A Bob's Life: Monday Musings

Monday, March 7, 2022

Monday Musings - March 7, 2022

1. Welcome to March 2022. Today is the first Monday of the month. There are 42 Mondays remaining in the year. Spring officially begins in 13 days!

Marley and the Turtle
Tequesta, FL
March 6, 2022

2. The cat and the turtle. Marley is a cat and she is the clear queen of her home. A new item, a wooden turtle, was introduced into her domain the the other day and it apparently has created some conflict. Marley was noticed trying to decide if the turtle was friend or foe last evening. The turtle, of course being wooden, did not back down from Marley's advance causing her to retreat.

3. After biking over 30 miles during the past two days, I am going to take a break today. Yesterday's ride, just short of 20 miles, took me to the southern tip of Singer Island where I could look out across the shipping channel and to the Atlantic Ocean with its roiling waves. It looked to be a rough day to be out on the ocean. While facing a left-quartering headwind for most of the ride down Singer Island, it became a right quartering tailwind for the ride back ad resulted I a much more enjoyable and faster return trip.

4. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is abhorrent. I am amazed at the number of people who have suddenly become foreign policy experts or military experts without any experience in either. Many of these same people were rendering unfounded and incorrect COVID medical opinions just two weeks ago. The situation revolving around Ukraine is very complicated and a mis-step could have dire consequences for the planet. I am watching the Biden administration navigate a complex world situation. This is a war and all of the instruments of national power are being employed as effectively as perhaps has ever been done by the U.S. Remember, war is hell and making this worse, the survival of the Russian Federation is in play making the end game and exit strategy even more complicated and dangerous.

5. Chris returns from her trip to Maryland today. Yay! Finnegan is more than ready to welcome her home.

6. Today in History. On March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, a 600-person civil rights demonstration ends in violence when marchers are attacked and beaten by white state troopers and sheriff’s deputies. The day's events became known as "Bloody Sunday."

The demonstrators—led by civil rights activists John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—were commemorating the recent fatal shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon, by state trooper James Bonard Fowler. The group planned to march the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. Just as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma, they were ordered to disperse. Moments later, police assaulted them with tear gas, bullwhips and billy clubs. Lewis, then 25, was one of 17 marchers hospitalized; dozens more were treated for injuries.