Wednesday, February 11, 2009
[1752 - Pennsylvania Hospital, (first in America), opens
(founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin)]
[1802 - Lydia Child, writer, publisher,
born in Medford, Massachusetts]
[1847 - Thomas Alva Edison, inventor, born in Milan, Ohio]
[1908 - Philip Dunne, producer, director,
playwright, born in New York City]
[1909 - Joseph Mankiewicz, Academy Award-winning
playwright, director, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania]
[1915 - Josh White, blues & folk singer, guitarist,
born in Greenville, South Carolina]
[1917 - Sidney Sheldon (Schechtel), writer, born in Chicago]
[1925 - Kim Stanley (Patricia Beth Reid), Emmy Award-winning
actress, born in Tularosa, New Mexico]
[1971 - U.S. and USSR sign treaty prohibiting deployment of nuclear weapons on ocean floor]
[1990 - Nelson Mandela, South African anti-apartheid leader, released after 27 years in prison]
Backyard Terrorism
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in the post Civil War reconstruction era as a southern anti-black and anti-federal terrorist group. While the Klan was initially suppressed by the federal government, it was resurrected in 1915 in Georgia. This new Klan appealed to hatred of Jews, Catholics, and immigrants, in addition to its original targeting of blacks. Today it might qualify as an equal opportunity hate group. The KKK was politically correct in those days; so much so that when the father of the modern cinema filmed Birth of a Nation, he glorified this group of vigilante cowards as protectors of white womanhood.
What seems most remarkable is that the Klan spread widely across the North in addition to the South by the early 1920s. Some historians believe that membership in the KKK was as high as three million by the mid 1920s, when it reached a high water mark. The modern day terrorists in their [black] hoods are pikers by comparison, but the Bush administration managed to grow their numbers considerably.
William's Whimsical Words:
Terrorism, like charity, begins at home.
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