On March 15, some time ago, several dozen famous politicians—sturdy men, duly elected senators who claimed to love their republic—attacked their chief executive while he walked into the Senate. They stabbed Gaius Julius Caesar 23 times, as he fell to the floor, defenseless, and bled to death, setting off a chain of wars that formally ended the Roman Republic and initiated the Roman Empire.
Some 2,062 years have passed since that day, but we haven’t stopped arguing about it. From Central Park productions of Julius Caesar to op-ed accusations of “Caesarism,” the Roman dictator—and the world he inhabited—still looms in our political conversation. Even the architecture of Washington, D.C., suggests that it is a kind of New Rome.
But for all those years, the source material for the arguments have remained largely the same. Archaeologists can locate new sites and excavate for coins, plates, or jewelry; scholars can read and reread Roman writers like Cicero, Sallust, and Catullus, who all documented Caesar. These have been the techniques for learning about Rome for centuries, and they are indispensable. But lately, they have been joined by something new.
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Oskari Porkka / Gilmanshin / Shutterstock / Katie Martin / The Atlantic
A teacher and student on a field trip were killed Thursday when a school bus collided with a dump truck and flipped over in Mount Olive Township in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said.
More than 40 others were injured, some critically, and were taken to local hospitals, Murphy told reporters. The truck driver was also being treated at a hospital.
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The names of the teacher and student killed in the Interstate 80 crash were not released.
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“It’s a tough day here in Paramus,” Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco told reporters. “Sixty-five years I’ve lived in this town and it’s difficult to stand here today to talk about our education community suffering so deeply.”
An eruption from the Kilauea volcano’s summit shot ash and smoke into the air early Thursday on Hawaii’s Big Island, and the resulting plume is expected to cover the surrounding area, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The volcanic cloud reached 30,000 feet, the US Geological Survey said. That’s a little below the cruising altitude of a jetliner.
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“At any time, activity may again become more explosive, increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent,” the USGS said. “Ballistic projectiles may be produced should steam-driven explosions occur. Impacts will be limited to an area around Halemaumau.”
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Halemaumau is the crater within Kilauea’s summit caldera.
Los Angeles startup Local Roots retrofits 40-foot-long shipping containers, turning them into “TerraFarms” that yield as many leafy greens as five acres of farmland—only faster, using as little as 1 percent of the water.The company leases TerraFarms to wholesalers, restaurant chains, and SpaceX. The United Nations is preparing to field-test them, too. Chief Executive Officer Eric Ellestad, a venture capitalist who’s raised about $11 million for Local Roots, says he’ll stand by the taste of the greens grown in the former containers, no salad dressing required. “Chefs we work with,” he says, “that’s what sells them.”
He was reading chapter books and could string together a story about the Pokemon sitting on his shoulder who didn’t need a seatbelt because he could just fly into the air if we got into a collision—yes, he could use words like collision accurately—and he loved to learn and discover and invent things.
But he would NOT write three sentences a day in his “journal” for his first grade teacher
Every night, the same routine:
Me: What can you write in your journal?
Him: I don’t want to.
Me: It’s just three sentences. What happened today? Just write anything.
Him: dawdle dawdle dawdle …no writing…
Me: *threats of time out, no TV, ranting about how this should have taken 5 minutes but it’s already been 30, why won’t you just do it?*
Yeah, I have better skills than that, but sometimes I forget to use them.
Senate Democrats forced a vote Wednesday to repeal changes to Obama-era net neutrality rules, which are scheduled to expire next month.
The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to overturn the rules, which prevent internet service providers, or ISPs, from treating certain content differently. The change, internet freedom advocates warned, would allow ISPs to block, slow down or charge more for certain content ― including on popular streaming websites like Netflix or Amazon.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined all Democrats in approving a resolution Wednesday that would undo the FCC’s decision. The effort to force a vote was made possible by the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress the power to reverse any federal regulation within 60 legislative days of enactment.
Yes, last night’s primary contests in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon and Pennsylvania maybe didn’t offer the same kind of high-profile races that last week’s races in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia did.
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Democratic 2nd District House candidate Kara Eastman is hugged by her campaign manager Ben Onkka, in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 15, 2018.Nati Harnik / AP
The victims of Larry Nassar ― the convicted sexual abuser of U.S. gymnasts who will spend the rest of his life in prison ― settled hundreds of lawsuits against Michigan State University on Wednesday.
The victims ― with more than 300 of them identified ― will receive portions of a $500 million settlement, The Lansing State Journal reported.
“Michigan State has shown leadership by its willingness to begin closing this dark chapter,” Jamie White, one of the attorneys suing MSU, told the publication. “The victims of Nassar can never be made whole but this is a step in the right direction.”
Nassar, 54, pleaded guilty to sex crimes on Nov. 22, admitting that he sexually assaulted young girls under the guise of medical treatment when he was a doctor.
“I’ve just signed your death warrant,” Michigan Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told Nassar during his January sentencing of 40 to 175 years in prison.
This should be shown in every class room in every school.
A bit of our history.
This is a fantastic story. Everyone should read this.
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Seems Impossible
Carefully study this artwork. Then, read what we did.
Not only is the picture awesome, but so are the statistics!
During the 3-1/2 years of World War II that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and ended with the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, “We the People of the U.S.A.” produced the following:
22 aircraft carriers
8 battleships
48 cruisers
349 destroyers
420 destroyer escorts
203 submarines
34 million tons of merchant ships
100,000 fighter aircraft
98,000 bombers
24,000 transport aircraft
58,000 training aircraft
93,000 tanks
257,000 artillery pieces
105,000 mortars
3,000,000 machine guns and
2,500,000 military trucks
We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb and, ultimately, conquered Japan and Germany.
It’s amazing what America did in those days
Many of you already know the story, here is the update.
THE FINAL TOAST
The text below references the movie “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.”
There is a second film made in 1944 that details the “show” trials of the 11 airmen
that were captured & tortured by the Japanese titled “The Purple Heart.”
Three were executed as war criminals, a fourth died in captivity.
TheFINAL TOAST! They bombed Tokyo 73 years ago.
They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States .. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation’s history. The mere mention of their unit’s name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.
Now only four survive
After Japan ‘s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor,
with the United States reeling and wounded,
something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around.
Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan
for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised.
Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier.
This had never before been tried — sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.
The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle,
who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet,
knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier.
They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.
But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of the plan.
The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out
in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on.
They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.
And those men went anyway.
They bombed Tokyo and then flew as far as they could.
Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died.
Eight more were captured; three were executed.
Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia .
The Doolittle Raiders sent a message from the United States to its enemies,
and to the rest of the world: We will fight. And, no matter what it takes, we will win.
Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo ,”
starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit,
and the phrase became part of the national lexicon.
In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story……..
“with supreme pride.”
Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April,
to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year.
In 1959, the city of Tucson , Arizona , as a gesture of respect and gratitude,
presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets.
Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.
Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city.
Each time a Raider passes away, his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion,
as his old friends bear solemn witness.
Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special cognac.
The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.
There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders,
they would open the bottle, at last drink from it,
and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.
As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February,
Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.
What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane
Over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria,
and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions.
He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.
The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts … There was a passage in
the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface,
had nothing to do with the war, but that was emblematic of the depth
of his sense of duty and devotion:
“When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day.
He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife,
and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes.
Then he walked them up to her room the next morning.
He did that for three years until her death in 2005.”
So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain:
Dick Cole (Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid),
Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s.
They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.
The events in Fort Walton Beach marked the end. It has come full circle;
Florida ‘s nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission.
The town planned to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor,
including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.
Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country
have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice?
They don’t talk about that, at least not around other people.
But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week,
and if you should encounter any of the Raiders,
you might want to offer them a word of thanks.
I can tell you from first hand observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered.
The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date —
sometime this year — to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy.
That is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now;
they are not going to wait until there are only two of them.
They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets. And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.
Their 70th Anniversary Photo
SOME WERE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW ABOUT THESE BRAVE HEROES.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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“TerraFarm”
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Larry Nassar
Rock and roll
