He who laughs on the way to the bank laughs best
The late, great entertainer Liberace had a favorite saying. "You know that bank I used to cry all the way to? I bought it." Donald Sterling isn't going to cry any tears over how his reign as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers will end, but he will laugh all the way to wherever it is he banks.
That's because he's managed to achieve two things in recent days. According to a poll conducted by E-Poll Market research, he is now the most disliked man in the United States. Bernie Madoff, disliked by 90% of the public had been the most disliked, but Sterling's dislike rating is now up to 92%, passing other luminaries such as Conrad Murray, O. J. Simpson and Justin Bieber.
He's also going to realize an incredible windfall from selling the Clippers for an unbelievable $2 billion. Prior to the video of his conversation with V. Stiviano becoming public knowledge, estimates of the value of the Clippers were in the range of $600 million to $750 million. Assuming the deal closes as it is being reported, that's an amazing inflation of the value of a sports team over such a short period; especially considering the team doesn't own the arena they play in.
Personally I think Steve Ballmer and company are making a mistake. The Time-Warner Cable deal with the Dodgers is a problem right now, and many fans are feeling disenfranchised because they can't watch the Dodgers without getting Time-Warner. TWC isn't getting the income stream they expected from the deal. There's already a Lakers cable channel and a Dodgers cable channel. Both are storied franchises whose history can fill some of the airtime when they aren't playing. The Clippers don't have that history and with several ESPN channels, CBS and NBC having sports network channels, the market is glutted. No one is going to tune into a Clippers channel to watch the weekly Buzkashi matches from Kabul.
Meanwhile, Donald and Shelly Sterling walk away with much more of a profit than anyone else thought possible. I'd estimated $1.5 billion as the best possible price they'd get and I was way off.
So a man is discovered to have said hateful things, goes on television and says more dumb and hateful things and his reward is hundreds of millions in extra profits.
What a wonderful nation we live in.
* * *
Thursday was a day that challenged me. They were serving tomato juice on the drink cart this morning. I love tomato juice. My plate, which contains tomato slices each morning so I can get the taste and texture of the juice without the gigantic quantity of sodium needed to preserve the juice was nowhere in sight. I had just weighed myself and was down 11 lbs since my ER visit from last Friday.
As I sat there, debating whether or not to have just one glass of my absolute favorite thing to drink, I focused on the notion that the reason I've managed to dump that water weight has been by eliminating as much sodium as possible. So I passed on the juice.
Tonight at dinner, I was with two former colleagues. People I admire, respect and love, and who I've known for more than 25 years. It was a wonderful reunion. We ate at a local deli, convenient to all of us. My order included a plate of pickles. I love pickles. I don't keep them in my home because they are so bad for me. My old boss, knowing of my illnesses and my need to keep my sodium down asked me if she should move them away from my reach. I told her not to.
She's not always going to be there when I'm faced with the choice to enjoy something that is detrimental to my health. And I know I will not be able to be perfect and make all of the "best" choices, every single time. In the end, I took one small bite from one pickle and left the rest on the table. That's a choice I think I can live with in several ways.
* * *
Thursday's news listening involved me catching someone (I can't remember who or which outlet) saying that Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki had promised to do "his best" to fix the problems facing the agency. As soon as I heard that, I thought of this:
In actuality it turned out that it was a member of Congress, pontificating about how veterans were entitled to the best health-care available and he was going to do his best to make it happen. The same message applies to him.
The other message that needs to be heard is that while General Shinseki has stepped down, his departure isn't the only one the VA needs in order to solve the long-term problems of the agency. I spent ten years in the military and it is very easy to see the parallels. Many of the key players in VA facilities are veterans of the military themselves. Many of them are hard-workers doing their best. Some are not.
ROAD or if you prefer, RSOAD are military acronyms you probably haven't heard before. Retired On Active Duty, or Retired Serving On Active Duty is an acronym for someone close to retirement on paper, who is already retired in their mind. They're still on active duty, still drawing full pay but not doing the work. I encountered this a number of times in my career and while I don't condone it, I understand how people can develop that mindset. That there are people who are ROAD while working at the VA is only one of the myriad of problems the agency faces.
Tying bonuses to wait times was an invitation for managers to game the system to ensure they collected those bonuses; especially when it became clear that the burgeoning demand for care was outstripping the slow increase in resources that added funding has created in very recent years.
Tuesday morning I was waiting for a prescription to be filled before I could go home. The out-patient pharmacy has a computer monitor that is supposed to show when a patient's prescription is ready for pickup. I watched and watched but my name never came up. Meanwhile I overheard people at the window saying they'd been waiting, their name hadn't appeared on the monitor, and lo and behold, their prescription had been ready for some time. "A glitch in the system" is how it was explained to me.
The clerk has a full view of the waiting room. When it became full and then overflowing with people waiting for prescriptions, it should have been obvious something was wrong. No one behind the glass paid any attention. They aren't paid to think. They're paid to do a task and they do the task. If the names don't show on the monitor, it isn't their fault. Or their responsibility.
That is a lack of accountability. A lack of owning the operation you are a part of. A lack of leadership. Whoever the supervisor of this very large pharmacy is didn't check to make sure the systems work. That's endemic at every level of the VA in terms of administration and management. Not patient care. I find the doctors and other healthcare providers to be extremely competent and focused on the care of their patients. The problems are in systems and management. The "fill the box and do no more" culture.
What the VA needs is managers and leaders who will demand more than just civil service, fill the box and no more from their employees. A patient standing at a clerk's window isn't an unneeded hassle, it's a problem to be solved. Solve the patient's problem. Passing them on to someone else who is equally uninterested in solving that patient's problem isn't the answer.
I've encountered managers and administrators of the fill the box and no more, and the do whatever it takes to solve the problem attitudes at the VA. The former is annoying and worse, dangerous. The latter is always a pleasant surprise.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Are Courtney Stodden's breasts each going to get a separate Twitter account?
Gwyneth Paltrow has no concept of what real war is like, or she'd understand what was so utterly wrong with her comparison of being trashed online to war. It's understandable I guess, very little of what is real penetrates the protective bubble in which she lives.
It's also fortunate for Ms Paltrow that Charlize Theron has stepped forward and said something even dumber than what Paltrow blathered. Ms Theron was talking about the intrusion of the media into her life and said, “when you start living in that world, and doing that, you start feeling, I guess, raped.” That is nowhere near rape, and the comparison is odious.
High schools have no business editing yearbook photos of their students. If they are worried kids will violate the school's dress code, have an administrator there when the photos are being taken and they can make a determination before the photo is shot. Send the student to change if they are in violation.
It is so sad to see Matt Kemp wasting his talents because he isn't motivated enough to use them to their fullest potential. Unless of course he's still injured and not letting on.
I love my work and treasure all my clients. But I have to admit, I love some of them more than others, particularly those who make me think, challenge me, and keep me fascinated by the work.
I wonder if Jean Kasem will show up in court in Seattle. (update - she did)
Looks like there won't be much chance of the moron who jumped the rope to hit Brad Pitt on the red carpet doing anything similar in the future. That's probably a good thing.
Shiela Kuehl's campaign mailer excerpting an L. A. Times editorial that endorsed one of her opponents isn't inaccurate, but it's misleading and downright dishonest. For that reason alone, she's unsuitable to serve.
* * *
May 30th in History:
70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres.
1381 – Beginning of the Peasants' Revolt in England.
1416 – The Council of Constance, called by Emperor Sigismund, a supporter of Antipope John XXIII, burns Jerome of Prague following a trial for heresy.
1431 – Hundred Years' War: in Rouen, France, the 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal. The Roman Catholic Church remembers this day as the celebration of Saint Joan of Arc.
1434 – Hussite Wars: Battle of Lipany – effectively ending the war, Utraquist forces led by Diviš Bořek of Miletínek defeat and almost annihilate Taborite forces led by Prokop the Great.
1510 – During the reign of the Zhengde Emperor, Ming Dynasty rebel leader Zhu Zhifan is defeated by commander Qiu Yue, ending the Prince of Anhua rebellion.
1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.
1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
1574 – Henry III becomes King of France.
1588 – The last ship of the Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.
1631 – Publication of Gazette de France, the first French newspaper.
1635 – Thirty Years' War: the Peace of Prague is signed.
1642 – From this date all honors granted by Charles I are retrospectively annulled by Parliament.
1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: War of the Sixth Coalition – the Treaty of Paris (1814) is signed returning French borders to their 1792 extent. Napoleon I is exiled to Elba.
1815 – The East Indiaman Arniston is wrecked during a storm at Waenhuiskrans, near Cape Agulhas, in present-day South Africa, with the loss of 372 lives.
1832 – End of the Hambach Festival in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
1832 – The Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario is opened.
1834 – Joaquim António de Aguiar issues a law extinguishing "all convents, monasteries, colleges, hospices and any other houses of the regular religious orders" in Portugal, earning him the nickname of "The Friar-Killer".
1842 – John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert.
1854 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time (by "Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic" John A. Logan's proclamation on May 5).
1876 – Ottoman sultan Abdülaziz is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murad V.
1883 – In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.
1899 – Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.
1913 – First Balkan War: the Treaty of London (1913), is signed ending the war. Albania becomes an independent nation.
1914 – The new, and then the largest, Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York, New York.
1917 – Alexander I becomes king of Greece.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..
1925 – May Thirtieth Movement: Shanghai Municipal Police Force shoot and kill 13 protesting workers.
1932 – The National Theatre of Greece is founded.
1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot and kill ten labor demonstrators.
1941 – World War II: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb the Athenian Acropolis and tear down the Nazi swastika.
1942 – World War II: 1000 British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.
1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon, within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
1958 – Memorial Day: the remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1959 – The Auckland Harbour Bridge, crossing the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, is officially opened by Governor-General Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham.
1961 – The long-time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
1963 – A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination during the Buddhist crisis is held outside South Vietnam's National Assembly, the first open demonstration during the eight-year rule of Ngo Dinh Diem.
1966 – The former Congolese Prime Minister, Évariste Kimba, and several other politicians are publicly executed in Kinshasa on the orders of President Joseph Mobutu.
1966 – Launch of Surveyor 1 the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.
1967 – The Nigerian Eastern Region declares independence as the Republic of Biafra, sparking a civil war.
1968 – Charles de Gaulle reappears publicly after his flight to Baden-Baden, Germany, and dissolves the French National Assembly by a radio appeal. Immediately after, less than one million of his supporters march on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This is the turning point of May 1968 events in France.
1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.
1972 – In Tel Aviv, Israel, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
1974 – The Airbus A300 passenger aircraft first enters service.
1989 – Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: the 33-foot high "Goddess of Democracy" statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
1998 – A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.
1998 – Nuclear Testing: Pakistan conducts an underground test in the Kharan Desert. It is reported to be a plutonium device with yield of 20kt.
2003 – Depayin massacre: at least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy are killed by government-sponsored mob in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi fled the scene, but is arrested soon afterwards.
2012 – Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.
Famous Folk Born on May 30th:
Alexander Nevsky
William McMurdo
Howard Hawks
Irving Thalberg
Cornelia Skinner
Stepin Fetchit
Mel Blanc
(he was a regular at my grandfather's bar/restaurant and he always did voices for us)
Benny Goodman
Ralph Metcalfe
Bob Evans
Christine Jorgensen
Clint Walker
Ruta Lee
Gale Sayers
Meredith McRae
P. J. Carlesimo
Colm Meaney
Jake "The Snake" Roberts
Ted McGinley
Kevin Eastman
Shauna Grant
Wynonna Judd
Cee Lo Green
That's because he's managed to achieve two things in recent days. According to a poll conducted by E-Poll Market research, he is now the most disliked man in the United States. Bernie Madoff, disliked by 90% of the public had been the most disliked, but Sterling's dislike rating is now up to 92%, passing other luminaries such as Conrad Murray, O. J. Simpson and Justin Bieber.
He's also going to realize an incredible windfall from selling the Clippers for an unbelievable $2 billion. Prior to the video of his conversation with V. Stiviano becoming public knowledge, estimates of the value of the Clippers were in the range of $600 million to $750 million. Assuming the deal closes as it is being reported, that's an amazing inflation of the value of a sports team over such a short period; especially considering the team doesn't own the arena they play in.
Personally I think Steve Ballmer and company are making a mistake. The Time-Warner Cable deal with the Dodgers is a problem right now, and many fans are feeling disenfranchised because they can't watch the Dodgers without getting Time-Warner. TWC isn't getting the income stream they expected from the deal. There's already a Lakers cable channel and a Dodgers cable channel. Both are storied franchises whose history can fill some of the airtime when they aren't playing. The Clippers don't have that history and with several ESPN channels, CBS and NBC having sports network channels, the market is glutted. No one is going to tune into a Clippers channel to watch the weekly Buzkashi matches from Kabul.
Meanwhile, Donald and Shelly Sterling walk away with much more of a profit than anyone else thought possible. I'd estimated $1.5 billion as the best possible price they'd get and I was way off.
So a man is discovered to have said hateful things, goes on television and says more dumb and hateful things and his reward is hundreds of millions in extra profits.
What a wonderful nation we live in.
* * *
Thursday was a day that challenged me. They were serving tomato juice on the drink cart this morning. I love tomato juice. My plate, which contains tomato slices each morning so I can get the taste and texture of the juice without the gigantic quantity of sodium needed to preserve the juice was nowhere in sight. I had just weighed myself and was down 11 lbs since my ER visit from last Friday.
As I sat there, debating whether or not to have just one glass of my absolute favorite thing to drink, I focused on the notion that the reason I've managed to dump that water weight has been by eliminating as much sodium as possible. So I passed on the juice.
Tonight at dinner, I was with two former colleagues. People I admire, respect and love, and who I've known for more than 25 years. It was a wonderful reunion. We ate at a local deli, convenient to all of us. My order included a plate of pickles. I love pickles. I don't keep them in my home because they are so bad for me. My old boss, knowing of my illnesses and my need to keep my sodium down asked me if she should move them away from my reach. I told her not to.
She's not always going to be there when I'm faced with the choice to enjoy something that is detrimental to my health. And I know I will not be able to be perfect and make all of the "best" choices, every single time. In the end, I took one small bite from one pickle and left the rest on the table. That's a choice I think I can live with in several ways.
* * *
Thursday's news listening involved me catching someone (I can't remember who or which outlet) saying that Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki had promised to do "his best" to fix the problems facing the agency. As soon as I heard that, I thought of this:
In actuality it turned out that it was a member of Congress, pontificating about how veterans were entitled to the best health-care available and he was going to do his best to make it happen. The same message applies to him.
The other message that needs to be heard is that while General Shinseki has stepped down, his departure isn't the only one the VA needs in order to solve the long-term problems of the agency. I spent ten years in the military and it is very easy to see the parallels. Many of the key players in VA facilities are veterans of the military themselves. Many of them are hard-workers doing their best. Some are not.
ROAD or if you prefer, RSOAD are military acronyms you probably haven't heard before. Retired On Active Duty, or Retired Serving On Active Duty is an acronym for someone close to retirement on paper, who is already retired in their mind. They're still on active duty, still drawing full pay but not doing the work. I encountered this a number of times in my career and while I don't condone it, I understand how people can develop that mindset. That there are people who are ROAD while working at the VA is only one of the myriad of problems the agency faces.
Tying bonuses to wait times was an invitation for managers to game the system to ensure they collected those bonuses; especially when it became clear that the burgeoning demand for care was outstripping the slow increase in resources that added funding has created in very recent years.
Tuesday morning I was waiting for a prescription to be filled before I could go home. The out-patient pharmacy has a computer monitor that is supposed to show when a patient's prescription is ready for pickup. I watched and watched but my name never came up. Meanwhile I overheard people at the window saying they'd been waiting, their name hadn't appeared on the monitor, and lo and behold, their prescription had been ready for some time. "A glitch in the system" is how it was explained to me.
The clerk has a full view of the waiting room. When it became full and then overflowing with people waiting for prescriptions, it should have been obvious something was wrong. No one behind the glass paid any attention. They aren't paid to think. They're paid to do a task and they do the task. If the names don't show on the monitor, it isn't their fault. Or their responsibility.
That is a lack of accountability. A lack of owning the operation you are a part of. A lack of leadership. Whoever the supervisor of this very large pharmacy is didn't check to make sure the systems work. That's endemic at every level of the VA in terms of administration and management. Not patient care. I find the doctors and other healthcare providers to be extremely competent and focused on the care of their patients. The problems are in systems and management. The "fill the box and do no more" culture.
What the VA needs is managers and leaders who will demand more than just civil service, fill the box and no more from their employees. A patient standing at a clerk's window isn't an unneeded hassle, it's a problem to be solved. Solve the patient's problem. Passing them on to someone else who is equally uninterested in solving that patient's problem isn't the answer.
I've encountered managers and administrators of the fill the box and no more, and the do whatever it takes to solve the problem attitudes at the VA. The former is annoying and worse, dangerous. The latter is always a pleasant surprise.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Are Courtney Stodden's breasts each going to get a separate Twitter account?
Gwyneth Paltrow has no concept of what real war is like, or she'd understand what was so utterly wrong with her comparison of being trashed online to war. It's understandable I guess, very little of what is real penetrates the protective bubble in which she lives.
It's also fortunate for Ms Paltrow that Charlize Theron has stepped forward and said something even dumber than what Paltrow blathered. Ms Theron was talking about the intrusion of the media into her life and said, “when you start living in that world, and doing that, you start feeling, I guess, raped.” That is nowhere near rape, and the comparison is odious.
High schools have no business editing yearbook photos of their students. If they are worried kids will violate the school's dress code, have an administrator there when the photos are being taken and they can make a determination before the photo is shot. Send the student to change if they are in violation.
It is so sad to see Matt Kemp wasting his talents because he isn't motivated enough to use them to their fullest potential. Unless of course he's still injured and not letting on.
I love my work and treasure all my clients. But I have to admit, I love some of them more than others, particularly those who make me think, challenge me, and keep me fascinated by the work.
I wonder if Jean Kasem will show up in court in Seattle. (update - she did)
Looks like there won't be much chance of the moron who jumped the rope to hit Brad Pitt on the red carpet doing anything similar in the future. That's probably a good thing.
Shiela Kuehl's campaign mailer excerpting an L. A. Times editorial that endorsed one of her opponents isn't inaccurate, but it's misleading and downright dishonest. For that reason alone, she's unsuitable to serve.
* * *
May 30th in History:
70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres.
1381 – Beginning of the Peasants' Revolt in England.
1416 – The Council of Constance, called by Emperor Sigismund, a supporter of Antipope John XXIII, burns Jerome of Prague following a trial for heresy.
1431 – Hundred Years' War: in Rouen, France, the 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal. The Roman Catholic Church remembers this day as the celebration of Saint Joan of Arc.
1434 – Hussite Wars: Battle of Lipany – effectively ending the war, Utraquist forces led by Diviš Bořek of Miletínek defeat and almost annihilate Taborite forces led by Prokop the Great.
1510 – During the reign of the Zhengde Emperor, Ming Dynasty rebel leader Zhu Zhifan is defeated by commander Qiu Yue, ending the Prince of Anhua rebellion.
1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.
1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
1574 – Henry III becomes King of France.
1588 – The last ship of the Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.
1631 – Publication of Gazette de France, the first French newspaper.
1635 – Thirty Years' War: the Peace of Prague is signed.
1642 – From this date all honors granted by Charles I are retrospectively annulled by Parliament.
1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: War of the Sixth Coalition – the Treaty of Paris (1814) is signed returning French borders to their 1792 extent. Napoleon I is exiled to Elba.
1815 – The East Indiaman Arniston is wrecked during a storm at Waenhuiskrans, near Cape Agulhas, in present-day South Africa, with the loss of 372 lives.
1832 – End of the Hambach Festival in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
1832 – The Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario is opened.
1834 – Joaquim António de Aguiar issues a law extinguishing "all convents, monasteries, colleges, hospices and any other houses of the regular religious orders" in Portugal, earning him the nickname of "The Friar-Killer".
1842 – John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert.
1854 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time (by "Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic" John A. Logan's proclamation on May 5).
1876 – Ottoman sultan Abdülaziz is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murad V.
1883 – In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.
1899 – Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.
1913 – First Balkan War: the Treaty of London (1913), is signed ending the war. Albania becomes an independent nation.
1914 – The new, and then the largest, Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York, New York.
1917 – Alexander I becomes king of Greece.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..
1925 – May Thirtieth Movement: Shanghai Municipal Police Force shoot and kill 13 protesting workers.
1932 – The National Theatre of Greece is founded.
1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot and kill ten labor demonstrators.
1941 – World War II: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb the Athenian Acropolis and tear down the Nazi swastika.
1942 – World War II: 1000 British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.
1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon, within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
1958 – Memorial Day: the remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1959 – The Auckland Harbour Bridge, crossing the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, is officially opened by Governor-General Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham.
1961 – The long-time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
1963 – A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination during the Buddhist crisis is held outside South Vietnam's National Assembly, the first open demonstration during the eight-year rule of Ngo Dinh Diem.
1966 – The former Congolese Prime Minister, Évariste Kimba, and several other politicians are publicly executed in Kinshasa on the orders of President Joseph Mobutu.
1966 – Launch of Surveyor 1 the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.
1967 – The Nigerian Eastern Region declares independence as the Republic of Biafra, sparking a civil war.
1968 – Charles de Gaulle reappears publicly after his flight to Baden-Baden, Germany, and dissolves the French National Assembly by a radio appeal. Immediately after, less than one million of his supporters march on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This is the turning point of May 1968 events in France.
1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.
1972 – In Tel Aviv, Israel, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
1974 – The Airbus A300 passenger aircraft first enters service.
1989 – Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: the 33-foot high "Goddess of Democracy" statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
1998 – A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000.
1998 – Nuclear Testing: Pakistan conducts an underground test in the Kharan Desert. It is reported to be a plutonium device with yield of 20kt.
2003 – Depayin massacre: at least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy are killed by government-sponsored mob in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi fled the scene, but is arrested soon afterwards.
2012 – Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.
Famous Folk Born on May 30th:
Alexander Nevsky
William McMurdo
Howard Hawks
Irving Thalberg
Cornelia Skinner
Stepin Fetchit
Mel Blanc
Benny Goodman
Ralph Metcalfe
Bob Evans
Christine Jorgensen
Clint Walker
Ruta Lee
Gale Sayers
Meredith McRae
P. J. Carlesimo
Colm Meaney
Jake "The Snake" Roberts
Ted McGinley
Kevin Eastman
Shauna Grant
Wynonna Judd
Cee Lo Green
posted by me at 1:18 PM
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