Monday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

He was on the phone talking to his wife who was at a gym in Aspen, Co. when he blew his brains out with a .357 Magnum. He left this suicide note:

“No More Games, No More bombs. No More Walking, No More Fun, No More Swimming, 67, That is 17 years past fifty, 17 years more than I wanted or needed, boring, I am always bitchy, No Fun-For Anybody, 67, You are getting greedy, Act your old age—Relax—This won’t hurt.”

                      Hunter “Gonzo” Thompson

Hunter Thompson was a superb writer and had developed a writing style of his own that became known as “Gonzo”. He is best known for the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also spent several months with Sonny Barger. Sonny is acknowledged to be the founder of The Hell's Angels in Oakland, California. Sonny finally figured out that Hunter was gathering material for a book and told him that he wanted a piece of the action. Hunter hesitated and received a “stomping” (severe ass-whipping) for his trouble. But Hunter's book about the Hell's Angels was a runaway best seller and made him a lot of money and requests for more books. Sonny Barger wrote six books about the Hell's Angels that were successful also.

Hunter's funeral was a bizarre one. One of his best friends was Johnny Depp and it was he that oversaw the proceedings. Hunter had designed a tower near his ranch in Woody Creek, Colorado and on top of this tower there was a cannon. In the summer of 2005 Johnny Depp loaded Hunter's ashes into the cannon and blew them into dust. When asked why he had done that he said “I was just granting the wish of an old friend.”

Back about 450 AD an entity named Woden began showing up in Anglo-Saxon literature. It was supposed to be the king of all the pagan Gods. In Norse literature he was known as Odin, but it was the same entity. The Angles were the ancestors of present day English and the Saxons were primarily the ancestors of present day Germany (Saxony). According to ancient mythology all the kings and queens of England can trace their bloodline back to Woden. But like I said, it is a myth. Since this entity was acknowledge by both the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians it is believed that there was such a person. See tomorrow's blog for more about this.

        This Date in History   April 20

1999   Earlier two teenagers named Dylan Keibold aged 18 and Eric Harris aged 17 had planted two propane bombs in the cafeteria of Columbine High School in the city of Littleton, Colorado. They would detonate them during lunchtime hoping to kill as many students as they could and then wait outside with firearms to kill as many kids as they could when the school was evacuated. On this date at about 11:15a, they tried to detonate the bombs but nothing happened. So these boys dressed in trench coats came out of the woods near the school and began shooting the students outside the school and then went on inside and continued shooting. There did not appear to be any pattern as to who they shot, it seemed to be completely at random. On one occasion one of the shooters walked up to a girl that was lying on the floor and asked it she believed in God. The girl said that she did and was killed instantly. On another occasion they asked another girl that was injured if she believed in God and she said that she did and the shooters just walked away. After killing 13 and wounding 25 the two boys turned the guns upon themselves and committed suicide at 12:02P. No one really knew what caused this outburst. The two were members of a group known as the “Trench coat Mafia”. But there was no evidence that this group fostered the killing of innocents. The group studied Gothic philosophy and they played a lot violent video games but other than that, the authorities didn’t have a clue. As a result of this event, nearly all schools in America adopted a “zero tolerance” attitude toward weapons of any kind or anything that can be used as a weapon. It is too late now.

1906   Two days earlier a tremendous earthquake struck San Francisco. There were underground natural gas lines that were fractured and several fires erupted. The bad part was the wind; it was blowing at about 35 miles per hour. The fire fighting equipment of those days was not equal to the conflagration that resulted. The fire ran unchecked for two days burning an area ½ mile wide and four miles long but on this day the firefighters got a handle on this fire and extinguished it. There were about 700 killed and several thousands homeless.

1871   On this date Congress passes the Third Force Act which allowed President Ulysses Grant to declare martial law or even use military force to suppress the action of the KKK. The KKK was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee right after the end of the Civil War by Confederate veterans led by CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest. What caused this action was the influx of people from out of the south coming in and taking the lands previously owned by Confederate soldiers that were killed in the War, among other atrocities. The KKK went over the edge and began dictating how lives were supposed to be lived and what church to attend, etc. Most of this turmoil could have been avoided if the so-called Reconstruction had been administered justly. But as with any large scale US government program, it became corrupted and the Southerners paid the price.

1945   On this date Operation Corncob begins. This operation was to bomb all the bridges going from Italy to Germany to cut off the escape route of the German army in Italy. Also on this date Adolph Hitler has a birthday party celebrating his 56^th birthday. It is hard for me to tell y'all this but also on this day the German Gestapo hangs 20 Russian captives and 20 Jewish children. Of these children at least 9 were under the age of 12. These children were brought from Auschwitz to Neuengamme, the place of execution, for the purpose of medical experiments. I do not believe in the death penalty for whoever hanged these children or performed the “medical experiments”, but I do believe in cruel and unusual punishment. My imagination is fertile when it comes to dealing with monster such as these.

Born today:

1889   The worst monster in history Adolph Hitler. He said “The greater the lie, the greater the chance it will be believed.”

1961   US baseball player Don Mattingly. He said of Dwight Gooden “His reputation preceded him before he got here.” As I have said in the past baseball players do not need a basic vocabulary to hit .300, steal 50 bases or win a Gold Glove.

     Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow.