Saturday, February 20, 2010
We hardly knew ye
Fran Lee. She was an actor, broadcaster, consumer and health and safety advocate, she lived 99 years, she will be remembered for dog poop.
It’s all about the context
The Justice Dept exonerates John Yoo & Jay Bybee, overriding its own Office of Professional Responsibility, because “the ethics lawyers, in condemning the lawyers’ actions, had given short shrift to the national climate of urgency in which Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo acted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. ‘Among the difficulties in assessing these memos now over seven years after their issuance is that the context is lost,’ Mr. Margolis said.” So that’s okay then.
(Update: Yoo said in as many words that the president can order a village of civilians massacred.)
Today -100: February 20, 1910: Of lynchings, dust, and funeral mutes
In Cairo, Ill., the inquest was held into the death of the one member of the lynch mob. The jury was most interested in determining which black deputy might have shot him. They didn’t, but the names of the four black deputies (which may – or may not, I’m unclear – mean people deputized by the sheriff for the occasion, after the militia failed to show up and he couldn’t find any white volunteers) who fired at the mob are now public. That’ll end well, I’m sure.
The local Catholic priest helpfully explains the race problem in Cairo: “Politics is the ruin of Cairo. The whites purchase the negroes’ votes, and that brings the negroes here. To my mind it is a disgrace that a white man should climb into office by the purchased votes of negroes. But so long as the negro can vote in Cairo this will be the trouble.”
Headline of the Day -100: “Strike Against Dust Settled.” Granite cutters in Vermont, unhappy with the dust caused by pneumatic brush hammers.
But that isn’t the Strike of the Day -100. That would be the strike being considered in Paris by the funeral mutes (croque-mortes). Since the separation of church and state in France, the undertaking profession is now supervised by the government rather than the Catholic Church, so the mourners-for-hire, rather than being paid a salary or a fee or however that worked, now have to beg from the real mourners.
Friday, February 19, 2010
You can’t spell CPAC without ac
Sadly, I just could not force myself to watch any of it for more than 15 seconds at a time. 1) Tune to C-SPAN. 2) “It’s the Star Spangled Banner, Obama, get over it!” 3) Turn off C-SPAN.
Actual quote.
Today -100: February 19, 1910: Of lynchings, the negro problem, and elephants
Cairo, Illinois update: no lynching, thanks to a sizeable contingent of soldiers. One of the lynch mob, the son of a former mayor, is dead from shots fired by the deputies (six of whom were black, interestingly, enlisted for this duty only when white ones refused, if I’m reading the NYT correctly), and four were wounded, including an AP reporter. And the black purse-snatcher, who plead guilty, is sentenced to 14 years. The purse contained “a silver dollar to which a postage stamp had become attached.”
Taft spoke about the “negro problem” in the South, which he believes can be solved through education of the negro and increasing the wealth of the South.
In San Francisco, three elephants left a parade and “ran amuck” for 30 blocks.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Today -100: February 18, 1910: Of colds, warpaths, primaries, and lynchings
Kaiser Wilhelm is sick! Okay, it’s not much of a story, but the NYT took advantage to sneak in a little alliteration in its headline: “Kaiser Confined by a Cold.”
However, the Headline of the Day -100 would have to be “Mad Mullah on Warpath.”
Illinois enacts direct primaries (as opposed to nominating conventions). Three previous attempts since the 1890s were struck down by the courts.
In Cairo, Illinois, the site of two lynchings in November 1909, there were shots exchanged between sheriff’s deputies and a mob trying to lynch a negro accused of... purse snatching. At the time the story was filed, the mob was threatening to lynch the deputies as well.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Our presence did not leave good memories
Sarkozy visited France’s former colony, Haiti, and cancelled its debt, which is pretty much the least France could do for Haiti. Sarkozy acknowledged, with atypical Gallic understatement, “Our presence did not leave good memories.”
The Miami Herald tells us: “Haiti and France have had uneasy relations ever since slaves on the western side of the island of Hispaniola fought off French troops and declared independence in 1804.” Gosh, I’d think the uneasy relations started some time before 1804, possibly when the French kidnapped people in Africa and put them in chains, then transported them to a life of slavery in this island they’d seized. Uneasy relations, sheesh.
Batman needs to kick some Virginian ass again
Virginia passes a bunch of pro-gun bills, including allowing them in shelters – that’ll work out well – as well as churches and restaurants that serve alcohol. Also, you can shoot a burglar. And they’re rescinding the ban on buying more than one handgun per month. Which means VA will once again become the number one provider of guns to the gangs of
Today -100: February 17, 1910: Of being hammered, and 9¢ of waste
Speaking to Civil War veterans, Taft said that the criticism with which he was “hammered” during his first year in office was nothing compared to what Lincoln faced, and anyway every president faced intense criticism, with the possible exception, he added wistfully, of Teddy Roosevelt.
A letter to the Times notes that some contractor pays $1,717 a week to take whatever he wants from the city dumps and sells salvaged junk for $350,000 per year. The letter-writer thinks this proves that all the talk about the high cost of living is nonsense because people are wasting so much stuff. The NYT rather sarcastically headlines this letter “New York Extravagance. Proof That Each of Us Wastes at Least 9 Cents a Year.”
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today -100: February 16, 1910: Cocaine goes wrong
NY State Senator Timothy D. Sullivan, the corrupt Tammany politician, had a problem with cocaine. Evidently it was used during a minor operation – as an anaesthetic? – went to his heart and nearly killed him. “About once out of 7,000 times,” he said, “cocaine goes wrong.” They all say that.
Monday, February 15, 2010
A major shootout
Another quote from Cheney’s “This Week” interview: “I can remember a meeting in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House where we had a major shootout over how this was going to be handled between the Justice Department, that advocated that approach, and many of the rest of us, who wanted to treat it as an intelligence matter, as an act of war with military commissions.”
Maybe a guy who once shot his friend in the face should pick another metaphor than “major shootout.”
A capital crime in Afghanistan: digging.
Headline of the Day
The Independent: “Bishops Meet Pope over Child Abuse Scandals.” Is that like “bishops meet pope over coffee”?
Today -100: February 15, 1910: Of trains and planes and war balloons
Taft tells that delegation of airplane boosters that strict economy means he won’t be endorsing their project for war balloons and military planes this congressional session, but might do so next session.
Not much going on today, although there were I think 3 different stories about train accidents, including a head-on collision between two trains in Georgia which killed eight people and an incident in which a train bumped Andrew Carnegie’s carriage, causing no injuries but upsetting his lunch party (headline: Carnegie Shaken Up) – guess which story, both on the front page, is longer.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
A big supporter of waterboarding
Dick Cheney went on “This Week” this morning, because nothing starts off Valentine’s Day right like Dick Cheney, and said about what you’d expect Dick Cheney to say.
If the Obamaites are going to take credit for Iraq, “it ought to go with a healthy dose of ‘Thank you, George Bush’ up front and a recognition that some of their early recommendations, with respect to prosecuting that war, were just dead wrong.” Is there such a thing as a healthy dose of Thank you, George Bush?
The Underpants Bomber should be tortured – “the professionals need to make that judgment ... how they can best achieve his cooperation” – and says the Obamaites “didn’t know what to do with the guy.”
“I was a big supporter of waterboarding.”
Thinks we should be threatening Iran with war.
Thinks it’s time to reconsider gays in the military. Then send the gays to invade Iran.
Today -100: February 14, 1910: Of war balloons
The president of the Aero Club will meet the president of the United States to urge the military necessity for airplanes and dirigibles. He will point out that there is a war balloon gap: Germany has 14 military dirigibles and 5 airplanes, France 7 and 29, Russia 3 and 6, England 2 each. The US Army has just 1 dirigible and 2 planes.
Is there a more chilling phrase in the military lexicon than “war balloon?” I think not.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Some good news, at last, for Marya Aman
The Israeli High Court has ordered the government to provide the family of Marya Aman, the 8-year-old girl paralyzed by an Israeli rocket attack (details at my previous post on Marya, with links to earlier posts), with a home near her Jerusalem hospital, and to allow her father to actually leave the hospital without fear of arrest and deportation for the first time in 4 years.
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