Tuesday

                           Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I decided not to pursue a career in music because there is one phrase that has never been uttered 'There goes that banjo picker in his Rolls Royce.'”

                                                 Steve Martin

I am back reading the rise and fall of the human race and the differences. Why is it one group of people advance and flourish and others don't? The aborigines in Australia had been isolated for thousands of years before the British came. In that length of time they had not developed a system of writing, farming techniques, domestication of animals, etc. and were essentially the way they were in the stone age. In spite of the abundance of iron and copper ore they had not developed the use of metals. An example is a paleontologist that stayed in a small village and went out with the men looking for food. After traveling several miles they stopped at a few plants. The natives dug them up and retrieved a type of yam from the roots and then re-planted them in the same spot. Then they went to a grove of trees similar to date palms and gathered fruit off the ground. They said they had to clear out a lot of small shoots from around the trees to make it easier to pick up the fruit. The scientist asked them why didn't they move the yam producing plant closer to their village or transplant some of the shoots from around the date trees to a spot nearer the village and eventually they would have a grove of trees close by. They answered that it just did not occur to them.

Compare that with the Maya. They were isolated also and thrived only in southern Mexico and Central America for thousands of years. They had a system of writing (hieroglyphs), enormous buildings, roads, irrigation, selective breeding of different plants, especially corn and squash, and they did it without the wheel or draft animals. They knew about the wheel because toys have been found that were wheeled but without draft animals the wheel was essentially useless. I do not know why these differences happen...and neither does anyone else.

               This Date in History   May 16

1770 On this date the French dauphin (apparent heir to the throne) married Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy roman Emperor Francis I in the hopes of stopping the years long hostilities between Austria and France. In 1774 Louis XV the king of France died and the dauphin and his bride were crowned King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. From the git-go it was apparent that Louis XVI was not well suited to deal with the financial problems left to him by his grandfather Louis XV. Not only that, Queen Marie fell into disfavor because of her over-concern for the fortunes of her native Austria. Marie held more and more sway with her husband and she also was very extravagant and that alienated the royal couple from the struggling general population. In a legendary episode, Queen Marie was called to task because of her extravagance with jewelry and was told “How can you continue to buy jewelry when the peasants have no bread to eat?” Marie then said “No bread to eat, well let them eat cake.” There is controversy about this event ever happening but I would not doubt it. In the 1780’s the French Revolution began and Louis and Marie were counseled to make changes in the Monarchy to keep it from collapsing. Louis refused because the end result would be that he and Marie would end up a mere figureheads and the real power would be with those people elected. In 1791 the heat on Louis and Marie became so intense that they tried to escape to Austria but were caught in Varennes, France and brought back to Paris. Louis had no choice but to sign the French Constitution making the monarchy mere figureheads. In 1792 the Royal couple was arrested and imprisoned. The Monarchy was abolished. It was discovered that Louis and Marie had been consorting with the Austrians and officials of other governments to invade France and re-institute the monarchy. Both Louis and Marie were tried and convicted of treason and sentenced to death. On January 21, 1792 Louis steadfastly walked to the guillotine and was beheaded. On October 21, 1792 Marie daintily walked to the guillotine, leaned over the block, pulled her long hair to one side and the heavy blade fell thus ending the ruling Royal Monarchs in France forever. It was France that instituted the first democratic form of government in Europe where the people held sway, not Royalty. After the French Revolution the French adopted the motto of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”

1881 Earlier a man, and dyed in the wool loser, George Lyttle left Kentucky after trying several unsuccessful businesses headed to California. He was not anymore successful there than in Kentucky so he decided that there was a good living to be made robbing stage coaches and changed his name to Dick Fellows as an alias. Sure enough, he did indeed make a living at it, for a while. He felt the law closing in and decided to try an honest profession so he and his partner bought 600 hogs to raise but unfortunately, his hog barn caught on fire and killed all of his hogs. So he goes back to robbing stage coaches. He finds out that the chief of Detectives of Wells Fargo was on one particular stage and assumes that he is there because of the stage is carrying a lot of money and he is right. There was $240,000 in gold aboard. But he missed his chance when he was riding to meet the stage on a stolen horse and the horse bolted and threw poor Dick on his head knocking him unconscious for several hours. In the mean time, the stage passed by. Not to be outdone, Dick stole another horse and targeted yet another stage. He was successful in getting the extra heavy strong box but realized that he had forgotten to bring tools to open the box and tried to put the box on the horse but the horse said “no deal” and bolted and ran away leaving Dick stranded in the desert. Dick had no choice but to lug the strong box with him across the desert in the darkness. He fell down a ravine that he could not see and again knocked himself unconscious for the second time this day. When he awoke he found that he had a broken his left leg and the strong box had crushed his left foot. Dick limped into a construction camp and fashioned himself a pair of crutches and limped back to the strong box and with a stolen axe opened the box and retrieved $1,800. Not bad but not as good as the missed $240,000. Dick did not get very far with this loot and the Wells Fargo detectives sent him to San Quentin for eight years. On this date Poor Dick was released. Dick tried several things to make an honest living but finally resorted back to his old ways and began knocking over a few stage coaches. He again was captured and became a celebrity. In fact, while awaiting trial in the jail in San Jose he had 700 visitors. He finally was sentenced to life and was imprisoned in Folsom prison. He was pardoned in 1902 at the age of 62 and went back to Kentucky and faded from view. Say what you want, Dick was unlucky and pretty inept, but he was a daring fool.

                      Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow