Wednesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Enjoy when you can and endure when you must.”

                              Johann Von Goethe

A couple of days ago I lambasted those Syrian and Iraqi men for running away from their homeland and leaving it to ISIS. This just goes to show you how Americans think. This country was established and held by force of arms and I assumed that if anyone invaded this country they would have to deal with an estimated 500 million firearms of a variety of powers, gauges and calibers and many very angry citizens, me included. Not every country has a 2^nd Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms meaning the Syrians and the Iraqis may have had nothing to fight with. When the Japanese architect of the raid on Pearl Harbor Admiral Yamamoto was asked why he did not cross the Pacific and invade the United States west coast he said “There are too many firearms in the hands of the citizens”. Our ancestors had a hell of a lot more foresight than the leaders of today.

Here in my home town a recent “letter to the editor” was published by the local mullet wrapper known as the Greenville News. Some ignorant redneck sent a letter to the paper lambasting Starbucks for publishing an item saying that they are not going to forbid anyone from entering any of their shops bearing a weapon but request that their customers do not. This lunatic sent a letter to the editor saying that Starbucks might as well put a sign on their doors saying “robbers welcome”. Using this logic this lunatic obviously believes that if you put a sign on a front door saying “no guns allowed” it will stop any armed robberies. The bad part was that the Greenville News published this baloney. Ads and notifications in the newspapers will have no effect on crime but they published it anyway. It just shows you how anti-gun this local rag is. It is disgusting.

A friend leaned on me for condemning Jimi Hendricks because Jimi chose to commit suicide with drugs rather than bless us with his God given talent for a longer period of time. My friend said that I should just acknowledge what contribution Jimi made and let it go at that. He is right...if just aggravates me that many, many talented people die from self inflicted wounds or fatal addictions. Perhaps I should just take a pill and chill...maybe not the pill. Thanks Pete.

A few days ago I sent y’all a vignette about the Battle of Thermopylae in eastern Greece. In spite of the heroics by the Spartans, the Persians did eventually prevail and went through Greece burning, raping and pillaging. They did not prevail in the long run and here is why. It was because of two battles, one by sea and another was a land battle…here the sea battle:

Salamis

After the defeat of the Greeks at Thermopylae, the Persian army marched almost unopposed and began the razing of many of the city-states in Greece including Athens. Earlier the Athenians began evacuating to the Salamis peninsula across the Sardonic Gulf from Athens. Following the Persian army was the Persian navy of about 750 ships. The only way for the Athenians not to be captured or cut off was to prevent the Persians from blockading Salamis. The Greeks assembled about 378 triremes (warships) to combat the 750 ships in the Persian fleet. The Persians were lured into a small estuary in a light wind with the Athenians slowly retreating. The Persians did not learn a damned thing at Marathon. The Greeks do not withdraw unless they have a mission in mind, especially if Spartans are involved. After a while the wind began to freshen and blew the Persian ships right at the Greeks. The Greeks were not interested in fighting ship-to-ship as the Persians; they use their larger and slower ships as nothing more than platforms for their infantry and catapults of “Greek fire”. Greek fire is mentioned in many manuscripts throughout the ancient world. No one knows exactly what it was but Herodotus tells us that is was probably a mixture of tar and naphtha, poured into a clay jar and set afire then launched toward the enemy by catapults. The burning tar sticks to nearly everything it touches and since all the ships were made of wood, the fire was deadly. If that didn’t work, they would throw grappling hooks to the enemy ships, pull them together and send the wild-eyed Spartan Hoplites (professional well armed soldiers) aboard the enemy ships to take care of business with spear and sword. The Greeks knew that the winds would increase and from what direction and set up for the Persian to be blown right into their laps. The retreat was just a delaying tactic waiting on the winds to come, and come they did. The Persians finally figured out what the Greeks were up to and tried to retreat but the prevailing wind prevented it. Before the battle was joined, King Xerxes set a chair out on a bluff overlooking the battle site and was stunned as he watched over 200 of his ships destroyed or sunk. After this, Xerxes boarded one of his ships and sailed his young ass back to Persia. It is thought by many historians that this was the most important military victories in history because it prevented a Persian presence in Europe. Today the Persians are running to Europe in fear of ISIS and crying like a baby. The next major encounter was a land battle...later.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow