My dog Jake - RIP 8/20/2013

JAKE RIP 8/20/2013

A GOOD AND LOYAL FRIEND TO THE END 

NJ Links to MLK's "I Had a Dream" Speech

                                            Clarence Jones and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Local New Jersey Links to MLK's “I Have a Dream” Speech

By William Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com 609-425-6297)

Maple Shade, Cape May and Longport, New Jersey don't have the same connotations to the American Civil Rights movement as Memphis, Selma and Birmingham, but events took place there that had a major impact on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the moving speech he gave at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington fifty years ago.

The first incident occurred in sleepy Maple Shade, a primarily residential Camden County community intersected by a number of major highways.

On June 10, 1950, a quiet Sunday afternoon, Martin Luther King, Jr., a student at Crozier Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, was driving around with his fellow student Walter R. McCall, and their dates, Pearl Smith and Doris Wilson after attending religious services. They pulled into Mary's Cafe on Main Street, just off the jug handle on Rt. 73, parked, went inside and sat down at a table.

There were a few local customers sitting at the bar, including a black man, but after reviewing the menu for quite some time, no one waited on them. After awhile, King got up and approached the bartender, Ernest Nichols - a big, German, who insulted King. After King and his companions complained about not being served, Nichols took out a gun from behind the bar, opened the door and shot the gun into the air.

King and his friends got the message and left, but before they left town they filed a formal complaint with the local police, and Nichols was later arrested and there was an official court hearing in which Nichols was fined $50 on a weapons charge.

Although not a well known incident in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is listed in the chronology of his life, and it is cited as the one event that radicalized him to make civil rights a political issue.

After King became recognized as a leader in the civil rights movement, in June 1958 he was asked to address a convention of Philadelphia area Quakers meeting in Cape May, New Jersey, where King gave a not well known but important speech in which he articulated the idea that the civil rights movement was not just for blacks but for all people, and that to be successful, violence would be counter-productive and non-violent civil disobedience must be practiced.

At Cape May King said the civil rights movement was part of a “worldwide revolt against slavery and the oppression of colonialism and imperialism.”

The third significant incident that contributed to the inspiration of the “I Have A Dream” speech took place in the early 1950s in Longport, New Jersey, an upscale beach resort on the south end of Absecon Island, which includes Atlantic City. Among the rich residents of Longport the Lippincott family were original Quakers who owned the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall (Now Resorts) on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and other Philadelphia and South Jersey area businesses.

The Lippincotts employed two domestic servants, a husband and wife whose young son Clarence Jones had looked forward to spending a summer at the Jersey Shore, and as soon as he got there he began exploring the neighborhood on his bicycle.

When he encountered some other local youths however, they harrassed him, and he was shocked at what they called him - “nigger,” “honkey,” “monkey” and “boogaloo,” things he had never heard before.

Having been educated in a private school by Catholic nuns and raised in the home of the upper crust Lippincott family, young Jones had never heard such language and was understandably repulsed.

Jones later recounted that, when his mother found him crying, and he told her what happened, she made him look in the mirror asked what he saw – telling him “you are the most beautiful thing in God's creation,” and from then on such taunting no longer affected him as much as it did that day in Longport.

The nuns, Jones said, taught him well, and after graduating from Columbia and obtaining his law degree and license, Jones moved to California, where he intended to become a prominent and prosperous attorney for the rich and famous.

Then one day in 1960 a visitor arrived at his front door – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was scheduled to give a sermon at Jones' church that evening. King asked Jones to go back east with him and work on the civil rights movement, as a young lawyer was needed. Jones declined, saying his wife was pregnant and he had to take care of his new family. King understood, but later that night King devoted part of his sermon on the responsibility of black professionals to stand up and take the lead in the movement that was then being led primarily by young black radicals, liberal white college kids and black ladies like Rosa Parks.

Also berated by his wife, Jones reconsidered and joined King's legal team, eventually becoming one of his most trusted aides. Jones helped compose parts of the “I Had a Dream” speech, ensured it was copyrighted and tells the story in his book, “Behind the Dream – the Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation.”

Jones can also be heard interviewed on NPR radio program - .
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132905796.dream-speech-writer-jones-reflects-on-king-jr

So MLK at Mary's Cafe in Maple Shade, his Cape May speech and Clarence Jones' bike ride in Longport, New Jersey may not rank with such major civil rights events as those that happened in Selma, Birmingham and Memphis, but what transpired in New Jersey at those times and places changed the minds of men and effectively brought about major changes in the civil rights of all people.

Gillespie's Original Donegal Home

Tracy Gillespie wrote: This is what is left of the house where my dad (Jack Gillespie) was born in the Blue Stack Mountains in Donegal Town, County Donegal, Ireland. My grandfather came to America and worked as a janitor in Philadelphia for three years to save up enough money to bring his family here. My dad was 12 when they were finally able to come over in 1933.

The Truth Behind the Aircraft Carriers in Port Photo

The truth behind the aircraft carriers photo

Posted at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2013 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Politics

Here's a picture that's picking up steam around the Internet today. A picture of five aircraft carriers in port in Norfolk, Virginia. The chances are pretty good it's going to show up in your Facebook feed soon.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2013/02/the_truth_behind_the_aircraft.shtml - .USyWVcYpw8o.facebook

The accompanying message is only partially correct:

What is wrong with this picture?
The picture is of the five nuclear carriers.
Just like Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
This picture was taken the other day in Norfolk. The Obama Administration ordered 5 nuclear carriers into harbor for "routine" (?) inspections. Heads of the Navy were flabbergasted by the directive.

NORFOLK, VA. (February 8, 2013). The first time since WWII that five (*) aircraft carriers were docked together. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are all in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., the world's largest naval station.

Sources stated that this breached a long standing military protocol in the Navy meant to avoid massive enemy strike on major US forces. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Ryan J. Courtade/Released)

What's the real story? Welcome to the sequester.

First, the picture was actually taken in mid-December, not this month. Second, none was ordered into port for "routine maintenance."

- The USS Enterprise was retired from the Navy in January. It's being dismantled.

- The USS Eisenhower deployed on Thursday and is on its way to the Middle East to relieve the USS Stennis, which will return to its home port on the West Coast. The Eisenhower was in port for two months to get its flight deck resurfaced.

- The USS Harry Truman was to depart on a mission to the Central Command in early February, but Navy officials asked the secretary of defense to cancel that mission, which presumably was to the Persian Gulf where the U.S. has had two aircraft carriers. Now it will have one -- the Eisenhower.

- The USS Bush was not ordered into port for "routine inspections." It had been undergoing tests of its ability to have aircraft, which it does not presently have. Its cruise was canceled because of the sequester.

- The USS Lincoln also was not ordered into port for routine maintenance. It was in port for a two-year refueling mission, which the Navy has now canceled because of the sequester cuts.

The Truman's situation is particularly interesting. WTVR TV in Richmonddescribed what happens to people when a deployment is canceled. Families depend on deployment money to pay bills. Many move home for family support. They are already gone. Single sailors with children already sent their kids to caretakers. Many sailors moved out of apartments or homes, have cars in storage and already set up mortgage and phones and bills. This will be a tough adjustment. Since they are now cancelled, only delayed indefinitely, they could have to leave suddenly if the budget impasse is solved. The Navy is asking for community help for these 5,000 sailors, giving leniency on bills. Living arrangements, help with temporary storage, temporary transportation...many of them do not have local family or a support system.

But back to the photo: It originally was paired with a U.S. Navy story about sailors coming home for Christmas:

Home for Christmas: 9 Flattops at Norfolk naval base, December 20, 2012.

With the returns from deployment of the carrier DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER on Dec. 19, and the amphibious ships IWO JIMA and NEW YORK on Dec. 20, the piers at Norfolk's naval base are about as full up as they'll ever be.

Five aircraft carriers, four big-deck amphibious assault ships, a full cast of "small boy" surface warships, along with nuclear submarines and support ships, are crowding the base, giving a comfortably snug feeling to the waterfront. Similar scenes -- although not with the gathering of flattops seen here -- are taking place at other fleet concentration areas like San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

The Navy makes a point of trying to gives its shipboard crews a chance to spend Christmas with their families, and for a few days the percentage of ships underway drops to the lowest point it will be all year. But many of these ships will be gone in two weeks as the pace of operations picks up again.

In a decade or so, scenes such as this at Norfolk could become quite rare, as the fleet is in the midst of a gradual shift from the Atlantic to Pacific. Within a few years, about sixty percent of the U.S. Navy's ships will be homeported at a Pacific base - virtually a mirror image of the Cold War emphasis on the Atlantic.

The Navy also says the story about this being the first time so many carriers were moored together since Pearl Harbor is untrue.

Not surprisingly, the story was changed, the picture was attached, and the Internet did its thing.

Comments:

For those that are wondering, there are 2 more flat-topped military ships in the background. These aren't aircraft carriers, technically - they're amphibious assault ships. "Amphibious assault ships are the centerpieces of US amphibious warfare and fulfill the same power projection role as aircraft carriers except that their striking force comprises land forces instead of aircraft. They deliver, command, coordinate, and fully support all elements of a 2200-strong marine amphibious unit in an amphibious assault using both air and amphibious vehicles."

Posted by Tyler | 

---

I do remember seeing this around the beginning of the year as a "Wow, this is cool!" thing rather than something to be freaked out about. Sad that the internet lens of distortion took effect.

Posted by Ryan V. | 

---

STILL a violation of law, regardless.

Posted by gma215 | 

---

Which law? I assume you're referring to the law requiring the Navy to maintain 11 aircraft carriers. It now has 10 but Congress granted the Navy a waiver until the USS Ford comes online.

Posted by Bob Collins | 

---

"The Internet did its thing"???

There is a culture of fabrication on the right that is not an "internet" thing. It's a traditional Southern Democrat (now doing business as the Republican Party) thing: feeding outrageous lies into the news cycle for political gain.

The people who did this knew exactly what the truth was, and deliberately altered it so as to inflame the GOP's hyper-paranoid base.

Posted by Mark Gisleson | 

Tired Fallen Angel

'Pastafarian' from EHT

‘Pastafarian' refuses to take spaghetti strainer off his head for license photo, South Brunswick cops say

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2013/02/pastafarian_refuses_to_take_sp.html

By Anthony G. Attrino/NJ.com 

on February 20, 2013 at 10:27 AM, updated February 20, 2013 at 12:03 PM

SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Motor vehicle workers in Dayton called police on a man who insisted on wearing a pasta strainer on his head during the taking of his driver’s license photo, according to a police report.

South Brunswick police officers responded to the MVC facility on Route 130 on a call that a man renewing his driver's license refused to remove the strainer on his head, according to a police report. The incident occurred about noon on Saturday, Feb. 2.

The man, Aaron Williams, 25, who gave an Egg Harbor Township address, told motor vehicle workers the strainer was a religious head covering and he had a right to wear it in his driver’s license photo.

Williams said he practices Pastafarianism.

Pastafarianism, or the Church of the Flying Spaghettic Monster, is a movement opposing teaching in schools of intelligent design and creationism.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Williams said he is serious about the movement.

“I take it as seriously as anybody else when it comes to religious beliefs,” he said.

According to a police report, an motor vehicle employee told Williams head coverings can’t be worn in license photos unless it’s for religious reasons.

Williams then pulled out his cell phone and began taking video of the worker – another violation of motor vehicle policy, according to the report.

Police advised Williams that the pasta strainer was not approved by the MVC and he would have to apply to the state to wear it in his license photo.

Williams reluctantly agreed to have his picture taken without the strainer, according to police.

He also agreed to delete the video he had taken of the motor vehicle worker, according to the report.

Asked why he’d left his home in Atlantic County to have his photo taken at the South Brunswick motor vehicle office, Williams said: “I like it. It’s a nice, new office.”

In Austria, self-described Pastafarian Niko Alm fought for three years for the right to wear a pasta strainer on his head in his driver's license photo. He won his fight after officials performed a mental-health check, according to NPR.

Dead Body Found in Pines

Dead body found in Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times_news/dead-body-found-in-brendan-t-byrne-state-forest/article_67804bbe-9d45-567f-944b-f65baba1891a.html

PEMBERTON TOWNSHIP — Authorities discovered a dead body in Brendan T. Byrne State Forest on Saturday morning, according to the New Jersey State Police.

Investigators have only been able to identify the body as that of a white male on Saturday, state police said.

The cause and manner of death remained under investigation.

It was unknown Saturday how long the body had been in the forest.

The body was discovered about 11 a.m. near a pond in Whitesbog Village by an ice skater, who called authorities.

The Burlington County Medical Examiner’s Officer is expected to perform an autopsy.

State police are asking anyone with information about the circumstances of the man’s death or his identity to call them.

Investigators can be reached at the state police Red Lion Barracks in Southampton at 609-859-2282.

Young White Buck and Doe

A young White Buck and Doe frolic with their white-tailed mate in the field near Range Road.

Thanks to David Olah for these pix.He said they were bouncing around having a good time.