If you’re like most Americans, there’s a good chance you’re going to wear a cloth mask today. Doing so makes sense...... Continue reading 

The New York Times - Jan 7 2021 "The 147 Republicans Who Voted to Overturn Election Results" || By Karen Yourish, Larry Buchanan and Denise Lu. 

                Kudos 365 wishes you all the best for 2021!

"A symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amidst one of humanity’s most violent and disgraceful events".
"In December of 1914, a series of grassroots, unofficial ceasefires took hold of the Western Front in the heat of WWI. On Christmas, soldiers from an estimated 100,000 British and German troops began to exchange seasonal greetings and sing songs across the trenches",........ Continue Reading

"I am not and have never been a reviewer of books — a person who surveys the landscape of literature with the goal of evaluating its features. I am and have always been a solitary sojourner who relishes curious excursions hither and dither, guided by a thoroughly subjective inner compass, wandering the wilderness of words by pleasant deviations from the common trail."

These are my footsteps.

The plane traveled 120 ft (36.6 m) in 12 seconds at 10:35 a.m. at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville Wright was at the controls, lying prone on the lower wing with his hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. Wilbur Wright ran alongside to balance the plane, and just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing in the photo. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. This was considered "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air, powered flight" 

The Nobel Prizes were established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments (manufacturer  Alfred Nobel. The Will established five Prize categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.

In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. 

Thank you, dear Lord
for letting me stay
on this good Earth
for one more day.

It doesn’t feel like much of a Thanksgiving this year. Lots of chairs are empty, either permanently, as we are now counting our coronavirus dead in the hundreds of thousands, or temporarily, as we are staying away from our loved ones to keep the virus at bay ....... Continue reading

Henry A. Wallace (1888 – 1965) - American politician, journalist, and farmer who served as U.S Secretary of Agriculture , U.S Secretary of Commerce and  33rd  Vice President Of the United States from 1941 to 1945 under President  Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a strong supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal.

One efective way to control government oversight is to cut the budget of the overseer.... Read the full article

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".

This "Nicolay" draft of the Gettysburg Address is one of five slightly different drafts of the speech known to exist. It is named for John G. Nicolay, President Lincoln's personal secretary. Most historians consider this version the "reading copy" at Gettysburg. Learn more at Abraham Lincoln online 

Christopher C. Krebs -   American attorney who served as the Director of Cybersecurity Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  in the United States Department of Homeland Security. He previously worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
As CISA's Director, he played a major role in creating a CISA "Rumor Control website to debunk election-related disinformation.  On November 17, he tweeted "On allegations that election systems were manipulated, 59 election security experts all agree, "in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.". He was fired by President Donald Trump the next day.

Shared by Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American on October 17, 2020 

"He wantonly tears at the fabric of our democracy without care or concern for the destruction he causes. Cultural divides, racial unrest, economic disparity and constitutional abuses are just tools to be used to feed his narcissism, advance his political ambitions and line his pockets" ..... "Trump or America,” she wrote. “We cannot have both.” .... Read the complete article on USA Today

The building has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. It became known as the “White House” because because its white-gray freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings. 

Designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the neoclassical style. The original construction took place between 1792 and 1800. During the War of 1812, the mansion was set on fire by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817... Read more

Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American