What if?
by Jay Scott

I’m feeling very eclectic this week. I’m all over the place with thoughts, ideas, possible stories and a plethora of potential projects. I have recently been obsessed with my current script and possible novel. So for some reason, I wanted to pose a few what if questions and what I thought the if would be. I woul;d very much like to see what everyone else has to add, so comments are going to be a big part of this weeks fanfare. So, I present to you, my current list of “what ifs.” I know what your thinking, but odds are no two of us will have the same what ifs. In fact, if we did, the answers would be as varied as there are great racks on women in the world. (yes, I had to toss that in, besides, makes a nice visual. Like saying don’t think of a white elephant, but as expected, you picture a white elephant)

Wow, did I ever digress.

So. What if…..

What if: Hendrix had lived another 40 years?

montgomerycliftfoto.jpgA: I think he would have played through the 70’s making some of the greatest electric funk ever heard, skipped the 80’s and re invented the 90’s musically.

What if: James Dean had lived?

A: We remember him as much as we remember Montgomery Cliff.

What if: T.E Lawrence had never met Feisal?

A: Arabia would be even more divided into small little Bedouin city states without a central government, and occupied by both the British and the Turks, even the Germans maybe.

What if: The American Indians put up a better fight and won?

A: This article would be written by “Chief Who Makes the Moving Images Work”

What If: Annie Oakley was a little less of a great shot?

A: WWI prolly woulda never happened. (yeah, I’ll let you look that one up)

What if: WWII never happened?

A: You’d know who Eiji Sawamura was.

What if: Tim Wakefield had taken a break earlier.

A: Dare I say it and risk the potential furor of crying and boo-hooing?

What if: Lincoln and the North didn’t win:

A: Lee would have abolished slavery anyway, as he would have succeeded Jefferson Davis, and since he was an abolitionist and only fought for the other side because he was a Virginia loyalist.

So folks. Lets have it. Your “What ifs. The twists that coulda been, the futures that didn’t happen. Lets hear it.

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Comments

What if...the bra had never been invented?

Women would have to tuck their 34-longs into their pants every day. It is not a good look...so I hear.

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Maybe I am wrong but I am guessing you are talking about Tim Wakefield, Red Sox pitcher?

I always wondered what would have happened if Peter Parker had not been bitten by a radioactive spider...

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"Maybe I am wrong but I am guessing you are talking about Tim Wakefield, Red Sox pitcher?"

Heh, yeah.

Theres always someone who will get it.

/Go Yanks!

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You lost me with Annie Oakley. She volunteered for the Spanish American War, and WWI, so I'm not sure how there would probably not have been a war had she been a suckier shooter?

I must have been absent that day.

But I like the way your mind works!

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Oh! And one more thing, Lee had a heart condition. He mighta died while President and never done any freeing at all.

Hmm.

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Oh your killing me K. Me outsmarting you, say it aint so. Ok heres the skinny.

Annie was in Buffalo Bills show.

In Europe she performed before Queen Victoria and other crowned heads of state. Oakley had such good aim that, at his request, she knocked the ashes off a cigarette held by the Prince of Prussia, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II. History suggests Annie was not the source of a widely-repeated sarcasm related to the event. "Some uncharitable people later ventured that if Annie would have shot Wilhelm and not his cigarette, she could have prevented World War I."

As far as lee goes, he lived for years and years after the war. So there!

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Bah! Archduke Ferdinand being assassinated was what caused Austria to declare war. His wife, Sophie, was whacked as well. (She died first.) And talk about bad luck. Already missed attempts on his life, and what happens? His car gets a flat and pulls over--right next to the guy, Princip, who had tried earlier to kill him! Yes, there were other things like nationalism and an arms' race going on, but the gist of it was the assassination. Annie Oakley? Bah!

But anyway.

And Lee lived for many years after the war was over, yes, but he wasn't President of anything. I'm sure you'd agree that being President can put stress upon one's person. And the fact was, he wasn't necessarily against slavery per se. He believed slavery was "God's will" and would end when God decided it be over, and it was not for men to choose.

Not to be all arguey or anything. I still like the way your brain was working on this one.

Also, I could be entirely & absolutely wrong about the above and what I believe to be true.

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While the assassination may have been the actual physical even that started it, seeing this is a what if and all, if Annie had been off just a little, Germany might have had a different leader and the whole thing gone a different way, but they of course pressed the idea of war, and with other countries. Germany wanted to go head to head with Britain as the Leader of the seas. In 1900 the Germany decided to make its navy into a High Seas Fleet, that could have global capabilities. Admiral Tirpitz was placed in charge of this effort that has become known as the Tirpitz Plan. • This led Britain to go into the Triple Entente with Russia and France. Germany was then surrounded by countries that were against them so to speak. The Germans sparked the race with the Tirpitz Plan.
The Dreadnought Race that happened between 1905-1914. The completion of the British HMS Dreadnought in 1906 sparked this because the battleship made all others obsolete. This launched the great arms race for the building of the dreadnought class ships between Britain and Germany. Germany gave more money to its navy to make more of these ships to try to surpass Britain's strength on the seas and even had the Kiel canal was widened to allow the great battleships passage between their training bases in the Baltic to possible battle areas in the North Sea.....

German Policy Was all about the Military. German diplomatic policy at the time was to give the threat or the implication of war to achieve political ends. It also was an attempt to break up the Entente of the nations that Germany saw as attempting to encircle her.

And as Far as Lee goes. If the war didnt kill him, being President would no way have, after all, he was a calm, well thought fella, and DID not approve of Slavery.

Since the end of the Civil War, it has often been suggested that Lee was in some sense opposed to slavery. In the period following the Civil War and Reconstruction, and after his death, Lee became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war, and as succeeding generations came to look on slavery as a terrible immorality, the idea that Lee had always somehow opposed it helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation.

Some of the evidence cited in favor of the claim that Lee opposed slavery are the manumission of Custis's slaves, as discussed above, and his support, towards the end of the war, for enrolling slaves in the Confederate States Army, with manumission offered as an eventual reward for good service. Lee gave his public support to this idea two weeks before Appomattox, too late for it to do any good for the Confederacy.

In December of 1864, Lee was shown a letter by Lousiana Senator Edward Sparrow, written by General St. John R. Liddell, which noted that Lee would be hard-pressed in the interior of Virginia by spring, and the need to consider Patrick Cleburne's plan to emanicipate the slaves and put all men in the army that were willing to join. Lee was said to have agreed on all points and desired to get Negro soldiers, saying that "he could make soldiers out of any human being that had arms and legs."[15]

Another source is Lee's 1856 letter to his wife[16], which can be interpreted in multiple ways:

… In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.

– Robert E. Lee, to Mary Anna Lee, December 27, 1856

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"Maybe I am wrong but I am guessing you are talking about Tim Wakefield, Red Sox pitcher?"

Heh, yeah.

Theres always someone who will get it.

/Go Yanks!

Did you mean to say Pedro and not Wake?

...and stop sucking up to Michele ;)

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Lee proved he would kowtow to Southern will when he led their Army. I seriously doubt he would have attempted to end slavery. Especially right after the war that proved it to be such a devisive issue.

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So what you're really saying is that it's Annie Oakley's fault that all the Jews died in WWII.

Because without WWI there would be no bitter Hitler over Germany's humiliating defeat & the following poverty; nor would there have been mass genocide in Armenia which inspired Hitler's death camps.

As for Lee, the man was 4 years older and 4 years stressed of war leadership by the time 1865 arrived. So adding all the war stress to being the President stress, and his ticker mighta exploded right there during inauguration.

You will also note that Lee stating that slavery was morally wrong does not preclude his belief that slavery was god's will and that it would only end when god also willed that. He can most certainly believe that slavery is morally wrong & even evil without believing that it was man's choice to end it if God did not will it so.

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The Sox lost the game 6-5 when Yankee third baseman Aaron Boone hit a solo home run off Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. I just worded the question wrong.

I meant to say if Pedro had not taken a break. Not that it woulda mattered, as, well, its the Sox.

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"Lee proved he would kowtow to Southern will when he led their Army. I seriously doubt he would have attempted to end slavery. Especially right after the war that proved it to be such a devisive issue."

Lee was asked to lead the North, he was just a Virgina Loyalist, as was common at the time. He freed his own slaves.

Lee simply stated he didnt know how and when, but if yout hink of the time, religion was a big deal and they worked of of faith. Sheesh.

And K, no, good grief.

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I was teasing about the Annie Oakley/Jew comment BTW.

=o)

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Obviously if Grady had pulled Pedro the Sox would have won that game...

(Spring Training Sox/MFY game tonight by the way)

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What if the Red Sox had never traded the Babe?

No curse of the Bambino. The Sox would have had to admit they sucked for a 100 years.

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It wasn't 100 years. It was 86 years. Thank you.

Maybe you had us mixed up with The Cubs...

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What if Bucky Dent never hit that home run in 78?

Then I would not have the joy of getting on the nerves of every Red Sox fan I know just by saying BUCKY FUCKING DENT.

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I friggin KNEW that would be showing up here eventually.

I was thinking to myself earlier, I wonder how long it's going to take before Michele chimes in with here BFD... hah.

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Hmmmm...if Hendrix had lived a full life, I'm sure he would have cockpunched Lenny Kravitz sometime around 1998.

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