Wednesday

                  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I has been found that the average American is overweight. This means that a couple of years ago I was fat but now I am average.”

                                          Jo Brand

Rather than local and non-local news Items, I am going to add an essay I wrote about my Scots-Irish ancestry. I think a great many of us have Scot-Irish blood along with a dab or two of Creek, Choctaw and/or Cherokee especially those of us that have roots associated with the Appalachians. Here it is:

A Brief History of Rednecks

I have been reading the history of the impact of the Scots-Irish in America and naturally the author went back into the far past to trace them out to present day. By the way it is Scots, not Scotch. Scots are a people and Scotch is a whiskey. Anyway, the big movement came right after James I became the King of Great Britain. Previously, he was James VI of Scotland making him the first of the dual crowned kings of Great Britain. It got started when James financed the expedition to the new world led by Captain John Smith. But James' real passion was religion. He could not abide Catholics and he began a project to oust the Catholic landowners in Ireland and seize their lands. The Irish Catholics had been in rebellion against England for centuries and James saw this as a way of diluting them. This resulted in many Catholic Irish Earls fleeing the Emerald Isle trying to escape the wrath of the Protestants and Anglicans. To fill this void, it was decided that a “plantation” in Ireland in an area called Ulster would be formed. It consisted of six shires or counties. To fill the void James and company decided to kill two birds with one stone and offered land in Ulster to Protestant Scottish lords with the stipulation that they would bring their Scottish tenants with them. The waspish Scots would fight at the drop of a hat over anything that interfered with their independence or messed with the clans, or their tight-fisted Presbyterian religion. They were a hard-ass bunch, especially the Borderers or those that lived close to the border with England. As you might expect, the disenfranchised Catholic Irish fought like hell to take their lands back to no avail. The Scottish Lords indeed took the offer and brought their Scottish tenants with them. There was a stipulation that the Lords could not employ Irish tenants, they had to import the tenants from England and Scotland and they had to be English speaking Protestants, moreover the landowners were banned from selling land to the Irish. Whatever land that was left over was given to the Protestant Churches of Ireland including any lands previously owned by the Roman Catholic Church. James meant to castrate the Catholics in Ireland, y'all. This influx put the Protestant Irish in a hard way because they spoke Gaelic while everyone else spoke English. As a result of this turmoil there were civil wars in England, Scotland and Ireland. In 1630 many Ulster Scots went home because Charles I, the king of England declared that the Church of Ireland had to use the prayer book of the Church of England essentially making it an Anglican church. That would change the way the fiery Scottish Presbyterians practiced their religion. As I have said before, you don’t pull on Superman’s cape or spit into the wind and you don’t fool around with the Scots religion. In 1638 an oath was imposed by King Charles I on the Ulster Scots binding them to never take up arms against England not matter what. I don’t need to tell you what kind of hell was raised after this outrage. By the way, it was King Charles I presumptuousness that cost him his head as will be discussed in a future lesson. In 1641 the Irish Catholics rose up in an armed rebellion and the prime target was the Plantation land owners. Many, many atrocities were committed by the Irish on the Scottish land owners in retribution for them taking Irish lands. In the 1690s a huge immigration of Protestant Scots came over to Ulster during a famine and as a result the Protestant Scots became the majority. The planters are known as the Ulster Scots. The present partition of Ireland with Ireland and Northern Ireland gets it roots from this era. Northern Ireland is occupied by the progeny of British Protestants and wanted to keep a link with England whereas the rest of Ireland are Catholic and want independence. Later on, the Scots being fed up with restrictions on their religion began heading west to America. They primarily landed in Philadelphia. They were not welcomed by the highbred plantation owners on the Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina tidewater and not by the snooty Puritans in the northeast so they headed further west and settled in small clans in the Appalachian mountain chain starting in western Pennsylvania and then south and west down the chain into Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. They were encouraged in this endeavor because of their warlike nature they would be a good match for the savage Shawnee, Choctaw, Creek and Cherokee, and a good match they were. There is a legend in my family on my father’s side that one of my great-great uncles owned a huge chunk of land in Maggie Valley, NC which is the very heart of Cherokee country, but he could not hold on to it because of the repeated attacks of the Cherokees. There are many reports of atrocities committed by both the natives and the Scots. It is the roots of almost constants turmoil, the love of fighting and an independent nature, especially their religion, which the so-called Scots-Irish have in their hearts and souls. Actually, the Scots-Irish are not a mix of Scots and the Irish; it is Scots that immigrated to Ulster, Ireland before coming to America and it is these Ulster Scots that are my ancestors on my father’s side. It is known that nearly all the troops fighting for the Patriots in the Revolutionary War in the south were Scots that came down out of the mountains and using guerilla type tactics like they use against the Indians and against the staid and upright British to great effect. They demonstrated their ferocity at the Battle of Cowpens where Patriot General Daniel Morgan outmaneuvered the infamous British Colonel Banastre Tarleton and would have annihilated the entire army of British/Loyalists but some of them escaped the wrath of Morgan’s wild-eyed mountain men. But there were no escapees at the Battle of Kings Mountain. This group of Patriots was led by General John Sevier and was able to trap British General John Ferguson and his army of Loyalists on the peak of a mountain by surrounding the base. General Ferguson fought for a while but then realized that there was no escape and surrendered. The surrender was not accepted and the Patriots waded in and either shot or hanged them all to a man. This massacre was brought about because of Tarleton killing 220 Patriots that had surrendered but were bayoneted by Tarleton’s troops angering the Patriots and especially the mountain men. They sought their revenge and they found it. My ancestry comes from the Holston Valley of Tennessee and the mountains of Habersham County Georgia. That’s right folks; I am a Redneck and/or a Cracker albeit a well read and well spoken one. I am proud of my ancestors.

The Scots proved their heritage again during the Civil War, some fought in gray and some fought in blue but they fought with great zeal just for the sheer joy of it.

This epistle in no way covers everything that happened to the Ulster Scots during this time period but it gives you an idea of the mold that formed them.

          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“If the cops have to run you down you can be assured that they will bring and ass-whipping with them.”

                                                 Chris Rock

I saw that several celebrities are saying that Donald Trump is unbalanced, one of them was Charlie Sheen, for crying out loud. Here is an icon n bizarre behavior criticizing someone's acts. I would like to see a show of hands of those that are fed up with stupid sports figures and people in the entertainment industry using their celebrity to expound upon their political opinion. That's what I thought...me too.

I was watching a national Geographic program about where the first humans came from to North America. The generally accepted version is that they came from Siberia across the Bering Sea land bridge and then down an ice free corridor across Alaska and Canada during the last ice age. The Bering Sea land bridge happened because of much of the oceans water was frozen making the seas much shallower. The peculiar thing is that there has never been a skeleton found to date in North America that was older than 13,000 years old. Also, the ice free corridor mentioned only existed for about 500 years so we know about when this immigration took place. At the same time there was a solid ice sheet a mile thick extending from Scotland to the vicinity of Nova Scotia and Maine. It has been suggested that ancient man traveled in boats from Europe to North America earlier than the Siberians by sailing close to the edge of the ice subsisting on the plentiful game and fish that existed there.

Paleontologists have found spear heads in different areas around the Chesapeake Bay that are more sophisticated than those found in the Texas/New Mexico area. This would indicate that the people that made the spearheads in the Chesapeake area had been doing it longer than those out west and therefore had been living there longer. This also indicates that North America was populated by at least two sources. Scientists have found that the DNA from the Chesapeake area ancient skeletons is indeed different from ancient skeletons found in the western US. It is an interesting mystery to me.

A while back over in Spartanburg, SC the trial of Anthony Briggs ended with he being sentenced to life without parole PLUS 15 years to run concurrently. What did Tony do? While living with his girlfriend he sexually abused his girlfriend’s five year old daughter. The prosecution only presented one witness and that was the testimony of the little girl while being interviewed by a child psychologist. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind, including the jury, that Tony was guilty. There is not much worse punishment than life in a South Carolina prison especially if you are a child molester.

       This Date in History  August 30

30BC On this date the infamous Cleopatra of Egypt committed suicide. Cleo was hell on wheels, y'all. She was not Egyptian but a descendant of a Macedonian (Greek) general named Ptolemy that was left in charge of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 323BC as he was passing through on his way east. Cleo was a dual ruler with her brother Ptolemy XIII after the death of their father Ptolemy XII. It was not long before Cleo and her brother got fed up with each other and a civil war erupted. Strangely, the most powerful nation on the planet was in the throes of civil war also and that was Rome. The civil war in Rome left Pompey the Great as the loser and he ran like hell to Egypt trying to escape the wrath of the winner, Julius Caesar. Pompey the Great was in Egypt about 15 minutes before he was skewered on a spear and killed because the Egyptians did not want Julius Caesar thinking they were siding with Pompey. Sure enough, here comes Julius Caesar looking for Pompey. He is shown the head of Pompey reassuring him that Pompey was dead and for him to not worry about Egypt’s alliances. While there he meets Cleo in a peculiar manner. She has herself wrapped in a carpet and taken to Julius where she appears when the carpet is unrolled. Cleo was a stone fox, y'all. Her beauty and skills at love making were legendary. Julius was smitten by this girl and they soon were lovers. Cleo did not give a shit about Julius except that he and his army and navy could help her win the civil war against her brother. Julius did not disappoint and soon Ptolemy XIII was dead and one of Cleo’s other brothers was named Ptolemy XIV. After this Julius went on to Asia Minor to put down some rebellions. Cleo bore a son that she says was the spawn of Julius and named the boy Caesarian meaning “little Caesar”. Julius was successful in putting down the rebellions and went back to Rome in triumph where Cleo and Caesarian joined him. Julius discreetly put her and his son up in a separate house for appearances sake. But not long after this Julius got too cocky for the Roman Senate and is stabbed to death. This put Cleo in a pickle and she hauled ass back to Egypt. After she got back her brother Ptolemy XIV died under suspicious circumstances. It is generally believed that Cleo poisoned him. Cleo promptly named Caesarian as Ptolemy XV. After Julius’ death a triumvirate (three rulers) was formed in Rome. It was Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. These three split the Roman Empire into three sections with Mark Antony getting the Eastern Provinces meaning Egypt. Not long after arriving in Egypt Mark Antony met Cleo and fell under her spell and Cleo bore twins by Antony. The triumvirate begins to collapse and a civil war between Antony and Octavian erupted. Antony and Cleo combine forces to combat Octavian’s army and navy. The combined force navy is defeated in the naval battle of Actium (Greece) and Cleo and Antony went back to Egypt. Octavian headed to Egypt looking for Antony to settle things once and for all. The two armies met and Octavian prevailed. Cleo is waiting for news and is told that Mark Antony had been killed and Cleo decided to commit suicide and held a poisonous snake to her breast and is fatally bitten. But Antony is not dead and Cleo receives a note saying so but it is too late. Upon receiving the news that Cleo was dead, Antony stabbed himself with his sword and died also. Octavian promptly has Caesarian executed because he has Julius Caesars blood in his veins and may make a claim on Roman power later. Octavian later became know as Caesar Augustus and proved to be a very capable leader. What a story.

1989 In 1986 career criminal James Marlowe was paroled from Folsom prison. He gained the nicknamed ”The Folsom Wolf” while there. Soon after being released he met Cynthia Coffman and they hit it off famously. They did so well that they began traveling across the country together and they ended up in Tennessee and got married. For a wedding present Coffman had “Property of the Folsom Wolf” tattooed on her ass. They then headed west for California sponging off their relatives along the way. A woman named Corinna Novis disappeared from an ATM in Redlands, California. A few days later Lynel Murray is kidnapped in front of a dry cleaner in Orange County where Murray worked. A checkbook and other papers with both Novis and Murray names on them were found in a dumpster in Big Bear City, California. A lodge owner called the police and told them that the couple had just checked in. The police descended on the lodge and found the couple hiking in the nearby woods wearing clothes from Murray’s dry cleaner. They were tried and convicted of murder and on this date they were sentenced to death. Coffman was the first woman to receive the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1977.

1943 French ski champion Jean-Claude Killy. He said “To win you have to risk losing.” That is a good attitude for life also.

            Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

                    Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“My first psychiatrist said I was paranoid, but I want a second opinion because I think he is out to get me.”

                                         Tom Wilson

At the risk of being called a racist, I must question the actual goals and aims of Black Lives Matter. I appears that it is not black lives they are interested in saving because they are not in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Gary, In., Compton, Ca., or any other city where black gang bangers are killing each other wholesale. They are not interested unless a cop or a white person of any caste is involved. It is clear to me that it is they that are the racists. Why aren't they and the Black Panthers down in Baton Rouge helping those that really need it? How are they funded? They show up at different cities and stay for a few days before moving on. Who pays for this? I do not believe they are self funded. Who profits the most from demonstrations both peaceful and violent? It has to be some entity that profits from racial turmoil. The media sells a hell of a lot of air time and printed matter covering these events. I wonder.

I suppose all of you saw where Colin Kaepernick, QB for the 49ers refused to stand during the playing of the National Anthem. That is an insult that I take personally. He claims that “this country” does not treat the minorities like he thinks it should but what he failed to mention is the thousands of American Patriots that suffered and died giving him the freedom to make a damned good living here in “this country”.

How are women treated by the Muslims worldwide, and they are the majority? Why did all those Syrian refugees NOT go to those Arab nations just a few miles from them on the Arabian peninsula like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Baharain Oman, Somalia, etc.? They were denied sanctuary because the Syrians are of the Shia branch of Islam and the others are Sunnis. That, my friends, is prejudice in its barest form. It is true that Kaepernick has the right to express his opinion anyway he wants to...and so do I. Screw you Colin Kaepernick and the jackass you rode in on...you have no class.

This Date in History August 29

2005 Earlier a small Category 1 hurricane named Katrina slipped out of the Caribbean Sea, took a swipe at the southern tip of Florida and then broke loose in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico on a northwest course. The warm waters of the Gulf pump Katrina up to a Category 3 in short order. It looked like the hurricane was going ashore in Mobile, Alabama or maybe Pensacola, Florida. But on this date, the storm took dead aim at the Mississippi River delta and New Orleans. Early on this morning Katrina quickly expanded to a Category 4 and then briefly to a Category 5 and then back to a category 3 and stormed ashore in the Mississippi river delta packing winds of 140 MPH and a storm surge of 22 feet. The eye of the storm reached New Orleans intact and the excess water and wind quickly overwhelmed the levees holding back the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. From what I have read, the majority of Big Easy is at least 6 feet lower than the River and the Lake. Once the levees failed, the center of New Orleans was flooded with the 9^th Ward being the hardest hit. Hundreds of people were stranded on the roofs of their houses and just had to wait to be rescued by boats or helicopters. There were some areas that boats were not allowed because of downed power lines and the rescuers just had to try to block out the screams for help in those areas. As we have all seen, the unflooded areas of the commercial districts were subject to unobstructed looting while being observed by the NOPD. The next few days were a montage of events of pure bravery and further events of battles with gangsters trying to take control of the city by force. The arrival of the 82^nd Airborne and the Louisiana National Guard put a stop to this. But of those that evacuated 9^th Ward to the tune of at least 100,000, almost none have returned. I do not know the exact amount of evacuees that left their homes as a result of Hurricane Katrina including parts of Mississippi, but many, many remain in cities like, Atlanta, Houston, Austin and many others, there does not seem to be a desire to return to the Gulf Coast. It looks like they are no longer evacuees but settlers in new lands. It was the worst natural disaster in United States history. I do not remember any presence of the 82^nd Airborne or any looting during the flooding in central Iowa. What’s up with that?

1779 On this day the American Continental army commanded by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton engage a combined Loyalist/Indian army commanded by British Captain William Butler and Iroquois chief William Brandt. The engagement took place near Chemung, New York which is Elmira today. Earlier George Washington had tasked Patriot General Horatio Gates with going to the Finger Lake region and subduing the Iroquois Indians under Chief Brandt who are on constant attack of the new settlements. Gates refused the assignment so Washington assigned the task to Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan and company departed Easton, Pennsylvania and travel by the Susquehanna River to the area of conflict. The Patriot artillery was too much for the Indians and they fled leaving a small contingent of Loyalist which were killed or captured by the Patriot infantry. Sullivan ordered his troops to burn and destroy the Iroquois villages and supplies. His troops laid waste to 40 Indian villages and mountains of supplies which made the following winter a severe one for the Iroquois but it did not belay their spirit and the attacks continued at least for a while. Eventually Iroquois leader Charles Brandt saw that the Patriots were going to win the war and took his tribe into Canada to lands given to them by the British.

1885 On this date German inventor Gottfried Daimler invented the prototype of the modern motorcycle. The motorcycle was used extensively WWI by both sides as a messenger vehicle. The popularity fell between WWI and WWII but the motorcycle was again used extensively by both sides during WWII. After the war the returning veterans had developed a taste for them and the demand rose precipitously. The down side of the rise in motorcycle craze was led by a group of hardcore gangsters led by the leader of a San Bernardino group of bikers that organized themselves into a club named the “Hell’s Angels”. Their leader was Sonny Barger. From then many “Hell’s Angels” clubs and clubs like them were formed world wide fostering a wild, unfettered lifestyle. They wanted to project a tough, “Don’t mess with me image” and they indeed succeeded. But today the greatest majority by far, is middle class America that holds meets without the gangster types. For instance this month a motorcycle rally is held in Sturgis, South Dakota that over 500,000 motorcyclists attend, not to mention those rallies at Daytona Beach, Fla., Myrtle Beach, South Carolina among other places and they all seem to happen without a lot of trouble. I was a rider at one time. But I did not ride on the street that much, I preferred to ride a trail bike in the mountains up and down logging trails or make my own trails, the rougher the better. It was not a glorifying type of avocation but I enjoyed the hell out of it. I can’t do it now because of my age, but I miss the challenges.

Born today:

1876 US inventor Charles Kettering. He said “I am more interested in the future because that is where I am going to spend the rest of my life.” Kettering invented the electric starter for automobiles among other things.

         Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow             

Friday

                              Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I want peace and come to you with tears in my eyes and no artillery.  But if you f--k with me I will kill every damn one of you."

                           General James N. "Mad Dog" Mattis, USMC

If I asked what female athlete made the most money most of you would say either Serena, Venus Williams or maybe Danica Patrick. It is neither one, it is Maria Sharapova. Even though she is not in the spotlight as often and the others, she has several big time contracts especially with Nike, Ericcson, Tiffany and others making her twice as wealthy as any other athletes. Her contract with Nike alone is rumored to be about $70 million. By the way, Maria has a kick-ass body.

President Obama and family went on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It is reported that he stopped by a book store and bought books for his kids to read. He made good choices here. He bought To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Red Pony by John Steinbeck (one of my favorite authors). For himself he was given Freedom by Jonathon Franzen. This book was not on the shelves yet but an advanced copy was forthcoming. Here is a few interesting facts about Harper Lee. She was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She wrote only the one book and was awarded that Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her efforts. The book was about racial prejudice as she saw it in Monroeville while she was growing up. A little known fact was that she assisted her good friend Truman Capote in the writing of the immortal book In Cold Blood. Both books were made into Oscar winning movies. Mockingbird starred Gregory Peck and In Cold Blood starred Robert Blake.

      This Date in History August 26

1346 Ever since William the Conqueror crossed over from France in 1066 and successfully invaded England, there had been succession of English invasions of France to try to claim the section of France known as Normandy as part of the English Empire. William the Conqueror was William the Duke of Normandy before he was the king of England and successive English kings felt that William’s lands in Normandy now belonged to the English crown. Naturally, the French kings called bullshit on that and several battles were fought in Normandy. On July 12 English King Edward III landed on the coast of Normandy with an army of 14,000. After raping and pillaging French countryside, King Edward headed toward Calais as did nearly every English invasion force because Calais was a very important deep water port on the English Channel that the English needed for re-supply. On this date, King Edward met the French army near the village of Crecy in Normandy. The French army was led by French king Philip IV at the head of 8,000 mounted knights and 4,000 Genoese crossbowmen. The French army had no idea that Edward’s army had a secret weapon, the newly perfected longbow. Edward awaited the French attack and late in the afternoon Phillip sent in the Genoese crossbowmen who were met by a hailstorm of English arrows at a range out of the reach of the crossbow. The longbow had an effective range of over 200 yards, unheard of in those days. The Genoese crossbowmen withdrew and the Phillip sent in his 8,000 mounted knights who met the same fate as the Genoese. The air was filled with arrows from the English with the arrows tipped with bodkin arrowheads designed to penetrate armor and chain mail. The French knights and their horses fell in writhing mass in the center of the battle ground. After all was said and done, King Phillip had lost over 4,000 men and horses while the English lost less than 100. This battle was significant because it marked the end of great horse cavalry attacks over open ground. The English longbow had changed the method battle and tactics forever. King Edward continued his march to Calais and began a siege. The city surrendered to Edward early in 1347.

1968 This was a time of unrest in America. The United States was involved in an unpopular war in Vietnam and there were many protesters of the war on the streets. On this date the Democratic Convention opened at the International Amphitheater in Chicago seeking to come up with a presidential candidate. It looked like it was going to be Vice President Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Anyway the streets outside the Amphitheater were filled with war protesters which were expected. The Democratic Party had almost changed their Convention location to Miami because of the fear that protest marches would get out of hand in Chicago, but cooler heads prevailed when Mayor Daley of Chicago assured them that his cops could contain nearly any eventuality. Daley then told the chief of police to not let the protesters get out of hand no matter what action it took to suppress them. Sure enough the protester showed up and so did the Chicago PD and the Illinois National Guard.  At one point the head of the police force in front of the Amphitheater ordered the protesters off the street and as you might suspect, a riot broke out. The protesters did not have a chance; the Chicago PD immediately waded into them and the cracked skulls and other bones until the protesters were subdued. It was a police riot, y'all. It did not end in the street. A few police went inside the building and began roughing up some of the delegates and newsmen including Mike Wallace who received a fist to the jaw during the melee. The Chicago police arrested hundreds but released all but seven who they said was the ringleaders and put them on trial. Naturally, this caused even more riots. There were riots on and off until the United States pulled out of South Vietnam and left it to the Communist North Vietnamese in 1973.

1862 After US General George McClellan was severely out-generaled by CSA General Robert E. Lee in the Peninsular Campaign, President Lincoln pulled some of his troops away and assigned them US General John Pope’s Army of Virginia. On this date CSA General Fitzhugh Lee and his cavalry unit capture the railroad depot at Manassas, Virginia. The first large scale engagement had occurred about a year earlier at Manassas. When General Pope heard about this he and his army came running. General Lee sent Stonewall Jackson to Manassas to keep and eye on Pope. Pope found out the Jackson was in the area but could not find Jackson or his army. Jackson had hidden his troops in the forests and brush along side Bull Run Creek. A day or two later the remainder of Lee’s army arrived and Jackson’s army came screaming out of the woods and joined with the rest of Lee’s Army and swept Pope and his army from the field in a total rout.

Born today:

1904 English writer George Isherwood. He said “Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.”

Died today:

1910 US writer William James. He said “Some people believe they are thinking when they are just rearranging their prejudices.”

            Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow.

Thursday

                     Musings and History

Quote of the day:

When introducing Jerry Lewis he said:

“Jerry, you look like you combed your hair with the Exxon Valdez.”

                                             Don Rickles

I guess it must have been a full moon this last weekend. A lot of strange things happened.

Over in Spartanburg, SC 26 year old Julius Cox was not happy with what his girlfriend was cooking for him and began beating on her. She headed for the bedroom and began gathering up her clothes to leave under a barrage of blows from her boyfriend. The cops finally arrived and put a stop to it and took Julius to the joint for criminal domestic violence. I don’t get it. If Julius was not happy with what she was cooking he could have went to Church’s Chicken, for crying out loud. Now he is eating some food that is barely edible and not much of it at that. I was always raised that if someone cooked for you, you ate it no matter what. It is a southern tradition. Obviously Julius is a Yankee.

Then over in the nearby town of Cowpens, 34 year old Earline Gowdy got mad at her husband for unknown reasons. She broke a leg off of and end table and hit him in the head three times opening severe gashes. When the cops arrived the husband was standing in the doorway bleeding like a stuck pig and yelling at the top of his lungs as was Earline. Earline was arrested for assault and battery and criminal domestic violence. Her husband was arrested for criminal domestic violence and taken to the Mary Black Hospital to have his head sewn up.

On a remote beach in New Zealand 58 pilot whales beached themselves and stayed that way for 12 hours before being discovered. Rescuers descended on the beach and began trying to re-float those that were still alive. They were able to get 11 of them headed back to sea with 7 of them appearing to be fit enough to travel and 4 seemed to be struggling. All the rest were dead. This is not the first time this has happened. Back in 2006 76 pilot whales beached themselves on this very same beach and none of them survived. No one knows why these whales choose to commit suicide like this.

This Date in History August 25

1944 A few days before the hard fighting French 2^nd Armored division, General Jacque-Philippe LeClerc commanding, approached the German occupied city of Paris, France from the north while the American 4^th Infantry is approaching Paris from the south. The liberation of that great city was at hand. The 2^nd Armored took a beating from the German artillery but when LeClerc heard that the 4^th Infantry was approaching the center of Paris he found a surge of energy and they swept the west side of Paris while the 4^th Infantry swept the east side. The German Commander in Paris was General Dietrich Von Choltitz. When Choltitz told Hitler that Paris was lost and would soon by occupied by the French and Americans Hitler ordered him to destroy all of the famous places in Paris like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles palace, etc and then burn Paris to the ground. Choltitz thought about that about 3 minutes and then said to his staff “I will not go down in history as destroying the the greatest city in Europe.” So none of the pre-set explosives installed by the Germans was detonated and Paris was saved when Choltitz signed an official surrender to the Allies. There was about 20,000 German troops stationed in Paris but when they found out that they were trapped in a pincer movement and the Free French insurgents came out and began an attack on the troops out in the open, the German troops melted away. On this date a gigantic parade with the 2^nd Armored, the 4^th Infantry and The Free French march in victory down the Champs d’Elysses with General LeClerc and Charles DeGaulle in the lead. It was a great day for freedom.

1864 The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General R.E. Lee commanding, is under siege in and around Petersburg, Virginia by the Army of the Potomac, General Ulysses Grant commanding. The majority of supplies coming into the Confederates were coming in via the Weldon Railroad from the south. Grant ordered his 2^nd Corps led by General Winfield Hancock to go down and destroy the railroad. Hancock was successful in destroying 8 miles of railroad track but the Confederates simply stopped the train south of the destroyed rails and brought the supplies up by wagons. Lee got fed up and sent General A.P. Hill and his infantry supported by General Wade Hampton’s cavalry down to restore the railroad. The Confederate and Union troops met at a railroad depot named Ream’s Station. The Union soldiers had build a revetment out of soil but they did not build it tall enough and the Confederate artillery easily crossed over and fell into the huddled troops on the other side. The troops under the command of US General John Gibbon were green and inexperienced. When the artillery shells began falling, those troops broke and ran with Hampton’s cavalry in hot pursuit. It was a rout. This was not easy for US General Hancock to witness because he was the hero of Gettysburg and was known as a leader that would stand his ground. Not this time. Hancock and Gibbon blamed each other for the debacle so Grant got fed up with the squabbling and transferred them both out of the 2^nd Corps.

Born today:

1836 US writer Bret Harte. He said “A big vice in a man is likely to keep out many smaller ones.” It works for me, Bret.

1850 US humorist Bill Nye. He said “I have heard that Wagner’s music is a lot better than it sounds.”

1889 US writer William Feather. He said “Flattery must get pretty thick before anyone objects to it.”

1912 US cartoonist Walt Kelly. He said “Women are not as mere as they used to be.” Walt gave us the comic strip “Pogo”. Pogo gave us the immortal phrase “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.”

1918 US composer Leonard Bernstein. He said “To achieve great things two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

1919 Former Governor George Wallace. He said “I may not look like a black man, but my heart is as black as anyone here.” How is that again, George?

1942 Scottish guitarist David Russell. He said “We live in a Newtonian world of Einstein physics ruled by Frankenstein logic.”

1949 US musician Gene Simmons. He said “Walk among the natives in the daylight, but in your heart be Superman.”

1613 English writer Richard Crashaw. He said to his wife “It is daylight, my sweet. Not from the east but from thine eyes.” All you married guys need to remember these words.

         Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Most men have a genetic defect. They can't see dirt in a house until there is enough of it to support agriculture.”

                                                  Dave Barry

A while back I had a friend from Louisiana whose family raised fighting chickens. He never admitted to him personally sponsoring a match but he did admit they made a lot of money selling them. One day he said “Do you know who Ferdinand Marcos is?” I said that he was the President of the Philippines and was under a lot of pressure from the his military to resign because of corruption. He said Marcos will resign in a couple of days. I asked how he knew and he said that Marcos had shipped 3,000 fighting chickens to Hawaii. He said that Marcos had some of the finest breeds of fighting chickens in the world and they were tracked where ever they went. Sure enough, two days later Marcos resigned and moved to Hawaii.

Down south of Cleveland, Ohio there is a man who raises black bears in cages for two reasons. Occasionally a movie script will call for a bear and reason number two; this man will bring a bear to a county fair and charge people for the chance to wrestle one of his bears. I will repeat that. He charged people for a chance to wrestle a bear. A while back a man paid the fee and attempted to wrestle a bear…the bear won by inflicting a fatal bite to his opponent’s neck. The bears don’t know that we are different than any other animal invading their space. Let them the hell alone.

        This Date in History  August 24

79AD On this date the Roman elite in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples were just sitting down to lunch or a late breakfast. Most of the houses in these cities were vacation homes to the Roman rich. Then a stupendous explosion shook the very ground on which they were sitting/standing. It was the eruption of the centuries old extinct volcano Mount Vesuvius. A cloud of white hot ash and rock shot 20,000 feet into the atmosphere and lava and mud slid down the side of the volcano in torrents. The people in the cities did not have a chance. The dust and rocks in the atmosphere began raining down burning people to death or mixed with the poison gasses that accompanied the mud and lava and asphyxiated them. The ash and rock mixed with the lava and mud forming a sort of concrete and buried thousands of them under 10 to 15 feet which cooled into a solidified mass. A Roman General name Pliny the Elder was in command of a Roman fleet that was on patrol in the Bay of Naples when this great event occurred. Pliny saw with disbelief swarms of people swimming out into the bay to escape the enormous heat but the raining ash was still hot enough to burn and people were screaming for death in their agony. Pliny ordered some of his ships to go and try to rescue them but they returned after a short while saying the ash was so hot that it was setting their ships on fire. Pliny just could not stand aside and watch so he ordered his boat into the maelstrom and went to the sides of the ash flow and tried to comfort those that had escaped. Pliny got a whiff of the toxic gasses and collapsed and died. His nephew Pliny the Younger, aged 17, was on the opposite side of the bay and chronicled what he saw and gave it to the Roman historian Tactius. The two cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were eventually forgotten until when a farmer digging a vineyard the ground collapsed into the courtyard of a buried mansion. From then on archaeologists and paleontologists descended on the area and nearly the entire towns have been excavated giving us a snapshot of what life was like in those ill-fated cities.

1572 The king of France was King Charles IX but the real control was in the hands of his mother Catherine de Medici. Catherine went down in history as one of the most manipulative and ruthless person who ever lived. She and he son Charles were supposed to be Catholic but she would persuade Charles to dance with whoever held sway at a given time be it the Pope or the French Huguenots which were protestant. In this particular point in time the leader of the Huguenots Admiral Garpard de Coligny held sway with King Charles and good old Catherine saw the Admiral as a threat and ordered his murder. On this day, Saint Bartholomew’s Day, the assassins found the Admiral and killed him. For some reason the Catholics got their bloodlust aroused and they began killing the Huguenots wholesale all across France in spite of King Charles ordering them to stop. They stopped alright, after killing over 70,000 of them. This event was known since and The Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Catherine may have felt more secure after this but France suffered because all the surviving Huguenots moved away taking their money with them.

1814 Earlier during the War of 1812 the British army under the command of General Robert Ross flanked and defeated the Patriot Militia at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland. This victory for the British left the road to Washington undefended. On this date the British army marched into Washington unopposed and began burning everything in sight. The British were pissed off because the Patriot army had burned the British consulate in Canada for no apparent reason. During the Battle of Bladensburg president James Madison went to the battle site and took command of one of the artillery batteries. This is the only time that a sitting American president engaged in combat. Before he left he told his wife Dolly that she would have to evacuate soon and to take only those things that were important. She took the portrait of George Washington with which we are all familiar. I guess it was that important because later that night the British burned the White House to the ground. The redcoats ran up against US General Andrew Jackson and company near Chalmette, Louisiana who sent them running away asses in hand. But the war was over before this fight but the communications were so slow that Jackson knew nothing about the British surrender.

Born today:

1894 Welsh writer Jean Rhys. She said “Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but most importantly, it finds homes for us everywhere.” It does that for me.

1898 US writer Malcolm Crowley. He said “They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you get older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it much.” Did you say something, Malcolm?

1929 PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He said “Choose your friends carefully, your enemies will choose you.” Especially ex-wives and girl friends.

Died today:

1953 US writer Kate Wiggin. She said “Every child born into this world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility.” That is except those monstrous brats that scream and yell running down the aisles of a library or a restaurant. They are the spawn of the loins of Beelzebub.

1957 English writer Ronald Knox. He said “It is a shame that modern civilization has chosen not to believe in the devil, when he is the only explanation for it all.” You notice that Ronald put the devil as masculine...he never met my third ex-wife.

2004 Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Ross. She said “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and believe that everything in life has a purpose.”

             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

                  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only

human institution which rejects progress is in the cemetery.”

                                    Harold Wilson

NOTICE: Friday will be the last day that my blog will be on e-mail. It will be

 on my web site of bigalsdailyhistory.blogspot.com only.

At a Friday meeting of the “Four o’clock Club” a rather winsome server came in to speak with the bartender. We all knew that she was in law enforcement in the past and someone asked her why she got out. She said that she could not make enough money. There was long pause and one of the guys said “Do you still have your handcuffs and shackles?”

A while back a fight in Saudi Arabia resulted in one man being attacked by a man with a meat cleaver. This man was wounded in the spine and was paralyzed. As you might suspect a Saudi judge began searching for a hospital that would sever the attacker’s spinal column making him paralyzed as well. This judge has had men blinded when they caused the blindness of another and had a man’s teeth removed by a dentist when he had knocked out the teeth of another. Amnesty International is trying their best to rein in this judge from paralyzing the attacker on purpose. He apparently believes in the old mosaic rule of “an eye for an eye” statute.

This Date in History August 23

1784 On this date four counties in the state of North Carolina declare their independence from the state and form a new state of Franklin. The state of North Carolina has previously ceded some of the lands in western North Carolina to the United States Congress. The residents in these lands equaling four counties were afraid that Congress would sell these lands to either France or Spain to pay off war debts accumulated during the Revolutionary War. In order to prevent this, the four counties form their own state. They had their own constitution, legislature, courts and president. The president was John Sevier who was a patriot warrior leader during the Revolutionary War. Franklin existed on it’s own for two years but got into financial trouble and offered to sell their lands to Spain. Needless to say the state of North Carolina frowned on the prospect of having a Spanish colony on their border and arrested Sevier. But the real problem with the state of Franklin was that they had no appreciable militia and this information got to the Cherokee, Chickamauga and Chickasaw and raids on frontier villages in the state of Franklin increased exponentially. So the state of Franklin asked to rejoin the state of North Carolina if for no other reason that the protection of the state militia from the Indians. These four counties were absorbed into the state of Tennessee later on.

1861 On this date Allen Pinkerton arrested Rose Greenhow in Washington, DC. Rose was an outspoken supporter of the Confederacy and was without a doubt the leader of a very efficient spy network in the nation’s capitol. Rose was close friends if not more with one of the Senators from Massachusetts and many of his friends. Rose fed information to CSA General P.T.G. Beauregard just before the Battle of 1^st Manassas about the deployment of the Union troops commanded by US General Irwin McDowell which resulted in an ass-kicking delivered by the Confederates. After the war CSA General Jubal Early testified that the information delivered by Rose was instrumental in the defeat of the US army in more than one engagement. While Rose and her daughter were under house arrest in Washington she was allowed to have visitors which meant that he spy network did not slow down. Pinkerton became very exasperated with Rose and her daughter “Little Rose” and imprisoned her and her daughter in a real prison south of Washington. After a while she and he daughter was released and banned to live in the south until the war was over. Rose went abroad to drum up money for the Confederacy. On one occasion she was on her way back home to Charleston, SC when her ship was encountered by a US blockade ship and was run aground. Rose was washed overboard from her lifeboat and went to the bottom like an anvil because he had many pounds of gold on her person meant for the Confederacy. She died supporting her belief.

1877 Three years before outlaw John Wesley Hardin killed a deputy named Charles Webb in a small town near Austin, Texas. This murder was just one of several murders committed by this monster. If ever there was a “bad seed” on this earth it was John Wesley Hardin. He apparently took delight in killing, especially law enforcement officers. The Texas Rangers tasked their best man, John Armstrong, to find Hardin and bring him to justice. Hardin moved to southeast using and alias and divided his time between Florida and Alabama. The relentless Armstrong discovered his alias and tracked Hardin down to a rail yard in Pensacola, Florida. On this date Armstrong and two of his deputies boarded the rail car that held Hardin and two of his compatriots. The two of Hardin’s compatriots tried to draw their pistols and were shot and killed for their trouble. Hardin had a pistol in a shoulder holster but he got tangled up and Armstrong ran over and knocked Hardin’s brains out with the barrel of his pistol. As you might suspect, Armstrong and his buddies being Texas Rangers had no authority in Florida but Armstrong and company would not be denied. They took the unconscious Hardin off the train and waited until the next train headed west came by and got aboard. They arrived in Texas with Hardin in tow. Hardin was tried and sentenced to life in prison in the Huntsville, Texas prison. He spent 15 years in prison and was paroled. He went to El Paso, Texas and tried to settle down but a deputy sheriff found out who he was and walked up behind him in a bar and blew his brains out at point blank range.

Born today:

1932 US comedian Mark Russell. He said “I like the scientific theory that the rings around Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.”

1933 The governor of California Pete Wilson. When speaking of his adversaries he said “They can kiss my ass, if they can jump that high.” I like his attitude.

1834 US actress Barbara Eden. She said “If gentlemen prefer blondes then I am a blonde that prefers gentlemen.” Barbara had a drop dead good looking body, y'all.

1970 US actor River Phoenix. He said “I am having a hard time keeping my head above water in this crazy business.” This young man was a dynamite actor who died of an overdose at the age of 23. What a damned shame.

Died today:

1960 US lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. He said “If you want to be admitted to the fold of the brotherhood of man, you have to let everyone else in also.”

1995 German photographer Alfred Eisenstadt. He said “As long as I have a camera in my hand, I have no fear.” Good thought Alfred, but I prefer a Colt 1911 .45 caliber or a Remington 1100 12 gauge.

           Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow