Posts Tagged Funny

Photo Credit: California State Parks

“A senator got up today in Congress and called his fellow senators sons of wild jackasses. Now, if you think the senators were hot, imagine how the jackasses must feel.”

- Will Rogers, American cowboy, humorist, social commentator and motion picture actor

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

”When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.”’

- President Theodore Roosevelt

There are many valid points made about “unplugging” oneself from various social media. While I am not on Facebook near as much as I use to be, I can’t say the same for Pinterest. However for History By Zim that is not always a bad thing…

Without it how could I come across this gem?

Woman as clocks. Photo Credit: Old Hollywood

A quick Google search stated that this 1930 photo was a dance segment in Cecil B. DeMille’s “Madam Satan” – I have not seen the movie so I can not discuss the reasoning behind the dancing clocks. But I did also find this:

Image Credit: Triple Canopy

You’re welcome.

Source: Modern Mechanix

In February 1938, a new invention was introduced to stop fire alarm pranksters. If a person went to “sound the alarm” they would have to insert their arm into a special compartment to activate the signal dial. Immediately after activating the alarm, the person’s arm was locked in the compartment until police or firemen arrived with a key. It was a good idea to catch pranksters, however, for obvious reasons, a bit flawed if there was an actual fire….

After a bit more research, it sounds like these fire boxes would sit outside of buildings, a more logical location than the alternative. Also the photo looks as if the trapping compartment came off the box so a person could walk away after initiating the signal wearing a rather bulking bracelet. Regardless of where it would be located or the specific mechanics, the firebox was not the best invention the world had ever seen nor was it the worst!

Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn (top left in the photo) was the first documented public figure photographed “giving the finger.”

Nicknamed “Old Hoss”, Radbourn was a pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball. A butcher by trade, Radbourn made his MLB debut in 1880 with the Buffalo Bisons. He then played for the Providence Grays (1881–1885), Boston Beaneaters (1886–1889), Boston Red Stockings (1890) and Cincinnati Reds (1891). Baseball was not his only claim to fame. In a 1886 photograph of the Boston Beaneaters (Radbourn was their pitcher) and their rivals, the New York Giants, Radbourn was photographed extending his middle finger to the camera, the earliest known photograph of a public figure using this gesture.

Baseball pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn pictured giving the finger to cameraman, 1886. (Back row, far left). First known photograph of the gesture. Photo Credit: 19th Century Baseball

Detail from 1886 Boston/New York team photo. The only pitcher in the history of major league baseball to win 60 games in a single season, Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn extends his middle finger towards the camera. Photo Credit: 19th Century Baseball

Also of interest: Radbourn and “Charley Horse”

Information and Photographs via 19th Century Baseball

(Source)

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

- Mae West, Actress

”If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

- President Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

Portrait by Allan Warren, 1986 (Source)

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.”

- George Burns, comedian, actor and writer

”My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”

- President Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States

“I declare open the Games of London, celebrating the 30^th Olympiad of the modern era.” If you watched the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic London Games you probably heard Queen Elizabeth utter those words.  If you, like me, are unsure what exactly an “Olympiad” is, look no farther.

After a quick Google search and a timely distraction by “Bored Queen” internet memes, I found the answer. Apparently an Olympiad is a set of four consecutive years in which the Olympic Games are counted by. So the 2008 Beijing Olympics would have been the 29^th Olympiad. The starting date in order to calculate the dates is 1896, when the first modern Olympiad took place.

Even the 6^th (1919), 12^th (1940) and 13^th (1944) Olympiads are counted even though the Olympic Games were cancelled due to World War I and World War II.

Also of note, the Olympiad is only used as a counter for the Summer Olympics, not the Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics, on the other hand, counts only the Games. For example, the 1940 and 1944 Winter Games were cancelled, like the Summer Games, because of the war. However, unlike the Summer Games, the 1940 and 1944 Winter Games are not counted. The 1936 Games were the 4^th Olympic Winter Games and the 1948 Games were the 5^th Olympic Winter Games.

[Zim’s Note: Since I already mentioned it, you might have heard about Queen Elizabeth receiving some flack because she appeared bored during the opening ceremony. There are now “Bored Queen” memes floating around the internet. Below are two of my favorites…]

*If the meme creator did a quick Google search they would have seen that they spelled Philip wrong...but it's still funny!

Internet Meme Source

”I am glad that the only person whose ratings fell more than mine last year is here tonight - great to see you, Jay Leno. I’m also glad that I’m speaking first, because we’ve all seen what happens when somebody takes the time slot after Leno’s.”

- President Barack Obama, at the 2010 White House Correspondents’ Dinner

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson took a break from White House duties for a ride with friends in his Amphicar. What’s an Amphicar?  Why, an amphibious car, of course.  In this photo, LBJ steers his land-to-water vehicle into a lake at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas.  4/11/65.

Bath in a ruined wood, Western Front, during World War I. This image of a British soldier curled up in the remains of a cast-iron bath in the middle of a devastated wood is typical of a range of ‘joke’ photographs taken by the war photographers. It is not clear if these were intended as artistic perceptions by the photographer, or if they were simply a record of a lighter side of war. The juxtaposition of banal and jokey images in a scene of war has been continued by war artists in more recent conflicts. A notable example would be John Keane’s Gulf War painting, ‘ Mickey Mouse at the Front’, painted in 1991.

John Keane’s “Mickey Mouse at the Front,” 1991

“A view along the beach at Kuwait City with blocks of hotels and beach defences lining the seafront in the background. In the foreground there is a shopping trolley filled with anti-tank rockets, the Kuwaiti flag, dead and damaged palm trees, and a Mickey Mouse model from a fairground ride. The beach is also covered in excrement.”

(National Library of Scotland; Imperial War Museums)

“Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.”

- President Bill Clinton

“Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.”

- President Lyndon Johnson