Stop the Madness!

In connection to the Thanksgiving Comes First rant, i want to also say that it is way, way too early for the holiday traffic to start jamming up, especially around the malls.

Really, people, you can't wait a couple of weeks to begin this madness?

Every trip around here now takes about twice as long as the rest of the year. The rule in this city, usually, is that morning rush hours are 6am to 9am, evening rush hours are 3pm to 7pm, and Friday night's rush hour starts Thursday morning.

Now, it's rush hour around the clock.

Let's slow down and celebrate Thanksgiving first, please?

If you are in a country that already celebrated Thanksgiving, or that does not observe, please excuse the ranting. This spreading Christmas to cover over all the other things that come before is getting awful around here.


Today is:

A&W Rootbeer Mug Day -- see if you can frost your mug like they did

Birth of Baha'u'llah -- Baha'i

Birth of Sun Yat-Sen, Doctors Day, and Cultural Renaissance Day -- Taiwan

Chicken Soup for the Soul Day -- "Changing the world, one story at a time."

Constitution Day -- Azerbaijan

Journee Nationale Maore -- Comoros (Admission to the UN Day)

Lord Mayor's Day -- London, England (observed; traditional date, Nov. 9)

National Donor Sabbath -- encouraging people to make the choice to be organ and tissue donors

National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day

National Youth Day -- East Timor

Postman's Day -- Mexico

St. Emillian's Day (Patron of Spain, finding lost objects)

St. Josaphat's Day (Patron of Ukraine)

Tewa Buffalo Dance -- Native American Tewa rites to honor Mother Earth, Father Sky, the four directions, and the elements; through the 15th


Anniversaries Today:

The Arches National Park established, 1971


Birthdays Today:

Sammy Sosa, 1968
Michael Moorer, 1967
David Schwimmer, 1966
Nadia Comaneci, 1961
Neil Young, 1945
Al Michaels, 1944
Wallace Shawn, 1943
Grace Kelly, 1929
Jo Stafford, 1918
Sun Yat-sen, 1866
Auguste Rodin, 1840
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1815


Today in History:

Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days starting today, 764
Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament, 1439
Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic, 1847
Jules Leotard performs 1st Flying Trapeze circus act (Paris); he also designed garment that bears his name, 1859
World's Fair in Paris opens, 1900
The first movie stunt: man jumps into Hudson river from a burning balloon, 1910
Norway holds a referendum in favor of monarchy over republic, 1905
Robert Scott's diary & body are found in Antarctica, 1912
Austria becomes a republic, 1918
The first underwater tunnel, the Holland Tunnel connecting NY to NJ opens, 1927
The first photo of whatever is in Loch Ness is taken, 1933
Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia join the United Nations, 1956
Equatorial Guinea joins the United Nations, 1968
The Comoros joins the United Nations, 1975
The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings, 1980
The Space Shuttle Columbia becomes the first time a manned spacecraft launched into space twice, 1981
Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch, 1990
Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web, 1990
Shanghai Transrapid sets up a new world speed record (501 kilometres per hour (311 mph)) for commercial railway systems, 2003
The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database is launched on the web and revolutionizes chemical-gene-disease information for research scientists, 2004