This day is called September 8, 2022. I’m always anxious to write this post because I never know where it will lead me. I will learn something new about history. I will learn something from people who’ve died on this day. I will end with the word “abide” which means that I accept who I am. I hope you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoy writing it. Today is International Literacy Day, National Actors Day, National Ampersand Day, National Date Nut Bread Day, R U OK Day (in Australia), World Physical Therapy Day, and Star Trek Day. Now we move to the history of this day. In 1504 on this day Michelangelo unveiled his Statue of David in Florence. On this day in 1565 the 1st permanent European settlement in America was founded in St. Augustine. In 1664 on this day the Dutch surrendered the colony of New Netherlands, which included New York, to 300 English soldiers. On this day in 1900 a hurricane and tidal wave hit Galveston, Texas killing 6,000 people. On this day in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Emergency Revenue Act which doubled the rate of income tax from 1% to 2% on the lowest earnings and up to 15% on everything above $2 million for the rich. For the trivia fans, on this day in 1921 the first Miss America was crowned in Atlantic City. Her name was Margaret Gorman, a 16-year-old from Washington D.C. The dead person we will listen to today is Thomas Szasz who died in 2012. He was a psychiatrist and often a critic of his peers. He said, “People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. but the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.” “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” “If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” Last one: “We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.” Abide.
