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 3, Number 11 ***

*** Wednesday, October 6 through Tuesday, October 12 ***

--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---

(Answer below)

What did the Byzantine Emperor Basil order on October 6, 1014?

a. 15,000 new window screens

b. 18,000 new storm windows

c. 13,000 new curtains

d. 15,000 new blinds

e. 24,000 new shutters

--- AMERICA: TAKE IT OR LEIF IT ---

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his Merry Men made landfall at the Bahamas. Everyone knows the whole sordid and magnificent story of their subsequent adventures; their arrival began the well-documented European colonization of the Americas, and eventually caused television, diet cola, and the fat-free potato chip.

Not quite everyone is aware that in 1964, backed by a unanimous congress, President Johnson proclaimed October 9th "Leif Ericson Day." Many people don’t even know who Leif Ericson was. (He was Leif Eriksson, and sometimes Leiv Eiriksson.)

The day after Leif Ericson Day in 1965, Yale University astonished the world with its Vinland Map, a 1440 transcription of a map believed to have been originally drawn by Ericson himself (or possibly Eriksson, but certainly not Eiriksson) around 1000 A.D., and which appeared to depict parts of Canada. Earlier this year, more evidence supporting the authenticity of the map was revealed, lending further support to the conclusion that there were Vikings in North America five centuries before Columbus soiled his first diaper.

This is an exciting development, because it will almost certainly necessitate the development of Viking reservations and the establishment of Viking-run casinos.

Still more exciting are recent scientific findings that suggest caucasians may have existed in North America prior to being displaced by the so-called native-Americans who were later visited by Vikings prior to being utterly displaced by still more caucasians.

But this is also deeply troubling, because there was probably someone here before those original caucasians.

In the interests of fairness, The Moron’s Almanac enthusiastically endorses the endowment of every American with their own casino.

---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---

Armed Forces Day, Egypt

Ivy Day, Ireland

Cassinga Day, Namibia

World Habitat Day, U.N.

Day of the Navy, Peru

NEW MOON

Leif Ericson Day, U.S.

World Wristwrestling Championship, Petaluma CA

National Coming Out Day, U.S.

Independence of Guyaquil, Ecuador

Lief Erikson Day, Iceland

Independence Day, Uganda

Double Ten Day, China

Fiji Day, Fiji

Alexis Kivi's Birthday, Finland

Double Ten Day, Taiwan

Columbus Day, U.S. (Observed)

Thanksgiving, Canada

Revolution Day, Panama

Flag Day, Uzbekistan

Dia de la Raza in:

Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela

Discovery Day, Bahamas

Independence Day, Equatorial Guinea

Columbus Day (actual), U.S.

--- THE MORONIC OBSERVER ---

I am pleased to officially announce my intention to seek the Moron Party nomination as its presidential candidate for the 2000 election. I feel confident I deserve the party’s nomination, and confident that I will get it, especially since no one else is running.

As the Moron Party has been lax in developing its platform, I have chosen to run on a platform of Vague Ambiguity. This not only relieves the party of the responsibility of developing a platform; it allows me to fluctuate wildly in my opinions and reverse position at will. This will be important if I am to stand a chance in the general elections.

My campaign slogan was going to be "Put a Moron in the White House," but I didn’t feel this would adequately distinguish me from the other parties’ candidates. I am hard at work developing a new slogan. All suggestions are welcome.

Watch this space for periodic campaign updates.

--- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY ---

Great moments in the history of literary criticism: On October 6, 1536 William Tyndale was recognized for his important contribution to world literature—the first translation of the New Testament into English—by being strangled and burned at the stake.

A group of Spanish Missionaries settled in what is today San Francisco on October 9, 1776. Their arrival displaced a small native-American population, and therefore came to be known as the "missionary imposition."

On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allen Poe was found in a delirious state outside a Baltimore voting place ("saloon"). Mr. Poe was often found delirious, especially outside voting places, but this time his delirium was serious and he died.

On October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire began. The fire killed 250, destroyed over 17,000 buildings, and left nearly 100,000 people homeless, making it the worst non-sports disaster in Chicago history.

The Volstead Act was passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress on October 8, 1919. This popular law mandated the creation of speakeasies, swing jazz, flappers, and Robert DeNiro as Al Capone. (Eventually the nation became depressed in spite of these measures, and its depression was only deepened by Oklahoma’s loss in the Dust Bowl.)

According to one of my sources, on October 8, 1918, in the Argonne Forest of France, Sergeant Alvin York "almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132." I had intended to praise Sergeant York’s heroics, but find myself arrested by that scintillating "almost." The whole edifice of the sergeant’s feat crumbles to ruin from the delicate tap of that little adverb. Persons with more definite ideas of the sergeant’s deeds are encouraged to pass that information along.

On October 10, 1911, the Chinese revolution began in Hankow. The revolution spread rapidly, resulting in the abdication of six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi, the Academy Award-winning "Last Emperor" of China. On the same day, the Panama Canal was officially opened, resulting in a popular palindrome. No palindrome was developed for the Chinese revolution, and this would later result in civil war.

On October 12, 1960, at a U.N. general assembly, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev pounded his desk with his shoe. This resulted in the popular but unfair stereotype of the Soviet Dictator who pounds his desk with his shoe.

Many Soviet Dictators did not pound their desks with their shoes.

--- BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---

Elisabeth Shue (1963)

Britt Ekland (1942)

Thor Heyerdahl (1914)

Carole Lombard (1908)

Le Corbusier (1887)

George Westinghouse (1846)

Yo-Yo Ma (1955)

John Cougar Mellencamp (1951)

Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931)

R.D. Laing (1927)

June Allyson (1917)

Heinrich Himmler (1900)

Niels Bohr (1885)

Matt Damon (1970)

Stephanie Zimbalist (1956)

Sigourney Weaver (1949)

Chevy Chase (1943)

R.L. Stine (1943)

Jesse Jackson (1941)

Juan Peron (1895)

Jackson Browne (1948)

John Lennon (1940)

Jacques Tati (1908)

Bruce Catton (1899)

Aimee Semple McPherson (1890)

Brett Favre (1969)

Tanya Tucker (1958)

David Lee Roth (1955)

Ben Vereen (1946)

Harold Pinter (1930)

Thelonious Monk (1917)

Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1924)

Helen Hayes (1900)

Giuseppe Verdi (1813)

Henry Cavendish (1731)

Steve Young (1961)

Elmore Leonard (1925)

Jerome Robbins (1918)

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884)

Henry John Heinz (1844)

Kirk Cameron (1970)

Susan Anton (1950)

Luciano Pavarotti (1935)

Dick Gregory (1932)

--- HEALTHY LIVING NOTEBOOK ---

Everyone’s doing their best to be environmentally conscientious these days, and our culture is riddled with organizations committed to the rescue of an ailing nature. This, when the leading cause of death throughout the civilized world is Natural Causes. The Healthy Living Notebook believes it is high time we confronted the deadly hypocrisy of our environmental activism.

We must begin by recognizing Nature for what it is: violent, capricious, and utterly indifferent to human suffering. Nature has given us cholera, bubonic plague, influenza, measles, mumps, cancer, AIDS, and a whole host of lethal and infamous afflictions with which the reader is already far too familiar. These are all Natural Causes also. Where is the outrage? Where the indignation?

Imagine we lived in a paradise of immortal pleasure, where no one ever knew illness or old age. A paradise in which we now and then shot at one another over some significant question of real estate or economy—for it would be us in our paradise, and not some imaginary breed of lunatics ignorant of the virtues of war—but where, for the most part, no lives were poisoned or foreshortened by the cruel and greedy agents of age and disease.

Now imagine that one day a visitor arrives from some distant place. He comes bearing gifts: cancer, muscular dystrophy, AIDS, schizophrenia, malaria, Ebola, senility, incontinence, acne. Do you think it is likely we would shower him with praise, write poems and symphonies in his honor, form organizations to protect his interests, circulate petitions to defend his rights? Or do you think we would string him up from the nearest telephone pole?

The Healthy Living Notebook thinks we all know what we’d do.

--- ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST ---

(See the online version of the almanac for custom weekly forecasts every Wednesday night. This week’s guest astrologist: Harold Pinter.)

In the reflective environment of early fall, as the leaves turn and the days shorten, it’s easy to succumb to melancholy and nostalgia, to dwell on fond recollections of yesteryear. Don’t fall prey to these feelings. Remember, you’ve been miserable most of your life. Steer clear of puppets, chamomile-scented potpourri, and geodesic domes.

Trivia solution: Basil ordered (d) 15,000 Bulgerian troops blinded. Thanks to the unscientific optometrical procedures of the period, this earned him the handsome ephitet, "Slayer of Bulgers."

--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---

The Farmer’s Almanac® is full of wit and wisdom appropriate to agricultural concerns, and agriculturalists are strongly urged to imbibe its homey, folksy wisdom. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not appropriate reading material for agriculturalists. This is not even folksy. This is the Moron’s Almanac. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarrasses the farmers. Thanks.

© 1999, JustMorons.com

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