Looking at Bush and Obama as Pitchers

When a relief pitcher comes into a ballgame, his team behind 4-2, with runners on second and third, those two extra runs the opponents have, plus those two runners, if they score, belong to the starting pitcher.   If the team doesn't catch up and go ahead, the loss goes to the starting pitcher.  He can't get a win out of this game.

BUT, if the team catches up and goes ahead, his record isn't affected by the game.  The win or (if the lead changes again) the loss goes to the relief pitcher.  [That's the overview, you can get all the details at How Baseball Works.]

There are obvious differences between pitchers and presidents.  While there are two main political parties, there is only one team and we don't start a new game every election.  And baseball uses statistics - numbers based on the facts of what actually happened - while politics uses spin - whatever each party can get the voters to believe based on imagination and creativity, with facts appearing occasionally and usually out of context, and ability to use media to get the message out.

What if politics were captured with stats more like baseball?

Instead of runs, we could take national debt.  Since the national debt is so high, it is almost impossible for presidents to eliminate it.  And given that fiscal policy is used as a tool to impact the economy in different ways, eliminating might not even be a good idea.  Even in economic crisis like today, economists like Paul Krugman, who makes a lot of sense to me, believe that right now the government needs to spend to increase jobs MORE THAN it needs to reduce the national deficit.

So, instead of marking when the national debt becomes a surplus before a president gets a win, let's simply count whether a president gets the surplus down lower than it was when he took office.  But in doing that, we also have to remember the baserunner rule.  Whatever baserunners the last pitcher left get counted to that previous pitcher.

Using real numbers shows  the all Democratic presidents since Truman left office as winners and the Republican presidents all left office as losers.

Here's a Congressional Budgeting Office Chart of the National Debt Statistics I found on Wikipedia:

U.S. president	Party	Term years	Start debt/GDP	End debt/GDP	Increase debt ($T)	Increase debt/GDP (in percentage points)	House Control (with # if split during term)	Senate Control (with # if split during term)
Roosevelt/Truman	D	1945–1949	117.5%	93.1%	-0.01	-24.4%	79th D, 80th R	79th D, 80th R
Harry Truman	D	1949–1953	93.1%	71.4%	0.01	-21.7%	D	D
Dwight Eisenhower	R	1953–1957	71.4%	60.4%	0.01	-11.0%	83rd R, 84th D	83rd R, 84th D
Dwight Eisenhower	R	1957–1961	60.4%	55.2%	0.02	-5.2%	D	D
Kennedy/Johnson	D	1961–1965	55.2%	46.9%	0.03	-8.3%	D	D
Lyndon Johnson	D	1965–1969	46.9%	38.6%	0.04	-8.3%	D	D
Richard Nixon	R	1969–1973	38.6%	35.6%	0.10	-3.0%	D	D
Nixon/Ford	R	1973–1977	35.6%	35.8%	0.24	+0.2%	D	D
Jimmy Carter	D	1977–1981	35.8%	32.5%	0.29	-3.3%	D	D
Ronald Reagan	R	1981–1985	32.5%	43.8%	0.82	+11.3%	D	R
Ronald Reagan	R	1985–1989	43.8%	53.1%	1.05	+9.3%	D	99th R, 100th D
George H. W. Bush	R	1989–1993	53.1%	66.1%	1.48	+13.0%	D	D
Bill Clinton	D	1993–1997	66.1%	65.4%	1.02	-0.7%	103rd D, 104th R	103rd D, 104th R
Bill Clinton	D	1997–2001	65.4%	56.4%	0.40	-9.0%	R	R
George W. Bush	R	2001–2005	56.4%	63.5%	2.14	+7.1%	R	107th Split, 108 R
George W. Bush	R	2005–2009	63.5%	84.2%	3.97	+20.7%	109th R, 110th D	109th R, 110th D
Barack Obama	D	2009–	84.2%	93.2% (2010)	1.65 (2010)	+9.0% (2010)	111th D, 112th R	D

(Source: CBO Historical Budget Page and Whitehouse FY 2012 Budget - Table 7.1 Federal Debt at the End of Year PDF, Excel,Senate.gov)

The only Democrat on the list who increased the national debt is Obama.  But he's only been in office 2 years and 6 months, and more important, we have to count all the runners that Bush left on base - particularly the costs Obama needed to spend to deal with two wars,  the financial crisis, and tax cuts.

So, when the Republicans say things like,  "Stop Blaming Bush"  the Democrats need to stand firm and tell their story better.  "Bush left these guys on base, they go to him, not me,  that's where all this deficit comes from."  And in this case, it appears they don't have to even work too hard.  The voters are already there according to a July poll.

 A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% of Likely Voters say the nation’s current economic problems are due to the recession that began under the Bush administration.  Thirty-nine percent (39%) blame the policies of President Obama. (To see survey question wording, click here .)

OK Dems.  The facts are on your side.  The voters are even on your side on this one.  But the Republicans are telling and selling their stories a whole lot better than you are.  It's time to stop being nice guys.  While I believe that it's possible to turn an individual bully around under the right conditions, I don't think it's possible to turn a mob.

So, dammit, stop treating the brown-shirt* Republicans as though you can reason with them.  There is no reasoning with those Republicans with simplistic ideological beliefs about how the world works.  They're going to keep throwing punches (and grenades) until the Democrats fight back and it hurts the thugs* more to continue than to stop.

And with the voters, the Democrats need to take the facts, use them to tell the compelling stories of how  Obama has made health care possible for millions more people;  how Obama has done what Bush only talked about -  found and killed Bin Laden.   These are two huge home runs (pitchers get to bat too).  And that the main reason he can't fix the economy is the legislative violence of the Tea Party Republicans in the House.

I've only taken one metric - the one the Republicans are making the most noise about - but we can get them on a whole host of issues where the Democrats have made the world a better place for the average person and the Republicans have only made the world better for the rich.

When a new pitcher comes into a baseball game with bases loaded and ten runs behind, those ten runs and three baserunners are credited to the starting pitcher.  Unless the team gets enough runs to overcome the deficit, the loss goes to the starting pitcher.  The relief pitcher can’t ‘lose’ the game unless the team catches up and then goes behind again. 

GW Bush was president for eight innings/years, leaving relief president Obama many runs behind (a huge deficit), and with the bases loaded (Iraq, Afghanistan, the mortgage crisis, tax cuts.)  Although Obama has only been on the mound for two and a half innings, and most, if not all the runs he’s let in were the result of the baserunners he inherited, Republicans are insisting that whatever trouble the economy is in, should now be blamed on Obama.   Because in politics they use spin, not stats.

The Democrats have a compelling story.  It uses the language coach potato American males understand -sports.  It's way past time for the Dems to tell it like it really is.  No apologies, no prisoners, until the Republicans are ready to act like civilized people once more.

*I've used the words 'brown-shirts' and 'thugs' to label the more extreme Republicans in the House and their supporters.  I try not to call people names in this blog and I don't mean those terms as epithets.  I think they are accurate descriptions of people working from a black/white ideology which pushes either/or solutions and does not recognize any grey, any ambiguity, any subtlety.  They demand what they want and are not concerned about collateral damage.  We can just look at the damage they've cause with the FAA now.  In the name of cutting the deficit, they're costing the government tens of millions per day (possibly a billion by September if this continues). More than the programs they want to cut from FAA. Thugs are people who use physical or structural violence to get what they want without regard to the damage they cause.  [It turns out they have found a way around this and the partial FAA shut down is over as I post this.]

The German brownshirts came to power just this way.  Manipulating the German democracy and taking advantage of the traditional politicians who were trying to be reasonable with an unreasonable opposition.  We're moving closer to that every day.

Orca Cannery Cordova

Sunset from Campground

As you drive from downtown Cordova toward the ferry terminal, you make an unexpected right and then pass a minimalist campground (we stayed in this gravel parking lot a few nights because it's close to town and looks out onto the water, but it's right next to the road and the only amenity is a restroom) and end up a mile or so later at the Orca Cannery.  There's a lodge there now too.  On Sunday our friends took us out there to look at this place where Martha had fished as a child and where some of Catherine's ashes are.

There's a lodge out there now, and then the old cannery buildings and lots of old stuff.

Under the Cannery

How Big is Big? Child's Glacier

[UPDATE Nov. 29: The road to Child's Glacier (and the $1 million Bridge) was closed in August due to a problem with one of the bridges and a new bridge is not expected to begin construction before 2015. You can read the details here.]

So, how high is this glacier?
a.   50 feet  (15.2 meters)  b.  100 feet  (30.4 m)  c.   200 feet  (60.8 m)  d.  300 feet (91.2 m)
e.   1000 feet (304.8 m)

Does this help?

It's the white mass in the lower middle.

How about this?

Or this?

Big is relative.  It has to be in context.  So when you see Child's Glacier, you need context to get how big it is.   At the view points, besides the signs warning about tsunamis, there's this sign:

Oh dear.  20 story building.  300 foot high face.  Who wrote 300 feet?  I always thought a story was about 10 feet (3 meters).  Did someone change it from 200 feet?

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat just happens to have a formula for calculating the height of buildings if all you know is the number of stories:

So, H= height and s = stories. (The formula assumes a story is about 3.1 meters and adjusts for a lobby, mechanical floors, and a roof.)  Using the formula the height of a 20 story building would be 93.6 meters or 307 feet.  So, I was off and the corrected sign was right.  

But none of that captures how awesome it was to be there on the bank of the Copper River (famous for its well marketed red salmon) watching this huge edifice a quarter mile away, as the water of the river causes it it calve huge chunks of ice.  

The sounds ranged from firecracker through cannon to thunder.  And it went on all day and all night.  Fifteen minutes and you were sure to see at least one, maybe a couple of ice falling events.  Two hours guaranteed you one or two massive events.  Camping there two nights meant we kept being wakened by the crashing thunder.  

The signs also let us know that this is one of the few glaciers that is currently advancing, not retreating.

How can I describe the campground?  How about gentrified? Ready for the big motorhome set with big campsites a comfortable distance apart and lots of clean pit toilets, bear proof garbage cans and food lockers.  But no water or electric hook-ups.  We were there Wednesday and Thursday night and I don't think there was more than one or two other vehicles in the campground.  There's a separate area for tenters.


There's no way you can get this short of going there. And since Cordova isn't connected to the rest of the world by road, you have to go by air or water. So I took some video to share. As I watched the waves come racing towards our shore, I couldn't help but think of surfing and watching the video, you'll see why.



Given this summer is the 50th Anniversary of the Beach Boys' first big hit, and Fender Guitar is giving away Surfin USA ringtones, I hope the Beach Boys don't mind my borrowing their great music which I've been enjoying these 50 years. I don't imagine they had Child's Glacier in mind when they wrote Surfin USA though.




And when I was looking for more information on the glacier, I ran across this video of Garrett McNamara and Kealii Mamala riding the surf here at Child's Glacier.




Occasionally, those waves are really big - the signs say that they throw salmon up onto the shore to the delight of the local bears. And back in 1993 someone I knew was there for the big wave and came back with only a broken arm to prove she'd been there.

How big?  The face of the glacier has to be about one or two miles.  So think of how many 20 story buildings you could have in that area.  The large chunks coming down are six to ten stories collapsing into the river.    Here's one last picture.  I stacked the two parts because it would have just been too small to try to fit them in here.  And I'd point out that on the ends, the glacier surface is covered with dirt so while it looks grey, it's still got ice underneath.

Did you get the height right without looking at the answer?

Coho Bar - Cordova

I've got lots of pictures of  Cordova, so I'll just get them up as fast as I can, but not in any particular order.  This is from Sunday.  After a walk at the old Cannery, Joe picked the Coho Bar for lunch because it reminded him of what things used to be like in Nome.  This is NOT a place J and I would have otherwise walked into on our own, so it was good we were with Joe and Martha.

Here it is from outside.

And below, what it looks like inside.

click to enlarge all the photos

The cafe is in the back, but open to the bar.  People kept coming up to Martha to say hi and congratulations.  We got to meet lots of people and hear lots of stories.  Unfortunately, I like to keep my friends, so all the stories are off the record.  We did hear about housing, fishing, work, people's kids, people who have moved away, people moving away, and lots of other stories.  

I took this picture for the sign.  You'll probably have to click on the photo to enlarge it and see it clearly. I was surprised to see people smoking inside.  But this is out in rural Alaska where people are still free.  To some extent.  (Not endorsing, just documenting.)

And here are the newlyweds, surrounded by the Coho's cookie jar collection.  The menu is mainly burgers - all with real meat - with fries or onion rings.  I had a bowl of chili.  

No One Cares About Your Blog

We met a number of people from the Hoover family that Joe has married into.  When picking up his new mother-in-law for dinner, we got to see the collection of art on her walls - her own work, her adult children's work, and pieces from other artists.  I also perused a couple of copies of ArtNews.  [The magazine version is a lot more appealing than the website.]  Interesting.  A nice way for someone living in Alaska to keep track of what's happening in the larger art world.

And then I saw this picture and thought, I need one of those T shirts!

I love it.

Mystery Yacht - Alucia - in Cordova

Last night people pointed out a yacht in the water near the ferry port that had a helicopter on deck.  People were wondering what celebrity might be in town.

This morning as we sat on the Alaska ferry, Chenega, waiting to head out, I noticed the mystery ship was just ahead of us.  After a week of almost rain-free weather, today Cordova was socked in and I had to shoot through through a raindrop dappled window.

I got a better view as we finally left the dock. (A car waiting to come on board couldn't start and we were 50 minutes late leaving but only 20 minutes late arriving in Whittier.)  I was able to get this clearer shot and saw through the binoculars that it's called Alucia.


Yacht Insider gives some history:

"Alucia originally was a submarine tender built by the French in 1973 and called Nadir. Her current owners have all but obliterated that persona, having just completed a rebuild that makes Alucia a private motoryacht with accommodations for scientists and documentarians alike. In addition to the yacht-like cabins aboard, Seattle-based Joseph Artese Design penned onboard laboratories, an aquarium, film editing suites, and satellite hookups for beaming live footage of discoveries to the world.

“Alucia has been built as a specific hybrid,” said Rob McCallum, who was the project manager in Washington state, working with Kirilloff & Associates on the rebuild naval architecture. “Alucia is capable of making the largest private contribution to marine science since Cousteau’s Calypso.”

A February 2010 Artesedesign (they design yachts) article identifies Mike McDowell as the owner:

“We wanted an expedition yacht with formidable ability,” explains owner Mike Mcdowell. “and that’s what we got.”

. . . A notoriously staunch vessel in the face of rough weather, Nadir caught the eye of McDowell, an australian adventurer passionate about science and oceanographic exploration. Mcdowell had earned a reputation by leading tourists and amateur explorers on expeditions to the distant reaches of the globe. some of his adventures included taking russian icebreakers to the North Pole and diving to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Through his company, Deep Ocean Expeditions, formed in 1998, McDowell was among the the first to offer commercial tours to the Antarctic, leading dive explorations to Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, and eventually conducting submersible expeditions on deep ocean excursions. He was the first to dive on the battleship Bismarck and was an early visitor to the RMS Titanic with his submersible team.

Noticing the disconnect that often accompanies the design of expedition ships and the needs of their users, McDowell was inspired in 2004 to found Deep Ocean Quest and commission the Alucia rebuild. he wanted a vessel that could work comfortably in remote and challenging regions.

Who's Mike McDowell? A University of Queensland site offers this (and they have a photo):

A geophysicist in a former life, Mike has built a career from adventure and exploration in some of the most inaccessible regions on Earth and beyond. A leading innovator in expedition cruising and ecotourism ventures, Mike founded Quark Expeditions, pioneering the use of icebreakers to take expeditioners into the frozen reaches of the Arctic, Antarctic and the North Pole. In the late 1990's he founded Deep Ocean Expeditions, the first company to make abyss-rated submersibles available to the general public. More recently, Mike co-founded Space Adventures, a company successfully offering space travel to the public. Over three decades, Mike has specialised in nurturing bold, 'off-the-wall' concepts from concept to fruition. With Deep Ocean Quest and Deep Ocean Australia, he sees a unique opportunity to combine his passion for adventure with his lifelong interest in science and technology.

So, how can former geo-physicist adventures afford a ship like Alucia? We know from above that there was also a silent partner and we don't know how much each contributed. But it would appear that at least some of McCormick's customers have plenty of money.


AdventureCruiseGuides gives us a sense of how pricey Deep Ocean Quest adventures can be.  They say offer a 13 day program with a seven hour dive to the HMS Titanic for $60,000.

Sydney expedition cruise company, Adventure Associates (AAs), is offering places on the 11-hour roundtrip to the wreck in conjunction with Deep Ocean Expeditions (DOE) who have been taking paying divers to the depths since 2001. Australian Mike McDowell launched DOE in 1998 but is perhaps best known as founder of benchmark expedition cruise company, Quark Expeditions, in 1991. Coincidently, McDowell is also the new owner of AAs, having purchased the company from founder, Denis Collaton this year.

Before you rush for your Visa card, the 13-day program will leave you very little change from US$60,000 and you’ll spend just seven hours in contact with the wreck itself. And, yes, you pick up your own airfares. Can you take home a souvenir from the deep? Hmmm… let me ask.

But wait!  It appears she was sold May 2011.  From Boat International:

Stuart Larsen at Fraser Yachts tells me he and joint listing agent Tom Allen have sold the extraordinary 55.75m motor yacht Alucia.

All custom superyachts are by their very nature unique, but Alucia is something else again. She was originally built by the Auroux yard in 1974 as the support ship for the French research submersibleNautile. She was  completely stripped, rebuilt, rewired and re-equipped, while a thorough reworking of her superstructure gave Alucia a new submersible hangar, a sundeck and a helicopter pad.

She’s the only ship in the world to carry three deep-diving manned submersibles and this, in conjunction with her decompression chamber, mixed-gas dive support, powerful sonar and tenders, make her one of the most sophisticated  sub-sea exploration platforms ever built.

Her interior has been fitted out to superyacht standards and accommodates up to 16 guests in a master, double and four twins plus four Pullman berths. With a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 11 knots, Alucia was asking $38 million.  Her interior has been fitted out to superyacht standards and accommodates up to 16 guests in a master, double and four twins plus four Pullman berths. With a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 11 knots, Alucia was asking $38 million.

Stuart ponts out that she was used by Hollywood director Jim Cameron to discover the remains of Titanic and most recently as the mother ship to the Woods Hole scientific expedition that found the Air France wreckage off the coast of Brazil.

It's too late to contact Larsen tonight and I doubt he'd tell me who bought it anyway.  

Some other places you can learn about the Alucia:

The Deep OceanQuest site offers a detailed description of the  ship.
Super Yacht Times gives all the stats.

Cordova Sampler - Bear, Bridge, Ice, Wedding

This is just a sneak preview.  We spent a spectacular two days at the Child's Glacier then got back into town today for the wedding of Joe Senungetuk and Martha Hoover.  More on all this later, but here's an appetizer.

Child's Glacier

Million Dollar Bridge

About the Mendacity of the Press Then [and now] from Zola

Another quote - much shorter - from The Lacuna.

"But newspapers have a duty to truth," Van said.

Lev clucked his tongue.  "They tell the truth only as the exception.  Zola wrote that the mendacity of the press could be divided into two groups:  the yellow press lies every day without hesitating.  But others, like the Times, speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary."  

[Pre-posted in advance.We should be out of contact when this goes up.]

Historical Antecedents to Mayor Sullivan’s “Safe Mayor” Ordinance

Anchorage's Mayor Sullivan proposed a "Safe Sidewalk" ordinance, but I think it's more aptly titled a "Safe Mayor" ordinance.  It appears to be aimed at stopping one man from protesting the Mayor's anti-homeless crusade. [Looks like it didn't pass for now.]

 First he cleared out the homeless camps in the greenbelts.  More recently he’s asked the Assembly to pass a law banning sitting or lying on the sidewalk downtown, very clearly in response to a homeless man who has been doing that in protest of the Mayor.  He called it, I believe, “Safe Sidewalks” ordinance.  I'm calling it the Safe Mayor ordinance.

Kingsolver tells us of another time when the poor - veterans of WW I who hadn’t gotten their war bonus - sat in protest in Washington DC.  Sullivan, when asked if he would meet with the protester,  said something like, “No.  If this guy wants to talk to me, he can clean up and dress decent and make an appointment like everyone else.”

Knowing history helps put today into context.  While technology has changed greatly, individual human behavior hasn’t.  I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna while we’re here in Cordova.   Much of it takes place in the 1930s, in Mexico and the US.  She weaves in the current history of the day.  The incident below brings to mind Mayor Sullivan’s recent crusdade against the poor in Anchorage.  But there’s more that resonates with today.  Depression.  Congress turning down bills to help the poor.  It’s all happened before.

My posts are more complicated than some people think they should be.  I make them so, because life is complicated.  Things need to be put into context.  And what I write has much less context than they need, but more than one usually gets in mainstream media.  So bear with me here as I put this in context.  And note, by some coincidence, part of the events take place on July 28, 1932 and the date of this post is July 28, 2011.  Given the number of google hits with, “If I were born in 1908, how old would I be today?” I know that not everyone who gets to this blog can figure out that (1932) was 80 years ago.  That’s just a lucky bonus.

The main character of The Lacuna is Harrison Shephard, the son of an American bureaucrat and a Mexican mother, who returned to Mexico with Harrison when he was very young.  He’s now 15 and Mom’s sent him back to his dad to go to school in Washington DC.  It’s 1932.

Kingsolver throws in lots of little details, but they all seem to be there for a reason.  They set us up for little comments later in the story.  Here’s one that’s relevant to the quotes later.

[p. 86]“President Hoover is the greatest man ever lived,”  [Father] said, overly loud.  People looked.  “They’ve just had a telephone put in on his desk, for calling his chief of staff.  He can get MacArthur quick as snapping his fingers.  You think your president of Mexico has a telephone on his desk?”

  Mexico will be held as a grudge, then.  Probably for reasons to do with Mother.  Ortíz Rubio [President of Mexico] does have a telephone;  the newspapers say he can’t make a move without ringing up Calles first, at this house on the Street of Forty Thieves in Cuernavaca.  But Father didn’t want to hear about that.  People ask without wanting to know. . . [Yes, this kid is wise beyond his years.]

[pp. 96-7] May 5, [1932]

“A woman in a headscarf held up a naked baby toward our trolley.  The baby waved its arms.  A hobo jungle is unlike other jungles, where monkeys howl through the leafy air.  “What do they all want?”

“What does anybhody want?  Something for nothing acourse.” . . .

“But why so many of them?  And all the flags?”

“They’re war vetarans.  Or so they say, because vets are entitled to a soldier’s bonus .  they want their bonus.”  

Ragged men stood at military attention every few meters, like fence posts all along the edge of the camp facing the street.  Veteran soldiers, you could tell it from the placment of feet and shoulders.  But their eyes searched the passing trolley with a terrifying hunger.  “They’ve been here all week?  What do the families live on?”

“Shoe leather soup, I’d say.”
“Those men fought in France, with mustard gas and everything?”
Father Nodded. . .
So, can’t they get their money now, if they fought in the war?”
“I’d have  been there too in the Argonne,:  he said suddenly turning pinkish, “if I could have been.  Did your mother tell you I wouldn’t fight in the war?”
A subject to steer around.  “What’s the soldier’s bonus suppsed to be?”
Surprisingly, Father knew the answer:  $500 a man.  He is a bean counter for the government.  Five hundred bucks for risking a life in the war, so they could begin a new one here.  Congress turned them down, decided to pay out the bonus later when these men are old.  So they’ve come here from everywhere, wishing to take the matter up with the president.

“Does Mr. Hoover mean to meet with them?”

“Not on our life.  If they want to talk to him, they better use the telephone.”

McArthur’s troops are out with tanks, but Patton’s cavalry men on horseback get through the blocked streets easier.

[p. 106]
July 28, 1932“Between the stone wall and the crush of shoulders, it was hard to breath.  Over the sea of heads and hats you could catch sight of cavalrymen leaning down from the waist, on their horses, flailing their saber blades against whatever was below them.


  Against people.  That hit with a shock.  They were beating at the Bonus Army men and women with razor-sharp blades of sabers.”

[p. 107]July 29
It’s all in the newspapers today. . .
Gallinger Hospital filled to overflowing with the casualities. Any Bonus Marchers who made it to the Eleventh Street bridge joined the ones at the reiverbank encampment.  Mr. Hoover sent orders for troops to stop at the bridge, but MacArthur “couldn’t be bothered with new orders” so he mounted machine guns on the bridge and led a column of infantry across the Potomac into the encampment.  They set flaming torches to the canvas and pasteboard homes.  Exactly as Cortés said it:  Much grieved to burn up the people, but since it was still more grievous to them, he determined to do it.  [Remember, Harrison grew up in Mexico and he’d been reading about Cortés’ conquering the Aztecs.]

The late extra:  After sunset yesterday the flames in the Anacostia encampment rose fifty feet in the air and spread to the surrounding woods.  Six companies of firemen were required to defend adjacent property.  The president observed from the White House windows an unusual glow in the eastern sky, and conceded MacAruther was right to proceed with the routing.  In his opinion the Bonus Army consists of Communists and persons with criminal records.

Oh, yes,  One more Hoover telephone comment.  A joke this time:

President Hoover asked the treasury secretary for a nickel to telephone a friend.
Secretary Mellon said, "Here's a dime.  Call both of them."

We’re off to Childs Glacier for a couple of nights and, I assume, out of contact with the world.  I'll post one more ahead for tomorrow.