September 22, 1601: Happy Birthday Anne of Austria

She was born in Spain; but history and the 47 or so film versions of “The Three Musketeers” always refer to her as Anne of Austria, nominal wife of Louis XIII and definite (if unexplained) mother of Louis XIV.  I can’t solve “the” mystery, but I can resolve the question of her location.

It is not just a question of the French being obnoxious.  For once, there was a rationale behind the rudeness.  Anne may have been born in Valladolid, Spain but she was all Hapsburg, the culmination of four generations of Austrian inbreeding.  Her mother was Margaret of Austria and her father, Philip III, was the son of an Austrian princess.  His father, Mr. Armada, had four wives (almost enough for a PBS series); and three of those wives were Hapsburg cousins.

To save time, I should mention those ancestors of Anne who weren’t Hapsburgs.  One of her great-great-grandfathers wasn’t: congratulations Manuel of Portugal.  Technically, two more weren’t Hapsburgs:  Wilhelm IV of Bavaria and Vladislaus II of Hungary; but would you like to guess their mothers’ maiden name?  As for the other great-great-grandfathers, yes, they were those pointy-chinned Austrians.  In fact, Philip I was not only Anne’s great-grandfather on two sides, he was also her great-great-great grandfather on two other sides.

Considering the inbreeding, Anne seemed remarkably normal.  Otherwise, the French–with their usual kindness–would have called her Anne the Drooling Imbecile.  (That epithet would be reserved for her nephew Charles II, the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs.)

Calif. utility stumbles on 1.4M years old fossils

Company spokesman concedes that it was an unusually long wait for a service call.  “But we did specify that the repairman was scheduled some time between the Cenozoic and 6 p.m.”

Trial for hunter who shot husband begins

The trial of an American woman who said she shot and killed her husband because she thought he was a bear began in Eastern Canada on Monday.  Mary Beth Harshbarger told authorities that she mistook her 42-year-old husband for a bear while the two were hunting in central Newfoundland in 2006. She has pleaded not guilty.

Police were doubtful.  “Since the husband was neither Italian nor Jewish, he couldn’t have had that much body hair.  Besides, she should have noticed the mistake by the time she arrived at the taxidermist’s.”

Archaeologists find theater box at Herod’s palace

By Associated Press

Israeli archaeologists have excavated a lavish, private theater box in a 400-seat facility at King Herod’s winter palace in the Judean desert. 

Archaeologists at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University say the room provides further evidence of King Herod’s famed taste for extravagance.

 “Although we have yet to find any veils, we did find the playbill for the original production of ‘Salome‘.  Turns out, it was just a high school dance recital.  In fact, Salome only got third billing after Cleopatra Weinblatt and Octavia Shapiro. 

“Our research shows that this is the likely site of the death of John the Baptist.  Wednesdays were open audition nights for aspiring prophets, and this was a tough audience.”

September 20. 1596:  Monterrey, Mexico is Founded…again

The first time the settlement had a zoning problem.  The governor, his family and most of the original settlers were not in compliance with the “Catholics Only” requirement.  There had been a slight change in Spanish colonial policy, but Luis de Carabajal and the other settlers evidently took too Talmudic an interpretation.

Some sixty years earlier, at the time of Cortes, Spanish colonial policy was rather ecumenical.  As long as you were greedy and murderous, no one cared how pious a Catholic you were.  If any monks were checking codpieces, it was probably a hobby rather than a theological examination.  The Conquistadors went where the gold was–southern and central Mexico–and there they established Spanish rule: slaughter, enslavement and rape, followed by haciendas and Cathedrals.  However, Northern Mexico did not offer such riches, so it was largely spared such Spanish benefits.

After the initial conquest, with all its sociopathic liberties, civilization began encroaching on the Spanish colony.  In the mid-16th century, Spain had adopted racial laws that discriminated against anyone with Jewish ancestry.  By the standards of the Limpieza de Sangre (the Purity of Blood), you were irretrievably tainted if you had even one Jewish great-grandparent.  This policy was applied to Spain’s colonies in the New World, and the Inquisition was always eager to enforce it.  No one was supposed to live in Mexico who was more than 1/16th Jewish.

Luis de Carabajal y Cueva certainly failed that test.  He had been born Catholic but neither of his parents could have made that claim.  Nonetheless, he had demonstrated skill as a soldier, explorer and slave trader; so the Spanish government was willing to overlook his incriminating ancestry.  The Spanish Crown had now decided to establish settlements in Northern Mexico, and toward that end it was prepared to waive the restrictions of the Limpieza de Sangre.  New Christians–as they were called–would be tolerated there, and Luis de Carabajal was named the founding governor.

Arriving in Mexico in 1580, with his family, relatives and friends, Carabajal moved north to found the settlement that became Monterrey.  Nearly everyone there was a New Christian; and it was no secret.  Who else would want to be in that wilderness, hundreds of miles from Mexico City?  But some of the colonists overestimated either Spanish tolerance or their distance from the Inquisition.  Many thought that they were free to resume being Jewish.  In 1590, the Inquisition corrected them.  The colony was depopulated, most of its residents arrested and brought to Mexico City for interrogation.  The rack and the waterboard prompted a number of confessions.  Luis de Carabajal died in custody.  Most of his family and some hundred others were burned alive.

Six years later, a new colony was founded on the site of Carabajal’s settlement.  Once again, the pioneers were New Christians but these people had no delusions about their safety.  There were no further heresies, just a series of idiosyncrasies.  For instance, chickens in Monterrey were killed in a way vaguely kosher.  And many headstones in Monterrey featured a pair of hands as if in benediction.  It is, but not a Catholic one.  At least in death, one could make a last, defiant Jewish gesture.

Today is the 4th anniversary of FinermanWorks.  In that time, I have endeavored to entertain, edify and shamelessly infatuate you.  How am I doing?

Of course, I am resigned to post-humous acclaim, but I am in no particular rush.  So I can’t say that I was thrilled to become sick: laryngitis and a nagging cough.  My wife has been a veritable saint (actually she is probably delighted with my speechlessness) and she overcame my usual stoicism, forcing me to see a doctor.  His diagnosis was “some bug” and I got a prescription for an anti-biotic.

The pharmacist will dutifully include a 15 page brochure on the medicine, replete with the most gruesome warnings.  Here is the problem with antibiotics:  I happen to be a biotic.  In its zeal, the drug may be too anti.  On the first page of the brochure, I was warned:  stomach upset, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain may occur.  In fact, those tantalizing symptoms were cited four times in the first paragraph.  By the fourth time, it is not a warning but probably a guarantee.  Of course, there are other possible side effects, too: hearing loss, blurred vision, yellowing skin, fainting, internal bleeding and–ironically–bacterial infection. 

Either way, the drug will take care of me.  And so far, I haven’t had any of the guaranteed symptoms.  If I had, would be I writing anything but my will?

Michael Rankin, a fellow relic from Jeopardy and welcome correspondent here, is now the object of my envy.  Mr. Rankin will be lending–or at least renting–his wisdom and sensitivity to the California judical system.  In other words, he has jury duty.  I have always wanted to serve on a jury.  Here in Cook County, a juror receives $17.20 a day which is a fortune for a freelance writer.

I have been called a number of times to jury duty, but I am always rejected.  I must be more of a threat to Western Civilization than I realized.  Am I really such a threat to life, limb and liberty?

Here is how I would judge the following cases…

Athens, 399 B.C.  Socrates is guilty; however, I wouldn’t have convicted him of corrupting youth.  Youth is inherently corrupt, and you can only imagine how spoiled the brats of Athens were.  However, teachers are supposed to impose some constraints on their little monsters.  Socrates abysmally failed.  The parents of Plato could forget about grandchildren.  And what did Alcibiades learn?  During the Peloponnesian War, he managed to betray Athens, Sparta and Persia;  he probably cheated the Chinese and the Mayans, too.  My verdict:  Socrates would have to refund everyone’s tuition.

Jerusalem, 29 A.D. Jesus is guilty of practicing medicine without a license.  I don’t care if he did cure lepers; he still needed malpractice insurance.  For instance, a cured leper now will keep his fingers but what if those fingers then become arthritic.  Jesus could be sued–and I’d be stuck on that jury as well.  My verdict:  ten shekels for court costs and a restraining order keeping Jesus thirty yards from the crippled, blind and dead.

Rouen, 1431.  Joan of Arc is guilty of something.  In France being a 18 year old virgin is tantamount to treason.  Furthermore, she obviously was not conversing with France’s favorite saints.  Given their heavenly omniscience, wouldn’t those saints have told Joan to forget about the English and start worrying about the Germans?  My verdict:  Joan can continue to wear men’s clothing but only if it is a straitjacket. 

Massachusetts, 1692:  Guilty, guilty, guilty.  The evidence of Satan is incontrovertible.  The afflicted speak in arcane gibberish, they mock and abuse the unpossessed, and they think themselves superior to God.  My verdict:  Harvard must be immediately closed.  (Oh, did you have a question about Salem?)

Paris, 1894.  Captain Dreyfus is guilty of gullibility.  Did he really think that those French aristocrats wouldn’t be Anti-Semitic?  Couldn’t he take a hint:  the other officers received epaulets and he got a “Kick Me” sign.  My verdict:  Twenty Franc fine for trespassing.

