Archive for the ‘boston’ Tag
I’ve spent a great deal of my life dealing with the more unsavory side of the human race. Unfortunately, it’s taken a toll on me and seriously bruised the faith I once held for human tolerances. Doing historical research has its ugly side and I’ll share some of that with you today. Hopefully at some point in the future things will improve but I’m certain anyone reading this post today will never live to see it.
- Adolf Hitler kept a framed photograph of Henry Ford on his desk and Ford had one of Hitler on his desk in Dearborn Michigan. Hitler had used in his book Mein Kampf some of Ford’s anti-Semitic views, and he always welcomed Ford’s substantial contributions to the Nazi movement.
- From the beginning Puritan colonists engaged in the slave trade, first selling captive Indians to the West Indies and then bringing in Negroes from Africa. Cotton Mather, pastor of Boston’s North Church, owned both Indian and Negro slaves. In 1641, Samuel Maverick proposed the breeding of Negro slaves on Noodles Island, which is now East Boston.
- It has been estimated that the Spaniards killed off 1.5 million Indians within a few years after Columbus discovered the New World.
- Human beings have been exterminating animals at the average rate of one species a year for the last two centuries. That rate appears to be on the increase, despite the rising of ecological awareness that began in the 1960s.
- 40 million Americans are murdered, maimed, raped, mugged, or robbed every year.
- Pope Innocence VIII (142-1492) received a gift of 100 Moorish slaves, who he distributed as a gratuity to Cardinals and friends.
- Not all the bad guys in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mild abolitionist tract about U.S. slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, are Southerners. The villains, in fact, are Northern renegades. Simon Legree, the wicked slave driver, was from Vermont.
- Here in the “civilized West” a human being has been killed by others every 20 seconds for the last half-century, either legally or illegally. This is three times the rate of the century preceding these 50 years.
- The English promised land in the colony of Nova Scotia to former slaves to join their side during the American Revolution. When the promise was broken, a former slave, Thomas Peters, who had been a sergeant in the British Army, sailed to England and won a concession of land in Sierra Leone in West Africa, for his fellow blacks landless in Nova Scotia.
NUFF SAID
I am a lover of all things strange and odd. Over the years I’ve collected oddities and facts as well as weird little stories. Here are a couple you might enjoy.
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#1
Once upon a time in a land far far away called Boston, Massachusetts some weirdness was afoot. There was a gentleman by the name of James Ball who had a weird and morbid fear of being buried alive. In his mausoleum constructed in Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery, he arranged for a telephone to be installed in his crypt.
In time, Mr. Ball died. His widow, accompanied by a great crowd of relatives, friends and business associates, followed Mr. Balls body to the grand limestone tomb.
Just after dark that same night his wife was passing through a sitting room and heard the telephone ring. A maid passing outside the room heard Mrs. Ball say, “Hello?” and then she heard a bloodcurdling scream. She rushed into the room to find Mrs. Ball with a look of horror on her face clutching the telephone. The line was dead, and so was Mrs. Ball. She died of a massive coronary, but the identity of the caller remains a mystery to this day. On the day of the funeral, when the crypt was unsealed, the crowd saw that the lid of Mr. Balls casket was open, and the telephone was off the hook.
#2
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Once upon a time there was a dog lover, a husband who took his Labrador retriever on a 4 mile walk a couple of times a week after dinner. One day he came down with a bad case of the flu, so it fell to his wife to walk the dog.
After supper, she clicked on the dog’s leash, and they headed out the door. She wanted to go to large open lot at the end of the street, but the dog tugged at the leash and all but dragged her around the block to a house on the corner. The dog pulled the poor woman up the stairs and began scratching furiously at the door. The wife scolded the dog and was trying to pull away when she heard a sweet female voice inside the house call out, “You’re a little early tonight, darling! Wait just a minute.”
The next moment, the door swung wide open and there stood a pretty and buxom young woman in a sexy negligée holding a large bone in her hand.” This should keep the dog happy while we’re – Uh-oh!”
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Well, there you have it. Avoid crypts, telephones in crypts, and properly train your dog not to eat big bones from strangers.
ZEN IS HELL AT TIMES
In keeping with the name of this blog, here are a few tidbits and quotes of totally useless information to help kickstart your Summer.
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Keen on disproving a key point made on an episode of CSI, a 55-year-old South Dakota man was killed in 2007 after shooting himself in the stomach, despite a script that showed otherwise. Sadly, he was absolutely correct
I think more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. Nancy Reagan
An accident on the north end of Boston on January 15, 1919, flooded the area with 2 1/2 million gallons of molasses in a wave as much as 15 feet high. 21 people were killed, and 150 more were injured.
If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it. Jonathan Winters
Theodore Roosevelt was shot as he campaigned for the presidency in 1912. The bullet hit him in the chest but not before passing through his glasses case and the speech he had folded in his pocket. Roosevelt received a superficial wound and finished his speech before going to the hospital for treatment 90 min. later.
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. Timothy Leary
FYI – Egyptian artwork from 3000 years ago reveals Bes, the God of birth and carnal pleasures, wearing a condom type device. The Chinese were said to have worn a silk sheath as a prophylactic 2000 years ago.
Women should be obscene and not heard. Groucho Marx
In the National Basketball Association’s first season, 1946-47, the top paid player was Detroit’s Tom King, who made $16,500. He also acted as the team’s publicity manager and business director. Just like today LOL.
There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you’re busy interrupting. Mark Twain
Enjoy All of This Rainy & Crappy Weather
It’s that time of the year again to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It’s another one of those holidays that most people celebrate but they’re not entirely sure why. For most of us it’s just a reason to get out, drink a little too much and make fools of ourselves. Take it from one who knows.
Since my heritage includes a few folks of the Scotch/Irish persuasion I’ve been known to occasionally get a little crazy on St. Paddies Day. Truthfully it was just an excuse in my younger days to drink too much, dye my hair green, and dance a jig or two after swilling a couple quarts of green beer.
It’s been quite some time since I really celebrated the day but in the spirit of the holiday I’ll supply you with a quick primer explaining why it was originally created.
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Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig, "the Day of the Festival of Patrick"), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick’s Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion(especially the Church of Ireland), the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lutheran Church. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, and celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, céilithe, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Christians also attend church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of alcohol consumption.
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That has been your short history lesson for today, not that any of you really care WHY we celebrate. Every ethnic group has it’s holidays so why shouldn’t the Irish get on board as well. After spending many years in the Boston area I can tell you for certain this holiday is taken seriously there and celebrated heartily. It may not be the same celebration you’d see in Ireland but I can guarantee a few things. You will have green hair, you will have many new friends you may never see again, you probably won’t remember the entire evening or the parade, and you will have the mother of all hangovers that could last for days.
I can live with that.
It seems to me that this one little room remodel has consumed me for a very long time. It continued today much to my chagrin. I thought I’d finally begin the priming and painting to move this project into its final stages but I was wrong again. I decided to do one last up-close inspection before starting to primer and after completing that inspection I put the paint and supplies back in the workshop and returned once again to the joint compound to make a few small repairs. Nothing pisses me off as much as realizing I’m not as meticulous as I thought.
I put down the plastic sheeting one more time, slopped some more joint compound around, and now I’m forced to wait until tomorrow before I can again smooth it out. Another freaking day lost that I could be doing other things but can’t. This project needs to be completed and over. I need to keep in mind that I can’t rush things because if I do I’ll be creating even more problems. So I’ll shut up now and get back to work.
It’s now a few hours later and the minor repairs have been completed to my satisfaction. Of course, my better-half arrived to conduct her own inspection and make a few comments which always makes me a little crazy. She was somewhat kind and took it easy on me because she knew how pissed off I was. So now it’s time to kick back for a few hours and try to change my focus from drywalling and painting to the garden and yard cleanup.
I briefly checked in on the progress of the Boston bombing but there wasn’t much new to hear. I realize it’s too early to expect anything new but like every other citizen of this country I’m angry and want justice and some dark and savage revenge on the fuckers responsible for this outrage. Again I’m forced to wait for results. I’m a very impatient person and waiting makes me effing crazy.
I have a little extra time today to catch up my reading. I normally like to read one book at a time but I find myself with three different books only partially read. I’ve been skipping from one to the other and it’s a little distracting. On top of that, one book is on an e-reader (science fiction), another is a large and bulky hardcover (non-fiction), and the third an old tattered paperback (fiction). It’s effectively ruining all three stories for me and it’s time for me to fix things. I plan on finishing the sci-fi today which should be easy enough with only a couple of hundred pages remaining. Then tomorrow I’ll knock off the non-fiction book after finishing the first coat of primer and paint in this freaking room.
The next few days are expected to be sunny and clear but not particularly warm. I plan on spending some quality time with my camera and maybe walk a few quiet miles through some nearby woods. It’s a little early in the season to expect much in the way of photographs but it’s really more about getting out the house for a few hours. Believe me, it will be a pleasure to take photo’s of anything that isn’t covered with or standing in snow.
C’mon springtime.
Let’s add up the tally for today. My better-half has a day off, that’s one. The sun is shining and the day is clear, that’s two. I’m sitting enjoying my morning caffeine, that’s three. The yard and home are in desperate need of attention and cleanup, that’s four. Do you have to guess what’s coming next or can you do the math.
A sunny yet cold day that’s deceivingly enticing can be instantly turned into a backbreaking, ball-busting labor camp by my better-half who’s heavily intoxicated with a killer dose of Spring Fever. I’ve again been assigned the position of worker bee while the Queen barks orders as she lays on her comfortable chaise lounge on the deck. I exaggerate a bit for maximum effect since I know she’ll be reading this later.
Clean that porch, lift that barge, tote that bale, rake the yard or you’ll land in jail. What more can you ask for but a huge amount of work that needs doing and a person who stands by to assist you in doing them in the proper order. This is just the beginning of another Spring that forces all Maine residents to get up and get moving.
You need to understand that the growing season in the state of Maine is about fifteen minutes long. Winter starts in late October and lasts into May. Then you have a few weeks of rain and mud and all of a sudden it’s June. If you plan on your garden being successful without fear of frost you must wait until mid June before planting. That gives you about ninety days to grow your garden, harvest the fruits of your labors, and begin preparations for the coming winter. So complaining about the Spring cleanup is a total waste of time. The work must be done quickly but never silently. I work a lot better when I can schedule a few “bitch breaks” to make myself feel better.
We made a great deal of progress today but there’s still a lot of work ahead. I finished up in mid afternoon and we returned to the house to be hit with the Boston Marathon bombing news. Our sympathies go out to those families who’ve suffered the ultimate loss and those with maimed or wounded members. It’s a sad fact of life that these killers are still out there and we’re still as vulnerable as ever, even after spending billions on prevention.
I only hope our current administration shows more resolve in dealing with terrorism than it’s shown in the past. The Presidents speech last night didn’t fill me with confidence. I would have thought that Mr. Charisma could have shown a bit more emotion or actual concern. I guess his charisma only kicks in when he’s talking about himself. I can already picture his possible cynical political maneuvers from this tragedy. This may give him the excuses to push for armed drones flying over American cities armed with Hellfire missiles to kill suspected terrorists. God help us all!
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