David Neagle 2024 Oct 27
David Neagle was one heck of a guy. Raised amidst the California Gold Rush, he was a gunslinger and prospector and saloon owner and mining foreman and marshal and bodyguard and when he was arrested, his case went all the way to the US Supreme Court where a precedent-setting ruling is now named after him. He was deputized as sheriff in the town of Tombstone, Arizona and worked alongside the Earps keeping the law, but most interesting of all is his involvement with Justices David S. Terry and Stephen J. Field.

David S. Terry was a monumental asshole who somehow became one of California's earlier state supreme court Chief Justices (voted in during a special election). Although when his pro-Southern Slave State politics failed to earn him re-election he blamed his good friend the free-soil Senator from California David Broderick, and then resigned his place on the bench to kill Broderick in a duel. A generally violent man, Terry was known for threatening people with a bowie knife he kept on his person. After a stint fighting in the Civil War (on the wrong side) he returned to California as a lawyer and represented in court a woman named Sarah Althea Hill against her former lover, William Sharon.

William Sharon was another monumental asshole (perhaps even a bigger asshole than Terry) who was a banker and also briefly the Senator from Nevada (although he rarely showed up to do anything). Sharon used his position as bank agent among the Comstock Lode prospectors to control their operations, loaning them money only to starve them out and forcing them into bankruptcy so that the bank could foreclose on the mineral rights. He also swindled his business partner William Ralston out of his fortune. The part relevant to this story, however, is that Sharon kept Sarah Althea Hill as a mistress.

Until he got bored of her, that is. Hill was significantly younger than him and something of a firecracker, having a reputation for threatening those who crossed her with a Colt revolver she kept in her purse. And so when Sharon dumped her, she filed a lawsuit claiming that he actually couldn't do that because they were secretly married.

And in that lawsuit she was represented by David S. Terry, the first asshole. Although Terry and Hill weren't just working together, they were also sleeping together, and soon got married.

Stephen J. Field was also a judge and also something of an asshole, although more known for being rude than for threatening people with knives of swindling them of their fortune. He was one of the judges in the Circuit Court that heard Hill's case, and the one who spoke the ruling that Hill's documents were forgeries. She did not care for this ruling, and screamed and reached for her gun. The marshals subdued her, and lawyer/husband Terry sprung to her defense with his bowie knife. David Neagle was there, however, shoving his gun in Terry's face and arresting the pair of them for contempt of court.

When Judge Field returned to California the next year, Neagle was assigned to protect him. Which proved fortuitous, as Field and Terry (along with Hill and Neagle) had the misfortune of catching the same train from LA to SF. When the inevitable happened and Terry confronted Field, presumably with some violent intent, Neagle proved himself once again quicker on the draw, shooting Terry in the heart and ear, killing him.

It was this act of self-defense which landed Neagle in jail, as prior to this instance what Neagle did was not technically legal. But to nobody's surprise, when Neagle's case reached the Supreme Court, the judges were happy to rule that someone like Neagle defending their lives was, in fact, quite legal actually thank you very much, even though Field himself recused himself from the vote.

Neagle's reputation now well-cemented, his later years were spent as a bodyguard for hire, working for various wealthy and powerful men. He finally passed away in 1925, at 78 years old in Oakland.

New Mexico is not named after the country of Mexico 2024 Oct 27
They probably teach you this if you go to school in New Mexico, but somehow this information is new to me. "New Mexico" predates the country of Mexico by several hundred years.

New Mexico received its name long before the present-day country of Mexico won independence from Spain and adopted that name in 1821. The name "Mexico" derives from Nahuatl and originally referred to the heartland of the Mexica, the rulers of the Aztec Empire, in the Valley of Mexico. Following their conquest of the Aztecs in the early 16th century, the Spanish began exploring what is now the Southwestern United States calling it Nuevo México. In 1581, the Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande San Felipe del Nuevo México. The Spaniards had hoped to find wealthy indigenous cultures similar to the Mexica. The indigenous cultures of New Mexico, however, proved to be unrelated to the Mexica and lacking in riches, but the name persisted.

Why was there a bucatini shortage in America? 2024 Oct 27
What even is a bucatini? (It's a pasta in the shape of a straw.) Why was there a shortage during 2020? (All pasta was running out, and bucatini is both more involved to make and under less demand.) Why am I linking this article now? (Because it's writing is amazing.)

Why are clocks in India thirty minutes off? 2024 Oct 25
Non-integer timezones aren't unheard of, but all of India being on India Standard Time five-and-a-half hours ahead of UTC is certainly the largest example. How this happened is steeped, apparently, in the history of Britain's colonial past, the East India Company which dominated affairs on the subcontinent during the dawn of timezones, and the railroads which dominated affairs in the East India Company's administration. Why India has stayed on this unusual timezone, well, that's because it's become something of a national pride. There was a proposal recently to add a second timezone to India, however. It stemmed from those in India's far east having clocks that don't closely match the rise and fall of the sun. The proposed solution was to introduce a second timezone which was UTC+6.5.

It was shot down for "strategic reasons."

Is Trump a Fascist? 2024 Oct 25
Yes.

But Dr. Bret Devereaux (a history professor) over at ACOUP wanted to be a little more academic about the question, so he brought in Merriam-Webster's and Umberto Eco's definitions of fascism and compared them against what Trump has done and said. The Professor's conclusion: Yes, Trump is a fascist.

I love Devereaux's writing in general, and this piece in particular. It's his closing remarks urging people to not vote for Trump (a rare blatant political opinion from a Military History blog) I find the most worth echoing here:

For conservatives, appalled by what your party has become, I understand if you cannot vote for Kamala Harris, with whom you disagree so strongly, though I would note fellow citizens every bit as conservative as you have found it in them to do so simply to take a stand against what Trump has become and while Trump has promised to use the military against his political opponents, Harris has promised to put Republicans in her cabinet. But if you absolutely cannot stand to vote for a Democrat, write in a name, leave the top of the ballot blank. But do not sign your name to this.

Because from this point forward, you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know. And while right now you may have many reasons and many concerns, if you sign your name to this fascist and a fascist government takes power as a result…your many reasons will no longer matter. No one really cares what Franz von Papen or Victor Emmanuel III or NSDAP or Blocco Nazionale voters were concerned about or their pet issues. Once a fascist government took power…they were fascists.

Lebenskünstler 2024 Oct 25
A Flickr contact of mine has his job description listed as Lebenskünstler which my extremely rudimentary German was enough that I saw "life" and "art" in there, but could make no more sense of the word. Internet translation automata rendered it in English as bon vivant. Which... believe it or not, is actually French, not English. And is also a phrase I cannot define. M-W to the rescue:

In French, the phrase literally means “good liver.” ... a bon vivant is one who lives well. English speakers have used bon vivant since the late 17th century to refer specifically to those who subscribe to a particular kind of good living—one that involves lots of social engagements and the enjoyment of fancy food and drink.

But I also found the linked blog post, which disagrees with that translation of Lebenskünstler. It is an article specifically about the inherent difficulty in translating Lebenskünstler into English, quoting the juicy bit here:

A Lebenskünstler is a person that manages to deal with problems in life in a positive and artful way. They have mastered the Lebenskunst (art of living). This is a very philosophical term, which was already developed in Roman times (ars vivendi in Latin). But in short, it means that by self-awareness and self-reflection, you manage to understand yourself and manage with any and every situation in life.

Is there no English word for that? The author suggests hedonism, a word coming from the Greek word for pleasure, but which now fully means "self-indulgent." Hedonism carries too much negative connotation for me to accept it as a translation for Lebenskünstler.

We strike gold in the article's comments, though, where someone attempts the word Pollyanna. Yet another word I don't know the meaning of. Resorting once again to M-W, a Pollyanna is "a person characterized by irrepressible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything." This word comes from the title character of a 1913 children's book. From Wikipedia:

Pollyanna's philosophy of life centers on what she calls "The Glad Game", an optimistic and positive attitude she learned from her father. The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how bleak it may be.

Curiously, the dictionary always capitalizes Pollyanna but Wikipedia does not. A mark of this word's recent entry into our language, perhaps.

This comment is meandering enough already, but I feel compelled to also throw into the mix the word epicurean, not as a translation of lebenskünstler, but as a properly English alternative to bon vivant. Coming from the philosophy of Epicurus, the word has drifted over the years (and lost its capitalization) to now have the definition: "one with sensitive and discriminating tastes especially in food or wine."

The word epicure is currently associated with indulging the appetite, but that is a long way from the teachings of the man to whom we owe the word. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus taught a philosophy of simple pleasure, friendship, and a secluded life. He believed in the pursuit of pleasure, but pleasure for him equated with tranquility and freedom from pain—not the indulgence of the senses. However, detractors of Epicurus in his own time and later reduced his notions of pleasure to material and sensual gratification. When epicure entered English in the 16th century, the philosophy of Epicurus had been trivialized, and so the word became synonymous with “hedonist.” Later use carried the notion of refinement of palate that we see in the word today.

Relating all this above language trivia will be sure to make you an instant hit at parties and soirées. Indulge me one last excerpt:

As is typical for words that have been borrowed from modern French, soiree in English signifies the fancy version of a simple “party”: an evening event that is formal or refined in some way.

Memes of our Forefathers: The College Widow 2024 Oct 23
While browsing the Etymology Dictionary, as one does, at the end of the entry for college comes the note "College-widow is attested by 1878." What the heck is a college-widow?

Enter Sadie Stein on this The Paris Review article:

Now, there’s a term you don’t hear anymore! The “college widow”! Once a byword for a predatory vamp, the college widow is an extinct American species.

I’ve read various definitions of the college-widow meme, which appears regularly in books and films from the first half of the twentieth century, and was de rigueur in any discussion of campus life. In some cases, these characters were portrayed as literal widows—young women who’d known the marriage bed and were hungry for young collegiate flesh. But more often, the term seems to have applied to a townie—or grad; at any rate, a woman hanging around—who dated men in successive senior classes, and were subsequently “widowed” with each passing graduation.

The rest of the article is worth reading, too, especially this pull from the now-defunct blog Paper Pop:

Filmmakers had to assure us that our heroes were healthy, red-blooded American men, who would never resort to all that Brideshead Revisited stuff that was rumored to go on at many an all-male campus. Obviously in the 1910s–1940s (the heyday of this trope), prostitution couldn’t be depicted on screen, so our protagonists couldn’t get their kicks that way. Once the Hays Code came into effect, adulterers must be punished. And for a hero to seduce an unmarried young woman would be caddish. So the college widow served as an effective outlet for all of our heroes’ wants and needs (and those of the writer): it proved the protagonist was straight, sexually desirous and desirable, and yet still a gentleman. Of course, the trope began to be played for laughs even more often than it was played straight, in movies like Horse Feathers [Marx Brothers' parody of this meme]. With the rise of co-education and the fall of the production code, the college widow found herself expelled from campus in favor of flirtatious co-eds.

I should've known sexism was involved.

Lucius Felimus 2024 Oct 22
Hard to tell where the 3D renders stop and the cyberpunk renditions of Manila begin, Lucius Felimus's website offers a breathtaking smorgasbord of neon scenery that skews heavily into high tech low life.

Office Space: An Oral History 2024 Oct 22
This is a 2019 article which tracks down and interviews dozens of people who helped create "Office Space", the 1999 Mike Judge cult classic about the absurdity of cubicle life. I've seen the movie a lot. So nostalgia like this is interesting, to learn what the creators were doing and why they were doing it, long since freed from having to promote the movie and sing only its praises.

Ctrl-F in Outlook is "Forward" instead of "Find" because of Bill Gates 2024 Oct 22
Literally. Ctrl-F in Outlook is broken because billg himself told them to do it this way.