Friday The Thirteenth

Friday the thirteenth comes on Sunday this month.

I am indebted to the late Walt Kelly for this insight into the calendar.

American History - A Note On Immigration

Cox v. Town of Oriental: Bad News

Nearly a week ago, I checked the NC Court of Appeals web site and read the bad news. The Court of Appeals upheld the decision of Pamlico County Superior Court to dismiss my case. The Court's reason: I lack standing.

It isn't bad news because I have lost. It is bad news because the public has lost control of a public asset. This is about the future of the Town of Oriental. And the rule of law.

The case isn't necessarily over. I have almost a month in which to petition the NC Supreme Court for a hearing.

I will consult with my attorney and others to help me decide.

Stay tuned.

Seventy Years Ago: July 6, 1944 - Saipan

The Navy aviators had decimated Japanese Naval Air in the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" and sunk three of Japan's remaining carriers. The Marines and Army troops were still slugging it out against surviving Japanese on the Island of Saipan. At stake: an airfield within range of Japan's home islands. At least within range for the Army Air Foce's new B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers.

Japan determined to fight to the last man and the last civilian. The battle was brutal, the ultimete outcome certain.

Here is the story.

Independence Day, 2014 - Croaker Fest inOriental

It was a glorious day in the Town of Oriental yesterday - the morning after Hurricane Arthur swept through. A bit of debris on the ground, mostly cleaned up by noon. The festival was on!

Once upon a time in America, in small towns and large, all across the land, citizens would gather each year for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. In classrooms, students memorized and recited the preamble. The words were familiar to everyone:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." When I was in grade school, I was required to memorize the preamble. I can still recite it.

Some of us memorized the next passage: "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...."

How does government demonstrate the consent of the governed? By holding elections.

Independence Day is about elections.

Kinder, Küche, Kirche

Kinder, Küche, Kirche:* Goal of SCOTUS?

* English translation: "Barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen."

100 Years Ago: Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Assassin's Route, Sarajevo, June 28, 1914

June 27, 1914 was the day the final steps in the plot were taken. Serbian intelligence knew when the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his Czech wife would arrive at the train station, the route and time table for the motorcade and who would be riding in each automobile. To make it easier, the Archduke's convertible top would be down so the crowd could see the heir to the throne and his wife.

It was a suicide mission. The six assassins spaced along the route carried a mixed assortment of weapons: some carried hand grenades, others had bombs. Four carried Browning .38 caliber automatic pistols manufactured in Belgium. Each carried cyanide pills.

Otto von Bismarck, dead since 1898, once remarked that the whole of the Balkans was "not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." He also observed that  "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans."

The planning and execution of the assassination by Serbian conspirators, directed out of Belgrade by Serbian military intelligence and coordinated with nationalist groups such as Young Bosnia, the Black Hand, and Narodna Odbrana (People's Defense) soon degenerated into a fiasco,

The first assassin didn't lift a finger as the Archduke's automobile rolled past. The second assassin also failed to act. The third assassin threw his bomb at the Archduke, but it missed and exploded under a following car. The assassin swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the river to complete his suicide, but the river proved to be only four inches deep at that point. The cyanide only induced vomiting. He was captured.

The procession sped away towards the Town Hall leaving the disabled car behind. Cvjetko Popović, Gavrilo Princip, and Trifun Grabež, the final three assassins, failed to act as the motorcade passed them at high speed. The Archduke gave his expected speech at Town Hall, then changed his itinerary to go to the hospital and check on the welfare of those injured in the bomb blast.

Meanwhile, nineteen year old Gavrilo Princip, who had missed his chance, wandered off in search of lunch. Princip was standing in front of Schiller's Delicatessen near the Latin Bridge, when suddenly the Archduke's car stopped almost in front of him. The driver, confused by the change in plans, had stalled the car and was having trouble getting it started.

Princip stepped forward and fired two shots from a distance of about 5 feet with his Belgian-made .38  Fabrique Nationale model 1910 semi-automatic pistol. The first bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular vein, the second inflicted an abdominal wound on the Duchess. Princip was immediately arrested.

The "damned silly thing in the Balkans" had happened.

A month later, July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

Mississippi Black Voters Give Primary Victory To Republican Senator

In case you hadn't been following the Republican primary in Mississippi for US senate, it was this year's most interesting election.

In Mississippi's May primary election, neither of the two principal Republican candidates for senate, incumbent Thad Cochran, who was running for his seventh term, or challenger Chris McDaniel, his Tea Party challenger, received 50% of the vote. Mississippi is one of only eight states in the union that requires a runoff election in such a case. (North Carolina is one of the eight, but NC sets the thresh hold at 40%).

Mississippi is also a state that allows any registered voter to vote in any party's primary. That set the stage for what followed.

Thad Cochran openly courted the votes of democrats, including African Americans, and they turned out in droves.

Why would African Americans vote for a Republican? They saw it as in their own interest. Why would unionized shipyard workers in Pascagoula vote for a Republican? Same reason.

Not only did Thad Cochran's organization reach out to Democrats (only those who had not voted in the Democratic primary could vote in the Republican runoff), Chris McDaniel had alarmed them with his calls for austerity, his vicious attacks on President Obama, and his open embrace of Mississippi's past. “It’s time to defend our way of life again,” McDaniel asserted.

This year's fiftieth anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer and the killing of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner reminded any who had forgotten, just how Mississippi defended its "way of life" in times past.

Mississippi's African American voters are among the most sophisticated in the country. They understand that elections are about their interests, and they weren't interested in having a US senator openly talking about "defending our way of life" again.

Not so long ago, such talk got Mississippi senator Trent Lott in trouble.

There may have been other issues in play. Veterans in Mississippi liked McDaniels' belligerent talk about war. Apparently few of them had any idea that Thad Cochran had served in the military. In fact, I met Thad Cochran at the University of Mississippi when we were both in the Naval ROTC there.

Interestingly, both Thad Cochran and Trent Lott had been cheerleaders at Ole Miss.

I don't expect African American voters to turn out for Thad Cochran in the general election. Their interests would be better served by a democrat in that office. But realistically a democratic victory is unlikely.

Mississippi is more complicated than people give it credit for.