0:03

This is the illusionist in

0:05

which I, Helen Seltzman, interrupt my

0:07

planned episode because there's breaking news

0:10

as in news of everything being broken.

0:13

This episode isn't about current events,

0:15

but is somewhat inspired by them because

0:18

the specifics change, but the chaos

0:21

is perennial. So it seems.

0:23

Content note, there are descriptions of torture

0:26

around about halfway through. on with

0:28

the show.

0:36

Today,

0:38

we've got three political eponyms.

0:41

Our glass voice, chapter

0:43

one,

0:44

cacareco.

0:49

In Brazil, a

0:50

photo Cacareco is a

0:52

slang term for a protest vote. Actually,

0:55

Caccaraco means a useless object or

0:57

an old worn out thing. sometimes

1:00

a trinket, but that's not

1:02

what the term is referring to. It's

1:04

an acronym. Although, Cacareco

1:06

was named our the word because of her supposed

1:08

resemblance to rubbish when she was born.

1:10

Look, it's just unfair to judge

1:13

anyone on their appearance at birth. There's

1:15

everything to play for after that.

1:19

Cacareco lived most of her life in Rio

1:21

de Janeiro, but it was Sao Paulo that

1:23

put her into political lexicon. In

1:25

nineteen fifty nine, she was succonded there for

1:27

a few And during that period,

1:29

city council elections were being held.

1:31

And the three point seven million citizens

1:34

at time were very disenchanted with

1:36

their corrupt politicians and the mess the city

1:38

was in. Prices had been soaring.

1:40

There were food shortages The roads were

1:42

a mess. Sewers were overflowing. Imagine

1:45

don't need to imagine what's happening. Despite

1:48

there being a whopping five hundred and

1:50

forty candidates choose from for the forty

1:52

five council seats, people decided to

1:55

add one more. Caccaraco became

1:57

the right in candidate of choice The

1:59

way the voting

1:59

worked was

2:00

that members of the electorate each had an envelope

2:03

in which to put the ballot paper of their chosen

2:05

candidate. That year, it was quite a popular

2:07

move to put a black bean in the envelope to

2:09

protest the shortage of beans, albeit

2:11

by further depriving oneself of a bean.

2:14

But an even more popular move was to put

2:16

Cacareco

2:16

into the polling envelope, so popular

2:19

in fact that

2:19

Cacareco received more than one

2:21

hundred thousand votes winning

2:23

by a landslide. The next closest

2:25

candidate only got ten thousand and

2:27

seventy nine votes. And of the eleven

2:29

political parties running even the big couldn't

2:32

beat Cacareco with their cumulative ninety

2:34

five thousand votes. So what's the problem?

2:37

Well,

2:38

Cacareco was only five years old, and

2:41

she was a rhinocerus. Cacarzo

2:45

had been sent

2:45

on loan by her home zoo in Rio

2:47

to be the star attraction at the newly

2:49

opened Sao Paulo zoo.

2:51

She was just there to eat vegetables and

2:53

snooze and be looked at, you know, do

2:56

rhino in Azoo stuff. Her swerve

2:58

into politics was unexpected. but

3:00

not unprecedented. Cacareca

3:02

was not the first non human animal

3:04

candidate for public office and certainly not

3:06

the

3:06

last. Four years earlier in another Brazilian

3:09

city, A vote had won an and

3:11

it wasn't even the first vote to win an

3:13

election in Brazil. In many countries,

3:15

there have been creature candidates, including cats,

3:18

Sturbills, sheep, crawfish, chimpanzees,

3:20

gorillas, turkeys, roosters,

3:23

dogs, so many dogs, and

3:25

pigs, including pigasus. who

3:27

was running for US presidency in nineteen

3:29

sixty eight. Pigasus was

3:31

arrested at a rally, and Richard

3:33

Nixon went on to win that election. That's

3:36

before we even get into the inanimate objects

3:38

that have been electoral candidates such as

3:40

the foot powder that was elected mayor of a

3:42

town in Ecuador in nineteen sixty seven.

3:44

Animals are joke

3:46

candidates, but it's not animal politicians

3:49

that make politics a joke. But

3:51

when human politicians are a joke, it's not

3:53

the laughing kind. As

3:55

Cacoreco's supporters said during her

3:57

campaign, better to elect a rhino

3:59

than an ass, but

4:01

it might be better to elect an ass than

4:03

a human A mule named

4:05

Boston Curtis did win for Republicans

4:07

in nineteen thirty eight in Milton Washington.

4:10

It was a prank by a Democrat to prove the

4:12

voters didn't care about knowing who they

4:14

were voting for or what their policies were.

4:15

The mill didn't even have policies.

4:18

It's a mill. Despite

4:21

winning the elections so resoundingly,

4:23

Cacareco

4:23

got Boatamuk Boat Fest and

4:26

was not allowed to take office on the Sao

4:28

Paulo Council.

4:28

And I've seen differing accounts a

4:31

why. Like, she was not a resident

4:33

of Sao Paulo. She was already back

4:35

home in Rio by the time the election actually

4:37

happened, possibly bundled back there as part of

4:39

the coup against her political ascendancy

4:41

or possibly snatched back by Rio,

4:44

peeved that another city was laying claim on

4:46

Rio's special rhino or

4:48

was São Paulo just bitter about this

4:50

rhinocer shaped insult to their democratic

4:52

offerings? A

4:53

week after that election, São Paulo

4:55

held another one and a human

4:57

one, if you can really consider it winning,

4:59

if you already know that people prefer to

5:01

vote for a rhino than you. a

5:04

rhino who's zoo keeper described as having a brain

5:06

that would fit in a brazilement.

5:10

Taco Reco continued to be added

5:12

to more bills and elections and

5:14

was beaten to the student presidency of the

5:16

University of Havana by the Cuban Revolutionary

5:18

Orlando Cabela. But in nineteen

5:20

sixty two, she died of a liver problem

5:22

aged only eight years and eight and a half

5:24

months young for a rhinocerus. Her

5:27

legacy, she inspired

5:29

the founding of the rhinocerus Nostra's party of

5:31

Canada in nineteen sixty three, which

5:33

for decades around on joke policies like

5:35

repealing the law of gravity and paving

5:38

the province of man October to meet the world's

5:40

biggest parking lot.

5:41

And Cacarzo is memorialized

5:44

in Brazil's eponymous expression for

5:46

a protest vote Boto Cacareco.

5:49

When the human politicians have failed

5:51

so much to be appealing, you would rather vote

5:53

for a rhinoceros. The

5:54

rhino won't fix the sewers either.

5:57

But at least she's not gonna use her powers for

5:59

evil. Rhinos are a

5:59

chaotic neutral.

6:04

Be

6:08

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Back to the political acronyms.

8:32

chapter

8:33

two, Guy.

8:34

This

8:36

is a piece that was on the illusionist a

8:38

few years ago about the origins of the

8:40

word Guy from Guy Forks, tis

8:42

the season with the fifth of November Guy

8:44

Forks night impending. And to explore

8:47

the complex and fascinating history

8:49

of the word and the person. I was joined

8:51

by historian Victoria Buckley

8:53

and longtime Mekonim fan, Roman

8:55

Mars. Do you

8:56

know anything about

8:57

Guy Falls? I do. Has an American? Yes.

9:00

The the gunpowder plant. I

9:02

know at least the the

9:04

edges of that story as

9:06

somewhat reinforced by

9:09

I'm sure completely historically accurate

9:11

v for vendetta. Yeah.

9:16

I know what Sky Fox says. I know what a Sky

9:18

Fox mask is. I I had no idea

9:20

that Sky Fox predated the use of

9:22

the word guy as a

9:25

general person. No. I didn't

9:27

either. When you grow up in Britain, you don't

9:29

know a lot more than you do as an

9:31

American who had VP of Endesa. What

9:33

you know is that on the fifth of

9:35

November, there are fireworks displays everywhere.

9:37

And in some places, they'll still have a

9:39

bonfire and they'll burn a guy on it, which

9:41

is an effigy of a human named

9:43

after guy for who in the early hours

9:45

of the fifth of November sixteen o five

9:47

was arrested for the gunpowder plot to

9:49

blow up the houses of parliament. Wow.

9:51

So This general word

9:53

for person that we have now came from

9:55

an effigy, which came from a

9:57

specific person. That's

9:59

amazing.

9:59

That's amazing. get

10:01

ready for a concentrated dose

10:04

of sixteenth and early seventeenth

10:06

century English history.

