Caption contest

Today -100: May 14, 1910: Of smugglers

Former New Hampshire Governor Frank Rollins (in office 1899-1901), his wife and son are arrested for smuggling. They had returned to the US aboard the Lusitania and failed to declare expensive gowns and jewelry.

A lot of them were simply overstated

David Cameron made Theresa May home secretary rather than his shadow home secretary Chris Grayling, possibly because of the thing about gays and bed & breakfasts (May’s voting record is actually more anti-gay than Grayling’s), possibly because he suddenly realized that he had an almost all-male cabinet, something I thought went out with John Major.

Comedian Mark Steel on the Lib-Con coalition government.

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Yesterday, Obama met “President” Karzai. They had a press conference.

Obama mentioned that he’d already called to congratulate David Cameron, who is already quite the well-trained poodle: “He reaffirmed -- without me bringing it up -- his commitment to our strategy in Afghanistan.”

PERCEIVED AND OVERSTATED? Obama denied reports that he thinks Karzai is an ineffective loser: “With respect to perceived tensions between the U.S. government and the Afghan government, let me begin by saying a lot of them were simply overstated.”


WHAT HE’S USED WHATEVER POLITICAL CAPITAL HE HAS FOR: “And I’ve used whatever political capital I have to make the case to the American people that this is in our national security interest, that it’s absolutely critical that we succeed on this mission.” Of course he wouldn’t have to utilize his “political capital” to make the case if there was actually a case to be made.

WHAT HIS JOB IS: “Our job is to be a good friend and to be frank with President Karzai in saying here’s where we think we’ve got to put more effort.”

WHAT KARZAI’S JOB IS: “President Karzai’s job is to represent his country and insist that its sovereignty is properly respected, even as he goes about the hard task of bringing about these changes in both his government and his economy.”

I BELIEVE ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY, THE TRADITIONAL GIFT IS QUAGMIRE: Karzai said, “the relationship between Afghanistan and the United States is now into its 10th year, in the form that it has since September 11, 2001.”

KARZAI IS TOTALLY NOT A STALKER: “It’s not an imaginary relationship; it’s a real relationship. It’s based on some very hard and difficult realities. We are in a campaign against terrorism together. There are days that we are happy; there are days that we are not happy.” Wait, go back to the part about days we are happy.

OBAMA IS TOTALLY NOT A STALKER: Obama said, “this is a long-term partnership that is not simply defined by our military presence.”

WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW: “Now, to the American people, I think what they should know is, is that we are steadily making progress.”


DID A LINE FROM A BUSH PRESS CONFERENCE SOMEHOW GET IN HERE BY MISTAKE? “The fact that we are engaging -- you look at a place like Marja -- the Taliban controlled that area. And when you move in and you say, you’re not controlling this area anymore, they’re going to fight back.”

DEFINE “ULTIMATELY ACCOUNTABLE”: “When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as General McChrystal is accountable, for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed. And that something that I have to carry with me”.

WHY WE HAVE AN INTEREST IN REDUCING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: “We have an interest in reducing civilian casualties not because it’s a problem for President Karzai; we have an interest in reducing civilian casualties because I don’t want civilians killed.”

WHAT HE TAKES NO PLEASURE IN: “But I want everybody to be clear, especially the Afghan people. I take no pleasure in hearing a report that a civilian has been killed.” La la la, I can’t hear you.

LET’S SAY THIS ONE MORE TIME: THEY DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE TIES TO AL QAIDA: “so long as they are willing to renounce violence and ties to al Qaeda and other extremist networks; that President Karzai should be able to work to reintegrate those individuals into Afghan society.”


Where can I get me one of those hats?

Today -100: May 13, 1910: Of naughty plays, naughty lawyers, and naughty comets

NY Mayor William Gaynor intends to enforce his version of decency on the theaters without recourse to the courts, by revoking the licenses of theaters performing plays he doesn’t like, as he has already done once against “The Girl with the Whooping Cough.”

The National Negro Committee held a conference in NY to organize a permanent body, the NAACP. But the NYT article on the conference focused, naturally, on a non-negro. The headline: “Socialist Advises Negroes to Strike.” That “socialist” was Clarence Darrow, known then as a labor attorney, and he was a bit off-message at a conference devoted to self-improvement and industrial schools and racial understanding. Darrow noted that that wouldn’t get them more wages from the whites. When he started suggesting that the clergy support the rich and that negroes should stop taking tips from white men, his speech was stopped.

French newspapers are speculating on whether the tail of Halley’s Comet, which the Earth will pass through, will extinguish all animal life on the planet (Spoiler alert: it didn’t).

Today -100: May 12, 1910: Of mourning and oaths

George Bernard Shaw writes to the London Times opposing the practice of wearing mourning for the late king, which is quite expensive – all those black dresses – and suggests instead wearing a violet ribbon. “Why our schools should be deliberately made hideous with black because an honourable public career has come to its natural close in all peace, fulfilment, and cheerful memory is not apparent to any healthy-minded person.”

There is a fight going on over the coronation oath of the next king; the Asquith government proposed dropping the explicitly anti-Catholic language.

Those who can, should

David Cameron is prime minister. Bleck. I’m tired of looking at his face already. His enormous plastic face.

Anyway, he gave a speech. “And I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain. One where we don’t just ask what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities.” Anyway, if you ask “what are my entitlements,” the Tories will just laugh maniacally. Actually, if you ask “what are my responsibilities,” they’ll also laugh maniacally. I think it’s an Old Etonian thing.

“And a guide for that society - those who can, should, but those who can’t...” Teach? “...we will always help.”

CAPTION CONTEST:

I guess I’d have to put on the funny glasses to be sure

Subject line of a junk email from Amazon.com: Experience 3-D.

I thought I already was in 3-D.

Today -100: May 11, 1910: Of girls with the whooping cough and the fight of the century

NYC Mayor Gaynor ordered the New York Theatre closed because it was showing an indecent play – the police commissioner sent in stenographers – a French farce called “The Girl with the Whooping Cough.”


E.L. Blackshear, principal of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College in Texas, writes a letter to the Times calling for the alliterative boxing match between Jack Johnson and James Jeffries to be called off because of the racial strife it is causing and will cause, especially if (spoiler alert: when) Johnson wins. Blackshear declares himself to be of the same race as Johnson, which makes him the first black person whose voice I’ve seen in the Times in the 6 months I’ve been doing these posts.

Today -100: May 10, 1910: Of comets and crucifixions and circuses

In California, a “sheepman and prospector,” worried about the possible ill-effects of the earth passing through Halley’s Comet’s tail, crucifies himself. A century later, he’d have been one of Glenn Beck’s biggest fans.

The circus visited Washington D.C. Senators and congresscritters abandoned committee hearings to watch the parade. It was bi-partisan: there were elephants, and clowns riding donkeys.

Today -100: May 9, 1910: Of sad dogs, Sunday baseball, cruel and unusual punishment, and savages

In the latest King-Edward-is-still-dead news, the NYT reports (via special cable) that his dog misses him.

The Pittsburg D.A. bans baseball games – not just professional, but kids on back lots – on Sundays.

The Supreme Court orders the release of a prisoner on the grounds that he has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, the first time the Court has ever done this. Oddly enough, the cruel & unusual provision it is upholding is in the constitution of the Philippines, which was legally considered a colony. Paul Weems, an official in the lighthouse service in the Philippines, was convicted for defrauding the government and sentenced to 15 years in prison at “hard and painful labor” and to be chained wrist to ankle. The dissenting justices argued that they should be restricted to the 18th-century definition of cruel and unusual punishment, the Spanish-Inquisition-Dick-Cheney stuff, “cruel bodily punishments.” But the majority said that civilization had moved on, and so must the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Dr. Max Baff (amusing name), professor of psychology at Clark College in Massachusetts, says that women are no better than savages from the psychological standpoint, as shown by “her love of bird feathers, hanging ornaments to her ears, wearing bracelets, rings and necklaces, affecting gaudy colors. ... Like savages, she is color blind, prone to religious hysteria, and impressionable.” Dr. Baff considers the women’s suffrage movement a form of emotional insanity and, you will be surprised to hear, is a bachelor.

They didn’t teach the 14th Amendment at Yale Law?

Hillary Clinton, pandering to the let’s-remove-citizenship-from-alleged-terrorists trend-let: “United States citizenship is a privilege. It is not a right.” Wrong.

Not kosher?

Quote of the Day: Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, on why Jews should hate Obama: “People are angry. Americans do not want peace shoved down the throats of the Israelis.”

Today -100: May 8, 1910: Of taciturn monarchs, primaries, anarchists, and swimming chickens

The NYT breaks the news that the new king, George V, is “taciturn.”

The plan for a Senate primary in Mississippi in November, proposed by Sen. Percy after it was discovered that at least one of the state legislators who elected him had been bribed, has been rescinded because the other candidate, former governor Vardaman, refused to agree to the terms.

An article in the NYT Sunday magazine section warns that there are anarchist Sunday schools in New York City. Worse, “there is no God in the Anarchist Sunday school,” and no 10 Commandments.

A justice of the peace in New Jersey will have to decide if chickens can swim. One neighbor accuses another neighbor’s chicken of crossing a stream and doing $250 worth of damage to his strawberry plants.

British election

Well, the Tories didn’t get a mandate, whatever Plastic Boy says. In fact, this election was a disappointment for the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. The LibDems failed to turn Nick Clegg’s alleged superstar status into an increase in the number of actual, you know, votes.

Since Cameron isn’t willing to give the LibDems electoral reform, just a time-wasting all-party commission, there will be no Tory-LibDem coalition. And the Tories did badly enough that the worst of all possible worlds, a Tory-Ulster Unionist coalition, wouldn’t give them a majority. So the likely outcome is a minority Tory government loosely supported by the LibDems and not able to do too much damage, with another general election some time fairly soon. Cameron will go into that one as the head of a weak government that won’t have accomplished much, but made clear just how harmful its budget cuts will be (combined with tax cuts for the rich). Labour will go into it with a new leader, presumably David Miliband, assuming Labour reacts to the loss with a coup instead of a civil war.

Michael White says Brown has snatched defeat from the jaws of disaster.

Other results: former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith loses her seat in Redditch to the expenses scandal and her husband’s porn habit. The Greens get their first MP ever, Caroline Lucas. Labour retained Rochdale, the constituency where Brown called Gillian Duffy a bigoted woman. The balance in Scotland remains almost exactly the same as in the 2005 elections, with the Tories coming in 4th in the popular vote and retaining a single solitary seat, and Labour actually increasing its vote slightly over 2005. Glenda Jackson, the only MP I’ve seen 1) naked, and 2) acting in a play (though not at the same time), narrowly retains her seat.

Today -100: May 7, 1910: The king is dead etcetera

King Edward VIII has died. Was it... murder?

No.

At a meeting of the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs, the novelist Amelia Barr gave a speech. After it, the audience was told that she had 15 children, news which was greeted with an enthusiasm that for some reason proved to the NYT that the clubwomen “show they care more for babies than the ballot.” Incidentally, Wikipedia says Barr had only 6 children, 3 of whom died in childhood.

There is a strike of bakers in Harlem. The union hired a band, which played behind a bakery. But it was a trap! When non-union bakers came out to listen, they were set upon by strikers.

Tufts College gives its reasons for abolishing co-education and establishing a separate women’s college: 1) the “delicacy” of certain subjects, 2) the different viewpoints from which men and women approach nearly all subjects, 3) a reluctance of both sexes to argue with each other, 4) women get better grades and thus a disproportionate share of awards and prizes. The college carefully explains that this is only because women are especially concerned with getting good grades and so take the classes they’re better at.

Why I like British elections

Because there David Cameron is giving his victory speech (for winning his own seat in Witney), but who are you looking at?


That would be Howling Hope, of the Monster Raving Looney William Hill Party (234 votes to Cameron’s 33,973). Here are some of the parliamentary candidates for Witney.


Campsfield House is a particularly nasty, privately run detention center for immigrants, and the guy with the sign is independent candidate/“comedy terrorist” Aaron Barschak, who got 53 votes. According to the Oxford Mail, “Security staff found a rubber lobster among Mr Barschak's possessions when they searched him.”

Today -100: May 6, 1910: What bakers need

Headline of the Day -100: “Bakers Admit They Need Hands.”

Turns out to be about a strike.

A few pawns short of a chess set

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of Kalmykia, a Russian republic, pop. 300,000, on the Caspian Sea (and also head of the International Chess Federation) said in an interview that he has talked with aliens and been on a spaceship in 1997. They wore yellow spacesuits. An MP in the Russian Duma has demanded an investigation. He wants to know if Ilyumzhinov revealed any state secrets to the aliens. And is there a procedure for officials who know state secrets and come into contact with aliens to report them to the Kremlin?

Today -100: May 5, 1910: Taft’s non-jobs

In a speech in St Louis, President Taft comments that he was probably the only man in public life who would admit never having had any farming experience.

Taft may be expelled from the steam shovelers’ union (an honorary membership, he didn’t have any experience, um, shoveling steam I guess, either) for attending a baseball game which was under boycott because the new Cleveland ball park was built with non-union labor.

Today -100: May 4, 1910: Of hopples and secret dirigibles

Headline of the Day -100: “Trotting Men Eliminating Hopples.” I almost didn’t click on the story, in order to leave the meaning of those words a complete mystery. However I did read the story, and it’s still a complete mystery.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Secret French Dirigible.” The French War Dept is building a balloon capable of traveling 50 miles per hour. The Germans must be terrified.

Today -100: May 3, 1910: Of judges, trusts, telephone-stethoscopes, and women’s hats

Charles Evans Hughes is confirmed by the Senate as a Supreme Court justice in a single day, without a debate. He will continue as governor of NY until Oct. 1.

The Supreme Court upholds state laws against trusts, including Tennessee’s decision to kick Standard Oil of Kentucky out of the state.

A medical device has been demonstrated in Britain that could (but won’t) revolutionize the practice of medicine: a telephone-stethoscope, which can transmit the sound of a heartbeat to a doctor over the phone. A doctor suggested it would be useful for tracking the development of pneumonia and typhoid patients.

I must have missed a letter to the NYT which asserted that women were unfit to wield the ballot because many of them wore hats with birds on them, but Alice Stone Blackwell responds that all those birds were killed by men. So there.

June 2010 California proposition recommendations

Updated with election results in purple.

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Prop. 13. Seismic retrofitting won’t trigger increased property taxes. YES, why are they bothering us with obvious shit?
Wins with 84.5%. Which suggests why PG&E and Mercury failed to buy their initiatives: 15.5% of us will vote against absolutely everything, even if it's uncontroversial and unopposed.

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Prop. 14. Open primaries, with the top two candidates from primary on the ballot in November. For all state and federal offices except president.

This system would not just favor the moderate center, as proponents say, but is designed to eliminate other views from political life, limiting the number of perspectives heard in the public sphere to exactly two (if that: Californians tend to live in one-party enclaves, which means that in one-third of California the choice in November would between two Democrats). In the past when the major parties presented us with a choice between two unappetizing hacks (Gray Davis v. Bill Simon for governor 2002, for example), at least we had the option of voting for a Green or Libertarian or Peace and Freedom candidate. This option would be removed by Prop. 14. Personally, I won’t vote for a death penalty supporter for governor or attorney general, and for more than 30 years the D and R candidates for these offices have all been deathers. Without a third-party option on the ballot, I would have to give up either my principles or my franchise (anti-abortion voters might well find themselves in the same boat).

Third parties have pioneered on issues the two bigs were unready even to discuss – the Peace and Freedom Party, for example, put gay marriage in its platform back in 1988. Prop. 14, while purporting to be non-partisan, would wipe out the third parties.

The ballot pamphlet argument against 14 infuriates me, saying that because candidates don’t have to declare a party, “Voters won’t know whether they are choosing a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green Party candidate.” This is an appeal to the laziest of voters, who are worried that they might actually have to read up on the candidates’ positions, when it’s so much easier to look at their party (for those voters, a helpful hint: Meg Whitman is actually a Republican).

But Prop. 14 itself is an appeal to the laziest voters. The “problem” this prop. is trying to solve, that the “extreme” candidates are increasingly winning D & R primaries, is not caused by the current primary system, it’s caused by apathy: the “moderate” voters Prop. 14 wants to favor simply haven’t been bothering to vote on primary election day, or work for moderate candidates, or run themselves.

Prop. 14 would apply to statewide races as well, so one could conceivably face a gubernatorial election where there are two Republicans on the November ballot, especially if there are several Democrats dividing the Dem vote in June. This happened in France, which has this system, in its presidential election in 2002, where the middle-left candidates split the first-round vote, leaving the second round was a distasteful choice between a corrupt center-right incumbent (Jacques Chirac) and an actual fascist (Jean-Marie Le Pen).

Vote NO.

Wins with 54.2%.

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Prop. 15. Public funding for election campaigns for the office of secretary of state for candidates who voluntarily agree to restrict their campaign spending and private contributions. This is both a test case (applying to just one office, and only in the 2014 and 2018 elections) to demonstrate how public funding would work, and a trojan horse for the provision lifting the ban on public funding of all state candidates, allowing the Legislature to expand this program to all state offices without a further referendum.

The ballot pamphlet’s No argument is especially dishonest, saying that the funds would come from taxpayers, which is only true if you think of a fee paid only by lobbyists as “new taxes.” Why are they allowed to lie to us? They imply corruption, talking darkly about lobbyists funding the very office that regulates them, but a mandatory fee paid into a fund for all candidates is not a bribe. They say that if the fee didn’t bring in enough money for the program, tax money would have to be used, which is another lie: Prop. 15 specifically says that if the fee wasn’t enough, funding would be reduced.

However, on this one I’ve changed my mind while writing this. While I support public financing as a means of reducing the cost of elections to make it possible for people to run without having to either be multi-millionaires themselves or spend all their time sucking up to multi-millionaires and corporations for donations. But Prop. 15 just feels sneaky. It allows the Legislature to design public financing for every other state office at some future date behind closed doors without another initiative, which is the sort of blank check I’m not willing to entrust to them. They should have to come back to the voters before such a fundamental alteration of our electoral system. Vote NO.

Loses 57.4% to 42.6%.

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Prop. 16. The anti-public power initiative. The PG&E ads all talk about the “taxpayers’ right to vote,” which is an attempt to obscure reality, at least for people who aren’t paying very close attention – they’re depending on people not paying very close attention – in two ways: 1) the word “taxpayers” is intended to scare people who aren’t paying very close attention into thinking this measure has something to do with taxes, 2) the phrase “right to vote” is intended to get people who aren’t paying very close attention to overlook that the 2/3 provision means their vote might not actually count: yes you had a right to vote, but only 66% of your neighbors agreed with you, so hard cheese.

What PG&E is counting on is that all they would have to do is mislead or scare 1/3 of the voters. If you’re wondering how they plan to do that, you’ve got a perfect preview in the lopsided campaign you’re seeing now around Prop. 16: a large private corporation, and a monopoly at that, spending millions of dollars on ads and the other side not heard because municipalities are prohibited from spending public money to rebut them.

Aside from the undemocratic 2/3 provision, you have to admire the audacity of PG&E talking about the “right to vote” when the choice on offer in a local referendum would be between a public utility run by elected officials and a private one run by an unaccountable, unelected corporation responsible only to its stockholders. Did you have a “right to vote” on PG&E CEO Peter Darbee’s $9.4 million compensation last year? Or on whether you wanted a “smart meter”? Or nuclear power plants? Or on whether PG&E could spend the money they charge you to bankroll a proposition to protect their monopoly and fill your mailbox with propaganda?

PG&E is not spending $35+ million because they’re concerned about the “taxpayers’ right to vote.” They’re concerned about protecting their ability to continue charging some of the highest rates in the country.

Vote NO. That said, when do I get a vote on getting rid of Comcast?

No, 52.%, but not before every remaining tree in Washington was cut down for pro-16 mailers. When you pay your next PG&E bill, write "Ha ha" on your check.

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Prop. 17. Allows auto insurance companies to jack up rates for people who haven’t had continuous insurance.

Another corporate-sponsored initiative (sigh). Can we assume that Mercury Insurance did not pay millions to put this on the ballot out of a philanthropic impulse to reduce everyone’s rates?

This is another one where the arguments in the voter booklet disagree fundamentally on the facts, which means someone is lying. I had to read the text of the prop. to find out, for example, whether there really was an exemption for lapse in coverage due to military service (only if service is outside the US). The Yes argument claims there is protection for people who drop coverage for economic or medical reasons, but what Prop. 17 actually says is that “Continuity of coverage shall be deemed to exist even if... coverage has lapsed for up to 90 days in the last five years for any reason other than nonpayment of premium.” But if that nonpayment was because you lost your job, what then? There is nothing in the text of the initiative that says how that would be resolved, so, you know, good luck with that. If this passes, I foresee plenty of frustrating phone conversations with insurance company reps.

Vote NO to frustrating phone conversations with insurance company reps.

No, 52.1%. It's almost like people don't think insurance companies are on their side and just want to charge them less.

Why is this man smiling?

Gillian “The Plumber” Duffy says she was more taken aback by Gordon Brown calling her “that woman” than “a bigoted woman.” She wonders “He was smiling when he spoke to me but he was thinking that. What else is he thinking when he smiles?”

CONTEST: What else is Gordon Brown thinking when he smiles?

Today -100: May 1, 1910: Of Daniel Boone, no taxation without representation, the census, and criminal slang

Headline of the Day -100: “Memorial to Daniel Boone. North Carolinians Erect a Shaft and a Reproduction of His Log Cabin.” They like him! I mean, they really like him.

134 members of the women’s suffrage group No Vote No Tax Association in Chicago have adopted a resolution to refuse to pay taxes until they have the vote.

A woman in Indianapolis committed suicide because she answered a census question (what company her husband worked for) incorrectly.

An Episcopalian bishop from Maryland, visiting Rome, hoped to have an audience with the pope but is informed by the Vatican that the pope “is neither a picture nor a statue to be inspected and criticized”.

Magistrate O’Connor of Jefferson Market Court (NYC) convicted an alleged pickpocket, who had a record but against whom the only evidence this time seems to have been that he was “jostling pedestrians,” because that he understand what the judge was saying. The defendant displayed his huge hands and asked how he could possibly pick a pocket: “I can hardly put my hand in my own pockets.” The magistrate replied, “Don’t try to kid me. You know a good dip [pickpocket] doesn’t work with his hand. He works with two fingers. You know what ‘bringing the hanger’ [opening a woman’s handbag] means, don’t you?” Greenfield nodded. “I suppose you were framing a sucker to get away with a whole front [steal everything the victim has], or at least you expected to snag a poke [pocketbook] or a super and slang [watch and chain]. Instead you got dropped by a flatty [arrested by a detective] and were canned for a sleep [held overnight], eh?” Since Greenfield knew what all that meant, he got a $5 fine.

Not a serious thing

Tony Blair enters the electoral fray, to remind the British people that there is someone they despise more than Gordon Brown.

His contribution is to attempt to win back disaffected voters who are considering voting LibDem by disparaging them. Such a vote, he said, is “not a serious thing”. “The fact that it might seem an interesting thing to do is not the right reason to put the keys of the country in their hands.” Possibly the British tolerance for being patronized to by smug bastards is higher than mine, but I can’t imagine this sort of dismissiveness being particularly persuasive. And unlike Gordon Brown, he knew his microphone was on when he slagged off a large segment of the population.

Papers, please

The Democrats are thinking about requiring everyone to carry national ID cards with biometric info. The British government likes to propose this every couple of years and what always stops it is not civil liberties concerns, but the fact that they’re expensive. Good luck to the politician who votes for making every American stand in line at the DMV or post office and write a check for $50 or $80.

Stupid and cruel

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov denies having his former bodyguard Umar Israilov, who had filed a complaint against him at the European Court of Human Rights, killed on the streets of Vienna. Said Kadyrov, “Excuse me, but it would be so stupid and cruel to kill a person in the city center. Why would I need to do this?”

Because you’re stupid and cruel.

This has been another edition of simple answers to stupid questions.

Today -100: April 30, 1910: Of white slaves, rich Nicaraguans, cannibals, and musty European aristocrats on elevators

NYC District Attorney Charles Whitman proves that the white slave traffic is real. His female undercover operatives went into the Tenderloin and purchased four under-aged girls (described by the NYT thusly: “Two of them are Jewish and two American.”) (one of them, believed to be 15, cried because she had to leave her teddy bear behind). Whitman claims that the grand jury investigating white slavery has forced the trade to lie low: “One large dealer declared to the agents that though two years ago he could have sold them all the girls they wanted for $5 to $10 apiece, he would not risk selling one now for $1,000.” The price paid for the four is being kept a secret until the trial. (Update: $40 for the Jews, $120 for the Americans, who are also younger.)

There are plans for a delegation of rich Nicaraguans to visit the US in order to beg Taft to intervene militarily in the civil war there and re-establish conditions conducive to their continuing enrichment.

Two Presbyterian missionaries were eaten by cannibals on Savage Island (aka Niue). In an extinct volcano, no less.

A letter, responding to a story I’m unable to find, asks, “Can it be true... that in one of our leading hotels a lady was made to get out of one of the passenger elevators because of the pre-emption exercised by a lady of some musty European aristocracy? Is there a hotel in this liberty-loving country that would endure such dictation?”

Today -100: April 29, 1910: Of trouser-wearing women

A NYT editorial expresses relief that the NY Assembly refused to consider women’s suffrage, which would mean “a radical change in the present structure of society and the relations of the sexes. ... We are willing to admit that the social system at present has its evils, but the home is now the basis of all society, and when the home is destroyed there must be chaos before some new order, of which only the haziest ideas are now entertained, is established.”

But while that danger has been averted in NY, Kansas is moving slowly but inexorably towards that awful new order: a widow wrote to the governor asking if she might be allowed to wear men’s trousers while working at home. He asked the attorney general, “who ruled there was no law prohibiting a woman from wearing men’s trousers, especially if she were the head of the house.”

Don’t burn

Teheran’s police chief is threatening to arrest women with suntans. Where does he think he is, Arizona?

Oklahoma logic

Oklahoma passes two more anti-abortion measures over Gov. Brad Henry’s vetoes. One requires the patient to have an intrusive ultrasound and to be forced to listen to a detailed description of Your Fetus, because they should have all the facts before making a decision, while the other allows doctors to lie to women pregnant with disabled fetuses to trick them into going through with the birth, because women should not have all the facts if they might make a decision of which the doctor disapproves.

If Gordon Brown weren’t so lame, you’d feel sorry for him for being so consistently lame

The British have imported into their election yet another American political innovation, the open-mike incident. Gordon Brown has a nice chat with a voter, gets into his car and starts complaining that they let this “bigoted woman” near him, still with a tv mike on him. And Gordon Brown being Gordon Brown, the hapless sad-sack that he is, she happens to be a grandmother who, before she retired, worked with disabled children.

Today -100: April 28, 1910: Reasonable enough

The NY Assembly voted 87-46 against further consideration of a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution. Assemblyman James Shea (R-Essex) said he felt qualified to speak for married men: “I provide a home for my wife and I expect her to do her share in maintaining it, and I think that is reasonable enough. If we give women the vote our wives will soon be absorbed in caucuses instead of in housekeeping. ... When I come home at night I expect my wife to be there, and not in a political caucus or locked up in a jury room with eight or ten men.” Assemblyman Albert Callan (R-Columbia County) said he could speak for unmarried men, and his mother and sister threaten that if he votes for it “they will close the door against me.”

Will this blog sell out?

I just received an unsolicited offer (the first of its kind) from a betting website which wants to put an ad on this blog. They’re offering $500 for one year. Not going to do it, but thought y’all might be interested.

Are mooseburgers kosher?

Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin is evidently not intended as a joke, although its URL is jewsforsarah.com, which... really?

CONTEST: Clearly, Jews for Sarah needs a catchy slogan or possibly a song. Which is where you all come in...

Compare and contrast: Heinz & Butch

Austrian President Heinz Fischer (who was just reelected) refused to attend the funeral of the evil twin in Poland because it was his chauffeur’s day off.

A more, um, hands-on politician, Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, was hospitalized briefly last week with some sort of bacterial infection. He “began feeling ill Saturday while helping Lt. Gov. Brad Little brand and castrate calves.”

Today -100: April 26, 1910: Of various judicial matters

Taft did officially nominate Charles Evan Hughes to the Supreme Court, but on the understanding that it not take effect until October (evidently the Supreme Court just took 6 month vacations back then), allowing him to participate in the process of choosing his successor. The whole thing was done by letter: Taft sent a letter on the 22nd offering Hughes the job, without knowing if he’d accept it, and Hughes responded by letter on the 24th. One possible obstacle to Hughes accepting was the small salary of a Supreme Court justice, $12,500.

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether corporal punishment in schools is legal.

The Louisiana Supreme Court rules that Jim Crow laws do not apply to octoroons or quadroons.

Would explain a lot

Obama eulogy for the W Virginia miners: “These miners lived - as they died - in pursuit of the American dream.” The American dream is at the bottom of a coal mine?

Today -100: April 25, 1910: Of Clara Shortridge Foltz

It was a slow news day (on page 1: President Taft invites Sgt Thomas Morley of the Pittsburg police, who looks just like him, to sit next to him at a baseball game), so let’s focus this post on our...

Person in the News -100: Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849-1934), who just became a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles, the only woman deputy DA in the country. Wikipedia and, better yet, this article (well worth reading), say she was the first woman lawyer in California, in 1878 (she was a divorced mother of 5). Since the law had said that lawyers in CA had to be white and male, she herself wrote a new law deleting both disqualifications and got it passed (on the second try). Then she had to sue the Hastings College of Law, a public school, to force it to admit her (reported in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Two Lady Lawyers Who Demand Admission to the Hastings Law College--How They Dress”), and when Hastings appealed the ruling she represented herself again before the state Supreme Court. She helped create both the public defender system and the parole system in California, and got SF to stop putting defendants in iron cages during their trials.


A San Francisco DA once closed a case in which she represented the defendant: “She is a WOMAN, she cannot be expected to reason; God Almighty decreed her limitations ... this young woman will lead you by her sympathetic presentation of this case to violate your oaths and let a guilty man go free.”

She was the president of the California Woman Suffrage Association in her 30s and drafted the suffrage amendment that passed in 1911.

She was a descendant of Daniel Boone and the sister of Sen. Samuel Shortridge (R-CA, 1921-33). She ran for governor of California in 1930 in the Republican primary at 81.

Today -100: April 24, 1910: Of Russian Jews and scouts

Russia will “expel fewer Jews” living outside the pale of settlement.

A paramilitary movement for boys will be established, following the model of a group in Britain. The American version will also be called “Boy Scouts.”

Enough? Not possible.

British Foreign Minister David Miliband’s message to the voters: “Look, you’ve punished us enough about Iraq.”

Cat pictures

Christabel, taken today. Because why not?

Church action

At St Peter’s Square, the Pope Ratz spoke of his meeting with Maltese victims of clerical sexual abuse. He said, “I shared with them their suffering...” No, no you didn’t. That may be the most insulting thing you’ve said yet. “...and emotionally prayed with them, assuring them of church action.” Oh, I think they’ve gotten got enough “action” from the church.

Today -100: April 23, 1910: Of justice delayed, and the return of the comet

Taft is widely believed to have offered the vacant Supreme Court seat to NY Governor Charles Evans Hughes, and Hughes to have accepted, but the nomination probably won’t be official until November, so Hughes can campaign for the Republicans in the elections.

It was dark in Chicago, creating fear among the “more ignorant,” who attributed it to Halley’s comet. “In street cars women became hysterical, and in the foreign quarters policemen were appealed to to put at rest the fears of the nervous.”

Don’t you hate it when one form of xenophobic bigotry gets in the way of another form of xenophobic bigotry?

The Belgian government collapses in a conflict between Flemish and Walloon speakers over one voting district which is (gasp) bilingual, scuttling plans to pass a law banning the burqa.

British leadership debate: Securing our future for the future

Second British leaders’ debate today. Gordon Brown wore a red tie, his party’s color, Nick Clegg wore a yellow tie, his party’s color, and David Cameron came so close, wearing a purple tie.


From Gordon Brown’s opening statement: “Like me or not, I can deliver that plan...” That noise you heard was several million British people all saying “Not” at the same time.

Nick Clegg (LibDem and it’s all his fault) defended the European Union (“Size does matter,” he actually said), while noting that it took 15 years to define chocolate (yummy?). He pointed out (correctly) that the Tories ally themselves in the European Parliament with “a bunch of nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists, homophobes”.



Clegg again won the debate, by seeming like a more or less real human being who believed what he was saying. This is the advantage of being the one person there with no chance of being prime minister.


In the first debate, Brown and Cameron tried to go after LibDem voters by starting every sentence “I agree with Nick.” But that just it made it look like they were okay with the possibility of a hung Parliament and a coalition government and that it was therefore okay for people to vote LibDem. So this time, both of them 1) disagreed with Clegg, 2) pointed out whenever the other one disagreed with Clegg about anything. Brown said that Cameron & Clegg reminded him of his two boys “squabbling at bath time.” That noise you heard was several million British people all singing “Rubber ducky, you’re the one, / You make bath time lots of fun” at the same time while picturing Cameron & Clegg naked in a bath together. Later, Cameron said that the more Brown & Clegg quarreled, the more he thought everyone should vote for the Tories. Had he not thought that before?


Cameron and Clegg used the word “proper” a lot.

Brown, who again came with the most prepared (and over-rehearsed) lines, said “David is anti-European [he isn’t, I think, but much of his party is], Nick is anti-American [he isn’t]” and “David’s a risk to our economy, Nick’s a risk to our security,” the latter because Clegg sees no need to spend billions to upgrade the Trident nuclear missile system. Brown told him to “get real.” Cameron said that Trident is necessary for “securing our future for the future.”


Clegg said, “I’m not a man of faith.” That would never happen in the US. That was in response to a question about the pope, who is visiting the UK this year. No one was willing to take up the No Popery banner or say that they’d arrest him on sight.

Brown: “If you’re gay or straight, you have a place in British society.” Which will be news to Americans, who think all you guys sound gay.

All three (sigh) are in favor of the war in Afghanistan, although Clegg kept saying that in the next war Britain should bring “proper” weapons. Brown seemed to want to go to war in Yemen and Somalia. Did anyone even mention Iraq?

The fringe UK Independence Party was not represented in the debate, but I’ve been meaning to mention its election motto: Sod the lot.

Today -100: April 22, 1910: Not exaggerated

Mark Twain is dead. His daughter was with him, and her husband, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, which seems like the sort of name only a humorist could have invented.

A Rev. Thomas Chalmers of the Jewish Evangelical Society wrote to NYC Mayor Gaynor asking for a license to preach Christianity to Jews on street corners in Jewish parts of the city. Gaynor did not provide the license and wrote back, “Do you not think the Jews have a good religion?” and asks “Would you not annoy them and do more harm than good? How many Jews have you converted so far?” If Chalmers ever responded, the NYT doesn’t seem to record it.

The Illinois Supreme Court upheld a law banning the employment of women in factories or shops for more than 10 hours a day.

Headline of the Day -100: “Again Buying Rubbers in London.”

Today -100: April 21, 1910: Of Gay Paree and arbitration

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt in Paris, City is Gay for Him.”

The Journal des Débats says TR is “the representative man of the twentieth century democracy.” Yup, totally gay from him.

Secretary of State Philander Knox believes that disarmament of all the nations of the world is possible through the establishment of a court of arbitration. Why that’s so crazy, it might just work! (Spoiler alert: it didn’t.)

Texas logic: protecting traditional divorces

AP: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott “is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the ‘traditional definition of marriage’ means doing the same for divorce.”

Today -100: April 20, 1910: Of speed traps

A new NY law on automobiles includes a provision keeping proceeds from tickets at the state rather than local level, to prevent speed traps. The Online Entymology Dictionary says the term “speed trap” dates from 1906.

Sitting and thinking

The George W. Bush Institute is open for bidniz. And George gave a little speech.

HE’S STILL THE REMINDERER: “We’re going to focusing on the freedom agenda to remind the country that free societies are in our national interest.”

SITTING AROUND: “I was nervous about starting a think tank, that we’ve got people to come, sit around and think. It’s important to have experts sit and opine, but we also have to act.”

Caption contest

From National Army Day in Iran.

Today -100: April 19, 1910: Of laughing in the Senate, and Siamese twins

A petition for an amendment to the US constitution for women’s suffrage signed by 500,000 people, was presented to the Senate. Suffragists in the galleries were several times ordered not to show emotion by laughing or applauding (NYT sub-head: “Dare to Laugh in Senate.”)

Wosa Blazek, one of a pair of Czech Siamese twins, gave birth.

Today -100: April 18, 1910: Of ghosts, owls, and complacent sinners

The unions representing the striking Philadelphia trolley workers declare the strike over, on the company’s terms, over-ruling a referendum of the strikers which showed a slight majority for rejecting the terms.

The NYT blames a revolt that has broken out in Guatemala on former Nicaraguan President Zelaya.

At a mass meeting associated with National American Woman’s Suffrage Association’s annual convention, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson says that American opponents of women’s suffrage divide into the ghosts, the owls (or hooters) and the complacent sinners. Ghosts feared that only bad women would vote, that women would deprive the men of their darling vices, that women wouldn’t vote, or that they would do nothing else but vote. (It’s unclear from the article who owls might be.)

French suffragists are planning to stand, illegally, for election to the Chamber of Deputies next week. One of them, Marguerite Durand, running in the Ninth Arrondissement, “produced a male idiot on the platform, sarcastically explaining that he had a right to vote and she had not.” (A recent court case established that idiocy is not a bar to the exercise of the franchise.)

It seems that Tenn. Governor Patterson has actually issued lots of pardons to convicted murderers, not just those who happen to be his friends, 152 of them since taking office in 1907.

Charles Green, professor at the Harvard Medical School, says that co-education endangers the future of the American home and that boys and girls should be segregated after kindergarten. He cites the danger of [CHEAP LAUGH WARNING] “the effect on the nervous system of children of both sexes of constant intercourse in the school room.”

Today -100: April 17, 1910: Of elections, eating hippopotami, and booty

Headline of the Day -100: “Negro in Cuban Cabinet.” Martín Morúa Delgado, Sec. of Agriculture and Commerce.

The Mississippi Legislature agrees to Sen. Le Roy Percy’s suggestion of a primary election to validate his election by the Legislature. This is just weird. In these pre-17th Amendment days the power to elect US senators remained with the Lege, so this is an election without the force of law, although Percy promises that if he loses, he’ll resign and let the governor pick someone else, presumably Vardaman (in the decades before the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1912, states were increasingly using advisory popular elections). But this one would be a primary with no general election, so that the only citizens who would get to vote for this office are registered Democrats.

An article in the NYT Sunday magazine section suggests solving the high cost of meat by importing animals from Africa and elsewhere. Hippopotami, yaks, antelopes, llamas, giraffes, white rhinoceroses. Hippos, for example, could graze in parts of the country (Florida) not previously used for pasturage. Prof. W.N. Irvin of the Bureau of Plant Industry in the Dept of Agriculture has eaten hippo and says it’s like a blend of beef and turkey, no wait beef and pork. “I predict that in five years hippo steak will be found quite common on the menu of the average New York and Chicago restaurants.”

Other Headline of the Day -100: a man was arrested trying to sell a diamond ring he’d stolen from the jeweler he worked for. The headline: “Caught Selling His Booty.”

Snippy-snappy

Britain held the first ever party leaders’ debate yesterday, and the Lib Dem, Nick Clegg, won. David Cameron, the (sigh) next prime minister, who has been variously described as looking like he’s wearing a David Cameron mask and as having too few features on too much face,


said Clegg had “sung a good song.” He said of his own failure to fight back against Gordon Brown’s ponderous pot-shots at him (“this is not question time, it’s answer time,” “You can’t airbrush your policies even if you can airbrush your posters,” and about twenty attempts to bring up Lord Ashcroft, the Tory party treasurer who doesn’t pay any British taxes because he claims to live in Belize) that he hadn’t wanted to get “snippy-snappy.” And of his failure to talk about his political ideas during the debate, Cameron said, “Well, all the questions were all rather subjecty subjects.”

He also said, while being endorsed by Gary Barlow of Take That, “Last night in the TV debate I felt a bit like I was in Britain’s worst boy band, so it is helpful to share a stage with a founder member of Britain’s best ever boy band.” David Cameron has a favorite boy band. What is Gordon Brown’s favorite boy band? I fear we will find out before May 6.

Today -100: April 16, 1910: Of bribery and imperialism

New US Senator Le Roy Percy of Mississippi, addressing the forthcoming trial of a man who attempted to bribe a state legislator to vote for him, is offering to put his seat up for election by the people, Democratic people anyway, in a primary against his rival for the office, former Governor Vardaman, assuming Vardaman accepts.

The Massachusetts Legislature passes a resolution against the US expanding its territory through conquest.

Geography lesson

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the deposed president of Kyrgyzstan, left the country for Kazakhstan today, saying, “I’d have done this earlier but I only just found out that Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are two entirely different countries. Who knew?”

April 15th

means one thing: no more of those people dressed up as the Statue Liberty to advertise tax-prep places. So sad. So sad.