Musing
and History
Quote
of the day:
“Music
hath the charm to soothe the savage beast, but bring a .357 revolver
with you just in case.”
Josh
Billings
Here
is another event that shows I am here for a reason:
I
was a based in Greenville, Mississippi while in the USAF. That base
has since closed. Greenville is on the Mississippi river and has
docks and piers. Just north of Greenville is an oxbow lake. It is a
lake that was formed when the river changed course and was full of
pan fish like shell cracker and bream. I decided to go fishing and
headed out for a fish camp that was on a levee bordering the lake. I
was driving my '51 Ford. While on the levee headed north a ferocious
thunderstorm arose and it rained harder than I had ever seen before
or since. The water in the lake rose rapidly and was running across
the levee into a swamp. I stopped before I reached the overflow and
took a look. It did not look that bad to me so I decided to cross.
I was wrong...it washed me and my '51 off the road into the swamp.
The car was on its right side nose down and was filling with water
rapidly. Somehow I was able to get the driver side door open and
crawl back up the levee to the top. I should have been killed for
being so stupid. The fish camp was in sight and I walked up there
and explained the situation to one of the people there. They called
a wrecker and found out I had a long wait...so I went fishing.
This Date in
History March 6
1857
On this date the United States Supreme Court handed down one of
the most infamous decisions ever made in the history of
jurisprudence. It seems that a US Army doctor had a slave name Dred
Scott that traveled with him on his various military assignments.
Two of these assignments were in state of Illinois and the Territory
of Wisconsin. These two were “free” states by what was called
“popular sovereignty”. Popular sovereignty meant that before a
state or a territory could become part of the United States they had
a vote of the residents to whether they wanted to be a “free”
state or a “slave” state. Both Illinois and Wisconsin had voted
to be Free states. Dred Scot sued that since he had lived as a
resident of both states he should be granted his freedom. The United
States Supreme Court ruled that the United States Constitution did
not recognize Negroes as human beings and therefore Dred Scot would
remain the property of the US Army officer, popular sovereignty not
withstanding and on top of that there were many free blacks already
living in Illinois and Wisconsin. Well, all this did was throw fuel
to the fire of secession and Civil War which erupted 4 years later.
The Supreme Court had been stacked with five southerners along with
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney being a supporter of slavery. This
decision threw a big monkey wrench into the Republican Party whose
only reason for its existence was the abolition of slavery. About
this time Kansas and its next door neighbor Missouri entered the
Union with Kansas being a free state and Missouri being a slave
state. Everyone knew that trouble would be a-brewing there pretty
soon. They were right.
1951
The espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg began on this
day. Julius and Ethel were nuclear scientists at the Los Alamos
nuclear Laboratory where atomic bombs were formulated. During the
“Red Scare” days where the US government feared that there was a
communist saboteur/spy behind every tree, and Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg were fired for being Communists as indeed Julius was.
Julius and Ethel in their anger got together with a machinist in the
laboratory name David Greenglass and recruited him to be a “mule”
smuggling atomic secrets out of the Laboratory and sell them to the
Russians. The Rosenbergs had already made the deal with the Russians
through a Russian named Martin Sobell. Greenglass in turn hired a
man named Harry Gold to make the actual exchange of the secrets for
the money. The trial lasted nearly a month and ended with all four
being convicted. The Rosenbergs got the death penalty even though
they could not be accused of treason because we were not at war with
the Russians. Sobell got thirty years and Greenglass got fifteen.
Soon after all of this Russia detonated its first nuclear device and
acknowledged that they had constructed the weapon with information
partially provided by the Rosenbergs. The Rosenbergs were offered
life in prison if they would confess; they did not and fulfilled
their destiny with a visit to “Old Sparky” and went to meet their
maker extra crispy.
1475
On this date one of the greatest creative geniuses in history is
born. Michelangelo Buanorrati is born in the small Italian town of
Caprese. His father was a minor government official and had close
ties with the powerful Italian Medici family. The Medici family was
famous sponsors of the arts, especially in Florence. Michelangelo
became an artist’s apprentice at the age of 13. He spent two years
in the Medici palace studying sculpture under the master sculptor
Bertoldo de Giovanni and also studied the Medici family collection of
other Italian sculptures. He eventually grew into the genius that we
all recognized today. His first major creation was the sculpture
“Pieta” in marble showing a dead Jesus lying across the lap of
his mother Mary. This work was commissioned by the French ambassador
to the Holy See, Michelangelo was 24 years old. But I guess his most
famous works were the statue of David and the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel in the Vatican. Both of which were commissioned by Pope
Julius II. There is little question that painting the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel was by far the most difficult. Not only did he have
to paint lying on his back, he had to had to paint his creations in
the correct proportions on a curved surface, no easy trick. The
majority of the Sistine Chapel was a dome. Michelangelo was very
prodigious in anything he attempted, be it painting, sculpture,
sketches or drawings. It would repetitive for me to list all of this
great artist’s works. Just suffice it to say there has never been
anyone like him before or since. He was a man for all the ages.
What is eerie is that he, Leonardo da Vinci and the artist Rafael all
lived at the same time in the same city (Florence) at one time or
another. Michelangelo died in Rome at the age of 89 leaving a trail
of works of art that probably will never be equaled in history. The
world is a more beautiful place because of him.
1987
On this date the car ferry “Herald of Free Enterprise” was
preparing to leave Zeebruge, Belgium (been there) for a cross channel
trip to Dover, England. The fairly large vessel was loaded with 543
people, 84 cars and 36 trucks. It had been the practice in the past
for the ferry to back away from the dock with the front clam shell
doors still open and would closed them as it was turning around to
head out to sea. The ferry normally would take on an inconsequential
amount of water in this process. But on this day, the crewman that
was responsible for closing the clam shell doors was asleep, I SAID
ASLEEP, Y’ALL. When the ferry got turned around and was headed out
to sea, the water pressure on the doors was so heavy that they could
not close and soon the bilge and lower deck was flooded and when
everybody on board went to one side to see what the hell was
happening, the ship rolled upside down trapping all that were on the
lower decks and throwing those on the upper decks into the sea. In
all 186 people were drowned even if they were less than 100 yards
from land. It took marine rescuers four days for them to retrieve
all the bodies that were trapped under the ship. The ships company
was found guilty “top to bottom with sloppiness”. As you might
expect, new safety regulations were written for ferry operations.
You know, like closing the barn door before the horse escapes.
Born
today:
1936
Washington mayor Marion Barry, Jr. He said “I am going to
provide you with a copulation of answers to several questions.” It
is compilation Marion, compilation for crying out loud.
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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