#Fillmore Administration

[deadpresidents]

"Although I have never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, nor can I flatter myself that you have ever heard of me before the late convention, yet as I feel quite acquainted with you from a general knowledge of your widely extended reputation, and as our fellow citizens have seen fit to associate our names for the next Presidential contest, I take the liberty by introduction of enclosing a copy of my acceptance of the nomination...I should be happy to hear from you."

-- Millard Fillmore, writing to General Zachary Taylor with his acceptance of the Whig Party's nomination to be Taylor's running mate in the 1848 election. Not only had Taylor and Fillmore never met before becoming running mates, but they'd never even corresponded prior to this message sent by Fillmore.

Suggesting that Taylor may not have heard of him before the 1848 Whig Party Convention that nominated them wasn't an act of false humility on Fillmore's part. Considering Taylor's complete lack of political involvement prior to his own nomination for the Presidency -- the General had never even voted prior to the 1848 election in which he was a candidate -- he genuinely probably had no clue who Fillmore was until the Whigs chose him to be Taylor's Vice President. In fact, the Whigs weren't entirely sure what political party Taylor supported (if any) when they nominated him as their Presidential candidate.

The first time that Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore actually met one another in-person was at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. in late-February 1849, just a week before they were to be inaugurated -- and nearly four months after they had been elected President and Vice President.

[reallyexists]

Regular bidet use has made me think differently of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. I probably would also think that 15-gallon-per-second enemas were a modern panacea if I was a heretical seventh-day adventist who had a clean asshole for the first time since the Fillmore administration.

[goldendiie]

yknow. according to historiography (of which i have yet to truly study). it was very common for draft dodgers to attend (history) graduate programs to avoid being sent overseas in vietnam. that’s how we ended up with the neo progressive school. so, if fillmore was THAT extent of hippie in his college years, it’s entirely possible that he has some kind of graduate degree in the social sciences (cough, history) simply to avoid the draft.

imagine the estranged dr. fillmore, widely renown in historical communities for his award winning neoprogressive thesis on postwar reconstruction (1865-1877). he hasn’t been seen since the nixon administration, but rumor says that he was batshit crazy, and good friends with jerry rubin of yippie fame.

[greensparty]

Album Reviews: Jimi Hendrix Experience "Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967" / Scream "DC Special"

Jimi Hendrix Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967

Another year, another Jimi Hendrix Experience release just before the holiday season! Since beginning this blog, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing loads of Hendrix albums including the posthumous album Both Sides of the Sky, the 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition of Electric Ladyland, the 50th anniversary re-release of his live album Band of Gypsys, his live box set Songs for Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts, the live album and movie Live in Maui, 2021’s Record Store Day release Paris ‘67, and last year's Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969. This week Legacy is releasing a never-before-released (or bootlegged) live album of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's concert at Hollywood Bowl just before they became famous with Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967.

album cover

At this concert, the Experience were opening for The Mamas and the Papas. Attendees were mainly there to see the headliners. Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album Are You Experienced would be released in the U.S. five days later on August 23, 1967 (it had been released in the U.K. on May 5, 1967). By this point, the band had played a legendary show at the Monterey Pop Festival and opened for The Monkees. This is literally the moment just before they got famous. The trio were bigger than the sum of their parts: Hendrix on guitar, Noel Redding on bass, and Mitch Mitchell on drums. There were quite a few songs from Are You Experienced, but there are also loads of covers including favorites by The Beatles (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), Howlin’ Wolf (“Killing Floor”), Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone”), The Troggs (“Wild Thing”) and Muddy Waters (“Catfish Blues”). A live album would pretty much be enough to please a lot of fans, but this one is cool because it's not some overly-bootlegged concert so there's a sense of discovery, but also the covers make this feel like you're getting something new and different. There's nothing like hearing a band the very second they became famous and here it is!

For info on Jimi Hendrix Experience

4 out of 5 stars

Scream DC Special

Bursting out the DC hardcore punk scene in the 80s was the legendary Scream. The Reagan administration gave the Washington DC punk community quite a bit to rant about in the 80s and Scream were among the biggest of that whole scene, along with Fugazi, Bad Brains and Henry Rollins (the list, of course, goes on). In my friend Scott Crawford's 2014 documentary Salad Days about the DC punk scene in the 80s, he interviewed multiple members of Scream. Singer Pete Stahl and his brother / guitarist Franz Stahl, bassist Skeeter Thompson were a tight knit unit with original drummer Kent Stax. After Stax left the band in 1986, his replacement was teenage drummer Dave Grohl, who truly brought it. I was a big fan of the band's albums No More Censorship and Fumble and I have them in my record collection. After the band broke up (as we all know), Grohl joined Nirvana and brought that punk energy he honed in Scream to the masses. The Fumble album had been recorded in 1989 but was finally released in 1993. There were a few reunions here and there and Grohl has continued to work with the members of Scream (i.e. Franz was in Foo Fighters from 1997-1999). In 2009, the original lineup of Scream reunited and they even recorded with Stax on drums at Grohl's Studio 606 for an EP. But we haven't actually had a studio album from Scream since Fumble, which was 30 years ago. This week, Dischord Records is releasing DC Special featuring the original lineup. In September Stax died at age 61, making this his final album with Scream.

album cover

With the Fumble album it felt like the band was really evolving. The punk sound was there, but there was also a post-punk sound coming through. With all of their collective outside projects, i.e. Franz in Foo Fighters and DYS, Pete and Franz in Wool, Pete in Goatsnake and Earthlings?, Skeeter's solo work, etc - this band is way more than just an 80s punk band. This album incorporates a lot more styles and even some melodic tendencies. It's a nice full circle moment that this album got recorded with Stax before he died and that Grohl made a guest appearance. There's loads of other DC punk veterans appearing here including Dischord Records founder and Fugazi / Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye. This is album is a treat for fans and enough to make you want to, well, scream!

For info on Scream

4 out of 5 stars

[asianamericanresistance]

Asian American Impact on the 1968 SF State Strike

Photo shows Asian American students protesting against oppression on school grounds.

A visual story on the efforts of the students who are the reason we can take this class today.

by Rana Ozgun

Professor Nievera-Lozana Asian American Experience

‎‎‎‎‎Course Concepts Explored:

Institutional/Ideological Oppression

Institutional oppression is the systematic mistreatment of people within a social identity group, supported and enforced by society's institutions and laws. Ideological oppression is the belief system that justifies this mistreatment by asserting that one group is inherently superior or better than another.

Assimilation

Assimilation refers to the process by which individuals of differing ethnic backgrounds adopt the dominant culture and values of a society, often at the expense of their own cultural practices

Background: The Strike

Around 50 years ago, Eurocentric focus embedded higher education. Severe underrepresentation of students and faculty of color and the absence of their histories and perspectives in the curriculum was a current issue. The lack of representation also affected admissions and hiring.

1968 aerial view south to north, Park Merced in foreground, then SFSC campus, then Stonestown Shopping Center, 19th Avenue (Highway 1) running bottom to top along the right side.

As a result, a coalition of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native American student groups, demanded the creation of a School of Ethnic Studies, led and shaped by members of those communities. The strike pushed for open admissions policies to allow more students of color into the college and for more diverse hiring among faculty and administrators.

Asian American Students' Impact

Members of the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) at a rally.

Iranian students in solidarity with SF State College strike.

The solidarity between various Asian ethnicities at this strike brought forth the term Asian-American.

In May 1968, graduate students Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee, who wanted to take part in the strikes and fight for their Asian community, realized there was no united Asian American student front. So, they founded the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) at the University of California, Berkeley, trying to unite diverse Asian ethnic groups under a shared political identity, and successfully so. They made the term "Asian American" to replace outdated labels like "Oriental," giving solidarity among Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and many other Asian communities. The AAPA actively participated in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strikes to demand Ethnic Studies programs that reflected their histories and experiences.

“We weren’t ‘Asian Americans’ then, we were ‘Orientals', ‘Oriental’ is a term that was imposed on us by the larger society. Starting to use the term ‘Asian American’ was a way of taking back our own destiny.” — Penny Nakatsu, 2022 oral history interview

First-Hand Stories

A KTVU News report from November 1968 at San Francisco State College in which Roger Alvarado (center) and Penny Nakatsu (right) announce the Third World Liberation Front’s support of the Black Student Union. (Courtesy of Penny Nakatsu)

Penny Nakatsu in a 2022 oral history interview.

In a recent interview in 2022, Penny talks about her experience in the strike and why she made the decision to actively participate in it.

Penny was a key Asian American leader during strike efforts. As a member of the TWLF Central Committee, she was actively recruiting Asian American students to join the fight for the representation of their culture.

She mentioned that growing up in the redevelopment zones of Japantown and the Fillmore helped her understand firsthand how systemic injustice affected her community. Her political awakening was fueled by anger at the current racism.

After the strike, she continued advocating for justice as an attorney in the East Bay. Her story shows the power of young Asian American voices in movements for change.

"I knew of no pan Asian American organizations. So I thought, there's a real need for that, because our destiny is tied together. " — Penny Nakatsu, 2022 oral history interview

Flyers circulated by students from San Francisco State University.

Repercussions & Challenges

Dramatic headlines on the front page of the Memphis Press-Scimitar on the afternoon of Monday, February 12, 1968

The TWLF demanded the creation of Ethnic Studies departments, hiring of faculty of color, and open admissions. These demands were met with resistance from the administration and negative media portrayal.

Crowds scuffle with San Francisco police on San Francisco State College campus, 1968.

Tensions escalated when the administration responded with police force, leading to violent confrontations and hundreds of arrests.

Police confronted student protesters on campus regularly.

The administration's response included calling in police forces, leading to violent confrontations and numerous arrests of students.

"The strike shut down the university for 115 days, attracting worldwide media attention and the consternation of politicians and administrators." — Strike Collection

On January 23, 1969, the Tactical Squad attacked students rallying. With over 400 people arrested, it is the largest mass arrest in San Francisco history.

Outcomes & Legacy

Despite the repression, students and faculty persisted for five months, ultimately winning many of their demands. Their efforts led to the establishment of the first School of Ethnic Studies in the United States, which housed departments such as Black Studies, Chicano Studies, Asian American Studies, and Native American Studies.

This 5-month protest fundamentally reshaped higher education by making a space for marginalized voices and histories that had long been silenced.

It’s very important to remember that the reason we even have the opportunity to take Ethnic Studies classes and learn about our own heritage is because students like those in the AAPA and TLFW weren’t afraid to speak up. They stood their ground, even when they faced backlash, arrests, and violence. Their courage created space for future generations to see themselves in education. We should take this phenomenon as a lesson to not remain silent when we see injustice, but to stand up for the things we believe in, just like they did. You never know how much of an effect you can have on the future of many other lives.

Reflections & Takeaways

Oppression

The AAPA came together to fight oppression against Asian Americans. They pushed back against ideological oppression, including the "model minority" myth, and fought against Labels that erased real struggles and created division. They also challenged institutional oppression. While schools were enforcing mainstream Eurocentric history, the AAPA demanded Ethnic Studies programs so that students could finally see their communities represented and valued in education.

Assimilation

The exclusion of Ethnic Studies in universities back in the 1960s was a clear example of assimilation. By centering white history, educational systems erase the experiences of communities of color and present white values as the standard, pressuring students to conform to west practices and distance themselves from their own cultures. The strike challenged this system and demanded representation.

References

Ethnic Studies: Born in the Bay Area from History's Biggest Student Strike. (2020, July 30). KQED. Retrieved May 15, 2025, from https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies 

Fleischer, M. (2023, March 30). From the Archives: Coverage of the 1968 Sanitation Workers’ Strike in the White Press. Storyboard Memphis. https://storyboardmemphis.org/history/citys-garbage-collectors-strike-1968-sanitation-workers-strike/ 

Remembering the Strike | SF State Magazine. (n.d.). SF State Magazine. Retrieved May 15, 2025, from https://magazine.sfsu.edu/archive/archive/fall_08/strike.html 

Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) – A Creative's Guide to Asian American Media Studies. (2018, December 7). CU Blog Service. Retrieved May 15, 2025, from https://blogs.cornell.edu/asianammedia/2018/12/07/third-world-liberation-front-twlf/ 

Welch, C. (n.d.). San Francisco State Strike. FoundSF. Retrieved May 15, 2025, from https://www.foundsf.org/San_Francisco_State_Strike 

What was the Asian American Political Alliance? (n.d.). AAPI History Museum. Retrieved May 15, 2025, from https://aapihistorymuseum.org/ 

Collections random explore — calisphere. (n.d.). https://calisphere.org/collections/

Strike Collections. (n.d.). https://strikecollection.quartexcollections.com/ 

“‘On Strike!’ San Francisco State College Strike, 1968-69: The Role of Asian American Students,” Amerasia Journal 15, no. 1 (January 1989): 36, doi:10.17953/amer.15.1.7213030j5644rx25 

Bates, K. G., & Meraji, S. M. (2019, March 21). The Student Strike That Changed Higher Ed Forever. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/03/21/704930088/the-student-strike-that-changed-higher-ed-forever 

[hitchell-mope]

88. The Presidents.

In this universe every US President has been a woman until President Marcus Murray became the first male president in season 17. And every President has been a democrat since Michelle Obama thanks to Jones Moriarty Wilmington pulling strings behind the scenes. Apart from one minor almost world ending hiccup in season 8. Without further ado. Let’s behind.

Martha Washington. She was voted in by the public as their token of gratitude for keeping everything intact during the American War Of Independence.

Abigail Adams.

Martha Jefferson.

Dolley Madison.

Elizabeth Monroe.

Louisa Adams.

Sarah Jackson.

Sarah Van Buren.

Anna Harrison.

Letitia Tyler.

Sarah Polk.

Peggy Taylor.

Abigail Fillmore.

Jane Pierce

Harriet Lane.

Mary Todd Lincoln. Left office after her husband was shot and killed in a poorly planned assassination attempt on her own life.

Eliza Johnson.

Julia Grant.

Lucy Hayes.

Lucretia Garfield.

Mary McElroy.

Rose Cleveland.

Mary Harrison McKee

Ida McKinley.

Edith Roosevelt.

Nellie Taft.

Edith Wilson.

Florence Harding.

Grace Coolidge.

Lou Hoover.

Eleanor Roosevelt. Saw America through World War II and was incredibly popular. But her popularity has dwindled in recent decades after it was discovered that she let her female lover live in the Whitehouse and is now by all accounts considered to have won the public’s sympathy vote due to her husband’s health problems.

Bess Truman.

Mamie Eisenhower.

Jackie Kennedy. In a tragic case of history repeats she too left office after her husband was shot and killed in a poorly planned assassination attempt on her own life.

Lady Bird Johnson.

Pat Nixon. She resigned in disgrace after her husband’s involvement in The Watergate Scandal was uncovered.

Betty Ford.

Rosalyn Carter. Now by all accounts seen as a good president and a victim of the following Reagan administration that overturned most of her accomplishments.

Nancy Regan. She started the war on drugs. She is currently known as “The Whore Of The Warner Brothers Backlot” due to rumours of how she futhered her husband’s acting career. Lucia Christensen-Birch has an all consuming hatred of her due to her mismanagement of the AIDS crisis that decimated the LGBT community in the 1980’s.

Barbara Bush. She is currently best known for eating a hearty helping humble pie with regard to her stance on The Simpsons vs The Waltons.

Hilary Clinton. Unfortunately her tenure was marred by her husbands affair and her willingness to remain married to him in spite of it all.

Laura Bush. Saw the world through the war on terror. But is otherwise unremarkable. She is also to date the last elected republican president.

Michelle Obama. She remains one of the most popular President of all time.

Chelsea Clinton. Her biggest claim to fame is assisting Jones Moriarty Wilmington in dismantling and rebuilding the entire concept of the police force from the ground up while also helping the country through the year long Covid crisis.

Jill Biden. Left office after a single term to spend more time with her ailing husband.

Kamala Harris. Won in a landslide against Melania Trumps all flash and no substance campaign. She is the first president since Obama to have two full terms.

Alexandra Walden. (Fancast is Kerry Washington during her time on Scandal). 2032-2066. She was impeached and resigned in disgrace after she tried to dismantle the Special Relationship between the President and the British Royal Family.

Ingrid Simpson. (Fancast is Pamela Anderson). 2037-2040. She was the first president to meet King Ridley Burton (Art Malik).

Moira Ullman. (Fancast is Julia Roberts). 2040-2044. A natural born Mage. She was a very popular president. Very well liked. But unfortunately her tenure became marred due to her abduction by Irma Cahill and LATCH and later her death from an accidental sleeping pill overdose while still in office. She was the second wife of Fleetwood Birch and the stepmother of the longest serving captain of New York State’s 88th precinct, current police commissioner, Thornton Birch and his siblings, the Neo-Kray Savannah Harding and Lucia Christensen-Birch’s husband Alabaster Birch.

Andrea Guilroy. (Fancast is Stockard Channing). 2044-2048. A sun elf. She was impeached and left office in disgrace after a vote of no confidence when one of her ordinances ended up becoming a massive international incident.

Martha Fuchs. (Fancast is Kathy Bates). 2048. An aged siren. The first republican president since Laura Bush. She tried to bring about the end of the world through her manipulation of Lucia Christensen’s fragile psychological state and died in the attempt.

Bethany DuPont. (Fancast is Amy Acker). 2048-2056. A natural born Mage. The first lesbian president. Her campaign as noted for being handled by her daughter Hancock and Jones’s daughter Findlay Sullivan. She died in a car accident a year into Drummond’s tenure.

Marcus Murray. (Fancast is Adam Beach). 2057-2065. A natural born Mage. The first indigenous president. His two tenures were uneventful but pleasant.

Drummond Sullivan. (Fancast is Aidan Gallagher). 2065-2069. A satyr. He was the oldest president at 85 at the time of his appointment. He helped his mother Findlay Sullivan set up the Benevolent Conspiracy which ensures that the American people will never again have to be subjected to another republican president.

Robbie Guilroy. (Fancast is Jeremy Shada). 2069-2073. A sun elf. He is the grandson of Andrea Guilroy and was the vice president for Bethany DuPont. He will be remembered as a genial but rather ill equipped president and his wife Carter will be more popular than him.

Hancock DuPont. (Fancast is AnnaSophia Robb). 2073-2077. A natural born mage. She is the daughter of the late Bethany DuPont and will be the first female president since her mother’s administration nearly twenty years ago.

[zooterchet]

Carlin Sarkesian, Alan Laverdiere, Stan Lee, John Washburne, Anne McMurray, Tip O'Neill, Phil Enfield, James Anthony, Joanne Rivers, Heath Ledger, Audrey Hepburn, Harvey Weinstein, Keith Valesquez, Aaron Hernandez, Moira Kraft.

Five Bond movies, from your friend, "Chet"; Edward Nygma.

Medical procedures:

Stethopen. Marble font Baptism. Lateralus detachment. Zen lotus ejaculation procedure. Swim deep dive needle. Chiropractic adjustment. Housing doctor Central Powers third degree interrogation. Communion Holy See palms and confidence. Ninjitsu sauna liver closure. Posture training. DXM amplifier. Blue Cheer tablet. Second degree murder simulation. Ford administration labor informant presses and pulls. Tail and wind and catch on memory vehicle. Triplicate form of hands witch hunter location on spot. Charles Atlas riddle. Two week spirit fast. Chlorixipin and Zyprexa cycle. Counter Romalian phosphate imbibement. Left rear medulla oblongata pressure incision. Hypnosis lever switch of Bundy and Fillmore Meirs. Upper amygdala electroshock. GHB injectable. Thorazine lethal injection Madison's hog farm test.

[charlesoberonn]

List of US Presidents and how many future presidents were born during their administrations

Before Independence: 8. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson, William Harrison

Before Presidency: 2. Van Buren, Taylor

Washington: 3. Tyler, Polk, Buchanan

Adams: 1. Fillmore

Jefferson: 3. Pierce, Lincoln, Johnson

Madison: 0.

Monroe: 2. Grant, Hayes

Quincy Adams: 0.

Jackson: 3. Garfield, Arthur, Harrison

Van Buren: 1. Cleveland

Henry Harrison: 0.

Tyler: 1. McKinley

Polk: 0.

Taylor: 0.

Fillmore: 0.

Pierce: 2. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson

Buchanan: 1. Taft

Lincoln: 0.

Johnson: 1. Harding

Grant: 2. Coolidge, Hoover

Hayes: 0.

Garfield: 0.

Arthur: 2. FDR, Truman

Cleveland: 0.

Harrison: 1. Eisenhower

McKinley: 0.

Teddy Roosevelt: 1. LBJ

Taft: 2. Nixon, Reagan

Wilson: 2. Kennedy, Ford

Harding: 0.

Coolidge: 2. Carter, H.W Bush

Hoover: 0.

FDR: 1. Biden

Truman: 3. Clinton, W. Bush, Trump

Eisenhower: 0.

JFK: 1. Obama

LBJ: 0.

Nixon: 0.

Ford: 0.

Carter: 0.

Reagan: 0.

H.W Bush: 0.

Clinton: 0.

W. Bush: 0.

Obama: 0.

Trump: 0.

Biden: 0.

[snarp]

"This map was compiled by Koyano Ishun, a Neo-Confucian scholar with a keen interest in the still esoteric fields of geography and cartography. He produced a series of well-known maps, made famous by their mass production as woodblock prints for educational and administrative purposes. One of Koyano’s most famous maps was a world map printed in Osaka in 1809, which was widely used as a didactic tool for Neo-Confucian scholars. Our map offered here constitutes the hand-drawn prototype for that 1809 map and is as such both unique and seminal.

The map in its current configuration consists of a joined folding-screen in two panels. It was painted in polychrome ink on paper, which was then joined before being applied to the screen and equipped with a brocade silk border. The reverse of the screen has been papered with Japanese accounting sheets from the 1920s, a clue that provides us with the likely decade in which the map was mounted in this particular form. Additionally, the conversion of the map to a form of decorative art aligns well with the modalities of Japonisme: a high trend of the early 20th century.

In 1852, American president Millard Fillmore ordered the U.S. Navy to force Japan to open her ports to American trade. A fleet spearheaded by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan with orders of using ‘gunboat diplomacy’ if necessary to achieve their goal. After Japan had been closed to the outside world for more than two centuries, the country was opened under American pressure in 1854, and as a consequence Japanese society underwent a rapid and dramatic change from feudal society to industrialized nation. Following the opening of Japan there was an intense global interest in all things Japanese. This trend also manifested itself in the arts, where Japanese arts and crafts were celebrated, collected, and emulated by Westerners.

It was the French art critic Philippe Burty who in 1872 first coined the term ‘Japonisme’ to describe the trend. The impact of and interest in Japanese art exploded in the following decades, and famous European artists such as Van Gogh began emulating the traditional ukiyo-e woodblock prints. In time, the interest transcended into the sphere of collecting and interior design as well, creating intense demand for Japanese antiques among European and American dealers at the beginning of the 20th century.

In this light, and following our analysis below, we believe that the story of our map can be summed up as follows: It was conceived and compiled in the latter part of the 18th century, probably during the 1790s, constituting Koyano Ishun’s response to the perceived inadequacies of available cartographic materials at that point. Considering the artistic qualities of the map, its execution presumably took several years. Once finished, around the year 1800, Koyano probably used this map for his own teaching purposes. Demand for Japanese world maps was nevertheless on the rise and during the first decade of the 19th-century arrangements were made to have the manuscript map transferred to a woodblock for printing. With the printed version being issued in 1809, the original manuscript was probably archived or eventually stashed somewhere. A century or so later, during the height of Japonisme and with the demand for Japanese antiques soaring, our hypothesis is that this map was ‘rediscovered,’ sold to an antiquities dealer, and then mounted on the present folding screen to become one of the iconic Japanese items that were being incorporated into the decor of ateliers and homes across Europe and America.

In this way, the creation of the map and the subsequent object it became represent two processes that are complete opposites: closing and opening. In other words, the two great developments that shaped Early Modern Japan — its isolationism and its subsequent re-entry onto the world stage — are encapsulated in this one single work."

(snarp editorial: Despite its inescapability in the modern conception of Japanese history, many historians take issue with the narrative of sakoku - the alleged "intentionally closed Japan" of the Edo era - for the reason that, for most of the period, at least one of those three words did not actually apply to the political/cultural/economic situation.)

[ladysophy]

The Dark Side of President Lincoln and the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Note: You may have a few symptoms of cognitive dissonance. However, I will not tolerate hate mail nor trollish behavior. So if you don’t like what you see in this post, stop reading it and go along your way.

In American public schools, American kids from various societal backgrounds were and are still being taught that President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was a hero who saved the Union from those evil, backward and slave owning Southerns who seceded illegally in the name of abolishing slavery. I was certainly taught this when I was in school from the late 90s to the late 2000s.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s unfortunately a bunch of BS. First, Lincoln was indifferent to the plight of slaves/free blacks at best and thought whites were superior to blacks at worst. In fact, he would have had all blacks deported to either Africa, Latin America and/or the Caribbean if he hadn’t been assassinated. He also didn’t campaign against slavery despite popular belief! He also wasn’t a huge fan of Native Americans/Indigenous Americans either.

Second, Lincoln had people in the North imprisoned if they criticized him, his policies, the war, and/or just wanting peace all together. Some sources mentioned that some people were jailed for not saying his name in church! This included some elected officials too. One elected official was placed on some kind of house arrest for criticizing Lincoln overturning Habeas corpus. Another one was deported to Canada for being vocally against his policies. Former President Franklin Pierce’s reputation was ruined in the press’s eyes when he criticized Lincoln’s policies and was corresponding with the Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis during the war. Lincoln even had his portrait removed from display in the White House! Even former President Millard Fillmore’s reputation took a nosedive too when he too criticized Lincoln and mentioned that the South needed help after the war ended. Lincoln also had the oppositional newspapers shut down too and put their owners and editors in prison during the early stages of the war. If this is not proto-Stalinist behavior, I don’t know what is. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, boasted that he could place elected officials in the North in prison for criticizing Lincoln and his policies or something to that effect. You see how messed up this is?

From across the pond, many European powers were very concern about the conflict that was engulfing the United States. In fact, they (especially the United Kingdom and France) considered Lincoln and his administration acting in a very despotic manner. They were very close to recognizing the Confederacy when Lincoln (and Seward too) threatened them with war if they dared send any form of humanitarian aid to the South. Unsurprisingly, they backed off, but I’m sure it left a bad taste in their mouths.

Finding out Lincoln had racist views didn’t shock me at the least. Most Americans did back then. He was being a typical hypocritical politician. What really shocked me was the way he and his administration handled Northerners and two former Presidents who criticized him. Yes, Fillmore and Pierce had their own share of flaws and problems, but to have the press to smear campaign them like that? Makes you look like a totalitarian who despises opposite viewpoints like all totalitarians do.

Lastly, the primary cause of the American Civil War wasn’t slavery. It was actually a purely economic reason: the ongoing tax disputes between the North and South. Decades before the American Civil War, the South was producing the majority of goods in America. For some reason or another, the North decided to put taxes on the South. One such tax was called the Black Tariff of 1828 or the Tariff of Abominations. Under this tariff according to Mighty Taxes, the South had to pay about 75% of all taxes in America! Unsurprisingly, the North benefited from this tariff economically. Also according to Mighty Taxes, the South couldn’t buy anymore European imports because they were too expensive. They could only buy from the North. Not surprisingly, this caused a lot of resentment from the South and the North basically did little about it. The tax that started the American Civil War was called the Morrill Tariff of 1861 and it was the highest tariff at that time that benefited the North again! Pissed off, the South decided to secede by drafting their own constitution that included banning high taxes on imports. Even the famous English author Charles Dickens and the father of Communism Karl Marx saw the American Civil War was about money and taxes, not slavery!

The South was willing to negotiate with the North one last time before the first shots rang out, but Lincoln was not having none of it. And the rest is history.

In conclusion, this just puts Lincoln and his administration in a really bad light. It makes him a two faced hypocrite at best and a despot at worst. This makes them warmongers who only cared about money and f**k everyone else (including women, children and the elderly). While there were some not so good people in the Confederacy too, there were some not so good people in the Union too. My lesson here is that there is two sides of the coin when it comes to history. The American Civil War is of no exception.

P.S. Before anyone calls me a racist or a Confederate, I’m not. I’m actually have some ancestors who were slaves in the South.

Sources:

Dilorenzo, Thomas. The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda and an Unnecessary War. 2003.

“How Taxes Caused the Civil War.” Mighty Taxes. www.mightytaxes.com.

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of Ken Kesey who Died: November 10, 2001 in Eugene, Oregon

Kenneth Elton Kesey was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957.

In 1965, following an arrest for marijuana possession and subsequent faked suicide, Kesey was imprisoned for five months. Shortly thereafter, he returned home to the Willamette Valley and settled in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, where he maintained a secluded, family-oriented lifestyle for the rest of his life. In addition to teaching at the University of Oregon—an experience that culminated in Caverns (1989), a collaborative novel written by Kesey and his graduate workshop students under the pseudonym of "O.U. Levon"—he continued to regularly contribute fiction and reportage to such publications as Esquire, Rolling Stone, Oui, Running, and The Whole Earth Catalog; various iterations of these pieces were collected in Kesey's Garage Sale (1973) and Demon Box (1986).

Between 1974 and 1980, Kesey published six issues of Spit in the Ocean, a literary magazine that featured excerpts from an unfinished novel (Seven Prayers by Grandma Whittier, an account of Kesey's grandmother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease) and contributions from such luminaries as Margo St. James, Kate Millett, Stewart Brand, Saul-Paul Sirag, Jack Sarfatti, Paul Krassner, and William S. Burroughs. After a third novel (Sailor Song) was released to lukewarm reviews in 1992, he reunited with the Merry Pranksters and began publishing works on the Internet until ill health (including a stroke) curtailed his activities.

At the invitation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, Kesey volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a CIA-financed study under the aegis of Project MKULTRA, a highly secret military program, at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of psychedelic drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on people. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private drug-use that followed.

Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at the Veterans' Administration hospital, inspired him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The success of this book, as well as the demolition of the Perry Lane cabins in August 1963, allowed him to move to a log house at 7940 La Honda Road in La Honda, California, a rustic hamlet in the Santa Cruz Mountains fifteen miles to the west of the Stanford University campus. He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests," involving music (including the Stanford-educated Anonymous Artists of America and Kesey's favorite band, the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobe lights, LSD, and other psychedelic effects. These parties were described in some of Allen Ginsberg's poems and served as the basis for Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an early exemplar of the nonfiction novel. Other firsthand accounts of the Acid Tests appear in Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson and the 1967 Hells Angels memoir Freewheelin Frank:, Secretary of the Angels (Frank Reynolds; ghostwritten by Michael McClure).

Kesey was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992. In 1994, he toured with members of the Merry Pranksters, performing a musical play he wrote about the millennium called Twister: A Ritual Reality. Many old and new friends and family showed up to support the Pranksters on this tour, which took them from Seattle's Bumbershoot all along the West Coast, including a sold-out two-night run at The Fillmore in San Francisco to Boulder, Colorado, where they coaxed the Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg into performing with them.

Kesey mainly kept to his home life in Pleasant Hill, preferring to make artistic contributions on the Internet or holding ritualistic revivals in the spirit of the Acid Test. In the official Grateful Dead DVD release The Closing of Winterland (2003) documenting the monumental New Year's 1978/1979 concert at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, Kesey is featured in a between-set interview.

On August 14, 1997, Kesey and his Pranksters attended a Phish concert in Darien Lake, New York. Kesey and the Pranksters appeared onstage with the band and performed a dance-trance-jam session involving several characters from The Wizard of Oz and Frankenstein.

In June 2001, Kesey was invited and accepted as the keynote speaker at the annual commencement of The Evergreen State College. His last major work was an essay for Rolling Stone magazine calling for peace in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

In 1997, health problems began to weaken Kesey, starting with a stroke that year. On October 25, 2001, Kesey had surgery on his liver to remove a tumor. He did not recover from that operation and died of complications on November 10, 2001, at age 66

[deadpresidents]

"I sincerely feel that the country is on the verge of ruin, and unless the policy which governs our national affairs can be changed, we must soon end in national bankruptcy and a military despotism. Perhaps the former cannot be arrested, but the latter may; but in my opinion the policy can only be changed by a change of administration. Hence I am for a change, and I looked upon the election of General [George B.] McClellan as the last hope for the restoration of the Union and honorable peace and the security of personal liberty; and this you may publish to the world as my views on the pending crisis. I shall, with great pleasure, cast my vote for Gen. McClellan and [Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Representative George H.] Pendleton."

-- Former President Millard Fillmore, criticizing the Administration of Abraham Lincoln and endorsing Democratic Presidential nominee George B. McClellan in the 1864 election, in a letter to a Mr. Douglas of Brooklyn, New York, November 1864.

[gravitascivics]

MORTEM AND POSTMORTEM

As the last posting indicates, the final days of the Whig Party were being counted down after the 1852 election.  That posting describes that in addition to a trouncing in that election, the political landscape was not conducive for the party to pursue its established policy positions.  That included a pro tariff stance that did not match the conditions of a prosperous economy.  

The reason for a tariff, beyond securing funding for the central government, was to protect domestic manufacturers.  All that could be seen among the electorate was that the tariff added to the prices of imported goods – making domesticated produced goods relatively cheaper – but increasing overall prices that Americans paid.  Apparently, during the mid-nineteenth century period, domestic producers were not so dependent on such help.  So, with overall high employment rates and rosy economic expectations, the Whig message lost much of its appeal.

1853-1856

         With the new Franklin Pierce Administration in place (minus its deceased vice president, William R. King), the first national issue was the debate over what will become the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  At stake were the last remnants of the Missouri Compromise.  That compromise prohibited the expansion of slavery in the newly created western states (initially attained through the Louisiana Purchase) that fell north of Missouri’s southern border line (36ﹾ30’ N), with the exception of Missouri, as it extended to the Pacific shore.  

With the enactment of the newer law, slavery could be instituted if a northern state legislature decided to allow the practice within that state’s borders. This law created a new political environment.[1]  How? In the North, a new allegiance arose among “anti-Nebraska Act��� Democrats, Free-Soil advocates, and Whigs. In Wisconsin and Michigan, these advocates adopted the name, Republican Party.  Its initial aim was not to abolish slavery but prevent its expansion.

Adding to the complexity, the Know-Nothing movement took hold among people who were antagonistic to Catholics or non-Anglican immigrants.  Eventually this group organized itself as the American Party. They saw themselves as picking up the Whig identity, but the Know-Nothings were preoccupied with mass immigration the nation was experiencing and bought into the belief that there was a Catholic conspiracy.  The parochial nature among many Americans excluded these other Western European immigrants as being welcome.

On the other hand, Republicans were concerned with Slave Power – the perceived political hold Southern slaveholders had over the federal government in the years leading up to the Civil War.  Already enjoying their control over their respective state governments, the slaveholders wanted to secure  at least their veto power over federal policy – assuming an equal number of senators between slave and free states in the US Senate – if not an inordinate influence over what the US Congress decided to enact.  In other words, this small minority was exercising or seeking power way beyond its numbers.

While unusual, this divided anti-Democratic Party coalition proved effective in the 1854 mid-term election.  The Democrats suffered significant loses.  And regardless of a few exceptions, the winners of those individual congressional contests did not identify as Whigs.  Instead they ran independently or took up association with one of the other identified groupings – such as the Know-Nothings.  Northern and southern Whigs were beyond reconciliation to form a national presence and so leaders from the two regions of the country simply abandoned the party.  

For example, former Whig president, Millard Fillmore joined the Know-Nothing partisans even though he openly disagreed with that group’s xenophobic notions and he encouraged others to follow his lead into that movement.  That happened in 1855.  A big move occurred when in that same year New York senator, William H. Seward, encouraged a good number of Whigs to follow him into the Republican Party.  

And with that one can consider these developments as being the death knell of the Whig Party.  That set up, in effect, a three-way race in the 1856 presidential election:  the Democrats, the Know-Nothings, and the Republicans.  The Know-Nothings, at its convention, nominated the ill-fitting Fillmore (who would also be nominated by a scarcely attended Whig party convention) and promoted a less than cohesive platform but that generally decided to downplay slavery as an issue.  The Republicans nominated John C. Fremont.  This party, at this point, was mostly a northern phenomenon and was helped by defecting northern Know-Nothings.  

In the confusing campaign that followed – for example, while the Know-Nothing candidate, Fillmore mostly ignored that party’s nativism and really ran to reenergize whatever remained of Whig support – the result was that the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, won.  He received 45 percent of the popular vote (174 electoral votes).  Fremont took 33 percent (114 electoral votes), and Fillmore garnered 22 percent (8 electoral votes).  All and all, one can judge the Whig party was dead although former Whigs attempted a run for president in 1860.

Addendum, 1860

         A postmortem note can be added by describing the remnants of the party and how they went about their dealings in 1860.  Led by Senator John J. Crittenden, a group of Whig unionists, conservatives, formed the Constitutional Union Party and it nominated John Bell, a long-time Whig, who was anointed as the “ghost of the old Whig Party” by a Southern newspaper.[2]  While not taking a stand on slavery, this unionist “party” ran on a preserving the union platform.  The party won pluralities in three states.

         And with that election, this timeline ends.  What follows in this blog will be a rundown of what the Whig Party stood for and how it affected America’s development.  Of primary concern in this blog is the way the party operated within the espoused values of federalism.  Generally, federalism is a governmental/political construct which holds that a polity should be organized and maintained by a federated populous – one that defines its shared citizenship as a partnership.

While the US Constitution sets up structurally and legally such an arrangement, it does not guarantee that the nation’s people will hold to it emotionally or cognitively.  Again, this blog’s claim is that the Whig Party along with its competing entities – other parties and organized interest groups – held as dominate a cultural bias for a version of federalism.  

That version is called, by this blogger, the parochial/traditional version and in its most simplistic terms holds that only Western European descents should be allowed to enter that partnership.  But, as this posting indicates, the level of parochialism could be more exclusive.  For some Americans, these newer immigrants – for example Irish immigrants – were illegitimate and unwelcomed.[3]

[1] Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999).

[2] Jack P. Maddex, Jr., The Virginia Conservatives, 1867-1879:  A Study in Reconstruction Politics (Chapel Hill, NC:  2018).  Quoted phrase found on p. 13.

[3] This level of exclusivity is depicted dramatically in the feature film, Gangs of New York. See Martin Scorsese (director), Gangs of New York (Buena Vista Pictures, 2002).

[goldendiie]

also. unsure if i ever explained WHY i made fillmore’s family wealthy in americana. if you look at gallup poll records regarding the johnson’s administration and it’s handling of the war in vietnam, you’ll notice this weird trend where, consistently, the upper-middle classes were among the first to oppose the war. i’d really love to look into WHY that is (another research topic for me!!!), but it was an interesting finding that i wanted to include.

indeed, the upper-middle and upper classes are not synonymous; BUT, as i wrote fillmore’s father as being a democratic senator in liberal new york, i figured that it would be generally natural for a family of such standing to at least oppose the johnson administration’s involvement. the progression that im getting at is that (a) because fillmore was raised in a wealthy liberal POLITICAL family, he already had a lot of knowledge on why the war was an absolute mistake. then, (b), he got further radicalized at berkeley during the time of the student rebellion, dropped out, and went from there.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.4

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth). 306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia. 852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources. 938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs. 1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany. 1238 – The Battle of the Sit River is fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Rus'. 1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam. 1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland. 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV. 1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean. 1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth. 1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter. 1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. 1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England. 1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston. 1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. 1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility. 1791 – The Constitutional Act of 1791 is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario). 1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state. 1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4. 1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales. 1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario. 1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated. 1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia. 1849 – President-elect of the United States Zachary Taylor and Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading to the erroneous theory that outgoing President pro tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day. 1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the "Stars and Bars") is adopted. 1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress. 1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London. 1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 8,094 feet (2,467 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII. 1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300. 1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people. 1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State. 1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later. 1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed. 1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives. 1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President of the United States. He was the last president to be inaugurated on March 4. 1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet. 1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree. 1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena. 1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin. 1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90. 1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba, killing 100. 1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7. 1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people. 1966 – In an interview in the London Evening Standard, The Beatles' John Lennon declares that the band is "more popular than Jesus now". 1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew. 1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament. 1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500, mostly in Bucharest, Romania. 1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister. 1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States. 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus. 1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days. 1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex. 1999 – Mizan Zainal Abidin of Terengganu is crowned as Sultan of Terengganu (Malaysia) 2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA. 2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission. 2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. 2012 – A series of explosions is reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, killing at least 250 people. 2015 – At least 34 miners die in a suspected gas explosion at the Zasyadko coal mine in the rebel-held Donetsk region of Ukraine. 2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved. 2020 – Former Daredevil Nik Wallenda is the first person to walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. 2021 – According to some QAnon supporters, former US President Donald Trump will be inaugurated, putting guards at the capitol on high alert, out of fear of another attack on the US capitol.

[the-record-newspaper]

The killing of Rhonda Hinson Part 49

James "Flash" Pruett and his wife Rhonda, as they embark upon a trail conducting them to the petroglyphs discovered near their home at Pahvant Butte in Fillmore, Utah.  It was snapped in July, 2015 by Ruth Riddle Jones.  

 An Encomium

 By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

For The Record

 Editor’s note: This is the continuation of a series on the Dec. 23, 1981, unsolved murder of Rhonda Hinson.

 To James “Flash” Pruett—a foremost champion of the law of his generation…whom I shall ever regard as one of the best and wisest men whom I have ever known.—Adapted from, “The Final Problem,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 As a tear trickled down his cheek, Detective James “Flash” Pruett silently slipped away into perpetuity on Saturday, March 14, 2020.  The time was 7:15 p.m.  

His wife, Rhonda, was by his side, as she has been over the last heart-rending months, weeks, and final days of her husband’s life struggle.  “I know he heard us,” Rhonda Pruett averred during conversation with this writer.  “He had been out of it the entire time. So yes, I talked to him and gave him jobs to do when he left….”

Ironically, the 69-year-old lawman died on the birthday of the Pruetts’ beloved dog, Paiute, that they lost just weeks ago.  “He died on her 14th birthday, Pi day,” Rhonda informed friends on her personal Facebook page.  

The former detective will be missed by a plethora of appreciative admirers for the impeccable, incomparable investigative work that he did relative to the Rhonda Hinson murder case—the proof of which can be found on the Remembering Rhonda Hinson Facebook page.  As of press time, over 9,400 friends and followers of the page have read the post announcing his demise, with over a hundred respondents offering their commiserations to Flash’s family and friends. And condolences continue to come.

Jill Turner-Mull—Rhonda Hinson’s best friend and lifelong activist for obtaining resolution for the 38-year-old murder case—was one of them. “This saddens me deeply but I do find comfort in knowing heaven gained an angel.  Big hugs and prayers sent to Rhonda and the family.”

Connie Barnes—Rhonda Hinson’s friend and indefatigable advocate for justice for the slain 19-year-old—agrees with Jill, “Heaven gained an angel for sure.”  Then she adds, “Thinking of his family and praying for their comfort in the days to follow.  You are our hero, Flash…your dedication to Rhonda’s case was the best.”

Mark Perrou—a friend of the Hinson family and activist for justice—directly addresses the detective who worked diligently to solve Rhonda’s case: “Thanks, Flash for being a loyal servant to the community.  Godspeed, Sir.”

Janis Mullis—a Hinson family friend and outspoken advocate for the resolving of Rhonda’s case—offers, “Many, many prayers for his family and much appreciation for his hard work that will live on!”

 Others write descriptively of Mr. Pruett’s professional prowess:

“--Absolutely the very best, trustworthy awesome intelligent detective I have ever known and I had the honorable luck of calling him and his equally precious beautiful and talented RN wife for my friends.”

“--I had the pleasure of working with Flash at BCSD.  He was a Great Detective and a very honorable man. This world needs more men like him. He will be missed greatly.”

“--So sad to hear this.  I met Flash and worked with him as an electrician.  A very smart and proficient individual not to mention a great guy.”

“--He was a very caring and kind officer, enjoyed working with him.”

“--I’m sorry to hear this.  He tried hard for Rhonda and her family to solve this murder.  God Bless you Flash—you were one of the good guys for sure!”

Still other respondents—far too numerous to enumerate—sent condolences, prayerful commiserations, and expressions of love to Detective Pruett’s wife, Rhonda, and the rest of his family.  

For Bobby and Judy Hinson, the detective was more than just a lifeline back to the investigation into the murder of their daughter, he was a friend.  Judy Hinson writes articulately about the man whom they felt cared the most:

“Flash was one of the finest people we have ever met.  There was never a time that he was too busy to talk to us.  He always answered any questions that we had.  He never made us feel like we were bothering him when we called the department and the times we called him at home.  Flash was always so kind and so caring.  Not only his family but all the people who knew him have lost someone that can never be replaced.”

Detective Pruett’s comprehensive investigation into the killing of Rhonda Hinson has become legendary.  As previously reported, Flash was officially assigned the case by Major Robert Lane and Lieutenant Greg Calloway on Friday Jan. 20, 1995, during the Richard Epley administration.  Gene Franklin was tasked with the responsibility to assist Detective Pruett in the continuation of the investigation.

Over the next five-years, Flash applied a systematic, logical approach to the conduction of his investigation—in contrast to the often inconsistent, inconstant efforts of most of his predecessors, as reflected in case documentation.  In an interview with News Herald staff writer, Jen Pilla, three-years after his assignment to the post of lead investigator for the Rhonda Hinson case, the detective articulated the course he would pursue throughout:  “When I was assigned to this case three-years ago, I decided it was time to go back to the basics and back to the crime scene itself.”

And back to the basics it was as he conducted interviews, tracked leads, and continuously examined and re-examined the totality of accrued evidence. Moreover, on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 15, 1997, he initiated and assisted in the performance of an SBI ballistics assessment for the expressed purpose of ascertaining the trajectory of the projectile that killed Rhonda Hinson on the early morning of Dec. 23, 1981. He, along with a team of SBI agents, utilized a 1982 Datsun 210—similar to the 1981 Datsun 210 driven by the decedent—that the Hinsons had acquired and ceded to BCSD to be used to perform whatever testing deemed necessary.  

The results obtained from the ballistics assessment, as reported in the summary, forever dismissed any possibility that the shooting was done from Interstate 40, from Elmer Buff’s property, or from either embankment along Eldred Street/Hwy 350.  The conclusion?  Only a person standing on ground level and behind Rhonda’s car could have fired a shot that matched the calculated trajectory of the missile that extinguished her brief life.

 There were some “firsts” accomplished by Detective Pruett:  the assignment of significance to the articles found in Rhonda Hinson’s Datsun 210 that were not present when she left her parents’ residence to attend a company Christmas party on Tuesday evening, Dec. 22, 1981, and the first-ever interview of Mark Turner—Jill Turner-Mull’s boyfriend and Greg McDowell’s friend—over fourteen-years after Rhonda’s murder. Flash seemed convinced that the gray-hooded sweatjacket, belonging to Miss Hinson—that she left in Turner’s automobile, yet managed to be prominently displayed on the sundeck of Rhonda’s Datsun 210 on the morning she was murdered—was as a key to cracking this case. Turner, however, told the detective that he could not remember how it got out of his car and into that of the slain 19-year-old—an asseveration that Flash clearly did not believe.  

Detective Pruett also applied surveillance equipment to the investigation, as he leveraged the relationships that Mark and Faith Turner and Jeff Hinkle had with Greg McDowell, in an effort to capture incriminating statements offered by Rhonda Hinson’s former boyfriend while engaged in casual conversation.

On Tuesday afternoon Dec. 23, 1997, Detective Pruett—along with Sheriff Richard Epley and an entourage of others—interviewed Greg McDowell in his engineering office in Hickory.  He noted that the 34-year-old engineer admitted—for the first time—that he knew that Rhonda had called him from Sherry Pittman Yoder’s house, in contrast to his statement to law enforcement, proffered immediately following the murder, in which he maintained that he thought Rhonda was at home.  McDowell also informed Flash and the others that a pink snake, acquired during a Myrtle Beach trip and among the items found in Rhonda’s Datsun 210 on the day of her death, “stayed on his dresser at home.”  

Unfortunately, subsequent to a near-fatal automobile accident that occurred during Winter 2000, Detective Pruett’s days as lead investigator and employee at the BCSD were numbered.  While he was having back surgery to repair damage sustained in the accident, Flash was supplanted by Sheriff John McDevitt when he hired former SBI agent, John Suttle to head his criminal investigations division.  It was News Herald staff writer Cheryl Moose Bollinger [Shuffler] who reported the action in a Nov. 19, 2000, article entitled, “Retired Agent Back in Law Enforcement.”

Shortly after his return to the BCSD and not completely rehabilitated, James Pruett was afforded the option to resign or face the prospect of termination, according to statements that Flash made to this writer across several interviews.  A similar scenario was recounted by former Sheriff McDevitt when he admitted to the Hinsons, at a local restaurant in the Fall 2019, that he had to get rid of Flash because he didn’t think that he could do the work any longer.

Though Mr. Pruett admitted to being treated badly under McDevitt’s administration, he refused to castigate his fellow law enforcement colleagues who were instrumental in effecting his departure from the BCSD.  

One singular feature of Detective Pruett’s investigation that distinguishes it from those conducted by others, was his detailed notes that he assiduously recorded at the conclusion of every day that he worked the Hinson case. They not only offer descriptions of actions, procedures, and factual summaries of interviews with principals, they also provide insight into the detective’s hypotheses and questions yet to be answered.

Whether intended or not, Flash’s notes are reflective of the measure of the man himself—his characteristic dedication and compassion; and his respect and caring concern for Bobby and Judy Hinson.  Sometimes they bespeak his own very human, personal feelings which were otherwise masked beneath the stoic façade of a seasoned law enforcement officer.  None illustrates his inherent character better than the final paragraph of his detailed description of activities on what would have been the day of Rhonda Hinson’s birthday –Wednesday Dec. 13, 1995:

“The last thing I did today was to go by Rhonda’s gravesite.  I spent about five minutes there in prayer.  I could see the pain in Judy and Bobby’s faces when I was with them today, Rhonda’s 33rd birthday.  I could feel the weight of that pain on me at the gravesite.  It was especially hard on all of us today.

Though he was criticized for his “obsessive” attachment to the “most investigated case in Burke County history,” Detective James “Flash” Pruett persevered.  Some of his last sentiments expressed to this writer indicated his desire to leave the rehabilitation facility and continue—on his own time—the investigation into the killing of Rhonda Hinson.  

“There are things that I should tell you,” Flash declared to me. “But I can’t tell you right now and not here.”

In his final two months of life, while in the throes of Parkinson’s Disease, the quintessential detective was ready to resume the work toward achieving resolution to the 38-year-old murder case and obtaining a modicum of peace for the Hinsons.  

This is the “stuff” of heroes.

James “Flash” Pruett

August 16, 1950—March 14, 2020