Blog's 24th birthday

Ok, I'm terrible at updating this blog given how many other social media sites are so much simpler. To see what I'm up to check here:

• Photos - While I still take photos at NH and national political events, I've moved to a more participatory role (running for office in 2024).  As part of my heart bypass recovery during COVID, there are now a huge number of cemetery photos. Headstones from the 1700s-1800, death heads, "Momento Mori" primarily. Since the swearing in of the 45th and again as the 47th, there are albums of many protest signs. No faces, just signs.
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcn/collections
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcn/albums
  
  
• Twitter is read-only to me. It is still a useful place to hear about political news and from the tech world. Mastodon didn't have enough traffic to keep me interested. Most of my political and photos are posted on https://bsky.app/profile/marcno.bsky.social
  
  
• And of course I'm on Ancestry, LinkedIn, GitHub, reddit, and many other social media sites. Just Google my name, it is literally unique.
  
  
• And if you are looking for a Santa Claus to show up at your house party, tree lighting, town parade take a look at https://SantaMarkNH.com The service area is southern NH and north of Boston.

Now on Mastodon!

Now on Mastodon - https://mastodon.cloud/@MarcNo or @marcno@mastodon.cloud

Blog's 20th birthday

It looks like it missed this blog's 20th birthday by a few days -- it started life out as a simple Blosxom blog on March 3rd, 2002. The last few years it as been pretty morbund.

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Building weechat from source on RHEL8

I got a new corporate laptop today with RHEL8 pre-installed.  Weechat isn't in the repos, so it needed to be build from source.  Simple:

First, grab the source and unpack it

$ wget https://weechat.org/files/src/weechat-2.6.tar.xz
$ tar xf weechat-2.6.tar.xz

Install the needed development libraries:

$ sudo yum install -y libgcrypt-devel zlib-devel gnutls-devel\
                      libcurl-devel ncurses-devel php-devel \
                      perl-ExtUtils-Embed

Finally built it.  These steps are in the README.adoc file.

$ cd weechat-2.6
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

Trust, but verify:

$ weechat -version
2.6

Now happily chat with your IRC friends!

Podcasts that I like

Here is a recent OPML list of the podcasts that I listen too -- some more often than others, a few almost as soon as they are available.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='no' ?>
<opml version="1.1">
  <head>
    <title>BeyondPod Feeds
    </title>
    <dateCreated>Thu, 10 Jan 2019 09:53:23 EST
    </dateCreated>
    <dateModified>Thu, 10 Jan 2019 09:53:23 EST
    </dateModified>
  </head>
  <body>
    <outline text="Uncategorized" />
    <outline text="News &amp; Politics">
      <outline text="MSNBC Rachel Maddow (audio)" xmlUrl="http://podcastfeeds.nbcnews.com/audio/podcast/MSNBC-MADDOW-NETCAST-MP3.xml" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Stay Tuned with Preet" xmlUrl="http://feeds.wnyc.org/preetbharara" type="rss" />
      <outline text="On the Media" xmlUrl="http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia" type="rss" />
      <outline text="All In with Chris Hayes" xmlUrl="http://podcastfeeds.nbcnews.com/drone/api/query/audio/podcast/1.0/MSNBC-All-In.xml" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Open Source with Christopher Lydon" xmlUrl="http://radioopensource.org/feed/" type="rss" />
      <outline text="WBUR FM On Point with Tom Ashbrook week in the news Podcast" xmlUrl="http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510296" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior" xmlUrl="http://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="The Daily" xmlUrl="http://rss.art19.com/the-daily" type="rss" />
      <outline text="CAFE Insider" xmlUrl="https://bit.ly/SECRETLINK" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="Science">
      <outline text="StarTalk Radio" xmlUrl="http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:38128127/sounds.rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Science Friday" xmlUrl="http://feeds.wnyc.org/science-friday/" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="Thinking Stuff">
      <outline text="Rough Translation" xmlUrl="https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510324" type="rss" />
      <outline text="The More Perfect Union" xmlUrl="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/moreperfectunion/podcast" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Vox's The Weeds" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/voxtheweeds" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Media and Politics Podcast" xmlUrl="http://shorensteincenter.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Hidden Brain" xmlUrl="https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510308" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Fresh Air" xmlUrl="https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=381444908" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Reveal" xmlUrl="http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Uncivil" xmlUrl="https://feeds.megaphone.fm/uncivil" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Hi-Phi Nation" xmlUrl="https://feed.pippa.io/public/shows/hiphination" type="rss" />
      <outline text="99% Invisible" xmlUrl="http://feeds.99percentinvisible.org/99percentinvisible" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="Philosophy">
      <outline text="Friendly Atheist Podcast" xmlUrl="http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:126685326/sounds.rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="The Bart Ehrman Blog Podcast" xmlUrl="http://ehrmanpodcast.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="The Thinking Atheist Podcast" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheThinkingAtheistPodcast" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Podcast – Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedburner/APRP" type="rss" />
      <outline text="History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps" xmlUrl="http://hopwag.podbean.com/feed/" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="History">
      <outline text="Dan Carlin's Hardcore History" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dancarlin/history?format=xml" type="rss" />
      <outline text="History Unplugged Podcast | American History, World History, World War 2, U.S. Presidents, Civil War" xmlUrl="http://historyonthenet.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Bag Man" xmlUrl="https://rss.art19.com/bagman" type="rss" />
      <outline text="My History Can Beat Up Your Politics" xmlUrl="http://mhcbuyp.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="NH">
      <outline text="Cheese Chat" xmlUrl="http://cheesechat.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Word Of Mouth Radio" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/wordofmouthradioshow" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Outside/In" xmlUrl="http://feeds.megaphone.fm/PPY5156495451" type="rss" />
      <outline text="WHAT'S YOUR POISON?" xmlUrl="http://whatsyourpoison.podbean.com/feed/" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Bear Brook" xmlUrl="https://feeds.megaphone.fm/bearbrook" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="Entertainment">
      <outline text="Radiolab Presents: More Perfect" xmlUrl="http://feeds.wnyc.org/moreperfect" type="rss" />
      <outline text="The Moth" xmlUrl="http://feeds.feedburner.com/themothpodcast" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Welcome to Night Vale" xmlUrl="http://feeds.nightvalepresents.com/welcometonightvalepodcast" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Alice Isn t Dead" xmlUrl="http://aliceisntdead.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="QAnon Anonymous" xmlUrl="http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:492135420/sounds.rss" type="rss" />
    </outline>
    <outline text="Tech">
      <outline text="Red Hat X Podcast Series" xmlUrl="https://rhc4tp.blog/feed/podcast/" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Command Line Heroes" xmlUrl="https://feeds.pacific-content.com/commandlineheroes" type="rss" />
      <outline text="PodCTL - Containers | Kubernetes | OpenShift" xmlUrl="http://www.buzzsprout.com/110399.rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Cloudy Chat" xmlUrl="https://s3.amazonaws.com/grhpodcasts/itunesxml.xml" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Dave &amp; Gunnar Show" xmlUrl="http://dgshow.org/rss" type="rss" />
      <outline text="Open Source Security Podcast" xmlUrl="http://opensourcesecuritypodcast.libsyn.com/rss" type="rss" />
    </outline>
  </body>
</opml>

This is disgusting

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/

This is disgusting. 

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STATEMENTS & RELEASES

Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia

 FOREIGN POLICY

 

 Issued on: November 20, 2018

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ALL NEWS

America First!

The world is a very dangerous place!

The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” Iran is considered “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.”

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.

After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries – and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!

The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that – this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction – and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels – so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!

Upgrade to Fedora 29

Fedora 29 was released today!  I found instructions on upgrading 27->28, so giving that a try for a 28->29 upgrade.

For the impatient, here are the commands:

1. sudo dnf upgrade --refresh
2. sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
3. sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=29
4. sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

For the more cautious, see the original post in Fedora Magazine: "Upgrading Fedora 27 to Fedora 28" The instructions abpve are the same, with a minor version change.

Full disclosure: I'm a Red Hat associate, but not working in the Fedora space and my upgrade is currently 4585 out of 4597 packages complete. Call me an optimist!

IBM to acquire Red Hat

Fellow Red Hatters! As a survivor of the DEC acquisition by Compaq and then Compaq by HP, I offer these words of advice on this surprising and stressful day where Red Hat is being acquired by IBM.

While Red Hat is a great place to work, great colleagues, we make contributions to OSS and beyond, we are more than where we work. Take a look at other parts of your life. 

Try not to obsess on the news. Nothing will happen at Red Hat in the short term. 

Change is the only constant, learn to make the best of it. 

Don't rage quit. 

Make no mistake IBM bought us and are in the driver's seat. 

If it ever gets unacceptable being here, headhunters will be on the lookout for talent and we'll find other places to make a difference. 

Take a minute to vent, breathe and then get back to our customers.

My experience with Human Library @ Merrimack Public Library as the Atheist Human Book

Yesterday I participated in the Human Library project at the Merrimack
Public Library.  The Human Books where:

• April, Life of a Psychic/Medium
• Barbara, Clowning Brings Light & Laughter
• Gerri, Transitioning in Our Community
• Hailey, Just a Girl and her Gun
• Joshua, Recovering Pornography Addict/Activist
• Josiah, I Unabashedly Support and Defend President Donald J. Trump
• Karlyn, Highly Spiritualized, but Not at all Religious
• Marc, Atheist
• Maria, Civil Rights Activist & Author
• Maureen & Lou-Lou, A Conversation About Disability: The Least Dangerous Assumption
• Megan, Happily Childless
• Mike, Transgender: Being Male on the Inside
• Steven, 15 Minutes with Kurt's Husband

My write up was simply - "I'm an atheist and a number of folks have never met one who is open about it."

The full descriptions are available

Readers could 'check out' one of the books for a 30 minute one on one informal conversation.  I had four sessions

- Spiritual but religious person. Genuinely interested in my point of view.

- An ex-Catholic but still a Christian. Curious what it meant, brother-in-law is atheist but never talked to him about it.

- Christian but not really buying it from childhood but still attends church

- A Russian expat raised with no religion and not ever interested in.  She was curious what about my experience was as a native USA non-believer.  She told me a story about how Jehovah Witnesses once visited and figured she'd improve her English by talking with them. She invited them in but when she said she was an atheist and they quickly got up and left.  I had a similar experience and haven't had them stop by the house again. We may have just discovered Kryptonite for Jehovah Witness door knockers!

Interestingly -- all the 'Readers' were women.



My talking points

• Why am I doing this? A few years ago while watching my kids' soccer games I got to talking with another parent on religion and mentioned I was a non-believer. He said he had never met an atheist! I'm sure he had but just didn't know.  What surprised me was he is a family therapist. Surely religion must have come up occasionally.
  
• Define that an atheist is simply "a" (not) "Theist" (believer in god). There is no evidence of god(s).  Not necessarily anti-theist and mostly becomes an issue when theists try to force their belief on others.  I don't care what you believe.
  
• Atheism is not about evolution, abiogenesis, Big Bang, etc. Generally, atheists point to science for answers and comfortable that some are currently not yet well answered. For example abiogenesis, string theory
  
• I'm a poly-atheist and probably so are you. There are many gods that people really believed, but no longer.  eg: Zeus, Odin, Shiva, Buddha.  I just don't believe in Yahweh/God/Jesus for many of the same reasons.
  
• I've been in town for 25 years, married to the same woman for 27 years, raised six children who are all doing well, fully employed the entire time, an engaged voter, active member of historical and genealogy societies, board member of disability non-profit, never arrested, no illicit drugs, etc -- A pretty moral and ethical person, IMHO.  Boringly so.
  
• Morality? The golden rule and empathy for fellow humans.  Basically "Don't be a jerk" Which is pretty common in most religions.
  
• My background was in upstate New York and fairly attended a Methodist church with my family -- Sunday school, youth group, chorus.  In high school met friends who were Jewish, non-believers,  other Christian denominations who were good people. Also came to question those beliefs seeing those multiple religions as well as learning more about science, evolution, world history, etc.  Never attended services since going to college.
  
• While I'm here as the Atheist Book, I was happy to talk about topics that interest me. For example early Christian history from a secular, academic point of view.  eg: How an apocalyptic Jewish sect evolved into Christianity.  St Paul (Saul) never met Jesus physically, only in two visions and didn't meet the other disciples until years after spreading the word in modern day Turkey/Greece. The "Letters from Paul" of the bible were written in the 50s CE and gospels in the 70-100 CE. Two people walked away with suggestions to read some of Bart Ehrman's books.  Also suggested people look at common bible stories in a modern light -- the story of the Binding of Isaac by Abraham sounds like a father with schizophrenia when he hears God and angels talking to him.  The story of Lot is another horrible story through non-believer eyes. Lot offering his virgin daughters to be raped by the crowd in order to protect visiting angels and later Lot's two daughters getting him drunk and having sex with him. Yes, go re-read Genesis 19:4-8 and Genesis 19:30-38

Overall it was a great experience and an opportunity to break down some stereotypes.  

#MarchForOurLives in Portsmouth, NH (20180324)

My photos from #MarchForOurLives in Portsmouth, NH (20180324) #flickr https://flic.kr/s/aHsm8TUzcL

Genealogy Brick Wall: James Norman HULL (1826-1884) of Warwick, Orange County, NY

My cousin Jackie Hull and I are researching our HULL line and this is our genealogy brick wall.

There are two areas we are interested in:

• What is the HULL line of Sheriff Henry Hunter HULL (1875-1947). His mother Elmira/Almira HULL (1853-1886) never married but was a domestic for the Othniel HOLBERT/HALBERT family in Sugar Loaf, Warwick, NY around the years Henry was born.  Henry was raised by his grandparents who resided in Greenwood Lake.
  
• Who are the parents of James Norman HULL, Elmira’s father?  This is our current brick wall.

Our direct HULL line is from Henry Hunter HULL (1875-1947) who was the Orange County Sheriff (1925-1927).  He was married to Ella THORPE and then Helen Frances SMITH.

His mother, Elmira/Almira HULL (1853-1886) had him at 22 and was never married.  We know the man (HOLBERT) was an employer. We have heard rumors that he, or brother, may be the father of Henry Hunter Hull. The surname FITZGERALD belonged to a neighbor of the Hulls in Greenwood Lake whose daughter Jenette/Gennette married HOLBERT. Genette was ill and we think that is why Elmira went to care for her and the children at the Holbert farm.

What we know of Elmira/Almira HULL

1860 Census - Almira Hull (7) living with James HULL & Elizabeth and younger brothers and an Ira HUNTER (15) and Alelia HUFF (17, domestic)

1870 Census - Elmira Hull (17) working as a domestic for the Othniel HOLBERT/ Jenette FITZGERALD(?) family in Sugar Loaf.  That family had 2 small children.

In 1875 she is listed in the NYS census as Elmira HULL (22) living in Warwick with her parents, James Norman HULL and Mary. Census Jun 5, 1875.

Also in 1875, she is listed as Almira HULL (22, single) working as a servant in Chester, still with Othniel HOLBERT & Jeannette (FITZGERALD).  In addition to that family’s children, there was an Edward Bennett (16) also a servant. The census took place on Jun 1, 1875, and Henry was born on Oct 16, 1875, Greenwood Lake.

1880 Census Almira Hull (26) again is a servant in the household of Othiel HOLBERT (40), Jeannette (42), Emily (11), Charles (10), John (8), Othneil (7), Sarah (3), Jessie (1) along with a servant James HOLLOCK (21). Notice no mention of her 4-year-old son, Henry Hunter HULL who was living with his grandparents (see below)

Emira HULL died at age 34 of Tuberculosis (tubercular consumption) on April 30, 1886, based on her death certificate.  It was certified by James G Holbert also of Sugar Loaf.

Jackie a few years ago talked to a relative of Othniel (Ott) HOLBERT, Jr (John Holbert 228-326-4549) who said he has a book about the family. We have not found it.  Any suggestions?

What we know of James Norman HULL

James Norman HULL (1826-1884) m1.ELIZABETH HUNTER? m2. Mary HELLAND? (no children, adopted Henry Hunter HULL).  He is buried in Seamansville Cemetery, Monroe, NY

1850 Census - He was 24 working as a laborer.  In Monroe, the household of Henry HUNTER (37) Matilda (43), Elizabeth (17, likely future wife), Henrietta (16), Catherine (13), Martha H (8), Ira (5).

1860 Census - In Monroe, James was 33 m. Elizabeth (27), Almira (7), James (5), Silas (1), Ira HUNTER (15, brother in law), Amelia HUFF (17, domestic)

1865 Census - James N Hull (40) / Elizabeth (33) had Almira Hull (13) James H (11), Silas (5),  Elizabeth (1), Alonzo LITTLE (15, Farmer), HANNAH M. HUNTY/HUNTER? (17, Servant)

1870 Census - Now in Warwick James (44), Mary (39), James H, Silas, Elizabeth

1875 NYS census - Same people as before but with a Saida C. Dekay (32, boarder, school teacher)

1880 Census, James N (54), Mary (49), Silas (21), Henry (4, listed as a son but this is Henry Hunter HULL, son of Elmira HULL)

Died Feb 5, 1884. Mary died May 20, 1866, and are buried in the Seamansville Cemetery in Monroe.

Belated Blog Birthday

I missed my "Nozell, Rhymes with Oh Hell" blog's birthday yesterday.  It turned 16.

There have been many changes. It started out as a simple blosxom hosted by a long dead ISP, mv.com, the moved to a hosted Wordpress for a while before making the transition to blogger.com.

River5 running in OpenShift.com

A confluence of things came together last night and is worthy of sharing.

• I'm a long time fan of RSS readers
• Dave Winer has been talking up his river-of-news RSS aggregator (river5)
• A desire to sharpen my dev skills on OpenShift

So last night I got River5, a nodejs app, running in OpenShift and it was pretty straightforward to do. Basically, change the port river5 listens on from the default 1337 to 8080, as required by OpenShift. Then a handful of OpenShift steps to pull source from github, have it automatically build and then run in the public cloud.   For hacking around I used a private OpenShift cluster but provide the steps below to get it running in Red Hat's OpenShift.com environment.

1. Fork my version of Dave's river5 github repo by using the github.com website.  My changes are minor - config.json to change the port and add my OPML exported from feedly.com.  Also added a new file, feedly.opml, of my feeds.  
2. Download / install the OpenShift CLI on your desktop.  I use RHEL/Fedora for my desktop, but Windows/Mac versions are also available from here
3. Signup for a free starter account on openshift.com
4. Once you have logged in to openshift.com, click in the upper right under your identity in the dropdown for "Copy Login Command"
5. The next few steps are done in a terminal
1. Login command looks something like this
   $ oc login https://api.starter-us-west-2.openshift.com --token=XXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
2. Create a project (think kubernetes namespace) to hold your application
   $ oc new-project my-river5 
3. Create the new application from source on github (modify to reference your own repo)
   $ oc new-app https://github.com/MarcNo/river5
4. Watch the build
   $ oc statusand
   $ oc logs -f bc/river5or use the OpenShift GUI
5. Once complete, expose the service to the external network
   $ oc expose svc/river5
6. Find out what the URL
   oc get routes
6. Check it out!
   http://river5-my-river5.7e14.starter-us-west-2.openshiftapps.com/

Keep in mind this is just the minimum to get started.  A complete solution would include keeping data on persistent storage, perhaps shared storage for multiple river5 instances to share, etc.

Full disclosure, I'm a Red Hat Associate.

History of the Lent (Van Lent) Family in the United States, Genealogical and Biographical: From the Time They Left Their Native Soil in Holland, 1638-1902

A few cousins have asked about how we are related to the well known book History of the Lent (Van Lent) Family in the United States, Genealogical and Biographical: From the Time They Left Their Native Soil in Holland, 1638-1902 by Nelson Burton Lent

It is available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1330961366/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've extracted the pages where we link up into the book:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100760651814636.1073742021.17508287&type=1&l=f1128c678f

• Murray Ellis LENT (1889-1968) m. Evelyn STEVENS
• #1707 Russell LENT; Page 144
• #1674 Selah LENT (ca 1816 - ca 1868); m1. Ruth Ann DAHN of CT
• m2. Cornelia QUINN ; Page 144
• #1666 Jacob LENT (ca 1777 - ca 1858) m. Mrs Hannah DAVENPORT (ca 1777 - ca 1858); Page 142
• #1378 Jacob LENT (ca 1755) m. Rebecca MONTROSS; Page 141
• #1333 Abraham LENT (ca 1727) m. 1753 Jennetje (Jane) COURSEN; Page 125
• #17 Jacob LENT (1701) m Elizabeth "Elsie" ?? ; page 122
• #11 Abraham Van LENT (March 10, 1674) m. 1698 Anna Catherine MEYER (1677 - 1762) ; Page 12
• #1 Ryck Abrahamson Van LENT (1637) m. Tryntje "Catrina" Syboutsen ; Page 8
• Abraham de Ryck (From Holland to America 1638, d. 1689) m. Gertie HERMANSEN ; Page 5
• Jacob de Ryck ; Page 5

Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum

In my last post, I described visiting a couple sites on a self-directed tour of 'Burned-over District' sites of Western New York State.  Essentially a couple Mormon-run museums last Saturday morning as I made my way to the museum I really wanted to visit -- The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum in Dresden, NY.


If you think New York means only New York City -- you need to come visit.  



There is just so much farm land.



Eventually, I got from Rochester through Palmyra (See the previous post) to Dresden (south of Geneva) on the shore one of the Finger Lakes, Seneca Lake.

This is an attraction you need to seek out, not something you'd just stumble upon.

I recommend parking at the Dresden Post Office and walk over.



Across the street to...





The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum is a small place.  He only lived here for four months, but it is the only building associated with Ingersoll that is still in existence.

They are open only on the weekends, noon-5pm during the summer, so plan ahead.  I got there a little after 1 pm and was the first visitor for the day.  And the staffer said attendance is always on the slow side unless they get a tour bus.  I told her about my self-guided 'Burned-over District' tour and she told me about the Freethought Trail of which this was the first stop.  This real tour trail looks fantastic -- it includes sites related to, well everything good about the 19th century: Abolition, Birth Control, Freethought / Atheism / Secular Humanism, Scientific Knowledge, and Woman’s Rights / Suffrage.  I'll definitely be visiting more sites on this trail the next time I visit the Rochester area.

In many ways, this is a traditional museum with plenty of placards that describe what you are seeing.







There is a TV that plays a Center for Inquiry produced 15 minute video about the life of Robert Ingersoll (also on youtube).  As the only visitor, the staffer just turned it up loud and I could hear it walking around the displays.

Here are some of the items on display:











If you don't know who Ingersoll was -- do yourself a favor and read up on this lost genius.  I suggest "Ingersoll the Magnificent" by Joseph Lewis or "The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought" by Susan Jacoby.  If you are lazy pick up this audio CD and give a listen to a couple of his lectures presented by a modern actor.  With small exceptions, his lectures hold up remarkably well.   You can't fault him for thinking the universe was steady-state...  Buy it here: 2-CD Set: Lectures by Ingersoll




Part of the reason why popular culture has forgotten about this incredibly influential lecturer is he didn't publish any books nor create any sort of foundation to carry on his legacy.  We are all poorer for this.



See all my photos from the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and check out my write-up of visiting some LDS siteson in the same area.

Burned-over District Museum self-tour

Last week I was in Rochester, NY visiting my folks and got to thinking how I grew up right in the middle of the 'Burned-over District' and it was not covered in the public schools. Sure, there was some discussion of the "Second Great Awakening", but not in making the local connection.

Heading back home on Saturday I decided to do my own 'Burned-over District Museum self-tour'

First Stop: Joseph Smith Family Farm and Sacred Grove



This is where the founder of the Mormons / LDS lived when he claimed to have a visit from the Angel Moroni who lead him to golden tablets that he later "translated" with the help of 'seer stones' (that even have names!)

The first stop is the Welcome Center where they had a married couple be my tour guides - "Sister Rowley" and her husband "Elder Rowley".  Of course Elder for the man and Sister for the woman.




They did some probing to see how familiar I was with the LDS and what my interests were. The off to the first stop --



This structure is actually a reproduction on the same location of the original.  It was built to the 1800s building design and the interior was based on the diary of Emma Smith.



The back view shows the "very same door that Joseph Smith looked out and saw the Angel Moroni"

Unlike most museum reproductions where are not description cards around and all information is provided by the tour guides.

See the rest of the images here: Burned-over District self-tour (20160724)



The next stop was the "Grandin Print Shop", where the Book of Mormon was first published.



This is also now a Mormon owned location and is in downtown Palmyra.  Unlike the Smith Farm, this one is more museum-like with some more descriptions of the objects on display.  They also assigned me a LDS tour guide.



While the original Grandin Print Shop was only one section of the building, the LDS Church owns most of the building.

This is the business section of the print shop on the first floor where you can see example of what kinds of books were on sale.  Most books had the cheaper paper binding like on these top shelves.





They have a clipping of the first advertisement for the Book of Mormon.  The guide said it is the from the first page of the BoM. I said it was smart using that, why take the effort to write a separate copy just for the advertisement.  He reminded me that Joseph Smith didn't write it, but translated the word of God. I didn't mention that it says "Author and Proprietor Joseph Smith" not "translator". Ok. Whatever.



One of the few original items of historical note is this 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon.  The guide said there are 700-800 copies still in existence (out of the original run of 3000).



At this point, the tour guide asked me what my religion was. "Atheist." To which he said I was a "very curious person".  I took it not as "weird" but "inquiring and interested in stuff" since we were having a great talk about history up to this point.

The second floor is a reproduction of the working print shop. It is a little hard to see in the photo below, but on the left is where the print was set.   On the right are completed broadsheet paper used to print 16 pages at a time (8 each side)



The third floor was primarily displays of the LDS theology related displays.  I asked the tour guide about just where all the Lamanite / Nephite history took place.  When I was growing up it was assumed to take place in Western New York State, but lately it appears to be thought to be somewhere in Mesoamerica.  The was diplomatic and said The Church doesn't have an official view and research continues.  We agreed in many ways it doesn't really matter where it was since it was theological.  (And because it didn't really happen)

As mentioned before see all my photos here: Burned-over District self-tour (20160724)

As a bit of a palate cleanser, I then headed to Dresden, NY on Lake Geneva to visit the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum.

Podcasts I listen to

This week I'm remote teleworking this week in Upstate New York and listened to a bunch of them during the long drive from NH.

Below are a list of my recommended podcasts.

-----------------

* MSNBC Rachel Maddow (audio)
http://podcastfeeds.nbcnews.com/audio/podcast/MSNBC-MADDOW-NETCAST-MP3.xml
     
* NPR's On the Media
http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia

* Best of the Left Podcast
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BestOfTheLeftPodcast

* Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean » Podcast
http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedburner/APRP

* NPR Programs Fresh Air Podcast
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=13

* Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
http://feeds.feedburner.com/dancarlin/history?format=xml

* StarTalk Radio
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:38128127/sounds.rss

* Political Wire Podcast
http://politicalwire.com/podcast

* History of Philosophy
http://podcast.ulcc.ac.uk/accounts/kings/Philosophy_podcasts.xml

* Friendly Atheist Podcast
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:126685326/sounds.rss

* TheThinkingAtheist
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thethinkingatheist.rss

* The Majority Report with Sam Seder
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MajorityReport

* Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter
http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/reliablesourcesaudio/rss

* Reveal
http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast

* Open Source with Christopher Lydon
http://radioopensource.org/feed/

* Snap Judgment
http://feeds.wnyc.org/snapjudgment-wnyc

* The Dave and Gunnar Show
http://dgshow.org/feed/podcast

* Open Source Security Podcast
https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:252514543/sounds.rss
     
* Hanselminutes
http://feeds.podtrac.com/P-4IIgRqsKI_

* Welcome to Night Vale
http://feeds.feedburner.com/WelcomeToNightVale
     
* Two Brews
http://shoutengine.com/TwoBrews.xml

* Alice Isn't Dead
http://aliceisntdead.libsyn.com/rss
     
* BeyondPod Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/beyondpodforandroid

* Reasonable Doubts Podcast
http://feeds.feedburner.com/reasonabledoubts/Msxh

* Science Friday Audio Podcast
http://www.sciencefriday.com/audio/scifriaudio.xml

* Waking Up with Sam Harris
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:59753170/sounds.rss

* The New Stack Makers
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:107605642/sounds.rss
     
* The New Stack Analysts
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:94518611/sounds.rss
     
* The New Stack @ Scale
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:172286536/sounds.rss
     
* historyofphilosophy.net
http://feeds.feedburner.com/historyofphilosophy/hellenistic

* The Herd Mentality
http://www.secretagencies.com.au/herdmentality.xml

* Word of Mouth
http://feeds.feedburner.com/WordofMouthRadio

* WBUR-FM: On Point with Tom Ashbrook | Radio Broadcast Podcast
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510053

* UC Classics Ancient World Podcasts
http://classics.uc.edu/index.php?option=com_podcast&amp;amp;view=feed&amp;amp;format=raw

* The Godless Spellchecker Podcast
http://gspellchecker.libsyn.com/rss

* Talk Nerdy with Cara Santa Maria
http://carasantamaria.com/podcast/?format=rss

* The Wonder-full Podcast
http://bartcampolo.org/feed/podcast/

* Software Engineering Daily
http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/

* Good Fortune - The Immoderate Stoic
http://immoderatestoic.com/good-fortune?format=RSS

* Outside/In
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Outside/in

* Syscast: talking linux, open source, web development and system administration (DevOps)
http://podcast.sysca.st/feed/podcast
     
* Seneca Letters From a Stoic Podcast: Stoicism | Philosophy | Business
http://www.lettersfromastoic.net/feed/podcast/

* Seneca
http://www.gaudio.org/lezioni/latino/seneca.xml

* Stoicism by STOCK, St. George William Joseph
https://librivox.org/rss/1758

* The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ThePartiallyExaminedLife

* Pod Save America
http://feeds.feedburner.com/pod-save-america

* Pod Save the World
http://feeds.feedburner.com/pod-save-the-world