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We know the human brain is a device to keep the ears from grating on one another.
Peter Vries
The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.
George Jessel
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer
Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.
Raymond Carver
Love is not about what I am going to get, but what I am going to give. People make a mistake in thinking that you give to those whom you love, the real answer is, you love those to whom you give.
Abraham Twerski
Some days (or weeks, or months) my mind feels like a pinball machine. I can almost hear the bells and clatter and feel the vibration. I love to play pinball, but having thoughts and ideas and “things I need to do” bouncing off the inside of my skull and off of each other is confusing, to say the least.
Dana Sanford
Above all, do not give up your moral and political autonomy by accepting in somebody else’s terms the illiberal practicality of the bureaucratic ethos or the liberal practicality of the moral scatter. Know that many personal troubles cannot be solved merely as troubles, but must be understood in terms of public issues and in terms of the problems of history making.
C. Wright Mills
When you close the door of your mind to negative thoughts, the door of opportunity opens to you.
Napoleon Hill
Remember the time you thought you never could survive? You did, and you can do it again.
Unknown
1763 – Dedication of the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island, the first synagogue in what will become the United States.
The Touro Synagogue or Congregation Jeshuat Israel (Hebrew: קהל קדוש ישועת ישראל) is a synagogue built in 1763 in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the oldest synagogue building still standing in the United States,[2] the only surviving synagogue building in the U.S. dating to the colonial era, and the oldest surviving Jewish synagogue building in North America.[3] In 1946, it was declared a National Historic Site.[4]
The first congregation was made up of Sephardic Jews, who are believed to have come via the West Indies, where they participated in the triangular trade along with Dutch and English settlements. They practiced a Spanish and Portuguese Jewish liturgy and ritual. Later some early Ashkenazim joined the congregation. In the late eighteenth century, when warfare threatened, the congregation transferred the deed and Torah scrolls to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York for safekeeping. In the late 19th century, the congregation was primarily Ashkenazim, but they continued to practice the Sephardic liturgy at the synagogue.
In 2012 the two congregations went to court to try to resolve which owned the synagogue and its contents, as the Newport congregation wanted to sell some items to raise money for restoration of the building. In 2017 the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the New York congregation owned it; as the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case, this ruling stands.
1895 – Harriet Cohen, English pianist (d. 1967)
Harriet Pearl Alice Cohen CBE (2 December 1895 – 13 November 1967) was a British pianist.
Biography
Harriet Cohen was born in London and studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay, having won the Ada Lewis scholarship at the age of 12 followed by the Sterndale Bennett Prize in 1913. She made her debut at a Chappell’s Sunday concert at the Queen’s Hall a year later. Her first major appearance was in 1920 when she appeared at the Wigmore Hall in a joint recital with the tenor John Coates.
She was sister to the singer Myra Verney and a distant cousin of the pianist Irene Scharrer.[1][2]
She became particularly associated with contemporary British music, giving the world premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Piano Concerto (which was written for her) and recording Edward Elgar’s Piano Quintet with the Stratton Quartet under the composer’s supervision. A number of composers wrote music specifically for her, including John Ireland, Béla Bartók, Ernest Bloch and E. J. Moeran, and particularly Sir Arnold Bax (Cohen’s lover), who wrote most of his piano pieces for her. This includes the music for David Lean’s 1948 film version of Oliver Twist. He also composed Concertino for Left Hand for her after she lost the use of her right hand in 1948.
The last six pieces in the collection Mikrokosmos by Bartók are dedicated to her.
Harriet Cohen dedicated an important effort to the performance of the Tudor composers at a time when this was unusual, and gave recitals of works by William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons and also of Henry Purcell. She was considered one of the finest performers of J. S. Bach’s keyboard music, winning outstanding praise from the musicologist Alfred Einstein. Pablo Casals, also, invited her to play Bach with his orchestra at Barcelona, and Wilhelm Furtwängler extended a similar invitation on hearing her in Switzerland. She gave the first ‘all-Bach’ recital at the Queen’s Hall in 1925.
She also cultivated Spanish music, and gave the second performance of Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a work which became especially associated with her. She was also an early exponent of music of the Soviet Union in Britain, and visited Russia in 1935 to broadcast from Moscow and Leningrad, including works by Shostakovich, Kabalevsky and Leonid Polovinkin. These composers later sent her further compositions.
Cohen’s influence went well beyond that of a musician. She became strongly associated in the 1930s with publicising the plight of German and Austrian Jews and even played a concert with the scientist Albert Einstein (Alfred’s cousin) in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. She became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and Ramsay MacDonald as well as the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann.
Cohen was also a close friend of many leading figures of the time. These included not only musicians such as Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir William Walton, but also writers such as Arnold Bennett, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and D. H. Lawrence as well as politicians or entrepreneurs such as Max Beaverbrook and Leslie Viscount Runciman. Cohen became one of the most talked-about and photographed musicians of her day.
She was Vice-President of the Women’s Freedom League, and was for several years associated with the Jewish National Fund and the Palestine Conservatoire of Music at Jerusalem. Cohen was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1938.[3] The Harriet Cohen International Music Award was introduced in her honour in 1951.
She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1959 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre.
She died in London.
In January 2006, Dearest Tania, a words-and-music programme telling the story of Cohen, premiered, written by Duncan Honeybourne and performed with actress Louisa Clein.[4]
Efforts for refugees from Nazism
Harriet Cohen met the American journalist Dorothy Thompson[5] in 1930 on her first tour of America, a tour which took in New York, Washington and the Library of Congress and Chicago, thus finally establishing a name for herself on the International stage. It was a meeting that was to change Cohen’s life and awaken her Jewish consciousness. In 1933 Harriet Cohen travelled to Vienna to play a number of concerts, staying with Dorothy Thompson. She was profoundly moved by the plight of refugees, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who were pouring into the city from Germany. Thompson and Cohen were to correspond about the plight of Jewish refugees in Austria and Germany. Cohen was then able to pass on information from Thompson directly to the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, who was at this time her intimate friend.[6] Cohen met Thompson every time she went to America thereafter. From 1933 Cohen committed herself to work in Britain and the United States on behalf of refugees. This would result in a concert in America with Albert Einstein in 1934 to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Germany.
In 1935 Ramsay MacDonald warned Cohen not to travel through Germany because the British Government would not be able to provide immunity for her. Soon after, Adolf Hitler passed the Nuremberg laws totally excluding Jews from public life.
Harriet Cohen had met Albert Einstein in Germany in 1929 when she had afternoon tea at his house. At the time Einstein disclosed that he played the violin and said that one day they should play together. Cohen kept her friendship with Einstein even after he had fled Germany in 1933. Cohen would often visit him in Oxford, England where he settled for a short time. Harriet’s sister Myra studied there at Somerville College, where she gave a piano concert. In 1934, after Einstein moved to the United States, Harriet Cohen did finally play that duet concert with Einstein to raise funds to bring Jewish scientists out of Nazi Germany. Cohen and Einstein remained friends thereafter and he referred to her as “the beloved piano witch”.[7]
It was not until 1939 when she first met Chaim Weizmann, the future first President of Israel, that she began to support the Zionist cause and a Jewish homeland.[8] Cohen’s 1939 visit to Palestine extended her reputation there both as a concert pianist and politically. She argued with British and Jewish officials to try to get Jewish refugees admitted on ships from Nazi Germany (rather than be returned), once almost precipitating an International incident. Harriet Cohen believed passionately in a Jewish homeland but with justice to the Arab Palestinians. She survived two assassination attempts during her trip to Palestine. It was when Cohen was having dinner with Weizmann in London that Weizmann heard the news of the British Government’s 1939 white paper to limit Jewish immigration to Britain to just 15,000 people a year. Blanche Dugdale, Arthur Balfour’s niece, a fellow diner, prophetically said in an agonised voice, “What will happen to the millions fleeing from Hitler?”[9]
By Sarah Lacy, LinkedIn: The heartbreaking loss of Tony
Why Tony Hsieh was like the Willy Wonka of shoes
The genius of Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, who died last week, was his ability to create a culture that cared for employees and customers, writes friend Sarah Lacy. She compares Hseih to Willy Wonka for his inventiveness, camaraderie and because he “lived to surprise and delight people at every turn.”
Tony Hsieh (/ˈʃeɪ/ shay; December 12, 1973 – November 27, 2020)[2][3][4] was an American Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He retired as the CEO of the online shoe and clothing company Zappos in August 2020 after 21 years.[5] Prior to joining Zappos, Hsieh co-founded the Internet advertising network LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million.[6]
On November 27, 2020, fifteen days before his 47th birthday, Hsieh died from complications from burns and smoke inhalation sustained in a house fire that had occurred nine days earlier.[7][8]
Read more ->
Rasmuson Foundation: From the Desk of Diane: Fall roundup
Rasmuson Foundation: Apply now for awards in December
Word Wenches Newsletter | December 2020
Peter Grant (5 April 1935 – 21 November 1995) was the manager of Led Zeppelin from their creation in 1968 to their break up in 1980.[1] With his intimidating size (6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) and 300 lb (140 kg))[2] (at his peak weight) and confrontational manner, combined with his knowledge and experience, he drove strong deals for his band, and is widely credited with improving pay and conditions for all musicians in dealings with concert promoters.[2] Grant has been described as “one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history”.[3]
Born and largely brought up in the south London suburb of South Norwood, England by his mother, he worked variously as a stagehand, bouncer, wrestler, bit-part actor, and UK tour manager for acts such as Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and the Animals, before getting involved briefly in band management with the Nashville Teens and the Yardbirds.[4][5]
He was also a record executive for Swan Song Records.
Read more ->
NSFW
The Cake of 2020
Homehacks: 27 Life Hacks To Make Lockdown Life A Whole Lot Better!
Coleen’s Recipes: PUMPKIN CAKE CHEESECAKE
DamnDelicious RecipeTinEats wikimedia AV Club Wiki WormholeE-book Deals:
The Book Junction: Where Readers Go To Discover Great New Fiction!
Mystery & Thriller Most Wanted
Welcome to the Stump the Bookseller blog!
Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder. Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?
KTUU Alaska’s Public Media: A star is born: The history behind Anchorage’s holiday star on the side of the mountain The ‘Army Star’ began in 1958 and continues to shine down on Anchorage; Tribes eye program to address missing Native Americans; Longtime Anchorage Christmas tree shop, Minnesota Bob’s, closes its doors; Night of Lights: Holiday lights and characters; Pet photographer uses his skills to raise money for charity and more ->
KTOO Public Media: Wind, rain batter Southeast Alaska as Craig officials warn against travel on landslide-prone road; Crews working to clean diesel spill in Northwest Arctic village water treatment plant and more ->
Fairbanks News Webcenter 11: Fairbanks School Board postpones phase-in expansion for all grade levels; Fairbanks man sentenced to 12.5 years for meth, heroin trafficking and more ->
Suzanne Downing, Must Read Alaska Wednesday newsletter – Drag queens, CARES Act fun with funds, vouchers for Anchorage residents, and more
Craig Medred: Hungry Alaska
By Megan McDonald, Only In Your State Alaska: Walk Through A Snowy Alaskan Wonderland To Get To A Frozen Waterfall On The Thunderbird Falls Trail
Military.com: Former Navy SEAL, Wife Sue VA Over New Caregiver Program Rules; Authorities Probe Deaths of 2 Service Members at Joint Base San Antonio; Navy Grounds New Fire Scout Helicopter Drone After Back-to-Back Mishaps and more ->
Task & Purpose: Fort Benning soldier facing murder charge after 5-year-old forced out of the car is killed by another vehicle; Can states fire employees who leave for military duty? The Supreme Court may decide A pending Supreme Court case could have wide-ranging implications for National Guard members and reservists across the country and more ->
Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.
Tony Hsieh,
entrepreneur, former CEO of Zappos
1973-2020
Without a song, each day would be a century.
Mahalia Jackson,
gospel singer, civil rights activist
How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?
Theodor Seuss Geisel,
writer known as Dr. Seuss
There were certainly things I was scared to do, but I never thought I wasn’t up for the challenge.
Rooney Mara,
actor
True love has a habit of coming back.
Turcois Ominek
You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
No matter how bad something may seem, there are always, always, many things to be grateful for.
Unknown
1824 – United States presidential election: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The 1824 United States presidential election was the tenth quadrennial presidential election. It was held from Tuesday, October 26 to Wednesday, December 1, 1824. Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford were the primary contenders for the presidency. The result of the election was inconclusive, as no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote. In the election for vice president, John C. Calhoun was elected with a comfortable majority of the vote. Because none of the candidates for president garnered an electoral vote majority, the U.S. House of Representatives, under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment, held a contingent election. On February 9, 1825, John Quincy Adams was elected as president.[2][3]
The Democratic-Republican Party had won six consecutive presidential elections and by 1824 was the only national political party. However, as the election approached, the presence of multiple viable candidates resulted in there being multiple nominations by the contending factions, signaling the splintering of the party and an end to the Era of Good Feelings.
Adams won New England, Jackson and Adams split the mid-Atlantic states, Jackson and Clay split the Western states, and Jackson and Crawford split the Southern states. Jackson finished with a plurality of the electoral and popular vote, while the other three candidates each finished with a significant share of the votes. Clay, who had finished fourth, was eliminated. Because he shared many of Adams’s positions on the major issues, he lent him his support, allowing Adams to win the contingent election on the first ballot.
This is one of three presidential elections (along with the 1800 election and 1876 election) that have been decided in the House. It is also one of five in which the winner did not achieve at least a plurality of the national popular vote, and the only U.S. election in which the candidate who had the plurality of votes in the Electoral College did not win the election.
1927 – Micheline Bernardini, French dancer and model
Micheline Bernardini (born 1 December 1927) is a French former nude dancer at the Casino de Paris who agreed to model, on 5 July 1946, Louis Réard’s two-piece swimsuit, which he called the bikini, named four days after the first test of an American nuclear weapon at the Bikini Atoll.[1]
Réard’s bikini
Designer Louis Réard could not find a runway model willing to showcase his revealing design for a two-piece swimsuit. Risqué for its time, it exposed the wearer’s navel and much of her buttocks. He hired Bernardini, an 18-year-old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris, as his model.[2][3] He introduced his design, a two-piece swimsuit with a g-string back made out of 30 square inches (194 cm2) of cloth with newspaper type pattern, which he called a bikini, at a press conference at the Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris in July 1946.[4]
Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The International Herald Tribune alone ran nine stories on the event.[5] The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received over 50,000 fan letters.[6]
Later life
Bernardini later moved to Australia. She appeared from 1948 to 1958 in a number of revues at the Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne.[7][8] Footage of her 1946 modeling appearance was featured in an episode of the reality television series Love Lust titled The Bikini, in 2011.[9]
Bernardini posed at age 58 in a bikini for photographer Peter Turnley, in 1986.[10]
Fireside Books presents Shelf Awareness for Readers for Tuesday, December 1, 2020
By David James, Creating Alaska: In Elyse Guttenberg’s books, a fantasy writer finds her voice
The Passive Voice: How California prisoners raised $30,000 for a high school student in need
The Awesomer: Insane Line Rider Course; Making an All-Terrain Skateboard; Long-Exposure Drone Photography and more ->
Gastro Obscura: Why cheese curls are junk food’s happiest oops and more ->
NSFW
By CraftAndu: Kitchen With Many Cool Features
By Betty Crocker Kitchens: Christmas Desserts That’ll Pack Up & Go
I Wash You Dry: Easy Scotcharoos Recipe
By In The Kitchen With Matt: Stained Glass Cookies
By KitchenMason: How to Make the BEST Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
DamnDelicious RecipeTinEats wikimedia AV Club Wiki WormholeE-book Deals:
The Book Junction: Where Readers Go To Discover Great New Fiction!
Mystery & Thriller Most Wanted
Welcome to the Stump the Bookseller blog!
Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder. Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?
KTUU Alaska’s News Source: 1 person dead and sections of the Seward Highway back open after 2 vehicle collisions; Protestors circle Anchorage City Hall as second ‘hunker down’ order looms; Healthy Living: Stroke Awareness, knowing the signs, symptoms and risks; Nights of Lights: An interactive map of light displays across Alaska and more ->
KTOO Public Media: Alaska Chief Justice Bolger to retire in June and more ->
Fairbanks News Webcenter 11: Pedestrian bridge installed over the Chena River as University Ave. project continues; UAF research into hibernating species yields clinical application and more ->
By Samantha Davenport, ADN: ‘An absolute powerhouse’: Short film tells the incredible survival tale of Ada Blackjack
By Randi Perlman, ADN: The legacy of an Alaska recycling icon
By Krysti Shallenberger Reporter, Audubon Magazine: On the Alaska Coast, Native Women Are Reviving a Cozy Traditio
By Megan McDonald, Only In Your State Alaska: Peek Out At The Northern Lights From The Most Wished For Airbnb In Alaska
Task & Purose: Thomas J Brennan, The War Horse How Marine Corps culture silenced a sexual assault victim “[Leaders] don’t give a shit. They flat-out saw she was suicidal and needed help … They left a Marine behind.” More ->
DOD: Sports Heroes Who Served: Heisman Trophy Winners Served During WWII; Face of Defense: From N.Y.’s Finest to Special Warfare Airman; DOD Awards $50 Million in University Research Equipment Awards and more ->
The Angry Staff Officer: When the Words Stopped
Alaskanomics APRN Alaska News Delanceyplace.com Bob Mayer Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection (LDICP) Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog I didn’t have my glasses on… Indian Country Media Network Legends of Windemere Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life Bluebird of Bitterness Elle Knowles: Finding Myself Through Writing KarmaTube Positively Present The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company, England. Joan Reeves: Slingwords World United Music WASP Final Flight The Old Motor SassyZenGirl Stump the Bookseller Ana’s Attic Shorpy Shorpy Reader Shared Photo’s Shorpy Reader Comments Kim’s Shopping Thoroughly Reviewed Whimpulsive Debra Lynn Dadd BloominThyme Word of the day AV Club Wiki Wormhole DamnDelicious The Authors’ Billboard ezvid wikimedia