Today -100: June 10, 1910: Of pogroms

Borisov, A Russian town largely populated by Jews, has been burned down.

Why dreams need hyperlinks

So I was just taking a nap and in my dream I was reading in The Nation about an incident (which I was also seeing) in which the president of Honduras ordered some subordinate taken away and tortured. Then I looked up (I was on a street corner, I believe in L.A.) and there he was, the president of Honduras, crossing the street, all by himself, wearing khakis. So naturally I yelled “Thug” at him, and he stormed over, and I tried to show him the article I’d just been reading but I couldn’t find it again as I leafed desperately through the several issues of The Nation I had with me on my sofa (still on that street corner). It was very frustrating.

Today -100: June 9, 1910: A second sober thought

In the Yucatan, Indian insurgents massacre officials and others, 40 or more, in Valladolid and are occupying the town.

The president of the United States Brewers’ Association reassures its annual convention that “the American people have taken a second sober thought” and now reject prohibition. The Executive Committee issued a report: “The whole vegetable world is in a conspiracy against the prohibitionist. The bees become intoxicated with the distillation of the honey suckle; the wasps grow dizzy in the drowsy clover patch, and even the ants wobble in their walk after they have feasted upon the overripe fruit fallen from the tree, which has started a natural fermentation.” And if it’s good enough for the bees, wasps and ants...

President Taft has rejected the demand from citizens of Seattle for the removal of the 25th Infantry, a black unit, after a member has allegedly assaulted a white woman.

The governor of Smolensk is using secret police to track down Jews, searching house to house and scouring the woods, were some have been hiding.

Today -100: June 8, 1910: Old-fashioned good times and good politics

Three days ago Taft said that socialism was the enemy. The NYT agrees “When both parties become convinced of the truth of this, and become once more respectively Democratic and Republican in the old-fashioned manner, then old-fashioned good times and good politics will be with us once more.”

The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia decides that while Isabel Wall (7) showed no visual signs of being a negro, he would not order the Board of Education to admit her to the white school. Justice Wright claims she is either 1/8th or 1/16th black (her family claims 1/128th), and that heredity rather than appearance is what counts: “Graduations shading toward black or fairness are of very insignificant concern in determining whether one is ‘colored.’”

Today -100: June 7, 1910: Rubber balls of doom

The number of Jews expelled from Kiev so far is 1,421.

In a letter to the Times, William McDowell, President of the League of Peace, asks that Charles Hamilton, who will be flying a plane from NY to Philadelphia, carry some rubber balls and drop them on ships, ferry boats, railroad junctions, City Hall, etc, to demonstrate, I guess, that we are all doomed and that the battleships Congress just authorized should not be built, because they can always be bombed from those new-fangled flying contraptions.

A little detail about the Rachel Corrie

Israel commandos hijacked the Rachel Corrie to an Israeli port, this time without killing anyone, but the one thing they refuse to do is acknowledge that the ship is called the Rachel Corrie. When they were radioing it, they called it by its old name Linda.

Today -100: June 6, 1910: O

O. Henry dies, at 43.

Headline of the Day -100: “Hair Will Be Scarcer.” China is forbidding the export of human hair, after incidents of women’s hair being cut off in crowds, and pauper corpses being exhumed and shorn. I guess “The Gift of the Magi” doesn’t really translate into Chinese.

Ultimately, this isn’t about me and how angry I am

Thursday, Obama was interviewed by Larry King.

WHAT HE WOULD LOVE TO SPEND A LOT OF HIS TIME DOING: On the BP oil spill: “And the one thing that I think is important to underscore is that I would love to just spend a lot of my time venting and yelling at people. But that’s not the job I was hired to do.”

IT’S ALSO ABOUT WHETHER YOU WORE THE RIGHT CLOTHES WHEN YOU WENT TO EXAMINE THE SCENE: “And, ultimately, this isn’t about me and how angry I am.”

He displayed even less human emotion when asked about the flotillacide. He carefully – oh so carefully – refrained from blaming Israel – “I think that we need to know what all the facts are.” – choosing his words with exquisitely precise vagueness: “Well, you know, the United States, with the other members of the U.N. Security Council, said very clearly that we condemned all the acts that led up to this violence.” All the acts, which could mean acts by the peace activists or the commandos, or, really, the entire history of the world before this week. And “this violence,” which could mean that of the commandos or that of the flotillaites. The very last thing he’s willing to say is that shooting unarmed civilians repeatedly at close range is a, you know, bad thing. “You’ve got loss of life that was unnecessary.” Pretty much by definition for any death not the result of natural causes. “And so we are calling for an effective investigation of everything that happened.” You know, everything. Just couldn’t bring himself to utter a single statement that focused exclusively on the people with the assault rifles.

He did an even-handed description of the living conditions of Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has “missiles raining down on cities,” which certainly suggests a much more systematic and lethal state of affairs than actually exists. Come to think of it, the total number of Israelis killed by rockets in the last few years is about equal to the number of people killed in the flotillacide. “On the other hand,” Obama went on, “you’ve got a blockade up that is preventing people in Palestinian Gaza from having job opportunities and being able to create businesses and engage in trade and have opportunity for the future.” So all the years-long blockade of medicine and building supplies and for fuck’s sake nutmeg has done to the Palestinians is to deprive them of a few job opportunities? Comparing the continuous rain of missiles on Israeli cities and the Gazans not having job opportunities etc, which one sounds more like a humanitarian crisis?

Today -100: June 5, 1910: Of pygmies, and the great problems confronting the American people and the socialist American people

In response to reports that a hitherto-unknown tribe of pygmies (ave. 4' 3") has been found in Dutch New Guinea, the NYT editorializes lamely, “We are not in pressing need of pigmies. Small men abound the world over. Washington seems at present to be full of pigmies, and Albany has more than its share. ... Let the discoverers take new heart and look for giants. We need a few giants in all walks of life.”

In a speech in Jackson, Michigan, Taft says that Socialism is the great problem confronting the American people.

And Victor Berger, head of the socialists in Milwaukee, says that socialists’ great problem is Catholicism.

Today -100: June 4, 1910: Of scabs, spies, and horns

Two strikebreakers from the Philadelphia trolley strike were convicted for involuntary manslaughter for running down and killing two strikers. Sentence: 1 year.

In the trial of Cleveland Police Chief Fred Kohler, the chairman of the Civil Service Commission rules that it is perfectly proper for the chief to use city detectives to spy on public officials and prominent men to see which ones go to saloons (Cleveland was not dry) or disorderly houses.

A letter to the Times from Charles Vezin, presumably the painter, criticizes car horns, especially the new buzzer horns, as “aural dum dum bullets.” “It is the most aggressive, insolent, and misanthropic note that mechanical ingenuity has evolved.”

Reminds me: I saw a little roadster, c.1920, tooling down the road yesterday. The driver was holding a Starbucks cup, which just seemed wrong.

We did not send bullies with knives and metal rods to TurkeyWe did not send bullies with knives and metal rods to Turkey

Hamas blocks entry of the flotilla aid into Gaza. Because they’re idiots. Turning back five truckloads of wheelchairs means they are now doing exactly what Israel is doing with the blockade, punishing ordinary Gazans for political reasons. Idiots.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says the “entire blame” for the flotillacide rests with Turkey: “We didn’t start this provocation, we did not send bullies with knives and metal rods to Turkey.”

China bans the use of evidence obtained through torture in courts. Um, good.

Today -100: June 3, 1910: Of peace, women grads, and the color line

Congress is working on a bill to create a commission to promote the cause of international peace, to be headed by ex-President Roosevelt.

Taft delivers the commencement address at Bryn Mawr, his daughter Helen’s school. He came out in support of higher education for women, which is good because otherwise it might have been a tad awkward. He said “I utterly dissent” from the notion “that the higher education of women rather unfits them for the duties of a wife and mother, that in some way or other it robs them of a charm and gives them an intellectual independence that is inconsistent with their being the best wives and mothers.” It isn’t “essential... that she should make the extent of her knowledge a source of discomfort to those with whom she associates, or that she should lose her interest in the sentiment and emotions of life, or fail to have an appreciation of beauty and romance.” However, he warned graduates against being discontented when they return to their homes; “A young lady with a higher education has much to learn after graduation in the homely details and the drudgery of ordinary life, and the sooner she learns it the happier”. He claimed that women teachers are paid less than men because of the laws of supply and demand.

The D.C. Supreme Court will decide if a white school has to accept a student (with “flaxen hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion”) it tried to exclude because she is 1/128th black. There was a word for that, by the way: mustee.

It was a boat of hatred

Joe Biden says it was “legitimate” to board the flotilla, although “you can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not”. Not. And he wonders what the “big deal” (shouldn’t that be “big fucking deal”?) was about landing in Gaza rather than in an Israeli port. But since he says specifically of building materials, “they could have easily brought it in here and we’d get it through,” one has to wonder if Biden actually knows that Israel bans the entry of cement and other building material into Gaza. Indeed, possibly he doesn’t know that there’s a blockade of Gaza, which would explain why he doesn’t understand what the big deal is.

Biden says that an investigation run entirely by Israelis is just fine, comparing it to the investigation of North Korea allegedly sinking the South Korean sub being conduct by South Korea. For that comparison to work, wouldn’t the investigation have to have been conducted by North Korea?

Netanyahu says the flotilla was “directed by terrorists.” “That was not a Love Boat, it was a boat of hatred.”

Today -100: June 2, 1910: Of Jim Crow, talking to girls, mad Russians, and spurious frankfurters

The Supreme Court rules in Chiles v. Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company, that “separate but equal” accommodations on inter-state trains are okay, in effect reversing an 1875 decision that states could not impose Jim Crow laws on inter-state commerce (technically, the rules were those of the railway company, which just so happened to follow the Kentucky law, but the Court said that since Congress didn’t explicitly ban it from doing so, “the inaction of Congress was equivalent to the declaration that a carrier could, by regulations, separate colored and white interstate passengers”). The Court said, citing Plessy v. Ferguson, that “Regulations which are induced by the general sentiment of the community for whom they are made and upon whom they operate cannot be said to be unreasonable.” Incidentally, the black passenger in the case, James Alexander Chiles, was a lawyer who argued his own case and was (probably) the first black person to argue before the Supreme Court.

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Talks to Girls.” At the commencement exercises of Trinity College for Girls.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Beekman Winthrop says that “There is no danger of the brutalizing of our national character by a large navy”. So that’s all right then. Indeed, “no country has ever acted toward other countries with such altruistic motives as have marked our course in recent years toward Cuba, the Philippines, and Porto Rico.”

A mad Russian throws something first thought to be a bomb, but actually a can of beans, at Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm in Berlin. He missed.

A Chinese man tries to smuggle four pounds of opium into the country, concealed in “spurious frankfurters.” I love that phrase.

Hey philistines!

Yesterday I posted a link to the website of art student Emily Henochowicz, whose eye the Israelis shot out. Did even one of you click through to check out her art? No, you did not. Do it now. There will be a quiz later.

Today -100: June 1, 1910: Of pioneers and protectorates

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in the United States (though born in Britain), having graduated medical school in 1849, has died at 80.

The State Department is thinking about making Nicaragua a “protectorate.” Or possibly having Mexico make it a protectorate. Or just taking over its finances (the big worry for the US, naturally, is that both sides are trying to collect customs duties). The US policy for the last 6 months has been not to recognize either the Madriz government or the Estradists.

Flotillacide

Trust Israel to portray itself as the victim of a senseless attack for an incident in which its commandos slaughtered 10 to 16 peace activists in international waters.

Netanyahu claims, in asserting that his massacre was an act of self-defense, said there was “even a report of gunfire and our soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives or they would have been killed.” Interesting that Bibi, not known for his aversion to lying, is not claiming there was actual gunfire from the activists.

In Obama’s phone call with Netanyahu, he is said to have “expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today’s incident, and concern for the wounded, many of whom are being treated in Israeli hospitals.” Wow, treated in Israeli hospitals? Well, that makes it all okay. Did the White House really have to slip that in?

Another lucky recipient of that famed Israeli generosity: New York art student Emily Henochowicz (her website) was treated – and what a treat it was! – in an Israeli hospital, which removed her left eye after she was shot in the face with a tear gas cannister during a protest of the flotillacide.

Today -100: May 31, 1910: Run, Taft, run

Misleading Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Enjoys Fast Run.” Turns out to be his train.

Roosevelt gave a speech (full text) in London today. Reactions to it will fill the paper for days, including praise, vitriolic criticism, and death threats.

He said that his recent travels in Africa included four British colonies (Uganda, Kenya, the Sudan, Egypt). “Your men in Africa are doing a great work for your Empire, and they are also doing a great work for civilization. ... the great fact in world history during the last century has been the spread of civilization over the world’s waste spaces.” He suggested that imperialist nations (or as he called them, “The civilized nations who are conquering for civilization savage lands”) should “work together in a spirit of hearty mutual good-will”, whether it be in Africa or, ahem, the Philippines.

He praised Britain for beginning to make the highlands of Kenya “a true white man’s country.”

However, Uganda, he said, “cannot be made a white man’s country, and the prime need is to administer the land in the interest of the native races, and to help forward their development.” By which he means turning them into Christians.

The Sudan, he said, shows the wisdom “of disregarding the well-meaning but unwise sentimentalists who object to the spread of civilization at the expense of savagery.” Under their own rule, the Sudanese had showed “much what independence and self-government would have been in a wolf pack.” Britain should stay in the Sudan even if it doesn’t pay, just like the US built the Panama Canal.

Then he turned to the controversial part of the speech, about Egypt. “In Egypt you are not only the guardians of your own interests; you are also the guardians of the interests of civilization; and the present condition of affairs in Egypt is a grave menace to both your Empire and the entire civilized world. You have given Egypt the best government it has had for at least two thousand years—probably a better government than it has ever had before”. But there have been errors, resulting from trying to do too much for the Egyptians, “but unfortunately it is necessary for all of us who have to do with uncivilized peoples, and especially with fanatical peoples, to remember that in such a situation as yours in Egypt weakness, timidity, and sentimentality may cause even more far-reaching harm than violence and injustice. Of all broken reeds, sentimentality is the most broken reed on which righteousness can lean.” For example, they make a mistake in “treating all religions with studied fairness and impartiality,” which led to the assassination of Boutros Pasha in February. “Now, either you have the right to be in Egypt or you have not; either it is or it is not your duty to establish and keep order. If you feel that you have not the right to be in Egypt, if you do not wish to establish and to keep order there, why, then, by all means get out of Egypt. If, as I hope, you feel that your duty to civilized mankind and your fealty to your own great traditions alike bid you to stay, then make the fact and the name agree and show that you are ready to meet in very deed the responsibility which is yours. It is the thing, not the form, which is vital; if the present forms of government in Egypt, established by you in the hope that they would help the Egyptians upward, merely serve to provoke and permit disorder, then it is for you to alter the forms... When a people treats assassination as the corner-stone of self-government, it forfeits all right to be treated as worthy of self-government. ... Some nation must govern Egypt. I hope and believe that you will decide that it is your duty to be that nation.”

Today -100: May 30, 1910: Of corruption and sending in the marines

Illinois State Senator John Broderick, one of the legislators in the corruption scandal (see yesterday), who paid $2,500 to a fellow senator, cannot be found. The suspicion is that Chicago authorities are trying to obstruct the grand jury investigation.

The Nicaraguan civil war has been hotting up again, and the US is sending some more marines to the area.

Trust issues

Quote of the Day, from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Military Moron: “inadvertently killing or injuring civilians is heartbreaking and undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.” Yup, that’ll do it. He added, “We will do all we can to regain that trust.” Regain? When does he think they had it?

Operators of a drone which attacked a civilian convoy in Afghanistan in February for no particular reason, killing 23 people, some of them children, have received letters of reprimand. Reached for comment, survivors of the drone attack said, “Wait, were they strongly worded letters of reprimand? Then let the healing begin.”