Juxtaposition

Two news stories caught my eye.

First the sign of hate -- the shooting at the Sikh Temple.  A group who believe in peace, targeted for violence.

Second a sign of acceptance -- the picture of Saudi Arabia’s Wojdan Shaherkani competing wearing her hijab.  A compromise reached so she could honor her religious beliefs as she participated in the sport she loves.

We need more of the latter, less of the former.

Unfortunately, until we can outlaw stupid, we may not get it.


Today is:

Accession Day -- United Arab Emirates (accession of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan)

Best Elf Awards -- Fairy Calendar

British Columbia Day -- British Columbia, Canada

Carnival Monday -- Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda

Civic Holiday -- Canada

Emancipation Day --  Bahamas; Dominica; Granada; Guyana; Montserrat; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Turks and Caicos Islands

Farmer's Day -- Zambia

Feast of Everything Green Except Money -- Hooray for veggies! You'll need them before you have that root beer float.

Festival Monday -- British Virgin Islands

Festival of Nut and Ra; Chief Festival of Thoth -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Frídagur verslunarmanna -- Iceland (Commerce Day)

Hanuman Jayanti -- Hindu (birthday of the monkey god)

Hiroshima Day

Independence Day / National Day -- Bolivia; Jamaica

National Children's Day -- Tuvalu

National Fresh Breath (Halitosis) Day -- shouldn't that read, anti-halitosis?)

National Root Beer Float Day

New Brunswick Day -- Canada

Peace Festival -- Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima, Japan

Picnic Day -- Australia

Quran Revelation Day -- Brunei; Malaysia

Summer Bank Holiday -- Ireland; UK

Sts. Justus and Pastor's Day (Patrons of Alcala, Spain; Madrid, Spain)

Tampere Theatre Festival -- Tampere, Finland (through the 12th, largest such festival in the Nordic countries)

Tanabata Festival -- Sendai, Japan (Japan's largest Tanabata 'Star Festival', through the 8th)

Teinne Festival -- Ancient Celtic Calendar (Teinne, the Celtic Holy Fire, sometimes called Tan; date apprximate)

Transfiguration of the Lord -- Orthodox Christian

Wiggle Your Toes Day -- internet generated, and my suggestion is to celebrate it with a cool drink out by the pool!

Youth Day -- Kiribati


Birthdays Today:

M. Night Shyamalan, 1970
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob, 1934
Andy Warhol, 1928
Robert Mitchum, 1817
Lucille Ball, 1911
Clara Bow, 1905
Hoot Gibson, 1892
Alexander Fleming, 1881
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, 1861
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809


Today in History:

Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada founds the city of Bogota, Colombia, 1538
Holland (The Dutch Republic) sells Brazil to Portugal and the two
countries sign the Treaty of The Hague, 1661
The first private military school in the US, Norwich University, is
founded in Vermont, 1819
The Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg, 1845
William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by the electric chair, 1890
Alice Ramsey takes three friends (none of whom could drive) to become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, 1909
Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel, 1926
Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down by the US National Forest Service, for reasons even they cannot explain, 1964
The Federal Voting Rights Act is signed, 1965
A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, 1986
The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, 1990
NASA makes the still disputed announcement that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms, 1996
The incoming coalition government of the United Kingdom discontinues the use of the controversial ContactPoint database of all children in that country, 2010