A little song, a little dance...

Headline of the Day: “Israel Stops Hairdressers Travelling to West Bank.” And quote of the day: “I’m not sure what security risk [is posed by] hairspraying models.”

And note the death of Claude Stanley Choules, the very last surviving combatant veteran of World War I. Known as Chuckles, because the last surviving combatant veteran of World War I would just have to have been called Chuckles. He also served in World War II and, as if two world wars weren’t scary enough, a 76-year-long marriage. He was a pacifist.

Today -100: May 5, 1911: Of national insurance, anti-reelectionism, grave-robbers, and Hitchcock plots

British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George introduces a National Insurance bill, a plan for insurance against sickness and unemployment. Workers’ contributions would be partially matched by contributions from employers and the state, but the benefits would be mostly administered by “friendly societies,” which are private voluntary bodies formed in the nineteenth century for the purpose of providing mutual insurance by members of the upper working classes and lower middle classes. The Tories aren’t putting up any significant opposition, talking about death panels, nuthin’.

Mexico’s Congress is working on a bill to ban re-election for the offices of president, vice-president, governor, legislator (although a provision to ban the relatives of incumbents from succeeding them failed).

Evidently those English archaeologists didn’t steal the Ark of the Covenant, but are believed to have stolen Solomon’s sword, crown and ring.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100: “Sees a Hitchcock Plot.” Sadly, the Hitchcock in question is Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock, accused by Sen. Jefferson “Jeff” Davis (D-AK) of a “diabolical plot” to bankrupt a women’s magazine. Not exactly North by Northwest, is it?

What does it say about American politics

that all 235 voting Republican members of the House voted for the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” Act? How is this a party-line issue?

Today -100: May 4, 1911: Of crashes, peace, and raiders of the lost ark

Don’t think I’ve mentioned that the US has an air force now, which the NYT calls the Army Aero Corps, although I doubt that’s the official name. Anyway, its head, Lt Paul Beck, just had a little crash in the Texas desert after his engine cut out at 300 feet, but was uninjured.

Pres. Taft opens the Third National Peace Congress in Baltimore. Talking in a veiled way about Mexico, he says that the US is hampered in bringing peace by the suspicions of others about its territorial ambitions. Taft, the former governor of the Philippines, says the US has none.

Riots in Jerusalem because some English archaeologists are believed to have stolen the Ark of the Covenant (they then fled the country very quickly indeed, on a yacht)(possibly with a giant boulder rolling after them)(or should I be doing H. Rider Haggard jokes?).

Today -100: May 3, 1911: Of mothers, polar explorers, child labor, and pie

The National Congress of Mothers’ 15th annual meeting passes resolutions for a federal law against polygamy, for a ban on the marriage of “feeble-minded and degenerate” people, and denouncing soothing syrups, medicated soft drinks and comic supplements.

Competing polar explorers Scott and Amundsen meet at Whale Bay.

Following the Triangle factory fire, NYC aldermen vote to require quarterly inspections of all buildings in NYC used for manufacturing. Mayor Gaynor vetoes it because there aren’t enough inspectors.

The NY Assembly passes (86 to 36) a bill to restrict the work of children under 18 and women under 21 to 54 hours a week. Republicans object that the bill is unconstitutional because it curtails the right of contract.

Headline of the Day -100: “Ate Pie Daily, Lived to 96.” Twice a day, in fact. Job Tillou of South Orange, NJ. He also chewed tobacco.

It’s a miracle!

Peru’s President Alan Garcia says the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden belongs to... wait for it... the late Pope John Paul II. According to Garcia the extra-judicial execution was, literally... I mean LITERALLY, a miracle.

Today -100: May 2, 1911: Of May Day and special delivery

May Day riots in Paris, just, you know, because. At one rally, a German worker made an anti-militarist speech, saying that in the event of war, German workers would refuse to fight against their French comrades. That’s reassuring.

Rebels in Mexico capture Mazatlan, Durango City, and Topolobampo.

A man attempts to mail himself in a wood box from Lawrence, Kansas to Galveston but is forced by heat to come out in Fort Worth.

Peace and human dignity

First Obama shows us a birth certificate, then a death certificate.

I’m not sorry to see bin Laden dead, but I can’t share in the triumphalism currently flooding the airwaves, nor do I feel any sense of relief, since I don’t expect this to change anything.

(Triumphalism in Obama’s address: “tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.” Dude, it was killing a dude on dialysis, not the freaking moon landing. Though it did take as long to accomplish.)

I could have done without Obama’s use of the word justice – “bring him to justice,” “justice has been done.” This is George Bush’s definition of justice, a shooting without a trial. It might be justice in a moral sense, but from the standpoint of a state – the only standpoint a head of state should adopt – the phrase “justice has been done” should only follow a judicial process.

Obama: “His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” Because nothing says peace and human dignity like sending soldiers into a foreign country guns blazing.

Speaking of peace and human dignity, this happened 8 years ago today:

Protocol

Following NATO’s attempted assassination-from-above of Qaddafi that killed his son and three grandsons, mobs have attacked the American, British, French and Italian embassies in Tripoli. A British official called the attacks “a very strong breach of international protocol,” an example of British understatement made all the more impressive by the fact that he was on fire at the time.

Today -100: May 1, 1911: Of train delays and aerial torpedoes

New Jersey’s new governor, one Woodrow Wilson, will take a four-week speaking tour of the Western states, but claims not to be running for any higher office.

The Mexico City Express which arrived in San Antonio at 2:30 pm yesterday -100 (the only line still open between the capital and the United States) was stopped ten different times by rebels looking for federal soldiers.

Who will be the first to weaponize aircraft? The problem is that light-weight 1911 airplanes can be destabilized by the recoil of guns. Krupp has just patented a self-propelling aerial torpedo for use against a “hostile balloon.”

Un-Saif

Yesterday, Qaddafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations with NATO. Today, NATO killed his son and several of his grandchildren. A simple “No” would have sufficed.

Today -100: April 30, 1911: Of tunnels, hanging, and hobble skirts

The Colorado Legislature votes to dig a tunnel through the Rockies. The NYT seems to think that the most important thing about this story is that the bill passed a close vote in the lower house due to the votes of two women legislators.

Minnesota abolishes the death penalty.

The NYT updates the situation in Mexico: the government is fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkked. The military is losing or on the defense everywhere. “The patriotic efforts of the members of Congress to arouse the conservative sentiment throughout the county to the support of the Government is largely without effect, because most of those gentlemen have no local standing or influence. They have spent their whole lives in the capital. The case of Deputy Bulnes is a typical one. Although he has represented Lower California for twenty years, he has never even visited his constituency.”

The queen of England has banned hobble skirts and other tight skirts from court. Not that you could curtsy in one anyway.

It’s the only logical explanation

Last month, doctors in Libya claimed to have found Viagra in the pockets of some of Qaddadi’s soldiers. And you know what that means, don’t you? Don’t you? Well, UN Ambassador Susan Rice does. This week she told the UN Security Council that Qaddafi is giving his troops Viagra to encourage them to engage in mass rape.

(Asked to back up the Viagra claim or to offer any evidence of sexual assaults by Libyan troops, State Dept spokesmodel Jake Sullivan declined.)

Ah, Texas

The Voter ID bill Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry wants won’t let people use college photo ID cards, but will let them use handgun licenses.

Today -100: April 29, 1911: The philosophy of what now?

Taylorism. Frederick Taylor holds a demonstration of “scientific management” at Carnegie Hall. He showed how 30 girls in a bicycle factory can do the work of 100 in less time. Taylor bemoans the short-sighted trade unions for opposing putting 70 girls out of work through scientific management. For example – and watch out for one of the greatest phrases in the history of the English language – “When my friend [Frank Bunker] Gilbreth worked out his philosophy of bricks he ran against the unions.”

Headline: “Russia Grants Privilege to Jews.” Recently Russia’s been expelling Jews from the cities and restricting their education, so it’s good to see them being granted an entirely new privilege. Jews in Siberia will be allowed to use the curative waters of Minusinsk for up to two months, provided they have a medical certificate and don’t engage in trade while they are taking the cure.

Wait, which sports stars?

So the British will be voting on whether to hold elections under the Alternative Vote system. The Tories, currently running Britain despite having received just 36% of the votes in the last general election, like the current system just fine and say that AV, in which voters rank candidates according to preference, is simply too confusing for the poor, stupid British people (Jimmy Carr points out that AV is just basically a game of fuck-marry-kill) (although he called it shag-marry-kill, which is just adorable).

Anyway, I got an email from the Conservative Party chairthing which has this convincing sentence: “So if, like me, like Churchill, like many leading historians, sports stars and scientists, you know that AV would be a disaster for our democracy...”

(The other big news story in Britain is that at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron adopted a line from an insurance commercial and told Labour MP Angela Eagle, who had just pointed out that he had told an untruth, “calm down, dear.”) (Cameron says the furore over this proves that socialists have no sense of humor.)

Today -100: April 28, 1911: Of reapportionment, a Jew in Egypt, the value of fingers and toes, dinners, and bosh

The House votes on a reapportionment bill, expanding the House from 391 to 433 (435 if and when Arizona and New Mexico become states). That would be one rep per 211,877 people. This is the last time the size of the House was increased, as was done in every previous decade (every previous decade also saw the accession of new states). (Historical oddity: after the 1920 census, there was no reapportionment. Not sure why; check back here in ten years.)

Reapportionment of districts will be decided by the states as usual; the D’s voted down an amendment to have it done by the Department of Commerce and Labor and another one which would have allowed for referenda for those states so inclined. Republicans from Democratic-dominated Kentucky and Missouri complain that gerrymandered Democratic congressional districts in their states have much smaller populations than Republican ones, and propose several amendments to correct that, all of which fail.

Rep. Victor Berger, Socialist from Wisconsin, proposed a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, which he described as “an obstructive and useless body, a menace to the liberties of the people and an obstacle to social growth; a body many of the members of which are the representatives neither of a State nor of its people, but solely of certain predatory combinations”. Berger may be disciplined for violating the House rule against telling the truth about criticizing the Senate.

France announces that its military intervention in Morocco is necessary to protect foreigners at Fez, re-establish order, and protect the sovereignty of the sultan. Isn’t it nice of them to help out like that?

In other North African colonial news, Britain is rumored to be planning to send Sir Mathew Nathan to Egypt as its new Resident. Or as the NYT puts it, “Jew May Rule Egypt.”

Headline of the Day -100: “Value of Fingers and Toes.” In Lake County Superior Court, an employee at the Standard Steel Car Works who lost four fingers in an industrial accident was awarded $100, and another man got $500 for five toes.

President Taft is visiting New York City. Last night he attended a dinner of newspaper publishers, a dinner of Methodists, and a dinner in honor of retired Congressman J. Van Vechten Olcott.

Headline Expletive of the Day -100: “Bosh, Says Taft of Annexation.” At, I believe, his second dinner of the evening. He again denied plans to annex Canada. Canada must be feeling either relieved or kind of insulted by the constant repetitions of how the US is just not that into them.

Today -100: April 27, 1911: Of unwanted colonies, unwanted immigrants, and robes

The Dutch seize an American possession, Palmas Island, part of the Philippines. But the US doesn’t plan to object because the island is considered valueless. Don’t know what the 50 or so residents of the island feel about that. Hurt, is my guess. The issue went to arbitration in the 1920s, when Palmas was awarded to the Netherlands. Today it is still part of Indonesia, although closer geographically to the Philippines.

Canada may start banning the immigration of African-Americans on the grounds that they can’t adapt to the cold climate and are therefore likely to become public charges.

Headline of the Day -100: “Kitchener in Robes at Last.” Lord Kitchener takes his seat in the House of Lords for the first time since being ennobled 12 years ago.

Today -100: April 26, 1911: Of truces

Madero didn’t have the authority to agree to a meaningful truce after all. Other rebel leaders continue to fight.

Daily Telegraph headlines containing phrases that sound like euphemisms for masturbation, but aren’t

From today’s paper. Those phrases highlighted in red for the masturbation-euphemism impaired.

“Menzies Campbell Accuses David Cameron of Stoking AV Row.”

“Key Chernobyl Officer Criticises Japan’s Fukushima Efforts.”

“Women Join Morris Men.”

“Clobbering Clegg is Too Harsh a Punishment.”

“Royal Wedding: Heavy Rain Forecast for Big Day.”