"America" by Simon and Garfunkel

In honour of the Fourth of July (and by way of reparations for the last video I posted) I decided to choose a decidedly more patriotic clip to show this time around.

America first appeared on the 1968 Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends, and is one of my favourite songs about the US; when I first posted it, I used a now lost clip from The Concert in Central Park* - a reunion of former harmonizers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who broke up in 1970 but seem to have stayed on pretty good terms despite it all. I've had to replace it now with a newer clip of them performing the song on Late Show with David Letterman.

*As many as 750,000 people attended the concert, which was held on the Great Lawn of New York City's Central Park in September 1981.
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Happy Birthday Koko

Koko is a lowland gorilla who was born in San Francisco on this day in 1971; according to her trainers, Koko (a diminutive form of Hanabi-Ko, or 'fireworks child' in Japanese, seeing as she was born on a day renowned for its pyrotechnic displays) can understand more than 1,000 signs in American Sign Language and understand 2,000 words of English besides.

As early as 1977 Koko was attracting attention for her ability to communicate using sign language. She has also created art using both brush and camera, kept pets (such as cats), and has a pronounced fetish for nipples (whether male or female).

There is a debate among scholars whether Koko's intellect is spontaneous or merely as a result of acculturation; either way, as long as she keeps everybody guessing, the Pop Culture Institute will continue to hail our talented cousin.  Heck, if she can learn to write down any of those 2000 words she can even have a job here - despite being totally over-qualified!
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In Memoriam: Louis B. Mayer

Would it surprise anyone to learn that one of the foremost merchants of the American Dream was a scrap metal dealer from Minsk, who came to Hollywood by way of Saint John, New Brunswick, and was born on this of all days?

While such a revelation might startle only a few of the most naive people today, back in the Thirties and Forties it might have been quite a shock indeed; yet Louis B. Mayer was just such a man.

Mayer's imprint upon the American film industry is indelible. He is generally credited with the expansion of the star system (if not its creation, which can better be credited to the Biograph Studios, who created the first movie star*). While chairman of MGM - he was the second M - the studio's slogan boasted 'more stars than there are in the Heavens', which was not entirely hyperbolic. Most of MGM's movies from that era did not have casts so much as constellations; even the supporting artists and extras were famous at MGM.

Mayer was the first studio head to earn more than a million dollars a year, which he did beginning in 1936; he made MGM so profitable, even during the Great Depression, that the studio was the only one to pay its shareholders dividends in every year of the 1930s. And to think it all started from the Gem Theatre, a dilapidated burlesque house in Haverhill, Massachusetts, which Mayer renovated and opened as the Orpheum in November 1907.

Mayer was also instrumental in the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with its annual reacharound festival known as the Oscars; he died in October 1957, just as the studio system in which he so fervently believed was beginning to crumble.

*The delightfully named Florence Lawrence.
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"That's America" by Bruce McCulloch

The degree to which the accompanying clip offends you is likely to be in direct correlation to how true you think it is; even if deployed with the best of intentions, the truth hurts, and alas some of the sentiments contained herein may sting. I would rate this NSFW*.

It's not the best quality version of this piece, which Bruce McCulloch - founding member of Canada's pioneering comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall - originally performed on their show in the early 1990s, and later refined for his uproarious 1995 album Shame-Based Man; for one thing, whomever recorded it cut off the last line, which is: 'America, a place for Americans...'

Still, would the Fourth of July at the Pop Culture Institute be complete without a little genial, well-intended, even light-hearted poking of fun at a country that could easily wipe Canada (and thus the PCI) off the map with just ten well-aimed nukes? No, I say; indeed, non as well.

*Not Suitable For Wussies.

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POPnews (US) - Fourth of July Special Edition

1636 - The city of Providence, Rhode Island - the jewel of Narragansett Bay - was founded by Roger Williams, a religious kook who was too religiously kooky even for the Massachusetts Bay Colony which had exiled him.

1712 - 11 slaves were executed in Manhattan for their alleged part in a slave revolt; there exists no credible evidence that any such uprising was in the offing, which didn't stop Bancroft Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore from crafting an exquisite work entitled New York Burning from the story, although her work chiefly concerns another equally spurious albeit more famous conspiracy from 1741.

1776 - The Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the Second Continental Congress.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people; this single act by the Administration of President Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the country, as well as opening up the Mississippi River to shipping.

1817 - Construction of the Erie Canal was begun near Rome, New York.

1827 - Slavery was abolished in New York State.

1845 - Henry David Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts; the result of his experience later formed the basis for his book Walden.

1855 - Walt Whitman's landmark book Leaves of Grass was published in Brooklyn.

1886 - The people of France offered the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

1894 - The short-lived Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole; the republic was annexed by the United States on the same day four years later.

1910 - African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocked out white boxer James J. Jeffries at a heavyweight boxing match promoted by Tex Rickard in Reno, sparking race riots across the United States.

1939 - New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig announced his retirement from professional baseball, telling a capacity crowd at Yankee Stadium that he felt like 'the luckiest man on the face of the Earth'; he died of amyotrophic lateral sclerois (ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's disease) in June 1941.

1966 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.

1969 - The Ohio Fireworks Derecho killed 18 and destroyed over 100 boats on Lake Erie.

1970 - American Top 40 made its radio debut, hosted by Casey Kasem. Kasem left the show in 2004; it's currently hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

1992 - The USS George Washington (CVN-73), a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, was commissioned at Norfolk, Virginia.

1997 - NASA's Pathfinder space probe landed on the surface of Mars.

2006 - Space Shuttle Discovery was launched towards the International Space Station on its mission, known as STS-121.

2007 - The Zaca Fire started in Santa Barbara, California, becoming the second-largest fire in California history.
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Good Fourth of July!

To all my American readers (and those - like me - who love them) have a safe and happy Fourth of July!
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"A Little Respect" by Erasure

At this time, in the space of days that separate Canada Day from Independence Day, it is the mandate of the Pop Culture Institute to encourage men of all nations to come together in brotherly love - and not just in a gay porn way, either, although it scarcely needs to be said we're totally cool with however you choose to do it - so long as you'd be so good as to send us a video file of your raunchier efforts.

A Little Respect earned itself and its performers - Vince Clarke and Andy Bell of Erasure - considerable respect; the band's tenth single, the song was actually the third European (and second American) release from the band's 1988 album The Innocents, which was itself their third studio recording. It's shown here in a live version from the Prince's Trust concert in 1989.


Whereas I once found this track's synth-driven opening sterile and lacking in the atmosphere I normally look for in pop music, over the years I have come to give it a lot of respect; in 1990 I attended a concert by Erasure in Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum as a reviewer for the now-defunct publication Angles, and the fact that they nearly brought down that gloomy old concrete monstrosity with their high energy live show and particularly spirited rendition of this very song did much to encourage my appreciation of it - an appreciation which now borders on reverence.
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Happy Birthday Vince Clarke

What straight man has given more to gay music than Vince Clarke?

As part of Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and finally Erasure, Vince Clarke is responsible for much of the world's cardio; my Body Mass Index* and I will be forever grateful to you, sir.

(True Story: When I once asked for this haircut - way back in those halcyon days of circa 1984 - my mother almost died. Alas, she lived, and I never got the haircut. Now I haven't got enough hair to complete this look, but if I ever do get hair plugs it'll be so that I can, and this time the old bag can just suffer...)**

*Or at least the Body Mass Index I had when I was 20...
**Kidding...
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"Dawn's Highway" by Jim Morrison

Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Me and my -ah- mother and father - and a
grandmother and a grandfather - were driving through
the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian
workers had either hit another car, or just - I don't
know what happened - but there were Indians scattered
all over the highway, bleeding to death.
So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time
I tasted fear. I musta' been about four - like a child is
like a flower, his head is just floating in the
breeze, man.
The reaction I get now thinking about it, looking
back - is that the souls of the ghosts of those dead
Indians...maybe one or two of 'em...were just
running around freaking out, and just leaped into my
soul. And they're still in there.
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.
Blood screams her brain as they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth if a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious union
Blood on the rise, it's following me.
Indian, Indian what did you die for?
Indian says, nothing at all.
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"Touch Me" by The Doors

Released in July 1969, The Doors' fourth studio album The Soft Parade represented a change in tone and style for the ever-inventive band; replete with brass and string arrangements, it was also one of their most productive albums, yielding a total of four singles despite the controversy the album caused amongst fans and critics.

One of those singles was Touch Me - released in December 1968 in advance of the album, with the track Wild Child on its b-side; it would become the band's third #1 in the US, and also top the charts in Canada as well as graze the Top Ten in Australia, although it never even charted in the UK. Following the innovations of The Soft Parade, The Doors returned to a more pared-down sound for their next two albums - Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman.

Here - on the anniversary of the 1971 death of Jim Morrison - is a little of his magic captured on film...
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Jim Morrison

On this day in 1971 Jim Morrison - formerly lead singer of The Doors and at his peak the sexiest man who has ever lived - was found dead in Paris, a bloated ruin at the age of 27...

Whether Morrison was or is a visionary artist or a drunken buffoon is and always will be irrelevant, since he was obviously both of these and more. How else to explain the cult that has since sprung up around his personality? Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors (as much as Val Kilmer's electrifying performance of him) are, despite their individual inaccuracies, the ultimate two-handed reacharound by a pair of Hollywood veterans at the top of their respective games; all that rubbing burnishes and buffs Morrison's best feature* to a very high gloss indeed.

For everyone of us who loves and admires a goody two shoes, there are a hundred of us who find arrogant douchebags more irresistibly charming by far, especially if they have cheekbones you can cling to and a bottom lip seemingly made of chewing gum. Oh, and that floppy hair... Hair as lustrous and touchable as the rest of him.

Waitaminnit... What were we talking about again?

Oh yeah! Blah blah blah on this day in 1971 Jim Morrison was found dead under suspicious circumstances** by longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson, but the French authorities ruled that since there was no evidence of foul play no autopsy would be performed. Morrison was later laid to rest in Paris' landmark Père Lachaise Cemetery, where his celebrity has persisted well after his death, as in life making things difficult for his neighbours owing to the constant presence about his once-mouldering person of vast crowds of over-emotional females with a frightening penchant for mob mentality.

Still, weep not for our fallen idol; as they say, 'like attracts like', and in his heyday no one got more cunt than Jim Morrison. Famous***, infamous, or wannabe - they all fell before the might of the Lizard King... Hell, he still gets more tail dead nearly forty years than most men get alive in their lifetime, mainly because he wrote poetry; let's face it, Jim Morrison may not have become a rock star for applause, but he surely became a poet for pussy. The fact that all he would have needed to get it was to look the way he did is neither here nor there.

His was the ultimate 'good life well-lived', which unfortunately made it one of the harder ones to survive, and so for maximum entertainment value was best executed by a celebrity; what, I find myself wondering as I ponder his legacy, would he have done differently had he known beforehand how it was going to turn out?

*Often referred to by the feeble euphemism 'charisma', by which one actually means 'cock'.
**In a bathtub, in France...  Most mysterious: what the bathtub was. Badump-tish!
***Nico, Grace Slick, and allegedly Janis Joplin!
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POPnews - July 3rd

[We at the Pop Culture Institute make no bones about the threat to humanity posed by the internal combustion engine - in fact, we'll witter on about it ad nauseum to anyone fool enough to listen; we do accept, though, that what we consider to be the greatest invention of all time - namely photography - may have enemies of its own.]

324 CE - At the Battle of Adrianople - during one of the Roman Empire's occasional civil wars - Constantine I defeated Licinius, who then fled to Byzantium.

987 CE - Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, thereby establishing the Capetian Dynasty, which ruled that country until the French Revolution swept it from power in 1792.

1608 - Québec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 - During the French and Indian War, George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity to the French - an incident most famous today for having been referenced on The Simpsons in the classic episode Bart Gets an F.

1767 - Adresseavisen, Norway's oldest extant newspaper, published its first issue.

1778 - During the American Revolution Loyalist British forces led by Colonel John Butler killed 360 American Patriot men, women, and children in 45 minutes, then burned their village to the ground, in the Wyoming Valley Massacre; Butler was aided in his task by Seneca warriors Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter of the Iroquois Confederacy.

1844 - The last pair of Great Auks were killed on the Icelandic island of Geirfuglasker by Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson.

1863 - The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminated with Pickett's Charge.

1866 - The Austro-Prussian War was decided at the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.

1886 - Karl Benz officially unveiled the Benz Patent Motorwagen – the first purpose-built automobile.

1890 - Idaho became the 43rd US state.

1898 - During the Spanish-American War the Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete and moored at the Cuban port of Santiago, was destroyed by the US Navy.

1913 - Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenacted Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they were met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

1938 - The world speed record for a steam railway locomotive was set in England, by the Mallard, which reached a speed of 126 mph (203 km/h).

1940 - The French fleet of the Atlantic based at Mers el Kébir was bombarded by the British fleet, coming from Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. 1,200 sailors died in the raid.

1962 - The Algerian War of Independence against colonial rule ended with the proclamation of Algeria as an independent state by French president Charles De Gaulle; two days later the fledgling nation's Provisional Executive re-made the declaration - on the 132nd anniversary of the invasion of Algeria - which is the day still celebrated there as the country's real Independence Day.

1988 - Istanbul's Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was completed, providing a second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus, the first being the Bosphorus Bridge, opened in October 1973.

1996 - The Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland from its opulent captivity within St. Edward's Chair, which itself sits at the heart of the most sacred precincts of Westminster Abbey; it currently resides in the very different (although entirely equal, as per EC regulations) splendour of Edinburgh Castle.

2004 - Bangkok's subway system was officially opened.
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Happy Birthday Polly Holliday

As famous for delivering the catchphrase 'Kiss My Grits!' as she is for portraying the wisecracking Texan named Florence Jean Castleberry who regularly said it on the 1970s sitcom Alice*, Polly Holliday is obviously a gifted comedic actress; but on The Golden Girls in the 1980s she showed her more wistful side, playing Rose Nylund's blind sister Lily. She returned to kicking ass (mainly Tim Allen's), on Home Improvement in the 1990s, playing the mother-in-law from Hell.

*Shamefully, still not available on DVD.
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Pop History Moment: LBJ Announced His "Great Society"

On this day in 1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act as part of a series of reforms aimed at creating what he called a Great Society, by eliminating both poverty and racism...

The bill was followed by the Voting Rights Act and the appointment of the first black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, giving the Civil Rights Movement much-needed momentum. The Pop Culture Institute feels certain that racial equality is on its way to America, any day now...
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POPnews - July 2nd

[In its typically melodramatic Victorian style, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper depicted the attack on US President James Garfield by Charles Guiteau, which occurred shortly after 9:30 AM on this day in 1881; here we see the stricken Chief Executive being supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine immediately following the shooting, which occurred at the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington, DC. In the background the assassin is shown being restrained by members of the public.]
310 CE - Miltiades was elected Pope to succeed Eusebius.

626 CE - Fearing assassination, Li Shimin ambushed and killed his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng during the Incident at Xuanwu Gate; the following September Shimin's father Li Yuan abdicated in his favour and Shimin became Emperor of China as Taizong of Tang.

706 CE - Chinese Emperor Zhongzong of Tang had the remains of his father Gaozong of Tang, his wife and recently-deceased ruling empress Wu Zetian, her son Li Xian, her grandson Li Chongrun, and granddaughter Li Xianhui all re-interred in a new tomb complex known as the Qianling Mausoleum, which is located outside the former Tang capital Chang'an, on Mount Liang in Shaanxi province, 85 km (53 miles) northwest of Xi'an.

963 CE - The Byzantine Army proclaimed Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.

1298 - The Battle of Göllheim was fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg near the German town of Worms.

1494 - Pope Julius II's Treaty of Tordesillas - which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal - was ratified by Spain.

1644 - The Battle of Marston Moor was fought during the First English Civil War between an army of Royalists commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle against Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester; the battle effectively ended the Siege of York.

1808 - Simon Fraser reached the Pacific Ocean near New Westminster - having left South Fort George in the interior of British Columbia with a party of 24 on May 28th and traveled along the river that would one day bear his name - on behalf of the North West Company.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque took over the slave ship La Amistad; 160 years later Steven Spielberg depicted these events in his film Amistad, in which Cinque was played with both grave determination and supreme hotness by Djimon Hounsou.

1878 - The Brighton Beach Line, connecting Prospect Park to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn by subway, opened; the route is now operated in New York City as the BMT Brighton Line.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shot and fatally wounded US President James Garfield, who eventually died in extreme agony - of a heart attack brought on by blood poisoning - on September 19th.

1890 - The US Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which called for the government to investigate and break up monopolies and cartels; although periodically altered over the ensuing years, it is the same law used to limit such crimes today.

1917 - The East St. Louis Riots ended with hundreds of whites marching into black neighbourhoods and setting fires, then cutting fire department hoses and shooting at those attempting to escape the flames.

1934 - The Night of the Long Knives ended with the death of Hitler's chief rival, Ernst Röhm.

1937 - Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight in a Lockheed L-10E Electra purchased by Purdue University, where Earhart was a member of the faculty. An earlier attempt, begun on March 17th in Los Angeles, was called off in Honolulu following its first leg, owing to various mechanical faults with the aircraft; a second attempt was more successful, taking them 35,000 km (22,000 miles) in the opposite direction. Taking off from Lae in New Guinea and bound for Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific, the pair's last known coordinates were off the Nukumanu Islands, about 1,300 km (800 miles) into the final 11,000 km (7,000 miles) of their flight...

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opened for business in Rogers, Arkansas, giving Satan a reason to smile.

1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunited to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1979 - The first US coin to honor a woman - the Susan B. Anthony dollar - was introduced; minted from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999, it was not a popular item, either because it depicted a rather dour looking woman or else because of the American fascination with the $1 bill. (After all, it's not easy to fill a stripper's g-string with coins.) The coin's reverse depicts the Apollo 11 moon mission. While Britain, Canada, and Australia have all replaced their smallest note with coins, Americans have been reluctant to embrace them - despite the preponderance of silver dollars and such which have been in circulation since 1794; currently, a program exists to honour all US Presidents with dollar coins, and perhaps these will prove a winner where similar coins honouring Eisenhower and Sacagawea have failed.

2008 - Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages - including Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell (three American military contractors employed by Northrop Grumman) and 11 Colombian military and police - were successfully rescued by the Colombian armed forces from their place of captivity in the jungles of Guaviare as part of Operation Jaque; not a single shot was fired.
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Happy Birthday Dan Aykroyd

He burst into the public consciousness in October 1975 as one of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players on Lorne Michaels' brainchild Saturday Night Live; so momentous and memorable was Dan Aykroyd's work as part of that ensemble over the next five years that a decidedly spotty subsequent career has scarcely blemished his sterling reputation...

Aykroyd's talents as a writer, performer, singer (ably demonstrated as part of The Blues Brothers alongside John Belushi) and especially as an impressionist* made him a standout in a cast of standouts; no less an esteemed personage than Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame, once said that Aykroyd's ability to write and act out characters flawlessly made him the only member of the SNL cast capable of having been a Python. High praise indeed...

The highlights of Aykroyd's post-SNL career include The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, Dragnet (which featured his spot-on Jack Webb impersonation), and Driving Miss Daisy; the widest possible variety of Dan Aykroyd's talents, though, can best be viewed on Saturday Night Live, the first five seasons of which are now available on DVD**.

*Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and Tom Snyder among the best of them.
**And aren't those three of the sweetest words in the English language?
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"Monster" by Fred Schneider

We have our birthday boy Fred Schneider to thank for this lovable bit of kitsch; featuring his bandmates Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson from The B-52's and the late, great Keith Haring. Plus Claymation!

Monster first appeared on Schneider's 1984 debut solo album Fred Schneider & the Shake Society, which was re-released in 1991.
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In Memoriam: Princess Diana

I was there at Expo '86 in Vancouver the day she so famously fainted. I saw the sleeve of her red coat and the tilt of her matching hat through glass, and as her car sped past me away from the Saskatchewan pavilion I knelt, but her eyes were as usual averted.

Three seconds at most under a gray sky, the most commonplace of events rendered magical by the presence of a real live angel...

Today, of course, would have been her birthday but for the tragic accident that took her too soon - the ideal time to reminisce about the miracle that brought her into our lives at all.
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Happy Birthday Pamela Anderson

Not only did I buy both Stripperella and Stacked on DVD, I also watched them until I'd memorized them; likewise the now-legendary Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson, which is easily one of the funniest things I've ever seen, and whose insistent barrage of profanity-laden insults I have since frequently co-opted for my personal use - but only against those who really had it coming to them...

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with her; maybe it's because I wasn't allowed to have Barbies when I was a kid. But what I do know is, some people are born to be naked and she's one of them; Bravo Pam, I say, for not being afraid to make a big tit of yourself, especially given what made you so big in the first place.

I'm convinced that if she'd stayed in Ladysmith she'd have lived the same life she does now, just on a smaller scale; being traded like hockey cards between tattooed jerks with big dicks, making amateur porn, and generally bringing light into any dark corners she finds. Instead, fame found her and she gets to do those things for the edification and delight of all of us. It's impossible to hate anyone who's kind to animals, but even Saint Francis of Assisi would have bitch-slapped such high-profile douchebags as Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, and Rick Salomon; this woman not only had the compassion to take them in she even had sex with them. She makes me proud to be Canadian.

O Pamela we stand on guard for thee...
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Happy Canada Day | Bonne Fete du Canada

On this day in 1867 the British colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick joined together with the Province of Canada in an effort to form an even more perfect union - in the British style - than the failed experiment to the south, which derailed early on with all kinds of wacko ideas about 'no taxation without representation' and such clearly unworkable concepts as 'all men are created equal'. I mean, what were they thinking?

That the tiny country created by legislation on that day would one day span North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic - 'from sea to sea to sea' as we are so fond of smugly uttering - would one day evolve into a place simultaneously as dull as bourgeois dishwater and yet be such a threat to its nearest neighbour to earn itself the epithet 'Soviet Canuckistan' would have scarcely seemed possible to the dour frock-coated fathers of our Confederation.
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POPnews - July 1st

[Today, in honour of Canada Day, an all-Canadian POPnews...]
1867 - Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia formed the Canadian Confederation when the British North America Act (1867) took effect.

1873 - Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation.

1878 - Canada joined the Universal Postal Union.

1881 - The world's first international telephone call took place between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and Calais, Maine, apparently.

1885 - The United States terminated its reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada, apparently.

1890 - Canada and Bermuda were linked via telegraph cable, apparently.

1933 - The Parliament of Canada suspended Chinese immigration, apparently.

1935 - RCMP and police in Regina, Saskatchewan, clashed with the unemployed during the On-to-Ottawa-Trek; despite involving upwards of 2,000 people the ensuing Regina Riot amazingly only killed one police officer and one protester, who died later in hospital.

1958 - CBC-TV began broadcasting coast-to-coast-to-coast via microwave, apparently.

1966 - The first transmission of colour television was sent from Toronto, apparently.

1980 - O Canada became Canada's official national anthem.
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In Memoriam: Lena Horne

Her career began at the fabled Cotton Club in Harlem, when she was just 16, which is remarkable enough; it's only when one considers that the year was 1933, and her debut was with none other than the Duke Ellington Orchestra, that one gets a truer picture of the awesome scope of the lady's talent even at its outset...

Lena Horne's movie debut came in 1938, in one of a series of so-called race movies* called The Duke is Tops (later retitled The Bronze Venus to capitalize on Horne's burgeoning fame); soon enough the studios came calling, and Horne signed with Metro Goldwyn Mayer, then the most prestigious dream factory in the world. Her MGM debut was in the 1942 film Panama Hattie, but her fame really exploded the following year when she starred in Stormy Weather, for which she sang the title song.

Horne's career - which could have been far more brilliant even than it was - was marred by the virulent racism of her times; often she would be featured in a film in such a way that when the film was exhibited in the South her part could be excised. In the cities of the north her appearances onscreen would be greeted by rapturous applause, while in the South she remained virtually unknown outside of black communities, due entirely to the colour of her skin.

Tired of shabby treatment at the hands of Hollywood, latterly Lena Horne was better known as a cabaret singer and recording artist. She turned her considerable fame and charisma towards making a difference in the world, by fervently embracing the civil rights movement. Currently she is retired, and no longer makes public appearances; Miss Horne's last foray into the wider world was her condemnation of Janet Jackson following Nipplegate. Jackson had originally been set to play Horne in a long-planned biopic, an idea nixed by the lady herself following the imbroglio.

A one-woman show in 1981 - Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music - still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance by a female in Broadway history.  Today would have been Miss Horne's 93rd birthday, years in which she survived and even thrived in both the recording industry and in films despite the usual pitfalls; she died in May 2010, having overcome everything else...

*In much the same way Jim Crow laws segregated blacks and whites in public spaces, the entertainment industry - especially movies and music - likewise produced 'high-minded' art for whites and far more entertaining, slightly risque, material entirely (and only) for the black market.
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POPnews - June 30th

[Blondin's feats of derring-do were the ideal combination of athleticism and showmanship, and garnered him massive publicity, especially considering that he did them all in the century before the advent of mass media; such a jambon was the talented Frenchman that he attempted the 335 m (1100 feet) crossing not once but several times that day - blindfolded, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying his manager Harry Colcord on his back, even going so far as to once sit down midway to cook and eat an omelette! - and all of it 50 m (160 feet) above the roaring water and billowing mist of the falls.]
350 CE - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, was defeated and killed in Rome by general Marcellinus, leader of troops loyal to another usurper named Magnentius.

1559 - France's King Henri II was seriously injured in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery at the Place des Vosges in celebration of both the Peace Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis as well as the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth of Valois to Spain's King Philip II; while the French King later died from the splinter that penetrated his eye, de Montgomery was himself beheaded - not because of the jousting mishap but as a result of his having gotten caught up in the French Wars of Religion.

1805 - The US Congress organized the Michigan Territory.

1859 - French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1860 - A debate on evolution took place at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in reaction to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which had been published seven months earlier.

1864 - US President Abraham Lincoln granted the Yosemite Valley to California for 'public use, resort and recreation' as a state park; the so-called Yosemite Grant would later bring about the Yosemite National Park.

1882 - Charles J. Guiteau was hanged for the assassination of President James Garfield.

1905 - Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced his theory of special relativity.

1906 - The US Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act largely in response to the publication of Upton Sinclair's muck-raking novel The Jungle - an eye-opening (and stomach-turning) exposé of the Chicago meat packing industry.

1908 - The Tunguska impact event occurred 5-10 kilometres (3-6 miles) above Siberia, levelling as many as 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles).

1912 - The Regina Cyclone hit the Saskatchewan capital, killing 28; it remains the deadliest tornado event in Canada's history...

1934 - During the so-called Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler ordered a violent purge of his political rivals, including Ernst Röhm; the operation was codenamed Kolibri - which is the German word for hummingbird.

1944 - The Battle of Cherbourg ended with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.

1956 - A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 (Flight 718) collided above Arizona's Grand Canyon, killing all 128 on board the two planes.

1968 - The creed Solemni hac liturgia was given by Pope Paul VI.

1971 - The crew of the Soviet Union's Soyuz 11 spacecraft - Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev - were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve.

1987 - The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the $1 coin, known as the Loonie.

2005 - Spain legalized same-sex marriage.

2007 - A car driven by Kafeel Ahmed crashed into Glasgow International Airport in Scotland, in what was believed to be a terrorist attack; the hero of the event was baggage handler John Smeaton, who not only assaulted the badly injured driver - Kafeel Ahmed, who later died of his burns - but rescued a couple of other bystanders from the damage caused by the crash. The passenger in the vehicle, Bilal Abdullah, was later arrested and was later sentenced to serve two concurrent life sentences.
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Pop History Moment: The Election of Isabel Perón

On this day in 1974 Isabel Perón was sworn in as interim President of Argentina during what would be the final illness of her husband, President Juan Perón, who died two days later.

As Argentina's 42nd President, Perón was the first non-royal female head of state in the Western Hemisphere; what should have been a promising and ground-breaking career lasted less than two years. Alas, despite their various physical similarities, she was no Evita; when she was finally removed from office, in disgrace, Argentina did not cry for her*. Following a bloodless coup in March 1976 she was succeeded by Jorge Videla, whose own dictatorial rule was coyly known as the National Reorganization Process.

After five years of house arrest in Argentina, Perón was exiled to Spain in 1981, where early in 2007 she was arrested on charges that she ordered the disappearance of one of her political foes, Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego in 1975. In the intervening years she'd returned to Argentina on occasion, and otherwise lived a low-key life in her adopted homeland.

The extradition hoped for, which would have returned Perón to Argentina to answer to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons for her alleged crimes, was denied in March 2008.

*Except, perhaps, tears of joy.
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POPnews - June 29th

[Every year Canada House is the site of London's largest Canada Day celebration, drawing thousands of revellers to Trafalgar Square to celebrate the culture of Britain's quiet, well-behaved Commonwealth offspring; unlike Australia - which has pretty thoroughly insinuated itself into the rich tapestry of English life in the tried-and-true manner of a middle child - Canada and Canadians whether in the Mother Country or on the world stage have been content to sit back and not draw too much attention to themselves...]

1149 - Raymond of Poitiers was defeated and killed by Nur ad-Din at the Battle of Inab.

1194 - Sverre was crowned King of Norway.

1252 - Denmark's King Abel was murdered by a wheelwright named Henner on Husum Bridge near Eiderstedt, following the shortest reign in that country's history; since his son Valdemar was being held prisoner by the Archbishop of Cologne at the time, Abel's brother would be crowned Christopher I at Lund Cathedral on Christmas Day.

1444 - Albania's national hero Skanderbeg defeated an Ottoman invasion force commanded by Ali Pasha at the Battle of Torvioll.

1613 - London's Globe Theatre burnt to the ground during a performance of William Shakespeare's play Henry VIII when a shot from a prop cannon set the thatched roof on fire.

1644 - England's King Charles I defeated a Parliamentarian detachment under Sir William Waller at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge - making it the last battle won by an English King on English soil.

1659 - The Russians, led by Prince Trubetskoy were defeated by the Ukrainian armies of Ivan Vyhovsky in the Battle of Konotop.

1888 - George Frideric Handel's Israel in Egypt became the first music ever recorded, when the oratorio was preserved on a wax cylinder at The Crystal Palace by Col. George Gouraud.

1914 - Jina Guseva attempted to assassinate Grigori Rasputin while he was on a visit to his Siberian home town of Pokrovskoye; Rasputin survived the knife attack, and history does not record what became of Guseva following her placement in an asylum for having committed it.

1925 - Canada House was opened, in London's Trafalgar Square, by King George V and Queen Mary.

1926 - Arthur Meighen (shown, at right) returned to office as Prime Minister of Canada; unlike his first term, which lasted a comparably lengthy 17 months between July 1920 and December 1921, this second term would not last twelve weeks*, at which time the fragile Conservative-Unionist coalition assembled by his predecessor Sir Robert Borden would topple before the mighty Liberal Party and its indefatigable leader, Mackenzie King.

*In addition to owning the historical footnote of Canada's shortest-serving head of government, Meighen was also the first Prime Minister to serve as a Member of Parliament from Manitoba.

1928 - The Outerbridge Crossing and Goethals Bridge in the New York City borough of Staten Island both opened.

1956 - The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially creating America's Interstate Highway System.

1967 - Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield died when when the car in which she was a passenger struck the rear of a tanker truck on US Highway 90 outside New Orleans...  Also killed was her driver, Ronnie Harrison; her three children - Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska, who were passengers in the back seat of the 1966 Buick Electra 225 belonging to Mansfield's latest employer, supper club impresario Gus Stevens - were uninjured.  Mansfield, on the other hand, was scalped* as part of a massive head injury caused when the front end of the vehicle went under the truck.

*Not decapitated, as legend would have it.

1976 - The Seychelles became independent from the United Kingdom.

1995 - During NASA's STS-71 space shuttle mission Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.

2001 - The British government announced that a £3.6m memorial fountain - designed by Kathryn Gustafson and dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales - would be placed in London's Hyde Park; it was opened by HM The Queen in July 2006.

2006 - The US Supreme Court ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violated US and international law.

2007 - Apple Inc. released the iPhone for the United States market, resulting in the widespread tizzification of Apple acolytes everywhere.
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