CURRENT EVENTS

The year 2020 has arrived, so let’s get started making 2020 great.

And what better way to get started, then with

The Rolling Stones

MOVIE, PLAY OR TV SHOW OF THE WEEK

I watched Season 1 and I am now on Season 2 of the Amazon Prime Video. I thought it was better than many things available to watch.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 1)

MUSIC OF THE WEEK

Take It Easy

The Eagles

ART OF THE WEEK

I loved my motorcycles and considered them works of art, although, it may be hard to tell from these old photos. I needed two of them, since I wanted to always be on the road. 

  EXTRAORDINARY PERSON OF THE WEEK

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain) (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary.

He authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution and inspired the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain.  

Paine migrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading of) his powerful pamphlet Common Sense (1776), proportionally the all-time best-selling American title, which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His The American Crisis (1776–1783) was a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote Rights of Man (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. 

The British government of William Pitt the Younger, worried by the possibility that the French Revolution might spread to England, had begun suppressing works that espoused radical philosophies. Paine’s work, which advocated the right of the people to overthrow their government, was duly targeted, with a writ for his arrest issued in early 1792. Paine fled to France in September where, despite not being able to speak French, he was quickly elected to the French National Convention.

The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Maximilien Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December 1793, he was arrested and was taken to Luxembourg Prison in Paris. While in prison, he continued to work on The Age of Reason (1793–1794). James Monroe, a future President of the United States, used his diplomatic connections to get Paine released in November 1794.

Paine became notorious because of his pamphlets. The Age of Reason, in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and free thought and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He published the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1797), discussing the origins of property and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income through a one-time inheritance tax on landowners.

In 1802, he returned to the U.S. where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.

THIS WEEK’S JOKE

PHYSICAL TRAITS

If Santa can get in shape, you can too.

CHARACTER TRAITS

SOCIAL TRAITS 

People you know, like or love may be gone before you know it. 

LEARNING TRAITS

MISCELLANEOUS

LAST WEEK’S POLLS