Monday

                             Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Architects are people that don't like open fields.”

                          Mike Harding

I tend to think mechanically as most men do. Like “If this is this, then that has to be that”. This is why I know without a doubt that there is a God. Here is a reasoning:

Ever since recorded history we know that people believe in an afterlife. The very first record of people's thoughts come from the “Fertile Crescent” or the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers between present day Baghdad and Basra. These people were the first to develop a written language and left a record. Even in the burial sites in ancient China the dead were left with accouterments to help them in their “journey”...and so did the Egyptians, North Africans, Eastern Europeans, Vikings and nearly every Native American tribe in North and South America along with the Polynesians, Aborigines, Maoris, Asians and many others. How did this seed of thought that there is an afterlife get distributed universally? It could be said that the Sumerians could have influenced the middle east and north Africa including Egypt. The Sumerians certainly could NOT have had an influence in the Americas and the Orient and yet the belief exists...How? Where does the instinct toward survival come from? Nearly any animal both warm and cold blooded will fight for their lives once they realize they are in danger. Even one celled animals will retreat from fire. Human's are born with an innate fear of falling. Once a baby is tossed in the air for a split second fear will show on its face and its little arms will stretch out trying to grab something. Nearly all beings on this planet both plant and animal will change its size, shape, behavior and demeanor to cope with changes in its environment to survive. Some are successful some are not, those that don't go extinct but the need to adapt is inborn whether consciously or not. Think about reproduction like cell division, sperm and egg, pollen and stamen, etc. All of this requires engineering and pre-planning...it cannot be happenstance, y'all. There has to be a prime cause and effect behind all of this...there must be a chief architect, there has to be a God. If one uses rock-ribbed reasoning here it will require a leap of faith to NOT believe there is a God...logic says there is.

                This Date in History   October 23

The 1^st Cavalry division launches Operation Silver Bayonet in an attempt to drive the North Vietnamese Army out of II corps (Central Highlands) in Vietnam. They met up with the North Vietnamese 33^rd and 66^th regiments. It was a week long bitter struggle and ended up being one of the bloodiest of the War. The fleeing North Vietnamese Army decided to make a stand and protect one of their supply depots on the La Trang Valley. This three day battle with the 7^th Cavalry engaged was the most savage of the operation. The final result was 834 North Vietnamese killed on this battlefield alone. In a related attack, 500 NV soldiers fell upon a company of American Soldiers waiting at a landing zone and were annihilated. The final result of this operation was 1771 North Vietnamese and 241 Americans/South Vietnamese killed.

1864 CSA Gen. Sterling Price attacks US Gen. Samuel Curtis’ infantry unit near Westport, Missouri. Price had entered Missouri from Arkansas and had raided several small Union detachments before reaching Westport in an attempt to draw away some of the Union forces from the Eastern theater. The war was not going well for the Confederacy and President Jefferson Davis ordered Price to try and spread out the Union Army. Price’s attack on Westport went well at first but he was unaware of US Gen. Pleasanton’s cavalry was closing in fast from another direction and he was going to be trapped and possibly forced to surrender. Price orchestrated a skillful withdrawal and escaped. The exhausted Union units failed to follow but if they had, the war would have been over sooner. There were about 1,500 casualties on both sides but this represented about 10% to the Union forces but 20% to Price. As usual, the Confederates were outnumbered about 2 to 1.

42BC One of the conspirators in the assassination of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus, commits suicide after losing the 2^nd battle of Philippi. Brutus and Cassius had formed an army in an attempt to reinstitute the Republic of Rome rather than an empire which was the reason for the assassination. They were opposed by Octavian and Marc Antony who wanted to preserve the empire. This was the same Marc Antony that got hung up with Cleopatra. Anyway, the first major engagement between these two armies was at Philippi at which Octavian and Antony defeated the army lead by Cassius and Cassius committed suicide. Then came the 2^nd Battle at Philippi and with Brutus in command and he was defeated also and committed suicide. After a while Octavian and Marc Antony started squabbling and they split up with Octavian taking the crown under the name of Augustus and the rest is history.

1983 A coward pig sucking Arab drive an explosive laden truck through three blockades into the lobby of a hotel in Beirut, Lebanon and lights it off destroying the hotel and killing 241 American military personnel that had been using the hotel as a barracks. We had troops there to try and stop the civil war that had been raging for some time between the Palestinians and the Christian militia for the control of Lebanon. I have an acquaintance in Greenville that is an immigrant from Lebanon and was a member of the Christian Militia. His solution for the war in Iraq is a simple one. Get rid of the media and take care of business, meaning kill any and all suspected insurgents wholesale giving no quarter. That means take no prisoners. I like it.

1942 Author Michael Crichton is born in Chicago. Mike evidently was from a pretty affluent family because he graduated from Harvard Summa Cum Laude. After this he went to Cambridge in England and taught anthropology. In the mean time he had turned out some fairly successful books and decided that writing was his calling and started doing it full time. This man cranked out some of the best books ever written by a modern day American author in: “Andromeda Strain”, “The Terminal Man”, “Congo”, and “The Great Train Robbery”. He wrote and directed the movies: “Binary”, “Westworld”, “Jurassic Park” and “Rising Sun”, at one point in 1993 he had four books on the best seller list. He is a very wealthy man and deservedly so.

Births and deaths:

1869 US Football coach John Heisman, for which the trophy is named, is born. John once said “It is better to die as a young man than to fumble”. He was a hard man.

1920 The Mayor of Philadelphia John Rizzo is born. John once said “A conservative is a liberal that just got mugged the night before.” I concur.

1976 Actor Ryan Reynolds is born. John had to kiss an older woman as part of a movie scene. When asked about it he said “You have never had an experience until you have a mature tongue darting in and out of your mouth.” Indeed.

1942 English writer Anita Roddick is born. She once said “If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow