Category: True Stories

Nothing Much Happened Today.

Apparently that’s a Russian missile, fired into the Ukraine in 2014.

В Донецкой области снаряд «Урагана» пробил машину сил АТО, но не взорвался (ФОТО)
Украинские силовики, которые находятся в районе села Дмитровка Донецкой области, были обстреляны из российских “Ураганов”. К счастью, одна из ракет, попавшая в штабную машину, не разорвалась.
Как сообщает Андрей Захаров, «Дмитровка, база 12 БТрО. Очередная “петарда”, купленная сепарами в “магазине”.

Via Google Translate:

“In Donetsk region, the projectile “Hurricane” struck the machine of the ATU forces, but did not explode (PHOTO)
The Ukrainian siloviki, who are in the area of the village of Dmitrovka in the Donetsk region, were fired from the Russian “Hurricanes”. Fortunately, one of the missiles that got into the staff car did not explode.
As reported by Andrei Zakharov, “Dmitrovka, the base 12 of the BTRO. Another “petard”, bought by the segregated in the ‘store.'”

[Original source appears to be here. Found here.]

North Korea celebrates 50th Anniversary of the capture of the USS Pueblo


Captured crewmembers of the USS PUEBLO giving the “Hawaiian Good Luck Sign,” 1968.

[USNI News 24 January 2018.]

North Korea celebrated the 50th anniversary of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2) incident on Tuesday via broadcasts on state television and in an international press statement.

In 1968, the North Korean Navy captured the signals intelligence ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) and its crew of 82 sailors. The sailors suffered starvation and torture and were used for propaganda purposes for almost a year before a release was negotiated in December of 1968.
[…]
Pueblo’s crew resisted when possible, most notably by frequently raising their middle fingers to ruin propaganda photo ops staged by the North Koreans, telling their captors the gesture was considered a “Hawaiian Good Luck Sign,” according to the Navy investigation. The crew was severely beaten near the end of their confinement when the North Koreans learned the gesture’s true meaning.

[More at the link above.]

 

Harp Closet

As one of the first women members of The Cleveland Orchestra—and one of only a few women musicians in any orchestra—Alice Chalifoux (principal harpist 1931-74) faced unique challenges such as orchestra halls without women’s dressing rooms. Alice sometimes used her harp case as a backstage dressing room when the Orchestra was touring across the U.S.

[Found here.]

1968 was the year to get Dodge fever.

Crenshaw Dodge was open daily AND Sunday. If you squint, you can still see the ghost of the dealership.

Adjusted for inflation, $3,014 is about $21,500 in 2017 dollars for one of the classic muscle cars. Overpriced? 50 years later they’re selling for twice as much, and more.

[Ad found here. 2018 listings found here.]

 

Rambling Muskrat Hot Links

A muskrat is not a rat. It’s more like a small capybara and is a resource of food and fur for humans according to Wiki, so send us your recipes and clothing patterns and we’ll post them with credit.

“Muskrat Ramble” was written by Kid Ory and first recorded by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five in 1926.

In 1965, Joseph Allen McDonald, aka Country Joe, shamelessly ripped off Kid Ory’s “Muskrat Ramble” note-for-note for his Vietnam-era protest song “Feelin’ Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag.”

“In 2003 McDonald was sued for copyright infringement over his signature song, specifically the “One, two, three, what are we fighting for?” chorus part, as derived from the 1926 early jazz classic “Muskrat Ramble“, co-written by Kid Ory. The suit was brought by Ory’s daughter Babette, who held the copyright at the time. Since decades had already passed from the time McDonald composed his song in 1965, Ory based her suit on a new version of it recorded by McDonald in 1999. The court however upheld McDonald’s laches defense, noting that Ory and her father were aware of the original version of the song, with the same questionable section, for some three decades without bringing a suit. In 2006, Ory was ordered to pay McDonald $395,000 for attorney fees and had to sell her copyrights to do so.”

[McDonald’s parents were communists and named him after Joseph Stalin according to Wiki. That explains a lot.]

From the This Shall Not Pass Department: A Heinz ketchup packet caused a New York woman to be diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. TRUE.

R.I.P. Dominic Frontiere (17 June 1931- 21 December 2017).

The Football Capital of the World.

What’s the smallest hole a mouse shrew can get through? 16.5mm in diameter according to this.

Trains [via].

Jim Flora (1914-1998) was a graphic commercial artist whose work creeped me out when I was very young.

Mambo For Cats was a 33rpm EP featuring various artists. It’s now a collectors’ item for the album cover designed by Jim Flora, and original copies are worth hundreds. Papa had a copy so when I saw the album cover recently, fireworks went off in my head, and the only song I remembered from the compilation was “Muskrat Ramble Mambo.”

[Top image found here.]

Charles Brace Darrow’s Contribution To The World: Monopoly

Darrow’s “Monopoly” made him a millionaire, but it wasn’t completely original. It was an adaptation of “The Landlord’s Game” patented over three decades earlier by Elizabeth J. Magie:

 

Elizabeth Phllips (nee Magie) renewed her patent in 1924.

[Found here.]

Semi Polychromatic Hot Links

Kiviaq is an Greenlandic Inuit treat: auks fermented in a bladder of sealskin. The link includes this DIY video on preparing the auks. The fermentation takes about three months. Enjoy!

One-armed man won a lumberjack competition. TRUE.

“Large raccoon” knocked out power to 9,600 in New Mexico.
[h/t Alan U.]

There are four kinds of color blindness: protanopia, dueteranopia, tritanopia and achromatopsia.

The COBLIS Color BLIndness Simulator is kinda cool.

What if a color that you perceive as blue is perceived by your friend as red, yet you both call it purple?  If you were a dog, what would your favorite shade of gray be? Stoner questions are awesome.

Actually dogs can see colors, according to this, just not all colors. Humans can’t see all of them either, and some have told me so.

I just Googled “hybrid freak animal.” Now I won’t to be able to sleep for a month.

[Top image found here.]

RIP Joji Tani (1922-2017).

Born in San Pedro, California, he graduated high school in 1942.  He grew up on Terminal Island, and that same year all people of Japanese ancestry were given 48 hours to evacuate to internment camps. His father was taken to North Dakota and interrogated for six months. Allowed only two suitcases per family, Joji’s family was sent to the Santa Anita racetrack, where they lived in makeshift housing among the horse stables. From 1942 to 1944 Tani’s family lived in various internment camps in California, Arkansas and Texas.

He’s the father of one of my wife’s best friends and unfortunately I never met him.

Some Assembly Required Hot Links

Here’s a nice collection of jazz artists with short bios.

Singer, songwriter, performer and actress Norah Jones was born Geetali Norah Shankar. Her half-sister is Anoushka Shankar. Their father is Ravi Shankar.

See what I did there? Gonna do it again.

The French term is mèche sur le front (wick in the front) or un épi (an ear of corn); German, it’s ein Werbel (vortex or whirl); in Spanish, chavito, mechon (tuft) or remolino (swirl); In Danish, it’s hvirvel i håret (whirl in the hair); Afrikaans, kuif (crest); Polish kosmyk (strand). The English term for an unruly spiral of hair is “cowlick” and it first appeared in 1538 according to this site.

I’ve had cowlicks all my life, and in recent years the one on the right gave birth to another that migrated to the left side of my forehead. Now I have Dagwood Hair.

Bob McFadden provided the voice for Dagwood Bumstead in a forgettable cartoon, and had a successful career as a voice actor. He also worked with Rod McKuen (credited as “Dor”) to record the classic song “Beat Generation” in 1959, covered in 1980 by Richard Hell & The Voidoids (“Blank Generation“) and re-covered in 1986 by The Beat Farmers.

Tommy Smothers nailed Johnny Carson.

Here’s what’s happening in Japan.

[Top image found here.]

 

 

New Additions to the French Military – Eagles

The eagles are trained to capture small UAVs, aka “drones” that may pose a danger to aircraft or are being used for nefarious activity. They’re raised in captivity and trained as hatchlings to associate UAVs with food. The French program was adapted from one developed by the Dutch.

Royal eagles, which can hunt prey up to 25kg – the size of a deer – are often used by the programme due to their strength.

In the Netherlands, the use of eagles in police work sparked animal welfare concerns among falconers. When eagles intercept a drone, a pressure of 250kg per square centimetre is exerted on their claws.

Dutch police told the NRC daily newspaper that their eagles have so far not suffered any problems from intercepting small drones, but that larger drones may damage their claws. Eagles in the French programme wear kevlar and leather claw coverings as a protective measure.

[Story here, via here, video here, h/t Nancy H.]

Spontaneously Mutating Hot Links

Smell the bird.

The Weasel War Dance is a colloquial term for a behavior of excited ferrets and weasels.

The Russian Revolution occurred 100 years ago. “Harsh Realities of 1917 Revolution in Paintings of a Petrograd Police Officer” captures some of it.

North Korean defectors speak. Read between the lines because a lot is understated (by necessity). If these defectors’ identities are ever revealed, three generations of their families would suffer punishment.

“During planting and harvest season, we would wake up at 4 a.m. and walk three hours to reach the farmland. We’d take a little break for lunch or a snack, then work until 8 p.m. before walking home again. Doing the weeding was the hardest because we had to get rid of them by hand. And we’d buy beans from the market and make tofu that we’d sell from our house. Our profit was less than 5,000 won [60 cents at the black market rate] a day. But because the bean price fluctuates, sometimes we were left with nothing at all.”
Farmer from Hoeryong, escaped 2014.

“Who was America’s first President?” The answer is obvious.

New technology allows you to swing through a waterfall without getting wet.

The National Lampoon Suicide Hotline.

The Reuben Hair Shift.

Germany is No. 3 for internet domain name ownership by country.

Before I die I want to see Rome.

[Top image from here. h/t Alan U.]