lastlib
lastlib's JournalCrosby & Nash - To The Last Whale:
Critical Mass/Wind On The Water
A truly haunting and beautiful song! Sends
down my spine
Today in history, 1967 - Apollo 1 Astronauts killed in flash fire in capsule
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/apollo-missions/apollo-1
During a preflight test on January 27, 1967 for what was to be the first crewed Apollo mission, a fire claimed the lives of three U.S. astronauts; Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edwar H. White and Roger B. Chaffee. After the disaster, the mission, which has previously been referred to as Apollo-Saturn 204 (AS-204), was officially designated Apollo 1, which was name for the mission the crew had intended to use.
The fire was caused by a spark from an electrical wire that ignited a fire in the pure oxygen-rich environment inside the spacecraft. The astronauts were unable to escape due to the lack of a hatch that could be opened from the inside.
**
** ** ** RIP, heroes.
Letter From A Birmingham Jail -- Martin Luther King
In honor of King's Day, (and because it's better reading than The Felon's verbal-vomit) I am re-posting some excerpts from this marvelous document. If you have never read it, today is a good day to do so; if you have read it previously, perhaps this is a good time to re-read it. It is truly one of the most important political statements in our history.
...
It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative....Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation....As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community....My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Links to the entire document:
https://letterfromjail.com/
http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail
Peace to my fellow DUers. May the next dark years pass swiftly, and may we as a nation recover from them quickly. If we as a nation are going to have a King, please let it be Martin.
'Tis the Season to be Grateful!
I cannot tell you how to become rich in the worldly sense. But I can tell you how to FEEL rich, which is far better than BEING rich. Be GRATEFUL--it's the only reliable get-rich-quick scheme.
Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.
The miracle is this: the more we SHARE, the more we HAVE. Be grateful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever, have enough.
Gratitude is the closest thing to beauty manifested in an emotion.
I am grateful for aches and pains--they remind me that I am alive.
I am grateful for long days--they remind me that I have a purpose in this world.
I am grateful for early work calls--they remind me that I am needed in this time.
I am grateful for the fingers typing this--they remind me that I have gifts to share with others.
I am grateful to be alive at the same time as you.
(compiled from various writers)
Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow travelers at DU!!
--lastlib
What if my religion is head-hunting....?
I FIRMLY believe that head-hunting is THE ONLY path to salvation. I urge allyou non-believers to impale your neighbor's head on a sharp stick, and feel the peace of salvation come over you! Then you will be delivered to your salvation!
(
.... JIC it's necessary.....)
You really bring it home to us!
ALL of us have a stake in fighting this regime/reign of terror/error. We hang together, or, most assuredly, we will hang separately. (Ben Franklin) I sympathize with your plight, and your wife's fears; sadly, all I can do to alleviate them is to lend my voice to the fight, which I do wholeheartedly. It is truly existential in every sense. We lose it at our peril. I believe I would join you in giving my life to oppose what our country has become under this monster's rule. It is too important not to.
A satisfying moment this morning
I was at the post office to send some mail, and as I exited, I saw a middle-aged man at the end of the sidewalk coming toward the door to come in. I started to hold the door open for him, but then noticed he was wearing a T-shirt that said “If you don’t like Tr**p, you probably won’t like me.” That tripped my trigger. I held the door until he was about five feet from it, then emphatically closed it; looked him square in the eyes and said, “You’re right!” As I stepped away, I added (in a slightly lower voice), “Idiot.” As I got in my car, I saw through the big window beside the door that he was giving me a nasty look, but I didn’t give a flying rooster. Was I rude? Yes. Was I happy about it? HELL, yes!
57 years ago today, Sirhan B. Sirhan fired the fatal shot...
assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Sr.) America would never be the same.
RFK has been my political hero for as long as I can remember. His vision of caring for and uplifting others, the "least" of us, has been my guiding star in politics. America was robbed of its soul that day, and it has never been returned to us. That theft has given us Nixon, Reagan, the bushes, and now tRump, to name only a few. Along the way, we suffered Jesse Helms ("Senator No" ), Newt Gingrich, Addison McConnell, Rafael Cruz, MT Greene, Gym Jordan, and a host of other unsavory characters. Our task now is to reclaim the legacy of RFK, and rebuild America in his image.
RIP, Bobby. We miss you very much. (I'm truly sorry your namesake turned out the way he has.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate......
...that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Crime Minister of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."
=======================================
The rest of the argument.
(my edits in bold italics)
Letter From A Birmingham Jail -- Martin Luther King
In honor of King's Day, (and because it's better reading than The Felon's verbal-vomit address) I am re-posting some excerpts from this marvelous document. If you have never read it, today is a good day to do so; if you have read it previously, perhaps this is a good time to re-read it.
...
It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative....Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation....As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community....My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Links to the entire document:
https://letterfromjail.com/
http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail
Peace to my fellow DUers. May the next dark years pass swiftly, and may we as a nation recover from them quickly.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: outside Kansas City, MO
Member since: Sun Jan 29, 2012, 11:28 AM
Number of posts: 27,810