Friday

                             Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The movie Finding Nemo is based on the relationship that Bill Clinton had with the female White House interns.”

                                                    George Carlin

Trivia question of the day:

When the US Capitol was in Philadelphia John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin among others attended a Unitarian church pastored by Joseph Lister. What else was Joseph Lister noted for?

I have chosen to wait until this time to explore the horrible exploits of Todd Kohlhepp. This monster was a fairly successful real estate

entrepreneur and owned a 97 acre plot of land near Woodruff, SC which is in Spartanburg County. He lived in Duncan, SC near Greer, SC and is a registered sex offender. One day the Spartanburg Sheriff's department got a tip that they needed to investigate the above described acreage. When the deputies arrived they heard pounding on the wall of a small outbuilding with no windows and when they opened the door they found a 25 year old woman that was chained by the neck and feet. It was a woman that had been reported missing two months before. Along with the woman her boyfriend was missing also. The land owner Todd Kohlhepp was arrested and charged with kidnapping. The woman told the deputies that he had seen Kohlhepp shoot and kill her boyfriend. 13 years before the Spartanburg Sheriff's department was called to the Superbike Motorcycle shop in Chesnee, SC where there was the corpses of four murdered people. This case was never solved...until now. Detectives determined that it was Kohlhepp that has done the killing. They police used cadaver dogs and discovered two shallow graves one of which was the boyfriend of the chained woman...as of this writing the other corpse has yet to be identified. The police are convinced that Kohlhepp has murdered at least 7. He is in custody and charged with multiple murders. Thank God South Carolina has the death penalty.

I have told y'all this before...my uncle that was an Army Ranger in WWII and had been captured and tortured twice by the Germans. He came back home a different person. I asked him if he believed in the death penalty and said certainly not...but he said that he did believe in cruel and unusual punishment

            This Date in History   November 17

1558 On this date the Queen of England, Mary I died and the Elizabethan era of England begins with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I. England had been undergoing a lot of turmoil because of religion. Queen Mary was a Catholic and was trying all in her power to get the Pope involved in the politics of the English government and saw to it that laws were passed that were unabashedly pro-Catholic even though the greater majority of the English people were either Calvinists or Presbyterian. Elizabeth never married so that her power would have no chance of being diluted. She had at least two boyfriends, however. They were the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex. Elizabeth was a descendant of Henry VIII making her a Tudor and was a devoted Protestant. The people of England were pleased with the rise of Elizabeth because they thought she would be more tolerant of different religions and they were right. England moved into a time of religious tolerance and that eliminated much of the civil turmoil that had been present with Queen Mary. Elizabeth’s tolerance had a limit. When her half sister Mary, Queen of Scots was kicked out of Scotland because of her trying to take Scotland by force and came to be with her cousin Elizabeth, she let her stay in safety. The thanks that Elizabeth got was that Mary, Queen of Scots plotted to kill Elizabeth so she could take the crown, she was a descendant of Henry VIII also. Mary was a Catholic also and other Catholics in Europe wanted England to be ruled by Catholics. This indiscretion cost Mary, Queen of Scots her head. She was imprisoned for a while in Fotheringay Castle and then was taken out on the lawn to meet a big guy, in a black hood with a big axe. She went to meet her maker in two pieces. Elizabeth ruled during some of the most turbulent times in English history with the attempted invasion by Spain with Spanish Armada, but the Spanish were ground down to the bottom of the English Channel by one hell of a storm and the indefatigable British navy which sailed out of Southampton and Plymouth in ships that were designed for rough water and chopped those Spaniards into salsa. During her reign the British navy became recognized as the most powerful in the world. Eventually Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Drake on a voyage of discovery which resulted in a trip around the globe. She also sent Sir Walter Raleigh to the new world on a mission of discovery. She died in 1603 and was succeeded by Mary, Queen of Scot’s son, James VI of Scotland. James was a Protestant and at his coronation he was titled as James I, King of Great Britain. This was the first time in English history that England, Scotland and Ireland were ruled by one king. Elizabeth’s long and productive reign puts her as one of the greatest Monarchs in history.

1777 On this date the American Congress submits the Article of Federation to the states for ratification. It had taken 16 months of bickering to get to this point. Virginia and Maryland kept bickering over lands in their western sections that delayed ratification for 4 more years. Finally in 1781 the Articles of Federation were ratified. The Articles shown how much paranoia had been brought over from Europe by out ancestors. The Article were very specific about the independence and sovereignty of each state which essentially made each state it own little dukedom. Our ancestors were very afraid of anything that looked like a central Kingdom. Soon the shortcomings of this arrangement became obvious. We had to have a centralized government to control the economy, military and a common code of laws, etc. In 1798 we came up with our present Constitution and its attached Bill of Rights which is what we exist with today, to many, me included, this is the most important document in the history of mankind. It describes our method of government (a republic) and a strong central government but protecting the rights of the individual citizen. It was a carefully crafted and well thought out instrument by a group of brilliant men that had to be at this place in this point in time not by accident but by design. To me it is ludicrous to assume that the presence of Thomas Jefferson, among others, in this time period as being a random event. The United States exists for a reason, what it is we don’t know...yet.

1863 Previously CSA General James Longstreet had left the Army of Northern Virginia, R.E. Lee commanding, to help shore up CSA General Braxton Bragg’s army near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Bragg was present at the siege of Chattanooga and the CSA victory at Chickamauga. Then he got into a quarrel with the inept Bragg and left headed back to Virginia and General Lee. Along the way he decided to besiege Knoxville, Tennessee to try to kick out the Yankees that were there. That siege began on this day. Longstreet called of the siege a week later and headed east and toward the Army of Northern Virginia and General Robert E. Lee.

Died today:

1888 Joseph Kennedy a US businessman and father of a president. He said “If you want to make money, go to where the money is.” Many called him a bootlegger and he did indeed bring illegal whiskey into America during prohibition. But he made most of his money by buying huge amounts of Scotch and put it in railroad cars and let it sit in Scotland during Prohibition and waited for it to be changed and when it did, he almost had a corner on the Scotch market.

Trivia answer:

Joseph Lister was also a scientist and is credited with discovering oxygen.

                Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow