The Years Go By

"Mom, I'm disturbed by something."  Bigger Girl had come in from a college sponsored music event.  The student jazz band had played a concert, and she had attended for a class assignment with several friends.

What's up? i asked.

"Well, there's this song out called "Blurred Lines," and it's about how when a girl says 'no'  she really means 'yes,' and it's vulgar and awful.  Here we have a college that stresses to us that 'no means no' and girls have to watch out and how to defend ourselves, then they sponsor a concert where the student band, taught by a professor at the college, plays this horrible song.  My friends and I got up and left when they started that song.

"I don't think the college should condone that song, or songs like it.  So what do I do?  I really want to protest it.  But in sociology we are talking about deviancy, and whether it should be curtailed, or if it can be.  If I start a campaign to get that song banned from college sponsored events, and make them get that professor to stop teaching that song to students, am I pro curtailing deviancy, which I really don't believe can be done?"

That song shouldn't be played at college sponsored events, and there's nothing wrong with you telling the administration so, and as for deviancy, that's a different subject.  If she says 'no,' it's 'no,' period, and the college needs to reinforce that, not say one thing in policy and another in practice, is what i told her.

Bigger Girl's 21st birthday is here.  She's amazing.

She wanted chocolate cake with pecans, and she got it.

Pecans were sprinkled on top, and she loved it.

Today is:

Armed Forces Day -- Myanmar

Cherry Blossom (Sakura) Viewing and Celebrations begin -- Japan (the festivities get started around now, and vary by region depending on when the trees bloom in that area over the next 6 weeks)

Commemoration of Sen no Rikyu -- Omotesenke School of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Japan (remembering the influential master in The Way of Tea)

Corkscrew Day -- M.L. Byrn of New York patented "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" on this date in 1860

National "Joe" Day -- no, it isn't official, but today you can make everyone call you "Joe" if you want, and call them the same; probably started by someone who had no memory for names

National Letting Go of Stuff Day -- see lettinggocafe.com for details

National Spanish Paella Day

Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day -- after all, they do need their own day; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Savannah Tour of Homes and Gardens -- Savannah, GA, US (tours of Savannah's historic homes; through Sunday)

St. John Damascene's Day (Patron of pharmacists, icon paiting, theology students)

St. Rupert of Salzburg's Day (Patron of Salzburg; celebrated on the 24th in the rest of the Church)

World Theatre Day


Anniversary Today:

Mary Pickford marries Douglas Fairbanks, 1920


Birthdays Today:

Brenda Song, 1988
Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson, 1975
Nathan Fillion, 1971
Mariah Carey, 1970
Quentin Tarantino, 1963
Xuxa, 1963
Maria Schneider, 1952
Austin Pendleton, 1940
Michael York, 1942
David Janssen, 1931
Anthony Lewis, 1927
Mstislav Rostropovich, 1927
Sarah Vaughan, 1924
Harold Nicholas, 1921
Gloria Swanson, 1899
Thorne Smith, 1892
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, 1886
Edward Steichen, 1879
Patty Smith Hill, 1868
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, 1845
Nathaniel Currier, 1813


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Starlight Express"(Rock musical), 1984
"Funky Winkerbean"(Comic strip), 1972
"Singin' in the Rain"(Film), 1952
"La Rondine/The Swallow"(Puccini Opera), 1917
"The Colleen Bawn"(Play), 1860


Today in History:

Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt, BC196
Pope Clement V excommunicates the entire population of Venice, 1309
Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida, 1513
The first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy, 1613
The dike at Hardinxveld breaks, causing the Alblasserwaard flood, 1709
Spain losses Menorca & Gibraltar, 1713
John Parker Paynard originates medicated adhesive plaster, precursor to the band-aid, 1848
First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans, 1851
M L Byrn patents "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew), 1860
The first international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, is played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place, 1871
Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars, 1886
The first Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washington, D.C., 1912
The first successful blood transfusion takes place in Brussels, 1914
Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, , 1916
Charlie Chaplin receives France's distinguished Legion of Honor, 1931
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union, 1958
The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage, 1964
The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight. 1970
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins, 1975
The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212, 1980
The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours, 1981
The US FDA approves Viagra, 1998
HMS Scylla (F71), a decommissioned Leander class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe, 2004