KAMuston's blog
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 07:25.
I have not written about Jesse Helms because, frankly, he was a racist, misogynistic homophobe and deserves no further attention. He warned the citizens of North Carolina, in an 1963 editorial, that “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." Jesse Helms never repented those sentiments. More recently he alleged that “Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches”, and he warned the voters of North Carolina that, “Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that cannibalism, wife-swapping and murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior”. Jess Helm’s loyalist are now feasting on the poverty of his legacy.
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 06:05.
I was surprised to learn some years ago after actually reading the famous "Potsdam Declaration", issued in July 29, 1945, that it says nothing about Japan. The public statement released concerning Japan was the "Potsdam Statement", which was issued on July 26th.
Submitted by KAMuston on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 07:35.
Submitted by KAMuston on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 07:22.
I am continually amazed that it wasn't until June 22nd, 1945, that the Emperor finally called a meeting of his ‘Big Six’ advisors. He told them openly for the first time , "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them." There was no talk of terms, and no effort to "push" the process.
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 06:41.
I have begun to wonder just how we can end will the war in Iraqi. Senator McCain is insisting that our troops come home victorious, which sounds a little like the old U.S. Grant dictum, “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender." Grant did demand those terms but when they were rejected he immediately modified them. But “Greatest Generation” still expects wars to end victoriously, like World War Two. But even WWII did not end in total victory as protrayed in campaign speeches. And over the next few columns I mean to tell you the truth about the how we ended the war against Japan.
Submitted by KAMuston on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 06:30.
I suppose you know that the month of August was named after Augustus Caesar, nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, who was the namesake for July. But did you know that poor old February had to suffer because of it?
Submitted by KAMuston on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 08:44.
I have a horrible feeling that somehow we’ve gotten this whole endangered species thing backward. Yes, we continue to carelessly destroy habitats, introduce alien species, and randomly dump industrial waste, and that’s all bad and we should stop it. But I’ve been eating dolphin safe tuna for almost forty years now and the darn dolphins are still not safe. I thought these guys were supposed to be so smart! Meanwhile, nobody is trying to protect the Northern Pike of Lake Davis, California: Quite the opposite.
Some idiot released a couple of Esox Lucius Linaeus – Northern Pike - into the small and now very un-placid Lake Davis back in 1991 because they thought Pike would be fun to catch. Unfortunately the lake already had a stocked population of game fish, Onocorhynchus clarki – Rainbow Trout - which are not only a popular game fish amongst tourists but are also an easy meal for the voracious Northern Pike.
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 07:32.
I can’t verify or prove any of what follows, but this is what I think happened to Judge Crater. This story comes together from three separate sources; first from Stephen Ellis, the son of Emil Ellis, the lawyer who represented Stella Crater in her lawsuits against the insurance companies; second from a letter marked “Not to be opened until after my death”, left behind in the first decade of the 21st century by a 91 year old widow; and third from news stories published in the 1950’s. Each source is independent of the others, and although they would not pass muster in a court of law, in history research they are about as close as we are ever going to get to the truth. And at the center of all three is the infamous prohibition gangster, Legs Diamond.
Submitted by KAMuston on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 07:05.
I would like to own a time machine. And if I had one, the first place and time I would visit would be West 45th street, in Manhattan, just after 9:00 PM on the night of August 6, 1930. With a little luck I would have seen a dapper middle aged man, six feet tall, about 180 pounds, wearing a dark brown double-breasted coat and matching trousers, a bow tie, a Masonic ring and a gold wristwatch, a pair of pearl-gray pinstriped spats and all set off by straw panama hat, tipped at a jaunty angle. He was seen stepping into a cab outside of Billy Haas’ Chophouse, where he had just eaten dinner with friends. Given the chance I would get close enough to get a look at the cab driver’s face. Because if the driver was who I think he was, then the passenger would be newly appointed New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Force Crater. And after that cab pulled into the New York night, he dropped off the face of the earth.
Submitted by KAMuston on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 08:22.
I cannot condone what the six lions did. If it is crime to bite the hand that feeds you, it is certainly a crime to bite the hand that brings you water. And sometime shortly after eleven am on Tuesday, May 27 a 49 year old unnamed keeper had gone alone into the enclosure where the lions were kept (so the tourists could stare at them) to deliver fresh water. He was familiar with the lions. He had worked at the Utispan African Trophy Hunting Ranch, in the wild northwest desert of South Africa, for two years. But, as somebody once said, familiarity breeds contempt: I think it was either Sigfried or Roy who said that. But we can be certain that the lions did bite his hand because if you are going to leave the fingers scattered on the ground, you have to swallow the hand. And before you can swallow it, you have to bite it.
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 07/18/2008 - 06:16.
I came across an interesting story in Editor& Publisher, the web site that keeps track of the newspaper business. It seems a little free alternative weekly, CityBeat” published every Thursday in Cincinnati, Ohio (circulation about 323,000 each month) has filed suit in Federal Court alleging a right-wing political/religious conspiracy to restrain trade and violate the paper’s freedom of speech, committed by 39 defendants acting under the coordination of the “Citizens for Community Values” (“Protecting Families since 1983”). It looks likely to turn into quite the little legal contretemps.
Submitted by KAMuston on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 06:26.
Submitted by KAMuston on Sun, 07/13/2008 - 07:11.
Submitted by KAMuston on Fri, 07/11/2008 - 11:19.
I was told repeatedly as a child that computers were going to solve all of our problems. And once upon a time I believed that. The problem was I failed to get a definition of what “our” meant in that context.
Submitted by KAMuston on Wed, 07/09/2008 - 09:35.
I was 18 years old in 1969, and the future seemed like a steady progression toward a better world. Well, at that age your hormones usually don’t let you see beyond your own nose, and there was plenty of news clutter to distract me. Judy Garland had just died and the Beatles had a new album out; Abbey Road. Oh, and two months earlier humans had first set foot upon the moon. And so I could be forgiven for missing the significance on Tuesday, September 9th when, just after noon, Allegheny Airlines flight #853 lifted her wheels off the runway at Boston’s Logan Airport and clawed her way into the sky.
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