THE MORON’S ALMANAC © 1999, JustMorons.com
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Almost as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac®, but without all that crap about farming.
*** Volume 2, Number 3 ***
*** Sunday, April 25 through Saturday, May 1 ***
If your browser supports hyperlinks, you can access the online edition of the almanac, with all its links and images and sounds and furies, its books and movies and CDs, by clicking here:
http://www.justmorons.com/almanac.html.
April 30 is a Full Pink Moon.
--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---
(Answer below)
What did the American Bowling Congress approve on April 25, 1952?
---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---
April 25
ANZAC Day, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga
Sinai Liberation Day, Egypt
Flag Day, Faroe Islands (Denmark)
Liberation Day, Italy
Revolution Day, Portugal
Flag Day, Swaziland
April 26
Union Day, Tanzania
April 27
Saur Revolution Day, Afghanistan
Princess Anne-Marie's Birthday, Denmark
Veterans' Day, Finland
National Resistance Day, Slovenia
Independence Day, Sierra Leone
Freedom Day, South Africa
Independence Day, Togo
Constitution Day, Yugoslavia
April 28
Flag Day, Aland Islands
April 29
Greenery Day, Japan
Remembrance Day, Israel
April 30
Queen's Birthday, Netherlands
Walpurgis Night, Sweden
Saigon Liberation Day, Vietnam
Walpurgis Night
May 1
May Day, Worldwide
Flag Day, Austria
Patriots Victory Day, Ethiopia
Constitution Day, Marshall Islands
The Kentucky Derby
--- WORKERS, WITCHES, AND ROYALS ---
May 1 is recognized as May Day pretty much everywhere but the United States, Canada, and South Africa. Modern May Day celebrations throughout the world typically feature great throngs of people, brightly colored signs and banners, and a whole lot of tear gas. The holiday has its root in the American labor movement of the 1880s, specifically the Haymarket tragedy of 1886. The Haymarket tragedy was either caused by overzealous cops with way too many guns, or overzealous anarchists with way too many bombs (i.e., one), depending on who you ask. (Actually, it no longer matters who you ask, since all eyewitnesses would give you pretty much the same answer.) Either way, nervous, well-armed cops and edgy, bomb-throwing anarchists are not a combination one encounters often in the annals of the Nobel Peace Prize. As a result, Americans ignore May Day and instead celebrate Labor Day, which features plenty of beer and barbecues and very little tear gas. We may be complacent, but dammit, we know what to do with a steak.
The Swedish festival of Walpurgis Night, celebrated April 30, features pretty little hats with lyre emblems, bonfires on hilltops, singalongs, and gravlax. (Think of gravlax as pickles made with fish instead of cucumbers.) In the old days, the Walpurgis Night bonfires were intended to scare off witches. However, since the discovery of heavy artillery (and a subsequent reduction in the number of witches at large), they have become a mere matter of habit, and a nice excuse to burn things and eat gravlax.
The Moron’s Almanac believes these two holidays could be combined to everyone’s advantage.
On April 26, 1923, the Duke of York married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Westminster Abbey. That is British (or English) royalty. Count Basie died on April 26, 1984; Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899; Ella Fitzgerald, the "First Lady of Song," was born on April 25, 1918. That is American royalty.
--- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY ---
On April 25, 1876, the Chicago Cubs played their first National League game. Twenty-five years later, New York became the first state to require license plates. Forty-nine years after that, Chuck Cooper became the first black man to play in the NBA. Forty years after that, the Hubble space telescope was put into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery. That was nine years ago. The Cubs still haven’t won a world series.
Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 26, 1452. Mr. da Vinci was one of the great minds of the Renaissance. Sadly, he is best known for having painted the "Mona Lisa" (in Italian, "La Joconde,"), in which he accurately and exquisitely captured the unmistakable smile of a dignified woman who’s just farted.
On April 29, 1945, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun.
On April 30, 1945, Eva Braun committed suicide. So did Hitler. Moral: don’t rush into marriage. Get to know the other person. Take your time. Think it through. This is especially true if the other person happens to be an Evil Bastard at the head of a hellish war machine on the brink of collapse.
On May 1, 1707, Scotland and England joined together as Great Britain. Great Britain should not be confused with the United Kingdom or Pax Brittanica, both of which came later.
On May 1, 1961, Cuban leader Fidel Castro decided things were going along so well that he absolved the Cuban people of ever having to go through all the bother of another election.
(Six years later, Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieau in Las Vegas.)
On May 1, 1915, the German government took out advertisements warning anyone on ships flying British flags that they did so at their own risk.
On May 1, 1915, the oceanliner Lusitania left New York, flying a British flag.
You do the math.
--- BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---
April 25
Al Pacino (1940); Meadowlark Lemon (1932); Ella Fitzgerald (1918); Edward R. Murrow (1908)
April 26
Carol Burnett (1933); I.M. Pei (1917); John James Audubon (1785)
April 27
Sheena Easton (1959); Casey Kasem (1932); Jack Klugman (1922); Ulysses S. Grant (1822)
April 28
Jay Leno (1950); Ann-Margret (1941); Saddam Hussein (1937); James Monroe (1758)
April 29
Andre Agassi (1970); Uma Thurman (1970); Michelle Pfeiffer (1957); Daniel Day-Lewis (1957); Jerry Seinfeld (1954); Duke Ellington (1899); William Randolph Hearst (1863)
April 30
Willie Nelson (1933); Cloris Leachman (1926); Eve Arden (1908)
May 1
Terry Southern (1924); Joseph Heller (1923); Jack Paar (1918); Glenn Ford (1916); Kate Smith (1909)
--- THE MORONIC FINANCIER ---
The Moronic Financier is in bankruptcy court this week, but will be back with more financial insights next week. Meanwhile, he has asked me to remind you that "the average American millionaire has declared bankruptcy three times, so back off."
--- ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST ---
(See the online version of the almanac for custom weekly forecasts every Wednesday night.)
The universe will continue to expand for a long, long time, and will then collapse back into the abysmal void out of which it first exploded, annihilating all time, all space, and any trace that anything ever existed. So who really gives a shit what kind of week you have?
Trivia solution: (f) The ABC approved the use of automatic pinsetters in competitive bowling. They approved the Bill of Rights and Constitution in previous meetings, and continue to debate the Magna Charta.
--- HEALTHY LIVING NOTEBOOK ---
Try not to put yourself in situations where poisonous snakes can get at you. Many people are killed by poisonous snakes every year. Most of these people would not have died if they had thought ahead and not gone places where there were dangerous poisonous snakes.
If you insist on exposing yourself to possible attack by poisonous snakes, be sure to have plenty of snake poison antidote handy, and travel with someone you’re extremely attracted to, in the event that one of you should have to suck poison out of the other one’s buttocks.
--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---
If there were going to be a weekly farming tip, this where it would be—and yet, you’ll notice there isn’t one. That’s because weekly farming tips appear in the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is the Moron’s Almanac. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarasses the farmers. Thanks.
© 1999, JustMorons.com
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