Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“What is wrong with this country is an ineffective immigration policy enacted by the American Indians.”

Pat Paulsen

Speaking of the American Indian, I am reading a book titled “Comanche Empire”. As you might suspect it is essentially the history of the Comanche nation. Back in the middle 1500's the Spanish invaded the western US, Central and South America. These guys brought their mustangs with them from Spain. Can you imagine a two month Atlantic crossing living with a herd of terrified horses? Anyway, many of their horses ran away and finally settled primarily on the Great Plains and reproduced into enormous herds. That's right y'all, there was no horses in North America before the Spanish came. The Comanche were the first to capture and tame them. After that, their whole existence depended on horses and bison and they were good at it. They kept and cultured gigantic horse herds and used them as currency. They added to their herds with slavery. Here is how. They would kidnap members of other tribes (and eventually white settlers), trade the men for horses to the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and few other tribes to be used as slaves in their silver mines. The women and children would be taken to “fairs” primarily in Santa Fe and Taos and traded for horses with the Mexican Apaches and other slave traders. On occasion they would keep a few slaves for themselves to replace those that had died or been killed in various raids. Then the best possible thing happened as far at the Comanche were concerned. In 1829 the United States chose to force the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw off their lands in western Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in the infamous “Trail of Tears” and send them to Oklahoma and Kansas. These tribes brought with them all their personal belongings including about 5,000 black slaves. Shocked you didn't I? That's right, they had slaves. These tribes were essentially agrarian societies including wild game like deer, elk, etc. Once on the great plains they were at a loss on how cultivate these vast lands with a minimum of water available and began looking at the millions of bison and antelope all around them. They did not have a chance at this almost unlimited food supply without horses. The enterprising Comanche showed up and taught them how to hunt from horseback and offered horses in return for manufactured goods and furs but warned them about hunting on the “Comancheria” or lands claimed by the Comanche. Now the Comanche had goods that they could trade, along with their spare horses, with the illegal gun runners for firearms and anything metal like knives and axes. The gun runners sold the manufactured goods at fairs and the horses to anyone that wanted them especially the US cavalry. Unfortunately the black slaves were used as trade items also. The Comanche used the black slaves just like they did with any of the others that they had kidnapped. The “white” captives offered a double opportunity for them. They could either take them to the miners or “fairs” in Santa Fe and Taos or eventually have them taken via a middleman to an American Indian Agency where a ransom in either cash or horses would be paid. The agency was reluctant to pay a ransom for the blacks, however. This small treatise doesn't even scratch the surface as to what happened with these enterprising people, but I'll bet you have a different image of them now.                   

Recently an inventor died. This man created a device that changed to world forever. It was the Russian Mikhail Kalashnikov. He invented the AK-47 assault rifle.

This is a recap of a couple of years ago:

I saw one person that was in the Milwaukee airport that was jammed to the rafters with others that have been trapped there since Saturday because of a blizzard. This one woman said that she had no change of clothes because she had no clue where here luggage was. She did say that she had a small carry-on bag with her full of cosmetics only. Not only that, her credit cards were in the lost luggage (bad move) and she was out of money to eat on. This is why men carry their stuff in their wallets. The airport appeared to be operating but the departures were so far behind that it will “take until New Years to get caught up”. I also heard about a pregnant woman in New York that had gone into labor and the baby was in trouble. Someone with the woman called EMS and explained what was wrong. The EMS dispatcher said that she would get someone there as soon as possible. 9 hours later and ambulance showed up but it was too late, the baby was dead. You can imagine what kind of turmoil those guys were going through in the early hours of a blizzard.

I saw a program on TV about the ice melting on the polar ice caps. They showed one ice field that had retreated and it exposed an area that had not seen daylight for millions of years. Guess what was there? They found fossils of mussels and clams that will not live in water deeper than 10 feet or in water colder than 50 degrees. There were also fossilized stumps of trees that were of the cedar and cypress family All of this tells us that at one point the Arctic and Antarctic ice fields were in a temperate climate.

     This Date in History   December 30

1916 Earlier Czar Nicholas of Russia and his wife the Czarina Alexandra fell under the spell of a holy man named Rasputin. The Czar and Czarina had a son that was a hemophiliac and had suffered a cut and no one could stop the bleeding. Rasputin was called and somehow he was able to stop the bleeding and saved the boy’s life. From this time on Rasputin was in favor with the royal family. In addition to being a holy man, Rasputin was known to be a heavy drinker and skank chaser. The best possible thing happened for Rasputin. Czar Nicholas was called away to a foreign war. This left the Czarina in control of Russia and Rasputin in charge of her. Eventually the other member of royalty got fed up with Rasputin and decided to cap this bastard. A group of them invited Rasputin to dinner in a fancy mansion. What Rasputin did not know was that his food and drink had been heavily poisoned but he swallowed everything with great relish with no apparent ill effects so they shot him. Rasputin fell and as the other try to drag him out of the room, Rasputin got up and knocked one of them out and then ran outside trying to escape. He was shot once again and fell face down. The others jumped on top of him, tied his hands and feet and threw him in a near freezing river never to be seen again. The Czarina was heartbroken at the loss of her lover but the Czar was ecstatic.

1853 Earlier the United States Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce, Jefferson Davis (later to become the President of the Confederate States of America) sent the Ambassador to Mexico named James Gadsden to visit with the President of Mexico, General Santa Ana. Gadsden’s job was to settle the squabbles the United States had been having with Mexico about the lands in the southwestern area of the present day United States. Gadsden and Santa Ana set down with a map and drew up a new border for northern Mexico and the southwestern United States that formed the area known as the Gadsden Purchase and that map became the present day southern border of Arizona and New Mexico. We offered Santa Ana $12 million that was later lowered to $10 million. The United States felt that this strip of land was vital for the development of a transcontinental railroad. In 1861 the “big four” in railroading, Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker got together and decided that a railroad was to be built on the newly acquired land and make it a branch of the Central Pacific Railroad known later as the immortal Southern Pacific Railroad.

1862 Earlier the United States ironclad U.S.S. Monitor had dueled with the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (originally known as the Merrimac) on the James River near Hampton Roads. They battled to a draw but this duel signaled the end of wooden warships. The Monitor was used also to support U.S. General George B. McClellan’s ill fated Peninsular Campaign. The Monitor was effective in the relatively calm waters of bays and rivers, but it was decided that it would be very effective in the attempt to capture the city of Charleston, South Carolina so they started towing it down the east coast with the side wheeler U.S.S. Rhode Island. Very early on the Monitor started leaking around its turret but the onboard pumps were adequate to keep her afloat. Then they ran across a storm near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and the leaks got worse to the point that the pumps were overcome and the Monitor began sinking. On this date Captain Bankhead of the Monitor signaled the Rhode Island that they were going to abandon ship so the Rhode Island pulled as close as safety allowed and started taking aboard the crew of the Monitor. But there were 16 sailors aboard the Monitor that were not about to get up on the pitching deck of the Monitor and they went to the bottom with the Monitor. A few years ago the remains of the Monitor was located and photographed.

1803 One of the most important but least known Patriots in America dies on this date. Francis Lewis was born in Llandaff, Wales and immigrated to the colonies when he was 22. He started a very lucrative business supplying provisions to the British army in the colonies. He was an aide to General Hugh Mercer during the Seven Years War and was captured by the Oswego Indians and sent to France as a prisoner of war. Upon his return he was granted 3,000 acres by the New York Government as a reward for his services. In 1765 he sold his mercantile business and retired to Whitestone, Long Island. His retirement gave him a lot of time to get involved in the Revolution. He was a member of Congress, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, a member of those wild and crazy guys, the Sons of Liberty who made themselves famous at the Boston Tea Party. He served as a member of the Continental Congress until 1779 when he resigned and became a commissioner of the Board of the Admiralty. His patriotism came at a tall price, however. In 1776 the British destroyed his estate on Long Island and captured his wife and kept her as a prisoner of war. The problem with this was that George Washington had no British women to trade for Mrs. Lewis. It was reported that the British kept her without a change of clothes or a bath for some time and it affected her health. The destruction of his estate adversely affected Francis Lewis financially from which he never recovered completely. The time his wife spent as a prisoner of war affected her health to a point that she never completely recovered.

Born today:

1822 US theologian William Alger. He said “A man makes up in wrath what he lacks in reason.” That is a deep truth, y'all.

1895 English writer L.P. Hartley He said “Memory is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” Indeed they do.

1982 Canadian actress Kristin Kreuk. She said “Just because I don’t do bad things does not mean that I don’t have bad thoughts.” I have bad thoughts all the time, Kristin.

Died today:

1970 US Boxer Sonny Liston. He said “Newspaper men ask dumb questions. They squint at the sun and ask if it is shining.” Sonny was not the sharpest knife in the drawer but understood journalism.

2003 US writer John Dunne. He said “Writing is like hard labor of the mind, like laying pipe.” I am going to let this one alone.

2006 Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein. After he was caught he said “If you want to execute me, I will bring my own f---k---g rope.” He did not have to, the US provided one made of nylon...a DuPont product.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow