Monday

                   Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“While addressing a group of environmentalists a few weeks ago she said “We are tired of the burning of coal polluting the atmosphere, I am going to put those coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Last week she said “Donald Trump is going to bankrupt America, he will cost thousands of jobs.”

                                                Hillary Clinton

I'll bet she has a tough time every morning having to match the makeup on both of her faces.

I was watching a rodeo on TV once again. There was one cowboy named Fred Whitfield from Stephenville, Texas that caught my attention. He is a black 42 year old calf roper and has been ranked number one in the world 8 times. He is a pretty good sized man and rode a horse easily. The way it works is a calf is released and the mounted cowboy is to chase it down, lasso it by the neck, dismount and run over to the calf, throw it down and tie three of the legs together. While all of this is going on the horse is backing up to keep the lasso tight. Then the cowboy remounts, puts slack in the rope and the calf is given a chance to kick free. If that happens there is no score...if it doesn't the time it took to tie up the calf is validated.

There were 10 cowboys including Fred in this event. On this night Fred did not get the lasso on the calf's neck and he got no score. The interesting part was that two of the other calf ropers were from Canada and had moved to Stephenville, Texas to take lessons from Fred.

                 This Date in History May 30

1806 On this date the 39 year old future President of the United States, Andrew Jackson met Tennessee lawyer Charles Dickenson in Logan County, Kentucky to settle an affair of honor. Jackson had been a former Senator and Representative but this affair was to be settled with a duel using pistols at a distance of 24 feet. That is about the length of a good sized living room. Dickenson had written an uncomplimentary article in the newspaper about Jackson’s wife Rachael. Rachael had been previously married but abandoned by her husband. She and Jackson fell in love and got married thinking that her previous marriage had been annulled because of abandonment. It wasn’t, she was still legally married to her first husband making her a bigamist. The legalities were eventually settled but Jackson settled many a dispute with his fists, clubs and in this case, pistols. Jackson was born and raised in the Waxhaw which was a group of villages on the North Carolina/South Carolina border. He had a rough and hard life as a youngster. He was captured at the age of 13 by the British during the French and Indian war and beaten and tortured. This rough life formed his demeanor for the rest of his life. He was a scrapper, y'all. After the signal had been given to start the duel, Dickenson, a renowned pistol shot, raised his pistol and fired hitting Jackson in the right chest breaking several ribs. Jackson did not fall and in spite of being in what was terrible pain, raised his pistol and fired hitting Dickenson in the throat. Dickenson died the next day. Even though Jackson and Dickenson were Tennesseans, the duel was fought in Kentucky because dueling was illegal in Tennessee. Jackson went on to lead a very colorful and exciting life in both the military and in politics. On one occasion while president, he was walking out of the Capitol when a man ran up to him and fired a pistol at him almost at point blank range but the pistol misfired. The man then pulled another pistol and it misfired also. Jackson then raised his hickory cane and beat the man almost to death before he could be restrained. After this he was known as “Old Hickory”.

1593 Earlier Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury, England two months before William Shakespeare. He led a privileged life and attended Cambridge. A few days before he was to receive his degree, some questions arose as to his worthiness of the award. Soon thereafter representatives of Queen Elizabeth I showed up and told the powers that be in Cambridge that it would be to their advantage to give Marlowe the degree because of his “service to his country”. The professors in Cambridge did not know what the hell the Queen was talking about but they were not about to buck the most powerful monarch in Europe and Marlowe received his degree. It was found out later that Marlowe had been a spy for the Queen in Cambridge. Marlowe roomed with another author named Thomas Kyd. Representatives of the Church of England raided the apartment and found some “heretical” written material. After torturing Kyd to find out the author of these papers, he said that the papers were indeed Marlowe’s. Marlowe was arrested but made bail. He went out to celebrate and on this date got really hammered at the local pub, then he got into a fight with the bartender about his tab. The bartender inserted a knife into Marlowe’s liver and he expired very quickly. Moral: Pay your freaking bar tab and people that are hammered seldom win a violent encounter.

1942 After meticulous planning by the British Air Marshall T. A. Harris, Operation Millennium gets under way. Harris had got together every bomber-type aircraft in the realm, including training aircraft, to make a mass raid on the German city of Cologne. On this night Operation Millennium get under way with the launching of 1,046 bombers. The complete devastation administered by this raid went a long way toward the debilitation of the German morale and they were successful in the destruction of that city’s chemical and tool making factories which was the object in the first place. They lost 40 aircraft making the raid a cost of less than 4%, an acceptable loss in any military operation.

1428 Earlier a 16 year old French girl swore that she heard three saints tell her to lead the French military in kicking the English army out of France and restore the throne to French royalty. Joan went to a French military encampment and told the commander her vision. He blew it off and told her to go home. She returned once again and the commander is impressed with her piety and lets her pass to visit with the Dauphin (apparent heir to the throne). She does indeed visit with the Dauphin and convinced him that her vision is indeed a command from God. The Dauphin cannot take the throne because he must be crowned in the city of Reims which is in the hands of the English. Joan is given command of a small army and moved on the city of Orleans first. In a brilliant maneuver, she is able to outflank the English troops there and they retreat freeing the city. Joan lead the French army in several other victories and the people truly believe she was in touch with God. But eventually she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. The English clerics immediately call her a witch and sentence her to death. Joan says “Wait a damned minute, what happens if I recant all that I have said in the past.” The clerics tell her that in that case she will go to prison for an undetermined length of time. You notice I keep saying the clerics are sentencing her to death or prison. Why the hell do preachers have that authority? Ever since Joan had been engaging in military operations she had been wearing men’s clothing so the English clerics dress her in women’s clothes and threw her in prison. A little while later the clerics pay her another visit and she is again in men’s clothing. They determine that she is a relapsed heretic and her punishment is the stake. On this date, Joan was burned at the stake in the French city of Rouen. She was 19 years old but it was her inspiration that turned the Hundred Years War to favor the French.

My research as to who was born or died on this date has shown that no one of significance did.

          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow