Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms

    

Tucson Weather Today

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HISTORICAL CLIP

On 'January 31, 1950' U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announced his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II..

Then, on November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated "Mike," the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device  instantly vaporized an entire island and left behind a crater more than a mile wide.

Three years later, on November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb on the same principle of radiation implosion.

I saw this image on Facebook --
Liked it. Copied it. Pasted it here.

 

Sometimes I grow so confused by the rhetoric of the American Ruling Class, the Industrialists and Politicians with their subservient lackeys, they who in the background manipulate the pretty-faced script reading puppets of the Mass Media, that I feel like throwing in the towel and just accepting things as they are. After all, I am only one man, and an old man at that... and I will soon be out of the picture. A vanished voice plucked from the roar of an ever-growing population.

But at other times I feel a feeble spark of defiance and begin to tap, tap, tap the patiently waiting letters, numbers, and symbols of my keyboard.


There is an old tried and true principle known to the once ubiquitous door to door salesmen that pestered harried housewives during the mid-twentieth century know as the foot-in-the-door ploy. And I wonder if the newest generation of supposedly informed citizens (voters) of the United States are familiar with that principle: getting a foot in the door is the first step to making a sale. Canny salesmen knew that. So the most successful sales persons did just that; they slipped their foot in the doorway as soon as the customer heard them knock and innocently opened the door.

Politicians and elected officials know and use that principle. You can bet on that -- take it to the bank, as it were.

Dedicated liberals such as President Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party know that in a dispute with conservative congress-persons (the Republican Party) they, the liberals, must ask for the moon and seemingly settle for a crumb of cheese. Why? Because with the passage of time that crumb (foot in the door) will (by accretion) grow until it is as massive as the moon which was originally sought.


WORD FOR TODAY

accretion [un-KREE-shun]
Noun
1.
a. Growth or increase in size by gradual external addition, fusion, or inclusion.
b. Something contributing to such growth or increase.
2. Biology The growing together or adherence of parts that are normally separate.
3. Geology
a. Slow addition to land by deposition of water-borne sediment.
b. An increase of land along the shores of a body of water.
4. Astronomy An increase in the mass of a celestial object by the collection of surrounding interstellar gases and objects by gravity.

Simply put, accretion is the growth of a massive object by attracting more bits of smaller matter.

Passing a law that restricts gun ownership by banning certain types of guns is, on the surface, apparently a common sense act. But wait! Perhaps this is not common sense at all. Perhaps it is one of those crumbs of cheese.

History shows that additional laws will follow. It is inevitable. Eventually private citizens, the people of the United States, will no longer be allowed to own a gun of any kind. Only the enforcers, the members of the police and the military will be allowed to carry and use a firearm. And by then, the president may no longer be as meek and mild as Barach Obama. The future president will be (by accretion of power) more on the order of Orwell's Big Brother. Or worse.

Once, a rag-tag army of freedom-loving militia men rebelled and followed committed leaders in a war against King George of England. Those leaders knew what it would take to win such a war. And that is the reason that the following phrase appears in the U.S. Constitution:

The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed,

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


Jackie Robinson

 

Born Jan 31, 1919
Died Oct 24, 1972

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was an American baseball player who became the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. As the first black man to play in the major leagues since the 1880s, he was instrumental in bringing an end to racial segregation in professional baseball,

In addition to his cultural impact, Robinson had an exceptional baseball career. Over ten seasons, he played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Championship. He was selected for six consecutive All-Star Games from 1949 to 1954, was the recipient of the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first black player so honored. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Carol Channing

 

Born Jan 31, 1921
Age:  91 years old

Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards (including one for lifetime achievement), a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Channing is best remembered for originating, on Broadway, the musical-comedy roles of bombshell Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and matchmaking widow Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly!

Channing also appeared in a number of movies, The First Traveling Sales Lady (1956) with Ginger Rogers, the cult film Skidoo and Thoroughly Modern Millie, opposite Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore. For Millie she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.

Suzanne Pleshette

 

Born Jan. 31, 1937
Died Jan. 19, 2008

Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress and voice actress. After beginning her career in the theater, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure (1962) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). She later appeared in various television productions, often in guest roles, and played Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 until 1978, receiving several Emmy Award nominations for her work. She continued acting until 2004, four years before her death.

Minnie Driver

 

Born Jan 31, 1970
Age:  42 years old

Amelia Fiona J. "Minnie" Driver is a British actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film Good Will Hunting, and an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.

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Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
--Unknown
(Not M. Twain)
    

Birthday Of President Abraham Lincoln

Tucson Weather Today

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One of the first of the many, many dates I was required to memorize way back in grade school was Lincoln's Birthday (today) and surprisingly enough I have never forgotten it.

One of the most recent quotes attributed to Mr. Lincoln that I have read (and am now attempting to memorize) is: "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

To me, that quotation is one of the most enduring pieces of wisdom in existence, and is of monumental importance especially in the current governmental atmosphere of seemingly casual, somewhat scornful, payment of lip-service to the constitution. Mr. Lincoln's words can well bear repeating:

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Born On This Day

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the United States

(February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865)

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


So! "The world will little note, nor long remember...."

Have we indeed forgotten?

It sometimes seems so.

Note:
Many of the volumes of Abraham Lincoln's writing are available FREE for downloading in Kindle editions from Amazon.com.

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America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
--Abraham Lincoln

Just Musing Is All

Tucson Weather Today

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It seems to me that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit imposing and collecting taxes from the annual income extorted from the citizens by the many organized religious institutions. After all, the first amendment in the Bill Of Rights states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Taxing money collected by a Church does not impinge upon the free exercise of church goers to practice their religion.

I recently read somewhere that in 2007 Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson) was reported to have given $10 million to The Church of Scientology. That is surely a mere drop in the bucket when so many wealthy celebrities call themselves Scientologists (John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and others) and who probably also donate huge 'tax deductible' amounts to the organization.

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If I Ruled The World is the title of a short piece by Steven Pinker wherein he decrees the following rule on pundits: No one may bemoan a decay, decline, or degeneration without providing a measure of the way the world is today...

This decree would, first of all, eliminate tedious jeremiads about the decline of the language. The genre has been around for centuries, and if the doomsayers were correct we would now be grunting like Tarzan. But not only do we see vast amounts of clear and competent prose in everyday outlets like Wikipedia and Amazon reviews, but a gusher of superb writing appearing daily, as anyone who has lost a morning to sites like The Browser and Arts and Letters Daily can attest.

This is an entertaining and (in my opinion) informative article and most thinking people will enjoy reading it.

Steven Pinker is professor of psychology at Harvard University.

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Memento mori