History Repeated

random complaint dept

Some history may be clouded; some may cast long shadows; and some may be avoided for the mistakes it portrays. History is our heritage as human beings, and it is not to be lightly discarded.

History, rather, should be regarded as our teacher, less we make mistakes repeatedly that our teacher already has shown us to be ignorant.

In his novel, 1984, George Orwell used this scenario: “Every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered… History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

How does 2020 look to you so far?

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

My Writing Life Xposed

Abe’s Wisdom and Humor

One of our American Presidents that nearly everyone in any generation can remember is Abraham Lincoln. His humor and wisdom penetrated Congressmen, dignitaries, and the common man and woman.

“In the end it’s NOT the Years in you life that count. It’s the Life in your years” was one of Lincoln’s favorite pieces of advice for living right.

During a Cabinet meeting, discussion ensued on how foreign powers were interpreting the ongoing War between the States in America. Said President Lincoln: “…we must let other nations know that we propose to settle our family row in our own way…we don’t want any sneaking around by other countries who would like to find out how we are going to do it, either…Now (Secretary) Seward, you write some diplomatic notes to that effect.”

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

Lines of Gratitude Blog

Never Stop Believing

Seventy-three years passed since his final mission in World War II when Army Air Force pilot Robert Mains’ plane was shot down, along with his crew of nine other members. One member survived. Army Air Force 1st Lt. Robert Mains did not.

But Robert’s family of Rochester, New York, never stopped believing that Robert’s remains would one day be located and returned to his native land for proper burial.

Did you know there are a number of organizations that constantly work to locate  missing and deceased warriors of world armed conflicts? That includes the Pentagon, which takes on the responsibility of informing families about the results of these on-going searches.

U.S. military officials announced in 2017 that Lt. Mains, 27, was one of those whose remains had been found. His plane, a B-24 Liberator that was part of a raid over Germany in April of 1945 during WWII, was shot out of the sky by enemy fighters. It crashed outside the town of Ludwigslust, Germany, killing nine of the 10-member crew.

Seventy-three years of hope and grief ended with closure for Lt. Mains’ family.

The poignancy of these recoveries was beautifully and emotionally portrayed by Betty White in her movie Lost Valentine. She plays a pregnant wife widowed by war at a young age. The script follows her journey in flashbacks and back to her present life when her husband’s remains are located 50 years after his war-time death on foreign soil.

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

See also
Favorite 20th Century Films

Thumbing

We loved Franklin D. Roosevelt as American President because he always had his finger on the nation’s pulse.

How did we get to running the country with two thumbs?

Everyone today is tweeting, but is anyone listening? Our thumbs are misspelling words, giving into a new language that defies logic, creating distance from creative, worthwhile discussion, and making a mockery of traditional communicative skills.

View more at:
random complaint dept

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

Also see:
My Writing Life Exposed

Independents Separatists and Allies

Saluting soldier at the Veterans Park at the Bridge, Napoleon, Ohio

July 4th marks the annual celebration in America of its Independence Day, the result of the Declaration of Independence signed in 1776. America broke away from Britain’s control of her, yet in World War II, it was Britain to whose aid America eventually rose, and together they helped form the Allied forces that defeated the invasions of Japan and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

It should be noted that the American Constitution, written to ensure the lasting freedom of its people, wisely called for separation of church and state. This insured the liberty of the people to chose their own religious callings, something that had been impossible in their former lives in Britain at that time.

Paradoxically, it was the Bible that was “…the most cited book in the political discourse of the age, referenced more frequently than the great political theorists…” scholar Martin E. Marty pointed out.

It’s time for Americans to think deeply about the preceding three paragraphs. No better time than July 4th!

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

Tweets and Free Press Bashing

Seems to me it’s about time for all Trump supporters to reassess their presidential choice.

President Trump’s campaign promises — which anyone with a slight bit of intelligence should have known couldn’t be kept — his abusive deliveries to women, and his constant bashing of our Free American Press are all the contrivances of someone who wants to preside by heavy-handed control. In many other countries, those types of individuals are called dictators.

This is not the way our American government works. And a Free Press has been essential to Democracy since this form of government began.

While the world is crashing, the President tweets and tweets, complains about and tries to disclaim the integrity of persons of the press, and generally reveals that he has no intention of being presidential. His tweets, especially, are diversion tactics to steer the American people to divisiveness and cover up the truth — that he doesn’t have the least idea what it takes to be an American President.

More at:
http://www.randomcomplaintdept.wordpress.com

Please weigh in with your comments. I know I’m not alone.

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg (former member of a local Press)

 

Thumb Jockeys Gaining on American Rule

Did you ever stop to think about how many hundreds and thousands of letters — yea, those written-on-paper-with-ink sheets that many years ago were used as the world’s chief source of person-to-person communication — passed between people like President John Adams and…say, his cabinet and military leaders?

Of course, you haven’t!

Before the telephone, before the telegraph, before TV, people actually had desks at which they wrote letters of communication to each other. Letters were like interpersonal newspapers.

Now, the thumb jockeys will soon rule society. Their homogenized and coded messages to their audiences already zip through the air in milliseconds.

But, while in the past we had a written record of messages, we now have nothing of the sort. And if we do, those messages are easily erased, so nobody knows anything, and no one can be held accountable.

Is technology amazing, or what?

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Credit:
Photo courtesy of http://www.pixabay.com

 

Losing History

What was the importance of the book titled, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”?

Who is Rocky Balboa?

What race horse ran the fastest Belmont Stakes?

The unflappable Teddy Roosevelt charged up ___ ____ Hill for what purpose?

Who wrote “The Sun Also Rises”?

Few members of the Great Generation remain, but if you are a Baby Boomer (1945-1965), you may be able to answer the above queries. And if you are a BB, how many of these questions can your children answer?

Are we relinquishing our own human history to the new world’s accomplished thumb jockeys, born of technology and tempered by tweets?

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Credit:
Photo from the personal and copyrighted collection of Barbara Anne Helberg

 

 

 

Seventy-Five Years Old…

This year, 2016, brings a birthday celebration to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the state of South Dakota, USA. The monument is 75-years-old.

The biggest sculpture project in the lives of Gutzon and (son) Lincoln Borglum, the memorial consists of the faces of four American Presidents carved into the native rock of South Dakota’s Black Hills.

Finished in its last several years by Lincoln Borglum after the early death of his father, the memorial’s construction employed 400 plus men and took nearly 14 years to complete. The project  was twice stopped, refunded by interested and generous collaborators, and was the most consuming obsession of Gutzon Borglum, who began its work with huge vision, but very little financial support.

Borglum’s genius applied to the mammoth project allowed for an inch of rock erosion every 10,000 years. And with a draw of over three million visitors annually, the rock solid Presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln — should be around for a long time to come.

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Credit:
Photo courtesy of http://www.pixabay.com

 

Binding Up Wounds

As early as May of 1856, at Bloomington, Illinois, before he was elected President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln observed in a speech that “A house divided against itself cannot stand”.

With protestors steadily in the streets since Donald J. Trump became America’s President-elect, chaos has strengthened itself.

Lincoln was a great moral Presidential leader; he cared about this nation’s people and its growth. When the issues of slavery and secession divided the United States, his Second Inaugural speech contained this partial paragraph:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…”

Let us wait no longer to begin that journey together…

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Credit:
Photo courtesy of http://www.pixabay.com