Tuesday

                         Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Equal opportunity means that everyone will have a fair chance at proving their incompetence.”

                                            Laurence Peters

The English language is a montage of words from many different sources, here is some examples:

“That is a real Doozie.” Doozie is the street name for an automobile named Dusenberg. At one time it was the fanciest and most expensive car on the planet and was favored by Hollywood movie stars.

“There is a “hurricane” just east of the windward islands.” The Mayan god of storms is Huracan.

“That fluid is toxic.” or “Sarin is a toxin.” According to Greek mythology in a fit of madness Hercules (Heracles in Greek) killed his wife and children. The punishment given by the Gods was eight “labors” or tasks considered to be impossible for the common man and a hell of a challenge for a super human like Hercules. The second of his tasks was to destroy the Lernean Hydra. This critter had the body of a giant snake with nine heads (the number of heads varied with different versions) all of which could deliver a poisonous bite. The hard part was when you cut off one of the heads another one immediately replaced it...the Hydra was considered impossible to kill. This critter was so vile that even its breath and its blood could kill. Hercules waded into battle with his gigantic sword in one hand and a torch in the other. He would cut off one head and immediately cauterize it so another one would not sprout. He eventually was able to slay the Hydra. Since the blood of the Hydra was poisonous Hercules decided to dip the points his arrows into the blood of the Hydra. He also had the most powerful bow in the world...Hercules had named his bow TOXUS. Toxin and toxic are refugees from this Greek mythological tale.

Here is another one:

In Greek mythology there was a war for control of the universe between the god Cronus (Kronus) and his son Zeus (Dios). Cronus had the Titans and his allies and Zeus had the Olympians as his. Cronus was losing the war primarily because Zeus had control of lightning so Cronus unleashed his mightiest Titan which was the god of war...named TYPHON. It is from this that we arrive at typhoon.

       This Date in History   September 19

1966 Twenty-two scientists including several Nobel laureates sent President Lyndon Johnson a letter advising against the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam because of the risk of several elements in the chemical that could adversely affect human and animal life. The House Republicans send LBJ a “white paper” advising that the US was getting too deep into the war in Nam and it was affecting the economy adversely. United Nations Secretary-General U Thant sent LBJ a letter advising him to re-think the US involvement in Vietnam. And finally Pope Paul VI suggests that a Catholic encyclical should be issued against the US getting involved what was considered by his holiness to be a civil war. LBJ responded by sending swarms of B-52’s, F-105’s, F-4’s and several types of naval aircraft to bomb the dog shit out of several targets north and south of the DMZ. This is a prime example of the old adage “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. And finally “When enough people tell you that you are sick, you had better lie down.” LBJ was a hardheaded dude. There is no doubt in my mind that worry over the Vietnam War killed him.

1955 Argentina President Juan Peron is deposed by a military coup. You know, you see a lot of that in Central and South America. I guess it is their blood to change Presidents once in a while no matter what. Peron went into exile in Spain. Two years before this event Peron’s wife Eva died from cancer. Eva, known affectionately as Evita, was loved by the working class because while she was married to Peron she fostered many changes for the working class making their lives more tolerable and she was a damn good looking woman too. Y'all know about the musical “Evita” that more or less depicted Eva’s life. Later on Peron is re-elected President of Argentina and by this time he has a new wife named Isabel. In 1974 Peron died and Isabel assumed the Presidency but the Argentine Air Force said “I don’t think so” and is deposed by a, you guessed it, military coup. Argentina suffered under this brutal administration until they were kicked out by a…you know.

1900 Robert Parker and Harry Longabough robbed a bank in Winnemucca, Nevada together. Y’all may not know these guys but they were also known as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. In his youth Parker took his name Butch Cassidy in honor of a neighbor that taught him the ways of the gun. Longabough took the name Sundance because that the name of the town whose jail he spent a lot of time at for horse thievery. They both were members of the loose group known as the Hole in the Wall gang which got its name from a secret hideout in the mountains of Colorado. The Pinkerton detective agency was hired by the railroads to stop these two from robbing trains and was on their asses constantly. It got so bad that Butch, Sundance and a woman named Etta Place moved to South America and started knocking over banks in Argentina. The Argentinians were not amused and chased them out and they went to Bolivia and did some honest work for a while until their identities were discovered. It is reported that Butch and Sundance were killed in a shootout in San Vicente, Bolivia. The rumor persists that Butch escaped and spent his last years peacefully on a ranch in Nevada. Nothing was ever heard from Etta Place again. An interesting mystery.

1827 Jim Bowie got into duel in Alexandria, Louisiana and the weapon of choice was knives. For the first time Jim revealed the knife that bears his name and after being shot several times and stabbed with a sword he disemboweled his banker opponent. There were a lot of fights in those days but Jim and his brother Rezin had way more that normal. It is almost a certainty that Jim did not invent the famous knife but it was probably his brother Rezin who was severely wounded earlier in a knife fight and decided that he needed a knife that would cut both directions, had the weight of a hatchet and a sharp point to stab with and voila, the Bowie knife. There was a rumor that the knife was made with a piece of a meteorite making it “out of this world” which was untrue. Jim died at the Alamo in 1836 and Rezin died in New Orleans in 1841.

Born today:

1851 English writer Henry Arthur Jones. When speaking of George Bernard Shaw he said “He is a freakish homunculus germinated outside lawful procreation.” I had to go the dictionary here.

1911 English writer William Golding. He said “Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out of your mind like a dustpan in a high wind.” What a thought.

1974 US comic Jimmy Fallon. He said “Sometimes I wish I had a bad childhood. That might explain my Looney Tunes behavior.” Jimmy was a regular on Saturday Night Live and now has a late night show replacing Jay Leno.

Died today:

1881 US President James A. Garfield. He said “I have had a lot of trouble in my life but the worst never came.” This is a good philosophy for all of us. If you don't acknowledge the worst then it never happens.

              Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow