Related posts:

1. Masking Memories
2. A New Halloween Movie to Set the Season
3. Halloween Cartoons ~ BOO!

    The pledge of allegiance was written by the socialist minister and magazine editor Francis Bellamy in 1892 for a nationwide public school celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.  Bellamy was a well-known ”Christian Socialist” whose beliefs involved some pretty unsavory bents.  I will leave you with one of his most often quoted statements as an example.

“(a)democracy like ours cannot afford to throw itself open to the world where every man is a lawmaker, every dull-witted or fanatical immigrant admitted to our citizenship is a bane to the commonwealth; where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another.”

The Pledge in its original form it read:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

    In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, New York became the first state to mandate that public school students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. Many states followed suit, and the pledge remained a staple of the daily routine in most schools.  The pledge recital itself was accompanied by a salute which Bellamy and one of his colleagues invented.  It consisted of a hand over heart motion ending with the extension of the arm pointing to the flag.  Look close at the image here.  Does the ending of the salute look familiar?  Yup, that’s right folks that is the same salute the Nazi’s adopted in their own socialist escapades.

The Bellamy Salute. Look familiar?

    In 1923, the words, “the Flag of the United States of America” were added.

At this time it read:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

    In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge as it is usually spoken today. Bellamy’s daughter objected to this alteration.

Today it reads:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

    The next time you state the pledge try to remember the facts.  What we view as a very patriotic and religious salute was and really still is anything but a good thing.  Allegiance to any symbol or person or belief without intelligent thought and discussion behind it is worthless and dangerous.

Related posts:

1. Misguided Laudable Knowledge day
2. Gloriously Hedonistic Annual Jaunt
3. Updated Photos 12/28/2008

I will be the first to admit that I was never an upwardly mobile career oriented guy. I was, and am still pretty laid back in terms of my job and the whole career path thing. I was pretty content back then getting up each day and working my job without much care for the road my life would take. That’s not to say I did not have some plans for the future. My mind often wandered towards thinking about where I might be in 5 or ten years. I guess I was odd in the fact that I didn’t really party or hang out with the so-called fun crowd. I was also a late bloomer in that I wasn’t really interested in relationships with women. That’s not to say I didn’t have natural thoughts and desires but I just never actively pursued them. That’s why it was such a magical surprise that while doing my job I crossed paths with someone who piqued my interest at a very deep level.

When Laura and I met it was not love at first sight. On the contrary, it was more like a “do what I say and we will get along just fine” type of meeting. You see, we both worked at opposite ends of the daily schedule and as anyone that has worked in a restaurant environment can tell you, that amounts to almost two totally different jobs. They were similar, but altogether VERY different as well. I was making the transition from my time zone, nights, to her time zone, early mornings. This meant I was sort of invading her space. She was comfortable and commanded quite a bit of respect because of her knowledge of the job and skills at doing it. I was the new egg. That’s why I did my best to defer to her as I worked to get used to my new duties.

She was pleasant and fun to work with but she was older than I was and I was not much of a dating guy so it was a real surprise when she asked me if I wanted to go have dinner. She was wickedly smart and funny and I wanted to get to know her better so I accepted. Once again in a non-fairy-tale way, I can’t say we had everything in common. In fact, we were on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of movies we liked, activities we enjoyed, politics, and money matters and so on. We did have a lot in common in terms of our beliefs about religion, life and family and what it means to come from distressed homes. We both had similar uneasy childhoods so we shared that. Most importantly she has a huge heart and is a

 wonderful mother. She brought a sparkle into my life that it is tough to describe. Her son Adam was a joy and being with them made me feel whole in a way I had not felt before. I fell for her and as the cliché’ goes, the rest is history.

All relationships suffer from high and low points. We have had our share. We are still together today 18 years later. She has given me support, nurturing, love attention and three beautiful children and not the least of which 18 years of her life that I can never thank her enough for. I am not the man I was 18 years ago. I am who I am today largely in part to her patience, understanding, love and guidance. I have never met anyone like her before and I am very happy to say, never since. She is my world, my universe, my rock and my love all rolled into one. She is everything to me.

Honey, when you read this know that I look forward to spending another 18 and more years with you. I have always tried to be a good man, father and husband. I could not do it without you. I love you more than words can express and am forever glad and grateful that you came into my life 18 years ago today. Happy anniversary darling.

No related posts.

    The name Richard is very old. Old English had Richeard, from Ric (ruler) and heard (hard); French had Richart, and Old German had Ricohard.

    When the Normans invaded England in 1066 they transformed politics, religion, society and language.  They brought their large stock of French-Germanic names to mix with the Old English. The native Anglo-Saxons (now the lower classes) faced with an unfamiliar language with strange pronunciations. Often, they were uncomfortable with the Norman “R” found in names like Richard, Roger, and Robert, and Henry/Harry.   In those days, manuscripts, letters, and more were written by hand; it was therefore common and easier to use agreed-upon abbreviations. “Rich” was used for “Richer” and “Ric.” for “Richard” or “Ricard.”

  Psychologists suggest that most nick names originate from children addressing one another. Think about the sounds that many English-speaking children, to this day, have trouble pronouncing. The letter “R” as well as other sounds are often switched for an L or a D or dropped altogether. Robert gave up the nicknames Rob, but also Dob, Hob, Nob, and later, Bob. And Richard gave up the nicknames Rick, but also Dick and Hick, while Roger clocks in with Rodge, Dodge and Hodge

    The name Dick (like the name Jack) was used colloquially to mean a man or everyman. The expression “every Tom, Dick, or Harry” attests to this as a long-established usage.  The Oxford English Dictionary cites a dick as meaning a type of hard cheese in 1847, which lead to the usage of “spotted dick” The term “dick” was also used to mean a riding whip, an apron, the mound around a ditch, and an abbreviation for “dictionary” around 1860. Dick has also been used to mean a declaration, in which sense the OED cites someone writing in 1878 “I’d take my dying dick” to mean “I’d swear a dying declaration.” The term “dick” more popularly came to mean policeman around 1908, and then detective.

    And we finally get to where you started. The use of “dick” as coarse slang for penis first arises around 1890. Tracking the history of uncouth words is not easy, since such expressions were not generally written down. How “dick” came to be associated with penis is not known, although the riding whip may have pointed the way.

  Now you can truly say you know a lot about Dick. Aren’t you proud?

..

.

Related posts:

1. Names We Should Really Stop Using

    It is also striking in my mind as I read the comments attached to this article how one person opened my eyes to another fun “fact”.  See if you can find this post amongst the comments.

“Can we draw the Christian God next? The second Commandment pretty clearly says that it’s a no-no to draw God or Jesus or the Devil. But I don’t think that it will get as much press since Christians have no problem ignoring their own Commandments.”

  I did some further research only to find the commenter is quite right.  Here is the second “commandment” just for the record :

You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them [i.e., the graven images]; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6, adapted from the NASV)

Just so there is no confusion, in Deuteronomy, the character Moses makes clear that god’s commandment was intended to forbid folks from making graven images of the xstian god himself:

So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb [i.e., Mt. Sinai] from the midst of the fire; lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. (Deut. 4: 15-18, adapted from NASV)

    So there, you get a bible “lesson” today from an Atheist.  Cheers!

Related posts:

1. Adding Insult to..Whatever
2. Age Old Debate..Trapped Miners
3. 42 Earthworks by Creative Modern Land Artists | WebEcoist

  Ah, the middle finger, also known as the long finger or bird finger, and usually the longest finger, is the third digit of the human hand, located between the index finger and the ring finger. It is also referred to as digitus medius, digitus tertius, “digitus infamous”, or digitus III in anatomy.

    In many Western countries, extending the middle finger (either on its own or along with the index finger in the United Kingdom & Australia) is an offensive and obscene hand gesture, colloquially known as the highway salute, the bird, “flipping the bird”, “flipping someone off”, “giving the finger” (as in giving someone the finger), often meaning the phrase “fuck you” or “up yours.” It is performed by showing the back of the hand, extending the middle finger of the hand upwards while bending the other fingers down into the palm.

    Giving someone “the finger” is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke in an ancient Greek comedy mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.  Greeks began calling upon their substitute wieners by raising their own hands to mock, threaten, and humiliate others.

    The widespread usage of the finger in many cultures is likely due to the geographical influence of the Roman Empire and Greco-Roman civilization.  When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. The Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.

     During the Middle Ages, the finger went underground. It was still known, but the Catholic Church frowned upon its use, as the middle finger was supposed to be holy in the Mass. The unholy insult lurked deep within the hearts of filthy- minded folks everywhere, hiding from sight until the 19th century when it began to crop up again thanks to a new invention -photography.

    In 1886, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn slipped his little finger fastball into the Boston Beaneaters team picture. The split-second art of photography could turn the once-boring painted portrait into a spontaneous work of rebellion, humor and spunk. Americans everywhere quickly got into the act.

  The finger is a near universal insult that we can all use.  Men, Women, children, old folks, Farmers, bankers and even computer nerds like me can use the finger with virtually perfect understanding of its meaning.  In this fast paced day and age, who has time to formulate real, meaningful insults?

 We should embrace the finger since it is truly part of our culture and something to be respected.  So here’s to you.  Up yours!

Related posts:

1. The Freindly Athiest is Always Relevant
2. Firday the 13th:THE BLOG POST
3. Dirty Little Matt