Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“I
know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not
sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
Robert
McCloskey
I
could hardly restrain myself when I saw President Obama speaking
about the so-called “Arizona law” he said “The United States
cannot allow an individual in power (Governor of Arizona) to declare
themselves anti-immigrant just to make a name for themselves…”.
Hey Barack, you dumb-ass what about the 66% of us Americans who agree
with the Arizona law as written? Are all of us trying to make a name
for ourselves? You are so out of touch with mainstream America it is
scary….and I mean scary. Everything you think about is related to
your collapsing political career. You need to go ahead and buy a
plane ticket back to wherever you came from.
I used to belong to a
Facebook page titled “Natives of Greenville, SC.” I think that I
am the oldest “native” on this site. It became a contest of who
can think of the oldest place or thing in this locale and talk about
how great things were “back in the good ole days”. It became so
sickeningly sweet with everyone talking about the way things used to
be and how Greenville is Nirvana. I got fed up and tried to tell
them that It is not a location that makes you happy, it is your frame
of mind and what is in your heart. Oh my God, you would have thought
I had cursed Dale Earnhardt, Jr. One person responded with listing
all the places she had lived (obviously military assignments) and
said she had chosen to retire in the Greenville-Spartanburg area and
then she asked “Where else would you have me go?” I ignored the
obvious answer to that one and told her “You should go to where
your heart is the happiest and it has nothing to do with location, it
is frame of mind and attitude...but I guess that understanding this
concept is beyond you.” To all of you that are interested the sun
does not rise in Gaffney (about 40 miles east) and set in Westminster
(about 40 miles west) with Greenville being the center of the
universe. The center of the universe is where you as an individual
want it to be. Another person obviously got very testy when I even
suggested that I don't give a damn about “the good ole days” nor
those that revere this city or any other section of earth. Heaven is
in your heart and mind, not at the intersection of Main and Coffee.
Personally I would be closer to heaven sitting in the shade under the
Pensacola Beach fishing pier contemplating the future which would
mean a scrumptious seafood dinner including Apalachicola oysters on
the half shell...but that is just me. I cannot and will not revere
the past...there is just as many sorrowful memories back there as
there are pleasurable ones. What is really a mystery to me is these
people try to remember everything from deep in their past as being
pleasurable and then say how much they love Greenville. What is
Greenville? Is it the old Ice house near Poe Mill, Reedy River
falls, the Blue Ridge mountains being only 25 miles away (as the crow
flies)...or is it the people? Of course it is the people. I can
assure you that back in the 60's and 70's compared to today the
population has at least tripled or maybe quadrupled with immigrants
from several different locations worldwide but especially central and
western Pennsylvania and Ohio because of the collapse of the American
steel industry. This makes the Greenville of the 60's and 70's light
years from what it is today. The people that have moved here have a
different mind set, values, traditions, etc. Greenville is not the
same city of yore. Some of you have deluded yourself into believing
that the old ice house near Poe Mill and things like it are Eden and
eternal. When my mother and father were in an assisted living
facility for a short period all the people there passed the time
talking of the past. Use your mind for something creative and
fulfilling not trying to remember something pleasant from the past
and ignoring the sorrows. Try to live for today...and the future.
OK y'all, the sermon is over...Amen....Vivre
pour la journée...laissez le bon temps rouler de temps!
And
for Ana...Vivar
pars el dia...que los buenos tiempos sean!
I
read about the 10 most dangerous cities in the world. Two of them
are in the United States. As you might suspect, the 2nd
most dangerous city in the world is Detroit. This cesspool has a
murder rate of 43.5 per 100,000. Since this writing Chicago has
become the MOST dangerous. Down about 7th
in the world is New Orleans, if you can believe that. They have a
murder rate of close to 40 per 100,000. I will be going to Gulf
Breeze, Florida eventually...they have mean cops when it comes to
speeding, running red lights and stop signs...but the natives are
friendly even though most are armed.
This
Date in History August 5
1981
President of the United States Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 air
traffic controllers for going on strike. I was one of them. The
roots of the strike began about three years earlier when our Union
President went out and contacted Presidential candidate Ronald
Reagan, the ex-governor of California, and told him that we the
16,000 members of the air traffic controller’s union would campaign
to get him elected if he would just promised to do one thing. The
union had tried to get the retirement system for air traffic
controllers changed because the stress wore heavily on their ability
as they aged. The Union had spent millions of dollars literally
bribing the right Senators and Representatives to get a bill
introduced that would change the retirement system for air traffic
controllers. All was asked of Reagan was that he not interfere or
veto the bill once it is introduced as part of the next contract.
According to our union president Reagan agreed to this. Reagan came
to office in 1980 and the next year our contract came up for renewal.
We were excited that a change in the retirement was on the horizon.
Reagan came out and essentially said “Here is $43,000,000 dollars,
do with it what you want, and that is all you are getting for your
contract.” Money was not an issue as far as we were concerned; we
wanted a change in the retirement plan. But when we threatened a
strike President Reagan pointed to the $43,000.000 and said something
how greedy we were in typical political bullshit. He did not even
mention the retirement change. Even if we had wanted a pay raise,
$43,000,000 divided among 16,000 people for the length of the
contract which was three years would have meant a raise of about 53
cents an hour. That made it a matter of honor, so we went on strike
and was fired. It probably saved my life getting out of that
business because counting my time in the Air Force I had been doing
it for 25 years and I was pretty much worn out anyway. But either
Reagan or our union president lied. In any event the rank and file
were betrayed. I am sorry for all of your Reagan lovers, but this is
what happened as I saw it.
1864
US Admiral David Farragut had been tasked with the capture of
Mobile Bay and the city of Mobile, Alabama. On this day he arranged
his ships in two columns out in the Gulf of Mexico and then turned
into the mouth of Mobile Bay. The Confederates had a well armed fort
on either side of the entrance to the bay. They were Fort Morgan and
Fort Gaines. Farragut sent four ironclad ships to lead the way.
When the two forts opened fire, one of Farragut’s ironclads “The
Tecumseh” went to the bottom within minutes. The ships behind
began to run around in confusion until Admiral Farragut supposedly
signaled “Damn the torpedoes (artillery), full speed ahead” and
the ships fell back into line and kept going into the bay.
Farragut’s quote during this battle is suspect at best, but the US
Navy succeeded in capturing Mobile Bay and the city of Mobile,
Alabama. The US fleet did not escape totally unscathed except for
the “Tecumseh”, several US ships were destroyed or ran aground
but the victory was Farragut’s.
1936
Earlier in this year, FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was grilled by a
congressional committee and was criticized because he had never made
an arrest himself. Well, old Edgar had an ego the size of Montana
and he went on a mission to arrest a well known criminal personally.
The agency had already captured or killed some on the most famous
criminals in American history like John Dillinger, “Machine Gun”
Kelly, “Ma” Barker and her sons so Hoover decided it would be
Alvin Karpis. He was number one on the FBI most wanted list.
Alvin’s prime game was kidnapping and collecting a ransom but he
was not above assault and battery and even murder. Hoover sent a
task force to locate the elusive Alvin. They used every thing at
their disposal including letting other criminals out of jail if they
would give them information on Alvin, or making outright bribes.
They tracked Alvin through a series of “safe” houses which was
mostly whorehouses in Illinois and Arkansas. Finally they were able
to track Alvin down to a whorehouse in New Orleans. The task force
surrounded the house and waited for Hoover to arrive. Hoover arrived
and hid in an alley while the agents took Alvin down and made sure he
was unarmed and then that scion of bravery, J. Edgar Hoover stepped
out and made the arrest and put on the handcuffs while the newspapers
were there in force to take photos at Hoover’s behest. On this
date Alvin Karpis stepped foot in Alcatraz and there he is to stay
until 1969 when he is paroled and deported to Canada. He died there
10 years later.
1953
On this date ex-Texas Ranger Ira Aten died at his home in
Burlingame, California at the age of 89. At the age of 13 Ira and
his family had moved to a farm in the central Texas town of Round
Rock. This was on the outer edge of the western frontier at the time
and Ira had to learn the law of the west first hand. His father was
a Methodist minister and attended to the burial of more than one
outlaw that was killed by vigilante groups. He became very handy
with his fists, hand guns and was a crack shot with a rifle. At the
age of 20 he joined the Texas Rangers and was assigned a territory on
the Rio Grande River where much cattle rustling happened headed both
north and south. He got into several gunfights but always came away
unhurt. He was then sent to the west Texas frontier that was
considered to be more peaceful. While there he met up with an outlaw
named Judd Roberts and tried to arrest him but Roberts wanted to
fight so Aten shot Roberts in the gun hand but Roberts escaped. Aten
met up with Roberts again and tried to arrest him but Roberts again
wanted to fight so Aten shot him in the leg but Roberts escaped
anyway. Finally, Aten met Roberts a third time and did not try to
arrest him; he put a bullet into Roberts’s sternum killing him
instantly. Aten finally got out of law enforcement and became a
supervisor on the enormous XIT Texas ranch. Even then he had to deal
with cattle rustlers. He finally moved to Burlingame with his five
children and lived out the rest of his days in serenity. He was one
of the last to have lived in the legendary “wild west”. By the
way, the XIT ranch was owned by ten investors and was enormous. XIT
stands for Ten(X)-In-Texas
Born today:
1961
US comic writer Liz Winstead. When speaking of Jerry Lewis she
said “The train of bitterness stopped at his station years ago.”
Died today:
1895
German philosopher Frederick Engels. He said “An ounce of
action is worth a ton of theory”.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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