George Washington spent an entire campaign budget on booze.

FAMOUS FIGURES

Before he was the first President of the United States, George Washington was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1758 until 1775. He actually lost his first election, however, and “attributed his defeat to his failure to provide enough alcohol for the voters,” according author Daniel Okrent. At the time, it was common for candidates to woo voters by plying them with food and liquor. Washington avoided the same mistake during his second run, spending nearly the entire campaign budget on 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider royal served to 391 voters — nearly a half-gallon per voter. (He also spent 3 pounds on dinner for friends, which very likely also included booze.) His campaign even rolled barrels of liquor to polling places on Election Day, a custom in Virginia at the time. The practice of winning over voters with booze was widespread despite being technically illegal, and was known as “swilling the planters with bumbo.”

Washington didn’t need to woo anyone in order to become President; quite the opposite, in fact, as he did no campaigning and had to be convinced to even accept the role, despite being unanimously elected. He also planned to retire after his first term but was persuaded to remain in office, running unopposed in the 1792 election and once again winning unanimously. Politicians today could only dream of such popularity.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

 Have we reentered the dark ages of the time when the majority of the people could not read or write and the religious leaders were the ones making laws. That is so scary, worse even than another term or Trump as President. 

   More and more bills are being introduced in states led by Republican legislators to increase the punishment of women that defy the abortion laws. Laws that say a woman should go to prison or suffer death if she chooses to not have a baby or another baby or a deformed  baby.  So have these meat heads figured out who is going to raise any previous children this woman may have had, or any of that sort of thing? Please, oh please let the first trial that takes place with this violation be the wife, daughter, or some close relative of someone that helped bring this law into being.

   Women have gained a lot of power since the days when they had no rights, it is unimaginable to think that even in a repressive state like Texas they are going to sit still for this kind of nonsense. Women fought to get the vote, and they had demonstrations and burned their bras to make a point about other rights. Why should they allow this kind of idiocy from their male counterparts? 

   Where are the laws that say if a man is identified as a rapist that he be castrated. Where are the laws that say if there is a baby born with defects caused by some problem the father had in his genes that he should be put to death? Not happened yet, and probably won’t because it is men with the power that are making these bills and hoping they become law. The only thing these guys really are capable of seeing is  shit because they all have their heads up their asses.

   There are nations that have laws that require women to be covered from head to toe when they are in public. They are not allowed to do most things like drive etc. They are, however, subject to being beaten if they are observed doing something someone deems improper. That beating is easy for the one doing it because this is just a bundle of clothes, not a person that is known, just an object of no consequence. These same men that advocate this restriction on women are very different when they get the chance to travel.

   Then they are looking for the places where the female form is on display and they hire women for sex and drink and do all the things they cannot do at home. It is rather like the legislators of our more repressive state going to DC or New York or Las Vegas. How morally upright are all these far right conservatives when they are away from home? 

   The desire to control is reaching far beyond the bounds of common sense and doing more harm than good to our society. Whether it is limiting women’s health issues, or controlling what is taught in a classroom or offered in a public library, those that are elected need to remember they are supposed to represent all of us not just their personal bias or religious tenets.

A Volcanic Explosion Caused a “Year Without a Summer” in 1816 — and Inspired “Frankenstein”

Difficult times can lead to great art. Case in point: the volcanic explosion that caused a “year without a summer” in 1816, and inspired the novel Frankenstein. The eruption took place at Indonesia’s Mount Tambora, many thousands of miles away from author Mary Shelley’s home in England. In addition to a harrowing death toll, the April 1815 explosion ejected mass amounts of sulfur dioxide, ash, and dust into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and plunging the global temperature several degrees lower, resulting in the coldest year in well over two centuries. In part because of the volcano, Europe and North America were subjected to unusually cold, wet conditions the following summer, including a “killing frost” in New England and heavy rainfall that may have contributed to Napoleon’s infamous defeat at Waterloo.

So what does that have to do with Shelley’s masterpiece? Then 18 and still going by her maiden name of Godwin, she and her lover/future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, traveled to Lake Geneva in April 1816, a time of extremely gloomy weather. One fateful night that July, the two were with their friend Lord Byron, the infamous poet, when he suggested, “We will each write a ghost story.” Shelley completed hers in just a few days, writing in the introduction to Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus that “a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house.” Who knows: If it had been bright and sunny that week, we might never have gotten the endlessly influential 1818 book, which later spawned an assortment of movies, TV shows, plays — and of course, iconic Halloween costumes.

Memorial Day was originally called “Decoration Day.”

U.S. HISTORY

As the American Civil War came to an end in 1865, communities across the U.S. honored fallen soldiers through local ceremonies at burial sites. On May 30, 1868, the first national ceremony of this kind took place on a day that would come to be known as Memorial Day — though at the time, it was called “Decoration Day.”

A few weeks before the ceremony, John Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans organization, issued a proclamation urging Americans to decorate Civil War soldiers’ graves with springtime’s “choicest” blooms. Logan stated that the May 30 commemoration would be “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” About 5,000 people gathered at Arlington National Cemetery for the first official Decoration Day observance. Along with flowers, each grave was adorned with a small American flag.

By the end of the 19th century, Decoration Day ceremonies were taking place on May 30 throughout the country. The name had started to evolve by this time, too; people began using the term “Memorial Day” instead. That moniker, however, didn’t become common until after World War II, and Congress didn’t make the name change official until 1967. A year later, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, declaring that certain federal holidays would be observed on Mondays, including Memorial Day, which was to be commemorated annually on the last Monday in May. Today, the holiday honors all Americans who have died in military service.