2009 in Pictures

As I anticipated, the absence of George Bush’s chimp-like visage was a devastating loss to the world of goofy news photos and those of us who depend on them. Still, soldier on we must. Here’s what 2009 looked like.























Here’s a guy who held up a BP station in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex using underwear as a mask:










This summer was marked by a series of highly photogenic riots in Jerusalem against municipal parking lots being open on the sabbath.

Today -100: December 13, 1909: Of imperialist choo choos and fetish-worshipping puritans

The British have completed the Cape-Cairo Railway. 2,147 miles of track.

Anti-women’s suffrage speeches were given by the banker Henry Clews at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, who refused to debate suffragists in the audience, and one Emma Goldman at Lyric Hall, who said that women are worshippers of fetishes, the latest of which is the vote. Women, she said, are narrow-minded and puritanical, “always wanting to clean up something,” as opposed to men, who have outgrown morals. The quest for the vote is a wild-goose chase. Not that she’s against women’s suffrage per se, just that the vote is not worth having. Unlike Clews, she was willing to argue her anarchist position against suffragists, including Maud Malone, who would be arrested in 1912 for heckling Woodrow Wilson on the subject.

The Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Gen. Clarence Edwards, recommends that US citizenship be given to Puerto Ricans.

Of baggy shorts and saggy skin

Gratuitous Headline of the Day: “Hindu Nationalists Drop Their Baggy Shorts.” Their uniform of baggy shorts, I might add.

Don’t you love stories of senior citizens participating in activities usually engaged in by much younger people? Me too.

Today -100: December 12, 1909: Of sending in the Marines, pancakes, inter-racial banqueting, and marionettes

The NYT is quite confused about what orders the US marines in the region of Nicaragua might have received (and the Taft admin has felt no particular obligation to explain its policy to the public). Gen. Estrada has asked the US consul for some marines to help him break the government siege of Bluefields, on the pretext of protecting American citizens resident in the town. An editorial is surprisingly anti-interventionist, given the paper’s previous anti-Zelaya coverage, noting that the US has “intervened savagely in defense of men attempting to dynamite a troopship” and that the rebels “possess scarcely more of the forms of government than a lynching party.”

The Civic Forum will hold a municipal banquet at which the newly elected city officials will speak. The headline: “Municipal Dinner to Be Inter-Racial.” Also invited: every clergyman in the city and NY’s only woman aeroplanist, Lillian Todd.

Pres. Taft met the 85 supervisors of the Census and warned them sternly against using their offices for political ends (most of the supervisors were recommended by members of Congress).

John D. Rockefeller has placed an order for 100 pounds of buckwheat flour to be sent to his daughter’s house. “Pancakes for the Rockefellers,” the headline says, but that seems like mere speculation. More developments as they occur. Occurred. Whatever.

The shirtwaist strike arbitration failed right at the start, the manufacturers being unwilling to talk about recognizing the union.

In a sign of the times, an Italian marionette theater, the last remaining one in NYC, is being displaced by those new-fangled moving pictures. The story is oddly moving. “So the seven fat volumes of marionette poetry, all the old Italian romances, have been taken up the Parisi tenement. One by one, the hundreds of dolls, those his father and grandfather had, will be put away or sold, and Signor Parisi will open a moving-picture show, too. ‘One must eat and live,’ he says.”

Clear!

The tea party types are planning a “die in” at the Senate office buildings next week, to simulate how we’ll all die waiting for help under Obamacare. May I make one suggestion?


Call it a public option we can all support.

Baby’s first jihad

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya was about to, finally, leave the Brazilian embassy for Mexico, but the coup regime won’t let him unless he first resigns as president and leaves as a political asylum-seeker, prohibited from engaging in any politics.

In Britain, the West Midlands counter-terrorism police unit “confirmed that counter-terrorist officers specially trained in identifying children and young people vulnerable to radicalisation had visited nursery schools.” They want teachers to turn in any nursery school children who draw pictures of bombs or say that all Christians are bad or that they believe in an Islamic state. (To state the perhaps obvious: a child who proclaims the need for an Islamic state is not radicalized so much as repeating what he or she has heard at home. The police are using state institutions to spy on infants as a way to indirectly spy on their parents.)

Today -100: December 11, 1909: Of arbitration, dictators, and bino

The striking shirtwaist-makers and the bosses have agreed to arbitration (the employers are trying to get around recognizing the union).

It turns out that the Nicaraguan government forces characterized in the NYT as feeble were actually a cover for the real operation, as 3,000 troops move on the insurgent provisional government’s hq in the port city of Bluefields. The American consul has promised the outnumbered Estradaists support from the Marines on the Des Moines, anchored there. Another article insists that Estrada’s forces can easily survive a siege, but since it repeatedly refers to Zelaya as “the dictator,” its objectivity might be in some question.

Sen. Isidor Rayner (D-MD) introduces a resolution saying that Zelaya is guilty of murder and if the Estradaists fail to capture him, the US will have to.

In an interview, the, um, dictator Zelaya (in an article subtly headlined “Zelaya Yields To Our Power”) repeats his call for Secretary of State Knox to name a commission to investigate the charges against him (oddly, he never heard back). He says that Cannon and Groce were executed according to the laws of Nicaragua – evidently it’s illegal to command rebels. Zelaya says, “The attempt of Secretary Knox to establish the inviolability of the persons of Americans participating in foreign revolutions will result in constant revolutions led by immune Americans.” Zelaya seems to be looking for an exit strategy, saying he’d happily resign if it wouldn’t lead to faction fights with actual, you know, fighting, and that he is negotiating with the rebels on a successor acceptable to all parties; he has nominated Judge José Madriz. Zelaya blames the US’s hostility to him on President Cabrera of Guatemala.

More US soldiers are going insane in the Philippines than in any other branch of the military. The army blames homesickness, melancholy and bino, a Filipino beverage of some sort.

Money is fungible, you know

How long before the Republicans propose banning women from possessing money, because they might spend it on abortions?

My accomplishments are slight

Obama got his Nobel. He gave a speech. Possibly the most war-mongering Peace Prize speech ever. At one point he got carried away and declared war on Norway. Apostrophe-less transcript.

UNLIKE THOSE POOR SCHMUCKS AT GUANTANAMO – SAY, DIDN’T I PROMISE TO SHUT THAT PLACE DOWN?: “It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate.”

HELL, KISSINGER AND BEGIN, IF IT COMES TO THAT: “Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”


In this long speech, he couldn’t not mention Iraq. Once. Let’s watch him try to slip it past, shall we? “I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”

TO REPLACE WHICH ONE WITH THE OTHER? IT’S PROBABLY BEST TO BE CLEAR: “And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

WELL, WITH SECOND MAN, BECAUSE WAR WITH JUST ONE MAN ISN’T AS MUCH FUN: “These questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man.”

SOME PEOPLE (SIGH) THOUGHT GETTING RID OF GEORGE BUSH WAS A GOOD START: “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.”

Dude brought Will Smith with him.
Much of the speech was about the concept of “just war.” He’s in favor of it. “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.” AND I WILL SPIT ON THAT WORK IN 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... “But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their [King and Gandhi’s] examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”

HERE’S THE MESSAGE FROM YOUR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER: WAR IS, IN FACT, PEACE: “So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.”

TO REITERATE, WAR IS PEACE: “I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war.”

YET AGAIN, WAR IS PEACE: “The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That is why NATO continues to be indispensable.”


I DON’T THINK THAT WORD, “ORDERED,” MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed.” That claim is becoming about as ridiculous as Bush’s claim that “we do not torture.”

He talked about the need to slap down Iran and North Korea, global warming, blah blah blah.


HE WAS FOR HOLY WAR BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one’s own faith.” But earlier in the speech he denied the relevance of the non-violence of Gandhi and King because “make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.” And it is just – some might even say holy – to go to war against evil. “A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” Cynicism, hypocrisy, you say potato...

We’re getting to the end, so let’s bring out some of that ol’ Obama inspirational magic: “So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he’s outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.” And then the soldier who sees he’s outgunned calls in an air strike and blows her and her child to pieces.

Don’t make us get all Viking on your ass

One of the delegates at the Copenhagen summit refers to the controversy over the hacked emails as “a storm in a teacup.” There’s probably a weak joke in there somewhere.

No one expected Obama to attend every Nobel Prize event (I understand the toga party is a highlight), but his ungracious decision to skip even the traditional lunch with the Norwegian king is being taken as a rude snub. In other words, the newest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has managed to piss off... the Norwegians.

Today -100: December 10, 1909: If President Taft set off by train from New York to Chicago and weighs 300 pounds...

The NYT Times Traveler Blog, which inspired my own (lamely titled) Today -100 feature, is being discontinued, but don’t worry, Taft-lovers, we will be continuing together into the brave new world of the 1910s.

Headline of the Day -100: “Democrats Elect Money.” That’s Hernando De Soto Money of Mississippi, who was elected Senate minority leader.

In France, authors of textbooks used in the state schools have sued the Archbishop of Paris for damages for putting their texts on the Index of banned books.

In his State of the Union message, Taft proposed raising the postage rates for magazines, on which the Post Office was losing money because it was paying 9¢ a pound to transport it by rail. One M. T. Richardson, in a letter to the NYT, thinks this is excessive, noting that the railroads charge that rate to convey a 200-pound man, who they have to provide with heat and light and a seat, from NY to Chicago, while someone like, oh say President Taft, is charged less than 6¢ per mile. Because he’s fat, geddit?

Not unlike Jefferson and Adams, I’m sure

CONTEST: Sample dialogue from this meeting of the minds, please.

That’ll leave a mark

Alberto Gonzales has written something for Esquire. He says it was cool to work in the White House. He says that “The notion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was a result of the policies of the Bush administration I just think is totally ridiculous.” And “This may sound egotistical, but to me it is important that when I leave this earth, I would have made a difference -- that people would know Al Gonzales lived, he touched lives, he made a difference, he left a mark.” Oh, I’m sure the prisoners at Abu Ghraib (and Guantanamo and Bagram and....) will tell you that he left a mark.

Today -100, December 9, 1909: Of pro-Americanism in Nicaragua

Sloooow news day. The fighting in Nicaragua too is in a lull. The NYT says “President Zelaya, recognizing the growing sentiment in Nicaragua favorable to the revolutionists and to the part the United States is playing in the contest, has recently been making every effort to incite the people to anti-American demonstration. These efforts have been utterly futile, and nothing but fear of him prevents a pro-American demonstration.” Ain’t it the way. At any given moment, pro-American demonstrations are about to spontaneously break out all over the world, but something always gets in the way.

Who does Blair think he is, Thomas Friedman?

Tony Blair’s claim that Iraq could launch WMDs on 45 minutes’ notice evidently came from... a taxi driver. Who said he’d heard it from two army officers talking in the back of his cab. MI6 told Blair it was “verifiably inaccurate” (so why were they passing it on to Downing Street?) but he used it anyway.

Today -100: December 8, 1909: Of the State of the Union and pickle secrets

Taft has sent Congress his first State of the Union Address (which nobody seems to call by that name). Throughout it, notes the NYT, “runs a strong note of consideration for the commercial welfare of the country.” Unlike the addresses of Teddy Roosevelt, “There is not a bludgeon or a big stick in it”. Taft talks about the maximum tariff feature of the Payne-Aldrich law. Anyone care about that? Then we’ll move on. He recommends an executive council for Alaska and statehood for New Mexico and Arizona, postal savings banks, requiring Congressional candidates to file a statement of their contributions and expenditures, pensions for civil servants, and that army promotions be based on merit. He wants reform of federal court procedures to make them cheaper to use and faster, adding, “I do not doubt for one moment that much fo the lawless violence and cruelty exhibited in lynchings is directly due to the uncertainties and injustice growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the executions thereof by our courts.” He says, obviously referring to Nicaragua, that neither the Monroe Doctrine “nor any other doctrine of American policy should be permitted to operate for the perpetuation of irresponsible government, the escape of just obligations, or the insidious allegation of dominant ambitions on the part of the United States.”

Germany’s Prince Frederick von Sayn Wittgenstein is forced to renounce his title because he married a woman of the middling classes.

Headline of the Day -100 Years: “D. W. Bowles Arrested: Son of Samuel Bowles Accused of Trying to Steal Pickle Secrets.”

He knows what he did

The Archbishop of Canterbury can just go fuck himself.

Today -100: December 7, 1909: Of white slaves, mud flats, black hands, and employes

Congress is back in session. Rep. James Mann (R-Ill.) introduces a White Slave Traffic Act (yes, the Mann Act). And Rep. William Sulzer (D-NY) introduces a joint resolution directing the Taft admin to demand the “arrest, trial, and punishment of Zelaya by an impartial tribunal in Nicaragua for the willful murder of citizens of the United States, and ample apology from Nicaragua and such damages and reparation as may be just.” Oh, and “to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States, to such an extent as may be necessary,” to establish a responsible republican form of government in Nicaragua.

Not that Taft (who has a cold) is waiting on permission from Congress. 700 marines are finally underway to Central America, possibly to be used in Nicaragua. Their transport ship got stuck in some mud flats in the Delaware River and had to be replaced after they spent a couple of days trying to get it out.

The Italian Black Hand criminal secret society has been recruiting Italians working on the Lötschberg Tunnel in Switzerland for the American branch of the Black Hand, paying for the passage of 40 men.

The first time I saw this I thought it was a misprint, but evidently in 1909 employee was spelled employe.

The Case of the Funnel Cake Hit-Man

Harry Reid on Max Baucus: “Max is a good friend and an outstanding senator and he has my full support.” This is why people distrust the ethos of Washington: Reid sees nothing inappropriate in citing personal friendship as a reason for him to ignore a scandal. The NYT mentions something I’m kind of curious to hear more about: “Ms. Hanes handled a number of high-profile trials, including a double murder at the Iowa State Fair in 1996, where a husband and wife who operated a funnel cake stand were killed in a murder-for-hire case.”

(Update: Hired by the couple’s daughter and her husband, looking to inherit their property and of course the lucrative funnel cake business.)

Farewell, Big Bill Lister, “Radio’s Tallest Singing Cowboy,” we hardly knew ye.

Something fairly obvious occurred to me while reading Thomas Friedman’s column today, in which he says, “You can’t train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for.” Indeed. And since there is in fact no basic state in Afghanistan, worth fighting for or otherwise, it follows that the army we’re building is by definition an army of mercenaries.

Swing swing together

Gordon Brown has been making fun of the Conservative leaders for being toffee-nosed (whatever that might mean) upper-class twits. And indeed, the Tories seem rather embarrassed about their upbringings, if by upbringing you mean being shipped off to a boarding school at age 7. David Cameron’s resumé doesn’t even mention his time at Eton, and the Tories’ other public-school-educated leaders have also omitted this information, while attendees of state schools do make note of the fact.

I think it’s a shame that the Tories are not turning their schooling to their advantage, and to that end I propose a CONTEST, an Eton contest if you will, although I understand that for an American blog an eating contest is more traditional: come up with a motto for the Conservative party that is unafraid of its leaders’ status. I’ll get you started:

Waterloo, Eton, playing-fields, ‘nuf said old chap?

We know what it’s like to be forcibly sodomized – now it’s your turn.

Droit de seigneur, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law

Today -100: December 6, 1909: Of peppermint, normal women, and kings carrying coal

Bridgeport, Ohio, where the tin plate strike erupted into violence, is now under martial law, occupied by 1,500 militiamen.

John Kipp of the Warren County (NJ) Almshouse is about to turn 103 years old. The secret of his longevity: peppermint.

Charles W. Eliot, who has just retired after 40 years as president of Harvard, says that home-making should be the crowning desire of every woman, who should only exercise their intellect on the problems presented by home-making, companionship with her husband, and the vital problems of the rearing of children. He acknowledges that “exceptional” women can and do follow male professions, but such women, as a rule, contribute less to society than, you know, “normal” women. Only 100 years from Eliot to Lawrence Summers.

Mrs. Alva Belmont of the suffragist Political Equality Association hired the Hippodrome for a mass meeting (8,000, capacity) in support of the shirtwaist strike. Top city officials were invited to attend, but from the mayor down they all seemed to have more pressing business elsewhere. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw told the audience, which the NYT estimates as 85% female, that “Our cause [women’s suffrage] is your cause, and your cause is our cause.”

George Bernard Shaw was evidently considering visiting the US but has decided not to, and the NYT is sarcastically thrilled. “The threat of his coming has been hanging over us, and now that it is lifted our hearts should be appreciably lighter.” (They don’t do sarcasm a fraction as well as Shaw does.) Shaw is just a tad too critical of the US for the Times’s taste, one gathers.

An editorial disparages William Jennings Bryan’s plan to make prohibition into a national issue as “an unreasonable, even an absurd and ridiculous, thing,” but makes clear that it doesn’t condemn the Prohibitionist movement itself (so long as it stays on the local level).

France will prosecute a priest for placing a state school under an interdict.

King Gustave of Sweden disguised himself as a stevedore and spent a day carrying sacks of coal around to see what conditions among the workers are like. What’s the Swedish for “condescending publicity stunt”?

Merited – wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? Merited. Say no more.

Headline of the Day (AP): “Baucus: Girlfriend Merited US Attorney Nomination.”

Tone-Deaf Quote of the Day: In a story about how, when Gordon Brown visited wounded troops, the majority refused to speak to him, Brown is quoted thusly: “There is nothing more heartbreaking than, as I did this week, meeting a teenager who has lost a leg.” Unless perhaps it’s being a teenager who has lost a leg.

Today -100: December 5, 1909: Of commissions, strikes, Hebrews, and aerial sign-posts

President Zelaya finally responds to the downgrading of diplomatic relations, and it’s a bizarre response: he asks the US to send a commission to investigate conditions in Nicaragua. He says he will resign if it finds his administration is detrimental to Central America.

In a 5-month-old strike against a subsidiary of the United Steel in Bridgeport, Ohio, five people have been shot, none fatally, in what the NYT calls a riot. It’s a man-bites-dog story in that the five who were shot are not strikers but three guards, a bystander and a 15-year-old. The strike began when the company declared its plants would all be open shops.

Various Jewish societies are asking the Immigration Commission to stop referring to Jewish immigrants as “Hebrew” in immigration reports, but instead refer to their nation of origin.

French aviator Louis Paulhan (who holds French flying license no. 10) has reached a height of 2,000 feet. He believes planes can go even higher. However, he did get a little lost on his test flight and says there really need to be “aerial sign-posts.”

Today -100: December 4, 1909: Of women in unions and hats in museums

Striking shirtwaist makers marched to NY City Hall to protest the “insults, intimidations, and... abuses” of strikers by the police, including arresting them but not the “toughs” hired by the employers after skirmishes. Mayor George McClellan, Jr. (son of the Civil War general, if you hadn’t guessed) says he’ll look into it.

The NYT attempts to explain, with maximum condescension, why the idea of union appeals to the shirtwaist makers (most of whom are women, many of them Italian or Jewish immigrants): equal pay, sure, but also “the idea of sacrificing themselves, if necessary, for the sake of a principle they believe for the good of the weaker worker... appeals to them powerfully. For they are women. The idea, too, of this vague and powerful protector, ‘the union,’ as they think of it, draws them into it.” “For them the strike is a sort of gay holiday, all mixed in with a vague and pleasant new worship, with lots of speeches, lots of dancing, much running to and fro, some danger, and a very great deal of excitement.”

A letter by a H. H. D. Klinker objects to men wearing hats in the Museum of Art and suggests a conspicuous sign advising them “that they should no more wear their hats in the Museum than in a church or theatre.”

Just in case you were confused about whether they were supposed to do that

AP headline: “Renegade Soldiers in Guinea Open Fire on President.”

Probably could have left out the word “renegade.”

Note on the 25th anniversary of Bhopal

It might be easier to treat victims, prevent birth defects etc if Union Carbide/Dow Chemical had not refused, as it continues to refuse, to tell what chemicals were released.

Today -100: December 3, 1909: Of lepers

The NYT reports that while other Central American governments aren’t that happy with Zelaya, the US’s de-recognition of his presidency scares the piss out of them.

Otherwise, a slow news day, so let’s focus on Man in the News John P. Early, who was arrested in Washington D.C. on the charge of being a leper. Early was a famous leper. Diagnosed the year before at 35, Early was a Spanish-American War veteran who probably contracted the disease in the Philippines. He was kept under armed guard in an abandoned farmhouse for a time, then eventually incarcerated in the Carville leper colony in Louisiana, which stole most of his army pension to pay for his involuntary stay. He escaped repeatedly over the next 20 years to bring attention to his unfree condition, appearing in 1916 at a Congressional committee considering a bill for the federal takeover of Carville, asking that it treat the disease rather than simply imprison its sufferers. He stayed in the committee room until they approved the bill. After one of his other trips to D.C., a newspaper reported that he’d spent a $2 bill, and for days people refused to accept the bills (thus the expression “as leprous as a $2 bill”). He died in 1938.

Camels are very sturdy animals

Now another breathtaking edition of Here Are Some News Stories, Write Your Own Damn Jokes, I Have a Headache:

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told Hillary Clinton that Obama’s Afghanistan strategy reminds him of the old adage that a camel is a horse designed by committee (he was sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Committee when he said this). Clinton responded, “Congressman, camels are very sturdy animals. They are patient and may be plodding, but they eventually get to where you hope they will arrive.” Unless they hit an IED. Readers in the WIIIAI-o-sphere: form a committee and write your own damn joke. For example, how else is Obama’s Afghanistan strategy like a camel?

Today -100, December 2, 1909: Of diplomatic breaks, startled mules, what the black cat said to the monkey, and pshaws

Taft breaks off diplomatic relations with Zelaya’s government and opens “unofficial” relations with the Estradaites (General Estrada, by the way, is governor of Zelaya province) while telling the charge d’affaires of the Zelaya government, who he just broke off official relations with, that he can, if he likes, continue to represent his government unofficially. In other words, the US will put both sides on an equal footing. The NYT notes that this is rather unusual, and further that it is being done on the basis of allegations (that Cannon and Groce were tortured before their execution) that even the US admits have not been proved.

Secretary of State Philander C. Knox’s letter to the Nicaraguan charge d’affaires says that Zelaya has “almost continuously kept Central America in tension of turmoil”, that public opinion and the press in Nicaragua have been “throttled,” and that “prison has been the reward of any tendency to real patriotism.” Appeal for intervention has been made to the US by a majority of Central American republics, the letter says, and also “through the revolution, of a great body of the Nicaraguan people.” Indeed, “the revolution represents the ideals and the will of a majority of the Nicaraguan people more faithfully than does the Government of President Zelaya”.

A Norwegian ship has arrived in Nicaragua from New York with arms for the rebels.

Two of the striking women waistshirt strikers snuck into a shirtwaist factory that was still operating (on the 8th floor of a building on W. 20th Street) and yelled Fire, creating a panic.

Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon, asked by reporters about rumor that he intends to step down, says “And the black cat said to the monkey, hurrah.” Whatever that might mean.

The Spanish Episcopate has petitioned the Spanish government to close all secular schools in the country.

At the AAA annual meeting this week -100, one reason mentioned for the need for stricter driving laws was the tendency for reckless driving to provoke violence. Well, in Georgia today -100, a black preacher got into a shoot-out with a presumably white automotist whose car startled the mules on his wagon. A mob tracked him down and burned him at the stake. They let him pray first.

Rockefeller denies taking the purported plot against him seriously. “Pshaw!” he said.

I miss the days when people said “pshaw,” don’t you?

Obama’s Afghanistan speech: America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan

Transcript.

BUT BY JINGO IF WE DO, We’VE GOT THE SHIPS, WE’VE GOT THE MEN, WE’VE GOT THE MONEY TOO: “We did not ask for this fight.”


RAY’S HELL BURGER? “Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers on board one of those flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington, and killed many more.”

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? “The Taliban was driven from power and pushed back on its heels.”

AFGHAN SPEECH DRINKING GAME – PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY: “Today, after extraordinary costs, we are bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end.”

AND DISCOMBOBULATING: “I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies”. A sure sign of a winning goal: alliteration.


CONSISTENT: “In Afghanistan, we and our allies prevented the Taliban from stopping a presidential election, and -- although it was marred by fraud -- that election produced a government that is consistent with Afghanistan’s laws and constitution.” So we prevented the Taliban stopping a fraudulent election. Um, yay? And a fraudulent election is “consistent” with Afghanistan’s laws and constitution. Really kind of crappy laws and constitution. Just sayin’.

WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T STOP AND ASK DIRECTIONS: “Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards.”

AFGHAN SPEECH DRINKING GAME – PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY: “These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.”

NOTICE WHO HE LEAVES OUT – THEIR CHILDREN: “I have read the letters from the parents and spouses of those who deployed.”

Every picture of the cadets has to feature this red-headed woman. It’s the law.

CUE SOUND OF CRICKETS. CURIOUSLY FRENCH-SOUNDING CRICKETS: “Because this is an international effort, I’ve asked that our commitment be joined by contributions from our allies. Some have already provided additional troops, and we’re confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead.”

AFGHAN SPEECH DRINKING GAME – PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY: “Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly”.

AFGHAN SPEECH DRINKING GAME – PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY: “But it will be clear to the Afghan government -- and, more importantly, to the Afghan people -- that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.”

YOUR AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD – DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT: “The days of providing a blank check are over.”

WELL THAT NARROWS IT DOWN CONSIDERABLY: “We’ll support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people.”

I ALMOST FEEL LIKE I’M LEAVING SOMEBODY OFF THIS LIST OF OCCUPIERS. NOW WHO COULD IT BE... WHO COULD IT BE...? “The people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They’ve been confronted with occupation -- by the Soviet Union, and then by foreign al Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes.”

The AP photog captures the full Mussolini mode

WHAT HE WANTS THE AFGHAN PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND: “So tonight, I want the Afghan people to understand -- America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering.”

AH, THE OLD CANCER METAPHOR. NOTHING BAD EVER COMES FROM REFERRING TO PEOPLE AS CANCER: “We’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan.”

I’M SURE THE PAKISTANIS WILL BE THRILLED TO BITS TO HEAR THIS: “In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. ... And going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.” Um, do you guys have any oil at all?

“These are the three core elements of our strategy: a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that reinforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan.” A military effort to create the conditions etc. This is as explicit as he ever gets about what he plans to do militarily in Pakistan, and by explicit I mean empty of all meaning.

Okay, let’s go back to the Mussolini
A FALSE READING OF HISTORY: “First, there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we’re better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. I believe this argument depends on a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan”. Ah, the return of the Coalition of the Willing (COW) argument: 43 nations, bribed and coerced, completely settle the legitimacy of any war.

AFGHAN SPEECH DRINKING GAME – PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY: “It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.”

WHAT HE REFUSES TO DO: “As president, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests.”

HE LIKES US, HE LIKES US! “That’s why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended -- because the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”

SOUNDS KINDA GAY: “We’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power.”

“I’ve spent this year renewing our alliances and forging new partnerships.”


WHO WE ARE: “And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the source, the moral source, of America’s authority.” Talking about stuff, that’s the moral source of America’s authority. In case you were wondering.

THE GREAT POWERS OF OLD HAD ALL THE FUN: “For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. ... We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours.”

WILL CLOSE. ANY DAY NOW. “we must draw on the strength of our values -- for the challenges that we face may have changed, but the things that we believe in must not. That’s why we must promote our values by living them at home -- which is why I have prohibited torture and will close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.”

“It’s easy to forget that when this war began, we were united -- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. (Applause.) I believe with every fiber of my being that we -- as Americans -- can still come together behind a common purpose.” EATING OUR BODY WEIGHT IN HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP BETWEEN NOW AND CHRISTMAS?

Wait, how did the Salahis get those uniforms?

So, troops will begin to come home in 18 months. Begin. That could mean one guy. And no end date, of course. Meaningless.

He was supposed to be setting benchmarks for Karzai to meet. he didn’t.

He was supposed to be setting benchmarks for the US to meet, to prove that the war won’t go on forever. He didn’t.

He was supposed to tell us how the war would be paid for. He didn’t.

Today -100, December 1, 1909: Of autoists, anti-suffragists and monopolists

The AAA’s annual meeting discussed the need for new penalties for reckless driving, including “even” the revocation of licenses and jail. In 1909, by the way, people who drove cars were called “autoists.”

Some of the women shirtwaist-maker strikers are now wearing women’s suffrage buttons.

A New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage has been incorporated.

John D. Rockefeller is hiring guards and taking other precautions against a plot to kill or kidnap him which someone claims to have overheard being discussed by some guys in a shack by the railroad track in Alliance, Ohio.

Illogical

Note to Politico’s John F. Harris: There is no such thing as “too much Leonard Nimoy”. Just no... such... thing.

President Pepe? Really?

Name of the Day: Honduran not-quite-legitimate-president-elect Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo.

Actually, I don’t think I believe the high turnout figures they’re claiming.


What do you think, does he look more like a Porfirio or a Pepe?

Today -100, November 30, 1909: Of demon rum victorious, presidential prowling, and that despicable creature the New York masher

The prohibition referendum in Alabama failed by a large margin. In Birmingham, “Brass bands stationed around the polling places by the anti-amendment forces were playing lively airs to drown out the prayers and songs and pleadings of the women and children, who gathered early in the morning in an effort to influence votes for the amendment.” There were fist fights at every polling station. Jefferson County, in which Birmingham is located, voted against state-wide prohibition, although the county voted itself dry two years ago. “As an instance of the deep feeling displayed, a clergyman on whose coat a young woman attempted to pin a white ribbon at the polling booth, declined to accept the ribbon, telling her it was improper for young women to speak in the street to men whom they did not know. The girl wept and there was a great deal of excitement until the minister apologized.”

President Taft has taken to “prowling” (surely the correct term is “waddling”) the streets and parks of D.C. at all hours, evidently without Secret Service escort. And yet, oddly, he was never accosted by reality show contestants.

The American consul in Nicaragua (who has been out of contact, presumably due to government interference, for a week) is claiming that Zelaya has threatened him “again.” He also claims that Cannon and Groce were a colonel and lt. colonel respectively in the rebel forces and therefore should have been treated as prisoners of war. And the Red Cross says that, far from attempting to blow up a ship full of soldiers, they were actually lost when captured by the captain of a river boat, who promised not to kill them if they surrendered and who was himself arrested after refusing Zelaya’s orders to shoot them. No particular evidence is given for any of this. The NYT also offers obscurely sourced reports that Zelaya is becoming increasingly unpopular and has considered fleeing. Which may all be true, but the Times is very clearly after Zelaya’s blood.

The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party has expelled Maxim Gorky for his “tendency to good living and love of comfort”.

A Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage of the State of NY is formed. George Foster Peabody (of the eponymous award) is president, Max Eastman secretary and treasurer.

A letter from “A Working Girl”: “I rise to ask why I, a girl of 18, only fairly good looking, with the natural feminine love of nice clothes, born and reared in the chivalrous South, should be grossly insulted at least a dozen times a day by that despicable creature ‘the New York masher?’ Unless escorted by a man there is no place day or night (except in my own lodging house room,) that I feel safe from the specimens that pass as men, who prowl your streets... men that I don’t even see until they come smirking up beside me and without encouragement or provocation insult me, and when repulsed slink off to look for another victim. My cheeks even now grow hot with the shame of it all. In New Orleans, where I have lived for eighteen years, I never have been insulted once, no not even by a nigger.”

The dog ate my prime ministership

And now another exciting edition of Here Are Some News Stories, Write Your Own Damn Jokes, I Have a Headache:

Edward Natapei lost his job as prime minister of Vanuatu and his seat in parliament because he forgot to send a note explaining his absence (he was at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting), and if you’re going to miss three sessions of parliament, you need to send a note.

Australian scientists are attempting to breed a sheep that doesn’t burp.

Switzerland and the minarets of doom redux

Switzerland, the country that asked Nazi Germany, “Say, could you identify all the Jews in their passports so we can make sure not to let them in?”, votes 57.5% to write a ban on minarets into its constitution.


European nations practiced toleration-as-long-as-you’re-invisible for minority religions long after they ended the torturing-heretics-to-death phase. In France, the Edict of Nantes (1598) forced Protestants to worship no closer than 5 leagues (c. 17 miles) from Paris. Even after restoring political rights to Catholics in 1829, Britain still banned Catholic churches having towers or bells. In Austria under the Patent of Toleration (1781), Protestant churches were required to have “no chimes, no bells, towers or any public entrance from the street as might signify a church.” (Benjamin J. Kaplan, “Fictions of Privacy: House Chapels and the Spatial Accommodation of Religious Dissent in Early Modern Europe,” American Historical Review, October 2002.)

Switzerland doesn’t have an established state religion, but now it has a state non-religion.

The vote came as a surprise to the Swiss authorities (somewhat less of one to me), because the polls showed only 37% in support of the ban. There’s a certain twisted logic of invisibility here: if I have to keep my religious bigotry secret even from pollsters, you have to keep your religion secret too.

Many of Switzerland’s 300,000 Muslims are refugees from religious wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Name of the Day: Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.

Today -100: November 29, 1909: Of election expenses and family reunions

The Association to Prevent Corrupt Practices at Elections reports statements of campaign expenses it has received from NY candidates and party county committees. The paper prints the county figures, which range from 96¢ spent by the Niagara County Democratic Committee in the last election (compared to $1,737.92 spent by the Republicans) to $214,558 spent by the Republicans of NY County (Manhattan). The Republicans greatly outspent Democrats in almost every county.

Mrs Thomas Kinney is about to see her daughter for the first time in 26 years, since the daughter was 17 months old. In 1883 she was seeing off her sister’s steamer to Germany, stepped off the ship for a minute and it sailed, taking her child with it. The sister refused to send her back and Mrs Kinney couldn’t afford to send for her. The daughter, now married with two children, is coming back to America to settle in Trenton, so her mother will see her soon. (The cable channels would be all over this one, wouldn’t they? The NYT, never very good at the human interest stuff, didn’t even get the daughter’s first name – or the mother’s)

A very small flap

Headline of the Day (BBC): “Sweden Woman’s ‘Murder’ Committed by Elk Not Husband.” The elk was probably stoned out of its gourd on fermented apples. I guess that’s a problem in Sweden.

The London Times reports that British soldiers are experiencing certain injuries more frequently than American ones because of a certain deficiency in their body armor. So it wouldn’t be right at all to giggle shamelessly at phrases such as “The Ministry of Defence (MoD) refuses to disclose how many soldiers have suffered serious groin injuries” and “‘It’s a very small flap which covers the groin,’ an MoD official said.”

Factoid of the Day: “more than 10 percent of marriages worldwide are between people who are second cousins or closer”.

Today -100: November 28, 1909: Of the demon rum, Halley’s comet’s tail, the white man’s burden, and the shadow of obscurity

Alabama will vote this week on prohibition. One problem: it’s an off-year election, so many people haven’t bothered to pay their poll taxes and will be unable to vote. Opponents of the amendment say it allows the cops to search private homes for liquor.

Astronomer John Brashear predicts that when Halley’s comet next comes around (May 1910), the earth will be submerged in the comet’s tail. However, he reassured his audience at the Outlook Club that earthlings would not be harmed by it and will “know no more of the presence of the tail of the comet than if a gentle breeze distributed the smoke of a campfire over a good-sized country.” However, the dead will definitely arise as zombies and eat the brains of the living. But other than that, it’ll be the gentle breeze distributing the smoke of a campfire thing.

Vice President James Schoolcraft Sherman found that the clerk at a post office in Albany did not recognize him (NY is his home state). Also the doorman of a theater. In a letter to the NY secretary of state, he writes, “in the shadow of obscurity I am unhappy.”

Headline of the Day, That Day Being November 28, 1909: “Does New York Want Woman Suffrage? Interesting Views of Prominent Men Who Discuss the Question.” They’re not kidding about the men thing: they sent a questionnaire out and printed the responses of 15 politicians, theologians and whatnot, all men. Oscar Hammerstein I, for example, approves of women voting in municipal and state, but not national elections.

Teddy Roosevelt, still in the middle of his long post-presidential shooting spree in Africa, writes in Scribner’s that Africans are much better off under colonial rule. While there have been mistakes, they most often arise from zeal to accomplish too much in the way of beneficence. So that’s okay then. Indeed the British colonialists’ error, like that of the US in dealing with Indians, is interfering too little with natives’ customs and practices. Missionaries and colonial officials should work hand in hand.

Today -100, November 27, 1909: Of Chinese loans, opium, delicious dogs, and gunboat diplomacy

The US will participate, along with Britain, France and Germany, in a $30m loan to China to build a railroad. See, in those quaint old days of yore, the United States made loans to China in order to be able to exercise indirect imperialist control over its government and economy, instead of the other way around.

Britain may agree to an international conference on the opium trade, but will not agree to stop forcing China to accept opium (hell, they fought a war for the right) or to confine the trade to medicinal uses. Britain says that while there is growing opium abuse in the US, Canada and China, the people of India are perfectly okay using it recreationally.

The authorities in Paris are considering applications for the establishment of slaughter houses for dogs, for human consumption.

The NYT reports rumors that the US has approached Mexico about it possibly cooperating in overthrowing the Zelaya government in Nicaragua. The US has ordered a gunboat to the region – ships are being sent from both coasts – but would prefer that Zelaya be overthrown “without the semblance of aid from this country.” Which looks increasingly likely. For this reason, the US is dragging its feet on formally recognizing the rebels.

Feral camels and deformed rapist popes: you know, the traditional Thanksgiving Day post

Headline of the Day (yesterday): “Feral Camels Terrorise Australian Outback Community.” The town of Docker River in the Northern Territory is now home to 350 people and 6,000 camels. The Australian government plans to kill them. The camels, that is. Camels, by the way, were imported into Australia in 1840. When they were replaced by cars and trucks, they were simply turned loose in the desert to die, as is the Australian way, but they didn’t, and there are now estimated to be a million “feral” camels. One possible solution: camel burgers.

Obama plans to make his Afghanistan speech at West Point. Well, if you’re going to adopt Bush’s policies, you might as well adopt his practice of announcing those policies in front of captive military audiences.

Part of the pre-Thanksgiving news-dump: Obama will not sign the treaty to ban landmines.

Headline of the Day (today): “BBC Abandons Ballet with Deformed Rapist Pope.” “The BBC has abandoned plans to screen a ballet featuring a deformed Pope who rapes nuns that it had announced as one of the highlights of its Christmas schedule.” Obviously just a rip-off of the plot of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Today -100: November 26, 1909: Of provisional governments and hookworms

The NYT has taken to referring to Gen. Estrada, leader of the Nicaraguan insurgents, as head of the “provisional government.” The US government is accepting telegrams from the rebels and otherwise treating them as a legitimate government.

A San Francisco divorce story, quoted in its entirety:

Judge Graham has divorced Anita Coover from David R. Coover. The hookworm was the cause.

“My husband was dull, stupid, lazy, languid, slow,” said Mrs. Coover.

“He must have been a victim of the hookworm,” said the Court.

Mrs. Coover expressed some doubt as to this diagnosis, but Judge Graham stuck to his opinion and granted the decree.