Could MLK’s Upland Dorm Room Become Public Place?

Could MLK’s Upland Dorm Room Become Public Place? — Delaware County (Pa) Council, yesterday, Feb. 7 approved a $10,000 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant to study turning the Old Main building on the Crozer Chester Medical Center campus in Upland into the MLK Center for Peace and Justice.

The Old Main was part of the Crozer Theological Seminary where Martin Luther King Jr. studied. His dorm room was in the Old Main.

Janet Lloyd Murphy of Middletown, whose idea the center is, gave a short presentation about the seminary before the vote.

Mrs. Murphy said the facility began as a teachers college but became a hospital during the Civil War. Union and Confederate soldiers were treated there and a Confederate soldier was actually housed in the room Rev. King would come to use.

Many of those treated had fought at Gettysburg.

Rev. King’s room is now apparently as storage space.

Mrs. Murphy has an excellent idea.

The building and surroundings are now owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc. which desperately wants to get rid of them.

In other business, Council passed resolutions amending and restating the establishment of the Delaware County Heritage Commission. Council members described this as a routine bookkeeping matter.

Council also recognized February as Black History Month and American Heart Month.

Could MLK's Upland Dorm Room Become Public Place

Could MLK’s Upland Dorm Room Become Public Place

Canterbury Tales And The Constitution

Canterbury Tales And The Constitution — Most know of, or should, Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote The Canterbury Tales, which is usually considered the start of literature in the English language.

He was born in 1340 which would have been near the end of the High Middle Ages, and lived until 1400 in the Late Middle Ages.

He was a boy when the Black Plague killed half the world’s population and served in the 100 Year War being taken prisoner by the French.

Chaucer and his wife, Philippa Roet, had four sons including Thomas who became speaker of the House of Commons. He married Matilda Burghersh.

Their only child was Alice.

Alice’s first two husbands died in the 100 Year War — it was a 100 year war, after all, so for granddad and grandsons-in-law could all participate– and she ended up marrying  William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk.

De la Pole’s court intrigues and adventures would make him a major character in William Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays.

The de la Pole line would play a big role on the Yorkist side in the War of the Roses which started in 1455.

When that ended, the family found itself at odds with the House of Tudor compromise. They were generally beheaded, killed in battle or imprisoned for life.

Except for Richard, Geoffrey’s great-great grandson, who managed to flee to France.

While he never married he had a daughter, Marguerite, via his mistress Marie.

Marguerite descendants would include Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu. He is known as the political philosopher Montesquieu.

Montesquieu said there were three primary forms of governments each supported by a social principle. Monarchies  are free governments headed by a hereditary figure, and which rely on the principle of honor. Republics  are free governments headed by popularly elected leaders and rely on the principle of virtue. Despotisms are the third. They are unfree and headed by despots who rely on fear.

Montesquieu wrote  The Spirit of Law in 1748. He said that a government should be created so that no man need be afraid of another. He advocated a separation of powers between the executive, judicial and legislative to stop despots.

From that comes the separation of powers in the United States Constitution.

Political scientist Donald Lutz notes that Montesquieu was cited more than any other source but for the Bible by the American founders in pre-revolutionary British America

And that is Canterbury Tales and the Constitution.

Canterbury Tales And The Constitution

Morton Homestead Filthy Information Station

Morton Homestead Filthy Information Station — Here’s one of the information stations at the Morton Homestead off Route 420 in Prospect Park. The structure is traceable to 1698 and may be the oldest building in Pennsylvania. But really, you think someone can do something about the filthy information stations? They are all like this by the way. The photo was taken, Aug. 4.

Morton Homestead Filthy Information Station

Jefferson Draft Of Declaration Of Independence

Jefferson Draft Of Declaration Of Independence — James Woods tweeted a draft of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson before it was revised by committee.

For the twisted little Marxists who claim this nation — the hope of man — was founded on slavery, this is what Jefferson wanted to include:

(King George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Granted it took four score and seven years, but it was finally put back in. America is the greatest nation on God’s earth and we better start once again explaining to the young why that is so. Our schools are now run by fools and that is the first thing we must change.

Jefferson Draft Of Declaration Of Independence

The Unanimous Declaration

The Unanimous Declaration– A good way to start today is to remember what it is all about. If you haven’t read this in a while take a few minutes an do so

The Unanimous Declaration

.IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

The Unanimous Declaration

Nehemiah Or History Repeats

Nehemiah Or History Repeats — The celebrations of praise and ceremonies of repentance occurring after the Jews rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem following the Babylonia Exile are recorded in Nehemiah.

So, what nation does this remind you of?

Then you helped them conquer great kingdoms and many nations, and you placed your people in every corner of the land; they completely took over the land of King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan. 23 You caused a population explosion among the Israelis and brought them into the land you had promised to their ancestors. 24 You subdued whole nations before them—even the kings and the people of the Canaanites were powerless! 25 Your people captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took over houses full of good things, with cisterns and vineyards and olive yards and many, many fruit trees; so they ate and were full and enjoyed themselves in all your blessings.

26 “But despite all this, they were disobedient and rebelled against you. They threw away your law, killed the prophets who told them to return to you, and they did many other terrible things

Read the whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah%209&version=TLB

Nehemiah Or History Repeats
Nehemiah Or History Repeats — The celebrations of praise and ceremonies of repentance occurring after the Jews rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem

Christmas Pagan? Nope

Christmas Pagan? Nope — Conventional wisdom has become that the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ is something the early Christians co-opted from a pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice.

A Muhlenberg College history professor says that is completely backwards.

William J. Tighe, an associate professor at the college in Allentown, says that Christmas really was thought to be the date of the Lord Jesus’ birth.

The thinking then was that great Jewish prophets died on the date of their birth or conception.

The date of Jesus’ death can be calculated from Gospel accounts.

The faction using the Latin calendar wound up placing the Crucifixion at March 25, according to Tighe. This was the faction that became dominant in the West.

The Latin church determined that  was also date that the Archangel Gabriel announced that Mary was with child. Nine months later, on Dec. 25, would be  the Lord’s birth.

March 25 is still celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation.

Tighe  notes that Rome didn’t celebrate Dec. 25 as a pagan holiday until the anti-Christian Emperor Aurelian declared it to be the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” in 274. By then, Christianity was already making its impact well felt on the Empire.

Tighe is also a faculty advisor to the Catholic Campus Ministry and a member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem.

Christmas Pagan? Nope

Christmas Pagan? Nope

Christmas Pagan? Nope

Hat tip Bob Guzzardi

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

By Kevin Lynn

Given the numerous attempts to pack immigration provisions into current spending bills, there’s probably no better time to talk about the real meaning of the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty has long been a beacon for immigrants, and not just any immigrants, but the poorest and most destitute around the globe. This symbolism of taking in the world’s impoverished is embodied in a verse from Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus, which proclaims as though speaking through the statue itselfgive me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

These often recited and famous words are a permanent fixture associated with the Statue of Liberty. After all, aren’t they inscribed on a bronze plaque below her feet?  Yet, the bronze plaque wasn’t originally part of the statue; it was added 17 years after the dedication. And, what’s more, the poem’s words and ideas obscure the statue’s true meaning.

As Roy Beck author of Back of the Hiring Line points out, the statue was meant to “celebrate the fact that the U.S. had finally abolished slavery and accorded full liberty, at least in principle, to all its inhabitants.”  What’s still ignored to this day, are the broken shackles on her feet, which signify the newfound liberty for formerly enslaved Black Americans.

The Statue of Liberty was not intended as a symbol for those who have yet to come, but a tribute to the foundational group of people who were already here. The intent was “to portray a form of government that could be copied by people in their own countries, not by leaving their countries.” Appropriately, she was named Liberty Enlightening the World, not Liberty Receiving Enthusiastically the World

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Immigration proponents’ understanding of the true meaning of the statute is entirely backward.  They don’t talk about its history or intent as it goes against the heart of the open border advocates’ narrative.  Much like the passage from “The New Colossus,” they focus on the poor coming from overseas and across our borders rather than the poor at home. The fact that there have been 1.6 million migrant encounters last fiscal year, and 1.6 million already, year to date is music to their ears.

Yet, more than three million immigrants a year, both legal and illegal, arriving in the U.S. creates colossal problems for everyone, and especially the poor. According to the Census Bureau, in 2020, the number of people officially in poverty was 37.2 million, and the depth of poverty has gotten worse. Deep poverty has increased to 45.6%.

And why do the poor continue to stay poor? One big reason is the oversupply of low-skilled immigrant workers, who depress wages of the native-born. Case in point, the bottom 20% of Americans’ income has remained largely the same ”and has only risen from around $15,000 to $16,100 between 1966 and 2014”. As a result, these lower-income households saw a twenty percent decrease between 1970  and 2020 in their income share compared to the middle and upper class.

Not surprisingly, the descendants of American slaves have been hit especially hard by the endless waves of migration. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that since 1970, actual earnings for the median black man have fallen from $30,800 to $21,000 in 2014, a 32 percent decline.

Declining wages have slowed people’s ability to move up financially in their lifetimes. This increasing economic inequality and the inability to get ahead is due, again, in large part to mass immigration.

Just look at the contrast between the upward trajectory of children born before the 1965 Immigration Act and afterwards.  It’s startling! Whereas”92% of children born in 1940 earned higher incomes at the age of 30 than did their parents, this share dropped to 50% for children born in 1980

We’ve gone from a country where almost everyone could financially exceed their parents’ income to the odds of achieving that now are worse than flipping a coin. Of the children born into the bottom fifth of the economic ladder, 43% will continue to be stuck there, and for Americans born at the bottom, it’s clear the ability to move up is particularly low. 

With the recent influx of immigrants, Democrat mayors in blue states finally must confront the consequences of their policies. New York City’s mayor Eric Adams recently let out a few known truths on immigration, conceding the illegal immigrant influx was a “real burden” and that for New Yorkers, “our schools are going to be impacted, our health care system is going to be impacted, our infrastructure is going to be impacted.” He went so far as to say, “if there was ever an all-hands-on-deck moment, this is it.” Hopefully, Mayor Adams will realize the costs of immigration before it sinks his ship.

In Washington D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser told Face the Nation that newly arrived asylum seekers were filling up homeless shelters. These bussed migrants are straining the city’s social safety net, and “the local taxpayers are not picking up the tab and should not pick up the tab.” She believes it’s the federal government’s responsibility and they should pull out their checkbook. She’s right on that. By the same token, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the U.S. to generously accommodate illegal aliens, either. 

The stone-faced Statue of Liberty and Americans struggling here share an uncomfortable truth: both the meaning of the statue and American livelihoods have been displaced. Prioritizing the needs of the impoverished from abroad over the plight of America’s most vulnerable ignores the fact that day after day the poor become more financially broke and economically immobile.

Reducing immigration will benefit those Americans struggling to make ends meet, as economic prosperity is very much possible. Between 1940-1980 when there was low immigration, “the real incomes of white males expanded two-and one-half fold” while “real incomes expanded four-fold” for Black men. By 1980, the Black middle class grew from 22 percent of African Americans to 71 percent.”

The U.S. has a duty and an obligation to pick up the tab for its citizens, not new arrivals from halfway around the world. It’s time we support our poor, our homeless, and our huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Only then can the U.S. live up to the real meaning of the Statue of Liberty. 

View Online

Kevin Lynn is the Executive Director for Progressives for Immigration Reform. Lynn writes about the unintended consequences of unbridled immigration and their impacts on the environment, as well as federal, state and local politics. A former Army intelligence officer and successful organizer of influential groups in Arizona, California and Texas, he is based in Pennsylvania. Contact him at klynn@ firdc.org.

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Henry Laurens William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 7-4-14

Henry Laurens, the 5th president of the Continental Congress, was the only Revolutionary War patriot to be incarcerated in the Tower of London.

Laurens was captured when his ship was stopped while returning from a successful diplomatic mission to the Netherlands. The notes in his possession caused the English to declare war on the Dutch.

They won that one.

Laurens was released on Dec. 31, 1781 in exchange for Lord Cornwallis who had surrendered two months earlier after the Battle of Yorktown.

Laurens’ son John was also a patriot and an abolitionist who urged his father to free the 260 slaves on his South Carolina plantation. John was killed in a skirmish near the end of the war. Lauren freed his slaves in tribute to him.

 

Henry Laurens William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 7-4-14

Henry Laurens William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 7-4

Rotary Phones Explained To The Young

Rotary Phones Explained To The Young — A mind-blowing sign of the passing of time is this U.K. website that treats rotary phones as exotic artifacts and explains how to use them.

To start making a call, the caller lifted the handset from its cradle and waited to hear the dial tone, also known as the dialing tone, in the earpiece. If there was no tone, the phone either wasn’t working – a not uncommon situation in and after the Second World War or was one of the very early phones.

On hearing the dial tone, the caller put a finger into the dial hole with the first letter to be dialed and dragged the dial round to the ‘stop’.

On removal of the finger, the dial returned itself to its original position, ready for the next letter to be dialled. As it returned, it made a clicking sound: one click for the first hole, two for the second, etc. After dialling the last of the three letters of the area code, the process was repeated with the numbers part.

Note that it’s British which explains the spelling and the communication problems relating to World War II.

It does kind of make one feel old. Think we’ll go listen to some Dead Milkmen or something.

Rotary Phones Explained To The Young