The White House explains...

why atheists and the ACLU can go fuck themselves.

“A sense of proportion,” indeed.

Today -100: October 31, 1911: Of imperial apologies, boxed generals, indiscriminate slaughters, and going to the theater

Chinese Emperor Hsuan-Tung issues edicts granting full constitutional government and apologizing for his past actions: “I have reigned three years and have always acted conscientiously in the interests of the people. But I have not employed men properly, as I am without political skill.” To be fair, he is 5 years old (you may remember the little guy as the protagonist of Bertolucci’s film The Last Emperor.) “Much of the people’s money has been taken, but nothing to benefit the people has been achieved.” He observes, “The whole Empire is seething. The spirits of our nine deceased Emperors are unable to enjoy the sacrifices properly”. Obama never mentions ghosts in his State of the Union speeches. The emperor promises a new cabinet with no members of the nobility, amnesty for political prisoners from all the recent revolutions, the abolition of old laws, etc. (Spoiler alert: too little, too late, little emperor dude).

Headline of the Day -100: “General Escaped in a Box.” Gen. Chong-Piao, commander at Wu-Chang, escaping the Chinese Revolution there.

The NYT correspondent reports that the Italian Army has responded to an attack on it in Libya with “indiscriminate slaughter.”

In a speech in Chicago, President Taft suggests that the Republicans may be turned out in the 1912 elections. It is believed that he’s feeling a little demoralized after a rather lukewarm reception during his tour of the country, especially in the West.

A black man sues NYC’s Lyric Theatre for refusing to let him and his female companion sit in the orchestra seats he’d purchased over the telephone (they offered him the balcony). It is illegal in NY to exclude people from a theater on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

Today -100: October 30, 1911: Of picturesque troop movements, lost legs, and Pulitzers

20,000 Chinese soldiers are demanding complete constitutional government, or they will join in attacking the Manchu dynasty. Manchu women in Beijing (those who aren’t fleeing the city) are trying to look more Chinese, wearing Chinese dress including special shoes to make their feet look small. “Picturesque movements of Manchu troops through the city gates occur silently after nightfall to prevent excitement among the population,” writes a correspondent who seems to think he’s reviewing a pageant put on for his amusement – “picturesque” indeed!

Headline and Lawsuit of the Day -100: “GETS $15,000 FOR LOST LEG.; Court Then Sets $10,000 as the Value of the Same Man's Wife's Love.” C. H. Kealiher sued his parents-in-law, who alienated the affections of his wife, their daughter, and then “suddenly became friendly and tried to sell him a half interest in an Alaska mine.” While he was inspecting the mine, the father-in-law took charge of the bucket elevator, “threw on all speed, and he came up so fast he was whirled around the drum like a pinwheel until the bucket was smashed, and he sustained injuries that necessitated the amputation of a leg.”

Joseph Pulitzer dies.

Romney explains “this problem”

Twitt Romney on Occupy Wall Street:

If we had 6 percent unemployment, instead of 9.1 percent unemployment, this wouldn’t be going on. So if we had a president who had understood what it took to reboot the American economy and get us back to work, we wouldn’t have this problem, or we wouldn’t have people protesting, because they’d be working. There are some people in that protest effort who are just angry that they can’t find work. And that their costs are going up and their income is going down. And I certainly sympathize with those people. I’m sure there are others in the group that have less benevolent sentiments and are intent on just causing difficulty of one kind or another.

So the only motivations for protest (or “this problem”) that Romney finds acceptable (or “benevolent”) are self-interested, apolitical ones which do not challenge the financial establishment (“cause difficulty of one kind or another”) or economic inequality in any way.

Today -100: October 29, 1911: Of unknown Eskimos, elephants, Muslims, holy wars, and boning

Explorers for the American Museum of Natural History have discovered a hitherto unknown tribe of Eskimos. Who shared their food with the explorers, but also insisted on sharing all the explorers’ food, before sending them on their way without any food.

The king and queen of England, aka the emperor and empress of India, will be visiting India for a coronation durbar. But no one can convince Queen Mary to ride an elephant. And as everyone knows, you can’t have a decent durbar without elephants. Lots and lots of elephants.

In 1911, there were approximately 200 million Muslims in the world. Of these, 95 million are located in the British Empire, compared to 90 million Christians. British Christians are getting worried about this.

The Vatican is evidently distancing itself from the bishops and clergy in Italy who are calling the war in Libya a holy war.

The first Solvay Conference, one of a series that brought together eminent egg-heads and essentially kick-started 20th century physics, opens (click for whole picture).


Note Albert Einstein, 2nd from the right, Marie Curie sitting. Also Ernest Rutherford, Max Planck, Henri Poincaré...

ProQuest Typo of the Day (LAT): “BONING DEFENDED.; An English Clergyman Says He Is Ashamed of the Opposition to Boning Matches.”

Especially church picnics, probably

Miami Herald headline: “Colombia Elections Come amid Violence and Corruption Charges.” But to be fair, so does everything else in Colombia. The headline might as well have been “Colombia Church Picnics Come Amid Violence and Corruption Charges.”

Massive fraud, 41 candidates assassinated this year alone, or, as President Santos puts it, a great improvement in political violence.

That free trade agreement was such a good idea.

Today -100: October 28, 1911: Of presidential hands, the comic opera of South Carolina politics, and bricks

In a speech in Chicago, President Taft implicitly denies that he has any political motive in going after US Steel: “I would rather cut off my right hand than to do anything to disturb the business of this country, especially with a motive of cultivating political success.” And you know he’s serious, because his right hand is his eatin’ hand.

South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease, while waiting at a hotel with friends to see if the editor of the Spartansburg Journal will take up Blease’s challenge to show up and repeat his remarks that Blease was “the villain in the comic opera of South Carolina politics” (the editor did not show), is overheard saying “If I were not in politics I would whip the newspaper editor who lied about me. If I were not man enough to do it, I would get a double-barreled shotgun and kill him,” adding “Pistol manufacturers make all men the same size.” Not such idle words in South Carolina, where the lieutenant governor shot and killed the editor of The State in 1903.

Headline of the Day -100: “BRICKMAKERS WIN FIGHT.” Presumably with bricks. Brickmakers have succeeded in blocking plans to build new firehouses in New York state out of concrete. Key to winning the argument: the destruction of Austin, Pennsylvania a month ago when the dam broke. The only buildings that survived were made of brick.

Today -100: October 27, 1911: Of steel trusts and disappointed boy scouts

The US government files suit to dissolve US Steel for violations of the anti-trust laws.

China: the minister of war is reported to have been killed by his own troops. And the rebels have taken the city of Canton and Szechuan province.

The Turks are finally beginning to win some of their battles with the Italians in Libya. Prisoners on both sides are being shot and/or mutilated.

Headline of the Day -100: “Taft Disappoints Boy Scouts.” They waited in the cold for him to give a speech, but all he did was tip his hat at them and drive on; didn’t even get out of the car. The Minnesota governor, who was in the car, later rebuked Taft.

Newt, Calista & the Giant Replica Ax of Doom

Click for bigger – it’s the facial expressions that make this pic.


Caption contest.

Today -100: October 26, 1911: Of war chests, college yells, and hair

Chinese revolutionaries have captured the government’s war chest of 1.5 million taels (however much that might have been in real money). This means government troops can’t be paid. Things are also tense in the fairly new National Assembly, which is threatening that if the powerful minister of posts and communications isn’t fired and punished, the Assembly will dissolve itself. Sheng Hsuan-Huai, for that is his name, was largely responsible for a policy of strengthening the national government at the expense of the provinces, one of the causes of the Revolution.

Speaking at the University of Minnesota, President Taft suggests that students could spend their time better than in “barbaric yells.” “The President’s remarks about college yells were called forth by the greetings he received from the Minnesota students under the leadership of ‘cheer leaders’ who jumped in front of Mr. Taft and went through various sorts of gyrations.” He says that back in his day, college students “got along with a less sharp yell and a somewhat more graceful hurrah.”

Crime of the Day -100: Rae Bogert, a department store model, is mugged for her hair. Which was chestnut.

Rick Santorum, king of the unintentional double entendre

The Frothy One: “And I stood up from the very beginning back in 2003 when the Supreme Court was going create a constitutional right to sodomy and said this is wrong we can’t do this. And so I stood up when no one else did and got hammered for it. I stood up and I continue to stand up.”

Persecution avoided. Phew.

This Salon excerpt from Glenn Greenwald’s new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful, reminds me that I meant to mention this quote from Little Leon Panetta in yesterday’s NYT, about why he supported impunity for Bush admin torturers: “If I’d spent my time persecuting people for the past, I would have never been able to have gotten any traction to move forward with what I wanted to achieve.”

“Persecuting.” Says it all right there, doesn’t it?

Today -100: October 25, 1911: Of roving bands, the Burgs, and Santa Claus

In Mexico, “roving bands of Zapatistas” are looting and burning villages.

Archduke Ferdinand renounces his archdukitude and all his privileges as a member of the Austrian royal family so he can marry the woman he loves, the daughter of a Swiss professor. He will now be known as plain old Ferdinand Burg and will live with Mrs. Burg in Switzerland. The name Burg was evidently just made up. If you’re confused right now, as I was, it turns out that the Archduke Ferdinand whose assassination started World War I was Franz Ferdinand, and this one is his younger brother Ferdinand Karl. Being out of the royal family (officially banished, in fact) only kept him alive a few months longer than his brother; he died of tuberculosis in 1915; Mrs. Burg died in 1979 at 99.


This year, all letters sent to Santa Claus will be destroyed. In the past few years the Post Office had distributed them to charities, but there were abuses, whatever that means.

Today -100: October 24, 1911: Of race wars, neutrality, and gliders

After yesterday’s race war in Coweta, OK, martial law is in effect. At least for the black population, who are being subjected to mass arrests and whose homes are being searched for weapons by the state militia.

Taft signs a proclamation declaring neutrality in the war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire.

Winston Churchill changes jobs, from home secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty (changing places with Reginald McKenna). Which sounds like a demotion, but Churchill liked to play with boats.

Orville Wright’s glider crashes, but he’s okay. Wright is doing experiments to make airplanes more stable by adding ailerons.

Other aeronautical innovators are continuing the attempts to weaponize the skies. In a first, the Italians are using airplanes for aerial surveillance of Turkish infantry positions in Libya.

Freedom, ain’t it grand

Libya’s new regime legalizes polygamy, which Qaddafi had banned, so there’s that.

The murder of Qaddafi doesn’t bother me as much as the new regime’s instinctive response, which was to lie about it.

Today -100: October 23, 1911: Of race wars, and the greatest nation

A race war is threatened (some would say has already begun) in Coweta, Oklahoma. In a fight, a black man killed the white city attorney and wounded two other white men. He was then lynched – twice. That is, a mob hanged him, but he was cut down before he strangled by white people concerned that it would start a race war. As the deputy sheriff tried to take him to jail, he was shot fifty or so times by people who presumably didn’t share that concern. As this story went to press, blacks were arriving from the surrounding country, threatening to burn the town down. The sheriff is arming the white citizens of Muskogee (20 miles away) to help out and the National Guard is being sent in.

The US government’s chief chemist, Dr. Harvey Wiley, addressing the convention of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, says “If a country treats its women right, eats more sugar and consumes more soap per head than any other country, then it is the greatest nation.”

If you’re wondering, by that standard the United States was evidently the greatest nation in 1911. And in 2011 I’m guessing we still have at least the sugar thing nailed.

Preliminary

Hillary Clinton claims the secret meeting with the Haqqani network wasn’t actually a negotiation: “We had one preliminary meeting to essentially just see if they would show up for even a preliminary meeting.”

Today -100: October 22, 1911: It’s a great pleasure to be gold bricked in this way

The latest trendy accessory among the fashionable set in Paris: wild animals – panthers, lions etc. Monkeys, however, have fallen out of favor since last season.

Sun Yat Sen has raised $10,000 in Chicago for the Chinese Revolution.

The US has sent a dozen ships to China to protect American property. And by American property, I mean Standard Oil’s property.

The Newark Telegraph Herald is beginning a new service for its subscribers: having its newspaper read to them over the telephone on trunk lines (so basically like radio). It will offer stock market reports in the early morning, followed by general news, cooking and fashion in the late morning, fashion in the afternoon, children’s stories from 6 to 8, then vaudeville, concert music, opera and whatnot until late.

President Taft visits Deadwood. He “received a noisy welcome”. No word on whether he met Al Swearengen (oh, all right, the cocksucker was dead by then). He went down a gold mine and was given a gold brick worth $300. “It is a great pleasure to gold brick the president,” said Rep. Martin. “It’s a great pleasure to be gold bricked in this way,” replied Taft. Oh, how they laughed.

John McCain has a sad

Because of the announcement of “Ending the War in Iraq,” as the White House website put it. McCain: “Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world.”

Let this be a lesson to you, Johnny Depp

Andy Hamilton (on BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz) says Qaddafi’s death proves the old show biz adage that you should be nice to people on the way up because you might meet them again on the way down.

By the way, here’s an old post of mine on Qaddafi that seems rather popular on Google just now.