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The serendipity of historical research is always something that just sort of takes my breath away.
You can be systematic as all hell, make notes to yourself, check and double check, and do all that kind of stuff, but so many times the important piece of the puzzle comes from an unexpected place.
Tonight, I opened my RSS reader for the first time in months to clear out things out and, as I clicked on to the feed for the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, the first item that pops up—one that was added less than three hours earlier, is this:
Temperance and the shaping of American culture (book reviews)
Ryan Mcilhenny, books reviews of Scott Martin, Devil of the Domestic Sphere: Temperance, Gender, and Middle-Class Ideology, 1800-1860 and Izumi Ishii, Bad Fruits of the Civilized Tree: Alcohol and the Sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation in Journal of the Early Republic 29 (Spring, 2009):160-164. McIlhenny is an assistant professor of history at Providence Christian College (Ontario, California).
The first title sounds like it frames and provides a preface for my dissertation while the second is a new book that I need to come to terms with and, in part, because I'm likely going to need to challenge some of its conclusions.
Weird.Current Mood:  listless |
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From the 11 September 1884 Union Signal:
Mrs. Hobart, president of the Minnesota W. C. T. U. keeps the crusade fires stil burning. She leads a holy war for the children's sake, against drunken public school teachers and officials. All honor to these mothers of the republic who watch and gurad [sic] its highest interests Current Music: Travel - Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down |
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Music
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Nov. 14th, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
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A friend of mine blogs about a variety of things that are often very intellectual (that's a oblique way of saying that they are waaay over my head). But she also always keys her blog entries to lyrics in a song and includes the name of the song and the band somewhere in the tags.
What I have found over the last year or so is that her musical tastes are largely in genres that I have either not explored or shunned. Yet she has exquisite taste and I've found that she is a pretty good guide when it comes to expanding my musical horizons (thanks also go to the Seattle Public Library and whomever is behind its musical acquisitions).
Although I don't think she ever visits here, thanks KT.Current Mood:  tired Current Music: Space Warrior - Smith N Hack |
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Notes from The Union Sgnal, the WCTU's "official organ."
January 11, 1883, p. 9
Under the heading 'SIgnal Notes"
A Philadelphia paper thinks that laws which forbid adulteration of food and drink ought also to forbid pollution of the atmosphere with smoke from burning tobacco.
Yes, it seems people worried about second-hand smoke even then.
That negro is to be commended who, being called a coward for running away from danger, replied, 'I'd rather be a coward all my life than a corpse ten minutes.'
I'd say he's got a point there.
In California all saloons are kept open Sunday, and saloon-keepers regard the Sabbath, from a business point of view, as better than any two work days. There are 8,568 saloons in that state or about one to every ninety-nine persons, including men, women, children, and Chinese, and one to every fifteen voters. Nearly 6,000 votes were cast for the State Prohibition ticket last fall.
Well, what? You want them to drink on the job? But it is nice to see the Chinese counted as people.
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Sometimes I do wonder....
—Where these electrons are flashing off to. Are they going anywhere? Are they going everywhere? Is there a kind of electronic purgatory?
—What would have happened had I turned left or kept straight ahead at that turning point back there? I didn't have to end up here, but here I am. Now what?
—Who are you? Or is that just a lyric from some forgotten song?
There's more—there's always more—but that's enough for today.Current Mood: blah |
| » I'd forgotten: Seattle is trying to kill me |
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So much had been going on of late that I had forgotten—or, at least, ignored—the fact that Seattle wants me dead.
Those who have read my blog off and on over the years know that, at various times, the drivers in Seattle have tried to run me down. In two instances, it was so close I came into contact with the cars. Tonight that number ratchets up to three.
Tonight, on the way home from helping colleagues celebrate the completion of their written exams, I walked out of the bar, down a few steps to the corner and waited patiently until the light turned green and I got the little green walking man signal. I'd noticed that there was a car opposite waiting to make a left, but I saw him and, as I was standing under a flipping streetlight, I figured he saw me.
No.
As the light turned green, I stepped off the sidewalk and proceeded across the street in the crosswalk. The driver of the car hesitated a moment and then gunned it—it was if he hadn't realized the light had turned green and he didn't want to miss it.
I saw him coming and jumped back. He saw me in the crosswalk and slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop three-fourths of the way across the crosswalk and a few inches from my knees.
I did not react well.
I slammed my hand down on the hood of his car (it was an older black Honda Prelude), pointed my finger at the driver and screamed "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Then, in case he hadn't heard me the first time, I repeated myself, only a little louder.
He looked young, Asian, and completely stupid.
I should note that each of the three times I have come this close to injury or death I have been in a crosswalk at a controlled intersection, received the walk signal and was nearly hit by someone in a hurry to complete a left turn.
Fucking Seattle drivers.
Oct. 23rd, 2009 @ 07:27 pm
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| » Old farts on wheels |
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I'm sitting at the Tully's coffee house in Ketchum, Idaho, doing some contract work. I've got a window seat and I'm watching the late summer sunshine scurry away behind thickening clouds and a freshening breeze.
Just a moment ago I looked up to see a gentleman—probably in his 70s and decked out in orange shorts, sunglasses, and ankle and elbow guards—skate up, hop the curb, and pirouette gracefully, fluidly into one of the seat outside.
Wow.
Sep. 7th, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
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| » Lockout |
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Have you ever wondered what would happen if the battery died on your car remote? You know that little electronic device that lets you in and out of your car and sets the alarm and the security system that pretty much makes the car un-driveable if you can't disarm it?
I found out tonight.
First off, you can unlock the door with the key. That's the good news.
The bad news is that opening the door sets off the alarm.
The more bad news is that, if your car alarm is like mine, it has an ignition cut-out switch so that even putting the key in the ignition neither disarms the alarm nor starts the car.
So what do you do?
If you're me, you head home because you have another working (you hope) remote there. And, if you are in a hurry, you decide to run home, even if you are just wearing an ancient pair of Tevas.
Surprisingly, it is possible to run distance in Tevas (well, if your idea of distance is 1.4 miles) but you cannot do it quietly. Tevas make a lot of noise as they slap on the ground—almost enough to drown out my gasping for air.
Oh, did I mention that it was dark and I was wearing wet shorts because I had just spend a couple hours practicing kayak rescues with a couple of friends?
Anyway that's what I did tonight (and, once I got the working remote, I changed shoes and ran back).
Tomorrow I go get a new battery for the remote.
Sep. 3rd, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
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| » DBAD |
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DBAD
(Thanks, Nora, thanks Nikki.)
Aug. 12th, 2009 @ 07:25 am
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| » Cleaning up Seattle: Referendum 1 |
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My friend Scott, recently posted a copy of The Stranger's (Seattle leading alternative press) endorsement of Referendum 1, a measure that would push Seattle citizens to reduce their use of disposable shopping bags (paper or plastic) by implementing a 20-cent fee. The idea is to encourage people to start using reusable bags (something I've been doing for about two years now).
This is a good idea and I spent a bit of energy and time expounding on that on Scott's blog. Since I don't think many of my friends read his blog, I thought I'd just re-post those comments here, especially for people who might be convinced by the slick ad campaign being waged by the (can you believe this?) the plastics industry and a handful of retailers:
This is such a no-brainer.
What I like is that one Seattle food bank has opposed the measure because it doesn’t want to charge the homeless 20-cents per bag for their free food. Oh. Wait, food banks ARE NOT among the businesses that have to comply, the fee will only apply to “all grocery stores, drug stores, and convenience stores.” Under the system used in the law (the North American Industry Classification System), food banks are classed as—are you ready for this?—”community food services.” They are not “grocery stores, drug stores,” or “convenience stores.”
There are other provisions in the law that reduce the impact on the poor and will even provide relief to food banks that may face a shortage of plastic bags as the supply of donated bags dwindles.
By the way, the measure represents an estimated $2.6 million annual savings for the city through avoiding collecting and disposing of the 350 million disposable bags its citizens use each year. Estimates for the amount of revenue generated by the fee are, as the ballot says, “highly uncertain” but could bring in as much as $3.3 million that would then be spent on further reducing the amount of crap Seattleites put in the landfill every day. (That landfill, by the way, is in Oregon.)
Like I said, this measure really is a no-brainer for anyone who takes time to read it and who really wants to contribute to a slightly cleaner and better world.
Aug. 7th, 2009 @ 08:22 am
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| » Here's to Sonia! May she be the wisest latina in all the land! |
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I'm not sure she's my justice—she really has not distinguished herself as an activist judge and her position on choice and gay marriage are unclear and potentially more conservative than I would like. But, all that said, there is no question she is supremely qualified for the high court—definitely more qualified than Clarence Thomas was when he was nominated or Souter when he was nominated.
Those Republicans who questioned her integrity and her qualifications (oops, actually few people challenged her qualifications because, weel, she's qualified) are hypocrites who held her to a higher standard (because of her color and gender) than the white men that were appointed (Alito and Roberts) under the last regime.
“Judge Sotomayor’s career and judicial record demonstrates that she has always followed the rule of law,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday. “Attempts at distorting that record by suggesting that her ethnicity or heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court are demeaning to women and all communities of color.”
Senate Approves Sotomayor to Supreme Court - NYTimes.com
Aug. 6th, 2009 @ 08:08 pm
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| » The Way We Never Were |
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I'm using a chapter of Stephanie Coontz's The Way We Never Were: America's Families and the Nostalgia Trap in the course I'm teaching this summer. It's a chapter that talks about the ways in which American society has distorted and mis-remembered what family life and the status of women was really like in the 1950s.
In it, she notes:
"Family and gender strategies also contained some time bombs. Women who 'played dumb' to catch a man, as 40 percent of Barnard College women admitted to doing, sometimes despised their husbands for not living up to the fiction of male superiority they had worked so hard to promote."
Aug. 3rd, 2009 @ 08:47 pm
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| » Birthers unite! |
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There's been a lot of hullabaloo over a recent survey that shows that only a minority of Republicans believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. The remaining Republicans either say that Obama was not born in the United States or that they were unsure whether he was or not.
Now a lot of columnists and pundits are going nuts over this primarily because, first there is overwhelming evidence that proves that Obama was born in Hawaii. Not only was his birth recorded by the state, but two newspapers published his birth announcement shortly after he was born. This is the kind of evidence that is pretty hard to fake. Well, actually, it would be virtually impossible to fake. Second, one of the reason there is so much confusion about this is because conservative celebrities like Rush Limbaugh are lying to their listeners. Limbaugh knows that Obama has produced his birth certificate. Limbaugh knows that state of Hawaii has confirmed its authenticity at least a few times. And Limbaugh knows that Obama's birht was announced in two newspapers published well over 40 years ago. But he lies and people seem to believe him.
But I want to offer another, less sinister explanation.
I don't think these Republican doubters are being malicious, I think they are just being honest. You see, the question doesn't ask them if they believe Obama was born in Hawaii. They all know that, everybody knows that (even Rush Limbaugh). But the question they answered asks if they believe Obama was born in the United States. The problem is, they don't know that Hawaii is part of the United States or they're not sure. And not to stereotype anyone, but those who responded they doubted that Obama was born in the US are not coming from the smartest part of the Union: They're predominantly from the South, almost all of them are white, and most of those folks are still fighting the Civil War. They are not exactly the brightest bulbs in the garden, if you know what I mean.
Jul. 31st, 2009 @ 11:46 pm
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| » What? My stuff isn't good enough for you? |
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OK, I have been overtaken by another of those random things that only seem to happen to me.
This evening I went down to my storage unit in the bottom of my building to retrieve a few things. The storage unit is behind a locked door that, supposedly, only tenants have a key to, and then you can put a padlock on your unit (which everyone does).
So I open the locked door, walk up to my unit, put my key in the padlock and, before I can turn it, the lock comes apart.
I look at it and discover that someone has cut the lock with a pair of bolt cutters—and then had carefully re-positioned it so it didn't look like anything was wrong.
I have a lot miscellaneous stuff in my storage unit: old tax records, lots of camping and paddling gear, some wine, bunches of empty boxes, and, currently a lot of scrap wood waiting to be made into shelves.
As I open the door, I winder what I'll find missing.
Creak, snap (that's the light).
I look around and, as best I can tell nothing is missing. In fact, although I can't be sure, it doesn't even look like anything has been moved.
I step out, and look at the looks on all the other storage units—some are far flimsier than mine—and none of them show any evidence of tampering.
I remain perplexed and puzzled. Why cut a lock off if you are not going to take anything? And, if you're cutting locks, why not cut a few others? And, oh yeah, are you one of my neighbors?
Jul. 28th, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
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| » Meltdown! |
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So, here's a new one: What do you do when it's so hot in your apartment—or even outside on the balcony—that your computer overheats and starts acting wonky??
Do you:
A) Place it atop a frozen gel pack?
B) Position the dual fan laptop cooling pad over the keyboard?
C) Shut the poor thing down and go out on the balcony to drink cold beer and grade midterms?
D) All of the above?
If you answered D, you may not be correct but you would have done exactly what I have done.
BTW, A and B, used together can drop a CPU temperature 40-50 degrees in 10 minutes or less.
Jul. 28th, 2009 @ 08:12 pm
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| » A Simple Hookup |
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Well, circa, 1926. The language has changed a bit since then (or maybe not?).
Jul. 21st, 2009 @ 09:34 pm
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| » Humor from the 1920s |
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These come out a book—Allen Churchill's The Year the World Went Mad (which happens to be 1927):
Mother: Aren't you ashamed of yourself for wearing so little clothing to a party?
Flapper: Goodness no, mother. If I were ashamed of myself I wouldn't wear so little clothing to a party.
—from College Humor
He: What happened to your stenographer?
Him: She left—she caught me kissing my wife.
—from Judge
Sheik: Has Tom learned to play the saxophone yet?
Sheba: It's hard to tell.
—from Life
1st Flapper: The boy I'm going with now thinks of nothing but necking.
2nd Flapper: What can you do with a fellow like that?
1st Flapper: Neck.
—from College Humor
Chuck: I thought you promised to save me some of the hooch you had.
Wally: I tried to, but it ate holes through everything and I finally had to drink it.
—from College Humor
Bystander: Good heavens, you shot the wrong man.
Chicagoan: What of it?
—from Judge
Show girl: For heaven's sake, stop showing your ignorance.
Chorus girl: My God, I knew I should have worn a petticoat!
—from Judge
Jul. 16th, 2009 @ 07:39 pm
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| » Fuck |
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Fuck
Originally uploaded by sassy_k.
I must pass this on...before...I...die...... ;)
Jul. 14th, 2009 @ 05:51 pm
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| » Death in the Afternoon |
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Alas, my poor hard drive, I knew him well.....
Jun. 22nd, 2009 @ 03:55 pm
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