Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”

                                              Winston Churchill

In addition to the history lesson I will include an essay of the greatest display of dedication and courage ever documented to remind us of what mankind is capable of in view of great odds that are against them. Today is September 11...remember it...but for now...

                          Marathon and Thermopylae

                                    A Profile in Courage

In 490 BC the Persian (present day Iran and Iraq) army/navy was led by their king Darius I on a mission to conquer Greece. In September of that year the Persian fleet landed in the Bay of Marathon, Greece with his 300 warships and 300 cargo ships Darius disembarked and arrayed his infantry of an estimated 60,000. The Athenian army was already there with a force of 11,000. The Athenians met the Persians at waters edge with their army split into three sections, a central force and two wings, one on each side. After the battle began the Athenian central section began to fall back in an apparent retreat. The Persians pulled in their flankers and put them in the front to pursue the retreating Athenians. The Athenians then stopped their retreat in the center and attacked with both wings simultaneously and the Persians were caught in a double envelopment with their backs to the sea. The Persians panicked and began running right and left into the awaiting swamps and soon were drowned not mention the three Athenian infantry divisions in their familiar phalanx arrangement that waded into the panic stricken Persians and used their spears, swords and axes with great effect. The end result was 203 Athenians killed to 6,400 Persians who also had 7 of their ships captured. Darius went back to his ships and sailed his young ass back to Persia. It is a legend that the Athenians sent a runner named Phidippides back to Athens that was 26 miles distant to tell of the victory. After reaching Athens he was to suppose to have dropped dead after uttering “We are victorious”. This legend is where the famous foot races called marathons originated. The first of present day Olympic marathons was in 1896. There is evidence the games similar to the Olympics were held in Greece before 770BC.

With all of this in mind, I will move on to Thermopylae. Darius’ son Xerxes decided that he would avenge his father’s defeat at Marathon and initiate another assault on mainland Greece. So after four years of preparation, in the spring of 480BC Xerxes left Persia with the fleet of 1,207 ships and 300,000 infantry hell bent on conquering Greece. Xerxes’ infantry and navy followed coastline of the Aegean Sea so the infantry could be supplied by the navy. In fact Xerxes had enough ships that they could make a bridge of ships across the Hellespont and his infantry marched over from Asia to Europe rather than having to be shuttled over with ships. I looked at this area from a satellite view and measured the distance and it is about 1.3 miles at the closest point. The Hellespont is a narrow body of water that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea and it is in present day Turkey. After getting his infantry across, Xerxes continued to follow the coast of the Aegean Sea over to Greece with his navy close aboard. While all of this was going on, the Greek city-states got together to decide what they were going to do about those pesky Persians that they knew were coming once again. Everybody looked to the Spartans for leadership in this arena. The professional Spartans soldiers (Hoplites) were acknowledged to be the fiercest in the known world. The Greek city-states assembled an army of 7,000 led by Leonidas and 300 Hoplites. Leonidas knew that it was unlikely that he or any of the Greeks would return from the upcoming battle. It was the law of the Hoplites that they would never retreat and Leonidas told his wife that when he left this time to “Find a good husband and have good children”. The Greeks decided that the best place to try to stop or delay the Persians was a narrow path on the Aegean coast named Thermopylae Pass. This Pass had a sheer cliff rising hundreds of feet on one side and the Aegean Sea on the other. They also knew that Xerxes would be very reluctant to leave the coast and go inland and be out from under the umbrella of his navy. The Pass was so narrow that two chariots could barely get through side by side meaning that the pass was about 20 feet wide. On August 11, 480BC the 7,000 Greeks met the Persian army of 300,000. Xerxes sent an emissary to talk with Leonidas promising him that if he came over to the Persian side he would be named the King of all Greece. Leonidas sent this message back “If you knew what is good in life, you would abstain from asking for foreign things. For me it is better to die for Greece than to be a Monarch over my compatriots.” The next day the infuriated Xerxes sent another message demanding that Leonidas and his army surrender their weapons. Leonidas sent this immortal message back “Come and take them.” This took Xerxes somewhat aback knowing what such a small force he was facing and he waited four days hoping that Leonidas would change his mind. Nothing happened and on the fifth day Xerxes sent in 20,000 troops. The lightly armored Persians were no match for the heavily armored, well disciplined Greeks arranged in their typical phalanx with their long spears. During the first attack, a Greek soldier spoke with a Hoplite named Dienekes and said that the Persians had enough men to send over enough arrows to block out the sun. Dienekes responded with “So much the better, we will fight in the shade.” Because of the terrain the Persians were unable to surround or flank the Greeks and the narrowness of the Pass made superior numbers useless. Wave after wave of Persian infantry attacked and was slaughtered until the dead were head high in front of the Greeks. Leonidas knew that there was no way that the Greeks could win this battle so he sent all the Greek army away except for his beloved Hoplites numbering 300 knowing they would be annihilated. Then a strange thing happened. A division of Thespians numbering about 700 led by one Demophilis decided to stay, Demophilis said that he was not going to leave the Spartans here to die alone. The Thespians were typical of Greek armies. They were not professionals like the Spartans; they were soldiers when they needed to be. In fact Demophilis was an architect by trade. This act of bravery has been overlooked by historians but it was not overlooked by the Spartans who exchanged cloaks with them and they vowed to be allies for eternity. 50,000 Persians attacked on the second day with the same result as before in spite of Persian officers standing among them and lashing those that retreated. Xerxes finally sent in his personal body guard of 60,000 named “The Immortals” and they were slaughtered also. As their numbers fell, when the Spartan/Thespians broke their spears, they pulled out their short swords and kept fighting and when they broke they fought on with their hands, teeth and nails. Xerxes finally found a seldom used path over the cliffs and attacked the Greeks from the rear and killed with arrows what few Greeks remained, including Leonidas. The final total was 1,100 Greeks killed to 64,000 Persians. Xerxes had lost two brothers in this short battle and pulled Leonidas’ body aside and beheaded him. His body was later given to the Greeks and he was buried in Sparta with full honors. This battle allowed the rest of the Greek city states to prepared further for the war against the Persians that ended with the sea battle of Salamis and the land battle of Palatea. After these stunning defeats, the Persians once again got aboard their ships and sailed their young asses back to Persia never to return. About 150 years later a young Greek named Alexander paid Persia a visit and extracted a terrible revenge.

There is a monument at the site of this battle with a Greek inscription that says “Friend, tell the Spartans that beneath this hill, we lie obedient to them still.”

                      This Date in History    September 11

2001 Arab terrorists primarily from Saudi Arabia skyjack 4 US airliners and crash 2 of them into the twin towers of the World Trade center in lower Manhattan completely destroying them, crash one in the Pentagon and one of the skyjacked plane’s pig sucking coward terrorist are overcome by the passengers and the plane crashes into a field in central Pennsylvania. There were no survivors in any of the crashes. These pig sucking coward terrorist are supposedly sponsored and financed by Saudi national Osama Ben Laden and his network of pig sucking cowards known as al Qaeda. America was/is under attack and is in fact at war to this day. I just go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that America has sent out its own version of “terrorists” like A-Teams, Marine Recon teams, Air Commandoes, Seal teams and Delta teams who are out there in the world and are covertly capping those coward pig sucking sons-of-bitches and their families faster than a dog can trot.

1931 Movie star Fatty Arbuckle is arrested for the killing of starlet Virginia Rappe. It seems that the 350 lbs Fatty and Virginia were participants in a wild sex/drinking party in San Francisco at which Fatty, apparently in the male superior position, ruptured Virginia’s bladder from which she died a few days later. After two hung juries Fatty was acquitted and released but his movie career was dog sh-t from then on. It was the biggest scandal to ever happen to the movie industry up until that time. Fatty did continue as a director for several years using the pseudonym George Goodrich. He was credited with discovering comedian Buster Keaton which was one of the most sought after movie stars ever. Fatty died in 1933.

1961 Former Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev died. Nikita was in power in 1961 during the Cuban missile crises. These were scary days, y'all. We were within a gnats ass of a nuclear exchange with the Russians but JFK and RFK among others got us out of that pickle and there were concessions on both sides primarily Russia remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba and we took our missiles out of Turkey which we were going to do anyway. It was a breath holding experience for us all.

1940 The most evil man in history Adolph Hitler ordered the German army into Romania to capture its oil fields and oil reserves to bolster his attempt to conquer the free world.

1931 Crime mob boss Salvatore Maranzano is found strangled and stabbed to death in New York and there is little doubt that it was Lucky Luciano that ordered the hit. Luciano made millions of dollars and lived in the Waldorf Astoria but he claimed an income of $22,000 per year. His rent alone was more than this. In 1929 Luciano was captured and stabbed in the neck with an ice pick but fortunately for Lucky it missed the jugular. The police interviewed Lucky about the attack but Lucky said he had done it himself and that it was an accident. Several days later several bodies were found floating in the Hudson River and they all were “associates” of mobster “Legs” Diamond. “Legs” was never the same after that. Later on the Feds figured that they had enough evidence against Lucky to take him to trial and put him in the joint for the rest of his life. About then WWII broke out and the Feds made a deal with Lucky that if he would ensure that there would be no labor problems on the docks during the war effort they would not try him but deport him. Lucky died in Italy.

1857 A wagon train of pioneers/settlers from Arkansas and Missouri are massacred by Mormon guerillas and Paiute Indians while crossing Utah at a place called Mountain Meadows. The Mormons were pissed off because more and more non-Mormons were settling their lands and a few years before the Mormons were kicked out of Missouri and those settlers from Missouri chided the Mormons about it. The Mormon guerillas made a deal with the Paiutes, they would kill the men and the Paiutes would kill the women. In all there were 120 men and women killed. There were 18 children survivors. The US called bullshit on this and ordered Brigham Young to come up with another agreement whereby there would be a non-Mormon Governor and a US military presence would be allowed because they were coming anyway.

Born today:

1862 US writer O. Henry. He said “The only thing a straw vote does is tell which direction the hot air is blowing.” O. Henry was a cynical bastard.

1877 English physicist James Jeans. He said “From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now appears to be a pure mathematician.” This is clearly offensive to the Evangelicals.

1895 English writer D. H. Lawrence. Upon his return from a trip to France he said “It would have been better without the French people.” When I went to France in ’04, the ship stopped at La Havre, France and within 15 minutes of getting off the ship I was in a yelling match with some French son-of-a-bitch. Lawrence was right.

1925 US actress Grace Matthau. Grace was the wife of actor Walter Matthau who was hitting hard on a Hollywood starlet. Walter kept asking her what her age was and finally Grace came over and said “For God’s sake Walter, why don’t you just cut off her legs and count the rings.” That was good, Grace.

Thanks for listening…I can hardly wait until tomorrow…Goodbye from the land of Baptists, Methodists and some honest people.