Today -100: June 16, 1910: Of a time when wars shall cease

Secretary of State Philander C. Knox makes a speech at the commencement of the University of Pennsylvania. According to him, “We have reached a point when it is evident that the future holds in store a time when wars shall cease... when by deliberate international conjunction the strong shall universally help the weak, and when the corporate righteousness of the world shall compel unrighteousness to disappear and shall destroy the habitations of cruelty still lingering in the dark places of the earth.” A date, we want a freaking date when that will happen, Philly. American foreign policy, he says, has always been marked by a “just, friendly, and generous American spirit”.

Obama’s oil spill speech: the Blessing of the Fleet

Obama gave a prime-time address to the nation on the BP oil spill.

MY, SUCH VIOLENT LANGUAGE: “I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens.”

OH, SO THAT’S WHY: “That’s why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge”.


UNLESS YOU COUNT CHENEY’S SECRET ENERGY TASK FORCE: “Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”

WAIT, I THOUGHT IT WAS AS ASSAULT: “And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it’s not a single event... The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic”.

THAT’S THE THING ABOUT OBAMA: HE NEVER WANTS US TO MAKE ANY MISTAKES: “But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes.” He didn’t say what we’ve got or how long it will take.

WAIT, I THOUGHT IT WAS AN EPIDEMIC: “And sadly, no matter how effective our response is, there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done.”

INFORMING: “Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness.” I’m guessing he’ll “inform” Tony Hayward of that because he lacks the legal authority to order him to do it.


WHAT WE NEED: “we need a long-term plan to restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.” And booty. And Ned Beatty.

NOBODY COULD HAVE PREDICTED...: “A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe –- that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken.”

RUH ROH: “the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation”.

How will he “seize the moment” and “act as one nation”? By listening to Republicans, of course, because that always helps. “So I’m happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party -– as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” And then he’ll adopt those ideas and the Republicans will vote against them anyway, the end.

WHAT THE ONE APPROACH HE WILL NOT ACCEPT IS: “But the one approach I will not accept is inaction.” Oo, big talk. And what about failure? Is that an option, or is it maybe not an option?

And we can do it, he says, because we put a man on the moon, even though some people said it couldn’t be done. Which was the proof that technology can do anything at all, including drill safely for oil a mile beneath the ocean, so enough with the moon landing thing already, is what I’m saying.

“And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -– our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how we’re going to get there. We know we’ll get there.” Er, where was that again?


His big finish was about a local tradition called the “Blessing of the Fleet,” which he heard about in his many trips to the Gulf Coast or possibly when he rented The Perfect Storm. Priests of miscellaneous religions bless the shrimp boats, which then go out and sink, because “The blessing is not that God has promised to remove all obstacles and dangers. The blessing is that He is with us always.” Like the images in our brains of oil-coated pelicans.

Everything you need to know about the war in Afghanistan...

you can tell by Gen. David Petraeus’s unconsciousness.

Today -100: June 15, 1910: Of street corner oratory and the perversion of faith and morals

A mob of white men in Darrington, Washington expels 30 Japanese working for the United States Lumber Company from the town after partaking of “much street corner oratory.”

The pope withdraws the encyclical that so pissed off the Germans, referring to Luther as “heretical” and Protestantism “the perversion of faith and morals”. Now the Vatican says it didn’t intend to insult anyone.

Today -100: June 14, 1910: Of the rights of citizenship, American intervention in Nicaragua (I know!), and typoos

Teddy Roosevelt, at long last returning to America aboard the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, showed that common touch for which he is renowned, attending a Catholic service in steerage. He welcomed the immigrants to America, warned them against associating with strangers upon landing, and “exhorted them to be mindful of the duties of citizenship and to protect the rights of women.”

Nicaraguan President Madriz sends a letter to Taft protesting the actions of the commander of the US gunboat Paducah, who threatened to fight government forces if they occupied the port of Bluefields, effectively protecting the Estradists as they retreated from the town. Then he insisted that customs duties not be paid to the government, now in possession of the customs house, but to the revolutionists. Evidently some of the rebel ships are flying the American flag.

The NYT index I use for these posts is full of sloppy typos, or possibly mis-readings based on faded newsprint. A few days ago I enjoyed “German Protest to Pore” (Pope). Today the supposed first paragraph of one story reads: “Declaring that, he is willing to resign his scat in Congress if he fails to convince a fairminded committee that the Administration should be investigated with regard tao the sale of sugur lands in the Philippines, Representative Martin of Colorado introduced another resolution in the House to-day upon this subject.” That’s a serious threat, because you know how much Rep. Martin loved his scat.

Obit of the Day

A neurologist who helped coin the term “persistent vegetative state”: Fred Plum.

Today -100: June 13, 1910: Governor’s daughter stoned

A royal decree in Spain allows non-Catholic religious societies to display the insignia for public worship and other ceremonies (I’m not sure precisely what that means, but you get the general idea). The Vatican formally protests.

And a papal encyclical denouncing Martin Luther (in case the last three or four centuries of papal encyclicals denouncing Martin Luther hadn’t sunk in) leads to protests in Germany.

A referendum in the relatively new state of Oklahoma decided that there would be a permanent capital and that it would be Oklahoma City. The governor’s 17-year-old daughter cheered the outcome, but made the mistake of doing so on the streets of Guthrie; she was stoned. That is, stones were thrown at her. The state seal was “secretly rushed” from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in an automobile (Ms Haskell rushed from Guthrie to Oklahoma City by train).

Today -100: June 12, 1910: Of homesteads and savages

Taft opens up federal lands in Colorado and Wyoming to homesteading, to prevent Americans emigrating to the Canadian north-west.

Creepy Headline of the Day -100: “Japan To Wipe Out Savages.” The aborigines of Formosa. Okay, headhunters, but when one group of people is announcing plans to “wipe out” another group of people, a little self-reflection might be appropriate before affixing the word savages. Here’s the New York Times’s opinion: “As the Japanese appear unable to enter into any lasting truce with them or induce them to submit to civilization, there seems nothing for it now bu war to the knife, which means extermination of the wretches.” Or they could, you know, stop trying to colonize the Formosans’ land.

BP turducken

Lizz Winstead tweet: “Stop running ads for BP unless Tony Hayward is standing there covered in oil holding a pelican covered in oil.”

What’s the word for a seagull covered in oil stuffed inside a pelican covered in oil stuffed inside a Tony Hayward covered in oil?

Bullhorn moment

Lindsey Graham says Obama needs “a bullhorn moment where he went to the Gulf of Mexico and said, ‘We’re going to get this right, I’m going to get on it.’” So President Canute needs to go to the Gulf and yell at the oil spill. Excellent advice, Huckleberry.

Today -100: June 11, 1910: Of Finland and Mexico

Russia removes whatever autonomy Finland’s Diet had.

Mexican troops recapture Valladolid.

We are protesting so that people know we are not killers

In the most terrifying protest ever, professional clowns in San Salvador, who make money annoying people on public transportation, protested against people who dress up as clowns and rob people on public transportation (Monday a clown shot a bus passenger who refused to pay up).





The horror. The horror.

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?