Dayton, Tennessee, 1925.  John Scopes is guilty of tactlessness.  When a person says he hasn’t evolved, he obviously hasn’t.  That person has every right to say that he was made in God’s image (although he actually would hate to look like an old Jew).  My verdict:  condemned not to have any of the memorable lines in “Inherit the Wind.”

Court is now adjourned.

French Senate passes ban on full Muslim veils

France’s Kenza Drider , wearing a niqab, drives a car in Avignon.

PARIS — The French Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil on public streets and other places, a measure that affects less than 2,000 women but that has been widely seen as a symbolic defense of French values.

September 13, 1759: France Loses an Unimportant Continent

The French never really appreciated North America.  They knew how to claim territory but not colonize it.  In the 18th century, their empire stretched across Canada, the length of the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Ohio Valley in the east to the Rocky Mountains.  But in that vast realm, there were all of 100,000 French colonists.   If you were planning a trip from Montreal to New Orleans, don’t count on buying any baguettes along the way until you reached a little settlement called Sainte Louis.  Had the British colonies been so stinted and stunted, there would have been no towns between Boston and Savannah.

But the opposite was true.  Britain’s 13 colonies–in that narrow strip along the Atlantic–had a total population surpassing two million people.  Even allowing for the slaves–whose Anglophilia might be in doubt–the British colonists outnumbered the French by 15 to 1.  And considering that “Britannia Rules the Seas” was not merely a song but the strategy, the outcome of the French and Indian War should not have been particularly suspenseful.   Montcalm and his forces might attack a few isolated outposts in upstate New York, but they were never a threat to Boston.   When the British were on the march, however, all of New France was at stake.

(This is not a footnote; anatomically it is more of a waistnote:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2006/10/18/how-france-lost-canada/ )

Yet, for all its disadvantages, France held a strategic bastion that preserved its control of Canada:  Quebec City.  Built on a promontory that commanded the St. Lawrence River, sheltered behind the stone ramparts of its city walls, Ville de Quebec was nearly impregnable.  Previous British attacks had failed–so would a subsequent American one.  The French could lose Louisbourg (they already had) and Montreal (they would); but so long as they held Quebec City, they held on to Canada.

Of course, the British knew that and were determined to take Quebec.  James Wolfe hoped to accomplish that with a force of 12,000 men; unfortunately, the British only gave him half that many.  So, with a smaller force than the French, facing uphill a walled city flanked bya strong river, Wolfe really had to believe in the superiority of the British soldier.  But through the summer of 1759, however, the British soldier was not proving especially miraculous.  Bombardment had failed, attack had failed, siege had failed; Wolfe had noticed the consistency.  Desperate, the 32 year-old commander devised a plan that should have failed, too.

A British force of 3000 men would sailed by night down the St. Lawrence, then attempt to scale difficult cliffs southwest of the city, assembled their outnumbered force before Quebec and take the town by surprise.  No doubt some of the junior officers were making suggestions about a Trojan Quiche in front of the city’s gates.  As it turned out, the large pan would have been unnecessary.  Somehow, the plan worked exactly as Wolfe had imagined it.

Undetected, the British flotilla navigated down the St. Lawrence, the forces successfully scaled the cliffs, and were in battle formation in front of Quebec before the French realized it.  Now, the Marquis de Montcalm had several ways of coping with this surprise.  He could have patiently assembled his  men before the city’s stout walls, letting his cannons keep the British at a very respectful distance.  There was a 3,000 man French force just to the west of the English visitors; Montcalm could have easily pinioned Wolfe.  Despite the British surprise, the French still had the advantage; unfortunately, the French general was too panicked to realize it.  Montcalm hastily rushed his men out of the city, throwing the disorganized force upon British.  The fight–September 13, 1759— lasted 15 minutes, really not long enough to be a battle, although too bloody for a brawl.  Each side suffered 600 dead and wounded.  Wolfe was killed, and Montcalm mortally wounded.  However, the British were not hurled off the cliffs; it was the French who retreated.  Still, they had the stout walls of Quebec for protection; and the British remained outnumbered and without the siege artillery to take the town.

Wolfe evidently had run out of luck, but his plan hadn’t.  With Montcalm dead, the French command devolved to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the governor of Quebec.  The politician had the presence of mind to blame the dead general in his letters to Paris, but he took the real initiative in losing Canada.  Vaudreuil ordered the French garrison to abandon Quebec; he and the troops would retreat west to Montreal.  The city itself, with its invaluable strategic position, would be left to the English.

Montreal was founded for its commercial advantages rather than any strategic reasons.  It had no practical defense and the following year Vaudreuil surrendered it and the remnants of French rule in Canada.  Upon returning to France, he did recent complimentary accommodations in the Bastille.  However, it was a short imprisonment.  After all, the man was a marquis and his pedigree was a suitable alternative to competence.

Besides, the French were losing the Seven Years War everywhere, and the King was much more upset about losing India to the British.  That French general would be beheaded.  Vaudreuil was lucky that North America was so unimportant.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/09/14/the-politics-of-science-2/

George Savarin de Marestan (Monsieur le Baron to the obsequious) has found the French & Indian War to be profitable. (Louis XV should have been so lucky.) The Baron participated in all the major reenactments of the 250th anniversary of that 18th century war. Fort William Henry surrendered to him. He won the battle of Fort Carillon (alias Ticonderoga).  But he lost Quebec. In other words, he impersonated the Marquis de Montcalm.

How did he earn this unique niche? In exactly the same way he became a baron, Monsieur de Marestan was born to the role. He happens to be the great, great, great, great, great, etc. nephew of General Montcalm. I can not vouch whether he is the most talented member of the Montcalm clan or just the most shameless. However, he does seem to be the only one in the Montcalm market. The general had ten children–and some of them must have survived 18th century medicine as well as the French Revolution.

Last year, for the reenactment of the battle of Quebec a great, great, great, etc. nephew of General Wolfe also was engaged. However distant a nephew, that may be the best that the historical societies could do. James Wolfe had no direct descendants, not for lack of trying, but women kept turning down his marriage proposals. For the victor of Quebec, a date with destiny was easier than a date with women.

I wonder if there are similar reenactments for the 250th anniversary of the Seven Years War. (The American war was just a sideshow for the main event. Did you really think that Frederick the Great was losing sleep over Fort William Henry?) Any number of unemployed princes could be invited to impersonate their ancestors. For an extra Euro, a Hapsburg, Bourbon or Romanov will sign your copy of “The Last of the Mohicans.” The descendants of George II are still employed; so they will either sign it for free or have you arrested.

p.s.  Tomorrow, I will write more about the fall of Quebec.

p.p.s.  And here is something for you Byzantine fans:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/09/13/a-real-milestone-in-history/

Well, I am finally appreciated.  What a pity it is not in this continent, this hemisphere or even this century.

http://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=6462833

Still, if Vladimir Putin thinks I’m a scream, it is healthy to agree with him.  For all I know, they are pasting my picture into the old Soviet archives.  I could be the Paul Rudd of the 1918 Politburo (replacing Gregor Zinoviev in that role).

Unfortunately, given the current stability of Russia, it is quite likely that the National Library is also a porno site.  So, if you click on my article’s link and get a teenage nymphomaniac offering to marry you, it really is not me.  Of course, I am gratified to realize my work is an aphrodisiac.  I never would have guessed it, and none of you bothered to tell me.

(Special message to any Russian pimps reading this:  I am available to ghostwrite your propositions and the annual reports for brothels.  Believe me, working for corporate America, I am the equivalent of the piano player in the parlor.)

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/09/10/dracula-was-an-underachiever/

 Let us welcome the Jewish New Year:  5771.  Of course, there is no scientific or historical justification for 5771.  The Jews have only been around for 3500 years, and the world is somewhat older than than 5771.  Yet, that number is not a zany choice or an arbitrary guess.  As Milton Friedman explained in his classic work “How Little To Tip a Waitress Before She Spits in Your Food”,  the market will inevitably determine the correct value of everything.  So it has to be 5771 if the Jews are willing to buy that.

But how did the Jews originally come up with such a paltry amount for the age of the world?  When the chronology was first calculated–21 centuries ago–it seemed a reasonable sum.  At the time, Rome only claimed to be 600 or so.  Even Egypt couldn’t go back farther than 3000 years.  So, allowing for 7 days of creation, Methusaleh,  40 years in the desert, 4000 years seemed a plausible total.  (The Greeks had found these skeletons of very large reptiles but that only proved the existence of dragons.)

Even if the ancient Jews had known that the world actually was over 4 billion years old, they would have had trouble writing that large a number.  The concept of zero did not yet exist.  Yes, Jews did have a vague equivalent to the zero: the nebbish; but nebbish really was more of a metaphysical concept than a mathematical one.  

So 21 centuries ago, our chronology was the best we could do.  All right, now we know better.  Happy 4,500,000,000 New Year might be precise, but 5771 has more eccentric charm.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:

https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/09/09/germania-with-the-emphasis-on-mania-2/

https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/09/09/on-this-day-in-1513/