tagged w/ World War Two
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On June 6, the 67th anniversary of D-Day, the day the Allied Forces invaded the northern shore of France known as Normandy and began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control in World War II, it seems fitting to read this remarkable story, originally posted on boingboing.
The photo above is a photo of a wedding dress made from a B-29 pilot's life-saving parachute. It is part of the Smithsonian's collection of remarkable artifacts.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/06/wedding-dress-made-f.htmlOn June 6, the 67th anniversary of D-Day, the day the Allied Forces invaded the... more
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Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. Service Members who died while in the military service. Originally enacted by formerly enslaved African-Americans to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War, it was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.
What Is Memorial Day?
And yet by the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for more general expressions of memory, as ordinary people visited the graves of their deceased relatives, whether they had served in the military or not. It also became a long weekend increasingly devoted to shopping, family get-togethers, fireworks, and trips to the beach.
For Many Families, A Time Of Mourning
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30mon4.html?_r=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOih0MHNmZUMemorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May.... more
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The thoughts of the pilots who saw below them the before and after of their payload drops... ordinary civilians... women... children... what went through their minds?The thoughts of the pilots who saw below them the before and after of their payload... more
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all take a look at this it has infor. on my family history in World war Two in Burma and India.
Yoursfaithfully,
George T Savielall take a look at this it has infor. on my family history in World war Two in Burma... more
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This is the day The Allies (the USA, the UK, the USSR and France) began invasion of Europe by attacking the coast of northern France.This is the day The Allies (the USA, the UK, the USSR and France) began invasion of... more
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Among the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But as her confusion about climate change, the First Amendment and even Alaska's energy production showed, Palin's ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her speaking out with great conviction about it. So it is once again with talk of potential tax increases to fund the escalating war in Afghanistan. War time taxes are never necessary, Sarah Palin seemed to suggest this week, because during World War II "many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all."
As Andrew Sullivan noted here and here, the Quittah from Wasilla used this week's anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to invent a new myth about how the United States mobilized and paid for the war which followed it. Palin wrote this December 7:
The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in the factories that became our "Arsenal of Democracy," and many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all.
Of course, in reality Americans funded the war through massive debt and massive tax increases (above).
More @ linkAmong the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know... more
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Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to fix today's health insurance system, you'd be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don't pay for our groceries or our gas.
It turns out there never was any central logic at work. The evolution of the American health care system began in the 1920s, when choices boiled down to which crazy cure you preferred.
Dr. John Brinkley, for instance, was a huge hit in American radio with his health advice shows. For whatever problem folks had, Brinkley had one fabulous solution: transplant a goat gland into your body. He pitched it as being perfect for everything from dementia to impotence to flatulence. But if, somehow, a goat gland didn't cure your ills, you could always use Bonnore's Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid or Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment.
Before the birth of modern medicine, hospitals were poorhouses where the indigent went to die. Then came the advent of effective medicines, especially antibiotics, along with a revolution in medical schools.
Suddenly, says economic historian Melissa Thomasson, "hospitals are marketing themselves as places to have babies." The professor at the Miami University in Ohio says that in the early part of the 20th century, hospitals were able to focus on happy outcomes.
Health care became much more effective, and much more expensive. Clean hospitals, educated doctors and real pharmacological research cost money. People proved willing to pay for care when they were really sick, but it wasn't yet common to go for checkups or survivable illnesses.
By the late 1920s, hospitals noticed most of their beds were going empty every night. They wanted to get people who weren't deathly ill to start coming in.
"The war economy is an entirely different ballgame," Thomasson says. The government rationed goods even as factories ramped up production and needed to attract workers. Factory owners needed a way to lure employees. She explains that the owners turned to fringe benefits, offering more and more generous health plans.
The next big step in the evolution of health care was also an accident. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based health care should be tax free. A second law, in 1954, made the tax advantages even more attractive.
Thomasson cites the huge impact of those measures on plan participation. "You start from 9 percent of the population in 1940 to 63 percent in 1953," she says. "Everybody starts getting in on it. It just grows by gangbusters. By the 1960s, 70 percent [of the population] is covered by some kind of private, voluntary health insurance plan."
Thus employer-based insurance, which started with Blue Cross selling coverage to Texas teachers and spread because of government price controls and tax breaks, became our system. By the mid-1960s, Thomasson says, Americans started to see that system — in which people with good jobs get health care through work and almost everyone else looks to government — as if it were the natural order of things.
But to Thomasson and other economic historians, there's nothing natural or inevitable about it. Instead, they see it as the profound result of historical accidents.Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to... more
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Author Joy Ibsen of Trout Creek, MI will sign her latest book "Unafraid" and host a presentation at 7 p.m. (CT) on Monday, August 24, 2009 in the Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, Iowa.
A former resident of nearby Kimballton, IA, Ibsen will be singing and playing piano during a songfest that will include works from her first book "Songs of Denmark."
Co-authored by her late father, Rev. Harald Ibsen, "Unafraid" includes portions of sermons he delivered at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Kimballton, IA, followed by a fiction story about how his words impacted local parishioners.
The event is sponsored by the Danish Brotherhood Lodge 341 and the Danish Immigrant Museum.
It include songfest of Danish-American songs using a recently refurnished piano donated by the famous late Danish comedian Victor Borge.
Joy Ibsen is past president of the Danish Immigrant Museum board of directors.
Call Clayton Nielsen at 1-712-764-4343 or Annette Andersen at 1-712-773-2025.
Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, IA
http://www.danishmuseum.orgAuthor Joy Ibsen of Trout Creek, MI will sign her latest book "Unafraid" and... more
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All across the UK today, ceremonies and service will be taking place to remember the fallen men and women who lost their lives in all past and current wars.
The Queen will be leading the tributes at the Cenotaph in London while troops on active duty will be carrying out their own services in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This year's events fall just two days before the 90th anniversary of the armistice, the end of World War I, where around 900,000 men and women in the British armed forces died during the conflict.
Three veterans, the youngest aged 108, will be at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Tuesday, 90 years to the minute since the ceasefire.
All across the UK today, ceremonies and service will be taking place to remember the... more
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Isn't patriotism a strange thing? I agree with the point Richard Dawkins made once that patriotism is the kissing cousin to religious fundamentalism. Both demand that the practitioner blindly trumpet the superiority of one mode of thinking above all others for no rational reason. And both also discourage questioning the truth of the facts offered because such a thing is somehow morally wrong. I bring this up because I reviewed Medal of Honor: Airborne and some people seem to have taken it all as a personal disservice to the randomly-chosen land mass upon which they first gained consciousness in this lifetime.Isn't patriotism a strange thing? I agree with the point Richard Dawkins made... more
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In an interview a few years back, Tibbets said, "I wanted to do everything that I could to subdue Japan. I wanted to kill the bastards. That was the attitude of the United States in those years. And kill them he did.
In an interview a few years back, Tibbets said, "I wanted to do everything that I... more
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