January 13 - I hear the Hammer blowing, its rollin' 'round the bend

January 13, 1968 – Jonny Cash performs at Folsom State Prison in California, recording the live album “At Folsom Prison”, backed with June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three, Since his 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues", Cash had been interested in performing at a prison. His idea was put on hold until 1967, due to personnel changes at Columbia Records.

Despite little initial investment by Columbia, the album was a hit in the United States, reaching number one on the country charts and the top 15 of the national album chart. The lead single from the album, a live version of "Folsom Prison Blues", was a top 40 hit, Cash's first since 1964. “At Folsom Prison” received good reviews upon its release and the ensuing popularity revitalized Cash's career.

 Walk the Line, an Academy Award-winning biopic about Cash's life starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny and Reese Witherspoon as June was released in the United States on November 18, 2005 to considerable commercial success and critical acclaim.

Both Phoenix and Witherspoon have won various other awards for their roles, including the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, respectively. They both performed their own vocals in the film, and Phoenix learned to play guitar for his role as Cash. Phoenix received the Grammy Award for his contributions to the soundtrack. John Carter Cash, the first child of Johnny and June, served as an executive producer on the film.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a 2007 comedy film starring John C. Reilly. The plot echoes the storyline of 2005's Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line; Walk Hard is also a parody of the biopic genre as a whole.

As Walk Hard heavily references the film Walk the Line, the Dewey Cox persona is mostly based on Johnny Cash; but the character also includes elements of the life and career of Glen Campbell, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Donovan, Brian Wilson and Jim Morrison. The film also directly lampoons artists Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Elvis Presley and The Beatles, in addition to some artists playing themselves, including Eddie Vedder and Ghostface Killa. In addition, the film parodies or pays tribute to the musical styles of Bob Dylan, David Bowie and the seventies punk rock movement.

Sources used for this Hammer of Thor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Folsom_Prison

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_the_Line

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_Hard:_The_Dewey_Cox_Story

January 6 - The Hammer is back... with a vengeance.

On January 6, 1994, Nancy Kerrigan gained considerable fame beyond the skating world when she was clubbed in the knee with a collapsible baton by Shane Stant at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, an assault planned by rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and bodyguard Shawn Eckardt.

Stant followed Kerrigan to Detroit after failing to find her at her training rink in Massachusetts, and struck her on the thigh a few inches above the knee with a collapsible police baton. Kerrigan's leg was only bruised, not broken, but the injury forced her to withdraw from the national championship. Harding won that event, and both Kerrigan and Harding were selected for the 1994 Olympic team. After Harding admitted to helping to cover up the attack, the USFSA and United States Olympic Committee initiated proceedings to remove her from the Olympic team, but Harding retained her place after threatening legal action.

Seven weeks after the attack, Kerrigan skated what she considered to be the best two performances of her life and won the silver medal in the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, finishing second to Oksana Baiul. Kerrigan had won the short program, but lost the free skate to Baiul in a close and controversial 5-4 decision. CBS Television further played up the controversy by portraying it as a Cold War east/west split, particularly singling out German judge Jan Hoffmann for supposedly biased judging.  Harding finished in eighth.

Legal Battles

Harding avoided further prosecution and a possible jail sentence by pleading guilty on March 16 to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers. She received three years probation, 500 hours of community service and a $160,000 fine. As part of the plea bargain, Harding was also forced to withdraw from the 1994 World Figure Skating Championships and resign from the USFSA.

On June 30, 1994, after conducting its own investigation of the attack, the USFSA stripped Harding of her 1994 title and banned her for life from participating in USFSA-run events as either a skater or a coach. The USFSA concluded that Harding knew about the attack before it happened and displayed "a clear disregard for fairness, good sportsmanship and ethical behavior". Although the USFSA has no control over professional skating events, Harding was also persona non grata on the pro circuit because few skaters and promoters would work with her. Consequently, Harding failed to benefit from the pro skating boom that ensued in the aftermath of the scandal.

Harding maintained her innocence of, and disgust at the attack, and got a tattoo of an angel on her back, allegedly as a symbol of her innocence. In her 2008 autobiography, The Tonya Tapes, Harding said that she wanted to call the FBI to reveal what she knew, but refused when Gillooly allegedly threatened her with death following a gunpoint gang rape by Gillooly and two other men she did not know. Gillooly, who subsequently changed his name to Jeff Stone, called the allegations "utterly ridiculous".

Since the attack, Tonya Harding has gone on to participate in less-than-foxy boxing, and is shown here in all her boxing glory weighing in at an astonishing 132 lbs, up an estimated 30lbs from her championship figure skating weight:

Sourcres used for this week's Hammer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonya_Harding#The_Kerrigan_attack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Kerrigan#January_1994_attack

If there is a topic you'd like to see in a future edition of The Hammer of Thor please email your idea to: hammer.thor@rocketmail.com

December 23 - Hammer of a Feast

December 23, 1972 – The last of the 16 survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 that crashed in the Andes on October 13, are rescued after 72 days of survival.  The chartered flight carried 45 people – a rugby team, their friends, families and associates.

More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash, and several more quickly succumbed to cold and injury. Of the twenty-nine who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage.The survivors had a small amount of food at over 11,800 ft altitude: a few chocolate bars, other assorted snacks, and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash they divided out this food in very small amounts so as not to exhaust their meager supply.

Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Furthermore, there was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group thus survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades, beginning with the pilot. This decision was not taken lightly, as most were classmates or close friends.

All of the passengers were Roman Catholic. According to Read, some equated the act of cannibalism to the ritual of Holy Communion. Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 10-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean huaso, who gave them food and then alerted authorities about the existence of the other survivors.

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974)

The first book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, (published two years after their rescue) was written by Piers Paul Read who interviewed the survivors and their families. It was a critical success and remains a highly popular work of non-fiction. In the opening of the book, the survivors explain why they wanted it to be written:

“We decided that this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera. We dedicate this story of our suffering and solidarity to those friends who died and to their parents who, at the time when we most needed it, received us with love and understanding.”

Alive: The Miracle of the Andes (1993)

The film Alive received mixed reviews. It was directed by Frank Marshall and is based upon the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read. It stars Ethan Hawke and is narrated by John Malkovich. Nando Parrado served as a technical adviser to the film. Carlitos Páez and Ramon "Moncho" Sabella also visited the recreated fuselage during the shooting of the movie to aid with the historical accuracy of the set and to instruct the actors on how the events actually unfolded.

Something to Chew On:

Many instances of cannibalism by necessity were recorded during World War II. For example, during the 872-day Siege of Leningrad, reports of cannibalism began to appear in the winter of 1941–1942, after all birds, rats and pets were eaten by survivors. Leningrad police even formed a special division to combat cannibalism. Following the Soviet victory at Stalingrad it was found that some German soldiers in the besieged city, cut off from supplies, resorted to cannibalism.

Another well-documented case occurred in Chichijima in February 1945, when Japanese soldiers killed and consumed five American airmen. This case was investigated in 1947 in a war crimes trial, and of 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, five were found guilty and hanged.  In his book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, James Bradley details several instances of cannibalism of World War II Allied prisoners by their Japanese captors. The author claims that this included not only ritual cannibalization of the livers of freshly-killed prisoners, but also the cannibalization-for-sustenance of living prisoners over the course of several days, amputating limbs only as needed to keep the meat fresh.

Cannibalism Humor:
"Those cannibals were after my bones - but I marrowly escaped"

Why was the cannibal excited for his trip to Iceland? -- Bjork chops!


Sources used for this Hammer of Thor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism#World_War_II

December 16 - The Perfect Hammer

December 16, 1972 – The Miami Dolphins are perfect, becoming the first undefeated NFL team with a record of 14-0.  Any debate about the greatest NFL teams generally begins with the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Considering today's athlete's are considerably bigger and faster, it's hard to argue that the team could hold up so admirably in today's game, but the fact is no other team in the Super Bowl age has ever posted an undefeated season. A 17-0 record and a Super Bowl championship put the Dolphins on a pedestal that has yet to be scaled by any other NFL team.

The 2007 New England Patriots were the first team to gain a regular season record of 16-0. They continued their success into the postseason before being beaten in Super Bowl XLII by the New York Giants, losing the perfect season. Facing the prospect of a perfect 19–0 season with a victory over the underdog New York Giants, analysts saw the 2007 Patriots as being the greatest team in NFL history.

Despite being the overwhelming favorites in the game, the Patriots had to protect a four point lead on a Giants drive late in the fourth quarter. A dramatic pass from Eli Manning to David Tyree put the Giants deep in Patriots territory, and a Manning touchdown pass to Plaxico Buress gave the Giants a lead with seconds left. The Patriots could not score again and came out on the losing end of what is considered one of the greatest upsets in sports history.[6][7] The loss left the 1972 Dolphins as the only undefeated champions in NFL history. The Patriots ended the season at 18-1, becoming one of only three teams to go 18-1 along with the 1984 San Francisco 49ers and the 1985 Chicago Bears, both of whom won their respective Super Bowls. The following season the Patriots became the first team to miss the playoffs with an 11-5 record since the 1985 Denver Broncos.

CFL -- A perfect season has been accomplished in professional Canadian football only once. In 1948, under the guidance of their legendary head coach Les Lear, the Grey Cup headed to Western Canada for only the fourth time with the Calgary Stampeders. After running the table with a perfect 12 wins, Calgary faced the Regina Roughriders in a two-game home-and-home playoff series. The first game, in Regina, saw each side with 4 points, leaving the second game as the decider. At home the following week, Calgary outscored their opponents 21–10. Since it was a total points series, the final total and not the initial tie is the important factor for the perfect season. The newly crowned Western Interprovincial Football Union champion Stampeders next journeyed East to Toronto's Varsity Stadium for the 36th Grey Cup against the Eastern Champion Ottawa Rough Riders. On November 27, Calgary completed the perfect season with a six-point victory over Ottawa (12–7), earning the title of Dominion Champions.

While Calgary had only 15 games in their perfect season, the current CFL schedule would require a team to win 20 games (18 regular season, 1 playoff after bye week, and the Grey Cup championship) to post a perfect record, making it a difficult task to accomplish.

NBA -- The National Basketball Association’s regular season schedule is 82 games long. In the 1995–96 regular season, the Chicago Bulls played to a 72–10 record. Their 72 wins, along with their .878 winning percentage, is the closest that any NBA team has ever come to perfection. They swept two playoff series, and lost only 3 games in the entire postseason.

It is worth noting that the 1985–86 Boston Celtics played a nearly perfect home season. That year they were 40–1 (.976) in front of their home crowd. Their only regular-season home loss occurred on December 6, 1985, to the Portland Trail Blazers, by the score of 121–103. The Celtics would also win all 10 of their home games in the postseason.

NHL -- The National Hockey League’s regular season schedule is also 82 games long. The 1995–96 Detroit Red Wings hold the record for most wins in a regular season, having won 62 games.  Despite the strong regular season the Red Wings lost in the Western Conference Final to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions, the Colorado Avalanche.  This was Avalanche's first season in the NHL after moving from Quebec and they finished 2nd behind the Red Wings in the Western standings.  In 1997 the standing were reversed, with Colorado finishing 1st in the Regular Season and Detroit 2nd.  Like the year previous, the 2nd place team upset the Presidents' Trophy winners and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

MLB -- Since the early 1960s, the Major League Baseball schedule has been 162 games long; prior to that, it was 154 games long.

The most games won by a Major League Baseball team in the regular season is 116, by both the Chicago Cubs in 1906 and the Seattle Mariners in 2001[5]—though because the regular season was shorter in 1906, the Cubs' winning percentage of .763 was higher than the Mariners' .716.

The 1998 New York Yankees have the best record of any World Series champion, finishing the regular season 114-48. Including the playoffs, the 1998 Yankees won a total of 125 games against 50 losses, an MLB record.

Sources used in this edition of the Hammer are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Avalanche#1995.E2.80.932002
http://football.about.com/cs/teamsdolphins/a/bl_1972dolphins.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_England_Patriots_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_season

Dec 9 ~ Young man, there's a place you can go.

December 9, 1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is a worldwide movement of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs. Founded on June 6, 1844 in London, England by George Williams, the goal of the organization was putting Christian principles into practice, achieved by developing "a healthy spirit, mind, and body." The YMCA's traditional symbol is the inverted triangle which represents the organization's three principles. It was created in 1891 by Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr. at Springfield College. The three principles are as follows:

Healthy Spirit - The first YMCA was concerned with Bible study, although the organization has generally moved on to a more holistic approach to youth work. Around six years after its birth, an international YMCA conference in Paris decided that the objective of the organization should become "Christian discipleship developed through a program of religious, educational, social and physical activities" More recent objectives as found on the YMCA UK website include no reference to discipleship.

Healthy Mind - Many colleges and universities owe their creation to the YMCA. Springfield College was founded in 1885 as an international training school for YMCA Professionals, while Sir George Williams University—one of the two schools that eventually became Concordia University—started from night courses offered at the Montreal YMCA. Northeastern University (Boston, Massachusetts) began out of a YMCA in Boston, and Franklin University began as the YMCA School of Commerce. Detroit College of Law, now the Michigan State University College of Law, was founded with a strong connection to the Detroit, Michigan YMCA. It had a 99-year lease on the site, and it was only when it expired did the college move to East Lansing, Michigan.

YMCA pioneered the concept of night school, providing educational opportunities for people with full-time employment. Many YMCAs offer ESL programs, alternative high school, day care, and summer camp programs.

Healthy Body - In 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian, invented basketball while studying at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts (later to be named Springfield College). Naismith had been asked to invent a new game in a desperate attempt to interest pupils in physical exercise. The game had to be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play indoors in winter. Such an activity was needed both by the Training School and by YMCAs across the country. It was a success from the very first game. Naismith and his wife attended the 1936 Summer Olympics when basketball became one of the Olympic events.

In 1895, William G. Morgan from the YMCA of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented the sport of volleyball as a slower paced alternative sport, which the older Y members could participate in. In 1930, Juan Carlos Ceriani from the YMCA of Montevideo, Uruguay, invented the sport of futsal as a synthesis of three indoor sports, handball, basketball, and water polo, maintaining the motivation of the sport foot-ball (soccer) on playgrounds reduced.

The Song - "Y.M.C.A." is a 1978 song by the Village People which became a hit in January 1979. The song reached #2 on the U.S. charts in early 1979 and reached No.1 in the UK around the same time, becoming the group's biggest hit ever. Taken at face value, its lyrics extol the virtues of the Young Men's Christian Association. In the gay culture from which the group sprang, the song was implicitly understood as celebrating the YMCA's reputation as a popular cruising and hookup spot, particularly for the younger gay men to whom it was addressed. However, Victor Willis, Village People lead singer and writer of the lyrics, insists that he did not write YMCA as a gay anthem (Willis is heterosexual). Rather, Willis said he wrote the song as a reflection of young urban black youth fun at the YMCA such as basketball and swimming, etc. That said, Willis has often acknowledged his fondness for double entendre. Willis also revealed that he wrote the song in Vancouver, British Columbia.


Sources of information for this week's Hammer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y.M.C.A._(song)

A Really BIG Hammer for December 2nd

December 2, 1942 – Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. The Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb, before the Germans or the Japanese. The project was led by the United States, and included participation from the United Kingdom and Canada.

The uranium bomb was a gun-type fission weapon. It worked by mechanically assembling the critical mass from two subcritical masses of uranium-235: a "bullet" and a "target". The chain reaction resulting from collision of the "bullet" with the "target" released tremendous energy, producing an explosion, but also blew apart the critical mass and ended the chain reaction. The configuration of the critical mass determined how much of the fissile material reacted in the interval between assembly and dispersal, and therefore the explosive yield of the bomb. Even a 1% fission of the material would result in a workable bomb, equal to thousands of tons of high explosive. A poor configuration, or slow assembly, would release enough energy to disperse the critical mass quickly, and the yield would be greatly reduced, equivalent to only a few tons of high explosive.

The method was so certain to work that no test was carried out before the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, though extensive laboratory testing program was undertaken to make sure the fundamental assumptions were correct. The bomb that was dropped used all the existing extremely highly purified uranium-235, and even most of the less highly purified material, so there was none available for such a test. The bomb's design was known to be inefficient and prone to accidental discharge.

December 2, 1976 – Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba: One of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of Council of Ministers of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, from 1965 until 2010, when he retired for health reasons.

While studying law at the University of Havana, he began his political career and became a recognized figure in Cuban politics. His political career continued with nationalist critiques of the president, Fulgencio Batista, and of the United States' political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities. He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated, and later released.

He then traveled to Mexico to organize and train for an invasion of Cuba to overthrow Batista's government, which began in December 1956.  The Granma arrived in Cuba on 2 December 1956. It arrived in Cuba two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants, but a small number escaped. While the exact number is in dispute, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial bloody encounters with the Cuban army and succeeded in fleeing to the Sierra Maestra mountains.

The group of survivors included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The dispersed survivors, alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men would link up again - with the help of peasant sympathizers - and would form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. Castro subsequently came to power as a result of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Batista, and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister of Cuba.

Sources for this week's Hammer of Thor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution