Absurdity Day Day 324 of 2009 41 days left in this year

HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — ‘Haumia ea: Air pollution
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — Sit bilong paia: Ash(es)
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “Observe with the eyes; listen with the ears; shut the mouth.”
HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “Much smoking kills live men and cures dead swine.” - George D. Prentice

November 20, 1928: The Oahu newspaper Pacific Commercial Advertiser reports that there seems to be an eruption at Kilauea on the Big Island. This may come as news to Honolulu, but not to Maui, which suffers the worst attack of VOG since Westerners arrived more than a century ago. Of course, no one calls it VOG, as the word had not been invented yet.VOG is an amalgam of Smoke and Fog, as it references volcanoes. Its first use was as SMOG, of course, which appeared in English for the first time in 1905, to describe the haze which hung over London.

In the past several years, several meteorologists have claimed that there is no such thing as VOG, that in fact what Maui experiences is car pollution, and they say they have the air chemical analysis to prove it. We can only say that indeed that might be true, but then, what were people complaining about back in 1893: horse exhaust? The painting above depicts the Kilauea Volcano eruption of 1893. It hangs in the Volcano Museum at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Big Island of Hawaii.

EVENTS ON THIS DAY – November 20

• 1637: Peter Minuit, and the first Swedish immigrants to Delaware, set sail from Sweden
• 1789: New Jersey becomes the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights
• 1919: The first municipally-owned airport in the U.S. opens in Tucson, Arizona
• 2000: Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori resigns, ending his 10-year reign
• 2001: Federal health officials approved sale of the world’s first contraceptive patch, Ortho-Evra.
• 2003: Singer Michael Jackson was booked on suspicion of child molestation in Santa Barbara, Calif. (He was later acquited.)

BORN ON THIS DAY – November 20

• 1884: Norman Thomas, socialist
• 1889: Edwin Hubble, astronomer
• 1917: Robert Byrd, Democratic Senator (West Virginia)
• 1938: Dick Smothers, comedian
• 1942: Joseph R Biden Jr, Democratic Senator, VP
• 1946: Duane Allman, rocker (McNeil Lehrer Report) (62 years ago)
• 1947: Joe Walsh, guitarist/rocker
• 1956: Bo Derek, actress
• 1975: Joshua Gomez, actor (“Chuck”)
• 1978: Nadine Velazquez, actress (“My Name is Earl”)
• 1989: Cody Linley, actor (“Hannah Montana”)

DIED ON THIS DAY – November 20

• 1910: Leo Tolstoy Russia, author (Anna Karenina), dies at 82
• 1973: Allan Sherman songwriter (“Camp Granada”), dies
• 1975: Gen Francisco Franco Spain’s dictator, dies in Madrid at 82
• 1985: Bill Scott cartoon voice (Mr Peabody, Bullwinkle), dies at 65
• 2006: Director Robert Altman dies at age 81