Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

”In time of war God smiles on the side with the most artillery.”

                                       George S. Patton

As of this writing it looks like the wing segment and the debris that washed up on Reunion Island in the western Indian ocean is more than likely from MH370 that disappeared 16 months ago. I looked into where they were searching right after and the disappearance and the location of Reunion Island. Reunion Island is about 2,940 miles northwest of where the search area was. According to NOAA it is possible for the debris to have been caught in the South Equatorial Current and made it to Reunion Island in this length of time dependent upon how far south of the equator the plane crashed...or it crashed at lot further west than the searchers calculated.

A while back down in Anderson, SC there was a killing. There is a late night joint there that finally closed the doors at about 4:30AM on a Saturday morning. There evidently been a hell of a fight inside and a someone reported that one of the fighters flashed a gun. The owner and a couple of bouncers ran every body out and tried to hold them in the parking lot for the police. One pickup truck with a female driver and a male companion tried to escape and almost ran over one of the “security guards”. The guard was armed, y'all...and he fired a couple of rounds at the pickup. Very soon thereafter the truck hit a tree. The cops found that both the driver and the passenger had been hit...the female was dead at the wheel. The passenger will live...but it was found that he was also armed. Sounds like great place to party doesn't it?

Up in Asheville, NC for 35 years they have held a three day street party this time of year. The last one was held a few years ago. The city fathers decided decided not to cough up the $450,000 to finance this shindig...even though it attracted thousands of visitors and millions of dollars. In the later years the festival was plagued with gangs harassing and robbing the festival goers and “street preachers” on many corners telling everyone about their sins in spite of beer, wine and booze flowing like the French Broad river. The party goers and the preachers had verbal exchanges that almost reached the boiling point. A lot of people believe that it was this evangelism, especially anti-gay signs and subjects of sermons that doomed the festival named Bele Chere. Many people are glad it is over so these problems will disappear, not be resolved...disappear. It is my belief that my religion and my association with God is a personal issue... God and I will resolve issues in my life and no one else needs to be included. Does that make me an infidel? No one can answer that you would be playing God...and believe me, you ain't qualified.

This Date in History July 31

1777   On this date a 19 year old Frenchman named Marquis de Lafayette joined George Washington’s Continental army as a Major General. Earlier Continental Congress secret envoy to France, Silas Deane had persuaded French military expert Baron Johan De Kalb and his protegee Marquis de Lafayette to offer their services to the fledgling United States in its war with England. The ruling monarch of France was King Louis XVI and he knew that any support sent to the colonies by France would result in war with England and forbade DeKalb and Lafayette from donating their expertise. In fact the British demanded that the ship Lafayette was aboard to be captured and Lafayette imprisoned. This in fact did happen but Lafayette escaped and boarded another ship that was able to evade the pursuing British ships. Lafayette finally arrived in South Carolina and made his way north and met up with Washington. The Continental Congress was reluctant to bestow such a rank on such a young man but Washington’s influence prevailed and Lafayette was given the rank. Lafayette served with distinction at the Battles of Brandywine, Monmouth and Rhode Island. After the United States and France signed a treaty, as expected, England declared war on France. This disturbed Lafayette and he requested to return to his homeland and see what Louis XVI had in mind for him in the war against England. He returned to France but came back to the United States and joined with Washington once again. He was at Yorktown, Virginia when British General Charles Cornwallis and his entire army were forced to surrender which virtually assure a Patriot victory in their war for independence. In fact, it was Lafayette that cut off the retreat of Cornwallis’ army forcing his surrender. After this, Lafayette returned to France to offer his services to that nation in turmoil.

1975 The leader of the powerful Teamsters Union of America, Jimmy Hoffa, is reported missing in Detroit. Jimmy had been waiting in the back seat of his Cadillac in front of the Red Fox restaurant in suburban Detroit one minute and the next minute both Jimmy, his driver and the Cadillac were gone. Jimmy had gone to jail for jury tampering for 8 years and while he was gone, his second in command in the Union Jim Fitzsimmons moved in and was elected President. This precisely what Hoffa had ordered not to happen. Hoffa wanted to remain President and run the Union from a jail cell. After he got out of jail, he went on a campaign to regain control of the Teamsters. Jimmy had some murky dealings with organized crime but nothing specific was ever determined. He finally was re-elected as President of the Union but Fitzsimmons and his followers were not pleased and the word on the street was that organized crime felt that Jimmy had become a threat. So it could have either or both that sent Jimmy to where he is today and has never been found. The most popular theory is that he was killed and his corpse was encased in one of the 8 foot diameter concrete columns that were under construction building the Meadowlands arena in New Jersey. I don’t think we will ever know what happened, but for now “Goodbye Jimmy, wherever you are.”

1715  On July 5 10 Spanish galleons and 1 French frigate departed Havana, Cuba loaded to the scuppers with Maya and Inca gold and silver headed for Europe. The Spanish ships hugged the Florida shore while the French ship sail further off shore. On this date when the Spanish ship were somewhere between Cape Canaveral and Fort Pierce, Florida a hurricane struck and all 10 of the Spanish ships were sunk spilling tons of gold and silver on the ocean floor. The French ship was able to ride out the storm with minimum damage. Later salvage boats from Cuba recovered 80% of the booty but the rest of it lay on the bottom until the early 1960’s when the rest of the treasure was salvaged.

1921 US racial advocate Whitney Young. He said “It is better to prepare for an opportunity and not have one than to not be prepared and have an opportunity.” You are right, Whitney, that is why I have Viagra, Cialis and Levitra in a capsule holder on my key chain for what good it does...but I am prepared.

        Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Promise me you will always remember. You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

      Christopher Robin to Pooh Bear written by A.A. Milne

It would do all of us good to start the day by looking in the mirror and repeat this sentence.

A friend and I have been playing volleyball with the political candidates so far. She and I came to the same basic prerequisite to determine the best candidate and that is to answer this question. “Would you trust this person to have their finger on the possibility of nuclear war?”. Think about it. Thanks KK.

When I was in the air traffic control business one of the most used procedures was a “visual approach”. This involves the air traffic controller guiding the plane into a position where the pilot could see the airport and the landing runway with enough distance and elevation to land himself. After all, to get a pilots license in the first place a potential pilot must make hundred of landings and takeoffs using visual information only. There was a crash in San Francisco that was because the foreign pilot (and/or the co-pilot) saw the airport and the landing runway and was instructed to “Take over visually and complete the landing”. From that point they apparently had no concept of what elevation and distance they were from the end of the runway and overshot, landed long and fast...and crashed. The FAA has issued a directive that all foreign commercial airliners find the runway end using GPS rather than their visual information and judgment. That way they will know exactly how far they are from touchdown and adjust their elevation and speed appropriately. Another problem: Frequently pilots will be told things like “Follow the Delta Boeing 7-4-7 at 2 o'clock three miles, advise when you have it in sight”. When the pilot advises that he has the aircraft in sight he/she is told “Follow the 7-4-7 and contact the tower on freq....”). What is a foreign pilot going to do here? There are variations on this theme at different airports but judgment from the pilot is imperative. The FAA stated that there has been an unusually large number of aborted landing by foreign airlines at San Francisco because of bad pilot judgment of distance and elevation. It is apparent to me that foreign airline pilots are used to being radar guided by air traffic control or GPS to a point in line with the landing runway, and told what their altitude should be before letting them continue visually. That ain't the way it is here in the good ole USA, you have be a pilot not a bus driver. If you plan a trip involving a foreign airline and San Francisco...be afraid...be very afraid.

If I were to ask where was the very first European settlement in North America you would probably say Jamestown, Virginia in 1607...and you would be wrong. The first European settlement in North America (that we know of) was a place named L'Anse aux Meadows. It is located on the northern side of Newfoundland and was established nearly 492 year before Columbus. It was founded about the year 1,000 by Leif Erikson, a Norwegian Viking. Leif was the son of the immortal Eric the Red and was likely born in Iceland. The settlement in Newfoundland consisted of sod houses, stone walls and fences and well worn paths. Exploration of this site found sewing needles and various home making utensils all of Scandinavian origin. The most revealing find was butternuts that was obviously part of their diet. These nuts do not exist north of the Saint Lawrence river. This means that these Vikings went exploring further south and probably foraged around in what is now Maine. Keep in mind that they were here in North America for 607 years before Jamestown existed. I wonder how much exploring they did in what is now the United States in those 607 years. There are many markers with runic writing on them throughout the northern tier of the US. Runic is what the ancient Scandinavians used for a written language. Some markers have been proved as a fraud but others were proved as original and genuine. As far as we can determine the European community did not know North and South America existed until the 15^th century. In fact they did not believe there was anything west of Ireland...but the Vikings did. They left the North Sea and headed west and found the Shetland Islands, the Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland and established colonies on all of them. There is mention in their history of “Vinland” and that being west of Greenland. That has to be Newfoundland. For hundreds of years the Vikings dominated western Europe by rape and pillage not to mention many explorations into the unknown. Now the Scandinavians are the most peaceful on the planet. I guess they got it out of their system.

                This Date in History  July 30

1780 On this date Patriot Colonel Isaac Shelby and his division of 600 infantry captured Fort Thicketty which was about 10 mile southeast of Cowpens, South Carolina. Shelby and his troops were able to capture the fort that was manned totally by Loyalists without firing a shot. Earlier Shelby was part and parcel of the Battle of Kings Mountain, North Carolina where British General Thomas Ferguson and his division of Loyalists were trapped on top of a small mountain in the King’s mountain range near the North Carolina/South Carolina border and the Patriots had the bottom of the mountain surrounded. Even though Ferguson and his troops surrendered, he and his troops were annihilated. With Ferguson on horse back, he raised a white hanky as a signal of surrender and said “I am an officer in his majesty’s army and will be treated with dignity and respect.” This comment was met with at least 8 musket balls and Ferguson was dead as fried chicken before he hit the ground. This action was caused by the slaughter of 200 Patriots a few weeks earlier that had surrendered to the infamous British Colonel Banaste Tarleton at the village of Waxhaw just south of present day Charlotte, NC and all were bayoneted and/or killed. Word of Shelby and his “over the mountain” men had reached the Loyalists at Fort Thicketty and they wanted no part of Shelby and company. Shelby went on down and defeated the British at the Battle of Cedar Springs (in the center of the present day city of Spartanburg, SC) and on down to the Battle of Musgrove Mill which is about 30 mile southwest of Spartanburg. Shelby and his “over the mountain” men were bloodthirsty and ruthless and everybody knew it, especially the Loyalists. The “over the mountain” men were those back country men that came down from the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains to kill the British and were good at it. Speaking of good at it, Shelby was born in Maryland and was involved in Pontiac’s War. He scalped his first Indian at the age of 13. The city of Shelby, North Carolina is named for this Patriot

1863 On this date Shoshone chief Pocatello signed the treaty of Box Elder Creek making the immigrants able to cross southern Idaho safely. At one time the Bannock Shoshone were one of the most powerful tribes on the Great Plains. But a white man’s disease called smallpox had swept through the tribe in the epidemic of 1781 decimating their number to the point that the fierce Blackfoot had pushed them off the plains and into the mountains. Then there came an even more dangerous group in the Lewis and Clark expedition carrying even more white man’s diseases. The Shoshone wanted to be friends with the white man so they could lay their hands on firearms to defeat the hated Blackfoot. But 50 years later the Shoshone finally realized that the white man was a much more dangerous threat than the Blackfoot but it was too late, the pioneers and settlers were well established along with the US Cavalry.

     Thanks for listening  I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but the hurt is much worse when you love someone and do not have the courage to tell them how you feel.”

                                               Charles Swindoll

I know what you mean Charlie, I have tried for years without success to tell Dolly Parton how much I care.

Here is another adventure while I was an air traffic controller in Greenville, SC. I was contacted by the control tower in Asheville, NC (about 40 miles north) about a plane that was “caught on top” and since we had radar and they didn't they sent the plane to my frequency. Caught on top means a non-instrument rated pilot on top of an overcast. The pilot contacted me and I quickly identified him as being about 5 miles east of Hendersonville, NC. I checked the weather in Greenville, SC and it was only scattered clouds. He and I agreed would be safer descending in a scattered cloud environment and out of mountainous terrain. He agreed then he hit me with a scary thing. He only had about 40 minutes of fuel left but thankfully he was at a pretty high altitude. I got him headed toward Greenville and we agreed that he should begin a slow descent with the engine at idle to save fuel. My radar told when he was clear of the mountains and the pilot said he could see the ground. Keeping an eye on the clock, his altitude and rate of descent, when I felt he could make the airport without going to full power I lined him up with runway 36 at Greenville Downtown Airport. By then it was dark and I asked the control tower at the airport to turn the runway lights up bright and asked the pilot if he had the runway in sight and he said that he did. I told him how far he was from the runway and sent him over to tower frequency. The tower said that he landed without incident but on the way to the ramp he ran out fuel and had to be towed to parking. God works in mysterious ways.

I have been reading the tales of arguably the greatest writer of all time and that being Homer. This great man was born somewhere on an island in the Aegean Sea in the 8^th Century BC. Homer is most famous for giving is The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad is about The Trojan War. This war erupted when an entourage from the city of Troy (in present day Turkey) came to visit king Menelaus the king of Sparta, Greece. Included in the Trojans was a prince named Paris. Menelaus was married to a stone fox named Helen who was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. During the visit Paris and Helen dug each other and had several trysts. When it came time for Paris to sail back to Troy, he persuaded Helen to go with him. Menelaus was insulted but was leaning toward finding another beauty to replace Helen but his brother Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, saw it another way. He was extremely incensed at this insult of his brother that he began gathering a navy and soldiers to invade Troy. What happened during this war Homer mixed real things and events with mythology. There was mention of Achilles, Ajax and Hector among others that reside in Greek mythology, however there was indeed a city of Troy in southwest Turkey. A German archaeologist uncovered the ruins of this city including a layer thick with ashes where it had been burned to the ground. This event was also mentioned by Homer in The Iliad. The Greeks besieged Troy for 10 years with no success until a plan was hatched by the Greek king of Ithaca named Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology). It was Odysseus that conceived the large wooden horse with troops hidden inside and left the horse outside the gates of Troy. Then the Greeks sailed their ships out of sight over the horizon (about 16 miles) to convince the Trojans that they had given up and sailed for home. The Trojans bought the ruse and pulled the horse inside the gates. That night the Greeks sailed back to the shores of Troy and deployed their infantry. The troops inside the horse crawled out and opened the gates allowing their infantry inside. It was all over after that. What a stupendous feat of Homer's imagination is this tale. I will approach The Odyssey at a later date, it is richer in pure imagination than The Iliad .

Origins of our language:

Here is the roots of a word we use every day. In Greek mythology Hercules (strongest man in the world) went mad one night and murdered his entire family. His atonement for this atrocity was 12 “labors” or superhuman tasks. One of these was the slaying of the Hydra. This was a sea creature with nine gigantic poisonous snakes for a head. After a series of adventures Hercules found the Hydra. He began cutting off the heads of this beast but a new head would grow back in its place. Hercules retreated an made an enormous torch and resumed the attack. This time when he cut off the head he would immediately cauterize the stump and no new head came forth. It was well known that the blood of the Hydra was the most potent poison known. Hercules had a bow and a quiver of arrows with him and he dipped the point of his arrows in the blood. Hercules had a name for his gigantic bow...it was Toxus. It is from this word that we get toxin, toxic, etc. The English language is a montage of words we absorbed from many sources.

                   This Date in History July 29

1588 A few years earlier Queen Elizabeth I of England had sent her most able sea captain in Sir Francis Drake out to harass Spain, England’s worst enemy at the time. Drake did not disappoint. He caught the Spanish fleet at anchor in Cadiz, Spain and sent in ships that were on fire into the fleet and bombarded them with long range artillery. This attack delayed by one year King Phillip of Spain’s attempt at the control of the English Channel and therefore controlling England’s commerce. Drake’s attack also alerted England to Spain’s intentions. Queen Elizabeth had sent monetary aid and supplies to some of the Dutch colonies that were rebelling against Spain’s attempt to occupy those lands. Eventually, King Phillip of Spain got his fleet together to the tune of 130 ships containing 8,000 guns manned by 2,000 sailors and 20,000 infantry. This fleet was known as the “Great Armada” but later it was known as the Spanish Armada. Anyway, the fleet left Spain headed for the English Channel in a line of ships eight miles long. The delay had allowed the English fleet almost a year to prepare and when the Spanish Armada arrived in the English Channel the English were ready. The English ships were not a fast as the Spanish ships but they were a lot more rugged, especially in rough seas, and had cannon with a lot longer range. As you might suspect, the English ships stood off out of range of the Spanish ships and bombarded the hell out them. Then the worst possible thing happened for the Spanish Armada. A typical English Channel storm arrived unexpectedly and the mighty Spanish Armada was forced to seek shelter in a small bay near Calais, France where they anchored down to ride out the storm. The English fleet, Sir Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake commanding, waited until the storm abated and on this date they sealed off the mouth of the bay the Spanish Fleet had occupied and again bombarded the hell out of them and sent in, you guessed it, fire ships meant to set fire to the Armada. After that it was every Spanish ship for himself and the ships left that bay the best way they could. Most of the ships did escape from the bay but they were not in formation and disorganized, the English were waiting and picked them off one at a time. Not only that the wind shifted and the Spanish Fleet had no chance to sail back to Spain and many of them crashed on the shores of Scotland with the English fleet in hot pursuit. The English fleet turned back at the north end of Scotland. Finally, the survivors of the “Great Armada” arrived back in Spain less than half strength. This is one of the most important military events in history in stopping Spain from invading England.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”

                                                   Golda Meir

Here is something to think about: There is evidence of Mayan villages on the Mexican Pacific coast that are about 2,700 years old. These villages and others like them further inland were agrarian societies mostly farming a few small animals and plants like dogs and chickens, maize (corn), beans, yams, squash and gathering fish and shellfish. The variety of their take increased throughout history but all of a sudden they started building stone edifices that would challenge those in Egypt. They did NOT have any kind of metals, draft animals, engineering skills, knowledge of basic machinery including the compound pulley, transits, theodolites, squares and most surprisingly, they did not have the wheel. There is no evidence that they exchanged technical information with anyone from one area to another like the Egyptians yet they constructed gigantic pyramids by beating one rock with another harder rock to the point that they fit together so tightly that a sheet of paper will not go between and mortar is not required. Not only that, they were able to divert rivers, construct fishing weirs, build irrigation canals, remove trees and jungle to make large avenues and plazas not to mention sports arenas with seating for hundreds. They had a sport similar to soccer. Remember they did all of this without draft animals and metal. Also remember that 1,000 miles south people in the Amazon River basin people were/are living in grass shacks, killing game with snares and pointed sticks used as spears and were/are cannibals. Then 1,000 miles north for the most part the native Americans were living a nomadic existence chasing the migration of the bison and other game. There were a few agrarian societies but few and far between. I do not believe that one day a Mayan farmer down in central Mexico raised up and said “Hey y'all, even though we do not have draft animals, metal nor the wheel lets erect some four sided buildings that are bigger at the bottom that at the top and etch images on the sides of the stones that emulate our kings, Gods and important events.” On top of that they were expert astronomers. Their calender was the most accurate ever created for a thousand years. They predicted eclipses of the moon and sun among other celestial events not to mention hieroglyphics that operated as a written language. They erected some building that were obviously celestial observatories that seemed to be focused on “Orion's Belt” (Little Dipper) and the “Pleiades” (Seven Sisters). They oriented their buildings within a degree or two of true north, south, east and west. Their system of mathematics was based on 20 and included the concept of zero. I would like to see a show of hands of those that believe the Mayans did all of that totally on their on. That's what I thought...me neither.

For some reason I remembered an event while I was an air traffic controller here in Greenville, SC many years ago. I got word that a private aircraft was in trouble over the Smoky Mountains somewhere west of us. I do not remember exactly how but I finally got in radio contact with the pilot. He said that he was in the clouds, not instrument rated and lost. I found him on radar about 40 miles west. He was not holding a steady heading and this means that it is a very dangerous situation. The pilot was not using his instrument to stay straight and level and might stall and spin into the ground. That ain't the worst part. Every time he spoke on the microphone I could hear women and children crying and screaming in the background. He finally said that he had his family with him and they were panic stricken. I told him to put me on a speaker and I literal yelled for everybody to calm down that the pilot and I would get them out of this. I kept telling the pilot to pay attention to the artificial horizon, directional gyro (compass), needle, ball and airspeed. All of these instruments would tell him what he needed to keep flying. He finally was holding a fairly steady heading and altitude but was heading southwest putting him deeper into the mountains. After giving him a few minutes to calm down a I told him to start a gentle left turn to the east and I would tell him when to level off. After a few minutes of making the turn the aircraft disappeared from my radar and I lost radio contact with the pilot. It was getting dark and as I recall it was in mid-September. I marked the place on my radar screen where I last saw the aircraft and my supervisor contacted Air-Sea Rescue. After several days of searching nothing was found. The bad part is that if a plane goes down nearly vertical (like in a spin) there would be no path of broken tree limbs and debris.  With it being in Autumn the wreckage would be covered with leaves very quickly. The wreckage was found the next Spring and as you might suspect...there was no survivors. This one bothers me to this day.

This Date in History July 28

1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurs in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50a while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Thousands of Chinese died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.

1973 On this date the bullet riddled, blood soaked Ford V8 in which Bonnie Parker and Clyde barrow were killed was auctioned off to a collector from Nevada for the tidy sum of $175,000. When the Ford V8 first came out the gangster’s in America went across the countryside looking for them. The car was the replacement of the immortal Model A. After a couple of years, gangster/killer John Dillinger sent a letter to Henry Ford extolling the ability of the V8 to outrun any “cop car” out there. Not to be outdone, Clyde Barrow also sent a letter to Henry saying about the same thing. But both of them were blown away by gunfire from law enforcement officers. The car did not help them then. I wonder where they are today.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“There is no doubt that is around family and home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created.”

                                         Anne Frank

A while back Wildlife authorities in Texas decided to release thousands of hatchlings of the very rare Ridley sea turtles on Padre Island near Corpus Christie. These turtles normally hatch on the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Northwest Florida but due to the oil spill the eggs were dug up and incubated in Georgia and Texas. Those that hatched in Georgia will be released into the Atlantic and those that are hatched in Texas will be released into the western Gulf of Mexico. It is known that these turtles will eventually migrate back to where they originated in the area of the oil spill. The wildlife authorities believe that the oil spill will be cleaned up by the time the turtles arrive. I admire their optimism, I wonder if the turtles do.

I watched a TV show about the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. One of the leaders of the three German tank spearheads on December 16, 1944 was Joachim Peiper. His orders were to gain as much ground as fast as he could while the weather was bad. Once the skies cleared Peiper's tank column could be wiped out by allied aircraft. He moved so fast that he overran and captured about 220 American soldiers. He chose to not waste time with them and had them all shot. Once the word got out about that atrocity the Allies and the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne in particular swore that they would take no prisoners. There was an interview of a member of the 82^nd who said that even if a German soldier ran toward them hands in the air or even carrying a white flag they were shot. They did take prisoners on occasion to gain information. The soldier being interviewed said “When interviewing prisoners you would be surprised what effect a shot to the forehead of a prisoner with a .45 at the range of 1 foot has on the others”.  By the way, Peiper was tried and convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremburg.  He did some prison time and was released and he moved to a small town in Germany.  Soon thereafter his house caught on fire and he was burned alive.  The Israelis denied any knowledge of this event.

           This Date in History July 27

1974 On this date the House Judiciary Committee handed down a bill of impeachment with a recommendation of removal from office of the sitting President of the United States, Richard Nixon. All of this adventure began when a group of men were caught and arrested inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Two of those arrested were on the White house staff. It was a given that Nixon could not be beaten in upcoming election because the Democrats did not have a viable candidate but his staff still felt it was necessary to burglarize. Originally the report of these arrests were stuck in the fourth or fifth page of the Washington Post newspaper but two reporters Named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat and began digging. The more they dug the closer they came to the White House. When these two began writing their columns about what they had discovered, the staff at the White House circled the wagons and refused to cooperate with law enforcement which attracted the attention of the US Congress. The Congress selected Archibald Cox, the head of the Harvard Law School, to act as special prosecutor. Not only did Nixon try to get two Assistant Attorney Generals (Caper Weinberger and Nick Katzenbach) to fire Cox, he called in a very high official in the FBI and told them to not investigate the Watergate incident. Weinberger and Katzenbach not only refused but resigned in protest at this obvious cover-up. Nixon finally persuaded a lesser Federal judge (Richard Bork) to fire Cox. During this time it was determined that Nixon had been taping all the conversations in the Oval Office. Judge Leon Jaworski along with Judge John Sirica, who had replaced Cox, demanded the tapes but Nixon refused claiming executive privilege and a threat to national security. Over a period of time the US Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes which he did. Nixon was not done yet. Some of the most critical tapes had blank spaces which experts said was an erasure. Again the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to produce depositions saying what had been said during the erasures. When these damning documents reached the House Judiciary Committee, A Bill of Impeachment soon followed. Soon thereafter Nixon resigned, turned over the reins to Vice-President Gerald Ford, and moved back to where he came from, San Clemente, California. It was a tragic and time of testing for the United States judiciary/legislative system.

1981 On this date 6 year old Adam Walsh is abducted at a Hollywood, Florida shopping Mall. It seems that Adam and his mother Reve went shopping and little Adam wanted to watch some older boys play video games while his mother was shopping close by. As will happen, the older boys got rowdy and the mall security guard came by and ran everybody out. Little Adam just followed the older boys outside rather than seeking his mother. He waited out side for a short while then he disappeared. A few days later, Adams’s head was found in drainage ditch near Vero Beach, Florida which is nearly 100 miles from Hollywood. The police focused on career criminals and convicted child molesters Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was found in jail for another crime and confessed to the murder of little Adam but said that career criminal Henry Lee Lucas was with him and it was he that did the murder. The police investigated and found to no one’s surprise, that Toole was lying because Lucas was in jail in Virginia when Adam was abducted. Toole then recanted his story. The police decided that they would need Adam’s complete body to prosecute anyone. Adams body was never found and the case remains unsolved. Toole was executed in Florida for another murder. We all know what work Adam’s father John has done by establishing the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

1806 During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the group reached the Great Falls on the Missouri River. Clark took a few men and began exploring further downstream, Lewis headed north to explore the Marias River basin. They left 6 men to portage their boats around the falls. Lewis knew they were in Blackfoot country. The Blackfoot were the fiercest tribe in the area and are to be feared and sure enough, Lewis met up with a party of Blackfoot and he tried to be cordial. It appeared to be working and Lewis invited the Indians to his camp. After it got dark, one of Lewis’s men yelled out that the Indians were trying to steal their horses and rifles. Lewis ran after them and one of the Indians turned and moved toward Lewis whereupon Lewis shot him in the stomach. The rest of the Indians retreated and the horses and rifles were saved. Lewis knew that if there was trouble between the expedition and the Indians while going west, there would be trouble coming back east. Not only that, one of his men said that during the attempt to get the horses back, he had caught up with one of the Indians and stabbed him to death. More trouble, but they would have been in more serious trouble without horses and rifles.

Born today:

1824 French author Alexander Dumas the Younger. He said “I prefer rogues to imbeciles because sometime they take a rest.” We all know some of each.

1956 US comic Carol Liefer. She said “He tricked me into marrying him, he said he was pregnant.” Carol, shut up.

Died today:

2003 US comedian Bob Hope. He said “You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” Amen, brother.

         Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

Good morning, 89/4

Quote of the day:

“When your life brings you to a fork in the road, take it.”

                                  Yogi Berra

 I have had several conversations about presidential candidates with members of my social group lately.  As of 7:30 Thursday afternoon my preference is anybody that is not a politician.  I am up to my nostrils with them.  They would not hesitate to sell out their constituents to stay in office.  Ben Carson and Donald Trump are not in that category...but I like the way that Bernie Sanders talks even though he is a Democrat.  I will probably change my mind several times as will most of us.

Many years ago I was working for a large retail business and was chosen to teach office management. I had to do some research so it would appear that I was not stupid. In the research there was a famous management case that was a good subject for discussion. It was called the Joe Lamb case. Here it is and it is up to you to decide the solution as if you were the office manager.

There was an office of 14 female highly skilled computer operators, one office manager (you) and one male accountant named Joe Lamb. It took 6 months of training for the operators to reach maximum productivity. One night Joe Lamb was arrested for attempted rape but was released for lack of evidence. The next morning the office manager (you) was handed a note signed by all the women saying they wanted Joe Lamb gone because they were afraid and if not they would all resign. What do you as the office manager do? Correct decision at the end of this segment.

About 60 years ago when I was in grammar and high school, there was a clear definition between the families that “had money” and those that didn't, especially if your family was mill workers. The monied ones were called “elites”...but we pronounced it “EE-lites”. I was one of those that didn't and most of my family were mill workers. We poor whites were treated differently that the elite, even ostracized at times. Yes it was prejudice...not racial but status...but it was prejudice. I ran across something similar in the military. In those days and still today I have a very defined “southern drawl”. Somehow the image of a “cracker” from down south was an ignoramus wearing a pointy white hat. That is prejudice also...not racial but regional...but prejudice just the same. Somehow most of my buddies in the military were from Michigan, West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida. I was accepted by the men from West Virginia, Florida and Kentucky but I had to “earn” respect from the guys from Michigan but once I was accepted they were true blue. One of my friends was from northern Michigan and we got into a discussion about why there was friction between the blacks and whites “down south”. I took the old tired position of “I don't really know because I lived in a neighborhood that was all white all my life.” Later on we were talking about how close the Cherokees were to my home town of Greenville, SC. I asked him if there were any Indians near his home town. He said that yes...there were Cree Indians that had immigrated down from Canada but I can't count them...because they all were nothing but thieves and drunks. That, my friends, is racial prejudice. We all have the Constitutional right to live with the people we choose but this man is no different from us so called “crackers”. Using President Obama's logic, nothing has changed and I am still smarting from all the jeers and insults I received 60 years ago. That is baloney, of course. Our President is supposed to be our leader and promote unity...his statements about what happened 35 years ago is driving a racial wedge even deeper among us and he is hinting that there has been no change in 35 years...that also is baloney and we and he knows it. He knows as much about leadership as I do about quantum mechanics. God help us because he certainly will not.

Again there is a bunch of tree-huggers up near Washington, DC beating their breasts and shouting that how evil it is that the football team is called the “Redskins”. They are claiming that the name is disrespectful to the Native Americans. I have several thoughts on that crap. I can assure you that there is not one pure bred Native American in their midst. I say “pure-bred” because our European ancestors unashamedly raped and pillaged the Indians wholesale for about 220 years. I believe that there is a drop or two of Native American blood in everyone that can trace their ancestry in the present US to 1890 and before. To think that they are concerned about the name of a football team is ludicrous and very shallow thinking. All of y'all mind your own business and allow the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws and a myriad of other tribes raise hell...just go out and hug and American chestnut...if you can find one.

I don't know what is wrong with some of us humans. Up near Anchorage, Alaska a church was holding a picnic in a fairly remote area. One of the dishes was barbecue pork ribs. The report gave the name of one particular man and it was clearly Latino...I will explain a little later.

This particular man got hammered and decided to take a bicycle ride down a nearby trail and took some ribs with him. The city of Anchorage is known for a huge population of black bears and the city officials go to great pains to keep them “wild”. This means they will fine the hell out of you if you feed them. The man on the bicycle encountered a black bear on the trail and being hammered, he threw the bear some ribs. The bear snatched up the meat and then decided he wanted the bike rider also and attacked. This stupid jackass had no defense and curled up into a ball and awaited his fate. The bear clawed the hell out of his back and bit a chunk out of his neck and scalp then left. While he was down and screaming his lungs out, the other people called the authorities. The man rode the bicycle back to the picnic area and was washing his wounds in a near by creek when the wildlife agents arrived. They asked the man what happened but could not understand him because he was slurring his words and did not speak English (remember the reference to Latino). An interpreter told the agents about the man admitting to feeding the bear and being attacked. He was arrested, taken to the hospital and sewn up, taken to the drunk tank to spend the night. The next day he was taken before a judge and fined for public drunkenness and feeding wildlife. He was fined $800. it was not a good day at the church picnic.

Correct decision in the Joe Lamb case:

You fire Joe Lamb. The reason is that you cannot risk your company losing money for six months while others are trained because of one person. You could have another accountant in a matter of hours. The ONLY thing on your mind should be just one thing and that is what is best for your company, guilt or innocence of Joe Lamb and your ego not withstanding. The decision as to the guilt or innocence of Joe Lamb is none of your business.

This Date in History July 24

1911 On this date American explorer Hiram Bingham is one of the first honkies to lay eyes on one of the most spectacular sites in archaeological history. He had found Machu Picchu, an Inca city hidden in the Andes Mountains northwest of the capitol of Cuzco. After the rape of the Inca by the Spanish conquistadors, the Inca rulers no longer summered in Machu Picchu and its location was kept a secret for 350 years. Only the local natives knew of its existence. This magnificent city had surrounding lands that had been terraced for the raising of crops and the city had running water. It was built of huge stones that were cut so accurately that cement was not required and a razor blade could not be inserted in the seams. This is not the only Inca city that has been found in the Andes that was engineered so greatly. How these cities were build is still a mystery to the world. The Inca were very small in stature and had no draft animals other than the llama. There is no evidence that they had knowledge of the wheel. Machu Picchu was found high up on two peaks that had been leveled to allow construction and it is one of the most visited tourist sites in the world.

Born today:

1970 US actress Jennifer Lopez. Comedian Chris Rock said of her. “I saw Jennifer Lopez on TV the other night accepting some kind of award and she thanked her agent, her family, her minister her make-up artist and a lot of other people. She needs to thank that ass, that’s what got where she is today.” Chris must be an ass and legs man like myself.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday

Good Morning, (89-4)

Here is a question for you. We had seen a lot of Prince Harry in the British Military. Every member of the British military must have his/her last name on a name tag attached to their uniform. What is/was on Prince Harry's name tag? Answer at the end of this segment.

I was looking through my wallet the other day and saw an old American Express receipt and it reminded me of this episode. I was living on Daniel Island, SC which is across the Cooper River from Charleston. There was a bar across the street from my condo that I visited on a regular basis after work. On one particular occasion after a few cocktails I decided to go to a fairly fancy restaurant about a mile away for dinner. I paid my bar tab with my American Express card. After a great dinner I gave the server my card and she came back and said that American Express wants you to call them. I called them and they asked me if I had been on a cruise lately. I said that I had went on a 13 day cruise aboard a Holland America ship out of Dover, England. Then she asked when was the last time I had used the card and I told them about an hour ago at the Soda Water Grill on Daniel Island, SC. She said that they had canceled my card because someone in New York City had just tried to pay for $300 worth of baby clothes with an American Express card with your number on it. I thanked them for being alert for an obvious fraud but would they reactivate my card for 10 minutes so I could pay for dinner. She said “You have 10 minutes and we will send you another card via overnight Fedex.” My question is how could anyone copy my card number, make another card with those numbers in one hour. Maybe the world is getting too complicated.

The regular history lesson will follow this biography.

Galileo Galilei

The Father of Modern Science

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the son of Vincenzo Galilei who was a mathematician and musician. His mother was Guilia Ammannati. Galileo was the youngest of seven children. From a very early age he was tutored and attended the University of Pisa but was forced to cease his study there for financial reasons. But his brilliance was recognized and he was offered a mathematic teaching position on the faculty in 1589. A little later he took a position on the faculty of the University of Padua teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy. He held this position until 1610. It was during this time that he explored science and made his most important discoveries.

Even though Galileo was a devout Catholic he fathered three children out of wedlock, two daughters and one son. All were the children of Galileo and Marina Gamba. By the law in those days, the daughters had to go to a convent because of their illegitimacy and attended the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri.

In 1612 he went to Rome and joined the Accademia dei Lincei. Opposition to the Copernican theory which Galileo supported arose primarily from the Catholic Church. The Copernican theory suggested that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the “universe”. In 1614 a Catholic priest from the pulpit denounced Galileo’s opinions about the motions of the planets as being on the cusp of heresy. Galileo went to Rome to defend himself from these accusations. But in 1616 Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino personally handed Galileo an admonition enjoining him from advocating or teaching the Copernican theory as religious doctrine. Galileo did not back off totally from his beliefs and published two different books that danced around the Copernican theory without really advocating it. In 1632 he was called to appear before the Holy Office in Rome. The court condemned his teachings and was held in prison until December 1633 when he was allowed to retire to his villa in Arcetri under house arrest. This outrage with the church sticking their bloody nose into academia just confirms my belief that the church should stick to saving my soul and let academia do its thing unmolested. Anyway, this great mind left this earth on January 8, 1642 at the age of 78. Galileo was totally blind for the last year of his life and was escorted by one of his students, Vincenzo Viviani, who was with him when he died.

Galileo’s contributions to the scientific world are almost too many to count. The biggest problem that he had was before he could teach a theory to his students he had to pass it before the hierarchy of the church first. He was staunchly opposed to the blind obedience to an authority (like the church) or other thinkers (like Aristotle) in matters of science so as to keep a separation between philosophy and religion. These thoughts are why Galileo is known as “the father of science”. He pioneered the use of quantitative experiments and analyzing the results mathematically. There had never been such a procedure used in the history of science but it is well used to this day. Galileo said “The language of God is mathematics.” Up until this point the scientists followed Aristotle’s logic unquestioned, not mathematics. Then came Galileo explaining that all falling bodies fall at the same rate regardless of their weight, air resistance not withstanding. This is the exact opposite of what was taught by Aristotle. Galileo did an experiment off the leaning tower of Pisa whereby he dropped two different sized balls simultaneously and they hit the ground at the same time. Later scientists used his information in computing terminal velocity. Galileo did not invent the telescope but improved it enough to where he could discern the four moons of Jupiter and determined that they were in orbit around Jupiter and was able to plot sun spots. He published his first treatise on what he had observed in the sky with a small pamphlet named “Sidereal Messenger”. When Galileo stated that the four moons of Jupiter were in orbit around Jupiter, the other scientists and the ever loving church about peed their pants because it was the church’s theory that everything orbited the Earth. Another thing that went a long way toward the Earth not being the center of the universe was that Galileo saw that Venus went through phases like the moon meaning it was orbiting the sun, not the Earth. He also observed that the Moon had a rough and irregular surface and he made rough estimates as to their height by observing the shadows. Aristotle had said that the Moon was a perfect sphere. All of the brilliant scientific minds of the time could not describe what caused the tides, including Galileo. He said it was centrifugal force, he was wrong. It took Isaac Newton and his laws of gravity to settle this issue. Galileo understood the mathematics required to dissect and measure the area of a parabola. There is almost no limit to where Galileo’s star would have risen had it not been for the interference of the church. Speaking of Isaac Newton, he was born one year, almost to the day, after Galileo died. And that ain’t all. The famous present day astrophysicist Stephen Hawking was born to the day 300 years after the death of Isaac Newton. Both Hawking and Newton were Englishmen, both attended Cambridge University and both were/are presidents of the Lucasian and Royal Societies. I ask this question: Are Galileo, Newton and Hawking the same person? In my mind, there are too many coincidences to ignore.

By the way, It took the Catholic Church until the 19^th century to admit they were wrong about fostering the earth as being the center of the Universe. Religious beliefs taught in schools? I don’t think so.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

The name tag on Prince Harry was “Wales” since he is the Prince of Wales

Wednesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I did not have a single talent left and could say 'I used all that you gave me.'”

Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck was one of my favorite writers. She had an enormously humorous way with words. Her first best selling book was “The Grass Grows Greener Over the Septic Tank” and I think you can gather from that where she was going. In addition to having more than 12 best seller books, she wrote a daily column for a newspaper syndicate. She was also on a major TV network morning show for several years and was called before Congress to testify in behalf of equality for women legislation. When she was 20 she was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease but she was able to cope with this problem for almost the rest of her life. She had a successful mastectomy in her later years then her kidney problem raised its ugly head and she obtained a kidney transplant. Complications from this surgery killed her at the age of 69. The world is a worse place without her thoughts...but there are still her books.

I had a chat with a member of the Greenville, SC Republican Women's Club Monday during a meeting of the Four O'Clock Club. We discussed the media circus about Donald Trump and John McCain. She said that she and the members of her club are not interested in the smoke blown by the media but they ARE interested in McCain's voting record which has turned far to the left recently and they will campaign against him when the time comes. They are not interested in an exchange of insults and someone getting their feelings hurt as much as they are the running of this nation. See, there are some people out there that are not fooled by the yellow journalism we all see day in and day out. I was very impressed with this person's moxie and knowledge about what really counts.

                  Here is an interesting story for you.

A very short while ago up in Chicago there was an up and coming rapper named Joseph Coleman. He was riding down a street his neighborhood on a bicycle when a car pulled up beside him and he was shot in the back. He died the next day. His rap name in the Chicago area was Lil JoJo. He was connected with a gang named Gangster Disciples. A man with the rap nickname Chief Keel was arrested for the murder. He was associated with a gang named the Black Disciples. Both Chief Keel and Lil JoJo are/were 18 years old. Where the hell was their guidance at home? What we have here is one dead teenager and one other looking at at least 20 years in the joint or maybe the needle. Has anyone out there heard about either one of these kids before reading this? Why not? Are you being played for a fool by the media to their benefit? Is Joseph Coleman just as dead as Trayvon Martin? What is the difference between these two tragedies? I think y'all know the difference. Who are the racists here? I personally have had enough hypocrisy. But on second thought, that is just what the media AND the administration apparently wants...division...so I will just abide and try to encourage all of us to stay together.

                         This Day in History  July 22

1991 On this date the Milwaukee PD saw a naked teenager in hand cuffs running down the street so they stop and to find out what the hell is going on. The teen named Tracy Edwards told the police that he had been held hostage and his life had been threatened. The cops think that young Tracy is doing a dance around something really fishy so they escort him back to the apartment he said he escaped from. An amiable young man answered the door and explained that it had been just a misunderstanding and nothing illegal had occurred. The cops bought it and were on their way out when one of them spotted a couple of Polaroid photos of dismembered body parts and thus began the discovery of the den of horrors of a man named Jeffrey Dahmer. The cops call for back-up and soon the full impact of what this demon had propagated came to light. It was something out of Dante’s Inferno. He had hundred of various and sundry human body parts stuffed in his freezer and refrigerator. He had two genuine human skulls on top of his TV. On the stove was a kind of stew containing human organs. The police could not believe what they were seeing but they took Dahmer into custody and charged him with a plethora of offenses, including cannibalism. During subsequent investigations the cops found out that Dahmer would prowl the gay community of Milwaukee looking for the youngest male he could find, take them home and kill and dissect them. Not only that, he would use some of the body parts in a variety of recipes including the previously mentioned stew. Needless to say, he went to the slammer for life. I would be content with that knowing what kind of treatment he would be facing. Hopefully his roomie was a 350 pound, 6’-5” sexual pervert. He had been in prison for just a short while when the worst possible thing happened. One of the other prisoners stuck a shank in his liver and he died, damn it. By the way, a shank is a knife that is made of something different like a toothbrush or a fork or a sliver of Plexiglas, y'all get the picture.

1955 US actor Willam Dafoe. He said “I am not a weird person. I am just a square from Wisconsin.” I know another square from Wisconsin, but he ain’t an actor, he designs pipe on a 3D computer. I know what you are thinking. What is there to design about pipe? It is cylindrical, rigid and is of various lengths and diameters. I ain’t going any further with this.

1964 Colombian actor John Leguizamo. He said “Latino for Republicans is like roaches for Raid.” I met a girl a few nights ago whose cologne smelled like Raid. I asked her what she was wearing and she said “Red”, whatever that is. So if any of y'all have a bug problem, you can substitute “Red” for Raid.

Quotable quotes:

“Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.”

                                                      Doug Larson

             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow