today’s holiday: Great American Duck Race

Great American Duck Race

This uniquely American event started in 1980 in Deming, New Mexico. Up to 80 live ducks race for cash prizes in an eight-lane chute. There are races that include politicians’ heats and a media heat. Other features include a parade, dances, hot-air balloons, an arts and crafts exhibit, a pageant of people dressed like ducks, and a duck contest in which ducks are dressed like people. Race participants come from several states; spectators now number about 20,000, almost double the population of Deming. More… Discuss

this day in the yesteryear: First Test of a Nuclear Weapon (1945) One of the darkest day in human history!

First Test of a Nuclear Weapon (1945)

Called the Trinity test, the first test of a nuclear weapon was conducted by the US in New Mexico on what is now White Sands Missile Range. The detonation of the implosion-design plutonium bomb—the same type used on Nagasaki, Japan, a few weeks later—was equivalent to the explosion of approximately 20 kilotons of TNT, and is usually considered the beginning of the Atomic Age. It is said that the scientists who observed the detonation set up a betting pool on what the result would be. Who won? More… Discuss

today’s birthday: Geronimo (1829)

Geronimo (1829)

When US authorities abolished the Chiricahua Reservation in 1876 and removed the Apaches to an arid region of New Mexico, Geronimo led a group of followers to Mexico. He was soon captured and returned to the new reservation, but escaped again with a group in 1881 and began leading them on raids. The cycle repeated again and again, until late in 1886, when Geronimo and the remainder of his forces surrendered for good. How is it that he ended up riding in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural procession? More… Discuss

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov,Symphonic Suite:”Antar” (Symphony No.2) , great compositions/performances

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov,Symphonic Suite:”Antar” (Symphony No.2).

pomip1010

Published on Jan 24, 2014

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov had a work ethic that bordered on the obsessive, and when inspiration failed him, he would often busy himself by tidying up works from his youth. This habit accounts for the proliferation of versions of Antar. This work was composed between January and August 1868, and premiered in March of the next year. After a few alterations, it was published in 1880 as his Second Symphony. However, in the “new edition” of 1903, which was dated 1897, “Antar” was substantially revised and called a symphonic suite, with the words Second Symphony in a parenthetical subtitle. In 1913, a final version of Antar came out, called simply a “Symphonic Suite,” as Rimsky-Korsakov had decided that Antar was “a poem, suite, fairy tale, story, anything you like, but not a symphony.” The final version changes the key of the second movement and has more refined and detailed orchestration. However, the earlier version may best preserve the freshness of Rimsky-Korsakov’s response to the myth of Antar, a great warrior from Arabian literature.

Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Lucasz Borowicz.

Borodin In the Steppes of Central Asia – Svetlanov , great compositions/performances

Borodin In the Steppes of Central Asia – Svetlanov

Mark Farago

Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia – Musical picture

USSR Symphony Orchestra
Evgeny Svetlanov, conductor
Rec. 1966

The musical picture “In Central Asia” was written in 1880 and premiered in St.Petersburg under Rimsky Korsakov‘s baton that year.

this day in the yesteryear: Jim Thorpe’s Olympic Medals Posthumously Restored (1983)

Jim Thorpe’s Olympic Medals Posthumously Restored (1983)

Jim Thorpe, an American Olympian, excelled at every sport he played and is deemed one of the greatest athletes in modern sports history. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon but was stripped of his awards amid reports that he had played minor league baseball before participating in the 1912 Olympic Games. At the time, strict rules barred professional athletes from Olympic competition. What loophole enabled Thorpe’s supporters to have his medals posthumously restored? More… Discuss

quotartion: Willa Cather: “…The sun was like a great visiting presence…”

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.Willa Cather (1873-1947) Discuss

Two Ansel Adams Photos Amazing!

In Glacier National Park http://www.archives.gov

in search of Ansel Adams: Yahoo said:

Ansel-Adams-Landscape-Photography–Mount-Williamson-1944

word: squalor

squalor

Definition:	(noun) A filthy and wretched condition or quality.
Synonyms:	sordidness, squalidness
Usage:	The squalor in which the refugees lived alarmed the aid workers, who knew they had to work quickly to improve these conditions. Discuss.

this pressed: MORE TIME? 7-month extension on the table for US, Iran nuclear talks

MORE TIME? 7-month extension on the table for US, Iran nuclear talks.

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Saint of the Day for Sunday, November 23rd, 2014: Bl. Miguel Pro

Saint of the Day for Sunday, November 23rd, 2014

Bl. Miguel Pro

Born on January 13, 1891 in Guadalupe, Mexico, Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez was the eldest son of Miguel Pro and Josefa Juarez. Miguelito, as his doting family called him, was, from an early age, … continue reading

More Saints of the Day

Bl. Miguel Pro St. Alexander Nevski St. Amphilocus Pope St. Clement I St. Columban St. Felicitas of Rome

St. Paternian St. Paulhen St. Rachilidis St. Trudo St. Wilfretrudis

Google Exec Overtakes Baumgartner, Claims Skydive Records

A Google executive has broken the world altitude record for skydiving set by Felix Baumgartner in a much-hyped 2012 jump. The 57-year-old senior Google vice president, Alan Eustace, jumped from an altitude of 135,890 feet, nearly 8,000 feet higher than Baumgartner, hitting a peak velocity of 822 mph (1,321 km/h) during his 123,414-foot freefall—both record numbers as well. As Eustace plummeted toward Earth from the edge of space, observers on the ground heard the sonic boom triggered at the moment his body exceeded the speed of sound. More… Discuss

today’s holiday: San Geronimo Feast Day

San Geronimo Feast Day

San Geronimo Feast Day is the feast day for St. Jerome, the patron saint of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. For 1,000 years, the Tiwa-speaking Taos Indians have lived at or near the present pueblo, and it is still the home of about 1,500 residents. The celebration commences on the evening of September 29 with a sundown dance, followed by vespers in the San Geronimo Mission. On the following day, there are foot races in the morning, and, in the afternoon, figures wearing black-and-white body paint and costumes climb a pole, an act that has secret religious significance to the Taos. More… Discuss

today’s holiday: Apache Maidens’ Puberty Rites

Apache Maidens’ Puberty Rites

The Apache Maidens’ Puberty Rites are a coming-of-age celebration of girls of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, held for four days and nights around the Fourth of July in Mescalero, New Mexico. On the first and last days, the girls run around a basket four times, symbolizing the four stages of life (infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age). On the last day, their faces are painted with white clay and they enact the role of White Painted Woman, preparing for a rewarding adult life. Other events include a rodeo, a powwow, a parade on July 4, and the nighttime Dance of the Mountain Gods. More… Discuss

today’s birthday: Pat Garrett (1850)

Pat Garrett (1850)

When cowboy and buffalo hunter Pat Garrett decided to settle in Lincoln County, New Mexico, in 1879, he could never have imagined the dramatic turn his life was about to take. Soon after settling in, Garrett was appointed sheriff and charged with tracking down and arresting outlaw Henry McCarty, a murderer and participant in the Lincoln County War who was better known as Billy the Kid. What led Garrett to ultimately kill “the Kid,” and why did this act eventually sully his reputation? More… Discuss

press this>>>Go Wild: Celebrating the Gila Wilderness Area’s 90th Birthday | Golden Green | The Back Forty | KCET

Go Wild: Celebrating the Gila Wilderness Area’s 90th Birthday | Golden Green | The Back Forty | KCET.

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TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: CHARLES GOODNIGHT (1836)

Charles Goodnight (1836)

Goodnight was a cattleman known as the father of the Texas Panhandle. As a young man, he joined the Texas Rangers and became a noted scout and Indian fighter. Eventually, he turned to ranching and cattle driving. In 1866, he and Oliver Loving laid out the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail that extended from Texas through New Mexico and Colorado and into Wyoming. He later cofounded the million-acre JA Ranch in Texas, where he crossed Angus cattle with buffalo to produce what animal? More… Discuss

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THIS DAY IN THE YESTERYEAR: THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO IS SIGNED (1848)

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Is Signed (1848)

A border dispute sparked by the US annexation of Texas in 1845 soon led to all-out war between the two countries. Under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, Mexico confirmed US claims to Texas and ceded lands constituting present-day California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming in exchange for an indemnity of $15 million and US assumption of American claims against Mexico. How did the US’s victory precipitate its Civil War?More… Discuss

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TODAY HOLIDAY: SAN ILDEFONSO PUEBLO FEAST DAY

 

 

San Ildefonso Pueblo Feast Day

 

English: Tewas in headdress, male and female, descending stairs, “Dance, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico.”; From the series Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, compiled 1941 – 1942, documenting the period ca. 1933 – 1942. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

These late-January festivities mark a highlight in the ceremonial year at San Ildefonso Pueblo near Santa Fe, New Mexico. January 23 is the pueblo’s feast day, celebrated with a special church service and dances, such as the Buffalo, Comanche, and Deer dances. The dances are a way of paying respect and giving thanks for the animals on which people depend for food and other materials. On the evening before, there are bonfires and a firelight procession. More… Discuss

 

Ansel Adams – Church, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico (My Art Collection)

Warning about Brown Widow Spiders In SoCal-Orange County – via KTLA

Warning about Brown Widow Spiders In SoCal-Orange County

The spider Latrodectus geometricus, commonly known as the brown widow, grey widow, or geometric button spider, is one of the widow spiders in the genus Latrodectus. As such, it is a “cousin” to the more famous Latrodectus mactans. The brown widow is found in parts of the southeastern, southern and southwestern United States (including Florida, Alabama, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas); as well as in parts of Australia, Afghanistan, South Africa and Cyprus.^{[citation needed]} The origin of this species is uncertain, as specimens were independently discovered in both Africa and the Americas. They are usually found around buildings in tropical areas.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_geometricus)