Sunday, June 28, 2015

Monday


Good morning,



Quote of the day

I am not going to spend the later years of my life as a hermit so I can spend an extra two years in the geriatric ward.”

                                           George Carlin



How many of you are about to vomit because of the continued turmoil about the Confederate flag? This is the absolute last I will say about this issue. The media has decreed that you either have to be a racist or an activist dependent on which “side” you are on with relation to the flag. I am neither one, I am a historian but I do put a significance on this symbol. As I have said before, to me it represents the most tragic era this country has ever known. It represents the death of about 460,000 Americans by the most vile of means. The majority died from disease or infection because the importance of being sanitary and antiseptic was unknown at that time. But that is not what the media wants to hear. They want prejudice and hatred because it sells air time, magazines and newspapers, all other thoughts and opinions be damned. It also bothers me that the media somehow advocates the proposition that anyone born south of the 39th north parallel and east of the 103rd west meridian is ignorant...that somehow the geography of your place of birth has an influence on your intelligence. That thought is the ignorant one. Here is an example: I was working on an engineering project in eastern Pennsylvania. After work one day a man and a woman and I went to a local tavern. The man and woman were locals. Almost as soon as I opened my mouth one of the people in the bar said “Where the hell are you from?” I said “South Carolina”. There was a lot of snickering. Then one of the people I went there with said “Don't let his accent fool you, he is no dummy.” I eventually made friends with a lot of people there but the point is they originally believed that I was a dumb-ass because of my accent and was from “down south”. Where did that train of thought come from? It had to come from the media. There is your enemy.



The General Assembly of South Carolina has passed a law that allows the hunting of wild pigs and coyotes at night. I do not ever remember this area of the country having problems with coyotes but evidently they have become a nuisance as have the pigs. It has been reported that there is a large population of coyotes living very near the Greenville Downtown airport. It seems that the two main runways are built on large embankments and the coyotes dig into the side and make dens. They are very smart and efficient hunters, including targeting family pets. They also are subject to rabies and will attack humans if they thing they are in danger. The wild pigs are another story. I used to deer hunt in swamps down on the Carolina coast and wild pigs were common. It seems that hunters from other parts of the state have been trapping wild boars and sows and moving them into private hunting preserves in the upstate to give the owners game to hunt. The problem with that is a wild sow can deliver a litter of 8 to 10 piglets twice a year. Assume that you place 5 sows in one area. You do the math on how many wild pigs you could have in a very short period of time. They also become menacing but it isn’t their fault, it is the fault of those supposedly great hunters. In the swamps the pigs have bear, bobcat, panthers and even packs of bear dogs that run them down and kill them. That is not true elsewhere in the state. You mess with Mother Nature nothing ever good comes from it.



I guess y'all saw that the monument in Charleston to John C. Calhoun was defaced by someone spraying “racist” in red. It is true that Calhoun was an advocate of slavery but he was also the Vice-President of the United States, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, a US Senator and Representative from the state of South Carolina. I would like for the small minded person that did the spraying to tell us what contribution he/she has made to society. That monument has been there for over 100 years and has never been touched...that is until people from out of state showed up expecting a riot so they could burn and loot like they did in Ferguson and Baltimore. That is speculation, of course, but as I have said before the Charlestonians have too much class to do something that tacky...not to mention climbing a flag pole.  



              This Date in History   June 29



1776 South Carolina representative to the Continental Congress, Edward Rutledge, sent a letter to John Jay of New York expressing his misgivings about independence from Great Britain. Both he and John Jay were ambivalent on this issue. It is understandable since both Edward and his brother John were educated in England with both becoming lawyers and members of the Continental Congress. Both were very successful with their Charleston, South Carolina clientele and they lived across the street from each other. Finally, Edward relented and did sign the Declaration of Independence being the youngest signer at the age of 27.


1993 On this date a knife-wielding man broke into the Allentown, Pennsylvania home of Denise Sam-Cali and tried to rape her. A struggle ensued but the rapist succeeded in raping Denise on the front lawn. He then stabbed Denise trying to kill her but she fought him off and the rapist ran away. This courageous woman would play a big role in the resolution of this crime. On the 9th of July a 15 year old girl is abducted and her body was found by a reservoir stabbed 22 times. She had been raped also. On the 15th of July a five year old girl was abducted and raped and the attacker unsuccessfully tried to strangle her. Then on the 19th of July the house of Denise Sam-Cali was broken into while she was away. The police decided to set a trap and staked out Sam-Cali’s house and left a window enticingly open. On July 30 a man crawled into the open window and was greeted by a policeman and a gunfight ensued. The intruder crashed his way out through another window and fled. A few hours later, career criminal Harvey Robinson staggered into a hospital with two gunshot wounds. While waiting he was recognized by a policeman and Harvey fled with the cop in close pursuit. The cops ran Harvey down and arrested him. He went to trial and was easily convicted due to the DNA evidence that they retrieved from Denise Sam-Cali’s clothing. Denise had carefully laid aside her underclothing she had on during the rape just for this eventuality. Harvey got the death penalty. I wish I could designate the type of death to be given to animals like this. If I could, I promise you crimes of this sort would drop precipitously.



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow


















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