Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:



“No longer forward nor behind I look in hope and fear;

But grateful take the good I find, the best of now and here.”

John Greenleaf Whittier



I guess all of you know by now that New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush has returned the Heisman Trophy he was awarded in 2005. He said that he had to do it to settle his conscience. I seems that Reggie and his family was given thousands of dollars if he would attend the University of Southern California on a football scholarship. This is a gigantic no-no in the world of college football. No one has said from whence the money came but the University itself appears blameless, or at least that is their claim. They are catching hell from the NCAA right now for recruiting violations. But I can assure you that they will not return the $48 to $50 million dollars gained when they beat Oklahoma for the national championship in the 2004-2005 season with Bush in the backfield. There was talk that the 2005 Heisman should be offered to Vince Young who came in second to Bush but the Heisman committee will just record that there was no Heisman Award given in 2005.



All of you that think the so-called Tea Party headed by Sarah Palin is just a flash in the pan need to look and see what happened in the primaries last Tuesday. As VP Joe Biden and ex-president Clinton said “The Tea Party should not be underestimated or ignored.”



A few days ago Greenville County Law enforcement raided and arrested four illegal Latinos for distribution of marijuana, cocaine and heroin in this area. All but one were soldiers of one of the powerful Mexican drug cartels. Let’s do an examination here. It is obvious that these vermin entered our country illegally. It is true that many of those trying to get into America are looking for a better life but mixed in with them is these lice. How are we supposed to tell the difference? Close the damned borders tight as Dick’s hatband or risk our children being fed their poisons and ruining their lives.

There is no other option…except summary execution on sight. By the way, three other illegal immigrants were arrested were arrested in Charlotte, NC for the same reason, not to mention two more arrested in Mobile, Al. trying to trade marijuana and cocaine for military grade automatic weapons. You do the math.



South Carolina State Senator Glenn McConnell is a Civil War re-enactor. This mean that he dresses up in a Confederate soldier’s uniform and re-enacts different events and battles that occurred in the American Civil War. There was a lot of criticism heaped upon Glenn, especially by the NCAAP even though there are many blacks that willingly participate in these what are essentially plays. Glenn has no slaves and knows no one that has any. Even if his ancestors were slaveholders it is not his responsibility to eternally atone for it. Being a re-enactor is his HOBBY for crying out loud. For the knee-jerk uninformed, the American Civil War was the most tragic event to ever befall this great nation and it WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. There were more Americans killed in that horrible time in America than in all other wars combined. Are we supposed to forget that? Not likely. Should we forget Pearl harbor including the about 2,600 Americans killed by the Japanese? How about 9/11 where about 2,900 Americans were killed by the Arabs? How about the Battle of the Bulge where 78,000 Americans and British were killed by the Germans? How about the American Civil War where over 680,000 Americans killed each other? Should we forget all of this? I think not. Here is another example: Tom Cruise wore a Nazi uniform in the movie Valkyrie. How dare he do such a thing after all the evil atrocities the Nazis did! Cruise was in that uniform acting in a PLAY and so is McConnell. We learn from history. Let’s not be stupid with unreasonable and irresponsible prejudices, read about what happened, it will change you. At least it will make you appear less ignorant.



This date in history September 20



1984    An Arab terrorist drove a car loaded with explosives up to the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and lights it off killing 12 people including his own rotten, pig sucking, and cowardly self. This ain’t the first or the last of these cowardly acts because following this came attacks on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killing 257 innocent civilians. I have never figured out what these Arabs hope to accomplish, all it does is make people mad. It certainly doesn’t make me want to become a Moslem it just make me want to go kill them.



1979    Lee Iacocca is elected chairman of the Chrysler Corporation. Lee had been fired by Ford earlier because Henry Ford II thought that Lee was just a “simple Italian immigrant”. Lee set about rescuing Chrysler from the precipice of bankruptcy. He was successful by layoffs, streamlining, “In your face advertising” and government guaranteed loans which Chrysler paid back in four years. During these four years, Lee asked that his salary be $1 per year setting an example for the other executives. After Chrysler began thriving again Lee was offered a salary of $7M per year, he said no to that offer and said “I will would take $1M a year, what the hell am I going to do with $7M a year.” Think about the raping other companies have been getting from their executives recently. We need more people like Lee.



1968    US military officials defend the use of Agent Orange and other defoliants in Vietnam. During the same news conference Dr. Fred Shirley a US Dept. of Agriculture official said the US military had severely underestimated the long term effect of these defoliants and that he suspected there would be an adverse effect on the crops that were sprayed. These chemicals were used primarily in III corps to clear out the foliage near the DMZ and borders with other countries to make it easier to discover incursions. Later on the Vietnamese people near the sprayed areas came down with unusually high rates of cancer and birth defects. I really don’t know the facts about what caused these tragedies because no comprehensive study has been done but I am convinced it was the defoliants. The US military sprayed 19 million gallons of this stuff. What the hell?



1943    It seems that the Germans had assigned the giant battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst to Norway to harass and/or stop the shipping of materiel from the US to Russia and England. The Scharnhorst left on an assignment leaving the Tirpitz alone in a Norwegian fiord. Many attempts were made to bomb the ship but all had failed so six English mini-subs were assigned the task of attaching explosives to the hull of the Tirpitz and lighting them off. On this day three of the subs were successful and damaged the ship to the point that it was out of commission for 6 months. By then better air cover for the convoys had been established and the Tirpitz was never able to fire a shot in anger.





1863    This is the second day of the Battle of Chickamauga one of the bloodiest battles in the war. During the previous night several divisions of CSA Gen. James a. Longstreet’s (A South Carolinian, by the way) troops moved up into line with CSA Gen. Braxton Bragg’s troops. Longstreet’s troops were fresh from the CSA defeat at Gettysburg and were spoiling for revenge. That opportunity came on this day when US Gen. Rosecrans ordered US Gen. Thomas Woods and his troops to move and plug a gap in the Union lines but in fact no gap existed. When Woods and his troops moved it created a gap in the Union lines and Longstreet’s troops came pouring through the gap screaming at the top of their lungs. The Union line collapsed and nearly all of the troops hauled ass back toward Chattanooga, all except US Gen. George Thomas who stood his ground and his troops made and orderly retreat. For this show of determination Thomas became known as “The Rock of Chickamauga.” There were at total of 34,600 casualties in this battle. I don’t know what else to say here.



1806    The Lewis and Clark expedition on their return trip comes upon the first honky settlement west of the Mississippi and it is La Charette being about 55 miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis. La Charette consisted of only seven dwellings but when they saw the expedition’s boats coming they ran to the river and cheered for everyone thought the expedition had been wiped out because they had been gone so long. The greatest adventure of all time was 55 miles from its end.



Born today:



356BC    Greek military genius Alexander the Great. He said “Remember upon the actions of one depends the fate of all.” His greatest enemy was the Persians which he always defeated. One reason was that Alexander’s troops carried lances that were about two feet longer than the Persians, meaning that in a head to head charge, Alexander’s troop’s lance points got there first. The Persians never figured that out along with Alexander’s mastery of his cavalry and engineering. The Persians came from what is now Iraq and Iran. They are still stupid.



Born today:



1902    English author Florence “Stevie” Smith. She said “This Englishwoman is so refined she has no bosom and no behind.” I think we have met, Stevie.



1921    US comic Slappy White. He said “The trouble with being unemployed is that as soon as you wake up you are on the clock.” Been there, done that, have tee shirt.



Died today:



1933    English social reformer Annie Besant. She said “For centuries the clergy considered women as a necessary evil and the most revered saints were those that hated women the most.” When you say “saints” that means Catholic to me. Maybe all of those priests that were prosecuted for sexual abuse of juveniles really hated women down deep. But what do I know?



1996    Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos. He said “A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.” I can’t drink coffee, makes me too jumpy.



2005    Ukrainian Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal. He said “None of my clients, not Stangl, not Mengele, not Eichmann, not even Hitler or Stalin was born a criminal. Someone had to teach them to hate: Maybe politics, maybe the society, or maybe it took even a Jewish prostitute to take them below.” Wiesenthal was a relentless pursuer of those monsters.



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow



Goodbye from the land of Azaleas, Camellias, Panama Red and Acapulco gold.