Friday

         Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Eva sang for my wedding. I really had to coax her out to sing. She was really shy about singing in front of a large crowd, but she went ahead and did it. It was just Eva and her guitar and she sang Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Everyone thought it was a strange song for a wedding but I really liked the song and I think Eva liked it, too. After she finished everybody was crying and would go up to her and say ‘Eva, what a great job’. She would always graciously say, ‘Thank you’ but she was very uncomfortable with all those compliments.”

                                  Ruth Murphy, friend of Eva Cassidy

A good friend of mine named Dortha from Killeen, Tx sent me an unsolicited biography of Eva because she knew how much I admire her. Dotty died a while back of Cystic Fibrosis. I don't think I will ever get over this one.

Trivia question of the day:

Who played deputy Chester Goode on “Gunsmoke”?

For a while now I have been seeing a couple come into my favorite diner. She is well groomed and drives a Mercedes convertible, he is obviously on edge for reasons that I could not figure out. One day he abruptly left and she and I began talking. I came to find out that he is a retired Marine Lt. Col. and a Mustang. He has six Purple Hearts a Distinguished Service Medal and earned a Navy Cross in Nam...he also suffers from PTSD. Today they came in and I called him over and said that I had read his Navy Cross citation and thanked him. He said "It was my honor". That got to me, y'all. You would have to read the citation to understand what that man went through. For the rest of the time he was there he was staring out into space or holding his head in his hands. I think he was reliving that experience in Nam. I wish I had not mentioned it. BTW a Mustang is a person that joins the Marines as enlisted and ends up an officer. This man has courage and is a Patriot. He is deserving of everyone's respect, especially mine.

                   This Date in History   November 29

1864 In 1851 tribes of the Cheyenne and Arapaho signed a treaty with the United States at Fort Laramie, Wyoming that granted the lands between the Arkansas River and the Nebraska border to the Indians. Soon thereafter gold was discovered in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and that treaty was broken so the miners could use the Indian lands as a means of passage to Colorado. By 1861 the conflict between the Indian and the miners/settlers has reached a fever pitch. The United States called for another treaty to prevent massacres on both sides from breaking out. In this treaty in 1861 the Cheyenne and Arapaho ceded much of their lands in return for an annual payment and the promise of food at selected US Army forts. In fact, the Indians were encouraged to camp near Army forts, especially in the winter. After this treaty, Cheyenne chief Black Kettle moved his tribe near a fort in Colorado but was told by the fort commander that there was better hunting near Sand Creek so Black Kettle moved his peaceful tribe to that location. Since the outbreak of the Civil War the available military in the state of Colorado was minimal because of the troops that were brought into the US Army actions in the war. The Governor of Colorado organized more and more local militias to deal with the hostile Indian tribes. Soon after Black Kettle moved to Sand Creek on this date, the village was attacked by a Colorado Militia headed by a Colonel Chivington and the village was all but wiped out. There were 148 Indians killed to 9 of the militia. More than half of the dead Indians were women and children. Chivington had eyes for the Governorship of Colorado and thought that this massacre of innocent people would enhance his chances. He wasn’t done yet. His troops chose to cut out/off many of the genitalia of the dead and rode through the nearby towns waving them as trophies. Initially, Chivington’s attack was praised but when the facts came out as to what really happened a wave of disgust swept through the area and Chivington abandoned his political ambitions and all but disappeared from the face of the earth, and rightly so.

1950 In June of 1950 troops of the country of North Korea invaded the independent country of South Korea. Two days later, President Harry Truman stated that the United States will send troops to assist South Korea because South Korea was a member of SEATO, an organization of mutual military assistance in case of war. After American troops arrived the whole of the South Korean Army and some of the US military were cornered at the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula with their backs to the sea. The combined forces of South Korea and the US among others drove the North Korean troops back across the peninsula into North Korea and up close to the Chinese border. China had already warned that any approach to their borders by the Allied forces would be viewed as a hostile act and would be very provocative. The head military commander General Douglas MacArthur said they were bluffing. On this date, about 250,000 Chinese troops swarmed across the North Korean border and enjoined the Allied forces and began yet another drive back into South Korea. General MacArthur criticized the Truman administration for not allowing him to use nuclear weapons. Harry Truman called MacArthur to Midway for a conference. Harry told the General that civilians make policy, not the military, fired him and brought in General Matthew Ridgeway.

1967 On this date the sitting Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned. In 1964 McNamara had backed and even encouraged the escalation of the conflict in South Vietnam. But over a period of time McNamara saw the futility of continuing prosecuting the war, we were going nowhere. About a week before McNamara had handed the President, Lyndon Johnson a list of recommendations relative to the war in Vietnam. And they were: Freeze the present troop levels; stop the bombing of North Vietnam, hand over the prosecution of the war more to the South Vietnamese army. President Johnson rejected any and all of his recommendations so McNamara resigned and became an officer with the World Bank. Johnson brought in Clark Clifford to replace McNamara. It is too bad that Johnson did not listen to McNamara or maybe we could have saved the lives of several thousand brave Americans.

Quotable quotes:

“Never eat more than you can lift”.

Miss Piggy

“The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal eats better than most people of the world.”

                                                       Robert Orben

Born today:

1949 US comedian Gary Shandling. He said “I am too shy to express my sexual needs except on the phone with people I don’t know.”

1971 US “Baywatch” star Gerry Lee Nolan. She said “All you have to do is eat right, get plenty of exercise and a breast implant and you will look just like us.”

1832 American writer Louisa Mae Alcott. She said “Housekeeping ain’t no joke.” You can say that again for all of the bachelors in the world.

Answer to the trivia question:

Deputy Chester Goode was played by Dennis Weaver.

                              Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday Thanksgiving

                             Happy Thanksgiving y'all

                                 Musings and History

Quote of the day:

Earlier LSU had fired head football coach Les Miles and installed defensive line coach Ed Orgeron as interim head coach. They have had a disappointing season and everybody thought they are looking for head coach other than the interim. I have a friend in Baton Rouge that is a die-hard LSU fan and an alumnus. He said that hiring Oregeron is popular primarily because he went to LSU, is a Cajun and would be cheaper than all the other potential candidates. I told him “Money is not everything.” He said “No it isn't, but it allows you to buy your own brand of misery.”

But look what "Coach O" has done for the Bayou Bengals!                                                   

                                         Trivia question of the day:

On the TV show “Gunsmoke” there was a half white/half Comanche blacksmith name Quint Asper...who played him?

Back in 1937 a beautiful 16 year old Idahoan named Julia Turner was sitting at the counter at the Top Hat restaurant on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles when newspaper man named Bill Wilkinson approached her and offered to introduced her to Mervyn LeRoy of Warner Brothers. She was indeed hired and given the more glamorous name of Lana Turner. She was treated as a typical starlet given roles more for her beauty than her acting skills. She was eventually successful at more dramatic roles.  She had a daughter by actor Stephen Crane and named her Cheryl. At the age of 37 her roles diminished and she was wooed by a Mafia enforcer named Johnny Stompanato, a real grease ball. Heavily moussed wavy hair, silk shirts unbuttoned to the navel and heavy gold necklaces. Lana accepted his advances. One night Stompanato and Lana were arguing and it became physical, 14 year old Cheryl came into the room and stabbed Stompanato to death. The media, as rotten as ever, shouted that Cheryl had stabbed Stompanato to death in a jealous rage because she wanted him. Cheryl, an admitted lesbian, was acquitted calling her actions self defense and her identity was kept secret for several years. In 1995 Lana Turned died of throat cancer in her Studio City, Ca. home at the age of 74.

                     This Date in History  November 28

1862 Earlier US General John Blunt and his army had driven the CSA army commanded by General John Marmaduke into the Boston Mountains in northwest Arkansas. On this date CSA General George Hindman and his army arrived from across the Boston Mountains to try and kick Blount and his Yankee army out of Arkansas. Hindman and his army joined in battle with Blount’s army at a place called Cane Hill. Hindman was unsuccessful and Blount and his army stayed in Arkansas. The Battle of Cane Hill was short and sweet with the Yankees suffering less than 50 casualties and the Rebs less than 40.

1987 On this date the New York City Police found a 16 year old black girl covered in feces and wrapped in plastic garbage bags near a dumpster. She was alive and kicking but had parts of her hair cut off and a few small cuts on her arms and legs. Her name was Tawanda Bailey. Tawanda told the police that she had been kidnapped by four white men, with one of them was wearing a badge. She said that she had been repeatedly tortured and raped over a four day period. The black rabble-rousers came out of the woodwork in the form of , Vernon Mason, Alton Maddox and the ever present Rev. Al Sharpton. They began raising hell claiming that there was a conspiracy against the black community by the NYPD. They even had the nerve to accuse the Solicitor Stephan Pagones of not only turning his head at this crime but that he was present and participated in the kidnapping and rape of Tawanda. The police could get no cooperation from Towanda’s family but the family had no problem with accepting contributions. It was finally determined that Tawanda’s parents knew that Tawanda was lying but saw it as an opportunity to get some easy money. The police increased their investigation and put the pressure on Tawanda and she finally cracked and admitted that she had hatched the plan to fake the kidnapping to cover her attending an overnight party and not attending school then next day and cut her self and cut her hair as part of the plan. There stood Mason, Maddox and Sharpton with egg on their respective faces knowing that Solicitor Pagones would come after them with fire in his eyes and come he did. He filed a defamation charge against the trio. Before the ink had dried, the trio offered Pagones a settlement that was never made public. Pagones took the offer, resigned his position and disappeared from the public arena. We still have Mason, Maddox and that bane of justice, Al Sharpton who are still with us, however. Yes I am talking about the same Al Sharpton that was an adviser to the President Obama

1582 On this day playwright/actor William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in the town of Avon, England. Five months later the blissful couple is delivered of a daughter. Evidently the Bard of Avon had been doing more than just writing and acting.

1520 Earlier the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan had been tasked with finding a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific by sailing west rather than south and east around Africa. He sailed across the Atlantic to a point near Venezuela and began sailing south exploring the rivers coming out of South America for a passage to the Pacific. He was not successful until he reached the Patagonia region of Argentina and he found a passage that appeared to be the one they were looking for. They sailed southwest and then northwest through a narrow passage for several weeks and on this date they sailed out onto the broad Pacific. This route is known to this date as the Straights of Magellan. Even with this passage shortening the trip around Cape Horn (The southern tip of South America) by several hundred miles, the trip through the Straights was a formidable one, especially in the winter which was May to September. During this time severe storms prevailed and is was a dangerous passage for any ship regardless of size. The Panama Canal ended that danger.

1979 On this date an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed in Antarctica killing all 257 souls aboard. Air New Zealand had been flying tourist flights over Antarctica for several years. The vast wasteland was a sight to see and was relatively close. On this trip an inexperienced crew was making their first trip there. The airline forbade their pilots to descend below 6,000 feet while over the Antarctic continent but on this day there was cloud cover and the pilots took the plane down to 1,500 feet to get under it. Suddenly the 12,600 foot extinct volcano Mount Erebus appeared straight ahead and the plane crashed into the side of it. It took the rescue teams many days to get to the crash site. There were no survivors.

1954  On this date one of the most brilliant scientist that ever lived, Enrico Fermi, died. Fermi was a nuclear physicist teaching at the University of Chicago at the time. Fermi was teaching at the University of Florence, Italy in the 1930’s when the Fascist Mussolini rose to power. After Mussolini aligned himself with Adolph Hitler, Fermi knew it was time for him and his Jewish wife to get out of Dodge. It was Fermi that jury rigged an atomic pile under the bleachers of a squash court at the University of Chicago and produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Earlier Fermi, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Edward Teller and other nuclear physicists had formed a letter that Einstein took personally to US President Franklin Roosevelt. The letter explained that they had proven mathematically that a nuclear chain reaction was possible and so was a nuclear weapon. The message that was sent by Fermi to his fellow scientists was “The Italian navigator has landed on a foreign shore...the natives are friendly”

Births:

1820 German philosopher Frederick Engels is born. He said “Some laws of state aimed at reducing crime are even more criminal.

Answer to the trivia question:

Blacksmith Quint Asper was played by Burt Reynolds.

                          Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday

      Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“All of us have had a crush on a teacher. For me it is my wife's aerobics instructor.”

                                                              Brian Kelly

Trivia question of the day

On the long running TV show “Gunsmoke” what was the name of Matt Dillon's horse? Answer at the end of the blog.

                             This Date in History November 27

1746 Robert R. (R.R.) Livingston is born on this date at his father’s estate, Clermont, on the banks of the Hudson River in upstate New York. R.R. was born into a family of the wealthy and privileged. In 1766 R.R.’s uncle Lord Livingston had been treating his tenant farmers severely and they revolted. They attacked the Livingston Manor in force and would have prevailed had not the English Army had not intervened and the attack was stopped. However, in 1777 the British army burned the Livingston estates of Clermont and Belvedere in retaliation for the Livingston’s siding with the Patriots in their search for independence and freedom. R.R. graduated from King’s College or present day Columbia. He was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the time of the Articles of Federation. He was a contributor in the phrasing of the Declaration of Independence but was not there for the signing. As he was the Chief Judge of New York, it was he that issued the oath if Office to George Washington at his first inauguration. He was selected as Chancellor of the state of New York and from that time on he was known as “The Chancellor” for the rest of his days. It was Livingston that was present in France trying to negotiate the sale of the port of New Orleans to the fledgling United States during the Jefferson administration. At the time, France was governed by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had dreamed of coming ashore in New Orleans and conquering all of North America but he knew that war with England was on the near horizon and he could not fight a war of two fronts that far apart. After an offer to buy New Orleans was issued to Talleyrand, Napoleon’s chief of staff, Talleyrand responded with “How much will you give me for it all? He was talking about all of the French lands in North America except for Canada. Well, R.R. and John Jay about peed their pants and asked for some time to come up with an amount. This was the beginnings of the Louisiana Purchase which all but doubled the lands of the United States. R.R.’s soul departed this earth on February 26, 1813.

1863 On this date Confederate Raider John Hunt Morgan and most of his staff, having previously been captured, tunneled out of the US Prison Camp in Columbus, Ohio and escaped back to Tennessee. Morgan was a native Kentuckian but when Kentucky did not secede, he moved to Alabama and offered his services to the Confederate Army. He was assigned the task of making raids on US installations in Kentucky since he was familiar with the area. Later he felt his Wheaties and went into Ohio and raided several US facilities. The down side was that when he came back to his place of crossing the Ohio River back into Kentucky, there was an overwhelming US cavalry unit waiting for him. After an extended chase, Morgan and most of his staff were captured. After returning to Tennessee, Morgan assembled another cavalry unit and began his raids again. Ironically, a year later Morgan’s cavalry unit was the victim of a surprise US cavalry attack near Greeneville, Tennessee. Morgan was killed trying to organize a defense. His attacks in Kentucky and Ohio did little logistic damage but did enormous good for the morale of the Confederacy.

1978 On this date former San Francisco city supervisor Dan White walked into city hall and killed Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. He shot them both several times with a 9mm automatic pistol. It seems that earlier Dan White has not happy with the way things were going in city hall and had resigned. Soon thereafter, Mayor Moscone hires Harvey Milk to replace White. Milk was the very first acknowledged homosexual to hold public office. White was arrested in short order and charged with premeditated murder. White was upset because Moscone had not conferred with him before hiring Milk, and he expected Moscone to try and get him to come back to his supervisor job but Moscone did not do it and hired Milk. The funny thing about all of this was that White’s defense was that he was hyped up from eating too much junk food. It was the first of the so called “Twinkie” defenses. The astounding part about this is that the jury bought it and White got ten years for manslaughter. After White was paroled he had a hard time adjusting and eventually blew his own brains out. I guess he got back on the Twinkies.

1868 A year before, US Calvary officer Colonel George A. Custer had been disciplined for the mistreatment of his troops and was demoted and removed from active service for a year. While he was out of service, US General Phillip Sheridan’s troopers had been getting their asses handed to them by the Cheyenne in Kansas and Oklahoma. Sheridan relented and after 10 months he brings Custer back to active duty to see if he can contain the fierce Cheyenne. 

On this date, Custer launched a surprise attack on a peaceful Cheyenne village led by Chief Black Kettle near the present day town of Cheyenne, Oklahoma. As was common with Custer, he did no scouting or reconnoitering before attacking. If he had, he would have determined that this village was peaceful and was indeed on a reservation. It did not seem to bother Custer that the village was essentially unarmed and they killed 105 men, women and children in cold blood. Custer was not interested in punishing the Indians as much as he was in making a name for himself and getting back into a good light with his superiors no matter how many lives it took. It was his recklessness and lack of scouting that cost him 227 of his troopers being slaughtered and cut to pieces at Little Big Horn. In my personal opinion he may have been the worst officer the United States ever had. He was a good fighter but his ego came first before anything else, a very dangerous combination.

Births and deaths:

8BC Roman writer Horace is born. He said “Whatever your advice, make it brief.” The only advice I remember receiving was “Go slower”, and it was brief.

1874 US historian Charles Beard is born. He said “Whom the Gods choose to destroy, make mad with power.”

1909 US writer/critic James Agee is born. After reviewing the play “You Were Meant for Me” he wrote “That’s what you think”.

1937 US writer Gail Sheehy is born. She said “Creativity consists of letting go of certainties.”

1940 Legendary martial arts master Bruce Lee is born. He said “I am not in this world to fulfill your expectations of me and you are not here to fulfill mine.” Here, Here.

Answer to the trivia question:

Matt Dillon's horse's name was “Buck”

                              Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

    Musing and History

Quote of the day:

“Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

                                                        Mark Twain

Trivia question of the day: 

What was the bloodiest single day in American history? Answer at the end of the blog.

                             This Date in History November 26

1922   Earlier archaeologist Howard Carter had discovered an unopened tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh name Tutankhamen but waited to enter the tomb until his financier English Lord Caernarvon arrived to be there for the opening. Carter knew then name of the pharaoh because of the hieroglyphs on the portal. On this date Carter and Caernarvon standing shoulder to shoulder cut a small hole in the doorway to take a look. Carter stuck his arm through the hole while holding a candle and peeked inside. Lord Caernarvon asked Carter what he saw and Carter answered “Things, wonderful things.” After the opened a hole large enough to crawl inside they uncovered one of the most dazzling and important archaeological discoveries ever found. Carter was a veteran explorer and in the past had found the tombs of Queen Hatshepsut and King Thutmose IV. Both were important discoveries but nowhere the equal of King Tut. What a thrill it had have been to have been the first human being to lay eyes on that tomb in 2,500 years. I am sure that we all have seen the gold funeral mask of King Tut. What a beautiful work of art it is as with many other pieces found there.

1863   After the disastrous Confederate loss at Gettysburg, The Army of Northern Virginia, CSA General Robert E. Lee commanding, escaped back into the friendly confines of Virginia pursued by the Army of the Potomac commanded by US General George Meade. The were several encounters with no clear victor all the while US President A. Lincoln is on Meade’s ass to bring Lee to bear and finish off the Army of Northern Virginia. Even though Meade had the Confederates outnumbered nearly two to one, he was unable to corner the elusive Lee. After spending several weeks of Lee and Meade warily eyeing each other across the Rappahannock River with Lincoln raising hell with Meade to do something, Meade orders extensive reconnoitering and cannot find a weakness in Lee’s lines. But to placate Lincoln on this date he orders US General William French and three corps (about 33,000 men) to attempt an attack on Lee’s right flank. French and his troops set out and promptly get lost and make their position and intentions known to the Rebs. Lee sent CSA General Edward Johnson and his corps to cut French off. The two armies finally meet in a small valley named Mine Run and the battle is joined. After about four hours of little progress being made by either side, they both withdraw. French’s troops had suffered 940 casualties to 540 for the Confederates. Meade, in spite of the bitching of Lincoln, decides it is time to go into winter quarters and this battle is the last of 1863.

1933   Earlier 22 year old San Jose, California resident Brooke Hart shows up missing. Hart was the popular son of a San Jose store owner. The parents of young Brooke receive a ransom note for $40,000 a few days after his disappearance. The police retraced Hart’s steps to a ship near San Mateo and arrested two crewman named James Thurmond and John Holmes as the kidnappers. Eventually Hart’s corpse is found. He had been tortured before being beaten to death. Both Holmes and Thurmond blame each other for the slaying and are jailed in San Jose. On this day, the fine citizens of San Jose storm the jail and take Thurmond and Holmes outside and suspend them by the neck from the nearest light pole. They are not done yet. They cut the ropes used in the hanging and sell the pieces and give the money to charity. They also allow pictures of the fine citizenry of San Jose to have picture of themselves with the corpses…for a price. That money goes to charity also. The people of San Jose are praised by everyone in the state of California including the good Governor who stated “We need to turn over all the kidnappers in San Quentin to the good people of San Jose.” I believe in justice but I do not believe in vigilantism. That inevitably leads to anarchy.

1898   One of the worst blizzards to ever strike the northeastern United States begins on this date. Previously the winds had been blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean for two days then in a matter of minutes the wind began blowing form the northwest meaning a cold front called an Alberta Clipper had arrived and interacted with the moisture laden air already in place. It snowed for 36 hours at a ferocious pace to the tune that there were snow drifts even with the second story windows in places. As you might suspect, all communication were stopped. After all was said and done, there were over 450 dead but the real total may never be known because of the unsophisticated communications in those days.

1872   On this date one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of the United States begins. Two men named Phillip Arnold and John Slack walk into a San Francisco bank and try to deposit some raw diamonds. The bank president named William Ralston tried to get more information from the two but they behave very secretively and refuse Ralston’s questioning. Finally Ralston gets the two to admit that they found the diamonds in a mine. Ralston finally persuades the two to take him to the mine and they blindfold Ralston and take him to a mine where they had “salted” diamonds and rubies, meaning that they threw some diamonds and rubies about like they were extracted from the mine.  Ralston about peed his pants and came back to San Francisco and organized a $20 million investment group. They offered Arnold and Slack $600,000 for the rights to the mine which they took. Soon afterward the San Francisco newspaper hired a geologist to inspect the mine and he returned and says that the mine is just a hole in the ground and is totally worthless. Ralston begins giving back the money to the investors but is unable to retrieve the money he gave to Arnold and Slack. The smoothies lived the rest of their lives in luxury thanks to the greed of man.

1941   On this date the combined Japanese fleet departs the Japanese Inland Sea heading east-southeast. They are headed for the United States military installations in the Hawaiian Islands. As we all know they arrive of December 7 and all but destroy America’s ability to wage war in the Pacific. For reasons known only to the Japanese, they did not occupy any part of the Hawaiian Islands nor sail on eastward to the United States unopposed. For whatever reason they did not do either and we were able to recover and prevail in the bloodiest war ever fought.

Birth and deaths:

1792 US Suffragist Sarah Grimke is born. She said “I ask nothing for my sex. All I ask is that my brethren get their feet off our necks.” That’s a real peculiar position for sex, Sarah.

Answer to the trivia question:

The bloodiest single day in American history was the Battle of Antietam in the Civil War. On the average there was a American killed or wounded every 2 seconds for 10 hours. War is hell.

                 Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

              Musings and History

Quote of the day:

"The tongue cannot tell, the eye cannot conceive nor the pen cannot describe the horror I have seen on this day.”

US Army Captain John Tripplett after the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Md. September 17, 1862.

The beginning of civilization began in what is known as “The Fertile Crescent” or the area from the north end of the Persian Gulf following the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north then west to northern Syria and what is now coastal Lebanon on the Mediterranean. There were several small city-states clustered near the northern end of the Persian Gulf (near present day Basra, Iraq) among them was Kish and Akkad. There was a young man of vision named Sargon living in Akkad. Civil war erupted in Kish and turmoil resulted. Sargon went over and took control and from there he expanded his powers and eventually was in control of the entire Fertile Crescent. He was then known as Sargon the Great. This man modified warfare to his advantage. The usual method of warfare in those days was heavily armored infantry carrying heavy weapons and trundling into combat well aligned and shoulder to shoulder. Sargon sent his troops in with no armor and armed with only a sword and a dagger. His troops became a running cavalry, rushing in and doing as much damage as possible and then retreating and reforming and slashing again and again until all the enemy were killed or surrendered. Sargon also introduced archers into combat for the first time. The heavily armored enemy just could not move swiftly enough to avoid the hailstorm of arrows and the lightning attacks of the infantry. Sargon would capture all the important leaders of the lands he conquered and used them as an advisory group but they were really hostages. If any of the countries represented were to revolt, he would kill the representative he had in custody. Once Sargon's power was assured, there was no doubt that he was the absolute monarch and shared power with no one. He died in 2261BC.

Why were we in Afghanistan? The Russians failed there and that adventure caused the Russian government to go bankrupt and the dissolution of the USSR. Even one of the mightiest military leader in history could not conquer the Aghanis...Alexander the Great. To get any kind of cooperation Alexander had to marry an Afghani princess. To those guys, war is a way of life and has been for hundreds if not thousands of years. So why are we there? To kill those in Al-Queda? Maybe. To protect the largest business in Afghanistan which is the opium poppy crop? Maybe.  But the one that profits the most is the so called US Military Industrial Complex. That would be companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, Sandia, Northrup, Hercules, Remington, Winchester, Colt, Federal, General Electric, Fluor, Kellogg-Brown and Root (KBR), Ingall's ship yards, etc., etc., etc. If the war in Afghanistan were to end these companies would lay off thousands not to mention those soldiers returning to the US looking for a job. As horrible as it may seem, the US crawled out of the Great Depression faster because of WWII. The US started sending the tools of war to Europe in 1937. I talked with a man the other afternoon that said he worked for Fluor and went to work at 1:30AM. I pursued that and he said that he was a buyer for Fluor and his working hours had to be the same as the working hours in Afghanistan. Why does a buyer have to be that instantly available? What cannot wait until 8:00AM EST? Y'all think about all of this...it sounds like the US is willing to risk American lives to keep a certain part of the US economy afloat...or am I wrong??       

              This Date in History   November 25

1783 On this date nearly 3 months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War, the final contingent of British soldiers left New York City. New York had been continuously occupied by the British since 1776. As soon as the British withdrew the Patriot army led by George Washington marched triumphantly into the city amid a jubilant crowd. Soon thereafter New York was declared the capitol of the United States and that is where George Washington received his first inauguration as President. New York was the capitol until 1790 and then the capitol was moved to Philadelphia. As you might suspect, the Americans that remained loyal to England during the war were between a rock and a hard place after the British left, the victorious Patriots had confiscated their lands and property. England did not disappoint and gave lands in Ontario and Nova Scotia to the Loyalists. This event seriously changed the demographics and changed eastern Canada from a New France with Catholics to a majority of English speaking Protestants.

1950 The so-called “Storm of the Century” or the “Appalachian Storm” got underway. A low pressure system over North Carolina got some rotation and formed into a major storm and headed northeast. This monster dumped massive amounts of snow on West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The snow depth prevented travel in many areas for a week, and then it gathered some steam and headed into New England. It wasn’t just the snow it was the wind also. New York City recorded wind speeds of 94 MPH and on Bear Mountain north of New York there was a gust of 140 MPH recorded. The temperature on Mount Mitchell, North Carolina fell to 26 degrees below that night. The strange thing was that in Buffalo, New York the wind reached a speed of 50 MPH but the temperature never got below 50 degrees. The US weather service reported that this storm had the greatest difference in weather ever recorded in America...so far. Over 160 people died in this storm.

1876 On this date the US Cavalry launched a retaliatory raid against the Cheyenne for the Little Big Horn massacre of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his 7^th Cavalry. After news of this event reached the east coast a public outcry was raised to intensify the “Indian War”. So the US Cavalry called up US General Ranald McKenzie from the Texas area to lead an expedition to find and punish the Cheyenne. McKenzie had good results fighting the Comanche and Kiowa tribes in Texas. He gathered 1,000 troopers and 400 Indian guides and headed out. He tracked down the Powder River and finally found a Cheyenne village under the leadership of chief Dull Knife. Then the troopers did the honorable thing. They got into position before daylight and opened fired on the sleeping village at dawn. Many Indians were killed instantly but many escaped into the nearby woods and had to watch many more being slaughtered and their winter food supplies and clothing being burned. The troopers were not done yet. They cut the throats of all of the Cheyenne ponies. After the troopers left the survivors began an 11 day journey to the village of Sioux chief Crazy Horse who took them in but many very young and elderly did not survive the walk. The next year Dull Knife talked his people into surrendering and they were sent to the “Indian Nation” in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Like I have said in the past, this era in the formation of the United States is a dark one. We came within an eyelash of total genocide because we wanted the land on which they had been living for thousands of year. Greed and avarice has no boundaries. However, there was a certain section of Oklahoma where one particular tribe was sent because it appeared to the honkies that the land was not fit for raising crops...but it was later found that section of land was afloat on a sea of oil and natural gas. That Osage tribe is the wealthiest on Earth. 

 

               Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow 

Friday

  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“To achieve total enlightenment you must forget everything you know or have ever learned and just 'be'.”

                                         Musashi (legendary Samurai warrior)

Trivia question of the day:

Humphrey Bogart was a distant relative of a prominent Englishman, who was it? Answer at the end of the blog.

Up in Hendersonville, N.C. a man walked into a convenience store, covered his face with his jacket and demanded money from the clerk. No, he did not produce a weapon but suggested that he did have one. He did not see the customer that was in the store that happened to be a biker about the size of Wisconsin. The biker confronted the robber and suggested that the robber try to rob him. The robber left immediately waving for an accomplice to come and pick him up post haste. That is a good example of poor reconnaissance, my friend.

A couple of weeks ago I told y’all about a fight that broke out at a football game involving Garinger High School in Charlotte. It took a SWAT team to break up the fight that began again in the parking lot and the SWAT team had to used more aggressive measures to calm things down. A couple of days ago a fight erupted on the Garinger high school grounds before school started. It took the cops to break this one up too. The cops said that some of those that were involved in the fight were not students. They also said that they arrested a number of the participants and they believed the fight was gang related. They arrested who they thought was the gang leader but could not publish his name because he was a juvenile…a juvenile. Where the hell are his parents/guardians? They are the ones that need to spent time in the joint.

Some of y’all may have read this before but here it is again: There was a street gang in Boston that had a leader nicknamed “Yummy” because he always had Oreo cookies close by. This gang was exceptionally vicious under his leadership. One day a rival gang kidnapped Yummy and tortured him for a couple of days before strangling him. Yummy was 12 years old.

