What Would Jimmy Do?

There’s been lots in the news lately about various groups’ rights. When I was growing up, I always had the impression that the United States kind of led the pack regarding human rights and people’s civil liberties. Obviously I was wrong. 

We were talking about voting a few days ago and the fact that women’s right to vote is a relatively recent thing. Actually, August of this year will mark the 103rd anniversary to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, that guaranteed women the right to vote. 

At least 19 nations — including the U.S. — initially restricted the right to vote for women of certain backgrounds based on demographic factors such as race, age, education level or marital status. In the U.S., more than four decades passed between the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — that took aim at discriminatory state and local restrictions intended to prevent Black Americans from voting.

The United States was one of the early adapters of women suffrage, but it wasn’t any where near the first country to do so. The first nations to grant women the right to vote were nearly all in Europe, or in places dominated by European colonialism.
So who was first? In 1893, New Zealand enfranchised its female citizens — making it the first nation or territory to formally allow women to vote in national elections. As to where the U.S. is on the list… at least 19 other countries allowed women to vote prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
The most recent countries, or territories, to allow women to participate in national elections are Bhutan, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia allowed women to vote in local elections in 2015 — Saudi Arabia does not hold national elections.

Women may have only “recently” been able to vote, but they often turn out vote at higher rates than men. According to my extensive research, a study in 2016 by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that women’s voter turnout was higher than men’s in 21 countries. American women have turned out to vote at slightly higher rates than men in every U.S. presidential election since 1984.

Susan B. Anthony once said, “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union… Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
So maybe we should do away with men’s rights and women’s rights, and just concentrate on human rights….
— 30 —

Today’s blog is to my first wife Claire….

I’ve tried everything to make my birthday wishes to you original.
This year again, I’ve tried a lot.
And a poet, I’m not
But even though the words may not rhyme,
That’s all I could come up with at the time.
So my wishes for your birthday this year
continue to be heartfelt and sincere…..

Another number, another year
But no worries, my dear
Another year older is another year better
Forget the number — the important thing is we’re together.

To the wonderful wife of mine,
You are like an expensive fine wine.
You make me a better person every day.
I may not always be able to express or say
And I may not always let it show,
But I love you  more than you know.
A connection like ours is precious and rare
I thank God for the love we share.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Claire!!
— 30 —

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the world is just growing more insane every day. Someone said they thought the Earth was God’s insane asylum — I’m beginning to think that’s true. 

I just heard on the news that more than 2 million liters of water from a reservoir in India was emptied on the order of an official who had dropped his smartphone into it while taking a selfie. 

Well, I figured this must be more “fake news” we hear every day. But I decided to check it out and so far as I can tell, it’s true. 
The official, Rajesh Vishwas, was picnicking with friends when he dropped his brand new phone into the Paralkot reservoir in Chhattisgarh State, where he lives. Now if that had happened to me, and if I’d looked at the options of considering it lost or draining the reservoir to retrieve it, I think I’d buy a new one. But not Mr. Vishwas, a government food inspector — he apparently decided that he had to have his phone back.

Initially, some villagers that Mr. Vishwas knew spent two days diving in the reservoir attempting to find the phone, but no luck. So he rented a diesel pump and drained about three feet of water from the reservoir — enough to irrigate about 1,500 acres of farmland.
Mr. Vishwas has been suspended from his job…. and the phone, when retrieved, didn’t work.
Heaven help us…..
— 30 —

Someone used the phrase, “I came, I saw, I conquered” the other day. I remember hearing it most all my life. It’s origin is attributed to Julius Caesar. According to my extensive research, Caesar first used the phrase after his victory over King Pharmacies II at Pontus (an area located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey.) 

So when Julius Caesar said, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” he came, he saw, and conquered — Turkey.
Of course Julius Caesar really said, “veni, vidi, vici” the Latin quote that translates to “I came, I saw, I conquered.” 
Today the phrase is used to mean someone totally succeeded at something…..
— 30 —

Yesterday we talked about Alexander Hamilton and how he was one of the primary architects of the Constitution. The Constitution, as originally written, could never have been approved. I suppose that’s understandable, considering that we had just fought a revolution over “taxation without representation” — I guess I’d have been a little cautious about the new document.

As you know from your history classes, the Constitution was ratified by all thirteen states by 1790, but only after the addition of ten amendments to the document — known as the Bill of Rights. The states cherished their new freedom from British control and the Constitution couldn’t be ratified until the citizens’ rights and freedoms were guaranteed — the Bill of Rights was designed to do just that.

The debate over the original Constitution polarized the nation. Those that supported the Constitution were known as federalists and those that opposed its ratification were called antifederalists. The federalists supported a strong national government — to preserve order. The antifederalists favored strong state governments and believed that the national government created by the Constitution was too strong.

It’s basically the same argument we hear today about the proper balance between order and liberty. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote a series of essays making a compelling argument in favor of ratification — those essay became known as the Federalist Papers. At the time, there were probably more antifederalists in America, but the federalists were better organized and controlled more newspapers and were generally in greater positions of power. The two sides finally reached an acceptable compromise when they agreed to add some amendments to the Constitution that protected individual liberties and rights. 

James Madison submitted twelve amendments to Congress. His intention was to answer the criticisms of the antifederalists. The states ratified all but two of the twelve amendments — one to authorize the enlargement of the House of Representatives and one to prevent members of the House from raising their own salaries until after an election had taken place. The other ten amendments made up the Bill of Rights and were ratified in 1791.

The compromise that created the Bill of Rights pretty much defined what Americans would come to cherish. Together with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the Bill of Rights helps define the American political system and the government’s relationship to its citizens. 

I do find it interesting that the original Bill of Rights would have kept federal politicians from raising their own salaries…. if that amendment had been ratified, I wonder how it would have played out over the years……
— 30 —

A few months ago, we had tickets to see the Broadway musical “Hamilton” at the Kennedy Center. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go, but Claire, Kelly and Emily went. I’m sorry I missed it — I’m not a big fan of musicals, but I think history is interesting and Hamilton is one of the more interesting of our founding fathers. 

Most of us know that he was America’s first Secretary of Treasury, that he was Washington’s right-hand man in the revolutionary War, he was one of the primary architects of the Constitution and he died in a duel with Aaron Burr.
Hamilton is probably best known for his engineering of America’s financial system, but he was also a prolific writer and he founded a newspaper. He established the New York Post in 1801, and the paper is still publishing a daily paper today.

I didn’t see the musical, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t address all of Hamilton’s adventures — and — mis-adventures. 
One of the Hamilton stories that I ran across a few years ago sheds a bit of a different light on one of my favorite founding fathers…. although he was happily married to a daughter from a prominent New York family, he strayed from his marriage bed, when he began an affair with Maria Reynolds. Reynolds was a married woman, and her husband quickly turned the affair to his advantage by blackmailing Hamilton. 

Today, I think everyone is sick and tired of sleazy politicians and their activities. A lot of us yearn for the good old days of honorable leaders like our founding fathers. But, if you dig a little deeper than the fifth-grad history books…. well, maybe not….
Here’s the Hamilton story as I remember it.

When Hamilton was at the height of his influence and power — and happily married — he met Maria Reynolds. The young woman asked him for money, saying her philandering husband had abandoned her. (Hamilton later said he was touched by the poor woman’s story.) Apparently, he was touched enough to begin an affair with her. After several months, Maria’s husband showed up at Hamilton’s door. Hamilton expected the outraged husband to demand “satisfaction” — a duel to the death. But — to Hamilton’s relief — James reynolds only demanded $1,000 as compensation for husbandly pain and suffering. He paid up, and James generously granted Hamilton leeway to continue the affair with Maria — in return for future payments.
The relationship continued with Maria, who became more and more clinging, until he could wriggle out of her grasp. Hamilton knew he’d been taken by a husband and wife con team. But Hamilton considered himself lucky to only be a few thousand dollars poorer as long as he was rid of Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds.

Some time later, Hamilton received another disturbing visit — this time from three U.S. senators, including James Monroe. The senators told Hamilton about a rumor that he had given money and secret Treasury Department information to a petty swindler named James Reynolds. (At this time, James was currently residing in a Philadelphia prison.) When faced with these accusations, Hamilton came clean. He confessed to the affair, but denied giving away any secret information. The senators believed him and left. 

A few years later, Hamilton left the Treasury Department and started private law practice. His “scandals” remained hidden, and he was an influential figure in national politics — he even considered running for president in 1800. But a couple of years before the 1800 election, a pamphlet  dredged up the whole “Reynolds Affair.” The tale of sex and payoffs created a sensation. Hamilton suspected that James Monroe (or one of the senators who came to his office a few years earlier) had leaked the story. James Monroe was an ally of Hamilton’s potential competitor for the presidency — Thomas Jefferson. Of course, Jefferson probably had dirty laundry of his own due to his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings.

But anyhow, Hamilton decided to fight — he wrote a fiery essay admitting that he had sex with Maria, but denied any wrongdoing at the Treasury Department. Hamilton decided to let everyone know he was an unfaithful husband, but he was not a crook. His public career survived — just barely. His enemies continued to discuss the affair and there was no chance that he could run for president. Thomas Jefferson won the election of 1800.

In 1804, Alexander Hamilton fought a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. The two men had long been political rivals, but the immediate cause of the duel was disparaging remarks Hamilton allegedly made about Burr at a dinner. After Hamilton’s dramatic death as a result of the duel, his long-suffering wife, Betsy, burned all her correspondence, so no one knows what she thought of her husband’s embarrassing behavior. 
An interesting note is that Maria Reynolds later had an affair with Aaron Burr, too.
Guess we have to just keep looking for those honorable leaders….
— 30 —

Today, June 6, is “D-Day,” the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy and acknowledged as the greatest amphibious invasion in history. This is one of those days that should commemorate an event that should never be forgotten.

Three years before D-Day — in 1941 — Winston Churchill told Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten to start thinking about an invasion of Europe. Churchill said, “Unless we can go on land and fight Hitler and beat his forces on land, we shall never win this war.” In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with General Dwight Eisenhower and informed him that he would be commanding the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.
All information pertaining to the invasion was marked “Bigot,” a classification higher than “Top Secret.”

The operation generated lots of pretty impressive — some almost unbelievable — stories and statistics….
Eisenhower smoked up to four packs of cigarets (Camels) a day in the months leading up to D-Day.
During the preparation and execution of D-Day, about 17 million maps were drawn up.
The objective of the D-Day operation was to breach the Atlantic Wall, a series of coastal defenses built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 that ran from Norway to the Franco-Spanish border. In early 1944, Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was tasked with strengthening the wall. Over 1.2 million tons of steel and 17 million cubic meters of concrete were used in building the wall’s defenses and included 92 manned radar sites. By the time of the Allied invasion on 6 June, more than 5 million land mines had be laid in northern France. Hitler wanted 15,000 concrete strong points to be manned by 300,000 troops — a task that proved impossible to achieve. 
To be sure his men wouldn’t let out secrets ahead of D-Day, thirty pretty members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, dressed in civilian clothes, were sent into pubs where soldiers were training. They were tasked to do all they could to discover the men’s mission. None of the men gave anything away.
The deception plan to keep the Germans guessing as to when and where the invasion would take place was called “Operation Bodyguard.”
The Allied invasion force sailed to a rendezvous area in the millddli of the English Channel nicknamed “Piccadilly Circus.” From there they sailed to the invasion zones.
About 7,000 vessels of all shapes and sizes were used by the Allies on D-Day, including 139 major warships, 221 smaller combat vessels, more than 1,000 minesweepers and auxiliary vessels, 805 merchant ships, and 300 miscellaneous small craft. Over 4,000 landing craft were used to transport the invasion force onto the beaches of Normandy.
The oldest Allied battleship in action on D-Day was the USS Arkansas — commissioned in 1912.
73,000 US troops and 83,000 British and Canadian troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day.

The weather forecast was so bad that Erwin Rommel, the German commander in Normandy, felt so sure there wouldn’t be an invasion he went home to give his wife a pair of shoes for her 50th birthday. He was in Germany when the news came of the invasion.
Shortly after midnight on June 6, about 24,000 US, British and Canadian airborne troops began landing in France — only one in six Allied paratroopers landed in the correct place. 
Allied aircraft dropped 7.2 million pounds of bombs on D-Day.
The Allies landed on five beaches in Normandy — code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
The first building in France to be liberated during Operation Overload was a cafe next to Pegasus Bridge.
Within 100 days of D-Day, 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of equipment and rations had been unloaded in France.
In order to continue supplying fuel to the invasion armies, the so-called “Pipeline Under The Ocean“ (PLUTO) was laid. The pipeline delivered allied fuel directly from England to France. US tanks were consuming an average 8,000 gallons of fuel per week at that time.
Allied casualties on 6 June have been estimated at 10,000 killed, wounded and missing in action: 6,603 Americans, 2,700 British, and 946 Canadians. Total German casualties on D-Day are not known, but are estimated to be between 4,000 and 9,000.

All this interesting to read about today, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the significance of D-Day and should remember those responsible for helping to win “the war to end all wars.”
I’ve quoted Stephen Ambrose on D-Day before, but it bears repeating…..
“At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So they fought, and won, and we, all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.”
— 30—

We save a lot of “stuff.” Most of it we’ll never use, but we save it “just in case.” I think Claire is worse about saving stuff than I am, but maybe not….
Anyhow, both of us grew up in households that had to be creative to “make ends meet.” Out parents and grandparents saved, reused, and repurposed lots of stuff….maybe that’s why we still save a lot of stuff. Even now, we save stuff that our kids don’t think twice about tossing.

I remember hearing that during the Great Depression, the phrase “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without” was popular. Obviously for good reason back then — and, maybe, not bad advice today.
Some of the things I remember my mom saving to reuse included paper bags, fabric scraps, buttons, string, flour sacks and soap. I remember that my grandmother and granddad, especially, saved just about everything their entire lives — maybe/probably because they lived through the Great Depression. And my grandmother squirreled away money in all sorts of hiding places all over the house — my grandparents didn’t trust banks after the crash in 1929.

I mentioned that my mother (and grandmothers) saved flour sacks. When I was growing up, flour came in cloth bags, or “sacks” a term I heard all through my childhood. They were made of cotton and some even had nice prints and patterns on them, which meant they made excellent fabric to make clothes out of. “Flour sack dresses” were very popular in Oklahoma and I remember my mom making me shirts out of flour sacks. 
No one threw away rubber tires — or inner tubes. When I was little, there was no such thing as a tubeless tire. I’m sure inner tubes for cars or trucks don’t even exist today….except maybe for antique cars. Anyhow, I remember my granddad using old tires to patch soles on worn-out shoes. 

But again, I’ve gotten off track and started down memory lane — that wasn’t my intent when I started. The point I started out to make was that today, we’ve become a throw-away society — people don’t save or re-use, repair or repurpose anything anymore. 
But we still save stuff.  Stuff we probably won’t use, but there’s still something in our past that says we might need it sometime and we can save money by not having to buy it. 
So if you save things, I guess that’s ok….
But don’t save string. If you need string, buy it.
— 30 —

They say that everybody comes from somewhere, but I was wondering how did these somewheres get their names? It looks like countries names are just like our first names that are handed to us without input and inherited, arbitrary, and lately — especially — absurd. Sometimes we get names we don’t want and efforts to change them don’t stick, Same with countries. 

My extensive research on this subject uncovered the fact that the majority of country names fall into just four categories:
a directional description of the country
a feature of the land
a tribal name
an important person (most likely a man)
The way countries get their names is almost never democratic, and very few are rooted in national qualities we like to associate with them, like liberty, strength or justice.

I found an interesting book — the Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names, by John Everett-Heath. If you’re interested in this subject, you should take a look at this book. 

Name origins are often (usually) murky and the book warns that “myths and legends may be entertaining, but rarely of value.”
About a third of the world’s countries got their current names from some older group of people. France is named for the Franks, Italy is named for the Vitali tribe, Switzerland for the Schwyz people, and Vietnam means Viet people of the south, to name a few. 

Recently (if you can call maybe the last hundred or so years recent) countries have started to reclaim much older identities — for example, in 1947 the Gold Coast gained independence from the British and was renamed Ghana.

A few countries have names that describe their people’s attributes — Upper Volta, in western Africa, was re-named Burkina faso in 1984, and means “land of honest men” or “land of incorruptible people.”

About a quarter of the world’s country names come from some aspect of the land. An example — Algeria is named after its capital city, Algiers, meaning “the islands.” That name once described the city’s bay, which at one time had tiny islands in it, but today they’ve become connected to the mainland or been destroyed in the development of the harbor. 

Some names about land features come from explorers or outsiders that saw the land through the eyes of “foreigners.”
There is some disagreement about which explorer named Costa Rica (“the rich coast,”) but some think it was Christopher Columbus, who saw indigenous people wearing gold and didn’t realize it was imported.
Singapore means “lion city,” and the lion head is a national symbol. But there aren’t any known lions in Singapore. According to legend the Sumatran prince Sang Nila Utama was hunting in Singapore and came across an animal he thought was a lion, “singa” in Malay, and gave the name Singa Pura to the island he was on.
The United States of America is named for the Italian explorer America Vespucci, who argued that —despite what everyone else thought at the time — the American continent was not part of the Iniies. In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, who literally put America on the map, named the area for “the discoverer Amerigo….as if it were the American land, or America.”

Our countries’ names give us a sense of pride and our leaders use them as emotional triggers in speeches and create slogans around country names (e.g., “make America great again.”)
So I guess what’s in a name is important and everyone should be proud of their country, but someone said that a man’s feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world. Today — that sounds like good advice.
— 30 —

We recently renewed our AARP membership, maybe optimistically, for another three or so years. It’s a worthwhile organization and their publications often have articles of interest to me. Recently there was an article that discussed some things that older people don’t enjoy as much as when they were young. 

I thought that might be an interesting thing to blog about, but when I started to think about it, I realized that a subject like that might result in a very long blog. But nonetheless, here’s some things that annoy me now that didn’t (at least not as much) when I was much younger…..

Mail — yep, the stuff delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. When I was a kid, living in Maysville Oklahoma, everyone got their mail at the post office, and I think almost everyone in town had a “post office box”  so you didn’t have to go the window and ask if you had any mail. I used to love to get the mail — I remember always stopping after school to see if there was any mail in our box. My parents would often not pick up the mail during the day, knowing that I liked getting it so much. I rarely got anything addressed to me, except when I sent in some box tops from cereal or something like that and the company would send me a very valuable gift — like a whistle or something just as valuable. I remember being excited to see what came in the mail every day. But — not so today. Nothing good ever comes in the mail. We don’t get a lot of mail, but what we do get usually falls in the category of bills, political advertisements, or requests for money from some worthwhile organization. We still get our mail in a “mailbox” but the excitement is gone.
Another thing that really bothers me a lot more than it used to is other drivers. I honestly can’t believe how stupid the average driver today is — they tailgate, drive over the yellow centerline, don’t signal if they’re going to turn, run stop signs/lights, etc. Driving has become more tiring to me, not so much because of my age, but because of the constant monitoring of all the other drivers….
Social media — all of it, although I confess I’ve never checked most of the sites. The first time I ever saw Facebook, I thought is was potentially one of the most dangerous ideas I’d ever heard of. I still believe that — now more than ever. And from what I can tell, that’s one of the “milder” social media platforms. It’s just something that I can’t find anything good about.
I’m not big on shopping — unless it’s someplace like Home Depot, I just want to get in and get out as fast as I can. And I especially hate that stores constantly rearrange their merchandise. If I’m looking for soup, I want the soup to be where it’s always been, not at the front of some isle or somewhere else. I understand the marketing strategy of moving stuff, but I still hate it. 
Something that has fairly recently started to annoy me is Apps. I spend a lot of money for a phone, or a computer and it seems like every time I want to do something, I have to get an APP to do it. I think there’s pretty much an App for everything….. won’t be long before you’ll need a special app to make a phone call.
The news — I get annoyed at the news. Everything is a breaking story — usually about how many people got shot in the last 24 hours. And all the news seems biased today — whatever happened to “just the facts?” Maybe there’s just too much news “overload“ — the evening news used to be 30 minutes, or maybe a hour — now it’s 3 hours… maybe more. And of course, a lot of it is “all about the ratings.”
Waiting — for things or people. I’ve never been particularly patient in this category, but but it seems to annoy me more these days… I seem to wait for everything — car to be serviced, pay for something, wait for a meal to be served in restaurants — I even wait for my computer to do something lots of times.
I don’t like people with no manners and I don’t like the lack of compassion in the world or how my optimism that the world would get better has declined. Seems like we’re going backwards — especially the environment and the rights of just about everyone.
And I guess this list should include — people. I used to be a people person, but people ruined it….
— 30 —