Volume 269 | No. 10

2015—A week after a two-foot snowstorm, Po’Town gets 18 inches more. 2014—Mayor Bill de Blasio, fumbling, drops Chuck, the Staten Island Groundhog. Days later Chuck dies. 2009—Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets a bitten finger as he grapples with Chuck, the Staten Island Groundhog. 1991—Before Desert Storm ground combat begins, the Pentagon bans the press from the Dover morgue. 1979—Zbigniew Brzezinski advises Jimmy Carter, “Islamic revivalist movements…are not likely to be the wave of the future.” 1965—Protesting a protest against the jailing of MLK, Daniel P. Skelley pours water from a can labeled “gas” all over his American Nazi uniform. Cops take him away after a TV …

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2005—Though Canada OK’s same-sex marriage, the world does not end. 2004—Janet Jackson’s nipple is briefly bared on TV; the world nearly ends. 1974—Richard Nixon meets for twenty minutes with the Messiah, aka Reverend Sun Myung Moon. 1972—Rev. Billy Graham explains to President Nixon that a group of Jews, the Biblical “synagogue of Satan,” had the U.S. in a “stranglehold,” via banking and the media. Nixon replies, “I can’t ever say it, but I believe it.” 1971—“The President is aware of what is going on in Southeast Asia,” Ron Ziegler tells reporters. “That is not to say anything is going on in Southeast Asia.” Certainly not …

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2003—At the White House, George W.[MD] Bush tells Tony Blair he’s going to invade Iraq, whether it’s got WMDs or not. Diplomacy will have to fit around the military strategy. 1984—President Reagan alleges the U.S. has a problem with “people who are sleeping on the grates… homeless… you might say, by choice.” 1971—In Detroit, Vietnam Veterans Against the War testify about U.S. policies in Vietnam. Few listen. 1968—Tet happens: the VC and NVA go on the attack from the Delta to the DMZ. There’s a gun battle at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Gen. Wm. “Clueless” Westmoreland claims Hue’s been retaken; he’s off by a …

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2005—A U.S. official reports that $9,000,000,000 is… well… sort of… let’s say “unaccounted for” in Iraq. 1981—An FB-111A “Aardvark” based at Pease AFB crashes near homes at Mariner’s Village, about 1.25 miles northwest of Market Square. Though one apartment building is destroyed, no one is injured. 1976—The Supreme Court decides that limiting campaign contributions would unfairly restrict the speech of a privileged minority group: people with unlimited amounts of money. 1972—“Bloody Sunday” in Northern Ireland: British soldiers gun down 14 Catholic civil-rights marchers. 1968—Two hundred colonels in the U.S. MACV staff attend a pool party in Saigon. “Not one… knew Tet was coming” the next …

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2002—Qassem Suleimani, Commander of the Quds Force—who had been considering a rapprochement between Iran and the U.S.—goes ballistic after George W.[MD] Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech. Also: Bush asks Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit investigations into 9/11. 1991—“Our forces in the Gulf will not stay there one day longer than is necessary,” says George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush. 1979—“I don’t like Mondays,” replies Brenda Spencer, 16, when asked why she shot eleven people, killing two, at a San Diego elementary school. 1976—The House, under Speaker Carl Albert [D–Okla.], votes to cover up the Pike Committee’s report on the crimes of U.S. intelligence agencies. …

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2008—In his last (yay!) State of the Union speech, George W.[MD] Bush promises his budget will keep the U.S. “on track for a surplus in 2012.” 2004—U.S. weapons inspector David Kay tells the Senate pre-war WMD intelligence was “almost all wrong.” 2003—In his State of the Union, George W.[MD] Bush lies about tubes, viruses, alliances, and uranium to justify his next war. 1998—Lawyer John Morton-Finney, son of a formerly-enslaved man, dies two years after retiring. He’s 108. 1986—Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union is rescheduled; his Challenger applause line turned into a tragedy. 1969—Unocal drillers using sub-standard pipe cause a 100,000-barrel oil spill off Santa …

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