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Quote of the Month
Daylight Saving Time:
Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a
blanket, sew it to the bottom and have a longer blanket.
~Anonymous

News of the Month
Once again this year, at
2:00 am on March 12, the government will challenge us all to reset our sleep
clocks. Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been an official ritual since 1918, when
President Woodrow Wilson codified it into law during the waning days of WWI.
Nowadays, its ostensible purpose is to save energy: One more hour of sunlight in
the evening means one less hour of consumption of artificial lighting. Daylight
Saving has long been a cynical substitute for a real energy policy. It’s the
ideal energy policy because it has no apparent direct cost to consumers, and it
asks no one to consume less.
But does Daylight Saving
Time actually make much of a difference? Evidence suggests that the answer is
no. A study at UC Berkeley showed that the move failed to reduce electricity
demand at all. Another study showed that the savings from electricity use were
negated, and then some, by the additional use of air conditioning and heat. As
air conditioning has become more widespread, recent studies have found that cost
savings on lighting are more than offset by greater cooling expenses. Daylight
Saving Time actually results in a 1% overall increase in residential
electricity. Daylight Saving also increases gasoline consumption and pollution
emissions.. The change can also cause problems for evening entertainment and for
activities tied to sunlight, such as farming. And those aren’t the only negative
results.
The American Academy of
Sleep Medicine thinks we should move to standard time and stay there. Shifting
the time messes up your natural rhythms, disrupts your sleep schedule and harms
your health, the Academy says. Americans lose around 40 minutes of sleep on the
Sunday night after the shift. Because of that most people show drastically
decreased productivity. The resulting loss in productivity costs the economy an
estimated $434 million a year. Daylight Saving Time may hurt people who suffer
from Seasonal Affective Disorder, depriving them of light in the mornings. The
switchover to Daylight Saving Time is also linked to a 25% increase in heart
attacks, an increased number of strokes and a rise in suicide rates, obesity,
metabolic disorders, cardiovascular issues, depression and even cancer, as well
as traffic accidents. The expected risk of accidents rises 17%. Increases in
fatal crash risks go up by 5.4%–7.6%. The overall rate for stroke is 8% higher
in the two days after the start of Daylight Saving Time.
Cancer victims are 25%
more likely to have a stroke during that time, and people older than 65 are 20%
more likely to have a stroke. Increasing stress levels and higher blood pressure
have been linked to the biannual time shifts. The Monday and Tuesday after
Daylight Saving Time have also been linked to more workplace injuries. The
twice-yearly clock changes can pose health dangers for those with neurological
disorders, such as epilepsy. The change even hinders moral decision making.
"It's not one hour twice a year. It's a misalignment of our biologic clocks for
eight months of the year. When we talk about DST and the relationship to light,
we are talking about profound impacts on the biological clock, which is a
structure rooted in the brain. It impacts brain functions such as energy levels
and alertness," says Beth Ann Malow, MD, Burry Chair in Cognitive Childhood
Development, and professor of Neurology and Pediatrics in the Sleep Disorders
Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In 2019, the Society for
Research on Biological Rhythms released a position paper,
Why Should We Abolish Daylight Saving Time?,
taking the position that, based on comparisons of large populations living in
DST or Standard Time or on western versus eastern edges of time zones, the
advantages of permanent Standard Time outweigh switching to DST annually or
permanently.
Putting clocks forward
benefits and is heavily supported by retailing, sports (especially golf) and
other activities that exploit sunlight after work hours. The Chamber of Commerce
has lobbied on behalf of retailers that sell gardening, home repair or sports
equipment. The biggest lobbyist in the past few years has been the National
Association of Convenience Stores, because 80% of gasoline is bought in
convenience stores, and when you give people in America more sunlight at the end
of the day, they get in their cars and drive somewhere. Some argue that
increased recreational activity during Daylight Saving results in greater
gasoline consumption. And extra daylight means extra time to spend money.

Then and Now
March is Women's
History Month.
03/01/1781 - The
Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
03/01/1790 -
Congress authorized the first US Census.
03/01/1864 -
Rebecca Lee became the first black woman to receive a medical degree, from the
New England Female Medical College in Boston.
03/01/1872 -
Congress authorized the creation of Yellowstone National Park.
03/01/1954 -
Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the Gallery of the US House of
Representatives, wounding five congressmen.
03/01/1961 -
President Kennedy officially established The Peace Corps.
03/01/2023 -
National Pig Day
03/01/2023 - St.
David's Day – Christian
03/02/1904 -
Theodor Seuss Geisel, commonly known as Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield MA.
03/02/1917 -
Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship.
03/02/1977 - The
US House of Representatives adopted a strict code of ethics. Yeah, right!
03/02/2023 -
Texas Independence Day … On this day in 1836 Texas declared its independence
from Mexico.
03/02/2023 - The
Fast of Nineteen Days (through the 20th) begins at sunset – Baha’i
03/03/1879 -
Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood became the first woman admitted to practice before
the US Supreme Court.
03/03/1931 -
The Star Spangled Banner officially became the national anthem of the US.
03/03/2023 -
National Anthem Day
03/04/1193 -
Saladin, the Muslim warrior who opposed the Crusades, died.
03/04/1789 - The
Constitution of the US went into effect as the first federal Congress met in New
York.
03/04/1861 -
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president.
03/05/1933 - The
Nazi Party won 44% of the vote in the German parliamentary elections.
03/05/1946 -
Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech at Westminster
College in Fulton MO.
03/05/1970 - The
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.
03/06/1836 - The
Alamo, in San Antonio TX, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.
03/06/1857 - In
its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave,
could not sue for his freedom in federal court.
03/06/1965 - The
Defense Department announced it was sending the first contingent of US combat
troops, 3500 Marines, to fight Communist guerillas in South Vietnam.
03/06/2023 -
Alamo Day
03/06/2023 -
Magha Puja / Sangha Day – Buddhist
03/06/2023 - Holi
(Spring Festival) begins and ends tomorrow – Hindu
03/06/2023 -
Purim (Feast of Lots) begins at sunset and ends tomorrow evening – Judaism
03/07/1657 - The
Canadian government made it illegal to sell liquor to Indians ... the first case
of racial discrimination in North America.
03/07/1965 –
Bloody Sunday: State troopers and a sheriff's posse broke up a march by civil
rights demonstrators in Selma AL, violently beating hundreds of marchers on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge.
03/07/1969 - The
Who released Pinball Wizard in the UK. It was the first selection the
public heard from the rock opera Tommy.
03/07/1974 - As
the Symbionese Liberation Army held Patty Hearst, the government distributed
tons of free food to meet their demands. Governor of California Ronald Reagan
showed his anger at those folks accepting the food by saying, "It's too bad we
can't have an epidemic of botulism."
03/08/1965 - The
US landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam.
03/08/1971 -
Radio Hanoi began its first American rock broadcast with the Jimmy Hendrix
rendition of the National Anthem.
03/08/2023 -
International Women’s Day
03/08/2023 - Hola
Mohalla begins and ends on 03/10 – Sikh
03/09/1862 - The
ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly Merrimac) clashed
for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads VA.
03/09/1975 - Work
began on the Alaskan oil pipeline.
03/10/1496 -
Christopher Columbus completed his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he
left Hispaniola for Spain.
03/10/1848 - The
Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with
Mexico.
03/10/2023 -
Harriet Tubman Day
03/11/1810 -
Emperor Napoleon of France married by proxy the Archduchess Marie Louse of
Austria.
03/11/1959 -
Lorraine Hansberry's drama A Raisin in the Sun opened at New York's Ethel
Barrymore Theater.
03/12/1933 -
President Roosevelt delivered his first radio fireside chat, telling Americans
about plans to deal with the nation's economic crisis.
03/12/1947 -
President Truman established the Truman Doctrine to help Greece
and Turkey resist Communism.
03/12/1993 -
Janet Reno became the nation's first female Attorney General.
03/12/2023 -
Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 am. Move your clock ahead an hour and lose the
sleep!
03/13/1781 - Sir
William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.
03/13/1868 - The
impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the US Senate.
03/13/1884 - The
US adopted Standard Time.
03/13/1925 - A
law went into effect in Tennessee prohibiting the teaching of evolution.
03/14/1743 -
Boston held the first recorded town meeting in America at Faneuil Hall.
03/14/1900 -
Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.
03/14/1923 -
Warren G. Harding became the first president to file an income tax report.
03/14/1965 -
Israel formally approved establishment of diplomatic relations with West
Germany.
03/14/2023 - Pi
Day
03/15/44BCE - A
group of nobles, including Brutus and Cassius, assassinated Roman dictator
Julius Caesar. (Beware the Ides of March!)
03/15/1493 -
Christopher Columbus returned to Spain, concluding his first voyage to the
Western Hemisphere.
03/15/1913 -
President Wilson held the first open presidential news conference.
03/15/1919 - The
American Legion was founded in Paris.
03/15/1977 -
Three's Company made its debut on ABC.
03/15/2023 -
Equal Pay Day ... This is the day when women's wages catch up to men's wages
from the year before.
03/16/1802 -
Congress authorized the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point,
NY.
03/16/1836 - The
Republic of Texas approved a constitution.
03/16/1850 -
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was first published.
03/16/1945 - Iwo
Jima was declared secured by the Allies during WW II.
03/16/2023 -
Freedom of Information Day
03/16/2023 - Loco
Davi (manger du bois rituel) – Vodún
03/17/1776 -
British forces evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War.
03/17/1910 - The
Camp Fire Girls organization was formed.
03/17/1941 - The
National Gallery of Art opened in Washington DC.
03/17/2023 - St.
Patrick's Day ... According to tradition, St. Patrick, who is the patron saint
of Ireland, died in Saul on this day in 461.
03/18/1766 -
Britain repealed the Stamp Act.
03/18/1931 -
Schick marketed the first electric razor.
03/18/1937 - More
than 400 people, mostly children, died in a gas explosion at a school in New
London TX.
03/18/1940 -
Benito Mussolini agreed to join Adolph Hitler's war against France and Britain.
03/18/1965 - The
first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleskei Leonov left his
Voskhod Two capsule secured by a tether.
03/19/1918 -
Congress approved Daylight Saving Time.
03/19/1953 - NBC
televised the Academy Awards ceremony for the first time.
03/19/2003 -
President George W. Bush ordered the start of war against Iraq. (Because of the
time difference, it was early March 20th in Iraq.)
03/20/1852 -
Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin,
was first published.
03/20/1896 - US
Marines landed in Nicaragua to protect US citizens in the wake of a revolution.
03/20/1987 - The
FDA approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS
patients.
03/20/2023 -
First day of spring
03/20/2023 -
Legba Zaou – Vodún
03/20/2023 -
Spring Equinox – Wicca, Celtic
03/21/1685 -
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.
03/21/1804 -
France adopted the French civil code, the Napoleonic Code.
03/21/1871 -
Journalist Henry Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the
missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone.
03/21/1963 -
Alcatraz federal prison in San Francisco Bay released its last inmates at the
order of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
03/21/1965 - More
than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
began their march from Selma to Montgomery.
03/21/2023 -
Feast of Naw-Ruz (New Year's Day) – Baha’i
03/21/2023 -
Shunbun no Hi / Vernal Equinox Day – Shinto
03/22/1882 -
Congress outlawed polygamy.
03/22/1894 - The
first Stanley Cup game in history was played. Montreal beat Ottawa 3-1.
03/22/1945 - The
Arab League adopted its charter in Cairo, Egypt.
03/22/1988 - Both
houses of Congress overrode President Reagan's veto of a sweeping civil rights
bill.
03/22/2023 -
Ramadan begins at sunset and will continue for 30 days through 04/21. – Muslim
03/23/1775 -
Patrick Henry made his famous call for American independence from Britain,
telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, "Give me liberty or give me death."
03/23/1806 -
Explorers Lewis and Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey
back east.
03/23/1933 - The
German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf
Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.
03/23/1983 -
President Reagan first proposed developing technology to intercept enemy
missiles – a proposal known as the Strategic Defense Initiative,
as well as Star Wars.
03/24/1955 - The
Tennessee William's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway.
03/24/1958 - The
Army inducted Elvis Presley in Memphis.
03/25/1634 -
English colonists sent by the second Lord Baltimore founded Maryland.
03/25/1957 - The
Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community.
03/25/1965 -
Martin Luther King, Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the Alabama state capitol,
Montgomery, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
03/25/2023 -
Tolkien Reading Day
03/25/2023 -
Annunciation – Christian
03/26/1971 - East
Pakistan claimed its independence, taking the name Bangladesh.
03/26/1979 -
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed
the Camp David treaty at the White House.
03/26/1982 -
Groundbreaking ceremonies took place in Washington DC for the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial.
03/27/1512 -
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida.
03/27/1794 -
President Washington and Congress authorized the creation of the US Navy.
03/27/1998 - The
FDA approved Viagra.
03/28/1979 -
America's worst commercial nuclear accident occurred at the Unit Two reactor at
the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown PA.
03/29/1638 -
Swedish colonists settled in present-day Delaware.
03/29/1882 - The
Knights of Columbus was chartered in Connecticut.
03/29/1951 - A
jury convicted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of conspiracy to commit espionage and
sentenced them to execution.
03/29/1973 - The
last US combat troops left South Vietnam.
03/30/1867 - The
US reached an agreement with Russia to buy the territory of Alaska for $7.2
million.
03/30/1870 - The
15th amendment to the Constitution, giving black men the right to vote, took
effect.
03/30/1870 - The
Union readmitted Texas.
03/30/1981 - John
Hinckley Jr. shot and seriously injured President Ronald Reagan outside a
Washington DC hotel.
03/30/2023 - Ram
Navami – Hindu
03/31/1889 - The
Eiffel Tower was officially completed.
03/31/1917 - The
US took possession of the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
03/31/1933 - The
Congress authorized the Civilian Conservation Corps.
03/31/1943 -
Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma opened on Broadway.
03/31/1991 - The
Warsaw Pact ended its existence as a military alliance.
03/31/1968 -
President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek another term as president.
03/31/2023 -
Cesar Chavez Day


Online Resource Links
How Wobbly Is Our Democracy?
What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths.
It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is
a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy
and for how to stop it |
ISIS
Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm |
Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group
| Isis:
The Inside Story |
Frontline: The Rise of ISIS |
Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS
|
Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear
|
How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East
|
Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State
What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)
Check out
Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800
newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.
Whether or not you noticed, the earth's population passed 7 billion a while back.
You might enjoy NPR's wonderful video,
Visualizing How a Population Grows to 7 Billion.
Check out the St. Louis Fed's presentation
The Financial Crisis: What Happened?. The original video is no longer available
but you can view the power point presentation.
Want to take a survey but not sure how many responses to collect? This
Survey Calculator gives you the number for any given population size and desired
confidence level. A reverse calculator lets you enter characteristics of an existing
survey and gives the confidence interval (±X%) to apply to the results. The Survey
System site, sponsored by a survey software company, also gives clear explanations
of statistical significance, survey design and related concepts. Also check out
20 Questions a Journalist (and You, too!) Should Ask About Poll Results.
PBS's
30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew
existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed
over the years. Start with the infamous
Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch
Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link
next to Daisy.
Check out
Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies
(although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to
discover your own political philosophy.
Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North
Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and
links to constitutions and branches of government (where available).
Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion
pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on
North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent
membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."
State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide
a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses
by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word
occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of
SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods
used. Also includes the full text of addresses.
Small Town Papers: This site provides access
to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout
the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication.
The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements),
which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access
to the archives requires free registration.
This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the
Congressional Research Service and search for CRS
reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports
do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a
searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports,
other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.
Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for
Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of
The Stem Cell Issue.
Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2020: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its
armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or
for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older
lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures
abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted.
Government
Product Recalls
Homeland Security Knowledge
Base
If you're worried about retirement, try some of the following sites.
IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans
Social Security Retirement Planner
Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money
Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion
that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar
Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides
a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad
Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad
Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.
This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of
Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries
include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988.
Does not include bibliographic information.
Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes
itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce
the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original
articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates,
speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy
Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
White House Tapes: The President Calling: Three
of America's most compelling presidents -- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- bugged
their White House offices and tapped their telephones. In this documentary project,
American Radio Works eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each
man used one-on-one politics to shape history. Includes audio, a transcript of the
documentary and background information on each president and the tapes.
The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state
or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being.
The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states
appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's
little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly
affect the lives of citizens.
Government Debt by Country Map: Shows countries' general government gross
debt as a percentage of GDP in 2012.
First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme
Court First Amendment jurisprudence, including rulings, arguments, briefs,
historical material, commentary and press coverage.


Community Service
If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,
use this
Community link
or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at
dramyglenn@gmail.com
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