Throughout your life there are things you learn about and forget. Then there are things you never learned about! I think the following falls into the later category. But on this date in 1933, there was an attempt made to assassinate Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Miami, Florida. Here’s what happened on that fateful day.
As I write and read about political and musical matters I am always learning something new. Here are two things I just learned about at 72!
The first political thing I learned came via the book Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Livitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.. I just finished the book.a few days ago. It’s really a terrific read. It’s a book anyone who’s concerned about the future of our country should read. I’ll write more about it later,
Needless to say, I haven’t posted at this site for eons! Hopefully, I can start it up again and post on a more regular basis.
So let’s begin with an On This Day In History. On January 23, 1907 Charles Curtis, of Kansas, became the first Native American to serve in the United States Senate. In 1929 Curtis became U.S. President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President. From Wikipedia….. I
Here are the book I read in January of 2019. They certainly have gotten my reading year off to a great start!
The she that is riding shotgun is young Polly McCluskey .And she’s riding shotgun with her father Nate McCluskey. Nate is just getting out of prison when he runs afoul of the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood. The leader put out a green light on his murder . That puts everyone he cares for including his ex-wife and daughter Polly in danger.
So last year I reached what I thought was an unreachable Reading Challenge goal of reading 65 books. At some point in the next week or two I will recap what I read and how those books fit into my various sub-Reading Challenges! Additionally, I will be creating and writing about my 2019 Reading Challenges.
Over the last few weeks I am finding it more and more difficult to post. Again I haven’t stopped reading, listening or exercising just that when I sit down to write a post, I get distracted and pick up a book or good do something else. Anyway I just finished book 9 of 2017. The following read though is for book 7. Hopefully, if I can get myself focused and motivated reviews for book 8 Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay and book 9 Descent by Tim Johnston, will follow shortly.
So I have not ever been a fan of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, The obvious reason, he was Defense Secretary, at the beginning and the height of the war in Vietnam, in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. But as I read his autobiography In Retrospect The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, I realize that the administrations that he served in were really in a no-win situation in Vietnam, and that he and others may have kept the US from being involved in the war far earlier. He also admits that the course the US chose concerning the war was the wrong one! At one point, he reveals for the first time what he thought John Kennedy would have done regarding the situation in Vietnam ..
I’m pissed that Republicans and Right-Wing conservatives keep blaming liberals for the conditions of our inner cities and actually America in general. They say that liberal policies have had a negative impact on the residents of our inner cities. What has destroyed the lives of many in the inner cities, destroyed the American Dream in the Inner City and the majority of the country? I’ll tell you – Republican policies and conservative corporate policy!! Who destroyed the unions, who shipped American jobs overseas and most of all who created an income gap between the rich and normal Americans! Not the Liberals, it’s the frigging fraudulent conservative trickle-down economics! America grew in the 50s through the 80s because the lower and middle classes had money! Money to spend to buy the products that corporate America was selling! Then Reagan came along selling his lies that if we made corporate America rich, it would trickle down to all! It was voodoo economics then and it is voodoo economics now! And over the last 35 years the effects of those policies have been compound by corporations outsourcing American jobs giving the middle and lower class even less disposable income!!
On June 3, 1864 one of the most lopsided battles of the American Civil War was fought near the Cold Harbor Tavern close to Mechanicsville, Virginia. The battle actually was fought from June 1 to June 12th. But on June 3rd the Union forces under the command of Ulysses Grant met the Confederate forces of Robert E Lee fought in one of the bloodiest and most lopsided days of the war. Over 7.000 Union troops were killed or wounded in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified positions of Gen. Robert E. Lee‘s army in one hour on that day!
