The 16th Day of November 2022 is here. I am grateful to be alive. My attitude is properly adjusted. Let’s jump into this post. It’s Geographic Information Systems Day, Have a Party With Your (teddy) Bear Day, International Check Your Wipers Day, International Day for Tolerance, National Button Day, National Educational Support Professionals Day, and National Fast Food Day. Every day should be Tolerance Day. Ah well. Moving onto history. On this day in 1532 Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and 200 men captured Ica Emperor Atahualpa in the Peruvian Andes and thereby conquered an Empire of 10 million people. In 1581 on this day Tsar Ivan the Terrible attacked his son and heir with a scepter after an argument. The son died three days later. In 1676 the 1st colonial prison was established in Nantucket, Massachusetts on this day. In 1801 on this day the first edition of the New York Evening Post was printed. This is the day in 1871 that the National Rifle Association was chartered. In 1894 on this day 6,000 Armenians were massacred by Turks in Kurdistan. In 1938 on this day LSD is first synthesized by Dr. Albert Hofmann in Basel, Switzerland. In 1940 on this day the British bomb Hamburg Germany in response to the German bombing of Coventry England two days before. In 1965 on this day Walt Disney launched Epcot Center. This is the day in 1973 that Alan Watts died. He thought of himself as a philosophical entertainer. Here are some of his quotes: “No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.” “Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.” “People sometimes fail to live because they are always preparing to live.” “We see what we believe rather than what we see.” I’ll wrap up with this last suggestion from Mr. Watts: “If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living… which is stupid.” He has a point. Abide.
