An interesting video from Monday outside the RNC courtesy of truthout.org

On this day in 1904 Hellen Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe University, the first blind and deaf woman to ever graduate from college. A very remarkable gal.

She learned to comunicate by touch, and then later to actually speak (video).

My own personal victory today is that I learned that the S-Bahn tickets are also good for the buses.
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Sarah and I went to see Jim’s new film “Java and Fags”, which was pretty good–although several people walked out. I guess they needed to smoke…

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The network of networks, known in some circles as the “internet” turns 35 this week. Yay?

Woody’s back in the news.

"This song is copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

News from back home.

Mom left a message on the AB saying that she’s gone whitewater rafting, presumably down the Ocoee in Tennessee, also presumably having something to do with Frosh Orientation at Vandy, where she works. She reports:

“It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a whole lot more than I thought I would.”

Which is great, because we boys have been trying to get her to come along for years. It’s great fun, except for the part where you have to jump out of the raft and drift for a short stretch. That water is cold, man.

Mom is like (withheld)-going-on-20.

I started teaching classes at the toilet factory. The company is one of the world market leaders in snappy sinks, urinals, bidets, and commodes for commercial and domestic use. Famous archtects have designed series for them.
I must admit, the gig is quite rewarding for me, because I am getting paid to teach people how to talk about peepee and poopoo.
They have a two-story showroom. I found that surreal and dreamlike. I don’t know that I ever had a dream about a house full of nothing but toilets sinks and towels, but it sounds like an entry you might find in the ole dream interpretation dictionary if you get my drift. So I took pictures.
History o’ plumbing and more
History of Plumbing.

Here’s my teaching load for next semester at dear ole TU-D. My students at the ole’ Volkshochschule and the rest will just have to hang on to their hats.

File under: stuff I didn’t learn in highschool

On this day in 1927 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a cobbler and a fishmonger, were executed for alledgedly murdering a paymaster and a security guard in broad daylight for a 16,000 dollar payroll seven years before.

Both men were apprehended shortly after the double murder on grounds of looking suspicious. They were both Italian imigrants. Neither had a criminal record, but both carried concealed weapons. In light of sparsely compelling evidence, many intellectuals of the time felt that the two were most likely convicted because of their political beliefs. Both men were pacifists and anarchists.

After their execution, riots broke out in Germany, France and England.

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