News

This is a photograph of an American Marine pilot in World War II. The picture was taken in 1942. When you look at pictures like this of World War II soldiers, it is sad to think of how these men are now well into their 80's and I think something like 1,000 a day are dying. This greatest generation is quickly passing away.

On this fine July 4, 2008 we celebrate by displaying this photograph of the original Declaration of Independence. If you look at the original document today, the thing you notice is that the words have become faded, and are barely readable.

Unfortunately, these words have not just faded on the document, but have faded in our lives, our hearts, and our culture. These words that burned in the hearts of our Founding Fathers have become almost forgotten today. I invite you to join me today in reading and renewing in our hearts the powerful words that were the birth of our country. Below, I include the first several paragraphs of this powerful document:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

(You Can find the full text of the Declaration of Independence here)

Note that our Founding Fathers believed that we were Created, that we were Created Equal, that our rights are Unalienable, because they come From God. The Founding Fathers believed that these Unalienable rights included a Right to Life, a Right to Liberty, and a Right to Pursue Happiness.

This picture was taken in 1922 and shows the camp of a group of striking miners. The miners are Union miners in the Lick Creek district of West Virginia.

This is a photograph of the ruins of Fort Ticonderoga. The Fort is located on the narrows of Lake Champlain, and was an important strategic point controlling trade routes to the state of New York. In 1775 during the Revolutionary War, the fort was captured from the British by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. In capturing the fort, Allen proclaimed he was taking the fort, "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

Faced with a siege and bombardment, the Americans abandoned the fort on this day, July 6, in the year 1777.

Today the fort has been restored, is privately owned, and is a popular tourist destination.

This picture was taken in 1909 and shows a group of women sewing. They are working in the Brooklyn Navy yard. The shop made flags and other items for the Navy. I can not tell if these are electric sewing machines, or the old "foot-pedal" type.

This photograph shows a woman living in a tent during the Great Depression. The woman is the daughter of a migrant Tennessee Coal Miner. The picture was taken in the American River Migrant Camp near Sacramento California.

It was on this day, July 8, in the year 1932 that the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed out at a low of 41. It was not until the 1950's that the stock market fully recovered from the crash of '29. It is amazing what level of suffering occurred in the 30's as a result of the excesses of the '20's. Lets hope that our present financial challenges only lead to a "recession".

This photograph was taken in 1939, and shows a Black man drinking from a water can. The sign on the can says "Colored". The other signs indicate separate restrooms for "Colored" people. I grew up in the 1960's and I can not remember at that time any segregated facilities like the ones indicated in this picture, but maybe I was just not aware of them. I am not sure when the practice of separated water fountains and restrooms came to a complete close in this country. I do know, however, that it was on this day, July 9, in the year 1868 that the 14th amendment was passed, giving citizenship to African Americans. This was a big step forward on paper, but I guess progress in real life was a lot slower, as indicated in the photo above.

This photograph was taken in 1908 by Edward Curtis. It shows an Indian Chief named White Shield. I love the work Edward Curtis did in capturing these images of Native Americans.

This photograph shows a street scene in Anchorage Alaska. The picture was taken in the early 1900's. The structures appear to be partially wood, and partially canvas.

This picture was taken in 1902, and shows two childhood friends playing together. The boy in the cowboy hat is Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of Teddy Roosevelt. The other child is the son of a White House steward. Quentin went on to join the Army Air Corps. He was killed on this day, July 14, in the year 1918 in a dogfight with 3 German Fokkers over France. He was loved by his family, the men he served with, and a grateful nation.

This picture was taken in 1911, and shows a run on the Nineteenth Ward Bank in New York City. Rumors of liquidity concerns created a run, that then in fact, created a liquidity crisis, which led to the bank being closed.

It is interesting that we are seeing similar scenes play out again today, with a bank run occurring at a major California bank just this last Friday, leading to the FDIC closing the bank, and taking over operations. I saw pictures in the newspaper of a crowd at the closed bank, trying to get their money.

No bank can withstand all depositors wanting to withdraw their money at the same time. It looks like we are entering a period where bank runs are going to be common again.

This photograph shows the first Nuclear Blast. It occurred on this day, July 16, in the year 1945 at the top secret "Trinity" site, 35 miles from Socorro, New Mexico. It was the culmination of the "Manhattan Project", one of the Nation's most intense, and successful R&D projects of all time. After seeing the blast, one of the key developers, Robert Oppenheimer, thought of the Hindu verse, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Several weeks later, a similar bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Some view the bombing of Hiroshima as an act of Barbarism. Others view it as a quick means to end a brutal war, not wanted by, and not started by the United States.

This is a photograph of the Russian Royal Family, taken in about 1913. The man in the photo is Tsar Nicholas II. The small boy is Alexia. I believe Anastasia is the girl on the right of the picture. The family was executed on this day, July 17, in the year 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries. There is some speculation that the execution was ordered by Lenin himself.

I love this old picture from 1938. It shows a sign in front of a Gas Station in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The sign shows Gas at 20 1/2 cents a gallon. The sign gives a breakdown on the cost, showing the various cost components leading to the price. At this price, they also came out and filled your car up, checked your oil and tire pressure, and washed your windshield.

I don't know if it is just me, but high gas prices are really starting to sting. We have started making lots of life style adjustments due to the high gas prices. I had a really nice Toyota Sequoia, but I just sold it because it got about 15 mpg. I wanted to buy a Natural Gas Honda Civic. These run on Natural Gas, and you can fill them up from your home gas connection. In looking in to these, I found that they are only available in California, and there is a ridiculous waiting list, so they basically are not available. Then I looked into hybrids, but my conclusion was that in reality they do not get very much better mileage than a normal small car. So, now I am leaning towards a Honda Civic, which is supposed to get close to 40 mpg. The thing is, it is very hard to find one of these, as they are selling faster than they can get them in. Anyway, I am making lots of adjustments, as I do not see gas prices getting back to the "Good old Days" anytime soon. Is it just me, or are these gas prices starting to cause others to make lifestyle changes also? Any good ideas out there?

This picture was taken in 1940 and shows a Grocery Store front in 1940. The picture was taken in Salem, Illinois. I like looking at the simplicity of the items being sold, and the prices advertised in the window.

There was lots of discussion yesterday about gas prices and gas mileage. Today, the topic is Grocery Prices. Is it just me, or are food prices really starting to be painful? It feels like the price of everything in the grocery store has doubled in the last year. I think a lot of it has to do with the Ethanol mandate. I read that it takes 30% of the corn supply to make 3% of the fuel we use. This drastic increase in demand has driven up prices. This makes just about anything you eat more expensive, because most things like chickens, pigs, and cows eat corn, so pork, chicken and beef become more expensive. Also, as corn prices go up, more farmers plant corn, less plant wheat, and then wheat, and hence bread and pasta prices go up. Anyway, I am not so sure the whole Ethanol thing was a good idea.

This photograph was taken in 1938, and shows a woman cooking over an old wood burning stove. At one time, I had a hunting cabin that had an old wood stove like this in it. I have to say that I really enjoyed the simple elegance of cooking over a wood stove. I always felt a sense of accomplishment getting a good meal out of the old stove. Now I will admit, I was always using it in wintertime. The stove put a lot of heat out into the room, which was nice in winter time, but I imagine the stove would lose some of its charm if you were using it in the middle of summer.

I always liked simple things like this stove. Today, I think too much technology is being pushed into too many products, where it is not needed, and is not helpful. Products become too expensive, too complicated, and unreliable due to overuse of technology, where it is not needed.

Recently, my wife and I bought a new stove. You see, she really likes to cook, and I really like to eat, so it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. We did a lot of research on the Internet, and did a lot of shopping around town. We read all the consumer reports, and studied all the customer reviews on Amazon. After researching it for a couple of months, we decided to really splurge and buy a State-of-the-Art Dual Fuel Range. This stove pretty much does it all. The key feature is the "Dual Fuel" capability. This means that the stovetop has Natural Gas burners, and the oven is electric. This is the perfect combination. The oven has a normal bake or broil mode, and has a convection mode.

Well, we get the stove put in, and my wife commences to cook with it. She LOVED the stove, and I LOVED the food she was cooking. I don't know if the stove made better food, or if my wife was just so happy with the stove that she was cooking more special meals. In either case, I was getting some first class food, and lots of it.

Yes, life was good . . . for about two weeks. Then I go downstairs one day to fix myself a piece of toast, as is my custom in the morning. I walk up to the stove, and have my piece of white bread with four little pats of butter, all perfectly arranged, and I looked down, and instead of the happy little lights on the front panel of the stove, I see a message in bright blue lights saying "Communication Failure". Now, If I were perfectly honest with you, I would have to let you know that on occasion I have had my wife tell me that I was failing to communicate with her. If you really pressed me, I would have to tell you that my boss has had talks with me in the past about the need to communicate better. I should also probably tell you that on many occasions I have had employees tell me that I need to communicate better. I can very honestly say, though, that this was the first time in my life that I had a Major Kitchen Appliance tell me that I was not communicating effectively.

To be frank, I was a little offended that a stove would put such a message up to me. I decided to ignore how the stove felt, and cook my toast anyway. I popped the door open, put the piece of bread in, and pressed the "Broil" button. When I pressed broil, I got three short beeps, and a blinking message "Communication Failure", and the stove would not turn on. Now, I have noticed in the past when my wife and I were not communicating properly, she would stop cooking. Apparently, the stove was going to take the same strategy, as no matter what button I pressed, I would not get the stove to turn on or heat up.

Well, at this point I realized I had a serious problem, and started looking for the manual. Of course, I could not find it anywhere. I then got on the Internet and after googling around a bit, I found a 1-800 number for the stove. I call the number and told the person that answered that my stove felt that we were not communicating properly and refused to cook. She then asked me for the model number, serial number, skew number, and 47 other numbers off the stove. I told here that I did not have those numbers, and she described to me a maneuver that probably could only be done by an Olympic class gymnast. Basically you sort of crawl upside down into the oven and look over at the side, and in 6 point type you could find all the numbers. Well, I finally get situated bent over backwards with my head in the oven, and with a flashlight am able to read off all the numbers to the stove lady on the phone. I will have to say at this point that I have opened Swiss Bank Accounts over the phone without having to give as many numbers and answer as many questions as this stove lady had. (OK, I have never really opened a Swiss Bank Account, but I am pretty sure that if I did it would have been simpler than getting this lady to talk to me).

Well, finally I give her all the numbers to her satisfaction, and she is ready to help me. I told her what the stove was saying on the front panel, and she tells me that I need to "Reboot" the stove. Reboot? I said a quick prayer, earnestly pleading with God that this stove was not running on Windows Vista. The lady assured me that the stove was not on the Vista operating system, but nonetheless I would have to reboot the stove. I looked across the front panel of the stove, but could not find the Control-Alt-Delete keys, and could not find a tiny hole to poke a paperclip into. These are the two techniques I know to reboot anything. Well, she tells me that you can not reboot the stove with either of these . . . she tells me I will have to unplug the stove.

Now, understand that the stove weighs about 400 pounds, and is sort of built into the cabinetry and granite counter top. I relay to her that I have neither the tools nor the strength nor the technology to remove the stove to gain access to the plug. She tells me that I need to go outside, and throw the "Main Switch" to cut power off to the house. Yep, the stove lady is going to take me "Off the Grid".

Well, it just so happens that I have a Master of Science degree from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering. I always knew that one day that degree would be good for something, and this was that day. You see, if I learned anything studying electrical engineering for six years, it is that the quickest way to blow out every expensive piece of electronic equipment in your house at the same time is to walk out and throw the "Main Switch" to your house. So, before throwing the switch, I walk through the house, and I unplug everything in the house. Well, everything BUT the stove, since that was the problem in the first place. After confirming everything else has been unplugged, I walk out and I throw the main switch. I watch the little wheel on the electric meter completely stop spinning. Yep, I am off the grid. I pause to enjoy the moment, and then I throw the main switch, bringing power back into the house. Now, I go back into the kitchen, and look at the front panel on the stove, and see all the happy little lights I would expect. Success! It looks like I will have toast today after all. Now, before proceeding with making toast, I go back through the house, and plug everything back in. I reset all the clocks, making sure to keep the AM/PM thing straight so that the alarms will work, and no one will be late for school or work. I reprogram the 14 VCR's, DVD's, DVR's and other items that were unplugged. I get everything hooked back up and working, and then I go downstairs to the kitchen. I put my piece of bread in the oven, and hit the broil button. Once again, you guessed it . . . . "Communication Failure".

Well, now I am getting a little miffed. I call the 1-800 number again, naively thinking that I could just pick up where I left off on the last call. No such luck, they want all the numbers again from inside the stove. So, I go through that whole routine again, and finally get to the point the lady will speak to me. She says that I need to reboot the stove. I told her I had just done that. She asked if I had left it off for 5 minutes when I had unplugged it.

Of course I had not, so I had to go through the whole nine yards again. Unplug everything in the house, cut power to the house, turn power back on, reset the clocks and reprogram everything else. Then I go in and look at the stove . . . same thing . . . communication failure.

Now, I call the lady back give her all the stove numbers, tell her the whole long story, and then she tells me that my stove is malfunctioning. Duuuuuuh.

Well, I guess the good news is that we finally came to a common understanding of the situation. My stove was not working. So, she says she will send a service man out. A couple of days later the service guy shows up. He is actually a really nice guy. He looks at the stove, takes some readings, plugs some fancy equipment into it, presses various buttons, and after about a half hour he comes in and tells me that my stove is malfunctioning. Now I feel like we are really getting somewhere, everyone agrees that my stove is not working. He says he will have to order parts and come back.

About a week later he comes back, installs some parts, and like magic, the front panel of the stove is showing all happy lights as you would expect. The service man leaves, and my wife goes and makes biscuits in the stove, and they come out burned and hard as a rock. Now, understand that before the original "Communication Failure" error, the stove made perfect biscuits. She tries baking several other things, and while there were no error messages on the stove, and the stove heated up and appeared to be working, everything she tried to cook was ruined.

So, I call the factory back, and they send the repairman back out. This time he comes out in an even bigger truck, and brings in even more test gear. He fools around with the stove, does some tests, he calls the factory, talks to them for half an hour, does some more tests, talks to the factory some more, and then he finally calls me back into the kitchen.

He appears a little sheepish, and he tells me that there is nothing wrong with the stove. I point over to the bag of rock hard burned biscuits on the counter. He tells me that the factory wants him to speak to my wife, so he can show her how to use the timer on the stove and to give her some tips on baking. Basically, they are saying that there is nothing wrong with their stove, but that my wife is an idiot and does not know how to cook.

Well, I don't know about where you live, but where I live you don't come into a man's home and tell him that his wife does not know how to use a kitchen timer and does not know how to make buttermilk biscuits. The repairman had enough sense to know that he was on real shaky ground. He also noticed my hand on the door to the screened in porch, and he saw Bruno, my Pit Bull out on the porch giving him the evil eye. The man realized that he was dangerously close to me opening that door, and sicking Bruno on him. (OK, I don't really have a pit bull named Bruno. I have a six pound Shitz Su named Little Elmo. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure the repairman was frightened I was going to unleash that little land shark on him).

Anyway, I could tell the repairman was pretty frustrated. I think he probably felt that there was something wrong with the stove, but he worked for the company and he had to say what they told him to say. I went back and forth with him a few times, explaining how my wife could make buttermilk biscuits over a campfire, on a hot plate, in an oven, or anywhere else . . . that it was not my wife, it was the stove. The guy just starts explaining to me that we can not do anything else until he talks to my wife to make sure she knows how to use the stove. So, I felt like we were reaching an impasse, when all the sudden we both hear three beeps and look down at the stove, and it is saying, once again, "Communication Failure". We both sort of breathed a sigh of relief, as now he had something to go on, and that it was clear that the stove in fact was malfunctioning. So, he gets on the phone again with the factory, and starts working through the details with them. He comes in and tells me that he has to order more parts, and will have to come back again.

Anyway, to make a long story short, this whole ordeal has been going on for six weeks. Yep, I have a State-of-the-Art Dual Fuel range, and it has been 42 days since I have had a slice of toast. I will periodically keep you posted on this saga as things progress.

Calls to the Factory: 6

Visits from the Repairman: 3

Days Since I have had a Piece of Toast: 42

You are viewing a photograph of Thomas Jonathan Jackson. It was on this day, July 21, in the year 1861 that Thomas was commanding Confederate troops at the First Battle of Bull Run. As the Confederate lines began to crumble and retreat under a heavy Union barrage, Thomas and his men stood firm on Henry House Hill. General Barnard Bee, seeing the brave stand of Thomas, exhorted his own troops to be brave by shouting, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Follow me."

From that day forward, Thomas Jonathan Jackson has always been known and remembered simply as "Stonewall", perhaps the greatest nickname of all time.

This photograph was taken in 1939, and shows a Hispanic Barbershop in San Antonio, Texas. I like the sign showing that a haircut was 10 cents. When I was a boy, I got my haircut in an old-time barbershop, not unlike the one shown in this picture. The cheapest I can remember haircuts being was $1. I can remember at barbershops like this, the men sitting around waiting for their turn to get a haircut would talk politics. I can remember listening to the conversations, and wishing that they would make one of those men President. Such uncommon common sense. One of the biggest issues of discussion was wasteful government spending. It is sort of funny, but I don't know one person who is not frustrated by government waste and abuse . . . at the same time, zero progress has been made in the last 40 years on the problem, it just gets worse. I saw on the news yesterday that a number of the most important Senators on the Banking Committee had been getting sweetheart loans from the very banks that they were supposed to be regulating, and worse yet, the banks primarily responsible for the sub-prime mess. So, while they were supposed to be minding the store, they were in fact taking what looks a whole lot like bribes. Where is the outrage?

This photograph was taken in 1912 and shows a Native American burial ceremony. The dead person has been elevated onto a small scaffold, which has been decorated by different items. Two people stand nearby. I wish I knew more about this type of ceremony, but I do find the photograph captivating.