Caption contest

“So it’s just us presidents here – or ‘president’s,’ as the punctuation morons at CNN will probably put it – you can tell me: how many times did you drop Junior on his head as a baby? It had to be at least six, right?”

Today -100: February 15, 1911: Of Juarez and lukewarm water

Mexican federale Gen. Navarro arrives in Juarez with reinforcements (about 1,000 soldiers) from Chihuahua, unopposed by the insurrectos, who seem to be planning to leave Navarro isolated and bottled up in Juarez while they operate freely in the large area of the country he just left undefended. Now, if he tries to move his forces back south, they can easily block him by burning railroad bridges. Nevertheless, the NYT declares for something like the twentieth time that the Mexican Revolution is probably now “a closed incident.”

Johns Hopkins is evidently now using lukewarm water as anaesthesia for most appendectomies.

Over

Mitch McConnell says that Obama’s legislative agenda is “over,” but makes an incredibly generous offer: “to the extent that the president wants to do what we think is right for America, we won’t say ‘no’ simply because there’s an election coming along.”

He isn’t specific, but I’m guessing that Obama’s proposal to let poor people freeze to death is precisely the sort of meeting of the minds on “what we think is right for America” of which Turtle Boy was speaking.

Today -100: February 14, 1911: Of German troubles, and lords

Headline of the Day -100: “German Troubles in Africa.” Evidently there is “the possibility of a renewal of native troubles” in the German colony of South West Africa (Namibia). Poor Germans, always being put to the “trouble” of massacring Herero tribespeople (often described as the first genocide of the twentieth century, 1904-7).

The US issues a warrant for the arrest of Francisco Madero, leader of the Mexican Revolution, for, you know, revolutionary stuff. They think he’s in El Paso.

In Britain, PM Asquith will next week introduce a bill to reduce the current power of the House of Lords to vote down legislation to a mere delaying one (two years) (except for “money bills” relating to taxes, budgets, etc, where they would have no power to reject or amend). Of course since the Veto Bill hasn’t been passed yet, the Tory-dominated House of Lords still has the power to veto the Veto Bill. So Asquith is employing some not-so-subtle blackmail: if they reject it, he will have the king name as many new peers as it takes to change the vote, which would make the lords have to share the red benches with such riffraff as Thomas Hardy, Gilbert Murray, James Barrie and Bertrand Russell (who were on Asquith’s secret list of 249 possible Lord Whositses).

Today -100: February 13, 1911: Of lynchings, head-shaking, and elves

In a letter read out to 3,000 Sunday school classes, President Taft recommends teetotalism.

An 18-year-old black man is lynched in Eufaula, Alabama, for allegedly attacking a white woman.

When the Mexican insurrectos left Mexicali after a brief occupation last month, they said that if the federal government tried to resume collecting customs, they would return and burn down the customs house. It did and they did. American troops looked on from one block away, on the other side of the border.

Elsewhere, though, American soldiers arrested rebel leader Gen. Manuel Casillas as he attempted to cross from the US into Mexico, because he was carrying a rifle.

When asked if he would run for president again in 1912, William Jennings Bryan “sadly shook his head.” Which is not exactly a denial.

China is having a little outbreak of the Plague; Russia closes off border.

NYT Index Typo Alert: It’s not “THIRTY SCHOOL TOPICS.; Questions of Elve Importance Framed for Mothers to Discuss.” It’s “Live Importance.” (Because elves are mostly home-schooled, or sent out to work in Santa’s factories.)

Today -100: February 12, 1911: Of Lincoln, borders, miscegenation, radium, and executions

It is Lincoln’s birthday and, hey, it’s also (nearly) the 50th anniversary of the election of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy. The NYT thinks that after all this time “we ought to be willing to leave the civil war to history.” It says that the South is no longer hostile to the North and the “occasional demonstrations of the sectional spirit” are only ginned up in order to pressure the states to keep paying pensions to Confederate veterans. “The new South, full of commercial and industrial energy, will not long pretend to mourn the failure of the Confederacy.” Not long, huh?

At a Lincoln Day speech, Teddy Roosevelt comes out in favor of the direct election of US senators and the president. He also says that “the Republican Party must be not only progressive but sane.” (So how’s that going?)

Congress rejects New Mexico’s demand for a revision of its border with Texas in its favor (the border was set 50 years before, but NM says there was a surveying mistake).

Nevada outlaws marriage between whites and Asians. Any minister or justice of the peace who performs one is henceforth guilty of a misdemeanor.

The Radium Bank in Paris, which I think sends radium out as needed to doctors and hospitals, is using more female porters because of fears that robbers will target the extremely valuable substance, which is after all the elixir of life.

Haiti executes two more rebel generals but promises to stop now after, as the NYT puts it in a sub-head, “Negro Government Informed by Washington That Execution of Prisoners Would Be Improper Act.”

Hosni goes bye bye

Just yesterday Mubarak was telling his “children” that he wouldn’t leave them, and now he’s buggered off to Sharm el-Shaikh for a packet of cigarettes and I don’t think he’s coming back. Bad daddy, bad daddy!

And what of his promise that, like O.J. looking for the real killer, “I will not relent in harshly punishing those responsible [for the violence against protesters]. I will hold those who persecuted our youth accountable with the maximum deterrent sentences.”

Personally, I’m glad he made the speech he did yesterday instead of the one Little Leon Panetta predicted he’d make, because I’d hate to think of Mubarak leaving with any more shreds of dignity than can possibly be removed from him, or which he can remove from himself by his own obtuse stubbornness.

Today -100: February 11, 1911: Of time, men of wisdom and experience, and Finnish fishermen on floes

France moves its clocks up 9 minutes and 21 seconds, bringing it into line with the rest of Europe – well, the Times says with Belgium, Holland, Spain and... England. Whatever.

Sen. Elihu Root denounces the proposed direct election of US senators as an effort of the people to shirk their responsibility to elect good state legislatures. He also worries about Southern states having power over their senatorial elections, for obvious reasons. And that many “men of wisdom and experience” would not be willing to undertake the work and inconvenience of an election campaign.

Evidently those Finnish fishermen did not drown.

Heads in the Sand

A Los Angeles city councilcritter who wants to mandate condom use in pornographic films says “We can’t keep our heads in the sand any longer.” Although if they did, it would be a pretty weird porn film. Just saying.

CONTEST I’M GOING TO TOTALLY REGRET, I JUST KNOW IT: What should the film’s name be?

Today -100: February 10, 1911: Of wet Alabama and prinking

Alabama is about to end prohibition.

Evidently, Wellesley students “lack prinking.”

Pursuing their own agenda

A few days ago, Hillary Clinton said, “There are forces at work in any society, particularly one that is facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda, which is why I think it’s important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman.”

Yeah, it would be terrible if anyone tied to derail the democratization process in Egypt to pursue their own agenda, huh Hillary?

Telegraphing the punch

More news from Britain’s news leader, the Daily Telegraph:

Belgium has been without a government for 8 months. Socialist senator Marleen Temmerman calls “on the spouses of all negotiators to withhold sex until a deal is reached.” A Christian Democrat senator, Catherine Fonck responds, “I don’t want to take part in a sex strike. Politicians are not there to strike, on the contrary, politicians are there arouse the country.” Fonck is of course the Flemish word for a particularly naughty sex act. Okay, maybe it isn’t, but it should be.

The Romanian senate has passed a bill to license witches. They could also be fined or imprisoned if their predictions don’t come true, and would be banned from operating near schools and churches.

A British judge bans a man with an IQ of 48 from having sex.

Finally dispelling the rumors that they are actually the same person, Prime Minister David Cameron and David Hasselhoff meet.

Today -100: February 9, 1911: Of ostentatious watering and Finnish fishermen on floes

Night riders threaten Japanese working in orchards in western Colorado. The Japanese workers leave.

The Mexican minister of war says that the government attaches no importance to “the present seditious outbreaks” and that “Order will be restored within a very short time”. So that’s okay then.

Outside Ciudad Juarez, Orozco has his men “ostentatiously” water their horses (to show that the federales are unwilling to come out and fight).

The leaders of the recent rebellion in Haiti are executed.

Remember the 253 Finnish fishermen who refused to be rescued from an ice floe? Most of them drowned.

Front Page Headline of the Day -100: “Kaiser Has a Cold.”

Today -100: February 8, 1911: Of planes, sallies, recalls, and the elixir of life

The new Army appropriation bill includes $25,000 to purchase airplanes to patrol the Tex-Mex border to insure against violations of the neutrality laws by either side in the Revolution.

Americans (and Mexican nationals)(and American soldiers) gathered outside El Paso to observe a minor battle in the Mexican Revolution from the safe side of the Rio Grande. After the fight, in which the insurrectos under Pascual Orozco beat the federales into a retreat (there seem to have been no casualties), rebels posed for pictures.

The NYT notes that the rebels have no female camp followers but the federal troops do, because the Mexican Army has no organized commissary system. Rather, it gives a small sum to each soldier, who hands it over to a woman who forages and cooks for him, occasionally gets accidentally killed in battle, and strips the bodies of the dead. (However the NYT headline “Orozco Beats Back Sally From Juarez” does not refer to one of those camp followers.)

Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill loses the recall election, which is I believe the first recall of a mayor. The NYT attributes the result to women voters, for no good reason that I can see, although it is the case women did not yet have the franchise in Washington when Gill was elected last March. The first woman ever to vote in the state of Washington was a Mrs. Rebecca Hall, aged 80.

A French veterinarian claims to have discovered the secret of rejuvenation, the elixir of life, at least in the horses he’s experimented on: injections of radium.

There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt

Before the Super Bowl, Barack Obama made his famous dip. No, sorry, he was interviewed by a famous dip.

Bill O’Reilly asked him when Mubarak was leaving.

“Only he knows what he’s going to do. But here’s what we know: is that Egypt is not going to go back to what it was.” Unlike Mubarak’s hair.

WHEN HAS IT EVER MATTERED WHAT THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE WANT? “The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections. They want a representative government. They want a responsive government.”

WHAT THE UNITED STATES CAN’T ABSOLUTE DO: “Well, you know, ultimately, the United States can’t absolute dictate – But what we can do, Bill, is we can say that, ‘The time is now for you to start making a change in that country.’” Again, and I can’t believe Obama needs to be told this, Mubarak is an illegitimate, unwanted dictator and he has no moral authority to make any change in Egypt except removing his ass from it.

NOT SUSTAINABLE: “But we’ve also said consistently said to him both publicly and privately is that trying to suppress your own people is something that is not sustainable.” 30 years and counting. It’s not the pyramids, but 30 years seems pretty damned sustainable to me and probably to Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood “don’t have majority support” and “there are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt”.

He denies wanting to redistribute wealth.

He denies moving to the center.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR HIM: “The biggest problem for me is being in the bubble. It’s very hard to escape. You know, you can’t go to the corner...” Because bubbles don’t have corners.

O’Reilly broke the news to Obama that people hate him. Well, replied Obama, “The people who dislike you don’t know you.” O’Reilly interrupted to take issue with the word dislike: “They hate you.”

WHAT HE KNOWS: “Oh, I know football, man.”

Today -100: February 7, 1911: Of income tax, spies, fishermen on the ice, and race riots

The NYT opposes the proposed 16th Amendment for an income tax (whose ratification is about to be considered by the NY Legislature) as an idea from a bygone age “when it was still thought that the Government ought to do almost everything for everybody with the taxes which other people would pay. The time has arrived when people generally are preferring lower costs of living to the hopes of beneficence through taxation”. The Times suggests (rightly, for all I know) that the Amendment was part of a deal to buy votes for the Republican tariff bill.

The Spy Bill passes the House. It would make it illegal to make drawings or photographs onboard battleships or in navy yards or forts without permission, or to sell such information to foreign governments.

Russia adopts mandatory elementary-school education.

The NJ Legislature is considering Governor Woodrow Wilson’s reform proposals. Some of them: Direct primaries for governor & congresscritters. No one to be allowed to run for the Legislature unless they pledge to vote for whoever receives the most votes at primaries for US Senator. Ballots to contain the names of all candidates, replacing whatever system they have now.

12 black men and 3 black women are beaten and threatened with lynching during a race riot in Chicago by white people who objected to them moving into their neighborhood.

253 Finnish fishermen are swept out to sea on an ice floe during a gale. When ships are sent to rescue them, they refuse. Don’t ask me why.

Today -100: February 6, 1911: Of unrelief and beaten beaters

The Mexican government’s relief force arrives at Ciudad Juarez. Except... the soldiers had to ditch their train 10 miles outside of Juarez and by the time they reached the town, half of them were dead or wounded and they had abandoned all their supplies, including field guns, to fall into the hands of the rebels.

Oregon has abolished, after four years, the public whipping of wife-beaters.

Today -100: February 5, 1911: Of smoking, pulp, lions, auras, exercise, and dirty pilferers of words

The secretary of the Anti-Cigarette League goes to meet Massachusetts Governor Eugene Foss – who is a vice president of the League – to discuss the serious problem of boys riding in the smoking cars of elevated trains, and she catches Foss... smoking. Foss said later he had no recollection of having become the vice president of the Anti-Cigarette League. It’s all very mysterious.

Headline of the Day -100: “Muddling the Pulp Question.” Something to do with the reciprocity agreement with Canada, so who cares, I just like the sound of it: Muddling the pulp question.

The brother of British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey is mauled by a lion.

The Persian Finance Minister, Sani ed Dowleh, is assassinated on the streets of Tehran by two Armenians. There has been much debate over what nationality of financial advisers the ministry should hire. Parliament just voted to hire five Americans to reorganize the country’s fiscal system, but Dowleh had wanted Frenchmen, and some wanted Swiss.

Dr. W. J. Kilner has photographed the human “aura.”



President Taft meets with 1908 Olympics gold-medal-winning runner John Hayes, and offers his views on exercise: he believes in it, but “great care should be used so as not to overdo it and destroy the good effects.” No one will ever accuse Taft of not taking great care not to overdo it and destroy the good effects.

An Ohio newspaper held a poll to select ten “beauties” to send to Europe. They are in France now. France is not impressed.

Rep. Robert Macon (D-Ark.), the subject of an article in the Washington Times about his failure to get changes in an agriculture bill, called the author of that article a “willful, deliberate liar, a dirty pilferer of words, a contemptible little ass, and a falsifier of facts” on the floor of the House. The author approached him, “at the same time removing his eyeglasses,” and said, “You have called me a liar and other things. I wish to say to you that you are the liar.” Sadly, they were prevented from duking it out.

Making the right decision

Obama (alongside the Canadian harper, Stephen Prime Minister) spoke about Egypt again.

CRYSTAL: “[w]e continue to be crystal-clear that we oppose violence as a response to this crisis. In recent days, we’ve seen violence and harassment erupt on the streets of Egypt”. Passive voice. It erupted. Like some sort of natural phenomenon for which no human agency is responsible.

UNACCEPTABLE: “So we are sending a strong and unequivocal message: Attacks on reporters are unacceptable. Attacks on human rights activists are unacceptable. Attacks on peaceful protesters are unacceptable.”

SINCE WHEN? “The Egyptian government has a responsibility to protect the rights of its people.”

CLEAR: “It’s also clear that there needs to be a transition process that begins now. That transition must initiate a process that respects the universal rights of the Egyptian people and that leads to free and fair elections.” A transition. That initiates. A process. A process that leads to stuff.

And if you thought that was roundabout, see how many words you evidently need to use when you’re not quite willing to come out and say that Mubarak should resign:

Now, I believe that President Mubarak cares about his country. He is proud, but he’s also a patriot. And what I’ve suggested to him is, is that he needs to consult with those who are around him in his government. He needs to listen to what’s being voiced by the Egyptian people and make a judgment about a pathway forward that is orderly, but that is meaningful and serious. And I believe that -- he’s already said that he’s not going to run for reelection. This is somebody who’s been in power for a very long time in Egypt. Having made that psychological break, that decision that he will not be running again, I think the most important for him to ask himself, for the Egyptian government to ask itself, as well as the opposition to ask itself, is how do we make that transition effective and lasting and legitimate. ... And as I said before, once the President himself announced that he was not going to be running again, and since his term is up relatively shortly, the key question he should be asking himself is, how do I leave a legacy behind in which Egypt is able to get through this transformative period. And my hope is, is that he will end up making the right decision.

Today -100: February 4, 1911: Of sending in the Marines, pastors & leopards

American naval forces have landed in Honduras in order to force a settlement between the government and the insurrectionists, evidently at the request of President Miguel Davila, who offered in return a deal over Honduras’s debt.

More US cavalry is (are?) being moved to the border with Mexico at the behest of the Mexican government, to stop the revolutionaries passing freely back and forth between the US and Mexico.

Headline of the Day -100: “Pastor Fights a Leopard.”

Chaos, chaos I tell you

Mubarak: “If I resign today, there will be chaos.” He claims he told Obama, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

And it’s actually a great personal sacrifice for him to remain dictator because he’s “fed up” with it.

Of the violence by his thugs (who state tv are referring to as “pro-stability demonstrators”): “I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.” It’s true, because that would imply that the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were fighting back.

Headline of the Day: “Egypt’s Vice-President Complains Rioting Is Bad for Business.” He also said that those responsible for the violence would be punished, which should be easy because he’s got their pay stubs, right?

And, in news you can use from the Daily Telegraph, parrots are left-handed.

-100

In 1911, a popular uprising in Mexico threatened the corrupt, repressive 30-year rule of an octogenarian president. Eventually, Porfirio Díaz announced that he would not stand for reelection, but would serve out the remainder (5½ years) of his term. Then he said he would resign, but only “when, according to the dictates of my conscience, I am sure that my resignation will not be followed by anarchy.” Compare and contrast. (Mubarak two days ago: “I am now absolutely determined to finish my work for the nation in a way that ensures its safekeeping.”)

Díaz, of course, fled the country and lived out the last four years of his life in luxury in France.

Today -100: February 3, 1911: Of votes, booms, and burros

The California state assembly votes for women’s suffrage to be put to a popular vote (in November). And in the state senate, an amendment to the state constitution is proposed which would remove the voting rights of American-born children of fathers who were ineligible for citizenship (i.e., who were Chinese or Japanese immigrants).

Warrants are issued over that dynamite explosion in Jersey City (death toll is 24 to 30), including for officials of the Central Railroad of New Jersey and for the owner of the lighter on which the initial explosion occurred. Evidently you need a permit to store and transport explosives. There’s a $25 fine for that.

The Mexican rebels are threatening to bombard Juarez if it does not surrender by 3:00 today. Juarez police blew up the Federal gunpowder supply to keep it out of rebel hands and the railroad tracks were dynamited to prevent rebels coming in from the south.

Rhyming Headline of the Day -100: “Woman Insane on a Train.”

The reciprocal tariff treaty with Canada is still a hot topic. Do we care? We do not. Are we reading an editorial entitled “Reciprocity Is Reciprocal”? We are not.

Baseball news: if the Chicago White Sox finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the American League, each player will get a burro.

Today -100: February 2, 1911: Of commutations, bigamists, and booms

Taft commutes the sentence of Fred Warren, the editor of the newspaper Appeal to Reason, jailed for announcing a “reward” for the return to Kentucky of its fugitive former governor (Warren was making a point about a Supreme Court decision that it was perfectly okay to kidnap labor leaders and carry them across state lines to put them on trial). Taft also reduced Warren’s fine from $1,500 to $100. Taft insists that instead of “feeding his vanity by treating him seriously,” Warren should be “treated with ridicule”.

Edward Mylius, distributor of a British republican (anti-monarchist) newspaper printed in Paris, is imprisoned for 12 months for a report in the paper that George V was a bigamist. Which he wasn’t. It was shown in court that in 1890, when the story said George was secretly married in Malta, he wasn’t actually in Malta. The king did not appear in court, claiming it would be unconstitutional to do so, but had a letter read out. Mylius objected that he was being denied his right to question his accuser and that there was not even proof that King George was at present alive.

All of New York is shaken by an explosion of 25 tons of dynamite in Jersey City, some on a tug boat, some on a freight car (a chain reaction). At least 24 dead, hundreds injured, including some at Ellis Island, where the windows were blown out, millions in property damage. Buildings were rocked in Manhattan. I’m always surprised by the level of gruesome detail the NYT was willing to publish: “The head and arm of a stevedore near the end of the demolished pier hung in the torn rigging of the nearest ship.”

Today -100: February 1, 1911: Of licenses and dashes

The mayor of McKeesport, PA, visited the house where still-blind Margaret Shipley has been staying, suggesting that her hosts force her to end her fast or else. Shipley blames her continued sightlessness on having lacked sufficient faith.

The Maryland DMV refused to issue licenses for President Taft’s four automobiles, mostly because he failed to pay the fee. The governor ordered the DMV to issue the licenses without charge, as a courtesy. And another NYT Index Typo: that’s “Maryland Governor”, not “Mary and Governor.”

Speaking of typography, Samuel Gompers may be charged with contempt of the Supreme Court for a boycott of the Bucks Stove and Range Company, in which case a document written by him on the subject of boycotts and injunctions might be entered into evidence, containing the phrase (this is literal) “Go to —.” The Supreme Court, the NYT notes, may have to rule on the interpretation of a dash.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that

Quote of the Day, John Boehner on Barack Obama: “I’m sure I’ll have to give him strokes.”

Today -100: January 31, 1911: Of non-mobs, water landings, and scoffers

The rebels who captured Mexicali have sent a letter to the sheriff of Imperial County, California, warning against an attempt being planned (by whom the letter does not say) to make a raid across the border to release one of the rebels’ prisoners. The letter notes that this would violate the US’s neutrality laws, and adds in a P.S., “You must bear in mind that we are not a mob. We are fighting for our principles.” The rebels have since left Mexicali, taking $2,000, plus $500 in ransom for the sub-prefect.

Headline of the Day -100: “M’Curdy Flies Nearly to Cuba.” You know, nearly really doesn’t cut it. Attempting the first ever trans-oceanic flight, Douglas McCurdy took off from Key West but an oil leak forced a water landing 10 miles from Havana. He (and his plane) were picked up safely by a destroyer.

Margaret Shipley has completed her 8-day fasting trance and says that her blindness is, um, somewhat better now, but “Not enough at least to satisfy the scoffers.” Yet.

Daily Telegraphy

We learn today from the world’s greatest newspaper that:

Footage on China Central Television which purported to be of the J-10 fighter was actually taken from the movie “Top Gun.”

A 19-year-old in the West Midlands had a fatal traffic accident because a slug had crossed the road (shorting out traffic lights controlling the approaches to a single-lane bridge).

But really, a picture is worth a thousand blog posts (well, a picture on this blog of Berlusconi’s favorite showgirl/dental hygienist/regional councillor/pimp Nicole Minetti in a yellow bikini on a swing is currently 1,000 times more popular than any of my blog posts), and today the Telegraph provides us with:

Pigeons going Hitchcock on the papal ass,


and Nicolas Sarkozy, representing France in Addis Ababa.

Today -100: January 30, 1911: Of lynchings, trances, oysters, and Atlantis

Mexicali falls to the rebels. They’re trying to capture border towns to facilitate easier smuggling of weapons from the United States.

A black man is lynched in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, after supposedly attacking a white child in the house where he worked. His body is left hanging from a pine tree, riddled with bullets.

Ecuador’s president gives in to the large crowds that have been protesting outside the presidential palace for days, and will not lease the Galapagos to the United States.

Margaret Shipley, 25, blind since birth, has been conducting a public fast and self-hypnotic trance in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She had announced that on Monday night she will awake and will be able to see again. Evidently a child evangelist promised her that an 8-day fast would restore her sight. And Heaven told her that she also had to dress in spotless white, recline on a white couch, and part her hair in the middle. And no one is to touch her during these days, or “he will fall dead and everything will be spoiled.” 25,000 people have come to witness the event, filing past her room. A NYT editorial declares Ms. Shipley “densely ignorant, grossly superstitious, and dreadfully weak of mind” but is especially alarmed by the number who made the pilgrimage to see her, which it blames on “the imperfection of our civilization, the inadequacy of our educational system, and the persistence among us, here and there, or great groups of people who are still living in the Dark Ages.” Will Shipley see again? Tune in tomorrow.

Headline of the Day -100: “England Rushes To Defend Her Oyster.” Evidently the NYT ran an editorial I missed attacking the English oyster (“a brown thing that tastes like copper”), and the British papers have responded, the Daily Express saying... oh, who cares, it’s a feud over oysters.

Leo Frobenius, the German African explorer, sends word that he has discovered evidence of the existence of Atlantis. In Togo. An ancient bronze bust with Greek markings. Which proves that the Athenians invaded Atlantis. In Togo.

Today -100: January 29, 1911: Of guillotines, crimes passionelles, matches, badgers, and bigamists

A Paris jury sentences a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old to the guillotine for killing a bank collector. “Alluding to the different prison régime to which they would be henceforth subjected, one of them said: ‘Now, at last we can play cards,’ and the other added, ‘Yes, and drink wine.’”

France is moving to change the law – yes, an actual written law – allowing a husband to kill his wife’s lover. It may also equalize the law of adultery. At present a husband guilty of adultery can only be fined around $5, while a wife can be imprisoned.

A (unnamed by the NYT) London newspaper says that there are many more pretty British women now (-100) than there were a year ago. It attributes this to their getting more rest because there have been fewer parties and bridge has gotten less popular. I think the fewer parties thing is because the death of Edward VII put a crimp on the London season.

At the strong request of President Taft, The Diamond Match Company (aka, the Match Trust), has granted everybody free use of its patent for matches manufactured without white phosphorus. Match workers tended to get poisoned, which produced something called phossy jaw (do an image search in your favorite search engine if you want to be grossed out).

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Banker Badger Victim.” A couple kidnapped a banker and forced him to write a check (but he was able to throw a help note out the window). No actual badgers involved.

King George V has instituted criminal libel proceedings against Edward Mylius (that is, a criminal trial, not a civil suit; Mylius has been in prison since December) for reports in the republican newspaper The Liberator (printed in Paris) that the king is a bigamist, having married the daughter of an admiral.

The people of Egypt have rights that are universal

Obama made a statement about Egypt, after having spoken by phone with Hosni Mubarak. He had the difficult task of trying to give the appearance of supporting democracy in Egypt without actually suggesting that its undemocratic government step down.

AND THE PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE HAVE RIGHTS THAT ARE EGYPTIAN: “The people of Egypt have rights that are universal.”

One of those rights is evidently access to the internet and social networking sites, which Obama called on the government to restore.

VERY CLEAR: “So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors.”

RESPONSIBILITY: “[T]hose protesting in the streets have a responsibility to express themselves peacefully. Violence and destruction will not lead to the reforms that they seek.” You’ll notice that he’s okay with cops using violence against non-peaceful protesters, but not with the demonstrators resisting brutal repression. Just as in his Cairo speech in ‘09, Obama is insisting that violence and revolution are not legitimate means of opposing barbaric, illegitimate dictatorships. That’s what Twitter accounts are for, I guess.

IS THAT THE SAME AS A SPUTNIK MOMENT? “this moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise.”

RESPONSIBILITY: “When President Mubarak addressed the Egyptian people tonight, he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. I just spoke to him after his speech and I told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.” Actually, as the unelected dictator, the only “responsibility” he has is to step the fuck down.

WHAT’S NEEDED RIGHT NOW: “What’s needed right now are concrete steps that advance the rights of the Egyptian people: a meaningful dialogue between the government and its citizens...” The citizens told the government to fuck off, is that not meaningful enough for you? You’ll notice he’s not calling for a free, open, transparent democratic election to replace the government so there’s a legitimate basis for that meaningful dialogue. “...and a path of political change that leads to a future of greater freedom and greater opportunity and justice for the Egyptian people.” Not actual freedom and opportunity and justice, just a “path of political change,” i.e., a slow gradual process whose purpose is to put off freedom and opportunity and justice for as long as possible.

MORE PYRAMIDS BUILT BY SLAVE LABOR? “Put simply, the Egyptian people want a future that befits the heirs to a great and ancient civilization.”

AND THAT’S WHY THEY STOCK UP ON TANKS AND AMERICAN-MADE TEAR GAS: “Around the world governments have an obligation to respond to their citizens.”

Well then he won’t refer to you as a toadying moron

Vice President Biden on Hosni Mubarak, 2011: “[He] has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

Vice President Bush to Ferdinand Marcos, 1981: “We love your adherence to democratic principles and to democratic processes.”

“In other words”.... Where have I heard that before?

George Bush will be interviewed by C-SPAN Sunday on the subject of why he doesn’t want to be interviewed by C-SPAN: “It’s tough enough to be president as it is without a former president undermining the current president. Plus, I don’t want to do that. In other words, in spite of the fact that I’m now on TV, I don’t want to be on TV.”

Today -100: January 28, 1911: Of revolutions, invasions, and expositions

A NYT editorial notes that the rebellions in Mexico and Honduras have received finances and arms from within the United States, and claims that neither country shows “any signs of genuine political revolution.”

Washington’s lower house votes to make women eligible for jury duty.

9 days ago I reported that Colombia had invaded Peru. Haven’t seen another word about that since, but now evidently Peru has invaded Ecuador (or, if you believe Peru, Ecuador attacked Peru).

Massive protest in Guayaquil, Ecuador, against the proposed lease of the Galapagos to the US.

Taft assures senators from the Pacific states that the re-negotiated treaty with Japan will “tacitly” allow existing restrictions on Japanese immigration to continue. Last November Taft met California Governor-Elect Hiram Johnson and asked him to get Californians not to stir up a racist fuss against the Japanese, in return for the forthcoming Panama Exposition being held in San Francisco.

Today -100: January 27, 1911: Of diriplanes, racial exclusion, women’s suffrage, and tariffs

A Lt. H.E. Honeywell is trying to make a combination airplane-dirigible, which he will call.... the diriplane. Good luck with that, lieutenant.

Another aviation first with military applications: Glenn Curtiss has taken off from the water (San Diego Bay) and landed on water. The military is still thinking of planes mostly in terms of aerial observation and scouting.

A US-Japanese treaty from 1894 is due to expire in 1912 and needs to be re-negotiated. Japan is demanding that the provision allowing racist US immigration laws be removed. Japan is basically happy to continue its agreement to restrict emigration to the US but doesn’t like the stigma of the racial exclusion laws.

President Taft has received a petition from prominent Jews demanding that the State Dept end its practice of not issuing passports to American Jews intending to visit Russia (which would not honor them).

The California state senate approves women’s suffrage 33-5.

I probably should mention the treaty with Canada for reciprocity of tariffs. There, I’ve mentioned it.

Well?

Is everyone winning the future yet? If not, get on with it. The future won’t win itself, you know.

Today -100: January 26, 1911: Of revolutions and dock workers

The NYT has finally stopped pooh-poohing the Mexican Revolution. After a slow start, the insurrectos have been defeating the military every time they’ve engaged recently, and have just captured the border town of San Ignacio, 40 miles from El Paso.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act is again used against a union. Members of the New Orleans Dock and Cotton Council are convicted of conspiracy to interfere with foreign commerce for a strike against a steamer that had been loaded by non-union longshoremen.

State of the Union Address 2011: Poised for Progress

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Today -100: January 25, 1911: Of anarchists, senators, the size of Congress, and progressives

Twelve Japanese anarchists are executed for conspiring against the royal family (see the interesting ExecutedToday.com post on this).

The Nevada Legislature ratifies the results of the non-binding popular re-election of US Senator George Nixon, even though Nixon is a Republican and the Legislature has a Democratic majority, because Nixon and his opponent had agreed to abide by the popular vote.

The Democrats in the West Virginia Legislature didn’t wait for the fugitive Republican senators to return and went ahead with the vote for US senators. The R’s in the lower house didn’t vote either – presumably in protest, although the NYT doesn’t say – and not surprisingly two Democrats were elected, William Chilton and Clarence Watson. Accusations of bribery were made in the election of Watson, a coal baron.

Congress is considering reapportionment under something called the Crumpacker Act, which only sounds like a bizarre sexual act. To avoid reducing the number of Representatives any state has, the Act foresees increasing the size of the House to 433, and more when Arizona and New Mexico become states. Some people consider this too large and unwieldy, too difficult to assemble a quorum. And Republicans, who did so badly at the state level in the 1910 elections, are afraid that newly Democratic state legislatures will gerrymander the new seats in favor of the D’s.

Theodore Roosevelt has refrained from adding his name to the Declaration of Principles of the National Progressive Republican League, on the advice of the Progressives who wanted the League to look like a movement for progressive legislation rather than for the election of certain candidates for certain offices in 1912.

Today -100: January 24, 1911: Of pogroms foreign and domestic, and droll objects

Turks in the southern province of Adana seem to be planning new massacres of Armenians, if marking their houses with a red cross and the word “death” is any indication.

Night riders in Hominy, Oklahoma, drive out all the black residents, with polite suggestions and dynamite.

The fugitive West Virginia Republican state senators agree to return from Ohio, with the issues at dispute with the D’s to be referred to committee for arbitration.

Madame Curie is defeated for admission to the French Academy of Sciences, because she is une femme.

In a New York theater, the performance of “a burlesque suffragette” wearing a man’s coat and a divided skirt, a “droll object,” was interrupted by real suffragettes in the balcony. “Look at us, we are real suffragettes. Do we look like her?” they yelled.

The norms and rules of the international system

The Israeli investigation of the flotillacide finds that shooting up the flotilla last May was totally cool. Self-defense, in fact. Defense Minister Ehud Barak says this proves “that Israel was a law-abiding country that could inspect itself and which respects the norms and rules of the international system.” Yes, that’s precisely what the latest whitewash shows. A country that can inspect itself and find itself to be innocent as the driven snow and as adorable as a newborn kitten.

However, I can agree that a country that mows down unarmed civilians on a humanitarian mission and then claims self-defense does indeed respect the norms of the international system, if you really want to judge yourself by the lowest possible standard of behaviour there is.

Today -100: January 23, 1911: Of gunboats and babies

A force from the US gunboat Tacoma boards the Hornet, a gunboat outfitted in New Orleans in support of Gen. Bonilla’s attempted takeover of Honduras.

Riots break out in the Chinese “treaty port” of Hankou when British police are believed to have killed a coolie. British and German gunboats landed troops, and 10 Chinese were killed in the fighting.

Headline of the Day -100: “Police Flee From a Baby.” An abandoned baby which the policemen (bachelors, the Times notes) didn’t want to have to carry around. One forced the 9-year-old who had found the baby to carry it to the station house, then faked stomach cramps to avoid having to take it to Bellevue.

State of the Union adjective contest

I don’t think Obama actually did a “The state of the union is strong/hopeful/hungover” sentence last year, which is a mistake. It’s like the Alfred Hitchcock cameo: you can’t just relax and watch the movie until you’ve spotted him walking a dog or wrestling with a cello.

Still, even if he doesn’t play his role, my annual role here is to offer you this contest. Fill in this sentence: “The state of the union is _____” Fearful? Olbermannless? Tea Partying Like It’s 1773? Totally over “Glee”?

Today -100: January 22, 1911: Of senators on the run, young FDR, and buffalo

Sen. Thomas Carter (R-Montana) warns that the proposed constitutional amendment for popular election of the Senate is being used “to saddle the disfranchisement of negro voters upon the country by constitutional amendment” by removing the ability of Congress to regulate Senate elections.

The 15 Republican West Virginia state senators are still in self-imposed exile outside the state (having dinner with President Taft’s brother), but the 15 D’s think they can form a quorum without the R’s since 4 of them were never properly sworn in. So they may just go ahead and select the US senators.

An article in the NYT magazine section on a new 28-year-old New York state senator begins, “It is safe to predict that the African jungle will never resound with the crack of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s rifle”, unlike his fifth cousin. There’s not much to say about FDR, because he hasn’t accomplished much of anything yet, beyond leading insurgent D’s unwilling to accept Tammany dictation about who the next US senator should be, but the article, which I imagine is the first real look at FDR in the press, says it at some length.

The US evidently suggested to Ecuador that the US lease the Galapagos Islands from it for 99 years for $15m, I guess for use by the Navy.

The last buffalo: the owner of the last existing herd of buffalo in the United States has sold 500 head to Canada and is killing off the remaining 20, in violation of Montana game laws.

A healthy lay status

The pope criticized Silvio Berlusconi for fucking all those prostitutes, saying, “The singular vocation that the city of Rome requires today of you, who are public officials, is to offer a good example of the positive and useful interaction between a healthy lay status and the Christian faith.” Um, yeah.

Today -100: January 21, 1911: Of flying high, football, invasions, poison, lynchings, and the Virginnies

A state representative in Missouri, a friend of the aviators Hoxsey and Johnstone, who both died in crashes last month, introduces a bill to ban planes flying at more than 1,000 feet.

A football game between Iowa University and the U of Missouri is called off because Iowa has a negro player and refused to bench him for the game. The two teams have agreed not to play against each other until he graduates.

Santo Domingo (the future Dominican Republic) invades Haiti. There’s a territorial dispute.

In the Trial of the Century of the Week, Laura Schenk is being tried in West Virginia for poisoning her husband, although there seems good reason to doubt whether he was actually poisoned. In an interesting tactic, the defense attorney offered poison to the jurors, 12 grains of sugar of lead mixed in water, to prove that it was too icky not to be detected. If the poison tastes like shit, you must acquit. Four jurors took up the invitation, tasting and then spitting out the beverage.

A negro named Oval Poulard is lynched in Opelousas, Louisiana, after shooting a deputy (who received only a minor flesh wound) who was trying to arrest him for discharging firearms.

Divorces can be so difficult. The Supreme Court is currently working on the 50-year-old divorce between Virginia and West Virginia, specifically the question of how to divide the state’s debt, which at the time of the split in 1863 was $33 million. VA wants WV to pay 1/3, WV wants to pay nothing.

What’s up, Baby Doc?

Baby Doc Duvalier denies that he has ambitions to become president. “Blood-soaked hereditary dictator yes, president no,” he reassured the Haitian people.

Today -100: January 20, 1911: Of passports, skyscrapers, and wine riots

For 30 years Russia has refused to recognize American passports held by Jews, in violation of the 1832 treaty between the two countries.

F.W. Woolworth announces plans to build the Woolworth Building, which at 57 stories will be the tallest skyscraper in the world (but shorter than the Eiffel Tower) and is expected to cost $12 million (it will actually cost $13.5m and open in 1913, and a very nice building it is too).

Headline of the Day -100: “Troops Stop Wine Riots.” By under-paid wine workers in the Champagne region of France.

Today -100: January 19, 1911: Of senators, war, and planes & boats

Henry Cabot Lodge is narrowly re-selected as US senator for Massachusetts, despite the fierce opposition of Gov. Eugene Foss.

Colombia has invaded Peru.

Aviator Eugene Ely successfully lands his plane on a naval cruiser in the San Francisco Bay, the first time this has been accomplished. Ely says, “I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten.” A great step forward in warfare. Hurrah.

Bet that name’s looking a little limiting now, huh?

Officials of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party have spent the day frantically cold calling everyone named Lieberman in the Hartford phone book, looking for a new candidate to run for Senate under its imprimatur.

Wherein your faith in The Youth of Today will be restored

LA Times headline: “Student Apologized to Classmates after His Gun Went Off, Hitting Two Students.” Who says that kids today lack proper manners?

I’m starting to think the Catholic Church is a little weird

Indy: “Vial of Late Pope’s Blood to Be Kept in Polish Church after His Beatification.”

Today -100: January 18, 1911: Of segregation, fleeing senators, and leather

In a physical culture class in a public school in Flushing, NY, a white girl basically goes into hysterics when asked to dance with a black boy. An agitation is now beginning to return to segregated schools, which were abolished by Theodore Roosevelt in 1900 when he was governor.

The Calif. Legislature is considering a bill to segregate all Asians in the public schools. And Native Americans.

The West Virginia state senate is evenly split between the parties, but the D’s are trying to oust two R’s, so the R’s have been preventing a quorum. When the D’s issued warrants to arrest them as absentees, all 15 R’s have fled to Ohio.

An insane guy shoots at French Prime Minister Briand in the Chamber of Deputies, wounds the director of public relief instead.

Headline of the Day -100: “Stir in Central Leather.”