(Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Situational Hitting
There are times and then there are times when one can safely, dismissively use the expression "that one." A primer:
When selecting your dinner, for example...
...or while ID'ing the perp...
...but during a presidential debate, in reference to your opponent sitting three feet away...? Never then.
(Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)
(Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Past, Present, and Future Irrelevance
This was a moment I am embarrassed to admit as a presidential historian:
Today, while reflecting on conservative thinkers turning against McCain, I considered a list of other conservative leaders and thinkers who may go heretic, and I wondered "What would Gerald Ford do?" and for one split second I thought, "Wait a minute, is Gerald Ford alive?" Almost immediately I remembered he wasn't, but even more immediately I wondered "Would it matter if he was?" The point being my brain could access the fact "Gerald Ford is irrelevant" faster than it could access "Gerald Ford is Dead".
Today, while reflecting on conservative thinkers turning against McCain, I considered a list of other conservative leaders and thinkers who may go heretic, and I wondered "What would Gerald Ford do?" and for one split second I thought, "Wait a minute, is Gerald Ford alive?" Almost immediately I remembered he wasn't, but even more immediately I wondered "Would it matter if he was?" The point being my brain could access the fact "Gerald Ford is irrelevant" faster than it could access "Gerald Ford is Dead".
Monday, September 22, 2008
There is a plan
Do not worry about the financial crisis, they have a plan....
Problem solved, am I right?
Seriously though, I am sick and tired of the rail splitting fundamentalists foisting his legendary chores as somehow more epic or monumental than the time he fought escaped slave river pirates.
Problem solved, am I right?
Seriously though, I am sick and tired of the rail splitting fundamentalists foisting his legendary chores as somehow more epic or monumental than the time he fought escaped slave river pirates.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Was Lincoln a gay?
The A. Lincoln blog argues that, contra the hopes and wishes of queer studies historians everywhere, Lincoln was not gay. Not that he didn't have romantic and sexual relations with men, that may very well be. What he argues is that Lincoln, and Buchanan for that matter, weren't gay because they "would not for example have placed their sexual behavior at the core of their sense of themselves, arranging their lifestyles and values around their sexuality as if it was their center of gravity".
Look, feather boas did not exist in the antebellum South, how could someone be gay without feather boas? This was an era that had yet to coin the term fashionista, lacked the technology of velour, and may or may not have had professional hairstylists. Without those mainstays of homosexuality, what would it even mean to be gay?
I suppose one could misconstrue gay to mean homosexual. The A. Lincoln blog even admits that by that stretch of a definition, Lincoln may have been gay: "So did Lincoln and Buchanan have same-sex relations other men? Possibly. ...But be that as it may, neither man was "gay."
Because if one cannot strike a pose, "act a diva", and embrace the inevitable gay lifestyle that all gays put at the "center of their gravity", than can one really be gay?
Look, feather boas did not exist in the antebellum South, how could someone be gay without feather boas? This was an era that had yet to coin the term fashionista, lacked the technology of velour, and may or may not have had professional hairstylists. Without those mainstays of homosexuality, what would it even mean to be gay?
I suppose one could misconstrue gay to mean homosexual. The A. Lincoln blog even admits that by that stretch of a definition, Lincoln may have been gay: "So did Lincoln and Buchanan have same-sex relations other men? Possibly. ...But be that as it may, neither man was "gay."
Because if one cannot strike a pose, "act a diva", and embrace the inevitable gay lifestyle that all gays put at the "center of their gravity", than can one really be gay?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Abe Lincoln: Dwarf, Lout
Abe Lincoln was a dwarf and a clod whose mythical reputation has been exaggerated by historians. That's what President John Tyler's son Lyon Tyler argued anyway.
In pamphlets, books, and, one assumes, the walls of bathroom stalls, he viciously attacked Lincoln's record. He compared John Brown to Sacco and Vanzetti, equated the Union army with 1920's anarchist violence, and blamed Lincoln for World War I. He called him a backwoods idiot in a pamphlet titled "Are Handkerchiefs Superfluous? Lincoln Thought So." To him Lincoln was a "word juggler" and the Gettysburg Address was "a gilded fraud" and "bad sophism".
As long as you're reinventing the past, why stop with trashing Lincoln? Lyon Tyler agreed, arguing that slaves were "the most spoiled domestics in the world....The Southerners took the negro as a barbarian and cannibal, civilized him, supported him, clothed him, and turned him out a better Christian than Abraham Lincoln, who was a free thinker, if not an atheist."
He might as well have argued that Lincoln was a dwarf... and in fact he did (metaphorically at least); the title of his anti-Lincoln pamphlet was "John Tyler and Abraham Lincoln: Who was the Dwarf? A Reply to a Challenge"
H.T. to Dan Monroe "Lincoln the Dwarf: Lyon Gardiner Tyler's War on the Mythical Lincoln"
In pamphlets, books, and, one assumes, the walls of bathroom stalls, he viciously attacked Lincoln's record. He compared John Brown to Sacco and Vanzetti, equated the Union army with 1920's anarchist violence, and blamed Lincoln for World War I. He called him a backwoods idiot in a pamphlet titled "Are Handkerchiefs Superfluous? Lincoln Thought So." To him Lincoln was a "word juggler" and the Gettysburg Address was "a gilded fraud" and "bad sophism".
As long as you're reinventing the past, why stop with trashing Lincoln? Lyon Tyler agreed, arguing that slaves were "the most spoiled domestics in the world....The Southerners took the negro as a barbarian and cannibal, civilized him, supported him, clothed him, and turned him out a better Christian than Abraham Lincoln, who was a free thinker, if not an atheist."
He might as well have argued that Lincoln was a dwarf... and in fact he did (metaphorically at least); the title of his anti-Lincoln pamphlet was "John Tyler and Abraham Lincoln: Who was the Dwarf? A Reply to a Challenge"
H.T. to Dan Monroe "Lincoln the Dwarf: Lyon Gardiner Tyler's War on the Mythical Lincoln"
Monday, September 8, 2008
Wet Blanket Wolfson
Hillary Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson dashes our collective hopes of a vicious, clawing, cat fight between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin:
"The questions are fair, but what undergirds them is an obsession in our popular culture with the "cat fight," an offensive term that describes the spectacle of two well known women fighting with one another..... Don't hold your breath. It's not going to happen."
Actually, I'm in 100% agreement with Wolfson. A cat fight is a petty sexist spectacle that demeans the participants and onlookers alike; distracting the public narrative from what should be a serious and erudite discussion of the real issues that face our nation. Let's all say it togethor: we don't want a Hillary vs Palin cat fight.
What we want is a Hillary vs Palin duel. Broadswords. At dawn. If it was good enough for Lincoln, it's good enough for them... That is unless they think they're better than Lincoln. Are they suggesting they're better than Lincon? I smell a gaffe!
"The questions are fair, but what undergirds them is an obsession in our popular culture with the "cat fight," an offensive term that describes the spectacle of two well known women fighting with one another..... Don't hold your breath. It's not going to happen."
Actually, I'm in 100% agreement with Wolfson. A cat fight is a petty sexist spectacle that demeans the participants and onlookers alike; distracting the public narrative from what should be a serious and erudite discussion of the real issues that face our nation. Let's all say it togethor: we don't want a Hillary vs Palin cat fight.
What we want is a Hillary vs Palin duel. Broadswords. At dawn. If it was good enough for Lincoln, it's good enough for them... That is unless they think they're better than Lincoln. Are they suggesting they're better than Lincon? I smell a gaffe!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
McCain Acceptance Speech Response
While we here at the Washington Pugilist are editorially bipartisan with regard to the outcome of the upcoming election- having affirmed and reaffirmed our philosophical commitment to the clinical study, analysis, and reportage of imaginary fistfights- we do feel the need to offer an official response to candidate McCain following his decidedly minced words about what it means to fight.
McCain's acceptance speech this evening acted as much as a call to service for Americans as it did to elucidate core discrepancies between himself and candidate Obama. Making sweeping declamations culled from outstanding first-hand experience about the nature, necessity and effect that war and combat can have on an individual, he convincingly played the role of the war-hewn scholar.
In the end, though, what will be seen as a tactical failing amongst an underserved constituency- that being the national network of bullies, thugs, goons, muggers, and hired guns- was summed up by these few, short sentences:
McCain's acceptance speech this evening acted as much as a call to service for Americans as it did to elucidate core discrepancies between himself and candidate Obama. Making sweeping declamations culled from outstanding first-hand experience about the nature, necessity and effect that war and combat can have on an individual, he convincingly played the role of the war-hewn scholar.
In the end, though, what will be seen as a tactical failing amongst an underserved constituency- that being the national network of bullies, thugs, goons, muggers, and hired guns- was summed up by these few, short sentences:
I don’t mind a good fight. For reasons known only to God, I’ve had quite a few tough ones in my life. But I learned an important lesson along the way: In the end, it matters less that you can fight. What you fight for is the real test.To candidate McCain, we respond thusly: uhhh, no...no, no, no, no. No.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Apolitical, seemingly innocuous predictions about Sarah Palin...
Favorite movie: Thelma and Louise
Favorite author: John Grisham
Huge KISS fan
Closet full of denim jackets she rarely wears but won't throw out
Favorite author: John Grisham
Huge KISS fan
Closet full of denim jackets she rarely wears but won't throw out
Yakuza Bruisers
With two hurricanes down and an imperiled city brazenly indignant after being stood up for a second date with annihilation (classic bad boy syndrome)... here come three more motherfucking hurricanes.
Which raises the question: which candidate will stand up to the retributive Japanese Yakuza responsible for all of these deadly storms?
Idaho weatherman Scott Stevens earned himself national media play and plenty of ridicule when he theorized that Japan’s crime syndicate used a Cold War-era Russian storm machine to create Hurricane Katrina. Three years later, however, with his Weather Wars site still tickling the conspiratorial fancies of a likeminded readership, Hurricane Gustav has revitalized broader discussion of Stevens’ previously laughed-off theories.
Now, this story is precisely the type of sub-crackpotdom that we here at the Pugilist thrive on, and one we feel has the chance to be the October surprise everyone's been waiting for—in September.
So the question again presents itself: would it be McCain or Obama best putting the handle on some Japanese ninja shit?
(Take note, Jim Lehrer, this is optimus prime material for your 9/25 debate sheet)
Let’s break it down. For one, McCain’s already ended up on the bad side of some Asian wildboyz, so he’d be working with a full-on revenge mentality in addition to his rapidly deteriorating cognizance- an unpredictable combo that would spell game over for all but the fiercest of warriors. Obama, on the other hand, was raised by Muslim shadowfighters in a desert bunker dojo according to several reputable e-mail forwards- an obvious advantage- but would just as likely fall in league with the ninjas given his already well-documented hatred of America.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
Which raises the question: which candidate will stand up to the retributive Japanese Yakuza responsible for all of these deadly storms?
Idaho weatherman Scott Stevens earned himself national media play and plenty of ridicule when he theorized that Japan’s crime syndicate used a Cold War-era Russian storm machine to create Hurricane Katrina. Three years later, however, with his Weather Wars site still tickling the conspiratorial fancies of a likeminded readership, Hurricane Gustav has revitalized broader discussion of Stevens’ previously laughed-off theories.
Now, this story is precisely the type of sub-crackpotdom that we here at the Pugilist thrive on, and one we feel has the chance to be the October surprise everyone's been waiting for—in September.
So the question again presents itself: would it be McCain or Obama best putting the handle on some Japanese ninja shit?
(Take note, Jim Lehrer, this is optimus prime material for your 9/25 debate sheet)
Let’s break it down. For one, McCain’s already ended up on the bad side of some Asian wildboyz, so he’d be working with a full-on revenge mentality in addition to his rapidly deteriorating cognizance- an unpredictable combo that would spell game over for all but the fiercest of warriors. Obama, on the other hand, was raised by Muslim shadowfighters in a desert bunker dojo according to several reputable e-mail forwards- an obvious advantage- but would just as likely fall in league with the ninjas given his already well-documented hatred of America.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
You're going to have to go a little lower than that
Boreilly, et al, are up in arms-UP IN ARMS!- at the now disproven rumors that Guv'ner Palin's daughter is the true mother of the Governess' baby. He goes so far as to call it the worst smear ever and, with characteristic taste and subtlety, compares it to Nazis and the Klan. Obviously, Bill's point is that nothing is more insulting than accusing someone of having a Down's syndrome baby... I mean, how embarrassing would that be?!? It's the ultimate smear.
I'm afraid Dr.O'Reilly* should revisit some campaigns of yore if he wants to see some real smears, because pregnant tennagers just can't compete with the ungodly ugliness of the election of 1828.
John Quincy Adam's men took to smearing Andrew Jackson's wife, Rachel Jackson, as a polygamist for unwittingly failing to fully process her divorce from her abusive ex-husband before marrying Jackson. Allegations were made in an anonymous pamphlet entitled "View of General Jackson's Domestic Relations, in Refernce to his Fitness for the Presidency" as well as in the Cincinnati Gazette and the Daily National Journal, which argued:
"[Jackson] spent the prime of his life gambling, in cock fighting and horse racing", and "tore from a husband the wife of his bosom."
The same journal asked readers to imagine what would happen if John Quincy Adams "were to take a man's wife from him pistol in hand."
Rachel Jackson was called "American Jezebel" and the question was begged "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest office of this free and Christian Land?"
Distraught from the constant attacks and the unbearable thought of 4 more years of them, she died of a heart attack. Check Bristol's pulse. Still good? Ok, Rachel Jackson wins for now then. But keep me updated.
*Bill was awarded a honorary doctorate from the University of Awesome for his work in journalism. Too humble to recognize his doctoral level awesomeness, he has yet to claim the award (aka it's on my desk waiting to be picked up).
I'm afraid Dr.O'Reilly* should revisit some campaigns of yore if he wants to see some real smears, because pregnant tennagers just can't compete with the ungodly ugliness of the election of 1828.
John Quincy Adam's men took to smearing Andrew Jackson's wife, Rachel Jackson, as a polygamist for unwittingly failing to fully process her divorce from her abusive ex-husband before marrying Jackson. Allegations were made in an anonymous pamphlet entitled "View of General Jackson's Domestic Relations, in Refernce to his Fitness for the Presidency" as well as in the Cincinnati Gazette and the Daily National Journal, which argued:
"[Jackson] spent the prime of his life gambling, in cock fighting and horse racing", and "tore from a husband the wife of his bosom."
The same journal asked readers to imagine what would happen if John Quincy Adams "were to take a man's wife from him pistol in hand."
Rachel Jackson was called "American Jezebel" and the question was begged "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest office of this free and Christian Land?"
Distraught from the constant attacks and the unbearable thought of 4 more years of them, she died of a heart attack. Check Bristol's pulse. Still good? Ok, Rachel Jackson wins for now then. But keep me updated.
*Bill was awarded a honorary doctorate from the University of Awesome for his work in journalism. Too humble to recognize his doctoral level awesomeness, he has yet to claim the award (aka it's on my desk waiting to be picked up).
History Is Calling, President Carter, Will You Pick Up The Phone?
At the suggestion of commenter angelia sparrow, I present the further works of former President James Buchanan:
Cheating Chance: Vice Detective, Brandon Carr, despite his tattoos and bad-boy cool, lives in the closet with no intention of ever coming out. Then he meets Nevada Gaming Agent, Nick O'Malley, at a Goth convention and his perfectly constructed world starts to crack. Nick's passions for him, a restored hearse and rope bondage might drown Brandon's will. With the odds stacked against them they try to move from simply sex to something more. Sparks fly as the pair probes a world of cheating, murder, drugs and money laundering. The investigation repeatedly derails their relationship, finally forcing Brandon to choose between staying in the closet and saving Nick's life.
My hope is the positive feedback about former President Buchanan's work will inspire Jimmy Carter to release his secret homoerotic novellas. Thanks to bbmrebel for the suggestion as well, but at the risk of slowing morphing into a gay book club, we'll make this the last post about Mr.Buchanan's possible authorship (for now).
Cheating Chance: Vice Detective, Brandon Carr, despite his tattoos and bad-boy cool, lives in the closet with no intention of ever coming out. Then he meets Nevada Gaming Agent, Nick O'Malley, at a Goth convention and his perfectly constructed world starts to crack. Nick's passions for him, a restored hearse and rope bondage might drown Brandon's will. With the odds stacked against them they try to move from simply sex to something more. Sparks fly as the pair probes a world of cheating, murder, drugs and money laundering. The investigation repeatedly derails their relationship, finally forcing Brandon to choose between staying in the closet and saving Nick's life.
My hope is the positive feedback about former President Buchanan's work will inspire Jimmy Carter to release his secret homoerotic novellas. Thanks to bbmrebel for the suggestion as well, but at the risk of slowing morphing into a gay book club, we'll make this the last post about Mr.Buchanan's possible authorship (for now).
Monday, September 1, 2008
Russia's Putin saves TV crew from Siberian tiger
That was the headline from a Yahoo! News article, and this was what I pictured immediately:
Unfortunately, it seems he used a tranquilizer gun... but still... that's incredibly badass. If there is ever a Washington Pugilist Worldwide Edition, Putin will definitely be a contender.
Unfortunately, it seems he used a tranquilizer gun... but still... that's incredibly badass. If there is ever a Washington Pugilist Worldwide Edition, Putin will definitely be a contender.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Umm... President Buchanan... about that book you're writing...
The 15th President James Buchanan was often accused in his day of being a closeted homosexual. The argument was famously put forth by James Loewen in "Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong", and continues to have its proponents and critics.
It is unknown whether gay romance novelist James Buchanan is aware of this irony. It is also unknown whether or not the works of gay romance novelist James Buchanan are actually posthumous publications of the former president himself. Let's assume, for the moment, that they are. And so I present you with a list of the homoerotic works of former President James Buchanan:
Twice the Cowboy, Twice the Ride: Manuel Santos Fuentes was not the type of cowboy Jess Graff was used to. From the moment they met during the El Paso International Rodeo, Jess wanted the Charro. When Manuel is injured during El Paso de la Muerte, Jess seizes the opportunity to get his vaquero into bed. But cross-cultural misunderstandings and family feuds threaten to destroy their relationship before it really starts. Can two men from wildly different backgrounds overcome hatred and jealousy and learn to trust in each other?
The Good Thief: What if the wrong guy, turns out to be the right guy for you? Caesar Serrano thought he screwed up when he landed in the bed of LAPD Officer Nathan Reilly. But when Caesar breaks into the wrong house and stumbles upon a heinous crime, implicating a high ranking LAPD officer, Nate is the only person he knows to turn to. The resulting investigation throws the Blue Brigade into panic. Now he's running for his life and Nate is his only hope for survival. Can two men, on opposite sides of the law, come together to bring a monster to justice?
My Brother, Coyote: Seth and True are cousins, born in the same house on the Navajo reservation. That's about all they have in common, though, what with Seth going the way of a bad seed, and True living up to his name and going to college while studying with the tribe to become a medicine man. They have one other thing in common, though. They love each other, to the point where secrets in both this world and the spirit world threaten to destroy them because of it. When they're trapped by a vicious pothunter they believe is raiding a sacred burial ground, they learn that some secrets can kill. Can these brother-cousins stay alive...and stay together?
Oh President Buchanan, we hardly knew ye.
The Good Thief: What if the wrong guy, turns out to be the right guy for you? Caesar Serrano thought he screwed up when he landed in the bed of LAPD Officer Nathan Reilly. But when Caesar breaks into the wrong house and stumbles upon a heinous crime, implicating a high ranking LAPD officer, Nate is the only person he knows to turn to. The resulting investigation throws the Blue Brigade into panic. Now he's running for his life and Nate is his only hope for survival. Can two men, on opposite sides of the law, come together to bring a monster to justice?
My Brother, Coyote: Seth and True are cousins, born in the same house on the Navajo reservation. That's about all they have in common, though, what with Seth going the way of a bad seed, and True living up to his name and going to college while studying with the tribe to become a medicine man. They have one other thing in common, though. They love each other, to the point where secrets in both this world and the spirit world threaten to destroy them because of it. When they're trapped by a vicious pothunter they believe is raiding a sacred burial ground, they learn that some secrets can kill. Can these brother-cousins stay alive...and stay together?
Oh President Buchanan, we hardly knew ye.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Quiz Time
It was the tumultuous 60s, the country was at war, and the Democratic convention descended upon Chicago to select a Presidential candidate. Do you know was nominated? Or have I fooled you again?
Wonderfulness
Dear nerd,
I hope you're not busy, because I'm about to steal 30 minutes of your time with this website. It's a timeline of Teddy Roosevelt's life composed of entries from his diary. The hilarity cannot be unintentional; it's just too good for it to be the work of some stodgy Teddy Roosevelt Collection librarian who accidently put together a work of unintended comedy greatness. Here are some choice quotes:
I hope you're not busy, because I'm about to steal 30 minutes of your time with this website. It's a timeline of Teddy Roosevelt's life composed of entries from his diary. The hilarity cannot be unintentional; it's just too good for it to be the work of some stodgy Teddy Roosevelt Collection librarian who accidently put together a work of unintended comedy greatness. Here are some choice quotes:
April 1873: In Vienna "I bought a black cock and used up all my arsenic on him"
November 1878:
2nd - At Porcelain initiation, "...was higher with wine than ever have been before-or will again. Still, I could wind my watch. Wine makes me awful fighty."
26th - Begins teaching Sunday school at Christ Church on Garden street opposite Cambridge Common
March 1879: Romping through Maine
September 1883: Kills first buffalo
August 1884: Kills two deer with one bullet. "This was much the best shot I ever made."
May 1885: Picks up new herd in Medora. Survives late night stampede
May 1896: Comptroller Fitch's testy exchange results in the offering of a duel. "Pistols or anything else!" Yells Roosevelt. Cools off and tells reporters there will be no duel.
February 1904: Lunch with Buffalo Bill
April 1904: Letter to Ted: "I am very glad I have been doing this Japanese wrestling... My right ankle and my left wrist and one thumb and both great toes are swollen sufficiently to more or less impair their usefulness... since you left they have taught me three new throws that are perfect corkers."
December 1909: Dines on elephant trunk soup from the beast he and Kermit disposed of the preceding evening.
December 1913:
13th - "Caymans were becoming more plentiful. The ugly brutes lay on the sand-flats and mud banks like logs, always with the head raised, sometimes with the jaws open... it is good to shoot them. I killed half a dozen..."
25th - Arrives in Corumba
27th - Bags ant-eater
January 1914: Bags tapir
February 1917: Writes letter to Secretary of War requesting permission to "raise a Division of Infantry with a divisional brigade of cavalry in the event of war (possibly with the permission to make one or two of the brigades of infantry, mounted infantry.)" Request denied.
March 1817: "In view of the fact that Germany is now actually engaged in war with us, I again earnestly ask permission to be allowed to raise a division for immediate service at the front." Request rejected the following day.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A bit of Teddy
Browsing through my 1968 Life Magazine Special Issue on the Presidency, as I'm wont to do on weekends, and I found two interesting Roosevelt quotes:
"I wish I had 16 or 20 lions to turn loose on the Senate floor"
A first natural reaction to this was that he was angry at the Senate and wanted lions to attack them. More likely though he was sitting in the Senate floor, bored and daydreaming, and felt the sudden urge to hunt 16 or 20 lions. So urgent was the need that he didn't want to wait to go home, book a week long boat trip to Africa, hike for days across the Serengeti, and stalk and kill one maybe two lions. No, he wanted to kill 16 to 20 lions right then and there. Such is bloodlust.
Apparently he also called golf a "sissy game" and advised Taft that if he played it in public he would lose the 1908 election. I couldn't agree more. I mean, would you vote for this?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Mary Odd
I find the title of Brian Thornton's book, "101 Things You Didn't Know about Lincoln", a little bit condescending. Oh yeah, Mr.Thornton? Are you so sure I'm a Lincoln illiterate simpleton who doesn't know any of these 101 things about Abe Lincoln? Well I like to think I know a little bit about Abraham Gregory Lincoln, our nations first President, inventor of the lightbulb, and legendary general who defeated Napoleon in World War I. Despite my haughtiness I gave the book a chance, and while I was entertained, the title was a damned lie: I didn't learn a whole lot new about Lincoln. I did, however, learn a few things about Lincoln's wife Mary Todd.
After Lincoln's assassination, Mary didn't leave the White House for five weeks. I wonder if Andrew Johnson and his family moved in before she moved out and they shared awkward, silent dinners with Mary dressed in widow's garb? When she did finally leave the White House she was wearing so many black veils that people could not see her face at all. Creepy!
I also learned she supposedly once chased Abe down the road with either a butcher knife or a broom. I'd say the difference there is important. And later, after Lincoln's death but before her son Robert had her committed to a sanitarium, she would pay hotel maids to sleep in her hotel room with her because she was afraid to sleep alone. I knew she was a little off, but that's not Drew Barrymore or Cameron Diaz slightly nuts, that's Howard Hughes or Charlie Sheen batshit crazy.
101 things I didn't know about Lincoln? No. A couple stories about crazy old Mary Todd Lincoln I've never heard before? Definitely.
After Lincoln's assassination, Mary didn't leave the White House for five weeks. I wonder if Andrew Johnson and his family moved in before she moved out and they shared awkward, silent dinners with Mary dressed in widow's garb? When she did finally leave the White House she was wearing so many black veils that people could not see her face at all. Creepy!
I also learned she supposedly once chased Abe down the road with either a butcher knife or a broom. I'd say the difference there is important. And later, after Lincoln's death but before her son Robert had her committed to a sanitarium, she would pay hotel maids to sleep in her hotel room with her because she was afraid to sleep alone. I knew she was a little off, but that's not Drew Barrymore or Cameron Diaz slightly nuts, that's Howard Hughes or Charlie Sheen batshit crazy.
101 things I didn't know about Lincoln? No. A couple stories about crazy old Mary Todd Lincoln I've never heard before? Definitely.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
T.R.: Warmonger?
The insightful and witty James Poulos thinks that William Jennings Bryan needs to shut his silver loving, evolution hating mouth about Teddy Roosevelt.... not in so many words of course.
He argues that T.R. gets the short shrift from critics who call him a warmonger. Sure, as President he kept his cool, but as undersecretary of the navy? He was a bit overzealous about the Spanish-American war... what with trying to start it and all. And that wasn't even his first choice of wars, what he really wanted was a war with Germany. After overseeing the arming of the U.S.S. Maine, Roosevelt thought it would be swell if there was war to be had, any old war would do, really:
"I wish there was a chance that the Maine was going to be used against some foreign power; by preference Germany-but I am not particular, and I'd take even Spain if nothing better offered"
Luckily for Roosevelt, unluckily for the Maine, he got his wish when the Maine exploded in a Cuban harbor and provided him with an excuse to begin pushing for a war. How hard did he push for war? I'll let his boss, Secretary of the Navy John Long, tell you:
"I find that Roosevelt, in his precipitate way, has come very near causing more of an explosion than happened to the Maine... The very devil seemed to possess him."
I've gotta say, with all due respect to the James Poulos and the 1906 Nobel Prize Committee, that sounds a bit like a warmonger.
He argues that T.R. gets the short shrift from critics who call him a warmonger. Sure, as President he kept his cool, but as undersecretary of the navy? He was a bit overzealous about the Spanish-American war... what with trying to start it and all. And that wasn't even his first choice of wars, what he really wanted was a war with Germany. After overseeing the arming of the U.S.S. Maine, Roosevelt thought it would be swell if there was war to be had, any old war would do, really:
"I wish there was a chance that the Maine was going to be used against some foreign power; by preference Germany-but I am not particular, and I'd take even Spain if nothing better offered"
Luckily for Roosevelt, unluckily for the Maine, he got his wish when the Maine exploded in a Cuban harbor and provided him with an excuse to begin pushing for a war. How hard did he push for war? I'll let his boss, Secretary of the Navy John Long, tell you:
"I find that Roosevelt, in his precipitate way, has come very near causing more of an explosion than happened to the Maine... The very devil seemed to possess him."
I've gotta say, with all due respect to the James Poulos and the 1906 Nobel Prize Committee, that sounds a bit like a warmonger.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Some Hayes Never Learn
In what must have been a debauched orgy of bacchanal delights, the living descendants of Rutherford B. Hayes gathered at his home in Fremont Ohio Saturday to pay tribute and share memories. Stephen Hayes, great-great-grandson of Ruddy, let's us know what fun it was growing up in such a historical site: "Many rooms were off limits. My parents wouldn't let us go into any room on the second floor." Which must have been tough for the young boy, as the second floor was where the President Hayes kept his climbnasium, ball pit, and trampoline collection.
Showing us how much the Hayes family descendants have learned since the 1870s, Hayes' great-granddaughter Margaret Clark tells us
...she admired the Hayes heritage because they took a stand for such principles as truth and honesty. "'Lemonade Lucy' -- I'm very proud of that," she said, referring to the name given Lucy Hayes because of the stance she and the President took on abstinence in the White House. "She had the fortitude to stand up for what is right."
You don't see many people taking a stand for prohibition these days. It would have been refreshing, if a little anachronistic, had she not followed that up immediately by calling for a reinstatement of the fugitive slave act and denouncing "carnal modernisms" like the telephone and the daguerreotype.
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