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
All aboard!
>>>>>>» 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.
An F-86…...1947 style
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….)
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
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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Just a slice of the whole pic
>>>>>>>» 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.
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.”
Look at the legs on that display case!
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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Because……..wine……..
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.
