FinermanWorks

May 5, 1862:  The French Army Has a Faux Pas

Imagine that you have been mugged 47 times but once managed to fight off an attacker.  Wouldn’t you have a holiday to commemorate your token triumph?  Perhaps you wouldn’t but Mexico does.  On this day in 1862, a threadbare, outnumbered Mexican force thwarted a French attack on the town of Puebla. 

But what were the French doing there in the first place?  Napoleon III–unlike Hamlet–admired his uncle and tried to be a world conqueror, too.  Mexico had defaulted on its international debts, and  France decided to collect the entire country.  America’s Monroe Doctrine would have opposed France’s invasion, but we were somewhat preoccupied with the Civil War.  Besides, Napoleon III could tell that the South was going to win; so why worry about the former United States. 

Of course, the battle of Puebla was an embarrassment to the French but hardly a decisive defeat.  The rebuffed invaders  simply awaited reinforcements; the next battle of Puebla would be a French victory.  So was the battle of Mexico City.  With much of the country under their control, in 1864 the French established a puppet government with the affable and very gullible Austrian Archduke Maximilian as the “Emperor of Mexico”. 

Mexican patriots, rallying around President Benito Juarez, remained defiant if not particularly intimidating.  But in 1865, the American government was prepared to offer Juarez more than sympathy:  General Grant and an army of 50,000 were ready to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.  And suddenly the French decided to leave.  Unfortunately, the Emperor Maximilian did not.  He was certain that the Mexican people would like him once they got to know him.  He might have been right; but that evidently wasn’t the case with his firing squad. 

(The humiliated French would attempt to take out their frustration on the Prussians.  Any idea how well that worked out?  I wonder if Juarez sent Bismarck a complimentary sombrero.)

So today Mexico celebrates doing to the French what it wished it had done to us.  

From the desk of Roger Ailes

Why the hurry to get rid of Osama bin Laden’s body?  Who knows what the DNA might have revealed?  Get Frank Luntz to research whether our audience prefers Osama to be the father or the twin brother of Obama.   

Also, wasn’t the public entitled to see the body?  What a great exhibit at the Smithsonian!  And imagine what the Disney folks could do with animatronics!   So much better than taxidermy.  The corpse could have been programmed to dance or say liberal things.  That’s the problem with this administration: no sense of entertainment.  It would rather raise taxes than charge admission. 

How’s this…Obama shortchanges the AMERICAN public because he is sensitive/squeamish about terrorist/Moslem corpses.  Here is something from the research department (good idea hiring Jeopardy hasbeens):  Arabs have no respect for Western corpses!   I see Gretchen Carlson saying this….

In 260 the Roman Emperor Valerian invaded Persia.  He must have been looking for weapons of mass destruction, because he and his army certainly found them.  At least the Emperor survived but as a prisoner. The Persian Shah used Valerian as a footstool. Since it was not a pampered captivity, Valerian soon died and then began his second career. He was stuffed and mounted as a public trophy.

(Note to programming:  change Emperor to President and Shah to tyrant.  Makes it easier for our audience to empathize.)

But Obama wouldn’t do that, cheating the American public of their trophy!  And the President Valerian comparison–repeatedly stressed– makes Obama seem either pro-Iranian or Anti-Italian.  Hell, why not both!  Our viewers can manage two phobias at once.

Next topic:  Baseball programming.  Cover left field less often than right, and make sure it looks worse.

Apr 27, 1667:

John Milton sells the copyright to Paradise Lost

Poet John Milton sells the copyright to his masterpiece Paradise Lost (1667) for a mere 10 pounds.

Obama the Anti-Christ? Maybe in New Jersey

New Jerseyans are apparently having a difficult time figuring out whether the president is the devil or not, the Washington Independent reports. To be sure, a Public Policy Polling questionnaire has 79% of respondents responding “No” to the question “Do you think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ?” Among “conservative” voters, 18% are sure of it, while 17% are undecided.

Of course, Barack Obama is not the Auntie Christ. How could anyone possibly mistake him for a 2,000 year-old-Jewish woman?

The Auntie Christ actually would be Marla, the older sister of the Virgin Mary. As Mary consoled her Son on the cross, “Believe me, living with Marla is worse.” Marla was the terror of Galilee; no one else had decent taste in togas or a palatable recipe for brisket. Worse, once she bullied her way into being the Chairlady of the Temple Sisterhood, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur had to be scheduled at times convenient for her. (She had season tickets for the Caesarea Repertory Theater and belonged to a Mahjong club.) Never known as the Virgin Marla, for a year or so she dated Herod the Great. Archaelogists attribute to her influence the more garish bathrooms at Masada.

Nothing Mary ever did was good enough for her domineering sister. When told that Mary was with child from the Holy Spirit, Marla said “A Greek God would be better looking.” Indignant at the prospect of an unwed mother in “her” family, Marla threatened to sue God for palimony. A settlement was reached; Mary received a complimentary husband and Marla was promised (God’s word of honor) that all of her descendants would get into the best colleges.

Marla was just as brutal an aunt as she was a sister. When Jesus turned the water into wine, guess who complained about the glassware? Upon seeing Lazarus raised from the dead, Marla chided her nephew, “If you had been a doctor, maybe he wouldn’t have died in the first place.”

Naturally, the writers of the Gospels remembered Aunt Marla as the incarnation of evil. And if her presence heralds the end of the world, who among us fits the description of an ancient, terrifying yenta? It must be Joan Rivers.

Jews throughout the world (in any place big enough for a store) now are celebrating Passover. We recount the miraculous story of how we entered the Sinai looking like Charlton Heston and left looking like Edward G. Robinson.  We speak of Passover as a Feast because Jews have a wonderful sense of humor. Matzoh is the original styrofoam. If the Exodus actually occurred, archaeologists would be finding 3500 year-old matzoh crumbs throughout the Sinai.

But there is no historical evidence to corroborate the story of Passover. You just cannot believe everything that the Bible and Cecil B. DeMille tell you. Egypt was a highly literate and sophisticated society, with a bureaucracy of scribes who would have recorded everything on time-withstanding papyrus.  Someone in the quartermaster’s office would have written–in triplicate–a request to replace those water-logged chariots. And Pharaoh’s media department would have proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” in driving the Jews away.

This is not to suggest that the Jews did not exist at the time. At the height of its empire (from the 15th to the 13th century B.C.) Egypt held hegemony over Canaan. The cities of Canaan repeatedly appealed for Egyptian help against invaders known as the Habiru. Although the Canaanite and Egyptian records never allude to any theological idiosyncrasies among these nomads, there is little doubt as to who the Habiru were and would become.

So there is historical evidence of the Hebrews’ conquest of Canaan. But the invasion came from the East (as a proper Semitic invasion would), not from the West. Why did the Jews claim to be escaped slaves from Egypt? Were the ancient Jews as status conscious as the current readers of The New York Times? Did they fancy the glamour of Egypt over their hardscrabble nomadic life?

On the contrary, the Torah revels in the primitive Bedouin culture of the Jews. Their enemies–the Egyptians, Canaanites and Philistines–lived in cities, an indication of their corrupt natures. The ancient Jews never aspired to Egyptian refinement. However, they may have thought it worth looting. In the 17th century Egypt was conquered by a Semitic horde known as the Hyksos. Perhaps in that invading army, among all those Semitic freebooters, was a contingent of Habiru. (Someone had to operate the P.X. and organize the U.S.O. shows.) And when, a century later, the Hyksos were driven out, the Habiru survivors might have spoken of their hasty departure.

Of course, there could be a theological basis for the story of the Jews’ triumph over the Egyptians. God was padding his resume.

April 15th is both the income tax deadline and the feast day for the patron saint of laundresses. Either way, you get taken to the cleaners. Since you probably know the IRS more than you wish, let me introduce you to St. Hunna. She was a German noble of the seventh century who turned her fetish into a sainthood. Hunna liked to wash the poor.

Everyone in 7th century Western Europe was filthy.  Hunna’s fellow nobles were just as feces-encrusted as the peasants, but at least they could not be bullied by a shrew with a wash rag. The poor, however, were in no position to refuse Lady Hunna. Let’s hope that she coaxed them rather than terrorized them. “I’ll give you a slice of bread if you let me bathe you.” (Footnote for our younger or unattached readers: this is a lousy pickup line. At least offer a whole pizza.)

Soap had yet to be introduced into Europe; those decadent Moslems were inventing it at this time. So Hunna’s method of washing would have been limited to soaking and scraping. She would have washed a body the way that we would clean a pan. The miserable but clean poor: I don’t know if any of them became saints, but they all were martyrs.

Considering how many psychopaths and pyromaniacs have been canonized, Hunna’s fetish does seem comparatively holy. Happy Saint Hunna’s Day to you all.

Apr 14, 1912:

RMS Titanic hits iceberg

Geraldo Rivera Vows to Find Iceberg.

“Maybe that iceberg is passing itself off as a Canadian igloo.  Maybe it fled to Antarctica, but I think that it is still out there lurking and ready to strike again.  I’ll find it and bring it to justice.”

Who Really Sank the Titanic

House Republicans Look For Culprits

Following a three-hour explanation by Eric Cantor that Iceberg is not necessarily a Jewish name, House Republicans demanded that the Public Broadcasting System should be defunded for its role in the ship’s sinking.  As proof, the scripts of “Upstairs, Downstairs” were read into the Congressional record.  Congressman Louis Gohmert of Texas also condemned the name “Titanic” for being a dirty word.

Senate Republicans Look for Culprits

An indignant Mitch McConnell wanted to know why any First Class passengers had drown.  “If they didn’t pay for a lifeboat, who did!”  The Senate then passed an unanimous resolution of apology to the Astor family.  The apology resolution to the Vanderbilts passed 70 to 30 when it was revealed that Anderson Cooper was related.  The apology resolution to the Strausses was 60 to 40; apparently their name sounded too much like iceberg.

p.s.  Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2010/04/14/irony-in-two-acts/

Donald Trump Questions Obama’s Citizenship

Now Sending ‘Investigators’ To Hawaii

If you want to  revoke President Obama’s citizenship just revoke Hawaii’s.   It might be a little embarrassing to the McKinley administration, but the United States had no right to the Hawaiian Islands and knowingly accepted stolen property.  That is why President Grover Cleveland refused to annex the territory when it was first offered in 1893 by the American businessmen who had overthrown the Hawaiian monarchy and seized control of the islands.  

Of course, Cleveland was a Democrat and couldn’t distinguish the difference between thieves and entrepreneurs.  William McKinley evidently could.  (A thief takes a pineapple; an entrepreneur takes the entire island.) He welcomed the offer and accepted Hawaii as an American territory in 1898.  However, now that has proved inconvenient and so America should return the islands to the royal house of Del Monte.  And incidentally, with Hawaii’s postdated sovereignty going back to 1893, Barak Obama would really have been born in a foreign country.

President Trump will probably appoint me to the Supreme Court.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2010/04/15/overdue-books/

April 12th

What happens when you combine a Greek and a Jew? You either get 241 jokes about lawyers or the flag of Great Britain. Since I have writer’s block, I will skip the 241 jokes and just give you the history of the Union Jack.

Until April 12, 1606, the flag of England was ostensibly the “cross of St. George”, two straight red lines transecting on a white background. St. George was the patron saint of England, although you can hardly imagine a cosmopolitan 4th century Greek bishop visiting the backwoods of Britannia.

Until April 12, 1606, the flag of Scotland was ostensibly “the cross of St. Andrew”, two white diagonal lines intersecting on a blue background. St. Andrew was the patron saint of Scotland, although you could be certain that an illiterate first century Jewish fisherman never heard of Caledonia.

On April 12, 1606, however, the two flags were combined, because both country were ruled by James, England’s first and Scotland’s sixth. King James was somewhat brighter than the average Stuart and considerably shorter, but he had the full extent of Scottish parsimony. (Being cheap did spare him a conflict over money with Parliament; his son should have been so stingy.) He probably thought that combining the two flags would save on fabric.

The flag soon was named the Union Jack, an allusion to the fact that the Latin form of James is Jacobus, alias Jack. Initially, the Union Jack was the monarch’s personal banner. England and Scotland continued to fly their respective “crosses.” But in 1707, someone kept Queen Anne sober enough to sign the Act of Union, combining Scotland and England into one country and under one flag.

In 1801, the Union Jack’s appearance was “freshened” and updated with the addition of a red sash of intersecting diagonal lines: “the cross of St. Patrick”. (St. Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland and, in an unprecedented coincidence, he really had been there.) You can just imagine just how thrilled the Irish were to be be represented on the Union Jack.

Wales, however, is excluded from the Union Jack. Its “cross of St. David” is two straight yellow lines transecting on a black background. Wales might have stayed independent if its soldiers had clashed as ferociously as its color scheme.

King Juan Carlos has probably exhausted himself opening all those anniversary cards, congratulating him on the  Treaty of Utrecht.  On this day in 1713, Great Britain and some of her allies acknowledged that the Spanish Bourbons were on the throne in Madrid, and there was not a thing they could do about it. Of course, they certainly had tried–as you might gather from the name “The War of the Spanish Succession.”

In 1700, King Charles II of Spain died. The man had been a genetic experiment: how many generations of first-cousins’ marrying will it take to produce a hopeless mess. The answer is five: and Charles II was deformed, crippled and–even by royal standards–mentally retarded. Mercifully, he also was impotent. When he died (lasting somehow until he was 38), he had no living siblings to succeed him: the Spanish Hapsburgs were extinct. However, his older half-sister had married Louis XIV–and impotence was never Louis’ problem. So Charles’ nearest relatives were French, and you can imagine how thrilled Britain was with the idea of Bourbon Spain.

Of course, the Austrian Hapsburgs wanted to keep Spain and her Empire within the family, and they could offer a second cousin to succeed Charles. That was good enough for Britain. France, however, had somehow coaxed Charles into acknowledging his great-nephew (and Louis’ grandson) as his heir. (Can you draw a horsie? Just use this piece of paper with these funny words on it.) The French had the succession in writing and, with the advantages of proximity, the French prince could be enthroned in Madrid long before Charles’ obituary had reach Vienna.

Britain and Austria did not recognize this fait accompli (which unfortunately is a French term) and the result was The War of Spanish Succession. The war lasted from 1701 to 1714 (the Austrians pouting for an extra year after the Treaty of Utrecht) but the outcome is rather bewildering. The Allies won the major battles–Ramilles, Oudenarde, Turin and Blenheim (the only one still remembered), and sea divers today are having a wonderful time finding the wrecks of French and Spanish fleets; yet, judging from the map, the French won the war.

The grandson of Louis XIV became Philip V of Spain and that vast empire encompassing most of the western hemisphere. For consolation, the Austrian Hapsburgs received Belgium and Northern Italy. (The latter might be regarded as a musical triumph, providing Viennese opera with castrati.) Britain was ceded its first territory in Canada–complete with thousands of disposable Acadians–and a Spanish outpost called Gibralter. The fruits of victory were prunes. In fact, the war could have ended in 1706; France offered the same trivial concessions then.

In 1706, however, the Whigs controlled Parliament and–more importantly–Queen Anne’s liquor cabinet. Their policy was perpetual war with France, at least until Notre Dame was an Anglican church. But Britain faced a succession crisis, too. Anne had no surviving children (an indictment of the era’s pediatrics) and she personally hoped that her her half-brother James would succeed her. He was her nearest relative, but James was a Catholic and a pensioner of France; so he wasn’t a favorite of the Whigs. The Tories were more sympathetic to exiled James, at least that is what they told Queen Anne. In 1710, an unusually conscious Anne ousted the Whigs from her cabinet and replaced them with those ingratiating Tories.

By 1711, Britain and France had an understanding. The two countries had a truce and France was to take a lethargic approach to fighting Austria. No marching to Vienna! (This way the Britain did not feel guilty about abandoning its ally.) Even with this shameless collaboration, it still took two years to agree on a treaty. The Tories could not look too eager for peace; they certainly could not surrender the territories–Belgium and Northern Italy–that the allies had won. No, those would be Austria’s pittances. Furthermore, France had to promise not to merge with Spain. (And the 77 year-old Louis might have personally pledged to refrain from doing the flamenco.) Yes, the Treaty of Utrecht only lacked a few syphilis jokes to be a Restoration Comedy. Queen Anne had to grant titles to a dozen Tory hacks to ensure that the Treaty would pass the House of Lords.

Anne died in 1714. Despite her wishes, Tory sympathies and French support, she was not succeeded by her Catholic half-brother. The Stuart prince had no sense of timing or initiative; he did not even show up in Britain to claim his throne until 1715. George I had been coronated the previous year. So much for the War of the English Succession.

Since 1713, the British probably have gotten over the shame of the Treaty of Utrecht. (The outcome of The Seven Years War would have pleased the Whigs.) Nevertheless, Juan Carlos cannot have Gibralter back.