Monday

                          Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The price of Prozac went up 50% last year. When Prozac users were asked about it, they said, “Whatever…’

                                                      Jay Leno

Trivia question of the day:

What is the largest cat in the world? Answer at the end of the blog.

A while back down in Mobile, Alabama a man named Luke Cole was arrested for burglarizing 5 different businesses in West Mobile one of which was a Christian book store. Also arrested was Luke’s father who was fencing whatever his son brought home. By the way, Luke is 17 years old.

Over in Fayetteville, NC an elderly cattleman had raised a black angus bull from a calf to a 2,000 behemoth. The bull never relented from his hostile behavior. The cattleman wanted to keep the bull at stud to replenish his herd but he had very little control of his its behavior. One day the bull got out of his personal pasture and was a couple of pastures over chasing the cows around. The cattleman attempted to coax the bull back into his personal field but tripped and fell. The bull immediately charged and pinned the old gentleman to the ground by pressing his forehead into the man’s chest. The old gentleman died. A few days before the cattleman had sold the bull to a slaughterhouse because of his behavior. The bull will soon be distributed around the southeast in smaller pieces.

I wish all of y’all a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

               This Date in History   December 31

1600 On this date Queen Elizabeth I signed a charter authorizing a group of London merchants to form an organization known as the East India Company to act at the behest of the crown to capture the spice trade in the East Indies from the hands of the Dutch. This endeavor was unsuccessful but the market they found in India and China more than made up for their failure against the Dutch. Soon the flow of spices from India and the tea from China was almost unending on their way to England. This almost untapped gold mine of consumables did not go unnoticed by the French and Dutch and they attempted to move in and get part of this cornucopia. This prompted the East India Company to form their own army and navy to protect their investment. Eventually England felt it was necessary to declare India as a British possession and sent in a governor and staff to rule this most recent colony to protect the trade from interlopers by use of the mighty British army and navy. After this decision the East India Company became nothing but an administrative arm of the British Governor. In 1857 the Indian soldiers in the British army revolted against the British control of their country. This “Indian Revolt” was crushed the next year and Great Britain tightened its grip on India even more by dissolving the East India Company. They even had the gall to pass a law stating that the Indians could not go to the seaside and dig out settling ponds to allow the water to evaporate leaving the salt. Salt was imperative to the Indians not only for seasoning but for food preservation. This meant that they could only get their salt from the British. It was a monopoly of a necessary item. In the early 1930’s an Indian holy man named Mahatma Gandhi began a peaceful revolt that eventually caused the demise of English rule and the beginning of an Independent India. By the way, the beginning of the end of British rule began when Gandhi left home headed for the coast to evaporate out some salt stating that salt was a gift from God and should not be controlled by man. Along the way he had gathered more and more followers and he arrived at the coast with over 60,000 people following. The British army did not know what to do with that many people and they let them alone to get some salt.

1972 Baseball superstar Roberto Clemente was in the San Juan International Airport, Puerto Rico. Clemente was an all-star outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates and spent the majority of the off-season doing charity work in his native Puerto Rico or other places in Central America. Earlier Clemente had sent a huge amount of relief supplies to Managua, Nicaragua after that city was ravaged by an earthquake. He found out later that only a small amount of the supplies had reached those that needed it; the majority of it had been stockpiled by corrupt officials and sold to the needy. Clemente was a fiery individual anyway and when he found out about this travesty, he gathered more supplies in Puerto Rico and was going to take them to Managua himself and distribute them to the needy. He soon found that he had more supplies that the plane that he had chartered could handle. Observing all of this was an unscrupulous man named Arthur Rivera. Rivera owned a ram shackled propeller driven DC-7 that could barely fly. He offered to rent this plane to Clemente for $4,000. Clemente agreed and they began loading the DC-7. Rivera was not a pilot and he began frantically searching for a pilot and found one in a man named Jerry Hill. Rivera, Clemente and the pilot finally got aboard and the plane began its takeoff roll. Observers knew the plane was in trouble from the start because of the sound of the engines. The plane reached about 200 feet over the Caribbean and exploded and fell into the sea. It was found that the pilot had over-boosted the engines. The bodies of Clemente, Rivera and Hill were never found. Clemente was admitted to the baseball Hall of Fame posthumously and in 2002 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Born today:

1830 Scottish writer Alexander Smith. He said “To be occasionally quoted is all the fame I desire.” Tack on to that, “occasionally paid”.

1894 Movie star Pola Negri. She said “Love is disgusting when you no longer own yourself.”

1943 US songwriter John Denver. He said “Music paints pictures and often tells stories. All of it magic and all of it true.” John had a pure and clear voice; I have not heard a voice close to his since his demise except maybe Josh Groban

1952 US Guitarist/singer George Thorogood. He said “There are two types of music, the “blues” and that bullshit they play on MTV.” I second that.

1958 US actress Bebe Neuwirth. She said “If you have to ask how to be sexy after the age of 40, you probably can’t do it.” I am still trying, Bebe.

Answer to the trivia question:

The largest cat in the world is the Siberian Tiger. The average mature male stands about 3'-10” at the shoulder (about even with your waist) and weights about 700 pounds. There have been some that weighed 950 pounds. Bu comparison the mature male African lion stands about 3'-2” at the shoulder and weighs about 420 pounds.

                          Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

                             Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Working with Cher was like being in a blender with an alligator.”

                                                 Sam Elliott

Trivia question of the day:

What future English king lead the Christians during the 3^rd Crusade?

I am reading about the history of France in WWII. When the German army was closing in on France with no chance of stopping them, a french politician named Pierre Laval negotiated an armistice. This agreement divided France into two sections. One was German occupied northern France that included Paris and the other was southern France governed by Frenchmen that were totally answerable the Germans and based in the resort town of Vichy. The leader of the Vichy government was Pierre Laval. After the Allies liberated France, Laval was captured, tried for high treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. In late September of 1945 somehow Laval digested some poison and was on the cusp of death but a team of doctors and nurses working feverishly pumped his stomach and saved his life. Two weeks later he was stood before a firing squad and executed. His death was not the issue, the Frenchmen wanted their pound of flesh by killing the rotten bastard themselves.

I was thinking about the Christmas Day that I remembered the most as far back in years as I could. I think it was when I got my first bicycle. Within a couple of months my Dad had got me a paper route to help pay for the bike. We were really poor, y’all. The bike was also my transportation to school at a distance of about 3 miles. It doesn’t sound like much but in a driving rain storm it was no fun, and neither was the paper route. I delivered the evening paper. I had to ride about four miles to pick up my papers and backtracked on my delivery route. It was no fun but that experience plus making me work all summer bagging groceries or work with an air conditioner and heating repair man, went a long way convincing me that I needed to learn how to make a decent living rather than a “slave labor” job. My brother (an architect) wrapped insulation around air conditioning duct work all summer, usually in attics or worked on large construction sites as a “gofer” which usually meant pushing a wheelbarrows full of debris all summer. My brother and I got the message.

I worked with a civil engineer on a job near Paducah, Kentucky that was an ex-Marine and from South Carolina. This man told me that he had a similar experience. After high school he knew his mother had a substantial nest egg set aside for his education. He told his mother that he was not going to school but was going to work and wanted the money help him get started. He mother said that was a good idea and put him to work with her brother. He ran a paving company and put that man behind a truck spreading hot asphalt by hand. After a couple of days of that he told his mother that he had changed his mind and entered the University of South Carolina. Do you see things like that today? I think not.

             This Date in History December 28

1781 British troops under the command of Major James Henry Craig occupied John’s Island, South Carolina. Craig and his troops had been kicked out of Wilmington, North Carolina a month before. Patriot General Daniel Morgan ordered the inimitable Lt. Col. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and his famous cavalry unit from the Star Fort in the back country of South Carolina near the settlement of Ninety-Six to go kick those redcoats out of there. Just before arriving Lee learned that the Patriot infantry unit led by Major James Hamilton had arrived late and could not ford the Wapoo River so Lee aborted the attack. Because of the flow of the river and variable tidal conditions, the Wapoo River could only be forded once or twice a month and this was not one of those times. It was the relative isolation of some of the coastal island off South Carolina that preserved the Gullah language and traditions. Gullah is a Creole culture that dates back to Elizabethan times and was brought over to America in the slave trade. It was well into the 1950’s that some of these islands could only be reached by water. The Gullah language is exciting to hear because of the accents, rhythm and tempo. However, to the non-Gullah you can understand but very little. There are islands in the Chesapeake Bay, Tangier Island for instance, that was settled by the English and their isolation helped preserve the Old English language to this day.

1793 0n this date American Thomas Paine was arrested in France and charged with treason. That’s right; it is the same Thomas Paine that wrote Common Sense and America in Crisis that inspired out forefathers to not give up in their quest for freedom from the British. At the outset of the French Revolution, Paine had gone to France to see if he could help. Evidently Paine loved revolutions. Paine was a hard core opponent to the death penalty and the French revolutionaries were keeping the guillotine hot chopping off heads of the elitist and backers King Louis. Paine raised so much hell that the revolutionaries arrested him to shut him up. It wasn’t a bad incarceration however. He was locked up in the Luxemburg Prison which used to be a castle. He had a room with two windows, was locked up only at night and had catered meals. None the less, when President James Monroe found out about it, he raised so much hell that the French released Paine after a short while. Paine had been writing a book called Age of Reason which stated that God did not influence the actions of people that it was science and rationality that prevailed over religion and superstition. After the book was published an outcry around the world was heard. Paine was declared as Godless and anti-Christ. Needless to say, his follows and admirers in America vanished. He died penniless in New York City in 1809. That just goes to show you that in those days you just did not suggest an alternative to religion.

1832 On this date, Vice President John C. Calhoun resigned to take a vacant United States Senate seat in his home state of South Carolina. This Yale graduate was the first sitting Vice President to resign but it would not be the last. I will let y'all figure out what other Vice-President(s) have resigned. Calhoun did not get along at all with President Andrew Jackson who kept Calhoun under wraps to decrease his political clout. John C. Calhoun was born near Abbeville, South Carolina in 1782. He served in the state legislature before being elected as Senator. Calhoun was a protector of the agrarian based South against the industrial based North. He also was a hard-core believer in the slave/plantation institution. He called it a “positive good” rather than a ‘necessary evil”. Calhoun spent the majority of his life in high public office including Secretary of War, Vice-President under two different Presidents, US Senator, US Representative. Calhoun died in 1850 in Washington, D.C. and is buried in the graveyard of St. Peters church in Charleston, South Carolina (been there).

Answer to the trivia question:

The future king that was the leader of the Christians in the 3^rd Crusade was Richard the Lionhearted. On the way home Richard was captured in Germany and held for ransom. The Vatican negotiated his release for an enormous donation from his very wealthy mother Eleanor of Aquitaine.

             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday

                                Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”

                                             Charles Schultz

Trivia question of the day:

“What is the “coriolis” effect?

There was an engagement known as the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. CSA General R.E. Lee had taken a beating at Gettysburg and was retreating back into Virginia. He also knew that he was outnumbered by the Union forces by at least three to one and an infantry assault face to face would be suicide. This battle was the first one where the Union forces were commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant in the Eastern Theater. The Wilderness was a section of Virginia that had very nearly impenetrable undergrowth and thick forests. Lee knew that this type terrain would neutralize the advantage the Union forces had in overwhelming numbers. That part of Virginia had been suffering a drought and the woods and leaves were a tinderbox. Sure enough, when the Confederate and Union artillery began to exchange salvos, a forest fire began almost immediately from the exploding shells. The wounded Union and Confederate soldiers did not have a chance to escape and were burned alive. General Grant mounted his horse and rode far enough away that he could not hear the pitiful screams of those men that were trapped. Later on he said he did that so he would not be inhibited in the future from his typically aggressive style of warfare. It would have bothered the hell out of me too.

A long time ago I read a short story about a Welch Terrier named Blackfriar’s Bobby. It was the story about this dog’s dedication to his master. His master was a train engineer and was based in a town named Blackfriar in England. Every day Bobby would be at the train station at the same time every day waiting for his master. One fateful day Bobby’s master was killed in a train wreck and did not show at the train station to greet Bobby. Bobby showed up at the train station every day at about the same time for the rest of his life waiting for his master. There is a statue of Bobby cast in bronze at the train station donated by the people of Blackfriar. This story may have a few flaws because I did not research it as I normally do, but you dog lovers out there will understand what this all about.

        This Date in History   December 27

1780 Earlier Patriot General Daniel Morgan ordered Patriot Colonel William Washington, George Washington’s cousin, and approximately 275 troops to neutralize the British /Loyalist presence near present day Mountville, South Carolina. The Loyalists led by British Colonel Thomas Waters had been harassing the Patriots in and around that area for some time. On this date Washington arrived with 75 cavalry under his direct command and 200 infantry under the command of Lt. Colonels Joe Hayes and Jim McCall. The area under scrutiny in particular was the area on Bush River near Fairforest Creek. Colonel Washington found the British/Loyalist camped near Hammond’s Store near Mountville. Mountville is about 8 miles south of present day Laurens, SC. Hammond’s Store was a blacksmith/trading post which Washington surrounded and launched a surprise attack. After a four day siege, of the 250 British/Loyalists, 150 were killed or wounded, 45 captured and rest scattered through the harsh South Carolina underbrush. The troops chose to burn Hammond’s Store. This area had only been occupied by Europeans since the early 1760’s and had been under almost continuous attack by the native Cherokees. There had been many cases of murder, rape and plunder by both the Europeans and the Cherokees against each other, not to mention the outlaws that attacked both sides. It was during this time period that this area was considered ungovernable because of all the different prejudices that had been instilled by the hostilities. As you might suspect, it took a limited war against the Cherokee and Choctaw to put and end that that problem. As soon as that was finished there was a short break of 14 years and then we chose to start a fight against those Colonists loyal to the British and the British themselves for our independence from Great Britain. It looks to me that they love of the sting of battle and is in our blood, especially the Scots and the Irish, and we have proven it time and time again. By the way, the exact location of Hammond’s Store has been lost to history.

1831 On this momentous day the HMS Beagle sailed from England for a five year voyage of discovery with a scientist named Charles Darwin aboard. The ship spent a lot of time on the east coast of South American continent before traversing Cape Horn over the west coast. The ship spent several months in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Peru. It was during this time period that Darwin developed the theory of evolution that he called “natural selection.” This theory is further described as the “survival of the fittest.” In other words, only the strong survive. After he had made all of his experiments and observations, almost apologetically Darwin wrote the immortal book “Origin of Species”. His book shook the scientific world to it roots, especially paleontology. What caused the turmoil was that this book and the one that followed, “The Descent of Man” tracked homo-sapiens back to sub-humans such as gorillas and chimpanzees. Needless to say the human elitists and the clergy hit the roof because it was adverse to what was taught in the Bible. But Darwin’s logic was impeccable and was almost bullet-proof and except for later changes made genetics and molecular biology his theory is valid today. To NOT believe what he found and deduced requires a leap of faith, not vice versa.

2004 The day before at about 3:00A Indonesian time an earthquake that read 9.3 on the Richter scale struck the ocean floor near the southern tip of the Indonesian archipelago. One part of the ocean bottom thrust upward by more than 15 feet displacing over 7 cubic miles of ocean. I guess we all remember the movies of the resulting tsunami that came ashore in Indonesia, Sumatra, India and even in Somalia in east Africa. There was even a tsunami in Alaska. This earthquake was the second strongest ever recorded since the Richter scale came into existence. Geologists tell use that the entire earth moved a centimeter or two as a result of this event. The strange thing is that the animals knew what was happening. Many of the dogs in some of the villages along the Indonesian coast began whining and ran to high ground and would not return. In some of the cities along the Indian coast, rats swarmed together in huge packs and ran down the streets in broad daylight. Some of the rats swarmed over the edge of wells and jumped in. It must have seemed like the end of the world. It was the end of the world for over 230,000 people.

Answer to the trivia question:

The coriolis effect is the gravitational energy and centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation that makes the current in the world oceans that makes storms in the southern hemisphere to rotate clockwise and counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere. It is also responsible for the different direction of rotation of fluids going down a drain in the hemispheres.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday

                               Musings and History

Quote of the day:

Future Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal was aboard a ship offshore from Iwo Jima during that epic battle. Shortly after the Marines had landed and endured an avalanche of slaughter delivered by the Japanese, a squad of Marines fought their way to the top of the extinct volcano known as Mount Suribachi and raised an American flag. All of the ships blew their ship's whistles and horns and there was a loud shout from all the Marines on the island. Forrestal said “That will ensure existence of the United States Marines for the next 500 years.” The image of the flag raising on Suribachi is the soul of the United States Marines. Iwo Jima is the only battle where the US Marines suffered more casualties than they inflicted.

Trivia question of the day:

“Who was the German commander of their lead tank column in the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge?” Answer at the end of the blog.

Speaking of combat here is something I did not know.

There are 14 nations that have women in combat units, the United States is not one of them until very recently. There were two women attempting to become a US Army Ranger. The could not handle the physical requirements of the final test but they made them Rangers anyway. The reason that if it became US policy that women are required to fight in combat units then they would have to register for the draft like the men and would not have a choice. The politicians don't want to see their sweet little girls in the draft in time of war.

           This Date in History   December 26

2004 On this date at 8:06a Indonesian time a large slip in the earth’s crust occurred when a continental plate southwest of the Indonesian archipelago, dropped about 15 feet for a length of about 50 miles. This event generated an enormous amount of energy that spread rapidly throughout the Indian Ocean and displayed itself as one of the most devastating series of tsunamis or tidal waves in recorded history. The hardest hit was several different beaches in Thailand which was just a short distance north and east of the tectonic event. Then the waves traveled across the Indian Ocean and came ashore on the east coast of India and Bangladesh and traveled on to the east coast of Africa to a lesser extent. There were many home movies made at the resorts in Thailand and it was scary to watch as the water on the beaches retreat to the horizon and then come storming back with a vengeance in three or four waves. I have a mental image a little kid on the beach after the water had disappeared and then when the tsunami arrived it washed that kid inland like a rag doll. She did not survive. I fact there was in the vicinity of 350,000 deaths attributed to these tsunamis world wide. We will never know exactly because the small villages up and down the coast that simply disappeared. One strange thing was the people on the beaches in Thailand saw their dogs, cats and even goats and cattle run for high ground even before the water retreated. They knew what was going on.

1908 On this date the first black American Jack Johnson won the World Heavyweight boxing title by knocking out Canadian Tommy Burns in 14 rounds near Sydney Australia. Johnson held the title until 1915 and was hated and reviled by boxing fans in the United States because he did not fit in the typical “Jim Crow” image Americans had of the back man. Johnson drove fancy cars and wore fancy clothes and had a white wife, flashed gold teeth and had several overlapping affairs with different women, all white, which further inflamed the prejudiced. Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas in 1878. He dropped of the school in the fifth grade and began working on the docks in Galveston. Not long thereafter he began his career as a boxer. In those days boxing was divided into black and white divisions and Johnson became the “Black Heavyweight Champion” on 1903. In 1904 Johnson issued a challenge to the White Heavyweight Champion, Jim Jefferies. Jefferies was not interested. It was not until 1908 that White Heavyweight Champion Tommie Burns granted Johnson the match in Australia which Johnson won. It wasn’t long before the sports reporters began writing about a “Great White Hope” to get the Heavyweight Championship back into white hands. Johnson was one of the best defensive boxers in history. He was also a devastating slugger when the opportunity presented itself. In 1910 Jim Jefferies agreed to come out of retirement and challenge Johnson. Johnson was the only boxer that Jefferies ever faced that knocked him off his feet. In the 15^th round Jefferies’ corner threw in the towel and it was all over. Johnson faced several challengers and defeated them all. In 1912 Johnson was convicted of transporting an unmarried woman across state lines for “immoral purposes”. This law was implemented to stop prostitution and white slavery not to stop a night club owner and World Champion from taking his white secretary out for a weekend tryst. This was clearly an instance of law enforcement using the law for their own prejudicial purposes. Johnson was released pending an appeal. Johnson decided to get the hell out of Dodge and fled to Europe where he lived in exile for seven years and continued to defend his title in Europe and he became a very rich man. In 1915 he fought Jess Willard in Havana and was defeated. Some thought that he had thrown the match hoping the charges against him would be dropped. He returned to the United States into the waiting arm of U.S. Marshals. He did a year of hard time in a prison in Kansas then he was released and he tried boxing again but he had lost a step and was not effective. His fortune went away and he ended up working in carnival side shows. He died in an automobile accident in 1945. He was 67 years old. I don’t know what lesson we can learn from this man’s life except “Don’t flaunt it and take the money and run.”

1820 On this date Moses Austin received permission from Spanish officials to bring 300 families into Spanish territory and establish a settlement. Initially the Spanish refused but after further persuasion by Austin they agreed to grant 200,000 acres for this settlement. Delighted, Austin went back into the United States and began recruiting families to his settlement which was in the lower reaches of the Colorado and Brazos rivers. Unfortunately, Moses died before he could get back to his proposed settlement so his son Stephan F. Austin stepped in and continued fulfillment of his fathers dream. The first settlers arrived in December of 1821 and within a decade the settlement numbered 25,000 people. As you might suspect, the settlers had no love for the Spanish and in 1836 they became part of the Republic of Texas and eventually one of these United States. By the way, the settlement is now the Texas state capitol of Austin.

1944 On this date tank units of General George Patton’s 3^rd Army broke through the German army encirclement of the Belgian city of Bastogne. This city was a major objective of the German Army when they launched a surprise assault out of the Ardennes Forest that later became know as the Battle of the Bulge. The city was defended by 18,000 Americans mostly of the 101^st Airborne. During the encirclement the troops defending Bastogne eventually very nearly ran out of food, water and ammunition at the same time. They also were ill-dressed for the bitterly cold weather. After the breaking of the siege the long hard task of pushing the Germans back to where they came from began. Patton pulled off one of the greatest maneuvers in military history. His 3^rd army was driving east toward Germany 100 mile south of Bastogne when the German assault began out of the Ardennes. Patton was able to turn his army 90 degrees to the left and attack the German encirclement of Bastogne. That was an amazing feat considering the logistics involved making that happen. In spite of the brilliance of Patton in rescuing the 101^st many of those proud paratroopers said “We were not f----k---g rescued, we were relieved.”. By the way, if I am not mistaken, the leader of the tank column that broke through to the city was Colonel Creighton Abrams, later to become a four star General and has a modern tank model named for him.

Answer to the trivia question:

The leader of the tank column in the German breakout in the Battle of the Bulge was Joachim Peiper. He was tried for crimes against humanity in the Nuremburg trials because of the Malmedy massacre. (look it up).

             Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

                           Musings and History

            Merry Christmas, y'all!

Quote of the day:

“In Los Angeles there is a hotline for people in denial. So far no one has called.”

                                                George Carlin

Trivia question of the day: In the movie “Gone With The Wind” Scarlett's boyfriend before Rhett was Ashley Wilkes. What was the name of the Wilkes' plantation and who played Ashley in the movie? Answer at the end of the blog

On the weekend ending July 16 2016 there was six murders here in Greenville, SC, the buckle of the Bible Belt. On Friday afternoon a woman in her mid-thirties drove into the parking garage of an apartment complex in downtown Greenville. She waited for and then shot a 28 year old woman to death while she was getting out of her car. She then drove about 7 miles to a race track, stopped her black Jeep Patriot and shot and killed her 9 and 5 year old kids and then herself. What in the hell could have caused this craziness? Here is the reason:

She and her husband had separated and there was trouble brewing about custody of the kids. Not only that her estranged husband had moved out of their pretty fancy home in an affluent neighborhood and moved into that apartment complex downtown where the murder took place. His wife thought he was having an affair with the 28 year old woman and apparently was moving on with his life. Both he and the alleged girlfriend were employees at Michelin. The cops had visited the estranged wife on several occasions because of threats she had made to her husband the the murdered woman but no action was taken. According to many that woman's mind was clearly unbalanced and the kids needed to be removed from her custody but there is a limit on what the police can do. But there are agencies that do have the authority to judge a parent's mental state when children lives are involved or threatened and take action..this did not happen and the kids and the murdered woman paid the price.

Then over on the west side a man and woman were seen arguing. A short while later the man with gun in hand was seen chasing the woman and eventually caught up and shot her. In the meantime some of the witnesses to this called the cops and they were on the scene very shortly after that shooting and confronted the shooter who responded by opening fire on the cops. They responded with gunfire of their own and the shooter was dead before he hit the ground. The woman lived for a few minutes after she was shot but succumbed a short while later. Merry Christmas.

         This Date in History   December 25

1776 After a few days of planning General George Washington decided that on this date he would sail back across the Delaware River from Valley Forge and retake the Hessian compound known to be in Trenton, New Jersey. The Continental army consisted of 5,400 men and several artillery pieces. When Washington arrived on the New Jersey shore he had only 3,000 troops and no artillery but he decided to attack anyway. He suspected that the most of the Hessians would be under the weather from partying the night before. The Hessians had the mother of all hangovers and when the Patriots swarmed the town they either ran away or surrendered. The Patriots lost only 4 killed and they captured over 1,000 Hessians. One peculiar thing that happened was that the commander of the Hessians in Trenton was dying of tuberculosis and was very near death. Some of the Hessian soldiers asked that Washington visit with him and accept sword of surrender before he died. Washington initially said “to hell with the bastard.” But his officers persuaded him that it would be the honorable thing to do. So he went into the tent and waited while the German General said a speech before handing over his sword with Washington standing there tapping his foot. Finally the General handed over the sword, Washington took it and with out a word turned away and quickly left the tent. I don’t think he wanted to be there. This victory was not significant in any way except it proved to each of his soldiers that they could prevail against the enemy after a series of losses.

1996 Little JonBenet Ramsey is murdered in her Boulder, Colorado home. At 5:52 a JonBenet’s parent John and Patsy Ramsey called the police the next morning and reported her missing. There was a ransom not of $188,000 found the seemed peculiar because that was the exact amount of John Ramsey’s bonus for that year. The ransom not was unnecessary because the corpse of JonBenet was found in basement of her parent’s house wrapped in a carpet. She had her hands tied behind her with electrical cord and there was duct tape over her mouth. There also were signs of sexual assault. The dumb-assed Boulder PD screwed up the crime scene when they allowed the father to moved JonBenet’s body to her bedroom. As you might suspect, this corrupted any and all further forensic evidence that could be used to find the killer. As a result the murderer of little JonBenet has not been determined to this day.

1869 On this date a 16 year old John Wesley Hardin got into an argument in a card game and with definite lack of Christmas spirit, Wes called the man out into the street for a show down. Both men drew and Wes shot his fellow card player in the forehead killing him instantly. This was neither the first nor the last of men killed by Wes Hardin. In fact he was by far the most prolific murderer in the history of the old west; it is known that he had killed at least 20 men, maybe more. On one occasion he got into a gun fight with a soldier and killed him. The military sent three troopers to arrest him and he killed all three of them. He hated blacks and would hunt for them just like he hunted rabbits so blacks gave Wes a wide berth. Finally law enforcement got fed up and Wes was sent to prison for 14 years and came out a changed man. He was no longer the bloodthirsty killer of before and had studied law while in prison and came out and was admitted to the bar. He opened a practice in Gonzales, Texas but found the town too boring and moved to El Paso. While standing in a bar in El Paso a local gunman walked up behind Wes and shot him point plank in the back of the head. This jackass wanted to be known as the man that killed Wes Hardin. The Judge in El Paso decided that the shooter had enough notoriety and sent him to the gallows. I’ll bet he was shocked, or maybe he felt suspended.

Born today:

1642 English physicist Sir Isaac Newton. He said “I can calculate the motions of the heavens but not the madness of man.” Me neither, Sir Isaac. He is one of my heroes, by the way.

1887 American Hotelier Conrad Hilton. He said “Success seems to be connected to action. They that are successful are always moving, they may make mistakes but they are always moving.”

1908 Flaming homosexual Quinton Crisp. Once while making a speech in Ireland he said he was an atheist. This dumb-ass woman got up at asked “Is that the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants that you don’t believe in.” There is no accounting for blind stupidity.

Answer to the trivia question:

Leslie Howard played Ashley Wilkes and his plantation was “Twelve Oaks”.

                Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow.

Monday

                         Musings and History

Instead of the usual quote and trivia question of the day I am offering this poem written by a good friend and very talented musician and poetess. This poem has become a sort of tradition with me on Christmas Eve. Here it is again. Enjoy.

One Christmas Eve, not long ago, the house was dark and cold
No food to find on any shelf, no wood to fill the stove
Empty stomachs and empty hearts dwell within these walls
Without hope it seems so dark when light should show the cause
When others have a tree and gifts when they have Christmas joy
It was a cold, cruel, real world, for us hopeless girls and boys
I was the middle child of seven, ages two to twelve
Alone on the side of a mountain singing Carols to soothe ourselves
Waiting, hoping, watching, for a miracle of sorts
Not sure about the nature, we were certain of the sport
The odds were stacked against us, poverty laid its ugly claim
Still a child has wonder with the essence of the game
Mama had to work, cooking at a country club
Dad was in his cups, where he stayed while we grew up
We had cornmeal mush for supper then sister sang us all to sleep
But even in my repose I let hope for Santa creep
Dreaming of another’s life portrayed with Christmas cheer
In my slumbered state I kept my place in the human sphere
Quiet as an observer my dream took me to this house
Where the smell of ham with cloves wafted all about
A tree stood in the living room decorated with gold and silver
Presents abounded underneath, so much it made me shiver
A little boy runs to the tree making lots of noise
Anxiously he tore off wrap revealing his new toys
For some reason I kept waiting for all the other children
But this one little boy, by himself was unwrapping all the ribbon
It dawned on me he was all alone, his parents' only child
He seemed bored and somewhat lonely, as he put each gift aside
Then his parents appear and seem upset, to find their son exploring
Chastise him for not waiting on them this fine Christmas morning
They video the boy with each toy recording every moment
No wonder I thought, he has no one, to help his mind hold on it
No laughter or play, no rivalry stage, just adults to spend his day with
It seemed to be a lonely lot to me, with so many toys to play with

What's this I’m being pulled away by the scrumptious smell of bacon
Am I awake or dreaming it was bacon mama’s makin’
Sure enough the house is warm I hear the hot pan sizzle
One by one we come alive and watch while mama drizzles
Gravy on our biscuits, eggs and bacon on our plate
She said go ahead and eat, your dad and I can wait
I noticed though when we were done she simply cleared the table
I wondered if she ate at all, this made me feel unstable
She had a made a tree from the limbs of a fir that stood out in our yard
The way she wrapped and wove each spray, I asked her, was that hard
With her loving touch she had livened up and made festive the old house
Stockings around the doorway, snacks and candy all about
There was crayons, paints, papers, felt and clay for model baking
So busy making our own gifts we no longer felt forsaken
The miracle we were hoping for was there all along
Just to have each other close sharing life in a living home
That night when I lay down
I remembered my dream from the night before
I thought about the way I feel now and how I love my family all the more.
I’d rather have my brothers and sisters than all the toys in the world
A Christmas revelation for a poor young southern girl

                                           Brenda McAfee

                    This Date In History   December 24

1865 On this date a group of Confederate veterans met in Pulaski, Tennessee and formed the core of what became the Ku Klux Klan. They felt it was necessary for two reasons: To combat the influx of northern people into the south to take advantage of a defeated nation like taking lands and property from Confederate soldiers that had been killed in the Civil War. They also were very apprehensive about the rise of privilege and power of the black man. The first Grand Wizard was the famous CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The name of the organization came from the Greek word “kyklos” meaning circle and “clan”. After two years Forrest resigned as Grand Wizard and tried to disband the organization because he felt the Klan had become too violent and indeed they had. In counties that were nearly balanced racially black and white, the Klan would make raids at night against the blacks and the white Republicans in an attempt to influence any upcoming elections to keep white men in control of the political machinery. Eventually in 1871 Congress decided that action was needed and they passed the Ku Klux Klan act giving the President, Ulysses Grant, the power to use what ever means he deemed necessary to subdue the Klan. In nine counties in South Carolina alone Grant instituted martial law and thousands were arrested. In 1882 the US Supreme Court declared the Klan act unconstitutional but by that time Reconstruction had ended and the Klan faded away. But the Klan arose again mightily during the 1920’s and 30’s. This time the major base was in Skokie, Illinois. The Klan was very influential in the internal politics of several states. But as the old saying goes, power corrupts and there was a sex scandal involving the Grand Wizard where a young lady died. After that the popularity of the Klan and those associated with it went to hell in a hand basket. The Klan has had its ups and downs though out the years but their basis for existence is white Anglo-Saxon supremacy. They don’t like Jews either. I don’t understand that concept, ya’ll, and I can find nothing admirable about it.

1745 On this date Benjamin Rush is born in Byberry Township, Pennsylvania. There were two famous Patriots named Benjamin during the formation of this great country. One was the self made and self educated Benjamin Franklin and the other was Benjamin Rush. Rush was educated in the finest schools on both sides of the Atlantic. His father died when he was six and he was raised by his grandfather Samuel Finley. He graduated from the College of New Jersey which is now Princeton. His grandfather wanted Ben to become a lawyer but he wanted to be a doctor. His grandfather sent him to medical school at one of the finest in the world, the Medical University of Edinburgh, Scotland. When he returned to the Colonies he became an active and trusted Patriot and established a practice in Philadelphia. His medical knowledge was invaluable during the eventual Revolutionary War. He was and eager signer of the Declaration of Independence. He raised almighty hell at the treatment of the wounded Patriot soldiers which Washington took personally and Rush resigned his post. In spite of that he continued to offer invaluable advice to continued emergence of this nation. He spoke long and hard for the ratification of the Constitution he also was an advocate of the emancipation of the slaves. Rush chartered the first college in the newly founded United States in 1873. It was Dickenson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania whose motto is “A bulwark of liberty.” Indeed.

1953 On this date a very unusual event occurred in New Zealand. A train was traveling from Wellington to Auckland filled with passengers on there way to spend Christmas aboard the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II that was docked in Auckland for the holidays. Then an active volcano north of the train track had a small eruption and the molten lava ran down and melted and ice dam on a nearby glacier releasing millions of gallons of water. The water runs downhill toward a railroad bridge gaining speed every second. The train was approaching this bridge when the torrent of water arrived and the train was washed off of its tracks into the river below. 185 people were drowned out of a total of 260, some of the bodies were never found. Their bodies were merely washed out to sea with the current in the river. You never know, do you?

                       Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Last month I went to get a test for AIDS. The problem is that you don’t get the result for five days. I spend those five days in deep reflection. What the hell was I doing fooling around with all that skanky-ass I met in Miami, Cleveland, Milwaukee and many other places? What the hell was I thinking?”

                                                  Chris Rock

Trivia question of the day:

Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel...who was his opponent?

Answer at the end of the blog.

A while back a teenager near Charlotte, NC heard a knock at his front door but he did not answer. He looked out a window and saw a young man standing on his porch. The person on the porch waved at two other people in the yard waving them to go around to the back door. The young man was not happy with this and ran upstairs and retrieved a Samurai sword. When he got back downstairs the two at the back door almost had the door knocked open. The teenager charged them with his sword over his head. The two in the back ran into the street retrieving the third guy on the front porch and they hightailed down the street with the sword bearer in close pursuit. All three potential burglars were arrested. The young man said that he was fearful at the start but when they started running with him nipping at their heels he felt great exhilaration. I would have too.

Down at Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach, Florida two undocumented aliens were arrested. These arrests mean that a grand total of 40 undocumented aliens that have been arrested while working on an addition to the 7^th Special Forces building. This outfit specializes in “Black Ops” y’all. It is these soldiers along with the Delta division based in nearby Hurlburt Air Force Base that do most of United States covert assignments worldwide. It is disconcerting to know that they cannot keep undocumented aliens away from one of the most secretive military units on the planet.

         This Date in History   December 21

1761 Revolutionary War hero and hard-core Patriot Robert Barnwell was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. This boy joined his local militia at the age of 16 and was promptly engaged in the Battle of Mathew’s Farm on John’s Island near Charleston. During this battle young Robert received 17 separate wounds. He had his equipment taken from him and was left for dead. He was taken from the field by a slave to the plantation home of his aunt which was nearby. He spent several months in recovery and eventually rejoined his militia and was given the rank of lieutenant. Unfortunately, soon thereafter Charleston, South Carolina was captured by the British including Lieutenant Barnwell. Barnwell was put aboard the British prison ship Pack Horse anchored in Charleston Harbor where he spent 13 months before being exchanged. During the Revolutionary War, Barnwell rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the War Barnwell was elected a member of the South Carolina legislature and was sent to Washington as a member of the South Carolina delegation to ratify the US Constitution He spent two years in Washington as a member of the US House of Representative and then returned to his beloved South Carolina and rejoined the South Carolina legislature. He stayed in the legislature along with serving on the board of directors of Beaufort College until his death on October 24, 1814. Strangely enough his son Robert Woodward Barnwell was a passionate advocate of South Carolina secession from the Union. His son was trying to tear apart what his father had spent most of his life putting together.

1861 Earlier in November of this year a United States warship had stopped and boarded the British mail ship Trent in the Bahamas and captured two Confederate representatives on their way to England and took them prisoner. On this date British Secretary Lord Lyon met with United States Secretary of war William Seward about this event, Lord Lyon assured Secretary Seward that the British crown thought of this act as one of piracy and was worthy of a declaration of war if the Confederate representatives, James Mason and John Slidell, were not released immediately. Seward took Lyon’s words to Lincoln. Lincoln stalled for a few days until he found out that there were 11,000 British troops on the way to Canada. Soon thereafter, Mason and Slidell were released and the US promised to observe the sovereignty of British ships in the future. Lincoln could not risk having to fight a war on two fronts.

1975 On this date in Vienna, Austria, a terrorist named llich Ramirez Sanchez led a group of fellow terrorists into a meeting of OPEC and kill three guards and capture 16 OPEC members. This was not the first, nor the last, act of terrorism committed by a man that had been labeled Carlos the Jackal. He made a demand for a bus and an airplane which the Viennese government provided. Carlos directed the plane to Algeria where all aboard were released, Carlos was born into a wealthy Marxist family in Caracas, Venezuela, He was educated at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. He chose a life of terrorism at an early age. No one really knows why he chose a life on the run but he was an accomplished terrorist. He had practiced his craft for over 25 years without capture, However in 1994, French undercover agents tracked him down to the Sudan and kidnapped the son-of-a-bitch back to France. The French government chose to not announce his capture for three years when finally he was put on trial for killing two French counter-intelligence agents in 1975. He got life without parole. Not enough, as far as I am concerned.

1866 In 1861 the United States signed the Treaty of Laramie with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians ceding the Indians the lands that contained the Bozeman Trail, but soon after this treaty was signed, gold was discovered on the Indian lands and gold seekers resume using the Bozeman Trail once again much to the displeasure of the Indians in general and the Cheyenne chief Red Cloud in particular. The US Government not only allowed the breaking of the treaty, they built army forts along the Bozeman Train to protect the travelers. The most obnoxious one to the Indians was the fort on the Little Piney named Fort Phil Kearney. This fort saw very few days without some kind of attack by Red Clouds warriors. During all of this, the fort had to have timber for heat and sent out wood cutting groups on a regular basis. On this date, Red Cloud was waiting and killed all but one of the wood cutting crew. Red Cloud sent seven or eight warriors in view of the fort and when the fort fired a round of artillery the Indians ran away in fear….or so they thought. A Lieutenant Fetterman requested permission from the camp commander to chase down the Indians that had ran away in fear and the permission was granted. Fetterman took 45 cavalryman and 45 infantry and left the fort. Fetterman had instructions to not go out of sight of the fort but soon after leaving the fort Fetterman spotted 7 or 8 Indians running over the snowy hillside and chased after them. As soon as all the troopers were over the hill, Red Cloud and 2,000 of his warriors fell upon the hapless troopers and annihilated them to a man. Not only that, not one of the troopers was found in one piece. They had all been mutilated. Soon after this the United States decided to abandon Fort Phil Kearney. After the troopers left the fort, it was set afire by Red Cloud before the troopers were out of sight. This is one of the very few victories the Native-Americans enjoyed.

Answer to the trivia question:

Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow