history

Chris Knight's avatar

The scene from the excellent HBO miniseries John Adams where Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the delegates vote to declare American secession from Britain:

I have to believe that the mood of the room following the vote for the Declaration of Independence in real life was no less solemn.  The look on their faces must have said it all: “Dear God, we just did that.  That just happened!  What have we done?!”

May we come to again honor those men who pledged their fortunes, their integrity, and their very lives so as to give us the blessings of liberty.

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Chris Knight's avatar

Seventy-nine years ago today.

That’s a still from the animated special What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?  It was the follow-up to the film Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.  Charlie Brown Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcy, and Snoopy are on their way back to America.  They stop and camp for the night and Linus thinks they’re something familiar about the place.

Wow.  That premiered forty years ago last week.  It’s well worth tracking down and watching.

Remembering all who came ashore at Normandy on this day nearly eighty years ago.

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Chris Knight's avatar

It was this day, March the 12th, thirty years
ago.

I was eighteen, taking first year classes at the local
community college.  I worked part time at
Subway, but I didn’t have to go in that night. 
About 4 that Friday afternoon Dad asked if I wanted to ride with him to
Ridgeway, across the state line in Virginia. 
There was this little convenience store there that EVERYONE in
Rockingham County seemed to go to when they played the lottery.  I said sure, I’d come along.  It was a cold and cloudy day for mid March.

Looking back, I now recall the sound of the air around us
before we hopped into the truck.  It had
a very muffled characteristic.  I hadn’t
heard air like that in a long time.  That
should have been the first clue, about what had ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Sigh…

I shouldn’t have to make this post.  But as it seems how EVERYTHING today is supposed to be qualified, quantified, factionalized and most especially sexualized…

Contrary to what some have claimed, I do not now nor have I ever harbored any kind of hatred toward those who have chosen the homosexual lifestyle.  Or who are bisexual.  Or transsexual.  Or whatever.

As a Christian, I am called to not hate anybody.  I am in fact commanded to hate my own sin and my own fallen carnal nature, before I dare levy hatred toward another.  It is part and parcel to the “dying unto self” that those who follow Christ are told that they must do on a daily basis.

That does not mean however that I can or must acquiesce to any activity that is self-destructive.

And that, is what LGBT behavior is.

I’ve seen the damage and disease ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may go down as the textbook example of all the wrong ways to try to take over a neighboring country.  I’m reading the reports (whichever ones may be accurate) and it just blows my mind how unprepared Putin was in sending his forces into Ukraine.

First of all: WHY did Russia commit its forces during the winter?  The vehicles have gotten bogged down in mud and mire, just as any armchair strategist knew would happen.  But this seems to be the classic pattern for Russia.

There does not seem to be a reliable system of replenishing food, ammo and replacement artillery.

Speaking of that artillery, there are reports that the Ukrainians have more tanks now than when the war began, because they keep capturing Russian tanks and painting Ukrainian markings on them.

The Russian trucks and other vehicles in the invasion convoys have shoddy tires, and ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

The following post isn’t going to endear me to some people.  Indeed, I removed it for awhile after it drew fire from some who I greatly respect.  I sincerely hope that, as Thomas Jefferson beautifully put it, this will be no reason to depart from friendship.

I am a historian and an observer of human nature.  And what comes now, is from a place I earnestly believe is an objective perch.  Or at least, I try to be objective.  I will write this and let future readers decide on the merits of this essay.  Because that’s who I’ve always written for as much as those in the here and now.

 Ready?  Here goes:

My friends and family are well aware of a policy I have regarding elections.  It is very simple: I do not vote for a candidate who creates and broadcasts a negative campaign commercial aimed at an opponent.  ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

 Dad used to tell me that he didn’t want to study our family tree too much.  “There’s going to be someone there who wore a rope for a necktie”, he would say.  In most part Dad was content with knowing his grandfather, Samuel Knight – born in 1887 – and not much further.

(Samuel’s wife, Maggie Warren, was born in 1880 and died in 1979.  I’m old enough to remember her in her final years… and that’s a pretty neat thing, to have known someone who knew Civil War veterans and was a young lady when the Wright Brothers flew their plane.)

With not much else to do with my own time these past several months, I thought it would be intriguing if I started to research our family history.  Quietly praying that there wasn’t some scoundrel of ill repute back there anywhere.  And now I can say that ours ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

 Something put together during the hour of the wolf: that time between 2 and 3 in the morning when you can’t sleep and your mind is running through a myriad of thoughts all at once…

It goes like this:

America is thrown into turmoil as a result of a
November election that sees no clearly declared winner and in fact is
endemic throughout the country’s state and local elections.

Factor in that the United States is still in the midst of COVID-19 and this does not look to alleviate anytime soon.

China takes advantage of the chaos in America and fully deploys its
naval might in the South China Sea. Taiwan is invaded. American
military along with Japanese and Australian forces engage.

North
Korean hardliners in that country’s army, frustrated with Kim Jong Un for various
reasons, depose their leader and install Un’s sister as the glorious
new leader. North

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Chris Knight's avatar
This might upset some people. I can understand. Bear with me here though…

In 1828 the United States Congress passed what came to be called “the
Tariff of Abominations”. It was meant to protect northern industry.
Instead it inflicted enormous harm on southern manufacturing and
agriculture, especially the cotton industry. And no place was more hit
by the consequences of the tariff than South Carolina.

This led
to the Nullification Crisis of 1832. South Carolina declared that the
Tariff of 1828 did not apply to within its borders. It effectively set
the state of South Carolina against the United States of America.
Fortunately cooler heads eventually prevailed, a new tariff was approved
to South Carolina’s satisfaction, and everyone was happy.

But think about it: the American Civil War could well have broken out thirty years earlier.

I believe that civil war was going to happen regardless. It was
inevitable. In

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Chris Knight's avatar

Those were the words of one Harry Truman (no relation to that Harry S Truman) in the days prior to the eruption.  Truman had a lodge on the side of Spirit Lake, in the shadow of Mount St. Helens.  He lived there with twenty-some cats, and I guess being almost ninety years of age he was just too stubborn to listen to geologists who were screaming at him to get out of the area.  That giant building bulge on the north slope of the mountain didn’t seem to impress.

A few days later, an earthquake triggered the lateral blast on the north flank.  The entire top of the mountain and the north slope were blown away.  Harry Truman and his cats are now somewhere 300 feet beneath ash and rock that eventually formed a new Spirit Lake.  In all the eruption killed 57 people, including volcanologist David Johnston.  His camp ...

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