Wednesday

•  Musings and History

  
  

  Quote of the day:

  “I once made love for an hour and 15 minutes but it was on the night that the clocks were set ahead.”

                                                   Gary Shandling

  
  

  Trivia question of the day:

  When SEAL team 6 went in capped Osama Ben Laden they had a war dog with them. What was it's breed and what was its name? Answer at the end of the blog.

  
  

  I have never bought the premise that Moses and the Hebrews were lost for 40 years in the deserts east and southeast of Egypt.
  The Egyptians for centuries had been squabbling with the Assyrians (present day Syria) or the Hittites (present day Turkey) for the control of present day Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the Jordan River valley and surrounding lands. There is no doubt that the Hebrews knew of this during their Egyptian bondage and knew that these lands were north of Egypt. North is easy to find, y'all, all you have to do is see the sunrise, put the sun on your right shoulder and you are facing north. Not only that, Moses was a soldier in the Egyptian army and without a doubt knew where these lands were. I read an explanation by a Hebrew scholar that made sense. He maintained that Moses knew that it would be imperative that they have a substantial army before beginning a campaign to capture “The Promised Land”, present day Israel. In fact, God through Joshua instructed the Hebrews to not leave anyone alive that they encountered so there would be no attacks from the rear. Right after the Exodus the Hebrews had no army at all and if they tried to invade, yes invade, up the Jordan river valley they would be slaughtered wholesale by the resident tribes. The scholar says that Moses camped in the desert 40 years to at least double the size of his army, manufacture weapons and train the army in combat tactics and discipline. After this was accomplished they began their campaign and was successful. Works for me...Moses was no dummy.

  
  

                       This Date in History   November 20

  
  

  1820 On this date the whaling vessel Essex based in Nantucket, Rhode Island encountered an enraged bull sperm whale 2,000 mile off the west coast if South America. The 80 ton whale rammed the 280 ton ship twice causing it to capsize. All of The 20 man crew escaped to three smaller boats but their troubles were not over. The crew spent 83 days adrift and ran out of food and soon chose to draw straws to see who would be shot to provide food for the others. After the boats were spotted near the west coast of South America and picked up by other boats there were only five survivors. There were three others that were marooned on an uninhabited Pacific island but they were eventually rescued. The first capture of a sperm whale was in 1711 and it was then that the value of whale oil and ambergris was discovered. From then on the whaling industry ballooned to 800 ships that traveled the entire globe looking for these giants. It was this event that inspired Herman Melville to give us the immortal Moby Dick the next year. To my knowledge whaling has been banned or severely restricted. I believe that if they had not the whale would have gone the route of the Moa and the Dodo bird.

  
  

  1947 On this date Princess Elizabeth, the heir apparent to the English throne, is married to Phillip Mountbatten. Phillip was a Prince of Greece and Denmark and he renounced his titles to marry Elizabeth. Elizabeth was 21 years old and Phillip was 26 and had fought with the British Navy during WWII. He was given the title of Duke of Edinburgh just before the wedding. As you might suspect, the wedding was a lavish one held in Westminster Abbey in London. This event raised the spirits of the British people who were suffering personally and financially from the effects of WWII. As expected, Elizabeth’s father King George VI died in 1952 and Elizabeth rose to the throne of Great Britain where she remains to this day. The coronation of Elizabeth, also held in Westminster Abbey, was also a lavish event. It is not very often that there is a change in the monarchy of England and the ceremony is the same as it was with the crowning of William the Conqueror in December of 1066. The English are big on tradition. I forgot, Phillip is Elizabeth’s cousin.

  
  

  1843 On this date a major trading post on the Mississippi River named Blacksnake Hills trading post has a name change to Saint Joseph’s trading post. The post had been wisely established in 1826 by French fur trader Joseph Robidoux right in the mouth of the Platte River valley. This valley was a major artery for the fur trappers returning from the far west and the Rocky Mountains. Eventually the fur trade dried up but the pioneers heading west stopped at Saint Joseph to gear up for their trip to Oregon and California. The Platte River was again a major avenue for those traveling west. The trail split near present day Beatrice, Nebraska with some heading northwest on the Oregon Trail and others heading southwest on the Santa Fe and several other trails. What an adventure that would have been.

  
  

  1945 On this date the Nuremberg war crimes trial begins in Nuremberg, Germany. The trial was judged by a tribunal of the French, United States and Russia. There were 24 Germans on trial for war crimes; of those half were eventually hanged. The others received sentences from life to twenty years. Naturally the root of the charges of “crimes against humanity” was what happened to the Jew, Gypsies and various other minorities throughout Europe during WWII. The trial took a year. Most of the Germans defended themselves by claiming they were just doing what they were ordered as good soldiers do. One of the most famous of the accused was Field Marshal Herman Goering who was the second in command of the German military after Adolph Hitler. Herman was sentenced to the gallows but on the day before the hanging, Herman got his hands on a cyanide capsule and committed suicide. No one knows how he came by the capsule but the rumor was that he bribed one of his guards to get him one. We will never know.

  
  

  Born today:

  1884 US social reformer Norman Thomas. He said “If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag, wash it.” Norman was a famous communist.

  
  

  1908 British social commentator Alistair Cooke. He said “A professional is one that does their best even when they do not feel like it.” That sounds like a prostitute to me.

  
  

  1919 US actress Evelyn Keyes. She said “I always took up with the man of the moment, and I had many moments.” Life is a smorgasbord isn’t it Evelyn?

  
  

  
  

  1923 South African writer Nadine Gordimer. She said “Truth is not always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”

  
  

  1925 US politician Robert F. Kennedy. He said “One fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” Most of them are the Democrats these days.

  
  

  1954 US actress Bo Derek. She said “Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness just doesn’t know where to shop.” Bo, get in touch with reality.

  
  

  Answer to the trivia question:

  The war dog that was with SEAL team 6 on the Osama Ben Laden raid was a Belgian Malinois named Cairo.

  
  

  Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow   

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Al Campbell

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Thursday

• Musings and History

  
  

  “When we talk to God we are praying. When god talks to us we are schizophrenic.”

                                                      Lily Tomlin

  
  

  Trivia question of the day since it it approaching Thanksgiving:

  What was the name of the ship that brought the pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620 and who was elected to be their leader? Answer at the end of the blog.

  
  

  I recently had a specialist look into my ancestry. My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Justus and she was born on a farm near Hendersonville, NC. From this I discovered that her grandparents had moved to that farm from South Carolina in 1829. They had issue of 9 children one of which was Walker Sevier Justus, my great grandfather. They also lost 4 sons in the Civil War most fighting with Co. I, 16^th North Carolina Regiment, these men were my great-great uncles. They were William, Wilson, Merida and Mitchell.

  This Regiment was under the command of General Wade Hampton III, a well known South Carolinian along with Generals Dorsey Pender and Alfred Scales, both North Carolinians, and was present at some of the major battles of the entire war including: 2^nd Manassas, Seven Pines, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsvile, Gettysburg and were present at the surrender at Appomattox. Two of my great-great uncles died at Petersburg, one died at Fredericksburg and one died Valley Mountain, Va.

  
  

  It was the 16^th North Carolina that penetrated the Union center at Gettyburg during Pickett's charge but had to withdraw when Stuart's cavalry did not meet arrive and give support.

  I have often wondered why I get teary-eyed when writing about these battles and now I know why.

  
  

  I honor the Confederate flag because it reminds me of my ancestry and I don't give a damn about the politics. If you want to give me a hard time about it...then bring it.

  
  

                      This Date in History   November 21

  
  

  1985 On this date Jonathon Jay Pollard is arrested. Pollard was an American Jew working for United States Naval Intelligence as an analyst. As incredible as it seems, Pollard was arrested for espionage for selling intelligence information about different Muslim groups and countries to Israel. I personally do not have a problem with this but Secretary of State Casper Weinberger really wigged out about this information leak and persuaded the Justice department to seek a life sentence. Pollard was eventually convicted of espionage and was sentenced to life. The Israeli government did not really object to the sentenced and deemed it as an embarrassment. However, a few years later the Israeli government pushed to have Pollard’s sentenced reduced because his sentence was far more severe than other similar cases where information was being sold to “friendly” countries and they gave Pollard an Israeli citizenship. It was for naught because Pollard is still in the slammer with no end in sight.

  
  

  1783 On this date the first manned flight of a sort occurred. Frenchmen Jean-Francois Rozier and Francois Laurent traveled 5.5 miles across the city of Paris in a hot air balloon. They were aloft for about 25 minutes. One hundred and twenty years later, the Wright Brothers gave us controlled flight. They were not the first to fly in a heavier-than-air vehicle. There were several flights made in gliders that were uncontrolled. In their patent they called the control surfaces ailerons which are what they are called today. Man has been seeking a way to break the bonds of gravity all the way back to Greek mythology and Daedelus and Icarus in particular. Even Leonardo da Vinci designed a wing that was supposed to be used by humans but as far as we know it was never built and tested.

  
  

  1776 US General George Washington ordered General Charles Lee to abandon his position Westchester County, New York and to join Washington in New Jersey. Lee liked it in New York and did not particularly care about reinforcing Washington so he dawdled and delayed moving his troops. But eventually he headed towards Washington’s position. Lee was a horny guy and sought a place to engage a willing woman along the way and found one in “Widow White’s Tavern” in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The next morning a British detachment led by the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton woke Lee up, arrested him and took him to a British camp in his sleeping gown. That’s right; men wore gowns for sleeping in those days. While in captivity he even designed battle plans for the British. Before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Lee was in the British army and he and Tarleton were in the same unit. After serving a short sentence Lee went and joined Washington in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He had a short argument with Washington whereupon he was kicked out the Continental army. Lee was well thought of in the Indian community because he was married to a Mohawk. That’s right, he was married.

  
  

  1860 Tom Horn is born this day of a farm near Memphis, Missouri. As a youngster he loved to roam field and forest with his dog and rifle hunting for game. He sharpened his skills with rifle to a fine edge but Tom had a problem at home. His father was a violent man and beat him and his mother on a regular basis which resulted on Tom running away from home at the age of 14. He made his way to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he took a job as a teamster. He showed and unusually good adaptation at learning different Indian languages, Apache in particular. His skill at languages earned him a job with the US Cavalry as an interpreter and scout. Some time after this Tom decides to put his skills with a rifle to good use and becomes a hired assassin. He said “Killing is my specialty. I look at it as a business proposition, and I think I have corner on the market.” He took a job with the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency. Under normal circumstances a Pinkerton detective would stop short of killing, but under some cases they would form small armies and engage in shootouts with bank and train robbers. Then he became a free-lance assassin. He was hired by a huge cattle corporation in Wyoming to take out a “settler” who had started a ranch in the open range which was considered private property by the corporation for the grazing of their cattle. On occasion the settler would brag about how good the beef tasted was that he found grazing on his land and refused all attempts to buy him out. The corporation hired Tom to put an end to this problem. The settler showed up dead a few days later. It was determined that the settler was shot at a distance of over 300 yards. No one in the area could make that shot other than Tom Horn. Tom eventually went to the gallows for killing a 14 year old boy.

  
  

  Born today:

  
  

  1694 French philosopher Voltaire. He said “In England it is considered well to kill an admiral once in a while to encourage the others.” Voltaire had an acid tongue but he wrote some good stuff.

  
  

  1922 US basketball coach Abe Lemons. He said “You finish last in your league they call you an idiot. You finish last in medical school and they call you a doctor.” Tack on to that “lawyers”.

  
  

  Answer to the trivia question:

  The ship that brought the pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620 was the Mayflower. The elected leader was William Bradford.

  
  

                 Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

  
  

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Tuesday

    Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“A tyrant will always find a pretext for their tyranny.”

           Aesop's Fables (The Wolf and the Lamb)

From a while back:

I guess all of you saw that the leader of the terrorist attacks in Paris is on the run like a cockroach. I guess he is not interested in the virgins. Not only that Russia is sending bombers the size of B-52's in swarms and bombing the crap out of ISIS strong points in northern Syria. Those brave ISIS soldiers ran into residential districts and hid...more cockroaches.

A while back I was waiting in my doctors office and read a story about a female yellow Lab named Moxie. This girl retrieved a limit of ducks and geese for 6 people one morning and a limit of pheasant for the same crowd that afternoon and was still eager to some action. I know this female yellow Lab named Kaylee that will retrieved a thrown ball for as long as you have the arm for it. She likes a ball harder than a tennis ball and does not wear out as quickly. She prefers a lacrosse ball. But when she has had enough, especially when it is hot, she will eventually retrieve the ball and then head toward an outside water faucet and sit down waiting on a drink rather than “go on the alert”, after water she is ready again. Kaylee is a member of the family and lives with my brother.

I used to surf dating sites on occasion. Quite a while ago I got a notification of about 20 eligible ladies. This is what was in one of the profiles. It said that she had just returned from a trip to the Mediterranean visiting Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. This lady lives in the Aiken, SC area and has two “jumpers” or horses that jump fences and other obstructions. I should have stopped reading right there because it is obvious that she and I are not on the same financial plateau but I continued. After the lead picture there was a pic of a woman (I think) that had on a huge hat and sunglasses the size of motorcycle goggles so all you could see was a nose, lips and a chin, then a pic of a beach somewhere, a pic of a French bulldog and a dachshund, a pic of 8 or 9 brown pelicans on the water, a pic of 7 people in hiking gear near a lake somewhere mountainous, a pic of a handsome roan well groomed horse whose tail had been partially braided, a pic of the same horse with the woman hugging its neck, a pic of two women on horseback standing in front of what looked like a pub somewhere in Ireland or Scotland, a pic of a woman atop a horse coming over a jump. It looked like the same horse with a braided tail but it was so far away I could not identify the rider. Nearly all the pics of the woman showed her in “horsey” trappings. You know what I mean, tight white pants, black boots, a red Prince Albert cutaway coat and a black helmet with a bill. All of this smelled of lots of money. I considered sending her a response with my pics...like a pic of me near the front wheels of my ancient Maxima, a pic of Kaylee the yellow Lab with the light just right so you will see her retinas, a pic of a bottle of Makers Mark, a pic of a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar I had at Stax, a pic of my daughter's “significant other” replacing the right front strut of my beloved Maxima, a pic of me and a motorcycle gang standing in front of the Richard's biker bar in Mount Pleasant, a pic of me and the “Four O'clock Club”, and finally a pic of me with my 30 year old fly rod. All of this should give that lady some insight into who I really am.

I watched a TV show about the greatest Samurai swordsman in history. He was a Japanese warrior named Musashi. This man killed his first man in a duel at the age of 13. He then went back into a remote forest and stayed four years training himself into a razor sharp swordsman. He soon was attached to a warrior clan that was hell bent on taking over Japan and their leader becoming the Shogun (king). They soon ran into another clan of Samurai warriors that wanted the same thing and a battle erupted. In this battle in 1601 there were over 160,000 warriors engaged. Over 80,000 died in that one day and they did it the hard way, with swords, knives, pikes and arrows. Musashi was different. He used a sword in each hand rather than both hands on one sword. He proved himself a worthy warrior at the age of 17. In this battle the warriors that were killed were beheaded and all the heads were amassed in one pile. I wonder what that smelled like a week later. Musashi began roaming the countryside looking for duels. It has been documented that he was in 60+ duels and never lost. He believed that a sword had a life of its own and was an extension of the bearer. It is true that all Samurai swords are a little different because they are all handmade. He finally gained a duel with the alleged greatest swordsman in western Japan and they agreed to meet on a small island. Musashi was four hours late and by then his opponent was furious which is what Musashi wanted. He came ashore without a sword which enraged his opponent even more. He did have a wooden sword that the carved from an oar. His opponent launched a furious attack but was soon struck down a beaten to death by Musashi. He had two things working for him, he had “psyched out” his opponent and he made his wooden sword 8 inches longer that his opponent’s sword. That just goes to show that a fight is not just who is the strongest, fastest or the fiercest. It is a mind game.

Down in Aiken, South Carolina a man walked into a convenience store and robbed the joint but not before beating the crap out of the clerk with a stick. He ran outside and jumped aboard his trusty Toro LX and sped away. A Toro LX is a 15 HP riding lawn mower. After a furious chase with speeds sometime reaching 8 MPH the culprit was arrested. It has not been confirmed yet but I suspect he is a relative of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi.

This Date in History November 19

1942 Earlier in 1941 Adolph Hitler ordered his army to invade Russia is spite of a treaty that had been signed just a few months earlier. The German army dashed across the Russian plains delivering horrendous death and destruction. The Germans had unquestioned control of the skies and could bomb anything they felt like. The Germans had split their forces into three sections and very soon Moscow and Leningrad were under siege. Hitler ordered the 6^th Army to attack and capture the great city of Stalingrad. The 6^th Army was commanded by General Von Paulus and he had 250,000 troops. Von Paulus estimated it would take about 10 days to force the city to surrender. There was one thing that he neglected, the Russian winter. The German air force had bombed Stalingrad into rubble and Von Paulus thought he could set up a siege and Stalingrad would surrender. He was wrong. The Russians used the rubble to establish defensive strong points. This meant that the Germans would have to go in and dig the defenders out a few at a time. What happened after that was a battle that went down in history as one of the most ferocious ever fought. There were 15,000 to 16,000 casualties every day for an extended period. There was a female Russian sniper that is credited with over 300 kills. Finally the winter descended on the Germans that were not prepared for such bitter weather. Eventually the 6^th army rolling stock came to a halt. On this date Russian General Zhukov ordered a counter attack and he was able to cut the supply lines to the Germans. Between the cold weather and the Russians looking for revenge, Von Paulus surrendered. He only had 90,000 troops left with no help in sight. There were only 5,000 soldiers from Von Paulus' army that lived to see their homeland again.

     Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow