All of us know about the Pearl Harbor sneak attack on December 7, 1941. The time was 8:00 a.m. (or as they says in the Navy --0800 hours) when a crewman went to the fantail, the rear portion, of his ship to raise the American flag. One minute later a torpedo from a Japanese bomber struck her on her port side. The ship began to take on water so rapidly that she began to list 15 degrees. The senior officer aboard, Lt. Commander S.S. Isquith, realizing that she was sinking gave the order for "All hands on deck and all engine room and fire room, radio and dynamo watch to lay up on deck and release all prisoners." The men were to go the starboard side of the she to avoid the shifting loose heavy timbers that had been stored on deck earlier. Four minutes later the list increased to 40 degrees and the order was given to abandon ship over the starboard side.
As the crew scrambled for safety, the increased list caused the timbers to loosen and slide into the water, crushing the men below. At about 8:12 a.m. the ship capsized after mooring lines snapped. "One of the ship's boats rushed in and picked up men in the water and commenced ferrying them to the beach. Constant strafing made the job hazardous, and many men sought shelter by swimming to the side of the mooring quay. The wounded and injured were treated along the shoreline or sent to the dispensary at the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. As survivors continued to struggle ashore, most sought protection in a pipeline trench dug by the Public Works Project."
Thirty officers and 431 men were reported to have survived the loss of the ship. The balance of the ships company, 58 men, remained entombed to this date aboard this ill-fated ship. Her hull in mostly submerged on the west side of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Its location and fate are not mentioned in the tourist brochures. Most persons visiting the historical sights at Pearl Harbor see the more publicized sites, including USS Missouri Museum, and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum.
While 1.5 million people annually visit the more famous memorials, few know or visit the site of this sunken ship. Did I forget to say that the timbers stored aboard her deck were to protect it from target bomb practice? Had I failed to say that she was a target ship and wasn't deemed worthy to be on the Japanese hit list but was sunk in error? Did I mention the battle number of this forgotten shrine? It'sBB31-- the number of the battleship USS Utah. BB39 was the battle number of the more famous USS Arizona and now you know the rest of the story.
K.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Florida Teen Beating Video Taped
Polk County Florida prosecutors have decided to charge seven teens -- accused of pummeling a 16-year-old high school cheerleader and videotaping it for YouTube and MySpace -- as adults. An eighth teen is 18 years old and is considered by law as an adult.
All eight face charges of battery and kidnapping, punishable by up to life in prison. The six girls doing the beating range in age from 14 to 17 years old while the two boys who posted themselves as lookouts are 17 and 18 years old. Three of the girls face additional charges of tampering with a witness, which carries up to a five-year prison term.
The beating victim knocked unconscious, has bruises, a concussion and damage to her left ear and eye, although her family said she is expected to recover. The family would like a public apology from the girls, and they also want a law to protect kids on video and social-networking Web sites. The victim plans to continue her schooling at home rather than return to her high school.
The grandmother of one of the girls who was arrested says her family is suffering, too. The beating is alleged to have happened at her house while she was at work. Since the Sheriff's Office released the video this week, she has been receiving threatening, obscenity-laced telephone calls, and someone scratched her car.
Other parents of the perpetrators denied their child wasn't even at the scene, claiming they were in school or that it was a fair fight because it was one-on-one.Opinions on the Internet range from shock to disgust and outrage.
K.
Some material quoted from the Orlando Sentinal
All eight face charges of battery and kidnapping, punishable by up to life in prison. The six girls doing the beating range in age from 14 to 17 years old while the two boys who posted themselves as lookouts are 17 and 18 years old. Three of the girls face additional charges of tampering with a witness, which carries up to a five-year prison term.
The beating victim knocked unconscious, has bruises, a concussion and damage to her left ear and eye, although her family said she is expected to recover. The family would like a public apology from the girls, and they also want a law to protect kids on video and social-networking Web sites. The victim plans to continue her schooling at home rather than return to her high school.
The grandmother of one of the girls who was arrested says her family is suffering, too. The beating is alleged to have happened at her house while she was at work. Since the Sheriff's Office released the video this week, she has been receiving threatening, obscenity-laced telephone calls, and someone scratched her car.
Other parents of the perpetrators denied their child wasn't even at the scene, claiming they were in school or that it was a fair fight because it was one-on-one.Opinions on the Internet range from shock to disgust and outrage.
K.
Some material quoted from the Orlando Sentinal
Life
I received this from a friend and I thought I’d pass it a long; we had been discussing a new miniature computer keyboard
"K., I suspect eventually we will be able to talk directly to the computer with no need for the keyboard. In a manner of speaking, we already have this technology available in some cell phones.
"On the other hand ... we still have 45 million people with no health insurance, more than a million abortions every year, 20 percent of our people cannot read or write well enough to fill out an employment application or follow instructions on a prescription label, a high school dropout rate of 40 percent, and an old poor lady in her nineties, living on East 92nd street off Cedar, who eats canned cat food because that is all she can afford.
"We have laser-guided bombs that can seek out and kill someone virtually anywhere on earth, enough nuclear warheads to wipe out the earth completely, and troops in more than seventy countries around the world. Yet, we have one of the highest infant mortality rates, are way down the list of life expectancy for industrialized countries, and people in the prime of their life who are dying because they cannot afford the medications they require to sustain life.
"Lots ’o luck!"
Unfortunately this is true, it happens as a result of the importance we place on our priorities. If the welfare of the mankind were the topmost objective, things would be a lot different. We have a lot to learn and oh so little time to do it in.
Wishing all of you a very pleasant religious holiday.
K.
"K., I suspect eventually we will be able to talk directly to the computer with no need for the keyboard. In a manner of speaking, we already have this technology available in some cell phones.
"On the other hand ... we still have 45 million people with no health insurance, more than a million abortions every year, 20 percent of our people cannot read or write well enough to fill out an employment application or follow instructions on a prescription label, a high school dropout rate of 40 percent, and an old poor lady in her nineties, living on East 92nd street off Cedar, who eats canned cat food because that is all she can afford.
"We have laser-guided bombs that can seek out and kill someone virtually anywhere on earth, enough nuclear warheads to wipe out the earth completely, and troops in more than seventy countries around the world. Yet, we have one of the highest infant mortality rates, are way down the list of life expectancy for industrialized countries, and people in the prime of their life who are dying because they cannot afford the medications they require to sustain life.
"Lots ’o luck!"
Unfortunately this is true, it happens as a result of the importance we place on our priorities. If the welfare of the mankind were the topmost objective, things would be a lot different. We have a lot to learn and oh so little time to do it in.
Wishing all of you a very pleasant religious holiday.
K.
Our Sixth Sence--Fact or Fiction
I’m friends with a neighbor, whenever he knocks on the door, the dog run to the front door, her fur goes up and she gives this low threatening grown. Mrs. K. is not too fond of him either. She thinks the dog knows something and has a right to be suspicious. Do the two share some common intuition of this person’s character or agenda? Isn’t it a dog’s nature to be distrustful? Do they have some sixth sense that we human’s only have an inkling or completely lack?
Are you a good judge of character? Do your first impressions determine how you will treat someone for the time of your interaction or relationship? Or do you give people the benefit of the doubt, and let the course of time determine your opinion of their character? Luckily Mrs. K. and I hit it off pretty good during the course of our very early relationship that began forty-five years ago this month. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. Would our relationship have been the same had she known that I don’t finish projects in a timely manner, leave stuff lying out or that I go on my own program and don’t consider others? I’m very glad she didn’t know the "real" me—or was willing to try and change me.
I in turn don’t try to figure people out; I let them "evolve" into the characters they become. My interaction with them changes as they change. If things are going OK then that is the way our relationship will interact; this is especially true at my job. If they turn out to have a bad day (or week, or month) then I keep out of their way; I try not to "press the issue."
Each us of has our own method of handling our determination of another’s character and how it will affect our lives or day-to-day interaction with them. We have found what works best for us and then go with it. Perhaps it is a throwback to another more primitive time when we had only seconds to make that life or death decision, which saved our lives. In some cases this sixth sense in still in effect for cops and soldiers who encounter dangerous decision making choices everyday.
K.
Are you a good judge of character? Do your first impressions determine how you will treat someone for the time of your interaction or relationship? Or do you give people the benefit of the doubt, and let the course of time determine your opinion of their character? Luckily Mrs. K. and I hit it off pretty good during the course of our very early relationship that began forty-five years ago this month. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. Would our relationship have been the same had she known that I don’t finish projects in a timely manner, leave stuff lying out or that I go on my own program and don’t consider others? I’m very glad she didn’t know the "real" me—or was willing to try and change me.
I in turn don’t try to figure people out; I let them "evolve" into the characters they become. My interaction with them changes as they change. If things are going OK then that is the way our relationship will interact; this is especially true at my job. If they turn out to have a bad day (or week, or month) then I keep out of their way; I try not to "press the issue."
Each us of has our own method of handling our determination of another’s character and how it will affect our lives or day-to-day interaction with them. We have found what works best for us and then go with it. Perhaps it is a throwback to another more primitive time when we had only seconds to make that life or death decision, which saved our lives. In some cases this sixth sense in still in effect for cops and soldiers who encounter dangerous decision making choices everyday.
K.
Pearl Harbor Revisited
All of us know about the Pearl Harbor sneak attack on December 7, 1941. The time was 8:00 a.m. (or as they says in the Navy --0800 hours) when a crewman went to the fantail, the rear portion, of his ship to raise the American flag. One minute later a torpedo from a Japanese bomber struck her on her port side. The ship began to take on water so rapidly that she began to list 15 degrees. The senior officer aboard, Lt. Commander S.S. Isquith, realizing that she was sinking gave the order for "All hands on deck and all engine room and fire room, radio and dynamo watch to lay up on deck and release all prisoners." The men were to go the starboard side of the she to avoid the shifting loose heavy timbers that had been stored on deck earlier. Four minutes later the list increased to 40 degrees and the order was given to abandon ship over the starboard side.
As the crew scrambled for safety, the increased list caused the timbers to loosen and slide into the water, crushing the men below. At about 8:12 a.m. the ship capsized after mooring lines snapped. “One of the ship's boats rushed in and picked up men in the water and commenced ferrying them to the beach. Constant strafing made the job hazardous, and many men sought shelter by swimming to the side of the mooring quay. The wounded and injured were treated along the shoreline or sent to the dispensary at the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. As survivors continued to struggle ashore, most sought protection in a pipeline trench dug by the Public Works Project.”
Thirty officers and 431 men were reported to have survived the loss of the ship. The balance of the ships company, 58 men, remained entombed to this date aboard this ill-fated ship. Her hull in mostly submerged on the west side of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Its location and fate are not mentioned in the tourist brochures. Most persons visiting the historical sights at Pearl Harbor see the more publicized sites, including USS Missouri Museum, and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum.
While 1.5 million people annually visit the more famous memorials, few know or visit the site of this sunken ship. Did I forget to say that the timbers stored aboard her deck were to protect it from target bomb practice? Had I failed to say that she was a target ship and wasn’t deemed worthy to be on the Japanese hit list but was sunk in error? Did I mention the battle number of this forgotten shrine? They are BB31-- the number of the battleship USS Utah. BB39 was the battle number of the more famous USS Arizona and now you know the rest of the story.
K.
As the crew scrambled for safety, the increased list caused the timbers to loosen and slide into the water, crushing the men below. At about 8:12 a.m. the ship capsized after mooring lines snapped. “One of the ship's boats rushed in and picked up men in the water and commenced ferrying them to the beach. Constant strafing made the job hazardous, and many men sought shelter by swimming to the side of the mooring quay. The wounded and injured were treated along the shoreline or sent to the dispensary at the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. As survivors continued to struggle ashore, most sought protection in a pipeline trench dug by the Public Works Project.”
Thirty officers and 431 men were reported to have survived the loss of the ship. The balance of the ships company, 58 men, remained entombed to this date aboard this ill-fated ship. Her hull in mostly submerged on the west side of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Its location and fate are not mentioned in the tourist brochures. Most persons visiting the historical sights at Pearl Harbor see the more publicized sites, including USS Missouri Museum, and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum.
While 1.5 million people annually visit the more famous memorials, few know or visit the site of this sunken ship. Did I forget to say that the timbers stored aboard her deck were to protect it from target bomb practice? Had I failed to say that she was a target ship and wasn’t deemed worthy to be on the Japanese hit list but was sunk in error? Did I mention the battle number of this forgotten shrine? They are BB31-- the number of the battleship USS Utah. BB39 was the battle number of the more famous USS Arizona and now you know the rest of the story.
K.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Just When You Think You're Safe, Something Happens
Our house was broken into last Friday. I first saw that the gate to the yard was open, something I don't do because the dog may get out and go off on her own. There were footprints in the snow leading up to our back porch; a window in the storm door was open and there I found the smash window of the backdoor. I went around to the front of the house as I normally do and then called the police. "Get out of the house." I was told. "They may still be in there."
The police came in and checked the inside of the house; thankfully no one was there. The only thing missing was my laptop that was recently given to my by my wife. It was to be her old one; a friend at work had completely gone over it and had installed Window XP. The computer was clean, there was nothing on it, and I had hardly used it. That was the only thing stole, it was sitting on the couch, right next to the door. One cop said it was kids, it was small, light and valuable.
The second police office explained how easy it has been to get into, the broken pane was right next to the lock and was easy to open. He suggested we install a two-way lock—a key needed to get into from either side as well as installing a door with a more remote pane of glass.
I went to the home store and bought both, a lock and a door. Then the snow hit and I have a new door sitting in my house uninstalled. My life has changed. I will no longer be able to look out my back door window to see activities take place in the back yard without having to open it first. I'll have to think twice about being too friendly to people who come to my house, meter reader, paperboy etc. I'll have to remember how my house, my private life was violated and forced open and something stolen from me.
K.
The police came in and checked the inside of the house; thankfully no one was there. The only thing missing was my laptop that was recently given to my by my wife. It was to be her old one; a friend at work had completely gone over it and had installed Window XP. The computer was clean, there was nothing on it, and I had hardly used it. That was the only thing stole, it was sitting on the couch, right next to the door. One cop said it was kids, it was small, light and valuable.
The second police office explained how easy it has been to get into, the broken pane was right next to the lock and was easy to open. He suggested we install a two-way lock—a key needed to get into from either side as well as installing a door with a more remote pane of glass.
I went to the home store and bought both, a lock and a door. Then the snow hit and I have a new door sitting in my house uninstalled. My life has changed. I will no longer be able to look out my back door window to see activities take place in the back yard without having to open it first. I'll have to think twice about being too friendly to people who come to my house, meter reader, paperboy etc. I'll have to remember how my house, my private life was violated and forced open and something stolen from me.
K.
The American Dream--Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
I can still picture them both in my mind, two young men who died in their mid twenties. Both were oh so young and full of life, both filled with ambition, wanting to succeed, and both died by their own hand. The first, let’s call him "G," had an amazingly strong, firm handshake, very sincere. I told him he should enter politics because of his handshake, he had the strength to shake hands all day long and not let it faze him. He was very likeable.
G loved everything about the Spanish people, the language, culture, everything. Had he lived long enough he would he watched the Spanish TV stations incessantly, but they only became available after he died. G became enchanted with a Latino girl in his Spanish class in college and waited until the last day of that class to ask her out on a date. She refused; he went home, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. So very impulsive, so very senseless. Why? Only G knew the hurt of rejection, it was way too much to bear. His act could not be reversed, no second chance, no turning back. It was his final solution.
The second young man was "D." D too was likeable, friendly and quiet. He grew up a small rural town and came to this area to make it "big." He was a good friend to have; his only flaw was he fell into the wrong crowd, and became addicted. Drugs have a way of turning a good, sensible person into something you wouldn’t recognize; like the book Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. Oh, they make you feel good; the worries of the world drop away as you "drop out." But the dark side to them is they can kill–as family and friends of D unfortunately found out. I’m sure D never knew, as reality (and life) just slipped away. "Just one more ’hit" before I go back home and face rehabilitation." His mother was coming to reclaim her son, to take him back home so she could monitor his recuperation, his return to the normalcy of living. Instead, she went home with his lifeless body to bury him in the small town family cemetery. His last ’hit" indeed became his last act.
I feel very sorry for both of these men, who perhaps represent only a microcosm of what happens on a daily basis in this world. They were energetic, full of life, searching for that elusive, difficult to find, happiness. Now they are nearly forgotten except by their respective families and a few close friends. Sleep in peace gentlemen, sleep in peace.
K.
G loved everything about the Spanish people, the language, culture, everything. Had he lived long enough he would he watched the Spanish TV stations incessantly, but they only became available after he died. G became enchanted with a Latino girl in his Spanish class in college and waited until the last day of that class to ask her out on a date. She refused; he went home, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. So very impulsive, so very senseless. Why? Only G knew the hurt of rejection, it was way too much to bear. His act could not be reversed, no second chance, no turning back. It was his final solution.
The second young man was "D." D too was likeable, friendly and quiet. He grew up a small rural town and came to this area to make it "big." He was a good friend to have; his only flaw was he fell into the wrong crowd, and became addicted. Drugs have a way of turning a good, sensible person into something you wouldn’t recognize; like the book Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. Oh, they make you feel good; the worries of the world drop away as you "drop out." But the dark side to them is they can kill–as family and friends of D unfortunately found out. I’m sure D never knew, as reality (and life) just slipped away. "Just one more ’hit" before I go back home and face rehabilitation." His mother was coming to reclaim her son, to take him back home so she could monitor his recuperation, his return to the normalcy of living. Instead, she went home with his lifeless body to bury him in the small town family cemetery. His last ’hit" indeed became his last act.
I feel very sorry for both of these men, who perhaps represent only a microcosm of what happens on a daily basis in this world. They were energetic, full of life, searching for that elusive, difficult to find, happiness. Now they are nearly forgotten except by their respective families and a few close friends. Sleep in peace gentlemen, sleep in peace.
K.
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