Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“My advice is to get married. If she is a good wife you will be happy, if not you will become a philosopher.”

                                                      Socrates

Recently your President paid a visit to South Carolina. His agenda was to visit Benedict College in Columbia, SC and then hurry over to Alabama to participate in the 50^th anniversary of the Pettus Bridge confrontation near Selma, Alabama. What happened was this: There was a peaceful congregation attempting to walk from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery to protest unequal voting rights enforced in the state. The local constabulary waded into the crowd at the bridge and using night sticks beat crap out of many of them. There is no question that this denial of “peaceful assembly” as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and went a long way toward the passage of the Civil Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson (a Texan, by the way) which reaffirmed every citizen's the right to vote regardless of race, creed or color. It was a landmark in the history of this nation. This event was also called “Bloody Sunday” even though there was no fatalities. I just wish that there was acknowledgments of the so-called “Battle of Sand Creek” or the “Battle of Wounded Knee”. Sand Creek happened 1864 when a US cavalry officer named Chivington decided that he wanted to be governor of the Colorado territory but needed notoriety. He ordered and attack on a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho camped near Sand Creek. The attack lasted about 4 hours including the use of howitzers. About 220 Indians were killed out of 350 mostly women, children and the elderly. Chivington and his troops then went among the dead and cut off the genitalia of both women and men and rode into the closest town waving them in the air. Chivington was shamed out of existence after this unbelievable barbarity.

Wounded Knee was the last documented “battle” between the US cavalry in 1890 with similar results as Sand Creek except for the barbarity with the genitalia. Then we have Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, etc. where over 640,000 American's died shaping this nation into what it is today...but this tragedy is not even taught in high schools anymore and neither is the Holocaust. Should we remember all of this? My conscience says that I must. By the way the Pettus Bridge was finished in 1940 and named for Edmund Pettus, the Grand Wizard of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

This Date in History March 12

1930 On this date the spiritual leader of India, Mohandas Gandhi began a march of defiance from Delhi to the sea to gather salt. If you can believe this, the British government had forbidden the population of India to buy sell or gather salt except from a supply owned by the British. Salt was a very important addition to the diet of the Indians because of the heat. As in the past with opium in China, Great Britain wanted a monopoly on what was needed in different populations of the earth to keep the economy flourishing. In fact, Great Britain went to war with the Chinese Government over supplying opium to the Chinese. It was Great Britain’s contention that they had supplied the opium to China in the first place to get them addicted; now they wanted a monopoly. The Chinese government said that the drug was harmful and a war began because of it. Anyway, Great Britain had cornered the market on salt in India and they wanted to continue the monopoly but the religious leader Mohandas Gandhi called bullshit on that and headed for the Indian Ocean to gather salt. Gandhi contended that salt was a gift from Siva (God) and no man could sell it under force of law. He started the march of 241 miles with 78 followers, and when he reached the coastal town of Dandhi, he had a following of over 60,000. In that town, natural sea salt was available for the taking at low tide. The British chose to grind the sea salt into the mud making it un attainable, but Gandhi walked down to the ocean’s edge and reached down into the mud and brought out a crystal of sea salt, washed it off and ate a bite of it which started a chain of civil disobedience events that eventually drove the British out of India and led to India's independence. Gandhi was arrested but immediately began a hunger strike that if it resulted in his death, the British would have millions of angry Indians on their hands. So Gandhi was released soon thereafter. By the way, Mohandas Gandhi was a student of American Henry David Thoreau and his theories of effective civil disobedience. India finally achieved independence from Great Britain in1947 and Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by left wing extremists a year later. This reminds me of the assassination of the Egyptian Anwar Sadat. He tried to gain some sort of peace with Israel and was succeeding but he was killed. I guess there are those out there that just like killing; world history is full of it unceasingly.

1922 Jack Kerouac is born this date in Lowell, Massachusetts. Jack had a big influence on my life at one time. He was a member of the “beat” generation who saw life in a non-materialistic way but sought inner peace and the purpose of life. Jack gave us just a few books but by far the most important of was “On the Road”. Jack had traveled the country mostly hitchhiking and getting rides anyway he could. He developed an amalgam of ideas and outlooks that forged his own philosophy. He also gave us the book “The Subterraneans” which was about people he had met that had an even more slanted outlook on life and preferred to be less visible with their beliefs in non-conformity. Jack died of a brain aneurism in Saint Petersburg, Florida in 1967. He was 45 years old. What a damned shame.

Born today:

1889 English historian Phillip Guedella. He said “History repeats itself, historians repeat each other”. Good insight, Phillip.

1912 Canadian writer Irving Layton. He said of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau “Canada has finally produced a Prime Minister worthy of assassination.” Ouch!

1928 US playwright Edward Albee. When speaking to his wife he said “If you existed, I would divorce you.” That, my friends, is the best insult I have ever read.

Died today:

2001 US entrepreneur Morton Downey, Jr. When speaking about women who smoke he said “I had rather have sex with a raccoon.” I would not go that far, Mort.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow