Monday

                           Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“We keep saying that we are through with the past. The problem is that the past is not through with us.”

                                                   Bergen Evans

Trivia question of the day:

What is a fez? Answer at the end of the blog.

A while back the Greenville County Sheriff's office was called about a domestic dispute and shots being fired. The cops arrived and sure enough there was a man in the front yard firing into the air. When the cops got out the man fired off a few shot in their direction and the cops responded with a few shot of their own. The shooter was able to make it back into the house. When he saw his house surrounded, the shooter laid down his weapon and surrendered. I have mixed emotions here. I am glad that there no injuries but when a team of cops fires several times and hits nothing, that bothers me.

I guess many of you read about a riot that broke out after church services in rural South Carolina. There were about 75 parishioners involved and it took several car loads of sheriff’s deputies to break it up. What the problem was is a certain group of the flock wanted a vote to get rid of the present pastor and there was another group that wanted to keep the present pastor and they would not allow a vote. Both sides decided to end this impasse the honorable way, they would fight about it. Make no mistake, the Old Testament allows and even encourages wholesale murder. In the book of Exodus, Moses was told by God to instruct Joshua and his army to totally annihilate several tribes on their way to Canaan. The reason being was if they did that they would not have to worry about an attack from the rear by any survivors. It worked. This was a matter of survival for the Children of Israel but fighting to see who was going to be the pastor is at least juvenile. All I have to say is “Thou shalt not kill” except under certain conditions and as directed.

              This Date in History February 4

1861 Earlier in November of 1860, the Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The Republican Party was formed in 1850 for the sole purpose of eliminating slavery in America. As early as 1858 the slave-holding states had threatened secession if a Republican was elected President. The Democratic Party was divided and in disarray and there was very little chance that their presidential nominee would win. Almost immediately after the Lincoln election, the State of South Carolina began assembling the paperwork necessary to secede from the Union. On December 20, 1860 the South Carolina legislature issued the “Ordinance of Secession” declaring them as no longer being a member of the United States of America. Soon after various regiments of the South Carolina militia began capturing Union forts and armaments because they knew a war was on the near horizon. On this date, representatives of South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana gathered in Montgomery, Alabama to hammer out a Constitution and establish the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as President. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861, Texas had joined the Confederacy. Very soon after this meeting all of the Union forts and outposts on Confederate soil had been capture by the Confederacy except Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC harbor (been there) and Fort Pickens on the end of the Santa Rosa Island peninsula near Pensacola, Florida (been there, too). The Civil War began in earnest of April 12, 1861 when CSA General P.T G. Beauregard ordered an artillery bombardment of Fort Sumter after the commander of the Fort refused to surrender to the Confederates. Eventually the commander of the fort did indeed surrender because the Confederate artillery forbade any supplies reaching the fort. Fort Sumter is on an island in the middle of the Charleston, SC harbor and supplies can only get there by boat.

1945 On this date American President Franklin Roosevelt, England Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Russian Premier Josef Stalin meet in the city of Yalta in the Russian Crimea to decide the future of Europe in the post-war era. It was obvious that Germany was just weeks from capitulation especially after their defeat in the Battle of the Bulge. The biggest problem was the greed and avarice of Stalin. He had already established a Soviet controlled government in Poland and expected Roosevelt and Churchill to condone it. Roosevelt and Churchill believed that the Polish government-in-exile living in London should resume control. Stalin also wanted to establish a “Soviet sphere of Influence” in Western Europe. Stalin promised to invade Japan within 90 days of the surrender of Germany in return for him the other two agreeing to his demands. All of this mistrust was the beginning of the so-called Cold War but sure enough, Russia began marshaling their forces in Manchuria across the straights from the northern end of the Japanese islands in late July. The Emperor of Japan knew his country could not fight two armies simultaneously and started leaning toward the demands of the Potsdam Agreement where the Allies demanded an unconditional surrender of Japan or risk a wholesale invasion from the south by the Allies and from the north by the Russians. Then the world came to an end for Japan on August 6, 1945 with the detonation of the world’s first atomic weapon over Hiroshima and three days later over Nagasaki. Three days after that Emperor Hirohito uttered the unimaginable to his people when he broadcast on the radio to all of Japan the word “surrender”. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt died of a stroke exactly two months after the meeting at Yalta and was not around for the formal surrender of Japan.

1789 On this date 69 members of Congress cast their ballots for our first President of the United States. In those days the members of Congress cast a ballot with two names on it, the person who had the most votes at the top of the ballot was President and the other was Vice-President. In this case the President was George Washington and the Vice President was John Adams. The same thing happened four years later.

Born today:

1876 US writer Sarah Cleghorn. She said “The children working in the factories are close enough that they can look out the window and watch the adults playing golf.” Using child labor in America is not that far in our past, y'all.

1895 English actor Nigel Bruce. When told the price of tickets to the ballet he said “That is a hell of lot of money to watch people jump around.” I concur.

1945 US comedian Davis Brenner. He said “A vegetarian is a person that will not eat anything that can have babies.” That’s funny.

Died today:

2006 US feminist Betty Freidan. She said “The feminine mystique has buried millions of American women alive.” What the hell is the “feminine mystique.”?

Answer to the trivia question:

A fez is a type of hat worn by Muslim men mostly in Turkey. It is in the shape of a tapered cone with a tassel on top usually either red or green.

                       Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.