DailyNewsGems

The New Normal: The Destruction of Monuments and Memorials

 

Pulling down the statue of George III by the "Sons of Freedom," at the Bowling Green, City of New York, July 1776.

Painted by Johannes A. Oertel

***

Statues or memorials, mostly of historical figures, which once dotted the brilliant landscapes of many U.S. cities, including the nation’s capital, have fallen victim to the sledgehammer for reminding citizens of a time in our unconscionable racist past that’s no longer in tune with 21^st century American values.

Since the death of a black male, George Floyd, 46, on May 25^th, when a Minneapolis police officer (Derek Chauvin) mercilessly kneeled on Mr. Floyd’s neck for eight minutes (and 46 seconds) while arresting him for allegedly using a counterfeit bill, the floodgates opened up.

Loud protests, shameless looting, and the destruction of property, became the order of the day by large groups, young and old, black and white, furious that African-Americans continue to be easy targets of perceived systemic racism within the police departments from coast-to-coast.

Protesters widened their net with another phase of protests when they began to tear down memorials and statues in a number of American cities, mostly Confederate soldier monuments.

By the latest count, at least 22 cities have reportedly removed Confederate monuments, including the statue of general Stonewall Jackson and another of a naval officer, Matthew Fontaine Maury, in Richmond, Virginia. On June 16, a swarm of protesters in Richmond, brought down the statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, 

As of June 9, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were nearly 1,800 Confederate monuments, statues, and other symbols in the U.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center also reports that state and local governments have removed at least 110 publicly supported monuments and other tributes to the Confederacy since the 2015 white supremacist massacre in Charleston, South Carolina.

Historians and civil rights groups point out these Confederate statues were erected during the Jim Crow era (late 19^th century and early 20^th century) to underscore white supremacy over black people. Prior to 1860, you couldn’t find a single enduring image of an African American as a statue—either in marble or bronze form in the United States.

One way to make amends and honor the emancipation of African-Americans after the Civil War was the creation of a statue conceived by American sculptor and musician, Thomas Ball, which was erected in 1876. The monument depicts Abraham Lincoln holding a copy of his Emancipation Proclamation, standing next to Archer Alexander, a former slave.

The sculpture is referred to as Emancipation Memorial or Freedman’s Memorial.

The statue originally faced west towards the U.S. Capitol until it was moved east in 1974 in order to face the newly erected Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial.  A replica of the statue was placed in Boston’s Park Square in 1879.

Many African-Americans, among others, considered the statue and its symbolism demeaning, especially the way it depicts a former slave kneeling in front of his white emancipator. Since the George Floyd protests, there have been revitalized rallies to have the statues removed. The Boston Art Commission recently voted unanimously to have the replica copy removed from Park Square. The date for its removal hasn’t been announced.

The Emancipation Memorial came about in the 19^th century when abolitionists and radical Republicans pushed for a monument that would underscore Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. The Western Sanitary Commission, then, used funds donated by African-Americans to commission a congressionally endorsed memorial in Washington D.C.

Despite African-Americans initially donating funds for the memorial, many argue they didn’t have the final say about what type of sculpture was ultimately decided upon. After a number of possibilities offered to feature as a sculpture (including black and white military heroes) the Freedmen’s Commission selected Thomas Ball’s depiction of a semi-nude former slave kneeling next to Abraham Lincoln.

Famous, now infamous, Italian explorer and navigator, Christopher Columbus, has been yet another historical figure who has faced the wrath of a great many Americans for his appalling treatment of indigenous people between 1492 and 1504.

Over the last week, a statue of Christopher Columbus was taken down in Columbus, Ohio. Statues of Columbus have additionally been vandalized in Boston, Miami, and Virginia; and most recently, protesters tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it in the Inner Harbor Saturday in Baltimore.

During his four voyages to the Caribbean and South America, Columbus and his entourage, historians tell us, enslaved many native inhabitants of the West Indies while meting out punishing violence and brutality. Columbus was also implicated with sending thousands of peaceful Taino “Indians” from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold for profit.

Obviously, the amended history of Christopher Columbus is a history many of us were not taught in the classroom as youngsters.

A statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, removed in Richmond, Virginia

Photo Credit: Associated Press

***

So, the question becomes, is the recent destruction of historic memorials only the beginning of a long series of staged protests in which statutes (of historical figures with a disreputable past) will come tumbling down like the Wall of Jericho? And will it ever stop? Already, sculptures of our Founding Fathers, those who were slave owners, are in grave danger of having their memorials smashed to smithereens.

“I am not a big fan of pulling down--I would rather the statues be relocated to a museum or some other non-public setting, especially as they have become symbols of oppression and history inequities,” Manish Chalana, Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, said. “I like how Delhi dealt with the statues of the colonial heroes--they were all moved to a forlorn park [Coronation Park] where they have been sitting since India’s independence.”

As a historical backdrop: Chalana notes that the statues erected in the Confederate South were done to advance an alternative view of history after the Civil War in which many believed “the war was about protecting the sovereignty of the southern states and not about preserving slavery.” These monuments, more or less, Chalana says, “came as a result of campaigns organized by the Daughters of the Confederacy or Colonial Dames or other such ‘patriotic’ groups to calm their anxieties around the changing laws and demographics.”

Another reason for the Confederate statues in the 19^th century, Chalana observed, was a strong sense of xenophobia, which was sparked by the sweeping wave of immigration from eastern and Southern Europe from a diverse group of immigrants who brought with them different cultural practices, and ways of life and religion. “Commentating national heroes through house museums and statues,” Chalana notes, “can be seen as a way to establishing Protestants claim to this country. “

Vivien Green Fryd, Professor of American and Contemporary Art at Vanderbilt University, worries that removing statues is a misguided way of deleting history without engaging in a constructive dialogue about different periods (however scandalous) in America’s complex storyline.

Fryd readily concedes the statues of Confederate generals and of Christopher Columbus are problematic, “but it’s our history,” Fryd said. “Let’s talk about it, about these images showing indigenous people in problematic ways. How these Confederate monuments were commissioned in order to impose white superiority. But what can we do? Do we destroy them? Or can we do something not only in discussing the messages of what they mean. Have talks about what they mean. But maybe you take the Confederate monuments in each state and create a Confederate Monument Park with signage which gives the history of this monument, where they were located, when they were commissioned, and when they were removed. They do this in eastern Europe, it’s not a unique idea.”

Fryd, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, informed me that if you walk through Germany, there are constant reminders of the Holocaust.  She mentioned that in one particular neighborhood in Germany, there are signs in front of a building which displays the names of persons taken to a concentration camp. It also lists where they were born and which concentration camp they were taken to and which concentration camp they were transported--to be exterminated.

“So,” Fryd explained, “when you walk down the street (in Germany), you become aware of the Jews that once lived here and know the names of those former residents brought to the concentration camps. And you know exactly what happened.” “I think, then,” Fryd cautions, “by removing these things, is then to say, this history didn’t happen. But the history did happen and that’s why we’re having so many problems.”

Fryd additionally notes that even nationally recognized historical museums have evolved to the point that they now include histories of slaves at Thomas Jefferson’s estate at Monticello and George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon. “You’re learning the history of slaves, where they lived, what their cabinets looked like, the food that they ate. And that has been a new development, I would say the last 20 years. And that history is important” Fryd stressed.

Dell Upton, Professor of Architectural History in the Department of Art History at UCLA, contends that many are making too much out of the historical significance of these statues, particularly the Confederate statues. Upton likens the statues to quick soundbites, expressing a particular viewpoint. “Books and teachers teach history. Statues teach attitudes: they try to suggest whom we should venerate or not,” Upton maintains.   “Furthermore, books and teachers’ interpretations of history change over time. Those conveyed by monuments never do.”

When asked whether the demonstrations and protests over statues has gone too far, Upton said he doesn’t think so, but “where it will go from here remains to be seen. Genuine grievances, largely but not only of African Americans, have been ignored or given lip service for decades, even centuries.”

Overall, Upton argues, the removal or destruction of statues has sparked a new dialogue about the kinds of memorials that will be venerated in the future. “I think,’’ Upton said, “that we will come out of this with a very different attitude toward monuments and a very different memorial landscape. What shape it will take, I can’t say.”

Cameras capture a protester in Cleveland, spitting in the face of a police officer.

Source: Fox13Now

***

What statue stays and what statue goes, I believe, will iron itself out in the coming weeks when cooler heads prevail and once many realize no matter how many statues are removed—racism is still very much alive in the United States.

Most importantly, classifying police officers’ as racists, demonizing the institution, and calls to defund them will hardly remove racism from the city streets. Accountability will.

During the infancy of television in the 1950s and 1960s, the only time you saw African-Americans, for the most part, was on the nightly news, when stations reported about crimes, murders, and the raging summer riots--giving the false impression that the vast majority of blacks were criminals and thugs, a menace to society.

More than 50 years later, now it’s the police who are the thugs and criminals, and a menace to society.

Would it be asking too much for national television networks and news organizations to adhere to the twin journalistic tenets of ``balance’’ and ``fairness’’ when it comes to police officers, just as they do any other subject, organization, or institution?

I think it’s reckless for the media to advance the false impression that all police officers are racists--out to kill as many blacks as they can.

I would love nothing more than to be a member of the “in-crowd’’ and demonize and spit in the face of police officers, like so many are doing, both literally and figuratively.

But I know too many police officers and police detectives (especially over the last decade in Cleveland, Ohio), who put their lives on the line to make the streets safer for all of his, regardless of race.

And because of the reckless actions of a minority of racist police officers, we’re being encouraged to spit in their face.

Sorry, I just can’t do it.

 

-Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

July 6, 2020

 

Is There Another Bach and Mozart in the 21st Century?

Does Bach still rock?

Put another way: Are Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Schubert, still the greatest classical music composers of all time or have they been knocked off their raised podium by some 20^th or 21^st century upstart?

In practically any other professional field of endeavor: professional sports, rock music, motion pictures, to name just a few, the 20^th and 21^st centuries have ushered in a fresh breed of groups or individuals whose talent far exceeds the previous generations.

As great as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were as hitters in their generation; a sound argument could be made their feats have been equaled if not surpassed by Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ichiro Suzuki, and Mike Trout in the most recent eras.

The same applies to professional football: it would be hard to continue to make the argument that Otto Graham and Johnny Unitas were the greatest quarterbacks of all time compared with Terry Bradshaw, Peyton Manning, and especially Tom Brady.

Both rock music and motion pictures have produced mega stars in the 20^th and 21st centuries which have far exceeded previous generations in raw talent--from Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen; Fleetwood Mac, U2, to Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Denzel Washington in the motion picture industry.

Can a similar argument be made when it comes to classical music?

When the New York Times classical music writer, Anthony Tommasini, was tasked to rank his favorite composers of all time, his top five were Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Debussy. Only the French composer, Claude Debussy, was considered a 20^th century composer, but just barely. He died from cancer in 1918 when he was 55.

Thanks to Spotify, the Swedish music streaming provider, this marvelous app has allowed me to archive thousands of my favorite songs, most of them classical music, including the Fab Five: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Haydn; as well as some of my favorite British composers: Handel, Britten, Elgar, Purcell, and Ralph Vaughn Williams.

If, however, you asked me to name some contemporary classical music composers; sadly, other than John Adams and Peter Maxwell Davies, I wouldn’t be able to name many more.

Does that mean there are no contemporary composers equal to the prodigious talents of Mozart and Beethoven; or does it mean, I have a poor and undeveloped understanding of what classical music has to offer?

The answer is both; as it turns out.

William Boughton, Professor of Music in the Yale School of Music, told me that if I’m looking for a replica of a Bach, Mozart or Beethoven writing ‘classical’ music in the 21^st Century I’m not going to find one!  “But there are plenty of genius composers,” Boughton noted, “including, George Benjamin, Thomas Ades, John Adams, Julia Wolfe, and a number of others, who are writing compelling music for, and in, our time. I’ll admit to a very small audience!”

I’m sure it doesn’t help when so many public schools nationwide with limited budgets are slashing music from their curriculum. How are children, after all, expected to know some of the more contemporary composers when they have limited exposure to the genre before they enter adulthood?

Boughton explained that “so much of what we appreciate and love in all art is dependent upon how our minds were influenced at a very early age – the majority of classical music audiences grew up on a diet of Bach, Mozart and didn’t experience modern or contemporary music until later, which means the concert experience was a passive one rather than an interactive.”

After corresponding with a number of music scholars, a common theme many of them cite for explaining why there is so little awareness of contemporary classical music composers is that they are competing against an extremely crowded field of musicians (of different genres) and other forms of entertainment from YouTube videos and iTunes to streaming television shows for hours on end.

For almost 30 years, historian and composer Robert Greenberg has shared his love of music with audiences and students.

Photo Credit: Robert Greenberg

***

Historian, composer, pianist, speaker, and author, Robert Greenberg, explained it to me this way: “In a pre-electronic age, when you had to make music yourself or listen to it made by others - live - the demand for fine art music and popular music was all-encompassing.”  “Audiences,’’ Greenberg explained, “expected to have to sit still for a 2-hour concert, or a 5-hour opera, or for an 800-page novel.  The pace of life was slower and there was time to think and consider.  We live in no such world today,” Greenberg observed. “The available media has fragmented the "pubic" into a million-and-one different pieces.  Our attention spans have shrunk to near nothing; YouTube videos longer than seven minutes go unwatched. “

According to a survey conducted by Primephonic , a classical music website and streaming service, half of Americans can’t name a classical composer. The survey additionally reported that only 14 percent of Americans listen to classical music regularly; meaning, more than half of those Americans who enjoy listening to classical music (53 percent) do not listen to it regularly.

Similarly, a CBS News poll showed that country (21 percent) and rock (18 percent) are America's favorite music genres. Classical music, on the other hand, was the preferred genre of only 10 percent of the respondents, behind popular music (14 percent) and just barely more popular than R&B or Soul (nine percent).

The sentiment that classical music is becoming lost in a sea of competing musical genres is echoed by Tucker Biddlecombe, Director of the Music Teacher Education Program at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. “There is brilliant music being made in the world of classical music at the moment, and it’s absolutely on par with the agreed-upon ‘great minds’ of the 19th century” Biddlecombe said. “To name a few: John Adams, Steve Reich, Caroline Shaw, Eric Whitacre, Jonathan Leshnoff, and Gabriela Lena Frank are all writing groundbreaking music that moves the needle in similarly emotional ways as Bach and Mozart.” “The main difference,” Biddlecombe further explained, “is that the medium has expanded, so now they have to compete with countless other composers of different styles of music - and some equally brilliant. Radiohead, Kendrick Lamar, U2, Trent Reznor - all of these artists have created music that inspired a new definition of sound.”

After corresponding with a number of musical specialists, I’ve come to a greater appreciation and a sharper understanding of just how many crazy talented classical music composers there are out there who simply haven’t been able to reach a wider audience.

Contemporary Classical Music composers: John Adams, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich

***

As talented as some of these contemporary composers are, however, I haven’t read much about these composers being described as geniuses, wunderkinds, who had the ability to play music at age three and wrote music at age five, traits often described of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 18^th century. And are these composers producing music that seems to have ‘’fallen from the heavens,” a popular phrase so often attributed to the masterpieces of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach?

Here, again, it seems, I’m not fully grasping the larger landscape of classical music. 

William Robin, assistant professor of musicology at the University of Maryland’s School of Music, informed me that the “widely held belief that all the great classical music was composed in the past, rather than the present, is itself a historical construct, one that dates back to the 19^th century and the new creation of discourses around "greatness" and "genius" that centered on composers and, specifically, Beethoven.” “The idea,” Robin says, “that the music of Bach and Beethoven "fell from the heavens" is a product of 19th century, nationalist and Romantic tropes that elevated music and its composers (and, specifically, Austro-German composers) to a new status. “

Robin argues the works of contemporary artists, such as Kaija Saariaho, David Lang, John Adams, Steve Reich, George Lewis, Louis Andriessen, Anna Thorvldsdottir, and Meredith Monk, who are producing exemplary work—are, in fact, living and breathing embodiments of the Austro-German lineage of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach.

Interestingly, as much as we enjoy the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and others during the present age, they weren’t as warmly received as we might have imagined when they were producing their works while still living.

Markus Rathey, Professor of Music History at Yale’s Divinity School, tells me “Beethoven's contemporaries did not understand his late string quartets; Bach was criticized for his boring and academic style; and Mahler's music was harshly criticized by listeners around 1900.”

But over time, Rathey explains, their music vocabulary became part of our musical vocabulary and after 100 years or so, Mahler, Bach, and Beethoven’s music has become normal to us. “We are use to the sound of Bach's polyphony and Beethoven's emotional outbreaks,” Rathey says, “and their music has shaped our taste.”

Rathey further suggests that while Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner have shaped our taste– contemporary composers like David Lang and Steve Reich are challenging our tastes because they create the type of music, we haven't had a chance to digest for a century.

Driving home the point that there is an ocean of superb music ready to be explored, Anne Midgette , former classical music writer for the Washington Post, told me that “the canon of great composers is not a fixed and immutable thing. Indeed, it’s one of the great tragedies of our field that people believe that these 50 or 100 canonical names somehow represent a higher qualitative standard than the hundreds of composers who are less remembered; we cut ourselves off from the enjoyment of a lot of great music by insisting that the Mozart’s and Beethoven’s represent something on a different plane.”

So, there it is.

I started thinking about and researching this article a couple of weeks ago, with the initial understanding there are no Mozart’s, Bach’s and Beethoven’s to be found in the 21^st century. But after speaking and corresponding with a number of music specialists, I’ve come to understand there are indeed some brilliant virtuosos out there if only we would widen our net, seek them out, and drop the overused labels of “greatness” and “genius” too often attributed solely to the Bach’s, Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s of the 18^th century.

A good start in expanding our knowledge of contemporary classical music composers might be to generate appreciably more public funding to the arts in the United States.

According to statistics from the German Orchestra Association, in 2018 there were 129 publicly-funded orchestras in Germany, with around 10,000 members. So, it’s no surprise that Orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden or the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig are considered among the best in the world.

In the United States, the cultural sector is almost entirely privately funded. And more and more articles seem to pop up every few months, such as this article from The Baltimore Sun , chronicling the financial woes of American orchestras.

The public funding of orchestras in Germany additionally pays big dividends. According to the German Music Council, 33 percent of Germans like classical music, this in contrast to only 10 percent in the United States and 15 percent in the United Kingdom

Nuff said!

 

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

June 7, 2020

Without Books Podcasts Might Be Just What the Doctor Ordered

The American Shakespeare Center (ASC), a regional theatre company located in Staunton, Virginia maintains a popular podcast.

***

There’s been some rarely mentioned downsides to the spread of the coronavirus and the subsequent quarantine, one of the most prominent (to many) has been the closing of many of the nation’s public libraries. Not being able to access the public library has been especially annoying for me.

Before moving into this small apartment I’m living in, I donated boxes, boxes, and boxes of books to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. I just finished David W. Blight’s superb biography on Frederick Douglass (“Prophet of Freedom”) and am currently enjoying Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi’s absorbing history of John Paul II, “His Holiness’’ published in 1996.

After I’m through with that, my reading material gets dangerously thin.

I have a number of friends who engage in these marathon sessions of Netflix, some watching for eight consecutive hours. I do subscribe to Netflix, but I can never imagine watching more than two consecutive hours of streaming without losing my mind.

So, what to do?

Suddenly, I began thinking about podcasts as a possible alternative to books. I must admit, I haven’t really listened to many podcasts, I always preferred reading.

When did podcasts actually begin?

In 2004, former MTV video jockey Adam Curry and software developer Dave Winer were credited with creating the first podcast. In 2005, President George W. Bush was the first U.S. President to have his weekly address delivered as a podcast. That same year, “podcast’’ was declared the word of the year by New Oxford American Dictionary.

Also, in 2004, “podcast’’ was used for the first time by journalist Ben Hammersley in the Guardian newspaper on February 11, 2004. 

After doing a little research, I was stunned to learn how popular podcasts have become since 2004. More than one-third of Americans age 12 and over (104 Million) are consuming podcasts regularly, up significantly from 2019, according to Edison Research and Triton Digital.

What’s more, “podcasts now reach over 100 million Americans every month,” Tom Webster, SVP of Edison Research reports.

So, with so many podcasts out there, I thought I would reach out to a number of experts on different subject in order to get some recommendations on the most popular podcasts.

Thankfully, many were kind enough to share their favorites. I list them according to subject.

NOTE: I didn’t try to find podcasts about current events or politics, since most of them mirror each other in reporting the same mundane narratives about President Donald Trump and the economic impact of COVID-19.

 Charles Dickens

• In Our Time Podcast from the BBC. Melvyn Bragg, an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian, discusses the achievements of Charles Dickens.

• The University of Oxford Podcast features a number of lively scholarly discussions about different facets of Charles Dickens life and works. 

• In 2012, during the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Dickens, The University of Warwick assembled experts from the University and other institutions to explore the genius of Dickens, his real life experiences, knowledge, philanthropy, character-rich novels and the Victorian era, in which he lived.

• Carolyn Oulton, Director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW) and Professor of Victorian Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University, has launched a mapping project in which she takes viewers around Kent (England), connecting the places in the South East England county associated with Dickens, such as where parts of David Copperfield were written or the view from the Swiss chalet where Dickens was working on the morning of his death.

William Shakespeare

• The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, an independent registered educational charity based in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, among other undertakings, features a podcast in which Shakespearean experts address a number of compelling topics about the “Bard of Avon,” such as one show in which Professor Sir Stanley Wells discusses how Shakespeare typically wrote a play or what the sonnets tells us about Shakespeare.

Peter Holland, Professor of Shakespearean Studies at the University of Notre Dame, said that Wells lectures are “wonderfully clear and engaging, a joy to listen to, a distillation of a lifetime of studying Shakespeare. “

• Another highly recommended Shakespeare podcast is the Public Theater’s new venture, Brave New Shakespeare: 

James Shapiro, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, who specializes in Shakespeare at Columbia University, explained it to me, “you can listen (in English, Spanish, etc.) to first-rate actors perform a scene or speech from Shakespeare—and then you get to give it a shot yourself, and post your own version.” “I much prefer,” Shapiro says,” recommending that to the more passive experience of most podcasts.”

• The American Shakespeare Center (ASC), a regional theatre company located in Staunton, Virginia  also features a highly recommended podcast for theater lovers. ASC not only focuses on plays by Shakespeare, but also his contemporaries: Ben Jonson, Beaumont the Fletcher, Christopher Marlowe; and works related to Shakespeare, such as James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter, and Bob Carlton’s Return to Forbidden Planet.

 Poetry/Literature

• How To Read Podcast  in which each episode is a short conversation – approximately 15 minutes – with a literary scholar who engages listeners with a smart conversation on different themes of literature, attracting readers from the professional to the curious.

• Jacket 2 Podcast is a collaboration of the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, and the Poetry Foundation which offers commentary on modern and contemporary poetry and poetics.

• That Book Podcast, hosted by Hannah Weaver and Michael Goldsmith, provides updates on everything everyone’s reading (and NOT reading, side-eye straight to Thrift Books) in lockdown. 

• Being Podcast  Pádraig Ó Tuama  is a poet, theologian, and conflict mediator. He is the inaugural poet laureate of The On Being Project and hosts the Poetry Unbound.He was the former leader of Corrymeela, Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. His books include two volumes of poetry, a daily prayer book, and a memoir, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World.

• Charles Olson’s 1966 reading of “Maximus of Gloucester to You,” which one scholar considered the “greatest poem reading of all.” Olson was a second-generation modern American poet inspired by Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance. 

Music History

Historian, composer, pianist, speaker, and author, Robert Greenberg (a Brooklyn N.Y. native) features a podcast every Monday about different themes of classical music.

Baseball

 Jacob Pomrenke, director of editorial content for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and editor of “Scandal on the South Side: the 1919 Chicago White Sox,” was kind enough to recommend the following baseball podcasts.

• SABRcast with Rob Neyer, is a wildly popular podcast with timely topics about the national pastime.

• Effectively Wild is updated three times a week; co-hosted by Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, Sam Miller of ESPN, and Meg Rowley of FanGraphs, with witty banter about various baseball issues, which includes guest interviews.

• This Week in Baseball History, a weekly podcast devoted to the history of baseball, hosted by Mike Bates and Bill Parker, the co-founders of The Platoon Advantage.

• The Infinite Inning podcast hosted by Steven Goldman, former consulting editor of Baseball Prospectus dealing with a number of baseball issues, including topical items in the news.

Other popular baseball pods include:

• David Gardner, a staff writer for Bleacher Report, hosts a unique podcast in which he deals with How to Survive Without Sports.

• Baseball Tonight with ESPN’s Buster Onley

• Girl at the Game  hosted by Gabrielle Starr and NESN’s Alexandra; a podcast by women, but for everyone.

• Mike Safo’s Podcast A New York City police officer who fell in love with Kentucky basketball and hangs with Kentuckians at a UK pub on W. 33 St. (Jack Demsey's). He finds baseball people and asks about their corners, or former corners, of the world.

• Anchor: Writer and freelance journalist Hillel Kuttler hosts ABC’s Athletics Beyond Coronavirus, which features discussions with people in sports about how they’re faring during these challenging times.

• Caught Listening hosted by cancer survivor and sports director of Public House Media, Christian Heimall, who offers listeners a different slice of America’s National Pastime. 

Melvyn Bragg, an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian, discusses the history of ideas, and explores subjects in culture and science in the “Our Time" podcast by the BBC.

Photo Credit: BBC

***

History

• BackStory hosted by a number of noted U.S. historians, is a weekly podcast that addresses topical events in America, providing listeners with unique perspectives on a particular theme or subject and how many of these events shaped how America is viewed in the present age.

• The Organization of American Historians, an organization founded in 1907 as the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history, maintains a podcast, which features interviews with authors of articles in their journal. As they look into the future and as podcasts become more popular, JAH hopes to include conversations with award-winning authors of books on American history. 

Philip J. Deloria, Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Harvard University, finds JAH’s podcast to be “lively, and certainly off the beaten track in terms of topics.”

• Liz Covert, a historian of early America who practices scholarly history, public history, and digital humanities, primarily as the Digital Projects Editor for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture maintains a podcast, Ben Franklin’s World in which she hopes to connect listeners with the work of professional historians who shed dramatic light on events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Covert’s latest episode, for example, deals with the origins of the 11^th Amendment, the first amendment adopted after the Bill of Rights which restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against states in federal court.

• Whiskey Rebellion, a podcast hosted by Frank Cogliano and David Silkenat who both teach at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. 

In their latest episode, with more than 30 million Americans filing for unemployment over the past 6 weeks, the United States faces unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression. These two engaging historians discuss the history of unemployment in the US, and explore what lessons could be learned.

• The commercial free Ottoman History Podcast , which began in March of 2011, has grown to be one of the largest digital resources for academic discussion concerning the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East, which includes contributions from hundreds of experts in the field.

• The Fall of Rome Podcast hosted by history podcaster and writer, Patrick Wyman, is being met with rave reviews, for among things, its clear and smooth-tongued retelling of the historic decline of the Western Roman Empire.

• Wyman also hosts the compelling Tides of History Podcast in which, through different epic events in history, he helps listeners understand our world and how it got to be the way it us.

• Another big hit with historians and history buffs is Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time (BBC) podcast which features gripping discussions with expert guests on a number of topics, including: literature, politics, philosophy, religion, and music.  Bragg is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian.

Religion

• Jewish History Matters Podcast: is hosted by Jason Lustig, a scholar of modern Jewish history and culture at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. Lustig also serves as executive producer of Jewish History Matters.

According to its website, “looking to American history, European history, the histories of colonialism, science, or philosophy, let alone other topics, we cannot overlook the Jews both as people who played a part in it as well as an important example of the place of minorities in these societies and histories. To disregard the Jews would be to neglect the nuances and complexities of history.”

• Erik Estrada, assistant professor of religion at Texas Christian University, runs a podcast, "Catholic Heritage Show," which is an overview of Catholic history and doctrine. Estrada tells me that “in the future, we will be doing more in studio recordings on various topics in Church history.” Estrada’s wife, Mary Estrada, hosts a podcast titled "Catholic Heritage Spirituality"  which covers the Catholic spiritual tradition from a historical perspective.

• Gabriel Reynolds, Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame, hosts a podcast “Minding Scripture” in which he teams with two other colleagues (one Muslim, the other Jewish) in discussing the Bible and the Qur'an. Reynolds said they generated a great response to their first nine episodes.

• On Being, a Webby Award-winning public radio conversation and podcast, hosted by Krista Tippett, which examines what it calls the, "animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?"

Online Courses

• Yale University offers free online courses taught by the university’s most distinguished scholars, which includes a full set of class lectures on video, a syllabus, suggested readings, exams, and problem sets. The lectures are available as downloadable videos, and as an audio-only version. In addition, searchable transcripts of each lecture are provided. Some of the courses offered include: “Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner,” “Financial Markets (2008),” “The American Novel since 1945,” “Roman Architecture,” and the “Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877” taught by Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David. W. Blight.

• Gresham College Lectures offers free videos of their scholars teaching courses on a number of subjects, including history, arts and literature, religion, law, and a host of other disciplines. Gresham College was founded in 1597 and has been providing free lectures within the City of London for over 400 years.

COVID-19:  Historic Background of Contagious Diseases

 Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 Podcast which takes a sharp look at the impact of epidemic diseases on western society and culture from the bubonic plague to HIV/AIDS and recent experiences of SARS and the swine flu. This podcast is hosted by Frank Snowden, professor of history at Yale University, who has previously published: “Naples in the Times of Cholera”(1995) and “The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962” (2006).

Snowden’s lectures were delivered 10 years ago, but as Keith Wrightson, a Yale historian who specializes in early modern England, tells me, “they were never more relevant.”

• History of Now Podcasts  on the history of epidemics, state regulation and other issues hosted by Christopher Clark, Regius Professor at Cambridge, and author of "The Sleepwalkers:  How Europe Went to War in 1914" (among other books). 

• Inside Stories: COVID-19  A terrific podcast in which listeners are asked to share their stories related to COVID-19.

China-U.S. Relations/Culture

• The Harvard on China Podcast a world leading center on China is hosted and produced by James Evans and edited by Liza Tarbell at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

• Founded in 2010, the Sinica Podcast is dedicated to discussion of current affairs in China with journalists, writers, academics, policy makers, business people and anyone with something compelling to say about the country that's reshaping the world. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn.

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

May 4, 2020

 

A Look Inside the Toolbox of Effective Leaders in Times of National Crisis

President Donald Trump lashes out at a reporter during one of his COVID-19 briefings.

Photo Credit: Reporters Without Borders

***

What makes a great leader? Especially in time of national crisis?

I found myself asking myself that very question the other day when President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 briefing popped up on my Facebook page. As a matter of practice, I rarely listen to briefings by the President. I find him pompous, arrogant, and spiteful to anyone who disagrees with him.  Mostly, when listening to the president, I find myself getting too worked up when his narcissism kicks into overdrive and he makes himself the center of the universe.

But since we’re not only in a national crisis but a worldwide crisis of epic proportions, I thought surely the president would leave his ego at the door and help rally the nation to keep up the good fight, console the families who lost loved ones, and to thank all the courageous members of the medical community who have so heroically answered the nation’s call to duty by administering to those stricken by the deadly virus.

As of Tuesday, 45,065 people (in the U.S.) have died from the virus.

But you wouldn’t have known that by listening to the president’s briefing on Saturday afternoon.  His narcissism was on full display; he talked about how well the stock market was responding, much better than he could have anticipated, he boasted. Then, suddenly, he switched gears and sounding like an unhinged madman—referred to Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman as a third-rate reporter. He laced into the Washington Post and CNN as well, charging them with dishonesty.

Comforting words to those who lost family members, or encouraging words to Americans who have had to endure so many painful sacrifices during this crisis was nowhere to be found.

How is it possible that such an utter madman could be in charge of the country during such an unprecedented national crisis, when more deaths, more massive unemployment, and more tumult and chaos, is just around the corner? And when the nation is looking to their president for tonic in the form of hope and courage to keep going despite the grim future.

Administering to a grieving nation in time of national crisis befell a number of U.S. Presidents:  Abraham Lincoln (U.S. Civil War) FDR (The Great Depression and Pearl Harbor), JFK (Cuban Missile Crisis), George H.W. Bush (the Gulf War), George W. Bush (9/11 terrorist attacks) and Barrack Obama (the Great Recession). And each of these individuals, when the bell rang, infused the nation with courage and hope, that the nation’s single mindedness and resiliency will eventually result in a stronger nation, beaming with a renewed sense of national pride.

James Thurber, professor of government and presidential studies at American University in Washington D.C., told me that Trump had a Churchillian moment when the pandemic struck, but was unable to work his magic like so many of his predecessors have from Lincoln to Obama. Thurber observed how George H.W. Bush’s ratings shot up 35 percent during the Gulf War, later his son, George W. Bush’s ratings leaped by as many as 40 points after 9/11. “Such a bounce in popularity is not happening with this president. It went up four percent, then went down 4 percent,” Thurber said. “The meager gains during this COVID-19 crisis is truly stunning. Usually there is a rallying effect with other leaders in times of crisis.”

Asked what leadership skills are essential in time of crisis, Thurber said that leadership means “someone who is truthful about the problem and builds consensus around a solution to the problem. Someone who develops a way out, giving vision, giving comfort, empathy, hope, and strength.” “Leadership,” Thurber further explained, “entails someone who is not afraid to say when they are wrong. And not afraid to learn from people. Someone who has a sense of history, knowledge, and expertise about other leaders. We have none of that with respect to this president.”

According to a new national  NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll , 44 percent of voters say they approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, while 52 percent disapprove.

What’s more, only 36 percent of respondents in the poll say they generally trust what Trump has said when it comes to the coronavirus, while 52 percent say they don’t trust him.

Who does America trust during this pandemic?

According to the same poll, 69 percent say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); 66 percent trust their own governor; 60 percent trust Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert; 46 percent trust New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and 35 percent trust Vice President Mike Pence.

What I find most fascinating about great leaders through history is that a majority, believe it or not, were not born leaders, but over time, acquired the necessary skills, developed them, worked on them some more and when the time was right—executed their leadership skills with precision.

Nancy Koehn, author and a business historian at Harvard Business School, published a book : “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times’’  in which she examined the leadership skills of five individuals: Ernest Shackleton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rachel Carson.

The four men and one-woman Koehn examined became, as she wrote in her book: “leaders by dint of working on themselves: intentionally choosing to make something better of who they were, even in the midst of crisis, and never losing sight of the larger, dynamic stage on which they found themselves.”

Early on in their lives, Koehn chronicles how each of these inspiring individuals recognized their weaknesses; took measures to overcome their deficiencies and sharpen the skills that would pay the most dividends.

“With experience, they learned to detach themselves enough from the immediacy,’’ Koehn wrote, “of their circumstances to observe the bigger landscape, and their place in it, and to take action-within themselves and in relation to external goals-from this perspective.”

Time and again, Donald Trump is incapable of looking at the bigger picture in this crisis; he repeatedly thinks only of himself and his standing in the polls instead of plowing ahead with bold action and a common purpose, despite the criticism he faces, even if it means risking re-election.

There was no guarantee that Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War would be reelected in 1864. In the summer of 1864, there were over 65,000 Union soldiers killed, wounded, or missing-in-action. His Emancipation Proclamation was still meeting stiff resistance from many Northerners, opposition in Congress to Lincoln grew louder, and there was even a peace candidate challenging him for the presidency.

Lincoln could have easily crumbled under such formidable circumstances-but he stayed the course-and the nation was saved.

Another key instrument of leadership missing from Donald Trump’s tool box is his failure to communicate optimism to the country amid such doom and gloom, with dead body counts growing more alarming on each passing day.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio talks connected Americans to the White House in a way no medium of communication had yet allowed.

Source: Library of Congress

***

During the Great Depression, when all seemed lost, FDR delivered his famous fireside chats, giving a sense of hope and optimism to the country amid the monstrous lines to soup kitchens.  “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Roosevelt bellowed in what became a rallying cry for the nation gripped in economic calamity. The nation, through dint of hard work, did regain its mojo, thanks largely to FDR’s indomitable optimism.

And you wonder how on earth Winston Churchill was able to keep his composure and convey so much optimism to the British nation while enduring 56 straight nights of bombs raining down from the Nazis on London during World War II.?

It’s often been written that the British PM wasn’t a natural speaker, but through hard work, and honing his delivery, his radio broadcasts proved the elixir the nation needed when the future seemed so dark and without hope.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivering one of his radio broadcasts during the height of World War II.

Source: Imperial War Museum (IWM).

***

When Churchill rose to the position of PM, his first speech in front of the House of Commons on May 13, 1940, demonstrated for all the world to hear, that he was equal to the task, which was: the defeat of Nazi Germany. “You ask, what is our policy? “Churchill thundered. “I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Churchill’s stated purpose united the nation. The cantankerous British leader didn’t play the blame game like Donald Trump does, he didn’t blame Neville Chamberlain for appeasement, he didn’t throw others under the bus for the bleak state Britain found herself in. He took full responsibility with a singular purpose. It was a brilliant exercise in statesmanship that few in the world have been able to emulate.

The overwhelming consensus is that Donald Trump has failed as a leader during a time when the nation most needed a leader.

There are, however some exceptions, such as Talmage Boston, a partner in the Dallas office of Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, where his specialty is commercial litigation. Boston has assembled the 10 Commandments of Presidential Leadership.

Mr. Boston argues Donald Trump during the COVID-19 crisis possessed the following leadership skills.

• Exhibited steadfast resolve to overcome obstacles.
• Played hardball when necessary to achieve a desired end.
• Stayed reasonably calm in a crisis.
• Moved with good timing in pursuing his initiatives.
• Was a reasonably good communicator and largely following through on what he says.
• Put the country’s interest above his own personal interest.
• Stayed mindful of the public sentiment and keeping his vision in sync with that sentiment and maybe even moving the needle on the public’s sentiment with his message.    

On the downside, Boston believes Trump is deficient in the following categories.

• Lacks the capacity to serve as Conscience-in-Chief with a moral compass locked on true north.
• Lacks the capacity to rise above the fray and build consensus,
• Lacks self-awareness (i.e., knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses) and finding ways to partner with those who are strong in the areas in which he’s not.  

During such a calamity that we are experiencing, I believe a leader, a true leader, is one who is able to throw away political credentials, throw caution to the wind, and lead the nation through the high winds and stormy seas no matter the consequences, because that’s what true leaders do in time of crisis: take a bullet for their country.

Historian Nancy Koehn sums up the very core of effective leadership so beautifully, when she writes: “Courageous leadership is actually a result of individual people committing to work from their stronger selves, discovering a mighty purpose, and motivating others to join their cause. In the process, each of the leaders and the people they inspire are made more resilient, a bit bolder, and, in some instances, even more luminous. When this happens, impact expands, and the possibility grows for moving goodness forward in the world.”

Measured against this yardstick, Donald Trump failed the nation miserably.

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

April 21, 2020

The Rolling Stones Still Have Fans Under Their Thumb

The Rolling Stones performing in 2019 

Photo Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

***

“If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.”

― James A. Garfield, 20^th U.S. President

The Rolling Stones, the ageless English rock band, and once considered the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world, are set to embark on a 15-city North American tour beginning May 8 in San Diego and ending July 9 in Atlanta.

They’ll be performing at First Energy Stadium (the home of the Cleveland Browns) on June 19.

I recall, vividly, telling someone I worked with at The Plain Dealer 26 years ago (1994) that the Rolling Stones were on their last leg.

Here we are in 2020 and they're still kicking.

The last time they performed in Northeast Ohio was 18 years ago.

The Stones have been rocking for 58 years. Their first paid gig was at the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962, when the band consisted of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Dick Taylor, and Mick Avory.

Only the animated Jagger, the bands frontman and Richards, a blues rhythm guitarist (both 76 years old) are the original members still plying their trade well into the 21^st century. Charlie Watts replaced Mick Avery on drums in January, 1963 and guitarist Ronnie Wood became an official member of the Rolling Stones in February, 1976.

One lingering question that members of the iconic band have had to confront for almost 40 years now is whether they’re too old to be performing. Their age factor has become even more pronounced now that the band members are well into their 70s, when others their age might be limited to watering plants or confined to an assisted living facility.

With lucrative corporate sponsorships fueling their tours, the Stones are bringing in buckets of hard cash, performing usually in front of packed stadiums, with fans all too willing to plunk down $500-$700 a ticket.

Just last year, for example, the Stones performed at 17 shows in the United States, grossing $177.8 million.  Many argue the Stones are well beyond being just a rock n’ roll band, they’re a profitable corporation, and have been for a number of years.

Victor Coelho and John Covach, editors of “The Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones,” point out that promoters are guaranteeing “enormous artist fees in return for revenue streams from licensing and the sale of official merchandise – not just T-shirts and tour posters, but intimate apparel, high-end Globetrotter luggage, and even a franchise of the Trivial Pursuit Collector’s Edition board game.”

In 2002, Money Magazine reported that since 1989, the Rolling Stones had generated more than $1.5 billion in gross revenues, including sales of records, song rights, merchandising, sponsorship money, and touring--enabling them to make more money than U2, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, or Britney Spears.

So, the question is, are the Stones still about rock n’ roll or is it more about a big fat payday?

Dave Bauder, television and music critic for the Associated Press, says he gives the Stones heaps of credit “for staying in shape, keeping up their chops and delivering shows that are satisfying to their fans.  They perform the hits and do some deep dives into their catalog to keep things fresh. That’s no small thing. If they mailed it in, they wouldn’t be playing stadiums anymore.”

“I am romantic or naive enough to believe they really do it for the love of the music,’’ Glenn Gass, Professor of Music at Indiana University told me. “Their legacy, their addiction to having an audience, the sense of purpose everyone needs in life. What else would Keith Richards do?”

Gass additionally points out the Stones have other contemporaries who don’t let wrinkled skin push them to the exit door. Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, and Fleetwood Mac, among others, are prime examples.

“I think they love their band and their songs and the thrill of each show,” Gass said. “I think I would enjoy playing “Start Me Up” when I was 80! especially if I could do it in a stadium full of excited fans. And I think they view it as a life’s work, not finished until they are, like Muddy Waters and their other blues heroes and role models. I’m sure they would not do it if they were not getting paid, but I really don’t think money is the real draw. Asking why the Stones keep playing is sort of like why asking why Stravinsky kept composing until he was 90, or Picasso kept painting.”

