Musings and History


Quote of the day:

“A Jewish nymphomaniac is a woman that will have sex on the same day she has her hair done.”
                                                  Margaret Lipman

Trivia question of the day:
What is the largest fish ever caught with rod and reel?  Answer at the end of the blog.

Here an interesting series of events. After the Confederate states essentially surrendered in April of 1865, in December the 13th amendment as ratified declaring that slavery was outlawed “in the United States and its possessions.” However it took to July, 1868 before the 14th amendment was ratified. This is the amendment that gave citizenship to those born in the United States or naturalized. This act gave citizenship to the freed slaves, before then they were not citizens...I am not going to go into citizenship for Native Americans. We ain't perfect.

                               This Date in History   July 18

1969 This date saw two historic events that were important to these United States. The most important one was the landing of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the moon with Buzz Aldrin and Neal Armstrong aboard. The second one was not as heroic. Senator Ted Kennedy and his friend Joe Gargan were hosting a cookout on the affluent Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard. Attending the cookout was a stone fox named Mary Joe Kopechne. She and young Ted apparently stirred up a mutual fire and Ted borrowed someone’s Oldsmobile and he and she headed for a remote beach on the island. Young Ted, not being familiar with this part of Martha’s Vineyard, missed a turn and ran off a short bridge into a small tidal basin. The Oldsmobile went under water enough to cover the car. Ted was able to escape and swan to shore and then on over to his family’s compound where he changed clothes and sat down trying to figure out what to do. Ten hours later he called a rescue team and the Olds is pulled from the basin with the corpse of Mary Jo aboard. Ted has never been able to satisfactorily explain his behavior on the fateful night. His behavior was demonstrated by his lack of character. He died of a malignant brain tumor. God works is mysterious and sometime vengeful ways.

1792 Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones died in his Paris apartment. He was in Paris awaiting a commission to become the US ambassador to Algiers. This man was instrumental in the creation of a viable navy for the fledgling United States. The US did not have any warships to speak of not the money to buy any. So Jones showed the honorable way to get the ships, he and a group of his men would sneak aboard a British man-of-war, kill the captain and most of the crew, throw them over the side and sail the ship back into American waters for re-fitting and renaming. The first of these was when Jones sailed his ship the USS Ranger out of Brest, France and made a successful raid on the English port of Whitehaven and then on over to the Irish Sea that Jones knew well since he was a native Scot. He spied the British man-of-war HMS Drake, engaged her in combat and boarded, killed the captain and the second in command and some of the crew and took command of the Drake also. His most famous fight was when he was in command of the US warship the USS Bonhomie Richard and engaged the larger and more heavily armed HMS Serapis. Jones took a hell of a beating in the early stages and was taking on water and on fire. The captain of the Serapis signaled for Jones to surrender. Jones signaled back “I have not yet begun to fight.” Jones and his crew was able to stem the leaks and put out the fires and maneuvered the Serapis into a position that it was forced to surrender. Jones died at the age of 45 and is buried in a crypt on the US Naval Academy grounds in Annapolis, Maryland.

1863 Earlier the United States government was in a quandary about black men. They said they were fighting the Civil War under the presumption that all men are created equal yet they had not one black combat unit in the entire army. Either they were equal or they were not and if they were, they need to be in combat like all the other white men out there. Lincoln himself was very cool to the idea and suggested that the black man was “not far enough along” to assume the duties of mortal combat. But influential men like Frederick Douglass leaned on Lincoln enough to where he conceded but insisted that the leadership of such a unit would have to be white. Finally a black unit was assembled, trained and armed and became the 54th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Boston aristocrat Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Two of Frederick Douglass’s sons were in this Regiment. The first combat this unit experienced was when they landed near Port Royal, South Carolina and were successful in repelling attacks by the Confederates from Georgia. The port of Charleston, SC was paramount in importance to the US military. The problem was that the mouth of Charleston Harbor was bristling with artillery on both sides not to mention Fort Sumter in the middle of the harbor. The US military decided to reduce the Confederate artillery on the south side of the harbor located on Morris Island and known as Fort Wagner. The 54th was assigned this task. On this date late in the afternoon the 54th began their assault. The biggest problem was that the only land approach to Fort Wagner was over a narrow path that paralleled the beach with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and an impenetrable marsh on the other. The attack was repulsed even though the Fort was breached in two places but the Confederates were able to throw them back. In all there were 254 of the 54th killed in this endeavor including Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. They made a movie named Glory about this episode in our history. Denzell Washington won an Oscar for his performance in this movie.

1984 On this date at lunch time a man named James Huberty told his wife that he is going hunting and then he says “Only this time I am going hunting humans.” He walked into a crowded McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, pulled out an automatic rifle and pistol and ordered everyone to lie on the floor. Everyone complied and Huberty calmly walked around in the restaurant and indiscriminately shot and killed 21 people and wounded another 20. The police finally arrived and surround the place but do not shoot because they do not know how many shooters are involved. Finally, one of the managers managed to escape through the basement and told the police that Huberty is the only shooter so they gave a police sniper the go ahead to take this son-of-a-bitch out. The sniper finally got an open shot and put a round in Huberty’s heart killing him instantly. There are crazies out there, y'all. Huberty’s wife told the police that Huberty had called the County Mental Health Facility seeking and appointment a week before but got no call back.

Born today:

1908 US playwright Clifford Odets. He said “Rich men play polo, poor men have sex.” We all need recreation, Cliff. Mahatma Gandhi said “The bed of poverty is fertile” and I guess that is why you will see a shack barely standing with a whole squadron of kids running around.

Answer to the trivia question:
The largest documented fish ever caught with rod and line was a 3,427 pound great white shark. It was caught near Block Island off shore from Montauk, NY.

                   Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow