Waterloo

June 18th 1815

Wiki entry on the

Battle of Waterloo







Charge of the British Heavy Cavalry

From the 1970 release Waterloo



Always loved this old country tune:

Waterloo - Stonewall Jackson



And this reminds me of elle. -sigh-

Waterloo - ABBA



(description w/ vid)

Waterloo was recorded in Dec 1973. Abba chose it over Hasta Manana to be the Swedish entry for Eurovision 1974, as it was a happy uptempo rocking song with rhythm and energy, and all the group sing. Stig Anderson took a demo tape on holiday to the Canary Isles. Stig agonised for a week to find the right title, then produced the original Swedish lyrics in a few hours, constructing a story of Waterloo as a metaphor for a girl surrendering to the love of a suitor. The rest is history, it was the first time Sweden had won Eurovision. The song rapidly became a worldwide hit after this huge success in Brighton in April 1974, reaching no. 1 in England on May 4 1974. This tv performance is from November 1974.

When I hear or read about Napoleon, I think back to some grafitti I saw at the Canadian, TX. h.s. that read:

"This is where Napoleon pulled his Bonaparte."

Private Slovik

Earlier I noticed the "Today in History" feed in the right-hand column mentioned Private Slovik

From TheFreeDictionary.com: Eddie Slovik Edward Donald Slovik (February 18, 1920 – January 31, 1945) was a private in the United States Army during World War II and the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the American Civil War. Although over twenty-one thousand soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II—including forty-nine death sentences—only Slovik's death sentence was carried out.

I've been interested in this case since I first saw The Execution of Private Slovik ,an excellent made-for-TV movie from 1974 starring Martin Sheen as Slovik. There's a portion of that movie that's always stayed with me, when Slovik realizes he really is going to be executed. It's a heart-breaking scene as the brilliant actor Sheen, in a panic, repeats the priest's prayers. The execution scene following is anti-climatic because of it. (as well as on another level, but I wouldn't want to spoil that bit)

Sorry, no vids that I could find on short notice. I did see a couple of places that purported to have the entire movie, but the first one I checked out wanted me to d/l their player. No thanks.

Still, I would highly recommend watching the movie; it's on about once a year and I would wager any large video rental place would have it. I'd have to say it would probably be in my Top 100 movies of all time.

Battle of the Bulge

From Today in History

The Ardennes Offensive, called Unternehmen: Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) by the German military, officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army, and known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge, started on 16 December, 1944. Wacht am Rhein was supported by subordinate operations known as Bodenplatte, Greif, and Währung. Germany's planned goal for these operations was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp, Belgium, and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers’ favor.

The Ardennes offensive was planned in total secrecy, in almost total radio silence. Although Ultra, the Allies’ reading of secret German radio messages, suggested a possible German offensive, and the United States Third Army predicted a major German offensive, the attack still achieved surprise. The degree of surprise achieved was compounded by the Allies' overconfidence, their preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact in the area by the U.S. 1st Army. Almost complete surprise against a weak section of the Allies’ line was achieved during heavy overcast, when the Allies' strong air forces would be grounded. The “bulge” was the salient that the Germans initially put into the Allies’ line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.

Most of the American casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division’s three regiments were forced to surrender. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest of the battles that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement. For the U.S. Army, the battle incorporated more troops and engaged more enemy troops than any conflict before that time. The German objectives ultimately were unrealized. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as German survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Read more about the Gettysburg Address

The US Civil War In 4 Minutes

EDIT: 12/10/12

Sorry, but the video was taken down due to copyright issues. There are short trailers on the 'net, but I couldn't find the full video. You can purchase a copy here.

One Small Step

From the NASA website

(to mark the occasion, that link is to a splash page with the video of the first step onto the moon, then it will lead into the regular home page)

Click photos for larger view.



A close-up view of an astronaut's bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA) on the Moon. While astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot, descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar orbit.



Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. The Lunar Module (LM) is on the left, and the footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil of the Moon. Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this picture with a 70mm Hasselblad lunar surface camera. While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the LM, the "Eagle", to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar-orbit.

Happy Birthday, Woody Guthrie!

From Wiki:

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land", which is regularly sung in American and Canadian schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.

The article has a short paragraph about Guthrie's time in Pampa:

Eventually, Guthrie's father sent for his son to come to Texas where little would change for the now-aspiring musician. Guthrie, then 18, was reluctant to attend high school classes in Pampa and spent much time learning songs by busking on the streets and reading in the library at Pampa's city hall. He was growing as a musician, gaining practice by regularly playing at dances for his father's half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle player. At the library, he wrote a manuscript summarizing everything he had read on the basics of psychology. A librarian in Pampa shelved this manuscript under Guthrie's name, but it was later lost in a library reorganization.

This Land is Your Land
(with some of one of the only two surviving pieces of video of him)



The trailer from "Bound for Glory" with David Carradine in the role of Guthrie

Inflation Calculator

From the website:

The inflation calculator uses U.S. government provided Consumer Price Index (CPI) data to measure the purchasing power of the dollar over time. It’ll provide a look into the present, past or any time between.

How to use: You can start with any date from 1913 through 2009. The first date field can also begin in the present, like 2009, and then move backwards – each method is interesting. The inflation calculator starts with default values just to give a quick glimpse into how it works. Simply clear or edit the numbers with your own.

This site made me think of the first wages I ever made at a "real" job. It was back in the early 70's and like most kids then and now, I made minimum wage: $1.90/hr. Sometime shortly after that, it went up to two dollars an hour. Working for the county, which wasn't bound by overtime laws, we were allowed to work fifty hours a week for a cool hundred bucks, less taxes.

(which I seem to recall was something like seven/eight dollars taken out of each weekly paycheck. I was annoyed that I had to work a half day each week to pay Uncle Sam. Little did I know those were the good ol' days, huh?)

Using the inflation calculator, I input my first hourly wage and what it would be now adjusted for inflation:



Ten bucks an hour is quite a bit above minimum wage now! I guess I was luckier than I thought! Discussing what we wanted to do when we got out on our own, a friend of mine said he wanted to be a cowboy; "400 bucks a month, a house furnished and all the beef you can eat!" he exclaimed. "What more could you want?"

Going to a "flashback site", I found that milk was $1.18 per gallon in 1971.



Of course, milk is an agricultural commodity and is subject to the vagaries of the markets, but I bought 2 gallons for five dollars just the other day. I see it for 3 bucks or less all the time.

(and speaking of agriculture markets; I noticed in the paper that the hog market was something like $73/cwt. It was .53 cents a lb. during my first foray into the pig raising business...then dropped to .17 cents just a couple of months later)

I then wondered what gasoline should be adjusted for inflation. I remember when I first started driving it was 28.9 cents, then went up to 32.9 and stayed there for several years...except when there were gasoline wars between stations and sometimes the price would drop to less than .20 cents. (probably at cost to the station) After the first Arab oil embargo the price went up to 53.9 and hasn't looked back since.



So, I found something that outstripped the cost of inflation, or did I? Gasoline was $2.49 yesterday when I filled up, having increased quite a bit since the last time I filled up a month or so ago. The federal tax on gasoline was .04 cents a gallon in '71; by 2008 it had gone up to 18.4. State taxes on gasoline vary from state to state; here in Texas it's .20 per gallon.

At first glance, even allowing for the increase in federal and state taxes, it would seem that gasoline has gone up much more than it should have, all things and inflation considered, but there is a larger demand for it now than was then, so I don't think the current price is so much out of line.

I could have compared the then and now cost of dozens of different things, but the few I tried were enough for me. I remember my ex-wife, then girlfriend, buying one of the first hand-held calculators in 1977 for $79.99. Now you can buy one that has much more computing power for less than ten dollars; you can even buy a keychain calculator for less than a dollar!

I also remember my folks buying a Curtis Mathis color TV in the 60's for something like a thousand bucks (probably two months wages for dad). It was a large "console" model and although I haven't seen one like it in years, fairly large screen TVs can be had for at least half that amount.

Good old days? Maybe we're living in 'em right now!

Waterloo

Today marks the day, 194 years ago, that Wellington defeated Napoleon's forces at Waterloo, shaping history to this day.

(one of the funniest things I ever read on a bathroom wall was "Waterloo: Where Napoleon pulled his Bonaparte.")



I could've posted a video in honor of the historical event, but decided on this one instead.



To my close friends who read this blog and know of whom I'm writing, the blonde in ABBA, Agnetha Fältskog, is a spittin' image of elle when she was about 17 yrs. old.

Friendship 7

On Feb. 20, 1962 at 9:47 am EST, John Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 14 to become the first American to orbit the Earth. In this image, Glenn enters his Friendship 7 capsule with assistance from technicians to begin his historic flight.

Glenn rejoined NASA in 1998 as a member of the STS-95 Discovery crew. This 9-day mission, from Oct. 29-Nov. 7, supported a variety of research payloads including deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform and investigations on space flight and the aging process.

Image Credit: NASA

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I admire Glenn, but was really angry when he was chosen (or lobbied) to go on the shuttle mission. I think Chuck Yeager should have been selected to make the trip.

Glenn, along with John McCain, was implicated (and both were later exonerated) in the Keating Five scandal and was reprimanded for "poor judgment". It forever tarnished his otherwise honorable career, IMO.

America's Form of Govt.