Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"Love is a choice you make from moment to moment."

Barbara DeAngelis

Hey Barbara, does that apply in a one-time sleepover?

Last Friday night I went to hear a kick-ass singer/guitarist at a local place called Brown Street Club here in Greenville, SC. My brother found this girl and gave me a CD of her and I have been following her ever since. Her name is Sabra Callas.

A 17 year old female high school senior in a school about 20 miles south of Greenville, SC showed up missing last Wednesday. They found her car and her corpse this past Saturday. It is strange that the coroner was unable to determine the exact cause of death, he suspected strangulation but he would not be sure until an autopsy was performed. How tough can it be to find a ligature mark on a neck?

This for all of you that live in the Greenville, SC area. Law enforcement is twisting down tighter than Dick's hat band. They don't cut anybody any slack in traffic stops and their "drivers license checkpoints" have sprung up double the normal rate. All of this started when a confessed killer was given 3 years probation and 500 hours of community service. Almighty hell has been raised with law enforcement and the judicial system in this county and rightly so. There is no question that the killer was released because he was wealthy and who he was and who he knew. To add insult to injury, when the Solicitor requested that the judge reconsider his sentence, the judge arrogantly said that he would reconsider it when he felt like it. Because of this embarrassment, law enforcement is cracking down to prove to everyone that they are not corrupt. Riiiggghht!

Speaking of embarrassments, the attempts by the left wing media to ridicule Sarah Palin just reinforces my belief that there is no such thing as non-prejudicial news reporting anymore, all of it is in one political arena or another meaning you cannot really believe anything you read or see in the media as being factual and complete. All of the media has an agenda and we are something to be manipulated to fit a mold. You should be embarrassed if you are taken in by this assault on your common sense.

By now all of you know that the Senate version of the so-called Health Care Reform Bill has passed. That issue is a long way from being enacted. There are many more steps to come.

I saw a brief bio on stand-up comedian Sam Kenison. Sam was from the west coast and at one time was a evangelist but he decided that he wanted to go into show biz. He got a couple of breaks and eventually he was getting $50,000 a show and his lifestyle began to hinge on Southern Comfort and cocaine. He hit his professional peak and the low point in his personal life within a matter of months. As his bookings dwindled, Sam figured out that it was his lifestyle that was killing his career and made a change. With the help of AA, Sam gave up the Southern Comfort and cocaine. Shortly after getting married he was involved in a car wreck and was seriously injured. While lying on the side of the road Sam suddenly said "No, no, not yet!" Shortly after that he said "OK, OK", then he died. To all of you atheists out there, who was Sam talking to?

Good news:

There is a village in the Netherlands named Essent. This village is surrounded by dairy farms and the village has decided to use the abundant cow dung to heat their homes. The are not going to dry it out and burn it in a fireplace, they are going to put the dung and residual feed grains into a digester and send the resulting biogas to a gas turbine as fuel which will then be sent to heat the 1,100 homes in the village. This means that the demeaning phrase "Not worth a s--t" has no basis in fact.

This date in history November 23

1749    “The Reluctant Patriot” Edward Rutledge is born in Charleston, South Carolina. Edward and his brother John were both Oxford educated attorneys and had very lucrative practices across the street from each other in Charleston. John and Edward were the sons of a physician the immigrated from Ireland. When the fever of American independence from England began to rise in the colonies, Edward and John fostered patience and were opposed to war. Edward communicated frequently with John Jay of New York about being patient and avoid war with the most powerful nation in the world. Edward became a member of the Continental Congress and after he saw that war was inevitable, he was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence at the age of 26, the youngest man to do so.

1819    Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss is born in Belleville, Virginia. His family moved to Missouri and then to Quincy, Illinois. He joined the Illinois Militia and was present during the lynching of Mormon Founder Joseph Smith. At the outbreak of the Civil War his unit was assigned the security of Cairo, Illinois at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Later his unit was assigned the task of protecting the Hannibal-Saint Joseph railroad across northern Missouri. Eventually Prentiss’ unit was sent to join US General Ulysses Grant’s Army of Tennessee. Very soon thereafter The Army of Tennessee met the Confederate army commanded by CSA General Albert Sidney Johnson near a church close to the banks of the Tennessee River called Shiloh. Johnson unleashed as ferocious attack that pushed the Yankees almost into the river. Grant assigned Prentiss’ unit to delay the Confederate advance at all costs so Grant could better prepare a defense. Prentiss and his men dug in at a spot that was later name the “Hornet’s Nest” and they meant to stay. They were stubborn and did indeed delay the advance but when Prentiss saw the Confederates line up several cannon set hub to hub aimed at him and his unit, he knew the end was near. After one salvo of canister by the Confederates, Prentiss and the other survivors of his unit were captured. Before the Battle of Shiloh he was on the Court Marshal of US General Fitz-John Porter who refused to carry out orders issued by the inept General John Pope at the battle of 2nd Manassas which Porter considered suicide. Porter was stripped of rank and cashiered out of the army. Incidentally, the Union Army did indeed receive a severe ass-kicking at 2nd Manassas but not because of Porter’s disobedience but because Pope was overwhelmingly out-generaled by Robert E. Lee. But Pope needed a scapegoat and Porter was it. After the war the US could not find a place for Prentiss and he resigned. He became a postmaster for many years in Missouri. He died there in 1901.

1979    Well known IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of English war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten. On August 27 McMahon had boarded Mountbatten’s boat docked in Donegal Bay, Ireland and planted 50 pounds of TNT with a remote detonation device attached. Finally Lord Mountbatten and a party of five board the boat and set out. McMahon remotely detonates the TNT and four people are killed including Mountbatten. The same day another bomb detonated in a train station in Northern Ireland killing 18 English Army Paratroopers for which the IRA took credit also. In 1998 the so-called Good Friday Agreement goes into effect whereby certain jailed IRA members would be released in return for a truce, McMahon was released swearing that he was through with terrorism and the IRA.

1903    Earlier the union of the Western Federation of miners had called for a sympathy strike by its members for the smelter workers that were seeking an 8 hour work day. Slowly but surely the strike spread across the western mines. The hotbed of union activity was at the gold and silver mines near Cripple Creek, Colorado. The mine owners at Cripple Creek began hiring scabs and as you might suspect, the striking miners set up lines that blocked access to the mine entrances. Soon there was over 1,000 miners manning that picket line. The mine operators knew they could not overwhelm that many men and sent a telegraph to Governor of Colorado James Peabody asking for help. On this date the good Governor sent in the Colorado Militia to break the strike and allow the scabs to go into the mines. When the militia arrives the mother all riots begins but the militia did indeed prevail and public opinion swayed in favor of the Union because of this outrage. Apparently in retaliation the union hired famous assassin Harry Orchard and Harry did not disappoint and blew up a railroad station killing 13 scabs. Public opinion then swayed the other direction and the miners Unions lost ground and negotiation strength that was not recovered until the advent of the United Mine Workers (UMW) led by John L. Lewis. He led the miner’s union back into prominence in the early 1940’s and the Union became a very powerful influence in America.

Births and deaths:

1927    US writer Guy Davenport is born. He said “In curved Einsteinian space, technically, at times we would be looking at the back of our own heads.”

1938    US Ad Exec Alexander Kroll is born. He said “When Alexander the Great met with the great Greek thinker Diogenes, Alexander asked if he could do anything for him” Diogenes answered with “Just stay out of my light.” That’s funny.

1973    US actress Constance Talmadge dies. When walking onto the set to begin a movie directed by the immortal D.W. Griffith, she turned to Griffith and said “I am here your Majesty, you may begin at once.” Smart ass.

Quotable quotes:

“Hillary Clinton said in her book that it was hard for her to forgive Bill but if Nelson Mandela can forgive then I should be able to. I did not know that Bill had hit on Mandela’s wife.” Jay Leno

“I made love to a female clown once and she twisted my penis into a poodle.”

Dan Whitney

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow