What did the penguins do?

"Hey, mom, want to see my latest painting?"  Bigger Girl came in carrying a cork board.  She says she can't paint on canvass, she has to paint on something with texture.

Sure, i said, so she held it up.

Bigger Girl's latest.

"It's a girl dancing," she said.  "I love painting on textured surfaces!"

Nice, i said.

"Oh, and by the way, I accidentally jointed the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster today," she continued.

In a mock accusing voice i asked her, So, where is your colander!

"No, really, I was on their website, and they had a button that said, 'Join us' and I clicked on it, and it said, "So, you want to be a Pastafarian?  Congratulations, you're in!'  So now I'm a Pastafarian in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  We believe that heaven has a beer volcano and strippers!  Oh, and that h3ll has the same, but the beer is stale and all the strippers have social diseases.  Also, that there are penguins everywhere.  Mom, we're supposed to believe h3ll is full of penguins!"

What, i asked, did the penguins do to deserve that?

"I'm not sure, I haven't learned all my catechism yet!" she said, as she took the painting back to her room.

No penguin deserves that, although i can think of a few people who would.





Today is

Al-Yaom Al-Watany -- Saudi Arabia (National Day/Founding of the Kingdom)

Augustalia -- Roman Empire (birthday of Caesar Augustus, still the traditional New Year's Day in Constantinople and in the Eastern Orthodox Church)

Autumnal Equinox -- 2:29am UT, related observances (some began yesterday, depending on when the equinox actually occurred where you are!)
     Mabon -- Wicca/Pagan Northern Hemisphere
     Ostara -- wicca/Pagan Southern Hemisphere
     Alban Elfed -- Celtic Winter Finding
     Chuseok -- Korean harvest festival (high point of the festival)
     Feast of Carpo -- Greek Horae, goddess of autumn
     Kukulcan Snake God Celebration -- Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico (the snake appears at the equinox, a time to honor this Mayan god)
     Festival of the Sea Goddess -- Eskimo
     Higan -- Japan
     Mabon/Fallfest -- Asatru/Norse Pagan (harvest festival, time to make wine and mead for the next winter)
     Oenach Carman -- Ancient Celtic Calendar
     Sendai Great Tug-of-War -- Sendai, Japan (festival on the equinox that dates back over 400 years)    
     Svarog's Holiday -- Slavic Pagan Calendar/Asatru (day to drink mead in honor of Svarog, god of fire and the sky)

Bunster Winding -- Fairy Calendar

Checkers Day/Dogs in Politics Day -- thanks to Mr. Nixon; and i'm tempted to further comment, but this one is too easy

Citua -- Ancient Inca Empire (feast to the Moon, and to banish disease, in the month of Coyaraimi, date approximate)

El Grito de Lares -- Lares, Puerto Rico (anniversary of the first uprising against Spanish rule in 1868)

Innergize Day -- the day to take time for yourself! always on the day after the equinox, so either the 23rd or 24th, depending on where you live

International Restless Legs Syndrome Awareness Day -- on the birth anniversary of Professor Karl-Axel Ekborn, the neurologist who first described it

National Voter Registration Day -- US (Celebrating Democracy in America)

National White Chocolate Day

Neptune Day -- planet discovered this day in 1846 by Johann Galle of Germany

St. Adamnan's Day (Patron of Donegal, Ireland; Raphoe, Ireland)

St. Padre Pio's Day

Thrue Bab -- Bhutan (Blessed Rainy Day)

Woman Road Warrior Day -- to recognize the traveling businesswomen in today's world


Anniversaries Today:

The University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada, is founded, 1908


Birthdays Today:

Anthony Mackie, 1979
Ani DiFranco, 1970
Elizabeth Pena, 1961
Jason Alexander, 1959
Bruce Springsteen, 1949
Mary Kay Place, 1947
Paul Petersen, 1945
Julio Iglesias, 1943
Tom Lester, 1938
Ray Charles, 1930
John Coltrane, 1926
Mickey Rooney, 1920
Walter Pidgeon, 1897
Friedrich Paulus, 1890
Walter Lippman, 1889
Victoria Woodhull, 1838
William H. McGuffey, 1800
Kublai Khan, 1215
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, BC63
Euripides, BC480


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Marcus Welby, M.D."(TV), 1969
"The Jetsons"(TV), 1962
"Threni: id est Lamentatines Jeremiae Prophetae"(Stravinsky dodecaphonic work), 1958


Today in History:

Concord of Worms, 1122
The first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, 1459
First commencement exercises of Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., 1642
Liechtenstein declares its independence from the German Empire, 1719
John Paul Jones' "Bon Homme Richard" defeats the HMS Serepis, 1779
Lewis and Clark arrive back in St. Louis from their explorations, 1806
The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York, 1845
Neptune is discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams, 1846
Nintendo Koppai, later known as Nintendo Company, Limited, is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi; it produces and markets the playing card game Hanafuda, 1889
The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantome de l'Opera), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published, 1909
The MS Princess of Tasmania, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait, 1959
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law, 1972
Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina, 1973
Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations, 1983
Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm; some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history, 1991
The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released, 2002
Hurricane Jeanne strikes Haiti and leaves at least 1,070 dead, 2004
The identification of four genetically different types of breast cancer by researchers is announced, 2012