Random Notes from a Crank

If there is no one in the porn industry working on a spoof of Moscow Don and the Stormy Daniels affair, filmmakers should be ashamed of themselves. 

And that statement begs the question: Are there any porn filmmakers who can be shamed? 

This much is clear: Moscow Don is a consummate buffoon. 

I have about 130 pages to go to finish Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant. It's quite good and provides a much needed history of Reconstruction that K-12 and college classes neglected from me. 

I'm not entirely through the whole of the biographer's coverage of his presidency, but one of my only gripes about the book is that perhaps it needed to cover more about what was going on with Native Americans during his administration. The horrible crap happened late in his second term, but I wanted more analysis of why Grant acted the way he did toward Natives and why his decisions led to destruction of their lives and culture. 

I did learn that Grant was a big proponent of the separation of church and state, a principle I have in common with him. Here are two statements from speeches he gave in 1875 that should clearly show where he stands on public education:

• "Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school ... Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church and the private school support[ed] entirely by private contribution. Keep the church and state forever separate."
• The US should "establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the education of all the children ... irrespective of sex, color, birthplace, or religions; forbidding the teaching in said schools of religious, atheistic, or pagan tenets; and prohibiting the granting of any school-funds, or school-taxes ... in aid ... of any religious sect or denomination."

These intelligent statements, however, conflict directly with how Grant wanted to Christianize Native Americans.

Regardless, if I were a voter in the 1860s-70s, I would have voted Republican because they (mainly the "Radical Republicans") cared about voting rights and protections for black folks. Democrats, in contrast at that time, were for the hokum that was/is states' rights, which was just cover for returning the US to white supremacy. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm a fan of reading historical accounts, and the book I just finished reading described one of the more interesting ploys that led to an attack. In Michael McDonnell's Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America, he details how Ojibwe warriors attacked Fort Michilimackinac in 176@ during the second Euro-Indian War (the first was the "French and Indian War"). The Objiwe warriors played lacrosse as a distraction and then got into the fort. Here's McDonnell's description: "Under the cover of a game of baggataway, or lacrosse, the Ojibwe waited until Etherington and Leslye came outside the gates of the fort to watch. On a signal, they flipped the ball into the fort and rushed after it, just as a group of them seized Etherington and Leslye. Inside the fort, the Ojibwe collected hatchets and 'Spears' from 'a number of their Women' who had 'concealed them under their Blankets.' They killed at least sixteen soldiers and a trader named Tracey in the initial attack." 

After I got done with that book, I quickly picked up Tom Verducci's The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building The Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse. It's one hell of a book that fellow Cubs fans and many baseball fans should read. The author's recounting of Game 7 mad me almost as nervous as I was when I was watching the damn thing. Well worth any baseball fan's reading time. 

The firing of Bill O'Reilly is something behold. This column in the Washington Post opines that that this episode is the start of something good for working women: "'Be Brave': Bill O'Reilly's Downfall Teaches a Wonderful Lesson to Working Women." I don't know if I'm as sanguine about workplace harassment changing.