Little Johnny

Little Johnny
Little Johnny was sitting one day on a dock. Along came a preacher and sat down beside him. Little Johnny had a mason jar full of what looked like water and he was turning it over and over, watching the bubbles float through it. The Preacher asked, "What are you doing with that water?" Little Johnny studied the contents of the jar for a moment, then explained, "Preacher, this here is turpentine. It's the strongest liquid in the world." The preacher replied, "Son, Holy water is the strongest liquid in the world. Did you know if you rub a little Holy water on a pregnant woman's belly, she will pass a baby boy?" Little Johnny thought about this one for a minute, and then remarked, "Nope, this here turpentine is still the strongest because if you rub it on a cat's ass, it can pass a speeding car!"

The motorcylist

A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the house in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle and somehow, the motorcycle slipped into gear. The man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door and along with the motorcycle, dumped onto the floor inside the house. The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her husband laying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle laying next to him, and the patio door shattered. The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance. After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital, the wife uprighted the motorcycle and pushed it outside. Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, the wife used some paper towels to blot up the gasoline, and threw them in the toilet. The husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home. After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated. The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband laying on the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone and called for an ambulance. The same ambulance crew was dispatched. While they were going down the stairs to the street, accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out. He fell down the remaining steps and broke his arm.

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus

Biography of Miley Cyrus
Birthname: Destiny Hope Cyrus

Date of birth: 1992-11-23

Birthplace: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Height: 5' 4''

Nationality: American

Profession: Actress, Singer

Miley Ray Cyrus (born Destiny Hope Cyrus; November 23, 1992) is an American child actress, singer, and songwriter. She is known for starring as Miley Stewart, "Hannah Montana" on the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana.Cyrus became an overnight sensation after Hannah Montana debuted in March 2006. Following the success of the show, in October 2006, a soundtrack CD was released in which she sang eight songs from the show. In December 2007, she was ranked #17 in the list of Forbes Top twenty earners under 25 with an annual earning of US$3.5 million. As of December 2007, she is working on a movie spin-off of Hannah Montana, titled which is due to be released on May 1 2009.
Early lifeCyrus was born in Franklin, Tennessee, She grew up on her parents' farm outside of Nashville.
Acting careerCyrus became interested in acting at age nine when the family briefly lived in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her first acting role was as a guest star on her father's television series Doc, in which she played a girl named Kylie. In 2003, she played "Young Ruthie" in Tim Burton's Big Fish and was credited as Destiny Cyrus. She was also featured in Rhonda Vincent's music video for "If Heartaches Have Wings", and appeared on Colgate Country Showdown with her father, who was hosting the program.
Disney careerCyrus was twelve years old when she originally auditioned for Disney for the lead role of Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana, as well as the show's "best friend" roles, but Disney Channel executives judged her to be too small. Cyrus was persistent in her desire to be part of Hannah Montana, however, so Disney called her back for further auditions. According to Disney Channel Executive Vice President Gary Marsh, Cyrus was chosen for the show because of her energetic and lively performance and was seen as a person who "loves every minute of life", with the "everyday relatability of Hilary Duff and the stage presence of Shania Twain". On June 26, 2007, exactly eight months after the release of the first soundtrack, Cyrus released a double album, . The first disc served as the second Hannah Montana soundtrack, while the second disc was Cyrus's debut album as herself. She wrote eight of the ten songs, credited by her birth name Destiny Hope Cyrus. As of April 2008, Cyrus has been recording her second studio album. In an episode of her web cast show, The Miley and Mandy Show, Cyrus announced she was working on her new album titled Breakout . Cyrus also performed two new songs, "Fly on the Wall" and "Breakout" at the 2008 Disney Channel Games concert. Breakout is expected to be released on July 22 2008.
TouringCyrus performed both as herself and in character as Hannah Montana on a North American Best of Both Worlds Tour that started on October 18, 2007 in St. Louis, Missouri; the tour was extended, due to high demand, until January 31 2008, with 69 total dates, 14 more than previously planned. The Jonas Brothers were the opening act for most of the tour. Tour tickets for each date sold out in record time after they went on sale, disappointing large numbers of fans. Though its initial run in theaters was due to last just a week, Disney extended the film's run indefinitely because of the demand.
EntrepreneurshipCyrus became a spokesperson for Daisy Rock Guitars in 2004, when she was presented with her first Daisy Rock guitar - the Stardust Series Acoustic Electric Pink Sparkle. It was given to her by her parents from her father's Country Music Television fan meet-and-greet when she was twelve years old. Disney released a Hannah Montana clothing collection in late summer 2007. Cyrus helped to design some of the pieces from the collection. "It's not a costume. A tween girl isn't doing dress-up, they want to look like they could be Hannah Montana's friend. This is a fashion line."In April 2008, Cyrus announced plans to write a book about her life and career. The Disney Book Group bought the rights to the book for a reported 7 figures to be published by their imprint Disney-Hyperion Books for a scheduled release spring 2009. An initial printing run of one million copies is planned.In December 2007, she was ranked #17 in the list of Forbes Top twenty earners under 25 with an annual earning of US$3.5 million. In April 2008, Parade and Us Weekly reported that Cyrus earned $18.2 million in 2007. Cyrus was ranked #35 on the "2008 Forbes Celebrity 100" with an estimated earnings of $25 million during June 2007 to June 2008. A wax figure of Miley Cyrus was unveiled at Madame Tussauds in New York City.
Personal lifeCyrus is good friends with fellow Hannah Montana co-stars Emily Osment and Mitchel Musso, often texting and conference calling each other during busy days.In an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, she stated that she looks up to Hilary Duff as her role model. In an interview to Christianity Today, Billy Ray said, "Being Christian, we believe in heaven," and "We also had a great church, and when you give up your church, your pastor, and the community you are involved in, you're making a big sacrifice. Let's face it, Hollywood is a completely different environment than Franklin, Tennessee." Beginning in February 2008, Cyrus and her friend Mandy Jiroux (who is also a backup dancer for Cyrus) have been creating videos on YouTube called The Miley and Mandy Show. The show, described as a "YouTube hit", is said to be filmed for fun by Cyrus and Jiroux and to be entirely their work, with Cyrus and Jiroux editing the footage together. It is mostly filmed in Cyrus's bedroom. A particularly popular video was posted on April 13, featuring a dance-off "battle" pitting Cyrus and Jiroux against Jon Chu and Adam Sevani of Step Up 2. In 2007, Cyrus made a large contribution to the City of Hope (she gave $1 for every HM concert ticket sold) "The cool thing about being a part of City of Hope is that they are a cancer research center. They're not only helping kids that are there, but also finding out how they can heal them by figuring out what exactly is going on, which is amazing."
Controversies
Pregnancy hoaxOn September 24, 2007, rumors began circulating that Cyrus was pregnant. The cause of the rumor was an image of a page of J-14 Magazine circulating on the Internet entitled "Miley's Meltdown" and saying, among other things, "Miley herself confirmed the pregnancy rumors during a J-14 interview". J-14 immediately responded saying that, "Someone doctored the "This Just In" article that appeared on page 16 of J-14's July 2007 issue" and that "this story is completely fabricated!" The real story on J-14's Page 16 magazine was about 'Miley's Gross Habits' told by her co-stars on the set of Hannah Montana.
Seat beltsIn her movie, , there is a scene where she and her dad did not put their seatbelts on, causing her to be labeled by some newspapers as a "bad role model".
Vanity Fair photosOn April 25, 2008, the televised entertainment program Entertainment Tonight reported that Cyrus had posed topless for a photo shoot with Vanity Fair. The photo, and subsequently released behind-the-scenes photos, show Cyrus with her bare back exposed but her front covered with a bedsheet. The photo shoot was taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz. The full photograph was published with an accompanying story on The New York Times' website on April 27, 2008. On April 29 2008, The New York Times clarified that though the pictures left an impression that she was bare-breasted, Cyrus was wrapped in a bedsheet and was actually not topless. Some parents expressed outrage at the nature of the photograph, which a Disney spokesperson described as "a situation that was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines." According to the interview, Cyrus' parents and/or minders were present during the entire duration of the photo shoot. The idea to pose with the sheets on was suggested by Annie Liebovitz. When asked if she were "anxious" about the pose, Cyrus stated to interviewer Bruce Handy:
“No, I mean I had a big blanket on. And I thought, This looks pretty, and really natural. I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way.… And you can’t say no to Annie. She’s so cute. She gets this puppy-dog look and you’re like, okay.”
Soundtracks
2006: DisneyMania 4
2006: Hannah Montana
2007: Music from and Inspired By Bridge to Terabithia
2007: DisneyMania 5
2007:
2008:
Other albums
2008:
2008:
Tours
2007-2008: Best of Both Worlds Tour (Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana / Herself, Opening Acts Jonas Brothers, Aly & AJ, and Everlife)
Mainstream singles
2007: "Ready, Set, Don't Go" (Billy Ray Cyrus featuring Miley Cyrus)
2007: "See You Again"
2008: "7 Things"
Other singles
2007: "G.N.O. (Girl's Night Out)"
2007: "I Miss You"
2007: "Start All Over"
Awards
2008 Winner of Best Performance in a TV Series as a Leading Young Actress for the 29th Annual Young Artist Awards
2008 Winner of the "Favorite Female Singer" for the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
2008 Winner of the "Favorite TV Actress" for the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
2007 Winner of the "Favorite TV Actress" for the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
2007 Winner of the "Choice TV Actress: Comedy" for the Teen Choice Awards
2007 Winner of the "Choice Summer Artist" for the Teen Choice Awards

Homemade Pizza

I found some whole wheat pizza dough at my local Trader Joe's & decided to give it a try. This was a wonderful, crispy & delicious pizza... it was a big hit with all of us (especially the kids). I will be making my own pizzas from now on! Really easy, much healthier & so tasty.
16 oz prepared pizza dough (I used whole wheat & it was amazing)
1/2 cup of pizza sauce or marinara sauce
1-2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
Turkey pepperoni (as much as desired)
1 cup of sliced mushrooms, sliced very thin
1-2 tbsp sweet yellow onion, sliced very thin
Fresh pineapple cut into small chunks (or canned pineapple tidbits)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed (reminds me of my favorite Louies Pizza)
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
Let the dough sit on a floured surface for 20 minutes before rolling it out. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roll the dough into whatever shape & size of pizza you desire. Place on a round or square baking tray coated with cooking spray. Spread sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, pineapple, fennel seeds, basil & parmesan cheese on top. Cook for 10-14 minutes until desired crispiness. Remove from oven add fresh parsley. Enjoy.

Interesting: Speeding Up Financial Analysis

Interesting: Speeding Up Financial Analysis

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Air force one and the farmer

Air force one and the farmer

Air Force One crashed in the middle of rural America. Panic stricken, the Secret Service mobilized and descended on the farm in force. When they got there, the wreckage was clear. The aircraft was totally destroyed, with only a burned hulk left smoldering in a tree line that bordered a farm. Secret Service descended upon the smoking hulk but could find no remains of the crew or the President's staff. To their amazement, a lone farmer was plowing a field not too far away as if nothing at all happened. They hurried over to surround the man's actor. "Sir," the senior Secret Service agent asked, panting and out of breath. "Did you see this terrible accident happen?" "Yep. Sure did." The man muttered unconcernedly. "Do you realize that is the President of the United States' airplane?" "Yep." "Were there any survivors?" the agent gasped. "Nope. They's all kilt straight out." The farmer sighed cutting of his tractor motor. "I done buried them all myself. Took most of the morning." "The President of the United States is DEAD?" The agent gulped in disbelief. "Yep, he kept a-saying he wasn't ... but you know what a liar he is!"

Pub Game Idiot

Last Boxing Day (that's the day after Xmas for those who don't have one) I was in a local bar with three of my friends. I don't smoke myself, but the others all did and one of them, Porky, showed us this bar game. You take a box of matches and pierce the top of it with one unlit match, so that this match sticks vertically up out of the top (i.e. the only side that doesn't have contact with the drawer underneath so that it can still open and close). The challange is to take the box in your hand and with just that one hand open the box, take out a match, light it and then light the match on top with the match you have just struck.Turned out the hardest bit was getting the match struck with enough force to ignite it but not so much that it carries on and you burn yourself in the palm of the hand (try it and you'll see what I mean!). So me, Porky and one of the other guys had been sitting trying this for about fifteen minutes but mostly kept burning ourselves. Then Toomba, the guy who up to this point had just been watching, decided he would have a go. We were happy to sit back and nurse our burns while he took a blast at it. So, he takes the box in his hand and pokes it open with a finger. He then takes a match out WITH HIS OTHER HAND and procedes to do it and then gloat at his "success" assuming our astonished faces were because his genius brain had cracked it - ignore the "do it with one hand" bit!

Euro English

Euro English

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's govt conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish": -- In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away. By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

A Lawyer's Question

A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial--a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He's lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with menace, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, you'll be in jail for contempt within 5 minutes!"

Mediterranean Pizza

Mediterranean Pizza
A yummy pizza inspired by my love for feta cheese! This salty cheese really pops in this pizza!

fresh pizza dough
1 package of spinach
1/4 of onion
pinch of oregano
EVOO
Kalamata olives
Chopped tomato
1 garlic clove (or cube in this case)
1/2 tub of feta cheese
1 cup mozzerella

Arrange the pizza dough on a pizza stone and prick with fork all over. Parbake at 475F for about 5 minutes. This will ensure a crispy pizza, not a yucky, doughy one.While this is baking, saute the garlic, oregano and onion in EVOO. When onion is transluscent, add the spinach and cover. Cook til wilted.Arrange the toppings on the pizza in the following order:
1/spinach
2/feta
3/tomato
mozzBake in a 500F degree oven till browned and bubbly, about 7 mins.Garnish with sliced olives.Note: I used Lite Mozzerella, which doesn't melt the way it should, and it doesn't brown. So you forgo the taste/appearance, but the calories you save might make up for it

Santa statistics

No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are roughly 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified. While most of these are insects and germs, this does not rule out flying reindeer - though Santa and my uncle Ralph, in his drinking days, are the only people who've ever seen one. There are two billion children (small people under the age of 18) in the world. But since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle most non-Christian children, that reduces the workload to about 15 per cent of the total (roughly 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau). At a rate of say, 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good kid in each. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. That's 822.6 visits per second. For each eligible household, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, put presents under the tree, eat any snacks, kiss mommy when available, get back up the chimney, hop in the sleigh and move on. Assuming each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth, we're now talking about 0.78 miles per household - a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to let Santa and the reindeer do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours. This means Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second, or 3,000 times the speed of sound. The fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles a second (a conventional reindeer, by the way, can run 15 miles per hour, tops). Assuming each child gets nothing more that a medium-sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting overweight Santa. Conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting flying reindeer could pull 10 times the normal amount, Santa would need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload (not counting the sleigh) to 353,430 tons, or four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth II. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles a second creates enormous air resistance, which would heat the reindeer to incandescence in the same fashion as spacecraft or meteors entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms. The entire team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500.06 gravities. A 250-pound Santa (a wee bit of an underestimate) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. The Internet originator's conclusion to the above: "If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now."

Adventurous Dining

A man travels to Spain and goes to Pamplona during the great "running of the Bulls" festival.After his first day there, he goes out late for dinner at a restuarant in the center of the town. He orders the house special and he is brought a plate ,with potatoes, corn, and two large meaty objects."What's this?" he asks."Cojones, senor," the waiter replies."What are cojones?" the man asks."Cojones," the waiter explains, "are the testicles of the bull who lost at the arena this afternoon."At first the man is disgusted, but being the adventurous type, he decides to try this local delicacy. To his amazement, it is quite delicious. In fact, it is so good that he decides to come back again the next night and order it again. This time, the waiter brings out the plate, but the meaty objects are much smaller."What's this?" he asks the waiter."Cojones, senor," the waiter replies."No, no," the man objects. "I had cojones yesterday and they were much bigger than these.""Senor," the waiter explains, "the bull does not lose every time."

old pictures

Nobody told me how terrible it is to be pregnant. I suffer from morning sickness all the time. I think it should be called “whole day sickness!” How hard to be a mom! We should thank all the mothers all over the world.
I vomit everyday, so I have to reschedule my plan during the vacation. My mother asked me to move to her apartment; therefore she can look after me at anytime. That’s very good for me! My mother has been collecting old pictures in the recent several days. We didn’t have the digital camera 2 decades ago, so my mother has to scan and save the old photo into the computer one by one. I would like to do the interesting job with her. There are thousands of old photos, my grandparents’ wedding pictures, my parents’ pictures when they were dating, my cousins’, and my babyhood photos. It’s very interesting to see that everyone on the picture is quite different from nowadays.
The old picture is just like a story teller telling us the story and makes us remind a lot in the past. We can see something we never knew through the pictures. I will keep all the old pictures and take a lot of pictures in the future. When my baby grows up, I can show him/her those pictures and tell him/her every story in the picture.

St. Mary’s Cathedral I: History

Original plan for St. Mary’s Cathedral with spire, circa 1853
On January 8, 1880, San Francisco’s beloved local character Emperor Norton dropped dead in front of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral. It was in some way the end of an era for the city and the cathedral of the Roman Catholic archdiocese.
The story began in 1851 when Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany arrived in California as bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles. He used the San Carlos presido chapel there as his pro-cathedral. In 1853 Alemany moved the pro-cathedral St. Francis Church on Vallejo Street when the Archdiocese of San Francisco was established. At the time, St. Francis and Mission Dolores were the only Catholic churches in the city. It was at St. Francis Church, then a small wooden structure, that Alemany was first welcomed as bishop. On that occasion, he spoke in English, Spanish and French; from the very beginning, ethnic diversity was a given in California.
Of course the cathedral for the diocese was to have been in Santa Barbara, but the grand plans of Bishop Thaddeus Amat never amounted to more than foundational stones being dragged to the proposed site. But plans were already afoot to build a great cathedral for San Francisco even as the archdiocese was established. The land was given by a prominent layman, John Sullivan, amid the usual criticism that the site was too far from the center of the city. Sullivan also gave land for Calvary Cemetery, St. Mary’s College on Larkin Street, Presentation Convent at Powell and Lombard, built Old St. Patrick (later the pro-cathedral) and dutifully supported many other Catholic institutions of the city. When Sullivan’s home was destroyed by fire in 1850, Bishop Alemany wrote him, “I can never forget the first $20 dollar gold piece I received in San Francisco was from your dear wife. Here is $5,000; take it, build up your houses. Repay me when you can.”
Architects William Crane and John England were retained to design the gothic revival church, originally envisioned to have a tall steeple, which was never completed. Many San Francisco residents were surprised when they answered a knock at the door to find the archbishop on their doorstep, asking for gifts to build St. Mary’s Cathedral; Alemany himself went door to door to raise the funds.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedal circa 1856

The foundation of St. Mary’s was begun and the cornerstone laid in 1853 at California and DuPont (now Grant Avenue) Streets. The stones for the foundation were cut and quarried in China. Brick was imported from New England around the horn, and local lumber was bought at highly inflated gold rush prices. To raise funds, pews were rented by auction, a common practice at the time.
Work continued feverishly through Christmas Eve of 1854, when workers were shooed out late in the evening so that the dedication could occur. The new cathedral was filled beyond capacity and a huge throng spilled out onto California Street, with rowdy San Franciscans literally hanging from the rafters of the unfinished church, their boots dangling above the crowded nave. A full orchestra provided the music for the dedication liturgy—Haydn’s Mass no. 3. Even without the steeple originally envisioned, St. Mary’s Cathedral was the tallest building west of the Mississippi and the pride of San Francisco. The full title of the church was the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception; the first cathedral church in the world to bear that title, as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been defined by Pius IX only 17 days before the cathedral’s dedication. It was the first church to be built as a cathedral in California.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral circa 1870

As Civil War loomed, a controversy erupted in San Francisco over a practice that came to be known as the “flagging of churches.” The churches of the city competed with each other to raise enormous American flags to demonstrate their solidarity with the Union. This hyper-patriotic frenzy reached its peak on July 4, 1861. Newspaper editorials called on Archbishop Alemany to follow suit and display the flag in St. Mary’s Cathedral. Alemany refused. He felt the flag did not belong in a building dedicated to the worship of God.
As the city continued its exponential growth, it became apparent that a new cathedral was needed. Archbishop Alemany once again began raising funds for a new cathedral. His new coadjutor, Bishop Patrick Riordan, had been ordained bishop in Chicago in 1883. The weary Alemany—who had been begging for retirement for years—entrusted the bulk of the project to Riordan, who was named archbishop of San Francisco in 1884, much to Alemany’s relief. On May 24, 1885, Alemany wept as he celebrated his last mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral, and shortly thereafter he returned to his native Spain.

The second St. Mary’s Cathedral

The cornerstone for the new Romanesque Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was laid in 1890 at the corner of Van Ness and O’Farrell in the Tenderloin District. The Chicago architectural firm of Egan and Prindeville designed the red-brick structure. Among their existing works is St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh (1906). Archbishop Riordan declined to live in the humble two-room shack Alemany had called home, and moved to the rectory of St. John the Baptist on Eddy Street while construction of the new cathedral was underway. When the new cathedral was dedicated in 1891, that parish was suppressed and its territory became a part of the cathedral parish. Old St. Mary’s Cathedral was given to the Paulists in 1894 to run as a parish church.

The second St. Mary’s Cathedral
On the morning of April 18, 1906 an enormous earthquake shook the city. This singular event in California history wold destroy much of the city; what had not crumbled in the first temblor was likely destroyed by fires that raged throughout the city for four days. At Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, there was little damage; the cross and pediment fell from the tower, some finials fell inside, some buttresses were damaged. As a precaution, the sacred vessels, vestments and some furnishings were sent to residences on Nob Hill for safekeeping; a move that was to prove a mistake. About noon that day the flames begin to approach Old St. Mary’s. For several hours the faithful fought flames, but eventually they ran out of water and could only watch as the venerable church burned. Only the brick walls remained; the stained glass was melted and the marble high altar had turned to dust.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in ruins after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906
The new cathedral, however, had narrowly escaped destruction when the pastor and sexton climbed the tower to extinguish the flames that had broken out in the belfry. As one of the few remaining structures following the Great Earthquake and Fire, St. Mary’s Cathedral became a center of relief in the devastated city, feeding up to 2,000 people each day in the aftermath of the disaster.

Lines of hungry people up to one mile long form in front of St. Mary’s Cathedral after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906
It was decided that as the brick exterior of Old St. Mary’s was left largely intact after the earthquake and fire, the church would be rebuilt around the ruins. Thomas J. Welsh was retained as architect of the rebuilding. In 1909 the proto-cathedral was rededicated by Archbishop Riordan. A renovation in 1925 increased its capacity from 700 to 1300.

nterior of Old St. Mary’s after the 1925 remodeling
In 1902 the Chinese Mission was established at Old St. Mary’s, which was then in the middle of Chinatown–the first such outreach in the United States. English was taught to Chinese immigrants in the church basement and native Chinese sisters arrived to provide social services, healthcare, work for the unemployed, immigration assistance, and lunch service for children, all with the dedicated support of the Paulists.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in the middle of Chinatown
Both the proto-cathedral and the new cathedral on Van Ness continued to serve the city until September 6, 1962, when the new cathedral was destroyed by fire. The cathedra itself escaped destruction and was moved to Mission Dolores, where it remained until 1979, when it was placed in the chapel of Holy Cross Mausoleum in Colma.
As the “new” cathedral was destroyed, the city of San Francisco began its third effort to build a cathedral. It fell to Archbishop Joseph McGucken to construct what would become perhaps the most significant cathedral built in the United States in the 20th Century, high atop a hill above the intersection of Geary Boulevard and Gough Street in the Western Addition, overlooking the City of St. Francis. As principal architect, McGucken chose Pier Luigi Nervi, the eminent Italian modernist architect whose unique vision vivified the cathedral design, and Boston architect Pietro Belluschi, who worked with local architects Angus McSweeney, Paul A. Ryan and John Michael Lee.
The new Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was dedicated on May 5, 1971 and includes in its complex a large plaza, high school, faculty residence, rectory, conference center, parish hall, a museum and underground parking. The hyperbolic paraboloid rises to the shape of a cross outlined in stained glass 189 feet high, the equivalent of an 18-story building—about the same height as Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. From the clear glass windows of the cathedral one may look out on a stunning panorama view of the entire city of St. Francis, a city whose symbol is a phoenix, the mythical bird who rose triumphant from the ashes.

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