http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThquH5t0ow

Still, the world's oldest known leather shoe, revealed Wednesday, struck one of the world's best known shoe designers as shockingly au courant. "It is astonishing," Blahnik said via email, "how much this shoe resembles a modern shoe!" 

Stuffed with grass, perhaps as an insulator or an early shoe tree, the 5,500-year-old moccasin-like shoe was found exceptionally well preserved--thanks to a surfeit of sheep dung--during a recent dig in an Armenian cave.

About as big as a current women's size seven (U.S.), the shoe was likely tailor-made for the right foot of its owner, who could have been a man or a woman--not enough is known about Armenian feet of the era to say for sure.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100609-worlds-oldest-leather-shoe-armenia-science/

They discovered Senator Robert Byrd's DNA on those moccasins.

Robert Byrd the once Grand Vizier for the Pharaohs of Egypt, foot soldier in the Army of Alexander, General under Julius Caesar,  the Duke of Marlborough in Medieval England and the discoverer of coal in West Virginia will be remembered as the longest serving member of the Senate of the United States of America.

Senator Byrd was just one of those figures in history that a novice would have trouble figuring out. I laugh a little every time I read the line:

Robert Byrd had been a member of the KKK in his twenties, but he served in no important membership capacity.

The same could be said of Justice Hugo Black. Except of course, almost as soon as Justice Black got on the bench, he changed his attitude.

Hugo Black was one of this country's greatest jurists; carried a dog eared copy of the Constitution in his pocket and helped this country recognize that the Bill of Rights applied to one and all.  He and Justice Douglas would take a letter written to them by an inmate as a full fledged appeal and then get people like Abe Fortis to represent the inmate on the appeal.

Robert Byrd took a little longer to get 'with the program'. He fought the Civil Rights Acts of '64 and '65 tooth and nail.

And then he began to develop. He did not run over to the Republican Party like Thurmond and others. He stayed with the Democrats.

And in an act of historical importance, to me anyway, he endorsed the first Black Man as President of the United States.

Rather doddering the last five years, Byrd was almost comical in his orations on the Senate Floor; reminded me of Sam Erwin a bit. If you recall, during the Watergate hearings Sam received accolades from the press. But if you actually listened to Senator Erwin attempt to speak a complete sentence...well.

But here is part of an important speech Senator Byrd gave admonishing George W. Bush in no uncertain terms:

George W. Bush, a child of wealth and privilege and heir to an American political dynasty, did not pay his dues. He did not have to. His name was Bush and he ran for president because he could and because he was tapped by Republican Party poobahs. Governor Bush's acquired skills were mostly political, gleaned from doing campaign duty for his father. His presidential campaign, really the soul of simple-mindedness, showcased only one major idea--massive tax cuts that the country clearly could not afford. That one flawed idea, combined with a mushy all-purpose and never defined concept labeled "compassionate conservatism," provided Bush with just enough rhetoric to keep him under the radar and get him through the politics of the 2000 presidential campaign. He was, and is, carefully "handled" by political operatives who work hard to shield him from complicated or probing questions, and keep him to "bullet points" of repetition. His major talent seems always to have been in raising money. And the money poured in from the corporate interests, who knew they would have a reliable friend in the White House if Bush won.   http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/aug/12/troublemaker/

How could anyone have put it better?

Robert Byrd died an honorable man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThquH5t0ow