Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Marriage is like putting your hand in a sack full of snakes hoping you will pull out an eel.”

Leonardo da Vinci

In a previous edition I mentioned visiting the Rendezvous restaurant and Beale street in Memphis. I was stationed at Greenville AFB, Mississippi at the time. Greenville is on the Mississippi river south of Memphis about 150 miles. I did not have a car nor did most of us. There was one person that did have a car and two of us decided to ride with him up to West Memphis, Arkansas which is just across the river from Memphis. There were two night clubs in West Memphis that were renown pick-up places. They were Danny's Place and The Cotton Club. We went to Danny's Place and mingled. The place was packed. It got close to closing time and we started looking for our driver. He was no where to be found. We went outside and his car was gone so me and the other guy went out on the street and began hitchhiking. Needless to say, we were very angry. About 6:30a our driver pulled up and waited for us to get in. We asked him what the hell happened. He said that he had met a receptive girl and he went home with her. We told him to go to hell and continued hitchhiking. He should have had the courtesy to tell us what was happening rather than leaving us hanging in the wind. We finally got back to the base but it was dark when we got there. That was a lesson learned.

I am still reading the book “Germs, Steel and Germs”, a Pulitzer Prize winner. It is a book about why we are the way we are, animals included. The author surmised that there is a difference between being “tamed” and “domesticated”. Tamed means that an individual terrestrial mammal can be subjugated by humans to do their bidding, domesticated means animals being held together in herds for reproduction such as horses and cattle. He offers several reasons why of the 148 species of terrestrial mammals only 14 are domesticated. Here are a few of them: The Cheetah: It cannot be domesticated and the reason is the mating process. A group of brother cheetahs will begin a chase of the same female that will last for days and cover many miles. It also involved the female having several rough encounters with each of the brothers and finally settling on one of them. If this does not happen, the female does not ovulate. This obviously cannot happen in a cage or a small enclosure.

Bad attitude: Grizzly Bears. Even though the Grizzly offers a ton of meat when mature, their irascible, unpredictable and often lethal attitude makes them too hazardous to consider. Not only that, it takes too long for them to mature. There is a group of people in northern Japan that raise grizzly cubs to about 14 months and them slaughter and eat them. According to them after 14 months they are too dangerous to keep.

Tend to panic: The Gazelle, both African and Middle eastern. Once these animals determine that they are trapped they absolutely refuse to submit and will batter themselves to death on the fence or whatever the enclosure is made of trying to escape. Anyway, how are you going to contain an animal with this tendency that can leap 30 feet and run 50 MPH?

This is but a few of the instances covered by the author.

He said that it is those animals with a well structured herding instinct that are the easiest to domesticate and offers wild horses as an example. Wild horse herds are lead by a stallion then mares A, B, C, D, and E and their colts. Mare A submits only to the stallion and dominates mares B, C, D, and E. Mare B submits to the stallion and mare A and dominates mares C, D, and E. I think y'all see how this works. All humans have to do is replace the stallion with themselves and the rest of the herd will follow.

There are those animals that will reluctantly abide you individually but will not participate in a herd. Have you ever heard of a herd of cats?

                               This Date in History May 8

1864 Yesterday after completion of the bloody Battle of the Wilderness, US General Ulysses Grant headed for the important crossroads near the Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia in the hopes of gaining the lead ahead of CSA General Robert E. Lee toward Richmond, Virginia. General Lee again was able to sniff out Grant’s intentions and sent CSA General James Longstreet’s division under the command of CSA General Richard Anderson because Longstreet was wounded, on a forced march to reach Spotsylvania before Grant. On this date the Confederates did indeed reach Spotsylvania before Grant and was able to construct defensive breastwork before Grant arrived. This made it extremely difficult for Grant because of the determination and grit of the Confederate defenders. One of the top three bloodiest battles in the American Civil War ensued. The Union and Confederate soldiers fought each other without a break for 10 hours. The battle finally waned because of sheer exhaustion of the troop and the coming of night. But the next day it started all over again. At times the soldiers’ bayonets were touching across the breastwork. It was hell on earth, y'all. But again, Grant knew that he had more troops and artillery than Lee and kept pushing.

1945 On this date the United States and Great Britain announced that German soldiers everywhere they were to be found laid down their arms and surrendered to whatever Allies were close by. The war in Europe was over. They called it VE-Day for victory in Europe. Ever since 1939 and the invasion of Poland and the Balkans by the Germans, the devil incarnate in Adolph Hitler had ruled Europe. He had preached that the “3^rd Reich” would rule the world for a thousand years. They lasted six years.

1541 In 1539 the Spanish conquistador Hernan De Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops and 200 horses, a pack of bloodhounds and began exploring the territory. As usual they were looking for silver and gold like they found in Central and South America among the native tribes. They headed north through North Florida, Georgia and South Carolina before turning west across the Appalachians where they went into north Alabama. They did not find any gold and silver but they did find some valuable pearls in north Georgia. As usual the Spanish took many Indians captive and treated them like hell using them to carry supply packs and as guides. However, the Indians set an ambush for De Soto and his troops near the Indian village of Mabilia (Mobile) and they barely got out without annihilation. De Soto’s troops wanted to head south and try to reach any Spanish ships known to be cruising the area. De Soto headed his troops north and then west through Arkansas and Louisiana and on this date, he reached the Mississippi River just south of Memphis. De Soto and his troops built rafts to cross the river but would only do it at night to avoid the ever patrolling Indians on both sides. De Soto and his troops went west a short distance when De Soto came down with malaria and died soon thereafter. His troops brought his body back to the Mississippi and buried in the river at night so the Indians would not know he was dead. De Soto had convinced the Indians that he was a God. Gods don’t die. The troops wanted to get home so they rafted down the Mississippi to the delta and followed the Gulf Coast across Texas and on down into Mexico. They reached Vera Cruz in late 1543 with only half of the troops the started with, but they were safe.

1792 On this date the United States Congress passed a conscription law stating “all able bodied men between the age of 18 and 45 will make themselves available to the military”. It was the beginnings of the draft. Nearly every major power in the world has drafted or conscripted troops at one time or another. In ancient Rome able bodied men were drafted for a 20 years tour...If I am not mistaken, able bodied women are also drafted into the Israeli army. Speaking of that, two of the most vicious military commanders in history were women. One was an early Britain name Boudicca and the other was a Viking name Freida, the daughter of Eric the Red.

1846 On this date US General Zachary Taylor engaged a Mexican army of nearly twice his size near the now Texas town of Palo Alto. General Taylor and the Americans delivered a severe ass-whipping. Not only that, the next day Taylor met them again near Resaca de la Palma and kicked their ass once again. Again, even though they were outnumbered, the Americans were much better trained and had superior weaponry. The Mexican War had not been officially declared but it might as well had been because Taylor had already been engaged in two battles.

1988 Earlier Stella Nickell of Seattle, Washington had decided to murder her husband. She took out a life insurance policy on her husband that had a rider stating that if her husband died an accidental death, she would get an extra $100,000. So she did some research and found out all she could about cyanide. She went into her husband’s bottle of Excedrin and took apart one of the capsules and replaced the contents with cyanide. A few days later her husband did indeed take the Excedrin and died. Believe it or not, an autopsy was performed and the coroner decided that Stella’s husband had died of emphysema making his death of natural causes not accidental as stated in the insurance policy. Stella panicked and in order to make his death appear as an accident, she went into two separate drugstores and replaced the contents of a few Excedrin capsules with arsenic and put them back on the shelf. This was the days before there was a seal over the top of the cap like it is today. A few days later, a woman named Susan Snow took a newly purchased capsule of Excedrin and died instantly. Stella had in mind that if this happened and the FDA investigated, there would be no doubt that her husbands autopsy would be done again and his death would be ruled as accidental giving her an extra 100K. But she was caught and convicted and given 90 years. She will be eligible for parole in 2018.

Born today:

1920 US writer Sloan Wilson. He said “Success in nearly any field depends mostly on drive and energy that it does intelligence.” That is why we have so many of stupid leaders.

1952 US writer Beth Henley. She said ”Writing is creating or spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to do it themselves.” I hope that is the case.

                          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

May 6

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“We are born wet, naked and hungry and then things get worse.”

                                                   George Carlin

A while back the Burris family in Boiling Springs, South Carolina had a little trouble. It seems that 17 year old Kate Burris had been abusing her use of a cell phone given to her by her parents. Her parents gained possession of the cell phone and hid it from Kate. The enraged Kate began pulling clothes out of dresser drawers, silverware from kitchen drawers, etc. Her mother tried to restrain her and Kate began beating her up. Kate’s father intervened and Kate began beating up on him. He ended up with bruises, scratches and one black eye. Kate was arrested and charged with assault but was released after bail in the amount of $2,000 was paid.

The above item is very disturbing to me. I would no more fight with either of my parents because I know what would happen afterward and I had too much respect for them both to do such a thing. I hear a lot of chatter about corporal punishment being detrimental to children. Here is something to consider...there is no question that the “greatest generation” this young country has ever produced was those that lived between about 1900 and 1955. They endured giant dust storms, unparalleled poverty during the Great Depression, stopped the Germans in WWI, stopped the Nazis and Japanese in WWII and fought in Korea in addition to innumerable nasty skirmishes in the attempt to preserve freedom. For bad behavior corporal punishment was common and was expected. It did not scar their hearts and souls...did it? Do we have more violent crimes then or now? Mass murder was almost unheard of during those times and nearly everyone was armed. To me it is clearly a general lack of respect and discipline in present day. Where did that come from? You do the math.

A while back the Asheville, NC police department notified the Anderson, South Carolina police to be on the lookout for forty year old Charles Bennett, Jr. of Anderson. This jackass had been in an internet chat room and solicited sex from what he thought was an 11 year old girl. The Anderson cops went on the chat room, found Bennett and pretended to be the 11 year old girl and the cops set up a meet and Bennett agreed. Bennett went to the meet only it wasn’t an 11 year old girl, it was a couple of Anderson’s finest. Bennett is looking at 20 years of hard time. I like it.

Last Thursday Princes William and Harry were spotted going into a private room in the Rendezvous restaurant, a world famous rib house in Memphis, Tennessee. It is reported that they were there for a friend's wedding. It has been a long time but I have visited the Rendezvous. Back in those days I was not that familiar with pork ribs and I was blown away when I first tasted them. Since then I have tasted many ribs from different parts of the country and I have developed a taste for them. There are a couple of rib houses here in Greenville, SC that are super. Both smoke the ribs and offer a variety of sauces. I prefer a mustard base sauce but the best overall is Henry's Smokehouse and next is Bucky's Barbecue. On that visit to Memphis I also paid a visit to Beale Street, one of the locations of the beginnings of “Delta” blues. Delta blues is a type of blues that was played almost exclusively by Africa-Americans up and down the Mississippi River in the very early years. The true capitol of Delta blues is Clarksdale, Mississippi. It is a small town on the Mississippi River several miles south of Memphis. Morgan Freeman has a large interest in a blues club in Clarksdale not to mention a huge estate in Washington, Mississippi which is a short distance from Clarksdale. I looked the estate up on Google Earth and zoomed in on it...huge, y'all. My favorite blues artist is Muddy Waters (real name McKinley Morganfield) who was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi but he made blues history in Chicago. His style of music was unabashedly copied by the Rolling Stones. Muddy once said “Mick Jagger stole my music but he made me famous.” I did research on Muddy's life and was amazed at how many famous blues musicians he performed with. Many are legends in Delta blues. The downside was he signed a recording contract with the Chess brothers who essentially robbed the hell out of him all of his life. They made millions off of his recordings and paid Muddy a very modest salary and bought him a new Cadillac every 3^rd year. It was the Caddy that dazzled Muddy but I guess everybody has their own priorities.

This Date in History May 6

1775 On this date William Franklin sent a note to William Legge, the 2^nd Earl of Dartmouth, that any further engagements like those at Lexington and Concord would do nothing but never making it possible for the reconciliation of the British and the Colonists. William Franklin was the illegitimate son of Patriot Benjamin Franklin and also was the Royal Governor of New Jersey. When Ben went to England in 1757 he took little William with him and sent him to Oxford where he studied law. Ben studied social climbing and chasing skank, primarily. When William was a child he went everywhere with Benjamin and was with him when he conducted many of his experiments. When it was apparent that the colonies were going to rebel and seek independence, Ben went home to provide his assistance to his homeland. William decided to stay loyal to the British who, after all, had taken this candle makers son and educate him to the point of a Master of Arts degree from Oxford. Later on he was named as Royal Governor of New Jersey. Neither Ben nor William ever changed their stripes and Ben remained a colonist hell-bent of Independence and his son stayed loyal to the crown. Benjamin and William grew further and further apart and in 1782 after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, William sailed to England never to return. Ben saw him once after that when he stopped by for a visit on the way home from France. Ben wrote William out of his will saying that had England had won the war he would not have had anything left anyway. What a great man Benjamin Franklin was and we were very fortunate to have him on our side.

1876 The Thomas Gainsborough portrait of Georgia Spenser, better known as The Duchess of Devonshire is auctioned off in London nearly 100 years after it mysteriously disappeared. Georgia Spenser was an ancestor to Princess Diana. The public interest was aroused once again when the painting was stolen from the Thomas Agnew & Sons art gallery. It was stolen by master thief Adam Worth who needed it to provide bail for his jailed brother. But his brother was able to make bail on his own but Worth decided that he liked the painting and would keep it. Adam Worth was the 19^th century’s most masterful criminal and was the model for writer A. Conan Doyle‘s master criminal Mr. Moriarity in the Sherlock Holmes series. Worth was born in Germany and raised in the United States. He joined the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War and was reported killed at the Battle of the Second Manassas. After this he joined several different units, took the enlistment bonus and promptly deserted. After the war Worth went to New York and joined with a group of pickpockets. He was finally caught and sentenced to three years in Sing Sing but escaped after just a few weeks and took up bank robbery. Worth was very careful and in addition to robbing banks he became very efficient in forgery and moved to England to ply his trade. He still had possession of The Duchess of Devonshire portrait. But he had two conspirators in the theft of the portrait who felt they did not get enough money for helping in the heist and went to the police. Worth refused to tell where the portrait was and he was jailed but not on charges related to the portrait. While in prison Worth decided that he would use the portrait as a bargaining tool to get out of prison or at least have his sentence reduced. It did not work and he served the entire four years and after his release he moved back to America. After a change of heart he began negotiation with the Pinkerton Detective agency for the return of the portrait. An amount was agreed upon and the painting was finally returned to England in 1901. US financier J.P. Morgan became fascinated by the story and went to England and bought The Duchess of Devonshire for $150,000. Worth did not get as much a ransom as he thought and died penniless a few years later.

1940 On this date John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his book The Grapes of Wrath. This book was about a family of poor dirt farmers from Oklahoma that were caught up in the Great Depression along with the worst drought in hundred years and were forced to pull up stakes and head for California to find work. The book was about the trial and tribulations of this family on the trip west and what happened to them once they arrived. The book was a tremendous exercise in imagination. This was not the only well acknowledged book written by this master. He gave us Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, Travels With Charlie among several others. In his younger years he lived in the Salinas Valley in California but was determined to be a writer and moved to New York where he became a laborer and a part time journalist. While there he wrote two unsuccessful novels. Then his father gave him a small house and income back in Salinas County so he moved back home. His first book after coming home was Tannery Row which was a critical and financial success. After this, Steinbeck delivered one successful novel after another. He wrote two successful movies in Viva Zapata and Forgotten Village. He became very interested in marine biology and wrote The Sea of Cortez to wide acclaim from marine naturalists and biologists. His book Travels with Charlie was about him traveling around America in company of his poodle named Charlie and the people he met during his travels. This book earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He died in New York in 1968 leaving a gap in American literature that has yet to be filled. Larry McMurtry came close until he was the screen writer for the movie Brokeback Mountain. In my opinion any writer that was able to give us a saga like Lonesome Dove and then writes Brokeback Mountain has sold out. There are so many literary gems that he has written that there are too many to mention here. I will dedicate a column to him in the future. This one is about Steinbeck.

1937 On this date the German zeppelin Hindenburg after a successful trans-Atlantic crossing from Germany, approached the landing mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The zeppelin had to delay its landing earlier because of a thunderstorm in the area. As the gigantic ship approached the mooring mast, it all of a sudden burst into flame and fell to the ground destroyed killing several people on the ground and aboard the ship. The ship used flammable hydrogen rather than non-burning helium, a serious error.

Born today:

1853 US Senator Philander Knox. When speaking to President Theodore Roosevelt about the Panama Canal he said “Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer any taint of legality.”

1856 Moravian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He said “I have found little that is good about human beings. Most of them are trash.” I wonder if Will Rogers ever met Sig.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“It isn’t what you have, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy, it is what you think about.”

                                                          Dale Carnegie

It is the 5^th of May or Cinco De Mayo, as the retailers call it. Let me tell you what Cinco De Mayo is all about. Back in the mid 19^th Century Mexico was under the heel of France which is one in a long line of foreign rulers of Mexico. The French army was almost unbeatable there because of their training and superior weaponry. However, on one particular 5^th of May in the city of Puebla the local militia was able to kick the French army out and a great celebration ensued. The French came back a few weeks later and re-took Puebla. That, my friends, is what happened. Why do we here in the United States give a damn about a temporary victory by a Mexican militia? I certainly do not nor will I ever. Cinco De Mayo is a scam ran by retailers who also do not give a damn about a temporary victory by a Mexican militia in the 19^th century. The United States is the only country that recognizes this inconsequential day. What we need to recognize is when James I of England partitioned Ireland into Ireland and Northern Ireland and kicked out the Catholics from Northern Ireland and brought in Scottish lords and their crews and occupied this land. Nearly all of the Lords and crews were Presbyterian and devoutly loyal to James. This action precipitated a hell of a lot of immigration into the New World...or present day America...by the the Scots/Irish.

Four years ago there was an explosive oil spill out in the Gulf of Mexico south of Alabama. Even though the oil spill is away from land in Alabama and Florida, it is took its toll on wildlife. Many dead jellyfish and sea turtles washed ashore at Gulf Shores, Alabama. If the oil got much closer the shrimp and oyster industry in that area will be history for years to come. There was a meeting held on the Mississippi coast for all the commercial fishing interests in the area. These people were promised that if the oil makes landfall and a cleanup is required, the commercial fishermen will be the first hired. It ain't totally over yet.

A while back I asked a long time friend living in central Texas what she thought of the new law that was passed by the state of Arizona that apparently is driving the illegal aliens from Arizona into Texas. She was somewhat sympathetic to the plight of those Latinos that take jobs that no one else can or will do. From what I can gather is that Arizona has had an influx of members of the Mexican Mafia crossing the border and attempting to establish a permanent base for drug distribution. We all have all read about the bloodbath taking place in Mexico between rival drug gangs and between drug gangs and law enforcement. I suspect Arizona was trying to stop that enterprise before it got established. My friend and I both agree that the last thing we need is the establishment of a permanent drug distribution center. The question is this: Do we try to help those Mexicans that want to work at unseemly jobs but accept some Mexican drug gangs or just plain gangs (M-13 for instance) in the process? My answer is no. My friend down there near Austin is in agreement with the rejection of the crime faction but neither of us knows the solution. Comments encouraged.

This Date in History May 5

1981 Sixty-six days before, the British army had arrested several members of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and threw them in prison in Belfast. One of them was a man named Bobby Sands. Bobby and the others were arrested as criminals and Bobby complained that he was not a criminal but a political prisoner and began a hunger strike. Bobby refused to eat anything and would only drink a pint of water a day. On this date Bobby Sands died of starvation as a martyr to the Catholics in Northern Ireland. Almost as soon as the word got out about Bobby’s death, the members of the IRA came out of the woodwork in Northern Ireland and some serious rioting and arson began. The British Army suffered many casualties and so did the IRA and many other prisoners begin hunger strikes causing even more turmoil. I have told ya’ll before the problem with Northern Ireland but I will give ya’ll a brief synopsis. In the early 1600’s King James I (also the financier of Jamestown settlement in Virginia) of Great Britain got fed up with the irascible Catholic Irish in Ireland rebelling against the rule of Great Britain. He decided the best way to resolve this was to turn five shires (counties) in the northeast corner of Ireland into a Great Britain friendly area. He seized the property of the Catholic landowners and even the Catholic Church in those five shires. He then gave that property to Scottish Lords if they would bring their Presbyterian tenant farmers with them. James named that land Ulster and some of the Scottish Lords came over along with their farmers and that particular area was Protestant in a land full of Catholics. Those five shires are known now as Northern Ireland. Eventually Ireland raised enough hell that they became independent from Great Britain. That is except for Northern Ireland, they voted to remain part of Great Britain. Therein is the rub. The Irish Catholics want Northern Ireland to become part of independent Ireland so the British Army will get the hell off the island. There is no question that the Irish Catholics discriminate against the Irish Protestants and vice verse. I don’t get it. But maybe y'all do. All I know is that religion is the problem, like in Iraq. So what else in new?

1821 On this date one of the greatest military tacticians and strategists in recorded history dies on the south Atlantic Island of Saint Helena while in exile. Napoleon Bonaparte had begun his rise to power right after the French revolution in the late 1700’s. He essentially defeated the entire continent to Europe, one country at a time. He underestimated the resolve of the Russians when he tried to take them on, but it wasn’t the military might of the Russians that beat him, it was the winter. Napoleon was planning to use Moscow and a few other large cities in Russia as protection from the oncoming winter. But the Russians burned their own towns down to deny Napoleon shelter from the ferocious Russian winter. When Napoleon found this had happened he had no choice but to turn his young ass around and head back to France. The return trip was one of the most brutal in recorded history. The Russian army would wait until most of Napoleon’s troops had crossed a bridge and then they would set the bridge on fire. This would trap a small group the French troops into the hands of the Russians where they were killed off at their leisure. Napoleon lost about 2/3^rd of his troops to exposure and starvation. After this disaster Napoleon was arrested and sent to exile on the island of Elbe in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1812 he escaped from Elbe, raised another army and tried to regain the glory days of old. This time he ran across a combined army of Lord Wellington of England and the Prussian General von Blucher near Waterloo, Belgium and absorbed an enormous ass-kicking.. After this he was exiled to Saint Helena off the coast of Africa from which there was no escape. He was 52 years old when he died, probably of stomach cancer. What a military mind this man had, but it cost the lives of about 7 million people.

1990 On this date Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida after three malfunctions of the electric chair causing a flame to shoot out of the top of Jesse’s head. It was this event that started the move toward injecting poison in the convicted person’s veins. The states had two problems now. There were very few people in the country that could repair electric chairs and there were also very few people that could assemble the right amount of poison and of what type and what method to kill someone quickly without pain or paralysis. There was another case where a 350 pound person was electrocuted and his life ended with him screaming and blood running down his chest. So the states got into high gear perfecting a poison machine for execution purposes. I remember one case in my home state of South Carolina where a man convicted of murder was electrocuted and his heart burst and partially came out of his chest. After this the media had a conference with our Attorney General Henry McMaster and gave him hell about it and he said “All I can say is don’t come to South Carolina and commit murder because “Old Sparky” is waiting for you. I am more worried about the victim’s family than I am of him.” I liked Henry.

1877 Almost a year after US General George A. Custer and most of his 7^th Cavalry were annihilated at Little Big Horn, Sioux chief Sitting Bull and his followers were able avoid several different cavalry units and on this date crossed into Canada to safety. He and his group lived in Canada for four years. The first year was idyllic. There was plenty of buffalo and Sitting Bull had time to play with his grandchildren. After a couple of years Sitting Bull’s young braves became bored and began making trouble with the native Canadian tribes. This did not please the Canadian Government. Eventually the buffalo even in Canada began to disappear and Sitting Bull was forced to ask the Canadian Government for rations. A series of American emissaries came to visit Sitting Bull in Canada trying to persuade him to bring his tribe back into the United States and the Canadian Government encouraged him to go home so his braves would stop causing trouble. Eventually, Sitting Bull and most of his tribe did indeed come back and was sent to the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. Sitting Bull was killed while resisting arrest for allowing his tribe to do the outlawed Ghost Dance which normally was a prelude to war.

Born today:

1813 Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. He said “People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.” Hmmmmm.

1818 German philosopher Karl Marx. He said “Philosophy is to the real world like masturbation is to sex.” No comment

1903 US chef James Beard. He said “A gourmet that thinks of calories is like a prostitute that looks at her watch.” James was a big guy; I’ll bet calories were the last thing on his mind.

Died today:

1821 French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. He said “I am surrounded by priests who tell me their kingdom is not of this world but they take everything they can lay their hands on.” Not only that, they do it in the name of God.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”

              Napoleon Bonaparte

Let's do a recap of the last couple of days. There was a rain and flood down on the Florida Panhandle that would make Noah jealous. One of the major north-south roads in Pensacola was washed out and the road collapsed. A gas leak at the Escambia County (Pensacola) jail triggered an explosion that cause even further death and destruction. It is thought that the gas leak was caused by flooding damaging some of the piping. Are the Gods angry at that area? It seems like it.

I guess all of you know that Detroit, Michigan has declared bankruptcy. This means that the police department is operating on crumbs handed to them which effects their ability to keep up their patrol cars. As a result there have been 8 shootings of burglars so far this year. I appears that the residents have decided that they cannot rely on the cops any longer and have armed themselves much to the chagrin of the no good criminal jackasses that had rather rob people than work. The Chief of Police has defended these actions saying that everyone has the right to protect themselves. Why is that the present administration has asked for us to not condemn all Muslims for the actions of a few lunatics but condemn all gun owners as being dangers to the community?

I was reading an item naming the top ten Mexican restaurants in America. The top ranked one was in Los Angeles and number two was in San Antonio but in the top few was Hugo's in Houston. I have been to this one but it was not in the present location but I assume the food is as good as I remember. There was another Mexican restaurant about halfway between LaPorte and the Hobby airport south of Houston. This place was a hoot. It was always packed. It had a small bar and the seats were stacked cases of Corona beer.

I was working for Fluor who had engineered an addition to a chemical plant near LaPorte. I was doing “field verification” meaning that one of the clients representative and I would walk the completed parts of the addition and verify that everything was in compliance with the approved drawings. It is called a “walk down”. There were four of us Fluor employees using one car to go back and forth from our motel to the plant site (about 4 miles). We had to park the car in a designated parking lot that was a considerable distance from the plant so we would alternate drivers day to day. The driver had to let the others out near the plant gate then park the car and walk back. That evening the same designated driver had to go get the car and bring it to the gate an pick the others up. The summertime heat in the Houston area is almost unbearable. One particular day after work the designated driver went to get the car, started it up, turned the A/C wide open and then decided that he had to relieve himself. He got out and aimed at one of the tires and let loose. The problem was that he had locked the doors when he got out with the car running. We called a locksmith who was unsuccessful after about 1 ½ hours of trying. We called another locksmith who got the door open and we got back to “Partners” bar and grill 3 hours late. Partners was the closest bar to the motel. What a day. By the way, after sitting in the sun for about three hours with the A/C running, the windows inside the car were totally fogged and watery.

The bad part of this job was that the client had their own inspectors that did some checking on their own and found discrepancies that were unacceptable and kicked us (Fluor) off the plant site. That day when I got back to the motel room there was a phone message from Fluor headquarters in Greenville telling me that there was a plane ticket awaiting me at the Southwest Airline ticket counter at the Hobby airport...be there at 1:00p the next afternoon along with the other three. We came back to Greenville. The problem was that the client felt that the wrong gaskets had been used at nearly 300 locations which would require a lot of dis-assembly and re-assembly...and a hell of a lot of labor costs. Fluor sent a team down there to try to figure out what the hell happened. I never heard the results.

On the way home from this fiasco we had to change planes in the Atlanta airport and we were pretty morose. We were sitting on a bench near the departure gate and I saw one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen across the way in a book store. I went over to her and said “Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that I have had a very bad couple of days but your beauty has made this day worthwhile.” She was shocked, of course, and quietly thanked me and I went back to the bench. I don't know why I did that...but it felt good.

This Date in History May 2

1670 On this date King Charles II of England chartered the Hudson Bay Company which was essentially a group of French explorers that was beginning a fur trapping operation in what is now Canada. The charter allowed the Frenchmen to set up a lucrative trade monopoly with London merchants. Not only this, it gave control of most of the lands around North America’s Hudson Bay. This deal was highly contested by English traders in the area and French fur trappers already in place but none the less the Hudson Bay Company enjoyed enormous success in what would become eastern Canada. France lost influence in Canada during the French and Indian war and some Montreal merchants established the North West Company and began a fur trade with Scottish traders. The Hudson Bay Company continued enjoying success in spite of the company’s failure to find a northwest passage out of Hudson Bay. Eventually the North West Company and the Hudson Bay Company merged under the better known name of the Hudson Bay Company. The united companies then controlled the fur trade from the Atlantic to the Pacific in Canada. The company was under the governorship of Sir George Simpson from 1821-1856 when the company reached its monetary peak. Canada was granted dominion status in 1867 and the monopoly fell apart. But by then the company was diversified and remained Canada’s largest corporation through the 1920’s. Speaking of King Charles II, it was his father King Charles I that was beheaded during the English Civil War in 1649 and Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England until his death in 1660. After this England decided they wanted a monarchy again and Charles II assumed the throne but he argued with the Presbyterians in Scotland for several years before he was named as King of Scotland. Charles II was known as “The Merry Monarch” for his many parties. He also acknowledged to fathering 14 illegitimate children but did not name any as his heir. “Merry” indeed.

1808 Earlier France under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte had successfully invaded the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain). On this date the Spaniards in Madrid, Spain get fed up and begin a rebellion. The fight against the occupying Frenchmen reached a crescendo in the main square of Madrid. The Spanish rebels were defeated and that night the French commander Grand Duke Joachim Marat sent his troops through the city and hundreds of Spaniards were unmercifully killed in retribution. The success of Napoleon in his occupation forced the King of Spain, Charles IV, to abdicate. But eventually the British sent an expeditionary force under the leadership of Arthur Wellesley to kick the French out the peninsula. The French were kicked out of Portugal in short order but the struggle for Spain took a while. In 1813 Wellington finally routed the French army in the Battle of Vitorio and Spain was free once again. Later on Napoleon and Wellesley met again in the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium where Wellesley beat the crap out of Napoleon and was titled the Duke of Wellington for his efforts. He was known as the “Iron Duke” for his rigid discipline, but it paid off in the long run.

1924 On this date Patrick Mahon was arrested in a London train station for murder. He had a bloody knife in his luggage the he readily admitted he used to dismember his mistress. He said the she had fallen and struck her head and died and he felt the need to hide her remains so his wife would not find out. The police go to the apartment and find that Patrick had indeed dismembered his mistress to the point that there was nothing larger than a foot square. To verify that the mistress had died from a blow to the head or not, the police had to reassemble the corpse for an autopsy to confirm the cause of death. This job was the beginning of the police using rubber gloves in an investigation of a murder. They could not confirm that the woman had died from a blow to the head because they never found a head but the rest of the corpse was reassembled. Patrick was tried and convicted of murder and was executed in September of the same year. I like it. By the way, Patrick was caught because his wife found a receipt for a storage locker in Patrick’s clothing and sent the police to the locker. There they found Patrick’s bloody clothing from the murder. Moral: Men, do not cheat and kill and dismember your mistress unless you have a change of clothes.

1972 On this date the movie “Jaws” begins production. A great deal of the filming was done in and around Pensacola, Florida and not Amity, Massachusetts as indicated in the movie. I was living in Pensacola then and it was not unusual to see a twenty foot mechanical looking Great White shark in the back of a semi traveling down the highway.

Born today:

1762 Russian Empress Catherine the Great. She said “You philosophers are lucky people. You write on paper and the paper is patient. I, as an unfortunate Empress, must write on the skins of living beings.” Did she mean she was a tattoo artist?

1859 English writer Jerome K. Jerome. He said “But then, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, they came after me for the funeral expenses.” No Comment

1879 South Carolina governor James F, Byrnes. He said “The closest thing to immortality on earth is a government bureau.” Right on, Jimmy.

Died today:

1519 Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. He said “As a well spent day brings a happy sleep, a well spent life brings a happy death.” Leonardo was so smart he was scary.

1857 French writer Andre Musset. He said “Things they do not understand always creates a sensation with the English.” It doesn’t happen with the French because they are so damned stupid.

1972 FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover. He said “I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy unless it in some way has affected interstate commerce.” Edgar, shut up.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow