Digital TV: this time they mean it

Really Really Really mean it. June 12th they stop messing around and those converter boxes will be absolutely necessary for households that rely on good old antennas. According to the usa.gov site about DTV, converter coupons are still available for eligible households. It typically takes nine business days to process and mail coupons, so it will be awhile before you can use them to get your converter. Coupons will expire within 90 days of the date they are mailed. And call ahead to confirm availability of coupon-eligible converter boxes on the day you plan to shop. That's all I know, (because that's all I copied down) but here's a link to the coupon application site: Apply for Coupons I used the word 'coupon(s)' six times in this paragraph. Impressed?

Spirited Photos

This photograph of a 'spirit' was taken by the aptly-named medium William Hope (1863-1933). Around 1905 he became interested in spirit photography after he decided some stuff on the photograph of a friend was actually a ghost! Not the first conclusion most people would reach. By 1922 Hope had moved to London and become a professional medium. Hah! Then the Society for Psychical Research sent one Harry Price to investigate. Price collected evidence that Hope was substituting glass plates bearing ghostly images in order to produce his spirit photographs. Huh. Go figure. Price published his findings exposing Hope as a fraud. But the believers still believed, including (sigh) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So being exposed as a total charlatan didn't even slow the man down until he died. And no one's seen hide nor ectoplasm of him since. Hope you enjoyed this 'snapshot' (ha!) of a spirit photographer. Where have all the good careers gone?

Since Houdini was a famous exposer of medium fraud, this would be a fun read:
Final séance : the strange friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle

Source: National Media Museum

Halley's

June 6th 1456 was the 23rd recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. (Perihelion is the point in the path of a moving object at which it is closest to the sun. I looked it up.)

How many ways did Halley's freak people out? Let us count a few.

141 Comet is blamed for a plague.

451 Blamed as the cause of death of 150,000 soldiers at the Battle of Chalons when the Romans defeated Attila the Hun and Co. But they didn't get Attila.

470 The comet is blamed for a terrible winter. The comet came by in the spring. Go figure.

530 Plague 2

837 The death of King Louis of France is linked to Halley's.

Perhaps the oddest and least credible: in 1456 Pope Callixtus III is said to have excommunicated the comet. It's a wonder Halley's has had the nerve to show it's face since then.

Source: The official Halley's Comet book

Read more in these Books about Comets

There once was a girl

From Nantucket. And here she is. Anna Gardner (1816-1901) was a teacher, secretary of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and a worker for women's rights, universal suffrage, and temperance. That's not enough? She published the call for the first anti-slavery convention - in Nantucket, at which Frederick Douglass made his first public speech. When Gardner's pupil in the African School, Eunice Ross, was denied entrance to the new public Nantucket High School because of her race, Gardner resigned her position and became involved in the fight for desegregation. So when next you think of Nantucket females, show a little respect!

Source: Nantucket Historical Association

You can also read about the Grimke sisters, famous abolitionists.

Lift up thy voice : the Grimké family's journey from slaveholders to civil rights leaders

If you hate to fly -

Maybe you're not taking a trip this year involving the big old metal bird. Maybe you're not taking a trip at all. But you can have fun pretending! Just for the entertainment value, your travel experts for those imaginary vacations offer this: a web site that lets you write your own ticket! Literally! Get yourself a free ticket from Windsor Heights to Luxembourg. It won't work, but think of all the travel brochures you can pore over uselessly! Just go to Ticket-O-Matic. As long as you're not traveling, get a ticket to Middle-Earth. Now that's an imaginary vacation.

Ah, hindsight

Look at these! Just look at them! On the other hand, you do realize that 15 years from now we will look back at today's fashions and be appalled. The history of fashion is actually riveting. You look back at stuff like Marie Antoinette's 3-foot beehives and marvel at how inventively we torture ourselves. As if that wasn't enough, Marie wore a pannier, a device attached at the waist with extending wires to hold the skirt out at the sides. Like a hoop skirt, only goofier. See what we're missing? Hey, you can look through these books for clothing even less comfortable! We'll come out looking pretty good. Except for those 4-inch stillettos.


Books on the History of Fashion
Graphic source: Dover

Historical Des Moines

We have the coolest maps on our website! They are named, euphoniously, Historic Tour 1 Map and Historic Tour 2 Map. Here is a link to the spot at which you can choose your tour: Historic Places in Des Moines. OK, let's start with Tour 1 Map because it's staring us right in the face. I see an aerial photo of part of Des Moines with the street names added...but wait! Now there are blue place markers on the map! What could it mean? Click on one of them and you get a description of the the historical site and sometimes a picture. Is that not amazing? You can even get directions if you want to see the the site with your very own peepers. Or you can zoom right in for some details. If I weren't middle aged, I'd say this rocks!!!! But I am so I won't. Go ahead, do a little armchair touring. It's easy safe and fun.

Pictured: The "Shops Building" at 5th and Walnut

Elizabeth Berg Tonight!

Elizabeth Berg is speaking at the Central Library tonight at 7 PM. She wrote an Oprah book people! Open House was chosen by La Winfrey herself. So you know Berg's got something. For 10 years she was a registered nurse and learned a great deal about people and relationships. Many of her novels center on a major change in a woman's life and her latest, Home Safe, is no exception. Helen Ames: loses her husband; finds out she knew him not at all - he withdrew all their money before he died; and has a problematical relationship with her adult daughter. She has hit the wall, folks and Change is coming to get her. Read the book to find out how she copes with personal upheaval. Stop in tonight to hear the author. Who knows what tidbits you might pick up. Maybe she met Oprah! (OK, Maybe not. But still.)

Elizabeth Berg Books

Juggling Act

Find yourself handling too much in your life? Maybe you could Simplify, and yes, the S is capitalized. The whole Voluntary Simplicity movement started around the 80's but really hit the ground running in the 90's with the publication of Duane Elgin's Voluntary Simplicity in 1991, Vicki Robin's Your Money or Your Life in 1992, and Janet Luhrs' Simple Living Guide in 1997. Now you can't swing a bag of clothes for Goodwill without knocking over a book about clearing out, organizing, rightsizing. There are some good tips - many I should follow myself - about using what you have and stepping down from an over-stimulated life. Now if they'd only stop making big stupid fun summer movies. Can't resist them.

Books to assist you in your almost-spiritual quest for Simplicity

Graphic Scource: Dover