Chrononautic Log: history

July 20, 2006

I feel like I should save this for Armistice Day, but it’s just too good.

The Germans loudly proclaimed to the rest of the world that if anyone sought to cast the shadow of dishonour upon their unspotted eagle-banner they would unsheathe the sword their fathers had bequeathed to them and would gird on the shining armour fashioned for them by Thor, the God of War, and, with the words of Luther on their lips, under the auspices of the God of the Germans, would ”let loose” . . . upon an effete Europe and so secure a place in the sun. The rest of the world, with Great Britain at its head, replied that in the event of certain unfortunate eventualities, certain other unfortunate eventualities might eventuate.

— Ford Madox Ford

(Who was half English and half German, and likely knew whereof he spoke.)

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May 5, 2006

Porque soy un californiano, he celebrado el cinco de mayo todo mi vida; pero como la mayoría de americanos creía que estaba la día de independencia mexicana. Es solamente ahora que he aprendido que en verdad el cinco de mayo celebra un evento mucho más interesante: la primera victoria, en 1862, de la guerra contra las tropas imperiales de Napoleón III, una guerra que comenzó para una razón muy moderna: el negando de los deudas internacionales que Mexico debía a los poderes europeos.

Supongo que normalmente los E.E.U.U. tambien invadieran, como su costumbre, pero tenían sus proprias problemas cerca de este tiempo... De hecho, después del Disgusto Reciente, los E.E.U.U. apoyaban las fuerzas republicanas de Benito Juárez contra el régimen francés. Supongo tambien que es parcialmente porque la día no celebra una victoria contra los Americanos que ahora es tan bien aceptado por allá. :)

Después del cinco un ejército francés mucho mas grande hizo un contraataque (o un contra-contraataque), y instaló el Archiduque Maximiliano como el emperador de Mexico. Era cinco años mas antes que Juárez y sus republicanos depusieron y fusilaron el emperador, pero ahora es este primera victoria que celebramos.

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December 8, 2005

Via BoingBoing, an 1863 Geographical Reader, “for the Dixie children.”

THE UNITED STATES.

1. This was once the most prosperous country in the world. Nearly a hundred years ago it belonged to England: but the English made such hard laws that the people said they would not obey them. After a long, bloody war of seven years, they gained their independence; and for many years were prosperous and happy.
2. In the mean time both English and American ships went to Africa and brought away many of those poor heathen negroes, and sold them for slaves. Some people said it was wrong and asked the King of England to stop it. He replied that “he knew it was wrong; but that slave trade brought much money into his treasury, and it should continue.” But both countries afterwards did pass laws to stop this trade. In a few years, the Northern States finding their climate too cold for the negro to be profitable,sold them to the people living farther South. Then the Northern States passed laws to forbid any person owning slaves in their borders.
3. Then the northern people began to preach, to lecture, and to write about the sin of slavery. The money for which they sold their slaves, was now partly spend in trying to persuade the Southern States to send their slaves back to Africa. And when the territories were settled they were not willing for any of them to become slaveholding. This would soon have made the North much stronger than the South; and many of the men said they would vote for a law to free all the negroes in the country. The Southern men tried to show them how unfair this would be, but still they kept on.
4. In the year 1860 the Abolitionists became strong enough to elect one of their men for President. Abraham Lincoln was a weak man, and the South believed he would allow laws to be made, which would deprive them of their rights. So the Southern States seceded, and elected Jefferson Davis for their president. This so enraged President Lincoln that he declared war, and has exhausted nearly all the strength of the nation, in a vain attempt to whip the South back into the Union. Thousands of lives have been lost, and the earth has been drenched with blood; but still Abraham is unable to conquer the “Rebels” as he calls the South. The South only asked to be let alone, and to divide the public property equally. It would have been wise in the North to have said to her Southern sisters, “If you are not content to dwell with us longer, depart in peace. We will divide the inheritance with you, and may you be a great nation.”
5. This country possesses many ships, has fine cities and towns, many railroads, steamboats, canals, manufactures, &c. The people are ingenious, and enterprising, and are noted for their tact in “driving a bargain.” They are refined, and intelligent on all subjects but that of negro slavery, on this they are mad.
6. The large lakes, the long rivers, the tall mountains, with the beautiful farms and pretty towns and villages, make this a very interesting country to travelers.

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November 9, 2005

It would explain so much:

Conventional “theories” of history teach that “stuff happened,” which is insolent and implies that we are nothing but random accidents. But Giblets has found definitive proof that history is intelligent, and has worked over the course of millenia towards one singular purpose: the creation of Giblets! Think of everything that had to happen in order for Giblets to be born! Mom Giblets and Dad Giblets had to meet, Grampa Giblets had to flee the great turducken blight back in the Old Country, Napoleon had to destabilize the Gibletsian economy with his unsound policy of weevil regulation. Yes, the birth of Giblets is so unlikely it can only be explained as the supernatural action of a nearly-divine agent acting over the course of thousands of centuries in a way that looks exactly like a bunch of random stuff!

This ingenious new theory will revolutionize the way we see history and indeed life itself! What was the cause of the American Civil War? Giblets. Why did Bismarck publish the Ems dispatch? Because of Giblets. What caused the collapse of the Weimar Republic? Political instability and economic depression which would eventually result in Giblets.

“Are you an offensive figment or a pleasant figment? Discuss.”

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October 14, 2005

Sometimes the Gray Lady pulls through. In this case, with the amazing “Wading Toward Home,” by Michael Lewis.

Just then a car turned the corner, rolled up to a house in the next block and stopped. Its appearance was as shocking as the arrival of a spaceship filled with aliens — apart from Ms. Perrier, I hadn’t seen a soul, or a car, for miles. Four men with black pistols leapt out of it. Two of them looked as if they belonged in the neighborhood — polo shirts, sound orthodontia, a certain diffidence in their step. But the other two, with their bad teeth and battle gear, marched around as if they had only just captured the place.

. . . They had just landed Russian assault helicopters in Audubon Park. Not one, but two groups of Uptown New Orleanians had rented these old Soviet choppers, along with four-to-six-man Israeli commando units (platoons? squads?), and swooped down onto the soccer field beside the Audubon Zoo.

. . . The commandos went inside to “clear the house.” A nice little yellow house just one block from my childhood home. Not a human being — apart from Ms. Perrier and me — for a mile in each direction. And yet they raised their guns, opened the door, entered and rattled around. A few minutes later they emerged, looking grim.

“You got some mold on the upstairs ceiling,” one commando said gravely.

(Courtesy of MaxSpeak, You Listen!.)

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September 29, 2005

The evidence:

But apart from the manifest military history/RPG geekery of it — what if Rasputin’s high constitution had allowed him to make his final saving throw against poison? [UPDATE: Oops. Obviously he DID make his saving throw. He died of hit point loss from knives or whatever it was] — I’m not aware of an especial correlation [of alternate history] with right-wingery.

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What if Derrida had been raised by analytic philosophers? No one writes these things because the [alternate history] genre belongs to the military historians. Sad, sad.

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Not unless we find it plausible to conceive of History as Mind, in a quite robustly clinical sense, i.e. to the point where it would make sense to lay History out on the couch or give it a Voight-Mein Kampf empathy test. ‘Tell me only the good things you remember — about the Jews.’

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This sounds like a wonderful new slogan for the NRA: guns don’t kill people, History kills people.

. . . [A] Japanese-style monster movie. It starts with the Face of History (afflicted with a neurotic tic) moving over the waters, after it is awakened by deep, Ursprunglich phenomenological testing. The monster surfaces from the depths and moves in on Tokyo.

The anxious officer barks into his bulky field phone: ‘History is attacking the city!’ Guns fire. But the bullets bounce off History’s thick hide. Grooooonk!

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And here I thought teratology was still totally Airwolf.

(All this in one article and comment thread! I could go on, but hey, it’s all out there.)

Okay, maybe it’s just me.

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July 28, 2005

So, California’s state song may be fluffy and forgettable, but at least it’s not a call to assassinate Lincoln like “Maryland, my Maryland.”

(Sarah Vowell interview via Gwenda.)

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March 24, 2005

Rome in AD 320.

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August 26, 2004

...to check into an Ivy League PhD program in American History for five or ten years, solely in order to learn enough to be able to write this book:

Glaukon: I've often wanted to read a history of the early years of the United States as if the U.S. was a developing country during the Cold War. Domestic factions allied with Britain and France, which will recognize no neutrals. George Washington throwing all his prestige and virtu on the side of neutrality in the Farewell Address, pleading with his countrymen not to fall into this trap . . .

The Ghost of Daniel Webster: And being completely ignored . . .

Thrasymakhos: As some chose France, and others chose Britain. The Alien and Sedition Acts, beginning the process of imprisoning people for political dissent . . .

There would be denunciations. There would probably be death threats. But it would be a hell of a book.

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April 19, 2004

The following is a full-text reproduction of the 1935 plan for a US invasion of Canada prepared at the US Army War College, G-2 intelligence division, and submitted on December 18, 1935. This is the most recent declassified invasion plan available from the US archival sources.

I’d love to see some of those more recent classified ones . . . though I guess that by about 1940 the War College could stop worrying about British — er, “Red” — troops arriving in Nova Scotia to reinforce the Canadians.

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February 18, 2004

The rulers of the Soviet Union, that empire of untermenschen facing extermination or enslavement, knew what was coming. They knew that, in a decade or less, an army from the future would fill their horizon with a storm of steel. There was no way of avoiding it. There was no way of preparing for it without the most horrendous efforts, the most drastic expedients, to drive and dragoon their empire into the twentieth century. As I’ve said elsewhere, they had to beat their ploughboys into swordsmen. And if they chose that, there would be those who would flinch, those who would panic, those who would revolt and those who would betray. There was no way of knowing in advance who these might be. There was no benefit of the doubt to be given doubters. One slip could be fatal. There was not an inch to be given. The costs would be horrific. The price was madness. The reward was infamy. But it was that — or death.

—— Ken Macleod

There’s much that he says elsewhere in that post that I can’t make myself agree with; but this is a piece of the True Knowledge.

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December 14, 2003

(Continuing on our facial hair theme from the last entry . . .)

So The Last Samurai isn’t a bad movie. It is a thoroughly conventional movie; if you’ve seen the previews you pretty much know what’s going to happen, and if you’ve seen any of a dozen or two Hollywood movies of the last twenty years you pretty much know how it’s going to happen, too. (I’m not going to worry about spoilers here because there isn’t really anything to spoil; no point in trying to hide plot twists when you can see straight from one end of the plot to the other.) The writing, while adequate, is Hollywoody, and the dialogue occasionally clunks. And the truth is the film just doesn’t have that much to say — except, as Stephen Notley put it,

it’s not that war itself is horrible, an orgy of ugly useless death; just that certain ways of waging war are cooler than others. Samurais are just intrinsically cooler than Civil War-style musketeers and so it’s sad to see the passing of those better, purer times when a battlefield was strewn with dead bodies chopped to pieces by highly trained swordsmen rather than riddled with bullets by dummies who can barely reload their muskets. Truly, the business of killing large numbers of people lost something special that tragic day, something that can never be recovered.

The film’s not so much historically inaccurate as it is historically myopic — if you want to read about the real Satsuma Rebellion you can have fun counting the important details they omitted, such as the fact that the main motivation for Ken Watanabe’s real-life counterpart was that he couldn’t talk his fellow oligarchs into annexing Korea. (Eventually they saw the error of their ways, but not for a generation or so — see below.) Like Barthes’ Empire of Signs, The Last Samurai is not so much about Japan as it is about “Japan”, a hypothetical and largely fictional — yet fascinating — construct.

But if you can put these flaws behind you, the film does have its good points. It’s probably best to approach The Last Samurai as a sort of science fiction movie, not so much about the encounter of the real Japan with the real West as about the encounter of a hypothetical feudalism with a hypothetical modernity.

Divorce the film from its historical specifics and you’re free to muse, for instance, about the pathos of the peasant musketeers Cruise commands in the first act: terrified, half-trained conscripts set to be slaughtered by ruthless professional warriors, in a war they never chose to fight — but a war that, nonetheless, stands to liberate them and their descendants from serfdom. (For those of us who happen to know quite a few Japanese people, this is where it’s worth noting that despite whatever romantic notions we might have about the samurai, it’s among those conscripts, or people like them, that most of the Japanese we know probably count their recent ancestors.) Then in the second act, in the unreconstructed traditional countryside, you can set aside your class loyalties for a moment and share with Ken Watanabe’s noble rebel and Koyuki’s war widow the knowledge of the brevity of this last winter idyll, the awareness that each victory serves only to postpone the inevitable defeat. In the first two acts you can find yourself racking your brain trying to find a way to make it all work, reconcile tradition and modernity — give these distressingly cute children a chance to grow up.

In the third act — well, in the third act you get some 19th-century Tokyo street scenes and a couple of decent action sequences. The filmmakers do their best to undermine the sympathy you felt for the conscript soldiers in the first act by giving you not just well-drilled riflemen but swaggering uniformed thugs. Ken Watanabe’s character exposes the essential hollowness of the film when, asked by the young Emperor for his advice, for an alternative to the policies of the modernizationist clique, the best he can do is to prostrate himself and abdicate the responsibility. (If Watanabe’s turning up in Tokyo mid-movie despite being Japan’s Most Wanted reminds you, structurally, of Russell Crowe’s mid-movie confrontation of Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, it’s probably because both screenplays were written by John Logan.) Fencing, fighting, chases, escapes, and we’re into the fourth act, which, despite the references to Thermopylae and Little Big Horn, you can pretty much tell is going to end up as the Charge of the Light Brigade, only less successful.

In the epilogue, naturally, the young Emperor, moved by Ken Watanabe’s futile self-sacrifice, gives the chubby plutocratic prime minister and the mercenary American ambassador their comeuppances and, holding the sword with which Watanabe served him, utters some suitably portentous platitudes about the necessity of the Japanese people never forgetting where they came from. (If this reminds you, structurally, of Russell Crowe’s deathbed call for the restoration of the Senate in Gladiator, it’s probably because . . .) At this point the hypothetical feudalism, hypothetical modernity structure breaks down, and we’re into a different kind of science fiction: an alternate history in which everything after this counterfactual incident happens exactly the same as it did in our timeline — but with a completely different light thrown by this incident on all the events that followed it. Cruise’s lovable surrogate sons grow up to sink the Russian fleet at Tsushima in 1905 and conquer Korea in 1910; their children invade China. The Emperor’s endorsement of Japan’s martial heritage in 1878 leads directly to the establishment of military dictatorship sixty years later.

The Second World War, in the final analysis, is all Tom Cruise’s fault.

Sorry — I just finished a set of alternate-history vignettes a couple of weeks ago, and I got a little carried away there. What I meant to say was that the sets, costumes, and scenery (New Zealand again — and did I see Sala “The Dark Lord Sauron” Baker’s name in the list of location scouts?) alone make The Last Samurai worth seeing. The story may be one you’ve heard before, but the film’s capable of making you stop and think about that story again, if you’ll let it. The performances are better than the script deserves; the kids are almost up there with Anna Paquin in The Piano, Ken Watanabe is the next Chow Yun Fat, Koyuki, um, doesn’t have much to do (but she’s nice to look at), and Tom Cruise comes closer to disappearing into this role than any other I’ve seen him play, though maybe that’s because of the beard.

And the swordfighting, all things considered, is actually quite decent.

(Gohatto’s swordfighting is still better, though. Plus, I mean, gay love triangles in a secret police death squad fencing academy — how can you go wrong?)

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November 5, 2003

In honor of Guy Fawkes’ day, some folks at the University of Aberstwyth have done the math on the Gunpowder Plot:

Using explosion physics the team deduced that streets up to one-third of a mile from the centre of the palace of Westminster would have suffered severe structural damage and windows would have shattered within a radius of two-thirds of a mile from the centre of the blast.

Pretty impressive, for Shakespearean technology.

The BBC has done the politics. Not good news for the English Catholics Fawkes was trying to help.

Protestants who were hearing of the atrocity in the capital and the uprising, aware that Catholics were responsible for both . . . would have taken up arms in a panic, turned upon the Catholics in their respective areas, and imprisoned or slaughtered them, in an English equivalent to the wave of hate and fear that had driven the French Catholics to massacre the Protestants there on St Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. . . .

[Charles I] would have revered the memory of his murdered parents, and almost certainly have acquired an abiding hatred of Catholicism, and tended instead to the evangelical wing of Anglicanism. This would have made him much more popular in both England and Scotland than the Anglo-Catholic policies that he adopted instead. . . .

In short, had Guy Fawkes succeeded, the British state would have turned into a Protestant absolute monarchy as Sweden, Denmark, Saxony and Prussia all did in the course of the 17th century; but much stronger than any of those. As such, it would in turn have paid the price of this achievement, as its powerful monarchy collapsed in revolution in modern times.

Now there’s an alternate history novel waiting to be written.

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October 31, 2003

The European rapier isn’t my weapon, but to me these kids don’t look half bad. If they got this far just by watching Errol Flynn movies, I’m quite impressed. (Hell, if they were taking fencing lessons, I’m impressed by that, too.)

Figure 1. Aaron Siskind, ‘Boys playing with toy swords,’ Harlem, New York, ca. 1930-1940

Interestingly, inner-city New York fencing seems to be making a comeback.

(Courtesy of Making Light and the Library of Congress. From the exhibit When They Were Young: A Photographic Retrospective of Childhood.)

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October 30, 2003

Courtesy of Nick Mamatas and Ken Macleod, a highly entertaining interview with the ghost of Karl Marx, conducted by historian Donald Sassoon.

Donald Sassoon: Well, Dr Marx, you are all washed up, aren’t you? Fifteen years ago your theories ruled half the world. Now what's left? Cuba? North Korea?

Karl Marx: My ‘theories’ — as you put it — never ‘ruled.’ I had followers I neither chose nor sought, and for whom I have no more responsibility than Jesus had for Torquemada or Muhammad for Osama bin Laden. Self-appointed followers are the price of success. Most of my contemporaries would love to be as washed up as you think I am. I wrote that the point was not to explain the world, but to change it. And how many eminent Victorians have done so?

. . . In reality my work has never been as important as it is now. Over the last 40 years or so it has conquered the academy in the most advanced countries in the world. Historians, economists, social scientists, and even, to my surprise, some literary critics have all turned to the materialist conception. The most exciting history currently produced in the US and Europe is the most ‘Marxistic’ ever. Just go to the annual convention of the American Social Science History Association, which I attend regularly as a ghost. There they earnestly examine the interconnection between institutional and political structures and the world of production. They all talk about classes, structures, economic determination, power relations, oppressed and oppressors. And they all pretend to have read me — a sure sign of success.

See, this is what I’m talking about.

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October 20, 2003

I’ve got plenty of better things to do, but I absolutely have to stop to point out John Scalzi’s absolutely hilarious series of anti-Confederate rants. (Courtesy of Electrolite.) Quoth Mr. Scalzi:

The Confederate States of America was a fundamentally evil institution. Period, end of sentence. That’s “evil,” spelled "E-V-I-L.” “Evil,” as in “morally reprehensible,” “sinful,” “wicked,” “pernicious,” “offensive” and “noxious.” “Evil,” as in “the world is a demonstrably better place without this thing in it.” Evil. That’s right, evil. Once again, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet: Evil. And for those of you yet hard of hearing, the ASL version:

Really, I don’t know how much clearer I can make it.

I have plenty of respect for the occasional thoughtful, liberal, humanist defender of the Confederacy like Will Shetterly, but I have to say I think Mr. Scalzi is dead on. If you don’t agree, go read all his arguments before you come back and tell me so.

(Oh, and if you want to know how I feel about the Civil War — as opposed to what I think, which is maybe a little more complicated — read Maureen McHugh’s short story “The Lincoln Train”. It’s in New Skies, among other places, and New Skies also has plenty of other good stuff in it.)

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August 20, 2003

Will Shetterly notes that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the CIA-backed coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in favor of “Light of the Aryans” Shah Reza Pahlavi.

In the name, naturally, of fighting communism.

And, hey, not only did the Brits got to keep their oil wells for another 25 years — on top of that, we also got the Mercedes-Benz G500.

Anyone hear anything about Ahmed Chalabi’s taste in cars?

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August 12, 2003

USA Today is reporting that new DNA tests seem to indicate that Otzi, the Neolithic hunter whose body was found in the Alps twelve years ago, killed at least two people before he was brought down:

In 2001, an Italian radiologist found an arrowhead embedded in Otzi’s shoulder. Otzi had been hit from behind and managed to pull out only the shaft. That discovery led Eduard Egarter, Bolanzo’s chief medical examiner and curator of Otzi’s body, to look for more evidence of a fight.

Alois Pirpamer, one of the climbers who found Otzi, told Egarter that the Iceman had been clutching a knife in his right hand at the time of the discovery. The knife came loose when the body was pulled from the ice. . . .

Egarter matched the knife to the hand and found a deep gash on the hand that had been missed in previous studies. He then found another cut on the left hand and bruises on the torso, as if Otzi had been beaten. . . . Blood from one person was found on the back of Otzi’s cloak, and blood from two people was found on the same arrow in his quiver. More blood was on the knife.

Quilici says the team suspects blood on the back of the cloak may have come from a wounded colleague that Otzi was carrying over his shoulder. Loy says blood of two people was found on the same arrow, suggesting Otzi killed both men and retrieved the arrow.

The newspaper is reporting it as “‘Iceman’ was murdered,” which I think is an interesting jump to conclusions. (Of course, this is USA Today we’re talking about.) The new findings don’t seem to tell us anything new about how Otzi actually died; just a little more about his last days. It’s clear that he was shot, and it may have been that wound that eventually killed him; but the physical evidence doesn’t tell us who shot first, or why.

Still, until we find the other guys, it’s hard not to sympathize with Otzi. Dying alone and on the run in the Alps in 5300 BC — man, that’s a hard way to go.

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July 23, 2003

There was one curious fact which I do not remember ever to have seen noticed in histories of the war, and that was its effect upon the nation as individuals. Men and women thought and did noble and mean things that would have been impossible to them before or after. A man cannot drink old Bourbon long and remain in his normal condition. We did not drink Bourbon, but blood.

—— Rebecca Harding Davis, Bits of Gossip

(Courtesy of Making Light.)

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May 19, 2003

Ken Macleod has updated 1066 and All That to cover the Reagan-Gorbachev 80s and the brief decade or so of the New World Order, with hilarious results.

The second thing Gorbachev did was to introduce Russia to the market. The problem was that Russia did not have bourgeois civility, so after it was introduced to the market it did not know what to say to it. Instead it stood about with its hands in its pockets, until it found that its pockets were empty. Its pockets had been picked by the Russian Mafia, which is just like the Sicilian one, except it is not Roman Catholic so does not have a Godfather at its head. Instead it has Ministers, like Protestants.

I can’t link to the actual entry — or rather, I can, but something bad seems to be happening to Blogspot’s archives, so you may have to start at the top.

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May 13, 2003

Now here’s something useful: The Political Graveyard: The Web Site That Tells Where the Dead Politicians are Buried.

My favorite so far, further strengthening my conviction that politics were more interesting before Philo T. Farnsworth:

David Smith Terry (1823-1889)... Justice of California state supreme court, 1855-59; chief justice of California state supreme court, 1857-59; delegate to California state constitutional convention, 1878-79. Killed U.S. Senator David Broderick in a duel near San Francisco in 1859; tried and acquitted for murder. Shot and killed by the bodyguard of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, whom he had confronted and slapped, in the train station restaurant at Lathrop, San Joaquin County, Calif., August 14, 1889.

Enough with the attack ads and sniping at one another in press conferences. I want politicians who aren’t afraid to submit their disputes to the arbitrament of steel.

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March 1, 2003

When it comes to professional sports, I can’t even really claim to be a fair-weather fan. I followed the Niners off and on through the Steve Young years (regularly watching them lose the NFC championships to Dallas and, when Dallas ran out of steam, Green Bay), but when I left San Francisco I lost interest.

I watched a reasonable number of Sharks games in those days, too, but the NHL just doesn’t grab me the way it did in the early 90s, when the vets from Red Army and Dynamo Moscow first turned up in North America to remind fans there could be more to hockey than the fights.

As for baseball, I’ve always found the mythology of baseball more compelling than the modern-day reality of robber-baron owners and mercenary players and TV advertising revenues. I wouldn’t mind retiring to a small town with a scrappy A-ball club I could take my hypothetical kids to see on a summer afternoon, but as for the majors, I only make it to a game or so a year despite living in a town with one of the league’s more likeable teams, and that’s mostly for the hot dogs.

And basketball — well, I’ve never been able to get interested in basketball.

Which is funny, considering that my grandfather was a high school star — Bob “Spook” Imig, Seward High class of, oh, ‘45 or so (a couple of years before the Bluejays won back-to-back state championships, but they can’t have been that bad) — and my dad can still make baskets.

I blame the Clippers and the Warriors, personally. (And — for different reasons, obviously — the Dream Team.)

But it looks like by missing out on basketball I’ve missed out on some good stories. For instance, though it seems dead obvious in hindsight, till I read this story in the Washington Post it never occurred to me that the Harlem Globetrotters had started out as a team of hotshot black barnstormers, in the days of an all-white NBA.

The unspoken point of this tale is that if white crowds were going to pay to see the Globetrotters and not get angry when hometown squads lost, they would have to be distracted by displays of bright smiles, dim wits and other features of an archetype that was a fixture of vaudeville and early cinema. “We have to remember that Saperstein’s Trotters played and were hired in a world where the lynching of Black males for ‘reckless eyeballing’ of white women was still commonplace,” Nelson George wrote in Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball.

Even as they became famous entertainers, the Globetrotters became a bastion of black athletic excellence. In 1940, at the World Tournament in Chicago, they defeated the New York Rens, who had survived the ‘30s without resorting to clowning. A decade later, after the Globetrotters had twice defeated the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers, led by dominant center George Mikan, the Globetrotters’ Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton joined the New York Knicks, becoming the first black player to sign an NBA contract and breaking Saperstein's monopoly on African American talent. Even so, NBA teams limited the number of black players to keep from alienating their white fan base, which saw behind-the-back passes, dunks and other flamboyant plays as undisciplined and unsportsmanlike. For many black players, the Globetrotters remained their best chance at a real paycheck; Wilt Chamberlain and Connie Hawkins passed through on their way to the big leagues.

That doesn’t excuse the Scooby-Doo guest appearances — actually, it kind of exacerbates them — but it gives me a new respect for the men who’ve worn the Globetrotters uniform in real life.

The team’s current owner, former Globetrotter Mannie Jackson, wants to make them one of the world’s ten best basketball teams again. I hope he finds a way to pull it off.

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