A friend mentioned the above phrase General Mad-Dog Mattis often uses in posting about the death of the badass Cryptologic Technician. This happened on Facebook and it being Facebook, it spurred a troll who completely misunderstood the phrase. He took it to mean the United States attempting nation building. Here is an example of Mattis’… Continue reading America’s experiment in democracy
Category: History
On Monuments
We built monuments to display our pride of winning or mourn our loss. They represent what we considered the great things about our society in the past as lessons for the present and future. In that light, defacing a historical marker such as both of Emmett Till’s shows the opposition that honoring the person is… Continue reading On Monuments
Patriots’ Day
I watched the movie the other day. It made me realize that I know next to nothing about what the title is referencing. The synopsis I read about the movie made clear it was about the Boston Marathon Bombing, so it made it seem that the movie was about the heroic efforts of the Boston… Continue reading Patriots’ Day
Independence
Thinking about independence since it is the Fourth of July. Over the centuries it is amusing how close the United States has become with the United Kingdom (descendant of Great Britain). So much so that both the President of the United States and a candidate for the job both travel to the UK and talk about how… Continue reading Independence
Pneumatic tubes
According to Dan Pink, John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. predicted several things: Among his calls: Americans will be taller. (True) There will be no C, X, or Q in the alphabet. (False) Photographs will be telegraphed from large distances. (True) Rats and mice will be gone. (False). Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and… Continue reading Pneumatic tubes
Odyssey Dawn?
One interpretation of Operation Odyssey Dawn is a ten year struggle to get home. Instead of ten years, I think it refers to a single day. The Odyssey is a Greek epic poem by Homer describing the ten year adventure of the craftiest Greek general attempting to return home from the Trojan War. Odysseus wandered… Continue reading Odyssey Dawn?
Deciding the Fate of North America
The French and Indian: War Deciding the Fate of North America In high school and college the French and Indian War was this long amorphous event in between settling the colonies and the American Revolution. It took a movie, The Patriot (not even in my top 500 movies), to give some color to the story… Continue reading Deciding the Fate of North America
Bicentennial for the Abolition of Slave Trade to US Tomorrow
An Even Better Reason to Celebrate has a nice longer version of this quote from a NYT OpEd piece on tomorrow being the bicentennial for the ablution of slave trade to the United States. WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of… Continue reading Bicentennial for the Abolition of Slave Trade to US Tomorrow
Bicentennial for the Abolition of Slave Trade to US Tomorrow
An Even Better Reason to Celebrate has a nice longer version of this quote from a NYT OpEd piece on tomorrow being the bicentennial for the abolution of slave trade to the United States. WE Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of… Continue reading Bicentennial for the Abolition of Slave Trade to US Tomorrow
Search for Ithaca
A geological engineering company said Monday it has agreed to help in an archaeological project to find the island of Ithaca, homeland of Homer’s legendary hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that the island of Ithaki in the Ionian Sea was the island Homer used as a setting for the epic poem “The Odyssey,”… Continue reading Search for Ithaca