Wednesday

                       Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The metric system did not catch on in the United States except for the increasing popularity of the 9 millimeter bullet.”

                                                Dave Barry

Trivia question of the day:

What member of European royalty ruled for the longest period? Answer at the end of the blog.

I have a friend that is having issues with his girlfriend. It is an old story that probably will never be resolved. For reasons he does not understand his girlfriend gets her feelings hurt and will not talk to him and ignores his attempts at communication. Eventually she will open an avenue of communication and things heal up. But my friend is tired of this roller coaster especially when she is upset with him and he does not have a clue why. I have heard this many times and it is my opinion that men see black and white and women see shades of gray. Men tend to be logical and women are spiritual. I do not have and answer but I can identify the problem. To quote Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke...”What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Due to recent mass murder events I researched a past deadly mass murder in the US here is the 2^nd worst after 9/11.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing using mixture of fertilizer and diesel fuel because they were incensed over the Waco massacre described below. 168 killed and 680 wounded. Both men were US citizens and military veterans. McVeigh was executed and Nichols is doing life without parole. Their religions are unknown.

Here is some thoughts about all of this. It is clear that all of these perpetrators were not of a rational mind and trying to prevent them from buying an “assault weapon” by background checks is ludicrous. There a hundreds if not thousands of undocumented Chinese made AK-47 type rifles out there meaning there is no evidence that they even exist. Anyone can go to Craig's list, classified ads in publications, gun shows, word of mouth and even steal to get nearly anything you want. For an attack in close quarters a 12 gauge shotgun with 0 or 00 shells will get the job done very well. After all, when someone is killed by a drunk driver no one blames the car.

Also passing a law eliminating the 2^nd Amendment is not the answer. I can assure you that if law enforcement sent out a notice in cities and towns like Cullman, Al., Eagle, Ak., Jackson Hole, Wy., Green Bay, Wi., Lakeland, Fl., and Greenville, SC saying that everyone must surrender their firearms the response would be predictable. Remember that the Battle of Bunker Hill happened because the ruling authority (Great Britain) came to disarm the American colonists in that area of Massachusetts.

                This Date in History   June 20

1782 On this date the Congress of the United States adopted The Great Seal. On the front of the seal is a bald eagle holding an olive branch in his right talons and arrows in his left. This represents that Congress has the power to work for peace or make war. There is a shield on his breast with red and white stripes with a blue field above. The eagle’s beak holds a ribbon with the phrase E pluribus Unum on it, this Latin for “Out of Many, One”. There is a ray burst on top of the eagle encircling 13 stars. One might think this represents the thirteen original colonies but it doesn’t. It represents the concept that a “new nation has joined the other countries of the world” as indeed we did.

1947 Benjamin Siegel was raised in the manner of most crime figures in Brooklyn, New York, when a teenager he and his friend Meyer Lansky initiated a protection racket on the local businesses that eventually blossomed into bootlegging and extortion. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel rose in power in organized crime and in the late 1930’s he was selected to open operations in Los Angeles and was given $500,000 start-up money. Bugsy jumped into the Hollywood scene and became well known to powerful people and movie stars for his all night parties at his mansion. Then WWII started and the attention of the American people focused on the war and not what Bugsy was selling. Bugsy instead chose to go to Italy and try to sell Mussolini explosives. The explosives did not perform and Bugsy came home empty handed. Then he had a brilliant idea. He noticed that every train coming to the west coast was full of soldiers and the trains all made a rest stop in the sleepy town of Las Vegas, Nevada where the local government turned a blind eye to petty crime and gambling was legal. Bugsy decided to open a gambling casino and borrowed $6,000,000 from New York organized crime headed by Lucky Luciano and opened the very first in the Flamingo. At first the Flamingo was not profitable and Lucky called in the $6,000,000 loan to Bugsy. Bugsy and Lucky argued bitterly and on this date, Bugsy was sitting on the couch in his girlfriend’s (Virginia Hill) apartment in Beverly Hills when two shots from a 30.06 came through a front window striking Bugsy in the head killing him instantly. This was the end of Benjamin Siegel. Almost at the same time, some of Luciano’s men walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were now in charge. Even Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano could never have imagined what this town became.

1905 On this date Lillian Hellman is born in New Orleans. Her family shuttled between New York and New Orleans and she attended New York University and Columbia but received a degree from neither. It became obvious that she was a gifted writer, especially screenplays. In 1925 she married screenwriter Albert Kober but divorced him a few years later. Then she chose to go to Russia and civil-war-era Spain supporting leftist causes. She eventually returned to the good ole USA and struck up tumultuous relationship with hard-assed detective novelist Dashiell Hammett. “Dash” was a very successful writer giving us the immortal “Maltese Falcon” that was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. The arguments between these two were legendary but there was no question they were in love. Then an egotistical horse’s ass showed up in Congress named Joe McCarthy. This jackass was a junior congressman from Wisconsin and he decided that everybody in federal government and each and everyone in the movie business were card carrying Communists. He became the chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee and ordered a series of hearings too root out all of those Commies. They really were not hearings, they were inquisitions where you came in guilty and had to prove your innocence and endure McCarthy’s demeaning questioning. As a result of these hearings, Dash went to jail and Lillian lost everything she had. After Dash’s release from prison he fell ill and Lillian cared for him until his death in 1961. Lillian began a teaching career that included Harvard, MIT and USC Berkeley. She died of a heart attack in Martha’s Vineyard in 1989. What talented person.

Answer to the trivia question:

The longest lasting ruler in history was King Louis XIV of France (the Sun King because of his love of the arts) at 72 years, 110 days.

BTW..If I read the news correctly, Queen Elizabeth II has stepped down in favor of Prince Charles. If so, she was Queen for 67 years. I was told by a person a lot more knowledgeable than I that the news above is just a rumor and has no basis I fact.

                 Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow