August 22, 2015 archive

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 22 is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 131 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1950, Althea Gibson became the first African American on the US Tennis Tour.

On this day in 1950, officials of the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) accept Althea Gibson into their annual championship at Forest Hills, New York, making her the first African-American player to compete in a U.S. national tennis competition.

Growing up in Harlem, the young Gibson was a natural athlete. She started playing tennis at the age of 14 and the very next year won her first tournament, the New York State girls’ championship, sponsored by the American Tennis Association (ATA), which was organized in 1916 by black players as an alternative to the exclusively white USLTA. After prominent doctors and tennis enthusiasts Hubert Eaton and R. Walter Johnson took Gibson under their wing, she won her first of what would be 10 straight ATA championships in 1947.

In 1949, Gibson attempted to gain entry into the USLTA’s National Grass Court Championships at Forest Hills, the precursor of the U.S. Open. When the USLTA failed to invite her to any qualifying tournaments, Alice Marble–a four-time winner at Forest Hills–wrote a letter on Gibson’s behalf to the editor of American Lawn Tennis magazine. Marble criticized the “bigotry” of her fellow USLTA members, suggesting that if Gibson posed a challenge to current tour players, “it’s only fair that they meet this challenge on the courts.” Gibson was subsequently invited to participate in a New Jersey qualifying event, where she earned a berth at Forest Hills.

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Though she once brushed off comparisons to Jackie Robinson, the trailblazing black baseball player, Gibson has been credited with paving the way for African-American tennis champions such as Arthur Ashe and, more recently, Venus and Serena Williams. After a long illness, she died in 2003 at the age of 76.

Ms. Gibson became the first African American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association  tour, in 1963, retiring in 1978.

Oath Keepers plan to arm 50 black Ferguson demonstrators with AR-15 rifles and dare cops to shoot

By Travis Gettys, 17 August 2015, Raw Story

The gun-loving Oath Keepers plan to arm 50 black demonstrators with AR-15 rifles in Ferguson, Missouri, and basically dare police to shoot them.

The leader of the group’s local chapter told Red Dirt Report that the event would likely be held before the end of this month to protest an order last week by law enforcement officers to Oath Keepers to put away their rifles while in city limits.

“Every person we talked to said if they carried they’d be shot by police,” said Sam Andrews, head of the Oath Keepers chapter in St. Louis County. “That’s the reason we’re going to hold this event, and it will be a legal demonstration. I’m sick and tired of law enforcement who doesn’t think they have to abide by the law. They’re narcissistic and that guy (the county police chief) discredited my men.”

He said other Oath Keepers members would surround the black demonstrators as protection.

What could possibly go wrong?

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

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Basil contains flavonoids that are believed to have some antioxidant properties; it’s an excellent source of vitamin K, and a very good source of iron, calcium and vitamin A.

Pots of Basil will also keep away flies although it is unclear why, possibly the fragrant oils. The oils have also shown to inhibit the growth of some pathogenic bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics.

Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking in Theory of Everything, will try to make it two in a row by portraying pioneer transgender woman Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl.