Category Archives: History

Happy Saint Crispin’s Day

Testosterone must run at peak levels on October 25th

This is Saint Crispin’s Day….

Also the day of the Battle of Agincourt (1415) were Shakespeare set this famous speech so well done by Kenneth Branagh in the film of “Henry V.”

It’s also the day of the Battle of Balaclava when the famous Light Brigade charged in 1854 and inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem.

Yes, I know….my Liberal Arts Education and History Major are showing again….

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A Great Mystery Solved: Contents of Queen Elizabeth’s Handbag Revealed

People have wondered for  years and years what Queen Elizabeth II carries in that handbag she always carries….

Now, we know!

From royal Biographer Sally Beddell Smith via the London Daily Telegraph:

But a royal biographer has disclosed that buried alongside everyday items such as a mirror and lipstick, is always a crisply folded £5 note to donate to the church collection on Sundays.

Sally Bedell Smith, author of Elizabeth the Queen: The Woman Behind The Throne, claims that among the bag’s other secrets are a portable hook, which is used to hang it discreetly under tables.

The 85-year-old monarch’s church donation sometimes increases to £10 but apparently that is as generous a donation as she chooses to make.

Bedell Smith suggests that there is “no more familiar symbol” of the Queen than the classic Launer handbag that dangles from her left arm on public occasions from informal walkabouts to state dinners.

Her inside knowledge has been pieced together from anecdotes of those who claim to have snuck a peek inside the royal bag and ladies in waiting.

Bedell Smith, writing in The Lady magazine, disclosed that the handbag usually contains reading glasses, mint lozenges and a fountain pen, although rarely cash, except for the “precisely folded” £5 or £10 note on Sundays.

A dinner guest at the Berkshire home of Jean Wills, the Queen’s cousin, is said to have been surprised to see the Queen spitting into a plastic suction cup before attaching the hook under the table.

“I watched the Queen open her handbag and remove a white suction cup and discreetly spit into it,” the guest is quoted as saying.

“The Queen then attached the cup to the underside of the table. The cup had a hook on it, and she attached her handbag to it.”

Bedell Smith alleges that the most important items in the Queen’s bag are a small mirror and lipstick which she has been known to apply whilst still sitting at the table.

“At the end of a luncheon or a dinner, even a banquet set with silver gilt and antique porcelain, she has the somewhat outré habit of opening her bag, pulling out a compact and reapplying her lipstick,” she writes.

“When First Lady Laura Bush made a similar cosmetic fix during a Washington ladies’ luncheon, she cheerily commented, ‘The Queen told me it was all right to do it.’”

The biographer claims that ladies-in-waiting are responsible for carrying necessities such as extra pairs of gloves, needles, thread and safety pins for emergency repairs

via Contents of Queen’s handbag revealed: including £5 for church collection – Telegraph.

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Kisses for Christmas

I love this video from the Paris Kiss In Against Homophobia in 2009…

I have to post it every year…

It’s my Christmas Video of the Day.

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Pearl Harbor: How Soon We Forget….

The attack on Pearl Harbor was 70 years ago today- December 7th, 1941.  I’ve seen almost no mention of it on-line or in the news….

Almost 3,000 people died that day- just like on 9/11….

Makes you wonder if, in 70 years, one of the defining events of our era, will be a historical after thought as well…

Funny how history works and the world moves on…

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$230,000 For a Guard Dog: Why the Wealthy Are Afraid Of Violence From Below

Well, at least the Rich have a realization that a little resentment may be building among the rest of the country.

Of course, they don’t seem to be channeling this in a positive direction by giving back to society.  No, they are looking to live in armed camps and hang on to every penny.

I guess maybe they do realize that eventually people may be fed up with them rigging the system in their favor and forcing the little guys and gals to pay for it by giving up luxuries like food, Social Security, Medicare and housing so they can keep their jets and yachts.

Those fools in the Tea Party just may turn nasty once they realize they’ve been used….

From Alternet.com:

 

In addition to security systems, dogs and armed yachts, the security-conscious oligarch can hire a private spy company—Jellyfish, a spinoff of the notorious private security company Blackwater. Or what about their own personal drone? “Smaller, private versions of the infamous Predator” may be coming to well-heeled private citizens near you, according to the UK’s Daily Mail. So far the private drones appear to only be for spying, but former Navy fighter pilot Missy Cummings told the Daily Mail, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist from MIT to tell you if we can do it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for anybody.”

So why are the rich getting paranoid? After all, here in the U.S. it looks like they don’t even have to worry about their taxes returning to Clinton-era levels, let alone cope with a truly significant change to their lifestyles. Still, as the rich get richer, it seems, they get more and more worried about the rest of us coming for their wealth—and they’re out to protect it by any means necessary.

David Sirota has noted that “we’re fast becoming a ‘let them eat cake’ economy,” where ostentatious displays of wealth and arrogance seem to be an everyday occurrence as the rest of the country suffers. A private jet traffic jam was big news in the New York Times last week, because the children of the uber-rich have to get to a Maine summer camp, and driving just won’t do. Maine’s Tea Party governor, Paul LePage, took some time off from limiting access to the vote and picking fights with organized labor to gloat over the jet traffic:

“Love it, love it, love it,” Mr. LePage said of the private-plane traffic generated by summer camps. “I wish they’d stay a week while they’re here. This is a big business.”

While the private jet crowd is “big business,” the rest of Maine—and the country—is still suffering. And maybe that’s where the fear comes in.

We’ve seen revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, attempts in Libya, Syria, Yemen, unrest in Greece and Spain, student protests in England, and here at home the occupation of the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. While nothing yet in the U.S. has approached the level of organized attacks on the wealthy by the have-nots, since the financial crash even the hint that perhaps private jet owners could pay a few more dollars in taxes has been decried as class war. A few protests that actually dare approach the doorsteps of the bankers appear to be all it takes to stoke paranoia among the super-rich.

via $230,000 For a Guard Dog: Why the Wealthy Are Afraid Of Violence From Below | | AlterNet.

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The Southern Roots of Memorial Day

Very interesting article about the real origin of “Memorial Day” at the Institute for Southern Studies…

Shows South Carolina wasn’t always as demented as it is today….

Year in which former slaves in Charleston, S.C. held a funeral procession to honor Union soldiers who died in a local Confederate prison camp: 1865

Number of people who took part in the May 1 procession, called Decoration Day, held after the freedmen dug individual graves for the soldiers (in photo), who had been buried en masse: nearly 10,000

Number of African-American children who marched past the graves, strewing flowers and softly singing “John Brown’s Body” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”: 2,800

MORE:   ISS – INSTITUTE INDEX: The Southern roots of Memorial Day.

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After Osama bin Laden’s Death, An End to ‘Bad Guys’ | The Nation

Nice to see other folks thinking along the same lines as my personal thoughts in my earlier post about how bin Laden changed us….

I do hope we can all grow up now that the boogie man is dead….

From The Nation:

We can use the occasion of bin Laden’s death to grasp back for the moment when the world seemed simple, or we can turn away from that impulse. We can say that with his death, we return to the world as our adult eyes see it, shot through with suffering and complexity. We can feel compassion for the thousands of innocents who died by bin Laden’s hand as well as our own, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time in places like Bagram and Baghdad. We can remember that just because there is evil in the world that we are fighting—and bin Laden was a mass murderer and war criminal—that does not mean we are purely righteous. We can reject relativism and still embrace nuance. We can have the courage to speak and act like adults, to put away childish things, to once and for all banish the bad guys from our nightmares.

via After Osama bin Laden’s Death, An End to ‘Bad Guys’ | The Nation.

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Royal Wedding: David Beckham’s last-minute OBE switch

I can’t believe he did this…

I thought everyone knew you wear your OBE Medal on you left lapel….

From the Daily Mail:

He rarely puts a step wrong in the style stakes.

But despite looking groomed to perfection and dapper in his Ralph Lauren morning suit, David Beckham had a very small slip-up today at the Royal Wedding.

The footballer arrived at Westminster Abbey this morning proudly wearing his OBE medal displayed – but unfortunately, David wore it on his right lapel.

via Royal Wedding: David Beckham’s last-minute OBE switch | Mail Online.

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The First Royal “Wedding of the Century”: Grace Kelly to Prince Ranier of Monaco

Here is the newsreel coverage of the marriage of Grace Kelly to Prince Ranier….

I can’t help but think Kate Middleton, the new Duchess of Cambridge, drew some inspiration from Grace’s dress and veil…

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Kate Middleton debuts high in new survey of the most attractive royals – NYPOST.com

What can I say?

I can’t help but get caught up in this….

Kate Middleton’s wedding is still 11 days away, but she has already been crowned the third most beautiful royal of all time — surpassing even Princess Diana.

Her soon-to-be highness’s high cheekbones and regal smile put her just below Princess Grace and Queen Rania of Jor dan on the rankings, according to a survey conducted by the social- network site Beautiful People.com.

“That was a big surprise — that she surpassed Princess Diana,” said Greg Hodge, manag ing director of the site. “But unlike Diana, who grew into her role, Kate Middleton comes in very fashion-forward. She’s living this fairy tale, and is about to become the most famous princess in the world.”

That Princess Grace remains unmatched is understandable, however.

“She’s iconic and remains so,” Hodge said.

via Kate Middleton debuts high in new survey of the most attractive royals – NYPOST.com.

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