2024
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Caption from Catalogue of Official A.E.F. photographs taken by the Signal Corps, U.S.A., 1919. ↩︎
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Photo by the United States Army Signal Corps, November 11, 1918, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017666571/. ↩︎
Nearly 10:00am, and the sun sets in 6.25 hours. I need to get outside.
Informative piece, reported from Ukraine: “A war-weary Ukraine warily eyes a Trump presidency” by Fabrice Deprez, The Boston Globe, November 8, 2024.
The principle that a commander has an obligation to punish war crimes by his subordinates is not a progressive development of the law promoted by the advocacy community. Instead, the duty to punish stands out as an ancient legal norm interwoven into the domestic law of the United States and which the United States has incorporated into international legal instruments.
Dunno which nomination freaks me out the most, but if the Senate GOP bows to the recess appointments demand, we are in for a world of hurt. Will we be able to hang on until the midterms, when there’s a chance to begin picking up the pieces? More people are vulnerable than realize it. 😱
I've Started a 'News Sites' Links Page. Here's Why.
Local and regional newspapers have been dying at an alarming rate. At the same time, the 2024 election has underscored significant failings in the best of our big newspapers: bothsidesism, clickbait headlines, groupthink and superficial analysis, sexism, casual racism, transphobia, pedantic fact-checking that doesn’t consider substance, uncritical repetition of lies from the temperamental orange guy and those who have sworn fealty to him, sanewashing, interference with editorial decisions by billionaire owners, and so on. While there’s currently no living entirely without such outlets, relying on them exclusively isn’t an option. That’s why I’ve started to gather links to other sources as I run across them. I am sharing these on a page called news sites in a section called lists.
This informative piece takes you through the author’s discovery process when he was shown an email copyright threat: “Beware of Copyright Infringement Link Insertion Scams” by Adam Engst, TidBITS, November 13, 2024.
Am reacquainting myself with the literal wintertime darkness, learning again how to move through it without letting it consume me.
I’m nostalgic for the days when you could tell the difference between a message announcing a Cabinet appointment and a trollish shitpost.
Separation of Powers or One-Man Rule?
The GOP will have the House too?! If so, the question becomes, does the GOP party leader, the orange dementor, control both chambers of Congress? Or will some of these folks remember that they control a separate branch of government? In the Soviet Union, the General Secretary of the Communist Party ran the show. Is that what the GOP wants? Or are they just enjoying a ride on the winning candidate’s coattails? I’m sure lots of them can be kept in line with threats of physical harm or the release of komprimat, and others could be bought off with spending largesse (read: corruption) by the government and by would-be beneficiaries of government contracts.
Wild cards: How narrow is the GOP majority in the House? Will GOP replacements for the big rotten cheese’s cabinet picks be able to beat Democrats in those districts?
“Idiocracy,” dir. Mike Judge (2006) 📽️
One of the great prophecies of human history—practically a holy text at this point.
On deck: “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn,” documentary, dir. Ivy Meeropol (HBO 2020). Will probably have to take this in installments, given the subject matter. 📽️
It is extraordinary just how utterly unsuited the people are that the next president is assembling for his cabinet. I suppose the senate will rubber-stamp them all without further ado. Loyalty to Mr. Huge Crowds über alles, as they proved in both his impeachments last time around.
On the radio’s 10 o’clock news this morning came an announcement about the next national security adviser and a comment about what he faced – “the trouble” in Ukraine and the Middle East. Really AP News? That’s what we’re calling wars now? And genocidal wars at that!
Photos of Children Working in Textile Mills, 1908–1914
The textile industry was long a stronghold of child labor. More than 75,000 children 10 to 16 years were employed in textile mills in 1910 – the census did not count those under 10 years.
– Lewis W. Hine in a photo study for the National Child Labor Committee, The New York Public Library.
Images from a photo study by Lewis W. Hine for the National Child Labor Committee, The New York Public Library. Linked captions lead to their respective image pages.
Call for Contributions: Histories of Expertise, via Lund Centre for the History of Knowledge (LUCK)
I resurrected a couple categories that had gone the way of the dinosaurs when I moved from WordPress to Micro.blog – language learning and language matters. I also added deportation. Finally, I marked some of my old political posts with the fascism category, sometimes removing politics in the process.
@Infrogmation asked on Mastodon what Mussolini was wearing on his nose in an image I had reposted. I didn’t know, but now I do thanks to @Infrogmation: Il Duce got a bloody nose in an unsuccessful assassination attempt in 1926. Talk about history rhyming! 👀
Photo from the first Armistice Day in Paris
“When the news became generally known that the armistice had been signed, the crowd went wild . . ."1
“Paris. Impromptu parades took place in Paris on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Here are American soldiers pushing their way through the great crowds at the Church of the Madeleine, Paris. They are forcing their way towards Place de la Concorde down Rue Royale."2
Photos of a Vigilante Deportation in 1917
I was quite startled by these and related images from 1917 because they show a lot of men being rounded up for removal in box cars in the hot dessert sun. It turns out that this was the Bisbee Deportation of IWW strikers in 1917. Some 1,300 people were kidnapped and put on a train in the summer heat by a 2,200-man posse. The action, ordered by Phelps Dodge, was illegal but supposedly not covered by federal law, only state law, and the state never prosecuted. In fact, one photographer, Dix, saw a money-making opportunity in the forcible removal of workers from Arizona to New Mexico. The Library of Congress holds the first, darker image below as a photo print, whereas it has the other three lighter images by the same photographer as postcards, suggesting the existence of at least a local market for souvenirs.
“Marching From Lowell [Ariz.], Deportation of I.W.W.s, July 12, 1917."
“July 12, 1917, Deportation of I.W.W.s, Marching Down R.R. Track from Bisbee."
“Deportation of I.W.W.s, July 12, 1917, Guards around Ballpark at Warren."
“Deportation of I.W.W.s, July 12, 1917, Marching Men to Train from Warren Ballpark."
Have moved from sadness about the November 5 result to frustration and now anger.
Besides acting as a windfall for the privatized segment of our mass incarceration system, mass deportations will offer plenty of opportunities for bribery, blackmail, denunciation, vigilantism, even enslavement.
My mother has been watching her church service online so she can hear it. That means I hear parts too. And I can see what’s happening on the desktop I’m streaming to the TV with. Different vibe today. Pastor began by inviting people to settle, to be present, to allow themselves to have their feelings. I also saw more people in attendance than is often the case. The service emphasized themes such as inclusion, compassion, and justice, the last term describing something very different from the hypocritical, moralizing, vengeful God that I despised and rejected in my youth. If I had a religious bone left in my body, this place could be one point of connection with the local community.