Two Sunday Smiles

"Mom, something is either fundamentally right or fundamentally wrong with this country."  Bigger Girl had just come in from speaking with our neighbors.

What's up?

"Well, I just had a conversation in which I explained some of what Mormons believe to our Muslim neighbors, and I'm a Presbyterian!"

That's fundamentally right.  We have diverse neighbors, we know them, and we can have a civil discussion about religion and still be friends.


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Listening to a Christian radio station:

Radio DJ#1:  It's  time for today's Encouraging Word Bible verse.

Radio DJ#2:  Proverbs 26:20, "Fire goes out without wood, and squirrels disappear when gossip stops."

Moment of silence.

Radio DJ#1:  Um, shouldn't that be...

Radio DJ#2:  Oh, quarrels.  Yes, those, too.

Radio DJ#1:  laughing too hard to introduce the next song.


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Today is:

Apple Day -- U.K. (to inspire local orchard revival and celebrate local varieties)

Antillean Day -- Bonaire; Curacao; Saba; St. Eustatius

Armed Forces Day -- Honduras (Dia de las Fuerzas Armadas)

Babbling Day -- an internet generated day for Blatherskites

Caramel Apple Day -- US (leave it to the US to add sugar to a nice healthy piece of fruit!)

Count Your Buttons Day -- whoever came up with this one needs to count his marbles maybe?

Dashain Festival -- Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Patan, Nepal (Nepal's longest and most auspicious religious festival)

Egyptian Naval Day -- Egypt

Global Iodine Deficiency Disorder Prevention Day

Humble Yourself By Having Your Picture Made Wearing A Bicycle Helmet Day -- no comment

Independence Day -- Marshall Islands(1986)

International Day of the Nacho -- Mexico; U.S.

Jailhouse Rock Day -- Elvis' song hit #1 today in 1957

Nagoya Festival -- Nagoya, Japan (biggest festival in the city)

National Nurses Day -- Thailand

National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day

Overseas Chinese Day -- Taiwan (Republic of China)

Pastoral Care Week begins -- honoring all clergy who provide spiritual help and care

President Ndadaye Day -- Burundi

Reptile Awareness Day -- hooray for snakes and turtles!  and lizards, don't forget lizards, and gators, and...

Seeking of King Look Under Your Mattress -- Fairy Calendar

St. John of Bridlington's Day (Patron against complications in childbirth)

St. Ursula's Day (Patron of educators/teachers, holy death, schoolchildren, students; British Virgin Islands; Catholic education, especially of girls; Cologne, Germany; University of Paris)

Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Day

Trafalgar Day -- British Empire (noted, but no longer an officially holiday)


Anniversaries Today:

Juan Peron marries actress Evita (María Eva Duarte), 1945


Birthdays Today:

Jeremy Miller, 1976
Carrie Fisher, 1956
Benjamin Netanyahu, 1949
Judge Judy Sheindlin, 1942
Celia Cruz, 1925
Joyce Randolph, 1925
Dizzy Gillespie, 1917
Alfred Nobel, 1833
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772


Today in History:

Sultan Kilidj Arslan of Nicea defeats 1st Crusaders, 1096
Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg., 1512
Ferdinand Magellen arrives at Tierra Del Fuego (Pacific Ocean), 1520
Sea battle at Dunes, Lt Admiral Maarten Tromp defeats Spanish Armada under De Oquendo, 1639
First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America, 1774
US Navy frigate Constitution, Old Ironsides, launched in Boston, 1797
Battle of Trafalgar, Adm Nelson defeats French & Spanish fleet & dies, 1805
The Penang Free School is founded in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, by the Rev Hutchings. It is the oldest English-language school in Southeast Asia, 1816
Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement (Yorkshire England), 1824
Thomas Edison perfects carbonized cotton filament light bulb, 1879
First transatlantic radiotelephone message, Arlington, Va to Paris, 1915
Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time, 1945
Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun, 1965
The European Patent Institute is founded, 1977
The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, 1983
Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz, 2003