A Snapshot of January 8 in History
On this day in 1926 – Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuỵ is crowned king of Vietnam, the country's last monarch.
He was also known as Bảo Đại, "keeper of greatness."
As an irrelevant aside, I learned this during my years in San Jose from my Vietnamese friends about kings and teachers: "The teacher bows to no one but the king and the king bows to no one, but his teacher."
If a Vietnamese person addresses you as "Teacher," you have been greatly honored.
On this day in 1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
Johnson, a Roosevelt "New Dealer," envisioned a Great Society that would be sparked by local activists and initiatives, especially young adults who would be activated in cities through programs such as VISTA.
In fact, the legacy of the war on poverty policy initiative remains in the continued existence of such federal programs as Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), TRiO, and Job Corps.
That being said, most of what remains and was implemented were simply programs that might be considered bandages, many of which were eliminated during the Clinton administration through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton claimed "ended welfare as we know it."
The truth is that Johnson's most profound Great Society initiatives were never fully implemented because of the escalation of the War in Vietnam which robbed him of his legacy and meant that his vision could never be fully tested.
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Type something today.
- Quintessentially Quirky.
- Wistfully Wonderful Written Words.
- Existentially Effective.
- Resplendent in Regalia.
- Tenuous and Tentative on the Tongue and in Type.
- Yearning - always Yearning.
Born this day in 1902 – Carl Rogers, American psychologist and academic. My university psychology professor spent so much time trying to debunk Rogers in favor of Skinner that it drove me toward him.
"If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend." - Baltasar Gracián y Morales, Born this day in 1601, who also said:
"When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see."
and ...
"Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would. This rule does not hold true for bad things: when an evil has been exaggerated, its reality makes people applaud. What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable."
and ... "Readiness is the mother of luck."
and ... "Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised
and ... "Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing."
On this day in 1982 – Breakup of the Bell System: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
On this day in 1912 – The African National Congress is founded, under the name South African Native National Congress (SANNC).
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