According to geotab.com, there are over 3800 ghost towns in the United States. Texas tops the list with 511; California is next with 346. Wilson County in Texas, located just southeast of San Antonio, has 31 ghost towns.
The term “the ghost in the machine” was coined by British philosopher Gilbert Ryle, to describe Rene Descartes’ concept of mind-body dualism. The term was then used as the title of a 1967 book about philosophical psychology by Arthur Koestler; Koestler’s book served as an inspiration for The Police’s 1981 album, Ghost in the Machine.
The police in William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s dystopic 1967 science fiction novel Logan’s Run wore yellow. Deep Sleep operatives, tasked with catching and killing those who tried to escape when they turned 21 and it was their turn to die, wore black.
My brother is USAFA 1986, and he is very strongly left.
In play: famed baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver served with the US Marine Corps from 1962 to 1970. He pitched for the New York Mets starting in 1967, and he won the NL Rookie of the Year award that year. By 1969, he was a World Champion.
Rest in Peace, Tom Terrific. Semper Fidelis.
Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver was nicknamed “Tom Terrific” – the nickname was borrowed from an animated cartoon of the same name, created by artist Gene Deitch, which regularly aired on the children’s television show Captain Kangaroo.
Tom Seaver was one of many outstanding ball-players who did not use their real first name, George. Others include Babe Ruth, Whitey Kurowski, Birdie Tebbetts, Catfish Metkovich and Snuffy Stirnweiss.
Baseball pitcher Jim “Catfish“ Hunter was only 53 years old in 1999 when he died of ALS.
Baseball first baseman Lou Gehrig was only 37 years old in 1941 when he died of ALS.
Most catfish are bottom feeders. In general, they are negatively buoyant, which means that they will usually sink rather than float due to their reduced gas bladders and heavy, bony heads. However, farm-raised catfish are taught to eat pellet food floating on the water’s surface, against their natural instinct.
Jim “Catfish” Hunter was given his nickname by Charles O. Finley, the owner of the then-Kansas City A’s, which had signed Hunter to his first major league contract.
Shortly after signing Hunter in 1964, Finley decided that his young pitcher needed an interesting nickname; as Hunter was from a small town in North Carolina, and enjoyed hunting and fishing, Finley dubbed him “Catfish,” and concocted an apocryphal background story about the nickname – the story went that, as a child, Hunter had run away from home, and by the time his parents found him, he had caught several catfish.
Nevermind
In 1974, Catfish Hunter became the highest-paid player in baseball and highest-paid pitcher in history when he signed a five-year contract with the New York Yankees worth $3.35 million.
He became known as baseball’s “first big-money free agent”.
In 1976, Catfish Hunter is mentioned in the film The Bad News Bears. When Coach Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) is trying to get Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) to pitch for his Little League team, Amanda makes a number of outlandish demands (such as imported jeans, modeling school and ballet lessons) as conditions for joining the team.
Buttermaker asks, “Who do you think you are, Catfish Hunter?”
Amanda responds by asking, “Who’s he?”
American actor Jeffrey Hunter played two of the best roles any actor could ask for: Jesus Christ, and the captain of the USS Enterprise (he was the first to play Capt. Christoper Pike).
Wikipedia lists over fifty actors who have played the role of Jesus Christ, whether it was in a movie, on stage, or television. This list includes Max von Sydow, Donald Sutherland, Robert Powell, John Hurt, Christian Bale, Will Ferrell, Joaquin Phoenix, and John Legend.
What does the “H” stand for in Jesus H. Christ? The most likely suggestion is that it comes from a monogram made of the first three letters of the Greek name for Jesus ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (iota, eta, and sigma), written as either IHS or IHC in Latin letters.
…actually, if you accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, then it stands that Jesus only had one-half of the normal complement of chromosomes. Hence, it stands for “Haploid”.
-“BB”-
Angel Falls in Latin America is one of the highest falls in the world. It is over 3,200’ high and is, in fact, the highest uninterrupted falls in the world. Located in Venezuela, in Google Maps’ satellite view it is an impressive sight:
Google Maps, satellite view, 3,212’ high, Angel Falls VEN
Google Maps, satellite view, 2,425’ high, Yosemite Falls CA USA
Google Maps, satellite view, 167’ high, Niagara Falls ON CAN
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a two-part play, written by playwright Tony Kushner, about homosexuality and AIDS during 1980s America. The work won the Tony Award for Best Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. Its adaptation as a television miniseries for HBO won a total of eleven Emmy Awards.
The first night game at Wrigley Field took place in 1930, when Wrigley Field in Los Angeles was the home Park of the minor league Angels. 31 years latere, as a major league franchise, the team now known as the Los Angels Angels of Anaheim played night games at Wrigley. The stadium in Los Angeles was the first known as Wrigley in 1925, and its older twin, Cubs Park was not renamed Wrigley until a year later. Finally, famously, Wrigley in Chicago was forced to install lights in 1988’
William Wrigley, Junior, opened a branch of his father’s soap company in Chicago in 1891. He began offering baking powder as a premium with the soap; soon, the baking powder became more popular than the soap, and the company switched to its business to baking powder. Then, Wrigley began offering chewing gum as a premium with the baking powder; soon, the chewing gum became more popular than the baking powder, and the the company switched its business to chewing gum.
Today, the Wrigley Company, wholly owned by Mars, Inc., is the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of chewing gum.
Wrigley Field in Los Angeles opened in 1925. It was located at 425 E. 42nd Place in South Los Angeles, where today there is the Gilbert W. Lindsay Park (map, Google Maps). This park is named after Gilbert William Lindsay (1900-1990), the city’s first black City Council member and one of its most powerful elected officials. Gil Lindsay worked his way up from being a janitor at L.A. City Hall.