Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“No matter how much you have, no matter how big your car and house is, no matter how big your bank account is, the depth of your grave will be the same as everyone else...If cremated there will be the same amount of ash...if put in a vault...there will be the same degree of disintegration. In the long run, we are all the same.”

Anonymous

Within the last few days a retired Major General from the US Army has stated that the unrest in Iraq is a secular (religious) war and warned against the US getting involved...that the war should be decided by the participants. The very same thing was stated by retired four star General Petraeus yesterday. He said that the US cannot become the Air Force for the dissidents nor the Iraqi government. The reason is the dissidents are all Sunnis and the Iraqi government is overwhelmingly Shiite. If the US were to help either side it would mean we were taking sides in a religious dispute. That ain't what the US is all about, y'all. Any action would invite a response from the side we start helping to defeat. The Sunnis and the Shiites are universal, y'all, not just in Iraq. If we help the Iraqi government then the Sunnis worldwide would be coming after us for inferring and the same can be said for the Shiites, in other words we are wrong either way. They just want to be left alone to fight it out. In Iraq the Sunnis are by far the minority but they seem to have the most zeal...so far. By the way, Iraq has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia with the largest accumulation near Tikrit which has already been captured by the dissidents. This could very well have an adverse effect on the price of oil worldwide, the USA included.

I was reading an article on the FCC levying a $36 million fine on a Chinese electronic manufacturer for marketing a “signal blocker” in the United States. This gadget would interfere with cell phone communications. Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me. What about 9-1-1 calls and the communication with the first responders like paramedics, etc? Anyway there was a “Comments” section and some of the “know it all” jackasses agreed with the FCC and others disagreed but in five of the comments that I read there was a misuse of the word “their”. One guy wrote “Their Chinese, they don't have an FCC.” It ain't “their”, dumb ass, in this case it is “they're” which is a contraction of THEY ARE. “Their” is a possessive like “Those shoes are “theirs”. “There” is used like “The shoes are over “there”. If you don't know the English language how the hell are you going to decide what the freaking Chinese are supposed to do? I don't now why this kind of crap bothers me.

There has been an entire city discovered that was previously unknown for 1,200 years. Even the local inhabitants did not know of its existence. It is in the jungles of Cambodia and was found by a laser instrument from an aircraft. The buildings are almost identical to those in Angor Wat, a Cambodian city that has been abandoned for 1,000 years and is a much visited tourist attraction. The name of this city has about 20 letters and is not worth the time to write. The entire city was covered with the jungle similar to those in the Yucatan Peninsula and others throughout Central America. Nearly all of the ancient Mayan and Inca villages and towns were discovered by accident except those that were overpowered and enslaved by the gold hungry Spanish conquistadors in Peru. I was in Quintana Roo (Cancun area ) which is about half of the Yucatan peninsula during my honeymoon with my third ex-wife. She knew I was a historian and was very interested in going to Mayan ruins. We went to Coba and Tulum and I was fascinated. But as far as ruins go, the honeymoon was indeed in ruins and I had more fun in Hurricane Opal. But on with the original thought. The newly found Cambodian city is indeed older than Angor Wat but it existed during the same Khmer dynasty. It will take several year of excavation to clear out all the vegetation but it will be worth it. I am not sure if the Khmer had draft animals or not in the time period but there were plenty of elephants and water buffalo. Whether of not they were trained is conjecture. It would have been nice if they had the basic tool principals like the screw, inclined ramp, the lever, the compass, etc. I don't know and I don't think anyone else knows for sure. I think they had to know how to forge metals because much of their buildings have very detailed bas-relief statuary throughout the city. It could have been done with using stones that were harder that what they were carving on but I think they had metals. Angor Wat also has a huge man made lake that was used to gather and save water and to raise fish. There is also speculation that areas that were too swampy to walk over were simply flooded and canoes or other watercraft were used for transportation. Most of the buildings in Angor Wat and the newly discovered city are circular and taper somewhat toward the top. I am not sure which would be the easiest to build a square building that is a lot bigger at the bottom than the top (pyramid) or a circular with a small taper. These buildings were erected around 900AD. What was happening in the rest of the world? The Europeans were mostly living in temporary shelters and had been fighting with the Romans, Mongols and Vikings for centuries. I think this turmoil prevented any appreciable progress, in fact what preceded what is now St. Paul's cathedral in London was burned down by the Vikings. That place has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. What I am getting at is that the Maya, Inca, Olmecs, Aztecs and the Cambodians built enormous buildings and civilizations totally on their own. There was no other peoples to equal them within range during their zenith. How did this happen? I do not believe that one day a corn farmer down in central Mexico suddenly raised up and said “Say, lets build something that is a lot bigger at the bottom than it is at the top made of stone. I know we don't know how to cut and fit stonework and we don't have draft animals, the wheel, a compass or knowledge of basic machines and architecture, but lets do it anyway.” I think they had to have some guidance...from where, I do not know...but it is fun to speculate.

Back in times of the Spanish conquistador in about 1513 one of the priests reported that he had caught glimpse of a large white city in present day eastern Honduras. This happened again in 1532 and the natives identified the city as Ciudad Blanco or The White City. The legend said that because of their wealth the people in that city ate off of golden plates. That legend continues until this day...but now there is a difference. Recently a specially equipped aircraft identified a city in eastern Honduras using a laser identifier and scanner. This city is unidentifiable to the naked eye because of the overgrowth in the rain forest. It is the same equipment that located the lost city in Cambodia in the previous essay. The archeologists and paleontologists that made this discovery refuse to identify the exact location for fear of looters destroying the ruins in their greed for the gold that was reported to be there. I don't blame them for hiding the location. I would really love to be on the group that hacks its way into this location. The laser has identified one large central city and several smaller towns surrounding it. What a thrill it would be to step into a city that has been abandoned for at least 400 years and built by a people unparalleled in history...the Maya.

Recently an elderly couple did not arrived at any of their normal locations and their relatives notified the police. The police arrived at their Crescent Drive (high dollar) home here in Greenville and found the couple dead of no apparent trauma. They called the fire and rescue units for assistance. They found that the house was flooded with deadly concentrations of carbon dioxide. The couple had just recently bought a a new Toyota Avalon and it was parked in the garage. An investigation revealed that the Avalon had been running for several hours until it ran out of gas and that is where the CO2 came from. A test was made and it was found that both of the elderly people were alive but brain dead. They could have been kept alive by artificial means but they had a living will in place and were allowed to expire. The relatives are happy with this but cannot explain how the car was unintentionally left running. I understand that it is easy to start and may have had a a remote ignition switch...but damn what tragedy.

               This Date in History June 20

1789    On this date the “Third Estate” of France met in an indoor tennis court and swore not to disband until a Constitution had been adopted. France was divided into three “estates”. There was the 1^st Estate being Royalty, the 2^nd Estate was the upper Clerics and the 3^rd Estate was the commoners and the lower Clerics. The king of France was Louis XVI who rose to power upon the death of his grandfather Louis XV in 1774. Louis XVI was very unsuited to handle the finances of France and much unrest in the general population resulted. Y'all may be familiar with Louis XVI’s wife, Marie Antoinette. Anyway, a meeting was held in the indoor tennis court occurred in spite of the fact that Louis had ordered them to disperse. Louis finally realized that France was going to hell in a hand basket and assembled the Estates-General which was an assemblage of all three Estates which had not happened since 1614. The deputies of the Estates issued a list of grievances and demands for reform. The 3^rd Estate had the most people there and declared them the National Assembly and swore to force a constitution on the king. Louis seemed to concede but then surrounded his palace at Versailles with troops and dismissed Jacques Necker who was a champion of reform. Louis should not have done that because about six weeks later the general population rose up in revolt and tore down the king’s prison (Bastille) and captured Louis and Marie trying to escape and beheaded them both. They were merciful however; they did not kill them both at the same time.

1782    On this date the Congress of the United States adopted The Great Seal. On the front of the seal is a bald eagle holding an olive branch in his right talons and arrows in his left. This represents that Congress has the power to work for peace or make war. There is a shield on his breast with red and white stripes with a blue field above. The eagle’s beak holds a ribbon with the phrase E pluribus Unum on it, this Latin for “Out of Many, One”. There is a ray burst on top of the eagle encircling 13 stars. One might think this represents the thirteen original colonies but it doesn’t. It represents the concept that a “new nation has joined the other countries of the world” and indeed we did.

1947   Benjamin Siegel was raised in the manner of most crime figures in Brooklyn, New York, when a teenager he and his friend Meyer Lansky initiated a protection racket on the local businesses that eventually blossomed into bootlegging and extortion. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel rose in power in organized crime and in the late 1930’s he was selected to open operations in Los Angeles and was given $500,000 start-up money. Bugsy jumped into the Hollywood scene and became well known to powerful people and movie stars for his all night parties at his mansion. Then WWII started and the attention of the American people focused on the war and not what Bugsy was selling. Bugsy instead chose to go to Italy and try to sell Mussolini explosives. The explosives did not perform and Bugsy came home empty handed. Then he had a brilliant idea. He noticed that every train coming to the west coast was full of soldiers and the trains all made a rest stop in the sleepy town of Las Vegas, Nevada where the local government turned a blind eye to petty crime and gambling was legal. Bugsy decided to open a gambling casino and borrowed $6,000,000 from New York organized crime headed by Lucky Luciano and opened the very first in the Flamingo. At first the Flamingo was not profitable and Lucky called in the $6,000,000 loan to Bugsy. Bugsy and Lucky argued bitterly and on this date, Bugsy was sitting on the couch in his girlfriend’s (Virginia Hill) apartment in Beverly Hills when two shots from a 30.06 came through a front window striking Bugsy in the head killing him instantly. This was the end of Benjamin Siegel. Almost at the same time, some of Luciano’s men walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were now in charge. Even Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano could never have imagined what this town became.

1905    On this date Lillian Hellman is born in New Orleans. Her family shuttled between New York and New Orleans and she attended New York University and Columbia but received a degree from neither. It became obvious that she was a gifted writer, especially screenplays. In 1925 she married screenwriter Albert Kober but divorced him a few years later. Then she chose to go to Russia and civil-war-era Spain supporting leftist causes. She eventually returned to the good ole USA and struck up tumultuous relationship with hard-assed detective novelist Dashiell Hammett. “Dash” was a very successful writer giving us the immortal “Maltese Falcon” that was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. The arguments between these two were legendary but there was no question they were in love. Then an egotistical horse’s ass showed up in Congress named Joe McCarthy. This jackass was a junior representative from Wisconsin and he decided that everybody in federal government and each and everyone in the movie business were card carrying Communists. He became the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee and ordered a series of hearings too root out all of those Commies. They really were not hearings, they were inquisitions where you came in guilty and had to prove your innocence and endure McCarthy’s demeaning questioning. As a result of these hearings, Dash went to jail and Lillian lost everything she had. After Dash’s release from prison he fell ill and Lillian cared for him until his death in 1961. Lillian began a teaching career that included Harvard, MIT and USC Berkeley. She died of a heart attack in Martha’s Vineyard in 1989. What talented person.

Born today:

1743 English writer Anna Barbauld. She said “I don’t know if our age is getting better or worse. Our plays sound like sermons and our sermons sound like plays.” Nothing has changed from that day to this.

1905 US writer Lillian Hellman. She said “It is the mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their finest hour.” She is right. You see some performers out there that should be retired but are performing the roles or songs that made them famous decades ago, Tom Jones for instance.

Births:

1936 US writer Dan Greenburg. He said “You don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut.” You do not ask a hooker if you look horny, either.

1967 Australian actress Nichole Kidman. After divorcing the diminutive Tom Cruise she said “At last, I can wear high heels.” Tom cried about that put-down all the way to the bank.

         Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow