Sunday, October 31, 2010

ALL HALLOWS EVE




*
Shadows of a thousand years
Rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees


"Tonight is Halloween!"

D. Kozen
  *


Sunday, October 17, 2010

HELPFUL HINTS FOR PRESCHOOL TEACHERS...

RIDDING EVIL SPIRITS



Ridding one's classroom of residual spirits can be quite taxing, especially when this must be done in a religious childcare setting.  There are many places 'spirits' can loiter...toy shelves, buckets and baskets, even refrigerators. I personally have never encountered this problem in my more than 22 years as a preschool teacher but I do know of one Lutheran Childcare Center in Huntington Beach that has.  Fortunately they have on staff a teacher who is able to exorcise these troublesome little critters and indeed has done just that! In need of a replacement classroom refrigerator the one offered by a former director-teacher was politely refused by the above mentioned staff person because [and I quote], "I just got rid of the evil spirits in my classroom". Humm?  Keep up the good work Pastor Paul. You run a commendable facility.


Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Lady Vanishes...up in Flames?

                                                         A LITTLE NIGHT MYSTERY



On the night of the tragic Cocoanut Grove fire, the guest of honor, cowboy star Buck Jones sat with his party of 24 movie dignitaries. The large number of guests and close friends were at the club for a combination testimonial dinner in honor of the cowboy star, and a promotional event for his "Rough Rider" series for Monogram Pictures.  Sadly, Buck was not destined to be one of the survivors.  He died two days later in a hospital.  His body had been so badly burned in the Cocoanut Grove fire that skin from his fingers had been pulled off onto the fingerprint card sent to the Technical Section of the FBI's Identification Division.  It took nearly 48 hours to identify the prints because so many fingers had to be searched in so many different places.  One wonders who were those among the 'large number of guests and close friends' and 'movie dignitaries' there that night...?

We do know John Quinn, a 21-year-old Navy seaman, was there wining and dining his date at the popular Boston nightclub, oblivious to the horror that would soon engulf the gathering and leave almost half of the revelers dead. He and a friend, Dick Vient, had taken their dates to Cocoanut Grove after a football game and were seated in a booth near the main dance floor. Mr. Quinn danced with his girlfriend, Gerry Whitehead, and remembers literally bumping into the huge Buck Jones, the cowboy star, on the crowded dance floor.


“When we'd bump I'd look up and say, 'Hi Buck,' and he would look down and say, 'Hi, sailor.' ” Mr. Quinn recalled. “He had been my favorite cowboy and I felt honored.”

 Who was Buck dancing with?













Clipping from a Tuesday, December 1, 1942 newspaper ...

Mysteries remain  -

· The fire’s cause most often has been attributed to a bus boy who lit a match, which ignited a fake palm tree. But the fire’s speed and characteristics has led to theories that an accelerant or leaking refrigerant gas, was responsible. Officially, the cause is deemed “of unknown origin."


 Gloria Doherty of Newton, a bank teller who survived Boston's Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942, never let anyone around her blame a teenage busboy named Stanley Tomaszewski for sparking the blaze. "She always said, for as long as I can remember, it wasn't his fault. She remembered leaning against the wall that night and the wall was so hot," said her daughter Maura Simmons of Medfield.

(On his death-bed, Stanley Tomaszewski swore that he had not started the fire at the Cocoanut Grove in 1942.)

· Other theories:  The fire was caused by faulty wiring; it was set by rival gangsters to scare the club’s owner; Nazi saboteurs were to blame.

· Who really owned the club?  On paper it was lawyer Barney Welansky, who was convicted of manslaughter for the fire. But documentation was confusing, and Welansky repeatedly said he was a “fall guy.”  Boston Herald archives

City officials and the managers of the Grove were indicted, but only the Grove's owner, Barnet Wilansky, was given a prison sentence. He died of cancer after serving three years.


We Didn't Start the Fire...
 
 
 
>..<

It's Not Just About The Potato Anymore!

           

                Latvian man shortage leaves women lost for love


Latvian women without men


Latvian potato

* There are 3,000 more women aged 30-39 than men.
* The country has 8% more women than men.
* Women live 11 years longer on average.


The macho culture in Latvia evinces risky behaviour, such as fast driving, smoking and especially heavy drinking.

"There are demands about how [men] should live. And if they cannot meet those standards, they… fall into depression”.  Ansis Stabingis, Psychoanalyst

The depression leads to the use of alcohol or gambling because they can't solve their problems. Currently, more than 80% of suicide deaths are men thus causing the shortage of Latvian men.  This is pretty sad.
 
"The smartest girls are alone. The really beautiful girls are alone - if they are smart, they want to find partners who are equal to them. But a man, having all this choice, doesn't need to be very perfect. He just sits in front of the TV and knows he can get a woman. And if she doesn't suit him, he will get another. Smart women simply don't want to have such men as their partners."  Dace Ruksane, Lilit magazine  

Available Latvian Man



Translation:  A Bribe is a Force












Humerous Latvian Potato Cartoon
Humerous Latvian Chicken Cartoon




Sunday, October 10, 2010

SmARTyShorts! */:)

Word-of-the-Day


-mnemonic  (nɪˈmɒnɪk)
             

–adjective
1. assisting or intended to assist the memory.
2. pertaining to mnemonics or to memory.

–noun
3. something intended to assist the memory, as a verse or formula.
4. Computers . a programming code that is easy to remember, as STO for “store.”


Use mnemonic in a Sentence

"... with droshkies all awry under incredibly blue skies, which farther away, melt automatically into a pink flush of mnemonic banality". Vladimir Nabokov, 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight' 

"I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic circuit using stone knives and bearskins".  Spock in 'City on the Edge of Forever'



Reprinted from bills big-blog-o-rama


Origin:
1753, from Gk. mnemonikos  "of or pertaining to memory."



Inga's Dog


Saturday, October 9, 2010

SmARTyShorts! */:)

THE ART OF WINTER WEAR





"After 39 dollars and six long years, my black, double-breasted coat and I decided to go our own ways.  After such a long relationship, I needed a rebound.  I think I deserved not only a new coat, but one that is wild and exciting, but still cute as a button.  I wanted a coat that screamed “Me”.  Enter this coat.  I never really share my purchases, probably because paper towels and art supplies don’t really warrant a post, but this coat took me by surprise.  It raises my blood sugar.   It makes me want to run outside, fall to the ground under changing color leaves and roll around while the crisp apple air blushes my cheeks.  I’ve
fallen for my Fall Coat".  Courtney Oquist, Artist






/._.\
 

SmARTyBriefs


Evidently in Finland they don’t throw anything away.

 
My "engagementsleverende" (DN.) has recently obtained a scan of what appears to be a photo taken of Inga Arvad with Adolf Hitler in 1936, that could be the same photo that caused her to be denounced by a co-worker to the FBI as a German spy.


My dear cohort and I greatly appreciate input from interested parties around the globe. 




The aforementioned photograph will soon be forthcoming.



@:]

SmARTyShorts! */:)



JOHN LENNON - 70th. BIRTHDAY






You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one
*

Sunday, October 3, 2010

SmARTyBriefs

Excerpted from an upcoming article -


Owls In The Bog: The Inga Arvad Story



Axis and Allies: Europe Goes to War

On the night of August 31, 1939, William L. Shirer, an American correspondent on assignment in Berlin, didn't get much sleep, having been up until 3 AM listening to the German radio broadcast, in a special report, Hitler's rather reasonable “proposals” to Poland. Despite the fact that the great armies of Europe were fully mobilized and ready for war, he went to bed just before dawn hopeful that war had been averted. Three hours later, at 6 AM he received perhaps the most famous wake-up call in history:

At six a.m. Sigrid Schultz - bless her heart - phoned. She said: "It's
happened." I was very sleepy - my body and mind numbed, paralyzed. I
mumbled: "Thanks, Sigrid," and tumbled out of bed. The war is on!



William L. Shirer


*:o