Earth now occupies the time/space designated December 7th, 2020. The good news today is that we’re all one day closer to accessing the vaccine and a return to normal. We also have the knowledge that it will get worse before it gets better. If you know anyone who is a nurse or a doctor, be especially nice to them. Life is hard for them right now. Onto this new day. It’s got a short list: International Civil Aviation Day, Letter Writing Day, National Cotton Candy Day, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day and Walt Disney Day. None of those events gets me excited. Now the history of today: This is the day in 43 BC that Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and politician is assassinated. I’ll get back to him in a second. On this day the “Great storm of 1703” hits Southern England killing thousands, sinking 13 of the Royal Navy ships and drowning around 1,500 seamen. This is the day in 1868 that Jessie James robs bank in Gallatin Missouri and kills 1person. I always thought of Jessie as a robin hood kind of guy. He wasn’t. He rode with Quantrill’s Raiders who fought for the South. This is the day in 1941 that the Imperial Japanese Navy with 353 planes attack the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people. Today in Noam Chomsky’s birthday. Noam is a linguist, philosopher and political activist. Noam said, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” Now let’s get back to Marcus Tullius Cicero who stopped living in 43 BC. He said, “Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.” I continue to believe that man is no wiser today than he was thousands of years ago. With that, I’ll end this post. Abide.
