Tuesday OYSTERS

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“If you cannot be a poet, be a poem.”

          David Carradine

I was watching Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer. He encourages dog owners to take their dogs for a walk on a leash for at least 40 minutes and at least every day if not twice a day. He also trains the owners how to walk the leashed dog and keep the dog by their side under control. It has been my experience with my dogs is once they discover that we are going for a walk they get very excited in anticipation and once we get underway they want to urinate at least twice...maybe more. What are you going to do if you have your dog on a leash close to your leg and he/she heads for a tree or a fire hydrant? Do you correct them and pull them over beside you inviting to get sprayed or worse? Cesar also teaches that when a dog goes out they want to sniff the area to see who has been in the neighborhood. He said that to them it is like reading a newspaper. How can this happen if they are on a leash by your leg? I usually walked with them unleashed but under my voice command. Except on one occasion this very well behaved mixed beagle and I went to the Pensacola beach and as soon as I let her out of the car she made a bee line for a man walking the beach and stood behind him barking like hell. The man just looked at her and kept walking. When she did not respond to my commands at all I finally had to physically go get her. I don't know what caused that to this day, but I never took her to the beach again. Her name was Burner, but she was a sweetheart otherwise.

A few years ago I went to London and went on a tour of the city that included the Tower of London, Big Ben, Parliament, etc. When asked what the most popular tourist site was, our guide said it was the torture chambers. People seemed to be fascinated by the tools of pain. Across the street from the Tower of London (a prison, torture chamber and execution site for centuries) is a bar named The Hung, Drawn and Quartered Pub. I almost jumped out of the bus because I really wanted a tee shirt from that place and I got on their e-mail address list...but from what they send me a theme tee shirt is below them.

I have renewed my fascination with those peoples in Central and South America including the Maya, Aztec Olmec and the Inca. These people were light years ahead of nearly everyone else within 3,000 miles. Why these people progressed so much more rapidly that anyone else nearby is not known. The capital city of the Inca empire was present day Cuzco, Peru. This city is high in the Andes on the western coast of South America. For generations the Inca kings lived in a palace in Cuzco and had fresh seafood from the Pacific several times a week. It is over 200 miles from Cuzco to the Pacific ocean. How is this possible with no refrigeration? They had runners on the trail that would carry the fish by relay from the ocean to Cuzco. That was their job carrying fresh fish to the king as fast as they could, y'all. Don't complain about your job...if you have one.

      This Date in History  December 8

1914 A month earlier German Admiral Maximilian Von Spee had sunk two British cruisers with the loss of all hands off the south coast of Chile. This was the worst defeat for the British navy in a hundred years. On this date Von Spee arrived at the British held Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic with the expectation of annihilating whatever British naval forces that were there. He expected to have an easy time with the slow and sluggish British battleships he saw anchored in the harbor. Von Spee’s squadron was not in peak condition because of the previous battle and the transit of Cape Horn en-route to the Falklands. What Von Spee did not see until it was too late was the two British fast cruisers “Inflexible” and “Invincible”. The British sailors aboard these ships were eager for revenge for the ships previously sunk by Von Spee. The two cruisers opened on Von Spee’s flagship “Scharnhorst” at 16,500 yards which was out of the range of the “Scharnhorst”. That ship went to bottom with all hands in a matter of minutes. The British cruisers then turned their attention to the German cruisers “Gneisenau” and “Numberg” sent them to the bottom with all hands also. All told the Germans lost four ships and 2,000 men to 10 men for the British. Military historians consider this the most important sea battle in WWI. It also has the distinction of being the last battle of sailors and their guns without the assistance of aircraft and/or submarines.

1775 Earlier Patriot General George Washington had sent General Robert Montgomery and 1,000 troops into Canada via Lake Champlain and General Benedict Arnold with another 1,000 into Canada via the Maine woods to capture the cities of Montreal and Quebec. Montgomery captured Montreal almost without firing a shot but Quebec was another story. The Governor General of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, had been at Montreal but sneaked away to Quebec. Upon arriving at Quebec, Carleton whipped together a formidable defense and awaited the arrival of the Patriots. Arnold arrived at Quebec first and demanded that the Governor surrender which was denied. Arnold decided to wait for the arrival of Montgomery and the extra troops and artillery. The Patriots were on a schedule because the greatest majority of the troop’s enlistments ended on December 31. On this date, Arnold and Montgomery join forces and begin the siege of Quebec. The siege lasted until December 31 when Montgomery and Arnold, knowing their troops would be decimated the next day, launched an assault on the city. It was a disaster with Montgomery killed and Arnold suffering a severe leg wound. After this fiasco, the Patriots retreated down Lake Champlain into the United States and safety.

1860 On this date the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb angrily resigned his position in protest of the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln. Some of you may not know this but the Republican Party was formed in 1850 for the sole purpose of the elimination of slavery in America. Anyway, Cobb went back home to Georgia. Four months later when several state began seceding from the Union Georgia being one of them, Cobb offered his services to the Confederate Army and was given the rank of General. It was Cobb and his brigade of Georgians that was behind the stone wall at the base of Marye’s Heights at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. These Georgians rose up and fired at the unsuspecting oncoming Union infantry at a range of less than fifty yards and one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of warfare was delivered. There is a county in Georgia named for Howell Cobb.

Births and deaths:

1723 German philosopher Paul Holbach is born. He said “The hardest of stones, by degrees, give way to the touch of air.”

1889 US writer Harvey Allen is born. He said “Religions change, beer and wine remain”.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow