Francesco Guardi
According to the Wiki, so many interesting things happened on this day in history!
421 – Venice, Italy is born at twelve o’clock noon, according to legend.
1306 – Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland. (I bet he was wearing a kilt…)
1655 – Saturn‘s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.
From the amazing beauty of Venice, to the discovery of a planet millions of miles away, to the terrible tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, March 25 was a very busy day in history.
Some interesting people were born on this day as well…
1867 – Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor.
1908 – Sir David Lean, English film director.
1911 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald.
1914 – Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner and American agriculturalist.
1934 – Gloria Steinem, American feminist and publisher.
1942 – Aretha Franklin, American singer.
1947 – Elton John, English singer and songwriter.
1982 – Danica Patrick, American race car driver (now House knows when to send that birthday card).
And many more!
This is our daily open thread — What’s going on in your world today?
TheZoo 
I’ll bet that’s already penned on House’s wall calendar.
Happy B-day Danica! and 40 years earlier: Happy Birthday! Aretha:
Danica will be on track in less than two hours, in the first official practice session of the season, at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida. The track is laid out on the streets and one runway of the Albert Whitted Airport, so that it runs adjacent to the water of the South Yacht Basin of Tampa Bay, just like at Monaco! Joining Danica in my Ladies in Racing reports will be Simona de Silvestro of Switzerland and Ana Beatriz of Brazil. All three ladies have full-season rides, so although we won’t set as many records as we did last year, we will have plenty to talk about throughout the season! Milka Duno is pursuing a stock car career starting in ARCA, and Sarah Fisher is now devoting herself to managing her team, which will race only at oval tracks, like at Indy. I’ll mention Ed Carpenter, her driver, as warranted during the year, as Sarah still qualifies as an official Lady in Racing as a team owner.
Oh, and Happy Birthday Danica! (thanks for the heads up Zooey!)
Danica, Danica,Danica,Danica Girls Rock. She is just on the verge of DOMINATING Nascar as well as Formula 1…………………soon no one man or woman will be able to keep up with her……..giggle, decided I’d get my feminist stuff out of the way before Badmoodman got here………….lol
Morning EBB and House
House, I got one team out of our way last night, Pooooooor doookies, dead again!!!
Krissy, did you watch that Duke game? I was having to switch to keep up with Butler also. They were ahead of Wisconsin by 20 at one point, and the Badgers got it to four before time ran out and they had to start fouling.
house I watched every second of it including the coaches and players interviews afterwards. As a tarheel its a law that when Duke goes down we all are required to attend the funeral, lol
Borlaug is a pretty interesting person, and one whose name everyone ought to be familiar with. One of his achievements was breeding a high-yield strain of wheat that grew on shorter stalks so that the crop wouldn’t be blown over and broken by the wind. It turned Mexico into a net exporter of wheat, doubled the crop yield in India and Pakistan, and is widely credited with saving as many as a BILLION people from starvation.
I propose a toast to Elton John’s pink glasses!
Salud!!!!
If you haven’t seen these pics of Japan it is worth your time to take a look…the pics have a slide bar that lets you clearly see the before and after of the earthquake and tsunami ….
Good morning all. It looks like it will be a sunny and warm spring day here. News from the Rialto is Mom decided it was time to go home last night. She passed quietly about 10:30.
Hoody, I’m sorry about your news. May she rest in peace.
Hooda, words fail me now. Many, many hugs to you.
change “Hoody” to “Hooda”
Hooda, your Mom lives in your heart and memory for all time. May you have peace and strength as you go forward.
Awwwwwwwwwww sorry Hooda. Never know what to say at a time like this so I will just send light energy your way………….
Hooda, I remember well the day. It was, in fact 18 years ago. Yesterday. Believe me, I understand. Still, as Emily Dickinson so vividly observed 150 years ago,
The last two lines — they tell the story and lend comfort to those who remain behind.
Peace to you and all of her family.
Go nuthatch!
Hooda – Holding you in the Light ~ enveloping you in warm hugs.
The raw edge, time will heal, memories will hold and get you through.
gummitch, agreed – go nuthatch!
(goldfinch I’m really not taking sides – oh that was channeling a GoOPer).
I have two varieties of nuthatch that visit my feeders on a regular basis and my heart always lifts when I watch them on the suet or walking upside down on a tree. When I laid down for a nap the other day, I hear a little tap-tap-tap outside and went looking, hoping for a little woodpecker–but it was a red-breasted nuthatch looking for bugs in the shingles.
Many thanks to all for the light, hugs and well wishing. What I am feeling today is a bittersweet relief that her pain and suffering is over and she is on her way to whatever comes next. I will always miss her but she, like Dad, will never be further away than a thought. Death isn’t an end, just a changing, a transition.
Very true, Hooda – it’s the raw edge that gets annealed with time.
You have the memories – and Piggy – what a great reminder. Now you’ve got to find your Mom’s cookie recipes to fill his belly!
“A group of nuthatches are collectively known as a “jar” of nuthatches.”
Thoughts are with you Hooda …
“A group of nuthatches are collectively known as a “jar” of nuthatches.”
When I was a grad student at Carbondale, a bunch of other grads from the department rented the house on the corner of Almond St. and Walnut Ave. It immediately came to be known as the “nut house.”
My favorite is a parliament of owls.
So I got my golden retriever from a bird dog breeder because I was going to get my husband a German shorthair pointer but fell in love with his face. His parents are both hunters. I have a pair of mallards that come back every year and they were resting on the side of the pool the other day. Riley was afraid to go outside with them and he sat back from the patio door barking at them. They spent a couple of hours there snickering at him.
Shayne, he must be a green dog. He was telling the ducks, ‘Run for your lives before I have to go retrieve you, you dumb shits.”
I’m laughing, so hard, envisioning this large beautiful, ferocious (as long as there’s glass between) Golden telling the Mallards who’s in charge.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the ducks would tease Riley!
Absolutely he’s a lover not a hunter. It was so funny that the ducks didn’t move while he was barking so I suspect they understand dog and knew he was afraid of them. The big lug spends half the day trying to crawl onto my lap. Since I’m mostly at my desk he’s usually just wheeling me away from it.
Thank You Oregon.
Peace to you hooda…
Just in over at TP: Vermont passes Single Payer!
(And there appears to be a troll namejacking the author of the post.)
I think that it is a hoot that members of the Westboro Baptist Church did not make it to Liz Taylor’s funeral. By now, they must be cursing their doG.
The name-jacker is probably 7th. He gave himself away as the EugenDebs name-jacker.
Are our eyes deceiving us – WaltTheMan – is that really you?
My thoughts are with you, Hooda. Take care of yourself.
The trolls are in firm control at TP today. I don’t even want to think what the evening and weekend will be like. It’s bad enough that they tolerate namejacking of their patrons but allowing one of the stupid trolls to pass himself off as Zaid is really across the line. I really do despise amateurs.
Walt, are you home already?
Duckworthless is a very poor parody troll.
The one name-jacking Zaid is just a parasitic nematode. Gave itself away – getting defensive when one of the regulars intimated troll was a fat white guy. “Racist” the troll calls the poster – dead give away he’s a fat-as*ed white bastar*
Here’s a photo of a La Jolla Cove sea lion taken by my old college buddy Denny Green. What a gorgeous critter!
Mr. Green has a great eye – wonderful capture!
Beautiful frugal.
I’ve spent some very happy times in and around La Jolla cove. I’m not sure if they’re still there but there used to be two signs right next to each other.
The first said: “Child’s swimming beach”
The second said: “DANGER! Moray eels”.
lol – Pete that must made the song “Gaucho” by Steely Dan pop into my head…
“Stalking the dread moray eel…”
I’m sure Bill Maher will respond to the Half-Term Diva’s characterization of him on her Facebook page yesterday, that she lovingly titled, Lamestream Media: Reload or White Flag?:
(I won’t bother responding to it though, because it was made by he who reminds me of an annoying little mosquito found zipped up in your tent; he can’t do any harm, but buzzes around annoyingly until it’s time to give him the proverbial slap.)
More peering into Palin’s cocoon, where the irony of this sentence is lost on her:
“Even though it often seems like I’m armed with just a few stones and a sling against a media giant, I’ll use those small resources to do what I can to set the record straight.
Phfffffffft, Palin has a home-studio and salary from the biggest cable news network; her books have been published, without any fact-checking, by Harper Collins, one of the biggest publishing houses in the country. TLC gave her a reality show. She is a multimillionaire, based on barely two years in office and John McCain’s impulsive Googling. She could get booked on CNN or MSNBC or ABC at a moment’s notice. But she is a David, alone against media Goliaths?
Why doesn’t she go on Maher’s show, bring a few “stones” and set the record straight? Or any show not on the Fox propaganda channel, or on a reality show where she doesn’t get to approve the final cut? (Btw, if Huckabee doesn’t run, Palin and Romney are tied — check the polling). And if she really wants to set the record straight on any number of issues, she could always call an open press conference and answer everything they ask. But she can’t and won’t, because her lies are too twisted and endless and she would simply lie again to try and wriggle out them.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150119801048435
For Hooda:
Souls reunited
Weightless masters of the winds;
No passport required
Rock on, CheeseFlap.
‘Some might say then’ that Charlie Sheen is polling top of the GOP ticket…?
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/03/charlie-sheen-beats-sarah-palin-in-presidential-poll/1
Or am I Faux Newsing the article…. heh 🙂
Charlie Sheen beats Obama among Repubs too….
Republicans are so cute. They would accept anything over an intelligent black man as President. Maybe their next ticket will be Paris/Lindsey. Prom Queen, President, meh.
Frugal bait…
Barry Eisler explains why he’s passing up a $500,000 book contract to self-publish:
“[I]f I’m right about all this, and I’m pretty sure I am, I should be able to beat the contract about halfway through the fourth year.
… To develop some data to go with the theory, in February I self-published a short story, The Lost Coast, featuring one of my series characters, a very nasty piece of work named Larison. I priced it at $2.99, which is a premium price for a short story, just to see how my writing would do in the new environment and even with the handicap of a relatively high price. It’s been selling steadily and is currently at #1,088 on the Kindle list (and #13 and #17 on Amazon’s short stories bestseller lists, which is good because the top twenty come up in the first page view). It definitely got a boost from the online discussion that followed my announcement, but even before all that it was on track to earn me about $30,000 in a year through Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords—not bad at all for a short story.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-24/barry-eisler-explains-self-publishing-decision/#
Hooda, the they want an ASCOB candidate. They think they’re cocker spaniels. Any solid color other than black.
My pet peeve is that they think we voted for Obama because he was black and we were indulging in political correctness or something. They can’t even think of him as a qualified human but they think Palin and Bachmann are.
Shayne, its the old who would you want to share a beer with thing. Why most Americans would feel that anyone they meet in a bar would be qualified to run the country is beyond me.
For Hooda, an early start to music night…Requiescat in pace Mom…
Mother, do you think she’s good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she’s dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?
Whoah now Syria is going ape-shit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12858972
Q: What is the difference between Madison and Benghazi?
A: About 10k miles.
Ebb,
It’s me – I don’t go in until Monday afternoon, out somewhere between Tuesday and Wednesday (or Thursday). Hospitals do not admit patients on Fridays unless it is via the ER. I am using the time till then to finish off all of the projects left undone or partially done.
Molding in closets, done, and work on hutch is progressing (Just needs to be stripped and re-varnished, rebuilt it and installed hidden casters already).
Walt,
Putting all that energy to good use I see!
Walt, I wish I had your ambition.
Shayne,
If I was ambitious, none of these tasks would not have been left unfinished.
Krissy,
What is your ZIP code? I only ask because I live about ⅖ of a mile off A1A.
Zooey, was that a UKBDave influence?
Indeed it was, Ebb.
Only he could dance that long…
Another UKDave special. 🙂