Cesar Chavez Day

Yep, today marks the birthday of Cesar Chavez, organizer/founder/voice of the United Farm Workers Union in California's central valley.  He was an American you know, a veteran (a squid) of World War Two.  He was a classic organizer of the Chicago School.  When ranchers brought in scabs to cross the UFW picket lines, he called Immigration and they were deported back to Mexico.  What?  Yes, Cesar Chavez was an American union organizer, organizing for American Union workers.  He and Dolores Huerta fought the Braceros Program and as a result of their efforts Congress ended it in 1964.  Political expediency. The thing is this, those first grape workers in Delano, California that struck for the UFW were Filipino-Americans. . .Interesting hmmm?

Try and get that straight.  Doesn't fit the current societal narrative does it?  John Adams said of the massacre trial "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Return To Iwo Jima

Good article over at the BBC.  Wood Williams (Cpl USMC, MoH) was one of the veterans attending.  So was Tsuruji Akikusa, an 18 year old radio operator in the Japanese Navy in February, 1945.  The article talks about Mr. Akikusa's experience being wounded in the initial Naval bombardment, and eventual capture in a semi-conscious state at the end of April.  A bit of BBC we (USA) are the bad guys slant to it of course.  Good to see Woody Williams doing well!

Semper Fi.

240 Years Ago Today - Give me liberty, or give me death!

Two hundred and forty years ago today, Patrick Henry delivered his great speech to the Second Virginia Convention on the rights of the colonies. They were meeting not at the capitol Williamsburg, but farther inland in Richmond to put some distance between themselves and Lord Dunmore and his Marines.  Concluding with the declarative statement "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" It became a rallying cry of the American Revolution.

The text of the speech is available at Colonial Williamsburg's site.  Some of the information presented there is skewed with the post-modern, progressive interpretation, but you can get the gist of things.

Privacy, in the Internet of Things?

From the standpoint of simplicity, simply admit upfront there IoT is not private. There is no privacy there. Period. Starting from that as a baseline, you will be able to manage in small bites which will add a slight fog to the data you cannot help but exude. . .

https://hbr.org/2015/02/managing-privacy-in-the-internet-of-things

The Mecklenburg Declaration

Interesting post from the Journal of the American Revolution on the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.  Some, Thomas Jefferson for instance, claim it was "spurious", not fact.  Others, John Adams it represented the "genuine sense of America at that moment."  You can read the Declarations text here.

It was taken the month after Lexington and Concord.  I believe the reporting of the day stand it as fact.  This particular article mentions reference of the declaration in Southern Revolutionary War pension applications.  It was fun to search the rolls for my own ancestors.  They are there in the North Carolina Militia and Virginia Continentals.

It may well be simply Jefferson's policy in later life to ensure his own legacy and discount anything that preempts his own work?  Probably.

Today in 1965

The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed at Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam.