I’ll have a chance to obviously speak more to this

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived at the White House yet again to give Obama his marching orders.

Obama: “I commended him for entering into good-faith negotiations with the Palestinian Authority”. Because nothing says “good faith” like Netanyahu pretending to negotiate with the PA.

“And we have a limited amount of time to achieve that goal [a two-state solution], and I appreciate the Prime Minister’s courage in being willing to step forward on behalf of that goal.” He doesn’t explain why time is so limited. If that’s not referring to the expansion of settlement activity that Netanyahu refuses to halt, then I can’t think what it refers to, in which case I don’t know why he’s praising Bibi’s “courage.”

Obama says we’ll be “consulting very closely” with Israel over the Syrian civil war, because of possible “spillover effects,” which is a great way of sabotaging the rebels.

“So we will continue to work with the Egyptian government, although urging them and pushing them in a direction that is more inclusive and that meets the basic goals of those who originally sought for more freedom and more democracy in that country.” Can you have “more” democracy without having actual, you know, democracy? Because I’m pretty sure the “basic goals” were actual freedom and actual democracy, not “just a little bit more freedom and democracy than we had under a fucking military dictatorship.”

Obama seems to have picked up an obvious verbal tic: “these are hectic times, and nowhere is that more true, obviously, than in the Middle East”; “discussing how we can resolve what has been, obviously, one of the biggest challenges for a very long time in the region”; “Obviously, we have a broad set of strategic concerns in Syria”; “Chemical weapons inside of Syria obviously have threatened Syrian civilians”; “And we had an opportunity, obviously, to discuss Iran”; “And I’ll have a chance to obviously speak more to this.”

“In all of this, our unshakeable bond with the Israeli people is stronger than ever.” Obviously not including any Palestinians who happen not to have been driven out of Israel. Our bond with the Palestinian people is very shakeable indeed.

Netanyahu: “I know that you know and the American people know that there is no better ally -- more reliable, more stable, more democratic -- other than Israel in a very raw, dangerous place.” Of course Israel’s policy, and to a large extent the US’s, is to ensure that other Middle East countries are unstable, undemocratic, or both.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 30, 1913: Of derailed trains, race riots, and peace, ain’t it grand

A train is derailed somewhere between Baku and Batum (which doesn’t narrow it down much) in the Russian Empire because “brigands” tore up the rails for some reason. 40 dead.

In Harriston, Mississippi, scene of that race riot yesterday (death toll 11), today 2,000 blacks are forced to pass by the coffins of the two young black men lynched yesterday. “This had a remarkably quieting effect on the negro population.”

Turkey and Bulgaria sign a peace treaty ending, I guess, the last Balkan War but one.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 29, 1913: Of insulted flags, elections, and boys

Chinese Gen. Chang Hsun accedes to Japan’s ultimatum and personally goes to apologize at the Japanese consulate in Nanjing for the insult to the Japanese flag (and the deaths of some Japanese people), averting the threatened military occupation. For now.

General elections are called for Italy, under a new election law doubling the electorate to nearly universal male suffrage, including illiterates if they have served in the army or are over 30. So, illiterates, but no women (until after World War II). Deputies, previously unpaid, will now receive a salary. The Catholic Church will allow Catholics to vote for the first time (not that the ban ever stopped many people).

You can kinda tell when the NYT used local stringers for its stories from the South, as in this one, datelined Harriston, Mississippi: “A reign of murder, started early this morning by two negro boys who were crazed by cocaine, developed into a race riot which ended only after three white men, four negro men, and a negro woman had been killed, a score of persons wounded, and the two boys lynched.” They were 20 and 18, if you’re wondering what constitutes a “boy.” If the story is to be believed, the Walter and Will Jones did go on quite a shooting rampage before the mob got hold of them.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 28, 1913: Peace in Mexico is impossible until one party or the other has been exterminated

Democrats in the Tennessee Legislature successfully filibuster the anti-alcohol bills, and the special session ends.

11,000 Ulster Volunteers march in Belfast, as is the custom, to demonstrate their 1) loyalty to, and 2) willingness to go to war with, the British government. They carry dummy rifles, because carrying real firearms without a license would be illegal. So they’re threatening civil war but won’t break the Firearms Acts.

The response of the British government so far to all this has been confined to a threat not to send mail to any post offices run by a rebel Ulster government.

The NYT thinks “the whole Ulster situation is a species of political bluff,” as proven by the fact that the Ulster Volunteers are not concealing their preparations for civil war. Another interpretation is that they don’t have to conceal them, because there are no consequences. The Times complacently predicts that Home Rule will go into effect “with no serious disturbance.”

Mexican rebel leader and (spoiler alert) future president Venustiano Carranza warns that anyone elected president in the elections Huerta plans to hold next month will be considered a traitor, and if rebels capture him they’ll try him under an 1862 law allowing for the summary execution of traitors without trial, like the Emperor Maximilian (so I guess he would be tried without trial). “Peace in Mexico,” Carranza says, “is impossible until one party or the other has been exterminated.” (Little-known historical fact: Carranza was a Dalek).

Negroes in Tuscon are boycotting the separate-but-equal schools. Not because they’re segregated schools, the LAT claims, but because they want better segregated schools.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 27, 1913: Do as I shall: deny it

Headline of the Day -100: “Lynched Negro, Condemned Deed.” Some Mississippians lynched a negro accused of attacking a farmer’s wife but “Opinion was divided as to the guilt of the negro, and at a mass meeting held later resolutions were adopted in condemnation of the lynching.” Sentence first, verdict after, as the Red Queen said.

Loopy Headline of the Day -100: “DOUBLE LOOP BY PEGOUD.” The French aviator is just showing off now.

Turkey and Greece seem to be threatening to start a third Balkan War. And Greece is letting Serbian troops use its railways in their fight with Albania. “The Belgrade newspapers urge the complete extermination of the Albanians,” as is the custom.

At the impeachment trial of NY Gov. Sulzer, several of his donors have testified, convincing no one, that their donations had been to Sulzer personally rather than to his campaign (thus Sulzer’s failure to report them as required by law). Today, ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau is recalled, and testifies that before his first appearance, Sulzer called him up and asked him to say that his $1,000 donation was purely personal. Duncan Peck, who was appointed state superintendent of public works by the previous administration, contributed $500 to Sulzer, not at all connected to his retaining his job. He too now says that Sulzer told him, “Do as I shall: deny it.”

The Huerta Junta in Mexico asks deposed dictator Porfirio Díaz to return from exile, maybe to head up the War College. Also, Huerta declares that the revolution is suppressed, except for occupying the rebellious northern states (which seems a fairly big “except for”) and elections can go ahead.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 26, 1913: Of saloons, charming cities being charming, and parades

The Tennessee Legislature has more gunmen today, with Nashville cops sent by the mayor to protect Speaker Stanton from the prison guards sent by the governor to intimidate him over anti-alcohol legislation. However, Stanton orders the State House be searched top to bottom and any gunmen be expelled. Visitors were then excluded from the House chamber, except women and the press. “The explosion of a photographer’s flashlight created a small panic among the Representatives, several automatically reaching for their weapons.” The session is again abruptly adjourned due to “a sudden illness of the Speaker.”

Baltimore City Council passes an ordinance for residential racial segregation. People currently living on the “wrong” block will have to move. (The Maryland Supreme Court will strike this down next month).

A little civil war in Serbia, government v. Albanians, as is the custom.

Russia occupies Kobdo and Tchougoutchak in Western Mongolia.

Sir Edward Carson’s first act as self-proclaimed premier of Ulster is to take to his bed on doctor’s orders. There will be a parade of Ulster volunteers on Saturday, and the Unionists asked that a big football game be moved so as not to conflict with it.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 25, 1913: Of saloons, provisional governments, and automatic pilots

The Tennessee Legislature is still calmly considering anti-saloon legislation while prison guards sit in the galleries pointing guns at legislators they don’t like. Speaker Stanton abruptly adjourns the session.

The Ulster Unionist Council sets up the machinery for implementing a provisional government to “tak[e] over the province in trust for the British nation” if and when Home Rule is established. The premier will be Sir Edward Carson, who still hasn’t been arrested for treason.

French aviator Albert Moreau demonstrates an automatic pilot, flying 30 minutes without touching the control levers.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 24, 1913: A little was enough for me

Headline of the Day -100: “Not So Afraid of Germany.” In November, Britain will send a bunch of warships into the Mediterranean, in a change from its policy in recent years of keeping them nearby just in case Germany tries something.

A few days ago the Tennessee state senate passed bills banning the importation into the state of alcohol and defining the sale of any alcohol as a public nuisance, allowing courts to close saloons on the petition of ten taxpayers. The lower house of the Tennessee Legislature is now discussing the bills. Speaker Stanton complains that Gov. Ben Hooper has stationed armed guards in the House to force him to make rulings favorable to the bills. A state senator breaks down a door in the Capitol building behind which he finds seven guards (prison guards, probably) and a suitcase filled with revolvers.

Anthony Comstock, “in the role of a literary critic,” arrests a publisher and one of his employees who sold an allegedly immoral book, “Hagar Revelly” by Daniel Carson Goodman, which “deals with the problems of life as faced by two poverty-stricken girls in New York City.” You can sort of read it online, because it’s been “DoiizodbvCoogle” or “DolizodbvCoOglc” or “DolizodbyGoOgle”, which I think means Digitized Really Badly by Google. A quick skim suggests that Emile Zola didn’t have anything to worry about, but neither did it reveal what got Comstock so hot and bothered (Comstock admits that he didn’t read the whole book; “a little was enough for me”).

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 23, 1913: Of resentful hunchbacks and trains

Headline of the Day -100: “HUNCHBACK IS RESENTFUL.; Woman Strokes Him "for Luck" and He Throws Her In a Pond.”

Mexican rebels dynamite a passenger train, as was the custom, killing 50, 40 of whom were Federal soldiers.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 22, 1913: Of assassins, bloody Sundays, slaves, and airborne tea

The man alleged to have assassinated Mexican President Madero during the coup is himself assassinated.

Another bloody Sunday in Dublin, with police attacking strikers and vice versa.

Several US colonial officials in the Philippines have been asserting that slavery is widespread, though Rep. William Jones (D-VA) denies it.

The first airship tea party takes place aboard the Zeppelin passenger ship Sachsen somewhere above Berlin. But no cigarettes afterwards.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 21, 1913: Of impeachments, whimsical little bodies, general strikes, and mud

William Sulzer says he will not resign and will fight the impeachment to the end. Why, he would no sooner resign than commit hara-kiri. Or to put it another way, his feelers about whether resigning would stop the impeachment were rebuffed. “Mr. Sulzer thumped his interviewer on the chest and gave other evidences of being in a fighting mood,” writes a terrified NYT reporter.

The NYT returns in an editorial to the subject of Christabel Pankhurst’s recent writings, “a book so nasty that even the Pankhurst contingent of British suffragists is dismayed. Christabel has hitherto been looked upon as a whimsical little body, somewhat too fond of inciting riot, perhaps, but decent in speech and behavior.” But now she has “come to the conclusion that they can cause as great a rumpus by talking about things no decent woman used to discuss... as they ever did by smashing the hats of Cabinet Ministers.”

The annual conference of the German Social Democratic Party rejects the general strike as a political instrument, not even to achieve universal (male) suffrage in the state of Prussia (which has an insanely retrograde electoral structure).

Headline of the Day -100 (LAT): “Little Natalie Throws Mud.” In Kharkoff, Russia, the governor of the province was driving through a town when a little girl, aged 5, threw some mud at his car, and some of it... the horror... fell on his coat. Her parents were made to march 8 miles to the nearest police post, then back, where the entire village had been called to adopt a petition craving forgiveness. The police chief wanted the village to present it on their knees, but they refused. The governor came the next day, when the entire village was called out again; he looked ostentatiously in the other direction while they had to shout to get his attention. Eventually they were allowed to go home, but the mother was imprisoned for 15 days.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 20, 1913: Votes for Women and Chastity for Men!

Max Blanck, one of the two owners of the Triangle Shirt Waist Company, 146 of whose employees burned alive 102½ years ago because the exits were locked, is charged with... wait for it... locking the exits of his new factory. His lawyer, the same high-priced shyster who got him off last time, will argue that the locks are necessary to prevent theft. The judge will fine Blanck $20 and apologize to him for having to do that.

The family of Princess Sophia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, still claiming that she died of heart disease (at 25) rather than from blowing her brains out, hurriedly cremates her, the first female royal ever to be cremated.

The Mexican Congress shows some cojones, rejecting Huerta’s nomination for minister of public instruction for being too Catholic.

Woodrow Wilson broke with the tradition of sending black ambassadors to Haiti, and the NYT claims that Haiti actually prefers it that way because many of the “better class of Haitians” have French as well as black blood, and therefore have “French sensitiveness to slights, real or apparent.” It’s all in the blood, you know.

Speaking of things found in the blood, the NYT notes that there is a debate within the British Women’s Social and Political Union, without making it clear what the hell it’s talking about. Christabel Pankhurst has been publishing articles in The Suffragette which “state in the plainest language facts not usually found outside medical works.” Were 1913 readers able to intuit that the words the NYT is unable to bring itself to print are venereal disease? I don’t know. The LAT says Christabel has been talking about “certain phases of the social problem” and “has been calling spades by something even more distinctive than the plain word spades,” but the last two words of the article are “white slavery,” which gets near the topic.

In Miss Pankhurst’s “Great Scourge” articles (here’s a link to the American edition of the book form of these articles), she ascribes the spread of VD entirely to male promiscuity, and asserts that there is only one cure: “Votes for Women and Chastity for Men.” Indeed, she is now charging that the real reason men oppose women’s suffrage is “sexual vice.”

Mary Winthrop Turner is being sued by Arthur Bender for $5,000 for libeling his dog, Countess Toots. Ms Turner contends her dog, Champion, the Dollar Princess (I don’t know if that’s a name or a title), is a better dog.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 19, 1913: Fundamentally incapable of efficient and decently just rule

What is it with deceased NYC Mayor Gaynor and ships? He was shot on board one ship in 1910, died on another one in 1913, and now his body is being returned on... the Lusitania.

Princess Sophia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach commits suicide, shooting herself in the head after being refused permission to marry a commoner (and by commoner I mean Jew).

The NYT thinks the European Powers should make sure the Ottoman Empire doesn’t mistreat its Armenians. This can only be done, it says, by reducing the Empire’s power in the Armenian regions in favor of a governor nominated by the Powers, because “the Turks are fundamentally incapable of efficient and decently just rule... due to the inherent qualities of the race and to the religion by which for centuries they have been inspired.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 18, 1913: Of defamations, whale butts, and intractable tribesmen

The Anti-Defamation League is founded to fight characterizations of Jews on the stage, in textbooks, etc.

Headline of the Day -100: “Whale Butts a Steamer.” A whale runs into a ship in the middle of the Atlantic. It is NOT a reference to whales farting.

An Italian general and a bunch of other soldiers are killed by “a body of intractable Arab tribesmen” in Libya.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Close bonds

The White House responds to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s cancellation of her visit to the US.

The statement says that the invitation was “a reflection of the importance he places on... the close bonds between the American and Brazilian people.” Granted, one of these close bonds, the NSA’s reading of the Brazilian people’s emails, was one the Brazilian people were not aware of, but it was a very close bond nonetheless.

“As the President previously stated, he has directed a broad review of U.S. intelligence posture, but the process will take several months to complete.” Presumably this review is to determine if the allegations in the Snowden infodump were true, something which Obama claimed not to know when he met Rousseff at the G-20.

“the presidents have agreed to postpone President Rousseff’s State Visit to Washington”. That’s after Rousseff said she wasn’t coming. Obama graciously “agreed” to let her not come, as opposed to sending in Seal Team Six to rendition her to the White House State Dining Room.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 17, 1913: Of dynamite miscreants, axe & pistol duels, rebellious loyalists, and impeachments

Someone sends a bomb through the mail to the owner of the L.A. Times, reactionary asshole Gen. Harrison Gray Otis. The package looked suspicious, so it wasn’t opened and the police safely detonated it. Gen. Otis blamed it on “certain dynamite miscreants”. He thinks it’s unionists, but the cops think it’s someone opposed to Otis’s support of the Mexican Huerta Junta.

Headline of the Day -100: “Two Die in Duel of Axe and Pistol.” H.F. Hendricks, a timber magnate, had the revolver, and pulled it on his old foe Mississippi State Senator Dr. H.F. Broyles. Broyles was working on a dam and threw the axe at Hendricks, slicing through his skull. Hendricks fired as he fell, hitting Broyles in the heart.

Irish Unionists claim to have an army of 100,000 prepared to resist Home Rule with violence.

The impeachment of NY Gov. Sulzer is underway, and the impeachment managers are claiming to have found another large campaign donation that Sulzer failed to report, but Hugh Reilly, a railroad contractor (in Cuba) (historical trivia: the first railroad line built in the Western Hemisphere was in Cuba), says it was actually a personal loan of $10,000 he made to Sulzer after he was nominated for governor, and that Sulzer owes him that plus $16,500 from earlier loans, which Sulzer has failed to pay back; Reilly says he’s “kissed the money goodbye.”

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 16, 1913: Of menacing defectives and ugly men

Headline of the Day -100: “15,000 Defectives Menace New York.” A Dr. M. G. Schlapp of the Post-Graduate Hospital, the “clearing-house for defectives,” says there is only enough room to institutionalize 6,000 mentally defective New Yorkers. He wants them all put away, because “almost every defective child is a potential criminal.”

More from 1913 science: anthropologists at the British Association meeting say that women don’t mind marrying ugly men, while men prefer to marry hot women. And by anthropologists, I mean male anthropologists. It all has to do with evolution. For example, all women used to have beards, but men didn’t like them, so they were bred out.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 15, 1913: A sex problem that women alone can solve

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage issues a press release claiming that the National Association of Chiefs of Police says that women’s suffrage does not cure prostitution. They quote just one chief of police, that of Plainfield, NJ, who says that the consensus of the police chiefs is that “the social evil is a sex problem that women alone can solve.” Evidently women aren’t nice enough to prostitutes.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 14, 1913: Of ultimata, vivisection, and big Tims

China gives in to Japan’s ultimatum. (Update from a later issue: not all of it, such as the demand that the governor of Kiang-Su province be fired).

An anti-vivisection movement has been developing in Britain (in the US, not so much). The Home Office releases a report saying all animals being cut open or experimented upon by Dr. Moreau and the other 598 licensed vivisectors (vivisectionists?) in the UK are “suitably lodged and well cared for,” so that’s okay then.

“Big Tim” Sullivan, NYC Tammany leader/organized-crime boss/former state legislator/US congresscritter (he wore many hats, straw ones if Google Images is anything to go by), dies at 51. He had escaped from his brother’s house, where he was confined due to syphilitic insanity, and was hit by a train. So thank you, NYT, for saying that for the last 13 days he “had been lying in the Morgue – in three Morgues, in fact” BEFORE explaining that that was because they moved his body around, not because different body parts were in different morgues. There are theories that he may have been murdered and his body placed on the train tracks. It took 13 days to identify the body because no one tried, despite its having good clothes and diamond & gold cufflinks with his initials, and despite his face being untouched, and despite the fact that the coroner was a friend of his. He was about to be buried in Potter’s Field when a passing cop recognized the corpse. In November 1912 he was elected again to Congress (he had served 1903-6 before resigning to spend more time with his graft) but never re-took his seat, given the, you know, tertiary syphilis. Since he was declared mentally incompetent, his congressional pay went to his conservators. I can think of a few members of congress...

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.

Today -100: September 13, 1913: Of martial law in where now?

Martial law is declared in New Lexington, Ohio. A former Catholic priest was scheduled to make an anti-Catholic speech at the Opera House. A mob of Catholics threw eggs at his followers. Hilarity ensued.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.