Wednesday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

When speaking of Neville Chamberlain he said:

“I cannot support any person that thinks charisma is December 25^th.”

                                            Winston Churchill

Trivia question of the day:

Who was acknowledged to be the first European to set foot in North America? Answer at the end of the blog.

Two things:
One: There is much ado about civilians being killed or injured as a result of collateral damage during an attack on armed insurgents. Just 73 years ago the US and the allies began an systematic bombing of German and Japanese cities that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. This came after the Germans indiscriminately bombed English, French, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian and several other nation's cities killing civilians with the idea of breaking their spirit. The Japanese went into Nanking, China and killed and raped over 300,000 civilians one at a time and is known to this day as “The Rape Of Nanking”. Is it OK for our enemies to kill civilians with hope of breaking our spirit but we cannot respond in kind? Read history folks.

Two: During the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage Rome was not very successful against Hannibal in battlefields in Italy so they took another tack. They sailed over to Hannibal's hometown of Carthage and killed everything, not everybody, everything and either burned or destroyed all structures. They were not done yet, they salted the ground to where nothing would grow and that was the end of Carthage and eventually Hannibal's supply source. The point I am making is that you have to be meaner and more vicious that your adversary...if not you will be fighting to a stalemate at every encounter. The result is a war of attrition that no one wins...see Vietnam. That war could have been won easily with the total destruction of Hanoi and Haiphong, but LBJ was afraid of the bad press and the end result was 58,201 Americans died for nothing. We are doing the same thing in Afghanistan. It should be total war or not at all.

          This Date in History   September 12

1912 Two automobile enthusiasts try to gather enough money together to build a transcontinental road from New York to San Francisco. They came up with $10 million in private funds but needed a little more so they approached Henry Ford and that jackass refused to contribute so they went to the president of Packard and he delivered $1.7 million and suggested that they name it the Lincoln Memorial Highway to make it eligible for federal funds. And sure enough they did and enough funds were found and the construction was started. This road later became the famous Route 66.

1992 Actor Anthony Perkins died of AIDS. I guess Tony’s most memorable performance was as Norman Bates in the horror thriller Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Friendly Persuasion but he was severely miscast as the baseball star Jim Pearsall in the movie Fear Strikes Out where Pearsall was pushed relentlessly by his father to become a major league baseball player. Pearsall finally did get to the major leagues but was crazy as a bedbug because of the pressure his father had put on him. Anthony Perkins obviously was no athlete and it was apparent when you saw him swing a bat or throw a ball, I felt embarrassed for him. His ways and demeanor were very effeminate. Anthony finished out his career capitalizing on his Norman Bates thing with 5 or 6 sequels to Psycho.

1861 CSA Gen. Sterling Price captured Lexington, Missouri after a nine day siege. Price had surrounded the town and cut off the water supply and just waited and therefore there were almost no casualties. Price was the CSA commander at the Battle of Wilson Creek a month before where the US army got the crap kicked out of it and its forces were scattered to the four winds.

1968 Ford and Nissan decide to create a minivan specifically aimed at the gutless, spineless, yuppie, PW’ed husbands that may be out there in suburbia. It was an immediate success because there are apparently more of the above described men than anyone had ever dreamed. What makes me say this is once I was working in a men’s clothing store and a man and his wife and two kids came in the store. The man was responsible for keeping the kids corralled while the wife went through the clothing picking out stuff for him. After all is said and done and they start to leave, I cannot resist so I took a very bold teal colored tie to the man and suggest that this is the hot color this year for the “strong minded executives.” It really wasn’t but I just wanted to stir up some shit and the man went to the front door and yells at his wife, who is already sitting in the driver's seat of a Ford Windstar, “Honey, can I get this tie?” She said “Not this time.” I asked him what he did and said he was a financial planner. This man is suppose to make decisions on people's financial futures and can’t make a personal decision on a tie? I don’t think so. I had forgotten how spineless the American male had become, this reminded me. On the other hand an elderly gentleman came in with his wife and said “We are from Tryon and I need a suit to go to a funeral so I need to have the alterations done today if any.” I took a few measurements and led him over to a suit rack to make a selection. I suggested a navy blue or charcoal gray...then his wife jumped in and started pulling suits off the rack telling him what he should get. Soon thereafter he said to her “You need to go wait in the car”...that wasn't good either. I found a suit that fitted him well except the pants needed to be hemmed. I did that myself and sent him...and his wife...on their way back to Tryon.

1977 Steve Biko, a black activist against apartheid in South Africa, dies of head trauma in Pretoria. Biko had been a thorn in the side of white South Africa for some years trying to make the country democratic with equal treatment for all. He was arrested en route to a political rally in Port Elizabeth and taken to a prison that was notorious for torture and killing. That’s right folks, like it or not our Caucasian brethren used Nazi tactics to keep the blacks suppressed. During his 18 day stay he obviously was severely beaten because when they brought his out he was comatose but they offered no medical treatment and put him in the back of a van and drove him over 700 miles to Pretoria, hung him by his wrist from a window frame where he died. Even though former guards have testified that they grabbed Steve by the arms, bent him over and ran him headlong into a stone wall no one was ever sentenced for this outrage. But later on apartheid was abolished and a black man named Nelson Mandela was elected president. Maybe this atones for Steve Biko’s torture and death, maybe. As all of us know, there are martyrs in every search for justice and freedom, history is full of them and now Steve Biko’s name has been added.

Born today:

1880 US writer H.L. Mencken. He said “Everyone should respect other’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children are smart.” Mencken was a famous atheist.

1917 Chinese writer Han Suyin. He said “The most powerful force in the world is gentleness.” Han, that is a hard pill to swallow when speaking of those rat shit Arab terrorists.

Answer to the tivia question:

Without question the first European to set foot in North America was Lief Erikson, a Norwegian Viking. He established a small village in Newfoundland in the early 11^th century.

               Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

                                   Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”

                                           Winston Churchill

Trivia question of the day:

What is the only father/son winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor? Answer at the end of the blog.

9/11 is a special day so I will issue one on this day. I addition to the history lesson I will include the greatest display of dedication and courage ever documented to remind us of what mankind is capable of when fighting the Arabs.

                             Marathon and Thermopylae

In 490 BC the Persian (present day Iran and Iraq) army/navy was led by their king Darius I on a mission to conquer Greece. In September of that year the Persian fleet landed in the Bay of Marathon, Greece with his 300 warships and 300 cargo ships Darius disembarked and arrayed his infantry of an estimated 60,000. The Athenian army was already there with a force of 11,000. The Athenians met the Persians at waters edge with their army split into three sections, a central force and two wings, one on each side. After the battle began the Athenian central section began to fall back in an apparent retreat. The Persians pulled in their flankers and put them in the front to pursue the retreating Athenians. The Athenians then stopped their retreat in the center and attacked with both wings simultaneously and the Persians were caught in a double envelopment with their backs to the sea. They panicked and began running right and left into the awaiting swamps and soon were drowned not mention the three Athenian infantry divisions in their familiar phalanx arrangement that waded into the panic stricken Persians and used their spears and swords with great effect. The end result was 203 Athenians killed to 6,400 Persians who also had 7 of their ships captured. Darius went back to his ships and sailed his young ass back to Persia. It is a legend that the Athenians sent a runner named Phidippides back to Athens that was 26 miles distant to tell of the victory. After reaching Athens he was to suppose to have dropped dead after uttering “We are victorious”. This legend is where the famous foot races called marathons originated. The first of present day Olympic marathons was in 1896. There is evidence the games similar to the Olympics were held in Greece before 770BC.

With all of this in mind, I will move on to Thermopylae. Darius’s son Xerxes decided that he would avenge his father’s defeat at Marathon and initiate another assault on mainland Greece. So after four years of preparation, in the spring of 480BC Xerxes left Persia with the fleet of 1,207 ships and 300,000 infantry hell bent on conquering Greece. Xerxes’ infantry and navy followed coastline of the Aegean Sea so the infantry could be supplied by the navy. In fact Xerxes had enough ships that they could make a bridge of ships across the Hellespont and his infantry marched over from Asia to Europe rather than having to be shuttled over with ships. I looked at this area from a satellite view and measured the distance and it is about 1.3 miles at the closest point. The Hellespont is a narrow body of water that separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea and it is in present day Turkey. After getting his infantry across, Xerxes continued to follow the coast of the Aegean Sea over to Greece with his navy close aboard. While all of this was going on, the Greek city-states got together to decide what they were going to do about those pesky Persians that they knew were coming again. Everybody looked to the Spartans for leadership in this arena. The professional Spartans soldiers (Hoplites) were acknowledged to be the fiercest in the known world. So the Greek city-states assembled an army of 7,000 led by Leonidas and his 300 Hoplites. Leonidas knew that it was unlikely that he or any of the Greeks would return from the upcoming battle. It was the law of the Hoplites that they would never retreat and Leonidas told his wife that after he left this time “to find a good husband and have good children”. The Greeks decided that the best place to try to stop or delay the Persians was a narrow path on the Aegean coast named Thermopylae Pass. This Pass had a sheer cliff rising hundreds of feet on one side and the Aegean Sea on the other. They also knew that Xerxes would be very reluctant to leave the coast and go inland and be out from under the umbrella of his navy. The Pass was so narrow that two chariots could barely get through side by side meaning that the pass was about 20 feet wide. On August 11, 480BC the 7,000 Greeks met the Persian army of 300,000. Xerxes sent an emissary to talk with Leonidas promising him that if he came over to the Persian side he would be named the King of all Greece. Leonidas sent this message back “If you knew what is good in life, you would abstain from asking for foreign things. For me it is better to die for Greece than to be a Monarch over my compatriots.” The next day the infuriated Xerxes sent another message demanding that Leonidas and his army surrender their weapons. Leonidas sent the immortal message back “Come and take them.” This took Xerxes somewhat aback knowing what such a small force he was facing and he waited four days hoping that Leonidas would change his mind. Nothing happened and on the fifth day Xerxes sent in 20,000 troops. The lightly armored Persians were no match for the heavily armored, well disciplined Greeks arranged in their typical phalanx with their long spears. During the first attack, a Greek soldier spoke with a Hoplite named Dienekes and said that the Persians had enough men to send over enough arrows to block out the sun. Dienekes responded with “So much the better, we will fight in the shade.” Because of the terrain the Persians were unable to surround or flank the Greeks and the narrowness of the Pass made superior numbers useless. Wave after wave of Persian infantry attacked and was slaughtered until the dead were head high in front of the Greeks. Leonidas knew that there was no way that the Greeks could win this battle so he sent all the Greek army away except for his beloved Hoplites numbering 300 knowing they would be annihilated. Then a strange thing happened. A division of Thespians numbering about 700 led by one Demophilis decided to stay, Demophilis said that he was not going to leave the Spartans here to die alone. The Thespians were typical of Greek armies. They were not professionals like the Spartans; they were soldiers when they needed to be. In fact Demophilis was an architect by trade. This act of bravery has been overlooked by historians but it was not overlooked by the Spartans who exchanged cloaks with them and vowed to be allies for eternity. 50,000 Persians attacked on the second day with the same result as before in spite of Persian officers standing among them and lashing those that retreated. Xerxes finally sent in his personal body guard of 60,000 named “The Immortals” and they were slaughtered also. As their numbers fell, when the Spartan/Thespians broke their spears, they pulled out their short swords and kept fighting and when they broke they fought on with their hands, teeth and nails. Xerxes finally found a seldom used path over the cliffs and attacked the Greeks from the rear and killed with arrows what few Greeks remained, including Leonidas. The final total was 1,100 Greeks killed to 24,000 Persians. Xerxes had lost two brothers in this short battle and pulled Leonidas’ body aside and beheaded him. His body was later given to the Greeks and he was buried in Sparta with full honors. This battle allowed the rest of the Greek city states to prepared further for the war against the Persians that ended with the sea battle of Salamis and the land battle of Palatea. After these stunning defeats, the Persians once again got aboard their ships and sailed their young asses back to Persia never to return. About 150 years later a young Greek named Alexander paid Persia a visit and exacted a terrible revenge.

There is a monument at the site of this battle with a Greek inscription that says “Friend, tell the Spartans that on this hill, we lie obedient to them still.”

                           This Date in History   September 11

2001 Arab terrorists primarily from Saudi Arabia skyjack 4 US airliners and crash 2 of them into the twin towers of the World Trade center in lower Manhattan completely destroying them, crash one in the Pentagon and one of the skyjacked plane’s pig sucking coward terrorist are overcome by the passengers and the plane crashes into a field in central Pennsylvania. There were no survivors in any of the crashes. These pig sucking coward terrorist are supposedly sponsored and financed by Saudi national Osama Ben Laden and his network of pig sucking cowards known as al Qaeda. America was/is under attack and is in fact at war to this day. I just go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that America has sent out its own version of “terrorists” like A-Teams, Marine Recon teams, Air Commandoes, Seal teams and Delta teams who are out there in the world and are covertly capping those coward pig sucking sons-of-bitches and their families faster than a dog can trot.

Answer to the trivia question:

The only father/son winners of the Congressional Medal Of Honor is Arthur and Douglas MacArthur. Arthur for the Civil War and Douglas for WWII.

                 Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

                         Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not necessary.”

                                  Edward Dennings

Trivia question of the day:

Who was Pocahontas' husband and what happened to her? Answer at the end of the blog. (I am not talking about Elizabeth Warren)

About 4:00a on a Monday morning the Charlotte PD received a burglar alarm at the Robinson Middle School. The cops showed up and found a broken window. Upon entry they found 56 year old Janice Shields of Chesnee, South Carolina. They were momentarily taken aback because Janice was naked as a jaybird and drunk as a Cooter Brown. She was arrested and charged with a B & E (breaking and entering). The cops were glad to find Janice because they had been looking for her because her involvement in a fight earlier. What a sight that must have been for Janice is no Demi Moore.

Over in Merry Old England 62 year old Mike Edwards was riding in his van across the rural countryside when out of the blue, a 1,300 pound hay bale began rolling down a steep hill and ended up in front of him and he crashed into it. Mike was fatally injured. He was the cellist in the rock band Electric Light Orchestra better known as ELO. It was definitely Mike’s time to go because what are the odds of Mike’s van and a rolling bale of hay arriving at the same spot in the universe at the same time? I really enjoyed ELO’s music.

Over in Spartanburg County South Carolina Kathryn Thomason had been out with her friends and arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning and flopped down on the couch. Her 20 year boy friend Jamie Earnhart began shouting at her and eventually struck her in the face. At this point Kathryn’s children came in the room, jumped on Jamie and wore his butt out. The cops came and carted Jamie off to jail, including the recent wounds, and charged him with criminal domestic violence, second offense. Let’s do some math here. Jamie is 20 years old and his girlfriend has children old enough to be able to kick his butt. That makes Kathryn not a cougar but a Smiladon (Saber Tooth tiger) .

                    This Date in History September 10

1897 Even without a breathalyzer test, George Smith is arrested for DWI in London. This is the start of legal entanglements for years to come that caused attorneys to jump for joy from that day to this. However, the statistics show that even the severest of penalties do not seem to deter the driving imbibers. Each year there is an average of 16,000 deaths, 500,000 injuries and $1 billion in damages. We are a very hardheaded bunch.

1921 Germany opened the autobahn. The autobahn being the first minimum access highways in the world with no speed limit. It closely resembles 1-385 at 5:30p near Greenville, S.C. and Independence Blvd in Charlotte, N.C. at about the same time.

1942 President Roosevelt decreed the advent of gasoline rationing for the duration of the WWII. What we really need to do is outlaw any vehicle that cannot produce at least 25 MPG in the city and 28 MPG on the road and that means the SUV's like the Tahoe, Explorer/Expedition and Grand Cherokees, etc. will be parked until pre-Katrina production levels are resumed.

1993 On this date is the final episode on Tonight with David Letterman on NBC. Dave's final guest was Tom Hanks. After the retirement of Johnny Carson it was a seesaw battle between Dave and Jay Leno to be Johnny's replacement. Jay won and Dave moved to CBS. Dave originally outdid Jay in the polls but eventually Jay prevailed and has been ahead ever since.

1989 Hungary allows the East Germans that had been in refugee camps to return to West Germany if they wanted to which was opposed to Soviet policy. The president of Hungary said "We cannot be a nation of refugee camps." This unanswered act of defiance was a sure indicator the Russia's influence was circling the drain.

1977 Charlene Williams and Gerald Gallego met in a Sacramento Bar. Thus beginning one of the most sordid tales in the history of serial killers. These monsters decided that Gerald's sexual and sadistic appetites were the equal of Charlene's and so they went on rampage of capturing runaways and raping, torturing and killing them. They had done in 10 teenagers before finally being caught in an Ingles parking lot asleep in a stolen car in Greenville, S.C., tried and convicted. Charlene rolled on Gerald and got 20 years, Gerald got life without parole. In my opinion that ain't good enough, I wish we still used the rack and the Iron Maiden so we could get medieval on their collective asses.

1881 Tensions rise in Cochise County, Arizona after a stage robbery is investigated by Wyatt Earp and his brothers. By looking at some boot prints in the dirt, Wyatt decided that Frank Stillwell and sometime sheriff John Behan had done the deed and arrested them. Both Frank and John were supporters of the Ike Clanton and John McLaury families. These 2 families felt that they controlled the "range" country where they could do pretty much as they pleased including rustling other peoples cattle and horses, and the Earp brothers controlled the town. All this tension came to a head in October at the OK Corral. The Earp brothers and Doc Holliday prevailed.

Born today:

1487 Pope Julius III. When speaking to an aide he said “Do you not know, my son, with what little understanding this world is ruled?” Hey Julius, hell yes I know what you are talking about. Nothing has changed in 523 years.

1885 US writer Charles Van Doren. He said “Yes, it is hard to write, but it is harder not to.” I concur, Charles.

1890 French/Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli. She said “Women all over the world dress the same: they dress to be annoying to other women.” Women are strange critters, y'all.

1929 US golfer Arnold Palmer. He said “The road to success is always under construction.” Arnie had one of the fiercest competitive spirits ever seen in sports.

1934 US columnist (and one of my favorites) Charles Kuralt. He said “Thanks to the interstate road system, we can travel coast to coast without seeing a damned thing.” Unfortunately, this North Carolina native left this earth at the age of 63. What a damned shame.

Answer to the trivia question:

Pocahontas was married to tobacco plantation owner John Rolfe primarily because Rolfe wanted a truce with the very powerful indian chief Powhatan, Pocahontas was his daughter. Pocahontas, John and their infant son Thomas sailed to England.   She was the hit of King James I court. She got aboard a ship in London to sail back to the New World. When the ship was just a few miles down the Thames she fell ill and died near Gravesend. It is not known what killed her but her symptoms indicate TB, pneumonia, dysentery or small pox for she had no natural immunity to any of these. She was buried in St. George Church graveyard in Gravesend.

               Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

                        Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I don't want to endorse alcohol, drugs and violence but it has always worked for me.”

                                         Hunter S. Thompson

Trivia question of the day:

Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is credited with being the first person to circumnavigate the globe. He did not complete the voyage but his ship(s) did. Why didn't he finish the trip? Answer at the end of the blog.

Recently a fellow piping designer working on a new nuclear power plant near Jenkinsville, SC sent me an item about the reactor core being placed inside the containment building. They had the most massive crane available to make that lift. The reactor core weighs as much as a fully loaded B-52 with 10,000 pounds to spare. Recently this plant was abandoned with a loss of billions that apparently will be absorbed by the consumers.

The anniversary of 9/11 is coming. I was in the engineering business then but I still had contact with some of my air traffic control brethren. I contacted one of them and asked him what happened when the order came down to get every aircraft under their control on the ground in the next 15 minutes. He said that he just read them the message that was handed to him and that went something like “Attention all aircraft on this frequency. Our country is under attack by air, all aircraft are to land at the closest airport within the next 15 minutes. Any aircraft detected after that time will be considered hostile and will be attacked by aircraft from the Air Defense Command.”. He said that most of the aircraft he had at that time was US Navy turboprop trainers, jet fighters, jet transports and a few prop driven civilian aircraft. After he read the message they could not get on the ground fast enough.

The biggest problem nationwide was all the commercial aircraft crossing the north Atlantic headed to the USA. They were denied entry into American airspace and most did not have enough fuel to make it back to where they came from. Over 230 made unscheduled landings at Gander, Newfoundland. They had a problem finding a place for all of them to park...and a place for the 6,000 stranded passengers to eat and sleep.

Back last summer 46 year old Tommy Harrison was driving his pickup truck north on US 25 just north of Greenwood, SC. For unknown reasons Tommy crossed over into the southbound lane and collided head on with a motorcyclist. The rider was flown to a hospital in Greenville, SC where he expired on the operating table. Tommy, on the other hand, fled the scene of the accident while driving on a suspended driver’s license. He went on trial later. The jury was out for about 15 minutes and returned with a guilty verdict. He was sentenced for 20 years with a minimum of 85% being served. 17 to 20 years in a South Carolina prison will be like 100 years in hell.

          This Date in History   September 7

2004 The French Police raid the Paris hotel room of Lance Armstrong and search for illegal substances. He is arrested because three different outlawed substances were indeed found. It was soap, toothpaste, and deodorant. The police insisted on a full body search of Lance and found yet more things not seen or allowed in France and that being a set of balls and a spine which is unheard of in French men. I am being facetious.

1979 The Chrysler Corporation requests and got a loan of $1Billion dollars that is guaranteed by the US Treasury to save the company from bankruptcy. Under the leadership of Lee Iacocca Chrysler was able to cut costs and overhead and was able to repay this loan with interest early. Say what you want but Lee is a superb executive, unlike Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom fame and Ken Lay of 1977Enron fame. Bernie is in the slammer and Ken has gone to meet his maker in the knowledge that he lost millions of dollars from his employee’s retirement program to the point that is was lost forever. What a guy.

1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an agreement with the Government of Panama whereby the control and ownership of the Panama Canal will go to the Panamanians at the end of the century and this would also cancel the so called “Canal Zone” which was a US owned section that allowed a military presence. The agreement also says that the US had the right to keep the canal open by what ever means necessary. This was what the US used as an excuse to go capture Manuel Noriega.

1940 Germany put Operation Sea Lion into effect which was the attempt to conquer Great Britain by bombing alone. The Germans bombed for 57 straight nights but it had no effect on the bulldog type attitude and morale of the British people. That is one thing that Hitler never did understand. The English people were ready to defend their soil from invasion with their hearts and souls and with the zeal that had been bred into them for centuries. The British soldiers proved their gritty stubbornness in North Africa and in many battles during WWI not to mention many, many encounters with France and Spain in the Middle Ages. Speaking of the French...in WWII they surrendered Paris without firing a shot.

1876 The James/Younger gang rode into Northfield, Minnesota to rob a bank . Jesse James pulled his weapon on the bank clerk and ordered the vault to be opened. The clerk said that the vault is on a timer and he can’t open it. At the same time he made a break for the back door and succeeded in getting it open and yelling for help before being shot in the shoulder by Jesse. The neighbors in Northfield come running out bristling with guns. Nearly all of the Younger brothers were killed but Frank and Jesse did escape and went into the Dakota Territory and started organizing another gang. By the way, Jesse went back and shot the bank clerk in the head.

Born today:

1533 Queen Elizabeth I, English monarch. She said “I would rather be a pauper and single than married and the Queen”. This girl was known as the “Virgin Queen” because she was never married. She did have two prominent boyfriends in the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex but it was never proven that she had carnal knowledge of either. She wanted to stay single so her power would not be “diluted”.

1932 English writer Sir Malcolm Bradbury. He said “God must not have been a liberal because he would not have given us the Ten Commandments; he would have given us the “Ten Suggestions.”

Died today:

1833 English writer Hannah More. She said “Obstacles are those terrible things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”

1951 US actress Maria Montez. She said “I see myself in the screen. I am so beautiful, I jump for joy.” Maria has gone from this earth still looking at a mirror.

1969 US Senator Everett Dirksen (D. Ill.). He said “We really have to watch it, a billion here, and a billion there, pretty soon you get into real money.” Senator Dickson since has gone to the great bank vault in the sky.

Answer to the trivia question:

When Magellan's expedition reached the Philippines they stopped for fresh water and food. Magellan befriended one of the village chiefs who told him that a nearby village had been harassing him and his village and asked Magellan to help since he had a firearm and thought that would scare off the other villagers. Magellan agreed and went with the chief on a raid into the other village. Magellan was hit with a poison dart and died the next day.

             Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday

                            Musing and History

Quote of the day:

“The easiest job in the world has to be a coroner. Doing surgery on dead people. What is the worst that could happen?”

                                                   Dennis Miller

Trivia question of the day:

There was a British ship named the “Bounty” commanded by a William Bligh and the first officer was Fletcher Christian that lead a mutiny. The Bounty was sent to the South Pacific and Tahiti in particular on a specific mission...what was the mission? Answer at the end of the blog.

I have a friend whose house was destroyed in the flooding in Baton Rouge, La. He is rebuilding for the second time in 10 years. His house was nearly destroyed courtesy of Hurricane Gustav in 2008. The homeowners were given rules to go by when cleaning out their destroyed household goods. They want the debris is six different piles primarily to protect the environment and for safety. They want those flammable products like paint, paint thinner, turpentine, etc. in a separate pile, electronics in a separate pile...I suspect because the the lead bearing solder and the gold, silver and platinum in the circuit boards. They want appliances in a separate pile I suspect because many of them have mercury switches. Mercury is deadly if ingested, then it is regular household goods.

My friend sent me a photo of one of his neighbors that had a sign on his debris piles saying “No looting or I start shooting.” I would hope that they were not talking about their trash being protected by firearms, that stuff is going to end up in a landfill somewhere anyway. My friend assured me that the sign was indeed about protecting their trash piles even from those people that have nothing and come looking for anything to help. How can anyone be that shallow, protecting their garbage so no one else can have it and willing to kill for it? They are out there, folks. As I have said before “Crises brings out the best...and the worst in human nature.”

Here are words of a Patriot:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

                                Teddy Roosevelt...1907

               This Date in History   September 6

1916 The first successful tracked military vehicle rolled out of an assembly plant in Great Britain. Because this vehicle was made in secret in a plant that made water tanks, the vehicle was called a “tank”. The British chose this plant site so they could bring in a lot of metal plates and not arouse suspicion. Most of the countries involved in WW1 were desperately trying to find a way to overcome trench warfare and a tracked vehicle that could cross over the trenches was the answer. England started making tanks at a furious pace and soon trench warfare was a thing of the past.

1948 Germany finally got back on it feet when the allies release all of the former Nazi regime’s assets. This was prompted by the recovery and successful operation of the VW plant in Wolfsburg. The VW beetle was the largest selling automobile in Europe.

1863 Confederate soldiers abandoned Fort Wagner located on the southern rim of Charleston harbor. In January the US navy had been given the task of capturing Charleston, S.C. US Admiral Samuel I. DuPont tried to enter the harbor with 8 warships and had his ass handed to him by the batteries on Fort Wagner. DuPont ordered his ships to turn around and go back to sea out of range of Fort Wagner’s guns. The US military knew that Fort Wagner had to be neutralized before the capture of Charleston was possible. The famous 54^th Mass. Regiment tried a land assault and was repulsed with many, many casualties. The 54^th, by the way, was the first all black unit in the US army. Later on CSA Gen. Beauregard saw that the continued defense of Fort Wagner was not possible and ordered it abandoned. The capture of Charleston came much later.

1847 Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau moved out of his shack on Walden Pond and moved in with the Ralph Waldo Emerson family. Emerson had been a close friend of Thoreau’s for several years he being a transcendentalist also. Thoreau was a Harvard graduate and he and his brother opened a school. Henry, while on a canoe trip, decides that teaching ain’t his bag and chooses to write essays and poetry like Emerson. Wonder what happened on that canoe trip that made him change his mind? He is successful with his books On Walden Pond and Civil Disobedience among others. It is interesting to note that Mohandas Ghandi, the architect of India’s separation and independence from Great Britain admittedly used Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience almost as a guide book in his search for independence. Thoreau was also an avid abolitionist also and was active in the “underground railroad”. He died in 1882.

1901 President William McKinley is shot by an anarchist assassin named Czolgosz, the pronunciation of this name is discretionary. McKinley was the first president to have body guards around him but these guys did not stop the assassin when he walked up to the President with his right hand out and a handkerchief covering his left hand and the gun. They did, however, beat the shit out of the assassin after he had put 2 rounds into the McKinley. It was McKinley that stopped the body guards from killing him. McKinley died of gangrene a week later.

1844 Explorer/cartographer John C. Fremont saw the Great Salt Lake and mapped it. Fremont was not the first honky to see this sight. Mountain men had been coming back east and talking about the lake since the 1820’s. Fremont’s maps of the western lands were critical to those pioneers and settlers that followed. Had it not been for these maps the settling of the west would have come much later and a much higher price. Fremont was not a person that knew how to live off the land, he hired mountain men and people like Kit Carson to guide and advise him. Fremont was also made a US General during the War Between the States. It was soon apparent that being a field commander in combat was not his calling and he resigned and went back to exploring. He died in 1890.

Born today:

1757 French adventurer Marquis de Lafayette. He said “If the liberties of America are ever lost, it will be at the hands of the clergy.” I hope those are not the words of the future but the actions of the evangelicals are worrisome.

1964 US actress Rosie Perez. She said “Yes, they are real and they are mine.” It doesn’t matter to me Rosie; I am an ass and leg man.

Answer to the trivia question:

The mission of the Bounty was this:

There was a botanist aboard with several hundred breadfruit seedlings. The botanist was going to see if breadfruit could be raised in that area of the world and used to feed the slaves that were to brought by the British to run and maintain coconut and copra plantations that was to be established by the British East India Company.

                  Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until  tomorrow

Wednesday

                                 Musings and History

                                                 Quote of the day:

“I am not saying I am fat, but as a kid I was chosen to play Bethlehem in the Christmas play.”

                                                     Jo Brand

Trivia question of the day:

Who played Victor Laszlo in the movie “Casablana”? Answer at the end of the blog.

Up in Charlotte, NC a landmark is going the way of the Titanic. The Double Door Inn is going to close its doors permanently soon if not already. The place has seen some of the finest American blues musicians ever. Parking is and has always been a problem because it is located in an old residential neighborhood that eventually became commercial. One night I was going to take a date to see Tinsley Ellis and we went to a restaurant and ate then took a cab to the Double Door. When we opened the door the smoke was about eye level. It did not burn our eyes but all of a sudden we got very hungry. Somehow some large fans came on and the smoke cleared...It was a great show.

That same lady invited me to go see the opera The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart in a fancy theater in downtown Charlotte. It was a first class extravaganza, costume changes and all but all the songs were in Italian which put me at a disadvantage. There was a lot of very rich people there also. How do I know they were rich? The men had on perfectly fitting tuxedos, shiny shoes, white silk scarves, professionally styled haircuts and YSL cologne. The ladies were dazzling in their form fitting sequined gowns, some short and some long, some off the shoulder and some not, some carrying fur stoles and jackets and some not, but they all had professionally constructed coiffures and plenty of glitter from the jewelry present on every appendage and around their necks. Me being and ass and legs man I did not get to their shoes. Many of them had feathered appliances in their hair and on their earlobes. These items reminded me of a jig I had used to catch striped bass. Their perfumes was a mixture of White Diamonds, Chanel #5, Red Door and a few others that when combined the aroma became very similar to Raid. I was resplendent in my white cotton turtleneck, blue blazer and Levi 501's in addition to my white socks, almost new New Balance sneakers and Paul Sebastian cologne. It was a memorable experience.

               This Date in History   September 5

1957 Jack Kerouac has his blockbuster book “On the Road” published. Jack’s book is considered the textbook of the restless beat generation and he lived all that he wrote about. He hitchhiked his way around the country taking mental notes as he went. Once he started writing he would tape several sheets of paper together so he would not have to stop his train of thought to change paper in his typewriter. One section of his manuscript for On The Road was 120 feet long of single spaced type. He was notorious for staying awake for days with the use of “uppers” and oceans of coffee while creating his novels. Jack also gave us “The Dharma Bums” and “The Subterraneans” among others. Jack was a two fisted drinker as are/were many of the writers of the world. He died in Florida of an internal hemorrhage at the age of 47. What a waste of a God given talent.

1969 Army Lt. William Calley is charged with murder of Vietnamese civilians in the village of Mi Lai in 1968. An American patrol had been harassed for days by a Viet Cong unit. The patrol came into the village expecting to find the Cong hiding in the village. They were not there so the soldiers started killing the villagers instead at the behest of Lt. Calley. They killed over 200 women, children and old men. Calley was convicted and given life imprisonment. Through a series of appeals and pardons he served 3½ years.

1863 The Confederacy ordered 3 ironclad warships from the British Laird shipyard. The ships are to be built with a large iron probe protruding from the bow that would obviously be used against US ship blockading Confederate ports The US Minister to Great Britain got the blueprints to these ships and sent a message to the British Lord of the Admiralty. The message read “There is no sense in me reiterating to your Lordship that the construction of these vessels means war with the United States, is there?” The ships were not built.

1917 The Battle of the Marne begins in WWI. Let me tell you something folks, this was to be the war to end all wars and it was almost that with this battle. As always the Germans were trying to defeat France and the French in an uncharacteristic show of military prowess attacked the advancing Germans in a surprise maneuver. There were 2 million men involved in this one battle. 2 MILLION, for crying out loud. How can you make a “surprise” move with that many men but they did. They attacked the German right flank and after 4 days of continuous combat the exhausted Germans withdrew. There were 100,000 casualties in one day. After the Germans withdrew, everybody dug in and trench warfare ensued. It became a war of attrition meaning who could stand to lose men and who couldn’t? It was a meat grinder for both sides.

1957 Boris Pasternak gave us Dr. Zhivago. There is not much anyone can say about this book except that it is one of the milestones in world literature along with others like War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, etc. What a wonderful and diverse universe we have available for us in literature.

1972 Some of you may be old enough to remember what happened at the Munich Olympics but on this day Arab terrorist (does that sound familiar) attack the Israeli dorms and took nine athletes as hostage in hopes that Israel will release their terrorist brethren being held in Israel in return for the release of the athletes. It didn’t happen. German police had set up an ambush at the airport but the Arab rats smelled out the ambush and killed all the hostages. Some of the terrorists escaped but as usual, Israel sent out the Mossad, which is their secret assassin group, to hunt these pigs down. It took a while, but the Mossad killed all of those pig sucking Arabs. I have a logic question. Are all terrorists Arabs or are all Arabs terrorists? Is there a middle ground? If there is, how do we honkies know where that is when their clergy wants us all dead or subjugated to Islam?

Sorry for the sermon but I have been hearing about those sons-of- bitches all of my life. During WWI US Gen. John J. (Black Jack) Pershing started having problems with the Palestinians. He resolved it by immediately executing those that had attacked and buried them all with dead pigs. No more problems.

Born today:

1638 King Louis XIV, Monarch of France. He said “I could better reconcile all of Europe than I could two arguing women.” Nothing has changed from that day to this, Lou.

1902 US moviemaker Daryl F. Zanuck. He said “Any of my indiscretions were with people, not actresses.” Daryl had his finger on the pulse of Hollywood.

1929 US comedian Bob Newhart. He said “I don’t like country music. I don’t mean to denigrate those that do. To those that do, denigrate means to “put down.” Bob, shut up.

1940 US actress and sex symbol Rachel Welch. She said “I was invited to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.” I was going to tell her what a stupid bitch she is, but after a second look I will say “Rachel baby, no body is perfect, except maybe yours.”

Answer to the trivia question of the day.

In the movie “Casablanca” Victory Laszlo was played by Paul Heinreid.

          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.

Tuesday

                             Musing and History

Quote of the day:

“There are three kinds of economists, those that can count and those that can't.”

                                                   Eddie George

Trivia question of the day:

Who played Henry Higgins in the movie “My Fair Lady”? Answer at the end of the blog.

Here is what history tells us about terrorists. If a terrorist attack was made on any persons or things belonging to Roman Empire, the Roman army would kill all of the terrorists except for a few. They would interrogate them by what ever means it took to find out who they were and where they came from. They would then find each and every member of the terrorists families and kill them all top to bottom, not only that they would destroy their town and villages. If the towns and villages were too large to destroy they would indiscriminately kill a large number of people, gather up another large number and sell them into slavery. This had two results. It prevented the terrorists families from attacking in revenge and it made each and every town and village under the umbrella of the Roman Empire an outpost of vigilantes. If the villagers found that one of their number was planning and attack on the Romans they would try to talk him/her out of it or kill them lest they receive the wrath of the Roman Army. This philosophy has been used by different conquering nations since before recorded history including the Sumerians, Persians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Neapolitans, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Visigoths, etc. We did something similar in WWII. The Japanese in an act of terrorism killed about 2,100 Americans in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The end result was we firebombed hundreds of Japanese cities and killed hundred of thousands of civilians. In an act of terrorism the Germans began sinking our merchant vessels at sea. The end result was total destruction of hundreds of German cities and the killing of hundreds of thousand of civilians. It was brutal, but it was necessary and effective. History has told us the most effective way to suppress terrorism is to be a much more brutal, vicious and determined terrorists than they. But today we are soft and afraid to hurt someone's feelings and innocent people will continue to die because of it.

                This Date In History September 4

1971 The Lawrence Welk Show goes off the air much to the chagrin of almost every grey panther in the free world. However, the show stayed in syndication until 1982. I never understood the garish costumes that those folks wore from lime green to fire engine red and lapels that went to the tips of the shoulders when it was suppose to be an ultra-conservative outfit that was just and only interested in one dance number after another. But he and the band were very successful so I guess he knew what he was doing.

1972 God smiled on us all when the final episode of Gilligan’s Island airs on this date. This show was the epitome of trash and further reassures us that those FCC commissioner Newton Minnow’s words that TV was a “vast wasteland” had merit. But in the present sense, nothing has really changed with all these “reality” shows. They are nothing but a play on the familiar theme of Gilligan’s Island. Yet more trash.

1969 Radio Hanoi announces the death of Ho Chi Minh and declared a 3 day moratorium on military operations in honor of his memory. The American military believed that with the death of Ho the North Vietnamese would lose heart and begin a withdrawal of military activities. They were wrong. If anything the North Vietnamese resolve was strengthened and they fought the most powerful military force the world has ever seen to a standstill. It is all in the mind, y'all.

1967 The 1^st Marine Division engaged a sizeable North Vietnamese army in I Corp for 4 days and nights. The 5^th Marine Regiment suffered the most casualties with 114 against the NVA count of 376. Speaking of the 1^st Marine Division, I remember seeing a film about the 1^st Marines being relieved after 45 days of combat on Okinawa and a news photographer asking one of the Marines coming out where he could find the 1^st Marine Division. The Marine answered, “Mister, there ain’t no more 1^st Marines.” Speaks volumes doesn’t it?

1864 CSA Gen. John Hunt Morgan is killed near Greeneville, Tenn. Morgan is recognized as one of the finest cavalry officers in American history He was a brilliant tactician and organizer. Morgan was born in Ala. But had moved to Ky. When he found out that Ky. was not going to secede he moved back to Ala. Morgan had planned an attack on Knoxville, Tennessee but his plans were discovered the US attacked his camp first. Morgan was killed trying to rally his men.

1957 Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus calls out the National Guard to prevent 9 black kids from entering Little Rock’s Central High School. This unbelievably stupid act endeared him to the extreme redneck elements both North and South. President Eisenhower called bullshit on that and called in the long suffering 82^nd Airborne and the kids were finally allowed in school. I suppose y'all can imagine the shit those kids caught during their years at Central High School.

1945 The day after the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese commander of Wake Island surrenders to the American Navy. The Japanese had captured Wake Island early in the war and had captured 95 Americans in the process. The Japanese commander decided that he could not feed these 95 prisoners and had them executed. In 1947 the commander was tried for war crimes and convicted. He went to meet his maker wearing a hemp necktie.

1886 The Apache chief Geronimo surrendered after 30 years of trying to keep the honkies off his people’s lands. THIRTY YEARS, y'all. Geronimo got hostile when at a young age his wife and children were killed by Mexican soldiers and his hostility never left him. After he surrendered he was jailed for a few years but was finally released and treated as a celebrity. He even was in a presidential inauguration parade. Honkies are strange critters.

Born today:

1908 US writer Richard Wright. He said “Every artist must bow to the monster of their own imagination.”

1918 US Journalist Paul Harvey. He said “In times like these it is good to remember there have always been times like these”. And now you have the ressssttt of the story.

Died today:

1965 Scientist/philosopher Albert Schweitzer. He said “The deeper we look into nature the more we recognize how full of life it is, and the more profoundly we realize that life is a secret that we are all part of.” I know a person in Black Mountain, NC that has these thoughts.

Answer to the trivia question:

In the movie “My Fair Lady” Henry Higgins was played by Rex Harrison.

         Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow