Limerics Up and About . . .

H. K.

Katz’s Korner - The Meaning of Live



      Having reached those golden years and having done so much living, I have often wondered about the meaning of life.  Twenty years ago there was a movie, “City Slickers” with Billy Crystal as Mitch Robbins and Jack Palance as Curly.  I never forgot that movie because it had one significant scene.  Mitch was city slicker who had gone with his friends to this dude ranch in which they go on a cattle drive on which Curly is the foreman.   On the drive, one of the cattle gives birth to a calf and Mitch, with Curly’s encouragement, assists in the delivery.  It gets Mitch wondering about life and its meaning.  The next day, Mitch asked Curly, what is the meaning to life?  Curly raises one finger, which perplexes Mitch even more.  He questions him on what he meant by the one finger.  Curly responded by saying, “It’s the one thing you make of it (Life).”
      The twentieth century has been the most progressive century in the history of man.  It has produced some of the greatest tools to make life easier for humankind and, such as the electric light bulbs, automobiles, telephones, cellphones, as well as, the computer, the Internet, and social networks.   It has improved on our knowledge of medicine, such that many incurable diseases are now being cured, heart operations are now possible, and organ transplant is a reality.  It has also produced the most destructive weapons, such as vastly destructive weaponry and the atomic bomb.  With all that, it has moved knowledge forward at an expediential rate.  Our understanding of our universe has progressed beyond our wildest dreams.  Einstein theory has supplanted Newton concept of the universe.   Rocketry has put man on the moon, established a man-station in space, put rovers on the surface of Mars, and sent rocket probes into outer space.   Every day, more and more planets are discovered that could possibly contain life.  As we explore outer space, we also have gain greater knowledge about living matter and, in particular, human beings.  Darwin has opened the door to understanding the evolutionary process that has produced us humans.  We have greater knowledge of our brain and how those little neurons have given us the capacity to be the humans that we are.
      Is it any wonder that we should broach the question of the meaning of life?  My quest has led me to the realization that there is no particular meaning to life.  Some think that life means loving one person and raising a family, for other it is pursuing a career, others it means making lots of money, and for others it means doing good deeds, or being creative, or getting educated, and on and on.  Some people consider life to be a challenge; others find it to be a drag.  There may be more than one meaning that each of us give to life, but Curly was right, it’s what you make of it.   That’s what counts.

IMPROV VIDEO NEWS ~ "The Hedgehog Interview"

SPOT NEWS STORIES - "The Hedgehog Interview"

This interview by Prof. Malatesta was recorded live. It was recorded on a Sunday afternoon immediately after seeing the French film titled, "The HEDGEHOG." Screenplay and directed by Mona Achache. 
 

This Embroiled News video is part of a segment in the series

of interviews by our inquisitive field reporters. As the

opportunity present itself they will interview and record ‘Spot

News Stories’ about ‘People Embroiled’ for our readers and

viewers of the Embroiled News Blog.

Other videos will be posted soon. Please enjoy our recent

presentation.

U.S. and the Bellamy salute

Above: A group of schoolchildren performing the Bellamy salute, May 1942

The U.S. and the Bellamy salute

Mitt Romney’s misfire on the national anthem

“We are the only people on the earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. It was FDR who asked us to do that, in honor of the blood that was being shed by our sons and daughters in far-off places.”

— Mitt Romney, Feb. 2, 2012

President Obama later explained that he had been taught as a child that the hand goes over the heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, but that it was optional during the national anthem.

                       <*>----<*>----<*>----<*>----<*>

      Since these statements have surfaced in the news recently, the Embroiled News top researcher, Jack Baloney, has made an extensive research in the abyss of our archive and has found an abundance of information. Needlessness to say, we only report  true facts made available from reliable sources so our readers will not be perceived as dunces during heated discussions at cocktail parties. Misleading news information will never be our intent.
      Briefly then and to the point, the Bellamy salute is the salute described by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931) to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute.”
      The inventor of the saluting gesture was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of The Youth's Companion. Bellamy recalled Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said, "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say 'I pledge allegiance to my flag,' I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow . . . "
      The Bellamy salute was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day." Pupil, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, faced the Flag; a signal was then given and every pupil gave the flag the military salute -- right hand lifted, palm downward, in line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, the pledge allegiance to the Flag and Republic.
     
      The initial civilian salute was replaced with a hand-on-heart gesture, followed by the extension of the arm as described by Bellamy.

      In the 1920s, Italian fascists adopted the Roman salute to symbolize their claim to have revitalized Italy on the model of ancient Rome. This was quickly copied by the German Nazis, creating the Nazi salute. The similarity to the Bellamy salute led to confusion, especially during World War II. From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, detractors of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations.

Above: Children performing the Bellamy salute to the flag of the United States, Hawaii, March 1941.

     In order to prevent further confusion or controversy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the hand-over-the-heart gesture as the salute to be rendered by civilians during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem in the United States, instead of the Bellamy salute. This was done when Congress officially amended the Flag Code on 22 December 1942.
       There was initially some resistance to dropping the Bellamy salute, for example from the Daughters of the American Revolution, but this opposition died down quickly.
      As it stands now, in actuality, the U.S. Flag Code says that, for civilians, the hand should go over the heart during both the pledge and the anthem. But the language is precatory (“should”), not mandatory (“shall”). In other words, Obama may have violated a patriotic custom enacted by Congress, but no legal sanctions are authorized for failing to put one’s hand over the heart during the national anthem.

      Jack Baloney

>> In part, quoted passages for this article came from Wikipedia, and the Washington Post.

H. K.

Limerics Up and About . . .

SPOTLIGHTING HITORY ~ Ronald Wilson Reagan ~ Feb. 6, 1911 ~ June 5, 2004

     Hey. This is one hell of a well-investigated story.

     We thought of spotlighting Ronald Wilson Reagan. He was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, films and television actor.

     This story was assigned to me early on by Professor Malatesta during this latest wave of conservatism that is pitting one conservative ideology against another. It has now escalated across the United States as the political conservative rhetoric is more interested at comparing themselves with former President Ronald Reagan. Strangely, since his passing, some Americans have also come to the brink of deifying him for having fulfilled his many conservative causes.

     We at the Embroiled News Central Office instead, thought that now is the proper moment to remind our readers about a few historical facts, that the current Republican candidates are neglecting to mention. Foremost is when mentioning Ronald Reagan they seem to sidestep that it's been 26-years since he addressed the nation about Iran. This is what he said:

>>> Good evening. I know you've been reading, seeing, and hearing a lot of stories the past several days attributed to Danish sailors, unnamed observers at Italian ports and Spanish harbors, and especially unnamed government officials of my administration. Well, now you're going to hear the facts from a White House source, and you know my name.
      -- Ronald Reagan addressing the nation on November 13, 1986.

     Ronald Reagan had gone on national television to confront a building firestorm over the initial revelations about the Iran Contra Affair. At the time, this seemed like a devastating scandal - an appalling betrayal of American Democracy.

     And it was.

     However, after the comparison with the Bush II Administration’s peccadilloes, it just seems now like another day at the office.

More from the Gipper:

>>> During the course of our secret discussions, I authorized the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran These modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a single cargo plane We did not -- repeats -- did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.
      -- President Reagan claimed that the arms for hostages swap wasn’t really a swap because we didn’t give them too much stuff, and besides, the stuff we did give them hardly counted as weapons.

Reagan concluded:

>>> All these reports are quite exciting, but as far as we're concerned, not one of them is true.
-- I love the part when he mentions, "as far as we're concerned. . . "
     In case you were wondering what types of weapons were on the shipment docket to Iran, here are those that made the list:

August 20, 1985. – 96 TOW anti-tank missiles
September 14, 1985.  – 408 more TOWs
November 24, 1985.  – 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles
February 17, 1986.  – 500 TOWs
February 27, 1986.  – 500 TOWs
May 24, 1986.  – 508 TOWs, 240 Hawk spare parts
August 4, 1986.  – More Hawk spares
October 28, 1986.  – 500 TOWs

     Neocon buddy Saddam Hussein was, of course, not pleased that the United States was now supplying arms to the Iranians - with whom Iraq was at war. Yet the President Reagan Administration also simultaneously supplied hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons to Iraq. Perhaps partly to help making it up to him, the United States later also launched operation Earnest Will to flag Kuwaiti oil tankers as US ships, so that the US Navy could escort them through an Iranian blockade -- in exchange for a Kuwaiti commitment to lend some of the $ billions from keeping their oil exports afloat to Iraq to keep financing their side of the war.

     If this is confusing and familiar at the same time, you’re not alone – and it must have been one hell of big-ass cargo plane to do all the weapon transport by it self!

     A few years later, Hussein had a thought. Rather than repay those $ billions in loans to the Kuwaitis, it would be a lot easier to just annex the country, and presumed he had been given the green flag from the US: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts." This, of course, led to George Bush the I, Top-Gun moment in the desert.
      Anyhow, back to Reagan's November 13 heart-to-heart with our fellow Americans. In the weeks that followed, Attorney General Ed Meese was on the case and launched an internal investigation. John Poindexter and Oliver North would soon get their shredders rolling 24-7 as an attempt to destroy as much evidence as possible about their illegal operations. (Johnny Poindexter would later reemerge in the context of "Total Information Awareness.")
      The Meese's boys just weren't quick enough however, to feed the shredders. Go figure, how some political devotes fowl-up their own moment in history. Nonetheless, by November 25, Meese would admit that profits from the weapon sales were being sent to right-wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
      Bummer!  Meese probably didn’t know that aiding the Contras was an explicit violation of Congressional mandate / US law.
      That set off Congressional inquiries by the Tower Commission and a kind of political circus and gripping television went in full swing.  Yet in conclusions after the exchanges among the “Big Heads” in Washington was over, there was absolutely no accountability for the bums we elected to safeguard and run our nation.
     Of course, the covert Reagan Administration contacts with Iran were not exactly new. And William Casey and the CIA boys, were busy little beavers throughout the 1980s, outsmarting themselves repeatedly, while essentially creating Al Qaeda along the way.
      But when one stops to reflect on the last Bush White House officials laughing at the law and Congressional oversight, and the ways that the Obama Administration continues to blithely operate above the law today – with top-secret “findings” to justify our actions, top secret courts, endless drone attacks (presumably to justified those top-secret findings), and enormous “black” budgets – we should recognize that the most important forerunner that made it all possible, was the Iran Contra operation. The astonishing fact that still remains unfulfilled is that none of the major engineers of hijacking US foreign policies - and effectively shredding the U.S. Constitution - have ever been held accountable.

     Today, the turmoil still continues in the same regions of the middle east and in all likelihood our presence there will be felt for years to come.  The casual observer during these past years has remained unaware how the instability in the region began, while political historians are in agreement that the Iran-Contra Affair was the cause and effect.

Sam McGuffin - Embroiled News