It’s Saturday Night!

I’m so far behind on everything it’s not even funny!  

You name it!  I’m behind on it!  Bills!  Grading!  Cleaning!  Laundry!

There’s actually a lot of things to avoid these days unless you want to be made terrifically anxious.

For example, you could read all about the Republicans bitching about persecution of Christians in this country while jumping all over on the Pope’s case for being critical of capitalism and appreciating the science behind global warming.  I mean that really makes sense, doesn’t it?  Scream about Christian persecution while berating a Pope?  

George F Will is still alive and working but for some reason he can’t afford a new hair helmut, schtick or headshot. They all must be at least 40 years old at this link from WAPO. However, his complaints are straight out of the good old days.  He’s got a set of really stranger than usual argments and I say that knowing full well that most of his arguments are always strange and unusual.  George, a pope with red gucci shoes has “flamboyance”. One with science degrees and a realistic take on climate change has gravitas.  

Why is George F Will persecuting christians?

Pope Francis embodies sanctity but comes trailing clouds of sanctimony. With a convert’s indiscriminate zeal, he embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false and deeply reactionary. They would devastate the poor on whose behalf he purports to speak — if his policy prescriptions were not as implausible as his social diagnoses are shrill.

Hey, I’m not a fan of any organized religion but any one whose magical thinking includes a good dose of science is better than one that’s all magical thinking and lies.

Meawhile, my book club is reading The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case which is educating me on things I never knew about the Reconstruction period.

The case was combustible. Two mixed-race women, abetted by the son of one of them, stood accused of kidnapping a blonde, blue-eyed white baby girl in New Orleans in 1870. How did it end? Author Michael Ross expertly keeps readers in suspense as he weaves this true tale of crime, culture, politics, and colorful Southern characters — including a riverboat captain, “mulatresses,” and a precedent-setting Afro-Creole detective.

The case began on the afternoon of June 9, 1870, when Bridgette Digby sent her 10-year-old son, Georgie, and toddler daughter Mollie outside to play under the supervision of a teenage babysitter. Two stylish, fair-skinned African-American women happened to be strolling by. As they stopped to admire Mollie, a fire broke out a few blocks away, and the excited babysitter asked Georgie to hold his sister while she ran to watch the fire.

“No bubby, I will take the baby,” one of the women said. The women asked Georgie to lead them to the home of a certain neighbor. Once there, they told Georgie it was the wrong house, and then sent him to the market to buy a treat for his sister. A heart-stopping shock awaited Georgie when he came out of the market. The women were gone, and so was his baby sister.

In the era of post-Civil War Radical Reconstruction, the Digby kidnapping case quickly became the focus of public fears and sensationalistic press coverage. Louisiana Governor Henry Clay Warmouth, a young Union army veteran from Illinois, saw the case as an opportunity to demonstrate to skeptics the professionalism of the newly integrated New Orleans police department. When Afro-Creole detective John Baptiste Jourdain was assigned to the investigation, he became the first black sleuth in the nation to work such a prominent case.

Leads poured in. Detective Jourdain, who sometimes donned a disguise, and other investigators questioned mulatto women, nursemaids, voodoopractitioners, even a clairvoyant, all without success. Then, nearly two months after Mollie Digby disappeared, acting on a tip, Detective Jourdain and other police officers went to the home of an “attractive mulatto woman,” Ellen Follin, who, like Jourdain, was Afro-Creole. She denied having the child, but a suspicious Jourdain threatened to have everyone in the house arrested unless she produced Mollie soon.

Within two days, former riverboat captain James Broadwell, who was white, appeared on the Digbys’ doorstep. “I think I have your child,” he informed Mollie’s father. A black woman friend of the Broadwells had allegedly asked the captain to return the baby who, she claimed, had been left at her gate by a veiled white woman. The Broadwells’ friend was none other than Ellen Follin. With Mollie’s safe return, Follin, her son, and her sister were all arrested on kidnapping charges. (The arrest date for the sister differs from page to page, one of very few discordant notes in this otherwise well-researched narrative.)

Here’s a bit about that with photos.  It was a fun discussion today and I look forward to the next two where we try to sort more things out.

I’m trying to head to Baton Rouge on Monday Morning to attend an organizing event with Hillary Clinton and members of the campaign.  Hopefully, I can work out the logistics but my grade are due on Thursday and as I said, I’m very behind on everything.  You’ll know if I do because I will post pictures.

So, anyway, this is just a short open thread!

Have a great night!!!