Which Brain Does Your Thinking?

It turned out, in a recent car accident locally (not involving us, thank goodness), that it proved quite fitting that Allstate Insurance has a "mascot" called Mayhem.

A young driver who had Allstate insurance and who also deserves that mascot's name made a right turn from the middle lane, causing the car already in the right lane to be unable to avoid hitting him.

The driver of the other car had to exit the passenger side of his vehicle, and asked the young man what in the world he was doing.  The response?  "My GPS told me to turn right."

The second driver replied that the GPS didn't know he wasn't in the right lane, and said, "I don't use my GPS, I use my brain!"

Whose brain do these young people use?  Their own, or their devices?  Too often now, i am afraid, it is the latter.

 Speaking of technology and discoveries and other such things, it was only a matter of time before the recently discovers Higgs boson, a so-called "god particle," yielded a joke.  Being that it is supposed to be what gives all matter in the universe size and shape, and given that this is south Louisiana, where you can't throw a rock without it landing near a Catholic church, it would end up being a Catholic joke.

A Higgs boson shows up at church, and the priest meets it at the door and informs it that it cannot enter.

"Sure I can," the boson replies, "you can't have mass without me."

Happy Saturday, all.

Today is:

Andorra La Vella Festival -- Andorra

Battle of Bushy Run Reenactment -- Harrison City, PA, US (commemorates the decisive battle of Pontiac's War in 1763; through tomorrow)

Blueberry Arts Festival -- Ketchikan, AK, US

Caribana/Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival -- Toronto, Ontario, Canada (through the weekend, a huge Caribbean Carnival event)
Champagne Day -- internet generated holiday, probably created by someone who wanted an excuse to celebrate

Coast Guard Day -- US (anniversary of founding in 1790)

Constitution Day -- Cook Islands

Fairy Drying-Out Day -- Fairy Calendar (makes sense, as we washed them yesterday. Now it begs the question, how does one dry a fairy?)

Fancy Farm Picnic -- Fancy Farm, KY, US (what a name for a town, and what a good time they have, Southern hospitality at its best!)

Festival of the Dead; Sunset Ceremony -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Fiestas de la Virgen Blanca -- Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava, Basque Country, Spain; through the 9th

Fiestas Patronales -- El Salvador

Matica Slovenska Day -- Slovakia (main Slovak cultural institution, established 1863)

National Lasagna Day

National Mustard Day -- sponsored by the National Mustard Museum

Nicole Robin Day -- St. John, USVI(unofficial celebration her safe return, with the crew, to the Virgin Islands after being held by Cubans.)

Olathe Sweet Corn Festival -- Olathe, CO, US (lots of fun and all the "Olathe Sweet" corn you can eat)

Rushbearing Festival -- Grasmere, England (at St. Oswald's Church, a ceremony of children gathering rushes for the church, which dates back to when the rushes were the church floor and needed to be changed yearly)

Single Working Women's Day

St. John Baptist Mary Vianney's Day (Cure of Ars; Patron of confessors, parish priests; Dubuque, Iowa; Kamloops, BC; Kansas City, KS; Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN)

Tall Timbers Days -- Grand Rapids, MN, US (through tomorrow, lumberjack shows, chainsaw carvers, and lots of fun)

Vigil of St. Oswald -- Anglo-Saxon holy day, commemorates the day before King Oswald's death in 642

Zuni Corn Dance -- the Zuni Native Americans give thanks to Mother Earth, the Kokos (Nature Spirits), and the Corn Maidens for the maize harvest; through the 7th


Birthdays Today:

Cole and Dylan Sprouse, 1992
Roger Clemens, 1962
Barack H. Obama, 1961
Billy Bob Thornton, 1955
Maurice "Rocket" Richard, 1921
Louis Armstrong, 1901*
Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 1900
Louis Vuitton, 1821
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792


Today in History

The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, 70
A supernova is observed in constellation Cassiopeia, 1181
The first printing of Zohar (Jewish Kabbalah), 1558
A hurricane in the Caribbean kills thousands in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Christopher, 1666
Dom Perignon invents champagne (traditional date), 1693
First edition of the Saturday Evening Post, which was published until 1969, 1821
The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home, 1892
The Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens, 1902
The Supreme Court of Japan is established, 1947
The Billboard Hot 100 is founded, 1958
American civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21, 1964
The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso, 1984
Operation Storm begins in Croatia, 1995
Prime Minister Paul Martin announces that Michaëlle Jean will be Canada's 27th Governor General, 2005
California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage passed by the state's voters in 2008, is overturned by Judge Vaughn Walker in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 2010


*In several interviews, Satchmo claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900. Historians always disputed that claim, saying it was too neat and tidy, and his baptismal records, found in a church basement, proved otherwise. Some biographies still give the July 4, 1900 date in error.