Simon Whistler

Does this remind us of anyone?

The Feds Will Come For You

Milo Bringin' It

Our History Is Now

Lessons of the past are there for us to apply to what's happening now.

First they came for the illegals,

but I'm not an illegal, so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the law firms and the media companies,

but I'm not a lawyer or a journalist, so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the universities,

but I'm not a student or a professor or a researcher so I didn't speak up for them.

Then they came for the mayors and the governors,

but I'm not a politician so I didn't speak up for them.

When they finally turn and come for you and me - and they will because they always do -

who will be left to speak up for us?

A Project

Restoring something like this thing is a history lesson.

And the work this guy puts in to pull this off is impressive. But I always have to think about the men who designed it, and engineered it, and machined the parts - and the machinery used to make the tools that people used to make the tools. My brain goes a little crazy.

Then I have to think about the guy who sold it to the guy who would use it to make whatever he was making - the guys who shipped it and installed it - all the pieces and parts - material and intellectual and physical - and my brain just kinda goes whirling off into the ether.

The thing is 75 years old - and it was still working when he got it.

Because Buffalo Forge Company made shit to last.

Having To Refight It

There's a weird and ugly Lost Cause vibe about all this anti-woke, anti-DEI nonsense.

You can pull people's names off of camps and boats and buildings, and change the records so their presence in our history seems diminished. But you can't remove the people - not completely.

And you can't change what happened.

What they did, or what they said, or what others wrote about them - it's all part of what actually happened to make this country what it is, and what will continue to influence whatever it's to become.

Memory is a powerful thing, and we have to take some care to get it right.

So OK, let's pull down those statues that honor "heroes" of the Confederacy - because you're not a hero when you kill your neighbors in the name of preserving slavery.

Likewise, let's rename some of the military installations after people who weren't leading a violent insurrection aimed directly at the heart of the promise we made to ourselves that we would always keep trying to move towards that "more perfect union".

And don't try to tell me something like DEI is an attempt to change history too. It's not. There's a big difference between outright lying about what happened, and correcting the record to get us a little closer to understanding what really did happen.

If we let government arbitrarily tell us that what we remember isn't what we remember, we're not being educated or re-educated, we're being gaslighted - reprogrammed with a set of faulty instructions.

I've always gotten a kick out of learning about history, and it rankles my ass somethin' fierce whenever I learn that what they taught me in school was not the truth, or that they left out a few little details that would've made my thinking clearer and more objective.

Actually, Secretary Hegseth, Harriet Tubman was a war hero

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is wrong to consider stripping her name from the USNS Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman never formally enlisted in the U.S. military. She was a war hero nonetheless.

Many Americans know Tubman for her courage and sacrifice as conductor of the Underground Railroad, but fewer recognize her as a Civil War spy and military leader. Tubman was the first woman to lead a combat regiment during the Civil War, and in an opinion issued this year, the U.S. Army Office of the General Counsel acknowledged her as one of the few women who served as a soldier in the Civil War. Those contributions merit her the honor of her namesake, the USNS Harriet Tubman.

Now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to consider removing Tubman’s name from the ship, alongside others named after former Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Thurgood Marshall. These vessels are part of the John Lewis-class of oilers named for civil rights leaders beginning in 2016. The ship named for gay rights activist and Navy veteran Harvey Milk was renamed in June. Hegseth is seeking to reestablish “warrior culture” in the military, but the removals would betray that culture. Under the Trump administration, the National Park Service also removed a portrait of Tubman and portions of text describing the history of slavery from a webpage about the Underground Railroad before later restoring them.

Tubman deserves to retain recognition of her immense contributions. As then-Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said upon announcing the ship’s name, “Our fleet benefits from having her name emblazoned on the hull of one of our great ships.” Often called the “Moses of her people,” Tubman was born enslaved on Maryland’s Eastern Shore; she escaped in 1849 and sought freedom in Philadelphia. She risked that freedom to return to Maryland more than a dozen times over the next 11 years and rescued 70 people, advising dozens more who freed themselves.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announces a U.S. Navy ship will be named after Harriet Tubman on Sept. 17, 2023, in Church Creek, Maryland. (MC1 Omar Powell/U.S. Navy)
Yet Tubman’s service during the Civil War is perhaps her most consequential legacy. After the U.S. military reclaimed Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, from the Confederacy in 1861, Tubman was sent on a critical mission to gather intelligence from the 8,000 formerly enslaved people who had escaped to Union lines. She was attached to Gen. Isaac Stevens’s headquarters and worked for Gens. Rufus Saxton and David Hunter, commanding a ring of Black men as spies, scouts and river pilots.

Tubman’s little-known mission came to fruition on June 1, 1863, when she guided three U.S. Army boats loaded with 300 Black soldiers from Col. James Montgomery’s Second South Carolina Volunteers, and a battery of White soldiers from another regiment, up the Combahee River into Confederate-controlled territory. Earlier, Tubman and her men had infiltrated Confederate plantations and identified the enslaved men who were forced to plant mines along the Combahee River to prevent Union access. With their help, Tubman’s men and the U.S. Army officers defused the mines. Those soldiers also rooted out Confederate forces, burned seven plantations— including the owners’ homes, barns, stockpiles of rice, and stables— and cut Confederate supply lines by destroying a bridge.

From those burned lands, hundreds of enslaved people flocked to the soldiers’ rowboats at the river shore. Fearful that the rowboats might capsize, Montgomery asked Tubman to calm the crowds. Using her strong voice, she started singing and was met with a joyful response of clapping and shouting. Seven hundred and fifty-six people were liberated that day; the U.S. Army did not lose a single life. The Combahee Ferry Raid is now considered the largest and most successful slave rebellion in U.S. history.

That Tubman was prohibited from enlisting in the U.S. Army did not stop her from risking her life for the enslaved, or for a nation that hadn’t yet recognized her rights as a citizen. Though she was not paid for her work, which also included nursing the sick and cooking for officers — she took in laundry to scrape by — her service with the armed forces helped make the Combahee River Raid one of the most successful campaigns of the war.

Harriet Tubman was a civil rights leader, but she was also a military hero who risked her life fighting for freedom, our nation and the perfection of our democracy. She earned the honor of having the USNS Harriet Tubman named after her. It should remain part of her legacy — and ours.

Some History

A liberal's super power is a decent memory.

81 Years Ago

"...all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable..."

-- The American Declaration Of Independence - Thomas Jefferson

In the face of threats and dangers that are meant to intimidate and conquer, the seemingly tiny, insignificant, individual people who decide to stand up and stand together have proven over and over that a certain invincibility is possible - it's just not something you get from yourself alone.

I'm just one guy - one voice - one vote. And besides, what's in it for me?

06JUN44

History

History teaches the lessons, and lets us retake the test as often as we want.

Tell Us The Truth

It is essential to share the unvarnished truth with our children.

Begin by explaining that the roots of civilization trace back to Egypt, a hub of advanced knowledge encompassing science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, and architecture. Emphasize that the earliest Egyptians were people of African descent, a fact that stands in stark contrast to the portrayals seen in Hollywood films.

Clarify that Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas and highlight that Mansa Musa of Mali was recognized as one of the wealthiest individuals in history. Inform them that Black Egyptians were pioneers of global exploration, having reached Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania long before others.

Illustrate that the concept of the meter was conceived in Egypt, derived from the measurement of a single drop of water, while the values of pi (approximately 3.14) and numerous geometric principles often attributed to Pythagoras and Thales originated there as well. Furthermore, the contributions of Imhotep, a remarkable scholar, have been largely overlooked in historical accounts.

Reinforce the notion that humanity’s ancestral origins were uncovered in Africa, and acknowledge that many groundbreaking inventions throughout history involved the contributions of Black individuals who have often been neglected in the narrative.

Encourage them to understand that Africa possessed written languages long before the arrival of ships and missionaries. Stress that unity is crucial for our survival and resurgence, asserting that concrete was invented in Egypt, not by later builders.

Dr Richardson

Dear MAGA

Just a quick note to all you guys with the tiny dick energy, who're always spoutin' off about how the Jews wouldn't have had it so bad if they'd just fought back.

They did. And your asshole forebears slaughtered them.

April 19, 1943

History Lesson

I was an on-again-off-again fan of John McCain. There was always something likeable about him, even though he was pretty much a total nepo-baby fuckup until he spent 5 years as a POW in North Vietnam.

He was the logical heir to Barry Goldwater (also on-again-off-again for me), but McCain seemed less like a Bomb-'Em-First-And-To-Hell-With-Asking-Questions kinda guy - way less than Goldwater anyway. For a while, you could count on the guy to go with his intellect and not his emotions.

That began to change as MAGA made inroads, and he began to feel forced to go along with it.

We'll forever have to wonder about 'what if' McCain had still been around to keep guys like Lindsey Graham on the right side of things.

Long sad late night bull sessions are waiting to be had by the PoliSci majors of the future.

From 10 years ago:

John McCain's prophetic words spoken 10 years ago...but nobody listened.
byu/yaponetsa inukraine

Nationalism

I remember being told in high school history that 'nationalism' was one of the causes of WW1. Everybody had it in their heads that they were the superior 'race'.

I also remember being told for my whole life - directly or indirectly - that being American was better than being anything else.

Dr Roy Casagranda:

@dairyofnomad Nationalism and Napoleon, explanation by Dr. Roy Casagranda . . . . #roycasagranda #nationalism #france #germany #nepoleon #europe #historytiktok ♬ original sound - Dairy of Nomad

Because Of Course

It may not be perfectly kosher to bash the NYT for not seeing Hitler's potential to become the world's worst monster way back in 1924. But I have no qualms about taking a giant dump on their heads for not learning the lesson.

When you don't stomp on these little weasels for their little attempts to fuck things up in their own small corner of the world, you're setting the stage for them to become great big weasels with great big plans to fuck things up for everybody on the whole fucking planet.

Word O' The Day

BTW:

Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Although preceded by Pandrosion, another Alexandrian female mathematician, she is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest.

Hypatia constructed astrolabes and hydrometers, but did not invent either of these, which were both in use long before she was born. She was tolerant toward Christians and taught many Christian students, including Synesius, the future bishop of Ptolemais. Ancient sources record that Hypatia was widely beloved by pagans and Christians alike and that she established great influence with the political elite in Alexandria. Toward the end of her life, Hypatia advised Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was in the midst of a political feud with Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril and, in March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter.

Hypatia's murder shocked the empire and transformed her into a "martyr for philosophy", leading future Neoplatonists such as the historian Damascius (c. 458 – c. 538) to become increasingly fervent in their opposition to Christianity. During the Middle Ages, Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue and scholars believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. During the Age of Enlightenment, she became a symbol of opposition to Catholicism. In the nineteenth century, European literature, especially Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel Hypatia, romanticized her as "the last of the Hellenes". In the twentieth century, Hypatia became seen as an icon for women's rights and a precursor to the feminist movement. Since the late twentieth century, some portrayals have associated Hypatia's death with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, despite the historical fact that the library no longer existed during Hypatia's lifetime.

On This Day

Happy Woodstock Anniversary everybody

55 years ago

Richie Havens was mesmerizing.

Today's Today

06-AUG-1945

Hashem Al-Ghaili

Today's Quote

Assuming there's someone around to write that history...

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

We'll go down in history

as the first society

that wouldn't save itself

because it wasn't

cost-effective.

Today's Today

Biden's speech from one of the sites of D-Day 1944 was pretty good - not great, but good. There were plenty of good solid moments.

But I think, because there wasn't much soaring inspirational oratory, what resonates for me is that he's just a guy standing up and telling us what's on his mind, and trying to do what we all know is the right thing.

That brings out the message that great things are often done by average, everyday people.

The men who fought and bled and died that day - and all the men and women who did the same all the other days before and after that day - were ordinary people standing up and putting their thoughts into action, trying to do the right thing.

That counts for something really important.