2010 in Pictures

This is what 2010 looked like (er, just pretend I included an inspirational picture of the Chilean miners being rescued, m’kay?).









This picture of former showgirl and Silvio Berlusconi’s personal dental hygienist Nicole Minetti, now a regional councillor for Lombard, brought a ridiculous number of hits to this blog from Italy, Europe and most recently... let me check... Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, a few hours ago.







































The picture of the year, of course, is one of a pelican covered in BP oil, but I didn’t really want to see that again, did you?

The pictorial question of the year:


The only one who missed you was that Iraqi who threw his shoes at you. Next time we’ll be sure to tie you to a chair.

Update:

Today -100: December 13, 1910: Of integration, deaf people at the movies, and opium

A property owners’ association is fighting to keep negroes out of a neighborhood in Harlem. Good luck with that.

Some Jews, merchants with guild rights, will henceforth be allowed to live in Moscow.

Some people are complaining about the language spoken in moving pictures. Lip-reading deaf people. Evidently the actors in silent films cursed. A lot. A teacher of the deaf and dumb explains that “these shows are the chief source of amusement for the deaf, and they are prevented from enjoying them because they are able to understand what is being said by the characters on the screens.” Tell me about it!

Although opium importation was banned two years ago (-100) except for medical purposes, 60,000 pounds are still, somehow, being imported. Congress is considering slapping a high tariff on it, as well as on cannabis indica and cocoa leaves.

Today -100: December 12, 1910: Of lame ducks, judges, and the Headline of the Year for 1910

The lame duck Congress is in session. Although dominated by defeated Republicans “bent on going out in dogged inaction,” it does face the unavoidable task of reapportioning congressional districts based on the 1910 census.

They’ll also have to rubber-stamp a couple of Supreme Court seats plus the chief justice. There has been no chief justice for more than five months but Taft didn’t name a successor since the Senate wasn’t in session to confirm. Rumor most of that time said it would be newbie Justice Charles Evans Hughes but in fact Taft names a Democrat, Justice Edward Douglass White, appointed to the Court by Grover Cleveland in 1894. White was a Catholic, the second one ever appointed to the Court, and a former Confederate soldier. Some believed Taft chose White because he was old and fat and by the time he died or retired Hughes would be ready to be chief justice. In fact, White was replaced by Taft himself, who was replaced by Hughes, who had resigned from the court to run for president in 1916.

But the big front page news was of course this:

Today -100: December 11, 1910: Of censuses, talking German dogs, perfect utopias, and cocking

The 1910 census records that in the continental US, the population is 91,972,266, a 21% increase over 1900. Add Alaska, Hawaii and Porto Rico (as it was then spelled), and it’s 93,402,151. Add all US possessions, meaning American Samoa, the Philippines and the Canal Zone, and it’s 101,100,000.

New York, with 9,113,614, was the most populous state, followed by Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts, etc.

Roughly 45% live in urban areas with populations of 2,500 or more, while 28½ million live in cities over 25,000, a 35% increase over 1900. In the South, only 12.8% live in cities over 25,000.

The entire military and navy consisted of 55,608 men.

Scoop of the Day -100 (from the NYT Magazine section, presumably a pre-William Safire “On Language” column): Germany has a talking dog. At least according to his owner, who is a Prussian official (a royal gamekeeper) and therefore incapable of lying. The pointer or setter speaks 6 words of German: haben, kuchen, hunger, ja, nein, and Don (his name). And he can form them into sentences: Don hungry, want cakes.

Raymond Bayle, a candidate for the French senate in Ardèche, promised a perfect utopia. A perfect utopia would have omnibuses traveling between the fairs of the region, steam heat to aid agriculture in the mountainous regions, airships and airplanes to bring pilgrims to the local shrines, the abolition of money, and the roads asphalted and then enameled white. He received exactly two votes. The French were evidently just not ready for a perfect utopia in 1910.

Headline of the Day -100: “Big Cocking Main in South.” I was thinking of not clicking on the link and just letting all our filthy, filthy imaginations run wild, but unfortunately I did click, and it turned out to be more obscene than anything I’d come up with: a 10-day cockfighting tournament.

The winna!

An empty chair has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.


To be fair, the empty chair has done more to advance the cause of peace than has Barack Obama. So there’s that.

Today -100: December 10, 1910: Of height, Jim Crow in Charm City, fruit and the Japanese, and poor ex-kings

French aviator Georges Legagneux breaks the 10,000-foot altitude barrier.

Baltimore City Council passes an ordinance making it illegal for negroes to move into any block in which a majority of houses are occupied by white people, and vice versa. Evidently while legal segregation of facilities (schools, street cars, theaters, etc) is common, this is a novelty. The punishment is a $100 fine and imprisonment up to 1 year. No one now living in the “wrong” neighborhood will be forced to move. When a new city block is being built, the builder must specify the race of the intended residents.

Secretary of War Jacob Dickinson points out that the US military’s entire aeronautical equipment consists of one small dirigible, one Wright airplane and 3 small captive balloons (whatever that means). The air force consists of 10 people, only one of whom is a licensed pilot (for balloons). Dickinson wants to buy more planes.

Of the 370 army deaths last year, 228 were from disease (43 from tuberculosis) and there were 33 suicides, 15 homicides, and 6 killed in hostilities in the Philippines.

The California Fruit Growers’ Association convention demands that Japanese be banned from owning land in the state.

The deposed king of Portugal, the poor baby, is poverty stricken. “For three months he has not had the means with which to pay his own servants.”

Today -100: December 9, 1910: Of Abe Slupsky, American hero

Remember Abe Slupsky? He’s won his bet by drinking 20 pints of beer a day for 30 days, earning himself $250 and a suit of clothes.

Thank god for Abe Slupsky. If not for him, my only story of the day -100 would be the record price for codfish.

Today -100: December 8, 1910: Of awkward parties and rioting... Canadians

In the French colony of Senegal, a French column beat back an attack, killing 600 Senegalese.

Pres. Taft’s daughter Helen is having a coming-out party with 1,500 guests, but invitations to members of the House of Representatives were lost in the mail (not those to senators). At any rate, that’s the White House’s story, and it’s sticking with it.

Headline of the Day -100: “Won’t Dance with Japanese.” A ball was to be held in Pasadena for a visiting Japanese training squadron, but the leading girls of Pasadena high society refused to attend, so it had to be cancelled at short notice.

There was a riot in Toronto. Toronto, Canada. Wow, 1910 really was different. 11 street cars were destroyed. Evidently Torontohoovians didn’t like the new pay-as-you-enter cars.

Obama press conference: It’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers

Obama held a press conference today, mostly to attack those who criticize his surrender on taxes.

Remember Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis in an SNL parody of the Bush-Dukakis debate, saying, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”? I’m guessing every time Hillary Clinton sees Barack Obama speak about the Republicans, she wonders how she could possibly have lost to him. I know McCain does.

WHAT HIS NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IS: “My number one priority is to do what’s right for the American people, for jobs, and for economic growth.” And how’s that going?

REALLY? “This is real money for real people that will make a real difference in the lives of the folks who sent us here.”


WHAT SOME WOULD HAVE PREFERRED: “Now, I know there are some who would have preferred a protracted political fight, even if it had meant higher taxes for all Americans, even if it had meant an end to unemployment insurance for those who are desperately looking for work.” The assumption here is that he would have lost the fight. It’s pretty much always Obama’s working assumption that he will lose any fight. And then, funnily enough, he does.

WHAT HE’S SYMPATHETIC TO: “And I understand the desire for a fight. I’m sympathetic to that.” If by sympathetic, you mean condescending.

WELL THAT CAN’T BE TRUE, BECAUSE YOU JUST AGREED TO EXTEND THEM: “I’m as opposed to the high-end tax cuts today as I’ve been for years.”

ALSO IN THE SHORT RUN. YOU KNOW, NOW. “In the long run, we simply can’t afford them.”


THAT MUST HAVE THE REPUBLICANS TREMBLING: “And when they expire in two years, I will fight to end them”.

AND REPUBLICANS’ RESPONSIBILITY IS TO PREVENT THAT. EVIDENTLY. “And my responsibility as President is to do what’s right for the American people.”

HE HAS AN OPTION! YAY! “Now, I have an option, which is to say, you know what, I’m going to keep fighting a political fight, which I can’t win in the Senate”. Well, not with an attitude like that, mister.


“Or alternatively, what I can do is I can say that I am going to stick to my position that those folks get relief, that people get help for unemployment insurance. And I will continue to fight before the American people to make the point that the Republican position is wrong.” Oo, he’ll fight. Well, fight to make a point. Which isn’t so much fighting, in the strict sense of the term, as meekly objecting.

But the reason he can’t fight, is that there would be consequences for people. Er, what did he think running a country was about? “Now, if there was not collateral damage, if this was just a matter of my politics or being able to persuade the American people to my side, then I would just stick to my guns, because the fact of the matter is the American people already agree with me.”

And the reason he can’t win, is that the Republicans are, um, determined. “Well, let me say that on the Republican side, this is their holy grail, these tax cuts for the wealthy.”

“But the fact of the matter is, I haven’t persuaded the Republican Party. I haven’t persuaded Mitch McConnell and I haven’t persuaded John Boehner.” Dude, it isn’t about persuasion.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS TEMPTING? CHOCOLATE CAKE. “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.” So is the concern that the American people will get harmed, or that he’d be blamed for it rather than the hostage-takers?

WHAT HE COULD HAVE ENJOYED: “Now, I could have enjoyed the battle with Republicans over the next month or two, because as I said, the American people are on our side.” And yet, with an entire people, whose leader you are, behind you, you keep losing. Funny that.


WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN UNACCEPTABLE: “if we had made a determination that the deal was a permanent tax break for high-income individuals in exchange for these short-term things that people need right now, that would have been unacceptable.” So we’ve got surrender on the instalment plan instead.

A VERY UNIQUE CIRCUMSTANCE: “Q: If I may follow, aren’t you telegraphing, though, a negotiating strategy of how the Republicans can beat you in negotiations all the way through the next year because they can just stick to their guns, stay united, be unwilling to budge -- to use your words -- and force you to capitulate? THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. And the reason is because this is a very unique circumstance. This is a situation in which tens of millions of people would be directly damaged and immediately damaged, and at a time when the economy is just about to recover.”

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “And I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I’m itching for a fight on a whole range of issues.”

WHAT HE SUSPECTS: “I suspect they will find I am.”

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “I’m happy to have that battle. I’m happy to have that conversation. I just want to make sure that the American people aren’t harmed while we’re having that broader argument.”

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “I am happy to be tested over the next several months about our ability to negotiate with Republicans.”

A SAFE PLACE: “Part of what I want to do is to essentially get the American people in a safe place so that we can then get the economy in a stable place. And then we’re going to have to have a broad-based discussion across the country about our priorities.” And how you’ll surrender them.

AND NOW IT’S EVEN LESS SO: “And that’s going to mean looking at the tax code and saying, what’s fair, what’s efficient. And I don’t think anybody thinks the tax code right now is fair or efficient.”

WHAT HE DOESN’T SEE: “And in that context, I don’t see how the Republicans win that argument. I don’t know how they’re going to be able to argue that extending permanently these high-end tax cuts is going to be good for our economy when, to offset them, we’d end up having to cut vital services for our kids, for our veterans, for our seniors.”

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “But I’m happy to listen to their arguments.”

Oh dear muppety Odin, how does he continually fail to learn anything? It doesn’t fucking matter whether the Republicans “win that argument,” because it’s not an argument, and anyway you’ve said, several times in this press conference, that they’ve lost the argument, as shown by the polls. It’s not an intellectual discussion. To paraphrase Sean Connery, he brought a well-reasoned disquisition to a gun fight. And plans to keep doing so in the future. You’d think all the bullet holes in his policies would be enough of a fucking hint by now.


And by the way, my lame duck-droid governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, has called a special session of the Legislature so that he can push yet again his proposal to end vision care for poor children. So fuck all Republicans, is what I’m saying.

On why he doesn’t think the R’s will hold raising the debt ceiling hostage: “But once John Boehner is sworn in as Speaker, then he’s going to have responsibilities to govern. You can’t just stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.” Has he ever MET John Boehner? Does he not remember Newt Gingrich? Of course a Republican speaker of the House can stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.

What will be different when these temporary extensions end in two years? “we will have had two years to discuss the budget -- not in the abstract, but in concrete terms.” Oh good, more “discussion.” “And I think it becomes pretty clear, after you go through the budget line by line, that if in fact they want to pay for $700 billion worth of tax breaks to wealthy individuals, that that’s a lot of money and that the cuts -- corresponding cuts that would have to be made are very painful.” First, they don’t want to pay for the tax breaks. They don’t care about paying for the tax breaks. I thought we’d established that. Second, would the very painful cuts be to the wealthy? No? Then they don’t care. They do not fucking care.

And then he got down to really bitching about his critics on the left: “This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.” Well, let’s see, first you said you wanted it included, and then when the other side objected, it wasn’t included. What’s your definition of compromise, if that isn’t compromise?

I DON’T KNOW, SEEMS TO WORK PRETTY DAMNED WELL FOR THE REPUBLICANS: “Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done.” As opposed to getting everything done the Republicans want done. “People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position...” I know I’m feeling terribly satisfied right now. “...and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are”. As opposed to your feeling sanctimonious about how pure your intentions are and how realistic you are.

Have you noticed how Obama is never so sanctimonious as when he’s castigating the left for being so sanctimonious?


“This country was founded on compromise.” Er, the American War of Semi-Independence? (Update: Rick Perlstein writes on his Facebook page, “Give me liberty or give me illness.” “Loosen my restraints somewhat or give me death.”) “I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.” Oh, I see, the compromise of slavery. That’s your standard for a really good deal, is it? I guess the unemployed should be happy the Republicans weren’t demanding a repeal of the 13th Amendment. Yet.

Straining

Headline of the Day: NYT: “U.S. Strains to Stop Arms Flow.” Given that the US is by far the largest purveyor of arms in the world (a fact which makes a belated appearance in the story’s 7th paragraph), this headline produced in my mind the unfortunate image of Uncle Sam on the toilet, shitting out an unstoppable diarrhoeal flow of weaponry. Now that image is in your head too – you’re welcome.

That 7th paragraph notes that the US “has drawn criticism” for starting an arms race in the Middle East with its bounteous provision of weaponry to Israel and Saudi Arabia, “But it has also taken on a leading role as traffic cop”. But? The NYT persists in seeing a contradiction where there is none, presenting a narrative in which the US is bravely and benevolently attempting to restore sanity to the world, where in fact the massive flow of arms from the United States is part and parcel of the policy of denying to others, such as the Palestinians of Gaza, the means of defending themselves. Honestly, this is so obvious that I feel silly even having to point it out, but it does seem to have eluded the Times.

Quote of the Day

“Racism originated in the Torah.”

Today -100: December 7, 1910: Of colonies, lynchings, scapegoats, a really long State of the Union Address, and the Bathtub Trust

Secretary of War Jacob Dickinson, who recently visited the Philippines, of which he is overlord, if I understand the organizational structure of 1910 US colonialism correctly, says the desire of the Filipinos for independence is “very general,” but tough shit because they simply won’t be ready for it in the present generation. But he sees many signs of progress: 493 miles of railroads, education, less headhunting, everyone’s learning English, lepers are being sent to a leper colony, etc.

Two negroes who allegedly burned a barn are lynched near Monroeville, Alabama.

The coroner’s jury in Newark is investigating the fire that killed 25 female employees of the Wolf Muslin Undergarment Company last month. The company’s vice president testifies that the forewoman, Anna Haag, who conveniently died in the fire, was completely and entirely to blame.

Taft delivered his State of the Union Address, at 27,651 words the longest ever (a record still unbeaten), possibly because he insisted on summarizing every damn thing that happened everywhere in the world in 1910. Lots of stuff about arbitration of border disputes, tariffs, etc. Typical sentence: “All these tariff negotiations, so vital to our commerce and industry, and the duty of jealously guarding the equitable and just treatment of our products, capital, and industry abroad devolve upon the Department of State.” The reading-out of the document in Congress emptied the place out, with only a dozen congresscritters remaining to the end, and those mostly talking amongst themselves. The reading in the Senate took half the time as in the House, because of “liberal skipping.”

Taft wants the next (Democratic) Congress to give him a new banking law, federal incorporation of businesses, Panama canal fortifications, and subsidies for American shipping, especially to South America. He does not want any new legislation regulating corporations, saying “we can stop for a while” and just enforce the existing ones. He wants Alaska to be ruled by a commission appointed by himself, the same system as the US uses in the Philippines. His proposed budget for fy 1911-12 is $630,494,013.12, $52,964,887.36 less than for fy 1910-1, not counting Panama Canal expenses. A $50 million budget surplus is expected.

The US has arrested Juan Sanchez Azcona, former member of the Mexican Congress, opposition journalist, and a revolutionary leader (later Madera’s secretary) on trumped-up Mexican charges of obtaining money under false pretenses.

The Justice Dept indicts the “Bathtub Trust,” 16 companies and 32 individuals which control 85% of the enamel ironware bathtubs, sinks and lavatories made in the US.

Today -100: December 6, 1910: Of immigrants, schoolboy strikers, and Big Kaiser Wilhelm’s screws

The Immigration Commission reports to Congress, recommending restrictions on the immigration of unskilled laborers. It says that most immigrants these days have been economic immigrants, not people fleeing intolerable conditions, so Americans should stop “treat[ing] that immigration movement from the standpoint of sentiment”. It suggests several possible methods of restricting immigration: a literacy test, the exclusion of unmarried unskilled laborers, quotas on “particular races,” etc. It wants to add to the exclusions or limits on Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrants an agreement with the British Empire to ban Indians.

800 Mexican soldiers are approaching 600 revolutionists and a battle is anticipated soon in Chihuahua. It is expected to be small and yappy.

Schoolboys in Jersey City whose current school is being closed went on “strike” to protest that they were being transferred to a crappy school rather than the good one with a swimming pool and gym. A police sergeant broke up the strike by beating them with his belt. The Times finds this hilarious

Headline of the Day -100: “Big Kaiser Wilhelm Drops Screw at Sea.” Turns out to be a German liner called Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, not the actual Kaiser Wilhelm. One of its propellers isn’t functioning. Again, that’s a ship, not the actual German head of state.

Today -100: December 5, 1910: Of Christian Scientists and duels

Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, dies of natural causes at 89.

An actor and a critic duel with swords on the outskirts of Paris, lit by automobile lamps. The actor ran the critic through the lung.

Subject to far greater uncertainties than have been acknowledged

BP is objecting to government estimates of the Gulf oil leak, on which fines will be based, saying they “rely on incomplete or inaccurate information, rest in large part on assumptions that have not been validated, and are subject to far greater uncertainties than have been acknowledged.” So exactly like BP’s safety procedures then.

Today -100: December 4, 1910: Of docked tails, John the Baptist’s head, and women scientists

According to Episcopal Bishop Charles Brent, Filipinos don’t like Americans.

The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals writes a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm to complain about a statue in Cologne of the kaiser on a horse with a docked tail. Er, the horse has the docked tail, not the kaiser.

Britain is also censoring Strauss’s opera Salome: the Lord Chamberlain has commanded that John the Baptist’s head not be visible.

The French Academy of Sciences is divided on whether to admit Marie Curie, who, their keen scientific observation has detected, is a woman.

In Italy, a military airplane crashes, killing an officer and a private. This is the first multiple-fatality plane crash in history.

Don’t ask. Really, just don’t.

Name of the Day: One of the witnesses at today’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell hearings: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Roughead.

Today -100: December 2, 1910: Of senators

Massachusetts Governor-Elect Eugene Foss has embarked on a campaign to derail Senator Henry Cabot Lodge being re-elected. It’s worth spending a little time on it as a window into the rhetoric and reality of representative democracy in 1910. In those pre-17th Amendment days of indirect election of US senators, Foss’s campaign was also necessarily indirect, attempting to raise enough public ire to pressure the Legislature, but having to do so right after a new Legislature was elected, when that pressure would be least effective.

Foss gave an anti-Lodge speech to a meeting following a torchlight procession in Provincetown. He insisted that the November election which elected him and overthrew the incumbent Republican governor was also a “vote of censure” on Lodge, who should have responded by standing down. Instead, “Working in silence and secrecy he resorts to his self-constituted political machine, the machine which has dominated Massachusetts politically for years. He is seeking the counsels of those whom he serves, the privileged interests, and ignores the verdict of the people. He has never mingled with the people or worked shoulder to shoulder with them. He has never been a vital part of the industrial life of the Commonwealth.”

Foss attacks Lodge for sponsoring, early in his career, the failed Force Bill, “a measure that causes every honest man to blush.” The Force Bill was an attempt to federalize the running of elections in the South, to prevent African-American disfranchisement (and also ensure Republican dominance there). Lodge has also opposed federal income tax and favored high tariffs. “I fail to find in Sen. Lodge’s record any vote in favor of the rights of the people, or any championship of the people. So far as the people are concerned his legislative record is a blank.”

But there is no insurgent movement in the Republican Party in Massachusetts as there is in other states because “Sen. Lodge and his machine have strangled every Progressive who showed his head.” “This campaign marks the beginning of the end of Senator Lodge. I say it is the end because he cannot maintain by methods of secrecy, sinister influence, and wire-pulling the leadership of his party. The day of these things has gone by. He declines to come out into the open, and for this reason, if for no other, he is doomed. He is fighting secretly through his machine”.

A NYT editorial on NY’s selection of a senator urges Democrats to defy the attempt of Tammany’s Boss Murphy to railroad his choice through the Legislature, to make their views known by speaking or writing to their state legislators, writing letters to the editor, speaking to their neighbors, holding mass meetings, etc. What the Times doesn’t want, though, is direct primaries, calling them “a first-rate device for strengthening the hands of the bosses”, who “know how to get out their vote”. (The selection of the next New York senator ground the business of the Legislature to a halt during 2½ months of caucus fights, backroom deals that fell through, and 60 ballots of the Democratic caucus.)

The mayor of Fort Worth calls Andrew Carnegie “misguided” for building libraries, because only the rich go to libraries, forcing the poor have to pay taxes to support them. Texas, ladies and gentlemen, Texas!

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your legislative branch

Grumpy the Clown passes literacy test, may take his seat in the Brazilian Congress.

Too... many... easy... jokes... brain... shutting... down........

Today -100: December 1, 1910: Of banned operas, choppers, and fires

First Chicago, now Cleveland: Strauss’s Salome banned. The St Louis police chief says he will have to see it for himself to judge whether it should be banned, but since only one performance is scheduled there, the opera will go on.

Thomas Edison has invented some sort of flying machine. He mentions in passing that he has an old patent, but doesn’t want to talk about it or develop it, and says he has no real interest in airplanes. The machine “consists of a basket hung on a vertical shaft, on the upper end of which revolve box kites or some other form of aeroplanes, at sufficient speed to lift the whole affair.” Er, that’s a helicopter. Edison invented the helicopter, but wasn’t interested in aviation, so he didn’t develop it.

Gov-Elect Woodrow Wilson suggests that the next president should be Ohio’s Governor Judson Harmon.

A house fire in Des Moines at midnight. An old woman appeals for someone to save her trunk. One bystander volunteers to go in. Firemen try to stop him, but he goes in anyway, and drags it to safety. That bystander: Governor Beryl Carroll, who’s probably being so brave to make up for having a girl’s name. (No, I don’t know what was in the trunk.)

Today -100: November 30, 1910: Of head scenes and polar expeditions

The Chicago Opera Company refuses to perform Strauss’s opera Salome after the police order them to censor the “offensive” features, especially the “head scene.”

Capt. Scott’s expedition starts for the Antarctic.

Camp, you say? That reminds me of something, but what? Concentrate... concentrate...

Consecutive stories in the Independent:

# Israel to build giant detention camp for migrants
# Israel tries to clean up its image abroad

Today -100: November 29, 1910: Of elections

The British Parliament is dissolved, with the second general election of the year to be held in December. It will be fought largely on the issue of the legislative veto of the (overwhelmingly Tory) House of Lords. The king has promised Prime Minister Asquith that if the Liberals win another election and the Lords remain stubborn, he will name as many new peers as are needed to pass the veto – and it could be hundreds. But Asquith is not allowed to tell the public this because of the traditional secrecy of communications between prime ministers and monarchs.

Ireland is also an important election issue, with the Liberals promising Home Rule and the Tories – most of whom call themselves Unionists precisely to highlight this – promising to continue ruling Ireland from London. We’re just beginning to see the notion of a divided Ireland emerge as a response to the imminence of Home Rule. A meeting of delegates from Ulster adopts a resolution to refuse to pay any taxes or obey any laws passed by a parliament in Dublin. It also plans to set up an Ulster militia and purchase arms. (I suspect their definition of Ulster is 9 counties, rather than the 6 that wound up being excluded from the Republic of Ireland).

Oh noez! Responsible, accountable, and open government is in trouble!

According to the White House, the latest WikiLeaks doc dump “runs counter” to the goal, which President Obama completely and entirely supports, of “responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world”. Huh. Must be the kind of responsible, accountable, open government that requires lots of secrets.

WikiLeaks has also “put at risk... the cause of human rights”. Um, how do you figure that?

Today -100: November 28, 1910: Of hot sweeties

The strike by the NYC vendors of hot sweet potatoes (“hot sweeties,” in the vernacular) has failed. Many of them will now sell baked apples instead.

Speaking of hot sweeties, a NYT editorial suggests that the British judge who presided over trials of suffragettes last week missed an opportunity to sentence them to something more creative than “40 shillings or a fortnight,” “which matches ill with the innovation presented to the contemplation of the world by the spectacle of a lady kicking a Cabinet Minister’s shins. ... Possibly a clue might be found in the ladies’ ambition to be treated as men. Why not grant their heart’s desire? Why not cut their hair short, for example... Since the ladies kick, why not apparel them for the pastime? That is to say, why not put brogans on them, and trouserettes? Then they might be provided with a ticket of leave good as long as they wore their new clothes.” Somehow I don’t think they’re taking the women’s suffrage movement very seriously.

Today -100: November 27, 1910: Of lumber slaves, fires, planes and cigar lighters

In France, a sailor charged with deserting his ship in Portland, Oregon proves that he had been drugged and put to work as a slave in a lumber camp in Oregon for several months.

24 women and girls are killed in a fire in a four-story building in Newark, NJ, which housed a gas lamp factory on the 3rd floor (where the fire started), a couple of paper box factories below that, and the Wolff Muslin Undergarment Company on the 4th floor, from which came most of the dead. One of the two fire escapes, all NJ law required on the 150-foot-long building, was blocked by flames. Many of the factory workers jumped as the flames reached them, only to be impaled on the spikes of a gate.

A newspaper in Virginia arranges for a plane to fly over the Virginia State Penitentiary, so the lifers can see a plane for the first time. They were suitably awe-struck.

Tourist advice: if you are traveling in France in 1910, be aware that pocket cigar lighters are illegal, because they infringe on the match monopoly, an important source of government revenue.

Good enough for Afghanistan

As of today, we have been in Afghanistan for as long as the Soviets were. USA! USA! USA! Proudly capturing Osama bin Laden for 9 years, 50 days.



David Petraeus says the goal is to ensure that Afghanistan “is never again a sanctuary to al-Qaida or other transnational extremists,” which we will do by “help[ing] Afghanistan develop the ability to secure and govern itself. Now not to the levels of Switzerland in 10 years or less, but to a level that is good enough for Afghanistan.” Dare to dream, general, dare to dream.

Today -100: November 26, 1910: Of those who have become mannish in their ways

Cardinal Gibbons (only the second Catholic cardinal from the United States) tells girl students at St Catherine’s Normal School not to follow women’s suffragists or, as he calls them, “those who have become mannish in their ways and who fight for a place in politics.” Because “The place for the woman is in...” wait for it... “the home.”

An elephant named Queen, of the Frank A. Robbins Circus, is executed with cyanide after having trampled her keeper (she also killed a little girl, but that was some years ago). Queen was supposedly 87 (that would be really old for an elephant, but not impossible).

Giving thanks

for the Tom DeLay money-laundering conviction. I’m sure the footage of the verdict being announced will be played on tv every Thanksgiving. “It’s a Tom DeLay guilty verdict, Charlie Brown!” Snoopy dance, everybody!

The White House turkeys were named Apple and Cider. CAPTION CONTEST!

“Live long and prosper”

Today -100: November 25, 1910: Of men on horseback and creeps united

Apropos of Taft’s visit to Panama, the NYT notes that it’s not especially healthy for the canal workers because “Only brown men and black ones can really live in the tropics. The white man can rule there, but if he stays too long he invariably either dies or degenerates.”

Madero’s statement says that as soon as Mexico City and half the states have been liberated, he will organize new elections.

The NYT reports a rumor that Madero was seriously wounded in the fighting. Or possibly just fell off his horse.

Another NYT Index Typo: “SPECIAL SERVICES FOR THANKSGIVING; All Creeps Unite in Praise for the Benefits of the Last Year.” Creeds; all creeds unite. And yes, the distinction is often a subtle one.

Today -100: November 24, 1910: Has the Mexican Revolution been completely repressed?

Francisco Madero declares himself “President of the Provisional Government of Mexico,” and orders his followers not to attack Americans or banks. Madero’s brother Gustavo arrives in Washington to deny that the rebellion is anti-American.

However, the Mexican foreign minister tells the NYT that the revolt has been “completely repressed.”

Massachusetts Governor-elect Foss changes tack, appealing to Henry Cabot Lodge to agree that no decision on the senatorship be made by the Legislature and that a new law be enacted for direct election of senators.

I submit to you that your empire is illogical

In 2002, it came out that despite the fact that the one thing that was always mentioned about Mullah Omar every time his name came up in news stories was that he was deficient in the eye department to the tune of one, the wanted pictures of him which the CIA had been dropping all over Afghanistan were of someone with two eyes. As I wrote at the time, “In the kingdom of the American intelligence community, the one-eyed man is king.”

Clearly the “Taliban leader” we have been negotiating with (and paying off) is not the “imposter” he is depicted as, but works for that alternate-reality Taliban’s Two-Eyed Mullah Omar. Expect to see McCain and Lieberman on the talk shows this Sunday calling for a preemptive strike on the Mirror Universe, before it’s too late.

Unfortunately Phrased Headline of the Day

“Pope Softens Stance on Condoms” (AP). That does tend to happen at his age.

Today -100: November 23, 1910: Of demented creatures, the Mexican Revolution, and lunacy commissions

British suffragettes “assaulted” Prime Minister Asquith, the NYT says, and threw stones at the houses of Asquith, Churchill, and other Cabinet members. As contemptuously condescending as the NYT’s reporter was, that of the London Times was worse: “The rioters yesterday appeared to have lost all control of themselves. Some shrieked, some laughed hysterically, and all fought with a dogged but aimless pertinacity. Some of the rioters appeared to be quite young girls, who must have been the victims of hysteria rather than of deep conviction. ... The women behaved like demented creatures, and it was evident that their conduct completely alienated the sympathy of the crowd.”


There are revolts and fighting between rebels and the army throughout Mexico, and signs of serious division within the army. A document was supposedly found in some revolutionary’s house detailing a plan to to dynamite the building of the newspaper El Imparcial and to assassinate many government officials and display their bodies suspended from electric-light wires. President Díaz would be spared because of his past services to the country.

Headline of the Day -100: “Lunacy Commission Takes Up Food Theft.”

Awkwardly Phrased Headline of the Day

From an op-ed piece in The Guardian: “The Pope’s Shift on Condoms Is the Thin End of the Wedge.”

Today -100: November 22, 1910: Of senators, Jim Crow, assassinations, revolutions, and new constitutions

Unlike Foss in Massachusetts (see yesterday), NY Governor-Elect Dix says he will leave the matter of electing a US senator entirely up to the Legislature, and won’t even express a preference.

Democrats on the Baltimore City Council are moving towards adopting an ordinance for residential racial segregation. A committee report says “No fault is found with the negroes’ ambitions, but the committee feels that Baltimoreans will be criminally negligent as to their future happiness if they suffer the negroes’ ambitions to go unchecked. The existence of such an ambition is a constant menace to the social quietude and property values of every white neighborhood in Baltimore.” To quote Jimmy McNulty, “What the fuck is wrong with this city?”

The editor of the Kentucky newspaper Appeal to Reason is sentenced to 6 months in federal prison and a $1,000 fine for mailing envelopes on which was printed “$1,000 reward will be paid to any person who kidnaps ex-Governor Taylor and returns him to the Kentucky authorities,” which the jury considered defamatory and threatening. The NYT doesn’t explain, but this is about the 1900 assassination of Gov. William Goebel, which I mentioned on the 18th when another of the (alleged) conspirators was elected to Congress. William Taylor was initially declared the winner of the 1899 elections but served only 50 days before the legislature reversed the results (there was so much corruption and partisan maneuvering I really don’t know who actually won the election). So the assassination was a subtle means of keeping Taylor in office, but didn’t work and Goebel was inaugurated before dying of his wounds. When the indictments started coming down, Taylor fled to Indiana, whose governor refused to extradite him. Thus the reward for Taylor’s return to Kentucky (in 1909, after the reward announcement, Taylor was pardoned by another Republican governor).

Old Mexico: Rebels capture the town of Gomez Palacio. 300 Federal troops evidently go over to their side. Francisco Madero has crossed into Mexico from the US.

New Mexico: The constitutional convention has finished its work. Hispanics, suspicious of the Federal enabling act requirement that all state officers and legislators must speak English, demanded equality before the law. So provisions ban any distinction based on inability to speak English for jury duty, the franchise or other officials not covered by the Federal act and also ban separate schools for whites and Hispanics.

Obama press conference at NATO: I understand people’s frustrations

Obama held a press conference following the NATO summit in Portugal.

UNLESS YOU COUNT BRANGELINA: “For more than 60 years, NATO has proven itself as the most successful alliance in history.”

THOSE DARNED SKEPTICS: “At no time during these past six decades was our success guaranteed. Indeed, there have been many times when skeptics have predicted the end of this alliance.” For example, those skeptics skeptically pointed out that the whole reason for the thing ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

WHAT IT IS IMPORTANT FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO REMEMBER: “It is important for the American people to remember that Afghanistan is not just an American battle.” There are also a lot of dead Afghan shepherds.

GROWING THREAT: “we agreed to develop a missile defense capability for NATO territory, which is necessary to defend against the growing threat from ballistic missiles.” Growing threat? What growing threat?

DE-STRAINING ACCOMPLISHED! “The second message I want to send is that after a period in which relations between the United States and Europe were severely strained, that strain no longer exists.”

WHERE’S THE TRUST? WHERE IS THE TRUST? On the “New START” treaty: “And Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify -- we can’t verify right now.”


SO WE DID HAVE AN ENGRAVED INVITATION: Asked whether Karzai saying the US military should stop doing certain things (night-time raids, killing civilians, employing mercenaries) meant that we were in some way obligated to stop doing those things: “Now, to go to the point about President Karzai, we are there are their invitation. You are absolutely correct. Afghanistan is a sovereign nation.” Define sovereign. Define nation.

AN ENTIRELY LEGITIMATE ISSUE: And on the killing of Afghan civilians: “That’s an entirely legitimate issue on the part of President Karzai. He’s the President of a country and you’ve got foreign forces who, in the heat of battle, despite everything we do to avoid it, may occasionally...” Occasionally! “...cause civilian casualties, and that is understandably upsetting.” Nice of you to understand. “I don’t fault President Karzai for raising those issues.” Oh good. “On the other hand...” Oh Christ, he’s going to do an “on the other hand” about the killing of thousands of civilians “...he’s got to understand that I’ve got a bunch of young men and women from small towns and big cities all across America who are in a foreign country being shot at and having to traverse terrain filled with IEDs, and they need to protect themselves. And so if we’re setting things up where they’re just sitting ducks for the Taliban, that’s not an acceptable answer either.”

CONFESSION TIME: “With respect to the TSA, let me, first of all, make a confession. I don’t go through security checks to get on planes these days, so I haven’t personally experienced some of the procedures that have been put in place by TSA.” Nevertheless, “I understand people’s frustrations.” No you don’t. And that could soooo easily be rectified with a little presidential-junk-touching sexytime session at the White House.

WHAT HE’S SAID TO THE TSA: “And what I’ve said to the TSA is that you have to constantly refine and measure whether what we’re doing is the only way to assure the American people’s safety.” But they’re too busy measuring the American people’s collective junk.

“But at this point, TSA, in consultation with our counterterrorism experts, have indicated to me that the procedures that they’ve been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing.” (He used the term “Christmas Day bombing” twice, although in fact it was only an attempted bombing. That said, if Obama wants to refer to that event, he has to use the phrase “underwear bomber” just like every one else.)(I just want to hear Barack Obama say “underwear bomber.”)

Today -100: November 21, 1910: Of Tolstoy, petty political uprisings, and demented viragoes

Leo Tolstoy has died.

The NYT finds no evidence that a revolution has actually started in Mexico, as it was supposed to do yesterday when Madero returned to Mexico, except for an outbreak at Guerrero. But as a precaution, all bullfights have been canceled in Mexico City.

A NYT editorial craps all over the “petty political uprising” that is the Mexican Revolution, as well as its leader, former presidential candidate Francisco Madero. Says the Times, “The sooner Gen. Diaz silences Madero, however, the better it will be for the peace and credit of his country. The most pitiful revolution is dangerous in a country whose population includes 52 different varieties of the Indian.”

Massachusetts Governor-Elect Eugene Foss demands that either Henry Cabot Lodge “surrender his seat in the United States Senate by withdrawing from his contest for re-election” or Foss will stump against him up and down the state in the time left before Foss takes office (a reminder: it was the Legislature, not the people of the state who would have the final say).

In what will not be the last incredibly condescending editorial on the subject of women’s suffragists, American or British, the NYT says that the women who marched on Parliament Friday took advantage of the “fact” that they would be treated more gently than would men who did the same thing, in which case there would have been “more or less killing and wounding as the first result, and later some trials for high treason, with hangings not far out of sight”, whereas women only suffered “dishevelment of hair and clothing,” a few arrests and brief imprisonment. “In other words, it was not war that the women made, but a ‘scene,’ and while it would not be either fair or true to say that all women love ‘scenes,’ it is both to say that a good many of them apparently do – that none of them seems to fear the public exhibition of emotion anything like as much as most men. So, in a sense – and a reassuring sense, too – while the riot may have been ‘unladylike’ – which is no very grave condemnation – it was quite ‘womanly,’ in that it would have been possible only for women.”

In fact, the 119 women arrested on Black Friday were all released without charge on Home Secretary Winston Churchill’s orders, in part to prevent publicity being given to the abuse and sexual humiliation the police inflicted on the protesters. For this leniency, he was criticized by the Times of London and other papers, including the Daily Express, which referred to the women as “demented viragoes” and “sexless creatures.”

Today -100: November 20, 1910: Of princes flying, Yalensians hugging, congressmen punching, and deer killing

Admiral Prince Heinrich of Prussia, the kaiser’s younger brother, has been taking flying lessons.

The NYT offers a heart-warming vignette from the Harvard-Yale game: “ELDERLY YALENSIAN HUGGED THE PORTER; ‘Are You for Yale?’ He Demanded. ‘I Is,’ Replied the Negro, and That Was Enough.” (The game tied 0-0).

Mexican President-For-Not-Much-Longer Díaz reassures an American tourist agency that the beginning of the Mexican Revolution is “of no real importance against the peace of the republic”.

Congresscritter Charles Evans (D-Georgia) gets into a fistfight with the editor of the Savannah Press, a Mr. Pleasant A. Stovell, over the latter’s coverage of the former’s election. Evans won.

Roosevelt visits the White House for the first time since leaving office, making sure to come while Taft is out, and also goes to the Smithsonian, which is now pretty much just a large collection of things he’s killed. It was a trip down Memory Lane for the Colonel: Ah, that’s my first elephant, why I remember shooting into a herd of hippo and killing this one...

Headline of the Day -100: “Maine Deer Kill Poor.”

All the news the Daily Telegraph sees fit to print

Today’s paper tells us that Sarah Palin really admires Simon Cowell.

And that the world’s tallest couple (she’s 6'6, he’s 6'10.4") live in Stockton.

And that Silvio Berlusconi ordered a new penis for a 2nd century statue of Mars, at a cost of 70,000. It’s attached with a magnet. “Experts studied statues of male nudes from the same period in order to determine what the dimensions of the prosthetic penis should be”. (One of the commenters on the article heard the story on the BBC, reported by David Willy.) He also had a hand restored to Mars and one to the Venus statue with which it’s paired. I suppose we should be thankful he didn’t give Venus a boob job.

Before & after:


Speaking of Berlusconi and art, here’s a picture (which I cropped) from yesterday’s NYT, showing a horse’s ass and a painting.