Musings
and History
Quote
of the day:
“If
you ask me the three scariest things facing the human race is nuclear
war, global warming and Windows Vista.”
Dave
Barry
Trivia
question of the day:
When
Harry Truman and family were living in the Blair House across the
street from the White House while it was being remodeled a team of
assassins tried to storm the house but were stopped by the guards on
duty. The assassins were not from the United States...where were
they from?
In
my last lesson I mentioned that Admiral Husband Kimmel, the commander
of the US Naval Fleet in Pearl Harbor, and General Walter Short the
US Army commander in Pearl Harbor were stood before a court martial.
That is not correct. The whole event was examined by a Congressional
Committee and Kimmel and Short were relieved of their command and
found derelict in their duties. Admiral Kimmel was also reduced to
his permanent rank of Rear Admiral. Later on these charges were
found to be wrongly administered but it was too late then. In the
military, unlike Congress, when things go wrong they begin chopping
at the top.
Back
in about 2002 I took a job in Charlotte as a job shopper. The
project was a new one for the United States. This project came as a
result of a disarmament treaty the US signed with Russia whereby a
number of nuclear armed missiles would be disassembled by both
sides. The problem was what the hell are we going to do with the
weapons grade Plutonium? This stuff is nothing to fool around with,
it is very toxic and long lasting. The French had been using a
system of mixing depleted Uranium with weapons grade Plutonium in the
right ratio and arrived at a nuclear power plant fuel that was
manageable. This is what the project I was on was all about. With
the help of French engineers we were going to design a building and a
system to combine this mixture in the right ratio, cook it into a
pellet the right size to be used in a nuclear power plant. This
process took an enormous amount of piping and strict rules about how
close together they could be. The plant was to be built on the SRS or
the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC but the initial design work
was done on the 14th
floor of the First Citizen's bank on the corner of Tryon and 4th
in downtown Charlotte. That was in 2002 plus or minus. I found out
yesterday that the plant is still being worked on in SRS and they are
not complete. That is 14 years this project has been underway and
not completed. It is known as the MOX project and is your tax
dollars at work.
This
Date in History December 20
1862
On this date Confederate General Earl Van Dorn made a successful
raid on US General Ulysses Grant’s supply depot in Holly Springs,
Mississippi. Grant was on his way to Vicksburg, Mississippi to
capture this final Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River.
Grant was approaching Vicksburg from the east and US General William
Sherman was approaching from the north. This two pronged attack
depended greatly on being supplied on a regular basis. The
Confederates knew they could not survive a coordinated attack but
they also knew that the Yankees needed their supplies. The
Confederates decided to send Van Dorn with a fairly large cavalry
unit from Grenada, Mississippi up to Holly Springs. Van Dorn easily
ran off the small US infantry unit that was protecting the depot. He
gathered up as many supplies that he could carry off and destroyed
the rest. This attack caused Grant to delay the attack on Vicksburg
until more supplies could be brought in. This was the high point in
Van Dorn’s military career because he had been defeated in his last
two engagements. Van Dorn was a notorious boozer and womanizer and
five weeks from this date he was caught in bed with a married woman
and her husband unceremoniously shot and killed him.
1860
On this date the South Carolina state legislature voted to secede
from the United States in protest of the election of Abraham Lincoln
as President because Lincoln was a Republican. This political party
was formed in 1850 for the sole purpose of the abolition of slavery.
Soon after South Carolina’s secession, six other states seceded and
they formed the Confederate States of America. After the first shots
were fired, four other states joined the Confederacy.
1986
On this date three black men were driving from Brooklyn to Queens,
New York when their car broke down. They walked several miles to the
predominantly Italian neighborhood of Howard Beach and went into a
pizza parlor to use a phone to call for help. They were told that
there was no phone available so they ordered a pizza. Afterward they
left and a gang of white teenager was waiting outside. The whites
attacked and one of the blacks ran out into the street and was struck
and killed by an automobile. One of the other blacks was able to run
away but the other was not and was severely beaten but survived.
This event stirred racial tensions in New York to a fever pitch that
attracted national attention. The Reverend Al Sharpton organized a
protest march and demanded a special prosecutor to look into this
outrage because the District Attorney of Queens could not be trusted
to be unbiased. Governor Mario Cuomo agreed and appointed Charles
Hynes as special prosecutor. Hynes finally was able to convict three
of the teenagers for the fatality. This was not the end of it. In
2005 three other black men were attacked by a group of white teenager
wielding baseball bats. Two of the men escaped unscathed but one was
beaten. Racial tensions flared again. The state of New York passed
severe penalties for hate-crimes and things calmed down…for a
while.
1987
On the day before the ferry Doma
Paz had
departed an Island near Leyte in the Philippines headed for Manila.
The ferry was rated for 1,400 passengers but the demand for the 375
mile trip was great since it was near Christmas so they crammed about
4,000 passengers aboard. After the ferry was out in the open most of
the veteran crew was drinking and watching TV with a rookie helmsman
at the wheel. The ferry was approaching a busy strait when the 8,000
barrel oil tanker Victor
loomed out of the darkness and the two ships collided and a violent
explosion and fire ensued. Rescue ships arrived on the scene but
were unable to get anywhere near because of the intense heat. There
were only 23 survivors mostly from the tanker. For weeks scorched
and burned bodies washed up on beaches up and down the Philippine
Sea. It was the worst marine disaster in history.
1836
On this date President Andrew Jackson introduced to Congress a
treaty that he had negotiated with Ioway, Fox, Sac, Sioux and Omaha
Indian tribes. The tribe had agreed to move to lands designated by
the US to make room for settlers. However, the US had negotiated
over 400 treaties with the Indians most of which were ignored or
broken by the US depending on the financial considerations. These
events are a black mark on the history of this great nation.
Born
today:
1902
Chicago mayor Richard Daley. He said “We shall reach greater
and greater platitudes of achievement.” Dick, you were a dumb-ass,
a very powerful dumb-ass, but still a dumb-ass.
Answer
to the trivia question:The assassins were from Puerto Rico. Puerto
Rico is a US possession and not a state.
Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
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