March 24, 2019
Dearest Readers,
Good morning, and thank you for reading.
Today we allow On This Date to take us to 1765 and 1944, Top of the Charts reviews 1974 and Philosophy 101 talks about choices that may already have been made for us.
Many thanks for reading,
xoxoxo,
Kaitlyn
On This Date:
In 1765 – The British Parliament passes the Quartering Act, which required colonial governments to house and feed British troops. This was one of many acts of Parliament that tended to annoy the Colonists, was one of the grievances detailed in the Declaration of Independence and was the impetus for the 3rd Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the quartering of soldiers in private homes without permission or without being specifically authorized by law. It also had some influence over the passage of teh 2nd Amendment.
In 1944 – What History refers to as the Great Escape begins at German POW camp Stalag Luft III in what is now western Poland. It was not particularly successful. Of the 600 prisoners who worked on the tunnel, 200 were chosen for escape and of these 76 actually made it out of the camp and of these only three made it to an Allied or neutral country. Of the 73 that were captured 50 were executed by the Germans.
Top of the Charts
#1 songs on this date in 1973:
Hot 100 – Love Train…The O’Jays (only week)
Soul Chart – Neither One Of Us (Want To Be The First To Say Goodbye)…Gladys Knight & the Pips (2nd of four weeks)
Country Chart – The Teddy Bear Song…Barbara Fairchild (2nd and final week)
UK Singles Chart – Cum On Feel the Noize…Slade (4th and final week)
Album Chart – Dueling Banjos…Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell (2nd of three weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard (US) and Official Charts Company (UK).
Numbers Racket
10,683: the continuous number of days the US has been at war.
22.149: the number of dollars, in trillions, of America’s national debt. – Source: usdebtclock.org
598: number of days until Election Day 2020.
Philosophy 101
But for the chosen, there is no choice.
Saul Bellow
Ravelstein
We talk a lot here about getting the most out of the talents we were issued at birth. We believe it is the key to a good life and doing so is one of life’s great prizes.
We had no say in what those talents are, either. Nature endowed us with them and the only real choice we humans have to make is whether or not we are going to make use of these talents or squander them. It might seem like there are those chosen for a good life and those who are not, but in reality the only difference between those that get on in this life and those who do not are the former had the diligence and courage to get the most out of their talents and live the life they were meant to live. Those looking back on what might have been probably did not maximize their talents.
All of us – you, me, your aunt in Reno – are cut out to do certain things, things we were chosen to do by nature. Now, it is important to note that these things do not necessarily have to favor or curse us with fame or fortune or cause to live down the ages. In fact, they probably won’t. All that is important is that we do the things we have a knack for, that we make our time serve us by following the path our hearts direct us to take and trusting our instincts to take us there.
When we do that, we’ve made the only real choice us humans have to make.
Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was a Canadian/American writer and was a winner of both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.