Still not done making fun of McCain

In that clip two posts back, Obama told McCain, “The election’s over,” and McCain responded, “I’m reminded of that every day.” Do you think he has an aide (or possibly Lindsey Graham) whose task it is to remind him of that fact every day, or does Cindy leave post-it notes on the bathroom mirror: “Your name is John,” “You are a United States senator,” “You are not the president (sorry),” “You are a ‘maverick,’” “The nice man who just gave you the sponge bath is named Lindsey,” etc.

The Arizonans hate California

McCain, at the health summit: “I won’t talk about California, because the Arizonans hate California, because they’ve stolen our water.”

I did not know that. But speaking for all Californians, I can say that we don’t hate Arizonans. We never think about Arizonans. Ever.

Unsavory – I say that with respect

Today -100: February 25, 1910: Of trolleys and duels

The Pennsylvania state police have “awed” the trolley car strikers. In other words, they fired on several crowds, although they seem to have killed only one person so far.

In France, two senators, Raphaël Milliès-Lacroix and Lintilhac, fought a duel in a park in Paris. Some dispute over the secret ballot. With swords and everything. Milliès-Lacroix, the former colonial minister, stabbed Lintilhac in the forearm and the seconds stopped the duel. Dueling was almost never legally punished in France, and quite popular among certain politicians – Georges Clemenceau, prime minister 1906-9 and 1917-20, fought 22 duels. The practice largely died out, rendered absurd by World War I, although Gaston Deferre, the Socialist party leader and mayor of Marseille, fought his last duel with swords in 1967.

Misc

NATO sort of admits that an air raid in Afghanistan December that killed 8 boys aged 12 to 18 in their home was a “mistake.” An unnamed NATO official says “Knowing what we know now, it would probably not have been a justifiable attack.” What sort of human being feels the need to insert the qualifier “probably” into that sentence?

Some of us have waited impatiently our entire lives for this news: jet packs will be manufactured for sale.

The Navy will allow women onto their watery phallic symbols submarines. One supporter of this decision (but not of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell): Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead.

Headline of the Day

LA Times: “L.A. Obesity Summit Will Feature Schwarzenegger, Clinton.” As before and after?

Today -100: February 24, 1910: Of lamas, fingers, trolleys, and great white chiefs

I just read about the current Dalai Lama visiting Universal Studios in Hollywood, then I switched to the 1910 paper, in which the very first story is about his predecessor fleeing Lhasa, which was being occupied by 25,000 “anti-Buddhist” Chinese troops (drilled by Japanese officers). China was trying to reduce the number and influence of lamas in Tibet (for example by killing them and sacking their monasteries) and settle Chinese immigrants there. In Tibet history doesn’t repeat itself, it reincarnates.

A NY Supreme Court jury awarded a 15-year-old who worked for the George Sclecher Piano Company of Ossining who lost four fingers in an industrial accident $4,000 (a grand, er, a thousand dollars, each).

In response to the Philadelphia trolley strike, now in its fifth day, the city government yesterday called in something called the State Fencibles, which was some sort of non-governmental militia. They were completely routed by the strikers, who had a lot of fun with them, pulling their hats over their eyes and so forth. The state police, which is basically a military body created to fight coal strikes, is now being called in. There was somewhat less violence today.

The NYT reports a great relief in the US Senate that the Mississippi Legislature did not elect as the new senator (replacing the Confederate colonel who once discussed with John Wilkes Booth a plan to kidnap Lincoln) James Vardaman, the former governor (1904-8), aka the “Great White Chief,” a white supremacist (“if it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched, it will be done to maintain white supremacy”) whose main concern was repealing the 14th and 15th Amendments. Instead, the new senator will be Le Roy Percy, who is much... calmer on racial issues. In 1912, when senators were first chosen by popular election, Vardaman defeated Percy in the primary and was elected to the Senate, but lost in the 1918 election, having voted against World War I.

Today -100: February 23, 1910: Of kisses and votes

A letter to the Times from “Anti-Suffragist” points out that Socialists support women’s suffrage, which “only goes to prove what rational and careful persons pointed out long ago – that woman suffrage leads to Socialism. The yellow banner of the suffragists is very apt to turn a bloody red, and their ‘votes for women’ battle cry is a call to the road to ruin.”

But there will be no kisses on the road to ruin. Suffragist Alma Webster-Powell writes in to deny an earlier report in the paper about her proposed tactics: “I have never advocated the exchange of kisses for votes. Indeed, my inclination would be quite different, and instead of sending pretty maids [young women, I presume, rather than domestic servants] to Albany to woo votes with kisses, I would send our strongest women to force justice with horsewhips. Force applied in a noble cause is never undignified”.

Extremely saddened

Headline of the Day (the USA Today):
“Pediatricians Call for a Choke-proof Hot Dog.”

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NATO air strike kills 27 Afghan civilians, Gen. Stanley McChrystal is “extremely saddened,” rinse, lather, repeat.

McChrystal added, “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” Um, right, inadvertently killing people does undermine their trust and confidence in your claim to be protecting them. “We will redouble our effort to regain that trust.” Re-gain?

Today -100: February 22, 1910: Of trolleys and booze

The Philadelphia PD arrest Clarence O. Pratt, the national organizer of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees, for “conspiring to incite to riot,” and refuse to recognize a discharge after bail is entered for him. The arrest will likely lead to sympathy strikes. Although there have been over 150 arrests, worries that police are too sympathetic to strikers in their own neighborhoods has led to cops being shifted en masse to other districts.

The Virginia Legislature votes against a state-wide referendum on prohibition.

Today -100: February 21, 1910: Of trolleys

A trolley strike in Philadelphia has evidently led to “mob rule,” with rioting, the destruction of 297 trolley cars (update: the next day’s paper says 375, but explains that some of those just had their windows broken), tracks obstructed, and many dead and injured.

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.

Lamest attempt at a guilt trip ever

Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama “seriously hurts the national feelings of the Chinese people”.

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.

Hopey and Dalai

Caption contest:

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.

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.