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Showing posts with label Republican. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican. Show all posts

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving from History's Dumpster




The famous pilgrim celebration at Plymouth Colony Massachusetts in 1621 is traditionally regarded as the first American Thanksgiving. However, there are actually 12 claims to where the “first” Thanksgiving took place: two in Texas, two in Florida, one in Maine, two in Virginia, and five in Massachusetts.

President Jefferson called a federal Thanksgiving proclamation “the most ridiculous idea ever conceived".

The famous “Pilgrim and Indian” story featured in modern Thanksgiving narratives was not initially part of early Thanksgiving stories, largely due to tensions between Indians and colonists.

Held every year on the island of Alcatraz since 1975, “Unthanksgiving Day” commemorates the survival of Native Americans following the arrival and settlement of Europeans in the Americas.

The first Thanksgiving in America actually occurred in 1541, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition held a thanksgiving celebration in Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle.

The turkeys typically depicted in Thanksgiving pictures are not the same as the domestic turkeys most people eat at Thanksgiving. Domestic turkeys usually weigh twice as much and are too large to fly.

The average long-distance Thanksgiving trip is 214 miles, compared with 275 miles over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday.

Americans eat roughly 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.

One of the most popular first Thanksgiving stories recalls the three-day celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. Over 200 years later, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving, and in 1941 Congress established the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday.


Every Thanksgiving, a group of Native Americans and their supporters gather on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning. The flyer for the event in 2006 reads, in part, “Participants in National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today".

Thanksgiving is an amalgam of different traditions, including ancient harvest festivals, the religious New England Puritan Thanksgiving, the traditional harvest celebrations of England and New England, and changing political and ideological assumptions of Native Americans.

Since Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually. However, various earlier presidents--including George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison--all urged Americans to observe various periods of thanksgiving.

The Pilgrim’s thanksgiving feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 1. It lasted three days and included 50 surviving pilgrims and approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians, including Chief Massasoit. Their menu differed from modern Thanksgiving dinners and included berries, shellfish, boiled pumpkin, and deer.

Even though President Madison declared that Thanksgiving should be held twice in 1815, none of the celebrations occurred in the autumn.


Now a Thanksgiving dinner staple, cranberries were actually used by Native Americans to treat arrow wounds and to dye clothes.

The tradition of pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys began in 1947, though Abraham Lincoln is said to have informally started the practice when he pardoned his son’s pet turkey.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the next-to-last Thursday in November to prolong the holiday shopping season, many Republicans rebelled. The holiday was temporarily celebrated on different dates: November 30 became the “Republican Thanksgiving” and November 23 was “Franksgiving” or “Democrat Thanksgiving".

Not all states were eager to adopt Thanksgiving because some thought the national government was exercising too much power in declaring a national holiday. Additionally, southern states were hesitant to observe what was largely a New England practice.


Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who tirelessly worked to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday, also was the first person to advocate women as teachers in public schools, the first to advocate day nurseries to assist working mothers, and the first to propose public playgrounds. She was also the author of two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Considered the "Mother of Thanksgiving," Sara Hale was an influential editor and writer who urged President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving. She selected the last Thursday in November because, as she said, harvests were done, elections were over, and summer travelers were home. She also believed a national thanksgiving holiday would unite Americans in the midst of dramatic social and industrial change and “awaken in Americans’ hearts the love of home and country, of thankfulness to God, and peace between brethren

Thanksgiving football games began with Yale versus Princeton in 1876.

In 1920, Gimbels department store in Philadelphia held a parade with about 50 people and Santa Claus bringing up the rear. The parade is now known as the 6abc IKEA Thanksgiving Day Parade and is the nation’s oldest Thanksgiving Day parade.

Established in 1924, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ties for second as the oldest Thanksgiving parade. The Snoopy balloon has appeared in the parade more often than any other character. More than 44 million people watch the parade on TV each year and 3 million attend in person.

Baby turkeys are called poults. Only male turkeys gobble and, therefore, are called gobblers.


In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Thanksgiving stamp to honor the tradition “of being thankful for the abundance of goods we enjoy in America.

Long before the Pilgrims, native Hawaiians celebrated the longest thanksgiving in the world—Makahiki, which lasted four months, approximately from November through February. During this time, both work and war were forbidden.

In 2009, roughly 38.4 million Americans traveled more than 50 miles to be with family for Thanksgiving. More than four million flew home.

The people of the Virgin Islands, a United States territory in the Caribbean Sea, celebrate two thanksgivings, the national holiday and Hurricane Thanksgiving Day. Every Oct 19, if there have been no hurricanes, Hurricane Day is held and the islanders give thanks that they have been spared.

Thanksgiving can occur as early as November 22 and as late as November 28.


The Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday largely because stores hope the busy shopping day will take them out of the red and into positive profits. Black Friday has been a tradition since the 1930s.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Holy Toledo!

Photo: Katie Rausch/The Toledo Blade
Meet Opal Covey.

She's running for mayor of Toledo, OH.

Well, actually it's kind of a long story. You see, according to Opal Covey, she is supposed to be mayor of Toledo. Right now. But for the past few elections, they have all been "rigged" against her, in spite of Covey never receiving more than 400 votes in the last mayoral elections she's run in.

Covey's platform is an interesting one to say the least. It consists of building an amusement park on three acres of land in downtown Toledo (surrounded by a parking garage which sits on far more space than this entire proposed amusement park.) And others on similarly sized lots of vacant property in downtown Toledo, claiming it would somehow make Toledo a hot tourist destination.

I can't even fit my attitude on three acres.

Yet she insists there's enough room for several full size carnival rides, arenas, ticket booths, concessions, game booths and porta-potties on these three acres. As well as the thousands of visitors she's expecting to flock to this particular amusement park (did I mention all this is supposed to be on three acres?)

O...K then. But folks, you ain't seen nothing yet.

A few weeks ago on Fred LeFebvre's morning show on Toledo news/talk station WSPD, Opal Covey was invited to discuss her plan on his show. And when Fred asked her to be specific about the physics and means of this particular amusement park in comparison to outlying amusement parks in the Toledo area, she...

Well, never mind. Just....just play it.

Video courtesy of 1370/92.1 WSPD Toledo/iHeartMedia

This wasn't the end of it. As LeFebvre was escorting Opal Covey out of the station building after the interview. Well, this happened. Perhaps the damnedest thing you'll see all year.

Adjectives will utterly fail you.

Video courtesy of 1370/92.1 WSPD Toledo/iHeartMedia

Wow. Just....Wow.

But just for the sake of sheer fun, let's pretend she was actually elected mayor of Toledo. What could we expect from an Opal Covey administration?

- Well, needless to say, Toledo's Public Access TV channel will get a HUGE ratings boost. Why watch any of these crappy new sitcoms on the broadcast/cable TV networks or Netflix when the funniest damn comedy in America is the city council meetings on Toledo Public Access TV?

- The natural laws of geometry, physics, dimension and space (and possibly gravity) are about to be overturned by the Covey administration to accommodate Mayor Covey's three acre amusement park plan. Suck it Nye and deGrasse-Tyson.

- Wiping the dust off your feet will become the latest dance craze.

- Local signs in the Toledo area will be in English and Tongues.

I think this very well may be Opal Covey's year. With all the media attention she's been getting recently, she may very well crack that 400 vote ceiling.

I'm not a fan of Republican politicians (they're all bull moose nuts as far as I'm concerned.) But if I lived in Toledo, she'd definitely have my vote. If only for the amusement value in Opal Covey alone, regardless of her amusement park plans.

We'll all just have to wait until next Tuesday to find out how she fared. I'll keep you updated on the Facebook page. Be sure to Like. There's links to current news stories in the world of pop culture and oddities as well as vintage photos and other memorabilia.

And good luck to Opal Covey....

Saturday, March 14, 2015

"A Message To Khomeini" Roger Hallmark & The Thrasher Brothers (1979)



In the diplomatic faux pas of the last week, I was reminded of this little gem from the days of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

You'd swear it was the same people who signed off on this letter who came up with this tune.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

You Might Be Watching Too Much Fox News If........


1. You are OUTRAGED at how Obama has shredded the Constitution but can’t name any rights you’ve lost since January 20, 2009.

2. You think record breaking cold weather in the middle of winter disproves “Global Warming.”

3. You think record breaking cold weather in the middle of winter disproves “Global Warming” but record breaking heat waves in the summer are just a fluke.

4. You hate Obama for the almost 1700 American lives lost in Afghanistan under his watch but have no idea how many died in Iraq before he took office (Hint: more than 4000).

5. You call Afghanistan “Obama’s War” but ignore the entire first eight years of it.

6. You think there’s no way Chris Christie knew about the scandal unfolding in his own office but Obama clearly knew what a small IRS office in Cincinnati was up to.

7. You think 4 Americans dying in Benghazi is “the worst tragedy since 9/11.“

8. You denounce Bill Clinton as an adulterer but give a pass to David Vitter and Mark Sanford because they apologized.

9. You are both convinced Obama is a secret Muslim and still go into a frenzy when someone mention Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

10. You really do think Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist that drinks beer, eats pork, attended church for years (ARRRGH! Rev. Jeremiah Wright!), had his daughters baptized, had bin Laden killed and has had more terrorist leaders assassinated than every president before him combined.

11. You think bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 because he ordered the attack but Obama gets no credit for bin Laden’s death because he only ordered the attack.

12. You swear that Obama is coming for your guns.

13. You’ve been swearing that Obama is coming for your guns since before he was elected.

14. You swear that Obama has actually reduced your right to own guns but you can’t explain how.

15. You have ever used the phrase: Obama’s Katrina to describe something that was not the bungled response to a major natural disaster.

16. You’re positive Obama isn’t a true Christian but then got mad he had too many Christmas trees (no, seriously, that was a thing).

17. You think Muslims are terrorists and religious fanatics but think protecting gay kids from bullies is an attack on your religious beliefs.

18. You constantly complain the liberal media takes things out of context but you’re deeply offended that Obama said “You didn’t build that.”

19. You think that ACORN stole the 2008 election. Maybe the 2012 one as well.

20. You think “voter fraud” is an actual problem but can’t explain how cutting early voting stops it.

21. In 2009, cutting the $1.4 trillion deficit in half was the most important thing in the world but in 2014, you could care less about how much the deficit was cut (Hint: in half).

22. You hate Obama for not having served a day in the military but voted for Mitt Romney.

23. You think Obama is the laziest president ever for taking so many vacation days but “forget” that it’s less than a third of his predecessor.
23a. Never mind how many days he took, the president shouldn’t take vacations during a time of  crisis!
23b. Never mind that Bush took vacations during two wars and a recession! Obama is   spending tax payer money to loaf about!
23c. I said WHO CARES that Bush took more than three times as much vacation time? It only counts when the black guy takes a vacation!

24. You think Obama embarrassed America by bowing to other heads of state but forgot about the time Bush held hands and kissed Prince Abdullah.

25. You think Obama is terrible for the economy while the stock market continues to hit all time highs.

26. You think the stock market hitting all times highs doesn’t mean the economy is improving but you still believe in Trickle Down Economics.

27. You claim you don’t believe in Trickle Down Economics but insist that increasing taxes on the rich will hurt the economy.

28. You’re outraged OUTRAGED at Obama for not unilaterally launching a full scale war on Iran but call him a warmonger for joining an international coalition to stop a massacre in Libya.

29. You think Obama is “dumb.”

30. You really think a Harvard graduate is “dumb.”

31. You really seriously think a Harvard graduate and a former president of the Harvard Law Review is “dumb.”

32. You think Obama hates white people which would include his white mother and the white grandparents that raised him to be President of the United States.

33. You think Obama is a criminal mastermind that has broken dozens of laws involving thousands of government workers but no one can actually prove anything.

34. You think Obama is an absolute idiot who has broken dozens of laws involving thousands of government workers but no one can actually prove anything.

35. You think Climate Change is a vast liberal conspiracy to destroy Capitalism.

36. You claim evolution is a liberal hoax but still take your kids to their yearly flu shot.

37. You claim science is just a religion but do not think twice about boarding an airplane.

38. You think the private sector can completely replace government investments but you’re OUTRAGED Obama ended the Space Shuttle program.

39. You think using a teleprompter means you are stupid. But only if you happen to be the president. It’s OK for everyone else.

40. You think being asked to drink an extra glass of water a day is tyranny.

41. You think being asked to do more community service is tyranny.

42. You think being asked to help the poor get health insurance is tyranny.

43. You think being asked to let women choose to use birth control is tyranny.

44. You think being asked to respect other religions is tyranny.

45. You think being asked to leave homosexuals alone is tyranny.

46. You think being publicly shamed for your racism is tyranny.

47. You think not allowing criminals and the mentally ill to buy guns is tyranny.

48. You think allowing everyone to vote is tyranny.

49. You think Obama exercising his constitutional authorities is tyranny.

50. You grew up in America and think you actually understand what real tyranny is.

Addicting Info

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Forgotten Cable TV Channels

In the early days of cable TV, there weren't many channels. In fact, they were mostly your local over the air TV stations (with a few from the hinterlands, or over the border if you lived near Canada or Mexico.) The places where cable TV at that time was most frequently used were in areas too distant from cities with TV stations, where signals were too snowy and ghosty to watch - if they could be received at all.

That changed in the early '70s with the introduction of HBO and Showtime premium movie channels. By the late '70s cable began adding "super stations", over the air TV stations that offered their programming to nationwide cable (WTBS Atlanta - now known as simply TBS - the original Atlanta TV station was sold in the mid '80s. And WGN-TV Chicago and a few short-lived channels.)

The lineup was vastly expanded by 1980. And along the way, there were countless startup channels that grew and morphed into household names we know today: Lifetime, Fuse, MSNBC, Bloomberg, ABC Family and so on.

And now, let's take a look at the cable TV grid of yesteryear.......



- Cable Health Network (1982): Featured mostly medical and health related programming with some programming aimed towards women. Became Lifetime in 1984.

- SPN (Satellite Program Network, 1980-1988): Really low budget affair, ran mostly old public domain films from the '30s and '40s, some foreign programming and low budget, often politically biased programming. changed it's name to Tempo before being bought by NBC and relaunched as CNBC.

- The Video Music Channel (early '80s): One of the few pre-MTV video music channels and seen on selected cable TV systems as well. The VMC, like WTBS and CNN was based in Atlanta (but unrelated.) And it was one of a few major market over the air UHF TV stations that ran all music videos (others were in Boston and New York.) It's been said the original plan for Seattle's KTZZ-TV (now KZJO-TV) was to run primarily music videos, but the idea was scuttled after Viacom threatened to not carry the station on it's vast Seattle area cable system, lest it harm it's precious MTV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJcg0ZPf8NU 



- The Nashville Network: Cable TV's first video music channel aimed primarily at country music fans. The Nashville Network had some modest success, but later expanded into programming for men, adding wrestling, action movies and other fare and briefly rebranded as The National Network before becoming Spike TV. The Nashville Network however has been relaunched in 2012 as an over the air DTV sub-channel network.



- The CBN Family Channel: Launched by evangelist Pat Robertson as a "family friendly" TV channel  Initially all religious, it moved towards mainstream classic TV with sitcoms and westerns from the '50s. It was eventually sold to Fox and later Disney/ABC. But as a precondition, the network MUST to this day carry Robertson's own show, The 700 Club. Why? Because Pat Robertson owns the word "Family" (as trademarked/marketed as a TV network.)


- FNN (Financial News Network) An early business news channel. A pretty interesting one I must say - you never saw Frank Zappa hosting a show on CNBC did you?


- Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS): One of the first highbrow fine arts cable TV channels (along with Bravo and The Entertainment Channel.)

One of the early predictions of the expanding cable TV boom of the early '80s was these channels would be so successful, there would be no need for government-funded PBS (which the Reagan administration and all Republicans afterward absolutely HATED.)

Unfortunately, advertisers for these channels were hard to come by. Commercial advertisers were never big on classical music, opera, ballet and the fine arts to begin with and most finicky arts-oriented viewers resented the whole idea. Period. ARTS merged with The Entertainment Channel to form - what else, Arts & Entertainment or simply, A&E. 

Originally, ARTS aired on Nickelodeon's channel after Nick signed off. After A&E was formed, the evening hours formerly used by ARTS became Nick at Nite, originally running rerun sitcoms from the '60s and '70s.

- Kaleidoscope: A channel for those with disabilities. Looked like a great idea, but disabilities are far too wide ranging for one channel to specialize in.

- MuchMusic USA: MuchMusic (or simply Much) is a Canadian video music channel that stepped into the American market. with limited success. It rebranded as fuse in 2003 and has for the most part replaced MTV as the primary TV source of music videos, which the original MTV ended in the early 2000s to focus on solely on teen oriented "reality" shows.

- Fine Living Network: A network targeted to upscale viewers. It was replaced by The Cooking Channel.

- The International Channel: Became AZN, targeting Asian Americans. AZN folded in 2008.


- Trio: An unusual cable network. A joint venture of the CBC (yep, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and NBC, this channel specialized in American TV shows that were largely forgotten or unseen in most of America and Canadian and UK TV programs such as The Littlest Hobo, Follyfoot and Coronation Street and then-current Australian programs such as The Blue Heelers. It also showed the infamous American Pink Lady & Jeff show for the first time in nearly 25 years in 2002.

This is likely to be the first in a series. So many cable TV channels have come and gone, it's hard to name them all.

Friday, October 26, 2012

You Think YOU Have A Lousy Boss?

Meet George Pullman.



Well, you really wouldn't want to. He's been dead since 1897 and even if you were given the chance, good luck getting past the eight tons of solid concrete and lead over his grave.

You heard me.

There's a reason why they put all that concrete over his grave, and by the time you're done reading this you'll understand why this man was as toxic as anything they bury in at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Dump.

Let's get into the Wayback Machine (could get crowded, so wear deodourant) and time warp back to Chicago in the 1880s.....

Chicago was a booming town. It just got over a massive fire and things were on a roll. it was one of the few major cities in America at that time where you could be black or an immigrant and still find a way to make it.

George Pullman seemed like a visionary and on paper, you'd think he was.

Pullman ran a company that made luxury railroad cars. There were few automobiles in those days and they moved with the speed of the mail. Airplanes were still science fiction. So horse and buggy was the way for people to get around the city. If you wanted to go see your Aunt Sadie in Peoria, well....you'd be going through a lot of horses too. So passenger trains were invented for that purpose and like Greyhound buses these days, they were uncomfortable, cramped, smelly and (did I mention uncomfortable?)

Anyway, enter the Pullman railroad car. This thing was to change all that. It had seats big enough for the American butt of the time (or at least larger than the butt of an average praying mantis.) It was made of the finest materials. It was the first railroad passenger car with a design and function not resembling a maximum security prison. It was even considered stylish (a word a designer of a maximum security prison would hear and grunt at.) Railroad travel really didn't have to resemble a week in the hole anymore.

This was the Gilded Age, and it was luxury over sanity, flamboyant style over basic safety features. It was a brave new world and George Pullman was going to milk every drop of it.

He constructed a company town for his employees called (what else?) Pullman in Chicago. Pullman had everything you could ever want in 1880. It was totally off the grid from the rest of Chicago, it had it's own sewer and water towers, it's own electricity plant, phone system The very first shopping mall in history called "The Arcade". It had a theater, several shops, a public library and a post office. A public school, a grand hotel, several parks, it's own newspaper and a church. Several streets lined with nice little rowhouses for his employees. There was no litter in the strrets, lawns were well manicured. Everything was as neat and tidy as Martha Stewart on speed. There was NO crime, NOTHING could go wrong, right?

Something did go wrong. Like any travel brochure to paradise, you have to read between the lines. You see, when you work for, rent from, get all your stuff from, you kids educated by and live under the same rules by the same guy, there's gonna be a problem.

First, everything was basically on loan. You were not allowed to own your own little rowhouse. Second, FORGET starting any "alternative" to Pullman's status-quo businesses. Your kids were educated in the Pullman way, all books in the public library were carefully selected by Pullman himself, what you saw in that theater - yep, he picked that too. And the church? Well.....NOBODY used the church, as one church and a zillion denominations of Christianity (we haven't even begun to talk about the non-Christian religions) are just too much for one building.

And everybody's house was so spotlessly clean in these rowhouses that looked perfectly alike. That happens when you can be evicted with only 10 days notice for so much as a dirty dish in the sink. Pullman sent goons out to inspect every house to make sure everything conformed....or else.

Now, if you thought things really fell apart right there, just remember his employees were paid not in solid American cash, but in Pullman's own currency. Meaning once you got outside of Pullman and into Chicago itself - SURPRISE! You're worthless. And when in Pullman, watch out for company spies. They were all over the place. They could be your next door neighbour, the nice guy at the grocery store. And if everyone could settle on a religion, the priest would probably be forced to report back to company headquarters with your juiciest confessions. There was no independent press, no town meetings, no public discussion. Nothing.

Naturally, people began having a problem with all that. But you kept your big mouth shut tight....if you knew what was good for you......

In 1894, Pullman began losing business. Things were rough all over as the American economy was in a mini-depression. But Pullman thought he knew which side his bread was buttered on. So jobs and wages were cut. But rent, utilities and everything else in Pullman stayed at the same prices. And things REALLY went to hell. People went on strike - 90% of Pullman's workforce went on strike. And then it really got ugly. Pullman got in touch with a political buddy, one President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops to squash all dissent. 

However, once the smoke cleared, it was revealed Pullman had too much control over everything and he was forced to relinquish his control over Pullman. Chicago quickly annexed it.

He died in 1897. And just to make sure nobody dug up his grave and beat the crap out of his corpse (like anyone would), he asked for all that cement and a lead lined coffin to be buried in, per his burial arrangements. Actually, it was a good thing. At least he'll never rise again with another STUPID idea.

That's why right wing company towns and gated communities work as badly as the most liberal hippie communes. Social engineering is a public matter, not a private one.

And that's how we should leave it.

Monday, October 22, 2012

The Ray Conniff Singers vs. Richard Nixon

Well, not really. But one of the female singers had a surprise for Tricky Dick


(UPDATE 8/5/13 Here's the full performance of the song with ending.)



Thursday, August 16, 2012

CLASSIC ORIGINAL Women's Suffrage Poster


It's pretty scary for women TODAY, with the Republican party wanting to roll back women's rights back to the stone age. Therefore, you might want to save and print this little 1920 women's suffrage poster and hang it visible to any, um "elephants" in the room........And remind them you're not happy.....