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 4, Number 1 ***

*** Wednesday, October 27 through Tuesday, November 2 ***

Please note: there will be no almanac next week. Regular publication and delivery of the Almanac will resume the week of November 10. (Horoscopes, true tales, etc., will be updated on their usual sporadic schedule.)

--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---

(Answer below)

Farmer Joe Glidden was granted a patent on October 27, 1873. What for?

a. Picket fencing

b. Barbed wire

c. The landmine

d. The gun turret

e. The machine gun

f. The cow cannon

--- APPLE BITES ---

On October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated at Liberty Island, New York, by President Grover Cleveland. "Lady Liberty," as she came to be called, quickly become a symbol of America, partly because she was such a striking visual symbol of our national reverence for liberty, partly because of the five-dollar hot dogs and ten-dollar plastic replicas sold at her feet.

The statue’s inscription was written by poet Emma Lazarus, and attributes the following exhortation to Lady Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (Cynics are always quick to point out that construction of the golden door was never completed.)

Those masses were given another reason to huddle and yearn for freedom on October 27, 1904, with the official opening of the New York subway.

Things were complicated still further fifteen years and a day later (Oct. 28, 1919), when Congress passed a law prohibiting alcohol.

Ten years and a day after that (Oct. 29, 1929), "Black Tuesday" saw the New York Stock Exchange begin the meltdown that ushered in the Great Depression.

Anyone who wasn’t tired, poor, huddled, wretched, homeless, or tempest-tost by this point simply wasn’t trying.

(On October 27, 1553, Michael Servetus was honored in Switzerland for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of the blood. Under the peculiar Swiss honor system of the age, he was awarded a crown of sulfur and set upon a podium of green wood, then lit on fire. John Calvin is given a good deal of credit for having arranged these honors, which may have had something to do with his own gratitude to Mr. Servetus for having raised an important theological question.)

---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---

Disovery Day, Cuba

Independence Day, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Independence Day, Turkmenistan

Navy Day, USA

Anniversary of Name Change, Zaire

Network Sweeps begin

Independence Day, Czech Republic

Flag Day, Taiwan

Republic Day, Turkey

Halloween

Daylight Savings ends

Reformation Day, Slovenia

Chiang Kai-Shek's Birthday, Taiwan

Day of Revolution, Algeria

State Day, Antigua and Barbuda

All Saints Day (Christian)

National Anthem Day, Panama

Election Day, U.S.

--- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY ---

On October 28, 1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on the cotton gin. This is just one of many historical events I intended to mention this week--along with the founding of Harvard (Oct. 28, 1636), the first use of fingerprints in a criminal investigation (St. Louis, Oct. 28, 1904), and the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz (Oct. 29, 1901, for the assassination of William McKinley).

While researching Mr. Whitney’s invention, however, I encountered the following student report. I could not improve upon it, and I present it in its entirety--as written by Mr Jeffrey P of Lowell (see the online edition of the Almanac for a link to Mr P’s original text):

"Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765. When Eli was a child, the American Revolutionary War had started. America was at war with England. Eli worked very well with tools when he was growing up.

"Eli’s family would not support the idea of Eli going to college because they did not have enough money, but he went to college anyway. While he was in college, Eli wanted to be a lawyer after he graduated. He wanted to be a lawyer because he thought America had no use for a handyman.

"After completing college, Eli went down south to Phineas Miller’s plantation in Mulberry Grove to teach his children but he never did. Instead of teaching the children, he was asked to invent a cotton gin. Phineas and Eli became partners, and Phineas paid for all expenses. Eli gave up studying law so he could build a cotton gin.

"After six months he finally completed making a cotton gin. The cotton gin separated the seeds from the cotton. Then he left the plantation to go to Philadelphia to get a patent so he could privately make cotton gin in New Haven, but he couldn’t.

"There was an outbreak of yellow fever in both Philadelphia and New Haven, therefore he couldn’t get the patent or make the cotton gins. To make matters even worse, his cotton gin was stolen, but things did get better.

"Years later, Eli became rich and famous throughout the world. It turns out there was a future in America for a handyman."

--- THE MORONIC OBSERVER ---

I have decided to follow my fellow presidential candidates’ lead, and to write a political memoir. My working title was, "Why I Should Be President," but I have hired renowned ghostwriter Larry Guzzard to help with certain grammatical particulars, and he has suggested I retitle the work "All of My Opponents are Lying, Cheating Bastards."

Mr. Guzzard has a felicitous pen. Consider the alchemy it has worked on just two samples of my own rough prose:

"While I respect the achievements of the mainstream political parties," I wrote originally, "I believe they no longer address the changing needs of the American Electorate."

The same sentence, under Mr. Guzzard’s tutelage, now reads: "The bloated bureaucracy of Washington has been sucking the life’s blood out of us for too long, and it is time for the hammer to drop and heads to roll."

Talking about my upbringing, I wrote that "I grew up on a quiet, tree-lined avenue in a handsome Boston suburb."

Mr. Guzzard waves his magic grammatical wand, and behold: "Not long after I was born my family was evicted from our cold-water tenement, and forced to ferret out a primal existence from a cardboard box under a highway overpass."

Is he not a master of the language? I’m sure we will have a bestseller on our hands.

Trivia solution: Farmer Joe wasn't granted any patent on October 27, but he did apply for a patent on (b) barbed wire. (I had make the question more difficult than usual because everyone knows the Father of Barbed Wire.) Give yourself ten points for a correct answer, twenty points for ignoring the question completely.

--- BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---

John Cleese (1939)

Ruby Dee (1924)

Roy Lichtenstein (1923)

Dylan Thomas (1914)

Emily Post (1872)

Theodore Roosevelt (1858)

Captain James Cook (1728)

Julia Roberts (1967)

Bill Gates (1955)

Bruce Jenner (1949)

Jonas Salk (1914)

Evelyn Waugh (1903)

Winona Ryder (1971)

Kate Jackson (1948)

Richard Dreyfuss (1947)

Bill Mauldin (1921)

Joseph Goebbels (1897)

Fanny Brice (1891)

Harry Hamlin (1951)

Henry Winkler (1945)

Grace Slick (1939)

Louis Malle (1932)

Ruth Gordon (1896)

Charles Atlas (1893)

Ezra Pound (1885)

John Adams (1735)

John Candy (1950)

Jane Pauley (1950)

David Ogden Stiers (1942)

Michael Landon (1936)

Dan Rather (1931)

Dale Evans (1912)

Chiang Kai-Shek (1887)

John Keats (1795)

Jan Vermeer (1632)

Jenny McCarthy (1972)

Fernando Valenzuela (1960)

Lyle Lovett (1957)

Larry Flynt (1942)

Stephen Crane (1871)

k.d. lang (1961)

Stefanie Powers (1942)

Pat Buchanan (1938)

Ray Walston (1914)

Burt Lancaster (1913)

Warren G. Harding (1865)

James K. Polk (1795)

Marie Antoinette (1755)

Daniel Boone (1734)

--- THE MORONIC FINANCIER ---

Many readers have expressed concern about the volatile stock market’s performance in this month of October. They point to the great crash of October 29, 1929--the original Black Tuesday--and to the milder crash of 1987, which also occurred in October. They wonder if these might be cautionary precedents.

I have done some research on this matter.

It is true that the market crashed in October 1929 and again in October 1987. I have fed this information into a spreadsheet and created a chart in an effort to identify the trends. The conclusion leaped off the page: the market crashes in the October of every fifty-eighth year. There is nothing to worry about until October 2045; just keep buying low and selling high.

(Incidentally, when I say "sell high" I don’t mean to suggest you should have a few drinks or smoke a little dope before you sell. I mean you should sell your securities when they’re worth more than they were when you bought them. Persons who insist on selling their securities when they themselves are high, or selling them for less than they paid for them, will probably not require market intervention to damage their portfolios.)

However, we must keep our eyes open. Many wars have been declared in the month of October--certainly more than two every fifty-eight years--and wars can have unpredictable effects on the market. Historically, one in twelve bankruptcies have been declared in October. And, most alarming of all, roughly one twelfth of all documented cases of spontaneous human combustion have occurred in the month of October.

So never mind the market: watch your health.

--- HEALTHY LIVING NOTEBOOK ---

Every Halloween, millions of American children die as a result of razor blades having been concealed in the apples handed out to them on their Trick-or-Treating rounds. I have never seen the actual statistics for this annual holocaust, but my mother impressed their general sense upon me so zealously that I cannot doubt her. There is also some evidence on her side: I was never permitted to eat any of the apples I received, and I am still alive.

Additional millions of our nation's youth are sent to early graves each Halloween by their own failure to look both ways before crossing the street. Still more become gravely ill, and often perish, as a result of excessive sugar intake.

It is a wonder there are any children left at all, especially when one considers that those fortunate enough to survive Halloween still must run the deadly gauntlet of Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas, and New Year's.

The Healthy Living Notebook cannot overstate its disapproval of this dangerous pagan holiday. It is a menace to our children--and, by extension, to our very existence as a nation. We recommend children be locked indoors from sunset of the evening before Halloween to sunrise the morning after. Especially rambunctious children should be tied down as an added precaution.

They'll thank you when they're older and wiser--which, thanks to your rigorous parenting, they may yet live to be.

--- ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST ---

(See the online version of the almanac for custom weekly forecasts every Wednesday night. This week’s guest astrologists: either Emily Post or Larry Flynt, or both.)

Romantic outlook improving, but you still aren't getting enough roughage. Brush and floss after every meal, and prosecute trespassers. Conditions favor hair care and karaoke. Avoid men in thongs, dogs in heat, and Greater Grozny.

--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---

Editorial policy forbids the presence of farming tips in odd-numbered editions of even-numbered volumes of the Moron’s Almanac. Persons seeking farming tips are advised to consult 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 embarrasses the farmers. Thanks.

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