Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I did not have a single talent left and could say 'I used all that you gave me.'”

                                                     Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck was one of my favorite writers. She had an enormously humorous way with words. Her first best selling book was “The Grass Grows Greener Over the Septic Tank” and I think you can gather from that where she was going. In addition to having more than 12 best seller books, she wrote a daily column for a newspaper syndicate. She was also on a major TV network morning show for several years and was called before Congress to testify in behalf of equality for women legislation. When she was 20 she was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease but she was able to cope with this problem for almost the rest of her life. She had a successful mastectomy in her later years then her kidney problem raised its ugly head and she obtained a kidney transplant. Complications from this surgery killed her at the age of 69. The world is a worse place without her thoughts...but there are still her books.

Here is an interesting story for you.

A very short while ago up in Chicago there was an up and coming rapper named Joseph Coleman. He was riding down a street his neighborhood on a bicycle when a car pulled up beside him and he was shot in the back. He died the next day. His rap name in the Chicago area was Lil JoJo. He was connected with a gang named Gangster Disciples. A man with the rap nickname Chief Keel was arrested for the murder. He was associated with a gang named the Black Disciples. Both Chief Keel and Lil JoJo are/were 18 years old. Where the hell was their guidance at home? What we have here is one dead teenager and one other looking at at least 20 years in the joint or maybe the needle. Has anyone out there heard about either one of these kids before reading this? Why not? Are you being played for a fool by the media to their benefit? Is Joseph Coleman just as dead as Trayvon Martin? What is the difference between these two tragedies? I think y'all know the difference. Who are the racists here? I personally have had enough hypocrisy. But on second thought, that is just what the media AND the administration apparently wants...division...so I will just abide and try to encourage all of us to stay together.

I have been taken to task lately because of my reports about the Catholic Church that I read in several news sources. The complaint is not that I reported them; it is the embellishments that I add. After all, even the Pope acknowledges that there is a problem. Then later I reported about a Pentecostal Holiness minister that hit hard on a fifteen year old girl that was cleaning his house and was forced to resign. So I feel obliged to touch on some of the other religions. Back in the 1870’s the Ku Klux Klan was fostered heavily by the Southern Baptists and Methodists. By the way, The most recent location for the headquarters of the Klan is Skokie, Illnois.

I have been studying the history of the ancient Greeks in addition to the history of the US plains Indians, especially the central and north Texas Comanches. The history of the Greeks included the Olympics. The first record of the Olympic games was about 770BC and the games were considered ancient then. It is called the Olympics because they were held at the base of Mount Olympia which was the legendary home of the Gods led by Zeus and his wife Hera. According to legend the running track at the site was laid out by Heracles (Hercules) who paced off the distance of the track. The track is about 600 feet long and doing a little math, Heracles wore a size 12 shoe. In the wall paintings of the games the men were nude. There was also a hurdles foot race. It was reported that when those of African ancestry began participating in the games, with no explanation they had to lower the height of the hurdles to avoid injuries...just joking. It was also reported that women were not allowed any where near the games. It is also reported that a crude telescope containing an etching of Hera was discovered in an archeological dig about 5 miles away from the site...another joke.

In the years before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors there were no horses anywhere in North and Central America. A few of the Spanish horses escaped or were stolen and they began roaming and breeding. The central and north Texas Comanches were considered “trailer trash”...but they were among the first to capture and tame the fiery Spanish ponies and became an enormous power. They also were the first to become expert riders and judges of horse flesh. Their herds of the best horses available became well known and respected. The Comanche mounted raiding parties were acknowledged to be the best light cavalry in the world for many years. They were not defeated by the US cavalry in combat because the Comanche and their ponies could go further and do without food, water or rest longer than anyone trying to run them down...the cavalry poisoned or shot their pony herds and thousands of Comanches died of starvation or disease because they could no longer run down bison or any other game not to mention the location and transportation of water... I am not proud of this time in our history...By the way, can you imagine bringing herds of horses across the Atlantic in sailing vessels?

In 1875 the Mormons attacked a wagon train that was traveling from Arkansas to California and were passing through Utah. At a place called Mountain Meadows a Mormon militia disguised as Paiute Indians along with some real Paiutes attacked the wagon train for no apparent reason. The Immigrants fought back and the fight came to a standoff. A couple of Mormons identified themselves and told the Immigrants that if they surrendered their weapons, they would be allowed to continue. They did indeed surrender their weapons but the Mormon’s resumed their attack and a massacre was the result. They would not kill the women, they assigned the Paiutes that task and they did not kill anyone younger than 8 years old. The final death toll was 120 and the corpses were allowed to lie on the prairie for two years until a US Cavalry unit found them. All religions are populated by human beings and we cannot expect behavior any different.

I also was also taken to task for making somewhat uncalled for remarks about women. I try to be fair when it comes to that.

I will use that tired old cliché that a lot of my friends are women as is many of my heroes. All of you subscribers out there may or may not know that I have had three wives and two live-ins and several dating girlfriends. These experiences will add a particular flavor to my editorials. By the way, I am between wives and/or girlfriends at the present.

A couple of days ago the Spartanburg city cops were called to a disturbance at a McDonalds. It seems that a 39 year old lady was pretty hammered and was getting unruly. She had ordered two hamburgers and two small coffees to go. When she was handed the bag she went to the restroom and returned claiming that there was only one hamburger in the bag. Y’all see what is coming. The workers at McDonalds began to see a grease stain forming in the crotch of the lady’s shorts and so did the cops. The cops cuffed the lady and a female cop came and dipped her hand into her shorts and retrieved a hamburger. I would like to see a show of hands of those that would eat the hamburger….That’s what I thought.

This Day in History July 22

1934 FBI agent Melvin Purvis had been hunting gangster John Dillinger for a few years without success. So he decided that he had to do something else besides trying to anticipate where John would be at any given time. Purvis began an investigation into who was on the perimeter of John’s group of gangsters. It turned out that there was a woman in Chicago that Dillinger would go to from time to time to hide out. This woman was an illegal alien from one of the Balkan countries. Purvis found this out and had a meeting with this woman and told her that either she helped them catch Dillinger or she would be deported. She agreed and a few months later she called Purvis and told him that Dillinger was coming by for a visit. Purvis told her to get Dillinger out of the house and call him and tell him how she was going to do it. She called back and said that she and John were going to the movies. As you might suspect, Dillinger loved gangster movies and wanted to see “Manhattan Melodrama” starring Clark Gable. On this date the movie was being shown at the Biograph theater and Purvis and company had the theater surrounded. Dillinger and his girl friend came out and after they moved away from the front door, Purvis approached with gun drawn and ordered Dillinger to surrender. Dillinger ducked into a nearby alley and produced a pistol of his own and began firing. John had no idea as to how many men he was facing because all of them opened fire and poor John went down in hailstorm of gunfire. This was the end to one of the most recognized criminals in American history. By the way, the woman was deported anyway.

2003 On this date US forces encircle a large house in northwestern Baghdad. They suspected that Saddam Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday were inside. They found out for sure when a firefight began. The fight lasted three hours and ended with the American forces brought in a piece of armor and nearly shot the house down. Sure enough Qusay and Uday were indeed in the house dead as fried chicken. They were both monsters with Uday leaning more toward exotic methods of torture. The quick death they received was too good for them they should have left that up to me and my redneck friends.

1991 On this date the Milwaukee PD saw a naked teenager in hand cuffs running down the street so they stop and to find out what the hell is going on. The teen named Tracy Edwards told the police that he had been held hostage and his life had been threatened. Well, the cops think that young Tracy is doing a dance around something really fishy so they escort him back to the apartment he said he escaped from. An amiable young man answered the door and explained that it had been just a misunderstanding and nothing illegal had occurred. The cops bought it and were on their way out when one of them spotted a couple of Polaroid photos of dismembered body parts and thus began the discovery of the den of horrors of a man named Jeffrey Dahmer. The cops call for back-up and soon the full impact of what this demon had propagated came to light. It was something out of Dante’s Inferno. He had hundred of various and sundry human body parts stuffed in his freezer and refrigerator. He had two genuine human skulls on top of his TV. On the stove was a kind of stew containing human organs. The police could not believe what they were seeing but they took Dahmer into custody and charged him with a plethora of offenses, including cannibalism. During subsequent investigations the cops found out that Dahmer would prowl the gay community of Milwaukee looking for the youngest male he could find, take them home and kill and dissect them. Not only that, he would use some of the body parts in a variety of recipes including the previously mentioned stew. Needless to say, he went to the slammer for life. I would be content with that knowing what kind of treatment he would be facing. Hopefully his roomie was a 350 pound, 6’-5” sexual pervert. He had been in prison for just a short while when the worst possible thing happened. One of the other prisoners stuck a shank in his liver and he died, damn it. By the way, a shank is a knife that is made of something different like a toothbrush or a fork or a sliver of Plexiglas, y'all get the picture.

1795 Earlier the Northwest Fur Company had assigned Alexander McKenzie to an outpost in Alberta, Canada. McKenzie was the restless type so he began to hunt for a river that would end in the Pacific. He started with the river that is named for him but it emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Then he tried the Peace River but it was impassable so McKenzie said to hell with it and struck out cross-country. On this date he arrived at the Pacific Ocean. He did this trip of discovery all on his on without governmental assistance. Twelve years later the US government sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the Pacific near present day Astoria, Oregon.

Born today:

1844 English religious leader and dyslexic William Spooner. He wrote this. “Sir, you have tasted two whole worms, you have hissed at all of my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad. You will leave Oxford by the next town drain.” This reminds me of g.

1955 US actor Willam Dafoe. He said “I am not a weird person. I am just a square from Wisconsin.” I know another square from Wisconsin, but he ain’t an actor, he designs pipe in 3D. I know what you are thinking. What is there to design about pipe? It is cylindrical, rigid and is of various lengths and diameters. I ain’t going any further with this.

1964 Colombian actor John Leguizamo. He said “Latino for Republicans is like roaches for Raid.” I met a girl a few nights ago whose cologne smelled like Raid. I asked her what she was wearing and she said “Red”, whatever that is. So if any of y'all have a bug problem, you can substitute “Red” for Raid.

Died today:

1967 US poet Carl Sandburg. He said “I have only made a mistake in grammar once in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.” Hey Carl, you should not ought to have did it.

Quotable quotes:

“When I was a kid the Dead Sea was only sick.”

George Burns

“Opera is where a man is stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings.”

Robert Benchley

“Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.”

Doug Larson

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow