Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but the hurt is much worse when you love someone and do not have the courage to tell them how you feel.”

Charles Swindoll

I have tried for years without success to tell Dolly Parton how much I care.

I have been reading the tales of arguably the greatest writer of all time and that being Homer. This great man was born somewhere on an island or on the shore of the Aegean Sea in the 8^th Century BC. Homer is most famous for giving is The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad is about The Trojan War. This war erupted when an entourage from the city of Troy (in present day Turkey) came to visit king Menelaus the king of Sparta, Greece. Included in the Trojans was a prince named Paris. Menelaus was married to a stone fox named Helen who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. During the visit Paris and Helen dug each other and had several trysts. When it came time for Paris to sail back to Troy, he persuaded Helen to go with him. Menelaus was insulted but was leaning toward finding another beauty to replace Helen but his brother Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, saw it another way. He was extremely incensed at this insult of his brother that he began gathering a navy and soldiers to invade Troy. What happened during this war Homer mixed real things and events with mythology. There was mention of Achilles, Ajax and Hector among other that reside in Greek mythology, however there was indeed a city of Troy in southwest Turkey. A German archeologist uncovered the ruins of this city including a layer thick with ashes where it had been burned to the ground. This event was also mentioned by Homer in The Iliad. The Greeks besieged Troy for 10 years with no success until a plan was hatched by the Greek king of Ithaca named Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology). It was Odysseus that conceived the large wooden horse with troops hidden inside and left the horse outside the gates of Troy. Then the Greeks sailed their ships out of sight over the horizon (about 16 miles) to convince the Trojans that they had given up and sailed for home. The Trojans bought the ruse and pulled the horse inside the gates. That night the Greeks sailed back to the shores of Troy and deployed their infantry. The troops inside the horse crawled out and opened the gates allowing their infantry inside. It was all over after that. What a stupendous feat of Homer's imagination is this tale. I will approach The Odyssey at a later date, it is richer in pure imagination than The Iliad .

I have been asked to repeat this tale.

Not long ago I had planned to go on my bi-yearly visit to Pensacola Beach, Florida for a month. There was a ploblem with my car (Nissan Maxima) and it looked like I would not be able to go. A good friend that was the owner of a Corvette and a Jeep Liberty offered the Jeep to me for my visit and I accepted. After the end of the trip I brought the Jeep back to her condo which is in the very center of downtown Greenville. Her location is also very near the gathering place of the homeless as is common with central cities. After I dropped the car off at her parking garage I called a friend to come and take me home. I had a few things in the Jeep that I put into a garbage bag and went outside to wait on my ride. The street that her condo was on is on the main path of the homeless to and from downtown. I was standing there bag in hand and an obviously homeless man came toward me with an banana sandwich dripping with mayonaise. He stopped in front of me and said “Have your eaten today?”...and pushed his sandwich toward me.” I was baffled for a second until I realized that he thought I was homeless because I was standing on the sidewalk with a garbage bag and he was willing to share his banana sandwich with me. Think about this, y'all...think a lot about it.

A while back I got into a discussion with this woman about money. She started patronizing me with questions like “Do you know the difference between rich and wealthy?” I said that I didn't really give a damn and she continued with “Rich is those that have assets today...wealthy is when you have assets that continue.” I finally had enough and asked her “If I were to walk into the University of Ankara (Turkey) and asked anyone if they knew who Mark Hopkins, J.P Morgan or other rich Americans or did they know who Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Galileo, Isaac Newton, etc. were? What would be their answer?”. I continued with “At one time when the railroads in America were being built the largest steel maker in the world was a Scotsman that had immigrated to the US. He ended up as being the richest (wealthiest) man in the world. It was Andrew Carnegie. I have written a biography on him. He built a lot of libraries and concert halls with his money but he is dead and so is all of his gigantic steel mills in and around Pittsburgh. It is very unlikely that the people in the University of Ankara would have ever heard of him. It is people's inventive and creative thoughts that make them remembered...not the jingle in their change purses. She and I were casually looking at a woman's high end (naturally) clothing magazine and I pointed out a dress that I thought was pretty and she said “If my boyfriend were to come and pick me up wearing that he would say 'I will just wait in the car while you change clothes.'” I was stunned...she has to anticipate what this jackass approves of and wear that so he will be will not be offended. Who is rich (wealthy) and who is poor here?

Here is possible situations that I would be interested in hearing anyone's response to:

A person (either man or woman) has just left driving a car after having dinner including a glass of wine. This person suffers a stroke that also effects their speech. The person drives erratically and hits a tree. The cops arrive on the scene and try to question the person but all they get is mumblings and the smell of alcohol. The driver is uninjured otherwise. Will the cops take this person to the emergency room or the drunk tank?

A person has just left in a car after having dinner including one scotch and water. The person is hypoglycemic which is essentially the reverse of being a diabetic. If any of you saw the movie “Steel Magnolias” Julia Roberts was hypoglycemic as is my middle daughter. It is possible if not probably that if this person does not pay close attention to what their sugar intake is they could collapse into a semi-consciousness very quickly. If a person with this affliction hits a tree, would the cops be able to identify the illness and rush them to the emergency room, force feed them some orange juice...or take them to the drunk tank?

There are many, many debilitating conditions that would make a driver appear to hammered. Are the cops trained to identify these illnesses?...I know a emergency response team could, but the cops are first on the scene and it would be they that call for an ambulance if they felt it was needed. Otherwise in Greenville, SC...you are headed downtown to the joint.

It wasn't too long ago that a man was walking across the parking lot of the Detention Center here in Greenville carrying a paint gun...it was at night. A cop saw him and and assuming he had a firearm and yelled at another cop and both of them got behind a cruiser, pulled their weapons and ordered the man to halt. He did not halt and the cops capped him. It was found out later that the cops saw what they thought was a weapon (paint gun) and assumed the worst. It was revealed that the dead man was partially deaf and did not speak English very well anyway. He is dead for these shortcomings...not to mention the arrogance and attitude of the cops. This event has been frantically swept under Greenville's carpets.

Don't get me wrong. I prefer the world with the cops than without. What set me off was a while back a cop and I were in conference with a judge and I said “I can't do a roadside sobriety test involving my feet because I am a diabetic and haven't really felt my feet in ten years.” This is a very common problem with diabetics. The dumb-ass cops said “Well if you can't feel your feet how do you walk at all?” He has no clue as to the symptoms of this and other physical infirmities. This “person” works for me, not vice-versa yet he felt like he could be a smart-ass and call me a liar any time he felt like it. This cops knows as much about human illnesses as I do about being an astrophysicist...yet he is out there “protecting and serving”. As far as that jackass is concerned it isn't “protecting and serving”...it is “us against them”. God help the people described in the above situations if this cop was involved because they would be taken...well...you know.

Any comments welcome.

A while back a woman named Anna Mae Bullock renounced her American citizenship and became a citizen of Switzerland. Then later on she married a man that was 16 years her junior. She is 72 years old and even at her age she has great legs. She was known as Tina Turner at one time but since she is no longer an American and was made a multi-millionaire taking American's money...she is back to being Anna Mae Bullock from Brownsville, Tennessee.

This Date in History July 29

1588 A few years earlier Queen Elizabeth I of England had sent her most able sea captain in Sir Francis Drake out to harass Spain, England’s worst enemy at the time. Drake did not disappoint. He caught the Spanish fleet at anchor in Cadiz, Spain and sent in ships that were on fire into the fleet and bombarded them with long range artillery. This attack delayed by one year King Phillip of Spain’s attempt at the control of the English Channel and therefore controlling England’s commerce. Drake’s attack also alerted England to Spain’s intentions. Queen Elizabeth had sent monetary aid and supplies to some of the Dutch colonies that were rebelling against Spain’s attempt to occupy those lands. Eventually, King Phillip of Spain got his fleet together to the tune of 130 ships containing 8,000 guns manned by 2,000 sailors and 20,000 infantry. This fleet was known as the “Great Armada” but later it was known as the Spanish Armada. Anyway, the fleet left Spain headed for the English Channel in a line of ships eight miles long. The delay had allowed the English fleet almost a year to prepare and when the Spanish Armada arrived in the English Channel the English were ready. The English ships were not a fast as the Spanish ships but they were a lot more rugged, especially in rough seas, and had cannon with a lot longer range. As you might suspect, the English ships stood off out of range of the Spanish ships and bombarded the hell out them. Then the worst possible thing happened for the Spanish Armada. A typical English Channel storm arrived unexpectedly and the mighty Spanish Armada was forced to seek shelter in a small bay near Calais, France where they anchored down to ride out the storm. The English fleet, Sir Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake commanding, waited until the storm abated and on this date they sealed off the mouth of the bay the Spanish Fleet had occupied and again bombarded the hell out of them and sent in, you guessed it, fire ships meant to set fire to the Armada. After that it was every Spanish ship for himself and the ships left that bay the best way they could. Most of the ships did escape from the bay but they were not in formation and disorganized, the English were waiting and picked them off one at a time. Not only that the wind shifted and the Spanish Fleet had no chance to sail back to Spain and many of them crashed on the shores of Scotland with the English fleet in hot pursuit. The English fleet turned back at the north end of Scotland. Finally, the survivors of the “Great Armada” arrived back in Spain less than half strength. This is one of the most important military events in history in stopping Spain from invading England.

1981 The wedding of Charles, The Prince of Wales and Diana Spencer. Nearly one billion, I said one billion, people watched that wedding on TV from 74 countries. Since Diana was of a royal descent she automatically became Princess Diana. There were 2,650 guests at the wedding. The “happy” couple was blessed with a son about a year later when Prince William was born and in 1984 Prince Harry was born. It was soon thereafter that a rift appeared between the two and the English press got scent of it. They announced formal separation in 1992 but in reality they had been apart longer than that. They continued to carry out their royal duties until August of 1996 when a divorce was granted. The only thing Diana had to give up was the title of “Her Royal Highness” and Charles gained his mistress of many years, Camilla Bowles. We all know what happened to Princess Di and Prince Charles chose to marry Camilla. How he could ever arrive at this decision is beyond me.

When I was in London in ’04 I went on a bus tour of that great city. Our tour guide was admittedly aflame but he was a funny guy and a great guide. We came by the home of Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. This man was the founder of the Boy Scouts. Our guide said that he once joined the Boy Scouts but was asked to leave because he caused too much turmoil. It was then that he told us about his life style...I told you he was funny. He also said that on one occasion Prince Charles was driving into Buckingham Palace with a couple of his friends and ran over one of Queen Elizabeth’s prize Corgi dogs. He got out and found that the Corgi had been crushed top to bottom. His friends persuaded him just to bury the dog and pretend that he did not know what happened to it. So he started digging a hole and hit something metallic and it is a brass lamp. Charles began rubbing and a Genie popped out. The Genie offered Charles one wish and he asks if the Genie can bring the dog back to life. The Genie says, “Hand me the dog” and he looked the dog over and said “I can’t do anything with this, the dog is crushed from one end to the other, but you still have a wish. So Charles says, “Can you make Camilla any prettier?” There was a long pause and the Genie says “Let me see the dog again.” By the way, our tour of London included a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the place where Charles and Diana were wed. What a stunning sight it is. Many, many of England’s greatest heroes are buried in the cemetery including Lord Wellington and Lord Nelson. The dome of St. Peters was designed by the famous architect Sir Christopher Wren in the late 1600’s. The dome has structural members that meet at the top and there is nothing underneath. Sir Wren designed a chain that was attached to all the members at the bottom which prevented them from spreading apart. As far as I know, that chain is still there. Wren was a pretty smart guy.

1967 On this date on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal standing off shore from Vietnam, an air to air missile is accidentally launched from an aircraft on the deck that crashed into other aircraft on deck and exploded. The resulting fire and subsequent explosions killed 134 sailors. To this date, I have not understood how it could have happened. There are so many safety devices and locks to prevent this from happening but anywhere humans are involved there can be errors. By the way, John McCain was sitting on deck in his fighter awaiting launch when this occurred.

1945 On this date the battleship USS Indianapolis was enroute from Tinian to the Philippines after delivering the final part of the Hiroshima bomb. A Japanese submarine spotted the Indy and put two torpedoes in the side of this great ship. The shots are fatal and the Indy went down fairly quickly but most of the crew of about 800 escaped into the sea. But there are not enough life rafts to get everybody aboard so they rotate hanging on the sides and sitting inside. There were 134 survivors to this tragedy. The sharks fed on those hanging over the side.

Born today:

1878 US writer Don Marquis. He said “Ours is a world where people don’t know what they want and will go through hell to get it.” That sounds like my second ex-wife, Don.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow