Daily News Gems is my personal blog in which I comment, every now and again, on topics of particular interest to me, namely, newspaper history, baseball, American politics, and a selection of other burning issues of the day. -- Bill Lucey
People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine
Photo Credit: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
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Floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II are seen in Green Park in London on Sept. 10, 2022, two days after she died at the age of 96.
Photo Credit: AFP
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Lionel Messi holds up the World Cup trophy after Argentina defeated France in the tournament final on Sunday, December 18th
Photo Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
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Thankfully, 2022 is almost in the books.
It was a harsh year for the U.S. economy: inflation reached a 40-year high, gas prices shot up to over $5 a gallon in mid-June; similarly, other countries around the globe endured some of their highest inflation rates in years.
The war in Ukraine (the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II), sparked a worldwide energy crisis, this along with strict Covid policies in China, heightened fears of a global recession.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine additionally triggered the displacement of 15.7 million Ukrainians, including 7.7 million refugees.
To combat the financial headwinds, the world's central banks, for the first time in years, raised interest rates.
The political divisiveness and hostility in the country became all the more pronounced in June when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973), asserting that the constitutional right to abortion, in place for nearly 50 years, is now prohibited.
After 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II, 96, died at Balmoral Castle on September 8. She was the world’s second longest ever reigning monarch. The queen was succeeded by her son, Charles, who assumed the title: King Charles III.
Still tainted by the sign stealing scandal in 2017, the Houston Astros redeemed themselves, at least to some, by winning the World Series, beating the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.
With 25 years as a big-league manager, Astros manager Dusty Baker finally won his first World Series, becoming the seventh person in Major League history to win a World Series championship as both a player (1981 with the L.A. Dodgers) and as manager.
Many argue Argentina’s electrifying win over France in the World Cup final in Doha, Qatar, was the greatest match in its 92-year history, as the second largest country in South America (after Brazil) claimed its third World Cup by beating France on penalty kicks, 4-2, an extraordinary match, that was heightened by Lionel Messi of France scoring twice, catapulting him to rock-star status.
Business magnate and investor, Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for a staggering $44 billion in October, turned the social media tech giant on its head when the new CEO laid off about half of its 7,500 staff and reinstated the Twitter account of Donald Trump who was previously banned by Twitter for “inciting violence.”
In 2022, according to the United Nations, the world population increased to over eight billion; an increase of one billion in global population since 2010 and two billion since 1998. The world reached its first landmark of one billion people in 1803.
To get an idea of some other big stories of the year, I checked in with editors at other news sites to see which stories received the most page views on their home pages.
Another widely read feature at CNN, centered on Matthew Chance putting on gear in front of a live audience to report the latest drama taking place in Ukraine.
Here’s the complete list of top stories of the year from the Times, which includes actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards ceremony.
Most popular column of Camilla Tominey from The Telegraph (UK)
The reports of the British Monarchy’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
That became abundantly clear over the past two weeks while the world (especially Britain) was in mourning over the death of their beloved Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in British history. She was on the throne for 70 years, from February 6, 1952 until September 8, 2022.
The Queen was 96.
The very fact that her funeral had to take place at Westminster Abbey (the first funeral service at the Abbey for a British monarch since George II in 1760) instead of at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, attest to her popularity spanning the globe. St George’s Chapel can only hold 800 people; the Abbey’s capacity, on the other hand, is 2,000 and can hold as many as 8,000 if necessary. Ever since George III (1820), funerals of British kings and queens have been at St George’s Chapel.
Reportedly, about 500 guests from 200 countries and territories were present at the funeral for the Queen, including nearly 100 presidents and heads of government. In all, the funeral was attended by around 2,000 guests. The Queen’s funeral was additionally watched by 29.2 million people on television in the UK.
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Across the Atlantic, solemnity wasn’t the order of the day; rather, it was pure venom.
Many leading news publications in the United States, especially the New York Times, did their best to rain on the Royal Families parade by linking the monarchy to oppressive colonialism and included one prickly opinion piece (written by a Harvard historian) which charged Queen Elizabeth II with vicious racism and “helping obscure a bloody history of decolonization.”
The New York Times editorial board, obviously, assembled after the death of the Queen and decided they were on a mission to bring down the monarchy.
“They will not succeed,” Nile Gardener of the Telegraph newspaper wrote. “The Monarchy is strong, robust and vital to Britain's future. It will remain at the heart of the British nation for centuries to come. The Queen has left a powerful legacy, and her life of service will continue to inspire the British people and the free world for generations to come.”
If you read newspapers from the United States over the last couple of weeks, readers can’t help but get the impression that the monarchy is an antiquated, crumbling relic and its citizens (fed up with all the pomp and circumstance) is aching for a Republic form of government.
The Commonwealth was first founded by George VI (the late queen’s father) in 1949 to maintain Britain’s links with the former colonies. They grew from seven to 54 countries, encompassing 2.5 billion people, during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, during a time when many of the countries of the once mighty British empire gained their independence.
What very few mention is that in June, Togo and Gabon (neither with colonial links to the UK) have joined the Commonwealth, becoming the 55th and 56th members to join. Both countries are former French colonies, which gained independence from France in the 1960s. Prior to that, Rwanda joined the Commonwealth in 2009; and before that, Mozambique in 1995.
There is an additional swath of nations with a total population of some 40 million currently seeking membership.
You would think there are heaps of countries heading for the exits from the Commonwealth; when, in fact, the Republic of Ireland was the only country that left and did not rejoin.
Reportedly, 60 % of Australians want to keep the monarchy, rather than opt for an elected president under a republican form of government.
I found it laughable that newspapers like The New York Times were determined to dismantle the monarchy, at a time when the United States (if the polls are any guide) is on the brink of civil war with the electorate split down the middle on the right-wing leaning U.S. Supreme Court, pervasive racism (whether real or imagined), and the revolting violence which took place on January 6, 2021, when pro-Trump supporters thundered through the Capitol building in Washington D.C. The insurrection culminated in five deaths with many injured, including 138 police officers.
A poll, recently conducted by the Economist and YouGov found that 55% of self-identified "strong" Republicans believed civil war is at least somewhat likely, while 40% of self-identified "strong" Democrats echoed that sentiment.
Contrary to what The New York Times believes, residents in Britain would like to keep their form of government exactly the way it is.
According to the British Attitudes Survey, from 1983 to 2021, a majority strongly believe it’s important for Britain to continue to have a monarchy.
Between 1994 and 2021, for example, two-thirds (67%) of respondents in Britain have expressed this view.
And why is it so important for the monarchy to stay in place?
Clement Attlee, former British Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951, wrote an essay for the Observer on August 23, 1959 on the role of the monarchy in Britain. Many of the elements of the monarchy that Attlee highlighted 63 years ago is remarkably still significant today.
“The monarch,” Attlee wrote, “is the general representative of all the people and stands aloof from the party-political battle. A president, however popular, is bound to have been chosen as representative of some political trend, and as such is open to attack from those of a different view. A monarch is a kind of referee, although the occasions when he or she has to blow the whistle are nowadays very few.”
It's truly stunning that during her reign, Queen Elizabeth II visited 116 countries, on 261 official overseas visits, including 78 state visits, while meeting with 14 of the 15 sitting U.S. Presidents. And yet, Elizabeth rarely, if ever, tipped her hand on how she felt about certain hot-button issues. She greeted former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump with the same grace and decorum as she would any head of state.
British writer CS Lewis, summed it up perfectly: “Where men are forbidden to honor a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
And what exactly has become of those few, those seemingly happy few countries, which have abolished monarchies during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign?
Of Afghanistan, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Rwanda, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen, only Greece, as Daniel Hannan of The Telegraph shrewdly points out, “can be said to have made a successful change.”
It’s ironic that countries, living in monarchies, such as Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand sport the most open-minded and egalitarian forms of government and aren’t storming their Parliament buildings and demanding election results be overturned.
As Mathew Syed in The Times of London so beautifully wrote, “It wasn’t just her [Queen Elizabeth’s] status but her character that united us. In a world where politicians so often fall short, she rarely did.”
It’s also striking that within the British Parliament itself with all the rancor currently taking place among the political parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Conservative Party, etc.) with the awesome responsibilities the new PM, Liz Truss, inherits: a spiraling energy crisis, the falling of the pound to historic levels, and the overall financial well-being of the country up in the air, Britain and its political parties remained in harmony in their support for constitutional monarchy and the queen whose devotion to service and duty over seven decades was nothing less than spectacular.
Queen Elizabeth II bows in front of the Dublin Memorial Garden on May 17, 2011, in Ireland. Her visit was the first by a monarch since 1911.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
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And for those who think Britain and its monarchy are wedded to a bygone era, just consider that during her reign, the queen in 2011 became the first monarch to visit Ireland in its 90 years since bloody independence, and 32 years after the IRA assassination of her husband’s (Prince Philip) uncle. When she bowed at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin for those who died fighting for Irish independence, she became a symbol of peace.
Prior to that, she travelled to West Germany in 1965 and Moscow in 1994 to renew Britain’s friendship with World War II allies, all during an age when many thought the Queen was just an insignificant figurehead.
Imagine, there are 29 billion British coins in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II’s face on them.
Far from the hostility, vindictiveness, and toxic nature of politics among voters and political rivals in the United States, the Queen (and now King Charles III) remove themselves from the fray and rancor of the political battles and turn their attention to uniting the country by displaying dignity, discretion, and duty—all important hallmarks of the British Monarchy—in ways few world leaders are able to.
Columnist Nick Timothy of The Telegraph captured the unifying mood holding the country together so well, when he wrote: “The respect we show for the Royals reflects esteem not only for them as individuals, but as symbols of the stable constitutional settlement their family provides for us.” “It reflects,” Timothy continued, “our acceptance of their status as the protectors – not the participants – of the democratic political system that sits beneath them. It may be paradoxical, but our parliamentary democracy depends on our hereditary monarchy.”
A hearty round of applause goes to Julian Fellowes who knocked one out of the park, yet again.
The second movie spinoff of Downton Abbey hit the theaters a few weeks ago and is being met with mostly favorable reviews.
As of June 17, 2022, “Downton Abbey: A New Era” has grossed $41.6 million in the United States and Canada and $45.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $87.1 million
Many passionate Downton followers, including myself, think “Downton Abbey: A New Era” was a better written, more entertaining, offering then the last motion picture.
And as an added bonus, in this second Downton Abbey movie, viewers feast their eyes on a French villa in the south of France. It was Villa Roccabella located about an hour from Saint-Tropez, which features extensive gardens, a heated outdoor pool, yoga deck and a private beach (used in the swimming scene with Tom and Lucy Branson). It was designed in the late 19th century by Hans-Georg Tersling, a Danish architect
I found it remarkable how Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey and the award-winning script writer, weaved its characters so meticulously into a tapestry of compelling subplots, twists and turns all in two hours and five minutes, culminating with Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) assuming the titular head of the Downton estate.
The movie takes place in 1928.
Two topics, in particular, are covered in the movie, which reflects accurately what was taking place in Britain on the brink of the Great Depression: the emergence of talkie films and British societies icy intolerance of homosexuality. In an age of massive fact-checking, viewers of this movie can rest assured “Downton Abbey: A New Era” did get its facts correct. The film, according to historians, was meticulously researched to the point that everything represented in it is grounded in factual events, including its people and technology.
Lady Mary’s (Michelle Dockery) voice is used in order for the production company to transition from a silent film to a talkie.
Photo Credit: BEN BLACKALL/FOCUS FEATURES
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In “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” a production company makes a hefty financial offer to use the Downton estate as a location for a new movie, titled The Gambler. After some trepidation, but knowing they have to repair a leaky roof to the Downton estate, Lady Mary Talbot agrees to the generous financial arrangement. The film, as was customary at the time, was intended as a silent film.
Almost halfway through the filming, the producer and director, Jack Barber (played by Hugh Dancy) gets word from studio execs that the film has to be scratched, because silent films are no longer profitable. After some deft maneuvering, clever strategy, and discussion, Lady Mary Talbot and the director decide to flow with the tide and make the film a talkie so they won’t have to cancel production after all.
The phasing out of silent films in favor of talkies was in fact taking place in Britain in 1928.
According to Laraine Porter, Reader in Cinema History at De Montfort University (Leicester), “1928 was significant for British cinema as it saw the implementation of the 1927 Cinematograph (Quota) Act which obliged cinemas to show a proportion of British-made films in the face of Hollywood's almost total domination.”
The British film industry hit an all-time low in 1926 when only 5 % of films screened in British cinemas were British. American films dominated the market. Films that started silent in Britain and ended as talkies was common around this time. They were referred to as “Goat Gland” films.
Since the British film industry was mired in such weak financial standing in 1928, and now were forced to invest vast amounts of money into talking technology, many of the smaller producers (who invested heavily on silent film technology) went bankrupt.
In 1927, the American produced “The Jazz Singer” represented the first motion picture which featured isolated talking scenes and synchronized dialogue, thanks to sound-on-disc technology.
The big breakthrough in Britain came in November, 1928, when the motion picture, "The Terror" reached British cinemas.
Britain’s transition to talking films came a year after the United States studios. Laraine Porter explained to me that “Britain had an established culture of popular theatre, particularly the Aldwych Farces, and a popular literary heritage which offered ready source material for the new talkies.” “These sources,” Porter explained, “had specific domestic appeal to audiences who also wanted to see and hear their favorite music-hall and Variety stars - like Gracie Fields - in film.”
In addition, Britain had heaps of engineers and technicians from the BBC to draw from who were proficient in helping studios make the transition from silent to talking films.
Laraine Porter contends that there was “a massive urban working-class ready-made audience who supported early British talkies.”
The Terror, a murder mystery set in an English country house represented the first continuous “all-talkie” to premiere in Europe. It was released by Warner Bros, their second all talkie film. The first was “Lights of New York” also released in 1928.
Actor Guy Dexter (Dominic West) invites head butler, Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), to come live with him in America.
Photo Credit: BEN BLACKALL/FOCUS FEATURES
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Another hot-button issue which “Downton Abbey: A New Era” nibbles around the edges at is the topic of same-sex relationships in Britain in 1928.
The dashing Thomas Barrow (played by Robert James-Collier), the head butler at the Downtown Estate, who is gay, develops an attraction to one of the actors filming a movie at the Downton estate, Guy Dexter (played wonderfully by Dominic West). Dexter offers Barrow a chance to live with him in America as his personal assistant and social secretary; a role that is described in the film as a “dresser.” The idea that this would mark the beginning of a romantic relationship between the two is gently intimated in the film. When Barrow agrees and turns in his notice to Lady Mary, she shares his happiness and says, “I wish you all the happiness this cruel world can afford.”
The “cruel world’’ which Lady Mary refers to, is, of course, gays being treated as social outcasts in Britain in the 1920s.
Back in the 16th century, Britain considered homosexuality a criminal act.
The Buggery Act of 1533, passed by Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII targeted homosexuality for persecution. Sex between men was punishable by death in the United Kingdom. The law, strangely, never affected females.
Not until 1861 was the Offences Against the Person Act passed, which eliminated the death penalty for homosexual acts and replaced it with 10-years of imprisonment.
Things didn’t improve for the gay community in 1885. The Criminal Law Amendment Act not only made male homosexual acts illegal, they could also be prosecuted whether or not a witness was present; meaning, private acts were subject to prosecution. Usually, a handwritten letter suggesting intimacy between two men was all the court needed to prosecute. It was this ambiguously written law that Irish poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde, fell victim to in 1895.
It took well into the 20th century, 1957, in fact, when the Wolfenden Report was issued, which recommended that “homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should be no longer a criminal offence.”
Despite the recommendations from the Wolfenden Report, Parliament took until 1967 to pass the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 in the United Kingdom, which legalized homosexual acts in England and Wales on the condition they were at least 21 years old and the acts were consensual and in private. Penalties were, however, issued for street offenses.
Amazingly, the law was not changed for Scotland until 1980, or for Northern Ireland until 1982.
Despite the severe penalties gays were subject to at the time Downton Abbey, the movie, supposedly takes place, 1928,’’ Patrick Allitt, Professor of American History at Emory College tells me that ‘’we know from lots of literary evidence that [homosexuality] was widespread, particularly among the Bloomsbury Group intellectuals, such as Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, J. M. Keynes, and others.”
The Bloomsbury Group were a group of influential English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists, bold renegades, who opened the Victorian upper classes eyes to the LGBT point of view, a subject never discussed in Britain at the time, unless behind closed doors. Many point to the works of the Bloomsbury Group which sparked a seismic shift in Britain regarding LGBTQ rights.
According Lucy Delap, Professor of Modern British and Gender History at the University of Cambridge, “1928 was an interesting year as far as same sex relationships were concerned, because of the publication and then prosecution for obscenity of Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” – a Sapphic novel that caused uproar and became iconic for many lesbian readers – but only covertly read of course, in versions smuggled in from France.”
It was in October, 1928, when Virginia Woolf published “Orlando: A Biography,” which today is considered a feminist classic. The book chronicles the escapades of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history. The novel was inspired by Woolf’s lesbian lover, the poet Vita Sackville-West. Literary scholars point to this novel as one of the first novels about gender uncertainty.
Not until 1960 were the British reading public able to read an uncensored edition of D.H. Lawrence’s novel, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”
Photo Credit: Philip Jackson/Daily Mail/Rex
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Also in 1928, D.H. Lawrence secretly printed (in Italy) his eleventh novel, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” about an upper-class married woman, Constance or Lady Chatterley, who is racked with internal torment when she neglects her paralyzed husband (from a war injury) and falls into the arms of a gatekeeper, a member of the working-class.
Because Lady Chatterley was filled with explicit sex scenes and four-letter words, it was banned in the United Kingdom after its publishers, Penguin, were brought to trial under the Obscene Publications Act. Not until March, 1960, did Penguin win the rights to publish the novel in its entirety. Book stores reportedly all over England sold all 200,000 copies on the first day of publication.
1928 (November 11) was also the year that Thomas Hardy, considered to be the greatest English writer, died at his home in Dorchester. He was 87.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), a reference book requiring the efforts of 1,300 people for more than 70 years was completed in 1928. The word “Zyxt” was the last word in the final volume of the dictionary.
English poets Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning were consulted about the meaning of words that appeared in their poems. J.R.R. Tolkien, in fact, was an assistant lexicographer for one year, 1919. At least six editors guided the process.
Politically, 1928 ushered in a new era for women’s voting rights.
It too nearly 60 years of campaigning, but on July 6, 1928, all women over 21 years old finally got the right to vote with the passing of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928. Prior to that, a voting act in 1918 gave the vote to all men over age 21 and all women over age 30, tripling the electorate.
On February 15, 1928, British Liberal Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916, H. H. [Herbert Henry] Asquith, passed away at the age of 75. He resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in October, 1926.
Asquith’s finest achievement was the Parliament Act of 1911,which stripped the Lords of any veto over money bills or public legislation and became a landmark piece of legislation in paving the way for representative democracy in Great Britain.
A major medical breakthrough occurred in Britain in 1928, when Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, working in his laboratory at St Mary's Hospital Paddington, London discovered, by accident, a mold growing on a dish had stopped bacteria from developing. Fleming’s antibacterial effects of penicillin were described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease."
Fleming published his findings in 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology.
Tragically, 1928 was the year of a major flood in London. The Thames flooded a large swath of central London. The high waters were triggered by a depression in the North Sea which sent a storm surge up the tidal river.
The Houses of Parliament, the Tate Gallery and the Tower of London were all overwhelmed with high waters. The slums on the Westminster side of Lambeth Bridge, suffered the worst of it, where 10 of the 14 victims lost their lives. At one inquest, a man named Alfred Harding identified the bodies of his four daughters - Florence Emily, 18, Lillian Maude, 16, Rosina, six, and Doris Irene, two.
Taken together, the Thames flood left 14 people dead and an estimated 4,000 people homeless across London.
The flood of 1928, together with the disastrous North Sea Flood of 1953, inspired the construction of Thames Barrier in the 1970s.
1928 certainly wasn’t a good time for the working class in general, with high unemployment “especially in old industrial areas of northern England southern Scotland and South Wales. It got worse in the financial crisis of 1929-31,” Professor Patricia Thane, Visiting Professor in History at Birkbeck College, London said.
Politically, Conservatives were in power in the UK from 1924 through 1929, which contributed to the working-class plight of low wages and deteriorating economic conditions. Lucy Delap observed that “a Labour government had been in power as a minority in 1924 (briefly), and were to be voted in again in 1929 – so working-class voters were I think quite aware of the new political landscape and the possibility of change. When the second minority Labour government came in 1929, high hopes were dashed by the economic recession, and the government only lasted until 1931.”
So, the title of the movie: “Downton Abbey: A New Era” might not have been referring to a ‘’new era’’ only as it applies to the Crawley family at the Downton estate. A new era, to be sure, could be witnessed all over Britain in 1928 with social and economic conditions, the political landscape, and most certainly with movies and British literature.
Lost in the sheer madness during the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, was an epic milestone in motion picture history.
The Godfather, the 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola celebrated its 50-year anniversary.
Sean "Diddy" Combs introduced Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino in a tribute to the Godfather Trilogy that was (in my opinion) much too brief for such a brilliant masterpiece.
During the 1973 Academy Awards, The Godfather was nominated for 10 awards, coming away with three, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Marlon Brando).
Prior to the tribute, chaos and confusion took place at the Dolby Theatre, right in the heart of Hollywood, when actor Will Smith (who would later that night win an Oscar) approached comedian Chris Rock on stage and delivered a hard slap to his face for his insensitive joke about his wife's bald head. Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith (unbeknownst to Chris Rock) suffers from alopecia, a medical term for hair loss.
Whatever took place after the Will Smith slap, to many it’s just a hazy memory. The slap heard round the world took center stage and devoured the news cycle for days after the awards ceremony. It certainly overshadowed the milestone of the Godfather hitting its 50-year mark.
Despite The Godfather being released 50 years ago, so many of its memorable lines and scenes of the film are still very much with us and pop up in our everyday language. The Internet Movie Database, (IMDb) for example, lists more than three hundred films and television shows that have referenced “The Godfather.”
Imagine, 132 million people had seen the Godfather by January, 1975. The movie earned more than $250 million worldwide, a figure that continues to grow.
There’s a famous story that former New York Governor Mario Cuomo refused to see “The Godfather” for its depiction of Italian-American stereotypes which he found repulsive. Finally, Cuomo broke down and saw it and he considered it a masterpiece.
Singer Vic Damone had initially been cast in The Godfather for the role of Johnny Fontane, but reportedly bowed out. “As an American of Italian descent,” Damone said, “I could not in good conscience continue in that role.” The role of Johnny Fontane was filled by singer Al Martino.
Brendan Hennessey, Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Binghamton University, says Cuomo’s initial rejection of the film “was probably typical of Italian Americans of a certain age, definitely in New York state. That generation was still very close to the anti-Italian discrimination of their parents and grandparents who worked hard to distance themselves from stereotypes of Italian criminality and racial inferiority that were very common in the early 20th century through the end of WWII.” “More recent controversies,” Hennessey explained, “over serious representations like 'The Sopranos' or silly ones like 'Jersey Shore' and the non-controversy over renaming Columbus Day are all remnants of that era of assimilation.” Hennessey contends that the current generation of Italian-Americans are not as outraged by these stereotypes as much as their parents and grandparents were.
Marlon Brando and Francis Ford Coppola discuss a ‘Godfather’ scene on location in Little Italy.
Photo Credit: Anthony Pescatore/NY Daily News via Getty Images
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So, exactly why is The Godfather considered such a cinematic masterpiece to this very day?
Former New York Times op-ed columnist and currently writer-at-large for New York Magazine, Frank Rich, tells me “as King Lear exemplifies, classic drama so often involves a family battling over love and power. In The Godfather, Coppola wedded those basics to memorable, original characters, an epic shadow history of America, bravura filmmaking, and pitch-perfect casting that called on the talents of several generations of great American actors, among them stars in-the-making like Pacino.”
John Mosier, Professor of English (Emeritus) at Loyola University, New Orleans, thinks that The Godfather was a compelling Italian immigrant saga; one that chronicles the importance of family and loyalty when all other traditional levers of power in America fails them.
Additionally, “it told a story about two aspects of American life,” Mosier says, “that everyone knew existed, but had never been talked about: Sicilian culture here and criminal activity. So, it used a typical story device—young idealistic man who’s drawn into a life of violence. It did so in a way that was neither moralistic nor tragic—the ending was a very fine touch. He should have stopped, basically.”
For serious film buffs, I compiled a selection of facts about The Godfather, along with a collection of original film reviews from 1972.
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Robert Duvall holds cue cards for Marlon Brando to read
Source: Paramount Studios
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The Godfather: Facts, Feats, and Historic Firsts
Mario Puzo was born in 1920 in Hell’s Kitchen (West Side of Midtown Manhattan), the son of Italian born parents.
His first two novels, “Dark Arena” and “Fortunate Pilgrim” though critically acclaimed, earned him only $6,500. At age 45, he owed $20,000 in gambling debts, so he wrote a ten-page book outline-entitled Mafia, hoping for more commercial appeal. The Godfather was a pulp novel about sex, violence and crime. Eight publishers turned him down.
The Godfather book was a rousing success, spending 67 weeks on the New York Times' Best Sellers List
On March 5, 1967, Paramount bought the rights to Mario Puzo’s book, “Mafia,” later renamed “The Godfather.”
In 1969, according to Robert Evans (head of production at Paramount), "there wasn’t a single Italian director with any credibility to be found.”
12 directors turned down the opportunity to direct The Godfather.
September 27, 1970: Francis Ford Coppola was officially announced as The Godfather director with an anticipated release at Christmas, 1971.
The final draft of the screenplay ran 158 pages and was dated March 29, 1971.
Coppola reportedly made The Godfather because he was Italian and desperate for work. He was offered and accepted $125,000 and 6% of the profits.
Hollywood heavyweights, Anthony Quinn, George C. Scott, Laurence Olivier, and Ernest Borgnine were rumored to be vying for the part of Don Corleone.
Anne Bancroft was briefly considered for the part of Carmella “Mama’’ Corleone.
Al Pacino failed his screen test, he forgot his lines.
Ryan O’Neal, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, Frank Langella, Martin Sheen, and David Carrradine, were all considered for the role of Michael Corleone before settling on Al Pacino. For a short time, James Caan was the frontrunner to play Michael Corleone.
Casting for The Godfather formally began in New York at THE GODFATHER Production Offices on the 28th floor #1 Gulf and Western Plaza on November 20, 1970.
Pacino was 31 years old when he finally secured the role of Michael Corleone.
At 5:30 a.m. on March 23, 1971, filming for The Godfather began.
The Godfather was shot in 120 New York area locations over 67 days.
Gianni Russo (who played Carlo Rizzi in the Godfather) claims that he worked in organized crime early in his life, serving as an errand boy and mob associate for Frank Costello.
Marlon Brando was 47 years old when he was cast in the Godfather. He was viewed in the industry as washed up. Prior to The Godfather, Marlon Brando was in a series of flops and was considered box office poison.
Brando was paid $50,000, plus $10,000 a week in expenses during his contractual six weeks of shooting, and a percentage after the picture brought in $10 million.
Coppola was certain he was about to be fired. His insistence over casting Pacino and the rest of his chosen cast member had earned him the hostility of almost all the top executives at Paramount.
New York crime boss, Frank Colombo assembled tens of thousands of protestors to march through the streets of New York, to protest the making of The Godfather and its distorted depiction of Italian-Americans. A benefit concert was organized, headlined by Frank Sinatra, and raised roughly $600,000—which he used, according to Al Ruddy (The Godfather producer), for “the sole express purpose of stopping the filming of The Godfather.”
At the request of the Italian-American Civil Rights League, all references to the Mafia and Cosa Nostra from its screenplay, were eliminated.
In The Godfather, Coppola sought to express how Americans as a whole must rely on their family for what America fails to provide them, and in the case of the movie that family is Don Corleone.
Among the most pressing obstacles facing Coppola was financing: the film’s budget, originally set at $2 million, quickly leaped toward $6 million.
The gruesome scene with the dead horse’s head was a real horse, obtained from a rendering plant in New Jersey, where they located a horse ready for slaughter. The horse’s head was smeared with Karo blood. The horse’s head in blood stemmed from Sicilian folklore: they nailed your favorite dog’s head to your door if you didn’t pay up.
For Marlon Brando, the production crew created “dental plumpers,” flesh-colored blobs of acrylic that fit into the sides of Brando’s mouth and flush up against his teeth. To hold the appliances in place, a metal band attached to the plumpers was wrapped around the base of his teeth, with the ends wrapped around his molars like a piece of bridgework. On each foot, Brando wore a ten-pound weight to slow his movements, and padding was added around his waist for a belly grown fat from sumptuous eating.
The name of Tony Soprano’s strip club in the HBO series, The Sopranos. “ Bada-bing” came from a line in The Godfather spoken by James Caan.
Sonny (James Caan) beating of Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo) for harming his sister was filmed on Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem.
The assassination of Sonny was considered a technical masterpiece; 200 bullet holes were drilled into the car and filled with squibs—tiny explosive rounds that could be remotely detonated—and another hundred were attached to the tollbooth.
A suite in the Americana of New York, on Sixth Avenue, served as a substitute for Las Vegas.
Vegas casino chief Moe Greene (Alex Rocco,) the Jewish gangster, was based on the real-life American gangster, Bugsy Siegel.
The Godfather opened nationwide on March 24, 1972.
The Godfather brought in $465,148 in its first week alone from just the five Manhattan theaters, considered (at the time) the largest one-week total ever for a motion picture.
By the following week, the movie had racked up $7,397,164 across 322 theaters in the US and Canada. In less than a month after the opening, The Godfather was grossing $1 million a day, the first film ever to break the magical million-dollar mark.
During the 1973 Academy Awards, The Godfather was nominated for ten awards: Best Picture; Brando as Best Actor; Coppola for Best Director; Coppola and Puzo for Best Adapted Screenplay; Pacino, Caan, Duvall each for Best Supporting Actor; along with nominations for costumes, editing, and sound.
The Godfather met with so much box office success, a sequel was quickly worked out with a release date of April, 1974.
Francis Ford Coppola eventually became a five-time Oscar winner and the recipient of the Academy’s 2010 Irving G. Thalberg Award.
The Johnny Fontane character is thought to be inspired by Frank Sinatra.
Francis Ford Coppola and James Caan were classmates at Hofstra University.
Pacino and Caan signed onto the Godfather for $35,000. Robert Duvall made $36,000 in the Godfather
Italian phrases in The Godfather
Caporegime is a Mafia term for a lieutenant, or second in command.
Strunz is derived from an Italian term, stronzo, the vulgar translation for which is “a piece of shit.”
Lupara is a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun that is often homemade. It’s a traditional Cosa Nostra weapon in Sicily.
Pezzonovante means someone who is powerful, a big shot.
Michael calls Apollonia (the young Sicilian woman) “pazzo,” meaning “crazy”.
Pacino sprained an ankle ligament when he raced out of the Louis Restaurant (after gunning down Mark McCluskey, the corrupt Irish-American police captain and Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo, the top narcotics man, who became associated with the Tattaglia family) to catch a getaway car in a scene that never made the final cut. Pacino was sidelined for a few days and had to rely on crutches and a cane when shooting resumed along with plenty of painkillers.
Pacino’s grandparents were genuine Sicilians. He was born in East Harlem but moved to the Bronx at a young age.
After Marlon Brando passed away (2004), his own annotated script of “The Godfather” fetched $312,800 at a New York auction, which is believed to be the highest amount paid for a film script.
The baptism scene in The Godfather was filmed at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Mulberry Street, Manhattan. The exteriors of the baptism scene were filmed at Mount Loretto Church in Staten Island. The church burned down in 1973.
Filming for the shootings during the baptism: (the barbershop, the revolving doors, and the walk up the stairs) was filmed at the St Regis Hotel in Manhattan. Moe Greene’s massage took place in the steam room in the McBurney YMCA, West 23rd Street, Manhattan.
On March 15, 1972, five New York theaters screened the world premiere of The Godfather for the public. That night, the film took in a record $57,000. In the first week, the take was $465,000, also a record.
Paramount pre booked The Godfather in 350 theaters. The film, which costs $6.2 million to make, earned $13.8 million from those bookings alone before the film hit all theaters nationwide.
In 1972, the average ticket price in the United States was around $1.60. With the high demand over The Godfather, Paramount boosted ticket prices to $3.50, then weekend prices went up to $4.00
In the film’s initial release, Paramount made $85.7 million. It was the first movie in motion picture history to gross an average of $1 million a day. It was the highest-grossing film of all time, until Jaws surpassed it in 1975. To date, it has grossed nearly $135 million domestically, and an estimated $250 million worldwide.
NBC paid $10 million to air “The Godfather” over two nights in November of 1974. An estimated 42,400,000 households watched a slightly abridged version of the movie.
Brando worked on the Godfather for six weeks.
The Godfather won three Oscars.
There are 16 hugs, kisses, and squeezes in the Godfather.
132 million people had seen the Godfather by January, 1975.
The Godfather ran for two hours and fifty-six minutes.
The Godfather film opens in August, 1945
--Bill Lucey
April 7, 2022
WPLucey@gmail.com
Source: “The Annotated Godfather” By Jenny M. Jones; “Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather” by Mark Seal; “The Godfather: A Pictorial History” By Gerald Gardner; “The Godfather Legacy” by Harlan Lebo
Original Movie Reviews of The Godfather (1972)
“Far from surviving …as the Gone with the Wind of gangster movies, my guess is The Godfather will be as quickly forgotten as it deserves to be.”
--William F. Buckley, The New York Post, March 14, 1972
“The Godfather is as good as the novel—and essentially as immoral and therefore in its new incarnation and availability to the illiterate, far more dangerous…The whole function of this film is to show us that Hitler is a grand sort of family man, gentle with children, daring and ruthless with enemies, implacable in the matter of honor and so loyal to the ties of blood that even a brother-in-law, to a sister’s sorrow, must go (juicily garroted) if he happens to have betrayed a son of the house.”
--Judith Crist, New York Magazine, March 20, 1972
The Godfather” rediscovers the marvelous possibilities existing in the straightforward narrative movie that refuses to acknowledge it's about anything more than its plot, and whose characters are revealed entirely in terms of events. The Godfather moves so quickly, in such a tightly organized series of interlocking events, that the film, like its characters (who are not the sort to muse very long about their fates), doesn't have time to be introspective—to betray the excitement of the immediately felt emotion or of an explicit action by somehow commenting on it.
--Vincent Canby, The New York Times, March 12, 1972
“Coppola has found a style and a visual look for all this material so “The Godfather” becomes something of a rarity: a really good movie squeezed from a bestseller. The decision to shoot everything in period decor (the middle and late 1940s) was crucial; if they’d tried to save money as they originally planned, by bringing everything up-to-date, the movie simply wouldn’t have worked. But it’s uncannily successful as a period piece, filled with sleek, bulging limousines and postwar fedoras. “
--Roger Ebert, January 1, 1972, Chicago Sun-Times
“It’s an extraordinary achievement: a new classic in a classic American film genre: a richly ironic example of how crude popular fiction maybe be transformed into great popular art; a fresh source of both legend and optimism, reviving the career of Marlon Brando and probably making the career of Marlon Brando and probably making the careers of young actor Al Pacino, young screenwriter director Francis Ford Coppola, and several others. And last but hardly least, it is a product of almost limitless commercial potential.”
--Gary Arnold, The Washington Post, March 22, 1972
“Director Coppola, whose Hollywood record so far has been undistinguished, tells The Godfather with a kind of brilliant low-keyed virtuosity, with one particularly effective use of symbolism: the underworld dealings are conducted in thickly darkened rooms, usually in murmurous tones, and these scenes are contrasted with the pastoral, open-air semi-freedom of Corleone family life.”
--Kevin Kelly, The Boston Globe, March 23, 1972
“The Godfather is a baptism in blood, a ripping, tearing blockbuster of a movie, as charged with excitement as a hoodlum using a machine gun, as shocking as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,”
--Joyce Haber, Los Angeles Times, 1972
“This is a curious film. One comes to understand, even to condone, the activities of the Godfather and his clan. And even though it frankly portrays the underworld’s influence in the sacrosanct worlds of Hollywood and Las Vegas, there is the feeling that, with young Michael there, these will be better worlds. Essentially, The Godfather is the projection of a myth, not a fact. But it is myths — not facts — that make a fortune. “
--Arthur Knight, The Hollywood Reporter, March 8, 1972
“It takes a masterful presentation of a gripping story to hold a man in his seat for 2 hours and 55 minutes with a minimum of squirming. This is what The Godfather does.”
--Emerson Batdorff, The Plain Dealer, March 23, 1972
Ukrainians desperately trying to board trains at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi Central Station.
Photo Credit: Pete Kiehart/The Guardian/BuzzFeed
***
Over a week into Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, turmoil and bloodshed remains, with residents of Kyiv rushing to the train station in order to escape Russia’s wrath.
More than one million Ukrainians have been displaced, adding to the humanitarian crisis.
Russian troops, according to a Human Rights Watch report, have fired cluster munitions into at least three residential neighborhoods.
More threatening still, Russia has captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe after shelling part of the complex, raising fears of a nuclear disaster; others equate it to a “war crime.” For now, the power plant’s six reactors reportedly remain intact and undamaged.
The Associated Press reported that the head of Ukraine’s security council called on Russia to create humanitarian corridors to allow children, women and the elderly to escape the fighting. The United Nations has reported 752 civilian casualties across Ukraine, with 227 killed and 525 injured. Since February 24, 28 children have been killed.
In February 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered three thousand U.S. troops to position near Poland and Romania—NATO countries that border Ukraine—to counter Russian troops stationed near its border.
A Russian air strike on a rural residential area in Kyiv region killed at least seven people on Friday, including two children.
Photo Credit: Twitter/@rustem_umerov)
***
Since the Ukraine conflict continues to grow more ominous by the hour, I compiled some historical facts about the Eastern European country.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, was founded about 1,500 years ago by proto-Ukrainian Slavic tribes.
Historically, in December 1922, Ukraine together with Russia and Belarus, and Trans-Caucasian Federation were the founding members of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine is home to more than 100 different national or ethnic groups.
Ukraine's population is overwhelmingly Christian; the vast majority - up to two thirds - identify themselves as Orthodox.
Since the 17th century, Ukraine was divided among three Empires - by Austrians in the West, by Turks in the South, and by Russians in the East.
The Ukrainian national anthem is called ‘Shche ne vmerla Ukraina’ which translates in English to ‘Ukraine’s glory has not yet perished’
Ukraine’s name derives from the Old East Slavic word "ukraina" meaning "borderland or march (militarized border region)" and began to be used extensively in the 19th century; originally Ukrainians referred to themselves as Rusyny (Rusyns, Ruthenians, or Ruthenes), an endonym derived from the medieval Rus state (Kyivan Rus)
At the end of the World War I, Ukraine was divided into two: Western Ukraine became part of Poland and Eastern Ukraine, the larger part was absorbed by into the Soviet Union and renamed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Both governments imposed their own language and government.
The Second World War claimed the lives of 5.5 million Ukrainians, including at least one million Ukrainian Jews.
Most Ukrainians live in cities (67.2 %). The largest metropolitan area in Ukraine is Kiev (3.2 million), Kharkiv (1.7 million), Donetsk (1.7 million), Dnipropetrovsk (1.5 million), and Odessa (1.1 million). The largest ethnic group are ethnic Ukrainians (78%) and ethnic Russians (17 %).
The state language is Ukrainian, an east Slavic language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet, composed of a mixture of Latin, Greek, and Slavic letters.
The famous Carol of the Bells Christmas carol is based on a Ukrainian folk tune.
In the 8th-10th centuries, parts of what is now Ukraine were ruled by the Khazars, a Turkic tribe which converted to Judaism.
The territory of Ukraine became the site of almost constant warfare between Poles, Muscovites, Ottomans, Tatars, and Ukrainian Cossacks in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to Alexander Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark, “the subsequent incorporation of most Ukrainian territories into the Muscovite State and its successor, the Russian Empire, cut off Ukraine from its roots in Europe and had ruinous consequences for Ukrainian religion, language, and culture, which were progressively Russified or banned.”
During the 16th and 17th centuries, tens of thousands of Ukrainians were captured annually and shipped to and sold in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman empire, as slaves.
Ukraine experienced a major cultural, political, and economic revival in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when the charismatic Ivan Mazepa served as leader of an autonomous Cossack polity known as the Hetmanate—until his defeat by Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.
Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko, was born a serf in 1814 in a small village south of Kyiv
Ukraine was the birthplace of many prominent Jews—among many others the writers Joseph Roth, Paul Celan, Bruno Schulz, Sholom Aleichem, Vasily Grossman, Isaac Babel, and Shmuel Agnon. Zionist leader Vladimir Zhabotinsky and former Israeli Prime Minster Golda Meir were also born in Ukraine, as was the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer.
Twentieth-century Ukraine was the site of two genocides—the Holodomor of 1932-1933, during which millions of Ukrainians were mercilessly killed in an artificial famine engineered by Joseph Stalin and his henchmen, and the Holocaust, which took the lives of millions of Jews. Ukraine suffered 15 million “excess” deaths between 1914 and 1948, due to wars, genocides, and Stalin’s repressive policies.
Ukrainians formed the majority of Soviet political prisoners; they staged revolts in the concentration camps of the Soviet Gulag; they fought bravely against Stalin and Hitler; they resisted Muscovite and Russian imperialism for centuries.
The Ukrainian diaspora in the United States consists of about 1.25 million people, who, while concentrated in the formerly industrial Northeast and Midwest, are found in all 50 states.
Prominent Americans of Ukrainian descent include astronaut Heide Marie Stefanyshyn-Piper, actors Jack Palance, Natalie Wood, Vera Farmiga, and Liev Schreiber, policymaker Paula Dobriansky, Metropolitan Opera singer Paul Plishka, football great Bronko Nagurski, economist Greg Mankiw, inventor Igor Sikorsky, journalist Mike Royko, and writer Chuck Palahniuk.
The first literary tradition of the Ukrainian language was created by Ivan Kotliarevskyi at the end of 18th century and developed at the beginning of the 19th century by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevechnko. According to Sergei Zhuk, Professor of History at Ball State University, since a publication of Shevchnko's collection of poetry Kobzar in 1940, Ukraine witnessed a rise of nationalist movement which eventually untied Western part (Austrian) and Eastern (Russian) part of Ukrainians in one large patriotic movement, resulting in an independent state in 1991.
A peaceful mass protest, the "Orange Revolution" in 2004 forced the authorities to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor YUSHCHENKO.
Ukraine celebrated its 30th anniversary of independence in 2021.
Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS); Sergei Zhuk, professor of History at Ball State University; Alexander Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark; Monica White, Associate Professor of Russian & Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham; Robert W. Orttung Research Director, Sustainable George Washington University Research Professor of International Affairs (IERES); “A History of Ukraine: It’s Land and Peoples” by Paul R. Magocsi
The screenplay writer of the Academy Award winning film “Gosford Park” and creator, writer, and executive producer of the Award-Winning PBS series “Downton Abbey” recently premiered (January 24th) on HBO with his latest period piece: “The Gilded Age,” a miniseries set in New York in 1882. The drama depicts the old money established families (like the Astor’s) having to contend with the bluster of families with new money (nouveau riche) invading New York, such as the Vanderbilt’s, Carnegies, Rockefeller’s and other major titans of 19th century industry.
Fans of Fellowes will most likely be welcoming with open arms the lavish dresses, extravagant hats, and enormous mansions that became so emblematic of the Gilded Age on his new HBO creation. It will remind them so much of the magnificence of Downton Abbey which ran on PBS from 2010-2015.
The Gilded Age in the United States spanned from 1870 through 1900, roughly speaking.
Whether the “The Gilded Age’’ matches the cult following popularity of “Downton Abbey” remains to be seen. Prior to its debut on HBO, reviewers took a rather dim view of Fellowes new drama.
Inkoo Kang, television critic of the Washington Post wrote: if “The Gilded Age isn’t a serious show, it’s not a reliably entertaining one, either. Sure, the sets and costumes and gewgaws are fun to look at. But it’s also dispiriting to watch so many talented stars get so little meat to chew on. “
Mike Hale, television critic for The New York Times wasn’t too enthusiastic about the show either. “In general,” Hale wrote, “the conservatism and provincialism of the old guard is so overdrawn, and presented with such little context, that the society women seem like they’re from outer space, and the actresses playing them can’t do much to make them human.”
At this early juncture, some historians were hoping for a little more to chew on from Mr. Fellowes latest offering.
Daniel Czitrom, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, Massachusetts) and author of "New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal that Launched the Progressive Era" says, “with all the money spent on sets, costumes, furniture, hair styling, etc., too bad there wasn't any left for the script, which is full of cliched, boring dialogue, and conveys little dramatic tension.”
Czitrom additionally wondered whether “it would be asking too much to portray people who work for a living (the vast majority) who are not house servants, such as the immigrant neighborhoods full of creative energy and family life in the tenements?” “What about,” Czitrom thundered, “the real class struggle, visible everywhere on 1880s New York City streetcar lines, the docks, tenement cigar factories, and many other such examples.”
Personally, after watching only two episodes of “The Gilded Age," I’ll reserve judgement whether it’s a smashing success or a major flop so early into the miniseries. “The Gilded Age” includes nine episodes with each episode released on Monday’s.
What viewers might find interesting, and even helpful, is “The Official Gilded Age Podcast” hosted by Alicia Malone (host on Turner Classic Movies) and Tom Meyers (host of the Bowery Boys podcast) who dissect each episode and provide some historical context to what viewers just saw. I found the first two episodes of the podcasts extremely informative and entertaining.
In episode one of the podcast, “The Gilded Age’’ creator Julian Fellowes discusses the hills and valleys he went through in getting his latest drama on to HBO. And Tony Award winning actress, Christine Baranski, who plays Agnes Van Rhijn, the embodiment of the old New York socialite, discusses how she prepared for the role.
In the second episode of the podcast, Morgan Spector who plays George Russell, a ruthless robber baron of the new money in New York, gives voice to the research he undertook to better understand a 19th industrialist. Spector is joined by Location Manager at HBO, Lauri Pitkus, who discusses all the different locations the show had to travel to in order to find the right mansion, since most of the Gilded Age mansions in New York City no longer exist.
Since it took Julian Fellowes nearly ten years to get the “Gilded Age” made, it would be a shame if his efforts didn’t match the high expectations. The Gilded Age, after all, was an incredibly momentous period in American history.
To many, the Gilded Age conjures up images of robber barons, corrupt politicians, and unscrupulous business practices with limited interference from the federal government.
That much is certainly true.
The term “robber baron” dates back to the Middle Ages, and was used to describe individuals who employed unscrupulous business methods to eliminate competition in order to develop a monopoly in their industry. Most of these industrial titans of the Gilded Age demonstrated little compassion for workers.
David S. Tanenhaus, Professor of History and Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said “The Gilded Age is a fascinating period in American History, which historians have described as the Great Barbeque during which the few feasted while the many were roasted.” According to Tanenhaus, 35,000 workers died in factories and mines every year from 1880 to 1900, the total deaths (700,000) are equivalent to the number of Americans who died in the Civil War. “During the Gilded Age,” Tanenhaus further explained, “the United States had the highest rate of industrial accidents and deaths in the world.”
While the movers and shakers of industry accumulated mass fortunes, 40% of industrial workers during this time earned measly incomes, well below the poverty line.
“Protectors of our Industries” was created by Bernhard Gillam and published in 1883 by Keppler and Schwarzmann in The Puck, a satirical magazine.
***
Who coined the term Gilded Age?
The Gilded Age was widely popularized with the publication of Mark Twain’s 1873 novel: “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” written along with his friend, Charles Dudley Warner, in which they lampoon the personal greed and political corruption of the era. As Twain saw it, the age wasn’t a golden age, rather, it was a gilded age. To gild is to cover something of lesser value, giving it an attractive but deceptive look.
Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector star as wealthy social climbers in “The Gilded Age,” a new series created by Julian Fellowes on HBO.
Photo Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO
***
One feature of accumulating great wealth during this era, was the way in which the industrial titans flaunted their prestige and power by living in magnificent brownstones and palatial mansions (influenced by Europeans and Persians) with huge billiard rooms and libraries, European antiques and stunning art collections and riding in gold-trimmed carriages, while average workers (including a gush of immigrants lured to America by the high demand for jobs) lived in filthy, wretched conditions, squeezed like sardines in tenements, without much living space or sometimes not even running water.
In one scene from HBO’s “Gilded Age,’’ someone mentions to social climber Bertha Russell (played splendidly by Carrie Coon) at a dinner party that she hears that she has a French cook. “Doesn’t everyone”? Russell quipped.
Jacob Riis, a social reformer and muckraker, once estimated in 1890 that about 330,000 persons were living in one square mile on the lower East Side of New York City.
As bad as it was for many economically deprived workers and new immigrants to the city, the Gilded Age transformed American society in many positive ways that is often overlooked.
The steel industry expanding from 77,000 tons in 1870 to nearly 11.4 million tons by 1900 is often cited by historians as one of the chief reasons for the Industrial Revolution of the Gilded Age. Imagine, between 1870 and 1890 both money and real wages increased by more than ten percent.
The infrastructure of the big city also changed drastically during this time, especially with the invention of electricity, which brought light to homes and streets and added to the luster of nightlife. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876; this was followed by typewriters, adding machines, and cash registers, which served as a boon to the advancement of a burgeoning, industrial society. Houses were better built, sanitation improved as did the quality of food.
The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, which linked the five boroughs together, and helped make New York the biggest city in America and the second largest city in the world.
Mark Summers, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, thinks that “in so many ways, the Gilded Age was a hard, unjust time.” “But another part of me thinks,” Summers continued “what must it have been like to be the first generation to walk the streets under electric lights? Or be able to call across town on the telephone? Or to eat green peas and pineapple in the wintertime, with the coming of canned goods? Or drink pasteurized milk? Or, in the 1890s, to see the first few movies on a screen? To be able to go from New York to Chicago in barely a day, from New York to California in less than a week when your grandparents took five or six months to make the same trip? To read a newspaper not just stuffed with political speeches, but sports news and human-interest features, and the very first comic strips? To be able to type a letter, rather than have to write one? “
Thinking along the same lines as Mark Summers, Caroline E. Janney, Professor of History at the University of Virginia, summed up the developments of the era by observing, the Gilded Age was “an urban transformation - skyscrapers and streetcars, but also a period marked by recurring strife around issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion. It was time that saw the rise of college and spectator sports from boxing to football. Finally, it was likewise a period when the US’s material progress led it toward empire building (Spanish-American War, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc.).”
Though the nouveau riche were known for their extravagant lifestyle and wasting money on frivolous and gaudy artifacts, many of the super-rich, especially the wives of industrial titans, used their money to help the less fortunate. Some of the rich, for example, created homes for destitute immigrants. Others helped advance temperance societies, so convinced were they that alcohol was the root of all evil especially among the poorer inhabitants of society. And still others sponsored the right to vote through women’s suffrage campaigns.
The monopolies, social inequality, obscene corruption, and lack of government interference that industrialists treasured so much when their wealth grew by leaps and bounds, came crashing down in the Panic of 1893. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad (both overextended) failed, which sparked an economic depression, lasting four years. The result was the stock market plunged, millions were suddenly unemployed and homeless. In some states, unemployment shot up to 50%
This ushered in a Progressive era, which put in motion federal controls, the curbing of corporate greed and most importantly--eliminating industrial giants from making vast amounts of money at the expense of the working poor.
Some of the reforms implemented, included: trust busting, labor reform, women’s suffrage, the formation of trade unions, tax reform, election reform, fair labor standards, and food and medicine regulations, among others.
Another critical slice of the Progressive era was the revolutionary reporting journalists and muckrakers championed in uncovering abuse and greed from the filthy rich. In 1890, reporter and photographer, Jacob Riis, exposed the horrors of the tenements in his ground-breaking book, “How the Other Half Lives.” McClure Magazine journalist Lincoln Steffens (in 1902) exposed the corruption between city officials and crooked businessmen. Journalist, Ida Tarbell, investigated the scheming machinations of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, which brought Rockefeller’s monopoly (of the Standard Oil Company) to a screeching halt.
And, of course, Upton Sinclair’s highly celebrated 1906 book, “The Jungle” exposed the hideous working conditions of the meatpacking industry.
Like others, I look forward to see what the other seven episodes of the HBO’s the “Gilded Age” has to offer. I roundly applaud Julian Fellowes for tackling such an ambitious project centering on such a significant time in America’s social history, when the obscene social economic gap between the rich and poor grew wider and wider.
President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden face off in Cleveland, Ohio for the first 2020 presidential debate.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
***
If you haven’t heard by now, Republicans have gotten their dander up over how presidential debates are run, railing they’re blatantly unfair, such as their chief argument that most of the panelists are composed of beltway eastern elite liberals out to make the Grand Old Party look foolish in front of a nationwide television audience.
White House correspondent for The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, was the first to report that the Republican National Committee (RNC) recently notified the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) that it plans to require GOP presidential nominees not to attend debates run by the commission going forward.
Haberman did tweet out, however, that “none of this is binding—a nominee can do what they want, and the nominee controls the party. But unlike previous cycles, there is far more energy among GOP base behind it.”
"The RNC will initiate the process of amending the Rules of the Republican Party at our upcoming Winter Meeting to prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in CPD-sponsored debates," Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote in a letter.
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was founded in 1987 under the joint sponsorship of the Democratic and Republican political parties in the United States. It has hosted general-election debates since 1988.
So, what exactly troubles the Republicans about the debates?
Former President Donald Trump has been one of the most vocal ring leaders in charging the debates are biased, anti-Trump, and saturated with liberal leaning panelists.
In 2020, Trump tweeted that the commission is “stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers.”
On another occasion, Trump complained about the selection of moderators of the debate, especially Steve Scully of C-SPAN (no longer with the network), who consulted withformer Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci on how best to question Trump. What made it worse for Scully was that when the meeting was first reported, he lied about it. He ended up backing out of hosting the debate.
Trump additionally complained that former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and the NBC News reporter Kristen Welker were biased against him.
Trump and other Republicans pushed to have the debates held earlier in the election cycle, but that request was roundly rejected by the CPD. Also rejected by the commission was having nonvoting representatives of either the RNC or the Democratic National Committee at the commission’s board meetings.
It’s worth noting that Republicans are still fuming that CNN’s debate moderator, Candy Crowley, (no longer with the network), corrected Mitt Romney during his town hall debate with President Obama in 2012. Her interruption of the Republican nominee was taken by many Republicans as displaying flagrant favoritism with the president.
Many contend that the reason Republicans are leery of debates is that we are now living in an age of instant fact-checkers. On a number of occasions, some Republican candidates have made outlandish charges, only to have their statements thrown back at them as ridiculous falsehoods.
Eugene Mazo, a nationally recognized scholar of election law at Seton Hall University doesn’t think there's any bias, but does think the CPD is a problematic organization. “It is privately run, and it has come under criticism in the past of all sorts.”
Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), thinks two things are going on with the Republican complaints. “The whole idea here is victimhood-- make your base feel like you are being oppressed and discriminated against, and they will turn out in anger” “So the elites running the debate commission,” from the Republicans perspective, “have stacked the deck against us, and we are not going to take it anymore. And second, they don't really want to debate, at least it if is fair in any way.”
Whether the Republican charges of bias has merit or not, I think it’s time for a major change in the selection of debate panelists.
I suggest a panel consisting of people like Bill Gates, Peyton Manning, Keechant Sewell (Chief of Police of NYC) and other prominent newsmakers. There's no reason why they can't meet with fact checkers and researchers, like journalists do, to make sure they're asking the right questions and be prepared for follow up questions. The panelists can flesh out their questions with each other by meeting, via Zoom, for a couple of weeks leading up to the debate.
Why should journalists be removed as debate panelists?
Not through any fault of their own, many times a small cluster of journalists during their long careers have had some working relationship with candidates. Steve Scully, for example, former C-SPAN anchor, was an intern for Joe Biden when he was in the Senate in 1978.
George Stephanopoulos, currently co-anchor on Good Morning America (GMA), was Bill Clinton’s communications director during the 1992 presidential campaign. He was also an active Democratic advisor before landing at ABC.
In 2015, it was reported that the then ABC News chief anchor, made three contributions to the Clinton Foundation, which was seen by many as a conflict of interest with his duties as a journalist. This revelation came before he was scheduled to moderate a debate among Republican presidential contenders in February, 2016. After the admission caused such an uproar, Stephanopoulos withdrew from moderating the debate.
Another compelling argument for removing journalists as debate panelists stems from the notion that most questions asked at these debates are mere “food fight” questions, asked to spark malice among the candidates instead of focusing on policy driven questions, questions that undecided voters hope to help them better understand issues facing them in their own lives. Networks, after all, are in a ratings war; the more questions they ask that will spark conflict, the more viewers they’ll generate. These short combative exchanges by the candidates make nice sound bites for the Twitter pages, but do little to resolve challenging issues facing the country.
A Pew Research survey, for example, reported that in 2016, only 10% of voters said they had conclusively made up their minds “during or just after” the presidential debates.
Many argue that the style of the debates too often resembles a “joint press conference” rather than a serious debate. Critics additionally charge that the panelists take too much time away from the candidates themselves.
Still others contend journalists tend to focus on the negative features of a particular candidate rather than zero in on a fundamental policy issue. Again, focusing on the negative, will most likely generate a ratings bonanza.
In 1992, the commission introduced a town hall format in which candidates are asked questions by undecided voters. Though this was a fine idea to hear the concerns of the average voter, the questions too often are softball questions, which the candidates spin by transitioning to their partisan viewpoint.
Having panelists comprised of prominent members of the country like Bill Gates (with his well-known climate change concerns) or Keechant Sewell (Chief of Police of NYC) asking how candidates hope to deal with police profiling or gun shootings within major cities, would go a long way in addressing some of the major concerns facing the country. The “food fight” questions would significantly be removed from the equation.
The United States has evolved in many ways over the last ten to twenty years.
Abraham Lincoln once said “as our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
So too with presidential debates. I think it’s time for journalists to pass the baton and remove themselves from the debate forum.
Rep. Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the new select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.
Photo Credit: CNN
***
“The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people — faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but will also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment — faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor, and ultimately recognize right.”
--John F. Kennedy
For the last several weeks, we’ve been witnessing a profile in courage—and haven’t paid much attention to it.
And it centers on Wyoming’s lone member of Congress: Liz Cheney.
The daughter of George W. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, was first elected in 2016 on a platform of restoring America’s prestige in foreign affairs, with an aggressive conservative agenda of cutting taxes and regulation, and expanding America’s energy, mining and agriculture industries. Cheney serves on the House Armed Services Committee.
In 1954, John F. Kennedy, the junior senator from Massachusetts, took a leave of absence from the Senate while recovering from back surgery and wrote “Profiles in Courage,” which focuses on eight U.S. Senators who showed enormous courage under pressure from peers, and whose actions, moreover, were at odds with popular opinion.
The one-volume book earned Kennedy a Pulitzer Prize.
The senators under consideration to be profiled by Kennedy met the following criteria.
pressure to be liked
pressure to be re-elected, and
pressure of the constituency and interest groups.
Since 1990, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation have presented “Profile in Courage” awards to individuals (often elected officials) who exhibited an exemplary act of courage based on the criteria outlined in Kennedy’s prize-winning book.
Past winners have included: John McCain, Gerald Ford, Edward M. Kennedy, Gabby Giffords, Barrack Obama, George H.W. Bush, and Mitt Romney.
Interestingly, as I was browsing through the JFK Library and Museum website a week or so ago, I immediately thought of Congresswoman Cheney when I glanced at the Profile of Courage Awards.
A few days later, I was listening to the Politics War Room podcast and co-host Al Hunt described Liz Cheney’s actions (as co-chair) on the House investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the nation’s Capitol, as bold and a “profile in courage” in pursuing the truth of what happened on that horrific day despite being banished within the Republican Party and quite possibly seeing her political career burst into flames.
Liz Cheney will be challenged in the Wyoming primary by Harriet Hageman, who unsurprisingly, has been endorsed by Donald Trump. At the beginning of the month, a poll by SoCo Strategies, shows Cheney is running about 18 points behind Hageman.
Because Cheney believes that “each of us swears an oath before God to uphold our Constitution,” she never bought into the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. She was only one of ten Republicans who voted that Donald Trump should be impeached during his second impeachment trial for inciting an insurrection by urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building.
Consenting to Trump’s false assertion that the election was stolen from him quickly became a loyalty test within the Republican Party. Because she voted to impeach Trump, Liz Cheney was removed from her No. 3 post as Chair of the House Republican Conference and replaced with Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, (surprise! surprise!) a loyal supporter of Trump.
But that didn’t silence Liz Cheney, the “Iron Lady’’ of U.S. politics.
In September, she was selected as vice chair of the January 6 Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the nation’s Capitol. She has settled into her new position like a pit bull. Two loyal disciples of Trump, Mark Meadows (Trump’s former Chief of Staff) and Steve Bannon (Trump’s former chief strategist) have been held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack.
Not only is Cheney only one of two Republicans on the commission, but she’s distinguished herself for her combative style in questioning witnesses. She’s skilled in interpreting the criminal code for the prosecution of violations. In particular, Cheney has set her sights on 18 U.S. Code § 1512. The language of the statute states that whoever corruptly … “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” The statute has represented the backbone of a federal abuse, which Donald Trump may have violated.
What’s particularly fascinating about Cheney’s dogged pursuit of the truth of what happened on January 6 and her daring criticism of Donald Trump (with instigating the riot) is that this isn’t a personal vendetta she has harbored against the former U.S. President.
In fact, before the insurrection, she was a loyal supporter of Donald Trump’s agenda. In 2019, she was reportedly feuding with Rand Paul over who was the “Trumpier.” She voted in line with Trump's position 92.9% of the time, supporting him “more consistently in House votes than even his former chief of staff Mark Meadows."
And it’s not as if Cheney is a moderate, out of sync with the ideals of the rest of the Republican Party. She has a 98% positivity rating from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which rates lawmakers based on their voting records.
What is driving Liz Cheney is not GOP talking points or being tethered to the party mantra: “to get along you have to go along.”
Cheney’s oath of office means more to her than being in with the in-crowd.
She refuses to acquiesce to the “Big Lie” and being relegated to one of Donald Trump’s loyal servants out of fear of being banished. In addition to speaking out in public, Cheney has tweeted the false claim is “poisoning our democratic system.” She additionally warned against falling victim to the “Trump cult of personality.”
Though she is considered a pariah within her own party, she does have a smattering of supporters within the Republican Party. Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, depicted Cheney as an “important leader" with the "courage" to act on her convictions. Likewise, Senator Sue Collins, (R-Maine), has publicly stated that "Liz Cheney is a woman of strength and consciences…she did what she felt was right, and I salute her for that.”
Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough and co-host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, gave her a ringing endorsement, when he said that “she doesn’t back away from unpopular positions.”
The whole point of the writing of Profiles in Courage for John Kennedy was to show his admiration for the courage exhibited by elected officials in “the face of adverse factions like their electorates, popular opinion, and political action committees that pull these elected men in different directions.” “This book,” Kennedy wrote 67 years ago was “a book about that most admirable of human virtues – courage. ‘Grace under pressure,’ Ernest Hemingway defined it.”
Liz Cheney’s political career is most likely over for not bowing to political pressure and joining the other Republican mouseketeers in showering praise on Donald Trump despite his obvious culpability with inciting a riot.
For that Cheney paid a heavy price.
As she stated on January 12, “none of this would have happened without the president. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."
Because of her devotion to the Constitution and the values it embodies, Liz Cheney was willing to exchange her political career for the truth of what happened on January 6 at the Capitol Building, which resulted in the death of five people with scores of injuries, including 138 police officers.
If that’s not a profile in courage; I don’t know what is.
Whoever has the power, please nominate Liz Cheney for a “Profile in Courage” award.
A mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump climb through a window they broke as they storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Photo Credit: Leah Millis/Reuters
***
Remarkably, most of us made it through 2021 in one piece with our Republic still intact despite an unprecedented Capitol Hill insurrection, which some equate to 9/11.
On January 6, a mob of protesters leaving a Donald Trump rally, upset from the results of the 2020 presidential election, which resulted in a Joe Biden victory, stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., the cradle of democracy, and assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalized property and occupied the building for several hours. Five people died, including several being injured before order was restored.
Two days after the insurrection, Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account in order to prevent any “further incitement of violence. "
Just when we thought we licked Covid-19 after getting our miraculous vaccine shots (the acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus), a Delta variant emerged threatening more lives and leading to more restrictions and safeguarding, including wearing more masks.
Combined with last year’s fatalities, the U.S. is nearing 800,000 deaths from Covid.
“Seventy-five percent of people,” The New York Times recently reported "who have died of the virus in the United States — or about 600,000 of the nearly 800,000 who have perished so far — have been 65 or older. One in 100 older Americans has died from the virus.”
Soon after President Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th U.S. President, he made good on his pledge to completely pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years, a senseless engagement (to many) which cost the U.S. $2 trillion (Afghanistan and Iraq combined), with 2,461 U.S. service members killed, 20,000 injured, and another 3,846 U.S. contractors killed.
Despite the cancelling of the Tokyo Olympics last year due to the global pandemic, the Olympics finally took place in Tokyo (July 23-August 8) with the United States earning the most medals: 39 gold medals, 113 in total, while China finished second with 38 gold medals, 88 altogether.
The most disappointing blemish on the Summer Games was that no international guests (including spectators) were permitted to attend the Games, due to COVID travel restrictions.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, prepares to board a helicopter with his daughter Michaela Cuomo after announcing his resignation, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, in New York.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig
***
Unquestionably, one of the most scandalous stories of the year that splashed across many page one headlines was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigning his office (August 10) soon after New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that found that the New York Governor sexually harassed 11 women, and according to the damning report, created a "hostile work environment.”
Before recessing for the Thanksgiving holiday, President Biden witnessed the successful passage of his ambitious infrastructure bill (“Build Back Better”) in Congress, which he described as a “once-in-generation investment in America.”
After a razor thin vote in the House of Representatives on November 5 (228-206) the infrastructure bill will invest hundreds of dollars to upgrade physical infrastructure, including roads and bridges, railways, airports, and water systems. The plan additionally invests tens of billions of dollars to modernize the U.S. electrical grid, aggressively embrace electric vehicles, and significantly expand broadband internet access.
The great Tom Brady clearly proved he’s the Eveready Battery of professional sports, who at age 43, won his seventh Super Bowl ring, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a convincing 31-9 pounding of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV (55) at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. It was the first time in Super Bowl history a team has won in its home stadium.
So, those are just a brief assortment of the most dominating stories of the year.
To get an idea what stories interested readers the most in 2021, I checked in with some major news organizations to see what articles drove the most traffic to their home pages.
Here’s the list of news organizations who responded to my email.
Final vote tally for H.R. 3684-Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
Image Credit: House Television via AP
***
If there is agreement on nothing else in Washington, the one area, you would think, that we can all agree on is how bad (downright deplorable) the crumbling roads and bridges are in the United States.
For evidence, look no further than the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report card for 2021. It assigned a “C-” grade, up from a “D+” in 2017, the highest grade in twenty years. In addition, the United States faces an “infrastructure investment gap” of nearly $2.6 trillion this decade, which left unaddressed, could cost the United States $10 trillion in lost GDP by 2039.
McKinsey & Company researchers say that $150 billion per year will be required between 2017 and 2030 to modernize the country’s infrastructure needs.
President Joe Biden responded quickly to the alarm bells and developed a $2 trillion “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan, an ambitious plan, which he promoted as a “once-in-a-generation investment in America.”
The second part of Biden’s infrastructure plan (which hasn’t been voted on yet) is a social spending bill that includes hundreds of billions of dollars for child- and elder-care programs, which is considered “human infrastructure.” To fund this plan, Biden has proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans.
After heaps of acrimony and uncivilized debate, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion, bipartisan plan, which will invest hundreds of dollars to upgrade physical infrastructure, including roads and bridges, railways, airports, and water systems. The plan additionally invests tens of billions of dollars to modernize the U.S. electrical grid, aggressively embrace electric vehicles, and significantly expand broadband internet access.
With the stroke of a pen, President Biden will sign the bill on Monday.
On the face of it, this should have all the makings of a grand celebration for America’s infrastructure, much like when President Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 30, 1956, signed a record $33 billion road-building program, a bipartisan authorization bill, which was met with little opposition in Congress. Sinclair Weeks, Secretary of Commerce under the Eisenhower administration hailed the bill as the “the greatest public-works program in the history of the world.”
Unlike Ike’s, the harmony in Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill was nowhere to be found. Most Republicans were dead set against it, labeling a socialist bill. Only 13 Republicans broke ranks and voted for it.
The final tally for the bill’s passage in Congress was 228-206.
The infrastructure bill was greeted a little more warmly in the other chamber, when Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and 19 Senate Republicans voted in favor of the infrastructure bill on August 10th of this year.
It’s practically unfathomable how vicious Republicans opposition to the bill were. FOX News commentator Laura Ingraham tweeted the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill had signed their “political death warrants. “
That was just the beginning.
The GOP House leadership quickly launched a malicious drive to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republican lawmakers who voted for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted that those 13 Republicans "handed over their voting cards" to Nancy Pelosi to pass Biden's "Communist takeover of America via so-called infrastructure."
Why aren’t those members demonizing the 13 GOP members of Congress who voted for the bill being challenged by their own constituents and local newspapers for wanting to deny their state of badly needed infrastructure upgrades?
Why on earth would Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), want to oppose a bill that would deprive her own state of $12.5 billion in badly needed funding in Georgia over the next 20 years to maintain drinking water infrastructure. Georgia’s report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers additionally shows that Georgia has 374 bridges and more than 2,260 miles highway in poor condition.
Yet, Marjorie Taylor Greene likens the bill to communism and no one as much as bats an eye in her home state.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, (R-Fla) tweeted that he couldn’t believe Republicans gave the Democrats their socialism bill even though his own state of Florida has 408 bridges and over 3,564 miles of highway in poor condition. From 2010 to 2020, the Sunshine State incurred 22 extreme weather events, which cost up to $100 billion in damages. The recently passed infrastructure bill will infuse $50 billion to help communities, like Florida, recover from disasters.
If I lived in Florida, I would be outraged that Gaetz wouldn’t support such a bill knowing how badly their state was slammed with weather disaster damages.
After reading such spiteful tweets, you became painfully aware how much the GOP has lost its purpose in Washington, abandoned its values and principles, and have forgot why they were elected, which is to improve the lives of their constituents through the enactment of better laws and to act as a strong voice for the crying needs of their communities.
Today, most members of the Republican Party, sadly, are more interested in tweeting the most outrageous comment on social media in order to elicit media attention and create a buzz on social media than they are in improving the lives of the residents they supposedly represent.
Their vicious attacks and vows of revenge against the 13 GOP members who voted their conscious and what was best for their state, was downright appalling. How do they live with themselves in refusing to be part of a bill that will repair the nation’s dilapidated infrastructure?
It really makes little sense to oppose such a bill when you look at the disturbing evidence of the condition of the country’s infrastructure.
Henry Petroski, a historian, in his book, “The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure” writes that poor infrastructure can impose large costs on the U.S. economy. In addition to catastrophic failures with bridge collapses or dam breaches, poorly maintained roads, trains, and waterways cost billions of dollars in lost economic productivity.
In addition to the gloomy report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that nearly one in four bridges are deficient, with 10 % considered as structurally deficient and 14 % functionally obsolete.
Equally alarming, a 2020Federal Communications Commission report finds that approximately 18 million Americans, most living in rural areas, lack access to any broadband network.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that drinking water and irrigation systems need $632 billion in additional investment over the next decade.
And yet the United States hypes itself as one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Besides the desperate need for drastic improvement of roads and bridges, Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill will serve as a significant boon to the ailing economy in the post-pandemic United States.
By increasing efficiency and reliability and lowering transportation costs, analysts contend that investment in the nation’s infrastructure would improve “long-term U.S. competitiveness, insulate the economy from shocks, and create jobs.”
Imagine, the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers estimates that $1 billion of transportation-infrastructure investment supports as many as 13,000 jobs for a year.
This bill should have been championed by both parties as a great American success story. Instead, some members of the Republican House of Representatives (such as Rep. Fred Upton R-Mich.) are being demonized and receiving death threats because Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted many of their phone numbers on her Twitter page. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois reportedly received a call to slit his wrists and “rot in hell.” Another caller hoped Don Bacon of Nebraska would slip and fall down a staircase.
Because we live in an age when compromise is considered a dirty word and Republicans didn’t want to give Joe Biden legislative win, they were willing to neglect the needs of the nation’s infrastructure and were ok with denying potential jobs for constituents in their own state, all so they could embarrass Joe Biden.
As expected, former president Donald Trump demonized the bill, saying they [13 House members] should be “ashamed of themselves” for “helping the Democrats.”
Trump went mute over what the bill actually does for the country.
What kind of country have we become?
I never read about President Eisenhower being branded a socialist or communist for sponsoring and signing the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which gave birth to America’s interstate highway system. Eisenhower would later say that the Federal Highway Act was his favorite piece of legislation that he worked hard to get passed.
Everyone knows Washington is broken and dysfunctional; but even the Republicans, if they had any brains, would have subscribed to the timeless adage: “choose your fights wisely.”
Even Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell considered the infrastructure bill a “godsend” for his home state of Kentucky.
Jennifer Gosar, the sister of Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), told CNN’s Pamela Brown that she considers him a “sociopath”
***
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz) tweeted an image of someone killing progressive Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Soon after, Gosar’s sister appeared on CNN, calling her own brother a “sociopath.”
I’m sure It would come as little surprise to Jennifer Gosar to know that her brother isn’t the only sociopath in Congress.
Clearly, Republicans in the House of Representatives, at least most of them, are now members of the House of Crazies!
British statesman, writer, historian, and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945), Winston Churchill, once famously said, “history will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
Well, history hasn’t been very kind to Winston Churchill lately, because a trend is in progress with revisionists and other commentators looking back on history with a 21st century progressive and moral lens—on a mission to shame history’s most decorated historical figures. Knowing a rebuttal for those accused won’t be coming because they’re no longer around to defend themselves, makes their case appear even stronger.
Most recently, journalist and historian Geoffrey Wheatcroft has taken to a public flogging of Churchill in broad daylight in his new book, “Churchill’s Shadow,” hoping to shatter all the hero worshiping and adulations given to the “British Bulldog” for most of the 20th century and spilling over into the 21st century.
Wheatcroft challenges readers to widen their net when looking at Churchill’s life by taking a sharper, more critical look at some of his unseemly characteristics which have largely been swept under the rug.
Readers are going to have to decide for themselves whether his account is a character assassination or an objective, non-partisan look at arguably one of the most worshiped figures of the 20th century.
Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, recently reviewed Wheatcroft’s book, writing that “on both sides of the Atlantic, we are living in an era when history is being re-examined, a time when monuments are coming down and illusions about onetime heroes are being shattered.”
Between the covers, Wheatcroft, according to Baker’s account, underscores Churchill’s perceived racism, narcissism, heavy drinking, his unabashed imperialist tendencies, neglecting his own children, along with being a horrible judge of character, and, naturally, a shameless mythmaker.
In Wheatcroft’s book, he becomes the prosecutor, judge and jury of Churchill’s life and career without the former prime minister ever appearing on the witness stand.
While Baker might not be in perfect agreement with Wheatcroft demolishing the iconic status of Churchill, he does concede that Wheatcroft makes a compelling argument in unpacking the complicated features of Churchill, just not the ones we selectively choose to remember.
“History is not one-dimensional,” Baker wrote. “Churchill was indeed a complicated figure, one whose stirring defense of Britain at its moment of maximum peril — and by extension that of Western civilization — overshadows fewer worthy parts of his record.”
Roger Louis, an American historian and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and editor-in-chief of “The Oxford History of the British Empire” thinks “Churchill’s Shadow” was a book that needed to be written and according to him, an accurate reassessment. “It makes clear,” Louis told me, “what most authorities on Churchill would recognize as a long overdue account and concludes with a fair judgment: “he saved his country and saved freedom.”
Will Wheatcroft’s book significantly reshape Churchill’s legacy?
“I think there is scarcely a dent in Churchill's legacy: first because most of the charges are false, and second because they ignore what really matters. Only a small fraction of people believes such things,” Langworth observed.
The Hillsdale College Churchill Project has been making “the case for the defense” against blatant inaccuracies written about Churchill for years-- such as its “Truths and Heresies," department.
The Churchill Project additionally documents a selection of popular quotes wrongly attributed to Churchill. Followers of Winnie, for example, might be surprised to learn he never said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: what counts is the courage to continue.” Nor did he say, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
In addition to Peter Baker, “Churchill’s Shadow’’ was reviewed by British historian and biographer Richard Aldous in the Wall Street Journal in which he praises Wheatcroft for the first part of his book, but takes him to task for the second part in which he belittles historian Andrew Roberts (author of “Churchill: Walking With Destiny,” 2018), along with other historians for their "Churchillolatry.”
“That’s a shame,” Aldous wrote, “not least because Mr. Roberts’s is a much better book—deeply researched in the archives and the product of decades of Churchill study.”
Aldous is additionally puzzled that Wheatcroft questions the wisdom of the British state paying £12.5 million for the Churchill papers. “Those papers are now available digitally, though Mr. Wheatcroft seems not to have made much use of them,” Aldous wrote.
Aldous contends Wheatcroft was correct in suggesting that so much of what Churchill believed in and championed has “withered away” as Britain lost its leadership prominence as the 20th century came to a close. But Aldous is just as quick to point out that while Britain is no longer a superpower, it still maintains the fifth largest economy in the world, has a permanent seat on the United Nations Council, is a leading member of NATO, and is now part of the Aukus security alliance (with Australia and the United States).
“All these elements of status and power,” Aldous argues, “have their origins in the late 1940s and 1950s, a period Mr. Wheatcroft views so balefully. “
Chris Waters, professor of Modern European History at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) agrees with Wheatcroft that the cult surrounding Churchill since World War II emphasizing his “finest hour” speech too often dominates the “more problematic side Churchill’s character and politics,’’ which should be more thoroughly scrutinized.
Waters argues as Britain has lost its prominent status on the world stage, there’s a tendency to fall prey to nostalgia, especially about Churchill going to eyeball-to-eyeball with Adolf Hitler and standing tall after the Luftwaffe sprayed bombs on London for 57 consecutive nights between September and November 1940.
Waters believes, strongly, that we should “demolish the myth that has grown up around Churchill since the War, but we should not demolish the statues or fail to respect his many triumphs and contributions to the nation either!”
Since the main thrust of “Churchill’s Shadow” was to smash what Wheatcroft considered the blatant idolatry of Churchill in historian Andrew Robert’s 2018 masterpiece, “Churchill Walking with Destiny,” (published in 2018), it didn’t take long for Roberts to answer back.
In an article published by The Churchill Project , the biographer and historian highlighted some weaknesses or inaccuracies in Wheatcroft’s work.
Wheatcroft stated Churchill was not a well-travelled man. Quite the contrary, Roberts fired back. “Churchill visited America 16 times and Canada nine times, crossing both from coast to coast. He served for years in India and Afghanistan, fought in Cuba, South Africa, the Sudan and on the Franco-Belgian border, honeymooned in Italy, holidayed in France, Italy, Florida, Monaco, Madeira, Morocco, Bahamas and Spain, mountaineered in Switzerland, twice visited Stalin in Moscow, held conferences in Cairo and Tehran, watched army maneuvers with the Kaiser in Germany, cruised the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and also visited Palestine, Iceland, Turkey, Cyprus, Uganda, Belgium, Tanganyika (modern-day Tanzania), Mozambique, Kenya, Bermuda, Monaco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Malta, Holland, Trinidad, Jamaica and Greece.”
In another part of the book, Wheatcroft argues that Churchill’s judgement was strategically flawed. “Yet,” Roberts answers, it was Churchill and “Alan Brooke (senior officer of the British army) who not only came up with the Mediterranean strategy that liberated North Africa and Italy but also sold it to the Americans, and ensured no over-hasty return in force to the European continent before D-Day.”
In addition, charges that Churchill cultivated fascist leanings in the 1920’s isn’t supported by any reputable sources, Roberts claims, except political enemies of the “British Bulldog.”
Roberts argues, among other weaknesses of the book, that many of Wheatcroft’s sources are dubious, including the use of internet articles by the former journalist Johann Hari, who later had to return a journalism prize for inventing quotes.
In summing up Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s book, Roberts wrote that “never in the field of Churchill revisionism have so many punches been thrown in so many pages with so few hitting home.”
Winston Churchill addresses the House of Commons of Canada in 1941.
Photo Credit: CP Archive
***
Admittedly, one of the biggest problems in assessing the life and times of Winston Churchill, much like Abraham Lincoln, is that he endured many failures and hardships before rising to the top when his country needed him most, during its darkest hour.
Churchill spent sixty years of his political life in the House of Commons. Taking a broad brush to Churchill’s accomplishments and failures over so many decades of service, isn’t fair. He entered the House of Commons in 1900, and over 19 contested elections, he was successful in 14 of them.
He failed miserably in 1915 as First Lord of the Admiralty in orchestrating the disastrous Dardanelles naval campaign, which resulted in the loss of thousands of British lives. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (treasurer) he blundered badly by restoring Britain to the gold standard, which resulted in unemployment, deflation, and a general strike. He also voted against self-rule for India, unable to let go of the romanticism associated with Britain’s imperial history. And much like Lincoln, he succumbed to severe bouts of depression, “The Black Dog’’ as he called it.
Imagine, Churchill was 65 years old when he became PM in 1940, about the time most are retiring.
Prior to leading Britain out of the dark storm, Churchill served in every important cabinet post except for Foreign Minister.
So, all those setbacks and failures he experienced may very well have prepared him for a time when the country needed a strong, resolute leader to face the menace of Nazi Germany. Churchill undoubtedly met the challenge as PM and as head of the Ministry of Defense.
“I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour," he would later write.
While all of us may fall prey to Churchill idolatry now and again, it’s hard to imagine how Britain and Western Europe could have survived World War II had not Churchill been in the right place at the right time, with decades and decades of experience under his belt.
I’m not reading many books that focus on Abraham Lincoln being defeated for the state legislature in 1832, his abysmal failings in business, being defeated for the U.S. Senate, not once (1854) but twice (1858), and being defeated in the nomination for the Vice Presidency in 1856.
But we do remember Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (November 19, 1863) in which he famously said: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Churchill, to be sure, possessed heaps of flaws, prejudices, and undoubtedly exercised poor judgement at times in his career, but do we honor Churchill today for his personality qualities and boorish behavior, or do we honor him for his indomitable courage and leadership in rallying the nation during arguably one of the most destructive conflicts in human history, when FDR and the United States was nowhere to be found.
