This Day In History/ July 1, 2009/ Oh The Joy We Are Half Way There!
Table of contents for 20/ Writing
- An Extraordinary Video/ Deliver Me/ Sarah Brightman
- Purple Friday Ruminations/ The Highly Sensitive Person/ Elaine N. Aron Ph.D.
- Purple Friday Tragedy/ Wal-Mart Employee Trampled
- Don’t Let Your Pillow Go Up In Flames/ Dealing With A Cough And Cold/ Conair Facial Spa
- Winter 2008
- This Day In History/ July 1, 2009/ Oh The Joy We Are Half Way There!
From time to time I enjoy reading the newspaper and learning about what is going on in the world. It’s not something to do every day because too much news is not a good thing. In fact, too much news can drive you crazy. I used to follow the news closely until one day I found myself downtown trying to find the office of our number one elected official so I could discuss something with him.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I had gone around the bend and ought to find something else to do. So I stopped watching or caring about the news and became a blogger. Now a giant wave could pass outside my window here in Richmond, Virginia and I would simply note it in a blog post, take a few photos and resume playing Lord of the Rings Online.
It’s so nice to be sane once again. I’m really proud to have made such progress in so short a period of time.
I enjoy reading about things that are happening in the world. But it’s like eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. You really have to limit your intake or you will die way before your time.
Speaking of death I was sad to see in the news yesterday that two motorcycle drivers had a head-on collision here in town over the weekend and passed away. Condolences to their family and friends but how do you have a head-on collision with another motorcycle driver? Don’t people drive motorcycles so they can go around things? I see them all the time in traffic going around cars that are stuck in one place. Perhaps these two were related in another lifetime. Maybe they were brothers who went off in different directions and missed each other terribly.
Now they are together again in heaven. Angels are tenderly trying to separate them so that they can begin their heavenly training.
I also enjoy reading about what happened on this day in history. On July 1, 1867 Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain. This news also is causing me some confusion however. Doesn’t the word dominion have something to do with the word dominate? And isn’t the concept of self-government different from the notion of domination? It’s a little like what happened to Prince Charles on this day in 1969. Because he was formally invested as the Prince of Wales by his mother. He was given a position of great authority and prestige on this day.
And here we are forty years later and he’s still got the same position and precious little authority! Henry V!!! who has been so vividly portrayed lately on Showtime had his wife’s head removed based on some trumped up rumors about her infidelity. But Prince Charles had to watch while his wife went tooling around Paris with her boyfriend in a luxury automobile for the whole world to see!
Boy things sure have changed in the last four hundred years.
Maybe.
Canada did manage to get a national anthem on this day in 1980. It only took 113 years to come up with some music to mark the occasion.
In 1946 on this day the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. But on this day in 1968 the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and sixty other countries signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Between these two dates
in the 1950’s above ground testing was conducted out west in the US near Las Vegas! People were encouraged to go out in their yards and watch. In fact they were given radiation badges that were collected and analyzed.
Some of these folks later discovered that they glowed in the dark except on one little area where the radiation badge had been located!!
Oh, I just made that last part up!
Maybe
Marlon Brandon left us on this date five years ago. Maybe he can welcome our two motorcycle brothers into the fraternity up there and do a quick replay with them to figure out how they went wrong.
And, finally, a bevy of beautiful babes are enjoying birthdays today. Olivia de Havilland, Karen Black, Deborah Harry, Genevieve Bujold, Lisa Blount, Pamela Anderson, Liv Tyler and Jamie Farr are all having special days.
And I have completed my adventure into a world full of news and history and insanity. Clearly its time to relax and do some deep breathing. My wife always hides the car keys for awhile when I do this so no one will be tempted to go downtown. Not that I would actually try and go anywhere to see someone about the current state of our terrestrial paradise.
Who would I talk to anyway? It seems like no one is in charge in any meaningful sense. We are all just drifting along through time waiting for the last day when history is able to amaze us.
And we become it.
So enjoy!