Jack Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and author of “Just around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination” also subscribes to the opinion that rock n’ roll still courses through the Stones veins, even at their advanced age.

“I think they seem to genuinely like touring,’’ Hamilton observes. “I’m sure the money plays a part in that. In Keith Richards’ autobiography he definitely gives the sense that he still just loves playing music and wouldn’t know what to do if he retires. In terms of performance level, I don’t think they’re what they were at their absolute peak but it seems like their fans still enjoy it, given the amount of money they are making.”

“Time is not on the Stones’ side:  for all the loyalty they have gained since the 1960’s, they’re not immune to anti-incumbent fervor, especially when they pretend to have nothing more on their minds than sexual prowess,” New York Times music critic Jon Pareles wrote on August 3, 1994 , in his lukewarm review of the band’s first tour since 1990 at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.

Mick Jagger was confronted with the question whether he (and the Stones) are too old to play as far back as 1981. When told by a New York Times reporter that many believe the Stones are “too old to rock and roll,” Jagger shot back that such a ludicrous observation is a “bunch of rubbish.”  “I’m sure we’ll be carrying on for years; it’s quite easy to,” Jagger told the New York Times. “People think that because you’re white and it’s rock and roll, somehow it’s different. But all the performers I love and admire, who are mostly black, went on until they literally died,” citing Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne. “Sometimes they weren’t very beautiful dying, but a lot of them had health problems that I’m not going to have because I didn’t grow up in poverty the way they did. I can’t foresee the Stones breaking up in the foreseeable future.”

Journalist and author Bob Spitz, writing for the New York Times in 1989, asked Keith Richards if he’s ever “considered whether the Rolling Stones might, in the near future, find it more prudent to retire than lapse into self-parody.”  The iconic Rolling Stones guitarist was quick to shoot down such a suggestion. “Look around,” Richards told Spitz, “and you’ll see that there’s very little out there with our feel for the music. Nobody cooks. Today, everything is computerized. The kids think it’s O.K. to sit in a little room by themselves and push buttons to get Boom-PAH. But their music’s not going to go anywhere except for that. “There are absolutely no dynamics involved, no feeling, no passion, Richards explained. “You can’t get those things out of a machine.”

The fact that the Rolling Stones are still together and still performing at such a high level (by anyone’s standards) well into the 21^st century is amazing in itself. Their journey from 1962 through 2020 has been filled with mines and traps, to be sure, they stumbled along the way in certain periods of their career--but they always managed to pick themselves up, regroup, and keep plowing forward.

The Rolling Stones are shown during rehearsal on April 8, 1964 at an unknown location. The British band members, from left, are, Brian Jones, guitar; Bill Wyman, bass; Charlie Watts, drums; Mick Jagger, vocals; and Keith Richards, guitar.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

***

There first steps on American soil wasn’t a pleasant one.

In giving readers a taste of the types of reviews the Stones received in 1964 during their first American tour, Jack Hamilton, writing for Slate Magazine  wrote, “huge swaths of American coverage focused on their physical appearance, particularly their hair. The Los Angeles Times compared the band to cavemen, chimpanzees, and “very ugly Radcliffe girls.” The New York Times ran two lengthy articles on “androgynous” hairstyles and reported that Cleveland, citing destructive effects on “the community’s culture,” would soon prohibit rock-and-roll performances at that city’s Public Hall.”

Similarly, in 1964, Hamilton noted that the Chicago Tribune greeted the British rockers with a chilly welcoming, which read: “Thank you, Rolling Stones. You have been able to convince the world that no one, not even the Beatles, could be more repulsive than you.”

To fully appreciate the Rolling Stones, it’s fascinating to look at how they evolved over almost six decades.

After a string of pop hits in the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones, musically, reached a major turning point in the release of the song, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in 1968, with its inflection of Delta Blues. It was at this point when music critics contend that Keith Richards began to take over the sound of the band.

About the same time as “Jumpin Jack Flash” the band was struggling, mightily, keeping band member, Brian Jones, knee-deep in drug addictions and arrests in the fold. The band was left with little choice but to fire him (June 8, 1969), from a band, ironically enough, he created. Jones drowned in his pool less than a month later.

Many observed that as the Stones segued from rhythm and blues toward a more rock and roll sound, Jones felt he lost control of his band. In 1968, the Stones hired a new producer from the United States: Jimmy Miller who began to give the band a more trans-Atlantic sound.

Jones quick replacement was Mick Taylor, a young talented blues guitarist. Music historians assert that the addition of Taylor brought the Stones “level of musicianship up a few notches until he quit in 1975,’’ and musically ushered in a period when the Stones had never been stronger. The addition of Taylor gave the Stones their first “true lead guitarist.”

Taylor left the Stones in 1975.

The 1980s would mark a decade when the Stones would barely be seen at all; except briefly for tours in 1981 and then eight years later, in 1989.

It was during this decade that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were at each other’s throats for control of the band. And it was also during this period, when members of the band ventured out with brief solo projects, including Jagger and Richards.

Their induction into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, according to music historians, brought the Stones back into relevancy, which coincided with the history of rock n’ roll becoming part of many curriculums at American colleges.

With the release of the album “Steel Wheels,” in 1989, the Rolling Stones acquired a sharper understanding of the economics of the music industry and the public’s insatiable thirst for classic rock and roll bands.

That’s when the Stones developed a lucrative business model with the hiring of Canadian promoter Michael Cohl, who according to The Guardian came up with a new strategy: central booking. “He offered a set fee for the Steel Wheels tour to the band, then booked every show himself, cutting out local promoters. He also upped the merchandise operation, sought corporate sponsors and maximized every revenue stream a tour could offer.”

Additionally, an essential ingredient of the Rolling Stones appeal over the last few decades centers on their global outreach.

According to Victor Anand Coelho, Professor Music at Boston University, “The last few years saw the Stones playing to a million fans in Brazil; and a history making show in Cuba, marking a cultural breakthrough, not just a concert.” “The upcoming tour,” Coelho explained, “is carefully planned to include cities that have been missed on previous tours, or as with the case of Cleveland, where the Stones have not appeared for over two decades.”

Further describing the staying power of the Stones, Coelho expressed to me that “while fans will not hear the long searing solos of the Mick Taylor period, the interplay between Richards and Wood continues to be tight and inventive, and Jagger and the rest of the band are in excellent shape physically.”

Imagine, in just a couple of months, the original bad boys of rock will be exploring the highways and byways of North America with its bouncy frontman, Mick Jagger, (fully recovered from a heart valve replacement) brandishing his signature rolling of his shoulders, wagging his finger, throwing off his clothes, and clapping his hands high over his head, only four years shy of his 80^th birthday.

Only in America!

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

March 8, 2020

 

Rolling Stones Fast Facts

• Many claim the formation of the Rolling Stones can be traced back to 1949 when Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, both from Dartford, England, went to school together.

• The band was originally called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. It was Brian Jones, the band’s lead guitarist, who came up with “Rollin’ Stones” in tribute to a Muddy Waters song by the same name. The Stones manager subsequently convinced them to call themselves, “The Rolling Stones,” adding a “g” at the end of Rollin.

• June 7, 1963: First single, “Come On’’ (a Chuck Berry song) released in England.

• The 1963 single, “I Wanna Be Your Man” was written for the Stones by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

• March 6, 1964: First U.S. single, “Not Fade Away’’ (a Buddy Holly song) released.

• June 5, 1964, first U.S. tour, kicked off in San Bernardino, California.

• October 25, 1964: First appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

• In the summer of 1965, recorded a worldwide Number 1 smash hit, "Satisfaction."

• In 1967, Allen Klein replaced Andrew Loog Oldham as the new manager of the Stones.

• Keith Richards threw an acid party at his Redlands estate (country house in West Wittering) on February 12, 1967. The police were tipped off there was drugs at the house, including acid. Richards and Jagger were arrested for possession of drugs.

• June 13, 1969: Mick Taylor introduced as the newest member of the Rolling Stones.

• The Stones stopped touring for a long stretch after the tragic free concert at the Altamont Speedway in northern California, (December 6, 1969) where four people died; a disastrous night, when the Stones foolishly hired members of the Hells Angels (motorcycle club) as bodyguards.

• Due to crippling taxes in the U.K., The Stones moved to the South of France in 1971.

• In 1971, formed their own label, Rolling Stones Records.

• March 26, 1971: Unveil their new logo, officially called “Tongue and Lips,” designed by artist John Pasche in 1969 after Mick Jagger approached the Royal College of Art. The original artwork resides at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

• February 28, 1976: Ronnie Wood announced as an official member of the Rolling Stones.

• During the bands 1981 tour, it was the first time they embraced a corporate sponsor. The fragrance maker, Jovan, reportedly paid one million dollars to have their name associated with the tour.

• Movie director Martin Scorsese has used “Gimme Shelter’’ in four of his films.

• Inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

• First concert over the Internet came in 1994.

• The Stones 1994 world tour set records, bringing in more than $300 million.

• Mick Jagger was knighted in 2003-he is known as Sir Michael Philip Jagger

• Current ages of the Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger, 76, lead guitarist Keith Richards, 76, guitarist Ronnie Wood, 72, and drummer Charlie Watts, 78.

--Researched and Compiled by Bill Lucey

Source: The Rolling Stones." Encyclopedia of World Biography, “The Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Rock” by Howard Kramer; “101 Amazing Rolling Stones Facts” by Jack  Goldstein; “The Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones,” by Victor Coelho (Editor).

Top 10 Google Searches about Cleveland

Photo Credit: InterContinentalCleveland.com

***

What is the most searched attraction about Cleveland?

My curiosity got the better of me, so I reached out to the Press Office of Google; and to my surprise, they (Google Trends) worked their magic and ranked the top 10 attractions searched about Cleveland, Ohio on a Google search engine.

The results did shock me. I was surprised the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, the downtown Casino, Progressive Field or First Energy Stadium didn’t crack the top 10.

What follows, then, are the top 10 Google searches about Cleveland within the last six months.

1. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo was the most googled attraction about Cleveland within the last six months. It’s located near Brookside Park on the southwest side of Cleveland, occupying 165 acres. The zoo is home to 3,300 animals of over 500 different species. 

The Zoo specializes in animal care, education and research and is certified by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Since 1995, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has contributed more than $8 million to wildlife conservation efforts around the world in partnership with the Cleveland Zoological Society.

The zoo began as Wade Park in 1882, near Wade Oval in Cleveland’s University Circle after Jeptha H. Wade donated 73-acres of land and 14 American deer to the City of Cleveland. With the city’s plans to build the Cleveland Museum of Art in University Circle, the zoo was relocated.

In 1957, the Cleveland Zoological Society assumed control of the Zoo. In 1968, the City of Cleveland transferred ownership of the Zoo to the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District, and the Cleveland Zoological Society transferred management of the Zoo to the Cleveland Metroparks in 1975. By 1995, attendance at the zoo had leaped to 1.2 million.

Today, the Zoo is one of Cleveland's most visited year-round attractions.

2.) The 63^rd annual Cleveland Boat Show or Progressive Cleveland Boat Show & Fishing Expo which was held January 16^th through January 20^th at the I-X Center, Cleveland’s convention and exhibition hall, was the second most searched Cleveland attraction within the last six months.

Having weathered the Great Recession of 2008 and beyond, this year’s boat show was bigger than ever, which took up a good part of the convention center. The show displayed more than 450 boats, including kayaks, stand-up paddleboards and jet skis.

Other items included: A Fishing Expo with Fisherman Central, with vendors selling tackle, rods, reels, lures and a spectacular array of equipment and outer wear. Expert fisherman brought in fisherman with expertise; over 25 fishing professionals. They taught customers, among other techniques, about the strategy of fishing, and demonstrating how to lure a fish. There was also trout pond for trying your own hand at fishing.

Children, undoubtedly came away happy with a kid zone for face painters; a scavenger hunt and Peter Pan and Pirates.

Boat enthusiasts with deep pockets, weren’t disappointed.

Prices ranged upward to one million for fully equipped yachts; a 41-foot Back Cove Yacht was listed at just under $770,000

The first Cleveland Boat show was launched in 1957, promoted as the Mid-America Show. It was originally an eight-day event and held at the downtown Cleveland Convention Center.

3.) Great Lakes Science Center is the third most searched attraction in Cleveland. Located at 601 Erieside Avenue in the North coast Harbor District of Cleveland’s lakefront, the science center opened in 1996

In its first two years of operation the center drew over one million visitors.

In 2005, the STEAMSHIP WILLIAM G. MATHER MUSEUM, a retired Great Lakes bulk freighter was relocated to a neighboring spot at Dock 32 from its former docking place at the East 9th Street Pier. 

At its core, the center's exhibits support STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) with exhibits, (including the BioMedTech Gallery) advanced energy, science phenomena and space. The Science Center is additionally home to the NASA Glenn Visitor Center which makes science come alive for more than 300,000 visitors a year through hundreds of hands-on exhibits, temporary exhibitions, and the Cleveland Clinic DOME Theater.

The Glenn Visitors Center includes exhibits and artifacts from Ohio astronaut John Glenn's 1962 Project Mercury flight and the Apollo Command Module flown on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973. 

New and creative exhibits are regularly unveiled at the science center. Over the Valentine’s Day week, for example, topics included wind and water, DNA and genetics, and robots on Mars. 

The Science Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit institution, is funded in part by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. 

4.)  Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was the fourth most googled attraction.

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was created on April 23, 1847 for 10,000 Catholics. The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist was constructed from 1848 until 1852 at the corner of Superior Avenue and Erie Street (now East 9th Street). It was dedicated on November 7, 1852.

In 1912, the first Catholic Charities office was opened at East 9th and Prospect.

During its latest Census, the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland has 677,219 Catholics or 24 percent of total eight-county population, which includes 185 parishes, one pastoral center, and one mission. It’s ranked as the 23^rd largest diocese in the United States.

Among its 185 parishes, it deploys 258 active diocesan priests. In addition to its parishes, the Catholic Diocese operates the largest school system in the state of Ohio with 94 elementary schools, 20 secondary, and 60 preschools.

A shortage of priests in the United States continues to imperil the Catholic Church’s ministry. Over the past half century, in fact, the number of priests across the U.S. has dropped by about 38 percent — from nearly 60,000 diocesan and religious order priests in 1970 to 37,192 in 2016, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. 

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland operates 17 elementary schools in the City of Cleveland with approximately 4300 students enrolled.

Catholic Charities manages more than 150 services at 60 locations to over 400,000 individuals each year – providing help and creating hope for people of every race and religion throughout the eight counties in the Diocese of Cleveland (Ashland, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Summit and Wayne). Annually, the Diocese serves 3.2 million meals and provides 61,082 nights of shelter.

5.) Cleveland Botanical Garden is the fifth most searched attraction about Cleveland.

The story of the Botanical Garden stretches back to 1912, that’s when Eleanor Squire donated her collection of 250 horticultural books to the Garden Club of Greater Cleveland, which housed the books at the Museum of Art.

Fourteen years later, January 24, 1930, six members of the Garden Club transformed an empty, brick boathouse along Wade Lagoon into a garden center that would house the collection of horticultural books and serve as a place for people to learn about plants and gardening. The Botanical Garden officially swung open its doors on December 4, 1930 whose purpose would be to “promote such knowledge and love of gardening as will result in a more beautiful community.”

The Cleveland Garden Center was reorganized as The Garden Center of Greater Cleveland in 1933, offering individual memberships and affiliations with other local garden clubs. In 1937, The Garden Center of Greater Cleveland was incorporated as a non-profit organization.

A renovation in 1939 tripled the building’s size. A year later, the West Side Branch of The Garden Center opened in the old Cudell House at 10013 Detroit Ave. in Cleveland.

Not shy about answering their call to duty during World War II, the Garden Center provided funds for mobile canteens and the British War Relief, maintained Victory Gardens and delivered flowers to veterans at local hospitals and infirmaries.

In 1959, a crippling flash flood along East Boulevard forced leaders of The Garden Center to look for a new home. The Garden Center of Greater Cleveland, thanks to a $1.8 million fundraising effort, opened at its new location at 11030 East Boulevard on January 12, 1966.

In 1994, The Garden Center of Greater Cleveland changed its name to Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Well into the 21^st century, Cleveland Botanical Garden is an ever-changing urban escape where you find enrichment and inspiration through fabulous gardens, an exotic Glasshouse and enriching events. The Garden makes its community greener and healthier by growing young lives and restoring land throughout the city.

Most importantly, hundreds of teens and children alike have learned essential life skills, business lessons and the essentials of urban-farming and gardening.

6.) Lake Erie (241 miles long) is the sixth most search attraction in Cleveland.

The first European to record Lake Erie was the French trader and explorer Louis Jolliet in 1669.

Lake Erie is one of the Great Lakes and currently serves as part of Ohio's northern boundary. On September 10, 1813, at the Battle of Lake Erie, an American fleet under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British fleet, securing control of the lake for the United States. 

The lake was named by the Erie people a Native American people who lived along its southern shore. The tribal name "erie" is a shortened form of the Iroquoian word erielhonan, meaning "long tail".

During the Prohibition era, Lake Erie had a rather bloody history when alcohol was frequently transported across Lake Erie. According to author Margaret Atwood in TheStar, a Toronto publication  “mobster corpses were frequently dumped into the Detroit River, to wash up on the beaches of Pelee Island, where a special ice house was built to accommodate them.”

Lake Erie has a surface area of 9940 square miles (the average depth is 62 feet); the maximum width of the lake is 57 miles. There are 24 Lake Erie Islands.

Sportfishing is a popular pastime along Lake Erie, particularly in the springtime with walleye, yellow perch, and white bass the most popular catches.

Despite its history of pollution during the 1960s, measures were taken to clean up the waterways. In 1972, for example, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, a measure that tightened regulations on industrial dumping. That same year, the United States and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in an attempt to lower the amount of pollutants entering the Great Lakes.

According to the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC), Lake Erie is the source of drinking water for 12 million people, and it provides 1/3 of the tourism and travel revenue for the state of Ohio. 

In February 2019, ELPC filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration EPA, challenging its approval of an Ohio EPA decision in June 2018 to make western Lake Erie a low priority for action under the Clean Water Act. The Ohio EPA has admitted it lacks an effective alternative plan for reducing phosphorus pollution into western Lake Erie. As a remedy, ELPC and its co-plaintiff asked the court to oversee a meaningful compliance plan that includes progress reports and a timeline for phosphorus pollution reductions.

7.) The Children's Museum of Cleveland is the seventh most searched attraction in Cleveland.

The Children’s Museum of Cleveland (CMC) is a non-profit organization that was first established in 1981 by a group of parents, educators, and civic leaders who wanted to respond to the need for educational programming for early learners in Northeast Ohio.

The museum itself first opened in 1986 in the University Circle area with exhibits which nurtured and promoted the learning and development of young children.

In 2014, the Children’s Museum opened a new chapter in its history, when it purchased the historic Stager Beckwith mansion located in MidTown in December of 2014. It then launched a $10.7 million-dollar capital campaign to transform the space into their new home.

The new facility opened its doors on November 7, 2017 with a mission statement which states that that “young children learn best through hands-on, open-ended play.” CMC prides itself in being the only museum in the region dedicated exclusively to early childhood development.

CMC has a steady flow of visitors, 200,000 annually – doubling that of their prior facility, with a network of over 6,000 members. In the fall of 2018, CMC finished its capital campaign, opening 40,000 sq. feet of exhibit space.

Nationally, according to a 2013 Washington Post article, more than 31 million children and families visit children’s museums — about 400 in the United States, based on statistics from the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM).

The Children’s Museum of Cleveland is also keeping up-to-date with new educational tools for children and their disabilities with a Sensory Friendly Room for children who have a low tolerance for loud noise and large crowds. They also have a system in place in which children with special needs can visit the museum before opening its doors to the general public.

Other attractions at CMC include: a theater for children to perform their favorite fairytale stories; a collection of dollhouses, a Wonder Lab for exploring scientific and engineering concepts; and a variety of tools for arts and crafts.

The Children's Museum of Cleveland is fully ADA accessible.

8.) Edgewater Park is the eighth most searched attraction in Cleveland.

The 147-acre Edgewater Park is the westernmost park in Cleveland Metroparks Lakefront Reservation, featuring 9,000 feet of shoreline, dog and swim beaches, boat ramps, fishing pier, picnic areas and grills and a rentable pavilion.

Summertime popular amenities include the Beach House with beachside fare and seasonal outdoor bar as well as the Edgewater Nature Shop that rents lounge chairs, stand up paddleboards and more.

Each summer thousands of music fans attend the free Edgewater LIVE concert series on Edgewater Beach. Edgewater LIVE is held Thursday evenings from June to early August. The concerts average more than 10,000 visitors per night.

The grounds for Edgewater Park were purchased by the City of Cleveland in 1894 and have provided popular recreational spaces for Cleveland residents since its opening the following year.

In 1902, a bathhouse was installed followed by a large pavilion.

In 1978 Edgewater Park became part of the Cleveland Lakefront State Park and since that time many of the park's recreational facilities have been restored, including offshore fishing platforms, a 900' bathing beach (one of the largest in Cleveland), a renovated pavilion, picnic areas, a boat-launching ramp, the Edgewater Yacht Club, and the Edgewater Marina.

In 2013, the year the state handed Cleveland Metroparks control of the city's lakefront parks,  702, 000 people reportedly visited Edgewater Park.

9.) Downtown Cleveland was the ninth most searched attraction in Cleveland,

As has been widely reported over the last two decades or so, Cleveland, Ohio, once the butt of late-night television hosts jokes, has made a roaring comeback.

During the MLB All-Star Game in July, many of the players from other cities noticed how Cleveland was a terrific city, smashing their previously held stereotypes about the “Mistake on the Lake.”

According to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, there has been over $8 billion in downtown business development. There are now 17,500 residents in downtown Cleveland, the largest downtown in Ohio.

Downtown Cleveland is home to over 105,000 jobs, the largest job hub in Ohio, and continues to grow, adding an estimated 750 new jobs in 2018. According to the Federal Bureau of Economics, Cleveland’s economy is growing faster than any other big city in Ohio.

As testament to its attraction, Cleveland receives more than a million visitors annually, while generating $199 million in annual economic impact for the region.

Overall, Downtown Cleveland has benefited from $1.4 billion in historic tax credits that has catalyzed the development of 31 projects and added 4,000 housing units. Today, over 40 percent of Downtown Cleveland residents live in historic tax credit financed buildings.

Cleveland was the first settlement founded in the Connecticut Western Reserve by the Connecticut Land Company. It was named after General Moses Cleaveland, an investor in the company who led the survey of its land within the Western Reserve. On January 6, 1831, the Cleveland Advertiser dropped the "a" from Cleveland, probably to save space on the newspaper's masthead, thus the spelling we use today.

During the late nineteenth century, Cleveland became an important industrial city; John D. Rockefeller and his partners began the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland during the 1860s. 

After the city’s population peaked in 1950 at one million residents; it then witnessed a spiraling loss of population. In 2000, approximately 500,000 people resided in the city. The most recent census figures shows there are approximately 385,525 living in Cleveland.

The Cuyahoga River, once a stigma that hung over the city due to the fire in 1969, has rebounded and emerged as an important economic and cultural center in the Midwest.

10.) Cleveland’s Historic League Park was the 10^th most searched attraction in Cleveland, the home to the Cleveland Indians from 1901 through 1946. It was at League Park where Cleveland won their last World Series on their own soil. In 1948, the Indians secured their championship in Boston.

It was at League Park where Babe Ruth, the “Sultan of Swat” belted his 500^th career home run in 1929, a ball that easily cleared the 290 foot right-field fence, landing on Lexington Avenue where there was a mad scramble for the ball. It was at League Park where Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio (on July 16, 1941) extended his 56-game hitting streak. The next night, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the Indians brought DiMaggio’s historic streak to an end.

League Park is also where the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro Leagues played. The Buckeyes won the 1945 World Series, defeating the Homestead Grays. The NFL’s Cleveland Rams played at League Park until 1945 , the same year they won a championship against the Washington Redskins. The championship game, however, was held at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

For years after the Indians left League Park permanently, the facility and the Hough neighborhood fell into disrepair. The Hough Riots in the blazing summer of 1966 saw the neighborhood engulfed with firebombing and senseless cases of arson.

Thanks to an indomitable City of Cleveland Councilwoman, Fannie Lewis, League Park was revitalized and reopened in 2014.

Though much of the park was torn down years ago, they were able to save a couple of important relics: the ticket house built in 1909 and part of the E. 66^th Street grandstand wall.

It’s inside the old ticket house where the Baseball Heritage Museum  set up shop and showcases items from the Indians and Buckeyes stories past.

The renovated League Park came about after the city of Cleveland financed the $6.3 million project primarily through park bond funds. It has also received a $150,000 cultural preservation grant from the state and $75,000 from the Department of Transportation.

The positioning of League Park is exactly the same as when the Indians played there, including the 290-foot right-field wall which Babe Ruth loved so much. So, anyone making the trip down to League Park, can stand in the same place where Tris Speaker, Ted Williams, and the Indians second sacker, Ray Chapman, once stood.

Bonus

11. The 11^th most searched is the Christmas Story House and Museum in Tremont, in dedication to the motion picture, a Christmas Story, which has become a cult favorite.

"A Christmas Story’’ opened November 18, 1983, drawing $7,291,703 in its first 10 days at 938 theaters in the United States and Canada; and after it closed five weeks later in most theaters, its final receipts totaled a disappointing $19 million. Studio execs considered it a flop. It was out of most theaters before Christmas.

In December 2012, ``A Christmas Story’’ was one of 25 films selected to be included into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, for its enduring importance to American culture and as a reflection of who ``we are as a people and a nation," according to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. Congress established the National Film Registry in 1989 to highlight the need for preserving U.S. film heritage.

The exterior of the house depicted in ``A Christmas Story’’ was a 19th-century Victorian home built in 1895, located at 3159 W 11th Street in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Tremont neighborhood. The house was scooped up by San Diego entrepreneur Brian Jones at an Ebay auction in 2004 for $150,000. He plunked down another $250,000 to spruce it up and opened it as a tourist attraction in 2006. Jones later bought two additional houses across the street, one that became a museum, and another, a gift shop. Items inside the gift shop, include: Red Ryder guns, ornaments from the movie, a Pink Nightmare Bunny Suit, and, of course, a 50" Deluxe Full Size Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story,

According to Brian Jones, owner of the Christmas Story House and Museum, to many people’s surprise we are also busy in summer.  "We have had several celebrity visitors including most of the original cast and the Kardashian’s among others.”

“We get people from all over the world," Jones said. “ Name a country we have had a visitor from there.  We have a run the first Saturday in December from Higbee’s to the House that raises money to restore the neighborhood surrounding the house. “

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

February 17, 2020

MLB Suffers Black Eye But Not Another Black Sox Scandal

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch (right) during happier times.

Photo Credit: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle

***

The dust hasn’t settled yet over the sign-stealing scandal impacting Major League Baseball.

More sign stealing machinations, this time by the Red Sox might be disclosed by MLB in the coming weeks. The Houston Astros, to be sure, are still smarting from the punishment handed down by Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Astros skipper A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow, after being suspended for a year, were swiftly fired by Astros owner Jim Crane and sent on their way.

Alex Cora, bench coach for the Astros in 2017 and implicated in the sign-stealing investigation was also cut loose as manager of the Boston Red Sox.

Newly appointed Mets manager Carlos Beltran, a member of the 2017 Astros team and identified as one of the players who pushed for decoding signals was sent to the Tower as well by Mets COO Fred Wilpon.

The sign-stealing scandal clearly was a player directed initiative; the managers, namely, A.J. Hinch was let go because he didn’t put a stop to it.

The Astros players who went unpunished by the MLB hardly leave this nefarious affair unscathed. They’re going to have to prepare themselves for an uncomfortable season of loud boos from fans, and embarrassment when facing their peers. Buzzer or no buzzer, Jose Altuve is more than likely to get drilled by a few pitchers for the suspicious manner in which he refused to take off his jersey after a dramatic walk-off home run in the ALCS against New York Yankees closer, Alrodis Chapman. Many believe the Astros second baseman was wired with a buzzer. Those charges were never proven.

If fans were left to their own devices, I’m sure they would love their stadiums to blast Hank Williams monster hit, “Your Cheatin Heart’’ anytime Houston swings into town.

When the findings of Manfred’s investigation blew up on the Internet, Twitter feeds, and smart phones from coast-to-coast, the reaction was a state of utter shock. Shock quickly turned into anger. Anger by the fans that Astros stole a world championship, beating the Dodgers in seven games during the 2017 World Series by cheating.

I was certainly enraged that this could happen. Channeling my inner-Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks in “A League of their Own”), “There’s No Spying in Baseball!”

The city of Los Angeles who came up on the short end of the stick during the 2017 World Series was so upset of the injustice that the L.A. City Council unanimously passed a resolution to ask Major League Baseball to strip the Astros and Red Sox of the 2017 and 2018 World Series titles and award them to the Dodgers.

As the days passed by and the more I thought about this, however, the more I wondered how different this was from other sign-stealing discoveries.?

For decades, people held deep dark suspicions that New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson was tipped off on what offering was coming from Brooklyn Dodger pitcher, Ralph Branca, before clobbering one deep into the night that clinched the NL pennant for the Giants, a dramatic walk-off home run known as the “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”

In 2001, those suspicions turned into reality, thanks to Wall Street Journal reporter, Joshua Prager, who published an article which confirmed that Giants coach Herman Franks used a telescope to pilfer signs from the Giants’ clubhouse behind the center field fence from Dodgers catcher Rube Walker.

The Giants sign-stealing scheme was enhanced, greatly, through an electrician they hired, Abe Chadwick, who installed a bell and buzzer system in the clubhouse and wired it to the phones in the bullpen and dugout. Pressing the buzzer once or twice would signal either a fastball or off-speed pitch. This story was chronicled by Chadwick’s nephew, Ina Chadwick, with a headline that read: “My Family Fixed the 1951 Pennant." According to this testimonial, “when Bobby Thomson stepped up to the plate to face Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca-it was Abe’s signal that told Herman Franks-who then signaled to a plant in the bullpen, who signaled to Thomson-when Branca’s fastball was coming.”

And the sign-stealing engineered by the Giants and Leo Durocher as its ringleader wasn’t isolated to the deciding playoff game against the Dodgers. According to published reports, the Giants hired Chadwick, the electrician, on July 19^th of the season. They soon were good to go with the buzzers in right field. The Dodgers held a commanding 13.5 lead over the Giants on August 11. Miraculously, the Giants orchestrated a monstrous comeback to force a three-game playoff against their cross-town rivals.

How influential was the electrician is this heroic comeback is anyone’s guess?

So, in 2001, why wasn’t there any outrage over the revelations of Joshua Prager’s WSJ article? Why weren’t there calls for the Giants to be stripped of the 1951 pennant?

We are well into the 21^st Century and Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard Round the World is still being lionized. The bat from the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" is in the collection of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.  The U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp. Sports Illustrated ranked it as the second greatest moment of the 20^th century.

When Prager’s article was published, I never recalled any apologies to Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca who endured years and years of public scorn and humiliation for coughing up Thomson’s historic home run.

Branca died in 2016, five years after Prager’s article was published. As he once said at an old-timer’s game, “A guy commits murder and gets pardoned after 20 years. I didn’t get pardoned.”

The Dodger right-hander, for the most part, kept quiet about his real feelings of Prager’s convincing indictment of Thomson being tipped off.  Weeks before Thomson’s death in 2010, however, Branca told the New York Times, “When you took signs all year, and when you had a chance to hit a bloop or hit a home run, would you ignore that sign?” He [Thomson] knew it was coming, Absolutely,’’ Branca said.

Cleveland Indians flame-thrower, Bob Feller

Photo Credit: AP

****

For those interested in reviewing a kaleidoscope of baseball’s sign-stealing conspiracies over the years, the go to book is author Paul Dickson’s “The Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our National Pastime.”  The book was just recently revised.

In this timely book, Dickson chronicles the sign-stealing concocted by Cleveland Indians ace, Bob Feller during the 1948 season in which “Rapid Robert’’ would pick up signs from opposing catchers using a telescope that Feller used as a gunnery officer on the USS Alabama during World War II. “The telescope,” according to Dickson, “was mounted on a tripod, placed in the Cleveland scoreboard and operated alternately by Feller or [Bob] Lemon, who remembered that he could see the dirt under the catcher’s fingernails. They would call out the next pitch to a groundskeeper-brothers Marshall and Harold Brossard or their father, Emil, who would then use another opening in the scorecard to relay the signs to Tribe hitters, by a variety of changing signals, from a space otherwise used to post number four out-of-towners.”

“Hey, it’s all fair in love and war,” Feller was quoted as saying, “when you’re trying to win a pennant.”

Many claim Feller’s spy ring didn’t carry over into the 1948 World Series against the Boston Braves, which the Indians won in six games. Braves pitcher Johnny Sain wasn’t so sure, so convinced was he that Indians outfielder Larry Doby was tipped off on a pitch in Game four of the WS, in which he hit for a home run. When questioned, Doby vehemently denied he was tipped off.

“Stolen signs win a lot of ball games,” said Dodgers VP Fresco Thompson in 1952.

Regarded as one of the hardest throwing pitchers of his era, we’ve come to know a great deal about Feller--he was the first major leaguer to enlist in the armed forces after Japan dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbor. We also know he led the American League in strikeouts seven times, was a 20-game winner six times; and is the only pitcher to throw an Opening Day no-hitter (April 16, 1940).

But what is rarely (if ever) mentioned in his biography, is that he pilfered signs with his telescope during the 1948 season, at least enough times to secure an AL Pennant.

Where is the outrage?

Dickson additionally writes that Ty Cobb entered baseball in 1905, when the “spyglass era was in full swing.”

The Georgia Peach wrote an article for Life Magazine in 1952, titled: “Tricks That Won Me Ballgames.”  In the article, he wrote, “Near me was an advertisement on the fence that read: THE DETROIT NEWS: BEST NEWSPAPER IN THE WEST,” Cobb wrote, “If you watched the B in the advertisement closely you would watch little slots opening and closing, If the slot was open in the top half of the B, our spotter had picked off the signal for the fastball. If the slot in the bottom of the B opened, we knew a curve was coming. I don’t know whether the ad sold any newspapers, but it was a great thing for Tiger batting averages.”

Another glaring example of duplicity came in the 19^th century (1898) in a game between the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies. Reds third base coach Tommy Corcoran while coaching at third, got his cleats tangled up in the ground. At first glance, Corcoran thought it was a vine only to discover it was a telegraph wire that ran to the Phillies clubhouse in center field, where a backup catcher sat with binoculars picking up signals and communicating them to the third-base coach, presumably, through vibrations from the wire.

Again, where was the outrage?

MLB always appears late to the dance.

They were late clamping down on steroids during the 1990s, which obviously gave players a competitive advantage. That was the culture then. If Jose Canseco was being injected with steroids and amphetamines, why shouldn’t Alex Rodriquez, to keep up with the Joneses?

When new advanced technology came in the 21^st century with live feeds from the center field camera and cameras in the dugouts, some teams, certainly not all, started gaming the system and figured out ways to decode signs coming from these live feeds.

When this new technology was installed, MLB should have been proactive enough to know boys will be boys and taken measures to prevent the decoding. From all the reports in the last few days, there seemed to be a culture that developed that if this team is decoding, why not us.

Interestingly, discussing the new technology in baseball, A.J. Hinch told the Associated Press during the 2018 AL Championship Series, “there’s some unintended consequences that come with the advancement of technology. It’s a league wide conversation that needs to happen in time,”Hinch said.  “It’s happening right now during a really important series, and I just think it’s bigger than us. It’s bigger than any team. It’s bigger than any series. It needs to be corralled because of the state of the concern over it.”

Cleveland Indians fans can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing their beloved Tribe under the leadership of Terry Francona didn’t succumb to sign stealing. But they may have come close.

Speaking to local networks, the Indians manager said “I can tell you there are a lot of nights when I go home where I know I need to have a conversation with a player -- especially like a veteran player -- where he may view it differently than I do. And I lose a lot of sleep over stuff like that because obviously I feel a lot of obligation to get it straightened out. But you don't just want to beat somebody over the head and lose them.”

Despite the embarrassment they must be feeling right now, Francona said he still has plenty of respect for the managers fired. “They’re good people,” he told reporters. “They’re really good baseball people. They’re paying a penalty for making a mistake. That doesn’t make them bad people. They made some errors in judgment. The penalty came down, they’ll serve it and then I think they’ll be back.”

And contrary to some commentaries, the sign-stealing scandal of 2017 and 2018 doesn’t rise to the level of the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which the Chicago White Sox intentionally threw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

Jacob Pomrenke, Director of editorial content for SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) and editor of “Scandal on the South Side: the 1919 White Sox”, told me, “the White Sox scandal was about taking bribes to lose games on purpose, which is an existential threat to the sport's integrity,” Pomrenke said. “This was about breaking the rules,” Pomrenke argues, “to gain a competitive edge — which has happened many, many times in sports and will undoubtedly happen again. The methods and details evolve, but as long as the rewards are high enough, some human beings will always feel compelled to use nefarious means to gain an edge.”

To MLB's credit, though they were late in putting a screeching halt to the sign-stealing--they sent a clear message of the hard consequences, and humiliation, that comes with trying to game the system.

I think players and most certainly the managers received Rob Manfred’s message loud and clear.

Though this scandal delivered a mighty black eye to baseball; the damage is certainly reparable as long as fans, players, and the media can move on and chalk these unfortunate episodes up to a hard lesson learned underscored by horribly bad judgement.

Speaking at a fan convention for the Chicago White Sox, newly acquired pitcher Dallas Keuchel said he felt what happened was “blown out of proportion,” but he was sorry.

“It’s just what the state of baseball was at that point and time,” the former Astros pitcher said. “Was it against the rules? Yes, it was, and I personally am sorry for what’s come about, the whole situation.”

Keuchel, however, said he isn’t buying the “Oh my gosh, this has never happened before,” mantra that other teams are accusing Houston and Boston of. “I’m not going into specific detail,” the former AL Cy Young Award winner said.

 

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

January 26, 2020

When Bombs and Bullets Rained Down on Cleveland

Bombs and bullets used to hold a great deal of sway in Northeast Ohio.

Especially when you had ringleaders like John Scalish, James “Jack White” Licavoli, Angelo Lonardo, Carmine "The Bull" Agnello, and “Irish” Danny Greene.

There was yet another: Alex Shondor Birns, a Jewish gangster in Cleveland who rose to become Cleveland’s Public Enemy No. 1; a ruthless if charming racketeer who might have been responsible for the murder of as many as a dozen people in Cleveland, cold blooded murders, that in most cases, went unsolved.

Recently retired Lyndhurst Police Chief Rick Porrello, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia” and “To Kill the Irishman: The War that Crippled the Mafia,” has recently published “Bombs, Bullets, and Bribes: The True Story of Notorious Jewish Mobster Alex Shondor Birns."

As Porrello so meticulously chronicles in his smartly written book, Birns criminal footprints in Cleveland stretches back to the Prohibition era.

He was born Szandor (Hungarian for Alexander) Birnstein in either 1905 or 1907 in Lemešany, a village in eastern Slovakia.

His friends called him “Shon.”

His family made its way to Cleveland (E. 59^th Street) when he was only a year old; where they ran a bootlegging business. His mother was killed when the still exploded in their home. Without a mother to look after him, Birns spent time in a Jewish orphanage.

Birns journey into Cleveland’s criminal underworld came thick and fast after dropping out of high school after the 10^th grade.

By 1925, age 19, he was shipped off to a Mansfield Reformatory for auto theft; less than ten years later (1933) he served 30 days in a Workhouse for assault and 60 days for robbery.

After educating himself, navigating the highways and byways of the mean streets of Cleveland, first by running a pool hall at E. 55^th and Woodland Avenue, Birns found his footing venturing into ‘’numbers’’ or “clearinghouse’’ racket, which amounted to an illegal lottery, the same kind of gambling which is now legal in 45 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Birns additionally became skilled at muscling payments from slot machine owners.

Along with his gambling operation, he operated a number of prostitution rings throughout Cleveland; he usually paid police handsomely to avoid raids of his brothels.

Like any successful mobster trying to avoid running afoul of the law, Birns wrapped himself in legitimate business operations. In his case, nightclubs, most notably the Ten-Eleven Club on Chester Avenue; later, the Alhambra at East 105^th Street, popular establishments where Birns mixed with and charmed the major power brokers of the city, including the police and the press who were rarely issued a tab.

Reporters loved Birns, as Porrello tells it, because he made great copy to fill their newspapers; police, some police, that is, loved him because they had their palms greased when Birns was charged with criminal activity.

Remarkably, Porrello underscores through all of his crimes, murders, bombings and other criminal activity, and all the times he was hauled in front of a judge, Birns was only convicted of three felonies in his storied criminal life. The last was in 1965, when he tried to bribe a Parma detective. For that, he was paroled from the Marion Correctional Institution in July, 1971

Birns stabbed a man to death in 1929, but walked away free; he was charged again with a shooting in a speakeasy, but was acquitted; in 1931, he robbed a candy store for $1300, but was yet again acquitted. He also broke the jaw of a cab driver without any criminal prosecution.

Even Cleveland safety director Eliot Ness had his crew hoist a ladder in attempt to catch Birns and his organization booking bets. It was unsuccessful.

For the most part, Birns avoided jail time through bribes and keeping his mouth shut. The local newspapers often splashed with pictures of him leaving the courthouse with a devilish smirk on his face after prosecutors failed, time and time again, to make a crime stick.

One powerful police officer, Captain Louis Cadek, regularly lined his pocket taking payments from Birns in exchange for steering police away from Birns’ crooked operations. These were known as officers ‘’on the pad.” The law eventually caught up with Cadek. In 1936, he was convicted on four counts of bribery and sent to prison.

As Plain Dealer reporter Christopher Evans once wrote: “witnesses had a habit of turning up dead or at least badly injured, and juries almost always seemed to deadlock on the most clear-cut cases.”

In many ways, Birns resembled another infamous gangster, Al “Scarface’’ Capone, who ruled Chicago’s south side with an iron fist during Prohibition.

Much like Capone, Birns dressed for success. He was often seen around town mixing with cronies at the Theatrical Grill on Short Vincent, brandishing expensive cigars, wearing brilliant ties, suede and leather shoes, and stylish, well-tailored suites.

Similar to “Big Al,” Birns, though a hardened criminal, unveiled a charitable streak. Capone was widely remembered for providing three meals a day at his soup kitchens in Chicago during the Great Depression. In 1944, there was a tragic East Ohio Gas explosion in Cleveland, killing 135. Birns had his staff at his Ten-Eleven Club working around the clock feeding police and fireman, and those in need of a meal.

Both Capone and Birns would serve time for income tax evasion. Birns, was in fact charged with income tax evasion on three different occasions: in 1948, 1949, and 1950. He served a total of three years in prison.

In addition to both being christened Public Enemy No. 1, Capone and Birns resembled each other in another important way: they knew how to settle scores if you double-crossed them or owed them money.

The 1929 St Valentine’s Massacre in which Capone’s henchmen took out seven members of Chicago’s North Side Gang is one such extreme example of Capone settling scores.

When world renowned boxing promoter Don King (who cut his teeth operating the numbers racket in Cleveland during the 1950s) refused to keep paying Birns protection money, King soon found his front porch (and part of his living room) blown up with a stick of dynamite.

When Birns absorbed a bullet from the gun of a bouncer at a nightclub in 1934, Birns returned the favor, only this time, killing the bouncer while he was driving his car a few months later. Police were never able to pin the murder on Birns.

The body of Mervin Gold, found in the trunk of his own car on Chagrin River Road in Solon, Ohio.

Photo Credit: Cleveland Public Library, Photograph Collection

***

Arguably, one of the most sensational cases of Cleveland’s unsolved murders centers on the killing of Mervin Gold, a financial manipulator, twice convicted on fraud, who in July, 1963 was found in the trunk of his own car on Chagrin River Road in Solon, Ohio.

According to Gold’s wife, her husband, Mervin Gold was on his way to meet Shondor Birns on the night he went missing. His wife presented police with a document left behind in his briefcase at home, which was an affidavit, showing that Gold received stolen bonds from Birns himself.

Much like he had in the past, Birns arranged an air-tight alibi, saying he was nowhere near the murder and was with another woman of “fine character.”

At the Coroner’s inquest, Birns took the fifth 90 times. Gold’s murder remained unsolved and the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

Cleveland Police Detective inspect Birns' demolished Lincoln Continental

Photo Credit: Cleveland State University Cleveland Press Collection/Rick Porrello

***

The moral of the story of Cleveland mobsters, undoubtedly must be: If you live by the bomb, you die by the bomb.

On Holy Saturday night, March 29, 1975, Alex (Shondor) Birns, 69, was the victim of a horrific bomb explosion after turning the key in the ignition of his Lincoln Continental after exiting Christy’s Bar at W. 25^th Street and Detroit Avenue. His body was blown through the roof of the car; parts of his body could be found next door at St Malachi Church where parishioners were gathering for the 8. p.m. Holy Saturday Vigil Mass.

Cleveland’s Public Enemy No. 1 was buried on April Fool’s Day, of all days, at Hillcrest Cemetery in Bedford Heights.

Not until 1983 would a Plain Dealer article link Birns murder to members of the Hells Angels.

Two years later, another notorious Cleveland mobster, Danny Greene, met a similar fate. After leaving the dentist’s office in Lyndhurst on October 6, 1977, a bomb planted next to Greene’s car exploded, killing the Irishman immediately. The bomb was thought to have been planted by hitman Ray Ferritto.

After the Danny Greene murder, the thuggish mobsters that lurked on Cleveland streets began to fade away as law enforcement agencies became more circumspect and the FBI became more aggressive in dispatching organized crime task forces to major U.S. cities.

Most successful in combating organized crime, not only in Cleveland, but in major cities nationwide has been the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute (passed into law in 1970), which has provided the FBI with indispensable tools to operate undercover operations, use court-authorized electronic surveillance, and recruit informants, cooperating witnesses, and consensual monitoring. 

What makes “Bombs, Bullets & Bribes’’ so fascinating is its author, Rick Porrello, actually has skin in the game.

His grandfather, Raymond Porrello, and his six brothers, the ringleaders of a prominent crime family, were involved in the beginnings of the Cleveland Mafia during Prohibition, most prominently on East 110th and upper Woodland Avenue. Raymond Porrello, Rosario Porrello (a great uncle of Rick Porrello), along with one of their henchmen, Dominic Gueli were gunned down in a cigar shop on E 110th and Woodland, in a spot that came to be infamously known as ``Bloody Corner.”

Porrello, unlike his grandfather and his great uncles, has been on the right side of the law his entire life, as a Lyndhurst Police Officer for 31 years, the last ten years as Police Chief before announcing his retirement.

Unlike most organized crime historians, Porrello is able to write about his subjects having developed keen perspectives from both sides of the fence.

A rare attribute, indeed.

For anyone interested in learning about Cleveland’s social history during a time when mobsters, racketeers, bombs and bullets were symbolic of the criminal underworld, this splendidly written and well researched book is just what the doctor ordered.

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

December 29, 2019

 

Year in Review: Most Viewed Stories of 2019

Speaker Nancy Pelosi begins formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

Photo Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times

***

Another year has almost passed, and the earth, lo and behold, hasn’t crumbled under our feet.

But the year didn’t pass before some pronounced rumblings, especially in Hong Kong, beginning in June, when the government introduced an anti-extradition bill, which would have allowed criminal suspects to be transferred to mainland China. The bill (later withdrawn) sparked outrage, with residents taking to the streets in violent protests, burning a Chinese flag, blocking roads and throwing petrol bombs at riot police, who responded in kind with volleys of tear gas. After five months of raging protests, two deaths have been reported.

Prior to the Hong Kong protests, in central London, back in March, citizens protested against Brexit (withdrawal from the European Union EU), calling for another EU referendum. Marchers expressed bitter anger with the vote (June, 2016 referendum) and claimed to have been ‘’sold down the river.”

In October, again, protesters, as many as a million strong, gathered outside the Palace of Westminster with chants of “No Brexit!”

The stalemate over Brexit forced British Prime Minister Theresa May to resign as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7. After beating Jeremy Hunt to become leader of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, former mayor of London, became the new Prime Minister on July 24^th

Calamity hit Paris in April, during Holy Week no less, when a major fire engulfed the medieval Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of France’s most sacred landmarks. Firefighters bravely fought through more than five hours of rising flames in which the 850-year-old cathedral’s spire and two-thirds of its roof were destroyed; but the two iconic 226-foot bell towers, thankfully, remained intact. 

President Donald Trump, as can be expected, was at center of a storm in 2019, this time a constitutional storm over whether he should be impeached for withholding military aid to Ukraine unless the Eastern European country investigated corruption charges against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Such a quid pro quo or abuse of power amounted to an impeachable offense, at least in the eyes of a majority of Democrats. Most Republicans argued Trump’s quid pro quo phone call was highly inappropriate, but didn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

On December 5, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi asked the House Judiciary Committee to begin drafting Articles of Impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump.

Talk of impeachment clearly overshadowed the release of the Mueller Report in March in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election to determine whether there was a conspiracy or coordination between the Russians and Donald Trump, which raised alarming questions of obstruction of justice.

The Mueller Report included references to 14 criminal investigations that were referred to other offices. On the topic of obstruction of justice, the report stated that the investigation "did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," but the same report did note that obstruction of justice could still occur "regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.”

In preparation for the upcoming bruising 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Twitter publicly announced it was not accepting any political advertisements worldwide.

Once again, the year was stained by mass shootings. In August, there were two. On August 3, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. 22 others were injured. The next day, ten people, including the shooter, were killed along with 27 others injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.

As of December 12, there were 409 mass shootings in 2019.

And yet more disaster fell from the skies on September 1, when Hurricane Dorian, the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane season, made landfall on the Bahamas with sustained winds of 185 mph, leaving 43 dead.

If you forgot who won Super Bowl LIII (53); no worries, it was the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history.  Tom Brady and the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 13-3, at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

In October, the Washington Nationals, a wild card team, stunned the Houston Astros in six games to win their first Series in franchise history. As of 2015, five NL wild-card teams went on to win the World Series.

Finally, comic book fans will be delighted to know, if they don’t know already, that the motion picture, Avengers: Endgame, based on the Marvel Comics superhero, smashed most box office records, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time, earning nearly $2.8 billion worldwide.

To get a sense of other major stories which dominated the headlines, I checked in with some news organizations to see which story drew the most traffic to their respective websites for 2019.

Here are some responses which came back to my inbox.

Photo  Credit: CBS News

 

CNN:  The blaze at the Notre Dame Cathedral drew 27 million viewers to this story

New York Times: The Most-Read NYT's Stories of 2019

Los Angeles Times: The Top 19 L.A. Times Stories of 2019

Fox News: Days 3 and 4 of the House Impeachment Hearings and the Mueller Report and its hearing were the top two most popular stories at FoxNews.com

Tampa Bay Times: The Tampa Bay Times splash that a ground-penetrating radar uncovered 150 coffins buried beneath a Tampa apartment complex was their most viewed story of the year. The story was a follow up to a major Times’ investigation , which reported that nearly 400 bodies were missing underneath five of the 67 buildings in the Robles Park public housing project in Tampa; dead bodies, left behind in what was once Zion Cemetery, the first African-American cemetery in Tampa. Robles Park Village first opened in 1954. The Zion Cemetery dated back to 1901.

Economist: The most viewed story at Economist.com was their report on “Millennial Socialism,” a new left-wing movement embraced by younger voters who have railed largely against capitalism, inequality, and neglect of the environment in America and Europe. 

 OpenSecrets: At OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics), the top “feature” of the year was their Gun Profile , a mighty divisive issue in the country which takes a close look at where the hard cash is flowing in the lobbying battles between gun control vs gun rights advocates. The top ‘’story’’ at OpenSecrets.org was their analysis and guide to Donald Trump’s foreign policy interests, which includes his “sprawling web of foreign properties and investments.”

New York Magazine:  The two top stories at NYMag.com centered on Caroline Calloway , a 27 year-old Instagram star, who leaped to internet fame, chronicling her misadventures as an American undergrad at Cambridge University and is now on tour promoting her “Creativity Workshop.” The other top story at NYMag.com for the year was “Hideous Men”, journalist and advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll’s first-person account of the 21 most revolting scoundrels she ever met, including Donald Trump, who she alleges assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago.

Yahoo Finance: The two top most read stories of the year on Yahoo’s Finance page was their report that Amazon will pay nothing in federal taxes for the second year in a row,  followed by their survey of America’s favorite burgers. 

ProPublica: ProPublica’s (a non-profit newsroom that aims to produce investigate journalism in the public’s interest) most viewed investigation of the year, was their shocking exposé about a Border Patrol Facebook Page in which members made derogatory and racist remarks about migrants, including a vulgar joke about a female representative in Congress.

The Marshall Project: The Marshall Project’s (an online journalism organization focusing on issues related to criminal justice in the U.S.) most viewed story of the year, was their sharp analysis over whether there is a connection between undocumented workers and crime, based on newly released data from the Pew Research Center. 

FBI: The most viewed “story” on FBI.gov’s website this year was their article about American serial killer Samuel Little  who claims to have killed 93 people, stretching back to 1987. The FBI was able to confirm his involvement with at least 50 murders, making the Georgia native the most prolific serial killer in United States history. The most visited “page’’ on FBI.gov for their year was their list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. 

New York Review of Books: The most viewed article at NYBooks.com was Fintan O’Toole’s (Irish columnist and literary critic of the Irish Times) profile on Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and arguably the most polarizing figure to have taken up residence at 10 Downing Street.

ESPN: The news that generated the most traffic to ESPN.com this year was the tragic death of Los Angeles pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died while under the influence of fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol. 

Of ESPN.com’s “original reporting”, the most viewed story was their exclusive on former NBA referee Tim Donaghy conspiring to fix games. 

Bleacher Report: The most read story of the year at Bleacherreport.com was Tyler Dunne exposé, chronicling how the relationship between Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay became shattered beyond repair. 

Weather Channel: Favorite Photos of 2019 

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

December 16, 2019

 

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Downton Abbey, the Movie: A Labor of Love

The Crawley English country estate in Yorkshire, England never looked so magnificently elegant.

Downton addicts would expect nothing less.

Adoring fans of PBS’s Masterpiece historical drama, after all, had to wait four long years for Downton Abbey, the motion picture, to hit the silver screen and get reacquainted with their favorite characters.

Downton Abbey ran for six seasons (52 episodes in all) that covered a 14-year period from 1912 through 1926.

The film is set in 1927. And if the wealthy aristocratic Crawley family didn’t have enough to worry about, King George V and Queen Mary (the grandparents of the current Queen Elizabeth II) are planning to drop in on the Crawley’s Jacobethan style country house while touring Yorkshire, the historic county in Northern England.

So far, the film is a smashing financial success, debuting with $31 million in ticket sales and knocking out two competing films, who were counting on a couple of heavy hitters to blow out the competition. “Ad Astra” with Brad Pitt ($19.2 million) and “Rambo: Last Blood” starring Sylvester Stallone ($19 million) fell well behind Downton Abbey at the box office in its first week.

To date, Downton has grossed $107.6 million worldwide (with $58.3 million in domestic ticket sales).

The film reviews, on the other hand, have been a mixed bag.

Arts critic Johnny Oleksinski from the New York Post gave the film one and a half stars, writing, “Julian Fellowes would have been far better off writing another relaxed Christmas special to satisfy fans. But to pump up the film’s flowery, small-screen plot, shots are overly sweeping and every character’s entrance is given a metaphorical drumroll. The sexy intimacy that made the TV show great is destroyed. Fellowes also went way too wild on the zingers, and suddenly every lady’s maid is Oscar Wilde.”

Across the Atlantic, the reviews were a bit more upbeat.

The Sun’s film critic Grant Rollings thought “It would be easy to criticize Fellowes for turning out what is essentially a two-hour long episode.” “But it was certainly wise,” Rollings continued, “not to send the Crawley's on holiday or to have them saving the world. If you long to escape explosions, political intrigue or social issues then Downton is the number one cinematic destination this weekend.’’

After reading a number of film reviews, I’m convinced a great many of these critics were never close followers of the Masterpiece series for six seasons.  And some might not have laid eyes on the TV series at all.

I thought the film, given its time constraints, brilliantly delivered what it was supposed to deliver; a reunion with the Crawley’s, giving fans once last look at the magnificent English country house they grew to adore for six seasons.

The film also tied up some loose ends, such as with the once fierce Irish nationalist Tom Branson, 7 years after the tragic death of his wife, Lady Cybil Branson, finally finding (at least we hope) his soul mate (and future bride).

And we also learn that one of the kitchen cooks, the young outspoken Daisy Mason, is finally ready for marriage with, mostly likely, the raging jealous house footman.

There's no point in spoiling any other significant revelations.

Much like the TV series, the movie is well supplied with machinations, devilish scheming, and questions of where one’s loyalty truly lies, to keep viewers guessing, while being splendidly entertained with all the well-tailored regalia and flamboyance, which comes with an early 20^th century fictional British aristocratic family.

Considering writer Julian Fellowes historical period drama was up against films like "Avengers: Endgame," "Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker," "Toy Story 4," "Joker" "Fast and the Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,"  among other action packed movies with little substance, Matt Zoller Seitz, editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com penned the most insightful review of the film, when he wrote: "films like Downton Abbey" are a different kind of franchise product. And they deliver another definition of action cinema, one that is increasingly ill-served by theatrical films: the opportunity to watch people who are very good at ordinary, non-lethal tasks do those things with skill and imagination, even when they don't feel like it. “

Miss Susan Lawrence, left, Labour Party Vice- President, heads a group of women asking for the right to vote for Women above 21, circa 1920 in London, United Kingdom.

***

If there was a disappointment with the movie, it was a minor one, and that was omitting the social history of Britain surrounding their fictional Yorkshire country estate in 1927, when the aristocratic class in the United Kingdom was fading into the thin night air.

There is a brief mention of the General Strike in 1926, a miner’s strike, which sparked fears of revolution in the country when trust between workers and politicians was crumbling. The General Strike and reconnecting with ordinary Britons was supposedly the reason that King George V and Queen Mary were touring Yorkshire.

I was a bit surprised the movie never mentioned an especially historic day in 1927, the year the movie is set in, and that is in April, 1927, when Parliament granted suffrage to women, which added five million voters to the British electorate.

You would have thought Lady Edith Crawley, the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Grantham, and former editor of a magazine publishing company, would have roundly applauded such a momentous milestone in British history.

In a portent of the future and the vile threat of Adolf Hitler just around the corner, Downton could have additionally mentioned Winston Churchill’s visit to Italy in January, 1927, when the British Chancellor of the Exchequer praised fascism and Benito Mussolini as “the right solution for Italy.” “Not only does fascism help to stabilize Italy’s economy,” Churchill reportedly said, “but it is an effective counter to Communism and an example to the world of how to deal with the red menace.”

You would never have known it by watching Downton Abbey, the movie, that in 1927 Britain was being crushed financially by the First World War. By December, 1927, Britain was paying the United States $95.5 million, a semiannual payment on its war debt; with the remaining balance totaling $4.8 billion.

It wouldn’t have hurt either if the film touched on some new trends sweeping Britain in 1927.  In August, 1927, for example, The New York Times reported England’s new craze was greyhound racing, with nightly crowds of 50,000 to 100,000 and a total of 2.5 million attending in just 20 weeks. New tracks were reportedly being built and popping up like toasters.

It was in 1927, when Alfred Hitchcock’s haunting silent thriller “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog” (considered by many his true directorial debut) was first screened to the British public on January 17, 1927 at the Marble Arch Pavilion, Oxford Street, London.

Film buffs would be interested to note that this film marked the very first cameo appearance of the British born Hitchcock as he appears with his back to the camera in a newsroom.

And as a sign of how the Church was playing a decidedly diminished role in English life--in December, 1927, the House of Commons rejected the new Book of Prayer (a revised version of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of the Church of England), a book which took 21 years to put together. It was soundly rejected by the House of Commons for a second time, the following year.

The movie barely explains how the institution of household service was on the decline in 1927.

Lidia Plaza, a PhD student in British history at Yale University, tells me “the number of people working as household servants like those who appear in Downton Abbey were on the decline from 1870, and especially after World War I. “

“In part, this was due,’’ Plaza explained, “to the fact that the number of “upper class” people who could afford to or wanted to keep household servants had also plummeted. “

Another reason cited for the rapid decline of residential domestic service centered on young women’s desire for freedom, that is, to meet men in the factories, offices, and other industrialized areas of employment.

David Campion, a Lewis & Clark historian of Modern Britain and Ireland, observed that “generally speaking, in 1927, the aristocracy and gentry (people of high social class) were no more than two percent of the population and had been in steady decline for decades.”  “The death tax,” Campion pointed out, “after the war eviscerated inheritances and forced the sale of some of money-losing estates.  Some were taken over by the National Trust while others were sold to wealthy Americans or torn down and the land parceled into suburban subdivisions.”

Aside from the missed opportunity of not putting the year 1927 into context as far British social history goes, I thought Downton Abbey, the movie, lived up to its expectations, it didn’t try to do too much; they kept every one of the 20 returning cast members in character with their signature idiosyncrasies.

Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams advised young hitters: “Find a pitch you can hit.”

And that’s exactly what the film’s writer Julian Fellowes and director Michael Engler did with dazzling success.

Most importantly, it hand-delivered a valentine to its most loyal viewers on a gold and silver platter.

Very British, indeed!

 

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

September 30, 2019

 

Is Hofstadter's "The Age of Reform" Still Considered a Classic?

If you ever glance through the most influential history books of all time; you’re most likely to come across books like, Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s, “The Age of Jackson,”  “The Guns of August” By Barbara W. Tuchman, and  "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany,"  by William L. Shirer, among other canons of history.

All of these books are considered, by many, vital and enduring classics.

Another monumental book undoubtedly is “The Age of Reform,” Richard Hofstadter’s 1955 Pulitzer-Prize winning book and its pioneering examination of American history from the Populist Movement of the 1890s through the Progressive Era to the New Deal of the 1930s.

As I observed “The Age of Reform’’ popping up like a toaster on a number of political classics of all time, I wondered whether Hofstadter’s opus withstood the passage of time 64 years after it first hit the bookstores?

I also wondered what exactly makes a classic?

So, I put that very question to some scholars.

According to Lawrence Cahoone, Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and author of “Cultural Revolutions: Reason versus Culture in Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad,”  “a "classic" piece of nonfiction is one that had a large and lasting positive impact (positive meaning, its impact is due to people learning from it and agreeing with it). And that means people in the field ought to read it to be well educated in the field. “

“But that does not mean it is right,” Cahoone went on to explain. “I can regard something as a classic and still think it was wrong or misguided. Indeed, if you admit there are "classics" which disagree with each other, you have to accept that.”

Eric Foner, Professor of History at Columbia University, observed that “some of the most influential books are influential precisely because so many people were inspired to refute them. In writing history refutation is often the highest form of flattery. “

Foner additionally tells me that much of “The Age of Reform” has been seriously questioned and indeed refuted by recent scholars. Still, it is well worth reading,” Foner said. “It’s a classic and students should understand why it made so large an impact and what they can learn from it about history and writing.”

In 1985, 35 years after it was published, historian Alan Brinkley considered "The Age of Reform" the most influential book ever published on the history of twentieth-century America. “

Richard Hofstadter at his desk.

Photo Credit: Sam Falk/The New York Times

***

In his Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Hofstadter re-examined Populism, a 19^th century term that is often attributed to the liberal reform tradition of the 1890s.

Populism is generally defined as the “people,” (a morally good force) in riot with “the elite” (corrupt, greedy, and self-serving). It represented the promotion of democracy.

The Populist Movement, in U.S. history, was a coalition of agrarian reformers in the Middle West and South in revolt against the Democratic and Republican leaders for ignoring their interests. They suffered from economic hardship due to falling prices, crop failures, and lack of credit institutions.

So frustrated by the lack of progress, Populists challenged the federal government to help alleviate economic depressions, regulate banks and corporations, and help farmers who were being crushed from economic chaos.

In breaking with his contemporaries, Hofstadter, a Columbia University historian, blistered liberals and their purportedly idealistic reforms by revealing a number of unbecoming traits, including their nativism, jingoism, and anti-Semitism.

Previously, Populists and Progressives of the late 19th and early 20^th centuries were heralded by most historians for ushering in a number of progressive reforms; among them, the secret ballot, direct elections of U.S. senators, and amendments in electoral laws promoting suffrage for women.

These reforms were put in place, history tells us, to combat the corrupt monopolies of the late 19^th century, including the regulation of transportation, finance, utilities, and corporations.

According to Hofstadter, these reforms sprang from resentment from the rural population (“urbanized against their will”) who lost ground to the more socially democratic and multicultural interests of the country. The two groups erupted into a cultural bonfire.

Many of these reforms were hailed as “the rebirth of American democracy.”

Not until “The Age of Reform’’ was published, however, were many of these democratic reforms of the Populists and Progressives put under close scrutiny by Hofstadter.

No book, according to Hofstadter, investigated the anti-Semitism of the rural population.

Stripped to its core, Hofstadter recognized hostility by Populists to the foreign “ideologies” of immigrants who poured through the U.S. in record numbers in the last half of the 19^th century and early 20^th centuries. Yankee Protestants, from Hofstadter’s vantage point, resented the rising status of the Jews, Poles, and Irish, ethnic groups who didn’t fall in line with the social conservatism of the “old Wasp elites.”

The decline of rural America, in other words, awoke a smoldering anti-Semitism within the farming class. Hofstadter’s analysis, in another break from his contemporaries, was taking a hard look at American politics through the prism of culture, not in economic terms.

The Columba University historian inveighed against native-born citizens seeking to define what it meant to be an American on their terms, while condemning supposedly foreign challenges to the nation’s values and institutions.

Shortly after its publication, historian Norman Pollack harshly challenged Hofstadter’s arguments in “The Age of Reform,” which he thought obscured the truly humane character of the movement and denied Populism "its traditional place as a democratic social force.”

Another, C. Vann Woodward, a  Pulitzer-Prize winning American historian who wrote extensively about the American South and race relations in the 20^th century took issue with Hofstadter for singling out Populists for their nativism and anti-Semitism, when such traits were shared by elite eastern intellectuals and nation’s urban underprivileged.

64 years after its publication, “The Age of Reform” continues to have its strong supporters, especially in the Donald Trump era.

Harold Bloom, an American literary critic and Professor of Humanities at Yale University, contends that “now that we are all of us in the Age of Trump, I think we have to regard Hofstadter as having been prescient. Populism, whether here or abroad, is anything but a democratic social force. It has become Fascistic. Let us tell the truth. We are now under a Fascistic government. I do not think that I would call the Hofstadter book a classic. It is not a great work. “

Lizabeth Cohen, Professor of American Studies at Harvard University, echoes Harold Bloom’s sentiments.

 “Trump’s victory,” Cohen observes, “surely would not have surprised Hofstadter. After all, he tracked extremist revolt in the Heartland of America from the Populists of the 1890s to the anti-urban nativists of the 1920s to the McCarthyites and other anti-communists in the 1950s to the Goldwater Campaigners of 1964.”

Cohen, furthermore, points out that Hofstadter predicted the impact of media celebrity on politics when he wrote in 1964: “The growth of the mass media of communication and their use in politics have brought politics closer to the people than ever before and have made politics a form of entertainment in which the spectators feel themselves involved. Thus, it has become, more than ever before, an arena into which private emotions and personal problems can be readily projected.”

Critics of Hofstadter think his radical politics sprang from his transition from Marxism in the early 1930s, which over time, developed into hostility against “populistic democracy.”

Hofstadter joined the Communist Party in 1938; but was so disheartened with the Moscow show trials, that he quit the party four months later.

Conservative columnist George F. Will once described Hofstadter as a liberal intellectual who “dismissed conservatives as victims of character flaws and psychological disorders.” 

Hofstadter was born on August 6, 1916, in Buffalo, New York. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, his mother an American-born Protestant who died when he was ten. He lived at 1125 Park Avenue in NYC.

Not all scholars consider “The Age of Reform” a classic.

Paul E. Peterson, Professor of Government at Harvard University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said that “when I first read it in graduate school, I thought it did not understand country folk I came to know when running a campaign in rural Minnesota. The people were mainly interested in the weather, the prices for their crops, and any government subsidies they might persuade the federal government to give them. The book appealed to the folks on the eastern seaboard. I never assigned it [to my class].” “Never believe a blurb on the back of a book,” Peterson advised me.

In addition to Populists and Progressives, “The Age of Reform,” examines FDR’s New Deal, which is viewed by the author as the only true political reform movement which was motivated not by the cultural ethos of the nation, emblematic of the Populist Movement, but motivated by sheer economic necessity. The New Deal, according to Hofstadter, "added a social-democratic tinge that had never before been present in American reform movements."

Because of the New Deal, Hofstadter argued, liberals would in the future be less concerned with “entrepreneurial,” reform and increasingly more committed to social legislation (social security, unemployment insurance, wages and hours, and housing).

Hofstadter maintained that the New Deal “represented the triumph of economic emergency and human needs over inherited notions and inhibitions."

Joseph A. McCartin, a historian of the U.S. labor movement and 20th century U.S. social and political history at Georgetown University, strongly believes the Age of Reform is “indeed a classic work of U.S. political history.  Hofstadter brilliantly synthesized historical scholarship and he analyzed American political developments during a crucial period in such a compelling way that the book continues to attract readers more than a half-century after he wrote it.”

“I think it is safe to say’’ McCartin went on to tell me, “that most historians of populism in the years since Hofstadter have thought that he had overplayed the extent to which anti-Semitism infected the populist movement and its followers.”

But McCartin was just as quick to point out that “just as his keen awareness of the post-WWII Red Scare and McCarthyism caused Hofstadter to see some illiberal forerunners among the populists, events in our time have served as a warning to present day historians that there has perhaps been a greater persistence of illiberal, tribal, and anti-Semitic tendencies in our culture than we might have hoped or assumed.”

In addition to winning a Pulitzer Prize for “The Age of Reform,” Hofstadter was the recipient of yet another Pulitzer in 1964 for “ Anti-intellectualism in American Life,’’ in which he traced the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society. He published 13 books, a number of them bestsellers.

The celebrated American historian and public intellectual died in 1970 [Obituary] from leukemia. He was 54.

 

--Bill Lucey

WPLucey@gmail.com

September 8, 2019