Wikipedia is banned in the People’s Republic of China. You can imagine what the country’s notoriously repressive and information-controlling government might think of a “free encyclopedia anyone can edit.”
Instead, China offers Baidu Baike, an editable encyclopedia site that is like Wikipedia, except that all entries are reviewed and approved by one of China’s many, many full-time Internet censors. In other words, not like Wikipedia at all.
Except They Weren’t: An occasional series about people who are Not What They Seem
You won’t find a Baidu Baike article on å…四事件 (the “June Fourth Incident,” their name for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests), and the article on 民主 (Democracy) is underwhelming. But these curious omissions notwithstanding, Baidu Baike has more than 15 million articles covering all aspects of life in the People’s Republic of China.
In early 2009, a series of new articles appeared called the Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures (百度å大神兽), profiling some of the legendary creatures of Chinese folklore. The most famous of these was the famous grass mud horse, one of the most beloved creatures of ancient mythology.
Except it wasn’t – the whole thing was an adolescent joke.
The Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures articles didn’t last long. Although they were perhaps mildly amused, the authorities were Not Impressed, and took down each article soon after it appeared, with little fanfare – and, as far as I can tell, no repercussions for the anonymous editors who posted them. But sometimes, a thing on the Internet becomes A THING ON THE INTERNET, and the 10 mythical creatures became such a thing. And none was a greater THING than the grass mud horse. It’s not immediately obvious how to depict an imaginary pun-based animal, but the Internet quickly decided that the grass mud horse looked like an alpaca.
The river crab reminds you to promote a harmonious society
Eventually, the censors caught on and banned the grass mud horse too. But it was fun while it lasted, and it has lived on as a symbol of the Chinese resistance. Sadly, that resistance has been powerless to stop censorship, particularly with the government’s new social credit system. But it was fun while it lasted. Because:
If your friend sent you a photo of an alpaca, at least you knew you weren’t alone.
Not a football game (click for a larger version) Image from Wikimedia Commons user Justin1569Happy Thanksgiving! To my many friends in the United States, I hope you had a wonderful holiday full of family, friends, food, and – for many of us, football.
It’s hard to overstate the cultural impact of (American) football in the southern United States. Pro football is king on Thanksgiving Day itself, of course, but late November is when the college football season is reaching peak excitement. I’ve written here before about growing up as a college football fan, in a city without an NFL team. But as big as the college game was in Orlando, fans there don’t have the fanaticism of a football state like Alabama – the topic of today’s post.
On the night of December 2, 1983, more than nine inches of rain fell on Alabama. Severe thunderstorms were in the forecast again the next day, but no amount of rain could stop the traditional “Iron Bowl” rivalry between the University of Alabama and Auburn University. The teams were meeting on Saturday, December 3rd, for the 36th consecutive year at the neutral site of Legion Field in Birmingham, about halfway between the two schools.
Alabama had dominated the rivalry throughout the 1970s, winning nine straight games, but Auburn had finally won one the previous year. Led by sophomore running back (and future two-sport star) Bo Jackson, Auburn had a record of 9-1 and was ranked number 3 in the country, while Alabama was 7-3 and ranked number 19. The game was being televised nationwide on ABC, called by the legendary Keith Jackson along with former Arkansas coach Frank Broyles, and shown in Birmingham on the local ABC affiliate.
The sun was shining at kickoff, but the weather took a rapid turn for the worse. Tornadoes are fairly not as common in Alabama as they are in the Great Plains, but they do happen – and as the afternoon wore on and the air pressure dropped, conditions started to look perfect for a tornado to form. Late in the third quarter with Alabama leading 20-16, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a tornado warning for north-central Alabama, including Birmingham. The local ABC affiliate, superimposed a tornado warning on the national broadcast signal, and meteorologist Mary Brown prepared to read the NWS warning.
But – this is the American South, where even the meteorologists are football fans. And from this perfect storm (lol #seewhatididthere) of weather football arose one of the great moments of unintentional comedy ever to air on American televisions. Click the video below to watch the hilarity unfold:
Guest Post! One of the joys of being alive is having smart, curious friends to talk with – or to write guest posts for your blog. I’d love to see more of these, especially from friends with perspectives and opinions different from my own – email me your ideas!
Today it’s awesome friend Mac writing with a cool little study on how the last four U.S. Presidents have used their power to write executive orders. Enjoy!
Trump is widely known for his criticisms of Obama’s use of executive orders to circumvent congress and the political process.
However, since Trump became president he has frequently used executive orders as a way of getting things done. For an explanation of and historical primer on executive orders, check out this JSTOR daily article. True policy and history nerds, read on. In the first year of his presidency, he was on pace to use double the number of executive orders that President Obama had used. In fact, Obama used the executive order less than any president since Cleveland. So why has Trump, once a critic of the executive order, suddenly begun using it to pass legislation?
One explanation for this could be that he is simply using executive orders to erase the bad policy of his much maligned (on the political right) predecessor, “Mr. Trump…worked to deregulate industries and dismantle Obama-era programs through executive order.†And certainly, examples of this abound, highlighted by news media and Trump’s own promises of undoing Obama’s work. But how common is this? How often did past presidents use executive orders to revoke legislation of their predecessors? And taking this into account, if Trump is really only using executive orders to repeal his predecessors’ legislation, how often is he using it to circumvent the regular legislative process?
Luckily for us, there’s some data to dig into. Enter the Federal Register. An office of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Federal Register helps citizens and policy wonks alike understand current proposed and passed legislation covering everything from marine safety to administrative practice and procedure to government procurement and to our friend, the executive order.
Listing documents back to 1994, the Federal Register lets anyone download all executive orders from almost all of Bill Clinton’s presidency to the current administration. As part of the dataset, they include disposition notes that contain helpful information on whether the executive order revokes, amends, or supersedes any other executive orders with relevant dates. From here, we can further analyze which executive orders were rolling back previous legislation that was viewed as outdated or bad policy, and which were used to fully circumvent the legislative process. Below is that breakdown.
Presidential Use of Executive Orders and Revocations
President
# of EOs
Revocations of previous EOs
Revocations as % of EOs
Months in Office
Average EOs – revocations per month
Trump
86
18
21%
21
3.24
Obama
276
60
22%
96
2.25
Bush
291
79
27%
96
2.21
Clinton*
274
66
24%
84
2.47
*Clinton’s executive orders are circa 1994, as far back as the Federal Register tracks them.
We can see here that not only does Trump have the highest number of executive orders per month of being president compared to his three predecessors, but he actually has the lowest number of revocations as a percent of total executive orders issued. So, not only is Trump issuing a lot of executive orders, but he, more than his three predecessors, is doing so mostly to circumvent the legislative process, not to revoke Obama’s, or any other presidents’, own executive orders.
When the sun rose on July 1, 1916, the First Newfoundland Regiment prepared for a glorious battle.
When the sun set, 0.1 percent of the entire population of Newfoundland was dead.
Part of the First Newfoundland Regiment before the Battle of the Somme Courtesy of the Rooms of the Provincial Archives Division (NA 3847), St. Johns, NL
In between was the first day of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest days in human history.
On Monday, I talked about how the petty feuds and drama of just two families spun out of control into a World War. The problem was that the families were deeply linked with their countries, so King George’s problems and Britain’s problems were one and the same. It was the inevitable consequence of associating a leader with a country – and it should worry us today as non-monarch leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro try to convince voters to link their identities with those of nations like the United States and Brazil.
Back in 1914 Europe, though, these monarchs weren’t just leaders of their own countries, they were absolute rulers of world-spanning empires. And so George V’s problems were not just Britain’s problems, they were the problems of the entire British empire. Even far-flung former colonies like Canada and Australia sent troops. Each corner of the British Empire wanted do its part, even the tiny Dominion of Newfoundland.
[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d9895901.565052403!2d-68.89514296136885!3d52.73234411796622!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x4b0ca3c27d2ff00f%3A0x64ec9db3d57639a8!2sNewfoundland+and+Labrador%2C+Canada!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1542568914746&w=300&h=200]
This is Newfoundland (click “View larger map” to explore in a new window)
Then as now, Newfoundland consisted of two disconnected pieces: an island (also called Newfoundland) at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and a stretch of rugged coastline to the north, called Labrador. When Europeans first found North America, 400 years before Columbus, they found Labrador. The Vikings didn’t stay, but European fishing crews soon discovered the island, and in 1583 it became a British colony, thus part of the British Empire. When the rest of the nearby colonies became independent(-ish) in 1867 and formed the new country of Canada, Newfoundland decided to remain a full British colony. Â
By 1914, Newfoundland was one of the more far-flung outposts of King George’s Empire. Its population of 240,000 – smaller than the modern population of Buffalo, New York – supported itself mostly by fishing.
Newfoundland had attained some self-governance, but still fell under the British Armed Forces. And like everywhere in the British Empire, everyone was excited for King George’s War. The Dominion’s government put out a call to raise a local regiment for the British Army. A popular song of the day (popular throughout the Empire, not specific to Newfoundland) encouraged young men to sign up for the fun. It went like this (not ironically):
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile!
Hundreds of young men joined the Newfoundland Regiment the first day. When soldiers stepped onto their ships to go to training in England, it must have felt like they were off to summer camp. Eventually, nearly 12,000 Newfoundlanders sailed off to Europe to fight – more than a third of the service-eligible male population.Â
When they arrived, they found trench warfare: dig a trench, then live in it for months in all weather without a change of shoes. When it’s your turn to shoot, peek out over the top of the trench with your rifle. When it’s your turn to dig, advance your army six inches a day. Know that the enemy is doing the same a few hundred feet away. This went on, day after day, for years. But the worst was yet to come.
What happens in the trench stays in the trench. Day after day until it kills you.
Rifle fire from the trenches was supported by artillery behind the front lines, aiming shells at the enemy trenches. But there was no Google Maps back then, and even airplanes were new, dangerous to fly, and well within the shoot-down range of enemy artillery. So often “aiming shells at the enemy trenches” meant “let’s take our best guess and see what happens.” Once the commanding officers – safe in their tents behind even the artillery – decided that the bombardment and rifling had worn down the enemy enough, they would order the soldiers to climb out of the trenches, run through gunfire across “no-man’s land,” jump into the enemy trenches, and shoot, stab, or punch them to death.
If this seems like a questionable battle plan, know that it was selected because the Allied commanders thought that the enlisted men were too dumb to do anything else.
Along the front lines near the Somme River in Northern France, the battle plan for July 1, 1916 was the same as ever – full infantry charge to try to encircle the German line. As luck would have it, in an incredible statistical improbability, the exact center of the attack would come from the spot occupied by the First Newfoundland Regiment.
The Newfoundlanders knew that they were the heart of the plan, and that the plan would be risky, but hopefully also glorious. One wrote in his diary on June 20th:
“Everyone seems so cool about it all, quietly preparing for what is going to be the greatest attack in the history of the world.”
Lieutenant Owen Steele, First Newfoundland RegimentThe battle began at 7:20 AM with a diversion, when the Allies set off an enormous bomb on a ridge a few hundred yards away. The generals had debated whether to start the infantry attack immediately, or whether to wait an hour. They compromised at 10 minutes, which was the worst possible choice: the bomb was like a giant flashing neon “we’re going to attack now” sign, and ten minutes is enough time to set up and aim all your machine guns.
At 8:45 AM, 780 men the First Newfoundland Regiment leaped out of their trenches to join the ongoing battle. No one was there to photograph them, but this still from a contemporary film re-enactment shows what it must have looked like:
They crossed into No Man’s Land and ran across, about the length of a football field – but miscommunicated orders meant that the unit that was supposed to back them up never showed. The few who survived the run through enemy gunfire then discovered, to their horror, that two weeks of artillery bombing had completely missed the barbed wire protecting the German lines. They had nowhere to go.
Because I can’t resist a data visualization: This chart shows the regiment the next day
The following morning, the brigade commanders held roll call, because all of the regiment’s officers had been killed in the battle. Only 68 enlisted men answered roll. Of the 780 members of the First Newfoundland Regiment, 388 had been wounded, and 324 killed. Remember that the population of Newfoundland was only 240,000.
This video, produced by the provincial heritage trust, tells the full story of the battle (length 11:17, click to play):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0DtAKWZ0IY
The First Newfoundland Regiment remained active on paper, and in fact it’s still around today as a unit of the Canadian Army, but the survivors were absorbed into other units. The war went on for another 2 1/2 years.
News of the tragedy reached home and devastated the country. Had history continued its prewar course, Newfoundland probably would have eventually achieved independence – but suddenly one out of every 800 Newfoundlanders was dead in a single day.
The country now had too few young men to do the hard manual labor of fishing and shipping required to sustain its economy. The survivors (including many people who served in regiments other than the First) suffered from a variety of health problems, including “shell shock,” which now know as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Their military pensions, along with the reduction in work force, bankrupted the country. In 1949, Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada, and were welcomed as Canada’s tenth province.
Newfoundland maintains a proud regional identity, its citizens have represented Canada well in ImportantCanadianThings. Newfoundland ended up doing well, but there is no way to know what would have happened otherwise. Without question, nowhere else in the world suffered such great loss in such a short time.
Newfoundland will never forget World War One, and neither should you.
When Uncle Ed died, the whole family gathered at the church for the funeral. That’s just what families do, and it wouldn’t be noteworthy if it hadn’t been such a poignant symbol of the causes of World War One – in terms of sheer painful brutality, maybe the worst war in human history.
May 20, 1910: the family photo.Standing, left to right: King Haakon VIII of Norway, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, and King Albert I of Belgium.Seated, left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of the United Kingdom, and King Frederick VIII Source: W. & D. Downey, labels added by Jordan Raddick
Because Uncle Ed was King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, the church was Westminster, and the family was the largest gathering of royalty ever assembled. They took a family picture, shown above.
King Edward VII (who regined from 1901 to 1910) was famous for two things: for being incredibly fat, and for owning a “Love chair” that allowed him to rest his back while two people simultaneously performed oral sex on him – one of whom inspired that the traditional song Daisy, Daisy, with the line “and you’ll look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two.”
Uncle Ed died of a heart attack on Friday, May 6, 1910. His ridiculous last words were that he was glad to hear his favorite horse had won that day’s race. He was buried in a state funeral two weeks later. Among his relatives at the funeral were nine reigning monarchs of European nations. Their time was up, and they didn’t know it yet. Manuel II of Portugal wouldn’t last six months, deposed by his own people. Today, only five of the nine countries even have monarchs, and none of them has any real political power.
There were two major absences, though. Edward’s nephew, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, couldn’t attend and sent his youngest brother Michael instead. Michael isn’t in the picture above because he’s not kingy enough.
Dude, you got the wrong Franz Ferdinand!Source: Wikimedia Commons, user Shokoishikawa
The other was Emperor Franz Joseph I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who has not part of the family – he was from the House of Habsburg instead. He couldn’t make it, but sent his nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His name comes up again later.
The upshot was that all these relationships among leaders led to a set of unstable alliances among their countries. Nicholas’s Russia promised to come to the aid of Franz Joseph’s Austria-Hungary should it ever be attacked. Germany’s Wilhelm made no such promise to Nicholas, but had to Franz Joseph. George V of the United Kingdom made the same promise to Albert of Belgium. Wilhelm didn’t care much for George but had no beef with Albert, except that he later wanted a shortcut to invade kingless France, and Belgium was, like, right there.
This is one of the few times where a focus on the so-called Great Men of History is actually helpful – because seldom has it been so clear that those Great Men are actually huge morons. The family is still around, and the heir apparent to Austria’s Habsburgs is now a champion Formula 1 driver.
I have no ill will toward these families, and their modern descendants seem like perfectly nice people. I’m not one of those people who wants to see the rich up against the wall – I’d prefer to see nobody face the firing squad.
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