Yesterday, my attention was drawn to a story which everyone in Las Vegas, NV, probably is aware of but which seems to be going under the radar (literally as well as figuratively) elsewhere. It probably doesn’t help that the name of the company involved, owned by the Boer MuskRat, sounds like someone’s idea of a joke. But it’s pretty much a given that as a result of this project people will die, not to mention the property damage (less important unless one is the property owner, as the entirw population of Los Angeles County would probably tell you if you asked.)
Also yesterday, Heather Cox Richardson quoted from all the eulogies for Jimmy Carter. If you weren’t able to watch it or listen to it, as I wasn’t, you might find that Carter can be as inspiring in death as he was in life.
Joyce Vance explains why the government’s position on the documents case report is a “heads the people win, tails Trump** loses” kind of thing. Not that we really win overall, but both alternatives she discusses will be unsatisfying to the Tangerine Palpatine. Good.
For anyone with a short memory (probably not needed by y’all, but you might know someone who needs reminding), Wonkette has an article which help to refresh that memory – assuming we can get anyone who needs it to read, or listen. Republicans have no clue what they could be getting themselves (and all of us) into, and that goes double for elected and appointed Republicans who think they are untouchable by virtue of their positions and/or their money. The Nuremburg rallies were eventually followed by the Nuremburg trials and people were hanged. But that didn’t happen without a whole lot of destruction in between the two.
Yesterday, I continued knitting, finishing a couple of small things. I also tried a cup of coffee flavored with Torani’s white chocolate flavor syrup. The flavor of white chocolate seems to me such an unobtrusive, mild flavor that I wasn’t expecting much, but they nailed it ) Earlier this month they sent me an email announcing it was their 100th anniversary. I’ve dealt with them before – they’ve always made more flavors than you’ll ever see in the stores, but I wasn’t prepared for just how many they do make. I splurged on a sampler pack of flavors designed to go with coffee, and the white chocolate was one of those. Also, I stepped away from the computer for a while because the mouse I am now using is one that you never have to change the battery, but you do have to charge it periodically, and it ran out of charge. It’s charged now obviously, since this post is up. I hope y’all had as peaceful a day as mine, whatever, if anything, you celebrate.
This, by Marc Elias, was recommended by Joyce Vance a few days ago, and I put it aside until after Christmas. Maybe I should have put it aside until after New Year’s Day, hoping we would all gather more strength by then to grasp it and act on it. But here it is. I have to hope that he is at least correct in not expecting us to have a full-blown fascist government. I am not so confident.
Heather Cox Richardson on the history of polarization in the United States, starting with Nixon. To my mind she omits the one thing Gingrich did which had the most dire consequences, although there is plenty of evidence without it. (He removed the requirement for Congressfolk to maintain a residence in DC. Yes, that could be reinstated, but it would take far longer to build trust back again than it required to deteriorate it.)
Yesterday – actually Sunday night, but I saw it yesterday – Heather Cox Richardson had very little to say, but that little was mighty. She wrote about John Trumbull, hired to provide new art for the Rotunda after the War of 1812, being asked to recommend subject matter, and his response. He chose the moment of Washington’s resignation of his commission in 1783. “Madison agreed, and the painting of a man voluntarily giving up power rather than becoming a dictator hangs today in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.” I hope to heaven that when the Apricot Antichrist dies – and he will, sooner or later – that it is in some place or under such circumstances that we can avoid having his corpse lie in state in that very Rotunda. Such as maybe consumed in a fire. Or lost at sea and the body not found. Or falling out of a window in Russia and Putin refuses to release the body. I know, compared to all his destruction, it’s a small thing. But I really hate the idea of his presence, even dead, contaminating that room and that memory. Yesterday for real, President Biden commuted 37 federal death sentences (out of 40) to life without parole. Also, the House Ethics Committee’s report on Matt Gaetz was released to the public, thanks to two Republicans on the Committee, one from New York, one from Ohio, who voted (some time ago, apparently) with Democrats to release it after adjournment. I haven’t looked at it yet – but if there turns out to be more than I already know, it must be damning. If anyone wants it as a Christmas gift, here it is.
Yes, this is from Friday, and we know now that a CR was passed in the House and the Senate and signed Saturday, which we didn’t know then. But Robert Reich is still worth reading, because, with or without a shutdown, we still have battles ahead.
On Saturday night, Joyce Vance wrote about what is happening to Liz Cheney, why it shouldn’t be, and why it is anything but normal. She writes as a former prosecutor, and clarifies why no sane Attorney General and no sane judge would even consider prosecuting Liz Cheney. Since we are all expecting an Attorney General who is not sane, and also since, thanks to Republicans, so many judges are not sane either, I want to pont out that the Senate’s current push to confirm as many Biden-nominated judges as possible is probably the most influential thing which is actually possible to rectify that at this time.
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the figure of justice, whose statue stand outside or inside many courthouses – not just the home of SCOTUS. But you may or may not know that the has a name and a history, Her name is Themis, and she is the daughter of Uranus and Gases(heaven and earth.) She was also the second wife of Zeus (his first wife, Juno, being notorious for her jealousy, which may partly explain why Themis is little known) and as such was the mother of the Hours, the Fates, and others. She was the goddess of law, cosmic order (equity), and oracular knowledge. Lawyers and law students know of her because her name is also the name of an online school which helps students cramming for their bar exams. She has been having a rough time lately, what with MAGA and other Talibangelical Christians who seem to think they can trifle with her.
Why do I bring her up in connection with an article on, among other things, Jubilee? Well, for one thing, sometimes true justice must be and is administered outside the courts. But as the Goddess of cosmic order, I think she would appreciate that.
Jubilee is not a Greek word; it presumably comes from Hebrew since it (the word and the concept) first appear, to my knowledge, in the complex details of Mosaic law. That law established the certain years would be years of Jubilee and all kinds of things must be done – probably any one of which would trouble the wealthy. Things like freeing slaves and canceling all debts. This article covers how at least some enslaved people in the United States were able to use the holiday season for individual Jubilees. (One of the songs from the period is even named “Jubilo.”) And then I’ll have a little more to say about Jubilee years.
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For enslaved people, the holiday season was a time for revelry – and a brief window to fight back
Adolphe Duperly’s painting depicting the destruction of the Roehampton Estate in Jamaica during the Baptist War in January 1832. Wikimedia Commons
During the era of slavery in the Americas, enslaved men, women and children also enjoyed the holidays. Slave owners usually gave them bigger portions of food, gifted them alcohol and provided extra days of rest.
Those gestures, however, were not made out of generosity.
As abolitionist, orator and diplomat Frederick Douglass explained, slave owners were trying to keep enslaved people under control by plying them with better meals and more downtime, in the hopes of preventing escapes and rebellions.
Most of the time, it worked.
But as I discuss in my recent book, “Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery,” many enslaved people were onto their owners and used this brief period of respite to plan escapes and start revolts.
Feasting, frolicking and fiddling
Most enslaved people in the Americas adhered to the Christian calendar – and celebrated Christmas – since either Catholicism or Protestantism predominated, from Birmingham, Alabama, to Brazil.
Consider the example of Solomon Northup, whose tragic story became widely known in the film “12 Years A Slave.” Northup was born free in the state of New York but was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana in 1841.
In his narrative, Northup explained that his owner and their neighbors gave their slaves between three and six days off during the holidays. He described this period as “carnival season with the children of bondage,” a time for “feasting, frolicking, and fiddling.”
According to Northup, each year a slave owner in central Louisiana’s Bayou Boeuf offered a Christmas dinner attended by as many as 500 enslaved people from neighboring plantations. After spending the entire year consuming meager meals, this marked a rare opportunity to indulge in several kinds of meats, vegetables, fruits, pies and tarts.
Isaac Mendes Belisario’s ‘Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe’ (1837). Slavery Images
There’s evidence of holiday celebrations since the early days of slavery in the Americas. In the British colony of Jamaica, a Christmas masquerade called Jonkonnu has taken place since the 17th century. One 19th-century artist depicted the celebration, painting four enslaved men playing musical instruments, including a container covered with animal skin, along with an instrument made from an animal’s jawbone.
“Every child rises early on Christmas morning to see the Johnkannaus,” she wrote. “Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction.”
On Christmas Day, she continued, nearly 100 enslaved men paraded through the plantation wearing colorful costumes with cows’ tails fastened to their backs and horns decorating their heads. They went door to door, asking for donations to buy food, drinks and gifts. They sang, danced and played musical instruments they had fashioned themselves – drums made of sheepskin, metal triangles and an instrument fashioned from the jawbone of a horse, mule or donkey.
It’s the most wonderful time to escape
Yet beneath the revelry, there was an undercurrent of angst during the holidays for enslaved men, women and children.
In the American South, enslavers often sold or hired out their slaves in the first days of the year to pay their debts. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, many enslaved men, women and children were consumed with worry over the possibility of being separated from their loved ones.
At the same time, slave owners and their overseers were often distracted – if not drunk – during the holidays. It was a prime opportunity to plan an escape.
John Andrew Jackson was owned by a Quaker family of planters in South Carolina. After being separated from his wife and child, he planned to escape during the Christmas holiday of 1846. He managed to flee to Charleston. From there, he went north and eventually reached New Brunswick in Canada. Sadly, he was never able to reunite with his enslaved relatives.
Even Harriet Tubman took advantage of the holiday respite. Five years after she successfully escaped from the Maryland plantation where she was enslaved, she returned on Christmas Day in 1854 to save her three brothers from a life of bondage.
‘Tis the season for rebellion
Across the Americas, the holiday break also offered a good opportunity to plot rebellions.
In 1811, enslaved and free people of color planned a series of revolts in Cuba, in what became known as the Aponte Rebellion. The scheming and preparations took place between Christmas Day and the Day of Kings, a Jan. 6 Catholic holiday commemorating the three magi who visited the infant Jesus. Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, free people of color and enslaved people joined forces to try to end slavery on the island.
In April, the Cuban government eventually smashed the rebellion.
In Jamaica, enslaved people followed suit. Samuel Sharpe, an enslaved Baptist lay deacon, called a general strike on Christmas Day 1831 to demand wages and better working conditions for the enslaved population.
Two nights later, a group of enslaved people set fire to a trash house at an estate in Montego Bay. The fire spread, and what was supposed to be a strike instead snowballed into a violent insurrection. The Christmas Rebellion – or Baptist War, as it became known – was the largest slave revolt in Jamaica’s history. For nearly two months, thousands of slaves battled British forces until they were eventually subdued. Sharpe was hanged in Montego Bay on May 23, 1832.
After news of the Christmas Rebellion and its violent repression reached Britain, antislavery activists ramped up their calls to ban slavery. The following year, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, which prohibited slavery in the British Empire.
Yes, the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day offered a chance to feast or plot rebellions.
But more importantly, it served as a rare window of opportunity for enslaved men, women and children to reclaim their humanity.
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As I said, Mosaic law established years of Jubilee, during which, essentially, everyone had a chance to start over, freed from obligations. I did not check my memory against the Bible, but IIRC, it was every fiftieth year. But if Pope Francis wants to make it every 25th tear, I’m all for it. And apparently he does. Because he has invited me to join a Zoom call on planning for Jubilee 2025 (the last one was Jubilee 2000.) And that call is happening Monday, December 23. I didn’t get an invitation because I am special – I’m not – I assume it’s because I have signed petitions for justice that I got on the list. So I am extending it further to all of you.
Here’s the description:
“Live from St. Peter’s Square, Jubilee and Caritas Internationalis leaders hold a press conference to launch campaigns on debt relief in 160 countries for Jubilee 2025. The December 23rd St. Peter’s press conference explains the themes of debt cancellation lifted for special Jubilee Years among faith communities. The high-level press panel takes place 24 hours before Pope Francis begins Jubilee 2025 by opening the Holy Jubilee Doors and Calls for global debt relief for our people and our planet.
And here’s when it starts on Zoom:
December 23, 2024 | Rome: 3:00 PM – Accra: 2:00 PM – Rio de Janeiro: 11:00 AM – Washington DC: 9:00 AM [EST, 8:00 AM Central, 7:00 AM Mountain, 6:00 AM Pacific – and I believe 5:00 AM Alaska and 4:00 AM Hawaii.]
And here’s how to get the Zoom link:
Go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZKbW9lh_ULG-poup0aCHHyXTViC-gXCZE-Aihlu_Mz94BCg/viewform Fill in your email address – click the circular box that says “Virtually” – add your name and a couple of other items, and you’ll be sent a live link. If you have never Zoomed before, you’ll b taken to a place where you can get their app, which takes up very little space on your computer and doesn’t mess with anything there; if you have Zoomed before this shouldn’t be necessary. And there you are.
If you have doubts that there are still any real Christians left, especially in major denominations (and I’m the first to admit that the Catholic Right is horrendous), maybe even just knowing this is happening may help alleviate them.
Yesterday, I visited Virgil and we played cribbage. The deck of cars was practically brand new – I suspect it was brand new and just had a small defect, about a quarter inch tear in the side of the 3 of spades. If anyone remembers the “Bicycle” brand of playing cards, you may or may not now that nowadays they are going by “Motorbike.” That gave me a chuckle. Also, besides the yo jokers, they now add a third non-playable card with tips on how to tell if you are playing with someone who fakes cards. Sigh. Virgil continues to get more forgetful, but we still love each other and enjoy each other’s company, including card playing, and neither of us forgets that.
This is from Jezebel, to which Wonkette pointed me. Too bad Luigi Mangione is otherwise engaged. The Idaho government needs a visit from him or someone like him.
Wonkette also subscribes to Campaign Trail which posted this. Karma is only a bitch to you if you are a bitch to her. but if you are a bitch to her, she’s a real bitch.
Yesterday was pretty quiet. I put in a couple of medical claims for Thyroid, which has to come from a pharmacy which for some reason cannot accept HSA cards. (But the claims a paid promptly.) And that’s really all .
Like y’all, I was disappointed in Alvin Bragg when he first took office. But, oh boy, has he ever found some (courage, guts, balls, spine – pick your metaphor.) Now I am wondering whether this is newfound, or whether we underestimated him all along. Not that it really matters when an entire nation can best survive by simply taking one day at a time. Joyce Vance elaborates.
Yes, I am late with this Heather Cox Richardson essay. But I am always going to be late with hers and Vance’s, and Reich’s, and Hubbell’s, because they all send late enough that I generally don’t see them until the following day. At best, I ever see them untl after I have posted. But I fon’t consider that a reason not to share them when they are profound. This one is about the history of December 10 being international Human Rights Day. And all that that history implies.
Yesterday, my toilet clogged, and the plumber cannot come until Monday. But that’s not why I made this post entirely about healthcare today. I started putting it together when the news of the murder came out. By the way, the picture at left is from Pearl Harbor. Besides the videos, allow me to add this extra to lighten up a little. Andy Borowitz on pardons
I have never worked in health insurance, but I have worked in auto and home insurance, and one thing I learned is that if a coverage dispute goes to court, the verdict often goes to the insured, even if the expense is pretty nearly not covered by the contract. And that is because an insurance policy is a “Contract of adhesion.” That means that the insured has little or no say in what the contract says. It’s not a rule (neither is “tie goes to the runner” a rule in baseball). The jury or judge, like the umpire in baseball, must make the decision. But insurance companies know that the insured often gets the benefit of the doubt. I would think this would also apply to health insurance, which leads me to the conclusion that insureds who need help the most are those financially unable to take a case to court – a conclusion which should surprise no one at all. I couldn’t help but think of Wendell Potter – the Cigna CEO who quit because he couldn’t take the corruption. He is still fighting Big Health, and has a column on Substack (the newest entry is from the da before Thanksgiving, so it’s upbeat, but still very telling.)
Since I have already brought up health insurance, this may be an appropriate time to share this story on Medicare Advantage, which is not to anyone’s advantage but those who want to privatize Medicare. And, it not only doesn’t save money for its insured, but it doesn’t save any for taxpayers either. It’s something only a Republican could love. My advice is, don’t get it, and if you have it, don’t renew it. If it’s too late to drop it this year, don’t renew it next year. You’d be far better off setting up a separate savings account for medical emergencies and putting what the pemiums cost into it.
Incidentally, if you live in any of these nine states: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia – you need to know about this. Even if it wouldn’t affect you personally, it might stall affect a friend, a relative, or a neighbor.
Heather Cox Richardson generally comes up with very pointed examples from history of people doing things wrong, and she may get to this, but has not yet as I type.
When I was in my teens I had a book by Charles Dickens called “A Child’s History of England.” It had been my mother’s, was leather bound and starting to fall apart (and got more so over time), but I loved it. The combination of actual history, combined with the unconcealed bias with which it was delivered, was irresistible to me. I no longer have it, but it is available free at Gutenberg to read or to download, and I went there to refresh my memory.
Trump**’s invocation of recess appointments, in order to make which he will have to call a recess, reminded me of when Dickens describes a dissolution of Parliament, particularly where he cites arrogance and flippancy on the part of the dissolver. Dissolving a Parliament was a way that s monarch could get rid of a legislature whose work he did not like (I usually say “he or she” but no queen was brave enough or stupid enough to try it in the time period he covers.) Trump** expects to accomplish something similar with recess appointments.
First, let me quote the second dissolution of Parliament by Oliver Cromwell. He first dissolved the Parliament he inheriterd, and later called a second. Dickens thought he did so in order for that Parliament to crown him. It didn’t happen, and he dissolved it also.) Since this is public domain, I’ll quote at some length:
Oliver went down to the House in his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings, but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These last he left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he got up, made the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done with them, stamped his foot and said, ‘You are no Parliament. Bring them in! Bring them in!’ At this signal the door flew open, and the soldiers appeared. ‘This is not honest,’ said Sir Harry Vane, one of the members. ‘Sir Harry Vane!’ cried Cromwell; ‘O, Sir Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!’ Then he pointed out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the Speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the House, called the mace upon the table—which is a sign that the House is sitting—‘a fool’s bauble,’ and said, ‘here, carry it away!’ Being obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to Whitehall again, and told his friends, who were still assembled there, what he had done.
They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own way: which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this Parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, who had taken the singular name of Praise God Barebones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebones’s Parliament, though its general name was the Little Parliament. As it soon appeared that it was not going to put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was not to be borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much the same way as he had disposed of the other; and then the council of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. —
Altogether there are nine times where the word dissolve[s][d] is used in the book, and all refer to Parliament. Edward II was the first one – he dissolved Parliament to protect his gay lover, which did not end well for him – I think less because of the gayness than because the lover was a real jerk and rightly hated by everyone in the kingdom except the king, who died after torture in the Tower.
After that, they got through the whole Wars of the Roses and the Tudors without dissolving Parliament. It was Charles I who began the chain of dissolved Parliaments in the 17th Century = the first time to protect the Duke of Buckingham, who wa not anyone’s gay lover as far as we knoe – this was the same Buckingham who was assassinated by John Felton, as recounted in The Three Musketeers, though the reason and the circumstances in that book are pretty well pure fiction. The second time Charles I dissolved Parliament was pretty much a pure power grab, seasoned with payback for aome, two in particular who had tried to stop it.
Then came Cromwell, who was technically not a King, but was pretty well along in the process of becoming one. Dickens cuts him slack because he wasn’t officially a King, but I don’t – as a Christian Nationalist before it had a name, I find him worse than any king. The Lord did not deliver him from Sit Harry Vane, who outlived him, but was finished off by Charles II, who also did some dissolving.
It was not anti-Semitism (which existed – and has existed forever) but anti-Catholicism which led Charles II to dissolve parliament. A roundhead named Titus Oates, who has been compared to, and may have been an inspiration for, Joe McCarthy, gained a backing and would no doubt happily have killed the King’s brother and the queen, but didn’t get that far. He did get Parliament to bar the brother, later James II, from the succession, and that was when Charles II dissolved it in response. Later, he called a new Parliament, which he hoped would shoot down the Exclusion Act, which excluded Catholics from holding any public office, but instead they passed it, so he dissolved this one too.
It’s clear that the dissolution of a Parliament never did anyone’s legacy or memory any good.
Dickens was extremely opinionated, which comes through loud and clear. His facts are probably close enough to reality, but when he takes on people’s motives and the big picture of who was a good person or who was a bad person, I would not trust him for a second. But it does make for amusing reading. Should you decide to look it up, starting at the end and seing how suddenly he falls silent when the historical events begin to reach times when close relatives of the people involved are still alive, it is clear how suddenly he starts to speak no evil.
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