Daily history

Good morning,




There will be no lesson for Wednesday, I will be on the road going back to the hill country and away from Grouper Supreme sandwiches and two-bite oysters.



Quote of the day:

"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

Oscar Wilde

Some of you may remember back in April a Greenville, SC businessman was driving his Maserati down a country road doing 85 MPH when he lost control and plowed all the way through a house killing a 65 year old man sitting in his living room watching TV. On Monday John Ludwig went before a judge and plead guilty to a charge of reckless homicide. The state recommended a sentence of 10 years in prison. There are those in Greenville that think he will not serve a day in prison because of his wealth and that he is well connected. They are right, that jackass got three years probation. Money talks, justice be damned. By the way, Ludwig has had 26 speeding tickets.

Back in June of 2006 a pawn shop owner named John Bruin of Easley, SC was shot to death in a robbery. The security cameras showed the killer as being 24 year old Roger Shepherd. Three days later Shepherd was arrested in Montreal, Canada. Shepherd knew that he could get the death penalty in South Carolina and he also knew that Canada would not extradite a criminal if the death penalty was a possibility. This jackass spent two years in jail in Canada before South Carolina 13th circuit solicitor Bob Arial assured the Canadian government that he would not seek the death penalty and then Shepherd was extradited. His trial started Monday.

Back in 2006 over in Mobile, Alabama a man named Troy Crum was driving home drunker than Cooter Brown. For reason known only to Troy, he decided to make a U-turn and drive the wrong direction in the wrong lane. He collided with another car head-on nearly wiping out an entire family. Troy agreed to a twenty year sentence. Later on his attorney got him out on a technicality saying the Troy should have not been tried as a habitual offender because he had not been convicted on the three other DUI charges. He is being tried again not as a habitual offender but as a regular old drunk.

A couple of years ago the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Oriskany was towed 24 mile due south of Pensacola and sank to be a an artificial reef. It is a magnet to SCUBA divers since the top of the mast is only 70 feet down. Divers from all over the world come to dive on the 880 foot ship. It is the only aircraft carrier that has been made into a reef. Just outside the Pensacola Pass there is a WWI battleship that sank for reasons unknown to me. This ship is in water so shallow that parts of it are above water at low tide. It is the USS Massachusetts. This past weekend a SCUBA diver died while diving the Oriskany. There was no reason given for the death in the report. By the way, the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in this area is covered with downed aircraft. In addition to being a major training area for US Navy pilots since WWI, there used to be an aircraft carrier based at Pensacola for Navy pilots to carrier qualify. During Vietnam there were swarms of aircraft out there. Many did not make it back.

Y'all remember Antoinette Davis up in central North Carolina that sold her daughter for sex. Monday afternoon little five year old Shaniya Davis was found dead in thick woods near Sanford, NC. It would not do for me to be on that bitch Antoinette's jury. I originally said that she should be drawn and quartered, I have changed my mind. She should be waterboarded for a couple of years and then drawn and quartered. To those of out there that are opposed to cruel and unusual punishment, think about the last few minutes in the life of little Shaniya Davis.

This date in history November 17

1558    On this date The Queen of England, Mary I died and the Elizabethan era of England begins with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I. England had been undergoing a lot of turmoil because of religion. Queen Mary was a Catholic and was trying all in her power to get the Pope involved in the politics of the English government and saw to it that laws were passed that were unabashedly pro-Catholic even though the greater majority of the English people were either Calvinists or Presbyterian. Elizabeth never married so that her power would have no chance of being diluted. She had at least two boyfriends, however. They were the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex. Elizabeth was a descendant of Henry VIII and was a devoted Protestant. The people of England were pleased with the rise of Elizabeth because they thought she would be more tolerant of different religions and they were right. England moved into a time of religious tolerance and that eliminated much of the civil turmoil that had been present with Queen Mary. Elizabeth’s tolerance had a limit, however. When her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots was kicked out of Scotland because of her trying to turn Scotland into a Catholic stronghold by force. She fled to be with her cousin Elizabeth in England and she let Mary stay in safety. The thanks that Elizabeth got was that Mary, Queen of Scots plotted to kill Elizabeth so she could assume the crown, she was a descendant of Henry VIII also. Mary and other Catholics in Europe wanted England to be ruled by Catholics. Well, this indiscretion cost Mary, Queen of Scots her head. She was imprisoned for many years in Fotheringay Castle and then one fateful day she was taken out on the lawn to meet a big guy, in a black hood with a big double bladed axe. She went to meet her maker in two pieces. Elizabeth ruled during some of the most turbulent times in English history with the attempted invasion by Spain with Spanish Armada, but the Spanish were ground down to the bottom of the English Channel by one hell of a storm and the indefatigable British navy which sailed out of Southampton and Plymouth in ships that were designed for rough water. They chopped those Spaniards into salsa. During her reign the British navy became recognized as the most powerful in the world. Eventually Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Drake on a voyage of discovery which resulted in a trip around the globe. She also sent Sir Walter Raleigh to the new world on a mission of discovery. She died in 1603 and was succeeded by Mary, Queen of Scot’s son, James VI of Scotland. James was a protestant and at his coronation he was titled as James I, King of Great Britain. This was the first time in English history that England, Scotland and Ireland were ruled by one king. Elizabeth’s long and productive reign puts her as one of the greatest Monarchs in the history of England if not the world.

1777    On this date the American Congress submits the Article of Federation to the states for ratification. It had taken 16 months of bickering to get to this point. Virginia and Maryland kept bickering over lands in their western sections that delayed ratification for 4 more years. Finally in 1781 the Articles of Federation were ratified. The Articles shown how much paranoia had been brought over from Europe by out ancestors. The Articles were very specific about the independence and sovereignty of each state which essentially made each state it own little dukedom. Our ancestors were very afraid of anything that looked like a central Kingdom. Soon the shortcomings of this arrangement became obvious. We had to have a centralized government to control the economy, military and a common code of laws, etc. In 1798 we came up with our present Constitution and its attached Bill of Rights which is what we exist with today. To many, me included, this is the most important document in the history of mankind. It describes our method of government (a republic) and a strong central government but protecting the rights of the individual citizen. It was a carefully crafted and a well thought out instrument by a group of brilliant men that had to be at this place in this point in time not by accident but by design. To me it is ludicrous to assume that the presence of Thomas Jefferson, among others, in Virginia in this time period as being a random event. The United States exists for a reason, what it is we don’t know......yet.

1863    Previously CSA General James Longstreet had left the Army of Northern Virginia, R.E. Lee commanding, to help shore up CSA General Braxton Bragg’s army near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Bragg was present at the siege of Chattanooga and the CSA victory at Chickamauga. Then he got into a quarrel with the inept Bragg and left headed back to Virginia and General Lee. Along the way he decides to besiege Knoxville, Tennessee to try to kick out the Yankees that were there. That siege began on this day. Longstreet called off the siege a week later and headed east and toward the Army of Northern Virginia and General Robert E. Lee.

Born today:

1771    US businessman Charles A. Allen. He said “You can make more friends in a month by expressing interest in them than you can in ten years of trying to get them interested in you.” Good thinking, Charles, by the way, what do you think of me?

Died today:

1888    US businessman and father of a president Joseph Kennedy. He said “If you want to make money, go to where the money is.” Many called him a bootlegger and he did indeed bring illegal whiskey into America during prohibition. But he made most of his money by buying huge amounts of Scotch and put it in railroad cars and let it sit in Scotland during Prohibition and waited for it to be changed and when it did, he almost had a corner on the Scotch whisky market.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow