In other words, he was a comforter

George Bush was interviewed by Candy Crowley on CNN about his book on his father. Hey, did you know his father was ALSO president? What’re the odds?

IN OTHER WORDS: “Well, I think I’m introducing him to our country in a way no one’s ever known him. In other words, he’s an extraordinary person, not only because of his accomplishments but because of his character.”

PLEASE, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW A PRETZEL WORKS: “And secondly I understand how history works; it takes a long time for people to get to know him, get to know somebody and then analyze their decisions. But I wanted to be one of the first people out in the evaluation of George H.W. Bush.” Most of the rest of us actually evaluated him when he was president, but George was pretty drunk those entire four years.

MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY. “And it’s a love story. I mean, there’s - I love him.”

IN OTHER WORDS: He denies having daddy issues: “Yeah, stiff competition is overstated. In other words if you love somebody as much as I love my dad, and my brothers loved my dad, my sister, there’s no need to compete.”

He says he didn’t discuss presidential stuff with his father: “And I think part of it has to do with how he raised us, and that is I love you no matter what you do.” Or he just gave up on you ever getting anything right a long time ago.

IN OTHER WORDS: “But I hope when people read this, and I hope they do, is that they understand that when he reached across and grabbed my arm after the speech on September the 14 in the National Cathedral, I mean, incredibly emotional moment for me, it was in many ways symbolic of what he’d meant for me as president. In other words, he was a comforter. A lot.” No, he just seemed like a comforter because he was feather-brained.

DOESN’T KNOW A LOT OF ADJECTIVES, DOES HE? “and so he was confident I had a good team and that I would make decisions based upon good judgments of a lot of good advisers.”

IN OTHER WORDS: Still won’t admit being wrong about Putin’s soul. “Well, I think he’s become more zero-sum type thinker. In other words... it’s almost as if he says that if the - if the West wins, I lose. And if I win, the West loses. As opposed to what can we do together to enhance our respective positions?”

He explains how to defeat ISIS: “Well, first thing is there has to be a goal, and the president has laid out what I think is a good goal, and that is to degrade and defeat ISIS.” Why, that’s so crazy it might just work!

IN OTHER WORDS: On Jeb: “So when you’re weighing the presidency, you think, ‘Do I fear success?’ In other words, can I handle it if I win?” But he has “no clue where his head is now” and hasn’t talked with Jeb about 2016. Jeb hasn’t called to ask for advice, George hasn’t called to ask if he’s running. Tell us again all about how close your family is, George.

He also has “no clue” about whether Hillary will run for president in the conservatory with a candle stick.

Similarly, “The [Eric Garner grand jury] verdict was hard to understand”. Also, door knobs.

“But it’s sad that race continues to play such a, you know, kind of emotional, divisive part of life. I remember back in when I was a kid, in the ‘70s...” George was born in 1946. “...and there was race riots with cities being burned. And I just think we’ve improved. I had dinner with Condi the other night and we talked about this subject, and, yes, she just said you got understand that there are a lot of, you know, black folks around that are just incredibly more and more distrusting of law enforcement.” And then I forgot she wasn’t the maid and told her to clear the plates.

The Eric Garner video is “very disturbing to me. And, yes. I mean it just - it calls into question what needs to be done to heal...” Er, nothing, he’s dead. The cop choked him to death.

“...to get the country united again.” And there you go: the poster boy for unearned white privilege thinks there was a golden age of race relations, if we could only figure out how to return to it.

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Today -100: December 8, 1914: Of iron crosses, neutrality, and truces

Now that the unwritten ban on Jews in the German military has been lifted, several have been promoted to be officers and 710 have received the Iron Cross, to which some have responded, “Dude, we’re Jews and you’re giving us a cross?”  (I believe the German for “dude” is “mein duden”).

The US Supreme Court denies Leo Frank’s writ of error.

Charles M. Schwab of Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding has given in to Pres. Wilson’s request that he not make submarines for Britain, which Wilson seems to think would violate his neutrality policy.  Evidently the government had no legal way to stop Schwab had he ignored it.

Germany claims to have captured Lodz.

The pope wants a truce in the Great War over Christmas.

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Today -100: December 7, 1914: Of horses, mules, olympics, and Jewish bravery

One of Mexico’s competing presidents, Eulalio Gutiérrez, moves into the presidential palace in Mexico City.  He doesn’t make a speech, but does send someone out to say that his soldiers have not come to steal horses and automobiles, but to work for the welfare of the nation.  It’s probably not a great sign if you have to say that, but he is backed by bandits Villa and Zapata, so the horse-thief/president line might be a little bit blurrier than elsewhere.

Britain is buying pretty much all of Georgia’s mules.

The European war may put a crimp in the 1916 Olympics.  The 1916 Berlin Olympics.

Bankers and stock brokers in Chicago want to change their time zone from Central to Eastern, because it would be convenient for them to sync up with the NY Stock Exchange, but the railroads disagree.  There will be discussions.

The German governor of occupied Antwerp bans the distribution of any pictures of Belgian ruins.

Headline of the Day -100:  “The Jew’s Bravery Established in War.”

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Today -100: December 6, 1914: It still has that new revolution smell

Headline of, Oh, Pretty Much Once a Week -100:  “New Revolution Begins in Mexico.”  Led by a couple of Huerta’s generals, Emilio Campo and José Inés Salazar.  Salazar escaped a couple of weeks ago from jail in Albuquerque, where he was held on a perjury charge, which I think must relate to his acquittal by a federal jury in May on a charge of smuggling 100,000 rounds of ammunition into Mexico.  After this current revolutionary movement fails, Salazar will once again flee into the US, and a year from now will be acquitted again.  Somehow he’ll wind up joining Pancho Villa’s forces, even though he had been in charge of fighting Villa under Huerta.  He’ll be killed in battle in 1917.

The departure of the Lusitania from New York harbor is delayed while the new “war tax” on tickets is collected from passengers.  This amounts to $3 for steerage passengers on their $37.50 ticket.

According to official reports, “Nothing of importance happened in the Carpathians yesterday.”

Vice President Marshall says no one cares that he’s taking paid lecturing gigs.

Belgium is reported, falsely I assume, to have hidden some of its art treasures, including a Rubens, from the Germans at the bottom of the River Scheldt.

Theodore Roosevelt has an op-ed in the NYT entitled “Our Responsibility in Mexico” (this link is more readable than the NYT’s; it’s his 1916 book Fear God and Take Your Own Part [!]; today’s article starts on p.230 at the words “THE SOUND OF LAUGHTER AND OF PLAYING  CHILDREN HAS BEEN STILLED IN MEXICO.”)  TR accuses Wilson of doing both too much in Mexico (refusing to recognize Huerta’s coup regime in the first place, then landing troops at Vera Cruz) and too little (not... actually I’m not sure what he thinks Wilson should have done, but he accuses him of having “hit soft” and withdrawn before accomplishing anything).  I believe this type of criticism is called the Full John McCain.  He says that Wilson’s putting the American finger on the scale in favor of Carranza/Villa has “produce[d] much evil and no good and [made] us responsible for the actions of a peculiarly lawless, ignorant and blood-thirsty faction” and cites the many acts of violence and the harassment of the Catholic Church.

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Today -100: December 5, 1914: Of censorship, and crimes negroes are prone to commit

The British authorities finally allow the press to report the sinking of the Audacious, although not the name of the ship or the location.

The German authorities suppress an issue of the Vossische Zeitung for reporting on a super-secret meeting of a committee of the Reichstag at which, they say, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg said the war would go longer than expected and the German people had better tighten their belts.  The government denies he said anything of the sort.

And the Budapest authorities are trying to suppress newspapers that reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Count Tisza got a poor reception in Berlin when he tried to get troops sent to protect Hungary’s border.  Kaiser Wilhelm is reported to have been particularly upset about the “egotism of some people” whose desire not to be invaded by Russia would upset Germany’s meticulous war plans.  The Hungarian secret police are literally ripping newspapers out of the hands of people in cafés.  Everyone in Austria-Hungary is coming to realize that all decisions are now being made in Berlin.  Hungary especially was never thrilled with this war.  It disliked Archduke Franz Ferdinand and doesn’t share the Austrian interest in territorial expansion, which would just bring in more troublesome Slavs.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany claims to have discovered in a town in Belgium super-secret pre-war papers from the British army detailing Belgian military information, showing that Belgium was never neutral, so it was totally okay for Germany to violate its neutrality.

Fog? The London Morning Post says that two of Kaiser Wilhelm’s sons had to flee the Russian army in Poland by airplane.

France, which doesn’t seem to be pressing its advantage while Germany is distracted by losses on its eastern front in Poland, is also fighting a colonial war in Morocco, where a lot of officers have been beheaded by Arab insurgents.

Massachusetts Gov. David Walsh wants to suspend labor laws, including those regulating child labor, overtime, and the 54-hour week, so that the state can take advantage of all the extra orders coming in due to the European war.  It’s called opportunity, people!

The journal American Medicine, which is published in New York, has an article by a psychologist trying – and failing – to figure out why Atlanta is so eager to execute Leo Frank for a crime Jim Conley, who testified against him, obviously did, despite the fact that “The crime [presumably rape rather than murder] is one which negroes are prone to commit, and if a white man is guilty he generally, if not always, shows signs of mental disturbance.”  It’s just science.

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Today -100: December 4, 1914: Of the just aspirations of Italy, naval mishaps, moral surveillance, shell shock, and hangings

Italian Prime Minister Antonio Salandra tells Parliament that just because Italy is neutral in the war doesn’t mean it won’t try to scavenge the bones of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and annex Trento and Trieste (“the just aspirations of Italy,” he calls this goal).

British newspapers are again complaining about censorship, specifically the continued refusal to let the public be informed of “a certain naval mishap” (i.e., the sinking of the Audacious on October 27) of which the German public is fully informed.

After a campaign by suffrage and other feminist groups in Britain against a government circular to local police forces asking them to enquire into the moral worthiness of soldiers’ wives, the government backs down only slightly, and police will continue to consider it their business whether those wives are drinking or screwing around.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Shell Fire Wrecks Reason.”  They don’t have the phrase “shell shock” yet, but will soon.

Pennsylvania holds its last hanging (they’re switching to electrocution).

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Core principle

Another week, another Obama statement about a dead black man killed by a cop who gets away with it.

He has a strong finisher – “When anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law, that’s a problem. And it’s my job as President to help solve it.” – but most of what leads up to it strains so strenuously to avoid speaking hard truths about how this country is policed that it seems to suggest, in as many words, that the only problem is a perception problem on the part of overly sensitive minorities:

...the concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way.

communities of color and minority communities that feel that bias is taking place

they’re [cops] only going to be able to do their job effectively if everybody has confidence in the system.

And right now, unfortunately, we are seeing too many instances where people just do not have confidence that folks are being treated fairly.

And I am absolutely committed as President of the United States to making sure that we have a country in which everybody believes in the core principle that we are equal under the law.

And unicorns.

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Today -100: December 3, 1914: Of war credits, presidents, and legitimacy suits

The Reichstag votes $1.25 billion in war credits and adjourns for three months.  The only no vote was socialist Karl Liebknecht’s and the rest of the SPD should be ashamed of itself.

South Africa captures rebel leader Gen. Christiaan De Wet.  It seems that automobiles are better than horses in a chase.

Zapata and Pancho Villa confer, and guess what, they both support different people to be president.

Austrian troops finally occupy Belgrade, which will make a nice present for Emperor Franz Josef for his 66th anniversary as emperor.

The Slingsby legitimacy suit opens in London.  I’ll admit I just clicked on this story because of the glorious phrase “Slingsby legitimacy suit,” but it turns out to be darned interesting. Charles Slingsby, a former lieutenant of the British navy married to an American and living in San Francisco, inherited money and lands in Yorkshire from his father, as did his heir – £100,000 – except his heir died at or soon after birth and so he adopted a child and passed it off as his natural son, or at least that’s the accusation being made by his brothers.  Follow-up: In February 1915, Judge Bargrave Deane, possessor of the most magistratey name in all England, ruled that the baby-substitution story was a fabrication.  He thinks the child (Teddy) looks like his parents, complete with his father’s “peculiarly shaped jaw.”  The judge called in his friend, the sculptor Sir George Frampton, who noticed Teddy’s odd-shaped left ear, which looks like his mother’s.  He’s a funny-looking kid, is what the court is ruling here.  Further follow-up: in 1916 the Court of Appeals overturned Bargrave Deane’s ruling, coming to the conclusion that the evidence that Mrs Slingsby had advertised to adopt a baby while supposedly pregnant (the theory now seems to be that there was never a legitimate baby, and to be fair, there does seem to be a lot of evidence for it, although the other Slingsby brothers were spreading around an awful lot of money in the New World bribing witnesses, so I’m not really sure).  In December 1916 the House of Lords refused to hear the appeal, noting that it was sorry to fuck over Slingsby (now serving again in the military) and his funny-looking bastard child.

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Today -100: December 2, 1914: Of wood, mahans, wardens, and tramps

Headline of the Day -100:  “Germany Won’t Pass Wood.”  No, don’t click: whatever you’re thinking (and you should probably be ashamed of whatever you’re thinking) is much more interesting than the real story.

Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the famous naval strategist, dies. Though important in the US, he was really influential in Germany, whose military leaders (and the kaiser) read his books and decided they needed a big navy to compete with Britain.  Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Pancho Villa arrives in Mexico City.  He says he’s only there to preserve order, and absolutely not to take personal revenge on his enemies.  So... that’s reassuring, I guess.

Thomas Mott Osborne, the new reforming warden of Sing Sing, arrives. You can tell the prisoners love him, because there were no fires, strikes or riots, which is the traditional greeting for a new warden.

There’s a bidding war for Charlie Chaplin, who is leaving Keystone.  Two companies have offered him more than $1,000 a week.

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Today -100: December 1, 1914: Of Gurkhas, war taxes, yellow books, and football

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung claims that Britain’s Sikh and Gurkha troops sneak into German trenches at night to slit soldiers’ throats and drink their blood. As you do.

Germany announces more extortion from Belgium, a $7 million per month war tax, which will go to the expenses of occupation.  This is supposedly being imposed as punishment for the shooting of German soldiers by Belgian civilians.  The fines imposed up until now on Belgian cities, it is explained, were just for the widows and children of fallen German soldiers.

Luxembourg, which unlike Belgium rolled over for Germany, has been given $318,000 by German in compensation for damage to fields, roads, etc by the passage of German troops.

France publishes its Yellow Book on the causes of the war.  Evidently it was Germany’s fault.

The owners of British football clubs are not best pleased with the press campaign against them, and say they will stop playing, as is being demanded, when all the theaters, cinemas, golf courses and race tracks also close.

A majority of the US Supreme Court says that the Oklahoma Supreme Court was wrong to uphold a Jim Crow law allowing railroads to provide luxury accommodations – sleeping cars, dining cars, etc – only to whites.  However, they still throw the case out since the petitioners had not been refused such services and lack standing.

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Today -100: November 30, 1914: Love, not dreadnoughts and siege guns, will bring peace to warring Europe

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says that Sir Roger Casement must have gone literally insane, probably from all that time in the tropics, to have gone to Berlin to negotiate.  The Irish nationalists repudiate Casement.

Woodrow Wilson is going ahead with his plan to settle the Colorado coal strike, even though the mineowners rejected it.  He appoints a commission to settle future differences (or, as the bitterly anti-union LA Times puts it, “President Vents Spite”).  Not that he can force anyone to listen to the commission, so I’m not sure what he thinks he’s accomplishing.

Gen. Pablo Gonzales is reported to have declared himself provisional president of Mexico, because Mexico definitely needed a third one of those.  Can’t have enough provisional presidents, I always say.

The commander of the United States Naval Training Station in Rhode Island bans the song “Tipperary” because it violates Woodrow Wilson’s neutrality order.

Speaking of violating neutrality, Today -100’s Headline of the Day: “Mr. Bryan Evades Embrace. He Had Just Predicted Love Would Bring Peace to Europe.”  A young woman who claimed to be his cousin, but wasn’t, tries to hug him.  There’s never a cameraphone around in 1914 when you need it.

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Today -100: November 29, 1914: Beware the French Dragons!

France and Germany and Austria will exchange civilian prisoners aged 45-60 who are medically unfit for military service.

NYT Index Typo of the Day -100: “DRAGONS WRECKED GERMAN AIR FLEET; French War Office Describes Night Attack of Cavalry on an Aeroplane Camp.”  What are French dragons like?  I picture him wearing a beret, with a Galois hanging from the corner of his mouth.

German newspapers are trying to reassure the public that the Russian winter isn’t really so bad for German soldiers.  In fact, according to the professors being trotted out, severe cold kills germs and is therefore healthy (cholera has already broken out among some soldiers).

Norway’s women’s suffrage society (est. 1885) dissolves, because they won.  In Norway suffrage was granted in installments (local elections to women paying a certain amount of tax in 1896, in state elections in 1907, county elections in 1910 for women over 25, and equal votes in 1913.

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Today -100: November 28, 1914: Of football, fighting clergy, disguised steamers, impudent good will, and muffs

London newspaper owners jointly decide to stop reporting on football beyond the scores.  If that doesn’t make everyone join the army, I don’t know what will.

Headline of the Day -100:  “German Clergymen Want To Fight.”  Some clergymen in Berlin protest being exempted (I guess actually barred) from the military.  It’s an insult, they say.

Churches are not exempt from military service, however.  At least according to the London Morning Post, which claims that the German army has put machine guns and anti-aircraft guns in the towers of Cracow Catholic churches to lure Russia into bombing them, thereby alienating the Poles.

German schoolboys have been “volunteering” for military training at their schools.  They will go to the front in the spring as young as 16.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Lusitania Drops Disguise.”  Arrives in New York painted in its Cunard Line colors again, after having been cunningly disguised for two months by being painted black.

British newspapers are castigating former diplomat Sir Roger Casement for going to Berlin and getting a statement from the kaiser that Germany would never invade Ireland (which the Daily News calls “an impudent message of good will”).  Casement is also negotiating for more concrete aid for Irish rebels.

Turkey has decided not to default on its pre-war bonds.  But it will pay the interest only in person at the Ministry of Finance in Constantinople.  Just make your way through the front lines, foreigners who hold most of the bonds.

Headline of the Day -100:  “WANT MUFFS FOR SOLDIERS.; German Officer Appeals to Women to Send Their Furs.”  Say, what sort of war is this, anyway?

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Today -100: November 27, 1914: We will again save the republic

Carranza arrives at Vera Cruz, declares it the new capital, or temporary capital, or something.  “We will again save the republic,” Carranza says.

Prime Minister Asquith says he won’t bring in legislation to ban football.  Or to seize all football grounds for military purposes.  Yet.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Germany accuses Britain of a war crime: a British airplane was forced down behind German lines, and beside the pilot was a German prisoner, very cold and very naked, who’d been taken up in an attempt to scare him into revealing military secrets.  The pilot was then shot.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times):  “Russian Girl is Crucified.”  Another Fog of War story, one hopes.

A British battleship, the Bulwark, blows up in Sheerness Harbour, killing 738 of the crew. Not enemy action. Maybe it’s not a good idea to store shells next to the boiler room bulkhead after all.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes denies Leo Frank a writ of error on technical grounds, but expresses doubt that he received a fair trial, given the presence of a threatening mob.

Retired Tammany Boss Richard Croker’s marriage comes off. Since he was marrying an Indian, there was a crowd in front of the church of “ragamuffins in black face and motley attire, masquerading in honor of Thanksgiving Day”.  Elsewhere in the paper, the NYT complains that “Army of Beggars Mar Thanksgiving.”

This blog wishes you and your army of beggars a happy Thanksgiving.

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Today -100: November 26, 1914: Of pardons, Bavarians, football, Christmas ships, internment camps, and Indian maids

Outgoing South Carolina Gov. Coleman Blease will pardon or commute the sentences of 75 prisoners for Thanksgiving.  I’m still not sure what’s up with his campaign to use his pardon power to empty the jails.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: More stories about how disaffected the Bavarian troops supposedly are, fraternizing with French soldiers and not shooting at them but into the air.  I’m not sure whether this propaganda campaign (at least, I’m pretty sure it’s not true) is aimed at reassuring the French or dividing the Germans.

After the weekend, the British newspapers conducted a tut-tut campaign about how many healthy young male spectators there were at football matches and how few of them responded to army recruiters.  So the next step is a campaign to ban football, because of course it is.  A question will be asked in Parliament tomorrow.

One of the ways in which the US is helping out with the war is the “Christmas ship,” a philanthropic scheme to send presents to European children (and sell copies of the newspapers sponsoring the scheme, of course).  It was the least we could do.

The Duchess of Marlborough (née Consuelo Vanderbilt) has zeppelin-proofed her London home, Sunderland House.

Germany orders a census of all the animals in Germany, for rationing purposes.  Also, to save flour, Berlin bakers are banned from baking bread more than twice a day, which they do because everyone prefers fresh bread.  Berliners will eat stale bread and by god they’ll like it, officials declare.

British guards shot several rioting interned Germans at the detention camp on the Isle of Man.  News of this has reached Germany and there are now fears of reprisals against British prisoners.

Zapata’s forces move into  Mexico City as Gen. Blanco’s forces hastily depart, leaving barely any time for mobs to form and start looting. This is why you need to be prepared and draw up a shopping list.  Pancho Villa plans to enter the capital tomorrow.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Croker Is To Wed Indian Maid Today.”  Richard Croker, the former Boss of Tammany Hall, will marry Beulah Edmonson, a Cherokee woman “who last year rode a pony and sang Indian songs in the Hippodrome,” and rode a horse at the head of a suffrage parade in D.C..  The NYT says she’s 50 years younger than him, but it’s really 40, 41 years, tops.

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Today -100: November 25, 1914: Of invasions, missionaries & dwarfs, salaams, and Florida property

H.G. Wells suggested that if Germany invaded Britain, civilians should defend the country with carving knives or any other weapons they could find.  The government is trying to shut down this sort of talk (which would violate the rules of war and make the entire population of Britain legitimate military targets), but won’t say what it’s plans in case of invasion actually are.

Headline of the Day -100:  “German Missionary Tries to Blow Up Ship.”  In West Africa somewhere, a British gunboat called the Dwarf.  He says he’s a soldier first and a missionary afterward.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100 / Headline of the Day -100: “Salaams of Indian Stay German Fire.”  One of Britain’s Indian troops was scouting at night when a German spotlight fell on him.  He started salaaming (bowing) his way to the Germans, where he pretended to be a disaffected colonial who just wanted to fight the British.  The next day he said he could come back with more like-minded Indians, so they let him go, like the lunk-headed Germans they are, not realizing that every single subject of the Raj is completely loyal to the king.

That article says that the Indians in Europe have been engaged in trenching and counter-trenching.  I have no idea what that means and no, Google, I did NOT mean “define contour-trenching.”

More Fog? Germany is said to be dismantling locomotives for their copper and brass, to make more bullets.

Zapata’s forces are entering Mexico City, which Carranza’s troops have all left.

E.C. Chambers, on trial for using the mails to defraud by the sale of Florida (swamp)land, claims that William Jennings Bryan himself inspected the land back in ought-ten and declared it perfectly good land (though under two feet of water) and later bought some.

I don’t normally do birth anniversaries here, but what the hell: Joe DiMaggio, whose autograph my father failed to get twice, once in the 1940s and once in the 1970s.

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There’s never an excuse for violence

I’m reading Obama’s comments on the Ferguson grand jury rather than watching them on tv because I can’t stand to hear his voice any more. To be fair, there hasn’t been a president in my lifetime whose voice I could stand to hear this far into their presidency.

“our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day.” They sure put SOMEONE’s lives on the line every single day.

“As they do their jobs in the coming days, they need to work with the community, not against the community, to distinguish the handful of people who may use the grand jury’s decision as an excuse for violence...” Okay, this is my first Fuck You, Obama Moment™ in this address. You can argue that violence, setting a police car on fire, for example, is not the appropriate response, but the word “excuse” suggests that Some People just love them some violence and have no other motivation beyond their love of violence, and don’t really care about Michael Brown at all.

“...distinguish them from the vast majority who just want their voices heard around legitimate issues in terms of how communities and law enforcement interact.” The police don’t get to decide what “legitimate issues” are. Also, Obama, since you inserted that word “legitimate” in there, maybe you can tell us which issues related to cops shooting unarmed black kids are illegitimate? Because we’d really like to know.

“The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color.” How many parts is the right number?

“And there are good people on all sides of this debate”. There are also a lot of assholes. But I’ll bet you won’t talk about them.

“We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades. I’ve witnessed that in my own life. And to deny that progress I think is to deny America’s capacity for change.” This just occurred to me, and I haven’t read his memoirs, but has Obama ever talked about any discrimination he has personally felt in his life?

“there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion.” How often is the right amount?

“That [progress] won’t be done by throwing bottles. That won’t be done by smashing car windows. That won’t be done by using this as an excuse to vandalize property.” There’s that word again.

“Those of you who are watching tonight understand that there’s never an excuse for violence”. Tell that to the fucking grand jury.

Or the Iraqis, Afghans, etc, yeah yeah, but I think we all know “there’s never an excuse for violence” was never intended to apply to Johnny Foreigner.

“But I think that we have to make sure that we focus at least as much attention on all those positive activities that are taking place as we do on a handful of folks who end up using this as an excuse...” You’re really beginning to piss me off, dude. “...to misbehave...” Oo, I love it when he talks to us like we’re naughty children. “...or to break the law...” Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s too impressed with “the law” this evening. “...or to engage in violence.” “There is inevitably going to be some negative reaction, and it will make for good TV.” I mean, not “Breaking Bad” good, but still pretty good.

Oh, and I hear Officer Wilson is engaged, and not to a big hairy cellmate named Bubba. Congratulations, Officer Wilson!

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Today -100: November 24, 1914: That’s a lot of bullets

After seven months, the American occupation of Vera Cruz ends, “with little show of enthusiasm on the part of the Mexicans.”  In the end, they just left, without deciding to which of the competing Mexican regimes to hand over the port, the customs house, and seven months of customs duties.  Carranza’s soldiers take over the town, following two blocks behind the withdrawing Americans, and issue orders that everyone has to turn in their weapons or face execution, anyone who commits crimes will face execution, and all the saloons are closed until further notice.  Which probably explains the lack of enthusiasm.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Wilson To Receive Women.”  For Christmas?  Actually, he will receive and, I’m gonna predict, condescend to, a women’s suffrage deputation.

The Belgian authorities in Antwerp are refusing to pay the fine demanded by Germany until they stop requisitioning anything they want from the city.

Germany complains to the US and other neutral nations that Britain is violating the laws of the sea in seizing what it declares to be contraband.

Someone or other has calculated that it takes 168 pounds of bullets, which is 5,860 bullets, to kill a man on the Belgian front.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Football, Not War, Attracts English.”  English newspapers are working themselves into a froth, as is the custom, over this.  Recruiters at Saturday’s games succeeded in getting only one man to take the king’s shilling.  Now that the first giddy rush to arms is over, recruitment is way down. They’ve raised the pay, already the highest in Europe (they’re the only warring country without conscription) and reduced the minimum height to 5’3”.

A British patrol trawler, the Dorothy Gray, rams a German U-boat, the U-18, off Scotland’s coast, causing it to founder and surrender.  26 crew are taken prisoner, only one died.

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Today -100: November 23, 1914: Of spies, plots, and again being a state

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: the Allies have reportedly shot René Colaert, the mayor of Ypres (which is currently being destroyed by the battle of the same name; the town hall was blown up yesterday), as a spy for Germany.  None of which is true.

Russia arrests several Social Democratic members of the Duma for a supposed revolutionary plot to overthrow the state.

More Fog, from the Morning Post (UK): Kaiser Wilhelm is said to have demanded that Austria transfer all its troops to the defense of East Prussia because he thinks Austria itself is a lost cause. The Austrians would prefer that German troops help them defend Cracow. There’s also a story that retreating German and Austrian troops quarreled and shot at each other.

Still more Fog? Honestly, I don’t believe anything I’m reading today.  The military governor of the Austrian fortress of Cracow says civilians aren’t obeying his order to leave the city fast enough, so he’ll have any that don’t do so shot.

A committee of the Colorado Legislature demands that outgoing Governor Ammons “prepare to accept for the people of this State the responsibility of again being a State” and send the national guard back into the strike regions so that federal troops can leave.  They want him to issue a proclamation that everyone should obey the law and refrain from “incendiary utterances” and tweets, and make clear that every able-bodied man from 18 to 45 is a member of the state militia whether they like it or not. The governor-elect talks of deporting from the state any strikers who break the law.  Neither governor suggests that the mining companies accept Wilson’s proposed truce, much less negotiate in good faith with the miners.

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Today -100: November 22, 1914: Of unfriendly unhostile acts, free countries, swapped giants, and little lord fauntleroys

Turkey explains why it fired on a US launch in Smyrna.  See, they were just friendly warning shots, warning the launch that the harbor was mined and they shouldn’t enter it.  The Wilson administration is pretending to believe this, although we’re not quite sure what the captain of the Tennessee believes, since he reported the shots as “unfriendly” but also as “not intended as a hostile act,” whatever all that means.  It also seems that US embassy was informed that the port of Smyrna had been closed but didn’t have the means of communicating that information to US Navy ships.

The NYT Magazine asks “Did You Ever Hear of a Free Country Called Moresnet?”  Moresnet was a tiny sort-of-nation between Belgium and Germany, sort of jointly but very loosely administered by both, without a real government or courts.  And (Spoiler Alert) it won’t last long.

Evidently not just Carranza fled Mexico City, but also the entire police force.

Headline of the Day -100:  “Swap Giant for Dwarfs.”  William Hempstead, an eight-foot-tall Englishman stuck in Germany at the start of the war, is exchanged for two Germans who are under two feet tall, and are you fucking kidding me?

Headline of the Day -100:  “LORD FAUNTLEROY,' ORIGINAL, MARRIES.”  That’s Vivian Burnett, the son of novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett, is forever stuck with being called Little Lord Fauntleroy, the effeminate character his mother modeled on him.  Indeed, in 1937 the NYT reported his death at 61 under the headline “Original Fauntleroy Dies in Boat After Helping Rescue 4 in Sound.”

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