More romance in the wood collection

I know I said no more wood posts.  Well, not exactly, I think it was more along the lines of the blocks of wood not being everyone's cup of tea.  But last week I found this beauty:

 

 

 

Let me set the scene.  It is the summer of 1941 & we are in darkest Africa.  Feel free to picture the collector Stearns as you will:  Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, whatever gets you through the night.  & actually we aren't in DARKEST Africa, we are in Algeria, so it is more like driest Africa.  But in June 1941 Italy invaded France (France, if you didn't know was the colonial empire that "oversaw" Algeria from) so things were metaphorically dark whatever the climate.

Stearns has made his...her way from the settled shores & into the Atlas Mountains for whatever reason: espionage, human trafficking, searching for King Solomon's Mines, what-have-you.  & in the mountains, Stearns find a tree.  Not just any tree but a tree of legend.  Or rather, a tree species of legend.  & at the very least Stearns takes down a branch (a branch of some size given the piece I handled) & ships it to.....

A shop teacher in Miami.

The best part of this story is that the only part I know is absolutely true is the shop teacher in Miami.  That & there really was a war on.  How could I not love the wood collection?

Emperor Constantine

What can I say, Constantine is a favorite of mine. There are so many wonderful quirky things about him & then he is a saint & then he is an emperor. Really, what's not to love? You can look up all the garden variety stuff in any world history, so let me go straight to the good bits:

Constantine had several children & named most of them for himself (except one daughter he named Helena, for his mother & another son called Crispus). Three of his sons were called Constatine, Constantius & Constans. He even named a daughter Constantina. For a man named Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, son of Constantius Chlorus this shows a shocking lack of imagination. Or incredible self promotion. Ever since I learned this, I picture Constantine looking a lot like George Foreman. In a toga.

"Scholars debate" when he actually converted to christianity. His mother had converted many years before her death, but he held on to (& took advantage of) his pagan title until the day he died. I actually think you can make an solid argument for his being an atheist or at a minimum a major hedger of bets. While they debate, scholars like to point to the many protections he gave chirtians, certainly not the norm. Except his mother was a christian & even an emperor can have a soft spot for his mother. Finally, there is no disputing that the christians were not singled out for special treatment. He had a remarkably even hand when it came to religious tolerance. The better to tax you with, my dears.

& that was Constantine's real claim to fame. Put everyone in touch with everyone else, let them barter, let them trade & take your percentage off the top. He is looking more & more like George Foreman to you, too now, right. 

Anyhow today is Constantine's feast day.  The one I mean anyhow.  Not the Constantines that came before & after.  Not to be confused with the saints Constantius (yep more than one).  There are scores of better looks at his life than this one.  My brother recommends John Julius Norwich's Byzantium in three easy volumes.  Our boy appears mostly in the first--but he is felt all the way through.  I instead give you this. 

The Ides of March cannot come soon enough

I don't know if there is such a thing, but I think March 10th should officially be called The End of My Rope Day.  We can make it collective: The End of Our Rope(s) Day.  First because everyone I know except for me is sick of winter (ours has been rather mild so I could do this all year).  & a good chunk of people I know are really ready for the semester to end (again not me, I don't begin my Spring semester duties until this Thursday-long story about fumigating & my natural & sublime skills in inertia), 

But March 10th has a long history of "I have HAD IT".  Let me expand...expound....who cares:

In 1629, Charles I told parliament to suck it & ruled solo for eleven years.  This was not even the first time he turned his back on parliament, it was the third.  What happened next was called either Eleven Years of Tyranny or The Period of Great Reform, depending on who you were.  It is all very interesting actually, but not what I want to talk about now.  Right now I want to talk about today & today Charles I said "I have really had it with you people" although probably not in those exact words.  I like to imagine him saying "Get thee to a nunnery" while wearing those snazzy shoes he has on in his portrait by Van Dyck (hey, is that where the Van Dyck facial hair got named? It is! Marvelous).  & I mean the one with the cape, not the one with the horse.

So Charles I says sayonara to parliament, what else?  There is the Louisiana Purchase in 1804.  If this doesn't seem like a hand washing moment, think about it from Napoleon's perspective:  influx of cash for a very prickly bit of real estate acquired less than five years before.  I have no idea why he bought it, but after he did the natives started getting very restless worrying about the little Corsican banning slavery while other French territories started balking at the idea of slavery being reinstated & after a few short years of this, Napoleon was happy to flip it. 

A bit further on, also in France (1831) that last bastion of last resorts- the French Foreign Legion -was founded.  It doesn't get much press nowadays but once upon a time, the French Foreign Legion was where you went when you had nothing to live for.  Also, it makes a great opener for mummy movies.

In 1922, they arrested Ghandi.  It didn't go over quite as intended, but on the day I imagine the British were happy to check that little agitator off their list & get on with the business of the empire.

In 1945 the US firebombed Tokyo.  They had been trying to negotiate an unconditional surrender from a culture that barely understood survivable surrender & things really just went to hell from there. 

I think I will end this little review in 1980 when Jean Harris shot Hy Tarnower, the Scarsdale Diet Doctor after years of a strange relationship & days before the pills she was detoxing from arrived by mail...from the doctor himself.

So here we are:  Monday morning right after the clocks lose an hour.  Seems like the perfect day to mutter darkly into our coffee about how we are really sick of this shit.  I say we make it a DAY. 

Happy Birthday Bureaucracy

My big plans for the day include two of my favorite public institutions:  a trip to the library & a trip to the post office.  It is astonishing to me how many people bad mouth both of these. 

A week or so ago, I was standing in line at the post office on a busy Saturday morning & the people in line behind me could not stop making unpleasant remarks about the recent postal hike.  Let me be clear that while this was a 15% increase, it amounted to a whopping $.07 & the gist of the remarks was that they should use some of that "big money" to hire more workers.  Seven cents.

As it happens, there WAS a new postal worker at the counter that day & I would be lying if I said I was all that impressed.  Every single transaction she had to call someone out to help her.  It got to the point where people in line were trying to walk her through it & so I do understand their frustration.  Still, it seemed a bit over the top; I honestly could not imagine anyone thinking it was OKay to act this way while in line for fast food or at a bank...

I have encountered similar attitudes at the library & found that even more people are disgruntled that free books, free internet access, free babysitting (I'm sorry, but it kinda is) does not mean the librarian will sit down & do your kids homework for him...or her....or you.  Seriously, I saw an actual mom making this actual complaint at the reference desk.  I am told it is not common, but it happens.  More common is the complaint that the librarians are not more closely supervising check-out choices. 

But this post is about the post office.  Because today in 1792 George Washington signed the RENEWAL of the Post Office as a cabinet department & making the Post Master General a permanent cabinet position.  In a sidebar, I have asked confederate flag fans far & wide to name the particular cabinet position that was wholly symbolic in confederacy as the area covered by this position was being overseen by the union counterpart. In areas controlled by the confederacy, the service was not provided by any agency.  I'm not faulting the rebels; I understand they were busy.  That flag did not redesign itself three times in four years.  Anyway, a handful of people HAVE answered that question.  All but one of them physicists who are avid civil war buffs (my social life is one very sad Venn diagram), the one that wasn't has a confederate flag frame for his license plate &does work on our place as needed.  They all knew that cabinet position & it was:  Post Master General of the Confederate States of America. 

So happy birthday Post Office.  I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that Ben Franklin (also the godfather of the public library) wanted to be sure his newspapers were delivered in a timely way so he could sell more.  I even forgive him for reading other people's mail, specifically, the King's Governor's mail. 

Sometimes the old way is the right way

I am crazy-stoopid for mummies.  Actually, I am particularly fond of the Victorian/Edwardian et al Egyptologists.  Especially the fictional ones.  So I am double-dog-delighted when fictional sounding things happen in real life Eqyptology.  Which brings us to:

Yesterday (I am a little behind), in 1984.  the restoration of the pyramids had been going, in a word, not well.  OKay, that's two words.  The pyramids had been falling down for centuries & this decay had been accelerated by tourists, pollution, etc.  But fixing the pyramids was not a simple matter; Among the problems:  patches were made from concrete & the water from the concrete was destroying the ancient stones it was supposed to repair & support.

30 years ago yesterday, an international team that was looking into the problem implemented what was the perfect solution.  They stopped using mortar & started repairing the pyramids using their best estimate of how they were actually made, specifically repairing the interlocking blocks with more interlocking blocks.  Since then, the project has stayed on track.  & yes, it is till ongoing because you cannot fix a pyramid & walk away.  Once you start repairing a pyramid, you can expect to repair it forever.

Also, today is my mom's birthday:  Happy Birthday Mom!  At least I am not a day late with that. 

Sameness circa Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century give or take

It has been a while, but I am back on the Chaucer bus.  I am supposed to have the Knights Tale re-re-read by New Year's eve, but it is not looking promising.  Sorry A*****, this business of colicing horse on Christmas Eve is still eating into my time.  Then there is all the usual year-end craziness, even though we barely celebrate Christmas (but I did get my mah jong set woo-hoo) craziness, personal year end stuff, also the students wrapping up & trying to get out of town & some of them graduating & not coming back so they can be little bit wired.  Lastly, there are actual students coming back after getting advanced degrees elsewhere (we have been here a long time) & one HILARIOUS story about two former students meeting in Prof. R******'s lab & now they are married with kids.  The time really does fly.

So, the Knight's Tale.  I am remembering...via my notes how hilarious I found this the last time I read it.  Yes, it was a while ago, but wholly unrelated to deciding to sit down & do this again, but all the way to the end this time, I have been thinking on certain elements of the Knight's Tale lately.  Specifically, the way the knight had to make the fair maiden, well, fair, despite all evidence to the contrary what with her being the sister of the Queen of the Amazons.  Yes, yes I know Wonder Woman was an Amazonian princess as well, but as far as mythical figures taking on the audiences characteristics go, Wonder woman just keeps proving my point.

That was a lot of commas!  Let me see if I can think it out in smaller pieces.  The knight is describing a desirable woman.  He describes her as looking an awful lot like...the mother of his fair haired son probably looked.  The knight does this even though he is telling a story about a warring Athenian prince & some other prince from Thebes.  I guess this is BECAUSE if they don't look like him, he just cannot relate, although there is plenty of evidence he doesn't look anything like I would imagine an ancient Greek might look.  What news story could possibly have triggered this thinking in me?  Hmmmm.

Just to be clear, I don't care what anyone who might have existed might have looked like, but I do find this business of insisting they must have looked a certain way intriguing.  & there is always what they zero in on.  No one is going to the wall insisting a particular figure was probably quite short, except for Napoleon, which turns out is very likely a myth anyhow.

But whatever, that is not really what I wanted to talk about today, exactly.  Today is the martyr day of Thomas à Becket.  You can get all the info you want on himself elsewhere, I will just give you the highlights:  he was made Archbishop of Canterbury by a king who thought he would be the king's man in Canterbury.  Turns out Thomas à Becket was his own man & started telling the king what he could do with his influence.  This is not the first time a political appointee went his own way (US History buffs can start extolling on Chester Arthur or Warren Burger anytime now), but it was plenty big because best case scenario, the king accidentally had him killed.  I know, right?  Which is why we have the pilgrimage to Canterbury & the Canterbury Tales. 

I guess I am done, except did anyone else see that bit on Bill O'Reilly basting the pope? Because the pope is not God's man on earth if he disagrees with you, then he's just a crackpot.  I like how O'Reilly had mixed feelings on the former Nazi, but is completely certain the new guy is just wrong.  & I really like how he is pretty sure Jesus would not endorse a system that helped the poor at the expense of the rich.  Because it just might be human nature the think our heroes look just like us.

Bye Bye.....Blackbeard

The short version of this post is today in 1718 Edward Teach was shot & stabbed multiple times while battling his majesty's navy.  Edward Teach might be better know to you by his rock'n'roll sobriquet: Blackbeard. 

Last things first:  yes, I said sobriquet.  I have been working this one into conversation ever since I first heard Amelia Peabody use it in reference to a certain smuggler of Egyptian antiquities.  I do mean listened, despite Amelia being no doubt long dead.  Also fictional.  Because I listened to those books on disc.  Also, in this case sobriquet may well be the very word that Teach would have used himself, unlike nickname or handle.  So I said sobriquet & I meant sobriquet.  I encourage you to work it into your weekend, perhaps one of those descriptive nicknames favored by football players, but that is just a suggestion. 

The thing about pirates, as any student of naval history knows, is that piracy is in the eye of the beholder.  Pirates & privateers were often one & the same, privateers being the word for seafaring folk who loot the enemies of the crown & the crown turns a blind eye. 

So.  Captain Teach.  Born in England, very likely in Bristol, one of the largest seafaring towns of the day.  Raised in same & almost certainly able to read & write, a novelty for his day, Edward Teach joined the navy while quite young & helped plague the Spanish in the western Atlantic.  When peace was reached between Great Britain & Spain, Teach was left unemployed...with one very specific skill.  & no reason not to take any ship he could; certainly no reason to limit himself to just Spanish ships.  Peace, like so many things, is relative.

You don't need me to tell you about Blackbeard.  I could write a longer-than-usual post listing just the titles of books & articles about him, so I am going to skip it entirely.  Chances are excellent you did not make it through today without running into a single news story about the anniversary of a famous death.  Speaking of pirates, Clive of India died today in 1774, not of a gunshot but a stabbing.  Probably.  Maybe even self-inflicted.  Today is also the official death day of Robin Hood. 

Lastly, in 1963 both Aldous Huxley & C. S. Lewis died.  So did someone else.  History has done interesting things to all of these men, so I am going to leave you with one of my favorite death songs.  Yes, I know people say its about a prostitute leaving the profession & returning to her mother.  Maybe it is. 

What Burgoyne begat

I know you have all been sitting on the edge of your seats wondering what was going to replace the Bird Trap quilt block swap in 2014.  Because that swap as so popular.  Actually, it was popular for looking but not for doing.  What I mean is I think the images interested people but they were a bit overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by the guidelines versus instructions.  There were too many variables & how to make them all work together in the end.  Now I have the opportunity to resolve all of that....but I am not going to.  This is white water quilt rafting, people!  You can go anywhere & paddle in the shallows but this swap is going off-road.  Again. 

I have been eyeing the Burgoyne Surrounded block for a long time.  It's an oldie, but a goodie, has a certain amount of variation & is more about the planning than the execution (it's all straight lines, no 1/2-square triangles).  At least that's how it begins. 

You will need:

FIVE nine patches.  One of them should be different from the others in either size or fabric choices or something & the other four should be more or less the same. You can make ANY nine patch you desire, so long as it has a clear light &/or dark making an X or some kind of contrast pattern.  Ordinarily, it is the darker that makes the X & for your first foray you might want to stick with that, but you certainly don't have to.  As for the nine-patches themselves: you can do a conventional black & white nine patch for the one & smaller shoo-fly for the other four.  I don't care, it is up to you.

As for color, fabric, etc.  it is mostly dealers choice.  All we care about here is light versus dark.  Or light versus medium.  Or medium versus dark.  Your nine-patch fabrics should have two clear values...& if you feel like muddying it up a bit further into the block, be my guest.  Just so long as there is a at least the suggestion of a Burgoyne-type movement from the corners to the center...or off-center, however that works out.

In my first sample, I made the single nine-patch & the set of four from 1.5" strips but different fabrics, but you could differentiate them in other ways (I was also trying to make the smallest possible units for the sake of having a jumping off point).

NEXT I added what I call half a log cabin border to adjacent asides of the four same-y nine-patches.  You might find it easier to flesh out the block & then add outer borders like a normal person (that is what I did for my second block).  This half border could consist of two planks & a corner stone, maintaining the light or dark or medium X in the usual Burgoyne style, but feel free to mix this up.

These four now-asymmetrical nine-patches are the corners of your completed block.  The other nine patch is the conceptual center....but depending on what you do next may not be the actual center.  Bear with me, I promise it will get clearer.

Putting the stand alone nine-patch centerish & the others at the outer corners, you need to fill in the space between.  Your dark (or light, or medium) X should hook-up from the center blocks to at least two of the corner blocks, but it can hook up to all of them.

You can fill in with whatever you like.  You can use a single piece of fabric or you can piece something.  For my first go round, I intended to limited myself to two (2) fabrics -which did not quite work out, but at least hey are all in a theme, more or less- & decided to keep the center in the center & did minimal piecing in the filler areas & you can see what I got.  Once I had one block under my belt, I was more comfortable adding variables, changing up widths etc.  You can add the more sashing if you like you can make your center off-center, you can use any 9-path variation you like in place of any basic 9-patch.  The idea is to stretch, & stretch again.  Then stretch some more. 

For my second pass I decided to go with one wider than the others edge & flip the lights versus darks for one corner.  & yes, I had A LOT of Bird Trap scraps left over & a few of them may have found their way here.

Your complete blocks should be SQUARE.  It can be anywhere from 13" square to 25" square but it must be SQUARE.  The 13" is based on the minimum number of pieces needed to meet the requirements all being 1" finished, & only the bare minimum of pattern being represented, the 25" is for when you want to stretch a bit (& you will want to stretch, I promise).  When you get back not-equal squares, you can bring them up to snuff with outer borders reinforcing the cornerstone feature.  That should help bring the whole thing into some kind of balance, anyhow.  Also this is where you would add the sashing that is the final Burgoyne movement, with those additional cornerstones & those side bits....  Or not, it is up to you naturally.

Finally, yes, I am putting this up early.  Bird Trap doesn't wrap until the last Saturday in November; you can even sign-up for it up until Hallowe'en, but ever since the Bird Trap quilt made its public debut, I have been getting "what's next?" questions from people who are interested, maybe but don't think there is enough time to do the Bird Trap quilt block swap if they start from scratch now.  Since Bird Trap (& Burgoyne Begat) require a little bit of warm up, I think they might be right. 

Also, today in 1777, General John Burgoyne surrendered to Major General Horatio Gates.  But actually, he didn't.  Burgoyne negotiated freedom for his men if they left their weapons & then left the colonies.  Eventually everyone reneged & then it was ON.  The important thing though is that after a thrilling campaign that included the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, Burgoyne was surrounded in Sarasota on his way to capture Albany.  It seemed timely.

Damn Yankees

Some days just seem to be lightening rods for particular subjects.  Like some days have all kinds of scientific landmarks, vaccines first tested & men landing on the moon, or other days that see the invention of obscure musical instruments & operatic debuts & so on.  Today is all about knuckling under.

Just to start the ball rolling, because of a calendar change (to the Gregorian) in 1592 there was no October 5th in several countries in Europe.  But not all.  Because that would make too much sense.

A few years before, okay quite a few years before, more than a century actually: Visigoths invaded Iberia.  & hung on for a good long time. longer when you consider the average life expectancy was a fraction of what it is today.  50 years is a lot longer when that is two generations ago.  They also managed to rape & kill & pillage plenty & pushed the Vandals out of Europe & into Africa.  That's right, the Goths pushed the Vandals out of Europe.

Lets move it forward a bit.  In 1450 the Jews were driven from Baviaria.  In 1793 the Catholics were driven from France.  It wasn't permanent but it was plenty grisly.

In 1877 Chief Joseph surrendered, after one helluva campaign.  If the US Cavalry had not had several times the munitions & warm bodies we would all be speaking...French?  No, I think they were named by the French.  I don't know what the Nez Percé speak & I am just a little bit embarrassed about that.  The rest of his life was a series of skirmishes & defeat as our proud nation ground him into dust.  The better man does not always win.

There are IRA bombings in 1974 & Golden Triangle Massacres in 2011.  In 1982 Tylenol recalled much of their product because bottles had been tampered with & seven people died.  Those murders have never been solved.

Oh, & in 1953 the Yankees won the world series.  For the fifth time in a row.  Damn Yankees. 

So that is what October 5th teaches us.  Some days you just go home in defeat.  But take heart, tomorrow in 1723 a 17 year old Benjamin Franklin arrives in Philadelphia. 

Tools & gadgets: indispensable or complete bust

Block Lotto's weekend update has converted to a month long linky thing.  I cannot speak for everyone (who can?), but this works way better for me.  This month's theme is Tools & Gadgets:  indispensable or complete bust.  Okay, I add that last bit, but it was sort of implied. 

& there is one tool without which I could not quilt the way I do, I could not build block swaps, & frankly I would not be able to put myself to sleep at night rearranging imaginary quilts--which is how I do it now.  I am talking about Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.  That's right, my most important quilting tool is a book.  This should come as no surprise to people who know me because I ALWAYS think the most important tool in any endeavor is a book.  That might be why I use words like endeavor.  Or maybe I use words like endeavor because....you know what, that's not my point.

I bought my copy back when it was still in print.  I also talked our library into buying a copy around the same time (it wasn't hard-they actually bought three).  Now you would pay a good bit more, so here's hoping there is a new edition on the horizon.  In the event that you want it, but you cannot pay $100+ let me recommend PaperbackSwap. It may take a while, it may take a long while, but sooner or later everything seems to wash up on those shores.

The Encyclopedia, if you are not familiar with it, is set up thusly:  there is a sort of outline of general types 4-patch, 9-patch, etc.  then within each there is further detail 9-patches made of equal parts versus unequal parts, that kind of thing.  The blocks are recorded by name & number.  Blocks with close number are likely to have a similar construction.  You can look up a number or use the index to look up by common name, but like plants the common names of quilt blocks can be sketchy.

My copy is in pretty good shape, but I have added post-it-type flags to the top marking ranges of numbers & I used to have random slips of paper marking particular blocks, but they fell out all the time so now I use ribbons (usually the ribbons that tie up fat quarter bundles). 

That is it, the only quilting tool I ever took to bed....or into the bathtub.  Yes, there is a wonderful software program (BlockBase) with much the same info & other features a paper book just doesn't have.  & I have that program, but there is nothing like a book. 

What did Eric do? & what happened next?

I don't particularly want to talk about the Zimmerman thing, but I live in Florida & it can be hard to get away from.  During other famous trials, I have successfully kept my head down.  During the Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman murder trial I actually declared the area around me to be an OJ free zone & when people attempted to discuss it even in my hearing I would get obnoxious about it because free speech cuts both ways people (a funny upshot of this was that my boss later THANKED me.  Apparently productivity went down everywhere during that trial, but our office stayed on track; he thought this was a direct result of my talking about my menstrual cycle when anyone brought up OJ). 

Caysey Anthony was another local, sorta.  That was another media feeding frenzy, before & after the Not Guilty.  I was standing in the local Home Depot when the verdict was announced OVER THE INTERCOM.  What?!?!?!?  This is a folksy Home Depot & they often have rather strange intercom messages that are clearly as much inside jokes as actual information, so I guess I forgive them.  My view during the whole thing (the trial, the post trial, the post-post trial) was maybe, just maybe Nancy Grace cares more about her ratings than actual truthful content.

& now Zimmerman's acquittal.  I'm sorry people are sorry, but he probably didn't break a law.  As it happens, Trayvon Martin, had he been carrying a gun, could have shot George Zimmerman dead once Zimmerman started following him & should have been protected under the same law. It's a BAD LAW.  Florida is riddled with bad laws.  Recently they passed a law making it illegal to use any thing that could be used in a game of chance.  Like the laptop I am writing this on.  Or the smart phone I take with me when I leave the house.  When the legislature refers to themselves as professionals I cannot help but think strippers are professionals.  Manicurists, mechanics, et al, all professionals.  They are regulated, licensed &  so forth.  Florida legislators on the other hand...there is a word for them but "professional" is not it.

So I thought I would take a step back, & take a look at another infamous verdict.  Today in 1958, Julia was walking to the bus from her sister Mimi Stanley Smith's home when she was struck & killed instantly by off duty police officer Eric Clague.  Clague was almost certainly driving drunk & despite witness statements to the contrary, claimed she had run out in front of him.  I looked but could find no witness account that agreed with his version of events & at least one in the court record that certainly did not agree with it, but the court ruled in his favor.  A contributing factor was no doubt Julia's troubled history.  Her son John had been removed from her care & was actually raised by the sister she was visiting.   & although she had two daughters with a Mr. Dykins & lived with him until her death, it was well known she had never divorced her son's father.  In between the birth of her son & her two daughters with Dykins, Julia had another daughter who was given up for adoption.  While it does not make it OKay, this background may have made it easier to say this was a mistake, not a crime.  I think this happens a lot.  I know it does.

All of this would have been a small, unnoticed miscarriage if not for her son, John Lennon.  He mourned her all of his life.

Ultimately, Clague left the police force & became a postman.  He was probably expecting a quiet life, & even if he did not think he had done anything wrong when he killed Julia Lennon, I doubt he ever had a chance to forget it.   In one of life's little ironies, part of Clauge's postal route included, until 1965 anyhow, the family home of Paul McCartney.  In 1965 McCartney bought his father a home of his own. 

None of this makes the Zimmerman/Martin thing OKay.  A young man was killed because someone who really should have known better behaved like a jackass (even the majority of people who think Zimmerman should not go to prison are in agreement he should have let 911 handle the mysterious guy in a hoodie).  I hope that people channel their energies into repealing that dangerous law, but I know the Nancy Grace's of the world would rather they didn't.  So much more money to be made if they don't. 

The man who went home

I try to avoid mainstream holiday talk here, mostly because it gets samey.  I am not saying there are not people who can handle it with skill, I am saying I am not one of them.  If I had ever had a 4th of July post before (& I have, as this blog began on a 4th of July holiday) I would be saying things like "it's the 4th of July.  Again" & even though it brings Groundhog Day to my mind (which is good), it is no way to stay interesting.

But Egypt is all over the news, the story of a democratically elected president being deposed & whether or not that is a coup & then the whole what happens when a democratically elected president starts behaving in such a way as to ensure there will not be any democratically elected presidents after him.  Yes, yes Egypt is a complicated place- you don't have to tell me, I have seen plenty of mummy movies & they are usually just in Old Cairo or out in the countryside & even that brief glimpse is enough.

& it all puts me in mind of the man who went home.  Because that is the problem with all president-for-life type: they don't want to go home.  Or worse, they think the presidential house is home & then their kids start thinking they should inherit it.  If you think this is a good idea, picture Paris Hilton-she is three generations away from an extremely powerful, business savvy mogul who could have set himself up as dictator of some island somewhere & wouldn't they be totally screwed now?

So let me take you back to 1788, when George Washington was elected UNANIMOUSLY to the first of two presidential terms.  People starting calling him the father of his country while he was STILL ALIVE.  Trust me, that is exactly the kind of thing that goes to a person's head & if GWashington could get a little obnoxious at parties (seriously, you need to read Barbara Holland's book Hail to the Chiefs:  How to tell your Polks from your Tylers or the updated Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals & Malarkey from George W to George W, they are both wonderful) all is forgiven because at the end of that second term, despite begging on behalf of pretty much everyone who did not want to deal with Thomas Jefferson, he went home.  & then like so many retired men, he was dead in less than 3 years.  But that is not the point.

The point is he went home.  It probably helped that he had no children to put that gleam in his eye (you know, the one Papa Doc got looking at Baby Doc), but whatever the reason we have one more thing to thank him for on this birthday of our country.  Thanks for Valley Forge (kinda), thanks for Yorktown (absolutely), thanks for crossing the i's & doting the t's when you updated the Articles of Confederation (& if you do not know what that update is called, GO LOOK IT UP), thanks for keeping us out of that skirmish when the French started by beheading courtiers & worked their way around to, well, anyone.  & thank you thank you thank you for going home. You saw a job, you did it & you left.  Over 200 years later your country is grateful for that precedent you set.  Even if individuals find it chaffing a bit, there is no doubt it was the best thing for us.  Thank you.  & goodbye.

Happy Loving Day, because late is better than never

I completely missed Loving Day this year (it is June 12th, FYI).  Marriage rights aside (& that is hard to do what with the right to get married -or not- all over the news), the Loving case & decision  has always kind of interested me.  First of all, there is their great name:  Loving.

But more than that is Mr. & Mrs. Loving's overwhelming, indisputable ordinariness.  Aside from overturning an outdated, racist law & making big time history, these people are downright boring.  Mr. Loving was a garden variety small town boy grown to man, he liked tinkering with cars.  Mrs. Loving took care of the house & children.  In one of my favorite Hollywood commentaries when Mrs. Loving saw the movie made about her life she said most of it was wrong, the only part they got right was she had three children.  Anyone reading this blog or anything else ever written about the Lovings would realize the other fact the movie got right was there was a landmark civil rights case surrounding their marriage.  That Mrs. Loving clearly does not view this as the centerpiece of her own life makes me like her more.

There is not much else to say really.  You can watch the documentary which is more about the case than the people.  & I kind of get the impression Mr. & Mrs. Loving would have preferred it that way (the documentary was made after they had both died, the fictionalized film is the one Mildred Loving found inaccurate).  Loving v The State of Virginia comes up a lot in the gay marriage debate, on both sides believe it or not.  But that is a conversation for another post; today I just want to notice the Lovings, that they walked out of small town USA, made their argument & then went back home, happy to leave the spotlight.  Whenever people start grandstanding about "real americans", it is the Lovings I think of. 

One of those days

Lots of stuff happening today in history.  In 1893 we mark Gandhi's first documented act of civil disobedience.  The short version is he does a Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks & on a train in South Africa no less.  Go Gandhi!  In 1899 Carrie Nation starts vandalizing private property in the name of temperance.  Uhm, Okaaaaaay.  Flash forward to 1965 when the Supreme Court upholds the right of married couples to use birth control in Griswold v. Connecticut.  GO GRISWOLD!  When right-to-privacy advocates talk about the constitutional right to privacy, they are actually referring to the argument made by Griswold's team which claimed that while not explicitly set out in the Constitution, it can be inferred.  This gives us that unusual circus today where people manage to adhere to specifics as doctrine & still claim the right to privacy as Constitutionally protected.  Good Times.

Some interesting birthdays as well:  Georgiana Cavendish better known as the Duchess of Devonshire was born in 1757.  If her name doesn't ring a bell, pick up one of her biographies; the most recent is film starring Keira Knightley.  I understand that it was based on the biography by Amanda Foreman which is just under 500pp & makes the Clintons look like stay-at-home dullards.

1837 gives us Alois Hitler, another parent of a famous political leader (did I mention G. Cavendish's son went on to be Prime  Minister?  Well, he did).  1848 has Paul Gauguin who, if you don't think was important enough in his own right, was pivotal in the emergence of Vincent van Gogh.  1909 brings us to Virginia Apgar of Apgar Test fame, & if you don't know what that is & why it is important, ask a pregnant lady.   In Fladidah history, we have the birth of Harry Crews in 1935.

Little sidebar about Harry Crews: for me all his accomplishments, failings & well everything about him are best summed up by the fact he had a quote from e.e. cummings tattoed on his right arm,  moving me one step closer to getting "Jenny is a mind worm" on my left wrist.

A few more birthdays:  1952 gives us the Nobel prize winning author Orhan Pamuk, a frontline advocate for free speech in Turkey, putting yet another face on the Turkish protests our liberal media is still barely covering (but Michelle Bachman makes a Youtube video that they don't have to pay to play & they cannot play it enough).    Who else....1958 is the artist formerly known as Prince Rogers Nelson (apparently Prince is his real name, who knew?  Lots of people, I'm sure, just not me) was born. 

& a few death days:  Betty Neels the queen of early Harlequin Romances died today in 2001.  Anyone who has been unlucky enough to be trapped with me on a long car ride or whatever sooner or later hears my rant about the value of Harlequin Romances in tracking the changing mores of our society.  Yep, I'm a fun drunk, too.  In 1980 we lost Henry Miller -yes Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller. There's a death-day companion for our Betty.  & lets round this one out with Dorothy Parker dies today in 1967; sometimes my mother answers her phone with Ms. Parker's moniker "what fresh hell is this".

It is tempting to wonder "what is up about June 7th?", but the reality is I could cherry pick any day of the year & give you a handful of similar compare&contrasts.  & if this blog hangs around long enough, I probably will. 

What would John do?

Today, in 1925 the John above was indicted.  His case used to be, for me, the very definition of losing the battle but winning the war.  Lately though I am not so sure about the win.

I am talking about the Scopes Monkey Trial.  The gist was the state of Tennessee had made it illegal to discuss evolution in any publicly funded classroom.  If this is sounding a bit samey, that might be because Tennessee has more recently made it illegal to discuss homosexuality in elementary & middle school (apparently by high school the kids can handle it).

You don't need me to walk you through the ins&outs of the trial itself.  The highlights are:

John Scopes was a high school teacher who was aware of the law (the Bulter Act to be precise) & may not have even violated it but had said he thought it was a bad law & agreed to violate it.

He was defended by Clarence Darrow who came in the door with a...let's call it diverse...legal background.  A whole lot of other famous people passed in & out of that courtroom, but I will spare you the list of attorneys at either table.

The trial was a good old fashioned circus & was intended by both sides to be just that.  One side wanted that law struck down & the drafters ridiculed, the other side thought it was about damn time someone took a stand against this anti-bible science nonsense.  At least that is how I remember it.  The ACLU had been looking for a "test case" & this one was tailor made. 

The whole business was famously covered by H. L. Mencken & if you don't know who that is look him up.  If you don't want to look him up, imagine a 24-hour news cycle hairdo who spends her/his spare time translating Nietzsche, writing books on ethics & generally contributing to our society more than his own short-term bank balance.  Yes, I am talking about you Hairdo who spent actual news bytes promoting your country music album.

John Scopes lost & was ordered to pay the fine ($100), went on to the Tennessee Supreme Court where the conviction was overturned (the technicality:  the jury should have decided the fine, not the judge) but the law stood.  Until 1967 when it was repealed more or less just in time as the US Supreme Court ruled the following year that a ban on speech based entirely on religion was indeed a violation of the First Amendment.

But all of that was yet to come, in the past.  Today we celebrate the day John Scopes was indicted.  Picture your high school science teacher.  He has been taken out of his house & down to the station & is being booked.  He is about to lose his livelihood & ultimately will choose to live in another country on another continent.  But today, he thought it was still important enough to move a specific religious doctrine out of the classroom & open the door to alternative.

World Hemophilia Day

You know I love a crazy holiday.  Actually I guess they aren't "holidays" so much as commemoration days.  Or raise awareness days.  Yup, I love a crazy Raise Awareness Day.  & today is...of course...World Hemophilia Day.

The thing about hemophilia is it is probably better known than it ought to be.  I am not suggesting that we should ignore it, just that as fairly rare (dare I say obscure) blood conditions go, your average college educated adult in the western world more or less knows the primary symptom of hemophilia.  This is because of two large world wide...you can say Events, you can say Plagues.  I am talking of course about AIDS & Queen Victoria.

One thing we know about hemophilia today is its hereditary nature (OKay what was taught about hemophilia circa 198X, the last time I sat in on a high school science class of Gregor Mendel et al); what we said then as Queen Victoria was a carrier.  Women did not suffer from the disease (baby girls might, but medical science being what it was those that did, did not survive babyhood never mind having their own children).  & Queen Victoria was a prodigious producer of offspring (like those pea plants!).  & those offspring sat in some high profile chairs themselves, lending their hemophilic DNA to the next generation.  Once those cousins started having children together, all hell broke loose.  No really, imagine the Bolsheviks without a Tsar distracted by a lack of heir. I'm not saying hemophilia turned the tide, I am just saying it was a factor.

Flash forward to that same high school classroom circa 198X where we were told that hemophilia was a done disease, kinda.  Transfusions were common place enough that a person could expect to live a long life, not necessarily in the picture of health but well into adulthood. 

In 1992/3, I met an interesting family.  The father had just died of AIDS, the mother was raising the two daughters & their son alone.  The son was HIV positive & has since died.  One of the two girls had a her tubes tied for her 21st birthday.  She had trouble finding a doctor that would do it to such a young woman but she was determined the buck should stop with her.  While transfusions were a miracle & no doubt extended father's & son's lives, those years came with a price.  & a mad scramble to make sure AIDS didn't get handed over to the hemophilia-gene-carrying-but-not-suffering daughters & the hemophilia-bystander mother.

Which brings me to sickle cell anemia (you can read up on your own if you like). SCA is also hereditary, also a malfunction in the blood (to simplify both), but many sufferers lived to reproduce before the age of transfusions & it was & is much more widespread.  There are famous sufferers of SCA; I BINGed & discovered Miles Davis, a person whose biography I read once-upon-a-time & although this fact was probably in it, it just didn't stick.  I BINGed because the only famous person I knew of who had SCA was fictional:  Corpora Klinger on MASH. 

There is a Sickle Cell Anemia Awareness Day.  it is June 19th.  I cannot tell you much else about it though, because the website I found had not been updated in almost 2 years.  World Hemophilia Day on the other hand has been publicized by Novo Nordisk.  I guess there isn't all that much cash to be made treating SCA.

On the 4th day of March

What to say about what has happened today.  Historically, that is.  The first & third flags were adopted by the Confederate States of America today.  In different years, of course.  The biggest thing about that for me was the Confederate States of America existed for about four years total (February 1861 to May 1865).  Three flags in four years seems a little, well I don't know the word.  Excessive?  Frivolous?   Bogged down in trivialities? 

But I have written enough about the Confederacy lately.  What else about today?  Quite a bit earlier, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a royal charter in 1628.  Let's keep moving.  Frances Perkins becomes the first female member of the USCabinet in 1933.  Hmmm, nope, not interesting enough, not even to kick off Women's History Month.

A number of people were born today.  A number of people are born every day, but today we have  Vivaldi, him of the Four Seasons.  Eleanor Daley was also born on March 4th.  The wife & mother of two prominent mayors of Chicago, so naturally everyone called her Sis.  I don't know what's up with that but am not all that curious, either.

Quite a few people have died as well.  Gary Gygax, the father of Dungeons & Dragons died today, in 2008.  D&D being the first dating service for geeks (not the advertised purpose but you will never convince me that didn't quickly become one of the attractions).  Gary Gygax helped introduce surprising number of socially inept people might never have met.  Now there's an interesting accomplishment.  Bror Von Blixen-Finecke also died on March 4th (1946).  Who is that you ask?  Well, he is better known as the unfaithful husband to his first wife, Karen who is better known as Isak Dineson.

In 1918, March 4th saw the first outbreak of the Spanish flu.  We don't think about it overly much, but with an estimated 50 million dead worldwide, the Spanish flu was the last great pandemic.  Until the next one of course.  

Maybe I am just tired but March 4th isn't forming into anything cohesive for me.  It's funny, but some days really do seem to have themes: lots of scientists' births or deaths or even something in broader strokes, many political assassinations, that kind of thing.  The best March 4th seems to offer is 2 of the 3 Confederate flags & I am way too amped up over that damned flag as it is. 

Ah well, I guess that makes March 4th the unofficial make it your own day.  Let me suggest you design your own flag & maybe listen to something baroque while being grateful that despite loud shouts from faux scientists that there is no such thing as evolution, the US Center for Disease Control still bases their influenza recommendations on there being such a thing after all.

Not fat Tuesday

February 3rd is the absolute first day that Mardi Gras can be (it isn't this year of course--for one thing today is Sunday).  There is a touch a spring madness about other anniversaries. 

Today, in 1637 the tulip market collapsed, more or less in one day.  Anything on a grand scale happening in one day before the telegraph is impressive, but imagine this:  one day a few people woke up & said I could a buy a house, a really really nice house & support it, with servants & everything for the rest of my days OR I could buy some flowers.  & then chose the house.  & this was a novelty.  By the end of the day, everyone else went wait, what?  Whoever was left holding the bulbs lost.  It's like some strange, life changing game of hot potato.   

In 1690 the first paper money was printed in the colonies.  I am fond of physical money history.  No really, I am.  I like tracking through Where's George.  Also it is fun to point out to people who get all bent about separation of church&state about how In God We Trust is on the money & therefore God was always part of our gov't that God didn't get added until the 1950s.  Interesting that the colony founded just a generation earlier on the right to practice a much more restrictive religion than their country of origin didn't think God belonged on the money.

Oh, & in 1890 the 15th Amendment was ratified.  Whether or not you think that one was crazy is a defining political characteristic, even today. 

What else, what else.  In 1970, Frank Serpico was shot.  In 1904, Pretty Boy Floyd, one of the most off-the-wall gangsters (he once sent a postcard to police denying being involved in a massacre & by& large history believes him, how off is that?), was born.  In 1959 the music died.

Yes, I know, pretty much every day ever can give you a similar cross section, but I don't know...I just might give Superbowl 47 a miss & instead plant some tulips & listen to Don McLean. 

A notable first

I occasionally peruse the lists of who was born when, who died when & what happened when for interesting little bits.   I don't even do this so I can blog about it (although sometimes I do); I do it because these little windows can be so interesting to look through. 

Today has quite an obscure gem:  the assignation of the 1st Earl of Moray in 1570.  Who was the 1st Earl of Moray you ask?  Well let me tell you the Tudors had nothing NOTHING on the Stewarts.  In fact, for over the top melodrama, the Stewarts just might take the taco.  Mary, Queen of Scots made one of the more notable exits (on the Tudor's dime no less) by concealing her little dog under her very sober skirts & blood red petticoats.  When the head came off, the dog panicked, charged out & I am guessing scared the crap out of everyone there for the private viewing.  You have to admit it is whole level of planning you just don't see much when it comes to one's own execution. 

The 1st Earl of Moray was one of the legion of James Stewarts so let's just call him Moray-1.  Moray-1 was also one of the legion of illegitimate sons of his royal father (guess what his name was, go on...guess).   Even in the day when a king could father child with a married-woman-not-his-wife & claim him, Moray-1 turned heads.  Not because of his inauspicious origins (they weren't so inauspicious then, you can thank the Victorians for that) but because of his extreme ambition.  Imagine what extreme ambition in an age where rivals knifed each other, blew up each others homes, etc. must have looked like (welcome to the upside of those prudey Victorians).

You can do the reading on Moray-1 if you wish, I am just going to give you the highlights:  despite being big with church reform (among other reforms-that's right these savages were REFORMERS), he was chief adviser to his half-sister, the above mentioned Mary.  He had no respect for her priests, but apparently he had a knack for keeping her out of trouble.  Or at least only in the trouble he wanted her in.  Among the trouble he thought she should avoid:  Lord Darnley.  That is another piece of work you can read up on your own.  Back & forth, back & forth Moray-fled, Darnley maybe killed Rizzio, Moray-1 came back, Darnley escaped being blow up only to be ?strangled? while Moray-1 was out of town.  He lay low through the next incarnation of intrigue & returned when herself abdicated the throne in favor of her infant son, James Stewart.  Guess who got made regent?  Yes, James Stewart, of course, but which one?  If you guessed our man Moray-1 you would be correct.

Things tick along eventfully: raids, betrayals, & so forth for the next three years until....until today in 1570 another guy named James but not Stewart waited in his uncle the Archbishop's house & shot Moray-1 from a window.  & that is the end of Moray-1.

What makes this particular story interesting?  Well, the murder of James Stewart, First Earl of Moray is the first recorded instance of assassination by firearm.   Sweet, huh?  The only thing that would make this anniversary sweeter for me is if it had lined up with Gun Appreciation Day last Saturday, but you cannot have everything.

Move over Pocahontas

Generally I try to avoid two saints in one month (& there is already a saint queued up in less than a week) but Lily of the Mohawks is brand new saint this week & it seemed petty not to cover her.  Anyone who has ever traveled anywhere in the americas (north, south, central, wherever) would have to take quite the circuitous route not to trip over a story of an indian princess.  Even then, I am 99.9% sure you would wind up smack in the middle of an indian princess story not-on-purpose.  Indian princesses jump off cliffs, marry the wrong man, betray their people, save their people, sometimes they just abandon their people.  In short they are very busy people themselves.

& up until last week I would have said Pocahontas was the most famous in the world.  If you have never seen the Disney movie (& I haven't), you would still have to be living under a rock not to know who Pocahontas was.  Or rather, who history says she was.  Or might have been.  Whatever, it doesn't matter.  This is not a post about Pocahontas.  That being said, let us all take a moment to listen the Peggy Lee's Fever, which mentions Pocahontas.

Back to our saint: Tekakwitha was born to a family of mixed heritage (one parent was a Mohawk, who are part of the Iroquios language group, the other was an Algonquin, who have their own language, Algonquin; I might be misremembering, but I don't think these two groups always got along that well), but was orphaned at a very young age.  Much of her family died of the same thing that wiped out so many people in the 17th century New World:  smallpox.  It really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Anyway, she was left dependent on an uncle who had a great distrust of christians in general & priests in specific.  First, let me speculate this might be why said uncle was around to care for the much afflicted (scarred & partial blinded by small pox scars) little girl.  Second, guess what kind of indian princess listed above, not that Tekakwitha was a princess-princess, but guess what kind of princess she was.  If you guessed the kind that left her people you would be right.  As a young woman, she ran away to be baptized, then ran away again (I don't entirely follow that one myself) to become a nun.  Then she died of tuberculosis, another disease I am guessing her unreasonable uncle did not catch.

So, that sums that up.  Except that on her deathbed, witnesses say her scars disappeared & she became beautiful (they don't say anything about her putting a on a little weight, so she must have been beautiful à la heroin chic).  & of course later she started performing miracles, pretty much isolated to those who prayed to her so that probably helped determine who got the credit.  Anyway.  Tekakwitha is a saint now, better known as Lily of the Mohawks. 

Which brings me back to Disney.  It is a very familiar story; see Therese the little flower for the sickness in childhood, the tuberculosis in adulthood & so-forth, or countless others for the whole running away thing, or, or, or.  Seriously, it is a familiar story, but now we have a native american heroine.  Sigh.