Thursday OYSTERS

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Quote of the day:

“We keep saying that we are through with the past. The problem is that the past is not through with us.”

Educator Bergen Evans

This evening I had meeting with a man that is being schooled as a registered nurse and later on something short of a doctor. He wanted to open a discussion about what is wrong with the world. All he could identify was problems with the United States like, special interest groups, corruption, greed, etc. When I asked him if these are the problems with the United States and the rest of the world then what is the solution? He did not have an answer. Do any of you? I certainly do not.

I had a supervisor that once said to me “Don't come to me with a problem without at least three possible solutions and I will select one of them, after all you at the experts.”

This meant that we solved our own problems and if the solution did not work it was our fault.

I feel the same way. He was a smart man.

A man a lot smarter than me once said “It is losers that find the problems and the heroes that find the solutions”. Think about it.

Consider this:

It has been confirmed that the Earth is about 4.3 billion years old. The oldest fossil of an animal or plant ever found was about 165 million years old. My rudimentary math tells me that leaves about 4.14 billion years unaccounted for. Many scientists and most Central American Indian tribes say that life on this planet as we know it has been annihilated at least four times. Who/what was here before the dinosaurs...if anything? Did intelligent life exist before then? If so, how far back in the dim corridors of the past were they? If you reduce the life on this planet from 4.3 billion years to one year, present mankind has been walking upright for about four seconds...what else has happened previously?

A while back a riot broke out after church services in rural South Carolina. There were about 75 parishioners involved and it took several car loads of sheriff’s deputies to break it up. What the problem was is a certain group of the flock wanted a vote to get rid of the present pastor and there was another group that wanted to keep the present pastor and they would not allow a vote. Both sides decided to end this impasse the honorable way, they chose to fight it out. Make no mistake, the Old Testament allows and even encourages wholesale murder. In the book of Exodus Moses was told by God to instruct Joshua and his army to totally annihilate several tribes on their way to Canaan. The reason being was when they encountered the armies of Canaan they would not have to worry about an attack from the rear by any surviving hostiles. It worked. This was a matter of survival for the Children of Israel but fighting to see who was going to be the pastor is at least juvenile. All I have to say is “Thou shalt not kill, except under certain conditions and as directed.”

This Date in History February 4

1861 Earlier in November of 1860, the Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The Republican Party was formed in 1850 for the sole purpose of abolishing slavery in America. As early as 1858 the slave-holding states had threatened secession if a Republican was elected President. The Democratic Party was divided and in disarray and there was very little chance that their presidential nominee would win. Almost immediately after the Lincoln election, the State of South Carolina began assembling the paperwork necessary to secede from the Union. On December 20, 1860 the South Carolina legislature issued the “Ordinance of Secession” declaring them as no longer being a member of the United States of America. Soon after various regiments of the South Carolina militia began capturing Union forts and armaments because they knew a war was on the near horizon. On this date, representatives of South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana gathered in Montgomery, Alabama to hammer out a Constitution and establish the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as President. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861, Texas had joined the Confederacy. Very soon after this meeting all of the Union forts and outposts on Confederate soil had been capture by the Confederacy except Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC harbor (been there) and Fort Pickens on the west end of the Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, Florida (been there, too). The Civil War began in earnest of April 12, 1861 when CSA General P.T G. Beauregard ordered an artillery bombardment of Fort Sumter after the commander of the Fort refused to surrender to the Confederates. Eventually the commander of the fort did indeed surrender because the Confederate artillery forbade any supplies reaching the fort. Fort Sumter is on an island in the middle of the Charleston, SC harbor and supplies can only get there by boat, parachute or helicopter.

1789 On this date 69 members of Congress cast their ballots for our first President of the United States. In those days the members of Congress cast a ballot with two names on it, the person who had the most votes at the top of the ballot was President and the other was Vice-President. In this case the President was George Washington and the Vice President was John Adams. The same thing happened four years later.

Born today:

1876 US writer Sarah Cleghorn. She said “The children working in the factories are close enough that they can look out the window and watch the adults playing golf.” Using child labor in America is not that far in our past, y'all.

1895 English actor Nigel Bruce. When told the price of tickets to the ballet he said “That is a hell of lot of money to watch people jump.” I concur.

1906 German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a vehement anti-Nazi and had no problem saying so. When asked why he did not join the Nazi party he said “When you board a train going the wrong direction, there is no use in running down the aisle headed the opposite direction.” He was hanged by the Nazis just before the surrender.

Died today:

1982 English musician Alex Harvey. He said “Do you think Paul McCartney makes records just to aggravate me personally, or does he want to get up every freaking body’s nose with his freaking antics?” Alex and Paul evidently did not get along.

2006 US feminist Betty Freidan. She said “The feminine mystique has buried millions of American women alive.” Betty, what the hell is the “feminine mystique”?

                Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow