International Stuttering Awareness Day

The best way to celebrate this way is to read up on some talented and influential individuals who have had to deal with a stutter, and how much work they did to overcome it. If you’re in the mood for a movie, “The King’s Speech” is an Oscar-winning historical drama about King George VI of England and his speech and language therapist, Lionel Logue, who worked together tirelessly to finally beat his disability. If you have children, this day is the perfect time to talk to them a bit about the lives and struggles of thus and otherwise disabled classmates who struggle with their conditions every day. You can also consider making a donation to the International Stuttering Association to help them help those who can’t afford treatment improve their lives.

National Make a Dog’s Day

National Make A Dog’s Day on October 22nd provides an opportunity to give all dogs the best day of their lives. The day not only encourages visits to shelters, but it is also a reminder to animal lovers everywhere to adopt instead of shop for a new pet.

Approximately 3.3 million dogs enter shelters in the United States annually, many being relinquished by their owners. Worse still, approximately 35% of the animals that enter shelters are euthanized. While numbers continue to decline, the need for adoption continues to be overwhelming. One sure way to make a dog’s day is giving them a new, loving home through adoption.

Caps Lock Day

The best way to Celebrate Caps Lock Day is quite simple, don’t use caps lock! Even better, remind your friends on social media, MMO’s, and every other medium you can imagine about the horrid habit that is using Caps Lock in communications.

You can also start an ironic campaign of using CAPS LOCK all day to make a more blatant statement about how this makes other people look. Send your memes, poke your friends, let them all know that it’s time to embrace proper grammar.

**

On October 22, 1962, America was positioned to engage in a Third World War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR].

American intelligence had observed the Soviets supplying Cuba with weaponry; because the island-nation was only ninety miles from the U.S., missiles could be lobbed into its cities.

President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to keep Russian ships from reaching Cuba, and he called Russia’s actions a “clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace.” U.S. forces were then put on a DEFCON 2 watch, the highest military alert reached since World War II,

Nikita Khrushchev, meanwhile, the defiant first secretary of the USSR’s Communist Party, ordered the bulk of his ships carrying the nuclear hardware headed in the direction of Cuba to turn back. But one of them, the tanker, Bucharest, sailed on, – to confront the U.S. blockade. The aircraft carrier, USS Essex, and the destroyer, USS Gearing were sent to intercept it; as the tanker approached; the crew was ready to sink it, but President Kennedy gave the order to stand down, to deflect the risk a shooting war.

The U.S.S.R. continued its military buildup around Cuba, but eventually they agreed to cease, if America dismantled its missiles in Turkey. The U.S. agreed. This was the beginning—and the end—of the prelude to World War III.

The Grateful American recommends Thirteen Days/Ninety Miles: The Cuban Missile Crisis by Norman H. Finkelstein.