Category: Re-blogs

Reblog of Hours in a Library by Derrick J. Night.

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Derrick had me with the primary picture of three volumes called Hours in a Library.

During the night I began to realise that, although ‘Monkey’ by Wu Ch’eng En was snuggled up in the novels section of the library, there was no Gibbon among the shelves that I thought had been accurately filled yesterday. That meant that there had to be another History container somewhere among the 24 left to empty. This morning’s search demonstrated no such luck.

There were two.

To read more click here.

Reblog: Meet Thelonius Goat

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This is a re-blog from Rick and Lavinia Ross’s Salmon Farm Blog. I think that Thelonius may be a time traveler from the constellation, Capricorn.

“So, while things are budding out and getting underway this month, we will emerge from our Gopher Hole of tales from about the farm, and tell the story of a goat.  Not just any goat, but one that could have come straight from the imagination of Ray Bradbury or Rod Serling.  We encountered this very unusual animal during one of our travels up to Washington in 2005.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the story of Thelonious Goat.”

Thelonius Goat from the blog

Reblog: August Chiwy, World War II Post

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Denzil at Discovering Belgium posted a story about another nurse of color during the Battle of the Bulge.

On June 6, 1921 in the village of Mubavu in the Belgian Congo (now part of Burundi), a baby girl was born and given the name Augusta Marie Chiwy. The name of her mother, a Congolese woman, is unrecorded. Her father Henri Chiwy was a Belgian veterinarian. Augusta was one of thousands of biracial children fathered by Belgian men working in Africa during Belgium’s colonial era. When Augusta was nine years old, her father returned to his hometown of Bastogne in Belgium, and brought his daughter with him.

In Bastogne, Augusta was cared for by her father and his sister, whom Augusta called “Mama Caroline.” She attended a Catholic boarding school near her home where she was described as bright, ambitious and popular. She was also petite, measuring just 152 cm. At the age of 19 Augusta decided she wanted to become a nurse and began attending a nursing college in Leuven. She qualified as a nurse in 1943, and started working at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Leuven.

Click on story to read the rest .

Reblog: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained by A. James Oakes, Jr. UNSA ’63

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ENS Oakes was assigned to Engineering as a ‘snipe’ on the USS Midway (CV-41) when it was homeported near San Francisco, in Alameda.

Crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco became almost a daily routine for me while the ship was in port. I knew that Fleet Admiral Nimitz lived in quarters #1 on Treasure Island and I started thinking to myself if there was some way to meet this great warrior, and perhaps even getting him to autograph my yearbook. After much thought, the decision was made to make a direct frontal assault and hope for the best. With my 1963 Lucky Bag in hand, on a mid-September 1963 afternoon, I exited at Treasure Island on my way across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco and drove up to Quarters #1.1 was nervous as I rang the doorbell and waited for what seemed like a very long time. A Philippine steward answered the door finally and I explained that my name was Ensign Oakes, a recent graduate of the Naval Academy, and would he be so kind as to ask Admiral Nimitz to autograph my yearbook

To find out what happened next, click here.https://www.usna.com/tributes-and-stories-1963#Ventured

🎶Buffalo Soldier🎶 (2. Analysis)

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Luisa has provided an analysis and insight that many if us as Americans might not see on our own. Look at our racial history with fresh eyes.

Buffalo Soldier Pt 2 Analysis

The title and lyrics (see here) refer to the black U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment, known as “Buffalo Soldiers”, formed in 1866, that fought in the Indian Wars.
Many of the privates in this segregated regiment were slaves taken from Africa who went to rid the west of Native Americans , so that white people could occupy their lands.
That nickname was given by the Indian tribes who were fighting against them, as a result of their skin colour and hair texture, which seemed to resemble the mane of the buffalo. They accepted the name and wore it proudly knowing the Native Americans worshipped the buffalo and that name that appellation could be considered as a sign of their respect.

Their specific task was to protect the white colonizers who had settled in their lands from “Indian” attacks. In practice, the black people who had been taken from Africa as slaves, once freed (just after the Civil War) were sent to kill the natives, in the name of the Country that was no longer slaver but even ‘allowed’ them to form military regiments.

That war was a fight for freedom on both sides. The African American soldiers were fighting to obtain a freedom they had never known (although the war against slavery was over), while the Native Americans were fighting to defend their freedom.

The Next Dance – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

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parallax

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar with an invitation to personification and imagery.

dVerse Poets – MTB – Personification and Imagery

Photo: sierraclub.typepad.com “The Right to Dry Movement”

“But what about those windy spring days? You know the drill, you fight the sheets onto the line. Then the wind catches them and makes them want to sail into the next country!” The Texas Homesteader

The Next Dance

Sick of line dancing, she wanted
to cut loose with a tango or a foxtrot,
even a rouge can-can would do it and,
once safely pegged, she gave herself to the 
sea breeze throwing her legs up, her head back,
tossing her skirt about with laughter just like 
linen flapping in the wind, and soon the others
joined in the fun, swirling and twirling
along the good time, refreshed and waiting 
for the next dance in the sun.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

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Reblog: Do You Know the Kumeyaay Garden

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Kumeyaay are the local Native Americans who originally inhabited the San Diego are. There are still several reservations in San Diego County. In recent years, the Cabrillo National Monument has expanded its exhibits and information about the Kumeyaays.

Click here to read about the recently planted garden at Cabrillo National Monument.

The Kumeyaay gardens here at Cabrillo will showcase:

California Buckwheat
Lemonade Berry
Coastal Sagebrush
Prickly-Pear Cactus
Shaw’s Agave
Black Sage
Giant Wild Rye
Lady Fingers
Barrel Cactus
Laurel Sumac
Bush Mallow
California Sunflower
Bladder Pod
Wild Cucumber
Broom Baccharis

Library of Congress Offers 23 Digitized Early Presidential Collections

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From an LC email:

Library of Congress Completes Digitzation of 23 Early Presidential Collections

Completion of Project Includes Latest Digitization of Papers of Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge

Only goes up through Calvin Coolidge in the third row.

The Library of Congress has completed a more than two decade-long initiative to digitize the papers of nearly two dozen early presidents. The Library holds the papers of 23 presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, all of which have been digitized and are now available online.

The Library plans to highlight each presidential collection on social media in the weeks leading up to the next presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.

“Arguably, no other body of material in the Manuscript Division is of greater significance for the study of American history than the presidential collections,” said Janice E. Ruth, chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. “They cover the entire sweep of American history from the nation’s founding through the first decade after World War I, including periods of prosperity and depression, war and peace, unity of purpose and political and civil strife.”

The 23 presidential collections in the Library’s holdings, acquired through donation or purchase, are of such significant value that Congress enacted a law in 1957 directing the Library to arrange, index and microfilm the papers, an enormous job that concluded in 1976. With the dawn of the digital age, the collections of presidential papers were among the first manuscripts proposed for digitization. The conclusion of this effort marks the addition of more than 3.3 million images to the Library’s online archives.

“The writings and records of America’s presidents are an invaluable source of information on world events, and many of these collections are the primary sources for books and films that teach us about our nation’s history,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “We are proud to make these presidential papers available free of charge to even more researchers, students and curious visitors online.”

The collections include some of the nation’s most treasured documents, including George Washington’s commission as commander in chief of the American army and his first inaugural address; Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence; and Abraham Lincoln’s first and second inaugural addresses, along with many others.

The digitized presidential collections offer a robust set of primary resources and easy access for researchers, educators and students studying America’s early presidents.

For presidents who followed Coolidge, the National Archives and Records Administration administers the system of presidential libraries that house and manage the presidential records from President Herbert Hoover onward. The Library does not hold the original papers of all 29 presidents before Hoover, however. The papers of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, for example, are housed at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

With the digitization of papers from Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Grover Cleveland and Coolidge, the Library’s complete set of presidential collections is now available online for the first time.

Newly Digitized Collections

Papers of President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)

The Harrison collection includes 69,600 items (178,479 images), with the bulk of the collection dating from 1853 to 1901. The collection contains correspondence, speeches, articles, notebooks in shorthand, legal papers, financial records, scrapbooks, memorials, printed matter, memorabilia, and other papers, covering every aspect of Harrison’s life and career.

Papers of President William Howard Taft (1857-1930)

The Taft collection includes approximately 676,000 documents (785,977 images), with the bulk of the material dating from 1880 to 1930. These papers constitute the largest collection of original Taft documents in the world and the largest among the Library’s presidential papers. The collection contains family papers, personal and official correspondence, presidential and judicial files, speeches and addresses, legal files and notebooks, business and estate papers, engagement calendars, guest lists, scrapbooks, clippings, printed matter, memorabilia and photographs.

Papers of President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

The Cleveland collection includes 108,200 items (192,602 images), with the bulk of the material dating from 1885 to 1908. The collection contains correspondence, diaries, messages to Congress, speeches, writings, printed materials and other papers relating chiefly to Cleveland’s presidencies and presidential campaigns.

Papers of President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

The Coolidge collection includes 179,000 documents (218,513 images), constituting the largest collection of original Coolidge documents in the world. The collection contains incoming correspondence with attachments, notes, carbon copies of outgoing letters from Coolidge or one of his secretaries, telegraph messages, appointment books and names and addresses of White House guests.

Full Set of Presidential Collections

The Library of Congress holds the following collections of presidential papers and has made each available online.

The digitization of these collections reflect advancement toward a goal in the Library’s user-centered strategic plan to expand access, making unique collections available when, where and how users need them. Learn more about the Library’s five-year plan at loc.gov/strategic-plan/.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

Reblog: Sea Story about the Red Baron vs. the Russian Trawler

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The Russian “Trawlers” (NATO designation: AGI for Auxiliary General Intelligence) with what looked like one thousand “fishing” antennas plied the Gulf of Tonkin on a daily basis…needless to say, it was a cat-and-mouse game to see what havoc they could expend towards our two carriers operating there 24 hours a day.

Since the U.S. government had proclaimed the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin three miles off the coast of North Vietnam and Hinan Island, People’s Republic of China, to be international waters, American ships in the Gulf were bound to obey the international rules of the road for ocean navigation. This meant that if the Russian ship maneuvered herself into the path of an aircraft carrier where she had the right of way, the carrier had to give way even if she was engaged in launching or recovering aircraft. 


The navigation officer was constantly trying to maneuver the ship so that the trawler wouldn’t be able to get in position to abuse the rules of the road and gain the right of way. 

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Live in the Time of Coronavirus: Pt 19: Reblog-Lockdown Lingo

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Sheree lives in the South of France and periodically blogs about how she and her Beloved Husband are navigating what is now France’s Second Lockdown.

Lockdown lingo

This blog focuses on French lock down terms

Attestation – This word (certificate) – already crucial to France’s true religion of bureaucracy – became central to life during Lockdown I. Une attestation de déplacement dérogatoire was required for every trip out. The word is commonly used in many other situations for example: une attestation du travail proves that you are in work while une attestation de domicile is proof of where you live.