Political Trivia and other meanderings

I've been interested in trivia for most of my life. I find that trivia can be fun, interesting, bizarre and sometimes even enlightening. A lot of trivia is simply 'useless' trivia, it doesn't mean a damned thing but it's still interesting.

One story that's ancient, but got my attention, is one that I heard yesterday. As I was driving to go shopping it was briefly mentioned on the radio, regarding an event that occurred with Congresswoman Jackie Speier many years ago. If you aren't familiar with her name, her picture might ring a bell as to who she is.



40 years ago, Jackie Speier was legislative counsel to Rep. Leo J. Ryan of California. In 1978, Jackie Speier made the choice to accompany her boss to Guyana, South America to the commune Jonestown which had been established by cult leader Jim Jones.

In her own words she said; “Back in 1978, there were not many women in high-ranking positions in Congress," "I felt if I didn’t go, it would be a step back for women holding these high positions. I thought, 'I can’t not go.'”

So she went, accompanying Ryan and 23 other people to Guyana, on the northeastern coast of South America, attempting to visit Jim Jones and nearly 1,000 followers he’d amassed.

At the end of the trip, there was an attack on the group on the tarmac just as they prepared to return to California, boarding their plane. When it was finished, Rep. Ryan was dead — the first and only congressman to be assassinated in office — along with three journalists and one cult defector. Speier and nine others who were on that fateful trip had been shot and left for dead. Jackie Speier had been shot five times. They waited 22 hours for help to arrive. She spent two months in the hospital and had 10 surgeries, all with 24 hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service — because of threats to her life.

Immediately following the shootings, Jim Jones and more than 900 of his followers died from self-inflicted cyanide poisoning in what was seen as a mass suicide at the time, but is now widely considered a mass murder. The Ryan congressional delegation had no military escort. The State Department had given neither a warning nor protection.



Feel free to share some of your trivia or aimless meanderings. It helps to divert attention away from the intense political climate we're in. Even if it's only brief, it helps.

After Vice-President Richard M. Nixon lost to Senator John F. Kennedy, one day soon afterwards, he and his wife went to a restaurant for a meal.

As he entered, all the diners (of whom some had presumably voted for Senator Kennedy) stood up and applauded the Nixons.

This gracious gesture was an uplifting event that I have never forgotten, especially in today's political environment. In fact, tears well up when I think of it.

A few nights ago I happened upon "Edge of Alaska", a TV show about a small town that once was a booming mining town. About 3 episodes in, they started mentioning a massacre that had happened in the 80s. This is the most detailed account I could find

Louis Hastings | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Martha Mitchell, wife of attorney general john mitchell, was also known as the 'mouth of the south' during the watergate era
she told the media stories that the readers found unbelievable
only she was right

... In the days immediately after the Watergate break-in in 1972, her husband enlisted former FBI agent Steve King to prevent her from learning about the break-in or contacting reporters. Despite these efforts, Martha learned that one of her friends, her daughter's bodyguard and driver James W. McCord Jr., was among those arrested. She began to explore the events in order to help him. While on a phone call with Helen Thomas about the Watergate break-in, King pulled the phone cord from the wall. She was held against her will in a California hotel room and forcefully sedated by a psychiatrist after a physical struggle with five men that left her needing stitches.[2][3] Nixon aides, in an effort to discredit Mitchell, told the press that she had a "drinking problem".[4] Mitchell began contacting reporters when her husband's role in the scandal became known, initially in an effort to defend him.[5] Nixon was later to tell interviewer David Frost in 1977 that Martha was a distraction to John Mitchell, such that no one was minding the store, and "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate." ...

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The "Martha Mitchell effect", in which a psychiatrist mistakenly or willfully identifies a patient's true but extraordinary claims as delusions, was named after her.

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Martha Mitchell - Wikipedia

Bell, Vaughn; Halligan, Peter W.; Ellis, Hayden D. (August 2003). "Beliefs About Delusions". The Psychologist. 6 (8): 418–422. Sometimes improbable patient reports are erroneously assumed to be symptoms of mental illness (Maher, 1988). The ‘Martha Mitchell effect’ referred to the tendency of mental health practitioners not to believe the experience of the wife of the American attorney general, whose persistent reports of corruption in the Nixon White House were initially dismissed as evidence of delusional thinking, until later proved correct by the Watergate investigation. Such examples demonstrate that delusional pathology can often lie in the failure or inability to verify whether the events have actually taken place, no matter how improbable intuitively they might appear to the busy clinician.

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Lovebug said:

A few nights ago I happened upon "Edge of Alaska", a TV show about a small town that once was a booming mining town. About 3 episodes in, they started mentioning a massacre that had happened in the 80s. This is the most detailed account I could find

Louis Hastings | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

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"Was sentenced to 634 years in jail."

justabubba said:

Martha Mitchell, wife of attorney general john mitchell, was also known as the 'mouth of the south' during the watergate era
she told the media stories that the readers found unbelievable
only she was right


Martha Mitchell - Wikipedia

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"She was held against her will in a California hotel room and forcefully sedated by a psychiatrist after a physical struggle with five men that left her needing stitches." Pretty wild stuff.


Nixon aides tried to discredit her by saying that she was an alcoholic and didn't know what she was saying. I remember her well.

HER LATIN PAID OFF

1. Reporter Giovanna Chirri at the Vatican was listening to a speech in Latin by His Holiness Benedict XVI.

2. She understood that he was hinting that he was going to resign.

3. She called her boss, who asked whether she really understood Latin that well.


4. Then the Vatican returned her earlier call and confirmed the Holy Father's unexpected intention to resign.


5. Her boss then announced the scoop to the world.


6. Ms. Chirri was modest about her achievement. She tweeted: "Benedict XVI's Latin is very easy to understand."




Source: thenewstribe.com/2013/02/12.

The Elizabeth Tower stands at the end of the Houses of Parliament in London. It's the most photographed building in Britain, and it's NOT Big Ben. Even the clock contained at the top of the tower isn't Big Ben. That's the nickname given to the gigantic Great Bell which sounds the hour. It was named after the top bareknuckle fighter of the time it was built, who stood a massive six feet four, looming over his Victorian opponents. The sound of the chimes is broadcast to the world twice a day.

I have just read the Wikipedia article on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (1887 - 1976), the famous British general during World War II.

It seems that he was generally considered to be a rather unpleasant chap.

I got my first chuckle of the morning when I read what Sir Winston Churchill supposedly said of the general: "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."

Many people (including me) had heard that the "nationalists" in Japan had succeeded in removing from school books any mention of Japanese atrocities in World War II.

Wrong.

I have just read that the Nanjing [Nanking] Massacre [or "Rape of Nanking"] IS mentioned in all current junior and senior high school textbooks.

The topic of "comfort women," however, is mentioned only in senior high school textbooks.



Source: A reader's letter to the British liberal magazine London Review of Books, print edition of July 4, 2019, page 4.

I was an Army Aviator and have had a love of flying my whole life. My heroes were the Doolittle raiders:
Facts about the Doolittle Tokyo Raid:


80 men took part in the raid. Five men each in sixteen planes.
10,000 Navy personnel in the Task Force that launched planes.
One man killed on bail-out after mission, Leland D. Faktor, Corporal. He was buried by Rev. John M. Birch after whom the John Birch Society was later named.
Two men from Crew #6 drowned as a result of crash landing in the water off China coast.

Eight men were captured by the Japanese
Three executed by firing squad
One died of beri-beri and malnutrition while in prison

Four survived 40 months of prison, most of which was in solitary confinement.
Following the Tokyo Raid, the crews of two planes were missing. On August 15, 1942. it was learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight American flyers were prisoners of the Japanese at Police Headquarters in that city.

On October 19, 1942, the Japanese broadcast that they had tried two crews of the Tokyo Raid and had sentenced them to death, but that a larger number of them had received commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment and a lesser number had been executed. No names or facts were given.

After the war, the facts were uncovered in a War Crimes Trial held at Shanghai which opened in February 1946 to try four Japanese officers for mistreatment of the eight POWs of the Tokyo Raid. Two of the original ten men, Dieter and Fitzmaurice, had died when their B-25 ditched off the coast of China. The other eight, Hallmark, Meder, Nielsen, Farrow, Hite, Barr, Spatz, and DeShazer were captured. In addition to being tortured, they contracted dysentery and beri-beri as a result of the deplorable conditions under which they were confined.

On August 28, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz were given a "trial" by Japanese officers, although they were never told the charges against them. On October 14, 1942, Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz were advised they were to be executed the next day. At 4:30 p.m. on October 15, 1942 the three Americans were brought by truck to Public Cemetery No. 1 outside Shanghai. In accordance with proper ceremonial procedures of the Japanese military, they were then shot.

The other five men remained in military confinement on a starvation diet, their health rapidly deteriorating. In April 1943, they were moved to Nanking and on December 1, 1943, Meder died. The other four men began to receive a slight improvement in their treatment and by sheer determination and the comfort they received from a lone copy of the Bible, they survived to August 1945 when they were freed. The four Japanese officers tried for their war crimes against the eight Tokyo Raiders were found guilty. Three were sentenced to hard labor for five years and the fourth to a nine year sentence.
Five Raiders have become Generals

James H. Doolittle
John A. Hilger
David M. Jones
Everett W. Holstrom
Richard A. Knobloch

They were all pilots on Doolittle Raid except Knobloch, who was a Co-pilot.
Most raiders flew additional combat missions after Tokyo Raid.
Four raiders became POW's of the Germans later on in the war.
Thirteen raiders died later during WWII, most in action against the enemy.
All 80 raiders received the Distinguished Flying Cross for this mission. Those imprisoned and tortured were also awarded the Purple Heart.

As far as I am concerned, these were some of the bravest men this country had to offer.

The F-word

1. During the 19th century in England, the newspaper was The Times.


2. Today it is impossible to understand its power, which upset even Queen Victoria.

3. On March 23, 1882, page 2 consisted of 10,000 words of a boring speech by some politician.


a. One compositor (I do not think that he was ever identified) decided to have some fun: He changed the last word of one sentence to the -ing form of the F-word verb.


b. Thus, the elite readers of The Times read this: "The speaker then said he felt inclined for a bit of [the offending word]."


4. Of course, the newspaper officials tried to recall all copies, but it was too late. The Times sold for three pennies. On that day, however, people were reportedly paying much more for a copy.




Source: Bob Clarke, From Grub Street to Fleet Street (2010 paperback edition), pp. 266 - 268.

When you check into a hotel, do NOT throw your suitcase on the bed.

Instead keep your suitcase in the bathroom (preferably in the bathtub).

Why?

An article I've just read on Google News says that putting your suitcase on the bed may be an invitation to bedbugs.

TheParser said:

When you check into a hotel, do NOT throw your suitcase on the bed.

Instead keep your suitcase in the bathroom (preferably in the bathtub).

Why?

An article I've just read on Google News says that putting your suitcase on the bed may be an invitation to bedbugs.

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Little known fact. The language of bedbugs is Pillowtalk.