And you wonder how these words are smithied?

Ever wonder how the word "Gerrymander" came about? Here's how.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Origins of Gerrymander, at Summer and Arch

By Michael LevensonGlobe Staff

"Even in a city that loves history, this marker stands out. It does not honor the home of a fiery colonial preacher, ancient burial ground, or beloved 19th century brewery.

It commemorates a less exalted -- and often vilified -- milestone: In 1812, on the corner of Summer and Arch streets, Governor Elbridge Gerry and State Senator Israel Thorndike drew legislative districts -- one shaped like a salamander -- designed to keep their Republican friends in power.

Gerrymandering was born...."

And you thought the Karl Rove was naughty!

Eurotrashy Shite

Here's something I put together from old video files I took with my malenky digital camera from The Bwanasphere Euro Tour 2005. I only did it to annoy Bwana Jr and to remember how to do this shite so I could put up all my shitty files I'll be making in Spain this summer.

THAT will be TRULY EXCRUCIATING.

No sooner had I posted this, then I was shared this from the UK to shut me the feck up.





Not to feel too pleased with myself, my very first posts to YouTube yielded this response in Dundee...

THIS JUST IN -----

Police: Man stole 1,500 pairs of shoes

May 29, 2007

WAUKESHA, Wis. --Police seized more than 1,500 pairs of girls' shoes from the home and storage unit of a man arrested for breaking into a high school, police said Tuesday. "He liked to smell them," said Lt. William H. Graham.

Hugo Chavez Reinvents National Kinda Socialism

Hugo Chavez, who many of us found to be a whole lot of fun when it came to his crazed Bush Bashing, has ceased to be funny anymore. After trying to force out every foreign oil company from Venezuela, now he's decided that these matters and others should no longer be discussed outside government monitored media.

In other words, free speech is gonzo.

I guess this just indicates what a loon the man has become. Showing up randomly in other Latin American countries to lead demo-extravaganzas funded by Citgo is another worry for the region.

We Bahstonians all kinda liked the guy because he put some money into the old Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, sold heating oil dirt-cheap to Joe Kennedy's not-for-profit home heating oil company strictly for the poor and aged of the region ... and 'cause he just pissed off Bush so well.

Now, he's getting kinda spikey. And Bush just doesn't need to be presented with yet another "Evil-Doer" to fack with. Next thing you know, Chaney will order the invasion of Caracas with airborne postal workers.

2800 Sausages To GO, Please!

An 11-year-old kid from Alabama with a target pistol, a full clip and 3 hours to kill, chased a wild boar through the brush firing 8 times (apparently 9 is the charm with a .22 pistol, I guess) until the hog finally dropped.

It weighed in at an incredible 1049 lbs. It measured 9' 4" from the tip of it's snout to the end of its...whatever.

I would hate to see what this kid does in a fair fight.

A Guy Who Carried Lincoln

This guy is Bwana Jr.'s Great-Great-Grandfather.

His name was Johnson.

He was in the Civil War, in the Union Army.

He was in Ford's Theater the night Lincoln was shot.

He helped carry Lincoln to the hotel across the street.

He got blood all over him, and the handbill from that night's performance.

This is it.

Babylon Sister ... Shake it.

The Babylonians were the first to record philosophy in writing. There is a 5,000 + year old clay table that reads:

“We are doomed to die; let us spend”

Which Means:

“We are doomed to die; let us spend”

Strangely, this school of thought still obtains...my wife is a disciple.

BA-doom.

Boston Pops One in Yer Eye

Looks like there's beanpots full o' fun going on at Boston's Symphony Hall. Apparently, a couple of liquored-up fans got into it in the balcony of the venerable music hall during last nights performance by the Boston Pops with Musical Guest performer Ben Folds.

Seems shirts were torn off, chairs were flying and ladies were screaming ... more like the cheap seats at Fenway during a Sox-Yanks series.

Groovy conductor Keith Lockhart stopped the music while the melee ensued. Both gentlemen were ejected from the game, though no charges were brought.

(Surprise! I poked an attorney in the face once, and the COPS pressed the charges!)

Sounds like it was a middle-aged hissy fit against a younger fella.

I'll give you the BAHSTON GLOBULE'S la-dee-da, pukka version,
and then the grittier BAHSTON HERALDO's in-yer-face-ya-rich-bastid line.
They definitely have the better headline.

Countdown to Ecstasy

What will Tony-Baloney Blair be doing in his office for the next few weeks, now that he'll be resigning as Labor Party Leader?










Will he:

1. Put his feet up on the desk?


2. Wait for George Dubya Bush to call, take it, and tell him to feck off?


3. Drunk dial Alan Cameron and call him a Nancy-Boy?


4. Become a Catholic?


5. Become a flagellant? Is this the same thing as above?


6. Tell his wifey to shut plug her pie-hole until he's clear of 10 Downing?

There are SO many things to choose from. Let's hope Tony enjoys his retirement.

Me Hero

Quote of the Day:

"Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,- what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! "

Wampanoag Whoopie!

Looks like some dreams will be coming through for the Wampanoag Tribe here in Massachusetts. On traditional Mashpee land, a new card casino may soon rise. That will mean all us pale faces can gleefully lose our doe to the folks who originally lived here, and who have put up with us for so long.

I plan to get there when it opens, find my pal Tracy (he be a Wampanoag, lives in Mashpee, and I KNOW will be at the door), and plunk down some dumb money.

And yeah, I want to LOSE the first hand. Just for principle's sake.

The Mountain Meadow Massacre

So, yesterday during dead air time I watched Frontline's "The Mormons" Part I on-line. Interesting way to watch a documentary ... pausing whenever you feel like it. It takes some of the drum roll out of the mood .... or that one LOOOOOOONG minor chord they play for 'drama' so that you hold your breath.

Anyhoo (who dies when you use that word?), I was impressed with the gentleness the filmmaker displayed detailing the Mormons' spiritual birth and migration West, and how even handed they were with that history, allowing Mormon scholars to outline the why and wherefore of events from the Mormon perspective. And explaining how they were hounded out of every state until they left the US and entered Mexican territory.

Et cetera, ad nauseum. Then suddenly, something that I had never heard about before! The Mountain Meadow Massacre. I thought myself fairly knowledgeable on the Mormons, but this one came as an utter surprise. It suddenly made sense to me why Zane Grey's Rider of the Purple Sage western adventure stories depicted evil old Mormon men holding women hostage in Utah Badlands, in cahoots with the Mexican Imperial factions.

SO why did the Mormons go nuts and kill 160+ men, women and children from Arkansas? Payback? There were some bad days in Missouri and Arkansas for the Mormons as they moved West. Self defense? No, the Arkansans were unarmed at the time --- they were tricked into thinking that the local Indians were going to attack, and the Mormons told them that if they left all their things and guns behind, and just walked out of their encampment, they would be safe. That's when the Mormons shot them all, except for kids under the age of 8, who according to the Mormon dogma, did not have fully formed souls yet, so were "untainted". They were adopted by Mormon families.

No, it was pure terrorism. The US Army was on the way to 'enforce law and order' in the Utah territory after Washington obtained the Mexican Territories. They wanted to send a message to Washington that they were not to be effed with anymore.

Unfortunately, the Arkansans were in the wrong place at the right time.

Well, to add more juice the mix, there's a feature film coming out this year about The Massacre called "September Dawn".

How ironic it happened on September 11, 1857.

Melville Moment of the Day

There is a move afoot among a group of 10-year-old Massachusetts kids to make "Moby Dick, or, The Whale" by Herman Melville THE OFFICIAL BOOK OF MASSACHUSETTS. I voted for it, by GAWD!

There were, of course, a few nancy-boys and Clintonistas who insisted that this offical tome be "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott; and while I also laud this book as very important to the psychology of Massachusetts women (big AND little) in my own home, and an important work, I STILL VOTES FOR MOBY DICK.

Louisa May did try to be balanced; remember, she also penned "Little Men", but they were all gay anyway. Also on the list:

• The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne (Nope. It's already a tourist trap in Salem)
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac (a Lowell boy and a bit of a stoner)
• Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McKloskey (Also a Boston Tourist Trap, and an urban myth)

When I suggested that perhaps there was room for an official BOYS book and an official GIRLS book, the shit hit the fan, and I shut my mouth. But Moby Dick still gets my vote, because it is the most ripping Yankee tale told short of The Last of the Mohicans.

You can see I found the e-book version and started reading it again. I, like Melville, was a kid from the New York area that longed to see open water, meet serpent-like monsters of the deep and generally feck-off and run away to the sea.

One other reason it has such importance to me personally: one hot summer when I was a wee lad of 6 or 7 years, I ran with the neighborhood pack of kids, looking for something to do and causing mayhem for the older neighbors. One of these old guys lived next door and decided that "someone should try and occupy these little savages instead of abandoning them to the street." He said this while giving my hard pressed Mom the evil eye. His answer? He would READ to us every morning from 10AM to 12PM, directly after which we were to report to our homes for lunch and a verified hour of PEACE AND QUIET so he could nap. He promised that if we didn't observe this to the letter, he would not read to us AND he would get his gun out.

Seeing as we liked breathing (of COURSE we believed the old fart), and our parents of both native- and newly-immigrated stock saw this as "enriching", we were delivered to the old man's living room promptly one Monday morning, 10AM.

Now the man's name was Mr. Bogey. And yes he was scary as the name implies, being old and cranky but mostly because he talked so funny. That was because he was, " ... a native born MAIN-AH. From DOWN 'EAST." He had the misfortune of having been an attorney in NYC for his business career, and stuck for most of this initial portion of retirement in the Jersey suburbs, at least until his new manse somewhere around Tenant's Harbor was completed. But he was going to drive some 'Cul-chah' into the stoney brains of these neighborhood urchins, by GAWD.

And of course, he had me at "Call me Ishmael ...."

Happy May Day, You Commie Bastids!

This here fella was Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, and in 1896 was the guy who pardoned all the Haymarket Square "Bombers" that were still breathing (4 were hanged), saying their imprisonment and was unconstitutional. Born in Germany, he came to the US at the age of 2, and served in the Civil War on the Union side. Altgeld was a Judge in Chicago, a business leader and Democratic Party dude.

He had also refused to call out the state militia against the Pullman Strikers. The then Attorney General Richard Olney wrote an injunction against the strikers, and demanded that President Cleveland call in the US Army.

As Governor, though he was often accused of using the state militia too often in most labor disputes, Altgeld decided the Pullman Strike was a legitimate action, and stood up to these fat-cats, he ended up being labelled an anarchist and a socialist.

What interests me about this guy was that he started out pretty mainstream and anti labor. But because the White House was determined to get rid of ALL labor organizers, along with any new foreign immigrants (especially Jews ---see the political cartoon below), he became a progressive.

SO ... let's go rock Cheney's limo, and set fire to it. Just for shits and giggles.