Printers' Woes

 Once again, Reader's Digest is filing for bankruptcy.

Every time i read about another magazine or newspaper going out of business, cutting back on how often it publishes, or switching completely to online, it hurts my heart a little.

The Digest will not go out of business now, but the whole future of print media is up in the air.

Some of my favorite memories are of reading the newspaper as a child, especially the advice columns and the funnies.

That's something the kids and i still do.  We have a newspaper on the kitchen table each day, courtesy of my parents, who pass theirs along to us, and all of us stop at some point in the day to peruse it.

When everyone is done reading, i take them and do the puzzles; i can't imagine not having them around.

Yet it seems that, someday, it might really happen.

Let's hope not.  Now please excuse me while i go read the latest Digest.  It has some great stories about terrible bosses that i want to laugh over.


Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Mexico

Birthday of Minerva -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Birthday of Shivaji -- Maharashtra, India

Chaoflux -- Discordianism

Chief Leschi Day -- US, especially Washington State (Native American chief wrongly executed for murder on this date in 1958; fully exhonerated 2004)

Crackerjacks Prize Day -- the first prizes were added to the boxes of carmel popcorn this date in 1913

Flag Day -- Turkmenistan

Fly-By for Goblins and others -- Fairy Calendar

Musikahan Festival -- Tagum City, Phillipines (using music to help the victims of Typhoon Pablo; through Sunday)

National Chocolate Mint Day (because every day needs chocolate in some form)

Single-Tasking Day -- encouraging you to do one thing at a time, and not feel guilty; begun by Theresa Gabriel, who suggests it be on the 4th Tuesday of the month, although other sites list other dates

Solar System Day -- birth anniversary of Copernicus

St. Conrad of Piacenza's Day -- (Patron against hernias)

Straw Wrapper Appreciation Day -- an internet spread holiday to remind you of how much fun it was as a kid to blow the wrappers off the straws

Temporary Insanity Day -- anniversary of the first time someone successfully pleaded temporary insanity in a court of law; Daniel Stickles, in 1859

Vassil Levski Day -- Bulgaria (Bulgaria's "Apostle of Freedome")


Birthdays Today:

Justine Bateman, 1966
Seal, 1963
Jeff Daniels, 1955
Margaux Hemingway, 1955
Smokey Robinson, 1940
Lee Marvin, 1924
Willam III, 1817 (last king of the Netherlands -- there have only been queens since)
Nicolas Copernicus, 1473


Today in History:

Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus' defeats beats Clodius Albinus at Lyon, 197
Emperor Constantius II shuts down all pagan temples, 356
The second Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ends as a council in Constantinople formally reinstates veneration of icons in the churches, 842
Jews of Tyrnau, Hungary (then Trnava, Czech) are expelled, 1539
The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America, 1600
Britain and the Netherlands sign the Peace of Westminster, and New Amsterdam formally becomes New York, 1674
British explorer William Smith discovers the South Shetland Islands, and claims them in the name of King George III, 1819
The first practical coal burning locomotive in the US makes a trial run, in Pennsylvania, 1831
Tin-type camera is patented by Hamilton Smith of Gambier, Ohio, 1856
Daniel E. Sickles is acquitted of the murder of his wife's lover, Phillip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), on the grounds of temporary insanity, the first time this defense is successfully used, 1859
Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in Russia, 1861
Thomas Edison patents the gramophone (phonograph), 1878
Kansas becomes the first US state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages, 1881
WK Kellog and Charles Bolin found the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co., 1906
The first prize is inserted into a Cracker Jack box, 1913
Ed Wynn becomes the first talent to sign as a regular radio entertainer, 1922
Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize for poetry, 1949
Bill Keane's "Family Circus" comic strip makes its debut, 1960
Artificial heart recipient William J. Schroeder becomes the first such patient to leave hospital, 1985
The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft, 1986
NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system, 2002