Friday

                       Musings and History

Quote of the day:

"Every snowflake denies being part of an avalanche."
                               Anonymous

Down in Mobile, Alabama an irate female parent walked into a classroom in Faith Academy High School and began a profanity laced tirade at the teacher with 26 students present. The teacher was able to herd this beast out into the hallway where the parent struck the teacher on the left cheek. That act in a school is an automatic felony and a charge of 2^nd degree assault and battery and disturbing the peace. She is out on bail but I can assure you she will rue the day that she made that indiscretion. Being a convicted felon brings with it a lot of government benefits, both Federal and State, being denied.

Over in Greer, S.C. there is a small outreach church that caters to those people that feel disenfranchised by other churches. The pastor of this small church has three jobs. He is in the real estate business, a pastor and owns a tattoo parlor. The local bible-thumpers are raising hell calling him representative of the devil. I do not get it. What has a mark on your skin have to do with what is in your heart and mind? The ones that I think are advocates of the devil are those televangelists and their wives that put on an obvious bleeding-heart drama. What really turns me off is those evangelists that have hairstyles that are reminiscent of The Monkees, a really bad comb-over, a toupee made by DuPont or a wife that has cotton candy hair and a weeks worth of Maybelline on her face. I know what does a hair style have to do with what’s in your heart and mind? Nothing. But I think they would be better accepted if they had a tattoo of an iguana on their neck.

         This Date in History November 18

1978 In the 1950’s a man named Jim Jones organized a church in Indianapolis and named it The People’s Temple. It was a Christian church and Jones preached heavily about racial equality and therefore the greatest majority of the church members were black even though Jones was Caucasian. In 1965 Jones moved the church to Ukiah, California. In 1971 he again moved the church to San Francisco, California. The local newspaper in San Francisco began researching Jones and the church and accused him of financial fraud, physical abuse and mistreatment of children. The resulting turmoil attracted the attention of the Justice department and the IRS and in 1977 Jones moved the church to a remote part of Guyana, South America. A year later former members of the church implored US Representative Leo Ryan to look into the mistreatment of children in Jones’ church and Ryan flew into an airport close to church compound and paid Jones a visit. Things went pretty well until some of the members present grabbed Ryan’s arm and begged him to get them out of there. It seemed that Jones saw fit to have rifle toting guards around the perimeter of the compound to keep everybody inside. At this point one of Jones’ guards attacked Ryan with a knife but was unsuccessful in getting to him. Ryan and the four others that had accompanied Ryan went back to the airport and were getting aboard the charter plane when three of Jones guards burst out of the jungle and shot and killed Ryan and the others that were with him. At this point Jones knew that there would be hell to pay for the killing of a member of Congress and ordered everyone in the compound to commit suicide and offered up some cyanide laced Kool-Aid. Those that refused to drink were shot and killed. A very few escaped into the jungle and hid and witnessed the mass suicide. On this date, members of the Guyana National Police showed up looking for the missing Rep. Ryan at the behest of the US State Department. They found Ryan’s corpse at the airport and when they went to the compound, they found 913 bodies including 276 children. Jones had chosen to blow his own brains out with a pistol. It was one of the largest mass suicides in recorded history.

1996 Earlier a recognized authority on endangered animals, Andrew Silva, had been put on trial for capturing and attempting to sell 14 Hyacinth Macaws. These beautiful birds are among the rarest in the world. It is estimated that there were only 2,000 existing. Silva had made many speeches and held seminars on preserving endangered species. But he was convicted primarily because of photos of some of the Macaws that had died during transport to the United States. The photos were taken by law enforcement at Silva’s home. On this date Silva was sentenced by an outraged judge who threw the book at Silva. He sentenced Silva to seven years in prison without the possibility of early release, fined him $100,000 and two years of supervised probation at the end of the prison sentence and 200 hours of community service. The flabbergasted Silva was speechless while the courtroom exploded into wild applause. Silva could have profited more than a million dollars had he been able to sell the birds. It just goes to show you that almost anyone’s commitment has a price tag.

1940 Earlier the president of Italy, Benito Mussolini, after having joined with Hitler in a non-aggression pact, decided to invade and capture the country of Greece. The signing of the pact with Hitler made them allies in the now increasing World War II. On this date the attack on Greece begins. Mussolini was an idiot. Even his chief of staff did not know of the attack until it was already underway. Mussolini believed that Greece could be conquered in a matter of days. Hitler had warned Mussolini against invading Greece because, as with most countries, the native Greeks will fight as hard as they can to protect their home land and it would give the English a reason to invade Greece and drive out the Italians. If Great Britain gained an airfield in Greece, it would be only a hop, ship and a jump to the Romanian oil fields near Ploesti where Hitler was getting most of his petroleum to fight the war. Needless to say, Hitler was furious and sure enough the Greeks got together and ran the Italians out of Greece in short order and had them cornered and it looked like annihilation. But Hitler sent in some paratroopers and bailed them out.

1863 On this date Abraham Lincoln boarded a train to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He is going there to make “a few appropriate remarks” the next day at the dedication of the National Cemetery there (been there) where the Union dead were buried after the great battle in July of that year. Lincoln got up and delivered one of the most electrifying speeches ever uttered using 226 words. Here it is:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us...from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

        If that does not bring a tear to your eye, you don’t have a heart.

                Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow