FinermanWorks

On this day in 1536, the Spanish founded the town of Santiago de Cali.  Only the more formal Colombian drug lords use the the full name of their pharmaceutical capital.

On this day in 1538, the Spanish founded the town of Muy Noble y Muy Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.  Yes, it was mercifully shortened to Guayaquil.  Given the altitude of Ecuador, pronouncing the city’s full name would be the country’s leading cause of asthma.

On this day in 1567, the Spanish founded the town of Santiago de Leon de Caracas.  For some reason, the Venezuelans do not call their capital Leon.

And perhaps out of pure whimsy, Santiago, Chile was not founded on this day.

So who was Santiago, the apparent patron of realtors?  Well, his mother and Jesus called him Jake.  The New Testament refers to him as James the Greater–to distinguish him from James the Lesser and James the Just (who may have been the same person).  Spain calls him Iago and claims him as its patron saint.  Although he lived and died in Judea, legend has it that James found time to preach among the Iberians.  The distance between Spain and Judea is just a brisk walk across the Mediterranean Sea.  

But what especially endeared him to the Spanish was his enthusiasm for killing Moors.  Decapitated around A.D. 44, James apparently developed a posthumous interest in swords.  After 8 centuries in the afterlife practicing fencing, James was ready to demonstrate his skill.  According to medieval chronicles, St. James materialized at the battle of Clavijo and started slaughtering the Moors.  Perhaps the saint was simply trying to protect his tomb, which had just been discovered in northwestern Spain–the only area of the peninsula that the Moors had yet to overrun.  (What a miraculous coincidence!)  St. James was given the credit for the victory and henceforth was known as “matamoros”–the Moor Slayer.

He proved just as invincible helping the Conquistadors win the Americas, although much of the victory could be shared with St. Smallpox.  Subsequently, James was presumed to apply his martial skills against the humanist French, and atheist Spanish Republicans.  (For some reason, he was not particularly effective against Protestant Englishmen.)

Happy Saint Day, Jake!

Now that we have a new Cold War, let’s reminisce about the old one…

On July 24, 1959, the Cold War was fought over a dishwasher at the U.S. trade fair in Moscow.  Dueling in a model kitchen over the respective merits of their ideologies were Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard Nixon.  Each man was the champion and personification of his system.  Khrushchev was a vulgar, cunning peasant who through ruthlessness and guile rose to the apex of power.  Nixon had more hair.

Although there are transcripts of the “Kitchen Debate” here is what they really meant.

Nixon:  We call this a dishwasher.  In America people have more than one dish.

Khrushchev:  Communist people are proud to wash their dishes.  We gather around the basin and sing folk songs.  Lenin took special pride in cleaning samovars.

Nixon:  This is a refrigerator.  It keeps food cold and from spoiling.

Khrushchev:  We have something similar called a climate.  It is great for food and bad for invading armies.

Nixon:  Yes, I’ve heard “The 1812 Overture”.  You must be proud of Tchaikovsky.  Our fairies only write show tunes.  And most of them are Jews.

Khrushchev:  Russian ones I believe.

Nixon:  They didn’t mind leaving.  Now this is an electric range.  It is an oven and a stove combined.  You can simultaneously bake and boil beets.  Finally there will be some variety to your diet.

Khrushchev:  Actually these days, we are getting lots of Hungarian goulash, German potato salad and Bulgarian yogurt.  The same way you get Latin American bananas, sugar and coffee.  I really don’t see the value of all these decadent gadgets.

Nixon:  So you can bug them!  It is so easy to plant microphones in all these appliances.  Really, Nick, I thought you’d understand.  The kitchen is the perfect place to eavesdrop on your citizens.  Families gathered over a meal and forced to talk to each other.  Their guard is down.  Find out what they really think.  Let them incriminate themselves.

Khrushchev:  We bug bedrooms.

Nixon:  J. Edgar Hoover would be a problem.  He thinks that sex is a criminal activity.  We want to arrest people for treason, not the missionary position.

Khrushchev:  Beria could be the same way.  So we shot him.

Nixon:  You know, in some ways, your system is superior.

On this day in 1929, Fascist Italy made a stand for linguistic purity and banned the use of foreign words.

However, if Il Duce wanted to be consistent he would have had to change his name to Guido Mussolini.  Benito is embarrassingly Spanish.  Worse, he could not have his rebaptism at St. Peter’s Church–at least until the Church changed its name.  Peter is a Greek word, you know.  In fact, so are Catholic, Jesus and Christ.  (Fortunately, the word Pope would be acceptably kosher in Italian.)  The Church might have agreed to being Mondo instead of Cattolico, but it likely would have objected to renaming the focus of its worship.  Divo Carpentiere? 

There also would need be new nomenclature throughout Italy.  Sicily and Naples are Greek names.  Tuscany is Etruscan.  Lombardy is named for the long beards on the German barbarians who seized the region.  In fact, even the name Italia might not have passed the purity test.  Those big mouth Greeks were the first to use that term, applying it to the southern part of the peninsula which they colonized.  If Italy were named after the legendary Sicilian ruler  Italos, then the derivation would have been unpatriotically Greek.  However, some etymologists believe that the Greeks took (and mispronounced) the indigenous people’s word for their major occupation–raising cattle.

So, going back to the word’s pure roots, Mussolini should have changed the country’s name to Vitalia–land of veal.

Gino (I wouldn’t want to upset Mussolini)

Musing #1:  Have you seen General Electric’s new advertising campaign?  Its jet engine assembly workers are bursting into song.  No, they are not singing “Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime” or “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin”.  (That would be the stockholders’ medley).  But why is GE even bothering to advertise?  Am I supposed to be inspired to run out and by a jet engine.  (For the price of one GE jet engine, I could buy a four-pack at Costco.)  So why is GE trying to cultivate a happy image? 

Probably because the impending headlines are anything but.  As I have learned from my experience in public relations, when a corporation begins promoting its code of ethics, you can be certain that the Chairman just testified to the Grand Jury and a plea agreement is in the works. 

Musing #2:  If you are not familiar with IMDB, you are missing the internet’s best source of trivia for films, TV and actors.  Do you want to know the name of Adolphe Menjou’s sauve villain in “Paths of Glory.”  That detail is awaiting you at IMDB.  If you are particularly morbid, after watching an old movie you can check IMDB to see if anyone in the cast is still alive.

After watching an enjoyable show on BBC-America, I looked up the cast.  According to IMDB, the leading lady had this memorable distinction:  she was named “the seventh best-looking woman in Wales for 2005“.  Is that supposed to be a compliment, because it could just as easily be a line in a suicide note.

So how does she look?  The face is pleasant but her teeth…well, she could use a tire chain for dental floss.   

p.s.  I am working on the historic significance of January 2nd, so I am either six months early or six months late.  In case you wanted to know the significance of this day: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/07/21/on-this-day-in-1403/

A number of German officers presented Adolf Hitler with a retirement package…actually it was a briefcase. Of course, Prussian subtlety is an oxymoron, so it never occurred to those Junkers that Adolf might have preferred being coaxed rather than assassinated.

Let’s face it, tyrants are not that easy to fire. (Okay, Mussolini was. The Fascist Board of Directors could have ousted him by simply hiding his Gucci boots.) Hitler would have needed positive reenforcement, pro-active proactivities, and all the other HR gibberish. A Fuhrer wants his perks.

First, to cope with the shock of retirement, Adolf might need counseling. Carl Jung would have been available. (The rest of the psychiatric community seemed to be ethnically incompatible.)

Then, Hitler should have been enticed to take a vacation. Destroying civilization can be exhausting. He might have enjoyed a world cruise in a U-Boat. Charles Lindbergh could have flown him to Argentina, where Juan and Evita were awaiting with open and heiling arms. Joseph Kennedy had a guest cottage at Hyannisport (but he probably would have tried hitting on Eva Braun). Pius XII would have enjoyed the sound of yodeling in the Vatican. There were many places where Adolf could get away from it all.

Finally, a relatively young man like Adolf might want a second career. The man certainly was eminently qualified for any number of positions: celebrity spokesman for Mercedes-Benz, host of the Bayreuth Opera broadcasts, or Dean of Students at Dartmouth.

These offers should have been in Hitler’s retirement package rather than just an insufficient amount of explosives. No wonder he felt snubbed and refused to take a hint. If only the Wehrmacht had been run by MBAs, they would have known the German for “golden parachute.”

Of course, a MBA-run army would have avoided this entire situation by losing the war to Poland in 1939.

On July 19, 1870 France declared war on Prussia, starting the Franco-Prussian War.

Louis Napoleon evidently had his own Neo-Conservatives who guaranteed that the French army would Can-Can its way to Berlin.

In fact, the Emperor decided to lead the chorus line himself. Unfortunately, the charming bumbler had delusions of competence; he inherited the name Bonaparte but none of his uncle’s military genius. His army of 120.000 soldiers never got further than Sedan, where the entire force was captured by the Germans. And this French army was supposed to be rescuing another French army that was trapped at Metz.

To Bismarck’s amazement, the French weren’t getting the hint. Having lost the Emperor, the French government now proclaimed itself a republic and vowed to continue the war. The French raised five more armies, which meant that the Germans had to take the trouble to crush four more of them. (The fifth army survived by fleeing to Switzerland.) Paris fortified itself and withstood a siege for three months; before the Parisians finally surrendered, they ate the animals in the city zoo.

Bismarck certainly was making the best of the situation. He had used the war to coalesce the German states into one unified–under Prussian hegemony–empire. The new Kaiser was vacationing at Versailles, while Bismarck was enjoying even more luxury as the uninvited guest at the Rothschild estate outside of Paris. Bismarck himself had turned down Versailles, quipping “Why live like a King when you can live like a God.”

The Chancellor was keeping a running tab of the expenses, and he had every intention of making France pay. Had France surrendered along with its hapless Emperor, Bismarck would have been satisfied with minor border adjustments. But after 10 months of war, Bismarck now demanded Alsace and Lorraine and a staggering indemnity of 6 billion gold Francs.

Although the unwelcomed guest of the French Rothschilds, Bismarck generally was more deferential to the family. Their man in Berlin, Gerson Bleichroder, was Bismarck’s banker and financial advisor. As you would gather from his name, Gerson was not exactly an Aryan aristocrat. Bleichroder played a role in the negotiations between a vanquished France and a vindictive Prussia. When informed of Germany’s demand for six billion gold Francs, the head of the French delegation protested, “If we started counting from the time of Jesus Christ, we would not reach such a sum.” Bismarck retorted–in French–“That’s why I have Bleichroder. He started counting long before Jesus Christ.”

So the Sears Tower is now to be called the Willis Tower.  I am not saddened or angered that the Chicago landmark has been renamed for a British investment firm that is renting three floors of the skyscraper.  (But I am surprised how comparatively cheap is the price of fame.)  No, my personal sense of Chicago history was already shattered when Macys annexed and renamed Marshall Field.

After three ghastly years of war with cousin Willy, the royal family of Britain felt pressured to change its name. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sounded unpatriotic. Indeed, the British royal family was quite German. Although born in London, Queen Mary was Teck-nically German. The mother of King George was (mercifully) Danish, but his paternal ancestry was almost completely Deutsch. (There had been a Scottish/Danish great- great- etc. grandmother almost three hundred years earlier.) The family decided to rename itself the impeccably anglophile guise of Windsor.

I have done a calculation of the British ancestry of the Royal family. You may need a microscope.

George V was 3/32768 English. By comparison, he was much more Scottish: 3/4096. The rest of his ancestors were German or Danish. However, George VI actually married a nice British girl. But then his daughter had to marry ein Battenberg (even if the family tactfully translated it to Mountbatten).

It is ironic but British law does not require the monarch to be British. The sole requirement is that he or she be Protestant.  At the penalty of disinheritance, a member of the Royal Family is prohibited from marrying a Catholic.

However, the prohibition does not apply to other religions. So, in theory, Prince Charles could have married Nigella Lawson (Levinson actually) or Rachel Weisz.

July 16, 1054

Imagine the marriage of Arianna Huffington and Tony Danza.  Do you think that it would last?  She despises him as a  vulgar barbarian; he resents her as an effete, overbearing dragon.  (Well, they both are right.)  Yes, a divorce is inevitable.  In fact, it happened this day in 1054: the final schism between Byzantium and the Roman Catholic Church.

Constantinople and Rome had never liked each other; but that was not essential to the union.  “Honor and obey” would have been sufficient; alas, neither party was willing to be the supplicant one.  Each claimed to be the capital of Christendom.    For a few centuries, however, Rome had no choice but to defer.  A Byzantine garrison was there to remind the Bishop of Rome of his manners.  A few uncooperative Popes found themselves dragged to Constantinople.  (If it was any solace, a Byzantine dungeon was probably more comfortable than the Vatican during Dark Ages.)

In the middle of the eighth century, the couple had a vicious fight over interior decorating.  Rome liked icons; Constantinople didn’t.  From that point on, they were unofficially separated.  At the same time, Rome found a more appreciative partner–a muscle-bound parvenu named France.  While rich, sophisticated Constantinople had scoffed at Rome’s claims to primacy, rich, ignorant France craved the classy distinctions that Rome could confer.

For the first time since the Emperor Constantine, Rome felt like a capital again.  And it loved the attention and the power.  From then on, Rome was no longer the neglected domestic of Constantinople.  It was the rival.  The pagans of Eastern and Northern Europe found themselves the subject of competing Christianities.  Would they be converted (and subservient) to Rome or Constantinople?  Rome turned out to be quite adept at hustling, one of the advantages of vulgarity.  It had missionaries who promised anything to make their quotas, and its armed adherents were never shy about swordpoint conversions.  (How else would you convert the Vikings?)

However, there were presumed limits to Rome’s marketing:  it was to keep out of Byzantine dioceses.  Greek Christians were not to be enticed or rustled.  But Southern Italy –or Western Greece depending on your perspective–became the focus of contention.  The area had long been held by the Byzantines, but in the mid-eleventh century Norman freebooters had seized much of it.  While hardly paragons of piety, the Normans gave nominal allegiance to Rome and let Latin practices be introduced into the Greek churches of Southern Italy.  The Patriarch of Constantinople, a quarrelsome bureaucrat named Michael Cerularius, publicly denounced Pope Leo IX as an accomplice to theft.   He further inveighed against the Pope for all sorts of theological failings including being “Judaistic”.  Popes really appreciate that adjective.

If Leo was ever good natured about being slandered, this was not the time.  The Pope was dying, and his temper was as short as his life expectancy.  He wrote a scathing letter back to “Bishop” Cerularius but refrained from sending it when he received a conciliatory letter from the Byzantine Emperor.  The Emperor had seen where this quarrel was heading, and was hoping to avert it; after all, while trying to retain Southern Italy, he did not need another enemy.  A Papal delegation was invited to Constantinople, where any disputes would be diplomatically resolved.  All that was required were men of good will.  But the Pope’s delegates were anything but; the two cardinals and an archbishop hated the Byzantines.  They went to Constantinople, looking to be outraged and freely giving offense.  Of course, the Patriarch did not disappoint them; he snubbed them.  They responded by translating and distributing the Pope’s attack on the Patriarch.  This did not win them friends in Constantinople; do you think that they cared?

While fomenting a schism, the Roman delegates received word that Pope Leo had died.  They no longer had any authority but that did not stop them by from committing one final, definitive offense.  Dressing in their full canonical regalia, the three entered Hagia Sophia–on this day in 1054.  The church was crowded; the Eucharist was being celebrated.  There would be no lack of witnesses.  The Roman delegation walked up to the High Altar and left there a Bull of Excommunication for the Patriarch.

In fact, the Papal Bull had no validity.  The Pope was dead, and his legates had lost any authority to issue an excommunication.  The Bull could have been ignored.  But the Byzantines chose not to.  Yes, the Roman delegation had infuriated them, but it was only the culmination of Rome’s endless pretensions and affronts.  If that meaningless parchment was an excuse for a schism, the Byzantines were glad to have it.

In 1789 France was greatest country in Europe. Wealthy, sophisticated, in the forefront of art, intellect and fashion, it was the paragon of western civilization. And all these achievements were despite a government of remarkable incompetence.

The French monarchy was an anachronism. It had modern pomp but medieval circumstances. The government faced 18th century expenses with a 14th century income. A king, on the whims of his mistress, could plunge France into a calamitous war, but he could not raise the taxes to pay for it. The king did not have to answer for his vanity, lust, bigotry or mistakes; but he had to borrow the money for them.

The Crown had been bankrupt throughout most of the 18th century. Much of the treasury actually had been lost in a stock market crash of 1720. The monarchy simply borrowed money to meet its expenses and then borrowed more money to pay off its debts. The deficits grew but the monarchy continued its profligate ways.

By 1778, France could not even afford to win a war; but the prospect of subsidizing the American rebellion against Britain seemed an irresistible revenge for a century of French defeats. In fact, France was so eager that its treaty with the Americans made no provision for repayment or the restoration of lost French territories in America. France proved to be generous to a default. The new debts precipitated a financial crisis. There just wasn’t enough money to borrow. The Crown had to raise taxes; ironically, it did not have that authority.

Throughout the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV had amassed and consolidated the powers of the monarchy. Yet, they had either overlooked or whimsically chosen to preserve one medieval constraint: the power to create new taxes.

That was the prerogative of the Estates General. Since the 14th century France had this rudimentary and frequently neglected form of a general assembly.  It could be summoned only at the king’s discretions, and the French kings proved very discreet. The Estates General was usually summoned in the event of an emergency. When Louis XVI found the crown overwhelmed by its debts, he reluctantly summoned the Estates General to convene in 1789. (The last previous Estates General had met in 1614.)

The Estates General was comprised of three estates that represented the people and classes of France. The First Estate was the clergy and the Second was the aristocracy. The Third Estate was everyone else but particularly the affluent, educated and vociferous bourgeoisie. Since the first two Estates were generally exempt from taxes, the Third Estate would bear most of any new financial burden.

Louis XVI expected the assembly to comply with his requests for new taxes. Louis XIV might have awed such concessions from the deputies. Louix XV might have charmed them. However, Louis XVI lacked his ancestors’ majesty. The 34 year-old was corpulent, awkward and maladroit. Certain merchants in Alsace might have described him as a “schlub.” Louis could not command the Assembly’s acquiescence. Perhaps no one could. The Third Estate wanted concessions in return for its money. Of course, one might expect that from commoners. However, the majority of the First Estate and even a significant number of the aristocrats sided with the demand for reforms, in particular the establishment of a permanent general assembly for legislation.  The French may have hated the British but they liked the idea of a government a l’anglais.

The King and his equally obtuse advisers were shocked by this impertinence. They first tried ignoring the Assembly’s demands. The Crown then resorted to petty intimidation. It locked the doors of the chambers where the Estates General had been meeting. The dispossessed deputies simply moved to a nearby tennis court where they voted to demand a permanent legislature. Faced with this opposition, the dithering King was finally ready to concede to the Estates’ first requests. But, after six weeks of evasions, ploys and intimidation, the aggravated Assembly had increased the tenor and extent of its demands.

Louis was rarely decisive but, when he was, it was a consistent disaster. He now ordered troops from their posts along the border to march on Paris. The king seemed to think his subjects were more of an enemy than any foreign power. If he was hoping to intimidate the Estates General, he only succeeded in igniting riots. The populace of Paris rose in rebellion, desperate to arm itself against any royal suppression. On the morning of July 14, 1789, the militants looted the arsenal at Les Invalides. The mob then attacked the Bastille, a fortress that now served as a royal prison.

Responding to an armed rabble on a rampage, the Civil Guard of Paris mustered its troops and its artillery and marched to the site of the riot. The Civil Guard should have had no trouble dispersing the disorganized mob: it would have been a slaughter. However, when the cannons and muskets of the Guard fired, they fired on the Bastille. Against this united front, the Bastille soon fell.

The news reached the King the following morning. The dismayed Louis asked, “Is this a rebellion?”

“No sire,” a wiser courtier replied. “It is a revolution.”