10:08

it was Henry VIII basically who

10:10

wanted to get together with Ambulien

10:12

at that point England was

10:15

entirely Catholic.

10:16

And Henry VIII

10:18

wrote

10:18

the pope and said, I want to get divorced. I

10:20

want to get together with Emily.

10:22

And the pope went absolutely no way

10:25

that's not happening. and

10:27

Henry VIII went, well, I'll just start my own

10:29

church then. That's the

10:29

historian, doctor Victoria Buckley.

10:32

And that Church King Henry VIII

10:34

started was the Church of England, which

10:36

retained some of his favorite bits of Catholicism,

10:39

but allowed him to get out of his first of

10:41

six marriages. This

10:42

was known as the Reformation. And

10:45

in fifteen thirty four, England officially

10:47

separated from Rome. By

10:49

pope, hello centuries of religious and political

10:52

turmoil. What happened was that England

10:54

then became a country that

10:56

was kind of divided between

10:58

those

10:58

people who subscribe to the new

11:00

constant faith and Catholics

11:02

who are dead to the old way of doing things.

11:05

monasteries and convents of which there were

11:07

about nine hundred around England were

11:09

dissolved. Their property and money

11:11

seized, their religious artifacts destroyed.

11:13

Catholic practices like confession and

11:15

praying to the virgin Mary were banned.

11:17

The pendulum oscillated during the reigns of

11:19

Henry the Eight's children Fearing more

11:21

protestant under Edward VI,

11:23

back

11:23

to Catholic under Mary, then away

11:25

again under Elizabeth the first, who couldn't

11:28

endorse Catholicism because by

11:30

its tenant, she was Henry's illegitimate

11:32

child as the product of his controversial

11:34

second marriage, and therefore could not be a

11:36

legitimate monarch. And on

11:38

Elizabeth, Elizabeth the first.

11:40

She was essentially a

11:42

Boston Queen, but

11:43

she had maintained a lot

11:45

of Catholic ideas. She wasn't sympathetic

11:47

to Catholics though. Very soon

11:49

after she took to the throne, a law was passed

11:51

making it compulsory to attend

11:53

Church of England Services. Under threat of

11:56

fines, imprisonment, or execution,

11:58

Catholics had to worship in

11:59

secret. After

12:01

a forty four year reign, Queen

12:03

Elizabeth died in sixteen o three, and

12:05

King James VI of Scotland traveled

12:07

south to become King James the first

12:09

of England. There was a lot of

12:11

disgruntled

12:11

men because he was a very,

12:13

very, very staunch protester. The

12:15

gunpowder plotters certainly weren't

12:17

pleased. They wanted a Catholic monarch or at

12:19

least a monarch who is tolerant of Catholicism.

12:22

Add that to the clutch of reasons that have been

12:24

offered for their plot. Part of

12:26

it, I think, was the idea of no variety.

12:29

Part of it was the idea of making a

12:31

big splash. They were

12:33

quite interested in just

12:36

political change for its own sake and they also

12:38

were a bit disgruntled. But

12:39

above and beyond that, they wanted

12:42

to restore the Catholic

12:44

religion. They wanted to

12:46

rid of James first. And

12:49

if their plot had been successful,

12:51

they would have blown up the

12:53

houses of

12:53

parliament, which means they would have blown up.

12:56

The king, they would have

12:58

wiped out the judiciary, the

13:00

clergy, it would have

13:02

effectively sort of detached tated

13:05

the

13:05

head of the ruling

13:07

body in England. The gunpowder

13:10

plot started being plotted around the end

13:12

of sixteen o three start of sixteen o

13:14

four by a man in his early thirties

13:16

named Robert Katzby. Several

13:18

members of his Catholic family had been

13:20

imprisoned or fined their faith.

13:23

First, he recruited his cousin, Thomas

13:25

Winter, and then John Wright and his

13:27

brother-in-law, Thomas Percy. And

13:28

then they realized they could be

13:30

going to need quite a lot

13:32

of other people in the group. So

13:35

they

13:36

dispatched someone overseas to

13:38

the Netherlands. where England was

13:40

at all with Spain. And

13:42

that's where they met

13:44

Guy Fox. Guy

13:46

Fox was English, but as a Catholic,

13:48

he had been fighting on the side of the Spanish

13:50

for the previous ten years. He was

13:52

a really, really, really well respected

13:54

captain and he was

13:56

worried about. But he was known

13:58

as an ordnance man,

13:59

so his expertise was

14:02

in laying wires for gunpowder

14:04

and stuff like that. In the end, there were

14:06

thirteen plotters altogether. Several

14:07

of them had been involved along with Kate Spie

14:10

in the thwarted sixteen o one

14:12

Essex Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth.

14:15

Back in London, in March sixteen o

14:17

five, they rented a vault beneath the houses of

14:19

parliament and hid thirty six

14:21

barrels of gunpowder in it. they plan

14:23

to detonate on the day of the state opening of parliament,

14:25

which was set for the fifth of

14:27

November

14:27

sixteen o five. But

14:30

then, what was known as a multiple

14:32

letter was sent

14:34

in October sixteen o

14:36

five. Lord

14:37

multiple was a famous Catholic and

14:39

someone kicked him off. It

14:42

basically said

14:42

don't go to parliament on

14:44

sixth of November

14:46

because she'll be born to Smith Aranes.

14:49

Nobody's sure who wrote that letter to Lord

14:51

Monaco. But King James the first sent

14:53

people to search for signs of trouble.

14:55

On the night of the fourth of November

14:57

sixteen o five, the eve the

14:59

planned plot. Guy Forks went to

15:01

the vault to check on the gunpowder to make sure

15:03

everything was ready to detonate the next

15:05

day. I unfortunately for

15:07

him, the keeper of the precinct of

15:09

Westminster was poking around beneath parliament and

15:11

he

15:11

went into the vault. And there of

15:13

course. He found Guy

15:16

Fox clutching a lantern

15:18

and a box mattress or a

15:20

tinder Fox. In the early

15:22

hours of fifth of November, Guy

15:24

Fox was arrested and imprisoned in the

15:26

Tower of London. Then

15:28

on the seventh of November, Guy

15:31

Fox was tortured in the tower.

15:33

He was manucaled,

15:35

which

15:35

involved his hands being

15:37

put into iron monocles and then

15:40

suspended from the sky

15:42

wall. And underneath

15:44

his feet was like a pile of fire water.

15:46

And then very gradually, they

15:49

kicked bits and filed

15:51

away, so he was effectively

15:52

suspended by his wrists.

15:53

So his wrists were

15:56

both broken. and then they wrapped him

15:58

on the rack. All his joints were

15:59

effectively completely dislocated or

16:02

broken because he'd been so badly

16:04

tortured. he'd started

16:06

naming loads of names and spilling

16:09

beans. While Guy Fox was being tortured

16:11

in the Tower of London, what about

16:12

the other plotters? They were

16:15

already nowhere near. When word

16:17

got around about the monocle letter, they

16:19

had fled London and were hiding a

16:21

hundred and thirty miles away. They all

16:23

hold themselves up in

16:24

this house called whole big chaus in

16:27

stature. And

16:27

they were all lying around going

16:30

through, you know, a narrow escape. and

16:32

they were driving some gunpowder by the fire,

16:34

and

16:34

it exploded in a

16:36

really ironic

16:37

way. A lot of them

16:40

went, oh, gosh, that's you know, divine intervention,

16:42

and they all fled from holy cows. But

16:44

the the authorities caught up with

16:46

them, and there was a huge

16:48

siege a lot of the plotters

16:50

then were killed in

16:52

this stage. They were shot in this

16:54

stage. The

16:54

surviving plotters were taken to the tower

16:57

of London And at the end of January

16:59

sixteen o six, they and Guy Forks were

17:01

publicly executed. They

17:02

met the most foreplanned they

17:05

were home drawn and quartered, which affected the men, being

17:08

hung by the neck until he

17:10

almost dead, but not actually

17:13

dead. then you were cut

17:15

down, then all

17:17

your organs were cut

17:19

out,

17:19

and they were set

17:20

prior to before your eyes.

17:23

and

17:23

you were eventually dispatched on a butcher's

17:25

block. That was the penalty for treason,

17:27

but that served as a not

17:29

only her her end as punishment, obviously,

17:32

but it also to deter people who were

17:34

thinking, well, maybe I'll commit a bit of

17:36

treason against the king or maybe I'll,

17:39

you know, get involved in the plot. It was

17:42

because Executions in that period were

17:44

huge spectacles.

17:46

A bit like this, so

17:47

people went along to have a good look

17:49

at what was happening. and

17:51

to watch people going through all of this awful

17:55

slow, buttress,

17:56

method of being killed.

17:59

And

17:59

it was public

18:01

theater. And it soon became

18:03

a public celebration as well. A

18:05

couple of months after the foiled plot,

18:07

an act of parliament was passed that

18:09

actually made it law to celebrate gunpowder

18:12

treason day every fifth

18:14

of November to give thanks for the

18:16

joyful deliverance of James the first from

18:18

the Catholic plotters. And even though that law was

18:21

repealed in eighteen fifty nine,

18:23

towns and villages all over England still

18:25

marked the fifth of November each

18:27

year with fireworks a bonfire.

18:29

Why

18:29

a bonfire? Well,

18:32

bonfire was part of the

18:34

Protestant tradition, so people

18:36

would like bonfires in the street in

18:38

order to celebrate things. For example,

18:40

when James first

18:41

came to the throne, people hit

18:43

bonfires. and it became a

18:45

standard practice to celebrate in the

18:47

street with fires and stuff like that. And in

18:49

the

18:49

aftermath of the gunpowder plot, anti

18:52

Catholic sentiment was even more virulent than

18:54

it had been before, so people would

18:56

chalk onto the bonfire's effigies of

18:58

the pope or the devil, and

19:00

then in time,

19:01

of Guy Fox. In the

19:04

eighteenth century,

19:05

Guy Fox started to become

19:08

synonymous

19:08

with bonfire. In the run up to bonfire night, children would

19:11

wheel around their guy forks as asking for

19:13

money. Penny for the guy? Eventually,

19:15

the bonfire night effigies came to be of

19:17

other heat figures as

19:18

well. The town of Lewis in Sussex keeps

19:20

up the tradition each year at its particularly

19:23

enthusiastic bonfire night events with a

19:25

topical choice. such as in twenty

19:27

fifteen, the then prime minister of

19:29

Britain David Cameron with a

19:31

pig's head.

19:33

Google

19:33

it. But

19:34

somehow, Guy Forks' name is

19:36

the one that became attached to the

19:39

effigies. By the early nineteenth century, they were

19:41

known as guys. And

19:43

then by the eighteen thirties, the word guy meant

19:45

a scrumfully dressed person, either in

19:47

reference to the state of the effigies, or

19:49

of the people who were begging with

19:52

them. by eighteen forty seven, Guy was an informal

19:54

term for a male person in

19:56

American English. So somehow

19:57

the word crossed the Atlantic and took

19:59

on

19:59

a new meaning. forgetting the connection to a

20:02

political plot

20:02

more than two centuries before.

20:04

Oh, that's interesting.

20:07

You innovated.

20:07

Yeah.

20:09

You took that meaning out and you gave that

20:11

word to everyone. Treating

20:15

you as a representative of your nation. Well,

20:17

thank you. That is

20:20

remarkable. But

20:20

is it fair that

20:22

out of the thirteen gunpowder

20:25

plotters, Guy four is the one who is

20:27

remembered in this way. No. No. No. Not at all

20:29

because the poor man,

20:31

really, I mean, he wasn't the main

20:33

leader. he was only brought in to do the ordnance

20:36

stuff. He was just a

20:38

very small cog, but

20:40

because he was the only one that was

20:42

initially captured he's the one that's

20:44

now representative of

20:46

the whole thing. So he he

20:48

is now the big bad bogeyman.

20:50

And that's been consistent since

20:53

sixteen oh five. But

20:55

it's only because all the others

20:58

fled the scene. and

21:00

left him to carry the can effectively.

21:02

The real

21:03

person that that

21:05

we all really ought to be thinking of

21:07

was being the the person that's

21:10

ultimately representative of the plot

21:12

as Robert Katz me. I mean,

21:14

he was the mastermind. He was the one who

21:16

dreamt all up. He was the

21:18

one that waste all the

21:20

money, found all the ammo, and

21:22

organized everything, and

21:24

found the vault, and sent people

21:26

overseas to shape in the

21:28

Netherlands. I mean, he he he really

21:30

was the ringleader, whereas

21:32

Sky

21:32

Forks was just a bit of a

21:34

beard. that happened to be caught

21:36

caught with his matches

21:38

in his pocket. This epineum,

21:41

though,

21:41

I'm

21:42

wondering whether it partly caught on because

21:44

it's such a small word, three

21:47

letters. And

21:49

It's basically a consonant and

21:52

a breath. And

21:55

-- Yeah. -- therefore, it's

21:57

easy to assimilate and it's easy to use often.

21:59

So I'm wondering whether

22:00

some aesthetic of the word made it common

22:02

because it

22:03

could have been so different

22:06

Guy Fox didn't go by the name, Guy Fox. It

22:08

was his birth name. Mhmm. But the

22:10

name he went by was John Johnson. And

22:15

Jones -- Yeah. --

22:17

isn't such a general term for people. It

22:19

means something specific.

22:22

Yeah. although

22:24

it's yeah. It it is so yeah. It is

22:26

more specific. That's interesting. I guess

22:28

it is another gentleman term. It's a

22:30

a family show. And

22:33

then he styled himself

22:36

Guido, that

22:36

was a more Spanish

22:39

version of the guy, and he'd been fighting on

22:41

behalf of the Spanish for the best part of a decade. Yeah.

22:43

We we could say a bunch of of

22:45

weirdos, essentially. Yes. But

22:47

that term has a meaning as well.

22:49

Doesn't it? It does. Yeah.

22:51

I would say that it would probably

22:53

be the slightly

22:56

derogatory epithet for a

22:58

group of Italian Americans or something like that?

23:00

You call them Gritos or something some sorry.

23:02

You would. I mean, I I wouldn't, but I've

23:04

only heard that in the context of people

23:06

commentating upon Jersey Shore, which I have never seen. Yeah.

23:08

I mean, that that's my sense of it. But

23:10

I and I've never seen

23:13

it or probably heard it used beyond

23:15

what was on television. So And

23:17

then we could have had Robert Case

23:19

Fees or Roberts. Yeah. Kate

23:21

Spies would never. I I think you're you're

23:23

right in the sense that

23:25

the shortness as a

23:28

phoneme guy is really

23:30

satisfying. Kate Spies or Roberts

23:32

wouldn't work, Guido's wouldn't work exactly.

23:34

But I still find it kind of amazing

23:37

that you would have idea of this effigy

23:39

becoming a general term. It's

23:41

weird that an enemy of the state

23:43

that has burned an effigy would take on

23:45

such an anodyne you

23:47

know, moniker that the evil of that

23:49

wouldn't transfer. It's like calling people

23:51

like a group of people a bunch of hitlers.

23:56

Hey,

23:56

Hitler's. How's it going? Hey,

23:59

Usama's. farm

23:59

Exactly. Exactly. Because you

24:02

you just can't picture it with any

24:04

other terrorist.

24:05

To

24:09

to have any of the morality sort

24:11

of leached away from it is is kinda

24:13

stunning. you'd think that would be the thing that

24:15

would be retained

24:17

in the meaning is

24:19

the

24:19

the plot. Or of the divisive

24:21

history wrapped up in Because on the one hand, you have people

24:23

who call Guy Fox a terrorist,

24:25

a Catholic terrorist. While on the

24:27

other, you have him being the unfortunate figurehead

24:29

of an attempt to agitate political

24:32

on behalf of the oppressed Catholics. If

24:34

the meaning wasn't, you know, transferred for

24:36

this long and lost at a certain

24:38

point, then you just have to let it go

24:41

because

24:41

everything

24:42

has horrible

24:44

words. Yeah. A

24:45

lot of words in all

24:48

language have

24:50

been a metaphorical sense, a man lurking

24:52

beneath them with a load of gunpowder and

24:54

suppressants.

24:59

We've

24:59

got one more political acronym

25:00

to go, coming up

25:03

next, Bork. The

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accessible website or domain. On to our

27:24

third and

27:25

final epinephrine.

27:26

This show is

27:28

such an education for me

27:31

until I looked it up yesterday on one of my daily etymological

27:34

strolls. I did not know that pork

27:36

was an epidemic, maybe not in

27:38

all

27:38

its uses, like the doggo

27:40

lingo, rye, re spelling of bark,

27:42

or

27:42

in the mouth of the moppet Swedish

27:45

chef, where it's a gibberish word.

27:47

Usages like computers borked is probably a

27:49

deliberate misspelling of broken, but

27:51

it may have come from the eponym from

27:54

Robert Bork. The American judge

27:56

twice thwarted from being appointed to the

27:58

supreme court. Quite a

27:59

lot

27:59

of political acronyms are fairly

28:02

straightforwardly the labels of an

28:04

ideology like malism or Lennonism

28:06

or Blairism or McCarthyism. But a

28:08

lot that have come up quite a bit on

28:10

the show before were more oblique and

28:13

often disses like silhouette,

28:15

chauvinism, quizzling, and gerrymander.

28:17

It's so often not the legacy the eponymous

28:19

person might have wanted but they

28:21

really get the choice. Trying to get language to do what you

28:23

want is like trying to get a cat to

28:26

take medicine. I'd

28:28

heard of the term Bork, but I hadn't heard of Robert Bork.

28:30

Just like I hadn't heard of Russian politician,

28:33

Fyacheslav Molytov, after whom

28:35

Molytov cock hotels remained in a bit of

28:37

hysterical epidemi

28:38

by the Fins during the Soviet Finnish

28:40

War of nineteen thirty nine.

28:42

Monotov was the Soviet foreign minister at the time, second

28:44

in command to Joseph Stalin, and

28:46

molotov spread baskets was the finished

28:48

nickname for the cluster bombs being dropped

28:51

on them. So called because

28:53

supposedly, Molotov had said on state

28:55

radio that these were not bombs, but

28:57

food aid packages being hair

28:59

dropped in. This bit of propaganda might

29:01

itself have been propaganda, but

29:03

since the fins were the ones getting things

29:05

dropped on them, they got licensed with the

29:07

jockey name. and they also extended it

29:09

to the improvised incendiary projectiles

29:11

they were lobbying at Soviet tanks, the molotov

29:14

cocktails, a drink to go with the bread. officially

29:16

called things like bottle bombs or burning

29:18

bottles. More descriptive, but it's so often

29:20

the case that EPNIM stick even though all

29:22

they tell you on the surface of it is that

29:24

a person has been invoked.

29:27

And

29:28

so,

29:29

to bork. Miriam

29:30

Webster defines

29:31

it as to attack or defeat

29:34

a nominee or candidate for political

29:36

office unfairly through an

29:38

organized campaign of harsh public

29:40

criticism or vilification.

29:41

It's not so far away from

29:43

the computer type of bulk, both

29:46

suggest brokenness beyond repair,

29:48

brokenness beyond repair, Robert

29:50

Bork's chances

29:51

of getting appointed to the Supreme Court.

29:54

In nineteen seventy three, Robert Bork

29:56

had had a sniff of that Supreme Court

29:58

seat knowledge leaders. far as I

29:59

know, not trying to imply anything. The then president

30:02

Richard Nixon had promised him the next

30:04

available place on the supreme court as

30:06

a reward Nixon had wanted

30:08

Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox

30:10

to be fired. And the attorney

30:12

general and the deputy attorney general had

30:14

refused to do it and resigned in

30:16

protest. who's next in line to sack archibald

30:18

Cox,

30:19

solicited General Robert Bork, and he

30:21

did do it. He fired that man.

30:23

But then Bork didn't get his reward of

30:25

the next supreme court a seat because before

30:27

one became available, Nixon's

30:30

presidency was bought in the computer

30:32

sense and when a seat did open up in

30:34

nineteen seventy five during

30:36

Gerald Ford's presidency, civil rights groups protested

30:38

against bulk being nominated, given his record

30:40

of, for instance, in nineteen sixty

30:42

four, opposing a law to require

30:44

restaurants and hotels serve

30:46

customers of all races or

30:48

in nineteen sixty five opposing the abolition

30:50

of a ban

30:50

on contraceptives for married

30:53

couples.

30:53

Bork was a staunch originalist, meaning

30:56

if something wasn't enshrined in the constitution,

30:59

original version not updated, Bork

31:01

wasn't a fan of it. That included the right privacy,

31:04

feminism, sexual revolution.

