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The death of James Brady — President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was wounded in the attempt on Reagan’s life in March 1981 — was a homicide, a medical examiner has ruled. Brady died as a result of the injuries, the Office of the Medical Examiner for the Northern District of Virginia said.

That means gunman John Hinckley Jr. could be charged with Brady’s murder. It also means Lewis Powell, the attacker of President Abe Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward can be charged with the secretary’s death – even though he lived another seven- years following the attack.

How stupid!

Born in London, March 16th 1836, Andrew Hallidie was a pioneer of cable railway transportation.  On January 28th, 1852, he and his father left Liverpool for America on the steamship ‘Pacific’ arriving in New York on February 12th, after a fifteen day crossing.

Following a 16-day stopover, the pair departed on the ‘Brother Jonathan.’ Thirteen years later, the Brother Jonathan would sink after striking an uncharted rock near Point St. George, off of Crescent City, while carrying 244 passengers.

After crossing the Isthmus the travelers reached Panama on March 15th. On the 26th they embarked on the ship ‘Brutus’ and landed at Clark’s Point in San Francisco 59-days later.

The younger Hallidie spent the next nine-years working mines in Mariposa, Calaveras, Amador, El Dorado, Placer, and Nevada counties. He also worked as a blacksmith along the American River, later building bridges across the Bear, Trinity, Stanislaus, and Tuolumne rivers.

In 1861, Hallidie constructed a bridge across the Klamath River at Weitchpeck, but had to leave it unfinished because of an uprising of Indians. Its completion didn’t happen until 1901, about a year after his death, with the construction of the Ash Creek Bridge in Siskiyou County.

Six years later, he took out his first patent for the invention of a rigid suspension bridge. He also patented the “Hallidie Ropeway (or Tramway),” a method of transporting ore and other material across mountainous districts by means of an elevated, endless traveling line, which he had invented.

Hallidie, in 1871, completed plans by which street cars could be propelled by underground cables, from Clay and Kearny Streets to the crest of the hill, a distance of 2,800 feet, making a rise of 307 feet. With his success, the cable railroad system spread to Oakland, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, London, and Sidney.

At the age of sixty-five, he died of heart disease at his San Francisco home, April 24th, 1900. His name is memorialized by way of the Hallidie Building at 130 Sutter Street, between Montgomery and Kearny in San Francisco.

During a discussion on ‘The View,’ August 6th, 2014 that centered on a story out of Georgia where a group of power-walkers were told by mall security that they were not allowed to bow their heads in group prayer, co-host Whoopi Goldberg went off on the subject saying:

“I’m sorry. I don’t necessarily want to trip over anyone who’s praying. I want you to pray. I want you to pray whenever you are. But I don’t want to know you’re doing it. I don’t want to know, because it’s your private business and if you do it everybody else gets the right to do it.”

Odd that even when making a negative statement about individual liberty like this that Whoopi could also be so right.

Jus’ so Whoopi understands, freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. In fact, in the U.S. there is a document that enshrines these rights called the Constitution. This principle is clearly expressed in the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

I feel sorry for Whoopi Goldberg, as it is hard to live and thrive under such intolerable conditions like she has.

With Hawai’i set to be battered by two storms, there seems to be some confusion over the different types of storms that affect our earth. So what are the islands going to be hit with?

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s webpage:

“Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon; we just use different names for these storms in different places. In the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, the term “hurricane” is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a “typhoon” and “cyclones” occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The ingredients for these storms include a pre-existing weather disturbance, warm tropical oceans, moisture, and relatively light winds. If the right conditions persist long enough, they can combine to produce the violent winds, incredible waves, torrential rains, and floods we associate with this phenomenon.

In the Atlantic, hurricane season officially runs June 1 to November 30. However, while 97 percent of tropical activity occurs during this time period, there is nothing magical in these dates, and hurricanes have occurred outside of these six months.”

A few months ago a friend sent me a list he called ‘Life Lessons.’ They are sound and now I want to share them with you.

Life is far too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.
If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you.
You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot.
Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth.
And remember, it’s not the people who stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.

A date that will live in infamy is one that wasn’t particularly romantic or anything, but rather because it was embarrassing. I took a young lady named Linda to see the movie, “1941.”

The 1979 film was directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featured a cast that included Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, Toshiro Mifune and Robert Stack. The story-line involves a panic in the Los Angeles area after the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor.

At the time I didn’t know the plot, I jus’ knew it had Belushi in it and therefore in my pea-brain it was compulsory that I see it. In the end, the movie wasn’t all that funny even though some people I know now claim it has risen to some sort of cult status.

Finally, the reason I was so embarrassed came down to one reason and one reason only — Linda is of Japanese ancestry.  We never went out on a date again.

One of the first lessons I learned as an Environmental Health Technician while in the U.S. Air Force was to stop the spread of life-threatening disease by containing it at or nearest its source. That means all contaminates, including people, had to be held away from the public in the area in which the disease was first noted.

But somehow this isn’t being followed by current medical staff either abroad or in the U.S.

From the L.A. Times: “An American physician who fell ill with the deadly Ebola virus while treating others afflicted in West Africa arrived back on U.S. soil Saturday and was to be whisked via a specially outfitted ambulance to Emory University Hospital for treatment in an isolated ward.”

This despite a November 2012 report by the BBC that reads, “Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the Ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.”

Meanwhile, the Center for Disease Control, which is overseeing the infected doctor’s treatment, says ‘don’t worry.’

CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told NBC News: “It is not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S. That is not in the cards.”

However this is the same government agency that Newsweek, in a July article, stated: “In June, the CDC revealed what it represented to be an accidental anthrax mishap. But in the investigation that followed, shocking conditions at federal laboratories were revealed. Long-forgotten smallpox samples had been discovered in a storage room at the National Institutes of Health’s Food Administration campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and cross-contamination of harmless samples with a potentially deadly flu virus had occurred in the CDC’s infectious disease lab.”

We should worry, because it is a horrible way to die.

From the World Health Organization’s website: “EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.”

But the table may already be set for such a thing to happen, as Department of Religious Studies Professor James Tabor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, explained in the PBS ‘Frontline’ series, ‘Apocalypse!”

“If you open the Book of Revelation and simply begin reading it as an unfolding scenario, it goes something like this. There will be wars and famines and disease epidemics and heavenly signs that will alert the world to some sort of crisis.”

With all this said, I’ve decided to take a hold of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman’s personal mantra: “What? Me worry?,” as I drop to my knees and pray in earnest.

He isn’t sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution like those he’ll command — so how can this be?

A German Army officer who recently served with NATO forces in Afghanistan is assuming duties as the chief of staff of U. S. Army Europe, the first time a non-American officer has held that position. Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal could report to duty as early as Monday.

Sources at the Pentagon say the first-ever assignment of a non-U.S. citizen to the USAREUR staff isn’t connected to the political trouble over the recent spying gaff committed against Germany.  Instead, USAREUR staff claim the appointment had been scheduled for several months prior as part of the Obama administrations effort to give a more multi-national flavor to its major overseas commands.

At first I thought, “Do I have a sign on me that says ‘GUILTY’?” Then it occurred to me that I must simply look suspicious to every law enforcement officer in the area.

It was the second time in a week for being questioned by cops while I was minding my business. The first time was as I was walking around the block in my neighborhood and now as I sat in my truck waiting for a friend to finish with her appointment.

The guy on the bicycle rode by me and I nodded at him as he said hello. Seconds later three police vehicles with lights on came speeding down the street and cut him off as he started to cross the street in front of me.

Since my windows were down I couldn’t help but hear the exchange between the first two female officers and the cyclist. They demanded he step away from the bike and sit on the sidewalk in front of their vehicle.

Soon, there were five officers gathered around the now handcuffed guy. I laid my seat back as far as I could and closed my eyes and jus’ listened.

A command sergeant was one of the original vehicles to pull up on the scene. He soon left, leaving three female officers and one male officer behind.

Within minutes, they uncuffed the guy and let him go. I could tell he was happy to be getting away from the situation he had been in.

A moment later, they ordered me out of my truck, instructing me to put both hands on the hood. Taken by surprise I did the smart thing and complied.

That’s when it dawned on me, I had a bicycle in the bed of my truck, place there earlier by a friend of my friend, who had been kind enough to patch one of the bike’s tires. Duh!

They peppered me with questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? Why do you have a bicycle in the bed of your truck? Is it your bike?  After the first question I finally said, “If I’m being arrested, I want to speak to a lawyer before you continue questioning me.”

Finally, the male cop went over and pulled the bike from the bed and turned it upside down. He pulled a note pad from his pocket and checked a series of numbers against the serial number embossed on the bike frame, declaring, “It’s not the one.”

“Thank you for your time,” one of the women said as they started back towards their squad cars.

A second one then admonished me: “Next time jus’ answer our questions and it’ll go easier for you.”

I decided to jus’ keep my mouth shut as they pow-wowed for a few minutes before heading back to the nearby campus.

The entire situation left me rattled for the rest of the morning as every time I saw a squad car from then on,  I felt my heart jump and my mouth go dry. It’s horrible that I should feel so fearful of the law enforcement community as a private, law-abiding citizen.

The novel, ‘The Valley of the Giants’ was written by Peter B. Kyne and originally appeared in Red Book during August 1918.  It has since been made into a movie four different times.

The stories hero Bill Cardigan is a lifetime resident of California’s Tall Timber country. When evil land-grabber Howard Fallon arrives with a team of lumberjacks to strip the territory of its trees, Cardigan tries to stop them, only to discover that Fallon has the law on his side.  Eventually, Cardigan finds an unexpected ally in the form of golden-hearted saloon girl Lee Roberts, who enables the forces of Good to triumph.

According to Warner Brother’s press material from the 50s, San Hedrin, the setting of the novel, is patterned after Eureka, California.

The film was shot for a fourth time in 1952 and retitled’ The Big Trees,’ with an emphasis shifted so that the Howard Fallon character, (now known as Jim Fallon and played by Kirk Douglas,) ultimately emerges as the hero. Aside from Douglas, the film also starred Eve Miller, Patrice Wymore, Edgar Buchanan, John Archer, Alan Hale, Jr., Roy Roberts, Charles Meredith, Harry Cording and Ellen Corby.

Students from Humboldt State University played members of the Quaker congregation as well as members of its choir. Locations included several places between Eureka and Orick.

Records show that Henry O’Neill tested for the part of McKenzie, Dick Foran and Allen Jenkins for Ox, John Litel for Sheriff, Russell Simpson for Hendricks and Gloria Dickson for Lee. The project was originally assigned to Ray Enright, who was replaced by William Keighley.

In 1938 the 79-minute movie ‘The Valley of the Giants,” was directed by William Keighley, with photography by Sol Polito and music by Adolph Deutsch. It starred Wayne Morres, Claire Trevor, Charles Bickford, Alan Hale, Donald Crisp, Frank McHugh, Jack LaRue, John Litel, Russell Simpson, and Jerry Colonna.

Warner Brothers  took over all three floors of the Eureka Inn and over the next four weeks of location work, the company went to a number places within 65 miles of Eureka. The fog and many visitors were often troublesome for filming, but the company worked out an early morning phone-in system from several locations so they could go to the sunniest location each day.

The dam that was blown up across the Van Duzen river took two weeks of work by one hundred men. Filming was done at Hammond, Holmes-Eureka, and Pacific Lumber Company locations.

The second filming of ‘The Valley of the Giants,’ took up seven reels and was directed by Charles J. Brabin, with cinematography completed by Ted D. McCord. The cast included  Milton Sills, Doris Kenyon, Arthur Stone, George Fawcett, Paul Hurst, Charles Sellon, Yola D’Avril, and Phil Brady.

The film company, First National, used the Scotia Bluffs and the Nanning Creek Bridge as background in the film during a six-week period. The Eel River, with the Scotia Bluffs in the background can also be recognized in scenes where passengers from the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Engine #132 are spilling down the hill.

The Carson Mansion, which served as Sill’s Family home, is another recognizable location used in filming. Many film historians claim the picture includes one of the greatest fight scenes of all silent films; also, a great love scene and a great runaway train sequence.

In 1919, the first ‘The Valley of the Giants,’ was directed by James Cruze, with the help of cinematographer Frank Urson. Stars included Wallace Reid, Grace Darmond, Will Brunton, Charles Ogle, Alice Taaffee (later known as Alice Terry) , Ralph Lewis, Kay Laurel, Hart Hoxie, Noah Berry, Guy Oliver, W.H. Brown, Richard Cummings, and Virginia Foltz.

The company, Paramount,/Famous-Players Lasky, stayed at the Hotel Arcata. They shot the film on location throughout Humboldt and Del Norte Counties as well as parts of Southern Oregon.

Many  stories were left when the crew and cast returned to Hollywood. The most enduring is while on a location, Reid was injured doing stunt work and received morphine injections for the pain.

This apparently marked the start of his morphine addiction, from which he died on 18 January 1923.

According to author and film historian Kim Morgan: “While traveling to their Oregon location…Reid and company experienced a near-catastrophic crash when their train fell off a bridge, rolled down 15 feet and landed on its side. (Reid) was seriously injured, suffering a deep laceration to his skull, a gash in his arm that cut to the bone and severe injury to his already weakened back. It was a harrowing, bloody calamity that would, today, stop production on any motion picture.”

In his 2011 book, “Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story,” David Menefee writes: “Alone and in the middle of nowhere, they were without any outside help… For the next twelve hours, Wally used his medical skills to administer to those who were injured… Rescuers finally arrived, but only after the injured had languished in isolation for half of a day.”

Considered to be lost until 2010, a print of the film was found in Russia’s state film archive and a digital copy was presented to the library of Congress in October 2010.  The film had been loaned to the former Soviet Union I the 1920s.