The renaming of military bases

Years ago Lakeside used to have a Civil War week. I remember attending a lecture on John Bell Hood and wondering why we had a military base named for a Confederate, and one who'd lost so many men. Then Victor Davis Hanson explained that today in his podcast. It turns out that after WWI Congress realized how poorly prepared the U.S. was. The Southern Democrats made a deal to get the appropriation. They would provide the land for the bases, which could revitalize their economy in the south, and they got naming rights. Now 100 years later Democrats who never noticed the Confederates before, are flipping on their agreement because of George Floyd guilt. They are really scrounging for wokeness in those disappeared names. Of course, not Patton or Westmoreland, they are too white. Isn't there anyone out there who served in the Gulf War who is a minority that has a good name for those streets, schools, and military forts?

"According to the commission’s report, Fort Benning will be named Fort Moore; Fort Polk will be renamed Fort Johnson; Fort Bragg will become Fort Liberty; Fort Gordon will become Fort Eisenhower; Fort Hood will become Fort Cavazos; Fort Lee will become Fort Gregg-Adams; Fort Pickett will become Fort Barfoot; Fort Rucker will be renamed to Fort Novosel." Fox News

Coronavirus news in my mail today

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday approved Department of Defense (DoD) housing at four military bases for 1,000 people who may have to be quarantined as a result of the coronavirus, following the appearance of the eighth confirmed case of the disease in the U.S. Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Jonathan Rath Hoffman made the announcement and said the program is designed for those returning from overseas. Military installations in Colorado, California and Texas were selected to house the evacuees and will help to assist the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with the operation, if needed. They are the 168th Regiment Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colo.; Travis Air Force Base in California; Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3048518/coronavirus-case-load-and-death-toll-china-rise-epicentre-hubei-province

“As many as 75,815 people in Wuhan may have been infected with the new coronavirus , according to a study by University of Hong Kong scientists.

The research, published in The Lancet on Saturday, is based on the assumption that each infected person could have passed the virus on to 2.68 others. The estimated total was as of Tuesday, it said.”

A group of Brazilians stuck in the Chinese city at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak has sent President Jair Bolsonaro a video aired Sunday pleading for help to return home.

Reading from a letter dated January 30 from the sprawling eastern city of Wuhan, they told him they were willing to be quarantined when they get back.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048639/coronavirus-brazilians-wuhan-ask-help-fleeing-wuhan-video

Wuhan has 11,000,000 people and most of us had never heard of it before this virus made it famous.  I looked through trip advisor, and it looks like a gorgeous place with interesting sites.  Who will go there now and how many in the tourism business are out of work?

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g297437-Activities-Wuhan_Hubei.html

Marcia the military wife comments, guest blogger

The group where this was posted is generally conservative, and apparently some are unhappy about the President taking action (far less than Obama did with drones where he once in 2014 killed civilians at a wedding and the target wasn’t killed) because like Obama, he’s promised no more wars. So Marcia is letting whoever got snarky, have a piece of her mind.

“As I sit here on the tail end of of my husband’s latest six month deployment to Kuwait, I’d like to as calmly as possible ask the many members of this group to tone down the anti military posts.

I’m not sure why the death of an Iranian terrorist and murderer is triggering you into general anti military sentiment, but if it is, perhaps you need to sit down and ponder why that is and what it is you truly believe.

I apologize for getting heated and using salty language in reply to some antagonists. Two decades of frequent separation from my spouse while working full time and raising my kids is weighing heavy on me. Maybe it’s the broken dryer or the faulty wiring in the garage door, or the fact I need to spend about $1000 on tires for ANOTHER 4000 mile move to Alaska. Maybe it’s how my kids have managed to break the flusher handle on two toilets in my house and I’m debating if I should hire a handyman or wait until my husband returns or try to YouTube it and do it myself with all my free time.

Maybe it’s because my 9 year old daughter is now in weekly counseling.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never lived even remotely close to my family or the fact I gave birth to my first child alone because my husband was in Korea for a year. Maybe people who have zero idea what military service entails should sit down and shut up for a minute, and realize that if they sound like coastal liberal elites, then maybe that’s exactly what they are.”

Military dog stamps

I’m looking forward to seeing the military dog stamps (scroll down). I send about 500 cards a year and am always looking for handsome stamps.  During one of our Veterinary Medicine Librarian meetings in San Antonio we took a bus to an Air Force base and watched the dogs being trained. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2019/0129-updates-to-2019-stamp-program.htm

“Military Working Dogs

The Postal Service honors the nation’s brave and loyal military working dogs with this new booklet of 20 stamps. Each block of four stamps features one stamp of each of the following breeds — German shepherd, Labrador retriever, Belgian Malinois and Dutch shepherd — that commonly serve in America's armed forces. The background of each stamp features a detail of a white star. A star appears in the center of each block. The stylized digital illustrations are in red, white, blue and gold to represent the American flag and patriotism. The art was created by DKNG Studios. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamps.”

Never waste a crisis, Mr. President

I personally hope the governor of SC will remove the Confederate flag, but then all progressives, Democrats, Occupiers, Socialists and junior faculty who teach college freshmen Communist mush will have to promise not to go after other forms of free speech and memorials. Ha. We know that will never happen. The flag demand is just the prelude to a symphony of rage, so bring it down if you wish, but don't for a minute think it will stop there.

Ft. Hood where the Muslim terrorist who wasn't considered either but killed 13 and injured over 30, is named for Confederate General John Bell Hood. I've never understood that because although he was considered very brave, he was reckless and lost a lot of battles. Maybe he helped the North win and that's why it's named for him. And plenty more are also named for Confederates with a vast majority of US Army installations below the Mason-Dixon line named after Confederate generals. So no, I don't think if these demands are met (remove a flag flying over SC) it will end, [motto of the President's aide, Emanuel, Never waste a crisis]. And of course, all the U.S. military, if you know anything about the left.

http://www.examiner.com/article/should-u-s-military-bases-named-after-confederate-generals-be-renamed

Louder with Crowder visits Gitmo

Obama has stained Gitmo. It’s well worth watching the whole thing. The terrorist prisoners certainly have it much better than U.S. prisoners. Find out what our enemies already know (thanks to Obama).

Friday Family Photo--Christopher

In two Monday Memories I featured our nephew Caleb, entering the army reserves. This is our nephew Christopher, grandson of Brother Bob and Sister Jean (as is Caleb, son of Joan and Dan), son of young Robert and Christa. He's recently finished his Air Force training and was hoping for an exotic relocation--wishes granted--he'll be in Dayton, OH!

4707

I love Google, but. . .

this plan was really dumb. High tech route to terrorism and treason.

"The Pentagon has put the kibosh on Google Street View's access to military bases. The access restriction surfaced after a Google street mapping team took photos on the grounds of Fort Sam Houston in Texas and posted them to the site. U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, reportedly said the images compromised security by showing the location of guards, details about barrier operation and building portals. Google removed the images at the Department of Defense's request." Story at TechNewsWorld by Jim Offner, 3/7/08

I think that some of these companies like Facebook, AOL, Google, Yahoo, etc. who claim they are "sensitive" to privacy concerns are run by people too young to understand security--personal or national. For instance, if I wanted to, I could purchase a site tracker for my blog that could probably figure out exactly where your computer is, then what you're buying from AOL, and then through a subscription to another program where your medical records are; but there's no cost to find out what you look like, and how close the 2nd story window of your house is to an access road. I occasionally wander into a website by accident that tells me more about me and my behavior on the computer than I remember, including a comment I made on a listserv or usenet bulletin board 13 years ago and who my grandparents were! (I don't post my genealogy on the web, but others do.)

I won't even go into what I could uncover about your hospital records--I spent some time fiddling with that a few years ago and was so frightened, I just stopped. I really didn't want to know--and I was just using the limited, "free" access to find out the profit of "non-profit" hospitals. Before my husband retired (sole proprietor with me as the staff), I used our county auditor's website extensively--it saved us the time of driving to the property, taking photographs and measuring the set backs and access. What? You think criminals don't use computers?

One time I alerted our church pre-school director about how much information I could track about families of her staff in just a few minutes, using completely free things like Google mapping, on-line local newspapers, and the image feature. Most of my e-mails to the church are ignored or don't address my concerns, so I don't know if anything was done. For years I would suggest to the OSU Libraries that our SS# not be our library access number--I don't know if that has been changed, and God only knows what else it is linked to. Here's my real concern: the university runs on low paid, student labor much more knowledgeable about computers than the faculty or administrators--if it (and other universities) had to find staff that smart and at those wages, they'd have to close down (many are foreign, non-citizens, btw, and all our universities have become dependent on foreign governments to pay their tuition costs).

Just a note about Facebook--no, two notes: The creator, Mark Zuckerberg, is now 23 and has a personal worth of 3 Billion dollars, and Facebook is valued at 15 Billion, according to WSJ. He started at age 19 by illegally hacking into the university's database of student records. The second question: did either of the 2 college women whose murders have recently been saturating the cable news networks have their photos and activities on an internet social networking site, like Facebook?