Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Plato

About a year ago four teenagers killed a 39 year old man in Greene County, Tennessee. They also stole a van and eight or nine shotguns and high powered rifles. A BOLO (be on the lookout for) was issued describing the van and the teenagers. The van was spotted by a South Carolina state trooper in a rest area on I-26 and a high speed pursuit ensued. The cops were successfully in blowing the tires with spike strips and the van crashed. When the cops finally arrived at the crash site there was no one in the van and four or five of the stolen weapons were missing. The teenagers were identified and none were older than 17 including a 16 year old girl and the 17 year old son of the murdered man. The area of the crash is near Pomaria in Newberry County, SC. That is about 40 miles southeast of Greenville. There were five different law enforcement offices involved in the search that included a lot of dogs, local enforcement officers, SWAT, State Troopers and helicopters. The police issued a request that everybody in the area to not leave their houses unless absolutely necessary. Here is a question: Should the cops shoot on sight since these kids had shown the ability to kill? It did not matter, the dogs found them and they surrendered.

Does anybody know Gracie Mae Johnson of Dothan, Alabama?

Gracie Mae is in the joint facing a bond of $2 million. This woman is not bad looking top to bottom but she chose to set fire to a bed where her boyfriend was sleeping. He escaped without being burned but was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. There was no reason given for this but I can bet that Gracie Mae was spurned in some way. Am I wrong but doesn't it make sense to just leave, at least for a while rather than do hard time for an act of attempted murder? I have said it once and I will say it again...I never will understand the female mind...mine neither for that matter.

For the second time this week a city cop in Boca Raton, Florida was involved in a shooting. The first one was when an off duty cop went to the pool at his apartment complex late at night and found a man and woman “in the act” beside the pool and told them to leave because they were not residents. They left but the man came back and threatened the cop with a champagne bottle and was shot in the leg for his troubles. It was not a fatal wound. Thursday morning the Boca Raton police were called about a man wielding a knife. A cop showed up and sure enough there was a man waving a knife. The cop told him to drop the weapon but the man chose to charge the cop instead...The cop shot him...not with a Taser but with a .40 caliber Glock. It was not said if the shot was fatal. My advice to y'all is if you are in Boca Raton, Florida do not, I repeat, do not challenge a cop.

     This Date in History April 4

 

1776 On this date General George Washington, after running the British out of Boston, gathered his army from the encampment in Cambridge, Massachusetts and headed to New York to free that area of the hated Redcoats. Washington is distressed by the Continental Congress failing to pay or provide for his troops. He wrote the Congress requesting that enough money be left in New York City to resolve all of the unpaid debts and allow him to replenish his army’s supplies. The money was not there but the Continental army continued fighting. It was the failure of Congress to pay its obligations that doomed the present Articles of Federation which was essentially a document verifying the sovereignty of each state with little if any centralized government that could act in behalf of all. After kicking the Brits out anyway, the Continental Congress recognized its shortcomings and began constructing a different form of government which was a Republic. They came up with the present day Constitution and its amendments making a Government with three branches with checks and balances to prevent either branch to overpower the other. But it did allow the nation to pay its debts from one source, the United States Treasury. The bad part was that they originated the Bank of the United States. This allowed the Federal Government to control the economy down to the smallest level. This essentially eliminated competition and could not be good for the country. This concept was eliminated during Andrew Jackson’s (a South Carolinian) administration and our economy began its rise.

1968   Earlier on March 28 Reverend Martin Luther King had came to Memphis, Tennessee to help in a demonstration for the reported ill-treatment of the city sanitation workers. After making a speech, a black teenager was killed during a riot. King had to leave but swore he would come back and come back he did on this date. On this date King made a speech and then went to the Lorraine Motel to change clothes for dinner. After changing clothes he stepped out onto the balcony along with a few of his staff and supporters including Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson. Soon after a shot rang out and King dropped to the floor mortally wounded. The shot had penetrated his jaw and severed his spine. Everyone on the balcony pointed to the same spot in a boarding house a block away. King was buried in his home town of Atlanta, Georgia on April 9^th but not before rioting occurred in Memphis and Washington, DC. The Shelby County Sheriffs department found a 30:06 scoped rifle wrapped in a tarp on the next street over from the Lorraine Motel. The Sheriff’s department along with the FBI found palm and fingerprints on the rifle belonging to a two-bit thief named James Earl Ray. It was found out that Ray had somehow had obtained a Canadian Passport and a world wide alert was broadcast. The London Police arrested Ray at the Heathrow airport and he was extradited back to the US. Ray went on trial for the murder and in return for the death penalty being taken off the table he would confess. The deal was accepted and Ray was sentenced to 99 years. But after that Ray insisted that he was just part of a huge conspiracy. A lot of people thought this idea had merit because King was a hated man by many people especially FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. I think that King had a premonition of what was coming because in his speech that day he said in part...”I have seen the promised land but I may not get there with you”. He was dead three hours later. James Earl Ray died in 1998 taking his secrets with him. Pretty spooky, y'all.

Born today:

1858    French writer Rene Gourmant. He said “Of all the sexual aberrations the most peculiar is chastity.” I don’t know Rene, I can think of a lot of things.

1915    Blues star Muddy Waters” He said of Mick Jagger “He took my music but gave me my name.” Muddy is my all time favorite blues master.

1932    US actor Anthony Perkins. He said “I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life.” What a sad way for one's life to end.

       Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow