Monthly Archives: January 2010

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I’d like to set the record straight. There seems to be a group of people who believe that MLK could have never been a Republican because most blacks today are Democrats. As far as I know, there is no record of how MLK voted, but his niece Rev. Alveda King, has long argued that her uncle was a Republican. History will tell you that during MLK’s time, most, if not all blacks were Republicans. It stands to reason that if I were black at the time, I’d be too. Why? When the Republican party was founded in 1854, it was known as the party of anti-slavery, it later championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. In an article by Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) she outlines the reasons she believes MLK was a Republican. She speaks of how it was the Democratic party that in fact made it impossible for blacks throughout history, and have kept blacks and other minorities in the gutter through a system which makes it appear as if they are the “caring party,” when in fact, its history tells a different story. The article tells of an ominous game being played by the “caring party,” on blacks and other minorities. Rice says,

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

Now looking at this fact, do you really think MLK would have had anything to do with the Democratic party? I really don’t think so. It’s a no brainer. I think today, many want to believe he was, but all facts point to the contrary. You don’t have to take my word for it. After I read Rice’s article I am thoroughly convinced that MLK was a Republican. Not only for religious reasons, but also because the Republican party stood for the very same principles he stood and  fought for.

Sources: Frances Rice’s Article, MLK was a Conservative-Republican

Have you ever imagined what it was like to get a tooth pulled back in the 1800’s? Lack of regular check-ups often meant that the first and last resort for many suffering from tooth decay was extraction. Painful under even the best of circumstances, an inexperienced tooth-drawer armed with a pair of pliers-like forceps, or more commonly a tooth key (an iron hook on the end of a “T”-shaped handle) might easily break the patient’s jaw, or pull out healthy teeth and even bits of jawbone along with an aching molar. Through infection, this excruciating deformation could prove fatal.

Ooh, just the thought of that makes me cringe! Horace Wells takes his wife out on a date on December 10, 1844. Horace was a dentist who more than likely had been using the crude methods of the day when he removed teeth. The show he and his wife were going to see was going to be performed by a “Professor” Gardner Quincy Colton. Part of the act was having volunteers from the audience inhale laughing gas. And we all know what happens when you inhale laughing gas. You basically act drunk, have uncontrollable laughter, and say and do stupid things. This amused the audience. On this night, one of the participants ran into the audience chasing an imaginary enemy. When he returned to his seat, he realized he had a lacerated leg, but didn’t start to feel pain until the effects of the gas wore off.

Horace immediately thought how this laughing gas could be used in dentistry. He asked the Professor to come to his practice so they could perform a tooth extraction using nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Horace had a patient who had a troublesome tooth and used him as the guinea pig. The professor administered enough gas to render the poor soul unconscious. One of Horace’s assistants removed the tooth successfully without any pain to the patient. After this success the professor and Horace become partners and collaborate to perform pain-free operations on several patients. They used a crude method to administer the gas, but it worked, and it appeared complication-free.

After about a dozen operations Horace’s assistant, William Morton urges him to go public with it. Reluctantly he agrees to give a lecture and demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital. But unfortunately, it was a major flop. When the gas was administered to the patient, they had removed the gasbag too soon. The patient was in a twilight sleep, but not completely unconscious when his tooth was extracted. The patient testified that he felt pain, although not as bad as when he wasn’t given any anesthetic. He couldn’t repeat the demonstration as there were no other patients present. The doctors brushed him off, and considered the demonstration a “humbug affair.” They booed him out the lecture hall. Embarrassed and defeated he returned home and sold his practice. He became even more morose when he finds out his assistant, Morton had developed an ether-based anesthesia and was using it in hospitals with great success.

He lived in France for a while, but couldn’t revived his career. He moved back to the states and started to experiment with chloroform which made him increasingly unhinged. He attacks two prostitutes with sulfuric acid and is sent to prison, where he commits suicide. He cut a large artery in his leg, after inhaling chloroform to stop the pain. He used his anesthesia research to help him commit his own painless death.