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August 22, 2008 fri.
August 22nd, 2008

Question: Who invented the voice of Popeye?

Yesterdays Quiz: Was there any free deliberative legislative body between the Ancient Roman Senate ( 476)AD), and the English House of Commons (1292)..?
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History for 8/22/2008
Birthdays: George Herriman the creator of Krazy Kat, Dorothy Parker, Claude DeBussy, Johnny Lee Hooker, Denis Papin 1647 inventor of the Pressure Cooker, General Stormin’Norman Schwarzkopf, Paul Molitor, Bill Parcells, Max Vilander, Carl “Big Yaz”Yazstremski, Dyanna Nyad, Deng Xiao Ping, Henry Cartier Bresson, Valerie Harper, Cindy Williams, Tori Amos, Ray Bradbury is 88

565AD - St Columba reported seeing a sea monster in Loch Ness.

1485-"A Horse! A Horse! My Kingdom for a Horse!!" Battle of Bosworth Field. Welsh prince Henry Tudor defeats and kills King Richard III and becomes King Henry VII, first of the Tudor Dynasty. Shakespeare made Richard out to be a hunchback usurper and child murderer, but couldn’t hide the fact that he died well. Whatever the truth he went down sword in hand, fighting like a true descendant of Richard Lionhearted.
They crowned Henry Tudor with the crown taken off the dead brow of Richard.

1611- Galileo made a group of Venetian senators and noblemen climb to the top of Saint Marks Basilica in Venice to demonstrate his telescope.

1715 – Handel’s "Watermusic" premiered on the Thames River to mark celebrations of the Peace ending the War of Spanish Succession.

1776- The Long Island Campaign began. British General Lord Howe and his brother Admiral Richard, called “Black Dick”, commanded the largest invasion force ever sent by England. Today they began ferrying their army from loyalist Staten Island across the Straights of Verrazano for the march on the village of Breuklyn.-Brooklyn. Their Hessian mercenaries, to show off their discipline, stood at rigid attention as the flatboats bobbed in the choppy water. Now that the British fleet were anchored in New York Harbor, Gen. George Washington agreed with other military strategists that New York City was as good as lost. He contemplated burning the town to keep it from being used by the British as a base. But Congress couldn't let him give up America’s largest port without a fight.

1806- elderly French painter Jean Fragonard died of a cerebral seizure after eating a large fruit ice on a hot day.

1849-The first aerial bomb attack. Austrian General Von Wintzingerode was at a loss at how to get at the besieged Italian city of Venice. The Venetian lagoon was too deep to wade across but was too shallow for battleships. Finally a Swiss mercenary suggested filling hot air balloons with troops and flying them over the city to drop explosives. Those little round black bombs with lit fuses you see in cartoons. A dozen balloons filled with grenadiers were launched aloft, but before they could do anything a stiff breeze blew them all to Yugoslavia. Doh! The real first aerial bombing would be in 1912.

1851- The schooner America defeated the British yacht Aurora to win the trophy called the Hundred Guinea Cup that would in time be called the America's Cup. It was the first win for the US in an international sports competition. American yachts continued to win it for the next 150 years until Australia II took it in 1984.

1882- American showman P.T. Barnum bought the largest elephant in the London Zoo. He created a new name for the beast- he called it a JUMBO. It was the highlight of his circus for years and after it was hit by a freight train and killed Barnum had it’s bones bleached and charged people admission to come look at it’s skeleton.

1901-The Cadillac Automobile Company formed. Named for the French explorer who founded Detroit, William De La Mothe-Cadillac.

1902- Teddy Roosevelt became the first president to ride in an automobile.

1906 - 1st Victor Victrola manufactured, using Emile Berliners flat record turntable system. The Victrola was so cheap and easy to use it became standard in many homes and finished off any competition from Thomas Edison’s rival talking cylinder system.

1914- The Battle of Mons. British forces stop the German advance towards Paris and in so doing allow the main French army to win at the Marne. In a proclamation to his generals Kaiser Wilhelm bombastically stated “Roll over this contemptible little British Army!” The term appealed to the Tommies and they nicknamed themselves “The Old Contemptibles” Also the German field general was General Von Kluck, who’s name rhymed with everyone's favorite English expletive. As the marched through Belgian streets they sang “We don’t give a F*CK about old Von Kluck and all is F*CKING ARMY!”

1922- After World War One Lawrence of Arabia wrote home from Baghdad about the Postwar British occupation of Iraq:” The Public had been led into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady with-holding of information. The Baghdad communique’s have been belated, insincere and incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told.” Boy, aren't ya glad that doesn't happen today, boys & girls?

1927- 200,000 people protest in Hyde Park London and around the world for clemency for convicted Italian immigrants Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vancetti. They were socialists who were convicted of murdering a store clerk in Massachusetts and became a radical cause-celebre. Letters demanding mercy came in from George Bernard Shaw, Helen Keller, Picasso, the Pope and more. Woody Guthrie wrote folk songs in praise of Sacco & Vancetti. The next day the State of Massachusetts electrocuted them anyway.

1935- Father Charles Coughlin, “the Radio Priest” addressed ten thousand in Madison Square Gardens. At the height of his popularity almost one third the American public tuned into his weekly radio address. But as his influence waned after the 1936 presidential elections. He turned increasingly to racist Anti-Semitic hate mongering and eventually faded away.

1939- The first aerosol spray can.

1945- This was the date Stalin scheduled for the Soviet invasion of Hokaido, in North Japan. The American invasion, in the event the atomic bombs did not work, was not scheduled until November 1st. With all of the remaining Japanese forces on the southern beaches awaiting the American attack, if the Soviet invasion had come off as scheduled they would have been able to overrun Northern Japan quite easily. The U.S. would have to settle for a divided Japan resembling Korea. History however, turned out differently.

1953-The French government closed the Devil's Island prison colony.

1976- The protest at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in New Hampshire. The birth of the U.S. anti-nuclear movement.
1984 - Last Volkswagen Rabbit produced.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Was there any free deliberative legislative body between the Ancient Roman Senate ( 476)AD), and the English House of Commons (1292)..?

Answer: The early Church had a synod of Presbyters, later Bishops , but I was thinking of the Icelandic Althing. A parliament of free Vikings ( circa 930AD) who sat in an open field Thingvellir near the Law Rock, to discuss policy and make laws. The Faroe Islands and other Viking tribes held Things even earlier.


Animator Ollie Johnston as work

I was thinking about the big service the other day to honor the passing of Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney’s Nine Old Men. I revisited a thought I had first at the Frank Thomas' service. Is the job of animator, even a Disney Animator, still the ultimate goal?

This does not of course detract from Frank & Ollie’s extraordinary careers. It speaks more to the declining status of the animator in our own time.

Frank and Ollie were role models in many ways. But one way we beginners in the 1970s looked at them was as symbols of the kind of career you could have in cartoons. Never mind Kendal O’Connor in layout, or Jack Buckley doing effects, or Bill Peet as a storyman; ANIMATORS were the cardinals of the church. They were Walt’s Old Guard, his Palladins. And Frank & Ollie were the quintessential image on the recruiting poster in our minds.

Imagine this life: you get out of school, go right into the Walt Disney Studio; you spend the next 46 years worrying about nothing else but being the best &*%$ artist you could possibly be; then retire rich to write books and give lectures.

OKAY! SIGN ME UP!

It didn’t matter that animators at Disney in the Golden Age had problems of their own: The studio almost went under several times, interdepartment politics and jockeying for positions. Walt liked to set artists against one another. Being there wasn’t a guarantee of lifetime employment. The studio had layoffs like any other.

Nope, animator was the job we all wanted. That was the ultimate.

Then, after we committed to a career in animation, somebody changed the rules! Hey!!!

Over the years the image of the career animator has taken a number of hits. The job has been outsourced where it could be done in bulk for cheap, where your pay was tied to how much you can turn out in a week. And all these computer techs staying up late to develop software they think can outdo what we do. Behavioral software and Mo-Cap, so who needs good animators?

Then in the 1990s we were stars again for a time, animators were scoring big salaries and signing bonuses, contracts and other perks. But the 1990s ended, executive strategic incompetence resulted in a string of animated flops. And the money guys probably tired of kowtowing to these flaky creatives.

Now with the animators on the run, the big salaries, contracts and bonuses went away. If it weren’t for union minimum wage scales, who knows how little they would offer to pay us? The status of star-animator was de-emphasized in publicity, and we’ve gone back to being anonymous elves in the backroom.

Many artists who were top character animators, turned to other pursuits. Don Bluth, John Musker, Hendell Butoy, Rob Minkoff, Chris Bailey, Chris Buck, all once excellent animators, became directors.

I recall Glen Keane saying:” Remember when all anyone ever wanted to be was a Disney animator?” But Glen too had to turn to directing.

Many more went into storyboarding. The modern CG studios say they want to uphold the legacy of quality of Frank & Ollie, but does that sentiment translate into action?

All the tutorials I got on MAYA and other programs breezed through animating as not much more than an intermediate step between modeling and lighting.

A hot debate has come up lately whether an animator’s performance style can come through in 3D the way it does in traditional. How individual performances by a Kimball, Moore or Thomas were apparent to a trained eye. Can you spot a Scott McQueen, or Andy Schmidt as easily? Some say you can.

The final lesson the old timers had for us, is that they dealt with change too. But good technique always comes through. Much like all the British actors who study their Shakespeare, then come here and kick our butts at the Oscars every year. It was so with Olivier and Burton in the 60s, and Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench today.

Hopefully the current posterboys of animation, the Eric Goldbergs, James Baxters and Andreas Dejas will lead the way. So young artists will continue to dream of one day becoming an animator.

click to enlarge


August 21st, 2008 thur
August 21st, 2008

Quiz: Was there any deliberative legislative body between the Ancient Roman Senate
(476AD), and the English House of Commons (1292)..?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who was Pinto Colvig?
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History for 8/21/2008
Birthdays: King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie*, Wilt (the Stilt) Chamberlain, Isadore "Friz" Freleng, Kenny Rogers, British Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Peter Weir is 64, Kim Catrall is 52. Carrie Anne Moss is 41

*Count Basie's first name was William. When working in a swing band he'd often get to work late which would make the band's director ask “Where is that no-account Basie? “ which in his colloquial slang came out: "Where dat no'count Basie!?" Hence the nickname.

1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the election but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House Douglas was his strong supporter.

1863-THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisan Jayhawkers. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding raiders flying black flags into town. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like Jesse James and Cole Younger. As the wild horsemen galloped up Massachusetts Avenue shooting and burning, Quantrill stood up in his saddle and shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill all the n*gger-loving Yankees!” There was no regular army there. They murdered 200 civilians, mostly defenseless old men and boys. A guerrilla named Rev Larkin Skaggs tore down the Stars & Stripes and dragged it behind his horse in the dirt and dung to the laughter of the troops. There were some regular Confederate officers present who were appalled at the carnage. They later showed their unfired weapons to survivors to witness that they did not take part in the crimes. Rev. Skaggs was shot down by a Delaware Indian as he tried to ride out of town. The citizens dragged his scalped corpse up and down the main street shooting it and pelting it with stones. It was later tossed into a ravine for wild dogs to eat. Many people never recovered from the nightmare. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War, William Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets.

1887- Mighty (Dan) Casey struck out at his last at bat with the NY Giants. The poem was written many years later.

1911- Café waiter Vincenzo Perruggia walked into the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa. After trying to fence it for two years, he tried to ransom it back. In 1913 he was arrested and the painting recovered.
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1922 - Curly Lambeau & Green Bay Football Club formed in 1919 was granted an NFL franchise. Foreigners have pondered the Great American Mystery: Why are the Packers the only US football team not situated near a major American City? That is because at a time when professional football was in it’s infancy a Green Bay meat packing company paid for the teams uniforms.

1929-Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo marry.

1926- Pardon Us, the first comedy short featuring the new team of Laurel & Hardy. Studio head Hal Roach put the Scottish Stan Laurel and Georgia born hoofer Oliver Hardy together and they became one of the greatest comedy teams in film history.

1935- Big band leader Benny Goodman was having a tough time. His band lost its radio gig when the show Let’s Dance was cancelled. So he and his musicians drove across the country in a small caravan of cars playing various venues on the road. They were told in small towns to stop playing that newfangled Swing music and stick to old standards. One manager in Denver told him:” Don’t you guys know any waltzes? ” By the time they arrived in Los Angeles this day they were thoroughly demoralized. But when they set up in the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood the crowd was immense! And these kids wanted to jitterbug to the new Swing music! So hit it, Jackson, Awl Reet, Awl Reet!

1944- Moviestar James Cagney, star of Yankee Doodle Dandy, cleared of charges of Communism. The accusations probably had less to do with Cagney's politics and more to do with his Actor’s union activism and his fighting in court the restrictive personal contracts studios put their stars under.

1967 –New York Mets second baseman Ken Harrelson became the first free agent.

1968- RUSSIAN TANKS CRUSH THE "PRAGUE SPRING' -Soviet forces destroy Alexander Dubchek's experiment of "Socialism with a Human Face." 650.000 Warsaw Pact troops moved into the small country from all sides. Some of the Red Army soldiers moving into Prague were from Asian Siberia and had never seen a western city before. Carlos Casteneda, who was there for a socialist progressive conference, recalled seeing a Soviet tank crash right through a department store glass window. The driver had never seen a glass window that large and didn't think anything was there. A Czech put a sign over the window frame : "NOTHING CAN STOP THE INVINCIBLE RED ARMY !"

1989- The Voyager II satellite spaceprobe flew by the planet Neptune. It was discovered Neptune had a faint ring like Saturn and rotated on it’s side- south-north instead of west to east. Scientists speculated the atmospheric pressure to be so great that it could actually rain diamonds.

2003- A two week heatwave in Europe killed 10,000 in France alone. Most were elderly people sitting in their locked apartments without air conditioning while their families went on their august holidays. President Jacques Chirac was on holiday in Canada.

2017 - Next total solar eclipse visible from North America.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was Pinto Colvig?

Answer: Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig was a vaudeville comic who originated the voice of Walt Disney’s Goofy. In his long career he also created the voice of the original Bozo the Clown, and Gabby for Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels. Alls Well! What’s a Rain-ee Day…


Ollie's Life Celebration
August 20th, 2008



Last night the luminaries of Animation gathered at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood to celebrate the life of Ollie Johnston, the last of Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men. For three and a half hours Leonard Maltin hosted clips, still images of artwork and panels and speakers to remember this softspoken master of our artform. Roy Disney, John Lasseter, Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, Brad Bird, John Musker, Ron Clements, Mark Kirkland, Charles Solomon, Howard Green, and family members including Jeanette and Ted Thomas, and the Johnston family. In the audience were June Foray, Eric Goldberg, Bob Kurtz, Joe Adamson, Jerry Beck, Alice Davis, Bill and Sue Kroyer, as well as Virginia Davis ( Alice in Cartoonland), Margaret Kerry-Wilcox ( the model for Tinkerbell), and Dick Jones ( the voice of Pinocchio, plus many current and former Disney crew.

There were great stories- how his animation seemed effortless, how his pencil seemed to kiss the paper. What great natural actors Ollie and Frank were. One particularly poignant moment. John Lasseter showed a film of when an elderly Ollie was brought to Disneyland and surprised by being reunited with his beloved steam train the Marie-E. Ollie had had to sell it with his house, and was in a bad way after Frank died and his beloved wife Marie was in her last illness. John had purchased the train and had it brought to Disneyland and mounted on the train tracks just to raise Ollies’ spirits. It was hard not to reach for your handkerchief when you saw the look on Ollie's face.

The event was wonderful, but it all made me particularly sad when it was over. Ollie was the last holdout of that wonderful phalanx of Golden Age Disney Animators, now regrouped in Heaven. The ending of the night means they really are now all gone- Frank & Ollie, Milt, Wooly, Marc Davis, Ward, Eric Larson, Joe Grant, Vance Gerry, Art Stevens, Ken O’Connor, Shamus Culhane, Grim Natwick, Al Eugster. As well as their compatriots in the other studios- Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Maurice Noble, Ken Harris, Hanna & Barbera, Virgil Ross, Irv Spence, Ben Washam.

Regular readers to this blog might notice that I get particularly emotional when I write about these old predecessors. I apologize if I rhapsodize to the point of being maudlin. I realize that Ollie dying at the age of 95 is a wonderful age. And I might seem to some like just another middle age Boomer lamenting another milestone on the road to lost youth. It’s not that I object to being called an old animator myself now. I don’t.

But you must understand that for the animators of my generation, these people were more than just our teachers, they were our role-models, our guides, our gurus, our idols. We worshipped these people.

Back in a time when there was precious little animation instruction in schools, and there were only one or two how-to books like Preston Blair’s workbook, These people were our graduate school. These old veterans took us under their wing and slowly, painstakingly taught us everything they knew. The encouraged us, guided us, and urged us to one day do better than they did.

They were a close-knit brotherhood, together for over 50 years. We were not their family. They did not have to let us in. But they did.

I am not the son of any powerful Hollywood insider, I was not from privileged stock. My family came from the working class immigrant waterfront of Brooklyn, and my father held down two jobs to feed his family. Why would such famous artists born and bred in California even bother to give me the time of day?

To master artists like Ollie & Frank, Maurice and Chuck, if you were in animation, and you were good and dedicated, then you were all right. You could be one of them. That was the most important single act of charity they did. They took us in, they taught us all the theory and tricks you still can’t find in books. We became more than just trainees or proteges. We became part of their extended family.

Because they did not want this special artform that they dedicated their lives to perfecting, to die out with them. Their last orders for us, their heirs, is to keep developing our artform and hand it off to the next generation as they took the time to teach us.

So it is with bittersweet emotion, we bid farewell to our Last Mentor, Ollie Johnston. One of the finest artists I have ever known. I hope we have justified your faith in us, that we have taken your lessons to heart.

As the French writer Montaigne said: What thou has been given as Tradition, take now as Task and make it your own.



Thank you Ollie!


August 20th, 2008 weds
August 20th, 2008

Quiz: Okay, animation buffs, riddle me this..Who was Pinto Colvig?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is meant by Spartan living?
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History for 8/20/2008
Birthdays: President Benjamin Harrison, H.P. Lovecraft, Art Tatum, Issac Hayes, Connie Chung, Jacqueline Susanne, Rajiv Ghandi, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin- who co-wrote Stairway to Heaven, Joan Allen is 52, Fred Durst, Alan Reed -the original voice of Fred Flintstone, Amy Adams is 34



480 B.C. -THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS- When Persian King Xerxes invaded Greece the King of Sparta Leonidas decided the best place to try and stop him was in the narrow pass of Thermopylae. But the Spartan senate and other allied Greek states refused to send troops until they completed the Olympic religious festival. It was forbidden for Greeks to wage war during the Games. So Leonidas hurried ahead the 300 Spartans and a thousand more allied troops to try and stall ten times their number. After repulsing several attacks a traitor showed Xerxes a goat path around the Spartan position. Leonidas could still have retreated but he, his three hundred and some other Greek allies decided to stand and fight to the last man. They were wiped out, but they bought enough time for the Greeks eventual victory. Later a monument was erected over their bones: O xein angellin Lakdaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi which means "Go Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that True to their Command, Here We Lie."

1741-VITUS BERRING DISCOVERED ALASKA and helps colonize California. Well, he didn't actually help but for 200 years Spain had ignored it's Southwest colonies because there were no gold sodden Inca empires there. But when Berring opened the Pacific coast to Russian colonization the King of Spain freaked and ordered towns and missions built up the California coast. Britain also rushed it's claims to Washington State and British Columbia. This is why Juan DeCabrillo explored the California coast in 1542 but cities like L.A. and San Francisco weren't founded until 1770's.
Berring was a reluctant explorer. The Dane had heard Tsar Peter the Great was giving cushy salaries to skilled European sailors. But when Berring arrived in Russia the Tsar ordered him to travel 3700 miles to Siberia, build a fleet and explore the arctic because the Tsar had always wondered if America and Russia are connected. He went off and fooled around in the Arctic Sea for awhile then went back and said it wasn't. The Tsars scientists said that wasn't good enough, go back and do it again! Finally he discovered his Berring straights but died of scurvy in the Aleutians before he ever saw any money.

1882 -Peter Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" premiered in Moscow. The composer said of all his works the two pieces he liked the least were the 1812 Overture and the Nutcracker Suite. Overture 1812 was Richard Nixon’s favorite classical piece.

1896 – The Dial telephone patented. It was nicknamed the Gravediggers Dial because a funeral director invented it. It was the world standard until replaced by the touchtone button system in the 1980s. Even though the dial phone is a memory the words remain when we speak of "dialing up a number" or "dialing up someone’s website."

1940- In Mexico City exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky was assassinated. While writing at his desk he hacked to death with a small mountainclimbers pick.. His murderer Ramon Mercador- alias Jules Antoine, alias Jackson was paid by Stalin's agents. He got into Trotsky's household by dating one of the maids. It was rumored that part of the Stalinist cell in Mexico was famed painter David Siquieros. Trotsky was having an affair with famed painter Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky predicted Stalin would try to get him while the world's attention was distracted by the Hitler War. When Mercador was released from a Mexican prison Stalin presented him with the Order of Lenin.

1940- In a radio speech Winston Churchill praised the efforts of the Royal Air Force in fighting Hitler's bombers-"Never have so Many, owed so Much, to so Few.'

1953- The Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in Women first published. Alfred & Clara Kinsey’s study proved to the conservative American public that 50% of women had premarital sex, liked sex for more than just procreation and 25% had a extramarital affair. This document following his 1948 report on sexual behavior of men revolutionized social attitudes towards sex and feminism.

1971- THE ENEMIES LIST. FBI documents prove this day the Nixon White House began to covertly investigate journalist Daniel Schorr because of his anti-war editorials. President Richard Nixon kept an enemies list of people he imagined to be opponents to his administration. It began with obvious liberals like George McGovern and Ted Kennedy, then expanded as far as June Foray the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

1972- Star Hollywood directors Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and William Freidkin announced a partnership in a new production company called "The Director's Company" Young punks Martin Scorcese, George Lucas and Steven Speilberg were also involved. The partnership lasted two years then collapsed.

1977- NASA launched the Voyager One probe towards the outer planets of our solar system. Among the things Voyager discovered was that Jupiter had many more moons than previously thought and had a ring like Saturn. Part of Nasas' program was an explanatory simulation film done totally on computer by Jim Blinn. The animation was so smooth and the graphics so breathtaking it expanded the use of the c.g.i. medium and inspired a new generation of digital artists.

1982- Ralph Bakshi's film Hey Good Lookin'.

1985- Israel shipped 96 American-made TOW shoulder held missiles to the Ayatollahs in Iran. This was part of the Iran-Contra scheme. When Congress had forbidden the Ronald Reagan White House to send them any money to Anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan’s West Wing cooked up this scheme to trade arms for secret funds. Irans’ cash payment for the missiles went to the Nicaraguan Contra-Rebels.

1989- George and Joy Adamson, the naturalists who inspired the book Born Free, were murdered by Somali poachers in Kampi Ya Simba, Africa.

1991- Russian President Boris Yeltsin climbed onto a tank in front of the Russian Parliament and yells:" Come an get me!" Communist hardliner's attempt to regain power eventually fails.

1998- THE WAG THE DOG ATTACKS- After the Al Qaeda terrorist organization bombed US embassies in Africa the Bill Clinton administration looked for an opportunity to hit back. This day the CIA got word that senior Al Qaeda leaders including Osama Ben Laden were going to gather in a remote Afghan camp for a meeting. President Clinton ordered a spread of cruise missiles launched to kill them. The missiles hit their target but Ben Laden got away. In Washington the hostile Neo-Con media had a field day accusing the Clinton White House of making the strikes only to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky Sex Scandal. It alluded to a popular movie out at the time called Wag the Dog, where a scandal ridden president rigs a fake crisis to distract attention. Bill Clinton was stymied in any further efforts, and Osama Ben Laden lived on to plan 9-11.

1999- Planet Hollywood, the theme restaurant started by movie stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore filed for bankruptcy.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is meant by Spartan living?

Answer: The Greek city state of Sparta built their society around the laws of the statesman Lycurgus (est 650BC). They created a warrior society where women and men ate separately at communal tables with no luxuries and used iron bars for currency instead of gold, Boys from age 7 were given brutal military exercises to harden them, and become soldiers. They ate little but black broth, spring water and rough bread. This Draconian code created no poets or artists, but the finest soldiers in the world. Sparta came to defeat rival Athens and dominate the Greek world for awhile. By Roman times Sparta had devolved into a curious theme park to visit for losing weight. Kind of an ancient boot-camp diet.

Since then, to call a lifestyle Spartan means to live without luxuries or comfort with the barest of necessities.


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