A Depressing Statistic

I happened to look up the 11 American cities with the highest per capita murder rates last year, as well as their ethnic demographics and I have to say they make me deeply pessimistic about this country’s future.  Read them and draw your own conclusions.

A Good Cop’s Record

Some of my readers might recall that a man who was once quite literally “the boy next door,” Rod Wittich, joined the Columbus Police Force a bit over thirty (30) years ago and has served as Patrol Officer, Patrol Sergeant, Sex Crimes Investigator, Internal Investigator, and now Patrol Lieutenant.  In my humble opinion, Rod Wittich is a very good cop.  He has told me something about his career that I regard as a big case of good news/bad news: he saw every person he ever arrested for a sex crime convicted, but never anyone he arrested for domestic violence.

Bethel Break Up

I spent five years in Bethel, Alaska working as a public defender.  Bethel, Alaska is a town which is, geographically, closer to Siberia than it is to Anchorage (399 miles to the east).  Bethel is located on the banks of the Kuskokwim River and when the river is frozen the only way to get to Bethel is to fly in (unless you have an absolutely hellaciously good all-terrain vehicle or are a fanatical sled dog musher).

Every year there is a major celebration when the ice breaks up.  The townspeople put a device out on the ice, and when the instrument registers movement, it’s party time!!  The break-up festival has been going on since 1924 and has been celebrated (with very few exceptions) every year since.  I offer the following statistics and people who want to argue climate change can make of them what they want.  I will note that the earliest break up Bethel has experienced was April 24th back in 1940 and the latest was June 3rd in 1964.

Clerical Decline

I recently learned that in 1965 there were almost 200,000 nuns in the United States; approximately 1 in 1,000 Americans.  Today that figure is 60,000; one of every 5,000 Americans.  The average nun in the United States is almost 70, so that decline is going to become even more precipitous.  In 1965, there were 58,000 Catholic Priests in the United States.  Today the figure is 30,000 and 50% of them are over 70.  Some people are calling this a crisis for the Catholic Church.  I regard this as a very encouraging outbreak of common sense. I have, at times, pointed out to my classmates at Notre Dame Law School, that until the last century or two, the best and the brightest of all Europe (until the reformation) and in majority Catholic Countries after that, never had children.  What are the long-term genetic consequences of centuries of selective breeding for stupidity? (Discuss amongst yourselves.)

Coincidental Name

Back in May 2011, when the Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, I commented that, while I’m reluctant to second guess the men on the scene, it would have been a great thing to capture Osama Bin Laden since he would be great source of intelligence.  After they captured Osama Bin Laden, I commented that I approved of the Navy giving him a proper burial at sea; quoting Nietzsche, “Whosoever fights monsters should take care that they not turn into one.” A Jewish friend of mine emailed me back opining that Osama Bin Laden should have been wrapped in bacon. I get it.  Hedy wants something really, really, really bad to happen to Bin Laden. (Is everybody with her on that? Show of hands please. Yep, I thought so.)

However, while I wholeheartedly concur with Hedy’s antipathy towards that murdering scumbag, I seriously doubt that she knew that one of my Notre Dame law school classmates was a very fine lady named Hilary Bacon.

Molotov’s Last Job

Besides giving his name to the Molotov cocktail (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, 1890 –1986) was probably the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union in the past 15 years of Stalin’s regime.  Learning about Molotov gave me a whole new insight into the absolute horror of life under Soviet rule.  Molotov was frequently required to countersign Stalin’s execution and arrest lists.  One day, Stalin gave Molotov an exile order with Molotov’s wife’s name on it.  Molotov later wept, but he did not dare even protest that order. After Stalin’s death, Molotov wound up on the wrong side of a power struggle with Nakita Khrushchev’s faction and found himself stripped of his title of Foreign Minister.  He then received a dramatic demotion.  He was sent to be the Soviet Ambassador in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia — 3,669.7 miles and 4 times zones from Moscow. After a couple of years in that post, Khrushchev had Molotov expelled from the Communist Party.  While Molotov wept at the news, he was by Soviet standards incredibly lucky.  He had another 25 years to live and did not receive a bullet in the back of the head as had the millions of other Soviet citizens whose death warrants he had cosigned.

P.S.  While researching Molotov I came across an amazing coincidence about Molotov’s wife.  She was Jewish and one of her childhood friends was a woman now known as Golda Meir.

Nashville Mystery

I’ve already written about the Civil War experiences of my paternal grandfather’s father, Lt. William T. Mitchell of the 3^rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment.  He joined that unit in April of 1861 and resigned his commission September 4, 1864 (Getting to Know My Great Grandfather).  I’ve never been able to find his letter of resignation, but it turned out to be a good career move.  The next seven months were not good ones for the men of the army of Tennessee.  Last year I read a book about the 3^rd Tennessee regimen and learned that by mid-December of 1864, that unit which originally consisted of almost 900 men was down to 21 men and 3 “colored servants.” Even that late in the war, more than 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the confederate army still had black men attached to that unit as servants.  I’ve often regretted that my great grandfather did not keep a diary.  I also wish those “colored servants” had left some record behind.  It would be fascinating to learn what they were thinking.