Today’s Fun Historical Fact, Week 2

My research for the new series continues….

From Carl Bridenbaugh’s exhaustive (and, at times, exhausting) urban study, Cities In Revolt:  Urban Life in America, 1743-1776 (Oxford University Press, 1971) comes this tidbit:

According to  Bridenbaugh, “The tavern was the most flourishing of all urban institutions” in the mid-eighteenth century.  New York had more taverns and public houses than any other colonial city, reaching a high of 334 in 1752 [roughly one tavern for every 45 people in the city], but that doesn’t mean that the other cities didn’t engage in their fair share of drinking.  In fact, in  1752, the colony of Pennsylvania imported 526,700 gallons of rum and distilled 80,000 more, “and most of this was consumed in or near the city [of Philadelphia].”  A generous estimate of Philadelphia’s population at the time would come in at around 20,000 people, and even if we assume that only half that rum remained in the city, that puts the annual consumption at about 15 gallons for every man, woman, and child.  That’s a lot of daiquiris….

Today’s Fun Historical Fact

These days I’m steeped in research for the new historical fantasy project, so I thought I’d share with you my “Fun Historical Fact of the Day”.  Under the heading of “This Sounds Familiar…”:

In the pre-Revolutionary period, the American colonies were eager to be economically secure in their own right, but most of them, particularly Massachusetts, were still tied closely to Great Britain.  So much so, that during the Stamp Act Crisis of the mid 1760s, when they were truly ticked off at the Brits, and went so far as to drink tea out of teapots that read “No Stamp Act!” they had to import said teapots from — you guessed it — England.  Kind of like today, when we talk about how important it is to Buy American, and then we go to rallies and we wave American flags that are made in China.  The more things change, the more they stay the same….

[This tidbit comes from T.H. Breen's The Marketplace of Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2004)]

A Post About Research and Writing

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “Research and the Writer” and it’s about balancing the need to do research for our books and the need simply to write. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a new contest up on my website: http://www.DavidBCoe.com. Visit the site and maybe you’ll win a signed book!

A Holiday For SF/Fantasy Writers!

 For those of you who believe that we don’t have enough holidays on our calendars, authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, who together have created the wonderful Liaden Universe (and the excellent books set therein), have declared June 23rd to be Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day!

Here’s the link to Sharon’s blog explaining a bit about how this declaration of holiday came to pass:  http://rolanni.livejournal.com/439604.html

Personally, I think it’s a great idea and I look forward to celebrating Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day by writing some fantasy, which, I have to admit, is just what I would be doing on a Tuesday in June anyway.  But hey!  Maybe I’ll get some presents….

It’s Too Early to Judge This President

I’m not really in the mood to go off on a political rant, but I will say that these First 100 Day grade reports on the Obama Presidency strike me as utterly ridiculous.  FDR did all Presidents a disservice by introducing the notion of the “First 100  Days” into the political lexicon.  Yes, Roosevelt accomplished a tremendous amount in the first three months of his Presidency.  He also had won an overwhelming election majority and carried with him huge majorities in both the House and Senate.  He didn’t have to deal with the world of 24 hour news channels, and early on he didn’t have to deal with idiots like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (though he did eventually have to cope with Huey Long and Father Coughlin).  And though he did face opposition to some of his programs, the sense of crisis in the nation at that time was so great that he had as much of a legislative free hand as any President in modern history.  No President since has accomplished nearly as much in his first 100 days, and no matter how much Obama has gotten done (and I’d argue that he’s done quite a bit) it will pale in comparison.

That said, the benchmark itself is worthless.  The problems he has faced since taking office were years in the making.  Expecting him to have solved them in three months isn’t realistic.  Yet I heard someone on CNN today lamenting that stimulus spending had yet to pull the nation out of its economic troubles.  It was all I could do to keep from throwing my glass through the screen.

You disagree with his policies?  Fine.  I can understand that.  You don’t expect them to work?   That’s fine, too.  Time will tell.  But declaring his Presidency a failure after 100 days is ludicrous, and judging his Presidency in historical terms when he’s less than a tenth of the way through his first term is a waste of time.

The Nexus of Rights and Reponsibilities: This Week’s BOW Award

Did you know that in Australia voting is compulsory?  That’s right.  It is against the law NOT to vote in Australia.  Those who don’t show up at the polls on election day are asked to explain their absence, and if they can’t give a satisfactory explanation, they can be fined.  Voter participation in Australia is typically above 90%. 

In many third world countries that are taking their first hesitant steps toward some form of democracy, people risk their lives to vote.  Violence against voters is actually quite common throughout the world.  And historically speaking, it has been common in the United States as well.  Election day violence occurred in northern machine cities (like New York, Chicago, and Boston) and southern rural areas alike.  For centuries, in all parts of the world, people have fought and died for the right to vote.

As many of you know, I have a doctorate in American history.  I don’t think it’s possible to study the history of our nation, particularly the founding years (not my specialty, but I loved the period just the same), without coming away with a profound appreciation for the genius of those who conceived our political system.  Was it flawed?  Of course — these men were limited by the prejudices of their time.  But they managed to develop a system that was both strong enough to sustain representative democracy over the centuries and flexible enough to maintain its relevance even as the world changed in ways that none of them (with the possible exception of the brilliant Benjamin Franklin) could have foreseen.

What does any of this have to do with this week’s BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award?  Isn’t it obvious?  I could point out all the stupid, dishonest things done in the name of one candidate or the other over the past week, but really that was nothing new or striking to report.  Same fools doing the same foolish things. 

But as vile as some of the campaign tactics have been recently, the fact remains that we live in a nation that makes all of us the final arbiters of our own political fates.  There’s the old joke — “Everyone always complains about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.”  Well, people in the United States are constantly complaining about their government.  More than eighty per cent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track right now.  And yet even the most optimistic projections put this year’s voter turnout at perhaps 70% of eligible voters.  Historically that would be a great number — higher than any election in the past half century.  And yet, if the projections are correct, nearly a third of American voters will have chosen to stay home.  

So to all those voters who waste their right, their opportunity, their obligation to participate in this week’s election, who through their apathy or laziness or ignorance take this precious gift for granted, this BOW award is for you.  I wish every person in the country would go out and vote for my candidate, but failing that, I just wish every person would go out and vote.  Yes, this all very cliched, and I apologize for that.  But as great as the promise of this nation might be, her chance of realizing that promise is dependent on all of us.  Democracy is more than a collection of rights.  It is, in fact, the nexus of rights and responsibilities.

So go out and vote.

Socialism? I Don’t Think So

The Earned Income Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit that gives money to low income workers.  It is paid for by the taxes paid by higher income earners.  Under John McCain’s definition of such things, it’s socialism.  The EITC was enacted in 1975 under Republican President Gerald Ford and vastly expanded by Ronald Reagan in 1986.  So under John McCain’s definition of such things, Ford and Reagan were socialists.

Our entire system of taxation — the progressive income tax — is based on the notion that those who make the most pay more proportionally than do those at the bottom of the income scale.  This idea was first put forward by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.  He wrote, “It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.” Under John McCain’s definition of such things, Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism, was a socialist.  The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which established the federal income tax, had no greater champion than Theodore Roosevelt, John McCain’s political hero.  Under McCain’s definition of such things, Teddy Roosevelt was a socialist.

McCain’s desperation is understandable at this stage of the campaign, and nothing Sarah Palin does can surprise me anymore.  But their demagoguery on this issue is disgusting.

History

It’s 9:00 Eastern.  Polls are about to close in South Dakota, and within a few minutes, the networks will be able to proclaim Barack Obama the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.  

Yes, I’m an Obama supporter, but this is not about gloating or self-congratulation.  The talking heads on TV often use the phrase “historic moment”.  They use it to talk about baseball games and golf tournaments and, yes, political events.  But this truly is a momentous occasion, one that, quite honestly, I never believed I’d see.  Our nation is only three generations removed from Brown v. Board of Education, two generations removed from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  And as of tonight, we have an African American representing one of our two major political parties.  Remarkable. 

To my many friends (among them my closent friends in my home town and my wife) who supported Hillary Clinton, I’m not going to go through all the “Clinton ran a spirited campaign” and “Clinton has broken down gender barriers” stuff.  She did and she has.  I began the campaign as a Clinton supporter.  But Obama changed my mind.  I feared that he couldn’t win.  He proved he could.  I feared that he wasn’t tough enough.  He proved he was.  I wondered if there was more to him than great speeches.  I believe with all my heart that there is.

I do want to say though, that I feel Senator Clinton was treated terribly by the media throughout the campaign.  She has been on the receiving end of a disgusting and sustained assault from misogynist elements in the press including not only Fox News and the right-wing bloggers, radio hosts, and commentators, but also such “mainstream” media figures as Chris Matthews and the crew at CNN.  They use different language to speak of her campaign — comparing her to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, dissecting her laugh, her tears, her clothing, her figure, her voice, using gender-loaded terms like “shrill” to describe her.  She didn’t lose because of any of this, but she did have to put up with it.  It was shameful and she and her female supporters have every right to be offended.   Further, she was the presumptive nominee, and so the press was looking for a story, trying to figure out who was going to be her main challenger, and when it turned out to be Obama, they gave him a great deal of positive press.  Only when he actually became the frontrunner, did they turn on him, and then they did so with gusto.

I hope, though, that after dealing with their disappointment and taking time to get used to the idea of an Obama candidacy, they will take a close look at the policy positions of Barack Obama and John McCain.  I hope they will think about what a McCain Presidency would mean to the future of the war in Iraq, the composition of the Supreme Court, the state of the economy, the prospects for health care reform, the ballooning of our budget deficit, improvements in public education, and a host of other issues.  The differences between Obama and McCain are far greater than any differences that exist between Obama and Clinton, and when it comes right down to it, these and other issues are what this election ought to be about.

Close Race for this Week’s BOW Award!

Time for this week’s BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award, and I’m happy to report that with the arrival of warmer weather buffoonery appears to be in full bloom across the nation.  Huzzah!

It started early, with something you may have heard about on The Daily Show the other night.  As many of you know, the Republicans lost a special election in Mississippi this past Tuesday, failing to hold a seat that had been in GOP hands for more than a decade in a district that George Bush carried in 2004 by a double digit margin.  This was the third time this spring the Republicans have lost special Congressional elections in strongly red districts (the other two races were in Louisiana and Dennis Hastert’s old district in Illinois).  In the wake of yet another special election disaster, the Republicans decided that they needed to change their image and fast.  So they unveiled a new party slogan:  “The Change You Deserve”  Okay, never mind the ridiculousness of touting yourself as the party of change when you’ve been running the Federal Government for the past seven years.  Turns out the slogan is already taken.  The good people at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals have used that slogan for their powerful prescription anti-depressant, Effexor (TM).  It also turns out that some users of the drug have been experiencing severe and unpleasant side-effects, including nightmares, anxiety, insomnia, and memory loss.  Actually, the GOP’s new slogan might be appropriate after all….

BOW Award Time

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition:  “Buffoon — n  1:  A ludicrous figure; clown.”

I offer the definition because for some weeks the BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award goes to someone (or someones) who is not so much a clown as a insensitive lout or a partisan hack.  And there are examples of this among this week’s nominees. (I should note here that the list of nominees is thinner than usual this week.  Not sure why.)  Certainly I was tempted to give retroactive BOW Awards to George W. Bush and John McCain to commemorate the five year anniversary of Bush’s speech given aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln beneath the now imfamous “MIssion Accomplished” banner, during which he announced that major combat activities in Iraq had ended and that the U.S. and its allies had prevailed.  Of course, the mission has yet to be accomplished and the U.S. has not prevailed, and our world is a more dangerous place because of this Administration’s illegal, immoral, and ill-conceived war.  So why nominate McCain for this?  Because just a month after Bush’s speech on the aircraft carrier, as it began to become clear to people that the mission had not been accomplished after all, McCain said that it had.  Here’s the exchange, in which McCain is challenged on the point by Fox News host Neil Cavuto (I know, I couldn’t believe it either):
NEIL CAVUTO: “Senator — after a conflict means after the conflict, and many argue the conflict isn’t over.

McCAIN: “Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier? Look, the — I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it’s very appropriate.”

Now, of course, McCain claims that he always thought that the banner had been inappropriate, yet another McCain flipflop which is almost cause enough to give him this week’s award.  But there will be no award for Flippy McSame this week.

Back to that definition of “buffoon.”  You want clowns?  I present to you the crew at “Fox and Friends”, Fox’s morning “news” program.  Remember earlier in the week when Hillary Clinton was challenging Barack Obama to a “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate?  This phrase — “Lincoln-Douglas style” refers to a series of seven unmoderated, unscripted debates held between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate race, in which Lincoln, the Republican, lost to Douglas, the Democrat.  The debates are still viewed by historians as a high-point in American political discourse, an example of what might happen when two public servants possessing keen intellects and uncommon speaking talent presented their divergent views on crucial issues of the day, unfiltered.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the idiots at Fox and Friends thought it would be funny to tell one of their interns to dig up video of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  Of course there is no video, and the Fox and Friends anchors yukked it up on TV the other day, at the expense of the hapless intern who didn’t know that the video he was searching for didn’t exist.  (We can save for another day the discussion of what this story says about the way our schools teach history.)  But what happened next is truly remarkable.  The Fox and Friends folks put up a graphic with pictures of Lincoln and Douglas.  Except they didn’t put up a picture of white politician Stephen Douglas.  They put up a picture of former-slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass.  Here they were making fun of their intern for not knowing that there wouldn’t be video of a debate held in 1858, but they didn’t know which Douglas(s) Lincoln debated.  Apparently it never occurred to them that there weren’t any African-Americans, former slaves at that, running for the U.S. Senate two years before the Civil War.   Apparently it never occurred to them that even if a former slave had been running for the U.S. Senate in 1858, he wouldn’t have been running as a Democrat, since at the time the Democratic Party was the pro-slavery party.  The Republicans, of which Lincoln was one, were the abolitionist party.

For managing to screw up so royally, I present this week’s BOW Award to the people at Fox and Friends.  Take a BOW guys; you’ve earned it.  And then I’d suggest you take a quick look at your kids’ sixth grade history textbooks….