Good morning,



Quote of the day:


“The more I learn about people, the more I like dogs”.


                Dr. Walter Robinson, DVM






Trivia question:


There are Pronghorn antelope on the great plains of North America that can run 40 to 50 MPH for extended periods. There are no predators out there that can even come close to them for speed and stamina. Why do they have these attributes if there are no predators that are their equal?






This is just a reminder. On this date in 1945 the United States Marines had been in a battle with the Japanese army for about a week on a small island in the Pacific named Iwo Jima. The Marines were being killed or wounded at the rate of three every two minutes. It took over a month for the island and its three airfields to be declared secure. This bloodbath is the only battle where the Marines suffered more casualties than they inflicted. There were a total of 23,000 Marine casualties with about 9,500 killed. The Japanese suffered 21,800 killed and 218 surrendering. The Japanese commander and his soldiers knew that they would never get out of there alive. They knew there was no way to get reinforcements, replacements, food, water, ammo, etc. The US Navy had the Island surrounded, so the Japanese fought to the death. Their job was to make the capture of Iwo Jima as expensive in human lives as possible. When the end of the battle was near the Japanese commander sent a message to Tokyo “Our guns and ammunition have been destroyed. We have not eaten or drank for five days. But our spirits are high...we have enough ammunition for one final glorious attack tonight...may Japan exist for a thousand years.” As I said, there were 218 Japanese survivors. There were 26 US Medals of Honor awarded in this one battle alone. US Admiral Chester Nimitz said “In this battle uncommon valor was a common virtue”.




Recently Grand Central Pizza in Atlanta put a notice on their front door stating that any unruly children AND their parents will be asked to leave. Why would a business have to warn parents that their undisciplined little monster's behavior will not be tolerated like they are at home? It is because the freaking parents don't want to go through the trouble to teach them that there other people here in the world besides them. But no, they expected the rest of the world to accept their wild and raucous behavior as being normal or “cute”. I can assure your that if I was out with my parents, especially my father, there would be absolutely no obnoxious behavior or discipline would be immediately administered or promised to me later on. My parent were not mean to me and I know they loved me. I do not feel that I was scarred but I knew what my limits were and so did my parents and that, my friends, is a good thing and certainly is not child abuse. The next time you go into a Wal-mart or your favorite grocery store and just stop and listen to the yelling and caterwauling of the little kiddies running wild. The same is true in restaurants and even libraries. Recently my trusty HP laptop got sick and I went to the local library to do some research. It was “Kid's Day”. They may have been there to learn how useful a library can be but what they did was run at full speed up and down the aisles screeching in C-flat at the top of their lungs and at the volume of an F-16. The teacher/parents did the best they could at corralling these beasts but it was for naught, their discipline was already compromised. A while back I was in a super market and a child of about four was running down an aisle clearly trying to run away from his caretaker/parent who was running after him. The little brat had already ran into several people but I cornered him against a counter and kept him there until the adult caught up. Just before she dragged him away screaming and yelling he reached over and tried to bite me on the leg. Another event was a plane ride from Houston to Atlanta. There was about a six year male child about three seats back that was making everybody's trip miserable with his kicking the back of the seat in front and yelling to the stewardess about everything. He was on there by himself and was under close observation by the crew. After we arrived at Atlanta, a stewardess escorted him to an adult that was waiting for him. I followed them both and had a chat with the adult about that monster's behavior and she said “I know, but I don't know what to do about it.” I know.






Rather that a variety of historical facts, I will add one of my biographies about a famous woman.






                          Eleanor of Aquitaine


                                1122-1204


This is a biography of one of the most fascinating people in history. Her life reads like a soap opera so I will give the main characters soap opera nicknames to save space and they are:






Eleanor of Aquitaine………..Ellie


Henry II, King of England….Hank


Louis VII, King of France…..Lou






Eleanor’s real name was Alia-Aenor meaning “another Aenor”. Eleanor’s mother’s name was Aenor of Chatellerault and a female birth was of no consequence in the high middle ages, they were looking for male heirs to carry on the family name. Her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, one of the richest men in Europe and Ellie was his eldest child and the apple of William’s eye. William died when Ellie was 15 and he left everything to Ellie making her the richest woman in history to date. William had contacted the king of France, Louis VI earlier and requested that in the event of his death Louis VI would promulgate the marriage of Ellie and Louis’ son who would become Louis VII, king of France. Louis VI obliged William and after much pomp and circumstance, Ellie and Lou were married eventually making Ellie the Queen of France. There was one stipulation. Ellie made the Aquitaine estate exempt from being absorbed into the French realm. Aquitaine estate was in what is now south central France. Now here is where the fun starts. The 2nd Crusade began a few years after Lou became King and he being a very pious man, did the Pope’s bidding and started gathering an army to go to Jerusalem and try to kick the Muslims out. Ellie joined in the fervor and personally began recruiting men to go. She even offered 2,000 of her own vassals. Not only that, she insisted on going on the Crusade herself being the first woman to do so. Upon arrival in the Holy Land, Ellie became enamored with all those knights in shining armor and decided it was party time, especially with her uncle Raymond, a French knight. Many people were not pleased that Lou brought Ellie with him, but Lou was so enamored with his young bride that any thing she wanted was OK with him. Lou was an ineffective military leader; he was more of a religiously pious man. He was pretty wimpy on the whole. Even before leaving on the Crusade, Lou and Ellie were estranged and after they returned Ellie wearied of Lou’s weaknesses and began looking for a way out of the marriage. She found that they had a mutual relative which made their marriage illegal and Lou granted a divorce but kept custody of their two children. While all of this was going on, Ellie was scanning the countryside looking for a virile and powerful bachelor. She found one in the 19 year old Henry, the Duke of Normandy and heir to the English throne. Ellie wrangled a meeting with Hank and had a series of sleepovers. Ellie was a sexually experienced 30 year old woman and Hank was a 19 year old virtual virgin meaning that Hank didn’t have a chance. Soon after this encounter he and Ellie were married. Eventually Hank was crowned Henry II, the King of England and Ellie as Queen. Ellie and Hank squabbled from the git-go primarily because of what Ellie perceived as Hank’s indiscretions with other women. Although it was well known that Ellie’s pantyhose had been on fire continuously since the Crusades and she had innumerable trysts and brief encounters herself. You men that are married and those that have been married will understand how Ellie was able to justify this hypocrisy in her own mind. Nearly all women are capable of it. In fact one of her lovers was probably Hank’s father Geoffrey of Anjou who counseled Hank to not mess with Ellie from the start. But in spite of all of that, Ellie delivered Hank five sons and three daughters in a span of 13 years. They were William, Henry, Richard (the Lionhearted), Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor and Joan. Hank had many, many illegitimate children also. In spite of her obvious hypocrisy, Ellie went to France and starts planning the unseating of Hank with the help of the King of France among others. She calls in two of her sons to help plan a coup but her sons ain’t buying what Mom is selling and tell Hank what is going down. Hank too a ship over to France, gathered up Ellie and headed back to England. As soon as the ship docks at Southampton Hank sent her to the Castle of Winchester to cool her heel under house arrest. Ellie remained under arrest for 15 years in spite of her sons beseeching Hank to release her. While Ellie was paying her dues in Winchester, Hank strikes up a liaison with an Irish beauty named Rosemund Clifford. Normally, Hank was discreet with his mistresses, but he flaunted Rosemund for several years. Rosemund died in 1176 and was buried in the nunnery at Godstow and Hank contributed largely to the nunnery in her behalf. Hank died in 1186 and the unquestioned heir to the throne was he and Ellie’s son Richard. The only problem here was that Richard had been captured on the way home from yet another Crusade and was being held for ransom in a castle in Germany. Upon hearing of Hank’s death, Richard got word back to England to immediately release his Mother. Ellie was released and immediately beseeched the Pope to engineer the release of her son which he did, for a price. After an enormous ransom had been paid with a large chunk going to the Vatican, Richard was released and returned to England and was crowned King. During all of this time Ellie had engineered the marriage of two of her daughters to the King of Castile and the King of Navarre respectively. Ellie lived through the reign of Richard and a large part of the reign of her son King John also. It was her son King John that signed the Magna Carta declaring that the king was not omnipotent and granted certain rights. This document was the first its kind and laid the foundation for human rights in England. Ellie returned to Aquitaine for a while and in fact directed the defense of her castle from an attack by some of her grandchildren. What I am trying to tell you is that greed knows no limits even up to trying to savage your own grandmother. Ellie eventually tired of all of this hassle and went to the place of Hank and Richard’s tombs, Fontevraud Abbey, and took the oath of a nun. She lived the rest of her days in relative serenity. In 1204, at the age of 81, Ellie died and was buried along side her husband Henry II and son Richard I.






This tale of Eleanor is by no means complete with all the plots, intrigues and travels that occurred throughout her long life. But in summary she was the richest woman in history up until that time, the Queen of two countries, the mother of two Kings and the mother of two Queens. What a magnificent life.






Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow