The Dancing Libertarian

Right, here’s a guy with a truly wonderful idea. He wants to get 10,000 lunatics together on the Fourth of July, all of them heavily armed with rifles slung against their backs, gather them at Arlington Cemetery, march them across the Potomac into Washington, troop around the Senate, White House, and Supreme Court, and then march over the bridge into Virginia again.

Adam Kokesh, the intellectual author of this plan, is planning to do this—if he gets the support—to send out a little message. He invokes Tom Jefferson, and the famous line, “when the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

Well, there is a little problem. The only guns allowed in DC are handguns, which have to be registered in the city. So the police chief came out sounding quite reasonable—he’s willing to work with any group that wants to come in peaceably and protest. But no, boys, leave the guns at home.

There’s serious craziness out there. But wait—let me go check Adam out.

OK—I’ve just spent 25 minutes with Adam, having watched two clips. The first is a 21 minute affair, and covers his libertarian beliefs, his role in the Afghanistan war, his realization that the war was unjust and illegal, and then his realization that Obama, far from sticking up for the rights and freedoms of the people, was just as bad and in fact worse at jumping into bed with the rich and powerful. The second clip was of Adam standing and being filmed in a no-film zone in front of the White House. A clearly peeved cop, exercising all his patience, has decided not to arrest him.

He’s articulate and intelligent, is Adam, and makes a good spokesman. And yes, there are things I can agree with. Of course he has the right to stand on a sidewalk in front of the White House and be filmed, for which he was not arrested; he also has the right to dance at the Jefferson Memorial, which he did, and for which he was arrested.

And he may be right in his assertion that the cops are abusive and generally disrespective. In fact, I started this day by reading that Puerto Rico is going to have to put 600 million bucks into upgrading our police department over the next ten years. Given that we have a deficit of over 2 billion and are facing likely credit downgrades into junk status, it’s a little difficult to see how we are going to do this. The United States Department of Justice, however, has mandated that the police department correct what Justice deems civil rights violations. So a local federal judge is overseeing the process.

OK—that’s the local news. Adam and I can probably also join hands on the issue of the maker of my computer—a MacBook Pro. Apple, it seems, has shielded billions in taxes by employing multiple schemes that are, by the way, perfectly legal. Corporations can do things that you and I can’t do; here’s The New York Times on the subject.

Congressional investigators found that some of Apple’s subsidiaries had no employees and were largely run by top officials from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. But by officially locating them in places like Ireland, Apple was able to, in effect, make them stateless — exempt from taxes, record-keeping laws and the need for the subsidiaries to even file tax returns anywhere in the world.

Beautiful! And I also agree with Adam—the statistics on the economy are bogus. Unemployment at 8 point-whatever percent? Does that count everybody who has stopped looking for work? And yes, the rich have certainly gotten richer.

It’s hard, in some ways, not to be cynical, not to feel that in almost every facet of our society we have consistently gone backward. We let our government take away significant liberties in the fear-drenched days after 9 / 11. We’ve engaged in unjust wars and gotten the whole world to hate us. Our cops have too often used force against us.

So I’m happy to report good news; last Friday, May 17, I took part in a march against homophobia, and what an affair it was! Best, how many groups came out and protested, how organized the whole affair was! And despite some estimates of only 200 participants, there were, I can tell you, many, many more.

The mood was great; spirits were high. And yes, there were many kids there—teenagers and people in their early twenties. For the first time in Puerto Rico, there was a large, organized and multilateral march for gay rights, and against homophobia.

Our hour had come. And no, Adam, not with armed weapons slung across our backs….

Chasing Down Taliaferros

Well, it’s a day that obviously wasn’t going to conform. To anyone fearing joblessness, I can tell you—it’s not hard. (As long as you have someone—thanks, Mr. Fernández!—who does have a job…) But there are rules.

Readers will know that the day begins with the trot. Actually, it’s now a modified trot-plunge-retrot. (Go the Escambrón beach, swim for five minutes, return home….) Right—did that. Then went to see Charisse’s brother’s wife’s mother (I think) in the hospital.

This, of course, only makes sense when seen through Puerto Rican / Caribbean eyes. Seen through gringo eyes, it would almost be an affront to visit someone on the strength of so—well—weak a connection. But Puerto Rico is blessed with excellent doctors.

The problem?

It’s also cursed with horrible hospitals.

And Cbwm’s (come on—I can’t be writing Charisse’s brother’s et cetera forever) is elderly and in frail health and—more importantly—doesn’t speak Spanish.

Well—I know about that. So I went off to the hospital, on the assumption that visiting hours would start at ten. (I can hear you—that maternal exasperation rising in your voice—“well, did you ASK???” Nooooooo!)

Good news—the hospital has a Starbucks—very nice doppio espresso….

A child of corporate America, I bring you the solution, not the problem.

I’ll go back at 1PM….

Right. So the post has not been written, and that’s major. That’s a sin. As you know, my international readership (curiously, the blog got 66 hits from Russia last week—don’t know what that’s about) is both famously discerning and way exigent. A day that goes by without a post provokes howls. Or at least nasty emails…..

Well, it’s now 12:30—and what have I done?

Worried my head about the Taliaferros.

Eric knows someone who knows a Taliaferro who considers Madison her home.

Well, Jack knew the Taliaferros, and talked about them, and deemed them a good, upright family—and no, that’s not condescension. You had to work hard to get those words outta the old man’s lips.

And I thought—couldn’t be sure—that the family was one of the oldest black families in town. Which would make them damn interesting—Madison being not known then for excessive racial heterogeneity. (Marc? Could you just talk straight? Town was lily white!)

Well, google Taliaferro and what do you get?

One of the fascinating things about Wikipedia is its variability. Sometimes it has a lacuna of information, other times it’s almost embarrassingly rich.

Well, I’d bet that the Taliaferro family has an ardent genealogist, and he / she certainly gets right down to business! Starts off with a bang!

Taliaferro (/ˈtɒlɪvər/ tol-i-vər), also spelled Talifero,Tellifero Tolliver, or Toliver,[1] is a prominent family in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro, Italian pronunciation:  [ˌtaʎʎaˈfɛrro], which means "ironcutter" in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname in that line is believed to trace back to Bartholomew Taliaferro, a native of Venice who settled in London and was made a denizen in 1562.[2]

Right—notice how quickly we take an Italian name, make it Venetian, and then throw in the reference to Queen Elizabeth I! A nice way of saying—we’re no pizzeria owners here!

Nor does he relax his grip….

A legend exists about the name having originated in Roman times in what was called Cisalpine Gaul, which leads many bearers of the name to believe that their ancestors were actually French, not Italian, since Gaul is generally known to be the ancient name for today's France; however, Gaul was a term applied to a very wide region that also comprised the whole of northern Italy. Tagliaferro is indeed a common surname in northeastern Italy, especially in the area around Venice.

Arms of Tagliaferro family of Tuscany. Sketch sent from Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786

The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married a Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin.[3] Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat-of-arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.[4]

Well—having Tom Jefferson poking into the family heritage is something of a feat! Then follows a list of some twenty prominent people, all bearing the name of Taliaferro.

Curiously, clicking on any one of the links brings the same vast quantity of information—could it be?

The plot thickens into something the consistency of oatmeal when the author of the article (why do I think it might be a Taliaferro?) throws in info on people whose middle name was Taliaferro. He starts with Dr. John Taliaferro Close—who has a daughter named “Glenn.”

Ends with Booker T. Washington.

Say whahhhh?

Yup, that “T” you’ve been saying for years is actually a Taliaferro. And guess what! Here’s a couple of lines from Wikipedia’s article on Booker….

Washington was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved African-American woman on the Burroughs Plantation in southwest Virginia. She never identified his white father, said to be a nearby planter; he played no significant role in Washington's life. His family gained freedom in 1865 as the Civil War ended, and his mother took them to West Virginia to join her husband.

Well, mother may never have said who the father was, but ask me, and I’ll tell you.

She wrote it, and on the birth certificate!

Well, Booker, it seems, was a little more than just that nice verging-on-Oreo educator from Alabama. Here’s what one historian has to say….

Historians note that Washington, "advised, networked, cut deals, made threats, pressured, punished enemies, rewarded friends, greased palms, manipulated the media, signed autographs, read minds with the skill of a master psychologist, strategized, raised money, always knew where the camera was pointing, traveled with an entourage, waved the flag with patriotic speeches, and claimed to have no interest in partisan politics. In other words, he was an artful politician."[1]

Oh ho! Damn, that’s good! Why can’t I write like that? Here’s the citation, by the way….

Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, eds. (26 March 2012). Booker T. Washington Rediscovered. Johns Hopkins UP. p. 209.

Well, we’re a long way from Madison, Wisconsin and the Taliaferro. Except not. Actually, Booker T. Washington was invited to Madison, and spoke before 4000 people at—I’m guessing here—the Stock Pavilion.

OK—it’s clear. This day is wasted. I have produced nothing of worth today—barring having cleared up the mystery of Booker T. Washington’s biological father (send the check, historians, to POB 902…oh forget it!) So I might just as well call up Gary—who can clear up the mystery if anyone can.

He’s on it like a sailor in a whorehouse after a six-month stretch at sea. Takes him just an hour.

Odell Taliaferro—head of the Madison chapter of the NAACP.

Oh, and the Taliaferro whom friends of Eric know?

Here she is!