Today -100: December 16, 1909: Of Carrie Nation, divinity students, racist congressmen and Nicaraguan presidents all behaving badly. Also, cork legs.

Rep. Foster of Ill. introduced a bill for Civil War veterans who were honorably discharged (and presumably had had their leg or legs amputated) to be given new artificial cork legs every three years.

Carrie Nation visited the House and Senate buildings. Finding a House messenger smoking, she knocked the cigarette out of his mouth.

Divinity students at the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago hanged and then burned the effigy of a professor of Hebrew in front of his residence. The students had failed to get the Faculty to drop Hebrew from the curriculum. What Would Ku Klux Klan Jesus Do?

Rep. J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama introduces a bill to segregate street cars in D.C. Heflin, the NYT reminds us, shot a black man (and, by ricochet, a white bystander) on a D.C. street car in 1908 for drinking whiskey in the presence of ladies (here’s the original story on that. Heflin said, “Under the circumstances there was nothing else for me to do.” Clearly.), and 21 months later still hasn’t been tried for it (he never will be, and Heflin, truly a vile piece of shit, would brag about the incident in later election campaigns) (he didn’t have to worry about the black vote in Alabama, having drafted the provision of the 1901 Alabama constitution that banned negroes from voting).

One Frederick Palmer has written an article about Zelaya in The Outlook which accuses him of having made a fortune off of state monopolies and that “Zelaya freely practices the droits de seigneur of the Dark Ages.”

Oral Roberts

no longer so oral.

Shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance

News Story of the Day (BBC): “Noisy Sex Woman Admits Asbo Breach”

Every sentence in this story sounds dirty:

“A woman who was given an anti-social behaviour order banning her from making loud noises during sex has admitted breaching the order.” Heh heh, they said “breaching the order.”

“Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s love-making was described as ‘murder’ and ‘unnatural’ at Newcastle Crown Court. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.” And those are just the people she had sex with Tuesday. Zing!

A neighbor said, “I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it.” Then she sighed wistfully and repeated, “I have never ever heard anything like it.”

“In November, Cartwright appealed against a noise abatement notice imposed in 2007, as well as the subsequent Asbo, which banned the couple from shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance’. Her bid was rejected by Recorder Jeremy Freedman, who said: ‘It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.’” Then he sighed wistfully and repeated, “For hours at a time.”

“‘It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.’” Then he sighed wistfully and repeated, “Virtually every night.”

“Sunderland City Council told the court they had recorded noise levels of up to 47 decibels using equipment installed at Cartwright’s neighbour’s house. World Health Organisation guidelines state that 30 decibels is enough to cause sleep disturbance.” World Health Organisation guidelines also state that sex that produces noise levels of 47 decibels is “awesome.”

The world as it is

I didn’t give Obama nearly enough shit for his Nobel Prize speech. For example, I ignored the bit about how the US “helped underwrite global security... with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms” in Vietnam and Grenada, or something.

But what’s still stuck in my craw five days later is the smugness-disguised-as-pragmatism of the line about how he’d really like to live by Gandhi and King’s code but “I face the world as it is.” Really, is that what you do. Gandhi and King faced down Bull Connor and General Dyer, police dogs, fire hoses and the freaking British Army. They willingly went into prison cells knowing they might not come out again, they confronted hate and violence with no weapons beyond their moral courage. I think they faced the world as it is, Barack. Whereas you faced, what, the withering sarcasm of your professor in contract law?

Mr. Obama, here is a dime, call your mother, tell her there is serious doubt about you ever deserving that prize.

Today -100: December 15, 1909: Of toilers’ right of American manhood, boozing it up in Worcester, and war balloons

A labor conference in Pittsburg (according to Wikipedia, it was spelled without the h from 1890 to 1911), presided over by Samuel Gompers of the AFL, has “declared war,” as the NYT put it, on US Steel and its new open shop policy. It passed a resolution asserting that “The gigantic trust... is using its great wealth and power in an effort to rob the toilers of their right of American manhood” and “is now engaged in an effort to destroy the only factor, the organizations of its employes, standing between it and unlimited, unchecked, and unbridled industrial, political, social, and moral carnage.” It asks every member of every union in America to aid the striking workers by contributing 10¢ each.

The NYT’s Nicaragua correspondent (who is openly biased) claims that Managua is in open revolt against Pres. Zelaya, with demonstrations in the streets. The government has broken the armistice, claiming that the negotiations were over, and with them the armistice, when the rebels rejected Zelaya’s nomination of Madriz as a successor. The people are demanding American intervention, says the correspondent. The American company in charge of electricity in the capital is threatening to cut off power if it is not paid pronto.

To date Taft has said nothing in public about Nicaragua, bar one oblique reference in the State of the Union address, even as he dispatches marines and gunboats.

Mexico has sent a special envoy to Washington to present its positions on Nicaragua, but the State Dept has been outright lying about his purpose there and falsely denying that he brought any proposals. Mexico wants Zelaya retained in at least nominal power, or if not him, Madriz.

The NYT responds to yesterday’s report on conditions in steerage, saying that they’re not really any worse than conditions in European or American slum tenements. Therefore, while the snooty investigator might have been disgusted by the smells and dirt and lack of privacy and overcrowding, those people are used to them. So that’s okay then.

The largest “dry” city in the world, Worcester, Mass., voted to end prohibition. 29 Massachusetts cities voted on the question in 1909 – it sounds like they do this every single year. Salem went dry. The Times doesn’t say how many of them are wet or dry, but the total vote gave a 12,467 majority for allowing liquor licenses, compared to a 8,936 prohibitionist majority in 1908.

Headline of the Day -100: “German Dirigibles Frighten France.” Or “war balloons,” as the article also calls them.

Two headlines that could be shortened

Extraneous words in strikeout:

WaPo: “Afghan Government Not Keeping Promises to Insurgents Changing Sides.”

CNN: “Lieberman Opposes Medicare at 55.”

The wrinkliest death panel of all

Saturday I posted about the 98-year-old woman in the nursing home who killed her 100-year-old roommate. In comments, Athenawise wrote, “Somehow the right will find a way to blame liberals” for this. Well, it did happen in Massachusetts.

CONTEST: How will Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, or any other right-wing talking head of your choice blame the liberals?

Today -100: December 14, 1909: Of steerage, sore paws, and the Methodist attack upon Africa

The Immigration Commission reported to the Senate on conditions of the steerage section on steamship. Oddly enough, not good. “Everything was dirty, sticky, and disagreeable to the touch,” said one female agent who traveled undercover. Sexual harassment of women passengers in steerage is common. The agent had to belt one member of the crew (who I’m guessing was also dirty, sticky, and disagreeable to the touch), and fend off constant requests by Leonardo diCaprio to “paint” her. And the sanitation, and the food...

If I may indulge in a little foreshadowing: Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon, asked about the possibility of his retiring as speaker, “elevated the muzzle of his cigar a few degrees and came back with the remark that he ‘wasn’t crossing any bridges until he came to them.’” And Rep. Augustus Peabody Gardner (R-Mass.) (what, you thought somebody named Augustus Peabody Gardner would be a Democrat?) says that he does want some alteration in the powers and/or the person of the speaker, but “The fact that my paws are sore is not sufficient reason for licking them in public.”

With Sen. Isidor Rayner (Blowhard-MD) calling loudly for Nicaraguan Pres. Zelaya to be tried by the United States for the execution of Cannon and Groce, the NYT editorial page brings up an embarrassing precedent: In 1818 Gen. Andrew Jackson, commanding the invasion of Spanish Florida, ordered the execution of British citizens Arbuthnot and Ambrister for aiding the Seminole and Creek Indians.

Pres. Taft gave a speech at Carnegie Hall (after which he was saved by the Secret Service from being pushed off the stage by a crowd of people trying to shake hands with him) in celebration of the diamond jubilee of the Methodist Episcopal missions in Africa or, in Taft’s approving words, “the attack of the Methodist Church upon Africa.” He suggested they establish a bishopric in the Philippines and said that “if I were a missionary I had rather try my hand in a country like China, that has a history of two, three, four, or five thousand years, than to go into Africa, that has no history at all except that which we trace to the apes.”

2009 in Pictures

As I anticipated, the absence of George Bush’s chimp-like visage was a devastating loss to the world of goofy news photos and those of us who depend on them. Still, soldier on we must. Here’s what 2009 looked like.























Here’s a guy who held up a BP station in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex using underwear as a mask:










This summer was marked by a series of highly photogenic riots in Jerusalem against municipal parking lots being open on the sabbath.

Today -100: December 13, 1909: Of imperialist choo choos and fetish-worshipping puritans

The British have completed the Cape-Cairo Railway. 2,147 miles of track.

Anti-women’s suffrage speeches were given by the banker Henry Clews at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, who refused to debate suffragists in the audience, and one Emma Goldman at Lyric Hall, who said that women are worshippers of fetishes, the latest of which is the vote. Women, she said, are narrow-minded and puritanical, “always wanting to clean up something,” as opposed to men, who have outgrown morals. The quest for the vote is a wild-goose chase. Not that she’s against women’s suffrage per se, just that the vote is not worth having. Unlike Clews, she was willing to argue her anarchist position against suffragists, including Maud Malone, who would be arrested in 1912 for heckling Woodrow Wilson on the subject.

The Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Gen. Clarence Edwards, recommends that US citizenship be given to Puerto Ricans.

Of baggy shorts and saggy skin

Gratuitous Headline of the Day: “Hindu Nationalists Drop Their Baggy Shorts.” Their uniform of baggy shorts, I might add.

Don’t you love stories of senior citizens participating in activities usually engaged in by much younger people? Me too.

Today -100: December 12, 1909: Of sending in the Marines, pancakes, inter-racial banqueting, and marionettes

The NYT is quite confused about what orders the US marines in the region of Nicaragua might have received (and the Taft admin has felt no particular obligation to explain its policy to the public). Gen. Estrada has asked the US consul for some marines to help him break the government siege of Bluefields, on the pretext of protecting American citizens resident in the town. An editorial is surprisingly anti-interventionist, given the paper’s previous anti-Zelaya coverage, noting that the US has “intervened savagely in defense of men attempting to dynamite a troopship” and that the rebels “possess scarcely more of the forms of government than a lynching party.”

The Civic Forum will hold a municipal banquet at which the newly elected city officials will speak. The headline: “Municipal Dinner to Be Inter-Racial.” Also invited: every clergyman in the city and NY’s only woman aeroplanist, Lillian Todd.

Pres. Taft met the 85 supervisors of the Census and warned them sternly against using their offices for political ends (most of the supervisors were recommended by members of Congress).

John D. Rockefeller has placed an order for 100 pounds of buckwheat flour to be sent to his daughter’s house. “Pancakes for the Rockefellers,” the headline says, but that seems like mere speculation. More developments as they occur. Occurred. Whatever.

The shirtwaist strike arbitration failed right at the start, the manufacturers being unwilling to talk about recognizing the union.

In a sign of the times, an Italian marionette theater, the last remaining one in NYC, is being displaced by those new-fangled moving pictures. The story is oddly moving. “So the seven fat volumes of marionette poetry, all the old Italian romances, have been taken up the Parisi tenement. One by one, the hundreds of dolls, those his father and grandfather had, will be put away or sold, and Signor Parisi will open a moving-picture show, too. ‘One must eat and live,’ he says.”

Clear!

The tea party types are planning a “die in” at the Senate office buildings next week, to simulate how we’ll all die waiting for help under Obamacare. May I make one suggestion?


Call it a public option we can all support.

Baby’s first jihad

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya was about to, finally, leave the Brazilian embassy for Mexico, but the coup regime won’t let him unless he first resigns as president and leaves as a political asylum-seeker, prohibited from engaging in any politics.

In Britain, the West Midlands counter-terrorism police unit “confirmed that counter-terrorist officers specially trained in identifying children and young people vulnerable to radicalisation had visited nursery schools.” They want teachers to turn in any nursery school children who draw pictures of bombs or say that all Christians are bad or that they believe in an Islamic state. (To state the perhaps obvious: a child who proclaims the need for an Islamic state is not radicalized so much as repeating what he or she has heard at home. The police are using state institutions to spy on infants as a way to indirectly spy on their parents.)

Today -100: December 11, 1909: Of arbitration, dictators, and bino

The striking shirtwaist-makers and the bosses have agreed to arbitration (the employers are trying to get around recognizing the union).

It turns out that the Nicaraguan government forces characterized in the NYT as feeble were actually a cover for the real operation, as 3,000 troops move on the insurgent provisional government’s hq in the port city of Bluefields. The American consul has promised the outnumbered Estradaists support from the Marines on the Des Moines, anchored there. Another article insists that Estrada’s forces can easily survive a siege, but since it repeatedly refers to Zelaya as “the dictator,” its objectivity might be in some question.

Sen. Isidor Rayner (D-MD) introduces a resolution saying that Zelaya is guilty of murder and if the Estradaists fail to capture him, the US will have to.

In an interview, the, um, dictator Zelaya (in an article subtly headlined “Zelaya Yields To Our Power”) repeats his call for Secretary of State Knox to name a commission to investigate the charges against him (oddly, he never heard back). He says that Cannon and Groce were executed according to the laws of Nicaragua – evidently it’s illegal to command rebels. Zelaya says, “The attempt of Secretary Knox to establish the inviolability of the persons of Americans participating in foreign revolutions will result in constant revolutions led by immune Americans.” Zelaya seems to be looking for an exit strategy, saying he’d happily resign if it wouldn’t lead to faction fights with actual, you know, fighting, and that he is negotiating with the rebels on a successor acceptable to all parties; he has nominated Judge José Madriz. Zelaya blames the US’s hostility to him on President Cabrera of Guatemala.

More US soldiers are going insane in the Philippines than in any other branch of the military. The army blames homesickness, melancholy and bino, a Filipino beverage of some sort.

Money is fungible, you know

How long before the Republicans propose banning women from possessing money, because they might spend it on abortions?

My accomplishments are slight

Obama got his Nobel. He gave a speech. Possibly the most war-mongering Peace Prize speech ever. At one point he got carried away and declared war on Norway. Apostrophe-less transcript.

UNLIKE THOSE POOR SCHMUCKS AT GUANTANAMO – SAY, DIDN’T I PROMISE TO SHUT THAT PLACE DOWN?: “It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate.”

HELL, KISSINGER AND BEGIN, IF IT COMES TO THAT: “Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”


In this long speech, he couldn’t not mention Iraq. Once. Let’s watch him try to slip it past, shall we? “I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”

TO REPLACE WHICH ONE WITH THE OTHER? IT’S PROBABLY BEST TO BE CLEAR: “And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

WELL, WITH SECOND MAN, BECAUSE WAR WITH JUST ONE MAN ISN’T AS MUCH FUN: “These questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man.”

SOME PEOPLE (SIGH) THOUGHT GETTING RID OF GEORGE BUSH WAS A GOOD START: “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.”

Dude brought Will Smith with him.
Much of the speech was about the concept of “just war.” He’s in favor of it. “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.” AND I WILL SPIT ON THAT WORK IN 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... “But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their [King and Gandhi’s] examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”

HERE’S THE MESSAGE FROM YOUR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER: WAR IS, IN FACT, PEACE: “So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.”

TO REITERATE, WAR IS PEACE: “I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war.”

YET AGAIN, WAR IS PEACE: “The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That is why NATO continues to be indispensable.”


I DON’T THINK THAT WORD, “ORDERED,” MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed.” That claim is becoming about as ridiculous as Bush’s claim that “we do not torture.”

He talked about the need to slap down Iran and North Korea, global warming, blah blah blah.


HE WAS FOR HOLY WAR BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: “Most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one’s own faith.” But earlier in the speech he denied the relevance of the non-violence of Gandhi and King because “make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.” And it is just – some might even say holy – to go to war against evil. “A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” Cynicism, hypocrisy, you say potato...

We’re getting to the end, so let’s bring out some of that ol’ Obama inspirational magic: “So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he’s outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.” And then the soldier who sees he’s outgunned calls in an air strike and blows her and her child to pieces.

Don’t make us get all Viking on your ass

One of the delegates at the Copenhagen summit refers to the controversy over the hacked emails as “a storm in a teacup.” There’s probably a weak joke in there somewhere.

No one expected Obama to attend every Nobel Prize event (I understand the toga party is a highlight), but his ungracious decision to skip even the traditional lunch with the Norwegian king is being taken as a rude snub. In other words, the newest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has managed to piss off... the Norwegians.

Today -100: December 10, 1909: If President Taft set off by train from New York to Chicago and weighs 300 pounds...

The NYT Times Traveler Blog, which inspired my own (lamely titled) Today -100 feature, is being discontinued, but don’t worry, Taft-lovers, we will be continuing together into the brave new world of the 1910s.

Headline of the Day -100: “Democrats Elect Money.” That’s Hernando De Soto Money of Mississippi, who was elected Senate minority leader.

In France, authors of textbooks used in the state schools have sued the Archbishop of Paris for damages for putting their texts on the Index of banned books.

In his State of the Union message, Taft proposed raising the postage rates for magazines, on which the Post Office was losing money because it was paying 9¢ a pound to transport it by rail. One M. T. Richardson, in a letter to the NYT, thinks this is excessive, noting that the railroads charge that rate to convey a 200-pound man, who they have to provide with heat and light and a seat, from NY to Chicago, while someone like, oh say President Taft, is charged less than 6¢ per mile. Because he’s fat, geddit?

Not unlike Jefferson and Adams, I’m sure

CONTEST: Sample dialogue from this meeting of the minds, please.