Daily Lesson

Good morning,



Quote of the day:


"I told my wife that I was seeing a psychiatrist. She said the she was seeing a psychiatrist, two butchers and a plumber." Rodney Dangerfield


As all of y'all know by now Patrick Swayze is no longer with us. We all remember "Dirty Dancing" (shot at Lake Lure, NC), "Ghost" and "Roadhouse"...I enjoyed them all. We will miss him.


I am in communications with an old friend in Pensacola that works for a Federal judge named Miles Davis. His father was a Marine officer named Raymond Davis. During the Korean War a regiment of Marines led by US Marine Col. Lewis (Chesty) Puller were surrounded by the sudden invasion of Red Chinese and were trapped at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea and were facing annihilation. Ray Davis assembled a group of Marines and fought their way through ice fields, snow storms, sub-teen temperatures and ferocious Chinese soldiers and broke through to Puller's Marines. For this action Davis received the Medal of Honor. Puller led his men out of there to safety and received his fifth Navy Cross. When Puller's Marines marched into the safety of an American camp they came in singing the Marine Corp Hymn.


I have just one question for President Obama. Where is your soul? In the past I had no question as to the patriotism of our presidents, Richard Nixon excepted, and felt safe and secure under their leadership. I don't know what it is but I get a queasy feeling when I see and hear Obama. I had a strange feeling with Richard Nixon also, but different than what I feel now. I am not sure of Obama's allegiance and that makes me very, very uneasy. I wish I did not sense this, it would make my life a lot more serene.


I have one more question. Why was there very little if any news coverage given to the public demonstration that occurred in Washington this past weekend. There were more people there that were at the so-called "Million Man March" a few years ago that got wall-to-wall coverage. This recent demonstration was against the Obama administration's spending and the health care overhaul. This should tell all of you on whose side the media is on. This means that there cannot be objectivity in news reporting. Be aware of all you read, hear or see. It is no longer news, it is propoganda.


Good News:


I guess all of you have seen the pics of Serena Williams showing her ass at the US Open Tennis Tournament. She was docked a point for that outburst and it cost her the championship. What you are probably not aware of is the her opponent was the Belgian Kim Clijsters who stood quietly on her end of the court waiting the outcome. Kim was a pro tennis player that retired in 2005. She married American Brian Lynch and they had a female child soon after. This year she was asked to come to Wimbledon to play a few exhibition matches. The fire of competition was re-lit in Kim and she chose to enter the US Open. As you know by now, she ended up as the Woman's Champion. She is only the second mother to win a championship since Evonne Goolagong in 1980. Some people are just meant to compete.


Greenpatch Grime:


I guess y'all saw where a group of US Special Ops troops performed a raid in southern Somalia. They were looking for a leader of al-queda from Kenya that was responsible for the bombing of a building in Nairobi that killed five innocent people and another attempt at shooting down a commercial aircraft. The al-queda leader was in a convoy on a road in Somalia. Six helicopters swept in and shot up the convoy and then troops dropped down on ropes and killed everybody including the al-queda leader. Like I have said in the past, I go to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that we have assassins out there capping those sons-of-bitches faster that a dog can trot.


Y'all ain't going to believe this. Down in Jefferson, Georgia the Clark family was preparing to go on a picnic. Bobby Clark and his wife got into an argument because she accused Bobby of eating a piece of watermelon meant for the picnic. The argument got pretty heated so Bobby goes into his bedroom and retrieved a pistol. He comes back out and kills his six year old step-grandson. He turns on his five year old step-grandson and prepares to fire but his wife steps in front and takes two shots in the abdomen protecting the five year old. Bobby was arrested and there is little doubt is this horses mind that Bobby will see the wrong end of a poison needle sometime in the future. I wish I could be there.


This date in history September 16


1908      A great visionary William C. Durant founded General Motors with the consolidation of Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac along with Chevrolet, Delco, Fisher Body and Frigidaire. The first electric starter came on a 1912 Cadillac; the starter was invented by Charles Kettering of Delco. Pontiac came later on and with this consolidation General Motors surpassed Ford in gross sales. But in the early 60’s with the avalanche of better quality import cars, GM had to cut back, close some of their plants and re-think their product quality.


1924      Betty Joan Perske is born in Brooklyn. Betty was a born performer and showed it at an early age by working as a song and dance girl in the local community. Her Mother and Father were divorced and Betty changer her name back to her Mother’s maiden name Bacal, a Rumanian name. Later she refined her name to Lauren Bacall. At the age of 18 she landed a role in the movie to To Have or Have Not with Humphrey Bogart. She and Bogie hit it off greatly and were married until Bogie died of lung cancer in 1953 Later on she married Jason Robards but they were divorced afterward. She continued in show biz winning a Tony for her role in the Broadway play “Applause”. She won an Oscar nomination for her movie role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in “The Mirror Has two Faces.” A very talented lady.


1952     Warner Bros. introduces the Road Runner Cartoon. It was Mel Blanc doing the “Beep Beep”. They are still funny.


1832     George Washington Custis Lee is born to Robert E. and Mary Custis Lee in Fort Monroe, Virginia. Custis followed his father to West Point and as his father did graduated first in his class in 1854. During his last two years at West Point his father was superintendent. At the outset of the War Between the States, CSA President Jefferson Davis requested Custis Lee as his Aide-de-Camp and was given the task of reinforcing the defenses around Richmond even though Custis was verbal in his request for a field command. After his father died in 1870 as President of Washington (Soon to be known as Washington and Lee) College, Custis became president until he retired in 1897. Custis died in Fairfax, Va. in 1913. Thus ended the lineage of great American leaders going back to “Light Horse Harry” Lee of the American Revolution.


1620     English ship Mayflower leaves Plymouth, England harbor bound for the new world, Jamestown, Virginia in particular. After a stormy 66 day passage and being blown off course by 500 miles they end up at the tip of Cape Cod and drop anchor in Providencetown harbor. While enroute the passengers got together and made up a document known as the Mayflower Compact. This document was the earliest basis for what is now our present democracy. A few armed men under the leadership of Myles Standish depart the ship and begin a hunt for a suitable site to begin a settlement. They find and open field with plenty of running water and named it Plymouth. An interesting fact about Standish was that he was so short that he had to cut 6 inches off his sword and scabbard to keep them from dragging the ground, that would make him no taller than 5’-3” and probably shorter. But he was a fiery and capable military commander, we are lucky he was aboard. The Mayflower is sailed around to Plymouth harbor and thus began preparations for the tough upcoming winter. The majority of those aboard were religious dissidents against the Church of England the rest were opportunist and entrepreneurs. While anchored in Plymouth harbor one Susanna White delivered a son name Peregrine he being the first child born in the new world. In my opinion, this expedition ranks up there with the Lewis and Clark expedition as being the greatest adventure of all time. I would have loved to be on either one.


1920      Someone pulls a wagon load of explosives in front of the sub treasury on Wall Street and lights it off killing 300 people and injuring many. No one comes forward to claim responsibility and therefore rumors flew that is was the Communists, Anarchists, etc. Some even claim that it was a construction wagon that turned down the wrong street. In any event this mystery remains unsolved to this day. I think it was a Sunni that had spotted a Shiite and the battle was on. They are all crazy as bedbugs anyway, let them kill each other off. Screw them.


1943     James Alan McPherson is born in Savannah, Georgia. James is a very smart man and a gifted writer and attended Harvard Law School. James won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1977 for his novel Elbow Room being the first and only black man to do so. He also won $196,000 award from the Guggenheim “Genius” foundation. After this his life began to unravel. His interracial marriage failed resulting in a bitter custody fight and his favorite student committed suicide. McPherson wrote but little after that and waited 20 years before writing the novel Crabcakes which was about his trip to Japan to escape the burden of racism. (His words).


Born today:


1858    British Prime Minister Bernard Law. He said “There is no such thing as inevitable war, if there is a war it is because the failure of human wisdom.” Hey Bernie, add to that “unless they are born lunatics like Adolph Hitler, Attila the Hun, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, Francisco Pizzaro, Hernan Cortez, Alexander the Great, etc, etc”


1857    French artist Jean Arp. She said “Art is a fruit that grows in man, like fruit on a plant, or a child in a mother’s womb.” Jean was a driven and gifted artist.


1962    US psychologist Dr Lawrence Peter. He said “Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lens, is in the eye of the beholder.” To me competence is directly tied to the complexity of the issue and the mental capabilities of the solver. There are those that are assigned issues too complex for the solvers abilities, that ain’t incompetence of the solver that is the incompetence of the assigner. In my humble opinion, at least half of a manager’s responsibilities are to assign duties that make the solver stretch his imagination but not so far out of reach of their capabilities that they become discouraged.


1924    US actress Lauren Bacall. She said “Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.” Lauren was married to actor Humphrey Bogart, one of my favorites of all time.


1925    US bluesman B.B. King. He said “We musicians don’t steal from each other; we just borrow from time to time.” B.B. has thrilled us with his guitar “Lucille” and his soulful singing voice for over 60 years.


1926    US evangelist Robert Schuller. He said “Don’t look at what you have lost, look at what you have left.” Good advice, Rev.


Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow