Today -100: July 7, 1911: Of dirty tricks, Christian Science, and loud churches

The Mexican Treasury gives $320,000 in gold to the Maderos to reimburse their expenses in overthrowing the government.

Rep. George Norris (Insurgent R-Neb.) accuses Taft’s secretary of running a political news bureau out of the White House aimed at scuppering a possible primary challenge to Taft by Robert LaFollette in 1912.

Sen. John Works (D-Cal.) gives a two-hour speech in the Senate against the establishment of a National Department of Health. Evidently he’s a believer in Christian Science, which he claims cured him and his wife of unspecified long-term diseases and his son of being a drunk. He accuses the American Medical Society of trying to stamp out Christian Science.

Mexican police fire at striking street car workers in Mexico City, killing 6. So much for the revolution, huh?

Oscar Davis, a wealthy, presumably white man in Quitman, Georgia, complained to the authorities about the noise made by the congregation of a negro church located near his house. The authorities made the church folk worship less boisterously, so they are now quietly praying. For the death of Oscar Davis.

Obama and the hashtag of doom

Obama held a “Twitter town hall” today. He answered questions posed by people with made-up Twitter handles like “RenegadeNerd” and “John Boehner.”

BUT REAL MEN TWEET STANDING UP: “First of all, everybody can sit down. (Laughter.) It’s much easier to tweet from a seated position. (Laughter.)”


In answer to the pictured question: “I think that -- probably two things that I would do differently. One would have been to explain to the American people that it was going to take a while for us to get out of this.” See, it’s not something he did less than perfectly, it’s something he explained less than perfectly. (The second thing is something about housing, but he doesn’t really mention something he would do differently.)


IT’S B-O-N-E-R: “John obviously needs to work on his typing skills.”

Asked by one NickKristof if he shouldn’t have gotten a commitment to raise the debt ceiling when he gave the Republicans an extension of tax cuts to the wealthy, he says “That wasn’t the deal that was available.” In other words, you were out-negotiated.


Speaking of out-negotiated, here he is asking permission from the super-rich to raise their taxes, because he was just raised polite that way: “As I said before, if wealthy individuals are willing to simply go back to the rates that existed back in the 1990s when rich people were doing very well... if the wealthiest among us -- and I include myself in this category -- are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem.” If they aren’t willing, we might just remember that this country is supposed to be ruled by the majority, and we don’t actually have to beg their favor.

THE NICE THING ABOUT THE DEFENSE BUDGET: “And the nice thing about the defense budget is it’s so big, it’s so huge, that a 1 percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget.” That said, he won’t reduce the defense budget 1%, obvs.

Today -100: July 6, 1911: Of war clouds and heat waves

Turkey’s troops are mobilized in preparation for a war against Montenegro.

So that’s two war scares in Europe, including the one over Morocco. French funds are being withdrawn from German banks.

Major heat wave all across the US. Stories from everywhere about people dropping dead by the hundreds (250, anyway). Life and death before air conditioning.

Habeas corpus

The latest squabbling within the Israeli government is over just which corpses of Palestinians might or might not be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. The government has decided to hold off on the transfer to keep the bodies – some of them Hamas militants killed as long ago as the 1990s – hostage until Gilad Shalit is released. Charming.

Today -100: July 5, 1911: Of race riots and flies

In Hell’s Kitchen, Independence Day was celebrated with a “race riot.” Instigated by the area’s “old timers” who resent the encroachment of Austrian immigrants.

Headline of the Day -100: “Boys Killed 1,250,000 Flies.” A contest in San Antonio. Robert Basse (no age given) won the $10 prize with 484,320 flies.

Visual aids

Reuters: “A mine-awareness team in Uganda was horrified to find an unexploded bomb being used as a bell when it visited a school to teach children how to spot bombs.”

Today -100: July 4, 1911: Of 4th of July torpedoes, Channel crossings, disagreeable surprises, and negro taints

4th of July Story of the, Um, Day -100: Simon Fisher, 46, of Chicago, mistook a 4th of July torpedo (some sort of firecracker, I presume) for a piece of candy. “The ensuing explosion blew away his jaw, inflicting a probably fatal wound.” There’s probably a lesson in there, somewhere.

Taft says in a speech to old soldiers, that all the foreign wars waged by the US, except the Revolution and maybe the Civil War, could have been avoided through arbitration.

The NYT notes that the English Channel was crossed by airplane for the first time only a few months ago, but yesterday eleven planes made the flight from France to England in the space of an hour, which is a great achievement but also a little “disquieting,” given the military implications. “Fortunately, improved instruments for making war do not increase the frequency of wars, but have an opposite tendency. Real wholesale slaughter as a part of the everyday business of life ended when men stopped fighting each other with short swords.” So that’s okay, then.

France expresses “disagreeable surprise” over the German gunboat Panther’s appearance at Agadir.

Headline of the Day -100: “Not Afraid of Negro Taint.” While John B. Collins of St Louis is suing his wife Cora for annulment on the charge that she has some negro blood, her sister Blanche is engaged to automobile dealer Charles Wass, who laughs in the face of negro taints.

Because nothing says austerity like Silvio Berlusconi

The Italian cabinet approves an austerity budget. Henceforth, Berlusconi will throw simple bunga parties.

Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband Ed Miliband

My British readers will have seen this interview with Labour leader Ed Miliband last week, in which Ed repeats precisely the same answer about the one-day civil servants’ strike (wrong at this time when negotiations are still going on, the government’s been provocative too, everyone should just get round the table) over and over, expecting it to be cut down to a 10-second soundbite, rather than stuck up on YouTube in all its 2½ minute glory.



Kind of hypnotic, isn’t it?

The ITN interviewer Damon Green has described the whole surreal experience online: “I had an opportunity to ask one last question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. ‘What is the world’s fastest fish?’ ‘Can your dog do tricks?’ ‘Which is your favourite dinosaur?’”

Although obviously Ed Miliband is his own favorite dinosaur.

Education Minister Michael Gove has been criticizing teachers for daring to go on strike, because it is essential that children never miss a single day of school.

Schools were closed for the royal wedding.

The Daily Mail charmingly agrees with Gove:


The sailfish, by the way, is the world’s fastest fish.

Today -100: July 3, 1911: Of serial killers, Sunday speeches, gunboats, pinochle students, and fat men

The Atlanta serial killer has done it again, for the 8th Sunday in a row. Here’s how the NYT alluded to rape in 1911: “It appears that the murder is not committed after the accomplishment of the crime for which negroes are so frequently lynched.”

Taft was traveling yesterday, and crowds showed up each place his train stopped, but he wouldn’t make any speeches because he does not believe in making speeches on Sunday. And it’s too hot.

The German gunboat Panther may or may not have landed troops in Agadir. The semi-official line from Germany now is that the Panther will stay until the French and Spanish troops leave Morocco, which if France and Spain have their way will be never, so the alternative is that Germany also wants a piece of the country if it winds up being partitioned by the European powers. The days when there were still huge swaths of Africa unclaimed as colonies are 30 years in the past, so the competition for the remaining bits is especially fierce. Countries without boots on the ground are also involved: Britain doesn’t want Morocco, but neither does it want Germans sitting on a major port near Gibraltar.

The Federation of American Zionists held its 14th annual convention and discussed plans to purchase 100,000 acres of land in Palestine annually to establish Jewish colonies.

A Bronx gang, the Bergen gang, fight cops in a park where they went “to break up the outing of the Pinochle Students, a Bronx organization”. Sadly, I don’t think the Pinochle Students is the name of a rival gang, as retro-cool as that would be.

Headline of the Day -100: “Fat Men Play Baseball.” The Fat Men’s Club played the East River Pretzel Club. The temperature’s about 100°, is this wise? Unfortunately, Alderman Frank Detzler, the pitcher and 381-pound president of the Fat Men’s Club, dropped the ball, which fell in a swampy spot. Alderman Detzler went to retrieve it, started sinking, and had to be pulled out by the other Fat Men. Maybe all those silent Keystone comedies were really documentaries.

Today -100: July 2, 1911: Of earthquakes, gunboats, pocket moving pictures, crazy Moros, Taft’s soup, bananas, balloons, and hippopotamus skin

Earthquake in San Francisco, the largest since ‘06. No serious damage to buildings, but thousands of underpants need discarding. One man dies of fright. Stronger in Sacramento and Carson City.

Germany sends a gunboat, the Panther, to Agadir, Morocco, with 120 men, ostensibly to protect German businesses and nationals. France is upset because Morocco is mine! mine! mine! Well, technically France is still pretending that its troops are just trying to restore order in Morocco, not to complete its collection of North African colonies, so it’s reduced to complaining that the German move violates a 1909 agreement that Germany has pre-eminent commercial interests in Morocco and France pre-eminent political ones.

A new fad in Berlin: “pocket moving pictures.” You have yourself filmed briefly by a movie camera. Then you can walk around with a box containing a roll of photographs derived from the film, and you turn a crank very quickly to make the photos appear to be moving. All the cool kidz are getting them. Someone plans to import this novelty into the US. I predict it’ll be huge.

Headline of the Day -100: “Kills Crazy Moro and is Commended.” Private John Bonnell of the 2nd Cavalry, in the Sulu province of the Philippines (little-known fact: all provinces in the Philippines are named after Star Trek characters) (c’mon, we were all thinking it), shoots dead a “religion crazed Mohammedan Moro” who had just killed Lt. Walter Rodney. In a letter to his father, Priv. Bonnell (“I like soldiering in Sulu. We have exciting times as the tribes of the Moros are nothing but savages”) writes that not only is he getting a letter of commendation, but also the bloody bolo with which the “wild Moro” killed Lt. Rodney.

Other Headline of the Day -100: “Master Berri Didn’t Step in Taft’s Soup.” And he has a letter from the president to prove it.

Other Other Headline of the Day -100: “Slips on Banana Peel, Dying.” In NY Central Railroad Station, William Buick, evidently a pioneer in slapstick comedy, suffered the fate of all too many pioneers.

Yet Another Headline of the Day -100, because it’s just that kind of day: “Thief Escapes in Balloon.” A pickpocket. An awesome pickpocket. I wonder how many hot air balloon hijackings there have ever been?

A thief who doesn’t escape: Marie Amadeo, Baron Delord, son of the former King Amadeo I of Spain (r.1870-3) and nephew of the late king of Italy, pinched in Paris for trying to shoplift two bottles of scent and a dozen pairs of women’s stockings in a dry goods store. After a little research I can’t believe I took the time to do, I strongly doubt this guy is actually the son of King Amadeo (illegitimate son, which you’d have to read the NYT story quite carefully to realize they were saying).

The US Navy launches its first airplane, a hydroplane, and qualifies its first pilot.

Headline of, oh, you know: “Old Caliph’s Skin a Museum Exhibit.” Does it make this story more weird or less weird that Caliph was a hippopotamus? I can’t decide.

South Dakota can’t degrade pregnant women as human beings, says some killjoy judge

Eighth Circuit Judge Karen Schreier grants an injunction against South Dakota’s anti-abortion bill (which I discussed here and here).

It should be remembered that the supposed justification for this law was to prevent weak-minded females being coerced into abortions against their will. Judge Schreier seems not to share this view of women:

Forcing a woman to divulge to a stranger at a pregnancy help center the fact that she has chosen to undergo an abortion humiliates and degrades her as a human being. The woman will feel degraded by the compulsive nature of the Pregnancy Help Center requirements, which suggest that she has made the ‘wrong’ decision, has not really ‘thought’ about her decision to undergo an abortion, or is ‘not intelligent enough’ to make the decision with the advice of a physician. Furthermore, these women are forced into a hostile environment. ... a woman who chooses to undergo an abortion will experience a high degree of degradation because she will be forced to disclose her decision to someone who is fundamentally opposed to it. Women will also be afraid of being berated, belittled, or confronted about their decision, being subsequently contacted by the pregnancy help center, and having their decision to have an abortion become public information.

Today -100: July 1, 1911: Of unshocking dances

Headline of the Day -100: “Police Not Shocked By Russian Dances.” NY Mayor Gaynor sent the police to the Winter Garden to stop the performance of purportedly lewd Russian ballets, but either they had cleaned up their act or the police were just not as easily outraged as the people who had written the mayor, so the dancing will continue.

Today -100: June 30, 1911: Of wire

The US Grand Jury hands down indictments for 83 members of the Wire Trust for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Wire Trust centers on the American Steel and Wire Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. The men are charged with forming an unlawful combination and conspiracy to fix the price of wire at artificially high levels, “to the great and irreparable injury and detriment, financial and moral, of the people of the United States.” Moral?

The NYT weighs in on the subject of “The Negro as a Policeman,” following the NYPD’s hiring of one. It bows to negroes’ “theoretical right to such appointments” but suggests that the greater difficulties they will meet makes hiring them “injudicious as regards the public interest.”

Obama press conference: I’ll keep on giving you the same answer until I give you a different one

Obama held one of his increasingly rare press conferences today.

He’s still talking about the need to “tackle spending in the tax code” after both Jon Stewart and I made fun of the phrase.

Evidently the deficit (he said we need $4 trillion in deficit reduction, but didn’t say where that figure came from – it came from the Republicans) is the fault of tax breaks for corporate jets, which he mentioned six times. Unless we get rid of that tax break, we’ll have to throw kids out of college, end medical research and compromise food safety. He says we have to make tough decisions like that. Also, oil companies should pay some damned taxes, for once.

Fortunately, he thinks it’s entirely possible that a bipartisan deal can be done, because “there is a conceptual framework that would allow us to make huge progress on our debt and deficit, and do so in a way that does not hurt our economy right here and right now.” Wow, there’s a conceptual framework? Why didn’t you say so before?


UM, NOBODY? “Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default.”

First question: how do you get a “balanced approach” including tax increases, when Boehner says no way, no how? Obama says that “in Washington... a lot of people say a lot of things to satisfy their base or to get on cable news, but that hopefully, leaders at a certain point rise to the occasion and they do the right thing for the American people.” Oh dear God, we’re doomed.

OKAY, YOU’RE NAIVE: “And that’s what I expect to happen this time. Call me naïve, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead.” Or just not paying attention.


REPUBLICANS ARE ALWAYS PREPARED TO DO THE HARD THING: “So the question is, if everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done. Or, we’re so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist -- that’s the reason we’re not going to come to a deal.”

He thinks that position isn’t “sustainable,” and even quotes several Republicans who think it’s not sustainable. Unfortunately, none of those Republicans, like Alan Simpson and Pete Domenici, actually currently hold elective office.

IF THIS WERE A LITTLE GIRL WITH A LISP TALKING ABOUT SANTA CLAUS, IT WOULD BE ADORABLE: “And my belief is, is that the Republican leadership in Congress will, hopefully sooner rather than later, come to the conclusion that they need to make the right decisions for the country... My expectation is that they’ll do the responsible thing.” He genuinely still thinks he can shame Republicans into acting like adults. That’s his negotiating strategy.

That’s not naive, that’s out of touch with reality on a Bushian scale.


Q: What about that War Powers Act? “I want to talk about the substance of Libya because there’s been all kinds of noise about process and congressional consultation and so forth.”

Noise.

“we’ve protected thousands of people in Libya; we have not seen a single U.S. casualty; there’s no risks of additional escalation. This operation is limited in time and in scope. ... And throughout this process we consulted with Congress.”

Consult >verb 1 seek information or advice from. 2 seek permission or approval from.

“So a lot of this fuss is politics.”

Fuss.

He says you need to look at the history of the War Powers Act, which was enacted after the Vietnamese War, so if the kinetic whatsit in question isn’t exactly like Vietnam, the Act clearly doesn’t even apply.

“We have engaged in a limited operation to help a lot of people against one of the worst tyrants in the world -- somebody who nobody should want to defend...” Because if you question his unilateral war, you’re clearly defending Qaddafi. “-- and we should be sending a unified message to this guy that he should step down and give his people a fair chance to live their lives without fear. And this suddenly becomes the cause célèbre for some folks in Congress? Come on.”

Noise. Fuss. Cause célèbre. George Bush could not have been more contemptuously dismissive.


On the McCain-Kerry proposal for a one-year authorization of war in Libya: “I think when you have the former Republican nominee for President, John McCain, and the former nominee for President on the Democratic side, John Kerry, coming together to support what we’re doing in Libya, that should tell the American people that this is important.” Yeah, nothing says “important” like John McCain supporting it.

THAT’S WHAT STATES ARE FOR: “this administration, under my direction, has consistently said we cannot discriminate as a country against people based on sexual orientation.”

He said gay marriage in NY is “a good thing, because what you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. ... I think it is important for us to work through these issues...” Christ, it’s about establishing civil rights, not group therapy. “...because each community is going to be different and each state is going to be different.” For example, in some communities and states, homosexuals will be second-class citizens. And that’s exactly how Obama thinks things should work.

Well, fuck that.

CALL ME NAIVE, BUT MY EXPECTATION IS THAT LEADERS ARE GOING TO LEAD: “it turns out that the president, I’ve discovered since I’ve been in office, can’t dictate precisely how this process moves.” But he can bomb Libya or any other country he wants; funny, that.

A GOOD THING: “But I think we’re moving in a direction of greater equality and I think that’s a good thing.”

Asked later about his evolving personal views on gay marriage: “I’ll keep on giving you the same answer until I give you a different one, all right?”


On the NRLB’s decision preventing Boeing moving a plant to South Carolina to break the unions, he worked very hard to avoid taking a side, saying “we can’t afford to have labor and management fighting all the time”.

Fox’s Mike Emanuel tried to make Obama use the word “victory” as his objective in Afghanistan. He wouldn’t.

He says Qaddafi committed war crimes, which is odd because he just got through saying that this isn’t a war, including “potentially using rape as a weapon of war.” I guess inserting the word “potentially” allows him to keep using a discredited charge.

NEEDS:

Q: Would you accept a political settlement with him involved as success from the American perspective?

Obama: I would accept him stepping down so that he is not directing armed forces against the Libyan people. He needs to step down. He needs to go.

More debt limit stuff. Flashing yellow lights, hard deadlines, “Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time. Malia is 13, Sasha is 10.” So fuck you Eric Cantor.

And, yes, he got his own kid’s age wrong, but at least he knows the difference between a fake cowboy and a killer clown. Although he’d probably think John Wayne Gacy could be shamed into doing what Obama wants if he just uses the word “responsible” enough.

“At a certain point, they need to do their job.” He thinks raising the debt ceiling is their job; they think demagoging about the debt ceiling is their job.

THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE CALLED: “Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices. That’s why they’re called leaders.”

WHAT HE’S BEEN DOING: “I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.”


Then he talked about Americans who are losing their jobs and homes and contact lenses and whatnot. “And every day that weighs on me. Every minute of every day that weighs on me. ... And these folks are counting on us. They desperately want to believe that their leadership is thinking about them and not playing games.” Then he went to meet a women’s basketball team, but all that stuff was weighing on him every minute.

Unevolved

Last week we were told that Obama’s position on gay marriage was “evolving.” But not actually, you know, evolved. Monday, his spokesmodel Jay Carney announced that Obama now thinks it should be up to the states.

Which is intended to look like he’s not taking a position – he’ll be happy to be thought a wimp on this issue – but it actually is a position: a position that marriage equality is not a right but a privilege that can be granted or not granted at the whim of state legislators.

Well fuck that.

Today -100: June 29, 1911: Of heresies, vile or vulgar language, lynchings, and missing hands

In Socialist-run Milwaukee, the Catholic Archbishop declares socialism to be “a heresy and an evil, the viciousness of which is apparent to every thinking man.”

The Wheeling, VA city council passes an ordinance imposing a fine on anyone who uses vile or vulgar language in a public address. It is aimed at Billy Sunday, who has a revival scheduled.

Judge Brand says that he knew the two black men would be lynched if they were returned to Walton County, Georgia for trial in his court without troops protecting them as he ordered (see yesterday), but says he refused to request those troops because “I don’t propose to be the engine of sacrificing any white man’s life for all such negro criminals in the country. ... I would not imperil the life of one white man to save the lives of a hundred such negroes.” He does say that he opposes lynching. So that’s okay then.

Samuel Battle, the first black man ever hired by the NYPD, begins patrolling (there are two other black cops, who were hired by the Brooklyn PD and absorbed into the NYPD when Brooklyn was annexed by NYC).

Headline of the Day -100: “Hand Blown Off at Wedding.”

Quote of the Day

“Patients should never have to use a tambourine. I also understand anecdotally that maracas were used which was unacceptable.” Damned socialized medicine.

More than the normal techniques

I missed this last week (as did the NYT): at his confirmation hearings to be Director of Central Intelligence, David Petraeus called for the use of torture (or, as he called it, “more than the normal techniques”), but only for, like, “a ticking time bomb scenario.” So it’s good that we’re putting him in charge of the CIA’s secret prisons.

Also, when was the last time a time bomb actually ticked?

Outgunned

Dennis Poust, spokesmodel for the NY State Catholic Conference, on marriage equality: “In many ways, we were outgunned.” Is that a euphemism? That’s a euphemism, isn’t it?