105-year-old Internet porn

America Wants to Know observed some time ago that new technologies succeed more quickly if they can be used to view pornography (see "Howard Stern and the Big Secret"), and now we have more proof, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

If you visit this link, you can see Thomas A. Edison's film from November 11, 1901, entitled "Trapeze Disrobing Act."

Well, don't get your hopes up. Apparently women in 1901 could disrobe for six or seven minutes and still have a good five layers to go before there was an actual wardrobe malfunction.

Still, it shows that there is a undeniable link between new technologies and pornography. Nobody wrestles with a newfangled gadget and an instruction manual unless there's something they really, really want to see.

The best part of the clip may be the antique anti-piracy warning from Mr. Edison at the top. "This film is sold subject to the restriction that it shall not be used for duplicating or printing other films from it," the typewritten notice reads, "Any use of it for those purposes is an infringement of the patents under which it is made and sold."

Some things never change. On the other hand, if you'd like to watch a showgirl change, the Library of Congress offers a dressing room peep show from 1903 titled "From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen." Click here to see it.

Many thanks to the Library of Congress for making these fascinating fragments of show business history available. Visit http://www.memory.loc.gov and look in on the whole collection.


Copyright 2006

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Dick Cheney Mystery Theater

What does the future hold for Vice President Dick Cheney?

America Wants To Know brought in a team of experts to answer that question, and we have to tell you, it's been chaos around here.

If you read this blog regularly, you know we've had Lt. Columbo following the vice president around ever since that report of a plot to blow up tunnels under New York was leaked to the press.

That has worked out well, mostly because the choking cloud of cigar smoke creates a nice background effect for Madame Lyubitshka, the fortune-telling gypsy woman who spends her days consulting a crystal ball at a table covered with a fringed shawl while sipping a cup of something brackish that she swears is herb tea.

Sparing no expense, we also brought in a psychic medium, two dowsers (when you deal with Dick Cheney, you have to be ready to track down leaks), and a petroleum geologist taking a break from chasing caribou out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On the very first day, Madame Lyubitshka had a vision of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. The federal prosecutor has been investigating for years to find out who leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to columnist Robert Novak. Recently we learned, without a crystal ball, that Fitzgerald knew the identity of the leaker from the very start of his investigation. For reasons unknown he continued to question administration officials, eventually indicting Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for misleading investigators.

Madame Lyubitshka waved her hands over the crystal ball and made a high-pitched humming sound. "Chaaaaaaaay-neeeeeeee," she wailed softly. "He is after Chaaaaaaaay-neeeeeeee!"

"Ma'am, if you don't mind," Lieutenant Columbo interrupted, "I'd like to have a look at that crystal ball. My wife collects crystal, and..."

"Of course!" Madame Lyubitshka said, rising from her chair. She waved the lieutenant over with a grand gesture.

"Look at that," Columbo said, gazing into the orb. "Isn't that amazing. Patrick Fitzgerald is going to try to indict Dick Cheney for orchestrating leaks of classified information to the press. Isn't that something. I wish my wife could see this."

"Preposterous, Columbo." The voice belonged to the petroleum geologist. "I was hunting with Dick Cheney not two weeks ago," he said, pulling the collar of his polo shirt open and displaying the red wounds, "and he told me the president signed an executive order that allows the vice president to declassify classified material whenever he thinks it's appropriate. So it's not even possible for him to leak classified information. If he releases it, it's not classified."

"Hmmm," Columbo said. "So what you're telling me is that the vice president is above the law."

"We're at war," the geologist said.

"Right," Columbo nodded. He looked at the crystal ball. "Who's this?" he asked, pointing at a man in a suit. Madame Lyubitshka peered into the glass. "It is Cesar Conda," she called out. "Vice President Cheney's assistant for domestic pol-iss-seeeeeeee."

"I seeeee," Columbo said. "And who is this?" He pointed to another man in a suit.

Madame Lyubitshka gasped. "Eeeee-vil," she said, "It is....It is....Jack Abramoff!"

"The lobbyist who pleaded guilty in the influence-peddling scandal?" Columbo asked. "Meeting with the vice president's assistant for domestic policy?"

"And I see another man!" Madame Lyubitshka wailed. "Another lobbyist! A colleague of Abramoff! His name is Patrick Pizzella!"

"What do you know," Columbo said, riffling through his notebook. "Doesn't Patrick Pizzella work in the Department of Labor?"

"It is growing cloudy," Madame Lyubitshka said.

At this point, America Wants to Know had to come up with another hundred bucks.

"I can see it now," Madame Lyubitshka moaned. "The man Abramoff....he spoke to the man Conda....he wanted the man Pizzella appointed to a high post in the government, where vast quantities of silver cross many palms."

Lt. Columbo made a note.

"You'll never get Cheney," the geologist said, "His fingerprints are nowhere. He studied under the best."

At that moment, the psychic medium let out a shriek and rose from the sofa. She walked to the doorway of the living room and turned around to face the startled group gathered around the small table. Staring at them with a filmy gaze, she lowered her head until her chin was nearly on her chest, then thrust her arms in the air, making the V-for-victory sign with each hand.

The petroleum geologist fell to his knees.

"My fellow Americans," the psychic said in a deep, throaty voice. "I have a message for Dick Cheney."

"Who is it?" Madame Lyubitshka whispered to Columbo.

"I think it's President Nixon," Columbo whispered back.

Madame Lyubitshka advanced nervously to where the psychic was standing and courtsied deeply in front of her. "Your majesty the president," she said in a quavering voice, "Dick Cheney is not here."

The psychic drew her mouth into a straight line and stared beady-eyed at the gypsy. "Can't you get a message to him?" she asked.

"Your majesty," Madame Lyubitshka said, "I'm a humble fortune-teller, not a psychic."

The psychic shook her head impatiently. "Well, can't you put it on a blog or something?"

Yes, as a matter of fact, we can.

"All right, then," the psychic rumbled. "Here's what I want you to tell Cheney."

And this is President Nixon's message to the vice president:

Listen, Dick, the country's at war. There's not a Republican in the 2008 field who's got the guts to see it through. You know you can raise the money. Hell, you've probably already raised the money, I've seen you flying all over the country. You know you can win. And you've got to win. You can't let the country be destroyed by terrorist thugs just because these panty-waist Republicans are too chickenshit to stay the course. You can do it. Just say you've got a secret plan to get out of Iraq. Come and see me tomorrow, we'll go over it precinct by precinct.

Then a hot breeze blew through the room and all was still.

Well, it's late and America Wants to Know has to drive these people home to Beverly Hills now, but if you see Dick Cheney, let him know President Nixon left a message for him.


Copyright 2006

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Down memory lane with Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton displayed his rage against Fox News anchor Chris Wallace in an interview scheduled for broadcast on Sunday morning.

Wallace asked the former president if he had failed to anticipate the danger posed by Osama bin Laden.

Clinton's answer, that he tried and failed to capture the al-Qaeda leader, was delivered in a volcanic eruption along with furious accusations against "right-wingers" and attacks on the record of the current administration, all accompanied by that famous jabbing finger and a sneering, snarling face that would do Snidely Whiplash proud.

You can see the clip here on YouTube.com.

It sure brings back memories, doesn't it?

Everyone will remember the finger-wagging "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" performance.

But you have to be a real connoisseur of the genre to remember the March 15, 1992, Democratic debate. If you bump into Jerry Brown on the campaign trail (he's running for California Attorney General), make his day and ask him about it.

The former California governor was one of the first people on the national scene to be on the receiving end of the finger-pointing, red-faced, crackling, theatrical outrage of Bill Clinton in full denial mode.

Jerry Brown had just raised the question of the Clinton family's conflicts of interest. "He is funneling money to his wife's law firm as state business, that's number one," Brown said, "Number two, his wife's law firm is representing clients before state of Arkansas agencies, his appointees."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on mah wahf," the Arkansas governor seethed, jabbing his finger in Brown's direction.

Governor Clinton's rage got equal billing with the ethics charge on page one of the next day's papers. "Angry Clash Between Clinton and Brown; Dispute over Ethics at end of Democratic Debate," said the San Francisco Chronicle. The Los Angeles Times headline read, "Brown and Clinton in Bitter Clash; Californian accuses opponent and wife of conflicts of interest. Angry Clinton calls him an unprincipled politician."

It was a pretty effective technique. Years later, Jerry Brown told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball that Bill Clinton's enraged reaction caught him by surprise. As Brown described it, when a man jabs his finger and turns red with anger, it makes you pull back and think, wait a minute, maybe I'm wrong.

But Jerry Brown wasn't wrong. Reporters from the Washington Post and the New York Times were digging deep and filing stories that sent the Clinton team into a frenzy of spin and cover-up. For a detailed look at the beehive of activity stirred up by news reports of Mrs. Clinton's legal work, click here. Talk about a trip down memory lane! Don't miss the part about Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster dividing up Mrs. Clinton's Rose law firm billing records and storing them in three different places, including Foster's attic (p. 164 of the pdf file, p. 409 of the report).

We saw the finger-jab act again when President Clinton denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and knowing how that turned out, it's tempting to say that the angrier he gets, the more likely it is that he's lying.

Not just lying, but trying to scare everyone off the trail.

Not just scare them off the trail, but shame them off the trail.

This requires some effort, and quite a large staff. It's a big job to demonize and discredit everyone who has the temerity to suggest that either or both of the Clintons are being less than completely truthful.

This might explain why Bill Clinton contacted liberal bloggers in the weeks before the ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11" aired. At the time, he was trying to scare or shame the network into pulling the program from the schedule, and perhaps he thought the liberal bloggers could do to the mini-series what the conservative bloggers did to Dan Rather.

Alas, the mini-series was broadcast as scheduled, making its now highly-publicized point that the Clinton administration didn't do enough to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

And this week, when Chris Wallace asked Bill Clinton about that specific charge, the country was treated to another splendid performance of finger-jabbing.

When vaudeville died, there were only a few comedians who successfully made the transition to radio and television. One reason was that broadcasting devoured in thirty minutes the comedy material that had taken years to compile. A comedian could do the same act forever as long as he did it for a different audience every night. But the act could only be performed on radio or television once.

For Bill Clinton, the time to retire the seltzer bottle has arrived.

Copyright 2006

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Kinky Friedman's campaign promise

Independent candidate for Texas governor Kinky Friedman told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he favors legalizing marijuana. If elected, he said, he would try to get nonviolent drug offenders out of prison so violent criminals could occupy those cells instead.

Mr. Friedman made the point that after decades of the "war on drugs," drugs are more available and less expensive than ever before. "What we're doing is not working," he said.

The candidate's spokeswoman, Laura Stromberg, earlier told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the Friedman campaign aims to mobilize the eight million Texas voters who are registered to vote but aren't motivated to get off the couch and go to the polls.

Marijuana's not a bad guess, actually.

Has Kinky Friedman made a campaign promise that he can keep? Can the government of Texas legalize marijuana and release drug offenders from state prison?

Only if Governor Friedman's administration has the guts to unearth a copy of the U.S. Constitution and demand that the U.S. government respect the powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.

The federal Controlled Substances Act is an unconstitutional usurpation of state authority, but no politician in America has been willing to say so. Instead, efforts to legalize marijuana have focused on fictitious exceptions to the Act for medical necessity. The Supreme Court has rejected the idea of an exception, but the justices have avoided the direct question: by what authority does Congress override a state's power to regulate marijuana within its own borders?

Did you know that Prohibition required a constitutional amendment?

Read more about it in "Marijuana, Prohibition and the Tenth Amendment" at www.SusanShelley.com.


Copyright 2006

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Laura Bush's cover story

Has Laura Bush hired a publicist?

A close look at the coverage of the first lady this week shows the signs of it.

On Monday, USA Today ran a gushing piece about Mrs. Bush "pursuing her own second-term agenda" and "ascending the global stage."

Mrs. Bush has already made eleven solo foreign trips and there's certainly nothing new about a first lady traveling and giving speeches on issues of interest to her. USA Today's story has the unmistakable sound of a publicity campaign.

In fact, Mrs. Bush did give USA Today an exclusive interview, without which, one suspects, USA Today would not have found the first lady's calendar entries so compelling.

Then there's the latest front-page splash in the Globe tabloid.

Mrs. Bush has been knocking Britney and Jessica and Angelina off the cover on a regular basis with stories of marital discord in the White House. This week's story contends that Mrs. Bush is so upset over "Death of a President," the fictionalized film about the assassination of her husband, that she fears she's having a nervous breakdown, and she's thinking of moving back to Texas.

Publicists don't just disseminate good news. They also manage bad news.

The Globe says the "59-year-old Texas-born beauty" "bravely accompanied" the president to New Orleans recently where, "as usual, she carried out her duties with class." The Globe says the president has returned to drinking and is attracted to Condoleezza Rice.

So we can guess whose side of the king-size bed is the source for this story.

The Globe goes on at some length to describe the "crushing pressures" Laura Bush is under as she battles "to hold her marriage together in the face of George's close relationship with his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

Then there's a lot of copy about the TV movie depicting the fictional assassination.

Then there's this: "Now, she desperately wants to leave Washington and get back to a normal life in Texas and split time between the ranch and a condo in Houston or Dallas....She'd like to spend the next year commuting to Washington every couple of weeks."

It seems unlikely that a woman who was strong in the face of terrorist attacks that saw her family hustled into underground rooms would collapse in a weeping heap over a TV movie.

It seems more likely that the first lady is seeking a cover story for a separation from the president.

The suggestion that she wants to "split time between the ranch and a condo in Houston or Dallas" neatly slips in the idea that Mrs. Bush is about to establish a new residence, separate from the home she shares with her husband.

Maybe she just wanted free calendars from the local real estate brokers.

Then again, Texas residency is a useful thing if you're planning to run for the United States House of Representatives or Senate.

The easiest route for Mrs. Bush to get into the Senate would be a Supreme Court appointment for U.S. Senator John Cornyn. The senator from Texas is a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and his appointment to the federal bench would create an immediate job opening in the first lady's home state.

Voters in Texas would likely support Mrs. Bush for any office without hesitation, but a good publicist can make sure people know that the first lady is traveling the world and talking seriously about serious issues, not just reading from cards like some cupcake beauty pageant contestant.

The USA Today story says Mrs. Bush "is putting the finishing touches on a conference to improve reading skills in the world's most illiterate countries, a roundtable discussion on Burma to press for the release of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and a speech on health problems facing women worldwide."

Not a cupcake in sight.

Without a skilled publicist, people might one day read this in a real newspaper: Laura Bush walks out on the president, accusing him of drinking and infidelity, and moves into an apartment in Texas.

With a skilled publicist, they would read this instead: Movie-making idiots frighten the first lady, president sends her to Texas for some well-deserved R&R away from the Washington spotlight.

Hmmm. Maybe he's the one who hired the publicist.


Copyright 2006

Editor's note: Catch up on your light reading with the earlier post, "All right, let's dish."

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The hard sell

President Bush made a speech at the American Legion National Convention in Salt Lake City on Thursday and tried again to convince the nation that there is hope for success in Iraq.

The president's speeches are beginning to resemble infomercials. There's an enthusiastic audience, a lot of illustration, and a lot of repetition. And much like a product in an infomercial, you should look very closely before you buy what they're trying so hard to sell you.

It's one thing to identify a problem (Terrorists are breeding like rabbits in the failed and corrupt countries of the Muslim world! There's no time to cook but no one likes leftovers!), it's another thing to identify a solution (Free and democratic governments should replace the failed and corrupt governments! We need a quick and easy way to turn leftovers into a tasty treat!), and it's something else again to prove that what you're selling will actually get it done.

For all the talk about completing the mission, the president has yet to explain how the U.S. military can make a foreign government function effectively, even if we keep our troops in Iraq forever. (And save your money, an electric contact grill is not likely to turn last night's meatloaf and a tortilla into anything you want to see again.)

Last November, President Bush spoke at the U.S. Naval Academy and said the Iraqi police and army were making great progress. Yet on Friday the Pentagon released a report admitting that sectarian violence in Iraq is the worst it has been since we've been there.

In other words, thanks to the efforts of U.S. troops and taxpayers, the Iraqis are fighting each other with much better skills and equipment.

The speeches last week by President Bush and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld emphasized the similarities between the war on terror and World War II. But the real parallel increasingly looks to be the Vietnam War.

In historian Barbara Tuchman's 1984 book The March of Folly, she points out that American policy-makers were not unaware of the "hazards, obstacles and negative developments" during the thirty years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam:

The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles but in persistence in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable, and the effect disproportionate to the American interest and eventually damaging to American society, reputation and disposable power in the world.

The real solution for Iraq, and for the problem of worldwide terrorism, is economic, not military. Last November, following the president's speech at Annapolis, America Wants To Know published a post titled "Why the Iraq Policy Isn't Working." Nothing that has happened since has proved it wrong. Read it here.

Copyright 2006


Source note: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman was published in 1984 by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. The quoted passage can be found on page 234 of the hardcover edition, at the start of chapter five, "America Betrays Herself in Vietnam."

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