The James Logan Courier

From wikipedia:
Kenzaburō Ōe (born January 31, 1935) is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.

Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."

Ōe was born in Ōse, a village now in Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan. He was the third son of seven children. Ōe's grandmother taught him art and oral performance. His grandmother died in 1944, and later that year, Ōe's father died in the Pacific War. Ōe's mother took over his father's role as educator. The books she bought him - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils - left him with an impression Ōe says 'he will carry to the grave'.



Read an interview with Kenzaburō Ōe, free from the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

From wikipedia:
Roy David Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a precursor of bebop.

Eldridge was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and originally played drums, trumpet and tuba. He led bands from his early years, moving to St. Louis, and then to New York. He absorbed the influence of saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, setting himself the task of learning Hawkins 1926 solo on "The Stampede" in developing an equivalent trumpet style.

Read an interview with Roy Eldridge, free from the University of Michigan.

From wikipedia:
Muna Lee (January 29, 1895 – April 3, 1965) was an American author and poet who became widely known for her writings that promoted Pan-Americanism and Feminism.

Born in Raymond, Mississippi, Lee began her writing career as a well-known lyric poet. As a translator and advocate of Latin American literature, she made major contributions to the modern Pan-American literary tradition.

Read excerpts from A Pan-American Life, by Muna Lee, Jonathan Cohen, Aurora Levins Morales, free from googlebooks.com.

From wikipedia:
Nien Cheng (January 28, 1915 – November 2, 2009) was a Chinese American author who recounted her harrowing experiences of the Cultural Revolution in her memoir Life and Death in Shanghai.Born in Peking (Beijing), Cheng, in 1966, became a target of attack by Red Guards due to her management of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at Communist Party moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949. Her book documents her amazing courage and fortitude that enabled her to survive her imprisonment.

Read more about Nien Cheng, free from Blogspot.com.

From wikipedia:
Radhabinod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an Indian jurist. He was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during the second World War. Among all the judges of the tribunal, he was the only one who submitted a judgment which insisted all defendants were not guilty. The Yasukuni Shrine and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine has monuments specially dedicated to Justice Pal.

Justice Radhabinod Pal was born in 1886 in a small village called 'Salimpur' under 'Taragunia' union of 'Daulatpur' Upazilla of Kushtia District in India (present day Bangladesh).


Read a New York Times story about Radhabinod Pal.

From wikipedia:
Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. Popularly known as "Queen Bess", she was the first African American to become an airplane pilot, and the first American of any race or gender to hold an international pilot license.

Early years
Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children to sharecroppers, George and Susan Coleman. Her father was of part Cherokee ancestry. Coleman began school at the age of six and had to walk four miles each day to her all-black, one-room school. Despite sometimes lacking such materials as chalk and pencils, Coleman was an excellent student. She loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student. Coleman completed all eight grades of her one-room school. Every year, Coleman's routine of school, chores, and church was interrupted by the cotton harvest.

Read more about Bessie Coleman, free from centennialofflight.gov.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

We've seen classic first-person shooters get reissues with slightly sharper graphics and slightly modernized controls. But "Goldeneye 007" represents the first time a publisher has brought a cherished shooter through the nostalgia wall and fully into the present, and the result is an extraordinary mix of old and new that feels startlingly fresh.

For starters, let's be clear: This isn't a simple cleaning up of the classic Nintendo 64 game. The new "Goldeneye" is a new game that adds new layers to the storyline (now starring Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan), parlays those layers into new environments, and uses the old set pieces as inspiration for new mission designs rather than for purposes of copying and pasting. Modern amenities — destructible environments, regenerating health on lower difficulties, the customary visual improvements and all they bring — make their presence felt, but its the way the game spins revered levels into new experiences that shines brighter.

Pablo S. Antonio (January 25, 1902 – June 14, 1975) was a Filipino architect. A pioneer of modern Philippine architecture, he was recognized in some quarters as the foremost Filipino modernist architect of his time. He was conferred the rank and title of National Artist of the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1976.

Antonio was born in Binondo, Manila in 1902. He was orphaned by the age of 12, and had to work in the daytime in order to finish his high school education at night. He studied architecture at the University of Santo Tomas but dropped out of school in order to assist in the design and construction of the Legislative Building (now, the National Museum of the Philippines).

Read more about Pablo Antonio, free from Kaluh-doscope.blogspot.com.

From wikipedia:
Michio Kaku (born January 24, 1947) is an American physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, the co-founder of string field theory, a proponent of some fringe scientific theories, a "communicator" and "popularizer" of science. He has written several books on physics and related topics, has made frequent appearances on radio, television and film and writes extensive online blogs and articles.

Michio was born in San Jose, California to Japanese immigrant parents. His grandfather came to the United States to take part in the clean-up operation after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. His father was born in California but was educated in Japan, so spoke little English. Both his parents were put in the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, where they met and where his brother was born.

Visit Michio Kaku's website.

From wikipedia:
Saigō Takamori (Takanaga) (January 23, 1828 – September 24, 1877) was one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, living during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. He has been dubbed the last true samurai.[

Saigō Takamori was born on December 7 in the lunar calendar, on the tenth year of the Bunsei era (January 23, 1828), in Kagoshima in the Satsuma domain (present-day Kagoshima Prefecture). Saigō served as a low-ranking samurai official in his early career. He was recruited to travel to Edo in 1854 to assist Satsuma Daimyo Shimazu Nariakira in promoting reconciliation and closer ties between the Tokugawa shogunate and the Imperial court.

Read excerpts from The last samurai: the life and battles of Saigō Takamori, by Mark Ravina, free from Google Books.

From wikipedia:
Douglas Corrigan (January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator born in Galveston, Texas. He was nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland, though his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach. He claimed his unauthorized flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and low-light conditions, causing him to misread his compass. However, he was a skilled aircraft mechanic (he was one of the builders of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis) and had made several modifications to his own plane, preparing it for his transatlantic flight. He had been denied permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and his "navigational error" was seen as deliberate. Nevertheless, he never publicly admitted to having flown to Ireland intentionally.

Read more about Douglas Corrigan, free from centennialofflight.gov.

From wikipedia:
Soumitra Chatterjee (born 19 January 1935) is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.

Soumitra graduated from the University of Calcutta with honours in Bengali literature. He has lived for a number of years in Calcutta in Satyajit Ray's old apartment. He also studied for his M.A. examination in Bengali from the University of Calcutta. He worked in All India Radio before pursuing a career in films.

Read an interview with Soumitra Chatterjee, free from ibnlive.com.

From wikipedia:
Pedro Rodríguez (born Pedro Rodríguez de la Vega, 18 January 1940 – 11 July 1971) was a Mexican Grand Prix motor racing driver. He was born in Mexico City and was the older brother of Ricardo Rodríguez. The brothers both raced bicycles and motorcycles to become Mexican champions. Pedro was national champion in 1953 and 1954 in motorcycles. He made his international debut in cars at Nassau in 1957 in a Ferrari, along with Ricardo in a Porsche.

He was just eighteen when US Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti dispatched them to Le Mans at the wheel of a Ferrari 500 TR Testa Rossa. Ricardo did not drive due to age, so Pedro partnered José Behra, brother of Jean Behra. He came back every year to Le Mans, fourteen times in total, where he won in 1968 with Belgian driver Lucien Bianchi in a Ford GT40 of the Wyer–Gulf team.

Watch a brief interview with Pedro Rodriguez, free from YouTube.

From wikipedia:
Zhou Zuoren (16 January 1885-6 May 1967) was a Chinese writer, primarily known as an essayist and a translator. He was the younger brother of Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), the second of three brothers.

Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, he was educated at the Jiangnan Naval Academy as a teenager. Following the steps of his brother Lu Xun, he left for Japan to pursue his study in 1906. During his stint in Japan, he began studying Ancient Greek, with the aim of translating the Gospels into Classical Chinese, and attended lectures on Chinese philology by scholar-revolutionary Zhang Binglin at Rikkyo University. , although he was supposed to study civil engineering there. He returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, and began to teach in different institutions.

Read Requisites for the New Literature by Zhou Zuoren, translated by Kirk A. Denton, free from Ohio State University.

From wikipedia.com:
Marie-Fortunée Lafarge, née Capelle (January 15, 1816 - November 7, 1852) was a Frenchwoman who was convicted of murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning in 1840. Her case became notable because it was one of the first trials to be followed by the public through daily newspaper reports, and because she was the first person convicted largely on direct forensic toxicological evidence. However, questions about her guilt had divided French society to the extent that it is often compared to the better-known Dreyfus affair.

Read more about arsenic poisoning and the development of methods of detecting it, free from crimelibrary.com.

From wikipedia:
Carlos Peña Rómulo (14 January 1899, Camiling, Tarlac, Philippines – 15 December 1985, Manila, Philippines) was a Filipino diplomat, politician, soldier, journalist and author. He was a reporter at 16, a newspaper editor by the age of 20, and a publisher at 32. He is the co-founder of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines.

He graduated from the University of the Philippines, (BA) 1918; Columbia University, New York City, (MA), 1921, Received from Notre Dame University, Indiana, Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa), 1935; Rollins College, Florida, Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa), 1946; University of Athens, Greece, Doctor of Philosophy (Honoris Causa), 1948, University of the Philippines, Honorary Doctor of 'Laws, April 1949, Harvard University, Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa, 1950.

Read Carlos P. Romulo's "I am a Filipino," free from soulcast.com.

From wikipedia:
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (January 13, 1926 in East Orange, New Jersey – October 9, 2003 in New York City) was an American academic and prolific feminist author of both important academic studies and popular mystery novels under the pen name of Amanda Cross.

Heilbrun attended graduate school in English literature at Columbia University, receiving her M.A. in 1951 and Ph.D in 1959. Among her most important mentors were Columbia professors Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling, while Clifton Fadiman was an important inspiration: she wrote about these three in her final non-fiction work, When Men Were the Only Models We Had: My Teachers Barzun, Fadiman, Trilling (2002).

Read Remembering Carolyn Heilbrun: Feminist Scholarship and Suicide, by Pat Holt, free from FrugalFun.com.

From wikipedia:
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born Mahesh Prasad Varma (January 12, 1914 - February 5, 2008) developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader or "guru" of the TM movement, a "Neo-Hindu" new religious movement. Varma's given name was Mahesh, while Maharishi and yogi are honorifics.

He became a disciple and assistant of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, who was the Shankaracharya (spiritual leader) of Jyotirmath in the Indian Himalayas. The Maharishi credits Brahmananda Saraswati with inspiring his teachings. Beginning in 1955, the Maharishi began to introduce the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique and other related programs and initiatives to the world. His first global tour began in 1958.

Learn more about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation, free from www.maharishi.org.

From wikipedia:
Alfonso Arau (born January 11, 1932) is a Mexican actor and director.

Arau was born in Mexico City, the son of a doctor. He directed the films Zapata: The Dream of a Hero, Like Water for Chocolate (adapted from the novel written by his ex-wife Laura Esquivel), A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production A Painted House, adapted from the John Grisham novel of the same name. Among many roles in his career, Arau has played the chief bandit "El Guapo" in Three Amigos (USA, 1986), a comedy with Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Chevy Chase. He played "captain Herrera", a lieutenant of rebel "Mapache", in Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western, The Wild Bunch and the smuggler "Juan" in Romancing the Stone which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Arau appeared in the 1972 Mexican film El rincón de las vírgenes ("The Virgins' Corner"), where he played the assistant of a fake mystical doctor traveling from town to town, who reminisce about their travels, when a group of women decide to propose the doctor for sainthood. The movie was set in 1920s rural Mexico.

Read more about Alfonso Arau and Like Water for Chocolate, free from the Los Angeles Times.

From wikipedia:
Eva Kelly Bowring (January 9, 1892–January 8, 1985) was a U.S. Senator from Nebraska. Bowring was born in Nevada, Missouri. In 1928, she married Arthur Bowring. They made their home at the Bowring Ranch near Merriman in Cherry County, Nebraska.

Bowring was active in Republican politics in Nebraska. She was appointed to the United States Senate by Governor Robert B. Crosby to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Dwight Griswold, making her the first woman to represent Nebraska in the Senate. She served from April 16, 1954, to November 7, 1954.

Read about Eva Bowring's career in the U.S. Senate, free from Time magazine.

From wikipedia:
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992), best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director. He was the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award.

Ferrer was born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Maria Providencia Cintron and Rafael Ferrer, an attorney and writer. He studied in the Swiss boarding school Institut Le Rosey. In 1933, he graduated from Princeton University, where he wrote a senior thesis, French Naturalism and Pardo Bazán; he was also a member of the Princeton Triangle Club.

Read "On Being Mrs. Jose Ferrer," by Rosemary Clooney as told to Margaret Lee Runbeck for Good Housekeeping magazine, free from RosemaryClooney.com.

From wikipedia:
Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout (January 7, 1906–January 24, 2003) was an aviatrix (female-aviator) notable for her pioneering flying activities. Trout began her aviation career at the age of 16 however her first solo flight and solo certificate was only given on April 30, 1928. In the spring of 1928, Trout’s mother bought her an International K-6 biplane. Bobbi received her pilot's identification card from the United States Department of Commerce on September 1, 1928. She was the second woman to break the non-refueling endurance record for women when she flew 12 hours straight from California in 1929. The record was previously held by Viola Gentry and was the first record where Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) rules of the endurance record were revised stating that endurance records had to be broken by a full hour. Trout also participated in the Women's Air Derby of 1929 which was dubbed as the Powder Puff Derby. In 2001, she was recognized as the only living participant in the first Women's Air Derby of 1929. Evelyn got her nickname “Bobbi” when she copied the hairstyle of 1928 actress Irene Castle which was a short “Bob” haircut.

Learn more about Bobbi Trout, free from BobbiTrout.com.

From wikipedia:
Herbert Bayard Swope (January 5, 1882 - June 20, 1958) was a U.S. editor and journalist. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he was the younger brother of businessman Gerard Swope.

Swope spent most of his career at the New York World newspaper.

He was the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917 for a series of articles that year entitled "Inside the German Empire" The articles formed the basis for a book released in 1917 entitled Inside The German Empire: In The Third Year Of The War, which he wrote with James W. Gerard.

Read more about Herbert Bayard Swope, free from www.pokerplayernewspaper.com.

From wikipedia:
Malietoa Tanumafili II, GCMG, CBE, (4 January 1913 – 11 May 2007) (also called Susuga) was the Malietoa, the title of one of Samoa's four paramount chiefs, and the head of state, or O le Ao o le Malo, a position that he held for life, of Samoa from 1962 to 2007. He was co-chief of state in 1962 and became the sole head of state on 15 April 1963. At the time of his death, he was the oldest national leader in the world.

He was born in 1913 as the son and third child of his parents, Malietoa Tanumafili I and Momoe Lupeuluiva Meleisea. He became the Mālietoa in 1940 following his father's death in 1939.

Watch part of the state funeral for Malietoa Tanumafili II, free from YouTube.com.

From wikipedia:
Lucretia Coffin Mott (January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights. She is credited as the first American "feminist" in the early 1800s but was, more accurately, the initiator of women's political advocacy.

Read A Sermon to the Medical Students, an 1849 moral reform sermon in Philadelphia by Lucretia Mott, with antislavery content. Digitized by the Antislavery Literature Project.

Daisaku Ikeda ( born January 2, 1928) is president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Buddhist association which claims 12 million members in 192 countries and territories, and founder of several educational, cultural and research institutions.

Daisaku Ikeda was born the fifth son of seaweed farmers at Ōta, Tokyo. He had four older brothers, who fought in World War II, two younger brothers, and a sister. As a child, he suffered from poor health and later tuberculosis, and doctors predicted that he wouldn't survive beyond the age of 30. Ikeda's family endured the hardships of the war. In his youth, he lost his eldest brother Kiichi Ikeda (1916–1945) to World War II, which developed in him a strong opposition to war.

Read quotes and aphorisms by Daisaku Ikeda, free from ikedaquotes.org.

From wikipedia:
Mariano Azuela González (January 1, 1873 in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco – March 1, 1952 in Mexico City) was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism.

Azuela wrote many pieces including the newspaper piece "Impressions of a Student" in 1896, the novel Andrés Pérez, maderista in 1911, and Los de abajo, (or The Underdogs), in 1915.

Read The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela, free from pinkmonkey.com.