Al's
Most Recent
Quote
of the day:
“I
have married a few people I shouldn't have, but haven't we all.”
Mamie
Van Doren
I
read where a person failed a college course because he refused to
read the Quran and write a book report because he and his parents
objected to the book. I am very sensitive to censorship and this is
a form of it. Censorship is the act of forcing someone to read or
not read anything that someone else chooses. Another book should
have been offered as a substitute. This indicates that the teacher
was more interested in the content of the book that the book
report...that is abuse of power. I read another instance where a
teacher assigned the class to read “A Catcher in the Rye” and
write a book report. This book by J. D. Salinger is about a young
man growing up and encountering the mysteries of adolescence, among
these was masturbation. Because of this the parents of some of the
students objected so strongly calling the book pornography that the
teacher offered another book as a substitute. That certainly in
censorship...by the parents. That book is acknowledged to be one of
the greatest books ever written about adolescence and masturbation is
not pornography, it is reality. I don't think this teacher of
probably English composition was as interested in the book content as
much as she was in how the student composed the report. I wonder
would the college student refuse to write one on “The Communist
Manifesto” by Karl Marx or “Mien Kampf” by Adolf Hitler? Would
the parents object to this? The installation of a person's moral
fiber is done at home first and foremost and should be strong enough
to withstand the test of time, distance and outside influence.
On
one occasion two clean cut young men knocked on my door. The said
they were from the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) and wanted to
tell me about their religion. I asked if they had a bible and they
said they did and handed me the Book of Mormon. I told them to come
back in a week. I read the book cover to cover. It as the most
fantastic book of fiction (to me) that I had ever read....but in
retrospect it was no more fantastic than turning the Nile river into
blood or walking on water. It is all in what you choose to believe.
The introduction to a different religion like this did not make me
want to do a mass murder, but it gave me a broader aspect. Knowledge
is power, it makes you a lot less susceptible to deception. Think
about it.
This
Date in History December 21
1861
Earlier in November of this year a United States warship USS
San Jacinto
stopped and boarded the British mail ship HMS
Trent
in the Bahamas and captured two Confederate representatives on their
way to England and took them prisoner. On this date British
Secretary Lord Lyon met with United States Secretary of war William
Seward about this event. Lord Lyon assured Secretary Seward that the
British crown thought of this act as one of piracy and was worthy of
a declaration of war if the Confederate representatives, James Mason
and John Slidell, were not released immediately. Seward took Lyon’s
words to Lincoln. Lincoln stalled for a few days until he found out
that there were 11,000 British troops on the way to Canada. Soon
thereafter, Mason and Slidell were released and the US promised to
observe the sovereignty of British ships in the future. Lincoln
could not risk having to fight a war on two fronts.
1943
Donald Trump has suggested that the destruction of the families of
ISIS members would go a long way toward stopping their aggression.
This is not an unusual train of thought. US General Curtis LeMay,
the commander of the USAAF in the Pacific theater in WWII said
“There is only two ways to win a war, kill all of the enemy or
prosecute the war so severely that they surrender”. It worked in
WWII.
In
July of 1943 the USAAF and the British Bomber Command decided that it
was time to bomb the major cities in Germany, the military
significance not withstanding...they chose Hamburg. For 8 days and 7
nights the British and the Americans bombed everything with high
explosives blowing it into kindling and followed that by
incendiaries. The resulting firestorm was so hot that the asphalt on
the streets liquified making escape impossible. There was nothing
left of Hamburg...except 42,000 civilian corpses and 35,000 wounded.
There is a book out titled The
Night Hamburg Died. All
of you need to read this book of unspeakable horror. But the end
result was the German military was losing support of the people.
In
December of 1943 the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) and the
British bomber command being pleased with what happened in Hamburg
decided that they were going to level Liepzig, Germany. This city
really did not have a large military significance but it was one of
the largest cities in Germany. Late in the month Bomber Command flew
a night mission with 700 aircraft and dropped gigantic bombs that
once again broke the buildings into kindling. The next morning the
USAAF flew about 200 aircraft over Leipzig and dropped tons of
incendiaries. The resulting fire was a the largest conflagration in
the history of warfare beside Hamburg...there was nothing left of the
city except about 1,800 civilian corpses. Not as bad as Hamburg, but
the spirit of the German people was fading. War is hell.
1866
In 1861 the United States signed the Treaty
of Laramie
with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians ceding the Indians the lands
that contained the Bozeman
Trail,
but soon after this treaty was signed gold was discovered on the
Indian lands and gold seekers resumed using the Bozeman Trail once
again much to the displeasure of the Indians in general and the
Cheyenne chief Red
Cloud
in particular. The US Government not only allowed the breaking of
the treaty, they built army forts along the Bozeman Train to protect
the travelers. The most obnoxious one to the Indians was the fort on
the Little Piney named Fort Phil Kearney. This fort saw very few
days without some kind of attack by Red Clouds warriors. During all
of this, the fort had to have timber for heat and sent out wood
cutting groups on a regular basis. On this date, Red Cloud was
waiting and killed all but one of the wood cutting crew. Red Cloud
sent seven or eight warriors in view of the fort and when the fort
fired a round of artillery the Indians ran away in fear….or so they
thought. A Lieutenant Fetterman requested permission from the camp
commander to chase down the Indians that had ran away in fear and the
permission was granted. Fetterman took 45 cavalryman and 45 infantry
riding double and left the fort. Fetterman had instructions to not
go out of sight of the fort but soon after leaving the fort Fetterman
spotted 7 or 8 Indians running over the snowy hillside and chased
after them. As soon as all the troopers were over the hill and out
of sight of the fort Red Cloud and 2,000 of his warriors fell upon
the hapless troopers and annihilated them to a man. Not only that,
not one of the troopers was found in one piece. Soon after this the
United States decided to abandon Fort Phil Kearney. After the
troopers left the fort, it was set afire by Red Cloud before the
troopers were out of sight. This is one of the very few victories
the Indians enjoyed.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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