Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“For
every second of your life the future is becoming the past.”
Thor
Heyerdahl
The
above quote gave me pause and it should do the same for you. We are
all NOT ten feet tall and bulletproof and should live our lives as
it is truly a gift from God...this is not a rehearsal.
Ken
“The Snake” Stabler has died at the age of 69. I remember him at
the Flora-Bama many years ago. He did not look good then either.
The
Confederate flag will be removed from the South Carolina statehouse
grounds on Friday. All those that are anti-flag say it is a symbol
of hatred. That is not what it means to me but I am a historian and
know what happened...but the anti-flag train is passing and people
that know nothing about the history of this land are jumping aboard
simply because they think it is the noble thing to do. In any event,
the removal of the flag will NOT eliminate hatred...that will remain
in hearts and minds. I certainly am no racist...but I am a realist.
That freeway known as racial hatred will still be there with traffic
speeding in both directions. How do we fix that? Perhaps this
action is a step in the right direction...a baby step but a step none
the less, I hope so.
The
author of the daily quote is a well known adventurer. This Norwegian
maintained that the US could have been visited by the Egyptians in
pre-history. Thor and his workmen went to a port in western Africa
and using images from the walls of Egyptian tombs as a guide, built a
boat as close to what they found saw as they could. They also built
the boat out of reeds found growing up and down the Nile river.
Using the westbound trade winds, they sailed to the Bahamas proving
that it was indeed possible for the Egyptians to have visited us.
Thor named the boat the “Ra”, which was the Egyptian Sun God of
the time. Thor also did the same thing in the Pacific naming his
boat the “Kon-Tiki”. He wrote a book about this adventure that
is still thrilling to me. Of course the name of the book is
“Kon-Tiki” and is worthy of your attention.
This
Date in History July 10
1925
On this date a civil trial opened in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial
was the state of Tennessee vs a high school teacher named John
Scopes. A few months before the Tennessee legislature had passed a
law that forbade the teaching of any method of the rise of humankind
other than what is written in the Bible. They were especially tense
about the teaching that mankind arose from a lower animal. Mr.
Scopes taught science in a local high school and had started teaching
evolution. Word got out to the Christian fundamentalists about this
great crime and Scopes was arrested and charged. Some of you may not
like the ACLU but they did the right thing here. They hired world
famous lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes. The state was
represented by the Christian fundamentalist and politician William
Jennings Bryan. From the time Scopes was arrested the trial was
anticipated to be the legal event of the century and it did not
disappoint. The ACLU had given Darrow carte blanche to get as many
experts in whatever fields he deemed appropriate. Darrow brought in
experts in anatomy, paleontology, religion, etc. Nearly all of his
experts were disallowed by the prejudicial judge so Darrow had no one
to testify in Scopes behalf so he called a self acknowledged “expert”
on the Bible and that being William Jennings Bryan himself. Darrow
was at least an agnostic if not an atheist and he asked Bryan some
questions about things or events in the Bible that clearly required a
leap of faith to believe because they were supernatural and
contradictory. Bryan was stuck for answers to many of then and
Darrow made his point. But it was for naught because Scopes was
convicted but the fine was only $100. I do not understand how the
law was passed in the first place because there is no such thing in
the Constitution that defines the separation of church and state, but
the US Supreme Court has ruled that was the intent.
1943
On this date the Allies land on axis (Italy, Germany and Japan)
controlled Europe with the landing on the island of Sicily. The
first plan for the invasion of Sicily came from US General George
Patton designating a landing by the British 8th
Army, Sir Bernard Law Montgomery commanding, near Syracuse on the
southeast corner of the island and Patton and the 7th
Army landing near Palermo on the northwest corner and both armies
driving toward Messina cutting off the retreat of whatever German and
Italian soldiers that were there. But Montgomery went to the overall
commander, US General Dwight Eisenhower and complained. So the plan
was altered where Patton and the 7th
Army lands at Gela which is about 200 miles west of Syracuse to
protect Montgomery’s flank. If ever there was an egomaniac of
historic proportions it was Montgomery. Not only that, he was
severely overrated. He was extremely proud of the fact that he
defeated the legendary German commander Erwin Rommel in a battle near
the North African city of El Alamein even though he had Rommel
outgunned and more armor by a factor of three. From that day on he
signed his name “Montgomery of El Alamein”. Hey Monty, what
about all the British troops that were killed and wounded in this
battle? How egotistical can you be?
1992
The criminal conviction of the captain of the oil tanker Exxon
Valdez Joseph Hazelwood, is overturned. Hazelwood was the captain
of that supertanker when it ran aground in the pristine Prince
William Sound in southeast Alaska. The ship was carrying over 1
million barrels of Alaskan crude. A devastating leak developed which
was the worst environmental disaster in American history and resulted
in the death of over 250,000 sea birds, untold numbers of otters and
millions of salmon and salmon eggs. Captain Hazelwood was accused of
drinking heavily in Valdez the night before the ship left port but
that was never proven. But he was not in the wheelhouse the ship
left and an inexperienced man was at the controls. The ship left the
marked sea lane to avoid icebergs and never returned to the lane.
Hazelwood’s conviction was overturned because he notified the Coast
Guard and Exxon of the grounding within the specified time. It was
Exxon that was late in calling out the machinery to contain the oil
spill and the state of Alaska sued them for many millions of dollars.
Exxon has opposed any and all law suits from Alaska but was ordered
to pay Alaska many millions of dollars but they appealed, and
appealed, and appealed and have not paid the judgment to this day.
1940
Earlier German General Hermann Goering had convinced the Adolph
Hitler that he could bring England to their knees with his Luftwaffe
(Air Force) alone. On this date Germany launches an air raid on
England from their bases in France and the Battle of Britain was
underway. The English people took a beating but their bulldog
attitude would not let them surrender. Germany even sent over
missiles but nothing worked. The British fighter pilots had two the
finest aircraft ever built in the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker
Hurricane. The English fighter pilots saved England. It got to the
point that Prime Minister Winston Churchill was worried that he would
eventually run out of pilots because there were some casualties. But
on one day the British fighter pilots shot down 75 German bombers and
Hitler said to hell with it, we can’t afford losses like that and
Operation Sea Lion went down the toilet.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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