Author: marmietedwards

Discovering unexpected stories about people over-shadowed by events in American History. Former journalist and amateur Civil War historian since reading Carl Sandburg's Lincoln at 11. Compare past and present leadership. Through work with nonprofits for 25 years and travel, have enjoyed meeting people, seeing historic sites, and admired artwork in 46 states. Optimism runs through me.
Featured

What’s the Magna Carta have to do with Pleading the 5th?

On By marmietedwardsIn American History.1 Comment
Signing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights 1787, Continental Congress, Philadelphia
Signing of the Magna Carta, King John (far right) Knights (far left) 1215

Remember when we believed someone who pleaded the Fifth was guilty? Those who took the 5th did not want to “incriminate” themselves. So, we determined if the accused would not answer questions, they must have something to hide. Donald Trump, the same guy who in 2016 lacerated Hillary Clinton’s tech staff who installed her private email server, for taking the Fifth, proclaimed: “only the Mob takes the 5th.”

But in 1990, in his first divorce trial and again just last week, Trump took the Fifth himself. He says the allegations against him are a “witch hunt” or a “fishing expedition” as his excuse for not responding. (By the way, after the investigation, no one was ever charged regarding Clinton’s mail server.)

Trump sat with New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James a week ago. She has been investigating Trump’s state tax returns in a civil suit for tax evasion (lowering his income for purposes of income taxes) and inflating his wealth to obtain loans to cover his debts.

During his presidential campaign, Trump said that evading taxes “shows he’s smart.” But now, Trump’s long-time chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, 75, pleaded guilty to 15 counts of evading taxes on $1.7 million perks, including a free apartment in Manhattan, school tuition for his grandchildren, and lease payments on a luxury car. (He made a plea deal rather than face 15 years in prison and will spend five months at New York City’s Rikers Island. He will be answering questions.)

What’s the source of the Fifth Amendment?

It goes back to the heart of Anglo-Saxon law–The Magna Carta signed on June 15, 1215, by King John, the British barons, and landowners at Runnymede. The charter limited the king’s absolute authority and laid out the rights of English citizens and commoners. American law is based on this social contract written into the Magna Carta.

In America, the Continental Congress passed the Bill of Rights in 1789; this included the 5th Amendment to protect a person’s rights in these ways:

  1. A person cannot be forced to give testimony against themselves (Self-Incrimination). The 5th Amendment is the basis for the Miranda Warning. (“Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law.”)  The government must call other witnesses and find evidence to prove the crime.
  2. You have the right to a fair trial that follows procedure through the judicial process
  3. You are judged innocent until proven guilty. (Due process)You can’t be tried twice for the same crime (Double Jeopardy)
  4. A Grand Jury looks at the evidence to determine whether to indict the accused for a criminal offense; if they decide to charge a person with a crime, they issue an indictment and hold a trial. The Grand Jury traces its roots directly to 1215, the Magna Carta, and Due Process.
  5. The government cannot take your private property unless you are paid current market value in return. (Eminent Domain)

Another critical case about the Fifth Amendment (self-incrimination) involved five young black men convicted of killing a white woman in Central Park in New York City. After they were imprisoned for ten years, a court ruled they had been coerced into giving false testimony after lengthy interrogation and abuse. Under the Fifth Amendment, a confession obtained illegally is not admissible in court. They were freed when the truth came out. Then the actual killer was arrested and convicted.

Due process says that a person is innocent until proven guilty and deserves an opportunity to present their case in court. The concept of due process tells me to reconsider my idea that those who plead the 5th are “guilty,” but it is challenging at times.

Taking the 5th has different outcomes in criminal vs. civil courts. In federal cases, taking the Fifth does not imply guilt. But in civil cases, it can have consequences—providing an inference of guilt is allowed. The current case in New York State likely will be the beginning of a triangular legal sea saw between Trump, NY Attorney General James, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

What’s the Magna Carta’s role in Pleading the Fifth in American courts today? It’s bedrock. American law sits on the foundation of British law that traces to the 13th century when the nobility and the landed gentry demanded fairness in their courts and protection from the absolute power of the king.

Next week I’m looking at David Litt’s book Democracy in One Book or Less.

DOJ Doesn’t Play Games

On By marmietedwardsIn American History., UncategorizedLeave a comment
Who holds the Aces? Time will tell.

Let’s get the objections out of the way first. Last week’s FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago was not spur of the moment. In January 2022, the Department of Justice issued a subpoena for documents that Donald Trump had taken back to his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Springs upon leaving the White House. Then they obtained 15 boxes, some marked classified. These were taken back to the National Archives, where Presidential Records are kept. After a review, the Archives found that boxes of classified information were missing.

Donald Trump, like any other former President, could take with him diaries and personal documents not related to official business in office as president. But the records are not like a tray of mints offered upon leaving Sardi’s in New York, free for the taking. According to the Presidential Papers Act, originally passed in 1978 responding to Richard Nixon, official presidential documents were to be released to the Archives upon leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

During the outrange by the former president’s supporters last week, there has been a reference to Watergate. Many of these people either weren’t alive then, haven’t cracked a history book, or just liked throwing around the word “Watergate” to gain support from others not curious enough to learn the true backstory. This search for documents took place in broad daylight.

Trained members of FBI operated with a legal search warrant, which was granted based on information about where the documents were located (all necessary before a federal judge in Florida would sign off). The attorney general added his signature to the warrant on Friday, two days prior to the search.

“ Watergate” involved a break-in at a Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Office Building in 1972. The five men arrested for the break-in were connected to the Committee for Re-Election of the President (Nixon) sponsored by a political branch of the Republican Party. They were low-level thieves hired because Nixon had become paranoid, thinking he would lose the election. So paranoid that he set up an audio taping system on his White House phone that laid out his illegal deeds like a roadmap.

The search of Mar-a-Lago came with a legal search warrant and did not come without warning. In May 2022, AG Merrick Garland and the DOJ sent a subpoena to DJ obtain information about the missing documents. Trump ignored it. Because of the sensitive nature of the documents, the DOJ determined to press for the documents. They needed to learn where the classified documents were kept in order to obtain a legal search warrant. Someone within Trump’s inner circle provided the information needed to obtain the warrant. A Florida judge signed off after receiving specific information about the documents and the location on August 5. On Monday, August 8 the search began. This wasn’t a spur of the moment “witch hunt.”

Outrange from Trump supporters followed during the week (see Watergate above) reached a dangerous level, threatening the security of federal law enforcement. Garland held a press conference to explain the process of the warrant and indicate Trump had a copy, which he could release if he desired, but set a deadline. Move up to Friday, August 12, DOJ got the go-ahead from Trump and released a copy of the August 8th search warrant and a list of the contents of the 20 boxes removed from Mar-a-Lago on Monday. The boxes taken included 11 boxes marked classified, including 4 sets of top-secret documents. Charges were made for mishandling of defense information (classified documents) and destruction of federal documents. Those included related to Oliver Stone’s pardon and interaction with French Premiere Macron.

One irony in the case is that in 2019 Trump signed into law an increase in the punishment for breaking these laws from one to five years in prison.

Trump could have present the list to the media himself. Instead, he sent out attorney Christina Bobb to explain that Trump was following “decorum.”  Since when in his life has Trump followed decorum?

On Friday, August 12, Garland released the list of the boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago, as the match continues. Garland remained calm, uncharacteristically responding to the uproar during an FBI investigation. He said he signed off one the search warrant himself after the judge. Friday Garland also released the list of the boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago. The match continues, but with classified documents now in DOJ hands, DT’s limo may have hit a speed bump too high to sail across.

You think we have problems?

On By marmietedwardsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Clip-art of the British Flag

Have you looked across the Pond lately? They just tossed off a Prime Minister (for cause), and the temperature rose above 100 in a country without air conditioning. It’s not just that they are stiff upper lips and all that. No, it doesn’t usually get that hot, so they’ve gone without. House fans might not be enough to cool off the Brits, particularly in Parliament!

Now that Boris has finally vamoosed 10 Downing Street, they set about the task of finding a replacement. Unfortunately, the British process of selecting a new prime minister bears little resemblance to America’s selection of a president. We may find out in short order if this is better or worse, but Americans have been stuck on what we refer to as “the democratic process” of voting leaders into office, not depending on a select few to choose for us.

Just four people remain in the race for prime minister in Britain, standing up on a stage in London for a televised debate format. (Two of them served in Boris’s cabinet, but bailed ship in the final days and weeks.) No primaries will winnow these candidates down to two. It’s a different process that American media seem not too bothered to cover.

Ah, it’s just the crazy Brits. Well, they are still our greatest ally in Europe. The Ukraine War is also getting scant reference over here, despite its long-term impact on Europe and grain resources around the world (though I understand there is a compromise of sorts to allow shipments to Africa and other starving parts of the world). Money spent on that war will not be available to meet different needs. Yet Putin seems eager to move on to other parts of Eastern Europe; he covets to return to a long-gone empire he craves to become czar over it before his demise.

If you think back to the time of Ronald Reagan, you might remember Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, who teamed with him on the takedown of the Berlin Wall. And Maggie told George H.W. Bush after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990: “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.” Well, so the advice goes both ways!

Boris put the weight of his country behind Ukraine, and his party is more populist than in Maggie’s time. For better or worse, he did get Brexit across the plate, though maybe Prime Minister May ahead of him got it up the hill but could not get it over (and got sacked for it, too.) He rushed his country out of the European Union, but the decision is out on that one.

Ah, but back to the election in Britain. But it isn’t what we Yanks would think of as a genuine election—just the five Tory members of the British Parliament. The choice here is before the 650-seat House of Commons, with 358 Members being Conservatives. Generational change will take place in Britain. All four candidates are under 50. In America, many key members in Congress and the president are over 75. We could get a lesson in what younger leadership could accomplish or that experience counts.

The selected prime minister could rule as long as Thatcher—eleven years from 1979 to 1990. So the impact on the future of Britain, Europe, and the US could be substantial, certainly well beyond the amount of coverage this selection is receiving in the States. First, the British lawmakers, not the public, will whittle down the list of candidates to two. It will be up to 200,000 official members of the Conservative Party to select the person who will be the next leader of Britain.

The decisions made across the Pond in the next two to ten years will determine if the Brits experience a renewal moving forward or a decline. Take no joy in a poor decision. Our future also rises and falls with that of our European neighbors. But none more than the Brits, who were once the Mother Country, now are partners in growing a responsible world to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Featured

Rowing Together; Rowing Apart

On By marmietedwardsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Rowing Together on Lady Bird Lake, Austin Photo by Author

There’s nothing like the sound of oars pulling through the water and the rush when drawing them back to thrust the boat forward. I live vicariously through my daughter now, who competed last weekend in the Henley Master’s Regatta. She stroked a quad crew to victory. So pardon my pride, but there is a broader issue here; stay with me.

When we “row” together, we have a much better chance of winning. When we row separately or out of sync, we lose.

The Henley is rowed an hour from London, so I could not fail to note what’s going on politically in England. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been paddling apart for some time, practically since he took the job in July 2019. He took over from Teresa May, who could not get Brexit through Parliament.  

Johnson seemed to think that he could perpetually break with convention. Childish antics—like having a Christmas party for staff at 10 Downing when the rest of the country was locked down with COVID– rankled the Brits. But last week, he hit the wall when he again lied to his fellow citizens, denying knowledge about unsavory actions by a political associate. Furthermore, just a few weeks before, 40 percent of Parliament voted “no confidence.” This time he lost the leadership of the Conservative party and now will no longer be the Prime Minister.

In the end, he may have that in common with his orange-haired American conservative crony. Time will tell. Rather interesting, a new wrinkle or two has also come up for Donald Trump as well. Both men have rowed along their Atlantic shore, rebelling against traditional political norms—thumbing their noses at convention. Trump still has a following and is pushing hard to wedge the Republican party to continue to swing the conservatives to himself.

But the need to row together with a crew still works here. When you insert a wedge against a portion of your former party, are you not dividing what you should be combining to form a winning coalition? Maybe it only works when not everyone in the opposition votes. And when you separate the competitor by corrupting the Voting Rights Act (limiting voters) and dividing a state’s voting districts, making it impossible for diverse candidates to have a fighting chance—that does complicate matters.

What destroys all credibility is when the former president or governor commands/controls a Secretary of State–the person responsible for voting regulations, voting counting, and preparing the ballots for the Electoral College. That is one person who should respect their role in holding the vote as their state’s voters intended—irrespective of party.

The poll workers I have spent hours with during general and primary elections are dedicated to reporting an accurate ballot every time. I suspect that is true throughout the country. We row together because we believe in the process and are sworn to maintain the vote’s safety. It is nothing short of criminal for a Secretary of State to do the bidding of a political party, a governor, or a former president hell-bent on making up for the last election—he cannot admit he lost but appears sworn to win a second term. At least for now. Time will tell.

Featured

Don’t Let Freedom Fly Away!

On By marmietedwardsIn American History.Leave a comment

My 2022 July 4th wreath celebrating the eagle’s pride and the hope representing the brightest stars in the sky.

This wreath carries meaning for me this July 4th. Over the past few years, I saw too many American flags flying from the back of pick-up trucks circling U.S. beltways or hand-held by Proud Boys marching in Charlottesville or invading the U.S. Capitol. They swore allegiance to falsehoods and exclusionary beliefs I will never share.

They have warped the authentic meaning of the red, white, and blue. Yet, the principles of truth and justice have never wavered for me. I pledge my allegiance to the true America I love. I cannot associate myself with those who do not ask the critical questions democracy requires but prefer to follow along and exclude others from the opportunities and rights we enjoy.

In 2022, this wreath, approximating the proud feathers of the American eagle and the brightest stars in the sky, will represent my brand of patriotism. Today America is a country struggling mightily to return to its principles–while suffering body blows from those we never elected. A President, who lost the popular vote in 2016 and refused to concede his loss in 2020, now spreads political mayhem from coast to coast. His efforts further ignited falsehoods and culture wars that erupted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th and are slicing this proud nation in two.

I don’t love my country less because I do not agree with the false representations of the U.S. flag in 2021. I can’t see our nation dragged backward two and a half centuries. The 21st century has no time for fabricated beliefs and false images of a glorified Disney-esque “Davey Crocket” time when men provided for their families by landing dinner with buckshot. American families cannot afford to move backward, leaving behind our leading role in technology, business/industry, and world affairs.

Do we want to return to an era where women tended the firepot to prepare whatever animal their spouse’s musket fell? Then women had four children because the child mortality rate was over 30 percent. Women didn’t fare much better. Without contraception, women wore out their bodies with repeated pregnancies, and a high percent died young while giving birth (life expectancy: 38 in 1787). Today women’s work outside the home and their earnings are as important as a men’s. The economy tanked during the Pandemic when schools were closed, and many women stayed home. We’re still beefing up the workforce.

If women had been present for the writing of the Constitution in 1787, the document would have taken a different course. Families and women’s needs, would have been recognized– not listing women as chattel belonging to men—unable to own land, start businesses, or sign legal documents without their husband’s along side.

Over the years, women have realized the only way to make gains legislatively would be by gaining the vote for themselves. Unfortunately, women did not get an opportunity to vote until 1920, one hundred and thirty years after the ink dried on the Constitution. Today women are in Congress: 24 serve in the U.S. Senate and 120 in the House of Representatives (27% of the 539 elected, an all-time high, but well below women’s 50.5 percent of the population.)

You have a responsibility, both men and women, to exercise your right to protect our future and our nation. This right comes with a commitment to get out to vote (or obtain and mail in a ballot if your state allows). Help protect your freedom by exercising that vote. In most states, you cannot register to vote on the same day as you vote. So, get registered NOW. Contact your county’s Board of Elections and be prepared to vote come November.

Featured

Opal Never Gave Up– Recognizing Juneteenth

On By marmietedwardsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Two and a half years after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a Union General freed 250,000 slaves in Texas, saying they would work for hire from then forward. Juneteenth, 1865

Determination does pay off. . . at last!  Opal Lee, a grandmother from Texas, at 89 walked two and a half miles a day from Fort Worth to Washington. DC, surrounded by a caravan of cars. Opal walked to raise support for designation of Juneteenth (19th) as a federal holiday. Last year at 94, she received a signing pen from President Biden after he inked legislation creating such a celebration. Vice President Kamala Harris took her hand while praising her determination.

Opal, who had been a teacher before becoming “the grandmother of the movement”, had a personal reason for her crusade. When she was 12, she lived in Marshal, Texas, in a home surrounded by several white homeowners in Sycamore Park. A band of white men came one night and burned her home to the ground. Freedom means more to her than recognizing the end to slave labor, but safety in one’s home and access to quality education.

No doubt President Lincoln would be pleased with Opal’s determination and Congressional efforts in 2021 to celebrate Juneteenth, but he might hope this was not a consolation prize offered instead of insuring the opportunity for all Americans to exercise their constitutional Voting Rights.

Above you see the document that Lincoln wrote and signed after Congress passed the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, ending slavery in the Confederacy. Governors in Southern states, with economies mainly dependent on cotton, were very slow to pass this information on to the enslaved population, some waited until the end of the Civil War to notify blacks in the South that they were free.

Texans, being the furthest western state in the Confederacy and with an abundance of cotton, were least likely to share this information. And they didn’t. . . until Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, backed up by 1,800 U.S./Union troops, issued General Order Number 3, from his headquarters in Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865—157 years ago.

Maj. Gen. Granger’s order began: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” Simple. Then: “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

This order announced the freedom of 250,000 slaves in Texas. In the two and a half years between the Emancipation and Granger’s arrival nearly 200,000 black men had enlisted, mainly in the Union army. Historians estimate that about 500,000 slaves—out of a total of 3.9 million—liberated themselves by escaping to Union lines between 1863 and the end of the war—the rest remained in slavery, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

More recently, in 1979, Texas State Rep. Al Edwards, “known as the father of the Juneteenth holiday” succeeded in working with the Texas Legislature to make the date an official holiday statewide as a “source of strength” to young people. “Every year we must remind successive generations that this event triggered a series of events that one by one defines the challenges and responsibilities of successive generations,” Rep. Edwards said. These efforts plus others worldwide can be seen at https://juneteenth.com .

Books

The Great Migration helped spread Juneteenth across the country, as Gates says, one person, one family, one carload or train ticket at a time. Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Sons: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, tells the story brilliantly, spreading the knowledge Juneteenth to places distant to the South, like Los Angeles, Oakland, and Minnesota. Ralph Emerson’s novel, Juneteenth, said to reflect the “mystical glow of history and lore, memory and myth.”

Unveiling

Juneteenth 2021 will also mark the unveiling of Frederick Douglass’s statue in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the result of long-term efforts of D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.  

https://wordpress.com/post/past-becomes-present.blog/1213

Watermelon salad–Immaculatebites,com

Juneteenth Recipes

In honor of the festivities, perhaps these dining festivities will prepare us for the Fourth of July, red, white and blue creations, while Juneteenth recipes focus on the color red. I’m told that’s for resilience and freedom. So I have one offering and links to several others:

Strawberry Watermelon Juice 

4 cups watermelon       

2 cups strawberries

½-1 tablespoons lemon juice

½-1 cup coconut water or water

Can add syrup or sugar to taste

5 fresh mint to garnish

Dash of cinnamon

Place watermelon and strawberries in blender

Add lemon juice and other ingredients.

May add favorite adult beverage.

www.Immaculatebites.com

(2nd row of recipes:

24 Mouth-Watering Juneteenth Recipes)

www.africanbites.com

African Fish Roll – africanbites.com

African Fish Roll (Fish Pie) Popular West African dish sold by venders.

Peach Cobbler

Red Velvet Cake (or cupcakes)

Red Velvet Cake

 Recipes at https: ImmaculateBites.com

Opal Never Gave Up– Recognizing Juneteenth

On By marmietedwardsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Two and a half years after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a Union General freed 250,000 slaves in Texas, saying they would work for hire from then forward. Juneteenth, 1865

Determination does pay off. . . at last!  Opal Lee, a grandmother from Texas, at 89 walked two and a half miles a day from Fort Worth to Washington. DC, surrounded by a caravan of cars. Opal walked to raise support for designation of Juneteenth (19th) as a federal holiday. Last year at 94, she received a signing pen from President Biden after he inked legislation creating such a celebration. Vice President Kamala Harris took her hand while praising her determination.

Opal, who had been a teacher before becoming “the grandmother of the movement”, had a personal reason for her crusade. When she was 12, she lived in Marshal, Texas, in a home surrounded by several white homeowners in Sycamore Park. A band of white men came one night and burned her home to the ground. Freedom means more to her than recognizing the end to slave labor, but safety in one’s home and access to quality education.

No doubt President Lincoln would be pleased with Opal’s determination and Congressional efforts in 2021 to celebrate Juneteenth, but he might hope this was not a consolation prize offered instead of insuring the opportunity for all Americans to exercise their constitutional Voting Rights.

Above you see the document that Lincoln wrote and signed after Congress passed the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, ending slavery in the Confederacy. Governors in Southern states, with economies mainly dependent on cotton, were very slow to pass this information on to the enslaved population, some waited until the end of the Civil War to notify blacks in the South that they were free.

Texans, being the furthest western state in the Confederacy and with an abundance of cotton, were least likely to share this information. And they didn’t. . . until Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, backed up by 1,800 U.S./Union troops, issued General Order Number 3, from his headquarters in Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865—157 years ago.

Maj. Gen. Granger’s order began: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” Simple. Then: “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

This order announced the freedom of 250,000 slaves in Texas. In the two and a half years between the Emancipation and Granger’s arrival nearly 200,000 black men had enlisted, mainly in the Union army. Historians estimate that about 500,000 slaves—out of a total of 3.9 million—liberated themselves by escaping to Union lines between 1863 and the end of the war—the rest remained in slavery, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

More recently, in 1979, Texas State Rep. Al Edwards, “known as the father of the Juneteenth holiday” succeeded in working with the Texas Legislature to make the date an official holiday statewide as a “source of strength” to young people. “Every year we must remind successive generations that this event triggered a series of events that one by one defines the challenges and responsibilities of successive generations,” Rep. Edwards said. These efforts plus others worldwide can be seen at https://juneteenth.com .

Books

The Great Migration helped spread Juneteenth across the country, as Gates says, one person, one family, one carload or train ticket at a time. Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Sons: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, tells the story brilliantly, spreading the knowledge Juneteenth to places distant to the South, like Los Angeles, Oakland, and Minnesota. Ralph Emerson’s novel, Juneteenth, said to reflect the “mystical glow of history and lore, memory and myth.”

Unveiling

Juneteenth 2021 will also mark the unveiling of Frederick Douglass’s statue in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the result of long-term efforts of D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.  

https://wordpress.com/post/past-becomes-present.blog/1213

Watermelon salad–Immaculatebites,com

Juneteenth Recipes

In honor of the festivities, perhaps these dining festivities will prepare us for the Fourth of July, red, white and blue creations, while Juneteenth recipes focus on the color red. I’m told that’s for resilience and freedom. So I have one offering and links to several others:

Strawberry Watermelon Juice 

4 cups watermelon       

2 cups strawberries

½-1 tablespoons lemon juice

½-1 cup coconut water or water

Can add syrup or sugar to taste

5 fresh mint to garnish

Dash of cinnamon

Place watermelon and strawberries in blender

Add lemon juice and other ingredients.

May add favorite adult beverage.

www.Immaculatebites.com

(2nd row of recipes:

24 Mouth-Watering Juneteenth Recipes)

www.africanbites.com

African Fish Roll – africanbites.com

African Fish Roll (Fish Pie) Popular West African dish sold by venders.

Peach Cobbler

Red Velvet Cake (or cupcakes)

Red Velvet Cake

 Recipes at https: ImmaculateBites.com

What We Have in Common

On By marmietedwardsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Bike racers compete for leadership on the straight track. Tattorman 74

While volunteering at the Cap-Tex Triathlon in Austin on Memorial Day, I met a woman preparing to ride her bike for 13.3 miles and run for three. The petite redhead has a great smile, and we quickly learned we’d both spent time in Milwaukee and the Chicago area. She had an accent I could not place immediately—she grew up in Poland. I knew her home country had taken in nearly a million people from Ukraine. Before I could express gratitude, the woman said her relatives in Poland were trying to locate her brother and his family in Kyiv. They hadn’t heard from them since the beginning of the war. It brought the war to a very personal note.

We did not end on a sad note but we agreed that when we meet someone one-on-one and learn about them, we learn about what we have in common, not what makes us different.

She went on her bike, and I helped others in “transition” between swim and bike, bike and run. Across the lane from me, a group of male and female Latinos heralding from Mexico, Central, and South America, and a contingency of home-grown Texans encouraged bikers as they left on their rides and called them in as they switched out with swimmers and runners in the relay.

Athletes came in every color, shape, and size, ignoring the heat (97-100 degrees) for the most part and wanting to beat their former time or set a new one. Achieving their best—that centered their thoughts.

While Americans are known for being competitive, we also reach out to help others. We can’t solve all the wrongs globally, but we have come up to the plate when the odds were stacked against vulnerable people. We take pride in our ability to help, often by gathering other countries into partnership. We are involved in Ukraine. No one wants a bully on their block.

We try to keep bullies from destroying other countries (knowing that bullies are only encouraged by any victory using their “power” against others). Likewise, we cannot allow powerful gun lobbies to destroy our peaceful playgrounds, school classrooms, movie theatres, and churches, making them battlefields where we fear to go.

Now twenty-three years after the Columbine High School shootings and all the senseless loss of life since, can we say, “ENOUGH? Not another person, young or old, will lose their life to the spray of bullets coming from an AK15.” Will we make certain background checks are not quick paperwork, focused on making a sale? Will we admit there is no peaceful purpose for a 100-round ammunition magazine and ban them?

The frontier-man actor, Reagan, carried weight with the gun lobby. Yet he supported the 1993 Brady Bill, named for his Press Secretary, paralyzed for life in the assassination attempt on Reagan’s life 12 years earlier. Neither would have survived if a bullet spray from an AK15 had hit them.

Reagan supported a mandatory background check and a five-day waiting period for gun purchases by unlicensed individuals in 1993. The federal assault weapons ban passed in 1994, prohibiting gun manufacturers from creating assault weapons for civilian use and banning large-capacity magazines. Unfortunately, the ban ended in 2004, and mass shootings increased again.

The inability to reign in the gun lobby despite the 10-year ban on assault weapons became apparent after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. In the bombing, 168 people were killed, including 19 children in daycare, and 680 were injured. (I visited the site four years later when I was there on business.)

The response from NRA’s Wayne LaPierre? He defended the bombers as responding to “jack-booted government thugs.” But his anti-government comments were ignored by Congress. NRA “never waivers, never apologizes.” But George Bush resigned his membership after the statement, and 500,000 followed him.

We haven’t experienced repeat bombings. Why? In part because Congress passed legislation prohibiting the sale of large quantities of ammonia and other bomb-making materials to individuals. It’s easier to toat an assault rifle than carry out a full-fledged attack. Why does it seem impossible to reinstate the ban on assault weapons now? We did it before; why can’t we now after repeated needless loss of life?

You don’t find assault rifles used to kill people in Britain, France, Canada, Germany, or many other leading countries.Technology has created a killing machine that entices some moviegoers, but often it is depicted in animation without the pure horror it can create.

George Washington did not revel in killing and would have been horrified that people were being killed in this way. He and those who wrote the Second Amendment carried flintlock rifles, single shots without the ability to destroy a dozen human lives with a single sweep.

When will we be able to gain a rational solution to gun violence—one we can all live with? Please don’t let us lose our grip on the value of human life.

My new friend from Austin’s Cap-Tex came back after her races. A smile still across her face after competing 13 miles on a bike and running two more. We agreed to see each other at the 2023 Cap-Tex and hope the world will right itself by then. But in the meantime, we will appreciate the humanity in every person we meet.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

On By marmietedwardsIn American History.Leave a comment
Best Mother’s Day Flowers 2022 Tom’s Guide

Aretha Franklin raised the roof and our self-confidence with that song in 1967. Yes, 55 years ago, but the music resonates to this day. Why? Because as Aretha said: “Everyone wants respect.”

Being respected –no matter what makes the national headlines of the day—is the issue of prime importance. If we feel “dissed” and people don’t consider our needs, we melt on the inside and no longer stand up straight. We may not even look others straight in the eye as our self-confidence has taken a hit.

If you’ve read my blog during the Pandemic, you know that I have struggled to understand what’s really behind the divisions in our country. In the beginning, I thought Americans would find ways to tie the ends of the frayed rope between us after Covid passed. That might have been naïve. The differences among us only tightened when we were stuck away alone. Nothing good comes when we don’t attempt to communicate with others, particularly those with a different view. Instead, we let the concrete set around our ideas and beliefs. Our thoughts spool in our brains in an endless loop. No new ideas arise from that cycle.

It’s more difficult for new friends and ideas to come into our lives if we don’t create room for them. No two people think exactly alike, so there will always be areas of difference, possibly disagreement. Our current friendships already have a foundation of mutual respect that allows us to patch over the rough times when conflicts arise. But when we encounter people or ideas that appear to be the polar opposite of our own, it’s even more challenging to grant them a moment’s consideration.

I know listening to “the other side” strains my patience when I strongly disagree, but we’re stagnating –yelling across picket lines or opinion pages. This discourse does not improve the situation. Instead, we find ourselves digging a deep crevice across which are lobbed some of the ugliest words and images ever used in American public discourse (and there has been strong language used in the past). We are providing a hideous example for our children and laying down an embarrassing digital record that will live long after 2022.

If we as a nation take a small step back from this, we might begin to make a long-term change. Of course, it will take more than a finger snap to solve. But we can start by offering respect to all the people we meet at work, no matter the job they perform, the process can begin. Then if we can carry this on to those we see at the grocery or on a walk, the ball could get rolling. Even our partners and children could appreciate a spur-of-the-moment friendly smile or a nod of understanding. 

None of this will cure what ails the world, but you might feel better yourself, and it might be contagious.

That’s all I’ve got for Mother’s Day 2022.

Living Up to Lincoln’s Sacrifice

On By marmietedwardsIn American History.Leave a comment
Abraham Lincoln lithograph, JoAnn 10, istock

After viewing the devastation in Richmond in April 1865, Lincoln knew the Civil War would be over soon. Yet he also realized that the most challenging task remained—bringing the country together as one people, not unlike the difficulty the nation faces today. This weekend we once again recognize Lincoln’s sacrifice156 years after his assassination. But few acknowledge his death came because John Wilkes Booth could not stomach giving even a few African American veterans the right to vote.

Lincoln wasn’t sure he had the words needed to temper Americans’ anger with their opponents or ease their grief for what we’ve lost. But he agreed to address those gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House. His first words met their expectations: “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in the gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and the surrender of the principal insurgent army (he did not identify it as Confederate) give the country hope for a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained.”

Speaking from the White House balcony, Lincoln didn’t notice a tall man dressed in black stalking the fringes of the crowd. John Wilkes Booth scowled at the President’s remarks. Less than a month earlier, on March 20, Booth and his conspirators had attempted to capture Lincoln to use him as a bargaining chip to negotiate Southern freedom from federal rules ending slavery.

Then Lincoln turned to the purpose of his speech–Reconstruction—to restore and unite the nation after the war. “No one man had the authority to give up the rebellion for another man. We must begin with and mould (sp) from disorganized and discordant elements,” he said.

He noted the political differences that stood between Americans. Nevertheless, Lincoln sought to begin to bind the wounds of Americans now that the war had ended. The President stated the nation’s problem: “We, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and means of Reconstruction.”

But then, the critical message that would seal the President’s fate. Lincoln told the crowd the nation should grant African American men, particularly those who fought for the Union, the right to vote. Before this speech, no president had ever publicly endorsed even limited suffrage for blacks.

Booth became enraged when he heard Lincoln speak of suffrage. The thought of giving any African American the right to vote infuriated Booth. Standing in the shadows across from the White House, Booth turned to his co-conspirator, Lewis Powell, and nearly spat out his disgust: “That is the last speech he will ever make.”  As an actor well known at Ford’s Theater, he learned when Lincoln would be coming to see Laura Keene perform there in Our American Cousin.

On April 14, 1865, just after 10 pm, Booth’s lightning-quick tempter drew him up the stairs, where he pushed open the door to Lincoln’s box and pulled out a derringer that fit into the palm of his hand, which he used to shoot the President. Booth shouted: “Sic Semper Tyrannus! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South be avenged.”

Lincoln’s plans to restore the country equitably died with him. His vice president, who took control, Andrew Johnson, a Dixie Democrat and an enslaver from Tennessee, came from the opposite political view. Johnson believed in States’ rights. He allowed Southern governors to make their own decisions regarding the treatment of African Americans.

Four million enslaved people were freed when the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery passed on January 31, 1865, while Lincoln was alive. However, laws to establish freedom of movement and voting rights for African Americans would not become law for a century.

What would Lincoln say today as Congress fails to support voting rights for all Americans? He acted because he believed it to be right and just. Today’s Republicans, who express their pride in being “the Party of Lincoln” but can’t support voting rights, the principle for which he gave his life. fail to live up to his sacrifice. They lack the courage to stand up for all the voters in their state. They betray Lincoln’s legacy and further rip apart our delicate democracy.