Optimist. Link here. Alex Trebek and serviving pancreatic cancer. Stay'n alive, when you are lost and only 5 years-old. Stop, stay put, keep dry, and wait. A special feminist club: When your school is all male and you want to see change. A new field of study, pregnancy. Reading the fine print paid off well for Donelan Andrews, $10,000 and more for several charities.
Notable dates in US History.
6 March 1857: The US Supreme Court issued the deplorable Dredd Scott vs. Sanford ruling, declaring 7-2 that Scott was a slave, not a US citizen, and, therefore, could not sue for his freedom. 1912: the Oreo sandwich cooked debuted on grocery shelves.
7 March 1965: The civil rights march in Selma, AL, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge was violently broken up; the day became known as "Bloody Sunday."
8 March 1983: President Reagan first referred to the USSR as the "evil empire," a moniker that stuck. 2019: International Women's Day, celebrated worldwide. At the top, in America's increasingly crowded Democratic presidential race, a myriad of choices abound with varying ideas and concerns. Women who are (alpha order here): business-oriented, office-holders, of color, older, white, younger. Surely with more to come.
9 March 1862: During the Civil War, the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.
10 March 1913: Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, NY, she was in her 90s. She was a former slave, famed as an abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor.”
11 March 1888: The eastern US was inundated by a record-setting blizzard that resulted in more than 400 deaths. This was just a year after the blizzard of 1887 that resulted in the death of up to 90% of range cattle on the great plains. 1918: The US had its first deaths of the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic among soldiers stationed at Ft. Riley, KS.
12 March 1912: Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, GA, formed the Girl Scouts of America. 1923: Lee De Forest demonstrated Phonofilm, a sound on movie film system in NYC.
Sexual assaults in the armed forces. A congressional committee heard testimony from US Senator Martha McSally (R, AZ) about having been raped year ago by a superior USAF officer. McSally, now retired was a decorated 26 year veteran, a squadron commander and the first woman to fly fighter combat missions. She said she suffered in silence because she did not trust the system and referred to herself as a "military sexual-assault victim." She is not alone with her memories.
The news desert. This story from Waynesville, Pulaski County, MO, discusses a situation faced by more and more Americans: the dearth of local news coverage as their local newspapers are been shuttered. When their Daily Guide closed, Facebook blogger Darrell Todd Maurina became their sole source of local proceedings.
For example, Maurina became
"...the only person who has come to the Pulaski County courthouse to tell residents what their commissioners are up to, the only one who will report on their deliberations about how to satisfy the Federal Emergency Management Agency so it will pay to repair a road inundated during a 2013 flood....[Indeed, many other]Americans no longer have someone watching the city council for them, chronicling the soccer exploits of their children or reporting on the kindly neighbor who died."Vaccinations. This national debate got a new face, when 18 year-old Ethan Lindenberger, of Norwalk, OH, testified before a US Senate health committee, explaining how he did his own research and, when he reached 18, obtained his vaccinations against his mother's wishes.
Freedom of Information in the church news. Congressional push back has been notable, even among Republicans. This is good news. The Roman Catholic Church tried to stifle the Copernican and other heretical scientific news, unsuccessfully in the end, thank goodness.
Bankruptcy changes? At present, when large company X (e.g. Toys 'R US), of municipality, maybe even state (IL comes immediately to mind) declares bankruptcy, the first group shafted, left out in the cold, are the company's employees and pensioners. Thankfully, that may change. But, of course, not without a fight, as the wealth-holding stockholders will surely balk, demanding to be pushed to the front of the "gimme-line."
Antisemitism. If I note that America was the first nation to recognize the state of Israel (1 May 1948), can I be said to be pro-Israel? Similarly, can I be said to be either pro- or anti-Israel if I note that the America Israel Public Affairs Committee is unabashedly pro-Israel? However, when Ilhan Omar (D, MN), spoke about Americans who are too tied to Israel, who exhibit "dual-loyalty," the antisemitism button was pushed. The Democrats seemed to have touched a so-called "third rail" in American politics.
Democrat/Democratic. President Trump says it is not the Democratic, rather the Democrat Party. What's in a name, you ask? Others have used the term as he is. He may not realize that many think it equally likely that the Republican Party is slowly morphing into the Trump Party. For The Supreme Narcissist, though, that is undoubtedly just fine.
Too noisy? Now, "what's in a sound, you may ask?" A congressional panel was hearing testimony about the use of extremely loud underwater seismic blasts in the search for oil and natural gas deposits. One committee member gave the room a blast of 120 db from an over-the-counter air horn, loud enough for one pregnant staff member to report that her unborn child kicked her. When the industry official could not offer a guess as to how loud the underwater testing blasts actually were, the congressman replied they were 16,000 times louder.
The recent sighting on the Atlantic coast of several endangered right whales and their calves have reignited the debate about the effects of the industry's sonic search tools.
A "missed" presidential candidate? Senator Sherrod Brown (D, OH) has announced that he will not be a presidential candidate in 2020. Columnist Karen Tumulty says he will be missed. Elsewhere, it was noted that 206 US counties twice voted for Barack Obama and then in 2016 voted for Donald Trump, more than 10 were in OH. Explaining/reversing that "flip" may be a key to Democratic chances in 2020.
Your new travel visa requirements. Soon you will need a visa to travel to "...Europe’s Schengen Zone, an area comprising 26 countries, including France, Germany and Spain, but not Britain." Hopefully, these visas will be as cheap and easily obtained as advertised.
Fined for protesting legally? This story from High Country News notes that the SD legislature recently passed laws to permit fines for those who deemed "riot-boosters." Legal challenges are sure to follow.
Legal access. From the Denver Post, "Michael Martinez, the chief judge overseeing the
Denver District Court bench, got choked up as he recalled an exchange he
overheard between a daughter and her elderly father one day a couple of
years ago as he was leaving the courthouse downtown. The woman looked at her father and said, “Let’s just go. There’s nobody here that can help us.”
That struck Judge Martinez as just wrong. “We’re here to dispense justice for everyone and want to ensure equal access to everyone,” [but, too over loaded calendars are] a problem not just limited to Denver." In an growing and increasingly litigious society, the legislatures and city councils that fund courts have to step up!
Thank you for reading. "A mind that has been stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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