Daily history

Good morning,







Quote of the day:






“Having the French army as an ally during combat is like going duck hunting with an accordion.”


US Army General Norman Schwarzcopf






I may have mentioned this before but here it is again. A friend mentioned that she thought all those lunatics on the right wing in politics are full of hatred. I have dwelled on this thought for quite a while. My politics is somewhere right of Attila the Hun but after self examination I have determined that I am not full of hate, I am full of fear. I firmly believe that there is a conscious effort to disembowel this country from the inside out and it appears that they have succeeded to a degree. My best hope is a top to bottom change in the Legislative branch this November. That will castrate those out to destroy us. This just reconfirms the brilliance of our ancestors in constructing a system of checks and balances that disallows a political coup by the enemies of a Constitutional free America.


During Sunday's game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles the 49ers quarterback, Alex Smith, fumbled and the Eagles recovered and ran it back for a touchdown which cost the 49ers the game. When Alex got back to the sidelines 49er coach Mike Singletary jumped all over Smith in a very demeaning fashion. The blow-up was shown on regional TV and all of the sports news stations afterward. When Singletary played linebacker for the Chicago Bears he was one of the most feared defensive players in the NFL and his explosive temper was legendary. I think he was off base by reaming out his quarterback in public. That does not solve anything except lower the quarterback's self esteem. I have walked away from more than one job because someone spoke to me with disrespect. It has to be that way, my self respect is not for sale.






Last Sunday night at about 8:00p a middle aged woman was walking down a street in Rock Hill, SC. She noticed that there were two men men following her. Soon the men overtook the woman, stuck a gun in her face and said “Give it up.” The searched her pockets and found nothing. She saw a woman standing in the doorway of a nearby house so she broke and ran toward the house. The men overtook her again and she broke away and made it into the house which was followed by two gunshots from the attackers but no one was hit. Remember me telling y'all about gang activity in the Rock Hill/Chester, South Carolina area? It is still going on.






The only bad thing that happened last Saturday afternoon when the mighty Gamecocks beat #1 Alabama is this. About two hours after the game a 20 year old man and a 25 year old man got into a “road rage” thing about a block from the stadium. They got out and began a fist fight. The 20 year old man either fell or was pushed out into the street and he was ran over by a truck. He died on the way to the hospital. This man died because of “road rage”. Just do like I do. Yell, scream, call them vile names, give them the finger but never, never get out of your car. Too many people are “packing heat” these days.






This date in history October 13






1976    Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara goes on his 8th fact finding mission to South Vietnam. Bob visits with General Westmoreland, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, South Vietnam Premier Ky and President Thieu and then went back to Washington to a press conference and with his bare face hanging out declares that the war is proceeding satisfactorily. Then he goes to LBJ and secretly tells him that we are in deep doodoo over there. LBJ gets tired of McNamara’s vacillating and replaces him with Clark Clifford. He isn’t much better. That whole debacle was a disaster top to bottom from the git-go.






1792    The cornerstone of the White House is laid on this day. The Irish American architect James Hoban was hired to design the house and he used the Lienster House in Dublin as a model. The location for the house was made by George Washington and the first resident was President John Adams. The White House was burned by the British during the war of 1812 in retaliation for US guerillas burning the British Embassy in Canada but James Hoban was again hired to direct its restoration. The White House and the adjacent Lafayette Square are blocked off from vehicular traffic for security purposes. Over a million people a year visit the White House.






1943    26 year old poet Robert Lowell is given a one year jail term for refusing the draft because he is upset about the allies using “blanket bombing”. I wonder what Bob would have felt if he had seen what was going on at the German Auschwitz concentration camp. Anyway, Bob was born to privileged and wealthy parents and he received a good education. He wrote some very good essays and poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for “Life Stories” which was an account of how he was dealing with his mental instabilities. In the early 60’s he read poet Allan Ginsberg’s “Howl” and was blown away by Ginsberg’s honesty and being down to earth. Bob was involved heavily in the opposition to the Vietnam War and was present at nearly all protest meetings/marches. Bob went to that great library in the sky in 1977.






1935    Doctor Buck Ruston is arrested for murder in Lancaster, England. The good doctor’s maid Mary Roberson and common law wife Isabella Van Ness had been missing for some time and an intense investigation had begun at the behest of the good doctor I guess to throw suspicion off him self. Well, investigate they did. A farmer in Scotland found several objects wrapped in newspaper on a river bank which turned out to be various body parts two of which was mutilated human heads from which all the teeth had been removed and the nose cut off one of them and had been disemboweled. All the fingertips on both had been removed also. Even though identification of the bodies was nearly impossible, Scotland Yard determined from the evidence the time of death and from the newspapers that they were issued in the good doctor’s home town. The searched the doctors home and found traces of human blood and human fat in the kitchen sink drain and therefore the doctor was tried and convicted of a double homicide. Just before going to the gallows the doctor stated that he had killed his wife in a quarrel and that the maid had walked in on him in the act and so he had to kill her too. Doctor Ruston went to meet his maker about 2 inches taller than he had been.






1845    Under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas approve a state constitution and ask that they be allowed to become a member of the United States. In 1836, again under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas had declared themselves independent of Mexico and became the Republic of Texas. The acceptance of Texas into the fold was delayed somewhat because it was to be a “slave” state and that was not palpable to some interests in the Northeastern US and Mexico had stated that if Texas became a state they would declare war on the US. Eventually Texas was admitted into the US and sure enough a war with Mexico ensued. It didn’t last long though.






Births and deaths:






1949    Rock start Sammy Hagar is born. Sammy once said “If Van Halen called me, I think I would puke”.






1959    Marie Osmond is born. Marie had seven brothers and no sisters. She and Donnie Osmond had a moderately successful TV career together.






1969    Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is born. Nancy was famous for when one of Tonya Harding’s friends runs up to Nancy and pops her on the knee with a pipe so as to eliminate Nancy from the Olympic tryouts. Tonya believed that Nancy was her only competition and said so. Her friends took that as a request to stop Nancy from competing. It was proven that Tonya had no part of this attack. Tonya had dynamite legs, ya’ll.






1925    Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is born. She is known affectionately as “Iron Pants Maggie” for her hard nosed approach to problems. She is one of my favorite people. It was Maggie that said “If you have to keep telling people that you are a lady, then you aren’t one’.


1923    Stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce is born. Lenny told us “More and more people are straying from the church and getting back to God.”






1997    Movie actor Clifton Webb dies. Clifton once said “Barbara Stanwick is my favorite American lesbian”. Clifton was brutal.






Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow