Tuesday, July 4, 2017

My Provocation For The Day

I read the article in the Los Angeles Times about how when the fifth president, James Monroe died on July 4th, 1831, after both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day in 1926, people thought they saw the hand of God in it.   Of course, there's no way to know that.  While this passage probably should have been included,  it's kind of pathetic that the last part. observing there is no historical evidence to help you decide which to believe,  has to be said to adults.

Although scholars are typically weary of analyzing unexplained phenomena, in 2005 historian Margaret P. Battin entertained the meaning behind the same-day deaths of Adams and Jefferson by offering six possibilities, 

Coincidence.
Divine intervention.
“Hanging on” to life in order to ensure death on July 4.
Caused to die by others.
Allowing oneself to die.
Causing oneself to die.

Each of these theories, she said, lacks historical evidence.

But I don't much care about what Daniel Webster or other sleeveens like him had to say about the coincidental death dates, I want to kick up some mischief and annoy some poeple over what John Adams is reported to have said shortly before his death.

“Thomas Jefferson survives,” were rumored to be among Adams’ last words from his deathbed in Quincy, Mass. He was unaware that his friend died that day, July 4, 1826, at his beloved Monticello estate more than 500 miles away in Virginia.

It's kind of an odd thing for him to have said on that occasion, considering there were no phones, the mail was extremely slow and unreliable so there would have been every reason for Adams to think that he wouldn't know if Jefferson had kicked the bucket until days or weeks after it happened.  And presumably he would have been more fixed on his own soul which he believed was about to be changed in the blinking of an eye as he faced eternity.

I don't recall who it was who raised the possibility that Adams might have been having a near death experience in which his friend who, without his knowledge, had died shortly before, came to him. What he could have been doing is experss surprise that the quasi-deistic Jefferson had survived death, probably a big surprise to Jefferson who might have wanted to share the news with someone he'd written to on religious subjects a lot.   If he had a vision of Jefferson already in the afterlife, his statement would make sense more than him believing he knew something he couldn't know on this side of the veil.

That's not an historical statement requiring evidence, I make it only to annoy those who would find such a speculation annoying.  I say believe it and annoy the atheists.  If you're wrong, they won't be able to hold it over you.  If you're right, why wait to the afterlife to crow about it?

Update:  Who knows?  Adams is believed to have died of a heart attack, I've read.  Maybe it was brought on by the shock of seeing Jefferson from the afterlife.   Just to annoy the atheists.

26 comments:

  1. Hey Sparky -- TNT is doing a series about the adventures of the young William Shakespeare, I mean, Francis Bacon.

    ENJOY!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZpviszpJlg

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's about nobody. There isn't enough there to make an adventure series out of. What is known about "the young William Shaksper" is that he was baptized, there isn't even a record of his birth. The next thing that is known about him is that when he was 18 he married a woman seven years older than he was, apprently because he'd knocked her up. That's it about "the young William Shakespeare" anything else they write about him will be just like almost everything else they write about "William Shakespeare" definitely NOT about an author of plays and poems but about the imagination of whoever wrote the crap.

    There isn't even enough to make one out of during his adulthood when there are actual documents of what he was up to. He was a rather pedestrian, money grubbing broker and petty crook who did things like hoard grain during a food shortage so he could make a killing off of starving people.

    I'll bet you believed everything you watched in those TV horse operas about Bat Masterson and all the rest of the total phonies. Oh, yeah, that's right, you're the one who got into a swivet when I pointed out just about everything they depicted about the Pony Express was a complete lie, going unhinged when I pointed out that stupid movie was total and absolute crap.

    You and Donald Trump have ever so much more in common than you would ever care to have pointed out. Starting with being habitual liars who don't have any regard for reality, preferring fiction. Actually, the Stratford man had something in common with him, an addiction to bringing lawsuits over shillings when he stiffed a creditor who loaned money to Shaksper's wife when he'd abandoned her and their children to carouse in London.

    A biography that isn't based on documentary fact is not a biography, it's fiction. Not surprised a crappy American cabloid network would do that any more than I'm surprised the Brain Toilet whose entertainment division you're addicted to lies. That's FOX.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I forgot, you and Trump, you're both stupid and old and ugly and no one likes you.

      Delete
  3. Did you know that Xena, Warrior Princess participated in the Trojan War AND met Jesus?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like something you'd believe. You're the one who thought Tom Stoppard was wrong about his screen play and that Shakespeare in Love was biography.

      Even calling the guy "Shakespeare" is a fraud as he never wrote his name that way, he was "Shaksper" or any of the other five spellings he gave his name. If, indeed, he could even write those. There is lots of evidence they aren't even by the same hand. Not even on his will.

      Delete
    2. And you're still stupid and ugly and no one likes you.

      Delete
  4. Wow.

    Seek help, Sparky. Seriously -- it may not be too late, not that I care particularly.
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, your idiot laugh track is back.

      On what do I require help? To note that you're stupid and ugly and no one likes you?

      Delete
  5. Apparently you think Xena, Warrior Princess actually DID meet Achilles and Jesus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're the one who talked about Xena. I'm not sure but I think that was the first time I've ever typed the name. I think I mentioned Achilles because he's one of the baby-men in the beginning of The Iliad but I haven't looked at my several blogs to check that. Unlike you I think there's a wee bit important about getting history right and, though I'm innocent enough of Xena Studies to know when she's supposed to have flourished, I suspect she might have the same problems of anachronism that Achilles would have had to have if he were to meet the very real Jesus in the first decades AD.

      As I said, someone as stupid as you are can't imagine what someone who's smarter than they are - as most people are smarter than you - because they lack the ability to think the same thoughts. In place of that you fill in with what you can imagine. Pretty much the same method they use to create a biography for the Stratford man, Shaksper.

      Delete
  6. Good lord. You don't get the joke, you don't get the references, you think this shit is...what? Fake real? Real fake?

    HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Look, Simps, I'm not interested in your joke, zip your pants up.

      References? In Xena Studies? I take it as a point of pride that I don't know anything about Xena just as I don't know anything about Hunger Teen, other than the names.

      Maybe you can get a job in Xena Studies when Trump U starts up again.

      Delete
  7. You had no idea it was a silly TV show.

    Good fucking lord...
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I did know it was a TV show and as it is a superhero show I assumed it was silly, which is why I'm not surprised you're versed in Xenaography. I'm surprised you haven't said it's a bioflick. Have you?

      My niece is embarrassed when she veges out watching anime, you're proud of your stupidity going on four times her age.

      I'm not embarrassed about not following stupid stuff.

      Delete
  8. If I were you I'd delete all your comments after my first about the Shakespeare show. Anybody who doesn't already know what a transparent fraud and idiot you are will laugh their asses off reading the stuff you've posted on this thread otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you were I I'd take the gas pipe.

      You certainly don't take the clue that I find a mendacious idiot like you insulting me as encouragement. About the only person I can think of who I'd rather have insulting me, off hand, is Rand Paul.

      Delete
  9. BTW-- actual smart people don't proclaim to the world that they're smart. That's the kind of thing Trump does, so you might want to lay off it.
    😀

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You vastly overestimate the accomplishment that being smarter than you is. Gomez is smarter than you. I think even Tlaz might be smarter than you.

      Delete
  10. Well, that's a ringing endorsement of yourself.
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To note that Tlaz who is an ass is likely smarter than you?

      I think I called that disorder of turning everything into what you want it to say instead of what it says "Simelsism" because you're a noted example of it.

      If it weren't a holiday and it hadn't been too hot to work in the garden I wouldn't have posted your first comment. You are a cheap diversion but not for anything you intend to do.

      Delete
    2. Oh, by the way, Simps, your claim to have seen William Flanagan around the ad flyer you worked at is pretty funny because I note today you said that you got your first job three or four years after he died.

      I knew you were lying about that as soon as you claimed it.

      Delete
  11. I already told you -- I met him in college.

    Keep lying, shithead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You made that claim after you realized I knew your first one was impossible because he'd committed suicide before you were likely to have been working at that rag.

      By the way, tell your dopey friend that I'm just as glad to not have met William Flanagan because though he was a very good composer he was a miserable human being. I know some people blamed Albee for the break up but the guy was seriously messed up and self-destructive. A shame, really, but I doubt Albee could have helped him. He was not without his own issues, either.

      Delete
  12. I met him. I worked with people who worked with him.

    What have you done besides lying?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I haven't been begging the question.

      I don't believe you because you changed your story and you are a proven liar.

      I'm going to bed. And I won't be posting any more of your comments this week. Two Simps days during weeks with national holidays in them at the most. Now I'm expecting you to lie as a means of forcing me to give you attention. But I won't.

      Delete
  13. Not just a liar, you're a gutless liar.

    ReplyDelete