August 24, 2022 is today. It is the beginning of the firestorm that has become American politics. Henry Rollins observed that “Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.” The estimate is that $8.9 Billion will be spent on political advertising this year. Most of it will be half-truths, misinformation, and outright lies designed to make us angry. The question for us is how are we going to react? I plan to ignore it. Hope you do to. Today is Can Opener Day, International Strange Music Day, National Knife Day, National Waffle Day, Shooting Star Day, Weather Complaint Day, and National Peach Pie Day. I like pie. Now some history. On this day in 410 Rome was overrun by Visigoths for the first time in nearly 800 years. It is seen as the fall of the Western Roman Empire. On this day in 1572 the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre begin. In France the Roman Catholic nobles decided to kill the leaders of the Huguenots nobility. Once it began, it went quickly out of control and by the beginning of October 70,000 protestant Huguenots had been killed. On this day in 1789 during the French Revolution the National Assembly proclaimed Freedom of Speech. On this day in 1853 the 1st potato chips were prepared by chef George Crum at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, NY. On this day in 1893 a tornado traveled the East Coast hitting both Savannah and Charleston killing about 1,000 people. This is the day in 1949 that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went into effect. Today we will visit the grave of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who died in 2004. She was a psychiatrist and pioneer in near-neath studies. She suggested, “Live, so you do not have to look back and say ‘God, how I have wasted by life.” “If you live each day of your life right, then you have nothing to fear.” She also said, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no death the way we understood it. The body dies, but not the soul.” I’ll take her word for that. Abide.
