It’s been twenty-four years, and I’d almost forgot to post this. Someone should hit me in the head with a brick.
On December 9, 1981, at approximately 3:55 a.m., Officer Danny Faulkner, a five year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, made a traffic stop at Locust Street near Twelfth Street. The car stopped by Officer Faulkner was being driven by William Cook. After making the stop, Danny called for assistance on his police radio and requested a police wagon to transport a prisoner. Unbeknownst to him, William Cook’s brother, Wesley (aka Mumia Abu-Jamal) was across the street. As Danny attempted to handcuff William Cook, Mumia Abu-Jamal ran from across the street and shot the officer in the back. Danny turned and was able to fire one shot that struck Abu-Jamal in the chest; the wounded officer then fell to the pavement. Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over the downed officer and shot him four more times at close range, once directly in the face. Mumia Abu-Jamal was found still at the scene of the shooting by officers who arrived there within seconds. The murderer was slumped against the curb in front of his brother’s car. In his possession was a .38 caliber revolver that records showed Mumia had purchased months earlier. The chamber of the gun had five spent cartridges. A cab driver, as well as other pedestrians, had witnessed the brutal slaying and identified Mumia Abu-Jamal as the killer both at the scene and during his trial. On July 2, 1982, after being tried before a jury of ten whites and two blacks, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Officer Danny Faulkner. The next day, the jury sentenced him to death after deliberating for two hours. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania heard the defendant’s appeals and upheld the conviction on March 6, 1989.
This champion of peace and tolerance that the left holds so dear, is, of course, the same…man…who while in a local hospital being treated for his wounds bellowed:
“I shot the m— f— and I hope the m— f— dies.”
The lowest of filth in the US and abroad agitated for years, making this…individual…into some sort of political prisoner. After years of lying about his murder and terrorizing the slain officer’s wife, Maureen, these ILQ’s (Individuals of Low Quality) finally succeeded in having the death penalty (but NOT the conviction) overturned. Mumia still sits in a federal pen, the hero to hundreds of scatterbrained college girls who spend four years “getting back at mommy and daddy” with any guy that comes along.
If Mumia Abu-Jamal can’t be executed, then he must be kept in prison for the rest of his natural life.
This is the first letter I have ever written directly to my little son and I am thrilled to know that you can read it all by yourself. If you miss some of the words, I’m sure it will be because I do not write very plainly. Mother will help you in that case I am sure.
I was certainly glad to hear your voice over the long distance telephone. It sounded as though I were right in the living room with you. You sounded as though you missed your daddy very much. I miss you too, more than anyone will ever know. It is too bad this war could not have been delayed a few more years so that I could grow up again with you and do with you all the things I planned to do when you were old enough to go to school.
I thought how nice it would be for me to come home early in the afternoon and play ball with you, and go mountain climbing and see the trees, and brooks, and learn all about woodcraft, hunting, fishing, swimming, and things like that. I suppose we must be brave and put these things off for a little while.
When you are a little bigger you will know why your daddy is not home so much any more. You know we have a big country and we have ideals as to how people should live and enjoy the riches of it and how each is born with equal rights to life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, there are some countries in the world where they don’t have these ideals, where a boy cannot grow up to be what he wants to be with no limits on his opportunities to be a great man, such as a great priest, statesman, doctor, soldier, businessman etc.
Because there are people and countries who want to change our nation, its ideals, forms of government, and way of life, we must leave our homes and families to fight. Fighting for the defense of our country, ideals, homes, and honor is an honor and a duty which your daddy has to do before he can come home to settle down with you and Mother. When it is done, he is coming home to be with you always and forever. So wait just a little while longer. I am afraid it will be more than the two weeks you told me on the phone.
In the meantime, take good care of Mother. Be a good boy and grow up to be a good young man. Study hard when you go to school. Be a leader in everything good in life. Be a good Catholic, and you can’t help being a good American. Play fair always. Strive to win but if you must lose, lose like a gentleman and a good sportsman. Don’t ever be a quitter either in sports or in your business or profession when you grow up. Get all the education you can. Stay close to Mother and follow her advice. Obey her in everything, no matter how you may at times disagree. She knows what is best and will never let you down or lead you away from the right and honorable things in life. If I don’t get back, you will have to be Mother’s protector because you will be the only one she has. You must grow up to take my place as well as your own in her life and heart.
Love your grandmother and granddad as long as they live. They too will never let you down. Love your aunts and see them as often as you can. Last of all, don’t ever forget your daddy. Pray for him to come back and if it is God’s will that he does not, be the kind of a boy and man your daddy wants you to be…
Kiss Mother for me every night.
Goodbye for now.
With all my love and devotion for Mother and you,
Your daddy
On September 15, 1942, three Japanese torpedoes struck the carrier USS Wasp as it sailed toward Guadalcanal. Commander Shea was seen running into the flames to rescue shipmates. He was among 193 officers and crew lost.
Today is Armistice Day at the Donegal Express. Yes, please note I say Armistice Day and not Veterans Day. The reasoning for this is simple: World War I Vets were jobbed.
Unless you can lead me to the National World War I Veterans memorial. (UPDATE:Hal Duston did just that!)
The First World War is a gigantic testimony to the arrogance, stupidity and greed of the European powers. It’s legacy planted the seeds of the rise of Hitler and the reign of darkness known as international Communism. For our part, we earned the right to dismember a Catholic monarchy (who happened to be the only party with a legitimate grievance leading to the war), and have ove a hundred thousand of our men die to “make the world safe for democracy”, whatever that means.
On the other hand, we do have those “Snoopy and the Red Baron” sketches as part of our cultural identity. That must be worth something.
Without a doubt, World War I inflicted the greatest misery on both soldiers and civilians of any war. I’m not talking deaths or overall destruction, I’m talking misery. For nearly four years, a couple million men fought to make and defend gains that could be measured in yards of territory. For that time, the land around them became as inhospitable as the moon (including on occasion, the inability to breathe healthy air). Men fought in holes dug into the ground, surrounded by filth and death and decay. The weapons and devices of war had risen to a then unparallelled level of efficiency without a corresponding rise in technology to combat the suffering those weapons could inflict.
A significant cause of death during the war was drowning, drowning in mud. What kind of an envronment are you living in when you face the possibility of drowning in mud?
Mud and rain and wretchedness and blood.
Why should jolly soldier-boys complain?
God made these before the roofless Flood -
Mud and rain.
Mangling cramps and bullets through the brain,
Jesus never guessed them when He died.
Jesus had a purpose for His pain,
Ay, like abject beasts we shed our blood,
Often asking if we die in vain.
Gloom conceals us in a soaking sack –
Mud and rain.
Mud and Rain — Siegfrid Sassoon
In one month the British lose sixty-seven thousand men in an area eleven miles wide.
Most combat actions were exercises in mass suicide. In the Second World War there was a great amount of fluidity. Units moved forward and back. There was periods of rest between assaults and so forth. The men who fought in 1914-1918 were always at the front lines. The artillery was nearly always firing. Lifting one’s head too high at any time could result in it being blown off by an enemy machine gunner.
This wasn’t our fight, yet we sent our men over. We should have let Europe kill each other off then, instead of prolonging it for a century or so. Instead we went over there like a pack of idiots to save the British Empire. Twenty years later, the contributions of those men would be forever overshadowed by that made by those who served in the next war. It was, after all, a “better” war.
Yeah. World War I vets were jobbed.
So today, make an effort to especially remember them. They answered the call to duty when there really shouldn’t have been a call in the first place. Pray for them.
On November 10, 1775, Robert Mullan, the proprietor of the Tavern and son of Peggy Mullan, was commissioned by an act of Congress to raise the first two battalions of Marines, under the leadership of Samuel Nicholas, the first appointed Commandant of the Continental Marines. Nicholas’s grandfather was also a member of the Tun Tavern Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons and it is this relationship between Mullan, Nicholas and the Tavern which has resulted in Tun Tavern being acknowledged as the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps. There are an estimated three million active and retired U.S. Marines worldwide who have been exposed in their military training to the historical significance of Tun Tavern. Each year on November 10th, around the world Marines toast the Marine’s birthplace on the most significant date in the history of the Corps.
The Marines have done their part, now you do your part.
Andrew Stuttaford on The Corner discussing the celebrations commemorating the victory at Trafalgar:
I’m glad to be able to report that the occasion was not neglected yesterday in NYC, where there was a lunch in a French restaurant (naturally) attended by about seventy members of the British financial community. The ensign flew, admirals hats were worn, plenty, plenty, was drunk, Beef Wellington was eaten (well, of course), anthems (including Jerusalem, our real national song, and sporting attempts at the French, Spanish and American anthems) were sung, postcards of the divine Emma and the great Horatio decked the tables, a visitor from the Royal Navy made a fine speech, and the small (and intrepid) French delegation was kindly treated. The event was a lot of fun, patriotic, proud of British history, deeply nostalgic and punctuated by the self-mockery and sense of the ridiculous that made it a very English occasion.
I’ve been taken to task in the past for speaking ill of the Orange Order. What most people don’t understand is that it has quite a different meaning in Northern Ireland than in nearly the rest of the world. Below is an excerpt from an article on the history of the Orange Order in Ireland. And that’s all I have to say about today.
Yet, as was once admitted by Sir George Clarke, an eminent Ulster Orangeman, that civil and religious liberty has its limits. It is civil and religious liberty for Protestants only. Furthermore - though this is what no modern Orangemen would admit - the only Protestants in Ireland who for a long time enjoyed civil and religious liberty were those in communion with the Church of Ireland, the church state established by the dominant English. Irish Presbyterians and members of other non-conforming Protestant churches were for more than a hundred years denied many of the civil rights alleged to have been secured in 1690. And that is altogether apart from the Roman Catholics who, though constituting the overwhelming majority of the Irish population, were deprived of virtually all civil rights during the entire course of the eighteenth century. (more…)
[NB:This Post was delayed a day due to the attack in London]
All of the following original source accounts were obtained from the Gilder Lehrman Center.
Today is a very special day here at The Donegal Express; here we mark the 161st anniversary of when the Protestants Came To Blow Up My Parish Church. This occurred during a much larger period of rioting in the spring and summer of 1844, which became known as the Philadelphia Bible Riots.
As we all know by now, I “blew up an altar call”. However, I’ve never blown up a church; this puts me ahead of the Know-Nothing or “Nativist” movement. Final tally:
Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The battle, of course, was fought on Breed’s Hill. Thanks to Thomas Fitzpatrick at Recta Ratio. He does an excellent job of recounting the battle.
The sun never sets on the British Empire; God doesn’t trust those SOB’s in the dark.
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