Musings on May 29

Dave here again. For some reason I had a hankering to write on our blog today. I don't even have terribly interesting news to report or anything; I just felt like writing to the world. Kira's sitting behind me, licking the vacuum cleaner. I'm sure from a dog's perspective, that makes perfect sense.

So I did a little research and found out that while I may not have anything interesting to say personally, a lot of very interesting things happened on this day in history. For instance...

Rhode Island and Wisconsin became official states of the U.S. Different years, of course, but hey, it should still be some sort of holiday. I mean, 1/25 of the states joined on the same day. I did some more research on this and found out that this only happened 5 times. So in my opinion, all 5 dates should be national holidays. We could afford another 5 holidays. Well, actually it would only be another 4 holidays, because Oregon and Arizona both joined on February 14th, which is already a holiday. Of course, a lot of people still have to work on Valentine's day, so maybe it needs to be bumped up in its holiday authority. This could be just the event to do that. I wonder if this means that Oregon and Arizona are like star-crossed lovers...

So North and South Dakota both joined on exactly the same day, the only two that have that going for them. But then again, it's not exactly surprising, seeing how close they were to begin with. A cheap move if you ask me. If we make November 2nd a holiday in their honor, it would probably be very low on the holiday authority list. You'd definitely still have to work, and they probably wouldn't even sell any Hallmark cards for the occasion. That'd be rough, North and South Dakota. Out-holiday-ed by "Belated 50th" and "Bat Mitzvah".

Another interesting tidbit with all this is that Nevada joined on Halloween. Of course, that was back in 1864, so it was fairly different back then. According to Wikipedia (or as I refer to it, "the poorly-paid construction workers that stand on the side of the Information Highway, apparently making 'improvements'"), Irish immigrants first brought Halloween with them to North America during the Great Famine of 1846. So it had been around for a couple decades at that point. That was also probably the year they started giving out Peanut Chews, because holy cow, those things have been around since forever.

How do you carry Halloween with you on a boat? I don't know the answer to that, but I bet the boat drifted in to port and all they found were a bunch of dead people and a couple of coffins that were supposed to be bound for Transylvania but ended up accidentally being sent to Pennsylvania. I know what you're thinking and the answer is most certainly yes. Pennsylvania was definitely a state by that time. Hello, 2nd state of the union! Beat only by Delaware, five days earlier, which coincidentally was the last time Delaware beat anyone in anything, ever.

Ok, last two factoids about the states' entry dates. First, December seems to be the popular month, with a grand total of NINE states that joined during that month. Incredibly, none of them were on the same day. They probably just didn't want to create too many holidays. Second, September is the loser month. Only one state joined during those 30 days. Of course, it was California, so maybe they're not a loser month after all. Then again, California brings you such politicians as Arnold and Joseph Spinney, who was allegedly the "most corrupt politician in Fresno County history" and only mayor for 10 minutes. Now that makes you think. Are there other counties with more corrupt mayors who lasted for less than 10 minutes? California also brought you such things as Barbie dolls, the square tomato, and the ever-flattering wetsuit. Thanks a lot California.

Ok, let's move on to other things that happened on May 29th in history. Like in 1913 when Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring opened in Paris and PROVOKED A RIOT. Yep, a whole bunch of ballet enthusiasts decided to riot. First, there was a lot of loud BOOing over a bassoon solo. Then came the arguments over the piece as to whether or not it was good. The arguments led to shouts and fist fights in the aisles. Luckily the Paris police arrived to break up the riot by intermission.

Now, to be fair, I can actually see where the ballet-goers were coming from. I mean, a poorly-played bassoon really gets my goat. I could probably only name two or three pet peeves that are higher on my list. Seriously though, I simply cannot fathom several aspects of this whole issue. The most uncomprehensible part of it all is why people even attended a ballet.

Moving right along, on this day in 1919, the Republic of Prekmurje was formed. I am not making this up.

Also, on this day in 1964, the Arab League met in East Jerusalem to discuss the Palestinian situation in Israel. I'm trying to tread lightly with this paragraph, I really am not trying to offend anybody. Now, I don't know about you, but I think the Arab League would be a phenomenal name for a gathering of superheroes. By doing a very small amount of Google searching under the term "Arab", I found quite possibly the greatest picture in the world, captioned "ARAB MAN (Egpyt)". I'm hoping to attach it to this posting in a moment. I think this guy should obviously be the leader of the Arab League. I won't take any stabs at his potential superhero name or powers, for the sake of maintaining some political correctness, but I will give hints. It's got to end in "man", like all good superhero names, right? Alliteration is always good, so it should start with an "M" too. You can take it from there, seeing as there are now at least 12 viable options I can think of.

I wonder who his sidekick would be?

I gotta be honest, that picture doesn't look like an Egyptian to me. I feel I can say that with some authority because I've been to Egypt. This guy looks more like "cousin Steve", dressing himself up to be one of the 3 Wise Men in his local living nativity scene, and taking the picture himself. He's probably in California. Another tick against you, California.

By the way, I think I found the sidekick. On the same page as the first picture. Also captioned "Arab Man" but from a different country this time. I'll make sure to attach his picture. And for the record, he did not exhale.

Oh but Middle East, we're not done with you yet. On this day in 1999, Charlotte Perelli/Nilsson, of Sweden, won the Eurovision Song Contest which was being held in Jerusalem. Ok, first of all, I have to address her name. Wikipedia can't seem to agree with itself as to what her last name actually is. The thing is, Perelli isn't even close to Nilsson. Maybe they're spelled differently in Swedish. Maybe there were some errors in translation. Secondly, the Swedish title of the song is also NOT EVEN CLOSE to the English one. In Swedish it's Tusen och en natt, which as we all know means "One Thousand and One Nights". In English it's Take Me to Your Heaven. Oh yeah, I see the connection.

Now for those of you who still think Take Me to Your Heaven is an awesome song for a Swedish chick to be singing in Jerusalem, let me give you a taste of the lyrics. I'll just quote the chorus. Again, I promise I'm not making this up.

Take me to your Heaven.
Hold on to a dream.
Take me to your Heaven.
When my nights are cold and lonely,
flying high together,
on a journey to the stars.
Won't you take me to your Heaven to your heart.

I wasn't entirely sure of the punctuation so I offered my best guess. It looks like the translator felt similarly. For those of you with iTunes, I highly recommend doing a search for this song. It doesn't look like Charlotte's version is available, but if you do a search for "Take Me to Your Heaven" and click on the 5th one listed, I'm confident you'll get a sufficient introduction. Keep in mind folks, this won the contest. I think we can all guess who was put in charge of the judging...

Lay off the hookah, Bedouin Boy. No really, I think that's a pretty good sidekick name.