Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:

“Letting go has never been easy, but holding on can be as difficult. Yet strength is measured not by holding on, but by letting go.”

Len Santos



Last week I was reading about a 19 year old girl who was arrested in Spartanburg, SC for shoplifting. This girl took three vibrators into the ladies room in a K-Mart and stuffed them in her purse. Then she went next door to a cheap jewelry store and did the same thing with three pair of earrings. All of sudden an image flashed across my mind involving the vibrators and the earrings…it was not a pretty sight.



A few days ago the MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Fund’ made selections for this year’s “geniuses”. The award is $500,000 each distributed over a five year period. Included were a stone carver, an astrophysicist, a jazz pianist, a high school physics teacher, a theater director, a marble sculptor and an entomologist working on stopping the decline of the honey bee, etc. I wonder if there is an award for just being a good guy.



It has been determined that the “fattest” city in American is Vicksburg. Mississippi. Recently a gym owner has been trying to change all of that. She offered free gym time, persuaded several weight loss companies to offer free diet food and recipes, etc. So far that city has lost a combined total of over 15,000 pounds. This effort was strongly objected to by the makers of Twinkies, Krispie Kreme, Uncle Ben’s instant grits, Budweiser, among others. Just joking.



This past weekend the Pensacola, Florida city police were called by a family of a man they thought was in trouble. The cops tracked the man to a Motel 6 on the north side of town. Two city cops (1 male and 1 female) showed up at the motel and went to the room to investigate. A shootout erupted and the male cop was shot in the thigh. The bullet went clean through and exited the back of his leg. The police returned fire and the 21 year old shooter was killed instantly. A meth lab was found in the room along with two other people. They are now cooling their heels in the County lockup. To my knowledge no one has ever won a shootout with US law enforcement. They have nearly everyone out-gunned and out-trained.



This past Wednesday the US Marshals arrested 30 year old Santo Mendez at a Greyhound Bus Station in Austin, Texas. Santo has been charged with sexually assaulting 4 and 5 year old girls in Charleston, SC. This dumb ass told the arresting officers that he was now in Texas and they had no control over him. Do you think this jackass is an illegal alien? Anyway, the way he was found was the cops in Charleston contacted the US Marshals and told them what the charges were and that Santo had fled, probably to Texas. The US Marshals in Texas were notified and they tracked Santo to members of his family near Austin along with the description of his truck. A surveillance network was established at the airport, train station, bus station, etc. It worked. The last thing that Santo wants is to be extradited to South Carolina and convicted of sexual conduct with a minor. If he is his days will be probably be numbered once he is incarcerated and hopefully that is exactly what will happen and I am glad.



Multi-zillionaire basketball player Lebron James is complaining that people hate him because he is black. He is wrong. People hate him because he is a whiner and his insufferable arrogance. I don’t hate Colin Powell, David Robinson, Michael Jordan, George Rogers and Barry Sanders among many, many others and I certainly am not alone. All of these men have honor and class, but not you Lebron. You suck.



This date in history October 4



1777 The battle of Germantown, Pennsylvania happens on this day. Germantown was just a few miles north of British occupied Philadelphia. It was George Washington’s 11,000 ill-fed, ill-clothed and ill trained troops but Washington thought they were ready for a fight. He was opposed by British General Charles Cornwallis and his 9,000 well-fed, well-clothed and well trained troops. Washington had his troops to put a small piece of white paper in their hats so they could be seen in the early morning darkness. Washington chose to attack in four columns. The only problem here was that two of the columns got lost in the early morning fog and the army lost cohesion and were being chopped to pieces a few at a time and Washington retreated to the Whitemarsh area of New Jersey. The battle was over by ten o’clock with heavy casualties on both sides. In early December Washington fenced with Cornwallis until he established his winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. A few days before Christmas, Prussian officer Frederick Von Stueben joined Washington. Washington assigned Von Stueben the task of whipping his troops into a well trained fighting unit rather than the rag-tag undisciplined army they were. Von Stueben immediately began a hard disciplined training program and eventually did complete his assignment of creating a fighting machine that proved its worth at the victory at Saratoga, New York. It was the victory at Saratoga that persuaded France to give their support to the fledgling United States and began giving the colonies much needed arms and money.



1998 On this date televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted for wire fraud. Jim and his wife Tammy Faye had built their religious television show into the most watched show of its type in America. They accumulated enough money to build a type of amusement park albeit based on religion. The park was a few miles south of Charlotte, North Carolina and was named Heritage USA. The park had several hundred apartments that the Bakker’s sold as time share condos. As with many people that achieve sudden wealth, they became corrupted by it. The beginning of the end came when Jim had sex with the church secretary Jessica Hahn in a Tampa motel room. Jim became frantic to keep this tryst under wraps and paid Jessica $350,000 hush money. Word leaked out about it anyway and the press jumped on it like a chicken on a June bug. All of Bakker’s competition in the TV world jumped up and down in glee, especially Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart saw fit to rant and rave about the evils of the Bakkers for many programs. Well, the IRS smelled blood and closed in for an audit. An audit revealed that the Bakkers had indeed used funds earmarked for religious purposes for their own aggrandizement. Not only that, they oversold the time shares many times over. It was reported that they had gold water faucets in their house and an air conditioned dog house for their pet. Later on Jim Bakker was convicted of wire fraud and sentenced to 25 years but that was reduced to 8 years. Jessica Hahn posed nude for Playboy and was a regular on the Howard Stern show. Tammy Fay divorced Jim while he was in prison and married the contractor that had built Heritage USA. Tammy Faye is famous for the layers of eye shadow, mascara, false eyelashes, rouge and lipstick applied every day. Not many people know what she looks like sans the paint and polish. Tammy Faye has since left this world. The king of hypocrisy Jimmy Swaggart developed his own scandal when he approached a Los Angeles hooker for sex and she recognized who he was and told the press about it. Evidently televangelists are not getting any at home. Heritage USA was abandoned and I do not know what happened to the property. I went there when it was at its peak and the number of visitors there was exceeded only by Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It was something to see. All this trouble began when Jim wanted to get a little strange. It is a lesson for us all.



1970 On this date Rock singer Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood, California. Janis was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1943 and was in the same class as ex-coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Jimmy Johnson. She led a troubled life up until she was 17 when she left home and began singing in clubs in Houston and other cities in Texas. In the early 60’s she moved to San Francisco and began singing with a group called Big Brother and the Holding Company. In 1968 the band issued an album called Cheap Tricks. One of the songs on that album was Janis singing the song Piece of my Heart. It gives me chill bumps to hear Janis doing this song to this day. Anyway this song brought Janis into the world spotlight. She left that band and formed her own band The Kosmic Blues Band. This band was immensely popular and brought Janis even more fame and fortune. During all this rush at fast living Janis had developed two addictions. One was Southern Comfort and the other was heroin. Her final band was The Full Tilt Boogie Band. It was with this band that Janis gave us the immortal Me and Bobbie Magee. It was only a few weeks after recording this song that she killed herself by injecting sh-t into her veins. By the way, Me and Bobbie Magee was written by Kris Kristofferson.



Births and deaths:



1976 US actress (of sorts) Alicia Silverstone is born. She said “I think the film “Clueless” is very deep. I think it was deep in the way it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it is true lightness.” Alicia, shut up and quit ruining my life.



1970 US rock singer Janis Joplin dies. She said “I would rather live 10 years of super-hypermost than to live 70 years sitting in a god-damned chair in front of a TV.” Janis lived her 27 years on this planet in exactly that fashion.



Quotable quotes:



“I have as much authority as the Pope. I just do not have as many people that believe it”

George Carlin



“I think NASCAR would be a lot more exciting if, like in a skating rink, every 15 minutes someone announced it was time to reverse direction”

George Carlin

I like it…



“Gas is getting so expensive that men are beginning to date Monica Lewinski for her siphoning skills.” Jay Leno

I am going to let that one alone.



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow