Links for February 16th

Posted byWaldo Jaquith 12 Comments on Links for February 16th
  • Washington Post: Ex-rep. Perriello might run for U.S. Senate in Va. if Kaine doesn’t
    Good. Kaine is my first choice, for practical reasons, but Perriello is my second.
  • Library of Congress: Chronicling America
    The LoC has the complete contents of long-ago newspapers from all around Virginia, mostly from around the turn of the last century. The Richmond Planet, the Tazewell Republican, the Highland Recorder, The [Fredericksburg] Free Lance, the Clarke Courier—they've got it all.
  • Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO
    One of my favorite musicians, country artist Hayes Carll, has a new album that does not disappoint. His prior release, "Trouble in Mind," was just brilliant, and I figured that his follow-up probably couldn't reach that bar. After listening to it a few times through, I think "KMAG YOYO" is every bit as good. (The title is a military acronym: "kiss my ass, guys—you're on your own.") Standouts include the title track, one of the few songs about the war in Afghanistan, and the very funny "Another Like You." If you're a fan of Todd Snider—who performs on this album—you'll like Hayes Carll. If you like country, but not the crap that's passed for country for the past twenty years, then you'll love him.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

12 replies on “Links for February 16th”

  2. The LOC page of old newspapers is excellent. Take a look at the Alexandria Gazette, September 10, 1908, Thursday evening edition, p. 3:

    http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/beta/lccn/sn85025007/1908-09-10/ed-1/seq-3/

    Zoom in and read the items on the left side of the page. Of note:

    James Edmonds, colored, was fined $50 for assaulting and cutting Thomas Tebbs. (Doesn’t mention whether Mr. Tebbs was colored.)

    Two gentlemen from Pittsburg (I guess that’s the same as Pittsburgh) were greeted by the mayor, who looked after their comfort. (It doesn’t say, but I’m guessing these gents were not colored.) The men were attempting to trek for 14,000 miles in three years, on a $10,000 bet by an unnamed Pittsburg newspaper. Anyone who catches them on any kind of vehicle can get a $500 reward.

    And best of all… the Gazette reported on Orville Wright flying his aeroplane all day at Fort Myer (the one in Arlington, I presume), including one flight that lasted over an hour, and another flight with a passenger under the moonlight.

  3. Old newspapers’ insistence on identifying an individual’s minority status does run the gambit from “quaintly amusing” to “disturbing and bizarre.” I once looked through Google’s archives to see how far back I could trace the phrase “job-killing” as it applied to taxes. I got as far back as a newspaper in Wisconsin in (if I recall) the 1910s. Over the course of my search, however, I actually found something in Arkansas from the end of the 19th century with the headline “Unqualified electrician makes bad job killing negro.” Which I thought was going to be a mildly racist article about an unskilled African American electrician who was being accused of taking work from more-experienced white electricians.

    It soon became apparent that it was actually about a white electrician who only succeeded in electrocuting a black man to death on his 12th attempt.

    “Oh, well, that’s, um, that’s much more racist.”

  4. The more things change… (found in the Farmville Herald June 30, 1899):

    “This world isn’t balanced right. Just think how many people there are hunting for work when so many of us are overburdened by it!”

    Also… for all the “climate change alarmists” ;-)
    out there:

    Mr. Borkedol, of Norway, announces that the sun is burning out more rapidly than is usually believed, and that unless something interferes our grandchildren will see its extinction. Mr. Mohn, also of Norway, has checked Mr. Borkedol’s calculations, and finds them correct.

    Everyone PANIC!!!!!! ;-)

  6. Michael, I sure hope people didn’t argue with Messrs Borkedol and Mohn — after all, they were SCIENTISTS! ;-)

  7. I love the idea that two scientists, of no specified qualifications, apparently constituted sufficient evidence for newspapers across the country to pick up such a hair-brained story. (Though, now that I think about it, such thinly sourced science stories appear in the media pretty routinely now.) I wonder how many of them printed corrections later, after they no doubt received angry letters from physicists, etc? You’ve got to give the guys credit for one thing: they were right about how the sun works. But their timeline is a bit off. :)

    Bubby, I don’t have the faintest idea of who Jason Isbell is, and I don’t intend to stick around to find out. I’m going to the show solely for the opening act. :)

  8. Jason Isbell was the guitarist in the Drive-By Truckers (if you haven’t heard of them, I can’t help you). He left to pursue his own solo work. He’s the real deal.

  10. Wow… even Google is stumped to any Borkedol. Pretty soon, this thread will be the #1 location on the web for Borkedol-related research! ;-)

    I for one welcome our new Norwegian overlords.

  11. Darn… looks like the guy might have been Borkedal, not Borkedol.
    http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=TS18990502.2.23

    The cooling down of the sun has long since been regarded as a possibility by serious men of science, but they have generally allowed that a good many eons must elapse before that dread eventuality is realised. Herr Borkedal, an eminent Norwegian physicist, recently attempted to demonstrate that these fond hopes of delay are utterly unfounded. The great furnace of the universe is rapidly burning itself out, and unless it be very soon stoked up from some unexpected quarter, our children, or at furthest our grandchildren, will witness its extinction. Herr Mohn, at a meeting in Cbristiania the other day, affirmed that he had gone through his colleagues calculations, and found them absolutely correct.

    (emphasis added for really weird/outdated reference)

    I suppose that this is enough research into something so irrelevant.

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