GNR - Good News Round Up for 2nd Wednesday after THAT Wednesday

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Wednesday November 20, 2024 · 4:00 AM PST

2024/11/20 · 04:00

Image: In the foreground, a hand holds the stem of a wine glass, slightly tipping the rose wine within. We see through the glass the horizon and a host of golden sunflowers in a green field under a blue sky. — "God has given wine to gladden the hearts of people." Psalm 104

Good morning O ye seekers of hope, respite and even a bit of escape. The 3rd Wednesday of the month Good News Roundup is on the air, and yours truly, WineRev, serves as host and once-a-month pilot in the control room. In fact, the automatic camera just took an automatic picture of our control room! (Since I was sitting in the right place, right time, this counts as a selfie…..especially once the flashbulb cooled off enough to go into the trash…..)

The lights and gauges are really neat-o!

This little corner of the Internet is a place of checking in for a cup of cheer…...and after the last 2 weeks nearly all of us can use a WHOLE lot of that, and not just a cup either. So let me lead you over to the village Breakfast Brunch, where the coffee, tea and mocha-cocoa are free (as though you were in your own kitchen), made just the right way (as though you were in your kitchen.) The Mimosa Bar and bartender knows just the right balance of bubbles and your fruit request (as though you were at your home bar.)

Now, if you would raid your kitchen for all the things that make for a breakfast worth eating, c’mon in to the Exhale Lounge. Land your beverage on a table, set down your tray or plates, and then choose among a rocker, a recliner, a wingback or a sofa. Once you choose and settle….THEN you Exhale. Now…..a deep breath…..hold it…...and another LONG exhale. Wiggle and wriggle your back side to get it set just right, then let your pixel screen reach into the overhead ether for the Wi-Fi. That way there are stories to read, links to click and follow, comments to make, recs to check off, questions to ask or answers to give, digressions to wander after, and even the little smile or wry mouth corner for a lighter moment.

As you plow onward though this morning’s Round Up, you will see I am continuing my custom of the History Corner, running down the November 20ths of yesterday and yester-century. There were moments then, some Good, some Goofy, just to show as the human race, we’ve always been up to something worth noting.

And, at the bottom, comes the IMPORTANT Part of today….YOU! Yep, you! It is your comments, remarks, recs, clinks and links that make this little corner of the Internet worth coming to Every Single Day. So have at it, and welcome to Wednesday!

Good News in Society & Politics (and even a touch of religion)

Yes, it’s been one HELL OF a couple weeks, and starting January 20th, things could get visibly harder. Still, there are things to ponder that may brace us.

>>>>>» OK, this is one of those “keep your ear tuned” sort of days. TODAY, Wednesday, the US House Ethics committee is holding a meeting. I believe it is behind closed doors but the press gaggle outside those doors promises to be 30-deep in every direction.

Inside those closed, watched and (likely) sound-proof doors, the committee (the only one by design in the House that is always with an equal # of each party, 5 & 5) will decide on whether to release their report on Matt Gaetz.

Inside the room we don’t know how long the discussion might take.

……../They could vote to keep it confidential.

……../We don’t even know if this will be Release Publicly/Do Not Release voice vote,……. OR a little 2-rounder of “all those in favor/opposed hold up a hand”,……. OR if it might be a secret vote on paper, with the slips slid over to the chair. (Some reading the tea leaves hope for this last; if one or more of the GQPers on the panel are going to go against Gaetz/tRump they might do so under cover of anonymity but otherwise might chicken out.)

…….../They might try to split the difference and sort of punt in a way: vote to release copies ONLY to the Senate Judiciary Committee (who will be holding confirmation hearings….supposedly.)

………/The best we know on timing is “sometime today.”

>>>>>» When I was at Seminary there was LOTS of reading. One of the lights we had to read were works by Walter Bruggeman, a American professor of Old Testament. (Still with us at age 91….has his own website; clearly still enjoying being part of the World Conversation.) Starting from an OT, 3000-year-old perspective, well, there have been hard times before for the Faithful. So now Bruggeman HAS CHIPPED IN that linked article, published 2 weeks ago TODAY…..that morning after, the night before…. and I thought its not half bad for my still recovering mood…..

>>>>>» On the more straight political side, The Guardian (a truly broad-based and reader supported UK newspaper and news source; if you’d like to throw a few shekels their way to keep them in the fight, I know they would be grateful) here comes a story looking past the political hurly-burly of chaotic Cabinet announcements. We KNOW that the 1% types are readying all sorts of ….crapola…… using their Pumpkin Puppet in the White House. THIS FINE PIECE at the link gives a helpful list of 20 items to watch for, brace for, and as targets for sabotaging (by us!)

Of course, politics have been rambunctious for a LONG time, and both shaped and been shaped by Society

1620 Massachusetts Bay The Mayflower is bobbing in the bay and pilgrim/settlers are going ashore to get set up, but right now everyone sleeps on board each night. On this day William and Susanna White, have a son, Peregrine White. He was the first child born of English parents in present-day New England.

1789 Trenton, New Jersey When the Constitution came around a couple years ago shopping for ratification, New Jersey was 3^rd to ratify, less than a month after Delaware and a few days after Pennsylvania. Now came this package of 10 Amendments to the Constitution (“In order to form a more perfect Constitution….”) going by the nickname, “The Bill of Rights.” New Jersey isn’t waiting around this time; the state is the first to ratify the entire package.

BOBBY KENNEDY. COPYRIGHT 1968, GEORGE BALLIS, TAKE STOCK, FROM CHILDREN;'S DEFENSE WEBSITE — RFK, 1968, hearing from a voter-someday about living in poverty……..

1925 Brookline, Massachusetts Birth of Robert F. Kennedy, politician. From a prominent family (father was eventually US Ambassador to Great Britain in the opening years of World War II; he was a defeatist and did NOT like Churchill) Robert joined the US Naval Reserve while studying at Harvard. In an ironic twist, he served as a seaman aboard a destroyer, the USS Joseph P Kennedy, named for his eldest brother who was killed early in the war. His brother, President John Kennedy, appointed him US Attorney General (and took the heat about nepotism). Robert was then elected to the Senate, then ran for President in 1968. Still hurts, but the flame burns in memory and in the deeds of many of us here at Daily Kos and throughout the nation….thanks to his inspiration….which has been Good News….

1934 Washington DC The midterm elections did NOT swing against the President’s party in his first term; the New Deal would continue. All those new agencies to regulate banks……and Wall Street…..and a minimum wage. It was all too much for the 1934’s 1% and they took action. On this day the McCormack–Dickstein Committee began examining evidence of the Business Plot against Franklin Roosevelt. On November 24 the committee released a statement about the plot and its preliminary findings, including testimony from retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler. Butler testified that Gerald McGuire, head of the American Legion (veterans of World War I; parallel to the VFW but much farther RW) offered him an army of 500,000 to march on Washington, with arms to be supplied by Remington Manufacturing (then a division of General Motors, whose president, Alfred Sloan, was in on the scheme), serious money, and the chance to make FDR into a figurehead. This exposure by the committee ruined the element of surprise and the plot fizzled. (A DailyKos Diary AT THIS LINK from 2014 will fill you in on some of the details.) Eerie parallels to Jan 6…..but it failed, making this a dark Good News moment.

Official portrait of Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing Office at the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)..This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. — Thank you, sir…...for everything…...”Salute”

1942 Scranton, PA Birth of Joseph Robinette Biden, politician. Family moved to Delaware when Joe was 11. Was marked as a rising star early on and was elected to the US Senate in 1972. Since he wasn’t sworn in until January of 1973, he just made the Constitutional minimum age requirement (30; Biden is the sixth youngest Senator ever elected.) Ran for President in 1988, losing the nomination to Dukakis. Elected Vice-President in 2008. Elected President in 2020, the oldest person ever elected to the office (82 today), and the first to have a woman (Harris) as Vice President.

1945 Nuremburg, Germany (The Ultimate BAD NEWS for BAD GUYS is Good News for everyone else) After all the atrocities inflicted upon civilians apart from the ravages of World War II, on this day the International War Crimes Tribunal opens. 24 Nazi leaders (22 in person, 1 in absentia) were charged with a new thing: war crimes and crimes against humanity, in particular, genocide against the Jewish people (Holocaust). After nine months trial in front of a panel of 9 judges (2 from the UK, 2 from France, 3 from the US and, most regrettably, 2 from the Soviet Union). 12 were found guilty and sentenced to death (including #3 Nazi Martin Bormann, in absentia), 3 sentenced to life imprisonment, 4 more were sentenced to between 10 and 20 years. 3 were acquitted.

Good News in Science & Engineering

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>In geography there are straits and there are isthmuses. Ismuthses (or ismuthsi?) are narrow strips of land between major bodies of water (think Panama). Straits are narrow channels of water separating notable land masses (Gibraltar between Europe & Africa; Cook Strait between the North and South Island of New Zealand.)

Now THAT is engineering at a very high pitch…...whew!

For centuries people have looked across the Strait of Messina and tried to figure out a way to link the Island of Sicily to mainland Italy. (Right at the point of the “toe of Italy” is about kickoff the “football of Sicily.”) There are old stories the Romans, clever engineers they were, managed to connect the two with a sort of pontoon bridge. A bridge has been proposed many times, defeated each time by the limits of then-current technology.

But NOW, as an actual Bridge spans the Dardanelles Strait and connects Turkey to Europe, there is inspiration and even hope. Bridge to connect Sicily to mainland Italy! THIS LINKED STORY notes this would be the World’s longest suspension bridge, but a remarkable effort!

Also on November 20ths of yesteryear:

Pedals on the front wheel!…..brakes, gears, inflatable tires, Spandex would come later…...

1866 Washington DC A French mechanic and inventor, Pierre Lallemont, has been working on a new idea to improve velocipedes, those 2 wheeled gizmos that steer at the front, have a saddle in the middle, and move by lightly striding (‘veloci-‘ from velocity, and ‘pede’ step/foot). This day Lallemont receives a US patent for his version that is powered by pedals mounted on the hub of the front wheel, a major step toward today’s bicycle. (Chain drive to the rear hub yet to come….but PEDALS!)

1889 Marshfield, Missouri Birth of Edwin Powell Hubble, astronomer. A gifted athlete in his youth he led the University of Chicago basketball team to their first conference title in 1907. Honoring his father’s wishes he studied law, earning a master’s in the field. Once his father died, he turned to his real passion, science, and particularly astronomy, earning a PhD in the field in 1917. In 1924, using a 100-inch telescope, he proved the existence of galaxies beyond that of the Milky Way (confirming an idea from Immanuel Kant as early as 1755) thereby proving the universe is a lot larger than had been thought. Combined with observations made by Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaitre, he advanced the idea of an expanding universe (Hubble-Lemaitre Law.) NASA’s orbital Hubble Telescope is named in his honor.

Edwin Hubble and his cat, — Dr. Hubble…..holding his CAT!…..who no doubt gave him ideas…….

Pleasingly posed on a couch…..Mom & daughter together

1914 Washington DC (Engineering impacts Society!) Taking advantage of advancing technology and particularly the Eastman-Kodak company’s widely available and inexpensive photographic film (supplanting glass plates), the US State Department this day imposes a new requirement: all US passports will be REQUIRED to contain a photograph of the holder. (Took a while for this to spread further; my first driver’s license was a paper one, with typed entries and a raised seal from the state of Ohio. A laminated one with a photo came on renewal in the early ‘70s. Made it harder to sneak into bars….)

1923 Cleveland, Ohio Garrett Morgan, the “Black Edison” was already quite famous for several of his inventions. (His gas mask had been adopted by the US Army in the trenches of World War I and had saved thousands of lives.) Driving around Cleveland (the first black man in the city to own a car, and one of the first to know how to drive) he witnessed a traffic accident. A carriage had been unable to pull to halt when the traffic signal changed from green to red while another vehicle, anticipating the change, was still rolling on the sudden green into the intersection. Morgan went to work tinkering and on this day received a patent for his improvement on traffic signals, one that used three lights (red-yellow (new in the middle)-green) to warn vehicle drivers of the coming change. Eventually sold the rights to General Electric, which manufactured them by the thousands. Still in use….101 years later…...as you may have noticed…….

Back in March this year I put up a couple profiles of a couple of American First Ladies and asked if anyone wanted more. The answer was yes, so since then on my monthly stint I’ve added one or two more, some obscure, many forgotten, and a few with her own profile. Today, well, the entire idea had to start with someone, so

Profile of the First “First Lady”

Martha Dandridge “I wasn’t always old like in most of the pictures you’ve seen of me” Custis Washington

Martha Dandridge was born June 2, 1731 at her father’s Virginia plantation (named “Chestnut Grove”), the first of 8 children. As the eldest, in her later childhood she had a hand in raising her siblings (the youngest of whom, a sister, was 25 years her junior.) Being born into a high circle she received a good women’s education from several tutors. Surprisingly, she was also a fine horsewoman; as a feisty teenager, one day she rode her horse down the road and turned up the lane to a relative. She rode…... into her uncle’s house, up and then down the main staircase. She escaped a major scolding because of her skill in pulling off that stunt.

When she was 19 she married David Custis, age 39. Custis was one of the wealthiest men in the English colonies, a tobacco grower with over 300 hundred slaves. The wedding was at his plantation (named “White House”) and the couple soon had 4 children. Sadly each of the first two died at age 3. When Custis was 46 (and Martha 26) Custis himself died of an infection. Surprisingly (for the times), his will left 1/3 of his entire estate to his widow Martha, and 1/3 each to his 2 remaining children (John and Martha--- “Patsy”). Each of these three received about $33,000 (today, about $1 million), and a portion of 17,000 acres of land. Martha showed excellent ability managing 5 different plantations and impressing agents of several London tobacco traders with her business acumen.

A year later (so 1757) during the winter social season she was introduced in Williamsburg to a militia colonel and member of the Virginia legislature, George Washington. After a rather deliberate and careful courtship, they married in January, 1759 at Martha’s “White House” plantation. Later in the year they moved to Washington’s mansion of “Mount Vernon.” Her wealth allowed for several improvements and in the next few years 2 new wings were added at George’s place. Theirs was a marriage of deep although very private love, as well as mutual and lively minds, with nearly every supper at Mount Vernon with yet another guest (of his or hers) having long conversations on every possible topic.

The Washingtons had no children of their own, but over the next 16 years George helped raise both his step children, John and “Patsy” as his own. (Sadly, Pasty suffered from epilepsy and died of a seizure at age 17. John later married, helped his mother keep Mount Vernon running during the Revolution, and eventually joined his step-father as a civilian aide-de-camp. During the Yorktown siege he contracted and died of typhoid fever at age 28.)

Martha went to be with George several times during the Revolution when the Army was in winter quarters, a great comfort to him. She led the wives of other high officers in sewing circles to mend uniforms for the men. After the Revolution succeeded they both retired to Mount Vernon, raising various nieces and nephews (as well as two children of John Custis, Martha’s grand children.)

When both were in their mid-50s George was called away to the Constituting Convention and then a couple years later was elected first President under the new Constitution.

Martha (now age 58) had mixed feelings about becoming a semi-public figure, not joining George in the temporary capitol of New York until 2 months after the first swearing-in. Her journey that spring from Virginia to join him was a sensation, and her short address at the end, thanking everyone for greeting her, is counted as the first “Public Speech” by a “First Lady” and was widely re-printed. (As everything was being started and invented, no one quite knew how to address either the President or Martha. After a while, they became, “His Excellency, the President” and “Lady Washington.” (About 9 years later, the new President Jefferson asked for a simple “Mr. President”, disliking the “too British” use of “Excellency”.)

Martha began a custom of having the Presidential home be open to the public for a reception every New Year’s Day (a custom observed every year until 1930.)

Also ….she (with George’s encouragement) also held a “drawing room” event every Friday evening that pointedly included women as well as men. Various events, amusements and entertainments were held, (a form of those nightly dinners at Mt. Vernon with topics of all sorts.) There was conversation and light refreshments until the stroke of nine p.m. (when the Washingtons bade the entire room “good night”). Aside from the inclusion of women, the other “house rule” at these drawing room events was “no political talk, please”, and if things drifted that way, a change of subject was always expected. (Otherwise, a fresh invitation for another Friday…...might not appear…...)

In 1790 the capital moved temporarily to Philadelphia, which Martha preferred to New York. She was closer to home in Virginia and it was easier for her to visit and family and friends to visit her. She enjoyed taking these to various sights around town and was a faithful attender of the Episcopal church every Sunday.

She was opposed to George accepting (and winning) a 2nd term and found the pageantry being invented around the Presidency to be empty and boring. She resented being accused (in opposition, “Anti-Federalist” newspapers) of putting on the airs of aristocracy, while at the same time being pilloried for being “too informal” at events. (She disliked paying daily attention to her clothes and hair and deliberately dressed in homespun clothing, believing this was more fitting for a republic.) She was quite relieved when George refused a third term so they could return to Mount Vernon.

He died of a throat infection a couple years later in 1799. Martha turned over running Mount Vernon to several relatives and quietly spent her days writing replies to letters. She passed away in 1802.

Good News in Arts, Literature and Music

>>>>>>» Not strictly speaking Arts…..or Literature…..or Music. But Goofy is as Goofy Does. And sometimes you gotta wonder. Now you have insurance, on various things, and your health, and even your very life, right? Sure. And as long as there has been insurance, there have been been people scheming to Collect on the Insurance with the insurance company none the wiser.

SOoooo….insurance companies take steps to protect themselves. They require police reports, or medical bills specifying what services were rendered. They want photographs of damages. All in all, fairly routine stuff.

And then…...then comes this story from Lake Arrowhead, California. A tony sort of place that attracts an upscale crowd, one who drive a Rolls Royce Ghost….or a Mercedes G63 AMG …. or a Mercedes E350. Several insurance companies compared notes, and found each of these 3 cars had been attacked…..in the same place…..on the same night…..in the same way. 4 owners had put in claims totaling $140,000 for damages to their vehicles caused by…….a bear. A rampant, runaway bear with a taste for high-end cars. BUT there was video AND THIS STORY tells the “bear” was….surprisingly behaving and acting…...like a Human. He just happened to LOOK like a bear….sort of. Claims denied and now…….arrests made on charges of insurance fraud…...

1897 Adelaide, Australia Birth of Margaret Sutherland, pianist, composer. (Not the typical birthplace for composers) From a well-to-do family that included artists and physicists, Margaret’s aunt first taught her piano. She then had further education from some German émigré professors and began performing publicly in her (and The) 20’s. (Was married for 20 years to a psychiatrist but ended in divorce; her ex was so upset by her composing he consulted colleagues about musical composing in a woman being a symptom of mental derangement.) Wrote a well-regarded number of vocal pieces as well as some instrumental works: a symphony, an opera, an orchestral tone poem. Also a good deal of chamber music (The Four Temperaments), several quartets and concertos, and some unusual works for voice, piano and orchestration.

A certain 20th century urgency….

YouTube Video

1976 Across the USA That NBC late-night show seems to be a hit, and there’s enough variety that all sorts of celebrities manage to get on the air. Tonight Saturday Night Live scores big, managing to snag George Harrison (THAT George…..of the Beatles “George”) as a musical guest! He is kind enough to perform one of his signature pieces…...But WAIT! Who is that playing with him, and singing along?? Rub your eyes, rock fans…..yes that really is Paul Simon(THAT Paul…...of the “& Garfunkel”).

48 years ago (and boy they looked young) and I’m still mesmerized…

YouTube Video

1986 Across the world. Back on October 1 the History Corner noted the first sale back in 1940 of a new line of children’s book called the “Little Golden Books”. At a time when children’s books were not common and often cost $2 or $3 a copy, Little Golden Books were aimed at toddlers and kindergartners and sold for 25 cents each. The line grew into a publishing legend and went international. On this day the one billionth (with a “B”) Little Golden Book was printed, another copy of ‘The Poky Little Puppy.’

____________________________________________________________________

Good wine…...good bread…...good friends…...

Alright I thank you for stopping by. Now please stay a while, have read, make a rec if you like, put up a comment. ADD your OWN Good News notes and stories. (These days we’ll take second helpings on all of these.) Thank you for visiting.

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

Yeah.......the L word.......Landslide

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 03, 2024 · 6:03 AM PST

2024/11/03 · 06:03

And those rocks are STILL Falling..........

Some random, ahead of Tuesday, thoughts on our Presidential Election.

An image of the White House — Public Housing

>>>>>>>Nugget #1. 1856. (I do the History Corner around here over at the daily Good News Round Up, so you kinda had to expect some history in this post.) 1856! What you will see on Tuesday is something not seen since 1856 in American history.

You see, Joe Biden has been President the last 4 years. A Democrat. He has not died in office. He HAS chosen to step down after 1 term. Kamala Harris, a Democrat, looks to succeed him. 1 Democrat …..2nd Democrat.

So? Well, in US history, for the Democratic Party, the LAST TIME a Democrat succeeded another Democrat NOT BY REASON OF DEATH…...was 1856. Franklin Pierce decided 1 term was enough and chose not to run. Fellow Democrat James Buchanan won the nomination and handily defeated the last gasp of the dying Whig Party, brushed aside the “American Party” (the “Know Nothings” who were anti-immigrant) and had little trouble fending off that new kid on the block, the Republicans (formed in 1854.) Oh it was true the Republicans picked a rugged frontiersman and war hero, John Fremont, to carry their banner, but Buchanan won.

But after that? The next Democrat elected President was Cleveland, who was succeeded after each of his non-consecutive terms by a Republican, first by GOPer Harrison in 1888, and then again by Republican McKinley in 1892. Wilson got two terms but Harding started a string of 3 Republicans. FDR won election 4 times…..and died in office to pass the baton to Truman….who, in 1952 could NOT pass it to Stevenson.

Once again in 1960, JFK was killed in office but Johnson in 1968 could NOT pass the office to Humphrey. Carter only had one term. Clinton had 2….and was followed by the Shrub. Obama had 2….and, well, you know…..

By contrast for the Republicans, Lincoln, killed in office, and Johnson was followed by Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Arthur. McKinley, killed in office, nonetheless was followed by fellow Republicans Roosevelt and Taft. The 1920s string has been noted. Most recently, Reagan in 1988 passed on the Executive to Bush the Elder.

So, with the election at hand, YOU have another chance to see History before your eyes.

>>>>>>>>Nugget #2. How significant will 2024 be as an election? The “polling” has been ridiculously tight/close/neck-and-neck/…...according to the increasingly hamstrung pollsters and the demented media types who simply do NOT KNOW HOW to report elections except as a “horse race.”

But let me ask this. In 2020 Biden got 81 million votes, Trump 74 million. Every single year about 2.5 million Americans die, mostly of natural causes and overwhelmingly from the Over 65 cohort of the population. That’s 10 million gone, and they are the heaviest voting age group. According to Roper, Trump won the over 65 age group in 2020 52%-45.

In very crude terms it is suggestive to say there are 5.2 million fewer Trump voters around here in 2024 (10 million X 52%). We can increase this number OR give it greater reliability by including the excess COVID-19 deaths that occurred at higher rates among the NON-Vaccinated/horse pasting/ bleach drinkers.

My math says, very roughly of course, that Trump is (and will have a fair chance to be) UNDER 70 million votes this time, just on this alone. Where can he find “replacements”? (What pool is there of voters who “Voted for Biden in 2020, but I regret it and now I’m for Trump.”? Where do they live?)

>>>>>>>>>>Nugget #2A Well one place to look is at the other end of the voting lists. Every year about 4 million Americans turn 18 years old and become eligible to VOTE, so there is a pool of 16 million possible voters out there.

BUT things are different among the Youth. When Biden rang up 81 million votes 4 years ago, he won the 18-29 age demographic by 60-36%. In 2024 that would mean at the same split Harris could be looking to add 9.6 million new votes to the Democratic column. Again, the crude math says 81 +9.6 million = 90.6 million.

OK, ok, so we can also chip off the 45% of deaths in the Biden column (4.5 million or less) and take this down to 86.1 million.

BUT I say on the basis of this crude calculation alone, that the chances Harris gets 86-87 million votes is FAR MORE LIKELY than Trump can even MATCH his 74 million from 2020. (And THEN you can throw in the Dobbs decision/economic recovery/people being called “garbage”/Project 2025, and I think there is a fair chance at a 90 million-70 million split by Friday morning. A 56-44% gap (and in American presidential politics, landslides start at 10 point gaps….)

>>>>>>» Nugget 3

A) Early voting ended in Georgia. 4.0 million early and mail-in votes…..from a total turnout in 2020 in Georgia of 4.9 million. That sounds…..enthusiastic! (And which candidate has the more enthusiastic rallies that people want to get INTO and don’t LEAVE EARLY from?)

B) Early voting total in Texas has reached 8.8 million. In 2020 11.0 million votes were cast in Texas...another whopping high percentage coming out ENTHUSIASTICALLY! Oh, and in Texas? There is a history of Low Turnout; that 11 million in 2020 was only 53% of eligible voters.

Now, and after last Sunday’s Madison Square Garden Hatefest, calling Puerto Ricans “garbage”, there is fury in the land. More significant are several reports of Latino communities of all origins saying out loud and to each other “We are ALL PUERTO RICANS now!”…….and in Texas, that 11 million from 2020? 53% of voters? Ummm…..the Latino/Hispanic people in Texas are 39.% of the total population…..which is 11 million all by themselves……

C) Iowa Ann Seltzer’s polling operation is the Gold Standard for the state. In June she polled the state and found Trump with an 18 point lead over Biden. She polled again in late September and reported Trump leading Harris…..by 4. Now her new/last poll (conducted Oct. 28-31) has been released : Harris 47 Trump 44. Sooooo…….

>>>>>>>>>>Nugget #4 Ok, so I have had the occasional dream of being a numbers geek. It comes over me now and again. There is this running, growing narrative of Democratic/ Independent/ women’s enthusiasm for Harris, right? Unlikely voters. New voters. “Low-propensity” voters. The kind that pollsters have nightmares about …..because they are unlikely….new...etc. There have been scattered reports/hopes/fingers crossed that RVATs (Republicans voting against Trump, an actual organization) and Nikki Haley primary voters and old school Republicans who are still patriots or are sick and tired of the MAGAs more than we are and women voting with gusto/fury in the secrecy of the voting booth are signs of defecting/flipping Republicans.

Now the thing with FLIPS is that a vote comes off of Pile A and goes on to PILE B, making a net swing of 2. In a re-aligning sort of election how many are doing this? Some have said/wished it is 25% of GOP voters are voting for Harris this (maybe just one) time (a number comparable to the traditional union members who were reliably Democratic for decades, but who voted in 1980 for Reagan at 22%-28% levels, the start of “Reagan Democrats.”)

25% would be staggering. But maybe 15%? Ok, I said to my inner nerd, “How about if its 10%? What would be the impact in each state and on the election as a whole?”

SO, taking the results from 2020, state by state, reducing the Republican total for Trump by 10%, then adding that number to the Biden total for that state for a possible Harris total. What happens?

A) Harris wins! :-)

B) All those 2020 swing states (PA, GA, WI, MI, AZ, NV) are all safely Harris.

C) Are there any states that under this approach would swing/flip from Trump to (Biden)Harris? YES. Like which ones? Alphabetically (and with electoral votes noted) the Flips are: Alaska (3), Florida (30), Iowa (6), Maine-district 2 (1), North Carolina (16), Ohio (18), and Texas (40).

Wow….with a 10% shift. Alaska? OHIO???? Florida AND Texas???? Yep….that’s what 10% would do. (And 10% ALMOST flips South Carolina; if that would happen the ENTIRE Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Key West would be as blue as the Pacific…..:-))

Oh and the Electoral College vote would move from the solid Biden 306 Trump 232 to a jaw-dropping Harris 420 and Trump 118.

Unlikely? Somewhat. But in a landslide election there are surprises (“this district hasn’t gone for a Republican since 1946, Frank!”).

And in my estimation, the pleasant surprises (along with the jaw-dropping ones), in 2024 are on the side of the Landslid-ER (Harris) and NOT the Landslid-EE.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for reading. Blessings on us all for the living through of these Days!

Shalom.

GNR of Mid-Month: Global Cats, Good News, Cats, Democracy, & Cats

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday October 16, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/10/16 · 04:00

Toby (Tyler) the Cat…..on Global Cat Day…...your co-host for the GNR today!

(In today’s GNR you will notice various moments of asides to and from Toby the Cat (who is very focused on this being Global Cat Day and is insisting on being present today in these asides)……...Well, now, if you would just roll off part of the keyboard this would go better…….Toby! yes, yes I’ll use SpellCheck…...but I don’t always believe it…..)

(Clears throat...) Good morning Good Newsers here at the Round Up! While this IS the 3rd Wednesday of the month and is ostensibly (ostensibly, I say!) hosted by yours truly, WineRev, I find I have been…….displaced! Toby the Cat has made it purr-fectly clear that Global Cat Day, October 16th this year, SHALL BE of, by, for and centered around CATS!

Other 4-pawed and/or feathered and/or shaggy and/or scaly companions of humans, and even humans themselves, will be noted here and there, but the CATS are the big deal…...so says and declares Toby (the Tyler) of the SageHagRN & WineRev House. (Mee-yow!)

With 20 days to go to save democracy and save the world we can all use some Good News to smooth things over and give ourselves a little breathing room. So this daily column appears here at DailyKos, full of stories, links and thoughts of uplift, hope, forward-osity, as well as a barrage of brickbats, throwing knives and manure trebuchets aimed at THOSE who are glooming and dooming our country, our people, our neighbors, our friends, our hopes, our dreams. We WILL dare to hope and vote for and hail those who appeal to the better angels of our nature.

The Gnuville (as in “Good News” fans---Gnus….who live in Gnuville…..) Breakfast Brunch is hereby opened like a can of fresh tuna (right, Toby? You can hear the electric opener on the can from three floors away and arrive faster that beaming in on ‘Star Trek.’) In addition to the freshest of fresh water in the bowl over there by the floor cupboard, there is also hot coffee, hot tea, hot mocha-cocoa and icy mimosas to meet the hydraulic intake needs of those arriving bi-pedal-ly and with opposable thumbs.

Meanwhile, in addition to freshly opened, scooped, forked through, and 7-seconds zapping in the microwave over to the Feline Feeding Station, the rest of you arriving at the Brunch should feel free to munch down cereals hot or cold, fresh baked or newly re-heated bread-like stuff, toasts (hot and cold: sliced stuff that pops up, or flutes chiming together at the Mimosa Bar, but toasting is toasting!) and whatever proteins before noon get your synapses snapping.

Below you will find links and stories of the Good Persuasion, as well as my custom of noting the October 16ths of yesteryear and the Good News Moments that should be trotted out at least once a year for a round of applause. And below all of THAT, you will find YOU…...your comments, recs, likes, links, extensions, digressions, randomly triggered thoughts that need to be written down and posted, and your chuckles on the wry side of life, because all of that and the threads that grow and produce threads of threads….of threads…..well that’s what we like about the Internet and this is a place where that happens ……..and happens well.

Global Cat Day

As you can tell, Toby the Cat has insisted that the theme of this October 16th note that this is Global Cat Day, lifting up the relationship between humans and felines. Now much of the Day is focused around “community cats” (AKA “feral” cats) and the humane process of TNR (“Trap/Neuter/Return”) to keep everyone in some sort of balance. For instance, there is this explanation of the day in a little video from Paris:

YouTube Video

(Pssst!…...Now, while Toby is watching that little video with a certain fascination, we have a chance to move to the more usual Good News Round Up Stuff, like…..)

Good News in Society and Politics

>>>>>>» The wretched yet worrisome “Project 2025” has rightly caused concern across large swaths of the political spectrum---a detailed wish list/hit list of what a self-righteous bunch of semi-criminals (less semi-, more trials, please) wants to do to US. Us, as in EVERYBODY. How everybody? Well since the P25 is from a very twisted position on anything and everything sexual, they call for a very broad definition of “pornography”, linked to a wholesale “rollback” of pornographers…...including people who look at it.

But now it looks like they may have gone too far. A political group (!) calling itself HANDS OFF MY PORN is attacking Project 2025 with just that slogan…...as well as practical ideas for political activism.

>>>>>» Then there is Liz Cheney, fighting the Good fight from inside her political home. She was righteous during the J6 hearings and has NOT backed down since. The other week she appeared on the same stage with Kamala Harris at a political rally, calling on patriots to vote AGAINST TRUMP. Over the weekend, she went on the venerable “Meet the Press” show and did not spare her language. SHE FLAT OUT CALLED Trump a “fundamentally cruel” person (you don’t hear THAT phrase on national TV very often!) and then went all the way to rim of the crater and called him a “fascist.” He is, and the crew with him is dangerous, so it’s good that this flat out, straight from the shoulder sort of talk is in circulation. No, it won’t sway the members of the cult, but there are others who will pay attention…...infrequent voters (that never make it past a “Likely voter” screen in a poll)…..newly registered voters of various ages….and THAT is important.

>>>>>» Out in Montana, Dem Senator Jon Tester is locked in tight race for re-election. Winning as a Democrat statewide in Montana is a tall order, but Tester has done it ~~twice~~ three times (fixed!) and is close to doing it again. Now, being Montana, do you think there are a good number of voters of the “’Murkan Militia/I hate gummit” types as a percentage of the voter pool? Think many of them are potential Tester voters? Or will they pull the lever for the GQP guy Sheehy?

But now, in a potential moment of Grinning Karma, there is THIS ON THE GROUND report from Montana. Tester might get help getting re-elected from…...the Montana Legislature! The GQP-controlled lege. Seems they passed a raft of “voter fraud prevention” laws, and, as the piece lays out, it could well mean that 50,000+ people of the anti-government persuasion will NOT BE ALLOWED TO VOTE on November 5th. Seems they won’t have proof of residence….. (and 50,000 votes off of Sheehy’s pile…..in a close race…….)

(What? Oh, yes, Toby, you’re back from the Paris Cat video. What? Oh, yes, that’s a good idea…..yes, yes, and not just because it includes cats…...well, for you it is the only thing, but humans are a bit different. OK, I’ll put it up….)

I have just been insistently reminded (in the manner of “it’s 4:45am and time to feed me, Toby the cat, so get up….”) that back in August the Vance of Vanity has been insulting people who love and care for cats, especially throwing cat litter at “childless cat ladies”. Well here are 2 talented ladies who have written a song about that, and part of it is even in Feline:

YouTube Video

When you finish snickering over that well-fingered defense of Cats and the Ladies (and fellows too) who love them, there have been moments in politics & society on October 16ths from years ago that are worth setting before you for a read and a ponder.

1781 Yorktown, VA The American-French siege of Cornwallis’ army was formally begun October 8. Both sides have dug entrenching lines, with the British line featuring small forts called ‘redoubts.’ After consulting with French General Rochambeau (a professionally trained, career soldier who knew about knew sieges), the willing-to-learn Washington draws up plans to take Redoubts 9 & 10 to doom Cornwallis. Rochambeau (never having seen the Americans in a battle) offers to take both redoubts with his professional troops. The Marquis de Lafayette argues passionately for an Allied joint operation. Washington orders Lafayette & Alexander Hamilton pick men for their attack on #9 and for Rochambeau’s troops to take number 10.

He was 24 in 1781….and not takin’ no guff off no-Body, not even his fellow Frenchman Rochambeau…….

This night Rochambeau appeals to Washington, again offering to take both posts with his professionals. After a private, heated conversation between Rochambeau and Lafayette (still sticking up for the Americans…..oh, to have been a French-speaking mouse in the room for THAT exchange!), Washington leaves the plans settled. Both assaults go forward at first light on the 17^th. Lafayette and Hamilton’s troops fall on the British garrison with only the bayonet and force surrender in 10 minutes. As soon as it is clear this fight is over, on signal from Lafayette, 2 American messengers carrying identical letters in French take off running to the French commander engaging #10. Lafayette wrote, “We have taken #9 already and are standing ready to assist our allies. Are you in need of reinforcements?” (You can see the nails being buffed on the lapel…...With a swagger like that (and sticking up for Les Americains even among his French compatriots), well, it’s part of why those colonial Americans loved Lafayette.)

1829 Boston When you were a traveler back then, where did you spend the night apart from family and friends? Under a bush? A borrowed barn? An inn or tavern’s upper room? Welcome to the new age. As designed by Isaiah Rogers, an early US architect, the Tremont House opens this day as the first modern hotel in America. (Local pronunciation is trem-mont; never tree-mont.) A four-story, granite-faced handsome place, it is noted for several 1sts: bellhops, individually locking guest rooms, a lobby/reception area, free soap for guests. Off of the lobby there was a ‘Women’s Ordinary’ a women’s-only dining room for female guests traveling unaccompanied by a man. Running cold water was availably by taps in every room thanks to a water tank on the roof that was fed by a steam-powered pump in a well. Bathing rooms, featuring tin tubs built by a coffin company, were available in the basement, where stoves would provide hot water to mix with the cold. Many of these features were endlessly copied for decades across America as hotels everywhere bragged they, too, were “in the Tremont style”

(Kept leading the industry too! In 1869 it was the first hotel in the US to feature indoor plumbing in 2 restrooms on each floor.) (The future is bright for the coming of Motel 6…)

THE Tremont Hotel……...Free parking in the livery stable, too (hay and water extra…..)

“Dinner at the White House was tasty…….”

1901 Washington DC President Theodore Roosevelt has a formal meeting with Booker T Washington at the White House in a wide-ranging conversation, including race and civil rights. The meeting starts fairly late in the day and Roosevelt is enjoying himself, so he invites Washington to stay for dinner. He does and the chat continues, as Washington becomes the first black person to dine at the White House. For months afterwards bigots decry Roosevelt for being a “race traitor” and for “besmirching the White House”, etc. etc. Roosevelt does not apologize or back down; in its own way, another step toward a better society (and in its way, a fore-runner of the 60’s “lunch counter sit-ins.” After all, it is a sign of serious social problems when a spontaneous dinner or a burger, fries and a Coke set off demonstrations.)

1916 Brooklyn, NY Not just Brooklyn, but 46 Amboy Street. That 33-year-old woman! Is at it again. Margaret Sanger has been making “good trouble” for women everywhere. She has coined the term “birth control.” She has been jailed for mailing information about it, on grounds of sending ‘obscene material’ through the mail system. (The SAME “Comstock Act” law on the books from 1873 regarding mailing “obscene material” that the GQP is trying to revive in OUR DAY…...grrrr.)

On this day she opens America’s (maybe the world’s?) first birth control clinic. In a few days it was closed, and Sanger was in jail again for ‘creating a public nuisance’ ……but she persisted. Met with other forward thinkers to found Planned Parenthood and set up clinics across the country while defending them in court. She raised public havoc with the AMA to make birth control and sexual health part of medical school curriculums (which happened in the 1930s.)

MargaretSanger-Womenwaitingoutsidefirstbirthcontrolclinic.jpg — 46 Amboy Street…..and that woman…….Margaret Sanger

A few years before Davis made …..General

1940 Washington DC There were free black men in George Washington’s Continental Army (which made him and other Southern slave owners uncomfortable.) In the early 1860s black men began volunteering for the Union cause, and certain states (e.g. Massachusetts (the 54th) welcomed them into the ranks. After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 eventually 180,000 served in the Union ranks, every one of them a volunteer. Some rose to be non-commissioned officers, and here and there, some were commissioned. It took until now but on this day Benjamin O. Davis becomes the first Black man in US history to rise to the rank of GENERAL in the American Army.

Cats, Women and Democracy

(Alright, yes, you ARE right, Toby. Enough of those people things and reading! Time to see or at least hear about some more cats…..OK, how about this one? Yes, I’ll introduce it…..)

Yes, yes we have all heard since August about “childless cat ladies”, usually delivered with a sneer, from JD Vance and His Minions of Mousebrains (garage band from 1979?). But much to my surprise and wonderment, and with a charming assist from SageHagRN, in ransacking history, cats and democracy, there actually have been links among these three.

Most tellingly, the 1900 and 1910s suffragettes! These determined women (and their broad-thinking male allies) were campaigning hard for the “the vote for women” and its enshrinement in the Constitution as the 19th Amendment (which came in 1920.) In 1916 41-year- old Alice Burke, and 26-year-old Nell Richardson went on a publicity drive across America……literally a drive, and literally across the country (and back!) (180 days, 10,700 miles…..with Alice doing nearly all the driving…..in 1916!)

The Saxon Motor Car Company (Detroit, 1913-1922) loaned them a 4-cylinder “Flier” for the journey, which they re-named the “Golden Flier” due to the (suffragette!) yellow paint job. They set out April 6, 1916 from New York City, with pictures, a ceremonial “christening” of the radiator, many good wishes, and….(according to Toby, THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY) someone pressed through the crowd and gave them a smoky black little CAT. Alice & Nell named him for the car, “Saxon” and then, with cheering from the sidewalks, they were escorted by 30 (count ‘em!) cars in a procession through Manhattan to the Weehawken Ferry (to take them into New Jersey.)

Mind you, the road network in 1916 meant that as soon as they left any town, the roads usually were dirt (or, in bad weather, mud.) There were no gas stations; you’d buy gasoline or kerosene at a hardware store. And what if you had a mechanical problem? Well, as one San Jose newspaper later in their journey noted for readers:

“[The Saxon has] a complete camping outfit with a mass of other equipment. The little car carries a surprisingly large load. Stored away in it are extra parts in almost sufficient number to build a new car, 20 dresses each for the two occupants, ten shirtwaists apiece, two raincoats, two heavy coats, two sweaters and a lot of literature which is being distributed along the route.” They also packed blankets, a typewriter, a “fireless” cooker, a sewing machine and a kodak (1916 slang for “camera”—-don’t you know :-))

They each had 7 set speeches they could deliver as needed. They smuggled “Saxon” in and out of hotels and rooming houses (no hotels were “pet friendly” in 1916)----and little “Saxon” made it all the way back to New York City in their company. Along the Mexican border they acquired a revolver——just in case—— and heard nearby shooting between Mexico’s Pancho Villa and General Pershing’s American army troops chasing him across the deserts of the Southwest.

The Seal Cove Auto Museum has this sample of a Saxon “Golden Flier” in the “Saffron” or even “Jonquil” paint job. (Displayed with the top down; it’s a convertible. No electric starter; someone had to turn the starting crank in front every time.) Burke & Richardson painted the names of major cities along their way on the door and added the dates as they passed.

So……friends and neighbors……the cats and the ladies have been saying “Get the vote!” and “Get OUT the vote!” for at least 108 years.

Women who vote roar like a lioness!

A CHARMING and informative 6 page write up of their full journey campaigning for the Vote is AT THIS PDF LINK.

The two ladies stopped in Yuma, AZ on their drive. The Yuma Public Library has added a children’s book about their journey to their shelves (2020, author Mara Rokliff...DOUBTLESS a book the Project 2025 bastards would like to ban….). The Library produced this 8-minute You Tube about the book and the journey as you can click on HERE:

YouTube Video

A couple of excerpted quotes from both the PDF and the YouTube

When interviewers puzzled about the sewing machine and typewriter, (Mrs. Burke) said, “If any anti-suffragist down in Texas makes remarks about suffrage destroying women’s feminine talents, it will be Miss Richardson’s cue to get out the sewing machine and run off an apron while the crowd waits. If, on the other hand, he says women have no brains, she will pull out the typewriter and write him a poem.”

At their stop in Minneapolis (having reached San Diego, driven North to Washington, and now across the northern tier of states) Alice (Burke) gave a speech to a mixed audience of men and women. She bore down on the line: “You men should read editorial pages rather than sport columns to vote intelligently.”-------Just how much has changed in 108 years…..or not?

* * * * *

Good News in Science and Engineering

>>>>>>>>» Animal life on this planet uses various forms of energy, including low-voltage forms of electricity. (Certain crisp winter days, static electricity comes off as a bit more than “low” voltage.) In medical science certain wounds and conditions are treated in part with micro-pulses of electricity to speed healing. Now comes exciting word that a team of scientists have developed a new form of sutures (surgical sewing!) that use the body’s own electricity to speed healing. I must admit, THE STORY AT THIS LINK leaves me tingling with excitement……

>>>>». Sometimes Hollywood’s science fiction is just that, fiction, with a raft of special effects to decorate a plot line. But once in a while, they get something eerily RIGHT. Sometimes this is very cool (‘Star Trek’---personal communicators (and smartphones….now?); also the “bio-beds” in sick bay that let Dr. McCoy take readings, like, say, body temperature, with just a touch on the bed (anyone had their temp taken with a swipe of the brow?).

Other times, it could be warning. Remember “The Terminator”? Time travel from Earth’s future that involved a global war between humans and their own machines, machines that had super-intelligence (in a narrow sense) that decided humans needed to be erased from the planet.

So…..let’s NOT do that, OK? And it’s not just me saying that. Last week some super smart physicists who won the Nobel Prize for their work on Artificial Intelligence (AI) AT THIS LINK are warning against their OWN CREATION. Forewarned is forearmed…….

In years past October 16ths have been pretty quiet for science and engineering, but there are a couple items:

1846 Boston This day dentist William Morton gives the first successful demonstration of the use of ether to a group of doctors assembled for the occasion at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dental work clearly could be far less painful…...and clearly this could mean something important for surgery as well. (It did; the Crimean War of 1854 and the US Civil War of the 1860s were the first wars where the wounded could be operated on while under anesthesia. Recovery rates were sharply better….)

1900 New York City Frank Sprague was fascinated by electrical motors. After graduating from Annapolis and serving a stint in the US Navy, in 1882 he was hired to work for Thomas Edison. While he picked up a good deal of theoretical and practical knowledge, he and Edison did not get along and Sprague left 2 years later. He developed practical electrical motors (a subject that bored Edison but fascinated Sprague; part of why the 2 of them parted) to mount in streetcars

(using Edison’s electrical grid.) He later received a patent for “regenerative braking” that used the energy created from that motion to recharge batteries and motors (all new EVs here in 2024 use this to extend driving range between charges.)

On this day Sprague receives a patent for “multi-control for handling electric trains”, allowing a central station (like Grand Central here in New York) to direct, track and even re-route every car in the system of city streets. Made city transportation feasible in every large city in the world. His work with motors also increased the power and speed of elevators, allowing for more efficient warehouses and taller buildings, even “skyscrapers”, changing the profile and skyline of every city in the world. (And no, I had never heard of this American inventor either before this Corner. The stuff I’m still learning...)

Good News in Arts, Literature, Music…..and FUN

(Yes, yes…..that’s a good idea…..I’ll tell them. OK, Toby…..)

In the last few months I’ve been usually posting one or two First Lady profiles, but today IS Global Cat Day, and certainly deserves something else (although maybe we can still work in the White House…..) Now Toby points out to me that Sir Lawrence of #10 Downing St. in London is an internationally famous cat (known commonly as “Larry the Cat”...you can READ A PROFILE HERE ON LARRY). Toby himself of course is widely known on both floors AND THE BASEMENT of the house here in Minnesota.

Lately a grey tabby who goes by “Willow” has been noted as keeping the Bidens in line at the White House. But Toby is curious…….what other cats ….or, even…..sigh…..dogs….. or even other critters….have been housed in the White House over the years? (But especially the Cats?)

A lot of First Horses and First Dogs for the White House

(Well OK Toby, here you go.)

The White House had hosted (or stabled) a host of critters over the past 200+ years. Many horses of course, given transportation back then, and (sorry, Toby) there have been a long string of dogs, starting with dog breeder George Washington himself (noted for his work with the American Foxhound breed.)

In 1807 President Jefferson had 40 sheep grazing on the First Lawn, (as did Harding in the 1920s) while both Harrisons and Mr. Lincoln also featured a First Goat. Other critters have included several house birds: parrots (Martha Washington, Madison, Jackson, Grant, McKinley), canaries (Tyler, Harding, Coolidge, JFK), and mockingbirds (Jefferson, Cleveland.)

More unusual were elephants (Buchanan, Eisenhower, Carter----all gifts from Asian rulers and all donated to a zoo.) Both Benjamin Harrison and Hoover kept pet possums, and the same pair (40 years apart) also each kept alligators in the White House Conservatory.

Among the exotic, Louisa Adams (First Lady to JQ Adams) raised silkworms, and harvested the silk for her own use. Harding kept a pet squirrel. Both Arthur and JFK featured a First Rabbit.

The Theodore Roosevelt White House (6 children!) was a true menagerie: beyond the ordinary horses and dogs, there were: a Lizard, a Garter Snake, a Macaw, a small black bear (later, when “not as small”, sent to a zoo), a pet Rat, a badger, and---a gift from the Emperor of Ethiopia---- a laughing hyena (also soon donated to a zoo.)

“All God’s critters got a place in the White House…….”

But yes, dear Toby (and Larry and Willow) there have been First Cats.

Van Buren received 2 tiger cubs as a gift from the Sultan of Oman (Congress quickly directed these be sent to a zoo.)
Abe Lincoln adored Tabby … and Dixie (“...who is smarter than my whole Cabinet.”)
Rutherford Hayes accepted an Italian cat named for an Italian general of their war for unification: Piccolomini. The Hayes’ also received Siam and Miss Pussy from that Southeast Asian nation now called Thailand, the first known Siamese cats in the United States.
Despite the Spanish-American War, McKinley accepted 2 Angora kittens from Spain, Valesimo and Enrique.
Wilson had Puffins; Coolidge had Blacky and Tiger (“Tige”) and JFK answered to Tom Kitten.
Ford followed Hayes with a Siamese named Shan.
The Carter White House welcomed Amy’s cat, a Siamese, the grandly named Misty Malarky Ying Yang.
Reagan owned a California ranch where he kept a few Presidential horses (for the first time for a President in decades.) Cleo and Sara were a couple tortoiseshells that kept the horses amused at the ranch.
The casual Clinton was set off by his formal tuxedo cat, Socks.
Bush the Lesser and Laura had India…...the last First Feline before the current Biden watcher, Willow.

Oh, and just how do Toby’s house pets (SageHagRN and WineRev) view the current political situation from a cat’s point of view?

Well, this is in front of the Toby House:

Because anything on a surface has to be knocked off to the floor…….

Toby says (being the wise Feline that he is) that the best way of dealing with nasty 2-foots is, if you can’t claw them, then yowl at them…...you know, mock them and make fun of them. Well there is a current pop star out there who goes by “The Kiffness” as a stage name. After the Trump meltdown over Springfield Ohio being invaded by pet eaters…..to the round mockery by millions…..Kiffness was inspired (Inspired, I say!) to put together a little ditty…...that even includes a clip from the debate:

YouTube Video

(While Toby the Cat is enjoying yowling at the Orange Menace along with all these humans of Paris, we have time to put a bow on this section…..)

Plenty of fun and music already in this Round Up, so here’s quick look at what tickled the fancy on older October 16ths:

1679 Lounovice, Bohemia (now Czech) Birth of Jan Dismas Zelenka, composer. Very little known about his early life except that his father was a schoolmaster and organist, so likely Jan’s first music teacher. Earned a music degree in Prague playing the string bass. Lived many years in Dresden and was noted as a virtuoso on the instrument. Composing in the period of Cherubini and Handel (acquainted with both) Zelenka broke new ground with surprising harmonies and counterpoints, and his own talent both with the pen and the bow moved composers to write good stuff for basses, rather than simply having them fill out the bottom of a chord. A large body of sacred pieces, including 12 Masses, and numerous hymns and sacred works, while also writing several sonatas, and some charming small works for groups of 5 to 10 instruments.

A Trio Sonata for Oboes and Bassoon

YouTube Video

1938 Chicago Those composers can be pretty creative. This night marks the premiere of Aaron Copland’s new work, a ballet. And which Classical period? A Greek legend? An Etruscan tale? The title says it all, a ballet entitled “Billy the Kid.” DOUBLEHEADER DATE AND COMPOSER….. 1942 Doubtless seeing October 16 as a lucky date, here in 1942, Copland is back with ANOTHER ballet that no one in world history had ever considered putting into a ballet. At New York’s Met Opera House, with choreography by Agnes de Mille, Copland’s NEW BALLET opens: “Rodeo.” Ballet fans everywhere still turn their heads, while American audiences are….kinda proud….

Under the baton of Copeland himself….

YouTube Video

1968 Mexico City, Mexico At the Summer Olympic Games, during the award ceremony for the men’s 200 meter dash, gold medalist Tommie Smith (19.83, a world record) and bronze medalist John Carlos both drop their eyes during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. Each also holds up a clenched fist in a salute to “Black Power” to protest injustice and racism against African Americans. You know what this could lead to, don’t you? Black baseball team managers……black football players in “skill positions”…….Asian ice skaters…. Black gymnasts……my Lord, even the idea of a Black president…..

1969 New York City. Back in 1962, with both the Giants and the Dodgers having relocated away from New York, the National League re-establishes a new franchise, the New York Mets (Metropolitans) managed by Casey Stengel. Their first season they set a record in futility, managing to lose 120 games (out of 162), but somehow won fans, perhaps by pity alone. Yet 7 years later, beating odds listed at 100-1, “The Miracle Mets” not only win the pennant, but on this day, with a 5-3 win over the Orioles, win the World Series in 5 games.

_______________________________________

OK, friends and neighbors, what’s the Good News for today? What have you found? What can you share? Got a comment? A rec? A question? A chuckle? Put ‘em one and all into the comments below!

A glass of wine...a loaf of bread…..a cat beside me…..ah, life…...

(Yes, Toby, you can sit on SageHagRN’s lap now for a nap…..she promises not to move anymore while watching “Home and Garden Channel”…….sheesh…...)

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

September GNR: Strong Women & the White House, Past & ARRIVING!

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 18, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/09/18 · 04:00

no image description available — God has given wine (or beer) to gladden the hearts of people.....Psalm 104

Welcome/Willkommen/Terre Tulevast/ to this 3rd Wednesday of the Month Good News Round Up! This hearty and refreshing corner of the Internet (in this corner of the Internet called DailyKos) is a spot for daily refreshment of mind, heart and spirit. There are stories, accounts, and other moments of NON-Doom News, Sports and Weather(<<---— which you can get anywhere ELSE on the semi-political Internets.) Yes we follow politics here, and typically from the Left side of US Politics, but please stay a while and peruse articles and links that you have not met before, or even politicians and public persons that had not yet caught your notice. (As usual, those who HAVE caught your eye and ear frequently have something new to say (especially in a Presidential election year), and you can read a lot of them and their latest antics here at DailyKos, and even here at the Good News Round Up.)

The Gnuville Breakfast Brunch is open in hearty style, so bring in what ever winds your clock this morning: coffee, tea, mocha-cocoa, and even mimosas or morgen bier. Set yourself up with your favorite breakfast munchies, whether from the toaster, the microwave, the skillet or even from that box up there, a bowl down here, and a merry meeting of milk, cereal and spoon. All sorts of Wi-s and Fi-s are interacting overhead and around the corners, so that your particular screen lights up in delight from pixel to pixel. Below the assembled Masses and messes you will find the Most Important Part of this Entire Posting: YOUR stories, comments, questions, digressions, snipped off digressions, lasso-ed digressions brought back from low-earth orbit, and all sorts of reasons for wry smiles and the odd chuckle.

(As is my custom, you’ll also spot moments from September 18ths of decades and even centuries ago…..and yet on September 18ths they decided to happen, and someone noticed, remembered and/or wrote it down. Or someone else on a September 18th dug up something, or set brush to canvas, or bow to string, or even chalk to equation, and voila…...September 18th was worth remembering.)

Personal Note

……..Now some of you may also be wondering just why is it that the monthly WineRev diary, that typically features an attractive glass of wine as a header, is this month featuring a solid two liters of Munich’s finest brew? Well, last year, Father’s Day 2023, daughter WineRev-ette, and son WineRev-er, took the old man out for dinner and passed over an envelope. The note inside said, “We loved going on roadtrips when we were kids. We want to do it again! So Dad…..anywhere you want the three of us to go for a NEW Roadtrip!”

I joked that “I guess I’ll finally get to see Tahiti!” They were both dead serious: “If that’s what you want...” Hooo boy! Well, after pondering for a few weeks I told them, “How about, autumn of 2024, we take in Oktoberfest….in Munich?” They were delighted. So, starting this coming Monday afternoon the 23rd of September,

THE HISTORY CORNER will be on vacation for about 9 days

(for the first time in maybe 3 years of daily postings….1000 Corners? Maybe…..). I go not to find history (although Augsburg, a Mozart concert in Salzburg, etc. are on the list) but to MAKE HISTORY! Whew! And after a year +, I can’t believe it has finally arrived and we are down to packing soon. So…….to all the Gnusies…….I lift my “ein Mass” (that 1 liter glass above) and salute you with “Prost!”

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>>>>>» Here’s a rare story of where the solar-powered future collides with the coal-fired past…...and things might just succeed with a helping of Common Sense. (Mark Twain: “Nothing is so rare as Common sense.”) XCel Energy is a major power (!) in the utility field with grid connected power plants from Minnesota to Colorado that I know of, and maybe more. Now coal has had a long run of many decades as fuel for electrical plants…..but coal is a dirty fuel. With the invention of the EPA and the Green Movement in general, the mineral is now in full retreat for almost any use at all.

To clean things up and meet new anti-pollution standards, XCel has built the odd nuclear plant, and, more recently, solar panels by the acre. BUT to get the juice flowing from the panels into the grid where we can all use it is an easy engineering problem but a regulation & license nightmare. The heart of it is many of those regulations were aimed at dirty energy, so that EVERY new plant or source of power has to jump through those same hoops to get licensed and not destroy the environment for a 50 mile radius. Since the power companies have along history of doing nasty things and hiding them, it takes time to make sure they AREN’T doing it again or have come up with newer and sneakier ways. And the process is SLOW…..as in YEARS.

This makes getting to solar/wind/tidal a headache because (to be fair, they have to meet the SAME regulations) the payoff takes so long (and is not even then a sure thing.) Now XCel has planted a raft of solar panels on their power plant property, because…..hey, it’s THEIR property. And the future is NOW. And they are doing the RIGHT THING! WELL THIS DELIGHTFUL STORY from Minnesota outlines an approach that says, “Hey! All the lines and stuff we need to connect this existing power plant to the GRID are ALREADY paid for and licensed and approved and everything. So why can’t we just unscrew stuff here on the front end, and screw in the lines that lead to the solar panels and call it done?”

No pollution. No coal trucks. No leaching chemicals. No fly ash or cinder blocks. JUST photovoltaic cells going….”Hummmmmmmmmmmmm” …...All I can say is….YAY!…..and hope this goes national, global, and viral. YAY, YAY!

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>>>>>» Ah the Good Old Days…...of 1845. Say what? Well, there’s steam power, and railroads, and this exciting news gizmo called the telegraph that moves messages at the speed of electricity. In fact, things are getting so interesting that Mr. Rufus Porter, from New England, a tinkerer/inventor and also a publisher, starts up a weekly piece in New York City. It’s just 4 pages and generally ignores politics, scandals, gossip, etc. and instead aims at a niche market: scientists, and their pals, engineers. He calls his effort “Scientific American”…..and it is STILL publishing, albeit now monthly, and as a journal of more than 4 pages.

And yes, they STILL aim at that niche market Mr. Porter did. And yet…….and yet…...what sort of days are we living in now? For only the 2nd time in its 179 year history, Scientific American IS ENDORSING A POLITICAL FIGURE. The journal is endorsing Kamala Harris for President of the US for the sake of science, health, and the global environment. 179 years? 2nd time ever? (As it turns out, the only other time was…...Joe Biden in 2020. Interesting trend, SA!) Whew….NOBODY saw THIS ONE coming…….wow!

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And speaking of unusual endorsements…..

>>>>>>>» JUST for your Bookmarking of Endorsements information. You have noticed Kamala Harris is getting endorsed, publicly cheered on, by public figures in various fields (see Taylor Swift.) It is a heady sensation and does make the Democratic side of the street happy enough to think about “giddy.” Also, there has been a rolling series of them; every day or 2 THIS Person (see Liz Cheney) and then THAT person (see former Governor Jesse Ventura) has stepped out and appeared in front of microphone and cameras to explain what they are doing and WHY.

And now, thanks to the “add-able” and “edit-able” nature of that on-line Oasis called Wikipedia AT THIS LINK you will find the current list……..(oops, now MORE current)list……..(hold on, add ANOTHER) list. (Very helpfully, there is marker of (Republican) and others who have made such an endorsement who are NOT Democrats. If you need a place to visit for the grins (and nearly every name is Hot-linked to a biography or other description) this will be…...ENTERTAINING……...the next 48 days!

Good News in Science and Engineering

>>>>>>» Despite the despicable (despicable, I say!) efforts of the Fossil Fuel Barons, the Green Revolution keeps making inroads. Now comes delightful word from an unusual source: American railroads. There’s about 9 or so miles of track between Redlands and San Bernardino, California in the Inland Empire. For now its something of a commuter train, but weekends it has a good number of riders. This track is now the home of a something new: ZEMU, a train running on HYDROGEN, using fuel cells. Fuel cells can be on the bulky side for various engineering reasons, but on a TRAIN, well bulky isn’t a problem. The only emissions produced are…..water vapor. THAT, we can handle. Starts service early in 2025. While the USA has lagged behind other industrial nations in rail, especially passenger, THIS HEARTENING STORY shows the Americans are at least getting in the game. YAY!

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>>>>>>>>Next, not exactly new technology or even engineering, but it is on this list. Florence, Italy has an airport like any major city, named for a local chap from a few centuries ago, Amerigo Vespucci Airport.

(The fellow went sailing across the Atlantic in the early 1500s and made landfall in several spots. Drew some map-like sketches and brought them back to professional European map makers. They took his stuff and worked it up, and labeled the areas he had “discovered” for Europeans as “Amerigo”-(“stopped here”)--and “America” is the natural off shoot and how we got THAT name.)

See the front edge of each trellis along the green edge? Salut!

There is a terminal of course, but every now and again you need to remodel and upgrade, right? Well, Florence is going to do that, put in a new, fresh passenger terminal, so a LOT of engineering will indeed go into it. But this is FLORENCE! Tuscany! Chianti! The Uffizi Gallery! Barolo! Michelangelo! Montepulciano! Art and Wine, yes? So, as THIS ARTICLE DELIGHTFULLY EXPLAINS , the entire LONG roof will have a covering of earth…..and good soil…..and some rocks…..and some trellises (trellesisti?)…...to support the grape vines…...of the VINEYARD that will be planted there!

So, will the airport bottle its own? An “Airbus 310” Chianti…..to pair with the in-flight rigatoni?

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Of course, science and engineering can’t always be as tasty or hydrogen powered as today, but the yesteryears had their moments too:

CBS…...Still looks like this logo, right?

1927 New York City. You know, if you own a radio station, and you use private telephone lines, you can hook up programs that are heard at the same time in different locations. The cutting-edge new term for this is a NETWORK. On this day 18 (count ‘em!) stations around WOR in New York City all start carrying the same programming (allowing for some local news, weather and advertising.) This behemoth calls itself the Columbia Broadcasting System (and in labs, there are experiments happening with frequency modulation (FM), magnetic tape and maybe, just maybe, it will be possible to transmit pictures…..nah! Radio is the bee’s knees!)

1947 Washington DC President Harry Truman this day signs the National Security Act, which among other things establishes the US Air Force as a separate branch of the military. (They’ll get their own academy too.) They change the last line of their Service song which ended with “nothing can stop the Army Air Corps”, (which is where they started.) For those who take to the air and those who help keep them there, our thanks.

Both earth and moon (top) in crescent phase…..

And for those who fly even higher:

Navy Cdr. J. Volonte penned this verse to the tune of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” (The Navy Hymn)

Eternal Father, King of birth/

Who did create the heav’n and earth/

Who bid the planets and the sun/

Their own appointed orbit run:/

O hear us when we seek Thy grace/

For those who soar through outer space.

…...and speaking of space….and getting really, truly OUT THERE…..on the Final Frontier…….

1977 Our solar system NASA satellite US Voyager I is heading toward the outer reaches of the Solar System. But this day, the controllers send commands to swing the cameras around and take a few snaps of the launch point. Voyager this day takes 1st space photograph of Earth & Moon together. (There’s a whole lot of not-Earth out there; space is really big…..)

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(Several months ago I ran a couple biographies of the women who have served as First Lady of the United States. Readers here seemed to like these and have asked for more. So here is the first of two more First Ladies. After all, we may well have Another Lady in the White House, but sitting at a Very Different Desk in a Very Different (Oval) Room in mere months. So maybe a look & see what some others have seen and done in that same White House from a different angle.)

A First Lady

Elizabeth Kortright was born June 30, 1768 in New York City. She was one of four children, the daughter of a wealthy and successful merchant (and who came from Old Money that reached back to the days of the Dutch a century before.) Almost nothing is known of her childhood apart from three items: A) when the American Revolution erupted (Elizabeth was 7) her wealthy father managed to remain wealthy, because in 1776 the British Army occupied New York. Dad Kortright became an officer in a Loyalist/Tory regiment for the balance of the War. B) During her childhood she spent long stretches of many months at a time living at the estate of her paternal and wealthy grandmother, who had extensive holdings in the Hudson Valley. C) While we have no educational records of any kind, by the time Elizabeth reached adulthood she appears to have had a typical, upper-class education for girls/women. She could play piano, read music and books of merit, write elegantly, dance, sew skillfully, discuss literature both classical and contemporary. She was fluent in French, could read and translate Latin, and spoke good Italian and Spanish.

Elizabeth (Kortright) Monroe

All of these marks of education caught the eye and heart of a Senator to the Articles of Confederation Senate that met in New York City. James Monroe represented Virginia and after the 1785 session ended, he not only married Katherine (age 17) he took her home with him to his plantation in the same neighborhood as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Elizabeth was now “mistress of a plantation” but no record exists of her thoughts or actions in this role. Four years later the couple returned to New York City when James was again elected to the US Senate, this time under a new-fangled Constitution.

In 1794 President Washington named Monroe Minister (we would now say “ambassador”) to France. Elizabeth went along and delighted in Paris, and they were charmed by her manner, fluency in language, taste and rather aristocratic bearing, calling her “La Belle Americane.” In post-Revolutionary, pre-Napoleon France things were in murky flux; the government was holding Marie Adrienne Francoise de Noailles Lafayette in prison, mostly for being an aristocrat. They would have done the same with her husband, the Marquis (an aristocrat’s title!) de Lafayette, but his fame in the American Revolution, support of the anti-royalists while still denouncing violence, and his close personal relation with the President of that new country all combined so that only Marie, his wife, was being held. One day both Monroes took the American Embassy carriage (and clearly marked as such) to visit Mrs. Lafayette in her cell. Over the next few weeks, Elizabeth paid three more visits on her own (the 2 women hit it off personally), still being sent there in the Embassy carriage, while saying absolutely nothing to the French authorities about…...anything. The French government found reasons to quietly “drop the charges” against Marie and reunite the Lafayettes…….and diplomacy and relations between the 2 governments……. flourished.

The Monroes also managed to get an American released from prison: Thomas Paine, author of two influential pamphlets in the American Revolution. They received him formally at their home but Paine lived down to his name. He said several scathing things about President Washington and the “failure” of the American Revolution that had resulted in the Constitution and let him be stuck for as long as he was in a French cell. Dinner was…...strained (Monroe had been a personal aide de camp to Washington in the Revolution…...and took some of this…….with less diplomatic words and replies than befitted an Ambassador.)

At the end of the 1790s the Monroes were recalled home, and James was elected Governor of Virginia. Elizabeth, now the mother of three, began having health problems. Her father, and then the Monroe’s son, aged only 2, both died, and in addition to her grief, Elizabeth began showing symptoms (shaking limbs, occasional fainting) that worsened for the next decades. (Modern medicine suggests she might have displayed a late-onset form of epilepsy.) This health condition led her to limit her time in public, even when the Monroes were posted as Minister to Great Britain for a time, as well as Monroe’s stint of 6 years as US Secretary of State under Madison.

When Monroe won the Presidency in 1816 the White House and other public buildings were still being repaired and re-built from the 1814 sacking and burning by the British during the War of 1812. The swearing in Inauguration and reception were held at the Monroe’s private residence on I Street, but Elizabeth did not appear for either one. In 8 years as First Lady she rarely appeared for public functions. Their older daughter, Eliza (born 1786) often substituted for her mother, standing at her father’s side at various functions. Their younger daughter, Maria (born 1803), was the first child of a President married in the White House…...yet a total only 42 relatives and close friends were invited to the ceremony and reception (no one from Congress, the Judiciary, or the diplomatic corps was included.)

When Monroe’s second term ended in March, 1825, Elizabeth was so ill from her advanced condition and deterioration, she was kept in the White House for 3 weeks after the Inauguration of JQ Adams since it was not considered safe to move her. They finally did move to their new house in Loudon, VA, and over the next year Elizabeth gained enough strength to visit both daughters and other old friends in New York City on some longer visits. Back at home about a year after leaving the White House she had a severe seizure and fell partly into a fireplace and was badly burned. She lingered another 2 years before dying at age 62; her husband missed her deeply and died 6 months after she did.

(Her story is thin since the Monroes followed an old but common custom that at their death: all their personal papers and letters were BURNED. There are a few newspaper clippings, and letters sent FROM the Monroes to others, but that’s about it, so even the First Ladies National Museum of Canton, OH admits it is not easy to find information about Mrs. Monroe.)

Good News in Arts, Literature and Music

1752 Rheinfelden, Switzerland Birth of Johann Anton Sulzer, writer, lawyer and composer. The son of a watchmaker and a scholarly sort, he nonetheless played piano and had a sweet voice. Sulzer graduated college in Freiburg and went on to gain a doctorate in ecclesiastical law. Spent a few years as a (secret) member of the The Illuminati, (!) then swung back to orthodoxy. Wrote several books on moral philosophy and the value of civil education. As a sideline, and with no formal training in music or composition but with an excellent ear, he nonetheless wrote over 100 pieces over thirty years, sonatas for the violin, piano and organ works. He often set poems by friends to music, which were published in collections and often became popular outside the concert hall.

(The only sample I could find on YouTube; Sulzer’s Menuetto & Trio starts at the 4:45 mark….)

YouTube Video

1899 Washington DC The US Copyright office issues one of their stamps of approval on Scott Joplin’s composition, “Maple Leaf Rag,” the most famous ragtime tune, symbolizing the arrival of the Tin Pan Alley era in music. Ragtime….to jazz…..to swing…..with an assist from the blues….with an assist from big-beat hillbilly tunes……to doo-wop…..to rock-n-roll…..and the beat goes on……

And we should----and get to!----- hear it from Joplin HIMSELF, as heard in this early recording

YouTube Video

First Lady #2

Hardly anyone (thinks) they have ever heard of Claudia Alta Taylor, born 3 days before Christmas in 1912 in (not-so-great) Karnac, Texas. She had 2 older brothers, and the 5 in the family got by on dad’s talent in owning and running a general store. When Claudia was 5 and about to start kindergarten, her mother (Minnie) nicknamed her “Lady Bird”. Just after Claudia turned 6 her mother died, so she kept the moniker of “Lady Bird” in her memory.

Her father re-married (this woman’s name is not known, nor family, background…..a blank) and had growing success in business (to the point he was able to turn a sideline of raising cotton into a mainline, and grew quite comfortable, even well-to-do.) But the marriage was not a happy one, and in the early 1930s ended in a divorce (!) when Lady Bird was about 20. Claudia/Lady Bird proved to be a strong student. She graduated 3rd in her high school class….at age 15. Because of her father’s financial successes, she was able to attend an advanced boarding/”finishing” school for 2 years, then enrolled at the University of Texas. She earned a BA in history, then stayed an extra year to earn another BA, this time in journalism.

After this last graduation she was ready to go into “the media”, yet that same summer she met a dashing young man who was an aide to a Texas Congressman. They had a whirlwind romance and married less than 100 days after Claudia had met…. Lyndon Baines Johnson. (He wasn’t well-paid; he bought his bride a wedding ring at Sears…...for $2.50.) They commuted frequently between Texas and Washington, until, in 1937, he got bit by the Political Bug and decided to run for Congress himself. A fair piece of his campaign was funded by a $10,000 inheritance Lady Bird had received from her step-mother.

In Washington as a “Congressional Wife” she had several encounters with Eleanor Roosevelt, admiring her drive and usually agreeing with her politics. In these war year days she also became acquainted with, among others, Pat Nixon…..and Betty Ford. Despite their politics they all got along rather well. As wife to LBJ she functioned almost as co-chief of staff for him, in particular running his district office back in Texas, and providing constituent services with a smile. To support his aspirations, she was able to use another inheritance to buy a controlling interest in a local radio station in Austin that was going bankrupt. She made herself station manager, hired on-air reporters, booked advertisers, kept the books, and occasionally mopped the floors. She was good at it and had a good eye: she gave a “first job” to a fresh kid of a reporter named Bill Moyers (who you may know caught on at CBS. The station remained under the Johnson family control into the 1980s.)

In 1948 LBJ squeaked into the US Senate, where fellow Texan and Majority Leader Sam Rayburn took Lyndon under his wing. The Rayburns and Johnson were not only a political tandem, but both families grew personally close to each other for years.

In the mid-1950s the Civil Rights movement was stirring: Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, lunch-counter sit-ins in 1956 onward, and the integration of Little Rock High School in 1957 among others. There was a powerful faction among Democrats that wanted to write off the South and its (bigoted) Democrats, but the Johnsons both worked to keep the Democrats united. As a “Congressional Wife/Spouse” Lady Bird was openly photographed with the wives of certain Black Congressmen. As a Senator’s wife she was in demand as a celebrity & speaker, and did a good deal of this…...but always insisting on integrated audiences (so a good number of invitations were withdrawn on several occasions.) One time she and Lyndon were walking on a sidewalk together to a speaking site for Lady Bird when two bigots stopped them and spat on both of them, all while cussing them out. Lyndon was ready to rumble right there, but Lady Bird glared and said to them, “Why don’t you come in and hear the speech…...if you’re brave enough.” They weren’t.

Claudia Alta (Taylor) Johnson…...”Lady Bird”

She was not happy about Lyndon being added as VP to the 1960 ticket; she thought the position was too limited, especially compared to his post as Senate Majority Leader. In Dallas in November, 1963 the plan that day was for the Kennedy’s to do a motorcade through town…...on the way to the LBJ Ranch for a dinner and a few days away. Instead, Lady Bird becomes First Lady in the hardest way possible. She was a consolation to Jackie Kennedy and began keeping a diary in those dark days of her feelings and doings. Even when the mourning lifted she kept on, a daily diary from the White House for almost 6 years that scholars cherish for its “inside look” on the Presidency.

Lady Bird was a strong partner to her husband on many of his initiatives as well as her own. When LBJ signed the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, Lady Bird was in the front row…..and the only woman in the room. She gave an arm-in-arm tour (with a photographer) of the White House private quarters to the wife of a black Congressman----and then chatted at an impromptu press conference afterwards with the Black press.

She vetted Lyndon’s upcoming public speeches, continued Jackie Kennedy’s initiative about the White House preservation as a building and the stories and profiles of the First Ladies who had lived there, and she supported several aspects of the “Great Society”. She filmed the introduction to the “Head Start” program (for director Sargent Shriver). She was remembered for pushing for “beautification” of American streets and highways and was an outspoken advocate for the National Parks as places to visit, vacation at, and ask Congress to fund with increasing money.

Lived a long, active life for decades afterwards, dying at age 94 in 2007.

Good News in Society and Politics

>>>>>>>>>> Yes, there was a Presidential Debate Tuesday night. Surprising to everyone, Cats and Dogs figured in the debate (or at least one side of it). While surprised, reaction was swift from among the 4-paw community…..as well as a bit Goofy.

THIS TWITTER LINK (15 seconds) show a gray stripe cat in pounce position…..and SPRINGING at the screen…...left side…….just as Trump mentions “eating cats and dogs.” The Cat did NOT find this acceptable…….emphatically!

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>>>>>>>» You know that…..old Thing you have? Yeah, that one? You came across it walking…...or at a garage sale…...at the Goodwill store……..at an auction or antique shop. Yeah…..that…….THING. It struck you as worthy of getting but its just…...there…...in your house, basement, garage, tool shed. Its become part of the background and landscape, and if you even notice it anymore, the only thing that might cross your mind is what everyone else thinks or says, “Why did I get…..THAT?” A very human thing to do, I’d say.

Years ago in the village of Colti, Romania, an old woman found a chunk of rock in a nearby stream, brought it home, and used it for decades as…...a porch door stop. Communism fell in 1989. The old woman died in 1991. Her family inherited the house….and the rock. NOW COMES STUNNING WORD that a relative lately saw this rock and thought…..”What the heck is this?” He contacted a geologist…...who went bonkers. The 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds) rock is actually one of the world’s largest chunks of ….amber, with an estimated value of 1 million Euros. Sort of the “Antiques Roadshow” with a rocky twist. SOOoooo…..there may be a Good Reason you have that…...Thing…….at your place. Yes, you can dream a little…..

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>>>>>». On a more political note you have likely heard of several ideas and plans VP Harris has about the economy: restore & raise the child tax credit; helping 1st time home buyers get that first mortgage; incentives for small business start ups, just for a few. She has more, the sort of stuff that is generally Democratic and progressive, but also the sort of thing that warms the cockles of political nerds everywhere. “Look!! Policy proposals! Section 107 is a GREAT idea…..Why not add/subtract/multiply/divide the provisions of Title 7, Part D? That would be fantastic!!”

Pardon the elbow in the side but I wanted to WAKE you from the eye-glazing excitement of the Serious Planners of the Future. These and other ideas, in DETAIL, are yes, good, and yes, worth thrashing out into Law.

BUT THIS THOUGHTFUL PIECE argues that from a political, even a campaign angle, what she needs is an over arching THEME, an umbrella to stash all these ideas and plans. OK, ok, so…..”Great Society” is a bit dated. The “New Deal” was loaded with things like this….BUT everyone called and calls it…...The New Deal.

Second, she needs to emphasize that, now that the economy has healed, the president and Congress have an opportunity to fix the country’s long-standing problems and invest in the jobs of the future.

Harris has released several narrowly targeted plans. There’s one to help first-time home buyers. There’s one to help entrepreneurs launch small businesses. There’s one to help new parents in the first year of their child’s life. There’s one to go after “price gouging.” And there’s one to tinker with the capital gains tax (to raise it, but less than President Joe Biden would). Many of these ideas are popular with voters, but Harris has no narrative to show Americans how they fit together. This is why a sizable share of voters say they still don’t know what Harris wants to do.

Worth a scan and a ponder. YES to “We won’t go Back!” YES to “When we Fight, We Win”. And the Banner we march under is……….

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Meanwhile, in yesteryear, there were other moments in Politics and Society worth considering or recalling at least once…….

1793 District of Columbia There are all sorts of clumps of trees in every direction and over there, to the south, there is marshy ground along the bank of the Potomac River. Dirt roads, some of them surprisingly wide, go off in intersecting wheels and hubs across clearings and pastures. And on this day, with suitable gravity, remarks and a collection of shovels, President George Washington and other dignitaries gather at the top of a little knob and lay the cornerstone of the Capitol Building. The little knob picks up the nickname of “Capitol Hill.”

1837 New York City. A lot of people in this city, at various income levels. On this day a “stationery and fancy goods emporium” opens for business, aiming at the upper crust, carriage trade (in the day when the rich really had real carriages.) The “Tiffany & Young” store is a success, carefully aimed at something of a niche market. 16 years later (1853) Charles Lewis Tiffany buys out his partner, Theodore Young, and changes the name of the store to Tiffany & Company. This was also a successful, elegant success and you may have heard of the place. Also about a century later a rendezvous spot for Audrey Hepburn looking to find Breakfast…...

1851 New York City. Plenty of New Yorkers need news. While there are over a dozen newspapers, today a new one goes on sale: The New York (Daily; name changed later) Times, which will cost you 2 cents a copy. The Gray Lady (“it’s a girl”) is born.

The troops deserve blessings and prayers…...even from right to left, from Chaplain Frankel

1862 Antietam Creek, Maryland. After a tremendous battle yesterday, both Lee’s and McClellan’s army lay still. No maneuvers, just a tense quiet, punctuated by flags of truce from both sides to retrieve wounded and bury the dead between the lines.

But in a not-so-routine way, the colonel of a Pennsylvania cavalry regiment gets an order, from the White House (with a copy lodged at Army HQ.) The regiment is overwhelmingly made up of Jewish troopers, but by Union army rules all chaplains must be approved by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA, an upper crust, politically powerful body (before they had gyms), using their clout to enforce Christianity as normative wherever their members were.) The YMCA would not, on principle, approve a non-Christian chaplain. Abraham Lincoln (who can commission officers) orders Rabbi Jacob Frankel appointed to serve as chaplain for the regiment, setting a new precedent. (In mere days Lincoln will get a lot more ink for issuing a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, but freeing is freeing! Mazel tov!)

1919 Akron, Ohio Ah, autumn! Baseball is having their World Series but here and there, some big guys who don’t mind getting dirty and sweaty are playing a new game: American style football. In fact, enough of them are playing it there are professional teams; the guys get a contract to play for pay (of course, it’s not that much; everyone has other jobs during the off-season.) On this day the mighty Akron Pros (a legendary name as you all know) have a game, and a rookie with a fresh contract trots onto the field, leather helmet in place. Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major league team. In couple years the National Football League will be invented, and Pollard will play there too. After several years, Pollard will become the first professional black coach (and then the bigots did their best to make things all white…..but Pollard was PRECEDENT.)

Pollard: “Go long…..I’ll get it to you!”

1971 Osaka, Japan Back in 1958 Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese-Japanese businessman had come up with an easy-to-fix, filling dish from noodles and chicken flavoring, calling it Ramen Noodles (also the invention of dorm food before microwave ovens.) Ando stayed in the noodle business and on this day came up with a new invention: Cup Noodle, noodles in a Styrofoam (which are now being phased out as containers) cup. By the 50th Anniversary in 2021 50 billion had been consumed.

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Thank you each and all for coming by and giving this diary a scan, a reflection and a chuckle. Now please feel free to jump in with all 10 fingers into the comments, reactions, snarks, questions and expansions below. Add your links, your thoughts, your musings….and stand by for those of others. Its this interaction that makes the Internet one of the better inventions out there.

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

GNR: The Wednesday Good News RoundUp: An Au-GUST Convention of Good Bits

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 21, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/08/21 · 04:00

Good Wednesday Morning to all ye seekers of Good News, Hope, Uplift and the occasional snicker and snark!

This little corner of DailyKos, which is a little corner of the Internet, which is a little corner of this planet, which is a little corner of this solar system, which is a little corner of this galaxy, is a spot of mental, emotional and even soul-ful rest and refreshment. (It is also a LOT easier to get to than those last 3 locations unless you’re already IN this galaxy, this solar system, and this planet….)

The little virtual town of Gnuville, inhabited by fans of the Good News (“Gnu-sies”….its how we got the nickname; 4 hooves and goatee optional….) and this is the Round Up, right here at the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch. You who have just arisen, mug or mimosa in hand, fingering and sniffing your tea blend, your coffee---roasted and ground JUST SO--—, reveling in your mocha-cocoa, yes YOU are welcome (and already perfectly dressed: jammies, fuzzy slippers, hair at Full or Part Tousle, make up MIA, yawning and scratching body spots that you don’t care who’s looking, yes YOU, are welcome to the Round Up. (Clearly a VERY casual dress code.) So find a bite, find a seat of cushioning to meet up with your personal cushioning in the Hard Core Conventioneer Lounge. Yes the screens are glowing with Wi-Fi-ed excitement from Chicago as the Democrats turbocharge their bulldozers to grind over the proto- and already-there fascists lurking around the American Political scene.

So bring your comments, recs, links, additions, corrections, digressions and snickers and have a read. I’m your host, WineRev, and as you meander through, as is my custom these 3rd Wednesdays of the Month, you’ll also note Historic moments of the Good and the Goofy that have happened on Augusts 21sts as long as these have existed, and some of the good ones from years ago are here for your reading enjoyment.

Good News in Society and Politics

>>>>>» Let’s Dip into the Democratic Convention, shall we? This 3rd Wednesday of the Month Good News Round Up for the last several months has featured profiles of First Ladies of the White House (and you will find a couple down below.)

But the Convention is elbowing its way onto the airwaves and all those happy people are definitely enjoying the First night of Speakers…….Like a First Lady.

That’s right, Hillary Clinton was on fire Monday night, and with a head-turning effort. Yet she had enough “crowd feel” to not only nail the opposition Candidate, but to let the Crowd…...express their support for her and her speech in a VERY Turnabout Chant (and she let them chant!)

(The DELICIOUS CHANTING starts at about 1:20….)

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>>>>>>>>>>As a good number of you are aware, my handle here, WineRev, hints at my ordained status in a mainline denomination. Yes, I have stood before a congregation and declaimed and proclaimed and otherwise preached. (I still get a “pulpit supply” chance these days, when someone on the active roster is going out of town on a Sunday and needs someone to bring the Word on a Sunday morning to the Faithful.)

HOWEVER, what (the hell!) is going on over on the evangelical wing of American Protestantism ain’t no Christianity I was ever taught, or heard, or believed. Some of these twits are looking at Trumpism and the “Holy Writ Twit” of Project 2025 and BLESSING these. Yes, I know they are aware of the demographic slide in their denominations and congregations, and they are reacting in panic----”if we can’t win (already the wrong framing) the old ways, we’ll just bless/hijack the Power of the State to do our dirty work for us----and they would NEVER turn on us…..or ignore us…...or use us…..because we are the Pure and chosen.” But I can tell you on strictly theological, historical, and New Testament grounds THEY ARE WRONG. For a very nice take on where things stand over on that side of things some 80 days before Election Day, THIS IS A FIINE WRITE UP from “The Atlantic”, and you may well find it reassuring that ...we are ON TO THEM! YAY!

>>>>>». Double-Barreled Trump Stupid…..The 11th dimensional Chess Master Player DJ Trump continues to amaze and impress the pundit class (which says one HELL of a lot more about the pundits than Trump.) Just the other day, Trump…..getting ready (Hah!) and prepping (giggle….stop it, your killin’ me….) for the September 10 debate with Harris, has brought in...A RINGER! Tremble all ye who draw near or stay far away. IT SAYS HERE Trump has brought in……...Tulsi Gabbard to train Trump (You’re kidding, right?) in Harris’ weaknesses. Gabbard, who hasn’t had a headline in 4 years for ANYTHING…...Gabbard? Keep going, Don-OLD, you’re doing fine.

And if Tulsi Gabbard ain’t enough….. if bringing back Corey Lewandowski is not enough…….there is THIS ROCKING NEWS that the Trump campaign has hired…..Generra Peck! Hoo boy! Harris is facing a bushel of trouble now that Peck is on the other side (see what I did there? :-))

What? Who is Generra Peck?…...You’re kidding, right? The article points out that GP was THE Big Cheese/Top Dog/Ace/Number 1/Hired Gun Super Genius political campaign manager that most recently ran…….wait for it…….the Ron DeSantis primary campaign! Really! Who can forget that duel in the sun in state after state GQP primary season, with DeSantis and Trump scrapping head to head, toe to toe, for every last committed delegate in Iowa…..and Kentucky…...and Utah…...The millions spent on ads. The field armies of door-knockers. The stunning surrogate lineup primed to repeat, influence and re-inforce the DeSantis Talking Points of the Day EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. ???

Yep…..that was the handi-work and masterpiece of …..Generra Peck. True, Trump managed to land the nomination anyway, but Peck made him work for it, and made him a better candidate…..right? Well, being the Hired Gun Type, now Peck has changed horses and brings his Sink Like a Stone talent and shrewd wisdom for the next 75 days to bring the Tangerine Toddler back into the White House. When Trump strides across the platform to the cheers of 10s in Busted Wheel, Wyoming, STRIDES in those Very Fine, Trump sized White Boots (available on line; if still with “Ron DeSantis” stamped on them, then 50% off….) to the podium…..you will KNOW…..the touch of Peck. (Doubtless the Harris campaign is already drafting the concession speech…….in the face of these overwhelming challenges and gunslinging political pros on the other side…...)

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As we are posting this Good News Round Up during the VERY political event of the Democratic National Convention, Day 3 (another day of wall-to-wall rally crowd sizes…...) by sheer dumb luck the August 21sts of yesteryears have had more than a usual collection of things Political and things Social---for Society.

1791 Bois Caiman, Haiti A week-long Vodou ceremony led by Dutty Boukman turns violent as a slave uprising begins, the start of the Haitian Revolution. After 13 bloody years Haiti becomes independent. The example of slaves rising against their white masters’ echoes throughout the New World, the stuff of Southern US nightmares and frequently cited by newspaper editors, politicians in speeches and pastors during sermons. Although Haiti is a republic and is diplomatically recognized, Southern senators in the US repeatedly raise objections and the US does not so recognize the nation. After the secession of Southern states and the beginning of the Civil War, the US (Union) took advantage of the absence of certain Senators and recognizes Haiti in July 1862. President Lincoln welcomed the Ambassador from Haiti, the first black man ever entering the White House on Official, Statecraft Business.

The beard came later, on the train trip to the Inauguration…..

1858 Ottawa, Illinois Yes, yes, Senator Stephen Douglas’ friends in the Illinois legislature will make sure he is re-elected this fall; so long as enough Democrats are elected down ticket, everything will be smooth sailing. But that upstart new party, the Illinois Republicans, has put up a gawky fellow to challenge Douglas, and the two sides agree to a series of public debates, one in each of Illinois’ 7 Congressional districts. Today is the first one and there are a lot of cheers for both Douglas and challenger Abraham Lincoln. Douglas went on to win the Senate seat in November (the Legislature voted him in, in the days before direct election of Senators,) but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time. Douglas stated in this 1st debate: "I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men." (And THIS was NOT ENOUGH for the Southern slaveowners, who were still agitating for secession. No wonder they were nicknamed “Fire Eaters”.)

1878 Sarasota, New York The chartering and first national meeting of the American Bar Association. After this, they started licensing lawyers, influencing law school curriculums, filing motions, contracting parties of the first part for and against parties of the second part. IOW, in general, and at their best (not every single day; they are still only human) doing their duty to carry out the Preamble of the Constitution to “establish justice” and move the human race closer to the Code proclaimed by Hammurabi 5000 years ago, “there shall be one law for all, even for the king.”

1923 Kalamazoo, MI (We bring you the Goofy!…...and maybe lawyers who write ordinances not exactly living up to the 1878 Entry and the Code of Hammurabi…..) Those young people! They are just rambunctious, rampant even! They say things like “23 skidoo” and sometimes when they dance the “Charleston” you can see the knees of the young women! Shocking! Well, we here in Kalamazoo will do something about THAT! On this day a local ordinance is passed, forbidding dancers (especially on the slow numbers!) from gazing into the eyes of their partner. (Puts Kalamazoo on the map……national headlines……somebody in later years even writes a Big Band song “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo/ zoo/ zoo” that ‘Radar’ O’Reilly could sing…..just don’t look in his eyes…..)

Just over an hour, and hit the showers…...

1926 Boston OK, so its summer. Baseball time, right? Hitting, pitching, catching, running. Peanuts, hot dogs, cold drinks of various persuasions (although in 1926 Prohibition was ON, so certain drinks needed “persuading” from a flask in the stands…..) Anyway, settle in, cross your legs, sit back, and prepare to laze away a few hours at the “Old Ball Game.” Ummm…...the Chicago White Sox are on the field today, to play the local “Rose Hose”…...and someone forgot to tell Chicago pitcher Ted Lyons about “lazing away” an August afternoon (or maybe his ears didn’t quite catch that Boston accent and he thought they were saying “blazing away.”) NOT ONLY did the visiting Chi-Sox hang a 6-0 shutout on Boston, but Chicago pitcher Lyons rang up…..a No-Hitter…..and the whole thing, 9 innings, from “Play Ball” to Last Out was…...67 minutes. Likely the fastest ever major league no-hitter…..and local advertisers hardly got their ads read out between innings over the radio…..

To admit an exotic place like this into our Sacred Union requires LONG and detailed “fact-finding” trips and visits…...

1959 Washington DC After dozens of “fact-finding” visits during every single year of the 1950s, by basically every last member of Congress, or the Cabinet, or the top brass at the Pentagon, and their wives, and children, and 3^rd cousins of their uncle’s mother’s side, and business associates, finally all the facts have been assembled! By act of Congress and signature of President Eisenhower, on this day, Hawaii becomes the 50th US state, filling out the current flag. (Oh, and that 49^th state? Alaska? Rumor is 3 airmen, 6 sailors and a reindeer hunter, who each had a cousin on a Congressman’s staff, filled in all the paperwork to apply for statehood and mailed it in. Congress thereby had all the facts they needed to fast-walk Alaska through to statehood as #49. But a tropical, beach-y, palm-treed place like Hawaii? That needed up close, personal inspection!) (Also: the little noted at the time first act of the Hawaiian legislature was to declare all Kenyan immigrants in the state as definite US citizens and that a raised seal birth certificate be issued to a child of any such citizen to ultra-prove it. After all, such a kid might become president someday, ya know?)

1991 Riga, Latvia Emboldened by yesterday’s developments in Moscow and in particular by their next-door-Baltic-neighbor Estonia Reclaiming Independence, on this day Latvia declares its independence from USSR too. (The landslide is on! Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, the “Stans” of the Moslem majorities; all of them decide they do NOT NEED “guidance” from Moscow any more. It DID make the seating arrangements a little tighter at the United Nation General Assembly.)

Let Justice be Done…..and Done…..and Done!

2018 US Justice System, Federal Courts On this day, after a good deal of negotiation, a federal court ACCEPTED a plea deal reached between prosecutors and defense attorneys: Michael Cohen pleads guilty to 8 federal counts. Serves 3 years in prison for arranging “hush money” payments to “Stormy Daniels”….and other STUFF …… DOUBLEHEADER DATE, Same Year and Day. Also in Federal Court, a jury of his peers found Paul Manafort GUILTY (“thats guilty, Guilty, GUILTY!”) on 8 counts of tax fraud, bank fraud, misusing foreign funds. Sentenced to 47 months…..”P-resident” Trump pardoned him in December, 2020 (weeks before vacating his Squattage in the White House) after Paul served 27 months. STILL a felon……

Meet another First Lady

Several months ago in my monthly posting I put up a couple biographies of American First Ladies (with a big assist from the website of the First Ladies National Museum, in Canton Ohio (and former home of Ida McKinley, who had married some guy who got a big job in Washington right at the end of the 19th Century.)

Many of you enjoyed those first ones and have asked for more, so since spring I’ve put up a couple or so each Wednesday when it’s my turn here at the Round Up. Since we are reading this DURING an Election Year, and DURING a Political Convention….that may lead the National Museum to open a New Wing for…...First Gentleman of the United States…..Today I bring you 2 First Ladies who you may recall, and recall them because of how they raised this First Spouse position to a far more Public profile.

Jacqueline Bouvier (later Kennedy) Born November, 1928 in Southampton, New York. 1 younger sister (4 years later, Caroline…..also name of her niece). Her parents, “Jack” and “Janet” had married just about a year and a half before her birth. They were a well-off family, (Mom was a noted horsewoman) but when Jackie was 1, her father’s line of work in New York City took a major turn down: he was a stock broker…..in 1929.

This Roman Catholic family took a hit, but were still far better off than most Americans. The Bouviers were able to afford excellent education in private schools for their daughters. Jackie rounded off with 2 years at Vassar, then 1 year study abroad in France (Grenoble and Sorbonne), then received a BA from George Washington Univ. in Washington DC. Fluent in French, with good Spanish and Italian as well. (She took some graduate classes later at Georgetown.)

Her first job was working for the Washington Times Herald newspaper at $42.50/week. She was the “Inquiring Camera Girl”, walking around DC streets with a serious camera and a reporter’s notebook, stopping passersby to take their photo if they would answer one “Question of the Day” (usually political). She would write up the interview which would be in next day’s paper with the photo as a regular piece. First day on the job first Photo and first interview? Wife of a California Senator, Thelma Catherine “Pat” Nixon. (Later on in 1953 got to ask her question of a Vice President of that same last name.) Also, in that first year, got to ask such a question and photo of the junior Senator from Massachusetts. She was sent to London with her camera and interview skills to cover the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. She came home and accepted a proposal for marriage from the Senator. He was 36, she was 25.

   She informally joined his staff, handling and replying to a good share of constituent mail and helping in speech-writing. Helped edit the  “Profiles in Courage” manuscript while Kennedy was recovering from his latest of several spinal operations (this one was so serious he was given the Last Rites before the surgery, just in case…..)

In 1960 Kennedy wins a squeaker election for President, age 43. At Inauguration, Jackie is 32; departing Mamie Eisenhower was 64. Before her, Bess Truman had left the White House at age 68, so a massive shift in public perception of the “First Lady”, aided by television (more and more often in color now.) She became a fashion symbol (“Pillbox hat”) and used her profile for several causes. Some of these were rather traditional for a First Lady. She was an outspoken advocate for Fine Arts (arranged for France to loan the US the ‘Mona Lisa’ for several months.) She was tireless in overseeing a restoration and renovation of the White House, creating the White House Historical Association and getting Congress to fund it and create a permanent position of White House Curator. Famously, in 1962 she led Walter Cronkite and CBS TV cameras on a live tour of the restoration to that point.

   In other ways she was ground-breaking. After the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs effort to overthrow Castro, she went to Miami on behalf of Kennedy to deliver a somber speech of thanks to them……in Spanish. She was also a quiet, wise advisor to her husband on policy matters and had excellent political instincts. When the Civil Rights movement (1963, March on Washington) gained publicity and success, Jackie started a White House kindergarten for the children of staffers. She paid the teacher out of her pocket, had her own daughter Caroline (then about 7) help out after her own school day was done…..and had several photo sessions for the press showing kids playing and doing “art work”——black children and white children together…..integrated. (Put the racists and bigots in a tight spot……good!)

   After the tragedy in Dallas, she partly consoled herself by working diligently for the creation of the Kennedy Center for the Arts in DC. After she re-married (1968; Onassis…..he was Greek Orthodox, but she did not convert) she was in the news regularly. Worked several years as book editor at both Doubleday and Viking Press. Often seen at various occasions in New York City art scene, she also pressed for preservation of an ancient plaza in downtown Athens, became an advocate for cleaning and restoring the canals of Venice, and for the renovation and restoration of New York’s Grand Central. Died in New York City too young at age 68 (1996.)

Good News in Science and Engineering

>>>>>>>>>>>>Just last week VP Harris gave a speech on some of her economic goals in a Presidency. A number of these points dealt with housing issues and affordability. A number of these were of the nitty-gritty permit/code/legal persuasion, others called for original thinking (like how to convert “downtown” office buildings that, since COVID made “work from home” a major New Thing, into actual rental or condo or townhome sorts of housing.) And how about innovative ideas for housing construction? Well, VP Harris, if you’re reading this…..how about…..PRINTING housing, 3-D style? In, oh, 96-hours?….Which they would like to get down to 48-hours…...to “print the Whole Thing?” IN MAINE, at the link, the World’s Largest 3-D printer is producing prototypes as we speak. VERY cool!

>>>>>>How about a little….mood music? For a Science and Engineering entry? Here ya go…...can let it play in the background on a new tab as mood music for the story below:

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Yes, we know about autumn leaves. Their glorious be-decking of trees in September/October. We also know about the glorious raking up of them, using them to cover over planting beds as cover until next spring. Or just raking them…...and raking…...and raking…...and grinding them up for compost. Some of us remember little piles of them burning in the neighborhood.

But how about…..harvesting falling leaves? Not just to preserve here and there because of the exquisite colors…..but harvesting…..as a crop? THIS STORY notes a clever start up helping cities and towns with the leaf disposal issue (ask any town street authority). They can collect the leaves and use them…...to make paper bags, grocery bags, etc. As well, this means you DON’T have to use standing trees for those projects and products…...so a BIG WIN-WIN for the environment!

Starfleet’s NCC-1701-D Enterprise, the Galaxy-class starship that is the primary setting for Star Trek: The Next Generation

>>>>>>» OK, Star Trek has been with us from the mid-1960s. Gene Roddenberry’s vision has inspired millions in many, many ways. Some of those so inspired became or are still, scientists, falling in love with the Future and dedicating their minds to bring it closer. Very cool. And…...they are getting closer. Smartphone, anybody?…...and this is a Federation communicator, yes? In Sick Bay, bio-beds….and tri-corders for bio-metric readings…...robotic operations…….lasers for improved eyesight……

And now, in a COMPLETELY Star Trekkie nerd moment, there are engineers working on the latest computers…..quantum computers. (SkyNet looms nearer….) And how to cope with such machines? Rein them in? Prevent AI disasters? See that they are “good computers” (like the Majel Barret Model of the Enterprise’s ship-board computer; in later versions can generate holo-decks!) and NOT become “bad computers” (see John Connors, Ah-nold, and two-legged machines that promise “I’ll be back.”)

Your Tax Dollars at work! The US Government National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just released a first set of quantum computer ENCRYPTION standards (so they can talk to each other, and to current machines….and be proof against hacking your data) while trying to put up some guard rails for stuff not yet invented. There is a brief and quite readable article AT THIS LINK but the fun is at the end. There is a highlighted “box” that notes the first 4 approved algorithms…..and what they are based on. Apparently one of these bases is under an un-pronounceable techno babble jumble that goes by the acronym CRYSTALS (the techs all “KNOW” what each letter stands for and means, but it comes out in short hand as CRYSTALS.)

One of the 4 selected algorithms is on the spec sheet as “CRYSTALS-Di-lithium”! HAH! Likely access to the specifics requires “Scotty Level” clearance, right? Maybe with a “LaForge” Enhanced License? A story like this warms my personal warp engines, I tell ya!

Meanwhile, History notes some more modest but Damned helpful patents and breakthroughs that make Modern life, and make it a bit easier.

1841 New Orleans Despite an ancient history dating from the Persian Empire, and then centuries of refinement when it was imported by traders to Venice, on this day John Hampton nonetheless receives a patent for “venetian blinds” (so he can manufacture them and turn a profit on them.) Made for many a great sneak peeking, some good shade, and a great silhouette on the far wall in endless black-and-white melodrama movies from the 1930s on. As Spillane would write, “She wasn’t really my type, but still, the kind of dame who knew things that could help me crack this case. So I stubbed out my cigarette and had the waiter take a drink to her table….”

TOTAL SIDE NOTE, caused by my finish just above now to the Spillane moment with Venetian blinds. A good number of years ago the San Jose State English department started a teaching tool that went viral and has become A Thing: The Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. Bulwer-Lytton was a popular 19th century writer with a nice talent for turning a phrase “The Almighty dollar” and “the pen is mightier than the sword” are both from him. BUT he had the misfortune of starting one of his novels with “It was a Dark and Stormy Night”----which Snoopy ran with in his literary efforts.

The contest is simple: Write the opening sentence (run-on/ split infinitives/ dangling participles/ hackneyed cliches all welcome) to the World’s Worst Novel (by genre if you like.) My all-time, hands-down favorite winner (from 1989 I believe) which is SO BAD I have memorized it:

(Starting out in that Spillane vein (and even better when you read it out loud to a victim): “She wasn’t really my type, a cub reporter for the local bird cage liner, BUT the first second I laid eyes on this third rate reporter for the Fourth Estate, opening a fifth of Scotch, a sixth sense told me Seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note in Beethoven’s Ninth symphony, AND SO, nervous as a tenth-grader cramming for an eleventh hour math test, I swept her into my arms, humming ‘The Twelfth of Never’ and got lucky on Friday the thirteenth.”…….NOPE, you won’t want to read THAT novel…...not a chance…..no way…….)

1888 St. Louis, William Seward Burroughs was born and raised in upstate New York (and named after the New York governor and Secretary of State for Lincoln’s Cabinet.) Mechanically minded but spent several mind-numbing years as a bank teller. His health broke down and a doctor advised him to recover in a warmer climate, so he moved to St. Louis and started working as a mechanic at a machine shop. He had the talent and tinkering ability to invent the Burroughs adding machine in 1885, and on this day receives a patent on the device. He sets up his own manufacturing firm (The American Arithmometer (!) Company) and business is good. Banks are his first customers, and the US government buys a boatload of his machines for the 1890 Census. In 1892 he wins another patent, using that new-fangled electricity (that here and there is actually being installed in private homes) for the first successful electric alarm clock. (On a side note, his son, William Burroughs Jr. becomes a writer, one of the leading lights of the Beat Generation of the 1950s: “Junkie” (1953), “Naked Lunch” (1959), “Nova Trilogy” (1961))

Another First Lady Profile

Eleanor Rosalyn Smith (later Carter), born August, 1927 in Plains, Georgia. 1st of 4 children. Father was a store clerk, a school bus driver and a mechanic, and died in 1940 when Rosalyn (hardly ever used her first name except for legal stuff) was 13. Their mother, Frances Althea (Murray), “Allie” still had 4 children to raise as well as caring for her father, who lived with them (and started collecting that new-fangled Social Security back in 1937……). She also worked as a store clerk, in the local school cafeteria, and, a bit later, gladly for the local Post Office (a government job!)

In 1946, at age 18, married a freshly-minted graduate of the Naval Academy, James Earl Carter. (She turned him down the first time he proposed, but accepted when he asked a second time about 3 months later.) As a Navy wife she followed him to various ports in Wives/family housing: Norfolk to New London to Providencetown on the East Coast, as well as stations in Pearl Harbor and San Diego in the Pacific. (The moving around via the Navy was…..challenging for Rosalyn. Between 1947 (Portsmouth, VA), 1950 (Honolulu) and 1952 (New London, CT) she and Jimmy had three children…..all boys (Jack, Donnell, James).

In 1953 Carter’s father died, and James/Jimmy came home from the Navy to run the family peanut farm and business. Rosalyn, with 2 boys still pre-school, managed also to work on the financial side of the operation for several years, (all unpaid.) She was also unpaid as she worked steadily in his political campaigns, 1962 & 1966 (losses)….in 1967 giving birth to a daughter, Amy…... and also 1970, when Carter become governor of Georgia. As Georgia’s First Lady she was an outspoken advocate for Mental Health care for all ages and a very public supporter of the Special Olympics across the US and internationally.

With all 3 boys out of the house and Jimmy being more and more mentioned for the Presidency, Rosalyn spent many days in 1974 and 1975 traveling around the USA, giving interviews to local newspapers and chatting with local radio hosts about public affairs and what her husband thought about these things and wanted to do about them. Her ground-breaking in endless small towns across the map accounted for a fair share of the widespread enthusiasm for his candidacy in 1976. At Inauguration in 1977, the First Couple revived a moment last seen at the Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801 (!). After the swearing in and speeches, they walked down to the White House, to the fervent cheers of heavy crowds, cementing a populist image.

As First Lady Rosalyn and Jimmy at many points acted as almost co-Presidents (and by all accounts, while they usually agreed on policy, she had much the better political savvy on framing things and timing of announcements and initiatives.) Rosalyn was the first know First Lady to attend Cabinet meetings, and more than occasionally or ceremonially. Continuing her advocacy from Georgia, she became Chair of the Council on Aging. She served on the President’s Commission on Mental Health and in 1980 appeared as a witness before a Senate Committee to lobby for the Mental Health Systems Act and funding for it…….which passed.

After the White House she was author of 4 books and tirelessly continued her advocacy for the mentally ill and the aging, wherever she could get a hearing. One of these was, in 2010, to appear on ‘The Daily Show’ with John Stewart, where she pointed out soberly that A) the suicide rate in the US was higher than the homicide rate, and B) 2 of every 100 suicides are kids. A dear companion and spouse to her husband Jimmy until she died last November at age 96.

Good News in Arts, Literature and Music

>>>>>» Liverpool While the launching place and boyhood home of the Beatles, this town has had an industrial character for decades. A couple weeks ago came a spate of riots and mob actions across the UK (rather abetted by Elon Musk’s Xitter outfit) that left damage in many places. One of these was a library (that the locals loved, and you can’t have literature without libraries!) and job centre in a hard-bitten quarter of Liverpool. The ground floor (where most of the books are) had a serious fire, with a loss of over 200,000 pounds. Well the GOOD NEWS IS readers, book lovers and library champions everywhere have swarmed the GoFundMe page of the library…...in in less than a month has already raised 250,000 pounds for repairs and replacing the books. YAY!

>>>>>>>>”Art tells a story” well, at least a lot of art does. In some ways art captures tales, folklore, aspirations, even imagination in visual form. This goes back a LONG way among humans; you’ve seen “cave paintings” from France and other sites, showing hunting scenes of some guy or group of guys out on the plain trying hard to bring home barbecue on the hoof. Not bad for 15,000 BCE! But NOW, new art…...and also OLDER art. A LOT Older……..like 50,000 BCE (whoa!) Under thin layers of calcite in a set of caves in Indonesia (that preserved the coloring and “paint” itself) THIS STORY lets you have a look at a critter being hunted…...by? Well, now THAT is the real question! There seem to be figures on the hunt…..who look like a cross between human and birds! So…..imagination? Unknown and unexpected catapult technology? Ancient aliens? Time travel from my planet to yours? Something got caught and put down for future generations…..even unto us. Hmmmmm!

>>>>>>» We Bring you the Goofy! Let us turn to another branch of Art…..culinary art! There are cooking shows all across the cable channels, chef competitions, etc. AND….there are landmark foods and locations that have become a PERMANENT part of the landscape.

Apparently one of these landmarks is a Chicago Landmark, not far from the Convention, with the Punny name, The Weiner’s Circle. And their claim to culinary fame? The Hot Dog of course, done steamed or charred, single or Double (on the same bun!), variations such as Charred Sausage and Charred Polish, even hard drinks such as the Weiner Slammer.

Well the Convention is in town and those delegates and others want and NEED food! Like Hot Dogs! Like Hot Dogs from The Weiner’s Circle! And NOW COMES WORD the Circle has come up with a “Convention Special”----a “Foot Long (!) Hot Dog” (Foot Long!)…...called the “Trump Weiner”….that is 3 Inches long. (Told you we bring the Goofy!)

Meanwhile, if you imagine a world not just of sight but of mind (Rod Serling), and you listen closely, August 21sts have gathered for music at the sign post up ahead…...at the edge of the Twilight Zone.

1893 Paris, France Birth of Juliette Marie Olga Lili Boulanger, composer. Unusual family structure: “Lili”, as the family called her, was the last-born……born when dad, Ernest Boulanger was 77 years old (!) Dad had had a good life as a very good musician (he had attended the Paris Conservatory and won the ‘Prix di Rome’, top prize for composition back in 1835…..58 years before. Other winners in other years include Gounod, Bizet, DeBussey.) Older sister Nadia (5 years older than “Lili”) was a music prodigy as well, and the family (and friends) knew it. When Lili was 2 the family entertained old friend Gabriel Faure for a few weeks. Faure discovered Lili had perfect pitch, and encouraged the family to encourage her in music in the same manner as Nadia. They took him up on that, and the combination of amazing talent and focused instruction paid off: Nadia the sister was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at age 10(!) Even more stunning, 5-year-old Lili went with her to audit the classes (some of which were taught by Faure, who was on faculty.) Lili could already sing, but she added piano, organ, cello and harp playing to her talents. Later on, in 1912 (age 19) (now attending the Conservatory as an enrolled student) she competed for the Prix de Rome for composition, the top prize, but collapsed from illness during her performance. She came back in 1913 and won it (the first woman ever) for a cantata, Faust and Helene. This brought her fame and financial stability to compose (she wrote about 2 dozen works in all) but she never recovered from her collapse in 1912 and died in 1918 at the age of 25. An amazing, tragic, bright flame…..

(If you are following along on the sheet music, from the endless ‘accidentals’ you’ll see “Lili” only considered the actual key signature (5 sharps!)…...a suggestion…..or even maybe…..just a hint…..)

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1904 Red Bank, New Jersey On this day Harvey Lee Basie and his wife have a son, and name him William James Basie. Dad worked for a wealthy judge as a coachman, driver, and groundskeeper, yet was also a fair musician on the side. He played the “mellowphone” (!) in several local clubs (Red Bank being the night spot that it was….) His mother was a laundress who also played piano for their church, and she started William on lessons before he started school. He was a good student (up through junior high, at least) but his dream was to PLAY, first drums, and then piano. He played plenty of local gigs for small money; summers he got the chance to play in the house bands of hotels in Asbury Park on the Jersey Shore. He was 16 just as World War I was ending, and he left home for Harlem…..and JAZZ was the coming thing. He was good enough to catch on with some touring companies and finally got on a vaudeville circuit that had him playing from Texas to Kansas.

In Kansas City he was able to form his own band, took the stage name Count Basie, and built a musical bridge and style between jazz and the hot new thing, “Big Bands.” Moved to Chicago and started recording there in 1936. About 35 albums in all, played with anyone and everyone you’ve every heard of. He launched dozens of other careers, and in 1958 was the first African American to win a Grammy Award. Also appeared in about a dozen movies (e.g. out on the lonesome prairie of ‘Blazing Saddles.’)

The New Sheriff in Town is clearly dressed for the part, Gucci saddlebags, palomino horse…...and clearly needs a Soundtrack

YouTube Video

Well I hope this gets you started.

Now its YOUR TURN to bring in, wire up, shellac, feather-dust all sorts of Good News items for your own satisfaction and for the rest of us. Stories, comments, reactions, additions, expansions, questions, digressions, explanations, links, chuckles…..all these and more, TO each of us and FROM each of us, make the Good News Round Up the Round Up. So flex the fingers, have Siri take down some dictation, and let the Wednesday roll!

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Caption contest! With a send-off glass of wine…...

Shalom.

Good News Un-Conventional Round Up

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday July 17, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/07/17 · 04:00

Good 3rd Wednesday of July Morning and welcome to the Good News Round Up, in this cozy corner of DailyKos, which is a cozy corner of the Internet. Its good to have all of you stop by. Today (and every day!) at the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch we toast your mug/cup of coffee, tea or mocha-cocoa. If you are sipping elegantly from that Needed Mimosa (and the RNC Convention in Milwaukee is causing many people to drink in ways and times they usually don’t, but That Convention these days has That sort of Effect), if you are so sipping (or even now turning to the corner bar, inspired to join in) we toast you as well. Munching on breakfast goodies (and lunch or dinner if your are swinging by later in the day) is always in Good Taste (as well as tasting good, we hope).

Please put your feet up, settle in to wingback, recliner, sofa or other sitting/reclining, set up drinks and munchies at the side table, and let the dulcet tones of the Feet Up Lounge not only bring you little tunes of delight, but also send you Wi-Fis to excite your pixel screens so you can read, reply, and react as the spirit moves and the Funny Bone tingles.

At the bottom of this diary comes that Really Good Stuff: YOU! Yes YOU get to comment, tip, recommend, add to, clarify, expand upon, react to, and digress from not only this Diary, but from all the sharp, thoughtful, supportive and yes, snicker-worthy comments all you visitors add. PLEASE Do So…….its the Internet, without Dooming, just informative and hope-lifting Good News, and we certainly enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company, so jump right in!

(This is my monthly turn on the Bridge, and as is my custom, you will find not only current stories and news bits of the Up-beat, Hopeful and/or Thoughtful persuasion, but also a collection of Good and Goofy Upbeat events from July 17ths of decades, even centuries, past. Even “back then” people found reason to hope, to smile, to take satisfaction, or just to burst out laughing, just like us.)

Unconventional Convention News

>>>>» Like rats to a hanging side of beef, all sorts of ratty Republicans are showing up and hanging around Milwaukee this week. (The city has undoubtedly set aside extra funds for post-convention fumigation and “infestation mitigation” (let that one roll off the tongue.) But just to make sure that every last stupid moment and Fascist idea gets addressed from every angle, you should go to the source. Or, in this case, bring IN the Source.

The Associated Press IS REPORTING HERE that TODAY Peter Navarro, “Advisor of Evil” in the Trump White House, finishes his prison term. ALSO, that TODAY he will then hop a plane to fly to Milwaukee and will address the sweaty masses tomorrow before the Convention/Circus leaves town. We who are not attending or noticing will nonetheless BREATHLESSLY (and on Mute!) await Peter’s entrance on stage, dearly hoping Orange Jumpsuit will be THE Fashion Statement of the Fall Season. We can be pretty sure Not-Pretty Peter will come in on the Runway strutting and pouting like any & every Super Model, so all he needs is the right suit to make that Unforgettable Statement……

>>>>>» A Doff of the Chapeau to my sweetie, SageHag RN! She is a Wisconsin gal, born and raised less than 100 miles from Milwaukee, and a progressive voter all the way. She sent me an e-mail with a couple of Local Milwaukee Businesses…….exercizing their First Amendment Rights right in their windows…..to get your Wednesday chuckling.

The people of Milwaukee welcome…..EVERYONE!

So Horrible of the locals to write the Truth…….

>>>>>>» Hey, wait a minute! The GQP Hatefest is polluting the airwaves for another day and a half. In Conventions of years past, there have been floor fights, deals struck, balloons, confetti, speeches (some forgettable, some memorable). Various cities jockey to be The Pick, since this sort of Convention brings in lots of people, lots of money, and lots of publicity.

But how far back does this go? How did all this hoopla get started? Being the History nut that I am, I did some digging and came up with a brief rundown of Conventions. Feel free to scroll down past to more Current-er Events of Good News.

Conventions: A Brief Selection of Good and Goofy

By Cliff “Its a Little Known Fact” Claven

(Assisted by WineRev)

Since the Mess in Milwaukee has still another day and a half to groan to a grinding finish, and the Democratic Love-In is still coming, could we look at Conventions themselves? You know, the Good and the Goofy?

Who started the idea of national political conventions?

NOT the Founding Fathers; they thought political parties in general were a bad thing….and would not be needed or even exist under their new-fangled Constitution. Well, that worked well for two terms…..because EVERYBODY would vote for George Washington.

When he stepped down, a group of state caucuses calling themselves the nickname of “Federalists” sent letters to each other settling on John Adams. Other state caucuses, eventually naming themselves the “Democratic-Republicans” (clearly before bumper stickers had been invented) wrote similar letters from state to state to settle on Thomas Jefferson. That’s how they finished in 1796, so Adams became President, and the #2 vote-getter, Jefferson, became VP. That led to issues (just a few!) and the invention of a Pres.-VP TICKET starting in 1800.

This approach held through the War of 1812, but by the time James Monroe was ready to go for a second term in 1820, the lack of consensus by anybody else (the Federalists were moribund) makes Monroe the only President besides Washington to get a second term un-opposed. (The “Era of Good Feelings.”)

So the field was open for new parties and new ideas. In non-Presidential year 1831, the Anti-Masonic Party (“Our Platform is our Name!”) had everybody come to Baltimore to hash things out and co-ordinate against the descendants of the Knights Templar burying treasure on Oak Island in Canada. They also were in favor of infrastructure spending, a protective tariff, and considered nearly all politicians suspect, including their own. This Party met again in 1832 and even in 1836 before disbanding in 1840, but the convention idea caught the public fancy. So in 1832, by turns in Baltimore the same summer, the Democratic-Republicans met to ratify the state caucus choice of Andrew Jackson for a second term.

The new National Republicans (NOT related to any earlier or later party) held a similar Baltimore convention, invented the idea of state delegates to a national body that would DECIDE on a nominee, and put together a common, national set of aims, a “platform”. So they met, nominated Henry Clay, (who lost to Jackson,) absorbed a good number of Anti-Masons, and became the Whigs (losing to Martin Van Buren, but then winning in 1840 with William Henry Harrison.)

Technology Strikes

1844 Baltimore again. The Democrats (having shortened their name by half) meet, and ex-President Martin Van Buren is hoping to get the nod so he can try for a 2nd, non-consecutive term. But the convention has a 2/3 majority rule and Van Buren can’t reach this. A lot of wheeling and dealing follows, all sorts of names are floated, and in a surprise, on the 9th ballot Tennessee Governor James Polk goes over the top (the first Dark Horse candidate, and eventual President.) The News is sent 45 miles BY new-fangled, just strung up last year TELEGRAPH to Washington DC…..while Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Detroit and St. Louis (none of them really wired up yet, and too soon for many place-to-place links) would all need to wait for express riders to come on horse relays, or pipe into town via steamboat, to get the news.

* * * * *

1860 Chicago The New-ly formed Republican Party (not the Nationals, and not the Hyphen backside of “Democratic”) had a fine first outing in 1856 with John Fremont as their leader. The meet this year is in this fast-growing lakefront town featuring lots of railroads and freight. While Seward of New York has a lot of Eastern Press with him, Illinois has a favorite son in the mix. Abraham Lincoln does not attend, but sits down at the Springfield, Illinois telegraph parlor (now THERE is a by-gone room or department) to get news, click by click, from the Convention Hall itself (a first.) On the third ballot he wins. As his neighbors cheer, he stands, puts on his hat and ducks out, saying, “I know a woman who would like to hear this right away.” He walks 3 blocks to his home and breaks the news to Mary. Then they come out together, stroll back to the center of town, shaking hands, waving and grinning, and then go into an ice cream parlor that has opened extra hours (this is Good Business) to celebrate among friends.

* * * * *

1880 Again the Republicans are in Chicago for their meeting, and badly divided. Notable only because this is the first-ever convention to have a photograph taken of the event. Now those glass plates and huge lenses needed long exposure times, so subjects were asked to pose with a sober face (see any $5 bill) and NOT move. This was not a problem at this Convention, since it took 36 ballots before James Garfield got the nod, but they also got the photo, since nothing really moved for a LONG time.

More Technology

In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt, hoping to get a third term nomination, stayed in touch with his handlers by TELEPHONE, a first. (Didn’t help. Taft was re-nominated, so Teddy had to go off and start his own 3rd Party.)

* * * * *

1924 4 years after the first US commercial radio broadcast (Pittsburgh, KDKA, still extant) both major Party Conventions (Cleveland for the GOP and NYC for the Democrats) this year are the first ones BROADCAST by radio, in each case to a “network” of about 50 stations regionally connected via phone lines. No one really knew how the public would receive this idea, and the politicians were learning too……or not.

William Jennings Bryant was in the house in New York City, the 1896 “Boy Orator” nominee, back for another public appearance almost 30 years later. By all accounts he was an outstanding speaker; made his living off of it for decades.

So they set up a podium on the New York City platform, complete with those wired metal boxes on poles called “microphones.” Bryant started in on a nominating speech, fired up the crowd….and then, out of decades of practice and sheer habit, walked over to the edge of the platform here and there to take cheers, shake hands, AND CONTINUE his speech to all those within sound of his voice.

These did NOT include the microphones, so all the radio audience heard were some faint cheers and a lot of dead air. (Last time Bryant was in the public eye.)

BUT, at the same convention, on the same platform, a rising Democratic star, tragically stricken with polio, pulled his wheelchair up to a desk-mounted set of microphones. Franklin Roosevelt had the touch and a gift: a sterling, made-for-radio, make-the-announcers-envious, voice, and he delivered a rouser of a speech to the radio audience. They were just as impressed as everyone in the hall…..and a star was born. In the coming years of the Roaring 20s, or when a Depression hit, or even if it looked like a new war, people would tune in if radio announced that Roosevelt feller would be speaking on a public issue.

* * * * *

1964 San Francisco. Barry Goldwater has turned heads all through the primaries and battled it out in state-by-state primaries and caucuses with a centrist sort named Richard Nixon and with the leader of the Liberal Republicans (before extinction) Nelson Rockefeller. Before the balloting there were speeches from the candidates while furious deal-making and deal-blocking was going on in the back rooms.

Rockefeller gave a ringing speech and his delegates (and some celebrities) on the floor cheered him wildly. One of these was a Genuine Black Republican (of the Rockefeller type), Jackie Robinson…..of Brooklyn, retired from baseball but still a known figure everywhere and a personal friend of the Governor of his state of New York.

He was cheering Rockefeller, and a nearby a white guy in a suit, a delegate covered in ‘Goldwater’ buttons, caught Robinson’s eye, pointed, and told him to “shut up”—-and maybe more----in all the noise. Robinson gave him a look and shook his head, “No.” The Goldwater guy got up and took a step toward Robinson——and his wife popped up too and got between the two of them, trying to calm down her husband. Others who were nearby clearly heard Robinson (also on his feet now) snarling, “Turn him loose, lady! Turn him loose!” She didn’t…..but it would have made for spectacular TV……

Hope this helped fill in some historical blank spots as it did for me….another reason I like writing the History Corner. I’m still learning too……

Good News in Society, Politics…..and Fun

>>>>>>>Yes, yes last week there was an…..incident…..at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Lamestream Media was all over it of course, Breaking! and Breathless! And then starting Monday has been the Mess in Milwaukee, AKA the GQP National Convention.

But you know what? That Lame and Lamentable Mainstream Media has 2 things going against them: 1) if it’s politics in an election year, the ONLY Acceptable way to report on it is using the Horse Race Method. 2) They are so fixated on the Next Hot Story, they can only “cover” one narrative/story at a time.

This currently works out in President Biden’s favor because….the Media is NOT/NO LONGER writing Doom stories on Biden’s age/senility/feebleness and other Age-ist CRAP. Knocked those right off the air and into the dumpster. Mind you, modern American journalists take courses in Dumpster-diving, so some of these stories could return. But if/when they do, you can fire back with or console yourselves with the following.

In the summer of 1864 a Civil War had been flaming for 3 solid years and while there had been gains for the Union, the Confederacy remained stubbornly alive and kicking, with dead and wounded being counted every week on both sides. A great wave of war-weariness (encouraged by Southerners and their sympathizers) gripped the election year agenda and the Press had THE ANSWER: Lincoln needs to Go! Step Down! Quit! Its what the People wanted…...right?

From Various People and places in the North in August of 1864:

"From almost all points very bad news in relation to Mr. Lincoln's chances of re-election. The people at large seems not so enthusiastic for him now." Adam de Gurowski (acerbic popular author)

"Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. We must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow. If we such another ticket as could be had by naming Grant, Butler, or Sherman for President, and Farragut as Vice, we could make a fight yet." Horace Greeley (newspaper editor, future Presidential candidate)

"I cannot believe that Mr. Lincoln, if fully advised of the state of the public mind, would desire to enter upon a canvass." Daniel S. Dickenson (ex- US Senator, “War Democrat”; almost the 1864 VP candidate with Lincoln, losing out to Andrew Johnson)

"It may be that Mr. Lincoln will see that we shall be stronger and more united under another candidate." Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass.)

"The people regard Mr. Lincoln's candidacy as a misfortune. His apparent strength when nominated was fictitious, and now the fiction has disappeared, and instead of confidence there is distrust." Richard Smith

"It is rumored in New York, and that report is believed by many who are in a position to be well-informed, that at an early date, Abraham Lincoln will withdraw his name as a candidate for re-election, and urge the assembling of another nomination convention." --- Buffalo Courier newspaper

…...and on September 2nd, the White House telegraph room clicks off a message from General Sherman, down in front of Atlanta with 60,000 Union troops banging on the gates of the city: “Atlanta is OURS, and fairly won!”..which the White House made haste (Made Haste, I Say!) to share the telegram with every newspaper and every reporter they could find…...

“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat…..”

>>>>>» Yes its time! Its been a long time but LOOK there! On the underside of some low hanging clouds…..the Bat Signal! Time for the Dynamic Duo to become be-caped with capes, be-masked with masks, and do battle against evil doers. Bruce Wayne and Burt Ward did their “Ka-POW” and “Zonk” best against evildoers for 3 solid seasons of cheesy props and corny camera angles.

And then…….. the Dynamic Duo went on with the rest of their lives. Bruce Wayne lived a full 89 years, dipping in to acting long after the ‘60s (had a cameo on “Big Bang Theory” with the worshipful Sheldon Cooper…..).

And Burt Ward? Robin? The Boy Wonder? Mr. Ward has just had his 79th Birthday (July 6) but his heart has been with all sorts of God’s critters (The Joker and The Penguin, while some sort of critters, don’t count.)

Now comes THIS HEART WARMING STORY that Burt Ward has received a Life Time Achievement Award for…...rescuing over 15,000 (!) dogs and cats over the last 30 years! The guy has 50 dogs of his own, but they have taught him well to use his Bat sense to help those on 4 paws who are hurting. YAY Robin!

>>>>>>Otherwise, July 17ths have had some telling moments from years gone by:

The evolution of dentistry: A dental dog helps and calms children

1867 Boston The first School of Dental Medicine in the United States affiliated with a University opened its doors this day at Harvard. (It took a while for the “Barber, Tooth Pulling & Saw Sharpening” places just off Main street in Haystack, Nebraska to finally close down…..) Please sit down, open your mouth and say, “Ahhhh…”

1945 Potsdam, Germany This semi-damaged palace of Prussian kings on the edge of Berlin hosts a Conference starting today. The War in Europe is over (May 8) but there is unfinished business in the Pacific. President Truman, the new Guy, 3 months on the Top Job, sails across the Atlantic and then rides into town. Winston Churchill strides in to the meetings, determined to NOT give away a victory over tyranny to another tyranny….because Joseph Stalin is here too as the Conference opens. There are competing agendas among the Big 3, the hangover from Yalta…..and then, part way through, there is a Parliamentary election in Great Britain, which the Conservatives LOSE. Churchill literally is sent packing, much to Stalin’s wonder; he cannot understand why such an election was held, and why Churchill obeys the will of the People (which tells Truman most of what he needs to know about Stalin.)

(As Churchill is packing to leave, a reporter manages to ask him for an assessment about his successor, Clement Atlee, en route to Potsdam. Atlee has been in the War Cabinet so Churchill over 4 years has got to see him in action and get to know him. Winston answers the reporter, “Mr. Atlee is a very modest man….who has much to be modest about.”)

1955 Anaheim, California On the site of a 160-acre orange ranch just off the Santa Ana Freeway, a lot of construction has been going on, as Mr. Walt Disney spends the $17-million he has raised. On this day Disneyland opens to the public. Entry tickets for kids was 50 cents and $1 for adults.

1990 Boston Fenway Park has seen its moments over the decades: hitting, pitching, catches, steals. All the stuff that makes for great baseball. Here wisdom on the game has become the stuff of cliches: “Pitching beats hitting.” ……“ You can win a game with your glove just like your bat.” But in a stunner for the ages, on this day the Minnesota Twins become 1st team EVAH in MLB to turn 2 triple plays in the same game……but still manage to lose to Boston Red Sox 1-0…….. because you still have to score runs. BTW I Looked it up. Since 1876 (!) there have been 727 triple plays, or about 5 per SEASON in both Major Leagues among all the teams combined. So…..2…..in the same game….by one team……..

A few months ago I ran a couple biographies of a couple of American First Ladies that many reading here enjoyed, and said so in the comments, asking for more. Now this GNR 3rd Wednesday edition is already long, so instead of my now-usual 2 Ladies, today I bring you an introduction to Ida Saxton McKinley.

Ida Saxton was born in 1847 in Canton, Ohio, a town her relatives and friends founded and influenced. An entire city block was casually called “Saxton Block” because of all the Saxton brothers and cousins who had a business there. Ida was the first of three children, each born at 1 year intervals (a sister and brother followed.) Both parents were outspoken abolitionists, helped with the Underground Railroad and firm believers in “gender equality in education.” To that end and thanks to her father’s (a banker) support, Ida attended a local public school for 7 years, then 2 girls’ boarding schools and a final 3 years at a “female seminary” outside Philadelphia. (NOT a school for the training of clergy but an upscale (and demanding) “finishing school.”)

The “seminary” director-ess (!) believed in physical movement (outdoors!) for all students and Ida became an avid hiker. The course work included advanced mathematics, science, geography, history, Latin, Greek, and French. In addition to “proper behavior for ladies,” ability on a musical instrument was a graduation requirement (Ida played piano well) so an unusually thorough education for a woman. Indeed, after graduation (age 21) her father made her a teller in his bank, a city of Canton “first” (and rare enough anywhere.) She took flak from other workers and from customers for being an “over-educated woman that impaired her gender” but was so good with figures she became assistant manager.

At age 23 met and married Civil War veteran county prosecutor William McKinley. The best event of Ida’s life for the next 5 years. A very loving relationship…..which was needed. Her doting grandmother died mere weeks before the wedding, and her grandfather followed in death 2 months after the wedding. William and Ida had a daughter, then a son. But Ida’s mother died 2 weeks before the birth of the boy. The little fellow was sickly and died at age 6 months. Then, their first-born, a daughter, died at age 4 of scarlet fever.

Ida was deeply stricken, and beyond emotionally. She suffered a severe fall with a head and neck injury that confined her to bed for several months. This fall was either the result of, or was the source of, a long-term, late-onset form of epilepsy, and she was prone to seizures for the rest of her life when under strain. Although she carried the double grief of losing both her children for the rest of her life, she followed her husband William into his political life. When he was elected to Congress for a few terms she went with him to Washington. Became good friends with First Lady Lucy Hayes, who frequently called on Ida and invited her to White House events, both public and private. Despite her grief and her health challenges she did her best to engage in life. In 1880 (11 years after the Gold Spike of the the Trans-Continental Railroad) the couple took the train for a 2 month visit to California. Ida spent several weeks hiking in the Sierras without health issues.

In the 1880s and 1890s McKinley moved back to Ohio and served as Governor for 2 terms. He was very protective of Ida’s health, yet valued her input and support. Whenever he had to leave the Governor’s mansion to his “public office” (usually 2 or 3 days a week; in the morning and after luncheon at home) he always stopped at the sidewalk and raised his hat to her from the side walk and waited until she waved back from a window. This generated much positive comment (a rather public display of affection in a very stuffy age) and even small crowds, including reporters, to watch him do this and added to his popularity.

McKinley also arranged his “at home” office (where he met with all sorts of people regularly for Ohio government business) be set up next to a sitting room. Ida would usually spend hours there knitting (she became famous for her skill at this) but also listened in as William deliberately left a connecting door open next to his desk. Between appointments he would come in, sit down and ask Ida for her opinions, impressions and input on the completed meeting. (He often credited her for much of his political success…..seems like a 19th century “power couple.”)

In 1896 when McKinley was nominated for President he would not leave Ida behind at home to campaign. They had figured out heavy people interaction taxed her and aggravated her “nerves”, so William engaged in a “front porch” campaign, literally. Speeches, rallies, brass bands, dignitaries…...McKinley would meet them all on his front porch and front yard. Upon election to President, he set up his White House Office the same way as his Governor’s office….with a connecting door next door. The “Administration” took pains to portray Ida as reasonably healthy and she frequently did take long walks (still liked hiking…..and it seemed to help some) around the streets of Washington DC many an early morning, alone or with a friend, year around. She did play the First Lady Hostess at many events but out of fear of a seizure, she typically presided over these (and was usually photographed) seated. William changed White House protocol so that at formal events (just like informal ones) Ida would be seated beside him, rather than the standing precedent of the First Lady being seated across from the President.

She was in Buffalo, New York in 1901 when William was assassinated (although she was in another spot when the shots rang out.) She moved back to Canton to live out her days (dying at age 59), mostly in the company of her sister. Emotionally scarred, she did support and meet with various medical researchers in person who were trying to get a grip on epilepsy as a disease. She was fairly open about this and helped move public understanding of this condition from “dangerous madness” to a disease of the nerves (treatments came decades later, but the ostracizing stopped and public perception moved from fear to support of victims.)

Much of the former Front yard has become a part of Market Street

The Saxton-McKinley Mansion is now the official site of the National First Ladies’ Museum, administered by the National Park Service. (So Canton offers visitors a two-fer: the First Ladies’ Museum, where most of the source material comes for these First Lady profiles, and the NFL Hall of Fame.)

Good News in Science, Engineering and Technology

>>>>>>» Engineering meets politics meets climate change! The Biden Administration is taking global climate change seriously and has gotten some serious bucks through Congress to start addressing it. In keeping with Biden’s mantra of building an economy “from the bottom up and from the middle out”, AND making and keeping friends among unions, THIS IMPORTANT WRITE UP notes $1.7 billion in Federal Funding to retrofit shuttered auto/truck/bus/motorcycle plants to make and crank out Electric Vehicles and their parts…….using Union workers…...in auto towns…..to revitalize communities…...while doing something practical about climate change. How many win-win-wins is that?!

>>>>>>» Oh and while we’re walking around the shop floors and visiting Union halls, HERE IS A STORY from the Electrical Worker’s Union about the impact and effects of the shift to EVs on electricians. Yeah, its sort of an in-house story, but there’s an awful lot of momentum and reading building up…...among all sorts of people that the Lamestream Media hardly even know exist. But this is a cool report from the front lines!

Of course, those scientists and engineers and researchers have been hard at their callings on July 17ths of yesteryears:

1902 Buffalo, New York Here in the Middle of July, ALL RISE and face Buffalo! Not only on account of the hometown of our own GNR, but because of today’s entry! 25-year-old Willis Carrier visited in Pittsburgh earlier this spring. On a train platform he watched the fog swirling down from the Pittsburgh hills and had a revelation: by carefully blowing air through fog he could adjust the level of humidity of the air on the other side of the fog. He went to work for the publishing/lithograph company he worked for and came up with something that would lower humidity and keep paper sheets from wrinkling. On this day unveils his machine for both cooling and drying fan-forced air, the first air-conditioner. Founded Carrier Corp. in 1915 (still extant) to manufacture house-sized and larger units. (Theater owners were among the first customers.) Named one of the 100 Top Inventions of the 20^th Century.

Catch that first line? “Air---manufactured weather-----”

1941 Washington, DC It is still 5 months until Pearl Harbor but the US was getting busy, readying for war. President Roosevelt had called for America to become the “Arsenal of Democracy” and war material was being built all across the US. Overseeing the build-up were various military departments and offices scattered all across Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia in dozens of locations and buildings. On this day (a Thursday) Brigadier General Soervell directed Architect G. Edwin Bergstrom to have the basic plans and architectural perspectives for a single headquarters office building that could house 40,000 War Department employees on his desk by the following Monday morning. As ordered, Bergstrom delivered on Monday, a 5-sided, multi-story affair called “The Pentagon.” (“Four walls and a spare….”)

Mary Leakey and an old relative…..of ours…..

1959 Olduvai Gorge, Kenya Dr. Mary Leakey leaves her ill husband in camp and goes out (again) to a dig site. This day she spotted a piece of ancient bone, perhaps part of a skull “that had a hominid look.” She knew what she had, exclaiming, “I’ve got him!” After study with her husband Louis, the discovery of the human ancestry line, with this reconstructed skull, Zinjanthropus Boisei, dating to over 1.5 million years ago.

Good News in Arts, Music and Literature

>>>>>>>>>> Snips and clips are the expectation of the modern age: a few lines, a fast pic, the 7-second punchline of a video. But there is still a place for a good essay, a thoughtful read. Being a pastor has instilled in me a high appreciation of Text, Translation, Interpretation, Commentary, and Reflection….all leading to Application with Illustration…...you know, building a sermon. (OK so maybe you Don’t Know…...but that’s how I was taught at seminary and it has served me well in the weekly run-up to Sunday.)

One helpful thing about having a Scripture is that many generations have found wisdom in many passages and have applied these nuggets to new and novel situations, bolstering its value and timeless quality. I came across a piece from the late 1990s, applying certain eternal, universal matters to the brouhaha of the Day. In that case it was the Scandals of Bill Clinton, with a call for Nobler Character. But I think you’ll find THIS THOUGHTFUL PIECE from a thorough-going Evangelical pastor from a quarter century ago fits our current situation with the Mango Menace, and Dr. Rogers (high-ranking Southern Baptist) calls his “evangelical” and “Xtian” and “moral” followers and voters to task, then and now.

******

While July 17ths have been a bit thin on Moments in Literature or the visual Arts, it has seen a broad, if eclectic, set of Musical moments and people worth recalling (and even chuckling with.)

1674 Southampton, England Birth of Isaac Watts, minister and hymn writer. Son of a Non-Conformist minister (as in NOT “conforming” to the practices of the Church of England) Watts had a classical education but was barred from attending Oxford or Cambridge because of his religious stance. Still, he was ordained and became a minister in London. He had a great ear for rhyme and rhythm and put it to use writing a good portion of English hymns still in use. Titles include: Joy to the World/ Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun/ O God Our Help in Ages Past/ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross/Alas and Did my Savior Bleed/ This is the Day the Lord Hath Made….among over 750 pieces and widely popular among many denominations.

At the Battle of Monmouth (NJ) in 1778 some American troops were driven into a church. They had shot and gunpowder for their muskets but had run out of wadding, simply crumpled paper rammed down to hold the powder and musket ball from rolling out the muzzle. Their officer told them to tear up hymnals (typically with page after page of hymns by Watts) for wadding. He put them in formation in the churchyard for a volley and called, “Make Ready! Give ‘em Watts! Aim! Fire!”

A great set of visuals to set off a great hymn….

YouTube Video

1717 London. A warm day in town so King George I ordered up the Royal Barge for a pleasure trip along the cooling waters of the River Thames. He stepped aboard about 8pm. The tide and current took the barge along without need for rowers. The City of London provided another barge, carrying about 50 musicians to drift alongside, premiering George F. Handel’s “Water Music.” Word got around a new Handel piece was being performed outdoors and people flocked to the banks to listen. So many got into their own boats that a diarist wrote “the water could scarce be seen for all things afloat.” The King went ashore, then came back aboard to be rowed back to Whitehall Palace and commanded the piece be played again all the way back. A hit was born.

A few pieces from the longer work, alongside some sketches of how that evening looked, according to some who had pencil in hand…..

YouTube Video

1935 Ames, Iowa Birth of Peter Schickele, musician and composer. Grew up in North Dakota and became the first student ever at Swarthmore to earn a degree in music, then earned a Master’s in composition at Julliard. Wrote music for several artists including Joan Baez but was also taken with the musical humor of Spike Jones. He invented the story he was a “musical researcher” who was “discovering” (as in quietly composing) the long-lost works of (his stage name) P. D. Q. Bach “the 17^th and most illegitimate son of Johann Sebastian Bach.” Works “discovered” include Echo Sonata for 2 Groups of Unfriendly Instruments/ the dramatic oratorio Oedipus Tex, highlighted by the “O.K. Chorale”/Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycles and Balloons. Also an inventor of new musical instruments: “dill piccolo” for playing sour notes; the “tromboon” a cross between the trombone and bassoon that “has the disadvantages of both;” and the UberKlavier (“Super Piano” with a 15 octave range (vs. the standard 7 ¼ octaves) whose high notes can only be heard by dogs and its lowest notes can only be heard by whales; invented by Munich piano builder Klark Kant.)

On a personal note, I attended the world premiere (my only ever!) of PDQ Bach’s opera, “The Abduction of Figaro” an opera for people who do not like opera. The title character Figaro has no lines; he lies on a 4-poster bed and spends the entire work dying, with occasional moans. At one point, his wife, the ravishing Susanna Susannadanna is kneeling at his bedside, weeping. 3 Colonially-dressed manservants are also around the room, fluffing pillows, making tinctures. She sings to Figaro, “Please live, don’t die. Don’t go. I need you to stay. I want you to stay. Don’t go, please stay.” The 3 manservants form a line, swaying, left shoulder to the audience and back her up with “Stay….just a little bit longer……”

Beethoven…..via PDQ Bach…..complete with Play-by-Play and Color Commentary, referees!….(warning, No Liquids in Mouth…..)

YouTube Video

Well I hope this gets your Wednesday over the hump to roll easily down the rest of the week to the weekend. Now its your turn with your fingers and your keyboards and your thoughts to fill in the comments below! Thank you for coming by!

two-glasses-of-white-wine-and-bunch-of-muscat-white-grapes_eoxov2ffol__F0000.png — Aaahhhhh……. and salute!

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

Good News RoundUp: Just about Summer---Astronomically

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday June 19, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/06/19 · 04:00

Good morning to all the Gnus in Gnuville getting ready to note, celebrate, mark and otherwise call attention to….the Last Full day of Spring! Yep….tomorrow afternoon the tilt of the earth in its Northern Hemisphere has its maximum of effect of nodding toward our Sun and the longest daylight day of the year is at hand. So light and sun fans, this is YOUR Party Week!

The Good News Round Up is a daily feature here at DailyKos, and once a month the Great and All-Powerful Wise Ones allow me into the control room to deliver various uplifting news matters that are informative and/or off-beat and/or reassuring and/or hopeful. (Letting little old ME do this shows that the Great and Powerful Wise Ones have a wry sense of humor as well.)

So come on in to the Gnuville (for new arrivals: Good News….Gnusies, as in “gnu”) Good News Round Up. I assume we all live in Gnuville, which features a Daily Breakfast Brunch. Have yourself some coffee, tea, or mocha-cocoa just the way you like it (after all, its your pixel screen and your hot bev mug to fill however you like it.)

And some Gnusies start their day with an eye-opening mimosa. Mimosas are a GREAT way to celebrate the Last Full Day of Spring. (On Friday, Mimosas will be a GREAT way to celebrate the First Full Day of Northern Hemisphere Summer; the second mimosa will of course celebrate the First Full Day of Southern Hemisphere Winter.) Find a favorite chair, couch, cozy corner, snuggly nook, or a hearty, backslapping long table of Extroverts, and have a look at this morning’s stories. Please feel free to comment, ask, answer, expound, impound, explain, construct, de-construct, rec, tip any and all of the comments and stories here. After all, when you do, we all enjoy coming here all the more.

Special Announcement from the Mimosa Bar:

“The Not-so-Great Presidential Pretender of the House of Orange” the other week publicly trashed the city of Milwaukee, which is hosting the Republican National Convention next month. You’ve read he called it a “Horrible City”.

Now Milwaukee is a beer-making town and has been for decades. Even their major league baseball team is named the Milwaukee Brewers. And located in Wisconsin, there is a long, proud history of progressive, left-of-center politics around town. So, if you put all that together, the crafty craft brewers of Milwaukee have to answer, and they have. Mobcraft Brewing has announced they are brewing “Not-So Horrible City IPA.” You can pre-order ahead of the “goes on sale date” of July 8.

(And BTW, if that doesn’t lead you to hoist a brew in the Gnuville Brunch Lounge, you can go down

the road to Minocqua, home of Progressive Beers, Choice Wine, and the in-your-face WOKE Collection of roasted coffees. Visit them ONLINE HERE and impress your next gathering by serving up “Biden Beer”, “Bernie Brew” or “Dark Brandon Espresso Stout.” )

(As per my custom, you will also notice Historical moments of June 19ths of yesteryear, taking a fresh turn of recognition and notice here in 2024. Also, a few months ago, a did some biographical notes on a couple of American First Ladies. Many Gnusies have enjoyed these and asked for more, so you’ll see a couple of these as well.)

>>>>>>>>From a reply I made yesterday afternoon, updated:

We are beginning recovery from a burst water pipe on the top floor; 20 minutes before we discovered it and got to the shut off valve and went into bucket and towel action, but it will be weeks recovering.

Thank you all for your kindness and good wishes. SageHagRN, Toby the Cat and I are STILL waiting for the first contact…...from the insurance adjuster, upon whom all things depend and rely (timelines, money, timeline for money, what will be covered and what is not.) We know his name now (and that he’s a “he”) but……..

We filled Tuesday by packing clothes, packing books, taking down stuff from the walls, packing up the antique china and crystal. More of same today, along with the arrival of “The Pod”. NOT a First Contact meeting with ETs, but one of those mobile storage units. Thursday & Friday the young bucks rescue team members will load the Pod…..”Packing Out” ….with all the furniture from the 4 affected rooms and these boxes we’ve been packing today.

And STILL we await…..the Adjuster…….has a very “waiting for Messiah” vibe….

Shalom.

Good News from Science and Engineering

>>>» Its out there. REALLY out there! What is? Voyager 1, a satellite launched in the 1970s on a plotted trajectory to head out of our solar system. Even got a starring role in the first “Star Trek Movie” as “Vjer”, something of a runaway machine that needed to be stopped. But there is a team of people at NASA who stay in touch with Voyager, even at 15 billion-with-a-B miles distance.

Last fall it looked like “the little satellite that could” had reached its hardware/software expiration date, and transmissions went down to just this side of static. BUT God bless them, the brain-y engineers said “We can damn sure try to get some jumper cables on that little guy!” Word came in April that after everyone stood “CLEAR!” and the paddles were removed: “we have a pulse.” And now in THIS INTERSTELLAR BIT OF NEWS (how often do you get to print THAT?? NOT as sci-fi, or as a joke, but REAL News from beyond our Solar System) it looks like things are FIXED. Voyager has 4 instruments on board and all of them are once again taking readings and transmitting data back to us. YAY!

>>>>» A couple diaries in the last couple weeks have had this noted, but it’s just too good NOT to put up one more time. A group of researchers from the Dr. Doolittle Study of Animals Society has been listening and recording ELEPHANTS and their grunts, trumpetings, whistles, snorts and such. Having analyzed these very carefully, IT SURE LOOKS LIKE these wise and ponderous four-foots-on-the-ground seem to greet each other with the same distinct set of sounds. In other words, they seem to start their “chats” BY NAME. Every Tom, Dick, Sally, Ashley and Pat on the team are delighted, so much so that they start their morning conversations by getting each other as “Mrumph”, “Durrach”, “Schlougah”, “AaayO” and “Grack” (which are how the Big Ear Crew addresses each of them…..politely…...hmmm…...I thought I heard that but maybe I just made it up….)

>>>>>» Open FIRE!……...FIRE IN THE HOLD!……..Ready…..Aim…… These dramatic phrases have studded war stories and crime dramas ever since the invention of gunpowder. Now mind you, before that, there was plenty of fighting too. A lot of it was one-on-one, hand to hand (which is why the events of original Olympic Games were for men only, based on soldiers’ training: boxing an opponent, wrestling with them, throwing heavy rocks at them (“putting the shot”) or spears (javelin) or flying spinning stuff (discus) or arrows (archery). Messengers needed to be able to run quickly with verbal orders (sprints) or cover ground (middle distance) or trot for hours (marathon). Along the way they would need to jump over fences, bushes and hedges (hurdles, high jump), leap over various holes (long jump), even use poles to clear wooden stockades (pole vault).

Also, some of ancient warfare was hitting at a distance with something heavy: huge logs to batter city gates and also certain engines that used physics to heave huge rocks (ballistas, catapults, onangers.) With the coming of gunpowder and other chemicals some of these withered into mere sports, and burning stuff took their place. Those chemicals can be now be formulated to lift stuff into Earth orbit or even beyond (see Voyager…..).

But now comes an amazing story that there is a company proposing to launch satellites into orbit…..using a catapult! Really! They have had a record of successful tests and are looking to launch satellites up to 200 kilos (440 pounds) into orbits 500 miles up or more. No rocket fuel, just electricity, physics and some really “outside the box” engineering…...that, again, has a record of successful tests.

__________________

Mind you, scientists and engineers have been observing, measuring, mulling and inventing stuff for centuries, and June 19ths are proud to report that 6/19 has had its scientific and engineering days in the sun.

240 BCE (A rare, MINUS, Before Zero, Date) Alexandria, Egypt Mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes, a Libyan by birth, has risen to become Chief Librarian of one of THE World’s greatest libraries here at Alexandria. He has been working on a really basic problem: how big is our home? That is, how far around is it? Eratosthenes concluded the Earth was a sphere (already pretty cutting edge!) and is recorded this day as finishing his calculation. South of Alexandria was the town of Syene (about the modern Aswan.) They had a town well and the people there said that on the first day of sumner (SOLSTICE) at high sun, the beams made it all the way to the bottom to reflect off the water.

Eratosthenes reasoned this meant the sun was directly overhead on that day at that point. He arranged for a pole the ground in Alexandria on the same day, measured out to be exactly 5000 stadiae (a measure of length, like “a league” or “a mile”) north of that well. He and helpers took as precise a measurement of the angle of the shadow cast by the pole at this same moment. By applying geometry Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth at 252,000 stadiae. When we convert that ancient measurement into modern terms, we find Eratosthenes missed the actual number…..by 1.4%! As they say in Texas, for somebody working 23 centuries ago, that was “pretty good shootin’, Tex!”

1623 Clermont-Ferrand, France Birth of Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist and Christian philosopher. He formulated the first laws of atmospheric pressures (which scientists measure in Pascals in his honor). In mathematics, Pascal did serious foundational work on probability theory. He invented the roulette wheel to study probability (and as an effort to invent a perpetual motion machine.) (Perhaps he coined the famous phrase, “Quelles sont les chances?” which Seinfeld translated as “What are the odds?”) He wrote poetry “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not comprehend”. He was also a nimble, intellectual defender of the Christian faith in his famous book, Pensees (Thoughts).

1931 West Haven, Connecticut Did you know you could use light and shadow to open and close an electric circuit? Well, on this day that laboratory curiosity moves into the mainstream. Savin Rock Amusement Park has a BIG dining hall that seats 1000. It was here the first photoelectric cells were installed to open and close the doors “automatically” when you stepped near. While Savin Rock Park is gone almost 60 years, those automatic doors have caught on everywhere.

____________________________

Legal & Lawyer Lighter Moment #1

We are all enjoying (enjoying, I say!) Donald Trump’s legal troubles and convictions. Nearly 1000 of the Coup-ers of J6 have also met with the Justice system. Trump’s lawyers are having licenses suspended and are being sued down to their socks and are even (let THIS be the start of a TREND!) going to jail (right, Peter Navarro? Right, Steve Bannon?)

Now all this is serious business. It is also rather satisfying for us to see justice being done, with all the carefully constructed legal steps and protections being observed and in play. Some of those lawyers know what they are doing (and we cheer for the prosecutors in these cases.) Some of those lawyers do NOT know what they are doing (and keep getting fired by Trump.)

But there are times when a lawyer in court is so focused on not just the forest, not just the trees, not just A tree, but on the texture of the bark on a certain tree…..and they get carried away. They prepare. They live by the dictum “Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to”. They try to prepare for every eventuality. And yet……..”too much of a good thing is not good.” And also, “Being too efficient can be…. inefficient, Mr. Spock.” (Captain Kirk)

Judge of supreme court hitting sounding block with wooden gavel while sitting by desk in courtroom and passing judgement during trial session

So here (and sprinkled in below as well) are a few excerpts from a book entitled “Disorder in the Court”, which collects actual court transcripts of actual lawyers addressing actual witnesses…..and getting swung into an unexpected turn that is, well, unintentionally funny (because every case is serious, you know!)

NILM WARNING: No Liquids in Mouth.

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I,Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
_______________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.

ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.

Good News in Arts, Literature and Music

Sometimes, on certain days, some things just DON’T happen. June 19ths seem to be a day that the artists, writers and composers were basically all given the day off. Still, we do have one:

1810 Hamburg, temporarily French Empire (!), now Germany Birth of Ferdinand David, composer. Ferdinand was born one year later yet in the same house as Felix Mendelssohn, and Felix and his sister Clara (later Schumann) and Ferdinand were good friends for years. An outstanding violinist David had a concert career, often touring in the Russian Empire. In his early 30s he helped establish the Leipzig Conservatory and was its first teacher of the violin. He composed about 50 works in all, often for the violin, but also concertos and light works for various instruments. He is remembered to this day for his Concertino for Trombone & Orchestra, which is still THE required piece for a trombone audition to join an orchestra or band. (“OK kid, let’s hear how good your ‘David’ is”…..and this kid playing won an international competition…..)

YouTube Video

But as things are thin today for the arts, let us turn to a position that for many years was expected to have a certain appreciation and support for the arts, and literature and music, although in an unusual setting: as the

First Lady of the Second President of the United States.

I give you Abigail Smith…..later, Abigail Adams.

Abigail Smith, 2nd of 5 children, was born in 1744 in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her father was a Congregationalist pastor, and 19 years later he presided over Abigail’s wedding to lawyer John Adams. Abigail’s grandfather on her mother’s side, John Quincy, was a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Council (a major governing body copied in several American colonies) and served for 40 years (!) as Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. He lived nearby, so between Dad and Grand dad, Abigail, who never had any formal schooling but whose mother taught her to read, write and cipher, could read at length in 2 substantial private libraries. Her favorites were Shakespeare, philosophy, government and law.

At age 19 she married struggling lawyer John Adams from Braintree. (How struggling? They were married at Abigail’s house. Afterwards, John hoisted Abigail onto his horse and got up to ride double to take her home, since he could not afford a carriage or a second horse.) They soon began having children (5 in all) and in 1774 John was elected to the First Continental Congress and went away for several months to Philadelphia. This began a steady correspondence between them of a great number of letters. (By good fortune, many of these are extant, providing scholars with an inside view of their lives and the events shaking the Colonies in those days.)

How determined for Revolution was Massachusetts? Well in 1775 they opened fire at Lexington and Concord, besieged Boston and mauled an attacking force at Bunker (Breed’s) Hill, and sent John Hancock and Adams to a Second Continental Congress. But also, the Massachusetts General Court appointed Hannah Winthrop (wife of the Governor), Mercy Warren, and Abigail Adams as a 3-woman panel to examine (for the Court!) Massachusetts women accused of acting, by word or deed, in favor of Great Britain.

After Independence was won in 1783, John was appointed Ambassador to Great Britain and Abigail joined him there, and also in visiting France, for 4 years. Back in the semi-United States in 1787, Adams went to Philadelphia for a Constituting Convention. One of Abigail’s letters to him at this time has her famously calling on him to “not forget the ladies” in the new government, including the right to vote.

In 1797 she missed John’s Inauguration as President as she was tending to her dying father-in-law. She then joined him as First Lady on and off for about 18 months (of his 48 month term) in both Philadelphia (where a residence hotel served as the President’s house) and 4 months in the new Federal City of the District of Columbia. (There the President’s Mansion was not yet finished as she arrived in November for the last 4 months of the term. She used the unfinished East Room strung with clotheslines to let the family laundry dry in the winter.)

Abigail had clear political views (pro equal education of women as far as their minds would take them.) She was also pro-Emancipation, out loud and in public (her husband was pretty accommodating about this, even though it caused him some political headaches.) Also, since in those days the winner for the Presidential vote became President and the #2 finisher became Vice-President (a practice changed in the Constitution in the early 1800s) she had conversations and even quiet clashes with VP Thomas Jefferson, slave holder and leader of the Anti-Federalist Party (later the Democratic-Republicans and eventually, the Democrats.)

Since she was vocal about her views, she became a target of the Anti-Federalists in Congress and in their newspapers. These papers were helped by party members who were postmasters. When they saw letters between John and Abigail (as they continued writing when they were apart, which was often) they would sometimes purloin her letters, read the contents, and if they were political, pass them on to friendly newspapers to print in part. This kept ratcheting up the political heat, contributing to Adams’ defeat in his try for a 2nd term.

After leaving public life, Abigail was touched by the death of the new President’s daughter, Maria Jefferson Eppes, and wrote him a very sympathetic note, which Jefferson answered gravely and kindly, leading to a level of healing between them.

(They tacitly avoided politics in these exchanges and simply became friends, which led to Thomas and John becoming old friends----both of them dying on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. (John Adams’ last words were, “Thomas Jefferson survives”….not knowing Jefferson had died a few hours before in Virginia.)

Abigail had preceded them, passing away in 1818, 6 years before her son, John Quincy, was elected President. In 1848 one of her grandsons who had collected and preserved many of her letters published a few of these….thereby making Abigail’s writings the first published from a First Lady.

Legal & Lawyer Lighter Moment #2 (Same rule on mouth liquids applies….)

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid

Good News in Society, Politics and Fun

>>>>» NO. NO. NO. You canNOT try to overthrow a government, fail, and then expect to get away scot-free. Nope. The FAFO (“F*** Around and Find Out”) Fallout from January 6 keeps hitting the fan. Perhaps the most pernicious (pernicious, I say!) was the Fake Elector plotting from Eastman, Rudi, Kraken, Ellis, et. al. Now those were/are the plotters at the national level. They were getting help in certain states.

Those states have been steadily tackling their own messes with their own courts and laws. Arizona, Georgia (go Fani!) and Michigan have made the news from time to time with developments. Wisconsin was another such spot, and the investigation there is reaching the indictment stage. In a particularly forceful rooting out, attorney Jim Troupis, Fake Elector, is getting what’s coming to him. IN THIS STORY Troupis has been suspended from his state job…...which is as a member of…..wait for it…..the Judicial Ethics Panel! Yes, you can make a certain distinction between personal and public ethics, but still…….a guy on the state Ethics Panel was a Fake Elector? Oh yeah, let’s clean out that stall with a BIG manure pitchfork…….

>>>>>» On a more reassuring note, there is Dr. Alan Lichtman. He is the political analyst and professor of political science who several years back developed what he calls the 13 Keys to the Presidency. If a candidate has 7 or more Keys in her/his favor, they have an edge for the election. The more Keys, the more reliable. Lichtman has a sterling record applying his Keys.

So Lichtman has lately discussed his Keys for the 2024 Election, and the news is solidly in Biden’s favor.

YouTube Video

You can exhale for a couple minutes after the video.

But wait, there’s more to Good News for Society, Politics and Fun, some of it well-aged:

1464 Paris This sending and receiving of messages and letters and important documents is a real hit-and-miss mess up until now. Important stuff gets lost, letters fall into the wrong hands, and could even lead to war. On this day King Louis XI addresses this in a systematic way: by edict of the king, there shall henceforward be a postal service in France. There will be stations, relays of horses, a packaging that will list who is sending and who is supposed to get the stuff, and there will be fees. Vive the Bureau de Poste!

1865 Galveston, Texas Union General Gordon Granger, has arrived to occupy the last town to return to Union control. He finds the local slaveholders have carefully kept word of the Emancipation Proclamation from their slaves. Granger strikes off a proclamation and has copies hung all over town, with Union soldiers offering readings to the illiterate. The newly freed begin celebrating, calling the nineteenth of June “Juneteenth” as Emancipation Day, or “the day freedom came” almost 2 1/2 years after Lincoln’s Proclamation. And in 2021, this becomes a National Holiday. We have not yet overcome……..but we overcame a lot on this day……

1910 Spokane, Washington Sonora Smart Dodd really loved her Dad. Mom had died and her father raised her as a single parent; quite rare for a father to be that single parent. Sonora was grateful, and got the city fathers to proclaim this day as the first Father’s Day in celebration. The idea spread and in 1927 President Calvin Coolidge began issuing an annual proclamation setting aside the third Sunday in June to focus national attention on the idea.

1958 American entrepreneurs Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin have been inspired by pictures of a toy popular with Australian children. They have made a large, lightweight hoop out of rattan and they swing it around their hips. Knerr and Melin convert the idea into a plastic ring about 3 feet in diameter and today get a trademark for it. They license the idea to the Wham-O Toy Company, who produced them and marketed them as the Hula Hoop. The craze goes crazy: in the next 12 months Americans alone (let alone the rest of the world) will buy 100 million hoops at a suggested retail price of $1.98. (Wham-o stock was a strong buy……)

1964 Washington DC The House of Representatives has done its duty, and sent a big, earthquake-sized bill over to the Senate. The Democrats are in the majority there and Democrat Lyndon Johnson awaits in the White House, but…..its the Senate. And, Southern Democrats are fighting the Civil War again, using the filibuster to kill the bill. It was a talking filibuster, so these aged men in their 70s and 80s were there, still intoning against the dangers of racial equality. Majority Leader Hubert Humphrey stayed in touch with Johnson, and with the Republicans too; he was willing to let the Southerners talk themselves out while he worked for a cloture vote. Finally, with an assist from several Republicans led by Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, there are the 67 votes to shut off the filibuster (different rules back then.) The bill comes to the Senate floor and on this 99^th Juneteenth day THE Civil Rights Bill of 1964 passes the Senate 73-27 and goes to the President. We may not yet have overcome……but we overcame a lot this day……

________________________

Legal & Lawyer Lighter Moment #3 (Same rule on mouth liquids applies….)

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

First Lady of the 1920s, Grace Coolidge

Grace (Goodhue) Coolidge, married to the 30th President, Calvin.) Born in January, 1879 in Burlington, Vermont, Grace Goodhue was the only child of millworker Andrew and Lemira. (Grace is one out of only 5 First Ladies to have been an Only child; others were Eliza Johnson, Ellen Arthur, Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush.) Grace was a bright child, allowed to start school a year younger than usual (at 5); her teacher, Cornelia Underwood, later became a life-long friend. Grace was an athletic youngster and teen, good at ice skating, tobogganing, and handling horse-drawn sleighs (with jingle bells in certain seasons.) In high school she had two years of piano and voice lessons and was a rare girl in a ½ year class of boys on diction and public speaking (which stayed with her for life.) She attended the University of Vermont. After graduating she spent 2 years attending Clarke School for the Deaf, which trained teachers for the deaf, and then applied this, supporting herself teaching such students at Clarke for 2 more years until her marriage.

She married Calvin Coolidge (the only US President to be born on the 4th of July (1872)) at age 26. They had a one week honeymoon in exotic Montreal, and in the next few years had 2 sons, John and Calvin. Dad’s political life was accelerating (mayor of Boston, election to the state legislature, governor of Massachusetts) and Grace was mostly at home, raising the boys on her own. In 1920 Coolidge was nominated as Vice President on the ticket with Warren Harding. Grace was somewhat disappointed because she thought he was settling for second best, when he was capable of a greater office.

As Second Lady, Grace and the boys lived at the Washington DC Willard Hotel (since there was no official residence for the Vice President.) Lois Marshall, 2nd Lady for her husband under Woodrow Wilson, was very kind to Grace in helping her make the transition from a private person to a public one, and they became fast friends. Grace made other friends especially among the wives of Senators. She also hosted a weekly, Wednesday social at the Willard that was open to the public for just dropping by for a cup of punch. At times VP Coolidge dropped by on these. The introverted and socially shy VP was very grateful for his out-going wife’s socializing and providing him a chance to learn some new life skills.

In August, 1923 President Harding abruptly died on a Presidential visit out West, making Coolidge President and Grace First Lady. They were vacationing back home in New England when the telegram arrived by night. They went to Calvin’s father (a local notary public) and Grace lit a kerosene lamp. Then the notary public father (a public position!), with an ordinary member of the public holding a kerosene lamp as a witness, administered the Oath of Office to his son, now the President.

Calvin Coolidge conceived of the First Lady’s role in the White House in very closed off terms, and Grace complied. She did enjoy frequently, nearly daily, walking around the streets of Washington for exercize. She liked to attend sporting events (she saw plenty of Washington Senators baseball games, and took the trains to attend the Army-Navy football games in Philadelphia). All these were done very incognito. Any inquiring reporter was turned away with complete silence beyond a “Good day.”

(She was quite the Boston Red Sox fan. When she knew they had a game she would often go down to the White House Telegraph Room and have an operator pick up the cryptic play by play which radio reporters turned into “coverage.” E.g. The telegraph ticked of “Top 3, AB 36” which came across the airwaves as “OK, Red Sox Fans, now #36, Rocky Morris, rangy left fielder, steps to the plate to lead off the top of the 3rd. (Telegraph: “1-0”) Out on the mound, Collins looks in for the sign, sets, and nope, the pitch is outside, ‘ball one.’ Morris knocks some dirt from his cleats and gets ready for what Collins might try next….” )

Inside the White House she was very curious to discover what the other women in her role had thought and lived, and she regretted there was so little material to be found. (This touched off a field of study among American historians…..) Grace also made an effort to learn and assemble the history of the various rooms in the White House, how they had been used, and various events that had happened in them (like if anyone had, say, hung up laundry to dry in the East Room.) Grace was able to arrange frequent White House recitals and other musical and theatrical performances (which Calvin rather approved and even attended from time to time). One of these had Sergei Rachmaninoff perform at the White House piano. She also went about town solo to catch movies and live theater (laughing heartily with everyone else at Groucho Marx, for example.)

In the 1924 Presidential campaign Grace was nearly invisible with one noted exception. On a certain summer day the press was invited to the White House lawn, with still cameras and those newsreel ones too. (BTW Grace was enamored of these she bought a home movie camera for herself to shoot home movies.) Her personal desk was brought out onto the lawn, and then she sat down and filled out her absentee ballot (to Massachusetts), folded it, licked it shut and put the correct postage on it. Women had only had the vote for four years, and the Coolidges both strongly believed that the habit of voting by women needed to be established by public example. (One of her few public statements for the press and for public consumption as First Lady….)

She also continued her interest in the deaf and otherwise disabled. During her First Lady years she raised over $2,000,000 in endowment money for the Clarke School she had taught at. (Today’s equivalent: $36 million.) She also had a widely publicized meeting with Helen Keller.

AFTER 1928 (won by Herbert Hoover) she and Calvin tried to retire to a quiet life in New England. She spent a good deal of time in reaction to her discovery of so little information from previous First Ladies by compiling a manuscript of her own years there, events, incidents and anecdotes, typing it out herself. Two excerpts were printed in Good Housekeeping magazine, and the entire book was published in the 1990s.

Calvin died of a heart attack in 1933 leaving Grace a widow for the next 25 years. She was easy with being on her own (although Coolidge’s former chief of staff actually proposed to her, which she declined), staying mostly clear of politics. She learned to drive, finally got to fly in a plane, and arranged that 1 home game a year, the Red Sox would donate part of the day’s ticket sales to Clarke School for the Deaf. Spoke out strongly and repeatedly in support of the war effort in World War II but was distressed at its ending and the use of the atomic bomb. In reaction she became a very public proponent and supporter of the United Nations. Passed away in 1957.

Legal & Lawyer Lighter Moment #4 (Same rule on mouth liquids applies….)

ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral…

_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

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And last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

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OK, Gnusies, its your turn in the comments to add, subtract, multiply or divide your thoughts, ideas,

reactions…...and if you don’t want to do the math on them, just type them in a comment box and hit SUBMIT COMMENT.

May all your news be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

Midweek, Mid-Month, Good News RoundUp, Mid-Season, Mid-Trial

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 15, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/05/15 · 04:00

Good morning, good morning all ye Seekers of Consolation, Hope, Uplift and general Better Vibes for the living of your days. The Daily Kos Good News Round Up is live and “On Air” on your pixel screen, glowing with colors (unless you have been tinkering with your settings). Once a month the GoodNews Steering Committee takes a deep breath, grits their collective teeth, and look away toward the floor and say, “OK, let WineRev run the ship for one day.” And so here we are…..and although its only been 5 lines on the screen (rolling over to 6) so far things look OK.

This place is a meeting and collecting and disbursing spot for News of the Uplifting (so you’ll have to get your helpings of Doom scrolling in other places on the ‘Net) where the Good Newsie producers and readers gather (as “Gnus”---snicker, snicker) in Gnuville for mutual jollity, reassurance and even jocularity. Myself I enjoy opening up the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch for everyone to stop by with (or acquire) various morning beverages (coffee, tea, mocha-cocoa, mimosa) in whatever strengths and flavors you like…...especially if you’re bringing in your own. Otherwise there are stories for perusing, recs to make, comments to chip in, snark to unload with, puns to provoke groans, explanations and digressions of the off-beat, esoteric and unusual from those who know that Stuff to the rest of us who don’t, but who appreciate being brought up to speed.

My own take is to post stories and links to set the table for your input, output, uptake, down-take (if you can define it) and also to throw in Good and Goofy nuggets from the May 15ths of decades and even centuries ago. People like us were doing STUFF, and a fair bit of it is worth recalling.

Also, a few months back on one of my monthly hosting days I posted some stuff about some of America’s First Ladies that many here found interesting and have asked for more. So this month I give you two more to fill out your dance card or bingo squares.

Let’s rock on!

Good News in Arts, Music and Literature

Yes, the header here includes “literature.” After all, reading good stuff is an amazingly helpful activity, cherished by young and old. Now to get to the things that make you ponder, dream, yearn, lament, take heart, or cheer for a villain catching justice in the neck, there is the matter of learning to read. Before that come words…...made up from letters…..that represent sounds. Humans have many forms of these and have had in many ages and in many places.

Now there are those who have instruments they aim at the sky, listening…..hoping…..that maybe, just maybe, out there among the stars, there might be other sounds that could mean words, (no sample yet of “Eep, Opp, Ork, Ah-Ah” from Elroy Jetson so far) that could mean…….. Contact! Yet now comes THIS EXCITING STORY from our own planet that it seems like sperm whales have…..an alphabet, and the clever people listening underwater think they just might be learning how to spell it…...and “read it”…..not quite there yet.

(Sort of like when you as a speaker of English encounter a language like, say, Estonian. Hang around long enough (full immersion of a different kind than listening to whales) and you too figure out “vaip” is “carpet/rug”, that “tee” (pronounced “tehh”) is NOT a hot drink much beloved by the British but OF COURSE means “road/street”, and that “aitah” (pronounced “Eye-TA(short “a’) HH”, with a strong “h” sound on the end) should not be answered with “gesundheit/”God bless you” but that rather than imitating a sneeze that other person is politely telling you “thank you.”)

Sounds like those scientists hanging around the Whale Saloon are getting closer to doping out just what means what. So whale literature may be coming sooner than you think.

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Of course most of you reading here this morning are quite fluent in English, enough so that you know the subtleties, most of the exceptions, and some of the oddities of our Native Tongue. The other week I confessed to my own frustration with the word “its” in all its various uses with and without the apostrophe (my own approach is to claim this is the only word in the English Language that is correctly spelled with 3 apostrophes: I’T’S’, so that whichever usage is correct, well, its in there somewhere, so just pick out what you need.)

That confession led to one of the Gnusies here posting THIS HYSTERICAL LINK to a compilation of grammar issues (srsly) crossed with “X and Y walk into a bar…….” joke intros. Great stuff to read aloud to the sweetie in your life, but the No Mouth Liquids Rule is in effect. IOW how to mangle the English language while laughing all the way.

Now on this day of May 15 in previous years, the arts, literature and music have all had a turn as well.

1759 Vienna. Birth of Maria Theresia von Paradis, musician and composer. Only child of a court musician, Maria went blind between the ages of 2 and 5. Nonetheless she learned to play the piano at concert level and had a pleasing voice and was a noted and popular singer. Her talent was impressive enough that both Salieri and Mozart seem to have written pieces for her. In the 1780s she began teaching at a music school and also composing her own works. Wrote several songs, some piano concertos and even a few operas.

YouTube Video

1856 Chittenango, New York Birth of Lyman Frank Baum. He was a dreamy sort of boy who hoped to be an actor. Early on he decided he didn’t like “Lyman” as a first name and went by “L. Frank” the rest of his life. At age 12 enrolled at Peekskill Military Academy but had to drop out 2 years later due to a heart condition. Tried his hand at acting with no luck. Then ran a store for a while but it went bankrupt. He was a reporter for a local paper, but the pay was awful, so he became a town-to-town peddler selling china. He had a stroke of luck when a publisher took a children’s story he had written that became a popular book. He began writing more seriously and in 1899 published “Father Goose, His Book” which became the best-selling children’s book that year. The next year he had another lasting hit: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” (It even got made into a movie….)

1863 Paris Ever since the Louvre was converted from a castle/armory into a museum back in the days of the French Revolution, the visual arts have held a special place in French culture, so much so that there are Official bodies passing Official Remarks on various works of art and their artists. Well, in the spirit of the French Revolution (“you can’t tell us THAT!”) a group of artists rent a space and open a show today they call the Salon des Refuses; those whose works have been refused/rejected by the Official Salon.

Who are these hell raisers and rebels? What do THEY think they know about art, huh? Who did these canvasses anyway? An American…? Really? James Whistler…..hmmm. Who else was a Salon Reject? Paul Cezanne…..Camille Pissaro…..Henri Fantine-Latour…..Edouard Manet…..

So, you think anybody will remember those guys and their stuff?

1st First Lady of this Month:

Anna Tuthill (Symmes) Harrison

Anna Tuthill Symmes (Harrison), born on a New Jersey farm in 1775. Her mother died when Anna was one year old. Her father had joined the Continental Army as a colonel and tried raising Anna on the side. This proved impractical, so when Anna was 4, her father took her on horseback from their farm, left behind his Continental uniform and dressed as a British officer so he could enter and pass through occupied New York City. Took her out onto Long Island to be raised by her maternal grand-parents (the Tuthills) while he went back to the Revolution.

Anna had a decent education, ending with 3 years in New York City (after the War) at a boarding school for girls (and with a headmistress who taught gender equality and public service. She had her girls teach elementary lessons to orphans next door at an orphanage.) One of her classmates was Nellie Custis of Virginia, whose grandmother was also living in the City…..as First Lady Martha (Custis) Washington.

After the Revolution Anna’s father’s law practice boomed (became Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.) When Anna was 17 (1792) he was given title to an enormous land tract in the Ohio Territory, so he moved there, bringing Anna. (Dad served as Territorial Governor, and also helped found the town of North Bend….and Cincinnati (which was a bigger hit than North Bend.) The next year she marries a rough-and tumble US military man, William Henry Harrison (age 21). In 1801 Harrison is named Territorial Governor of Indiana, so they move to Vincennes (serving as the capitol). Their house becomes the unofficial state nerve center, housing the governor, hosting cabinet meetings, having Senate debates in the front parlor, welcoming dinners with the Territorial Supreme Court.

In 1814 William is elected to the US House, then the US Senate, and then named as Ambassador to Columbia. Anna did not go with him to Washington or Bogota, but rather moved back to North Bend, Ohio (for the next 26 years) to be with friends and raise her children. The Harrisons had 10 children in all (the most children of any First Lady), but sadly, 1 died at age 3, and 8 (!) others all died before age 50, so only one of her children outlived her.

In 1840 Harrison wins the Presidency and in February of 1841 takes the stagecoach from North Bend to Washington to be inaugurated. Anna stays behind, battling depression and grief (2 of their children died in the last 11 months, 8 months apart) and she was seriously ill. As she slowly recovered, Harrison was sworn in as President (first Whig in the office) at age 68 (oldest for first term until Reagan.) Despite a heavy rainstorm that mixed with sleet, he insisted on delivering his Address, hatless, out of doors……the longest Inaugural speech ever, 2 1/2 hours. He caught a cold that turned serious.

By late March Anna had recovered, arranged for servants to pack things up for the White House (including furniture; Congress was stingy about actually furnishing the place). As she was preparing to take the stagecoach East a courier arrived with the news that Harrison was dead of pneumonia, having served 30 days in office.

Anna Harrison became the only First Lady never to Iive in, or to even visit, the White House. (Martha Washington didn’t live there either, but only because the White House hadn’t been built yet, or the city of Washington either.) She arranged to have William’s remains re-buried in North Bend. In the next 5 years 3 of her daughters and 1 son-in-law died. Coped with life by extensive letter-writing (Congress did not grant First Ladies a pension, but they did vote her a “franking privilege” for life: she could send mail without postage.)

In another 10 years she became an ardent Abolitionist and supported the newly-minted Republican Party. Her sole remaining child, John Scott Harrison, went into law and in 1852 was elected to Congress for 2 terms. When the Civil War erupted Anna vigorously pressed her grandsons to enlist in the Union Army. She died in 1864, at age 88, one of the longest-lived First Ladies.

(Postscript: One son of John Harrison’s was one of those grandsons of Anna who joined the Union Army: Benjamin Harrison. He later became President. John Scott Harrison thereby became the only person in US history to be BOTH the son of a President, and the father of a President.)

Good News in Society and Politics

“Be of Good Cheer.” A little antique phrase, sometimes heard around Christmas or New Years. How about cheering…..really cheering? You know, a certain Saturday afternoon in November, when Ohio State meets Michigan on the gridiron to play some REAL football? And Ohio State scores? Or Michigan fumbles? Yep…...now THAT is cheering! Cheering is the Olympics! Cheering is the 1980 Winter Olympics and “Do you believe in Miracles? YES!”

And now comes scientific word that Cheering….yelling your head off with hundreds or thousands of others at the same time in the same place…..GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH and well being. A fascinating read on some Japanese research into Yelling En Masse.

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On a politically cheering note and cause for good cheer, Wisconsin’s gerrymander special (affecting state legislative boundary lines for both houses and also US Congressional district lines) is in the cross hairs. The new Supreme Court 4-3 liberal majority in Madison is taking dim view of those lines.

Now comes another story of Good News on voting. The Wisconsin Supremes are taking up a different case dealing with a GQP effort to cut way back on ballot drop-off boxes (you know, one thing that can make voting easier…..for more people.) LOOKS LIKE VOTER SUPPRESSION is running into rough waters in the Badger State…….GOOD!

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the relation between estonia and other countries in the Baltics

On a more pugnacious note, Ukraine is fighting for its life against Russia, and is getting help from many other nations. Estonia, member of NATO, with a common border with Russia, a nation formerly under Soviet & Russian rule, has been one of those helping out, sending arms, ammo, medical supplies, etc. Is it enough? Well maybe….or maybe not. NATO has been leery of actually sending “boots on the ground”, worried about an escalation into a larger war.

But still….enough is enough. THIS STORY REPORTS the Defense Minister of Estonia says publicly there are serious conversations going on for Estonia to send TROOPS to Ukraine, carefully noting these would be assigned to Rear Area duties (ambulance drivers, warehouse work, etc.) and NOT to combat roles. No final decision yet, but thought you’d want to know its on the table…...

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Of course, society and its politics have been around for a LONG TIME, producing all sorts of things with pondering, considering, recalling and even worth fighting for.

1248 Cologne, (now) Germany With all the pomp, ceremony and ritual the Church can muster, on this day Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden lays the cornerstone for Köln (Cologne) cathedral. It took years...many, MANY years……. to finish….added stained glass windows when stained glass was invented; added a pipe organ when pipe organs were invented. Survived the Reformation. Definitely ran over its completion date: was officially, FINALLY completed on October 15…….1880, 632 years later…..(talk about persistence…..and faith…..)

1817 Philadelphia This day is the founding and opening of the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason. It is the first private mental health hospital in the US (still extant as Friends Hospital.) Since the Republican Party was not invented until the 1850s there is no truth to the rumor that former inmates were connected with that event….

1862 New Orleans The Union Navy led by Admiral Farragut captured this city back on April 25 and the Union Army is on occupation duty. The local population (of the South’s largest and most industrialized city) is furious. In particular, the Confederate women are vocal and public about the Boys in Blue on occupation duty. A couple days ago one hot headed woman stepped out on her balcony and heaved a (full! Yuck!) chamber pot that hit Admiral Farragut on the head. That tore it. The new Union Army military governor is a lousy soldier but a cunning student of humans: Major Gen. Benjamin F Butler. On this day he issues General Order #28 declaring that any woman by word, gesture or action insults or demeans the US flag or any of its military men is liable to being treated by the military as “a woman of the town plying her avocation.”

Reaction in New Orleans to General Order #28

Every lady in town was appalled at being publicly linked to “ladies of the evening” and worried just what the Blue soldiers did, and might do, with and to such women. So, the harassment stopped. (Confederate President Jeff Davis was so upset he personally ordered any Confederate soldier capturing Butler to execute him on the spot for such degrading of Southern women.)

Butler was a real SOB…..but he was OUR S.O.B….and he actually did good things in New Orleans for economic uplift of the poor (charging the local 1% elite for the funds) and city sanitation (yellow fever deaths in the summer of 1862 were 2 (count ‘em!)…..versus a previous 10 year average of 1400 deaths each summer.)

1868 Kolberg, Prussia (now Poland) Birth of Magnus Hirschfeld, doctor, reformer. Became a doctor in the early 1890s. For this era he turned to a cutting edge subject: sexual abnormalities. After several years of research and visiting several other nations and cultures, he reached the conclusion (and published) that many of these were not abnormal. DOUBLEHEADER DATE Berlin Maybe in honor of his own birthday in 1897 Dr. Hirschfeld and 3 others together co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to advocate for the legal rights of sexual minorities. This is now recognized as the first ever LGBT rights organization. (In 1897! In public! Whew! Those people were courageous….)

1930 Oakland, California AND Cheyenne, Wyoming (Now there’s a city pairing for you!) The Boeing Air Transport (a forerunner to United Airlines before it united with other airlines) flight takes off from Oakland, bound for Chicago. This is a commercial, passenger flight, but it’s a LONG distance to Chicago for airplanes in 1930, so the plane sets down (as scheduled) in Cheyenne to refuel. But in the air, history has been made: Ellen Church becomes the 1st female airline stewardess in the United States and one of the first in the world to earn her wings.

1940 San Bernardino,California Two local brothers this day go into the restaurant business: their approach is to serve a limited menu, heavy on hamburgers, along with fries and shakes, and they are proud of how fast they get the food out of the kitchen. Richard and Maurice McDonald name the place after the family name and they are a hit all through World War II and afterwards….….14 years later, Hamilton Beech sales representative Ray Kroc was amazed that a restaurant in his territory had purchased 8 multi-mix machines for milk shakes. He went to see the restaurant that needed to make that many milkshakes and liked what he saw. He drew up a franchising contract and made the Richard and Maurice’s Burger Chain known around the world. (Kroc wisely kept the existing name and chose NOT to put his name on the brand. After all, Kroc Burgers might have problems, and those “2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame bun” might have failed as a ‘Big Kroc’…..)

McDonaldsBros.1940.png — Richard & Maurice McDonald

2nd First Lady this Month:

Mamie Geneva (Doud) Eisenhower

She was the 2nd of 4 children born (in 1896) into a well-off businessman’s family (the house had a few servants), although 2 of her siblings died in their teens. While born in Iowa, before Mamie was 1 the family relocated to Denver, where they loved the summers but hated the winters, so they had a 2nd house in San Antonio, Texas. Mamie’s school record is then a mix of attendance in both cities, ending at age 18 with a year at Miss Wolcott School for Girls in Denver.

In the winter that next year she met, and then in the coming summer, married, a 2nd Lt. stationed at Fort Sam Houston outside San Antonio, Dwight Eisenhower, career Army man. That career took Mamie to 33 different homes in the next 37 years (!), mostly in the US but also the Philippines for a hitch and another in Panama’s Canal Zone. In Panama the Army hired local women for various jobs but refused them admission to the base hospital, for racial segregation reasons. Mamie & several other Army wives established and funded a free hospital for these women (and their friends and relations) and dared the Army to tell them what they should or should not do when various bigots objected.

World War II separated the Eisenhowers for over 3 years, Ike leading the Atlantic Allies, planning and executing D-Day. Mamie (and other high officers’ wives) lived in Washington in a residential hotel, but none of them received any staffing help from the Army, and for Mamie there were dozens of letters to her every single day from people across the country, and she felt obliged to respond to each of them with at least a personal reply. (“If they took the trouble to write to me, I should respond in kind.”)

When peace came in 1945 Dwight was named President of Columbia University, so they lived for 3 years in New York, followed by another 3 years together, this time in Paris as Ike was appointed Commander in Chief of NATO (which was just being invented and organized.)

In 1952 the Republicans nominated Eisenhower for President and the war hero was popular, but for the first time the possible First Lady was part of a Presidential campaign as well. There were lapel pins and bumpers stickers that proclaimed “I Like Ike”, but also fistfuls of buttons everywhere proclaiming “I Like Mamie, Too!”

For the Inauguration Mamie found housing for her (Afro-American) staffers in white and segregated Washington DC. She arranged for the headline popular entertainer for the Inauguration events to be Marian Anderson, the black singer from 1939 at the Easter Sunday performance at the Lincoln Memorial and now an opera singer. After taking the Oath of Office (in front of radio microphones and now even television cameras here in modern 1952) Ike turned to Mamie and right there kissed her in front of everyone, a First Lady first.

In two terms in the White House Mamie was a stickler for everyone on staff doing their jobs well, but she often arranged for birthday cakes for them, sent cards for their wedding anniversaries, asked after their families and worked hard to know them by name and personally. She adapted well to the “Supportive Wife” motif, which resonated with the public. Her fondness for the color pink was legendary, to the point that a major paint company re-named one of their shades “First Lady Pink.” In all those tract houses going up everywhere to invent suburbia, the master bath decor was usually one of three options in plastic tile: white, sea foam green….or “bubble gum” pink “just like Mamie’s favorite color.”

Despite the public image she aided Ike in subtle political ways, as on matters of race relations (particularly after Brown v. Topeka to kick off desegregation of schools; in 1957 Ike sent US troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce the peace when local officials were unwilling to do so.) There was also a custom in a new President’s term to host a White House dinner for the US Senate, presided over by the Vice-President and the First Lady. Mamie oversaw the arrangements and the invitations to 95 of the 96 Senators. That way, when the President himself “casually” dropped by “for a few minutes….. just to say ‘hello’” Ike was able to put some subtle distance between himself and fellow Republican and lightning rod Senator Joe McCarthy…..who had not received an invitation and was missing from the event…..

After the President had a serious heart attack in 1955, Mamie threw herself into fund raising and public support for the American Heart Association, which produced a gusher of volunteers and funding for research. Toward the end of the 1950s she and several other Army wives she knew worked to create Knollwood, a place in Washington DC for widows of veterans who had become indigent and without family. Knollwood became a hospice before the term went into wide circulation.

After the Presidency the couple lived for a time in Gettysburg. Mamie was back in the White House to see her grandson David marry Tricia Nixon. She passed away in 1979, with Pat Nixon and Rosalyn Carter sitting together for her funeral.

Good News in Science, Tech & Engineering

Those smart people in the labs, in the field, tramping here, connecting there and thinking all the time. We owe them a lot (and they are n the Front Line of saving all our butts from our collective, global challenges.) And by gum, they are making a difference for all of us!

THIS HEARTWARMING STORY brings important word that Renewable Energy is visibly GAINING on the global level. More and more of the world’s electricity (which makes modern life possible) is coming from Green sources…..and has now passed 30% of the world total generation. YAY…..and Keep going!

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And even when the sun is shining, well, to quote an old song, “big wheel keep on turnin’/’Proud Mary’ keep on churnin’”. Those elegant, long-armed wind mills are turning the cranks on generators in a big way to add to our Green electric supply. But look, Mother Nature and evolution have been working on harnessing wind (for pollination…...for flying) for a LONG time. Some things have not worked (Buffalo Wings proved impractical for flying….thank goodness…..but they are a decent food source, and the bison don’t seem to mind walking) but other things have (like bird WINGS for flying.) Now comes THIS FASCINATING STORY that windmill arms can be made more efficient (and get more power out of each turn of the crank) if the arms are shaped to resemble…..condor wings! As those birds can ride thermals and breezes for seeming hours without flapping…... looks like this could be BIG.

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Now while Big Oil and the fossil fuel industry is raging, raging against the dying of their profits, other businesses are noticing electrification is GOOD for their business and are hustling to cash in. Its showing; in 2023 over 1 million new electric vehicles were sold in the US, a 7-figure milestone, and more coming. To get in on the money to be made there, Honda is stepping up its game. They have JUST ANNOUNCED they will spend $15 Billion-with-a-B to build 4 EV factories in Canada to build EVs for the North American market. $15 billion ain’t chump change…...and has even more impact than you might imagine on Canada. Recall Canada’s population is about 10% of the US…..so $15 billion there would be something like a $150 billion deal here…..which would be a Big Deal. So very cool!

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A good bit of what’s going on in Renewable Energy is classified as “Infrastructure Spending”, which it certainly is. We’ve seen this before in the US: the transcontinental railroad, the invention of the FAA to construct a grid of civilian airports, and, in the 1950s and 60s the Interstate Highway system. This last involved pouring 42,000 miles worth of concrete all across the country.

Now where exactly that concrete got poured in towns and cities involved a LOT of input, like from highway engineers, and local businesses (“nearby, but not too close, but with an exit ramp”), and local politicians (“NIMBY”---not in my back yard…..put it in THEIR back yard.) Whose back yards? Sadly, there were many places where freeways were run through places where “those people” lived and worked: immigrants, the poor, accented English speakers, or minorities. Communities were uprooted, or severed, or just flat out destroyed.

Now while the past cannot be undone, amends can be made. The Biden Administration has gotten Infrastructure bills through Congress and into law (and we need public spending for a lot of projects that will benefit the public.) But in an effort to apologize and undo some of the damage from years ago, IN THIS STORY DOT Secretary Buttigieg meets with black mayors of various cities to identify projects aimed at UN-DOING, and the new laws contain money for just this sort of atonement for some of the harm from past projects. A form of Concrete Apology, and a lesson to us all of how we can do better and be better as people.

_______________

And now, a look at the tinkerers and dreamers of May 15 from decades ago:

1793 The castle of Coruña del Conde, Spain Diego Marin Aguilera is the oldest of eight children. His father died when he was just in his teens and he became responsible for raising his siblings. He worked fields and herded sheep, goats and cattle for several years. He created several (un-patented) inventions connected with farming. He was also fascinated by birds, particularly eagles and vultures.

In his mid-30s he performed endless calculations and spent six years building a machine out of cloth, wood and feathers. He hired the local blacksmith (named Barbero) to make certain moving joints and stirrups out of iron. The local villagers thought he was unhinged because he mentioned this machine could make him fly. On this night(!), taking advantage of a full moon so as to not frighten the neighbors, Aguilera, one of his sisters, and the blacksmith Barbero, together lugged the machine into this (abandoned and dilapidated) castle to its highest wall, looking out over a valley.

Aguilera said, "I'm going to Burgo de Osma, and from there to Soria, and I’ll be back in a couple days.” He climbed aboard, put his feet in the iron stirrups, checked that the moving parts moved, and jumped off. The blacksmith and sister reported he reached a height of “6 or 7 varas” (equivalent of about 5 or 6 meters) and glided “431 Castilian varas” (over 350 meters.) He crossed the River Arandilla and on the far bank passed over most of a meadow when one of the iron parts broke and he crashed. His sister and the blacksmith hurried from the castle, crossed the river, fearing the worst. Instead, Marin was bruised and scratched, but whole. He was mostly upset with Barbero’s sloppy welding job that ended his flight. (The villagers thought he was either a lunatic or a demon and burned his craft the next day. Marin fell into depression and never tried again.)

The American Institute of Aeronautics credits Aguilera for a gliding flight of over 360 meters. He is hailed as the “Father of Spanish Aviation” and a few years ago the Spanish Air Force put up this monument to him on the Castle Grounds.

1889 Paris To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the French Revolution, France invites the world to a party: today is the opening of the Paris Exposition (a World’s Fair). One of the entry gates has a striking Entry Arch, a Tower really…..designed by a Gustav Eiffel (they left it up after the Exposition closed…..you might have heard…..) However, even though this was Opening Day, the elevators in M. Eiffel’s Tower were NOT READY….so, to take in the view visitors faced (and in a good number of cases TOOK!) the 1710 steps to the top….after paying 5 francs for the privilege. (By comparison, admission to the grounds at one of the 22 gates (the Eiffel Tower was just one of these…..although more visible than most….) was 40 centimes, at a time when a ‘workingman’s lunch’ in a Paris cafe averaged about 10 centimes.)

All sorts of exhibits and wonders on display: first appearance of the dishwashing machine, electric powered streetcars, an engine that burned liquid fuels but Herr Rudolph Diesel had invented this to not use spark plugs, moving sidewalks and escalators, and the fluorescent light bulb. (Thomas Edison attended, noting a rival for his incandescent bulb.) American George Washington Ferris built one of his enormous new amusement rides, and his “wheels” became part of every amusement park and carnival show for decades.

1891 Eindhoven, Netherlands Scientific inventions are flowing everywhere as the modern age becomes, well, modern. Taking a leaf (and maybe a license) from Edison, on this day brothers Gerard and Anton Philips began their Philips & Co. operations by producing of light bulbs. Philips Co. evolves with the times to become THE major player in Europe in electronics to this day.

AWWW!

MallardfemalewithfourducklingsUnionBayLakeWashingtonWA.jpeg

And yeah, there are Good people out there who do Good Things, so look for them and pitch in, OK? I usually take a morning walk for exercize each day. On Mother’s Day Sunday on my usual route there’s a street that is a major turn off for a grocery store & strip mall. I usually cut across the parking lot, but there, near the turn-in, there is a storm sewer grate. A duck was there….no, 2 ducks, the hen and the drake….and a cluster of ducklings! All by the grate, traffic going by and all of them looking frantic.

I got closer and the drake flew off. On the other side of the street are a set of apartment houses…..no pond or water, but a good bit of lawns and bushes, and no traffic to speak of. So I waited for a little break in the traffic (being a Sunday morning helped) and went into “shoo along mode” behind the hen and the ducklings followed her. Drivers saw what I was doing and were happy to stop and give me thumbs up. Then one SUV made a turn into the parking lot, parked close, and the driver, a friendly-looking guy in his early 30s hopped out.

I got Mama duck across but then the ducklings were so small they couldn’t get up the curb, so I had to give them little boosts. When I finished I looked back and there was the young driver. He had gone over to the sewer grate and lifted it out and was down shoulder deep inside. I crossed back over and asked, “Are there some ducklings down there?”

For a big night out between drake and duck hen…..A bit pricey…..but very tasty! FYI, no endorsement or $ coming my way.

He said, “Yeah, but I think I got ‘em all.” He had them in his arms and handed them off to me. I carried 5 of the 6 them(!) across the street (always one upstart, you know, who got loose) but the guy got out of the manhole, caught the little guy and brought him over too. All 12 peeped and squeaked and followed Mama to some shade under some leafy bushes. The guy hefted the grate back on and we figured they had smelled the water and then the small ones had fallen in. We shook hands and mentioned this made for a good Mother’s Day for one Mama Duck.

Here’s hoping things will be safe for the brood.

And here’s hoping all your News is Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

PS : From comments below

I posted this as a reply but will get maybe more visibility here in the main body:

OK just back from this morning’s walk. Not too far from the “Duck Rescue” from Sunday there is a bit of a ravine with something of a pond at the bottom. Its just at the other end of the apartments that I “shooed” Mama duck and her ducklings to.

The ravine sides are quite steep so the city years ago put up a chain link fence for safety reasons. But, as happens, things have grown up, the ground has frost heaved, little kids have found “really neat places” to have a fort, so there certainly spots where a duck could waddle through (and ducklings would have no problem at all.)

I watched the pond from up above and counted a solid dozen drakes paddling around. I saw 2 or 3 duck hens also on the water but none of the wee ones. Fingers crossed that everyone got there and are making a go of it.

Thought everyone would like a report and update.

Shalom.

Wednesday Good News-ery, Past and Present for your Future

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday April 17, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/04/17 · 04:00

Trump Trial Day 3

Thought I’d use this for a first header, since it’s what we are all here for. Really. That one of the most egregious people of moral vacancy, born to wealth, raised in cruelty, and majoring in condescension, that SUCH a person (whose status as a member of the human race casts a baleful shade upon the rest of us who are striving to do Good and be Persons of Good) is NOW…..at LAST….far too late, but still…...AT FREAKIN’ LAST is Facing Justice/the music/his accusers/his victims who wail for recompense and measured punishment, yeah, well that is the APRIL GOOD NEWS writ large. Whew!

Otherwise, welcome to the Good News Round Up of the Kos-est of Daily and the Daily-est of Kos-es you’ll find on the Internet. Here at a sturdy, progressive, respectful (except for pie fights) arena, ~~millions~~ ~~throngs~~ ~~thousands~~ ~~hundreds~~ ~~fifties~~ ~~scores~~ ~~dozens~~, ~~handfuls~~, ~~pairs,~~ some number of Seekers of respite, consolation, laughter, thoughtfulness, inspiration, and givers and receivers of Hope stop by daily for refreshment, renewal and learning. The Powers that Be, all dressed in Orange, let me your host, WineRev, 1 turn per month, at the helm/on the bridge/at the desk/in the saddle/on the Ox/…..the Chance to bring you the Good News as found by scouring the Inter Tubes and other sources (yes, there are still many) and assembled for your Wednesday.

So I invite you and all the Good News-ers (affectionately nicknamed “Gnusies” or even “Gnus”) into the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch for you mental munching. Have your coffee, tea, mocha-cocoa or Morning Mimosa (opening or subsequent) at the ready. Let your toast-able, fry-able, zap-able, baked-able, cook-able breakfast

foods help you open your eyes and face the day (yea verily, even let there be the gentle clinkering (clinkering, I say….as a coinage!) of flakes or loops into the ceramic bowl, splashed with some milk and very softly sprinkled with a snatch from the sugar bowl and call it “cereal”). Here below there be stories of Good Things, as well as (per my custom) the Good and the Goofy from April 17ths of years gone by but not forgotten, noted here for their examples and support from our ancestors.

And below that is YOUR TURN, for comments, reactions, questions, answers, links, recommends, digressions, additions, corrections, expansions and some sprinkles of nuttiness, because YOU and your reactions, run through your flying digits tapping the keys, and then Wi-Fi-ed into the Cyber and onto this page……..well that’s what we do, and I personally am grateful. The interactions, reactions, and all the rest makes for community, and support, and uplifting and upholding and consolation and inspiration, so thank you in advance for your input!

(Back in February I posted some little vignettes of US First Ladies, and many Good News Fans here had nice and complimentary things to say, both about them and to me for digging up some of their stories. So in my once-a-month stint of leading the Round Up last month I put up a short biography of a couple of them. Again, thoughtfully received and kind words from you.

Now my sweetie and partner SageHagRN has said with the Criminal Trial #1 of the Groper-in-Chief starting this week, more legal debacles in Alabama (IVF) and Arizona (Territorial laws from 1864???), and the on-going insult to the surface of the Earth by the screeching of MTG, stories about First Ladies in their Times are more needed (and appreciated) more than ever.

So, allow me to stud in 2 more for this month.)

Good News in Science and Engineering/Eco-Green

Rendering of floating wind turbines. More than 4.5 gigawatts in floating offshore wind turbine capacity are coming to the California coast

>>>>>>>>> I tell ya, those scientists and engineers are still plugging away at Things of Nature and things continue to be exciting. (What is that observation, that over 90% of all the scientists that have ever lived are alive right now? That part of the fame of, say, a DaVinci or a Newton or an Archimedes was there was so little competition.) And while a fair bit of our challenge of climate change/global warming can be charged off in part for earlier generations taking discoveries and breakthroughs too far (the Greeks: “Too much of a good thing is not good.”), they are still working hard to make things better and correct earlier mistakes. So HERE IS A HEARTENING STORY from Europe, that after reading everybody’s meters across the Continent and doing some number crunching, for January and February of 2024, 60% (YESSSSS!) of all European electricity came from renewable and Green sources. Better than half!! And likely still rising!

>>>>>>>» And while we’re talking Renewables, since the 1970s we’ve all learned to pronounce “photo-voltaic” cell, those blu-ish sandwiches of silicon and certain other metals and SECRET SAUCE that grab photons zooming by and stuffing them down their chip pants (sort of Solar Sponge Bobs.) That gets the pants so excited they knock loose electrons and send them along wires as electricity. Yet it looks like its getting even better. THIS DIARY from the other day tells of some quantum breakthroughs that could well mean even faster, stronger, more efficient solar cells, and cleaner, cheaper ways of making them (and baby, when you’re breaking through quantums, you KNOW Star Trek is becoming real before our very eyes…….)

>>>>>» Meanwhile, suppose you are in Earth orbit, hanging around the ISS, astronom-izing, space-walking and doing all that other astronautical really cool stuff we’ve been admiring since the 1960s. (Food paste in a squeeze bag. Orange TANG “like the astronauts drink!”) Now the thing is, EVERY last THING you need to do all that stuff Up There (including stay alive) has to come from Down Here. ALL of that has to go up, insulated from the vacuum of space and the Kelvin-esque Cold. Now NASA and the Europeans and other space-faring countries HAVE sent up stuff ahead of time, without people aboard, so that when there’s a launch that DOES include people, their first set of luggage has already been delivered.

Image of SpaceX Manned Dragon Capsule — We need 10 gallons, cleaned windows, and Green Stamps!

But re-supply is hard….and if you don’t re-supply, people die. So late or cancelled shipments are not an option. And while most of the energy aboard spacecraft typically is solar generated, not all of it is. Sometimes you just gotta fire thrusters, ya know? And if you fire them, SOMETHING has to burn, some kind of fuel. The fuel of choice is hydrazine but it is NOT naturally occurring (so something ELSE that needs to get launched.) But launching people aboard a lot of hydrazine when “main engine running”, well, that’s a dodgy and dangerous project.

Now comes a better idea: a gas station. Yep! The Orbit Fab Company (likely they mean “Orbit Fabrication Company” but to a certain generation it sounds like the company Muzak in all the cubicles and offices will be All Beatles, All the time…..”really Fab, you know?”) is planning TO LAUNCH ANOTHER 'TANKER' into orbit for anybody out there who needs some.

Old gas station, redecorated. 2019 photo — We give Green Stamps!

You just pilot your craft over the rubber airhoses so the bell rings at the Happy! Hydrazine Service Station, the attendant comes out and you say, “Fill it up with ethyl”. He tips his cap, nods and asks, “Check the oil for you too, miss?” You nod and float over to the ceramic building and head inside for the powder room. Then you come out, take a glance at the stack of 7 year old copies of “Monthly Crankshaft”, put a nickel in the slot and pull the knob under the Planters Peanuts, put the little sack in your purse and head back out to the pump. Get back inside your spacecraft, sign the little slip, tear off the top copy and hand the carbon, bottom copy and mini-clipboard back to Gomer, and back you go to studying micro-meteorites that contain gold or a Darth Vader Power Ring inside.

Mind you, there ARE those who went before us, and on April 17ths they were doing this:

1930 Wilmington, Delaware All sorts of things keep the test tubes boiling in town here at the DuPont labs. In 1930, the discovery of a new rubber-like compound was recorded by Dr. Arnold M. Collins in his laboratory notebook. He had noticed that a mixture that had stood from some weeks before, had solidified “to white, somewhat rubber-like masses,” from polymerization of monovinylacetylene mixed with concentrated HCl. He theorized the new compound was 2-chloro-1,3-butadiene. His research group at the Du Pont Company, over the next several weeks, but only gradually, recognized its potential as the first synthetic rubber. Wallace Carothers named it chloroprene. It was announced as DuPrene in 1931. After more development, it was sold as a material useful for products impervious to oil, for electrical wire insulation and as a coating compound. From 1936, it is known as Neoprene.« ……...(The quest of sources of natural rubber led Japan to eventually invade Indonesia to try to gain a monopoly and world control of a critical military resource. Artificial rubber from DuPont kept various Allied armies rolling and flying (especially after Pearl Harbor) and knocked a weapon from the hand of Imperial Japan…..)

1964 On this day at the New York World’s Fair, Ford Motor Company unveiled its new

Mustang model. The base price was $2,368. One of the design engineers who rummaged through the Ford parts bins to come up with the “long nose, short deck” look was Lee Iacocca, his first mark as a rising star.

………….ALSO, in TODAY’s 1964 DOUBLEHEADER DATE, Columbus, Ohio A solo plane landed in today in my hometown. Hometown woman and Instant heroine Jerrie Mock became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world. (She left on March 19^th.)……

1970 Pacific Ocean Apollo 13 was the 3rd mission to the moon…...until an explosion aboard crippled the ship. In a hair-raising set of desperate measures, the 3 astronauts and a great bunch of frantic engineers here on earth stopped the venting of oxygen (a REALLY good thing in space!), ad-libbed a way to address a carbon-dioxide build-up and otherwise used the (not launched) lunar lander as a life raft. TODAY, that huge sigh of relief that circled the globe was pinpointed as launching in Houston, Texas: Apollo 13 splashed down…...safely. (In the grim words of flight director Gene Krantz, “We’ve never lost an American in space and we’re not going to lose one on my watch!”)

Also made into a helluva good movie “Apollo 13”, starring Tom Hanks…..and into a hysterical “Thanksgiving at the Krantzes” parody: LINKED HERE.

Meet a First Lady

Lucy Webb (First Lady to Rutherford Hayes 1877-1881) Born 1831 in Chillicothe, Ohio (only 72 years before the beginning of the GREAT Chillicothe Pumpkin Show….so she missed out on that….) Dad and 2 older brothers were doctors so education was prized and supported; Lucy graduated Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College and celebrated by visiting an older sister for several months and met Rutherford Hayes (9 years older.) Married 2 years later and in time produced 8 children (5 of whom reached adulthood.) Hayes was an Ohio lawyer and moderately anti-slavery, but Lucy was strongly opposed and at her urging he started taking cases defending runaway slaves from recapture in 1850s Ohio. The couple gained such fame that one morning they found a black infant abandoned on their front porch…..knowing the baby would be well cared for.

In the Civil War Hayes was a major in the 23rd Ohio regiment. Lucy and some of their children often visited “dad” in camp between maneuvers and battles. (One of Lucy’s brothers was the regimental surgeon.) After the War Hayes’ war record and speaking ability got him elected governor of Ohio (for 3 terms.) Lucy was noted for showing up regularly at the Ohio Legislature on her own, lobbying them for better laws and more money for public schools, orphanages and insane asylums.

In 1876 the Hayes-Tilden Presidential election ended in a virtual tie, with endless arguments over the winner in and out of Congress. In March, 1877 the Hayes family took the train from Columbus to DC, stopping overnight in a hotel in Harrisburg, PA. Over breakfast the next morning Hayes got a telegram declaring him finally, officially the winner, and to finish his trip to DC so that he could get Inaugurated….the day after tomorrow (and likely get a partial refund on the round-trip tickets he may have bought, just in case…..)

Lucy was not only the first First Lady with a full college degree, she was also the first First Lady to be called the “First Lady”, in print and regularly. Congress was stingy with the annual appropriation for White House operations, so Lucy got old furniture stored in the attic to set around the mansion “and hide the holes in the carpets and floors and walls.” Things improved later and she did oversee the installation of the first running water system in the place, (signaling the end of the White House well) as well as the first ever, 1-year-since-patenting telephone.

Even with some money from Congress, Lucy preferred to spend a fair bit of it on conservatories and greenhouses at the White House, so that there were fresh bouquets of flowers every day in several rooms (even in winter) and other bouquets were sent regularly to Washington hospitals. The greenery proved especially popular with White House visitors and guests, and Lucy enjoyed showing them through. (Guests were often also greeted by the White House cat, the 2 White House dogs, and even by the White House goat…..all joyfully tended to by Lucy.)

She also enjoyed music and arranged White House concerts, and, starting with Marie Selika Williams, welcoming black performers in as well. (Lucy herself could play guitar and sing. In the family quarters many evenings, just to pass the time, she regularly would lead singing sessions, featuring Secretary of the Interior Schurz on piano, Vice President Wheeler, Treasury Secretary John Sherman and John’s brother William Tecumseh (who had a reputation as a fine general) in various harmonizing and gospel tunes.)

The Hayes’ traveled often and long, (to the point the newspapers nicknamed him “Rutherford the Rover”) and not always together. At times, Lucy went off on her own tours, which she typed out herself ahead of time for the press. She did this as the first First Lady to use a typewriter, and to have her own schedule and followers in the press. The pair DID travel to the West Coast for a trip (first time a President in office visited the Pacific shore) and heard an impassioned speech from Sarah Winnemucca appealing for Native peoples and their land and their grievances, an appeal that left Lucy publicly in tears.

It became widely known that the Hayes’ invited the White House staff and their families to joint Thanksgiving Day dinners, (that somebody ELSE cooked and cleaned up after!), as well as having all these over to the White House for Christmas Day so everyone could open presents under a great big tree with the First Family. When Congress one spring was in a stuffy mood and refused to allow local children and their families to have an Easter Egg roll and hunt on the Capitol lawn (harrumph!), Lucy invited everyone over to the White House grounds; a tradition still observed.

Their travel and her charm and kindnesses went some way in healing at least a few of the hurts of the nation after the Civil War.

Good News In Society and Politics

>>>>>>>>THE Trial of Trump has begun, officially, in a courtroom, with The Defendant REQUIRED to be present (if asleep; Where’s Mike Lindell of “My Pillow” when you need him?; sample titles: Don Snorleone, The NodFather, Sleepy Don, “He’s been Grumpy and Dopey, so why not Sleepy? 4 dwarfs to go…..”, Dozo the Clown, Reporters: Trump fell asleep at his trial/ Stormy Daniels: I told you he couldn’t stay up long….). 7 Jurors so far have been seated, so well on the way to 12, plus 6 alternates. And the whole thing is a Big Deal for Americans. YouGov has been polling on “is this trial serious and a big deal?” for several months. THIS NEW YOU-GOV POLL reports a new high of 57% of Americans think this is a Serious Big Deal. Just wait until we get to, you know…..evidence! Testimony!

>>>>>» How sketchy is that ALLEGED $175 million appeal bond Trump posted in his NY Civil Case? Well, Sketchy is as Sketchy does. Who in their right minds would have a company that makes bonding loans…..to Donald Trump? A man who has deliberately gone through personal bankruptcy 6 different times in his life in order to get out from under having to re-pay or pay what he owes? And yet there is such an outfit: Knight Specialty Insurance Company.

Trump needed (needs) $175 million that is liquid and real to put into escrow with the NY court system so that he has the right to appeal his $454 million (and $112,000 more each day in interest!!) loss in the Trump Organization FRAUD case (civil, not criminal). Now, any bonding outfit wants to make money off of bonds it puts up AND they would like to get their money back if the appeal loses (and becomes part of the award to those who won the case.) There are all sorts of murky, back channel ways of “making it happen” but now comes THIS HOT STORY that connects the Cayman Islands banking sector to Donald Trump. The Caymans? Being shady? That linkage alone has more red flags in it than a Moscow May Day parade back in Soviet times.

And just recently, Trump is reassuring the Court that the $175 million bond “is secure”, but NY Attorney General James IS CHALLENGING tHAT formally…..so…….

But look, more Bad News for Trump is Good News for Us, at all times and in all places, so we’ll take a story or 2 or 3 like that ANY time!

Now in times past, there have been other…...moments that have affected The Many in many ways, and some of these echo down to our days as well.

1521 Wurms, Germany Staying with things medieval, Martin Luther, monk, theologian, professor and rambunctious debater, had gotten himself excommunicated from the (Roman Catholic) Church on Jan. 3 of 1521. That made him subject to the death penalty and anyone who did the deed was in line for earthly and heavenly rewards, so the good Doctor was in a bind. On this day, under the protection of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, (meaning he was part of the group that elected the Holy Roman Emperor, so for Luther, safe conduct….and probably big dudes wearing armor and carrying swords as an escort service…..a food taster) Luther appears before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Imperial Diet (NOT a food comment or menu plan) to face charges stemming from his religious writings (and also to let Luther back down; no need for executions as a first resort.) Frederick the Wise, Charles V and Luther are all in somewhat delicate straits. The debates and discussions reached several impasses over several weeks. (Members of the Diet question Luther as well, and since this all took place in Wurms, the ‘Diet of Wurms’ jokes have been in circulation for 503 years.) Later on Charles V declared Luther an outlaw (with a price on his head. He got away clean and went into hiding, thanks to Frederick, for a couple years. He passes the time by translating the Bible into the local German. (THE beginning of Modern German, as significant to that language as Shakespeare a few decades later to English). Luther goes 1525 high-tech and has his translation PRINTED, and it becomes a best seller, strengthening the Reformation.

1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, was exploring the North American coastline, working north from Cape Fear eventually to Newfoundland. On this day he comes across (later named) New York Bay, passing between Staten and Long Islands, and spent several days sailing up the (later named) Hudson River. He died soon after, but his report circulated in Europe and eventually both the Dutch and the British showed up to scrap about the place. In the 1960s a giant engineering project connected Staten and Long Island and was christened the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in his memory.

Garden Statue of St. Marguerite and school children in Montreal

1620 Troyes, Champagne, France Birth of Marguerite Bourgeoys, nun, educator, pioneer. In her 20s, already a nun in Troyes, asked to bring her teaching talent to New France. Arrives Quebec and pushes upriver to Fort Ville-Marie. Insistent upon teaching girls and the poor. He dedication won over the fort commander, who granted her a stable to use as a school, the first school in the village outside the fort (later named for a hill…. Mont-Real.) She made two return trips to France to recruit other nuns as teachers, to persuade church authorities to let them live un-cloistered and move about freely, and to have the support of the Crown. She succeeded on all counts. She (!) was founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame and in 1982 became the first saint of Canada.

1823 Philadelphia, PA Birth of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, carpenter, businessman, politician. As a young black man in a hurry, already in his 20s he was a friend of Frederick Douglass and working with other abolitionists in strengthening the Underground Railroad. Little formal education but compensated with a quick mind and a great appetite of reading that made him a fine writer. Migrated to San Francisco in 1850; started as a bootblack, became a successful and influential merchant, founded and edited a black newspaper ‘Mirror of The Times.’ In 1858 migrated to Victoria, British Columbia and prospered again in business as a contractor. In 1866 elected to the Victoria city council, becoming only the second black elected official in Canada and the third anywhere in North America. Studied law at Oberlin College (Ohio) (at age 47) and after Civil War settled in Little Rock, AR and soon became the first elected black judge in the US. His reputation rode high enough that in 1897 (age 74) President McKinley appointed him ambassador to Madagascar (for 4 years.) AFTER that diplomatic tour he moved back to Little Rock, started a bank, was on the board on the municipal electric company. And until I started these History Corners I had no inkling this man even existed……

1989 Warsaw, Poland. Nine years after its beginning with strikes in the shipyards of Gdansk, the Solidarnosc labor union this day was officially recognized as a legal organization by the Polish courts. (Until now everything connected with it had been technically illegal; only the Party was legal, comrade.) This was widely seen as a milestone a) of the impact of Gorbachev’s promotion of glasnost/openness, b) that perestroika/restructuring was a real thing and/or c) that Communism’s grip was slipping.

Meet a First Lady

Helen Herron (Taft) Born in Cincinnati, the 5th of 10 children and 7 weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, “Nellie” (as she was always known her entire life), just missed the Civil War. Her father could support them all with a successful law practice (he had been close friends in law school with Benjamin Harrison (Pres. 1888) and his law partner was Rutherford Hayes (Pres. 1876). Dad expected educated children and could afford it, so Nellie had a private girls’ school education and a few years in a music academy. When she was 17 she got to travel with Dad to visit the Hayes White House and Nellie was enchanted with Lucy Hayes and settled strongly on the idea of becoming First Lady herself.

When she was 25 she married lawyer William Taft. While raising 3 children with him she taught kindergarten for a year and was founder and first president for 8 years of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Association (that established that organization to this day.) Now while Nellie dreamed of the White House, William dreamed of the Supreme Court. To that end he became the US Solicitor General for a year, and then served 8 years as a federal circuit judge in DC---where Nellie became friends with First Lady Ida McKinley. Nellie, via Ida, may well have influenced President McKinley to appoint Taft as Governor-General of the Philippines (a war prize acquired by the US from Spain.)

She was delighted (moving from the Judiciary to the Executive branch) and they spent 3 years there. (Also officially visited several Asian nations and made acquaintance and even friends with several political leaders from Singapore to Tokyo.) Nellie loved the Philippines, learning to ride horseback and sailing to several islands of the chain so she could tour it on her own (while Bill was Governing), and learned the local language. They both did their best to combat segregation and discrimination (inherited from Spanish rule), entertaining local leaders and often attending weekly outdoor concerts by local artists at Manila’s Luneta Park. At the Governor’s events they made sure “European-only” events were rare, inviting local musicians to perform and entertain and teach songs and local dances…..and rubbing elbows with local Filipino mayors and town councilmen and religious leaders, all to the indignation of (bigoted, usually Southern) US military occupation leaders. Back in DC Taft was in Teddy Roosevelt’s Cabinet as Secretary of War, then won the Presidency in 1908 (to Nellie’s ecstatic delight.)

She was the first First Lady to ride in an Inaugural Parade, which kicked off a kerfuffle as this was seen as supporting the vote for women (one of 2 burning Constitutional changes on the stove; Prohibition was the other.) In the White House Nellie Taft integrated the staff with African-Americans…..in full, formal dress as the occasion (frequently) demanded (and hired white boys as dishwashers…..) She overturned an unwritten ban on divorced persons at formal White House events----and these always included Cabinet and Congressional members…...and locally stationed military men….AND their spouses …..AND their children.

Suffered a stroke in 1909 (age 48) that left her incapacitated for several months as she had to re-learn to speak. (She always asked for a serious pose in pictures as she worried the stroke affected her facial expressions.)

Remembering Manila’s music fondly Nellie and the Secretary of Agriculture planned and arranged for outdoor summer concerts in Washington in Potomac Park (which was then being used as an auto racing track.) The summer of 1909 a bandstand and bleachers somehow appeared. Nellie arranged and paid for a Filipino band to sail to the US for the premiere concert and she wore a formal gown of Filipino design and style in their honor and to set an inclusive tone at the events. In 1911 the improvement plan got a major boost with the gift of several thousand Japanese cherry trees from the mayor of Tokyo (still the highlight of spring in DC.)

Whoa…..Nellie!

Technology changing as it was, Nellie oversaw the change-over of the White House stables and Presidential carriages to White House garages and CARS, and she learned to drive. More privately Nellie liked parties and had a smashing recipe for champagne punch, much to the annoyance of the growing Prohibitionists. She also loved to (discreetly but avidly) play poker (and the drinking that went with it) with various Cabinet members and military leaders (and was said to be pretty good at it to boot.)

After William’s term ended, followed by World War I, in 1921 he became US Chief Justice, a lifelong dream. Nellie was content as well, rather enjoying the roar of the Roaring 1920s. She went to racy plays and naughty silent films in theaters that were frequently raided by the police. (Never caught Nellie so far as I know….) One time the Tafts were visiting England and there was a reception for them at the American Embassy. Wine and cocktails were served and consumed, BUT, as the Embassy was/is technically US soil, and the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) applied here as well as the rest of American soil, there was a ruckus on this side of the Atlantic, which they both weathered with aplomb.

The Tafts were both immensely proud of their daughter (also named Helen) as she pushed through to earn a PhD and then became president of Bryn Mawr University. After William’s death in 1931 Nellie went globe-trotting (starting at age 70): Egypt’s pyramids, breweries in Mexico, sea voyages in the South Pacific. The first First Lady to write her own memoirs of being a First Lady. The first First Lady buried at Arlington National Cemetery (and lately, joined by only the second, Jackie Kennedy.) A life fully lived!

Good News in Arts, Music and Literature…..and Fun

>>>>>» “Put that down!” “Eeewww, that’s icky…..” “How many times do I have to tell you…..” “Hey, this

is really cool. Lookatit…...”

Ever have those phrases circle around your head? Oh, not lately I’d imagine, but long ago. Kids don’t know stuff, and part of the fun (and sometimes danger) of being a kid is……..finding out stuff! Or just finding stuff…..just to have it----”’cause I found it…..and its mine.” Maybe decades later you come across a little box of little goodies like that from when you were little and you look at that little chip of glass, a dented thimble, or a certain marble and try to recall just why these little things seemed to mean so much that you saved them. And once in great while…….

12-year-old Rowan Brannan of Sussex, England is one of those Picker-Uppers of just everything and anything, and his mother is constantly carping at him about it (her favorite line: “Put that down!”) Well, Rowan picked a up shiny bit of, well, wrapping? Some sort of ribbon? “Mum? What’s this?” “Oh that’s just a…...a…...now just what IS that?”

Now and again in England you find something that tells you other people were in England a long time ago. In Rowan’s case, he struck gold…….literally. THE "WHAT'S THIS?" turns out to be an arm band, a decoration. It was awarded like the military does these days with medals. This thing was also metal…….gold…….and goes back a ways…...to the Romans. Whew! Ah to be a curious kid growing up in an old country!

a mug of cocoa or coffee holds open a book on a knitted cloth, with rain falling outside the window.

>>>>>>» PSA (Public Service Announcement) Everyone here reading the Good News Round Up is…...reading the Round Up. Reading has been a big part of my life (can’t get through seminary without reading…..reading…….reading…...Hebrew…...reading….Greek…….reading…….Martin Luther in German……...reading….) and I enjoy it like most of you likely do. Curling up with a good book, the little screen glowing with E-bookery, or a well-aimed little light over the shoulder falling crisply on the page…….

Well if you are a reader, and by extension a book liker, book lover, book acquaintence-r, book-ophiliac, book collector, book-aholic, professional librarian, then here is a bookmark-able story. Again in England, a high percentage of the population reads English. There have been centuries of English folk writing books in England using England as a setting (see Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, mid-14th century.) THIS DELIGHTFUL STORY includes a listing of 35 top sites to visit in the UK that are connected to…...BOOKS! 221 Baker Street…….the Globe Theater…...Jane Austen’s cottage. A fine resource for planning your next visit there!

1387 A double header for you fans of Middle English. According to scholars the characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” (landmark literary work of the Middle Ages, for Middle English students) begin their pilgrimage to Canterbury. (Not quite leaving the Shire and setting off to destroy the One Ring, but everyone in both stories dresses about the same.) On this day 10 years later in 1397, this time in London, Chaucer himself is at the court of King Richard II and begins telling/reciting/reading the “Tales” (since Peter Jackson hadn’t made it into a 9 part trilogy of trilogies……and since movies hadn’t been invented yet, or electricity tamed, or anything that looks like modern life had happened at all, the best thing going was to be at court and somebody could tell a story.) Prithee have we comest a longish way…….

1738 Oxford, England Birth of Philip Hayes, organist, composer. Son of the organist at Oxford University, Philip followed dad into the family business, his voice and his keyboard talent earning him degrees from Oxford in music right up through a doctorate. Discovered and preserved many manuscripts of earlier composers that were in danger of being lost (Purcell, for example), thereby making sure they stayed in music history. Composed several pieces, particularly for organ. Noted for a set of works that he carefully scored for both harpsichord and piano, among the first to acknowledge the differences between the two and recognizing the rise of the piano over the earlier harpsichord.

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1897 Madison, Wisconsin Birth of Thornton Wilder, novelist and playwright. Spent his early years in China. Grew up in California and served in World War I. Graduated Yale and then Princeton. Winner of 3 Pulitzer Prizes for both drama and novels. His work included "Our Town" and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" “The Ides of March” and “The Eighth Day.”

1964 Washington DC and soon across the radios and in the malt shops of America. While Washington DC is generally NOT connected to the entertainment industry or pop trends, today was a moment for them, and in a stunning surprise, led by Law Enforcement! Federal Law Enforcement!! After months of analysis by audio engineers, applying various instruments and techniques, on this day the FBI Laboratory issues a final report: they officially can NOT determine the lyrics to “Louie, Louie”, so they cannot rule it is offensive …...or subversive……... or Communist. (“Me gotta go now/ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…..”)

The Officially FBI-Approved version, cleared by censors, dismayed and over-wroughtly condemned endlessly by True Pastors of True Churches who wear True Horn-Rimmed glasses and True black wing-tips to go with their True White polyester shirts, and danced to by Beehived Bouffant-ed Boppers…...loudly proclaiming…...SOMETHING! (And the band, from Portland, Oregon, performing their one-hit wonder, recognized they were on national TV in black-and-white, and so DRESSED for the occasion!)

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Two glasses of red wine, one being held by a hand, and a basket of cut baguette pieces, on a striped tablecloth. — Good wine, good bread, good friends = good life.

Alright friends and neighbors, Gnusies and Hope-ers of better things and better days, its your turn now in the comments below to add, subtract, multiply or divide this Round Up exponentially, reveling in the Obtuse and the Off-Beat, working out derivatives, angling for acute remarks, calculating circumferential comments, triple explaining your cubic conceptions.

Thank you for tuning in and stopping by on your Wednesday on the way through your slice of life this day.

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

Spring Equinox Good News Round Up, from Persephone to First Ladies

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 20, 2024 · 4:00 AM PDT

2024/03/20 · 04:00

A delightful Vernal Equinoctial (!) Celebration to all Ye Seekers of the Good News here at the Great Orange Website of DailyKos. Sweet Persephone (see photo, right; a quick biography of her AT THIS LINK) returns from the Underworld for her 6 month stay in the Overworld, calling for flowers to come forth, buds to come fifth, for the Earth to renew life and to let there be love and lovers.

Persephone of Greek myths summons her friends and peers, Eoster from the Germanic realm, Idun as part of the Norse pantheon, Beaivi among the Sami/Finns and Estonians, and Brigid for the Celtic peoples, to tread and lilt barefoot across meadows and woods and bring light, warmth, growth and new life.

There are Eoster’s eggs to be hunted (laid in her honor by hares that were once birds that attended her, and in spring remember how to produce eggs.) Beaivi brings more than new light above the Arctic Circle; she also brings sanity to the depressed and melancholy (like those with S.A.D.)

Flora of the Romans, Nu Yi of the Chinese, Chloris of the Greeks, Yhi of the Aboriginals; these and others perfume the air and delight the eyes by bringing forth flowers.

While not quite in that exalted company, this Daily Round Up is assembled by a slated swarm of writers and dedicated optimists, and yours truly, WineRev, is allowed once a month to sit in…….The Chair……..at……THE DESK, and play with all the buttons I want to. Then, after a fun morning, the charming GNR herself will appear, or Aunt Chloris from Switzerland---(now known as bedecked in flowers)----- will zoom in on a Zoom call, and say, “WineRev? Its time for lunch and time for you to turn over the Master Control Room of Good News-ery. Come along…..your turn will come around again soon enough…”

So before that happens, things have been happening of the Good News persuasion across the room, across the country and across the world, and THIS IS THE PLACE for you, yes YOU, to read about them, chuckle over them, add to them with your own finds on the Inter-Tubes, expand/expound/digress or skew off tangentially in comments, additions and merry making for the rest of us. (This place also welcomes those who would rather do the opposite of those acts: in-pand/ in-pound/ in-gress, mono-gress, con-gress or tri-gress, and even skew ON tangentially (or even co-secant-ly).

Have a read below, then make your additions and chuckles. (As is my custom, you will see I have sprinkled in the Good and the Goofy of March 20ths from prior years here and there for your perspective and puzzled looks……because that’s how the History Corner tracks a lot of days.)

March is observed in several countries as Women’s History Month (a quick rundown here) and Persephone has been adopted by many women as an icon for female empowerment.

Now many of you last month had many nice things to say about the President’s Day edition of the Round Up sprinkled with nuggets from the lives of those holders of the Office. So, in keeping with the women of history all the way to becoming goddesses, and in honor of all the goddesses of Spring, I bring you some selected bits about a couple of America’s First Ladies of the White House, and what some of them brought to the table for their husbands. (If you’d like more next month, let me know in the comments.)

Good News in Science and Engineering

Back in the 1970s NASA went Big and went Bold. They launched a pair of satellites named Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Voyager 1’s mission was to visit the Final Frontier of space, to seek out new stuff and new who-knows-what, and boldly go where no human gizmo had gone before.

Well Voyager 1 is out there….REALLY out there……like beyond the Solar System, 15 billion miles out there, and hauling along at a really honkin’ 38,000 mph. And the little chip set with the cozy little electrical circuitry has been keeping in touch with those sweet NASA people for decades. But recently, things went quiet, and NASA took a deep breath and somberly announced that the Memorial Service for Voyager 1 needed to be scheduled.

But the Good News Network is delighted to quote Mark Twain, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” THIS ARTICLE/DIARY says that maybe, just maybe, Voyager 1 still has Earth’s area code. Scratchy and static filled, with Cuneiform algorithms on clay tablets, there just may be contact still to be had. (Important Safety Note From all the Trekkies on Earth to NASA: if the restored signal calls itself “V-jer” and seems to have reversed course….do NOT answer the phone!)

Somewhat closer to home (like 15 billion miles closer), yet farther away in time, March 20ths have chipped in markers and moments of science and engineering. After all, the 1800 entry just ahead contributed to Voyager 1 too!

1800 On this day physicist Alessandro Volta of Italy writes a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society in London (a scientific panel) describing his work with electricity and his success in creating what he called “an electric pile.” Later, this was refined to “battery.” (Hey, your iPhone a little slow these days? Maybe you need a new “electric pile” :-)) As scientists have a nice habit of doing, the unit of electrical potential was named in his honor, the “volt.” (Oddly enough, the thing that spurred Volta on was a long running dispute with another Italian researcher, who claimed there was such a thing as “animal electricity.” Although proved wrong, Luigi Galvani contributed enough to science to have one of his processes named “galvanizing.”)

Sculpture of Greek goddess of dance and chorus Terpsichore in old city park "Summer garden" in St. Petersburg, Russia

1845 Urumiah, Persia (now Iran) Birth of Lucy Myers Wright (Mitchell), archeologist. Born to American parents who were missionaries on station in Persia (pretty dang devout for sure!) Home schooled, she showed a gift for languages (a good thing for where Iran, Turkey and Iraq meet, and in the neighborhood of Azerbaijan) becoming fluent in French, German, Italian, Arabic and Syriac (!) Her gift with words led her into a life-time love of literature and also into archeology. Her mother brought her to the US during the Civil War and she attended Mt. Holyoke, but she did not earn a degree. Returned to Persia a few years later to be with her father, who died a year after her return. Married Samuel Mitchell, a scholar of languages and art, and they had a studious marriage. Returned to America around 1870 and in 1873 she published a 700-page work, “A History of Ancient Sculpture.” Became a standard in the field and turned heads everywhere: women in archeology were VERY rare, and Americans even rarer, so her reputation was polished by her unique life situation. (No word if Lucy & Sam knew Henry “Idaho” Jones, or his son Henry “Arizona” Jones, or grandson Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr……but all three of them would have read her book in 2nd-year archeology classes…..)

1917 Hoboken, New Jersey (Can anything good come out of Hoboken? YES!) Gideon Sundback, a Swedish-born engineer working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co., received a patent for his “seper-able fastener”, a double set of tiny teeth facing each other with a triangular gizmo that meshed or unmeshed the teeth. Some early versions had appeared as early as 1893 but were commercial failures or were unreliable. The ‘zipper’ name was coined by B.F. Goodrich six years later, in 1923. They had licensed the design from Sundback and AHE & Co. and wanted to market it as a faster, better way of fastening on their brand of rubber galoshes……no more buckles, just ‘zip!’

First Lady Moment: Louisa Johnson (Adams) Born 1775 in London. From a wealthy family who sent her to a French convent school for 2 years when she was 6. Pulled her back to England when she was 8 because she became so fluent in French she was forgetting English. Excellent musician (voice, harp). When she was 19 (so 1794) she caught the eye of the American Consul to Holland, visiting England. John Quincy Adams proposed to her 2 years later. Due to a re-assignment they spent their first 2 married years at the Prussian Court in Berlin. (Since French was the “common language” of diplomats in Europe, she moved smoothly in those circles and helped her husband with his French as well.)

John Quincy and his English wife “returned” to America in 1801 when dad John Adams’ political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, became President. Introduced Louisa to her formidable mother-in-law, Abigail, and while there was some commuting between Massachusetts and Washington City, Louisa mostly spent the next several years in the Capital with her husband, the freshly-minted US Senator from Massachusetts. 3 children (all boys) in this passage.

In 1809 Senator Adams was appointed (by new President Madison) as Minister to Russia, and he, Louisa, and youngest son, 2-year-old (!) Charles Francis, sailed off (the 2 older boys stayed with Abigail and John for an extended grandparents visit.) 5 years later, Adams was hurriedly summoned to go to Ghent, Belgium, to help negotiate a US-British Peace Treaty to end the War of 1812. He sailed from St. Petersburg while arranging for Louisa and Charles to travel overland to join him. Louisa & the now 7-year-old spent 40 winter days (and nights) on the road by carriage (fitted with runners for the snow) crossing ice-bound rivers and skirting Napoleonic war battlefields (and no GPS or even reliable maps or road signs.) When mother and son reached France, French troops recognized the Russian markings and entourage and were ready to do harm to these enemy visitors (even if they were supposedly diplomatically safe.) Louisa heard their grousing and stepped out, beaming and carrying on in perfect French, calling the soldiers around her to join in popular songs hailing Napoleon and the glories of France. After several choruses and cheers, they decided she and her troupe were OK. (Made it to Ghent, followed by a 2 year posting in England, and Louisa could visit family and friends.)

8 years later, moved into the White House as First Lady. Raised silkworms in the gardens, harvested and used the silk in her own sewing. Louisa frequently provided the after-dinner entertainment at White House dinners by playing the harp, or piano, or singing while someone else played. She didn’t care for Washington’s stifling summers, so she spent those months each year near the New Jersey shore in the company of a number of other like-minded women. (They would alternate between rowing for pleasure, fishing, and “sea bathing” (swimming)……in the 1820s.)

After Adams’ Presidential term ended he (and she) returned to Washington as he served 9 terms in the US House (and apparently she kept up her summers away.)

(PS. Charles Francis Adams, having started in on diplomacy as a toddler, grew up to become American Minister/Ambassador to the UK during the Civil War. He seems to have inherited quite some family talents of negotiation, language fluency and tact: he kept England on the sidelines of official neutrality (despite a strong current of Southern sympathies in the UK). He defused the Mason & Slidell incident (which Britain was so annoyed about the Union Navy that several thousand troops were dispatched to British Canada as a sign of miffed-ness with the Lincoln Administration.) There was a good deal of work being done in a British shipyard building the world’s first-ever ocean-going ironclad, and rather openly to be sent to the Confederacy….but Adams managed to avert that challenge too (and the British Navy adopted the vessel for itself.)

Good News in Arts, Music and Literature

Thank you for reading along today in the Round Up……in English. It’s a compounded, confounded, complex, sometimes pasted together language, with “rules” for grammar and spelling and pronunciation that seem to be often more “exception” than “rule.” That’s what happens when you start off a language (Old English) with those Germanic Anglo-Saxons and Jutes of the 4th century. 200 years occupation by the Norse branch of the Germanic tongues (“Danelaw” on old maps; the ending -by (Natterby, Grimsby, Derby) all are Norse for “farm”.)

Then overlay it with a wave of Middle French starting in 1066 to cause Middle English to silence a lot of the Germanic gutturals while keeping them in spelling (all those “-ght” words where the “gh” is silent but used to be said like “ich” in modern German.) Then drop the distinction between formal and informal, silence another bunch of (French-based) words (the “ue” in colleague, grotesque, technique, prologue) but keep their spelling (“the final “e” is silent after a consonant but makes the vowel before it long”——Mrs. Scott, my 2nd grade teacher….)

And yet we can, and do, communicate, inspire, ask, persuade, propound, debate like everybody else does in their own way and their own tongue. This has been going on a LONG time. How long? Well THIS STORY from ancient Spain tells of archeologists finding some really early written language that is just this side of runes or hieroglyphics. (We are hoping this is one of the earliest versions of a daily Good news Round Up---pre-Internet, pre-printing press, pre-paper…….)

_____________

”Its a big deal. Everybody will be there so look your best.”

5G-5ml-Lip-Balm-Tube-Packaging-Carton-Box-21-colors-Lipstick-Tube-DIY-Packing-box-25.jpg

Ever had that line delivered to you? Yep, we all have. And so there is plotting and arranging and ...and….and…. with only a short time to go, women know they have to build in time for make-up. And the purse always has a little something for touch-ups, right?

Now while make-up has lately ended up as a feature in the lives of women, that has not always been the case. There have been eras as well when men as well as women made some….. highlights. (E.g. Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) All sorts of eras have featured certain pigments and stuff for the face. Artists hired for portraits have often “enhanced” their patron’s looks (like adding a little rouge to those pasty cheeks on the canvas just recovering from a 6-week fever…..)

Now Smithsonian magazine posts THIS ARTICLE about a find in ancient Iran…..a carved tube of what surely would have been…..lipstick. 3500+ year old lipstick, mind you. Somewhat more likely to have been used by women of the era, but men and women both wore eye liners, cheek powders and something in the eyebrows. So maybe back then the real sharp fellows put a dab on in the powder room before rejoining his date at the dance…….(this particular find was a bold red, but apparently other shades were out there too. No word if a lipstick maker in those ancient languages was called a “revlon” or a “maybelline”, but work is continuing…..)

Now Art, music, dance and literature have been around as long as humans have been, and a few of these events and people were wise enough to be connected to earlier March 20ths.

1850 Baltimore. Edgar Alan Poe finishes his story and submits it this day to a publisher: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, widely considered to be the 1^st detective story.

1852 Boston. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” goes on sale. The best seller of the decade (in the North) it is roundly despised and condemned in the plantation South. In 1862, Stowe is in Washington and meets President Lincoln in the White House. He welcomes her with the words, “Here is the little lady whose little book started a great war.”

1863 Rio de Janiero, Brasil Birth of Ernesto Nazareth, composer and pianist. His mother got him started on piano, and even after she died (when he was 10) he kept on. His new tutor introduced him to Chopin’s work, and Nazareth adored it, inspiring him to write out his first work (for piano) at age 14. Supported himself for years playing theaters, music halls, balls, all the while turning out various works: tangos, polkas, waltzes, quadrilles (!), fox trots and romances, over 200 works lifetime. His skill at the piano finally got him into concert halls, and later a steady job playing regularly at the Mozart Club (!) of Rio. In the 1920s one of the first musicians featured on radio in the country. Sadly ended life in an asylum for depression but remembered fondly across South America.

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First Lady moment:

Caroline Lavinia Scott (Harrison), born 1832 in Oxford, Ohio. One of 5 children (2 boys & 3 girls) but their father was a University professor and insisted all 5 children get an advanced education. Caroline graduated with a degree (!) in music and also took up painting (watercolors and then china painting) for the rest of her life. Met and married newly graduated lawyer Benjamin Harrison in her early 20s. He was on the stuffy side and took lawyering seriously, but “Carrie” kept him balanced with humor, dancing, and music. Harrison elected President in 1888 for 1 term. Caroline Harrison oversaw the first-ever installation of electricity in the White House, including light bulbs. (The President was dubious; he usually called for a servant to turn a light switch on or off so he wouldn’t be shocked or worse.)

While White House dinners continued as they always had since Martha Washington, there had been no dancing there since the prim Ms. James Polk in 1849. Caroline turned her back on that and held regular dances. Music was usually provided for these by the US Marine Corps Band (“The President’s Own”), under the baton of John Phillip Sousa. Caroline Harrison was also asked by nearby Johns Hopkins University to endorse fundraising for a new hospital wing. She did, but only after they promised to admit women to the medical program (and they did.)

The fledgling Daughters of the American Revolution (the DAR) found Caroline had had ancestors in the Revolution and asked her to not only join, but to become the group’s first-ever President. She agreed, and gave an Inaugural speech….which was recorded, the first-ever capture of a First Lady’s voice. (“~~Roll video,…..Fire Up pixels, ….Roll tape!…..Drop the needle on the vinyl~~…...give the wax cylinder a turn!”) Contracted tuberculosis and died at age 60 in the White House.

Good News in Society and Politics

If these next 2 stories would come to pass in the next year or so, an awful lot of us would feel like we are getting somewhere.

First, in another story out of Brazil apart from charming music, Fernando Haddad is the country’s Finance Minister and something of a host for a meeting of his compatriots of the G20 (a collection of 20 of the world’s largest economic powers that try to co-ordinate certain things.) One thing Brazil and at least 19 other countries in the world are up against are…...the Super Rich. Individuals who are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Guys (virtually always) who’s net worth can exceed the total GNP of any of several dozen countries in the UN. And WHY? What could all that wealth (and worse, even MORE of it) do for them?

Haddad says, “Nothing good.” Meanwhile, the rest of the human population could use a hand. So THIS STORY runs down a proposal from Haddad that the Big 20 co-ordinate TAXING the super rich in ways that will prevent them from hiding their money by moving it across borders regularly and secretly. Sounds good to me and a few other people I know…….in this solar system…….

Second, to actually get to what Haddad is proposing, the US will certainly need to be in on it. And to be in on it in a positive way, that would mean a Democratic President and Congress. Now 2024 sees another election year and the stakes are serious. If most people TAKE IT seriously, then democracy wins…..bigly. So, as always, how to get people to focus and take it seriously?

Well the Biden-Harris campaign has already raised a bunch of money. They are running ads and making speeches and funding all sorts of grassroots efforts. But breaking through the general inertia in the electorate is still a challenge. How to grab attention?

MSNBC gadfly Donny Deutsch has an idea I can agree with. IN THIS STORY and related video he outlines how he thinks the Democrats should run across the country in 2024: “Scare the s%*t out of everybody.” He says this is no time to be polite. Now Joseph Biden is not generally seen as a firebrand, but his “Dark Brandon” side seems to be getting more and more airtime. I could go with that…..how about you? What do you think?

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Third, let it also be noted that Joe Biden has had an excellent couple weeks, starting with a barnburner State of the Union Address that just by itself caused a surge in campaign donations. On the other side of the swamp, the scum splashing between Trump and Nikki Haley have wound down to a big nothing and Haley has “suspended her campaign.” But she had some notable donors backing her for her run, in ways and amounts DeSantis and others could not touch.

Now comes THIS JUICY STORY that the savvy Biden campaign is making a quiet but SERIOUS effort to attract several of Haley’s Big Money backers to send those Big Bucks to…...the Biden Campaign! (Hey, no harm in asking, right?) Another example of political savvy and behind-the-scenes technique by Biden, a man with decades of high-level political experience.

AND….its not just about Money. Yes, Trump has been “winning” those GQP primaries, and yet a persistent 25-45% of GQP voters (a fair measure of engaged voters paying attention and doing their civic duty---which we can respect) have been voting for someone ELSE. Here at the end, those voters have been backing Haley.

Well, the Biden campaign is not only cultivating some of Haley’s money sources. THIS PROVOCATIVE REPORT says in a key state like Ohio a fair percentage of Haley voters are willing to vote FOR BIDEN this fall. (And another mathematically significant slice say if Trump is the GQP nominee OR has been convicted of a felony, they will simply stay home and NOT VOTE. Hmmmmm…….)

Otherwise, March 20ths have seen all sorts of societal and politcal sorts of moments that could give you a fresh take on modern life:

1854 Ripon, Wisconsin The Whig party has collapsed over the issue of slavery (and “Uncle Toms’ Cabin” helped drive home the fracture.) An anti-immigrant party is also loose in the land (formally, The American Party, but remembered by history as the “Know Nothing” Party, as in members were instructed to keep things hidden from the press and others by answering all questions with the phrase, “I know nothing.” (“Hogan’s Heroes” Sgt. Schultz accent optional.) On this day a gathering of many former Whigs and other independents form the Republican Party. Their platform called for a trans-continental railroad, internal improvements, a protective tariff, and limiting slavery to its current states. The furious Southerners (largely Democrats) immediately accuse them of being a stalking horse for abolition.

1865 The state of Michigan, (MOST Appropriately!) recognizing the teamwork of returning soldiers from the Civil War, authorizes workers' cooperatives, a significant step toward UNIONS.

FILE - This June 28, 1989 file photo shows Fred Rogers as he rehearses the opening of his PBS show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" during a taping in Pittsburgh. Rogers, the late host of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood," is featured in a PBS Digital Studios vid

1928 Latrobe, PA (about 60 miles SE of Pittsburgh). Birth of the beloved Fred McFeely Rogers. A puppeteer, musician and children’s TV host. Started on TV in New York in 1951, but after 2 years returned to Pittsburgh, creating children’s programming (The Children’s Corner) for the Public Broadcasting station there. He took time out in the early 1960s to attend seminary and become an ordained Presbyterian minister. He returned to public television as “Mister Rogers” (starting in 1963) and in 1968 went national with “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”….for the next 33 years.

1934 Florida To keep things interesting in spring training (and maybe to settle a few bets in the clubhouse) the Philadelphia A’s (way before Oakland) invite American all-round female super athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias to pitch an inning for them in a spring training exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Didrikson Zaharias was a wonder woman of her time, female “athlete of the year” 5 times, in her 20s in track and field and in her 40s in golf. Also held the women’s record for throwing a regulation baseball: 296 feet. She pitched a hitless inning for the A’s. Cleary, she was in a league of her own……

1942 Western Pacific On personal orders from President Roosevelt (in order to save his military talent for the American cause in the Pacific), General Douglas MacArthur is successfully evacuated from the Philippines (that was falling to advancing Japanese troops.) He vows famously to the press, "I came through and I shall return."

1950 Oslo, Norway Dr. Ralph Bunche, for his work in trying to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in the Middle East (2 years after Israel becomes a state), receives the Nobel Peace Prize. 1^st ever African American to receive a Nobel.

Dog sledding at Birches on the Lake in Long Lake, Minnesota.

1985 Teller, Alaska This little town of 193 souls went bonkers in celebration today. Local woman Libby Riddles and her team of huskies this day covers 1135 miles of snow and ice ahead of everyone else. She and her dog team become the first woman musher ever to win the famous Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race. (Started back in 1925 as a vital shipment of diphtheria serum was needed in Nome to halt a deadly pandemic. A group of mushers made a 600+ mile run in five days and nights to save the entire community from a miserable death.)

______________________________

Well I hope that’s enough to turn your crank and light your fire for this Wednesday. Now its your turn in the comments below to add, amplify, correct, expand, digress and even sprinkle chuckles upon the other Good News that we each find and share…..for the sake of each other. Thank you one and all.

May all your news be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom.

Wednesday Good News Round Up, "Hail to the Chief" edition

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 21, 2024 · 4:00 AM PST

2024/02/21 · 04:00

"I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty."

— Woodrow Wilson

Welcome, welcome! A warm Wednesday welcome to one and all of you seeking escape from the humdrum, as well as refreshment and balance of spirit to the Doom & Gloom of way too much of the daily news. Once again the smiling attendants of my “facility” have taken me to the once-a-month “therapy room” and turned me loose on the Internet to compose and publish and host the Good News Round Up here at the Great Orange website of DailyKos.

So c’mon in to the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch, where coffee, tea and mocha-cocoa are all hot and waiting for you in endless roasts and flavors to start your day. Robes and pajamas are always welcome, along with yawning 4-pawed fur children VERY interested in breakfast and in “feed me, you ninny…...and now that you have, what are you up to?”

The Feet Up Lounge has wingback and recliner chairs, plump sofas, cozy booths and little tables for 2, hearty long tables with picnic benches so the “morning people” who are extroverts can ignite their morning interactions. While you tune in the pixels on your screen thanks to the wonders of Wi-Fi, feel more than free and consider yourself invited to add stories, offer comments, drop in drops of drollery as needed, expand or even amend stories, and generally be a part of the give-and-take of this steady and steady-ING corner of the Internet.

_________________

Feb. 12—Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday.

Feb. 22—George Washington’s Birthday

Third Monday of February between these 2 Dates:

President’s Day

A group of historians just the other day released a fresh list, ranking the “Greatness” of American Presidents. As has happened before in prior lists, Lincoln ranked #1. To be fair, our current #46, Joe Biden, gets an “incomplete” from the scholars, but even so, they rank him provisionally at #14. And at this website------- we KNEW IT ALL ALONG----but yes, #45 in his Golden Sneakers and his Eau d-Cologne (Essence of Bankrupt) does INDEED come in at #46, dead last. All three fans of James Buchanan are high-fiving and sending bouquets to Mar-A-Lago, thanking Melania’s husband for getting their man Jim out of Last Place at Last.

In honor of being the keeper of the History Corner in these parts and being something of History nut, this morning’s Round Up will feature Ponderable Quotes from, as well as Bar Trivia Stumping Nuggets about, American Presidents, suitable for reflection.

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”

― James Garfield

_________________

I’ve tried to sort out some of the stories under sub-headings (or, following a certain shape of elongated sandwiches, hero-headings, hoagie headings, grinder headings, torpedo headings, or po’-boy headings) and also added news of years past that event-ed (!) themselves on February 21sts of years of yore. In keeping with a Presidential trivia collection of Not Always Too Trivial Stuff, these sub/hero/po’boy/torpedo sub-sections will also feature Presidential contributions of events and glimpses of life and mind.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

― Harry Truman

Good News in Society & Politics

>>>>>>> Day 5 since the New York civil case decision from Judge Engeron came down like a stone blizzard on the Trump organization. And you know what THAT means to Trump’s wallet, right? One of our Daily Kos readers of the accounting profession took the judgment of $363 million, AND the New York law (that Engeron applied) that imposes INTEREST of 9%/annum upon any outstanding judgment. Judge Engeron had his own accounting pros figure out that since the penalty started ticking from 2019 (!) that there is over $98 million in INTEREST also owing and added to the judgment.

But our intrepid accountant (an adjective RARELY applied to such a profession) calculated that the INTEREST clock is STILL TICKING…..at about $100,000 more EACH DAY. So, since Friday, the total amount owed has gone UP $500,000…..another half-a-million…..and counting. We need one of those ticking reminders at the top of the Round Ups these days, because Trump and his criminal organization OWING MORE every day makes all of us smile and feel better about life. YAY!

When Jefferson became President he began shaking hands with visitors. Under Washington and Adams visitors to the President had always bowed upon arriving or leaving.

>>>>>» Oh, and since making the Rich pay their fair share for the privilege of living among us is perhaps the definition of income EQUALITY, 1 piece of the Biden-enacted Inflation Reduction Act included added funding for the IRS with the delightful task of collecting unpaid taxes from the wealthy. This CHEERING PIECE notes that Act added $80 billion to the IRS budget for this effort. Best estimates SO FAR is that the 1% have coughed up an additional $561 Billion-with-a-B to the US Treasury. My non-accountant math says that’s a 7 to 1 return on that $80 billion (and this is spread out over 4 years, so the Service has only digested the first $20 billion and started in on the second tranche here in 2024.) That is SERIOUS Good News in cold, hard cash for US ALL! YAY!

* * * * * * * *

>>>>>Warning! Only Certified Members of the Deep State are allowed to read the following. It is strictly eyes-only, need to know, Def Con 5, Double-Secret Probation important but SECRET! All you ordinary citizens can just go about your business and skip down to the next set of stars. No Fair reading in Between!

(WineRev glances around…..gives little nod to the passing Gnusies to follow him into the alley…...turns up collar on his trench coat…...) The Great Right Wing Propaganda Machine (known by the shorthand of the “Goebbels Gabble”) may finally be facing some genuine competition on American airwaves. The…….(whisper only) Deep State is quietly buying the 2nd largest radio network in the US. And as you can read in this CYBER DISPATCH…..it really is from the Deep State (as every RW nut knows.) Why? Looks like the deal is being financed by…..YES…..George Soros.

Pass on the word through your usual channels. That is all.

* * * * * * * *

James Monroe served 2 terms. The opposition party (Federalists) collapsed during his first term, so he is the only President re-elected basically unopposed.

Now living together in a common country with a common language, there have been political and social moments from years past and places near and far. Here’s a sample of STUFF that happened on February 21sts that made a difference for large swaths of people.

1613 Moscow The Patriarch of Moscow (Orthodox clergy can marry) has a son, Mikhail Romanov. The lad is 17 but does not follow dad into the ministry. Instead, this day he is elected czar of Russia. Mikhail was crowned on June 22 (much better weather). In his inauguration speech he opened a wormhole to the future, tuned in a fellow Russian among the stars and quoted Star Trek; Chekov, with thick accent: “And I am czar of all the Russians!” His family line ruled over 300 years, down to 1917.

Meanwhile, unlike the czars of all the Russians, having already been President, John Quincy Adams later is elected to the US House, the only person to make that political move in that direction.
While JQ Adams was the first President ever to be photographed, James Polk was the first to be photographed while in office. He was visiting in New York city and stopped in at the studio of Matthew Brady.

1866 Cincinnati, Ohio Lucy Beamon Hobbs was born and raised in upstate New York. Became a school teacher in Michigan for 10 years, then got the urge to become…..a dentist. Was turned down on her application to a dental college due to her gender but one of the professors (a working dentist) took her on as an apprentice. A couple years later she applied to a different school and was again turned down for being a woman and again a dentist-professor taught her as a private student so she was able to begin her own practice in Cincinnati. Moved to Iowa for the Civil War years and got good enough she was admitted to the Iowa Dental Society and so became a licensed dentist. She was then admitted to the Ohio School of Dentistry back in Cincinnati as a senior and on this day the 33-year-old Ms. Hobbs became the first woman in the world to graduate from a college of dentistry (and was awarded a doctorate to boot!) Moved to Chicago where she married James Taylor (not the singer, but another dentist!) and together they moved to Kansas where they built a thriving practice for the next 25 years. (In 1983 the American Association of Women Dentists established the annual Lucy Hobbs Taylor Award for AAWD members to recognize professional excellence and achievements in advancing the role of women in dentistry.)

In the 1870s Rutherford Hayes mediated a peace treaty in South America. The nation of Paraguay was so grateful they renamed an entire province for him (Presidente Hayes) and named the provincial capital “Villa Hayes” (Hayes House)…...to this day.
Grover Cleveland is the only President to get married in the White House.
Woodrow Wilson is the only President to hold a Ph.D.

1958 Twickenham, UK The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is slowly gathering strength and is readying for a major public march, The Aldermaston March. (Aldermaston was a nuclear weapons research center and the march would between there and London, 52 miles.) Professional artist Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector in World War II, thought a logo or symbol might be a good way to focus the march. After several tries this day he brings a design to his local chapter. It is a circle divided vertically by a diameter line, and two additional downward branches in the manner of an upside-down letter “Y”. As a semaphore signal, one flag straight up and one straight down (like the center diameter) stands for “N”. Two flags apart and each down at 45 degrees stands for “D”, so the symbol signaled “ND” for “Nuclear Disarmament.” The March adopted it and it was soon on lapel pins and fliers everywhere. Holtom didn’t copyright it, and it became the 1960’s peace symbol worldwide.

John Kennedy was the first US President to have served his military service in the Navy.

1980 Lake Placid, New York The Winter Olympics are on and over on the men’s hockey rink there may be a story developing. But other people and other countries care about other things. Liechtenstein is a tiny country (all of 61 sq. miles) in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria. With all that tilted landscape and winter snows you can figure Alpine skiing is the national sport. This day the entire Duchy (all 37,000 citizens) went bonkers as Hanni Wenzel wins the gold medal in the women’s giant slalom event. Her gold medal makes Liechtenstein the smallest country in the world to produce an Olympic champion. (How many Liechtenstein women turning 40, 41, 42 or 43 this year have a first name of Hanni…..?)

“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”

―Calvin Coolidge

“Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.”

―Joe Biden

Good News in Science & Engineering

The inventive President Jefferson is credited with inventing a dumbwaiter, a hideaway bed and…..a coat hanger. (Wall peg makers howled…..)
The Baltimore & Ohio RR made its bid to be part of a Monopoly board back in 1828 by becoming the first US railroad. Not long after, Andrew Jackson became the first President to ride by train.
In a far more private advance than by Jackson, Millard Fillmore installed the first White House bathtub.

One of the recurring features of the daily Good News Round Up on many days are…...cartoons! Jokes set to drawing. Puns in picture form. A tickle to the ribs. A chuckle for the mouth. Humor, and its reaction, LAUGHTER, are very human actions. Many have claimed that laughter is a uniquely human trait, that other species on this planet are far more prosaic.

And yet…….our dogs and cats have full bodied ways of showing what can only be called Delight. Some horses have a nodding whinny that…...daggone it, has a laughing sort of cadence and character. Yes, yes, the muscles of a dolphin’s face make the lips turn up at the corners, so it looks like they are perpetually smiling, and yet…..are some of those antics done just for the fun of it? To show off for the other members of the pod? Those screeches from apes and monkeys? Are they all lamentations, or mating calls, or forms of verbal aggression? Or are at least some of them…...snickering? Even joking?

Young boy laughing after being ambushed by one dog while trying to hug another; a third is behind him. All three dogs are on leashes.

Well now COMES A STUDY from UCLA that states 65 species express forms of laughter. They find things FUNNY. Things worthy delighting over. Things silly that look funny and earn a laugh. Now, studying laughter sounds like a serious matter, and to be taken seriously means maintaining a “professional detachment” from the data, observations and hypotheses. And yet, this team has done all that serious stuff and come out with a serious statement, with research and data supporting, that laughter has embedded itself across the Earth, for the Author of Joy would not have us laugh alone. The difference between “happy” and “joy”? You can be happy within yourself. When you share it with someone else, that turns it into joy…...and often the vehicle (and response) is laughter.

Franklin Pierce made winters far more comfortable by installing the White House’s first central heating system. (Fireplaces became more ornamental…..)
Christopher Spencer had invented a new rifle but couldn’t get the Union War Department to give it a look. He went to DC in 1863 and came to the White House uninvited to talk it over with President Lincoln. The two of them and a butler walked down to a bank of the Potomac River (about where the Jefferson Memorial now stands) for some target shooting and Lincoln tried out Spencer’s “repeating rifle” that fired copper-jacketed bullets from a 7-shot clip and the turn of a little wheel to load the next shot. (“Load it on Sunday and shoot it all week!”) They walked back to the White House and soon the Union cavalry was receiving shipments from Spencer’s shop/factory.

>>>>>>» It is an annoying fact of aging that body parts show wear and tear. Canes, permanent shawls, softer food, ear trumpets, and dentures are just a few of the ways humans have used to cope with biological mileage. Vision is another one. Now I’ve been near-sighted since I hit puberty, so I’ve been wearing glasses for decades. I had a long stretch with contact lenses, but the last decade or so its been glasses again. (Suave and stylish of course!)

And all along, my eyes have been changing, so every few years I need a different prescription.

But now comes THIS EXCITING STORY from France: a research and engineering team has developed a contact lens (and implantable ones are in the works) that feature a tiny spiral of material in the soft plastic. The effect is allow for multiple corrections, rather in the manner of progressive lenses in glasses, but far more effectively. Living in the future is fun!

President Hayes had the first White House telephone installed (2 years after the patent for it), personally wired in by Alexander Graham Bell himself.
Speaking of (and into) telephones, President Cleveland usually answered the White House phone himself whenever it rang.
McKinley (in the 1890s!) was the first President to ride in an automobile, while Teddy Roosevelt, his successor, was the first to learn how to drive one.

Of course, visual treats (as noted in the Round Up section featuring Art) have long been part of the human story too. While the February 21 science & engineering events of history are just one entry, it was a remarkable visual delight that many of us recall fondly:

1947 New York City The Optical Society of America is holding its annual meeting in town. Mr. Edwin Land, president of a camera company, gives them a demonstration of his company’s new invention, a camera that produces its own finished prints. The Polaroid Land Camera is the world’s first “instant camera.”

President Harding was the first President to ever make a speech carried by radio.

>>>>>» One of the most heart-breaking conditions of aging is developing Alzhimer’s. That fear of slipping, seeing the confusion in those we love, or the pain in the eyes of them looking and listening to us…...well, even though we now have a name for this development, the hard news is there is little to be done to treat it. But now……..maybe…...just maybe, there may be something. Most treatments up until now have focused (rightly) on reducing the accumulation of so-called “tau” proteins in the brain, the precursors to the formation of that amyloid plaque that defines the disease. But now THIS HEARTENING ARTICLE reports on an odd protein that lives in the brain and the kidneys (!) and nowhere else in the body. Boosting levels of this “KIBRA” protein REPAIRS synaptic links and can recover memories. Yay for research…..that can’t come soon enough!

President Truman was the first President to ever speak formally on television.
Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to fly in an airplane (in 1910! A Wright Brothers number.) He was out of office. His cousin Franklin Roosevelt was the first President to fly by plane while in office. Eisenhower was the first President to fly…..by helicopter.

"We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation."

— John Adams

“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”

― Barack Obama

Good News in Music, Arts and Literature

>>>>>>>>>>Did you enjoy the Super Bowl? The game itself was a good one, even enough so that it had to go into overtime to be settled. Part of the fun before and around the game was watching the on-line vapors and fury among the RWers about Taylor Swift. They thought a pop star white girl dating a macho man football player would certainly stand by her man as a RW prop. Too bad, so sad. Taylor has been outspoken in using her celebrity to give political fits to the knuckle-draggers.

“But at least,” the fur-faced ones could say to each other, “we got country music.” Well, yes they do, and so do a lot of other people. (I’m not partial myself but I recognize the talent and popularity.) But now, to honor their grandfathers’ dismay at baseball allowing Jackie Robinson to break the color line, their fathers’ fury at Arthur Ashe hitting overhead lobs for winners, and Obama being elected President, they have a newly ginned up (liquored up?) reason to be out loud racists. Now COMES WORD that Beyonce…...a 32 Grammy award winner…...Beyonce…..THAT black woman with moves and VOICE…...she has hit the Country Music charts with 2 songs. They are livid and they are loud….which means requests for playing and sales of downloads are booming. GOOD. Let them squirm, since it accessorizes their stupidity and hardness of heart.

>>>>>Presidents and…...music? The arts? Why yes, now and again, here and there. Jefferson could play violin, cello and the clavichord, and was also noted for his singing voice. John Tyler had the talent and interest to seriously consider a career as a concert violinist. Eventually went into law, and then politics, but also at White House dinner parties he would often play dinner music for the guests.

Lincoln played the fiddle and loved opera so much he was the first to invite a professional opera singer to the White House for a concert. Grant liked to paint to relax. Chester Arthur liked music too, of all sorts, and was the first to hold a White House performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the premiere black singing group of the late 1800s (Still extant and harmonizing….) And more to come…….

CS Lewis, a British veteran of the horrors of trench warfare in World War I, became something of an amateur theologian in the mid-20th century. Now enduring (as a civilian) another enormous war in the 1940s, he was asked to give a speech at a university on the value of going to get a higher education during wartime. He pointed out that art, music and literature (among other of the human arts and talents) strictly speaking have no “survival value.” “But,” he said, “they are what give value to survival.”

SOOoooo…...for the betterment and value of our survival, for our hearts and souls and peace of mind and uplift of spirit:

1791 Vienna Birth of Carl Czerny, pianist, composer. From a line of Czech and Moravian musicians (both areas part of the Austrian Empire) Czerny learned music from an early age with talent to match. He was playing piano at age 3 and gave his 1st public concert at age 9, a Mozart concerto. The next year Beethoven heard him play and took him on as a student for several years, and the 2 formed a deep bond. Czerny’s ability was such that while visiting a Prussian Prince, the prince could call out just the opus number of a Beethoven work and Czerny could play it in its entirety from memory and without error. Began teaching at age 15; his most celebrated pupil was Franz Liszt, who astounded Czerny with his talent (!) Composed over 1000 pieces in his life (including 7 symphonies) and several piano method texts that are still in wide use to teach keyboard.

YouTube Video

In a “serious musical moment” Teddy Roosevelt took delivery from Steinway & Sons of the first White House grand piano. It was used when TR hosted internationally famous, professional concert pianist Ignacy Paderewski---who several years later turned from the piano to become President of Poland.
Woodrow Wilson was constantly singing in office with an excellent tenor voice.
Truman usually woke each day at 5 am to practice piano for 2 hours before turning to President-ing. He admitted he loved playing but wasn’t good at it…..but dreamed anyway.

1828 New Echota, Georgia This town is the capital of the Cherokee nation. On this day the initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper is printed, the first Native American newspaper. It uses the syllabary (an alphabet) invented by Cherokee wise man Sequoyah. The paper ceased publication in 1834 with the relocation/destruction of much of the Cherokee to what became Oklahoma. (In 1844 another newspaper appeared, the Cherokee Advocate, edited by Princeton graduate (and tribal member) William Porter Ross. This paper disappeared in the Civil War but was resurrected in 1975. In 2007 it added a web page, and lately a Facebook page and a Twitter feed.)

Dwight Eisenhower only took up painting at age 58 (after stepping down as Supreme Commander of WWII) but then loved it. Produced 300 canvases.
Historians and musicians generally agree Richard Nixon was likely the most talented piano player among all the Presidents.

1964 Across America A couple weeks ago, those 4 mop-top, sharply dressed young chaps were on The Ed Sullivan Show and 71 million Americans watched. Beatlemania went into orbit like, well, like John Glenn! And where there’s excitement like that, there’s money to be made! At least that was the assumption. On this day the United Kingdom flies 24,000 rolls of Beatles wallpaper to the US for sale. No teen bedroom truly cool without it…..

Bill Clinton could wail pretty well on saxophone (as the world discovered on the Arsenio Hall show) during his first run for President.
Barack Obama is only 30 Grammys behind Beyonce, but he does have 2 (spoken word).

“A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil.”

― James Garfield

Good News of the Offbeat and the Odd

OK, OK, so 24,000 rolls of Beatles wallpaper from just above here, strictly speaking, probably does NOT belong in a section of life labeled “Music, Arts and Literature.” (Although they were good Musical artists…...and the wallpaper had a pattern, an ARTISTic pattern to it…...and this artistry was on Paper, like literature has been for centuries…...)

But February 21st, while a bit historically thin for some reason in the Science & Engineering entries (the Presidents sturdily filled in, although their contributions usually did not happen on a February 21), also features some other events that are just…….head cocking. Eyebrow raising. Worth a “say what?” right out loud.

And, with 46 chances spread out over 235 years, yes, our Presidents have had their moments as well: sweet, tender, off-beat, and “Say what?”…..all good for your next Bar Trivia Contest to win that free beer AND the pretzels with cheese dip. (Your ability to impress that noisy uncle at Thanksgiving is always in our mind…..)

Washington was a noted dog breeder and trainer. He liked to fox hunt and raised dogs to go along.
John Adams in summer had a steady habit of going swimming in the Potomac every day….at 5am…..nude.
Madison, the mighty author of the Constitution, stood 5’4” and weighed 100 pounds…..our smallest ever President.
William Harrison (68 when elected; oldest until Reagan) gave the longest Inaugural Speech ever (105 minutes), without coat or hat in a driving, cold rainstorm. He caught cold, which became pneumonia and he died after 31 days in office. Shortest term ever. No one has ever tried to go close to 105 minutes after this bad example…...and he still finished ahead of Trump in the standings…..

1846 Lowell, Massachusetts Samuel FB Morse demonstrated telegraphy in 1838. In 1844 he gave a public demonstration for Congress on the steps of the capital, sending and receiving messages from far away Baltimore at the speed of electricity. Telegraphy boomed as the cutting edge of high tech and created an immediate demand for telegraph operators. You needed to learn/know Morse’s code and understand something of the mechanism, neither task exclusively male. On this day Sarah Bagley clicked onto the telegraph line as the 1st US woman telegrapher.

Zachary Taylor never voted before being elected (at 62). A career Army man he was moved often from post to post, never giving him a long enough stay to establish residency. Grazed his horse on the White House lawn.
Millard Fillmore and the entire Cabinet turned out one afternoon to help fight a major fire at the Library of Congress.
Franklin Pierce was the first to put up a White House Christmas tree.
James Buchanan welcomed the Prince of Wales for a formal visit. The Prince’s entourage numbered so many attendants Buchanan had to sleep overnight in a corridor in the White House.
Grant signed legislation establishing Yellowstone as the world’s first-ever National Park. (the idea went global….)

1878 New Harbor, Connecticut Mr. Bell’s invention of the ‘telephone’ (patented 2 years ago) is spreading steadily, and more and more subscribers are getting the device installed, mostly at their business but sometimes (among the wealthy) even at home. Who has the device? Can one ask the operator for a connection….and by what name? There are only so many numbers one can remember so on this day the world’s first telephone directory is issued. All 50 subscribers in this burg are listed. (Could become an annual list, even a book, you know?)

Garfield was not only the first known President to be left-handed, he was ambidextrous and brain-wired differently. He could hold a pen in each hand and simultaneously write in Greek with one and Latin with the other.
In contrast to 5 am early-bird Presidents Adams and Truman Chester Arthur was a night owl who usually went to bed at 2 am and liked to go for solo night walks around DC. (Security risk? Lincoln had been killed 20-some years before, and Arthur became President from VP after Garfield was shot. When you gotta walk, you gotta walk…..)
McKinley was the first President to use the telephone to make personal political phone calls to voters while campaigning for office.
Teddy Roosevelt, the First Lady and all 5 of their children each had a pair of wooden stilts for walking around the White House for fun and exercize.
William Taft was the first President to throw out the First Ball to open the baseball season.
Iowa’s only President, Herbert Hoover was a wealthy man. He refused to accept Presidential pay and donated his salary every two weeks to a charity.
Franklin Roosevelt was distantly related (rather closely to Teddy) by family tree to 11 other US Presidents. His wife Eleanor was also a distant cousin.
Lyndon Johnson graduated from high school at age 15.
Richard Nixon was such a good poker player in the Navy in World War II his winnings financed most of his first campaign for local political office after the War.
Gerald Ford was a handsome, excellent college football player, so good that after graduation he turned down contract offers from both the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. Instead, his features made him a fashion model, and he appeared in the pages and occasional cover of Life magazine and Cosmopolitan.
Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived (99) of any President (and still with us as of this morning.)
Ronald Reagan and the Trumpster are the only 2 divorced Presidents.
Barack Obama broke the color barrier in the White House...for 2 terms.
Joseph Biden is the oldest President elected, Inaugurated at age 78. (Reagan left office at only 77, the oldest to live there until now.)

________________

OK friends and neighbors! Again, welcome to the Good News Round Up for this Wednesday and thank you, one and all, for putting up with Presidential Madness Month. Happy reading and many warm comments and thoughts to you all!

For the living out of our days (like especially since 2016):

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

― Abraham Lincoln

“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible.”

― Dwight D Eisenhower

May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.

Shalom

WineRev Introduces the Amicus Curiae brief--by The Historians

WineRev

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 07, 2024 · 5:07 AM PST

2024/02/07 · 05:07

The United States Constitution rolled up on an American flag with a gavel in the foreground. Room for copy along the left of the image.

PERSONAL NOTE: I got started with diaries at DailyKos back at the end of 2008, writing updates on the Franken-Coleman Senate recount in Minnesota. It was a winding journey through the courts for me, a “Lunatic with a Laptop” and Lutheran pastor. I learned a LOT about law, lawyers, motions, etc., and an awful lot of it from the Kossacks here who were lawyers or paralegals or legal secretaries. They all endlessly and patiently explained, corrected and expanded on what I was noting in the daily news on the Recount, which made for better reading and understanding for everyone, including me.

While I have written other diaries at times and regularly contribute to the Good News Round Up in a History Corner sort of way, it seems I can’t get away for courts and laws and cases. So here we go again!

TUESDAY The ball has dropped/hammer has fallen/jello has jiggled/cookie has crumbled/pickle has dripped from the US Court of Appeals on a federal case dealing with Presidential and post-Presidential immunity from the Law. The comments and analysis are still flying, and likely at Mar-a-Lago the Ketchup is hitting the wall.

Tomorrow/Thursday is another show, different scripts, same cast. The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments from the state/Supreme Court of Colorado vs. The Orange Smelvis on barring from the ballot said Ferret-Haired Aroma, firstly in Colorado, and then other states, or even nationally.

The attention is centered on the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, the 3rd section. This Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1868, 3 years after the end of the Civil War. In a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition (try that clause out loud a few times; talk about rhythm) that all men (sic) are created equal” a whole raft of people had “engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

Well, that nation HAD endured and HAD advanced liberty and HAD extended the proposition that a whole lot more men (and women and children) were created equal to a whole lot of other people. There was also a long and major list of people had taken up arms to fight AGAINST that liberty and AGAINST that proposition, and they had been DEFEATED.

So now, what to do about the Defeated? There were several historical examples to draw from: round them up and execute them. Plow their fields and sow their ground with salt (see Rome vs. never-a-threat-again Carthage!) Hunt them down and send them into exile. Imprison them for various terms. Strip them of citizenship. Confiscate their property and reduce them to poverty.

All these penalties, and others, and in various combinations, could have been done. But President Lincoln had insisted that the Union be preserved, that “we must not be enemies, but friends.” He steadfastly refused to recognize anything Confederate, including their territory, or government, insisting LEGALLY that nothing had actually changed. He was only treating e.g. Alabama or North Carolina, etc. as having fallen out of “a right relationship” among the states, and that if the war would be won by the Union, that relationship would be righted and restored.

But still, there was the matter of what to do about those who could be fairly described as having stirred up the National Ruckus in the first place. After debate, and law-making, and a desire to spare the nation anything like this ever happening again, the 14th Amendment was debated, passed, and ratified. Since certain political persons had shown their willingness to overturn the nation and violate their oaths to the Constitution (NOT to a party; NOT to a Fearless Leader; NOT to a political ideology; NOT to a certain religious outlook/interpretation), these persons, and others in coming years who might try to do likewise, should be kept from the seats of power. The 14th Amendment announces that such persons, by their actions, are already “out of a right relation” to the Constitution, and so are barred from holding office under a Constitution they have spat upon.

That is my take on what is the staked out ground of Thursday’s oral arguments. I like to think this in some way reflects one of the amicus curiae briefs already submitted to the Court: a “friend of the court” filing from a couple dozen American history scholars who have spent their professional lives immersed in the Civil War era and its fallout. Mind you, a stunning 78 (and counting?) parties have filed an amicus curiae Brief so far in this case, trying to clarify something or explain something so that the Court, in applying the Law, can take everything into account in order to strive for Justice.

I have NOT read all 78 of these. I am not a lawyer and have never read even ONE such brief or any other legal brief in my life, and up until the other week, I never thought I’d do it. These Civil War scholars freely admit the same, that court filings are not in their wheelhouse. But allowing for that, I want to impress upon all the Kossacks stopping by to read this, that if you ever in your life want to say or even brag you “have read an amicus curiae brief”, this is the one.

Now don’t be afraid. You have to don’t call up your brother-in-law the lawyer or your next door neighbor with the “I Heart Jack McCoy” lawn signs who binge watches Law & Order reruns (especially the Order parts that are the courtroom/lawyer parts instead of the police work, catch the bad guys Law & parts.)

Before you click ON THE LINK HERE that will bring the Brief of the Historians into your viewer, you should know this thing in PDF is 44 pages. BUT there is Good News! You can completely skim over the first 10 pages while practicing sneezing. Yes, lawyers and scholars and law clerks and judges and justices are paid to read those and even look up all those references and footnotes but You Don’t Have To. You have my non-lawyer permission to do/not do so. But given that, look! They spot you practically 1/4 of the whole thing right out of the box!

And then, on pages 11, 12, and 13, there is your Executive Summary, the “give it to me quick and dirty” Short Version of what they are saying. Its really good, so, if you want quit right there you can! See that? 44 pages long, skim/skip the first 10, pay attention to 11-12-and 13 and call it “Done!” You can even brazenly semi-brag, “I got through it (sorta.) Not as tough as I thought it would be!” (Say that after a quick buff of the nails and a certain toss of the eyebrows and you, too, can impress your friends and mystify your enemies in over 90% of social situations. Not a bad percentage at all!)

OTOH, having gotten that kind of a running start, you’ve only got 30 pages left, (with fat side and top and bottom margins with a lot of white space) so you might give it a crack. And remember, these are NOT lawyers writing this (although the final draft was done over by some lawyers to give it that “amicus curiae” form and polish so the Justices would find it familiar.) Also, while these are highly regarded scholars in their field, the reason they are popular with their students and other faculty is they CAN WRITE really well for anybody. They are going for CLARITY and HISTORY and they succeed.

You can chug right along as the scholars come down STRONGLY on the side of keeping Benedict Donald on the sidelines. And they answer all 3 Trump arguments with history.

1) YES, the President is an “officer” of the United States; this came up in 1867 and 1868 and was smacked into place then and has stood ever since. During an 1868 debate, one Senator arguing against this Amendment said it did not name the President as an “officer” and asked out loud if this meant it didn’t apply to him. He was soundly and roundly answered by other Senators…..and convinced. The Historians go this one better and reach back to 1787-1788 to note that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison both flatly considered the new-fangled President in the new-fangled Constitution (that was still being ratified) to be such an “officer.” If Madison thought so as author of the Constitution, and Hamilton as one of the most articulate defenders of that Constitution in the Federalist Papers also thought so, well that should settle THAT. I mean, even if the Supremes want to reach for the “Originalist” theory of the “Founding Fathers”, its not possible to get more Originally Founding than Madison and Hamilton! (A direct answer to the Trump argument on pages 20-23 of the Brief.)

2) And YES, having violated your oath to the Constitution (whether by taking up arms, like various generals and Confederate officers, since, as a condition of their becoming a commissioned officer, they have to swear to uphold the Constitution, OR by being a member of the Confederate Congress or Executive or Judiciary OR being the governor or legislator or such in a seceded state) you have engaged in Insurrection. This Amendment says insurrectionists canNOT now hold office in the (re-) United States……UNLESS Congress grants you amnesty for your Insurrection. (And they did so in the 1870s and 1880s in several batches on several occasions. And yes, both House and Senate needed to agree on your name, AND it had to be by a 2/3 majority vote in each chamber……so you had to really, truly mean it, and they had to really, truly believe you.)

This is the “self-executing” thing the talking heads are and will talk about. NO court action or civic action is necessary: you did the crime, and you ARE TAGGED. You only get out of it if Congress, by a 2/3 count, lets you off the hook. (Pages 27-30 in the Brief, using the damning example that otherwise Jefferson Davis himself (charged, but untried and un-convicted….ever) could run for election to the White House, something no one on the winning Union side would stand for.)

3) One final argument raised is that the 14th Amendment is time-bound, and referred only to the Confederates and the Civil War era. While it hasn’t been flat repealed (see Amendment 18, Prohibition, being Constitutionally repealed by Amendment 21) the MAGA side says with a straight face that since no one set up a Confederacy in the Trump Rising of J6, (trying REALLY HARD to tie it to the 1860s ONLY….and totally ignoring some of the J6 Coup types stomping around the halls of the Capitol carrying Confederate flags) it doesn’t apply to today. The historians meet this head on in the final pages of their Brief and actually conclude on page 34 with the following (emphasis mine)

Section Three [of the 14th Amendment] also gave the federal government the authority to guide reconstructed, ex-Confederate states to find new leadership committed to equal rights for all. With an eye toward establishing enduring fundamental law and ensuring domestic tranquility, they framed a provision designed to hold future insurrectionists accountable by the same means. They knew that no one in the United States is above the law, not even the President, and that no republican government can afford to return insurrectionists to office. As Missouri Republican John B. Henderson declared the day he cast his vote for the Fourteenth Amendment in the Senate, “The language of this section is so framed as to disenfranchise from office the leaders of the past rebellion as well as the leaders of any rebellion hereafter to come.” May the curse of that hereafter never come again.

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Finally, to move out of the 19th Century to be TOTALLY 21st Century, where nothing seems to have really happened unless there’s a YouTube about it, I give you MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. In this first YouTube fo about 9 minutes he is interviewing Dr. David Blight of Yale University about the Brief he and the other historians wrote.

YouTube Video

Dr. David Blight is the one on the left for this split screen deal. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I have met Dr. Blight once, where he thanked me for my novel (“Encampment: A Novel of Race & Reunion”) on the 1913 Civil War Veterans Reunion at Gettysburg. He was kind enough to read my manuscript pre-publication and provide a back-jacket blurb about my “layered story-telling” and “haunted characters” reflecting on their War years. Yes, I am a fan of his….)

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About a month after that segment, O’Donnell returned at the end of January with another segment, quoting at several times from the Brief itself over the course of 12 minutes. (So, if you REALLY don’t want to do the reading and you still want to get some solid information, this clip may well serve you well.)

YouTube Video

Quote attributed to President Ulysses S. Grant on a future American Civil War.

Yes, this is a monumentally important case. But also, for once, as I see it from my Not-a-Lawyer perch, the Constitution is plain and clear. On this matter it is timeless and current to our situation. The violation of oath to the Constitution by words, actions and inactions is damning for all of them: Orange Presidents, stinky Senators, high-haired or screeching members of the House, self-righteous prigs of so-called Christianity bowing their knee to the nationalist powers and principalities of this world.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.------- Theodore Roosevelt.

NEMO SUPRA LEGEM, NE REX QUIDEM…….(No one is above the Law, not even the king…..but as Father Mulcahey from M*A*S*H noted, it sounds nobler in Latin.)

Shalom.

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