Santa Claus: Origins

Hollywood, consistently bereft of original ideas, loves prequels and “origins” stories.  In the holiday spirit I’m offering my own prequel story:  Santa.

 30-something days after Easter, in an undisclosed, secure location in Jerusalem.  Jesus meets with the Apostles, alerting them that His remaining time is short and gives them instructions on how to proceed in His absence.  In particular, He orders them to go out and spread the Word, not merely in Israel but also Turkey, Greece, and the rest of the known world.  He promises them that in a few months they will receive further instructions.  With that, He dismisses them – all except one:  Nicolas.

 “For you,” He tells Nicolas, “I have a special assignment….” And proceeds to explain.

“For these past few months I have preached peace, love, and understanding.  My reward was to be nailed to a cross.  While I know that my Apostles will be well inspired with the Holy Spirit to spread my message far and wide, I am less confident that the message will be well received.  To ensure that it is, I have the following plan.

 “As you know, I was all about giving rather than receiving.  I took not so much as a single life, but gave my own.  To remind them of my message, and to encourage them to listen, understand, and follow it, I have decided that on my birthday, December 25, instead of receiving presents, I will give them, particularly to the children.  I want you, Nicolas, to deliver these presents to the children every year on my birthday.”

Nicolas listened intently and asked, “All children, my lord Jesus?  Even those who have not obeyed your commands?”

Jesus thought for a moment, and reconsidered.  “Perhaps not.  It would be wise for you to monitor which children have been good, and which have not, and reward the former and not the latter.  We do not wish to spoil them.  For those who have not, give them something unpleasant like coal.  Oh, and for children from Holland, have Black Peter take them to Spain.”

“Black Peter?  Is he a Nubian?”

“No, he’s like us, he just has black skin.”

“…and Spain?”

“Trust me, no Dutch child wants to go to Spain.”

 Nicolas took this in, and accepted the assignment.  “I will set up an operation at the North Pole, and raise an army of elves to make these presents.   We will be outside any kingdoms and not subject to any inconvenient laws or interference.”

“Excellent.  To deliver these presents, I would suggest a sleigh, driven by eight magic flying camels.”

“Camels, my lord Jesus?  If we are at the North Pole, I would recommend reindeer instead.  They tolerate extreme cold far more than camels do.”

“Reindeer do sound better.  I was right to trust you, Nicolas, you are very sharp.”

“Thank you, my lord Jesus.  I will need one more reindeer, with a big, red nose, to light the way.  We will be flying at night.”

“Yes, that’s good.  How long do you think it will take to get this endeavor up and running?”

Nicolas shrugged, stroked his white beard, and guessed, “About 1800 years should be enough.”

“Good, make it so.  Merry Christmas!”

Gilgamesh

I recently finished reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, as “interpreted” by Stephen Mitchell (Gilgamesh, A New English Version).  Mitchell cannot read the cuneiform, Sumerian, or Babylonian language and did not have access to the original tablets, so what he did was simply reinterpret what prior authors had done, resummarizing it in a more coherent and sensible fashion than the prior attempts.  The initial work, however, was most of the heavy lifting: the original tablets had been lost for thousands of years and only found in the 1800s by various archeologists digging around in what we now know of as Iraq.  The original scholars had to decipher a dead language in a unique alphabet with no one around to help them out.  Eventually they put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out what we could consider the “epic” of Gilgamesh, a fictional hero dating back 5,000 years ago or more.  Parts of it, concerning a great flood, coincide with parts of the Old Testament of the Bible.

 Gilgamesh was the ruler of Uruk, a large city southeast of Babylon and northwest of Ur.  The cities of this area and of modern Iraq follow the so-called “fertile crescent” of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.   

 “It’s Good to Be The King”.  Apparently Gilgamesh’s leadership style was heavy handed and unpopular.  Among the most objectionable of his policies was assertion of the right to take the virginity of new brides.  As we know, it was only relatively recently that even modern, industrial Western societies abandoned the presumption of virginity at marriage.  Presumably this was the case in Iraq 5,000 years ago.  Gilgamesh demanded – and received – the prerogative to be first to bed the bride; the groom had to wait patiently while the King nailed his wife.

  I’ve never been married, but from what I can tell, grooms are as likely to be nervous on their wedding nights as brides.  Any groom less than 100% confident in his abilities as a lover will probably appreciate a virgin bride who has no basis for unfavorable comparison.  This is completely negated by having your new bride get nailed by none other than the Hero King Stud, Gilgamesh himself.  How can you follow that?  So I suspect it was the grooms of Uruk who were more upset with this policy than the brides.

 The unhappy citizens of Uruk pleaded with the gods to send them some relief from this terrible man upsetting their wedding plans.  The gods sent a somewhat unfinished product, Enkidu. 

Enkidu is described as a virtual duplicate of Gilgamesh, though a bit shorter.  He starts off as a wild man living in the wilderness, running around with animals, naked, unclothed, “raised by wolves” so to speak.  In this condition he’s not particularly suited to his job of fixing the Uruk problem.

 Ishtar & Shamhat.  The temple of Ishtar was run on a very interesting basis.  The priestesses, far from being celibate nuns, were in fact sacred prostitutes who supported the cult by sleeping with the congregation or the general public for a fee.  Presumably this was considerably more effective (and popular) than bake sales or raffles.  One of the priestesses, Shamhat (there’s a feminine name) is assigned the task of civilizing Enkidu.

 She approaches Enkidu, strips naked, and begins masturbating in front of him.  This gets his full attention, and he proceeds to “get the idea” for the next full week.  After this marathon lovemaking session (apparently making up for 20-something years of abstinence in the wild) Shamhat shaves him, dresses him in elegant clothing, and feeds him “people food” (including a good amount of beer, which he likes).  At this point he is “civilized” and the animals no longer recognize him as their buddy – similar to the bachelor hooking up and alienating all his single buddies. 

Bromance.  Enkidu enters Uruk, and right away there is trouble.  Sure enough, he and Gilgamesh fight, with destruction following around them – I’m imagining that commercial where the robots fight and smash up the guy’s apartment while he casually and indifferently moves from room to room and cooks and eats his bachelor food.  Finally Gilgamesh prevails, but only after Enkidu had put up a big fight.  They emerge from the ruckus as best friends…maybe a bit more than that (Mitchell’s footnotes observe that the tablets imply a romantic relationship exists between the pair).

 Humbaba.  For some reason Gilgamesh gets it into his head to go west to the forests of Lebanon to defeat a mighty volcano monster called Humbaba.  The elders of Uruk, and Enkidu, think this is a really bad idea and try to dissuade him, with no success.  He goes off west, and persuades Enkidu to follow along.  Having done so, now he starts having second thoughts – a series of terrifying nightmares – and it’s up to Enkidu to change his mind and interpret the dreams with a very counterintuitive and implausible but positive spin (maybe Enkidu should have been a lawyer). 

 They meet Humbaba, who is just as fearsome and powerful as they feared, but somehow they are able to reduce him to begging for mercy.  While Gilgamesh is inclined to spare his life, Enkidu persuades him to finish off Humbaba.  This earns him a curse from the gods, whose “plan” apparently was for Gilgamesh to defeat, but not kill, Humbaba.  Enkidu comes down with a nasty, mysterious illness which strikes him down in the prime of life.  This stuns and demoralizes Gilgamesh (see below).

 Ishtar & the Bull.  When they return to Uruk, the love & war goddess herself, Ishtar, courts Gilgamesh.  But Gilgamesh is not impressed, and he rebuffs her advances with zero tact or discretion.  Basically his argument is: every lover you take, you eventually grow tired of and dispose of in a particularly nasty fashion.  You sent one of your ex-BF’s to Hell.  Thanks, but I’m not interested in winding up like they did.  Incensed, as you can imagine, Ishtar gets the gods to send her a Bull to fight Gilgamesh to punish him for his arrogance, but Gilgamesh kills the Bull and laughs in her face. 

 Enkidu Dies.  As noted, Enkidu suffers a disease which weakens and kills him; despite having faced down Humbaba and the Bull, Gilgamesh is powerless to save his friend from this threat, and loses him.  When his prayers and grief fail to save Enkidu or resurrect his cold, inert, lifeless body, Gilgamesh soon realizes the same fate ultimately awaits him someday.  He becomes obsessed with learning the secret to immortality.

 Upnaptishim.  Gilgamesh seeks out the sole mortal to have gained immortality, Upnaptishim.  Here is the Bible angle:  Upnaptishim is the epic’s equivalent of Noah, who survived a mighty flood by building a huge ark and filling it with pairs of animals.  Ultimately this man tells Gilgamesh, “I’m sorry, but one day you will die.  Everyone dies.  It’s part of life.  I can’t fix that or give you immortality, no one can.  All I can tell you is to enjoy life as much as you can, while you can.”  End of story.

You Deserve It (?)

Recently I started watching a new game show on ABC called “You Deserve It”.  It’s a quiz show and its “gimmick” is that the contestant is playing not to win money for himself or herself, but for some special person who “deserves” the winnings.  Supposedly the intended beneficiary is left in the dark about this until the end of the show, at which point the “prize crew” surprises the person with the good news. 

 All well and fine, right?  Not exactly.

First of all, is the actual premise.  So far as I’ve seen the beneficiaries tend to be very close family members of the contestant.  I don’t know about you, but if my brother won me $200,000.00 on a game show, you can bet I’d be splitting it with him big time, probably 50/50.  These are not estranged relatives we’re talking about.  If they’re good enough to deserve this money, they’re good enough to share it with the person who actually won it for them.

 Second is the quiz system.  Like on “Wheel of Fortune”, the “answer” is a person, place, or thing, which the contestants have to guess. They get a “free clue” (which is so vague as to be meaningless) then have to “buy” 9 extra clues.  Each clue results in the prize money being reduced by a (supposedly) random amount.  Clearly the less clues you need to solve the puzzle, the more money your friend will wind up with.  The 9 clues together add up to the full prize amount, so if you were dumb enough to require all 9 clues you’d wind up with nothing.  Even 7-8 clues tend to reduce the prize amount considerably.

 One problem is that the clues are obviously very vague and many are mutually inconsistent.  You’re going to need at least 5-6 clues to get the answer.  And along the way the prize money will go down.  From what I’ve seen, in every case the maximum reduction amount always gets hit.  Not right away, but it will.  I strongly suspect it’s rigged that this amount will be hit by the 3^rd or 4^th clue every time.  Someone should keep track (next time I’m watching, I will).

 Another problem is the clues themselves.  One was outright misleading.  When the “answer” was “Barack Obama”, one clue was “basketball player” and another was “44”.  The poor contestant was racking her brain about professional basketball players, and she knew she didn’t know any who wore #44.  Does Obama play basketball?  I’m sure he does every now and then.  So does about half the country.  But to my knowledge he’s never played for the NBA, which was clearly what the game designers intended to be implied by the clue: they knew the contestant would assume “basketball player” meant “professional basketball player”.  Of course, no one believes Obama played for the NBA.  So here’s a clue which not only doesn’t help us guess Barack Obama, but which steers us AWAY from him.  And clearly the “44” clue, possibly helpful on its own, in conjunction with “basketball player” would combine in the contestant’s mind to mean “professional basketball player who wears #44”.  Clearly the game designers were aware of this.  This poor girl had to buy more clues just to offset the damage done by these two.  If a clue hurts your chances of guessing the correct answer, that’s not much of a clue, is it? 

 I would have hoped that the days of rigged TV game shows were long gone, but apparently they’re still very much alive and well.

More Obscure Bands

I suppose Hawkwind and Wishbone Ash count here, but I’ve already mentioned them.  Here’s another few groups worth checking out by anyone who considers themselves a “rock fan”.

 Be Bop Deluxe.  The main character is Bill Nelson, and their most famous album is Sunburst Finish.  This was a British pop band from the 70s, from 1972-79.   The music is standard issue rock from that era, not particularly special or original, but certainly competent and well-made.  Nelson’s guitar work is excellent, and salvages what might otherwise be standard issue 70s pop into something more substantial and worthwhile.  “Ships in the Night” has a reggae feel very similar to the Scorpions’ “Is There Anybody There” from Lovedrive.

 Max Webster.  A Canadian pop band.  The main character: Kim Mitchell.  They used to open up for Rush in the late 70s, but have since broken up; they were active from 1973-81.  Kim Mitchell is still on the radio in Canada.  I have their first two albums, the self-titled debut and High Class in Borrowed Shoes.  MW are somewhat more commercial, a bit like Blue Oyster Cult, even with some quirkiness thrown into the mix (e.g. “Toronto Tontos”).  Mitchell, as with so many commercial guitarists, knows exactly how much bad-ass guitar to throw into the mix to keep it from being just “banal and insipid” garbage.  

 The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.  My buddy Dave described them as “AC/DC with keyboards”, but to me the sound is like a heavier, rock-oriented vaudeville show.  Their top song is “The Faith Healer”.  Alex Harvey himself had a kind of Beano look to him, with striped t-shirts, and his voice is practically identical to early Bon Scott (e.g. “Big Balls”); it’s hard not to suspect that Scott was ripping off Harvey for his vocal style, at least early on.  Guitarist Zal Cleminson dressed in clown makeup, but aside from looking incredibly gay (in both senses of the word) is actually damn good.

 Argent.  Aside from this band, keyboardist Rod Argent is best known for the band the Zombies, whose hit “Time of the Season” was actually released after the band had already broken up.  They’ve since reformed, with Argent, and of course play that song on their reunion tour.  Argent himself teamed up with guitarist Russ Ballard to make several albums of pop-prog-rock.  Argent’s material reminds me of that bizarre candy Willy Wonka invented, the one which changes to completely different flavors.  At one point I’m hearing King Crimson, then Uriah Heep, then Jethro Tull, and some Deep Purple (actually Uriah Heep in more recent years have been accused of sounding more like classic Deep Purple than Purple themselves do these days – Heep Purple?).  They are all over the place.  KISS covered “God Gave Rock’n’Roll To You”, but their original hit was “Hold Your Head Up”.   I purchased a 5-pack of their albums Argent, Ring of Hands, All Together Now, In Deep, and Nexus.  All of them have atrocious album covers.

 Budgie.  I separate this Welsh 70’s-80’s band in to three phases.  First they were very close to being Black Sabbath clones on the first four albums: Budgie, Squawk, Never Turn Your Back On A Friend, and In For The Kill.  By the fifth album, they had loosened up a bit with some more jazzy, even bossa nova feel:  Bandolier, If I Were Britannia I’d Waive the Rules, and Impeckable.  Unfortunately, Bourge quit, and was replaced by John Thomas, right in time (1980) for Budgie to emulate Saxon and Y&T for their NWOBHM eras; these three albums are Power Supply, Night Flight, and Deliver Us From Evil.  They broke up, and eventually reformed around original bassist/singer Burke Shelley.   No mention of Budgie is complete without a reference to Metallica, who covered “Breadfan” as a single (the b-side to “Eye of the Beholder”) and “Crash Course in Brain Surgery” on the Garage Days Re-Revisited EP.   While both songs are good, “Zoom Club” (from In For The Kill) is probably their best song.   Budgie share the tendency of Frank Zappa and Blue Oyster Cult of having extremely odd song titles: “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman”, “Napoleon Bona Part I & II”, “Hot As A Docker’s Armpit”, “Panzer Division Destroyed”, “If I Were Britannia I’d Waive the Rules”, etc.  

Spanish-American War

Time for another round of “obscure wars no one cares about!” (except maybe Cubans, Filipinos or Puerto Ricans). This week:  the Spanish-American War of 1898.  Just as the Russo-Japanese War (1905) was Japan’s opportunity to defeat a European country (Tsarist Russia), this was America’s chance to knock down on Spain, which had by then deteriorated into just another half-assed European country with a bunch of overseas colonies it could no longer adequately protect.  Instead of fighting at home in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, or out on the Plains against Indians (American type, not 7-11) the US was off to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and far off in the Pacific to the Philippines.

 Cuba.  The Spanish had been having problems with a native Cuban insurgency (the Army of Liberation) in the late 1800s.  By 1895 another one had erupted.  Popular sentiment in the US supported the insurgency.   Before Che Guevara (who was Argentinian, by the way), the popular hero of Cuba was Maximo Gomez, a general in the Army of Liberation.

            On February 15, 1898, the US battleship Maine, (built to compete with Brazil’s dreadnought the Riachuelo, which had scared the hell out of the Americans) anchored in Havana harbor, mysteriously exploded and sank.  Although no one knows who was responsible, the Spanish were blamed anyway.  By April 25, the US had declared war on Spain.

            As was so often the case with US getting into wars, the standing peacetime army was far too small, and a volunteer army had to be raised and trained from scratch.  The volunteers camped at Camp Alger, which was actually close by to where my office is now:  Route 50 west of Graham Road in northern Virginia. 

            On June 22, US forces landed in southeast Cuba near Santiago.  The harbor defenses were too strong to directly defeat, so a prolonged siege from both land and sea was what ultimately broke the Spanish.  The US fleet blockaded the Spanish fleet at Santiago, while various land forces, including Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, took on the Spanish forces on the mainland; by July 1, San Juan Hill was in US hands.  This completed the land-side siege of Santiago.  An attempt by the Spanish fleet to break out was unsuccessful.  On July 17 the garrison surrendered, which ended the war in Cuba.

 The Rough Riders.  Officially known as the 1^st US Volunteer Cavalry, led by Theodore Roosevelt.  Their uniform was a blue flannel shirt, slouch hat, bandana, and leggings; they used the Krag-Jorgensen bolt-action rifle, .30-40 caliber.  The Rough Riders attracted an amazing variety of adventurous characters:  American Indians, cowboys, athletes, anyone with some military experience (Civil War or Indian War) or horseriding skill, almost an American version of the French Foreign Legion.

 Puerto Rico.  US troops landed on July 25.  By August 13 the Spanish had surrendered.

 The Philippines.  As with Cuba, there was a native insurgency in the Philippines, the major player being Emilio Aguinaldo.  When the US entered war with Spain, Aguinaldo, who had been in exile in Hong Kong after the last rebellion, negotiated his return to the Philippines.  As with Cuba, the war against Spain in this area had a naval and land aspect.  On sea, Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1.  On June 30, US troops debarked at Cavite; by August 13, the Spanish had surrendered.

            But this didn’t end the hostilities.  The Filipino insurgents, who had been expecting full independence in exchange for assisting the US invasion (liberation?) were shocked and disappointed when the end of the war simply transferred ownership from Spain to the US.  Then began an “insurgency” which lasted far longer than the original war; the locals put up a much tougher fight than the Spanish had.  The “official” end was declared in April 1902, but sporadic clashes with primitive Muslim Moro tribes continued on until the 1920s.  The US finally granted the Philippines independence on July 4, 1946.  Aguinaldo himself lived until 1964, age 94.

 Uniforms and equipment.  This was about the time the Navy switched from the older “Donald Duck” hat for sailors to the current Dixie Cup variety.  For its part, the Army was switching over from dark blue (since the Civil War) to khaki, a completely different color far better suited to the realities of modern warfare, and in much lighter, more comfortable materials.  The latter was important as for the first time US soldiers were fighting in tropical conditions different than experienced at home in the United States. 

            Spanish soldiers typically wore a cotton tropical uniform, called rayadillo, in white with narrow blue vertical stripes.  To modern eyes – or at least mine – they look like pajamas.  Their rifle was the 1893 Spanish Mauser (7mm Mauser), which was actually superior to the US rifles, both the obsolete trapdoor Springfields (.45-70, single shot) and the Krags.  It was the success of this rifle which led the US to adopt the Mauser bolt action system on the 1903 Springfield.  Another popular rifle was the Remington rolling block, typically in 11mm (.43) as used by the Spanish.     

Cookie Monster

I had mentioned this earlier in my Thrash Metal blog, but it was brought home to me again after listening to a band called Baroness, their so-called Blue Album.  The music itself was excellent, yet it was completely marred by the atrocious singing, if you can even call it that.  Yet again, Cookie Monster showed up to sing. (Fortunately for this band, their recent Yellow/Green double album dials down the Cookie Monster considerably).

 Mastodon is a similar band with excellent music and terrible vocals.  Opeth has finally released a non-prog, regular album, Heritage, with no such vocals on it, and with the addition of songs from that album the live set has finally pushed the CM variety into the minority.   We can expect one song from Damnation, not the whole album, but at least the rest of the set is no longer mostly growls.  Which is even more peculiar, because Mikael Akerfeldt, the singer, actually has a damn good singing voice.

 Look at the Big Four of Thrash, finally playing together.  Of these, only Tom Araya (Slayer) has a gravelly voice; we can probably blame him for this trend.  “If he can get away with it, why can’t all these other idiots with zero singing ability?”  James Hetfield (Metallica) has the best of the four: a nasty biting, rasp which is still intelligible.  Dave Mustaine’s (Megadeth) voice is almost identical, full of venom and contempt but still recognizable.  And Joey Belladonna (Anthrax) can belt it – no subtitles needed. 

 I predict two things: (1) bands like Opeth will continue to sell more records and be more successful so long as the singer actually sings, and (2) the hardcore deathcore yahoos will sneer “sell-out” when a band moves out of the Cookie Monster box, a demographic which could fit into a small room, into the demographic of “normal, intelligent people” who prefer to hear real singing – you know, like Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson.  Welcome to the real world at last.

The Twentieth Century

If nostalgia is looking wistfully at the past, the opposite is looking towards the future, although not necessarily wistfully – i.e. science fiction.  We’ve all heard of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, the most famous late 19^th century science fiction writers.  Here’s a new entry:  Albert Robida, author of The Twentieth Century, which has only recently been translated into English (from French).  This is Robida’s depiction, from the point of view of 1882, of what France (and the world) will look like in 1952.  Robida not only wrote the book, he also illustrated it.  I found it…fascinating (arching single eyebrow).

 Telephonoscopes.   This is one thing which Robida got close:  video phones.  Voice, picture, music all come over the transmission lines – even full performances of operas and concerts.  Of course, these modern versions are interspersed with all sorts of modern adaptations to wake up the audience and keep it relevant and not boring.  Almost without exception, all of Robida’s 1950 technology was in existence, in some form, in 1882.  Even Edgar Rice Burroughs came up with technology which was nonexistent at his time – through the sheer imagination of simply making it up with no explanation as to how it worked.  Step by step….

 Style.  Indistinguishable from the late 19^th century, and completely different from what actually wound up in 1952.  I suppose the steampunk people might find it curious.  Heinlein, in For Us, The Living, at least predicted that in the 21^st century nudity taboos would be gone and we could wear anything at all – or nothing at all.  Ahead of his time, alas!

 Catering.  Food, wine, soup – all delivered to your home from a central plant by means of pipes!  Turn the faucet, and your dinner emerges!  Voila!  It’s so simple.  Well, there are still some bugs.  Two wealthy men, comparing each other’s catering companies:

            Ponto:  “…not to mention the steam choppers for vegetables, or the power hammer to mash potatoes…”

            Gontran: “Let me stop you right there with your power hammer.  This is precisely one of the reasons why I did not become a subscriber to your Great Company.  Surely, you remember that cook who was pureed along with this vegetables by that power hammer of yours.”

            Ponto:  “I do indeed, but that was a suicide.”

            Gontran: “Granted, it was, but the incident was not discovered until after dinner.  Your subscribers had the cook for supper!”

 Journalists.  L’Epoque is the top newspaper in France, delivered daily by telephonoscope to its subscribers.   The “defamation”/”corrections” department works by having aggrieved parties challenge the responsible journalist to a duel – the winner’s position prevails.  L’Epoque has a fencing instructor and weapons master on retainer to train its writers.

 Travel.  Not a single airplane!  Ground-based travel is a series of electro-pneumatic high speed tubes (an underground TGV), whereas air-based travel is through rapidly accelerating balloons: privately operated airships, intra city transport, and even intercontinental traffic.  The means of acceleration is not explained, but the balloons themselves, particularly the smaller ones for individual craft, are often fish-shaped.  Much of Paris is built up into the air for docking with airships, and almost 100% of this upward docking is festooned with advertisements of all types (similar to the opening credits of “Futurama”).  Italy, by the way, has successfully been converted into a theme park – the entire country.   A transatlantic tunnel is being built between America and Europe.

 Prison.  The enlightened criminologists of 1952 decided to coddle inmates in luxurious garden parks hoping to rehabilitate them with kindness and compassion.  The results?  A mixture of Alex’s smarmy, insincere promises of remorse (“A Clockwork Orange”) and the Daumier thief stealing from his own attorney.  

 Decennial Revolutions.  France has reached the point of institutionalizing revolution:  every ten years the government automatically changes amidst faux revolutionary festivities: muskets with blanks, a barricade competition (you can’t have a revolution without barricades, can you?), and all the pomp and glory of the revolutions of old with none of the unpleasantness or bloodshed. 

            Women have complete equality in all professions, and there is even a very powerful Feminist Party and a Ladies’ Stock Exchange. In fact, female attorneys are particularly well esteemed, particularly for criminal law, as their emotions are considered apt for provoking similar responses, eliciting sympathy for criminal defendants.

            Politicians are accompanied at all times by monitors, who are simply ordinary citizens charged with the responsibility of babysitting their elected representatives to make sure no illegal, unethical, or immoral activity occurs.

 America Divided, Mormon England.   Similar to The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick): west coast US is taken over by China, the capital being San Francisco, aka New Nanking, the east coast is a German America (with the original Deutschland becoming the colony), capital New Berlin (New York City) and the rest of America squeezed into the middle.   The American Indians have all adopted modern clothing and have completely phased into 1950s style; their civilization is modern and thriving (no mention of casinos, though).  The Japanese, too, have completely adopted Western dress and culture to the exclusion of their own.

            The Mormons, for their part, left en masse for England, which they took over from the English, who for their part had all left for India.  But polygamy is so rife in England now, that bachelors visiting the country are in danger of forced into marriages or thrown in prison.

            Robida correctly predicted a civil war in China in the 1940s, but missed the boat on fascism and communism.

 Robida injects a heavy dose of humor to the mix, which makes the book that much more enjoyable; fortunately it had annotations, as much of the text refers to matters more familiar to late 19^th century readers than myself.  Technologically, he isn’t really visionary; his virtues lie more in politics and society, extrapolating from what he perceived to be late 19^th century trends.