Strange BUT TRUE

• It was vice president Adlai Stevenson who made the following sage observation: “All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.”

• We’re in no danger of it happening these days, but once, in April of 1930, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that there was no news that day. Instead of an announcer reading reports, they played soothing piano music instead.

• According to pollsters, during the year 2016, both head lice and cockroaches were more popular than the U.S. Congress.

• Before he became the beloved novelist Americans know and love, a 15-year-old Jack London worked in a pickle factory earning 10 cents an hour. Desperate to get out of the closed-in, steamy cannery, he decided to join the ranks of an entirely different profession: oyster pirates. Pacific coast oyster beds that had been accessible to the public had recently been turned into private oyster farms, off limits to the working-class fishermen who had relied on them. This created an underclass of pirates who would fill bags with oysters under cover of night — and London, who borrowed the money to buy a sloop called the “Razzle Dazzle,” quickly became one of the best. His prowess and daring earned him the nickname “Prince of the Oyster Pirates.”

• You may not realize it, but if you’ve ever spent a winter in the northern climes, you’ve probably made a sitzmark (or at least seen one). That’s the mark made when someone falls backward into the snow — like a snow angel.

• If you live in or travel frequently to Las Vegas, keep in mind that in that city, it’s against the law for a man with a mustache to kiss a woman.

Thought for the Day:

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.” — Chinua Achebe