The Great Appalachian Storm 1950

 November 25th

ON THIS DAY in North Carolina history…

1950:

Meteorologists call it an extra-tropical cyclone--for all intents and purposes, a hurricane that forms outside the tropics. Across the North Carolina mountains, indeed across the whole state, they had another name for it: The Great Appalachian Storm. The name is a misnomer, as the storm affects most of the eastern United States.

On Thanksgiving evening, November 23rd, just as many families are washing dishes and napping off the holiday turkey, snow begins to fall in parts of North Carolina and across the eastern United States. The more substantial precipitation is toward the mountains. A low-pressure system is forming over our state at the same time. The low deepens on November 24th. Over the next 24 hours, ON THIS DAY, the storm becomes a "bomb"–another meteorological term meaning a cyclone that experiences the sudden and extreme deepening of atmospheric pressure. The snow keeps falling, everywhere from East Tennessee to Ontario and across most of New England. Residents are stunned by the blanketing barrage. The wind and the snowfall combine to form blizzard conditions across the mountains. Movement is impossible, as the wind gusts over 90 mph and snowfall amounts climb to a staggering 44 inches. On top of the wind and snow is the terrible cold. Record lows for November are broken across the state from Asheville (-5˚F) to Wilmington (6˚F). In Tennessee, all-time record lows for November are set at Chattanooga (4˚F), Knoxville (5˚F), Memphis (9˚F), and Nashville (-1˚F).

The hurricane-force winds cause considerable damage. A University of Connecticut dormitory loses its entire roof. The Michigan-Ohio State football game at Columbus, Ohio, goes on as scheduled. Because of the severe winter conditions, including snow and wind, the normal playing of the game is dramatically altered. Michigan wins the game 9–3, despite never getting a first down and failing on all nine pass attempts. The teams punt 45 times, sometimes on first down. The strategy was based on the weather. Both sides felt it better to have the ball in the hands of their opponents near the end zone and hope for a fumble of the slippery ball.

In the aftermath, the National Guard is forced to use jeeps to distribute food, and the Army uses tanks to clear roads. U.S. insurance companies pay more money out to their policyholders for damage resulting from this cyclone than for any other previous storm or hurricane. The cyclone is also the highest-ranking winter storm on the Regional Snowfall Index with a maximum value of 32.31, and one of only sixteen storms to rank as a Category 5 on the scale. Incredibly, there are few accurate reports of snowfall amounts. In most places, the yardsticks simply disappear into the snow.

~Kevin E. Spencer, Author, North Carolina Expatriates

1950o finding the car

The Great Appalachian storm 1950

Ohio State lost to U Michigan in constant snow

Spinoza Nov. 24 birth anniversary

 It's the birthday of the mathematician and philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, born in Amsterdam (1632-1677). He came from a family of Portuguese Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity by the Spanish Inquisition. His father found refuge in Amsterdam, where there was a vibrant community of Jewish merchants and intellectuals.

Spinoza was a brilliant scholar, but he got himself excommunicated from the Jewish community for questioning the existence of miracles. So, he supported himself making lenses for spectacles, telescopes, and microscopes. In his spare time, he studied mathematics, philosophy, and theology and began to write. He was offered a professorship in Germany near the end of his life, but he turned it down because he thought it would take up too much time.

He published only three books in his lifetime, and only his first book, Principles of the Philosophy of Rene Descartes (1663), named him as the author. He was afraid that if he published his ideas, he would be branded a heretic by both Jews and Christians. But after his death, his friends secretly published most of his writings.

His most important idea was that everything in the universe is made of a single substance, and that everything in the universe is subject to natural laws. He also argued that the soul and the body are not really separate, but two parts of the same thing. He believed that God did not stand outside the universe, but rather that the universe itself was God, and that everything in the universe was perfect and divine.

Writer's Almanac 2023

Old house restored

For Tuesday's Treasures...

I share from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation's post on Facebook: 

"For #TransformationTuesday we are taking a look back at the Cabaniss House, a vernacular example of Jeffersonian Classicism in Jones County and possibly the only remaining house of its form in Georgia. The historic house was built c. 1805 by George Cabaniss, who was born in 1744 and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. During the War of 1812, the front yard was used by the Georgia Militia as a drill ground. Cabaniss’ granddaughter, Dr. Palacia Wilson Stewart, was one of the first female doctors in Georgia.

The Georgia Trust stabilized and restored the exterior of the Cabaniss House in 1999, and in 2006, the house was sold to a preservation-minded buyer through the Trust’s Revolving Fund.

Today the Trust retains a preservation easement on the property, protecting it in perpetuity from inappropriate alterations or development.

Location of Jones County, Georgia

65 days at sea

On Nov 21 in 1620  the pilgrims landed in what is now Provincetown, on Cape Cod. The 102 passengers had been onboard the Mayflower for 65 days.

That's the Mayflower.

President Joe Biden's birthday (second edition)

 

"Our greatest strength is the power of our example, not just the example of our power."

-Joe Biden, 46th US President (b. 20 Nov 1942)

As President Biden fights cancer these days in his retirement years, he continues to be an example of a leader who cares for all the people of the United States.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. , (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. Ideologically a moderate member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden moved with his family to Delaware in 1953. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and to the U.S. Senate in 1972. As a senator, Biden drafted and led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. He also oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. In 2008, Obama chose Biden as his running mate, and Biden was a close counselor to Obama during his two terms as vice president. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Biden is the second Catholic president in U.S. history (after John F. Kennedy), and his politics have been widely described as profoundly influenced by Catholic social teaching.

Taking office at age 78, Biden was the oldest president in U.S. history, the first to have a female vice president, and the first from Delaware. In 2021, he signed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its related recession. Biden proposed the Build Back Better Act, which failed in Congress, but aspects of which were incorporated into the Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law in 2022. 

Biden also signed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which focused on manufacturing, appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and worked with congressional Republicans to prevent a first-ever national default by negotiating a deal to raise the debt ceiling. 

In foreign policy, Biden restored America's membership in the Paris Agreement. He oversaw the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that ended the war in Afghanistan, during which the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. Biden has responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing civilian and military aid to Ukraine. During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Biden announced American military support for Israel, and condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism. In April 2023, he announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2024 presidential election.

On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after Biden was elected senator, his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged 3) and Hunter (aged 2) were taken to the hospital in fair condition, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries. Biden considered resigning to care for them, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to. The accident filled Biden with anger and religious doubt. He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him^] and he had trouble focusing on work.

Biden met the teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs in 1975 on a blind date. They married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977.They spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic. Biden credits her with the renewal of his interest in politics and life. 

Biden is Roman Catholic and attends Mass with his wife, Jill, at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware. Their daughter, Ashley Biden, is a social worker, and is married to physician Howard Krein. Beau Biden became an Army Judge Advocate in Iraq and later Delaware Attorney General before dying of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter Biden worked as a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser; his business dealings and personal life came under significant scrutiny during his father's presidency.

In February 1988, after several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden underwent surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a serious complication. After a second aneurysm was surgically repaired in May, Biden's recuperation kept him away from the Senate for seven months.

President Joe Biden:

Joe Biden's tenure as the 46th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2021.^[1][2] Biden, a member of the Democratic Party who previously served as vice president for two terms under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, took office after his victory in the 2020 presidential election over the incumbent president, Donald Trump of the Republican Party. Upon his inauguration, he became the oldest president in American history, breaking the record set by Ronald Reagan.^[3] Biden entered office amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic crisis, and increased political polarization.^[4] He withdrew his bid for a second term in the 2024 presidential election due to low popularity and concerns over his age and health.^[5] He is to be succeeded by Trump in January 2025, who won the aforementioned election.

Day one actions of his presidency included restoring U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and halting funding for Trump's border wall.^[6] On his second day, he issued a series of executive orders to reduce the impact of COVID-19, including invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, and set an early goal of achieving one hundred million COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States in his first 100 days.^[7] The first major legislation signed into law by Biden was the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that temporarily established expanded unemployment insurance and sent $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans in response to continued economic pressure from COVID-19.^[8] He signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a ten-year plan brokered by Biden alongside Democrats and Republicans in Congress to invest in American roads, bridges, public transit, ports and broadband access.^[9]

Biden proposed a significant expansion of the U.S. social safety net through the Build Back Better Act, but those efforts, along with voting rights legislation, failed in Congress. In August 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a domestic appropriations bill that included some of the provisions of the Build Back Better Act after the entire bill failed to pass. It included significant federal investment in climate and domestic clean energy production, tax credits for solar panels, electric cars and other home energy programs as well as a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, an insulin price cap, and a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. In late 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and codified same-sex and interracial marriage in the United States. Other domestic legislation signed during his term included the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major federal gun control law in nearly three decades;^[10] the CHIPS and Science Act, bolstering the semiconductor and manufacturing industry; the Honoring our PACT Act, expanding health care for US veterans; the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act; and the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, making Juneteenth a federal holiday in the United States. He appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court—the first Black woman to serve on the court. In response to the debt-ceiling crisis of 2023, Biden negotiated and signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which restrains federal spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, implements minor changes to SNAP and TANF, includes energy permitting reform, claws back some IRS funding and unspent money for COVID-19, and suspends the debt ceiling to January 1, 2025.^[11] He established the American Climate Corps and created the first ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. On September 26, 2023, Biden visited a United Auto Workers picket line during the 2023 United Auto Workers strike, making him the first US president to visit one. Biden also rigorously enforced antitrust laws by appointing Lina Khan to head the FTC.^[12]

The foreign policy goal of the Biden administration is to restore the US to a "position of trusted leadership" among global democracies in order to address the challenges posed by Russia and China. Biden signed AUKUS, an international security alliance together with Australia and the United Kingdom. He supported the expansion of NATO with the additions of Finland and Sweden. Biden approved a raid which led to the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, and approved a drone strike which killed Ayman Al Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, declaring an end to nation-building efforts and shifting U.S. foreign policy toward strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia.^[13][14][15] However, during the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control, leading to Biden receiving bipartisan criticism. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia as well as providing Ukraine with over $100 billion in combined military, economic, and humanitarian aid.^[16][17] During the Israel–Hamas war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism and announced American military support for Israel; he also sent humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and brokered a four-day temporary pause and hostage exchange. Biden negotiated and oversaw the 2024 Ankara prisoner exchange, the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, involving the release of 26 individuals, including American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former United States Marine Paul Whelan.

Biden began his term with over 50% approval ratings; however, these fell significantly after the withdrawal from Afghanistan,^[18] and remained low as the country experienced high inflation and rising gas prices, even as they would eventually reduce over his presidency.^[19][20] His age and mental fitness remained a frequent subject of discussion throughout his presidency, ultimately culminating in his late decision to not seek re-election.^[21] Despite this, Biden oversaw the strongest economic recovery of any G7 nation post COVID-19 and one of the strongest economic recoveries in United States history, breaking a 70-year record for low unemployment,^[22] and the creation of over 16 million new jobs, the most of any single term president.^[23] Biden's political legacy is considered to be damaged by the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024, with Biden's unpopular tenure leading to support for his former opponent.^[24]

-----------

Joe Biden officially announced his candidacy for the nomination of the Democratic Party in the 2020 presidential election on April 25, 2019, having previously sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008, being unsuccessful both times.^[25] In June 2020, Biden clinched the nomination by winning a majority of the delegates to become the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party following the party's presidential primaries. Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, and they were officially nominated as the Democratic ticket at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Incumbent president Donald Trump ran for re-election for the Republican nomination, becoming the party's presumptive nominee in March 2020 after comfortably winning the primaries without facing any significant rivals. At the Republican National Convention in August 2020, he formally accepted the party's nomination with incumbent vice president Mike Pence as his running mate.

On November 7, four days after the election, Biden was projected to have won Pennsylvania (a flip from the previous presidential election), thereby receiving enough electoral votes to secure the presidency, becoming the president-elect of the United States. Biden won the presidential election with 306 electoral votes compared to Trump's 232. The Trump campaign launched at least 63 lawsuits against the results, especially in the battleground states  of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, raising unevidenced claims of widespread voter fraud that were subsequently dismissed by courts. The electoral votes were certified on January 6–7, 2021. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats retained a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and narrowly took control of the Senate, leaving the partisan balance in the Senate at 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with vice president Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote giving Democrats control of the chamber.

------------------

The 2024 Presidential Election:

On July 21, 2024, Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, announced his withdrawal from the 2024 United States presidential election.

Biden, a Democrat who had been elected president in 2020, stated on April 25, 2023 that he would run for re-election in 2024 with incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate. Biden went on to win an overwhelming majority of delegates in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries, where he easily defeated challengers such as Representative Dean Phillips and became the party's presumptive nominee.

Concerns about Biden's age and health had emerged during his presidency. These concerns increased following the June 2024 presidential debate between Biden and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump. Biden's debate performance was widely criticized; he lost his train of thought, had a faltering appearance, spoke with a hoarse voice, and failed to recall statistics or coherently express his opinion on several occasions. While he insisted that he would continue his campaign, Biden subsequently faced calls from fellow Democrats and from the editorial boards of major news outlets to withdraw from the race. By July 19, 2024, more than 30 senior Democrats had called for his withdrawal.

Biden ended his re-election bid on July 21, 2024, becoming the first incumbent president to end a re-election campaign before Election Day since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. After adding that he would continue serving as president until the conclusion of his term, Biden endorsed Harris for president. Harris received the Democratic presidential nomination and went on to lose the 2024 election to Trump.

--------------

According to a February 2024 poll, Biden's age and health were major or moderate concerns for 86% of voters generally up from 76% earlier in 2020. According to another 2024 poll, most of those who voted for Biden in 2020 said that they believed he was too old to be an effective president; The New York Times noted that these concerns "cut across generations, gender, race and education".

----------------

On July 21, 2024, Biden released a letter announcing the withdrawal of his presidential candidacy. In the letter, he wrote, "It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term". Biden thanked his supporters and set forth various areas in which he believed that the nation had made progress during his administration. He concluded, "I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America".

----------------

Joe Biden's Cancer Diagnosis

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. This diagnosis was announced in May 2025, and his Gleason score is 9, indicating a high-grade cancer with a potential for rapid progression.

Current Treatment Plan

Biden is currently undergoing a treatment plan that includes:

• Radiation Therapy: This treatment is expected to last for five weeks and is aimed at managing the cancer.

• Hormone Therapy: He is also receiving hormone treatment, which is common for hormone-sensitive cancers like his.

Prognosis and Survival

While metastatic prostate cancer is not curable, advancements in treatment have improved survival rates. Patients with hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer can live several years with appropriate therapy. Experts suggest that men whose prostate cancer has spread can live five to ten years or more, depending on various factors.

SOURCE: Wikipedia and gaurology.com