Posts Tagged ‘Richard Nixon’
“Thou art a monument without a tomb, / And art alive still while thy book doth live / And we have wits to read and praise to give”*…
400 years ago this month, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his friends John Heminge and Henry Condell published The First Folio, containing 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, (an endeavor which they financed with a bequest that he had left them).
Although 19 of Shakespeare’s plays had been published in quarto before 1623, the First Folio is arguably the only reliable text for about 20 of the plays, and a valuable source text for many of those previously published. Eighteen of the plays in the First Folio, including The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and Measure for Measure among others, are not known to have been previously printed.
It is considered one of the most influential books ever published. Of perhaps 750 copies printed, 235 are known to remain, most of which are kept in either public archives or private collections. More than one third of the extant copies are housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which is home to a total of 82 First Folios.
It is also, as Alicia Andrzejewski and Carole Levin explain, one of the most stolen…
Late at night on July 13th, 1972, an unknown person entered the University of Manchester’s Library and violently smashed the plate glass top of an exhibition case, stealing the contents. Inside was one of the most famous, most valuable books in existence: the library’s near-perfect edition of one of Shakespeare’s First Folios. This theft is the most mysterious of all the stolen First Folios. More than fifty years have passed, and this First Folio—one of the 750 printed in 1623 and of the estimated 232 known copies across the globe today—is still missing.
This year, 2023, marks the 400th year anniversary of the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio, deemed one of the most significant books in the English language, “a coveted treasure,” to quote Eric Rasmussen, an expert on the First Folios and author of The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios. Without the First Folio, we would not have many of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, the half that were not printed in his lifetime, including The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. In collecting and printing these plays, Shakespeare’s two close friends and fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, validated that plays are more than entertainment—they have literary value.
The First Folios still in existence are mainly housed in public institutions—their significance is underscored by their rarity, as copies are almost never available for sale, and the most recent one sold in 2020 for almost ten-million dollars. Even in the seventeenth century, when the First Folios were first printed, they were only available to elite members of society: earls, lords, knights, admirals, and the occasional lawyer. To this day, ownership is limited to, and a fetish among, the super wealthy. Because of their elite status, Rasmussen speculates that, of the copies that cannot be located, most “have probably been stolen.”
For some, as Rasmussen suggests, the First Folio is coveted because of its monetary value, an object to steal and eventually attempt to sell. Three First Folios were stolen in the 20th century alone, including the Manchester Library’s copy, and the thieves in the latter two cases are characters as strange as some of those in Shakespeare’s plays, the heists as thrilling as some of his plots. The thefts we describe, and the desires that inspire them, speak to Shakespeare’s foothold in Western civilization—the reverence and awe so many people have for him, that imbue the First Folio with an almost religious power…
Some of the most brazen heists of a historic volume: “Shakespeare’s First Folio has been Stolen Many, Many Times,” in @CrimeReads.
* Ben Jonson, “To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare” (in the First Folio)
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As we linger on literary larceny, we might recall that it was on this date fifty years ago that then-President Richard Nixon made his famous declaration of character:
On Nov. 17, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon held a news conference before Associated Press managing editors in Orlando, Fla., in which he defended himself against a number of allegations. Most of the questions related to the Watergate break-in, which had become even more of a scandal a month earlier with the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Other questions focused on reports that he had cheated on his tax returns.
The Nov. 18 New York Times outlined President Nixon’s many assertions, concluding that the president had acquitted himself well: “The president seemed composed and on top of the subject throughout the session, faltering perceptibly only during the discussion of his taxes. In contrast with some of his recent appearances he did not berate his critics or his political enemies.”
The best-remembered part of the news conference came as the president defended himself against claims that he had illicitly profited from his years in public service. “I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service — I earned every cent,” he said. “And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.”
The news conference did little to end questions over Mr. Nixon’s honesty. His declaration “I’m not a crook” was used against him — and the line would forever be associated with the Watergate era.
In April 1974, the Internal Revenue Service ordered that the president pay more than $400,000 in back taxes for making improper deductions. And the Watergate investigation continued to uncover misconduct. In August 1974, with the House Judiciary Committee having recommended impeachment and the release of a “smoking gun” tape showing that he had approved a cover-up, the president resigned…
“Nixon Declares ‘I Am Not a Crook’”
“I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country”*…
“Scott Alexander” (also here) throws his hat into the Presidential ring…
The American people deserve a choice. They deserve a candidate who will reject the failed policies of the past and embrace the failed policies of the future. It is my honor to announce I am throwing my hat into both the Democratic and Republican primaries (to double my chances), with the following platform…
There follow eleven bold ideas, for example:
Ensure Naval Supremacy And Reduce Wealth Inequality By Bringing Back The Liturgy
The liturgy was a custom of ancient Athens. When the state needed something (usually a new warship) it would ask for volunteers among its richest citizens. Usually one would step up to gain glory or avoid scorn; if nobody did, the courts were allowed to choose the richest person who hadn’t helped out recently. The liturgist would fund the warship and command it as captain for two years, after which his debt to the state was considered discharged and he was given a golden crown. Historians treat the liturgy as a gray area between voluntary service and compulsory taxation; most rich Athenians were eager to serve and gain the relevant honor, but they also knew that if they didn’t, they could be compelled to perform the same service with less benefit to their personal reputation.
Defense analysts warn that America’s naval dominance is declining:
Only 25 per cent of America’s 114 commissioned surface combatants (cruisers, destroyers, and littoral combat ships) are less than a decade old. By comparison more than 80 per cent of China’s 141 destroyers, frigates, and corvettes have been commissioned in the past decade. In the same time period, the United States commissioned 30 surface combatants . . . The nearly 600-ship Navy of the late 1980s deployed only 15 per cent of the fleet on average. Today, with fewer than 300 ships, the US Navy deploys more than 35 per cent to service its global missions, contributing to a material death spiral.
So America is short on warships. But it is very long on rich people with big egos. An aircraft carrier would cost the richest American billionaires about the same fraction of their wealth as a trireme cost the richest Athenian aristocrats. So I say: bring back the liturgy!
The American rich already enjoy spending their money on exciting vehicles – yachts for the normies, rockets for the more ambitious, Titanic submersibles for the suicidal. Why not redirect this impulse towards public service? Imagine the fear it would strike into the hearts of the Chinese when the USS Musk enters Ludicrous Mode in the waters off the Taiwan Strait, with Elon himself at the wheel. And does anyone doubt that Elon – usually careful to avoid taxes – would jump at the chance to do this?
…
Legalize Lying About Your College On Resumes
Colleges trap Americans in a cycle of burdensome loans and act to reinforce class privilege. I have previously advocated making college degree a protected characteristic which it is illegal to ask people about on job applications. But this would be hard to enforce, and people would come up with other ways to communicate their education level.
So let’s think different: let’s make it legal to lie about your college on resumes (it is already not technically illegal to lie on a resume, but companies can ask for slightly different forms of corroboration which it is illegal to lie on). Everyone can just say “Harvard,” and nobody will have any unfair advantage over anyone else.
…
More modest proposals: “My Presidential Platform,” from @slatestarcodex.
* Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick
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As we savor the sad salience of satire, we might recall that on this date in 1935, Huey Long, Louisiana Senator and past-Governor (and inspiration for Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men), was shot in the Louisiana state capitol building; he died 30 hours later. Called a demagogue by critics, the populist leader (“every man a king”) was a larger-than-life figure who boasted that he bought legislators “like sacks of potatoes, shuffled them like a deck of cards.”
And on this date in 1974, President Gerald Ford offered his disgraced predecessor, Richard Nixon, “a full, free, and absolute pardon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in” during Nixon’s Presidency.
“Things gained through fraud are never secure”*…
… Still, the damage done to the defrauded is too often too real. A unsettling report from the front lines of financial accounting…
The level of corporate earnings manipulation is similar to that of past pre-recessionary periods, according to research by professors at the University of Missouri and Indiana University.
Their finding is based on the M-Score, a screening model that catches fraud in corporate earnings reports. Messod Daniel Beneish, a professor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, created the M-Score in the 1990s. The “M” stands for manipulation, and the measure is also sometimes referred to as the Beneish M-Score.
Based on known examples of past financial misreporting, the M-Score combines eight ratios on a company’s balance sheet to assess its fraud risk. A higher M-Score means a company is more likely to be manipulating its earnings.
“It allows us to assess fraud risk in real time,” said Matt Glendening, an accounting professor at the University of Missouri. “The advantage of using a measure such as the M-Score is that if you use actual instances of accounting fraud, not all cases are caught, especially the less severe cases. And also, there is a delay between the misreporting period and the time at which the fraud is actually revealed.”
One notable M-Score success came in 1998, when a group of Cornell students used the M-Score to flag Enron as having an elevated fraud risk. This was three years before the public learned that the company was inflating its profits, resulting in what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in history and several executives going to jail.
…
Corporate earnings are traditionally manipulated either by overstating revenues or understating expenses. How companies do this varies, but it could include recognizing sales revenues early or understating inventory.
“There are all sorts of capital market pressures on firms to maintain stock price, maintain earnings growth,” Glendening said. “There could also be some compensation incentives at play.”
In 2019, Beneish expanded the M-Score, creating a new measure that goes beyond individual companies to the economy as a whole. With the help of Glendening and two other co-authors, Beneish created the aggregate M-Score, which now compiles the M-Scores of 2,004 companies to measure the likelihood of earnings manipulation across the economy. Earlier in 2023, the aggregate M-Score was at its highest level in 40 years.
“Accounting manipulation matters for the economy at large,” Glendening said. Companies use other business’ earnings data to inform hiring, purchasing, and production decisions. “What we are finding is that the level of aggregate misreporting is very similar to what we’ve observed in pre-recessionary periods.”
Ask not for whom the bell tolls: “This little-known accounting measure is ringing an economic warning bell,” from Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) and Andie Corban on @Marketplace.
See also: “Corporate Fraud” (source of the image above)
* Sophocles
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As we look more closely, we might recall that it was on this date in 1974 that the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend that America’s 37th president, Richard M. Nixon, be impeached and removed from office for a variety of offenses that arose from the Watergate Affair. Several days later (August 5), as the full house discussed the trial, the “Smoking Gun” tape was released, demonstrating that Nixon was in fact involved in the cover-up. His political capital destroyed, Nixon resigned– in a nationwide television address– on August 8, effective the next day.
“Knowledge of means without knowledge of ends is animal training”*…
According to a March 1967 report entitled “Views on Trained Cats [Redacted] for [Redacted] Use,” the CIA stuffed a real, live cat with electronic spying equipment and attempted to train it to spy on America’s Cold War rivals. The report states that Acoustic Kitty (as the project is commonly known) was a “remarkable scientific achievement.” Unfortunately, the report also states that the continued use of live cats as eavesdropping devices “would not be practical.”
According to Victor Marchetti [an ex-Deputy Director of the CIA]: “A lot of money was spent. They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that. Finally they’re ready. They took it out to a park and pointed it at a park bench and said, ‘Listen to those two guys…’ They put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead!”…
For more on animal training adventures in the security services, see “The CIA’s Most Highly-Trained Spies Weren’t Even Human.”
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As we study subterfuge, we might recall that it was on this date in 1974 that transcripts of the audiotaped White House conversations between President Richard Nixon and Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman were released to the public. Considered at the time a “smoking gun,” the transcripts confirmed Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up– and precipitated Nixon’s resignation three days later.
Walking the line…
3.28 Renminbi (about 49 cents)-- the per capita poverty line in China-- in peanuts
Beijing-based photographer Stefen Chow has produced an arresting series of photos illustrating the tangible reality of poverty:
This body of work explores a simple question. What is the poverty line in a country?
We decided to generally calculate a per-person, per-day rate of a national poverty line, and to create a visual portrayal of items found in that country that could be bought by a person living at the poverty line.
This is not an emotional analysis of what it means to be poor. It is an examination of the choices one would face being poor. This is an ongoing project, with the first series understanding China, Japan, Nepal and Thailand. We have since expanded this project and have gone to five continents. We are not trying to compare different countries’ poverty, but rather to have a starting point to understand poverty within a country’s context.Everything else is left up to interpretation.
… though the viewer notes that the local newspapers that provide the background for each shot (and their enticing advertisements) offer an ironic counterpoint to the sparse reality of life on the poverty line.
See samples of the collection here. And then check out Jonathan Blaustein’s similar project, Value of a Dollar.
[TotH to GOOD]
As we count our pennies blessings, we might recall that it was on this date in 1972 that Richard M. Nixon arrived in China to begin the historic 8-day visit that ended 25 years of separation between the two countries; it was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC.
Mao Zedong and Nixon (source)
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