Today -100: August 20, 1912: Of massacres and copyrights

Headline of the Day -100: “To Celebrate Massacre.” The town of New Ulm, Minn., is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dakota Sioux attack on the town. I assume there will be cake.

Congress votes for motion pictures to come under the copyright laws.

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Deep empathy just sounds dirty when Todd Akin says it

Todd Akin issues a statement saying he has “deep empathy” for women who have been (legitimately) raped, he just thinks they have an extra internal organ that shoots lasers at the sperm of rapists, or something.

While he says he “misspoke,” he does not say in what way he misspoke, i.e., whether he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy. He’s not even willing to pretend that he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy.

Finally, he insisted that his “primary focus” in the senatorial race are deficits and unemployment, and accused people focusing on his batshit craziness of trying to “distract” from those things, so stop distracting everyone, slutty rape victims! Todd Akin, of course, is distracted by shiny objects and fetuses.

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The female body has ways

So according to senatorial candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant – “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He knows this from doctors. So if you get pregnant, you’re a slut who is lying about being raped. And if you float, you’re a witch.

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Today -100: August 19, 1912: Of apples and Southerners

Throngs hanging around Woodrow Wilson’s home, waiting for a glimpse of the man, have taken all the apples from his apple trees.

Today -100’s NYT is filled with letters from Southern editors, politicians and others saying that Southerners won’t vote for Roosevelt. The editor of the Augusta Chronicle, for example, says that there are only two white men in Richmond County who incline to him and “one of these is a Taft disappointee, while the other is just queer.”

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Today -100: August 18, 1912: Of party-line voting, dead issues, indecision, and jury-tampering

This is the 1,000th Today -100 post. Collect them all.

Republicans in Illinois are considering fucking with the Bull Moosers by depriving them of the circle on the ballot that voters can use to vote a straight-party ticket, so that Bull Moose voters, unlike R’s & D’s, would have to find and vote for each BM candidate one by one.

Roosevelt, asked by an audience member at a speech to talk about Taft, said “I never discuss dead issues. I want to come back to something serious.” Ouch.

Woodrow Wilson’s people say he hasn’t made up his mind about women’s suffrage, but he’s thinking about it really really hard and might come to a conclusion, oh, some time after the election.

Clarence Darrow is acquitted of bribing a juror, but there will be a second trial for alleged bribery of another juror.

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Mitt would approve

The Cal State system plans to admit almost no Californian students for the spring 2013 semester, but will admit out-of-staters and foreign students who pay the big bucks. So much for the concept of state universities. Also, lovely to see admissions policy being made primarily on financial rather than academic grounds. How many years before admissions are auctioned off on eBay?

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Today -100: August 17, 1912: To have a man on both sides of the fight when we are on one side is uncomfortable, especially when he is behind you

President Taft attacks presidential electors whose names appear on the Republican ballot but who intend to support Roosevelt. “[W]e have to be a single party, and not a part of two parties. I don’t think we are unfair in asking that we be given a chance for a fair fight, and in counting those against us who are not with us. To have a man on both sides of the fight when we are on one side is uncomfortable, especially when he is behind you.” Taft sounds rather as if he’s heading for a nervous breakdown.

Helen Keller sings to a convention of otologists at Harvard Medical School. Evidently she has absolute pitch.

A Philadelphia city council member resigns. He turns out to have had a former life as a thief, under another name, possibly Jean Valjean. He served a 7-year prison sentence and then made good, but a former prison associate found him and was blackmailing him, so he quit.

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Today -100: August 16, 1912: Of taking sides, and singing

The Nicaraguan government asks the US for help in fighting the rebels. Meanwhile, the State Dept is denying yesterday’s report that US forces fought the rebels.

Headline of the Day -100: “Helen Keller Can Sing Now.” Review in tomorrow’s paper.

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Today -100: August 15, 1912: Of taking sides, and emancipation

American troops have been fighting the rebels in Nicaragua.

Taft wants to establish a preliminary commission to consider holding an exposition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The commission would serve without salary, because irony.

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Collapsing

Riyad Hijab, the Syrian prime minister who defected, says that the Assad regime is collapsing, adding, hey, you didn’t think I left for moral reasons, did you?

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Today -100: August 14, 1912: Of lynchings, funerals, and traps to catch the votes of discontented people

A mob seizes a 16-year-old black youth in Columbus, Georgia, after he receives a sentence of only three years for manslaughter of a white boy, and you know the rest.

Sing Sing set some sort of record for most executions in a day this week. And the bodies of five Italian men who were sent to the electric chair for a single murder are put on display at an entrepreneurial undertakers on Mulberry St. Everyone is welcome! Donations gratefully accepted.

Eugene Debs, in a letter to the NYT, says that the really progressive planks of the Progressive Party were stolen from the Socialist platform, but that the Bull Moose Party contains too many diverse and conflicting economic elements, and its platform is too much a hodgepodge, to form the basis of national party, and further, it depends too much on the personality of one man, who has “shrewdly seized upon the prevailing popular unrest and has baited his platform like a trap to catch the votes of the discontented people.” Gotta say Debs pretty much nails it.

Composer Jules Massenet dies.

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Sarah Palin is excited to hear voices

Sarah Palin won’t speak at the Republican Convention: “This year is a good opportunity for other voices to speak at the convention and I’m excited to hear them.”

People, Sarah, I know it’s hard to conceive of there being other people than yourself, but those would be people speaking, not voices.

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Today -100: August 13, 1912: Of women smokers, canals, bears, and opened mail

Woodrow Wilson’s wife Ellen repudiates a fake interview which claimed she endorsed women smoking. In fact, she denounces the practice as having “an extremely injurious effect on the nerves.” (The interview may in fact not have been fake, but an interview of a Mrs. Wilson Woodrow rather than Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. Mrs. Wilson Woodrow actually used to be married to a relative of Woodrow Wilson).

Nicaraguan rebels bombard Managua.

Rep. Theron Catlin (R-Missouri) is unseated and replaced by his Democratic opponent for having spent $10,200 on his election campaign, in violation of Missouri law restricting him to $662 (Catlin will run again in November, and lose).

Germany is threatening that if Holland doesn’t accede to its plans to take control of the Rhine river and impose high tolls, it will build a canal between Cologne and Emden to transfer the traffic currently going through Rotterdam to Emden.

Remember that bear cub given to Robert Taft by the Blackfeet? Another bear, possibly its mother, bit through the rope tying it to a tree and it escaped.

Robert La Follette, who has been investigating something or other in the Post Office system, says his mail has been opened. LA Times headline: “La Follette Seeing Things.”

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Today -100: August 12, 1912: Of firing squads, cows, and ringlings

Nevada gave prisoners who were sentenced to death the right to choose between hanging and firing squad, and Andriji Mirkovich chose the latter. But the warden can’t find five men to form the firing squad.

Woodrow Wilson comes out against prohibition but in favor of local option, and says such social and moral issues should not be part of party platforms.

Republican congresscritters, scared shitless that they might have to declare in favor of either Taft or Roosevelt, have found a loophole in an anti-corruption law forbidding congressional candidates from promising public offices in return for support. They say that means they can’t announce their support for T or R, which of course it doesn’t.

The NYT is endlessly fascinated with the participation of women in Bull Moose politics, including the naming of four women, one of them Jane Addams, to the National Committee. I’m waiting with some trepidation for the Times to realize that a female bull moose is called a cow.

The NYT says Hiram Johnson, Roosevelt’s running mate, will resign as governor of California. The LAT says he will not resign.

The sultan of Morocco plans to abdicate in favor of his brother, but France won’t let him until he publicly announces that he is doing it for health reasons, so no one thinks they forced him out.

A con man is arrested on the verge of marrying a Miss Grace Spence of Berkeley. He was impersonating, of all people, one of the Ringling Brothers. He was also in the middle of negotiating with the city of Venice, CA for a $25,000 bonus to locate the winter quarters of the circus there, but was found out when he bounced a check, one of many.

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It’s the granny-eyed zombie-starver, or something

My observations on the announcement of Paul Ryan: There’s something deeply weird about a chant of “Mitt Mitt Mitt Mitt.”

That is all.

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Today -100: August 11, 1912: Of funerals and massacres

Secretary of State Philander Knox is going all the way to Tokyo to attend the emperor’s funeral.

Turks massacred 140 Bulgarians, supposedly.

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Today -100: August 10, 1912: Of dirty and black-hearted liars, American bottoms, and canals

Headline of the Day -100: “‘Liar!’ Shouts Gov. Blease.” South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease, who does not seem to be running out of ways to call people liars, calls the person who says Blease was paid to steer the case of a millionaire wanted on a Tennessee warrant to a judge who would release him “as dirty and black-hearted a liar as ever disgraced a Christian state.”

The House passes the Wireless Bill, giving the federal government the power to license and regulate the airwaves. It includes a provision that wireless messages must only be given to those for whom they are intended.

The Senate passes the Panama Canal Bill, giving American ships free passage through the canal (when it opens), or as the NYT puts it, “From the beginning to the end it was evident that the Senate was bent on granting free passage to American bottoms.” This is a violation of the treaty under which the Canal is being built. Also, ships owned by companies which are in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act or the Inter-State Commerce Act or are owned by railroad companies will be banned from the canal.

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Note to Scott Brown

If you find yourself following the words “I want every legal vote to count” with the word “but”, you might want to stop right there and have a little think.

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Today -100: August 9, 1912: Of blown-up presidents

The Pope orders the Catholic Total Abstinence Union (meaning abstinence from booze – get your mind out of the gutter), currently holding a convention at Notre Dame, not to affiliate with the Prohibition Party.

The Haitian presidential palace and indeed the Haitian president Cincinnatus Leconte are blown to bits. Hundreds die. Maybe not a good idea to keep massive quantities of explosives in the basement.

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Today -100: August 8, 1912: A train robber is better than a public yeg

The Bull Moose Party nominates one Theodore Roosevelt for president and California Gov. Hiram Johnson for vice president. TR’s nomination was seconded by Jane Addams, the first time a woman performed such a role.

In Oklahoma County, the retired train robber Al Jennings, who was pardoned by President Roosevelt, wins a primary for the office of county attorney. He accuses the current “Court House gang” of embezzling $50,000. “A train robber is better than a public yeg” is his slogan.

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