it is a good day to experiment with my Zuppa Toscana recipe, especially since today is the approximate midpoint of the season.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1454, during the Thirteen Years’ War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sent a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.
  • In 1703, all but one of the Forty-Seven Rōnin committed seppuku (ritual suicide) in Edo (now known as Tokyo) as recompense for avenging their master’s death. The forty-seventh rōnin, Terasaka Kichiemon, eventually returned from his mission and was pardoned by the shōgun.
  • In 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
  • In 1846, the first Mormon pioneers began their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Salt Lake Valley.
  • In 1861, delegates from six break-away U.S. states met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate States of America. Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens would later describe the new republic’s ideology as being centrally based “upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”
  • In 1902, pilot and explorer Charles Lindbergh was born.
  • In 1906, Clyde Tombaugh was born. He was the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930.
  • In 1920, voice actor Janet Waldo was born. Among other roles, she was Judy in The Jetsons and Josie in Josie and the Pussycats.
  • In 1940, George A. Romero, director of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, was born.
  • In 1941, the United Service Organization (USO) was created to entertain American troops.
  • In 1948, Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) became independent within the British Commonwealth.
  • In 1952, Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, became the vice president and director of personnel for Chock full o’Nuts. That made him the first African-American vice president of a major American corporation.
  • In 1970, Patton premiered in New York City. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1971.
  • In 2004, Facebook was founded.

 

In 1913, American civil rights activist Rosa Parks was born. She was known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott and has become known as the “the mother of the freedom movement”.

Around the turn of the 20th century, former Confederate states adopted new laws that disenfranchised black voters. Jim Crow laws also imposed racial segregation upon public facilities, retail stores, and public transportation in the American South. To that end, buses had separate seating sections for black customers and white customers, and whites took priority.

In 1932, Rosa married Montgomery barber Raymond Parks. At that time, the NAACP was collecting funds to support the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women. In 1943, Rosa Parks became active in the civil rights movement and joined the NAACP where she served as secretary until 1957. One day, she boarded a bus and paid the fare, but was forced to disembark by driver James F. Blake and enter the bus again using the back door per city rules. When she complied, Blake drove off and left her stranded in the rain.

Around 1944, she held a job at Maxwell Air Force Base, which was not segregated since it was federal property. She worked as a seamstress afterward, finally succeeding at being listed on voter rolls (on her third try due to heavy discrimination) in 1945.

On March 2, 1955, Claudette Colvin was arrested for failing to surrender her bus seat to a white man. Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School and a member of the NAACP Youth Council, of which Parks was an advisor. Preceding this event, several others had attempted sit-in protests on buses, including Bayard Rustin, Irene Morgan, Lillie Mae Bradford, and Sarah Louise Keyes. Colvin was followed by Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith.

In August 1955, teenager Emmett Till was brutally murdered after reportedly flirting with a white woman in Mississippi. The murderers were acquitted, news that angered and saddened Parks.

All of that led to December 1, 1955. After working all day, Parks boarded the bus, paid her fare, and found an empty seat in the first row of the “colored” section. She did not notice that her driver was James Blake. As more passengers boarded, several white riders were left standing, so Blake moved the “colored” sign behind Parks and demanded that she surrender her seat.

Thinking of Emmett Till, Parks refused. She was arrested and charged with violation of the law.

On the night of her arrest, the Women’s Political Council printed and circulated a flyer through the black community. The following morning, the idea of boycotts started to circulate at a meeting led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Effectively, if the black community did not ride, the buses could not afford to operate. The Montgomery bus boycott began on December 5, 1955 with coordination and support throughout the black community. The boycott wasn’t resolved until December 20, 1956, and eventually led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

After the boycott, Parks moved to Detroit and continued as an activist and organizer for the rest of her life. After retirement, she continued to insist that the struggle for justice was not over. She received national recognition, including the NAACP’s 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. She was the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda after her death in 2005, becoming the third of only four Americans to ever receive this honor.

Rosa Parks’s life was so much more than the historical eye-blink that was that night on the bus. She was a strong woman who fought for the right in everything she did. She published her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, in 1992. She also published a memoir about her faith, Quiet Strength, in 1995. You owe it to yourself to learn about this amazing woman’s entire life and legacy.

In her honor, four states observe Rosa Parks Day. Ohio and Oregon commemorate her bravery on December 1st, but California and Missouri pay their respects on February 4th, the anniversary of her birthday.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 3

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February 3, 2020
Day 34 of 366

 

February 3rd is the thirty-fourth day of the year. It is Setsubun in Japan, the day before the beginning of spring.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Carrot Cake Day, National Missing Persons Day, National Women Physicians Day, and National Football Hangover Day. That last one is typically commemorated on the day after the “Big Game”. You know, the “Superb Owl.” The football championship event that was held yesterday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

Don’t sue me, National Football League. </sarcasm>

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1690, the colony of Massachusetts issued the first paper money in the Americas.
  • In 1783, Spain recognized the independence of the United States during the American Revolutionary War.
  • In 1809, German pianist, composer, and conductor Felix Mendelssohn was born.
  • In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.
  • In 1894, American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell was born.
  • In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
  • In 1917, during World War I, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. This was two days after Germany declared a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
  • In 1938, actor Victor Buono was born. He played King Tut on the 1966 Batman television series.
  • In 1956, actor and comedian Nathan Lane was born.
  • In 1961, the United States Air Force began Operation Looking Glass. For the next thirty years, a “Doomsday Plane” was always in the air with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers and missiles if the Strategic Air Command command post was lost.
  • In 1965, actress and producer Maura Tierney was born.
  • In 1966, the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 9 vehicle became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon. It was also the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon.
  • In 1970, actor and screenwriter Warwick Davis was born. He’s appeared in Willow and pretty much every Star Wars film since 1983.
  • In 1994, Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Space Shuttle as mission STS-60 (Discovery) was launched.
  • In 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 (Discovery) was launched.

 

Today is commemorated as The Day the Music Died.

In 1959, Buddy Holly and his band – consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch – were on the “Winter Dance Party” tour in the American Midwest. They were joined by rising stars Ritchie Valens, J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Dion and the Belmonts.

The long travel stretches between venues was a killer for the artists, including cases of flu and frostbite on the cold and uncomfortable tour buses. After their performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly decided to charter a plane for the next leg of their journey. As fate played out, Richardson (afflicted with the flu) took Jennings’s seat on the plane and Valens won his seat after beating Allsup in a coin toss.

Soon after takeoff, radio contact was lost with the plane. When the plane did not reach Moorhead, Minnesota, it was reported missing. It was eventually found in a cornfield six miles northwest of the departure airport. The investigation revealed that poor weather conditions and pilot error contributed to the accident.

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson were killed in the crash.

Buddy Holly’s wife, María Elena, learned of her husband’s death via a television news report. They had been married for only six months, and she suffered a miscarriage shortly afterward. This led to the policy of not disclosing victims’ names until family members had been notified.

Fans make pilgrimages to Clear Lake, Iowa every year to pay their respects. An annual memorial concert is also held at the Surf Ballroom.

In 1971, Don McLean released his hit single “American Pie”, which was written in the late 1960s. It paid tribute to the artists and pilot, commemorated the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation, and served to exorcise his long-running grief over the accident.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 2

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February 2, 2020
Day 33 of 366

 

February 2nd is the thirty-third day of the year. It is Inventor’s Day in Thailand and World Wetlands Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Heavenly Hash Day and National Tater Tot Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1645, the combined army of Scottish Royalist Highlanders and Confederate Irish troops under James Graham, Lord Montrose destroyed the pursuing forces of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll during the Scottish Civil War. This would become known as the Battle of Inverlochy.
  • In 1653, New Amsterdam was incorporated. It would later become the City of New York.
  • In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the two-year-long Mexican-American War.
  • In 1850, Brigham Young declared war on the Timpanogos Tribe at the Battle of Fort Utah. The Timpanogos people had initially tolerated the settlers, the remnants of the Nauvoo Legion, but after three Mormons murdered a Timpanogos man known as Old Bishop followed by a hard winter where the tribe took 50 cattle from the Mormons, the war was declared. The Mormons killed 100 Timpanogos people, including Chief Old Elk’s tribe and other tribes that had no hostile history with the Mormons.
  • In 1901, the funeral for Queen Victoria was held.
  • In 1913, Grand Central Station was opened in New York City.
  • In 1922, Ulysses by James Joyce was published.
  • In 1925, dog sleds transporting a much-needed diphtheria serum reached Nome, Alaska. The serum was transported 674 miles across the Alaska Territory by 20 mushers and 150 sled dogs in five and a half days. The lead dog on the final sled was the famous Balto, but the true hero was lead dog Togo who covered 260 miles. The serum run inspired the Iditarod race.
  • In 1940, Frank Sinatra made his first public appearance with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in Indianapolis.
  • In 1942, the Osvald Group organized the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway. It was a protest against the inauguration of the traitor Vidkun Quisling.
  • In 1943, during World War II, the Battle of Stalingrad came to a close as Soviet troops accepted the surrender of German troops in the city.
  • In 1947, actress and producer Farrah Fawcett was born.
  • In 1949, actor and singer Brent Spiner was born.
  • In 1954, actress and businesswoman Christie Brinkley was born.
  • In 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower hosted the first presidential new conference on network television. It aired on ABC.
  • In 2005, the Government of Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act. When this legislation became law on July 20, 2005, it legalized same-sex marriage in the country.

 

In 1887, Groundhog Day was first observed in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

The tradition derives from a Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog or woodchuck emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, the animal will retreat to its den to weather six more weeks of winter. Conversely, if it doesn’t see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early. The lore was brought from a German-speaking heritage where a badger is the prognosticator and may spring from a tradition where clear weather on the Christian holy day of Candlemas forbodes a prolonged winter.

There is no scientific basis for this superstition.

Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania houses the most famous weather-rodent in the world, named Punxsutawney Phil. Every year, top hat and tuxedo-clad members of the Inner Circle awaken Phil from his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob and “speak” to the groundhog through a “mystical” ancient acacia wood cane. The entire show depends on a light-hearted suspension of disbelief, including the mythology that Phil has lived to make these predictions since 1886, sustained by drinks of “groundhog punch” and “elixir of life”. In reality, groundhogs only live for about six years.

Other locations have similar celebrations and observations:

  • Quarryville, PA: The Slumbering Groundhog Lodge, which was formed in 1907, uses a stuffed woodchuck in their observation. It used to be a contending rival to Punxsutawney’s event.
  • Southeastern Pennsylvania: Several Groundhog Lodges (Grundsow Lodges) celebrate the holiday with fersommlinge, Pennsylvania Dutch social events in which food is served, speeches are made, and one or more g’spiel (plays or skits) are performed for entertainment. Only the Pennsylvania German dialect is spoken at the event and those who speak English pay a small penalty per word spoken.
  • Sun Prairie, WI: The self-proclaimed “Groundhog Capital of the World” in response to a slight in a 1952 Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper article that described the location as a “remote two cow village buried somewhere in the wilderness.”
  • New York: Staten Island Chuck is the official weather-forecasting woodchuck for New York City, and Dunkirk Dave is the local groundhog for Western New York. Dunkirk Dave is handled by Bob Will, a typewriter repairman who runs a rescue shelter for groundhogs.
  • Raleigh, NC: Sir Walter Wally headlines the annual event at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
  • Washington, D.C.: Potomac Phil, another stuffed critter, is the focus of the Dupont Circle Groundhog Day event.
  • Liliburn, GA: General Beauregard Lee makes predictions for Butts County.
  • Irving, TX: The University of Dallas has boasted of hosting the second largest Groundhog celebration in the world.
  • Alaska: Groundhog Day has been replaced by Marmot Day, a celebration of the creature and Alaskan culture.
  • Wiarton, Ontario has Wiarton Willie, Nova Scotia has Shubenacadie Sam (the first Groundhog Day prediction in North America), and Quebec has Fred la marmotte of Val-d’Espoir.
  • Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Samara, Russia all got in on the celebration as well in 2017.

Of course, the most popular representation of the celebration is 1993’s Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray portrays a weatherman who visits Punxsutawney and ends up trapped in a time loop. The town was portrayed by Woodstock, Illinois in the film.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 1

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February 1, 2020
Day 32 of 366

 

February 1st is the thirty-second day of the year. It is celebrated as Imbolc, Imbolg, and Saint Brigid’s Day in Ireland and Scotland, as well as among certain neopagan groups. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals – joined with Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain – and marks the beginning of spring between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Baked Alaska Day, National Get Up Day, National Serpent Day, and National Texas Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1884, the first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published. It covered topics from A to Ant.
  • In 1893, Thomas Edison finished construction of the first motion picture studio. It was the Black Maria, located in West Orange, New Jersey.
  • In 1896, Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème premiered in Turin at the Teatro Regio.
  • In 1918, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar.
  • In 1924, the United Kingdom recognized the USSR.
  • In 1942, Voice of America began broadcasting. It was the official external radio and television service of the United States government and broadcasted programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.
  • Also in 1942, actress Bibi Besch was born.
  • In 1946, Elisabeth Sladen was born. She portrayed the iconic Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who.
  • In 1954, actor Billy Mumy was born.
  • In 1960, four black students staged the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
  • In 1964, The Beatles had their first number one hit in the United States: “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.
  • In 1968, Canada’s three military services – the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force – were unified into the Canadian Forces.
  • In 1998, Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne became the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral in the United States Navy.
  • In 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during atmospheric reentry during mission STS-107, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

 

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was not ratified by the states until later, but at this point, the signed resolution passed by Congress made slavery illegal within the United States.

Section 1
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

Major Richard Robert Wright Sr, a former slave and the first African American to serve as a U.S. Army paymaster, believed that there should be a day to celebrate the freedoms of all Americans. He began to formulate this plan and in 1947, one year after his death, Congress passed a bill to make National Freedom Day on February 1st. The official holiday proclamation was signed into law on June 30, 1948, by President Harry Truman.

National Freedom Day was the forerunner to Black History Month.

A precursor to Black History Month was celebrated as early as 1926 when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History proclaimed the second week of February to be “Negro History Week”. This was chosen since it coincided with Abraham Lincoln’s and Frederick Douglass’s birthdays. The thought process boiled down to the concepts of recognition and importance, and while the first celebration was met with a lukewarm response, future celebrations generated a great deal of enthusiasm.

It prompted the creation of black history clubs, an increase in interest among teachers, and interest from progressive whites. It grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.

Black History Month was first proposed by black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University in February 1969, with the first celebration in the following year. Six years later, Black History Month was being celebrated all across the country in educational institutions, centers of Black culture and community centers. President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial in 1976.

In the Bicentennial year of our Independence, we can review with admiration the impressive contributions of black Americans to our national life and culture.

One hundred years ago, to help highlight these achievements, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. We are grateful to him today for his initiative, and we are richer for the work of his organization.

Freedom and the recognition of individual rights are what our Revolution was all about. They were ideals that inspired our fight for Independence: ideals that we have been striving to live up to ever since. Yet it took many years before ideals became a reality for black citizens.

The last quarter-century has finally witnessed significant strides in the full integration of black people into every area of national life. In celebrating Black History Month, we can take satisfaction from this recent progress in the realization of the ideals envisioned by our Founding Fathers. But, even more than this, we can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.

I urge my fellow citizens to join me in tribute to Black History Month and the message of courage and perseverance it brings to all of us.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Culture on My Mind – Star Wars: The Clone Wars

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Culture on My Mind
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
January 31, 2020

This week, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is on my mind.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars fills in the gap between the last two installments of the prequel trilogy. I had a few issues with both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but this series helped to smooth things a bit. It doesn’t make those two films perfect by any means, but it helps. It also gave me Ahsoka Tano, one of my favorite complex characters in the Star Wars mythos.

The show started with a theatrical release of the first few episodes in August 2008. On its own, that movie isn’t particularly good, but the series was phenomenal. It ran from 2008 to 2013 on Cartoon Network, then had a limited revival in 2014 on Netflix. Series supervising director Dave Filoni worked with George Lucas to understand the heart and soul of Star Wars, making this series one of the purest expressions of the franchise in the period between the prequel and sequel trilogies.

If you haven’t had the chance yet, I wholeheartedly recommend the series. If anything, start with the first season, then watch the theatrical movie before proceeding into the rest.

The show finally wraps up with the seventh season, which premieres on Disney+ on February 21, 2020.
cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

The Thing About Today – January 31

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

January 31, 2020
Day 31 of 366

 

January 31st is the thirty-first day of the year. It is Independence Day in the Republic of Nauru, the island nation in Micronesia that gained independence from Australia in 1968.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Backward Day, National Hot Chocolate Day, Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, and National Big Wig Day. The last one is typically observed on the last Friday in January.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1846, after the Milwaukee Bridge War, the towns of Juneautown and Kilbourntown unified to create the City of Milwaukee in Wisconsin.
  • In 1862, Alvan Graham Clark discovered the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius.
  • In 1865, the United States Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery. It was ratified by the states that December.
  • In 1872, Western novelist Zane Grey was born.
  • In 1902, actress Tallulah Bankhead was born.
  • In 1919, Jackie Robinson was born. He was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball during the modern era.
  • In 1930, 3M began marketing Scotch Tape.
  • In 1934, writer Gene DeWeese was born.
  • In 1950, President Harry Truman announced plans to develop the hydrogen bomb.
  • In 1958, Explorer I, the first successful American satellite, detected the Van Allen radiation belt.
  • In 1960, comics writer and screenwriter Grant Morrison was born.
  • In 1971, the Apollo 14 mission launched. Over nine days, astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell successfully conducted scientific experiments and landed on the lunar surface.

 

In 1961, Ham the Chimp traveled into outer space on MR-2, part of Project Mercury. He was the first hominid to travel into space.

Ham’s name was an acronym for the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, the laboratory that prepped him for the mission, located at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. He was also named in honor of the laboratory commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton “Ham” Blackshear.

Ham was born in Cameroon (then known as French Cameroons) in 1957. He was trapped and sent to Florida where he was purchased by the United States Air Force. He ended up at Holloman in 1959. He was selected for the space mission out of a pool of 40 chimpanzees, and he was only known as “No. 65” until he successfully returned to Earth.

The big difference between Ham’s flight and other primate flights to that point was that Ham was not merely a passenger. His solo flight led directly to the Freedom 7 mission by Alan Shepard in 1961. Ham was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 31, 1961 and flew for 16 minutes and 39 seconds. The capsule experienced a partial loss of pressure, but Ham’s flight suit protected him. The only injury was a bruised nose.

Ham transitioned to the National Zoo in Washington, DC where he lived for 17 years. He then retired to the North Carolina Zoo where he died on January 19, 1983.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – January 30

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

January 30, 2020
Day 30 of 366

 

January 30th is the thirtieth day of the year. It begins the commemoration of the Martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi. Related observances include Martyrs’ Day in India, the School Day of Non-violence and Peace in Spain, and the start of the Season for Nonviolence which runs from January 30th to April 4th.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Croissant Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1648, the Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück was signed, ending the Eighty Years’ War between the Netherlands and Spain.
  • In 1703, the Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenged the death of their master by killing Kira Yoshinaka.
  • In 1835, the first assassination against a President of the United States was attempted. Richard Lawrence failed in his attempt to shoot President Andrew Jackson and was subdued by a crowd including several congressmen and the president himself. Lawrence was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his days in asylums.
  • In 1847, Yerba Buena, California was renamed San Francisco, California.
  • In 1862, the first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor was launched.
  • In 1882, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American lawyer and thirty-second President of the United States, was born.
  • In 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.
  • In 1937, actress Vanessa Redgrave was born.
  • In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse.
  • In 1951, musician and Miami Vice staple Phil Collins was born.
  • In 1966, actress Daphne Ashbrook was born. She was a guest star on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and a Doctor Who companion.
  • In 1968, the Tet Offensive (The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968) was launched by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam and served to demoralize the United States forces and public.
  • In 1969, the Beatles staged their last public performance. It was held on the roof of Apple Records in London and was broken up by the police.
  • In 1972, British paratroopers opened fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thirteen people died during the Bloody Sunday event, and another person died later from injuries sustained.
  • In 1974, actress Olivia Colman was born.
  • In 1975, the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary was established as the first United States National Marine Sanctuary.

 

In 1982, the first personal computer virus code was written. It was authored by Richard Skrenta, was 400 lines long, and was disguised as an Apple boot program called “Elk Cloner”.

Elk Cloner spread using the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system using what is now known as a boot sector virus attack. It was attached to a game that, after the 50th time it was started, would blank out the screen and display a simple poem.

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes, it’s Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too

Send in the Cloner!

If the computer was booted from an infected floppy disk, the virus would be copied to the computer’s memory. When an uninfected disk was inserted into the drive, the entire operating system was cloned to the disk, ready for transmittal to the next unsuspecting victim.

Richard Skrenta was a known prankster and wrote the virus as a joke. The virus did not cause deliberate harm, but it did overwrite the reserved tracks of disks without standard images.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW22: Something Borrowed

Michael Falkner3 Comments

Torchwood: Something Borrowed
(1 episode, s02e09, 2008)

 

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something… goo?

Gwen is running late for her bachelorette (hen) party. She was in pursuit of a carnivorous shape-shifter when she was bitten on the arm. Jack shot the creature and Owen tended to her wounds before she went to celebrate.

When she wakes up the next morning, she’s suddenly pregnant. Almost full-term.

Surprise!

Jack and Owen assume that the shape-shifter passed its eggs along in the bite. They have a solution but it requires her to be down for several days. Unfortunately, today is her wedding day. She calls Rhys and tries to explain, putting Rhys into a tailspin.

As Rhys and Gwen try to come to a compromise, the team scrambles to keep the wedding on track while Owen performs a shape-shifter autopsy. Gwen tells Rhys that the wedding is all that matters today, but the question remains as to what to tell the families. They play like it was a planned surprise, but Gwen knows that, with their parents now planning for a grandchild, the news that she lost the child would be devastating.

Tosh arrives with Gwen’s new dress and gets hit on by the best man, but she handles herself like a pro. The women briefly discuss Tosh and Owen’s relationship before Tosh heads back downstairs. Meanwhile, Owen discovers a small problem: The shape-shifter is a Nostrovite, a species that mates for life and hunts in pairs. After fertilization, the female passes the eggs to the male for safekeeping and eventual impregnation. The dead alien’s mate is now hunting Gwen and is working her way through the wedding party.

The Nostrovite has also captured Tosh and best man “Banana Boat” in a black web. The rest of Torchwood Three dispatch to the wedding to tackle the problem.

Gwen continues to get ready for the wedding. To explain the pregnancy, she tells her father about Torchwood, but he doesn’t believe her. Gwen and Rhys get to the altar but Jack bursts in to stop the ceremony.

Owen and Ianto free Tosh and Banana, as well as finding the corpse the Nostrovite mangled earlier. One of the bridesmaids enters the room and, at the site of the corpse, runs away screaming. The bridesmaid tells everyone about the corpse so Jack orders Ianto to jam all of the phone lines.

Jack tells the assembled guests that he’s from Torchwood, surprising Gwen’s father and spooking the alien. Jack and Tosh give chase but lose her. The alien assumes Rhys’s mother’s form and takes Gwen’s mother hostage. Gwen distracts the alien long enough to ambush her, and after the Nostrovite flees, Gwen is rushed back to her room.

