Robber Barrens

Two centuries before Tony Soprano, New Jersey's Pine Barrens—a million acres of coastal woodlands—harbored gangsters during the American Revolution. 

Known as banditti, they used the desolate woodlands as a base of operations, from which they robbed citizens' homes and smuggled contraband into and out of New York City, in open defiance of the Patriots fighting to separate the colonies from England.

The roughest and toughest of the banditti was John Bacon.

A shingle-maker by trade, Bacon began raiding the homes of Patriots in Forked River in the summer of 1780, carrying off everything of value that he and his men could find. In December of that year, Bacon upped the ante when he shot and killed a Patriot militia officer in Tom's River, as the soldier tried to arrest him.

Bacon's reputation as a robber blossomed a year later, thanks to an incident that became known as the “Skirmish at Manahawkin.”

When it learned he was leading a raiding party in the area, a group of local militiamen assembled to ambush Bacon at a Manahawkin crossroads. But when Bacon didn't materialize by 3 am, the militiamen retired to a tavern to get drunk. Bacon's party arrived at daybreak and shot and killed one of the militiamen as he fled the tavern. 

Bacon was indicted for high treason, as a result; but that didn't deter him. He continued raiding homes the Barnegat Bay area throughout 1782, "taking whatever he wanted—money, food, and clothing—at the muzzle of a musket or point of a bayonet," a one historian has written.

In October that year, Bacon perpetrated the "Massacre of Long Beach Island," during which he used bayonets to kill or wound 21 Patriots from Cape May, as they salvaged boxes of tea from a derelict British ship.

New Jersey's governor then put a £50 bounty on Bacon's head.

Hoping to earn the bounty, a Burlington County group of militiamen set out in search of Bacon on Christmas Day, but were waylaid by his band at Cedar Bridge, where two were killed and another wounded.

Two months later, the Revolutionary war ended. Most New Jersey bandits fled the Pine Barrens for New York City, but Bacon, fearing arrest, remained behind. 

That was a mistake. 

In April 1783, the same bounty hunters he bushwhacked at Cedar Bridge found Bacon in a tavern in Tuckertown, and executed him on the spot. The governor awarded the killers the bounty.

John Bacon was the last man to die in the Revolutionary War.

This Bird

In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, Tufts poli-sci professor Daniel Drezner justified his attendance of an in-person conference that will take place this weekend by claiming it will allow him "to see old friends, but also to meet new colleagues."

Despite the health risks posed by attending, Drezner wrote, "my benefits far exceed my risks."

Five thousand of Drezner's colleagues disagree. 

The conference he will attend normally attracts 7,500 attendees. But only 2,500 poli-sci professors have registered—and many are cancelling, as opening day approaches.

Live event organizers in every field ought to take notice: poli-sci professors represent the canary in the coal mine.

When two of three customers drop you overnight, it's time to question your value proposition. It's time to stop acting like an ostrich.

Poli-sci professors, after all, aren't fools: they're experts in risk-benefit analysis. And two of three have rendered their judgement: the conference simply isn't compelling enough to ignore the dangers.

Birds of a feather flock together.

This bird has flown.

If the value you provide isn't compelling, yours will, too.

Out of Their Hats

Nothing annoys me more than uninformed people 

not considering the effects of what they say.

— Charlotte Ritchie

The Golden Age of Hollywood is a delightful Facebook group that posts "lost" movie-studio stills.

A still posted yesterday showed an ashen and attenuated Humphrey Bogart, riding on a swing with his seven-year-old daughter. 

One inconscient commentator wrote, "How could this pipsqueak ever have been a romantic interest in film? I will never understand."

Her comment unleashed a predictable torrent  of rejoinders to the effect that Bogie had been the heartthrob of millions, and that the poignant still had been shot only days before the beloved actor's early death from throat cancer.

Granted social media gives a grandstand to goofballs, I still must ask: why do so many uniformed nobodies feel the need to tear down adored icons? 

And why do they always seem to be speaking out of their hats?

The reason is deep-seated: iconoclasm is a handy form of ego defense, a band-aide for wounds received in childhood at the hands of critical parents, caretakers, siblings, and peers.

When those wounds go untreated, the child grows up to be an asshole: an unrestrained critic of all the things others hold in esteem.

And she can't help but come off as a mean-spirited fool.

Cabbage

Twenty years ago, I was devoting four solid days a week to writing a Civil War novel that I never finished.

The novel was set in 1861, the first year of the war.

Two hundred pages in, I was deep into a scene in which the characters (civilians all) conversed over a sumptuous lunch, when I suddenly realized I didn't know how they'd pay for it.

So I dug into the topic of cash in the 19th century.

I learned that in 1861 people used banknotes, issued by local banks, to pay for most purchases.

Until the following year, the only form of legal tender in circulation was the federally issued coin.

Federally issued scrip—later known as the "greenback"—didn't exist. 

If you wanted to use paper for purchases, you used banknotes. 

Banknotes were convenient, but had a serious downside.

If you carried them, instead of coins, you ran the real risk they'd become worthless overnight, should the issuing bank fail. 

And banks failed all the time, especially during financial "panics," which occurred like clockwork every 20 years and whenever a blip in the economy occurred.

China this week put the kibosh on 2021's version of banknotes by banning all transactions that rely on cryptocurrencies. 

China's crypto crackdown is based on the premise that cryptocurrencies, by being unregulated, foster illegal transactions.

That may be true.

But even if it's not, I'm troubled by cryptocurrencies, myself, perhaps because their fans—who are avid—remind me of the people who advised me in the early 1980s to invest all my savings in Cabbage Patch Kids (and a decade later, in Beanie Babies.)

Cryptocurrencies are supposed to be money; but money for the past century has been printed by governments, which control its supply and, more importantly, guarantee its worth.

No reliable entities backstop cryptocurrencies.

Money, moreover, allows us to make purchases of any amount at lighting speed, with no extra fees and relative anonymity. 

Cryptocurrencies allow none of those conveniences and, in addition, are easier to steal.

So what's the allure?

Beats me.

I'll stick to cold, hard cabbage.

Fluff

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.

— Mark Twain

Verbose writing is frilly, flowery, frivolous and fluff-brained. A thing, at all costs, to avoid.

But some fluff is tasty.

Take, for example, the kind used to make a Fluffernutter.

The Fluffernutter was invented in by one Emma Curtis, who with her brother began making and marketing Snowflake Marshmallow Crème in 1913 in their home-state of Massachusetts.

The great-great-great-granddaughter of Paul Revere, Emma knew to keep watch on her competitors, of which there were scores.

To outdo them, she published brochures packed with recipes for marshmallow-crème treats, and advertised the brochures in newspapers and on radio. 

One, published in the middle of World War I, contained Emma's short recipe for the Liberty, a marshmallow crème and peanut butter sandwich.

The Liberty became her all-time hit.

But, sadly, Emma was not to reap all its rewards.

A local competitor, Durkee-Mower, trumped Emma, not by running ads, but by sponsoring an entire radio show. 

Named The Flufferettes, it aired in the half-hour spot before The Jack Benny Show and featured comedy, music, and recipes—including the recipe for the Liberty.

In 1960, Durkee-Mower's ad agency renamed Emma's sandwich The Fluffernutter, and rest, as we say, is history.