Key West Lou / HIROSHIMA…..NAGASAKI

A lesson learned. Hopefully it will remain so.

Seventy six years ago this week, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One hundred sixty to one hundred eighty thousand persons died.

A horrible event! An inherent lesson learned. The two atomic bombs were the last two nuclear weapons used by any nation. The U.S. was the only country that had the bomb at the time. Now, many nations do. Yet not one has used a nuclear weapon.

The horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did more than end World War II. It taught other nations to beware the use of nuclear weapons to this day.

Hiroshima was the first to be bombed. It was August 8, 1945. More of the 100,000 who died did so from fire rather than radiation.

Nagasaki was bombed three days later on August 9, 1945.

The Japanese had enough. Japan unconditionally surrendered.

Sixty to eighty thousand were killed. An accurate number was impossible to arrive at. Nagasaki was surrounded by hills. The blast bouncing off the hills was so severe it was difficult to better estimate the number killed. Many who died left no remains. Their bodies evaporated by the bomb’s force bouncing off the hills.

I was born and raised a Catholic. I began questioning my faith in college. A Catholic one. My questioning has grown over the years.

One of the primary reasons has been the failure of the Church to attend to the important needs of the faithful. The Church over the years has left its people’s needs and spent an abnormal amount of time on what might be described as cultural values.

Father Thomas Reese is a Catholic priest who writes a column for the National Catholic Reporter. His words describe more accurately than I could the reasons why.

Father Reese wrote a recent column titled: COVID-19, Global Warming and Diminishing Catholic Guilt. In the article, he describes the Church’s failure to do the necessary rather than what they are concerned with today. Stated another way, the Church today fails to see the real problems that should be their business.

I have selected three paragraphs from the article. Each clearly describing the problem.

“Millions of us are going about our business worrying about our daily lives while Catholic bishops and elites argue about the Latin Mass, Communion for politicians, and Grindr, rather than the coming climate apocalypse.”

“There was a time the Church’s hierarchy was able to issue thunderous edicts and most Catholics would follow its directions like sheep. If the laity did not, they would feel guilty and fear going to hell.”

“Nothing would give me more illicit pleasure than having the governors of Florida and Texas, along with the leaders of the oil and coal industries, excommunicated, just as kings and nobles were excommunicated in the past.”

The leaning Tower of Pisa has always interested me. Only to the extent the building was leaning. Why had it not fallen after many centuries?

On this day in 1173, construction of the Tower began. I did a little digging when I noted its beginnings. An interesting story I am pleased to share with you.

It took two centuries to complete construction of the Tower. The problem was wars. They interfered with construction. They had nothing to do with the leaning. The wars solely affected the construction time factor.

The architectural planning was deficient. The Tower began leaning soon after construction was initiated. A 4 degree lean developed. The result of an unstable foundation. The problem was destined to show itself and develop further.

Six years later, construction was only up to the second floor.

Construction was a lost commodity during the first hundred years because of various wars. The wars however provided a benefit. It gave the partial construction time to settle in. Engineers today believe that if the construction had proceeded on schedule, the Tower would have toppled.

Wars in the second century continued to delay the completion of construction.

As I get more into Steve Thomson and his Key West/Taco story, I am impressed with how smart he was. He understood work and did not avoid it. He knew how to make money and did.

TACOS paragraph 26 is a continuance of Turkey’s story.

So we headed down to Louie’s Backyard / To see Bob Mayo who was working hard / He was glad to see his old friend Turk / So he took a ten minute break from work / To spray for mosquitoes in the Keys / They had a fleet of DC-3’s / With white smoke billowing out the rear / You could see the pilot he was so near / Just then one roared overhead / Turk couldn’t believe it when Bob said, / “Not now does he have to do it here?” / “My place is packed and they’re all drinking beer!” / Turk thought he wasn’t ready for this town / He thought the airplane was going down.

Enjoy your day!

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