Daily history

Good morning,


Quote of the day:

“They more I learn about people, the more I like dogs”.

                   Dr. Walter Robinson DVM

I guess all of you know by now that Governor Mark Sanford and wife Jenny have parted company permanently. Here are the latest rumors about that whole jungle. Governor Sanford had sired a child by his Argentinean paramour and the child was born when the Governor disappeared for those few days. He was going to present at the birth of his child in Argentina come hell or high water. As soon as the child was able to travel, the Argentine woman and child moved to a house in the suburbs of Columbia and will follow the Governor to the Charleston area after this, his final term in office, is over. Jenny will keep the house of Sullivan’s Island (near Mount Pleasant, SC) so the boys can continue to go to their present school(s). All of this is conjecture but it make for a great soap opera….and these are the days of our lives. By the way, that house on Sullivan’s Island is no more than 7 blocks from two of my favorite of all time watering holes. They are Poe’s Tavern and Dunleavy’s Pub. Two of the bartenders at Poe’s was Carol and Irene but they have a turnover there from time to time. The bartender/manager supreme at Dunleavy’s is Andy Donovan. If ya’ll ever get into the Charleston, SC area both of these establishments are worth your time for a visit. After all, you may see Mark or Jenny there, but I doubt they will be together.

The PGA and the golfers themselves are saying the absence of Tiger Woods has no effect on televised golf tournaments. Yet all the TV polls say that the percentage of viewers of golf tournaments this year is down 40%. That is an effect, y’all. The ability for golf tournaments to be televised depends of the various sponsors paying for air time to advertise their products. If I was a CFO of Proctor & Gamble for instance, and saw my product advertisements being viewed by 40% less people during the tournaments I would demand a cheaper price per minute for advertising time. No effect??….my big old butt.

All of you know by now there has been an earthquake near the South American country of Chile that was a 8.8 on the Richter scale. That is a heavy one, y’all. This will produce a tsunami west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian Islands included. There will be plenty of advanced warning because of satellite linked buoys distributed throughout the Pacific. It looks like the world has another sick child to assist in addition to Haiti. The upside of this is that there are far fewer people per square mile in Chile than there is in Haiti.

After the king of slime in John Ludwig here in Greenville was able to avoid and jail time for what was clearly vehicular homicide and then avoided jail time after being convicted for criminal domestic violence when he slapped his estranged wife around and kicked her in the crotch, I thought justice was a farce her in the Palmetto State. But I am a little better off after I read that two used car dealers were convicted of fraud and sentenced to 40 months in jail. They put in loan applications to different banks that they had altered to show the potential buyer had more assets that he really did and showing the car having less mile than reality. The only bad side is that this is a Federal charge and they will do time in a federal facility. So perhaps the South Carolina system of justice really is corrupt after all.

This date in history February 28

1784    On this date John Wesley established the first Methodist church in America in colonial Georgia. Wesley was a devout Anglican but after the defeat of the British during the American Revolutionary War the Anglican Church abandoned the United States and Wesley felt that he had to replace the Anglican Church so he devised the Methodical Anglicans or Methodists. While in Georgia he became involved with a religious sect mostly from Germany called the Moravians. This was a turning point in Wesley’s life because he admitted that for the first time that he felt the presence of God was at one of those meeting that he attended. While keeping touch with the Moravians he sought the advice of fellow Cambridge graduate George Whitefield. While at Cambridge Wesley and his brother Charles had founded the “Holy Club”. John Wesley’s teachings were not allowed in any Anglican Church so he preached out in the open and over a period of years he had gathered a large following. He finally realized that there had to be more evangelicals than himself along with a administrative staff. His only problem was that his new church had no bishops. He was still used to the Anglican way of things where a minister must be ordained by the ”laying on of hands” by a bishop. So John decided that he would ordain the ministers himself and the first two were Dr. John Coke and Francis Asbury and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

1864    US Cavalry Commander Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren are tasked with riding into Richmond and freeing the Union prisoners of war. It was Dahlgren’s job to release the prisoners while Kilpatrick provided cover. They had one additional job and that was to tell every Johnny Reb they met that President Lincoln had offered amnesty and restoration of property to those that would lay down their arms and swear allegiance to the United States. To provide a diversion two divisions of cavalry one led by General John Sedgwick and the other led by Colonel George A. Custer would made raid into the western parts of Virginia. On this date Sedgwick, Custer, Kilpatrick and Dahlgren parted company and went about their assignments. Dahlgren was supposed to approach Richmond from the west and Kilpatrick from the northwest. Kilpatrick arrived of March 1st with CSA General Wade Hampton III and his howling, wild-eyed Confederate Cavalry hot on his tail. Kilpatrick knows he is danger of annihilation and turns his young ass back north which leaves Dahlgren cut off. In the mean time Dahlgren had hired a local guide to take his cavalry to the shallowest part of the James River for crossing into Richmond. The guide instead leads him to the deepest and swiftest current part of the river. The infuriated Dahlgren hanged the guide on the spot. The Dahlgren had no choice but to backtrack out of there knowing the Confederates knew he was there. Not only that, by now he had found out that Kilpatrick had been routed and he was on his own. Dahlgren’s cavalry was ambushed time and time again on their way out and they were nearly cut to pieces. There is no record of a Confederate Soldier taking Lincoln’s offer of amnesty and restoration. They were a hard-headed bunch.

1993    Earlier a squabble occurred between two people trying to organize the Mount Carmel Church. One of the squabblers was Vernon Howell who claimed to be God and therefore his children would be children of God. The other guy said that to prove who should lead the church would be the one that could dig up a corpse from a graveyard. Howell nixed that idea and in fact went to the police and told them that the other guy was out digging in graveyards. The police did not want anything to do with a religious disagreement. Finally, the two settle it the Christian way, they have a gun fight and Howell wins so it must be God’s will. Howell changes his name to David Koresh and calls his church the Branch Davidian and they buy a compound outside Waco, Texas. One day a delivery man going to the compound drops a package and out rolls hand grenades. The deliveryman goes to the local police who then notified the Alcohol, Tax and Firearms division. Well, the ATF try to talk Davis Koresh into giving up his considerable stash of weapons and Koresh refuses saying he has the right to bear arms. On this date, the ATF organizes a raid of the compound in which 4 ATF agents are killed along with 6 of the faithful inside. The ATF back off and a two month siege ensues. Finally on one very windy day, a US Army tank rolls up to the buildings, pokes its cannon through the wall and pumps in a hell of a lot of tear gas. The only problem here is that the tear gas canisters can, and very often do, cause a fire. The building catches on fire and in that brisk wind it burns to the ground in minimum time killing 80 of the occupants, men, women and children. There were 11 that escaped the inferno. US Attorney General Janet Reno accepted full responsibility for the disaster because it was she that told the commander of the forces surrounding the compound to get it over with, “We have spent too much money on it already.” Indeed, Janet, indeed.

1953    On this date Cambridge scientists Francis Crick and James Watson area able to isolate and identify a strand of DNA and determine how it is constructed. From this day on law enforcement made a giant leap forward but so did the ability to clone. We one day could have another Adolph Hitler or Attila the Hun. But then again we could have another Albert Schweitzer or Isaac Newton. I hope it is the latter.

1881    A section of the US Great Plains had been occupied by Utes, Arapahoes and Cheyenne Indians with virtually no Anglos for centuries. Then gold was discovered near Pike’s Peak in what is now Colorado. Then one of many gold rushes was underway. The gold near Pike’s Peak played out early and so the gold seekers kept moving west to the Rocky Mountains and there they found more gold and silver. On this date, the US Government decided that a new state was needed and they took a piece of Kansas, Utah and New Mexico and came up with a rectangular state and called it the Territory of Colorado.

Born today:

1940    US race car driver Mario Andretti. He said “If everything seems to be under control, you aren’t going fast enough.” That sounds like my third ex-wife.

1976    US actress Ali Larter. She said “I hate all the pretty-boy types. I had rather have one with a pot belly than one who is in the gym all the time and watches what he eats.” I think I love this girl.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow