Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“There are people that say they can do things and there are those that say they can't...both are correct.”

                                                   Henry Ford

A while back we had this scenario. John Kerry's was sure that the government of Syria has used chemical weapons against their own people to suppress a revolt. Syria is signatory to a UNITED NATIONS declaration that forbids the used of chemical weapons at all. If this is the case, then why is the United States navy gathering along the coast of Syria with cruise missiles bristling and not the United Nations? Not only that, Russia has warned the US to not get involved in troubles in that area and make the mistakes they have made in the past. I think Putin is speaking of Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States obviously has been involved in civil wars with disastrous results and I am talking about Viet Nam, Korea, China (Boxer Rebellion), Haiti (1937), Nicaragua, Cuba (Spanish-American War), the Philippines, Bolivia, Chile' and several other dirty, nasty insurgencies world wide. Lets go back a little further. The Unites States rebelled against Great Britain and sought independence via the force of arms. The United States fought alone against the most powerful army and navy on the planet using supplies sent over from France until 1783. Then when France thought the United States could win, they sent over a substantial portion of their navy which was used to cut off the retreat of the British Army on the American east coast. This also cut off the support and supplies delivered to the British army by the British navy. The question of why was France so interested was because France owned a gigantic piece of land west of the Mississippi river and they had a substantial presence in northern Florida. The land that France owned west of the Mississippi was bought by the United States a little later and was called the Louisiana Purchase. This land was purchased by the US from the regime of Napoleon Bonaparte because he needed the money to continue his exploits in Europe. I have considerable knowledge of the history of our great nation but to this day I cannot figure out why we feel the need be the world's policeman.

This Date in History August 28

1955 Earlier a 14 year old black kid name Emmett Till came to Money, Mississippi from his home town of Chicago to spend the summer with his great-grandfather, a farmer near Money. Emmett came from a relatively tough neighborhood in Chicago and it appears that he felt that it was important that he display his toughness to the local Mississippi black kids. He told them he was the toughest kid in his school and had a white girl friend. As expected, the local black kids near Money blew that off as bullshit and dared him to try to pick up the white woman that ran the community grocery store. Emmett accepted the challenge and went in the store. There was no one else in the store except for the woman and Emmett. No one knows what happened in the store but on the way out Emmett is heard to say “Goodbye, baby.” Two days later the woman’s husband returned form a business trip and his wife told him that Emmett had grabbed her and made lewd suggestions. The woman’s husband, Ray Bryant, gathered up his brother-in-law and they went to Emmett’s grand-father’s house looking for Emmett. They took Emmett with them and rode around for a while probably beating the hell out of him. They finally made Emmett drag a 75 pound cotton gin fan to the crest of a bridge over the Tallahatchie River. There they shot Emmett several times, gouged out his eyes, beat on him with iron bars, wrapped barbed wire around his torso and face and wrapped the other end around the fan and threw them over the side. Emmett’s body was finally found but his body was so mutilated that the only way he was identified was an initial ring he was known to have owned. Ray Bryant and his brother-in-law were tried for murder and acquitted. The jury said that the prosecution failed to prove that the body was that of Emmett Till because of the mutilation. Emmett’s mother had the body returned to Chicago and she had an open casket funeral to show what discrimination in the south was all about. Photos of the body were published in Jet magazine. By the way, Ray Bryant and his brother-in-law both died of cancer a few years later. That my friends, is Karma.

1963 On this date several hundred thousand people are gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in a rally for racial equality. The chief speaker was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King delivered one of the most engrossing and stirring speeches ever uttered. It was the immortal “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King was instrumental in nearly every change in legislation toward racial equality. Five years later he was assassinated in Memphis while attending a rally for the garbage collectors of that city. The assassin, James Earl Ray confessed to Martin Luther King’s son that he did not do it knowing he (Ray) was dying of cancer. There is no doubt in this redneck’s mind that Ray went to meet his maker with a lie on his lips.

1990 On this date the bodies of two University of Florida students are found murdered in the Gatorwood apartments in Gainesville, Florida. I remember it well since I had a daughter attending Florida at the time. Not only that, she was living in Gatorwood apartments. When I read about the murders I almost peed in my pants especially since two days earlier three other students had been found murdered nearby. The corpses were displayed in an obscene manner making the police believe that all the murders were committed by the same person. The Gainesville PD was under enormous pressure to capture the villain because the parents of the students were pulling their kids out of school in droves. In desperation the Gainesville PD arrested a man named Ed Humphrey and even though they did not have sufficient evidence for the murders, they kept him in jail on unrelated charges and kept searching. Finally, the police found a campsite in a patch of woods near the University. There they found evidence enough to try and convict a monster name Danny Rolling of the murders. He was sentenced to death and went to meet his maker in 2004 with a needle in his arm. It is too bad that this was not the middle ages then we could have gotten medieval with his rotten ass.

Born today:

1899 French actor Charles Boyer. He said “A Frenchwoman when double-crossed she will kill her rival: An Italian woman would kill her deceitful lover: An English woman will just break off the relationship....but they will console themselves with another man.”

1982 US singer Lee Ann Rimes. When talking of the law suit against he father she said “I have to learn to forgive because I will become a bitter bitch if I don’t.”

Died today:

1985 US actress Ruth Gordon. She said “Never ever give up and under no circumstances never ever face the facts.”

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow