Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“Life
is like a game of golf. I know I am on the back nine but I am unsure
of what hole.”
Anonymous
A
while back I was working on an engineering job based on the 14th
floor of the First Union bank building at the corner of 4th
Avenue and Tryon Street in Charlotte, NC. We were designing a plant
of a peculiar circumstance. This plant was designed utilizing
American and French engineers and American designers. The premise was
this. The USA and Russia had agreed upon a certain amount of
disarmament meaning that there were nuclear weapons out there that
were going to be disarmed. What was going to happen to all that
weapons grade plutonium, uranium and derivatives thereof? It was
decided that these composites, being the most toxic ever conceived,
would be diluted and mixed with depleted uranium and plutonium and
used in nuclear power plants. The plant we were designing was going
to make this happen. The plant was going to be built on the
Savannah River site near Aiken, SC. The thought of dealing with a
weapons grade radioactive anything made me feel cautious. There were
rules and stipulations that were in effect that were not applicable
anywhere else. It was a difficult assignment. By the way, the
French are the most successful in the world in the mixing of these
composites and used in nuclear power plants, that is why we had them
on the job. I left the job before the whole project was sent to the
Savannah River site for completion. As I understand it, after ten
years of design and the building of the plant itself, the project is
still underway with nearly no chance of it being completed because
the French engineering firm continues to find rework to keep their
jobs. Your tax dollars at work.
At
the risk of going against my personal rule of staying away from
religion and arousing plethora of different opinions, I am going to
report what I read about what a Charlotte newspaper reporter said
about his visit with the Charlotte Society of Atheists and Agnostics.
Recently
this society put a billboard on Billy Graham Parkway showing the
phrase “one nation under God” with the “under God” struck
through and another phrase saying “one nation indivisible” under
it. This phrase was how it was written originally and “under God”
was added in the 1950’s. The sign was vandalized over night, as
you might suspect. The society holds a monthly meeting of about 70
people at a neighborhood tavern and you can guess that is main topic
of conversation. Even though it is not enforced, there is a section
of the North Carolina Constitution that says “a person that does
not believe in God cannot hold public office”. That is a clear
violation of the United States Constitution and the society points
this out. At their meetings the society wears name tags with just
their first names on them knowing if their full names were known they
would be subject to prejudicial treatment by their bosses or fellow
workers at their places of employment or even in their neighborhoods.
They say that they as a group nationwide deserves acknowledgment
stating that statistics show that there are as many people that are
either atheists or agnostics in America as there is Mormons, Jews or
Muslims. I personally have no sympathy. I believe that what you
believe along those lines is an intensely personal one and is not for
display. I will say this: Many people say that this is a
“Christian” nation. We are not a “Christian” nation and
never have been. Many of our leaders when the capitol as in
Philadelphia were attendees of Joseph Priestley’s Unitarian church
in Philadelphia. Priestly believed that there is a God but did not
believe that Jesus Christ was supernatural. That makes them Deists,
not “Christian”. A Christian by definition is a follower of
Jesus Christ. And finally there were over 100 Jews that were
instrumental in the establishment of this great nation. That is all
I have to say about that.
Early
Saturday morning 25 year old Zavier Davis held up a Wendy’s
restaurant on Park Road in Charlotte, NC. The Charlotte police were
called about the robbery and showed up very quickly. Officer Oliver
Payne was waiting at the back door when Davis came running out with
gun in hand. Davis apparently raised his gun but Officer Payne was
quicker and shot Davis in the hind leg. Davis went down like a sack
of potatoes and was arrested and sent to the hospital with a non-life
threatening wound. Here is the interesting part. From November 2001
to March of 2005 this jackass was convicted of 27 felonies and 13
misdemeanors mainly for robbing fast food places, breaking into cars
and trespassing. Why isn’t he in prison for good? What happened
to the “Three Strike Law”? This usually means that after the
third felony, it is life without parole. Maybe North Carolina does
not have such a law. What a shame.
This
Date in History August 3
1958
Earlier in 1948 a US navy advocate of nuclear power, Captain Hyman
Rickover, took command of the nuclear powered submarine program for
the US Navy. The keel for the first nuclear submarine was laid by
President Harry Truman in the ship building yards at Groton,
Connecticut. Finally, in 1954 First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower broke a
bottle of champagne across the bow of America’s first nuclear
submarine, the USS Nautilus. This submarine could stay submerged for
months undetected. The nuclear power plant needed no air nor water
and only a very small amount of nuclear fuel. The principal was
simple. The power plant was simply used to convert water into steam
and the steam was directed through a turbine which turned the
propeller and provided power and water to the crew. The water that
was used to make the steam was captured, condensed and reheated in a
continuous circuit. The Nautilus went through strenuous sea trials
and proved to be all that she was advertised. The US Navy was very
interested in the quickest route from Europe to the Orient without
going through the Panama Canal. A few days earlier the Nautilus,
commanded by Captain William Anderson, had departed Hawaii on
“Operation Northwest Passage”. The Nautilus surfaced only once
in the Bering sea to do a radar check and then submerged and went
under the Arctic Ocean ice pack, by the north pole and surfaced
between Sptizbergen and Greenland on August 5. This time was a hell
of a lot better that the time it took to go through the Panama Canal.
Captain Anderson was awarded the Legion of Merit by President
Eisenhower. After 500,000 miles at sea, the Nautilus was
decommissioned and is now a museum attraction at Groton, Connecticut.
1916
In 1911 Roger Casement was knighted by British King George V for
his service to the realm. Then for reasons known only to Roger, he
began to support the Irish Catholics in their sometime violent
attempt to gain independence from England. Roger was raised in an
arena of Presbyterians loyal to the king for all of his life. No one
knows what changed his mind but he was eventually captured and
sentenced to death as a traitor and hanged on the lawn of the
infamous Tower of London. It was pretty common that English royalty
frequently were beheaded or hanged in the 15th
and 16th
century, but not in this time period.
Born today:
1905
US writer and “Grey Panthers” advocate Maggie Kuhn. Her
advice for staying young was “Keep up learning and sex until rigor
mortis.” Maggie was a horny old girl for the great majority of her
90 years on the planet.
1940
US actor Martin Sheen. He said “I guess I am a “cliff-hanging”
Catholic. I do not believe in God, but I believe that Mary was his
mother.” Martin that is brilliant, if not full of self-serving
logic.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
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