Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

From a Men's Rules list sent to me.

“If you come to us with a problem we will try to resolve it, that is what we do. If you want sympathy go to your girlfriends, that is what they do.”

Last Friday evening “Rebel Without a Cause” was on Turner Classic Movies. I was a senior in high school when this movie was released. It starred James Dean playing a teenager that was rebellious and confused. It was a huge hit with the youths of that period including myself. James Dean's performance was stunning as was the majority of the others. In addition to James Dean it starred Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Nick Adams and one of my favorites, Dennis Hopper. There were others with minor roles but then I realized that all of them had something in common, they are all dead. That made me feel old...briefly.

Have any of you ever heard of the city of Bangui? It is the capitol of the Central African Republic...I never heard of it either. About three years ago a Muslim was elected president and as you might suspect, the president began an extermination of Christians. Recently the Christians finally got fed up and initiated a coup. The Muslims of that nation saw the handwriting on the wall and started getting the hell out of Dodge. There eventually was a UN peace-keeping force on site but the roads were packed with cars and buses full of Muslims leaving the area with Christians lining the roads screaming obscenities. Unfortunately a Muslim man fell off the top of one of the buses and immediately was hacked to pieces with machetes. You notice I said “fell off the top of the bus”...that should give you a mental image of what was going on over there. Another man fell off one of the buses but the peace-keeping force arrived before the machetes and he was saved. As many people a lot smarter than I have said...”There is no wars as bitter and vicious as wars of religion.” That is because each side believes that God is on their side. I invite you to study about what atrocities were committed by nearly everybody involved during the 9 Crusades...this included Muslims, Christians and Jews among many others that killed just because they liked it. This may give some of you heartburn but the most savage of all armies during the middle ages was any army under the umbrella of the sitting Pope. I also invite you to look up the “Spanish Inquisition” in the middle of the 15^th century led by a representative of the Catholic Church named Bishop Tomas Torquemada. This man was very inventive when it came to dealing with those that were not followers of the Pope. His philosophy was to drag people before him and ask them if they were sinners. If they answered yes, he would say that they needed to be tortured for their sins. If they answered no, he would say that no mortal is sinless and this person would get a double dose of torture for being a sinner AND lying about it. Do not get me wrong, I am not anti-Catholic or any other religion, I am just a historian relaying what I have found. And finally, I also invite you to look into what happened to the Knights Templar and why.

By the way, the phrase “saw the handwriting on the wall” came from the book of Daniel in the Bible. Daniel and his people were captives in the city-state of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar was king. Daniel was the official interpreter of dreams. At a large feast and a ghostly finger appeared and wrote something on the wall. No one could understand what it meant so Daniel was called. Daniel took one look and told the king that it said that his kingdom is doomed. That night Babylon was invaded and sure enough.....

I was reminded of when I was an air traffic controller in Pensacola which is the home of the Blue Angels. On one occasion the Angels were out over the Gulf of Mexico practicing and an accident occurred killing one of the pilots. The next day one of our secretaries had been a secretary for the Blue Angels and was very sad and morose. One of our guys told her “That man chose the glory and accepted the danger, don’t be sad he was doing exactly what he wanted to.”

This Date in History February 10

1779 On this date band of 350 Patriots led by General Andrew Pickens, Colonel Robert Dudley and Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke left South Carolina headed for Wilkes County, Georgia. They were after a group of 200 British/Loyalist commanded by British Colonel John Hamilton at Carr’s Fort. The Patriots arrive at the site and battle ensued. Just when the Patriots are about to wrap up this battle, General Pickens called for withdrawal and they headed out toward another column of British/Loyalist headed for North Carolina with recruits gathered up from the city of Augusta, Ga. by Loyalist Colonel Robert Boyd. They set up an ambush for Boyd’s column near Kettle Creek, When the Loyalists are in the right position, Pickens springs the trap and all but annihilates the column of recruits. British Colonel Colonel Boyd is killed instantly. Both of these events occurred in Wilkes County, Georgia named after the British revolutionary John Wilkes who raised much hell in English Parliament in the behalf of the colonies that he was arrested and jailed for his fiery speeches. Some American colonists sent him money for his defense.

1962 Earlier an America spy pilot for the CIA named Gary Francis Powers launched a spy mission from a secret base in Pakistan and is to fly across central Russian enroute to a secret spy base near Buda, Norway. He was flying the infamous U-2 spy plane. At the same time Russian spy Rudolph Abel is gathering information for the Soviets in New York and Washington. About half way through his mission, Power’s U-2 aircraft lost power and descended to an altitude that can be reached by Russian fighters and ground-to-air missiles. Normally the U-2 is at such a high altitude that nothing can reach them, but not this time. Powers is shot down and captured alive. Meanwhile Russian spy Rudolph Abel is also captured. After a while the Russians and the US decided to swap Powers and Abel so on this day Gary Francis Powers and Rudolph Abel passed each other walking in opposite directions on a bridge to freedom for Powers and suppression for Abel.

1920 Unfortunately for silent actress Theda Bara, she opened in San Francisco in a play named “Kathleen Mavoureen”. The play makes fun and ridicules the Irish immigrants. The majority of the men in the audience were Irish immigrant miners and railroad workers that had moved out west to work in the gold and silver mines near San Francisco. After it became apparent that the play was making fun of the Irish, the Irishmen got out of their seats and tore the joint apart. The moral of the story is the Irish have no sense of humor when they are the focus of a joke.

Quotable quotes:

“My grandmother is 85 and still does not have glasses; she drinks right out of the bottle.”

Henny Youngman

“An opera is a play where a guy is stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings.

Robert Benchley

“There is a confection that induces women to give up sex. It is called wedding cake.”

Bill Maher

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow