A Flint, a Flint, My Republic for a Flint!

Didn't watch Gettysburg this year, but did return to John Adams in the lead up to this suboptimal bisesquicentennial.  Somewhere in the middle of the second episode (Independence), there's a scene wherein Congress learns of King George III's Proclamation of Rebellion, interrupting some speechifying by Mr Adams:

Tents, soap, shoes and blankets are also greatly wanting. The army recently took shipment of 50 crates of rifles, all without the flints required to shoot them!

Right after that, President John Hancock bangs his gavel and gravely intones the words condemning all present as rebels whose punishment will be death by hanging.  Very dramatic.  Presumably this is on November 13, 1775, although the record just dryly notes:

On motion made, Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to prepare a declaration, in answer to sundry illegal ministerial proclamations that have lately appeared in America.

No mention of flints (or soap, etc), but we'll come back to that.  First, Congress crafted a reply on December 6, which includes this rhetorical question:

Can proclamations, according to the principles of reason and justice, and the constitution, go farther than the law?

250 years later, SCOTUS says, "no."  So we've got that going for us, I guess.  Anyway, back to the flints.  Same day:

A return being laid before Congress of the number of flints in this city, amounting to upwards of 200,000,

On motion made, Resolved, That the committee of inspection of this city ∥and liberties of Philadelphia∥ be desired to purchase said flints for the use of the Continent, and that in making the purchase, attention be paid to the resolution of Congress against raising the price of goods.

It was a real issue that came up quite a bit, which brings us to July 4, 1776:

Resolved, That an application be made to the committee of safety of Pensylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York... 

A Letter from General Washington, dated New York, July 3d, was laid before Congress, and read...

That letter?

I must entreat your attention to an application I made some time ago for flints. We are extremely deficient in this necessary article, and shall be greatly distressed if we cannot obtain a supply. Of lead we have a sufficient quantity for the whole campaign, taken off the houses here.

July 4 continues:

Resolved...That the Secret Committee be instructed to order the flints belonging to the continent, and now at Rhode Island, to be sent to the general at New York... 

Resolved, That Mr. [Henry] Wisner be empowered to send a man, at the public expence, to Orange county, for a sample of flint stone... 

Resolved, That the Board of War be empowered to employ such a number of persons, as they shall find necessary, to manufacture flints for the continent; and, for this purpose, to apply to the respective assemblies, conventions and councils, or committees of safety of the United American States, or committees of Inspection of the counties and towns thereunto belonging, for the names and places of abode of persons skilled in the manufactory aforesaid, and of the places, in their respective states, where the best flint stones are to be obtained, with samples of the same.

I focus on this to make a ponderous point: the Declaration wasn't the end of things (hell, it wasn't even the beginning).  The unsexy details of securing our independence like procuring flints and soap and tents continued.  In addition to those sundries, other larger matters also needed to be addressed.  Jefferson recalled in the lead up to July 4:

[T]t was thought most prudent...to postpone the final decision to July 1. but that this might occasion as little delay as possible a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration of independence...Committees were also appointed at the same time to prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. 

250 years ago, we didn't have a frame of government (Articles of Confederation, 1781) or necessary foreign alliances (France, 1778).  There was still a lot of work to do.  Which fact remains true today.

Selah.

There's one thing that I do know

There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia.

Out of the Way, It’s a Busy Day

Leisure:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William H Davies.

Shiver in My Bones Just Thinking About the Weather

I would say that it is befitting the legacy of John Quincy Adams that nobody had any questions https://t.co/8MbPwW7Wg6

— David Grossman (@davidgross_man) July 3, 2026

I replied:

No questions because all the answers you need can be found in his meticulous diary.  Wanna know the weather in St Petersburg, Russia, on July 3, 1812?  You bet he recorded it...

However, I did have a question after looking at JQA's entry for July 3, 1812: what the hell is that temperature notation?

The answer appears in his diary as well, albeit obliquely.  Here's August 12, 1783 (when he was in Paris with his dear ole dad):

I met the Abbé Arnaud at the Thuileries. and we walk’d together together to Passy...The Abbé has travelled thro’ Poland, and talk’d a good deal about that Country. For the Climate he says that for the first fortnight in November it commonly snows there continually, and from that time untill the latter end of February, a continuation of very severe colds he has seen Reaumur’s Thermometer at the degree of 28 below. 0. This is quite different from the weather at Petersburg. 

That is his earliest reference to the Réaumur scale, which subsequently pops up 108 more times.  There are also a few hundred mentions of "Fahrenheit’s thermometer" beginning in 1786.

It seems Adams started systematically recording weather data in August of 1807 using Fahrenheit, presumably because he was in the United States at the time.  Looks like it didn't last long, but he picked back up again in St Petersburg for his New Year's resolution in 1811, clearly using Réaumur (without notation).  Returning to America, we see the other scale again.  A real code switcher, that John Quincy Adams.

In conclusion: when in Russia, do as the Russians do.

The Advantage of Encouraging Foreigners Was Obvious & Admitted

Mamdani being a Muslim immigrant who has risen to the Mayor of NYC and a prominent voice in Democratic politics is a testament to the opportunity America offers all people. That this clown hates that shows he doesn’t understand America at all. pic.twitter.com/TJgYmr7gOC

— Poker and Politics (@PokerPolitics) July 3, 2026

Declaration of Independence, Grievance VII¹:

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither...

Fun footnote:

Secret agents were sent to America soon after the accession of George the Third to the throne of England, to spy out the condition of the colonists. A large influx of liberty-loving German emigrants was observed, and the king was advised to discourage these immigrations. Obstacles in the way of procuring lands, and otherwise, were put in the way of all emigrants, except from England, and the tendency of French Roman Catholics to settle in Maryland was also discouraged. 

The British government was jealous of the increasing power of the colonies ; and the danger of having that power controlled by democratic ideas, caused the employment of restrictive measures. The easy conditions upon which actual settlers might obtain lands on the Western frontier, after the peace of 1763, were so changed, that toward the dawning of the Revolution, the vast solitudes west of the Alleghanies were seldom penetrated by any but the hunter from the seaboard provinces. When the War for Independence broke out, immigration had almost ceased. The king conjectured wisely, for almost the entire German population in the colonies were on the side of the patriots.

The United States of America is a country of immigrants.  This fact was debated and codified into our Constitution, so shut your unpatriotic pie holes, you ignorant, racist MAGA fuckwits.

1 - The elided part does suggest that our Revolution was a land grab by greedy slavers, but we don't need to get into that here.

An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress

While John Adams was salty about how long it took to declare independence, Thomas Jefferson was salty about editing:

The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. 

The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures, for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.

Funny that he called out hypocrisy in a sort of meta fashion, as Thomas Paine was salty about that.  This was the clause in question:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. 

And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.

Even without that grievance included in the declaration-final_final_fr.doc, folks in England were understandably salty:

Is it for them to ſay, that it is tyranny to bid a ſlave be free ? to bid him take courage, to riſe and aſſiſt in reducing his tyrants to a due obedience to law ? to hold out as a motive to him , that the load which cruthed his limbs ſhall be lightened ; that the whip which harrowed up his back ſhall be broken, that he thall be raiſed to the rank of a freeman and a citizen?

It is their boaſt that they have taken up arms in ſupport of theſe their own ſelf-evident truths - "that all men are equal" - that all men are "endowed with the unalienable rights of life , liberty, and the purſuit of happineſs."

Is it for them to complain of the offer of freedom held out to theſe wretched beings? of the offer of reinſtating them in that equality, which, in this very paper, is declared to be the gift of God to all ; in thoſe unalienable rights, with which , in this very paper, God is declared to have endowed all mankind?

Yet another reason that "natural rights" was a shitty foundation for our independence.

Selah.

Short, Sharp Shock

On this date in 1776, Congress was still editing their marketing copy for independence, so we'll go back further to 1775, when George Washington took command of the Continental Army.  His General Orders:

Head Quarters, Cambridge, July 3, 1775.

Parole Lookout. Countersign Sharp.

The Colonels or commanding Officer of each Regt. are ordered forthwith, to make two Returns of the Number of men in their respective Regiments, distinguishing such as are sick, wounded or absent on furlough. and also the quantity of ammunition each Regim. now has.

It appearing by the Report of Henry Woods, the Officer of the main guard, that one William Alfred is confin'd for taking two horses, belonging to some Persons in Connecticut, but that he has made satisfaction to the injured parties, who request that they may not be longer detain'd as witnesses: It is ordered that he be discharged, and after receiving a severe reprimand, be turned out of camp

Footnote on the Parole/Countersign:

The countersign was the password given daily to distinguish friends from foes and to prevent unauthorized persons from gaining entrance to the camp. It must be given to sentries, to whom it is known, before the lines can be passed. The parole was a password imparted only to officers of the guard and such other officers as had the right to visit the guards. This to prevent any unauthorized interference with the sentries.

A little more:

[S]election of the parole and countersign was intended to impress wisdom upon the lonely sentinel, who was forced to remember the words if he was unwilling to accept their lesson. The parole Industry was given with the countersign Wealth, Neatness with Gentility, Inoculation with Health. In time of danger the parole Look out with the countersign Sharp must have suggested to the sentinel the path of duty.

I just liked this little slice of camp life and discipline.  The 'inoculation' parole in particular I find interesting.  Carry on.

With auburn hair and tawny eyes

The kind of eyes that hypnotise me through.

Im Geheimen dürsten wir

In Secret We Thirst:

Graceful, spiritual,
with the gentleness of arabesques
our life is similar
to the existence of fairies
that spin in soft cadence
around nothingness
to which we sacrifice
the here and now

Dreams of beauty, youthful joy
like a breath in pure harmony
with the depth of your young surface
where sparkles the longing for the night
for blood and barbarity

In the emptiness, spinning, without aims or needs
dance free our lives
always ready for the game
yet, secretly, we thirst for reality
for the conceiving, for the birth
we are thirst for sorrows and death

Hermann Hesse.

抵抗をやめ、別れを告げる

Well, Spain just advanced in the World Cup, so why not:

The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian 370 leagues (1,281 mi; 2,062 km) west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. That line of demarcation was about halfway between Cape Verde (already Portuguese) and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile and León), thought then to be Cipangu and Antillia, but in fact Cuba and Hispaniola; the treaty itself does not mention Cipangu or Antillia.

The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile, modifying an earlier bull by Pope Alexander VI. The treaty was created on 7 June 1494, then ratified by Spain on 2 July 1494, by Portugal on 5 September 1494, and by Pope Julius II on 24 January 1506. The other side of the world was divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Zaragoza, signed on 22 April 1529, which specified the antimeridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Portugal and Spain largely respected the treaties, while the Indigenous peoples of the Americas did not acknowledge them.

As noted in the Wikipedia article, it was the later Zaragoza anti-meridian that explicitly divided Asia (to resolve the "Moluccas issue"), but seeing the Tordesillas meridian come up On This Date immediately made me think of Shōgun.  I think that's due for another rewatch very soon.  And that's all I've got to say about that.

<exits singing, a line of demarcation, line of demarcation, line of demarcation, liiiiine, liiiiine>

UPDATE: Portugal has also advanced.  And they'll be playing each other.

#throwbackthursday

Oh, today's Thursday?  Here's the cousins at Point Defiance.  (2022) 

The Most Memorable Epocha

We declared a "fact which already exist[ed]" on July 2, 1776:

The Congress resumed the consideration of the resolution agreed to by and reported from the committee of the whole; and the same being read, was agreed to as follows:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them, and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Agreeable to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole; ∥and, after some time,∥ the president resumed the chair. Mr. [Benjamin] Harrison reported, that the committee have had under consideration the declaration to them referred; but, not having had time to go through ∥the same,∥ desired leave to sit again:

Resolved, That this Congress will, to morrow, again resolve itself into a committee of the whole, to take into their farther consideration the declaration on independence.

John Adams was a bit salty about the whole thing:

Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects . . . . We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States. -- 

We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada .... You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. -- Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat .... And in real, sincere Expectation of this effort Event, which they so fondly wished, they have been slow and languid, in promoting Measures for the Reduction of that Province. 

Others there are in the Colonies who really wished that our Enterprise in Canada would be defeated, that the Colonies might be brought into Danger and Distress between two Fires, and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the Expedition to Canada, lest the Conquest of it, should elevate the Minds of the People too much to hearken to those Terms of Reconciliation which they believed would be offered Us. These jarring Views, Wishes and Designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary Measures, which were proposed for the Support of that Expedition, and caused Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.

All these Causes however in Conjunction would not have disappointed Us, if it had not been for a Misfortune, which could not be foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented, I mean the Prevalence of the small Pox among our Troops .... This fatal Pestilence compleated our Destruction. -- It is a Frown of Providence upon Us, which We ought to lay to heart.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. -- The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. -- 

Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. -- This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

So...Happy Bisesquicentennial, I guess.

Come on, come on, darlin'

Let's exchange the experience.

That This Isn’t Nothing at All

[Murmurs from the earth of this land]:

Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,

       from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our

       dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot.

We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down

        where water has not run for sixty years.

Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catalpa, from the ax of

        the stars, from the house on fire, ringing of glass; from

        the abandoned iron-black mill.

Stars with voices crying like mountain lions over forgotten

        colors.

Blue directions and a horizon, milky around the cities where the

        murmurs are deep enough to penetrate deep rock.

Trapping the lightning-bird, trapping the red central roots.

You know the murmurs. They come from your own throat.

You are the bridges to the city and the blazing food-plant green;

The sun of plants speaks in your voice, and the infinite shells of

        accretions

A beach of dream before the smoking mirror.

You are close to that surf, and the leaves heated by noon, and

        the star-ax, the miner’s glitter walls. The crests of the sea

Are the same strength you wake with, the darkness is the eyes

        of children forming for a blaze of sight and soon, soon,

Everywhere your own silence, who drink from the crater, the

        nebula, one another, the changes of the soul.

Muriel Rukeyser.