Tuesday

•  Musings and History

  
  

  Quote of the day:

  “Your best friend is the one who lifts you up when the wings of your heart forget how to fly.”

                                                          Golda Meir

  
  

  A county deputy in Mobile, Alabama was called to a domestic disturbance. As he got out of his car a man came running out of a house wielding a machete and struck the deputy on the shoulder. The deputy was able to retrieve his 9mm Glock and sent that man to the Promised Land. The cops later found out that that man’s parents had been found hacked to death down in Palm Beach, Florida with a machete-like weapon. The deputy saved us a lot of money….no incarceration for years and years.

  
  

  Recently a group of New Zealanders built a 65 foot catamaran sailboat made totally of plastic bottles. They were able to sail that puppy 4,000 mile across the Pacific Ocean successfully. They were demonstrating the invincibility of the plastic bottles and stressed that they should never be thrown into the ocean as trash. They last forever.

  
  

  I am still reading the history of the Comanche in the western United States. I have changed my mind somewhat about their fate. When the settlers began moving into west and southwest Texas the Comanche were already the bullies of the southern plains because of their possession of thousands of Spanish mustangs and their unparalleled horsemanship. Not only that, their unbridled brutality was legendary. The beginning of the end was the breech loading Sharps .50 caliber used by the buffalo hunters. This rifle had and effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards. 26 buffalo hunters armed with the Sharps were able to hold off 300 Comanche at the battle of Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle. Then along came the repeating Henry and Winchester rifles. But the Comanche were able to gather up many of those weapons themselves. The final blow came in the form of a US Cavalry officer name Ranald MacKenzie. This man decided that he was not going after the Comanche themselves, he went after their horses knowing that the Comanche could not exist without them. They had no agrarian segment; they relied on the buffalo alone. MacKenzie was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Comanche and Kiowa ponies which put the warriors afoot. This horrible campaign worked and eventually all the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and hundreds of other southern plains tribes surrendered to a life of having to wait for a handout from Uncle Sam. It broke their spirit; it would have broken mine too.

  
  

  Tidbits:

  
  

  Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem has become a liability to the Democratic Party and they are leaning on the 80 year old legislator to resign/retire. They are hitting him where he is the most vulnerable...ethics. This influence peddler will go down in history as having the hungriest pockets in the catalog of corruption.

  
  

  Tim Tebow former quarterback of the Florida Gators has signed a contract to model underwear for Jockey. Tim had mention that after college he was going to become a missionary. I suppose that to some women (and some men) seeing Tim Terrific in a pair of abbreviated briefs would be a spiritual experience.

  
  

                    This Date in History   July 28

  
  

  1976 On this date the most powerful earthquake in modern history occurred in Shantung Province, China. The quake occurred at 3:50am while all were asleep. The earth shook for 23 seconds and the city was leveled. As you might suspect, the buildings were light years from being earthquake proof and collapsed and crushed the people inside to the tune of an estimated 500,000 killed. Not only that, the earth rose and fell and ruptured many natural gas lines and enormous fires erupted and thousands were incinerated. The strange thing was that the people reported that a few days before the quake, large packs of rats ran panic stricken through the streets in broad daylight. They reported that they saw multi-colored lights and bright flashes in the sky and wells would overflow and then the water would go so deep that their rope and bucket would not reach it. Offers from all over the world offered assistance and medical supplies but the arrogant Chinese government refused saying that they would take care of their own. They certainly were not prepared for a disaster of this magnitude but they were not going to admit to the world that the Communist Chinese government was not perfect. Thousands of Chinese people died from the lack of medical treatment and supplies. Shantung has been rebuilt and the greater majority of the buildings were rebuilt using earthquake proof technology. But even this disaster cannot hold a candle to another earthquake that also occurred in China in about 1760 that took the lives of over 800,000.

  
  

  1868 On this date the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted. This amendment assured the full American citizenship to blacks. One of the phrases in the amendment stated that “all citizens shall have equal protection under the law.” This was the hardest thing for our citizenry to accept, both north and south. But it was the US government implemented the Reconstruction Act that cause the most animosity and polarized the northern states the southern states. This act made the southerners just a hair short of vassals to agents that were sent to oversee both legal and illegal transactions to cheat the southern land owners after the Civil War. It was this behavior that gave birth to the KKK that thrived as long as the Reconstruction Act was in effect and for many years thereafter. Don’t get me wrong, the KKK was/is a bunch of disgusting bigots but it was the Reconstruction Act gave this organization the fire in its belly.

  
  

  1943 Earlier the British Air Force launched Operation Gomorrah the mission of which was the destruction of the tools of war being manufactured near Hamburg, Germany. The Brits had bombed Hamburg into kindling but on this night they dropped over 2, 600 tons of incendiary bombs creating a firestorm unparalleled in history until Hiroshima. Some of the British pilots reported that there was not a series of fires but one monster that scorched 8 square miles of the city and killed 40,000 civilians. The fire was so hot that air was rushing into the middle the winds reached hurricane force and literally sucked people into it if not asphyxiated them by using up all the oxygen within a certain radius. War is hell, literally.

  
  

  Born today:

  
  

  1807 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. He said “I cannot waste my time making money.” Hey Louis, where did you go to eat and drink?

  
  

  Died today:

  
  

  1913 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “What we see mainly depends of what we look for.” A few years back I was looking for a girl friend that looked like a 30 year old Elizabeth Taylor and had the morals of an alley cat. Now I am looking for a more comfortable couch to take naps on.

  
  

                                Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

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Monday

•   Musing and History

  
  

  Quote of the day:

  “There is no doubt that is around family and home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society are created.”

                                               Anne Frank

  
  

  Trivia question of the day:

  What is the oldest living tree ever documented? Answer at he end of the blog.

  
  

  Up in Pontiac, Michigan 23 year old Torrie Emery and 20 year old Michelle Booth had been throwing darts at each other on Facebook because both of them were in love with the same inmate in a Michigan prison. A while later Torrie saw Michelle in the passenger seat of a car driven by Michelle’s friend Alesha Abernathy and gave chase. The two cars reached speed of over 100 mph with Abernathy just trying to get away. The cops fell into line and joined the chase trying to put a stop to it. Abernathy was unable to stop for a red light and T-boned a dump truck in the intersection turning the truck on its side but the driver was not injured. However, Alesha was killed and Michelle was seriously injured. Lunatic Torrie was arrested and charged with murder. All of this happened for a convicted felon. I don’t get it. By the way, lunatic Torrie had her three year old daughter in the car with her during the chase.

  
  

  Military units of South Korea and the United States were conducting joint war games in South Korea and South Korean waters. Those maniacs from North Korea saw this exercise as a threat and have promised a “nuclear response”. I am sure that they are aware that there are enough free world nuclear submarines in the Sea of Japan that a person could walk from Pyongyang to Nagoya, Japan without getting their feet wet. Not to mention the United States aircraft carrier USS George Washington. This puppy has fighter bombers that can carry nuclear devices also. I can promise you that if those idiots launch a nuclear devise of any kind the North Korea part of the Korean peninsula will glow in the dark for years to come.

  
  

                       This Date in History   July 27

  
  

  1974 On this date the House Judiciary Committee handed down a bill of impeachment with a recommendation of removal from office of the sitting President of the United States, Richard Nixon. All of this adventure began when a group of men were caught and arrested inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Two of those arrested were on the White house staff. It was a given that Nixon could not be beaten in upcoming election because the Democrats did not have a viable candidate but his staff still felt it was necessary to burglarize. Originally the report of these arrests were stuck in the fourth or fifth page of the Washington Post newspaper but two reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein smelled a rat and began digging. The more they dug the closer they came to the White House. When these two began writing their columns about what they had discovered, the staff at the White House circled the wagons and refused to cooperate with law enforcement which attracted the attention of the Congress. Congress selected Archibald Cox, the head of the Harvard Law School, to act as special prosecutor. Not only did Nixon try to get two Assistant Attorney Generals (Caper Weinberger and Nick Katzenbach) to fire Cox, he called in a very high official in the FBI and told them to not investigate the Watergate incident. Weinberger and Katzenbach not only refused but resigned in protest at this obvious cover-up. Nixon finally persuaded a lesser Federal judge (Richard Bork) to fire Cox. During this time it was determined that Nixon had been taping all the conversations in the Oval Office. Judge Leon Jaworski along with Judge John Sirica, who had replaced Cox, demanded the tapes but Nixon refused claiming executive privilege and a threat to national security. Over a period of time the US Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes which he did. Nixon was not done yet. Some of the most critical tapes had blank spaces which experts said was an erasure. Again the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to produce depositions saying what had been said during the erasures. When these damning documents reached the House Judiciary Committee, A Bill of Impeachment soon followed. Soon thereafter Nixon resigned, turned over the reins to Vice-President Gerald Ford, and moved back to where he came from, San Clemente, California. It was a tragic and time of testing for the United States judiciary/legislative system.

  
  
  

  
  

  1981 On this date 6 year old Adam Walsh is abducted at a Hollywood, Florida shopping Mall. It seems that Adam and his mother Reve went shopping and little Adam wanted to watch some older boys play video games while his mother was shopping close by. As will happen, the older boys got rowdy and the mall security guard came by and ran everybody out. Little Adam just followed the older boys outside rather than seeking his mother. He waited out side for a short while then he disappeared. A few days later, Adams’s head was found in drainage ditch near Vero Beach, Florida which is nearly 100 miles from Hollywood. The police focused on career criminals and convicted child molesters Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was found in jail for another crime and confessed to the murder of little Adam but said that career criminal Henry Lee Lucas was with him and it was he that did the murder. The police investigated and found to no one’s surprise, that Toole was lying because Lucas was in jail in Virginia when Adam was abducted. Toole then recanted his story. The police decided that they would need Adam’s complete body to prosecute anyone. Adams body was never found and the case remains unsolved. Toole was executed in Florida for another murder. We all know what work Adam’s father John has done by establishing the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

  
  

  1806 During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the group reached the Great Falls on the Missouri River. Clark took a few men and began exploring further downstream, Lewis headed north to explore the Marias River basin. They left 6 men to portage their boats around the falls. Lewis knew they were in Blackfoot country. The Blackfoot were the fiercest tribe in the area and are to be feared and sure enough, Lewis met up with a party of Blackfoot and he tried to be cordial. It appeared to be working and Lewis invited the Indians to his camp. After it got dark, one of Lewis’s men yelled out that the Indians were trying to steal their horses and rifles. Lewis ran after them and one of the Indians turned and moved toward Lewis whereupon Lewis shot him in the stomach. The rest of the Indians retreated and the horses and rifles were saved. Lewis knew that if there was trouble between the expedition and the Indians while going west, there would be trouble coming back east. Not only that, one of his men said that during the attempt to get the horses back, he had caught up with one of the Indians and stabbed him to death. More trouble, but they would have been in more serious trouble without horses and rifles.

  
  

  Born today:

  
  

  1824 French author Alexander Dumas the Younger. He said “I prefer rogues to imbeciles because sometime they take a rest.” We all know some of each.

  
  

  1956 US comic Carol Liefer. She said “He tricked me into marrying him, he said he was pregnant.” Carol, shut up.

  
  

  Died today:

  
  

  2003 US comedian Bob Hope. He said “You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” Amen, brother.

  
  

  Answer to the trivia question:

  The oldest living tree ever documented was a particular USA Great Basin bristlecone pine that had growth rings of 5,067 years.

  
  

        Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

  
  

  
  

  
  

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Friday

•    Musing and History

  
  

  Quote of the day:

  “Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed 12 minutes. Half time in a NFL game is 12 minutes...this is no accident.”

                                                      Erma Bombeck

  
  

  Trivia question of the day:

  What is the most populous religion in the world? Answer at the end of the blog.

  
  

  A while back I met a lady named Ronda while celebrating life with members of my eastside social group. Unfortunately the conversation got to present day politics. She had me at a disadvantage because I had stopped watching/listening to the media because of their unreliability. She finally said that she thought that Hillary should be president because she is squeaky clean and has demonstrated leadership. She said that she knows how bad Donald is because she is in the real estate business herself. I had bid her good evening after that stunning display rock hard logic.

  
  

                      This Date in History   July 24

  
  

  1911 On this date American explorer Hiram Bingham is the first honky to lay eyes on one of the most spectacular sites in archaeological history. He had found Machu Picchu, an Inca city hidden in the Andes Mountains northwest of the capitol of Cuzco. After the rape of the Inca by the Spanish conquistadors, the Inca rulers no longer summered in Machu Picchu and its location was kept a secret for 350 years. Only the local natives knew of its existence. This magnificent city had surrounding lands that had been terraced for the raising of crops and the city had running water. It was built of huge stones that were cut so accurately that cement was not required and a razor blade could not be inserted in the seams. This is not the only Inca city that has been found in the Andes that was engineered so greatly. How these cities were build is still a mystery to the world. The Inca were very small in stature and had no draft animals other than the llama. There is no evidence that they had knowledge of the wheel. Machu Picchu was found high up on two peaks that had been leveled to allow construction and it is one of the most visited tourist sites in the world.

  
  

  1567 Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned because of her unbending dedication to Catholicism in a land filled with Presbyterian Royalty. On this date she is forced to abdicate the throne and the crown went to her infant son that would become James VI of Scotland and eventually James I the first king of England, Scotland and Ireland. Mary was an ambitious girl and tried to take back the crown of Scotland by force but her army was destroyed and she booked to England and asked her cousin Queen Elizabeth I to allow her to have safe haven. The Queen was acceptable to this. But Mary got the itch again and conspired with a bunch of Catholics in England and other countries to overthrow Elizabeth and then Mary would assume the throne. Mary paid for this indiscretion with her head. She just would not give up her religion.

  
  

  1847 On this date Brigham Young topped a hill and looked down on the Great Salt Lake Valley and uttered “This is the place”. Then he and 148 Mormons walked down into the valley and began to lay out a city for the throngs that would come in the future. Here is a short story about Mormons. When my oldest daughter was just a child, two well scrubbed young men rode up to my house astride bicycles. They knocked on the door and presented themselves as Mormons and would like to tell me about their religion. I asked if they had a bible and they said yes. I told them to leave the bible and come back in a week. It was the Book of Mormon. I read it cover to cover and I want to tell y'all, it was one of the most fascinating books of history I have ever read. But it was almost like reading science fiction because some of it was so unbelievable. But then I asked myself if these events happened before or after Moses turned the Nile River into blood, parted the Red Sea and had a flaming tornado to lead an estimated 7 million Jews into the thirsty Negev desert northeast of Egypt, stay 40 years and leave no physical evidence of it. It is all in what you choose to believe, isn’t it?

  
  

  1864 Earlier CSA General Robert E. Lee had tasked General Jubal Early with clearing those damned Yankees out of the Shenandoah Valley. General Early left and made a feint toward Washington before entering the valley. Early was pursued hotly by a Yankee army commanded by US General George Crook. The two armies had skirmished somewhat but nothing heavy. Then when Early found that Crook and his army was in terrain that was to Crooks disadvantage then he turned and struck Crook with everything he had. It was a rout, y'all. Those Yankees headed  back toward Washington as fast as they could and Early and company headed at a leisurely pace down the valley. By the way, it was General Crook that was at the head of one of the columns headed to Little Big Horn to capture the Sioux and Cheyenne. He was late. Then he was assigned the task of capturing that wily Apache Geronimo. He pursued Geronimo for five years and in all that time he only got a fleeting glance of him. Crook resigned because of this failure. He was a superb officer but was assigned tasks that were near impossible.

  
  

  1915 The steamer “Eastland” was in the harbor in Chicago and had been hired by a church to take the congregation out to an island in Lake Michigan for a picnic. The crowd was about 2,500. The boat had originally been built to accommodate 800 but some marine engineers had made some “modifications” to where it would handle 2,500. Another marine engineer published a notice that the so called modifications were bogus and was dangerous. All of the crowd got aboard and then ran to the starboard rail for a group photo. The Eastland began to list and it just kept on rolling trapping nearly all under the hull right there in the slip. Dock workers immediately got their torches working and began cutting holes in the hull and began pulling people to safety. But over 800 were drowned. What a nightmare.

  
  

  Born today:

  
  

  1878 English writer Lord Dunsany. He said “Logic, like whiskey is no good if taken in too large of doses.” Hey Lord, Plato, Aristotle and Socrates would beg to differ.

  
  

  1947 US comic Gallagher. He said “I wish there was a knob on the TV labeled “Intelligence” but the closest I can find is “Brightness” and it don’t work either.” A lot of people like Gallagher but he ain’t my cup of tea.

  
  

  1970 US actress Jennifer Lopez. Comedian Chris Rock said of her. “I saw Jennifer Lopez on TV the other night accepting some kind of award and she thanked her agent, her family her minister her make-up artist and a lot of other people. She needs to thank that ass, that’s what got where she is today.” 

  
  

  Died today:

  
  

  1862 US president Martin Van Buren. He said “It is easier to do the job right than to have to explain why you didn’t.”

  
  

  Answer to the trivia question:

  There are more Christians by far in the world than any other religion with an estimated 2.2 billion. Second is Islam with 1.6 billion.

  
  

         Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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