Owen, handicapped by his injured hand, briefs Rhys on how to use the singularity scalpel. Meanwhile, Gwen is ambushed by the Nostrovite in Jack’s form. Owen and Gwen empty their magazines into the creature, but it is seemingly unstoppable. Gwen and Rhys run for the stables while Owen faces the shape-shifter. He’s not very palatable in his undead state.

Rhys uses the singularity scalpel to extract the alien fetus. The Nostrovite bursts in and Rhys has a heroic moment, but he falls short as his chainsaw runs out of fuel. After a not-so-subtle curse word, Rhys gets covered in goo as Jack uses a BFG to end the threat.

Gwen and Rhys finally get married, alien goo and all. Owen and Tosh share the dance that she wanted as Jack wishes Gwen all the best on her honeymoon. As the guests fall asleep around them thanks to the wedding gift of Retcon, Jack offers the same to the newlyweds. Gwen states that there will be no secrets in their marriage.

The happy couple departs as Torchwood Three begins to clean up the mess. Later on, Jack returns to the Hub alone with a handful of confetti. He opens a box of photographs and reminisces over one in particular.

Jack was married once. The photo is from his wedding.

 

An enjoyable romp from start to finish, it only gets better by playing on character elements that have been building over this season, from Owen and Tosh’s relationship to Rhys and his distrust of Jack. Jack’s maudlin moment as he reflects on his interminable life is the icing on this (wedding) cake.

I also really love how Gwen acknowledges how the lies and omissions hurt her relationships, from the news of the spontaneous pregnancy to how she and Rhys plan to approach the next chapter in their lives together.

Stories that try to extract humor from unplanned pregnancies can often go wrong. This one struck me as well-crafted and engaging.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: From Out of the Rain

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – January 29

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

January 29, 2020
Day 29 of 366

 

January 29th is the twenty-ninth day of the year. It is locally celebrated as Kansas Day, commemorating the admission of the state to the country in 1861.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Puzzle Day and National Corn Chip Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1737, Thomas Paine was born. He was the author of Common Sense and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
  • In 1834, President Andrew Jackson ordered the first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
  • In 1845, “The Raven” was published in The Evening Mirror in New York. This marked the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.
  • In 1860, Anton Chekhov was born. The Russian playwright and short story writer is known for Chekhov’s Gun, the dramatic principle that requires that every element in a narrative be necessary and irreplaceable and that everything else be removed.
  • In 1863, a detachment of California Volunteers led by Colonel Patrick Edward Connor engaged the Shoshone at Bear River, Washington Territory. The altercation resulted in the deaths of hundreds of men, women, and children. It would become known as the Bear River Massacre.
  • In 1886, Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
  • In 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American U.S. Senator.
  • In 1940, actress and author Katharine Ross was born.
  • In 1945, Tom Selleck was born.
  • In 1959, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty premiered.
  • In 1964, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb premiered.
  • In 2006, a 39-cent stamp is released in the United States featuring Hattie McDaniel. She was depicted in the dress she wore in 1940 when she became the first African-American actress to accept an Academy Award.
  • In 2018, Black Panther premiered. Among several other accolades and records, it was the first superhero film to receive a Best Picture nomination and the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to win an Academy Award.

 

In 1980, the Rubik’s Cube made its international debut at the Ideal Toy Company in Earl’s Court, London.

The cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. After the 1980 sale to the Ideal Toy Company, it won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle.

The original cube had six faces, each covered by nine stickers. The stickers represented six solid colors –  white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow – and early cubes didn’t have an established pattern so the position of each color varied from cube to cube. Modern versions have a standardized pattern – white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, with the red, white, and blue arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement – and have evolved from stickers to colored plastic panels to prevent peeling and fading.

In order to solve the puzzle, each of the cube faces must be a solid color. There are competitions and world records for various methods of solving the Rubik’s Cube, including speed-solving.

The cube was a cultural icon of the 1980s and still is popular to this day. It is the world’s top-selling puzzle game and best-selling toy.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.