This Date in History November 22

1783 John Hanson died in his Maryland home. Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress after the signing of the Articles of Confederation. It is believed by some that he was our first president but that is incorrect. The president of the Continental Congress was similar to England’s Prime Minister. The office of president of the United States did come into being with the formation of the three main branches of out government, Judicial, Legislative and Executive in 1789. Hanson was a fiery Patriot and advocated the removal of British authority in 1773. He served in the Maryland Legislature for many years before joining the Confederation. At the age of 25 he married the 16 years old Jane Contee. They had issued of 9 children of which 5 lived to adulthood. However, his oldest son Peter was a Continental soldier and was killed at the Battle of Fort Washington, New York.  As with many of our ancestors, we should be grateful that people with character and dedication of John Hanson were there for us or we would still be under the umbrella of Great Britain.

1963 About 11:00a CST the car in which the sitting president of the United States John F. Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connolly and President Kennedy’s wife Jackie are riding in turned onto Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas as part of a motorcade. Soon thereafter three shots ring out two of which strike President Kennedy in the neck and the back of his head. One of the bullets passes through Kennedy and struck Governor Connolly in the back and left wrist. Both Connolly and Kennedy are rushed to Parkland Hospital where Kennedy succumbed to his wounds. Connolly survived. The assassin had fired from the fifth floor of the Texas Book Depository. He had used a mail order .308 caliber Manlicher-Carcano rifle. A short time later the Dallas PD went into a movie theater to arrest a suspect named Lee Harvey Oswald. There were shots fired and one Dallas policeman is killed but Oswald is finally arrested and charged with the slaying of Kennedy. Two days later Oswald is assassinated by a strip club owner name Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas Police Station, if you can believe that. Kennedy was the fourth United States President to be assassinated. Much controversy arose from this event, so much so that the United States Congress assembled a committee to investigate. After all is said and done, in spite of overwhelming evidence otherwise, the committee determined that there was no conspiracy and Oswald had acted alone. They came to this conclusion in spite of many witnesses that hit the ground and looked up toward a grassy knoll rather than the Texas Book Depository because they heard a shot coming from that direction. The controversy continues to this day and I suppose that we will never be made privy as to who killed John. There is no doubt in this writer’s mind that Oswald did not act alone and was the patsy in a monstrous conspiracy and I know that I am not alone in this belief.

1718 In 1713 a wannabe pirate named Edward Teach joined with the pirate sloop crew headed by Ben Hornigold. Teach was probably English but that is not known for sure. Shortly after he joined the crew, Hornigold was offered amnesty if he would retire from piracy and he accepted. Teach assumed command of the crew and soon captured a 26 gun French man-o-war and renamed it “Queen Anne’s Revenge” which became the flagship in his fleet of four pirate ships manned by over 200 men. It was during this time that Teach was given the nickname of “Blackbeard”. He was indeed black bearded and when entering battle he would tie fuses into his beard and light them and the resulting smoke would wreath his head and face which scared the crap out of his opponents. His crews were able to loot over 30 ships and were known to be exceptionally cruel. In May of 1718, two of his ships were shipwrecked including his flagship. He chose to abandon one of the remaining ships and sailed into Bath, North Carolina with the remaining ship. He had a conference with North Carolina governor Charles Eden and promised the good governor a part of his booty if he would allow Teach to use Bath as his headquarters and Eden agreed. At the behest of a group of Virginia planters, the Governor of Virginia, John Spotswood, sent a group of three British ships led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard to hunt down and eliminate this threat to shipping in the Chesapeake and the coast of Virginia. The British cornered Blackbeard off the Coast of Okracoke Island, North Carolina and a bloody battle ensued. Maynard prevailed and Blackbeard was killed. What happened was a Scottish Highlander with one of those terrible two handed swords jumped in front of Blackbeard and engaged in a duel. He struck Blackbeard on the shoulder and he complimented the Scotsman on his skill. The Scotsman said “If you liked that one, here is another” and with a backhanded move beheaded Blackbeard with one stroke.

1942 Earlier Adolph Hitler had ordered the launch of Operation Barbarossa which was the invasion of Russia. There were three German armies involved and were traveling in parallel courses. The center army surrounded the Russian city of Stalingrad and set about a siege. Millions of Russians died of disease and starvation. On this date the Russian army completed the encirclement of the Germans at Stalingrad which cut off the supplies to them. It was just a matter of time before the German commander surrendered his army of 250,000 troops and hundreds of tanks, artillery and various other tools of war. No more than 6,000 German soldiers from that army made back home. War is hell.

Born today:

1958 US actress Jamie Lee Curtis. When asked about her acting in the nude she said “I think while they are up and firm, I should use them to my benefit.”

Answer to the trivia question:

Humphrey Bogart was a distant relative of Winston Churchill.

                                   Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow