36 posts tagged “history”

The following is a transcript of a WWII veteran speaking out for marriage equality in Maine.  I think this man's words speak eloquently enough for themselves, so I'll not add any comments of my own, except to ask for your thoughts after reading this:

Lately, I’ve been turning to the library to fill in the gaps in my music collection. I’ve been borrowing CDs to take home to upload into my Windows Media Player and will, at some point, load selected songs into my MP3 player.  Money is tight right now, plus I’ve noticed that the places I usually buy CDs at have drastically reduced their selections for some reason.

I didn’t have anything particular in mind, so I just browsed the stacks.  After looking through the jazz selection, I ended up with a Dave Brubeck CD, “Time Out”, which included the track “Take Five“.   It brought back a lot of memories, as this was a song that I discovered when I was around 11 0r 12.

I began taking piano lessons when I was ten years old, and started in band the following year.   At that time, kids in the “band culture” of my school were exposed to a lot of jazz.  So, while most kids my age were listening to rock, pop, and the like, I was listening to jazz.  Though I like rock music now, my first choices in music when I started getting my own albums were in jazz.

“Take Five” was one of the first jazz songs I got into, and I was fortunate to hear Brubeck, along with Gerry Mulligan perform this song in the summer of 1972 at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York City.  I was also lucky enough to meet them after the set, and I think it pleased them that someone as young as I was at the time was getting into their music (I was 14),   In next few years, I also saw Maynard Ferguson in concert twice and participated in a jazz workshop with Stan Kenton at my high school.  At that time I wanted to be a jazz musician myself (and I’m sorry I didn’t fulfill my dream now).

The CD I borrowed was the original recording with Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (who wrote the song).  I was surprised to see that this song was originally recorded in 1959 — at the time I first got into it, I’d assumed it was a recent recording.   But as I listened to it in the car on the way home from the library, it still had all the original electricity that attracted me to the song in the first place and in no way sounded as if it had been recorded 50 years ago.  It sounds as fresh now as it did in the summer of 1959 when they recorded it.   And it still has sufficient power to make me feel the feelings all over again I had as a teen in the early 70s when I first wanted to become a musician.

President Harry Truman was among the first Americans who saw a need for health care reform.  Decades ahead of his time, he was unable to make meaningful changes during his tenure as president in the late 40s and early 50s, but he's acknowledged by some as the inspiration for the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid under the Johnson administration.

Following are a few quotes that illustrate Truman's opinions on this matter:

"We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all its citizens deserves the help of all the nation."

"Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection."

"I do not understand a mind which sees a gracious beneficence in spending money to slay and maim human beings in almost unimaginable numbers and deprecates the expenditure of a smaller sum to patch up the ills of mankind."

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a right wing talk show -- I can't remember if it was Boortz or someone else -- where the host was sneering at modern Americans, saying the average 21st century American would never survive if we were sent back in time to the 18th century during the time of the Revolution.

His point was that none of us could be self-sufficient, providing and producing the most or all the items we needed for survival ourselves.

He believed, conversely, that most 18th century Americans would have little trouble adjusting to life in the 21st century.

I don't think it's nearly as simple as he makes it out to be.

First of all, none of us can ever expect to be sent back to the 18th century, let alone be stranded there (then?).  So, it's a pointless exercise to guess how the average 21st American would fare living during that time.

Secondly, it's rather short-sighted to think that people were all completely self-sufficient then.  The colonists depended on England to provide many items needed, such as the infamous tea of Boston tea party fame, among many other things.  America provided England with raw materials, and they, in turn, provided us with finished goods.  

While it is true that many people did indeed produce many of the items they needed personally to survive, they also were able to get by with much less actual money than we can because the barter system was much more widespread at the time.  I can just imagine what would happen if a 21st century American tried to trade a couple of chickens in exchange for a doctor's visit!

And while the 18th century American might adjust better so far as the mundane elements of everyday life go, I'm guessing that the 21st century American would fare much better psychologically.   After all, we'd know what to expect living during that time, thus the harder, but slower-paced life would not come to us as a complete mystery.  We'd at least have history books to help guide us.  

I'm guessing that the 18th century American would be quite stressed out by the frenetic pace of 21st century life, where everything would be new to them and they'd not come here having any sort of clue as to what to expect. There would be no "future books" for them to refer to.

In the end, though, I think both the 21st and the 18th century people would eventually adjust and get on with life, but I think it's misleading to assert which group of people would have an "easier" time. of it.  It wouldn't be easy for either group, though for different reasons..

Thoughts?

Forty years ago today, I was spending a hot summer in New Jersey between my fifth and sixth grade years in school.  There was nothing special about this particular summer. I did the things a kid my age generally did in the Sixties: rode my bike around my subdivision, hiked through the woods, played ball, went to the beach, read, watched TV, hung out with my friends, and so on.

But I knew the night of July 20, 1969 would be a very special one in history, perhaps the most historically significant event of the 20th century,  On that day a man would stand on the moon for the first time in human history.  I'd had an avid interest in the space program since my earliest memory, religiously watching the typical blow-by-blow coverage of each Gemini and Apollo launch on TV.

Back then, every launch of a space capsule was a major news event that all the networks pre-empted their regular programming for.  If I happened to be at school when a launch went down, I didn't miss it -- the school suspended regular classes for that day and set up TVs in every classroom for us to watch it.

I well remember the thrill of hearing Mission Control counting down the seconds to liftoff: "T minus 30 seconds and counting.....we have ignition.....we have liftoff", and watching the tall Saturn rockets thrusting the small capsule and Lunar Module into the sky, gantries falling to the side, with a long tail of flames beneath..

In 1969, we'd been living in that particular house for two years and my parents had not yet installed central air conditioning.   The only air conditioning we had was supplied by a window unit in my parents' bedroom.  My father brought the TV up there and my brother and I sat on pallets on the floor, along with our parents on the bed, as we watched events unfold.

It was at 4:18 pm EDT that Neil Armstrong uttered the first of two now historical phrases: "Houston, Tranquillity Base here - the Eagle has landed."   Nearly seven hours later, after much preparation, Armstrong finally emerged from the Lunar Module and carefully made his way down the ladder and became the first human to step on a world other than Earth.  It was 10:56 EDT that he uttered the words that gave me, my family, and the rest of the world shivers down their spines:  That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind".

At that moment I felt very privileged to be alive and be old enough to witness and understand the significance of this historical event.   The passage of forty years has not dimmed the feelings I had that night -- I still consider this the most significant historical event I will ever witness during my lifetime.

It's a shame we did not keep up the momentum set by the Sixties- era space program, as I fully expected at that time that by the time I reached the age I am now, we would have long since landed on Mars and perhaps even visited Titan.  I was a huge fan of Star Trek and I relished every step that brought us closer to making that world a reality.

Now, I don't expect either event to happen in my lifetime.

We could use a dose of the Sixties brand of enthusiastic, if naive, optimism just about now.

Apollo 11

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Last night, I came home to find out that veteran newsman Walter Cronkite had died at the age of 92.   Chosen several times over as “the most trusted man in America” in viewer opinion polls, Cronkite’s long and distinguished career extending from before World War II into the 21st century.

Morley Safer, a longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, called Cronkite “the father of television news.”

“The trust that viewers placed in him was based on the recognition of his fairness, honesty and strict objectivity … and of course his long experience as a shoe-leather reporter covering everything from local politics to World War II and its aftermath in the Soviet Union,” Safer said. “He was a giant of journalism and privately one of the funniest, happiest men I’ve ever known.”

As the anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981,  he brought the news of countless world-changing events to millions of Americans, from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King to the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage crisis.  He ended each evening’s broadcast with his signature statement: “And that’s the way it is.”

From the perspective of a five year old in 1963, I well remember Cronkite choking up as he delivered the report of President John F. Kennedy’s death.

Walter Cronkite reports the death of JFK
November 22, 1963

His 1968 editorial declaring the United States was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in U.S. opinion of the war. He also helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

Cronkite was also an fervent supporter of America’s space program and was on hand to report every milestone in the high-coverage sixties from the first suborbital flight to the first moon landing to covering John Glenn’s return to space in 1998.  His enthusiasm was evident when  he exclaimed “Look at those pictures, wow!” as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface.

“He had a passion for human space exploration, an enthusiasm that was contagious, and the trust of his audience. He will be missed,” Neil Armstrong said.

I, like millions of others, grew up with Walter Cronkite bringing us the news,  He was a nightly constant from my earliest memories to the time my son was born.   His death is but another part of my childhood gone forever.

And that’s the way it was.

With all the recent outings of politicians engaged in extramarital sex, my favorite liberal news site, Alternet, has been doing a flurry of articles relating to this subject.   In a recent article, Relax: Adultery Is Not That Big Of a Deal by Samara O'Shea, she explores the idea:

When I was a kid, the towns I lived in always made a big production out of the Fourth of July.   There were outdoor festivals, public and private barbecues, parades, and the town always sponsored a fireworks celebration, usually held at the high school football stadium.  

When I was in high school, I was in the band, and we marched each year in a parade that culminated at the Revolutionary War battlefield in my town, which was across from the southern end of Philadelphia, near the Navy Yard.  It was a good time and I always enjoyed doing it.

And the year of my high school graduation, 1976, was the biggest 4th of July celebration I'll likely ever see in my lifetime, as it was the Bicentennial Year.  I have to say that the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, really outdid itself that year and I remember being quite proud to have graduated the year that I did.

Over the years, I've seen the celebration of this holiday slowly decline, though the town I currently live in still put on impressive fireworks displays as recently as the mid to late 90s.  I remember taking my son to the annual fireworks show down by the lake, at which half of the spectators watched from their own boats in the lake.

That's long gone, now, unfortunately.  Last night, there were no public fireworks celebrations whatsoever in my town, nor any parades or public barbecues.   The holiday passed relatively unnoticed, barring some obnoxious kids throwing firecrackers at passing cars and people in yards lighting sparklers and bottle rockets.

A shame, really.

A recent article on Alternet, For Many, Marriage is Sexless, Boring, and Oppressive:Time to Rethink the Institution? by Amanda Marcotte, asks the question:

Religious insistence on monogamy was soon added, as it gave the force of law to a practical idea in societies where religious leaders were the law. "God said it" leaves no room for debate.

People did not marry primarily for love until around the 18th century. It was strictly a practical arrangement, a vehicle for joining powerful families for the rich, along with inheritance reasons, and to have a socially sanctioned partner to have children with and work together for survival for the poor. Love, if it happened, was icing on the cake, not the reason to get married in the first place.

People lived shorter lives then, so "until death do us part", did not include decades of the "empty-nest syndrome". Most people were lucky to live long enough to see the youngest child to adulthood. Life itself was harder and more survival oriented, thus people did not worry overmuch about love or personal fulfillment then.

Still, infidelity occurred all throughout history for both sexes, despite sanctions against it, as it's very difficult to overcome basic human nature. It's always been a big scandal for women, but not so much for men until the 19th century or so. The feminist movement no doubt influenced the increasing disapproval of male infidelity, rather than freeing women to male norms.

Today, we marry for love, life isn't strictly about survival, DNA tests prove paternity, overpopulation discourages large families, we live longer lives, women can support themselves, and the abolishment of legal distictions between marital and nonmarital children have removed much of the valid reasons for legal marriage and monogamy. Thus, marriage as it's currently understood has become maladaptive for modern needs. It's no wonder we're seeing what we're seeing.

In light of this, marriage needs to be redefined if it is to survive in a workable form(s) and adjusted to reflect the realities of modern life and human nature. One of the first steps would be to cease mandating monogamy.

The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.
---David Brinkley

TV "news" now typically spends at least ten minutes covering the results of American Idol.  It makes me wonder if there wasn't any real news to report that day.

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.
--George Dennison Prentice

Eat right, keep fit, die anyway.

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
--Ralph W. Sockman

It's easy to be brave when you know countless others will back you up if necessary.  Likewise, it's easier to be tolerant when you are in need of it yourself.

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
--Daniel Webster (1782 - 1852)

Some things never change.

All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.
Unknown

You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  And you knew I had to include a funny quote

You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
--Cecil Baxter

Sometimes you open up a can of worms when you try to make changes