22 May—Before diving into the daily disquisition, we must extend our profound sympathy to pupils and staff of Connecticut schools. Because, as today’s Hearst RepublicanAmerican tells readers in a front-page-over-the-fold sub-headline, “Many Connecticut schools still lack air conditioning to endure heat waves,” wherefore, according to the headline, quoting the president of the Connecticut Education Association, it’s “Hard for kids to learn.”

CEA president Kate Dias bitches in the story, “We shouldn’t have schools that are hard for kids to learn in physically. I mean, I taught in an un-air-conditioned room on the second floor of a high school built in the 1950s. It’s rough, man. … You hit this time of year, I would challenge anyone to go into that classroom and feel ready to learn math.”

We suspect that mid-fiftyish Kate’s solicitude for pupils pales next to her solicitude for the teachers whose dues pay her salary and that she really would challenge anyone to go into that classroom and feel ready to teach math. But irregardless of learning or teaching, we’ll limit our comment to Jesus Christ! and note that we old farts must have been made of much sterner stuff because not only did we learn and teach effectively despite suffering extreme heat in decrepit un-air-conditioned buildings but we didn’t get to stay home on snow days.

Incidentally, the CEA office in the Capitol Place building (21 Oak Street) in Hartford is centrally air conditioned.

Leaving Kate Dias to swelter vicariously, then, on this day in 1849 Congressman Abraham Lincoln was granted Patent No. 6,469 for a contraption (i.e., device) for “buoying vessels over shoals.” Lincoln submitted a model of an inflatable waterproof bladder or bellows to lift boats over obstructions, which is on display at the Smithsonian (if it hasn’t been removed by the Trump administration for no good reason). But it was never produced for practical use and probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.

Lincoln is probably the first sitting congressman to have received a patent. (We say “probably” because the Patent Office suffered catastrophic fires in 1836 and 1877.) He’s also the only president, sitting or otherwise, to hold a patent. And, just so you know, soon-to-be-former Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky (thanks to the revenger-in-chief), an MIT engineer, holds 20-some-odd patents related to computers; and they presumably work.

And on the subject of nasty, violent politics, it was on this very day in 1856 that South Carolina pro-slavery Democrat Congressman Preston Brooks galumphed over to the Senate chamber, after the Senate had adjourned of course, and beat Massachusetts anti-slavery Republican Senator Charles Sumner to a bloody pulp and almost to death with his heavy walking stick. It seems that Sumner had made remarks in a floor speech that offended Brooks.

The last physical fight on the U.S. Capitol floor was back in 1902, between the two Democrat senators from South Carolina, who engaged in a fistfight. But no blood was shed. Wouldn’t it be nice . . .