Bed Bugs Found at Times Square Theater

In a triumph for the environment, New York bed bugs have vowed to eat only local produce.  An insect spokesman denied that this reflected any xenophobia.  “I am sure that the U.N. delegations provide wonderful sustenance, but our loyalty is to New York–and you can’t find a better buffet anywhere.”

Nonetheless, the presence of bed bugs in theaters did raise serious labor issues.  Would they be required to join Actors Equity?  A union spokesman said, “If bed bugs are part of the entertainment and provide some ambience or impact to the theater, they deserve the full benefits and protection of the union.”  In a current production of “Rent”, the New York Times critic particularly praised the bed bugs for giving the production “an infectious realism.” 

And this promises to be a trend.  A planned revival of “Cats” is casting for fleas.

A new poll showed that nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, believe Obama is Muslim.

And what exactly does this polled public know about Islam?

It was founded:

a. As a tax shelter for OPEC
b. By the divinely inspired Muhammed
c. As a protest against Israel
d. As an operating manual for flying carpets

Of those polled, 59 percent also identified Muhammed as the meanest of The Three Stooges. 

But how about some actual facts about Moslem history?

On This Day in 636

In the news reports from Iraq, if you still bother to pay attention, you would have heard of the Yarmuk Hospital. It is that dilapidated, pathetic locale for hapless Iraqi civilians to get some facsimile of healthcare. So, who was this namesake Yarmuk? An outstanding physician? A generous (or guilt-ridden) philanthropist?

In fact, Yarmuk was a battle. (So much for Iraqi charm. Wouldn’t you want to go to a hospital named for Iwo Jima?) Of course, Yarmuk was an Arab victory and–however obscure it may be to you–it was one of the most significant battles in history. But for Yarmuk, the Middle East might still be Christian.

Until 636, Islam was still confined to Arabia. The Caliph of the new religion had sent large raiding parties to plunder the infidel neighbors; and the affluent Byzantines certainly had lots worth stealing. In fact, given the lethargic Byzantine defenses, the Arabs burglarized the entire city of Damascus. That heist finally got Constantinople’s attention. (We’ll have to postpone this theological debate over whether or not the Christ child was born potty-trained.) The Emperor Heraclius ordered the army to stop the Arab incursions.

The approach of perhaps 80,000 Byzantines convinced the Arab expeditions to make a prudent exit from Syria. Having one third as many men, the Arab forces retreated as far south as the Yarmuk River valley, which forms the border of modern Syria and Jordan. There they took up defensive positions and awaited the Byzantine attack. And waited and waited and waited. The Byzantines had stopped on the other side of the valley, and began a three-month-long staring contest.

During that three months, the Byzantines made several attempts to negotiate. Considering the Imperial forces’ numerical superiority, the Arab Commander must have been impressed with the Byzantines’ generosity or stupidity. Had the situation been reversed, he would not have hesitated to attack. However, under the circumstances, he was willing to negotiate if only to stall for reenforcements. They arrived, but he still had half as many men as the Byzantines. So the staring contest continued until the Byzantines blinked.

They had no choice in the matter; they were downwind of a sandstorm. And they soon found themselves downwind and under the Arab cavalry. Taking advantage of Allah’s gift of weather, the Arabs attacked. At least half of the Byzantine army was annihilated, the survivors were in disorganized flight. Syria and Palestine were defenseless; the Arabs’ strategy was no longer smash and grab. They were there to stay, and they soon found that Egypt and North Africa were easy pickings as well.

So on this day in 636, Byzantine incompetence lost half of an empire, gave the Arabs the Middle East and left us with the consequences.

August 18, 1920:  American Women Can Vote!

And throughout the rest of the world, the response was “So What“!  Women in Australia had been voting since 1902.  Of course, you would expect such aberrational behavior from a nation descended from convicts.  But prim, staid Canada had also allowed women to vote since 1918.  (In fact, as a concession to the War Effort, women with sons or husbands in the Army were allowed to vote in 1917.) 

Great Britain, herself, regarded women’s suffrage as a war debt.  In the years preceding the Great War, the British Suffragette Movement had violated Edwardian decorum as well as the law..  Demanding the vote, its protesters had disrupted sessions of Parliament, chained themselves to Ten Downing Street, set afire mailboxes.  Some had even attempted to make bombs.  Those who were arrested began hunger strikes in British prisons.  For punishment as well as sustenance, the fasting women were force-fed.  (Having a gruel-filled hose forced down your throat actually may be an improvement over British cuisine, but that was not the intention.)

But once the War began the Suffragette Movement ceased its protests, deferring to the more urgent cause.  And the women did their part, working all the shifts at the hospitals and armaments factories.  And in 1918, the Crown acknowledged its gratitude to the women of Britain.  For four years of ceaseless labor, for killing your husband and sons, and leaving you to spend the rest of your life pushing your legless brother in his wheelchair, how would you like to vote?  However, the British government was not quite generous.  A woman had to be 30 before she could vote; a man only had to be 21.  (In 1928, the British government ended the age discrimination.)

Still, with most of the English-speaking world permitting women’s suffrage, America looked rather petty in denying it.  Hadn’t Mary Pickford–selling war bonds–earned that right?  (Actually, in her native Canada she could vote.)  In 1919, both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed the 19th Amendment. 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

President Wilson was a supporter of the legislation.  ( He had yet to have his stroke; but even if he had, Mrs. Wilson would have signed the bill.)  So, then it was left to the states to ratify the amendment.  On this day in 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to accept the 19th Amendment, making it the law of the land.  Mississippi was the 48th state, acquiescing in 1984. 

And the enfranchised women of America voted for Warren G. Harding.  Well, he was good-looking.

Old West Showdown Is Revived

New York Times

SANTA FE, N.M. — Billy the Kid is dead and buried. So is the lawman who shot him. But in this city of adobe homes and historical plaques, the past and present are sometimes as hard to separate as the Kid’s finger was from his trigger.

Gov. Bill Richardson, a history buff, has a special chair in his office, a facsimile of the one that a predecessor, Lew Wallace, used in the late 1800s. Mr. Richardson, his time in office dwindling fast, also has a piece of unfinished business from the Wallace administration on his desk: the proposed pardon of Billy the Kid.

In opening a review of the former territorial governor’s deal to grant clemency to Billy the Kid, Mr. Richardson has revived the classic Old West showdown between the Kid and the sheriff who arrested him — and later shot him — nearly 130 years ago.

The governor sat down with three of Sheriff Pat Garrett’s grandchildren and two great-grandchildren in his office recently and listened to what he described as their “heated” defense of their ancestor.

“This is our history, and it’s important to New Mexico and we can’t arbitrarily alter it,” said Susannah Garrett, 55, a granddaughter of the sheriff.

Historical documents show that Mr. Wallace struck a deal with the Kid that if he would testify before a grand jury about a killing he had witnessed, the governor would grant him a pardon for his many crimes. Billy the Kid did testify but the pardon never came, something the outlaw grumbled about as he managed to escape the law, get caught and then escape again, only to be gunned down in the dark by the frontier lawman in 1881.

Pardons are granted by governors across the country, especially departing chief executives like Mr. Richardson, who has served eight years in office and is prevented by term limits from running again.

The pardon probably slipped Lew Wallace’s mind; he was busy checking the proofs of his 1880 novel about chariots.  He might have confused storylines and pardoned Messala while granting Billy a cure for leprosy.  Wallace’s omission really doesn’t matter, however;  Hollywood pardoned Billy the Kid long ago. 

William Bonney was the hero of westerns as early as 1911.  Occasionally he is the good kid who is misunderstood; more often he is the Robin Hood of New Mexico, defending the small farmer from the evil big ranchers and the rapacious railroad magnates.  In one camp classic, Billy even protected humanity:  “Billy the Kid versus Dracula.”  And yes, there was also a singing Billy, played by Roy Rogers in “The Return of Billy the Kid.”

In ”The Left Handed Gun” Billy was portrayed by Paul Newman.  That is better than a gubernatorial pardon; that’s deification.     

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/17/the-first-tax-lawyers-2/

Japan, Checking on Its Oldest, Finds Many Gone

New York Times

TOKYO — Japan has long boasted of having many of the world’s oldest people — testament, many here say, to a society with a superior diet and a commitment to its elderly that is unrivaled in the West.

That was before the police found the body of a man thought to be one of Japan’s oldest, at 111 years, mummified in his bed, dead for more than three decades. His daughter, now 81, hid his death to continue collecting his monthly pension payments, the police said.

Alarmed, local governments began sending teams to check on other elderly residents. What they found so far has been anything but encouraging. 

A woman thought to be Tokyo’s oldest, who would be 113, was last seen in the 1980s. Another woman, who would be the oldest in the world at 125, is also missing, and probably has been for a long time. When city officials tried to visit her at her registered address, they discovered that the site had been turned into a city park, in 1981.

TOKYO:  The Imperial Veterans’ Administration has announced that it will audit its listed number of survivors of the Russo-Japanese War.  VA officials now concede that its total of 350,000 veterans of the 1904-05 conflict might be inaccurate “although with our low cholesterol diet, it is not impossible.”

Given the statistical discrepancies, this might explain why none of the listed 120 veterans of the battle of Sekigahara attended the quadricentennial commemoration. 

On a related subject, the Harvard Alumni Association still intends to dun the family of the late Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (class of  ’21) for contributions.  ”We knew he has been dead for 68 years.  So what?  We’re still collecting for Cotton Mather.”

On August 15, 1769 Letizia Buonaparte gave birth to her second son.  The nationality of the Corsican infant had been determined by the vagaries of diplomacy.  His older brother Guiseppe had been born in 1768 a citizen of Genoa.  But Corsica had changed masters and Napoleone was a French subject.  Corsicans, however, always regarded themselves as a law unto themselves.  Indeed, Corsica’s chief industry seemed to be banditry; and perhaps Napoleone would become its greatest practitioner–ransacking all of Europe.  He may have been born French, but he did not learn that language until he was 10 and never never lost his Corsican accent.  (At the time, Corsican would have sounded like abysmal Italian and worse French; today it is just the opposite.)

His father Paolo had proved an accommodating collaborator to the French authorities, and the government rewarded Papa Buonoparte with steady employment and a scholarship for young Napoleone.  (Of course, the boy would have to adopt a more Gallic spelling for his name.)  The boy was sent to the military academy at Brienne, France.  His education there was determined by his social standing.  A scholarship boy lacked the aristocratic pedigree required of an officer in the infantry or cavalry.  Artillery was considered more menial, so Napoleon was trained for that and received his lieutenant’s commission in 1785.

But the caste system that fettered Napoleon’s early career was about to be overthrown.  France was an 18th-century society constrained by a 14th-century monarchy.  Decades of frustration and misrule finally led to a revolution in 1789.  The fumbling, obtuse Louis XVI refused the popular demand for a constitutional monarchy.  At the urgings of his queen Marie Antoinette, Louis appealed to his fellow monarchs to rescue him from his own people.  In response, a coalition of German states invaded France in 1792.  Learning of Louis’ support for the invasion, France saw no further need for a constitutional monarchy or a breathing monarch.  Then the rest of Europe declared war on this regicidal France.

It would seem an uneven fight, and it was–because France had a young officer named Bonaparte.  He was a brigadier general at 24, conqueror of Italy at 26, dictator of France at 30, Emperor by 35, master of Europe at 37; and his descent proved even faster.  Russia, Elba, Waterloo, St. Helena’s, death at 51. 

Two centuries later, he remains a legend.  To most of Europe, he is a tyrant–the Bogeyman of Britain and the Anti-Christ in Spain.  Yet, Italy and Poland remember him as a liberator.  And he is France’s most contentious hero.  The liberals cannot decide whether he championed the French Revolution or betrayed it.  The conservatives deplore him personally but love the glory he bestowed on France.  And none would deny his charisma.  

The poet Alfred de Musset described the mesmerizing hold of Napoleon on France and history:

The life of Europe was centered in one man; all were trying to fill their lungs with the air which he had breathed. Every year France presented that man with three hundred thousand of her youth; it was the tax paid to Caesar, and, without that troop behind him, he could not follow his fortune. It was the escort he needed that he might traverse the world, and then perish in a little valley in a deserted island, under the weeping willow.

Never had there been so many sleepless nights as in the time of that man; never had there been seen, hanging over the ramparts of the cities, such a nation of desolate mothers; never was there such a silence about those who spoke of death. And yet there was never such joy, such life, such fanfares of war, in all hearts. Never was there such pure sunlight as that which dried all this blood. God made the sun for this man, they said, and they called it the Sun of Austerlitz. But he made this sunlight himself with his ever-thundering cannons which dispelled all clouds but those which succeed the day of battle.

It was this air of the spotless sky, where shone so much glory, where glistened so many swords, that the youth of the time breathed. They well knew that they were destined to the hecatomb; but they regarded Murat as invulnerable, and the emperor had been seen to cross a bridge where so many bullets whistled that they wondered if he could die.

And even if one must die, what did it matter? Death itself was so beautiful, so noble, so illustrious, in his battle-scarred purple! It borrowed the color of hope, it reaped so many ripening harvests that it became young, and there was no more old age. All the cradles of France, as all its tombs, were armed with shield and buckler; there were no more old men, there were corpses or demi-gods.

`Cathy’ comic strip ending after 34 years

Associated Press Writer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The comic strip “Cathy,” which has chronicled the life, frustrations and swimsuit season meltdowns of its namesake for more than 30 years, is coming to an end.

How should “Cathy” end? 

The Rapture would be useful.  Wouldn’t we all like to see Cathy earn her long-sought reward:  an eternal size two. 

Of course, the strip could resort to brutal realism.  The United Press Syndicate fires all the characters and replaces them with cheap Asian replicants.  The new strip would be called “Cathay.”

Many of us would settle for a little justice.  No one would mind if Cathy murdered her annoying, whining, Oedipal nebbish of a husband Irving.  (She’d get fan mail from Mel Gibson.)  Imagine Irving’s dying scene;  riddled with bullets, he is worried about staining the furniture.  And as the strip ends, we see Cathy arrested by Dick Tracy–and we’ll surmise that they will have an affair. 

However, the perfect ending would be Cathy running off with Dilbert.  (Yes, Dilbert would rather have Brenda Starr or even Blondie, but he has to be realistic.  An overweight stick figure is about the best he can do.)  As for Cathy, at least she will find herself in a relevant comic strip for the first time in ten years.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day: http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/08/13/on-this-day-in-1961-the-berlin-wall/

Of course, I get my share of spam.  Some are prurient offers:  “Would you like people to think that you are shoplifting a flagpole?”  (No, I wouldn’t.)  Then, there are barely incoherent scams:  “Very brilliant writing you make.  Please link to sweatshopsareus.com.”  However, I was intrigued by this intrusion.

Hello, just to let you know that a superb estate is now for
sale in St-Nicolas, Québec, Canada. The 1,888 sq.ft. house
is build on a 45,000 sq.ft. woodland next to the chaudière
river and offer a magnific natural waterfall. It’s a must
see !

I wonder what I wrote that somehow sent a gullibility alert to this realtor.  Was it my essay on Captain Dreyfus? 

“Who cares about your disgrace and vilification when you can be imprisoned in beautiful St-Nicholas?  None of the heat and inconvenience of a dark cell on Devil’s Island.  Here you’ll wish that really were guilty, and would that Emile Zola stop all the annoying exoneration!”

Perhaps it was my discussion of the Hundred Years War and an obviously unbalanced shepherdess…;

“Is there that special someone in your family who hears voices and makes all sorts of psychotic pronouncements?  We all have a niece like that.  Why have her humiliate you in public when you can stow her in rural Quebec.  Beautiful, and all so conveniently isolated St-Nicholas is the perfect site for indefinite confinement.  And if you’ve any other solution, we won’t notice or just assume that you are burning leaves.”

And now I have to wonder what type of spam this musing will incite.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/07/profiles-in-futility-2/

Greta van Susteren Sick Over Shirley Sherrod-Maxine Waters Mix-Up

During a segment about the ethics violations California Democrat Maxine Waters is accused of, “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” producers actually showed footage of another black woman in the news:  Shirley Sherrod.

Fox News would like to clarify the following points.

Viewers may have gotten the impression that Rep. Charles Rangel is a  pedophile.  By accident, we showed a picture of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tapdancing with Shirley Temple.  Miss Temple assures the Fox audience that Mr. Robinson always knew his place. 

Viewers may have gotten the impression that Rep. Maxine Waters was guilty of medical malpractice by claiming to be an obstetrician.  By accident, we showed the wrong film clip.  That actually was Butterfly McQueen saying “she didn’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies.”  Olivia de Havilland assures our viewers that, to her knowledge, Miss McQueen performed no abortions on the set; but Leslie Howard certainly would have been the father.

Viewers may have gotten the impression that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a promiscuous slut in a Puerto Rican gang and indirectly responsible for the death of Richard Beymer.  By accident, we showed the wrong film clip.  That actually was Rita Moreno in “West Side Story.”  However, if Sotomayor had killed Richard Beymer, we certainly wouldn’t blame her.

August 6, 1945:  Hiroshima

In early May 1945, the war in  Europe ended.  Hitler was dead, Berlin captured and the remnants of the Third Reich surrendered to the Allied Forces.  But the World War was not over.  Japan remained defiant.  Over the last two years, despite consistent defeats, the Japanese Empire continued to show fanatic resistance.  Its soldiers chose to fight to the death rather than capitulate.  They adhered to the ideas of Bushido–”the way of the warrior”.  This had been the code of the Samurai, but what once had the etiquette of the medieval nobility now was the national policy of Japan.  Every soldier was to abide by it.   

On Iwo Jima, the Japanese garrison of 18,000 fought to the last man; and 6800 Americans died taking the island.  At Okinawa, a force of 110,000 Japanese found themselves cut off, defenseless against allied air power and outnumbered five to one.  Their position was hopeless but they would not surrender.  Nearly all of them died, and so did 12,000 Americans.  Faced with this fanatic resolve, the Allies had to plan the invasion of the Home Islands of the Empire. 

Two million Japanese soldiers were stationed there. The Japanese government also had organized a militia to resist the Allied invasion.  Every Japanese man from 15 to 60, every unmarried woman from 15 to 40– a total of 28 million– received military training and weapons.  They, too, were expected to fight and die for the Empire.  The Japanese air force was training its pilots for suicide– “kamikazes”– missions “: to deliberately crash their explosive-laden planes into Allied ships.  Japan had 10,000 kamikaze pilots ready.  Furthermore, there were another two million Japanese soldiers stationed in China and Korea; they had to be prevented from reinforcing the Home Islands.

The anticipated invasion would be the hardest and bloodiest campaign the Americans had yet to fight.  In August, the Soviets would enter the war against Japan and attack the imperial forces in Korea and China.  Then in late October or early November, Americans and British Commonwealth forces would land on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s Home Islands.  There, the Allies would establish a base from which they launch the next phase of the attack: an attack in March, 1946 on the island of Honshu.  Its goal was to capture Tokyo. 

Of course, the Allies expected a ferocious resistance.  Once the capital fell, the Allied strategists predicted that the Japanese would be too exhausted and demoralized to continue the war.  One evaluation by the U.S. Department of War predicted that the entire campaign would take six months and cost the lives of 260,000 soldiers; however, that was the most optimistic estimate.  Another strategic study predicted 800,000 dead.  As for the number of wounded, the standard calculation would be 4 times the number of dead.  Enemy casualties were not the primary concerns of these reports, but it was estimated that the Japanese could suffer up to 10 million dead.  At the time, the Japanese population was 80 million.

But there was an alternative to this anticipated carnage, at least one that would save Allied lives.  Throughout the war, Allied scientists had been working on the development of a phenomenal weapon that possessed unimaginable power.  Physicists had theorized the military potential of nuclear fission.  Splitting an atom of a radioactive element like uranium or plutonium could release a considerable and very destructive amount of energy.  Ten of thousands of scientists, technicians, and soldiers were involved in this top secret operation, codenamed “The Manhattan Project:  But for all these efforts, there remained the basic question: would the atomic bomb actually work?  On July 16, 1945 at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the doubt was answered: the atomic bomb detonated.  A single bomb could destroy a city.

Now the Allies could use this new weapon to overwhelm and force the Japanese to surrender.  At the time of the Los Alamos detonation, the Allied Leaders– Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin–were conferring at Potsdam, Germany.  Threatening certain but unspecified destruction, the Allies demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender.  The Empire would be deprived of all its annexations and conquests, its forces must be disarmed and Allied forces would occupy and administer the Home Islands while Japan adapted to a democratic, civilian government.  Responding through diplomatic channels, the Japanese rejected any Allied occupation of their country.

On August 6, 1945, three American planes flew to Hiroshima, a Japanese port and troop center with a civilian population of 300,000.  Such a small sortie did not concern the Japanese authorities.  But one of the planes, the Enola Gay, contained the atomic bomb.  That bomb contained 130 pounds of enriched uranium.  When detonated over Hiroshima, it created a blast equivalent to 13,000 tons of T.N.T. and ignited a fire burning at 7000 degrees Fahrenheit, the same temperature as the sun.  The bomb destroyed 69 percent of the city’s buildings and killed immediately 70,000 people; as many as 140,000 were injured. 

That same day, President Harry Truman gave a radio address to the American people.  “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.”  He went on to describe the bomb and the Allied effort to create it.  The President then warned the Japanese of the further consequences if they now refused to surrender.  “Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war…If they do not accept our terms they make expect a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.”

Yet the Japanese government did not respond.  On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki.  At least 40,000 people died.  That day the Japanese cabinet met to discuss whether or not to surrender.   Half of the cabinet members were prepared to keep fighting;   the Bushido Code preferred death to the disgrace of surrender.  Others were not so proud when faced with the possible extermination of the Japanese people.  They were debating into the next morning when the Emperor Hirohito intervened.  The Emperor would not allow the further destruction of his people, no matter the humiliation of surrender.  “We must endure the unendurable” and he ordered the cabinet to acknowledge Japan’s defeat and capitulate to the allies.  Since the state religion of Japan revered the Emperor as a God, he had to be obeyed.

Through diplomatic channels, the Japanese approached the Allies on August 12th, acceding to the terms of an unconditional surrender.  The only Japanese request was that the monarchy be preserved.  In fact, Americans and British actually favored the existence of a modified, constitutional monarchy.  They thought that the Emperor could be a valuable intermediary in transforming a samurai culture into a peaceful, democratic one.  On August 15th, Japan surrendered to the Allies. The Emperor Hirohito gave his first radio address to his subjects, telling them that the war was over and Japan had lost.  “Should we continue to fight, it would only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but would also lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”

So the war ended.  The men who would have died on the beaches of Kyushu or the plains of Tokyo lived; many are still alive and their descendants number in the tens of millions.  The Allies occupied Japan until 1952.  The Emperor Hirohito reigned until his death in 1989; history honors him for his role in ending the war and presiding over Japan’s remarkable transformation to a prosperous and democratic society.  And now nine countries possess the atomic bomb and terrifying advancements of it.  Yet, none has risked to use the weapon; its power is its own deterrent.   The atomic bomb ended the Second World War; there dare not be a Third.