History & Comment for April 7, 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 Monday the 7th of April 2025.

The sun is out this morning for the first time in a few days.   All of the ponds, lakes and rivers are full. But we are in better condition than folks to the South.   Kentucky has had a rash of natural disasters the past couple of years.    

In the headlines,  Actor Jay North passed away over the weekend.    He was 73.  Older folks will recognize the name as the actor who was Dennis the Menace for four season between 159 and 1963.  While the character was an American icon of the small screen.  It was a blessing and a curse at the same time.   His on-screen guardians were an Aunt and Uncle, who were very strict and abusive.   While appearing a normal, mischievous pre-teen on the show, his life was isolated, hectic and anything but normal.   He was also not a natural platinum blond.    Despite the disappointment of Dennis, North wanted to continue acting, but was perpetually typecast.    A common maylay of actors who have had great success on television and to a lesser extent in film.    Director Mel Brooks wanted John Wayne for Blazing Saddles. Wayne read the script and is quoted as saying he would be first in line to buy a ticket, but there was no way he could participate in the project.   

North did a bit of voice over work.  While seeking darker roles in an effort to put distance between his adult career and Dennis.    It was of limited success.  It is reported that he secured the rights to the book Burn, Judy Burn!.   A documentary of the last murder, trial and execution of Indiana serial killer Steven Judy in 1980.   In a strange twist or maybe a plan of North.   Steven Judy bore a stark resemblance to Dennis Mitchel.  

The Judy case was set in my hometown and was a major news story while it played out over three years. The book was written by a local newspaper reporter.    The take home point was Steven Judy was seriously dysfunctional, mentally and socially.   There is always the return to the Nature vs Nuture debate,  science would call it genetics vs environment.   In Judy’s case, both were so corrupted that it would be impossible to place blame on any single factor.   

I try to keep this program up beat and positive.   But the human condition is irreparable corrupt.   This might be the most obvious support for the Biblical narrative, the fallen state of man.   While some folks try to argue that man is capable of morality on his own,  it does not take a long look to see that as a whole that has never been the case.    Man is prone to self-promotion.   Granted a few individuals can with great effort suppress that desire,  slightly, it dominates society in general.  Call it greed or politics, at the root it is self-serving.   The Gospel of John,   keenly focus on the concept of Love.    While Peter was gregarious and Impulsive.   John was a completely different personality.   Bible scholars also suggest that Peter was the oldest of the disciples and John most likely the youngest.  Likely only in his mid-teens.   None the less, he uses the word love far more than any other writer.     Three different times in his Gospel he makes the point it is a commandment to love ones neighbor as we love ourselves and that should be the hallmark of a Christian.    That simple phrase is nearly impossible to fulfill.  If you think about it,  if you can keep that, most of the OT law and even modern law would not be necessary. 

In Historical culture Attila the Hun is one of the classic bad guys.   The Huns were a nomadic people that ranged from the Black Sea  to Central Europe in the 4th and 5th Centuries.   In 451, under their King Attila they are all the way to Metz, France.  There they capture and burn the city, killing most of the residents in the process.  What is the motivation?    Conquest and tribute money appear to be the reasons.    Little more than a bully taking lunch money for his own.     There was not love for mankind involved, it was personal gain at someone else peril. 

It would be refreshing it we could all bury our self interest and know what the divine plans was.   But we are inescapable human and that will not happen.  In 1449 Pope Felix the fifth abdicates his claim to the Papacy. Felix was the first anti-pope, who had claimed the office since the Summer of 1440.  An anti-pope is a claimant to the papacy during a period when the title is in dispute.   Usually the lesser claim.   Felix was elected by the Council of Basil, which was having a dispute with Pope Eugene the 4th over the subject of papal supremacy. 

The first permanent settlement of US citizen in the new Northwest Territory is Mariette, Ohio, created on this day in 1788.  Ten years later Congress, organizes the Mississippi Territory in land that have been disputed by the US and Spain.    It extended from the western border of the  State of Georgia to the Mississippi River and between 31 degress North and 32, 28’ North.   It did not extend all the way to the Gulf Coast, but include about 40% of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi.    The Gulf Coast will be added in 1812 after another agreement with Spain.  

Lewis and Clark, break winter camp with the Mandan Tribe and again head upstream along the Missouri River in 1805.   

Three armies met in Southwest Tennessee for a two day battle in 1862. Two Union and one Confederate. The affair like many in that conflict had two names depending on who told the story. It was either the Battle of Shiloh for a nearby church or the Battle of Pittsburg landing.   Either way it was one of the bloodiest of the war, certainly to that point in the war.    The numbers often take some explanation. When we hear the term casulaities that is just troops who were not available for the next roll call.  It include killed, wounded and missing.   It was always a tremendously high number. At Shiloh, there were about 112,000 troops in the action.  Almost 3300 were killed outright.   Another 16,400 wounded.   That is approaching one in five.   Hollywood tends to sanitize death.   In the civil war,   being wounded was almost the worst case. Hospitals were a breeding ground for disease.     More soldiers died from poor sanitary conditions in all camps than from battle.   While 163 years does not seem so far away in terms of time for sterile procedures it was the dark ages.  Soap and boiling water would have greatly helped the prognosis.   It is disgusting by modern standards but getting maggots in a wound was a plus. 

The NFL makes helmets mandatory in 1943.   No pun intended but that seem like a no-brainer.    Football has had a long history of debate if it should even be allowed.    Early gear when the game was invented in the later 1800s was non-exsistent.   One of the first pieces was a strange nose guard as broken noses were common.    Ear damage was also an early injury.     The Riddel Company began making a plastic helmet in 1939, but it was actually outlawed by the NFL for a period as it was considered too dangerous.   Close fitting leather helmets were thought more protective.   

The debate about that sport continues to this day.    The other debate is does the protective gear, build a false idea of invincibility and encourage more aggressive play.   Certainly teenaged males do not need much encouragement in that realm. 

International Business Machines announces the System 360 mainframe computer system in 1964.  The first unit will be delivered the next year with the line remaining in production until 1978.   While it was ground breaking for the time,  the smallest compoenets were the size of a washing machine and the system had less computing power than your smartphone.   

A Request for Comment was issued in 1969 by a consortium of computer experts.   We might call it a trail ballon; it had ideas and suggestions for protocols.  RFC 1 was published on this day and is considered the birth date of the Internet.   It will take 20 years and the invention of the PC to make it a reality.  

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