I am testing my website’s new email system: Trappist 2.0. With my luck, it will operate solely on prayer. And wouldn’t you know, I gave up religion for Lent.
And if it doesn’t work, I will get an aerobic workout with exercises in futility.
I just had some wonderful financial news. One of my mutual funds can still afford postage. Arriving in the mail was a reassuring brochure that the company was doing a splendid job and so I should vote for the emergency reforms it required.
The quality of the brochure reflected the dour mood of the economy. In the affluent days, the publications were slightly more lavish than a Cecil B. DeMille production. Doesn’t everyone want an annual report printed on zebra skin? Now, however, the brochure demonstrates how serious the company is about costs. Having closed the employees’ cafeteria, it is using the leftover napkins for mimeograph paper.
Why is the company even splurging on postage? Apparently the Bush administration forgot to abolish a few regulations, so as an investor I am entitled to vote on certain company policies. For instance, I am expected to approve whomever the chairman wanted on his board of directors…
Fitzpercy “Winky” Wappleshire: college roommate of chairman and always lets him win at golf.
The Hon. Nils Sipher: former congressman, internationally recognized sycophant and professional board member.
Dr. Sejanus Freiboot: professor of sociopathic economics at the Heritage Foundation.
Now, however, my vote is being solicited for more urgent matters than whether or not the chairman needs a new trophy wife. (The Uma Thurman lookalike is getting close to 40!) The company wants my approval for “fundamental investment restrictions and revisions” on a number of bewildering and deliberately obtuse topics. My vote may be required but my comprehension is not. The company is convinced that the less I understand, the more complacent I will be. The lobotomized must be very trusting.
Guess what: I am voting “No” on everything. I won’t be avenging my diminished retirement plan, but at least I will be fighting for intelligible English.
On this day in 1649, King Charles I ascended the scaffold. He turned to the crowd and began making perfunctory compliments about English dairy products. With his usual keenness, Charles thought that he was addressing the opening of an agricultural fair. He could not ignore the angry cries of the mob, so Charles offered to cure any of them of scrofula.
Charles, who was known to have lost tic-tac-toe matches to an untrained chicken, had to be informed that he was the guest of honor at his execution. The embarrassed executioneer asked, “Don’t you remember your treason trial?” Charles recalled attending some sort of debate but really hadn’t follow the topic. “Boring lawyer chitchat, you know.”
Realizing now, however, that he was about to lose more than tic-tac-toe, Charles did rationalize the advantages of decapitation. “Well, it would make painting my portrait easier.”
p.s. I may have taken a few liberties with the last words (and meager thoughts) of Charles I. But the victory of Parliament over the King guaranteed me those liberties. Thank you Mr. Cromwell.
Let’s wish a Happy Birthday to Christian VII. The King of Denmark and Norway would be 259 years old today. Unfortunately, it would have been unwise to let him near lit birthday candles. Christian’s hobbies included schizophrenia, paranoia and self-mutilation. The King was left in the care of Dr. Johann Struensee, who assumed for himself both running the country as well as “conjugal” duties with the Queen. (Dr. Struensee’s sidelines eventually earned him a decapitation.)
Stupidity usually guarantees the sanity of royalty. You can’t lose a mind without having one. Nonetheless, a number of royal families could have used ermine strait jackets.
Nero was the nephew of Caligula. The family resemblance is obvious.
France’s Charles VI had bouts of insanity. His daughter Catherine married Henry V–under duress; she was part of the booty of Agincourt. That union produced Henry VI–who also had bouts of insanity. Charles VI was succeeded by Charles VII; but since the French Queen played around–and admitted it–Charles VII evidently had a sane father. The widow of Henry V didn’t quite play around–but she certainly found solace in a Welsh knight named Owen Tudor. None of their children suffered insanity, although one great-grandson–Henry VIII–was a bit unstable.
Everyone knows of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. But he was a paragon of sanity compared to his younger brother and successor Otto. Otto actually thought that he was a dog. Although Otto nominally succeeded his brother, no one allowed him to bark in public. A series of cousins maintained a regency in Bavaria.
And was Ludwig really insane? He was spending Bavaria into bankruptcy, but that is a royal prerogative. Ludwig’s only real manifestations of insanity were his fondness for Wagner and his public dislike of Bismarck. (The latter could be regarded as a death wish–and Ludwig did drown under mysterious circumstances.)
Be reassured, however. The British Royal Family is as sane as a brick.
On this day in 1547, Henry VIII evidently won his wager with Francis I as to which of them would first die of syphilis. The smart money would have bet on the French king; he had the disease first. In fact, he may have indirectly infected Henry. A pioneer of venereal environmentalism, Francis used to recycle his mistresses. Among his many “friends” was Mary Boleyn. (You certainly are familiar with her younger sister.) When Francis and Mary parted ways, she returned to England and became Henry’s mistress. She may have brought back more than French fashion.
Syphilis was one of the most popular imports from the New World. Columbus traded it for smallpox. The Europeans certainly got the better of the deal. After all, no one enjoys getting smallpox. Although the Spanish first imported the venereal disease, people tended to associate it with France. (Something about Torquemada just isn’t erotic.) So the malady initially was known as the French Disease; an invading French army did introduce it to Italy in 1494. By 1503, English doctors needed a name for the disease; however, begrudging the French credit for anything, they preferred the term “the Great Pox.”
The disease finally acquired its formal name in 1530. Girolamo Fracastoro, an Italian physician who dabbled in poetry, wrote an allegory of the disease attributing its origins to an amorous but incautious shepherd named Syphilus. The name, like the disease, caught on.
January 25th:
If “Only the good die young,” that would explain Genseric’s long life. He died this day in 477 at the age of 87 or so. We are not quite sure of his actual birthday; being the illegitimate son of a chieftain of a minor barbarian tribe, who noticed? His departure was more conspicuous. After all, by that time he was the King of North Africa, the terror of what was left of the Roman world, and the scourge of the Church. Even today, his legacy lingers. Through his deeds, his tribe is remembered as a felony: Vandal.
Genseric’s career would make a suitable case study for any MBA program. If anyone deserved to be named Entrepreneur of the Fifth Century, it certainly was him. Of course, the early fifth century was a great time to be a barbarian. The Rhine River was all the defense that the Roman Empire had in the West, and it was hardly impassable. (The Germanic tribes waded into the Empire or–to use the Latin pronunciation– in-vade.)
Most of the tribes were competing with one another as to who would loot Gaul. The Vandals, led by Genseric and his annoyingly legitimate half-brother Gunderic, decided to avoid the mob and a losing battle by moving on to Iberia. They were among the first German tourists there. Unfortunately for the Vandals, the Visigoths also heard about Hispania and migrated there, too. Preferring to be the sole barbarians on the peninsula, the Visigoths began wiping out the Vandals. Half of the tribe was gone, Gunderic was dead, and Genseric was now the king of this sorry remnant; in 429, however, the Roman governor of North Africa saved the Vandals. The governor was rebelling against the Emperor and needed mercenaries, so he transported the entire tribe to North Africa.
Ironically, the Roman governor called off his rebellion, but the Vandals didn’t. Genseric liked North Africa; in those days the land was fertile and had not become yet an extension of the Sahara. Prosperous provinces but with meager defenses–what more could Genseric ask! Within ten years, the Vandals occupied the territory extending from Libya to Morocco. (Yes, Rommel’s Afrika Korps was actually the second German invasion there, and the less successful of the two.) Carthage, the capital of Roman North Africa surrendered without a fight; the Vandals occupied the city while most of the populace was at the chariot races.
Genseric’s next venture was piracy. The Vandals proved quite adaptive and quickly developed a fleet that terrorized the western Mediterranean. They conquered the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. What could Rome do but flatter him. In 442 the Emperor Valentinian III recognized Genseric as the King of everything he had seized; the official title was supposed to make him behave with regal decorum. Genseric would be further placated by a marriage into the imperial family. The Emperor’s three-year-old daughter was betrothed to Genseric’s oldest (and adult) son; it would be a long engagement. So for the next 13 years Genseric seemed content to administer his realm, restoring to North Africa the stability and prosperity that the disintegrating Roman Empire had failed to maintain. He did tax the patrician landowners and the Catholic clergy (who usually were one and the same) but most of the populace found Vandal rule an improvement.
And Genseric was bored! Although now was in his sixties, he definitely had not mellowed. Yet he felt constrained by his treaty with Valentinian III and the western half of the Roman Empire. True, he was free to attack the Byzantines or his old enemies the Visigoths, but they had the inconvenient capacity to defend themselves; and Genseric really did not like fair fights. However, the life expectancy of a Roman Emperor was rarely long, and Valentinian III made enemies. He was assassinated in March, 455, and two months later Genseric was at the gates of Rome, proclaiming himself the avenger of Valentinian and the protector of his family.
For all his lofty proclamations, his basic demands were “give us everything and no one will be hurt”. Two years earlier, Pope Leo I had persuaded Attila the Hun not to sack Rome; the Pope would not find Genseric to be such a softie. The Visigoths in 410 had sacked Rome, indulging in murder, rape and pillage; but they had refrained from looting churches. The Vandals lacked that sense of etiquette; of course, after the Visigoths, Rome had little left to loot except the churches. Genseric’s sack was bloodless and platonic, but his irrreverent attitude to church property would earn the Vandals their lasting infamy. The medieval monk chroniclers would not forgive the Vandals’ transgression, and their animosity became our perception: VANDALS!. Although usually left to the victor, history is always written by the literate.
Furthermore, despite his agreement with the Pope, Genseric did not strictly observe his pledge of good behavior. Apparently kidnapping was still permissible. No, Genseric was not tacky enough to seize the Pope; but he did take the widow and two daughters of the late emperor. The dowager empress was a Byzantine princess, so Constantinople would be sent the ransom note. Genseric was only offering the widow and one daughter; the other–now nubile–girl was going to marry his son. The ransom negotiations lasted six years. In that time, the Byzantines were hoping that Genseric would succumb to enemies or old age. Both were reasonable expectations but he proved equally adapt at outfoxing his foes and time itself.
In 468, the Byzantines amassed an overwhelming force to crush the Vandal kingdom. More than 1100 ships, with 100,000 soldiers, ascended on Carthage. Unfortunately, the Byzantine emperor appointed his brother-in-law the commander. Genseric offered to surrender and, while the peace terms were being negotiated, the Vandals attacked the lulled Byzantines. Half of their fleet was lost. The idiot brother-in-law returned to Constantinople where he sheltered in a church until the emperor agreed only to exile him.
And the 80 year-old Genseric would outlast another two Byzantine emperors, five Roman emperors and the Western Empire itself. But his kingdom would only survive him by 57 years; he had left his sons an empire but none of the vision or the abilities to preserve it.
Today is the birthday of Frederick the Great! Genius is rare in royalty; in Prussian royalty it is extraordinary. Frederick was unique: imagine Oscar Wilde with an army. The politics of 18th century was based upon whom his scathing wit had offended. France and Austria had been enemies for 250 years. Frederick brought them together. He had ridiculed Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, for being an overreaching strumpet. Lest you think that Frederick was a self-righteous prig, he taunted the respectable Maria Theresa for her piety and fertility. Austrian empresses do not enjoy being described as broodmares. (Frederick had no empathy with heterosexual activities.) The strumpet and the broodmare overcame their incongruity and formed an alliance. This coalition was joined by Russia; theTsarina Elisabeth had not appreciated Frederick’s quips about her girth.
France, Austria and Russia planned the Seven Years War to be a going-away party for Frederick. Here is my dramatization of that conflict….
FinermanWorks presents: The Seven Years War
based on a farce performed on Frederick the Great
with
Frederick the Great, by his own assessment.
George II, a very German King of England. He is Frederick’s uncle but nothing like him.
Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV and the real ruler of France
Maria Therese, a nice conservative hausfrau–whose haus happens to be the Austrian Empire
Tsarina Elisabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. She inherited his realm and his size.
Peter III, Elisabeth’s very strange great-nephew and successor.
George III, a king of England who finally sounds like one.
(George II and his nephew Frederick are walking down a street.)
Frederick: You actually like Handel? I knew England would ruin your appetite but your hearing too? Still I suppose I would trade places with you. You have non idee how much I hate the sound of German.
George II: But that’s wat ve sprech un London. Ja, Parlamunt ist un Anglische; but I nod to vatever. It werks.
Frederick: You may be spoiling them.
(The men are suddenly confronted by Tsarina Elisabeth, Empress Maria Therese of Austria and Madame de Pompadour.)
Frederick: Are you three planning to proclaim my uncle the King of Scotland? He already is.
Pompadour: I am sure that you would rather be Queen of France.
Frederick: At least, Madame Fishmonger, with me at Versailles someone could think in French as well as speak it. You reflect only in the Hall of Mirrors.
Elisabeth: You are a mean little man.
Frederick: Certainly half your size.
Maria Therese: You are a sacrilegious swine.
Frederick: You confuse my contempt for you with sacrilege. There is a considerable difference. Actually, I rather appreciate your piety and take full advantage of it. “The Austrian army’s idea of military manuevers is to attend mass.” (Actual quote by Frederick)
Pompadour: Let’s see if my nails are as sharp as your tongue.
(She lashes out at Frederick; Elisabeth and Maria Therese join in the assault. George steps aside, keeping a respectful distance from Elisabeth and while making polite overtures to Maria Therese.
George II: How are der children? You are looking vell. I can’t help reminiscing about our old alliance against France.
(However, George does periodically lunge against Pompadour, slugging her in the back, grabbing her Indian jewelry, Canadian furs and purse. While Frederick is trying to fend off the assault, his uncle hands him some of Pompadour’s cash.)
George: Keep up der gut fight.
(Then Elisabeth manages to smash Frederick in the head, nearly knocking him out. However, the exertion also kills her. She is succeeded by her great nephew Peter III who has a big surprise.)
Peter: Oh, Frederick, what are those bitches doing to you! I’m switching sides.
George II: Excuse me, I have enjoyed dis immensely but I now must act mein age und die.
George III: I say, what, what. Jolly good war but I think that we should say cheerio.
Frederick: Frau Hapsburg, you’ve no more Russian army and I’ve no more English money. Shall we end this war?
Maria Therese: We’ll call it a draw.
Frederick: Since I am still breathing, I’d call it a victory.
Of course, you would expect an Orangeman and an Irishman to brawl whenever and wherever they met. But on this day in 1760, the brawl would determine the control of India. The Orangeman, the painfully named Eyre Coote, commanded the forces of the British East India Company. The obviously Irish Thomas Arthur O’Lally, in his lifelong war with Britain ended up in the French army and commanded its forces in Southern India.
Yes, there was another French and Indian War and, however deflating to our North American egos, at the time the control of India and its riches seemed more important than the muskrat trade in the Ohio valley. Unlike the North American conflict, where 2 million British subjects were pitted against 100,000 Frenchmen and any native tribes who had survived smallpox, the conflict in India was evenly matched. Both European armies had several thousand men as the core of their force, but their preferred strategy was to let their allied Indian princes slaughter each other. Since this was a traditional pastime among Indian princes, the British and French really were just spectators who lent cannons.
Fighting to the last rajah, this war could have lasted indefinitely. However, Thomas O’Lally was a decisive man; and the French commander decided that he didn’t like India. His idea of the caste system was to treat everyone like an Untouchable. While this egaliterian rudeness might have earned O’Lally the gratitude of India’s dung collectors, the lower castes were not leading the armies on which the French strategy depended. Insulted princes are not usually the most reliable allies. O’Lally learned that when he advanced upon a British fort at Wandiwash. His Indian allies forgot to show up.
British commander Eyre Coote was on excellent terms with his Indian allies and, with his conspicuously larger force, he routed the French. From that day–January 22, 1760–the French were in continual retreat until the remnants of their empire were confined and besieged in the town of Pondicherry. When Pondicherry surrendered, O’Lally was taken as a prisoner to Britain. Ironically, at least he was safe there.
The French government charged O’Lally with treason. Considering that the Seven Years War was a world atlas of French defeats, Versailles should have been accustomed to incompetent generals. But only O’Lally was condemned as a traitor. He had not merely lost a battle; he had sabotaged the underlying alliance on which French India was based. Perhaps for that very reason, the grateful British were willing to offer O’Lally political asylum. However, he insisted on returning to France to defend his career and honor. At worse, he would be executed; and for Thomas O’Lally that would still be preferable to living in England. He certainly got his wish; returning to France after war ended in 1763, he was immediately imprisoned and beheaded three years later.
Eyre Coote had a considerably more successful career, gaining a knighthood and a fortune. (The opportunities for graft in India were wondrous.) He died–of natural causes–in 1783, leaving a vast estate in Ireland where his heirs treated the Irish like Untouchables.
This is a real advertisement:
“DAGOBERT” TOILET THRONE—for Your Majesty
“A throwback to the medieval era of knights, castles and fairy tale romance, this throne toilet with French Merovingian style (8th century) is highlighted by hand painted earthenware accessories (Musset poem, ashtray…). Its high-profile seat back with a gothic-arch top and full armrests give the toilet a majestic appearance. Inscribed on the seat back is a poem by the French poet, Alfred de Musset. The musical chime “Le Bon Roi Dagobert”, with a voice reciting the Musset poem, starts when you raise the lid and a bell is coupled with the flush, making a visit to the bathroom an unforgettable experience.” Made from an Ash tree, it’s protected by three layers of polyurethane. Comes with candle holder and ashtray. Priced at or above $9000
Medieval plumbing is an oxymoron and why would a “fashionable” toilet be named for a seventh century Frankish king? You’d think that the Byzantine Emperors or the Caliphs might have had more impressive thrones, but King Dagobert I apparently set the standard for royal assizes.
Although Dagobert (603-639) would seem like the name of a bad pizzeria, the king was actually one of the more formidable French rulers of the Dark Ages. When he died–this day in 639–he had managed to hold the throne and actually rule for five years. Few of his ancestors could make that claim, and none of his descendants could. Dagobert was almost an only child, so he only had one sibling and a nephew to eliminate to gain complete control of France.
Being king of all the Franks was an achievement in itself; he certainly would never have imagined himself the namesake of a toilet. Indeed, he probably never imagine the idea of a toilet. True, the Romans had them although not with ashtrays; but the running water had been shut off some two centuries earlier. In Dagobert’s lifetime, the ultimate accolade for a Frankish warlord would be getting a bolt of silk from Constantinople. From the Frankish perspective, it was pure status; from the Byzantine perspective, it was the equivalent of a Christmas card for the help.
Perhaps the toilet was a more sincere tribute.
January 18th
On this day in 1779, Peter Roget was born/spawned/ejected. In the course of his life/existence/happening, Roget distinguished himself as a scholar and inventor/polymath man/Victorian know-it-all. A doctor by profession, he wrote a scientific study on tuberculosis/consumption/how to kill a Bronte. As a mathematician, he invented the logarithmic slide rule/mechanical analog computer/nerd sword. Today, however, we best know him for his hobby/avocation/obsessive compulsive disorder. He/Dr. Roget/Pedantic Pete liked to make lists.
One of his favorite diversions was categorizing words by their synonyms. The English language certainly could keep him busy, being a linguistic hodgepodge of barbaric German, Norwegian-accented French, second-hand Greek, and whatever the Empire chose to plagiarize from the natives. (The Hindi word veranda does sounds more charming than the Middle English porch or its pompous Latin forebear portico). In fact, the English language had become an empire in itself–with an unrivalled vocabulary. It had twice as many words as German; of course, each German word was three longer than its English equivalent. (And the disparity continues today; there now are some 500,000 words in English, while only 180,000 in German.)
Upon his retirement in 1840, Dr. Roget dedicated himself to compilating his lexicon/trivia/idiosyncracies. He called his work a thesaurus which in Greek means either treasury or god lizard. (His lists evidently did not include embarrassing Greek homophones.) His masterpiece was finally published in 1852 under the title “Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.” For some reason–such as a shorter lifespan in the 19th century–readers preferred to call the book “Roget’s Thesaurus”.
And where would we modern writers be without Roget’s guide/terminology/onomasticon/cheat notes?