Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“For
every second of your life the future is becoming the past.”
Thor
Heyerdahl
The
above quote gave me pause and it should do the same for you. We are
all NOT ten foot tall and bulletproof and should live our lives as
it is truly a gift from God...this is not a rehearsal.
The
author of the quote is a well known adventurer. This Norwegian
maintained that the US could have been visited by the Egyptians in
pre-history. Thor and his workmen went to a port in western Africa
and using images from the walls of Egyptian tombs as a guide, built a
boat as close to what they found saw as they could. They also built
the boat out of reeds found growing up and down the Nile river.
Using the westbound trade winds, they sailed to the Bahamas proving
that it was indeed possible for the Egyptians to have visited us.
Thor named the boat the “Ra”, which was the Egyptian Sun God of
the time. Thor also did the same thing in the Pacific naming his
boat the “Kon-Tiki”. He wrote a book about this adventure that
is still thrilling to me. Of course the name of the book is
“Kon-Tiki” and is worthy of your attention.
I
think I have already mentioned the plane crash in Soldotna, Alaska
that killed 10 people including the pilot. The airport is about a
mile from the lodge my brother and I stayed at during a salmon
fishing trip a few years ago. What I did not know was that the nine
passengers were all from South Carolina. I do not know anyone in my
social arena that went on such a trip but it will be interesting to
find out who they were and where they were from. After writing this
I found out that the nine passengers were a family of five and a
family of four, all from here in Greenville. What a damned shame.
By the way, the aircraft was a de Havilland Twin Otter, one of the
best cold weather, rough terrain airplanes ever invented but it is
only as good as who is at the controls. The same can be said about
the Boeing 777 that crashed in San Francisco. The 777 has a superb
safety record but witnesses said that at the last moment the nose of
the aircraft assumed a very nose high attitude before slamming to the
ground. I was a licensed pilot in my past days and that sounds like
the aircraft ran out of sufficient power for the nose high attitude
and stalled...that cannot be anything but pilot error. By the way,
the pilot was in training. Since this writing a review board has
blamed the crash on pilot error.
I
have been watching ads for the rap artist “Jay-Z” doing an album
named MagnaCartaHolyGrail. I have yet to understand a word he said
(sang). They showed a brief glance of a keyboard musician and he
looked a hell of lot like a man named “Garth” that played with
the Doobie Brothers of long ago but I am probably wrong. Michael
McDonald was the lead singer in those days and I haven't heard a
thing from him in years.
We
all have been seeing and reading about the intelligence agent that is
on the run looking for a place to live other than Russia...they won't
have him. For a week it appears that it will be Venezuela, but no
confirmation of his arrival. Bolivia offered him asylum until the US
reminded them about how much money the US is donating to their
welfare.
This
Date in History July 10
1925
On this date a civil trial opened in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial
was the state of Tennessee vs a high school teacher named John
Scopes. A few months before the Tennessee legislature had passed a
law that forbade the teaching of any method of the rise of humankind
other than what is written in the Bible. They were especially tense
about the teaching that mankind arose from a lower animal. Well, Mr.
Scopes taught science in a local high school and had started teaching
evolution. Word got out to the Christian fundamentalists about this
great crime and Scopes was arrested and charged. Some of you may not
like the ACLU but they did the right thing here. They hired world
famous lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes. The state was
represented by the Christian fundamentalist and politician William
Jennings Bryan. From the time Scopes was arrested the trial was
anticipated to be the legal event of the century and it did not
disappoint. The ACLU had given Darrow carte blanche to get as many
experts in whatever fields he deemed appropriate. Darrow brought in
experts in anatomy, paleontology, religion, etc. Nearly all of his
experts were disallowed by the prejudicial judge so Darrow had no one
to testify in Scopes behalf so he called a self acknowledged “expert”
on the Bible and that being William Jennings Bryan himself. Darrow
was at least an agnostic if not an atheist and he asked Bryan some
questions about things or events in the Bible that clearly required a
leap of faith to believe because they were supernatural and
contradictory. Bryan was stuck for answers to many of then and
Darrow made his point. But it was for naught because Scopes was
convicted but the fine was only $100. I do not understand how the
law was passed in the first place because there is no such thing in
the Constitution that defines the separation of church and state, but
the US Supreme Court has ruled that was the intent.
1943
On this date the Allies land on axis (Italy, Germany and Japan)
controlled Europe with the landing on the island of Sicily. The
first plan for the invasion of Sicily came from US General George
Patton designating a landing by the British 8th
Army, Sir Bernard Law Montgomery commanding, near Syracuse on the
southeast corner of the island and Patton and the 7th
Army landing near Palermo on the northwest corner and both armies
driving toward Messina cutting off the retreat of whatever German and
Italian soldiers that were there. But Montgomery went to the overall
commander, US General Dwight Eisenhower and complained. So the plan
was altered where Patton and the 7th
Army lands at Gela which is about 200 miles west of Syracuse to
protect Montgomery’s flank. If ever there was an egomaniac of
historic proportions it was Montgomery. Not only that, he was
severely overrated. He was extremely proud of the fact that he
defeated the legendary German commander Erwin Rommel in a battle near
the North African city of El Alamein even though he had Rommel
outgunned and more armor by a factor of three. From that day on he
signed his name “Montgomery of El Alamein”. Hey Monty, what
about all the British troops that were killed and wounded in this
battle? How egotistical can you be?
1967
On this date the ship Rainbow Warrior is sabotaged and sunk in the
harbor of Auckland, New Zealand. The ship was owned by the
environmental organization Greenpeace who were in the area planning
to sail into the waters where France was going to test a nuclear
device. It seems that two men using SCUBA gear swam to the ship and
planted explosives on the hull. An investigation by the Auckland and
New Zealand police revealed that it was two French secret agents that
had done the deed and were arrested. Well, the French government
said they did not know anything about the men even though they were
caught with current French government identification on them. A
scandal erupted and French Prime Minister Francois Mitterrand and his
government were on the verge of collapse so they had to confess that
they engineered the sabotage of the ship because they were not going
to delay their nuclear test. Mitterrand and the French Government
made amends to Greenpeace.
1992
The criminal conviction of the captain of the oil tanker Exxon
Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood, is overturned. Hazelwood was the captain
of that supertanker when it ran aground in the pristine Prince
William Sound in southeast Alaska. The ship was carrying over 1
million barrels of Alaskan crude. A devastating leak developed which
was the worst environmental disaster in American history and resulted
in the death of over 250,000 sea birds, untold numbers of otters and
millions of salmon and salmon eggs. Captain Hazelwood was accused of
drinking heavily in Valdez the night before the ship left port but
that was never proven. But he was not in the wheelhouse the ship
left and an inexperienced man was at the controls. The ship left the
marked sea lane to avoid icebergs and never returned to the lane.
Hazelwood’s conviction was overturned because he notified the Coast
Guard and Exxon of the grounding within the specified time. It was
Exxon that was late in calling out the machinery to contain the oil
spill and the state of Alaska sued them for many millions of dollars.
Exxon has opposed any and all law suits from Alaska but was ordered
to pay Alaska many millions of dollars but they appealed, and
appealed, and appealed and have not paid the judgment to this day.
1940
Earlier German General Hermann Goering had convinced the Adolph
Hitler that he could bring England to their knees with his Luftwaffe
(Air Force) alone. On this date Germany launches an air raid on
England from their bases in France and the Battle of Britain was
underway. The English people took a beating but their bulldog
attitude would not let them surrender. Germany even sent over
missiles but nothing worked. The British fighter pilots had two the
finest aircraft ever built in the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker
Hurricane. The English fighter pilots saved England. It got to the
point that Prime Minister Winston Churchill was worried that he would
eventually run out of pilots because there were some casualties. But
on one day the British fighter pilots shot down 75 German bombers and
Hitler said to hell with it, we can’t afford losses like that and
the Battle of Britain was over.
Born today:
1509
French theologian John Calvin. He said “Remember that Satan can
work miracles also.” That is scary.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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