In the last few years, the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers moved to Los Angeles, while the Oakland Raiders headed to Las Vegas. Those are some team moves that worked out — unlike these proposed franchise relocations that didn’t quite work out. St. Louis Patriots About a decade before quarterback Tom Brady arrived […]
John Lennon was tragically assassinated in 1980. But according to some people, the Beatle never completely left the earthly realm. And your bird can sing In 1995, the three surviving Beatles at the time — George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr — reunited for the first Beatles recording in decades. They added their vocals […]
And now, a sober, haze-free look at some noble and venerable historical figures who (somewhat surprisingly) partook in cannabis, the favorite pastime of Cheech, Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Willie Nelson. Queen Victoria. The monarch who reigned over the British empire from 1837 to 1901 was highly influential on many aspects of British life, from food […]
In July 2021, Amazon founder and multibillionaire Jeff Bezos launched himself into space. What’s more surprising about this? He’s hardly the first non-government-agency-affiliated person to reach the edge of the cosmos. Here’s a brief history of private spaceflight. 1961: Just four years after the Soviet Union launched two Sputnik satellites, the first manmade objects to […]
Neil Armstrong will never fall out of the history books — in July 1969, the astronaut became the first human being to ever step foot on the moon. Here are some little-known facts about the man and his work, which are also the subjects of a new book from Portable Press. Neil Armstrong got into […]
Based on the author’s love of things weird, bizarre, and strange, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Greatest Know on Earth is an all-new collection of curiosities and oddities throughout the ages. A nonfiction book with dazzling facts, jaw-dropping blunders, and astounding lists of trivia, this impeccably-researched compendium includes a range of single-page articles to extended page-turners. Tune in […]
One thing we all learned this past year of quarantine is that we need to laugh. A lot. Comedians Lisa Beth Johnson and Phoebe Bottoms are here to help with a collection of more than 300 snarky, sassy, and witty jokes for mom. A companion to the best-selling Dad Jokes, Mom Jokes is the best […]
George Washington looms so large over American history — he helped lead troops to victory in the Revolutionary War, served as the first president, and is regarded as “the father of our country” — that a lot of myths and legends sprung up about him, both in his life and after. Here’s the truth about […]
This was a wild, harrowing, and unpredictable year… and one that self-proclaimed psychics somehow didn’t see coming. Here are some events that psychics claimed were supposed to happen in 2020. The world may have avoided a catastrophic attack by this man — psychic Sidney Friedman ominously predicted that “cookies” would “disappear.” Friedman also said that […]
This year, we resolve to write more blog posts about New Year’s resolutions. And look at that, we did it! • Ancient Babylonians started the idea of New Year’s resolutions about 4,000 years ago, although the new year in that society started in the middle of March and lined up with crop-planting season. As part […]
Here are the stories of some women who broke down barriers and literally changed the world. Hannah Slater received a patent in 1793 for a new type of cotton thread that made textile manufacture simpler and faster. That enabled her husband to develop a textile business, but Slater goes down in history as the first […]
This October marks the 125th anniversary of National Geographic. To celebrate, we take a look at the most famous photographs of the 20th century: the National Geographic Afghan Girl. This story was originally published in Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader.
SNAPSHOT
In December 1984, a National Geographic photographer named Steve McCurry visited the Nasir Bagh refugee camp on the Afghan/Pakistan border while covering the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. While there he snapped a photograph of a 12-year-old girl with haunting blue-green eyes. The girl had been living in the camp ever since Soviet helicopters had bombed her village five years earlier, killing both her parents.
McCurry didn’t have a translator with him that day, so he never got the girl’s name. But the photograph, which appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue, went on to become the single most recognized photograph in National Geographic’s 125-year history and one of the most reproduced images in the world.
Former First Lady Betty Ford has passed away. The newspaper of the city of her birth, the Chicago Tribune, has a nice piece on a truly unique individual:
Seems like pretty much the whole world is going out of their way to send a birthday wish to The Most Interesting Man In the World, Mr. Bob Dylan, today.
We hate to do what everyone else is doing, but we can’t help it this time: Happy Birthday, Bob. If the only song you ever wrote was “Desolation Row” you’d still be one of the best songwriters in history. (And we hear you actually wrote some other songs, too…) Happy Birthday, and many, many more to you, from all of us at the BRI. Here’s a little tune for you. (Substitute the “50” for a “70,” in this song, if you will.)
Yesterday we lost one of the greats in the history of country and pop music, Alabama-born Charlie Louvin (LOO vin), best known for being one of the Louvin Brothers with his brother Ira starting in the 1940s. Here’s a nice little video bio. An especially nice bit is when Charlie talks about the roots of the duo’s harmony, about 1 minute and 40 seconds in:
A good obituary, strangely enough in the UK’s Telegraph:
The undauntable Jack LaLanne has left for the big exercise room in the sky:
“I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for,” Elaine LaLanne, Lalanne’s wife of 51 years and a frequent partner in his television appearances, said in a written statement.
How many of these bad listening habits do YOU have? (We asked Uncle John and, in between moments of plucking his nose hairs, he said, “I knew you were going to say that, and I knew the worst listener of all time when I lived in New York. I had a house in New York once, it was really something. Had doors and windows and everything.” Then he walked into the bathroom and locked the door.)
Please list your own bad listening habits in the comments.
Most people know that one of the keys to success in relationships is good listening.
Experts tell us to use “active” listening, “I messages,” and open-ended questions. Articles urge us to stop talking when someone speaks, to use our body language effectively to encourage the other guy, and to work to understand what is meant as well as what is said. We’ve been told that men are from Mars and women are from Venus and we’ve been taught how to translate the gender languages. Yet despite all that, developing good listening skills continues to be a challenge for some people.
1. Lousy listeners are attending to other things when you are speaking. Proud of their ability to multitask, they continue to scan the newspaper, pick up the living room, text, or clean their desk while being addressed. An occasional ‘uh-huh’ is supposed to cue you that, really, they are with you. They’re not — or at least not totally. Their mind is distracted. Chances are they miss important pieces of your message — even if they protest that they don’t.
