Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Major Reno, you attack from the east and I will swing around and attack from the north, we will surprise them.”

                 LT. Col. George A. Custer at Little Big Horn

I have voice my outrage at what I saw Monday morning. Jimmy Swaggart has a cable network channel and I pass by it while “surfing”. I cannot be sure but there was a man that looked a hell of a lot like Jimmy on camera, voice trembling and sounding like he was about to break out sobbing. He quoted a verse from the bible instructing everyone to support “The Temple” and it is the home of God on Earth. The camera scanned the congregation and there were people with their arms in the air and lips murmuring “Yes lord”, “Yes Lord”. The verse he was talking about is in the Old Testament and is instructing the Hebrews to help build the first temple in Jerusalem. There is no doubt in my mind that this man was using this verse to coax people to contribute to their “temple” in Baton Rouge. The temple in Jerusalem was NOT the home of God on Earth, it was supposed to be the permanent home of the Ark of the Covenant. How sacrilegious can you get? It is nauseating.

Why we are what we are. One of the most important inventions in the progress of humankind was the written language. Being able to write down and retain information was giant leap in the distribution of knowledge and retention of records that could be transported. The very first written language yet found was once again in the ancient area of Sumer which was in the northern end of the Persian Gulf. Many clay tablets with peculiar wedge shaped markings were found near some ancient ruins. It was obvious that the marks were made when the clay was damp and then allowed to dry. It took a while but these markings (called cuneiform) were eventually deciphered and to no one's surprise, most of them were records of domestic animal numbers and types. In those days a person's wealth was determined by how many cows, sheep and goats he/she had in their possession. In the very early times animals were also used as currency...that is until they discovered how to smelt metal including bronze, silver and gold. The use of written communications spread through out the area like wildfire because of the obvious advantages. The symbols used varied widely, however. There were some scripts that had symbols that represented a whole word or a thought. There were glyphs like those used in Egypt where a name of a person was contained in an oval called an ankh. Inside this oval would be individual symbols that when combined would identify the name of the person. It took a while before the Egyptian hieroglyphs were understood. In fact it was during the time of Napoleoon Bonaparte's occupation of Egypt that the Rosetta Stone was discovered. This stone had the same text written in three different languages, one of which was Greek. The Greek alphabet had been deciphered for many years and so it was simple to translate one language for another and the written ancient Egyptian language was conquered. The English language we speak today is a montage of several different ones but is based on the sound attributed to one letter or symbol. For instance English uses two letters for the sound of sh or th but the Russian language has only one symbol for these sounds. English also has words that have the same identical sound with different meanings like their, there and they're but are easily differentiated in the written form. We also use symbols like %, $ and +. Like I said, English is a montage of words and symbols that has been taken from other languages. The Mayan God of Storms was Huracan...I think you can see where I am going with this one. A stein is German. In old England there was a place called a gaol, that became jail. All of these advancements in communications has blessed us with mountains of the written word which captures human thought much to the benefit of all. Where would we be without it?

               This Date in History   May 19

1836   In 1832 the family of Cynthia Anne Parker and family moved from Illinois to west Texas to a place that later on became known as Parkers’s Fort which was located about 40 miles east of present day Waco, Texas. The Parker’s build a substantial stockade that, “could withstand a large attack under the most vigorous circumstance.” The Parkers became lax in their security and frequently left the huge gates open. On this date a combined force of Comanche, Caddo and Kiowa descended on Parker’s Fort and killed almost everybody except Cynthia Ann, her brother and sister who were juveniles and took them into captivity. After the Indians and their captives reached safe territory, they were divided amongst the attacking tribes. Cynthia Anne went to the Comanche. About four years later (Cynthia would have been about 13) a fur trapper saw her and attempted to buy Cynthia from the Comanche. The Comanche chief allowed the trapper to speak to Cynthia and he reported that all she did was not respond and stared at the ground the whole time. Four years later she was again spotted and she ran away and hid to keep from being questioned but she did but this time she said that she was happy as a Comanche and to leave her ass alone. She was about 17 years old at the time. During the interview she admitted that she was the wife of the sub-chief Peta Nacona. By all accounts Cynthia was very happy as the wife of Peta and bore him three children. Normally Comanche warriors had more than one wife but Peta was apparently happy with Cynthia and remained monogamous. Unfortunately Peta was also a warrior against the Anglos invading his tribal lands and made several raids on white settlers. As you might suspect, the US cavalry put Peta on their most wanted list and the eventually they killed Peta and captured Cynthia and her infant child Prairie Flower. By now Cynthia Anne was 34 years old. She was returned to an Anglo society very reluctantly and never adapted. She was taken to her uncle’s farm near Birdville, Texas but tried to run away several times. However, with her husband dead and her adopted people fighting a losing battle against the whites, she resigned herself to a miserable remainder of her life. Her only connection with her people was Prairie Flower and she died of pneumonia in1863. After this Cynthia gave up the will to live and starved herself into weakness and died of influenza in 1870. She was 40 years old. This is a sad tale about a person that was not allowed to live the life that she wanted and was forced to live the life as directed by others. It bothers the hell out of me.

1588  King Phillip II of Spain decided that he was fed up with Queen Elizabeth I of England backing and financing the Netherlands against Spain and constructed an enormous fleet of 130 ships including 30,000 troops and on this date the so-called “Invincible Armada” departed the Netherlands headed for England and an invasion. They would have gotten started sooner but English sea-dog Sir Francis Drake had found the fleet almost finished construction and sent in “fire ships” into the Spanish fleet eliminating the threat for several months. In the mean time, Drake sailed back to England and warned the Queen of the threat. By the time the Spanish Armada was prepared to cross from the Netherlands to England, the English fleet was ready. The Spanish Armada arrived in the English Channel and then the English fleet sailed out of Plymouth (been there) and met the Armada in mid-channel. About the time the two fleets met, an enormous storm struck the channel and all hell broke loose. The English marine captains were very familiar with rough weather and their ships were well built to handle it. The Spanish ships were built for speed and floundered badly in the rough seas. The Spanish fleet was scattered and King Phillip’s dreams of invading England went to the bottom along with his fleet and 30,000 troops.

   Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow