HISTORY: DUKE UNIVERSITY

The black architect Julian Francis Abele (1881-1950) designed Duke University. However, racism kept him from being invited to the campus--during and after construction. The university's white administrators did not want others to know that a black person designed the campus. A cousin, Julian Abele Cook, later designed Howard University. [Source: American Legacy magazine, Fall 2003, Volume 9, Number 3]

THE REAL DIGGITY DOGGONE DIGGITY: STRANGE ACTUAL WORDS & EVENTS

Talk about strange animal behavior. Cheyenne, some acquaintances' hyperactive Dachshund pup who is not the one pictured, will lick you directly on your mouth and also tongue your nostrils.

THE REAL DIGGITY DOGGONE DIGGITY: STRANGE ACTUAL WORDS & EVENTS

A female friend recently told me of an HIV-positive male friend of hers who recurrently shows signs of advanced AIDS such as the flat or raised red or purple lesions caused by the cancer Kaposi's sarcoma (or KS). However, she says he is not ill, and these lesions which appear on his face eventually disappear. The picture above is among the less gruesome ones I've seen of someone with KS, which can make light skin resemble pepperoni pizza. The woman and her friend are African-American. I don't know and didn't ask whether he is light- or dark-skinned.

THE SECRET SERVICE

Ironically, it was the first U.S. president to be assassinated, Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Secret Service into existence in early 1865. The Secret Service formed on July 5, 1865, after Lincoln's death. Its original function was to investigate counterfeiting, opium smuggling, extortion, racketeering and other cases assigned as needed. Under presidents in the late 1800s and 1900s Secret Service agents also investigated wartime espionage, land fraud and government corruption in application of the Homestead Act. Eventually these agents were transferred to the Department of Justice to form the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), assuming duties previously assigned to the Secret Service. The Secret Service finally assumed the duty of protecting the president in 1901. However, Congress did not vote for funding of this role until 1906 and make it permanent until 1951, after the assassination of three U.S. presidents: Lincoln (on April 14, 1865), James Garfield (who was shot on July 2, 1881 but died from related infection and internal bleeding on September 19, 1881) and William McKinley (in September 1901). Seeking to interact with their supporters and to maintain confidentiality in interactions with certain contacts and advisors U.S. presidents have on occasion ordered Secret Service agents to back off. The tragic results of this have been the assassinations of McKinley in 1901 and John F. Kennedy, in Dallas on November 22, 1963. JFK had ordered Secret Service agents away from the corners of his car in that infamous Dallas motorcade. [Source: It Seemed Like A Good Idea ... A Compendium of Great Historical Fiascoes, http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/, http://www.secretservice.gov/history.shtml]