June 19, the day that slaves were freed in Texas in 1865, is an official state holiday or observance in 39 states.
Consider this an open thread.
by DougJ| 60 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
June 19, the day that slaves were freed in Texas in 1865, is an official state holiday or observance in 39 states.
Consider this an open thread.
Comments are closed.
karen marie
First!
Yutsano
Dammit. If this were a recognized federal holiday I’d have Monday off. Mumble grumble.
Jay
And what a wonderful, wonderful book by the late Ralph Ellison.
henqiguai
From your Wikipedia link up top –
Let’s get it right. The perennial commentary (at least, where I grew up) was always that they were nominally freed, but it took forever for the news to reach them (the freed slaves).
Nit pickin’, sure. But it’s the weekend and this is a non-contentional issue.
Lolis
Oh great! Huff Po has a post from Glenzilla with the headline, “Obama’s lawyers are worse than Bush’s.” I think the Libya intervention is bad but all this over-the-top hyperbole is ridiculous. I would support Congress if it defunded or ended the adventure. It is natural for the executive branch to claim a lot of powers and it is good for Congress to push back and reign it in. This whole episode shows our system is getting back to some semblance of checks and balances. IMHO.
Lolis
The Juneteenth parade goes right by my house in Austin. It is pretty awesome! Although as a native Californian, the story behind Juneteenth is still shocking to me.
gnomedad
Tech bleg: anyone encountered Windows 7 file explorer repeatedly crashing with an error message from the Visual C++ Runtime Library? So far I’ve tried chkdsk, sfc /scannow, and a virus scan. Thanks.
jeffreyw
@gnomedad: Not on my machine, but I think there was a very recent update on the visual c library, maybe the download/install was bad?
Linda Featheringill
Juneteenth always sneaks up on me. But it’s worth celebrating anyway.
Carol
Lolis, I’m not all that shocked. Communications even in the nearest places took a few days, and in distant Texas, where the lines of communication were probably severed due to the war, it was probably very slow.
Nor did Union Armies exactly swarm the place either, creating massive damage that made freedom a natural consequence of impoverished masters.
gnomedad
@Lolis:
Let’s check Executive overreach before we have another Republican president and the Republicans re-discover the charms of the Unitary Executive! What, insufficient bi-partisan spirit?
gnomedad
@jeffreyw:
Thanks, I’ll try to re-update it.
MikeJ
gnomedad, does it happen with particular filetypes selected (perhaps the preview pane is dying on some filetypes)? Also too, anything interesting in the system log (control panel->system->admin tools->event log)?
kdaug
All right, I’ll bite, seein’ as we’ve got a temporary OT reprieve:
Anyone ever notice that in these parts you’d best not say any shit you’re half-sure of, ’cause there will be half a dozen professors or experts jumping on your ass?
(Not that it’s ever happened to me – hell, I keep trying to pick fights but no one wants to play – but I’ve seen it happen repeatedly.)
I mean, pick a topic – math, physics, law, whatever – post the CW, and get ripped apart.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think this is a good thing.
But to distill: are there any metrics on the commentariat demographic here?
(And the obligatory: “The redhead is a point-blank knockout”).
gnomedad
@MikeJ:
No, it happens as soon as I log in, and doesn’t actually crash until I close the message box (“This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.”). Then it closes, restarts, and I get the message again. Works OK until I close the box. Only happens for this login, also.
ruemara
I am trying to learn how to use my new sewing machine. I believe it might have been wiser to get a new circular saw instead. How the hell did people ever learn to weave, much less do more than wrap ourselves in 20 miles of homespun? Stupid…darned near everything involved in sewing stuff.
lamh34
I’m from NOLA and I learned about Juneteenth in HS. I went to the oldest and only Historically Black public magnet high school in NOLA (it’s one of the few schools that survived Katrina) so Juneteenth & any other holiday was celebrating alot.
Anyway, checking in as a Michelle-Obot, I am really excited about FLOTUS trip to Africa next week with her mother, her nieces and the weeMichelles. If I had all the money in the world, I would go all out to visit Africa if I could!
Michelle Obama aiming to inspire African youth
lamh34
I’ve been busy today, but I just wanted to say Happy Father’s Day to all the biological dads but especially to the father’s of the heart. I know from first hand that the biologcal does not always make a good father. Some of the best father’s are the ones who come in after the “real” father and raises not the child of his body, but the child of his heart!!! Happy Father’s Day to those guys. Especially my Daddy Mr Christmas
stuckinred
Obviously this is not a sportsy crowd but Rory McIlroy is something to see.
Sly
@Lolis
SCOTUS has consistently held that the debate over war powers is a “political question,” or that they cannot make a final determination of a dispute between congress and the executive, and people who study ConLaw know this. It’s entry level stuff in law school.
So I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who claims that a specific action undertaken by the Presidency in its capacity to make war is “clearly” constitutional or unconstitutional. In fact, I generally think they’re full of shit. These are debates that have been going on since the the First Barbary War, during which Jefferson sent ships to Tripoli (irony noted) and didn’t get Congressional approval to do so for about a year. And the courts have avoided determining the constitutionality of such actions like the plague.
Congress won’t “reign in” executive war-making power because they’ve never done it before. All the War Powers Act did was codify into law the gentleman’s agreement that existed for nearly two centuries before it.
Oh, and as for Greenwald:
Looks like someone’s off the holiday card list.
burnspbesq
@ Lolis:
Any lawyer who disagrees with Greenwald is a disgrace to the profession and should be disbarred, tarred and feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Just ask him.
Who do you want to believe on the Libya issue: a former dean of Yale Law School and a former SG, or a third-rate lawyer turned fourth-rate polemicist?
Linda Featheringill
Speaking of slaves, I’ve just watched a biography of Robert E. Lee that actually turned out to be a military history of the Civil War.
I was struck by the number of men who seemed to be willing to die rather than admit that they might have been wrong.
A large part of what they were wrong about was clinging to slavery, of course, but most of the people doing the actual fighting had never owned slaves. They had never enjoyed the privileges of being members of the upper crust. Still, they felt obliged to defend the right of their leaders to never be wrong.
For example, a lot of people knew from before the war started that the North had more men, more guns, more provisions, and much better transportation than the South. But they never wanted to admit that. Lee finally admitted it after Gettysburg.
It seems that characteristic [I’m never wrong and if I am I won’t admit it] has been endemic for a long time.
stuckinred
burnspbesq
Trick question?
stuckinred
Linda Featheringill –
Sorta like Japan in WWII.
burnspbesq
@ ruemara:
I am feelin ya. I spent several Bejamins on a piece of software a couple of days ago, and I can’t get it to work. And tech support wants $90 to talk to me on the phone.
David
Pass the white bread and Big Red!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@henqiguai
Yes and no.
Nominally freed in 1862 is true, but it still took the issuance and pronouncement of General Order No. 3 by General Gordon Granger (the military governor of the Department of Texas, who’d only arrived at his hq in Galveston the day before) on June 19th 1865 to make it official. It took days or weeks for those further away to get the news.
stuckinred
burnspbesq
Apple Care
Linda Featheringill
kdaug #14
Not to my knowledge, but it would be interesting to see. We seem to have several experts in this or that plus several butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers who just happen to be smarter than the average bear.
Interesting group of people, yes?
Poopyman
Well, we’re finally home from NN11. Just flew in from MSP and boy are my arms tired! (Insert half-assed rimshot here.)
A few things about the Kos party and NN in general: I believe it’s a tradition from way back at the first Yearly Kos. Last night he briefly addressed the crowd, and his only command was “drink the place dry!” Which was met by a mighty roar. Did I mention the open bar?
As was mentioned, the place (naturally) was packed, and Mrs P and I had managed to secure a table upstairs early on, so we missed Kay. After Kos’ speech the music kicked in, so we headed downstairs and danced a bit, where I suddenly found myself dancing with Donna Edwards. Least I think it was her. Anyways, we eventually made our way through the crowd and escaped into the night, grabbing a passing pedicab and heading back to the hotel.
About that redhead. Don’t know who she was, but frankly guys, NN is chock full of hotties. I suspect Mrs P would say the same thing about the guys, but I’m no judge of that.
NN12 will be in Providence, RI the first week of June, for all you folks considering a trip. Next year I think we need to send TWO front-pagers. Kay did an excellent job, but frankly, it looks like an increased Balloon Juice presence is wanted by the crowd, so we must oblige.
Violet
@ stuckinred: Rory McIlroy is amazing. This is something to behold.
Another tech bleg: Is anyone using Chrome and having consistent problems with Shockwave Flash crashing and then the browser either seizing up completely or becoming slow as molasses, so essentially you have to reboot either way? It seems to be a problem, judging from what I’ve found online, but I can’t find any definite solutions. Anyone have this experience and find anything that works to fix it?
Linda Featheringill
stuckinred #24:
The unwillingness to admit being wrong:
Yes. Stubborn.
The program featured some really moving photographs taken during the war. Heartbreaking.
stuckinred
Linda
When it was amazing when OldHughManitee waled me through the process of taking apart and rebuilding the differential on my chevy truck.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Linda Featheringill
I just found out today that my great-great-great grandfather on dad’s maternal side, fought in the Civil War.
He was in the 17th Michigan (infantry) Regiment, known as the Stonewall Regiment, for their actions at a stone wall at the Battle of South Mountain- only a month after he enlisted- he was wounded a few days later at Antietam, furloughed for two months, went on to besiege Vicksburg and defend Knoxville, then back to the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to the end of the war.
My dad and uncles were really surprised to find this out…And even more surprised to find that a few generations further back that an ancestor had fought for the Continental Army during the Revolution.
stuckinred
I just bought my first iBook for my pad. It’s a new book about D-Day and it has incredible video embedded in the text and now I have to see if I can read 500+ pages on a screen.
burnspbesq
@stuckinred:
Would be good advice if it were Apple software. It’s Amarra Vinyl, by SonicStudio.
stuckinred
Andy K
I had relatives, the Figg’s of County Clare, who lived in Birmingham, AL. The father and one son fought for the confederacy and that son was killed at the Battle of Peachtree Creek. The other son fought for the Union.
stuckinred
burnspbesq
Well, that’s my point :)
burnspbesq
US didn’t look great, but got the job done, against Jamaica.
Mexico looked like mierda against Guatemala.
Honduras and the winner of Panama vs. El Salvador will feel like they have a real chance in the semifinals.
Also too, Women’s World Cup starts in about a week. Fear the Wombat!
burnspbesq
@ stuckinred:
There’s a really good piece of open-source software for digitizing records, called Audacity, but the sample rate tops out at 96. To go higher than that, you have to use either Amarra Vinyl or PureVinyl. I’ve tried PureVinyl, and the interface makes me nuts.
Sly
@Linda Featheringill
The part of that story that is really never told is that, after the war, many of the same people who fought and died on behalf of the planter class became incredibly pissed off at the planter class for pushing them into a war that they couldn’t win.
There was never a monolithic white South. There were always longstanding political and economic divisions between the planters and pretty much everyone else, and the Civil War exacerbated these divisions. No where moreso than in the Appalachian upcountry, where a whole lot of Southerners joined the Union effort and/or became part of Andrew Johnson’s constituency after the war. Hell, an entire state was created out of this conflict.
Which isn’t to say that these folks were anti-slavery. Most of them didn’t really care about the question of slavery. Some family farms even owned one or two slaves themselves. But what they did care about was being asked to go to war on behalf of a group of people that kept them under an iron boot for centuries. Those that did fight for the planters fell for the common culture ploy; a kind of Southern proto-nationalism echoed today by people who still refer to the Civil War as “The War of Northern Aggression” or “The War for Southern Independence.” Yes, those people still exist.
This is why I generally don’t like Civil War histories like the one produced by Ken Burns: they claim to be exhaustive but they really aren’t. They simplify a whole lot of complex subjects, just one of which is the very complex Southern (and Northern) political culture. To say nothing of the absolute crime of separating out Reconstruction when it is an integral part of the Civil War story.
ruemara
burnspbesq Let’s trade. You make the curtains, I’ll work on the software. To be fair, I’ve worked out the threading thing and now am in possession of curtains with the hugest hems I’ve ever seen. I am assuming the fault lies in the machine.
stuckinred
I use Audacity on occasion. I ordered a set of over-the-counter hearing aids Friday so, obviously, all this stuff about sample rate really doesn’t matter to me.
ps, dumb old me thought we were talking about the pc that was crashing.
13th Generation
Isn’t this ABL’s territory? Wait, it’s not a story about teh blacks being oppressed, so you’re good Doug.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@13th Generation
More like Dennis’ territory…But thanks for the
trollageconcern.burnspbesq
@ 13th generation:
News flash: blacks are still being oppressed in this country. Over the top seems to be ABL’s default state, but she’s got a valid point.
elisabeth
@ruemara I have a set of curtains of which one side is hanging upside down. It certainly isn’t my fault that the hem is on the wrong end. :)
Linda Featheringill
Max McGee [for however long]:
You ggg granddad saw a lot of heavy fighting. I don’t suppose he kept a journal or diary or anything?
Linda Featheringill
ruemara #42:
Sewing is an engineering task.
Linda Featheringill
elisabeth #47:
LOL! Been there, done that. I learned to make the hems on both ends of curtains the same size and to not seal the ends of any hem. Then when you hang them and need to flip one around, you can do so.
Most people who will see the curtains have no idea what size the hems are supposed to be, anyway.
MikeJ
violet @31: I did have trouble with flash crashing chrome but I had dev track updates. Went back to the release version and it was fine.
kdaug
Keeps me coming back.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Linda Featheringill
Well, my uncles got ahold of some letters he wrote, transcribed by some more distant cousins. Don’t know about a journal, though.
I think he might have seen more heavy fighting than he was actually involved in, though he was in the thick of it at South Mountain under Reno/Wilcox, and under Wilcox (on the right of Burnside’s line after crossing the bridge) at Antietam, probably wounded in the counter attack…And he wrote about demonstrating in front of Longstreet at Knoxville, under fire…But as far as the other battles, they may have been in reserve. I write this because I’ve seen Civil War regimental casualty numbers before, and the 17th Michigan’s weren’t extremely high- so I’m guessing that the regiment wasn’t assaulting the “Mule Shoe” at Spottsylvania CH, or in the attack waves that were mowed down at Cold Harbor.
Citizen_X
13th Generation @44:
It’s about black slavery, you fucking nimrod.
WaterGirl
@ stuckinred
Did you catch my reply to you the other night when I asked about your trip to C-U? I was wondering when you will be here.
Edit: on my way to swim, but will check for a reply when I return.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
appropos of nothing, better than hoof hearted
Ms. Tricky
Happy Juneteenth…
http://youtu.be/V26F0ztg0xg
geg6
And a very good Juneteenth to all and especially all the BJ fathers. And to my John, too. Bibb, tomato, and fresh mozzarella salad, veggies grilled in a foil packet with garlic, olive oil, butter, and white wine, roasted sweet corn, wild rice, and grilled yellowfin, finished with a blueberry pudding cake is his gift.
WaterGirl
@ geg6
Three things:
– what a nice father’s day gift!
– will you share your recipe for blueberry pudding cake?
I googled and there were about a million recipes for this, very different from one another!
d. john
Thank you for posting this!
It’s a shame many of us northerners aren’t aware of this holiday. at least in my neck of NW usa…