SECOND GREAT FIRE OF LONDON: The night of December 29, 1940 was the worst night of blitz. More than 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped over London. Fires—1500 of them—burned all over town.

That night London lost 160 of its citizens, 31 of its guild halls, 19 of its churches, and much more. But, thanks to the heroic efforts of its fire fighters, it did not lose St. Paul’s Cathedral.

X-RAY VISION: On this day in 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen (1845-1923), a mechanical engineer and physicist, published “On a New Kind of Rays.” His Röntgen rays (X-rays) allowed doctors to see things that previously were hidden, changing the way medical conditions are detected and diagnosed forever.

For weeks prior to the publication, he had been working feverishly in his lab. The first “X-ray” of a human body part was of his wife Anna’s hand. When she saw the macabre image, she is said to have shuddered, “I have seen my death!” (No worries.  She lived another 24 years before dying in 1919 at the age of 80.)

Experimenting with X-rays became fashionable in the years immediately after Röntgen’s discovery. It took a while before it became clear X-rays could be lethal. One of Thomas Edison’s assistants, Clarence Dally, was an early casualty. In the long run, of course, X-rays have extended far more lives than they have shortened.

Röntgen received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery.

NEW REPORT OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS:  Last Thursday, the Commission released a report entitled “Broken Promises:  Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for Native Americans.”  As the title suggests, its main theme is that Native American tribes should receive more money.

Both Commissioner Peter Kirsanow and I dissented.  My dissent deals mainly with the Commission’s strange insertion of an endorsement of the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act in the report.  The Commission had taken no evidence on the issue.  As far as anyone can tell, the six-member majority just threw the endorsement in for the pure hell of it.  Kirsanow’s dissent (which can be found in the report) makes the point that throwing more money at tribal entities hasn’t done much to solve the problems of Native Americans in the past, and it really isn’t likely to do so in the future.

LOUIS PASTEUR WAS BORN THIS DAY IN 1822: He was popularly known as the “father of micro-biology.” Among other things, he developed the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He also developed the process used for stopping bacterial contamination in wine, milk and beer known as … wait for it … pasteurization.

THANK YOU, JEFF SESSIONS:  He was right to curtail Obama-Era efforts to control local police departments through consent orders.

THE ART OF THE LEGISLATIVE DEAL: Here is an explanation of how the compromise involved in passing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 was itself compromised. The Democrats wanted a law that would allow easy registration. The Republicans wanted a law that would require states to keep their voting rolls clean and up to date. They both thought they had gotten what they asked for. But a deal like that unravels when the Department of Justices works a lot harder to enforce one part of the deal than it does the other.

Nobody likes to be a chump.  Unraveled deals have the effect of making future legislative deals harder to make. Legislatures become ineffective.

MAO ZEDONG WAS BORN 125 YEARS AGO TODAY: Of course, as an earnest member of the Instateam, I should try to be fair and balanced in my evaluation of the late Chinese leader. So let me give you both the pros and the cons:

First the CONs:

1. Tens of millions of deaths can be attributed to his murderous regime. Really … tens of millions … from the executions of counter-revolutionaries in the period directly after the regime’s acquisition of power to the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution. Whether one credits the high estimates or the low ones, it was human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale.
2. Mao’s personal physician reports that Mao never bathed or even washed his face or hands. He never brushed his teeth, which were covered in a green patina. And his breath … yikes.
3. According to that same physician, Mao, green teeth and all, was a horny goat who took hundreds of young women to his bed over the years. And he apparently gave a number of these women a nasty dose of trichomoniasis. When offered antibiotics to cure him and hence prevent him from infecting more women, he declined, since he himself (like many men) was symptomless.  Trichomoniasis was their problem.

And now the PROs:

1. He is said to have had a talent for calligraphy.

I will let you draw your own conclusions.

A FRIEND ASKED ME WHY I HAVEN’T POSTED ANYTHING YET ON LAST FRIDAY’S ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION THAT IT IS RESCINDING THE NOTORIOUS OBAMA-ERA SCHOOL DISCIPLINE GUIDANCE: Well … I meant to. But I wanted first to take a moment or two to celebrate.

I suspect many teachers and principals are celebrating too. Polls showed the guidance, which applied disparate impact liability to school discipline, was unpopular with teachers.  Rescinding it will make their classrooms more orderly, and it will also ensure that  students—of all races—will be treated more fairly. When teachers and principals are in control of discipline, the decisions they make will be a lot more sensible than when distant bureaucrats are telling them what they have to do.

Doubtless there will be more pushback in the media about this. Even before the guidance was rescinded, the New York Times was already defending the Obama Administration’s policies by saying they were “adopted after strong evidence emerged that minority students were receiving more suspensions and tougher punishments than white students for the same or lesser offenses ….”

This actual evidence of discrimination is astonishingly thin. It’s true that African American students are disciplined more often than white students (and that white students are disciplined more often than Asian students). But upon thorough examination it turns out that the teachers who refer students for discipline are not flaming racists who make up out of thin air offenses by minority students. Rather, it’s a question of which students are misbehaving.

I have been working on getting this policy reversed for over eight years. (Yes, even before the rescinded guidance went into effect, the Obama Department of Education was going after schools whose policies led them to discipline African American students at disproportionate rates. I had the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigate.)

I’ve posted it before, but if you want to understand the issue, read The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline: Wrong For Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law .

“WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD MEN STOP MENTORING WOMEN POST #METOO?”:  Yes, I am five months late in posting this, but it’s remarkable how naive the writer is.

THE EGGNOG RIOT:  One hundred ninety two years ago today, West Point cadets were behaving badly.  As hard as it might be to believe, too much eggnog is not necessarily a great thing.

“WHICH BOXES TO CHECK? COLLEGE HOPEFULS WEIGH RACE, IDENTITY AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION”: Steve Sailer annotates the WAPO article.

Steve is right that ambitious students shouldn’t check the “Cuban” box. I’ve personally seen cases where Cubans were held to be ineligible for a preference for Hispanics, because … well … because they are Cuban.

Here’s another one: In the late 1980s/early 1990s, law schools (but not other parts of universities) were giving preferences to Asian students. But an Evangelical Christian Korean immigrant (on at least one occasion to which I was privy) was classified for that reason as “not really Asian.” “Real” Asians are apparently non-religious.

As far as I can tell, the underlying rule is, “if the student is from a group that votes Republican, we’re really not into them.”

Related (From Ed): At Power Line, John Hinderaker comments on Sailer’s post: Checking the Racial Box. “Given our increasingly complicated racial landscape, the entire corrupt and irrational edifice of affirmative action seems destined to collapse. It can’t happen too soon.”

Read the whole thing.

B IS FOR BERIA (AND BERING STRAIT):  On this day in 1953, LAVRENTIY BERIA met his end. Stalin himself had died nine months earlier, and his chief henchmen were turning against each other. Beria, Stalin’s chief of the secret police (NKVD), was arrested on charges of treason and tried in secret.  And then shot.

It’s not easy to work up sympathy for such a bloodthirsty killer. But the rest of the story is truly bizarre. Less than a month later, the Soviet Encyclopedia sent a notice to subscribers enclosing new pages.  In translation, it said the following:

The State Scientific Publishing House of the large Soviet Encyclopedia recommends that pages 21, 22, 23, and 24 be removed from Volume 5 as well as the portrait [of Beria] between pages 22 and 23 to replace which the pages of the new text are enclosed.

The aforementioned pages should be cut out with scissors or blade, leaving inside a margin on which the new pages can be pasted.

The substitute pages were an article on the otherwise obscure Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergholtz and pictures of the Bering Strait.

Subscribers dutifully cut Beria out of the encyclopedia.  Failing to do so would be dangerous.

A HEROINE OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE HAS DIED:  May she rest in peace.

ON THE DAY IN 1869, EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON WAS BORN IN LINCOLN COUNTY, MAINE: (That’s where my mom was born too and where half my gene pool comes from.) Robinson’s poem Miniver Cheevy is really swell:

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

I love that poem. But it’s the only Robinson poem that I’ve read that is comic.

*Among Mainers of my mother’s age and older, “on the town” meant on welfare, since public relief was provided by townships and not by the county, state or federal government.

ON THIS DAY IN 1803, FRANCE OFFICIALLY TURNED OVER LOUISIANA TO THE UNITED STATES AT A FLAG-RAISING CEREMONY IN NEW ORLEANS: The Louisiana Purchase added 828,000 square miles to the United States as well as control of the Mississippi River (which made already-existing territories in Mississippi and Ohio River watersheds that much more valuable). We got it for the bargain price of 50 million francs plus the cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs. At the time, that would have been $15 million–a bargain, even then, for such a vast territory.

The whole thing took President Jefferson a bit by surprise. He had wanted negotiate the sale of New Orleans and its environs. But on April 11^, 1803, Foreign Minister Talleyrand told the American minister to France Robert Livingston that Napoleon was willing to sell all of the Louisiana Territory. Truth be told, Napoleon had abandoned his earlier plans for North America and needed to raise some money quickly for his other activities.

Jefferson worried that as President he did not have the authority to commit to such a deal. But his advisors told him he’d be crazy to turn it down. So he took it. The rest is history.

ON THIS DAY IN 1976, CHICAGO MAYOR RICHARD J. DALEY DIED SUDDENLY: Columnist Mike Royko penned this obit:

If a man ever reflected a city it was Richard J. Daley and Chicago.

In some ways, he was this town at its best—strong, hard-driving, working feverishly, pushing, building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful.

In other ways, he was this city at its worst—arrogant, crude, conniving, ruthless, suspicious, intolerant.

He wasn’t graceful, suave, witty, or smooth. But, then, this isn’t Paris or San Francisco.

He was raucous, sentimental, hot-tempered ,practical, simple, devious, big, and powerful. This is, after all, Chicago.

Sometimes the very same Daley performance would be seen as both outrageous and heroic. It depended on whom you asked for an opinion.

For example, when he stood on the Democratic National Convention floor in 1968 and mouthed furious crudities at smooth Abe Ribicoff, tens of millions of TV viewers were shocked.

But it didn’t offend most Chicagoans. That’s part of the Chicago style—belly to belly, scowl to scowl, and may the toughest or loudest man win.

Daley was not an articulate man, Saul Bellow notwithstanding. Maybe it’s because so many of us aren’t that far removed from parents and grandparents who knew only bits and pieces of the language.

So when Daley slide sideways into a sentence, or didn’t exit from the same paragraph he entered, it amused us. But it didn’t sound that different than the way most of us talk.

Besides, he got his point across, one way or another, and usually in Chicago style ….

Yes, that was Daley.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE:  The New York Times is reporting that Education Secretary DeVos plans to rescind the Obama-era school discipline policies.  What the NYT doesn’t seem to understand is what good news that is.  These policies were not just wrong on the law, they have been bad for students and teachers.

VANISHED: On this day in 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach. He was presumed to have drowned.

Holt was apparently not the cautious type. Cheviot Beach was notoriously dangerous for swimmers.  And although he’d had near drowning experiences there before, he insisted that he should continue to go there. When his press secretary warned him that his swimming habits were too dangerous, Holt responded, “Look Tony, what are the odds of a prime minister being drowned or taken by a shark?”

On the day of his disappearance, most of his companions declined to join him in the water on the ground that the swells were too high and there were obvious cross currents and eddies. Interestingly, a newspaper had carried a headline that day of “PM Advised to Swim Less.” It’s not clear that he ever saw it.

There are, of course, conspiracy theories about his disappearance. According to one story, he was picked up by a submarine, so he could defect to China. The truth seems to be a bit more mundane: He was an over-confident swimmer–to the point of being a fool.  Note that over-confidence is a common failing among politicians.

No. 10 DOWNING STREET: Yesterday, I got a special tour of 10 Downing Street, courtesy of my friend Helen, who is a member of the No. 10 staff. Fun fact: Prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher among them, leave their mark on the building in curious ways. Above one of the interior doors is decorative molding with swirls and curls. At the end is the tiny image of a “thatcher” on a ladder carrying thatch for a roof.  Cool.  (Thank you, Helen!)

ON THIS DAY IN 1773:  The Boston Tea Party.  Think about that as you drink your morning coffee.

ON THIS DAY IN 1791, THE BILL OF RIGHTS WAS RATIFIED BY THE REQUISITE NUMBER OF STATES: The Commonwealth of Virginia had the honor of putting the amendments over the top. It had earlier ratified proposed amendment I. Then on December 15, it ratified proposed amendments II through XII. That made three-quarters of the 14 states (Vermont had been recently admitted) for proposals III through XII, which were then re-numbered 1 through 10.

Proposed amendment I and proposed amendment II didn’t make it (though, in one of history’s quirkier moments, the latter made it into the Constitution many years later).

APOLLO 17: On this day in 1972, at 5:55 p.m. EST, the lunar module carrying Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt noiselessly lifted off from the moon. It would later rejoin the Command Module piloted by Ron Evans.

No human being has since returned. Most Americans alive today were not yet born then.

BRAD SMITH KNOWS A BOATLOAD ABOUT ELECTION LAW:  “Michael Cohen Pled Guilty to Something That is Not a Crime.”

(Bumped).

p.s. I am at Newark Airport being being bombarded by CNN.  They are laughing at Trump for having said that this was not a criminal proceeding.  Perhaps what Trump said was that the election law charge against Cohen was for actions that, even if true, do not constitute a crime.

NEW ZEALAND IS REALLY OFF THE BEATEN PATH: On this day in 1642, Dutch sea captain Abel Tasman’s ship became the first European vessel to sight New Zealand.   Interestingly, he and his crew members weren’t as late in arriving as you might think. Scientists, working from DNA evidence, believe that New Zealand was first settled by Eastern Polynesians between 1250 and 1300 AD.

THE MYSTERY OF LLOYD GAINES’ DISAPPEARANCE: On this day in 1938, the Supreme Court decided Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada. Star-student Lloyd Gaines applied to law school at the University of Missouri, but was refused admission on the ground that he was black. Instead, the State of Missouri offered to pay his tuition at a law school in another state. The Supreme Court held that it was idiotic to call that equal protection. (No, the Court didn’t put it quite that way.) Its holding was nevertheless limited. It said that that it wasn’t necessarily so that Missouri must admit Gaines to the University of Missouri’s law school. It might be enough to set up a different law school for him in Missouri.

Here’s the weird part: Lloyd Gaines never took advantage of his victory. Months later, he vanished, never to surface again. He left the fraternity house in Chicago where he had been staying, saying that he needed to buy stamps. He never came back.

Some people, including some of his relatives, believe that he was murdered for his role as plaintiff in the case. But there are problems with that theory. Gaines was known to disappear for days at a time. He was that sort of guy. And he was known to be uncomfortable with his role as a civil rights hero. More than a decade later, his mother told a reporter for Ebony magazine that Gaines had written her before his disappearance, “Goodbye. If you don’t hear from me anymore you know I’ll be all right.”  If true, that makes murder highly unlikely. But weirdly, she hadn’t mentioned such a statement in public before (although she’d never personally called the police about her son’s disappearance).  FWIW, she was thought to be highly distrustful of police.  It’s all very strange.

The NAACP circulated a photograph of Gaines, hoping that someone had seen him. There were possible sightings in Mexico City and New York,  but … well … nobody knows for sure.