Fawkesy Dude!

"Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold & land, defended ideas, imposed religions. We have held that a death toll was a necessary part of every human achievement, whether sport, war, or industry. A moment's rage over the horror of it, and we have sunk into indifference." Ida Tarbell, progressive journalist and teacher, 5 Nov. 1857 ~ 6 Jan. 1944

Miss Tarbell was born in one of many perilous times in American history, on Guy Fawkes Day when many a crowd has gathered 'round bonfires to commemorate the autumn day in London, in 1605, when Fawkes was discovered w/a cache of explosives w/ which he'd hoped to blow up the House of Lords. All part of a plan it was, to plant a Catholic on the throne of England. After all, said Mr. Fawkes, "A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy." The Britannic authorities could not have agreed more. Further illuminating Ida's declaration, they captured and tortured Fawkes, thus foiling the "Gunpowder Plot," then they hanged him. Oh - and, this appears to be the anniversary of the day in 1831 when magistrates of the Old Dominion sentenced Nat Turner to death for having raised a deadly rebellion of those trapped in servitude. (Hmmm... according to the wikibots, today marks 4 years since Saddam Hussein was sentenced to the noose & the world was relieved of his company, if not the affects of his time here.)

On an ever so much nicer note, three performers, who gave boatloads of pleasure to this unfair, wicked old world, share a birthday with the courageous, stubborn, indefatigable Ida Tarbell: Joel McCrae (1905)... do see him, if you haven't, in Sullivan's Travels. or see it again if you have. oh baybee.... Roy Rogers (1911), and Vivien Leigh (1913).