Today -100: May 4, 1910: Of hopples and secret dirigibles

Headline of the Day -100: “Trotting Men Eliminating Hopples.” I almost didn’t click on the story, in order to leave the meaning of those words a complete mystery. However I did read the story, and it’s still a complete mystery.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Secret French Dirigible.” The French War Dept is building a balloon capable of traveling 50 miles per hour. The Germans must be terrified.

Today -100: May 3, 1910: Of judges, trusts, telephone-stethoscopes, and women’s hats

Charles Evans Hughes is confirmed by the Senate as a Supreme Court justice in a single day, without a debate. He will continue as governor of NY until Oct. 1.

The Supreme Court upholds state laws against trusts, including Tennessee’s decision to kick Standard Oil of Kentucky out of the state.

A medical device has been demonstrated in Britain that could (but won’t) revolutionize the practice of medicine: a telephone-stethoscope, which can transmit the sound of a heartbeat to a doctor over the phone. A doctor suggested it would be useful for tracking the development of pneumonia and typhoid patients.

I must have missed a letter to the NYT which asserted that women were unfit to wield the ballot because many of them wore hats with birds on them, but Alice Stone Blackwell responds that all those birds were killed by men. So there.

June 2010 California proposition recommendations

Updated with election results in purple.

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Prop. 13. Seismic retrofitting won’t trigger increased property taxes. YES, why are they bothering us with obvious shit?
Wins with 84.5%. Which suggests why PG&E and Mercury failed to buy their initiatives: 15.5% of us will vote against absolutely everything, even if it's uncontroversial and unopposed.

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Prop. 14. Open primaries, with the top two candidates from primary on the ballot in November. For all state and federal offices except president.

This system would not just favor the moderate center, as proponents say, but is designed to eliminate other views from political life, limiting the number of perspectives heard in the public sphere to exactly two (if that: Californians tend to live in one-party enclaves, which means that in one-third of California the choice in November would between two Democrats). In the past when the major parties presented us with a choice between two unappetizing hacks (Gray Davis v. Bill Simon for governor 2002, for example), at least we had the option of voting for a Green or Libertarian or Peace and Freedom candidate. This option would be removed by Prop. 14. Personally, I won’t vote for a death penalty supporter for governor or attorney general, and for more than 30 years the D and R candidates for these offices have all been deathers. Without a third-party option on the ballot, I would have to give up either my principles or my franchise (anti-abortion voters might well find themselves in the same boat).

Third parties have pioneered on issues the two bigs were unready even to discuss – the Peace and Freedom Party, for example, put gay marriage in its platform back in 1988. Prop. 14, while purporting to be non-partisan, would wipe out the third parties.

The ballot pamphlet argument against 14 infuriates me, saying that because candidates don’t have to declare a party, “Voters won’t know whether they are choosing a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green Party candidate.” This is an appeal to the laziest of voters, who are worried that they might actually have to read up on the candidates’ positions, when it’s so much easier to look at their party (for those voters, a helpful hint: Meg Whitman is actually a Republican).

But Prop. 14 itself is an appeal to the laziest voters. The “problem” this prop. is trying to solve, that the “extreme” candidates are increasingly winning D & R primaries, is not caused by the current primary system, it’s caused by apathy: the “moderate” voters Prop. 14 wants to favor simply haven’t been bothering to vote on primary election day, or work for moderate candidates, or run themselves.

Prop. 14 would apply to statewide races as well, so one could conceivably face a gubernatorial election where there are two Republicans on the November ballot, especially if there are several Democrats dividing the Dem vote in June. This happened in France, which has this system, in its presidential election in 2002, where the middle-left candidates split the first-round vote, leaving the second round was a distasteful choice between a corrupt center-right incumbent (Jacques Chirac) and an actual fascist (Jean-Marie Le Pen).

Vote NO.

Wins with 54.2%.

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Prop. 15. Public funding for election campaigns for the office of secretary of state for candidates who voluntarily agree to restrict their campaign spending and private contributions. This is both a test case (applying to just one office, and only in the 2014 and 2018 elections) to demonstrate how public funding would work, and a trojan horse for the provision lifting the ban on public funding of all state candidates, allowing the Legislature to expand this program to all state offices without a further referendum.

The ballot pamphlet’s No argument is especially dishonest, saying that the funds would come from taxpayers, which is only true if you think of a fee paid only by lobbyists as “new taxes.” Why are they allowed to lie to us? They imply corruption, talking darkly about lobbyists funding the very office that regulates them, but a mandatory fee paid into a fund for all candidates is not a bribe. They say that if the fee didn’t bring in enough money for the program, tax money would have to be used, which is another lie: Prop. 15 specifically says that if the fee wasn’t enough, funding would be reduced.

However, on this one I’ve changed my mind while writing this. While I support public financing as a means of reducing the cost of elections to make it possible for people to run without having to either be multi-millionaires themselves or spend all their time sucking up to multi-millionaires and corporations for donations. But Prop. 15 just feels sneaky. It allows the Legislature to design public financing for every other state office at some future date behind closed doors without another initiative, which is the sort of blank check I’m not willing to entrust to them. They should have to come back to the voters before such a fundamental alteration of our electoral system. Vote NO.

Loses 57.4% to 42.6%.

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Prop. 16. The anti-public power initiative. The PG&E ads all talk about the “taxpayers’ right to vote,” which is an attempt to obscure reality, at least for people who aren’t paying very close attention – they’re depending on people not paying very close attention – in two ways: 1) the word “taxpayers” is intended to scare people who aren’t paying very close attention into thinking this measure has something to do with taxes, 2) the phrase “right to vote” is intended to get people who aren’t paying very close attention to overlook that the 2/3 provision means their vote might not actually count: yes you had a right to vote, but only 66% of your neighbors agreed with you, so hard cheese.

What PG&E is counting on is that all they would have to do is mislead or scare 1/3 of the voters. If you’re wondering how they plan to do that, you’ve got a perfect preview in the lopsided campaign you’re seeing now around Prop. 16: a large private corporation, and a monopoly at that, spending millions of dollars on ads and the other side not heard because municipalities are prohibited from spending public money to rebut them.

Aside from the undemocratic 2/3 provision, you have to admire the audacity of PG&E talking about the “right to vote” when the choice on offer in a local referendum would be between a public utility run by elected officials and a private one run by an unaccountable, unelected corporation responsible only to its stockholders. Did you have a “right to vote” on PG&E CEO Peter Darbee’s $9.4 million compensation last year? Or on whether you wanted a “smart meter”? Or nuclear power plants? Or on whether PG&E could spend the money they charge you to bankroll a proposition to protect their monopoly and fill your mailbox with propaganda?

PG&E is not spending $35+ million because they’re concerned about the “taxpayers’ right to vote.” They’re concerned about protecting their ability to continue charging some of the highest rates in the country.

Vote NO. That said, when do I get a vote on getting rid of Comcast?

No, 52.%, but not before every remaining tree in Washington was cut down for pro-16 mailers. When you pay your next PG&E bill, write "Ha ha" on your check.

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Prop. 17. Allows auto insurance companies to jack up rates for people who haven’t had continuous insurance.

Another corporate-sponsored initiative (sigh). Can we assume that Mercury Insurance did not pay millions to put this on the ballot out of a philanthropic impulse to reduce everyone’s rates?

This is another one where the arguments in the voter booklet disagree fundamentally on the facts, which means someone is lying. I had to read the text of the prop. to find out, for example, whether there really was an exemption for lapse in coverage due to military service (only if service is outside the US). The Yes argument claims there is protection for people who drop coverage for economic or medical reasons, but what Prop. 17 actually says is that “Continuity of coverage shall be deemed to exist even if... coverage has lapsed for up to 90 days in the last five years for any reason other than nonpayment of premium.” But if that nonpayment was because you lost your job, what then? There is nothing in the text of the initiative that says how that would be resolved, so, you know, good luck with that. If this passes, I foresee plenty of frustrating phone conversations with insurance company reps.

Vote NO to frustrating phone conversations with insurance company reps.

No, 52.1%. It's almost like people don't think insurance companies are on their side and just want to charge them less.

Why is this man smiling?

Gillian “The Plumber” Duffy says she was more taken aback by Gordon Brown calling her “that woman” than “a bigoted woman.” She wonders “He was smiling when he spoke to me but he was thinking that. What else is he thinking when he smiles?”

CONTEST: What else is Gordon Brown thinking when he smiles?

Today -100: May 1, 1910: Of Daniel Boone, no taxation without representation, the census, and criminal slang

Headline of the Day -100: “Memorial to Daniel Boone. North Carolinians Erect a Shaft and a Reproduction of His Log Cabin.” They like him! I mean, they really like him.

134 members of the women’s suffrage group No Vote No Tax Association in Chicago have adopted a resolution to refuse to pay taxes until they have the vote.

A woman in Indianapolis committed suicide because she answered a census question (what company her husband worked for) incorrectly.

An Episcopalian bishop from Maryland, visiting Rome, hoped to have an audience with the pope but is informed by the Vatican that the pope “is neither a picture nor a statue to be inspected and criticized”.

Magistrate O’Connor of Jefferson Market Court (NYC) convicted an alleged pickpocket, who had a record but against whom the only evidence this time seems to have been that he was “jostling pedestrians,” because that he understand what the judge was saying. The defendant displayed his huge hands and asked how he could possibly pick a pocket: “I can hardly put my hand in my own pockets.” The magistrate replied, “Don’t try to kid me. You know a good dip [pickpocket] doesn’t work with his hand. He works with two fingers. You know what ‘bringing the hanger’ [opening a woman’s handbag] means, don’t you?” Greenfield nodded. “I suppose you were framing a sucker to get away with a whole front [steal everything the victim has], or at least you expected to snag a poke [pocketbook] or a super and slang [watch and chain]. Instead you got dropped by a flatty [arrested by a detective] and were canned for a sleep [held overnight], eh?” Since Greenfield knew what all that meant, he got a $5 fine.

Not a serious thing

Tony Blair enters the electoral fray, to remind the British people that there is someone they despise more than Gordon Brown.

His contribution is to attempt to win back disaffected voters who are considering voting LibDem by disparaging them. Such a vote, he said, is “not a serious thing”. “The fact that it might seem an interesting thing to do is not the right reason to put the keys of the country in their hands.” Possibly the British tolerance for being patronized to by smug bastards is higher than mine, but I can’t imagine this sort of dismissiveness being particularly persuasive. And unlike Gordon Brown, he knew his microphone was on when he slagged off a large segment of the population.

Papers, please

The Democrats are thinking about requiring everyone to carry national ID cards with biometric info. The British government likes to propose this every couple of years and what always stops it is not civil liberties concerns, but the fact that they’re expensive. Good luck to the politician who votes for making every American stand in line at the DMV or post office and write a check for $50 or $80.

Stupid and cruel

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov denies having his former bodyguard Umar Israilov, who had filed a complaint against him at the European Court of Human Rights, killed on the streets of Vienna. Said Kadyrov, “Excuse me, but it would be so stupid and cruel to kill a person in the city center. Why would I need to do this?”

Because you’re stupid and cruel.

This has been another edition of simple answers to stupid questions.

Today -100: April 30, 1910: Of white slaves, rich Nicaraguans, cannibals, and musty European aristocrats on elevators

NYC District Attorney Charles Whitman proves that the white slave traffic is real. His female undercover operatives went into the Tenderloin and purchased four under-aged girls (described by the NYT thusly: “Two of them are Jewish and two American.”) (one of them, believed to be 15, cried because she had to leave her teddy bear behind). Whitman claims that the grand jury investigating white slavery has forced the trade to lie low: “One large dealer declared to the agents that though two years ago he could have sold them all the girls they wanted for $5 to $10 apiece, he would not risk selling one now for $1,000.” The price paid for the four is being kept a secret until the trial. (Update: $40 for the Jews, $120 for the Americans, who are also younger.)

There are plans for a delegation of rich Nicaraguans to visit the US in order to beg Taft to intervene militarily in the civil war there and re-establish conditions conducive to their continuing enrichment.

Two Presbyterian missionaries were eaten by cannibals on Savage Island (aka Niue). In an extinct volcano, no less.

A letter, responding to a story I’m unable to find, asks, “Can it be true... that in one of our leading hotels a lady was made to get out of one of the passenger elevators because of the pre-emption exercised by a lady of some musty European aristocracy? Is there a hotel in this liberty-loving country that would endure such dictation?”

Today -100: April 29, 1910: Of trouser-wearing women

A NYT editorial expresses relief that the NY Assembly refused to consider women’s suffrage, which would mean “a radical change in the present structure of society and the relations of the sexes. ... We are willing to admit that the social system at present has its evils, but the home is now the basis of all society, and when the home is destroyed there must be chaos before some new order, of which only the haziest ideas are now entertained, is established.”

But while that danger has been averted in NY, Kansas is moving slowly but inexorably towards that awful new order: a widow wrote to the governor asking if she might be allowed to wear men’s trousers while working at home. He asked the attorney general, “who ruled there was no law prohibiting a woman from wearing men’s trousers, especially if she were the head of the house.”

Don’t burn

Teheran’s police chief is threatening to arrest women with suntans. Where does he think he is, Arizona?

Oklahoma logic

Oklahoma passes two more anti-abortion measures over Gov. Brad Henry’s vetoes. One requires the patient to have an intrusive ultrasound and to be forced to listen to a detailed description of Your Fetus, because they should have all the facts before making a decision, while the other allows doctors to lie to women pregnant with disabled fetuses to trick them into going through with the birth, because women should not have all the facts if they might make a decision of which the doctor disapproves.

If Gordon Brown weren’t so lame, you’d feel sorry for him for being so consistently lame

The British have imported into their election yet another American political innovation, the open-mike incident. Gordon Brown has a nice chat with a voter, gets into his car and starts complaining that they let this “bigoted woman” near him, still with a tv mike on him. And Gordon Brown being Gordon Brown, the hapless sad-sack that he is, she happens to be a grandmother who, before she retired, worked with disabled children.

Today -100: April 28, 1910: Reasonable enough

The NY Assembly voted 87-46 against further consideration of a women’s suffrage amendment to the state constitution. Assemblyman James Shea (R-Essex) said he felt qualified to speak for married men: “I provide a home for my wife and I expect her to do her share in maintaining it, and I think that is reasonable enough. If we give women the vote our wives will soon be absorbed in caucuses instead of in housekeeping. ... When I come home at night I expect my wife to be there, and not in a political caucus or locked up in a jury room with eight or ten men.” Assemblyman Albert Callan (R-Columbia County) said he could speak for unmarried men, and his mother and sister threaten that if he votes for it “they will close the door against me.”

Will this blog sell out?

I just received an unsolicited offer (the first of its kind) from a betting website which wants to put an ad on this blog. They’re offering $500 for one year. Not going to do it, but thought y’all might be interested.

Are mooseburgers kosher?

Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin is evidently not intended as a joke, although its URL is jewsforsarah.com, which... really?

CONTEST: Clearly, Jews for Sarah needs a catchy slogan or possibly a song. Which is where you all come in...

Compare and contrast: Heinz & Butch

Austrian President Heinz Fischer (who was just reelected) refused to attend the funeral of the evil twin in Poland because it was his chauffeur’s day off.

A more, um, hands-on politician, Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, was hospitalized briefly last week with some sort of bacterial infection. He “began feeling ill Saturday while helping Lt. Gov. Brad Little brand and castrate calves.”

Today -100: April 26, 1910: Of various judicial matters

Taft did officially nominate Charles Evan Hughes to the Supreme Court, but on the understanding that it not take effect until October (evidently the Supreme Court just took 6 month vacations back then), allowing him to participate in the process of choosing his successor. The whole thing was done by letter: Taft sent a letter on the 22nd offering Hughes the job, without knowing if he’d accept it, and Hughes responded by letter on the 24th. One possible obstacle to Hughes accepting was the small salary of a Supreme Court justice, $12,500.

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether corporal punishment in schools is legal.

The Louisiana Supreme Court rules that Jim Crow laws do not apply to octoroons or quadroons.

Would explain a lot

Obama eulogy for the W Virginia miners: “These miners lived - as they died - in pursuit of the American dream.” The American dream is at the bottom of a coal mine?

Today -100: April 25, 1910: Of Clara Shortridge Foltz

It was a slow news day (on page 1: President Taft invites Sgt Thomas Morley of the Pittsburg police, who looks just like him, to sit next to him at a baseball game), so let’s focus this post on our...

Person in the News -100: Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849-1934), who just became a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles, the only woman deputy DA in the country. Wikipedia and, better yet, this article (well worth reading), say she was the first woman lawyer in California, in 1878 (she was a divorced mother of 5). Since the law had said that lawyers in CA had to be white and male, she herself wrote a new law deleting both disqualifications and got it passed (on the second try). Then she had to sue the Hastings College of Law, a public school, to force it to admit her (reported in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Two Lady Lawyers Who Demand Admission to the Hastings Law College--How They Dress”), and when Hastings appealed the ruling she represented herself again before the state Supreme Court. She helped create both the public defender system and the parole system in California, and got SF to stop putting defendants in iron cages during their trials.


A San Francisco DA once closed a case in which she represented the defendant: “She is a WOMAN, she cannot be expected to reason; God Almighty decreed her limitations ... this young woman will lead you by her sympathetic presentation of this case to violate your oaths and let a guilty man go free.”

She was the president of the California Woman Suffrage Association in her 30s and drafted the suffrage amendment that passed in 1911.

She was a descendant of Daniel Boone and the sister of Sen. Samuel Shortridge (R-CA, 1921-33). She ran for governor of California in 1930 in the Republican primary at 81.