12 December—Apropos nothing, it was exactly a century ago today that the world’s first motel opened for business in San Luis Obispo, California. It was called the Milestone Mo-Tel and later rechristened the Motel Inn. It closed in 1991.

Following up on yesterday’s disquisition, as a rule it’s only reigning monarchs, like Britain’s King Charles III, whose portraits adorn currency and specie (paper money and coins) while they’re still alive. The British monarch’s profile is on all domestic banknotes and coins more by tradition than law. It’s also on the scratch of many of the 56 independent countries in the British Commonwealth of Nations, but on a strictly voluntary basis simply because they love their monarch.

On the other hand, as a rule even Donald Trump’s fellow dictators don’t put their own images on money. Do you see Putrid on Russian rubles? Do you see Xi on Chinese yuan? Do you see Orban on Hungarian forints? Do you see Maduro on Venezuelan bolivars? Of course not. Yet.

Yugoslavia’s communist dictator from 1945 until his death in 1980, Josip Broz, commonly known as Tito, was an exception to the rule.

The Belgian Congo’s dictator from 1971 until he was overthrown in 1997, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, was another exception to the rule. He deserves his own paragraphs because when he couped his way into office, he changed the country’s name to Zaire and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga. That’s usually shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko. And it’s been translated in a number of ways, including “the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake” and “the rooster that watches over all the hens.”

Mobutu was also glorified as the Leopard King of Zaire, the Supreme Combatant,

the Savior of the People, the Founder, the Guide of the Revolution, the Helmsman, the Father of the Nation, and the Messiah. That’s all?

As for the rooster sobriquet, although Mobutu was a Christian—but not a Mormon—he had two official wives. But he was a fervent practitioner of droit de seigneur (right of the lord, commonly known in Latin as jus primae noctis—right of the first night [although that, strictly speaking, meant the lord had a bride before her husband]). Thus he was notorious for having it on with numerous women to whom he was not married.

It’s been observed that Mobutu used his sexual relationships as a display of his power and control. Brings to mind another narcissistic philandering dictator notorious for excessive and abusive womanizing.

Incidentally, after Laurent-Désiré Kabila overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And Donald Trump’s highly self-touted peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda is a sick joke that hasn’t ended fighting . . .