History & Comment for March 13, 2025

A look at historical and current events on this day, comment and humor so dry it would make a camel thirsty. 

Transcript

This is History and Comment for Thursday, March 13, 2025

I’m going to skip another story about a Roman emperor being killed and replaced by a sub-adult relative.   There seems to be an endless list. 

Today our society lauds secularism and has made a concerted effort to place as much distance between its self and religion of any color.    That folks has not been the case historically. We often hear how our founders were not religious. Not is not true.  Now certainly some were not devote and practicing, but even the most rougue and Benjamin Franklin was at the top of that list.   Saw great value in the subject, and while maybe not believers, held the concepts in high reguard.    Harvard College was founded as the undergraduate portion of the more famous Harvard University in 1636.   On this day nearly three years later the yet unnamed college is named in honor of clergyman John Harvard.  It seem Mr. Harvard had passed and left the young college his library and a significant sum of money.    In that regaurd, colleges have not changed.   

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was less than 20 years old in 1636. The population was about 17,000 people, still the Grant Court saw a need for higher education and specifically a means to train clergy for the growing settlement.  To that end they proposed the College.   With the English concept of Cambridge and Oxford in mind.   In fact the town where the new college resided was renamed Cambridge.  

Religion was a critical point in the colony and College.  The second President of Harvard, Henry Dunster, abandoned the Puritan ideology in favor of the English Baptist one,  this created a crisis and Dunster resigned his post and left the colony, in favor of the more tolerant Plymouth Colony and few miles distant

Today the college is one of the most prestigious and exclusive in the Nation, yet few would consider it religious.    Lest you think the settlers were always hostile to the natives.  Havard had an Indian college beginning in 1640, to help educate the natives and a few attended, with one graduating.  

In 1826,   Pope Leo the 12th issues a very solum Papal Bull.   Until now I did not know Papal Bulls or declarations came in different levels.  Apparently they do and this one is at the top of the heap.     The intent of the very lengthy and verbose document, it is 8700 words of very ornate and legal language,  is to prohibit Catholics from membership in secret societies.  

This poses an interesting position.  In some ways it is the skillet calling the pot black.   The Catholic Church loves their pomp and ceremony and the claim to knowledge of deep mysteries.   Apparently, they want to claim a franchise on the matter.   I would like to tell you I carefully read all 8,767 words of the document and have a full understanding of the points they raise, I did not.    From what I was able to gather the issues was some of the oaths required of members.   I might have to agree with the Pope on this one.   I know earth shattering!

Frankly,   The secrecy and “mystery”  does beg the question of why?    Now I can offer one explanation,  humans do love a bit of pageantry.   It may be as simple as  a suit and tie, to a wedding tux and gown. But we do like it.    Certainly, the Catholic have no shortage of it.   Of Course they claim it as worship and reverence.  

Then the Masons, and that is the umbrella we are talking about, will claim, we are just an everyday group of folks doing charitable works.    There is a good bit of truth there.  The Shriner’s Hospital Network does a lot of good and at little to no cost to the families.   

Years ago I heard a presentation, I hesitate to call it a sermon,   of all of the levels and back door connections between the high levels of Freemasonry, the Rothchilds and even the Jesuits.  It was deep tin-foil hat stuff.   I’m skeptical on a few levels,  but not completely dismissive.    The basic implication is nepotism on a grand scale and that I do wholeheartedly believe.   Another term is ring knocking.

Some information about Masonic Rites does leak out,   its veracity can be questioned.  From my experience with the DoD.   Classified information can be found, it just cannot be verified by a knowledgeable source.   Author Tom Clancy, was reported to have been called onto the carpet about sources of material for some of his novels.   We might reasonable conclude something or things he wrote were very close to the truth.  Too close most likely.    There was also a publication called Janes Defense Weekly,  that reported on military news and capabilities,  all from unclassified sources.   Yet, the joke was it was Jane’s defense Leakly.  A lot of what was published would be classified.    

Do I think some of the details on the street are correct?  Absolutely!  All of them?  Doubtful.  

I once had a Lodge member approach me and offer to sponsor me in the local lodge.  I graciously declined.   Another time, I sat at a business lunch with a apparently dovout Mason on the right and a ring bearer on the Left.    There I was party to an exchange.  The one guy asked a question and it fell flat,  the other guy was not deep into the lore and missed it.    I have also been introduced to business folks and given a weird handshake.   Was he asking a question I did not know the answer to?   And how would it have made a difference?

The plaguing question is and this would apply to any organization, secret or otherwise are folks giving preferencial treatment to member of their group.    There is a suggestion that the Mason blood oaths are to protect a fellow mason above all else.    The concept dates back at least a couple of centuries.    Are they correct?  I cannot say.   But it is well within human nature.   So, I am inclined to believe.   

And it begs the question,  what are you giving in exchange for the benefits?      

My take is that on the local level, it is little more than a service club.   But when shrouded in mystery,  it raised questions about the bigger intent and the extent.  Maybe the biggest question is why the Eastern / Islamic lore for a group that proports to be Christian at its roots?  

Then we could mae similar claims to the Greek world on college campuses. 

There is a volcanic eruption off of New Guniea in 1888 and a resulting tsunamis that kills a few thousand.   That region is prone to such events, just not of this magnitude.   On a related topic the earthquake swarm in the Mediterranean Sea appears to a calmed down.   

Both regions will always be geologically active.   

95 Years ago the Lowell Observatory in Arizonia announces they have discovered a ninth planet in our solar system and call it Pluto.  Of course, it has since been downgraded to a micro planet.    Pluto’s orbit is more elliptical that the others and some periods it is closer that Neptune to the sun.      How big and bright is the Sun at that distance?     Well, the discussion varies. Some say it is just a another brigh star in the perpetual night sky.   Scientific America has a story that goes more into the math and claims that it would be about 1/1600th as bright as on earth  Or still several hundred times brighter that a full moon.    Let’s go with that explanation.  

1943,   German forces evacuate the last Jews from the Ghetto in Krakow, Poland.   The Ghetto had been established in the Spring of 1941. Deportations began the next Spring.   The idea was to concentrate Jews, demoralize them and segregate those able to work and those to be directly killed. 

Actor William H. Macy is 75 today, while Marco Andretti is 38.  Expect to see him in this Years Indy 500.  Also entered is 4x Winner Helio Castroneves, who will again try to become the only 5X winner.   

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