Part I

Why Disraeli Was Not Prime Minister of Spain

Isabella of Castille was an idiot; it is not an usual condition in royalty.  Her husband Ferdinand of Aragon actually was bright and completely free of scruples; Machiavelli considered him a role model.  However, Ferdinand turned out to be a little too clever.   

He had a get-rich-quick scheme. The wily and avaricious king commissioned a Spanish Inquisition in 1483 with the idea of gouging wealthy suspects who showed any reluctance toward pork. Of course, the bulk of the loot would go to the crown. The Inquisition, however, was not content to be Ferdinand’s pickpocket. It was going to save Spain from tolerance, innovation and whatever else reeked of heresy. To his dismay, Ferdinand could not control the Holy Office’s pyromania. He became its most comfortable prisoner, complying with the rabid dictates of the Grand Inquisitor.  While the rest of Europe had the Renaissance, Spain had the Inquisition.

On this day in 1492, a pious Isabella and an intimidated Ferdinand ordered the expulsion of Jews from Spain. 

If Mel Torme and I had ghostwritten the proclamation, it would have been the following:

“Heretics roasting on an open fire.
Embers singeing Marranos.
Dies Irae being sung by the fire
While Luth’rans scream in their death throes.

Everybody knows where the Inquisition hangs its hood
They’re record sales on kindling wood.
So always do what those monks ask of you
Or else you will be barbecued.

If the friars find you lack
The proper faith they will put you on the rack
So on their good side be sure to stay
And go to Mass 12 times a day.

Just keep on offering your yearly tithe.
Its’ fire insurance on your life.
And on Ash Wednesday you can gloat in your pew.
The ash won’t be from you.” 

Part II

Ole Vey!

March 29th

On this day in 1912, Robert Falcon Scott ended a rather disappointing trip to Antarctica. Nature evidently did not show the proper respect to a representative of the British Empire. The penguins did not greet his expedition with a few choruses from Gilbert & Sullivan, and the South Pole proved rudely aloof. Indeed, if the Pole had any sense of deference, it would have come to him.

Expecting to be the first gentleman to reach the South Pole, Captain Scott planned a grand tour, with modern conveniences as well as traditional fashions. His expedition included motorized sleds and horses, so he had a choice in how he would ride to the South Pole. Had he personally selected the dog teams, they probably would have been comprised of pugs.

The expedition promised to be an extravaganza. In addition to the complete catalog from Harrod’s, Scott’s team included a staff of scientists who would provide suitably British names for any discovered species, landmarks and eclectic oddities. Of course, the undertaking would be costly, and His Majesty’s government would only subsidize some of the expenses. Scott actually had some ability as a fundraiser, and found a number of private contributors. Fortunately, in the Edwardian era sponsors were more discreet, so Scott was not obliged to wear a parka covered with corporate decals. (However, you can imagine what Lipton would have paid to be the first tea brewed at the South Pole.)

The expedition arrived in Antarctica in early 1911 and spent the better part of the year preparing for the trip to the South Pole. For lack of Lyons restaurants along the route, food depots were established at some distances from the base camp to accommodate the polar tourists. The motorized vehicles and horses were thoroughly tested and found to be thoroughly inadequate. Neither could withstand the cold. The dog teams proved more resilient, but Scott had more faith in his own bipedal resolve. He and four members of his expedition would walk to the South Pole, dragging supply sleds with them.

After a two month hike, they arrived at the South Pole on January 17, 1912 only to discover that it already was the Norwegian consulate in Antarctica. Roald Amundsen had arrived there a month earlier, using dog sleds. It may have been summer in Antarctica, but Scott and his team were suffering from frostbite, dehydration and hunger. (Amundsen had relied on dogs for both transportation and–when necessary–an entree.) Depressed and malnourished, Scott’s crew became unlucky and careless. On the trek back, one Briton suffered a fatal injury, and no one could quite remember the exact location of the food depots. They actually were quite close to one of the food caches when, on March 29th, Scott and his team starved and froze to death.

Search teams from the base camp found the bodies, along with Scott’s diary. The diary, after careful editing to remove any hint of incompetence, was published as an epic of British heroism.

Of course, his heroism would have been unalloyed if Scott had the least idea what he was doing.

