Al's
Most Recent
Quote
of the day:
“The
Jews invented guilt but the Irish turned it into an art form.”
Walter
Matthau
A
while back the South Carolina branch of the NAACP held a rally on the
north lawn of the state capitol grounds in Columbia. There is a life
size statue there. The leaders of said rally chose to build a blind
around this statue where it could not be seen by the crowd that was
going to assemble for a variety of speeches. After all was said and
done and the blind removed, the press discovered that they had built
a blind around a statue of George Washington. As you might suspect,
the press jumped all over that and asked the rally leaders about it.
The leaders lamely replied that they did not want to “offend”
anyone. Who in hell would be offended by a likeness of the Father of
our Nation? This great man gave a huge chunk of his life and health
to help gain independence for this gigantic experiment in freedom
that includes you and me. The only reasonable conclusion I can come
to is that the rally organizers did not know who George Washington
was. But that is not logical because if they did not know who he was
they would not care if anyone saw him. Or they did indeed know who
he was and did not want to “offend” others by acknowledging the
contribution this man had made to the development of this nation. In
any event, this disrespect of one of the most dedicated Patriots this
nation has ever known by the South Carolina NAACP shows a lack of
class and character. It sure changes my attitude about this
organization. Patriotism and love of country is light years more
important than political speeches.
This
Date in History February 15
1776
On this date the Royal Governor of Canada from his headquarters in
Halifax has sent a letter to the British authorities in London that a
traitorous bunch in Cumberland, Nova Scotia has sent an invitation to
Patriot General George Washington inviting him to attack Nova Scotia
and they would join in. The letter said that the people of Nova
Scotia were fed up with being under the heel of King George III also.
What really had them pissed off was that England was using Canada
and Nova Scotia in particular as a dumping ground for a trash pile of
humanity that England had no other place to put them. When the jails
in England, Scotland and Ireland became full, they would send the
overflow into exile in Nova Scotia. Not only that, any slaves that
ran away from their owners and sought asylum with the British, they
would send them to Nova Scotia. Also there were a considerable
number of blacks that fought with the British as a member of the army
and the Loyalists (Those Americans that stayed loyal to the King)
that knew they had to get the hell out of Dodge when the Patriots
prevailed. All of these people went to Nova Scotia. The blacks that
fought with the British had a choice of a piece of land in Nova
Scotia or receive free passage back to Africa. Many of these went to
Africa and were instrumental in the establishment of Freetown,
Liberia, a new nation. Anyway, it appeared that the locals in Nova
Scotia were fed the hell up with all of the aliens and were looking
to form their own nation like the United States and that is why they
contacted Washington. George had his hands full with the British
army here in the United States and could not pursue the invitation.
But it just goes to show you that the dumping of aliens causes
extreme tensions with the natives. Does that sound familiar?
1835
Alexander Stewart Webb was born in New York City. His Grandfather
fought at Bunker Hill for the Patriots and his father was US minister
to Brazil during the Civil War. Alexander attended West Point and
graduated in 1855 13th
in a class of 43. He taught mathematics at West Point and Florida
before the outbreak of the Civil War. After the outbreak of the war
he was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. He did not stay long before he
was called back to Washington and given command of an artillery
battalion protecting the capitol. Webb’s first taste of combat
came at the Second Battle of Manassas where he and his troops tasted
defeat for the first time. The next major engagement he was in was
the last day of the Battle of the Seven Days, the infamous encounter
at Malvern Hill. In this battle Webb and his troops were victorious
against the Confederates. They won this particular skirmish at
Malvern Hill but the victory of the Battle of Seven Days went to
Robert E. Lee but it was accredited to Webb that his artillery skills
prevented the total annihilation of the US army by Confederate
artillery. In spite of his obvious military skills he was passed
over for promotion several times because of his association with
General George B. McClellan who was fired by President Lincoln and
that left Webb in limbo as a Colonel. Even some of his students at
West Point became a General before him. He was finally promoted to
Brigadier General and had command of a brigade in the center of the
Union lines at Gettysburg during Pickett’s Charge. At the zenith
of the charge the 5th
and 7th
North Carolina crashed through the Union lines and were close to
opening a breach that would have allowed the rest of the 13,000
screaming Confederates to pass through to the rear of the Union lines
where General J.E.B. Stuart and has cavalry awaited. Had these two
forces been allowed to join up the US army would have been destroyed
and perhaps a different history of these United States would have
been written. But when the battle at the front line reached a
critical point, General Webb personally led his brigade in a
ferocious counter-attack and blunted the Confederate advance and
drove them back across the line of attack. For this action,
Alexander Stewart Webb was awarded the Medal of Honor. He wasn’t
done yet. He was at the savage battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and
received a terrible head wound. I took him eight months to recover.
When he came back to duty he was made an aide to US General George
Meade and eventually went back to West Point as an instructor. He
was made president of City College of New York and he died in
Riverdale New York in 1911. There is a statue of General Webb at the
spot where his brigade was gathered during Pickett’s charge at
Gettysburg (been there).
1933
The President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt and the
Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak are walking together during a visit to
Miami. All of a sudden a man named Giuseppe Zangara ran up and
opened fire at Roosevelt but misses him and kills Mayor Cermak.
Zangara is brought to trial on March 2, convicted and sentenced to
death. 18 days later Zangara met his maker medium rare after an
encounter with “Old Sparky”. Keep this in mind when thinking of
monster serial killers like Ted Bundy and Danny Rolling who spent 13
and 14 years and longer in prison before being executed. What’s up
with that? We had the same Constitution then as we do now.
Born
today:
1564
Astrophysicist Galileo. He said “I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same God who had endowed us with sense, reason and
intellect has intended us to forego its use.” This came as a
result of a squabble with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church
wanted Galileo to teach want the Pope said instead of what he had
discovered. The Catholic church prevailed under the threat of
torture. I am going to repeat that. The Catholic church prevailed
under the threat of torture.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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