All Purls. No Swine.
Today, September 9, 2023 is the two-hundred-thirty-second anniversary of the naming of a new city, built on federal land, as the capital of the still-very-young United States of America. The city was named after the country's first President, and the District was named "Columbia," a name still occasionally used at that time for the country… Continue reading Washington Pennsylvania, the First City Named For the First President
The following is a lightly edited version of a post I wrote on the Queen's death, a year ago today: The only British monarch of my lifetime died a year ago today. She was crowned in June 1953, slightly more than a year before I was born. I was named after her, “Elizabeth,” and–for my… Continue reading “I have to be seen to be believed”–Queen Elizabeth II
I'm piggybacking on a Ricochet post from today which has made it to the main feed and is--therefore--on the public Internet. It's a great post, and one which has generated considerable discussion. The meat of the post is a quote from the American Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, as follows: I prefer to be true to myself,… Continue reading “I prefer to be true to myself….”
This post is about one of those "rabbit-holey" things we all (or, or at least, those of us who suffer from the Elephant Child's 'satiable curiosity with an added fillip (which EC didn't quite manage) that we like to get things right) get involved in when we're looking up other things. Thus it was with… Continue reading The Calendar Riots of 1752: “Give us back our eleven days!”
Oh, as I've said a few times, sometimes these posts write themselves. I'm just the witless scribe. This morning, one of my favorite Ricochet posters linked to the hymn, Amazing Grace, as performed by Dan Vasc, a 34-year old Brazilian heavy metal singer and YouTube star. A tough pill to swallow, if you're me, the… Continue reading Amazing Grace, Dan Vasc Edition
I have no bloody idea what "National Holistic Pet Day" is. Wait one, while I investigate. Oh, here: [National] Holistic Pet Day was set up to try and bring more publicity to the idea that holistic treatments, where a pet’s lifestyle, diet and environment are fully considered, are more beneficial for their temporary health and… Continue reading Happy National Holistic Pet Day!
I see that today--August 29, 2023--is the 154th anniversary of the opening of the Mount Washington Cog Railway. (That means that my great-grandmother, who was also born in August of 1869, would have been 154 years old the day before yesterday.) The railway, in New Hampshire's White Mountains, was the first mountain-climbing rack railway in… Continue reading Memories of Mount Washington, New Hampshire
It is beneficial that the next generation learns about the past for the same reasons that it is important that you remember your childhood. The quintessential question of “what next!” How will we as a society go into the future without knowledge of the past? If we don’t know what we, as Americans, are, how… Continue reading Why is History Important?
One of the favorite novelists of my youth, born Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, better known by his pen name, C.S. Forester, was born 124 years ago, on August 27, 1899. His best known works, the twelve-volume Horatio Hornblower series, probably aren't all that commonly in the wheelhouse of adolescent girls, but--thanks to my dad--I loved… Continue reading Ms. Midshipman Rightwingknitjob
August 26, 2023, is the 148th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan. Born in Perth in 1875, the son of a Free Church of Scotland minister and his wife, Buchan attended the University of Glasgow as a scholarship student, then moving on to Oxford where--according to Wikipedia (which can sometimes be trusted to get… Continue reading Celebrating John Buchan