Tuesday

                         Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“War means young men die and old men talk.”

           Achilles in The Iliad by Homer

Speaking of bad taste, that reminds me of Randy Moss the ex-wide receiver for the Vikings. Moss has only been with the Vikings for a few weeks but he was released on waivers a few days ago. It seems that the coaches and the owners quickly tired of his abominable arrogance and constant whining. His obvious lack of effort in the game the week before cost the Vikings a victory. The final straw came when he walked into a catered buffet after Friday’s practice and said “Who ordered this f----g sh-t? I wouldn’t feed this to my f------g dog!” He then stormed out of the room. The next morning he was released. The restaurant that catered the buffet made up a special dinner for Saturday. The first 50 customers would get an $8.40 deduction from their bill if they donated a Randy Moss jersey. The jerseys would then be auctioned off and the money given to the local Boys and Girls Club. The $8.40 amount comes from Moss’ jersey number which is 84. There was only one team that offered to pick up Moss on waivers, the Tennessee Titans. Randy Moss is disgusting.

Down in Wilbur, Alabama a 27 year old man was arrested for cruelty to animals. This jackass was having sex with a miniature horse. The owner of the horse knew something was wrong. She went into the pen and the horse was sad with head down and tail up in the air. She saw blood coming from the horse and knew for sure something was not right. She called the cops and during the investigation they found a wallet in the pen with the horse. It was easy after that. The perpetrator lived about 5 miles from the stable. His excuse for the wallet being in the pen with horse was that he was chasing a deer that went into the pen with the horse and then jumped back out with him in pursuit. In addition to being perverted, he is a terrible liar.

         This Date in History November 8

1775 On this day US General George Washington began an attempt to absorb the militias in New England into the United States Army. Those obstreperous Yankees in the militias were even more prejudicial and any member of the Klan. Their militias were divided into men from different areas of a state and in some cases different neighborhood in the same city. They had no concept of cohesion of forces. They acted like the war was something like camping out. It was common knowledge that militias from Massachusetts saw no need to have militiamen from Rhode Island in their ranks. The Connecticut militias saw no need for militiamen from New York in their ranks, etc. Washington was in dire need of experienced military men, especially officers and the different militias had just that. The problem was the loyalty to their neighbors rather than their country. Not only that, the troops had no concept of sanitation and frequently and were sickened by it causing a loss of troops for Washington. Then Prussian officer Baron Von Steuben arrived on the scene and everything changed. He drilled the hell out those demoralized troops into a proud razor sharp fighting unit. He also taught the troops basic sanitation, like not camping downhill from a latrine. Those Yankees were used to living their own filth. Von Steuben had published a basic handbook of military procedures and codes and some of them are in use to this day. There is no question that Von Steuben was instrumental in the success of this great nation’s fight for independence.

1861 On this date a United States warship USS San Jacinto stopped and boarded the British mail ship the HMS Trent. They took two representatives from the Confederate States of America and imprisoned them in Philadelphia. Great Britain was not amused and sent a message to the United States stating that they would not abide this act of piracy and threatened war. The United States did nothing and England responded with sending 40,000 British troops to Canada. That got A. Lincoln’s attention and he ordered the two CSA representative released and a war with England was avoided. The United States would have been in deep doo-doo if they would have had to fight the British AND the Confederacy simultaneously.

1974 On this date one of the worst serial killers in American history botches an abduction. Ted Bundy went to a shopping center in Salt Lake City and walked up to a woman named Carol DaRonde and said that he was the police and her car had been involved in an accident and she needed to come with him to file a report. In spite of her misgivings she followed Ted to his VW. Once she got inside, Ted clapped some handcuffs on her and tried to hit her with a crow bar. Carol fought him off and leaped out of the car and escaped. She went to the Salt Lake City cops with this tale and they were very interested as was the Seattle police because they had several cases each of missing women. Bundy was arrested and spent several months in a Salt Lake jail but somehow eventually escaped. Ted resumed his trail of dead and missing women all across the United States. This monster was eventually captured in Pensacola, Florida but not before torturing and killing several Florida women. Ted finally was tried and convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. On January 24, 1989 with all of his appeals exhausted, Ted Bundy went to meet his maker medium rare after a rendezvous with “Old Sparky” the electric chair. On that night there was a large crowd just outside the fence where Ted was executed. They weren’t there to protest the death penalty; they were there barbecuing hamburgers, laughing and singing in celebration of the roasting of Ted. I like it.

1895 On this day a German scientist named Conrad Roentgen is experimenting with a cathode ray tube and notices that another cathode ray tube is lighting up just from being close to the active one. Roentgen could not figure out what the hell he had going but he knew there was some kind of radiation causing it so he called them x-rays. Further experiments showed that the rays could penetrate skin and flesh but could not penetrate hard substances like bone and metal. This monumental find made history in the world of diagnostic medicine. The scientists in the world were ecstatic with this new tool but did not know its dangers. After one of Thomas Edison’s assistants died of cancer after extended experiments with x-rays that it was found that x-rays taken in excess would kill your ass, probably by leukemia or a brain tumor. After that more stringent safety precautions were implemented. It would be impossible to say how many lives were saved with this discovery. Roentgen received the Nobel Prize for this contribution to science.

Births and deaths:

1975 One of the most evil and perverted people in the history of the world dies. German Dr. Josef Mengele died while swimming in the surf off the coast of Brazil. Mengele was a doctor at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. He conducted unspeakably horrible medical experiments, especially on children. After the war he somehow made his way to Paraguay where he lived for many years. His remains were not positively identified until 1985 with the use of DNA samples.

        Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow