History & Comment for March 28, 2025

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

Transcript

It’s Friday,  you might want to enjoy the nice weather today.  Showers tomorrow and storms Sunday and into Monday.  

This is History and Comment for the 28th of March 2025.

Roman Emperor Caligula gets a title in the year 37. He had just began his almost four year reign as emperor earlier in the month.   The Roman system that was a mix of inheritance and election by the Senate did not work well.   Caligula, Nero and a few others were despots and just plain nuts.   The idea that they had a divine right to power resulted in some very bad rulers.   This is most likely some human trait, as we see much the same thing in our congress today.   It also influences our Presidential elections.   Rarely do we get the absolutely best person or ideas.   Often, it is little more than the common sense of a third-grade playground.   Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton would be two perfect examples.  Society cannot decide between fudge ripple or Rocky Road and we end up with vanilla.    Couple this with leftist ideas sound really good on paper.   I recall a political cartoon that portrayed the republicans and democrats as food vendors.  The donkey has a splashy stand, fancy cloths and handing out free candy. While the elephant in work cloths is selling vegetables.   That might be one of the most accurate images around.

156 years after Caligula, the Emperor Per-tin-ax is assassinated by the Praetorian Guards.  Essentially the Roman secret service.   This was not a unique situation, at least six ended in the same manner, beginning with Caligula, at the age of 28.   This time they take their power a step further and auction off the seat.    Corruption is not new.   

IN a way the Praetorian Guard was a form of military coup.    There was a line in some news story in the past few days where someone on the left, floated the idea of a military coup to displace Donald Trump.     That idea should be horrifying to any reasonable US citizen. 

What is does illustrate is how panicked the left is.  It also illustrates how far they are willing to distort our Government to remain in power.   The acts of destruction against Tesla is another perfect example.   Folks it has gone beyond a simple difference opinion to an outright fight for the fundamentals of our Society and Government.  Do you want personal liberty or a socialist nanny state?  

105 years ago there is a tornado outbreak across two regions.  One in the Great Lakes Region and the other in the Deep South.   There was a series of 37 tornados reported with at least 30 of them significant and 8, F4s.     Part of the issue and lack of preparedness was that weather forecast were disseminated by newspapers and they did not like to use the word tornado in fear of inciting panic.   The National Weather Service will not begin using the term Warning until 1953 and added Watch in 1966.   

Spring is a transition period, we still have lingering cold air and moisture,  being combined with warmer air. It is a perfect blend to create strong storm patterns.   Again looking a few days out.   The models this morning are marking a multiple state area centered around Western Kentucky at Highly Likely Risk for strong storms. 

1979,  The United States has its most serious nuclear incident at Three Mile Island outside of Harrisburg, PA.    A coolant leak leads to a partial core meltdown.     The event while serious, but relatively minor will galvanize Public Opinion against Nuclear Energy in the States.   In the next few years 100 nuclear projects will be cancelled including the Marble Hill project here in Southern Indiana that was more than half way completed.  That cost Hoosier citizens a few billion dollars.   Or approaching $1000 per person.  More when you consider the PSI the untility building the plant did not cover the entire state.  

1990 President George Bush the elder,  awards the Congressional Gold Medal to Olympian Jesse Owens.    This is the highest civilian honor alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Congress passed this one and the President signs off, the other is by the President alone.     In this case it was pure symbolism as Owens had died ten years earlier.   

Owens had won four gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics.   Those were hosted in Berlin and intended to showcase the rise of the nazi third Reich.    Accounts of Hilter’s reaction to an African American’s  dominance are varied.   While he was not happy  there are accounts that he was civil.   Back home Owens had a different reception.   While he was given a ticker tape parade down Broadway, he had to use a side entrance and freight elevator to a reception in his honor at the Waldorf Astorian hotel.   Blacks could not use the front entrance.   To make matters worse, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not invite him to the White House.  

Fame is a fickle thing and in Owens case of little practical value. He spent most of his adult life working menial jobs to keep bread on the table.  

Twenty years ago there was a 8.6 earthquake in Sumatra that killed over 1,000 people.   Yesterday there was a 7.7 in Myanmar, with similar results.    Both are in the Indochina area that extended from SE Asia, and the Phillipines on the East to Myanmar on the West.   

Sometimes it is interesting to actually look at a map.    We often think of Australia being far off in the SW of the Pacific Ocean.    But there is 100 miles of open ocean between it and the island of Papua New Guneia, from which you can island hop to the mainland of Asia. 

I have a list of related topics I wanted to discuss, but time is getting away from us.   

Hoosier Cartoonist Gary Varvel, has a interesting commentary on Disney and their decline into wokeness this morning.   The Reviews for the remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are not good and that is from the secular folks.   If you recall country comedian Archie Campbell from the series Hee Haw.  He was known for his skit, retelling Cinderella to make it interesting  for the new generation.   He went into Rindercella and her three ugly blisters.   It was a corny spoof of a classic.   Sadly, that appears to be exactly what the creatives at Disney done with the story their forerunners made a classic.   And laid the foundation to the Mouse Empire.   What made the silver screen was a rework midway through the process to make in more palatable to the public.   

The house of the Mouse, has had a string of failures in recent years, this was a chance to get their head aligned with the public and redeem themselves.  And it appears they doubled down on woke and created on of the biggest disasters since Walt lost the rights to Oswald the Rabbit in 1928.   Oswald was Disney’s first character.  The appearance of Mickey Mouse and Oswald is quite clear.   Replace floppy rabbit ears with round mouse ears and you have it.  

Back to Varvel,   he goes to the Book of Ecclesiastes 2:18-20.  The Book is one in the OT believed to have been the swan song of Soloman.   He highlights a passage in the middle that is so succinct.   “who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless!”  

This would have made a good jumping off point to my other thoughts.   We place far too much emphasis on the present and so little on the future.   We tend to think of ourselves as temporal beings who should focus on the here and now, rather than this being little more that a gestation period for an infinitely more glorious and fulfilling existence.    

Give that though some serious contemplation.     The Gospels ask if he will find faith when he comes.   Your view of the future is centered on where your faith lies. 

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