Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Occasionally I see bumper stickers or tee shirts that say well behaved women seldom make history. My problem with the so-called feminist movement is that it teaches that bad behavior is something to be admired and honored. Just like the counterculture has taught us that rebellion for the sake of rebellion or disrespecting authority is a good thing. If it feels good do it, thus the entitled generation. There is even a book titled (Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History) by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I am familiar with four of the six women in the above picture and I don't think these four women are necessarily known for their bad behavior. Marie Curie did pioneering research on radioactivity. Joan of Arc was martyred for being obedient to God. At least in her own mind. Maria Montessori was an educator who started the Montessori school system and tried to help mentally disabled children and juve...

Imagine a world where Democratic presidents are placed under a media scrutiny 24/7. Where their every word is blown out of proportion. Scandals are investigated  and remain newsworthy for weeks and months on end. Calls for special prosecutors and impeachment are made not only by the opposing political party but their own political party. They are viciously belittled by late night comedians on a nightly basis and Republican presidents are viewed as brilliant while Democrat presidents become idiotic, bigoted, bumbling fools. You, my friend, would be traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

When a person dies they will be either be rewarded with eternal life or eternal damnation at some point in the future. When a nation dies it is dead and will never rise again. George Mason, a Founding Father and the Father of the Bill of Rights explains that a nation will also answer to God. Not in the afterlife but in this life. " As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities".

  John Kennedy is a hero to Kennedy worshipers and many Black people for his stance on civil rights. Conservatives admire him for his tax cuts. I admire him for both. He was late putting his money where his mouth was on civil rights. Prior to June 1963 Kennedy was trying to manage the progress of  civil rights while at the same time trying not to politically alienate the South. As it turned out instead of  Kennedy managing civil rights, events were managing him. The Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the integration of Ole Miss, and the Birmingham Children's march just to name a few. There was the direct action of the Nashville students like Diane Nash, James Bevel, John Lewis, James Lawson, Marion Barry, and others. Also there was Martin Luther King himself. Kings letter from the Birmingham jail condemning the moderates on civil rights had a great impact on Kennedy. On June 11, 1963 Kennedy gave a great speech that boldly proclaimed that civil rights...

  Samuel Whittemore was an American patriot born in England on July 27th, 1695. Sam was nearly eighty years old when the Redcoats and Patriots clashed at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. He came to America in the service of the British Dragoons and fought the French. Sam fought the them at the battle for Fort Louisburg where he captured a French officers sword. A sword he would cherish for the rest of his life. Whenever anyone asked how he came by the sword his standard reply was that the previous owner had "died suddenly". After the war he settled in Menotomy Massachusetts. Between two wives he fathered eight children. Three sons and five daughters. Menotomy is now Arlington Massachusetts and his house still stands. In 1758, during the French and Indian War he volunteered to fight at the age of 64 and was with Colonial troops when they again attacked Fort Louisburg. He finished the war with British general James Wolfe's forces at Quebec. After this decisive vi...

  As a student of American history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the subject of race and it's complexities, has always fascinated me. You cannot understand American history while at the same time ignoring the subject of race. Alexis Toqueville, the young Frenchman who observed American society in 1831 said that the legacy of slavery in America would be that we would always have a race problem. The following is from his book Democracy in America. "If we reason from what passes in the world, we should almost say that the European is to the other races of mankind what man himself is to the lower animals: he makes them subservient to his use, and when he cannot subdue he destroys them. Oppression has, at one stroke, deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The Negro of the United States has lost even the remembrance of his country; the language which his forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and for...