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Victoria Woodhull
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838-1927) was an American feminist reformer, stock broker, sex symbol, and advocate of free love.

She became a colourful and notorious symbol for womens rights, free love, and labour reform. Many of her speeches upon these subjects where not written by Claflin Woodhull herself, but her role as a figurehead in these movements was powerful and controversial nonetheless.

Woodhull was born into a poor family in Homer, Ohio; the only person in her family she really felt close to was her sister Tennessee (a.k.a. "Tennie C.") Claflin, who was seven years younger than her. She went from rags to riches twice, her first fortune being made on the road as a highly successful spiritualist.

She made another fortune on the New York stock exchange with Tennessee, as the first female Wall Street brokers. Woodhull, Claflin & Company opened in 1870. Many contemporary men's journals (e.g. The Day's Doings) published sexualised images of the pair running their firm (although they did not participate in the day-to-day business of the firm themselves), linking the concept of publicly-minded, un-chaperoned women with ideas of 'sexual immorality' and prostitution.

On May 14th, 1870, she and Tennessee established a paper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which stayed in publication for the next six years, and became notorious for publishing controversial opinions on taboo topics (especially with regard to sex education and free love). The paper is now known primarily for printing the first English version of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto in its 30th December 1871 edition.

George Francis Train once defended her. Other feminists of her time, including Susan B. Anthony, disagreed with her aggressive tactics in pushing for women's equality. She tended to be opportunisitic and unpredictable; in one notable incident, she attempted to seize the podium of a meeting of the increasingly conservative National Woman Suffrage Association from Anthony, using it to advertise the People's Party. The attempt worked; many listeners, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, turned up at the People's Party meeting the next day.

In the year that Anthony cast her vote in the 1872 presidential election, Woodhull became the first woman put forward as a presidential candidate, nominated by the Equal Rights Party (with ex-slave Frederick Douglass running for Vice-President; Douglass never acknowledged this nomination, and it is possible that he saw it as an attempt to get 'the colored vote' (black suffrage having been granted in the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870)). Claflin Woodhull was 34 at the time, making her a year too young to legally run for U.S. President, and her name did not technically appear on the ballot; like many of Claflin Woodhull's protests, this was first and foremost a media performance, designed to shake up the prejudices of the day. It was not just that fact of her gender that made her campaign notable; her association with Frederick Douglass began a storm of controversy about the mixing of whites and blacks. The Equal Rights Party hoped to unite suffragists and civil rights activists with its choice of nominations, as the exclusion of female suffrage from the Fifteenth Amendment had caused a substantial rift.

Vilified in the media for her support of free love, Claflin Woodhull devoted an entire issue of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly (November 2nd, 1872) to an affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent conservative figure (who incidentally was a supporter of female suffrage), in order to highlight what she saw as a sexual double-standard between men and women.

The next day, U.S.federal marshalls arrested Victoria and Tennessee for sending obscene material through the mail. The sisters where held in the Ludlow Street jail for the next month, a place normally reserved for murderers. The arrest was arranged by Anthony Comstock, the self-appointed moral defender of the nation at the time, and the event incited questions about censorship and government persecution. The Claflin sisters were found not-guilty six months later, but the arrest prevented Claflin Woodhull from being present during the 1872 presidential election. The publication of the Beecher-Tilton scandal led, in 1875, to Theodore Tilton (husband of Elizabeth Tilton) suing Beecher for 'alienation of affection'. The trial was sensationalised across the nation, eventually resulting in a hung jury.

She was an opponent of abortion, as were most feminists of her day, though what this entailed would confuse those familiar with the modern abortion debate. Being against abortion in her time meant being in favour of female reproductive freedom, a subject Claflin Woodhull spoke on extensively.

She stated in an 1870 issue of her weekly publication: "[t]he rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus". In an 1875 edition of the Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard she attacked the practice of abortion:

"Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Woodhulll

Well, edgar. We understand, and our listeners appreciate your having explained things to us. We do miss your music, however.

And my goodness. There's our George back again. We do miss our Latin lover, but realize how time consuming and wearying a day after work can be. Just be happy that you don't have to grade lousy essays and try to be gentle. <smile>

Walter Pidgeon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Walter Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 - September 25, 1984) was a Canadian actor.

Born near Saint John, New Brunswick, he began his career by studying at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He made several silent movies in the 1920s, then made some early talkie musicals, then played second fiddle to the main male star in such films as Saratoga and The Girl of the Golden West. It wasn't until he starred in How Green Was My Valley that he became well-known.

He starred opposite Greer Garson in Blossom in the Dust and in Mrs. Miniver (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor). He was nominated again in 1944 for Madame Curie, but he left Hollywood in the mid-1950s for the stage.

He retired fully in 1971, and died in Santa Monica, California, in 1984. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the UCLA, Medical School for medical research.

Pidgeon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6414 Hollywood Blvd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Pidgeon

Mickey Rooney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



Mickey Rooney Biography

Joseph Yule, Jr. (born September 23, 1920), better known as Mickey Rooney, is an American film actor. Born into a vaudeville family, Rooney began performing at the age of 17 months in 1922.

Entering the movie business in 1927, he literally made his name as the title character in the Mickey McGuire shorts. These were a series of over forty silent, two-reel comedies adapted from the Toonerville Trolley comic strip, in which he starred through 1936. For a time he billed himself as Mickey McGuire, but legally changed his name to Mickey Rooney in 1932. Also during this period he met Walt Disney, and later he would claim Disney had named Mickey Mouse after him.

In 1934 he signed to MGM and was educated at the studio's School for Professional Children.

Rooney's successful role as Andy Hardy in A Family Affair (1937) led to fourteen further films featuring that character from 1938 to 1958. His first role as the top-billed star in a feature film was as Shockey Carter in Hoosier Schoolboy (1937) with Edward Pawley playing his father. His breakthrough serious role came in 1938's Boys Town opposite Spencer Tracy as Whitey Marsh, which opened shortly before his 18th birthday. His fame peaked in World War II with a string of successful musicals with Judy Garland, including the Oscar nominated Babes in Arms (1939) as well as more serious roles in films such as The Human Comedy (1943) and National Velvet (1944).

In 1944 Rooney entered military service for 21 months during World War 2; after his return his career slumped. He appeared in a number of indifferent films, including Words and Music in 1948 which paired him for the last time with Garland on film (he appeared with her on one episode as a guest on her CBS variety series in the early 60's), and one final Andy Hardy film in the late 1950s. The Mickey Rooney Show, also known as Hey Mulligan, appeared on NBC for 39 episodes during 1954 and 1955. In the 1960s Rooney returned to theatrical entertainment. He still accepted film roles in undistinguished movies, but occasionally he would appear in better works such as Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) and The Black Stallion (1979).

He was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award in 1938, and in 1983 the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences voted him their Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime of achievement.

Rooney did the voices for three Christmas TV animated/stop action specials: Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970), The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July --- always playing Santa Claus.

He continued to be busy in stage and television work through the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the acclaimed stage play Sugar Babies with Ann Miller beginning in 1979, starring in a long-running TV series based on The Black Stallion, touring Canada in a dinner theatre production of The Mind with the Naughty Man in the mid-1990s, and playing The Wizard in a stage production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt. He also appeared in the documentary That's Entertainment III.

He also voiced Mr. Cherrywood in 1985's The Care Bears Movie.

Rooney continues to work in film in 2005.

Currently (9/05), Rooney tours with his wife, Jan Chamberlain, in a multi-media live stage production called "Let's Put On a Show!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Rooney

Speaking of back, folks. Here's Bio Bob with an entire group of celebs. Raggedy will be happy to know that.

Don't know Miss Victoria, Boston, but she sounds way ahead of her times. So many reformers are, you know.

Julio Iglesias
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva (born September 23, 1943) in Madrid, Spain is Spain's best selling singer and one of the best-selling Spanish singers of all time. Julio Iglesias has sold 250,000,000 records in different languages and released 77 records. He has performed approximately 5,000 concerts during his career.

Early career to 1978

He was a professional soccer player with Real Madrid, where he played as goalkeeper. During this time, he also enrolled in law school. He had an accident that dashed his hopes of becoming a great soccer player, but during his period in bed, he started to compose songs. He received a certificate as a lawyer from Cambridge University a little later.

In 1968, he won the Benidorm International Song Festival, a songwriter's contest in Spain, and signed a contract with a Columbia Records Latin music label, Discos Columbia. He represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1970, finishing fourth behind Northern Irish singer Dana Scallon, and the Welsh singer (and Cymraeg speaker) Mary Hopkin. His entry was the song "Gwendolyne" which was his first recording. During the 1970s he married the Spanish-mestiza Philippine socialite Isabel Preysler with whom he had three children: Chabeli Iglesias, who has been a show host and is now a news reporter in Washington D.C., Enrique Iglesias, now a world-famous singer who followed in his father's footsteps, and Julio José Iglesias, a model who has released two CDs. It was during the 1970s that the Iglesias family's private life became very public, with Julio and the rest of the family frequently featured on the covers of various international magazines.

Peak of success 1978-1990

In 1978, he signed a contract for CBS International, adding English, French, Portuguese, German and Italian to his language repertoire. He had his first hit in English with a cover of "Begin the Beguine" and released a collection Julio in 1983 building his reputation.

In 1984, he released the smash hit album 1100 Bel Air Place, which gave him considerable fame in English-language markets. The album sold three million albums in the US alone, with the first single "To All The Girls I've Loved Before", a duet with Willie Nelson reaching the top five on the Billboard Hot 100. The album also featured "All of You", a hit duet with Diana Ross.

In 1985, his father was kidnapped but found well and alive after two agonizing weeks. This prompted Julio, who had already divorced Preysler, to move his family to Miami, Florida, where they settled in a mansion at Miami Beach. That year he also recorded duets with Diana Ross and Willie Nelson. It was rumored in 1986 that Julio, perhaps seeking to get away from all the fame and hoopla for one week, was found walking around the streets of Cayey, Puerto Rico, after disappearing for seven days. Julio feels there is a deep connection between him and Puerto Rico because one of his grandmothers was Puerto Rican.

Iglesias won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album in the 1988 Grammy Awards for the album Un Hombre Solo ("A Single Man"). He also recorded a duet with Stevie Wonder on "My Love" from his Non Stop album which achieved crossover success in 1988.

Stories of Julio's expensive private jets, boats, and houses became legendary during that decade, and his world tours took him to many countries and continents around the world performing in many sold out concerts among the vast women populations.

Career 1990-today

In the 1990s, Julio went back to his Spanish music roots, and in 1996, he released a CD nicknamed Tango. He is slowly stepping out of the limelight now and enjoying his son Enrique's popularity, together with his long-time companion Miranda and their 2 sons Miguel Alejandro (September 7, 1997), Rodrigo (April 3, 1999) and twin daughters Cristina and Victoria (May 1, 2001). Julio is very amenable to sign autographs, although he can be a little difficult to reach sometimes, due to his and his family's security detail, which they have had since the 1985 kidnapping of Julio's father.

Iglesias returned to the headlines in October, 2003, when he went to Argentina and kissed show host Susana Gimenez three times during a live telecast of her show.

Julio Iglesias obtained Dominican citizenship on August 30, 2005, possibly for tax purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Iglesias



Julio Iglesias




TO ALL THE GIRLS I'VE LOVED BEFORE
with Willie Nelson

- Albert Hammond - Hal David -

To all the girls I've loved before
Who travelled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before.

To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say I've held the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the girls I've loved before

The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away.

To all the girls who shared my life,
Who now are someone else's wives
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before.

The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away.

To all the girls we've loved before
Who travelled in and out our door
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the girls we've loved before.

To all the girls we've loved before
Who travelled in and out our door
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the girls we've loved before.

© 1975, 84 April Music Inc. - Casa David.

Heh! Heh! Well, listeners. No more need be said. It seems that Bob's bios on Mickey (no, not the mouse) and Ray have been quite thorough.

Just a word to Reyn, if he's listening. Raggedy said that it would be fine to include her spotted pup in your collage. <smile>

Let's pause a moment to honor Bob for his marvelous contributions, and after that very brief pause, let's listen to a song from Mickey:



You're out on the edge
But nobody sees you
You're out on the edge
But you're not in danger
Because You're only two feet
Above the ground

You're out on a mission
for recognition
You're out on a mission
A show to sell out
But you've already sold out
You (bleep) sellouts

(chorus)
No one... No one cares
How close you were to the end
No one... No one sees
The changes you've made for yourselves

You need to break
Apart from your egos
You need a break
To find a new image
Cause you're not ROCKSTARS
But you should be

You're out on a mission
For recognition
You're out on a mission
A show to sell out
I've figured you out
You're so complex

(chorus)

Oh yes...Oh yes...they're coming on strong
And maybe by monday
Their songs will live on..
But the MELTDOWN
The MELTDOWN
The MELTDOWN.....

(chorus)

yeah yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah!

oops, folks. I forgot about the boss. <smile>Thanks, Boston.

Time for a station break:

This is cyber space, WA2K radio. (whew!)

What a day to be late. Letty my love ------- Heeeeeee's Baaaaackkkkk. Whoda thunk so many celebrities would pop up. Wuncha know it. Saw your note to our rabid (not rabbit, not vapid, not rapid) audience announcing my brief (yes, I wore briefs) disappearance. Was that applause I just heard? Fickle public. I promise I'll never do that again until next time.

Barely Back Boston Bob

ah, barely back Boston Bob. We always miss you when you're away, whether it's in brief or other things.

Air Jordan:

"Let's just say they're Haynes"

It is the season of party political conferences in Britain now. A comment came up again, an old chestnut, but a goodie:

"The gentleman's speech contained much that was good and original. Unfortunately, the good bits were not original, and the original bits were not good."

Well, McTag. It may be an old chestnut to you, but it's a delightful new nut to me. Love it, Brit!

Why do you suppose, listeners, that we refer to something passe as "an old chestnut"?

Anyone here ever heard of wormy chestnut?

What's the origin of "old chestnut"?

29-Sep-2000

Dear Straight Dope:

What's an old chestnut? I tried asking some others; all I got in response is more old chestnuts. --Irene Spencer

SDSTAFF Dex replies:

Well, we're all agreed that an old chestnut is a stale joke.

Eric Partirdge in Origins (1983 edition) says the probable origin is eating roasted chestnuts at the fireside while listening to old stories. The word chestnut itself, he says, derives from Middle English chesten nut, and ultimately from Latin castaneo, a translation of the Greek kastanea, meaning "chestnut." That helps, of course, a lot.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable traces the origin to The Broken Sword, a forgotten melodrama by William Dimond (1816) in which one of the characters, Captain Xavier, is forever telling the same jokes, over and over, with slight variations. As he repeats a certain joke involving a tree, this time making it about a cork tree, Xavier is corrected by Pablo, who says, "A chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a chestnut."

--SDSTAFF Dex
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

[Comment on this answer.]

Cecil's Mailbag is researched and written by members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, Cecil's online auxiliary. Although the SDSAB does its best, these articles are edited by Ed Zotti, not Cecil, so accuracywise you'd better keep your fingers crossed.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mchestnut.html

Thanks, Bob. Some things are untraceable, I suspect. In searching, I found this about wormy chestnut. I was curious, because I have a wormy chestnut picture frame which is beautiful:


Wormy Chestnut Wood
by William Lord

The subject of wormy chestnut is an intriguing one, and apparently much of the story is not yet in print. No definitive article pops up on the internet or resides in a canvas of the literature. What changes in public attitudes occurred to upgrade the status of wormy chestnut from a defective lumber to a prized collectible? Undoubtedly a major reason is its increasing rarity given the disappearance of mature chestnut trees. But it is tempting to also associate it with the affluence of our post War years and the spawning of interest in antiques and collectibles.

The cause of wormy chestnut is well known. The larvae of the chestnut timber borer a small, brown beetle spent several years of their lives nourishing themselves as they gnawed tunnels throughout the wood of standing trees. The adults emerged about the time of chestnut bloom, flying directly free from the tree to mingle and mate. The females deposited eggs in the cracks in the bark and, life's duty done, all soon expired.

The beetles had a feeding frenzy on the dead and dying chestnut trees smitten by the blight. "Lumber from such trees was downgraded to 'sound wormy,' resulting in sizeable losses." This quote relates to pre World War II. Now wormy chestnut is "character marked," a term I presume coined in recent decades by the cognoscenti of the antique industry. Now it sells for handsome prices for interior trim, furniture and picture frames.

It seems that wormy chestnut has found a highly regarded niche among those who treasure "antiqued" wood. An art has evolved where crafsmen give "character" to board lumber by denting it with a hammer, pounding in nail impressions, and making burn marks with a hot iron. Thus we derive the "distressed furniture" now in vogue. Wormy chestnut is ready made!

Jennifer slept in her little bed,
With dreams of her rabbit in her little head.

Jennifer's rabbit, brown and white,
Left the house and ran away one night,
Along with a turtle and a kangaroo,
And seventeen monkeys from the city zoo,
And Jennifer too.

They ran through the forest and they all held hands.
They came to the ocean with the cookie crumb sands.
They called it the sea of the very best dreams,
And all built a cstle of the best moonbeams,
And milky way streams.

And there on the sand where the star fish play,
The ship sailed in from the moonbeam bay,
And they all went sailing on the starlight sea,
Where they all had cookies and oolong tea,
And Jenny had three.

They danced on the decks of the red-sailed brig.
The monkeys and the sailors did a whirrling jig.
Turtle played the fiddle and the rabbit played kazoo,
And they bowed to each other like the white folks do.
And Jenny bowed too.

Then, "My!" said the turtle as the clock struck three,
"The hour is growing very late for me."
"Not at all," said the rabbit. "And I'll tell you why,
We still havn't counted every star in the sky".
Said Jenny "Let's try."

So they counted on the ship and they counted on the shore.
They counted through the forest to the bedroom door.
They counted in bed till they could count no more.
Then they all fell asleep and the final score,
Was a trillion and four.

Yes the rabbit and the turtle and the kangaroo,
And Jenny fell asleep like sleepy folks do,
Just like you.

Well, dys. Jenny is an interesting young girl. Either that song is simply literal, or there's a message somewhere hidden among the animals and the stars.

I guess dys' strange and arcane song requires another, listeners:


» I Only Have Eyes For You


Al Dubin / Harry Warren

My love must be a kind of blind love,
I can't see anyone but you
And dear, I wonder if you find love,
an optical illusion, too?

Are the stars out tonight?
I don't know if it's cloudy or bright cause I only
have eyes for you.
The moon may be high,
but I can't see a thing in the sky,
cause I only have eyes for you.
I don't know if we're in a garden,
or on a crowded avenue.
You are here, so am I.
Maybe millions of people go by but they all disappear from view,
and I only have eyes for you.

Incidentally, that's also the potato song

I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
Gotta take a bath every night.
I wash my nose, scrub my toes,
Oh-oh Mama, forgot to take off my clothes.
Now I'm swish-swish-swishin',
splash, splash, splashin',
goosh, goosh, gooshin',
slipping and a-sliding,
running down the hallway-
My Mama's coming after me
Papa's coming after me
The dog is coming after me
I'm afraid they're going to catch me
Ob boy, am I in trouble- down the hall I go
I fell asleep. I fell asleep.
I was lying in the bathtub and I fell asleep.
Such a nice warm bathtub, I fell asleep.
Such a nice warm bathtub, I fell ...
When I woke up in the morning
I had turned into to a duck
All the kids at school said "Oh, what a fool!
He fell asleep in the bathtub!
He turned into a duck!"
Yea, but I just laughed and then I flew away.
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
I get so dirty,
Gotta take a bath every night.