Good morning one and all and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Good News Round Up here under the soft, widespread wings and kindly aegis (! 50 cent word at sunrise; yikes!) of the Great Orange Wonder we all know as DailyKos. Thank you each and all for stopping by to take a gander at the News of Good and Hope AND to add your own stories, links, pointers and pictures in the Comments below.
Here’s hoping this batch of Good Reading will get you started…..reading. After all, this READING thing has been a thing for centuries. Writing (another learned skill) stuff down, whether on clay tablets, chiseled into marble, daubed onto a bit of parchment, tippled onto flattened papyrus piths, however important, or good, or whimsical, or ground-breaking it is, does not help us if we can’t read it. So we learn how: our native tongue, formed into a collection of symbols called letters, and then the symbols grouped into combinations that are pronounced a certain way and mean one or several things in conjunction with other symbol combos that go by the handy term of “words”.
Used to be a restricted thing, a reserved thing. Writing and reading were for the scholarly, the wealthy, the scribal, the holders of ritual from the deep Past…..IOW, for the Few. And yet here you are this morning, among the Many, re-enacting (as sweetthesound sweetly noted yesterday in a comment) your morning ritual of Youth and reading the back of this online, morning cereal box with your morning wake-up drink.
You read these words, derive meaning from them, contextualize them, ponder them, repeat them, explain them. You do this because years ago somebody sat you down and taught you your letters, and words, and sentences, and grammar…..and you read today’s Good News. And it is with deep thanks to Mrs. Struthers, and Miss McQuigg (who was so cool because she had a “Q” in her name!), and Mrs. Scott, and Mrs. Eichelberger and Mrs. Hooper that I got through the first years at Wickliffe Rd. Elementary and Learned To Read. They learned it from others, and they from yet others….and it all started in a BIG WAY for all of US…..TODAY!
Reading the Good News….and everything else…...by everybody
1616 Frascati, Italy Father Jose Calasanz, a Spanish priest, felt the calling to educate
children. In the early 1600s he moved to Rome and started rounding up street kids and taking them to schools. The schools turned them away unless someone paid something for their teachers (who had lousy pay.) Calasanz went all the way to the top of the Church and got some Papal funding. He started an order of “Pious Schools” for those not studying for the priesthood and were not from wealthy families who hired tutors. Those who ran these schools became known as the “Piarists.” On this day Calasanz and the brothers opened the first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe, (what we would call elementary school.) In a very unusual step, the schools not only taught “religious” topics (functioning like a catechism class) but also secular subjects. The poor, and what there was of a middle class, sent their children and the movement spread across Europe. Attendees/graduates of “Piarist” schools over the years include Francisco Goya, Victor Hugo, Gregor Mendel, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Wolfgang Mozart and Franz Schubert…. among many others…...
Good News of Independence
We have our Independence Day of July 4. My Estonian parents and relatives all note February 24th as their day. Ukraine got free from the carcass of the Soviet Union back in 1991, August 24th. The Russian bear licked its wounds and then (like in the Baltics and the “Stans”) started acting like the Bear again: hungry, claw-mauling, and fur-browed with ill-temper. In 2014, while Ukraine struggled with corruption and Paul Manafort and oligarchs and a limping democracy, the Bear raked off 2 slices of Ukraine (Donetsk & Luhansk) and kept a 3rd (Crimea) for itself.
Ukraine saw the danger. They sent Manafort packing, reformed their politics, and started re-building their military from the ground up with new ideas and fresher weapons.
Back in February this year the Bear came back for the rest of Ukraine…..and got swatted on the nose, stomped in the paws and was driven off with shouts and pokes to the eastern and southern rim of the country. In early March of 2022 President Zelenksyy visited London, asking for help, vowing determination. In a rare, foreign leader’s speech to Parliament, he went there, calling up the ghost of Churchill from 1940 quite deliberately: “We shall go on to the end (!)”…...“We will fight till the end at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost,” said Zelenskyy. “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets…...”
Ukraine 7 months later is still hanging in there. The latest news is even the Russian Ministry of Defense is now admitting (DUH!) that they have suffered a defeat in Kharkiv Oblast…...BUT this is not the fault of Fearless Leader Putin.………..
Yeah, right. Real leaders? Not only Zelenskyy in our time or Churchill in our age, but these 2 bring to my mind an American President and personal hero of mine, speaking 271 immortal words on a gloomy, chilly day in Gettysburg back in 1863: “…..A new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great…...war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure...”
Yea, verily, I say unto you, let us learn SOMEthing from History, that while evil stalks the lands and our lives, so does virtue, and honor. I give you Pericles, from ca. 430 BCE: The fallen?
"Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face to face."
And us, the living?
"You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue."
I gotta tell you, this Independence Idea has taken root in all sorts of places, including spots I had no idea about until I started doing the History Corner. Like TODAY…..here:
1821 Guatemala City, Guatemala People of “New Spain” (Central America) had seen the success of the American Revolution against England. Revolts and independence movements had rocked the Caribbean basin and South America. Several Council General representatives came to Guatemala City and on this day signed and published the Act of Independence of Central America. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras & Nicaragua declare their independence from the Spanish Empire. (They form a brief, 2-year union with Mexico, then form the Federal Republic of Central America…..which lasts for 20 years. But they DID have a flag:)
Good News of the Ordinary
Independence. Freedom. Self-determination. Justice for All. Equality. That’s what most of these wars of history and even of our lifetimes are for, or at least that’s what a lot of the slogans say, but many times the slogans are true. Other times the slogans are true as well, but the aims are meaner or darker. (See “workers of the world, unite” (so we non-working sadists can be in charge of you)…..”Remember the Alamo” (so we can steal your land, impose our language and slavery, because we are meaner, bigger, better armed)…...you can name other, even darker ones too, of course.)
But when the the slogans are over, or even when they are fulfilled, we get and we want…..life. Ordinary, work-a-day, humdrum, in-a-rut, hope I get a promotion, we’re moving to a new house/place, make a new friend, let’s go skiing tomorrow!, find a cozy spot to go to reading, make the spaghetti for dinner, take the make-up test for geometry, try this brand of lipstick, “I’m gonna miss her”, “Good to have you back”….LIFE. You know, like the title of Gerhard Frost’s little book back in 1980? “Blessed is the Ordinary.” Well, there have been historical people who have done ordinary things in their lives that, looking back, were maybe not so ordinary after all: preaching, composing, writing for leisure, or even forgetting to put the cover on a petri dish in your lab (and finding something not so ordinary)…..like these four entries for today:
1853 South Butler, New York Following a college education at the co-ed Oberlin College, Antoinette Blackwell, with difficulty, was allowed to attend and audit (although not formally enroll) in seminary classes. A gifted speaker, she was an early touring woman speaking for abolition at rallies across the North. She also added remarks about women’s rights, adding to her popularity and stirring controversy. On this day at a Congregationalist church (now the UCC, the United Church of Christ) a Methodist minister named Luther Lee broke some rules and laid hands upon her head to ordain her as the first US woman pastor. (Happy to have her as a predecessor in my chosen field; now about that Methodism……..says the Lutheran….)
1858 Pest (now Budapest), Hungary Birth of Jeno Hubay, violinist and composer. Inherited talent from his father, who was a professional violinist and professor of the violin at the Conservatory of Budapest. Jeno studied under his father and at the Berlin Conservatory. A celebrated concert violinist across Europe, eventually (like his father) being appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. A productive composer, with many concertos and sonatas for violin but some impressive larger works as well.
1890 Torquay, Devon, UK Birth of Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, mystery writer. Home schooled in England by her American father and then in a Paris boarding school for girls, began writing at age 18. At age 22 at one of her own parties was introduced to Archibald Christie and they married in mere weeks, making her Agatha Christie. Beginning with the Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920 she produced and practically reinvented English mystery/detective novels, 66 of them, along with 14 collections of short stories.
1928 London. On this day Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming returns from a family holiday to his lab. He had accidently left several petri dishes uncovered, each growing a colony of staphylococci bacteria. He noticed one dish had a fungus growth (later identified as having blown in from a window) and surrounded by a ring of dead bacteria. The area around the fungus showed a gooey, clear substance. After several experiments it was clear the fungus had secreted the clear substance and it was deadly to bacteria. Fleming named the stuff penicillin, (the beginning of the antibiotic age) and it proved able to kill bacteria that caused scarlet fever, diphtheria, meningitis, pneumonia and gonorrhea….for starters…..
Momentary Moments of the Goofy…..
- Late Tuesday we heard of “My Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell being served at a Mankato, Minnesota HARDEE’S. Yes, there were likely burgers, fries and something to drink served, but Lindell got served with a federal Search Warrant for his PHONE, right there on the the spot! At a Hardee’s…...in Mankato…..blocked the drive-thru lane with 2 cars…..
Now Hardee’s, acting on the Hollywood advice, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”, got its marketing team working overnight, meditating on the “Pillow Guy”….and Hardee’s….the Pillow Guy…..the Hardee’s menu….. and released a “Send to ALL” Twitter across America: “Now that you know we exist…..you should really try our pillowy biscuits!” (I’ve had those biscuits; not as good as Bob Evans’, but a fine effort….so truth in advertising…….)………… One Hardee’s used its message sign to proclaim: “FBI EATS FREE”…..many others out there too! Feel free to chip in your snickers from the Hardee’s corner of the Internet
- Recycled from the 1967 Six-Day War: Both Russia and Ukraine are using a LOT of the same Soviet-era tanks, the exact same models. At night, how can you tell a Ukrainian tank from a Russian tank? The Russian tank has the back-up lights…..:-)
- Zelenskyy (who after all, was a professional comic before getting elected and having a war break out) calls up Putin on the Kyiv-Moscow hotline. “Hey Vlad. Wanna hear a joke?”…..Putin: “Sure.” …...Zelenskyy: “Ukraine.”……..Putin: “I don’t get it.”…….Zelenskyy: “You’ll never get it.”
- The whole war in Ukraine might be because of a translation error. All the Russian vehicles are marked with a “Z”, and the Ukrainians fighting back are the Not-Zs. :-)
- New wartime firearm law just passed in Ukraine, for every gun store clerk: “You can buy anything you want ……...as long as it points toward Moscow.”
- Remember when Putin said he didn’t have ANY PLANS to invade Ukraine? I’m starting to believe he was telling the truth.
- Before the war started, Putin tried “winning through intimidation”….you know…...trash talking…. He sent a few truckloads of wheat to Kyiv with a note: “That’s how many of us are coming!” A few days later the trucks return to Moscow, full of flour, and a note: “This is how they will be sent back to you.”……..and then there’s TRASH TALKIN’…….
- Putin is getting worried how things are going in the war, so one dark night he sneaks out of the Kremlin and goes privately to see a fortune-teller. She looks into her crystal ball closely, then announces, “I see your future. You will die on a national holiday of Ukraine!” Shocked, Putin swallows hard and asks, “Which one?” The Fortune teller replies, “It doesn’t matter when you die; that day will be a national holiday in Ukraine.”
1949 Across America. ABC television brings a popular radio serial to the small, gray screen: "The Lone Ranger." Series ran for 167 episodes until 1957 (and forever in reruns on Saturday afternoons in Columbus in the ‘60s). Starred Clayton Moore as the lead (except for 1952-53; portrayed by John Hart while Moore and ABC argued long over money) and Jay Silverheels (a Six Nations Canadian actor from a Mohawk-Seneca marriage) as Tonto.
Heavier History
1917 Moscow After a popular revolution in the spring that deposed the czar and a tumultuous summer, this day the Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky proclaims Russia a republic. A poignant, doomed flower of hope; Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and the gang shot their way to power starting just weeks from now.
1940 Across England. The German air offensive against Britain has been building to a climax (and then invasion). On this day PM Churchill is present at RAF Fighter command as 2 massive waves of bombers and fighters appear on the radar screens to try to finally overwhelm the RAF. Eleven Group in Southeast England puts every plane it has in the air while other squadrons across England shift men and pilots there too. The RAF loses 29 planes (and fewer pilots than that; many bailed out to safety) but their shooting was deadly: the German Luftwaffe lost nearly 180 machines (and many of those were bombers, with crew of 4 or 5; nearly all their airmen were killed or made prisoners). Toi this day noted in England as Battle of Britain Day. Hitler postpones the invasion by a week……then another couple weeks…..then listens to his naval leaders who tell him that invasion after mid-October would likely be mauled by weather. So he starts thinking more and more about Russia. The nightly ‘Blitz’ of British cities goes on until November, but as Churchill had promised, “We shall not flag, nor fail. We shall go on to the End” (and put an end to That Man.)
1950 Inchon, South Korea The Korean War erupted in late June, 1950 with a full-scale invasion by North Korea of the South. They drove resistance ahead of them down into the southeast corner of the country around the city of Pusan, where South Koreans, Americans and scattered troops from other countries dug in and stopped them. While Russian and Chinese “volunteers” flew air patrols, militarily it was a ground operation on a peninsula. Peninsulas are vulnerable to naval actions. On this day, after high level logistical planning by General Douglas MacArthur, United Nations forces land in heavy force at Inchon, halfway up the peninsula near the original border. Considered an amphibious attack rivalling D-Day, US Marines need 10 days to liberate Seoul while Allied troops drive across the peninsula to cut off thousands of North Korean troops trying to retreat (and now being hammered by the Pusan command going on the offensive.) Other troops cross into North Korea and drive north over the next weeks to the Chinese border.
Lighter, Ever Lighter News & Brighter News (floating into Social Media Fluff)
>>>>>>We all generally know more trees are a better thing for the environment and the planet. In a moving story here a woman in India is quietly yet effectively bringing back India’s forests, ravaged by clear-cutting and exploitation. May we each and all take heart from her and put our own hands to work…...
>>>>» Dark Brandon goes undercover as a Green Lantern of Hope for the Planet. Biden let himself be in the starring role of a TikTok Pitch for EV cars here.
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.