Hi, everyone.
Best wishes for a Merry Month of May.
There is a bit of writing-related news. Just when we thought the final release date for the military history book was totally nailed down, there has been another change. The marketing director for the publishing company called to say that the release date was being pushed back until September 2. The reason apparently is that added time was needed to enable them to get additional drafts to their networks of distributors, reviewers, catalog publishers, and outlets such as Publishers Weekly, etc. I hope that is good news – that they are trying to reach out in depth to prospective clientele (and perhaps they were a bit behind in the production schedule.)
A writing colleague noted that the Amazon system still shows a release in June. I mentioned that to the marketing director who said they would try to get that corrected to reflect the later date. The September release will be a hard cover version.
A second news item: there won’t be a June newsletter. (Please, hold the applause.) If things go as planned, we’ll be on the road and mostly off the grid from the end of May until mid-June. You may be subjected to some boring touristy Norway and Iceland stuff in the July newsletter. (I’ll keep it brief.)
Since The YouTube Candidate was published, the subject of real life close, unusual, or disputed presidential elections in our nation’s history has come up more frequently in conversations with those who are interested in the subject. I ran across a book titled America’s Deadliest Election: A Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History that details the 1876 election and the cycle of events leading up to it. Wow, what a mess – it may indeed have been the nastiest and most questionable of any of our elections. Samuel Tildon, the Democratic candidate, won the popular vote over Republican Rutherford B. Hayes by 250,000 votes. He received 184 electoral votes, falling short by one vote. Hayes initially received 164. At issue were 20 disputed electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon (the one disputed vote from Oregon dealt with a technical question regarding an elector’s public office). Each of the three southern states submitted two sets of electors after chaotic elections that featured rampant electoral fraud, voter intimidation by armed paramilitary groups, disenfranchisement of black voters, and more than 150 deaths attributed to election-related violence.
The entire election process was brought to an impasse with Tildon one vote short and no resolution regarding the 20 disputed votes. Eventually, as time was running out prior to inauguration day, an Electoral Commission composed of members of Congress and judiciary was convened to decide the outcome. The commission was comprised of 15 members of whom eight were Republicans and seven were Democrats. Perhaps not surprisingly given what we are witnessing in the present day, the commission voted along strict party lines. All 20 votes were awarded to Hayes who thus won the election 185-184.
It still was not over. A lengthy Senate filibuster prevented the results from being made official. Eventually, that was resolved when the Democrats agreed to stop the filibuster if the Republicans (and President-elect Hayes) would agree to remove Federal troops from the South, where they had been posted as peacekeepers since the end of the Civil War. That agreement was officially anointed in what was called the Compromise of 1877. What happened next may perhaps be attributed to the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. The withdrawal of Federal troops in effect brought an end to the Reconstruction Era and contributed to decades more of segregation, violence, and Jim Crow laws throughout the south. On a national level, the U.S. military was not desegregated until 1948. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education led to the desegregation of public schools, though President Eisenhower had to send troops to Little Rock to enforce it. Meaningful civil rights legislation in housing, voting rights, etc., did not occur until the 1960s. All of those were long, long times to wait for what should have been birthrights for all Americans.
New subject: At the moment, I’m about half way through a book on the Crusades. I ran across something that was too good not to mention. In the First Crusade, one of the participants, the Count of Anjou, was called ‘Fulk the Repulsive.’ Isn’t that the greatest name? His looks apparently were somewhat less than George Clooney-ish and he was described as being “querulous.” Another crusader was called ‘Hugh the Berserk.’ I mean, picture yourself as a knight in the First Crusade sitting around a campfire at night trading war stories with guys named Fulk the Repulsive and Hugh the Berserk. How cool would that be?
And now: TRULY AWFUL PUNS
NASA launched several cows into space. It became known as the herd shot around the world.
What do you call two birds stuck together? Velcrows.
Best wishes until we chat again in July. Have a great summer.
Tom
Best wishes for a Merry Month of May.
There is a bit of writing-related news. Just when we thought the final release date for the military history book was totally nailed down, there has been another change. The marketing director for the publishing company called to say that the release date was being pushed back until September 2. The reason apparently is that added time was needed to enable them to get additional drafts to their networks of distributors, reviewers, catalog publishers, and outlets such as Publishers Weekly, etc. I hope that is good news – that they are trying to reach out in depth to prospective clientele (and perhaps they were a bit behind in the production schedule.)
A writing colleague noted that the Amazon system still shows a release in June. I mentioned that to the marketing director who said they would try to get that corrected to reflect the later date. The September release will be a hard cover version.
A second news item: there won’t be a June newsletter. (Please, hold the applause.) If things go as planned, we’ll be on the road and mostly off the grid from the end of May until mid-June. You may be subjected to some boring touristy Norway and Iceland stuff in the July newsletter. (I’ll keep it brief.)
Since The YouTube Candidate was published, the subject of real life close, unusual, or disputed presidential elections in our nation’s history has come up more frequently in conversations with those who are interested in the subject. I ran across a book titled America’s Deadliest Election: A Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History that details the 1876 election and the cycle of events leading up to it. Wow, what a mess – it may indeed have been the nastiest and most questionable of any of our elections. Samuel Tildon, the Democratic candidate, won the popular vote over Republican Rutherford B. Hayes by 250,000 votes. He received 184 electoral votes, falling short by one vote. Hayes initially received 164. At issue were 20 disputed electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon (the one disputed vote from Oregon dealt with a technical question regarding an elector’s public office). Each of the three southern states submitted two sets of electors after chaotic elections that featured rampant electoral fraud, voter intimidation by armed paramilitary groups, disenfranchisement of black voters, and more than 150 deaths attributed to election-related violence.
The entire election process was brought to an impasse with Tildon one vote short and no resolution regarding the 20 disputed votes. Eventually, as time was running out prior to inauguration day, an Electoral Commission composed of members of Congress and judiciary was convened to decide the outcome. The commission was comprised of 15 members of whom eight were Republicans and seven were Democrats. Perhaps not surprisingly given what we are witnessing in the present day, the commission voted along strict party lines. All 20 votes were awarded to Hayes who thus won the election 185-184.
It still was not over. A lengthy Senate filibuster prevented the results from being made official. Eventually, that was resolved when the Democrats agreed to stop the filibuster if the Republicans (and President-elect Hayes) would agree to remove Federal troops from the South, where they had been posted as peacekeepers since the end of the Civil War. That agreement was officially anointed in what was called the Compromise of 1877. What happened next may perhaps be attributed to the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. The withdrawal of Federal troops in effect brought an end to the Reconstruction Era and contributed to decades more of segregation, violence, and Jim Crow laws throughout the south. On a national level, the U.S. military was not desegregated until 1948. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education led to the desegregation of public schools, though President Eisenhower had to send troops to Little Rock to enforce it. Meaningful civil rights legislation in housing, voting rights, etc., did not occur until the 1960s. All of those were long, long times to wait for what should have been birthrights for all Americans.
New subject: At the moment, I’m about half way through a book on the Crusades. I ran across something that was too good not to mention. In the First Crusade, one of the participants, the Count of Anjou, was called ‘Fulk the Repulsive.’ Isn’t that the greatest name? His looks apparently were somewhat less than George Clooney-ish and he was described as being “querulous.” Another crusader was called ‘Hugh the Berserk.’ I mean, picture yourself as a knight in the First Crusade sitting around a campfire at night trading war stories with guys named Fulk the Repulsive and Hugh the Berserk. How cool would that be?
And now: TRULY AWFUL PUNS
NASA launched several cows into space. It became known as the herd shot around the world.
What do you call two birds stuck together? Velcrows.
Best wishes until we chat again in July. Have a great summer.
Tom
RSS Feed