Thursday

                          Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The difference between Catholics and Jews is the Jews are born with guilt and Catholics have to go to school to learn it.”

                                              Elaine Boosler

Trivia question of the day:

The name on the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was “Enola Gay”. What was the name on the bomber that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki? Answer at the end of the blog.

I saw that several celebrities are saying that Donald Trump is unbalanced, one of them was Charlie Sheen, for crying out loud. Here is an icon in bizarre behavior criticizing someone elses. I would like to see a show of hands of those that are fed up with stupid sports figures and people in the entertainment industry using their celebrity to expound upon their political opinion. That's what I thought...me too.

I was watching a national Geographic program about where the first humans came from to North America. The generally accepted version is that they came from Siberia across the Bering Sea land bridge and then down an ice free corridor across Alaska and Canada during the last ice age. The Bering Sea land bridge happened because of much of the oceans water was frozen making the seas much shallower. The peculiar thing is that there has never been a skeleton found to date in North America that was older than 13,000 years old. Also, the ice free corridor mentioned only existed for about 500 years so we know about when this immigration took place. At the same time there was a solid ice sheet a mile thick extending from Scotland to the vicinity of Nova Scotia and Maine. It has been suggested that ancient man traveled in boats from Europe to North America earlier than the Siberians by sailing close to the edge of the ice subsisting on the plentiful game and fish that existed there.  Paleontologists have found spear heads in different areas around the Chesapeake Bay that are more sophisticated than those found in the Texas/New Mexico area. This would indicate that the people that made the spearheads in the Chesapeake area had been doing it longer than those out west and therefore had been living there longer. This also indicates that North America was populated by at least two sources. Scientists have found that the DNA from the Chesapeake area ancient skeletons is indeed different from ancient skeletons found in the western US. It is an interesting mystery to me.

A while back over in Spartanburg, SC the trial of Anthony Briggs ended with he being sentenced to life without parole PLUS 15 years to run concurrently. What did Tony do? While living with his girlfriend he sexually abused his girlfriend’s five year old daughter. The prosecution only presented one witness and that was the testimony of the little girl while being interviewed by a child psychologist. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind, including the jury, that Tony was guilty. There is not much worse punishment than life in a South Carolina prison especially if you are a child molester.

            This Date in History   August 30

30BC On this date the infamous Cleopatra of Egypt committed suicide. Cleo was hell on wheels, y'all. She was not Egyptian but a descendant of a Macedonian (Greek) general named Ptolemy that was left in charge of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 323BC as he was passing through on his way east. Cleo was a dual ruler with her brother Ptolemy XIII after the death of their father Ptolemy XII. It was not long before Cleo and her brother got fed up with each other and a civil war erupted. Strangely, the most powerful nation on the planet was in the throes of civil war also and that was Rome. The civil war in Rome left Pompey the Great as the loser and he ran like hell to Egypt trying to escape the wrath of the winner, Julius Caesar. Pompey the Great was in Egypt about 15 minutes before he was skewered on a spear and killed because the Egyptians did not want Julius Caesar thinking they were siding with Pompey. Sure enough, here came Julius Caesar looking for Pompey. He is shown the head of Pompey reassuring him that Pompey was dead and for him to not worry about Egypt’s alliances. While there he meets Cleo in a peculiar manner. She has herself wrapped in a carpet and taken to Julius where she appears when the carpet is unrolled. Cleo was a stone fox, y'all. Her beauty and skills at love making were legendary. Julius was smitten by this girl and they soon were lovers. Cleo did not give a shit about Julius except that he and his army and navy could help her win the civil war against her brother. Julius did not disappoint and soon Ptolemy XIII was dead and also one of Cleo’s other brothers Ptolemy XIV. After this Julius went on to Asia Minor to put down some rebellions. Cleo bore a son that she says was the spawn of Julius and named the boy Caesarian meaning “little Caesar”. Julius was successful in putting down the rebellions and went back to Rome in triumph where Cleo and Caesarian joined him. Julius discreetly put her and his son up in a separate house for appearances sake. But not long after this Julius got too cocky for the Roman Senate and is stabbed to death. This put Cleo in a pickle and she hauled ass back to Egypt. Cleo promptly named Caesarian as Ptolemy XV. After Julius’ death a triumvirate (three rulers) was formed in Rome. It was Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. These three split the Roman Empire into three sections with Mark Antony getting the Eastern Provinces meaning Egypt. Not long after arriving in Egypt Mark Antony met Cleo and fell under her spell and Cleo bore twins by Antony. The triumvirate begins to collapse and a civil war between Antony and Octavian erupted. Antony and Cleo combined forces to combat Octavian’s army and navy. The combined force navy is defeated in the naval battle of Actium (Greece) and Cleo and Antony went back to Egypt. Octavian headed to Egypt looking for Antony to settle things once and for all. The two armies met and Octavian prevailed. Cleo is waiting for news and is told that Mark Antony had been killed and Cleo decided to commit suicide and held a poisonous snake to her breast and is fatally bitten. But Antony is not dead and Cleo receives a note saying so but it is too late. Upon receiving the news that Cleo was dead, Antony stabbed himself with his sword and died also. Octavian promptly has Caesarian executed because he has Julius Caesars blood in his veins and may make a claim on Roman power later. Octavian later became know as Caesar Augustus and proved to be a very capable leader. What a story.

1989 In 1986 career criminal James Marlowe was paroled from Folsom prison. He gained the nicknamed ”The Folsom Wolf” while there. Soon after being released he met Cynthia Coffman and they hit it off famously. They did so well that they began traveling across the country together and they ended up in Tennessee and got married. For a wedding present Coffman had “Property of the Folsom Wolf” tattooed on her ass. They then headed west for California sponging off their relatives along the way. A woman named Corinna Novis disappeared from an ATM in Redlands, California. A few days later Lynel Murray is kidnapped in front of a dry cleaner in Orange County where Murray worked. A checkbook and other papers with both Novis and Murray names on them were found in a dumpster in Big Bear City, California. A lodge owner called the police and told them that the couple had just checked in. The police descended on the lodge and found the couple hiking in the nearby woods wearing clothes from Murray’s dry cleaner. They were tried and convicted of murder and on this date they were sentenced to death. Coffman was the first woman to receive the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1977.

1943 French ski champion Jean-Claude Killy. He said “To win you have to risk losing.” That is a good attitude for life also.

Answer to the trivia question:

The name on the bomber that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki was “Bock's Car”.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow