cucking-stool noun
Historical. A chair to which disorderly women were tied and then ducked into water or subjected to public ridicule as a punishment.
? origin Middle English: from obsolete cuck ?defecate?, of Scandinavian origin; so named because a stool containing a chamber pot was often used for the purpose.
That is definitely an obsolete word.
Memorial Day, 26 May 2008
As you enjoy your three day weekend, and the start of summer, please take a moment to reflect upon why we celebrate Memorial Day.
World War I 116,516 killed, 204,002 wounded.1
World War II 407,316 killed, 670,846 wounded.1
Korea 33,651 killed 103,284 wounded.1
Vietnam 58,168 killed, 153,303 wounded.1
Gulf War 382 killed, 486 wounded.1
Iraq War 4,079 killed so far, at least 30,112 wounded.
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
~John F. Kennedy
What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
~Robert E. Lee
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
~Thomas Jefferson
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
~H.L. Mencken
We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~William Faulkner
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War
War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
~Georges Clemenceau
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
~Mahatma Gandhi
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
~Mao Tse-Tung
It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
~Robert E. Lee
We make war that we may live in peace.
~Aristotle
For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Vietnam War Memorial
Korean War Memorial
WWII Memorial
The Great War
1 from here.
Written by Michelle at 8:00 am
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Categories: History
So the pope is in the US. And his visit is all over the news.
All of which has served to remind me of the many problems I have with the Catholic church.
Religion is a very difficult subject for me to discuss here, because my family is quite devout, so I feel as if my lack of faith is letting them down.
Actually to be more clear, it is not a subject I have discussed with my family, first and foremost because I don’t want to upset them. (And that right there may tell you all you a whole lot about me.)
I think the biggest problem for me is that I have no faith–to try and put it another way, when it comes to religion, I feel nothing. When people talk about their faith and how it makes them feel, I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. It feels like I’m blind and someone is trying to explain color to me. I can accept the idea that such a thing exists, but I can’t imagine it myself.
From that stems all my other problems, I’d guess. Because since I lack faith, it fascinates me. I want to understand what other people think, why they feel the way they do, to see if I can figure out what is wrong with me that makes me different.
But I’ve found that this only makes things worse.
The more I read about religion, the less I understand it, and the more alien I feel from it.
Let’s take the Catholic Church for starters. Although there are some things I believe the church does right, there are many other things where I believe the church is mistake, and in their error are actually causing harm. Women in the priesthood. Birth control. Homosexuality. I think that by saying such things are wrong and unacceptable, the church is actually causing harm, not just to itself, but to the greater community.
These have long been issues for me, but the more I read and learned, the more areas of disagreement I found. Papal infallibility? Don’t accept it. Immaculate conception? That just seems like a really big fudge. And then there’s the creation of the New Testament. The Christian bible was created through years of what was essentially political wrangling. The idea that something was acceptable one year, and then suddenly out of the cannon seems ridiculous. And don’t even get me started on the translation errors and issues. You don’t like what the bible says? Just find another translation you like better.
Never mind the internal inconsistencies in the bible.
And then there’s the whole relativism thing. The pope is really big on telling us how bad relativism is. Well, guess what? I’m a huge relativist.
First and foremost, I don’t think God damns people for calling God by different names, or for worshiping in one manner over another. I also don’t think God is the sadist many make God out to be. I mean, the seven circles of hell? That sounds not like the God of loving kindness, but instead like a vengeful human hoping that his enemies get what’s coming to them.
Secondly, the more I read about different religions, the more similarities I see between them. Why allow humans to create different religions that are REALLY similar, but not QUITE the same, so these religions can all claim superiority and cause more war and suffering than any other subject in the history of humanity.
But putting all that aside, I don’t think the God described in these religions fits into the world today–or even the world of the past. Now before your head explodes, let me explain. American Christianity seems to have some bizarre focus upon a personal God. The God of healing and miracles. Well, when I look around the world I see absolutely no sign of that God. I see a world that continues on it’s merry way with no external intervention. Which is GREAT as far as I’m concerned, because I think a personal God counter-indicates free-will. And I’m an even bigger fan of free will than I am of relativism.
So I look at the world, with my lack of faith and my lack of belief. I see a world completely unlike the world described by so many religions.
But I don’t see a bad world. And I don’t see one in which God is absent. I simply see a world in which God exists in everything, and it is up to us to recognize that fact, and treat all other creatures accordingly.
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
— Martin Luther King
“Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence“
A date which will live in Infamy
In 1941, Japanese planes made a surprise attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 and wounding 1,178. Twenty-one ships were sunk or damaged, including the USS Arizona, which remains on the harbor floor, and the USS West Virginia, which was eventually refloated, repaired, and rejoined the fleet towards the end of the war.
Information about the Pearl Harbor Attack.
Pearl Harbor Remembered, including survivor’s remembrances.
The official US Navy Pearl Harbor website.
The USS West Virginia, including pictures of the ship from the 20s through the “mothballing” of the ship in the 1950s (She was later broken up and sold for scrap).
The USS Arizona, from the University of Arizona, including a brief hisotry and online exhibits.
President Roosevelt’s speech in response to the other attacks that day.
A date which will live in Infamy
In 1941, Japanese planes made a surprise attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 and wounding 1,178. Twenty-one ships were sunk or damaged, including the USS Arizona, which remains on the harbor floor, and the USS West Virginia, which was eventually refloated, repaired, and rejoined the fleet towards the end of the war.
Information about the Pearl Harbor Attack.
Pearl Harbor Remembered, including survivor’s remembrances.
The official US Navy Pearl Harbor website.
The USS West Virginia, including pictures of the ship from the 20s through the “mothballing” of the ship in the 1950s (She was later broken up and sold for scrap).
The USS Arizona, from the University of Arizona, including a brief hisotry and online exhibits.
President Roosevelt’s speech in response to the other attacks that day.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month
“It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it”
— Robert E. Lee
“A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.”
— George William Curtis
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
— John Philpot Curran Speech upon the Right of Election (1790)
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day Web Page
The Origins of Veterans Day from the VFW
Okay, this is fascinating. It’s a map of London circa the 1650s.
I read lots of British mysteries set in the past, so I find it particularly interesting, because some of the places are familiar. Though I have yet to find Bow Street.
If you read fantasy or history, you may be interested in this article on What Did Historical Swords Weigh?
From ordinary hands-on experience we know full well that swords were not excessively heavy nor did they weigh 10 or 15 pounds and more. There is only so many ways we can repeat how these weapons were not at all heavy or ungainly. Remarkably, while one would think a crucial piece of information as the weight of swords would be of great interest to arms curators and arms historians, there is no major reference book that actually lists the weights of different types. Perhaps this vacuum of documented evidence is part of the very problem surrounding the issue. However, there are a few respected sources that do give some valuable statistics. For example, the lengthy catalog of swords from the famed Wallace Collection Museum in London readily lists dozens of fine specimens among which it is difficult to find any weighing in excess of 4 pounds. Indeed, the majority of specimens, from arming swords to two-handers to rapiers, weigh much less than three pounds.
Despite frequent claims to the contrary, Medieval swords were indeed light, manageable, and on average weighed less than four pounds.
There are lots of pictures around my house. Pictures of friends, pictures of family, and a lot of black and white pictures—copies of pictures that I borrowed from my grandmother, and a few from my mother.
There are certain pictures that draw me in: A pictures of cousin Billy, who died as a child, sitting on a tricycle, starting at a camera; A picture of my father and cousin Billy climbing a tree in my great-grandparent’s yard. But one picture seems to prey on my thoughts when I let me mind wander.
(more…)
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
— Martin Luther King
“Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence“
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