A Battle, a Monument, and a Bridge.

It's Bunker Hill Day! Most of us have retained some glancing acquaintance with the more notable episodes of the American Revolution from our school days. Except a certain lady visitor to Boston who ran into a spot of bother even after a refresher course on the Freedom Trail. But oh well, not everyone can be facty and she made up for her gaffes by leaving quickly.

There was a parade, held the Sunday before as (a newish) tradition dictates, that ended at the Bunker Hill Monument. And the Monument is where our story begins.

There almost wasn't one. It turns out revolutions are pricey things. Ours was no exception. The Continental Congress began to print its own money starting with plates engraved by that very same gentleman engraver who managed not only to get captured by the British, but to lose his borrowed horse on his famous ride. A better rider was Sybil Ludington who went twice as far at half his age and managed to keep her horse.

The Continentals were printed on the same presses that spread the news of the Revolution by some well-known inkers and some we have forgotten. The British promptly enlisted the help of counterfeiters and managed to ruin the upstart economy which was admittedly stressed already by debt and lack of revenue. Start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

So the founding fathers took off their tricorns and went begging. They had a particularly generous benefactor in Haym Solomon. So generous was he that he died penniless after fighting as a Patriot, being captured twice, and surviving torture because the government couldn't pay off its loans. Or he may have been involved in market speculation. His wife, née Rachel Franks, came from one of the most prominent Jewish families of the Revolution, the Levys. It was her uncle, Nathan Levy, who started the Mickveh Israel in Philadelphia, home to Jewish Patriots fleeing British occupation. The Hazan was Gershom Mendes Seixas of the equally important Seixas family. It was in response to his brother, Moses Seixas, that President Washington wrote the moving letter To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport:


For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.


And now we come full circle, for it was Judah Touro, son of Touro Synagogue's Hazan, whose donation of $10,000 allowed for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. 

Copyright Andy Ryan

This history is largely unknown to the residents of Charlestown who live near Breed's Hill, the actual site of the monument. Their ignorance was hardly noteworthy until news broke that the bridge that connects their town to Boston was to be named after not just the monument but a local Jewish civil rights activist, Lenny Zakim. A small group of Townies opposed the decision to honor this incredible man and did so with rhetoric unworthy of the legacy of those who died for freedom on that day. But, to paraphrase our first president,

Happily, the Government of Boston gave to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

A great way to celebrate our Jewish Patriots after touring Beantown, is to head over to Zaftigs Deli in Brookline. The hot corned beef sandwich is a delicious nod to two of the heritages that helped shape this country. 

Update

OH YOU STUPID IDIOT!

A High-Tech Schmear

What's a guy named Weiner to do? Mostly rise above the pokes and jokes and try not to erupt when things come to a head.


But what do you do when several determined forces align to actually try to take you down? Especially when the normal arbiters of what stories have legs and will lead have lost any sense of professionalism? And have decided to follow the absolute lowest scum to call itself a journalist since Pulitzer and Hearst sold their souls for a penny a paper? It turns out taking the high road doesn't always work.


On Friday night, a seemingly deeply-disturbed individual who had been obsessed with Rep. Anthony Weiner for quite some time, tweeted that he had evidence that the member of Congress had sent a picture of his member to a young woman follower via Twitter.


To whom did he release this screenshot of the tumescent tweet? Why to said aforementioned scum. Said scum began an assault to lower the Member's standing in the eyes of the public that ought to have fizzled prematurely over a long holiday weekend, but oddly, it just got bigger.


Instead of practicing their craft, the pillars of the Fourth Estate braced themselves and dove right in.

Pundits like Alexandra Petri on WaPo had no qualms about describing some of the women who were following Weiner as "nubile out-of-state houris" as though all young women are breathless Monica Lewinskys hoping for the chance to service a powerful pervert. Even NPR, whom Weiner had forcefully defended against defunding, succumbed to the salacious. Did no one have the common sense to question this story from its dubious origins to its despicable mouthpiece?


Actually, some people did. As seems to be the case more and more often, MSM with all of its resources, experience, and access finds itself getting shamed by handfuls of people with laptops and questions. Firedoglake did this during the Scooter Libby trial. CAAFlog caught a major error in the SCOTUS ruling Kennedy v. Louisiana. Tiger Woods, etc. etc.


Add to that growing list of important impotence, the case of Weiner's wiener. When the Representative of New York's 9th District said he had been hacked, the basic questions of who, what, how, why, where, and when were not asked by those who get paid to ask them, but by bloggers. The most likely answers came from Cannonfire.


I was on Fark when someone linked to the Cannonfire post. Several of us thought the work that Joseph and milowent had done was pretty damn convincing, so we tried it ourselves. In fact, we hacked my Twitter. We got pretty much the same results. Without getting too technical, I'll just say that the only way we could get an image that looked like the screen shot of the one supposedly sent by the Member of his member, was if it was sent by someone else to my yfrog account:

NO URL information.

With URL information.
The URL did not show up until after the image had posted to my Twitter feed. So whoever took the screen shot off Weiner's yfrog account knew it was there before it was published. In other words, they put it there.


To give credit where credit is due, Rachel Maddow did a fine segment last night on how a hack would be possible. They seem to have missed the implications of the URLess image, but I'm sure that will get out soon.
Update: Another account of the Fark hack can be found here with a better technical description of what we did.


How does one recover after a long day of being an e-dick? With a bagel and lox from So's Your Mom. The closest I can get to a NY deli.