December 22, 2007 Saturday December 22nd, 2007 |
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I was googling my book Drawing the Line and I saw it's being offered for sale at WalMart. A union book on sale at WalMart..hmmm, Go Figure. Ya can't make this stuff up. We saw Kevin Lima's ENCHANTED tonight. Great job! Congrats to all the team, including many of my old friends. Too bad there wasn't enough animation to make Oscar consideration.
Evan Spiridelis sent me the link to the latest Jib-Jab year end review. They call it their Non-Crappy Holiday E-Card.
http://www.jibjab.com/sendables/274/in_2007
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Quiz: Why is Santa Claus also called St Nicholas and Kris Kingle?
Yesterday’s Question answered below: Another holiday question: Why reindeer? Why not eight tiny horses?
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History for 12/22/2007
Birthdays: Josef Stalin- real name Jozef Djugashvili, James Oglethorpe the founder of the State of Georgia, Jean Racine, Giacomo Puccini, Connie Mack, J. Arthur Rank, Ladybird Johnson, Deems Taylor, Jean Michel Basquiat, Barbara Billingsley, Peggy Ashcroft, Emil Sitka, Gene Rayburn, Hector Elizondo, Diane Sawyer, Steve Carlton, Steve Garvey, Diane Sawyer, Robin Gibb & Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, Ralph Fiennes is 44
Happy Winter Solstice! The shortest day of the year. Ancient Egyptians made offering to the god Horus to return from the Land of the Dead. Zoroastrians light fires on their roofs to Ahura Mazda and Vikings brew an extra strong beer and bring evergreen garlands indoors to decorate their homes.
1742-HALELIEUYAH! HALELIEUYAH!- George Fredrich Handel's oratorio "the Messiah" debuted in Dublin. Legend says he completed the work in only three weeks. When Messiah was played in London King George II was so moved by the "Halelieuyah Chorus" that he rose to his feet. Of course then everyone else immediately had to also and to this day the tradition is to stand during it's singing. Critics of the king said the only reason he stood up was the silly old duffer thought they were playing the national anthem. Handel was beloved of the British despite curious behavior like ordering three dinners and eating them himself. He had a bad temper that made him throw a bass drum at his musicians when they played off key and he once threatened to throw a soprano out of a window. Handel at first had a bad grasp of English. After hearing the Messiah when someone asked him how could he write so sublimely in a language he had so little of, he replied :"It ist because I haff a little Religion in me alzo !" Truth be told he had an English collaborator named Whitney who picked appropriate passages from the Bible.
1808-DA-DA-DA- DUMMMMM…..Beethoven first performed his 5th Symphony. It was a memorable four hour concert that also premiered his Fantasia for Piano, Orchestra & Chorus, several octets and he did piano improvisations.
1849-Russian writer Fyodor Dostoeyevsky had been a political radical. On this day the Czar's secret police the Ohkrana broke his spirit by a cruel ruse. They arrested him for treason. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was given a last meal, received Last Rites from a priest, blindfolded and stood before a firing squad. But before the guns would go off the squad stopped and his sentence was commuted. He was sent instead to Siberia for four years. This naturally had an adverse effect on his sensitive nature and he spent his later years a raving conservative.
1864- General Sherman marching through Georgia reached the Sea and telegraphed Lincoln :”I present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah”. Sherman spared Savannah the depredations his men committed in the rest of the state, many say because he had friends there before the war, but also because he needed a deep water port for a winter base that the US Navy could supply him from.
1882- Thomas Edison introduced the string of electric Christmas Tree lights replacing candles.
1940- Nathaniel West, novelist author of Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts, was killed in a car crash in L.A..
1941-Now that America was officially at war with the Axis, Prime Minister Winston Churchill slips across U-Boat infested waters to spend a month at the White House planning strategy with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Churchill liked to dictate memos from his bath. When Roosevelt was told he could enter the room he was embarrassed and excused himself to leave. Churchill stood up from the tub wearing nothing but soapsuds and the cigar in his teeth and declared: "THE PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN HAS NOTHING TO HIDE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES !"
1944- During the Battle of the Bulge a German officer was sent under a white flag to Gen.McAulliffe's American troops in Bastogne. His message was “You are surrounded with no hope of relief. Surrender or be annihilated!” General McAuliffe sent him a simple reply:" NUTS!' McAulliffe's force was eventually rescued by Patton. In later years McAullife grew tired of the fame of being the general who said "nuts". At a party a Manhattan socialite once said to him: "How do you do, General Nuts".
1964- In Chicago Comedian Lenny Bruce was sentenced to four months in prison on obscenity charges. When the arresting officer read aloud his jokes the jury laughed but convicted him anyway. Bruce complained about the policeman’s delivery. One fan arrested that night as well was future comic George Carlin.
1973- The 55 miles per hour speed limit was set for all US interstate highways.
2001- THE SHOE BOMBER. Would-be terrorist Richard Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Rome to Orlando by trying to ignite a substance concealed in his sneakers. He was stopped and beaten silly by his fellow travelers, including a 6’8 pro basketball player returning home from the Italian leagues.
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Yesterday’s Question: Why reindeer? Why not eight tiny horses?
ANSWER: No one is quite sure where Rev Clement Moore got the idea for eight tiny reindeer pulling St Nick’s sleigh when writing his famous 1859 poem. In pre Christian Scandinavia, where we get the Yule Log, Thor the god of thunder was pulled across the sky in a chariot pulled by magic flying goats. These sometimes get translated as reindeer. Two of the poem’s reindeer are Donner and Blitzen, thunder and lightning, Donner is the old German name for Thor.
A more likely origin is in Welsh tradition the Druid priest who collected the magic mushrooms for the Yule celebrations traditionally wore red fur with white facings and buttons. He fed the mushrooms to reindeer and brewed a beer from their urine, which gave you the high without the toxicity.
jingle bells, jingle bells
Sound weird? You got a better explanation? So Merry Christmas! And please pass the reindeer pee!
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