Pompeii, 1986
Twenty-two years ago tomorrow, the worst nuclear disaster in history took place in the Ukraine. At around 1:00 a.m. on 26 April, 1986, a test of one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant failed. The water used to cool the reactors began to get increasingly hot — close to boiling. In spite of [...]
Did you learn this in history class?
In 4 years of high school, none of my history teachers ever brought it up. Here’s the question: What 20th century event killed 20-50 million people in one year? Was it Viet Nam? World War I? World War II? The Korean War? The Holocaust death camps? Nope on all counts. It didn’t have anything to [...]
This guy was bizzy
Ok, fiends. Lately, I’ve been reading Philippa Gregory’s series on the wives of Henry VIII, king of England from 1509-1547. I’ve never been much of a fan of historical fiction, but I’m enjoying these books a lot. How much do you know about Henry Tudor, besides the fact that he had six wives? Here are [...]
Uh-oh. Save your pipes, kids.
I read this morning that American Idol (barf) winner Jordin Sparks is on vocal rest after suffering an acute vocal cord hemorrhage before going on tour with Alicia Keys. As many of you know, the Fink herself had vocal cord surgery back in ’95. I was an assistant marching band director, and spent 6 weeks [...]
Don’t know why…
…but all this made me laugh last night. 1. 2. 3. Charles Dickens slept facing North. He thought it improved his writing. [Gotta try that.] 4. The Thriller told me that when he went downstairs to his office yesterday morning, he saw a tiny spider “rappelling” down a fiber of its web. I do not [...]