PANDEMIC | Best Trend Tracker

I am following this Tableau wizard, Jonas Nart. Hat tip to Domenick B.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/jonas.nart#!/vizhome/COVID19_15844962693420/COVID19-TrendTracker

GUN SAFETY | Chicagoans Ride for the Cause, September 25, 2019

A bus filling up in Chicago for the long ride to Washington.
Photo by Ricky Gandhi.

September 24, 2019 – On August 12, Michael Bloomberg editorialized about the need for public outrage over continued mass shootings.

In his Bloomberg magazine that day, he said: "We cannot let this moment pass."

Riders find their bus. Photo by
Ricky Gandhi.

Tomorrow, two back-to-back events in Washington are focused on new gun safety laws:

• At 10 am the Judiciary Committee of the House is holding a hearing on assault weapons such as recently used in mass shootings in Ohio and Texas; the hearing is televised on C-Span. https://www.c-span.org/video/?464471-1/judiciary-hearing-assault-weapons.

• At about noon, a dozen busloads of people from Chicago are coming to the #EndGunViolence rally on the West Lawn of the Capitol.

The buses are traveling through the night to Washington to be at the  rally.

Chicago activist Father Pfleger kicks off the ride to Washington. Chicago Sun-Times photo. 

One of the leaders of the Chicago participants in the rally is the longtime anti-gun-violence activist, Father Michael Pfleger. His foster son was killed in a gang-related burst of gunfire.

The buses are organized by members and friends of his church – St. Sabina parish in Auburn Gresham, Chicago. Other anti-gun-violence organizations are participating, with social media under the #EndGunViolence hashtag.

Excitement builds, as does the settling in
for the long, 11-hour ride from Chicago
to Washington. Photo by Ricky Gandhi.

After the rally, the buses head back to Chicago, where  most of them have jobs to get back to. 

The 70-year-old Fr. Pfleger said at a news conference in the basement of his church:

Until we have some federal gun laws, we’re going to continue to see this mass murder going on not just around the country but on the streets of Chicago. We want to ban assault weapons, we want universal background checks and we want to title guns like cars. It is time, it is past time, to pressure the capital, the legislators of this country, to get some strong gun legislation that protects our citizens.

PLANE OR TRAIN? | Washington to NYC

Washington, DC to New York City (and back)

Whether measured by time or money, taking Amtrak between Washington, DC and New York City wins over flying. Starting tomorrow, Amtrak offers nonstop trains. https://nyti.ms/2msKtOf.

Here's a review that raves about buying an Acela ticket (saves maybe an hour's time) and using 2,000 Amtrak points to upgrade to First Class: http://weekendblitz.com/amtrak-acela-express-class-washington-d-c-was-new-york-nyp/.

Here's a starting point for arranging a group (school) visit, presumably in a bus: https://www.travelbound.co.uk/trips/school-cross-curricular-trip-new-york-washington-dc/.

EDINBURGH | Visit to The Lord Lyon

Coat of Arms of The Lord Lyon King of
Arms of Scotland.

Oxford, April 29, 2018–I was in Edinburgh earlier this week and visited the offices of The Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland.

The office is centrally located in Edinburgh, on West Register Street. 

Unlike most other countries where the heraldry authorities are private or nonprofit and honorific, the Scottish heraldry office was made part of the government. The heraldry code has the force of law in Scotland, and The Lord Lyon can prosecute, which is rare or unique in the world (South Africa can prevent use of a coat of arms).

Approach to the National Records of Scotland,
on West Register Street. There is construction.

The portrait in the lobby of The Lord Lyon is that of past Lord Lyon Sir Malcolm Rognvald Innes of Edingight KCVO WS FSA Scot. He held the post for 20 years, 1981-2001. The current Lord Lyon is the third since 2001.

He was born on May 25 in a year ending in 8. His portrait shows him in the tabard of The Lord Lyon. He is now Orkney Herald Extraordinary.

I had contacted The Lord Lyon's office to ask about the possibility that the stars in the Stars and Stripes were inspired, directly or indirectly, by the mullets in the Douglas or Murray (Moray) coats of arms.

Elizabeth Roads, Snawdoun Herald and Lyon Clerk at the Court of the Lord Lyon kindly responded to my query, wondering how I would associate with Scotland the Washington family, which prior to the emigration of two sons of Lawrence Washington lived in Sulgrave Manor, Northampton, way down south, not far from Oxford.

The National Records of Scotland.

I responded that the family originally lived in Washington on the River Wear, then part of the Palatine Principality and See of Durham, near Scotland. 

Before George Washington's ancestors were called Washington, they were Wessyngton, and before that Hertburn, after the places they resided, near what became the city of Newcastle. 

George Washington's Ancestors

The Ur-Washington was Sir William fitz Patrick de Hertburn, eldest son of Sir Patrick fitz Dolfin Raby and grandson of Dolfin fitz Uchtred. 

Sir Patrick fitz Dolfin Raby was born before 1136 at Hertburn, a younger son of Dolfin fitz Uchtred. Upon his marriage to Cecily de Offerton, he became known as Sir Patrick de Offerton and Le Hirsel. The Le Hirsel land lies on the north bank of the River Tweed two miles NW of Coldstream. He died c. 1190.

Sir William fitz Patrick de Hertburn was born c. 1150 in Hertburn, near Stockton-on-Tees (about halfway between Newcastle and York). He married twice, gaining Stockton lands with his first marriage and gaining royal relatives with his second marriage to Marjory (Margaret) de Huntingdon, Countess of Richmond. Sir William and Countess Margaret were close in age, although this was her third marriage.

Margaret's brothers were William the Lion, King of Scotland, and Malcolm IV, the Maiden King of Scotland. Her father was Henry, Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, and her paternal grandfather was David I, King of Scotland and saint. Her youngest brother, David Earl of Huntingdon, was ancestor of the de Bruce and Balliol families. Countess Margaret's four times great-grandparents were Beatrix, Queen of Scotland and Crinan the Thane. 

So Hertburn acquired new lands and noble connections  with his new bride. He assumed tenancy of the Wessyngton  lands from the Prince Bishop of Durham at a cost of four pounds per year. He had received the Wessyngton property in trade for his Stockton lands – a good move, since he was already heir to the lands at Offerton, just across the River Wear from Washington. Given his huge step up in status, Hertburn took on the name William de Wessyngton in 1183. He died c. 1190.

Sources for the above include: 1. Audrey Fletcher, Posting as Washington Lass 
2. Archaeology Data Service, UK, 1960 


Comments:

• Today The Hirsel is the seat of the Earls of Home, and the 14th Earl, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was British Prime Minister in 1963-1964 when I was a student at Oxford – he contributed an article to a magazine I edited, Oxford Tory. I served as General Agent of the Oxford University Conservative Association when Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, now Baron Selkirk of Douglas, was President.
• George Washington's hero was General William Braddock of the Coldstream Guards. Together they attacked Fort Duquesne, which was renamed Pittsburgh, after Pitt the Elder, who was the patron of the war against the French in North America. Braddock gave Col. Washington his sash and Washington is shown wearing it in several portraits.

Visit to the office of The Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. L to R: (1) Snawdoun Herald and Lyon Clerk, Elizabeth Roads. (2) Portrait of Immediate past Lord Lyon, Sir Malcolm Rognvald Innes of Edingight KCVO WS FSA Scot, with a magnificent estoile above. (3) Your blogger with what seems to be a tiny coronet in chief.

Visit to The Lord Lyon

Snawdoun Herald again was kind enough to respond and wondered why a family so well-connected by marriage would wish to connect to the humbler (at the time) Douglas arms.

My answer is that the Washington coat of arms was not created until after the Battle of Crécy, by which time the Douglas family was ennobled and well established.

At this point there are so many clues and question marks that I am pausing in my quest. A good time to visit Snawdoun Herald and the office of The Lord Lyon!

Also see: My Visit to the College of Arms in London

BIRTHDAY | John F. Karl

John Karl gets ready to blow out the
candle on his cake.

Yesterday I attended the birthday party of a great lawyer and good friend, John F. Karl.

The crowd of well-wishers, many of them from the extended Karl family, assembled in Washington, D.C.

There were several of us from the New York City area and some from as far away as California.

He succeeds.

The birthday cake featured John as a young man destined for success. 

His handsome portrait also appeared on a tee shirt that he spread out proudly over his tuxedo and red bow tie.

John as a handsome youth.

Mrs. Karl, the effervescent  Tyna Coles, cut the cake with energy and dispatch. Everyone had enough, and more, of tasty food and quality beverages.

Tyna cuts the cake.

I met some interesting new people. We talked about the Civil War and related battlefields, the Spy Museum in Washington and George Washington's under- appreciated role as spymaster of the American Revolution, the return of subprime housing paper to the marketplace, the worrisome growth of the value of cryptocurrency and other signs of a bubble, the problems facing Federal Reserve supervisors and policymakers, the Borgia family in Italy and the Mexican Riviera.

The tasty desserts included éclairs. I got to discussing the origin of the word éclair as the name of a pastry.

The 70th birthday tee shirt.

An éclair pastry is of course a hot-dog-roll-sized pastry filled with custard or whipped cream and usually covered on the top with chocolate or coffee icing. 

But why is it named after the French word for a flash of lightning?

The consensus of people with whom I spoke at the party supported my derivation:

"An éclair is French for a 'lightning flash'. A hot-dog-roll size pastry filled with custard or cream is called an éclair because, if left on a table, a lightning flash is its expected half-life."

Alice and I were grateful for being invited to this heart-warming event in honor of a man who has done more effective advocacy for individual workers than anyone else we know.

BLOG VIEWS | 60K, Top Posts

The Time Travel Blog has just reached 60,000 page views.

Thank you for reading.

Here are the most-read posts for the past month.

MOST-READ, PAST MONTH

WOODIN | Appendix B. Descendants (Updated Feb. 16,... Mar 31, 2015,

WW2 | 5. Dutch Resistance Groups (Updated Feb. 7, ... Feb 17, 2015,

HERALDRY | Washington's Arms and the U.S. Flag (Up... Jun 2, 2013,

HERALDRY | Wilfred Bayne, OSB, Heraldist, Portsmou... Feb 20, 2016,

WOODIN | Ancestors and Descendants of Will Woodin,... Feb 17, 2016,

PECORA | Hearings and the Glass-Steagall Act, 1933... May 8, 2014,

WW2 | 4. Months 1-9–the de Booy Dilemmas Feb 27, 2015,

NYPD | Mollen Commission, Police Corruption Mar 20, 2012,

HITLER | March 5, 1933–Germany Elects Nazi Party Mar 5, 2015,

POETS | Elizabeth Bishop in Ouro Preto Feb 16, 2014,

The Union Club in Boston - Formed in the Darkest Days of the Civil War

Dr. Edward Everett, former President of
Harvard, then the Union Club.

April 10 - This evening Alice and I went to the Union Club for a Surf and Turf dinner. This private club has a distinguished history, of special note as we are between two 150th anniversaries - of Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9 and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14.

The club was founded not much more than two years earlier, in late 1862, by Bostonians who were concerned about the future of the American Union.

Article I of the club says: "The condition of membership shall be unqualified loyalty to the Constitution and Union of the United States and unwavering support of the federal government in efforts for the suppression of the Rebellion."

The club's first elected president, Dr. Edward Everett, was a man of great distinction - former president of Harvard, Governor of Massachusetts, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Senator. The club was formal inaugurated on April 9, 1863 and Everett made a lengthy speech for the Union.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Two years later, to the day (i.e., yesterday, 150 years ago) Confederate General Lee surrendered his huge Army of Northern Virginia, which had been surrounded by Union General Ulysses S. Grant, at the Court House in Appomattox, Virginia. This made inevitable total victory by the North in the Civil War, although the war did not end immediately.

John Wilkes Booth - a famed 26-year-old actor who took the side of the Confederacy - responded to the increasingly bad news for the South by meeting with six friends. They decided to kidnap the president and abduct him to Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. They fixed a date on March 20, 1865 and lay in wait… but Lincoln failed to appear as he was scheduled.

Lincoln was assassinated five days after Lee's surrender.

Booth’s revised plan was the assassination of Lincoln, to give hope to those continuing to fight on desperately for the Confederacy. 

He found out that Lincoln was to attend Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln was in a private box next the stage, with his wife Mary and a young couple - Army Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris (Rathbone’s fiancée, daughter of one of New York’s senators).

Booth entered the box and fired a single shot (a one-ounce ball) at the back of Lincoln’s head with his .44 Deringer pistol at point-blank range. He then knifed Rathbone, who came toward him, and jumped onto the stage shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants!”) – the Virginia state motto. Booth broke his leg in the jump. He hobbled out of the theater and escaped on horseback.

This scene is reenacted here in a four-minute clip. 

The audience thought at first that the assassination was part of the play. When Mary screamed, only then did those present realize what happened. A 23-year-old young Army doctor (Dr. Charles A. Leale) went to the presidential box and found the president slumped in his chair, struggling to breathe and in paralysis. 

Booth had been recognized and he fled with David Herold across the Potomac to Virginia, where he was hunted down to a farmhouse. The soldiers torched it. Herold surrendered. Booth stayed inside until the heat became too intense. When he became visible, a sergeant shot him and Booth lived only three more hours.

Several soldiers carried Lincoln to a red brick boarding house across the street. When Dr. Robert King Stone, the Lincoln family physician, arrived in his carriage, he pronounced that nothing could be done for Lincoln, who had already been suffering from the health effects of being a wartime president. He had fainted two months earlier in an argument with his Attorney General over pardons for desertion.

The president’s body was taken to the White House and was in due course carried to the Capitol rotunda to lay in state. On April 21, Lincoln’s body was put on a train to his hometown of Springfield, Ill. Tens of thousands of Americans lined the railroad route. He was buried next his son Willie, who predeceased him, at Oak Ridge Cemetery, near Springfield.

Four co-conspirators including David Herold were convicted of conspiracy to murder and were hanged for this on July 7, 1865. The four included Mary Surratt, who ran the boarding house where the seven conspirators first met.

MALONEY | China Okays 2 Pandas for NYC

"The most charismatic animal there is"–Two Giant Pandas.

Bridgehampton, N.Y., August 16, 2015–The first giant panda was brought from China to the United States in 1936 by New Yorker Ruth Harkness.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-12, formerly NY-14), just returned from China, has fulfilled a long-time dream of hers. She has had two pandas okayed.

Maloney told a group of friends in Bridgehampton (Alice was with me), including Rep. Tim Bishop (NY-1) that after she applied to the Chengdu Research Base, Chinese officials have in principle authorized release of two pandas to New York City.

Her timing was excellent, because at the end of July triplets were born to the giant panda mother, Juxiao. The Chimelong Safari Park in southern China did not announce the rare three-panda birth until last week for fear that one or more of the baby pandas would not survive.

Back in 1936, Harkness brought in one panda and carried it through Customs as if it were a dog.

Maloney has brought back a commitment from the Chinese authorities to release to NYC two giant pandas once paperwork is completed. The Chinese want to know that their giant pandas will have a good home. And there will be costs.

L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin and Reps. Carolyn Maloney
and Tim Bishop at the announcement of China's
commitment of new pandas. Photo by JT Marlin.

The Central Park Zoo is the target location, near Maloney's constituents. The giant pandas would be a big draw for tourists and would surely greatly increase attendance at Central Park Zoo.

The Zoo's 6.5 acres on Fifth Avenue in NYC  require special planning to maximize its appeal to visitors. The Zoo's relatively small size - the Bronx Zoo is 40 times bigger, the largest urban zoo in the world - limits what it can show and do. The Central Park Zoo can't possibly show more than a tiny fraction of the 650 species represented at the Bronx Zoo by 6,000 animals.

However, the Central Park Zoo must be #1 zoo in the world for convenient access by residents and workers, being right at the center of a population of 16 million prospering residents of Greater NYC.

Both the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo are run under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation  Society, which also operates the Prospect Park and Queens Zoos and the New York Aquarium.

The Central Park Zoo does already have red pandas, but they are smaller and have not yet captured the same love from the American public that the giant pandas attract.

Only four U.S. zoos have giant pandas - San Diego, which has three giant pandas and ranks #1 in annual attendance with 3.2 million visitors; the National Zoo in Washington, DC; Atlanta and Memphis. I have visited the pandas at the San Diego Zoo and one thing I remember is that they were located in a basin-type environment that could be kept shaded and cool.

The Bronx Zoo ranks #8 among U.S. zoos in attendance, with 2.3 million visitors per year. The Central Park Zoo has half as many visitors and ranks about #22.

The National Zoo in Washington found that the initial jump in attendance and revenue was larger than they expected, 800,000 new visitors, but then attendance fell back along with the economy and the loss of novelty. Washington does not have as large a population and media base as New York, so that NYC could expect to do better.

The National Zoo raised the money it needed -- $25 million over 10 years for fees to China that are used to ensure survival of the pandas,  insurance, a research program and an education outreach effort -- before the pandas arrived. The pandas' diet, which is almost entirely made up of bamboo shoots, is donated. The zoo's annual operating budget pays for other food, keeper salaries and other expenses. Fujifilm funded much of the construction of a panda habitat in the National Zoo. Some costs are paid for by federal funds.

Pandas "are the most charismatic animal there is," said a spokesman for the National Zoo. Fundraising for zoos from individuals and corporations is much easier if the zoos have pandas.

If 50 percent more visitors are attracted to the Central Park Zoo because of the promised giant pandas, that could mean additional revenue from admissions and incidental sales of at least $10 million a year. Given the Central Park Zoo's location and the larger regional market, it should be ideal for capturing more revenue from the pandas, and should not suffer the same drop-off of subsequent attendance. The new revenue should more than cover the costs of the pandas.

Meanwhile it will raise the status of the Central Park Zoo and tourism generally, with additional tourist visits from the region and beyond helping to keep local hotels and restaurants and other NYC tourist destinations busy.

GW | Oct. 19–Cornwallis Surrenders at Yorktown

Admiral de Grasse defeats the British

Navy in early September. General 

Washington opts to march 400 miles

to defeat Lord Cornwallis.

Today is the anniversary of the surrender that ended the American Revolutionary War. Since this year it is also the weekend after the (we hope not temporary) end of the Tea Party shutdown of the U.S. government, maybe a comparison of the two capitulations is in order.

The shutdown has not been as hard as it was on George Washington and his troops, whose clothing was tattered and food and other supplies were depleted. But the shutdown has affected more people. Washington learned that the British army under Lord Cornwallis were building a naval base on the Yorktown Peninsula in Virginia. He decided impulsively to march his army from NY to Virginia to try to trap the Brits. He feinted toward NY to tie down the Brits there, then undertook the bold–and very risky–400-mile march to Washington.

The mid-October siege of Yorktown 

lasts just a few days.

The equivalent for President Obama was taking the step of announcing he would not (unlike President Clinton vis-a-vis Speaker Gingrich in 1995-96) negotiate with the Tea Party, given their doomsday tactics. What negotiation occurred took place among women Senators of both parties.

Both of the two risky gambles paid off. Even though Lord Cornwallis had advance word of Washington's march, he stayed put because he assumed he had time to wait to be evacuated by the British navy. He seems not to have known that British navy had been dispersed by a French fleet from the south under Admiral de Grasse and would not be coming to anyone's rescue while the French were in the York River.

So Washington, and an allied French army under General Rochambeau (a debt to the French that we would should remember when France-bashers get going), surrounded Yorktown and bombarded the city with siege cannons brought by the French.

Washington accepts surrender of Brits.

After several days of this with no naval relief, Cornwallis sent word he would surrender. Washington told the British to march out and give up their arms, and the surrender began at 2 am today in 1781, five years after the Declaration of Independence. Cornwallis sent his sword to General Rochambeau, signalling that the British had been defeated by the French, not the Americans.

But for whatever reason, England didn't have the money or stomach for another army, and they appealed to the United States for peace. The Treaty of Paris was signed two years later, and the Revolutionary War was won.

U.S. NATIONAL ANTHEM | Sep. 14–"Star Spangled Banner" Written by Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key, sunrise,

Baltimore, Sep. 13, 1814.

Today in 1814 Francis Scott Key, an attorney and poet, wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," after the British attack on Fort McHenry, at the mouth of Baltimore Harbor.

British troops three weeks before captured Washington and set fire to the Capitol, the Treasury, and the President's house. The President, James Madison, fled the city. Americans feared the British might invade other big cities.

Key served in the Georgetown Light Field Artillery and when the British took prisoner his friend Dr. William Beanes, Key went to Baltimore to help negotiate Beanes's release. British ships were located along Chesapeake Bay. Key and Colonel John Skinner obtained Beanes's freedom.

On Sep. 13, the three at sea watched the day-long assault. The British used their new rockets, adapted from Chinese technology. Francis Scott Key watched at night, with little hope that the American fort would withstand the attack. But just after sunrise, he saw it, still flying–the American flag, sewn by Mary Young Pickersgill at the request of fort commander Major Armistead. It was one of the largest flags then in existence – 42’x30’.

Francis Scott Key started writing a poem about the experience. The British ceased their attack and left the area. Key continue composing at an inn the next day. The work was called "The Defence of Fort McHenry" and was printed in handbills and newspapers, including the Baltimore Patriot. The poem was later set to the tune of a drinking song by John Stafford Smith, "To Anacreon in Heaven," and came to be called "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The battle at Baltimore was the turning point of the war and also in the extent of veneration of the flag. Before the war, the American flag was of little sentimental significance for most Americans–it was just the way to identify military units. After publication of "The Star-Spangled Banner," even non-military people began treating the flag as something sacred. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered "The Star-Spangled Banner" played at official events. On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover and Congress declared it the U.S. national anthem.