Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“Hell
no, my ancestors were English, Irish, German and Cherokee but I am no
mongrel.”
Anonymous
I
am still reading the book “Guns, Germs and Steel”, a Pulitzer
Prize winner. It is a book about why we are the way we are, animals
included. The author surmised that there is a difference between
being “tamed” and “domesticated”. Tamed means that an
individual terrestrial mammal can be subjugated by humans to do their
bidding, domesticated means animals being held together in herds for
reproduction such as horses and cattle. He offers several reasons
why of the 148 species of terrestrial mammals only 14 are
domesticated. Here are a few of them that cannot:
The
Cheetah:
It cannot be domesticated and the reason is the mating
process.
A group of male cheetahs will begin a chase of the same female that
will last for days and cover many miles. It also involved the female
having several rough encounters with each of the suitors and finally
settling on one of them. If this does not happen, the female does
not ovulate. This obviously cannot happen in a cage or an enclosure.
Grizzly
Bears.
Even though the Grizzly offers a ton of meat when mature, their
irascible, unpredictable and often lethal attitude makes them too
hazardous to consider. Not only that, it takes too long for them to
mature. There is a group of people in northern Japan that raise
grizzly cubs to about 14 months and them slaughter and eat them.
According to them after 14 months they are too dangerous to keep.
The
Gazelle, both African and Middle eastern.
Once these animals determine that they are trapped they absolutely
refuse to submit and will batter themselves to death on the fence or
whatever the enclosure is made of trying to escape. Anyway, how are
you going to contain an animal with this tendency that can leap 30
feet and run 50 MPH?
He
said that it is those animals with a well structured herding instinct
that are the easiest to domesticate and offers wild horses as an
example. Wild horse herds are lead by a stallion then mares A, B, C,
D, and E and their colts. Mare A submits only to the stallion and
dominates mares B, C, D, and E. Mare B submits to the stallion and
mare A and dominates mares C, D, and E. I think y'all see where this
is going. All humans have to do is replace the stallion with
themselves and the rest of the herd will follow.
1945
On this date the United States and Great Britain announced that
German soldiers everywhere were to be found laying down their arms
and surrendering to whatever Allies were close by. The war in Europe
was over. They called it VE-Day for victory in Europe. Ever since
1939 and the invasion of Poland and the Balkans by the Germans, the
devil incarnate in Adolph Hitler had ruled Europe. He had preached
that the “3rd
Reich” would rule the world for a thousand years. They lasted ten
years.
1541
In 1539 the Spanish conquistador Hernan de Soto landed on the west
coast of Florida with 600 troops, 200 horses and a pack of
bloodhounds and began exploring the territory. As usual they were
looking for silver and gold like they found in Central and South
America among the native tribes. They headed north through North
Florida, Georgia and South Carolina before turning west across the
Appalachians where they went into north Alabama. They did not find
any gold and silver but they did find some valuable pearls in north
Georgia. As usual the Spanish took many Indians captive and treated
them like slaves using them to carry supply packs and as guides.
However, the Indians set an ambush for de Soto and his troops near
the Indian village of Mabilia (Mobile) and they barely got out
without annihilation. De Soto’s troops wanted to head south and
try to reach any Spanish ships known to be cruising the area. de
Soto headed his troops north and then west through Arkansas and
Louisiana and on this date, he reached the Mississippi River just
south of Memphis. de Soto and his troops built rafts to cross the
river but would only do it at night to avoid the ever patrolling
Indians on both sides. de Soto and his troops went west a short
distance then de Soto came down with malaria and died soon
thereafter. His troops brought his body back to the Mississippi and
buried him in the river at night so the Indians would not know he was
dead. de Soto had convinced the Indians that he was a God. Gods
don’t die. The troops wanted to get home so they rafted down the
Mississippi to the delta and followed the Gulf Coast across Texas and
on down into Mexico. They reached Vera Cruz in late 1543 with only
half of the troops the started with, but they were safe and had a
hell of a story to tell.
1988
Earlier Stella Nickell of Seattle, Washington had decided to
murder her husband. She took out a life insurance policy on her
husband that had a rider stating that if her husband died an
accidental death, she would get an extra $100,000. So she did some
research and found out all she could about cyanide. She went into
her husband’s bottle of Excedrin and took apart one of the capsules
and replaced the contents with cyanide. A few days later her husband
did indeed take the Excedrin and died. Believe it or not, an autopsy
was performed and the coroner decided that Stella’s husband had
died of emphysema making his death of natural causes not accidental
as stated in the insurance policy. Stella panicked and in order to
make his death appear as an accident, she went into two separate
drugstores and replaced the contents of a few Excedrin capsules with
arsenic and put them back on the shelf. This was the days before
there was a seal over the top of the cap like it is today. A few
days later, a woman named Susan Snow took a newly purchased capsule
of Excedrin and died instantly. Stella had in mind that if this
happened and the FDA investigated, there would be no doubt that her
husbands autopsy would be done again and his death would be ruled as
accidental giving her an extra 100K. But she was caught and
convicted and given 90 years. She will be eligible for parole in
2018.
Born
today:
1920
US writer Sloan Wilson. He said “Success in nearly any field
depends mostly on drive and energy that it does intelligence.”
That is why we have so many of stupid leaders.
1952
US writer Beth Henley. She said ”Writing is creating or
spinning dreams for other people so they won’t have to do it
themselves.” I hope that is the case.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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