The First Presidential Birther Movement: Did We Have a President Born In Another Country?

On September 20, 1881, President James Garfield dies from the infection brought about by the bullet wound he received by Charles Guiteau (Garfield could possibly have been saved, but that's a whole nother story). The nation knows very little about the new 21st President that has just been sworn in, Chester A. Arthur, except that he was born in 1830, Fairfield, Vermont. But was he?

New York attorney Arthur P. Henmen is furious and like Donald Trump makes claims that the President was born out of the country, in this case, Canada not Kenya.  He has sworn testimony that Arthur's parents were in Canada in 1829 with a newborn.  Arthur's two other brothers were much younger than him.  However, neither Vermont nor Canada kept written birth records at the time.  Arthur tells the nation that this is nonsense and that he was a natural born citizen and Henmen is forced to back down since he has no hard evidence and the public backs their president.

Fast forward to 1975. A historian is researching a biography on Chester A. Arthur at the Library of Congress when he comes across the Arthur family bible, which back in the day is how most births and deaths were recorded rather than an official system at the courthouse.  Next to Arthur's name is the birth year of 1829. So Arthur lied about his birth year. At the time his father was a preacher and teacher, so his parents were going back and forth between Canada and Vermont and the bible does not list where he was born. So he could very well have been born in Canada just as Henmen supposed all those years ago with this eyewitness testimony that places Arthur's parents there with a newborn.  His father was listed as teaching in Stanbridge East at the local school that was known as the "white house". Also, his mother's family was living there and would have been there to help out with the children.  Arthur burned all his papers right before he died and lied about his birth year until the day he died and if there was nothing to hide, then why lie about it? Now I sound like Trump!  Nonetheless, both Bedford, Quebec, Canada and Fairfield, Vermont claim Chester A. Arthur as a native son and America may just have had a Canadian president.

The Female Crusader Who Set Out To Corner The President With His Pants Down Literally

By the time the 1820s rolled around, the families of War vets were pretty much getting screwed by the government when their spouse, who had fought in the war died and his pension was taken away. That meant they were left with nothing to support them and back then women were not allowed to work. Her only options might be to take in washings and sewing (which paid very little), rent out rooms in her home (if it was big enough, which it likely wasn't), or become a prostitute or a beggar on the street unless she had family that could afford to take her and her children in.  They needed that pension money to survive.

Anne Royall began a crusade to have the government continue to pay the pension money to the widows of war vets until their deaths. It was a cause near and dear to her heart as she was one.  She wrote dozens of letters to President John Quincy Adams but received no reply. She tried to get in to see him at the White House, but his aide wouldn't let her in (back then it was possible to get in to see the President, even if you were just a regular person).

But Anne wasn't about to give up that easily. She read up on Adams and discovered that he enjoyed a daily swim, naked, in the Potomac every morning.  So she hatched a plan to go see him there and corner him while he was in the water.  When she showed up he yelled from the water to go away he wanted nothing to do with her.  That wasn't going to stop her, as you might have realized by now.  She went to the rock where his clothes were and sat on them. When he saw this, he capitulated and she went to the water with his clothes and he listened to what she had to say and agreed to do what he could to get Congress to pass a law to let war widows continue to get the pensions.  With Adams' backing, the bill does indeed become a law and many war widows are saved from a bleak fate. All due to a creative crusader.

Anne was a journalist and author and a thorn in many other people's side for her causes. For more information on her or to read her writings go here: https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0001/royall.html

The Satanists Next Door

The Satanic Temple is not the same as the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan is made up of hedonistic atheists who hold self-centered beliefs.  The Satanic Temple, which was founded by Lucien Greaves, has as it's mission statement that it "is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people. In addition, they embrace practical common sense and justice."

The tenets of the faith are:

• One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.
• The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
• One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
• The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own.
• Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.
• People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.
• Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

They are agnostics for the most part and do not believe in a devil.  "Satan is symbolic of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Satan is an icon for the unbowed will of the unsilenced inquirer… the heretic who questions sacred laws and rejects all tyrannical impositions. Ours is the literary Satan best exemplified by Milton and the Romantic Satanists, from Blake to Shelley, to Anatole France." They do not worship Satan.

They do charity work and they are big on the pursuit of knowledge and in promoting knowledge on scientific subjects.   This leads them in the ongoing battle against Christian based Crisis clinics who misinform women in their efforts to keep them from having an abortion.  They will have a woman call in to get information and record the conversation.  The woman on the other end of the line will say things like abortions cause breast cancer or that they cause scarring that will make you infertile or that it will ruin your relationship with God.  Then they will make an appointment to go in and bring in recording equipment to show that the person they talked to was giving them false information and refusing to talk about abortion and that they had Christian propaganda in the room.  They will compile all the data they have gathered and give it to the government since these clinics receive money from the state and the federal government.

The largest number of members of The Satanic Temple are in Detroit, likely because when everyone left it became a haven for those that didn't have a place such as artists and in this case Satanists. One year on the grounds at the state capital they allowed a holiday display of a manger, so the Satanists insisted on a display of their own.  Their's was about three feet tall and depicted a snake wrapped around a cross with the words The Greatest Gift Is Knowledge across the bottom.  There were, of course some complaints, but most people just found it interesting.

That wasn't the case when their statue of Baphomet was sent to Detroit in 2015 for an unveiling. Baphomet does not stay in one place for very long.  He was created when Oklahoma decided to erect a monument of the ten commandments and place them on the capital grounds. They argued that they had just as much a right to put their own statue there.  Eventually, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court made the state take down the monument, but The Satanic Temple went ahead and made their statue. It is a pagan sabbatical goat with a caduceus, which represents reconciliation and negotiation. There are two children looking up to the goat.  The statue is for any state that decides to forget about the separation of church and state. They have no interest whatsoever in putting it up on state grounds.  They believe it doesn't belong there any more than any other religious symbol does. They're more understanding and tolerant of other religions than other religions are of them.  Members usually go by a pseudonym.

This religion may not be for me, but I do think that they are not a bad religion.  They seem to strive to do good in this world and seek to learn which is a noble endeavor itself.  It's a shame that people of other religions do not bother to learn about them or be tolerant of them as they are of them.  Too many people get caught up in the word Satan and it's negative conations and forget who he once was, an angel.  We could learn a lot from our neighbors the Satanists.

The Rooster Who Made a Pact With the Devil

Basel, Switzerland in 1474 was a place where people farmed and had livestock. One fine day one of the farmers noticed that one of his roosters had laid an egg.  So he went into town to the leaders for guidance.  The leaders decided that this could be one of two things: a freak of nature or the interference of the devil.  Folklore at the time said that if a rooster laid an egg he had made a pact with the devil and his offspring will grow into a terrifying creature known as the Basilisk, a half rooster half dragon that breathes fire and could kill with a glance.

The only way to uncover the truth would be in formal court. They were going to put the rooster on trial. So, the rooster was given a defense lawyer who argued for his side and there was a prosecuting attorney who argued against him. The judge listened to both sides and decided on a verdict of guilty.  The punishment for having congress with the devil, much like those for whiches at the time, was to be burned at the stake.  So the rooster and the egg were burned at the stake.  No, they did not eat the cooked rooster when it was over.

Science today has shown that some hens have a hormonal imbalance that causes them to display plumage that is similar to that of a rooster. So it would seem that the "rooster" was likely a hen.  Oddly enough, the town became quite enamored with the Basilisk symbol and there are statues, paintings, and it appears on the official coat of arms.  So it seems that that poor "rooster" lives on forever in the hearts and minds of the people of Basel. The rooster who made a pact with the devil.

Why We Have the 1936 Berlin Olympics to Thank for Our Modern Olympics

The other night I watched a documentary on PBS on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. On May 24, 1930 on Lake Brombachsee, the International Olympic Committee were shown a spectacle of 2,000 row boats and ferries where they and their friends were taken for jaunts on the water. No one was bribed with money, but this would be the first time judges would be influenced personally and wined and dined for their vote with special favors.  Nowadays its a standard practice. When Hitler came to power in 1933 he showed the IOC his grand plans of a giant stadium to be built to last after the Olympics.  The 1932 Olympics held in L.A. were a modest affair and not the bigger plans the Americans had planned, as the Depression was on and there was little money to pay for them and few showed up for them. The IOC saw this as a vast improvement. There was some concern over the Nazi papers demanding that blacks not participate, and there was also the problem of there being no Jews on the German team.
But when the president Henri de Baillet-Latour  talked to Hitler he insisted this to not be true. The Germans sent out the statement "As a principle German Jews shall not be excluded from German Teams at the Games of the XIth Olympics."

It was enough for the IOC, even though everyone knew they were deliberately keeping them off of the teams and eventually they would be persuaded by a Charles Sherry to allow a "token" Jew. This is how Helena Myer ended up on the fencing team, though the German people were never told that this tall blonde woman was a Jew as that would go against what they were preaching.  At this time the Nuremberg Laws were going on depriving German Jews of their rights.  Also in preparation for the Olympics, another tradition that continues today in the Beijing and Rio Games, the streets were cleaned up of undesirables. In this case they were the Romas and they were sent to the gas chamber.

America had been considering boycotting the Olympics. The main person against this was the American in charge of the Olympics, Adrian Bundage, who was hoping to get a position on the board of the IOC  and one day be its president. The American delegate on the IOC had been against holding the games in Berlin. People had stormed German ships and ripped the Nazi flag and thrown it overboard at American docks in protest to America's participation.  Bundage went on a "fact finding" mission to Berlin where he expected to find nothing and he of course did not. It was a very close call, but on December 7, 1935, the Americans decided to go to Berlin. If they had boycotted it is believed by Professor David Clay Large that the Brits, the French and the Canadians would have boycotted as well and Hitler's party would have been ruined after giving Germany such a black eye. Three Jewish Austrian swimmers, Judith Deutch, Lucie  Goldman, and Ruth Langer did boycott the Olympics in protest and were stripped of their medals and banned from swimming for life.  Forty-nine countries did decided to go instead. More than any other year before.

The Berlin Olympics is also the first Olympics to have a torch bearer. The had runners come from Athens with a lit torch symbolizing Germany's link to the Ancient Greeks.  At the beginning of the ceremony in dramatic fashion the runner ran through the stadium and up a long flight of stairs to light the large torch there and run off, just as it has been done in every Olympics since.  For those who have seen footage from these Olympics and it appears that most of the countries are giving the Nazi salute, the Olympic salute is the right arm raised up to shoulder length and can be confused with it.  Although there were a few counties that did give the Nazi salute.

Hitler gambled that the superiority of the German race would shine through and they would be victorious in these games.  It didn't hurt that these athletes were professional soldiers who dedicated all their time to training and were hardly amateurs and that the IOC knew all this but turned a blind eye.  Early on the U.S. were heavy winners in track and field as you all may recall the famous Jesse Owens. We began to lose ground in rowing and gymnastics but made a notable win in nine-man crew against all odds,  which left us both tied at 19 gold medals each.  That only left the equestrian games which the Germans swept.  The gold final medal count was 33 Germany 24 U.S. (Total Medal Count 89 Germany 56 U.S.). This was a first for Germany. Bundage applauded Hitler's regime and thought the U.S. could learn a lot from the National Socialists and it's Olympic spirit.


After the Olympics, the IOC dropped the American member who hadn't wanted to hold it in Berlin and brought Bundage on board.  Bundage was also rewarded with the job of building the Germany Embassy in Washington D.C.   Hitler at this time begins to build up his army. In 1938 he annexed Austria and invaded the Sudetenland. 400 Jews were murdered during the November pogrom, synagogues burned while 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.  When the Japanese, who had been chosen for the 1940 Olympics [it really makes you wonder just how out of touch the IOC was] bows out because they are at war with the Chinese, the IOC, and I am not making this up, ask Hitler to host the 1940 Olympic games in June of 1939. This was after he had already threatened publicly to exterminate the Jews.  It became a moot point because, on September 1, 1939, he invaded Poland and Germany was no longer an option for the Olympics. 

You can drive yourself crazy playing the what-if game. The Nazis read every letter coming to and from the athletes.  Jesse Owens was mailed a letter that he never got that encouraged him to decline any medal he won as a protest to what was going on. Would he have if he had gotten that letter? Well, he's not alive for me to ask him that question. If we had boycotted the Olympics and there had been a domino effect of boycotts from other countries could that have caused a break in Germany's political system perhaps stopping World War II from happening? Life turns on a dime, but nothing is ever so simple and sometimes things are inevitable.  I once heard someone say that World War II began the day after World  War I ended due to the atrocious Peace Treaty terms that had Germany pay back such an ungodly sum of money they only just finished paying it back a few years ago.  For better or worse the Berlin Games of 1936 have given us the games we so enjoy today that seem to get more and more extravagant every two years.  I will leave you with this quotation.

"If the '36 Olympics games had happened in another country they might not be the same thing. What the Nazis showed us was that this event could be showcased and nationalized and politicized in a way that's always taken place since. There is no doubt that Berlin is at the root of the Modern Olympics." (Guy Walters)

Stayin' Alive vs. Another One Bites the Dust

Anyone who takes a CPR class now is taught that when you do chest compression you can sing "Stayin' Alive" to get the beat of how often you should press down on the chest.  When they made this change, I heard on the radio a DJ mention that this would work just as well with "Another One Bites the Dust". The other day my daughter was in swim class and over the speakers "Stayin' Alive" came on and I have to admit I kinda looked around with all those lifeguards there for someone to be in cardiac arrest. It got me to thinking about the two songs and how maybe "Another One Bites the Dust" might be the more appropriate song to do when doing CPR. Let's look at the lyrics.

Stayin' Alive
Well, you can tell by
the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man no time to talk
Music loud and women warm,
I've been kicked around
Since I was born
And now It's all right, it's ok
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Well now I get low and I get high
And if I can't get either, I really try
Got the wings of heaven on my shoes
I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose
You know it's all right, it's ok
I'll live to see another day
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect of man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me yeah
Life goin' nowhere, somebody
help me, yeah
Well, you can tell by
the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk
Music loud and women warm
I've been kicked around since I was born
And now it's all right, it's ok
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man
Whether you're a brother or
Whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin'
alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
I'm stayin' alive
[Repeat]

Another One Bites the Dust
Let's go!
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't now sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready, hey
Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, yeah
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
How do you think I'm going to get along
Without you, when you're gone
You took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied
How long can you stand the heat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat, listen
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone,
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Oh, take it. Bite the dust hey,
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust, hey, hey
Another one bites the dust, hey
There are plenty of ways
you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him
You can cheat him
You can treat him bad
You can leave him when he's down
But I'm ready, yes I'm ready for you
I'm standing on my own two feet
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
Repeating the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone
and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Shootout
Alright

First Stayin' Alive. The only positive things he has to say in the song is that he's a "woman's man" and that he's a "dancin' man" who "just can't lose", though, that does not appear to be the case, as that is what he is doing in the song. All he IS doing is staying alive. He's been "kicked around" since the day he was born and life hasn't gotten any better.  The city is breaking apart to pieces, people are shaking and it doesn't matter whether you're a mother or a brother, all you are capable of doing is staying alive.  Just barely hanging on. He isn't even fighting to live.  In fact he says that "life's going nowhere", then begs for somebody to "help me".  This is a man who is on the verge of giving up on life. Yes, he does say that "he'll live to see another day", but it almost has a question mark after it, or at least a huge sigh. And you really don't want to mention the part about having heaven's wings on his shoes.  Is this the song you want to be singing to someone whose life you're trying to save?

Now let's look at "Another One Bites the Dust". It opens up with a shout of "Let's go!" Then "Steve walks warily down the street" and he his "machine gun's ready to go".  This is a guy going into battle.  He's not giving up. He's a fighter.   A woman has done everything possible to bring him low, but does he take this lying down? No. The bullets come flying out and he's gonna take her down and everyone else involved too.  And he's going to win.  It ends with him taking one after another down and he never gets hit himself.  He's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.  You want the person you're working on to feel that strong.  Invincible.  Like they can take on the world, just like this guy did and win too.  You can always play with the pronouns to fit the situation so it sounds like that person is the one doing the fighting.  And if they believe they are fighting they will and they will want to win, just like Steve does in the song.  In my opinion, this one beats "Stayin' Alive" hands down.

By the way I love both of these songs for precisely the reasons I listed above. The Bee Gees tap into a desperation we all feel at some point in our lives and Queen ramps up up for the fight we must fight.  And yes, both of them hold places in my CD collection.  One day I will make it into the 21th century and get an ipod or and mp3 or mp4 player, but not today.

Cancer Questions

When I was reading the book Make 'Em Laugh by Debbie Reynolds (review to come soon) she told the story of a woman who worked closely with her named Jenn. Jenn had been from Texas just like Ms. Reynolds and even though she was married, she moved to California to work in real estate, as she had fallen in love with the place, and kept up a long distance marriage.  When Ms. Reynold's Vegas act ended and she came back to California and was in need of an assistant to handle things for her, Jenn was there. When Ms. Reynolds heard the news that her long time hair dresser was leaving to be in a Vegas drag show (a dream of his), she told Ms. Reynolds not to worry that she could do her hair and wigs. These two were quite close. In 2012 when Ms. Reynolds went to Colorado to write her autobiography, she brought along Jenn and her husband, among others.  One day Jenn was getting a microwave out of a vehicle to put into the cabin and experienced great pain. She went to a "quick care" type clinic and they gave her some meds for what she thought was just a pulled muscle in her back. What she didn't tell anyone was that the pain was excruciating and that it did not stop the entire time they were there. When they got back to California, though, they all made her go see a doctor who did x-rays and discovered that she had shattered two vertebrae in her back due to the breast cancer that had spread to her brain and weakened her bones. The doctor believed she had had this cancer for about ten years. Jenn was only 44. They put some braces in her back and she tried a round of chemo, but it was too late and she died soon after.

Now some facts. 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime and men have a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting it themselves. It is more common in black women under the age of 45 and they are more likely to die from it. 85% of people who are diagnosed have no family history of breast cancer.  The older you get the more likely you are to get it. [www.breastcancer.org] Fewer than 5% under the age of 40 are likely to get breast cancer, yet it is the number one leading cause of cancer death in women age 20-59. [www.komen.org].  When I was growing up the doctors told us you went in to get a baseline mammogram at age 35 and then began getting your regular mammograms at age 40. In 2003, amid some controversy, the American Cancer Society stated that women should have their first mammogram at age 45 and then begin regular yearly mammograms.

I don't know why Jenn didn't have a baseline mammogram done at age 35 or one at age 40. Ms. Reynolds says that Jenn didn't have cancer in her family so maybe she felt she didn't need to. Maybe she listened to the American Cancer Society, maybe she didn't. I don't know.  I do know her life could have probably been saved if she had. I did not. I take my health seriously. I had my baseline done at 35 and had my second mammogram a little late as I did not have insurance and needed to save up the money. I had it back in January. The place where I had it done a local theater group had put on a production of the play Calendar Girls and sold actual calendars to raise money for a 3D imaging scanner. Every woman who came in at that time was given a free calendar. It hangs proudly on my wall. It makes me mad that these doctors are telling women to wait to have mammograms when they could save their lives.  It's a painless procedure that only takes a few minutes. Something so simple can be so life changing.  You do not have to follow these guidelines put forth by the American Cancer Society and I urge you not to.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum.  A friend of mine is in her early seventies and her gynecologist told her she didn't need to come in every year anymore. I thought that was odd and was worried, as your chance of getting cancer down there does not go down when you get older. So I browbeat a nurse into spelling it out for me.  It turns out that once you reach a certain age doctors stop telling you to have certain "bothersome" procedures done such as pap smears and colonoscopies.  For one thing, medicare doesn't want to pay for it. But mainly, if you do get cancer, the thinking is that pneumonia or whatever you are likely to get from the treatment of the cancer, or something else entirely, will kill you long before the cancer will. So there is no point in bothering them with these pesky little preventive uncomfortable procedures.  I was floored. It seems they just give up on you when you reach a certain age. And they believe you would want it that way too, but they don't ask you. These doctors don't explain why you don't need them anymore and you're just so happy not to go through them as often that you don't stop to question why. I did not tell my friend this as she would never believe me.

None of this really seems right or fair.  It just seems a way to cut medical costs at the possible expense of someone's life. Every living, breathing life is sacred and we should do everything in out power to protect and save it, not give up on it because it's the easy thing to do, or play the odds with a young person's life.  I am not an age, but a human being and I demand to be treated with respect and courtesy and to not be held to some statisticians chart. I have hopes and dreams of a future just like everyone else and we all deserve to see them come true if it's possible, on our own terms.