Daily Lesson

Good morning.


Quote of the day:

"For 'twas was not in my ear that you whispered, but into my heart. 'Twas was not my lips you kissed, it was my soul."

                                 William Shakespeare

The Sound is dead calm and the air is foggy. The visibility cannot be more that thee miles and yet they are calling for a high temperature of 85, that means very high humidity. I will be prepared for a muggy day.

I guess all of you have read about that man that kidnapped his two children and hid them out in Tennessee. I guess you also read where the police finally got the kids back and his 12 year old daughter was six months pregnant. The police determined that the girl must have gotten pregnant while in care of her father. I have a question. If it is determined that it was the father that impregnated his daughter, what penalty would be appropriate for that animal?

Some of you may or may not have read about the trouble in Union County, South Carolina. Already several previous county commissioners and county managers are in jail after being arrested for allowing illegal drugs to be sold and traded under their supervision. What bothers me most is the former sheriff of Union County, Howard Wells, has been indicted. If y'all will remember it was Howard Wells that broke a famous murder case a few years back and his name and reputation flew across the globe. It was Howard that got Susan Smith to recant her story of the kidnapping of her two sons and admit that she had driven her car into a lake with the boys strapped into their car seats and they drowned. Back then I thought Howard was very professional, but look at him now.

In 2007 an amateur archaeologist was exploring an area in the mountain around Pickens, SC and saw some faint markings on the face of a vertical rock. A little further examination proved that they were indeed petroglyphs of human figures etched by native Americans over 1,000 year ago. There has been a move afoot to develop that area into a housing development but an even stronger move is afoot to build a museum there instead. I hope they succeed.

I dated a woman briefly whose brother owned a large horse farm up in the mountains of South Carolina. The brother kept noticing this one particular area in his pasture that had a lot of arrowheads and a few shards of pottery. He called in archaeologist from College of Charleston and Wofford and they began digging. They discovered disturbed soil in distinct lines that indicated a palisade or fenceline. They found atlatls, arrows used with atlatls, thousands of pottery shards, some decorated some not but they did find some that had grass embedded which dated the shard. The native Americans did not add vegetable fibers to their clay for strength until about 6,000 years ago. They dug down and found a stone lined fire pit with animal bones in a pile close by along with an obvious flint arrowhead making station. Carbon dating of the bones indicated they were about 11,000 years old.

This culture lived in relative peace in this area for over 10,000 years and we honkies came in and destroyed it, mostly with disease, but they were wiped out nonetheless.

I am about half way through the read of "The Lost Symbol", the newest book by Dan Brown. As with the other books by Brown, it leads you down a very twisted and tortured path but it keeps you focused. I recieved another book from a friend that is about a rogue Russian attack submarine. It is supposedly the truth. If it is, we were closer to Armegeddon a lot more times that we like to admit.

Good News:

Y'all will be glad to know that the Humpback whale is being considered to be brought off the endangered list. Since Humpback whaling was banned in 1966 when it was estimated that there were only 1,600 in existence there has been a significant increase to an estimate of about 19,000 existing. I have yet to understand what is attractive about whale meat except to the eskimos. It is very oily, y'all.

This date in history October 7

1982    The Broadway musical “Cats” debuts with music and lyrics by Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Webber got the lyrics from the book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by T.S. Eliot. The show has the distinction of being the longest running Broadway musical in history with 7,485 performances over 18 years and reaping $400M and playing to over 10 million people. I went to see a road show version of this play at the Peace Center here in Greenpatch a while back. They sang the main theme song “Memories” twice in the first half and we were assured we would here at least twice more in the second half. The show was superbly choreographed and the stage and lighting was beautifully done but I got bored and left at intermission and went down to “Occasionally Blues” a blues club in downtown Greenpatch and hoisted a few while waiting for my friends who stayed for the second half. The band at “OB” was one of my favorites “Electric City Blues Band” and they didn’t sing “Memories” but knocked my socks off with some kick-ass blues.

1969    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Earle Wheeler announces that the “Vietnamization” program was going as scheduled and withdrawal of US troops would begin but the South Vietnamese would need American assistance for “some time to come”. In June President Richard Nixon had decreed that the South Vietnamese should accept more responsibility for the prosecution of the war and American forces would be withdrawn as the South Vietnamese became more and more capable. By 1972 there were only 75,000 American troops left in country. But I guess the South Vietnamese were not as capable as they should have been because the North Vietnamese eventually conquered their southern brethren and renamed Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. But at least it is one country now good, bad or indifferent.

1864    The American warship USS Wachusett captures the famous Confederate raider the CSS Florida in a harbor near Bahia, Brazil. Some of the crew of the Wachusetts boarded the Florida and began sailing it out of the harbor but the Government of Brazil called bullshit on that because it violated the neutrality of Brazil. The crew sailed the ship back into the harbor and handed the ship back over to the Florida commander, Alabamian Raphael Semmes. Semmes sails the Florida back toward home but unfortunately later on the Florida sank off the coast of Hampton Roads, Virginia. Raphael Semmes was an interesting man and I will do an essay on him later on.

1913    Henry Ford initiates a moving assembly line to assemble the Model T. This innovation cut the assembly time for a completed car from 12 ½ hours to 90 minutes. Ford got this idea while visiting a meat packing plant in Chicago where beef and pork carcasses were moving down a line where butchers were lined up doing the same cuts over and over but the line never stopped. Ford had stated that he was going to make a car for the masses but he had to get $850 for his first Model T’s because of the time it took to make one. $850 was a price that only the wealthy could afford at that time but with innovation of the moving assembly line he was able to offer the Model T for $300 because of increased production putting the car to almost within anyone’s reach.

1985    Four Palestinian (Arab) terrorists highjack the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. The leader of the terrorist wing of the PLO Abu Abbas had ordered this but did not give these jackasses any instructions as to what to do with the ship. The four terrorists decided that they should demand that all the PLO terrorists held in Israeli jail should be released. This was rejected, of course, and these brave sons-of-bitches shot wheelchair ridden American Leon Klinghofer in the head and threw him and his wheelchair over the side. The US dispatched a SEAL team to take the ship back but when they arrived the terrorist had already left and were on an airplane to Libya. The US sent fighters from a carrier in the Mediterranean to intercept the flight with the terrorists aboard and forced the plane to land in Sicily. Italian authorities arrested the terrorist which included Abu Abbas. In spite of intense pressure from the US, Abbas was allowed to leave the country and the others were put on trial and given various lengths of time in prison. As I have said in the past, my mind is very fertile when it comes to dealing with those pig sucking cowards and a prison sentence ain’t part of it.

Born today:

1887    Danish mathematician Niels Bohr. He said “Never express yourself more clearly than you can think.” Bohr was a big contributor to the development of the first United States nuclear bombs.

1931    African leader Bishop Desmond Tutu. He said “The missionaries came to our country with a bible and we had the land. The missionaries said “Let us pray” and when we opened out eyes we had the bible and the missionaries had the land”. I am not surprised.

1934    US writer Imamu Baraka. He said “A rich man once told me that a liberal is someone that tells others how to spend their money.” See Hillary and Obama.

1939    Australian critic Clive James. When writing a critique on Judith Krantz’s performance in Princess Daisy he said “As a work of art, it is in the same status as a long conversation with two not very bright drunks.” Clive is a smart-ass.

Died today:

1849 US writer Edgar Allen Poe. He said “Those that dream in the daytime are a lot more cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only at night.” Poe attended West Point for a very short time. He had no discipline but ended up as a giant of American literature.

1991    US baseball player/manager Leo Durocher. He said “I never said that you cannot be a nice guy and win. I said that if I was playing third base and my mother was rounding third as the winning run, I would trip her.” You can put Leo in the same fiery category as Ty Cobb and Pete Rose.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow