Not Holding My Breath

This is south Louisiana, where the two favorite spectator sports are politics and football.

Everyone else may be holding their breath for the Iowa Caucuses, but around here the Saints are the only thing i hear about.

There are people saying the New Orleans team has what it takes to go all the way once again and win a second Super Bowl. They believe this is the Saints' year.

As for me, i'm not holding my breath on that. It would be lovely, but this soon? Somehow, i don't expect the netherworld to freeze over again so soon.


Today is:

Carnival Day -- Saint Kitts and Nevis

Day of Remembrance for Princess Olga -- Slavic Pagan Calendar

Festival of Pax -- Roman Empirical Calendar (goddess of peace)

Hakozakigu Tamaseseri -- Fukuoka, Japan (ceremony of the red ball which brings good luck to the team which catches it)

Icing Morning -- Fairy Calendar

Humiliation Day -- drawing attention to the fact that it's okay to be humble, but not to humiliate others

J.R.R. Tolkien Day

Memento Mori "Remember You Die" Day -- according to one source, Tibet tradition says the fates decide who will die this year on this day

National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

Revolution Day -- Burkina Faso

Shigoto-hajime -- Japan (first work day of the New Year)

St. Genevieve's Day (Patron of Paris, secretaries, actors, lawyers; against drought, fever, floods, plague)

Tamaseseri Festival -- Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka, Japan

Tenth Day of Christmas


Anniversaries Today:

Alaska becomes the 49th US State, 1959


Birthdays Today

Eli Manning, 1981
Danica McKellar, 1975
Joan Chen, 1960
Mel Gibson, 1956
Victoria Principal, 1950
John Paul Jones, 1946
Stephen Stills, 1945
Van Dyke Parks, 1943
Dabney Coleman, 1932
George Martin, 1926
Maxine Andrews, 1918
Victor Borge, 1909
Ray Milland, 1905
Zasu Pitts, 1898
Marion Davies, 1897
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1892
Father Joseph Damien, 1840
William Tucker, 1624 (first African American child born in North America)
Cicero, BC106


Today in History:

Joan of Arc is handed over to the bishop for trial, 1431
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine, 1496
Martin Luther is formally excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, 1521
The first theater in Amsterdam, the Schouwburg, opens, 1638
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont as a separate state, 1749
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico, 1823
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia, 1848
The Meiji Restoration returns authority to Japan's emperors, 1868
Oleomargarine is patented by Henry Bradley, Binghamton, NY, 1871
The wax drinking straw is patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington DC, 1888
The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, then the largest in the world, is put into use, 1888
The first known use of the word automobile was seen in an editorial in The New York Times, 1899
British explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt, 1924
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy, dissolves the Italian parliament, 1925
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States, 1933
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress, 1953
Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland, 1958
The West Indies Federation is formed, 1958
Apple Computer is incorporated, 1977
Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century, 1988
In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), 1993
More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, receives South African citizenship, 1994
The People's Republic of China announces it will spend fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys, 1977
The Mars Polar Lander is launched, 1999