•    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 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 and 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 sheriff's deputy 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.