[1] *ahem*
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who turned out to be a lot more thou than holy.
He had a taste for the pages
(especially the under-ages)
as a place to plunge his little pink poley.
[2] Do you see what I see?
Hey, look at that: Your gas prices have been getting lower...
[3] Pickin' and groanin'.
On April 2nd, I posted "Pickin' and Grinnin'," in which I tried to predict this year's National League standings and playoff picture. With the sweat and stifle of summer now past, and the crisp, earthy air of autumn filling our lungs, the time has come to assess those predictions. You can review the original post by clicking on the title, "MLB NL Central Predictions," located on the right side of the screen. If I were you, though, I wouldn't bother... I don't intend to gloss over my mistakes.
[4] Welcome back, Howard.
Have you been making your list?
Have you been checking it twice?
Do you know who's been naughty or nice, you nosey little prig?
[5] Slim pickin's.
Alas, for the first time this century, I failed to correctly predict the winner of the National League West. Clearly, I underestimated the Padres-- particularly their pitching and their ability to win on the road. And I don't think anyone could have envisioned how streaky the Dodgers (my pick) turned out to be: Lose 13 out of 14 here, win 17 of 18 there. Now, some may say, "Aha!... but the Dodgers and Padres actually tied for first place, and San Diego was awarded the title by dint of a tiebreaker," but I'm not going to hide behind that. I underestimated the Padres; I'll take my lumps. Besides, San Diego beat L.A. 13 times in 18 head-to-head meetings, so I really don't have a problem with Bud "I'm Making This Up As I Go Along" Selig naming San Diego division champions.
My forecast was........ LA, SD, SF, AZ, CO.
The actual standings... SD, LA, SF, AZ, CO.
Footnote: I disparaged the Rockies. I said it'd be a toss-up between them and Florida for the title of worst team in the League. As it turned out, the worst team in the League was... well, you know.
[6] Do you hear what I hear?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... just in time for the mid-term elections. Now, let's all be good little boys and girls and say to ourselves, "Hey, maybe those [certain to be cast into a fiery pit of Hades by the very Jehovah they so like to pose next to] Republicans aren't so bad, after all. Let's all drive down to the polls, right now! I'll take the Suburban. Honey, you take the Escalade. Jenny, you take the mini-van. I know you're only sixteen, Jenny, but if you promise to vote the "right" way, they'll overlook the technicalities... They're good at that."
If you're really, really good, you might even manage to convince yourself that you actually thought your own vote through, all by yourself, instead of simply responding to the programming that was imbedded deep in your brain by Exxon-Mobil when you had that "illness" as a child.
[7] *ahem* (again)
There once was a man named Mark Foley,
who engaged in a wee too much, uh, tomfoolery.
The man liked them young
and --oh, yes!-- well-hung,
even if only for some pocket poolery.
[8] Pick a card, any card.
I'd love to be able to tell you I was wrong. Really, I would. I spent six days out of every seven, all summer long, rooting against my own prognostication, but it wasn't to be: Those Poo-holes from Saint Loo won the Central division again. Houston made a late charge, but they waited too long before kicking in the afterburners and fell short (both of the division and, you might note, the wildcard). Aside from that, my biggest failure in forecasting the Central was probably my pipedreaming the Chicago Underachievers and Bud-lighters Society into third place.
My forecast........ STL, HOU, CHI, MIL, CIN, PIT.
Actual standings... STL, HOU, CIN, MIL, PIT, CHI.
Footnote: I said, somewhat ambiguously, that the road to the National League Championship would go through Saint Loo. By now, of course, you already know that those Poo-holes are, indeed, in the NLCS.
[9] Do you know what I know?
Your gas prices have been getting lower... but they still aren't as low
as they were before Halliburton invaded Iraq.
[10] Pickled tink.
Why, yes, I did pick the Mets to win the East. Yep, that was me, alright. Buy me a congratulatory drink: A decent sour mash on the rocks, with a splash of Coke. And make it a double, because they won the division by, like, 16 games or something gaudy like that. What's that? I said it would be closer? Much closer, you say? Hmm. What was I thinking?
Okay, here's what I was thinking: The Braves, you might remember, had won 14 straight division titles coming into this season. Many people, over the last several years, had picked against them and been wrong... Atlanta always seemed to find a way. In fact, I had picked against them and been wrong a few times myself. When I assessed the East this past spring, I couldn't get that of my head. So, I verbally hedged my bets: I picked the Mets, but then I wished my washy (or, uh, washed my wishy) and said, "But watch out for Atlanta, they'll make it close," or words to that effect. It was never close, of course: The Mets ran away with it. So cancel the sour mash. I'll just have a Natural Light straight out of the can, please.
My forecast........ NY, ATL, PHI, WAS, FLA.
Actual standings... NY, PHI, ATL, FLA, WAS.
[11] It's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the right.
You were in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, Georgie. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Last week, you were in Stockton, California, of all places. I was there the next day, but you had already left town. Are you avoiding me, you Smirking Marionette?
[12] Pick me up and dust me off.
The wildcard race was, as usual, wild... which is precisely as it should be. You heard me. Some of the more blasphemous among you have tried to advance the ridiculous, silly, absurd and downright crazy notion that I have some kind of a problem with Bud Selig as Commissioner of Baseball. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever where such a wacky and ludicrous rumor started... All kidding aside, though, the wildcard was and is a great idea and, believe it or not, I have always thought so. I really have. Reason: It keeps more teams in contention later into the season, thereby keeping more fans interested in baseball right through September (a key time, when it's competing with football for attention) and into the playoffs. Anyway, my forecast for the wildcard race went something like this: Houston would outdistance Atlanta and San Diego (the "first tier" of contenders), with (in no particular order) the Cubs, Phillies, Brewers and the Bay Area Retirement Home All-Stars also giving chase. Of course, that assessment presumed that the Dodgers would win the West. Instead, the final wildcard standings were: LA, PHI, HOU, CIN, ATL, FLA. Lastly, I concluded my season predictions with the summation that the playoff field would be "the Cardinals, Dodgers, Mets and Astros." The order in which I mentioned those teams was not random: It was a subtle prediction of the playoff seedings. The actual seedings were: Mets, Padres, Cardinals, Dodgers.
[13] P.S...
Bud "Let Us Pray To the Almighty Nielsen" Selig must go.
Impious since 2006
Oct 9, 2006
THE FIRE
The fire started Saturday afternoon, the 7th, just south of the business district. The Chicago Fire Department --a mere 185 dedicated men, trying to protect a city of nearly 350,000-- acted quickly to contain the blaze.
They had to act quickly. To say that the city was a proverbial tinderbox would be a gross understatement. Chicago was made almost entirely of wood, which was bad enough, but worse still the overwhelming majority of that wood, from buildings to sidewalks to even the streets, the overwhelming majority of that wood was pine, which burns remarkably quick compared to its harder, denser cousins. On top of that, the city was incredibly dry-- dried out by a long summer with virtually no rain. The tail end of a two-year-long drought had intensified, and barely an inch of rain had fallen since the Fourth of July. Now, in the first week of October, 1871, all of that quick-burning pine was warped and parched by the strong, hot prairie winds.
The fire department battled the blaze for seventeen long hours, until just after daybreak on Sunday morning, October 8th. Beleaguered and bone-tired, hair seared from their faces, soot-blackened, red-eyed, sweat-stained and heat-swollen and cinder-burnt, the firemen trudged in seeming slow-motion back to their station houses. Most of them were sent home to relax, clean up, spend some time with their families. They deserved it: It had been the worst fire in the history of Chicago...
...but it was only a prelude.
------------------------------
Watchman Matthias Schaffer stamped his feet on the wooden floor of the courthouse tower. He lifted his shoulders and tried to hunch his neck a little deeper into the collar of his heavy overcoat. Not even nine o'clock, yet, he thought, and already I'm cold. The long, hot summer hadn't really broken, yet, but within the last two weeks or so, the nights had turned uncomfortably chilly-- especially up here in the tower, with the wind whipping in through the windows.
Schaffer may not have had anybody to talk to, but he wasn't alone in his vigil. This was, after all, 1871, and a sophisticated system of fire alarm "strike boxes" webbed the whole city. They were locked against false alarms, with trustworthy citizens in every neighborhood holding the keys. Additionally, every fire station had its own observation tower. None of them, however, commanded the view as could be had by the courthouse tower. Here, with his back to the big lake, a watchman could sweep the entire eighteen square miles of bustling Chicago-- the fastest-growing city in the world.
Schaffer picked up his spyglass and leaned out, his belly against the window sill. Maybe it's this job, he thought. Just standing around up here in this damned tower, hour after hour. Watching and waiting. Watching and waiting for something to happen, praying it never does. Schaffer swept the glass to the north, far beyond the river, beyond even the residential neighborhoods of the North Side, focusing on the brand-new Lincoln Park, out on the edge of town. His job certainly seemed simple enough: Sweep the horizon, end to end, then change the angle and sweep around again, a little closer-in from the horizon. Keep looking closer, closer until you can stop using the spyglass and then check the downtown area, looking for smoke and/or flame. When done, repeat... until it was somebody else's turn.
Of course, it was nighttime, which made spotting smoke tricky and, besides, there was smoke everywhere-- innocuous smoke from cooking fires and fireplaces in nearly every building. Tonight, too, curls of smoke were still rising from the vast mountains of coal waiting to be shipped or sold along the south branch of the river, where last night's Big Fire had been driven and finally beaten.
Schaffer panned the horizon in slow motion, pausing often to make sure he wasn't really seeing what his mind too often told him was another big fire. As he scanned to the southwest, he stopped... stared... stared... and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.
Hurriedly, he pulled himself away from the window and turned to the voice box, a simple tube that connected him with the central fire alarm telegraph office on the first floor. Connected by telegraph wires to every station in the city, this was the Chicago Fire Department's dispatch center. Unable to control the rising tone of his voice, Schaffer told the operator that he'd spotted a fire near the corner of Halsted and Canalport, near strike box 342. Telegraph operator William Brown acknowledged the call.
Schaffer returned to the window. He turned his head and quickly scanned the rest of the city, hardly even seeing it. Then he raised the glass to his eye and trained it on the rising plume of smoke to the southwest. As he watched, he both heard and, because he was so close to it, felt the enormous tower bell begin to toll the alarm. Down in the control center, Brown had pulled the lever releasing the gears and pulleys...
Schaffer pulled the glass away from his eye, put it back, pulled it away. His brow furrowed into a frown, then shot up in horror. He heaved himself away from the window and stumbled to the voice box. In a rush, he told Brown he'd made a mistake: He'd mis-located the fire. It was closer in than he'd first thought, nearly a mile closer in, near strike box 319.
There was a long pause. Then Brown asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Tell the station houses it's at 319!"
Again, there was a pause. Then Brown said, "I don't think that would be best."
The two argued for several minutes. Schaffer urged Brown to tap out the correction. Brown refused, saying that a second message would only confuse things. He further reasoned that since the new location was actually on the way to strike box 342 for most of the fire companies, they would see the actual fire and stop there. Brown may also have wondered silently whether Schaffer's second report was any more reliable than his first. In any case, he never sent out the correction.
Unbeknownst to Brown or Schaffer, one local fire company was already at the scene. The key holder of strike box 319, a local storekeeper, had already sent out the alarm. The strike box system was supposed to alert the operator in the central office (Brown), but had failed somehow. Brown had only Schaffer's panicked and spotty report to go on, with no confirmation.
Down on the southwest side, in an Irish neighborhood of shanties, sheds and stables, neighbors pounded on the door of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. They and their three children had already turned in for the night. Patrick was a Civil War veteran. Catherine was trying to make a little extra money for her family by selling milk out of her barn. Bleary-eyed, they answered the pounding at their door and found a small crowd of their neighbors, shouting excitedly that their barn was on fire.
In all, seven fire companies responded to the blaze on the north side of DeKoven Street, between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, a few blocks north of Roosevelt Road. It took most of them the better part of an hour to get there, however. By that time, the fire had already consumed the entire block to the north and east of the O'Learys' barn. Strong prairie winds, twenty to thirty miles per hour, drove and fueled the blaze. Virtually everything in its path was combustible, extremely so, and the fire quickly became an inferno. It was a live thing, a nightmare hell-beast unchained, gorging itself and wailing its banshee wail, the impossibly tall flames dancing frenzied and wanton, Satan's fiery harem had come to Chicago to celebrate the Apocalypse, writhing with abandon to the white noise of speed metal not yet invented.
And, like a live thing, it began to breathe. Before being forced to abandon his post, the official in charge of the U.S. Weather Signal Office on LaSalle Street reported his anemometer registering winds of sixty miles per hour. That wind was created by the inferno itself, a confused, swirling vortex of updrafts, downdrafts, backdrafts, spawned by the blast-furnace heat and fueling that same heat in an ever-increasing cycle. The Great Chicago Fire roared with full-throated rage and burned in its very soul: Before the night was over, its temperature would far exceed 2500 degrees-- hot enough to melt steel.
The surging, swirling winds drove the inferno forward, and cleared its path: Entire timbers were sucked into the fiery pit of the beast and spit flaming high and far, as if shot from an ancient catapult. A continual shower of sparks, embers, cinders fell on the panicked and fleeing people: A rain of fire. The air grew to hot to breathe. Clothing burst into flame a quarter-mile away or more. Tree trunks exploded, tearing themselves apart from inside, their sap virtually flash-boiling, the shrapnel splinters bursting into flames before they hit the ground.
The firefighters, steadfastly trying to battle the blaze, found themselves caught in a pincer: The flaming timbers hurled up and out of the heart of the inferno landed hundreds of yards behind them, igniting more fires and trapping those who were in between.
By quarter after ten, sawmills and factories along the south branch of the Chicago River were ablaze. Soon after, the grain elevators lining the riverfront became the world's biggest Roman candles. By eleven-thirty, a horse stable and the South Side Gas Works caught fire... on the east side of the river. Hell had officially broken loose. (Before too much longer, the river itself would be awash in flames-- even in 1871, it was that polluted.)
The Hell-spawn was now in the heart of the city... and it drove straight toward the courthouse, where the great bell still tolled. Mayor Roswell B. Mason ordered the courthouse --the symbol of civic pride-- evacuated. Most of the prisoners being held in the basement were released outright. Those considered too dangerous were put in chains and led away under guard. The inferno swept into downtown, consuming the commercial district. The courthouse bell continued to toll --a barely-heard death knell, now-- until sometime after two o'clock in the morning, when it finally came crashing down through the gutted ruins of the courthouse. The cacophony of its passing could be heard a mile away. Afterwards, only the screams of the fleeing crowds and the mad cackle of the beast itself could be heard.
Now a wall of hellfire more than a hundred feet high, more than a thousand feet wide and shrieking mad, the beast bore on. Just minutes after the great bell had tolled its last, the roaring inferno hurled a flaming mass over the main branch of the Chicago River. It landed on an Illinois Central rail-car... loaded with kerosene. Bulls-eye.
Now loose on the North Side, the inferno tore like a mindful thing directly toward the last enemy it had, the last thing that had any chance of stopping it: The city Waterworks. This, the city's main pumping station, drew water from deep in Lake Michigan and supplied pressure to the water mains. It was, stategically, in these early hours of Monday, the most important building in town.
The importance of the Waterworks to fighting fires had not been lost on its builders. Constructed of thick, heavy stone, it occupied a large, open plat of land that kept it far from neighboring buildings. Although the roof was wood, it was covered in a layer of slate.
On this night, however, they needed a thicker layer of slate. Again the great beast of fire shot a flaming missile, this one landing on the roof of the pump house. Within minutes, the Waterworks became a raging furnace and the great pumps ceased. Chicago was now utterly defenseless.
Free to roam, the Great Fire now ran in every direction, chasing citizen all the way to the edge of the hinterland, or driving them --literally-- into the lake, where they huddled or stood neck-deep and tried to breathe without searing their lungs. Throughout the day on Monday, the refugees crouched, or stood, and watched the ghost that had been Chicago burn.
Late Monday night, a cold rain began to fall.
------------------------------
Almost as soon as it had started, the story began to circulate that the fire had been ignited by Catherine O'Leary's milking cow. Either startled or simply clumsy in that way that milking cows so often are, surely it had kicked over a lantern and set the hay-strewn barn ablaze. In truth, there is very little to substantiate this story. Recent, speculative tests and theories have targeted the vast stack of hay itself: A case of spontaneous combustion. It would fit.
The O'Learys' house, mere yards from the original blaze, but to the south of it, was virtually untouched.
------------------------------
All the credit in the world goes to my source and inspiration for this post: Donald L. Miller's City of the Century; the Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. Miller did a phenomenal amount of research on nineteenth-century Chicago, covers a lot of ground and does it well. Unfortunately, much of that ground is rather dry, making for a rather dry book, overall. That isn't the fault of Miller's writing, it is the fault of the material. It is the kind of book that had to be written --the world is better for it-- but is best left to be cataloged by someone with not much else to do, and used for spot references.
------------------------------
P.S... Bud "Hmm, Things Are Looking Grimsley" Selig must go.
They had to act quickly. To say that the city was a proverbial tinderbox would be a gross understatement. Chicago was made almost entirely of wood, which was bad enough, but worse still the overwhelming majority of that wood, from buildings to sidewalks to even the streets, the overwhelming majority of that wood was pine, which burns remarkably quick compared to its harder, denser cousins. On top of that, the city was incredibly dry-- dried out by a long summer with virtually no rain. The tail end of a two-year-long drought had intensified, and barely an inch of rain had fallen since the Fourth of July. Now, in the first week of October, 1871, all of that quick-burning pine was warped and parched by the strong, hot prairie winds.
The fire department battled the blaze for seventeen long hours, until just after daybreak on Sunday morning, October 8th. Beleaguered and bone-tired, hair seared from their faces, soot-blackened, red-eyed, sweat-stained and heat-swollen and cinder-burnt, the firemen trudged in seeming slow-motion back to their station houses. Most of them were sent home to relax, clean up, spend some time with their families. They deserved it: It had been the worst fire in the history of Chicago...
...but it was only a prelude.
------------------------------
Watchman Matthias Schaffer stamped his feet on the wooden floor of the courthouse tower. He lifted his shoulders and tried to hunch his neck a little deeper into the collar of his heavy overcoat. Not even nine o'clock, yet, he thought, and already I'm cold. The long, hot summer hadn't really broken, yet, but within the last two weeks or so, the nights had turned uncomfortably chilly-- especially up here in the tower, with the wind whipping in through the windows.
Schaffer may not have had anybody to talk to, but he wasn't alone in his vigil. This was, after all, 1871, and a sophisticated system of fire alarm "strike boxes" webbed the whole city. They were locked against false alarms, with trustworthy citizens in every neighborhood holding the keys. Additionally, every fire station had its own observation tower. None of them, however, commanded the view as could be had by the courthouse tower. Here, with his back to the big lake, a watchman could sweep the entire eighteen square miles of bustling Chicago-- the fastest-growing city in the world.
Schaffer picked up his spyglass and leaned out, his belly against the window sill. Maybe it's this job, he thought. Just standing around up here in this damned tower, hour after hour. Watching and waiting. Watching and waiting for something to happen, praying it never does. Schaffer swept the glass to the north, far beyond the river, beyond even the residential neighborhoods of the North Side, focusing on the brand-new Lincoln Park, out on the edge of town. His job certainly seemed simple enough: Sweep the horizon, end to end, then change the angle and sweep around again, a little closer-in from the horizon. Keep looking closer, closer until you can stop using the spyglass and then check the downtown area, looking for smoke and/or flame. When done, repeat... until it was somebody else's turn.
Of course, it was nighttime, which made spotting smoke tricky and, besides, there was smoke everywhere-- innocuous smoke from cooking fires and fireplaces in nearly every building. Tonight, too, curls of smoke were still rising from the vast mountains of coal waiting to be shipped or sold along the south branch of the river, where last night's Big Fire had been driven and finally beaten.
Schaffer panned the horizon in slow motion, pausing often to make sure he wasn't really seeing what his mind too often told him was another big fire. As he scanned to the southwest, he stopped... stared... stared... and felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.
Hurriedly, he pulled himself away from the window and turned to the voice box, a simple tube that connected him with the central fire alarm telegraph office on the first floor. Connected by telegraph wires to every station in the city, this was the Chicago Fire Department's dispatch center. Unable to control the rising tone of his voice, Schaffer told the operator that he'd spotted a fire near the corner of Halsted and Canalport, near strike box 342. Telegraph operator William Brown acknowledged the call.
Schaffer returned to the window. He turned his head and quickly scanned the rest of the city, hardly even seeing it. Then he raised the glass to his eye and trained it on the rising plume of smoke to the southwest. As he watched, he both heard and, because he was so close to it, felt the enormous tower bell begin to toll the alarm. Down in the control center, Brown had pulled the lever releasing the gears and pulleys...
Schaffer pulled the glass away from his eye, put it back, pulled it away. His brow furrowed into a frown, then shot up in horror. He heaved himself away from the window and stumbled to the voice box. In a rush, he told Brown he'd made a mistake: He'd mis-located the fire. It was closer in than he'd first thought, nearly a mile closer in, near strike box 319.
There was a long pause. Then Brown asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Tell the station houses it's at 319!"
Again, there was a pause. Then Brown said, "I don't think that would be best."
The two argued for several minutes. Schaffer urged Brown to tap out the correction. Brown refused, saying that a second message would only confuse things. He further reasoned that since the new location was actually on the way to strike box 342 for most of the fire companies, they would see the actual fire and stop there. Brown may also have wondered silently whether Schaffer's second report was any more reliable than his first. In any case, he never sent out the correction.
Unbeknownst to Brown or Schaffer, one local fire company was already at the scene. The key holder of strike box 319, a local storekeeper, had already sent out the alarm. The strike box system was supposed to alert the operator in the central office (Brown), but had failed somehow. Brown had only Schaffer's panicked and spotty report to go on, with no confirmation.
Down on the southwest side, in an Irish neighborhood of shanties, sheds and stables, neighbors pounded on the door of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. They and their three children had already turned in for the night. Patrick was a Civil War veteran. Catherine was trying to make a little extra money for her family by selling milk out of her barn. Bleary-eyed, they answered the pounding at their door and found a small crowd of their neighbors, shouting excitedly that their barn was on fire.
In all, seven fire companies responded to the blaze on the north side of DeKoven Street, between Jefferson and Clinton Streets, a few blocks north of Roosevelt Road. It took most of them the better part of an hour to get there, however. By that time, the fire had already consumed the entire block to the north and east of the O'Learys' barn. Strong prairie winds, twenty to thirty miles per hour, drove and fueled the blaze. Virtually everything in its path was combustible, extremely so, and the fire quickly became an inferno. It was a live thing, a nightmare hell-beast unchained, gorging itself and wailing its banshee wail, the impossibly tall flames dancing frenzied and wanton, Satan's fiery harem had come to Chicago to celebrate the Apocalypse, writhing with abandon to the white noise of speed metal not yet invented.
And, like a live thing, it began to breathe. Before being forced to abandon his post, the official in charge of the U.S. Weather Signal Office on LaSalle Street reported his anemometer registering winds of sixty miles per hour. That wind was created by the inferno itself, a confused, swirling vortex of updrafts, downdrafts, backdrafts, spawned by the blast-furnace heat and fueling that same heat in an ever-increasing cycle. The Great Chicago Fire roared with full-throated rage and burned in its very soul: Before the night was over, its temperature would far exceed 2500 degrees-- hot enough to melt steel.
The surging, swirling winds drove the inferno forward, and cleared its path: Entire timbers were sucked into the fiery pit of the beast and spit flaming high and far, as if shot from an ancient catapult. A continual shower of sparks, embers, cinders fell on the panicked and fleeing people: A rain of fire. The air grew to hot to breathe. Clothing burst into flame a quarter-mile away or more. Tree trunks exploded, tearing themselves apart from inside, their sap virtually flash-boiling, the shrapnel splinters bursting into flames before they hit the ground.
The firefighters, steadfastly trying to battle the blaze, found themselves caught in a pincer: The flaming timbers hurled up and out of the heart of the inferno landed hundreds of yards behind them, igniting more fires and trapping those who were in between.
By quarter after ten, sawmills and factories along the south branch of the Chicago River were ablaze. Soon after, the grain elevators lining the riverfront became the world's biggest Roman candles. By eleven-thirty, a horse stable and the South Side Gas Works caught fire... on the east side of the river. Hell had officially broken loose. (Before too much longer, the river itself would be awash in flames-- even in 1871, it was that polluted.)
The Hell-spawn was now in the heart of the city... and it drove straight toward the courthouse, where the great bell still tolled. Mayor Roswell B. Mason ordered the courthouse --the symbol of civic pride-- evacuated. Most of the prisoners being held in the basement were released outright. Those considered too dangerous were put in chains and led away under guard. The inferno swept into downtown, consuming the commercial district. The courthouse bell continued to toll --a barely-heard death knell, now-- until sometime after two o'clock in the morning, when it finally came crashing down through the gutted ruins of the courthouse. The cacophony of its passing could be heard a mile away. Afterwards, only the screams of the fleeing crowds and the mad cackle of the beast itself could be heard.
Now a wall of hellfire more than a hundred feet high, more than a thousand feet wide and shrieking mad, the beast bore on. Just minutes after the great bell had tolled its last, the roaring inferno hurled a flaming mass over the main branch of the Chicago River. It landed on an Illinois Central rail-car... loaded with kerosene. Bulls-eye.
Now loose on the North Side, the inferno tore like a mindful thing directly toward the last enemy it had, the last thing that had any chance of stopping it: The city Waterworks. This, the city's main pumping station, drew water from deep in Lake Michigan and supplied pressure to the water mains. It was, stategically, in these early hours of Monday, the most important building in town.
The importance of the Waterworks to fighting fires had not been lost on its builders. Constructed of thick, heavy stone, it occupied a large, open plat of land that kept it far from neighboring buildings. Although the roof was wood, it was covered in a layer of slate.
On this night, however, they needed a thicker layer of slate. Again the great beast of fire shot a flaming missile, this one landing on the roof of the pump house. Within minutes, the Waterworks became a raging furnace and the great pumps ceased. Chicago was now utterly defenseless.
Free to roam, the Great Fire now ran in every direction, chasing citizen all the way to the edge of the hinterland, or driving them --literally-- into the lake, where they huddled or stood neck-deep and tried to breathe without searing their lungs. Throughout the day on Monday, the refugees crouched, or stood, and watched the ghost that had been Chicago burn.
Late Monday night, a cold rain began to fall.
------------------------------
Almost as soon as it had started, the story began to circulate that the fire had been ignited by Catherine O'Leary's milking cow. Either startled or simply clumsy in that way that milking cows so often are, surely it had kicked over a lantern and set the hay-strewn barn ablaze. In truth, there is very little to substantiate this story. Recent, speculative tests and theories have targeted the vast stack of hay itself: A case of spontaneous combustion. It would fit.
The O'Learys' house, mere yards from the original blaze, but to the south of it, was virtually untouched.
------------------------------
All the credit in the world goes to my source and inspiration for this post: Donald L. Miller's City of the Century; the Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. Miller did a phenomenal amount of research on nineteenth-century Chicago, covers a lot of ground and does it well. Unfortunately, much of that ground is rather dry, making for a rather dry book, overall. That isn't the fault of Miller's writing, it is the fault of the material. It is the kind of book that had to be written --the world is better for it-- but is best left to be cataloged by someone with not much else to do, and used for spot references.
------------------------------
P.S... Bud "Hmm, Things Are Looking Grimsley" Selig must go.
Oct 4, 2006
Supremely Dumb
"Nobody thinks your client is really, you know, abstaining from tequila down in Mexico because he is on supervised release in the United States."
~Antonio Scalia
~Antonio Scalia
Sep 21, 2006
When Presidents Kill (Pt. 2)
Let's pick up where we left off . . .
- James Garfield: Soldier. Not the most exciting dude. He was assassinated which is kind of interesting. It seems that the bullets that hit him did not kill him immediately. Alexander Graham Bell came up with a metal detector to try to find the bullet. But seeing as he was laying on a metal framed bed . . . He died of a heart attack caused by lead poisoning. Bonus' for having Johnny Cash write a song about him ("Mister Garfield (has been shot down"). In the movie Unforgiven English Bob mocks the assassination ("But, the President, why not shoot the President?"). He was the only ambidextrous President. But really who cares?
- Benjamin Harrison: Soldier. Grandson of William Henry Harrison makes him the only grandfather-grandson presidential duo in U.S. history. Bonus points for being the last president to sport a full beard in office, having electricity installed in the White House, and being the first president to travel the country by train and attend a baseball game. Negative points for having his ticket comprised entirely of alumni from Miami University which is in Florida.
- William McKinley: Soldier. Superior officer was yet-to-be President Hayes. Generally boring guy but does get bonus points for being assassinated by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. Theoretically, the Wizard of Oz was based on him. If so, a big fat negative.
- Theodore Roosevelt: NOT A SOLDIER! This bad ass killed horse thieves! And dudes that stole a boat! He did found the Rough Riders and fought in sanctioned battles but was given his military titles after the war. Technicality, sure, but not a killing soldier. Plus look at this picture. Bad Ass! After his presidency he went on a hunting expedition in Africa and bagged or captured 11,397 animals. 262 were eaten by the expedition and many were sent to the American Museum of Natural History. Many more cool things exist about this man making him "The Blasphemes Murderous President So Far."
- Harry Truman: Soldier. He should not have been a soldier. His eyesight was 20/50 R, 20/400 L. But he memorized the eyechart so that he could kill. Bonus for sure. Fired off the first Hydrogen bomb. The Vietnam War and the Korean War started during his tenure. Should have been beaten by Dewey.
- John F. Kennedy: Soldier. Bonus for wanting to enter the navy. Seems the old boy had a bad back and was denied. He used his political favors not to get a cushy job or his wealth to sit around on a yacht (that would come later) but to enlist. Jack was on the PT-109 when it was rammed and swam 3 miles while carrying a wounded man. Negative points for the incident being used as the basis of McHale's Navy which then became a god-awful movie with Frazier. Negative points for not censuring McCarthy. More negs for Bay f Pigs but big bonus for TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for it. Some could learn from this.
- George W. Bush: Soldier. Sunk a small cargo boat during World War II. Negatives for being a wimp and fathering lame-ass kids.
Sep 19, 2006
The best presidents kill
First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of posting that I have done the past two weeks. I have no internet and have no further excuses. I look forward to this weekends First annual Blasphemes gathering in beautiful California. I look forward to the beer, poker, and bad jokes that only we get. Apology given time for me to turn into Andy Rooney.
Did you ever notice that the best presidents have all killed someone? I looked at a list recently of the 43 presidents we have had in the short-lived life of this great country. I gazed at some names that made me proud and a few that made me squirm (Franklin Pierce, I am looking at you). I had recently read an article that told the surprisingly interesting life of George H. W. Bush. It seems he has killed a man. I wanted to know what other presidents have killed and when. Here is my the first six of my list:
Did you ever notice that the best presidents have all killed someone? I looked at a list recently of the 43 presidents we have had in the short-lived life of this great country. I gazed at some names that made me proud and a few that made me squirm (Franklin Pierce, I am looking at you). I had recently read an article that told the surprisingly interesting life of George H. W. Bush. It seems he has killed a man. I wanted to know what other presidents have killed and when. Here is my the first six of my list:
- George Washington: Kind of a no-brainer. You got your French and Indian War and your Revolutionary War. Soldiers, it seems, often kill during war. At least the good ones do. President Washington also gets bonus points for assassinating a Frenchie, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. More bonus points for having TWO horses shot out from under him in the Battle of the Monongahela. Later this battle would be immortalized (to a sad few) in the Monongahela Metal Foundry, a sponsor to Bob and Ray.
- Andrew Jackson: Another soldier. Bonus points for killing a man in a duel. Minus points for being in 103 duels and killing only one man. Bonus points for being the only president who was a prisoner of war which stemmed from his refusal to clean a British officers boots. Bonus points for being the first president with an assassination attempt on his life. Extra bonus for beating the dude with a cane before being pulled off. Finally, his nickname is "Old Hickory" as in "tough as old hickory wood on the battle field." Good move shortening it.
- James Monroe: Soldier. Bonus points for admitting Illinois to the Union. Negative points for accepting Florida. Bonus points for telling the Europeans to fuck off. Negative points for the Missouri Compromise. Big negative for his presidency being referred to as the "Era of Good Feelings." Jackson should have kicked his ass.
- William Henry Harrison: Soldier. Bonus points for winning the Battle of Tippecanoe. Negative points for being nicknamed "Old Tippecanoe." Second oldest president ever (after Reagan) and first to die in office. Where is the They Might Be Giants' song about this guy?
- Zachary Taylor: I will let you decide what his bonus' and negatives are. I just can't believe this guy won an election. Never voted. Not even in the election he was in. Stuttered. Could barely read and was an infamously poor speller. Refused to be sworn in on a Sunday making David Rice Atchinson president pro tempore. Nickname: "Old Rough and Ready." When the South threatened to leave the union he said he would lead the army against them and that he would hang all people who raised arms against him "with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico."
- Franklin Pierce: Soldier. After losing the Democratic nomination Pierce claimed, "There is nothing left to do but get drunk." Bonus! Plus a few extra points for running over an old lady in a carriage. Hey, killing is killing. Negatives for not stopping the Civil War, signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and declaring his support for the Confederacy. Negative points for being considered the worst president ever until recently.
- Rutherford Hayes: Soldier. Negative for the nickname "Old Granny." Negative for the first stolen election. Ironically, Ruth also used the Republican Supreme Court to decide on the winner of the 1876 election. This is either called the "Great Compromise of 1877" or the "Second Corrupt Bargain" depending on if your pro or anti-slavery. Hayes was also the first president to have his voice recorded. And it was done by Edison! But it is lost. Game over.
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