Today, Confederate forces under the command of General Beauregard began the bombardment of Fort Sumter.  This action was the spark that lit the powderkeg of the American Civil War. 

The South spent the next four years learning the hard lesson that no matter how well led or how brave your soldiers are, if you can’t feed them, arm them, and replace losses in both privates and generals, you will lose in a long war against a foe that has a deep bench of generals, a huge pool of young men, and an industrial base that can crank out guns, wagons, shoes, uniforms, and food as fast as it is needed.

The family legend I heard growing up was that my Irish ancestor got off the boat, learned that there was money to be made signing up for the Army, and signed up with one of the local regiments for the bonus.  He then moved over a few blocks, signed up with another regiment, took the bounty, and moved on again.  The third time his timing was a bit off, and there wasn’t time for him to slip away to continue his entrepreneurship before he was marched south.  Thus began my tradition of military service and being sneaky.

The Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history, and saw the transformation of warfare from a gentleman’s pursuit to an industrial endeavor.  By the end of the war, at least on the Union side, muzzle-loading rifles and muskets were being replaced with breech loading single-shot and repeating rifles.  Telegraphs and railroads were being used as weapons of war.  Military leaders were learning that destroying a field army was easier if you destroyed the supply chain that fed it first. 

Every so often, someone on the Internet spouts off about the necessity of another Civil War.  I’ve heard the family legends, read the histories, and walked the battlefields and cemeteries.  It is my earnest hope that it will never be necessary for Americans to kill Americans again.  We are better served with reform and elections in Washington than we would be with bullets and bombs in Los Angeles.

I just registered for the Lucky Gunner Memorial Day Blogshoot.   Apparently they got a heck of a lot more pre-registration than they expected, so there’s probably going to be a culling process of applicants.  I’m not strictly a gun blogger, and I’m certainly a small fish in a big pond of veteran gunbloggers.

But what the heck.  I put in my registration, and if I’m selected I’ll be heading to Knoxville for a weekend of shooty goodness, meeting people, and shooty goodness.  Wish me luck!  And don’t forget to register yourself!  I really want to start meeting more of the people I’ve met on-line.

A 4th grade teacher in Norfolk, Virginia, is going to have a good talking to over a recent history lesson.  Apparently the Norfolk Public Schools administration frowns on segregating 4th graders by race, then demonstrating a slave auction using the black students as chattel.  Go figure.  The principal of the school promises to have a discussion with the teacher about how inappropriate such a thing is.  From the reporting, you’d think she’d worn white before Memorial Day.  I mean, it’s not like she’d recreated a shameful, hurtful, and despicable part of our history or anything.

What’s next?  Is the German teacher going to have a blonde-haired, blue-eyed student sort the other students as they file past him after spending a couple hours locked in a closet together?   Maybe as another history lesson, the teacher could have the students with Native American ancestors give everything in their lockers to the other students and then spend the rest of the day being roughly moved from one classroom to another?

You know, I wonder why I’m shocked anymore..

“Honest honey!  I got it from a mosquito!”

A biologist who travelled to Africa and was infected with a mosquito-transmitted virus seems to have passed the disease on to his wife via intercourse.  Scientists report that, while rare, this kind of thing has been seen before.

Imagine if other diseases that are normally spread through intercourse were found to be transmittable via insect bite.  How many scumbags would look their wives in the eye and say “Hey, I got bit by a chigger while I was on that business trip.  Must have gotten it there.”?

Something tells me he’d still be a dead man walking.

According to a recent poll of Mississippi Republicans, 46% of them felt that interracial marriage should be illegal.  I’m assuming that what they mean by interracial is a black person marrying a white person.

Wow.

I’m almost speechless.

OK, Sparky, let’s talk.  See that calendar on the wall?  It says 2011, not 1911, or 1961.  We’ve sent black people to war, to college, to the voting booth, and to the White House.  I personally have had black physicians, black professors, black commanding officers, and one very good black lawyer in my lifetime.  In the event that one of my kids decides to become involved with an American of African descent, as long as they’re a good person and treat my kid like the beautiful prize they are, then they do it with my blessing.

Look, if you want to have a problem with people who aren’t as lilly white as the driven snow, fine.  It’s a free country.  You want to raise your children to keep their gene pool monochromatic, as long as they don’t hurt people, have at it.  It’s your life.

But do us all a favor and stop with the “There oughta be a law” crap.  Choices in marriage are none of the government’s business.  If two adults, regardless of their race or whatever, want to try to spend the rest of their life putting up with each other, it’s none of your, or my, business.  As a nation, we have better things to worry about than who’s hooking up with whom.  I’m sure that at the local level, Mississippi has more pressing issues.  Stop acting like a Democrat and let the rest of the world live the way they want to.