Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the Church of One Tree

ChurchRipley’s “Believe It or Not!” operates “Odditoriums” and other attractions in eleven states, Canada, Mexico and six other countries. These locations do not include his hometown, Santa Rosa California, where the “Church of One Tree” once housed a museum celebrating Robert Ripley. Continue reading “Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the Church of One Tree”

Guitar That Changed the World

Scotty Moore died last week. He was 84 years old. He made history on July 5, 1954. On that date he recorded “That’s All Right” at Sam Phillips’s tiny Sun Studio in Memphis. Moore, accompanied by bass player Bill Black and singer/rhythm guitarist Elvis Presley, laid down the mind-shattering guitar licks on the recording that changed everything.

Keith Richards, who plays guitar in a popular band, once said, “When I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ I knew what I wanted to do in life. It was as plain as day. All I wanted to do in the world was to be able to play and sound like that. Everyone else wanted to be Elvis, I wanted to be Scotty.”

Rolling Stone magazine’s Scotty Moore tribute.

We the People…

The Confederated Congress dissolved itself on March 4, 1789 and immediately met as the first session of the United States Congress. Eleven of thirteen states had approved the new Constitution – the other two would the following year – to replace the Articles of Confederation. The new constitution was ratified with ten amendments, largely the work of James Madison. The amendments, the Bill of Rights, were added partly from political expediency and compromise to ensure ratification of the Constitution. Madison wrote, “Bill of Rights—useful—not essential.” A couple of the more famous Founding Fathers are on record about the amendments to the new Constitution.

  • “…whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question, how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.” – George Washington
  • “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson

You can draw your own conclusion about what they would think of “A well regulated Militia” in the twenty-first century.