25-26 August 24

Today's pink and blue tie honors tomorrow's celebration (26 August) of Women's Equality Day. It commemorates the certification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which is often described as guaranteeing women the same right to vote as men. Technically the amendment only prevented states from excluding women from voting based solely on their sex. 

"While the 19th Amendment was ratified and signed into law in 1920, many women of color were still unable to exercise their right to vote. Though these women rallied alongside white suffragists, many women of color remained disenfranchised until the mid-20th century: Native American women (1924); Chinese American women (1943); and Japanese and other Asian American women (1952). As late as 1962, some states still prevented women of color from voting on contrived obstacles, such as literacy tests, poll taxes, voting ID requirements, intimidation and claims regarding the legitimacy of residence. It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 45 years after the enactment of the 19th Amendment, that Black women were able to exercise this right without restrictions."

26 August 21

 It's Women's Equality Day, celebrating the certification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on this date in 1920. Besides this tie I'm wearing a pink hair tie on my ponytail, and I have a pink face mask!

23 April 20

My tie blog takes a quantum leap today! This single entry is the smallest unit by which my records can "jump to the next level," so it is a good demonstration of a quantum, the fundamental concept in quantum mechanics (in physics).  In common usage it's fashionable to use "quantum leap" to refer to a major, revolutionary shift, but its fundamental reference is to the smallest allowed change. German physicist Max Planck (1858-1947) was born on this date. He suggested the "quantum hypothesis" in 1900 to explain some of the properties of light, where we observe that light energy is transmitted only in discrete bundles (at the ultramicroscopic level), not in a smooth, continuous stream. My tie illustrates that bundling with small blue and pink boxes all over the solid background. I'm including a diagram of the energy levels of the hydrogen atom -- knowledge developed after 1906 -- where the various downward arrows indicate the separate "jumps" electrons can take from "excited states" and the specific amount of energy that's released (as photons) for each path.

31 January 18

I chose my tie with tiny pink and blue boxes repeating over a solid pink background to celebrate the birthday of "minimalist" composer Philip Glass, who is now 81 years old. He prefers to describe himself as a "classicist" and as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." I suspect he enjoys the arithmetic of 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3, but I think he would want to embellish that string of characters with some font changes and some spectral colors. You can listen to an excerpt from his piano composition "Glassworks" here.

8 May 16

Happy Mother's Day! Beth chose this tie for today because the pink and blue colors stand for the daughters and sons in our wonderfully connected families!

25 November 14

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The group of world political leaders known as The Elders has produced a video about the sources of entrenched violence and what might be done to end it.

9 January 14

I last wore this pink tie on 9 July, as we waited for the birth of our granddaughter Mallie Kleppinger. Today she is 6 months old! (26 weeks and two days.) I'll get her into my blog photos again soon.

9 July 13

We are waiting, patiently, for the birth of our granddaughter today! So here's a bright pink tie, and my hair tie (on the back of my head) is also bright pink.

09 May 11

This is National Nursing Home Week. Almost every Sunday I visit with the residents of Telford Terrace, the personal care unit in the St. Andrews Community in Richmond, KY. They call my time with them their "church" because I read Bible stories and sing hymns for them; being with them helps me worship too. Nursing home visitation has a very long history in the Kleppinger family. My uncle Robert Kleppinger told me that he had been visiting one place (in Pennsylvania) for the last 18 years but stopped this January when he turned 90, because he thought it was time for some younger people to take over. I have no tie that's relevant to National Nursing Home Week, but this one is good because I like it and I haven't worn it for many months.

03 June 09

Today's birthday person is Amy Graham, one of our computer help desk associates, who has helped me with many Blackboard tasks and issues. I offered to wear the tie of her choice today!

21 April 08

Today marks the 82nd birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, whose official title is "Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." One Web site that keeps track of such things notes that there has not been a 'Queen of England' since 1603. It also says that the official celebration of her birthday arrives on the third Saturday of June.

We have a "birthday party bear" named Beth, so she's pretty excited about today. And of course my tie is tied with a full Windsor knot