Give Peace a Chance
December 8, 2007 2:00 pm > MAUI TODAY, > Maui Yesterdays |
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Buddha’s Enlightenment
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Pono: Goodness, hope HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “Break off the point of the spear.”
REMEMBERING JOHN LENNONDecember 8th, 1980: Twenty-seven years ago, former Hawaii resident Mark David Chapman murders John Winston Lennon, shooting him dead in front of his New York City apartment. Lennon sang of peace and tolerance. Americans adored him, and still do.
A month earlier, a has-been bad actor, Ronald Reagan, is elected president of the United States and proceeds to ruin the country with debt, mean-spirited policy decisions and senility-induced scandals, including trading arms to terrorists for hostages and to fund an illegal CIA war. Americans adored him anyway.
The hope and promise of the 1960s and 1970s are officially dead.
HISTORICAL EVENTS ON THIS DAY – December 8th
1587: 20 years after her arrest, Mary Queen of Scots is executed at Fotheringay Castle
1776: George Washington’s retreating army crosses the Delaware River during the American Revolution
1854: Pope Pius IX proclaims Immaculate Conception, which declares the Virgin Mary free of Original Sin
1863: Abraham Lincoln announces a plan for the Reconstruction of South
1886: American Federation of Labor (AFL) is formed by 26 craft unions
1902: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr becomes an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
1931: Coaxial cable is patented
1941: The United States (and Britain) declares war on Japan:
1966: The U.S. & USSR sign a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in outer space
1968: Graham Nash announces the formation of “Crosby, Stills and Nash”, three days after he quit “The Hollies”
1992: Operation Restore Hope begins landing on the beaches of Somalia
1993: President Clinton signs into law the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
1995: Four months after the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, and 30 years after the group formed, The Grateful Dead announces it is breaking up
1998: The Supreme Court rules that police cannot search people and their cars after merely ticketing them for routine traffic violations
1999: In a lawsuit filed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family, a Memphis Tennessee jury finds that the civil rights leader had been the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin
BORN ON THIS DAY – December 8th
65: (BCE) Horace, Rome, lyric poet/satirist
1708: Francis I, Holy Roman emperor
1765: Eli Whitney, inventor (Cotton Gin)
1865: Jean Sibelius, composer
1881: Padraic Colum, Irish poet/novelist/poet
1886: Diego Rivera, Mexican muralist
1894: James (Grover) Thurber, humorist
1898: Emmett Kelly, circus clown
1906: Richard Llewellyn, Wales, novelist
1911: Lee J Cobb, NYC, actor
1925: Sammy Davis Jr, singer/dancer/actor
1930: Maximilian Schell, actor/director
1933: Flip Wilson, comedian
1936: David Carradine, actor
1939: James Galway, flutist
1939: Jerry Butler, rock musician
1943: Jim Morrison, rock singer
1944: Neil Innes, musician
1946: John Rubinstein, Los Angeles, actor/composer
1947: Gregg Allman, singer
1952: Richie Morales, drummer
1952: Sam Kinison, comedian/actor
1953: Kim Basinger, actress
1953: Roy Firestone, sportscaster
1959: Paul Rutherford, vocalist
1966: Siñead O’Connor, singer
