Thursday

                              Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“A priest in New York City was arrested on gun possession. These days we are better off if the bulge in his pocket is indeed a .38.”

                                                  David Letterman

Trivia question of the day:

One of the greatest scientific book ever written was “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”. It was written in Latin and was known as the “Principia”...who wrote it? Answer at the end of the blog.

I am reminded of a few events in my past as an air traffic controller. At the risk of over simplification here is one event in Pensacola. The US Navy had evacuated many aircraft to bases in Texas and Missouri to avoid a hurricane that was approaching. After the hurricane had passed the aircraft were on their way back all at once. A quick forming line of thunderstorms developed and was moving into the area. We knew that we would have to direct the incoming aircraft around these fast moving monsters meaning that we would be funneling these aircraft into narrow corridors while maintaining 3 miles horizontal separation or 1,000 feet vertically. It was going to be a test of our skills and nerves. We certainly did not want this situation to happen but what we didn't do was block traffic, break windows and steal stuff, destroy cars and other private property to show our disapproval of the weatherman not anticipating this weather. What we did do was we hunkered down and worked together as professionals to make the most of a difficult situation. I hope y'all with heartburn about Donald get the message.

A while back a man walked into a Pizza Hut on Freedom Boulevard in Charlotte, NC, brandished a pistol and demanded money. The man behind the counter produced a pistol of his own and shot the robber in the forehead killing him instantly. The police came, determined what happened and did not arrest the employee or bring any charges. The parents of the robber raised hell saying they did not condone what their son had done, he was desperate but would not hurt anyone. They also said that it wasn't right that the employee should not have a weapon in a place of business even though he had a concealed weapon permit. That is wrong. The second amendment allows that a person can carry a weapon anywhere especially if they have the permit. They said that it was a revenge killing because he was shot in the head. The robber had worked in the Pizza Hut in the past. If the robber had been raised correctly by the parents he would be alive today.

          This Date in History   November 15

1943 German official Heinrich Himmler issues an order that all Gypsies and those with Gypsy blood should be put “on the same level” as Jews and therefore be gathered up and sent to concentration camps. Himmler was following Hitler’s proclamation that all “inferior races” and “asocial” people should be eliminated. It was Hitler and his henchman that decided which races were inferior. They stated that an “asocial” person was one that had been convicted of a crime no matter how trivial or serious. It was Himmler that engineered the creation of death camps throughout Eastern Europe. He also dictated how to organize a pool of slave laborers to be used by the German military to make weapons and/or other devices to the benefit of Hitler’s monsters. It is still hard for me to conceive of human beings that are so cruel and heartless. But on second thought, we killed about 230,000 Japanese civilians in the span of three months. I guess all that matters is who wins and who loses.

1984 An infant called Baby Fae was born without the left side of her heart. This condition is always fatal. Baby Fae was a fake name used to protect her parent’s privacy. The doctors at a Loma Linda, California hospital convinced the parents to allow them to try an experiment and transplant a baboon heart into little Baby Fae. The parents were very skeptical about non-human tissue being accepted by a human. On this date the heart was transplanted into the 14 day old Baby Fae and sure enough, her body eventually made concerted effort to reject this foreign tissue forcing the doctors to more and more increase the anti-rejection drug to the point that Baby Fae suffered kidney failure and died 20 days after the operation. But she survived longer than other infants that had received this transplant. The normal life span after this operation was 3 ½ days. I wonder if this experiment is still performed today.

1965 On this date drag racer Craig Breedlove broke the 600MPH barrier on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. He was driving his jet powered Spirit of America-Sonic II. His certified speed was 600.601MPH. It was Breedlove that broke the 400MPH barrier and the 500MPH barrier also. Not to be outdone, Gary Gableich built a vehicle not using a jet engine; this man used a rocket engine for propulsion. He blistered the Salt Flats a while later going 633.330MPH. As I have stated previously, the sound barrier was broken by a land vehicle fairly recently. That speed is about 750MPH at sea level. That is really humming, y'all.

1923 A mentally disabled white woman named Mamie Snow of Waukegan, Illinois told the police that a black man named James Montgomery had raped her. Montgomery was a World War I veteran, factory worker and homeowner but, on this date, he was immediately thrown in jail. He went from jail to trial and was convicted and given a life sentence. During the trial Montgomery’s lawyer was threatened by the local Ku Klux Klan and the lawyer presented a weak defense. Montgomery vehemently denied that he had raped Mamie and while in prison he studied the law and became very knowledgeable. He eventually raised enough hell that his case was re-examined and it was found out that a medical report on Mamie showed that she had not been raped and was probably a virgin. This information was discovered by the prosecution and was kept hidden from Montgomery’s lawyer. After this was discovered, Montgomery was released. He had been in prison 26 years.

1881 US writer Franklin P. Adams. When chatting with Robert Benchley about a very unpopular man Benchley said “That man is his own worst enemy”. Adams responded with “Not while I’m around.” Adams was a funny guy, so was Benchley.

Answer to the trivia question:

The “Principia” was written by Sir Isaac Newton. The book was recognized as a stupendous feat of the human mind.

               Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow