Tuesday, September 16, 2008

When we all lose our home,

will we call the shanty towns we live in Bush Towns or W villes?

September 16 1498 -
Tomas de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, dies in Avila, Spain. More than 2,000 heretics were burned to death and 9,654 otherwise tortured under his aegis before all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada's tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.

The Inquisition (What a show)
The Inquisition (Here we go)
We know you're wishing that we'd go away ...

September 16 1920 -


A horse-drawn carriage loaded with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan & Company headquarters at 23 Wall Street in New York's financial district, on this date. Thirty Americans were killed in the blast. More than 400 were injured.

Although the crime was never solved, it was believed to have been the work of the Anarchists, angry internationalists who believed the only good institutions were smoldering ruins. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz had assassinated President McKinley two decades earlier, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo—an assassination that caused Teddy Roosevelt and the bully pulpit.

(Despite similarities in spelling, Anarchists should not be confused with Antichrists, Arachnids, or Pimentos.)



It was perhaps no accident that the Morgan bombing took place on the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's departure from England. Passengers were mostly members of a separatist Protestant congregation separating from the Church of England (Puritan Bastards). They were from the English Midlands. They had gone at first to a village near Amsterdam, lived in Holland for ten years (generally bringing everybody down) and then decided to start their own society from scratch. They had two boats for the trip across the Atlantic: the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell was leaky, and they spent time trying to repair it.

So when they finally set sail on September 16, they were way behind schedule. The journey took 66 days. It was rainy, it was cold, and the ocean was rough (They loved it). The boat was 90 feet long and carried 102 passengers. There were no separate cabins. They all had to live in the cargo area. But the Mayflower had previously been used to transport wine, and so the hold smelled wonderful (They hated it).

The Mayflower (and the Speedwell) carried its cargo of Puritan Bastards ("Pilgrims") to Massachusetts, where they became the first tourists in history to visit Plymouth Rock.

Anarchists hate tourists.

September 16 1968 -
Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon appears on the NBC comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and asks "'Sock it to me'?"



And so it goes

No comments: