Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

  On July 1, 1863 Union forces were closing in on Vicksburg Mississippi. A nineteen year old Confederate sniper named Willis Meadows was taking aim through a hole in an iron boiler plate when a minie ball crashed through his right eye and into his brain. Peter Knapp, a 21 year old Union soldier thought he had killed Meadows. He was lying against the boiler plate gushing  blood from his right eye.  Knapp was captured by the Confederate army several months later and would be held in several Confederate prisons, including Andersonville. After the war Knapp would marry and settle down in Michigan.   In 1921 Peter Knapp noticed a Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon in a local newspaper. At the top was the caption (Coughs Up Bullet) . The story was about a 78 year old man who suddenly began choking on something and went into a coughing spasm trying to dislodge the object from his throat. Just as he thought he was about to die something large and hard flew from his mo...

  Chris Christie opened his campaign for president by telling us that compromise isn't a dirty word. He has boasted of being a Republican governor able to survive by compromising in a blue state. There is a time and a place for compromise. I define real compromise as when your side gets a substantial concession and the opposing side also gets a substantial concession. Reagan said that half a loaf is better than nothing. The problem far too often with establishment Republicans like Christie, Boehner, and McConnel is that the Republicans get the crumbs and the Democrats get the whole loaf. I know a little something about negotiation and compromise. I was on four negotiating committees with a local Union and we negotiated some pretty good contracts. There were some issues that we were unwilling to compromise on and some that the company was unwilling to yield on. Luckily we never ended up on a picket line while I was involved in the leadership of the Union.   If possible yo...

   There was no Secret Service when Lincoln was elected in 1860. Ironically he signed the bill creating the Secret Service on April 14, 1865, the day he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. There had been earlier threats against Lincoln however. In February 1861 Detective Allen Pinkerton uncovered a plot against Lincoln in Baltimore. Lincoln was traveling from Springfield to Washington for his inauguration in February 1861. The Constitution at that time designated March 4, as the inauguration date. The date was changed to January 20th by the Twentieth Amendment ratified in January 1933. Franklin Roosevelt would be the first president inaugurated in January on his second inauguration.    Lincoln's friend, and self appointed bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon advised him to arrive there late at night in order to confuse any potential assassins. When Lincoln arrived in Washington he wore a soft felt hat instead of his stovepipe and walked hunched over wearing an overcoat ove...

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train...

James Madison Thomas Jefferson     Our illustrious supreme court ruled that the Obamacare subsidies are legal today. The nightmare scenario of our Founding Fathers has come to pass. We are in a perfect storm of constitutional chaos. Our government is ruled by a corrupt despot of a president who completely ignores the Constitution. A cowardly and impotent Republican Party who refuses to stand up to him on all fronts. An activist supreme court that makes law up out of thin air. Of course it all works for the good of Obama and to the detriment of our country. The Founding Fathers gave us a system of checks and balances for a reason. For just such times as we are living yet there are no checks and balances. All we are left with is tyranny. The Founding Fathers have no clout with Obama and the Democrats. They were just evil white men who either owned slaves or condoned slavery. To these Communists running our government they are irrelevant. Yes, I believe that they are Co...

Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Charleston S.C. during the 1800's   As gospel singers my brother Mark and I have visited many different Black churches over the years. No matter what church we attended the people were always very friendly and they bent over backwards to make us feel welcome. Many times we were the only White faces in the church. One of the sweetest and most authentic Christian ladies that I have ever known was Mrs. Sally Hicks who frequently invited us to sing at special church events and homecomings. I have to believe that Dylan Roof was warmly welcomed into that church by the very people that he later killed. How could he be received with such warmth and an hour later shoot them down in cold blood?  I can't imagine someone being that heartless. On top of that the victims family members faced this punk only hours after the shooting and God was glorified because they had the strength to forgive this guy. I question whether I could have that kind of faith. This is t...

Gun grabbers are so predictable. Never let a crisis like the Charleston Church shooting go to waste, huh Barack. If ever there was a situation that cries out for doing away with gun free zones it is this shooting. Where is it written that you can't carry a gun with you to church? If one or more people in this congregation had been packing this boy could have been stopped. At the very least they could have minimized the damage. Without guns they allowed themselves to be a target rich environment. The media began calling this a hate crime before they had any facts. When someone walks into a predominately white church, a Buddhist temple,a mosque, synagogue, or a black church and starts wasting people, that is worthy of the death penalty in my view. At the very least a life sentence without parole. What difference does it make if this guy killed these people because he is a white supremacist, a psycho, ISUS, or a radical environmentalist wacko? Innocent people are still dead...