There were some advantages to being a Roman emperor. For instance, until the fifth century, the pay was excellent. You would rarely be turned down at an orgy. Furthermore, the job would never be outsourced to India, if only because the Romans had but a vague notion about India’s location.

Longevity, however, was another matter. From an actuarial perspective, an emperor would have regarded murder as a natural cause of death. In a period of five centuries, Rome had more than 80 emperors. The total is imprecise because the imperial reigns often were.

The Emperor Pertinax might have expected a longer reign. He certainly was an improvement over his predecessor, the debauched and incompetent Commodus. (You remember him from “Gladiator.”) Indeed, on his own merits, Pertinax had the makings of an excellent ruler. He was conscientious, honest and capable. You could add frugality to his virtues, but that actually was a flaw in Rome. The people wanted their bread and circuses, and the Praetorian Guard expected “donations”.

The Praetorians could overlook any vice in an emperor but stinginess. Pertinax had every virtue but generosity, so he did not survive his bodyguards. Today is that dubious anniversary.

The impulsive Praetorians seized the throne but had no one to occupy it. Then the extravagantly rich Didius Julianus,  the Donald Trump of his day, simply decided to buy the position of emperor. He showed up at the Praetorians’ camp and proceeded to bid for their loyalty. Another patrician competed in the auction for the Empire, but Julianus outbid him. His purchased Praetorians then cowed the Senate into acclaiming him the emperor.

The Praetorians’ loyalty lasted two months. When an ambitious general marched on Rome, the imperial guard switched sides again. Julianus did not live to regret it. He now is remembered as a joke. (The same might be said of Donald Trump.)

As New Lawyer, Senator Gillibrand Defended Big Tobacco

The Philip Morris Company did not like to talk about what went on inside its lab in Cologne, Germany, where researchers secretly conducted experiments exploring the effects of cigarette smoking.

So when the Justice Department tried to get its hands on that research in 1996 to prove that tobacco industry executives had lied about the dangers of smoking, the company moved to fend off the effort with the help of a highly regarded young lawyer named Kirsten Rutnik.

Ms. Rutnik, who now goes by her married name, Gillibrand, threw herself into the work. She traveled to Germany at least twice, interviewing the lab’s top scientists, whose research showed a connection between smoking and cancer but was kept far from public view.

She helped contend with prosecution demands for evidence and monitored testimony of witnesses before a grand jury, following up with strategy memos to Philip Morris’s general counsel.

Senator Gillibrand now apologizes for what she terms “a misunderstanding.”  “I thought that the tests were for a link between smoking and toboggans.  Of course, you toboggan in cold weather, when you can see your breath.  And that does look like smoke.”

Upon further questioning, the Senator explained “I went to Dartmouth.  So I was probably drunk; in fact, I might be now.”

When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking

In its short history, Twitter — a microblogging tool that uses 140 characters in bursts of text — has become an important marketing tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, promising a level of intimacy never before approached online, as well as giving the public the ability to speak directly to people and institutions once comfortably on a pedestal.

But someone has to do all that writing, even if each entry is barely a sentence long. In many cases, celebrities and their handlers have turned to outside writers — ghost Twitterers, if you will — who keep fans updated on the latest twists and turns, often in the star’s own voice.

 

 You may know that Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has a blog. Did you know that I was ghostwriting it? This actually was one of the more reputable jobs that I found on Craigslist. So, of course, you want to know what Mahmud is really like.

I have no idea. I only know what I am told by his p.r. department, the typical collection of burned out reporters and bored debutantes. My supervising editor was Fatima Ahmadinejad. (No relative, because Moslems don’t count sisters.) Her instructions were to make Mahmud folksy, engaging and warm. I asked if he should be humorous. This question required a departmental conference and then a Sharia judgment. I was finally told that he could be funny so long as he did not seem Jewish or gay. So humor was out.

I ended up ghostwriting his movie reviews. If you are not familiar with the Iranian rating system, here is an explanation:

Excellent film: two thumbs up, and no hostages. (For example, the slightly edited musical “Seven Brides for One Brother”)

Good film: one thumb up, and no more than three hostages. (“The Virgin Suicide Bombers”)

Fair: one thumb cut off, and four to eight hostages. (“Edward Scimitarhands”)

Poor: don’t ask. (Anything with Jews)

John McEnroe Duped in Art Scam

Former tennis champion John McEnroe was duped along with Bank of America, investment firms, art owners and collectors in a sophisticated $88 million art investment scam revealed in New York on Thursday.

 

I am pleading guilty.  I offered time shares in the Sistine Chapel.

If embezzlers and MBAs had a Hall of Fame, Nicolas Fouquet would be shamelessly prominent. As the Minister of Finance during the early reign of Louis XIV, Fouquet maintained a bookkeeping system modeled after the Gordian Knot. It could be said that he would collect all the revenues but was willing to share some with the government, or at least the officials he liked.

Fouquet had the finest home in France. It seems unlikely that he afforded it just by brownbagging his lunches. The thought certainly occurred to Louis XIV, who evidently resented being the social inferior of his minister. The King ordered Fouquet arrested for embezzlement. There was a public trial, and the verdict could hardly be in doubt, but the judges proved unusually sympathetic to the accused. (Had they been past recipients of Fouquet’s generosity?) They sentenced him to banishment; you might well suspect that Fouquet planned a comfortable exile. The King, however, overruled that lenient sentence and condemned Fouquet to life imprisonment. The disgraced minister spent the last fifteen years of his life in a less than luxurious cell. He died there in 1680.

His second career began in the 1930s. Someone in Hollywood had been reading Alexandre Dumas. The 19th century French novelist apparently had screenplays in mind. “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo” had been box office hits, and the studios wanted more. While Dumas himself was no longer available, he had been prolific and his works included a sequel to The Three Musketeers. Based on a legend about a prisoner in the Bastille, the story was known as “The Man in the Iron Mask.”

Dumas had imagined that the title character was Philippe the twin brother of Louis XIV, hidden from birth but now the center of a plot to substitute him on the throne. In the novel, the younger brother was the unknowing pawn of ambitious men. Their attempted coup fails, however, due to the heroism of D’Artagnan and the shrewdness of a government minister named Fouquet. The real king is saved (even if France isn’t) and Philippe is condemned to the Bastille where his royal features are covered by an iron mask.

It seemed like another swashbuckler perfect for Hollywood…except for one problem: the villains. In Dumas’ novel the conspirators were the Jesuits, led by the renegade musketeer Aramis. Hollywood was not prepared to vilify the Catholic Church (although the Church never has been shy about vilifying Hollywood). So, a new villain had to be created.

Poor Fouquet already had a criminal record. Since he was an embezzler, why not make him a traitor, too? So, from helping to foil the plot, Fouquet became the mastermind of it.

But then Hollywood came up with yet another improvement on the plot. Instead of making poor Philippe a malleable cipher, portray him as a noble alternative to his wicked older brother Louis–and have the plot succeed. Good Philippe would secretly replaced Louis, who then would become The Man in the Iron Mask. Of course, Fouquet would still have to be a villain, but he would prove his intrinsic evil by being loyal to the legitimate King.

The logic of the plot was very similar to Fouquet’s Gordian bookkeeping. Dumas would have been dismayed; he actually seemed to like the wily minister. In fact, Dumas even gives Fouquet one of the novel’s few jokes.

Fouquet has heard rumors of the twin prince. He asks a trusted henchman, “Do you recall some mystery surrounding the birth of Louis XIV?”

The aide replies, “Do you mean that Louis XIII was not the father?”

Fouquet corrects him, “I said a mystery.”

“Palin rejects nearly 30 percent of stimulus funds”

Citing reasons of patriotism and Christian values, Alaska’s governor is refusing any federal money with portraits of Democrats or liberals.  “The one dollar bill is hunky-dory”, an endorsement that President Washington would have found gratifying.  However, President Lincoln’s denomination was rejected.  “The man wouldn’t have let Alaska secede from the Union.  What kind of American is that?”  Palin found ten dollar bills were acceptable, after William Kristol explained whom Alexander Hamilton was.  Although most historians regard Hamilton as an amoral,  sociopathic megalomaniac,  his defenders say that Hamilton was merely a proto-MBA. 

Alaska will not accept the twenty dollar bill; Andrew Jackson was the wrong party.  The fifty dollar bill is welcome; Ulysses Grant was one of the more successful Republican presidents–being only corrupt and incompetent but not provoking any losing wars.  Unfortunately, the hundred dollar bill is also banned in Alaska.   Benjamin Franklin was a deist who could speak French.  According to Gov. Palin, Christians should speak in tongues except French.

As for coins, they are all prohibited except for quarters that commemorate the states that voted for John McCain.

Should we honor St. Patrick today

Just for drowning some snakes in a bay?

While you cannot contest

That the snake is a pest,

It at least kept the English away!

Euan Finn–born March 17, 1952

March 13, 1881 was a terrible day for Russia but a great day for show biz.  Neither was the intention of a group of radical students in St. Petersburg; these young revolutionaries simply expected to transform Russia into an instant democratic utopia by killing Tsar Alexander II.  Ironically, Alexander was the most progressive Tsar since Peter the Great (although Catherine the Great proclaimed her liberalism…but only in French, which the serfs did not understand).  Alexander had liberated the serfs in Russia in 1861, perhaps setting an example for Abraham Lincoln.   The Liberator Tsar also established community councils for local self-government, and he granted autonomy to the Finns–who evidently were more likable than the Poles.  In fact, the Tsar had commissioned plans to establish a parliament in Russia; he only had to sign the final authorization but that could wait until Monday.  March 13th was a Sunday and the Tsar had his weekend routine.  That included a carriage ride.

The conspirators knew the route and were waiting with bombs.  The first bomb killed a guard and wounded the carriage driver and bystanders, but the Tsar remained safe.  Stepping out of the carriage and its bullet-proof exterior, the Tsar wanted to console the casualties.  He became one himself.  The second bomb landed at his feet–and removed them.  Carried back to his carriage, the Tsar was rushed back to the palace where he bled to death in the sight of his son, the Tsarevich, as well his grandson Nicholas.

The death of Alexander II did not topple the monarchy, but it definitely killed any progressive tendencies in the government.  ( You can also imagine the life expectancy of the captured conspirators. )  The new  Tsar Alexander III had never agreed with his father’s liberal ideas, and now he felt vindicated in his reactionary views.  The radicals had murdered his father, so Alexander III was determined to suppress any and all challenges to his autocratic authority.  Although he could not reestablish serfdom (that would have been too awkward), he managed to undo many of his father’s reforms.  The local community councils were abolished, and you can imagine his reaction to the idea of a parliament.  He personally shredded the authorization plans.  Alexander’s idea of reform was any program that would make his tyranny more effective.  A sadist in need of an outlet now had a promising future in the Tsarist secret police.  Of course, the suppression created as many radicals as it executed, and the Siberian prison camps became finishing schools for revolutionaries. However Alexander III did not live to see the consequences; his kidneys failed before his policies did.  His ineffectual but equally narrow-minded son Nicholas would pay the reckoning.  The last Romanov brought upon the very Revolution that he hoped to crush; but at least Alexander III might have admired the tyranny of the Communists.

But how was the murder of Alexander II a great day for show biz?  The new Tsar had a hobby:  Anti-Semitism.  The Jews were his favorite phobia, and he made his hatred the government policy.  He initiated a series of Anti-Semitic laws that the Spanish Inquisition might have envied.  The Jews were restricted to what they could do, and where they could live.  They certainly were not welcome in St. Petersburg and Moscow; the expulsion order made that clear.  Russia’s Jews were confined to Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.  Of course, there were exceptions.  Even Anti-Semites like music.  So a violin prodigy would be allowed to study in St. Petersburg, but his parents could not visit him there.  Jews did have the distinction of being the official scapegoat for any and everything that went wrong in Russia.  Every Jew evidently was both a Rothschild and a Communist.  Of course, if any mob felt like attacking Jews, the Tsar cheerfully conferred that uncivil liberty.

Tsar Alexander III did grant the Jews one right:  emigration, and the sooner the better.  The restrictive laws and the pogroms were the Tsar’s idea of a bon voyage party.  Two millon Russian Jews took the hint, moving to a land where the Irish cops were more humane than the Cossacks.  And although America did not offer imperial scholarships to the talented, it still provided opportunities.  But for Alexander III, Hollywood might yet be an orange grove.

March 11th

On this day in 1851, Guiseppe Verdi presented what would be one of his most popular works: “Music to Make Pizza.”   Underestimating his importance to Italian cuisine, however, Verdi merely called the opera “Rigoletto.”  By my conservative estimate, at least 43 billion pizzas have been flipped to the musical accompaniment of “La Donna E Mobile.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3zetSuYRg

(It is physically impossible to hear this and just order plain cheese.)

Rigoletto is the story of a warped, malevolent jester who lives for vengeance.  (Perhaps I do identify with the title character although I have yet to plot the murder of any of my clients–but I am an underachiever.)  Bringing it to the stage, Verdi had to contend with the warped, malevolent jesters in the Austrian civil service.  At the time, Northern Italy was still Hapsburg property and the Austrian administrators were a bunch of suppressive prudes.  To those Austrian bluenoses, the original story was both pornographic and revolutionary.

The more tolerant French government had the same reaction when Victor Hugo dramatized the story in 1832.  His play “Le Roi S’Amuse” depicted a shamelessly lecherous king whose innumerable seductions include the daughter of his court jester.  The murderous  jester then plots to avenge his defiled (but quite gratified) daughter; as you might guess in a melodrama, there are complications and the wrong person is murdered.    The French authorities considered the play to be a vilification of the reigning monarch Louis Philippe and an incitement to rebellion.  After one performance, “Le Roi S’ Amuse” was banned in France; and it would not be performed again there for fifty years.

The Austrian censors in Northern Italy were more zealous.  They first had to approve the storyline of the proposed opera before further work could be done on it.  Of course, Hugo’s original plot was rejected.  Kings were not to be depicted in an unflattering light, and there must never be any murderous plots against them.  Verdi and his librettist Francesco Piave had to continually negotiate a plot that would survive the censors. 

The Austrians did not mind the Italians depicting themselves in a sordid manner; so the setting was changed to Italia.  The role of the king could be changed to a noble; but that noble could not have any living descendants to complain to the Austrians.  Fortunately, Italian virility is overrated, and there were a number of extinct aristocratic titles and lineages.  So the King of France was demoted to the Duke of Mantua; but that was fine with the censors.

“Rigoletto” premiered in Venice  on March 11, 1851.  Given its notorious French origins, the opera was not presented in Paris until 1857.  The alterations, however, met with the approval of the French government.  Victor Hugo’s approbation was not so easily won.  He disapproved of the compromising changes perpetrated on his work.  Nonetheless, Hugo was curious enough to see “Rigoletto” and he was almost disappointed that he enjoyed it.  At least, he had a vicarious satisfaction in the opera’s success.

And he was to have another vindicating pleasure.  When, after a 50 year ban, “Le Roi S’Amuse” was again performed in Paris, Victor Hugo was there to see it.

February 27th

On this day in 1797 paper money became respectable.  However reluctantly, the Bank of England began issuing one pound notes.    The Bank had circulated notes in large denominations since its founding in 1694.  You certainly would not expect a duke to risk a hernia carrying  5000 Guineas.  But one Pound Sterling was a relatively trifling sum.  It might amount to three weeks’ salary for the average British laborer, but Jane Austen could have lost that much on a bad hand of whist and scarcely notice.

But the British government insisted on the issuance of one-pound notes.  John Bull was reserving his bullion for the ongoing, apparently endless war with France.  The government had a burgeoning debt, and even Admiral Nelson could not loot enough to make up the deficit.  So if Britain needed a circulating currency, it would have to make due with these new paper notes.  In theory, the pound notes could eventually be redeemed for their value in gold; one just had to wait until the government permitted it.  (That turned out to in 1821, the year of Napoleon’s death; Waterloo and St. Helena’s apparently were not sufficient to justify the return of gold coins.)

At least the staid, conservative Bank of England finally gave paper money a solvent reputation.  While America was undergoing its first throes of independence, in the zany period under the Articles of Confederation, individual states were issuing their own currency; no wonder that the preferred legal tender of the times was foreign coins.  Among the excesses of the French Revolution was the establishment of a paper currency, the Assignats, valued on land confiscated from the Catholic Church.  It really was not the most practical currency; how do you break change for a diocese in Provence?  (A liter of vin, some jambon and pain, and six dioceses in Bretagny?)  Worse for the Assignat’s value, the French Treasury thought it had the freedom of the press; it kept churning out the notes until they were worthless.  After that fiscal disaster, it is surprising that France’s other revolutionary gimmick–the Metric System–still had any credibility.