Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“It
is a well documented fact that guys will not ask for directions.
This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million
sperm cells; each wriggling in their own direction, totally confident
it knows where it is going, to locate the female egg, despite the
fact that the egg, relative to them is the size of Wisconsin.”
Dave
Barry
Who
was the architect of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor?
Answer at the end of the blog.
Recent
events have once again proven that I have no concept of the working
of the female mind. When this one lady indicated to me that she had
a new boyfriend and she was not happy with her appearance, especially
being somewhat overweight. My response was that she could solve that
problem if she really wanted too. Then she said “So you think I am
fat.” From this point on is was a lose-lose situation for me. I
could not answer her without being wrong. I tried to
explain that it was she that indicated that her appearance was
suffering and I was just agreeing with her and offering a solution.
That was not what she wanted to hear. I found out what she wanted me
to say when she said “Am I not OK as is?” I was falling deeper
and deeper into this well of entrapment and had no way of escaping so
I abandoned that arena. She was looking for reassurance that she was
still attractive in spite of being a little overweight. That ain’t me. Ask
me a question and you will get an honest answer. I suppose that is
why I haven’t had a live-in partner for since 1994. I have had
several guys tell me that I needed to lose some weight because it is
not healthy especially since I am a diabetic. I appreciate their
concern and consider that as well intended advice from a friend.
Apparently not with the ladies, y’all. To you single and married
guys out there read this again and learn from it.
Up
in Charlotte an 86 year old woman had her arm broken a few days ago.
What happened was a woman knocked on her door and claimed that she
was a home care technician. The old woman let her in and the other
woman grabbed her purse and started for the door. The tenacious old
lady held on to the purse for dear life and was dragged out into
raging rain storm for her trouble. Her arm finally broke and the
intruder escaped, but not for long. The old lady picked the intruder
out of a photo array. It seems that the intruder just got out of the
joint after doing 10 year for doing the same sh-t that she did to the
old lady. By the way, the intruder had just applied for Government
supplied health insurance under Obamacare. I don’t think she will
need it now, it is free in the joint.
This
Date in History December 6
1941
A Japanese naval task force consisting of 6 aircraft carriers and
various other support vessels approach within 500 miles of the
Hawaiian Islands undetected. They plan to attack and neutralize the
United States Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. The plan of
battle is to attack in three waves consisting of about 360 fighter,
dive-bomber and torpedo planes. The American Naval experts believed
that ships in Pearl Harbor are safe from torpedo attack because of
the shallowness of the water. They were wrong. The Japanese wanted
to gain access to the rubber and oil in the Dutch East Indies and
perhaps even New Zealand and Australia without interference from the
American fleet. It was imperative that the Japanese gain this
territory if they were going to be able to continue their war of
expansion.
1776
In Williamsburg, Virginia a group of five students of the College
of William and Mary meet at Raleigh’s Tavern to hammer out a new
fraternal organization. They are pissed because of the constant
berating of the Colonists by the invading British. The British were
constantly beating their breasts about their early military victories
against “nothing but a poor band of ragamuffins.” The five
students plan to establish an organization that recognized scholastic
excellence and those with depth of character and Phi Beta Kappa was
born.
1865
On this date the 13th
Amendment to the constitution is ratified. With the passage of this
act slavery is abolished “in the United States and any territories
subject to its jurisdiction.” This Amendment did indeed end
slavery in the United States unlike the so-called Emancipation
Proclamation of 1863. This document supposedly freed the slaves “in
those states in rebellion.” Well, they were not states in
rebellion; they were the Confederate States of America, a separate
nation. Lincoln had originally based the military recruiting
campaign on the dogma of preserving the Union, but after the US army
received a succession of severe ass-kickings, the general opinion in
the North became “To hell with it, let them have their own country
just stop the slaughter.” This meant that Lincoln had to take a
new tack and chose the morality issue of slavery as a recruiting
basis. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free those
slave-holding states that were not in rebellion either. They were
Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. What about those slaves?
Lincoln did not want to abrade those states lest they secede and join
the Confederacy so he danced around that issue until the end of the
war.
1921
On this date the country of the Irish Free State comes into being.
For years, the Irish have been fighting for independence from
England and on this day it happens, almost. The people of the
northeastern corner of Ireland vote not to separate from England and
they became Northern Ireland. Shortly after this, an organization
known as the Irish Republican Army comes into being. These guys are
not going to have any part of a piece of Ireland staying as part of
Great Britain and they begin a guerrilla war with the British Army
that is still prevalent to this day. It is easy to understand why
this division happened. At the time of James I of England in the
early 1600’s, James had tired of the waspish Irish continually
battling with his armies and decided to dilute the Irish population
on the island and formed the province of Ulster in Ireland. Ulster
was made from five shires (counties) and made into a plantation.
James then brought Scottish lords and their mostly Presbyterian
tenant farmers over to establish the plantation. James forced the
Irish landowners to give up their lands in Ulster to the Scots. This
is the root of the problems in Northern Ireland to this day. James
made this move for two reasons. It put a large group of people on
this rebellious island that were Protestants and held fealty to the
King of England. The greater majority of the Irish was Catholic and
held fealty to their priests and the Pope. Not only that, the
Protestants was mostly members of the Church of England and was more
readily controlled by the Crown. The boundaries of Northern Ireland
are almost exactly what the boundaries of the Ulster Plantation. The
ancestors of those that King James sent to Ireland are still loyal to
the crown and are Protestants and friction between the Catholics and
Protestants abides to this day in that area. See, knowing a little
history make things that are happening today more clear.
The
answer to the trivia question:
The
architect of the Pearl Harbor attack was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
He was educated at Harvard and was aware of what industrial strength
the United States could produce and warned his superiors. He said “I
think all we will do is wake a sleeping giant.”
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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