March 2011 archive

The AFL-CIO has called for another massive demonstration today in Madison, Wisconsin.

If you’re too far away from Madison to participate in person, please stand in Solidarity with the demonstrators by doing something to show your support.  Buying pizza is always good.  Posting on a blog is good. Organizing your own demonstration is great.  You get the idea.  Let’s do it.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

March 5 is the 64th day of the year (65th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 301 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1770, a mob of angry colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins tossing snowballs and rocks at the lone British soldier guarding the building. The protesters opposed the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament without direct American representation.

The Incident

The event began on King Street, today known as State Street, in the early evening of March 5, in front of Private Hugh White, a British sentry, as he stood duty outside the Custom house. A young wigmaker’s apprentice named Edward Gerrish called out to a British officer, Captain Lieutenant John Goldfinch, that Goldfinch had not paid the bill of Gerrish’s master. Goldfinch had in fact settled his account and ignored the insult. Gerrish departed, but returned a couple of hours later with companions. He continued his complaints, and the civilians began throwing rocks at Goldfinch. Gerrish exchanged insults with Private White, who left his post, challenged the boy, and struck him on the side of the head with a musket. As Gerrish cried in pain, one of his companions, Bartholomew Broaders, began to argue with White. This attracted a larger crowd.

As the evening progressed, the crowd grew larger and more boisterous. The mob grew in size and continued harassing Private White. As bells, which usually signified a fire, rang out from the surrounding steeples, the crowd of Bostonians grew larger and more threatening. Over fifty of the Bostonian townsmen gathered and provoked White and Goldfinch into fight. As the crowd began to get larger, the British soldiers realized that the situation was about to explode. Private White left his sentry box and retreated to the Custom House stairs with his back to a locked door. Nearby, from the Main Guard, the Officer of the Day, Captain Thomas Preston, watched this situation escalate and, according to his account, dispatched a non-commissioned officer and seven or eight soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot, with fixed bayonets, to relieve White. He and his subordinate, James Basset, followed soon afterward. Among these soldiers were Corporal William Wemms (apparently the non-commissioned officer mentioned in Preston’s report), Hugh Montgomery, John Carroll, James Hartigan, William McCauley, William Warren and Matthew Kilroy. As this relief column moved forward to the now empty sentry box, the crowd pressed around them. When they reached this point they loaded their muskets and joined with Private White at the custom house stairs. As the crowd, estimated at 300 to 400, pressed about them, they formed a semicircular perimeter.

The crowd continued to harass the soldiers and began to throw snow balls and other small objects at the soldiers. Private Hugh Montgomery was struck down onto the ground by a club wielded by Richard Holmes, a local tavernkeeper. When he recovered to his feet, he fired his musket, later admitting to one of his defense attorneys that he had yelled “Damn you, fire!” It is presumed that Captain Preston would not have told the soldiers to fire, as he was standing in front of the guns, between his men and the crowd of protesters. However, the protesters in the crowd were taunting the soldiers by yelling “Fire”. There was a pause of indefinite length; the soldiers then fired into the crowd. Their uneven bursts hit eleven men. Three Americans – ropemaker Samuel Gray, mariner James Caldwell, and a mixed race sailor named Crispus Attucks – died instantly. Seventeen-year-old Samuel Maverick, struck by a ricocheting musket ball at the back of the crowd, died a few hours later, in the early morning of the next day. Thirty-year-old Irish immigrant Patrick Carr died two weeks later. To keep the peace, the next day royal authorities agreed to remove all troops from the centre of town to a fort on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. On March 27 the soldiers, Captain Preston and four men who were in the Customs House and alleged to have fired shots, were indicted for murder.

The Trial of the Soldiers

At the request of Captain Preston and in the interest that the trial be fair, John Adams, a leading Boston Patriot and future President, took the case defending the British soldiers.

In the trial of the soldiers, which opened November 27, 1770, Adams argued that if the soldiers were endangered by the mob, which he called “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs,” they had the legal right to fight back, and so were innocent. If they were provoked but not endangered, he argued, they were at most guilty of manslaughter. The jury agreed with Adams and acquitted six of the soldiers. Two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter because there was overwhelming evidence that they fired directly into the crowd, however Adams invoked Benefit of clergy in their favor: by proving to the judge that they could read by having them read aloud from the Bible, he had their punishment, which would have been a death sentence, reduced to branding of the thumb in open court. The jury’s decisions suggest that they believed the soldiers had felt threatened by the crowd. Patrick Carr, the fifth victim, corroborated this with a deathbed testimony delivered to his doctor.

Three years later in 1773, on the third anniversary of the incident, John Adams made this entry in his diary:

The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.

“This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies.

Gadhafi’s forces break through Libya rebel lines



Opposition appear to be losing in Zawiya in west, but their flag flies over new city in east

NBC, msnbc.com and news services  

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces broke through rebel defenses at the city of Zawiya Saturday, witnesses said after a battle in which dozens of people were killed.

The attack on the city, about 30 miles west of Tripoli, saw an improvised force of rebels armed with hunting rifles and swords take on troops from the elite Khamis Brigade – named after the son of Gadhafi who commands it.

The witnesses said that forces loyal to the regime had overcome rebel positions with tanks, heavy mortar shelling, machinegun fire.

The rattle of gunfire and explosions could be heard as they spoke to The Associated Press by phone. They did so on condition of anonymity because of fears for their safety.

I’ll assume everyone who cares already knows that the March 13th Bahrain Grand Prix, the opening race of the 2011 season, and associated testing has been canceled because of domestic unrest right?

You might not have heard about this one-

Kickback Probe Tests CVC’s Ties With F-1’s Ecclestone

By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, Karin Matussek and Alex Duff, Bloomberg BusinessWeek

February 15, 2011, 9:56 PM EST

Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — Banker Gerhard Gribkowsky may have taken a $50 million kickback for engineering the sale of Formula One, the world’s most-watched motor sport, German prosecutors say. Who paid that suspected bribe, they aren’t saying.

That mystery has thrown a spotlight on the partnership between 80-year-old Formula One Management Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Bernie Ecclestone, a fixture of London’s tabloids, and the company’s buyer, CVC Capital Partners Ltd., one of Europe’s largest and most-private buyout firms.

…

The investigation is focused on the 2005 sale of a 48 percent stake in London-based Formula One to CVC by Bayerische Landesbank in Munich, which received a 10 billion-euro ($13.5 billion) government bailout following losses on U.S. subprime mortgages. That investigation is adding to uncertainties about Formula One’s future, making an exit more difficult for CVC, which manages 31 billion euros, including Europe’s second- largest buyout fund.

…

“According to the current findings, the suspect, in turn, received $50 million in payments disguised via two consultancy agreements,” Munich prosecutors said in the statement. A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to say who may have made the payments. No charges have been filed against Gribkowsky, who is being held while the probe continues. Ecclestone hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.

…

The kickback case “has been a ticking bomb for at least a year now,” said Klaus Fleischer, professor of banking and finance at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich. “BayernLB is a money sink and is under enormous political pressure to clean up the whole mess of subprime, Hypo Alpe-Adria and Formula One.”

Gribkowsky didn’t run a competitive auction when BayernLB sold its 48 percent stake, two people with knowledge of the deal said. Kirch’s lawyers say the sale undervalued Formula One, according to a letter sent to the bank on Jan. 6.

…

Since the CVC acquisition, Formula One has been plagued by a cheating scandal, and the global economic slump led Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Co. and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG to quit. The average race audience fell to 44 million in 2009 from 52 million in 2004 as younger people watch less TV, according to London-based Future Sport & Entertainment.

The sport is betting on growth in Asia and the Middle East after France was dropped from the schedule because it couldn’t meet the costs and Italy and Germany lost one of their two annual races. This year, the championship has 20 races, including one hosted by India for the first time.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for March 4, 2011-

• Sunrise: A Global Moment Unlike Any In Memory by Edger
• Go to Wisconsin, President Obama by PaulLoeb
• Social Security: If You Can’t Kill The Program, Screw The People by fake consultant
• HILLARY GETS IT by Xanthe
• A Where’s Waldo? Presidency by Jacob Freeze
• We apologise for the fault in the subtitles by ek hornbeck
• To thine own self… by Robyn
• Original v. Cover — #68 in a Series by curmudgeon
• Random Japan by mishima

DocuDharma

And what a weak week it was in Weequahic.  Also, in the Dream Antilles.  Your bloguero’s seasonal affective grouchiness (SAG) kicked into high gear as Old Man Winter continued to torture the inhabitants of the Northeast with inclemency and frigidity .  Meanwhile, the radio station was broadcasting the Mets from sunny Port Saint Lucie in Florida.  It did not help your bloguero’s disposition at all that Luis Castillo was playing second and Ollie Perez was on the mound.  These two guys, who should have been traded or fired at the end of last season, still get paid 8 figures to do nothing.  Your bloguero would be willing to do nothing for mid 6 figures, and he’ll negotiate.  You know where to send the offers.

The week ended with Bloguer@s: Play the Game Right, a meta discussion of recent flameouts at Port Writers Alliance blogs.  The post spares you the details but notes that most of the hostilities are provoked by uncontrolled ego and ego’s stepchild, defensiveness.  Your bloguero asks, “Can’t we play the game right?”

In  Obama: Get Our Your Comfortable Shoes you will find a video of President Obama on the campaign trail in 2007 telling workers in South Carolina how he’ll put shoe leather to the pavement and walk the pick line with them if they have to strike.  Right.   Get out your Guccis.  And Wisconsin?  No, he’s not going there.  Nope.  He’s not even going to give a sternly worded letter to the Governor.  Posts like this heighten the contradictions, as if they needed heightening.

The Times had an article explaining how books were going to be sold in odd locations like clothing stores.  Books And Non Books notes in passing that the “books” being sold aren’t literary gems, they’re non-books.  Put another way, the publishers are going to foist a lot of paper junk on shoppers in the vain hope of keeping themselves above water.  News like this makes your bloguero think about withholding the life preserver.

Duke Snider, RIP notes the passing of a childhood hero, Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Duke Snider.   Your bloguero didn’t think Snider was better than Mays or Mantle, the other iconic New York outfielders of the era, but he loved the Dodgers, and Duke was a part of that team.

Thank You For Supporting Wisconsin’s Workers thanks readers of The Dream Antilles for going to demonstrations on Solidarity Saturday and for buying pizza for Wisconsin’s demonstrators.

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.

There are bands and there are bands.  This band has gone through so many transitions that even I, The Geek, can not keep up with all of them, but I do know that in their original lineup that they were close to, if not actually, great.

Deep Purple were a sort of late on the invasion set band from England, only releasing their first record in 1968.  They did some original material, but their first hit was a cover of Hush, by Joe South, written for Billy Joe Royal, and it was an OK hit.

I only intend to treat the Mark I lineup, because I personally found their material to deteriorate quickly after the band were realigned, although their big hits were later.  Please come with me and explore what was to later become one of the first big hair bands, and one of the loudest in concert.

Of course, what I’m really looking forward to is tomorrow’s Platypus Day marathon (starting at 5 pm on Disney).  Some premiers, am I the only one who detects any irony in Faux hosting the Image Awards?

Gentlemen!  Behold!

• AMC– The Walking Dead marathon
• Bravo– How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days x 2
• CNN– Rodney King Special
• Disney– The Suite Life on Deck, Fish Hooks, Phineas and Ferb (premiers)
• Discovery– Flying Wild (last week’s and new), American Loggers (premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Bulls @ Magic, Heat @ Spurs
• ESPN2– College Hoopies, Akron at Kent State
• FX– Meet Dave x 2
• Oxygen– Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins x 2
• Sci Fi– Merlin x 2 (premier + Instapeat)
• Style– City of Angels
• TBS– The Bucket List x 2
• Turner Classic– Clambake, Latin Lovers
• TNT– Journey to the Center of the Earth
• Toon– Generator Rex (premier), Clone Wars (Part 2 of The Citadel Trilogy, premier)
• VH1– SNL marathon

Later-

• Comedy– Scary Movie 2
• Oxygen– Something New
• Sci Fi– Being Human (this week’s)
• TBS– A Walk in the Clouds
• Turner Classic– The Richest Girl in the World
• TNT– Deep Blue Sea
• Toon– ATHF, American Dad (Series Premier repeats)
• TV Land– Hot in Cleveland (this week’s)

Dave in repeats from 1/20.

Aquateen Hunger Force- Assemble!

Yep, a bad night for quotes.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Regular Daily Features:

Late Night Karaoke spotlights Buckwheat Zydeco, mishima DJs

Dreamer says Gha!

Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!

                Six Days a Week!!!    at Six in the Morning!!!!

Essays Featured Friday, March 4^th:

Paul Loeb says Go to Wisconsin President Obama

Artistic yet Philosophical ~ Painting the Self is slksfca‘s Friday Open Thought

Xanthe got an unexpected gift and says “I Need Help, Southern Ladies”

patric juillet‘s latest installment of Tales from the Larder Wilder Rice  

RiaD has some questions in Education: how much is too much?

join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 59 Top Stories.

1 Kadhafi forces hit Libyan rebels east and west

AFP

2 hrs 40 mins ago