Friday

                              Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Dr. Seuss

Trivia question of the day:

Who was Martha Jane Cannary? Answer at the end of the blog.

                               Inca Empire

The Inca empire arose in the Andes mountains of Peru and Bolivia. The actual roots of this amazing civilization are still unknown and are included in some fables. One is that four brothers arose from Lake Titicaca in the Andes but only one survived. He fashioned a staff out of gold and one day jammed it into the ground and that spot eventually became the capitol of the Inca empire...Cuzco, Peru. Their empire eventually covered 2,500 miles from Bolivia to Chile' and they reached their peak in the middle 1,400's. They had entire gardens with full sized models of animals and people made of pure gold and silver. The floors of their temples were pure gold. It is unknown if they had iron and steel but their benchmark was their masonry. They were able to modify stones weighing tons into smooth matching sides so precise that mortar as not required when building structures or walls. The joints were so close that a sheet of paper could not be inserted. Their methods of cutting and polishing of gigantic stones so precise is not known to this day. They were able to build about 14,000 miles of roads that were paved in stone. Their supreme accomplishment was the founding and building of the city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes mountains. This city was built of the typical carved and polished stones after the peaks of several mountains were leveled. To provide food they had farm animals and built a network of terraces to raise crops. There is a water system there that is flowing to this day that was able to provide 20 gallons of water a day to each of the residents.

Keep in mind that there is no evidence that the Inca had the wheel nor a written language. Their cousins the Maya did not have the wheel either but the Maya had a written language of sorts similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. They both knew about the wheel because toys found in tombs were wheeled but the were no draft animals available in Mexico nor the Inca Empire and therefore the wheel was not used.

The Machu Picchu site was abandoned about 1530AD with the arrival of the Spanish...and smallpox from which they had no natural immunity. Eventually the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived and subjugated the diminutive Inca and discovered the dazzling amount of gold and silver. They discovered one Inca complex where no matter where they dug on a particular mountain they found silver ore. They enslaved the Inca to mine that area to exhaustion. For over 150 years the Spanish smelted the gold and silver into coins and bars and took them to the Pacific coast on mule trains. From there Spanish ships took the booty to Panama (present day Panama City) and then it was taken across the isthmus by mule train to the Caribbean (present day Portobelo) where Spanish cargo and war ships awaited to take it back to Spain. Eventually the Spanish depleted the Inca Empire of its riches and its people but their buildings and monuments still stand as a testimony to their greatness.

It is amazing for me to comprehend how one particular tribe on the entire continent of South America decided to achieve more than a day to day existence and to manufacture this yellow and silver metal into works of arts and engineer buildings of enormous complexity.

How did they engineer that without a written language? There is no question that the blueprint for the construction of these buildings and walls had to be in someone's mind. So did the idea of shaping the stones in a fashion that they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The projects had to be joint efforts with many others involved...how was the imagination and plans transferred from the dreamer to everybody else? How was individual labor assignments achieved? What tools were used to cut gigantic granite blocks into a predetermined size and shape and then the matching surfaces polished into a mirrored finish? They had to have a method of measuring distance but there is no evidence of it. How were the blocks moved and lifted? There is no evidence that they had knowledge of the basic Archimedian machines like the lever and fulcrum, screw, inclined plane, etc. I have no answers here, but there is nothing like their achievements within 1,000 miles, they did it alone with no influence from anywhere else...or did they? The unanswered questions here lead me toward the possibility that they were visited by creatures with the engineering skills to make all of this happen. I invite you to look into the archaeological site of Puma Punku, it is also in the land of the Inca. I think you will find it incredulous.

               This Date in History August 10

1977 On this date the NYPD arrested a beast named David Berkowitz. This animal had gained the nickname of “Son of Sam” from the signature on his writings during his year of terror administered to the people of New York City. He decided to start murdering people because his neighbor’s dog, a black Lab named Harvey, had told him that it was time for him to kill. The owner of the Lab was a man named Sam Carr and that is where Berkowitz got “Son of Sam” as a sobriquet. He was known to be responsible for at least 15 killings and that many more wounded. This seems very lucky because he used a .44 Magnum revolver. The NYPD organized a group of detectives known as the Omega Group whose sole purpose was to capture “Son of Sam”. The police got a break when a witness told the police that she saw a man similar to the description in the newspapers near the location of one of the shootings. She also said that she saw the police writing parking tickets there also. The police back tracked the parking tickets and came up with David Berkowitz whose car had been ticketed. It was just a day or two later that he was arrested. He happily admitted to the murders and when the police captured him coming out of his apartment, he said that he was on his way to kill some more. They found a 30.06 rifle and a .44 caliber revolver in his car. Ballistics proved that it was his revolver that had fire at least six of the fatal shots. He was tried, convicted and given six twenty-five to life sentences. He will not see the light of day again. Like I have said in the past, let me designate the penalty for monsters such as this. I promise that crime would decrease precipitously.

1981 On this date the head of six year old Adam Walsh is found in a swamp in Florida. Little Adam had been kidnapped from a shopping mall about a week earlier. Two years later two career criminals named Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole confessed to and then recanted the murder of Adam. Adam’s father John became an advocate of anti-crime and initiated a TV show called America’s Most Wanted. As all of y'all know the show featured a variety of criminal that were on the loose or had escaped law enforcement. The show was very successful and was responsible for the capture of over 1,000 criminals at large including Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. These two met in a soup kitchen in Jacksonville, Florida and drifted across the US randomly killing together or individually. They admitted to hundreds of killing but the police believe that they exaggerated but they also believe that they are responsible for about 100 murders. It is not known for sure if these two killed little Adam but they will never see daylight again. Again, I can assure you that some of the unspeakable methods of torture I read about during the Spanish Inquisition would be appropriate for these animals.

Born today:

1913 US Physicist Wolfgang Pauli. After reading a paper authored by a colleague he said “This isn’t right, it isn’t even wrong.” Wolfie would dance around on occasion.

1928 US singer Eddie Fisher. He said “Yes Debbie Reynolds (his ex-wife) is like the girl next door if the girl next door is selfish, self-centered, driven and an untruthful phony.”

Answer to the trivia question.

Martha Jane Cannary was better known as “Calamity Jane” in the old west. It was said of her that she could “drink, fight, shoot and cut” with any man. Born in Princeton, Mo. and died near Deadwood, SC of severe alcoholism at the age of 51. She was a personal friend of Wild Bill Hickok

            Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow