Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

"Thousands of candles can be lighted by one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

                                          Buddha

As we all suspected anarchy in Haiti is trying to raise it's ugly head. A couple of days ago a group of twenty men attempted to capture a truck load of food but were driven off by gunfire from the UN and Haitian police. The Haitian people are desperate for the basic necessities of life such as food, water and shelter. At nearly all the "refugee villages" that have sprung up there must be a 24 hour self administered guard present lest they be robbed by their neighbors or interlopers. I do not know if this is common under normal circumstances but is is true now. There is a gravel pit near Port-Au-Prince where the Duvalier family dumped thousands of their murder victims. The disposition of the recent dead is the same. They are loaded onto dump trucks and unloaded into the same gravel pit. It is obvious that there cannot be any embalming and a ceremony is out of the question. The Haitians do not understand why the corpses must be buried or embalmed as soon as possible or there would be a threat of cholera. If an epidemic occurred everybody alive there would be quarantined including the rescue workers and police and then I guarantee anarchy would prevail. The religion that is prevalent is Catholicism and Voodoo. Those that are followers of Voodoo believe that if a certain ceremony is not performed over the dead, they will be caught between the living and the dead, Zombies if you will. Then we had a group of "Christians" that gathered up 33 children between the ages of just a few months and 13 years. They had them on a bus headed for the Dominican Republic (on the other end of the island) and open an orphanage. They were stopped at the border and turned back because they had no documentation that they were indeed orphans. It was found that many of them were not orphans but had just lost contact with their parents. The head of this group of "Christians" stated their intentions was totally altruistic. The United Nations has already warned the world that there would be Haitian children that would be abducted and sold as orphans on the international adoption market. The faces of some in those in this world are very ugly.

One of my ex-wives (we parted company in 1985) contacted me and asked how I was doing. I told her that I had been having the time of my life for the past seven or eight years and that I had been doing many of the things that I had always wanted to do. I told her that my health was very good considering the hell I put it through. I got an amazing response. She sent me a message back about how much I did not deserve to have the good life and proceeded to list what she perceived as a litany of personality faults and weaknesses. I am baffled. Can anyone tell me what that was all about? Would it be better if I was sick and broke? Surely there is no one so shallow to wish ill on someone else....or is there?

Tuesday afternoon DEA agents arrested the Spartanburg County, SC Clerk of Court Marcus Kitchens. Back in August Marcus stole some cocaine and amphetamines from the evidence room. He then contacted a Spartanburg resident named Tony Lanford to find a buyer for him. Tony found a buyer in Florida and the deal was made. The problem was that the buyer in Florida was a confidential informant for the DEA. Tuesday Lanford showed up at Kitchens office with $3,000 as partial payment for the drug deal in August. Right behind Lanford was a team of DEA agents and both were arrested. They are looking at 20 years in prison and a $2 million fine. How stupid can you be?

This date in history February 3

1781    Earlier in December of 1780, Patriot General Nathanial Greene had tasked Polish engineer Thaddeus Kosciusko with designing a boat that could be used convey troops across the unpredictable Yadkin River regardless of its condition. Kosciusko made an exploratory canoe trip down the Yadkin and the Pee Dee Rivers and came back and designed and helped build boats for that special purpose. If ya’ll remember previous lessons, British General Charles Cornwallis defeated the North Carolina Militia at the Battle of Cowan’s Ford and British Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s Dragoons had beaten up on the same militia at the Battle of Tarrant’s Tavern, now that militia and other soldiers under the command of Greene join near Salisbury, NC and head for the Dan River in Virginia and safety. The only problem was that the Yadkin River was severely flooded because of a thunderous rainfall on February 1 and British General Cornwallis’ army of 16,000 is perilously close. So on this date Greene orders his army into the boats designed by Kosciusko and successfully cross the Yadkin but then very last remnants of Greene’s army are shelled by Cornwallis’s artillery from the opposite bank. With no boats, Cornwallis must move his army to the city of Shallowford and wait for the water to abate low enough to cross. He did not get across until February 7 and by then Greene and his army was far enough ahead to make it to the Dan River and safety.

1959    A musical group was on a “Winter Tour” when their tour bus broke down near Mason City, Iowa. Their next stop was Moorhead, Minnesota so the band leader charters a four place single engine Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and two others on to Moorhead. One this date, the plane crashed soon after takeoff killing all aboard. In addition to the pilot, the passengers were Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and John “The Big Bopper” Richardson. Holley and his band The Crickets, had just recorded “That’ll be the Day” a few days before. Valens was riding the crest of his hit “La Bamba” and Richardson had recorded the hit “Chantilly Lace”. Richardson had the flu and had talked another musician out of his seat on the plane. The musician that gave up his seat was Waylon Jennings.

1865    Earlier the journalist Horace Greeley had suggested that a meeting between the Union and Confederacy might bring a truce and the end to the bloodshed and recommended that a member of Lincoln’s advisory committee from Maryland, Francis Blair, should set up the meeting. Blair obtains the permission of Lincoln to prepare the location of the meeting and it becomes Hampton Roads, Virginia. On this date Abraham Lincoln meets with the Confederate Secretary of State Alexander Stephens. Stephen asks for concessions and Lincoln says there will be no concessions that all those states in rebellion will rejoin the Union and comply with all of their laws. As you might suspect, since Lincoln knew the Confederacy was just a few days from defeat, he did not have to concede anything. And he was right, two months later the war ended at Appomattox Court House Virginia with the surrender of CSA Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.

1780    In 1760 Barnett Davenport was born in rural Connecticut. When he reached an appropriate age he joined the Patriot army and was with George Washington at Valley Forge and fought at Fort Ticonderoga. In the waning days of the Revolutionary War he became a boarder in the home of Caleb Mallory and his family also living in rural Connecticut. On this date, for reasons known only to Davenport, he slaughtered everyone in the Mallory house. He beat Caleb to death, shot his wife and daughter, set the house on fire killing Mallory’s two grandchildren. If this would have happened today, people would be saying is was a post-war syndrome. But in those days criminals were perceived as basically good people that had lost their way. Bur after this outrage, people’s attitude changed to that there were people out there that are basically evil. That attitude is still with us to this day.

1953    On this date French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau publishes his landmark book The Silent World. This book and Cousteau himself had opened our eyes to man’s responsibility for the stewardship our earth’s oceans and the beings therein. He also almost single-handedly created the sport of SCUBA diving. In the early years a free diver was very limited to the depth and length of stay under water. Then in 1943 Cousteau and inventor Emile Gagnan created the Aqua-Lung and the sport and industry of underwater exploration was born. He also helped invent underwater cameras and photography and the discovery and exploration of shipwrecks grew exponentially. In 1963 Cousteau gave us the book The Living Sea which turned out to be another milestone in the science of oceanography. Cousteau himself was a participant in the discovery of many ancient shipwrecks which is as thrilling today for me as it was for Cousteau at the moment of discovery. Cousteau died in 1997 leaving the world with a legacy that probably will never be matched.

1889    This is a story about Myra Belle Shirley that was born in Carthage, Missouri in 1848. Young Myra received a substantial education and be came very proficient on the piano. Her father was an innkeeper in Carthage but his business went to hell with the outbreak of the Civil War so the family moved to Texas. It was here that she met up with and had a relationship with the infamous Cole Younger who was a member of the James-Younger gang. It was soon thereafter she brought into this world a daughter she named Pearl. Most people believe that Cole was the father but it was probably Jim Reed, another member of the gang. She became the common-law wife to Reed and had no problem with his profession and indeed helped him in rustling cows and horses in the Dallas area. In 1874 Reed was killed in a gunfight so she drifted into the Oklahoma Indian territory and organized a gang of rustlers. She could be seen riding around in velvet dressed and plumed hats. She hooked up with a handsome Creek Indian named Sam Starr and she became known as Belle Starr. She stayed with Sam for 10 years but he was killed in a gunfight with a member of his own gang. Very soon after that she took up with another Creek Indian name Jim July, 15 years her junior. They were captured and did five or six months in the slammer but after release began their old tricks again. In 1889 she was summoned to Fort Smith, Arkansas to face charges of cattle rustling. So she and her boy friend Jim headed east to Fort Smith but changed their minds and turned around and headed back west. Soon after two shotgun blasts hit Belle in the back and she died instantly. The culprit was never found.

Born today:

1821    English born Elizabeth Blackwell. Elizabeth immigrated to the US and became the first female doctor in history. She said “If society will not admit to women’s free development, then society must be remodeled.” I have a male friend that has a female as his doctor. He told me that she had examined him for hemorrhoids. This is a severe case of over-confidence.

1826    English economist Walter Bagehot. He said “The reason there are so few good books written is that those that write don’t know anything.” Hey Walter, all you have to do these days is write book about a unique diet that will make people lose weight and you are successful.

1830    British Prime Minister Robert Cecil. When describing Edwardian England he said “It was consider virtuous to not be involved in a scandal or get a venereal disease.” Edwardian times must have been a lot of partying.

1918    US comic Joey Bishop. He said “I have a wonderful doctor. In 1955 I could not afford an operation, so he touched up the x-rays.” Joey went to that great stage in the sky in 2007.

1969    Florida State quarterback Casey Weldon. Casey was to attend a fancy sit-down dinner and was told he would be seated beside Ringo Starr. Casey said “Who is she?” Casey, shut up.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow