Happy 100th Birthday, Ronald Reagan!

This Ronald Reagan tribute video from the Ronald Reagan Foundation will reportedly be shown at today's Supper Bowl just before kickoff.

Enjoy.

Honoring Columbus The Right Thing To Do

Today is Columbus Day, though you wouldn’t know it here in the United States.

Christopher Columbus, or Christoffa Corombo in his native Genoese (now part of modern-day Italy), is probably one of the most important figures of the last millennium and his accomplishments deserve recognition.

Unfortunately, Americans have been bullied by the left into believing that Columbus was an evil man who does not deserve to be recognized. This sad fact is apparent when we see that Columbus Day is hardly recognized while Martin Luther King Jr. Day is. No one can possibly compare the accomplishments of King to those of Columbus. It is ridiculous.

Several criticisms of Columbus include that he was not the first to arrive here, he didn’t know he discovered a new land, and his actions decimated native populations.

Hogwash.

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Irony found in Italian soccer loss

On Thursday the world champion Italian national team lost to the Egyptian national team in a Confederations Cup match. The loss was considered an upset as the Italian team was expected to win.

I mention this because I found it ironic that it occurred on the 194th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where another Italian, Napoleon Bonaparte (he was born on Corsica to a family of Italian nobility) was defeated in his final quest to regain power.

Yes, I am a history geek. I can't help it.

The day the music died

Feb. 3, 1959

A sad anniversary in American popular music history.

Happy Birthday, John Adams

OK, maybe I am a geek for having a favorite Founding Father, but, I actually have two: John Adams Jr. and Thomas Jefferson, who actually were on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

But today, being John Adams' birthday, I will let him hold the title of my favorite Founder for the day. He was born Oct. 30, 1735.

John Adams' accomplishments are many. For example, he was the first respected person to call for independence. He was the one, on July 1, 1776, who stood in front of the Continental Congress and proposed a declaration of independence. He was the one who recommended Jefferson write the declaration. He was the one who proposed George Washington to lead the rebel army. He was the one who created the American Navy. He was the first U.S. vice president. He was the second president.

I could go on and on.

But I won't bore you because not everyone shares my passion for the greatness of the American Revolution and my profound respect for the men who made it happen.

I also subscribe to his philosophy of stating an opinion boldly and defending it ardently.

Happy 272nd Birthday, Mr. Adams.

Stretching Executive Power in Wartime

Man of Leisure, King George by Washington artist Kayti Didriksen. Photo by The Associated Press

Here is an excellent article from historian Jean Edward Smith found on a New York Times blog, though I disagree with his assesment of Lincoln and the threat posed to the United States during the Civil War. This was written in May and I meant to post it after it came out but kept putting it off. Definitely worth reading.

Stretching Executive Power in Wartime

By Jean Edward Smith

"The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president," wrote Francis Biddle, F.D.R.'s attorney general during World War II. Biddle was writing about Roosevelt's shameful 1942 decision to evacuate Japanese-Americans from the Pacific Coast and place them in internment camps. But Biddle's comment applies to all presidents in times of crisis. National survival or, perhaps more accurately, the president's perception of national survival always takes precedence. George W. Bush has been no exception.

In 1798, during the undeclared war against France, President John Adams supported passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized political dissent and gave the president a free hand to deport any noncitizen he deemed "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."

Ten years later, President Thomas Jefferson sought to enforce the Embargo Act, which prohibited trade with Great Britain, by charging those who violated it with treason - an egregious example of executive overreach that the federal courts quickly rejected.

Andrew Jackson's contempt for the treaty rights of the Cherokee Nation is a familiar story. Less well-known is Jackson's attempt to halt the distribution of abolitionist literature in the South by censoring the mail.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, and in several states he ordered the trial of civilians by military tribunals. Although Congress explicitly authorized Lincoln to suspend the writ, it was a draconian measure that the president believed essential to preserve the Union. "Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" he asked.

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Happy Birthday, Julius Caesar

On this date in 100 B.C. (or 102 B.C. depending on who you ask), Gaius Julius Caesar (or GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR in the Latin of his day), who would one day be dictator of Rome, was born. Caesar was perhaps one of the most influential men to have ever walked the Earth. When he led a legion across the Rubicon river on Jan. 10, 49 B.C., he forever changed the course of world history. It was that singular action that set in motion a chain of events transforming a small republic into a global empire. It was through the unity of this empire, with its security and well-constructed roads, that the teachings of an obscure Jewish rabbi were able to easily spread and become the center of the world's largest religion. He reformed the calender, making it a 365-day calendar with leap years every fourth year. It was in use until Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 modified it into the modern calendar. Caesar was a military genius and an astute politician whose reforms benefited the lower and middle classes.

As a testament to his influence, his name became a title of power and from his assassination on March 15, 44 B.C., until Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria's reign ended in A.D. 1946, there was always at least one head of state bearing his name as a title.

Happy 2,107th (or 2,109th, depending on which historian you ask) Birthday, GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR.

Putting history in perspective

An excellent post on the Daily Kos blog concerning the scale of human history:

Science Friday: Sixty Men from Ur
by Devilstower
Fri Mar 09, 2007 at 12:19:48 PM PDT

A bit over 4,100 years ago, a man named Abram led his family from the city of Ur of the Chaldees to a new home in Canaan. Just two weeks ago, unfailing champion of liberalism Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. died. What's the connection? Nothing. Everything.

In science, a number of metaphors are employed to cast the huge span of deep time into a frame more easily pondered. If the history of life on earth is viewed as the Empire State Building, all of human history is a dime on top. If the life of our planet is viewed as a year, every event in the history books has raced past in the last few seconds of that year.

These images are generally used to demonstrate the impressive seniority of our universe, and the relative position of major cosmic and/or evolutionary events. For those purposes, they're fairly effective. It's certainly easier to wrap a mind used to events measured in minutes and hours around the idea that dinosaurs went extinct the day after Christmas, than it is to come to grips with the term "sixty-five million years."



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