Daily lesson

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"I would like everyone to get rich and famous and do everything they have always dreamed of then they will realize that it's not the answer"

                                       Jim Carrey

The weather is back to normal. The air is clear and crisp, the wind is from the east-northeast at about 7 MPH and the high today is expected to be about 75. The wind had been blowing at about 25 MPH from the north for at least three days. The wind from the north indicates a low pressure system with accompanying cold fronts is northeast of this location and we are on the backside.

Down in Cross Hill, SC 21 year old Ashley Hepburn was arrested for child abuse after her 16 month old daughter was taken to a local hospital and abuse was evident. The hospital called the cops. The charge was changed to murder when the little girl died. She had severe brain damage from a beating. How is this possible? What ever happened to the mothering instinct.

An 18 year old woman in Mobile, AL was arrested for child endangerment when people called the cops after hearing a baby cry incessantly for hours. The cops found three children alone in the apartment. There ages were 3, 1 and 3 months. The mother was found in another apartment close by. Y'all can do the math on how old she was when she had her first child.

There is yet another golf course/housing development being built in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. This particular one is about 20 miles north of Greenville, SC. The first house was a gift to golf immortal Gary Player for either investing in the development or lending his name to it. I haven't figured that out yet. The house is valued at $5 million. I doubt that he will be a permanent resident, however. It is too cold in the winter, but very nice in the summer.

The mayor of Birmingham, Alabama is going on trial for accepting bribes. He is accused of accepting a $10,000 Rolex and funneling over $230,000 to a Montgomery investment banker named Bill Blount for a piece of the action. Blount has already confessed and will testify at the trial.

Alabama has real trouble with their politicians. Very soon after he lost his re-election former Alabama Governor Don Seigelman was convicted in Federal Court of taking bribes and a number of other charges and was led out of the courtroom in shackles and leg irons. That was a lot over the top as far as I am concerned. He spent about a year in a federal prison which included time in solitary. He was sentenced to seven year and fined $50,000. He was released this past March while appealing his conviction and sentence. The appellate court refused to overturn his conviction because they could find no improprieties but they did strike down two of the seven charges that he was convicted on and ordered another sentencing trial which may lower the seven year sentence. Seigelman is a Democrat and has great influence of Alabama politics. It is generally believed that former president George W. Bush ordered Karl Rove to do something to alter Seigelman's influence and change it to a Republican influence. Karl Rove refused to testify in Seigelman's trial and Seigelman is on the move to prosecute Rove for unduly ruining his life. I hate politics and politicians.

Yesterday I went to lunch at a seafood house right down the street. This place is about 1 1/2 miles from the center of Pensacola Beach, Florida. To my amazement my last ex-wife walked in. She did not acknowledge my existence and I did not hers. I have not laid eyes on her since 1995 when she, at the age of 37, was working on marrying her fifth husband in Spartanburg, SC. What are the odds of that meeting occuring? It boggles the mind.

Good news:

Four years ago George Bickertt became the principal at the Tohatchi (New Mexico) Elementary School and people began to notice a change. Bickertt would stand out front of the school and welcome each student every day. He made it a point to learn everyone's name. He joined in the before school basketball games. Tohatchi is on a Navaho Indian reservation and the great majority of the kids are poverty stricken. When George got there the school was in the bottom 5 percent of schools in America when it came to reading ability and math. The kids were not good at reading English because they mostly spoke Navaho. George organized reading classes with their own nicknames which promoted competition among the kids. All of sudden the kids began doing heir homework and were eager to go to school. In 2008 this school went from the bottom to the top ten percent in the country in math and reading comprehension. All it takes is a dedicated and gifted leader.

This date in history October 20

1944    Earlier in 1942 the United States military commander of the Philippines, General Douglas McArthur had been kicked out by the invading Japanese army. Before leaving at the order of the United States President Franklin Roosevelt, he gave command to General Jonathon Wainwright knowing he was doomed to be killed or captured by the overwhelming Japanese forces. According to McArthur he vehemently objected to being ordered to withdraw, he said he had rather stay with his troops no matter their fate. He made a short speech before he left stating that he was leaving but vowing that “I shall return”. On this date, General McArthur did indeed return when he splashed ashore in the Philippines accompanied by a huge US army, Navy and Marine combination and ended up kicking out, killing or capturing all the Japanese soldiers in the archipelago. He did not find out the fate of General Wainwright until Wainwright was rescued from a Japanese prison camp in Mongolia by the invading Russians. This rescue was just a few weeks before the surrender of Japan on August 10. Wainwright was ordered by McArthur to be present at the surrender ceremony aboard the battleship USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. When McArthur first saw the severely emaciated Wainwright he broke down sobbing. War is hell.

1774    On this date the Continental Congress passed a bill called the Continental Association Act. The Continental Association Act forbade any of the colonies to do business of any sort with Great Britain. This bill was in response to an act passed by British Parliament that the Continentals called the “Intolerable Acts”. The so-called Intolerable Acts were passed in response to the Boston Tea Party and consisted of four parts and there were: 1. The port of Boston was closed to all shipping except the English. 2. The Massachusetts Government act made Great Britain in command of all town meetings and decisions as to the state of Massachusetts. 3. British officials would be immune from criminal prosecution. 4. The colonists must provide quarters to the British military on demand including individual homes. Can you imagine a government trying to push something like this on anyone? As you might suspect, almighty hell was raised by each and every colony, even the Loyalist bent state of Georgia. The following spring the Continentals got fed up with the damned Redcoats and opened fire on the sons-of-bitches at Breed’s Hill, better known as Bunker Hill and was called the shot heard around the world. The Revolutionary War began in earnest.

1944    Early this morning an employee of the East Ohio Gas company in Cleveland sees a stream of white vapor coming out of the side of a natural gas tank. This puppy was 57 feet in diameter and had the capacity of 90 million cubic feet. One hour later a stupendous explosion rocks the Lake Erie waterfront. A fire of biblical proportions erupts and flames reach upward to 2,500 feet. Each and every fireman in Cleveland participated in the containing this fire. After the fire finally died the fireman found 130 bodies all burned beyond recognition and hundreds wounded. Two factories were leveled, 70 houses destroyed and 200 cars melted into puddles. The leak was caused by contraction. The natural gas is put into the tank at 210 degrees below zero which forces the tank to contract and a small split at a seam occurred. All existing tanks were upgraded and newer tanks were designed to overcome this design flaw.

1803    Earlier the fledgling United States realized that they needed another port on the Gulf of Mexico and thought that New Orleans would be ideal. At the time, New Orleans and a huge chunk of North America was owned by France having had that land ceded to them by Spain two years before. The United States sent James Monroe and James Livingston to France to try and purchase New Orleans from Napoleonic France. They met with Napoleon’s second in command, Lord Talleyrand, and requested a price for New Orleans. On this date, Talleyrand comes into the office and says “What will you give me for all of it?” meaning the whole of the lands owned by France in North America that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. After Monroe and Livingston got through peeing in their pants, they requested a few days to come up with a figure. They came back to Talleyrand and offered $15 million which was accepted. They had overstepped their bounds by light years but knew they could not let this opportunity pass. It would take several months to sail back to America, meet with Congress, and then back to France and they did not want Napoleon to change his mind. The reason Napoleon wanted to do this was twofold. He needed money finance his war in Europe and he wanted to keep North America out of the hands of the British. Napoleon said that he wanted North America to be a “thorn in the side of England” as indeed it was. This purchase was known as the immortal "Louisiana Purchase". By the way, Louisiana was named after French king Louis XIV. He was known as the "Sun King". He was in power for 74 years, y'all, 54 of those years he was in total control of the French Govenment and he ordered the constuction of some of the most spectacular structures ever built.

Births and deaths:

1928    US columnist Dr .Joyce Brothers is born. She said “If Shakespeare had to go on the road to promote Romeo and Juliet he never would have written Macbeth.”

1946    US writer Lewis Grizzard is born. He said “I have written a song titled 'When My Love Comes Back From the Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old To Care'".

Quotable quotes:

“I have enough money to last the rest of my life…unless I have to buy something”

                                   Jackie Mason

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.