History & Comment for May 2, 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 Friday the 2nd day of May 2025.

Turning the Calendar to May is a major change in mind set.   For one the weather is nicely moving towards summer without being too hot. 

The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow.   There are a couple of stories.   The late Country singer Toby Keith was a horse owner and it was his dream to have an entry in the prestigious event.   That should happen this year.  The late singer was a part owner in Render Judgment which is 14 to 1 odds to win.   Journalism is the favorite at 7:2 and Sandman is 9:2.    One source list Keith’s Dream Walkin’ Farms to have career winnings north of $17 millions dollars.    I wonder what the earnings were from his singing career?

There is another story.  Frank Mars was in the candy business and was doing very well with the Milky Way bar.   So well in fact that he was able to endulge his wife’s fancy in horses.  Building the Milky Way Farm in Tennessee. A 2,800 acre spread.   Frank had an idea for a new candy bar but it was yet to be named.   When one of Ethel’s favorite horses died, Frank named the new candy after the horse,   Snickers.      Snickers did not run in the Kentucky Derby but Ethel did have several entries in the late 1930s and early 40’s , including the 35 to 1 winner in 1940.

I often say that the purpose of this broadcast is to discuss Politics and Religion, hopefully in a thoughtful yet unabashed way.  But if you distill it down to its bare essence we are talking human nature in both arenas.     I was watching a commentary on the manuvering among the Cardinals that will continue for a few more days before they begin the formal ceremony to choose a new leader for 1.4 billion Catholics.   I think you know my overall feelings on the subject.  But the Catholic Church is a major public influence and I really do not want to see them back off some of their long-held position.  

The interesting part is the Commentator was expressing how politics and the media were playing a very large part in the process, while at the same time some were taking a spiritual path and claiming that the Holy Ghost had already choose the next Pope.   The Commentator who appeared to lean Catholic even thought that statement was problematic as there have been some pure schrouldrels reign as Pope.    The current thought is  the Conclave will be short and the list appears to be short also.   The concern is the list is liberal and worse.  

Despite centuries of making up their own rules, morality topics do not change with time.   No matter who the Pope or Preacher is.   I often hear folks long for old time religion and I am fine with that provided the period we are looking at is the first century.  Be it Catholic,  Protestant or what every stripes, the pulpit has a long history of bias and manipulation.   As much as we would like to think of them as divinely inspired, a close observation will make the case that all are inescapably human and fallible.   

What is the recourse?   Simple, and I think I could find an Apostle Paul quote here,  keep searching for God and a direct relationship with him.    To look any place else is to find human weakness.   Now unless folks think I am totally against the pulpit, I am not.   There are some very sincere ministers,  who do a great deal of good things,   but they are human and have their weaknesses.   God alone is perfect.     

There is where I depart with the Roman Church.  Their core belief is to uplift and place the earthly church between the pew and God.  

I think we could make a correlation between the Old Testament practice and the Catholic Church.  Worship is centered around ceremony and the process.    Not a personal search.   

We fall into the concept of following the letter and not the spirit of the Law.   Which brings us back to the Point of Beginning and human nature.  

One last conclave thought,  There are suggestions from multiple cardinals that the next Pope may take the regal name of John the 24th.   No Pope has takne the name of Peter the 2nd.   Looking at the list.  It appears that John and Paul are the only two bibilical names that have been used.  Well, except for Peter. 

Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England and second wife of King Henry the 8th is arrested on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft,  take about throwing the book at someone,  in 1536.    It was Anne and Henry’s marriage that caused the church rift in England.   Anne will be executed and Henry will have six more wives in turn.

The King James Bible, aka the Authorized version is published in 1611.  Despite its archic language, it is still debated as the best translation.   Later English versions have some built in biases. Some argue they distort the meaning.   James was first a Scottish King, before becoming King of England.    He was the first English King to be raised as a Protestant.   But he still had issues with church desent.  It will be under his reign that the Pilgrims will leave England for the New World  and the reason there was over church reform. 

One of the greatest and most tragic losses in the Civil War happens on this day  in 1863. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson ha been scouting position during the Battle of Chancellorsville, as he returned to Confederate lines.  He and his party are fired up on.    Jackson is wounded and his arm was amputated.    As a complication he contracts Pneumonia and dies 8 days later.   The loss of maybe the smartest tactician was a severe blow to the Confederacy.   

The first game of the Negro National League is played in Indianapolis on this day in 1920.  The NNL was not the first negro baseball league, but the first to play more than a couple of seasons.   It will remain active until 1931 and the depression.   A second NNL will be recreated a couple of years later, with many of the same teams. The Negro leagues will continue to play until 1960, but there will continue to be barnstorming games. It is difficult to place a hard end point.   Jackie Robinson began playing in the Majors in 1947.  So the integration took nearly a decade.  

 Berlin falls in 1945 and at the same time the US 82nd airborne division liberates to Wobbelin concentration camp.  While the 522nd Field Artillery Battlion intercepts the death march from Dachau  Camp towards the Austrian border.  

The town of Chernobl is evacuated on this day in 1986, six days after the nuclear meltdown. Officially the town remains in the Exclusion Zone, but it is not strongly enforced.  It is estimated 150 people live in the less radioactive parts. 

The Iron Curtain, that had isolated Eastern Europe from the West since the end of WW II gets its first tear in 1989.   Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria.   The opens a route for East Germans who can travel behind the curtain to defect to West Germany.   

The Global Positioning System was originally a military system.  The highest accuracy signals were degraded for civilian applications.   25 years ago, President Clinton announces that will no longer be the case.  

Osama bin Laden gets a fateful visit from Navy Seals in 2011. 

A version of the artwork The Scream is auctioned in 2012.   At $120 million it sets a new world record.  

Country Singer Larry Gatlin is 77 today.    Actor Dwane Johnson is 53. 

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