The Broad Street Riot on This Day in History

 

This day in history: The Broad Street Riot occurred on this day in 1837. The Broad Street Riot was a massive brawl that occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1837, between Irish Americans and Yankee firefighters. An estimated 800 people were involved in the actual fighting, with at least 10,000 spectators egging them on. Nearby homes were sacked and vandalized, and the occupants beaten. Many on both sides were seriously injured, but no immediate deaths resulted from the violence. After raging for hours, the riot was quelled when Mayor Samuel Eliot called in the state militia.

In the wake of the riot, Boston's police and fire departments were established.

The Irish had a rough go at it for quite some time in the past. Anti-Irish sentiments in Victorian Britain and 19th century United States stereotyped the Irish as violent and alcoholic. Magazines such as Punch portrayed the Irish as having "bestial, ape-like or demonic features and the Irishman, (especially the political radical) was invariably given a long or prognathous jaw, the stigmata to the phrenologists of a lower evolutionary order, degeneracy, or criminality." 

Protestants of the nineteenth century would use crime statistics to allege that Irish Catholics were over-represented in crime. There were theories that the over-representation was due to a lack of morality stemming from Catholic religious belief, and other theories that Catholics were racially inferior to Anglo-Saxons.

The Irish were often used as slaves, and were even deemed to be of less worth than a black slave.

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Kenneth Taylor, the Creator of the "Living Bible" on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Kenneth N. Taylor died on this day in 2005. Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor was an American publisher and author, better known as the creator of The Living Bible and the founder of Tyndale House, a Christian publishing company, and Living Bibles International. The Living Bible sold more than 40 million copies and was translated into more than 100 languages.

The problem with the Living Bible is that it is not a real Bible, it is a paraphrase. 

"The word 'paraphrase' is used quite commonly in English for restating something in other words. In Bible translation, a paraphrase has the same primary goal as a dynamic equivalence translation -- that is, to make the meaning as plain and understandable as possible for the reader. The idea of making a Bible paraphrase is based upon the notion that the Bible's own phrasing is too difficult for the average reader. In a paraphrase, the translator is able to remove difficult rhetoric, harmonize passages with one

another, and draw out implications for the reader. It is a perfect opportunity to make the Bible consistent with the translator's own theology.

For these reasons, a paraphrase should never be mistaken for a Bible. It should not be packaged as a Bible, sold as a Bible, or used in place of a Bible. It should pass under the name of its author, as a commentary or interpretation of the Bible. When, instead, it is handled as if it is a Bible translation, and the author's name is left off of the title page as if he or she had no role in determining the contents of the book, a terrible deception is happening." Truth in Translation by Jason Beduhn

Taylor acknowledged this in his preface: "There are dangers in paraphrases as well as values. For whenever the author’s exact words are not translated from the Greek, there is a possibility that the translator, however honest, may be giving the English reader something that the original writer did not mean to say. This is because a paraphrase is guided not only by the translator’s skill in simplifying but also by the clarity of his understanding of what the author meant and by his theology. For when the Greek is not clear, then the theology of the translator is his guide, along with his sense of logic, unless perchance the translation is allowed to stand without any clear meaning at all. The theological lodestar in this book has been a rigid evangelical position."

Michael Marlowe criticized this work, saying that it was "the dumbing-down of the Biblical text to a grade-school level" done "in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." He adds that "very few scholars have given any encouragement to its [The Living Bible] use, and most have either ignored it or have strictly warned against it." Moreover, he claims that the text of The Living Bible contains "venturesome interpretations that no scholar is likely to approve" and that "[i]n several places Taylor brazenly wrests the scripture so as to conform it to Arminian teachings about salvation."

The Living Bible has made some interesting choices in wording. An early edition had "You son of a bitch" at 1 Samuel 20:30.

Also:

"I am just some drunken bum" 1 Samuel 1:16

"You illegitimate bastard" John 9:34

"Come to bed with me my, darling." 2 Samuel 13:11

"The Reluctant Dragon" Isaiah 30:7

"Israeli" at Exodus 9:4;12:34;14:20;19:1 etc. 

"Hell is licking its chops in anticipation" Isaiah 5:14

The original text of the Living Bible is the great American Standard Version of 1901. The ASV correctly had JEHOVAH 7000 times instead of the horrible practice of replacing the name with LORD or GOD. The Living Bible only keeps Jehovah 313 times. 

One case of clear theological bias can be seen at John 1:1. "Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God." This is not even remotely correct, and introduces a contradiction with Christ being WITH God and being "himself God." You can tell a translator's bias by how they treat this one passage.

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Charles Dickens on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day (June 9) in 1870, after a full day's work on The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens complained that he was feeling ill and then fell over dead of a stroke. 

"Bizarrely, exactly five years before, on June 9, 1865, the train he'd been riding in with his mistress and his mistress's mother had derailed, killing ten people and injuring dozens. Dickens had never fully psychologically recovered from the incident, and his typically frantic writing pace dwindled immensely; Drood was the only major project Dickens started in the five years between the accident and his death. The novel's unfinished state, coupled with Dickens's odd post-crash personality shifts, have long made Drood a source of interest for curious and investigative readers. The London of Edwin Drood's first chapter is, in many ways, a darker place—and perhaps more representative of reality—than the London of Dickens's other works." Source

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The Cult of the Supreme Being on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Maximilien Robespierre inaugurated the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France. The Cult of the Supreme Being was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic and a replacement for Roman Catholicism. It went unsupported after the fall of Robespierre and was officially banned by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

"Robespierre started out as a thoughtful, Enlightenment reformer who championed liberty and opposed the death penalty. On his way to the pinnacle of power during the French Revolution of the 1790s, he crushed liberties, introduced the famed 'Terror' and ordered the guillotining of thousands. Before he lost his physical head by the very same 'National Razor,' he lost his mind, even creating a new religion he called 'the Cult of the Supreme Being' with himself as its high priest." Source

"The 20th Century philosopher Eric Hoffer studied fanatics and the power that fanatics crave. He thought that power brings out the worst in any mortal, that few in number are those who can walk away from it or restrain themselves when they gain it. He wrote,

'The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing... For the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.'" Source

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JFK's Tax Cuts on This Day in History

 

Similarities between JFK and Trump

This day in history: On this day in 1962, President Kennedy announced in a press conference that he would seek "an across-the-board reduction in personal and corporate income taxes", commenting that "Our tax structure, as presently weighted, exerts too heavy a drain on a prospering economy." At the time, earnings of more than $200,000 were in a 91% federal tax bracket. In 1965, the top rate would drop to 70%. By 1988, the highest rate would be 28% for income over $31,050.

By January of 1963, Kennedy would go on to say: “The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of economic growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative and incentive.”

“Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort — thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”

"Kennedy’s speechwriter and longtime aide, Ted Sorensen, said, 'Kennedy was a fiscal conservative. Most of us and the press and historians have, for one reason or another, treated Kennedy as being much more liberal than he so regarded himself at the time… in fiscal matters, he was extremely conservative, very cautious about the size of the budget.'” 21 Reasons JFK Was Actually A Conservative

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Killed by a Flying Bear on This Day in History

 

This day in history: On this day in 2011, an unnamed woman from Gatineau, Canada, 25, and an unnamed 40-year-old man from Ottawa were killed in an accident on a rural Quebec road when a "flying bear" collided with their SUV. The 440 lb black bear was sent airborne by a car in front of the SUV after it had stepped into the path of traffic on Highway 148. The bear passed through the windshield, hitting the driver and the passenger sitting behind her before passing through the rear window. The driver's boyfriend was in the front passenger seat and received injuries to his upper body which were described as "not life-threatening". The bear also died.

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The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on This Day in History

 

On this day in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel, and he was pronounced dead the following day.

Kennedy, a United States senator and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Sirhan, a Palestinian who held strong anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian beliefs, testified in 1969 that he killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought"; he was convicted and sentenced to death. Due to People v. Anderson, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 with a possibility of parole. As of April 2023, his parole request has been denied 17 times.

Kennedy's assassination prompted the Secret Service to protect presidential candidates, and his assassination has led to several conspiracy theories. No credible evidence has emerged that Sirhan was not the shooter, or that he did not act alone. It has been described as one of four major assassinations in the United States that occurred during the 1960s.

But why?

A motive cited for Sirhan's actions is the Middle East conflict. After his arrest, Sirhan said, "I can explain it. I did it for my country." Sirhan believed that he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, which had begun one year to the day before the assassination. 

However, in a June 13, 2010 article titled, "JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t," James Fetzer noted that:

multiple shots targeted RFK, more "than could have come from Sirhan Sirhan’s gun" that was also the wrong caliber;

"RFK was shot behind the right ear from about 1.5 inches, but Sirhan was never that close and always in front of him;"

the coroner and LAPD reports were contradictory;

LAPD "engaged in massive destruction of evidence from the pantry of the hotel because ‘it would not fit into a card file,’ " as part of an official cover-up to blame Sirhan for a state-sponsored assassination, evidence suggesting CIA involvement in both Kennedy brothers and MLK killings;

Sirhan’s gun was a ".22 caliber, eight-round revolver (serial number H-53725);"

he "emptied his weapon from a location in front of Bobby Kennedy;"

Dr. Thomas Hoguchi’s autopsy "showed RFK was hit by four bullets, all of which were fired from behind at upward angles;

five others were wounded by separate shots;"

as many as 13 shots were fired;

Dr. Noguchi’s autopsy "did not point to Sirhan as the killer;"

an eyewitness, DeWayne Wofler, "testified that the bullets fired at RFK had come from an entirely different gun," not Sirhan’s;

a security guard, Eugene Cesar, standing right behind RFK, had a drawn gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon; it was never examined nor was he charged; and

"a woman in a polka dot dress" left the scene hurriedly, "shouting, "We shot him! We shot him! We shot Kennedy!" Source

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