Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Promise me you will always remember. You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Christopher Robin to Pooh written by A.A. Milne
It would do all of us good to start the day by looking in the mirror and repeating this sentence.
I have a friend that works at Fluor Corporation here in Greenville. They have recently received a contract for providing clean-up crews for the oil mess in the Gulf States. The stipulation is that they must hire local people and go through local personnel agencies so as to keep the money in the local area. This is different from BP that hired prison trustees from various institutes far and wide to keep the costs down and to hell with the local economy. By the way, rapes in Mobile, Alabama are up by 130% over last year. I wonder why the hell that is happening. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Your friend and mine Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona made a recent appearance on “Good Morning America”. As expected Joe stood up on his hind legs and made his position perfectly clear. He said that if any immigration protestors blocked the doors of his prison he would have no problem arresting them all and showing them what the inside looked like for several days. He also said that he did not understand what all the hype was about. He said that it is against the law to enter this country illegally and the perpetrators should be punished to limit of the law. Like I said, I know what the hype is about; it is about Obama knowing that 26% of the vote that put him in the White House is the Latinos. What all the left wing media neglects to tell you is that the Mexican drug gangs and street gangs like MS-13 blend in with the avalanche of illegal immigrants. How are we supposed to tell the difference between those that want to make a better life and those that want to suck our blood? I feel no sympathy, y’all. Mexico is a lot older than the United States yet they have always been a society of the “haves and the have nots” with nothing in between inspired by unbridled corruption and domination since recorded history by outside powers like Spain and France. It is true that the United States is a “nation of immigrants” or a “melting pot”. The difference is that our ancestors were invited and were not interlopers which instilled a sense of pride and loyalty. I would like to see a show of hands of those who believe that all of these illegal immigrants have the depth of Patriotism for this country that brings tears to your eyes as it does mine. It is not, and will not, ever happen. During the American Civil War there were several units totally composed of recent immigrants, especially the Irish and Germans. They wanted to preserve this nation that had taken them in when they had nowhere else to go. I can assure you that you would not see that from the Latinos. Theft and lawlessness is apparently a way of life for them for the most part, there are exceptions. A few years ago I had planned to rent a house near Merida, Mexico which is about 80 miles west of Cancun. The owner was from New Mexico and he sent me a few tips to make my trip more enjoyable. One of his points was to never leave anything outside unattended or it would be stolen. He said they would not break in but anything outside unattended was considered abandoned and fair game this included beach towels and wash cloths left on a hand rail to dry out, etc. A grill was to be taken out, used, and then wait for it to cool off and take it back in…or else lose it. I did read about a Latino that graduated from Arizona State University with a Mechanical Engineering degree. He eventually realized that he could not get a job with an American engineering firm because he was indeed an illegal immigrant so he went back to Mexico. Nearly all large engineering firms that do business with the US Government require American citizenships only from people that work on security sensitive projects.
This date in history July 30
1780 On this date Patriot Colonel Isaac Shelby and his division of 600 infantry captured Fort Thicketty which was about 10 mile southeast of Cowpens, South Carolina. Shelby and his troops were able to capture the fort that was manned totally by Loyalists without firing a shot. Earlier Shelby was part and parcel of the Battle of Kings Mountain, North Carolina where British General Thomas Ferguson and his division of Loyalists were trapped on top of a small mountain in the King’s mountain range near the North Carolina/South Carolina border and the Patriots had the bottom of the mountain surrounded. Even though Ferguson and his troops surrendered, he and his troops were annihilated. When Ferguson raised a white hanky as a signal of surrender, he said “I am an officer in his majesty’s army and will be treated with dignity and respect.” This comment was met with at least 8 musket balls and Ferguson was dead as fried chicken before he hit the ground. This action was caused by the slaughter of 200 Patriots a few weeks earlier that had surrendered to the infamous British Colonel Banaste Tarleton at the village of Waxhaw just south of present day Charlotte, NC and all were bayoneted and killed. Word of Shelby and his “over the mountain” men had reached the Loyalists at Fort Thicketty and they wanted no part of Shelby and company. Shelby went on down and defeated the British at the Battle of Cedar Springs (in the center of the present day city of Spartanburg, SC) and on down to the Battle of Musgrove Mill which is about 30 mile southwest of Spartanburg. Shelby and his “over the mountain” men were bloodthirsty and ruthless and everybody knew it, especially the Loyalists. The “over the mountain” men were those back country men that came down from the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains to kill the British and were good at it. Speaking of good at it, Shelby was born in Maryland and was involved in Pontiac’s War. He scalped his first Indian at the age of 13. The city of Shelby, North Carolina is named for this Patriot
1619 This date saw the first gathering of a legislative body in America. The House of Burgesses was founded in the choir section of the local church in Jamestown, Virginia. It had been 12 years since Jamestown had been founded and the financier of this expedition was The London Company, a group of investors, and they required a legislative body in the colony. 22 people were voted into office by the local adult males. The first thing they did was establish the minimum price for tobacco. Then they established a law defining what a person could and could not do on the Sabbath. These folks were very religious, ya’ll. By the way, in old English “Burgess” means “the public”.
1863 On this date Shoshone chief Pocatello signed the treaty of Box Elder Creek making the immigrants able to cross southern Idaho safely. At one time the Bannock Shoshone were one of the most powerful tribes on the Great Plains. But a white man’s disease called smallpox had swept through the tribe in the epidemic of 1781 decimating their number to the point that the fierce Blackfoot had pushed them off the plains and into the mountains. Then there came an even more dangerous group in the Lewis and Clark expedition carrying even more white man’s diseases. The Shoshone wanted to be friends with the white man so they could lay their hands on firearms to defeat the hated Blackfoot. But 50 years later the Shoshone finally realized that the white man was a much more dangerous threat than the Blackfoot but it was too late, the pioneers and settlers were well established along with the US Cavalry.
Born today:
1891 Baseball manager Casey Stengel. He said “The key to being a good manger is to keep those people that hate you away from those that are undecided.” Casey was funny.
Died today:
1784 French philosopher Denis Diderot. He said “All children are essentially criminal.” Tack onto that “especially those little monsters in restaurants sitting in a booster chair five feet from me screaming in their gravelly voices “NO I DON”T WANT THAT, I WANT ICE CREAM!!!!!” I have asked more than one waitress to go knock those brats out. They never do.
1975 Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. He had said “I don’t need bodyguards”. On this date Jimmy was sitting in his Cadillac outside of a restaurant near Detroit one minute and the next minute he and his car disappeared from the planet and have never been found to this day. I don’t know Jimmy, but maybe a couple of means guys with, .45 ACP automatics close by might have prevented that. But for today, goodbye Jimmy wherever you are.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”
Golda Meir
It seems that the local gentry of Grande Isle, Louisiana are getting more and more agitated because of the people that BP has hired to clean up the oil spill are not from Grand Isle but from the gutters of other places. Acts of rape and attempted rape are on the increase as is burglary and robbery. The women of Grand Isle used to take their garbage out near midnight to avoid the heat, now they go in large groups since several women have been attacked. All the motel rooms that used to be rented out to sport fishermen are all taken. The upside is that Benny’s Gun Shop is doing a brisk business. The apparent merchandise of choice is a 15 shot 9mm Glock with a four inch barrel, a box of ammo and an extra clip. As I remember my Cajun friends they will not sit still for that kind of behavior at all. By the way, all of those strangers in Grand Isle spend most of their spare time in a bar named “Daddy’s Money”. They are there for the near naked women mud wrestling. I don’t get it.
Speaking of a 9mm Glock, a county deputy in Mobile, Alabama was called to a domestic disturbance. As he alit from his car a man came running out of a house wielding a machete and struck the deputy on the shoulder. About that time the deputy was able to retrieve his 9mm Glock and sent that man to the Promised Land. The cops later found out that that man’s parents had been found hacked to death down in Palm Beach, Florida with a machete-like weapon. The deputy saved us a lot of money….no incarceration for years and years.
Recently a group of New Zealanders built a 65 foot catamaran sailboat made totally of plastic bottles. They were able to sail that puppy 4,000 mile across the Pacific Ocean successfully. They were demonstrating the invincibility of the plastic bottles and stressed that they should never be thrown into the ocean as trash. They last forever.
I am still reading the history of the Comanche in the western United States. I have changed my mind somewhat about their fate. When the settlers began moving into west and southwest Texas the Comanche were already the bullies of the southern plains because of their possession of thousands of Spanish mustangs and their unparalleled horsemanship. Not only that, their unbridled brutality was legendary. The beginning of the end was the breech loading Sharps .50 caliber used by the buffalo hunters. This rifle had and effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards. 26 buffalo hunters armed with the Sharps were able to hold off 300 Comanche at the battle of Adobe Walls in central Texas. Then along came the repeating Henry and Winchester rifles. But the Comanche were able to gather up many of those weapons themselves. The final blow came in the form of a US Cavalry officer name Ranald Mackenzie. This man decided that he was not going after the Comanche themselves, he went after their horses knowing that the Comanche could not exist without them. They had no agrarian segment; they relied on the buffalo alone. Mackenzie was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Comanche and Kiowa ponies which put the warriors afoot. This horrible campaign worked and eventually all the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and hundreds of other southern plains tribes surrendered to a life of having to wait for a handout from Uncle Sam. It broke their spirit; it would have broken mine too.
Tidbits:
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem has become a liability to the Democratic Party and they are leaning on the 80 year old legislator to resign/retire. They are hitting him where he is the most vulnerable...ethics. This influence peddler will go down in history as having the hungriest pockets in the catalog of corruption.
Jack "The Assassin" Tatum formerly of the Oakland Raiders has died at the age of 61 from a heart attack. As far as I am concerned he is among the top five hardest hitting defensive backs in history.
Tim Tebow former quarterback of the Florida Gators has signed a contract to model underwear for Jockey. Tim had mention that after college he was going to become a missionary. I suppose that to some women seeing Tim Terrific in a pair of abbreviated briefs would be a spiritual experience.
This date in history July 28
1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50am while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Well, thousands of Chinese people died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.
1868 On this date the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted. This amendment assured the full American citizenship to blacks. One of the phrases in the amendment stated that “all citizens shall have equal protection under the law.” This was the hardest thing for our citizenry to accept, both north and south. But it was the US government implemented the Reconstruction Act that cause the most animosity and polarized the northern states the southern states. This act made the southerners just a hair short of vassals to agents that were sent to oversee both legal and illegal transactions to cheat the southern land owners after the Civil War. It was this behavior that gave birth to the KKK that thrived as long as the Reconstruction Act was in effect and for many years thereafter. Don’t get me wrong, the KKK was/is a bunch of disgusting bigots but it was the Reconstruction Act gave this organization the fire in its belly.
1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.
1945 On this date an aircraft crashed into the Empire State building killing 13. As you can tell from the date, this event occurred during WWII. It was an American B-25 medium bomber. The aircraft departed New Bedford, Connecticut enroute to LaGuardia airport serving New York. There was a pea soup fog over New York and air traffic controllers (I used to be one) told the B-25 to divert to Newark, New Jersey about 30 miles away. Evidently the pilot got lost in the fog and the collision happened. This was before the days of radar and digital navigation. This was not the only aircraft to hit the Empire State Building; I remember when a Cessna ran into it. But these days that could not happen by accident. The air traffic controllers that control that airspace do it with a very tight fist because of the volume of aircraft involved in that area. There are three of the major airports in the world are within a 20 mile radius. There is LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark. But the busiest airport in the United States is Atlanta or was the last time I checked.
1943 Earlier the British Air Force launched Operation Gomorrah the mission of which was the destruction of the tools of war being manufactured near Hamburg, Germany. The Brits had been bombing Hamburg for a couple of days but on this night they dropped over 2, 600 tons of incendiary bombs creating a firestorm unparalleled in history until Hiroshima. Some of the British pilots reported that there was not a series of fires but one monster that scorched 8 square miles of the city and killed 40,000 civilians. The fire was so hot that air was rushing into the middle the winds reached hurricane force and literally sucked people into it if not asphyxiated them by using up all the oxygen within a certain radius. War is hell, literally.
Born today:
1807 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. He said “I cannot waste my time making money.” Hey Louis, where did you go to eat and drink?
1908 English writer and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming. When meeting Sean Connery the first time he said “I am looking for Commander Bond, not an overgrown stunt man.” Ian, shut up. Sean made you a fortune several time over.
1917 US professor Barry Commoner. He said “If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong direction.” That’s depressing, Barry.
Died today:
1849 US writer Anne Bronte. She said “If a man is not ready to grab the thorn, he should not crave the rose.” Sound wisdom.
1913 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “What we see mainly depends of what we look for.” A few years back I was looking for a girl friend that looked like a 30 year old Elizabeth Taylor and had the morals of an alley cat. Now I am looking for a more comfortable couch to take naps on.
1937 Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler. He said “The chief danger in life is that we may take to many precautions.” Hey Al, the best precaution is to find a comfortable couch to take naps on.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”
Golda Meir
It seems that the local gentry of Grande Isle, Louisiana are getting more and more agitated because of the people that BP has hired to clean up the oil spill are not from Grand Isle but from the gutters of other places. Acts of rape and attempted rape are on the increase as is burglary and robbery. The women of Grand Isle used to take their garbage out near midnight to avoid the heat, now they go in large groups since several women have been attacked. All the motel rooms that used to be rented out to sport fishermen are all taken. The upside is that Benny’s Gun Shop is doing a brisk business. The apparent merchandise of choice is a 15 shot 9mm Glock with a four inch barrel, a box of ammo and an extra clip. As I remember my Cajun friends they will not sit still for that kind of behavior at all. By the way, all of those strangers in Grand Isle spend most of their spare time in a bar named “Daddy’s Money”. They are there for the near naked women mud wrestling. I don’t get it.
Speaking of a 9mm Glock, a county deputy in Mobile, Alabama was called to a domestic disturbance. As he alit from his car a man came running out of a house wielding a machete and struck the deputy on the shoulder. About that time the deputy was able to retrieve his 9mm Glock and sent that man to the Promised Land. The cops later found out that that man’s parents had been found hacked to death down in Palm Beach, Florida with a machete-like weapon. The deputy saved us a lot of money….no incarceration for years and years.
Recently a group of New Zealanders built a 65 foot catamaran sailboat made totally of plastic bottles. They were able to sail that puppy 4,000 mile across the Pacific Ocean successfully. They were demonstrating the invincibility of the plastic bottles and stressed that they should never be thrown into the ocean as trash. They last forever.
I am still reading the history of the Comanche in the western United States. I have changed my mind somewhat about their fate. When the settlers began moving into west and southwest Texas the Comanche were already the bullies of the southern plains because of their possession of thousands of Spanish mustangs and their unparalleled horsemanship. Not only that, their unbridled brutality was legendary. The beginning of the end was the breech loading Sharps .50 caliber used by the buffalo hunters. This rifle had and effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards. 26 buffalo hunters armed with the Sharps were able to hold off 300 Comanche at the battle of Adobe Walls in central Texas. Then along came the repeating Henry and Winchester rifles. But the Comanche were able to gather up many of those weapons themselves. The final blow came in the form of a US Cavalry officer name Ranald Mackenzie. This man decided that he was not going after the Comanche themselves, he went after their horses knowing that the Comanche could not exist without them. They had no agrarian segment; they relied on the buffalo alone. Mackenzie was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Comanche and Kiowa ponies which put the warriors afoot. This horrible campaign worked and eventually all the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and hundreds of other southern plains tribes surrendered to a life of having to wait for a handout from Uncle Sam. It broke their spirit; it would have broken mine too.
Tidbits:
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem has become a liability to the Democratic Party and they are leaning on the 80 year old legislator to resign/retire. They are hitting him where he is the most vulnerable...ethics. This influence peddler will go down in history as having the hungriest pockets in the catalog of corruption.
Jack "The Assassin" Tatum formerly of the Oakland Raiders has died at the age of 61 from a heart attack. As far as I am concerned he is among the top five hardest hitting defensive backs in history.
Tim Tebow former quarterback of the Florida Gators has signed a contract to model underwear for Jockey. Tim had mention that after college he was going to become a missionary. I suppose that to some women seeing Tim Terrific in a pair of abbreviated briefs would be a spiritual experience.
This date in history July 28
1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50am while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Well, thousands of Chinese people died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.
1868 On this date the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted. This amendment assured the full American citizenship to blacks. One of the phrases in the amendment stated that “all citizens shall have equal protection under the law.” This was the hardest thing for our citizenry to accept, both north and south. But it was the US government implemented the Reconstruction Act that cause the most animosity and polarized the northern states the southern states. This act made the southerners just a hair short of vassals to agents that were sent to oversee both legal and illegal transactions to cheat the southern land owners after the Civil War. It was this behavior that gave birth to the KKK that thrived as long as the Reconstruction Act was in effect and for many years thereafter. Don’t get me wrong, the KKK was/is a bunch of disgusting bigots but it was the Reconstruction Act gave this organization the fire in its belly.
1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.
1945 On this date an aircraft crashed into the Empire State building killing 13. As you can tell from the date, this event occurred during WWII. It was an American B-25 medium bomber. The aircraft departed New Bedford, Connecticut enroute to LaGuardia airport serving New York. There was a pea soup fog over New York and air traffic controllers (I used to be one) told the B-25 to divert to Newark, New Jersey about 30 miles away. Evidently the pilot got lost in the fog and the collision happened. This was before the days of radar and digital navigation. This was not the only aircraft to hit the Empire State Building; I remember when a Cessna ran into it. But these days that could not happen by accident. The air traffic controllers that control that airspace do it with a very tight fist because of the volume of aircraft involved in that area. There are three of the major airports in the world are within a 20 mile radius. There is LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark. But the busiest airport in the United States is Atlanta or was the last time I checked.
1943 Earlier the British Air Force launched Operation Gomorrah the mission of which was the destruction of the tools of war being manufactured near Hamburg, Germany. The Brits had been bombing Hamburg for a couple of days but on this night they dropped over 2, 600 tons of incendiary bombs creating a firestorm unparalleled in history until Hiroshima. Some of the British pilots reported that there was not a series of fires but one monster that scorched 8 square miles of the city and killed 40,000 civilians. The fire was so hot that air was rushing into the middle the winds reached hurricane force and literally sucked people into it if not asphyxiated them by using up all the oxygen within a certain radius. War is hell, literally.
Born today:
1807 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. He said “I cannot waste my time making money.” Hey Louis, where did you go to eat and drink?
1908 English writer and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming. When meeting Sean Connery the first time he said “I am looking for Commander Bond, not an overgrown stunt man.” Ian, shut up. Sean made you a fortune several time over.
1917 US professor Barry Commoner. He said “If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong direction.” That’s depressing, Barry.
Died today:
1849 US writer Anne Bronte. She said “If a man is not ready to grab the thorn, he should not crave the rose.” Sound wisdom.
1913 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “What we see mainly depends of what we look for.” A few years back I was looking for a girl friend that looked like a 30 year old Elizabeth Taylor and had the morals of an alley cat. Now I am looking for a more comfortable couch to take naps on.
1937 Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler. He said “The chief danger in life is that we may take to many precautions.” Hey Al, the best precaution is to find a comfortable couch to take naps on.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”
Golda Meir
To all of you that still have a Patriotic bone left in your body, there is a web site that brokers the addresses of our deployed military. Once you get an address you are considered to have "adopted" him/her. The people that operate this site make no money at all from this but are just good Americans. If you feel in the adopting mood for people that deserve it the most here is the website. I am an adopter myself.
http://www.adoptahero.us/
If you want to make a contribution go to www.alwayssupportourheros.com. This site is directed by a Delta Airlines employee free of charge. What a woman and a Patriot! She is a breath of fresh air. DO SOMETHING YOU CAN BE PROUD OF, Y'ALL.
It seems that the local gentry of Grande Isle, Louisiana are getting more and more agitated because of the people that BP has hired to clean up the oil spill are not from Grand Isle but from the gutters of other places. Acts of rape and attempted rape are on the increase as is burglary and robbery. The women of Grand Isle used to take their garbage out near midnight to avoid the heat, now they go in large groups since several women have been attacked. All the motel rooms that used to be rented out to sport fishermen are all taken. The upside is that Benny’s Gun Shop is doing a brisk business. The apparent merchandise of choice is a 15 shot 9mm Glock with a four inch barrel, a box of ammo and an extra clip. As I remember my Cajun friends they will not sit still for that kind of behavior at all. By the way, all of those strangers in Grand Isle spend most of their spare time in a bar named “Daddy’s Money”. They are there for the near naked women mud wrestling. I don’t get it.
Speaking of a 9mm Glock, a county deputy in Mobile, Alabama was called to a domestic disturbance. As he alit from his car a man came running out of a house wielding a machete and struck the deputy on the shoulder. About that time the deputy was able to retrieve his 9mm Glock and sent that man to the Promised Land. The cops later found out that that man’s parents had been found hacked to death down in Palm Beach, Florida with a machete-like weapon. The deputy saved us a lot of money….no incarceration for years and years.
Recently a group of New Zealanders built a 65 foot catamaran sailboat made totally of plastic bottles. They were able to sail that puppy 4,000 mile across the Pacific Ocean successfully. They were demonstrating the invincibility of the plastic bottles and stressed that they should never be thrown into the ocean as trash. They last forever.
I am still reading the history of the Comanche in the western United States. I have changed my mind somewhat about their fate. When the settlers began moving into west and southwest Texas the Comanche were already the bullies of the southern plains because of their possession of thousands of Spanish mustangs and their unparalleled horsemanship. Not only that, their unbridled brutality was legendary. The beginning of the end was the breech loading Sharps .50 caliber used by the buffalo hunters. This rifle had and effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards. 26 buffalo hunters armed with the Sharps were able to hold off 300 Comanche at the battle of Adobe Walls in central Texas. Then along came the repeating Henry and Winchester rifles. But the Comanche were able to gather up many of those weapons themselves. The final blow came in the form of a US Cavalry officer name Ranald Mackenzie. This man decided that he was not going after the Comanche themselves, he went after their horses knowing that the Comanche could not exist without them. They had no agrarian segment; they relied on the buffalo alone. Mackenzie was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Comanche and Kiowa ponies which put the warriors afoot. This horrible campaign worked and eventually all the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and hundreds of other southern plains tribes surrendered to a life of having to wait for a handout from Uncle Sam. It broke their spirit; it would have broken mine too.
Tidbits:
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem has become a liability to the Democratic Party and they are leaning on the 80 year old legislator to resign/retire. They are hitting him where he is the most vulnerable...ethics. This influence peddler will go down in history as having the hungriest pockets in the catalog of corruption.
Jack "The Assassin" Tatum formerly of the Oakland Raiders has died at the age of 61 from a heart attack. As far as I am concerned he is among the top five hardest hitting defensive backs in history.
Tim Tebow former quarterback of the Florida Gators has signed a contract to model underwear for Jockey. Tim had mention that after college he was going to become a missionary. I suppose that to some women seeing Tim Terrific in a pair of abbreviated briefs would be a spiritual experience.
This date in history July 28
1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50am while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Well, thousands of Chinese people died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.
1868 On this date the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted. This amendment assured the full American citizenship to blacks. One of the phrases in the amendment stated that “all citizens shall have equal protection under the law.” This was the hardest thing for our citizenry to accept, both north and south. But it was the US government implemented the Reconstruction Act that cause the most animosity and polarized the northern states the southern states. This act made the southerners just a hair short of vassals to agents that were sent to oversee both legal and illegal transactions to cheat the southern land owners after the Civil War. It was this behavior that gave birth to the KKK that thrived as long as the Reconstruction Act was in effect and for many years thereafter. Don’t get me wrong, the KKK was/is a bunch of disgusting bigots but it was the Reconstruction Act gave this organization the fire in its belly.
1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.
1945 On this date an aircraft crashed into the Empire State building killing 13. As you can tell from the date, this event occurred during WWII. It was an American B-25 medium bomber. The aircraft departed New Bedford, Connecticut enroute to LaGuardia airport serving New York. There was a pea soup fog over New York and air traffic controllers (I used to be one) told the B-25 to divert to Newark, New Jersey about 30 miles away. Evidently the pilot got lost in the fog and the collision happened. This was before the days of radar and digital navigation. This was not the only aircraft to hit the Empire State Building; I remember when a Cessna ran into it. But these days that could not happen by accident. The air traffic controllers that control that airspace do it with a very tight fist because of the volume of aircraft involved in that area. There are three of the major airports in the world are within a 20 mile radius. There is LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark. But the busiest airport in the United States is Atlanta or was the last time I checked.
1943 Earlier the British Air Force launched Operation Gomorrah the mission of which was the destruction of the tools of war being manufactured near Hamburg, Germany. The Brits had been bombing Hamburg for a couple of days but on this night they dropped over 2, 600 tons of incendiary bombs creating a firestorm unparalleled in history until Hiroshima. Some of the British pilots reported that there was not a series of fires but one monster that scorched 8 square miles of the city and killed 40,000 civilians. The fire was so hot that air was rushing into the middle the winds reached hurricane force and literally sucked people into it if not asphyxiated them by using up all the oxygen within a certain radius. War is hell, literally.
Born today:
1807 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. He said “I cannot waste my time making money.” Hey Louis, where did you go to eat and drink?
1908 English writer and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming. When meeting Sean Connery the first time he said “I am looking for Commander Bond, not an overgrown stunt man.” Ian, shut up. Sean made you a fortune several time over.
1917 US professor Barry Commoner. He said “If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong direction.” That’s depressing, Barry.
Died today:
1849 US writer Anne Bronte. She said “If a man is not ready to grab the thorn, he should not crave the rose.” Sound wisdom.
1913 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “What we see mainly depends of what we look for.” A few years back I was looking for a girl friend that looked like a 30 year old Elizabeth Taylor and had the morals of an alley cat. Now I am looking for a more comfortable couch to take naps on.
1937 Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler. He said “The chief danger in life is that we may take to many precautions.” Hey Al, the best precaution is to find a comfortable couch to take naps on.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”
Golda Meir
To all of you that still have a Patriotic bone left in your body, there is a web site that brokers the addresses of our deployed military. Once you get an address you are considered to have "adopted" him/her. The people that operate this site make no money at all from this but are just good Americans. If you feel in the adopting mood for people that deserve it the most here is the website. I am an adopter myself.
http://www.adoptahero.us/
If you want to make a contribution go to www.alwayssupportourheros.com. This site is directed by a Delta Airlines employee free of charge. What a woman and a Patriot! She is a breath of fresh air. DO SOMETHING YOU CAN BE PROUD OF, Y'ALL.
It seems that the local gentry of Grande Isle, Louisiana are getting more and more agitated because of the people that BP has hired to clean up the oil spill are not from Grand Isle but from the gutters of other places. Acts of rape and attempted rape are on the increase as is burglary and robbery. The women of Grand Isle used to take their garbage out near midnight to avoid the heat, now they go in large groups since several women have been attacked. All the motel rooms that used to be rented out to sport fishermen are all taken. The upside is that Benny’s Gun Shop is doing a brisk business. The apparent merchandise of choice is a 15 shot 9mm Glock with a four inch barrel, a box of ammo and an extra clip. As I remember my Cajun friends they will not sit still for that kind of behavior at all. By the way, all of those strangers in Grand Isle spend most of their spare time in a bar named “Daddy’s Money”. They are there for the near naked women mud wrestling. I don’t get it.
Speaking of a 9mm Glock, a county deputy in Mobile, Alabama was called to a domestic disturbance. As he alit from his car a man came running out of a house wielding a machete and struck the deputy on the shoulder. About that time the deputy was able to retrieve his 9mm Glock and sent that man to the Promised Land. The cops later found out that that man’s parents had been found hacked to death down in Palm Beach, Florida with a machete-like weapon. The deputy saved us a lot of money….no incarceration for years and years.
Recently a group of New Zealanders built a 65 foot catamaran sailboat made totally of plastic bottles. They were able to sail that puppy 4,000 mile across the Pacific Ocean successfully. They were demonstrating the invincibility of the plastic bottles and stressed that they should never be thrown into the ocean as trash. They last forever.
I am still reading the history of the Comanche in the western United States. I have changed my mind somewhat about their fate. When the settlers began moving into west and southwest Texas the Comanche were already the bullies of the southern plains because of their possession of thousands of Spanish mustangs and their unparalleled horsemanship. Not only that, their unbridled brutality was legendary. The beginning of the end was the breech loading Sharps .50 caliber used by the buffalo hunters. This rifle had and effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards. 26 buffalo hunters armed with the Sharps were able to hold off 300 Comanche at the battle of Adobe Walls in central Texas. Then along came the repeating Henry and Winchester rifles. But the Comanche were able to gather up many of those weapons themselves. The final blow came in the form of a US Cavalry officer name Ranald Mackenzie. This man decided that he was not going after the Comanche themselves, he went after their horses knowing that the Comanche could not exist without them. They had no agrarian segment; they relied on the buffalo alone. Mackenzie was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Comanche and Kiowa ponies which put the warriors afoot. This horrible campaign worked and eventually all the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and hundreds of other southern plains tribes surrendered to a life of having to wait for a handout from Uncle Sam. It broke their spirit; it would have broken mine too.
Tidbits:
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem has become a liability to the Democratic Party and they are leaning on the 80 year old legislator to resign/retire. They are hitting him where he is the most vulnerable...ethics. This influence peddler will go down in history as having the hungriest pockets in the catalog of corruption.
Jack "The Assassin" Tatum formerly of the Oakland Raiders has died at the age of 61 from a heart attack. As far as I am concerned he is among the top five hardest hitting defensive backs in history.
Tim Tebow former quarterback of the Florida Gators has signed a contract to model underwear for Jockey. Tim had mention that after college he was going to become a missionary. I suppose that to some women seeing Tim Terrific in a pair of abbreviated briefs would be a spiritual experience.
This date in history July 28
1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50am while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Well, thousands of Chinese people died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.
1868 On this date the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted. This amendment assured the full American citizenship to blacks. One of the phrases in the amendment stated that “all citizens shall have equal protection under the law.” This was the hardest thing for our citizenry to accept, both north and south. But it was the US government implemented the Reconstruction Act that cause the most animosity and polarized the northern states the southern states. This act made the southerners just a hair short of vassals to agents that were sent to oversee both legal and illegal transactions to cheat the southern land owners after the Civil War. It was this behavior that gave birth to the KKK that thrived as long as the Reconstruction Act was in effect and for many years thereafter. Don’t get me wrong, the KKK was/is a bunch of disgusting bigots but it was the Reconstruction Act gave this organization the fire in its belly.
1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.
1945 On this date an aircraft crashed into the Empire State building killing 13. As you can tell from the date, this event occurred during WWII. It was an American B-25 medium bomber. The aircraft departed New Bedford, Connecticut enroute to LaGuardia airport serving New York. There was a pea soup fog over New York and air traffic controllers (I used to be one) told the B-25 to divert to Newark, New Jersey about 30 miles away. Evidently the pilot got lost in the fog and the collision happened. This was before the days of radar and digital navigation. This was not the only aircraft to hit the Empire State Building; I remember when a Cessna ran into it. But these days that could not happen by accident. The air traffic controllers that control that airspace do it with a very tight fist because of the volume of aircraft involved in that area. There are three of the major airports in the world are within a 20 mile radius. There is LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark. But the busiest airport in the United States is Atlanta or was the last time I checked.
1943 Earlier the British Air Force launched Operation Gomorrah the mission of which was the destruction of the tools of war being manufactured near Hamburg, Germany. The Brits had been bombing Hamburg for a couple of days but on this night they dropped over 2, 600 tons of incendiary bombs creating a firestorm unparalleled in history until Hiroshima. Some of the British pilots reported that there was not a series of fires but one monster that scorched 8 square miles of the city and killed 40,000 civilians. The fire was so hot that air was rushing into the middle the winds reached hurricane force and literally sucked people into it if not asphyxiated them by using up all the oxygen within a certain radius. War is hell, literally.
Born today:
1807 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. He said “I cannot waste my time making money.” Hey Louis, where did you go to eat and drink?
1908 English writer and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming. When meeting Sean Connery the first time he said “I am looking for Commander Bond, not an overgrown stunt man.” Ian, shut up. Sean made you a fortune several time over.
1917 US professor Barry Commoner. He said “If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you are looking the wrong direction.” That’s depressing, Barry.
Died today:
1849 US writer Anne Bronte. She said “If a man is not ready to grab the thorn, he should not crave the rose.” Sound wisdom.
1913 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “What we see mainly depends of what we look for.” A few years back I was looking for a girl friend that looked like a 30 year old Elizabeth Taylor and had the morals of an alley cat. Now I am looking for a more comfortable couch to take naps on.
1937 Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler. He said “The chief danger in life is that we may take to many precautions.” Hey Al, the best precaution is to find a comfortable couch to take naps on.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“There is no doubt that is around family and home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created.”
Anne Frank
Wildlife authorities in Texas have decided to release thousands of hatchlings of the very rare Ridley sea turtles on Padre Island near Corpus Christie. These turtles normally hatch on the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Northwest Florida but due to the oil spill the eggs were dug up and incubated in Georgia and Texas. Those that hatched in Georgia will be released into the Atlantic and those that are hatched in Texas will be released into the western Gulf of Mexico. It is known that these turtles will eventually migrate eastward toward the area of the oil spill. The wildlife authorities believe that the oil spill will be cleaned up by the time the turtles arrive. I admire their optimism, I wonder if the turtles do.
The Charleston, South Carolina authorities issued a warning for this past weekend about the heat. Combined with the expected humidity the heat index will be about 110 degrees. This kind of heat will promote a very quick sun burn or heat stroke. They also issued a warning for an expected vicious rip current on the Charleston area beaches including very rough surf. It will be a miracle if there is not a fatality.
South Carolina’s Republican nominee for Governor, Nikki Haley, has changed position on a couple of issues. Back in 2004 she said that she would be opposed to signing any tax cut pledges. Last week she did indeed sign an anti-tax increase pledge issued by the American for Tax Reform anti- tax increase movement. When asked about this change of heart Nikki said that the economic situation has changed and indeed it has. She also stated that any South Carolina legislator that voted for the Wall Street bailout should not be re-elected, this included US Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson. This week Nikki gave her support to Joe Wilson’s re-election. When asked about this Nikki said that Joe was the only conservative in that race. I have always heard that a woman has the right to change her mind so I guess Nikki is behaving normally.
Up in Pontiac, Michigan 23 year old Torrie Emery and 20 year old Michelle Booth had been throwing darts at each other on Facebook because both of them were in love with an inmate in a Michigan prison. Last week Torrie saw Michelle in the passenger seat of a car driven by Michelle’s friend Alesha Abernathy and gave chase. The two cars reached speed of over 100 mph with Abernathy just trying to get away. The cops fell into line and joined the chase trying to put a stop to it. Abernathy was unable to stop for a red light and T-boned a dump truck in the intersection turning the truck on its side but the driver was not injured. However, Alesha was killed and Michelle was seriously injured. Lunatic Torrie was arrested and charged with murder. All of this happened for a convicted felon. I don’t get it. By the way, lunatic Torrie had her three year old daughter in the car with her during the chase.
Military units of South Korea and the United States are conducting joint war games in South Korea and South Korean waters. Those maniacs from North Korea see this exercise as a threat and have promised a “nuclear response”. I am sure that they are aware that there are enough free world nuclear submarines in the Sea of Japan off the shores of North Korea that a person could walk from Pyongyang to Nagoya, Japan without getting their feet wet. Not to mention the United States aircraft carrier USS George Washington. This puppy has fighter bombers that can carry nuclear devises also. I can promise you that if those idiots launch a nuclear devise of any kind the North Korea part of the Korean peninsula will glow in the dark for years to come.
This date in history July 27
1974 On this date the House Judiciary Committee handed down a bill of impeachment with a recommendation of removal from office of the sitting President of the United States, Richard Nixon. All of this adventure began when a group of men were caught and arrested inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Two of those arrested were on the White house staff. It was a given that Nixon could not be beaten in upcoming election because the Democrats did not have a viable candidate but his staff still felt it was necessary to burglarize. Originally the report of these arrests were stuck in the fourth or fifth page of the Washington Post newspaper but two reporters Named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat and began digging. The more they dug the closer they came to the White House. When these two began writing their columns about what they had discovered, the staff at the White House circled the wagons and refused to cooperate with law enforcement which attracted the attention of the US Congress. The Congress selected Archibald Cox, the head of the Harvard Law School, to act as special prosecutor. Not only did Nixon try to get two Assistant Attorney Generals (Caper Weinberger and Nick Katzenbach) to fire Cox, he called in a very high official in the FBI and told them to not investigate the Watergate incident. Weinberger and Katzenbach not only refused but resigned in protest at this obvious cover-up. Nixon finally persuaded a lesser Federal judge (Richard Bork) to fire Cox. During this time it was determined that Nixon had been taping all the conversations in the Oval Office. Judge Leon Jaworski along with Judge John Sirica, who had replaced Cox, demanded the tapes but Nixon refused claiming executive privilege and a threat to national security. Over a period of time the US Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes which he did. Nixon was not done yet. Some of the most critical tapes had blank spaces which experts said was an erasure. Again the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to produce depositions saying what had been said during the erasures. When these damning documents reached the House Judiciary Committee, A Bill of Impeachment soon followed. Soon thereafter Nixon resigned, turned over the reins to Vice-President Gerald Ford, and moved back to where he came from, San Clemente, California. It was a tragic and time of testing for the United States judiciary/legislative system.
1981 On this date 6 year old Adam Walsh is abducted at a Hollywood, Florida shopping Mall. It seems that Adam and his mother Reve went shopping and little Adam wanted to watch some older boys play video games while his mother was shopping close by. As will happen, the older boys got rowdy and the mall security guard came by and ran everybody out. Little Adam just followed the older boys outside rather than seeking his mother. He waited out side for a short while then he disappeared. A few days later, Adams’s head was found in drainage ditch near Vero Beach, Florida which is nearly 100 miles from Hollywood. The police focused on career criminals and convicted child molesters Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was found in jail for another crime and confessed to the murder of little Adam but said that career criminal Henry Lee Lucas was with him and it was he that did the murder. The police investigated and found to no one’s surprise, that Toole was lying because Lucas was in jail in Virginia when Adam was abducted. Toole then recanted his story. The police decided that they would need Adam’s complete body to prosecute anyone. Adams body was never found and the case remains unsolved. Toole was executed in Florida for another murder. We all know what work Adam’s father John has done by establishing the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”
1806 During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the group reached the Great Falls on the Missouri River. Clark took a few men and began exploring further downstream, Lewis headed north to explore the Marias River basin. They left 6 men to portage their boats around the falls. Lewis knew they were in Blackfoot country. The Blackfoot were the fiercest tribe in the area and are to be feared and sure enough, Lewis met up with a party of Blackfoot and he tried to be cordial. It appeared to be working and Lewis invited the Indians to his camp. After it got dark, one of Lewis’s men yelled out that the Indians were trying to steal their horses and rifles. Lewis ran after them and one of the Indians turned and moved toward Lewis whereupon Lewis shot him in the stomach. The rest of the Indians retreated and the horses and rifles were saved. Lewis knew that if there was trouble between the expedition and the Indians while going west, there would be trouble coming back east. Not only that, one of his men said that during the attempt to get the horses back, he had caught up with one of the Indians and stabbed him to death. More trouble, but they would have been in more serious trouble without horses and rifles.
Born today:
1824 French author Alexander Dumas the Younger. He said “I prefer rogues to imbeciles because sometime they take a rest.” We all know some of each.
1956 US comic Carol Liefer. She said “He tricked me into marrying him, he said he was pregnant.” Carol, shut up.
Died today:
2003 US comedian Bob Hope. He said “You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” Amen, brother.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“There is no doubt that is around family and home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created.”
Anne Frank
Wildlife authorities in Texas have decided to release thousands of hatchlings of the very rare Ridley sea turtles on Padre Island near Corpus Christie. These turtles normally hatch on the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Northwest Florida but due to the oil spill the eggs were dug up and incubated in Georgia and Texas. Those that hatched in Georgia will be released into the Atlantic and those that are hatched in Texas will be released into the western Gulf of Mexico. It is known that these turtles will eventually migrate eastward toward the area of the oil spill. The wildlife authorities believe that the oil spill will be cleaned up by the time the turtles arrive. I admire their optimism, I wonder if the turtles do.
The Charleston, South Carolina authorities issued a warning for this past weekend about the heat. Combined with the expected humidity the heat index will be about 110 degrees. This kind of heat will promote a very quick sun burn or heat stroke. They also issued a warning for an expected vicious rip current on the Charleston area beaches including very rough surf. It will be a miracle if there is not a fatality.
South Carolina’s Republican nominee for Governor, Nikki Haley, has changed position on a couple of issues. Back in 2004 she said that she would be opposed to signing any tax cut pledges. Last week she did indeed sign an anti-tax increase pledge issued by the American for Tax Reform anti- tax increase movement. When asked about this change of heart Nikki said that the economic situation has changed and indeed it has. She also stated that any South Carolina legislator that voted for the Wall Street bailout should not be re-elected, this included US Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson. This week Nikki gave her support to Joe Wilson’s re-election. When asked about this Nikki said that Joe was the only conservative in that race. I have always heard that a woman has the right to change her mind so I guess Nikki is behaving normally.
Up in Pontiac, Michigan 23 year old Torrie Emery and 20 year old Michelle Booth had been throwing darts at each other on Facebook because both of them were in love with an inmate in a Michigan prison. Last week Torrie saw Michelle in the passenger seat of a car driven by Michelle’s friend Alesha Abernathy and gave chase. The two cars reached speed of over 100 mph with Abernathy just trying to get away. The cops fell into line and joined the chase trying to put a stop to it. Abernathy was unable to stop for a red light and T-boned a dump truck in the intersection turning the truck on its side but the driver was not injured. However, Alesha was killed and Michelle was seriously injured. Lunatic Torrie was arrested and charged with murder. All of this happened for a convicted felon. I don’t get it. By the way, lunatic Torrie had her three year old daughter in the car with her during the chase.
Military units of South Korea and the United States are conducting joint war games in South Korea and South Korean waters. Those maniacs from North Korea see this exercise as a threat and have promised a “nuclear response”. I am sure that they are aware that there are enough free world nuclear submarines in the Sea of Japan off the shores of North Korea that a person could walk from Pyongyang to Nagoya, Japan without getting their feet wet. Not to mention the United States aircraft carrier USS George Washington. This puppy has fighter bombers that can carry nuclear devises also. I can promise you that if those idiots launch a nuclear devise of any kind the North Korea part of the Korean peninsula will glow in the dark for years to come.
This date in history July 27
1974 On this date the House Judiciary Committee handed down a bill of impeachment with a recommendation of removal from office of the sitting President of the United States, Richard Nixon. All of this adventure began when a group of men were caught and arrested inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Two of those arrested were on the White house staff. It was a given that Nixon could not be beaten in upcoming election because the Democrats did not have a viable candidate but his staff still felt it was necessary to burglarize. Originally the report of these arrests were stuck in the fourth or fifth page of the Washington Post newspaper but two reporters Named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat and began digging. The more they dug the closer they came to the White House. When these two began writing their columns about what they had discovered, the staff at the White House circled the wagons and refused to cooperate with law enforcement which attracted the attention of the US Congress. The Congress selected Archibald Cox, the head of the Harvard Law School, to act as special prosecutor. Not only did Nixon try to get two Assistant Attorney Generals (Caper Weinberger and Nick Katzenbach) to fire Cox, he called in a very high official in the FBI and told them to not investigate the Watergate incident. Weinberger and Katzenbach not only refused but resigned in protest at this obvious cover-up. Nixon finally persuaded a lesser Federal judge (Richard Bork) to fire Cox. During this time it was determined that Nixon had been taping all the conversations in the Oval Office. Judge Leon Jaworski along with Judge John Sirica, who had replaced Cox, demanded the tapes but Nixon refused claiming executive privilege and a threat to national security. Over a period of time the US Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes which he did. Nixon was not done yet. Some of the most critical tapes had blank spaces which experts said was an erasure. Again the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to produce depositions saying what had been said during the erasures. When these damning documents reached the House Judiciary Committee, A Bill of Impeachment soon followed. Soon thereafter Nixon resigned, turned over the reins to Vice-President Gerald Ford, and moved back to where he came from, San Clemente, California. It was a tragic and time of testing for the United States judiciary/legislative system.
1981 On this date 6 year old Adam Walsh is abducted at a Hollywood, Florida shopping Mall. It seems that Adam and his mother Reve went shopping and little Adam wanted to watch some older boys play video games while his mother was shopping close by. As will happen, the older boys got rowdy and the mall security guard came by and ran everybody out. Little Adam just followed the older boys outside rather than seeking his mother. He waited out side for a short while then he disappeared. A few days later, Adams’s head was found in drainage ditch near Vero Beach, Florida which is nearly 100 miles from Hollywood. The police focused on career criminals and convicted child molesters Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was found in jail for another crime and confessed to the murder of little Adam but said that career criminal Henry Lee Lucas was with him and it was he that did the murder. The police investigated and found to no one’s surprise, that Toole was lying because Lucas was in jail in Virginia when Adam was abducted. Toole then recanted his story. The police decided that they would need Adam’s complete body to prosecute anyone. Adams body was never found and the case remains unsolved. Toole was executed in Florida for another murder. We all know what work Adam’s father John has done by establishing the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”
1806 During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the group reached the Great Falls on the Missouri River. Clark took a few men and began exploring further downstream, Lewis headed north to explore the Marias River basin. They left 6 men to portage their boats around the falls. Lewis knew they were in Blackfoot country. The Blackfoot were the fiercest tribe in the area and are to be feared and sure enough, Lewis met up with a party of Blackfoot and he tried to be cordial. It appeared to be working and Lewis invited the Indians to his camp. After it got dark, one of Lewis’s men yelled out that the Indians were trying to steal their horses and rifles. Lewis ran after them and one of the Indians turned and moved toward Lewis whereupon Lewis shot him in the stomach. The rest of the Indians retreated and the horses and rifles were saved. Lewis knew that if there was trouble between the expedition and the Indians while going west, there would be trouble coming back east. Not only that, one of his men said that during the attempt to get the horses back, he had caught up with one of the Indians and stabbed him to death. More trouble, but they would have been in more serious trouble without horses and rifles.
Born today:
1824 French author Alexander Dumas the Younger. He said “I prefer rogues to imbeciles because sometime they take a rest.” We all know some of each.
1956 US comic Carol Liefer. She said “He tricked me into marrying him, he said he was pregnant.” Carol, shut up.
Died today:
2003 US comedian Bob Hope. He said “You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” Amen, brother.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Monday, July 26, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.”
Shirley Abbott
Here is an item that will wake you up this morning. Out in Bell, California, a small town southeast of Los Angeles, there are just short of 40,000 residents. The majority is Latinos and 17% live below the poverty level spending a lot of time getting food stamps and standing in line at the Food Bank. The Los Angeles Times published the salaries of the city governing body and here is what the residents discovered. The city manager’s salary was $789,000/year with a 12% raise per year guaranteed. That, my friends, is double what the President of the United States salary is. The fire chief had a salary of $458,000 which is half again what the fire chief of Los Angeles gets in a city of 3.8 million. Needless to say, the residents showed up at city hall in force demanding the ouster of the Mayor, the City Manager and the Fire Chief. After a while those three did resign in the knowledge that they would receive 2/3 of their salary as a retirement pension. More hell was raised and finally the District Attorney of Los Angeles County stepped in and began an investigation as to whether obviously corrupt city officials were indeed eligible for a pension. We shall see. By the way, the District Attorney of Los Angeles County is named Jerry Brown. I wonder if he is related to the Jerry Brown that was the Governor of California many years ago and had Linda Ronstadt as his girlfriend.
Over in Cowpens, South Carolina a few days ago an undercover cop working in the vice squad paid a visit to “Mr. Waffle” near I-85 (been there) seeking prostitutes. He saw a woman loitering out front and struck up a conversation. The woman asked him to buy her a soft drink which he did. The woman offered him “any kind companionship he liked.” She introduced herself as Angela Loudermilk which surprisingly was her real name. They got into the deputy’s truck and she demanded to see the man’s penis and he complied and Angels chose to grab him by his penis and said “Ok, I guess you are not a cop.” The man suggested a form of sex and Angela “repositioned” herself and it was at this time that the deputy identified himself as being under cover and arrested poor Angela. The question I have is how did Angela expect to identify the man as a cop or not by feeling of his penis? Do cops have a tacitly identifiable peculiarity down there? We learn things every day. By the way, they had a photo of Angela in the item and she had a strangely familiar looking face…she looked a lot like Jeremy Shockey, the tight end for the new Orleans Saints.
A few years ago a group of men got together and decided to open a bar/restaurant on the east side of Austin, Texas. The discussed a name and a logo and decided on The Longbranch Inn as the name and a caricature of a beaver as their logo. The beaver ended up with just the smiling head and buck teeth with LBI on the brim of a sailor’s hat. This last week they got a cease and desist order from an organization saying that the Longbranch was infringing on the copyrights of the University of Oregon State Beavers logo. The owners thought it was a joke but it proved not to be. A comparison photo of each logo was shown and sure enough they were identical except for the “LBI” on one of the sailor’s caps and “OSU” on the other. The Longbranch agreed to change their logo and initiated a contest. The Longbranch has a stuffed Beaver above their bar. So far the leading entry is the same beaver logo except this one has black Groucho Marx glasses on. I don’t know if that will be enough, however. It is pretty damned bad when there is an organization that makes a living making comparisons on college logos against those in free enterprise.
This date in history July 26
1775 Earlier in October of 1774 a Patriot printer from Philadelphia named William Goddard, after years of being frustrated because the Royal Mail Service was not unable to deliver his newspaper to his readers nor to bring important information to Goddard, petitioned the Continental Congress to form a Continental Post Office. The Congress delayed its decision until after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On this date Congress authorized the formation of a Continental Post with Ben Franklin as this nations very first Postmaster General. Ben held this post until the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and then he was sent to France as the American Emissary. Ben’s son-in-law Richard Bache was named to replace Ben. This was the very first act, and would not be the last, of nepotism in the United States government arena.
1908 On this date Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley Finch of the Department of Justice. This event was the first baby step in the formation of the FBI. One year later the Office of Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation. When America entered WWI, the Bureau of Investigation was tasked with investigating draft dodgers, violators of the Espionage Act and immigrants suspected of radicalism. The last one bothers me. Radicalism could be interpreted as an every day attitude to some people but very dangerous to others. Anyway, lawyer and librarian J. Edgar Hoover joined the bureau in 1917 and quickly worked his way to be an assistant to the Attorney General. Hoover and his anti-radical philosophy made him popular during the time period known as the “Red scare era” in 1920-1921. Hoover established a card file on anyone he felt was a “radical” numbering over 450,000. He also had over 10,000 “suspected” communists arrested. The great majority of these people were questioned briefly and released. Hoover was just flexing his muscles. This was a very dangerous ideology and gave Hoover enormous power. Congress eventually became very afraid of this man but his powers of investigation insured his longevity at his position. The upside of the formation of the FBI was they could pursue criminals across state lies since they were a federal agency. Hoover became the acting director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924. With Congressional approval, Hoover greatly expanded and improved the Bureau with a centralized fingerprint file, an agent training school for agents and he whipped the Bureau into a very efficient crime fighting entity. They were going to need it in the 1930’s during prohibition because powerful criminals like the head of Murder, Incorporated Lepke Burkhalter, “Machine Gun” Kelly who specialized in the kidnapping of people of rich families and demanding enormous ransoms, not to mention Al “Scarface” Capone, “Dutch” Schultz among many others would present a great challenge. The bureau was titled the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. Hoover established an arm of the bureau called COINPRO which was an acronym for counter-intelligence program. This unit was used to counter the supposed infiltration of communists into the US. But it was also used to keep tabs on organizations like the KKK and was used unashamedly to harass and track the movements of Martin Luther King, Jr. simply because Hoover did not agree with his goals of equality for all. When the Watergate scandal broke much pressure and criticism was brought on the Bureau in general and Hoover in particular for the first time Hoover’s tenure. It was during this time frame that Hoover died of heart failure at the age of 77. Evidence proved that the FBI had suppressed evidence that would have proven the culpability of President Richard Nixon in the knowledge of the wrong doing and the attempt to cover it up. Since this time the Congress has established a process of selection of the FBI director that included Congressional approval and limited the tenure to 10 years. The FBI has proven to be a great asset to Americans, but at times have severely over stepped its boundaries.
1984 A real life monster named Edward Gein dies in a mental facility. It was his enjoyment to kill women, skin them and make suits of clothes out of the skins. He died of complications from the ravages of cancer. He was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin to an alcoholic father and a domineering mother who taught him that women and sex was evil (this reminds me of my 3rd ex-wife). He and a younger brother were raised on a farm near Plainfield, Wisconsin. His mother and father died and his brother was killed in a mysterious fire leaving Edward alone on the farm. On an investigation of a missing person, the police found a beheaded and disemboweled woman’s corpse on the farm. The police also found furniture and suits of clothes made of human body parts and skins. Gein said that he would dig up freshly buried female corpses because they reminded him of his mother. The investigators found the skulls and body parts of 10 different women on the farm. Originally Gein was deemed unfit for prosecution because he was crazy as hell. Later on he was deemed fit for trial and the judge found him crazy as hell and sentenced him to a mental facility for the rest of his days. I do not understand reason for the trial except guarantee that he would never be free again. The movies Psycho, Silence of the Lambs and the Texas Chainsaw Massacres were loosely based on the life of Ed Gein.
1942 On this date author William Faulkner began work as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. Faulkner had written three novels that were not immediately successful and they were The Sound and the Fury, Light in August and Absalom, Absalom. Faulkner was a very good screenwriter and delivered two blockbuster movies with To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep which were novels by Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler respectively. Faulkner was not the only author that did some screenwriting to put food on the table. Some of them were Tennessee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Raymond Chandler among others.
Born today:
1907 English movie director Alfred Hitchcock. The following exchange took place between the reed thin English author and full time smart ass George Bernard Shaw and the rotund Hitchcock.
Hitchcock: “One look at you and one realizes that there is a famine in the land”
Shaw: “One look at you and one realizes who caused it”.
1902 US comedienne and wife to George Burns, Gracie Allen. She said “When I was born I was so surprised that I did not talk for a year and a half.” Gracie and George was a memorably funny couple.
Died today:
1863 One of the greatest Americans ever, Sam Houston. Sam said of one of his political opponents “He has all the characteristics of a dog, except the loyalty.” Sam was pretty salty and had engaged in several duels in his 70 years on the planet.
1925 US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. He said “Nobody can make a million dollars honestly.” Hey William, I wish you would have lived long enough to have known of Bill Gates or Rupert Murdock.
1952 Argentine Royalty Eva Peron. The movie Evita was about her life. She said “Without fanaticism nothing gets accomplished.” Think on that, ya’ll.
1995 Governor of Michigan and father of Mitt Romney, George Romney. He said “The magnitude of our social problems will require that all citizen and institutions make a commitment to volunteering, as a way of life, and as a primary opportunity for needed change.” George uttered this statement after Detroit suffered the worst race riot in 100 years and he as Governor had to ask the Federal government for help suppressing it and soon a regiment of the 82nd Airborne showed up. Life can be a bitch sometimes.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.”
Shirley Abbott
Here is an item that will wake you up this morning. Out in Bell, California, a small town southeast of Los Angeles, there are just short of 40,000 residents. The majority is Latinos and 17% live below the poverty level spending a lot of time getting food stamps and standing in line at the Food Bank. The Los Angeles Times published the salaries of the city governing body and here is what the residents discovered. The city manager’s salary was $789,000/year with a 12% raise per year guaranteed. That, my friends, is double what the President of the United States salary is. The fire chief had a salary of $458,000 which is half again what the fire chief of Los Angeles gets in a city of 3.8 million. Needless to say, the residents showed up at city hall in force demanding the ouster of the Mayor, the City Manager and the Fire Chief. After a while those three did resign in the knowledge that they would receive 2/3 of their salary as a retirement pension. More hell was raised and finally the District Attorney of Los Angeles County stepped in and began an investigation as to whether obviously corrupt city officials were indeed eligible for a pension. We shall see. By the way, the District Attorney of Los Angeles County is named Jerry Brown. I wonder if he is related to the Jerry Brown that was the Governor of California many years ago and had Linda Ronstadt as his girlfriend.
Over in Cowpens, South Carolina a few days ago an undercover cop working in the vice squad paid a visit to “Mr. Waffle” near I-85 (been there) seeking prostitutes. He saw a woman loitering out front and struck up a conversation. The woman asked him to buy her a soft drink which he did. The woman offered him “any kind companionship he liked.” She introduced herself as Angela Loudermilk which surprisingly was her real name. They got into the deputy’s truck and she demanded to see the man’s penis and he complied and Angels chose to grab him by his penis and said “Ok, I guess you are not a cop.” The man suggested a form of sex and Angela “repositioned” herself and it was at this time that the deputy identified himself as being under cover and arrested poor Angela. The question I have is how did Angela expect to identify the man as a cop or not by feeling of his penis? Do cops have a tacitly identifiable peculiarity down there? We learn things every day. By the way, they had a photo of Angela in the item and she had a strangely familiar looking face…she looked a lot like Jeremy Shockey, the tight end for the new Orleans Saints.
A few years ago a group of men got together and decided to open a bar/restaurant on the east side of Austin, Texas. The discussed a name and a logo and decided on The Longbranch Inn as the name and a caricature of a beaver as their logo. The beaver ended up with just the smiling head and buck teeth with LBI on the brim of a sailor’s hat. This last week they got a cease and desist order from an organization saying that the Longbranch was infringing on the copyrights of the University of Oregon State Beavers logo. The owners thought it was a joke but it proved not to be. A comparison photo of each logo was shown and sure enough they were identical except for the “LBI” on one of the sailor’s caps and “OSU” on the other. The Longbranch agreed to change their logo and initiated a contest. The Longbranch has a stuffed Beaver above their bar. So far the leading entry is the same beaver logo except this one has black Groucho Marx glasses on. I don’t know if that will be enough, however. It is pretty damned bad when there is an organization that makes a living making comparisons on college logos against those in free enterprise.
This date in history July 26
1775 Earlier in October of 1774 a Patriot printer from Philadelphia named William Goddard, after years of being frustrated because the Royal Mail Service was not unable to deliver his newspaper to his readers nor to bring important information to Goddard, petitioned the Continental Congress to form a Continental Post Office. The Congress delayed its decision until after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On this date Congress authorized the formation of a Continental Post with Ben Franklin as this nations very first Postmaster General. Ben held this post until the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and then he was sent to France as the American Emissary. Ben’s son-in-law Richard Bache was named to replace Ben. This was the very first act, and would not be the last, of nepotism in the United States government arena.
1908 On this date Attorney General Charles Bonaparte orders a group of newly hired investigators to report to Chief Examiner Stanley Finch of the Department of Justice. This event was the first baby step in the formation of the FBI. One year later the Office of Chief Examiner was renamed the Bureau of Investigation. When America entered WWI, the Bureau of Investigation was tasked with investigating draft dodgers, violators of the Espionage Act and immigrants suspected of radicalism. The last one bothers me. Radicalism could be interpreted as an every day attitude to some people but very dangerous to others. Anyway, lawyer and librarian J. Edgar Hoover joined the bureau in 1917 and quickly worked his way to be an assistant to the Attorney General. Hoover and his anti-radical philosophy made him popular during the time period known as the “Red scare era” in 1920-1921. Hoover established a card file on anyone he felt was a “radical” numbering over 450,000. He also had over 10,000 “suspected” communists arrested. The great majority of these people were questioned briefly and released. Hoover was just flexing his muscles. This was a very dangerous ideology and gave Hoover enormous power. Congress eventually became very afraid of this man but his powers of investigation insured his longevity at his position. The upside of the formation of the FBI was they could pursue criminals across state lies since they were a federal agency. Hoover became the acting director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924. With Congressional approval, Hoover greatly expanded and improved the Bureau with a centralized fingerprint file, an agent training school for agents and he whipped the Bureau into a very efficient crime fighting entity. They were going to need it in the 1930’s during prohibition because powerful criminals like the head of Murder, Incorporated Lepke Burkhalter, “Machine Gun” Kelly who specialized in the kidnapping of people of rich families and demanding enormous ransoms, not to mention Al “Scarface” Capone, “Dutch” Schultz among many others would present a great challenge. The bureau was titled the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. Hoover established an arm of the bureau called COINPRO which was an acronym for counter-intelligence program. This unit was used to counter the supposed infiltration of communists into the US. But it was also used to keep tabs on organizations like the KKK and was used unashamedly to harass and track the movements of Martin Luther King, Jr. simply because Hoover did not agree with his goals of equality for all. When the Watergate scandal broke much pressure and criticism was brought on the Bureau in general and Hoover in particular for the first time Hoover’s tenure. It was during this time frame that Hoover died of heart failure at the age of 77. Evidence proved that the FBI had suppressed evidence that would have proven the culpability of President Richard Nixon in the knowledge of the wrong doing and the attempt to cover it up. Since this time the Congress has established a process of selection of the FBI director that included Congressional approval and limited the tenure to 10 years. The FBI has proven to be a great asset to Americans, but at times have severely over stepped its boundaries.
1984 A real life monster named Edward Gein dies in a mental facility. It was his enjoyment to kill women, skin them and make suits of clothes out of the skins. He died of complications from the ravages of cancer. He was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin to an alcoholic father and a domineering mother who taught him that women and sex was evil (this reminds me of my 3rd ex-wife). He and a younger brother were raised on a farm near Plainfield, Wisconsin. His mother and father died and his brother was killed in a mysterious fire leaving Edward alone on the farm. On an investigation of a missing person, the police found a beheaded and disemboweled woman’s corpse on the farm. The police also found furniture and suits of clothes made of human body parts and skins. Gein said that he would dig up freshly buried female corpses because they reminded him of his mother. The investigators found the skulls and body parts of 10 different women on the farm. Originally Gein was deemed unfit for prosecution because he was crazy as hell. Later on he was deemed fit for trial and the judge found him crazy as hell and sentenced him to a mental facility for the rest of his days. I do not understand reason for the trial except guarantee that he would never be free again. The movies Psycho, Silence of the Lambs and the Texas Chainsaw Massacres were loosely based on the life of Ed Gein.
1942 On this date author William Faulkner began work as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. Faulkner had written three novels that were not immediately successful and they were The Sound and the Fury, Light in August and Absalom, Absalom. Faulkner was a very good screenwriter and delivered two blockbuster movies with To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep which were novels by Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler respectively. Faulkner was not the only author that did some screenwriting to put food on the table. Some of them were Tennessee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Raymond Chandler among others.
Born today:
1907 English movie director Alfred Hitchcock. The following exchange took place between the reed thin English author and full time smart ass George Bernard Shaw and the rotund Hitchcock.
Hitchcock: “One look at you and one realizes that there is a famine in the land”
Shaw: “One look at you and one realizes who caused it”.
1902 US comedienne and wife to George Burns, Gracie Allen. She said “When I was born I was so surprised that I did not talk for a year and a half.” Gracie and George was a memorably funny couple.
Died today:
1863 One of the greatest Americans ever, Sam Houston. Sam said of one of his political opponents “He has all the characteristics of a dog, except the loyalty.” Sam was pretty salty and had engaged in several duels in his 70 years on the planet.
1925 US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. He said “Nobody can make a million dollars honestly.” Hey William, I wish you would have lived long enough to have known of Bill Gates or Rupert Murdock.
1952 Argentine Royalty Eva Peron. The movie Evita was about her life. She said “Without fanaticism nothing gets accomplished.” Think on that, ya’ll.
1995 Governor of Michigan and father of Mitt Romney, George Romney. He said “The magnitude of our social problems will require that all citizen and institutions make a commitment to volunteering, as a way of life, and as a primary opportunity for needed change.” George uttered this statement after Detroit suffered the worst race riot in 100 years and he as Governor had to ask the Federal government for help suppressing it and soon a regiment of the 82nd Airborne showed up. Life can be a bitch sometimes.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Friday, July 23, 2010
Daily history
Good Morning,
The format for today will be a little different. The first segment is about one of the greatest scientific minds that world had ever known but the dispersion of his enlightenments was suppressed by the Catholic Church because what truths he had undeniably discovered was not what the Pope believed. Galileo was not the only one that was suppressed in this fashion, in fact there were hundreds if not thousands that were tortured and killed because their beliefs were opposed to the Vatican tenets. I did have one subscriber that tried to tell me that the Catholic Church is not a subject to be discussed in an unflattering manner because she was very sensitive to criticism of her church. How can this person ignore the thousands of human being that were slaughtered in the most unspeakable manner in the name of the Catholic Church? Anyway, a blog is not a news report; it is an expression of one person’s opinion and is not, under any circumstance, subject to censorship.
The regular history lesson will follow the biography.
Galileo Galilei
The Father of Modern Science
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the son of Vincenzo Galilei who was a mathematician and musician. His mother was Guilia Ammannati. Galileo was the youngest of seven children. From a very early age he was tutored and attended the University of Pisa but was forced to cease his study there for financial reasons. But his brilliance was recognized and he was offered a mathematic teaching position on the faculty in 1589. A little later he took a position on the faculty of the University of Padua teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy. He held this position until 1610. It was during this time that he explored science and made his most important discoveries.
Even though Galileo was a devout Catholic he fathered three children out of wedlock, two daughters and one son. All were the children of Galileo and Marina Gamba. By the law in those days, the daughters had to go to a convent because of their illegitimacy and attended the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri.
In 1612 he went to Rome and joined the Accademia dei Lincei. Opposition to the Copernican theory which Galileo supported arose primarily from the Catholic Church. The Copernican theory suggested that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the “universe”. In 1614 a Catholic priest from the pulpit denounced Galileo’s opinions about the motions of the planets as being on the cusp of heresy. Galileo went to Rome to defend himself from these accusations. But in 1616 Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino personally handed Galileo an admonition enjoining him from advocating or teaching the Copernican theory as religious doctrine. Galileo did not back off totally from his beliefs and published two different books that danced around the Copernican theory without really advocating it. In 1632 he was called to appear before the Holy Office in Rome. The court condemned his teachings and was held in prison until December 1633 when he was allowed to retire to his villa in Arcetri under house arrest. This outrage with the church sticking their bloody nose into academia just confirms my belief that the church should stick to saving my soul and let academia do its thing unmolested. Anyway, this great mind left this earth on January 8, 1642 at the age of 78. Galileo was totally blind for the last year of his life and was escorted by one of his students, Vincenzo Viviani, who was with him when he died.
Galileo’s contributions to the scientific world are almost too many to count. The biggest problem that he had was before he could teach a theory to his students he had to pass it before the hierarchy of the church first. He was staunchly opposed to the blind obedience to an authority (like the church) or other thinkers (like Aristotle) in matters of science so as to keep a separation between philosophy and religion. These thoughts are why Galileo is known as “the father of science”. He pioneered the use of quantitative experiments and analyzing the results mathematically. There had never been such a procedure used in the history of science but it is well used to this day. Galileo said “The language of God is mathematics.” Up until this point the scientists followed Aristotle’s logic unquestioned, not mathematics. Then came Galileo explaining that all falling bodies fall at the same rate regardless of their weight, air resistance not withstanding. This is the exact opposite of what was taught by Aristotle. Galileo did an experiment off the leaning tower of Pisa whereby he dropped two different sized balls simultaneously and they hit the ground at the same time. Later scientists used his information in computing terminal velocity. Galileo did not invent the telescope but improved it enough to where he could discern the four moons of Jupiter and determined that they were in orbit around Jupiter and was able to plot sun spots. He published his first treatise on what he had observed in the sky with a small pamphlet named “Sidereal Messenger”. When Galileo stated that the four moons of Jupiter were in orbit around Jupiter, the other scientists and the ever loving church about peed their pants because it was the church’s theory that everything orbited the Earth. Another thing that went a long way toward the Earth not being the center of the universe was that Galileo saw that Venus went through phases like the moon meaning it was orbiting the sun, not the Earth. He also observed that the Moon had a rough and irregular surface and he made rough estimates as to their height by observing the shadows. Aristotle had said that the Moon was a perfect sphere. All of the brilliant scientific minds of the time could not describe what caused the tides, including Galileo. He said it was centrifugal force, he was wrong. It took Isaac Newton and his laws of gravity to settle this issue. Galileo understood the mathematics required to dissect and measure the area of a parabola. There is almost no limit to where Galileo’s star would have risen had it not been for the interference of the church. Speaking of Isaac Newton, he was born one year, almost to the day, after Galileo died. And that ain’t all. The famous present day astrophysicist Stephen Hawking was born to the day 300 years after the death of Isaac Newton. Both Hawking and Newton were Englishmen, both attended Cambridge University and both were/are presidents of the Lucasian and Royal Societies. I ask this question: Are Galileo, Newton and Hawking the same person? In my mind, there are too many coincidences to ignore.
By the way, It took the Catholic Church until the 19th century to admit they were wrong about fostering the earth as being the center of the Universe. Religious beliefs taught in schools? I don’t think so.
This date in history July 23
1967 There was an area in inner city Detroit called Virginia Park on 12th street. At this point in time there were about 80,000 blacks crammed into about 460 acres living in rat infested absolute squalor. The only white faces seen were shop owners that commuted in to run their businesses. A black man named William Scott ran an illegal after-hours club in the “community center”. At 3:30am on this date, the Detroit police raided Scott’s club. The people that were in there (about 80) were reluctant to leave and the police called in some paddy-wagons and began arrested the patrons. A crowd began to gather on the sidewalk outside the club and some harsh words were thrown at the cops. Then there was a bottle broken on the sidewalk, and then another and soon the cops were under an all out attack and a riot was under way. The cops beat a hasty retreat and thousands of others spilled out into the streets and wholesale looting began. About 6:00am a fire was detected in one of the buildings and soon the whole block was aflame. The riot spread like wildfire and there was nothing the Detroit police could do to stop it. When firemen showed up to fight the fire, they were shot at by snipers and had their fire hoses cut. Finally the mayor of Detroit called Governor George Romney and asked for help and he sent in the National Guard. Even these troops were over their head and Governor Romney asked for federal help from the President, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson sent in the long suffering 82nd Airborne who began patrolling the streets in armored vehicles but that did not stop it, the riot had spread to a very large area. Finally after 4 days of unabated riots, things began to calm down. The tally was 46 killed, 324 wounded, 7,000 arrested and 5,000 homeless. It was the worst riot in the United States in 100 years. I don’t really get it. Why burn down your own town? But I have never had to live in rat infested absolute squalor.
1878 On this date a highway bandit known as “Black Bart” stops and robs a stage coach in California. It was Bart’s style to wear a flour sack with eye holes cut in it on his head and did not speak in a threatening manner. He took the strong box containing $400 and a diamond watch and ring from one of the passengers. The strong box with a note inside was recovered by law enforcement. The note read:
“Here I lay me down to sleep
To await the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow,
Yet come what will, I’ll try it once
My condition can’t be worse,
And if there is money in that box,
‘Tis money in my purse.”
This was not the first time that Bart had robbed a stage of the strong box and left a poem but it was the last time that he got away with it. On his next heist he retrieved over $4,000 from the strong box but he mistakenly dropped a handkerchief. The cops found a laundry mark on it and traced it to an elderly man named Charles Bolton living in San Francisco. He was arrested but bristled when the police called him a “ruthless robber”. Bolton emphatically insisted that he was a gentleman that had gotten used to living the high life. He did a short stretch in the slammer and was paroled because of his age. He spent the rest of his days relaxing in Nevada.
1917 On this date Della Sorenson kills her first of seven victims when she poisons her sister-in-law’s infant daughter. Over the next seven years friends, relatives and acquaintances die under mysterious circumstances. Her next victim was her mother-in-law who was also poisoned as they all were. She did not stop there; she poisoned her own daughter and then her husband. Waiting only 4 months, Della re-married and moved to Dannebrog, Nebraska. Shortly after this she was visited by a former sister-in-law and her infant child. You guessed it; Della fed that baby poisoned candy and he died. The same sister-in-law came back a year later with another baby. She was obviously oblivious to what Della was up to. Della fed this baby poison but it just got sick and recovered. The same thing happened to her second husband; he was poisoned and was sickened but recovered. She delivered a daughter of her own and when the child was one year old, Della poisoned and killed her. The police finally figured out that all these deaths were not a coincidence and arrested Della. She confessed and said “I really like going to funerals, I like to see people die.” The police and the justice system in their wisdom figured that Della was a fruit cake and she spent the rest of her days in an asylum. While there she tried to get the prison officials to get her some rat poison.
Born today:
1888 US writer Raymond Chandler. He was the author of only seven novels but was enormously popular. He invented a hard nosed private detective named Phillip Marlowe and most of his novels included the Marlowe character. One Marlowe’s famous lines was “She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.” I think I know this woman.
1912 British actor Michael Wilding. He said “You can always tell an actor by the glazed look in their eyes when the conversation wanders away from them.” Then that must mean that most of the people I have seen in “Richard’s” the biker bar near Mount Pleasant are actors because they have a glazed look in their eyes but I think it ain’t because of their egos.
1973 Cigar model and all around good egg, Monica Lewinsky. When speaking of alleged friend Linda Tripp she said “She can reconstruct her face, hair and body but she is still revolting to me.” Monica left the Clinton White House as a living legacy.
2001 Award winning author, photographer and died in the wool Mississippian Eudora Welty. She said “Never think you have seen the last of anything.” Say it isn’t so, Eudora. Think of when Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Diane Feinstein and Lindsay Graham, et al are gone, for crying out loud.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
The format for today will be a little different. The first segment is about one of the greatest scientific minds that world had ever known but the dispersion of his enlightenments was suppressed by the Catholic Church because what truths he had undeniably discovered was not what the Pope believed. Galileo was not the only one that was suppressed in this fashion, in fact there were hundreds if not thousands that were tortured and killed because their beliefs were opposed to the Vatican tenets. I did have one subscriber that tried to tell me that the Catholic Church is not a subject to be discussed in an unflattering manner because she was very sensitive to criticism of her church. How can this person ignore the thousands of human being that were slaughtered in the most unspeakable manner in the name of the Catholic Church? Anyway, a blog is not a news report; it is an expression of one person’s opinion and is not, under any circumstance, subject to censorship.
The regular history lesson will follow the biography.
Galileo Galilei
The Father of Modern Science
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the son of Vincenzo Galilei who was a mathematician and musician. His mother was Guilia Ammannati. Galileo was the youngest of seven children. From a very early age he was tutored and attended the University of Pisa but was forced to cease his study there for financial reasons. But his brilliance was recognized and he was offered a mathematic teaching position on the faculty in 1589. A little later he took a position on the faculty of the University of Padua teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy. He held this position until 1610. It was during this time that he explored science and made his most important discoveries.
Even though Galileo was a devout Catholic he fathered three children out of wedlock, two daughters and one son. All were the children of Galileo and Marina Gamba. By the law in those days, the daughters had to go to a convent because of their illegitimacy and attended the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri.
In 1612 he went to Rome and joined the Accademia dei Lincei. Opposition to the Copernican theory which Galileo supported arose primarily from the Catholic Church. The Copernican theory suggested that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the “universe”. In 1614 a Catholic priest from the pulpit denounced Galileo’s opinions about the motions of the planets as being on the cusp of heresy. Galileo went to Rome to defend himself from these accusations. But in 1616 Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino personally handed Galileo an admonition enjoining him from advocating or teaching the Copernican theory as religious doctrine. Galileo did not back off totally from his beliefs and published two different books that danced around the Copernican theory without really advocating it. In 1632 he was called to appear before the Holy Office in Rome. The court condemned his teachings and was held in prison until December 1633 when he was allowed to retire to his villa in Arcetri under house arrest. This outrage with the church sticking their bloody nose into academia just confirms my belief that the church should stick to saving my soul and let academia do its thing unmolested. Anyway, this great mind left this earth on January 8, 1642 at the age of 78. Galileo was totally blind for the last year of his life and was escorted by one of his students, Vincenzo Viviani, who was with him when he died.
Galileo’s contributions to the scientific world are almost too many to count. The biggest problem that he had was before he could teach a theory to his students he had to pass it before the hierarchy of the church first. He was staunchly opposed to the blind obedience to an authority (like the church) or other thinkers (like Aristotle) in matters of science so as to keep a separation between philosophy and religion. These thoughts are why Galileo is known as “the father of science”. He pioneered the use of quantitative experiments and analyzing the results mathematically. There had never been such a procedure used in the history of science but it is well used to this day. Galileo said “The language of God is mathematics.” Up until this point the scientists followed Aristotle’s logic unquestioned, not mathematics. Then came Galileo explaining that all falling bodies fall at the same rate regardless of their weight, air resistance not withstanding. This is the exact opposite of what was taught by Aristotle. Galileo did an experiment off the leaning tower of Pisa whereby he dropped two different sized balls simultaneously and they hit the ground at the same time. Later scientists used his information in computing terminal velocity. Galileo did not invent the telescope but improved it enough to where he could discern the four moons of Jupiter and determined that they were in orbit around Jupiter and was able to plot sun spots. He published his first treatise on what he had observed in the sky with a small pamphlet named “Sidereal Messenger”. When Galileo stated that the four moons of Jupiter were in orbit around Jupiter, the other scientists and the ever loving church about peed their pants because it was the church’s theory that everything orbited the Earth. Another thing that went a long way toward the Earth not being the center of the universe was that Galileo saw that Venus went through phases like the moon meaning it was orbiting the sun, not the Earth. He also observed that the Moon had a rough and irregular surface and he made rough estimates as to their height by observing the shadows. Aristotle had said that the Moon was a perfect sphere. All of the brilliant scientific minds of the time could not describe what caused the tides, including Galileo. He said it was centrifugal force, he was wrong. It took Isaac Newton and his laws of gravity to settle this issue. Galileo understood the mathematics required to dissect and measure the area of a parabola. There is almost no limit to where Galileo’s star would have risen had it not been for the interference of the church. Speaking of Isaac Newton, he was born one year, almost to the day, after Galileo died. And that ain’t all. The famous present day astrophysicist Stephen Hawking was born to the day 300 years after the death of Isaac Newton. Both Hawking and Newton were Englishmen, both attended Cambridge University and both were/are presidents of the Lucasian and Royal Societies. I ask this question: Are Galileo, Newton and Hawking the same person? In my mind, there are too many coincidences to ignore.
By the way, It took the Catholic Church until the 19th century to admit they were wrong about fostering the earth as being the center of the Universe. Religious beliefs taught in schools? I don’t think so.
This date in history July 23
1967 There was an area in inner city Detroit called Virginia Park on 12th street. At this point in time there were about 80,000 blacks crammed into about 460 acres living in rat infested absolute squalor. The only white faces seen were shop owners that commuted in to run their businesses. A black man named William Scott ran an illegal after-hours club in the “community center”. At 3:30am on this date, the Detroit police raided Scott’s club. The people that were in there (about 80) were reluctant to leave and the police called in some paddy-wagons and began arrested the patrons. A crowd began to gather on the sidewalk outside the club and some harsh words were thrown at the cops. Then there was a bottle broken on the sidewalk, and then another and soon the cops were under an all out attack and a riot was under way. The cops beat a hasty retreat and thousands of others spilled out into the streets and wholesale looting began. About 6:00am a fire was detected in one of the buildings and soon the whole block was aflame. The riot spread like wildfire and there was nothing the Detroit police could do to stop it. When firemen showed up to fight the fire, they were shot at by snipers and had their fire hoses cut. Finally the mayor of Detroit called Governor George Romney and asked for help and he sent in the National Guard. Even these troops were over their head and Governor Romney asked for federal help from the President, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson sent in the long suffering 82nd Airborne who began patrolling the streets in armored vehicles but that did not stop it, the riot had spread to a very large area. Finally after 4 days of unabated riots, things began to calm down. The tally was 46 killed, 324 wounded, 7,000 arrested and 5,000 homeless. It was the worst riot in the United States in 100 years. I don’t really get it. Why burn down your own town? But I have never had to live in rat infested absolute squalor.
1878 On this date a highway bandit known as “Black Bart” stops and robs a stage coach in California. It was Bart’s style to wear a flour sack with eye holes cut in it on his head and did not speak in a threatening manner. He took the strong box containing $400 and a diamond watch and ring from one of the passengers. The strong box with a note inside was recovered by law enforcement. The note read:
“Here I lay me down to sleep
To await the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow,
Yet come what will, I’ll try it once
My condition can’t be worse,
And if there is money in that box,
‘Tis money in my purse.”
This was not the first time that Bart had robbed a stage of the strong box and left a poem but it was the last time that he got away with it. On his next heist he retrieved over $4,000 from the strong box but he mistakenly dropped a handkerchief. The cops found a laundry mark on it and traced it to an elderly man named Charles Bolton living in San Francisco. He was arrested but bristled when the police called him a “ruthless robber”. Bolton emphatically insisted that he was a gentleman that had gotten used to living the high life. He did a short stretch in the slammer and was paroled because of his age. He spent the rest of his days relaxing in Nevada.
1917 On this date Della Sorenson kills her first of seven victims when she poisons her sister-in-law’s infant daughter. Over the next seven years friends, relatives and acquaintances die under mysterious circumstances. Her next victim was her mother-in-law who was also poisoned as they all were. She did not stop there; she poisoned her own daughter and then her husband. Waiting only 4 months, Della re-married and moved to Dannebrog, Nebraska. Shortly after this she was visited by a former sister-in-law and her infant child. You guessed it; Della fed that baby poisoned candy and he died. The same sister-in-law came back a year later with another baby. She was obviously oblivious to what Della was up to. Della fed this baby poison but it just got sick and recovered. The same thing happened to her second husband; he was poisoned and was sickened but recovered. She delivered a daughter of her own and when the child was one year old, Della poisoned and killed her. The police finally figured out that all these deaths were not a coincidence and arrested Della. She confessed and said “I really like going to funerals, I like to see people die.” The police and the justice system in their wisdom figured that Della was a fruit cake and she spent the rest of her days in an asylum. While there she tried to get the prison officials to get her some rat poison.
Born today:
1888 US writer Raymond Chandler. He was the author of only seven novels but was enormously popular. He invented a hard nosed private detective named Phillip Marlowe and most of his novels included the Marlowe character. One Marlowe’s famous lines was “She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.” I think I know this woman.
1912 British actor Michael Wilding. He said “You can always tell an actor by the glazed look in their eyes when the conversation wanders away from them.” Then that must mean that most of the people I have seen in “Richard’s” the biker bar near Mount Pleasant are actors because they have a glazed look in their eyes but I think it ain’t because of their egos.
1973 Cigar model and all around good egg, Monica Lewinsky. When speaking of alleged friend Linda Tripp she said “She can reconstruct her face, hair and body but she is still revolting to me.” Monica left the Clinton White House as a living legacy.
2001 Award winning author, photographer and died in the wool Mississippian Eudora Welty. She said “Never think you have seen the last of anything.” Say it isn’t so, Eudora. Think of when Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Diane Feinstein and Lindsay Graham, et al are gone, for crying out loud.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day;
I have sent this out before; it is time for it again.
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I did not have a single talent left and could say “I used all that you gave me.”
Erma Bombeck
I have been taken to task lightly because of my reports about the Catholic Church that I read in several news sources. The complaint is not that I report them; it is the embellishments that I add. After all even Pope Benedict acknowledges that there is a problem.
Then last week I reported about a Pentecostal Holiness minister that hit hard on a fifteen year old girl that was cleaning his house and was forced to resign. So I feel obliged to touch on some of the other religions.
Back in the 1870’s the Ku Klux Klan was fostered heavily by the Southern Baptists and Methodists.
In 1875 the Mormons attacked a wagon train that was traveling from Arkansas to California and were passing through Utah. At a place called Mountain Meadows a Morman militia disguised as Paiute Indians along with some real Paiutes attacked the wagon train for no apparent reason. The Immigrants fought back and the fight came to a standoff. A couple of Mormons identified themselves and told the Immigrants that if they surrendered their weapons, they would be allowed to continue. They did indeed surrender their weapons but the Mormon’s resumed their attack and a massacre was the result. They would not kill the women, they assigned the Paiutes that task and they did not kill anyone younger than 8 years old. The final death toll was 120 and the corpses were allowed to lie on the prairie for two years until a US Cavalry unit found them. All religions are populated by human beings and we cannot expect behavior any different.
I was also taken to task for making somewhat uncalled for remarks about women. I try to be fair when it comes to that.
I will use that tired old cliché that a lot of my friends are women as is many of my heroes. All of you subscribers out there may or may not know that I have had three wives and two live-ins and several dating girlfriends. These experiences will add a particular flavor to my editorials. By the way, I am between wives and/or girlfriends at the present.
A couple of days ago the Spartanburg city cops were called to a disturbance at a McDonalds. It seems that a 39 year old lady was pretty hammered and was getting unruly. She had ordered two hamburgers and two small coffees to go. When she was handed the bag she went to the restroom and returned claiming that there was only one hamburger in the bag. Y’all see what is coming. The workers at McDonalds began to see a grease stain forming in the crotch of the lady’s shorts and so did the cops. The cops cuffed the lady and a female cop came and dipped her hand into her shorts and retrieved a hamburger. I would like to see a show of hands of those that would eat the hamburger….That’s what I thought.
This day in history July 22
1934 FBI agent Melvin Purvis had been hunting gangster John Dillinger for a few years without success. So he decided that he had to do something else besides trying to anticipate where John would be at any given time. Purvis began an investigation into who was on the perimeter of John’s group of gangsters. It turned out that there was a woman in Chicago that Dillinger would go to from time to time to hide out. This woman was an illegal alien from one of the Balkan countries. Purvis found this out and had a meeting with this woman and told her that either she helped them catch Dillinger or she would be deported. She agreed and a few months later she called Purvis and told him that Dillinger was coming by for a visit. Purvis told her to get Dillinger out of the house and call him and tell him how she was going to do it. She called back and said that she and John were going to the movies. As you might suspect, Dillinger loved gangster movies and wanted to see “Manhattan Melodrama” starring Clark Gable. On this date the movie was being shown at the Biograph theatre and Purvis and company had the theatre surrounded. Dillinger and his girl friend came out and after they moved away from the front door, Purvis approached with gun drawn and ordered Dillinger to surrender. Dillinger ducks into a nearby alley and produces a pistol of his own and begins firing. Well, John had no idea as to how many men he was facing because all of them opened fire and poor John went down in hailstorm of gunfire. This was the end to one of the most recognized criminals in American history. By the way, they deported the woman anyway.
2003 On this date US forces encircle a large house in northwestern Baghdad. They suspected that Saddam Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday were inside. They found out for sure when a firefight began. The fight lasted three hours and ended with the American forces brought in a piece of armor and nearly shot the house down. Sure enough Qusay and Uday were indeed in the house dead as fried chicken. They were both monsters with Uday leaning more toward exotic methods of torture. The quick death they received was too good for them they should have left it up to me and my redneck friends.
1991 On this date the Milwaukee PD see a naked teenager in hand cuffs running down the street so they stop and to find out what the hell is going on. The teen named Tracy Edwards tells the police that he had been held hostage and his life had been threatened. Well, the cops think that young Tracy is doing a dance around something really fishy so they escort him back to the apartment he said he escaped from. An amiable young man answered the door and explained that it had been just a misunderstanding and nothing illegal had occurred. The cops bought it and were on their way out when one of them spotted a couple of Polaroid photos of dismembered body parts and thus began the discovery of the den of horrors of a man named Jeffrey Dahmer. The cops call for back-up and soon the full impact of what this demon had propagated came to light. It was something out of Dante’s Inferno. He had hundred of various and sundry human body parts stuffed in his freezer and refrigerator. He had two genuine human skulls on top of his TV. On the stove was a kind of stew containing human organs. The police could not believe what they were seeing but they took Dahmer into custody and charged him with a plethora of offenses, including cannibalism. During subsequent investigations the cops found out the Dahmer would prowl that gay community of Milwaukee looking for the youngest male he could find, take them home and kill and dissect them. Not only that, he would use some of the body parts in a variety of recipes including the previously mentioned stew. Needless to say, he went to the slammer for life. I would be content with that knowing what kind of treatment he would be facing. Hopefully his roomie was a 350 pound, 6’-5” sexual pervert. He had been in prison for just a short while when the worst possible thing happened. One of the other prisoners stuck a shank in his liver and he died, damn it. By the way, a shank is a knife that is made of something different like a toothbrush or a fork or a sliver of Plexiglas, ya’ll get the picture.
1795 Earlier the Northwest Fur Company had assigned Alexander McKenzie to an outpost in Alberta, Canada. McKenzie was the restless type so he began to hunt for a river that would end in the Pacific. He started with the river that is named for him but it emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Then he tried the Peace River but it was impassable so McKenzie said to hell with it and struck out cross-country. On this date he arrived at the Pacific Ocean. He did this trip of discovery all on his on without governmental assistance. Twelve years later the US government sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the Pacific near present day Astoria, Oregon.
Born today:
1844 English religious leader and dyslexic William Spooner. He wrote this. “Sir, you have tasted two whole worms, you have hissed at all of my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad. You will leave Oxford by the next town drain.” This reminds me of g.
1955 US actor Willam Dafoe. He said “I am not a weird person. I am just a square from Wisconsin.” I know another square from Wisconsin, but he ain’t an actor, he designs pipe in 3D. I know what you are thinking. What is there to design about pipe? It is cylindrical, rigid and is of various lengths and diameters. I ain’t going any further with this.
1964 Colombian actor John Leguizamo. He said “Latino for Republicans is like roaches for Raid.” I met a girl a few nights ago whose cologne smelled like Raid. I asked her what she was wearing and she said “Red”, whatever that is. So if any of ya’ll have a bug problem, you can substitute “Red” for Raid.
Died today:
1967 US poet Carl Sandburg. He said “I have only made a mistake in grammar once in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.” Hey Carl, you should not ought to have did it.
Quotable quotes:
“When I was a kid the Dead Sea was only sick.” George Burns
“Opera is where a man is stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings.” Robert Benchley
“Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.” Doug Larson
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
Quote of the day;
I have sent this out before; it is time for it again.
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I did not have a single talent left and could say “I used all that you gave me.”
Erma Bombeck
I have been taken to task lightly because of my reports about the Catholic Church that I read in several news sources. The complaint is not that I report them; it is the embellishments that I add. After all even Pope Benedict acknowledges that there is a problem.
Then last week I reported about a Pentecostal Holiness minister that hit hard on a fifteen year old girl that was cleaning his house and was forced to resign. So I feel obliged to touch on some of the other religions.
Back in the 1870’s the Ku Klux Klan was fostered heavily by the Southern Baptists and Methodists.
In 1875 the Mormons attacked a wagon train that was traveling from Arkansas to California and were passing through Utah. At a place called Mountain Meadows a Morman militia disguised as Paiute Indians along with some real Paiutes attacked the wagon train for no apparent reason. The Immigrants fought back and the fight came to a standoff. A couple of Mormons identified themselves and told the Immigrants that if they surrendered their weapons, they would be allowed to continue. They did indeed surrender their weapons but the Mormon’s resumed their attack and a massacre was the result. They would not kill the women, they assigned the Paiutes that task and they did not kill anyone younger than 8 years old. The final death toll was 120 and the corpses were allowed to lie on the prairie for two years until a US Cavalry unit found them. All religions are populated by human beings and we cannot expect behavior any different.
I was also taken to task for making somewhat uncalled for remarks about women. I try to be fair when it comes to that.
I will use that tired old cliché that a lot of my friends are women as is many of my heroes. All of you subscribers out there may or may not know that I have had three wives and two live-ins and several dating girlfriends. These experiences will add a particular flavor to my editorials. By the way, I am between wives and/or girlfriends at the present.
A couple of days ago the Spartanburg city cops were called to a disturbance at a McDonalds. It seems that a 39 year old lady was pretty hammered and was getting unruly. She had ordered two hamburgers and two small coffees to go. When she was handed the bag she went to the restroom and returned claiming that there was only one hamburger in the bag. Y’all see what is coming. The workers at McDonalds began to see a grease stain forming in the crotch of the lady’s shorts and so did the cops. The cops cuffed the lady and a female cop came and dipped her hand into her shorts and retrieved a hamburger. I would like to see a show of hands of those that would eat the hamburger….That’s what I thought.
This day in history July 22
1934 FBI agent Melvin Purvis had been hunting gangster John Dillinger for a few years without success. So he decided that he had to do something else besides trying to anticipate where John would be at any given time. Purvis began an investigation into who was on the perimeter of John’s group of gangsters. It turned out that there was a woman in Chicago that Dillinger would go to from time to time to hide out. This woman was an illegal alien from one of the Balkan countries. Purvis found this out and had a meeting with this woman and told her that either she helped them catch Dillinger or she would be deported. She agreed and a few months later she called Purvis and told him that Dillinger was coming by for a visit. Purvis told her to get Dillinger out of the house and call him and tell him how she was going to do it. She called back and said that she and John were going to the movies. As you might suspect, Dillinger loved gangster movies and wanted to see “Manhattan Melodrama” starring Clark Gable. On this date the movie was being shown at the Biograph theatre and Purvis and company had the theatre surrounded. Dillinger and his girl friend came out and after they moved away from the front door, Purvis approached with gun drawn and ordered Dillinger to surrender. Dillinger ducks into a nearby alley and produces a pistol of his own and begins firing. Well, John had no idea as to how many men he was facing because all of them opened fire and poor John went down in hailstorm of gunfire. This was the end to one of the most recognized criminals in American history. By the way, they deported the woman anyway.
2003 On this date US forces encircle a large house in northwestern Baghdad. They suspected that Saddam Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday were inside. They found out for sure when a firefight began. The fight lasted three hours and ended with the American forces brought in a piece of armor and nearly shot the house down. Sure enough Qusay and Uday were indeed in the house dead as fried chicken. They were both monsters with Uday leaning more toward exotic methods of torture. The quick death they received was too good for them they should have left it up to me and my redneck friends.
1991 On this date the Milwaukee PD see a naked teenager in hand cuffs running down the street so they stop and to find out what the hell is going on. The teen named Tracy Edwards tells the police that he had been held hostage and his life had been threatened. Well, the cops think that young Tracy is doing a dance around something really fishy so they escort him back to the apartment he said he escaped from. An amiable young man answered the door and explained that it had been just a misunderstanding and nothing illegal had occurred. The cops bought it and were on their way out when one of them spotted a couple of Polaroid photos of dismembered body parts and thus began the discovery of the den of horrors of a man named Jeffrey Dahmer. The cops call for back-up and soon the full impact of what this demon had propagated came to light. It was something out of Dante’s Inferno. He had hundred of various and sundry human body parts stuffed in his freezer and refrigerator. He had two genuine human skulls on top of his TV. On the stove was a kind of stew containing human organs. The police could not believe what they were seeing but they took Dahmer into custody and charged him with a plethora of offenses, including cannibalism. During subsequent investigations the cops found out the Dahmer would prowl that gay community of Milwaukee looking for the youngest male he could find, take them home and kill and dissect them. Not only that, he would use some of the body parts in a variety of recipes including the previously mentioned stew. Needless to say, he went to the slammer for life. I would be content with that knowing what kind of treatment he would be facing. Hopefully his roomie was a 350 pound, 6’-5” sexual pervert. He had been in prison for just a short while when the worst possible thing happened. One of the other prisoners stuck a shank in his liver and he died, damn it. By the way, a shank is a knife that is made of something different like a toothbrush or a fork or a sliver of Plexiglas, ya’ll get the picture.
1795 Earlier the Northwest Fur Company had assigned Alexander McKenzie to an outpost in Alberta, Canada. McKenzie was the restless type so he began to hunt for a river that would end in the Pacific. He started with the river that is named for him but it emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Then he tried the Peace River but it was impassable so McKenzie said to hell with it and struck out cross-country. On this date he arrived at the Pacific Ocean. He did this trip of discovery all on his on without governmental assistance. Twelve years later the US government sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the Pacific near present day Astoria, Oregon.
Born today:
1844 English religious leader and dyslexic William Spooner. He wrote this. “Sir, you have tasted two whole worms, you have hissed at all of my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad. You will leave Oxford by the next town drain.” This reminds me of g.
1955 US actor Willam Dafoe. He said “I am not a weird person. I am just a square from Wisconsin.” I know another square from Wisconsin, but he ain’t an actor, he designs pipe in 3D. I know what you are thinking. What is there to design about pipe? It is cylindrical, rigid and is of various lengths and diameters. I ain’t going any further with this.
1964 Colombian actor John Leguizamo. He said “Latino for Republicans is like roaches for Raid.” I met a girl a few nights ago whose cologne smelled like Raid. I asked her what she was wearing and she said “Red”, whatever that is. So if any of ya’ll have a bug problem, you can substitute “Red” for Raid.
Died today:
1967 US poet Carl Sandburg. He said “I have only made a mistake in grammar once in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.” Hey Carl, you should not ought to have did it.
Quotable quotes:
“When I was a kid the Dead Sea was only sick.” George Burns
“Opera is where a man is stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings.” Robert Benchley
“Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.” Doug Larson
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires and a touch that never hurts.”
Charles Dickens
I have to give y’all a little background before I make my point. Since the 16th century the peoples of Central America and northern South American had been under the heel of the King of Spain via a series of conquistadors (military conquerors). In the early 19th Century a military hero arose from the populous that was opposed to the tyranny of the Spaniards. He was an aristocratic son of Basque family that had moved to present day Venezuela in about 1750. At an early age he was trained as a military leader and began a series of reprisals against the repressive Spanish military units. His given title contained seven names but he became known as Simon Bolivar. Through a series of successes on the battlefield, he drove the Spanish army out of northern South America. Without the Spanish army to back them up, the Spanish rulers quickly ran for home. He is given credit for liberating Venezuela, Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru providing for their independence. Bolivar died and was buried in a gigantic vault in what is now Caracas, Venezuela, and now to the point.
The present moron president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has always said that he is blood kin to Simon Bolivar and now he is going to prove it. He has ordered the remains of Simon Bolivar to be exhumed (he has been dead since about 1840) so that a sample of Bolivar’s bone marrow can be taken and a DNA comparison can be made. How egotistical can you get to dishonor a national hero like Bolivar? It would be like if Barak Obama wanted George Washington’s remains exhumed so a DNA comparison could be made with him to see if they were related. By the way, the country of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) totally owns Chevron. Keep that in mind the next time you need gas.
KMIM Bard, I depend on it.
I have included two Medal of Honor citations at the end lest we forget the dedication and courage of the American soldier.
To those that feel like my writings are subject to your approval or disapporoval you are mistaken. What I think and/or write about is not an object of your "probation" or not. You are right, the 1st Amendment still exists and I will write an opinion about anything I want including the church of your choice. Forget anything I have asked your opinion on because it is obvious that your opinion is paramaount to others may have and therefore I will make my own decisions. A leader? I don't think so. What ever your opinion is from now on will be on MY my probation list. You are far more important in your mind than is reality. I hope happiness finds you...but you are just a minor particle of my subscribers list that reaches from Wales, Scotland and over to Denver. I am not on their "probation." Goodbye. Who the hell do you think you are?
This date in History July 21
1861 On this date the first major battle of the War of Northern Aggression (The American Civil War) was fought at a railroad junction near the Virginia town of Manassas which was about 22 miles west of Washington, DC. The Union army had sent General Irvin McDowell and a force of 34,000 ill-trained and ill-equipped militiamen to seek out and subdue a Confederate army known to be nearby. As the Union army was heading toward Manassas civilians fell in line and followed them to watch the Rebs get spanked. The Confederates were led by CSA General P.T.G Beauregard (former superintendent at West Point as was R. E. Lee) commanding a force of 20,000 who were joined by CSA General Joseph Johnston and a force of 9,000 brought in by railroad shortly before the battle. At the outset the Union forces were able to drive back the right flank of the Confederates but Beauregard establish a line of defense on Henry House Hill with a unit of Virginia infantry led by CSA General Thomas J. Jackson anchoring the right flank. The Union army attacked Jackson’s unit and were repulsed several times, Jackson’s men just could not be dislodged. It was at this action that General Jackson gained the nickname of “Stonewall”. Finally the Confederates counter-attacked and the great majority of the Union army broke and ran back toward Washington and literally ran over the civilians watching the action. Before this battle the Union army and politicians thought the Confederates would be easily defeated with a minimum loss of life. After this battle the Union army suffered 3,000 casualties, the Confederates 2,000 both sides realized it was going to be long and bloody conflict.
BORDELON, WILLIAM JAMES
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 25 December 1920, San Antonio, Texas.
Citation:
For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machinegun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machinegun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon's great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
INOUYE, DANIEL K.
Second Lieutenant Daniel K. Inouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 21 April 1945, in the vicinity of San Terenzo, Italy. While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper's bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions. In the attack, 25 enemy soldiers were killed and eight others captured. By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge. Second Lieutenant Inouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
Lieutenant Inouye was of Japanese ancestry and his parents were interred during the war. He was born in Hawaii and after the war he became a well respected United States Senator.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires and a touch that never hurts.”
Charles Dickens
I have to give y’all a little background before I make my point. Since the 16th century the peoples of Central America and northern South American had been under the heel of the King of Spain via a series of conquistadors (military conquerors). In the early 19th Century a military hero arose from the populous that was opposed to the tyranny of the Spaniards. He was an aristocratic son of Basque family that had moved to present day Venezuela in about 1750. At an early age he was trained as a military leader and began a series of reprisals against the repressive Spanish military units. His given title contained seven names but he became known as Simon Bolivar. Through a series of successes on the battlefield, he drove the Spanish army out of northern South America. Without the Spanish army to back them up, the Spanish rulers quickly ran for home. He is given credit for liberating Venezuela, Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru providing for their independence. Bolivar died and was buried in a gigantic vault in what is now Caracas, Venezuela, and now to the point.
The present moron president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has always said that he is blood kin to Simon Bolivar and now he is going to prove it. He has ordered the remains of Simon Bolivar to be exhumed (he has been dead since about 1840) so that a sample of Bolivar’s bone marrow can be taken and a DNA comparison can be made. How egotistical can you get to dishonor a national hero like Bolivar? It would be like if Barak Obama wanted George Washington’s remains exhumed so a DNA comparison could be made with him to see if they were related. By the way, the country of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) totally owns Chevron. Keep that in mind the next time you need gas.
KMIM Bard, I depend on it.
I have included two Medal of Honor citations at the end lest we forget the dedication and courage of the American soldier.
To those that feel like my writings are subject to your approval or disapporoval you are mistaken. What I think and/or write about is not an object of your "probation" or not. You are right, the 1st Amendment still exists and I will write an opinion about anything I want including the church of your choice. Forget anything I have asked your opinion on because it is obvious that your opinion is paramaount to others may have and therefore I will make my own decisions. A leader? I don't think so. What ever your opinion is from now on will be on MY my probation list. You are far more important in your mind than is reality. I hope happiness finds you...but you are just a minor particle of my subscribers list that reaches from Wales, Scotland and over to Denver. I am not on their "probation." Goodbye. Who the hell do you think you are?
This date in History July 21
1861 On this date the first major battle of the War of Northern Aggression (The American Civil War) was fought at a railroad junction near the Virginia town of Manassas which was about 22 miles west of Washington, DC. The Union army had sent General Irvin McDowell and a force of 34,000 ill-trained and ill-equipped militiamen to seek out and subdue a Confederate army known to be nearby. As the Union army was heading toward Manassas civilians fell in line and followed them to watch the Rebs get spanked. The Confederates were led by CSA General P.T.G Beauregard (former superintendent at West Point as was R. E. Lee) commanding a force of 20,000 who were joined by CSA General Joseph Johnston and a force of 9,000 brought in by railroad shortly before the battle. At the outset the Union forces were able to drive back the right flank of the Confederates but Beauregard establish a line of defense on Henry House Hill with a unit of Virginia infantry led by CSA General Thomas J. Jackson anchoring the right flank. The Union army attacked Jackson’s unit and were repulsed several times, Jackson’s men just could not be dislodged. It was at this action that General Jackson gained the nickname of “Stonewall”. Finally the Confederates counter-attacked and the great majority of the Union army broke and ran back toward Washington and literally ran over the civilians watching the action. Before this battle the Union army and politicians thought the Confederates would be easily defeated with a minimum loss of life. After this battle the Union army suffered 3,000 casualties, the Confederates 2,000 both sides realized it was going to be long and bloody conflict.
BORDELON, WILLIAM JAMES
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 25 December 1920, San Antonio, Texas.
Citation:
For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machinegun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machinegun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon's great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
INOUYE, DANIEL K.
Second Lieutenant Daniel K. Inouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 21 April 1945, in the vicinity of San Terenzo, Italy. While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper's bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions. In the attack, 25 enemy soldiers were killed and eight others captured. By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge. Second Lieutenant Inouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
Lieutenant Inouye was of Japanese ancestry and his parents were interred during the war. He was born in Hawaii and after the war he became a well respected United States Senator.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom and flowers.”
Hans Christian Anderson
There was a meeting held last week in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was an informational meeting to update the fishermen on the Gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that are planning to file a claim for loss of income due to the oil well blowout. Federal authorities have forbidden fishing in the Gulf for the foreseeable future due to crude oil pollution. The federal government has appointed Kenneth Feinberg to administer the $20 billion fund that BP has established. In this meeting Feinberg stated that any money paid to the fishermen for using their boats to clean up the spill will be deducted from any claims they may file. He said that he wanted to be fair but he was not going to pay the claimants twice. I have mixed emotions here. I am sympathetic to the fishermen but they were indeed making a living by the use of their boats be it for fishing, skimming or laying out barrier booms. Many of the fishermen walked out in protest and swore they would not use their boats in the clean-up any longer.
A few days ago a man was waiting at a light rail station south of Charlotte, NC. He was approached by a man wielding a knife who demanded the man’s wallet. The man resisted slightly and was struck in face for his trouble and the robber took his wallet and ran. Very soon thereafter two men entered a nearby Target store and walking very swiftly went directly to the men’s room. The store manger thought this was pretty fishy and called the cops. You guessed it. The cops came and arrested them and one of the men was identified by the victim as the person that assaulted him. This is very ignorant planning by the robbers, y’all. But nowhere is it written that criminals must have intelligence.
I have a friend that used to sell merchandise out the trunk of his car. He was in a very unsavory neighborhood in the Atlanta area and had the trunk open to show his wares to potential customers. He walked away from his car about 20 feet and a man came up and began helping himself to what was in the trunk. My friend told the man to stop but was ignored so he opened the driver side car door and retrieved a .38 caliber revolver and pointed at the man and again told him to stop. The man took a step toward my friend and he shot the man in the right thigh. He went down, of course and the potential customer saw what happened and called the cops. The cops came and told my friend to lay the pistol down on the ground and back away which he did. The cops took one look at the man writhing on the ground and told my friend that he should have killed him because this man had a rap sheet a mile long but now the city was going to have to pay for his hospitalization. To them it was just a matter of economics.
This date in history July 20
1889 Earlier a barroom girl named Ella Watson met up with a barkeep named James Averill in a saloon down in Kansas. James had 320 acre homestead up in Wyoming. Ella and James decided to move onto the homestead unmarried, this would allow Ella to homestead her own 320 acres. They were legally within their rights to homestead this treeless grassland but the cattle barons were reluctant to give “their” lands to settlers. It really wasn’t all their land; many, many acres belonged to the United States Department of the Interior who was trying to bring people to settle the west. The only problem with Ella and James was they settled on land that cattle baron James Bothwell considered “open range” and wanted that land to graze his cattle. He had no legal way to kick them out so he did the next best thing. He accused Ella and James of rustling. On this date Bothwell and company captured the two and hanged them. Bothwell went to court but the “cattle man friendly” jury acquitted him. The American west was going through a transition from open range to barbed wire fenced ranches. The old-timers did not like it but it came anyway.
1969 “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed”. On this day those immortal words were uttered by astronaut Neil Armstrong upon the landing of the lunar excursion module (LEM) on the moon. This was known as the Apollo 11 mission. After taking a rest and getting into his space suit, Neil opened a hatch, crawled down a ladder and stepped onto the moon surface. He then gave us another immortal phrase in “That’s one small step for man and a giant leap for mankind.” We don’t do anymore manned lunar exploration now-a-days, but I remember Armstrong and Aldrin walking around on the moon and how thrilling it was. By the way, Buzz Aldrin claims to have seen a UFO.
1780 On this date US General Anthony “Mad Anthony” Wayne is tasked with capturing a British blockhouse located about 12 miles north of Hoboken, New Jersey. So Wayne assembled two brigades of Pennsylvania militia and headed out. The blockhouse is defended by 70 Loyalists (Americans fighting for the British). Wayne ordered the attack but it was repulsed as was two additional attacks. So Wayne says “to hell with it” and withdraws. As ya’ll know Wayne got his nickname when he ordered an attack on a British encampment late at night. He ordered his men to use bayonets only and they killed 94 British soldiers by bayoneting them in the throat and they died without making a sound. It takes all kinds.
The Saga of Cynthia
Cynthia Anne Parker was born in Crawford County, Illinois in 1826. When little Cynthia was seven years old, her family moved to east Texas to the headwaters of the Navasota River near present day Groesbeck, Texas. By 1834 the extended Parker family had completed Fort Parker. When Cynthia Anne was ten years old a large party of Comanche warriors swept down on the fort and after killing 5 men, the Comanche kidnapped two women and three children. The kidnapped children were Cynthia Anne, her brother John and a cousin named James Plummer. I cannot find out what happened to John and James but Cynthia Anne spent nearly 25 years with the Comanche. Her Comanche name was Naduah (Someone found) and she married a Comanche warrior named Pohtocnocony or as the white man called him, Peta Nocona. Cynthia and Peta Nocona had two sons, Quanah (Fragrant) and Pecos (Peanuts) and one daughter named Topsannah (Prairie Flower). Cynthia’s husband, Peta Nacona, was eventually named chief of the tribe. In December of 1860 a troop of Texas Rangers, led by Captain Sullivan Ross, surrounded and captured a group of Comanche near the Pease River. Included in this group were Cynthia and her infant daughter Prairie Flower. After interviewing Cynthia many of the Rangers told Captain Ross that they thought it would be best for Cynthia to be allowed to rejoin her adopted Native American family because she had spent so much time with them that they did not believe she could adapt to life with the whites. But Captain Ross had heard so many complaints about white children being kidnapped by the Natives that he thought it would be best for all concerned if they tried to rehabilitate her. Cynthia and Prairie Flower were sent to Camp Cooper where Cynthia was identified by an uncle named Isaac Parker. Isaac took Cynthia and Prairie Flower to his ranch near Birdville, Texas. The Texas legislature granted Cynthia a league of land which is equal to 4,428 acres and a pension of $100 per year for five years. Incidentally, most land grants given by the Mexican Government to the Anglo settlers was a “labor and a league”. A labor was 177 acres that had water frontage and a league was land without water frontage. They also named her uncles Isaac and Benjamin Parker as her guardians. It did not help. Cynthia was terminally homesick and tried to escape several times. In 1862 Cynthia went to live with her brother Silas in Van Zandt County, Texas. Silas was also named as her guardian. After Silas was mustered in the Confederate Army, Cynthia went to live with her sister Olrena. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parker family was in negotiation to send Cynthia back to live with her adopted family in west Texas but unfortunately the war got in the way. To make things much worse, in 1864 Prairie Flower died of influenza. This was bad enough but what made Cynthia so unhappy was that she missed her sons and did not know what had happened to them. Anyway she wasted away and died in 1870 of malnutrition at the age of 44 because she refused to eat. After several movements of her body she was finally put to rest beside her son Quanah and her daughter Prairie Flower in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Her son Quanah became a legend in the history of the American Indians and I will do a biography on him in the near future. The city of Quanah, Texas was named for him and the city of Nocona is named for Cynthia’s Comanche husband.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
Quote of the day:
“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom and flowers.”
Hans Christian Anderson
There was a meeting held last week in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was an informational meeting to update the fishermen on the Gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida that are planning to file a claim for loss of income due to the oil well blowout. Federal authorities have forbidden fishing in the Gulf for the foreseeable future due to crude oil pollution. The federal government has appointed Kenneth Feinberg to administer the $20 billion fund that BP has established. In this meeting Feinberg stated that any money paid to the fishermen for using their boats to clean up the spill will be deducted from any claims they may file. He said that he wanted to be fair but he was not going to pay the claimants twice. I have mixed emotions here. I am sympathetic to the fishermen but they were indeed making a living by the use of their boats be it for fishing, skimming or laying out barrier booms. Many of the fishermen walked out in protest and swore they would not use their boats in the clean-up any longer.
A few days ago a man was waiting at a light rail station south of Charlotte, NC. He was approached by a man wielding a knife who demanded the man’s wallet. The man resisted slightly and was struck in face for his trouble and the robber took his wallet and ran. Very soon thereafter two men entered a nearby Target store and walking very swiftly went directly to the men’s room. The store manger thought this was pretty fishy and called the cops. You guessed it. The cops came and arrested them and one of the men was identified by the victim as the person that assaulted him. This is very ignorant planning by the robbers, y’all. But nowhere is it written that criminals must have intelligence.
I have a friend that used to sell merchandise out the trunk of his car. He was in a very unsavory neighborhood in the Atlanta area and had the trunk open to show his wares to potential customers. He walked away from his car about 20 feet and a man came up and began helping himself to what was in the trunk. My friend told the man to stop but was ignored so he opened the driver side car door and retrieved a .38 caliber revolver and pointed at the man and again told him to stop. The man took a step toward my friend and he shot the man in the right thigh. He went down, of course and the potential customer saw what happened and called the cops. The cops came and told my friend to lay the pistol down on the ground and back away which he did. The cops took one look at the man writhing on the ground and told my friend that he should have killed him because this man had a rap sheet a mile long but now the city was going to have to pay for his hospitalization. To them it was just a matter of economics.
This date in history July 20
1889 Earlier a barroom girl named Ella Watson met up with a barkeep named James Averill in a saloon down in Kansas. James had 320 acre homestead up in Wyoming. Ella and James decided to move onto the homestead unmarried, this would allow Ella to homestead her own 320 acres. They were legally within their rights to homestead this treeless grassland but the cattle barons were reluctant to give “their” lands to settlers. It really wasn’t all their land; many, many acres belonged to the United States Department of the Interior who was trying to bring people to settle the west. The only problem with Ella and James was they settled on land that cattle baron James Bothwell considered “open range” and wanted that land to graze his cattle. He had no legal way to kick them out so he did the next best thing. He accused Ella and James of rustling. On this date Bothwell and company captured the two and hanged them. Bothwell went to court but the “cattle man friendly” jury acquitted him. The American west was going through a transition from open range to barbed wire fenced ranches. The old-timers did not like it but it came anyway.
1969 “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed”. On this day those immortal words were uttered by astronaut Neil Armstrong upon the landing of the lunar excursion module (LEM) on the moon. This was known as the Apollo 11 mission. After taking a rest and getting into his space suit, Neil opened a hatch, crawled down a ladder and stepped onto the moon surface. He then gave us another immortal phrase in “That’s one small step for man and a giant leap for mankind.” We don’t do anymore manned lunar exploration now-a-days, but I remember Armstrong and Aldrin walking around on the moon and how thrilling it was. By the way, Buzz Aldrin claims to have seen a UFO.
1780 On this date US General Anthony “Mad Anthony” Wayne is tasked with capturing a British blockhouse located about 12 miles north of Hoboken, New Jersey. So Wayne assembled two brigades of Pennsylvania militia and headed out. The blockhouse is defended by 70 Loyalists (Americans fighting for the British). Wayne ordered the attack but it was repulsed as was two additional attacks. So Wayne says “to hell with it” and withdraws. As ya’ll know Wayne got his nickname when he ordered an attack on a British encampment late at night. He ordered his men to use bayonets only and they killed 94 British soldiers by bayoneting them in the throat and they died without making a sound. It takes all kinds.
The Saga of Cynthia
Cynthia Anne Parker was born in Crawford County, Illinois in 1826. When little Cynthia was seven years old, her family moved to east Texas to the headwaters of the Navasota River near present day Groesbeck, Texas. By 1834 the extended Parker family had completed Fort Parker. When Cynthia Anne was ten years old a large party of Comanche warriors swept down on the fort and after killing 5 men, the Comanche kidnapped two women and three children. The kidnapped children were Cynthia Anne, her brother John and a cousin named James Plummer. I cannot find out what happened to John and James but Cynthia Anne spent nearly 25 years with the Comanche. Her Comanche name was Naduah (Someone found) and she married a Comanche warrior named Pohtocnocony or as the white man called him, Peta Nocona. Cynthia and Peta Nocona had two sons, Quanah (Fragrant) and Pecos (Peanuts) and one daughter named Topsannah (Prairie Flower). Cynthia’s husband, Peta Nacona, was eventually named chief of the tribe. In December of 1860 a troop of Texas Rangers, led by Captain Sullivan Ross, surrounded and captured a group of Comanche near the Pease River. Included in this group were Cynthia and her infant daughter Prairie Flower. After interviewing Cynthia many of the Rangers told Captain Ross that they thought it would be best for Cynthia to be allowed to rejoin her adopted Native American family because she had spent so much time with them that they did not believe she could adapt to life with the whites. But Captain Ross had heard so many complaints about white children being kidnapped by the Natives that he thought it would be best for all concerned if they tried to rehabilitate her. Cynthia and Prairie Flower were sent to Camp Cooper where Cynthia was identified by an uncle named Isaac Parker. Isaac took Cynthia and Prairie Flower to his ranch near Birdville, Texas. The Texas legislature granted Cynthia a league of land which is equal to 4,428 acres and a pension of $100 per year for five years. Incidentally, most land grants given by the Mexican Government to the Anglo settlers was a “labor and a league”. A labor was 177 acres that had water frontage and a league was land without water frontage. They also named her uncles Isaac and Benjamin Parker as her guardians. It did not help. Cynthia was terminally homesick and tried to escape several times. In 1862 Cynthia went to live with her brother Silas in Van Zandt County, Texas. Silas was also named as her guardian. After Silas was mustered in the Confederate Army, Cynthia went to live with her sister Olrena. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parker family was in negotiation to send Cynthia back to live with her adopted family in west Texas but unfortunately the war got in the way. To make things much worse, in 1864 Prairie Flower died of influenza. This was bad enough but what made Cynthia so unhappy was that she missed her sons and did not know what had happened to them. Anyway she wasted away and died in 1870 of malnutrition at the age of 44 because she refused to eat. After several movements of her body she was finally put to rest beside her son Quanah and her daughter Prairie Flower in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Her son Quanah became a legend in the history of the American Indians and I will do a biography on him in the near future. The city of Quanah, Texas was named for him and the city of Nocona is named for Cynthia’s Comanche husband.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Daily history
Good morning,
Quote of the day:
“Thank God they have stopped allowing that shit to spew into the Gulf.”
Al Campbell
I read about the woman that is supposed to the largest breasts in the world. She is a Brazilian living in Texas. A couple of weeks ago she went into the hospital to have yet another breast implant and contracted a staph infection and is fighting for her life. If that staph infection gets into her bloodstream she is a goner. Her official breast size is 38KKK.
I have a friend that had triple heart by-pass surgery and he got a staph infection. He was in ICU for weeks also fighting for his life. I think I will need a left hip replacement sooner or later but I keep putting it off for fear of getting a staph infection. That is something I don’t need so I just keep taking Advil and bearing it. It you wanted to find germs, bacteria, viruses, infection, etc. where would you look? It would be a hospital, y’all.
I read about newscasters, especially females in Washington, which are openly hostile toward Sarah Palin primarily because of her beauty and political moxie. One female newsperson even criticized Palin for having a Garfield calendar on her desk. I don’t get it, y’all. What’s up with the petty jealousies and catty remarks? I personally don’t give a damn about a newsperson’s personal likes and dislikes, all I want is accurate and unbiased information. We are not getting it and probably never have. They can say what they want but Sarah and the Tea Party movement is a force to be reckoned with. During the most recent South Carolina Republican primaries for Governor, Nikki Haley, a female had Mitt Romney come down and endorse her. There was very little change in the polls. Then Nikki had Sarah come down and endorse her and Nikki jumped in the polls by double digits. She ended up as the Republican nominee for Governor which almost guarantees her the job in this GOP leaning state. Speaking of Nikki, during her campaign she was running against a United States Congressman and criticized him for lack of transparency in the US Legislature. Just a few days ago Nikki held a CLOSED DOOR meeting with members of the South Carolina Chambers of Commerce. I guess it is true that some women believe that “what is good for me is not necessarily good for you.”
Some of you may not know about Alvin Greene here in South Carolina. In the recent primaries Alvin was chosen to challenge South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint in the November elections. Alvin is unemployed and recently discharged from the military and living with his father in Manning, SC. Somehow Alvin was able to cough up the $10,600 fee required to be listed in the primary ballots. He was asked what would be his solution for unemployment in South Carolina (about 9%) and Alvin stunned us with his acumen and political insight. He said that “they” should start making action figures (dolls) of him. He said further that they could be images of him in his uniform, in his suit, in his camos, etc. How brilliant is this guy? South Carolina politics is the laughing stock of America and it is no wonder. But in retrospect, in these difficult times a laugh now and then would be beneficial. By the way, Alvin has as much a chance of defeating Jim DeMint as I do in becoming an astronaut.
This date in history July 19
1799 Earlier French emperor and conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte had decided to put the entire eastern hemisphere of the world under his rule and began working his way eastward down the Mediterranean. He and his army eventually ended up in the ancient land of Egypt. Napoleon had always stressed to his commanders that all arts and cultures should be saved. On this date one of his soldiers discovered an irregular black basalt stone with strange inscriptions near the city of Rosetta. He brought the stone back to his commander and it eventually ended up in the British Museum (been there) and has been there since 1802. Many linguists examined it and they determined that the inscriptions were about a former Pharaoh, Ptolemy V. The difference here was the inscriptions were describing the same events but in three different languages, Greek, modern Egyptian hieroglyphics and ancient hieroglyphics. From this stone the world was able to crack the meaning of the hieroglyphics that had escaped understanding for centuries. It was a great moment in history.
1848 It was on this date that the long journey to women’s rights began. An advertised meeting “for women only” was held in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. The leaders of this “convention” were Lucretia Mott and Sarah Cady among several others. They were there to discuss slavery and as a side note, they discussed the right of women to vote. Women had been denied the right to vote since the founding of this great nation. The convention came up with a list of grievances and a plan of further meetings, marches of protest, etc. As you might suspect, they were severely ridiculed and support that they had previously received was withdrawn. But they did not let up and 72 years later the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed and American women gained the right to vote. The story of how United States President Woodrow Wilson fought against the leader of women’s suffrage, Alice Paul, during his tenure is worthy of an essay of it own. It will follow later.
1863 Earlier one of the greatest cavalry officers this country has ever produced, CSA General John Hunt Morgan, began a raid in the state of Ohio. He feinted toward Cincinnati and then moved westward. After several weeks of raids against Union supply depots he headed for home in Kentucky. He had planned to cross the Ohio River near Bluffington, Ohio but there had been several days of torrential rain, the Ohio River could not be crossed at Bluffington and all the other fords were being guarded by Union cavalry. There was a brief skirmish at Bluffington between Morgan and a Union cavalry unit which resulted in the capture of nearly half of Morgan’s cavalrymen. Morgan knew he could not go any further south so he turned around and headed back into the interior of Ohio. After a week of running and hiding, Morgan and the rest of his troops was cornered and captured. He was incarcerated at a prison camp near Columbus, Ohio. Within two weeks he had escaped and made his way back to Kentucky and raised another cavalry unit.
1879 Earlier a dentist from Valdosta, Georgia had learned that he had contracted tuberculosis and was persuaded by his doctors to seek a drier climate. Doc Holliday decided on opening a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The dry climate is helpful but Doc knows his days are numbered and chooses to drink and gamble heavily. As with most saloons in the American west, there were dancing girl/prostitutes on duty most of the time. Unfortunately, an ex-army scout named Mike Gordon fell for one of Doc’s dancing girls and tried to persuade her to quit her job and run away with him. She refused which infuriated Mike. He went out into the street and starts shooting up Doc’s bar. After the second shot Doc calmly walked out onto the sidewalk and drops poor Mike with one shot to the chest and he died the next morning. This was the first, but by no means the last person killed by Doc Holliday. He abandoned the bar business and moved to Tombstone, Arizona and met up with his friend Wyatt Earp where he joined in the killing and beating of criminals in Tombstone including the infamous “Gunfight at the OK Corral”. Finally, the hard living, hard drinking and tuberculosis caught up with Doc and he went to a sanitarium in Colorado to die. On his deathbed he looked around at the all the peace and quiet and remembering his violent life he said “This is funny.”
Born today:
1865 Famous US Physician Charles Mayo. He said “A specialist is someone who learns more and more about less and less.” I think I know this person.
1921 US Physicist Rosalyn Yalow. She said “The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you are learning you are not old.” OK Rosie, I am learning as fast as I can.
Died today:
1850 US writer Margaret Fuller. She said “I have now met all the people worth knowing in America and I can find no intellect comparable to mine.” Shut up, Maggie.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
Quote of the day:
“Thank God they have stopped allowing that shit to spew into the Gulf.”
Al Campbell
I read about the woman that is supposed to the largest breasts in the world. She is a Brazilian living in Texas. A couple of weeks ago she went into the hospital to have yet another breast implant and contracted a staph infection and is fighting for her life. If that staph infection gets into her bloodstream she is a goner. Her official breast size is 38KKK.
I have a friend that had triple heart by-pass surgery and he got a staph infection. He was in ICU for weeks also fighting for his life. I think I will need a left hip replacement sooner or later but I keep putting it off for fear of getting a staph infection. That is something I don’t need so I just keep taking Advil and bearing it. It you wanted to find germs, bacteria, viruses, infection, etc. where would you look? It would be a hospital, y’all.
I read about newscasters, especially females in Washington, which are openly hostile toward Sarah Palin primarily because of her beauty and political moxie. One female newsperson even criticized Palin for having a Garfield calendar on her desk. I don’t get it, y’all. What’s up with the petty jealousies and catty remarks? I personally don’t give a damn about a newsperson’s personal likes and dislikes, all I want is accurate and unbiased information. We are not getting it and probably never have. They can say what they want but Sarah and the Tea Party movement is a force to be reckoned with. During the most recent South Carolina Republican primaries for Governor, Nikki Haley, a female had Mitt Romney come down and endorse her. There was very little change in the polls. Then Nikki had Sarah come down and endorse her and Nikki jumped in the polls by double digits. She ended up as the Republican nominee for Governor which almost guarantees her the job in this GOP leaning state. Speaking of Nikki, during her campaign she was running against a United States Congressman and criticized him for lack of transparency in the US Legislature. Just a few days ago Nikki held a CLOSED DOOR meeting with members of the South Carolina Chambers of Commerce. I guess it is true that some women believe that “what is good for me is not necessarily good for you.”
Some of you may not know about Alvin Greene here in South Carolina. In the recent primaries Alvin was chosen to challenge South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint in the November elections. Alvin is unemployed and recently discharged from the military and living with his father in Manning, SC. Somehow Alvin was able to cough up the $10,600 fee required to be listed in the primary ballots. He was asked what would be his solution for unemployment in South Carolina (about 9%) and Alvin stunned us with his acumen and political insight. He said that “they” should start making action figures (dolls) of him. He said further that they could be images of him in his uniform, in his suit, in his camos, etc. How brilliant is this guy? South Carolina politics is the laughing stock of America and it is no wonder. But in retrospect, in these difficult times a laugh now and then would be beneficial. By the way, Alvin has as much a chance of defeating Jim DeMint as I do in becoming an astronaut.
This date in history July 19
1799 Earlier French emperor and conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte had decided to put the entire eastern hemisphere of the world under his rule and began working his way eastward down the Mediterranean. He and his army eventually ended up in the ancient land of Egypt. Napoleon had always stressed to his commanders that all arts and cultures should be saved. On this date one of his soldiers discovered an irregular black basalt stone with strange inscriptions near the city of Rosetta. He brought the stone back to his commander and it eventually ended up in the British Museum (been there) and has been there since 1802. Many linguists examined it and they determined that the inscriptions were about a former Pharaoh, Ptolemy V. The difference here was the inscriptions were describing the same events but in three different languages, Greek, modern Egyptian hieroglyphics and ancient hieroglyphics. From this stone the world was able to crack the meaning of the hieroglyphics that had escaped understanding for centuries. It was a great moment in history.
1848 It was on this date that the long journey to women’s rights began. An advertised meeting “for women only” was held in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. The leaders of this “convention” were Lucretia Mott and Sarah Cady among several others. They were there to discuss slavery and as a side note, they discussed the right of women to vote. Women had been denied the right to vote since the founding of this great nation. The convention came up with a list of grievances and a plan of further meetings, marches of protest, etc. As you might suspect, they were severely ridiculed and support that they had previously received was withdrawn. But they did not let up and 72 years later the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed and American women gained the right to vote. The story of how United States President Woodrow Wilson fought against the leader of women’s suffrage, Alice Paul, during his tenure is worthy of an essay of it own. It will follow later.
1863 Earlier one of the greatest cavalry officers this country has ever produced, CSA General John Hunt Morgan, began a raid in the state of Ohio. He feinted toward Cincinnati and then moved westward. After several weeks of raids against Union supply depots he headed for home in Kentucky. He had planned to cross the Ohio River near Bluffington, Ohio but there had been several days of torrential rain, the Ohio River could not be crossed at Bluffington and all the other fords were being guarded by Union cavalry. There was a brief skirmish at Bluffington between Morgan and a Union cavalry unit which resulted in the capture of nearly half of Morgan’s cavalrymen. Morgan knew he could not go any further south so he turned around and headed back into the interior of Ohio. After a week of running and hiding, Morgan and the rest of his troops was cornered and captured. He was incarcerated at a prison camp near Columbus, Ohio. Within two weeks he had escaped and made his way back to Kentucky and raised another cavalry unit.
1879 Earlier a dentist from Valdosta, Georgia had learned that he had contracted tuberculosis and was persuaded by his doctors to seek a drier climate. Doc Holliday decided on opening a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The dry climate is helpful but Doc knows his days are numbered and chooses to drink and gamble heavily. As with most saloons in the American west, there were dancing girl/prostitutes on duty most of the time. Unfortunately, an ex-army scout named Mike Gordon fell for one of Doc’s dancing girls and tried to persuade her to quit her job and run away with him. She refused which infuriated Mike. He went out into the street and starts shooting up Doc’s bar. After the second shot Doc calmly walked out onto the sidewalk and drops poor Mike with one shot to the chest and he died the next morning. This was the first, but by no means the last person killed by Doc Holliday. He abandoned the bar business and moved to Tombstone, Arizona and met up with his friend Wyatt Earp where he joined in the killing and beating of criminals in Tombstone including the infamous “Gunfight at the OK Corral”. Finally, the hard living, hard drinking and tuberculosis caught up with Doc and he went to a sanitarium in Colorado to die. On his deathbed he looked around at the all the peace and quiet and remembering his violent life he said “This is funny.”
Born today:
1865 Famous US Physician Charles Mayo. He said “A specialist is someone who learns more and more about less and less.” I think I know this person.
1921 US Physicist Rosalyn Yalow. She said “The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you are learning you are not old.” OK Rosie, I am learning as fast as I can.
Died today:
1850 US writer Margaret Fuller. She said “I have now met all the people worth knowing in America and I can find no intellect comparable to mine.” Shut up, Maggie.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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