Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“Love
is a condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your
own.”
Robert Heinlein
Greenville,
SC is the home of Bob Jones University/Academy. It is a very, very
narrow-minded Christian based school teaching from kindergarten to a
master's degree with about 3,000 students. The administration was
called to task for their actions, or lack thereof, relative to
reported sexual abuses/attacks on campus. An independent Christian
based organization named GRACE was hired by BJU to look into
these allegations. After a few weeks of squabbling GRACE and BJU agreed on the rules. After two years of investigating GRACE
issued their 301 page report. GRACE in an organization formed by a
relative of Billy Graham just for this purpose. The report was not
to determine if sexual abuses existed but what BJU was doing
about it when and if it is reported. It took me a while but I read
this report and I am still stunned at what I read. GRACE did not
pull any punches, y'all, the report was blistering. 60% of those
victims that were interviewed reported that when they reported their
encounters to BJU they were told outright to not call the police or
they were discouraged and/or browbeaten from doing so. It is also
apparently the position of BJU that in the case of sexual
abuse/attack both people bear some of the blame. The Academy does
not approach this issue at all in their curriculum. They even
suggest that it is “sinful” to even talk about it and have no
professionally trained counselors available. If the victim is female
BJU's position is to question whether she precipitated the
event with her behavior or attire and/or did her body react
favorably. If the answer is no, then it is sinful for her to feel
bitterness and be “unforgiving”. One female student reported
that a professor's son had sexually abused her and when she tried to
report it to her “Resident Adviser” she was told to let it drop
because it could negatively effect the professor's ability to do
“God's work”. In nearly all of the females interviewed they felt
that the Academy advocated male superiority and that “male lust
should be controlled by the behavior and attire of the women”. One
girl reported a sexual assault to her adviser and he asked for all
the details. She said that she was not comfortable with telling
everything and the adviser told her that if she did not want to give
the details she must be lying about the whole thing. What a sick
bastard. I am beginning to gasp for breath and feel a throb in my
temples. How can this be here in the 21st
century? I have three daughters and I may be prejudicial...but I
don't think so, I know evidence of sick minds when I see it. The
Greenville County Solicitor (District Attorney) will start a probe
into the actions of this school. Sexual abuse/attacks is a felony in
the eyes of South Carolina law and the perpetrator(s) could be
labeled as “sexual predators”. If the school directs or
influences the victims to not report the abuse to the police that is
at least obstruction of justice or complicity in a felonious act. In
any event, heads will roll at the intersection of Wade Hampton Blvd
and Pleasantburg Drive here in Greenville, SC. There are those that
believe that obstruction and complicity has already been proven by
the report and the Feds will come calling because BJU has been in a
special tax bracket for religious organizations and have been denying
Constitutional and Civil rights for years. I might have told y'all
this before but I used to be the manager of a men's store here in
Greenville. I used a lot of Bob Jones students as part time
salesmen. I like them because they were sincere and would not steal
from me. About once a month the Dean of Men at BJU would come by and
ask me if “his boys” were behaving like gentlemen and being
honorable. I thought that was pretty odd since the “boys” were
old enough to be in Afghanistan and BJU is trying to control them off
campus in their private lives. One of my best Bob Jones students
that was a part time salesman disappeared and was no longer
available. The Dean came by one day and I asked him what happened to
him and he said that he had to send him home (Michigan). I asked why
and he said that the student and his girlfriend dropped down behind a
dais in the library and kissed. I asked what was wrong with that and
he said that what the student did was against the rules and then he
lied about it. This man was an upcoming college junior meaning he had
to be at least 20 years old. More and more control, y'all. I told
this story to a Bob Jones graduate and the response to my comment
about control was “You have no idea”. Bob Jones is well known
for their academics but that kind of control does not prepare those
people for life on their own especially the sexuality of human
beings, not to mention the apparent plethora of unresolved sexual
abuses leaving emotional scars forever. The final straw in this tale
of horrors was one of the members of the staff at BJU wrote that some
teen-aged girls wait until their mothers are gone before taking a
bath and intentionally leave the bathroom door unlocked tempting
their corruptible fathers. Makes you want to puke, doesn't it? I
have asked myself why would parents want their children to be
schooled in such an abominable atmosphere. The only reason I can
come up with is that the parents know that they will not have to
worry about their kids while there. That is pretty selfish as far as
I am concerned. College should be a pleasant and memorable
experience not like a prison sentence on Devil's Island. By the way,
the divorce rate among Bob Jones graduates is less than one
percentage point different than the of the rest of the United States.
Like Mark Twain wrote “Boys and girls WILL get together.” I
wonder if Bill Cosby went to Bob Jones.
This
date in 1862 saw the end to the Fredericksburg Campaign by the Army
of the Potomac 116,000 strong. It was Union General Ambrose
Burnsides against CSA General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern
Virginia 77,000 strong with Lee having two days to prepare. That, my
friends, is asking for a disaster and that is exactly what happened.
After a serious of frontal assaults on the Confederate fronts all
resulting heavy casualties, Burnsides ordered a retreat and he was
immediately relieved and replaced by General Joe Hooker. He was not
any better. The statistics for this action are as follows: Union
casualties 12,653 to 5,377 for the Confederacy. It is the worst
statistical ass-kicking any American military unit has ever suffered
in one engagement before or since. What made me think of this was a
view of “The Wall” in Washington honoring the 58,000 Americans
lost in Vietnam in nine years. Civil War battles were much more
deadly. There were over 630,000 American casualties in the four
years of the Civil War. This catastrophe is not taught in high
schools anymore.
This
Date in History December 15
1961
Earlier in 1906 Adolf Eichmann was born in Solingen, Germany. In
1932 he joined the Nazi party and was absorbed into the elite SS
military/political machine of Adolf Hitler. He rose swiftly in rank
and authority and eventually he was in the inner circle of those in
the Nazi party chosen to find a way to exterminate all the Jews in
Europe. As Field Marshal Herman Goering called it, “We need to
find a “final solution to the Jewish problem.” Goering was the
second in command to Hitler and was tasked by Hitler with eliminating
the Jews. Goering in turn assigned Eichmann to figure out a way to
get this attempt at genocide on its feet and still be to best effect
for the 3rd
Reich. Eichmann was equal to the task and very shortly had death
camps, work camps where the workers were slaves building the tools of
war for the German military. They were literally worked to death and
buried in mass graves, or burned into dust in ovens. Eichmann’s
creations were responsible for the deaths of about 4 million Jews,
Slavs and Gypsies. There were another 2 million deaths that were the
responsibility of others in the SS. After the war was lost Eichmann
was captured but escaped and bounced around in the Middle East for
several years before making his way to Argentina in 1950. The
Argentinians played it fast and loose with immigrants, especially
former German military personnel. Eichmann assumed the name of
Roberto Klement and began a life of a factory worker in Buenos Aires.
In 1957 a former German officer told the Israeli secret police,
known as the Mossad, that Eichmann was living Buenos Aires. The
Mossad was very interested in Eichmann for obvious reasons and sent
two secret agents to Buenos Aries to try and find this monster. It
took a while but they located the home of Eichmann. In May of 1960
Argentina was having a celebration commemorating the 150th
anniversary of freedom from Spanish rule. There was a large influx
of visitors to this celebration and Mossad took this opportunity to
bring in more agents. On May 11 the Mossad agents descended upon
Eichmann’s house and waited. When Eichmann got off the bus coming
home from work, the agents kidnapped him, injected him with enough
drugs to knock down a mule and flew his ass to Israel. Argentina
raised hell and demanded Eichmann’s release but Israel said he was
an international war criminal and there was no way in hell he was
going to be released and he was put on trial for crimes against
humanity in Israel. On this date Eichmann was convicted on all
counts and was sentenced to death. Eichmann’s total defense was
that he was doing as he was ordered like the good soldier that he
was. On May 31, 1962 Adolf Eichmann was hanged, his body cremated
and his ashes thrown into the sea. Thus ended the life of one on the
worst monsters this world has ever known. But there are still more
out there. Never forget that.
1973
Five months earlier the grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty, J.
Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Italy and a ransom note was sent to
his grandfather demanding $17 million. Incredibly, J. Paul Getty
refused saying he could not raise that much cash. A few days later
the severed ear of the grandson showed up at the office of a Naples
newspaper. Finally, J. Paul coughed up $2.5 million in ransom and on
this date, J. Paul Getty III was found alive and well in Naples,
minus one ear. J. Paul Getty did not live a happy life. He was
married and divorced five times and had a tumultuous relationship
with his sons and daughters. In his later years he lived in a
palatial home outside London that was protected by double rows of
concertina wire and 20 German shepherd guard dogs roaming the
grounds. His reputation as a miser was well deserved. As an example
he had pay phones installed in his house for his guests to use. In
1976 J. Paul Getty died at the age of 86 and his children immediately
opened a cauldron of hell-raising looking for a piece of his fortune.
But the old man had an air tight will already in place and the
greatest majority of his money went to the Getty Art Museum in Los
Angeles which is the richest endowed facility of its type in the
world.
1988
On this date “The Godfather of Soul” or “The Hardest Working
Man in Show Business” James Brown begins serving a 6 year sentence
in the State Park Correctional Facility in South Carolina. He had a
few small run-ins with the law during the summer of 1988 but his
escapades on September 24 went too far. My man James walked into an
insurance seminar in Augusta, Georgia with a shotgun in one hand a
pistol in the other and ordered everyone out. No one really knows
why he did this because it was later proven that he did not know
anyone there and had no interest in the insurance business. Anyway,
James then got in his pick-up truck and headed for the house. The
police began a chase that began in South Carolina then into Georgia
and back to South Carolina. Finally South Carolina’s finest got
fed up with James’s wild goose chase and shot out three of his
tires. All this did was slow James down; he continued down the road
and finally loses control and drove into a ditch bringing this fiasco
to an end. All of these infractions brought James 6 ½ years in a
South Carolina slammer. James was paroled after three years but he
wasn’t finished yet. Soon after being free he was caught with a
load of grass and did even more time. Finally it appeared that James
literally got his act together and went on the road. His
performances were as entertaining and dynamic as ever in spite of his
age. James finally went to that great sound stage in the sky in
December of 2006. He was 73 years old. What a performer.
1890
For years the holy man for the Lakota Sioux, Sitting Bull, had been
warning his people that any contact with people other than those of
their tribe would result in disaster. His warning proved to be
prophetic as the honky settlers took more and more of Sioux land by
force. This meant that the Sioux were fighting a defensive battle
the great majority of the time trying to hold on their tribal lands
and traditional way of life. It was a fruitless fight because the
settlers were protected by a well armed and well trained United
States Cavalry. Finally Sitting Bull persuaded his people to go to
the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota or risk complete
annihilation. The US Cavalry got wind of an increase of the practice
of the legendary “Ghost Dance” by the Sioux. This dance was
usually a prelude to war so the Cavalry assumed this practice was
fostered by Sitting Bull. On this date the Reservation Police went
to arrest Sitting Bull at his tiny cabin on the Grande River. They
went to get him at 6:00a so they could take him away as quietly as
possible. It was not to be. Sitting Bull began raising almighty
hell and soon a crowd had gathered around the great leader also
raising almighty hell. One hothead in the crowd shot one of the
policemen and the police responded with shooting Sitting Bull in the
chest and head killing him instantly. The police were not finished.
They continued shooting killing 12 of the crowd and wounded 4. Just
a few weeks later the Indian spirit was broken with the massacre of
Chief Black Kettle and 156 of his tribe at Wounded Knee. This was
the last “battle” between the US Cavalry and an Indian tribe.
All the Indians wanted to was to be left alone to live their lives as
they saw fit. It was not to be.
Born today:
1888 US playwright Maxwell Anderson. When
speaking of George Washington he said “There are some men that lift
the age in which they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in
that lifetime.” Indeed Max, indeed.
1892 US zillionaire J. Paul Getty. He said “If
you can count your money, you are not a billionaire.” Paul, shut
the hell up.
1906 Ukrainian film producer Lew Grade. When
involved in a biblical film he said “Twelve apostles? Why do we
need twelve? Can’t we make do with six?” Lew, you are a
dumb-ass.
1932 Irish writer Edna O’Brien. She said
“Getting to vote means nothing. We women need to be armed”.
Edna, lighten up!
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until
tomorrow
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