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Sharia law, Cajun style: a 78-year-old convicted child molester was castrated as a condition for parole in Louisiana. Because mutilating old men is how they roll down there. His prostate cancer delayed the operation, but finally the judge insisted that “it’s time to give Caesar what Caesar is owed,” which is evidently one wrinkly old penis. “They tell me it’s comparable to having your wisdom teeth pulled,” says Maj. Richie Johnson of the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. I’m pretty sure having your wisdom teeth pulled and having your dick, um, pulled are actually in no way comparable, but I’m loathe to argue the subject with someone named Major Johnson.
Update: the CBS story on this begins “Convicted pedophile Francis Tullier, 78, cut his prison sentence in half - and that’s not all”.
The operation (a medically unnecessary procedure for which some doctor needs to lose his license) was performed at the Earl K. Long Medical Center. Which looks like this:
Just saying.
The French prime minister praises Henri Bernstein for withdrawing his play, but the violence does not end. The son of the the Comédie-Française’s director fights a duel with the editor of the Camelots du Roi organ L’Action Française. They exchanged four bullets before moving on to rapiers. The son guy got injured. The NYT says that the whole brouhaha couldn’t happen here: “if any representatives of the lawless tried to disturb a performance of a play they would be suppressed, partly by efficient police, largely by the opposition of playgoers in general to rude conduct in theatres. We do not even hiss plays here.”
The Honduran peace conference between the government and rebels agrees on a provisional president, pending new elections in October, so the US envoy doesn’t have to pick one for them. Dr. Francisco Bertrand is a backer of the former president and current rebel leader Manuel Bonilla. His cabinet will consist of equal numbers of men from both sides. There will be an amnesty and the government will pay the war expenses of both sides.
On the last, remarkably foul-tempered day of the lame-duck Congressional session (though Taft plans to call a special session of the newly elected Congress to vote on the dreaded Canadian reciprocity treaty), Sen. Robert Owen (D-OK) filibusters everything in sight to prevent the admission to statehood of Republican New Mexico unless Democratic Arizona is admitted at the same time. He wins that, but the final bill for both territories falls short of the necessary 2/3 vote (45-39).
Then, Sen. Joseph Weldon Bailey (D-TX), who once beat up another senator during a debate, melodramatically resigns – or tries to resign – from the Senate in fury at his fellow Democrats for voting for the Arizona constitution despite the inclusion of provisions for initiative, referendum and recall, which he calls “populistic heresies” in his resignation telegram to the governor of Texas. He had to send that telegram because Vice President Sherman, presiding over the Senate, refused to accept his resignation. The governor didn’t accept it either. Bailey later calmed down and rescinded his resignation, accepting the Democratic senators’ explanation that they also hate those provisions but wanted to let the people of Arizona decide for themselves.
The immigration authorities prevented a ship smuggling “contraband” Chinese coolies landing at San Pedro, shooting at the launch. So the coolies were dumped into the Pacific Ocean and drowned instead. The same thing happened two weeks ago, so they knew what might happen when they stopped it from landing.
Headline of the Day -100: “Leather Insurgents Gain Part Victory.” Some court case by stockholders in the Central Leather Company. Whatever. But: leather insurgents!
Speaking of insurgents, Francisco Madero is demanding the city of Chihuahua surrender or be starved into submission.
The federal government sues to dissolve the “electrical trust,” 34 companies centered on General Electric and the National Electric Lamp Company, which has gained control of 97% of the 80 million lamps sold annually in the US since the patent on carbon filament incandescent lights expired in 1904. One tactic: setting up fake “independent” companies to sell inferior lamps to damage the reputation of real independents.
Headline, er, Other Headline of the Day -100: “Term in Prison for Banker Belling.” Sadly, it turns out to be a banker named Charles Belling (for forgery); there was not a crime of banker-belling.
Henri Bernstein withdraws “Après Mois” from the Comédie-Française, saying he does not wish to be responsible for more bloodshed.
You know how you can tell that the White House-Congressional meeting on the budget went really, really, really well? Joe Biden’s statement afterwards is just ten words long.
The House of Commons passes the bill removing the House of Lords’s veto power. Opposition leader Arthur Balfour gave a speech on the benefits of retaining hereditary power but said, “Let it be our servant; let it no longer be our master.” MPs laughed at him.
More theatrical disturbances in Paris, where a large mob fight the police while trying to storm the Théâtre-Français as Henri Bernstein’s “Après Mois” was being performed. Inside, 100 detectives (in evening dress) failed to prevent the usual disruptions, including exploding magnesium.
There’s a story about an 8-year-old white girl whose mother had left her when she was six months old with a “black mammy of the old type” and then went off to commit suicide. (A follow-up story says she was a 16-year-old chorus girl and did not actually commit suicide). Though the girl was well-cared for and happy, the authorities of course take her away. Read it if you want to be depressed for the rest of the day.
Libyan clothes horse Muammar Qaddafi gave a 2½ hour speech today. He said that there had been “no peaceful demonstrations at all” in the last couple of weeks, and that no government officials have resigned. But then again, he says that he can’t resign either, because he doesn’t actually have any job – he’s the Sarah Palin of Libya – “I carried out a revolution in the 70s, handed over power to the people and then rested.” He does look very well rested, doesn’t he?
If foreign troops invade, they “will be entering hell and they will drown in blood.” But then again, he also says that about “whoever took the last Pop-Tart, which I was totally saving for a snack while watching Glee.” He will fight “until the last man and woman.” But not until the last voluptuous Ukrainian nurse, because she left last week.
He blamed the unrest – which totally doesn’t exist – on Al Qaida, which of course serves Western interests. Er, it’s all very subtle.
And then he got in the Qaddafi-mobile and left.
The lame-duck Senate declares William Lorimer (R-Illinois) duly elected by a vote of 46-40, despite the wide-scale bribery of state legislators in his 1909 election. Interestingly, he was supported by 36 Republicans and 10 Dems, and opposed by 22 R’s and 18 D’s. The Senate’s so-called investigation did not require Lorimer to testify. The vote is an interesting coda to yesterday’s vote against the popular election of senators.
Lorimer will eventually be expelled in the summer of 1912.
Me, trying to read an article by a Mormon about their magic underwear: “The Garments of the Holy Priesthood, or garments, as we call them for short, are simple underclothes that a member” snort giggle “of the church who has participated in the endowment ceremony...” HAHAHAHA!
Hey, Today -100 fans, er, both of you: I should have mentioned that PBS aired a documentary last night on “American Experience” about the Triangle shirtwaist fire of 1911. Check local listings for the re-broadcasts. And there’ll be another doc on HBO on the 21st.
It was... okay. More time spent on the social conditions and the 1909-10 shirtwaist strike than on the actual fire, which is fine by me, although I got the impression it was mostly because they weren’t particularly interested in the factory workers themselves. I do have two objections. 1) I couldn’t tell which of the images they used were actually images of the things they were discussing and which were stock footage – were those firemen the actual ones trying to put out the fire at the Asch Building or just any old firemen from around that period? 2) They willfully obscured the fact that most of the Triangle workers were immigrants. None of the voiceover actors supposedly speaking the words of the survivors had so much as a trace of an accent. And when they talked about the Cooper Union meeting in 1909, they mentioned that Clara Lemlich stood up and gave a rousing speech that roused the meeting, against the wishes of Samuel Gompers and the other union leaders on the stage, into calling the strike, they even quoted some of her words, but failed to mention that they were given in Yiddish. Funny, that.
And of course check back here on March 26th for up-to-the-minute -100 coverage of the fire.
