•     Musings and History

    Quote of the day:
    “A tyrant will always find a pretext for their tyranny.”
               Aesop's Fables (The Wolf and the Lamb)

    From a while back:
    I guess all of you saw that the leader of the terrorist attacks in Paris is on the run like a cockroach. I guess he is not interested in the virgins. Not only that Russia is sending bombers the size of B-52's in swarms and bombing the crap out of ISIS strong points in northern Syria. Those brave ISIS soldiers ran into residential districts and hid...more cockroaches.

    A while back I was waiting in my doctors office and read a story about a female yellow Lab named Moxie. This girl retrieved a limit of ducks and geese for 6 people one morning and a limit of pheasant for the same crowd that afternoon and was still eager to some action. I know this female yellow Lab named Kaylee that will retrieved a thrown ball for as long as you have the arm for it. She likes a ball harder than a tennis ball and does not wear out as quickly. She prefers a lacrosse ball. But when she has had enough, especially when it is hot, she will eventually retrieve the ball and then head toward an outside water faucet and sit down waiting on a drink rather than “go on the alert”, after water she is ready again. Kaylee is a member of the family and lives with my brother.

    I used to surf dating sites on occasion. Quite a while ago I got a notification of about 20 eligible ladies. This is what was in one of the profiles. It said that she had just returned from a trip to the Mediterranean visiting Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. This lady lives in the Aiken, SC area and has two “jumpers” or horses that jump fences and other obstructions. I should have stopped reading right there because it is obvious that she and I are not on the same financial plateau but I continued. After the lead picture there was a pic of a woman (I think) that had on a huge hat and sunglasses the size of motorcycle goggles so all you could see was a nose, lips and a chin, then a pic of a beach somewhere, a pic of a French bulldog and a dachshund, a pic of 8 or 9 brown pelicans on the water, a pic of 7 people in hiking gear near a lake somewhere mountainous, a pic of a handsome roan well groomed horse whose tail had been partially braided, a pic of the same horse with the woman hugging its neck, a pic of two women on horseback standing in front of what looked like a pub somewhere in Ireland or Scotland, a pic of a woman atop a horse coming over a jump. It looked like the same horse with a braided tail but it was so far away I could not identify the rider. Nearly all the pics of the woman showed her in “horsey” trappings. You know what I mean, tight white pants, black boots, a red Prince Albert cutaway coat and a black helmet with a bill. All of this smelled of lots of money. I considered sending her a response with my pics...like a pic of me near the front wheels of my ancient Maxima, a pic of Kaylee the yellow Lab with the light just right so you will see her retinas, a pic of a bottle of Makers Mark, a pic of a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar I had at Stax, a pic of my daughter's “significant other” replacing the right front strut of my beloved Maxima, a pic of me and a motorcycle gang standing in front of the Richard's biker bar in Mount Pleasant, a pic of me and the “Four O'clock Club”, and finally a pic of me with my 30 year old fly rod. All of this should give that lady some insight into who I really am.

    I watched a TV show about the greatest Samurai swordsman in history. He was a Japanese warrior named Musashi. This man killed his first man in a duel at the age of 13. He then went back into a remote forest and stayed four years training himself into a razor sharp swordsman. He soon was attached to a warrior clan that was hell bent on taking over Japan and their leader becoming the Shogun (king). They soon ran into another clan of Samurai warriors that wanted the same thing and a battle erupted. In this battle in 1601 there were over 160,000 warriors engaged. Over 80,000 died in that one day and they did it the hard way, with swords, knives, pikes and arrows. Musashi was different. He used a sword in each hand rather than both hands on one sword. He proved himself a worthy warrior at the age of 17. In this battle the warriors that were killed were beheaded and all the heads were amassed in one pile. I wonder what that smelled like a week later. Musashi began roaming the countryside looking for duels. It has been documented that he was in 60+ duels and never lost. He believed that a sword had a life of its own and was an extension of the bearer. It is true that all Samurai swords are a little different because they are all handmade. He finally gained a duel with the alleged greatest swordsman in western Japan and they agreed to meet on a small island. Musashi was four hours late and by then his opponent was furious which is what Musashi wanted. He came ashore without a sword which enraged his opponent even more. He did have a wooden sword that the carved from an oar. His opponent launched a furious attack but was soon struck down a beaten to death by Musashi. He had two things working for him, he had “psyched out” his opponent and he made his wooden sword 8 inches longer that his opponent’s sword. That just goes to show that a fight is not just who is the strongest, fastest or the fiercest. It is a mind game.

    Down in Aiken, South Carolina a man walked into a convenience store and robbed the joint but not before beating the crap out of the clerk with a stick. He ran outside and jumped aboard his trusty Toro LX and sped away. A Toro LX is a 15 HP riding lawn mower. After a furious chase with speeds sometime reaching 8 MPH the culprit was arrested. It has not been confirmed yet but I suspect he is a relative of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi.

                       This Date in History November 19

    1942 Earlier in 1941 Adolph Hitler ordered his army to invade Russia is spite of a treaty that had been signed just a few months earlier. The German army dashed across the Russian plains delivering horrendous death and destruction. The Germans had unquestioned control of the skies and could bomb anything they felt like. The Germans had split their forces into three sections and very soon Moscow and Leningrad were under siege. Hitler ordered the 6th Army to attack and capture the great city of Stalingrad. The 6th Army was commanded by General Von Paulus and he had 250,000 troops. Von Paulus estimated it would take about 10 days to force the city to surrender. There was one thing that he neglected, the Russian winter. The German air force had bombed Stalingrad into rubble and Von Paulus thought he could set up a siege and Stalingrad would surrender. He was wrong. The Russians used the rubble to establish defensive strong points. This meant that the Germans would have to go in and dig the defenders out a few at a time. What happened after that was a battle that went down in history as one of the most ferocious ever fought. There were 15,000 to 16,000 casualties every day for an extended period. There was a female Russian sniper that is credited with over 300 kills. Finally the winter descended on the Germans that were not prepared for such bitter weather. Eventually the 6th army rolling stock came to a halt. On this date Russian General Zhukov ordered a counter attack and he was able to cut the supply lines to the Germans. Between the cold weather and the Russians looking for revenge, Von Paulus surrendered. He only had 90,000 troops left with no help in sight. There were only 5,000 soldiers from Von Paulus' army that lived to see their homeland again.

       Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow