Today -100: January 7, 1912: 47

New Mexico is now the 47th state, after 62 years as a territory. It has 1 million cattle, 4 million sheep, and 327,396 people (1910). Its first governor is William Calhoun McDonald (D). Its first US senators are both Republican, Thomas Catron and Albert Fall, who will be President Harding’s Interior secretary and go to prison for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal.

Those 70 people who died in a Berlin homeless shelter did not succumb to bad herring or the Purple Death after all, but to bad schnapps.

The city of Paris has banned handbills. Shops have responded with... unsolicited phone calls. The invention of telemarketing?

German Reichstag elections are coming up. The Socialists are expected to win the one district in Berlin they didn’t capture last time, which is the district where the kaiser keeps his castles. He said in 1907 that if the district went SPD, he’d move to Potsdam. The Conservative party is accusing the Socialists of opposing the army and navy and “national obligations,” which people take to mean that the government is planning new taxes to pay for an increase in the size of the army and navy. The Conservatives are talking up the English Peril. Evidently Britain planned a sneak attack to invade Germany last summer.

Today -100: January 6, 1912: Of disfranchisements

The Maryland Senate passes a bill to disfranchise illiterates, on a party-line vote, the Democrats believing this will be a simpler method of excluding black voters than the previous attempts at “trick ballots” designed to fool semi-literate people into voting for fake candidates or invalidating their votes. The literacy tests would not be state-wide, but only in certain counties.

Ready for the full range of contingencies

Secretary of Drone War “Little Leon” Panetta issued a “strategic guidance” document thingy (pdf).

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: “we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies.”

IS THAT WHY WE DID THAT: “Over the last decade, we have undertaken extended operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring stability to those countries and secure our interests.”

KILLER DRONES FOREVER! “For the foreseeable future, the United States will continue to take an active approach to countering these threats by monitoring the activities of non-state threats worldwide, working with allies and partners to establish control over ungoverned territories, and directly striking the most dangerous groups and individuals when necessary.”

Evidently the US military will “rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.”

WAKEY, WAKEY, EGGS AND... WELL PROBABLY NOT BACEY: “In the Middle East, the Arab Awakening presents both strategic opportunities and challenges.” Is that what we’re calling the Arab Spring now? On the one hand the term is an echo of the “Sunni Awakening” where the US bribed tribal leaders in Iraq, which may not be an image Arab protesters would appreciate, and on the other hand it entails an insulting suggestion that for decades the Arab people have been asleep rather than ruthlessly oppressed.

ALSO, CHEESE: “Most European countries are now producers of security rather than consumers of it.”

It reaffirmed the two-war strategy and plans to fight terrorists everywhere in the world with lots of toys.

A jury of his peers

The last Haditha Massacre court-martial, the last chance to put someone away for 24 murders, has begun.

From the LAT: “On Thursday, prospective jurors were questioned by opposing attorneys. All but one indicated that he had been in combat in Iraq when an order was given to ‘clear’ a house of insurgents; most had lost a Marine in combat. Asked by a defense attorney, none admitted having ‘strong’ feelings about the war in Iraq.”

So they’re all emotionless sociopaths, soul-less killing machines?

Today -100: January 5, 1912: Of Ulster, Sneezakaritchnekoff, and turkey trots

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson says that the people of Ulster will refuse to recognize a Home Rule parliament in Dublin, and won’t pay taxes to it. He says the “essential question” is whether Britain would then send in troops to force them to do so.

Headline of the Day -100: “Hail! Sneezakaritchnekoff.” That’s a town in Siberia, 60 families, founded way back by Mennonites from Germany, which would like to move its entire population to the United States so they can see the sun again. A couple of scouts have been touring, and are thinking about Oklahoma or Texas.

Philadelphia high society, as led by Mrs. Frederick Thurston Mason, has banned the turkey trot and the grizzly bear. “It is understood that the two dances have all but caused several scandals in some of Philadelphia’s best families.”

Not a strong attitude to women’s rights

In Afghanistan, 14-year-old Sahar Gul was married to/bought by a 30-year-old soldier, who immediately tried to pimp her out; he & his family tortured and starved her for six months when she refused.

To be fair, now that it’s hit the world news, the central Afghan government is at least acting like it takes this seriously, as opposed to the local ones, who returned her for several months’ more torture after she escaped.

An Interior Ministry spokes... wait for it... man said, “It is a violent act that is unacceptable in the 21st century.” He did not say in which century it would have been acceptable.

An official in the public health ministry said, “We have several cases like this, especially in remote parts of the country where there is not a strong attitude to women’s rights.” Actually there is a very strong attitude to women’s rights, that’s the fucking problem.

Today -100: January 4, 1912: Of electric chairs and turkey trots

Wake County, NC, which contains the city of Raleigh, will hold an election for a school tax at which only three people are qualified to vote, for some unexplained reason. I’m assuming that only qualified voters are allowed to be election officials, so the three voters are also the register and the two judges of election.

The Newport, Rhode Island Animal Refuge will install an electric chair to euthanize unwanted animals.

A large debutante dance in NYC was attended by an inspector of the Committee on Amusements and Vacation Resources of Working Girls to determine how many of the couples engaged in such moral looseness as dancing the turkey trot or the grizzly bear, which the Committee wants banned from dance halls as “not dancing at all, but a series of indecent antics to the accompaniment of music,” and someone suggested they go bother the upper classes as well as the lower orders, so they did. The Committee warns against even the modified versions of the dance that are “taught to the unsuspecting. The positions and movements of the dance, no matter how slight they may be, are pernicious.”

Why that’s so crazy it just might work

Friday, Evangelical nutjob Bob Vander Plaats told McNeil-Lehrer: “We had six candidates at our Thanksgiving Family Forum. And I think it was my wife afterwards who said, ‘You know, Bob, if we could take those six and put them in a blender and just have the strengths come out and have one candidate.’”

This blog heartily seconds the notion of putting the Republican candidates in a blender. This blog recommends the “grind” or “liquefy” settings.

Today -100: January 3, 1912: Of chain gangs, provisional presidents, and exemplary punishments

Arkansas Gov. George Washington Donaghey threatens that unless contractors who use convict labor treat them more humanely (i.e., stop beating them quite so much), he will pardon all of them.

Sun Yat Sen is inaugurated as provisional president of China. Just like the French Revolutionaries, he has changed the calendar, with New Year’s now January 1st, the first day of his presidency. Sun promises an elected Parliament and a modernized administration (what he did not suggest, but which the LAT seems to think will happen, is that China should seek unity through a single language, which would be English.)

Russians occupying Persia are court-martialling and hanging prominent Persians, including the head of a religious sect, for attacks on their troops, and leaving the bodies hanging in public squares.

Today -100: January 2, 1912: Of unreassuring ex-presidents

Headline of the Day -100: “Roosevelt Won’t Reassure Taft.” Theodore Roosevelt, while frequently having said that he is not running for president, is evidently refusing to say that under no circumstances will he accept the nomination.

The brother of the deposed Shah of Persia has defeated government forces in battle. He is demanding the return of $80,000 confiscated from him by the government – or he will demolish the Imperial Bank Building.

A French Capt. Lux escapes from a German fortress, where he was serving a six-year term for espionage. He sawed through the bars using files that had been sent to him hidden in books on Napoleon.

Today -100: January 1, 1912: Of lynchings, student revolts, and new states

A negro is lynched in Muldrow, Oklahoma, after stealing a locomotive in Arkansas, riding it until it derailed, then killing a farmer.

The negro students of Clark College are pissed off that they won’t get a Christmas holiday. So they stole the bell clapper to stop classes being held. The administration retaliated by withholding their meals. The students retaliated by driving calves into the college president’s study. “Since that time the tension has increased.”

When Arizona was granted statehood (due to take effect in a couple of weeks, I believe), Congress failed to grant it the furnishings it had provided for the territorial legislature’s chambers, governor’s office, etc. The territorial secretary says he may be obligated to sell them to the highest bidder, and there won’t be time enough to get in new furniture before statehood. Another teething problem: justices of the peace and constables have been elected in some areas, but these elections were illegal, because everyone forgot to include provision for them in the new election law.

Exactly like what happened in Germany

Another week, another protest by Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem in support of their way of life, by which they mean sexual segregation and subjugation. And are they wearing stripey concentration camp pajamas and yellow Stars of David to make their point about how oppressed – “Zionist oppression,” yet – they are? Why yes they are. Did they bring their children, similarly garbed? Why yes they did. Because, according to one protester, “What’s happening is exactly like what happened in Germany.” And assholes like these would have been complaining to the Gestapo that the women weren’t forced to sit in the back of the cattle cars.

Today -100: December 31, 1911: Beware the Purple Death!

France creates the world’s first aerial military regiment.

President Taft has told several people that he plans to nominate 8th Circuit Court judge William Hook to the vacant Supreme Court seat. I know he didn’t do that, but why? Opposition is emerging because of his ruling against a railroad rate.

A couple of days ago I mentioned the large number of dead homeless people in Berlin – now more than 75 – supposedly due to bad herring. The rumors that this is cholera or the plague or something are running rampant, and not only in Germany – in Paris it’s being called the Purple Death.

In the first elections in proto-state New Mexico, Republicans get more than 2/3 of the seats in both houses of the Legislature.

Headline of the Day -100: “Peace Diners Make Mr. Taft Wait an Hour; Committee Keeps the President Cooling His Heels in a Waldorf Anteroom.”

Today -100: December 30, 1911: Of buffers, how Eskimos get dark, strong arm squads, presidents, and running away to Panama

Russia may not actually take over Mongolia, which has declared independence from the collapsing Chinese state, but does want it to be a buffer state against further Japanese encroachment into Manchuria.

Arctic explorer Christian Leyden of the University of Christiana explains that Eskimos are born white, but with a tiny black spot in the middle of their back which then spreads and diffuses until they become darker.

A letter to the NYT editor complains about Taft’s announced electioneering tour through his home state of Ohio. The president of the United States cannot do such a thing without impropriety.

Everyone is amused that the Citizens’ Peace Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, the one which Roosevelt refused to attend, will be policed by the NYPD’s Strong Arm Squad (actually, it won’t: Mayor Gaynor will withdraw them).

There’s a military coup in Ecuador.

A meeting of delegates (delegates from what isn’t exactly clear) elects Sun Yat Sen provisional president of China. The child emperor is expected to abdicate at some point.

Attorney General George Wickersham and his wife will be taking a trip to Panama shortly, evidently purely so that Mrs. Wickersham can get out of attending the traditional New Year reception at the White House at which she would be forced to receive Assistant Attorney General William Lewis and his wife, who are negro.

Today -100: December 29, 1911: Of armies, gambling, hostiles and their wives and families, and herring

Russia bans the Salvation Army (this happened again in 2000: Russia claimed it was a, you know, army, rather than a religious organization).

Frank McCracken has been forced to resign as mayor of Paulina, Iowa after being charged with gambling. He participated in a turkey raffle for Thanksgiving.

Chinese revolutionaries, the NYT says, were actually training in the United States for two years before the Revolution began. In fact, they were trained by former US Army drill sergeants, who were well paid to train Chinese rather than re-enlist. Some of the drilling took place in hired halls in New York City. Somehow the US government never knew a thing. (To be clear, I’m not being sarcastic. If the US was on anyone’s side, it was the side of American businesses, which favored the stability of the existing government.)

The US army has (again) put down a Moro outbreak in the Philippines. “300 hostiles with their wives and families have surrendered.”

Headline of the Day -100: “50 Now Dead From Eating Herring.” At the municipal center for the homeless in Berlin. There are rumors that it’s cholera and the authorities are covering it up.

A busy month

The two most recent Presidential Proclamations proclaim January 1) National Mentoring Month, 2) National Stalking Awareness Month. That is all.

Today -100: December 28, 1911: Of bastards getting off scot-free

The owners of the Triangle Waist Company, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, are acquitted of manslaughter for the Triangle fire. Money well spent on the most expensive lawyer in New York, Max Steuer, who charged them at least $10,000 each, and money also well spent on the cheapest perjurous witnesses. Also, the judge’s charge to the jury set a ridiculously high barrier for conviction: they would have to find that the door was locked, that Harris & Blanck knew it was locked, and that the door being locked was responsible for the deaths. The judge, as it happens, had been the NYC Tenement House commissioner in 1905 and wound up taking the fall and being forced to resign following a fire which killed 20 people in a building whose fire escapes had been boarded over (which I know from a book; it is not reported by the NYT).

President Taft modifies an executive order regulating the practice of medicine in the Panama Canal Zone in order to allow Christian Scientists “healing.” The NYT castigates him for it.

Former President Roosevelt sent a furious seven-page refusal to attend a Citizens’ Peace Dinner, which I’m curious to read. He will only tell reporters that he’s not going because “I’m not hungry.”

Mongolian and Turkestan declare independence from China and are expected to be annexed by Russia.

The health officers of Lenoxdale, Massachusetts have banned kissing on New Year’s Eve because of a diphtheria outbreak. And they’re killing any dogs and cats found outside.

Headline of the Day -100 (Memphis Appeal, reprinted in the LAT): “Oyster Drowns a Duck.”

Today -100: December 27, 1911: Of attitudes of growing hostility

Headline of the Day -100: “Russians Continue to Slay Persians.” According to the article, “The Persian attitude is declared to be one of growing hostility.”

James Wickersham, the (Republican) delegate of the District of Alaska to the Congress, says “President Taft imagines the way to develop Alaska is to turn it over to the money interests. ... He would have a second great East India Company, which would not only control all of our resources, but our Government as well.” He wants Alaska to have its own elected government.

Women are asked not to linger in this area

If there’s one thing this blog enjoys – and this blog is not ashamed to admit it – it’s pictures of ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting in Israel, which they did today in support of segregation of the sexes and forcing women to cross the street so they don’t walk in front of synagogues and pollute them, and to not dress like whores, like an 8-year-old girl interviewed on tv about how she’s been repeatedly screamed at on her way to school for dressing “immodestly.” This is her.


Look at the slut! Look at her!
They also enjoy spitting at women, because of course they do.

Today ultra-Orthodox in Beit Shemesh, 20 miles or so from Jerusalem, rioted, throwing eggs and rocks at police and reporters.

Today -100: December 26, 1911: Of executions, lynchings, massacres, and rebellions – you know, Christmas stories

Gov. Hiram Johnson of California has commuted several death sentences and plans to allow no more executions. He will sponsor legislation to abolish the death penalty.

It’s-Beginning-to-Look-a-Lot-Like-Christmas Headline of the Day -100: “Christmas Lynching in Baltimore Suburb.” A black youth shot a white guy over a game of pool, and later was pulled out of his jail cell (there was no guard at night) and either shot (according the NYT) or hacked to death (LAT).

Russian troops seem to be massacring Persians at Tabriz, even though Persia gave in to all of Russia’s demands.

In Mexico, the rebellion led by Gen. Bernardo Reyes (which I probably should have mentioned at some point) has ended with his surrender, in the form of a telegram which read in part: “I called on the people. I called on the army, and they did not respond, so I must give up.”