Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
When
speaking of Richard Nixon he said Nixon's motto is “If two wrongs
don't make a right, try three.”
Norman
Cousins
A
word about crime and criminals. Not all criminals are brought to
justice. A prime example is a man from Chicago named Frank Nitti.
This man was an immigrant from Italy and at an early age joined with
Al Capone as his “enforcer”. Over a period of years he maimed
and killed scores of Capone's enemies but was never convicted of any
of them. The reason was that the Capone organization had the local
and state law enforcement in their pocket with either bribery or
physical intimidation and threats. The federal government knew what
was going on but murder and extortion is a local crime that is
pursued by local authority. The FBI arrested Nitti and convicted him
and Capone of income tax evasion and he did 18 months in the joint
and Capone got 11 years. Nitti was released and assumed a position
of authority in the existing Capone organization. One day nearly all
of his staff was arrested and indicted on a variety of
charges...Nitti knew he was next. One Sunday morning his wife went
to church and Nitti began drinking heavily and eventually went for a
walk. He ended up in a rail yard staggering down a track. For
reasons known only to himself, Frank Nitti shot himself in the head
twice with a .32 caliber revolver. The first shot just scraped his
skull but the second was on target and he died instantly. He was 57
years old. He was not thrown off a tall building like is displayed
in the movie Untouchables.
He
murdered and maimed with impunity for over 25 years. Yes indeed, not
all criminals are brought to justice.
I
have been reading about the history of the Comanches. For some reason
before the beginning of the 16 century they were considered the
“trailer trash” of the plains Indians. Then all of sudden they
were a power to be dealt with. What happened was they found Spanish
mustangs running loose and were able to capture and train them.
There were no horses in North America before the Spanish came some of
which escaped. After this the Comanche quickly developed into a
formidable cavalry. They took out their wrath on the other plains
Indians for centuries of abuse, especially the Apaches, and
systematically removed them from the southern plains where there were
millions of bison. The Comanche had no permanent settlements and
just followed the bison. The other tribes were partly an agrarian
society and therefore had settlements and villages which the
Comanches were able to find and destroy. The Comanche did not want
any competition. The Apache became desperate and went to the mission
in San Antonio and said that they wanted to become good little
Catholics and contribute their efforts to the enhancement of the king
of Spain. The priests about peed their pants and asked them what
they wanted. The Apache said they wanted a mission (church) and
presidio (fort) of their own on the San Sabo river near present day
Menard, Texas. The priests gathered up some slave labor (that's
right y'all, slave labor) and set to building said church and fort at
the designated location. What the Apache failed to tell the priests
was that the specified location was in the very heart of Comanche
territory and they knew they would not stand for such an
encroachment. The Comanche did not disappoint and after the
buildings were completed and the church and fort were fully staffed,
the Comanche struck. The results were 40 dead Spaniards that had
been severely tortured and mutilated which was common practice for
the Comanche. The Spanish were outraged and sent out a 600 man army
looking to punish the Comanche. This is what the Apache had in mind
from the first, someone else to kill the Comanche. They did not
attended one service before the San Sabo river Massacre.
The
bad part was that the Comanche were acknowledged to be the finest
light cavalry in the world. They struck with lightning like
efficiency and anyone chasing them didn't have a chance. The
Comanche and their horses go travel faster and longer without rest,
food and water that any of their pursuers. Nobody could do anything
with them.
The
US Cavalry found the solution. They systematically slaughtered each
and every horse they found that was identified as being available to
the Comanche. Eventually the Comanche were without horses and it was
all over. That why there are so few wild horses seen in North
America. At one time it is estimated that there was over a million
wild horses in the southern and central plains alone.
This
Date in History July 6
1944
Ringling Brothers& Barnum and Bailey open their circus in
Hartford, Connecticut. In those days the circus was under the “big
top” or a gigantic tent. About half way through the first
performance a fire broke out and very quickly the tent was totally
involved and flaming pieces of flaming canvas fall into the crowd.
Soon the support ropes burn in two and the center of the tent fell to
the ground trapping many people. As you might expect, the crowd
became panicky and chaos prevailed. Later an investigation revealed
that the tent had been treated recently with flammable paraffin to
make it waterproof. But the worst thing was that the fire was arson.
Some jackass set that fire in which 167 people died and 682 were
injured. 2/3rd
of those that died were children. Ringling Brothers agreed to a
settlement of $5,000,000 in a law suit. The arsonist was sentenced
to two terms of 22 years, the maximum at the time.
1976
Elizabeth Ann Rowe is accepted and joins the Corp of Midshipmen at
the US Naval Academy, she being the first female to do so and
graduate. It was only four years after Elizabeth graduated that
Kristine Holtereid graduated at the top of her class. I used to have
misgivings about this, getting an academy education and not having to
go into combat. But nowadays women fly combat fighters and
helicopters, etc. But, to my knowledge, they have yet to have a
woman as a member, much less a leader of a Marine Recon team, a Delta
Team, a SEAL team, a Green Beret team, an Air Commando team or any
other hunter/killer unit. If anyone knows of a woman that is I am
all ears, Demi Moore in “G.I. Jane” not withstanding.
1862
Mark Twain begins working for the newspaper Territorial Enterprise
in Virginia City, Nevada. Samuel Clemens took the name of Mark Twain
while working for a San Francisco newspaper earlier. Twain wrote
about the happening in the gold and silver mines in and around the
territories but gained a great reputation when he wrote The
Great Jumping Frog of Calavares County.
After this he moved to Buffalo, New York and then to Hartford,
Connecticut where he settled. He wrote Tom
Sawyer
and later Huckleberry
Finn
with great success. He became a globe traveler and wrote successful
books about his adventures the best of which was Innocents
Abroad.
When asked as to why Tom
Sawyer
and Huckleberry
Finn
became so popular, he said that the books made fun of the pretentious
easterners which pleases the average person. He was an immense
talent but his writings, being still brilliant, became darker after
the death of his wife. It is difficult for anyone to write and essay
without his thoughts and writings coming to mind, mine at least.
Quotable
quotes:
“When
I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand
to be around him, but when I got to be 21 I was astonished at how
much he had learned in seven years”.
Mark
Twain
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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