Thursday, April 28, 2016

Sendak on Melville's Piazza


One of these was just accepted into the masters program for drama at Yale


Crabby Bernie April 28--Shorthanded


"UC-Davis Chancellor Is Placed on Leave" --She should have been peppersprayed and fired years ago.

UC-Davis Chancellor Is Placed on Leave

The chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, will be on administrative leave while the University of California system investigates potential policy violations.

She should have been fired when she condoned the forcible pepper spraying of students--when the sheriff and his men held open the eyelids of students and sprayed them. 

"Colorado clinic accused gunman believed Feds were following him- -police"

No.  It was Carly lashing him on toward the clinic.

MSNBC: "The Bridges Cruz burned in DC have come back to bite him in Indiana"

I think that's exact, and I can give the name of the reporter if pressed.
Anyone have a photo of a burned bridge, middle open, biting Cruz in the bottom?

Hillary to Ask Biden to be her VP

He knows the job.

"Was Michele Bachmann not available?"

That's what some member of Congress was witty enough to ask.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Billy Shirley June ? 1962

fuzzy picture.
This picture was developed in September. I think it must have been taken in June 1962, when I got a ride down from Evanston to see Mrs. Lançon in Port Arthur before hitchhiking to NYC to go to the NYPL and NYHS.

"Ted Cruz Names Carly Fiorina as His Running Mate, Seeking a Jolt"

So Lyin' Ted chooses to cozy up to the woman who lied with passion about the faked Planned Parenthood video and inspired Robert Darling to go on a murdering rampage for her in Colorado, whose delegates Lyin' Ted rustled. Cozy. They can read fairy tales to Mr. Darling in his cell.

Crabby Bernie Re-exposed; Sea Lyin' Ted Apparently Gone Forever

The wind blew the sand and the tides shifted the skeletons. Now Crabbie Bernie is back, battered and stolid, but not even a soft round skull is left of Sea Lyin' Ted.


Sunday, April 24, 2016

The Daily Deterioration of Bernie Sanders, 24 April 2016

Crabby Bernie:
The deterioration since Sanders lied about Hillary in Philadelphia, falsely telling the crowd she had called him "unqualified." Then he showed that he WAS unqualified.

Now, this next picture is of Maureen D and Ralph N who together in 2000 gave us W, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the Crash:
This is the way Bernie is headed, faster than they went.



Saturday, April 23, 2016

Friday, April 22, 2016

Bravest, Sanest Act of the Year: Virginia governor enables 200,000 felons to vote in November

Hurray for Terry McAuliffe and blessings on him!

I have not known a lot of convicted felons but I knew one in Delaware whom Pete DuPont had pardoned--I think a very unusual act. Any pardoning was one at a time, and for extraordinary cause. Mike was one of the finest men I knew.

Think of 200,000 people who had served their time and been released only to live with the shame of felon on them preventing them from getting jobs they were qualified for, year after year. This is a movement long overdue, and hurray for McAuliffe, again, for taking the lead so boldly and mercifully.

And who was McAuliffe's Republican opponent in the race for governor of the Commonwealth?
Republican Ken Cuccinelli II
Voting matters.
"McAuliffe won a contest in which many voters said they were voting for the Democrat mainly to take a stand against Cuccinelli, 45, whom McAuliffe portrayed as driven by faith and political philosophy to absolutist positions against abortion rights, same-sex marriage, higher taxes and a larger government role in health care." Faith? No, bigotry.
Voting matters.

22 April deterioration of Crabby Bernie and Sea-Lyin' Ted--Photographic Evidence




Am I the only one bewildered by the single news story on MSNBC and CNN? They did not mourn for Merle this way.

I guess I was working, but I missed PRINCE while he was alive--I mean I just did not encounter him. Apparently a lot of people did.
I was working, whenever he was most popular. I had better hurry and learn to recognize the voice of Taylor Swift.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

No Way Would I Willingly Share a Bathroom with Ted Cruz

Creepy! Slimy!
For that matter, I can think of several other politicians I would not want to share a bathroom with.

HuffPost: Bernie Sanders’ Superdelegate-Flipping Strategy Is Doomed

Delusional Bernie--after the Phila speech in which he lied about Hillary, claiming she had called him "UNQUALIFIED," he has shown himself to be, well, UNQUALIFIED. And downright nasty. And a man with no history of belonging to the Democratic Party and no sense of obligation to help it win the election. Vanity, self-importance, self-adoration--all that came after the crowds started to love him.

HEADLINE: Cruz claimed that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders are “outsiders”


Far outside. Crabby Bernie and Sea-Lyin' Tec

Photographic Proof: Daily Deterioration of Crabby Bernie & Sea-Lyin' Ted






Can Anyone Help with This? "STARNES, ROGERS, AUSTIN, HAGGARD, GLENN, TUCKER"


My Choctaw cousin Mike Rattle says the Glenns are kin to Merle Haggard. I see there's an aunt way back who marries a Haggard but I don't see how that gets to Merle. Does anyone know?

We got to see him a few years ago in San Luis Obispo. I love a man who can go from those squirrelly guys who just don't believe in fighting to singing about how it was back before Nixon lied to us all on TV.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Always "Intruders"--New (2012) Historical Markers for the Sims Settlement--Burned out of what became Limestone Co. Alabama

DSCN0234

Sims11

PORTRAIT OF WHAT BERNIE SANDERS HAS BECOME

"Unqualified." Hillary Clinton did not say it. Sanders said it.




I can't get out of my head the image of Sanders in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, lying about Hillary Clinton's calling him "unqualified." She had not said that at all. He stretched out his arms and with claws formed quotation marks. And then with all the other claws on this picture I see him making quotation marks around false accusations. He became so full of himself that he exploded, and here he lies, but promising through Jeff Weaver to destroy the Democratic Party, which was never Sanders's party. He did not start out evil, a few months ago. Applause went to his head and self-adulation burgeoned until he exploded. Crawl quietly away, now.

TV Series Bergerac--Available for Region 1? Anyone Know?

Can viewers in the US see even a sample of this old John Nettles show? Or buy the complete uncut series?

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Today's pictures of the candidates



Commissioners in Lincolnton NC LINCOLN COURIER 2 December 1847--Before Dellingers & Johnstons were kin


These families had been around since before the Revolution, and all were Whigs in the war. But it took another half century and the moves to Mississippi before Costners (who were Dellingers) married Bells (who were Ewarts & therefore kin to the Johnstons). Will Johnston, grandson of Jane Ewart, was a brother in law of Cyrus Hunter, the historian, both married to Forney women. Will was a son of Colonel James Johnston, who has a plaque at King's Mountain.

"STARNES, ROGERS, AUSTIN, HAGGARD, GLENN, TUCKER"

Choctaw cousin Mike Rattle says we are kin to Merle Haggard. It looks as if that might be accurate but I have not tied it down yet.

That beats being 2nd cousin to Kevin Costner's father!

The Dellingers in PA were still very German in 1824


Cousins in trouble--David Dellinger

461 F.2d 389
In the Matter of David DELLINGER et al., Appellants.
No. 18294.
United States Court of Appeals,
Seventh Circuit.
Argued Feb. 9, 1972.
Decided May 11, 1972.
Leave to File Petition for Rehearing Denied July 6, 1972.
Leonard I. Weinglass, Morton Stavis, Newark, N. J., James Reif, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, William W. Brackett, Thomas M. Haney, Stuart S. Ball, Chicago, Ill., Anthony G. Amsterdam, Stanford, Cal., William M. Kunstler, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, James B. Moran, Chicago, Ill., Arthur Kinoy, Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, N. J., Doris Peterson, Center for Constitutional Rights, Helene E. Schwartz, New York City, Thomas P. Sullivan, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

This is the man who had no idea that the real radicals in his family were the North Carolina Dellingers.

He's over 50--Cut him some slack: Oops, Donald Trump accidentally says 7-Eleven instead of 9/11

He's probably pretty tired. Crazy as much of his talk is, I would prefer him to Cruz, who wants to rule a theocracy. What I am afraid of today is that the Spoiler will pull an upset in New York. If the Spoiler does win, of course, I look for a stroke in the next weeks. He is, after all, old enough to be Trump's father, almost. I don't feel the Bern. I feel the Nader egotism.

Did you hear Howard Dean refuse to comment on anything Maureen Dowd might have said? She was mean to his wife years ago and he does not read her. Howard, I love you.

I will not read anything she writes because of the Buddhist temple obsession which gave us W in 2000 and 9/11 and Runaway Global Warming, and the Iraq War. This is another example of egotism--a moderately clever woman who is empowered by the chance to write a column for a national paper and who surrenders herself to vanity.

Vanity is what is tormenting me these weeks--Sanders's vanity. Maybe he and Nader and Dowd could collaborate on a coffee table book on how they brought down their betters and damaged the world.

Monday, April 18, 2016

John Rogers--Red-headed Scotsman 1907

 As grace before meals he said the Lord's Prayer in Choctaw.



Sabrina shows herself as a good mother--and her daughter as more than competent.


A Huge, Joyous CONGRATULATIONS to my brilliant daughter, Akua Parker for her acceptance to Yale, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Ithaca, USC, The New School, and Syracuse so far!!! They are still rolling in! You have such a rare combination of intelligence, creativity, talent , curiosity and a rock solid work ethic!! Cheers, Darling, we love you and are so happy for you.

Sabrina Parker's photo.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

From the local paper this morning. Mourners of this 83 yr old man must want this passed on.


There is absolutely nothing else like this in the lengthy obit and no subsequent reference to it. Your guess as to the tone is as good as mine. I prefer to take it almost literally.

Thomas Murphy's Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland--The Accumulation of Information before the N Y TIMES new article


Some of the background for the new N Y Times article on Jesuits's selling 272 slaves South in 1838



I'm intrigued by how long it takes for a big article to appear in the N Y TIMES on the Jesuits and slavery in 1838




Built by Slaves and Jesuits
Georgetown’s past is mired in the institution of slavery

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS During the 19th century, Washington, D.C., underwent extensive changes in its social and political fabric. To the left, an unidentified group of Civil War soldiers look across the Potomac River to the simple landscape of Georgetown’s campus. To the right, black District residents celebrate the national abolition of slavery that occured just months before.

Before the N Y TIMES article of this week--long ongoing investigations on Jesuits's selling of slaves to New Orleans


Here's a sample of the work that was being carried out in 2007

The Jesuits’ Slaves

“Can a man serve God faithfully and posess slaves?” Brother Joseph Mobberly, S.J. asked in his diary in 1818. “Yes,” he answered. “Is it then lawful to keep men in servitude? Yes.”
The Jesuits of the Maryland province had always relied on plantations to support their ministries. The estates were extensive, totaling 12,000 acres on four large properties in Southern Prince Georges, Charles and St. Mary’s counties, and two smaller estates on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In 1634, when the Jesuits arrived in Maryland, Lord Baltimore awarded them quasi-estates in which they were permitted to live off the rent of tenant farmers. However, as University Dean Hubert Cloke explains, “The system was totally antiquated and romantic, not related to reality, and they realized they were not going to make any money.” So, the Jesuits turned to indentured servants, English men and women who worked the land for set terms in return for the passage from England to Maryland. But as working conditions improved in England, the supply of indentured servants dropped and the Jesuits once again found a new way to work the land. By the 1680s they relied upon a fully developed slave system.
Compared to other plantation owners in the area, when it came to slavery, “The Jesuits were no better or worse,” according to Cloke. Many of the slaves had been gifts from wealthy Catholic families to sustain the Church. The abolition of slavery was not an issue in the area until the early nineteenth century, when Georgetown’s Jesuits became deeply divided over the issue of slavery.
“But they were not conflicted in the way you would want,” Cloke said. “They were conflicted over what to do about the threat of abolitionists.”
In a generational divide, an older group of Jesuits, mostly European born, felt a patriarchal connection to their slaves and were unwilling to sell them. A younger, American-born group, a minority, felt that the money invested in plantations should be spent on institutions in cities like Philadelphia and New York with their rapidly growing Catholic populations. It seems neither faction had any particular moral quandaries with the six plantations and the nearly 300 slaves owned by Georgetown’s and Maryland’s Jesuits.
This rift is just one of the things American Studies students learned when history professors like Cloke and Emmett Curran introduced the Jesuit Plantation Project into the American Studies curriculum in the spring of 1996. The project involved students transcribing and digitizing hundreds of documents from the Jesuit’s Maryland Province Index recording the Georgetown’s Jesuits’ complicated relationship with slavery.
With only two exceptions, all the higher-ranking Jesuits in the province during the time were foreign-born and of the older faction. Since only U.S. citizens had temporal jurisdiction, foreign Jesuits had no authority over the Mission’s estates.

272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? New York Times‎ - 1 day ago The grave of Cornelius Hawkins, one of 272 slaves sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to help keep what is now Georgetown University afloat.

The NEW YORK TIMES article is remarkable in many ways. One is that it depends on oldfashioned documentary research (as expedited by the Internet) and not DNA.
I checked the Katharine Jackson. The good news is that she did not encounter storms and have loss of life on the way to New Orleans. She had a short trip, according to the Picayune--11 days--and "master" means the master of the port, I assume.

"Ship Katharine Jackson 11ds fm Georgetown, D C to master"

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Trump thinhks RNC rigs elections? Look at Glenn-Tucker Judgment in 1890!


If the rule "the condition of the child [should] follow that of the father" were applied to white men and black or part black women during slavery--well, the men might have been breeding themselves into a slave-free society.
Just wait. Ryan will change the "rules" on Trump again at the convention. By the way, nothing is more stupid than Gloria Borger and other saying the rules are the rules and the candidates should have known them. It's as if having a rigged set of rules makes it OK because they have been adopted as rules. Trump, heaven help us, has a good argument that the system is corrupt. Some of us still think that voters should elect politicians, not political hacks.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Pope Francis Cites Travel Plans for Not Greeting Bernie Sanders and Others at Vatican City Event

So the worry about Kim Davis rubbing off on Sanders was wasted.

Jesse Moore of The Globe in Caldwell Co. Tells what to do with Negroes in 1826


  • My will further is that my Negro Jack be sold at private sale on the account of the probability of his being near his wife and also that my two old negroes Wak and his wife remain with either of us during our lifetime and then not to be sold but to have the priviledge to live with any of my children whom they will choose.
  • I appoint my sons Daniel and Jesse as my excutors of this my last will and testament . In witness whereof I have set my hand and seal this 2nd day of September 1826.

When Sanders hugs the Pope, will a Little of Kim Davis Rub Off on Him?

Just asking.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

I am not a masochist. Wake me, if you have to, on

Wednesday morning.

An imperfect transcription from Daniel Moore's Bible--NB black woman who died in 1810


Spelling sic
This is from the Globe in Burke [Caldwell} Co. NC.


Mary Stone wife to Elijah Stone decese this life in the year of Lord March
16 1787
Rachel Moore wife to Daniel Moore decest this life in the year of our Lord
March 4 1809
Millie a black woman died March(?) 22 1810
Elijah Stone decest on April 23 1813
William Carrall decest January 18 1826
Ally Moore wife of Jesse Moore Sen. decest the 27November 1826.
Mary Carrell wife of Wm Carrell decest the 12 Dec 1828 (maybe 1826, very
faded)
Nancy Parkes daughter of ? Moore decest the 26th day of ? about half past 4
o'clock in the evening 1826 (may be 1828, extremely faded)



Today's less cheering photographs



The otter is in sad shape and the shell has lost its blue overnight.

Monday, April 11, 2016

HORROR HORROR HORROR--I checked and we have more than 3 months to go before Cleveland

Haven't we suffered enough already?

I'd endure anything to see Debra Winger except a Laugh Track

I saw that Debra Winger was on RANCH so I tried it until something went wrong with the sound, some blaring hideous noise which I identified after a while as a laugh track.

Well, I can turn of the sound, I guess, and look at Debra Winger, but I really loved her voice.

Dang it! What genius at Netflix arranged the laugh track?

HAR & MS--Missing our favorite alter kacker these last weeks



Sunday, April 10, 2016

William Faulkner had to explain the word "toll"--well, Uncle Brasher Henderson uses it in 1841

In Greenville, SC Reuben Smith (on Horsepen Creek, near S. Gilbert's Store in the neighborhood of Clear Spring Church) toles before me one small chesnut sorrel MARE, 5 years old last Spring, with a small star in the forehead, a small dent on the right side of the head, very reel footed in the hind feet, about 13 hands high, apparently almost blind. Appraised at ten dollars, by John Higgins, John Cox, and H. L. Henderson, sworn Appraisers, this 7th August 1841. [signed by] BRASHER HENDERSON, J. Q.

--Aug. 13

Spelled "toles."

[Brasher's father, Revolutionary soldier Ezekiel, is still alive there in Greenville.]

Uncle Brasher Henderson Toasts President Jackson at 4th of July 1834

In Sherman's store, Greenville South Carolina.

General Jackson-The chief ploughman of the United States; he turns his furrows handsomely, and never looks back.

 

Greenville Mountaineer 14 July 1834

Anyone know how to contact Peter F. Stevens, author of REBELS IN BLUE?

I have some questions I would love to ask him.
Carroll and the other Moores are cousins of mine.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Geriatric gyrations

OK, scrubbing head in shower (wetted head then water turned off) 100 times with right arm and (ouch) 100 times with left arm. OK, got that down.

OK, standing on one foot while brushing teeth then standing on other foot next time. OK. Trying it with eyes closed. GRRRT--well, we won't try that again soon.

OK, brushing teeth with right hand and then brushing again with left hand in case you get where you can't use right hand (as has happened).

OK, putting pants on standing up left leg and then right leg. OK, OK.

OK, placing ad for someone to tug on socks and put on shoes . . . .

Friday, April 8, 2016

REBELS IN BLUE--A 2000 Book--How Research has Changed for the better

It looks to me as if Peter F. Stevens did a terrific job of research on REBELS IN BLUE, about the Bushwhacker Keith Blalock, enemy of my Moore cousins, one of whom shot out one of his eyes. See picture
keith blaylock2.jpg

But in the 1990s a researcher was apt to miss specific details, contemporary testimony, the sort of thing you can find now in newspaper databases, for example. I will apologize if I am wrong, but I don't see in Stevens's book any of the Lenoir TOPIC articles on Keith Blalock, or one in the Durham Recorder, He might have mentioned the entire book JAMES DANIEL MOORE  (1907), since JDM wrote a terrific account of Blalock in the Raleigh Morning Post for 1900. This is not to be ungrateful but to emphasize what has been clear to me for several years--that the way I did research for the second volume of the Melville biography (2002) is not the way I did research for MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE (2013), except that many of the manuscripts I consulted for the biography have not yet been digitized. Anyone anywhere can do research that almost no one could do before the Internet.

REBELS IN BLUE by Peter F. Stevens--about my Moore cousins!

Well, it's nominally about Keith Blalock the bushwhacker but it's much about my cousin Carroll Moore and his family. Can't wait to read it!

Bernie Sanders Accepts Pope Francis's Invitation to Travel to the Vatican--Already Hugged Kim Davis

That will put Sanders a Pope and a Tennessean away from hugging Mike Huckabee.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Elizabeth Isaack's ad in Baltimore Federal Gazette 10 July 1810 for black woman, a runaway

Fell's Point, Ann Street


January 1953 and April 2016, Hank and Merle--so very different

In January 1953 I was up and down the Sabine River towns in Louisiana and I swear you could have walked from one side of any town or little settlement and never gotten away from the voice of Hank Williams. Every radio station was playing Hank Williams, everyone with a record player was playing Hank Williams.
In April 2016 I tried the radio stations in the car going to the beach and coming back and could not find a single song by Merle Haggard. Was he not 33% as important as Michael Jackson? Did he not deserve 25% of the attention David Bowie just got?
Now, I underwent a change of mind about Merle Haggard because Merle Haggard underwent a profound change himself. He went from those squirrelly guys who just don't believe in fighting to back before Nixon lied to us all on TV. Even when he was singing the early hate anthem, he had the purest voice in country music. And his songs got better and better.
Maybe we have had too many deaths. Waylon, Johnny, Ray Price . . . . Maybe we are afraid that Willie really is not Superman, after all, and I for one am afraid for Kris.
But we really are grieving differently, those of us who are grieving and honoring Merle.

Now it's time for Elizabeth Warren to show HER true character

My campaign posts for her are still up. Someone in this house sent her money. After Sanders lied last night about Hillary Clinton's saying he was unqualified to be President (and by lying made himself unqualified), Warren should speak up. If she doesn't, shame on her.

Schlemp Slemp Slimp--When a Slemp Stays Home in Wise--Cousin Chuck




Martha and Andrew Costner


Euna and Martha Costner


Singer, Louisiana, 1953-1954--remembering Billy Shirley

You don't ever expect younger people to die first.
The 1953 picture is west from the Kansas City Southern depot--Pete's store and post office.
The 1954 picture shows Billy Shirley and BGC to the southeast of the depot.