It’s that time of the year that we watch our video set of “The American Revolution” produced by the History Channel and A&E Home Video I purchased many years ago. There are six videos in the collection each being approximately fifty minutes in length. The Revolution was an eight year struggle from 1775 through 1783. It was incited by America’s original bloggers, the Sons of Liberty comprised of individuals such as Samuel Adams.
Volume One: The Conflict Ignites Volume Two: 1776 Volume Three: Washington and Arnold (Kelsey Grammer as Benedict Arnold) Volume Four: The World At War Volume Five: England’s Last Chance Volume Six: Birth of the Republic
“It’s not a sin to get knocked down. It’s a sin to stay down.” - Carl Brashear
We watched a excellent movie this weekend called “Men of Honor” starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer, Carl Brashear who was the first African-American master diver in the United States Navy.
In 1948 President Harry Truman issued an executive order ending the segregation of race in the United States Military in effect rescinding the segregation order of President Woodward Wilson in 1917. Carl Brashear enlisted in the Navy in 1948 but soon learned that racial hatred and bigotry is not easily erased with presidential executive orders. The movie displayed the ugliness of the Jim Crow laws but much more importantly the greatness of the human spirit.
"The Navy Diver is not a fighting man, he is a salvage expert. If it is lost underwater, he finds it. If it's sunk, he brings it up. If it's in the way, he moves it. If he's lucky, he will die young, 200 feet beneath the waves, for that is the closest he'll ever get to being a hero." – Billy Sunday
Below is the video clip of the theatrical trailer for “Men of Honor.”
Part of the movie involved a “Broken Arrow” incident. A “Broken Arrow” is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon.
On January 17, 1966, a United States Air Force bomber collided midair with a refueling aircraft resulting in thermonuclear hydrogen bomb becoming lost in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain near the town of Palomares. It took eighty days to find and retrieve the bomb at a depth of about 2,800 feet. Thirty three ships and Carl Brashear was very involved in the search and recovery operation.
Below is a link to a website dedicated to Carl Brashear who died in July 2006. Carl Brashear Site
[Credit to 20th Century Fox and videopost DFKDFK11 ]
At its zenith it was said the sun never sets on the British Empire because the sun was always shinning somewhere on British territory.
In 1821, a Scottish newspaper called the Caledonian Mercury wrote, “On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the sires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson [Australia] and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior [Ontario], his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges [India].”
My American grandfather Andrew Haggerty was of Irish ancestry who had a different opinion of the bloody English as he would describe them saying the truth is the sun never sets on the British Empire because God wouldn't trust the British in the dark.
Yet his great grandparents Thyne were English and his wife Rose’s grandparents the McKay’s Scottish. My father’s parents were and Polish and my father told me his great grandfather was part of the Russian Cossacks. On the other side of the world my wife was born and raised in the Philippines and has Spanish heritage in her family. She is American citizen.
So the sun never sets on our family as we have relatives on different sides of the world and the sun is always shinning upon our relatives somewhere in the world.
[credit: video “The Might of the British Empire!! Posted by 97Coats; US/Philippine flag from cia.gov ]
Not too long ago, I was watching a Special Victims Unit (NBC) episode titled “Authority” guest starring Robin Williams as an engineer with authority issues. Steven began watching the program and I was explaining to him a famous psychology experiment they referred to in the episode I viewed on film when I was in college. It dawned on me we live in 2010 so I found the experiment on You Tube.
The Milgram experiment examined people willing to perform acts for authority figures in conflict with their conscience. This experiment was in response to the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal who was a key architect of the Holocaust. The experiment raises issues why people follow orders to commit violent acts such as the murder innocent people.
This led to a discussion of the Prussian General Friedrich Von Steuben who trained the soldiers of the American Revolutionary War in military drill and discipline beginning at Valley Forge. In the History Channel’s series “America, the Story of Us” they described how Von Steuben was impressed that while training German and French soldiers to do something they did it but with the Americans he had to explain why they should do something. The American soldiers were independent thinkers.
Americans are radical people in human history because we have formed a government not based upon the authority of one leader, kings or emperors or dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. Our government was formed upon Judeo-Christian values in the belief that our rights come from the Creator. Below is a passage from the Declaration of Independence:
“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 to 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”
A Nazi solider swore personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler. An American soldier swore allegiance to the United States Constitution which is our system of law of the people, by the people and for the people.
Below is a video clip of the Milgram experiment which is part of a series and quite long but interesting.
[Credits: Von Steuben image www.nps.gov, Milgram experiment video posted by GriefTourist (BBC TV May 2009)]
The Exorcist was a 1973 horror film that created a sensation that truly frightened many audiences. This film is still banned in England.
Steven recently had a project on Arab contributions to society in his world history class so he chose to focus on recent individuals. One of the individuals was William Peter Blatty who wrote his novel “The Exorcist” in 1971. The movie received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and lost out on best picture to “The Sting”.
It took a few phone calls but we were able to rent a copy of this movie and I thought it would scare my sons but they laughed throughout most of it. They thought it was funny but maybe a few scenes caught their attention. Apparently what they now see in movies, television and video games is more graphic and violent than what was considered horror in 1973.
Every Sunday at Church I park my car ready to drive off in an instant after services without having to backup. The parking is so crowded they have Constables directing traffic. My wife and kids asked me why I do this and I replied didn’t you ever watch Batman, which starred Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin. They were always ready to shoot out of the Batcave on a moment’s notice in the Batmobile.
Well, when I thought about it, my wife wasn’t even born yet as the series began in 1966. My car is not anything like the Batmobile. I don’t have a Bat Parachute or Bat Ray but it’s equipped with OnStar. In any event, it seems the traffic in Houston is so slow the last thing one needs is a parachute to slow down your vehicle.
Below Batman chases the Riddler from the first season.
Robin’s favorite expression was “Holy” something. Below is a montage from the series of their many situations.
[Credit to ABC and the videographers IBatman1966I for his video post on the Bat Parachute and IndependantBioHazard for Holy, Holy Holy -Batman]
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” - Emma Lazarus
The symbolism of the Statue of Liberty in one of freedom and opportunity. The state of Texas and the city of Houston has come to represent the ideals of this symbol. Of the people I have met in Houston, very few are native to the city. Houston is a city of immigrants, from other states, other countries, and for all we know, other worlds checking out the Houston Space Center.
Forbes recently had a story with interactive graphs showing migration in the United States. Below is the link to the story:
[Credit to : http://blog.american.com/?p=15579 ,graph via Forbes http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=39099 , photo via ttp://www.nps.gov/stli/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm ]
On Father’s Day we decided to test the fishing waters in the small pond at Mary Jo Peckham Park in Katy. We stopped at Wal-Mart to buy some night crawlers and were surprised to see this product was from Waterford, Michigan, ten miles from where we used to live in Michigan. I would have never guessed living in Houston, Texas I would be buying fishing worms all the way from Waterford, Michigan and had to take a picture of the container.
People at the pond informed us the Texas Fisheries stock the pond every week or so with catfish in the summer and rainbow trout in the winter. We didn’t catch any catfish but caught several very small bluegills and perch.
On the fishing dock at the park are Steven, Dad and Anthony.
Last week we took the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory tour in Brenham, Texas.
They produce the third best selling ice cream in the USA behind Breyers, Dreyers/Edy’s Grand but sell more than Haagen Daz and Ben & Jerry’s. They sell their ice cream basically in seventeen Southern states which is probably why they are not number one. The tour guide stated that you can order Blue Bell’s vanilla ice cream at Outback Steakhouses anywhere in the United States.
While on Spring Break 2010 in Michigan we visited the Henry Ford and took the Henry Ford Rouge Factor tour in Dearborn, Michigan where they assemble Ford F-150 trucks.
The Blue Bell ice cream assembly line was active while the Ford workers were on an extended break this year and on our previous trip. We have made the Ford Rouge Factor tour three times in the last five years.
This year on the Ford tour I posed a financial auditor question to my sons. Do you think growing grass on roofs save Ford money?
Ford has the world’s largest “living roof” where they grow grass on the top of a factory building rather than using conventional roofing materials. The Ford tour guides claim it reduces energy costs by 5%, extends the life of the roof and results in cleaner storm water. It’s part of Ford’s “Green Initiative” that has won numerous awards and acclaims.
As we stood on the observation deck and looked out at all the various buildings in the Ford Rouge Complex we noted no other factory building had grass growing on top of them. If the grass on the roof saves 5% of energy costs, why don’t all the other factory structures have grass growing on them saving Ford tens of millions of dollars? Too soon to tell if the grass extends the life of the roof and I’m unsure about the cleaner storm water.
I explained to my sons it’s important to care about the environment but the grass roof probably doesn’t save money otherwise we would see grass on roofs everywhere, not just on factory buildings. Does what you physically observe agree with what you have heard? They didn’t think so but I also pointed out maybe the grass design is still too experimental to be practical. They have been working on this for ten years.
[Image credit: Blue Bell – coupondad.net, Ford logo student.ccbcmd.edu ]
I recently attended and enjoyed a business presentation by Bob Lamons on branding. I won his book “The Case for B2B Branding-Pulling Away from the Business to Business Pack” via a business card drawing.
In Texas, my kids think branding is marking with a steaming hot iron symbols to indicate ownership of cattle.
All corporate executives would like to sear into the minds and hearts of their customers a positive image and idea of their products or services. Not that corporate executives view their customers as cattle but rather important business relationships.
Mr. Lammons writes in his book, “A good brand will generate a highly focused set of expectations for the buyer, as well as for distributors, retailers, suppliers, employees and other audiences in your marketing universe.”
Branding is about creating positive expectations for your target audience. When I asked by kids to give me an example of branding it was no surprise.
Mr. Lamons book is a real world business combat manual which supports his views with numerous examples and contains twenty one case studies. From a financial analysis perspective, understanding the premium future value of a company will in part depend upon the creativity of their marketing and branding.
My favorite case study was the Acme Brick Company. “In 1998, a telephone survey of new home buyers in four major Acme markets revealed an 84% preference for Acme brick. No other supplier had more than a 10% preference.” Plus, Acme charges a 10% price premium for their brick. Keep in mind these are rectangular stones we would like to throw at our television sets while watching the daily news.
Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) bought the Acme Brick Company in 2000 and said “We place a high value on investing in companies with strong brand positions in their markets.”
[image credit: www.mcdonalds.com, Warren Buffet quote- http://www.brick.com/company/buffett.htm Other quotes from Bob Lamons, “The Case for B2B Branding”]
No toy gets left behind. Neither will Pixar investors.
“Pixar is known for making animation movies that do resounding business at the box Office. No Pixar movie has failed to hit the $360 million mark as yet and Toy Story 3 is not about to break that record. In fact it might just become the biggest earner for Pixar. 'Finding Nemo' is currently the top box Office earner for Pixar raking in $868 million in ticket sales.” -LA News Monitor, June 19, 2010
I believe Toy Story 3 will out earn ‘Finding Nemo’ although the times are economically more difficult.
We saw Toy Story 3 today at the Memorial City Mall complete with popcorn and slushies. In the prior week we had watched Toy Story 1 & 2 on Blue-Ray after not seeing these movies for some time.
Below is a link to the official trailer. Pixar disabled HTML embedding from You Tube so I could not code the HTML into this post.
Yesterday the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank updated several of its economic statistics. I love graphs as they visually convey information words cannot.
Generally, if you increase the supply of money you increase the price of goods and services. The graphs below show this general trend. (Double click to see the graphs in detail.)
Adjusted Monetary Base Not Seasonally Adjusted From 1-1-1918 to 5-1-2010 in billions of dollars
Think of this as money that is in the economic system such as cash and credit cards.
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers From 1-1913 to 5-2010
Think of this as the level of prices to buy things like video games and pizza.
You may hear reports on the news prices are declining even though the money supply is going up. When prices go up this is called inflation and when prices go down it is called deflation.
Prices are temporarily going down or deflation because the economy, people and businesses that purchase and produce goods and services are in a very serious decline and the true unemployment rate or people unable to find jobs is probably at depression levels. The last time there was deflation was during the Great Depression.
We pick up stray turtles like some people pick up stray dogs or cats. The other week a turtle wandered unto our yard who we believe was AWOL from the walking path in our subdivision that also serves as a flood control area. Kids in the subdivision love looking for frogs and turtles around the stream in this area. The boys wanted to keep him as a pet but Dad said no he/she is a wild animal and needs to be free. Concerned that the turtle could be harmed if he reached nearby busy streets we placed him in a box and headed for Bear Creek Park.
Bear Creek has a small zoo and a pond area full of turtles. I took the turtle out of the box and placed him near pond and explained to my sons the turtle will charge instinctively towards the safety of the water. Instead, the turtle turned around and walked in the opposite direction of the water. I turned him around to the water and he turned around in the opposite direction. It then occurred to me he was not a turtle but tortoise.
So we drove deep into the park in the woods and released him near a small stream where he would be out of harm’s way from any auto traffic. Turns out it was a Texas Tortoise (Gopherus Berlandieri). A Texas Tortoise may not be as majestic as an African Lion but it was still born free.
[Credits: Video Matt Monro singing “Born Free” video posted by Komodoman; Pictures by Dad.]
The native inhabitants of tropical countries which comprised the colonial British Empire had an expression that “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” The British had a disregard for the heat and radiation of the sun wherever they were throughout the world. They went about their activities regardless of the climate and perhaps their can-do attitude explains why the British Empire was so successful for so long. This past Saturday I was acting like a mad dog and Englishman spending five hours working about the yard during the midday sun with temperatures in the high nineties. I was probably the only individual in our subdivision working on their yard and I’m sure my neighbors were thinking this person from Michigan was insane. I had lots of sunscreen plus my hat but needless to say I did perspire although I drank a lot of water. Later in the evening, for the first time in my life the fingers on my hands were actually cramping up from probably from loss of fluids. So I bought some Gatorade and ate some bananas to raise my potassium levels up and I was back to normal.
It’s a good thing the British didn’t have Gatorade in the 18th century, they may have conquered the whole world.
Mary Elizabeth Eichelberger died in her home on June 10, 2010, in Nederland, Texas. Today she was laid to rest at Oak Bluff Memorial Park I Port Neches, Texas.
She will be greatly missed by her husband, family and friends.
Everyone is familiar with the Roman Numerals. What is the Roman Numeral for zero?
I know of no Roman Numeral symbol for zero. I’m not sure who invented “zero” as there is a great deal of debate as to who and where it was invented. It may have been used as early as the Babylonians and it was being used in India around the 5th century. Zero reached western Europe about the 12th century from Northern Africa. The Mayans independently invented zero the 4th century.
We learned this tidbit from Steven’s recent world history project on Arab contributions to civilization.
Every time the power goes out I get the question from Anthony, “Are we under EMP attack?” Apparently, in the Modern Warfare video game there are EMP attacks.
EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse which can occur when a nuclear device is detonated in the earth’s atmosphere whose radiation has the potential to destroy any electrical device. In theory, if the device is powerful enough and at the right altitude it could send the United States back to 1800’s technological status.
Electrical power grids would be destroyed; computers, cell phones, automobiles, television, planes, electrical medical devices, anything electrical would become inoperable, perhaps for months or years. The economic and social chaos would be devastating.
There’s an expression. Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
When we grocery shop our family has a rule that if someone buys something then they must eat it. There are no reasons to ever go hungry in our home or America.
A traditional supermarket in the USA could contain as many as 60,000 SKU’s (Stock Keeping Unit).
In 1976, Viktor Belenko a Russian fighter pilot flew his advanced MIG-25 super-fighter under the radar defense systems in Japan and defected to the West. It was an military intelligence opportunity and experts from the West quickly disassembled the aircraft to learn all its secrets. Viktor Belenko was granted asylum by President Gerald Ford. When he was brought to the United States he visited a shopping center in Virginia and could not believe people had access to the vast array of consumer goods available. He thought the shopping center was built by the CIA to try to impress him on the quality of life in the United States. It was just a regular suburban shopping center. I hope we always have too many consumer choices.
[Image credit to http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?99424-Viktor-Belenkos-MiG-25P-on-Hakodate-airfield-1976 ]
I have never seen a more successful fast food restaurant as Chick-Fil-A. I was seeking to purchase their common stock but they are privately held. No indications they will ever issue public equity.
At the Houston locations we frequent, during lunch and dinner hour, traffic overflows into the main streets they have so much business. They are beyond the drive through menu. At peak times they have their staff greeting vehicles as they edge into the parking lot and placing customer orders with portable electronic order tablets six or seven cars before the vehicles even reach the drive through menu board.
Little wonder they are the fastest of the fastest in the fast food business.
My kids love Chick-Fil-A and they are closed on Sundays.
There is only one Chick-Fil-A restaurant in Rochester, Michigan, I believe near Oakland University but is closed during the summer. A question becomes, why aren’t there Chick-Fil-A’s in Michigan?
Could it be the Michigan legal and business climate is so hostile to their corporate culture or structure Michigan is not a viable marketplace in their view? It’s the only explanation I can think of as to why Chick-Fil-A wouldn’t expand their market share into Michigan either through corporate stores or franchises.
On spring break we drove back to Michigan. I bought a power adapter for the car so my sons could play games on a computer laptop throughout the trip. Since they sit all day and play on computers I figured they could sit all day in the car and play on the computer. Not once did they say “Are we there yet?”
However, they were annoyed with the external wireless USB mouse as it was working on top of some luggage but they hate the mouse built into the laptop even more so. At Hope, Arkansas, the boys wanted subs so we stopped at a Wal-Mart Subway shop off the interstate.
While at Subway, Steven said something that made me all almost fall off my chair, "Dad, can I buy a book?"
I was happy that all the private tuition money I shelled out was maybe making a difference that one of my sons would actually read a book in this computer age.
I proudly explained to him this was a great idea because when I was his age on long distance trips, reading books was one of the things I did to pass the distance.
“No dad,” he said, “I want a book to use as a flat stable and smooth surface for the USB mouse.”
On April 30th Anthony (age ten) asked me if the Reichstag (the Nazi capital building in Berlin and housing for Adolf Hitler) fell that day. He was testing to see if I knew the date and I replied recalling the Battle of Berlin was during April 1945. He then informed me Hitler killed himself on April 30th. Anthony was correct on both accounts.
His homework and report cards indicate he is not the best reader nor the best memorization skills. Yet I know this is not a true reflection of his abilities, he reads history and his memory is amazing.
While watching the History Channel series “The Story of Us (America)” as they began to discuss the World War II era he described in perfect detail the June 6th Allied D-Day beach landings by country: Sword Beach (British), Juno Beach (Canadian), Gold Beach (British), Omaha Beach (American) and Utah Beach (American). I couldn’t remember this when I was ten.
Below is a clip from “Saving Private Ryan” which is very violent as war is very violent.
D-Day was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
[Credit to Paramount Pictures, “Saving Private Ryan” and the videographer MarineSniperMK for his video post]
Sixty-six years ago this was a big night for my Uncle Vincent McKay. He was in the airborne and parachuted into Normandy, France in anticipation of the D-Day naval invasion on June 6th. Given the chaos of the air drop, as with so many airborne soldiers, he was captured by the Germans. Although a prisoner of war, he spent the rest of the war working forced labor for the Nazi war machine. He was lucky to survive the jump and his time with the Germans.
One of the best mini-series ever made by HBO was “Band of Brothers” chronicling the story of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division. Below is the jump scene over Normandy.
The clip starts off calmly as they travel over the safety of the English Channel but at 3:43 on the track the German flak begins to zero in on the troop carrier aircraft and the terror begins.
[Credit to HBO the Band of Brother Series and the videographer Timecomtinum145 for his video post.]
I first came across Andre Rieu when I was teaching my kids about St. Patrick’s Day and was searching for classical Irish music. He is headline news in the Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Journal section for June 4, 2010.
Few people know of him but the article states, “Mr. Rieu grossed about $96 million on tour last year. That haul landed him at No. 6 among the world’s top touring acts, according to Billboard’s 2009 tally – ranked just below U2, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and above Britney Spears, Coldplay and Metallica.” The classical musical critics hate him, probably because he is very successful and makes too much money. Capitalism is about allowing consumers to make personal choices to decide, including what music they want to listen too. This is why ITunes and IPods are so popular, kids can choose their own music.
My kids even listen to his music and the songs below are in our ITunes library. Below is the song Irish Washerwoman. The gentleman in the silver hair is John Sheahan (from the Irish group Dubliners) and Andre Rieu when he was much younger than the sixty years old he is today.
Credits to: Wall Street Journal, June 4th edition, the article by John Jurgensen. Videographers: Irish Washerwoman - Escoscando]
Outsourcing is the global economy. A few weeks ago my son Anthony who is in the 3rd grade decided to join this trend and outsourced a small multiplication worksheet to his brother in the 6th grade for $50 so he could his maximize video game playtime.
Anthony recently had a birthday and received cash as a gift. At his age money is magical and he hasn’t grasped its value or how difficult it can be for people to earn. In 3rd grade reality, money is some mysterious material that grows on trees, like cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets.
I told Anthony it was outrageous that he paid his brother $50. I told him Dad would have done it for $25.
I explained competition makes free markets efficient. Putting on my regulatory hat I explained the job of regulators should be act as referees to insure there is fair and vigorous free competition in marketplaces. Then I put on my Dad hat and told him to do his own homework.
It occurred to me that Anthony’s grasp of the value and worth of money is about the same as a United States Senator. If this continues, Anthony will probably become a US Senator someday. Steven charged a steep fee of $50 for his services so he has a future as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
Buried in the 2,000+ page Health Care Reform Bill are new reporting requirements for 1099’s that appear to begin to lay a foundation for Value Added Tax reporting.
Currently businesses issue 1099’s to document income and certain securities transactions for individuals and other entities which creates a reporting challenge for the financial services industry. The purpose of the 1099 is to assist the Internal Revenue Service help taxpayers voluntary comply with income tax reporting.
Under the new law, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year.
Not just reporting income, all business purchase payments.
Businesses make lots and lots of purchases.
Hope I am wrong in raising a red flag. Why would the Internal Revenue need this information for current tax compliance? Hopefully the tax attorneys will figure this one out, and soon.
