Daily Archives: 04 Jul 2015

Ted Nugent and Cruelty to Black Bears

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Ted Nugent With Dead Black BearI was over on No More Mister Nice Blog the other day, and I learned, Some of Ted Nugent’s Best Friends Are Illegal Bear-Penis Traffickers, Allegedly. It’s all about that strange little man and his hunting activities. The main thing involving Nugent dates back to 2009 when he was hunting black bears with a bow up in Alaska. But he apparently isn’t that good. He hit one, but it only wounded the bear, who ran away. Undeterred, Nugent found another bear four days later, which he shot and killed. This was illegal because once he wounded the first bear, his license was for that bear alone. He had no license to kill the second bear.

I’m not a vegetarian, so I certainly understand that animals die for the sake of my life. Still, I’ve always found “pleasure” hunting to be awful. Killing another animal shouldn’t be something one takes pleasure in. But it isn’t part of my culture and I don’t dismiss the practice altogether. I do, however, think that whatever thrill or joy one gets out of it should go along with a great deal of seriousness. To give you some idea of where I’m coming from, I will not swat a fly if I can’t get a clean hit. I don’t wish to be cruel to a house fly and I would hope that hunters would feel the same way about their quarry.

What Nugent seems to have done strikes me as especially vile. If you wound a black bear, you should move heaven and earth to track it down and end its suffering. I often wonder if house flies have the same connection to pain that I do. But there is no doubt that a black bear does. Now according to Nugent’s lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, the arrow just grazed the bear. He said, “They’ve got apparently some crazy law in Southeast that says if you even touch an animal with an arrow, it becomes your animal… [Nugent] looked to see if he had hit it and didn’t believe that he’d hit it fatally.”

So Nugent’s arrow just “grazed” the bear. They’ve got a law that if you “touch an animal” it’s yours. The lawyer goes on and on to indicate that it was nothing big. But there are problems. There was blood at the site. I assume the arrow was still in the bear because no mention was made of finding it, which would have been exculpatory. But there was no trail of blood, which might be a sign that the the bear was moving fast — you know, adrenaline and all. And Nugent and his “buddies” looked for the bear but didn’t find it. Ross’ conclusion: “The bear didn’t die.” My conclusion: Nugent and his “buddies” aren’t good trackers and they didn’t care enough to track the bear anyway.

The form of hunting that Ted “real man” Nugent takes part in is pathetic anyway. They set up a “bait station” and wait for the bears to come by and then kill them. Now I see this as totally reasonable for those people who are hunting out of need. But for the sport hunter, it doesn’t seem very sporting. It sounds to me like a bunch of guys just sitting around drinking beer waiting for animals to be prone and then blowing them away. It’s about as sporting as the buffalo shoot in Bless the Beasts and Children.

For Nugent, apparently, the whole incident is about the law. His lawyer claimed, “He only took one bear.” But it really should be about his incompetence causing a fellow mammal to suffer. All in the name of Ted Nugent feeling like a real man to make up for the fact that he refused to go to war when he had the chance. It’s just pathetic and horrible.

What to the Slave is Fourth of July?

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Frederick DouglassWhat, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! Had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

—Frederick Douglass
What to the Slave is 4th of July?

Paul Waldman Wants to Trick You Into Being an Informed Voter

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Paul WaldmanPaul Waldman wrote a useful little article over at The Week, How to Stay Abreast of 2016 Campaign Coverage Without Becoming an Idiot. It is presented as a list of ten rules that we all ought to follow, but there is cross over. It’s worth thinking about.

His first rule is, “It’s OK to care about the horse race, but it should be consumed in moderation.” It’s good advice, but a practical impossibility. Even I get dragged into it, and I really don’t much care about the horse race. The problem from my perspective is that horse race coverage focuses on the day to day race. And this is usually meaningless. Thinking back to the 1988 presidential election, most people think of a couple of bad Dukakis moments: his horrible response to the “What if Kitty were raped and murdered?” question, and the “tank ride” photo op. Also, there was the Willie Horton ad. But neither of these had anything to do with Dukakis’ defeat; the economic fundamentals were overwhelmingly in Bush’s favor. So Bush won. The rest was interesting, but irrelevant.

Waldman’s next two rules deal with exactly these issues: “Ignore all ‘gaffe’ coverage” and “Remember that not everything is consequential.” I’ve already seen this during the election so far. I understand that Hillary Clinton’s handling of her email while Secretary of State drives conservatives crazy. They think it plays into a wider narrative about her trustworthiness — or lack thereof. But no one cares. Unless it turns out that she confessed to killing Vince Foster in one of the email messages, it won’t mean a thing. Similarly, Jeb Bush’s behavior regarding Terri Schiavo makes him unfit for elected office, if you ask me. But no one cares.

The fourth rule is really important apart from the campaign, “Pay close attention to the candidates’ promises.” This goes along with his sixth rule, “Believe that candidates can be sincere.” This is something that constantly annoys me. I think of myself as a fairly cynical person. But my cynicism is not automatic and most definitely not casual. Too many people use cynicism to justify supporting people and policies they can’t otherwise justify. I run into this in arguments with conservatives all the time: when their arguments become untenable, they throw up their hands and announce, “Well, they’re all crooks!” No they aren’t. And I know that conservatives who say this will not then choose not to vote; they will continue to vote with their “guts” — and that means they will vote for the conservative. But I also see a lot of casual cynicism among liberals. This bothers me even more, because it does cause liberals to just not vote. It was the whole Tweedledum and Tweedledee narrative that brought us President George W Bush.

In addition to this, it is well established that presidents really do follow through on their campaign promises. People have a tendency to listen closely to campaigns but then tune out after the new president starts to work. So they assume the candidates didn’t even try to follow through. But they do. What’s more, they usually succeed with regard to many of their promises. So believe candidates when they make promises.

Four of Waldman’s rules are really just about paying attention what’s really going on in campaigns instead of the grand narratives that the media so love to create. He noted that changing positions are important in what they say about the changing parties — not anything about the candidates being unstable or “flip-floppers.” Judge the candidates’ private lives on how they would affect their presidencies. Pay attention to how candidates plan to affect their goals. With regard to this, Waldman noted, “If they’re saying they’ll amend the Constitution for some reason, don’t forget that actually, they won’t.” And above all, “Keep asking, ‘What does this mean for the next presidency?'”

But it is Waldman’s last rule that is the most important, “If your usual news sources suck, look around for some others.” I would put it differently, “Your usual news sources do suck!” That’s true of 99% of Americans. I recommend Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera America. The latter of these is especially good in being a network — but one that has a much greater focus on political substance than just about any other news network. Check our Reed Richardson’s article on the network, Can Al Jazeera America Save Cable News?

I think that Paul Waldman’s rules are very good. They can be boiled down to a single rule: stay focused on reality. But that makes the rules fundamentally liberal — in a modern American context. Because I really believe that all the Republican Party has to offer the people is an outlet for their fear and resentment. When a conservative tells me they take politics seriously, I know that the next thing out of their mouths will be some arcane subject only discussed deep in the bowels of conservative media: Solyndra or Benghazi or Jade Helm. On the right, being serious about politics means being a gnostic: having special knowledge that “they don’t want you to know about.” So obviously, Waldman is part of the liberal media conspiracy to get you to think about reality instead of the far more interesting “hidden reality.”

But just imagine if instead of new consumers following Waldman’s rules, the news providers did so. They won’t. That’s because news is a business. In a capitalism, businesses do whatever maximizes profits. So journalists live with great cognitive dissonance: they want to inform, but they know that they are paid to construct narratives and produce content to justify them. Doing better work would end with them working for less money, not more. So we can depend upon more coverage like we’ve gotten before: Al Gore exaggerates and George W Bush is a regular guy and Obama is an elitist and John McCain is a maverick. On a personal level, it really will help to follow Waldman’s rules. On a national level, it is business as usual. Yes: we are doomed.

Independence Day Isn’t a Conservative Thing

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1776 MusicalIt is the Fourth of July, and so all good Americans should sit down and watch 1776. There are two reasons for this. First, it is about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Second, it is a musical, and there really is no more American art form than the Broadway musical. Today is also a good day to watch The Music Man — but it is optional. The main thing about 1776 is that it is both accurate and completely deceptive. Well, I will grant that Benjamin Franklin was a charming fellow. But John Adams wanted to break with England so that he could set up an aristocracy here. Most all of them did.

But there is one story about 1776 that really explains America. The producer of the film, Jack Warner, was a friend of Richard Nixon’s. So after it was finished, Warner screened it for the president. And Nixon loved it. There was just one problem with it: “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.” It presents the men who were not so keen on independence as, well, conservative. The refrain is even, “To the right, ever to the right; never to the left, forever to the right.” So Warner had the number cut from the film, against the wishes of the director. He also told the studio to destroy the negative. But Warner was no longer president of Warner Bros, so his instructions were thankfully ignored.

What was cut was not just one of the more interesting songs in the film, it was a great number. It included an exchange between John Dickinson and John Hancock. Dickinson warns Hancock that history will brand people like him traitors. Hancock replies, “Traitors, Mr. Dickinson? To what? The British crown, or the British half-crown? Fortunately there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.” To which Dickinson responds with something that is as true today as ever, “Perhaps not. But don’t forget that most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us…” And the chorus starts singing, “To the right, forever to the right…” It’s wonderful.

Another aspect of it is as the song is ending, all the cool, considerate men make their ways out of the chamber to their carriages — going off to enjoy their rich propertied lives. There is something wonderfully arrogant about it. And McNair, the custodian of the Continental Congress, who was watching them go, reflects, “How’d you like to try and borrow a dollar from one of them?” Indeed.

I knew the musical originally from the film, but later, I listened to the original Broadway cast album, so I knew the song very well. But I never put it together and noticed that the number had been removed — much less the reason for it. And this was true of people who saw the film in the theaters and on VHS for decades. It was only in 2002, when the Restored Director’s Cut was released, that we got to see the scene — and much else — restored to the film. Now the original release seems hollow.

But think about the irony of the whole thing. The President of the United States, acting just like King George III would have, said, “Butcher this work of art, because it offends me.” And it was done. And it was done in the name of patriotism. That’s the way with things. Dickinson was right: those men would be remembered as traitors — by some people. The problem is not that today’s conservatives would have been against American independence. The problem is that conservatives delude themselves in thinking that they would have been backers of the revolution when they most clearly would not have been. It is the liberals who are always there pushing in new directions. Not the conservatives.

And that’s fine. We need conservatives to hold liberals back and keep us from moving ahead too quickly. But they should stop thinking that they ever would have been for long settled liberal policies of the past. It’s like Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, which shows no trace of the author ever having read Paine. They need to stop embarrassing themselves. William F Buckley Jr was right, “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop…” That’s what it means to be a conservative. They were the John Dickinsons and Edward Rutledges. When it comes to Independence Day, they are a bad guys. Conservatives need to embrace that.

Morning Music: James Brown

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It's a Man's Man's Man's WorldI was talking to my sister earlier and she brought up “that song about it being a man’s world.” Well, I found my morning music! You just can’t start a day better than with a little James Brown. And “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is one of the best. The lyrics of the song are about as sexist as can be, but it somehow isn’t surprising that they were written by Brown’s girlfriend at the time, Betty Jean Newsome. Nor is it surprising that on the original release of the song, only Brown got credit. No wonder the singer thinks that it is “man” who invented all those things in the song, it was because “man” forgot to give “woman” credit — just like always.

Still, it’s an unbelievably great song. I never listen to the lyrics anyway. Regardless, how ever the world is, “It wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.”

Anniversary Post: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

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Alice's Adventures in WonderlandOn this day in 1862, legend has it, Lewis Carroll rowed a boat up part of the River Thames with Robinson Duckworth and the three young Liddell girls, one of whom was ten year old Alice. And during that trip, he started telling the story that would be published three years later as, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t like the contrast: while Lewis Carroll was busy creating one of the most charming stories of all time, across the great big ocean, hundreds of thousands Americans were being killed because a small number of white men wanted to continue to own human beings.

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.

‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.

‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.

‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.

‘I didn’t know it was your table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’

‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’

‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.– I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.

‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.

‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.

‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least — at least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, you know.’

‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’

‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!’

‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’

‘It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’

‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

‘It was the best butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.

‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the best butter, you know.’

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’

‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your watch tell you what year it is?’

‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’

‘Which is just the case with mine,’ said the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said, as politely as she could.

‘The Dormouse is asleep again,’ said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, ‘Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.’

‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

‘No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘what’s the answer?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.

‘Nor I,’ said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something better with the time,’ she said, ‘than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’

‘If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.

‘Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. ‘I dare say you never even spoke to Time!’

‘Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.’

‘Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!’

(‘I only wish it was,’ the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

‘That would be grand, certainly,’ said Alice thoughtfully: ‘but then — I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.’

‘Not at first, perhaps,’ said the Hatter: ‘but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.’

‘Is that the way you manage?’ Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. ‘Not I!’ he replied. ‘We quarrelled last March — just before he went mad, you know–‘ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) ‘–it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!

You know the song, perhaps?’

‘I’ve heard something like it,’ said Alice.

‘It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, ‘in this way:–

“Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle–“‘

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle–‘ and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

‘Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,’ said the Hatter, ‘when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!”‘

‘How dreadfully savage!’ exclaimed Alice.

‘And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.’

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.’

‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.

‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’

‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.

‘Suppose we change the subject,’ the March Hare interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.

‘Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up, Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on both sides at once.

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I heard every word you fellows were saying.’

‘Tell us a story!’ said the March Hare.

‘Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.

‘And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.’

‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well–‘

‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’

‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘very ill.’

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

‘I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’

‘You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’

‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.

‘Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. ‘Why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-well.’

‘There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went ‘Sh! sh!’ and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.’

‘No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.’

‘One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. ‘And so these three little sisters — they were learning to draw, you know–‘

‘What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

‘Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.’

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?’

‘You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well — eh, stupid?’

‘But they were in the well,’ Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

‘Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘–well in.’

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.

‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things — everything that begins with an M–‘

‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.

‘Why not?’ said the March Hare.

Alice was silent.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘–that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness — you know you say things are “much of a muchness” — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?’

‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think–‘

‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

‘At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’

I can just hear the snarky reply, “Well at least they weren’t pedophiles!” But I think it is clear that Carroll was no such things. But it hardly matters. The work is what it is. And what it is, is great. So happy birthday to the beginning of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, even if it is just a legend!