Notes from around the Human Experience…
GIVE NUCLEAR WAR A CHANCE: Fresh off another successful nuclear test, North Korea is again testing, so to speak, the world’s patience. The sabers continue to rattle. The threat, as comical as it is tragic, continues to grow.
It’s tragic because until somebody uses the common sense they were born with the chance of nuclear weapons being used again grows by the day. It’s comical because this tit-for-tat is childish and unnecessary.
Dry, Technical Matter: What are we expecting to happen here? Are we expecting threats and sanctions to persuade North Korea to back down? That is folly. North Korea is a second-rate military dictatorship led by a leader eager to show the world how big his cock is.
Don’t expect the US to back down, either. President Donald Trump – no stranger to showing the world whose is bigger – has one purpose in life: drawing attention to himself and he will mine this for every possible drop of attention it can generate for him, eagerly cheered on by the warmongers in the Defense Department.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We said this ad nauseum on the campaign trail:
We are not going to have a peaceful world without a peaceful America…
You can’t really argue with this, either. Well, you can, but not successfully.
Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury: Has American interference anywhere at any time produced peace? Of course it hasn’t. America has been at war continuously for almost three decades and the only dividend we have to show for it is more war, more death, more destruction. In no place and at no time has American intervention produced peace.
Her Lips Moved…She’s Lying: The United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told this to the UN Security Council:
Enough is enough. War is never something the United States wants…
LOL: We checked. Haley said this with a straight face. She was just funning the UN, of course, because another war is always something the United States is down for.
We are on our way to getting it. The United States is to blame for all of this. You stir a hornet’s nest you are going to get stung. You leave it alone, you won’t. We are pestering and instigating North Korea, a nation more than willing to be pestered and instigated, and they are responding exactly as you would expect.
OH, BLOODY HELL: After four days, the Great Fire of London ends on this date in 1666.History estimates that the homes of 70,000 of London’s 80,000 residents are destroyed.
Also destroyed was Old St Paul’s Cathedral. The fourth church on that spot, William the Conqueror had started construction in 1087 following yet another fire. It was finished in 1314. Another St Paul’s Cathedral currently stands on the site.
Shave And A Haircut, Two Bits: Russian Tsar Peter the Great, just back from an 18-month tour of Europe – a tour History refers to as the Great Embassy – orders all citizens to shave their beards on this date in 1698. It was an effort to modernize what Peter believed was a backward country. The tax ranged from a couple of kopeks for peasants to 100 rubles for the nobles. Those that paid the tax had to wear a medallion that had a beard engraved on it.
Peter, himself clean shaven, started right in, removing the beards of his court at a reception immediately after his return.
Dry, Technical Matter: A couple of years later Peter would declare the Julian calendar in effect, changing the year from 7207 to 1700. Previously, the Russians had reckoned the year from what they perceived to be the creation of the world.
USA! USA!: The Continental Congress of the United Colonies convenes for the first time, at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, on this date in 1774. They would adjourn in October and the Second Continental Congress would convene the following May.
Congress has always been good about keeping records, and regular readers of this crap know we quote their journals whenever we can. For their first session, they recorded the names of the delegates, as well as their commissions from their respective colonies.
The More Things Change…: Congress being Congress, they attempted to form a committee, however – again, Congress being Congress – this was put off until tomorrow.
Trial Of The Century: One of Hollywood’s first great scandals begins on this date in 1921 when actress Virginia Rappe falls ill at the St Francis Hotel in San Francisco at a party hosted by actor Fatty Arbuckle. She dies four days later.
Arbuckle was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and the ensuing scandal may well have put OJ Simpson to shame. Arbuckle would stand trial three times in Rappe’s death. The first two trials resulted in hung juries and the third jury acquitted Arbuckle.
Nowadays a scandal like that might get you a three picture deal, or the White House, but Arbuckle had trouble finding work after his acquittal, his wife left him and he would die at age 46 in 1933.
Quotebook: …Malcolm felt his heart pound with hope because he knew that intuition and instinct had once again performed their customary miracle. – William McGivern, Choice of Assassins
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Henry Laurens and John Adams negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the British.
Today’s Stumper: The First Continental Congress was the third legislative gathering of the colonies. What were the first two? – Answer next time!
