There is no credible evidence that endemic abuse was a coherent part of the way our military operated

Headline of the Day (London Sunday Times): “Citizenship Lessons to Teach Children Respect for Worms.”

Respect for Iraqis? Not so much. Responding to new accusations of physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi civilians by British troops, British Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammells says they do not “warrant” a public inquiry, saying, “There is no credible evidence that endemic abuse was a coherent part of the way our military operated.” Well, as long as it wasn’t coherent, that’s perfectly all right.

Updated euphemism alert: the British military in Afghanistan plans to use biometric tests or possibly DNA to exclude people from Afghan villages who they decide don’t belong there. The London Sunday Times says, “After studying counter-insurgency methods employed from the Boer war to the conflict in Iraq, British commanders are drawing up plans for ‘gated communities’ from which the enemy can be excluded by identity checks.” I was going to say that “gated communities” are the new “strategic hamlets” (update: I started writing before finishing the article, which does mention strategic hamlets later), but then the mention of the Boer War belatedly hit me. In that war, the British called them (they coined the term) “concentration camps.”

Bow-gate

Somewhere on the web, idiots are complaining about Obama bowing to the miniature Japanese emperor,


but my Yahoo search for “Obama bows” (Yahoo helpfully suggested “Obama bows to Saudi king,” and “Obama bows to no one”) showed that it was even worse than we thought. He also bowed to a Tokyo audience when he finished giving them a speech,


and at Arlington on Veterans’ Day.


Really, when will this obsequious bowing end?

(Update: I titled this post “Bow-Gate” as a stupid joke, a joke! But on Fox, Chris Wallace... oh for fuck’s sake.)

I was going to put up a video of the Gilbert & Sullivan song “Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes” from Iolanthe, but couldn’t find one. Boo, internet. But that search did lead me to this sketch, probably from the Frost Report, with a pre-Python John Cleese and the Two Ronnies.



And a 1999 historical variant.

William Howard Taft on a mule. Or not.

100 Years Ago Today. Looking back on Taft’s recent long tour of the country, the NYT praises his physical courage: he wanted to tour the Grand Canyon’s trails on a mule, but was over-ridden on safety grounds (his and the mule’s). He crossed a rickety bridge his staff were afraid could not hold him. The Secret Service tried to cancel two visits to college football games, fearing Anarchist attacks, but he insisted on going because tickets had been sold on the strength of his announced appearance.

Taft does, however, seem to have forgotten to issue a proclamation for Thanksgiving. “It was emphatically denied that the President’s gastronomic powers had been so tested on the long trip over the country that he had decided against a feast day so soon after his returning.”

Jewish groups were planning a protest against a seemingly new practice at Ellis Island of physical examinations being applied more rigorously to Jewish immigrants than to others, resulting in many deportations.

Gordon Brown asserts himself. Sorry if you missed it; you must have blinked.

A few days ago Gordon Brown laid down the law to Karzai and demonstrated to the British people that he would not just blindly follow American policy in Afghanistan. “I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a Government that does not stand up against corruption,” he harrumphed. Well, today Brown announced that he is perfectly satisfied, the last eight years of evidence to the contrary, that Karzai will in fact stand up against corruption. He told Radio 4, “The question in my view is not his willingness to do it. He is willing to do this. The question is making sure that delivery of it is satisfactory.” Brown’s proof: Karzai told him he would.

I’m sure they won’t even notice

Obama is in Japan. At a press conference with the Japanese prime minister, he said that it would be “meaningful for me” to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sadly, though, there just wasn’t time for it this trip. Funny, that.

A Japanese reporter asked a multi-part question, several unrelated questions really. Obama responded to part of it, then:

OBAMA: You had one more question, and I’m not sure I remember it. Was it North Korea?

Q: Whether or not you believe that the U.S. dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- it was right?

OBAMA: No, there were three sets of questions, right? You asked about North Korea?

Q: I have North Korea as well, yes.

Somehow Obama never did get around to answering that Hiroshima/Nagasaki question the reporter asked, twice.

Salutary

Yet another CONTEST: Bush Admin intellectual giants Condi Rice and Stephen “Boo” Hadley are forming a “strategic advisory firm,” which they are calling the RiceHadley Group. Surely you, gentle readers, can come up with a better name (and/or motto) than that.

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Today Minus 100 Years, the good (but extremely bloodthirsty) people of Cairo, Ill. were still on a lynching spree, hunting for the alleged partner of Will “Froggy” James (the NYT called him The Frog yesterday -100, but at least they attempted to get his name, unlike the black men almost lynched in West Virginia a week and 100 years ago). However the mob was thwarted by a mixture of subterfuge and a show of force by hundreds of militiamen.

A few more details of the treatment of The Frogmeister (marvel at the attention to repulsive detail in the reporting) (that’s a warning to the squeamish to skip the rest of this paragraph): “Of James’s body nothing remained except the head and charred bones after it had been dragged to the alley. It was decapitated and the head was placed on a pole. The torso was cut open and the heart taken out and divided into small bits and passed among the crowd for souvenirs. The rope was soaked in the blood and was also divided among the lynchers. Then the body was burned.” The next day, with the head still on the pole, thousands “swarmed” the streets. “Youngsters too small to see easily were raised above the head of the crowd by their parents.” “It was supposed that the head was buried in the city dump heap.”

The mayor, who claimed to have personally slept through the entire thing, defended the lynchings, saying that “the majority of the citizens are pleased at the turn of affairs, and... they believe that the result will be salutary.” Just the word I was looking for. He blamed the lack of executions in recent year and the failure of juries in several homicides to convict.

Another public option

The feds are attempting to seize the assets of the Alavi Foundation, which they accuse of being secretly run by the Iranian government and sending money to Iran in violation of sanctions laws. Among those assets are four mosques, located in New York City, Maryland, California and Texas. The feds intend to keep the mosques open. (Not to make a comparison, but remember all those late-night jokes when the IRS seized a Nevada brothel for back taxes and kept it open?)

CONTEST (Yes, it’s the second contest today, but if I don’t give you contests more often than I have been lately, you just turn a throwaway post about the phrase “masturbating furiously” into one): What differences would there be in a mosque run by the federal government?

Headline-From-Which-a-Lifetime-Movie-is-Sure-To-Be-Ripped of the Day

London Times: “Wife Posed as Schoolgirl to Trap Paedophile Husband.” In an internat chat room, that is. Then she called the cops.

Important decisions

George Bush, we are told, is writing a book about “some of the most important decisions in his life.” Good lord, they let him make important decisions? Things were more dire than I realized.

CONTEST: what were some of those important decisions? Paper or plastic? Chips or pretzels? Run for president or be an astronaut? Sit out the Vietnam War in a bar in Texas or a bar in Alabama?

Frog lynching

The Catholic Church is trying to blackmail the District of Columbia into dropping plans to legalize gay marriage, threatening to withdraw from all provision of social services in the city if it can’t discriminate against gay couples seeking to adopt or has to provide benefits to the partners of its gay employees.

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Today Minus 100 Years, we have two lynchings in Cairo, Ill. Unusually, one of them was white. Here’s the first sentence, and see if you can spot the subtle difference in the way the two men, neither of them convicted in any court of law, are treated: “A negro who had murdered a white girl, and a white man accused of wife murder, were lynched here to-night.” The former, Will “The Frog” James, was “taken to the most prominent square in the city and strung up. The rope broke and the man was riddled with [nearly 500] bullets. The body was then dragged by the rope for a mile to the scene of the crime and burned in the presence of at least 10,000 rejoicing persons. Many women were in the crowd, and some helped to hang the negro and to drag the body.” There was a long chase through the woods before the mob, which at one point commandeered a train, caught up to the sheriff and the prisoner.

Not sated, some of the mob lynched the white guy, smashing through the bars of his cell with some effort.

Literary Thought of the Day

Who do you suppose was the first person to write the phrase “furiously masturbating”?

A law-abiding citizen

A follow-up to the death-during-hypnotism story from 100 years ago reported here yesterday. The November 11, 1909 NYT reports that “Professor” Arthur Everton, in his cell awaiting a bail hearing, “fears that the catastrophe will ruin his reputation, and that he will have to support his family in some other way.” Presumably he was never tried, but he next came to the attention of the paper in July of 1920, evidently trying to support his family in some other way, when Prohibition agents found $6,000 worth of liquor in his apartment, located over a saloon. Everton said that he could have stopped the agents with hypnotism but “I wouldn’t do that. I am a law-abiding citizen.”

Presidential inspections

Today -100 years, Taft is back at the White House for the first time in more than three months. “Apparently he was no stouter than when he left in the summer, although it was whispered among his intimates that he had picked up several pounds as a result of his lengthy course of banquets. When asked about it he laughingly spread out his arms and invited inspection.”

Bill Clinton used to laughingly spread out his arms and invite inspection as well, but he usually wasn’t wearing pants when he did it.

The worst thing to do

Today, Bill Clinton told Democratic senators that on health insurance reform, “The worst thing to do is nothing.” Watch them prove him wrong.

A gift from a wicked man is a trap

At his war crimes trial, Charles Taylor says that the only reason he was captured in 2006 was that the Nigerian president duped him, telling him he was free to leave the country and then arresting him at the border. “We have an old saying: A gift from a wicked man is a trap.” The most deserving victim of a Nigerian scam ever.

Suggest heart action to subject

Today the Supreme Court discussed whether sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional when applied to juveniles. Alito said some of the little shits just deserve it, describing several cases “so horrible that I couldn’t have imagined them if I hadn’t actually seen them,” such as “raping an 8-year-old girl and burying her alive.” I presume he didn’t “actually see” that. Scalia said, “One of the purposes is retribution... And I don’t know why the value of retribution diminishes to the point of zero when it’s a person who’s, you know, 17 years, 9 months old.” The reports do not say if he drooled a little as he uttered the phrase “the value of retribution” but I think we all know he did.

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The rest of this post is 100-years-ago-today news (despite my use of the present tense).

Pres. Taft has completed a 56-day, 13,000-mile road trip that covered 33 states and territories. Today -100, the mayor of Wilmington, NC named Taft an “honorary Tar Heel” for life, which sounds painful. 1,500 Wilmington school children formed the shape of a flag. He also “proceeded to another section of the city, where he reviewed the negro children,” who seem not to have collectively formed any particular shape.

Taft congratulates North Carolina on having the second-highest percentage of farmers. “You do not have large cities, and I do not think that a defect at all in your civilization. The fact is, that the tendency toward concentration of population in the cities is a tendency that ought to be restrained.”

Following the divorce of the Astors, some are condemning the secrecy of certain divorce proceedings in NY (proceedings affordable by the rich but not the poor), but NY Supreme Court Justice Bischoff thinks testimony should remain secret, saying it is sufficient that the name of the guilty party be published: “He is thus condemned among respectable people.” Justice Gerard also opposes “putting a lot of sickening details... before the public.” Justice McCall believes the full publication of testimony, “while bringing the innocent to the deepest humiliation, the notoriety would be actually pleasing to the depraved persons whose conduct and violation of the most sacred vows made divorce possible.”

Robert Simpson died while under hypnosis during an exhibition of the mesmeric arts at the Somerville (NJ) Opera House. It might not have helped that the hypnotist, a “Professor” Arthur Everton, stood on Simpson’s stomach while he was under. Hypnotists and mesmerists from all over the country have been sending advice on how to wake him up from his trance (a telegram from someone signing himself simply “Svengali” counseled “Suggest heart action to subject.”) Some of them even traveled to the morgue to try their luck. William E. Davenport of Newark, “an amateur hypnotist of some note” tried “alternately whispering and shouting invitations to him to come to life. ‘Bob, your heart action – attend. Listen, Bob, your heart action is strong. Bob, your heart begins to beat. Bob, [loud] do you hear me? Bob, [whispering,] your heart is starting.’” But nothing. “Professor” Everton was arrested (although they allowed him to try to awaken Mr. Simpson for several hours more) and is likely to be charged with manslaughter. A leading authority on hypnotism, Columbia University Professor Emeritus John Quackenbos (as perfect a name for a leading authority on hypnotism as you are likely to find), suggests that he might argue that Simpson was in suspended animation and was actually killed by the autopsy.

Affectionate blender

Name of the Day: a London Times business reporter: Peter Stiff. I’m thinking his parents did not love him.

Forgot to mention: LRB personals (old ones) are now on Teh Twitters. And here are a few recent ones. (As always, the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.)

In 2004 I was a love machine…now I’m just an affectionate blender. Whirrr. Box no. 18/02

Privately, I will always regard 1987 as my most successful year but publicly I would state that 2003 brought me more happiness than any other. The 16 year gap between these two points in my life represents roughly half of my overall achievements, whilst the square root of 97 is 9.591663046. None of these things are believed to be coincidental. F, 40. Box no: 21/06

I fear packing peanuts possibly more than other man alive. But I never fail to weep at the simple beauty of swans making love. Carl, 36. Box no: 21/09

Like a faithful hound I will fetch your slippers and newspaper in the morning and follow you for walks on beaches on brisk autumn mornings. Of course, if I bite a small child I will have to be injected with sodium pentobarbital and destroyed. But let’s just accentuate the positive for now. Slippers. Newspaper. Beaches. F, 32. Box no: 21/11

Women to 55 who enjoy cabbage will get along just fine with me! Cabbage-enjoying M, 55. Box no: 21/13

Toles.

The one who created this lei also created our freedom

Thomas Friedman, feeling all tingly with a sense of his own naughtiness, suggests the US tell Israel and Palestine that it is getting out of the peace process business until they “get serious” about it. Oddly, he fails to say whether we should also stop subsidizing one side with billions of dollars of aid each year. Funny, that.

In today’s 100-years-ago news (a NYT feature I just discovered is available only to subscribers), Illinois Senator (and former governor) Shelby Moore Cullom (R) suggests that the South could be convinced to vote Republican if not for that pesky negro suffrage. He’s not for total disfranchisement everywhere, for example not in his home state, but the Northern negro is different from the Southern one: “the Northern colored man uses his ballot with wisdom and fairness. We are satisfied with him, but it is not strange, of course, that the South is not.”

Fortunately, Congresscritters have come so far since those days:



Oh, and Rep. Stupak (whose name spelled backwards, I might point out, is Kaputs) can kiss my ass.

In 100-years-ago-today medical news

Dr. E. F. Bashford reports, in an address to the no doubt astounded attendees of the 16th International Medical Congress in Budapest, that “cancer is not limited to white men.”

There truly is a Shakespeare quote for every occasion

I subscribe to the OED word of the day RSS feed. Today’s word of the day: poop. 1616 SHAKESPEARE Antony & Cleopatra (1623) “The Poope was beaten Gold.”