Today -100: October 10, 1912: Of holy undertakings, perfume, and ape stomachs

King Nicholas of Montenegro’s proclamation of war against Turkey calls it “this holy undertaking.” Aren’t they all, aren’t they all.

The Turkish foreign minister notes that Montenegro was in such a hurry that it began the war a bit before the declaration of war was made to the Porte. Also, that Montenegro hasn’t actually stated any reasons for going to war.

Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia are moving in the general direction of declaring war – recalling their ambassadors and so on – but haven’t yet done so.

Parochial Headline of the Day -100: “How the War Hurts Us.” The war has cut off the supply of attar of roses, which is used in high-end perfumes. War is hell.

Correction of the Day -100: I must have missed the original story, but the NYT now says that a Dr. Rovlies of Paris did not in fact replace the stomach of a man with that of an ape.

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Caption contest I’ll probably regret

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Today -100: October 9, 1912: Of Balkan wars, Mongols, and deader languages

And we’re off: war, specifically the First Balkan War, is declared by Montenegro on the Ottoman Empire. At this time it is not known whether Montenegro acted in conjunction with its Balkan League allies. Since Montenegro is the aggressor, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece aren’t obligated by the defensive treaty to join in the fun. But they will, of course. The attempted intervention of the Great Powers seems, if anything, to have sped up the rush to war, as the League moves to forestall diplomacy.

There are reports that Bulgarians, led by police, massacred ethnic Turks in Turtukai.

The London Times claims that the Chinese army has killed 10,000 Mongols. Will we ever hear another word about this?

End of the World As We Know It News: the new vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Charles Buller Heberden, addressed the convocation in English rather than Latin.

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Hope is not a strategry

Today Mitt Romney gave a “foreign policy speech” at the Virginia Military Institute, because nothing says Republican foreign policy like enunciating it in front of future cannon fodder.

DRAMATIC OPENING: “Last month, our nation was attacked again.” If by “our nation” you mean a consulate in Libya.

“The attacks against us in Libya were not an isolated incident. They were accompanied by anti-American riots in nearly two dozen other countries”. Some of which could in no way be fairly characterized as riots, but were in fact demonstrations, you know, people peacefully expressing their opinions.

REMEMBER, BLACK THINGS ARE ALWAYS BAD: “These mobs hoisted the black banner of Islamic extremism over American embassies on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.”

WHAT THE ATTACKS ON AMERICA SHOULD NOT BE SEEN AS: “The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts. They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East”

LEAVE “INNOCENCE OF MUSLIMS” ALOOOONE! “This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long. No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls...” Cough. “...who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.” Actually, they probably seek to win the war. Why would they want to wage perpetual war? It’s this sort of insight into the minds of Islamic militants that’s been missing since George Bush skipped off the world stage.

Evidently this war is exactly like the Cold War. It’s a perfect analogy. “Fortunately, we had leaders of courage and vision, both Republicans and Democrats, who knew that America had to support friends who shared our values”. For Greek generals, read Saudi princes.

IN ENTERPRISE OF MARTIAL KIND,
WHEN THERE WAS ANY FIGHTING,
HE LED HIS REGIMENT FROM BEHIND (HE FOUND IT LESS EXCITING).
BUT WHEN AWAY HIS REGIMENT RAN, HIS PLACE WAS AT THE FORE, O...
“But it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the President to use America’s great power to shape history, not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”

GREAT STRAINS: “The relationship between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel, for example, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains.” That’s rather ambiguous: is it Israel, or the Israeli prime minister, who is our closest ally? Because they’re not the same thing, as much as Bibi admittedly resembles Louis XIV.

AND HOW CLOSE IS THAT? “Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability.”

BECAUSE IF THERE’S ONE THING THAT ALWAYS INFLUENCED EVENTS FOR THE BETTER IN IRAQ, IT’S US MILITARY OCCUPATION: “In Iraq the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent al-Qaida, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad and the rising influence of Iran. And yet America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence.”

WHAT HOPE IS NOT: “I know the president hopes for a safer, freer and more prosperous Middle East allied with us. I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy.”

I CAN’T BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO, EVERY TIME I HEAR THE PHRASE “BEDROCK PRINCIPLES,” MUTTERS “YABBA DABBA DO” UNDER MY BREATH: “It is time to change course in the Middle East. That course should be organized around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might.” So hope is not a strategy but confidence, clarity and resolve are.

THAT WORD PEACE, I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: “For the sake of peace, we must make clear to Iran through actions, not just words, that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated.”

I’M NOT A NAVAL EXPERT, BUT I’M GUESSING THIS COMPARISON IS A LITTLE MISLEADING: “The size of our Navy is at levels not seen since 1916.” He wants to build 12 ships and 3 submarines every year, in case we need to fight pirates or Captain Nemo or something.

HEY, MAYBE WE CAN USE CLEAN COAL IN THOSE EFFECTIVE MISSILE DEFENSES: “I’ll implement effective missile defenses to protect against threats.”

“The president has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years.” I’m guessing the Romney people will say that the word “new” makes this not a lie, since the three Obama signed were all ones Bush failed to get ratified.

Romney goes on to describe (without any actual details) how he will magically create democracy and freedom in Libya and Egypt. And in Syria, “I’ll work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and then ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks helicopters and fighter jets.” Ignoring for a moment the question of whether it’s wise to dump anti-aircraft missiles willy nilly into the Middle East, does anyone doubt that one of, if not the only, “partner” with whom he’ll be picking winners and losers in Syria is Israel? And does anyone doubt how announcing his intention to do so will go over in Syria?

He says overthrowing Assad is important because it would be a “strategic defeat” for Iran. Syria will no doubt be pleased that Mitt’s interest in their country is merely a by-product of his wish to cock a snook at the mullahs.

He says that Obama has failed in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which is true, although not for presence of trying. “In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new president will bring the chance to begin anew.” Because it’s all about us.

WHAT THERE’S A LONGING FOR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: “There’s a longing for American leadership in the Middle East”. Also for halvah, for some reason.

Really, just who is it in the Middle East who’s longing for American leadership? Names, I want names.

Throughout the speech, he talks about leading and leadership: “if America doesn’t lead, others will,” Obama “leads from behind” and “failed to lead in Syria,” etc. He’s vague on what that leading would actually consist of, beyond a lot of asserting principles. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of his line at that fundraiser about the economy improving if he’s elected without his actually doing anything. The only specific things he promises involve military hardware: more ships, Star Wars, weapons to Syrian rebels.

BIG FINISH: “The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror and war and economic calamity. It’s our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom and peace and prosperity. The torch America carries is one of decency and hope. It’s not America’s torch alone, but it is America’s duty and honor to hold it high enough that all the world can see its light.” As we carry that torch of decency and hope into the Middle East where it will ignite the oil-fire of decency and hope.

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Today -100: October 8, 1912: Their thought is not our thought

Woodrow Wilson keeps saying that US Steel is behind the Bull Moose Party. In defining the difference between himself and Roosevelt, he has been emphasizing their policies on trusts.

(Update: challenged by Roosevelt to prove it, Wilson says the next day that he didn’t mean financially. “What I meant was that they are supporting him with their thought, and their thought is not our thought.” And that the kind of “control” TR wants to exercise over monopolies is the kind of control US Steel wants.)

In Nicaragua, three American marines and sailors are killed by what the NYT calls “an irresponsible mob,” when all they were doing was invading and occupying the town of Leon. The marines kill 50 townfolk in return, as was the custom.

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Today -100: October 7, 1912: Of natural Bull Moosers, and Balkan wars

Thomas Edison endorses Theodore Roosevelt for president, declaring himself a “natural Bull Mooser.”

The Great Powers (note: the US was not a Great Power; Italy was. Huh.) are working on a deal for the Balkans. They would authorize Austria and Russia to guarantee the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire (i.e., that the countries of the anti-Turkish coalition would gain nothing from a war) and that reforms would be implemented in Macedonia. However, Bulgaria and the other would-be belligerents really have their hearts set on some bloodshed (assuming that the war hasn’t already started – the LAT reports a fight on the Turkish-Montenegrin border).

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Leon Panetta scolds our new-caught, sullen peoples

Secretary of War Leon Panetta tells Hamid Karzai to just shut up and be grateful for the 11-year war in his country: “Those lives were lost fighting the right enemy not the wrong enemy and I think it would be helpful if the president, every once in a while, expressed his thanks for the sacrifices that have been made by those who have fought and died for Afghanistan, rather than criticizing them.”

Indeed, according to Little Leon, “We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan’s sovereignty.” And nothing says “defending Afghanistan’s sovereignty” like ordering the wogs to express their gratitude to the soldiers occupying their country.

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Today -100: October 6, 1912: Terrorized into becoming Albanians

American Marines fight Nicaraguan rebels alongside government forces, despite the premise that they were sent there to protect American property and lives and, you know, property. Four marines die; the rebel general Zeledon is killed (or possibly captured and then killed) and the rebels routed.

The NYT explains the Balkans situation: “Old Servia has 1,050,000 inhabitants, of whom 700,000 are Servians and 350,000 Albanians, among which latter are 150,000 Servians, who have been terrorized into becoming Albanians during the last forty years.”

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Today -100: October 5, 1912: Of Balkan wars and civilizing bathtubs

France is trying to get the Powers to cooperate in preventing a Balkan war.

Condescending Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “NEW BATHTUBS AS CIVILIZERS. INDIAN AGENT GIVES APACHES START IN CULTURE.”

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Today -100: October 4, 1912: Of Balkan Wars, electors, homicides, brothels, and startled bankers

The war in the Balkans is rumored to have begun with an attack by Turkish troops on Serbia and fighting on the Bulgarian-Turkish border. I think these are false rumors.

Theodore Roosevelt is finally allowed to testify before the Senate about past campaign contributions. He introduces telegrams he wrote to the RNC in 1908 (when he was president but not a candidate) objecting to Standard Oil being asked for money (which he had also refused to do in 1904).

The California Supreme Court rules that President Taft’s electors cannot appear on the November ballot, even by petition. It rules that the state Republican convention, dominated by Theodores, was empowered by state law to select electors, even if it had repudiated the national ticket. California Tafties are trying to figure out what to do next. One option, challenging the constitutionality of CA’s primary law in order to ensure that California sits out the 1912 presidential elections entirely, was decided against because the Progressives would just call the Legislature into special session and name pro-Roosevelt electors.

NYT: “The increase of the number of homicides in American cities is disheartening, but it is probably explainable on other grounds than the degeneracy of the Nation.” So that’s okay then.

Oh, Christ, it goes on to blame immigrants from Southern Europe (i.e., Italy), and notes that the city with the highest homicide rate, Memphis, has a large negro population.

Woodrow Wilson is happy about the selection of William Sulzer as Democratic candidate for governor of New York, although he doesn’t seem to be entirely sure what his name is.

NYC Mayor Gaynor says William Randolph Hearst owns several brothels on West 58th Street.

Headline of the Day -100: “Heavy Woman Hit Bankers.” 265-pound Mary Bopa, drying her laundry on the roof of the Indiana Harbor State Bank, trips and falls through a skylight. Being bankers, they demanded that she pay for the skylight and the table she fell on. She refused.

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If there’s one thing we can all agree on about the debates

it’s that the next one has to be hosted by Louis C.K.

(Update: Patton Oswalt on Twitter has suggested 1) R. Lee Ermey, 2) the Dowager Countess/Maggie Smith, 3) Vic Mackey (of "The Shield"), presumably for separate debates. I imagine someone has suggested Big Bird. Consider this a Who Should Be the Next Moderator CONTEST.)

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Presidential debate: Zing, zing, zing goes my heartstrings

Mitt has a bigger flag lapel. That means he automatically wins the debate.

THE ROM-COM BEGINS: Romney says it’s very sweet of Obama to spend his anniversary with him.

First zinger™, I guess: Mittens says O. believes in “trickle-down government.”

Oh dear, Romney’s going to be smirking on the split-screen every time O. is talking.

R. says middle-class income drop is an “economy tax.” Guess he’ll just keep dropping made-up phrases on us.

R. says food prices are up. This would be a perfect moment for Jim Lehrer to ask him how much a gallon of milk costs. Waiting... waiting...

Evidently, the middle class are being “crushed.”

R: “I like coal.”

No tax cut that adds to the deficit.

Romney compares Obama to his “boys,” who are evidently incredible liars and just keep repeating their lies.

Wondering where Romney’s sons learned to lie like that?

Obama: R. would cut Donald Trump’s taxes as a small business, and Donald Trump doesn’t like thinking of himself as small anything. TrumpZing!

Donald Trump is a HUGE douche.

Mittens: I don’t want to cut jobs (he was for cutting jobs before he was against it).

R. likes Big Bird and Jim Lehrer, but he’ll sell PBS to the Chinese, who will stir-fry both of them.

So Romney will eliminate the deficit by ending Obamacare and PBS and nothing else he cares to name.

R: “I don’t want to go down the path to Spain.”

R on Solyndra: you don’t pick the winners & losers, you pick the losers. Zing!

O. talks about his grandmother who worked hard and blah blah blah, and could continue living independently because Social Security and Medicare guaranteed that there was a floor under which she could not go. Romney would totally put Obama’s grandmother under the floor.

R: “Try and get a mortgage these days.”

R: “Expensive things hurt families.”

O: “Obamacare says insurance companies can’t jerk you around.”

R. accuses O. of having continued working on Obamacare even after Scott Brown was elected, which was clearly a rebuke by the entire nation of the very idea.

O. says there isn’t a better way of dealing with pre-existing conditions than O-care. Um, I can think of a better way.

O: Is R. keeping his plans so secret because they’re too good?

I think that was a trick question.

Romney says Obamacare violates the 10th Amendment. Somewhere, Rick Perry just got an erection.

R: “I love great schools.”

R says the federal gov has no role in education. A minute later, Lehrer asks if the federal gov has a role in education; R. says yes.

O says R genuinely cares about education, but offers no proof.

R says the money O spent on green energy (which he then suggests was to reward O’s campaign contributors) could have paid for a bunch of teachers. Who R would never pay for.

Well, that was as interesting as it was informative and I need to lie down now.

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Today -100: October 3, 1912: Of Balkan wars, unbossed conventions, lynchings, and stamps

The four Balkan League countries allied against the Ottomans are on the verge of issuing their ultimatum, which will evidently be a demand for full autonomy for Macedonia, Albania and Old Serbia – implemented in no more than three days. Those countries all have small populations compared to the Ottoman Empire, but if they are to be believed, they have mobilized something like 1/5 of their adult male population.

Thanks to the presence of the Progressive Party on the ballot, no one got a majority in Vermont’s elections last month, which under the state constitution means that the Legislature gets to pick all the state officers from governor down. It picks all Republicans.

Tammany’s Boss Murphy graciously allows the New York Democratic Convention to dump the incumbent governor, John Alden Dix, and instead nominate William Sulzer, a member of Congress since 1895 (and Speaker of the state Assembly before that). During the roll call, Murphy failed to vote when called upon, leaving his minions in some confusion as to what they were supposed to do. Sulzer seems to have come out of nowhere (not that he needed a public campaign when the public had little to say about this decision). Just a few days ago it seemed that the anti-Dix faction had united around state Supreme Court Justice Victor Dowling.

I predict a long and successful career as governor for Mr. Sulzer.

A mob in Rawlins, Wyoming tries to lynch a black man accused of attacking an old lady, but while the mob was storming the front door of the county jail, the sheriff snuck him out the back door and brought him to the state pen. Where he is lynched by his fellow inmates.

Mark Wilks, imprisoned for not paying his suffragette wife’s income taxes in Britain, is released after 15 days, no explanation given.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Dies for Exposition Stamps.” Turns out to be dies, noun, the things used to print stamps.

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Crap dialogue is what I’m talking about

With Jerry Seinfeld entering the gladiatorial ring with a NYT critic over whether “Really?” is over-used by comedy writers, I feel I cannot continue to remain silent about the laziest, most over-used line of dialogue in the arsenal of tv and movie writers: “What are you talking about?” It’s everywhere, but like those circles drawn in the corner of the frame to signal reel-changes in movies from the days when there were still reel-changes, you don’t notice them until you start noticing them (I think it was an episode of Columbo that pointed those out to me) and then you can’t stop noticing them until they fade into the background again. Also, there’s a thing many actresses do with a certain facial feature that is so weird and so distracting once it’s pointed out to you that I will do you the favor of not doing so. I first noticed “What are you talking about?” on “24,” when Jack Bauer snapped it at someone literally every single episode (sometimes more than once) and Chloe every other episode, but then I realized it was everywhere.

Has anybody ever said “What are you talking about?” to someone else in real life? Have you?

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Comment-geddon redux

As threatened/foretold in the Book of Revelations, all the old comments are now gone.

Fortunately, thanks to the greater susceptibility of the Blogger commenting system to spam, I spend half the day deleting stuff like this:

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Was the comment linking to a weight-loss site put on my post about a hunger-striker in Guantanamo? Of course it was.

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Today -100: October 2, 1912: Of Balkan wars and watermelons

Turkey mobilizes its army and reserves. Various Balkans countries are stopping freight and shipping to each other, and Turkey will seize all Greek ships in its waters.

The NYT says there won’t be a war in the Balkans because wars in the Balkans don’t happen in October. So that’s okay then.

Headline of the Day -100: “Wilson Gets a Watermelon.”

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Today -100: October 1, 1912: Of Balkan wars, perfume, and fake lynch mobs

Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece are mobilizing their armies.

Latest fad in Paris: injecting perfume.

I mentioned that the US gave Mexico permission for some of its troops to travel through American soil to fight rebels. Texas Gov. Colquitt was asked to give his permission too and he did, but has changed his mind, though too late to do any good (especially since he sent his message to the departments of State and War on a Friday, and they are closed for the weekend).

The sheriff of Kenosha County, Wisconsin stages a fake lynching in which a fake mob pretends to overpower the sheriff and puts a noose around the neck of a black prisoner to coerce him into confessing to stealing a gun. It worked.

Want to know what William Howard Taft sounded like? The Library of Congress has two brief recordings dated today -100.

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What, you got something better to do?

On Fox News Sunday, Paul Ryan refused to explain which tax loopholes he’d close, because it would be very time-consuming, with the time and the math and the counting on his fingers and toes.

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Today -100: September 30, 1912: Of non-lynchings, red flags, Balkan wars, and kid gloves

A mob is thwarted from lynching Hugh Long, the mayor of Wagener, South Carolina and state representative-elect, after he shot and killed one Pickens N. Gunter, president of the Bank of Wagener, over their political differences. (Long will be acquitted next June).

Police in Lawrence, Massachusetts attack an IWW parade, essentially because they had red flags.

Russia is mobilizing seven army corps, as a precaution in case it gets involved in the increasingly likely war in the Balkans. Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece have all been issuing threats against the Ottoman Empire.

Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs holds a rally in Madison Square Garden. The NYT says the audience was equally divided by gender. Debs calls Woodrow Wilson “the kid glove on the paw of the Tammany tiger.” He notes that Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson have never had to look for a job, never been on strike, been slugged by a capitalistic policeman, been in jail, or produced enough to feed a gallanipper (mosquito).

Woodrow Wilson demands that the upcoming New York Democratic Convention not be run by Boss Murphy (Wilson’s been trying to force Gov. John Dix, Murphy’s man, out of office).

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Today -100: September 29, 1912: Of covenants, the typical Englishman of the year 3912, non-thinking people, and bears

Northern Irish Protestants sign the Covenant, pledging to resist Home Rule and never recognize the authority of an Irish Parliament, “in sure confidence that God will defend the right.”

A Dr. Forbes Ross suggests that with the current eugenic trends in England, 2,000 years from now the average Englishman’s face will be that of a typical criminal, with prognathous jaws and face, receding forehead, broad, flat nose, well-marked canine teeth, small eyes, short neck, head set well back between the shoulders, and a depraved gorilla countenance.


Taft attacks Roosevelt, though not by name, saying the Bull Moose Party split off from the Republican Party “not for any one principle, or indeed on any principle at all, but merely to gratify personal ambition and vengeance, and in the gratification of that personal ambition and vengeance, every new fad and theory, some of them good, some of them utterly preposterous and impracticable, some of them as Socialistic as anything that has been proposed in the countries of Europe... have been crowded into a platform in order to tempt the voters of enthusiastic supporters of each of these proposed reforms. ... an entire willingness to destroy every limitation of constitutional representative government in order that, by short cuts, these various reforms... may be accomplished by the decree of a benevolent despotism to be supported by the acclaim of hero-worshiping, emotional, undiscriminating, superficially minded, and non-thinking people.” Adding, probably, “But if superficially minded, non-thinking people want to vote for me instead, that’s cool.” Seriously, is that how you try to win back disaffected Republican voters? The rest of the speech was about the need to preserve the protective tariff.

An engineer, Carroll Livingston Riker, has written a book (which astonishingly seems to have been republished this year) proposing the building of a wall into the Atlantic from Newfoundland to redirect the Gulf Stream to the Arctic, melting the Polar ice caps and heating up the Earth, and all for only $190 million, less than the cost of building the Panama Canal.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Kaiser Throws Carrot To Bear.”

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