Tuesday Reads: A Reluctant Farewell to Two Talented, Accomplished Novelists
Posted: May 5, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: British politics, detective novels, House of Lords, PD James, Ruth Rendell 22 Comments
P.D. James and Ruth Rendell
Good Morning!!
Within the last six months, we’ve lost two of the finest and most innovative writers of British crime fiction: P.D. James died at 94 in November 2014, and Ruth Rendell died at 85 over the weekend following a stroke in January. The two grand dames were good friends even though they were competitors and hailed from opposite sides of the political spectrum. Both women served in the House of Lords.
After James’ death, Rendell wrote in the Guardian:
I’ve known Phyllis for about 40 years. We met at a book festival, probably one of the first I ever attended. It would have been a very commonplace thing for her to go to a festival, but nobody knew me then, and she was so nice to me. That is the thing I always will most remember about her: what a kind woman she was, how she did her very best to make you feel good.
She did not write sensation novels, she wrote books about real things, things that could have happened. She didn’t write at all like Agatha Christie. Christie had the most magnificent plots and great stories, but I don’t think anyone would say that she wrote believable stuff, people didn’t want that from her.
But any of the events in Phyllis’s books might have happened – and I think people liked that because they’d never had it in crime fiction before. Dorothy Sayers was a marvellous crime writer, whom both Phyllis and I admired very much, but she hadn’t got the same reality, and she also had that peculiar snobbishness that made her have her detective the son of a duke. Phyllis would have nothing of that.
Both of us thought more about the characters than the crime. Her plots were good, of course, but she took particular care in the creation of character. Place also mattered a lot to her: if you knew the Essex coast you’d want to read some of her books because of her wonderful descriptions.
She always took enormous pains to be accurate and research her work with the greatest attention. She made few mistakes, but on one memorable occasion she did have a male character get on a motorbike and reverse it (I think you can do that now, but this was 30 or 40 years ago), and of course she got a lot of letters about it. But she had a great sense of humour and thought it was very funny.
If one of her books had police work in it, the police work would be true, it would be very real. Her detective Dalgliesh – named him after a female teacher at her school, she just liked the name – is the most intelligent police officer in fiction that I’ve ever come across. He’s sensitive, intelligent, rather awe-inspiring and slightly frightening, but he is a real person, you can get really involved in him.
On the way their friendship worked:
We never talked about crime – because it was what we both wrote about – and we never talked about politics. Phyllis joined the House of Lords several years before me. We were both utterly opposed to each other politically: she was a Tory and very much a committed Conservative, whereas I’m a socialist, I’m Labour and always have been. Once we were in for a vote and crossed paths going to the two division lobbies, she to the “content” lobby and I to the “not content” – and we kissed in the chamber, which caused some concern and amazement.
And now, both of these brilliant and talented women are gone.
From NPR yesterday: Ruth Rendell Dies, Pioneered The Psychological Thriller.
Famed British crime writer Ruth Rendell died this past weekend in London. She was 85 and had suffered a stroke in January.
Best known for her long-running Inspector Wexford series — which was adapted for television — she pioneered a psychological approach to thriller writing. She also wrote darker, more contemplative books as Barbara Vine. In her later years, she was made a baroness and took up Labour Party politics.
Rendell’s most memorable creation may have been Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford: Liberal, intelligent, sensitive but hot-tempered, prone to quoting Shakespeare — Rendell based him partly on herself, and partly on her father.
The mysteries Wexford solved weren’t simple whodunits — there were layers upon layers of psychological complication, packed with obsession, deception, social issues and power games.
When Ruth Rendell started writing, there really wasn’t anyone like her….
In a 2005 NPR interview, Rendell was asked whether she was fascinated by crime. “Well, I don’t know that I am fascinated with crime,” she said. “I’m fascinated with people and their characters and their obsessions and what they do. And these things lead to crime, but I’m much more fascinated in their minds.”
I guess her focus on the psychological is one of the reasons why I love Rendell’s books. The other is that she was a truly fine novelist.
From the Telegraph obituary:
Baroness Rendell of Babergh, the novelist Ruth Rendell, who has died aged 85, was one of Britain’s best-selling celebrity crime writers.
She revitalised the mystery genre to reflect post-war social changes and wove into more than 60 books such contemporary issues as domestic violence, transvestism, paedophilia and sexual frustration. Her Inspector Wexford mysteries became an extremely popular television fixture in the 1990s.
Her work, mapping the manic and malevolent extremes of human behaviour, was distinguished by terse yet elegant prose and sharp psychological insights, as well as a talent for creating deft and intricate plots and believable characters.
With her friend and fellow crime writer PD James — with whom she shared the accolade of “Britain’s Queen of Crime” (which she detested) — Ruth Rendell redefined the “whodunnit” genre, fashioning it into more of a “whydunnit”.
But unlike the conservative Lady James, Rendell was politically to the Left and professionally far more prolific; she completed more than 50 novels under her own name and 14 writing as Barbara Vine, as well as two novellas and more than a dozen collections of short stories.
PD James as an impoverished young mother. She didn’t begin writing until she was 42.
From the Guardian on the close connection between two brilliant and successful women: Ruth Rendell and PD James: giants of detective fiction.
On Wednesday evening this week, publishers and readers of crime fiction gathered at Temple church in London’s law quarter for the memorial service of PD James, one of the two finest English crime-writers of the 20th century. A poignant absentee was the other: Ruth Rendell was too frail to attend the farewell to her great friend and co-practitioner following a severe stroke in January, complications from which led to her death, announced on Saturday, at the age of 85.
There is a clearly a bleakness in the fact that the genre of detective fiction has lost two of its giants within six months, but there is also a neatness. Rendell and James were always closely allied, both professionally and personally. One of Rendell’s last public engagements before her final illness had been to attend, in December, the funeral of PD James in Oxford.
On Wednesday evening this week, publishers and readers of crime fiction gathered at Temple church in London’s law quarter for the memorial service of PD James, one of the two finest English crime-writers of the 20th century. A poignant absentee was the other: Ruth Rendell was too frail to attend the farewell to her great friend and co-practitioner following a severe stroke in January, complications from which led to her death, announced on Saturday, at the age of 85.
There is a clearly a bleakness in the fact that the genre of detective fiction has lost two of its giants within six months, but there is also a neatness. Rendell and James were always closely allied, both professionally and personally. One of Rendell’s last public engagements before her final illness had been to attend, in December, the funeral of PD James in Oxford.
For five decades, the two women were the George Eliot and Jane Austen of the homicidal novel: different minds and style but equal talent. They were responsible, in joint enterprise, for saving British detective fiction from the position, after the era of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers, in which its popularity with readers was matched only by its unpopularity with most serious literary critics. Solving this paradox, the books of Rendell and James amassed both high stacks of till receipts and piles of admiring reviews. Each, in TV adaptations, gave a major detective to the schedules: Rendell’s DCI Wexford, played by George Baker on ITV, and James’ DCI Dalgliesh, portrayed by Roy Marsden on ITV and then Martin Shaw for the BBC.
Ruth Rendell
As well as the coincidence – of a kind they would have avoided in novels – of Rendell’s death so closely following the service for James, there is also a striking conjunction in the closeness of both to a general election. Unusually among novelists, both women were members of the House of Lords, where they sat as Baroness Rendell of Babergh on the Labour benches and Baroness James of Holland Park in the Conservative ranks. It is a credit to their characters that ideological difference never affected their mutual respect and pleasure in each other’s company, and on a number of issues they agreed: sharing, for example, an opposition to Scottish independence, against which the younger baroness campaigned publicly.
As well as the more than 60 books she published, Rendell’s achievements included being one of the few authors to have changed the law. In her political life, she was a crucial mover behind a 2003 act of parliament enforcing and strengthening British law against the misogynistic pre-pubescent surgery known as female genital mutilation (FGM).
People who are snobbish and dismissive about the detective story genre are sadly mistaken, and have no idea what they are missing by not reading Rendell and James’ work. If you enjoy fine writing and psychological analysis of human personality as I do, you can’t go wrong by picking up a book by either of these women–although I prefer Rendell.
I’ve probably bored you by going on about PD James and Ruth Rendell, but I thought the loss of two great women writers in such a short time deserved to be remarked upon.
Now some news of the day, links only and in no particular order.
USA Today, Islamic State claims responsibility for Texas attack.
NYT, Gunman in Texas Shooting Was FBI Suspect in Jihad Inquiry.
The Texas event was organized by right-wing hatemonger Pamela Geller.
CNN, Texas shooting: Who is Pamela Geller?
The Daily Beast, Muslims Defend Pam Geller’s Right to Hate.
Sam Brownback is not only a horrible governor, but also a lousy tipper. From KSNT.com, Note on restaurant receipt to Kansas governor goes viral.
Mitt Romney is just as clueless as ever. From the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney Doesn’t Think Mass Incarceration is a Real Thing.
NYT, Mike Huckabee to Joint Republican Race.
Dana Millbank, Ben Carson’s over-the-top ego.
Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton to Challenge GOP on Immigration.
James Rosen at McClatchy, Pentagon: Texas has nothing to fear from upcoming military exercise
PC News, Some Apple Watch Users Complain of Skin Rashes.
Institutional Investor’s Alpha, The 2015 Rich List: The Highest Earning Hedge Fund Managers of the Past Year.
Charles Pierce, In which we learn about protest songs and that science can be heartbreaking, among other things.
The Guardian, Nepal quake survivors face threat from human traffickers supplying sex trade.
IBT, Mississippi megafloods wiped out biggest ancient Native American civilisation of Cahokia.
What stories are you following today? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great day!
Monday Reads
Posted: May 4, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Brownback, Christie, Jindal, Republican Governors, Scott 19 Comments
Good Afternoon and sorry this is so late!
My gig was a bit of wild ride last night and I really had trouble sleeping after I got home. The weather is in that place where you need a/c in mid afternoon and heat at the earliest hours of the morning. I got up at like 3 a.m. to flip the furnace on. My guess is the temp would’ve been comfortable for most of you but for some reason the cold got to me. There’s a lot of things in me that must’ve changed during the 20 years I’ve lived in New Orleans. Last weekend a Swiss woman told me that she was having difficulty understanding my accent. Accent? Me? I guess that’s developed along with some other things. I know that my jazz chops are much better and odd rhythms no longer frustrates me. But, before I wax too poetically about things I’ve gotten used to and sound like some starry-eyed post Katrina transplant, I’d like you to know that there are things down here that are still very jarring and irregular.
This story was done by the closest thing we have to state paper, The Advocate. They’ve done some really great investigative journalism recently and this one story deserves to go national. It’s not about New Orleans per se but the one of the outback parishes. Eight people have died in custody over the last ten years in the Sheriff’s jail of this very rural parish with a low population. This story deserves some national attention. This is what happens when you make a criminal justice system handle the mentally ill and populations you just deem unfit for a community.
Since 2005, at least eight people have died in the custody of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office — in its jail or after an arrest — according to records compiled by The Advocate. Seven of those who died were inmates. At least two of those seven suffered from mental illness.
One was Sonnier. The other was Michael Jones, who died in 2009 after an altercation with the corrections staff. Last March, a judge ruled that two Sheriff’s Office employees, including former warden Wesley Hayes — who allegedly sat on Jones to subdue him — were responsible for his death.
Sonnier’s death has received comparatively little attention. The family settled its case against the Sheriff’s Office for $450,900, but confidentiality agreements prevent them from discussing it. However, public records, transcripts and other documents tell a disturbing story of how Sonnier died. Taken together, the deaths of Jones and Sonnier raise pointed questions about how the Iberia Sheriff’s Office cares for mentally ill inmates.
It’s a problem facing wardens across the country. Designed for short-term stays, jails hold mostly pretrial detainees and inmates sentenced for minor crimes. In Louisiana, though, they often play host to longer stints as well: Sheriffs hold state and federal prisoners at fixed daily rates.
Jails and prisons are not equipped to treat the mentally ill, said Dr. Richard Lamb, professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California Medical School, but they increasingly have no choice.
“It used to be if you were mentally ill, you would be in a hospital,” Lamb said. “As the hospitals emptied out, there were fewer and fewer beds, so people who had a mental illness, and who had anything disruptive or antisocial, began to be put in jails and prisons.”
A 2006 report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated 64 percent of jail inmates had mental health problems. One 2009 study estimated that rates of serious mental illness are up to six times higher among inmates than in the general population.
In an interview with The Advocate, Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal acknowledged that his staff is ill-equipped to handle such people.
“I don’t think any jail should have to house a mental patient,” Ackal said. “We’re not psychiatrists. We’re not psychologists.”
So much of this complete lack of a social contract has to do with the Reagan Revolution which deemed government the problem and screamed loudly that deserving people aren’t getting ahead because other folks are taking it from them. You can see how these policies have allowed parts of the south to display their pre-civil war behaviors and attitudes proudly. Bigotry is once again religious freedom. Poor people deserve to be shamed and starved to death. There are many Koch-sucking Republican governors ruining their states but Bobby Jindal’s Reign of Terror in Louisiana stands as a singular learning experience. This brilliant analysis in The Observer talks about the kind of behavior that puts a psychopath in high office instead of dead on the floor of a prison cell. Mental illness accompanied by poverty gets you a form of state execution. Mental illness accompanied by hubris and the ability to spout total nonsense about the economy and the US form of government gets you the campaign dollars of billionaires and the ability to package yourself into some statehouse.
A career that once stood for the wildest American dreams of immigrants’ children now looks like a different archetypal story: a story about the dangers and the limits of ambition. Seven years into a disastrous governorship, it now seems clear that Jindal never took seriously his obligations to his own state. Louisiana was another stepping stone in a career full of them—and Louisiana got stepped on.
It would be one thing if Jindal could point to a prospering state and a balanced budget in order to stake his claim to the presidency. Instead, he’s operated under the theory that results are less useful than ideological purity. In the process, Jindal effectively signed over control of his state’s budget to Republican kingmaker Grover Norquist and his anti-tax lobby, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Jay Morris, a Republican state representative, says that the budgeting process under Jindal boils down to this: “‘ATR says that’s a tax increase.’ Or, ‘ATR says that might not be a tax increase if you do blah, blah, blah.’ He feels that’s the best way to run for national office. It’s just not a good way to run Louisiana.”
Obviously, Morris is no fan of the governor, so take his words with a pinch of salt if you like. But it’s striking to hear how often they’re echoed these days—not just from the left, but from Jindal’s fellow conservatives. Here’s American Conservative writer Rod Dreher, a Louisiana native: “Jindal is sacking his own state to preserve his viability as a Republican presidential candidate—specifically, so he can say that he never raised taxes.” And here’s National Review contributing editor Quin Hillyer: Jindal’s tax policy, which actually taxes the poor at a higher rate than the rich, is “a moral abomination.”
The irony is that this hyper-ideological style of governance seems to have backfired. Jindal’s probable rivals, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, may not be able to point to gangbusters job growth—but at least they can’t be saddled with a failed state.
The deeper irony is that Louisiana’s budget crunch called for the very talents with which Jindal was so richly blessed: a wonkish engagement with policy details, a McKinsey-honed love of number-crunching, the sense of creative policy entrepreneurship that once had him reimagining Medicare as a Congressional intern. It’s easy to look from that Bobby Jindal to this one—from the rising star to the floundering governor—and ask: Can this be the same person?
A similar story line plays out in Governor’s mansions all over the country of once promising Republican pols. Chris Christie’s sadistic management style is starting to show up as Bridgegate unfolds. Stock up on
popcorn. The aides are turning on one another. This should be interesting. Oh, and Salon once more graces us with my word of the week. His aids are labelled “scheming lunatics”. I don’t imagine these lunatics will find themselves dead on the floor in some New Jersey Jail eventually. Simon Maloy labels the Christie aids as outright sociopaths for enjoying the distress of commuters stuck trying to cross the bridge.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading every single word of the indictments against the former Chris Christie aides responsible for the Bridgegate scandal. Many of the details laid out in the document are already known, but there are some fresh tidbits revealed by the indictment that really drive home the fact that the Christie populated his administration with petty and incompetent sociopaths.
The basics of the Bridgegate scandal are already well-known: three high-ranking Christie officials conspired to create a series of massive traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge as a way to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, who’d refused to endorse Christie for reelection. Not only that, they’d approached this oddball scheme with an air of almost cartoonish super-villainy, best captured by Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, who emailed “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” to her co-conspirator at the Port Authority. Because these lackwit criminals conducted much of their conspiring over email and text message, prosecutors had a handy document trail to piece together the particulars of their nefarious scheme.And those particulars are breathtaking. These three officials – Kelly, and Port Authority officials David Wildstein and Bill Baroni – plotted to minute detail the ways they could best abuse their authority to screw over thousands of New Jersey residents. They gamed out lane-closure scenarios to figure out which one would be the most disruptive. They waited until the last possible moment to order the closures and deliberately kept Fort Lee officials in the dark, partly so that police couldn’t prepare for the chaos, but also to “keep Fort Lee residents and GWB commuters from altering their routes.” And they carefully chose the start date for the closures, September 9, 2013, “which they knew was the first day of school for children in Fort Lee,” to “intensify [Fort Lee mayor Mark] Sokolich’s punishment.”
That’s just evil, and they took gross pride in their work. According to the indictment, “Wildstein went to the GWB to observe the impact personally,” and he happily shared news of the chaos with Kelly and Baroni, who were similarly pleased.
A recent poll shows that most adults in NJ think Christie knew about it and probably tacitly–if not outright–approved the traffic slow downs. He’s not quite as unpopular as Bobby Jindal, but he’s getting there.
New Jersey residents generally do not approve of the job Christie is doing, nor do they view him favorably. Just 35 percent say he is doing a good job, compared with 54 percent who say he is not. Only 30 percent see him in a favorable light, compared with 47 percent who do not.
Then there’s Florida’s governor Rick Scott. He’s another two termer re-elected by a state full of masochists. The man is still fighting Medicaid Expansion while people tend to overlook his oversight of a huge amount of Medicaid Fraud while being CEO of Columbia/HCA. This is a huge conflict of interest along the lines of Dick Cheney–former CEO of Halliburton–systematically lying us into war. But, even the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald basically say Scott presided over a company that systemically defrauded the U.S. Government.
Scott started what was first Columbia in 1987, purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. Over the next decade he would add hundreds of hospitals, surgery centers and home health locations. In 1994, Scott’s Columbia purchased Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals, and merged the companies.
In 1997, federal agents went public with an investigation into the company, first seizing records from four El Paso-area hospitals and then expanding across the country. The investigation focused on whether Columbia/HCA had committed Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.
During his 2010 race, the Miami Herald reported that Scott had said he would have immediately stopped his company from committing fraud — if only “somebody told me something was wrong.” But there were such warnings in the company’s annual public reports to stockholders — which Scott had to sign as president and CEO.
Scott wanted to fight the accusations, but the corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.
In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines, civil damages and penalties.
Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement:
• Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or had not been ordered by physicians;
• The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals;
• The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education;
• Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them.
The government settled a second series of similar claims with Columbia/HCA in 2002 for an additional $881 million. The total for the two fines was $1.7 billion.
On Scott’s 2010 campaign website, he admitted to the $1.7 billion fine, though the link is no longer on the site.
Is one of the goals of aspiring Rapture nuts a desire to bring down the U.S. prior to their end time delusions? Why do we get so many governors these days that are intent on destroying their own states and making the lives of their citizens miserable? What is it that gets these sadists elected? Is this just the strange fruit of Citizen’s United? Is this how we’re getting murderous police departments and governors that openly commit crimes and get second terms in the process?
Sam Brownback–having wrecked the state of Kansas’ economy–is now busy with the real work of a sociopath. How’s this for separation of church and state and uber pandering? 
On April 7, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a bill outlawing the most commonly used abortion method for women in their second trimester. Kansas is the first state to pass such a ban, which doctors say may force women into choosing more dangerous forms of abortion.
The moment was historic—so historic, that on Tuesday, Brownback took a victory lap around the state, signing the bill again in four separate private ceremonial re-enactments. Each location was at or near a Catholic school, so children could attend.
He started at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa, just south of Kansas City. Arriving around 9 a.m., he gave some brief remarks in the church’s ballroom facility and signed the bill on a blue paisley tablecloth. There was a photo op with students. He passed out some gubernatorial clicky pens.
“The people of Kansas do not support dismembering children,” Brownback said.
Then it was off to the airport to make his next appointment, St. Mary’s-Colgan High School, 100-some miles to the south in Pittsburg. Same blue tablecloth, same tableau of supporters flanking him with children and babies. Members of the student government and selected representatives from each grade watched him re-sign the bill.
Again, at Bishop Carroll High School, in Wichita, 160 miles due west. (His staffers say the total cost for taking out the state plane was around $1,000.)
“It’s important legislation that will go nationwide,across the country,” he told the students gathered, while protesters outside held signs.
One more time, at Thomas More Prep-Marian High School, where school officials say well over 100 students showed up.
Kansas–now heading towards a huge fiscal crisis–will get to wrack up legal fees for pricey lawyers trying to once more to tilt at the windmill of Roe v. Wade. Afterall, zygotes are so much more important than living breathing children whose educations, health and futures are being gutted by Brownback-inflicted budget troubles. A Topeka waitress lobbyed the Holier-than-Thou one via a note on his check.
Jumping on Facebook she wrote, “You guys 911 emergency. It’s my last shift and I am waiting on our governor. What should I say to him. This is not a test. Go.”
According to Hough, she wasn’t trying to be malicious but she didn’t want to waste a once in a lifetime moment.
“I just knew I had to say something, or I would regret it,” she said, adding, “It was my last shift at the restaurant, as I had quit, so it worked out nicely.”
Hough said she ran it past other staff members, including her boss who didn’t appear thrilled but laughed, before going ahead.
According to Hough — who said she believes education is the “foundation” of a progressive country — the governor still gave her a tip, using the customer copy to leave her 10 percent.
Despite his recent re-election, Brownback is unpopular in his state having slashed taxes while cutting services and creating huge budget deficits. The conservative governor recently cut funding for schools in the state in an effort to keep the state solvent, forcing many schools to close early due to a lack of money.
I’m not even going to repeat the story I wrote about on Friday where Texas’ crazy ass governor is sending National Guard to protect the state from the U.S. Army based on paranoid conspiracy theorists. Will Texas be insane enough to give this dude a second term too?
Anyway, I just can’t believe that after all these costly failures that any state would turn itself over to a Koch-backed Destruction Machine.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: May Baskets and Maypole Dances
Posted: May 2, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Beltane, May baskets, May Day, Walpurgisnacht 34 Comments
St. George’s Kermis with the dance around the maypole, Peter Brueghel
Good Morning!!
May Day Memories
It’s not May Day anymore, but I’m making it the theme of my post today anyway. Yesterday, Delphyne posted an article on Facebook that brought back memories of May Day when I was a child.
New England Historical Society: How To Make a Maine May Basket.
An old New England tradition that perhaps deserves reviving is the giving of May baskets on May Day. It was popular among children, especially in northern New England, during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Children made small homemade baskets or used available ones. They filled them with treats: candy, cookies, flowers. Then they’d hang them on the doorknob or leave them on the doorstep of a friend, a sweetheart or a favorite relative. The custom was to knock, yell “May Basket” and then run. If the recipient caught the giver, he or she was entitled to a kiss.
NPR also ran a story on May baskets. A Forgotten Tradition: May Basket Day.
The curious custom — still practiced in discrete pockets of the country — went something like this: As the month of April rolled to an end, people would begin gathering flowers and candies and other goodies to put in May baskets to hang on the doors of friends, neighbors and loved ones on May 1.
In some communities, hanging a May basket on someone’s door was a chance to express romantic interest. If a basket-hanger was espied by the recipient, the recipient would give chase and try to steal a kiss from the basket-hanger.
Perhaps considered quaint now, in decades past May Basket Day — like the ancient act of dancing around the maypole — was a widespread rite of spring in the United States.
Through the 19th and 20th centuries, May Basket Day celebrations took place all across the nation:
A reporter in the Sterling, Ill., Gazette in 1871 explained the seasonal ritual this way: “A May-basket is — well, I hardly know how to describe it; but ’tis something to be hung on a door. Made of paper generally, it contains almost anything, by way of small presents you have in mind to put in it, together with your respects, best wishes — love, perhaps. It is hung after dark at the door of anybody the hanger fancies. — Which done, the said hanger knocks and scampers.”
The writer went on to say, in the spirit of the times, that if a boy hangs a May basket on a girl’s door and the girl catches him, “it’s a great disgrace.” If a girl is the hanger, “it disgraces the boy again not to catch her.”
When I was a small child, we lived in Lawrence, Kansas for five years while my dad worked toward his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas. I have wonderful memories of making May baskets when we lived there.
We would take a piece of colored construction paper and roll it into a cone shape, and tape or staple it. Then we would put candy in the cone and decorate it with flowers we found outdoors. I particularly remember picking violets and tucking them into the sides of the cone. Then we hung the May baskets on the doorknobs of friends and relatives (my uncle was getting a law degree at KU at the time and lived in our neighborhood). The tradition was that you rang the person’s doorbell and then ran away or hid somewhere to see their reaction. It was so much fun.
When we moved to Athens,Ohio, we tried to continue the May basket tradition, but no one there had heard of it. I don’t know if this was something passed down from my grandparents or what. My mother’s father was born in Maine, and my father’s mother came from Massachusetts.
Of course we still celebrated May Day in Catholic school. May 1 is designated as a day to celebrate the “Virgin Mary,” and May is “Mary’s month.” One of the girls in the school was chosen as the May queen. I don’t recall if there was a May king. The May queen sat on a raised platform holding flowers while the rest of us danced around a Maypole holding colored streamers.
Maypole dance, Central Park, NY, 1905
It’s so interesting to think back on those days now that I know the church adapted all the pagan holidays and turned them into Christian celebrations. May 1 was a Celtic holiday called Beltane, and in Germany it was known as Walpurgisnacht. Here’s some history of May Day from School of the Seasons:
Like Candlemas, Lammas and Halloween, May Day is one of the corner days which fall between the solar festivals of the year (the equinoxes and solstices). The ancient Celts called this holiday Beltane and began celebrating at sunset on April 30th. It marked the beginning of summer, time to move with the flocks up to the summer pastures….
In Germany, April 30th is Walpurgisnacht, the night when it was believed that witches flew on their brooms to mountaintop gatherings where they danced all night around bonfires. This night is named after St Walpurga, who came from England in the 8th century to become the abbess of a German monastery. It seems a little hard to believe that this holy woman would have her name associated with such licentious rites until you consider that early monasteries evolved from pagan colleges of priests and priestesses. On this night, St. Walpurga and her followers went up into the mountains to perform sacred rituals.
Like Halloween, this is a night when witches, fairies and ghosts wander freely. The veil between the worlds is thin. The Queen of the Fairies rides out on a snow-white horse, looking for mortals to lure away to Fairyland for seven years. Folklore says that if you sit beneath a tree on this night, you will see Her or hear the sound of Her horse’s bells as She rides by. If you hide your face, She will pass you by but if you look at Her, She may choose you.
Halloween is a festival of death, a time for letting go and mourning. May Day, on the opposite side of the Wheel of the Year, is about life, about falling in love and frolicking in the woods. Death is an ending but also a beginning. Falling in love is a beginning which is also a death. The Goddess who manifests herself at May Day calls you out of yourself and you may never return, at least to the same world you knew.
In honor of May Day and the approach of summer, I’ve decorated this post with photos of May baskets and Maypole dancers.
Now some news, links only.
Baltimore updates
Joseph Cannon, May 1, 2015: The day we said NO MORE COVER-UPS.
The Independent UK, The man who filmed the Freddie Gray video has been arrested at gunpoint.
Think Progress, Man Who Filmed Freddie Gray Reportedly Arrested Under Suspicious Circumstances
The Baltimore Sun, FOP calls on prosecutor to recuse herself, defends officers.
Reuters, Baltimore heads into weekend of rallies after officers charged.
National Journal, Why Marilyn Mosby’s Comments on Freddie Gray Matter.
The Daily Beast, Experts: Experts: You Can’t Break Your Own Spine Like Freddie Gray.
The Washington Post, A look at the six Baltimore police officers charged in the Gray case.
The New York Times, Marilyn Mosby, Prosecutor in Freddie Gray Case, Takes a Stand and Calms a Troubled City.
TPM Cafe, How A 1898 Race Riot Can Help Us Make Sense of Baltimore.
Presidential Politics
Politico, How Rand Paul blew it on Baltimore.
Reuters, On Clinton’s age, Republican rivals imply — but never say — she’s old.
The Washington Post, Bernie Sanders raises $1.5 million in 24 hours, says his campaign.
FiveThirtyEight, Chris Christie’s Access Lanes To The GOP Nomination Are Closed.
New York Times editorial, Governor Christie’s People.
Chris Cillizza, Two minutes that show Mike Huckabee’s great promise as a presidential candidate.
Nepal Earthquake
CNN, Teenager pulled alive from rubble on Day 6.
The Guardian, Nepal customs holding up relief efforts, says United Nations.
The New York Times, Nepal’s Fast Urbanization and Lax Enforcement Add to Quake’s Toll.
The New York Times, Foreign Diplomats Try to Track Down the Missing in Nepal.
Other News
New York Times, Ben E. King, Soulful Singer of Stand By Me, Dies at 76.
CNN, Ben E. King: Voice like a pool of honey beneath a crispy surface.
The Root, R&B Legend Ben E. King Dies at 76.
Reuters, It’s a girl – Britain’s Duchess Kate gives birth, both well, palace says
Beat The Press, David Brooks and the Federal Government’s $14,000 Per Year Per Poor Person
Christian Science Monitor, There may be a volcano erupting off the coast of Oregon: Is it a threat? (+video).
What stories are you following today? Please share your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a nice weekend!
Friday Reads: Lunatic Fringe, we know you’re out there
Posted: May 1, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: conspiracy theory, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Texas Crazy, US military invade Texas? 59 Comments
Good Morning!
I think I’ve seen the word “lunatic” used in more headlines recently than I’ve ever seen the word used. You won’t even need two guesses to get the reference in mind. Lunatic is an interesting word that is usually associated with a mentally ill person and generally is a throw back word used in less enlightened times. But, it seems appropos even if it’s directed at folks actually making major policy decisions for our country and states. Teddy Roosevelt said something interesting about the ‘lunatic fringe’. He popularized that term around 1913. He said “Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe. The same political party that produced Teddy Roosevelt now is producing reactionary reform in that everything they suggest seems to take us back to periods prior to post-civil war reforms or worse.
So, the first headline is from Salon and has to do with the state of Texas and its new elected crazed Governor of the moment. Digby writes that”Right-wing lunatics think the military is planning to invade Texas. Here’s why.”
In fact, it appears that the right wing in this country has become downright hostile to the one government institution they heretofore had defended with every fiber of their being: the military. This week, members of the conservative fringe, having apparently become convinced that the army is holding a large training exercise in the American southwest in order to prepare the ground for a federal government takeover of Texas, are themselves metaphorically spitting right in the faces of U.S. soldiers:
“It’s the same thing that happened in Nazi Germany: You get the people used to the troops on the street, the appearance of uniformed troops and the militarization of the police,” Bastrop resident Bob Wells told the Statesman after the meeting. “They’re gathering intelligence. That’s what they’re doing. And they’re moving logistics in place for martial law. That’s my feeling. Now, I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. I hope I’m a ‘conspiracy theorist.’”
Yes, we all hope that Bob is a conspiracy theorist. It would be disturbing indeed if the U.S. military were preparing to invade Texas and turn it into Nazi Germany.
That’s even way south of a conspiracy theory. I suppose that’s why lunacy is involved.
Paul Waldman–writing for The American Prospect–inkles the l word too. The title is hauntingly similar: “Indulging the Lunatics 
on the Right” and it’s on the same topic. Is the Governor of Texas indulging the lunatics on the right or is he actually an example of the lunatic having taken over the asylum?
So in response to the fact that some of Texas’s dumbest citizens emerged from their doomsday prepper shelters long enough to harangue a colonel about their belief that martial law is coming to their state, Governor Abbott issued an order to the National Guard to monitor the movements of the U.S. military just to make sure they aren’t herding citizens into re-education camps or dropping Islamic State infiltrators into Galveston. I guess we’re safe from that, for the moment anyway.
Every politician encounters nutballs from time to time, and it isn’t always easy to figure out how to respond to them. But what’s remarkable about this is that we aren’t talking about an offhand remark Abbott made, or an occasion in which a constituent went on a rant to him and he nodded along to be friendly instead of saying, “You, sir, are out of your mind.” This is an official action the governor is taking. He’s mobilizing state resources, at taxpayer expense, because of a bizarre conspiracy theory that has some of Texas’s more colorful citizens in its grip.
It’s really hard to keep people from believing outlandish things. But you don’t have to indulge them. And that’s what so many Republicans do with the crazies on their side: They indulge them. Doing so doesn’t reassure them or calm them down, it only convinces them that they were right all along and encourages them to believe the next crazy thing they hear.
If it were only a few national guard units in a state well known for doing weird things in a big way, I could almost go for the 
coddling, indulging, encouraging meme. However, what do you call it when a set of House Republicans actually want to start passing laws that are blatantly unconstitutional because they prefer to ignore all the amendments passed after The US Civil War? Exactly how many states emptied their asylums during the Reagan years, only to vote them into office now as long as they are Republican, white, and of a certain majority religion?
A House Judiciary subcommittee took up the question Wednesday afternoon, prompted by legislation sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and 22 other lawmakers that, after nearly 150 years, would end automatic citizenship.
The 14th Amendment, King told the panel, “did not contemplate that anyone who would sneak into the United States and have a baby would have automatic citizenship conferred on them.” Added King, “I’d suggest it’s our job here in this Congress to decide who will be citizens, not someone in a foreign country that can sneak into the United States and have a baby and then go home with the birth certificate.”
It’s no small task to undo a principle, enshrined in the Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court, that defines the United States as a nation of immigrants. It’s particularly audacious that House Republicans would undo a century and a half of precedent without amending the Constitution but merely by passing a law to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s wording in a way that will stop the scourge of “anchor babies” and “birth tourism.”
Iowa not only births lunatics, it sends them to the District to create laws. They can also be elected governor and run for President as the candidate of Theocracy.
Mike Huckabee rallied a crowd of Hispanic evangelicals on Wednesday night, pushing back in the debate over religious freedom just one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments to determine whether states have the right to ban same-sex marriage.
“I respect the courts, but the Supreme Court is only that — the supreme of the courts. It is not the supreme being. It cannot overrule God,” he said. “When it comes to prayer, when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created.”
His well-received speech at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference came just days before the former Arkansas governor is expected make his 2016 announcement in Hope, Arkansas, on Tuesday followed by a campaign swing through Iowa.
Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses during his 2008 presidential bid with support from Christian conservatives, has never shied away from weighing in on social issues and warned that “our country’s in trouble because we lost our landmarks of faith.”
He doubled down on his argument that Christian business owners are being “criminalized” when they face legal action for not agreeing to participate in same-sex weddings, an issue that has spurred the recent religious liberty debate in Indiana.
“Somebody’s got to be willing to take on the institutions that challenge and threaten our ability to believe as we believe, because when religious liberty is lost, all liberty is lost,” he said.
Did you notice he’s chosen Hope, Arkansas for the annoucement? I can only imagine the Clinton hatefest that will ensue. After 
all, hatred is the calling card of the religious lunatics of Huckabee’s ilk.
Both Huckabee and Rand Paul continually call for their version of Father Knows Best while their own children behave more than badly. Huckabee’s son tortured and killed a dog. Huckabee lectured the Obama’s on their parenting, however. Rand Paul is now lecturing black people in Baltimore. Paul said the violence is about a “lack of fathers”. What does he call the root of the obvious issues displayed by his son’s behavior?
Presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) weighed in on the turmoil in Baltimore on Tuesday, standing with police and blaming the violence on a lack of morals in America.
“I came through the train on Baltimore (sic) last night, I’m glad the train didn’t stop,” he said, laughing, during an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.
Railing against what he repeatedly called “thuggery and thievery” in the streets of Baltimore, Paul told Ingraham that talking about “root causes” was not appropriate in the middle of a riot.
“The police have to do what they have to do, and I am very sympathetic to the plight of the police in this,” he said.
As for root causes, Paul listed some ideas of his own.
“There are so many things we can talk about,” the senator said, “the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of a moral code in our society.”
He added that “this isn’t just a racial thing.”
Paul’s son was recently cited for a DUI. This is his third run in with the law involving alcohol.
Presidential candidate Rand Paul’s son, William, received a citation for driving under the influence of alcohol this past weekend, according to reports.
Police reportedly encountered the Kentucky GOP Senator’s 22-year-old son on Sunday morning after his Honda Ridgeline rear-ended a parked vehicle in Lexington, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
READ: Sen. Rand Paul’s son arrested, charged with underage drinking
William Paul has had two prior alcohol-related interactions with law enforcement, including a charged assault, the paper reported.
The son sustained minor injuries after the Sunday crash and has been charged with driving under the influence and for not having car insurance, according to the local media reports.
Wonkette kindly fills us in on some of the other details of his drunken behavior including assaulting a flight attendant. Of course, Senator Aqua Buddha was no pillar of morality at his age either.
That would be William Hilton Paul, son of Rand Paul, getting himself in law trouble — for the third time (thus far) in his brief 22 years — for illegally boozing. (And kindly note, people, that was eleven IN THE MORNING.) The first time this thug in need of a father got busted, it was for drinking under age and assaulting a flight attendant, but, like every other thug who flaunts the law to do disorderly violence, he just had to perform some community service and take a class about not doing that. Which he failed because he got busted for underage drinking again later that year. WHERE WAS HIS FATHER?!?! Cleary he does not understand, as Rand Paul does, that “we do have problems in our country” — fathers not sticking around to teach their kids not to do riots and looting and drunk driving, for example — “but there can be no excuse for the behavior.”
It’s really too bad kids these days don’t have the right kind of family structure and the right kind of moral code to know better and not engage in this kind of lawless behavior. Good thing Rand Paul is running for president. Clearly, he’s the perfect dad for the job.
As for the flight attendant, that was so 2013.
William Hilton Paul, the 19-year-old son of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and the grandson of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, is being accused of physically assaulting a female flight attendant during a flight last weekend, the Charlotte Observer reported.
The publication said the Charlotte-Mecklenberg police confirmed that Paul had been charged with a misdemeanor assault on a female by “aggressive physical force” on Saturday.
Republican senator Rand Paul, who currently represents Kentucky and is a prospective presidential candidate for the upcoming 2016 elections, told religious leaders during a private prayer breakfast last month that the First Amendment does not say religion has to be kept out of governance.
“The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn’t say keep religion out of government,” Paul said. “So, you do have a role and a place here.”
I suggest a new, extended definition for lunatic. It should include something about being a Republican and having an excessive attachment to religious craziness. I could go on a little more here, but then you’d have to find out the latest news on Governor Jindal and I hate to torture you with any more tales of fringed lunatics.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Corporate Media Enables Victim Blaming in Death of Freddie Gray
Posted: April 30, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: abandoned row houses, Baltimore police, Baltimore protests, corporate media, East Baltimore, Freddie Gray, lies, Martin Luther King jr., media propaganda, Racism, rioting, rumors 56 Comments
View of East Baltimore from Amtrak train (credit Dave Troy http://davetroy.com/posts/from-the-train-baltimore-looks-like-hell)
Good Morning!!
The victim-blaming flew thick and fast last night after The Washington Post published a self-serving leak from an anonymous Baltimore murderer policeman. According to the Post report, Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord, crushed his own voice box and gave himself severe brain injuries in order to get back at the cops who beat him, dragged him to a police van as he screamed in agony and left him unbelted during a long “rough ride” to the police station.
From the WaPo story:
BALTIMORE — A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.
The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.
The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.
Gray was found unconscious in the wagon when it arrived at a police station on April 12. The 25-year-old had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later, touching off waves of protests across Baltimore, capped by a riot Monday in which hundreds of angry residents torched buildings, looted stores and pelted police officers with rocks.
Abandoned row houses, Perlman Place, Baltimore
That solves that mystery then, right?
Um . . . . no. That tall tale is just likely to inflame more anger and protests.
Watch this CNN video of the Freddie Gray arrest posted at Slate if you can handle it. It shows police lifting and pushing Gray into the van because he can’t move at least one of his legs. Several times Gray screams in agony as police lift him into the van and leave him unbelted despite his injuries.
A second bystander-filmed video of Freddie Gray’s April 12 arrest in Baltimore—after which he was hospitalized and died—appears to show Gray in substantial pain before being put into a police vehicle.
Initial video of Gray’s arrest also appeared to depict him in pain as an onlooker shouted that Gray’s leg was broken….both videos—and witness reports that Gray was struck and “bent up” by the officers who arrested him—seem to suggest the possibility that he was injured before being put into the van.
Have I told you lately how much I despise the Washington Post? At least they did publish this piece by Michael E. Miller this morning:
Those stories that Freddie Gray had a pre-existing spinal injury are totally bogus.
One thing is certain…Freddie Gray did not have a pre-existing spinal injury.
Yet, that was the story circulating on a handful of conservative Web sites Tuesday. In an “exclusive” quoting anonymous sources, the Web site The Fourth Estate reported that “Freddie Gray’s life-ending injuries to his spine may have possibly been the result of spinal and neck surgery that he allegedly received a week before he was arrested, not from rough [sic] excessively rough treatment or abuse from police.” The site claimed his injury was from a car accident. For more surgery procedures, check out nanoknife cancer surgery on atlasoncology.com for more information.
“If this is true, then it is possible that Gray’s spinal injury resulting from his encounter with the Baltimore Police was not the result of rough-handling or abuse, but rather a freak accident that occurred when Gray should have been at home resting, not selling drugs,” the site reported right above images of documents pertaining to a civil lawsuit involving Gray by his vehicle accident lawyer.
“The police didn’t mistreat him at all; he mistreated himself,” the report concluded.
Abandoned row houses in Baltimore
A$$holes.
But the images on the Fourth Estate actually relate to Gray’s lead paint lawsuit, the Baltimore Sun revealed. An attorney representing the Gray family confirmed that the case concerned lead paint, not a spinal cord injury a week before Freddie Gray’s arrest.
“We have no information or evidence at this point to indicate that there is a prior pre-existing spinal injury,” said Jason Downs, an attorney representing one of Gray’s relatives, told the Sun. “It’s a rumor.”
And yet that rumor might have caused real damage in a country already polarized on the subject of race and the police. The story quickly spread to several other Web sites, such as Free Republic and the Conservative Tree House, which called Gray’s supposedly pre-existing injury “a potential game changing discovery. A site called New York City Guns ran the headline “Dead Baltimore Drug Dealer Had Spinal Surgery DAYS Before He Collapsed in Police Van (Rioters Say ‘OOPS’).”
F**king a$$holes! I’m so sick of this garbage from so-called “conservatives.”
From this morning’s Baltimore Sun: The truth about Freddie Gray’s ‘pre-existing injury from car accident.’
Paperwork was filed in December allowing Gray and his sister, Fredericka to each collect an $18,000 payment from Peachtree Settlement Funding, records show. In exchange, Peachtree would have received a $108,439 annuity that was scheduled to be paid in $602 monthly installments between 2024 and 2039.
In her documents, Fredericka Gray checked “other” when asked to describe the type of accident. She also said that the date of the accident was “94/99” and that she was a minor when the case was settled.
In his documents, Freddie Gray checked “work injury, medical malpractice and auto accident” as the type of accident. When asked to explain, he also wrote something that is unreadable. He also wrote something unreadable when asked if he was a minor when the case was settled.
Baltimore, Md — 12/2/11 — The rear of a vacant house, marked with “X” on the left, where a 13-year-old girl was raped in October. The house at 825 N. Caroline was owned by the city for years and last year the city transferred it through a swap with a developer. Kim Hairston [The Baltimore Sun ]
As children, Gray and his two sisters were found to have damaging lead levels in their blood, which led to educational, behavioral and medical problems, according to a lawsuit they filed in 2008 against the owner of a Sandtown-Winchester home the family rented for four years.
While the property owner countered in the suit that other factors could have contributed to the children’s deficits — including poverty and their mother’s drug use — the case was settled before going to trial in 2010. The terms of the settlement are not public.
Even the Free Republic has now withdrawn their story on the rumors, according to the Sun article. But that won’t stop Fox News and other right wing sources from spreading the lies.
Now two important articles about the real roots of the riots that broke out in Baltimore on Monday.
TPM Cafe:
The Role The Police Played In Sparking The Baltimore Violence, by Lawrence Brown.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments