How I’ve missed you, ultra-Orthodox parking lot protesters

The summer of 2009 was marked by repeated protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem against the opening of a municipal parking lot on the Sabbath. For this blog, that meant one thing: picture after hilarious picture. Well, they’re back, baby!

Today -100: July 18, 1911: Of population and rattlesnakes, campaign spending, and insects

The center of population for the United States, according to the 1910 census, was just outside Unionville, Indiana, having moved 31 miles west since 1900. By the 2010 census it had moved further west to Plato, Missouri. I can’t be bothered to figure the distance between Unionville and Plato, but Google Maps says it would take 7 hours and 22 minutes to drive it.

(Update: an Indiana University professor located the 1911 center of population precisely. There was nothing there but a rattlesnake. Which he killed.)

The Senate passes a campaign finance bill, providing for complete publicity of contributions and a spending limit of 10 per voter and $10,000 for Senate (senators were still elected by state legislatures, but there were non-binding primaries in many states) and $5,000 for the House.

Headline and Wuss of the Day -100: “Insect Bite Halts Wedding.” The bite in question being on the knee of the Episcopal bishop who was supposed to officiate. Evidently he’s been incapacitated by this bite for weeks.

Heat

Just one comment about Arizona State Senator Lori Klein pointing a loaded gun at a reporter: someone who refers to walking around with a lethal firearm as “packing heat” should on no account be allowed to do so.

Today -100: July 17, 1911: Of socialists, exciting bombs, and hair-raising films

Socialists are now in charge of the city government of Berkeley. I know! In large part through the efforts of young radicals at the university. I know! However, the elected socialists have been fighting amongst themselves – I know! – over the distribution of patronage positions. (Update: the LA Times of 7/10/11 says that new Socialist Mayor Stitt Wilson is refusing to give his party leaders an undated resignation to be used at their convenience, so they are already threatening to recall him.)

Headline of the Day -100: “Bombs Excite Pasadena.” I should think. Someone left a couple of bombs in a basket in front of the home of a retired dental-instrument manufacturer.

A movie actor, Albert Brighton (not listed in IMDB), drowned last week while filming a movie. There are already ads for the film: “Film actor’s sensational fight for life. Hair-raising act shown in detail before and during the fatal plunge, in which Al Brighton lost his life to make drowning scene realistic. A marvelous picture film, containing 41 scenes, 1,000 feet of film, and in which 100 actors are employed. The noted picture player plunges to his death while hundreds applaud his death struggles, appreciating, as they thought, his usual great efforts to make a scene real. Order now.” Hair-raising may not be the best choice of words: one of the men trying to save Brighton grabbed him by the hair, which, being a toupee, came off. He did not surface again.

Today -100: July 16, 1911: Of false hair, French divorce, goats, and disgusted burglars

Headline of the Day -100: “Wrestles With False Hair.” Part of an endless series of stories since the passage of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in 1909 in which the Treasury categorizes various imported products to determine the tariff to be paid on them. In this case, the law specifies that “drawn” hair is subject to a 20% duty while “raw” hair may be imported free, so the Treasury is busy determining which is which. “One section of the Treasury offices looks like an Indian camp after the visit of a scalping party.”

An article about the income tax amendment mentions parenthetically that of 15 state legislatures which have yet to vote on it, 9 are out of session until 1913.

A couple of French dukes sue because Louis XV gave their ancestor rights to a box at the Opéra Comique with a room behind it, a separate staircase and a private entrance, but since the reconstruction of the opera house in 1887, they’ve had only the box. The court (which evidently hasn’t heard of the abolition of aristocratic privileges during the French Revolution) awards them $2,000 in damages, but won’t order that the building’s entire facade be rebuilt to accommodate them.

More upper-upper-class French people news: with divorce rising (and fewer people shunning divorced women from polite society) but with French divorce proceedings pretty secretive, the question has arisen of whether and how one should announce one’s divorce in the pre-Facebook age. If you send out divorce cards, do you say “Monsieur and Madame X regret to announce,” when you obviously regrette rien, or “Monsieur and Madame X have the pleasure of announcing,” which some find frivolous? “Monsieur and Madame X have the honor”? The younger set dislike “The court has declared a divorce between Monsieur and Madame X” because it’s legalistic instead of sentimental. And what about the recipient: do you send congratulations or condolences?

Candidates to join the Elks will no longer have to ride the goat. That’s a euphemism for... oh, wait, for riding a goat.

Politically Correct Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “YELLOW PERIL IS IMMINENT.; FLOOD OF CHINESE MARCHING ON LOS ANGELES; Plague-stricken Contrabands Are Crossing the Line, and Four Hundred Waiting at Ensenada.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Burglar Caught, Disgusted.” Said the burglar, as he was led by police out of the home of an electrical engineer who had choked him into submission, “Richmond Hill is the worst place I ever saw. If I robbed every house in the place I wouldn’t get more than 25 cents.” In burglary as in real estate, it’s location location location.

Obama press conference: It is hard to do a big package

Hillary Clinton announces in Istanbul that the US now recognizes the Libyan Transitional National Council “as the legitimate governing authority for Libya... In contrast, the United States views the Qadhafi regime as no longer having legitimate authority in Libya.” Still no definition of the process by which legitimacy is conferred or withdrawn, despite the fact that US foreign policy seems to be based on our ability to discern and measure the magical property of legitimacy without having to resort to anything as old-fashioned as an election. We shall be handing over billions of dollars of assets belonging to the regime which no longer has legitimate authority and handing it to the one that has acquired it.

She added that Syrian President Asad “has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people because of the brutality of their crackdown”.

---

Obama press conferences are like buses: you wait forever and then three arrive right behind each other. Today, another.

WHAT WE HAVE A CHANCE TO DO: “We have a chance to stabilize America’s finances for a decade, for 15 years, or 20 years, if we’re wiling to seize the moment.” Because nothing creates stability like giving in to Republican demands.


WHAT HE IS WILLING TO DO: “And I have already said I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower.”

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: “Now, let me acknowledge what everybody understands: It is hard to do a big package.”

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: “So I am still pushing for us to achieve a big deal.”

He spent a bit of time explaining that polls, including Republican polls, show that the American people, including Republicans, want a deficit package to include tax increases (or “revenues,” as Obama calls them) in a “balanced approach.” Then he says, “And I’ve already taken some heat from my party for being willing to compromise. My expectation and hope is, is that everybody, in the coming days, is going to be willing to compromise.” (Really, that’s your expectation? Have you met Eric Cantor?) So why is the only heat he’s talking about the heat coming from “my party”?

We don’t need a balanced budget amendment: “what we need to do is to do our jobs.”

OBAMA HAS A VERY COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH LAYER CAKES: “I think about this like a layer cake. You can do the bare minimum and then you can make some progressively harder decisions to solve the problem more and more.”


On Eric Cantor’s snit-fest, but without mentioning Cantor by name: “I think this notion that things got ugly is just not true. ... The American people are not interested in the reality TV aspects of who said what and did somebody’s feelings get hurt. They’re interested in solving the budget problem and the deficit and the debt.” Has he ever met the American people?

AIN’T IT THE TRUTH: “The bottom line is that this is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people; the American people are sold. The American people are sold.” And the Chinese have the receipt.

WE? YOU DON’T SEEM TO HAVE ANY TROUBLE FUCKING OVER THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR YOU: “We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases.” In fact, he can’t even remember which rhetorical flourishes belong to which parties, and a minute later comes out against “job-killing tax cuts.”


PHEW: “Contrary to what some folks say, we’re not Greece, we’re not Portugal.”

DARE TO DREAM: “With respect to Senator McConnell’s plan, as I said, I think it is a -- it is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can’t get anything done, let’s at least avert Armageddon.”

AND THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR ME CAN EAT A BAG OF DICKS: “The proposal that I was discussing with Speaker Boehner fell squarely in line with what most Republican voters think we should do.”

I NEVER READ MY REVIEWS: “I generally don’t watch what is said about me on cable. I generally don’t read what’s said about me, even in The Hill.” Wouldn’t it be funny if he really had no idea what his enemies are saying about him, and only found about it after he retired?

MOSTLY, IT INVOLVES GETTING RID OF ALL THAT PAPER: “I’ve got reams of paper and printouts and spreadsheets on my desk, and so we know how we can create a package that solves the deficits and debt for a significant period of time.”

WHAT’S OBAMA’S DEFINITION OF “PROGRESSIVE,” ANYWAY? “And so that’s where I’d have a selling job, Chuck, is trying to sell some of our party that if you are a progressive, you should be concerned about debt and deficit just as much as if you’re a conservative.” No, no you shouldn’t be. (Also, of course, conservatives are not really concerned about debt and the deficit.)

“And the reason is because if the only thing we’re talking about over the next year, two years, five years, is debt and deficits, then it’s very hard to start talking about how do we make investments in community colleges so that our kids are trained, how do we actually rebuild $2 trillion worth of crumbling infrastructure.” You know what else would stop that being the only thing we’re talking about over the next year, 2 years, 5 years? If the president of the United States talked about something else. “If you care about making investments in our kids and making investments in our infrastructure and making investments in basic research, then you should want our fiscal house in order, so that every time we propose a new initiative somebody doesn’t just throw up their hands and say, ‘Ah, more big spending, more government.’” Yes, that would totally stop somebody doing that.

Today -100: July 15, 1911: Of singing suffragists

Women suffragists were told they couldn’t give suffrage speeches in Hollenbeck Park in Los Angeles (there is a city ordinance against the discussion of political questions in public parks). So they sang their speeches.

Britain and Japan renew their treaty of alliance, but Britain insists on dropping the clause by which it was obliged to join Japan in any war between the US and Japan. In a telling Freudian slip, the LA Times refers to this as a “racial change.”

Searching for the known unknowns

Good gracious, Donald Rumsfeld was searched by the TSA yesterday at O’Hare.

CAPTION CONTEST.

Today -100: July 14, 1911: Of taxation

The NYT is opposed to a constitutional amendment allowing a national income tax (the future 16th Amendment), which it considers, not without reason, an attempt by the rest of the country to screw New York (before the 16th, the Constitution specified that any direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states according to population). The Times quotes an unnamed Arkansas advocate of the amendment who says that for every dollar paid by Ark., NY would pay $1,000 and a NY assemblyman who believes NY would pay 1/6 of the amount raised by a national income tax. Such people assume that Congress would only tax the rich, of whom NY had (and has) rather more than Arkansas. The NY state Assembly disagreed, voting its support of the amendment by a bare majority.

Politically Correct Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Chinks Head for the Border.” “Contraband” Chinese are arriving from Mexico.

Yes, I have started adding in a little coverage from the LAT, though probably without links.

Today -100: July 13, 1911: Fire!

The NY Assembly passes a bill to allow local referendums on allowing baseball on Sundays. Assemblyman McCue said blue laws against Sunday sports do more to fill the prisons and insane asylums than do saloons.

The NY Senate defeats women’s suffrage by a single vote.

The NY Legislature authorizes the formation in NYC of a wholly negro regiment of the National Guard.

The US Senate abolishes a number of federal positions, including one held by Jefferson Davis’s old negro bodyguard, Jim Jones, who’s been out sick for the last 2 years. His position is restored after a kerfuffle in which Sen. Heyburn (R-Idaho) says he’ll support retention of Jones because of his past service to the Senate, but not for his loyalty to an “infamous cause.” Hilarity ensued.

Thomas Jolliff, a British-born miner in Renton, Washington, is denied US citizenship after saying that in event of a strike, he would obey his union rather than the courts. When the judge told him he would be barred from citizenship, Jolliff said he changed his mind. Will have to wait to September while his case is investigated.

Headline of the Day -100: “Congressman Afire.” In the House of Representatives, a box of matches in the pocket of Rep. Frank Willis (R-Ohio) burst into flame. Several other congresscritters put him out.

Media Analysis of the Day

NYT: “After David Cameron was elected prime minister, one of the first visitors he received at 10 Downing Street was Mr. Murdoch — discreetly through a back entrance”. I’ll bet he did, I’ll bet he did.

We have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power

Following the attacks by mobs on the US and French embassies in Syria, Hillary Clinton says of President Assad, “I mean, look - I mean, from our perspective, he has lost legitimacy”. As with her and Obama’s remarks about Qaddafi, she does not say when and how Assad acquired his previous legitimacy, or perhaps that should be his legitimacy “from our perspective,” since it is our perspective that is the vital element in determining any regime’s legitimacy or illegitimacy. To make that point even more clearly, she also said that “President Asad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power.” Because it’s all about us.

Today -100: July 12, 1911: Of skyscrapers

Plans have been drawn up, not necessarily seriously, for a 100-story building in NYC. (However, the tallest... actually I don’t know what the tallest existing building was in 1911, but the foundation had just been laid for the 57-story Woolworth Building.)

(Update: It was the Met Life Tower.)

Obama press conference: This is the United States of America, and we don’t manage our affairs in three-month increments

Barack Obama held another press conference today.

DAMMIT, WE’RE GOING TO MAKE THIS RELATIONSHIP WORK! “As all of you know, I met with congressional leaders yesterday. We’re going to be meeting again today, and we’re going to meet every single day until we get this thing resolved.”


ACTUALLY, IN THE 1780s... OH, NEVER MIND. “We cannot threaten the United States’ full faith and credit for the first time in our history.”

DEFINE “GOOD-FAITH”: “Speaker Boehner and myself had been in a series of conversations about doing the biggest deal possible so that we could actually resolve our debt and our deficit challenge for a long stretch of time. And I want to say I appreciate Speaker Boehner’s good-faith efforts on that front.”

BUT MOSTLY MEANER: “We have agreed to a series of spending cuts that will make the government leaner, meaner, more effective, more efficient, and give taxpayers a greater bang for their buck.”


IF BY “DO ANYTHING” YOU MEAN “CUT PAYMENTS TO THE POOR, SICK AND ELDERLY, I WOULD HOPE SO. OR IS THAT NOT WHAT YOU MEANT BY “DO ANYTHING”? “There is, frankly, resistance on my side to do anything on entitlements.”

IF BY “DO ANYTHING” YOU MEAN “CUT TAXES ON THE RICH AGAIN”.... “There is strong resistance on the Republican side to do anything on revenues.”

UNLESS YOU CAVE COMPLETELY. BUT THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN, COULD IT? “But if each side takes a maximalist position, if each side wants 100 percent of what its ideological predispositions are, then we can’t get anything done.” Okay, for Republicans the “maximalist position” is the total refusal of tax increases, but what’s the maximalist position this even-handed phraseology is implying has been taken by the Democrats? Not cutting Medicare and Social Security?

WE’RE NOT THAT FAR-SIGHTED: “The things that I will not consider are a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day or a 180-day temporary stopgap resolution to this problem. This is the United States of America, and we don’t manage our affairs in three-month increments.”


WHAT IT’S NOT GOING TO GET: “It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So we might as well do it now -- pull off the Band-Aid, eat our peas.” Or in Rand Paul’s case, vice versa.

ACTUALLY, THEY WON’T PAY FOR THE HIGHWAY EITHER: “I mean, if the basic proposition is ‘it’s my way or the highway,’ then we’re probably not going to get something done because we’ve got divided government.”

HAVE YOU ACTUALLY MET MITCH MCCONNELL AND JOHN BOEHNER? “And so if, in fact, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are sincere -- and I believe they are...”

OBAMA DOESN’T SAY WHICH OF THE PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS DON’T KNOW BETTER: “I will say that some of the professional politicians know better. And for them to say that we shouldn’t be raising the debt ceiling is irresponsible. They know better.” Knowing and caring are of course two separate things.


THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN: “I think Speaker Boehner has been very sincere about trying to do something big.”

FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN I PROMISED YOU GUYS “HOPE”: “And this is part of the problem with a political process where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things to win elections or obtain short-term political gain”.

AGAIN, IF BY “DO ANYTHING” YOU MEAN “CUT PAYMENTS TO THE POOR, SICK AND ELDERLY: “I mean, the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill would prefer not to have to do anything on entitlements... And I’m sympathetic to their concerns, because they’re looking after folks who are already hurting and already vulnerable”. Note that he isn’t expressing any sympathy for the actual “folks who are already hurting and already vulnerable,” just for the concerns of Democrats on Capitol Hill. I’m sure it’s just an oversight.

WELL NOT WITH AN ATTITUDE LIKE THAT, MISTER: “Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.”

YA KNOW, AT THIS POINT, I DON’T THINK YOUR WILLINGNESS TO MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF THE REPUBLICANS IS REALLY IN ANY DOUBT WHATSOEVER: “My point is, is that I’m willing to move in their direction in order to get something done.”

YEAH, YOU’D HAVE TO BE A FUCKING IDIOT TO BELIEVE THAT: “I am not somebody who believes that just because we solve the deficit and debt problems short term, medium term, or long term, that that automatically solves the unemployment problem.” So why are you spending all your time on the deficit and none on jobs?

REALLY, JOHN BOEHNER? ORANGE DUDE WHO ALWAYS SMELLS OF BOURBON? THAT JOHN BOEHNER? “My experience with John Boehner has been good. I think he’s a good man who wants to do right by the country.” You know, we made fun of George Bush for saying he looked into Putin’s soul...



“This recession has been hard on everybody...” Has it? Has it really? “...but obviously it’s harder on folks who’ve got less.” So why are you so eager to cut holes in their safety net?

(Update: However, Obama calling John Boehner sincere and a good man who wants to do etc is not quite as bad a judgement of character as that of Nick Clegg, who called on Rupert Murdoch today to “do the decent thing.”)

Today -100: July 11, 1911: Of heat and non-ritual murder

Another very hot day, many deaths reported.

Jews in Kiev have been on edge since a (Christian) boy was found murdered and mutilated in February, leading to the usual rumors of ritual murder. His step-father (an anti-Semite) has just been arrested.

Today -100: July 10, 1911: Of paperbacks and negroes in public office

A publisher predicts that novels will soon be sold in cheaper paper covers.

The NYT quotes the Tampa Tribune’s explanation of why black candidates in recent municipal elections in Jacksonville, FL received so few votes, even though blacks are in the majority there: negroes “realize that the whites resent the presence of a negro in any public body. They know, too, that a negro in important public office can bring only discomfort to himself and ill-feeling against his race. They prefer to pursue the even tenor of their way” (the Trib’s saying they’re lazy) “content to let the white men rule, and asking from them only the right to make honest livings and conduct themselves in their own sphere.” The NYT says that there are differing opinions about whether blacks should be allowed to vote (and doesn’t really come down on either side): “the negro in his civilized environment is making rapid strides; he is becoming industrious and propertied. But the disparity between his acquired thrift, industry, and perseverance and that of his white neighbors is still great. His opportunities under a white man’s Government do not wear the forbidding aspect of oppression. It matters little to the negro whether he votes or remains away from the polls, and, when he feels a real need for the franchise, he may exercise his privilege. But the negroes of the South should turn a deaf ear to their Republican machine leaders, and heed the industrial gospel preached by Booker T. Washington. The negroes of Jacksonville seem to have the right idea.”

Today -100: July 9, 1911: Of seals, feuds, marriage vows, and fans

The US, Britain, Russia and Japan have signed a treaty to protect seals and otters. Although by protect, I mostly mean divide up their skins.

The owner of two apartment buildings on 98th Street in NYC is annoyed that large new apartment buildings (one is eight stories) being built next door will cut off the light and air from his buildings. So he’s threatening to put up a 3-story-tall fence on the top of his building to block the windows of the new buildings. And he put up a big sign saying that his apartments are now for lease to colored tenants only. That’ll show ‘em.

The Church of England decides to revise the marriage service, including this part: “marriage is not by any to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts, that have no understanding, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.” The carnal lusts & brute beasts would be removed. From the sentence, I mean, not from the marriages, obvs. Also the bit about marriage being ordained for the procreation of children, because “procreation” is a naughty word.

Vice President Sherman broke precedent in presiding over the Senate, bringing in an electric fan to cool himself in the record-breaking heat wave. Hitherto, senators used only palm leaves. Instantly, several senators brought in their own fans.

Advancing a narrow social agenda

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), introducing provisions, which passed the House 236-184 today, to ban gay marriages taking place on military bases and cutting off funds to train military chaplains on post-DADT policy, says he wants to ensure that “America’s military bases are not used to advance a narrow social agenda.” Because if there’s anything Tim Huelskamp hates, it’s using America’s military bases to advance a narrow social agenda.

Today -100: July 8, 1911: Of docked pay

Gov. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was surprised to find his pay docked for all the time he spent out of the state making speeches that certainly had nothing to do with any presidential ambitions. His pay for those days went to the guy who was acting governor (the president of the state senate – I guess NJ didn’t have a lieutenant governor).

Caption contest

Not NOTW

Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World is to close forever after Sunday, having been caught hacking the phones of murdered girls, dead soldiers, police, celebs, etc. Probably Murdoch’s Sun newspaper, which now runs 6 days a week, will simply add a Sunday edition to replace the weekly NOTW (the New Statesman noted that The Sun ran only a short story of the NOTW hacking on page 2, “opposite some tits”) (it’s the word “some” that makes that phrase work so well), so don’t worry about the Murdochs losing any money off this scandal.

Okay, NOTW was never exactly what you’d call classy even before Murdoch bought it, its first issue in 1843 featuring the story of an “Extraordinary Charge of Drugging and Violation,” still, it’s impressive that they managed to so destroy the name of a British tabloid paper as to make it commercially untenable.

CONTEST: What would Fox News have to do to so poison the brand that it would close?

California Republicans and teh gayz

The California Assembly voted 49-25 to include mentions of the historical contributions of gays and lesbians in public schools’ social studies classes and textbooks (did you know some gay Prussian dude taught George Washington everything he knew about military drilling? It’s true!).

Here’s the thing: it was a party-line vote, with just one Republican crossing over (Nathan Fletcher of San Diego, who plans to run for mayor). If I may apply sophisticated political analysis here, that’s just stupid. A few New York Republicans were able to vote for gay marriage, but here they’re not even allowed to vote for the most piddling of pro-gay measures?

Today -100: July 7, 1911: Of dirty tricks, Christian Science, and loud churches

The Mexican Treasury gives $320,000 in gold to the Maderos to reimburse their expenses in overthrowing the government.

Rep. George Norris (Insurgent R-Neb.) accuses Taft’s secretary of running a political news bureau out of the White House aimed at scuppering a possible primary challenge to Taft by Robert LaFollette in 1912.

Sen. John Works (D-Cal.) gives a two-hour speech in the Senate against the establishment of a National Department of Health. Evidently he’s a believer in Christian Science, which he claims cured him and his wife of unspecified long-term diseases and his son of being a drunk. He accuses the American Medical Society of trying to stamp out Christian Science.

Mexican police fire at striking street car workers in Mexico City, killing 6. So much for the revolution, huh?

Oscar Davis, a wealthy, presumably white man in Quitman, Georgia, complained to the authorities about the noise made by the congregation of a negro church located near his house. The authorities made the church folk worship less boisterously, so they are now quietly praying. For the death of Oscar Davis.

Obama and the hashtag of doom

Obama held a “Twitter town hall” today. He answered questions posed by people with made-up Twitter handles like “RenegadeNerd” and “John Boehner.”

BUT REAL MEN TWEET STANDING UP: “First of all, everybody can sit down. (Laughter.) It’s much easier to tweet from a seated position. (Laughter.)”


In answer to the pictured question: “I think that -- probably two things that I would do differently. One would have been to explain to the American people that it was going to take a while for us to get out of this.” See, it’s not something he did less than perfectly, it’s something he explained less than perfectly. (The second thing is something about housing, but he doesn’t really mention something he would do differently.)


IT’S B-O-N-E-R: “John obviously needs to work on his typing skills.”

Asked by one NickKristof if he shouldn’t have gotten a commitment to raise the debt ceiling when he gave the Republicans an extension of tax cuts to the wealthy, he says “That wasn’t the deal that was available.” In other words, you were out-negotiated.


Speaking of out-negotiated, here he is asking permission from the super-rich to raise their taxes, because he was just raised polite that way: “As I said before, if wealthy individuals are willing to simply go back to the rates that existed back in the 1990s when rich people were doing very well... if the wealthiest among us -- and I include myself in this category -- are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem.” If they aren’t willing, we might just remember that this country is supposed to be ruled by the majority, and we don’t actually have to beg their favor.

THE NICE THING ABOUT THE DEFENSE BUDGET: “And the nice thing about the defense budget is it’s so big, it’s so huge, that a 1 percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget.” That said, he won’t reduce the defense budget 1%, obvs.

Today -100: July 6, 1911: Of war clouds and heat waves

Turkey’s troops are mobilized in preparation for a war against Montenegro.

So that’s two war scares in Europe, including the one over Morocco. French funds are being withdrawn from German banks.

Major heat wave all across the US. Stories from everywhere about people dropping dead by the hundreds (250, anyway). Life and death before air conditioning.

Habeas corpus

The latest squabbling within the Israeli government is over just which corpses of Palestinians might or might not be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. The government has decided to hold off on the transfer to keep the bodies – some of them Hamas militants killed as long ago as the 1990s – hostage until Gilad Shalit is released. Charming.

Today -100: July 5, 1911: Of race riots and flies

In Hell’s Kitchen, Independence Day was celebrated with a “race riot.” Instigated by the area’s “old timers” who resent the encroachment of Austrian immigrants.

Headline of the Day -100: “Boys Killed 1,250,000 Flies.” A contest in San Antonio. Robert Basse (no age given) won the $10 prize with 484,320 flies.

Visual aids

Reuters: “A mine-awareness team in Uganda was horrified to find an unexploded bomb being used as a bell when it visited a school to teach children how to spot bombs.”

Today -100: July 4, 1911: Of 4th of July torpedoes, Channel crossings, disagreeable surprises, and negro taints

4th of July Story of the, Um, Day -100: Simon Fisher, 46, of Chicago, mistook a 4th of July torpedo (some sort of firecracker, I presume) for a piece of candy. “The ensuing explosion blew away his jaw, inflicting a probably fatal wound.” There’s probably a lesson in there, somewhere.

Taft says in a speech to old soldiers, that all the foreign wars waged by the US, except the Revolution and maybe the Civil War, could have been avoided through arbitration.

The NYT notes that the English Channel was crossed by airplane for the first time only a few months ago, but yesterday eleven planes made the flight from France to England in the space of an hour, which is a great achievement but also a little “disquieting,” given the military implications. “Fortunately, improved instruments for making war do not increase the frequency of wars, but have an opposite tendency. Real wholesale slaughter as a part of the everyday business of life ended when men stopped fighting each other with short swords.” So that’s okay, then.

France expresses “disagreeable surprise” over the German gunboat Panther’s appearance at Agadir.

Headline of the Day -100: “Not Afraid of Negro Taint.” While John B. Collins of St Louis is suing his wife Cora for annulment on the charge that she has some negro blood, her sister Blanche is engaged to automobile dealer Charles Wass, who laughs in the face of negro taints.

Because nothing says austerity like Silvio Berlusconi

The Italian cabinet approves an austerity budget. Henceforth, Berlusconi will throw simple bunga parties.

Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband

My British readers will have seen this interview with Labour leader Ed Miliband last week, in which Ed repeats precisely the same answer about the one-day civil servants’ strike (wrong at this time when negotiations are still going on, the government’s been provocative too, everyone should just get round the table) over and over, expecting it to be cut down to a 10-second soundbite, rather than stuck up on YouTube in all its 2½ minute glory.



Kind of hypnotic, isn’t it?

The ITN interviewer Damon Green has described the whole surreal experience online: “I had an opportunity to ask one last question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. ‘What is the world’s fastest fish?’ ‘Can your dog do tricks?’ ‘Which is your favourite dinosaur?’”

Although obviously Ed Miliband is his own favorite dinosaur.

Education Minister Michael Gove has been criticizing teachers for daring to go on strike, because it is essential that children never miss a single day of school.

Schools were closed for the royal wedding.

The Daily Mail charmingly agrees with Gove:


The sailfish, by the way, is the world’s fastest fish.

Today -100: July 3, 1911: Of serial killers, Sunday speeches, gunboats, pinochle students, and fat men

The Atlanta serial killer has done it again, for the 8th Sunday in a row. Here’s how the NYT alluded to rape in 1911: “It appears that the murder is not committed after the accomplishment of the crime for which negroes are so frequently lynched.”

Taft was traveling yesterday, and crowds showed up each place his train stopped, but he wouldn’t make any speeches because he does not believe in making speeches on Sunday. And it’s too hot.

The German gunboat Panther may or may not have landed troops in Agadir. The semi-official line from Germany now is that the Panther will stay until the French and Spanish troops leave Morocco, which if France and Spain have their way will be never, so the alternative is that Germany also wants a piece of the country if it winds up being partitioned by the European powers. The days when there were still huge swaths of Africa unclaimed as colonies are 30 years in the past, so the competition for the remaining bits is especially fierce. Countries without boots on the ground are also involved: Britain doesn’t want Morocco, but neither does it want Germans sitting on a major port near Gibraltar.

The Federation of American Zionists held its 14th annual convention and discussed plans to purchase 100,000 acres of land in Palestine annually to establish Jewish colonies.

A Bronx gang, the Bergen gang, fight cops in a park where they went “to break up the outing of the Pinochle Students, a Bronx organization”. Sadly, I don’t think the Pinochle Students is the name of a rival gang, as retro-cool as that would be.

Headline of the Day -100: “Fat Men Play Baseball.” The Fat Men’s Club played the East River Pretzel Club. The temperature’s about 100°, is this wise? Unfortunately, Alderman Frank Detzler, the pitcher and 381-pound president of the Fat Men’s Club, dropped the ball, which fell in a swampy spot. Alderman Detzler went to retrieve it, started sinking, and had to be pulled out by the other Fat Men. Maybe all those silent Keystone comedies were really documentaries.

Today -100: July 2, 1911: Of earthquakes, gunboats, pocket moving pictures, crazy Moros, Taft’s soup, bananas, balloons, and hippopotamus skin

Earthquake in San Francisco, the largest since ‘06. No serious damage to buildings, but thousands of underpants need discarding. One man dies of fright. Stronger in Sacramento and Carson City.

Germany sends a gunboat, the Panther, to Agadir, Morocco, with 120 men, ostensibly to protect German businesses and nationals. France is upset because Morocco is mine! mine! mine! Well, technically France is still pretending that its troops are just trying to restore order in Morocco, not to complete its collection of North African colonies, so it’s reduced to complaining that the German move violates a 1909 agreement that Germany has pre-eminent commercial interests in Morocco and France pre-eminent political ones.

A new fad in Berlin: “pocket moving pictures.” You have yourself filmed briefly by a movie camera. Then you can walk around with a box containing a roll of photographs derived from the film, and you turn a crank very quickly to make the photos appear to be moving. All the cool kidz are getting them. Someone plans to import this novelty into the US. I predict it’ll be huge.

Headline of the Day -100: “Kills Crazy Moro and is Commended.” Private John Bonnell of the 2nd Cavalry, in the Sulu province of the Philippines (little-known fact: all provinces in the Philippines are named after Star Trek characters) (c’mon, we were all thinking it), shoots dead a “religion crazed Mohammedan Moro” who had just killed Lt. Walter Rodney. In a letter to his father, Priv. Bonnell (“I like soldiering in Sulu. We have exciting times as the tribes of the Moros are nothing but savages”) writes that not only is he getting a letter of commendation, but also the bloody bolo with which the “wild Moro” killed Lt. Rodney.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Master Berri Didn’t Step in Taft’s Soup.” And he has a letter from the president to prove it.

Other Other Headline of the Day -100: “Slips on Banana Peel, Dying.” In NY Central Railroad Station, William Buick, evidently a pioneer in slapstick comedy, suffered the fate of all too many pioneers.

Yet Another Headline of the Day -100, because it’s just that kind of day: “Thief Escapes in Balloon.” A pickpocket. An awesome pickpocket. I wonder how many hot air balloon hijackings there have ever been?

A thief who doesn’t escape: Marie Amadeo, Baron Delord, son of the former King Amadeo I of Spain (r.1870-3) and nephew of the late king of Italy, pinched in Paris for trying to shoplift two bottles of scent and a dozen pairs of women’s stockings in a dry goods store. After a little research I can’t believe I took the time to do, I strongly doubt this guy is actually the son of King Amadeo (illegitimate son, which you’d have to read the NYT story quite carefully to realize they were saying).

The US Navy launches its first airplane, a hydroplane, and qualifies its first pilot.

Headline of, oh, you know: “Old Caliph’s Skin a Museum Exhibit.” Does it make this story more weird or less weird that Caliph was a hippopotamus? I can’t decide.

South Dakota can’t degrade pregnant women as human beings, says some killjoy judge

Eighth Circuit Judge Karen Schreier grants an injunction against South Dakota’s anti-abortion bill (which I discussed here and here).

It should be remembered that the supposed justification for this law was to prevent weak-minded females being coerced into abortions against their will. Judge Schreier seems not to share this view of women:

Forcing a woman to divulge to a stranger at a pregnancy help center the fact that she has chosen to undergo an abortion humiliates and degrades her as a human being. The woman will feel degraded by the compulsive nature of the Pregnancy Help Center requirements, which suggest that she has made the ‘wrong’ decision, has not really ‘thought’ about her decision to undergo an abortion, or is ‘not intelligent enough’ to make the decision with the advice of a physician. Furthermore, these women are forced into a hostile environment. ... a woman who chooses to undergo an abortion will experience a high degree of degradation because she will be forced to disclose her decision to someone who is fundamentally opposed to it. Women will also be afraid of being berated, belittled, or confronted about their decision, being subsequently contacted by the pregnancy help center, and having their decision to have an abortion become public information.

Today -100: July 1, 1911: Of unshocking dances

Headline of the Day -100: “Police Not Shocked By Russian Dances.” NY Mayor Gaynor sent the police to the Winter Garden to stop the performance of purportedly lewd Russian ballets, but either they had cleaned up their act or the police were just not as easily outraged as the people who had written the mayor, so the dancing will continue.

Today -100: June 30, 1911: Of wire

The US Grand Jury hands down indictments for 83 members of the Wire Trust for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Wire Trust centers on the American Steel and Wire Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. The men are charged with forming an unlawful combination and conspiracy to fix the price of wire at artificially high levels, “to the great and irreparable injury and detriment, financial and moral, of the people of the United States.” Moral?

The NYT weighs in on the subject of “The Negro as a Policeman,” following the NYPD’s hiring of one. It bows to negroes’ “theoretical right to such appointments” but suggests that the greater difficulties they will meet makes hiring them “injudicious as regards the public interest.”

Obama press conference: I’ll keep on giving you the same answer until I give you a different one

Obama held one of his increasingly rare press conferences today.

He’s still talking about the need to “tackle spending in the tax code” after both Jon Stewart and I made fun of the phrase.

Evidently the deficit (he said we need $4 trillion in deficit reduction, but didn’t say where that figure came from – it came from the Republicans) is the fault of tax breaks for corporate jets, which he mentioned six times. Unless we get rid of that tax break, we’ll have to throw kids out of college, end medical research and compromise food safety. He says we have to make tough decisions like that. Also, oil companies should pay some damned taxes, for once.

Fortunately, he thinks it’s entirely possible that a bipartisan deal can be done, because “there is a conceptual framework that would allow us to make huge progress on our debt and deficit, and do so in a way that does not hurt our economy right here and right now.” Wow, there’s a conceptual framework? Why didn’t you say so before?


UM, NOBODY? “Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default.”

First question: how do you get a “balanced approach” including tax increases, when Boehner says no way, no how? Obama says that “in Washington... a lot of people say a lot of things to satisfy their base or to get on cable news, but that hopefully, leaders at a certain point rise to the occasion and they do the right thing for the American people.” Oh dear God, we’re doomed.

OKAY, YOU’RE NAIVE: “And that’s what I expect to happen this time. Call me naïve, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead.” Or just not paying attention.


REPUBLICANS ARE ALWAYS PREPARED TO DO THE HARD THING: “So the question is, if everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done. Or, we’re so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist -- that’s the reason we’re not going to come to a deal.”

He thinks that position isn’t “sustainable,” and even quotes several Republicans who think it’s not sustainable. Unfortunately, none of those Republicans, like Alan Simpson and Pete Domenici, actually currently hold elective office.

IF THIS WERE A LITTLE GIRL WITH A LISP TALKING ABOUT SANTA CLAUS, IT WOULD BE ADORABLE: “And my belief is, is that the Republican leadership in Congress will, hopefully sooner rather than later, come to the conclusion that they need to make the right decisions for the country... My expectation is that they’ll do the responsible thing.” He genuinely still thinks he can shame Republicans into acting like adults. That’s his negotiating strategy.

That’s not naive, that’s out of touch with reality on a Bushian scale.


Q: What about that War Powers Act? “I want to talk about the substance of Libya because there’s been all kinds of noise about process and congressional consultation and so forth.”

Noise.

“we’ve protected thousands of people in Libya; we have not seen a single U.S. casualty; there’s no risks of additional escalation. This operation is limited in time and in scope. ... And throughout this process we consulted with Congress.”

Consult >verb 1 seek information or advice from. 2 seek permission or approval from.

“So a lot of this fuss is politics.”

Fuss.

He says you need to look at the history of the War Powers Act, which was enacted after the Vietnamese War, so if the kinetic whatsit in question isn’t exactly like Vietnam, the Act clearly doesn’t even apply.

“We have engaged in a limited operation to help a lot of people against one of the worst tyrants in the world -- somebody who nobody should want to defend...” Because if you question his unilateral war, you’re clearly defending Qaddafi. “-- and we should be sending a unified message to this guy that he should step down and give his people a fair chance to live their lives without fear. And this suddenly becomes the cause célèbre for some folks in Congress? Come on.”

Noise. Fuss. Cause célèbre. George Bush could not have been more contemptuously dismissive.


On the McCain-Kerry proposal for a one-year authorization of war in Libya: “I think when you have the former Republican nominee for President, John McCain, and the former nominee for President on the Democratic side, John Kerry, coming together to support what we’re doing in Libya, that should tell the American people that this is important.” Yeah, nothing says “important” like John McCain supporting it.

THAT’S WHAT STATES ARE FOR: “this administration, under my direction, has consistently said we cannot discriminate as a country against people based on sexual orientation.”

He said gay marriage in NY is “a good thing, because what you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. ... I think it is important for us to work through these issues...” Christ, it’s about establishing civil rights, not group therapy. “...because each community is going to be different and each state is going to be different.” For example, in some communities and states, homosexuals will be second-class citizens. And that’s exactly how Obama thinks things should work.

Well, fuck that.

CALL ME NAIVE, BUT MY EXPECTATION IS THAT LEADERS ARE GOING TO LEAD: “it turns out that the president, I’ve discovered since I’ve been in office, can’t dictate precisely how this process moves.” But he can bomb Libya or any other country he wants; funny, that.

A GOOD THING: “But I think we’re moving in a direction of greater equality and I think that’s a good thing.”

Asked later about his evolving personal views on gay marriage: “I’ll keep on giving you the same answer until I give you a different one, all right?”


On the NRLB’s decision preventing Boeing moving a plant to South Carolina to break the unions, he worked very hard to avoid taking a side, saying “we can’t afford to have labor and management fighting all the time”.

Fox’s Mike Emanuel tried to make Obama use the word “victory” as his objective in Afghanistan. He wouldn’t.

He says Qaddafi committed war crimes, which is odd because he just got through saying that this isn’t a war, including “potentially using rape as a weapon of war.” I guess inserting the word “potentially” allows him to keep using a discredited charge.

NEEDS:

Q: Would you accept a political settlement with him involved as success from the American perspective?

Obama: I would accept him stepping down so that he is not directing armed forces against the Libyan people. He needs to step down. He needs to go.

More debt limit stuff. Flashing yellow lights, hard deadlines, “Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time. Malia is 13, Sasha is 10.” So fuck you Eric Cantor.

And, yes, he got his own kid’s age wrong, but at least he knows the difference between a fake cowboy and a killer clown. Although he’d probably think John Wayne Gacy could be shamed into doing what Obama wants if he just uses the word “responsible” enough.

“At a certain point, they need to do their job.” He thinks raising the debt ceiling is their job; they think demagoging about the debt ceiling is their job.

THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE CALLED: “Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices. That’s why they’re called leaders.”

WHAT HE’S BEEN DOING: “I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.”


Then he talked about Americans who are losing their jobs and homes and contact lenses and whatnot. “And every day that weighs on me. Every minute of every day that weighs on me. ... And these folks are counting on us. They desperately want to believe that their leadership is thinking about them and not playing games.” Then he went to meet a women’s basketball team, but all that stuff was weighing on him every minute.

Unevolved

Last week we were told that Obama’s position on gay marriage was “evolving.” But not actually, you know, evolved. Monday, his spokesmodel Jay Carney announced that Obama now thinks it should be up to the states.

Which is intended to look like he’s not taking a position – he’ll be happy to be thought a wimp on this issue – but it actually is a position: a position that marriage equality is not a right but a privilege that can be granted or not granted at the whim of state legislators.

Well fuck that.

Today -100: June 29, 1911: Of heresies, vile or vulgar language, lynchings, and missing hands

In Socialist-run Milwaukee, the Catholic Archbishop declares socialism to be “a heresy and an evil, the viciousness of which is apparent to every thinking man.”

The Wheeling, VA city council passes an ordinance imposing a fine on anyone who uses vile or vulgar language in a public address. It is aimed at Billy Sunday, who has a revival scheduled.

Judge Brand says that he knew the two black men would be lynched if they were returned to Walton County, Georgia for trial in his court without troops protecting them as he ordered (see yesterday), but says he refused to request those troops because “I don’t propose to be the engine of sacrificing any white man’s life for all such negro criminals in the country. ... I would not imperil the life of one white man to save the lives of a hundred such negroes.” He does say that he opposes lynching. So that’s okay then.

Samuel Battle, the first black man ever hired by the NYPD, begins patrolling (there are two other black cops, who were hired by the Brooklyn PD and absorbed into the NYPD when Brooklyn was annexed by NYC).

Headline of the Day -100: “Hand Blown Off at Wedding.”

Quote of the Day

“Patients should never have to use a tambourine. I also understand anecdotally that maracas were used which was unacceptable.” Damned socialized medicine.

More than the normal techniques

I missed this last week (as did the NYT): at his confirmation hearings to be Director of Central Intelligence, David Petraeus called for the use of torture (or, as he called it, “more than the normal techniques”), but only for, like, “a ticking time bomb scenario.” So it’s good that we’re putting him in charge of the CIA’s secret prisons.

Also, when was the last time a time bomb actually ticked?

Outgunned

Dennis Poust, spokesmodel for the NY State Catholic Conference, on marriage equality: “In many ways, we were outgunned.” Is that a euphemism? That’s a euphemism, isn’t it?