History & Comment for April 14, 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 14th of April 2025

You are running out of time to file your tax returns.   As many as 22% of Americans wait until the last minuet to file theirs.   45% prepare them themselves with the majority seeking help.   The process is not overly complicated if you have a limited number of income streams or expenses.   The IRS,   I’m not sure how you call it a service,   it is more like getting your livestock serviced, publishes a step-by-step guide that covers how to file your taxes.   

The Government was really cleaver and, in a way, deceitful when they set-up the income tax and payroll deductions.     Anyone who had received a paycheck should have felt the difference between gross income and the amount the check is written for.     It masks the amount of taxes that are being paid and if by chance you over paid, you get free money back as a windfall.    Cool!    Most folks fail to see how much they are paying for Government.    And it does not end today.    There are taxes on Gasoline. Them sales taxes which have drifted up over time.   Most States are in the 6 to 7% range.   That is healthy.  Still we are not done,   Property taxes are popular, too.   Here in Indiana they are used to fund local services like police, firefighters and schools.    We actually have a relatively low property tax rate here in Indiana.   Meanwhile our neighbor to the west is the king, with the highest rates in the Country.   They also fund their schools through property taxes.   

Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush form the first abolition society in America in 1775.    The Society was in the Quaker stronghold of Philadelphia.   Pennsylvania was quite tolerant is its society, due to its Quaker roots.     Neither Franklin nor Rush were Quakers.   

 William Penn’s religious journey is an interesting story.    He was the son of a well-placed British Admiral and just outside of the royal court.    He disliked the religious rancor of the day and its association with the throne.   Choosing the outlawed Quaker faith.   The well-educated Penn traveled with Founder George Fox and in effect became the faiths first theologian and legal defender.   But the sect was still outlawed and Penn spent a good bit of time in and out of prison.    The saving grace was his Fathers close connections to the crown.    It will be those connections and debts to his Father that will gain the younger Penn the charter to the largest colony in America.    That and his outspokenness.  The King and a lot of folks in England wanted him gone.  

On this day in 1865, a group of Southern sympathizers try to pull of one of the greatest coups in American history. They are only marginally successful.    We know that John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln at point blank range.  Secretary of State William Seward and his family were also attacked.   Three other high level officials are targets.      Only Lincoln succumbs to the attack.    It could very well be argued that Lincoln would have lead a much more amicable return of the South to the Union.   

But there is a twist.   One author, with some credible knowledge claims the attack was in retribution for winning a legal case back in Illinois.  A former Catholic Priest who was close to the trial in Illinois, made the claim that Lincoln was killed for his part in the case, where a parish in Northern Illinois successful sued the diocese for return of property.  It seems the debate was over some very nice pulpit robes. Some claim that Charles Chiniquy, was a cooque, conspiracy theorist.    But he does make an interesting case.    One point to note is several of the conspirators were known Catholics.  But Booth was not.   

Chiniquy was raised Catholic and spent a number of years in the Priesthood before turning into an outspoken critic of the Church.   

There have been a long list of authors comparing the assignation of Lincoln and Kennedy.  The Chiniquy angle is certainly not one.    There has been nothing earth shattering come from the recent document dump.    Of all the theories on the latter I think the friendly fire one to be the most plausible.    

The first motion picture house open in New York City in 1894.  It was equipped with ten Kinetoscopes.   Each machine had a different 15 to 20 second film and for a quarter a person could view one row of machines or a half dollar to view all ten.   A half dollar would be about $16 today.  

Since the tower of babel ethnic groups have fought and distrusted others.   Some of these fights have been little more than neighbor feuds and others for a long list of reasons.   Simple bullying is prime as is outright conquest.    The 70s anthem One Tin Soldier made that case.   In 1909 the Ottoman Empire attacks the Armenians and begin a large scale massacre.     Armenia is a small country tucked between Turkey, Iran and parts of the Soviet Union.   For much of the 20th Century is was part of the Soviet Union.    Some cite the period in the late 19th and early 20th Century as ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman Empire which was largely Muslim. Armenia has a long history of a Christian culture. 

At almost midnight on this day in 1912. The RMS Titanic hits the now famous iceberg.    The event was really a perfect storm.   It was not uncommon for ships to have close calls with icebergs and the collisions were routinely survivable events.    Running at full speed or nearly so was also common.    There have been discussion about the steel used in the hull.  While it was not to the standards of today,  it was not faulty.      The placement of the dent and the severity of the damage doomed the robustly build ship to sink, early in the morning hours of the next day.     Lack of continuous monitoring of the new radios sets by trained operators on near by ships added to the tragedy.

The Russian Sputnik 2 falls out of orbit after 162 days.     A bit longer that its predecessor Sputnik1 less than seven months earlier.   The two craft were of completely different designs and missions.    

The first Space Shuttle Flight is completed in 1981.   

23 years ago Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returns to office just two days after the military tried to outset him.     This is another point we should be thankful.  It would be very hard for the Military to usurp control of our Government.    There are too many checks on power and each State could object with essentially their own military.   Again our system is complex, but quite astute in its design. 

Birthdays today:  Singer Lorette Lynn in 1932.     Charlie Hustle in 1941.  Baseball fans will know that as the nickname for Pete Rose. Rose was a native of Cincinnatti, he was in MLB for 26 season, all but five in his hometown.     Rose should be in the hall of fame, his player record is steallar, but there was that little issue with betting on baseball games.    The powers that be in MLB will not tolerate that particular sin.     Drugs are ok, but you cannot bet on the other team to loose.   While Rose eventually admitted to betting on baseball games Cincinnati played in, there is reasonable doubt if he bet against the team. That is a critical point.  A player or manager tries to help their team to win, that is the point. If a player or manager bets their team will loose, there is a question if they worked to that end.   A much bigger offense.   Some of this relates to the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal where a large portion of the team worked to throw the series to Cincinnati.   Pete Rose knew better.   It is sad that several efforts to allow him to be eligible for the Hall of Fame have fallen on deaf ears.   The point is now moot as Rose passed away last fall at the age of 83.   

Former MLB pitcher Greg Maddux and member of the HOF is 59 today.   

While baseball is oldest of modern team sports with its popularity being spread by troops in the Civil War, it has lost much of its prestige.     Today Basketball and Soccer out rank America’s Pastime. One has to wonder if the team nature of the sport is somewhat to blame.  You can shoot hoops or kick soccer ball solo.  Baseball really takes at least two people.   Unless you are that kid with a batting tee and an Australian Sheppard to who wants to play fetch.      Somehow,  Soccer, Mom and Apple pie does not have the same ring. 

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