Daily history

Good morning:


Quote of the day:

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

                                        Harold Wilson

This little known fact will further instill faith in our federal bureaucracies. Before BP could drill the Deep Water Horizon oil well they had to get a permit from the Department of the Interior. In submitting the request for a permit BP had to include emergency preparedness procedures. Nowhere in the procedures was there mention of what to do during a hurricane and the permit was issued. Let me understand this. They wanted to drill an oil well in water a mile deep in a location know far and wide as “hurricane alley” and it never occurred to either BP or the Department of the Interior bureaucrats to consider this possibility. Does that indicate that some of these stuffed shirts in Washington are in bed with big oil? I think so.

Hurricane Alex generated big waves and heavy surf causing the oil bearing water to flow over the booms. The beaches at and near Gulf Shores, Alabama are no longer light blonde, they are a rusty brown with an occasional plate sized glob of tar.

Our legendary Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina is struggling to find funding to keep all of the state’s bureaus afloat in this time of need. Mark submitted a budget that called for enormous cuts in said bureaus a few months ago and now he is trying to rescue them. I think that his mind is not totally on his job. I wonder what that could cause that.

BP claims adjusters down on the Gulf coast will disapprove claims if the petitioner does not have a telephone. What is the logic that?

Some of you may not know this but the brown pelicans on the Gulf Coast were nearing extinction but efforts by environmentalists and wildlife experts brought them back from the brink. This recent oil spill has pushed them back toward the brink once again. They are finding them coated with oil unable to fly or breed. The ever present environmentalists and others have been gathering up oil soaked brown pelicans, cleaning them of oil and sending them to the Georgia coast and releasing them. This past Wednesday 70 brown pelicans were flown from Pensacola, Florida to the Georgia coast and released saving their lives. What a freaking nightmare.

The South Carolina legislature has seen fit to allow the University of South Carolina Gamecocks flag to be flown atop the state capitol building in recognition of winning the national championship in baseball. It will be the Stars and Stripes, the state flag and then a flag with an image of a crazed chicken on it.

The world largest oil skimmer is on its way to the Gulf of Mexico from Norfolk. This monster is a Taiwan flagged ship that is 450 yards long and 100 feet tall from the water line. The ship is capable of filtering 25 million gallons of water a day. It separates the oil from the water and sends the clean water back into the sea. The EPA has the say-so in the operation of this ship because the water it puts back cannot help but have traces of oil in it. This scares me because yet another bureaucracy will be involved. Be afraid, very afraid.

This date in history July 2

1863    The second day at Gettysburg sees a simultaneous attack on the right and left flanks of the Yankee army. It is the troops of CSA General Richard Ewell attacking the right flank at Culp’s Hill on the extreme north end of the Union lines. At the same time CSA General James Longstreet attacked the extreme south or left flank of the Union lines at a place called Little Round Top. I have been to both places. Culp’s Hill is not very high but it is a jumble of huge rocks making the way up for the Confederates very slow and difficult. The Union soldiers there were up to the task and repulsed the attack inflicting heavy losses to the Confederates. The attack on the south end, or Little Round Top, was an epic struggle studied to this day by military historians. Earlier in the day, the Union division under US General Dan Sickles was in a good position on Little Round Top but Sickles did not like the ground and pulled his troops off and headed west through the woods. Sickles was a politician from New York and got his command because of his political influence. Anyway, about a mile and half west was the open ground of a peach orchard. When Sickles and his troops emerged form the woods, they were set upon by a large number of screaming Confederates and was all but annihilated. All of this happened in view of the rest of the Union troops on Little Round Top. After this, Longstreet launched his attack with CSA General John Bell Hood and about 2.500 of his Alabamians and Texans. They first swept the Yankees off yet another small, rocky hill called Devil’s Den which was about ½ mile from Little Round Top. After this a direct assault on Little Round Top began. The slopes on this hill are very steep as you get toward the top which slowed the Confederate advance. So the Confederates began trying to flank the line by moving to the right forcing the defenders to stretch and roll back their lines. The Confederates were facing 300 men of the 20th Maine. Even with 2,500 against 300, the Confederates were unable to dislodge those Yankees. The battle reached a crisis when the Yankees were out of ammunition and the Confederates were still coming. The commander of the 20th Maine, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, ordered a bayonet charge even though they only had only 160 combat ready men and down the hill they went. The stunned Confederates beat a hasty retreat and the day was saved. Had the Confederates been able to turn that flank it is likely the war would have ended right there with there would be two nations, the United State of America and the Confederate States of America. Chamberlain received the Medal of Honor for his actions on this day. There is a military guy in Birmingham named Jim that understands the significance of all of this. We were within a gnat’s ass of being a divided nation. Are you listening, Jim?

1881    Same crazy jackass named Charles Guineau showed up at a national event and walked up to James Garfield and put two rounds from his pistol into Garfield’s abdomen. One of the two shots lodged near Garfield’s pancreas. It wasn’t long before Garfield developed a serious infection and he died on Sept. 18. Charles Guineau had written an acceptance speech and sent it to Garfield. Garfield did not read it, of course, but Guineau felt like Garfield was elected due to his writings and wanted the ambassadorship to France as his reward. Garfield’s staff ignored his insistence and soon Guineau got fed up and shot Garfield. There are a lot of crazies out there.

1937    On this date Amelia Earhart is on her way from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific. Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan are the only ones aboard. The USS Coast Guard ship “Itasca” is in intermittent contact with Earhart who says that she is lost and is looking for landfall. The Itasca puts out miles of black smoke hoping she would see them to no avail. The last contact was when Earhart called and said that she had 30 minute of fuel and no land in sight. After that, there was no more contact. After the largest search in history with no results, this remains an eternal mystery.

1839    The Cuban schooner "Armistead" departed Havana headed to the sugar fields of Puerto Principe with a cargo of 30 African slaves. About half way the slaves revolted and killed the captain and the first mate and instructed the rest of the crew that it would be prudent if they took this boat back to Sierra Leone in present today west Africa. The crew obliged and headed east back to Africa. The only problem is that when it became dark, the navigator headed the ship north rather than east. After a couple of months the ship was spotted off the coast of New York and sent to New London, Conn. After a series of law trials the Supreme Court ruled that these men were unfairly brought into slavery and were released. In 1841 abolitionists financed the passenger vessel "Gentleman" to take the slaves back to their homeland in West Africa.

1992    On this day the book “A Brief history of Time” by Stephen Hawking hits the best seller list. Hawking is a professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge. His book is an attempt to explain the physics of the cosmos to the average man. I not only read this book many times, but I read and studied it like it was a text book, not a book of entertainment. It was and is a milestone in the understanding of what is out there. Hawking has a severe case of Lou Gehrig’s disease that was diagnosed many years ago with just a year or two to live, but he prevailed. He is wheelchair bound and cannot speak, but he can use his left hand and a sophisticated voice synthesizer was installed. We now can reap the thoughts of one of the most creative minds this world has ever known. Incidentally, Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of Sir Isaac Newton. Both were theoretical physicists at Cambridge and both were/are Presidents of the Royal Society, an organization of very smart people. Makes you wonder. On one occasion the Pope asked Hawking to back off on trying to find the origins of the universe because it would disrupt religion if he found it. Again, religion should not have a part in the classroom for this reason.

Births and deaths:

1956    Texas born model and ex-wife of Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, is born. She said “Mick and I are good friends. We get together and talk all night especially about nuclear disarmament.” Sure Jerry, maybe next time you two can discuss Max Planck’s theory of quantum mechanics and the operation of a particle accelerator.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow