Welcome to August...
Yes, this is the month where there is absolutely NO celebrated holidays in America.
But both my Father's birthday as well as my own WERE celebrated...so there!
Yet, to prove that there WERE noteworthy events that happened IN the month of August, I'll be featuring an "event-a-day" throughout the month.
And you will find out a TON of stuff in the process.
*  *  *  *  *
So here we go with...
 "Bobby G's This August Day In History!:
-- August 1 - (1884) Slavery is ABOLISHED through the British empire as the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 goes into effect.

What took them SO DAMN LONG beats the hell out of me.
-- And...there are only 145 shopping days until Christmas!
-- PLUS - TODAY marks TWENTY FIVE YEARS of  Rush Limbaugh taking the EIB golden microphone on the airwaves for the first time...

The venerable El Rushbo

Happy Anniversary, Kudos, Congrats and here's to 25 MORE!
-- In the meantime, our Hooiserland weather is not what one could consider "Augusty" in nature.
The temps today will again reach into the upper 70s with partly to mostly cloudy skies. We even had a touch of FOG this morning.
The precipitation is gone for the time being, but a slight chance of a pop-up shower or even a thunderstorm might occur sometime today.
So, with that dispensed with, let us get ourselves busy and see whats been going on...
*** First up today - the answer to yesterday's WHO SAID THAT? quote:
"Education would be so much more effective if it's purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl  should know how much they don't know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it."
This is attributed to Sir William Haley (24 May 1901 - 6 September 1987) was a noted British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator.
And here is his WIKI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Haley
Any of you that were familiar with the Encyclopedia Britannica now know that he was editor-in-chief OF that series of tomes from 1967-1969.
We could never afford them, but I often spent time perusing the volumes at the local library branch...it was like a gateway to the world for me.
And it helped to no small degree with reports for various classes.
So, I guess Haley's quote about EDUCATION didn't fall on deaf ears HERE.
Here's the Britannica link to him:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/252356/Sir-William-Haley
Haley's big problem early in his career at a newspaper, was that he was TOO SHY to be a reporter, so he was transferred to the editing department.
In 1943 he joined the BBC, and became general editor from 1944 to 1952, and then left to become editor of THE TIMES, considered to be the most influential position in British journalism.

After becoming editor-in-chief of Britannica, he resigned after a dispute with younger executives who wanted "livelier material" while Haley favored the more traditional approach with an expansion in size.
No mention of him ever being married or having children.
He passed away in a nursing home on the island of Jersey (his birthplace).
Moving on...
*** It seems I can never have a totally upbeat series of posts without some idiot shooting someone, or someone getting shot here in Ft. Wayne.

We can now say we have HOMICIDES NUMBER 27 and 28 as of last night.
Here's the story link:
http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/local/three-critically-hurt-in-shooting
A TRIPLE shooting on the city's....(wasn't the southEAST side for a change)...SOUTHWEST side left two dead and one in hospital at the Millbrook Apartments, located on the 2700 block of Millbrook Drive right off of Covington Rd. around 2013 hrs.

Two men were found on the ground outside of the apartment and a woman was found INSIDE one of the units, suffering from gunshot wounds. All three were transported to hospital and while the two men were DOA, the woman remains in good condition.

No victim names have been released, no motive and no suspects as of yet.
Officer John Chambers stated both men suffered "multiple gunshot wounds", and police were scouring the area for evidence related to the shootings.
One resident said this incident (especially with children around the immediate vicinity) scares the crap out of her.
Welcome to MY world, sister...we deal with the possibility of this happening every...single...day.
At least my predictions about easily reaching THIRTY homicides this year is secure, as is the prediction of even hitting FORTY homicides...
At the current rate, we might see FIFTY.

Yasureyoubetcha!

So, IS Fort Wayne a dangerous place, as WANE reported?
I might climb out on a limb here and say INCREASINGLY SO...
It might interest you to know that THIS complex is under the control of HUD (FWHA - big surprise THERE, hmm?) and here's the website link to prove it:

Yes, HUD was here...and still IS.

        http://www.fwha.org/communities/12-communities-article/14-brookmill-courts
You NEVER know when an event like THIS will happen...the predictability of such things is tenuous at best, because the people doing the shooting are capable of going postal at the drop of a hat, rather than pursue a course of reason and dialogue. Hell, they can't even SPELL those words.
And that brings me to this next story I saw on O'Reilly last night...
*** Here's a marvelous example of a "race-huckster" at work.
An Illinois state representative went on a Detroit radio show back on 16 July and said that "maybe the police are killing some of these kids".
And yes, she's BLACK. Her name is Monique Davis.

Here's a link to the story:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/19/Ill-State-Rep-Davis-Maybe-The-Police-Are-Killing-Some-Of-These-Kids
Can you imagine such idiocy...and that people actually elected this person?
Talk about your LOW-information voters!
Can't get ANY lower than this.
She wasn't making a CLAIM...just an aspersion...well, that's bad enough when you make such an asinine statement.
Bet she'd change her tune is SHE was the one on the receiving end of a beat-down by some young black thugs and the police didn't get to her SOON ENOUGH, because the black-on-black crime rate IS higher than black-on-white crime.
Tell you one thing...IF the police were killing the thugs out there, crime would be going down a HELLUVA lot faster...that's a damn fact.
Besides, the PAPERWORK involved with shootings of that nature STILL creates reams of hassles.
There is simply NO basis for such a ridiculous claim...unless it's to further DIVIDE people, rather than unify them, especially in URBAN areas.
Guess that root cause of problems in the black community (disintegration of the black family) gets ignored once again with THIS woman.
Wonder how MUCH those blinders of hers cost (the taxpayers), anyway?
It's downright scary the way some people think these days...
Now, FINALLY, for something a bit on the lighter side...
*** We got the Wifeymobile back from the shop - only cost us $80...not bad.
They couldn't track the leak, but added a dye into the oil, so I can se it on the garage floor.
The car didn't need an alignment job OR a tune up...good to know.

Today, Wifey plans to take a few boxes of old books up to Hyde Bros...she says she rather sell them than see them wind up in some landfill, and I have to agree with her. Books are still relevant today, because if your electronic gizmo goes on the fritz, and you can't read anything on THAT, that venerable BOOK is still on the shelf..waiting. She probably won't get much for the books, but that's not important. It's not about money.
It's about preserving a tradition.
The ability to read a book is a vital part of our lives, and should remain such.
*** Lastly today, some city trucks came into the next alley up and apparently took some foliage away...a lot of foliage, and yet, although the alley DOES look more accessible, it's nowhere close to being good ENOUGH.

Foliage R Us

The sofa's STILL there.

Not when I can still see overgrown foliage in yards, tires tossed to the side, and an overall apathetic demeanor when it comes to pride in one's property, owned OR rented.

Field of "dreams"?

Tires have been there for months!

Many people today WANT damn near everything.
And they have come to EXPECT most of it.
We can thank our government-sponsorships and entitlements.
Trouble is, they're not WILLING to do anything PRODUCTIVE  to GET what they want.
They obviously have their needs met, but that never seems to be ENOUGH, does it?
And such people will always want to take that easy way out to get what they want, whether it's through fraud, theft, robbery...whatever.

We've grown a generation or two with just such a mindset, and it's getting hard to turn that around with every subsequent generation.
THAT is what causes cities to fail (like Detroit), and that is what promotes the disintegration of what used to be a traditional family unit.
You simply cannot GIVE away the damn farm, an still expect to reap the benefits as the "owner". It's another way of the whole "having cake and eating it, too" thing...doesn't work...never will.
We ALL have vested interests in our cities, our families, and our properties. Hell, most all of us busted our asses to GET them, so why not KEEP them and take care OF them?
Perhaps if more people just got off their duffs and educated themselves a bit more, as Sir William Haley noted, they'd find that the pursuit of greater knowledge is JUST as challenging and rewarding as being educated in the first place.
Therein lies the lesson for today, my friends.

Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay SAFE out there, America.