Chamblee54

Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be america’s national bird. It is identified with Thanksgiving, the holiday in November before Christmas. Mr. Franklin would not recognize the old bird today.
Turkeys have a tough life these days. Raised in factories where the lights are on 24/7, their beaks and claws are routinely broken off early on. For more details, read this piece in the New York Times, or a tasteful blog, What Would Jesus Eat.
PETA sometimes goes too far, and sometimes violates good taste. The commercial here was rejected by NBC. It uses the cliche of the little girl praying to call attention to the sorry state of the turkey. While annoying and easy to dismiss, the commercial does tell a tale.
PG should fess up at this point, and admit that he is a party to these horrors. A full blown carnivore (except for vienna sausages, which are gross), PG has no room to talk about the horrors of industrial meat production. It is Babylon…the government borrows trillions of dollars from the Chinese to pay for a war in Iraq, a book assembled by a Catholic Committee is called “The word of G-d”, and meat producing animals are raised in squalor.
A person, who is sometimes called a turkey, gave a press conference last year. The photo op was in front of a device that mutilates turkeys, and the meat processing continued while she talked. “At least this is fun”. This is a repost.

BHO is the third POTUS in a row to be reelected. He is also the fourth out of the last five. If BHO serves his full second term, he will do something that has only been done once before in American history.
Between 1801 and 1825, America had three Presidents: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. All three were elected twice, and served a full eight years. However, two of these three had different Vice Presidents during their tenure. Thomas Jefferson had Aaron Burr and George Clinton. (The decision to replace Mr. Burr came before his dispute with Alexander Hamilton had fatal results.) James Madison had George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry. (Gerrymandering is enthusiastically practiced to this day.) Only James Monroe was a one VP man, with Daniel D. Thompkins.
If the Obama-Biden team can hold on until October 28, 2014, then another milestone will have been reached. April 4,1841, William Henry Harrison was the first POTUS to die in office. This was 51 years, and 339 days, after the inauguration of George Washington. If the cigarettes don’t kill him, BHO should break this record.
Starting in 1840 with Mr. Harrison, the zero factor saw the death, in office, of every President elected in a year ending in zero. This would affect both of the records mentioned in this post. The zero factor was beaten by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Mr. Reagan’s Vice President, George H.W. Bush, is the first Vice President elected to office, without becoming President, since Martin Van Buren, in 1836. Daddy Bush lost his effort to be reelected in 1992. HT to Andrew Sullivan.

Veteran’s Day is a bad day for a cynic. On the one hand, I do appreciate living in The United States. With all its flaws, I have had a good life here. The role that Veterans have played is to be honored. On the other hand, those who profit from wars often exploit Veterans for political mojo. Many of these people did not serve.
Veterans are often not treated well after they are through with their service. It is estimated that a quarter of the homeless are veterans. The services offered to wounded veterans returning from War is often lacking.
When I typed the second sentence, I thought of my great grandfather. He served with the Georgia State Troops in the War Between the States. I do prefer the USA to the CSA (or whatever would have happened). Yet, the Union army had to prevail over the various Confederate Armies for this to happen. Do I dishonor my great grandfather by saying I am happy the other side won?
Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day. This was the day, 90 years ago, when the War to End All Wars ended. World War I was a ghastly bloodbath, in which Millions died. It created many of the problems that plague us today. And I would be willing to bet that not one person in ten thousand today knows what it was about. And yet, the men who fought in that conflict (I don’t think they had women soldiers then) deserve the same gratitude as those who fought in any other conflict.
The soldier…many of whom were drafted…doesn’t get to choose which war to fight in. The sacrifice of the World War II soldier was just as great as the Vietnam fighter, but the appreciation given was much greater. I grew up during Vietnam, and saw the national mood go from patriotic fight to dismayed resistance. By the time I was old enough to get drafted, the Paris accords had been signed. For better or worse, there went my chance. This is a repost.

Veterans day was originally Armistice Day. On November 11, 1918, at 11 am (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) a cease fire went into effect for “The great war”. Officials of the major armies agreed to the ceasefire at 5 am (European time). There were an estimated 11,000 casualties in the last six hours of the war.
At 11:59 am, U.S. army private Henry Gunther became the last soldier to die in World War I. “According to the Globe and Mail this is the story of the last soldier killed in WW1: On Nov.11, 1918, U.S. army private Henry Gunther stood up during a lull in the machine gun fire and charged the enemy. “The Germans stared in disbelief,” says the Daily Express. “They had been told that morning that the fighting was about to stop; in a few minutes they would stop firing and go home. So why was this American charging at them with his bayonet drawn? They shouted at him to stp and frantically tried to wave him back but… he hadn’t heard anything of the ceasefire.” A German gunner released a five-round burst and the soldier lay dead, at 10:59 a.m. In his recently published Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour, U.S. Military Historian Joseph Persico notes that Private Gunther had previously been a sergeant but was demoted after an Army censor read his letter to a friend back home, urging him to steer clear of the war at all costs. Gunther, who was in no-man’s land when the ceasefire news arrived, had been trying to prove himself worthy of his original rank.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

There was a suggestion at WordPress to write a letter to yourself as a fourteen year old, and another letter to yourself in twenty years. PG thought this was a cool idea. If the trackback went up on the WordPress site, then it might generate some traffic for this blog. It might even get the attention of Freshly Pressed , which has never featured Chamblee54.
It is like General Halftrack and the Pentagon. The Daily Post did not post a link to friday’s letter. The traffic went below one hundred hits on saturday. Now it is sunday, the clocks are set back an hour, and it is trying to rain. The letter to a seventy eight year old PG is a good idea, so here it goes. Once again, it is in first person. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
Ok, so you are twenty years older. Or maybe you are not. The three main older people in this life were Mom, Dad, and Gran. They all died when they were seventy five, except for Mom, who made it to seventy six. Seventy eight might be pushing things a bit, considering the way things sometimes feel at fifty eight. The idea is to write this letter, and not worry about whether the destination will have an internet connection.
This is the sunday before the Presidential election, aka the day when a dictatorship doesn’t sound so bad. People in Georgia have their votes stolen from them by the electoral college, so we don’t have to choose between a war criminal and a liar. Or is this choice between a liar and a war criminal wannabe?
There is a saying about holding your nose when you vote. The neighborhood precinct is the cafetorium of a school. Unless you are blocking the memory, you might recall going to classes in that building. Tuesday will not be the first time I have held my nose in that cafetorium.
This is the first year of the City of Brookhaven. I find myself choosing people on the basis of personalities, rather than issues. When it comes to the so called issues, the candidates seem to say the same things. This is true for the State House race, which is the other choice I will have. The repub is just plain gross. Mr. Bahhumbug has a bright future if he doesn’t get caught again.
There is no telling what the election choices will be in 2032. Assuming that the electoral college continues to facilitate the two party duopoly, you probably won’t have much of a choice. The takeover by the moneylenders should be complete by that point.
Since we are doing this in twenty year cycles, lets look back to some other elections. The first time I got to vote was 1972. Tricky Dick was a thief, and a war criminal, but George McGovern was a dummy. The problem for Tricky Dick was the second term syndrome. Most Presidents who are reelected for a second full term have horrible problems. While Mr. Nixon’s second term was not as bad as those of Abraham Lincoln or William McKinley, he did have his problems.
In 1992, it looked like Daddy Bush was sailing to victory. He won a war, and the Democratic candidate was Slick Willie Clinton. (From Tricky Dick to Slick Willie, Bebe Rebozo to Monica Lewinsky.) Ross Perot threw a monkey wrench in the electoral works by running as a third party candidate. This is a feature of the duopoly… when one party wins the Presidency too many times, something strange happens.
It happened in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate, and Woodrow Wilson got elected. Within a year, the Federal Reserve Bank was set up. After the re-election of Mr. Wilson, we got mixed up in World War One. There is nothing good to say about the elections of 1932 and 1952.
There is one more election that should be discussed here, even though it is not part of the twenty year cycle. I was listening to a chat before the 2000 election. One person thought it was important to vote for Al Gore. This had been a dull election. George W. Bush was sort of an unknown quality, while Al Gore was not a terribly inspiring figure.
That is not how things turned out. W was allowed to serve, after Mr. Gore won the popular vote. Seven months after the inauguration, 911 kick started the twenty first century. The response of W was to start two self destructive wars. With the help of the demoze, there was a tax cut before the start of the second war. The economy may never recover.
So, it is good form to write a last paragraph to these things. It is an act of optimism to assume you will be here in twenty years. Living in the WMD age, the idea of thermonuclear catastrophe has always been present. The possibility of man making the planet unlivable is also very real. Maybe a dependable source of non destructive energy will be found in the next twenty years, to go with a dependable source of water for Atlanta. The future has always been dim, but somehow it continues to happen.