Sail Me On a Clipper

The "Cutty Sark" last of the clipper ships is being repaired in dry dock somewhere in England. She was built in 1869; her sister "The City of Adelaide" 1864, is just a hull on the shores of Scotland. I hear the the third and last clipper remaining is rotting on the beach near Punta Arenas (Sandy Point) Chile.

The clippers were tea haulers, small compaired to other ships but could sail east and fetch a moderate load and return at a clip turning a quick buck. In the day, fast horses were called clippers. The ship's name actually means something akin to short underclothing or short shirt. All this is tied somehow to the Scottish witch Nannie made famous in the Robert Burns' tale
" Tam o' Shanter"

See rock group - Dire Straits "One Handed Sailor"

Are We To Become Slaves

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. - - - Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; ancient ages; contemplate the examples of Greece and Rome. - -
Let us examine into the nature of that power, and the cruelty of that oppression, which drove them from their homes - - -
Recollect the civil and religious principles - - -
Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear the danger of thraldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence, in short, from civil political slavery - - -
that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness - and that God Almighty has promulgated from heaven liberty, peace, and good-will to man!

John Adams - 1765 Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

It's like this John-----we left our kid's education to the Progressive State!

Louisiana Flag

The Louisiana State Flag is one of my Favorite of the fifty, or as one man said fifty seven.
The banner displays a mother Brown Pelican on a nest with three chicks. She has three blood stains on her breast.

Plane as day

In WWI the German army not only had the U-boat (an American invention), they also had the Fokker Eindecker and Fokker Dr 1 aeroplane (the plane also an American invention). The Red Barron, Manfred von Richthoven piloted the Dr 1 and grew to fame as the Ace flyer of the war with 80 kills. These planes had a cam device that allowed the machine gun to fire between the turning blades of the plane. Pilots could more easily point their craft toward the enemy and fire.

Anthony Fokker, a Dutchman was inspired as a teenager by Wilbur Wright's exhibitions in France in 1908. His father sent him to mechanic school but he quit and built his own plane he called De Spin (the Spider) actually three, improving each time. He moved to Germany prior to WWI and built an aeroplane factory. When the war broke out the German Govt. took over his factory but left him in charge. He furnished 700 planes to the German cause.

After the war he moved to New York and started another business.
Never underestimate a young person who is truly inspired.

They Fired On Govt. Troops

235 years ago Today a rag-tag but well disciplined rebel army of 77 men stood before the greatest military power in the world. They were driven out of Lexington by hundreds of Red Coats, but ambushed the British Army on the march and killed approximately 300 of them.

The British Govt. understood what a "Well Regulated Militia" was.
Some of the rebel soldiers were literally defending their own farms.
Remember, a dog is mean in his own yard.

In case of emergency

I heard a human behavior expert say that if a horrible situation such as a total economic crash takes place, 80% of the population would be frozen in fear and therefore will wait for someone to tell them what to do. It is unfortunate that those in political power are counting on it.

The best I remember:
10% would totally freak
10% already has a plan to deal with it

What You Weren't Taught In College

James W. Gerard wrote of the Germans in 1914:
"The workingmen in the cities are hard workers and probably work longer and get less out of life than any workingmen in the world. The laws so much admired and made ostensibly for their protection, such as insurance against unemployment, sickness, injury, old age etc., are in reality skillful measures which bind them to the soil as effectively as the serfs of the Middle Ages.
I have had letters from workingmen who have worked in America begging me for a steerage fare to America, saying that their insurance payments were so large that they could not save money out of their wages."
P. 124 from the book "My Four Years In Germany"