1985 : Rick Nelson dies in a plane crash

Former teen idol Rick Nelson dies in plane crash in De Kalb, Texas, on December 31, 1985.

When the teenage Ricky Nelson launched his pop career in 1957 by picking up a guitar and singing at the end of an episode of The Adventures of Ozzie And Harriet, he established a template for pop-music stardom that inspired hundreds of imitators in the decades that followed. But what Ricky Nelson had that so many other actors who failed as pop stars didn't was undeniable musical talent. Having the full weight of the American Broadcasting Corporation behind him at the start of his career certainly guaranteed that the younger son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson would sell a few records, but it didn't guarantee that he wouldn't stink. And Ricky Nelson didn't stink—not by a long shot.

Beginning with his double-sided hit debut single, "I'm Walkin" b/w "A Teenager's Romance" (1957), Nelson reeled off a string of 30 rockabilly-tinged top 40 hits in the next five years—more than any other artist in the same period save for Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. Like Elvis himself, Nelson saw his commercial appeal take a major hit with the arrival of the Beatles in 1964. Nelson would remain musically relevant over the next decade, though, even earning credit for helping inspire the California sound of artists like Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles with his country-inspired late 1960s work. But after a brief revival in the early 1970s fueled by the #6 pop hit "Garden Party" (1972), Nelson's career as a recording artist essentially ended.

Nelson continued to tour frequently, however, and it was on one such tour that he boarded a chartered DC-3 in Guntersville, Alabama, bound for a New Year's Eve appearance in Dallas. Shortly before reaching Dallas, however, the cabin of Nelson's plane apparently filled with smoke due to a fire of undetermined origin. While the two pilots of the plane would survive their attempted emergency landing in a field outside De Kalb, Texas, all seven passengers on board were killed, including the first pop star to cross over from the Nielsen charts to the Billboard chats, Rick Nelson.

In 1987, Rick Nelson was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—an honor no other former child actor has yet achieved.

1878 : Cuban professional baseball league holds first game

On December 29, 1878, the first game is played between two teams of the first professional baseball league in Cuba, later known as the Cuban League. Representing the city of Havana, the Habana club faced off against their greatest rivals, a club from the neighboring suburb of Almendares. Habana, coached by Esteban Bellán, the first Cuban to play professional baseball in the United States, won that inaugural game 21-20.

Baseball had first been introduced in Cuba around 1864, when some students returned home from studying in the United States and introduced their fellow islanders to the bat and ball. The sport quickly gained in popularity, prompting the creation of the Cuban League in 1878. At a time when Cuba was struggling to win its independence from Spain, baseball became an important part of the Cuban national identity. Cubans also helped spread the sport throughout the Caribbean region and into Latin America, particularly the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

The Cuban League slowly grew over the years from 1878 to 1959, evolving into a successful winter league that produced many great players. A number of them also played in the U.S. major leagues, although one of the island’s biggest stars, Martín Dihigo, was only allowed to play in the Negro leagues due to the color ban that existed in U.S. baseball until 1947. Things changed in 1959, when Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and abolished all professional sports. The Cuban League was replaced with the current national baseball system, all played at the amateur level. The level of talent remained high, however, and Cuba won the first two gold medals awarded in baseball at the Olympics, in Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996. With the aging Castro still firmly entrenched in power, some 50 Cuban players defected to the United States to play baseball between 1991 and 2001, including the celebrated pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.

6 BC : Christ is born?

Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born. The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in a Roman almanac that tells of a Christ's Nativity festival led by the church of Rome in 336 A.D. The precise reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 remains obscure, but most researchers believe that Christmas originated as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

To early Christians (and to many Christians today), the most important holiday on the Christian calendar was Easter, which commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, as Christianity began to take hold in the Roman world, in the early fourth century, church leaders had to contend with a popular Roman pagan holiday commemorating the "birthday of the unconquered sun" (natalis solis invicti)--the Roman name for the winter solstice.

Every winter, Romans honored the pagan god Saturn, the god of agriculture, with a festival that began on December 17 and usually ended on or around December 25 with a winter-solstice celebration in honor of the beginning of the new solar cycle. This festival was a time of merrymaking, and families and friends would exchange gifts. At the same time, Mithraism--worship of the ancient Persian god of light--was popular in the Roman army, and the cult held some of its most important rituals on the winter solstice.

After the Roman Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity in 312 and sanctioned Christianity, church leaders made efforts to appropriate the winter-solstice holidays and thereby achieve a more seamless conversion to Christianity for the emperor's subjects. In rationalizing the celebration of Jesus' birthday in late December, church leaders may have argued that since the world was allegedly created on the spring equinox (late March), so too would Jesus have been conceived by God on that date. The Virgin Mary, pregnant with the son of God, would hence have given birth to Jesus nine months later on the winter solstice.

From Rome, the Christ's Nativity celebration spread to other Christian churches to the west and east, and soon most Christians were celebrating Christ's birth on December 25. To the Roman celebration was later added other winter-solstice rituals observed by various pagan groups, such as the lighting of the Yule log and decorations with evergreens by Germanic tribes. The word Christmas entered the English language originally as Christes maesse, meaning "Christ's mass" or "festival of Christ" in Old English. A popular medieval feast was that of St. Nicholas of Myra, a saint said to visit children with gifts and admonitions just before Christmas. This story evolved into the modern practice of leaving gifts for children said to be brought by "Santa Claus," a derivative of the Dutch name for St. Nicholas--Sinterklaas.

Fred Foy, Famous For Lone Ranger Intro, Dies At 89

BOSTON – Fred Foy, an announcer best known for his booming, passionate
lead-ins to "The Lone Ranger" radio and television series, died Wednesday of
natural causes at his Woburn, Mass., home, his daughter said. He was 89.

Nancy Foy said her father worked as an actor before landing the job as the
announcer and narrator on "The Lone Ranger" radio show in 1948.

The show's live lead-in introduced its masked cowboy hero and his trusted
horse with the line: "A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust
and a hearty 'Hi-Yo Silver!' ... The Lone Ranger!"

Foy's dramatic introduction and narration, performed in a powerful baritone,
were so good it "made many people forget there were others before him," said
radio historian Jim Harmon, who called him "perhaps the greatest
announcer-narrator in the history of radio drama.

"He pronounced words like no one else ever had — 'SIL-ver,' 'hiss-TOR-ee.'
But hearing him, you realized everyone else had been wrong," Harmon wrote in
his book, "Radio Mystery and Adventure and Its Appearances in Film,
Television and Other Media."

Foy never tired of giving a spirited rendition of "The Lone Ranger"
introduction to anyone, anywhere, who would ask, his daughter said.

"Dad would do the intro at the drop of a hat," she said. "He loved it. He
loved for us to let people know so he would be asked to do it."

Foy was born in Detroit in 1921, graduated from that city's Eastern High
School in 1938 and landed a job on the announcing staff of radio station
WXYZ in Detroit in 1942. He was drafted into the Army that year and served
in an Armed Forces Radio unit in Cairo during World War II.

Foy returned to WXYZ in 1945, then three years later won the job on "The
Lone Ranger," even stepping into the lead role for one radio broadcast when
actor Brace Beemer had laryngitis.

Foy's son, Fritz Foy, said the introduction's signature opening line,
"Hi-Yo, Silver!" was done by an actor on the radio show, though his father
belted it out for the TV series.

Foy also performed on radio series including "The Green Hornet" and "Sgt.
Preston of the Yukon."

In 1960, Foy began working for the ABC network. He spent five years as an
announcer on the "The Dick Cavett Show" and narrated documentaries. He left
ABC in the mid-1980s and later retired to Woburn, Nancy Foy said.

Foy is survived by his wife of 63 years, Frances Foy, their three children
and three grandchildren.

Secret reports on New Zealand UFO sightings revealed

Thousands of secret reports detailing mysterious unexplained UFO sightings from the public and military personnel in New Zealand have been revealed.

Included in the files is every witness account of unidentified flying objects reported to authorities since early 1952, and the infamous 1978 Kaikoura mystery.

Detailed in more than 2000 pages of files are letters from people who claim to be in touch with alien beings, sketches from witnesses and media reports.

Some of the earliest reports come from the president of the Civilian Saucer Investigation (New Zealand) group, Harold H. Fulton, thanking a witness who wrote to him about a sighting.

The witness had seen a "strange, bowl-shaped object that he saw fall from a clear sky".

"As the object fell it made a hissing sound, hit the wharf pier he was standing on and then bounced high and landed on a Government survey vessel," Stuff.co.nz quoted the letter as stating.

The files had been held by Archives New Zealand, which was to make them available in February after requests from the public, but the Defence Force stepped in saying it needed to remove personal identification to comply with the Privacy Act.

Access to the original files will be restricted until the year 2050 at the earliest for personal privacy reasons.

Before their release, Squadron Leader Kavae Tamariki said the Defence Force would not comment on the files' content, and that it did not have the resources to investigate UFO sightings.

The director of research group UFOCUS NZ, Suzanne Hansen, said she had been trying to get hold of the files for nearly two years.

Hansen said she hoped the files would reveal more detail about some of New Zealand's most famous cases, including the Kaikoura sighting on December 21, 1978. (ANI)

1956 : First gorilla born in captivity

On this day in 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo enters the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever gorilla born in captivity. Weighing in at approximately 4 pounds, Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought to the Columbus Zoo in 1951. Before Colo's birth, gorillas found at zoos were caught in the wild, often by brutal means. In order to capture a gorilla when it was young and therefore still small enough to handle, hunters frequently had to kill the gorilla's parents and other family members.

Gorillas are peaceful, intelligent animals, native to Africa, who live in small groups led by one adult male, known as a silverback. There are three subspecies of gorilla: western lowland, eastern lowland and mountain. The subspecies are similar and the majority of gorillas in captivity are western lowland. Gorillas are vegetarians whose only natural enemy is the humans who hunt them. On average, a gorilla lives to 35 years in the wild and 50 years in captivity.

At the time Colo was born, captive gorillas often never learned parenting skills from their own parents in the wild, so the Columbus Zoo built her a nursery and she was reared by zookeepers. In the years since Colo's arrival, zookeepers have developed habitats that simulate a gorilla's natural environment and many captive-born gorillas are now raised by their mothers. In situations where this doesn't work, zoos have created surrogacy programs, in which the infants are briefly cared for by humans and then handed over to other gorillas to raise.

Colo, who generated enormous public interest and is still alive today, went on to become a mother, grandmother, and in 1996, a great-grandmother to Timu, the first surviving infant gorilla conceived by artificial insemination. Timu gave birth to her first baby in 2003.

Today, there are approximately 750 gorillas in captivity around the world and an estimated 100,000 lowland gorillas (and far fewer mountain gorillas) remaining in the wild. Most zoos are active in captive breeding programs and have agreed not to buy gorillas born in the wild. Since Colo's birth, 30 gorillas have been born at the Columbus Zoo alone.

RAISE!

Employee: Excuse me sir, may I talk to you?
Boss: Sure, come on in. What can I do for you?
Employee: Well sir, as you know, I have been an employee of this prestigious firm for over ten years.
Boss: Yes.
Employee: I won't beat around the bush. Sir, I would like a raise. I currently have four companies after me and so I decided to talk to you first.
Boss: A raise? I would love to give you a raise, but this is just not the right time.
Employee: I understand your position, and I know that the current economic down turn has had a negative impact on sales, but you must also take into consideration my hard work, pro- activeness and loyalty to this company for over a decade.
Boss: Taking into account these factors, and considering I don't want to start a brain drain, I'm willing to offer you a ten percent raise and an extra five days of vacation time. How does that sound?
Employee: Great! It's a deal! Thank you, sir!
Boss: Before you go, just out of curiosity, what companies were after you?
Employee: Oh, the Electric Company, Gas Company, Water Company and the Mortgage Company!

Paterson Worries About Leaving New York State

He worries about how he will make a living. He wonders whether people will
value him once he is out of office.

But when he thinks about the future, David A. Paterson, the legally blind
governor of New York, is most unsettled by something more elementary: how to
cross the street.

For years, a small army of state employees has done for Mr. Paterson what
his predecessors did for themselves: they read him the newspaper, guided him
up stairs and around corners, fixed his collar when it was sticking up, and
even grabbed a quart of milk for him at the supermarket.

"If I go into a grocery store, the state police come in with me," he said.
"It's kind of like, hey, Governor, just tell us what you need and we'll get
it for you. And, I know I have to adjust."

Many politicians who leave office struggle to adapt to civilian life, with
its everyday letdowns and indignities - the sudden absence of solicitous
aides and gun-toting bodyguards, jam-packed schedules and an ever-ringing
telephone. But for Mr. Paterson, who can see nothing out of his left eye and
only color and large objects out of his right, the transition will be
extraordinary: after three decades in government, he must now relearn the
basic routines and rituals of living on his own.

In a wide-ranging interview, he spoke candidly, and at times emotionally,
about how he was grappling with - and, in some cases, dreading - that
change, saying he planned to enroll at a school for the blind that he last
attended when he was 3 years old.

"I know it can be done," Mr. Paterson said, "but it's just the anticipation
of it that gives me anxiety."

He also admitted to some concern about money and losing the lucrative perks
that come with his post. He is looking for work in the business and academic
worlds but has no job lined up, a fact that seemed to slightly nag at him.

He has sought the advice of former President Bill Clinton and former Govs.
George E. Pataki and Mario M. Cuomo about how to cope with the loss of title
and stature. Most of what they tell him boils down to this: "It gets
easier."

He acknowledged previously unknown strains on his family that accompanied
his elevation to governor, especially on his teenage son, who has hated
almost every minute of his father's tenure. At one point, Mr. Paterson said,
he even told the boy he was sorry for becoming the state's chief executive.

He divulged the ways he had been teasing the incoming governor, Andrew M.
Cuomo, since his victory in November. And he offered a mediocre assessment
of his own skills as a manager, giving himself a B-minus over the last four
years. He said he had been reluctant to pack up the governor's mansion and
his own office, once gently scolding a staff member for rushing him out.
(His last day is Dec. 31.)

But looming over the interview was Mr. Paterson's obvious unease about what
awaits him. He conceded that he had put off confronting his new reality: he
has yet to schedule with his 22-year-old daughter a long-promised practice
run on Harlem's sidewalks, subways and streets.

When Mr. Paterson was a boy, his parents were determined that he not be
treated as disabled. Defying his doctors' advice, he never learned Braille,
used a Seeing Eye dog or walked with a cane. Instead, he adapted: he
memorized the city's subway system by listening to the conductors'
announcements, learned to follow the lead of strangers at crosswalks, and
developed a system for catching cabs that would keep him from mistakenly
boarding a passenger car.

The system was not perfect.

He recalled an incident a few years ago when, as a state senator, he hailed
what he thought was a taxi in Manhattan. At the end of the ride, the driver
refused to take his fare. When Mr. Paterson pressed him, the man explained:
'I am not driving a taxi. I just saw you on the street and thought you might
need a ride.' "

His survival skills atrophied when he became lieutenant governor in 2007 -
and governor a year later after Eliot Spitzer resigned amid scandal.
Suddenly, he was chief executive of the state, with a huge security detail
and a domestic staff at the governor's mansion.

"The reality is that I had a pretty good sense of my own independence. But
over the last four years," he said, "I haven't been on the subway. I haven't
crossed a street by myself. Haven't gone into a restaurant by myself."

Mr. Paterson, 56, said he planned to attend classes at Helen Keller Services
for the Blind and, if finances permitted it, hire a full-time aide to help
guide him for the first year, in part to deal with strangers he expects will
still approach him.

"It would probably be good for me to travel with somebody, because, who
knows, I may have more pardon requests," he said mischievously.

Though he did not rule out running for office again someday, Mr. Paterson,
who has earned $179,000 a year as governor, said he was eager to earn a
bigger salary in the private sector. That would allow him to put his son
through college and to replicate, at least in some ways, the comfortable
life he has grown accustomed to.

"You have a false income when you're governor, because you live in the
executive mansion," he said, ticking off the perks: free meals, free
transportation, free staff. "And, so, if you computed that out to a salary,
it's probably twice the governor's salary."

He confirmed that he had met with administrators at New York University and
Touro College to discuss taking teaching positions. He has spoken with
executives at a local talk radio station, WOR, about becoming a substitute
host. So far, though, he has not hammered out any contracts. In the
meantime, he has filled out paperwork to begin collecting a state pension.
(With 27 years, he can collect about $80,000 annually.)

"I am worried about money, because I am not a billionaire, in case you
hadn't heard," he said.

His advisers - old friends, current aides and former chief executives - have
encouraged him to think big. Mr. Clinton, for instance, asked him to
consider running a foundation in Harlem that would employ youngsters and cut
energy costs by painting the roofs of buildings white to reflect sunlight.

"You want me to make all the roofs in Harlem white?" Mr. Paterson recalled
asking Mr. Clinton inside the former president's office on 125th Street. Mr.
Clinton nodded. "Don't you think Harlem has become white enough?" Mr.
Paterson asked him.

Over the last few weeks, he has conducted a distinctly Paterson-esque
farewell tour across the state, much of it over local AM radio, dispensing
frank and funny observations about himself and his colleagues. He has
compared the news media in New York to the corruption-riddled Tammany Hall,
and declared that the quality of lawmakers in Albany has plunged over the
last two decades. "I am sorry to say this," he added, impishly.

He even made light of his own multiple run-ins with state prosecutors and
ethics investigators, telling the audience at a Bronx school the other night
that when he saw all the people in their seats, he figured he had walked
into a grand jury room.

He had only good things to say about his predecessor and his successor.
Asked how he planned to welcome Mr. Cuomo, he has said he had already swept
one big obstacle out of the governor-elect's path: he made sure the faulty
outlet above the sink in the master bedroom of the governor's mansion got
fixed.

"I said, 'This is important stuff, Andrew,' " he recalled. "'You don't know
what it's like when you need to plug something in, like an electric razor,
and you can't.' "

He even weighed in on Mr. Spitzer's show on CNN, which has suffered in the
ratings and has led to a debate about whether his co-host, Kathleen Parker,
has been unduly sidelined by the ex-governor. If anything, Mr. Paterson
opined, the show needs to revolve more around Mr. Spitzer to showcase his
brilliance.

He said he was looking forward to having a more normal family life,
recounting the difficulties his wife and his son faced once he became
governor.

"I don't think anything about me being governor ever looked like it made him
happy," he said about the boy, Alex, now 16. Asked how it made him feel as a
father, he responded: "Very guilty."

He and his wife, Michelle, grew so frustrated by tabloid photographers'
trying to shoot pictures of them as they vacationed poolside at a friend's
house in the Hamptons that they grabbed the family camera and took pictures
of the paparazzi, who they said were trespassing.

"While we found that funny, and it's a great story to tell," he said, "the
reality is it was very hard to sit back and say, 'So how have you been?'
Because you are both under this constant pressure."

Reflecting on his tenure, he paused for several seconds.

"Some things went well, some things went not so well," he said. "It was a
privilege. It was an honor. I would serve. I would do it again."

Still, he could not resist a joke, cheekily recalling the suddenness with
which he landed in the governor's office.

"I would like two weeks' notice next time," he said.

1957 : Elvis Presley is drafted

On this day in 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

With a suggestive style--one writer called him "Elvis the Pelvis"--a hit movie, Love Me Tender, and a string of gold records including "Heartbreak Hotel," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel," Presley had become a national icon, and the world's first bona fide rock-and-roll star, by the end of 1956. As the Beatles' John Lennon once famously remarked: "Before Elvis, there was nothing." The following year, at the peak of his career, Presley received his draft notice for a two-year stint in the army. Fans sent tens of thousands of letters to the army asking for him to be spared, but Elvis would have none of it. He received one deferment--during which he finished working on his movie King Creole--before being sworn in as an army private in Memphis on March 24, 1958.

After six months of basic training--including an emergency leave to see his beloved mother, Gladys, before she died in August 1958--Presley sailed to Europe on the USS General Randall. For the next 18 months, he served in Company D, 32nd Tank Battalion, 3rd Armor Corps in Friedberg, Germany, where he attained the rank of sergeant. For the rest of his service, he shared an off-base residence with his father, grandmother and some Memphis friends. After working during the day, Presley returned home at night to host frequent parties and impromptu jam sessions. At one of these, an army buddy of Presley's introduced him to 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom Elvis would marry some years later. Meanwhile, Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, continued to release singles recorded before his departure, keeping the money rolling in and his most famous client fresh in the public's mind. Widely praised for not seeking to avoid the draft or serve domestically, Presley was seen as a model for all young Americans. After he got his polio shot from an army doctor on national TV, vaccine rates among the American population shot from 2 percent to 85 percent by the time of his discharge on March 2, 1960.

Parents 'limiting kids' Internet access and TV use in identical ways'

A new study has revealed that parents are now restricting their kids' Internet access in much the same way as they limit television viewing as a form of punishment.

According to a new survey by the Center for the Digital Future, at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, parents are rapidly coming to regard TV and the web as similar distractions for their children - both of which require supervision.

In a worrisome trend, the Center also reports in its 2010 survey that an increasing percentage of parents say Internet access at home is reducing their children's in-person time with friends.

Researchers at the Center report parents are now limiting their children's Internet access and television use in nearly identical ways. Three in five American households restrict television use as a punishment, a figure that's hardly budged over the past decade.

Restricting children's Internet use as a form of punishment has steadily increased over the years and is now a practice in 57 percent of the nation's homes with children under 18.

The new survey also shows, however, that parents are still more comfortable about the amount of time their children spend on the Internet v. television, with 69 percent saying it was just about right (v. 57 percent for television); only 28 percent thought their children spent too much time on the Internet, against 41 percent who thought television time was excessive.

Michael Gilbert, author of The Disposable Male and a senior fellow at the Center, also points to a steady increase over the years in parental reports of (their) children spending less time in person with friends since gaining access to the Internet.

Seven percent of households with children under 18 registered this concern when the Center's surveys began in 2000, a figure that increased to eleven percent, a decade later.

Its most recent surveys also confirm the Center's earlier report of a sharp drop off in family face-to-face time in Internet-connected households, starting in 2007. From an average of 26 hours per week during the first half of the decade, family face time had fallen to just under 18 hours per week by 2010.

Gilbert, whose work at the Center is focused on gender and family issues, believes online community involvements are playing a significant role in reducing family time. He points to Center surveys, which, since 2006, indicate roughly half of those involved with an online community value it as highly as their real world ones.

"With all the digital diversions out there, it's hard to pin this on any one thing," says Gilbert, but he believes Americans' growing attachment to social networks, and the increased time they often demand, has clearly begun to displace family face time. "We need to make sure families are reinforced rather than weakened in the digital future." (ANI)

Critical Pedestrian Safety Legislation Moves To White House

DEC 16

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2010 -- Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed S. 841, The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, legislation that will provide blind, visually impaired, and other pedestrians greater security when traveling in close proximity to hybrid or electric vehicles.

“The passage of this legislation is momentous and marks over two years of vigorous advocacy by ACB membership that has resulted in consensus by the blind community, auto industry, and Congress,” stated Mitch Pomerantz, President of the American Council of the Blind.

“The silent nature of hybrid and electric vehicles, coupled with their growing popularity, presents a dilemma. How do we protect individuals dependent on sound for their safety, such as unsuspecting pedestrians and the blind?”‪ said Representative Edolphus Towns, the sponsor of the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, who spent many years teaching travel with a white cane to the blind. “The solution lies in the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act. I am proud to have supported this important piece of legislation.”

“The visually impaired rely on audio cues to detect nearby traffic and these quiet vehicles pose a special risk to them and to other pedestrians,” stated Rep. Cliff Stearns, who joined in offering the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act. “This measure enjoys the support of all of the interested parties and it is budget neutral, and I look forward to the President quickly signing this bill.”

The legislation will require the U.S. Department of Transportation to begin writing standards that would set requirements for an alert sound that allows blind and other pedestrians to reasonably detect a nearby electric or hybrid vehicle. It also requires that those rules be finalized within three years.

ACB wishes to express its sincere appreciation to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) along with Reps. Ed Towns (D-N.Y.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) for their staunch leadership over the past two years regarding this very important safety issue. The National Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Association of International Automobile Manufacturers have also worked collaboratively with the blind community to insure that the legislation could effectively resolve the current and growing unintended safety problems that hybrid and electric vehicles present to the public when traveling at low speeds.

About the American Council of the Blind

The American Council of the Blind is the largest consumer-based organization of blind and visually impaired Americans advocating for the rights of blind Americans. Comprised of more than 70 affiliates across the United States, the organization is dedicated to making it possible for blind and visually impaired Americans to participate fully in all aspects of American society. For more information, visit www.acb.org; write to American Council of the Blind, 2200 Wilson Blvd., Suite 650, Arlington, VA 22201; phone (202) 467-5081; or fax (703) 465-5085.

Eric Bridges

Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs

American Council of the Blind

2200 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 650

Arlington, VA 22201

ebridges@acb.org

www.acb.org

1977 : Saturday Night Fever gets its world premiere and launches a musical juggernaut

In a 2008 interview on BBC Radio 4, Robin Gibb confessed to making it through only the first 30 minutes of the world premiere, and to never having seen the rest of the picture in the decades that followed. Millions of Americans did, however, make it through the film that made a movie star out of 23-year-old John Travolta and propelled the already famous Mr. Gibb, along with his brothers Maurice and Barry, to a level of superstardom rarely achieved before or since. The film, of course, was Saturday Night Fever, a pop-cultural juggernaut that had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on this day in 1977.

Well-cast, well-acted and well-directed, Saturday Night Fever earned positive reviews from many critics, including the late Gene Siskel, who called it his favorite film ever. But whatever its other cinematic merits, even the film's strongest proponents would agree that it was the pulsing disco soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever that made it a work of lasting historical significance. From its iconic opening sequence featuring John Travolta strutting down a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, sidewalk to the tune of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," to its unforgettable dance numbers set in the fictional 2001 Odyssey discotheque, the music complemented the action in Saturday Night Fever as perfectly as if it were written for the movie, even though most of it wasn't. In fact, other than "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever," every song that appeared in Saturday Night Fever had been written, recorded and in some cases released before the film ever went into production. Among those songs were: The Trammps' "Disco Inferno" (1976); KC and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes" (1975); Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" (1976); and the Bee Gees' own "You Should Be Dancin'" (1976).

Two songs the Bee Gees wrote shortly before hearing about Saturday Night Fever—""If I Can't Have You" and "How Deep Is Your Love"—would be among the four #1 pop hits launched by the movie's landmark soundtrack album. "How Deep Is Your Love" was the debut single from the album, released fully a month before the movie itself and hitting #1 on the Billboard pop chart just a week after the movie's opening. This now-familiar approach to marketing a movie through its soundtrack, and vice versa, was highly innovative at the time. Indeed, the promotional synergy between the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and movie is widely credited with helping to revolutionize both movie and music marketing.

Facebook-related crimes in Britain hit 100,000-mark

Crimes committed in Britain that were later linked to social networking website Facebook have reached over 100,000 in the last five years, a media report said Tuesday.

Police chiefs from 16 forces across the country said there were 7,545 calls from the public since January this year that were concerned with the social networking site.

People have alerted police to alleged acts of terrorism, sudden deaths, missing pets and even firearms offences, the Daily Mail reported.

Frauds, sexual offences and hate crimes were also reported to police, as well as a large number of malicious messages on the website.

The figures were obtained by the Daily Mail via the Freedom of Information Act requests.

The data said there were just 1,411 calls to police related to Facebook in 2005.

The website has since been used by criminals to make threats, intimidate, bully and harass.

Facebook was launched in February 2004, and had more than 500 million active users till July this year.

'These figures are quite alarming, but they reflect the growing use of Facebook by the general population. It must be remembered that any site operating user accounts has the potential for users to create false accounts,' a spokesman for children's charity Kidscape said.

A Facebook spokesperson, however, said: 'While there is a correlation between Facebook's growing size and the number of calls, there is no evidence to suggest that the use of Facebook was the cause or carrier of a criminal act in any of the phone calls referenced.

Mi Paisito, orgullosamente Dominicano!

Vengo de donde "ello hay' y beeelo ahi,
de donde se sale pa'fuera y se entra pa'dentro,
de una ciudad que es un diamante sin pulir !!!
de un pueblo lleno de historia y patriotismo,
donde se aprende amar, donde se vive de ilusiones
esperando lo que nos prometen antes de las elecciones....
Y NUNCA LLEGA NADA ????
SOY MONTECRISTEÑO


Vengo
Del unico sitio donde un chin significa algo..
Un lugar donde el mabi e un refreco y donde no hay navidad sin ponche.

Donde se sube pa'rriba y se baja pa'bajo.
Donde es normal oir en la calle MARCHAAAAANTA LLEVO LA FRUTA! VECINA LLEVO LA SSSSSSENA!


Donde se arma un coro en menos de 5 min. con cerveza, romo y un musicon incluido






Donde ser morenito e lo ma q hay...

Donde se va para la playa en cualquier fecha.


Donde arroz, habichuelas y carne es lo mas nutritivo que hay

seguido por el platano, la yuca y el yaniqueque.

Donde dime a ve es un saludo bueno, cordial y valido.
Donde no hay NADIE que no sepa lo q e una pela' bien da...
Donde comen uno comen tre.
Donde hace calor en el invierno y diq frio en verano
Donde los turistas se ponen locos con tan MARAVILLOSA belleza....

Donde la gente es calida y amigable hasta sin querer serlo...
Un lugar donde <> la palabra TROMPON tiene significado.
Donde no hay una gente que no haya escuchado aunq sea una vez MIRA MUCHACHO 'EL DIABLO!

El unico <> sitio que nunca hay "cuarto" hasta q mencionan la palabra ROMO.
Donde i pa "NUEVA YOL" es todavia una cosa del otro mundo.
Donde la pob <> reza es increible pero en los barrios mas pobres se encuentran la gente ma contenta... <>

<> <> Donde <> se h <> abla "vociao"
Una islita que se cruza de costa a costa y de bavaro a la frontera, en par <> de horas.
Donde llevase un motorita y NA E CASI LO MIMO
De un l <> ugar en que se le tiene mas miedo a la policia que a <> los ladrones
Donde la "lu" vuelve y se ollen aplausos
Donde hay dias de fiesta por todo
Un sitio donde el Dia del Trabajo es de fiesta
Donde uno aprende a bailar mucho antes de caminar
Donde no hay cuaresma sin habichuela con dulce

Donde se ponen una g <> ente del cibao y una gente del sur a discutir y a cual de los dos se le entiende menos.


Donde AUNQUE la vaina siempre ta mala, los politicos creen q uno es ciego, los tapones son interminables, Donde por varios meses namas se olle GIGANTES, AGUILAS, LICEY y de vez en cuando ESCOGIDO, ESTRELLAS Y TOROS...

Yo digo lleno de orgullo...
YO SOY DOMINICANO!!!

14 year old girl defends her marriage

A 14-year old Malaysian girl, who married a 23-year-old man, has asserted that early marriage was her individual decision and right.

Speaking to Mingguan Star, a weekly Malay news magazine, she said: "Marriage is the right of the individual and I am well-prepared to take up the duties of a wife."

The girl, Siti Maryam Mahmood, said: "I have thought about the responsibilities and the consequences of marrying at a young age. At the same time, I have my mother to guide me on my marriage and my wifely duties."

The official age for a girl to attain adulthood is 18 in Malaysia.

Her marriage reception was attended by a minister who said the marriage was valid under Islamic law.

But Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said that the Shariah court's decision to allow Maya's marriage is not a government-endorsed policy.

"Marriage is a serious issue. It is worrying when cases like this become a culture. The risks and impacts are severe to those who get married at a young age," she said, stating that the family institution should not be taken lightly.

Women's right groups, bar association and some NGOs have opposed marriage of minors and have called for change in the federal law of the Muslim majority nation.

Maya got to know her husband, 23-year-old Abdul Manan Othman, early this year when he was giving tuitions on religion to her two younger siblings.

She said both their families were open-minded about the marriage although it had sparked a controversy.

The couple married Oct 22nd but caught public attention only when they took part in a wedding reception organised by the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department last week.

Maya said she was not forced into the marriage.

Weights!

Somewhat skeptical of his son's newfound determination to become the next Charles Atlas, the father nevertheless followed the teenager over to the weight-lifting
department.

"Please, Dad," whined the boy, "I promise I'll use them every day."

"I don't know, Michael. It's really a big commitment on your part," the father pointed out.

"Please, Dad?"

"They're not cheap either."

"I'll use them Dad, I promise. You'll see."

Finally won over, the father paid for the equipment and headed for the door.

From the corner of the store he heard his son yell, "What! You mean I have to carry them to the car?!"

1964 : Sam Cooke dies under suspicious circumstances in LA

On December 11, 1964, in response to a reported shooting, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department were dispatched to the Hacienda Motel, where they found Sam Cooke dead on the office floor, shot three times in the chest by the motel's manager, Bertha Franklin. The authorities ruled Cooke's death a case of justifiable homicide, based on the testimony of Ms. Franklin, who claimed that Cooke had threatened her life after attempting to rape a young woman with whom he had earlier checked in.

Even as the lurid details of the case were becoming common knowledge, some 200,000 fans turned out in the streets of Los Angeles and Chicago to mourn the passing of Sam Cooke, a man whose legacy seemed able to transcend the scandal surrounding his death. That legacy was built during a brief but spectacular run as a singer, songwriter, producer and music publisher in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Born in 1931 to a Baptist minister and his wife, Cooke's early musical development took place in the church. Like other early figures in what would eventually be called "soul" music, Cooke began his professional career singing gospel. A member of the legendary Soul Stirrers since the age of 19, Cooke was given permission by his record label to begin recording secular music in 1956.

"You Send Me" (1957) was Sam Cooke's first pop smash, and it was followed by such classics as "Chain Gang" (1960), "Cupid" (1961), "Twistin' the Night Away" (1962) and the Dylan-inspired posthumous release that became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement: "A Change Is Gonna Come" (1964). His voice has been called the most important in the history of soul music, but just as important to Sam Cooke's historical standing is the fact that he also wrote all of the aforementioned hits—a remarkable fact for any popular singer of his time.

In the years since his death, the circumstances surrounding Cooke's shooting have been called into question by his family and others. Though the truth of what happened on this day in 1964 might remain uncertain, Sam Cooke's place in the history of popular music is anything but.

Christmas Tree

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk all the cider and hidden the liquor.. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and an irritated Santa reached to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree!

Celine Dion honours Lennon bye singing his hit song 'Imagine

Celine Dion has paid a tribute to the late John Lennon during an appearance on an U.S. television show with an emotional rendition of his hit song 'Imagine'.

Fans all over the world marked the 30th anniversary of the music legend's death on Wednesday.

Dion, who made an appearance on Larry King Live, revealed the Beatle had a massive influence on her music, reports the Daily Star.

"What a legend. What a man. And it's so unfortunate what happened. And it's amazing because 30 years ago... he was killed. And it's amazing because... I was 12 years old when he was killed. But fortunately, through his amazing music and through my family, my brothers and sisters and my husband, I have learned his music and his words. And so I kind of grew a little later with him," she said.

"But he's part of my life. And we were talking a lot about him today... Forty years ago he wrote an amazing, amazing song called Imagine. And we've been singing that song today in the house... He lives inside of all of us in a way... still," she added.

The pop singer ended the interview with a rendition of 'Imagine', adding, "I knew you were going to ask me to sing. But I'm certainly glad, because I love to sing for you and for the people."

Marino Perez

During the 1970s and 1980s, bachata was much maligned in Dominican society for its association with poverty, rural backwardness, and delinquency. Artists
like Leonardo Paniagua and Luis Segura sought to avoid these negative perceptions by recording covers of foreign baladas and other more acceptable music.
Others instead embraced the stereotype and openly indulged in the freewheeling bachatero lifestyle. The singer who is the best known and most emblematic
of this latter group is Marino Perez. With candid feeling and dark humor, Perez sang the story of bars and barrios where jealous lovers quarrel, men and
women betray one another, insults are traded, and the ubiquitous bottle of rum is always present. This was not fiction for Perez, but the life he actually
lived, and it was a world and a way of life which would eventually kill him.

Marino Perez was born in Guayabo Dulce, a campo near the eastern city of San Pedro de Macoris. Even those closest to him hesitate to guess Marino’s age;
while he was still uncommonly young-looking into his middle-age, by the time he died in the mid-1990s alcoholism had transformed his features into those
of a man old before his time. As with many bachateros, Marino’s professional career began in 1969 when he emigrated to the capital, Santo Domingo. At the
suggestion of Manuel Menegildo of Marisol Records, he sought out the guitarist Edilio Paredes to record a single. Edilio was at the time flirting with
becoming an evangelical Christian, and wanted no part in the project. Marino instead recorded his first tracks accompanied on the guitar by Augusto Santos,
and the single, “El trago de olvidar”, became an instant classic, remaining today one of Perez’ most popular songs.

Marino went on to produce a string of hit singles glorifying the life of the cabaretero. He was accompanied always in his songs and on his adventures by
his segunda guitara, fellow hedonist and San Pedro native Chijo Osoria; their dialogues at the beginnings of Marino’s songs became a trademark of cabaret
bachata. Woman: “Perdoname, papi, por piedad…” (“Forgive me, baby, for pity’s sake...”) Chijo: “Marino, pero perdona esa pobre mujer.” (“Marino, forgive
the poor woman!”) Marino: “Ah, pero es que tu no sabes, lo que me hizo esa sinvergüenza…no, no y no, por mi que se muera.” (“Ah, but you don’t know what
that shameless woman did to me...no, no and no...she can die as far as I’m concerned.”)

Despite being one of the most successful artists of bachata’s formative years, very little survives of Marino other than his songs and the stories fellow
musicians tell of him. These tales offer a glimpse of an extraordinary personality who lived true to the character of debauchery and abandon so present
in his lyrics.

Julio Angel, the author of the hit “El Pajón”, recalls visiting Marino in San Pedro. After a night of merrymaking the two friends passed out in a cabaret.
When Julio awoke he saw no sign of Marino, or of his own guitar, which they had been playing while they sang and drank. Julio first went to Marino’s house,
where they hadn’t seen him since the night before; he then made the rounds of the bars and brothels that Marino was known to frequent. Everywhere Julio
went, they had just seen Marino - with Julio's guitar. Finally, Julio arrived at a cabaret and found his guitar on the shelf behind the bar - and Marino
nowhere in sight. The barman informed Julio that the guitar had been used as collateral against Marino's unpaid tab. It took Perez nearly three months
to recover the guitar and return it to Julio. Others recall Perez being paid by Massimino Sanchez, a promoter, in copies of records. Perez’ songs, always
hits, were much sought after, and Marino would exchange them with the owners of colmados (general stores) at the rate of two 45s for a bottle of rum.

Marino Perez's songs have all the characteristics that made bachata so popular and at the same time so maligned. With emotions ranging from wrenching despair
to soft seduction, his raw passion and distinct timbre won him a fervent following. But Marino was untrained and careless, singing out of tune even on
some of his most famous recordings. This gave easy fodder to his critics, to whom Marino was the archetype of all that was wrong with bachata. While lead
guitarists and arrangers like Edilio Paredes and Augusto Santos did some of their best work with Perez, it is also true that many of the critiques which
were leveled at bachata during the 1970s and 1980s - regarding the poor quality of the sound, singing and musicianship - are evident in much of Perez’
work. Perez was prolific, sometimes recording as many as thirty songs in a single afternoon. This rate of production sometimes resulted in repetitious
compositions and poor recording quality. Yet Marino's unvarnished soulfulness struck a chord with bachata’s public, and his songs continue to be among
the most loved and remembered of the classic bachata repertoire. Perez was likely the best-selling bachatero of his era; almost every single he put out
became a hit. Unlike many bachateros who sang covers, most of Marino’s songs were his own, as were their stories of the pain, frustration, pride and humor
of a life of unabated dissipation.

Perez continued to record and sell prodigious numbers of records during the 1980s, and his most popular songs were even re-recorded as orchestral merengues
by artists like Wilfrido Vargas. But by the time Marino died in the middle of the 1990s, time had passed him by and bachata had begun moving in a new direction,
with gentler lyrics and electric instruments. While many of Bachata’s younger fans don't recognize Perez by name, many of his most popular songs are still
widely known and have taken a permanent place in the Dominican musical heritage. The style in which Marino sang is no longer in vogue, but he remains an
icon of bachata's early years; he lived the story of his music, both as author and as actor, and died in much the same way, vomiting up his liver. Marino’s
songs survive him. With loneliness, anguish, and unvarnished exuberance, they continue to endear him to bachata’s faithful.

1980 : John Lennon is murdered

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City. The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment building when Mark David Chapman shot him four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely, was rushed to the hospital but died en route. Chapman had received an autograph from Lennon earlier in the day and voluntarily remained at the scene of the shooting until he was arrested by police. For a week, hundreds of bereaved fans kept a vigil outside the Dakota--Lennon's apartment building--and demonstrations of mourning were held around the world.

John Lennon was one half of the singing-songwriting team that made the Beatles the most popular musical group of the 20th century. The other band leader was Paul McCartney, but the rest of the quartet--George Harrison and Ringo Starr--sometimes penned and sang their own songs as well. Hailing from Liverpool, England, and influenced by early American rock and roll, the Beatles took Britain by storm in 1963 with the single "Please Please Me." "Beatlemania" spread to the United States in 1964 with the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," followed by a sensational U.S. tour. With youth poised to break away from the culturally rigid landscape of the 1950s, the "Fab Four," with their exuberant music and good-natured rebellion, were the perfect catalyst for the shift.

The Beatles sold millions of records and starred in hit movies such as A Hard Day's Night (1964). Their live performances were near riots, with teenage girls screaming and fainting as their boyfriends nodded along to the catchy pop songs. In 1966, the Beatles gave up touring to concentrate on their innovative studio recordings, such as 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, a psychedelic concept album that is regarded as a masterpiece of popular music. The Beatles' music remained relevant to youth throughout the great cultural shifts of the 1960s, and critics of all ages acknowledged the songwriting genius of the Lennon-McCartney team.

Lennon was considered the intellectual Beatle and certainly was the most outspoken of the four. He caused a major controversy in 1966 when he declared that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus," prompting mass burnings of Beatles' records in the American Bible Belt. He later became an anti-war activist and flirted with communism in the lyrics of solo hits like "Imagine," recorded after the Beatles disbanded in 1970. In 1975, Lennon dropped out of the music business to spend more time with his Japanese-born wife, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean. In 1980, he made a comeback with Double-Fantasy, a critically acclaimed album that celebrated his love for Yoko and featured songs written by her.

On December 8, 1980, their peaceful domestic life on New York's Upper West Side was shattered by 25-year-old Mark David Chapman. Psychiatrists deemed Chapman a borderline psychotic. He was instructed to plead insanity, but instead he pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 20 years to life. In 2000, New York State prison officials denied Chapman a parole hearing, telling him that his "vicious and violent act was apparently fueled by your need to be acknowledged." He remains behind bars at Attica Prison in New York State. John Lennon is memorialized in "Strawberry Fields," a section of Central Park across the street from the Dakota that Yoko Ono landscaped in honor of her husband.

Computer security firm warns that music theft is taking place

Several news outlets in the US have reported that a handful of "A-list" musicians have been the target of cybercriminals.

Security software giant Norton has revealed that the hackers broke into the computers to steal unreleased songs and then post them online.

Some reports claim that the hackers also managed to steal a compromising photograph of at least one of the celebrities involved and have threatened to use it for blackmail.

Norton has warned that computer users should realise that no one is immune from the effects of cybercrime.

While most people don't need to worry about their next single being leaked in advance of the release date, there are other sensitive documents and images people should keep from cybercriminals.

Norton has pulled together a quick check-list for consumers to help keep their own personal documents and photos out of the hands of would-be cybercriminals:

Password Protection – Change your passwords regularly, and don't use the same password across multiple sites or computers.

Scan Your Statements – Take a look at your bank and credit card statements. Many cybercriminals are now stealing smaller amounts over a longer period of time in the hopes that they will avoid detection. If you see a charge or withdrawal you don't remember, check with the institution to see if it's legit.

Security Suites – Today's online threats come in many forms. Make sure you're protected with a robust security suite.

NASA discovers bacteria that changes everything

NASA scientists have discovered a strange new bacterium that eats arsenic and incorporates it into their DNA stream, the discovery has been heralded by scientists as monumental and may change the way we understand life on earth.

“We have cracked open the door to what is possible for life elsewhere in the universe,” Felisa Wolfe-Simon of the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA Astrobiology Institute, who led the study, told a news conference.

The bacteria, Halomonadaceae, were found in an other-worldly salt lake in California called Mono Lake.

The study was published in the journal Science, revealing that one of the world’s most deadly poisons can also be the basis for life for some life forms.

“It grew and it thrived and that was amazing. Nothing should have grown,” Wolfe-Simon told a news conference, suggesting that scientists' entire understanding of what is needed for life forms to grow may be extremely limited.

What researchers found particularly impressive was that the bacteria didn’t just consume arsenic but built itself up using the poison, adding it to their DNA stream, suggesting an interesting link to the theory of evolution.

The study shows that scientists looking for life on other planets do not need to limit their search solely to those planets that contain conditions similar to Earth.

The Living Bible

His name is Tim. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it,
jeans, and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire
four years of college.

He is brilliant. Kind of profound and very, very bright. He became a
Christian while attending college.

Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative
church. They want to develop a ministry to the students but are not
sure how to go about it..

One day Tim decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his
T-shirt, and wild hair. The service has already started and so Tim
starts down the aisle looking for a seat.

The church is completely packed and he can't find a seat. By now,
people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says
anything.

Tim gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he
realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet.

By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is
thick.

About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the
church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Tim.

Now the deacon is in his eighties, has silver-gray hair, and a
three-piece suit. A godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very
courtly. He walks with a cane and, as he starts walking toward this
boy, everyone is saying to themselves that you can't blame him for what he's going to do.

How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?

It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy.

The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man's cane.
All eyes are focused on him. You can't even hear anyone breathing. The minister can't even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do.

And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With
great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Tim and
worships with him so he won't be alone.

Everyone chokes up with emotion...

When the minister gains control, he says,


'What I'm about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.'


'Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some people will
ever read!'

I asked the Lord to bless you
As I prayed for you today.
To guide you and protect you
As you go along your way.....
His love is always with you,
His promises are true,
And when we give Him all our cares,
You know He will see us through.


Only if you feel led to, pass this to
People you want God to Bless.
I DID!

lecture

An elderly man is stopped by the police around 1 a. m. and is asked where he is going at this time of night.

The man replies, “I am going to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body”.

The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”

The man replies, “My wife.”

Mi cumpleanos

Como sabrás, nos acercamos nuevamente a la fecha de mi
cumpleaños, todos los años se hace una gran fiesta en mi honor, y creo que este año sucederá lo mismo.

En estos días, la gente hace muchas compras, hay anuncios en las radios, en la televisión, y por todas partes no se habla de otra cosa sino de lo poco que falta
para que llegue el día.

La verdad, es agradable saber que, al menos un día algunas personas piensan
un poco en mi. Como tu sabes, hace mucho años comenzaron a festejar mi cumpleaños.

Al principio no parecían comprender y agradecer lo mucho que hice por ellos, pero hoy en día nadie sabe para que celebran.

La gente se reúne y divierte mucho, pero no sabe de que se trata.

Recuerdo el año pasado, al llegar el día de mi cumpleaños, hicieron una gran fiesta
en mi honor; pero, ¿sabes una cosa?,....... ni siquiera me invitaron.

Yo era el festejado y ni siquiera se acordaron de invitarme, la fiesta era para mí
y cuando llego mi gran día, me dejaron afuera, me cerraron la puerta. y yo quería compartir la mesa con ellos ....... (Apocalipsis 2:20).

La verdad no me sorprendió, porque en los últimos años todos me cierran
las puertas.
Como no me invitaron, se me ocurrió entrar sin hacer ruido y me quede,
en un rincón, estaban todos bebiendo, había algunos borrachos contando chistes, riéndose fuertemente; la estaban pasando en grande.

Para colmo llegó un viejo un viejo gordo, vestido de rojo, de barba blanca
gritando "jo, jo, jo, jo, jo", parecía que había bebido de más, se dejó caer pesadamente en un sillón y todos los niños corrieron hacia él diciendo
"Santa Claus, Santa Claus", como si la fiesta fuera en su honor.

Llegaron las 12 de la noche y todos comenzaron a abrazarse, yo extendí mis brazos esperando que alguien me abrazara.
Y, ¿sabes? Nadie me abrazó.

Tal vez creerán que yo nunca lloro, pero esa noche lloré; me sentía destruido,
como un ser abandonado, triste y olvidado.

Me llegó tan hondo, pero al pasar por tu casa, tú y tu familia me invitaron a pasar, además me trataron como un rey.

Tú y tu familia realizaron una verdadera fiesta en la que yo era el invitado de honor, además cantaron himnos recordando mi nacimiento; hacía tanto tiempo que a nadie
se le ocurría hacer eso.

Que Dios bendiga a todas las familias como la tuya, yo jamás dejo de estar con ellas ese día y todos los días.

Otra cosa que me asombra es que el día de mi cumpleaños en vez de hacerme
regalos a mí, se regalan unos a otros.

¿Tu que sentirías si se hicieran regalos unos a otros y a ti no te regalaran nada?

Una vez alguien me dijo:
¿Cómo te voy a regalar algo si nunca te veo?

Ya te imaginarás lo que le dije:
"Regala comida, ropa y ayuda a los pobres, visita a los enfermos
y a los que están solos y yo lo contaré como si me lo hubieras
hecho a mí".... (Mateo 25, 34-40).

Recuerdo lo que sucedió a un anciano llamado Juan, un día de mi cumpleaños
anduvo de casa en casa pidiendo posada porque tenía hambre y no tenía familia.

Tocó en muchas puertas sin que en ninguna le invitaran a la mesa, se dio
por vencido al ver que ni siquiera esa noche iba a sentir el calor de un hogar.

¿Que tienes Juan? El dijo: "Es que nadie me invitó a pasar"

Yo me senté a un lado de él y le dije:
"No te apures que a mí tampoco me han dejado entrar".

Pero toda paciencia tiene un limite, aun la MIA. Voy a contarte un secreto:
como son pocos los que me invitan a la fiesta que han hecho, estoy pensando
en hacer mi propia fiesta, una fiesta grandiosa como la que jamás se hubiera imaginado.

Una fiesta espectacular con grandes personalidades: Abraham, Moisés,
el rey David y otros.

Todavía estoy haciendo los últimos arreglos, por lo que quizá no
sea este año.

Estoy enviando muchas invitaciones y hoy, querido amigo, hay una invitación
para ti.

Sólo que quiero que me digas si quieres asistir y te reservaré un lugar, y escribiré
tu nombre con letras de oro en mi gran libro de invitados.

Prepárate, porque cuando todo esté listo, daré la gran sorpresa. Hasta pronto.

1964 : The Shangri-Las score a #1 hit with "Leader Of The Pack"

During the early-60s girl-group explosion, the Shangri-Las score their first and only #1 hit on this day in 1964 with the famously melodramatic epic "Leader Of The Pack."

From its sweet beginnings in a candy store—"He turned around and smiled at me/You get the picture?"—the romance described in "Leader Of The Pack" between the song's protagonist and her leather jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding boyfriend, Jimmy, quickly progresses in the face of strong disapproval from her parents—"They told me he was bad/But I knew he was sad." It was a song, in other words, perfectly calibrated to appeal to the romantic fantasies of America's teenage girls—fantasies that blended wholesome innocence with hints of danger, rebellion and darkly handsome boyfriends.

But if "Leader Of The Pack" gave the impression that the Shangri-Las themselves were girls of the worldly-wise, gum-snapping, white lipstick-wearing variety, the truth was rather different. In fact, the Shangri-Las were a quartet of clean-cut high school classmates from Queens—two sets of sisters, in fact. And according to "Leader Of The Pack" co-writer and co-producer Ellie Greenwich, the Weiss and Ganser sisters were so inexperienced and so nervous about the subject matter of what eventually become their career-defining hit, that the recording session was fraught with difficulty, requiring "spoon-feeding, mothering, big-sistering and reprimanding" just to get the Shangri-Las through it.

For Ellie Greenwich and her then-husband/songwriting partner, Jeff Barry, "Leader Of The Pack" was their second #1 hit, following on the Dixie Cups' "Chapel Of Love," a song that spun a very different kind of teenage fantasy. Like their former colleagues Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry and Greenwich were responsible for many of the classic works associated with the peak of the girl-group era, including the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and the Crystals' "And Then He Kissed Me" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" (all from 1963). They also wrote later #1 hits for Manfred Mann—"Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" (1964)—and Tommy James and the Shondells—"Hanky Panky" 1966

This is a "thought-provoking" message read it!

Relax your mind and humble your heart to focus on Christ. Allow God to
be the only person on your mind while you read this prayer. If we can take
the time
to read long

jokes, stories, etc., we should give the same respect to this prayer.

Friends, who pray together, stay together.

Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank You for my being able to
see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God
and an
understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on
blessing me. Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or
thought that was not
pleasing to you. I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm. Help me to start this day
with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each
and every
day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over. Let me
continue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil. And when
I sin,
let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrong doing, and receive
the forgiveness of God.

And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example --
to slip away and find a quiet place to pray. It's the best response when
I'm pushed
beyond my limits. I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my
heart. Continue to use me to do

Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong
that I may help the weak. Keep me uplifted that I may have words of
encouragement
for others. I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way. I
pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for those who
don't know
You intimately. I pray for those who will delete this without sharing
it
with others. I

pray for those who don't believe. But I thank you that I believe.

I believe that God changes people and God changes things. I pray for
all my sisters and brothers. For each and every family member in their
households.
I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt
and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem,
circumstance, or situation

greater than God. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight. I
pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees
them and every
mouth that confesses them willingly..

This is my prayer.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Pass this message to 20 people except you and me.
Don't ignore and God will bless you. Know that you are already blessed
by the person who sent this to you.

1942 : Jimi Hendrix born

Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is born in Seattle. Hendrix grew up playing guitar, imitating blues greats like Muddy Waters as well as early rockers. He joined the army in 1959 and became a paratrooper but was honorably discharged in 1961 after an injury that exempted him from duty in Vietnam. In the early 1960s, Hendrix worked as a pickup guitarist, backing musicians including Little Richard, B.B. King, Ike and Tina Turner, and Sam Cooke. In 1964, he moved to New York and played in coffeehouses, where bassist Bryan Chandler of the British group the Animals heard him. Chandler arranged to manage Hendrix and brought him to London in 1966, where they created the Jimi Hendrix Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. The band's first single, "Hey Joe," hit No. 6 on the British pop charts, and the band became an instant sensation.

In 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience made its first U.S. appearance, at the Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix made a splash by burning his guitar and was quickly established as a rock superstar. In the next two years, before the band broke up in 1969, it had released such classic songs as "Purple Haze," "Foxy Lady," and "The Wind Cries Mary." The band's albums included Are You Experienced? (1967), Bold as Love (1969), and Electric Ladyland (1969).

After the band dissolved because of creative tensions, Hendrix made his famous appearance at Woodstock, playing a masterful, intricate version of "The Star Spangled Banner." Later that year, he put together a new group called the Band of Gypsies, which debuted on New Year's Eve in 1969. The band put out only one album, Band of Gypsies (1969). (A second album, Band of Gypsies II, was released in 1986.) Hendrix then recorded another album, without the band, called The Cry of Love, which was released in 1971.

Hendrix, one of the most innovative guitar players of the rock era, established an advanced recording studio in New York called the Electric Lady, boasting 46-track recording technology. The studio opened in August 1970, shortly before Hendrix died in London in September 1970, following a drug overdose. He was 27.

Laughter, it is real medicine

DOCTORS' ORDERS
Let go---laugh
some use laughter to manage chronic pain. some might suffered from
ankylosing spondylitis, the same disease that Dr Norman cousins had.
(You
might recall that Dr. Norman Cousins popularized the notion that the
body's
natural pain-killers are released when we laugh: he discovered that if
he
laughed for ten minutes he could sleep without pain for thirty.) some
report
that laughter managed pain, but that mostly it helped to cope
emotionally
with the condition.

Some find that laughter helped their children fall asleep. (They invent
all
sorts of games involving laughter that calmed children down enough to
rest.)
After a few minutes of laughter, children are out till morning (and
everyone
could rest easy).

What a powerful prescription laughter is, and one that can be applied to
so
many situations.

Laughter is free, fun, mood-altering, relaxing, life-changing,
relationship-building, tension-breaking, . But it does not come without
a
price: that of letting go.

You can't hold a grudge when you laugh. In those moments you give into
something more powerful: joy.

What a small price to pay.

This week, is there someone you with whom you could share a laugh?

1973 : Ringo Starr earns a solo #1 hit with "Photograph"

Ringo Starr becomes the third former Beatle to earn a solo #1 hit when "Photograph" tops the Billboard Hot 100 on November 24, 1973.

Ringo Starr—the man who replaced Pete Best on drums in the Beatles in 1962—once famously proclaimed of his role in the group that he was "joost happy to be here." But just because he was willing to act the part of the blindly lucky tagalong on the Beatles' gravy train doesn't mean that it was true. Ringo Starr's quietly spectacular drumming laid a foundation for the Beatles' revolutionary sound, and his self-effacing charm became a key component of the Fab Four's popular identity. But Starr's likability was no creation of the media. Indeed, even if fans could never agree on who their favorite Beatle was, there can be no question who was the Beatles' own favorite: It was Ringo—the one and only member of the Fab Four who maintained a solid friendship with each of his former band mates even after their acrimonious breakup.

Proof of Ringo Starr's special place within the Beatles can be found in his beautiful 2004 book Postcards from the Boys, a collection of sweet, funny and heartfelt cards sent to Starr by his famous former band mates both during and after their years together as Beatles. It is no accident that the former Mr. Richard Starkey was the only former Beatle to have such a collection gathering dust in a drawer at home, just as it is no accident that the only musical project to which all four Beatles ever contributed after their 1970 breakup was his 1973 album Ringo.

Ringo yielded two #1 hits for Starr: "Photograph," which topped the Billboard pop chart on this day in 1973; and "You're Sixteen," which did the same just two months later. "Photograph" was co-written by George Harrison, who also contributed backing vocals and a 12-string guitar solo to the track. Harrison had been the first solo Beatle to top the pop charts back in December 1970 with "My Sweet Lord," followed shortly thereafter by Paul McCartney with his two-sided 1971 hit "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey." McCartney contributed the song "Six O'Clock" to Ringo as well as backing vocals on "You're Sixteen." John Lennon, who became the final former Beatle to top the pop charts when "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" hit #1 in November 1974, wrote the opening track of Ringo—"I'm The Greatest"—on which he also played piano and sang backup.

The New Version of Footprints

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace.

But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns.

For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling, His consistently...

You and Jesus are walking as true friends!

This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus' are now walking precisely in His steps.

Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one..

This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change. The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger.

Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints.. They have become one.

This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Gashes in the sand. A variable mess of prints.

You are amazed and shocked. Your dream ends. Now you pray: 'Lord, I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits. I was a new Christian; I was just learning. But You walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You.'

'That is correct.'
'And when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps, following You very closely..'

'Very good.. You have understood everything so far..' When the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose that I was becoming like You in every way.'

'Precisely.'
'So, Lord, was there a regression or something ? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first.'

There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in His voice.

'You didn't know? It was then that we danced!

El inventor de la Harley

el inventor de la Harley-Davidson, Arthur Davidson, murió y fue al cielo.

Al llegar a las puertas del cielo, San Pedro le dice:
- Hijo mio, como fuiste un buen hombre y tus motos cambiaron al mundo, tu premio es poder encontrarte con quien tu desees!
Arthur penso un poco y despues dijo:
- Quiero encontrar me con Dios!
San Pedro llevó Arthur hasta la sala del trono y lo presentó ante Dios.
Dios reconoció a Arthur y le dijo:
- Entonces fuiste tu que inventaste la Harley-Davidson?
Arthur respondió:
- Es verdad fui yo ..
Dios comentó:
No fue una buena invención...
Es un vehículo inestáble, ruidoso y contaminante. De mantenimiento complicado, alto consumo.....
Arthur molesto con los comentarios retrucó:

- Desculpeme, pero no fue el Señor que inventó a la mujer?

- Si, fui yo! - Respondió Dios.
- Bien, aqui entre nosotros, de profesional para profesional, su invención no fue nada feliz!

- la suspensión delantera es muy inconsistente;

- Es muy ruidosa y habladora en altas velocidades;

- En la mayoría de los casos, la suspensión trasera está floja y vibra demás;


- El área de entretenimiento está localizada demasiado cerca de la de reciclado;
- Y los costos de mantenimiento son exorbitantes.

Dios meditó y respondió:
- Si, es verdad mi invento tiene defectos, pero de acuerdo con los datos que dispongo, hay muchos mas hombres montados en mi invento que en el tuyo.

1975 : KC and the Sunshine band top the U.S. pop charts with That's The Way (I Like It)

One of the most popular American pop groups of its time, KC and the Sunshine Band earned the second of their five #1 pop hits on this day in 1975 when "That's The Way (I Like It)" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

With their breakthrough single, "Get Down Tonight" (1975), having implored listeners to "Do a little dance" and "Make a little love...," KC and the Sunshine Band's follow-up mined very much the same territory with its driving, danceable beat and its frank declaration, "That's the way/Uh-huh, Uh-huh/I like i/Uh-Huh." But as risqué as the lyrics written by Harry Wayne Casey and his songwriting partner (and Sunshine Band co-founder), Richard Finch, tended to be, they were always delivered in a way that was more exuberant than suggestive. AM radio—white pop stations and black R&B stations alike—loved the racially integrated KC and the Sunshine Band, and so did many critics. As Steven Ditlea wrote in a rave New York Times review of one of the group's live appearances, "KC has the stage presence and the musical ability to bridge the cultural chasm separating white performers and black listeners as well as between black music and white audiences."

Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch first began working together musically as low-level employees at a small, Hialeah-based record label called T.K. Their big break came in 1974, when a struggling T.K. artist named George McCrae overheard an instrumental track Casey and Finch had recorded on their own and volunteered his services as a singer. In just two takes, McCrae recorded the vocal track on a record called "Rock Your Baby," which was released in the spring of 1974 and went on to sell upwards of 3 million copies on its way to becoming a #1 pop hit. Following the success of "Rock Your Baby," Casey and Finch released an album called Do It Good that failed to find a large audience, but their second studio album, KC and the Sunshine Band (1975), was a multi-platinum smash that included both of the group's first two #1 pop hits as well as a third major hit in "Boogie Shoes."

Origin of the word "Shit"

Manure: In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common.

It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen.

Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!

Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T " , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

The Fire Chief Explains

In South Los Angeles , a 4-plex was destroyed by a fire.

A Nigerian family of six con artists lived on the first floor, and all six died in the fire. An Islamic group of seven welfare cheats, all illegally in the country from Kenya , lived on the second floor, and they, too, all perished in the fire. 6 LA, Hispanic, Gang Banger, ex-cons, lived on the 3rd floor and they, too, died. A lone, white couple lived on the top floor... The couple survived the fire.

Jesse Jackson, John Burris and Al Sharpton were furious. They flew into LA and met with the fire chief, on camera.

They loudly demanded to know why the Blacks, Black Muslims and Hispanics all died in the fire and only the white couple lived?

The fire chief said, "They were at work"

Hallan un método para borrar malos recuerdos

¿Quién dice que los recuerdos de experiencias desagradables permanecen en el cerebro durante toda la vida? Científicos de la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad Johns Hopkins (EE UU) han descubierto que eliminando proteínas de cierta zona del cerebro desaparecen los recuerdos negativos. "Nuestro estudio describe los mecanismos moleculares involucrados en la memoria de miedo y la posibilidad de manipular esos mecanismos con fármacos para tratar problemas como el trastorno por estrés post-traumático", explica el neurocientífico Richard L. Huganir, coautor del trabajo.

En sus experimentos, Huganir y sus colegas produjeron un trauma en ratones aplicándoles una descarga eléctrica a la vez que hacían sonar un ruido específico. Tras la experiencia, los ratones reaccionaban quedando inmóviles con sólo escuchar el tono. En los circuitos nerviosos de la amígdala -la parte del cerebro relacionada con el miedo-, los científicos detectaron que se había producido un aumento en la actividad de ciertas células nerviosas. Y examinando las proteínas antes y después de la exposición al sonido en la zona, identificaron que ciertas proteínas llamadas AMPARs estaban relacionadas con el recuerdo que causaba miedo a los roedores. Al eliminarlas, se borraba también el recuerdo asociado al trauma.

“La posibilidad de borrar recuerdos puede sonar a ciencia ficción”, admite Huganir, que sin embargo está convencido de que dentro de poco se podrán utilizar sus hallazgos para ayudar a soldados que han vuelto de la guerra, a personas han sido víctimas de un rapto o a individuos que han sufrido alguna experiencia traumática.

1966 : Sandy Koufax retires

On November 18, 1966, Sandy Koufax, the ace pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, retires from baseball. He was just 30 years old, and he was retiring after a great season--he’d led the Dodgers to a National League pennant and won his third Cy Young award. But he had chronic arthritis in his pitching arm, and he was afraid that if he kept playing baseball, eventually he wouldn’t be able to use his left hand at all. "In those days there was no surgery," he said much later. "The wisdom was if you went in there, it would only make things worse and your career would be over, anyway. Now you go in, fix it, and you’re OK for next spring."

Koufax entered the majors in 1955, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. He didn’t do much for the Bums at the beginning of his career--his arm was powerful but he didn’t have much control over his pitches--but after the team moved to Los Angeles, Koufax began to settle down and throw much more consistently. In a game against the Giants in 1959, he tied the major league strikeout record (18); the next season, though he only won eight games, he struck out 197 batters in 175 innings.

In 1961, Koufax really hit his stride: He went 18-13 and led the majors in strikeouts, something he would do four times between 1961 and 1966. Meanwhile, during those six seasons he led the league three times in wins and shutouts, and twice he threw more complete games than any other pitcher. He set a new major-league season strikeout record--382--in 1965. (Only Nolan Ryan has since struck out more batters in a single season.) Koufax threw one no-hitter every year from 1962 to 1965, and in 1965 he threw a perfect game. His pitches were notoriously difficult to hit; getting the bat on a Koufax fastball, Pittsburgh’s Willie Stargell once said, was like "trying to drink coffee with a fork."

But what Sandy Koufax is perhaps most famous for is his refusal, in 1965, to pitch the first game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. (Don Drysdale pitched instead, and gave up seven runs in the first three innings; "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too," he said when the team’s manager pulled him out of the game.) In 1971, the 36-year-old Koufax became the youngest person ever to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

CUIDADÍN CON EL RELOJ CU-CU

Anoche salí con mis amigas a una 'reunión'.
Yo le dije a mi marido que regresaría a casa a las 12 en punto.
'Te lo prometo', le dije; pero la
'reunión' estuvo muy buena!!
....copitas, bailecito, más copitas...,
y se me fue la hora!!!
Resulta que llegué a casa a las 3 de la madrugada
completamente borracha....
Acababa de entrar y el mugre reloj cucú
hizo 'cu-cu' tres veces.
Al darme cuenta que mi marido se iba a despertar por
ese sonido, grité 'cu-cu' otras 9 veces más...
Me quedé tan orgullosa y satisfecha por haber tenido
de pronto, aunque borracha, una idea tan buena
para evitar pelear con mi marido...!!!
Me acosté de lo más tranquila pensando
en lo inteligente que soy!!!
Por la mañana, durante el desayuno,
mi marido me preguntó a qué hora había llegado
y le contesté que había llegado a las 12 en punto,
tal y como le había prometido.
El, de momento, no dijo nada, ni me pareció desconfiado,
'qué bieeeeen! ...salvaaaada!' ...pensé yo.
Entonces él me dijo: 'por cierto...
debemos cambiar nuestro reloj cucú.'
Le pregunté temblorosa, 'sííííí? ...y por qué mi amor?'
Y me dijo: 'bueno, anoche el reloj hizo 'cu-cu' tres veces,
.....luego, no sé cómo, gritó '¡¡mierda!!',
......después hizo 'cu-cu' cuatro veces más,
...... vomitó en el pasillo,
.....hizo 'cu-cu' otras tres veces,
..... se mato de risa y otra vez hizo 'cu-cu',
.....salió corriendo, pisó al gato,
rompió la mesita de la esquina de la sala,
se acostó a mi lado dando el último 'cu-cu',
y se durmió.

1981 : Fernando Valenzuela wins Cy Young Award

On November 11, 1981, Rookie of the Year Fernando Valenzuela wins the National League’s Cy Young Award, becoming the first player in baseball history to win both prizes in the same season.

In the spring of 1981, at the beginning of his first full season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Valenzuela was unstoppable. He won the first eight games he pitched, including seven complete games and five shutouts, with an 0.50 ERA. He was just 20 years old (though rumors abounded that he was actually closer to 30). His youth and evident good nature along with his paunchy, un-athletic build, goofy windup and the brilliant screwball known as "Fernando’s Fadeaway" endeared him to many baseball fans. Newspapers called the phenomenon "Fernandomania." His picture was on the cover of dozens of magazines. People crowded ballparks to see him play, especially during his triumphant early-season winning streak. A reporter from the Orange County Register wrote: "You had to be there, back in that magical summer of 1981, to see the long snaking lines of cars already waiting to get into the ballpark gate at 4:30 in the afternoon. You had to click on your radio and hear the happy, mariachi sound (The Ballad of Fernando) emanating from every station in town. You had to read the glut of newspaper ads hustling membership into the rapidly growing Fernando Fan Club."

Even though he was never again as good as he was that spring, Valenzuela had a solid season: he went 13-7 with eight shutouts and a 2.48 ERA. He had the league’s second-highest win total along with the highest number of complete games, shutouts, innings pitched and strikeouts. He started the All-Star Game for the NL--an unusual honor for a rookie--and pitched three wins to help the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series.

Fernandomania eventually faded, even though Fernando himself remained a dependable pitcher. In 1983, he won the Silver Bat, the prize given to the best-hitting pitcher in the National League. In 1984, he threw a career-high 15 strikeouts in a game against Philadelphia. He set a major league record in 1985 for not allowing a single earned run in 41 1/3 innings, and the next year he won a league-leading 21 games. In 1990, he pitched his first no-hitter.

In all, Valenzuela pitched 11 seasons for the Dodgers. He retired in 1996, after a few years of bouncing from team to team. But he remains an inspiration for many young players, especially those from Mexico.

Yo Quiero un Tampax

2 niños de 8 años conversan en el parque.
- El niño le pregunta a la niña:
-¿Qué vas a pedir como regalo a Santaclaus?
- Yo le voy a pedir una Barbie ¿y tu?
-Yo le voy a pedir un tampax,responde el niño.
- ¿Qué es un Tampax? Pregunta la niña.
- Yo no sé,pero en la tele dicen que podés
ir a la playa todos los días, andar en bicicleta,
andar a caballo, bailar, ir a la
disco, correr, hacer de todo y lo mejor,
'sin que nadie se dé cuenta!!!

1951 : Yogi Berra is the AL MVP

On November 8, 1951, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is voted the American League’s most valuable player for the first time in his career. St. Louis Browns’ ace pitcher and slugger Ned Garver almost won the award--in fact, a representative from the Baseball Writers Association of America phoned him and told him that he had won it--but after a recount it turned out that Berra had edged Garver out by a nose. "It’s great to be classed with fellows like DiMaggio and Rizzuto who have won the award," Berra told reporters that night. "I sure hope I can win it a couple of more times, like Joe did." He went on to be the league MVP twice more, in 1954 and 1955.

Berra had had a great season, for the most part--he’d been the Yanks’ leading slugger, with 27 homers and 88 RBI--but he’d had a dramatic slump near the end of the year. His teammate Allie Reynolds, meanwhile, had pitched two no-hitters in 1951, and Garver had won 20 games and batted .305 for the Browns, a "collection of old rags and tags" that had only managed to win 32 games that Garver wasn’t pitching. In the face of these performances, Berra was sure he wouldn’t win the award. "I was afraid I had blown it with the bad finish," he said.

In fact, it was one of the closest MVP races ever. Each member of the baseball writers’ association voted by naming the league’s 10 best players and then ranking them. A first-place vote got a player 14 points; second place was worth nine, third place eight, and so on. When the votes were tallied, the player with the most points overall won the MVP. Berra, Garver and Reynolds actually had the same number of first-place votes--six each--but Yogi squeaked by on his second-, third- and fourth-place points. (His final score was 187; Garver’s was 157; and Reynolds’ was 125.)

Berra was only the second catcher to win the AL MVP prize. (Mickey Cochrane was the first.) That same year, another catcher--Roy Campanella of the Dodgers--was the NL MVP.

Personality Type Report for Lurod

While you may not be anti-social, you do need (and deserve) your private time and space to retreat from the world. Unlike extroverts, you need to develop a concept of the world or some aspect of it before experiencing it. Too much socializing may sap your energies. Your energies are derived from exploring the inner world of ideas, impressions and pure thought.
SENSORY
You usually gather information with your senses: what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell in the physical world. The facts gathered from the sensory data you process are the building blocks of your model of our world. You concentrate your energies on what actually exists and do not ponder what might exist too much. You are usually practical and rely on your common sense to guide you through the world. You see things as they are and have little or no need to search for underlying meanings.
JUDGING
You like decisions to be made as soon as possible. You are not comfortable with loose ends and like to see conflicts resolved as soon as possible. You have a preference for a well-structured, orderly lifestyle with few surprises. It may not be all that important who makes the decisions that gets things done as long things do get done. You take commitments very seriously. While you are not inflexible, you do like to stick to a plan once it is set into motion.
FEELING
You make decisions subjectively based upon your values and what is important to you. How people will be affected by your decisions is important to you. You are likely to make decisions based upon what you feel is acceptable and agreeable rather than what is logical. Your truths are founded in your values and those of the society you live in. It is important to remember that we are discussing how you evaluate data and make decisions, and that you rely on your feelings to do so in no way implies you are overly emotional.
Your Personality Type
Introvert/Sensing/Feeling/Judging

While quiet and reserved by nature, you are very warm-hearted, considerate, gentle, and trustworthy. You have a very well developed work ethic, which ensures you will complete the task before you in a timely manner. You like to help others and are very comfortable working behind the scenes to do so. Getting the job done is far more important to you than accolades for a job well done. You are detail oriented and meticulous in your work habits. Even small mistakes haunt you. While you are not one to give orders, you are very supportive of those around you.

In relationships you are kind, considerate, and show your affection by fulfilling the needs of those you love. You want a comfortable life for yourself and your loved ones and will do what you can to make your lives so. You like a structured lifestyle with well defined goals. You avoid hurting others. Your need to feel needed can keep you in unhealthy relationships with overly needy people. .

Famous People of Your Type:

Louisa May Alcott, Lord Tennyson, Barbara Bush, Charles Dickens, Queen Elizabeth II of England, Robert E. Lee, Queen Mary I.

Occupations Suited to Your Type Include:

Bookkeeper, clerical specialist, computer operator, counselor, curator, dental hygienist, medical assistant, nurse, office manager, optician, paralegal, retailer, secretary, teacher, and veterinarian.