Update 7/18/19: My club still uses the flag but we’re now called Cabal Fang Temple, and we’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational charity. Visit our website or purchase our 12-week personal growth program at Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, or wherever fine e-books are sold.
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Original post:
The recent post about Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about those famous heads. And then on The Daily Show I saw an interview with Douglas Brinkley, the author of Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. Now I’m so intrigued, I have to read Brinkley’s book.
Did you know:
- That while campaiging in 1912 he was shot in the chest — and delivered a 90-minute speech before going to the hospital?
- That he is one of the great pioneers of the conservation movement?
- That as President he firmly believed in the separation of church and state and thought it unwise to have In God We Trust on currency, because he thought it sacrilegious to put the name of the Deity on something so common as money?
- That he was a Freemason?
- That he boxed several times a week, even as President, until a blow detached his left retina, leaving him blind in that eye?
- That he practiced judo and was a third degree brown belt?
- That he was an enthusiastic stickfighter, an avid singlestick player (fencing with a wooden sword) ?
- That he drank a gallon of coffee a day, and often stayed up all night reading several books a day in multiple languages?
Nobody’s perfect of course. I’m not fond of his views regarding Native Americans and other indigenous peoples for example, but all in all, he was ahead of his time. He was the kind of man I could have been friends with, and were he still alove he would fit right in at The Order of Seven Hills.
Robert Mitchell Jr. 
I considered deleting this post, but since I want to be completely honest and avoid dealing in revisionist history, I’m leaving it up. He was better than lots of his peers, and he was tough as nails, but these days some of the things I thought were positives I now see as negatives. Like conservation for example — conservation means “appropriation for use later.” Kind of like the native Appalachians who were displaced to create Shenandoah National Park for example. That was better than letting the corporations strip mine it for coal, but still not optimal.