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3 February 1882 – Circus owner P.T. Barnum buys his world-famous elephant Jumbo, and thereby garnered enormous profits. Were he alive today, the enterprising Barnum could realize an even greater return on his investment by skipping the symbolic elephant and instead purchasing a Republican congressman – by which I mean, of course, by creating a perfectly legal Super PAC for him.
Balto
“Nome calling . . . Nome calling . . .” On 20 January 1925, that message flashed over the airwaves with special urgency, since an outbreak of diphtheria threatened to devastate the population of the isolated and blizzard-bound city. Shortly thereafter, in one of the most heroic episodes in the history of the Arctic, 20 mushers and 150 sled dogs set out with serum on an adventure that would take five and a half days and traverse 674 miles of Alaskan wilderness. Despite incredible hardships, the men and their equally indomitable dogs delivered the serum on 2 February 1925, and thereby prevented an epidemic.
The most famous member of this heroic group was the sled dog Balto, who became one of the best-known canine celebrities of his era. What makes Balto’s story even more remarkable is the fact that he was not considered an especially apt candidate for team leader, but as is frequently the case with human beings, his talents and courage merely awaited a moment suitable for their expression.
After their rescue mission, Balto and his fellow sled dogs disappeared from history for a time, but when a Cleveland businessman named George Kimble discovered them ill and mistreated in a museum in Los Angeles, he determined to perform a rescue of his own. He was given two weeks to raise $2,000 – and thanks to newspaper articles and radio advertisements broadcast across the nation, he succeeded. After giving the dogs a parade and a heroes’ welcome, the good people of Cleveland allowed them to live the rest of their days in comfort and dignity in the Cleveland Zoo.
Balto And His Team In Nome
“The cynics are right nine times out of ten.” – H. L. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, satirist, and scathing critic of American life and culture, who died on 29 January 1956. If you have seen the movie “Idiocracy,” then you know the view of the United States that informs much of Mencken’s work (Mencken coined the term “booboisie”).
Sadly, everything that he set his considerable intelligence and wit against during the first half of the 20th century has returned with a vengeance, if, in fact, it ever left, including anti-intellectualism, Creationism, evangelical Christianity, demented politics, and alternative medicine – the list of folly in our Republic is depressingly long. We badly need a greater number of eloquent skeptics in our midst, and anyone discouraged by the mindless drivel that passes for cultural and political discourse in our nation will find much that is heartening, darkly amusing, and inarguably true in Mencken’s books.
Below – Some quotes from the Great Cynic; was he right nine times out of ten?
“A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.”
“Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
“A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.”
“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
“Alimony – the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.”
“All government, of course, is against liberty.”
“All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.”
“An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
“Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.”
“It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.”
“It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”
“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?”
“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.”
“No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.”
“Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.”
“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
“When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.”
“Time stays, we go.”
“Electrolytes: It’s what plants crave.”
A vitally important question:
If Sylvester the Cat suddenly fell passionately in love with his mother, would he then be an Oedipuss?
Another vitally important question:
If you met a dog who told you that he was a major star but who refused to tell you his name or give you his autograph, should your immediate question be, “Are you Sirius?”
I dedicate this posting to my sons Dougal and Corrigan, neither of whom has ever been able to fully appreciate my uncommonly sophisticated wit.
Like Basil Fawlty, “I learnt Classical Spanish,” and not the sort of drivel that they teach in schools or actually speak in, well, Spanish-speaking countries.
A note to a female Spanish teacher:
Subject: El Hispanio Classico
I know that Spanish is gender sensitive (“la feminista touche’” – “a bitchy female grammarian might stab you with a saber”), and so, given your feminine persuasion, the heading should probably read “Herspania Classica,” but that’s a quibble (“el problemo minisculo”). My point is that I have been brushing up (“el sweepo skywardo”) on my Classical Spanish, and my most recent effort appears below.
The Text:
“Hola!!! Me llamo Roberto! Yo soy muy inteligente! buena noche!”
My Translation:
“Dear Ditch: My alpaca’s name is Bob. Listen: It’s smart to drink soy beverages, especially with boney nachos.”
Pretty impressivo (“impressive”).
El Professoro Neralich – Linguisto Varioso
Died 27 January 1989 (at age 101) – Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, English aircraft designer and manufacturer whose creations included the legendary Sopwith Camel, one of the best allied fighters during WWI.
For most Americans, the Sopwith Camel is associated with Snoopy, the would-be pilot of “Peanuts” fame, since it was the aircraft which the bellicose beagle flew during his many fanciful and unsuccessful aerial combats with the Red Baron. I think that it would appropriate to refer to Snoopy as the “Sopwith Pup,” since that was actually the nickname of another plane developed by Thomas Sopwith.
26 January 1784 – Benjamin Franklin declares his unhappiness over the eagle being selected as America’s symbol, and expresses his preference for the turkey. While Franklin’s stated opinion seems innocuous, I have done some serious scholarly investigation on several conspiracy-related websites, and I have discovered that, in retrospect, Franklin’s comment is actually ominous, and so we are therefore going to have to make a choice between two sinister conclusions regarding one of the Founding Fathers of our nation.
1. Since Rick Perry thoughtfully alerted Americans to the fact that our purported ally Turkey is actually a terrorist state, it is possible that Benjamin Franklin was a covert operative for the Turkish intelligence service, and that his apparently innocent support for poultry was actually an example of cunning political subversion. Skeptical? Then consider this statement by Franklin: “Even if the Mufti [chief jurist] of Constantinople [from the Muslim Ottoman Empire] were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Given Franklin’s now obvious allegiance to Turkey, how can that remark be construed as anything but treasonous?
Not Our Country's Flag
So which is it, my fellow Americans: Ben Franklin – Spy, or Ben Franklin – Mad Scientist?
And let’s be honest – the two choices are equally fowl.
Born 25 January 1874 – W. Somerset Maugham, English playwright and novelist. While “Of Human Bondage” is inarguably Maugham’s masterpiece, I recommend that everyone should also read “The Razor’s Edge,” since the novel will speak forcefully to people grown weary of living in a time when mindless consumerism, crackpot religion, and venomous politics have become cultural norms. No matter how old one might be, it is never too late to undertake the quest for a more meaningful existence.
Some quotes from the witty and uncommonly wise W. Somerset Maugham:
“An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.”
“Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.”
“Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.”
“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.”
“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”
“I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.”
“Impropriety is the soul of wit.”
“Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind.”
“No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.”
“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”
“When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.”
“The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.”
“Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.”
Born 25 January 1882 – Virginia Woolf, English author, essayist, and publisher. I think that both “Mrs. Dalloway” and “Orlando” are great novels, but from the time I first read it in graduate school, “To the Lighthouse” has been one of my favorite books. Every time I reread it, I find more to appreciate among its brilliantly crafted complexities. I am also very glad that “Mrs. Dalloway” served as the inspiration for Michael Cunningham’s wonderful novel “The Hours,” as well as for the movie adaptation featuring music by Philip Glass and starring two of my favorite actresses: Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. I think that Virginia Woolf would be pleased with both book and film.
Some quotes from Virginia Woolf:
“Language is wine upon the lips.”
“On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.”
“The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.”
“There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.”
“Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”
“Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.”
“Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.” – Giambattista Vico (died 23 January 1744), Italian philosopher, pretty much describing America’s plans for Super Bowl Sunday.
Below – Giambattista Vico, who probably would have been a Giants fan.
“Nothing is so hideous as an obsolete fashion.” – Stendhal (born 23 January 1783), French writer and author of “The Red and the Black.”
I don’t care about the opinion of some pompous Parisian. I think that I look great in bell-bottom trousers.
Below – Stendhal the hypocrite: That Nehru jacket he’s wearing is so 1960s.
“The mountain sheep are sweeter,
but the valley sheep are fatter;
we therefore deem it meeter
to carry off the latter.” – Thomas Love Peacock (died 23 January 1866), English writer, offering some shrewd dating advice.
Below – Thomas Love Peacock, poet and relationship guru.
Let’s be honest: No one will ever discover a cure for the dread disease Gingeritis, and so, since we normal people are simply going to have to endure having these pariahs in our midst, I have a suggestion that would at least keep them out of sight most of the time. I propose that we ask the government to fund the creation of hundreds of circus sideshows that would then employ Gingers so that they could profit from their terrible handicap. After all, since these hideous creatures are inevitably and justly going to be ridiculed and called freaks of nature, they might as well get paid for it.