31:06

So Ford decided

31:07

not to nominate him for Supreme

31:10

Court.

31:10

did consider making him director of the CIA

31:12

but decided he was too unpopular for that

31:15

too. Bork went

31:16

back to teaching

31:17

law and being a judge. Then

31:19

in nineteen eighty seven, that Supreme Court seat

31:21

came within sitting distance again when

31:24

Bork was added to the list of potential

31:26

nominees for Ronald Reagan to

31:28

consider. Joe Biden had been amenable

31:30

to Bauch's possible nomination when it was mooted

31:32

a year earlier. But now, Toll Reagan,

31:34

if you nominate him, you'll have trouble

31:36

on your hands. And turned

31:38

out to be right. Reagan did nominate Bork,

31:40

and the eponymous Borking started.

31:43

Almost immediately, in fact, a

31:45

mere forty five minutes after Boris

31:47

nomination, senator Ted Kennedy made a

31:49

televised speech

31:49

which included the statement. Robert

31:52

Boris America is a land in

31:54

which women would be forced into

31:56

back alley abortions. Blacks

31:58

would sit at segregated lunch

31:59

counters.

32:00

Rogue Police could break down

32:03

citizens' doors in midnight rades and

32:05

schoolchildren could not be taught about

32:07

evolution. Reuters and artists

32:09

would be censured at the whim

32:11

of government. In

32:12

the political climate of twenty twenty two, this would not

32:14

bork bork at all. It would probably work

32:16

in his favor. But back then, Bork did say

32:18

there was not a line in that speech that

32:21

was accurate. I am not the

32:23

one who will pick through the debris of

32:25

Boris

32:25

voting records to determine what his

32:27

political preferences really were in practice.

32:30

what

32:30

he did aligned with what he said.

32:32

But wherever

32:32

there is uncertainty, wherever there

32:34

is contradiction, there is the

32:36

opportunity for any side to

32:38

kick in a crowbar and crank it wide open to

32:41

let a hole load more in. Civil

32:42

rights groups and left wingers could say that

32:45

bulk was in favor of segregation and contraception

32:47

and the right wing could say that's a lie.

32:49

Pork could say that the opinions he

32:52

espoused in the past wouldn't affect his choices

32:54

as a supreme court judge. but

32:56

nobody could know whether or not that would turn

32:58

out to be true. A

32:59

partisan brawl waged for

33:02

weeks. Bork's nomination gave

33:03

Republicans an opportunity to get more

33:05

conservative lawmakers, and the Democrats fought

33:08

to prevent it.

33:08

A particular concern for the left was

33:11

that bought would overturn Rovi

33:13

Wade, and that's one point that the right

33:14

agreed with, he probably

33:17

would. But Bork?

33:19

Well, Bork did not get that seat on the Supreme Court,

33:21

the senate vote on him was the

33:23

third worst defeat on record. And people

33:26

said that Bork had been borked by

33:28

disinformation propaganda

33:29

false claims of racist, sexist principles.

33:31

But Bork

33:32

may have been bought by Bork by the

33:34

Dow away he represented himself

33:36

and his originalist views

33:37

during the twelve days of confirmation

33:40

hearings, presided over by Joe

33:42

Biden, who ended his own presidential campaign

33:44

partway through them. Another thing

33:47

bork. The term

33:48

bork took off before the

33:50

hearings even had and fifteen years later was added to the

33:52

Oxford English Dictionary. As we

33:55

know, language is not neutral, and the

33:57

Robert ought derived meaning of pork was

33:59

popularized by

33:59

Republicans, so it carried the sense of

34:02

unfairness, a smear

34:04

campaign. Bork's another word that used

34:06

to discredit criticism even if warranted.

34:08

Although Bork has two

34:12

different origins, Both of them

34:14

eventually come to mean destruction. It's just the

34:16

Epenin One comes with purposeful

34:18

malevolence. Whereas

34:19

computers don't care, Computers

34:21

only have the power we give

34:23

them, although

34:24

that does go for

34:26

humans too.

34:29

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34:31

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34:34

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35:18

Your randomly selected word

35:19

from the dictionary today

35:22

is kape

35:24

hi

35:26

now A book formed on the lower jaw of adult male

35:28

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35:29

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35:31

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35:34

This episode was

35:35

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35:36

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