Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/25/2009

ASH WEDNESDAY
2/25/1979:
New York Islanders defenseman Denis Potvin lays a crunching body check on New York Rangers center iceman and leading scorer Ulf Nilsson during a game at Madison Square Garden. The jarring collision results in a broken right ankle for Nilsson, who gets his skate caught in the ice. Although no penalty is called on the play by referee Bruce Hood and the Rangers go on to win the game, 3-2, this incident remains indelibly etched in the framework of the Rangers-Islanders metropolitan area rivalry. From this day on, at every home game, Rangers fans begin whistling and then, on cue, serenade Potvin with a derisive chant, a unique tradition in professional sports.

Birthdays:
Monte Irvin b. 1919
Tony Lema b. 1934
Ron Santo b. 1940
Anders Hedberg b. 1951
Paul O'Neill b. 1963

Packers Fact:
Special teams accounted for all of the Packers' points in a 16-13 victory over the Eagles to start the 2007 season by scoring on 3 field goals and a fumble recovery in the end zone on punt coverage.

THE END OF THE WORLD AS THEY KNEW IT

The work of Hungarian writer Sándor Márai (born in 1900) earned the disapproval of both Nazis and Communists, and in 1948 he went into exile. He continued writing in Hungarian, was almost forgotten altogether, and finally committed suicide in 1989. In the ’90s, however, Márai was rediscovered in Hungary, and his readership has been growing ever since. Of his more than 60 works, The Rebels is the third to be translated into English. It’s the story of four adolescents in 1918 about to be shipped off to war as the Austro-Hungarian Empire declines and falls around them. Márai’s clear, evocative prose leaves the reader with much to ponder.

THE REBELS, by Sándor Márai; translated by George Szirtes (Knopf, 2007)

On Ehh? Whaddy Say, Jesus?

Thought for the Day: Luke 18:14: Jesus said, "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who mumbles himself will be exalted."

from the East Anglian (England) Daily Times

THE MEDICINE CABINET

AN ODD MEDICAL CONDITION

Since the late 1990s, more and more worker’s compensation claims have been filed for epicondylitis: painful inflammation of the muscles around the bone projections on either side of the elbow. How do people get it? According to doctors, from overuse of their cell phones. Cells allow people to be on the phone almost anywhere—in cars, restaurants, stadiums, basements, and even outdoors—and overuse has become common. As many people have now experienced, holding a phone to your ear for a prolonged period of time gives you “cell phone elbow.”

JAPAN PRODUCES MORE SOLAR POWER THAN ANY COUNTRY ON EARTH.

SULTAN QABOOS GRAND MOSQUE, MUSCAT CITY, OMAN

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”—SAMUEL JOHNSON