Martin Luther King was assassinated on this day, April 4, 1968, spurring the passage of the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968.  I repeat two videos I took when we were in Memphis. Vicksburg is a small town of 20,000 in Mississippi, and a battle site of the Civil War. Vicksburg is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. Across the Mississippi River is Louisiana, Long occupied by the Natchez Native Americans. Built by French colonists in 1719. Incorporated as Vicksburg in 1825. Jefferson Davis, Confederate president, based his family plantation just south of the city. Was a key Confederate river-port, and in July of 1963 surrendered to General Ulysses Grant, marking a turning point in the war.  In 1876, a flood moved the Mississippi River away from Vicksburg, damaging the local economy, which only returned in 1903 when the U.S. Army Corpos of Engineers built a diversion canal to the city. Terrible Black-White problems affected this area from after the Civi...

Before the nostalgic topic of the day, the latest on what is happening in the Israel-Iran War. The fact that Israel actually had the audacity to bomb Iran was a shock. The Iranian response came, but was weaker than expected. So far, after four days. Iran:  220 deaths, with 1,000 injured.  Don't believe what they report. Israel:  24 deaths, 600 injured. The Iron Dome defense does have U.S. participation, but still allows maybe 5% of drones and missiles to penetrate. Incidentally, Trump wants a  Golden Dome for America  at a  cost of $175 billion . Won't be easy, for Israel is 400 times smaller than the USA.   Much of the hardware came from the U.S. in many billions of dollars since 2011 . The critical contention is that the difference between the iron and golden ones is like comparing a kayak to a battleship. This is not a war for territory.  Israel just wanted to eliminate their most serious existential threat, that of extinction, and felt th...