News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
The first American to land in Normandy on June 6, 1944 was paratrooper Captain Frank Lillyman. He was wounded later in the day. He served in the military until 1968 retiring at the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Questions For California Courtesy Of Victor Davis Hanson — Noted scholar Victor Davis Hanson asks these questions regarding his home state of California:
Why does the state that formerly served as a model to the nation regarding transportation now suffer inferior freeways while its multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project remains an utter boondoggle and failure?
Why was its safe and critically needed last-remaining nuclear power plant scheduled for shutdown (and only recently reversed) as the state faced summer brownouts?
Why did its forests go up in smoke predictably each summer, as its timber industry and the century-old science of forest management all but disappeared from the state?
Why do the state’s criminals so often evade indictment, and if convicted are often not incarcerated—or are quickly paroled?
Why are its schools’ test scores dismal, its gasoline the nation’s highest-priced, and the streets of its major cities fetid and dangerous—in a fashion not true 50 years ago or elsewhere today?
And he provides an answer:
In a word, the one-party state is Sovietized. Public policy is no longer empirical but subservient to green, diversity, equity, and inclusion dogmas—and detached from the reality of daily middle-class existence. Decline is ensured once ideology governs problem-solving rather than time-tested and successful policymaking.
All must wake up to the reality that those who pull the strings of culture are lying to you and that these string pullers consider you more akin to the Covid virus than creatures loved by God.
Read Professor Hanson’s complete column here.
D-Day Hero Morrie Martin Pitched For The Philadelphia A’s
By Joe Guzzardi
Baseball fans who came of age during the 1950s, the National Pastime’s Golden Era, remember Morrie Martin as a journeyman left-handed pitcher who had limited success during his ten-year career. Pitching mostly for the basement-dwelling Philadelphia A’s, Martin’s career record was 38-34. Martin was credited with 23 wins as an A’s; the remaining 15 were spread out among the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox, the Baltimore Orioles and the St. Louis Cardinals. The stout lefty from Dixon, Mo., made brief appearances for the Chicago Cubs, but didn’t earn a decision.
Martin was much more than a middling MLB hurler who walked more batters, 252, than he struck out, 245. Before Martin was inducted into the U.S. Army on June 2, 1943, he compiled above-average minor league credentials, 16-7, in Grand Forks, N.D., with the Class C Chiefs and in St. Paul, Minn., with the American Association’s Saints, two Chicago White Sox affiliates. Martin’s pitching stints with the Saints represented the last times he touched a baseball until his return home from WWII in 1945.
As Gary Bedingfield reported on his “Baseball in Wartime” website and pursuant to information drawn from Stan Opdkye’s Society of American Baseball Research essay, “Morrie Martin,” Martin entered military service with the Army at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and then served overseas with the 49th Engineer Combat Battalion where he took part in amphibious landings as part of Operation Torch at North Africa, Operation Husky at Sicily and Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
As an engineer, Martin was among the first to reach shore. Shortly after the D-Day landing, and while on guard duty near Saint-Lô, France, Martin was hit by shrapnel in his neck, left hand and arm. Despite his injuries, Martin remained on the front lines. Late in 1944, he was engaged in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Mountains of Belgium and suffered frostbite in the bitterly cold temperatures. Nevertheless, Martin remained with his unit until 1945 when he suffered serious, near-fatal injuries.
After Martin took two more rounds of shrapnel wounds, he was buried alive in Germany when the house he took shelter in was shelled. Left for dead, Martin and two other soldiers clawed their way out to rejoin their battalion. At the Battle of the Bulge, Martin suffered a bullet wound to the thigh, and nearly lost his leg when gangrene set in.
Evacuated to a hospital in Saint-Quentin, France, Martin caught a big break. A nurse looked at his chart, saw that he was a professional ball player, and urged him to reject the doctors’ advice that he give his permission to amputate his leg. Instead, more than 150 penicillin shots saved Martin’s leg from amputation, and he slowly worked his way back to the big leagues. Discharged from the Army in October 1945, Martin joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946, and worked his way up through Branch Rickey’s fiercely competitive minor league system.
On April 25, 1949, Martin made his first MLB start against the Boston Braves, the 1948 National League champions. Martin pitched seven quality innings, but his opponent, Bill Voiselle, who pitched a complete game shutout, was better. For the balance of his career, Martin shuffled back and forth between the majors and the minors. Martin peaked in 1951 with the A’s when he compiled an 11-4 record.
On May 25, 2010, in Washington, Mo., Martin died from lung cancer at age 87. For his service in World War II, he was awarded two Purple Hearts, four battle stars and an Oak Leaf Cluster. Prior to his death, Martin told a newspaper reporter how much he valued his wartime service to his country: “We had a job to do, and we did it. I don’t have regrets about the time I missed in baseball. I’m proud of what we did. I’d do it again.” Until that interview, Martin, like most of the Great Generation, was always willing to talk about baseball, but refused to speak about his war heroism.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Swarthmore Getting New State Rep
By Bob Small
Besides the State wide elections, there were other elections on Primary Day. Some of these elections may actually be just as important to our day-to-day lives.
On May 17, for the first time in four election cycles , not one vote in Swarthmore was cast for Leanne Kruger-Braneky aka Leanne Kruger. The ballot was a matter of shock and dismay for those Swarthmoreans unaware that the last census had caused the Legislative Reapportionment Commission to move Swarthmore out of the 161st District into the 165th.
She was first elected in 2015 as Leanne Kruger-Braneky, but sometime over the past few terms the couple divorced and thus, she lost her hyphenated name. Though originally from New Jersey, she has been granted “unofficial Swarthmore citizenship. “ My experience is that she, or her office, knew what to do for what we call “constituent service”, helping anyone who needed to weave through the labyrinthine government bureaucracy, without it being dependent on “party” or any inside knowledge, which is the way it should be but normally isn’t. We will miss her for the example she set.
Leanne will be facing Ed Mongeluzzo in November for her new position.
He is focusing on outreach to veterans. According to his website and Facebook posts, his finances are almost nil. Hopefully, the GOP will realize he is running against a Democrat and provide support.
The replacement legislator, now that Swarthmore is the 165th, is Jennifer O’Mara. Jennifer comes from a blue collar background and has an inspiring backstory. She is both a graduate and an employee of the fabled University of Pennsylvania. Jennifer believes “there is more that unites us than divides us”.
As Chris Freind has pointed out, however, she has a free ride in November.
This would be the same free ride the Congressional Candidates in our congressional, 3, 13, and 14 have this November.
Wonder how that happened?
Hopefully, someone(s) from the Constitution, Green, or Libertarian Party or even an Independent candidate will get the requisite signatures to be on some of these ballots.
Otherwise, why waste the space on the ballot?
Brings the wicked to ruin William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 6-6-22
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Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: The Righteous One takes note of the house of the wicked and brings the wicked to ruin.
Proverbs 21:12