Archive for the ‘History’ Category

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Linkey linkey.

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Lawrence has put up a review of Barbet Schroeder’s classic documentary, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait, which we watched at his house the other night.

Don’t have much to add to what he says, and I agree with him pretty much 100%, so I encourage you to wander over there and read his review.

Bacon numbers of note: Idi Amin – Bacon number of 3, if you include TV shows. Otherwise, the Oracle of Bacon says Amin can’t be linked to Bacon, which I find hard to swallow. (I checked using both “Idi Amin” and “Idi Amin Dada”.)

Fidel Castro, on the other hand, has a Bacon number of 2. Castro is linked to Bacon through Detective Munch and something called “Marilyn Monroe: Murder on Fifth Helena Drive” which is scheduled for release sometime in 2013.

Posted in History, Movies | No Comments »

Thanks to the Statesman…

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

…for the reminder that West, Texas was also the location of the Great Crush Crash.

(Technically, the Great Crush Crash actually took place in Crush. But Crush was a temporary city erected specifically for the event, and named after William George Crush, “passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad”.)

“The Great Crush Crash?” you say. Indeed.

On September 15, 1896, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad ran two railroad locomotives into each other. Head on. At an estimated 45 MPH. I remember reading an article in the Old Farmer’s Almanac many years ago about staged locomotive crashes; apparently, this was a fairly popular form of entertainment back in the old days. The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad made a big deal out of this particular crash, which was Crush’s idea; they laid on special trains to the site, with reduced fares and what not. The entire city of Crush was built from the ground up:

In early September 500 workmen laid four miles of track for the collision run and constructed a grandstand for “honored guests,” three speaker’s stands, two telegraph offices, a stand for reporters, and a bandstand. A restaurant was set up in a borrowed Ringling Brothers circus tent, and a huge carnival midway with dozens of medicine shows, game booths, and lemonade and soft-drink stands was built. Finally, workmen erected a special depot with a platform 2,100 feet long, and a sign was painted to inform passengers that they had arrived at Crush, Texas.

An estimated 40,000 people showed up to watch the collision.

So how did that work out for them?

When the two locomotives, one painted bright green, the other bright red, collided at about 45 mph, their boilers exploded, killing three people and injuring a half-dozen more as debris was blown into spectator-filled areas.

In retrospect, this may not have been a smart thing to do. It appears that the railroad’s engineers repeatedly assured officials that there was no way the boilers would explode. But this was 1896:

People began to leave for home, the tents, stands, and midway booths came down, and by nightfall Crush, Texas, ceased to exist. The Katy quickly settled all damage claims brought against it with cash and lifetime rail passes.

And Mr. Crush? “…the railroad fired him that evening but relented and rehired him the next day.”

Why, yes, there is a historical marker. And here’s another article with some photos of the event itself.

Posted in Clippings, History, Trains | 1 Comment »

“…jackass legislation”

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

I am a great admirer of H.L. Mencken. I have been since I was in high school (mumble mumble) years ago.

But I had not previously encountered this particular essay.

The new law that it advocated, indeed, is one of the most absurd specimens of jackass legislation ever heard of, even in this paradise of legislative donkeyism. Its single and sole effect would be to exaggerate enormously all of the evils it proposes to put down. It would not take pistols out of the hands of rogues and fools; it would simply take them out of the hands of honest men. The gunman today has great advantages everywhere. He has artillery in his pocket, and he may assume that, in the large cities, at least two-thirds of his prospective victims are unarmed. But if the Nation’s proposed law (or amendment) were passed and enforced, he could assume safely that all of them were unarmed.

Also noted:

What would become of the millions of revolvers already in the hands of the American people if not in New York, then at least everywhere else? (I own two and my brother owns at least a dozen, though neither of us has fired one since the close of the Liberty Loan drives.)

I would be very interested in knowing what revolvers Mencken and his brother owned. I’d be even more interested in owning one of Mencken’s revolvers, but I suspect the associational value puts that out of my price range.

(It does not come as a great shock to me that Mencken was pro civil rights: his “A New Constitution for Maryland” included a provision establishing the right to keep and openly carry arms. But encountering an essay of Mencken’s that I haven’t previously read, and is relevant to my interests…that lights up my whole day.)

(Hattip on this one to the amazing Roberta X.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Guns, History, Law | 1 Comment »

The further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

egress1

egress2

(This isn’t an actual F-16 cockpit, but a “cockpit egress trainer”.)

(We would also have accepted “You ever been in a cockpit before?”)

(Subject line hattip for the younger set.)

Posted in History, Photography, Planes | Comments Off

Kübelwagen!

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

kubel

(I have a short list of cars that I wouldn’t want as a primary daily driver, but would love to have as a second car just to knock around in. On that list: a VW Thing. Which I know isn’t strictly the same thing as the Kübelwagen, but close enough for a Nobel Peace Prize winner to order a drone strike.)

Posted in Cars, History, Photography | Comments Off

Random notes: February 11, 2013.

Monday, February 11th, 2013

Benny’s stepping down from the Papacy is going to be one of the biggest news stories of the year. I wanted to note it here because it gives me a chance to plug a book I really liked: Thomas J. Reese’s Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.

Reese devotes a fair amount of space to discussing questions about the papacy, such as: what happens if the Pope develops Alzheimer’s? What happens if he becomes totally incapacitated, say by a stroke? Or if he goes crazy? What happens if the Pope is in a coma (I know it’s serious)? And, can the Pope resign? I guess we have an answer to that last question: “Yes”.

I missed the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the troop transport Dorchester on February 3, 1943. You remember the story of the Dorchester, right? Or if you don’t remember the name of the ship…

For a long time, the story of the four chaplains was everywhere.
In classrooms, posters showed the men of different faiths, arms linked in prayer, braced against the waves engulfing the deck of their torpedoed troop ship on Feb. 3, 1943. They had given their life preservers to frantic soldiers and urged troops paralyzed with fear to jump into the icy North Atlantic before they were sucked down by the sinking ship’s whirlpool.

They were:

I didn’t get a chance to post an update from Friday’s Bell trial, so let me do that now: Teresa Jacobo is still on the stand, and they’re still going over the “working full time for the city” thing.

Questioned Friday by her attorney Shepard Kopp, Jacobo testified that Rizzo never mentioned that a full-time salary required additional work on authorities.
“Did anyone tell you that you needed to devote a certain number of hours per week, per month or per year to work on those authorities?” Kopp asked, referring to the various boards on which council members served.
“No,” Jacobo said.

In addition, nobody told Jacobo that “a certain number of meetings of those authorities” needed to be conducted at city council meetings, or that the meetings needed to last for a certain amount of time. Jacobo also claims that she gave out business cards with her home and cell numbers to her constituents; “Residents would often call her at all hours, she testified, for help with city issues.”

As I’ve said previously, a lot of the defense seems to be “it was all Rizzo”, as well as “nobody told me”, and “I assumed it was okay because the city attorney didn’t say it wasn’t”. I’m still thinking we’re going to end up with acquittals for the council members, and the bus is going to run over Rizzo, back up, and run over him again.

Posted in Books, California Über Alles, Clippings, History, Law | Comments Off

Important reminder.

Monday, February 11th, 2013

The ejection seat is not a toy.

bangseat1

bangseat2

(Top: my sister’s youngest boy. Bottom: the middle boy, who you may remember from here. Not shown: the oldest boy, Sir NotAppearingInThisSketch, who had a band thing going on and didn’t make the trip with us.)

Posted in History, Photography | Comments Off

Weasels ripped my flesh!

Sunday, February 10th, 2013

weasel1

weasel2

Studebaker M29 “Weasel”, Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin, Texas.

Posted in History, Photography | Comments Off

Random notes: February 5, 2013.

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

In Idaho’s graceful, striated-marble Capitol, home to one of the more ardent and adamant state legislatures in the nation in standing up for the Second Amendment, lawmakers from both parties say that a torrent of public passion, even panic, about new proposed federal gun rules is pushing in only one direction: toward more guns, not fewer.

Hurrah Idaho!

First, they came for the owners of modern sporting rifles, and I didn’t speak out because I hate guns and want everyone to live in peace and harmony. Then they came to shut down the raves…

A concert company featured in a Times report Sunday detailing the drug-related deaths of 14 people who attended raves denounced the story in an online statement and took to social media to urge fans to speak out.

More:

Many of the concerts were staged with the blessing of local governments hungry for the revenue they brought in.
James Penman, the San Bernardino city attorney, said economics should never be a justification for raves. He long has urged officials to disallow the events at the National Orange Show Events Center there. Coroners’ reports show that two people have fatally overdosed at National Orange Show raves.
“The city should have zero tolerance for any activity where drugs are an integral part,” Penman said. “A rave without drugs is like a rodeo without horses. They don’t happen.”

Yesterday’s update from the Bell trial: Craig Rhudy of the “L.A. County district attorney’s office’s public integrity division” is on the stand now. So far, he’s testified that “former council members drew most of their nearly $100,000 salaries from panels that seldom met.”

Rhudy has charts.

The chart for 2006, for instance, showed that out of 20 City Council meetings, the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority met just once; the Community Housing and Public Finance Authorities each met five times, and the Surplus Property Authority had four meetings.
All of the defendants, except [Luis] Artiga, who was appointed in 2008, were paid $12,857 for each authority served in 2006.

In 2007, the Finance Authority met once, while the Housing Authority met twice. “By 2009, in spite of the fact that the panels continued to meet only sporadically, the pay for serving on each had jumped to $18,368, according to Rhudy’s chart.” In 2010, the Housing Authority was the only one that had a meeting.

And why does this matter? “In total, the defendants drew more than $1.3 million of their salaries from the authorities in question, Rhudy confirmed.”

I missed noting this over the weekend, but the LAT also ran a story on the “mountain of lawsuits” Bell is dealing with.

Former city leaders are suing the city. Bell is suing the former leaders. The city is suing its former lawyers. A European bank is suing Bell.

And the SEC and IRS are both investigating Bell’s bond sales. Here’s a great story:

Bell’s biggest concern is a lawsuit filed by Dexia Credit Local, part of a European banking group, over the city’s default on $35 million in bonds. The case involves 25 acres of undeveloped land near the 710 Freeway that Bell bought from the federal government with plans to lease it to a railroad.
Dexia bought all the lease revenue bonds the city issued to pay for the deal, which came to more than twice the city’s annual budget.
The deal went bad when an environmental group sued, arguing the city had failed to conduct the required environmental review. The judge agreed. Unable to lease the property — now worth far less than the bonds — Bell had no income to pay back Dexia.

The Richard III story has been reported everywhere, but I want to throw in a link to the Richard III Society, another group that deserves your support. And if you haven’t read it, I commend to your attention Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Guns, History, Law, Sarcasm | Comments Off

Another bookmark.

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

KInd of literally, in this case. I’ve observed in the past that NYC is one of the few cities where you can find a speciality bookstore for just about anything, and here’s a good example: Chartwell Booksellers, which I learned about from the Freakonomics podcast.

Chartwell is “the only standing bookshop in the world devoted to the writings of Winston Churchill”. And the owner, Barry Singer, also has a book out: Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill. I plan to pick that up once conditions improve; and, if I ever make it back to NYC, I intend to visit Chartwell.

(By the way, if you’re interested in either Churchill or copyright law, that episode of Freakonomics is worth a listen.)

Posted in Books, History | Comments Off

Random notes: January 2, 2013.

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

“It is my belief that any commander that orders pilots out for combat in a F2A-3 should consider the pilot as lost before leaving the ground,” wrote Capt. P. R. White of the Marines.

Would you like to make great coffee and espresso? Well, you could get the NYT to pay for you to take classes from people with names like “Ant”. And you could pay anywhere from $100 to $600 for a burr grinder.

Or instead you could read this rant by Stingray, which pretty much tells you everything important about making good coffee. (Language warning on that link, just FYI.)

I do think there’s something to be said for the NYT piece:

The essence of good espresso, of good coffee in general, revolves around three numbers: the amount of quality dry coffee used, the amount of time water flows through it and the amount of coffee that comes out the other end. When the ratio is right, the process extracts the best flavor. If it is wrong, the good flavor never surfaces or is watered down. A mistake in seconds or grams, I am coming to learn, is the difference between something wonderful and awful.

It seems like the important thing is to use good coffee, use enough of it, and don’t let it sit and burn. Unless you’re a supertaster (which I am not), I doubt you can tell the difference between a $250 burr grinder and a $10 blade grinder, or an AeroPress versus a Chemex.

It isn’t rocket surgery, folks. It’s just coffee.

Posted in Clippings, Food, History, Planes | Comments Off

Speaking of presidents…

Friday, December 28th, 2012

As seen at Blood Bath and Beyond yesterday:

That’s volume III of the “Presidents of the United States” Pez dispenser collection. They also had volume II, but I did not see volume I.

I note volume III specifically because this is the one that includes Millard Fillmore. Yes: a Millard Fillmore Pez dispenser is a real thing that you can buy and not the punchline of a David Letterman joke.

(You can get the Pez Presidents Collector Set Vol III from Amazon, too, along with Volume 1 and Volume II. But as I recall, BB&B’s price for the two sets they had was $12.99, vs. Amazon’s $22. If I was in a better financial situation, I would get all three for my nephews.)

Posted in Geek, History | 1 Comment »

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