It was seventy years ago this past week that the Pacific war battle of Iwo Jima was declared over and the island secure. Today on that small volcanic island in the western Pacific that was the site of one of the most savage battles of WWII, a group of aged veterans returned to the scene of what was likely…
Continue ReadingCategory: History
Mandating a sacred civic duty
Last month I took time to acknowledge the lowest common denominators all people living on this planet share, those being death and taxes. Today in Cleveland, OH, President Obama promoted the idea of expanding those two of life’s certainties by one more, VOTING! Coming on the heels of the 50th anniversary of the events leading…
Continue ReadingDocumentary Film Review: Children of the Civil Rights
President Harry Truman once said, “The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know.” On this fiftieth anniversary commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Circle Cinema held a special showing of the documentary film Children of the Civil Rights. It was indeed a celebration of a piece of not so much…
Continue ReadingHappy Birthday, Thomas Paine!
By the Western calendar, February 9th, 1737 is Thomas Paine’s date of birth. Of all the contributors to the American Revolution and to the fledgling American Republic, the work of Thomas Paine not only endures but still resonates loudly today. Paine was the first to promote the idea of an Estate Tax and a minimum wage. …
Continue ReadingRoe v Wade at 42
Thursday, January 22nd was the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade effectively legalizing abortion on demand in the United States. The debate on the issue is one that has never not been polarized. In 2015 there are many places in the nation where Roe v Wade is purely academic due to obstructionist laws and…
Continue ReadingA look back at 2014
As I make my final journal entry and blog post of 2014 I find myself waxing nostalgically for the year gone by. Like all other calendar years of our life before it, 2014 had its personal, political and economic highs and lows along with its special moments and of course its fair share of forgettable ones. For me personally…
Continue ReadingWrapping up Volume 40
On New Year’s Day 1975 I took a walk in the freezing cold down to the neighborhood Quik Trip and purchased a spiral notebook, one with a Friends of the Earth photo of a hazy forest scene entitled Pines in the Mist. It became Volume 1 of my personal daily journal. I began keeping a daily personal journal in the…
Continue ReadingA Christmas Truce
One hundred years ago today during the first year of the Great War, German and British soldiers suffering through the common misery of trench warfare along the Western Front ceased fire and celebrated a common holiday………together. All accounts indicate this was an action carried out by individual units of front line soldiers on both sides…
Continue ReadingRemembering the end of America’s first Vietnam
Two hundred years ago this Christmas Eve representatives of the United States and Great Britain negotiated an end to the War of 1812 in the Flemish city of Ghent. The Treaty of Ghent restored relations between the two nations to Status Quo Antebellum. Hostilities still existed until the treaty was ratified by the governments of both nations which for…
Continue ReadingWhen North Korea says “Jump!” who asks “How high?”
This week’s cyber-hacking of Sony Pictures by agents of the government of North Korea has brought multiple issues to the attention of our nation. Among them the focus of investing resources preparing for the next conflict instead of the last one. We’ve known about nature of future hostile actions against our nation for some time and now here it…
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