Headline of the Day -100:
Isn’t that the city motto?
The NYC Municipal Assembly passes that 5¢-fare bill intended to undercut Mayor Hylan’s use of the issue in his re-election bid. He says he’ll sign it, even while attacking it as a piece of “bunkum,” and really, how did the word bunkum just drop out of our vocabulary? “Bunk” just doesn’t cut it for me.
Wyoming “cowboy” Oliver Henry Wallop (he owns a ranch and breeds polo ponies, but sure, “cowboy” is grabbier) inherits the title of Earl of Portsmouth. Born in Britain but a US citizen since 1904, he previously served in the Wyoming Legislature. He’d prefer not to have to renounce his US citizenship to take up his seat in the House of Lords, but he’ll be forced to. His grandson was US Sen. Malcolm Wallop.
Still remember my dad using the phrase "hogwash and bunkum" whenever we told him something truly unbelievable. I see that US Sen. Malcolm Wallup founded the organization "Frontiers of Freedom" , a John Birch/Heritage Foundation wannabe. And there is a good letter to the NYT by Walter Wellman about the non-future of gas airships. "The United States Government should stop wasting money and sacrificing lives in gas airships. These vessels are virtually useless for military purposes; they have no commercial future." He sure called that one right. And this from a guy who travelled all over the world in gas airships.
ReplyDeleteBunkum derives from a speech given in Congress in 1820 by Rep. Felix Walker from Buncombe County, North Carolina. He said up front that it would be a long and dull speech (and so it was), but he wanted to get in the papers back home to show his constituents that he was on the job, assuming that job was giving long, dull speeches.
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