City Pages: Obituaries
Former President George W. Bush Dead at 72
by Greil Marcus

Policy Review, October 5, 2018–George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, died today at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. He was 72. The cause of death was announced as heart failure. …

[A]s a result of the passage of the 28th Amendment in 2006 and its ratification by the states the next year, in 2008 Mr. Bush announced his candidacy for a third term. He was overwhelmingly defeated that November by former President Bill Clinton.

Free Will Astrology : Taurus Horoscope

Your soul is the best friend you keep forgetting you have. It’s closer than your breath and older than death. It dreams like a mountain, laughs like a river, and communicates with you in the exuberantly mysterious style of animals and gods. You are alive because of your soul! It loves you with nonstop unconditional ingenuity. Isn’t it right, then, to devote at least one special day each year to honoring it and giving thanks for its blessings? From an astrological perspective, this is a perfect time to do just that. Schedule Soul Celebration Day for sometime this week.

[updated 12/7/04:]

LRB | James Davidson : I told you so!

I don?t believe in astrology, but I also know that not believing in astrology is a typically Taurean trait. When I first caught a bright young friend browsing in the astrology section of a bookshop ? ?How can you believe in that rubbish?? ? he pointed to a line in the book he was holding where it was written that a Taurean would typically say: ?How can you believe in that rubbish?? The reason, apparently, is that Taureans are all so practical and down to earth. …

I don?t believe in astrology but I am rather fond of it. …

Getting into astrology is like being drawn through the door of your own private cathedral or seduced by a fugue constructed out of the letters of your name.

Today’s Headlines

ON THIS DAY

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defied the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man aboard a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. Parks was arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks.

Merriam-Webster Online

Based on online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2004 was

Blog – noun [short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer

2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

[via dangerousmeta!]

CNN.com – Publisher: ‘Blog’ No. 1 word of the year – Nov 30, 2004

A Merriam-Webster spokesman said it was not possible to say how many times blog had been looked up on its Web sites but that from July onward, the word received tens of thousands of hits per month.

Blog will be a new entry in the 2005 version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

The Writer’s Almanac – NOVEMBER 29 – DECEMBER 4, 2004

“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” — Samuel Clemens

The Writer’s Almanac

The American Thanksgiving tradition originated with the Pilgrims. As early as 1621, the Puritan colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts set aside a day of thanks for a bountiful harvest. On October 3, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed the 26th of that November the first national Thanksgiving Day under the Constitution.

On October 3, 1863, in the wake of victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln decided to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation declaring the last Thursday in November national Thanksgiving Day. In 1941 Congress made it official.

ABQjournal: O?ate Had His Thanksgiving in 1598 By Donald A. Chavez y Gilbert, Freelance Writer

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday which has a much longer history than most Americans realize.

The first recorded act of giving thanks by Europeans on this continent occurred April 30, 1598, as the O?ate muster arrived on the banks of El Rio Bravo, the Rio Grande. That was almost a quarter century before the Pilgrims anchored the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock on Nov. 21, 1620.

“The swashbuckling youth of the hard-right don’t remember Rather on the frontlines in Vietnam aggressively reporting a war that would bring down a Dem President. They don’t remember Chicago 68′ and the Democratic National Convention when Rather was dragged out of the hall for his no-holds-barred reporting. They don’t remember when conservative CBS affiliates stood behind Rather when he faced-off with President Nixon in 74′. They don’t remember, but I do and they are great memories of a great American journalist. I know. Its a fast-food country and you are only as good as your last story. That may be the fact, but as Rather might say, that’s not the truth.”

New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan