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Almost as reliable as the Farmer's Almanac®, |
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Almost as reliable as the Farmer's Almanac®, |
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Volume 6, Number 7
Wednesday, November 8 - Tuesday, November 21
The Keystone Coup |
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THE MORON'S CALENDAR November 9 November 10 November 11 November 12 November 15 November 16 November 17 November 18 November 19 November 20 November 21
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On November 8, 1923, a general assembly of the Bavarian
government began a meeting at a Munich beer hall at approximately 8:00pm. At about
8:45 pm, the meeting was disrupted by a man in "a baggy, black suit that made him
look like a waiter." The man leaped onto a table, fired a couple of shots into
the ceiling, then forced his way onto the platform. "The national revolution
has begun!" he shouted. Having gained everyone's attention, the strange little man announced that six hundred of his own men had the beer hall surrounded (they didn't), that the national and Bavarian governments had been taken (they hadn't), that the military and police barracks had been occupied (they weren't), and that he'd like a word or two in private with the three Bavarian leaders on the platform if it wouldn't be too inconvenient (it wasn't). Once in a private room, the stranger informed the trio that he'd welcome their participation in his new government. They expressed no interest. He waved his revolver in their faces, but still they demurred. He held the pistol to his own head, then realized this wasn't very persuasive and simply returned to the general hall to announce that the leaders were behind him. A little later, a prominent Bavarian general arrived and announced his support for the stranger. At this point the three leaders were released from their private room, and they too were suddenly in support of the little stranger. Feeling pretty swell about all this support, the stranger left the beer hall briefly to quell a dispute among some of his men outside the hall. By the time he returned, he found that the three leaders had left the beer hall and were hastily making the rounds in Munich, retracting what they'd been forced to say. The stranger became apoplectic. He and the general then came up with a contingency plan: they would gather some men and storm the government the following morning. This they did, to predictably dire results--eighteen of their followers and four Bavarian policemen were killed in the conflict. Two days later, the stranger was arrested at the home of a friend, where he'd been hiding. Ten years later, the evil wingnut bastard was elected Chancellor of Germany. But Adolf Hitler never smoked pot. Adolf Hitler was never arrested for driving under the influence. Adolf Hitler didn't dodge service in World War I. And Adolf Hitler never made irritating little tsk sounds in a debate. Hello Cruel WorldIt seems like only yesterday the world was happily exchanging hellos, and yet it's already been a full year since the last World Hello Day. Once again, the good people of the World Hello Day organization would like everyone to say hello to ten people. This noble effort rose from the ashes of the Egypt-Israel conflict of 1973, and is intended to promote world peace. It is celebrated by gregarious optimists around the world. I am optimistic by nature and gregarious by name, and I recognize that the concerns I expressed at this time last year may have been overstated, but I feel compelled to renew my editorial stand against this tinderbox of a holiday. I don't object to the idea behind World Hello Day, but to the ambiguity of its expression. Greeting strangers is a risky business at best. Many strangers, as the saying goes, are just friends you haven't met. It's a pleasant phrase with a comforting sound, if you take it in one ear and let it out the other, but as soon as you give it a little thought it blows up in your face. Just consider the mathematics. First, count your friends. Be liberal about it. Don't just count your closest friends. Include everyone to whom you send a holiday card, everyone with whom you exchange pleasantries at work, everyone upon whom you can rely for a friendly if meaningless observation about the weather now and then. Include your bus driver, your bartender, the kid who works the register at the grocery on the corner, especially if they're all the same person. Now double that number, just to be safe. This is our numerator. Now try to conceive of the number of strangers you've met in your life. Be conservative. Hell, just count the number of strangers you've met this year. Scrutinize the meaning of the word "met," and trim that number down some more. This is our denominator. The percentage of strangers who turned out to be friends we hadn't yet met is suddenly less reassuring. And remember that for every stranger who might turn out to be a friend there's another stranger who might turn out to be a deranged sociopath. I therefore recommend that we adopt this novel holiday's congenial spirit while making certain practical allowances in its execution: rather than World Hello Day, the Moron's Almanac enthusiastically re-endorses World Non-Threatening Nod of Vague Acknowledgment Day. Now get out there on Tuesday and nod! The Moron's History BookOn November 10, 1871, New York Newspaperman Henry M. Stanley finally found Scottish explorer Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji (near the popular resort town of Unyanyembe), and remarked, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" This was extremely witty. In 1497, a young man claiming to be the son of Edward IV landed in Cornwall, England, and declared himself King Richard IV. Sadly, England already a king, the young man wasn't really the son of Edward IV, and his name wasn't even Richard. He was in fact Perkin Warbeck, and was therefore hanged to death on November 11, 1499. One summer day in 1831 a slave owned by Joseph Travis of Southampton, Virginia, was told by God to lead a rebellion against slaveowners. On August 21, Mr. Turner and seven fellow slaves murdered Mr. Travis and his family. This sparked a small slave uprising in Virginia in which approximately 60 whites were killed. Mr. Turner had hoped to ignite a major rebellion, but only 75 slaves joined his effort. The state militia was sent in. They vastly outnumbered Mr. Turner's forces, and quelled the uprising quickly. More than a hundred innocent slaves were killed in retaliation. Mr. Turner went into hiding but was captured six weeks later. He was executed on November 11, 1831. It's interesting to speculate what Mr. Turner might have said to God in subsequent conversations. New York's Holland Tunnel officially opened on November 12, 1927, ushering in a new wave of Dutch immigration. On November 14, 1851, Herman Melville's most famous novel was first published. Called Moby Dick, the tale is teeming with seamen and spermaceti, yet scholars continue to debate its symbolism. On November 14, 1908, Albert Einstein presented his quantum theory of light for the first time while future Senator Joseph McCarthy was being born (although not in the same room). McCarthy's communist witch-hunts of the mid-twentieth century live in infamy, despite the fact that they failed to uncover a single communist witch. American artist Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887. Ms. O'Keeffe is best known for her colorful paintings of desert flowers that don't look like vaginas. On November 17, the first ship sailed through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This magnificent feat of engineering is best remembered for having engendered a popular palindrome: "Wow!" On November 19, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. The speech is celebrated because it was successfully written on the back of an envelope, despite stringent postal requirements that addresses be printed clearly on the front. On November 21, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Wills Campbell Act, which prohibited medical prescription of beer and liquor. He was assassinated two years later. On November 17, 1903, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's unwillingness to compromise split the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party into two factions: the slim majority who sided with him, and the vast minority who opposed him. The Russian terms for majority and minority are bolshevik and menshevik, respectively, and so these factions took their names. Later the Mensheviks became the majority party, meaning that the Mensheviks had become bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks mensheviks. This was confusing. If you asked someone what they were and they said "bolshevik," you'd have no way of knowing whether they meant Bolshevik (menshevik) or bolshevik (Menshevik). This state of affairs quickly became intolerable. All sorts of remedies were suggested-- placards, pendants, caps, tattoos--but it was impossible to arrive at a consensus until Lenin clarified matters by having all the Mensheviks shot. This week marks the birthday of George Gallup, the father of American polling. In observance of Mr. Gallup's birthday, the Moron's Almanac conducted its own poll. Based on blind calls to 10 random households in the 718 area code, 60% of Americans hang up on pollsters, 20% don't speak English, 10% want to know whether I'm going to order a pizza or tie up their phone all day, and 10% are going to kick my idiot ass from here to something that might have been "kingdom come" but could also have been the name of a small town in Arabia. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on November 11, 1821. Mr. Dostoyevsky is universally recognized as one of the premier authors of nineteenth-century Russia, and perhaps one of the finest novelists of all time. On November 10, 1969, American public television broadcast the Children's Television Network's first episode of Sesame Street. Mr. Dostoyevsky's novels deal with a broad range of complex issues such as as parricide, political philosophy, epilepsy, freedom of the will, suicide, theosophy, revolution, addiction, dissipation, forgiveness, and the legitimacy of absolutist rule. Sesame Street deals frequently with the alphabet and the numbers one through ten. Healthy Living NotebookNote: This column originally appeared in The Moron's Almanac in November 1999, and is reprinted as a result of editorial laziness. It's the middle of autumn. The air is crisp, the mornings are cool, and the brilliant leaves fall languidly from the trees, exhausted by sheer exuberance of color, to be raked into bright and brittle piles by the diligence of a thousand thousand rakes. There they lie, on curbsides and in parking lots, beside driveways and alleys, colorful cushions of fallen leaves, in which many a giddy child will frolic and gambol until, too often, they are run over and killed. Every fall, millions of Americans perish needlessly while playing in piles of leaves by the roadside. While the Healthy Living Notebook has long been outspoken in support of Anti-Leaf legislation (along with the good citizens of San Diego County), we must acknowledge that in this case it is not the leaves themselves that are responsible for the loss of so many lives, but the cars and trucks that insist on driving through them. To prevent tragedy from brushing you and your loved ones with its razor wing, the Healthy Living Almanac urges you not to drive through big piles of leaves--especially if you are driving an eighteen-wheeler, streetcleaning truck, or zamboni. And we urge all parents to warn their children that playing in piles of leaves will inevitably lead to death, and that little children who die while playing in leaves go straight to Hell, where they burn in sulferous flame for eternity. Farming TipsIf you want farming tips, you need the Farmer's Almanac®. This isn't the Farmer's Almanac®. This is the Moron's Almanac™. Please try not to get us mixed up: it confuses us and embarrasses the farmers. Thanks. Trivia solution: It was (a) Republican Rutherford Hayes, running against Democrat Sam Tilden in 1876. Hayes received 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184, but Tilden won the popular election by 4,300,590 to 4,036,298. Give yourself 270 points for a correct answer. Demand a recount. Concede. Retract your concession. Pace. Giggle. Chain smoke. Declare yourself a winner. Disclaimer: JustMorons.com is not the eggman.The Moron's Almanac™ |
MORONIC TRIVIA He lost the popular vote by a slim margin, and had exactly one more electoral vote than his opponent. The electoral votes of four states were disputed. Congress referred the matter to the Electoral Commission, who gave the decision to whom? a. Rutherford Hayes b. Chester Arthur c. William McKinley d. Grover Cleveland e. Alexander Hamilton
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BIRTHDAYS November 8 November 9 November 10 November 11 November 12 November 13 November 14 November 15 November 16 November 17 November 18 November 19 November 20 November 21
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