Daily History

Good morning,


Back in February in the Brownsville section of Pensacola, Florida, 26 year old Antonio Landrum and 20 year old Travis Maders hold up a man and his 13 year old daughter while they were walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight. They used a BB gun that had the shape, size and color of a Glock 9 MM handgun. A short while later Antonio and Travis approached a woman in a car that was stopped at a red light. They pointed the BB gun and robbed her of her purse. They went on trial last week where a jury convicted them of two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and one count of aggravated assault. The judge set January 14 for a sentencing date. There is little doubt that Antonio with get life without parole be cause this is his third felony conviction which in Florida means a mandatory life sentence. What sentence Travis will receive was not discussed but I'll bet he is just holding his breath. How freaking stupid can you be to rob someone in broad daylight with a BB gun? It apparently does not matter if the weapon is deadly or not, all that appear to matter is that the victim thinks it is a deadly weapon. Anyway, dumbass Antonio and Travis will be spending a lot of time in that hell on Earth known as the Florida State Correction Facility (prison) at Raiford.

Saturday afternoon here in Greenville 30 year Illya Salter decided to shoplift a few things at a Wal-mart on the west side. The security people in the Wal-mart see Illya with the goods and call the cops. In the meantime Illya decides to make good his escape by carjacking. Up until the carjacking Illya was only guilty of a misdemeanor, now it was a felony. The cops show up and Illya hauls ass out of the parking lot with Greenville's finest in close pursuit. Now it is two felonies, not stopping for a blue light and evading. Illya cannot negotiate a tight left turn and hits a tree trapping himself in the car. That is three felonies, the destruction of property. Illya jumps into the back seat and finally gets a door open and starts running but is caught very soon thereafter and starts fighting. That is four felonies, resisting arrest. One of the cops got fed up and hit Illya with Taser and he immediately surrendered. It started out with a misdemeanor and maybe just a fine and now Illya will be doing some serious time in the joint. He must be related to those jackasses Antonio and Travis down in Pensacola. Then again, maybe the "hell on Earth" at Raiford is not as hellish at the one in Bishopville, McCormick, Greenwood (home of the infamous Susan Smith) SC, or one of several other "correction facilities" know for their cruelty here in the land of women in big hats and hooped skirts and people who say "y'all" and speak with a tempo of cold molasses.

Under normal circumstances college football players are forbidden from taking money. The exception is if the team is going to a bowl game then they can. What is normally done is each player is given a certain amount of money to make his way to city where the bown game is being played and find their way to the stadium and meet up with their team mates. The head coach of the Alabama Crimson, Nick Saban, told his team captains to get with the team and decide what they wanted to do. The team decided to reject the concept of everybody going individually to Pasadena and to go together as a team. With that spirit, they will be hard to beat.

This date in history December 21

1761    Revolutionary War hero and hard-core Patriot Robert Barnwell was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. This boy joined his local militia at the age of 16 and was promptly engaged in the Battle of Mathew’s Farm on John’s Island near Charleston. During this battle young Robert received 17 separate wounds. He had his equipment taken from him and was left for dead. He was taken from the field by a slave to the plantation home of his aunt which was nearby. He spent several months in recovery and eventually rejoined his militia and was given the rank of lieutenant. Unfortunately, soon thereafter Charleston, South Carolina was captured by the British including Lieutenant Barnwell. Barnwell was put aboard the British prison ship Pack Horse anchored in Charleston Harbor where he spent 13 months before being exchanged. During the Revolutionary War, Barnwell rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the War Barnwell was elected a member of the South Carolina legislature and was sent to Washington as a member of the South Carolina delegation to ratify the US Constitution He spent two years in Washington as a member of the US House of Representative and then returned to his beloved South Carolina and rejoined the South Carolina legislature. He stayed in the legislature along with serving on the board of directors of Beaufort College until his death on October 24, 1814. Strangely enough his son Robert Woodward Barnwell was a passionate advocate of South Carolina secession from the Union. His son was trying to tear apart what his father had spent most of his life putting together.

1861    Earlier in November of this year a United States warship had stopped and boarded the British mail ship Trent in the Bahamas and captured two Confederate representatives on their way to England and took them prisoner. On this date British Secretary Lord Lyon met with United States Secretary of war William Seward about this event, Lord Lyon assured Secretary Seward that the British crown thought of this act as one of piracy and was worthy of a declaration of war if the Confederate representatives, James Mason and John Slidell, were not released immediately. Seward took Lyon’s words to Lincoln. Lincoln stalled for a few days until he found out the there were 11,000 British troops on the way to Canada. Soon thereafter, Mason and Slidell were released and the US promised to observe the sovereignty of British ships in the future. Lincoln could not risk having to fight a war on two fronts.

1975    On this date in Vienna, Austria, a terrorist named llich Ramirez Sanchez led a group of fellow terrorists into a meeting of OPEC and kill three guards and capture 16 OPEC members. This was not the first, nor the last, act of terrorism committed by a man that had been labeled Carlos the Jackal. He made a demand for a bus and an airplane which the Viennese government provided. Carlos directed the plane to Algeria where all aboard were released, Carlos was born into a wealthy Marxist family in Caracas, Venezuela, He was educated at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. He chose a life of terrorism at an early age. No one really knows why he chose a life on the run but he was an accomplished terrorist. He had practiced his craft for over 25 years without capture, However in 1994, French undercover agents tracked him down to the Sudan and kidnapped the son-of-a-bitch back France. The French government chose to not announce his capture for three years when finally he was put on trial for killing two French counter-intelligence agents in 1975. He got life without parole. Not enough, as far as I am concerned.

1866    In 1861 the United States signed the “Treaty of Laramie” with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians ceding the Indians the lands that contained the Bozeman Trail, but soon after this treaty was signed, gold was discovered on the Indian lands and gold seekers resume using the Bozeman Trail once again much to the displeasure of the Indians in general and the Cheyenne chief Red Cloud in particular. The US Government not only allowed the breaking of the treaty, they built army forts along the Bozeman Train to protect the travelers. The most obnoxious one to the Indians was the fort on the Little Piney named Fort Phil Kearney. This fort saw very few days without some kind of attack by Red Clouds warriors. During all of this, the fort had to have timber for heat and sent out wood cutting groups on a regular basis. On this date, Red Cloud was waiting and killed all but one of the wood cutting crew. Red Cloud sent seven or eight warriors in view of the fort and when the fort fired a round of artillery the Indians ran away in fear….or so they thought. A Lieutenant Fetterman requested permission from the camp commander to chase down the Indians that had ran away in fear and the permission was granted. Fetterman took 45 cavalryman and 45 infantry and left the fort. Fetterman had instructions to not go out of sight of the fort but soon after leaving the fort Fetterman spotted 7 or 8 Indians running over a hillside and chased after them. As soon as all the troopers were over the hill, Red Cloud and 2,000 of his warriors fell upon the hapless troopers and annihilated them to a man. Not only that, not one of the troopers was found in one piece. They had all been mutilated. Soon after this the United States decided to abandon Fort Phil Kearney. After the troopers left the fort, it was set afire by Red Cloud before the troopers were three miles away. This is one of the very few victories the Indians enjoyed.

Births and deaths:

1892    US Golfer Walter Hagen is born. He said “I don’t want to be a millionaire; I just want to live like one.” Me too, Walter, me too.

1909    US ambassador to the United Nations George Ball is born. He said “Nostalgia is a seductive liar.”

1937    US actress Jane Fonda is born. She said “Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution.”

1945    US General George Patton dies. He said “It is not the object of war to die for your country it is to make the other poor bastard die for his.”

Quotable quotes:

“I have an inferiority complex, but it is not a very good one.”

                            Stephen Wright

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow