Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“Success
is worrying about everything in the world except money.”
Johnny Cash
At
the risk of being stoned to death, I will have to say that Obama's
choice for the replacement of Justice Antonin Scalia looks like a
good one.
This
man graduated from Harvard as Valedictorian of his class and also
graduated from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk for
SCOTUS Justice Kennedy and was Chief judge in US Court of Appeals, DC
district. He supervised the trials of Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City
bomber) and Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber). The nominee Derrick Garland
is from Chicago (isn't Obama from Chicago?), Jewish (that doesn't
matter to me) and is pretty short (I would guess about 5'-6”) but
Napoleon was no Yao Ming. He looks pretty nerdy to me as opposed to
Scalia the hunter/fisherman, but that doesn't matter to me either.
He is considered to be a “moderate”, whatever that means, by the
political pundits. The political and media circus about this man
will be interesting...if not disgusting. It has already started. I
watched Judge Garland accept the nomination (he got emotional, a good
sign) and switched over to C-Span. I watched 2 Republican senators
say that there is little question Judge Garland is qualified but the
confirmation should wait until after the new President is elected. I
hate politics. Speaking of law...see below.
Hammurabi
The
Babylonians of the 1800 century BC were led by a king named
Hammurabi. A dolomite finger shaped stelae (carved column) was found
by an Egyptian archaeologist in 1901. The stelae had all 261 laws of
Hammurabi engraved on the side. Later on there was found identical
markings on several clay tablets. They were all written in the
Akkadian language that was still in use at the time of Christ. We
must keep in mind that the Hebrews were captured and enslaved by the
Babylonians on three different occasions and there is little doubt
that the Jewish law absorbed part of the Hammurabi law into their
own. Here are a few of them that will smack of present day law.
If a man and a woman
married and there is no intercourse, she is not his wife. In these
days an “annulment” quickly follows the absence of sex in a
marriage or if either partner objects.
Hammurabi says If a
man takes another man’s child he shall be put to death. Back in
the 1930’s the Charles Lindberg baby was kidnapped and killed.
Bruno Hauptman, an illegal German immigrant was captured, tried and
convicted on the flimsiest of evidence of this horrible crime. A
year after the conviction he was executed by electric chair In
Trenton, New Jersey.
Hammurabi law stated
that if a man accused another of a crime,- the accused would be
required to jump in the river and if he died, the accuser would gain
the man’s house and lands. However, if the jumper survived, the
accuser would be killed and the accused would gain all of his lands
and house. It hasn’t been that long ago that “affairs of honor”
were settled in duels. This law is very close to that.
It appears that the
Babylonia law system of sorts existed. The Executive and Legislative
branch was the king, the Judicial and enforcement branch was the
“elders”. Nearly all serious cases came before the “elders”
for judgment. There were defined punishments for a given crime but
the punishment had a little “wiggle room” dependent upon
circumstances.
Even judges that
convicted a man that later proved to be innocent, the judge was to be
executed. I like this one.
It seems a harsh
method of justice but they were harsh people and the Hammurabi knew
that.
This
is just few of the Hammurabi laws of the 261 but it should give us
some insight into how life was in the Middle East 3800 years ago.
This
Date in History March 17
1804 Two months
before the Lewis and Clark left on their immortal expedition James
Bridger was born in Richmond, Virginia. Jim became one of the most
important explorers of the American west in its history. He was the
original “Mountain Man”. Little is known of Jim’s childhood
but it is known the he and his family moved to Saint Louis, Missouri
in 1818. Jim honed his skill by exploring the area around Saint
Louis and followed the route of the Lewis and Clark expedition. When
Jim was 18 years old he found out about an enterprise named the
Ashley-Henry Fur Company. Their idea was to head west and trade with
the Indian for furs, especially beaver and mink. The first person
hired was Jim Bridger. Jim was successful in trading with the
Indians, even the fierce and protective Blackfeet that gave Lewis and
Clark so much trouble. He was successful in building the first fur
trading post on the Yellowstone River. It is acknowledged that he
was the first Anglo to lay eyes of the Great Salt Lake even though he
thought it was the Pacific Ocean. He had an enormous recall of
geographic detail that saved his ass more than once. He operated as
an independent trapper for several years. He grew tired of the
nomadic life and decided that there was enough traffic on the Oregon
Trail to warrant a trading post so he married a Flathead woman named
Cora and founded and build Fort Bridger in the Green River section of
southern Wyoming. His fort became a regular stop for the pioneers
headed west. He and Cora had three children and it looked like an
idealistic life for Jim, but it was not to be. Cora died, one of his
daughters was killed by the Blackfeet and the third died of jaundice.
After these episodes Jim would retreat into the mountains and trap,
living with different Indian tribes. In 1853, Jim married a Shoshone
woman he named Mary, and lived at the Fort in the summer and with the
Shoshone in the winter. The Mormons in the area became jealous of
Jim’s success and tried to have him arrested. But Jim and Mary
escaped into the mountains along with their children. The Mormons
burned and gutted his fort destroying his supplies. They are not as
benevolent as they would want you to believe. He was worried how to
feed his family and bought a farm near Westport, Missouri and left
his family there during his western adventures. In 1858 he sold his
fort and made his living as a guide to the pioneers and as a scout to
the US cavalry. In 1868 he retired to his farm in Westport and
tended his apple orchard. With his eyesight failing and rheumatism
rampant, he died July 13, 1881 at the age of 76 in Westport. What a
contribution this man made to the expansion of these United States.
By the way, The movie
“Revenant” was loosely based on the life of mountain man Hugh
Glass. Hugh's troubles began when he was attacked by female grizzly
and severely injured. While under attack he was screaming his lungs
out and the 2 of the trappers he was with came running and killed the
bear. They thought Hugh would die and skinned the bear, covered him
with the pelt and left. One of these men that killed and skinned the
bear was Jim Bridger.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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