Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
Pope
Leo XIII was born in 1810. In the later stages of his life as Pope
he said “It
is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional
freedom of thought, or speech, or writing or worship as if these were
so many gifts given by nature to man.”
I had to read this statement over and over again to make sure that I
copied it right from the text. Pope Leo XIII has since gone on to
his reward.
I
was on my way back to the condo on the beach from breakfast at the
Coffee Cup in Pensacola. I stopped at a traffic light at the
intersection of 17th street and Bayfront Parkway. On the side of the
road there was an obviously homeless man carrying a sign saying he
needed help with everything...he was very thin with a long unkempt
gray beard but he had a black Lab on a leash beside him. He waved and
smiled at everybody and slowly moved back and forth. The Lab stayed
no further than a foot from him the whole time. The Lab didn't care
if they were homeless, it gave unconditional love. I was envious.
A
couple days later I as at the same intersection and the same homeless
man was pacing back and forth. His sign was smaller, it just said
“Need Food”. The Lab was not there and I was concerned...until I
saw it chilling out under a shade tree waiting patiently.
This
Date in History April 29
1992
A few months before the Los Angeles Police Department stopped a
known felon after an extended vehicular chase. Only this time they
were stopping him for a traffic violation. Rodney King led the
police through a circuitous route through East LA before finally
stopping. Rodney was not alone in his car, there were two others and
all were yelled at by the police to get out and lay flat on their
face. The other two immediately got out and hit the asphalt on their
face, but not Rodney. He chose to go down on all fours and that was
as far as he would go in spite a severe ass-whipping he got from 5 of
LA’s finest. He never did go down and cops kept beating him with
their fists and batons. Little did the cops know that the entire
event was being taped by a guy across the street on the balcony of a
hotel. The next day the cops, and Rodney from his hospital bed, saw
themselves on the morning news. The photographer had sold the tape
to the TV station. To make a long story short, the cops went on
trial up in Simi Valley rather than in East LA and were acquitted.
Almost as soon as the verdict was announced, riots began in Los
Angeles and rioting and fires continued for four days and nights.
The cops just stayed the hell out of the way. The blacks were really
upset about the innocent verdict and well they should have been but
burning their own town down ain’t the answer. Back when Martin
Luther King was assassinated the blacks of Augusta, Georgia fell out
into mid-town with torches aflame. A famous black man stood up and
quieted the crowd down and he persuaded them not to burn their home
town to the ground. It was the Godfather of Soul, y'all, it was the
recently deceased James Brown.
1945
On this date the 45th division of the United States 7th
Army (US General Alexander ‘Sandy’ Patch commanding) on its march
across Europe to free the different nations from the hell of the
Nazis, come upon an enclosed camp in Poland. General Patch was as an
efficient commander as General George Patton, the commander of the
3rd
Army, but was not as an egomaniac. The soldiers could detect the
plant from afar because of the smothering stench that emanated
downwind. It was Auschwitz, y'all. It was facility that had no
other purpose that to kill Jews and Gypsies as fast and efficiently
as possible. It is estimated that 3 million Jews that were literally
exterminated as vermin by these Nazi beasts. When the Nazi camp
commander and his staff determined that the Americans were within a
day or two of liberating the camp, they went on a murder rampage
hoping to eliminate all the prisoners that they could before running
out of ammo and then scorched as many of the buildings with
flamethrowers as they could and then they left hoping to blend in
with the general population. The Americans were stunned at what they
saw. There were heap and piles of emaciated copses including a
nearby train with cattle cars full to capacity with the same. The
Americans had no choice but to bury the corpses along with tons of
quick lime to eliminate the chance of a cholera epidemic. It was the
Russians that came upon the camp at Buchenwald, the worst of them
all. Buchenwald had ovens, y'all, ovens. When the Russians arrived
the ovens were out of coal and had stopped working. The Russians had
nothing on their minds but revenge for the Germans killing 26 million
of their brethren, now upon seeing this, every Russian soldier was a
razor. They left there and headed to Germany and were not to be
denied their revenge. It turned out to be a 570 mile long bloodbath.
It was nothing short of a massacre of the Germans by the Russians be
it, man, woman, child, dog. cat, cattle or any other air breather,
all were slaughtered. In the meantime the allies had sealed off the
western side of Germany and would not accept surrender. They just
saw to it that the Russians got their belly full of German blood.
The Russians did not cut any slack...they indeed got a belly full.
1991
On this date a devastating cyclone came ashore in Bangladesh. The
greatest majority of the population of Bangladesh on the Indian Ocean
were poverty stricken and without nationwide communications so they
were unaware of the approaching storm. The storm slammed ashore with
a 20 tidal surge in the lead and 135,000 were drowned. The bad part
was that there were so many dead that were not recovered, the tigers
came out of the jungle and began a feast on the corpses. These
tigers, as you might expect, developed a taste for human flesh and
the humans became prey for the tigers no matter where they were. It
took an entire generation of tigers to pass for this danger to
subside.
1974
Earlier five men had broken into the Democratic National Committee
headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. The men
were captured and the world came to find out that they all were under
the employ of the Republican Party Committee to re-elect the
President (CREEP). President Richard Nixon undoubtedly knew about
the break-in but told his staff to “circle the wagons” and
“stonewall” the investigation. Even a Special Prosecutor named
Archibald Cox was selected to investigate break-in. When he began
insisting that the White House turn over certain documents and audio
tapes, President Nixon had him fired. Then the US Senate formed a
special sub-committee to seek impeachment of the President and
another special prosecutor was named and it was Circuit Court Judge
and notorious hard-ass John Sirica. On this date, President Nixon
offered to turn over a transcript of the taped conversations in the
Oval Office during the time immediately after the break-in. Judge
Sirica said that would be OK but he wanted the tapes themselves also
because they were “best evidence”. Nixon refused saying that he
had “executive privilege”. Sirica went to the Supreme Court and
they sided with Judge Sirica and the tapes were turned over. The
tapes revealed that Nixon had ordered the FBI to discontinue
investigating the Watergate break-in. This was a “smoking gun”
that proved Nixon knew of the break-in. A few days later Nixon had a
conversation with senate leader Barry Goldwater and he told Nixon
that he had nearly no support in the Senate and if an impeachment
vote came he was sure Nixon would be kicked out of office. Two days
later Nixon resigned office, the first President to do so. Vice
President Gerald Ford was sworn into office as President the next
day. Soon ex-President Richard Nixon flew to his compound in San
Clemente, California and faded from view in disgrace.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
