February 4, 2019
Good morning friends, many thanks for stopping by today.

The Electoral College and Chicago Transit Authority are featured in On This Date while 1989 is spotlighted in Top of the Charts. Philosophy 101 features and old saying about how everything has already happened.

Today is, more or less, the midpoint of winter, summer for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere.

THE DAILY ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1789 – The Electoral College unanimously elects George Washington president of the United States. While John Adams also received electoral votes and was elected vice president, Washington was the only candidate named on every elector’s ballot and is considered to have been unanimously elected. Washington would duplicate this feat four years later and he remains the only president unanimously elected by the Electoral College. He would take office on April 30, the first president under the new Constitution.

In 1977 – Two trains operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) crash, killing eleven and injuring 180. The initial crash actually wasn’t that bad – one train rear-ended the other at a slow speed and passengers only reported a slight bump- but the operator of one of the trains, who turned out to be high, kept his train going, leading to its derailment and crashing down on the street below. The accident occurred near the intersections of Lake Street and Wabash Avenue and remains the deadliest accident in CTA history.

Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1989:
Hot 100 – When I’m With You…Sheriff (only week)
Soul Chart – Can You Stand the Rain…New Edition (1st of two weeks)
Country Chart – What I’d Say…Earl Thomas Conley (only week)
Album Chart – Don’t Be Cruel…Bobby Brown (3rd of six non-consecutive weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.

Numbers Racket
10,636: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
21.974: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
645: days until Election Day 2020.

Philosophy 101
Everything has happened. Everything will happen.
An old saying

We’ve heard today’s thought attributed to everyone from the Hindus to American Indians to the Chinese; it’s a common thread running through our human experience and in many respects it is true: we are not the exciting salt and summit of humanity that we may think we are; we are what our ancestors were: people trying to make a go of it, albeit with smartphones in our pockets now. Of course, we are continuously evolving and advance, but the inevitable march of progress doesn’t change and neither does the fact us that collectively us humans continue to tread much the same course those before us trod.

Individually, however, we are responsible for every new thing in this world. No one was born with the exact same combination and measure of talents, skills and ambition that we were. It’s nature’s gift to us and our gift to our fellow humans and we have both the opportunity and obligation to maximize the talents we were born with. Those that get on in this world do this every day. Not some days and not others, not some months or years and not others: they make the 24-hours they are issued every day – the only commodity we all have in equal measure – serve them.  They intuitively know the life they are meant to lead and they go and lead that life.

We intuitively know the life we were meant to lead, too. If we want to also get on in this life we must have the courage to go and live that life and the patience to go and live it every day.

We are the only new things in this world. It’s up to us to show this to ourselves and the world.

Many thanks for reading, and have a good day.
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn

February 3, 2019
Good morning friends, many thanks for stopping by today.

Today, On This Date has an aviation bent, the Top of the Charts investigates 1968 and Philosophy 101 has a quote from Saul Bellow to keep us thinking.

THE DAILY ALMANAC
On This Date:
In 1959 – Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens J.P. Richardson – better known as the Big Bopper – and their less-famous pilot are killed in a plane crash in north-central Iowa. The flight was en route from a show in Clear Lake, Iowa to another show in Moorhead, Minnesota. Country music legend Waylon Jennings, a member of Holly’s band, lost a coin flip to Richardson for a seat on the flight. Fares for the flight were $36 per person, a bit more than $300 in today’s dollars.

In 1961 – The US Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, a program of round-the-clock flights designed to provide airborne command of US nuclear forces in the event ground command centers are inoperable. The plane is headed by a commanding general and a staff of about 20, not including aircraft personnel. The operation ceased continuous airborne operations in 1990, but remains on 24-hour alert.

Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1968:
Hot 100 – Green Tambourine…The Lemon Pipers (only week)
Soul Chart – Chain of Fools…Aretha Franklin (3rd of four weeks)
Country Chart – Skip a Rope…Henson Cargill (1st of five weeks)
Album Chart – The Magical Mystery Tour…The Beatles (5th of eight weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard.

Numbers Racket
10,635: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
21.970: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
646: days until Election Day 2020.

Philosophy 101
I almost never think of my calendar years. I’m forever hiking across the same plateau with no end in sight.
Saul Bellow
Ravelstein

It is very easy to think of our calendar years. Our need to reckon time is a fundamental part of human nature, so much so that we have names for each new day and these days are broken up into hours and minutes. Enough days and a week has passed and weeks make up a year and these years make up decades and centuries. Every year the anniversary of our birth awaits us, reminding us how much time we’ve spent on this planet and how much, or how little, we might have left. No one’s time on this planet is unlimited and unless there’s a death warrant with our name on it, we generally don’t know when or how it will end. Marking our days and years is a much a part of our human experience as eating.

It’s human nature to mark time, but how necessary is it? Those that get on this world generally do not pay too much attention to the passing of the years. They were meant to make their time serve them and not to merely stand around marking its passing and they work hard to get the most out of their time on this planet. They do this by cultivating and getting the most out of the talents they were born with and those who do this with dilligence and courage lead lives whose end, while a foregone conclusion, has no bearing on their present.

Our lives are, indeed, similar to a plateau whose end cannot be seen. Of course, the years pass and they will take their toll: hair will turn gray, our bodies will no longer the limber temples they were in earlier years. But if we are on our paths, if we are counting on our hearts to tell us where to go and our instincts to tell us how to get there – which they never fail to do – we may well find the years passing without reference from us.

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was a Canadian and American writer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. 

Many thanks for reading, and have a good day.
xoxoxo
Kaitlyn