Remembering Ernest W. Lefever

My habit of waiting until the late hours of the evening to read the early morning newspaper sometimes serves me poorly.

One such occasion was last night (about 3:00 a.m., actually), when I turned to the obituary pages of Thursday's Washington Post to discover that my mentor and first professional employer, Ernest W. Lefever, had passed away.

According to the Post's Adam Bernstein:

Ernest W. Lefever, 89, who founded a conservative public policy organization in Washington and was an embattled nominee for a State Department human rights job under President Ronald Reagan, died July 29 at a Church of the Brethren nursing home in New Oxford, Pa. He had Lewy Body dementia, a progressive brain disorder.

Dr. Lefever, a Chevy Chase resident, was an international affairs specialist with the National Council of Churches, a staff consultant on foreign affairs to then-Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) and a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution before starting the Ethics and Public Policy Center in 1976. The center studies the link between Judeo-Christian morality and national and foreign policy.

Bernstein's review of the life of Ernest Lefever focuses, as one might have expected, on one of those episodes that could be categorized as either a high or a low in one's life, depending on your perspective.

That would be Dr. Lefever's nomination by President Ronald Reagan to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Dr. Lefever eventually asked the President to withdraw his nomination after it had been entwined in controversy (much of it, in my opinion, manufactured) and political opposition. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Charles Percy (R-Ill.) was unhelpful in pressing the confirmation forward, to say the least.

Although Dr. Lefever's views on foreign policy (and particularly how human rights issues should be treated) were virtually identical to those of Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had been easily confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, he met a roadblock thrown up by those who differed with those views.

To summarize those views, at the risk of oversimplifying: The United States should treat authoritarian and totalitarian states differently, because authoritarian states -- such as, in those days, Chile and Argentina -- are more likely to be reformed from within and become liberal democracies than totalitarian states (such as the Soviet Union).

Indeed, in the years that followed, Chile and Argentina, as well as South Korea and Taiwan, did reform themselves and became model democracies. Greece, Spain, and Portugal are also examples of reform from within, which were fresh in the minds of Lefever and Kirkpatrick as they were making their arguments in the late 1970s.

It was much more difficult to dislodge totalitarian dictatorships because they controlled civil society (or an ersatz civil society) as well as politics and the economy. In authoritarian states, there were usually autonomous sources of moral and civil authority -- such as the Catholic Church -- that were lacking in totalitarian countries.

In any case, Lefever's views were shaped by decades of experience, not of the ivory tower, but of on-the-ground research around the world.

As the Washington Post article notes, Lefever served in Europe after World War II repatriating prisoners of war and other refugees, working under the auspices of the YMCA. It does not note that he worked in the concentration camps set up by the Roosevelt administration for Japanese-Americans during the war, helping to comfort them in their time of distress.

Lefever often told the story of how his pacifist views changed to more realist views when, somewhere in what later became East Germany, he saw a graffito that showed a swastika and a hammer-and-sickle with an equals sign between them. He realized through his work in Europe that Nazism and Communism were equally oppressive.

Beyond his humanitarian work in war-torn Europe, Dr. Lefever was widely traveled throughout his life. I would guess that he visited nearly every country in sub-Saharan Africa, the major countries of South and Southeast Asia (including Vietnam), and much of East Asia, as well. The results of his travels and research can be seen in the 20+ books and countless articles he wrote for policy journals and academic publications.

The Post notes Lefever's association with Hubert Humphrey. It doesn't specify that Lefever was the principal drafter of the Democratic Party's platform plank on Vietnam during the 1968 Chicago Convention.

During the 1970s, Lefever became associated with a group of disaffected liberal Democrats -- he was one of them -- who became known as "neo-conservatives." Sometimes known as "Scoop Jackson Democrats," many of them came out of a New York-based social democratic tradition that insisted on opposing Stalinism and, later, Soviet expansionism and adventurism. They generally maintained, at least for a while, that the welfare state was generally a good thing, and they supported the Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Among the prominent neo-conservatives of those days -- a time, as George F. Will recently put it, "when that designation was more relevant to domestic than foreign policy" -- were Irving Kristol (father of Bill), Midge Decter (mother of John Podhoretz), Jeane Kirkpatrick, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Max Kampelman, and others who ended up either serving in the Reagan administration or supporting its policies in the pages of Commentary, The Public Interest, and similar publications. Ernest W. Lefever was one of these intellectuals.

As an outgrowth of his policy activism, Lefever in 1976 founded the Ethics and Public Policy Center, initially as a part of Georgetown University and later an independent think tank.

It was shortly after the EPPC's founding that I met Dr. Lefever and joined the Center's staff. I was a junior at Georgetown, needing a work-study job and late in finding one.

On a bulletin board in the financial aid office was an index card advertising a part-time position for a research assistant at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which was completely unknown to me. Needing the job and with few other alternatives listed on that bulletin board, I called the number and set up an appointment. (In those days, "bulletin boards" were made of cork and hung on walls.)

Dr. Lefever interviewed me. I was unshaped politically at that time, as likely to follow Richard McSorley and the Berrigan brothers as anyone else. He asked me for writing samples; all I had to offer were press releases I had drafted for my community theatre earlier that summer (1979; the year of Fiddler on the Roof).

He took a chance with me, put me under his wing, and taught me more than I can estimate.

Through his example, he showed me how to write clearly and effectively. He would say, of course, that such teaching would have no impact on someone who did not already think clearly and write plainly, but I must demur. Whether he knew it or not, he drilled me on composition, from word choice to sentence shape to paragraph size. (His influence affected me quickly. Within a few months of my beginning my part-time tenure at EPPC, one of my professors gave me a lower grade on a paper than he otherwise would have, telling me "You write too clearly" -- like a journalist rather than like an academic. I took his criticism as a badge of honor, and shared a chuckle with Dr. Lefever over it.) The Lefever standard for good writing on public policy? "If an interested and motivated person who reads at an eighth-grade level can understand it, you've done your job well."

Two years after I was hired, when my first op-ed was published in the Washington Star, Dr. Lefever congratulated me and said that he could tell from the way I formulated my arguments that I had been a high school debater. Then he chided me -- as he should have -- for identifying myself with the Center when I submitted the article, without clearing it with him first.

Over the seven or eight years that I was employed by EPPC (I took one year off to pursue my master's degree), Dr. Lefever and I worked closely together. My desk was immediately outside his office. He had a secretary, too, but I was his "special assistant to the president for research." I watched closely as he drafted articles; I often typed them for him through numerous iterations.

When, in 1984, a manuscript on investment in South Africa had gone through three different authors and at least four different versions (all rejected), he turned to me and asked me to write a publishable book. I did, and it became my first -- The Politics of Sentiment: Churches and Foreign Investment in South Africa. Much of the shape of the book is actually his. It would have been fair for him to list me as co-author with him, but he generously gave me sole author credit.

Two years later, after we had hosted a conference about the Strategic Defense Initiative, he asked our colleague, Pete Wehner, and me to compile the papers and other articles into an anthology. He suggested that we seek out Zbigniew Brzezinski as a co-editor, so we could have "name" on the cover.

I bet him $5 that Brzezinski would turn down the invitation. I lost. My second book, Promise or Peril: The Strategic Defense Initiative, has four co-editors: myself, Wehner, Brzezinski, and Marin Strmecki (at that time Zbig's research assistant).

After I left the Ethics and Public Policy Center in 1988, I temporarily lost touch with Dr. Lefever. He called me about 10 years ago or so, however, and asked me to help him learn how to use a computer for writing. He had a Macintosh and I spent several hours with him, showing him how to create document files, how to edit them, how to save them. (Throughout his highly productive life, Dr. Lefever typed rapidly with just two fingers, and until the 1990s he used a manual typewriter -- not even an electric one -- for drafting his articles and book manuscripts.)

EWL also liked working with his hands. He was an accomplished cabinet maker. (He learned that trade as a teenager.) I remember spending weekends at the office with him, reinforcing the massive table in our conference room. It was hard work, especially for someone like me who is generally all-thumbs when it comes to carpentry or home maintenance.

Dr. Lefever was not afraid of technology or technological progress. His first published piece of writing, at the age of 13, was a story about a boy who makes a trip to the moon. (This was in about 1931, of course.) He was an early media critic in the sense of finding ways to analyze the way the broadcast networks reported the news so that their bias (if it was there) could be measured. As late as five days before his death, Dr. Lefever's 1974 book about CBS News was cited in an article by Cliff Kincaid.

Forgotten in the Post's coverage is the singular achievement in which Dr. Lefever brought together Edward Teller, the father of the (American) hydrogen bomb and Andrei Sakharov, the father of the (Soviet) hydrogen bomb. The two scientists had never met (largely because Sakharov was forced into internal exile in the Soviet Union as a consequence of his human-rights activism) but, at Dr. Lefever's invitation, Sakharov was an honored guest at the dinner at which Teller received the Shelby Cullom Davis Award for Integrity and Courage in Public Life. (I have to admit that, as one of only three or four people in the room when Teller and Sakharov first shook hands privately, this is an occasion that I shall never forget.)

The Post's obituary also leaves out Dr. Lefever's impish side. His last book, published in 2006, was called Liberating the Limerick: 230 Irresistible Classics. For most of his life, EWL was an inveterate collector -- and composer -- of limericks and other light verse. Here's an example, from the book:

Without being oratorical,
Consider Kant's categorical
Should one treat one's friends
As means or as ends?
Or is the query rhetorical?

Maybe that's not the best. Here's a second, about another noteworthy who recently passed away:

The CBS newsman Cronkite
Claimed ten million viewers each night.
He slanted the news
To fit his own views.
He knew in "his heart he was right."

I last saw Dr. Lefever about two and a half years ago. He asked me to visit him at his Chevy Chase home so that we could discuss possible collaboration on a book that he had in mind. He took me to lunch at a local Chinese restaurant and we had a pleasant conversation. The project never developed, but I was flattered that he would think of me as a collaborator and impressed that, at 87 years of age, that he was still so active and ready to stay in the arena. (Had the book been written, it would have been hotly controversial.)

Since then, we exchanged a few emails, but my last one to him (sent in May) received no reply. Now I know why.

I have quite a few photographs of Ernest W. Lefever from over the years. Here are some of the memorable ones.

Here are the two of us, after one of the Ethics and Public Policy Center's formal dinners.

Ernest W. Lefever, Jack Kemp, and Shelby Cullom Davis

New York Mayor Edward I. Koch and Ernest W. Lefever

EWL leads Jeane J. Kirkpatrick to the podium
(This photo was taken at the same event featured in the video, below.)

EWL opens the luncheon that launched my first book, The Politics of Sentiment

The staff of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the summer of 1981:
Back row, left to right: Steve (now Stephanie) Mayerhofer, Marion Frayman, Raymond English, Ernest W. Lefever, (unidentified), Rick Sincere, (unidentified), Mary Ellen Pohl (now Bork), Carol Griffith
Front row, left to right: Betty Marshall, Tom Tunney

EWL striking a goofy pose at an office picnic

EWL being playful during an EPPC staff meeting

EWL hosting the annual EPPC staff Christmas party at the Lefever home, early 1980s

Ambassador Margaret Heckler (former HHS Secretary) with Dr. Lefever at a June 2006 book signing for Liberating the Limerick

Margaret and Ernest Lefever in Arlington, Virginia, June 2006

One of the last photographs I took of Dr. Lefever, in June 2006, at a book party for Liberating the Limerick

Finally, you can see Ernest W. Lefever in action, in this promotional video for the Ethics and Public Policy Center that was released in 1985. (Apologies for the fuzzy and staticky conditions in parts of it; it was a copy of a copy before I digitized it.)

In addition to Dr. Lefever, speakers in this video include Jeane Kirkpatrick, Yonas Deressa, Senator Orrin Hatch, Linda Chavez, William Bennett, Ronald Reagan, Chester Finn, Robert Royal, Caspar Weinberger, and myself.

Ernest W. Lefever, rest in peace.

Besides the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times has published an obituary. The current president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Edward Whelan, has a remembrance on NRO's The Corner. EPPC has posted an official obituary here, accompanied by the most familiar formal portrait of EWL. (I have not yet seen a notice about a funeral or memorial service.)

Updates, August 5: The New York Times has an obituary, by Douglas Martin, in yesterday's editions. The EPPC web site announces there will be a memorial service for Dr. Lefever on August 22 in Washington. It also features a remembrance by George Weigel, who was the second president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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A Notable Anniversary

Only about two hours remain in the day, so it would be unfortunate to let them pass without mentioning today's anniversary.

Three hundred ninety years ago today, the first legislative body ever to meet in America convened.

As noted on the Jamestown 1607 web site:

By 1618, martial law was abolished and a legislative assembly was created. In April 1619, Governor George Yeardley arrived from London and recommended that two burgesses from each settlement be elected to represent the citizens. The first meeting of the 22-member assembly met on July 30 - Aug. 3, 1619 at a church in Jamestown.

Most of the laws passed during that first session involved tobacco and taxes and measures against drunkenness, idleness and gambling. They even approved legislation regulating relations with the Powhatans and mandatory church attendance.

On the last day of assembly, they approved the "greate Charter of 1618" that became the first Constitution of Virginia.

What is now the Virginia General Assembly is a direct descendant of the original House of Burgesses.

Let's raise a tankard in a toast to representative democracy!

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Conyers the Clueless

An item in Tuesday's Washington Times reveals the utter cluelessness of even the most experienced Members of Congress.

In the Inside Politics column, we learn:

Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, thinks it's ludicrous to expect members of Congress to read legislation before voting.

"I love these members, they get up and say, 'Read the bill,' " Mr. Conyers said at a National Press Club luncheon last week.

"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" he asked.

Conyers, who has served in Congress since 1965, inadvertently reveals the core of the problem: Congress writes laws that are too complex for even Congressmen to understand.

The answer to this is not "read the bill," however useful this might seem. (And I do not disagree with those who propose that Members of Congress must swear under oath that they have read a bill before they can vote on it.)

The answer is to make legislation simpler and easier to understand.

Rather than introducing, considering, and voting on a bill of 1,000 pages or more, it should be divided into its constituent parts, with each of those parts judged on its own merits.

As Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is very easy enough to ruin it by bad laws."

Complex laws are by their nature "bad" laws. If "two days and two lawyers" are not sufficient to understand them, they should be rejected flatly.





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Chris Isaak on Restraining Government

In his introductory comments about performer Chris Isaak in Sunday's Washington Post, interviewer Joe Heim says

Chris Isaak may be the closest thing popular music has to a Renaissance man. The moody singer-songwriter's résumé includes stints as television and movie actor, talk-show host, artist, surfer, fisherman and Golden Gloves champion.

Isaak also has a disarmingly self-deprecating honesty. When Heim asks him about solving California's budget crisis, the musician replies:

I don't think we want a remedy for it. The less the government has to spend, the better off we'll be. But I should say that I, and the rest of entertainers, don't know a god-durned nothing about policies. We're too busy self-aggrandizing to come up with any solutions. It's amazing how many entertainers can find time between adopting children to tell you how to live your life.

Set aside Isaak's modest demurrer and focus on that second sentence:

The less the government has to spend, the better off we'll be.

That's the cutout quote for the future; that's what will end up in Bartlett's -- or at least should do so.



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Happy 100th, Vivian Vance!

Today would have been the 100th birthday of television's foremost second banana -- I hope that is not taken as an oxymoron -- Vivian Vance, who served as an anchor to Lucille Ball's loose cannon on two comedy series of the 1950s and '60s, the beloved I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show.

Most reliable sources -- including the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and Wikipedia -- agree that the actress was born on July 26, 1909, with the given name of Vivian Roberta Jones.

One of the primary resources for showbiz information, the Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com), however, places Vance's birthday five years later, on July 26, 1914, but it also lists her first marriage as taking place in 1928, making her quite the child bride.

Vivian Vance was primarily a stage actress before she was cast as landlady/sidekick Ethel Mertz by Desi Arnaz for I Love Lucy. IMDB shows a gap of 17 years between her first movie, Take a Chance (loosely based on a Broadway musical of the same name), and her second, The Secret Fury. A year after that came her first television credit, I Love Lucy.

During the intervening years, Vance was on Broadway in several shows, including the original casts of Anything Goes; Red, Hot, and Blue; and Let's Face It (all with scores by Cole Porter, the first two starring Ethel Merman). She was also in a revival of The Cradle Will Rock, playing "Mrs. Mister." Over the years her costars included Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Marjorie Main, Nanette Fabray, Danny Kaye, Eve Arden, Jack Albertson, Jesse White, Will Geer, and Gertrude Lawrence. (Pardon me while I lift up my jaw from the floor.)

While theatre patrons, in New York and elsewhere, might have known Vance by name or by face, it wasn't until the advent of television that she became a household name. Not only was I Love Lucy a top-rated show throughout its original run on CBS in the 1950s, through syndication it may well have become the most-viewed television series of all time. (It is said, and probably correctly so, that somewhere in the world, an episode of I Love Lucy is broadcast every hour of every day.)

After her on-screen partnership with Lucille Ball ended, Vance did a few bit parts in movies and on television, and frequently appeared as herself on game shows and chat shows. She was on the road, performing before live audiences in summer stock and regional productions of shows like Arsenic and Old Lace and Everybody Loves Opal.

Because Vivian Vance was an accomplished stage actress and singer, she possessed the skills necessary to react appropriately against Lucy Ricardo's outlandishness. Like George Burns playing off of Gracie Allen, Vance was able to make Lucille Ball's comedy seem that much more funny, simply because she was so understated. She no doubt benefited from Arnaz's decision to film I Love Lucy before a live audience (as conventional as this seems today, this was a new idea in 1951), applying her experience from the theatre to enhance her ability to feed off an audience's energy and reactions.

I found a couple of clips on YouTube of Vivian Vance away from the Lucy sets.

The first is a segment from her debut film, Take a Chance, in which Lillian Roth sings "Eadie Was a Lady" (a Buddy DeSylva/Richard Whiting/Nacio Herb Brown song introduced by Ethel Merman). Vance appears at minute marker 5:45, just after Mae Questel (the voice of Olive Oyl and Betty Boop), singing one of the verses.

The second clip is from a March 22, 1965, episode of I've Got a Secret. Not only does Vivian Vance appear as a guest (with a secret), but Carol Channing, then appearing on Broadway in Hello, Dolly!, is on the panel along with regulars Bill Cullen, Bess Myerson, and Henry Morgan. Steve Allen is the host.

One thing that made my ears prick up as I watched this video comes toward the end and makes me wonder if Vivian Vance might have been a fan of Ayn Rand.

Why would I ask that, you may wonder. Well, when Vance takes on the "role" of a prosecuting attorney, she asks about a murder and, when pressed for details, notes the murder took place on "January 16th" (minute marker 6:50). Is this just a coincidence, or did this ad lib from Vivian Vance originate in her thinking about Ayn Rand's play, The Night of January 16th? Why else would she reference this particular date on the spur of the moment?

Sadly, we will probably never know, since Vivian Vance passed away 30 years ago, on August 17, 1979, at the age of 70, after suffering from breast cancer and a stroke.

It really is an intriguing question, isn't it?

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Was 1959 the Year Everything Changed?

This book review was written for publication in The Metro Herald of Alexandria, Virginia. (Look for it in next week's edition.)

Was 1959 the Year Everything Changed?
A Book Review
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

One could forgive a certain solipsism among readers born in 1959 who may think that Fred Kaplan's 1959: The Year Everything Changed is about them personally.

That it turns out not to be so does not diminish the book’s entertaining and informative readability. Yet what it lacks in particular egocentrism (the author himself was born five years earlier) it makes up in idiosyncrasy.

What is most unfortunate about Kaplan’s collection of loosely related essays is that it simply does not live up to its subtitle. Then again, it hardly could, since every year has been (and will be) pivotal in one way or another. Pick a year out of a hat and one could list dozens of discoveries, innovations, inventions, or events that “changed everything.” (1776? The Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Trenton. 1941? Pearl Harbor and Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak. 1969? The moon landing and Woodstock. Try it yourself.)

What’s more, Kaplan stretches his pivotal year to include events that could properly be placed earlier or later.

Take for example, two scientific advances that truly did have titanic cultural repercussions. These two, in fact, were more influential with regard to how we live now than most any of the cultural, artistic, and political events discussed elsewhere in Kaplan’s book.

Kaplan devotes one chapter, “Toppling the Tyranny of Numbers,” to Texas Instruments’ introduction of the solid integrated circuit (or microchip) at an electronics trade show in March 1959 – even though the invention had been made by John St. Clair Kilby already in August 1958, when he demonstrated it to other TI scientists and executives.

Another chapter, “Andromeda Freed from Her Chains,” is about the birth control pill. Kaplan places this invention in 1959 rather arbitrarily, because the FDA hearing to decide whether to approve the Pill’s use for birth control purposes took place in late December of that year. But the Pill had already been approved for other uses and had been prescribed by physicians for two years by then; its final approval for specific labeling as a birth control drug came on May 11, 1960.

It is hard to imagine a 21st century without microchips – which make possible nearly all the devices that populate our daily lives, including the laptop computer used to write this book review – or the birth control pill, which really did unchain women and free them to pursue happiness and productivity outside of a narrowly defined role as housewife and mother, as well as continuing in that role as a matter of their own choice.

Kaplan may allude to the reasons for his book’s idiosyncratic choices late in its pages when, under the heading of “Acknowledgements,” he writes: “… several years ago, it occurred to me that some of the most important – or at least some of my favorite – books, movies, and record albums were made in 1959. Was this just coincidence, or was there something significant about that year? The more I looked into it, the more it struck me that this truly was a pivotal year – not only in culture, but also in politics, society, race, science, sex: everything” (p. 245).

For all his enthusiasm about “everything,” Kaplan has a crabbed view of society and culture.

For one thing, his book is highly – and almost annoyingly – New York-centric. On page after page, we are introduced to artists, musicians, philanthropists, publishers, and others who live in Manhattan and who meet each other at cocktail parties, jazz clubs, and museum openings.

It is fascinating, of course, to learn that Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Allen Ginsberg, and Norman Mailer all traveled in the same circles, and that they and their friends and associates shared ideas, built upon them, and diversified them in their different genres. But Greenwich Village is not the center of the universe; it really isn’t.

Even when talking about arts and culture in New York, Kaplan has a narrow definition of what is important. He devotes two chapters (out of 25) to innovations in jazz by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman and their associates, but he says virtually nothing about the theatre (on- or off-Broadway). This was the year of Gypsy, for instance, often called the best musical play ever written, and of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, a pathsetting drama that broke the color barrier on Broadway. Neither are mentioned; nor are the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! and The Miracle Worker, which made stars of Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft.

Similarly, when he talks about movies, he mentions popular Hollywood films only to denigrate them in passing. He focuses on John Cassavetes’ semi-improvisational film Shadows – shot entirely in New York City -- and suggests (though not in so many words) that it was the first independent (or “indie”) film, which it surely was not. It might have been innovative, but it wasn’t fundamentally so.

Except for a passing reference to the growth of television set ownership over the decade of the 1950s, Kaplan ignores television – as an art form or as a means of communication about news and public affairs – completely.

There are also irritating little slips in the text, some that could have been caught and corrected by copy editors or fact checkers.

In a list of the seven Mercury astronauts, for instance, Kaplan renders Deke Slayton as “Duke Slayton” (p. 73) and, several pages later, he refers to Fidel’s Castro’s visit to the “Lincoln Monument and Jefferson Memorial” (p. 95). Out of all the structures dedicated to presidents in and around the Nation’s Capital, only one is called a “monument.” Lincoln, Jefferson, and Franklin Roosevelt have memorials. Taft, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt have bridges. Reagan has an airport; LBJ has a grove. Washington is the sole president with a monument.

There is also a strange bit of delicacy in his discussion of artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, of whom he says: “Soon they fell into an intense relationship, personally and professionally” (p. 174).

Well. In order to find out the whole truth – that they were gay and that they were romantic partners (the latter fact merely implied) – the reader must look up an endnote on page 289. Given that the endnotes are not marked in the conventional way within the text (that is, with a superscripted number to guide the reader to the note), it is unlikely that many will seek out this information on their own. Just whom is Kaplan trying to protect from this common knowledge?

We can grant that Kaplan can, and perhaps should, write about those subjects that most interest him (modern jazz, avant garde art, and Norman Mailer). If he chooses to ignore the wider culture in favor of a more elitist vision of arts, music, and literature, or to treat the rest of America as Saul Steinberg satirized Manhattanites in his famous “New Yorker’s View of the World” cartoon, so be it. That is his privilege as a journalist (and, perhaps, as a Brooklynite).

No matter how you look at it, however, Kaplan falls quite short in making the case for his hyperbolic claim that 1959 was the year that everything changed – or even the year that changed everything.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

1959: The Year Everything Changed, by Fred Kaplan. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. 322 pp. (including notes, photographs, and subject index). $27.95.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rick Sincere was born on April 7, 1959, when everything changed for his parents and himself.

It is interesting to note, via a search of Amazon.com that there are other books with similar themes and titles, such as Bernard Diederich's 2007 book, 1959: The Year that Changed Our World, and Rob Kirkpatrick's book, released earlier this year, 1969: The Year Everything Changed, and -- even older -- 1998's What A Year It Was! 1959, by Beverly Cohn.

(Crossposted to Virginia Free Press.)




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Community Theatre - Part Five

Yesterday the world remembered the first time men set foot on the lunar surface, 40 years after that event took place on July 20, 1969.

Today a smaller number of people -- perhaps as small as one, but I hope more than that -- mark the 30th anniversary of the final performance of Fiddler on the Roof by St. Bernard's Studio Theatre in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, on July 21, 1979.

On previous occasions, I have posted photos and video of other St. Bernard's productions that I was involved in -- Meredith Willson's The Music Man (in two parts), Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend, and The Fantasticks -- and one production from before my participation, Hello, Dolly!

Our Fiddler on the Roof was, in a way, a 15th anniversary production, since the original Broadway show had been produced in 1964 with stars Zero Mostel, Beatrice Arthur, and Maria Karnilova. We didn't think of it that way, however; we made it our own.

I have so many memories of St. Bernard's Fiddler that I don't know where to begin.

Like how I ended up (I still don't know how) sharing the principal women's dressing room: Just me (as Motel Kamzoil, the tailor) along with Golde, Yente, Tzeitel, Chava, Hodel, Sprintze, and Bielke. And nobody raised an eyebrow.

Or that we were performing in an un-air-conditioned school gymnasium during the dog days of summer, dressed like peasants during a Russian winter -- and dancing in those heavy clothes, to boot!

Or how this was perhaps the most glaringly goyishe production of Fiddler on the Roof in history. (None of the men, except for the two actors portraying Tevye, wore beards. And nobody, to be sure, wore forelocks.) There was even a crucifix hanging in the boys' dressing room! At least we all kept our heads covered.

This beardlessness resulted in, for instance, the rabbi (played by John T. Lynch) looking more like a Catholic priest officiating at Motel and Tzeitel's (that is, mine and Patty Fricke's) wedding than he looked like a, well, a rabbi.

There could be one competitor to our vanilla version of Fiddler on the Roof: the Arkansas community theatre production of Fiddler, once described to me by Tim Hulsey, in which Tevye narrates in an unmistakable Southern drawl. At least the good people of Wauwatosa could speak in the vaguely mitteleuropäische dialect so typical of Wisconsin. ("Tzeitel, come here one time." "Tevye's cow is lame again, aina hey?")

Last year I found an audio cassette recording of one of the performances of Fiddler; I think it was our charity show on Wednesday, July 18. I integrated part of that audio with a slideshow and posted it to YouTube. Unsurprisingly -- given the limited scope of interest in photos of a 30-year-old community theatre production of a classic Broadway musical -- there have only been 77 views on YouTube since I posted it htere last summer. Nonetheless, for the sake of history and of those who were there, here it is:

The St. Bernard's production of Fiddler was reviewed by The Milwaukee Journal, on the front page of the Accent (lifestyle and entertainment) section:




Looking back at the photographs from that summer (when I was, gasp, 20 years old) brings back many happy memories. (That despite the gasoline shortages, hyperinflation, and general sense of malaise that most people recall when they think of 1979.) Here are a few extracted from the video slideshow.















That should give you a good idea of what a shtetl looks like in Wauwatosa.



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Luniversary

The press is atwitter this week about the 40th anniversary of the moon landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin,with Michael Collins orbiting the getaway vehicle. (I suppose Twitter is atwitter, too.)

Sunday will be the highlight of the weekend's reminiscences, when there will be a rare joint appearance of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in Washington.

According to an article in today's Times of London:

The crew of Apollo 11, however, have not shared the cosy friendship one might have expected since they splashed back to Earth on July 24, 1969. “Amiable strangers” is how Michael Collins — the third astronaut, who remained aboard the command module orbiting the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and took a walk — once described their relationship.

On Sunday, the eve of the 40th anniversary of their return to Earth, the three will be reunited in public for what is likely to be the last time. With all of them nearing their 80th birthdays, they will deliver a joint lecture on space history at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Perhaps the best news of the week is that Hollywood restoration artists are using digital magic to piece together the videotapes of the 1969 moon landing, which had been erased and reused by NASA in the early 1970s. (The same thing happened at NBC, which reused the videotapes of the earliest episodes of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. People had a different attitude toward archival videos back in those days.)

Maggie Fox of Reuters explains:

The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.

The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is available at http://www.nasa.gov.

A NASA news release gives more details:

A team of Apollo-era engineers who helped produce the 1969 live broadcast of the moonwalk acquired the best of the broadcast-format video from a variety of sources for the restoration effort. These included a copy of a tape recorded at NASA's Sydney, Australia, video switching center, where down-linked television from Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek was received for transmission to the U.S.; original broadcast tapes from the CBS News Archive recorded via direct microwave and landline feeds from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston; and kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson that had not been viewed for 36 years.

"The restoration is ongoing and may produce even better video," said Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who oversaw television processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11. "The restoration project is scheduled to be completed in September and will provide the public, future historians, and the National Archives with the highest quality video of this historic event." ....

On July 20, 1969, as Armstrong made the short step off the ladder of the Lunar Excursion Module onto the powdery lunar surface, a global community of hundreds of millions of people witnessed one of humankind's most remarkable achievements live on television.

The black and white images of Armstrong and Aldrin bounding around the moon were provided by a single small video camera aboard the lunar module. The camera used a non-standard scan format that commercial television could not broadcast.

NASA used a scan converter to optically and electronically adapt these images to a standard U.S. broadcast TV signal. The tracking stations converted the signals and transmitted them using microwave links, Intelsat communications satellites, and AT&T analog landlines to Mission Control in Houston. By the time the images appeared on international television, they were substantially degraded.

At tracking stations in Australia and the United States, engineers recorded data beamed to Earth from the lunar module onto one-inch telemetry tapes. The tapes were recorded as a backup if the live transmission failed or if the Apollo Project needed the data later. Each tape contained 14 tracks of data, including bio-medical, voice, and other information; one channel was reserved for video.

A three-year search for these original telemetry tapes was unsuccessful. A final report on the investigation is expected to be completed in the near future and will be publicly released at that time.

NASA also gives a more specific link to the preview of the restored footage.

In 2005 and 2006, I mused about my own memories of the Apollo 11 landing.




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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

One morning earlier this week, as I was preparing to leave for the Tuesday Morning Group Coalition monthly meeting in Richmond, I became aware of the presence of several emergency vehicles in and near my cul de sac: fire trucks, an ambulance, and at least one police car.

At first I thought there was a fire, but it turned out to be something different -- an idling car had escaped its parking brake and crashed into a nearby house.

While both the car and home owner must have been grateful that the damage was not significant (and that nobody was hurt), the incident flashed a memory of mine.

During my first year as a blogger, I wrote about the time my house nearly burned down. That was 34 years ago today: July 17, 1975. The fire was big enough that it landed on the first page of the local newspaper on July 24 (the Wauwatosa News-Times, founded in 1898 but now, as far as I know, defunct) -- with not one but two photographs.



One picture appeared above the fold.



The caption reads:

In the Line of Duty

PARAMEDIC JESSE MORENO (right) ministered to a fellow-paramedic, Acting Lieutenant Jim Filber, who suffered from smoke inhalation while serving at the scene of a residence fire July 17. Awaiting treatment, Lt. John Accola mirrored the exhaustion of local firemen who fought the $50,000 blaze. Also on the scene was Reserve Policeman Grant Schmidt, one of several members of the Police and Fire Reserves who aided at the scene. Moreno and five other firemen also were treated later for smoke inhalation. Story on Pg. 3. (Photo by Arthur C. Hombsch)

The second picture appeared below the fold, but in the prominent lower right-hand corner.



Its caption reads:

Fire-Call Figures

LEAVING THE SCENE of a major fire last Thursday night, Wauwatosa Fire Chief Byard Sheldon (in white coat) followed Jim Washcovick, on-duty assistant chief, as the two left the Richard Sincere home at 1503 N. 70th St. The fire had just been brought under control after having been fought for almost three hours. Eight Tosa firemen were treated for smoke inhalation from the blaze which caused an estimated $50,000 damage to the residence and its contents. (Photo by Arthur C. Hombsch)

The story on page 3 provided a few more details than the captions on page 1 did.



The text reads:

Nine Tosa Firemen Treated after $50,000 Blaze

Three Wauwatosa firemen were taken to hospitals and six more treated for smoke inhalation at the scene of a $50,000 blaze at 1503 N. 70th St. July 17, according to the latest Wauwatosa Fire Department report.

The fire began when wiring in a pinball machine short-circuited. The fire quickly spread from its origin in a basement recreation room through air ducts to other portions of the house. Damage was estimated at $35,000 to the house and $15,000 to contents.

Three firemen suffering from smoke inhalation were transported to hospitals. Firefighter Larry Tesch was taken to County General and Firefighters Peter Ernst and Lee Werner were taken to St. Luke’s.

Among those treated at the scene were Asst. Chief James Washcovick, who strained some shoulder and arm muscles moving a hose to the second floor; Lts. John Accola and Frank Jankowski, and Firefighters Jesse Moreno, George Polly and James Filber. Filber also sustained a burn on his leg and Jankowski was treated for a cut hand.

One of the interesting things about finding the Wauwatosa News-Times report on my family's personal adversity was seeing some of the items in the paper that put the event in historical context. For instance, there was this photo/story about the new Bicentennial coins being produced by the U.S. Mint:



The caption says:

'Change' of Design

A BIG CHANGE IN SMALL CHANGE will appear when these new Bicentennial coins start circulating throughout the nation and, of course, in Wauwatosa. The quarter, half-dollar and dollar shown here will bear the same head but the dates 1776-1976 will be stamped underneath. On the tails of the three coins are a colonial drummer on the quarter; Independence Hall on the half-dollar; and the Liberty Bell and moon on the dollar. The Federal Reserve System will start distributing the Bicentennial half-dollar to financial institutions July 7. The other two coins will be released by the U.S. Mint before the end of the year.

What really demonstrates the historical context are the advertisements scattered throughout the newspaper. For instance, these two restaurant ads (fish fry with a free stein of beer $2.65! prime rib dinner $5.95!) would make anyone's mouth water, Pavlov-dog style:





Then there are the ads that remind us how much technology (and our expectations and familiarity of it) has changed.

Remember typewriters? And typewriter shops?



Remember when people paid to have a television repaired, rather than just buying a new one?



Now here's something I don't remember: Businesses offering lessons in how to use a microwave oven. Did anyone reading this ever take a class like this?



By coincidence, I just bought a new microwave the other day. I paid $39.00 at Walmart to replace one that I bought just about three years ago at Target. That one shorted out. The microwave oven I had before that lasted more than 20 years: I bought it in 1984 at Sears for about $400, which was a lot of money back then.

Oh, for the good ol' days!

Post script: That same issue of the Wauwatosa News-Times also included a feature article about St. Bernard's Studio Theatre's summer production of Hello, Dolly!



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To Sur, With Love

As part of the gargantuan (1,000-page-plus) health care "reform" package introduced by members of the Democratic majority in Congress, the Obama administration proposes to raise taxes through a "surtax" on Americans who earn the most money.

The Washington Post explained this "soak the rich" policy in a front-page article on July 15:

The surtax would start at 1 percent and rise to 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. Combined with the expiration next year of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, the surtax would drive the top federal tax rate to 45 percent, the highest level since lawmakers rewrote the tax code in 1986.

The Washington Times, for its part, points out that this raises U.S. marginal tax rates to their highest levels since the 1980s:

A new surtax of 5.4 percent in the health care bill, which would apply to married couples' income above $1 million, would bring the top federal income tax rate to 45 percent.

After consideration of state and local income taxes and the Medicare payroll tax, which applies to all wage and salary income, taxpayers in 39 states would face a top marginal income tax rate of more than 50 percent, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group based in the District.

"That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers," said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "The lowest tax rate would be 47 percent - and that's in the nine states that don't tax wages."

Businesses say the surtax would hurt the economy.

"The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America's small-business owners," said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Placing a big tax burden on the small-business community would rob them of the resources they need to create the jobs that will lead us out of the recession."

President Obama would be wise to look to history to see what happened the last time a president made a surtax the centerpiece of his economic program. (Some might object that this is a "health care" program. That's true, up to a point. The fact that the bill has been referred to the Finance Committee in the House suggests that this is really a revenue bill.)

In Yanek Mieczkowski's 2005 book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, the Dowling College historian relates what happened when Ford proposed a 5 percent surtax on all incomes above $15,000 (more than it sounds like; remember, these were 1974 dollars) in his first major economic legislative package:

As what he termed "the acid test of our joint determination to whip inflation in America," Ford pronounced the cornerstone of his new economic program, a one-year, 5 percent surcharge on corporate and personal incomes. The surtax was directed at individuals with yearly earnings of $15,000 or more for married taxpayers and $7,500 for the unmarried. (Taxpayers would have to figure out what they normally owed the government, then add the 5 percent surtax to it.) The advantages of the surtax were that it would be mildly progressive, since the rich would pay more, and temporary, lasting only the calendar year 1975. Nor was it onerous. For example, a single person earning $15,000 would pay a federal income tax of $2,549; the surcharge would add $78. (p. 121)

Despite its modest appearance, Ford's proposal was met with strong opposition, especially from the Democrats who held a majority in Congress (a majority that would grow substantially after the midterm elections a few weeks after his proposal was announced). Republicans were not too fond of it, either.

Ford took a political risk by proposing a surtax less than a month before congressional elections. Unveiling a tax increase at such a time was like unleashing a skunk at a picnic; representatives and senators ran in the opposite direction, refusing to embrace or even come close to it. Officeholders facing difficult reelection battles, such as GOP senators Bob Dole of Kansas and Marlow Cook of Kentucky, deserted their president rather than support the proposal....

The program itself was a political bomb. The jumble of proposals gave the whole thing an eclectic feel, and the centerpiece -- a tax increase -- fell flat. One poll showed that Americans opposed the surtax, 58 to 34 percent. Members of Congress resisted it. Just two days after the speech, William Baroody warned Ford that it was "in serious trouble on the Hill and very unpopular politically" and that Congress was in no mood to reduce spending. Two weeks before the election [William] Seidman publicly acknowledged that the surtax faced an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill and called its prospects "uncertain." The overwhelming Republican repudiation in the ensuing elections turned "uncertain" to "doomed." Ford's policy making was off to a rocky start. (p. 124; footnotes omitted)

In one of the more significant parenthetical partial paragraphs of any work of recent history, however, Mieczkowski writes:

(One economist's skepticism about the surtax generated what later became a mainstay of Ronald Reagan's "supply-side" economics. Arthur Laffer doubted that the 5 percent surtax would generate much revenue, and while dining at a restaurant with Ford administration members Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, he drew a graph on a napkin to illustrate his belief that tax cuts -- rather than increases -- would raise more revenue because of increased business activity. His illustration became known as the "Laffer Curve.") (p. 122)

Apparently other economists caught on, even if they hadn't seen the napkin. Yanek Mieczkowski writes on page 130:

By November, many economists, realizing that Ford had miscalculated, urged him to drop the surtax proposal and switch his focus to fighting the recession. The president stuck by the surtax and still urged budget cuts.

In the end, the surtax proposal crashed and burned. Mieczkowski notes on page 131:

A political science axiom says that "the president proposes, Congress disposes." Congress certainly disposed of Ford's surtax, and quickly. Although he developed a fiscally balanced program incorporating many recommendations from the economic summit conferences, it was also like a multipronged barb that Congress could not swallow. And it soon became incongruous. The deteriorating economy, coupled with the inherent unpopularity of a tax increase, doomed Ford's first major economic initiative. But that failure was fortunate; as events played out, a surtax would have aggravated the downturn. (emphasis added)

History teaches us, and not just in this example from the mid-1970s, that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea.

Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have not absorbed this lesson of history and economics. Should they succeed in raising taxes to finance their ambitious program to socialize medicine, they -- or, rather, we -- will live to regret it.

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Review of 'The Color Purple'

Here is my review of The Color Purple, now playing in the Kennedy Center's Opera House, prepared for publication in The Metro Herald.

The Color Purple: Flawed but Inspiring
Musical Adaptation of Award-Winning Novel Now at Kennedy Center
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Adapting a controversial, popular, epistolary novel to the stage is a delicate task, one with as many pitfalls as it has possibilities. The task is made even more difficult when it requires the translation of an intensely personal, introspective journey to the more gregarious needs of the musical play, with its attendant melody, dance, and spirited rhyme schemes.

The task was just as delicate for Steven Spielberg when he adapted Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple for the screen, which provides a much wider palette for a story that sprawls from the Mississippi Delta to West Africa and across nearly a half-century of time. Spielberg’s effort was rewarded with eleven Oscar® nominations and it catapulted Whoopi Goldberg to stardom.

The musical stage adaptation of The Color Purple, although it received eleven Tony Award® nominations (winning one category), is a noble attempt that ultimately fails to satisfy.

Now playing to capacity audiences at the Kennedy Center Opera House, the production’s strongest claims to success are in its design elements: sets (by John Lee Beatty), lighting (by Brian McDevitt), and especially costumes. Costume designer Paul Tazewell’s creations are almost the only way audiences can follow the chronology of the piece: as fashions change, we know that time goes by in a story that begins before the First World War and ends after World War II. Tazewell’s costumes also signify poverty and wealth, glamour and mundanity – facets that define the characters almost as well as their words and actions do.

As for the characters themselves, several performances stand out, not least of which is American Idol winner Fantasia in the leading role of Celie. Not only must Celie age from 14 to 54 over the course of two hours, she must do so almost without a break: there is hardly a scene in The Color Purple in which Celie does not appear. As weak as the material is (more on that later), Fantasia carries it with aplomb and maturity beyond her years.

Also notable is Felicia P. Fields as Sofia (reprising her Tony-nominated role), whose self-assured character is brought low by the social establishment of the Jim Crow South only to be resurrected when her sister-in-struggle, Celie, asserts herself in Act II. Similarly, Angela Robinson as Shug Avery (the woman every man wants to be with and every woman wants to be, but whom Celie gets to be with) is sexy, sensual, strong, determined, and sharp-witted: a role model for anyone.

Book writer Marsha Norman has added a sort of Greek chorus in the Church Ladies (Doris, Darlene, and Jarene; respectively Kimberly Ann Harris, Virginia Ann Woodruff, and Lynette DuPree) whose gossipy nature, vulgar comments, cutting remarks, and ever-changing costumes nudge the play along lightheartedly when it otherwise might become bogged down in melancholy and hopelessness.

Another performance worth singling out is that of Stu James as Harpo, Celie’s stepson (and Sofia’s husband) who may be the only man in her orbit who displays a sense of humanity and decency.

The major problem with The Color Purple as a piece of musical theatre is its lack of musicality. The score – which seems to have been written by a committee – is bland, undistinguished, and unmemorable. (In a good musical, one finds oneself humming the tunes on the way out of the theatre. I found myself humming a tune from a different musical, one that bore some resemblance to a song in The Color Purple, but that was far superior.)

Unsurprisingly, given that the songwriting duties were divided up among three composer/lyricists – Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray – whose backgrounds are more in pop music than in musical theatre, the score is scattered all over the place. It is not grounded in time (or location) and it fails to deliver any integrated sensibility (such as, for instance, providing motifs that follow characters through the story and link their development).

There are problems, too, with Norman’s book, which turns Walker’s wrenching portrayal of misogyny and cruelty into an anodyne pabulum that condescends to the audience, as if a producer said to the playwright, “Tone down the beatings and the rapes; I don’t want tired businessmen to walk out during intermission.”

Moreover, Norman forsakes clarity in an effort to compress the story (and fit it into a reasonable running time, which even now is nearly three hours). For instance, in the climactic scene, which takes place during a picnic, Alice Walker tells us that the gathering is meant to celebrate the Fourth of July. The play does not, raising the question of why Celie is so non-chalant about attending a party put together by her cruel ex-husband. One line could have avoided that question.

Walker’s criticism of African patriarchy is completely missing from this adaptation. In its stead is a second act dream ballet that, were it not meant to be taken seriously, could easily be misinterpreted as bad-taste minstrelsy. Add to this the absence of any mention of the Great Depression, Prohibition, or World War II in a story that spans all those major periods, and you have to wonder what the writers were thinking.

The Color Purple is a flawed musical play. Nonetheless, it will continue to draw audiences, as it did for 910 performances on Broadway. The underlying story of one woman’s triumph over adversity and evil remains inspiring. If that is enough to satisfy the “tired businessman,” then nothing more need be said.

The Color Purple runs through August 9, 2009, at the Kennedy Center Opera House. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. with matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. Tickets cost $25-$95 and may be purchased at the Kennedy Center Box Office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324 or visit the Kennedy Center web site at www.kennedy-center.org. (NOTE: During the matinee performances on July 12, 19, and 26, and on August 1 and 2, and during the evening performance on July 31, the role of Celie will be played by Phyre Hawkins or Brandi Chavonne Massey.

Photo credit: Paul Kolnik. Production photos courtesy of the Kennedy Center.



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Slow Brew

It may be eleven days after the fact, but it is not too late to report on the Charlottesville Tea Party that took place on Independence Day in Jackson Park.

Organized by the Jefferson Area Tea Party group, under the leadership of Bill Hay and others, the Fourth of July gathering was a follow-up to the Tax Day Tea Parties that were held on April 15.

Protest on the Fourth of July has a long pedigree. University of Virginia historian Peter Onuf noted on a recent broadcast of BackStory - with the American History Guys, a radio program produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities:

The Fourth of July became a really big deal in the 1790s when, believe it or not, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other so-called Republicans were mobilizing against the Federalist administrations of George Washington.

Later in the show,, contrasting the "civic celebrations" of the 1870s with their counterparts in the early part of the 19th century, Onuf explained:

Earlier Fourth of July celebrations tended to be very contentious… The idea of the Declaration and of Jefferson as its author was a partisan thing in the 1790s and early 1800s. That is, it was Jefferson against the Federalists, that is, the administration.

And then later in the party system that emerged in the 1830s and ‘40s, there were a lot of counterdemonstrations of Democrats and Whigs having alternative celebrations trying to win over popular favor, and so forth.

The Tea Party Movement, such as it is, is diffuse. Lacking a central organizer, local Tea Parties have popped up here and there, sometimes in synchronicity with other groups around the country (as happened on April 15) and sometimes on odd days and hours.

Reporting on the Fourth of July Tea Parties, veteran political correspondent Donald Lambro explained in the Washington Times early the next morning:

Whether the turnout would match or exceed the hundreds of April 15 Tea Party protests remained to be seen, though a survey of dozens of publicized events from Maine to California suggested the grass-roots movement had not lost its energy and support.

The April 15 demonstrations drew an estimated 600,000 people to more than 600 events throughout the country, organizers said. Since then, the movement has remained localized, resisting efforts to turn itself into a national organization, and spawning hundreds of local, citizen-led groups that shun professional politicians at their meetings and public events.

While little media attention has been paid to the movement since then and some have suggested that its numbers were eroding, Tea Party leaders who have been monitoring the groups and this weekend's activities dispute that.

"I don't think this movement's eroding," said Adam Bitely, director of new media at Americans for Limited Government.

"When the president's cap-and-trade energy bill came up in the House, a lot of the Tea Party groups were doing local work, calling members of Congress to urge them to vote against the bill," said Mr. Bitely, whose NetRight Nation Web site tracks Tea Party activities.

"Most of these people don't want to be connected to any one group. They are trying to run their own local political organizations and don't need one national organization to do that," he said.

One example of this autonomy was the demonstration at the office of U.S. Representative Tom Perriello two days before the July 4th holiday, which was called to protest Perriello's vote on the "cap and trade" energy bill.

Another example was when the Taxpayer Alliances of Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach jointly participated in a "Defend and Declare Tea Party" event on June 26 in the Chesapeake City Park.

Over 1,000 people participated in the Charlottesville Tea Party on the Fourth of July. Some participants got their knickers in a bunch because the Daily Progress and other mainstream media outlets failed to cover the event.

I can understand their disappointment, but it was a holiday, after all, and the local news media was probably short-staffed. The Daily Progress didn't cover Congressman Perriello's remarks that day at Monticello, either. (He was the guest speaker at the annual naturalization ceremony for new citizens. Last year's featured speaker was President George W. Bush.)

One local TV station, WCAV-TV, did cover the event, saying:

Saturday over one thousand people from the Jefferson Area Tea Party rallied in Charlottesville. The holiday gathering in Jackson Park is the latest effort by the group to send a message to leaders in Washington that tax dollars need to be spent more wisely. While the rally had political overtones, it was also a celebration designed for families.

The participants shared a common distaste for what's happening in Washington.

"We have a bunch of usurpers in government," said Charlottesville resident, Michael Del Rosso. "People that don't care about their oath of office. We need to organize to defeat them in the next election and we need to make them accountable every turn they take that is unconstitutional."

I was able to capture video highlights of the Jefferson Area Tea Party on Independence Day. Here are a few of them.

James Curtis of the Jefferson Area Libertarians (a regional branch of the Libertarian Party of Virginia) addressed general issues of individual liberty, limited government, and personal responsibility:

(Other Libertarian Party members spoke at a Tea Party in Roanoke on Independence Day.)

Jim Morgan (who previously was unfamiliar to me) spoke about the Fair Tax, which would rid us of the meddlesome IRS and replace the income tax with a national retail sales tax.

(Those unfamiliar with the Fair Tax concept can learn a lot about it by reading The Fair Tax Book, by Congressman John Linder and radio talk-show host Neal Boortz. There is also a sequel, in which Linder and Boortz answer their critics.)

Delegate Rob Bell (R-58) was one of two elected officials who spoke at the Tea Party. (Elected officials, as a class, are highly disdained by Tea Partiers.) He introduced the other elected official on the program, state Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R-37).

Senator Cuccinelli, who is also running for Virginia Attorney General, barely mentioned his campaign in his remarks, which focused largely on property rights:

This final video clip is somewhat out of (chronological) order. It's a random collection of scenes from the Jefferson Area Tea Party on July 4th, featuring some of the interstitial comments by compere Joe Thomas, talk show host on WCHV-AM in Charlottesville, who dressed up as Samuel Adams for the occasion. There is also an excerpt from local Arby's restaurant owner Tom Slonaker's reading of the entire Declaration of Independence.

There will be little rest for the Jefferson Area Tea Partiers. Not even two weeks after the Independence Day Tea Party, they plan another peaceable assembly to petition their government for the redress of grievances -- in this case, to express their opinions on health care legislation pending before Congress -- on July 17 (the same day and time as similar protest demonstrations around the country. As announced on the Jefferson Area Tea Party blog,

On Friday July 17th we will once again be meeting at Congressman Tom Perriello’s Charlottesville office at 313 2nd Street SE. We will gather at 4 PM to express to the Congressman our desire for him to vote against the Democrat sponsored Health Care Bill that will soon be coming to the House Floor....

We had a great turn out for the 4th and this is a good opportunity to keep up the momentum. I am contacting Mr. Perriello’s office to let them know that we will be there that afternoon and are requesting the Congressman’s presence. At the very least maybe we can get Mr. Perriello to promise to read this bill before voting on it.

This event will be a great way to promote our July 20th Health Care Forum. The public needs to be aware of how Nationalized Health Care will affect their lives. It is only through education that we are able to make the correct decisions in regard to voting for our representatives and understanding their stances on issues.

The Tea Parties deserve a lot of credit for mobilizing citizens to become more engaged in politics and policymaking. Our system of representative government relies on persistent participation by the people, not only in public protests (which admittedly can be fun and entertaining as well as substantive) but also through phone calls, faxes, and emails to our Representatives and Senators in Washington, as well as legislators in Richmond and other state capitals, and elected officials at the local level, too.




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Bare Naked Nudity

A number of news stories in recent days have a common thread -- even if they lack "threads" in the street patois sense.

First came this Daily Telegraph report on July 2, about an interesting experiment in building up office morale:

David Taylor, a business psychologist, told workers at design and marketing onebestway, in Newcastle upon Tyne, that a Naked Friday idea would boost their team spirit.

He was called in to help the firm after six staff members were forced into taking redundancies at the start of the credit crunch.

Mr Taylor told them that, by stripping off their clothes, staff could also strip away inhibitions and talk to each other more openly and honestly.

He said: "Inviting an organisation to go naked is the most extreme technique I've used. It may seem weird but it works. It's the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other."

Despite some initial reluctance, nearly all the staff took off all their clothes – except for one man, who wore a posing pouch, and one of two female workers, who kept on black underwear.

The Telegraph article notes, almost as an aside:

The experiment in April was filmed for a one-off TV show, Naked Office, to be screened on July 9 on cable channel Virgin 1.

I don't think many American cable systems carry Virgin 1, but I expect some clamor for it from television consumers in the near future.

Five days later, this story from the Connecticut Post earned international attention:

A 41-year-old man was arrested after appearing for a dental appointment without a lick of clothing, police said.

Christopher Hoff, of Masarik Avenue, was naked -- and five days late -- when he showed up for a Monday appointment at Optimus Dental on Honeyspot Road. He was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct and one count each of public indecency and failure to comply with fingerprinting. He is being held in lieu of $10,000 bond.

When Hoff entered the dental office completely naked Monday afternoon, the startled female receptionist began screaming, police said. He ran from the office, police said, onto Honeyspot Road.

"Honeyspot Road"? Really?

Meanwhile, the story that's being reported all over the place today is about multiple attempts around the country to break the Guinness-confirmed world record for the most people skinny-dipping simultaneously.

In Ivor, Virginia, we learn that as part of a recruitment effort, White Tail Resort (that's almost as precious a name as Honeyspot Road) will try to break the record:

As part of the weekend's events, the resort will be participating in an attempt to make the Guinness Book of World Records as part of the nation's largest simultaneous skinny-dip at 3 p.m. Saturday, and on Sunday there will be a display of antique and customized cars.

For more information, call 1-800-987-6833.

From Palm Springs, California:

The Desert Sun Resort at 1533 N. Chaparral Road expects “hundreds of nude people” in its three pools at noon Saturday, said resort owner Elizabeth Young.

Thousands of other naked people across North America will take the plunge at the same time, she said.

There is no doubt a skinny-dipping record will be set because Guinness just created the category, Young said.

From Cleveland, Georgia:

North Georgia nudists Saturday gathered to set a Guinness World Record for the Largest Skinny-Dip in North America.

Serendipity Park, an American Association for Nude Recreation Club site near Cleveland, was the location of the local observance of a national effort to set the record according to park spokesman Chuck Ray.

“All the AANR clubs are getting together and exactly at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time we’re going to have the largest skinny dipping nation wide,” Ray said. “We’ve been planning this for several months now.”

Jerry Gunn, writing for AccessNorthGa.com, includes a photo of the event and explains the rules:

In order to qualify for the Guinness record, the skinny dippers had to be exactly that, completely nude when counted, but there was a concession for bashful first timers.

Participants not used to skinny-dipping in public were allowed to wear swimsuits into the water but had to remove the swimsuit once in the water and hold it overhead to signal the witnesses.

And in Maryland, courtesy of WBAL-AM radio:

There are two sites in the Baltimore Area where the skinny dipping will take place.

Walter Green is organizing an event at a private club North of Baltimore. Green told WBAL's Shari Elliker that the location is kept private because people have misconceptions about these events, and he wants to protect the site's reputation.

Green says the skinny dip will be preceded by a picnic at 1 p.m. Green said that he isn't sure how many people will attend. He is hoping for 50-100 people.

"I don't have a specific number in mind, just as long as everyone has fun," Green said.

Members of the Maryland Health Society will also participate from their location, at 3000 Patuxent River Road in Davidsonville.

The association on its website bills this as a family event, and as a way to celebrate,"a wholesome tradition as old as mankind and frequently honored in art and movies."

I just can't make this stuff up.

There really is a "Honeyspot Road" in Stratford, Connecticut. You can look it up.



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Virginian Francis Collins to Head NIH

During graduation season, I wrote an article that included a report about Dr. Francis Collins as the commencement speaker at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Collins has now been nominated to be the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by President Barack Obama.

Gardiner Harris reports in the New York Times:

President Obama on Wednesday nominated Dr. Francis S. Collins, a pioneering geneticist who led the government’s successful effort to sequence the human genome, as head of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Collins’s selection, which had been rumored for weeks, was praised by top scientists and research advocacy organizations for whom the health institute is a crucial patron.

Based in Bethesda, Md., the N.I.H. is the most important source of research money in the world; over the next 14 months it will dole out about $37 billion in research grants and spend $4 billion on research programs at its Maryland campus.

“Francis Collins is an extraordinary scientist and one of the nicest guys you could ever meet,” said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Gardiner notes, however, that despite expectations that Collins will face an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate, there is some minor controversy that accompanies his nomination. One aspect concerns his management of the human genome project, while another is "unease" about Collins' evangelical Christian religious beliefs.

As a commencement speaker at VCU, Collins showed himself to be affable as well as brainy. He entertained the graduates and their family and friends with a parody rendition of "My Way," accompanying himself on the guitar.

His musical talents are mentioned in the New York Times story:

Dr. Collins earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Yale University and a medical degree from the University of North Carolina. He likes to sing and play a guitar decorated with a double helix, the shape of genetic code.

(The article does not mention Collins' undergraduate education at the University of Virginia. Collins is a Shenandoah Valley native.)

Here, in three parts (the third part featuring the humorous musical climax) is Francis Collins' commencement speech at VCU on May 16.

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:

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Definitely Not a Libertarian

I visited C-VILLE, a Charlottesville weekly newspaper, in my previous post, and I find myself in its pages again.

Speaking about a new law that took effect this month (prohibiting texting on cell phones while driving), a spokesman for AAA says:

“certainly any law is better than no law.”

You'll never hear that statement slip through the lips of a libertarian.

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Creigh Deeds, Millionaire Philanthropist?

Is Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds a secret millionaire?

A comment by one of his campaign spokespeople in a Charlottesville newsweekly suggests that this may be the case.

In an article by Caitlin Speaker on how the election of a new governor might affect the University of Virginia we find this statement:

Deeds, meanwhile, stands by his existing record of University support, says Deeds spokesperson Jared Leopold. “He has already invested millions in higher ed and it’s something UVA has seen,” Leopold says. “He has a particular affinity for the University.”

Now, a look at Deeds' personal finance reports (something required of candidates for public office and elected officials) indicates that he is a man of modest means. There is no suggestion that he has the wherewithal to invest "millions" in higher education.

Does Deeds have a hidden source of wealth that he, in turn, pumps into college and university budgets?

I already anticipate the comment that Jared Leopold meant that Deeds, as a member of the General Assembly, supported or introduced legislation to appropriate tax dollars to higher education projects.

But that is not what Leopold said. He did not say that Deeds "took other people's money and reallocated it to education programs that he personally favored."

No, Leopold said "he" (meaning Creigh Deeds as an individual) "invested millions in higher ed."

The only conclusion one can draw from this plain language is that Creigh Deeds is a multimillionaire philanthropist who has kept his generous eleemosynary activities under wraps for many years.



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Celebrating the Fourth of July

In honor of Independence Day, I have collected various versions of our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner" (lyrics by Francis Scott Key, set to the old English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven"), which I have recorded over the past couple of years.

First is one of the most recent, from the 2009 Republican Party of Virginia's state convention on May 30. Here are the Hullabahoos, an all-male a capella group from the University of Virginia, singing the national anthem at the Richmond Coliseum:

From about two weeks earlier than that, the next video was made at the 2009 commencement exercises at Virginia Commonwealth University (also at the Richmond Coliseum). The national anthem, sung by J. Chase Peak, is preceded by "Pomp and Circumstance."

Last September, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared at a campaign rally in Richmond. (She was then the vice-presidential running mate of Senator John McCain.) Governor Palin introduced Hank Williams, Jr., who -- even though he neither grabbed his crotch nor spit on the ground -- gave the worst rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" since Roseanne.

A much better presentation of the national anthem was heard on Constitution Day (September 17, 2008) at Montpelier, the home of James Madison in Orange County, Virginia. Here "The Star Spangled Banner" is performed by opera singer Eric Greene, who is introduced by television journalist Jim Lehrer.

On Labor Day 2008, at the annual Buena Vista parade and political rally, Miss Virginia (Tara Wheeler) opened the speechifying with the national anthem:

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Canada Day!

Let's take a few moments to wish our friends to the north a happy Canada Day.

It was on this day in 1867 that a brave band of Canadians ventured into the deepest, densest, darkest, most treacherous section of London, seeing to it that a bill passed the British Parliament to grant the provinces of North America a measure of autonomy. A hard-fought semi-independence, indeed!

In honor of the holiday, I have selected a few video clips for entertainment purposes only.

First, from Rose-Marie, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald sing "Indian Love Call":

Next, Natalie Nevins performs the Big Band classic, "Canadian Sunset," on a 1966 episode of The Lawrence Welk Show. Ah-one, ah-two:

Third, Bob and Doug MacKenzie celebrate in the Great White North fashion(with beer):

Finally, Alanis Morrisette sings the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada," at -- naturally -- a Stanley Cup hockey match, in both English and French:

Célébrez, mes amis!


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A Sense of Priorities?

From a news release distributed by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, noting that the post-election protests in Iran had dominated the news early last week before the Mark Sanford story and the death of Michael Jackson began to fill the headlines and airwaves:

From the time it was announced Jackson had died through the end of the day Friday—a little more than 28 hours—60% of the news coverage studied across 55 different news outlets was devoted to Jackson’s death. And that does not include the broadcast network prime time specials devoted to the singer’s demise—two of them for two hours Thursday night and one for a single—the extra hours of morning news and more.

All media sectors covered Jackson heavily, but it was cable news channels that led the way. Fully 93% of cable coverage studied on the Thursday and Friday following his death was about the King of Pop. On the front pages of Friday morning newspapers, 37% of their coverage was Jackson-related compared to 55% of the leading online coverage.

If anyone needed proof of how much the media culture has changed it might be this. When Elvis Presley died in 1977, CBS News was criticized for choosing not to lead its newscast with it.

By comparison, the story about legislation that will most seriously affect the daily lives of American citizens was virtually ignored:

Breaking late in the week, Friday, the House passage of historic legislation to impose limits on global warming received relatively marginal coverage, roughly 2%.

I'm not sure if this misplaced sense of priorities reflects more badly on the news media or on news consumers, the American people.

H/T: TVNewser.

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