19 Dec

 

`Flagstaff Almanac

Week 51 Day 353   Flag Today  57° \24°	Sky Cover 40% Wind 2mph Gusts 3mph
Active fire: 347 miles Risk of fire: High	Near Lightning: 1793mi
Air Quality: Fair Moderate Cloudy	Dec. Averages: Temps: 44° \ 17° Moisture 5 Days

Today’s Quote

Weekly Observations

4-24 Andisop (Meteorological Fiddling)  Link 14-28 Halcyon Days 15 - 1/1/24   Arrive Sober or Get Pulled Over Link

15-21 Gluten-free Baking Week 16-23 Cookie Exchange Week    Posadas 17-23

Daily Observations

Holly Day Look for an Evergreen Day

National Hard Candy Day National Oatmeal Muffin Day

Today’s Thoughts

I had a human glitch yesterday. I had just about finished yesterday’s blog, when must have hit something that closed the document…lost forever. I finished my Christmas shopping on Sunday. I hadn’t been to Target in months, but stopped there and found my last few gifts. Thank goodness. Over the weekend the Cards lost to the 49ers and Broncos lost to the Lions. Cambodian statues were looted during the Khmer Rouge regime are finally being returned to Cambodia where the religious believe these statues are alive and watching over them. Many of the stolen statues are in famous museums around the world. A former Cambodian looter has identified many from pictures of the statues and then taken officials that match the place the statues were stolen. Even so, museums are requiring more provenance before returning them. Sad. Gnawa is ancient music from Morocco. It used to be very secretive and only heard by local believers. Now it has become very popular music in Morocco. It is also believed to be the root of American Gospel and American Blues.  There was a very interesting story on 60 Minute last night. This will be my last blog before I leave for Mexico. Tuesday is for packing and getting ready.

 Enjoy

Important inventions…

1959: Integrated Circuit The first general-purpose computer, the nearly 30-ton ENIAC (1947), contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, and 10,000 capacitors. In 1959, the integrated circuit puts those innards on one tiny chip. Honorable Invention: Float Glass

States with similar size to countries around the world.

Arizona – The Philippines Arizona is the sixth-largest state in the nation, covering 113,990 square miles. The archipelagic Asian nation of the Philippines is closest in size to Arizona at 114,145 square miles. There’s a significant gap in terms of population between the state and country, however — there are 7.5 million Arizona residents compared to a whopping 115 million Philippine citizens. Arizona’s capital, Phoenix, is not only the most populous city in the state (with 1.7 million residents) but also the most populous capital city in the country. In the Philippines, 2.8 million residents live in Quezon City, the country’s largest city — considerably more than the 1.6 million residents of Manila, the capital.

Historic Events

1998: Articles of impeachment approved against U.S. President Bill Clinton The U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice, though Clinton was acquitted by the Senate the following month. 2012: Park Geun-Hye became the first female to be elected president of South Korea; she was sworn into office the following year; however, she also became the country's first democratically elected president to be removed from office when she was impeached in 2017. 1997: James Cameron's Titanic, a drama about the doomed ocean liner starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, premiered; it later became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. 1971: The sci-fi drama A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of a novel by Anthony Burgess, had its world premiere; although widely acclaimed, the movie's violent and sexually explicit scenes proved controversial, and it received an X rating when released in the United States. 1966: The United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Outer Space Treaty, an international treaty binding the parties to use outer space only for peaceful purposes. 1946: The Viet Minh, founded by Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, began the First Indochina War against France. 1843: English author Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, which became one of the outstanding Christmas stories of modern literature. 1777: During the American Revolution, General George Washington led 11,000 regulars to take up winter quarters at Valley Forge on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, 22 miles (35 km) northwest of Philadelphia.

Birthdays with some quotes

@94 – Cicely Tyson, American actress (d. 2021) @80 – Lola Hendricks, American civil rights activist (d. 2013) 79 – Tim Reid, American actor @77 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan Anthropologist (d. 2022) @75 – Leonid Brezhnev, Ukrainian-Russian marshal, Head of the Soviet Union (d. 1982; heart attack) @74 – Maurice White, American singer-songwriter of Earth, Wind, Fire (d. 2016; Parkinson’s) 66 – Kevin McHale, American basketball player 60 – Jennifer Beals, American actress 56 – Criss Angel, American magician “When the mind, body, and spirit work together I believe anything is possible.” 51 – Alyssa Milano, American actress @47 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (d. 1963; liver cancer) 43 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor 36 – Ronan Farrow, American journalist

…The End for today…