Presidents of Congress

I was writing a piece the other day on the U.S. Constitution, for another project, and had to do a little research on one or two points. For example, after the constitution was agreed to at the convention in September, 1787, the convention members signed it and sent it over to congress to be voted on. One of the things I looked up was the cover letter of transmittal. It was addressed to the "president" and signed by the President of the Convention (George Washington.) Who was this other president?

I was stymied at first. Then I recalled we were operating under the Articles of Confederation at that time, and the new constitution was being sent to the "President of Congress." (The Continental Congress.)

That brings up the old trick joke of "Who was the first President of the United States?" Some say John Hancock. Wrong. Some say George Washington. Right. George Washington is the right answer because he was the first president of the United States under our present constitution, and before that, the "presidents" were presidents of congress.

There were a lot of presidents of congress, starting back in 1774. Mostly they changed with each session of congress, more or less. They were more like an elected chairman of a committee rather than the "grandeur" of our current system. And John Hancock was, indeed the president of congress on July 4, 1776. But he wasn't President of the United States like now, and he wasn't the first president of congress, either.

The first president of congress was Payton Randolf and the last was one Cyrus Griffin. In between were 14 others (two were duplicates), including the aforementioned John Hancock. Also numbered among those early, rather fleeting in terms, presidents were John Jay, who would become our first Secretary of State and, later serve on the Supreme Court; and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, ancestor of Robert E. Lee. Randolf and Hancock each served two terms each, both non-consecutive.

So it was president of congress number 16, Cyrus Griffin, that the cover letter signed by George Washington was sent, along with the new constitution. Griffin dutifully put the matter before the congress of that time, and the new compact was passed and sent out to the states for their concurrence. Griffin stayed on as president until George Washington was sworn in under the new constitution on April 30, 1789.

One point of interest: one of these old congressional presidents, number 15, was Arthur St. Clair. He was pretty famous and pretty interesting. I won't go into his life here, but he came to America from Scotland, as a British soldier, during the French and Indian War (the 7 Years War, as the British call it) and is the only American president of congress who was born on foreign soil. He was born during the latter stages of the Jacobite Rebellions and his family moved because of them, and that is why his name came to my attention.

I have a little more to say on my other blog about the Jacobite Risings.

I am aware that one of the things other countries hate about Americans is that we always are talking about our Wonderful, Glorious, Constitution and saintly Founding Fathers. A lot of them don't think too much of our constitution as anything special, and are sick of hearing about the traitors who were our founding fathers. To them, I hope they are not offended by this post.

Was anyone aware that Blogcatalog still exists?

Well it does, apparently. After many months of silence I today received notice from them that someone new was following me. So I went to Blogcatalog, for the first time since I was much younger, and, lo, it is still there. It is very different and they have lost all the avatars of me and my countless past followers, and nobody is reading it or using it anymore (except new bloggers who don't know how nice and fun it used to be before they got uppity and mercenary.)

But they are still not updating anybody's blog posts. So that is still like the old system.

Since I felt the need to replace their generic avatar of a cartoon woman with glasses and a notepad with my real avatar that they lost during their conversion, I took the opportunity to update my entire profile with them, so newbies can bask in my glory once again over there. I respect you who read this blog, and therefore wish to save you an actual trip to Blogcatalog, so my new profile is reproduced below. Thank you.

[Note: if you are still using Blogcatalog and think it is good, please take this post as a joke. Thank you.]

Relax Max

New Mexico

Summary

Relax Max is amazing. Read all his blogs daily.

Blogs

BritishSpeak - http://www.britishspeak.blogspot.com

The Slap & Tickle - http://www.britishspeak3.blogspot.com

Way Harsh - http://wayharsh.blogspot.com

Clarity2010 - http://clarity2010.blogspot.com

About Relax

Why do you blog?
I hope to be discovered as a great writer and receive a large advance.

If you could, what would you rename 'blogging'?
Blugging

Has blogging impacted your life? How?
You mean "affected"? It hasn't "impacted" me, as in hit by a bus. So no, I guess. It has made me dumb down my writing a bit.

Who is your favorite band right now?
Glenn Miller

Why are they your favorite?
They're old

What book are you reading now?
Dog of the South

What is your favorite book?
You mean right now?

What is it about this book that you really like?
It isn't really about a dog. Isn't that cool?

What is your favorite movie of all time?
That's a toughie. "Wayne's World", probably.

What is it about this movie that makes it your favorite?
Hard to explain.

Who is your favorite author?
You mean, like, OF ALL TIME? Maybe ... George Bush? No?

Why is he/she your favorite?
Because he/she is gone now.

What are you most proud of?
Being privileged to be an astronaut and walk on the moon.

Share two things about you that no one knows :)?
Why would I want to do that? :) ?

Their Culture's Keeper

Not to belabor the subject of culture.

I awoke this morning to a Newser story about the Syrian government escalating its brutality against its protesting citizens.

I condemn that, but this post isn't about government brutality. It is about different cultures. The culture in Syria, at least, as portrayed by an ultra-liberal news aggregator. So maybe it's true, maybe it's not true, but it was put out there this morning as news.

The man interviewed (a "protester") says the brutes of the Syrian army have now escalated their brutality to a new high and are now raping women. (Women who don't support the Syrian government, one assumes.) I don't have any way to actually verify this is happening, but since the Washington Post is printing this unverified story, then why not me?

I have seen the news clip lately, over and over again, of Syrian troops beating an old man and kicking him repeatedly while he was on the ground, so it wouldn't take much to make me believe they would "escalate" their behavior from mere beating to death and cutting off of heads all the way up to rape. Of course, that's exactly what Saddam and his henchmen did for the last zillion years and nobody thought that was any of our business, so I am certainly not advocating we make the same mistake here by invading Syria in order to "liberate" their people.

The (allegedly) Muslim man (unidentified, of course) who was the source of this story, explains that the raping of the 4 sisters (also unidentified) was outrageous because it was an insult to the HONOR of the men in that community.

He goes on to explain that, normally, the villagers would now just kill the women since they were no longer fit for marriage, or, at least, mark them so no man would ever marry them by mistake. But here is the headline of this story:

"Syrian Men: We Will Marry Rape Victims!"

16 men have come forward in the village and agreed to marry the sisters. Now it is down to 4 men, but still it is hard to not admire these wonderful men. No? A tear wells up in Max's little doggie eye.

"The women are the victims of the revolution, and we will protect them," the man said. A bit late for that, I think (to myself, of course, so as not to seem to be attacking that culture's time-honored traditions.)

And the Syrian government? Do they admit their soldiers did this?

The Man: "At first they said it was sectarianism. Then they said it was criminal gangs. When that didn't work... they are attacking our honor!"

Excuse me while I go out back and throw up. Please don't think my feeling like throwing up has anything to do with commenting on this ancient culture's thoughts as to the definition of honor. (Or from whence those thoughts originated which have crept into that ancient culture.)

I'm just saying that if 4 women in my little town got brutally raped by the army or the police, I would be outraged against the army or the police because they raped the women. Not because it was an insult to my own honor because they disrespected ME.

Ok, I know I have been accused of being narrow-minded when it comes to these sort of things, so I've said my piece and now you can let me have it. Be sure you mention that this represents only a small small number of members of this culture and that billions are peace-loving, and the modern men of this culture don't think like this.

People, we have got to stop fighting in the name of culture, no matter what the name of that culture is. Don't you see?

Mo' on Crime

Crimes - acts which society has decided you can't do and can punish you for if you decide to do them - are really "law violations." Society makes up laws against things they don't want you to do, codifies the act, and stipulates the penalty. "Society" meaning you and your neighbors at a town hall meeting, or, much more frequently, your elected representatives, such as your city council, county commission, state legislature, or, sometimes, even the federal legislature. Oh, we have no shortage of criminal-type laws, and violating ANY of them can get you punished. Theoretically.

Does it matter if you personally don't agree with a law? If you think a law is foolish? If you think no one is harmed by a particular act? Not really - not unless you can convince a lot of your fellow citizens to think as you think and modify or abolish the law you don't like.

Because all laws are thought up and defined by some level of society, all violations of laws (called "crimes") are committed against society as a whole ("the people" or "the state") and not against individual persons. If you kill someone (and if it is against the law to kill someone in your state) you may be sure that your criminal charges will read, "State of Ohio vs. John Doe" and not "Dead Person vs John Doe." We speak in this post of criminal law and not civil law.

The state - the society which has been offended by your actions - is represented by a State's Attorney or District Attorney or County Prosecutor, or whatever you call him or her in your location. This person represents "The People" and it doesn't really matter if the offended party wants to press charges or not. At least not in theory. The person who was raped or beat up or robbed can be subpoenaed, as a hostile witness if necessary. Why? Because it isn't about a woman who gets beat up by her drunk husband who doesn't want to press charges against him. It is about the people at large not wanting to allow people to beat up other people in their society.

The reality, of course, is very different. There is precious little actual "justice" meted out in any state in the U.S.A. The District Attorney (acting in the name of "The People") will likely drop charges if the woman won't testify willingly. There are 100 other cases to be dealt with, so if she chooses to get beat up time after time, what are we to do? Move on to the next one.

Please resist the temptation to drift off onto the side road of why battered women stay with and defend their abusers. That would be the subject for a much different post.

Trials are expensive. As a result, the District Attorney and his minions spend most of their time "plea bargaining" and insulting justice in the process. Nothing else to be done unless we want to construct a hundred times as many courtrooms and prison cells. At least bad people sometimes spend SOME time in jail when they plea bargain. That's the DA's rationale for plea bargaining. Remember that a criminal is unlikely to face any serious prison time until he has had 87 chances to rehabilitate himself and has already hurt or robbed many people. And remember if a criminal is sentenced to 10 years in prison, he may serve 18 months or so in actuality.

Laws change. It was probably once against the law to throw rotten eggs at politicians in Wisconsin. I don't know. It was once against the law to kill unborn babies in all states. Fancy that. Here's an odd one: I read an article in my local paper just yesterday that this guy was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing an unborn baby by beating up his wife and kicking her in the stomach while wearing heavy boots. It took a few years to get him tried. I was irate about him getting only 10 years, Palin law-and-order zombie that I am. Then I thought, if the guy had been a doctor, it would have been ok. Depends on what the woman wants at the time, you know.

Don't go down the side road of doctors not using the boots and kicking method of abortion. Just don't. Thank you.

Marijuana? Public nudity? Prostitution? Apparently enough of your neighbors still don't want to live in that kind of society. So you need to work to get those laws abolished if you don't like them. I have read that in the Netherlands, even the hardest drugs are legal and the vilest chilepronergerphy is A-ok with the Dutch. Not so in West Texas. Maybe not so in Amsterdam, either. Like I said, I just read it somewhere.

All laws are enacted by society.

All crimes are defined by society.

All crimes when committed are (therefore) committed against society.

All crimes that are prosecuted are prosecuted in the name of the people of that society.

All people who are punished for committing crimes are punished in the name of society.

There are no victimless crimes. There are only laws broken and laws unbroken. If you don't agree that something should be against the law, well, that's too bad, isn't it? You can live by your own standards when you live alone on the planet, I guess. Otherwise, work for change. Society, in some way, is always the victim. At least until that society decides it doesn't want that law anymore. Go figure.

A tiny bit (the abortion part) of this is just my opinion. The rest is just cold hard facts of life.

My Sister's Keeper

Not to belabor the subject of religion.

I awoke this morning to a Newser story about the Syrian government escalating its brutality against its protesting citizens.

I condemn that, but this post isn't about government brutality. It is about Muslim thought. Muslim thought in Syria, at least, as portrayed by an ultra-liberal news aggregator. So maybe it's true, maybe it's not true, but it was put out there this morning as news.

The man interviewed (a "protester") says the brutes of the Syrian army have now escalated their brutality to a new high and are now raping women. (Women who don't support the Syrian government, one assumes.) I don't have any way to actually verify this is happening, but since the Washington Post is printing this unverified story, then why not me?

I have seen the news clip lately, over and over again, of Syrian troops beating an old man and kicking him repeatedly while he was on the ground, so it wouldn't take much to make me believe they would "escalate" their behavior from mere beating to death and cutting off of heads all the way up to rape. Of course, that's exactly what Saddam and his henchmen did for the last zillion years and nobody thought that was any of our business, so I am certainly not advocating we make the same mistake here by invading Syria in order to "liberate" their people.

The Muslim man (unidentified, of course) who was the source of this story, explains that the raping of the 4 sisters (also unidentified) was outrageous because it was an insult to the HONOR of the Muslim men in that community.

He goes on to explain that, normally, the villagers would now just kill the women since they were no longer fit for marriage, or, at least, mark them so no man would ever marry them by mistake. But here is the headline of this story:

"Syrian Men: We Will Marry Rape Victims!"

16 men have come forward in the village and agreed to marry the sisters. Now it is down to 4 men, but still it is hard to not admire these wonderful men. No? A tear wells up in Max's little doggie eye.

"The women are the victims of the revolution, and we will protect them," the man said. A bit late for that, I think (to myself, of course, so as not to seem to be attacking the Muslim religion's time-honored traditions.)

And the Syrian government? Do they admit their soldiers did this?

The Man: "At first they said it was sectarianism. Then they said it was criminal gangs. When that didn't work... they are attacking our honor!"

Excuse me while I go out back and throw up. Please don't think my feeling like throwing up has anything to do with commenting on ancient Muslim thought as to the definition of honor.

I'm just saying that if 4 women in my little town got brutally raped by the army or the police, I would be outraged against the army or the police because they raped the women. Not because it was an insult to my own honor because they disrespected ME.

Ok, I know I have been accused of being narrow-minded when it comes to these sort of things, so I've said my piece and now you can let me have it. Be sure you mention that this represents only a small small number of Muslims and that billions are peace-loving, and the modern Muslim men don't think like this.

People, we have got to stop fighting in the name of religion, no matter what the name of that religion is. Don't you see?

Crime

1. Crimes against property.

2. Crimes against people.

3. victimless crimes.

Are there really such things as victimless crimes? If two people agree to do something and neither is hurt by the doing, or one person does it alone but no one is injured, what is the harm? Where is the crime? PeeWee Herman wants to know the answer to this.

•Marijuana use

•Public intoxication

•Suicide

•Prostitution

•Not wearing a seat belt (and no accident has occurred)

•Public nudity

Some of these are on the books because they offend public morals (that is, they violate the right of a community to set its own standards.) Some are on the books because they could possibly cost the public money (like you can drive without a seat belt if you want to, just don't ask us to send police or an ambulance if you hit a tree and get thrown 100 yards and get all cut and broken up.)

Can you think of others? I mean other TRULY victimless crimes?

And what if the act is beneficial to society but still illegal (such as beating up a lawyer or dragging a politician behind your car.) Should a person still be punished for those "crimes?"

Is there such a thing as crimes against society? If so, do "victimless" crimes fit in that category?

Is vigilantiism ever justified?

Should drug addicts be sent to prison because they rob homes to get money to buy drugs? Or should they be intensely counseled and mentored?

What about "hate" crimes? Stupid or needed? If it is a capital crime to murder a homosexual in Wyoming, will enhancing it with a hate crime add-on make the murderer take longer to die or what?

What if most of the people think something should be a crime (like screaming obscenities at the funerals of dead soldiers for the purpose of hurting the families) but the constitution says it is just fine and dandy to do that? People are just out of luck?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Revolting

Revolution: A forceable overthrow of an existing government or social order, in favor of a new system.

Bolshevik: A member of the Russian Social Democrat Party. Later renamed the Communist Party.

Democratic Centralism: The organizational principles of Communist parties. For example, all directors of the Party shall be elected, top to bottom, and then supported fully by the losers; the minority subordinated to the majority.

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There was an attempt at revolution in Russia in 1905, after their disastrous war with Japan, but the Tsar was able to put down that attempt. Sort of. Not all the unrest was directed at the government; there was widespread dissatisfaction with the average Russian's lot in life in general. There were strikes and terrorist attacks and military mutinies and so on. The Tsar had to compromise in order to remain in power, and was forced to allow that most hated of institutions (to a monarch): a parliament. In Russian, a parliament is called a Duma.

Unrest settled down a bit, and by 1913 when the Tsar celebrated his family's 300th year in power, the crowds turned out. When World War I started the following year, the Russian people rallied as one and the Tsar had never really known such popularity as he stood before the chapel altar in the Winter Palace and spoke the vow never to conclude peace as long as a single enemy remained on Russian soil. It was the same words his great-great-grandfather, Alexander I, spoke in 1812 when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia. Alexander was, at least, able to keep his word, pursuing the French all the way back to Paris after the Russian winter killed Napoleon's army. They left behind the word "bistro" which is the French version of a Russian word meaning "hurry up" or "make it snappy."

Tsar Nicholas, however, would not be involved when peace was concluded this time.

A recently hopeful revolutionary by the name of Vladimir Lenin was about as dejected as a would-be revolutionary could be. He must have thought revolution would never come to pass after all. He had lived in exile since 1907, and he continued his frustrated existence in his sparse walk-up flat in Switzerland with his butt-ugly wife Nadezhda Krupskaya.

Fame and good fortune and adoration are all fleeting, of course. The war went badly for the Russians and the unwashed smell of revolution again filled the frosty air in early 1917. The Tsar abdicated and he and his family were placed under house arrest by the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky. That was in March (O.S.) Kerensky decided to fight on against the Germans, who retaliated by sending a frothing-at-the-mouth Lenin back to Russia in a sealed boxcar like some sort of smallpox bacillus. Which he was, of course.

Enter the second Russian Revolution of 1917, the October Revolution of Lenin and his Bolsheviks. Goodbye Tsar and family. Goodbye Russia. Hello Communism.

The word "Bolsheviks" actually just means "majority," which they were (politically speaking) compared to the Mensheviks in 1905. They kept the name after the revolution until, in about 1952, it occurred to papa Stalin that they were no longer a "majority" any more — they were an "only" now. Then they changed to just plain Communists.

Although it is possible to click on this image and enlarge it, I wish you wouldn't.

The Dog of the South

I'm not much on reading fiction.

But I do sometimes, if it's good enough.

The Dog of the South is good enough.

I'm not much on blogging book reports, either, but Descartes paid a rare visit to this blog the other day, so I will, in honor of him. (Jon talks about books, tv, movies on his blog.)

"The Dog of the South" is a perfect novel for me: It's old (1979); there is hardly anything in the way of a plot; and, best of all, the characters do not develop in ANY way. They are what they are and they don't improve with age.

Why would I want to read it then? Because it is good. It is entertaining. It is interesting. I couldn't put it down when I first read it and I couldn't put it down the second time around, now that Overlook has had the brains to reissue it after twenty years or so.

Why else? Maybe because Charles Portis makes me laugh so hard and so long that I pee all over the couch and scare the cats.

Charles Portis is funny. Charles Portis' first big book was the comedy "True Grit" back about 1968 or so. I'm talking about the book, not the movie (although he made a pretty penny selling the book to the movies too - not once, but twice so far.) Maybe you didn't think True Grit was a comedy, but it is in the book. Only Portis could make up names like Rooster Cogburn or Mattie from Yell County.

But The Dog of the South is not True Grit. It is in a class of its own. A world of it's own. There is no real need to think: just read and laugh your ass off.

The hapless protagonist, Ray Midge, is more than bad enough on his own, but Portis, in a fit of overkill, throws in Dr. Reo Symes as Midge's poor man's Pancho Sanza:

"I always tried to help Leon and you see the thanks I got. I hired him to drive for me right after his rat died. He was with the Murrell Brothers Shows at that time, exhibiting a fifty-pound rat from the sewers of Paris, France. Of course it didn't really weigh fifty pounds and it wasn't your true rat and it wasn't from Paris, France, either. It was some kind of animal from South America. Anyway, the thing died and I hired Leon to drive for me. I was selling birthstone rings and vibrating jowl straps from door to door and he would let me out at one end of the block and wait on me at the other end."

---------

It's hard to explain comedy. In fact, if you can explain why it's funny, it probably isn't. Suffice to say it isn't the 50 pound rat that makes the reader lose bladder control; that only gets you set up and mentally smiling. It is, of course, the vibrating jowl straps that pushes you over the edge. Anyway, here's a bit of Ray Midge talking at the beginning of the book:

"My wife Norma had run off with Guy Dupree and I was waiting around for the credit card billings to come in so I could see where they had gone. I was biding my time. This was October. They had taken my car and my Texaco card and my American Express card. Dupree had also taken from the bedroom closet my good raincoat and a shotgun and perhaps some other articles. It was just him like to pick the .410 — a boy's first gun. I suppose he thought it wouldn't kick much, that it would kill or at least rip up the flesh in a satisfying way without making a lot of noise or giving much of a jolt to his sloping monkey shoulder."

More:

"Here he was then, cruising the deserts of Mexico in my Ford Torino with my wife and my credit cards and his black-tongued dog. He had a chow dog that went everywhere with him, to the post office and the ball games, and now that red beast was making free with his lion feet on my Torino seats."

More:

"In exchange for my car he left me his 1963 Buick Special. I had found it in my slot at the Rhino Apartments parking lot, standing astride a red puddle of transmission fluid. It was a compact car, a rusty little piece of basic transportation with a V-6 engine. The thing ran well enough and it seemed eager to please but I couldn't believe the Buick engineers ever had their hearts in a people's car. Dupree had shamefully neglected it. There was about a quarter-turn of slack in the steering wheel and I had to swing it wildly back and forth in a childlike burlesque of motoring. After a day or two I got the hang of it but the violent arm movements made me look like a lunitic. I had to stay alert every second, every instant, to make small corrections...

The speedometer cable was broken, but...

"I had to keep the Buick speed below what I took to be about sixty because at that point the wind came up through the floor hole in such a way that the Heath wrappers were suspended behind my head in a noisy brown vortex."

---------

One reviewer said nobody should die without reading "The Dog of the South." I don't think I would go that far, but "The Dog of the South" is probably the best book that includes an old school bus in Mexico that you will read for a long time.

Another reviewer said this book is like being held down and tickled. That about says it for me, too.

Warning: like the naive girl who reviewed it on Amazon: "This book is not about a dog!"

On the need to teach the American Civil War in our schools

"Any understanding of this nation has to be based and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believed that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement with the European wars, beginning with the First World War, did that it did. But the Civil War defined us what we are, and it opened to us what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads." —Shelby Foote, 1990

"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." —Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, 1863
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Shelby Foote died in 2005, 15 years after Ken Burns' 1990 epic documentary "The Civil War" aired. Mr. Foote was an historian with a life-long interest in the Civil War. His own writings on the subject are monumental.

I am a lover of history. I know some of you are as well. I, too, have gotten sucked in by the Civil War, mostly, I think, because of it's many facets and complexities. I am one who likes to try to unravel complexities. But, more than that, I really believe the Civil War was exactly the turning point for our country that Mr. Foote says it was.

The Civil War had to happen, of course. I think many Americans today don't think much about it's lessons anymore.

I can't believe Burns' documentary was 21 years ago! And I am saddened to learn Mr. Foote has died. Many people don't recognize the name, but know him when they see his picture.

D-Day June 6, 1944

Good D-Day site here.