Sunday, June 19, 2011
Today -100: June 19, 1911: Of sulky dictators and wrathful sultans
Porifirio Díaz says, “I have broken all the bonds which hold me to Mexico, and even if I were asked I would not return to take part in the politics of the country.”
In other news, no one is asking Porfirio Díaz to return to take part in the politics of the country.
Headline of the Day -100: “Fled From Sultan’s Wrath.” The vanished former dentist of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, one Frank Faber, has been found. What happened was this: Dr. Faber was attempting to extract a molar from the sultan, but used too little cocaine. The sultan yelled, as one does, and Faber promptly decamped to Berlin, and just kept running. His wife, who he left behind in his haste, has finally tracked him down in Chicago.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Today -100: June 18, 1911: Of bribery, eyeglass wars, ingratitude, yeggmen, and a highly diverting bill of sprightly vaudeville
Cleveland police charge and club striking garment workers who were threatening scabs.
The Senate is once again investigating the election-by-bribery of William Lorimer. This time they plan to do a less cursory job and will interview the entire Illinois Legislature.
Headline of the Day -100: “EYEGLASS WAR RENEWED. Optometrists Suspect Oculists of a Secret Attack and Plan to Resist.” You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses, would you?
In exile, Porfirio Díaz issues a statement about the Revolution, accusing the Mexican people of “ingratitude” and claiming that he abdicated to deprive the US of an excuse to intervene. He denies having been a military dictator, saying (I paraphrase), Did you see how crap the military’s performance was? In fact, he says, it was his recent liberalization that created the Revolution because it was seen by his enemies as a sign of weakness. So the lesson he draws is that he should have been an even bigger shit.
The mayor of Cass Lake, Minnesota, a doctor, is arrested for being the “head and plotting genius” of a band of yeggmen, following a shoot-out between two yeggs on one side, and police and Pinkerton men on the other. Dr. Dumas blames the charges on politics.
And opening today -100, a highly diverting bill of sprightly vaudeville:
Also of interest: wordorigins.org offers a list of words coined in 1911 (h/t Fritinancy), including brassiere, air force, floozy and hophead.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Weiners, cottage cheese, traumatic head injuries, and boobies
From various British news sources:
New Statesman: I haven’t read this, because I don’t really think at this stage in my life I need “Weinergate Explained,” but I just have to wonder if the NS couldn’t have found someone to write it who wasn’t named Cockburn.
Daily Telegraphy: Headline of the Day: “Israelis Call for Facebook Boycott of Cottage Cheese.”
The Telegraph reports on an important article in Acta Neurochirurgica, the official journal of the European Association of Neurological Studies, in which some big-time neurologists (I’m assuming) read through their old Asterix comic books and found the depictions of no fewer than 704 traumatic head injuries.
Independent: Scientific Headline of the Day: “Booby That Inspired Darwin Caught in an Evolutionary Trap.” Would you like to see a picture of a booby? ... Hello, new Google search readers:
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Today -100: June 16, 1911: Of money monopolies and firing squads
NJ Gov. Woodrow Wilson inveighs against the over-concentration of banking, which he calls the “money monopoly.” Such a monopoly must necessarily “chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.”
During the fighting in Mexico, the rebels executed a Col. Morelos. But there was some delay because they’d never run a firing squad before, so Morelos had to give them step-by-step instructions. It’s lucky he was there.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Hostilities
In response to congressional demands for a report on why the war in Libya doesn’t violate the War Powers Act, the Obama admin released a report (pdf) today saying the war in Libya doesn’t violate the War Powers Act. So that settles that.
In fact, the War Powers Act doesn’t even apply to this little contretemps. “Given the important U.S. interests served by U.S. military operations in Libya...” Oh, this war is for important interests, why didn’t you say so. “...and the limited nature, scope and duration of the anticipated actions...” Oh, is that what you anticipated. Incidentally, the limited duration of the anticipated actions was just extended by NATO through September. “...the President had constitutional authority, as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and pursuant to his foreign affairs powers...” What foreign affairs powers are those? To appoint ambassadors, subject to Senate confirmation, to negotiate treaties, ditto, and that’s it. And as to his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and Chief Chief Chief, where in the Constitution does it say he gets to bomb any country he wants? “...to direct such limited military operations abroad. The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization...” Further? When has there been any? “...because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision.” Actually, the War Powers Act applies to “any case in which U.S. Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities.”
“U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of a United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorizes the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.” So it’s Vietnam 1962, not Vietnam 1966.
The argument isn’t just that it’s such a small war that it’s not worth bothering Congress’s pretty head about – compared to the currency our many “real” wars, it’s the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny bowl – but that it’s not real “hostilities” if Americans aren’t dying, only Libyans are, because wogs don’t count.
An exciting time for African democracy
Italians voted this week on several national referenda on Silvio Berlusconi’s policies, put on the ballot by his opponents. Berlusconi’s policy towards the election, therefore, was to tell his supporters not to vote, since referenda fail if they don’t get a 50% turnout (before this week, none had for 16 years), and use his dominance of the state and private media to stifle discussion of the election. But there was a high turnout, and c.94% votes to overturn his plans to build new nuclear plants, privatize water, and give immunity to government officials such as himself who are just too busy to be bothered by corruption trials.
A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton gave a speech to the African Union in Addis Ababa.
SAY, HILLARY, WHAT TIME IS IT? “Let me begin by saying this is an exciting time for African democracy.”
Indeed, “we do know that too many people in Africa still live under longstanding rulers, men who care too much about the longevity of their reign, and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future.” She did not say how many people in Africa is the right number to still live under longstanding rulers, men who care too much about the longevity of their reign, and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future, but apparently the current number is too many.
The Arab Spring (er, didn’t that lead to a military coup, several bloody crackdowns, and an ongoing civil/international war?) sent a message: “The status quo is broken; the old ways of governing are no longer acceptable; it is time for leaders to lead with accountability, treat their people with dignity, respect their rights, and deliver economic opportunity.” So evidently in the past, until earlier this year, I guess, the old ways of governing were perfectly acceptable and it was not time for leaders to lead with accountability, treat their people with dignity, respect their rights, and deliver economic opportunity.
The Arab Spring “has particular significance for leaders in Africa and elsewhere who hold on to power at all costs, who suppress dissent, who enrich themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people. To those leaders our message must be clear: Rise to this historic occasion; show leadership by embracing a true path that honors your people’s aspirations; create a future that your young people will believe in, defend, and help build.” So evidently democracy will come about by leaders who hitherto have held on to power at all costs, suppressed dissent and enriched themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people, changing their minds and “showing leadership.” Maybe it’s me, but I’m wondering if we haven’t seen quite enough leadership from people who have held on to power at all costs, suppressed dissent and enriched themselves and their supporters at the expense of their own people.
NOT THAT IT’S A CONTEST OR ANYTHING: “The women of Africa are the hardest working women in the world.”
WELL, NOT THE TIDE OF LIBYAN HISTORY: “There is little question that the kind of activities that, unfortunately, have affected the Libyan people for more than 40 years run against the tide of history.” I don’t think the threat of being “against the tide of history” or “on the wrong side of history,” as she says elsewhere in the speech, is one that really has ever had anyone quaking in their boots. All this “history” talk is the 21st century version of saying that Africans are at a more primitive stage of civilization.
HAS HE CHECKED BEHIND THE SOFA CUSHIONS? “But it has become clearer by the day that [Qaddafi] has lost his legitimacy to rule, and we are long past time when he can or should remain in power.” She does not say when he lost his legitimacy to rule or when and how he acquired that legitimacy in the first place. She says that the AU nations should expel Qaddafi’s diplomats and “increase contact and support for the Transitional National Council.” Maybe the council found the legitimacy that Qaddafi so carelessly lost. Or maybe not, since Clinton doesn’t suggest that African nations recognize it as Libya’s one and true government.
WHAT HILLARY HAS NEVER MET: “We welcome to our shores immigrants from every country represented here... But I have never met an immigrant from Africa who has not said he or she wished they could have done the very same in their own country, among their own people, close to their family, eating the food, smelling the flowers, seeing the sights that are in their blood. I want to see that for Africa, where people are coming home to Africa because this is where opportunity for the future resides.” I believe she’s saying that she wants Obama to go back to Kenya and let her be president.
Oh, and “seeing the sights that are in their blood”? Unless she’s talking about something involving Raquel Welch in a miniaturized submarine, that comes across just a bit racist.
And then she left early, because of a volcano in Eritrea. Volcanoes always seem to be chasing Obama officials out of countries lately, don’t they?
Today -100: June 15, 1911: Of Fisk, ammo and cat chicks
At the commencement ceremony at Fisk University, a negro college, a letter from President Taft is read: “I am not one of those who believe that it is well to educate the mass of negroes with academic or university education.” He did know he was writing to a university, didn’t he? And one with negro students at that? “On the contrary, I am firmly convinced that the hope of the negro is in his industrial education throughout the South, and in teaching him to be a better farmer, a better carpenter, a better machinist, and a better blacksmith than he is now; and to make more blacksmiths and more good farmers than there now are among the negroes. But I have studied the matter considerably, and have also become convinced that it is necessary to have a few...” Just a few, mind... “...high-class negro universities for those who are to be the leaders of the race and who are to figure prominently in a professional way – their ministers, their physicians, their lawyers, and their teachers – because we have got to treat the race as distinct from the white.” He goes on to praise the quality of Fisk, which “is proved not only by an examination of its college statistics, but by the testimony of the best white men in the community where it exercises its influence.” Well, if the best white men in the community say so...
Teddy Roosevelt also sent a letter. He also said that more negroes needed industrial training than higher ed but that “a certain proportion of the race” should have the latter, but he somehow managed to say it without being such a condescending prick.
One possible reason the Mexican military performed so poorly against the rebels becomes clear from an inspection of army supplies at Juarez: really crap government-manufactured ammunition, containing so little powder that it couldn’t fire any distance at all. The stuff the rebels had, smuggled in from the US, was much better. Also, the federales had 200 80mm shells but 70mm mortars.
Headline of the Day -100: “Cat Hatches Chickens.” It must be true: a Baptist Sunday-school teacher in New Jersey says so. He will send the cat and her four chicks to President Taft as soon as they are old enough to travel, although what Taft is supposed to do with these miraculous creatures, I have no idea.
Reading further, I see that the cat is named Barney. I begin to distrust this Sunday-school teacher’s understanding of biology.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Today -100: June 14, 1911: Of monarchists & anti-Semites
Portugal is preparing for an expected invasion by monarchists.
Headline of the Day -100: “Anti-Semites Beaten.” Sadly, not literally. In Austrian parliamentary elections.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Republican debate: Don’t be stupid
Whatever else you can say about tonight’s Republican debate, Neil Patrick Harris did a terrific job of hosting.
Asked about Pawlenty’s claim he could get 5% economic growth, Santorum says he won’t comment on “4% or 5%”, showing the proper Republican dismissiveness of “numbers.”
T-Paw: if China, Brazil can have 5% growth, so can we!
Ron Paul: Why not 15%!
T-Paw refuses to apologize for coining “ObamneyCare™.” But he was really embarrassed at being asked to repeat to Romney’s face the stuff he’s been saying about him behind his back.
T-Paw calls Obama a “declinist.”
Gingrich: if government can set rules for health care, it can set rules for everything in your life, like setting a lifetime cap on wives.
Bachmann says she wants to announce here tonight that Obama will be a One. Term. President.
“De-tax”? Is that a word, Ron Paul?
T-Paw is not for being a chump (something about free trade).
Bachmann: the EPA should really be renamed the Job Killing Organization of America (JKOA).
Gingrich: “right-to-work” states are telling the other states, “Don’t be stupid.”
Bachmann says she fought TARP behind closed doors. Possibly the doors of her padded cell.
Who will support the manned space program? T-Paw kind of. Gingrich wants a decentralized space program, and cut out the bureaucracy. Because we built the Trans-Continental Railroad without a National Department of Railroads.
Mittens: we shouldn’t be asking what parts of the federal government to cut, we should be asking what parts to keep. Isn’t that basically the same question?
Cain says something about throwing our grandchildren in wheelchairs off a bridge. Really, unless he’s talking about setting a national no-anchovy-toppings policy, I don’t really care what Herman Cain has to say.
And he wants us to be just like Pinochet’s Chile, or something.
Santorum: you approach decisions using faith and reason, and if your faith is pure and your reason is right, you’ll come to the same place. Although if that place is your dining room and there’s a fetus on the table, there’s a strong possibility something has gone badly wrong with your faith, your reason, or both.
Cain: when I said I wouldn’t appoint Muslims to my cabinet, I meant the ones trying to kill us. By putting anchovies on our pizzas.
Gingrich says he wouldn’t appoint people not willing to be loyal to the United States. “We did this in dealing with the Nazis, and we did this in dealing with the Communists, and it was controversial both times”. Always nice to have a shout-out to Joseph McCarthy, although I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about with the Nazis.
Governor Romney, spicy wings or mild? Spicy (but ask him again tomorrow, and he’ll say mild). Really, John King asked that question.
Who supports a federal Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? T-Paw, Mittens, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann do, the rest would leave it to the states. Paul says government should be out of the business of giving marriage licenses, it should be up to the church. Atheists, you’re shit out of luck.
Overturn Obama’s repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Pawlenty would leave it up to the service chiefs. Paul: rights don’t come in groups, we shouldn’t have gay rights. Romney fails to answer. Gingrich would listen to the commanders, whose lives are at risk. Bachmann: overturn after listening to the chiefs. Santorum: repeal the repeal.
Whenever some random New Hampshirehoovian asks a question on the big screen, Bachmann responds while looking at the screen and not at the camera, not having learned anything from her State of the Union response.
If there’s one thing Bachmann really wants you to take away from this debate, judging by the number of times she’s brought it up, it’s that she’s fostered 23 children.
Should a 5-year-old illegal immigrant be turned away from a hospital emergency room? Ron Paul says something about no mandates on hospitals, which I take to mean yes. But the Catholic Church should be allowed to take care of him.
T-Paw, Coke or Pepsi? Coke.
Romney: every one of these candidates would be a better president than Obama. Obama doesn’t have a foreign policy.
No one willing to say which of the other candidates they’d choose as their running mate. Ron Paul doesn’t even know what their views on the Federal Reserve are.
Gingrich: “we don’t have even today the intelligence to know what we’re doing.” Okay, he’s talking about Libya here, but it does seem to sum things up nicely.
You should probably step back
Obama says that if he were Anthony Weiner, “I would resign,” because “When you get to the point where, because of various personal distractions, you can’t serve as effectively as you need to, at the time when people are worrying about jobs, and their mortgages, and paying the bills — then you should probably step back.”
Because if there’s one thing Obama hates, it’s politicians who can’t serve as effectively as they need to.
Today -100: June 13, 1911: Of presidential speeches and popular elections
The secretary of state explains that the reason the US hasn’t recognized the post-monarchy republic in Portugal is because... Portugal hasn’t asked.
A NYT editorial refers to a mini-controversy I must have missed because I’ve been avoiding any story about the stalled tariff reciprocity treaty with Canada. Some people (the Times does not say which people) have criticized Taft for pushing the treaty in speeches. They insist that the only public statements a president is authorized by the Constitution to make are State of the Union addresses, and anything else is an improper attempt to coerce Congress.
The Senate votes 64-24 for a constitutional amendment for the popular election of senators. A provision (already rejected by the House) giving supervision of those elections to the federal government passes after a tie is broken by the vice president. Only one Democrat voted for it (because it would prevent D’s in the South disfranchising black voters); 5 “progressive” Republicans, including LaFollette, voted with them.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Today -100: June 12, 1911: Of pueues
The Chinese government has reversed its decision to allow men to cut off their queues (those pigtails) – or, in an unfortunate NYT typo, their “pueues.” I’m not sure what one of those is, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to cut it off.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Today -100: June 11, 1911: Of duels, massacres, yeggmen, and answering machines
South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease has been trying to have Atlanta lawyer Thomas Felder indicted for bribery (the governor of Georgia will later refuse to extradite Felder, saying there is no evidence against him). Felder says Blease is coming after him to cover up having taken bribes from liquor houses when he was a state senator, and has challenged Blease to either bring a libel suit against him or challenge him to a duel. Whichever. However, Blease “is forbidden by his oath of office to participate in duels” (literally??) so a W.P. Beard, who seems to be just an ordinary citizen, has offered to duel in the governor’s place.
Towards the end of the Mexican Revolution, there was a massacre of 300 or so Chinese in Torreon. The story going around is that after the rebels took the town, they looted a courtroom, taking some bottles of cognac which were actually evidence from a trial some years before for an attempted mass poisoning at a banquet. They took the bottles to a Chinese restaurant, drank them, and... you get the idea.
Your archaic vocabulary word of the day: yeggman, as in the NYT headline “Yeggmen Blow Up a Town.” Safecrackers – yeggmen – dynamited a post office safe in French Creek, West Virginia, starting a fire that burned down most of the town (which had no fire dept). The yeggmen – I really like that word – got away with about $600 in cash and stamps.
Some French guys have invented the telephone answering machine, a device to record voice messages on phonograph records. Previously, it was only possible to record voices directly, not over phone wires.
Friday, June 10, 2011
It’s just kind of _____, is what I’m saying.
Leonard Stern, creator of Mad Libs, died this week, just before the release of the Sarah Palin emails. Coincidence? Conspiracy? Discuss.
Caption contest
Pope Benny and Joe Biden met at the Vatican last week to discuss the relative advantages of pope-mobiles versus Amtrak, or something (no transcript was or will be released – it’s all very mysterious). What do you think they said?
(Did you know that Biden is the first Catholic vice president of the United States?)
Today -100: June 10, 1911: Of little hatchets, conventions, long falls, and feather beds
Carrie Nation, “saloon smasher” extraordinaire, dies. She made a living off her notoriety by selling souvenir hatchets.
Possibly in Ms Nation’s honor, temperance advocate Tillie McGowan breaks up a picnic in Atchison, Kansas, at which beer was being served, chasing one of the picnickers into the Missouri River with a rifle.
Mexico will soon hold a convention of “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” to select a presidential candidate for the October elections. Since another name for “the political party which has emanated from the revolution” is Maderist, I venture to predict that its candidate will be Francisco Madero Jr.
Meanwhile, Madero refuses to attend a bull fight, objecting to the fact that he had been advertised as one of the spectators.
China demands a $10 million indemnity for the massacre of some of its citizens during the Mexican Revolution and for their property losses.
Possibly breaking new grounds in racism, a Cherokee state senator in Oklahoma is leading a fight against the appointment by Washington of a negro assistant supervisor of Indian schools for the Five Civilized Tribes. (A couple of days later the White House claimed that the announcement of the appointment was mistaken.)
Not breaking new grounds in racism at all, several wealthy white planters in Conecuh County, Alabama are arrested for holding their farm laborers in conditions of peonage.
Literally breaking new ground, a German aviator attempting to set an altitude record with a passenger instead falls 6,650 feet to his death. Which, to be fair, was probably a record.
Headline of the Day -100: “Suicide With Feather Bed.” Just what it sounds like: she suffocated herself to death. With a feather bed.
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Good-enough governance
At his hearings to be ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker admitted that “We’re not out to clearly create a shining city on a hill. That’s not going to happen.” So what is his definition of success? “Good-enough governance: Governance that is good enough to ensure that the country doesn’t degenerate back into a safe haven for al-Qaeda.”
The handful of Al Qaida who enjoyed safe haven in Afghanistan didn’t do any particular harm to the Afghan people, so Crocker is suggesting that the Afghans are basically irrelevant to the purpose of the war in Afghanistan, as far as the US is concerned. “Good enough for wogs,” he might as well have said.
NYT headline: “U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes.” I’m pretty sure the Yemenis realize they’re being bombed, so this is no more a secret campaign than the “secret” bombing of Cambodia.
Liberty County (TX) Sheriff Capt. Rex Evans says that just because the tip that there were dozens of bodies buried on a farm came from a “psychic” did not make it any less valid. Er, yes it did.
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