Thursday, March 5, 2009

March 5th in the history books

March 5th is Customs Chiefs Day in Vanuatu

Through the National Council of Chiefs several programs have been established to protect Vanuatu customs and to make people more aware of the importance of their traditions. A typical government holiday with the usual bank/government offices closures. This is my kind of paradise!
http://www.southpacific.org/guide/vanuatu.html

It's also Missionary Day in French Polynesia, marking the arrival of the first missionaries.

more exciting events of the day:

1558 Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes
1623 1st American temperance law enacted, Virginia
1770 Boston Massacre, British troops kill 5 in crowd; Crispus Attackus becomes 1st black to die for American freedom

1824 Elisha Harris US, physician/found American Public Health Association
1836 Mexico attacks Alamo

1836 Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model
1864 1st track meet between Oxford & Cambridge
1907 1st radio broadcast of a musical composition aired

1908 Rex [Reginald Carey] Harrison Huyton Lancashire England, actor (My Fair Lady, Dr Doolittle)
1923 Montana & Nevada become 1st states to enact old age pension laws

1933 FDR proclaims 10-day bank holiday
On the morning of Franklin D Roosevelt’s inauguration as US president on March 4, 1933, the governors of New York and Illinois closed their banks. Roosevelt proclaimed a national bank holiday, which closed all the banks in the country until Congress could reconvene to pass banking legislation. The whole system appeared to have ground to a halt. The following Sunday, he addressed the nation on the radio and explained how the banks were to be reopened on a phased basis. “Confidence and courage,” he told listeners, were the essentials of success in carrying out that plan. “It is better to keep your money in a reopened bank than it is to keep it under the mattress.” Seldom has presidential rhetoric been put to the test so quickly. No one knew for sure which banks were sound. If FDR’s appeal failed and depositors withdrew their money, more banks would fail and there was no Plan B. The next day, March 13, Americans put more money into the banks than they withdrew. In the next week most banks reopened. Even bankers were amazed.
1934 Mother-in-law's day 1st celebrated (Amarillo TX)
1953 Josef V Stalin soviet leader responsible for 11 million murders, dies at 73
1956 "King Kong" 1st televised
1960 Elvis Presley ends 2-year hitch in US Army
1963 Patsy Cline country singer (Crazy, I Fall To Pieces), dies in a plane crash at 30

1966 Bob Seagren pole vaults 5.19 meter indoor world record (current record held for 16 years by Sergei Bubka's - 6.15 meters)
1968 US launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun

1969 Gold reaches then record high ($47 per ounce) in Paris France (best I can tell, the current price is $935.37 per ounce)
1970 Nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect
1973 Yankee pitchers Peterson & Kekich announce they swapped wives
1976 British £ falls below $2 for 1st time (today our dollar is only worth $0.7963 Euros, but is worth $1.2896 in Canada)
1980 Jay Silverheels actor (Tonto-Lone Ranger), dies at 60

1984 Supreme Court (5-4); city may use public money for Nativity scene
1984 US accuse Iraq of using poison gas
1992 Ethic committee votes to reveal congressmen who bounced checks

"I'm Tired"

I often take descriptions from others articles about various subjects - quotes relating to whatever I'm in the mood to discuss. Today, I'm reprinting the complete thoughts of a retired Marine on the state of affairs in our country. I'm doing this because I wish I'd been the one to write it - it states exactly how I feel! It's reaffirming to know there are others out there who feel as I do, and makes me wonder, sadly, where America will end up, why we who believe in the Republic and the Constitution and the original intent of small government to make and enforce laws and the rights of free people, are losing ground steadily to government taking control of our freedoms.

“I’m Tired”
by Robert A. Hall

I’ll be 63 soon. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth around” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy or stupid to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes. Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them—with their own money.

I’m tired of being told how bad America is by leftwing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women’s rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won’t multiculturalism be beautiful?

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor;” of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers;” of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery;” of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I believe “a man should be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.” I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of President Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of US Senators from Illinois . I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less in an all-knowing government.

I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful. That thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress, that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his, that slammed Palin with two years as governor for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever.

Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenshi p any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need.

I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people then themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers—bums are bi-partisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bi-partisanship. I live in Illinois , where the “ Illinois Combine” of Democrats and Republicans has worked together harmoniously to loot the public for years. And I notice that the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet are bi-partisan as well.

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to get to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts state senate. He blogs at www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com

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