Author Archives: bpriddy

BINGEING

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We’ll be assessing the impact of the pandemic on our lifestyles for many years.  Two of the most obvious changes involve working from home and how we were, and are, entertained.

This household involves retired people so we are always “working” from home. Nancy’s “work” was carefully scheduling well-planned trips to the grocery store, usually as I recall early on Tuesday mornings because the shelves were re-stocked overnight and it was important to get first shot at the necessities—-which sometimes were not on the strictly grocery shelves.

Can’t do without toilet paper, you know.  We long ago threw away our old catalogs from Sears, Penney’s and Montgomery Ward (did you know that the company name was actually the middle and last names of the founder, Aaron Montgomery Ward?) and we didn’t save the cobs from the sweet corn we enjoyed in the summer months.  There hadn’t been a Montgomery Ward catalog since 1985 so that supply would have been used up or discarded years before the pandemic.

Excuse the wandering.  One does that in old age.

Anyway, we—as many of you—became binge-watchers.  Our Roku device allowed us to watch all of the episodes of a series in a string of evenings.  No more waiting for next week’s episode of Downton Abbey or Doc Martin or Gray’s Anatomy or Foyle’s War.

Everybody we know thinks Yellowstone is great. We’ve tried about three times and can’t get into it.  Longmire, however, now that’s a good show!

The Crown has been good.  Outlander is especially good for one member of the house who has read books.  Finding Your Roots is interesting. And we enjoyed all of the episodes of Boston Legal.

Earlier this year we finally got up to date with Grey’s Anatomy.  Then the writers and actors went on strike and we haven’t been able to learn if Meredith Grey will find love in Boston and whether Owen Hunt finds happiness with anybody.

The pandemic wasn’t good for the cable television industry because it increased awareness by consumers that we don’t need to keep making increasingly higher monthly rates for dozens of shopping and God channels we have no interest in watching.

Thirty years ago, or so, the Missourinet gave me the summer off to develop a Missouri cable TV channel that would have been a cross between C-SPAN, CNN, and ESPN.  The idea was to let Missourians watch the legislature work, develop Missouri-interest programs (we had ideas for telecasting from various summer festivals, featuring concerts here and there, even do documentaries on various topics), pick up evening newscasts from the TV markets and broadcast them throughout the night, and cover state high school sports playoffs and re-play Missouri football games the next day—stuff like that.

When we pitched the idea to the Missouri Cable Television Association—whose executive director supported our idea—and said we could do it for the cost of one big bag of M&Ms with peanuts per customer per month, the operators of the cable systems looked at us as if we were telephone poles.

I went to the National Cable Television Association’s summer convention to learn more about the industry and my most vivid recollection is the association president talking about the coming of ala carte viewing and how the industry needed to be prepared for the day.

Well, it’s here.

“Cutting the cord,” gained momentum during the pandemic as more and more people discovered the joys of binge-watching. And while it’s great for you and me, it’s increasingly problematic for the people who provide us with that entertainment.

It used to be that we knew what shows were on what networks on which nights.  Today we don’t have the foggiest notion what’s on the regular networks other than Monday Night Football is still on Mondays and the late-night shows start at about 10:30 if we’re awake for them.  Oh, and Sixty Minutes is still on Sunday nights at a regular time unless football pushes it back.

And we still went to movie theatres.  And sat next to people, or in front of them or behnd them.

Nancy got irritated with me because I wouldn’t explain what was going on in some movies—The English Patient was especially puzzling.  I had seen it earlier when on a business trip to the nation’s capital so I knew the answer to all her questions was at the end.  But I didn’t want to explain anything because it would irritate people around us.

Been to a movie theatre lately.  Who’s there to irritate?

We, and probably most of you, don’t wait for weekly episodes of a lot of series TV.  We just wait for the producers to drop the entire season on one of our ROKU channels and we binge watch the whole season in a few nights.

And we really enjoy some of the short series programs that seem mostly to be on channels from the United Kingdom.  But more and more of the streaming channels are producing their own products.  “The Queen’s Gambit,” for example—a seven-episode series on Netflix in 2020 that became the channel’s top program in 63 countries, netted eleven Primetime Emmy Awards, one of which was the award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and marked the first time a show on a streaming service won that award.  It also racked up Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards.

Netflix became a change agent in all of our lives.  A recent New York Times article explained what happened.

But we’re tired of writing this entry so you’ll have to wait for the next one to see where we’re going.

Sorry, binge-blogging isn’t offered here.  At least, not today.

 

Sixty Years

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I still find it awkward to tell people, “Fifty years ago…..” and then tell them what I remember from that time.

Sixty years ago today, I had been the producer of the noon news at KOMU-TV.  I was in graduate school at the University of Missouri and working as a graduate assistant instructor in the radio newscasting class which also involved being the assistant news director at KFRU Radio, anchoring some of the student-wrtiten newscasts on that station (this was before the Journalism School created KBIA where some students get their first taste of broadcast newswritig and anchoring), so I couldn’t anchor at Channel 8.  So I produced the noon newscast that reported President Kennedy had gone to Texas to assure Texans that he was not going to dump Lydon Johnson as his running mate in 1964.

We left the station at 12:30, about the time shots rang out at Dealy Plaza in Dallas.

When I walked through the front door of the rooming house at 508 S. Ninth Street (now one of at least three houses in which I lived that are now gone), one of the guys upstairs shouted down, “Is that Priddy?”

“Yeah.”

“You getter get up here! The President’s been shot!”

The people upstairs had been listening to KFRU and had heard ABC’s Don Gardiner break in with the first word of the shooting.   Most commemorations of the event today focus on Walter Cronkite and CBS-TV.  But it was Don Gardiner, normally the morning news voice on WABC in New York, who interrupting a middle of the road music show from WABC that was fed down the network between network news programs.

(105) JFK’S ASSASSINATION (ABC RADIO NETWORK) (NOVEMBER 22, 1963) – YouTube

Gardiner’s first bulletin about 12:33 p.m. CST came from United Press International correspondent Merriman Smith who was in the fifth car behind the presidential limousine as it moved from Dallas’ Love Field toward the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was to deliver a luncheon speech.

Nick George, who is announced early in the broadcast as the New York Editor for ABC, later became a teacher at the journalism school and was an influential figure in the development of some early Missourinet reporters.

As you will hear, events unfolded quickly and the reporters—mainly Smith and AP’s Jack Bell .

In 1963, reporting from remote sites was, to say the least by today’s standards, extremely primitive.

The White House press pool reporter’s car had a radiotelephone in it, the only mobile phone available to the 58 reporters in the pool. Pool reporters rotated from the back seat to the front and it ws Smith’s day in front.  Smith grabbed the radiotelephone and dictated a FLASH (the highest priority item to go out on the wire service) to Dallas UPI Bureau rookie Wilborn Hampton, who typed it into the distribution teletype machine, showed it to his editor, Jack Fallon, who shouted, “Send it!”

UPI sent it out at 12:34:

“DALLAS, NOV. 22 (UPI) – THREE SHOTS FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S MOTORCADE TODAY IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS.”

As the word went out and Gardiner started his broadcast, Smith was crouched in the front seat of the car while the AP’s bell was beating on his back and demanding, “Give me the goddamn phone!”  But Smith wouldn’t give it up and continued to give information to the bureau.  “On a story of this magnitude,” Smith later said, “I was not about to let it go until I new the office had it all.”

It took six minutes to get to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Smith gave the phone to Bell who called the Dallas AP burau—and couldn’t get through.  Smith ran up to the presidential limousine where he saw Texas Governor John Connally wounded. “I could not see the president’s wound. But I could see blood spattered around the interior of the rear seat and a dark stain spreading down the right side of the president’s dark gray suit.”

Smith turned to Clint Hill, the Secret Service officer who was in the followup far and ran to the presidential limousine, jumped on the back and shielded Mrs. Kennedy with his body as the car sped to thehospital, and asked, “How bad was he hit, Clint.”

“He’s dead, Smitty,” said Hill.  Smith dashed into the hospital, took a telephone from a room clerk and started dictating the information you will hear Gardiner pass along to listeners that day. Most of what you hear Gardiner reporting is based on Smith’s coverage.

UPI ran another FLASH at 1:35 that Kennedy had been declared dead.  AP was two minutes behind.

The event was an important one for radio and particularly for television.  For the first hours, the story belonged to radio.  Newspapers already had gone to press for their afternoon editions. Several put out bulleting editions.  But in the early going, the story belonged to radio.

We had no satellites to relay the story as it unfolded.  There were telephones and wire services and that was all there was. Television relied on film that had to be shot and developed, mostly black and white (because color television was just beginning) and often not even processed as positive images.  We would shoot silent negative film and the television control room could electronically reverse the polarity of the film and the viewers saw black and white pictures.

KFRU’s newsroom was in the Columbia Tribune building at 7th and Cherry Streets (it’s partly a candy store and partly a restaurant now) because the station was half-owned by the Waters family that also owned the Tribune.

The main studios were out on the eastern business loop.  In Studio A, the main studio, a slver pipe rose up behind the control board and curved toward the announcer’s position.  The pipe contained wiring that was hooked to a small red light.  That was the network bulletin light.  If the network wanted to break in on programming, that light would come on and the board operator was immediately to flip a switch that put the network on the air. When that light came on, the board operator that day, perhaps Bill Younger who worked the afternoon shift threw that switch.

I quickly walked the four or five blocks to the KFRU newsroom to huddle with Eric Engberg, the news director and fellow graduate student—-Eric later had a long career as a CBS correspondent—and we started planning local reaction stories to run when the network broke away from its coverage for its local stations to report.

I was sent out toget reaction from Senator George Parker and Representative Larry Woods.

ABC did not break until Monday morning before coming back to broadcst the funeral.

I got to know, to a lesser degree in most cases but in a greater degree in one case, some of thosewho brought us the news that day.  Nick George, for example, became an acquaintance.

The one I knew best is the one who broke the news of Kennedy’s death on national television.  Eddie Barker was the news director of KRLD-TV and radio in Dallas that day and was at the Trade Mart preparing a broadcast of the Predident’s speech.  Word already had reached him that something had happened in the motorcade and moments late the motorcade roared past the mart.  He went on the air, broadcasting what he could learn.  One of his friends who was at the mart was a doctor at Parkland who went to a telephone and called the hospital emergency room where an acquaintance told him the president was dead.

Eddie’s friend saw he was “struggling to maintain a coherent broadcast with the limited information availability,” walked over and whispered into his ear, “Eddie, he’s dead.”

“The words sent a cold chill running down my spine. I didn’t want to believe them, but the source was too good.  I then made a decision that has caused a lot of comment in the years since that strangely brilliant Friday afternoon.  I told an audience that included the whole CBS network that a reliable source had confirmed to me that President Kennedy was dead.  What I didn’t know was tht my shocking report caused a lot of anxiety at cBS News Headquarters in New York,” he recalled in his autobiography, Eddie Barker’s Notebook several years later,  Shortly after that, Walter Cronkite told viewers, “We just had a report from our correspondent, Dan Rther, in Dallas that he has confirmed tht President Kennedy is dead.”   There still had been no official confirmation.

At 1:37, our time, CBS news editor Ed Bliss—and other of those I came to know well—gave Cronkite the AP bulletin that Cronkite is often seen reading to his audience when the story is recounted on TV today.

Dan Rather is often credited with passing along the first word of Kennedy’s death. Rather, who was the new chief of the CBS New Orleans bureau, had been on the other side of the railroad overpass west of Dealy Plaza, closer to the Trade Mart, when the motorcade flew past  He ran to the Dallas CBS bureau and started working the phones to Parkland Hospital. The doctors all were busy but an operator told him two priests were in a hallway nearby.  One of them told Rather, “The President has been shot and he is dead.”  Rather, his The Camera Never Blinks, said he asked, “Are you certain of that” and the priest, who was there to perform the last rites, respoded, “Yes, unfortunately, I am.”

Rather called Barker and told him what he had.  Eddie had just talked to the doctor.  They did not know that three people at CBS, New York were listening on the broadcast loop that had been set up for Barker’s broadcast of the speech. Before Rather could tell those listening, Barker, in his broadcast that he thought was only local in Dallas, announced a source from Parkland had told him the president is dead. Rather chimed in, “Yes, yes, that’s what I hear, too.  That he’s dead.”

It wasn’t official.  But CBS radio and television went with it.

It was only a short time later, as you will hear if you listen to the ABC account, that it was reported a Dallas policeman, later identified as J.D. Tippett, had been shot and killed.  And within a few minutes, a suspect named Lee H. Oswald had been picked up.

The night police reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had slept late that day but rushed to the office when he heard of the shooting.  The newspaper started printing special editions that were snapped up by the public as soon as they hit the streets. “Inside the city room it was bedlam,” recalled then-CBS correspondent Bob Shieffer in his book, This Just In.  When word came that Oswald was going to be held in the Fort Worth jail, Schiefer dashed there and was present when Oswald was brought in.

“Early in my police reporting days, I learned a truck from the cops. People will sometimes blurt out the truth if they are surprised by the question, so I jumped in front of the handcuffed suspect, who was between two detectives, and shouted, ‘You song of a bitch, why did you do it?’”

‘”Well, I didn’t,’ he said as the cops hustled him into the lockup.”

Schiefer was just settling in back at his newsroom desk when the phone rang. A woman asked him if someone could give her a ride to Dallas.  Schiefer responded heatedly, “Lady, this is not a taxi, and besides, the president has been shot.”

“I know.  They think my son is the one who shot him.”

“Where do you live?” Schieffer. “I’ll be right over to get you.”

On the way to Dallas, said Schieffer, she seemed more concerned about herself than about the death of a president. “She railed about how Oswald’s Russian-born wife would get sympathy while no one would ‘remember the mother.’”

When Oswald’s wife and mother heard the news, they had the presence of mind to get a lawyer, John Thorne. Police placed the family in protective custody.  Several weeks later, Eddie Barker called Thorne and expressed an interest in interviewing the Marina, how a widow. Thorne, who Barker did not know, surprised him by saying, “She watches you every evening nd I’ll be glad to ask her.”  The interview was arranged during which time she told him in her Russian-accented English, “I think Lee shoot Kenedy.”

Don Gardiner died in 1977.  Bob Schieffer, 86, is a podcaster— “Bob Schieffer’s ‘About the News’ with H. Andrew Schwartz.”—retired as the host of Face the Nation in 2015 and embarked on a singing career.  Eddie Barker died in 2012.

Dan Rather is 92 and still likes to stir the stuff.  He was fired from CBS in 2006 after some reports using unauthenticated documents to report on President George W. Bush’s Vietnam War-era service. After working on the cable channel now known as AXSTV for several years. Rather joined the Youngturks YouTube channel and five years ago began writing a news letter called “Steady,” on Substack.

All of those you hear in the ABC coverage are gone now.

Merriman Smith committed suicide in 1970.  Some say he was despondent about the death of his son in Vienam and perhaps suffered from PTSD from witnessing the Kennedy murder. Jack Bell died in 1975. Clint Hill is 91 and is the last surviving person to be in the presidential limousine that day.

At Jefferson City radio station KLIK that day, news director Jerry Bryan checked the UPI wire just after climbing the stairs to the third-floor newsroom in a pre-Civil War building on Capitol Avneue and checked the UPI machine before going home to lunch.

He picked up the telephone and called the on-air studio down on the second floor and started telling listeners what Merriman Smith was sending him. He continued to report via telephone until station engineer Ed Scarr put together enough cable to run a microphone from the studio up two flights of stairs and down the hall to the newsroom so Jerry had a microphone. The station operated only during daylight hours in those days and did not have a national network.  Bryan was the Don Gardiner of Jefferson City that day until the station signed off at 5:30. A reel-to-reel recorder in the newsroom was set up to turn on automatically during the “Missouri Party Line Show” when a phone call came in from a listener. Bryan’s call to the studio triggered the recorder, which had a large reel of tape on it.  His early coverage that day was recorded, by accident, and still exists.  Jerry resigned in 1967 and became the press secretary to Governor Hearnes and now lives in St. Louis.

His assistant news director, who had come to Jefferson City from KFRU at the start of 1967 replaced him.  His memories, which have been shared at length with you in this entry, remain vivid–as do the memories of many.

Walter Cronkite, who died in 2009, was a native of St. Joseph, Missouri. He attended the unveiling in 1999 of  bronze bust in the Hall of Famous Missourians. There were two speakers at that ceremony that evening—Governor Carnahan and me.

The next day, he was introduced in the House and in the Senate and made brief remarks.  The press corps in the senate was seated at a table on the floor to the right of the dais and when Walter walked in, we made him sit at the press table with us.

For the next fifteen years that I covered the Senate from that table, I always made sure that when a new reporter joined us at the table, I made sure that person knew that was Walter’s chair they were sitting in and they were expected to do him honor with their reporting.

Before Walter Cronkite became the icon he became at the CBS Evening News desk, he had a program on Sunday afternoons called You Are There, during which historical events were portrayed.  He always finished the broadcast by proclaiming,

“What sort of a day was it?  A day like all days, filled with those events that altered and illuminate our time. And you were there.”

November 22nd started “like all days.”  But it was filled with events that altered and illuminate our time.

And I was “there.”

Sports:  A Thrilling Win, A Bad News Upset, the Chiefs Turn Into the Bad-Hands People. And the Cardinals make a deal. 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs dropped a big one to the Philadelphia Eagles at home last night.  Actually they dropped several, increasing their NFL-worst record for dropped passes to 26.

Dropped passes including two as the Chiefs tried to regain the lead with time running out, penalties and two turnovers in the red zone added up to a 21-17 loss that drops the Chiefs to 7-3 whle the Eagles go to 9-1.

Wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling had a perfectly-thrown pass bounce off his hands for what would have been a go-ahead 51-yard touchdown play in the last Chiefs drive. Wide receiver Justin Watson let the ball through his hands on the Chiefs’ final play, a pass on fourth and 25 that would have been a first down.

The Chiefs were held scoreless in the second half after Philadelphia found a way to stop what had been an effective run game in the first two quarters and th Kansas City offense seemed out of kilter in the second half.

(CARDINALS)—-Sometimes, seasoned lumber is the best thing to use when you start a rebuilding process. The St. Louis Cardinals have picked up two pieces of it, one as a player and one as a coach.

The Cardinals’ first significant signing of the team’s rebuilding winter is former starter Lance Lynn who has signed a one-year deal, reportedly for a guaranteed $10 million or so with incentives to earn another three million.  The Cardinals have a $12 million option for 2025.

Lynn pitched his first six years with St. Louis, went 72-43 with a 3.78 ERA.  One important thing about him is that he ate innings, 977 of them in 161 starts. He’s 36 now. Last year he started 6-9 for the White Sox but finished the year 7-2 with the Dodgers and helped them advance in the playoffs.  He has a World Series ring from 2011. He left the team as a free agent after the 2016  season and signed a deal with the Twins. The Twins dealt him to the Yankees in mid-year and then to the Rangers for three years, then two years with the White Sox.  It was a disappointing experience for Lynn but he had one strong game when he tied a team record by striking out 16 Mariners and set a Manor League record for strikes by a pitcher who went into the game with an ERA of 6.00 or more.

In his career, he’s 136-95 with a 3.74 ERA.

ON THE BENCH:  The Cardinals have hired their third bench coach during the Marmol managing era.  The newest one is former Redbird utility man Daniel Descalso. He replaces Joe McEwing who is moving up to the front office as a special assistant to John Mozeliak, the President of Baseball Operations. The team says it expects to make more coaching additions as the winter wears on.

Descalso spent half of his ten-year MLB career with the Cardinals.He also was with the Cubs, Diamondbacks, and the Rockies.  He spent last year as a special assistant in baseball operations with Arizona.

Former outfielder Matt Holliday was hired as bench coach a year ago but he decided he wanted to spend more time with his family and resigned after a few weeks.

(MIZ)—Missouri’s win over Florida has allowed the Tigers to inch up one spot in the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll. They’re tenth in each. They hold at 9th in the playoff rankings.  They’re the nation’s top-ranked two-loss team.

It began to appear as the game went along that the team that had the ball last was likely to win the game.  The Missouri Tigers had the ball last, down a point with a minute and a half to go…and then inside of thirty seconds had it with fourth and 17

And they found a way to win.

The lead had changed for the eighth time in the game when a Florida field goal put the Gators on top 31-30.  But Florida left too much time on the clock for Missouri. Here’s how the last minute-36 seconds brought the ninth lead change of the game, and gave 28 seniors on the football team a beautiful memory to take away from their last game on Faurot Field.

1:36—Missouri 25 yard line after a touchback on the Florida kickoff.  Quarterback Brady Cook throws short to Cody Schrader for two yards.

1:20—pass incomplete. Third down and eight.  Cook to Mekhi Miller good for 13 yards.  First down.

1:00—False start, Missouri.  First and 15.  Cook finds no one open downfield, throws to Schrader, who loses two yards but gets out of bounds.

Second and 17 now.  Incomplete pass to Theo Wease Jr.

Third and 17, Cook tries to hit Mookie Cooper but leads Cooper too far and he can’t pull it in .

:38—Fourth and 17.  The game rides on this play, maybe the whole season if the Tigers want a 10-win year and a New Year’s Day bowl game.  Missouri calls its final timeout because of some confusion about what play to call. Cook drops deep, throw a bullet that Luther Burden III jumps to catch amid Florida defenders and bulls his way for 27 yards and puts Missouri in Harrison-Mevis long field goal range.  The ball is on the 40.  It would be about a 57-yard kick.

:21—Incomplete pass.  Missouri needs more yards to make the kick easier for Mevis.  Cook connects with Miller at the Florida 29. First down

:13—Cook spikes the ball to stop the clock. Second and ten.  Schrader fires to Cooper, who backs out of bounds at the 13-yard line.  First down but not enough time to get closer.  Mevis walks on to deliver his second walk-off field goal of the year.  Florida calls  time out, giving Mevis time to get nervous. Mevis won’t be iced. He’s just thinking about the mechanics of thekick, “keeping my head down and making good contact…I knew if I do those two things then good things are gonna happen,” he says afterward.

Head down, good contact and the ball arcs high and through the uprights with four seconds on the clock.

On-field celebrations are interrupted by officials who say the clock still shows a handful of seconds. Florida tries the hook-and- ladder return of the Missouri kickoff but the runner is finally on the ground with the clock at zero.

Cody Schrader racked up 127 yards rushing in the first half but the Gators found a way to stop him in the second two quarters. He had only 32 more yards but upped his conference-leading total to 1,272.  Cook finished 20 for 34 for 326 yards and no interceptions.  Burden  went over 100 yards receiving for the first time since week six with 158 and now has 1,142 yards for the year, third best in the SEC.  Cook has topped the 3,000 yard mark, and ranks third in the conference.

On the other side of the line, Darius Robinson’s eight sacks tie him for second in the league. Only Mississippi State’s Nathaniel Watson has more—10.   Kris Abrams-Draine’s four interceptions put him a tie for second, one behind Kentucky’s Maxwell Hairston.

Harrison Mevis and Texas A&M’s Randy Bond lead the conference with 22 field goals. Mevis is third in points scored, 103.  Eight of the top ten scorers in the conference are kickers.  Cody Schrader ranks 11th with 12 touchdowns and a two-point conversion.

Missouri is fourth in total offense at almost 450 yards a game, trailing LSU, Georgia, and Ole Miss.

One game left in the regular season. Friday afternoon, against Arkansas, which beat up on Florida International 40-22 Saturday to run the Razorback’s record to 4-7.  (ZOU)

(ROUNDBALL/MIZBOO)—This had to be a learning experience of some kind. It certainly was an embarrassment.

Just two days after a scintillating rush from far back against Minnesota to claim a 70-68 victory Friday night on the road, Missouri’s basketball team choked big time against Jackson State.  Missouri, which outscored Minnesota 31-9 in the last half of the second half at Minnesota to come from 20 down to a 70-68 win, was up 57-50 against a team that is opening its season with nine straight road games and five straight losses.

But the Jackson State Tigers outscored the Missouri Tigers 11-2 to take the lead at 61-59 with about seven minutes left.  The Tigers re-established a lead at 69-63 but let the game slip away, with Chase Adams hitting a jumper with three seconds left to give his team the win.

Missouri crippled itself ith 18 turnovers.  Eleven of them in the first half turned into 17 points and a final one trying to get off a shot under the basket just before the clock hit zero.

Jackson State Coach Mo Williams called it a “signature win” for his team: “To beat an SEC opponent on the road, not to mention this is 15 days straight on the road since Nov. 5. To have that performance from multiple guys, O’Neal going 8-for-11 from the field and Young bouncing back from a few tough games that he has had and to hit some big shots for us and to make his free throws and continue to be aggressive was huge for us… We beat SMU last year and they are considered more of a mid-major than a Power Five just because of the conference. You beat an SEC team, a Missouri team that is not going to be at the bottom but an upper-echelon team in the SEC.”

It was the eighth meeting between Missouri and Jackson State, the first in 22 years. It’s the second SWAC team Missouri has faced this year, the first being Arkansas-Pine Bluff in a season-opening 101-79.

Missouri meets South Carolina State tomorrow night. (ZOU, but not as enthusiastically)

Getting up to speed—

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen, who earlier appeared unimpressed by the hoopla surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix enjoyed himself so much Saturday night that he said afterwards, “I’m already excited to come back here next year and hopefully try to do something similar.”

He won his 18th race of the year, the 33rd victory out of the 43 Formula 1 races.

(INDYCAR)—The kickoff of the 2024 big-time racing season in the United States will be January 25-26 on the high banks of Daytona. IndyCar has not raced there since 1958 but the track has become a showcase for the series’ talent in recent years and next year will continue that trend.

At least sixty cars will run in the Daytona 24 Hours. Three-time winner and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon; last years winner of the Indianapolis 500 winner, Josef Newgarden; James Hinchcliffe, and the winner of the 2016 Centennial 500, Alexander Rossi are the healdiners from the series.

IndyCar owners will have entries: Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal, and Jimmy Vasser.

Dixon will team with, and with four-time IndyCar series champion Sebasian Bourdais—who won the 24 hours in 2014—and Dutch driver Renger van der Zande.   Tom Blomqvist, an English driver who will join the Meyer Shank IndyCar team for 2024 will team with two other drivers on the Whelen Cadillac entry.

Newgarden will be one of four drivers in a Penske Porsche.  Colton Herta and 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button will be half the team in a car from Wayne Taylor Racing.  Marcus Ericsoon, who won the 2022 Indianapolis 500, will be one of four drivers in the other Acura run by WTR.

Rossi, Hinchcliffe and two other driers will be in a McLaren 720s. Kyle Kirkwood and former IndyCar driver Jack Hawksworth will be tw-thirds of a team entered by Pfaff Motorsports.

 

A Slightly Warped Sense of Humor

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If reporters didn’t have a warped sense of humor, we probably couldn’t do what we do.  Humor, even dark humor, helps us deal with the often tragic, often weird, often absurd things and people we have to cover.

Perhaps that’s why I used to have a series of offbeat posters that I changed monthly at my desk in the Missourinet newsroom.

These posters, from a company called Despair, Inc., are the opposite of the supposedly inspirational posters found in many workplaces.  Beautiful pictures with some saccharine sentiment beneath them.

The folks at Despair turn that concept on its head.

I suppose this could be seen as a blatant plug for this company’s products.  Actually, it’s more of a paen to the creative folks who tell us that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.

We badly need those who try to tell us that.  We wonder if a sense of humor can be found in our today’s politics. Everybody is so blasted serious—-and for those of us who abhor all of the divisiveness in our system today—-Good Lord, we have reached the point of physical confrontations in the hallways of the House of Representatives in Washington to an instigated near-brawl in the Senate committee hearing—there is no shortage of seriousness. One of my reporters once told me, “They have it all backwards. They take themselves seriously, not their jobs.”

We need a Will Rogers IN the government, the guy who remarked:

“The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”

“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.”

“The more you read and observe about this politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”

“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”

“On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.”

“If all politicians fished instead of speaking publicly, we would have peace in the world.”

Or Mark Russell, who used to entertain us at the piano, on PBS from 1975 into 2004, whose death last March 30th escaped our notice.  He was 90.   He was introduced once by someone who noted, “Before there ws a John Stewart or a Stephen Colbert, there was Mark Russell.”

That was 2018, when Russell told the audience, “I’m not going to do any new political humor. Why?  Because there’s no material.”

He once asked about the Adopt A Highway program, “If a gay couple adopts a highway, will the highway grow up straight?”

The difference between Republicans and Democrats: “A Republican says,’We’re in a recovery.’  A Democrat says, ‘You shouldn’t enjoy it.’”

“A fool and his money is a lobbyist.”

Here’s a compilation of some of his performances:

Bing Videos

The story is told of the day in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln called a special meeting of his War Cabinet.  When the members filed into the room, they found Lincoln reading a humor book. He laughed as he shared a story from the book. When nobody else laughed, Lincoln read another story. Again, no response. Lincoln looked at his cabinet and asked, “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh?  With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.”

And after that, he showed the cabinet the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

And so we need people like those at Despair who turn our contemporary cares on their heads with their demotivational posters.

There’s one I wish was available in my working days.  It shows a stack of papers and the poster is entitled “Media.”  The text reads, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies right to our faces.”

I think I’ll buy that one for the good folks in today’s Missourinet newsroom

Take the 25th 

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Something to ponder.

If Donald Trump becomes an imprisoned felon after winning election, can he become President?

Yes, even if he is inaugurated in his cell. Then we have to wonder if he will pardon himself before beginning his inaugural address to the smallest audience in inauguration history.

Ah, but there could be mischief afoot.

Let’s see if we can start a conspiracy theory.  We are not attributing it to anyone famous.  We’ll leave that to others because a conspiracy theory won’t work unless somebody famous is leading an organization behind it.

We are going to try to stage this so that anyone trying to pin it on the Left will have to acknowledge that there are quislings* also involved on the Right.

The only qualifications to become President of the United States are in the U. S. Constitution—that the person be at least 35, a natural-born citizen and a resident hee for at least fourteen years .  There is no morals clause in the document.

Congress could pass a Constitutional Amendment banning a convicted felon but that will take a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Congress  and ratification by three-fourths of the states, a tall order to get done before inauguration day, 2025.

The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits anyone who has engaged in rebellion or insurrection against the United States from holding any office. But none of the 91 charges against our former president specifically accuse him of “engaging in rebellion or insurrection.’ Whether a case for insurrection-by-association can be built is being tested in some courts now.

We’ve never had a president who has a felony conviction. They’ve done all kinds of other things (fought in wars, impregnated mistresses, hanged someone, etc.,) and suspected of others, but they’ve never been convicted of a felony.

Convicted felons can serve in Congress. State laws might keep them from voting for themselves back home or from having guns, but the Constitution has no ban on them serving, either.

And that brings to the 25th Amendment.

Suppose Trump is convicted. And suppose he is elected.

The New Congress will have convened a couple of weeks before inauguration day. Let’s assume the D’s have regained control.  Here is what the 25th Amendment says about a president’s inability to serve:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department [sic][note 2][7] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Now we get to the conspiracy theory:

The Vice-President is sworn in before the President is.  Always.  This person is the key to the entire drama. This person is in cahoots with those who want the former president to keep putting a golf ball into a plastic cup on the other end of his cell.

Look at the first section of the amendment which says that the VP and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments (the cabinet) or of such other body as Congress by law may provide transmit to the leaders of the Senate and the House a written declaration that the President can’t do his job…..

Immediately upon the imprisoned President finishing his oath, a committee created by a Congress controlled by the other party submits a declaration against the President before he can sign his own pardon. The VP takes over and the inaugurated president remains in his cell.

Now, the next section comes to the fore.  The imprisoned President immediately files a letter that declares “no inability exists” and, therefore, he shall resume the duties of the office UNLESS the VP and a majority of the cabinet OR that special committee that wrote the original declaration maintains the President still cannot perform his duties from a prison cell. The Congress by a two-thirds vote can declare the president, indeed, still can’t perform his duties and the Veep will remain in charge and the replaced president remains in his cell.

This is, of course, only a layman’s reading of the amendment and it is likely there are first-year law students who could demolish this idea.

But look, this IS the age of conspiracy theories.  I smell a television mini-series opportunity here.

The weakness in this idea is that Trump will pick a running mate who would throw him under the bus as he threw Mike Pence under the bus, and that voters will turn both houses of the Congress decidedly blue and the D’s will successfully connive with the R Veep to pull this off.

So it might not be practical in the real world.

But I still maintain it might make a riveting TV miniseries.  There would have to be a role for Kevin Kline and another for Kiefer Sutherland and one for Martin Sheen  and others for Tea Leone. Michael Douglas, and Anette Benning.

And what would we call it?

Go back to the top of this column.

*From time to time we try to throw in a word or phrase that we can use to teach a little lesson in language and in history.  Vidkun Quisling, a World War II leader of Norway who was a Nazi collaborator and who tried unsuccessfully to take over the government and end resistance to the invading Nazi Army. He formed a second, puppet government supported by the Nazis, and was involved in the shipment of Norwegian Jews to concentration camps in occupied Poland.  He later was convicted of high treason, among other crimes, and was executed by firing squad in October, 1945.

His name is considered a synonym for “traitor.”

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Sports:  Cookin’ with Cody, Rest for the Chiefs; A Basketball Split; Waiting for Baseball Action

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—Here’s how Nashville Tennessean Senior Columnist John Adams saw it Saturday evening: “Saturday’s 36-7 loss to Missouri is just as inexplicable {as last year’s 63-38 loss to a middle-rated  South Carolina}. It wasn’t just a loss. It was an embarrassing loss…They played defense as though they were trying to make Cody Schrader a Heisman Trophy candidate and their offense was just as lacking.”

He got that right.

This was a statement game.  Missouri deserves the Number 11 rating it has claimed in both major polls after pounding the Volunteers into submission.

It was a game of delicious statistics for Missouri fans, the kind of satisfaction-in-numbers that we haven’t seen for a long time.  Tme of Possession: Missouri 39:56, Tennessee 20:04.  Tennessee had only three plays in the first quarter.

Total Offense: Schrader 321 yards. Tennessed 350 yards.

The SEC was formed in 1951. Schrader of Missouri is the first SEC player to have 200 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving  in a game.  Nobody from Alabama has ever done it. Nobody from George has ever done it. Nor from Auburn. Nobody.

Brady Cook and Cory Schrader where the show on offense thanks to an offensive line  that gave them time and openings to do their thing.  The two combined for 47 rushing plays that produced 260 yards. Cook had an average day passing, going 18 for 24 for 275 yards, throwing to seven Missouri receivers and one Tennessee defensive back.

Those guys were the fireworks who overshadowed a defense that held Tennessee to its lowest point total in the three years under Josh Heupel. Twenty Tigers made the 56 tackles that kept Tennessee from gaining any traction other than a first half touchdown.  Twenty-six of the tackles were solos, another indication that Tennessee just could not spring The Big One.

Schrader now leads the conference rushing statistics by almost 200 yards over Kentucky’s  Ray Davis (1124-926).  Cook is fourth in passing yards (2746), a category headed by LSU’s Jayden Daniels, who is about 400 yards ahead of him.

Next up is Florda, 5-5 overall, 3-4 in conference play.  And then Arkansas, now 3-7 overall and 1-6 in the conference.

Missouri is 8-2, the 23rd time in program history the Tigers have  won eight games. Don Faurot’s 1939 team (8-2) was the first. His 1941 and 42 teams  also got to eight wins.  It didn’t happen again until Dan Devine’s “undefeated” season of 11-0 in 1960.  He had five years with at least eight wins. Al Onofrio had one year of eight wins.  Warren Powers did it twice. Larry Smith’s 1998 team hit the eight mark once.  GaryPinkel won eight or more games nine times including the Tigers’ 12-win seasons in 2007 and 2013, an eleven win season in 2014, and ten wins in 200 and 2010.  Barry Odom had an eight win year in 2018.

The last double-figure win year for Missouri was 2014.  This year’s squad has a chance to become only the 7th team in 134 seasons to finish with wins in double figures.  (ZOU)

(TIGERS BASKETBALL)—These are the games in which a coach tries to sort out who will be the starters, who will be next off the bench and who will fill the last seats on the bench.

Last week’s game against Memphis State was part of that process. The Tigers led 33-26 at the half but only four players found the net in the whole second half. Missouri scored only 22 points in the last 20 minutes and shot only 19 percent from the field. Memphis enjoyed a 70-55 win.  Sean East II had 14 points to lead Missouri in the first half.  He did not attempt a shot in the second half.

A somewhat weaker opponent provided the Tigers with a chance to heal last night. Southern Illinois-Edwardsville couldn’t buy a bucket for 16 minutes of the second half, finally getting a three-pointer with 1:21 left, ending an 0 for 16 “streak.”  Missouri walked away with a 68-50 win, with Sean East scoring 20.

A sterner test awaits Thursday night at Minnesota.

(CHIEFS)—-The Kansas City Chiefs emerged from the weekend as winners although they didn’t play.  Lucas Strozinsky on Arrowheadaddict.com that the Chiefs went into the weekend tied for the best record in the AFC although holding a tiebreaker.  Baltimore and the Chiefs were both 7-2. The Jaguars were in at 6-2 and the Dolphins 6-2.

If the Ravens beat Cleveland, Baltimore would be up to 8-2. The Jaguars and the Dolphins had a shot at joining Kansas City at 7-2.

Didn’t happen.  The Ravens coughed up a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost to Cleveland. The 49ers beat Jacksonville. Houston ended Cincinnati’s four-game winning streak. Miami also had a bye week. Strozinsky puts the AFC playoff standings this way:

Chiefs  7-2

Ravens 7-3

Jaguars, Dolphins, Steelers, Browns  6-3

The Chiefs don’t play again until next Monday night when they meet the Eagles, who are 8-1 and rank second in scoring in the NFL.  But they are 20th in points-against.

Motoring along:

(MOTORSPORTS)—Big-time auto racing in the United States has wrapped up with teams from IndyCar and NASCAR retreating to their shops to prepare for next year and looking for bodies to fill seats being vacated for various reasons or negotiating new deals with returning drivers.

Formula 1 races in Las Vegas next weekend.  The next race, in Abu Dhabi, will end racing for that series although the championship was decided weeks ago.  The course includes almost a mile of The Strip, a situation that has upset many folks in Vegas.

The event is being billed as a spectacle—which turns off Max Verstappen, who locked up the championship last month and who says, “We are there more for the show than the race itself, looking at the layout of the circuit.  I’m not actually much into that, I’m more: ‘I’ll go there, do mything, and be gone.”

 

The Year Ahead 

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Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the music for the great Broadway hit, Fiddler on the Roof¸ wrote a song earlier (1955) that seems fitting today.

They’re rioting in Africa,
They’re starving in Spain.
There are hurricanes in Florida.
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch,
And I don’t like anyone very much.

He called it “The Merry Minuet,” and it became a big hit in ’56 for the Kingston Trio.

It seems to fit our times, almost 70 years later, with a few nationality changes.  Palestinians, Jews, Russians, Ukranians, Republicans, Democrats.   And so forth.

While the world seethes with 2023 Merry Minuets, we’re are reminded that we are only a year away from The Big Political Dance of ’24—The Election.

The pundits made sure last week that we know it.

Biden wants to shuffle onto the podium in January 2025 and be sworn in again.  Trump wants to rant his way to the podium to begin his revenge tour in earnest.

Will the zoo animals in the Capitol have passed a budget by then?

A year away from the national election and you and I are in a runaway stage coach driven by headless horsemen.

Donald, who promised to drain the swamp in 2016 is now living proof of the old adage that, “If you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s too late to drain the swamp.”

Joe, who has presided over a pretty strong economic recovery can’t find enough ears who can hear abot it over the cacophony of today’s politics when he tells us how good we have it.

A year away, and—-what?

A year is a long time in politics.  Nothing is a given a year out in politics.

Kelly Gordon and Dean Kay put it this way in a song popularizd by Frank Sinatra;

You’re riding high in April, shot down in May.

A political career can become political careening in a matter of days or hours.  We’ve seen it happen time and again in Missouri politics as well as nationally.

Joe is growing older and vows to run for re-election. Trump is growing older, too, and is running from coviction.

What is the backup plan for both parties if decisions are made by others for both of these guys’ goals?  And a key issue, not often on the front page despite its great importance a year away, is who will be their running mate—because, at their ages and the different uncertainties about their abilities to serve second terms, our parties might wind up nominating someone who either won’t make it to inauguration day or, if inaugurated, might not last the next four years?

Both parties do have rules allowing replacement of candidats on the national ticket. Older Missourians will remember when Tom Eagleton resigned as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after information was leaked that Eagleton had undergone shock therapy for depression and exhaustion three times in the early to mid-60s. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver, a brother-in-law of President Kennedy and founder of the Peace Corps.

Ballotpedia lists these folks as potential VP candidates in 2024:

For the Democrats:

Incumbent Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressman Lauren Underwood of Illinois, U. S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgie, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

On the Republican side: U. S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee,             Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, Congresswoman marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, 2022 failed governor candidate Kari Lake of Arizona, Congresswoman Nancy Made of South Carolina, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, New York Congresswoman Elise Stevanik.

They have a year to show that they not only are Vice-Presidential material, but would be logical people to pick up the torch if either of the old men lay it down or are forced to lay it down.

If, within the next year, Joe winds up in a home and Donald winds up in the big house, who becomes the most viable person to take their places on the ticket?  Are there others who will emerge in the months ahead?  Any number of circumstances could lead to the most chaotic but interesting and significant conventions in decades, events that could lead to a lot of negotiations in vape-filled rooms if the two people most determined to fight for the job suddenly drop out of the picture after the primaries and before the conventions or are determined by the conventioneers to be bad choices after all.

Although the two leading figures in both parties don’t want us to think about it, there is no sure thing about politics in 2024.

You’re riding high in April, shot down in MayBut I know I’m gonna change that tuneWhen I’m back on top, back on top in June

…I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race

That’s life (that’s life)
I tell you, I can’t deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it

We only hope our heart can stand it.

We’re a year away.  A long time.

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A Missouri Precedent

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Missourians have seen this before.  But not recently.

Thirty-one Democratic members of the U. S. House joined Republicans a few days ago in voting down a resolution to expel New York Congressman George Santos.  Some of those 31 have taken to social media to explain why they did that.

It’s a matter of due process for them.  Santos has not been convicted of any of the 23 felony crimes he’s charged with committing.  Beyond that, though, is the way the House deals with due process.  It’s called the House Ethics Committee.

The committee is considering action against Santos after reviewing more than 170-thousand pages of documents, authorizing 37 subpoenas, and interviewing about 40 witnesses. The committee says it will announce its next action by November 17.

The committee is acting under Article I, section 5 of the U. S. Constitution’s provision that, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law, explains, “If and when Santos is convicted of these serious criminal offenses or ethics charges, I will certainly vote to expel. Until then, it is a very risky road to go down and we have to stick by due process and the rule of law, as obvious as the eventual results may seem.”

Innocent until proven guilty. It’s the way we dispense justice in this country. It’s the presumption that protects you and me. It’s a trial by peers, whether it is a jury or an ethics committee, that determines guilt. We have a word for inflicting punishment based on obvious but unproven guilt.  It is called lynching.

But the Ethics Committee has a problem, too.  Santos has not been convicted of any of the charges against him.  He remains innocent until proven guilty, at least on those counts. But Santos remains vulnerable on political issues connected with his candidacy, his claims of qualification during his campaign and afterwards, including during his time in office, and other actions and statements for which he is responsible as a member or potential member of the House.

Throughout its history, Congress has only expelled five members of the House, the most recent being the colorful Ohio Congressman James Traficant, in 2002, after he was convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice.  The last Congressman before him was Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, who was convicted of bribery in the 1980 ABSCAM scandal.

Two Missourians in the House and two more in the Senate are key figures in the history of congressional expulsions.  House members John B. Clark and John W. Reid were Missourians.  The third expulsion was given to Kentucky Congressman Henry Burnett.

John Clark Sr., left his House seat to join the secessionist military forces organized under former governor Sterling Price at the start of the Civil War.  He led his division against Franz Sigel’s Union forces at Carthage on July 5, 1861, a minor battle but a decisive one because is was a sound retreat for Sigel and his men.  Eight days later the House voted 94-45 to expel him. He resigned his military commission after he was wounded at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri’s Confederate government appointed him a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress and then was appointed to the Confederate States Senate. He was not appointed to a second term because of allegations that he was a drunk, a liar, and a womanizer.  Clark was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives and at the end of the war fled to Texas to avoid prosecution.  When that turned out to be a bad idea, he came back to this country, and found his way back to Missouri in 1870, where he practiced law.

Missouri Congressman John W. Reid was a pro-slavery member of the Missouri House for two years in the 1850s. Reid was an active participant in the Missouri-Kansas Border War during which Missourians tried to get Kansas into the Union as a slave state. On August 30, 1856 he was one of the leaders of a 200-man force of pro-slavery raiders that sacked Osawatomie Kansas, the home of abolitionist John Brown.  When his men failed to dislodge forces led by Brown’s son from their rock fortification, they chased the abolitionists back to Osawatomie where they killed Frederick Brown and burned almost all of the buildings in town.

The Kansas Historical Society says this attack led John Brown to begin to see himself as a national leader in, and potentially a martyr to, the abolitionist cause. “ God sees it. I have only a short time to live—only one death to die, and I will die fighting for his cause,” he said. “There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done for. I will give them somethine else to do that extend slave territory. I will carry this war into Africa.” The KHS says that’s when he started thinking of a raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, to seize the weapons to organize a slave revolt in the South.”

Reid was elected to Congress in 1861. He withdrew on August 3 that year and soon after was expelled on a charge of disloyalty to the Union. He became a volunteer aide to General Price. After the war he was a lawyer, banker, and real-estate owner in Kansas City. He was one of the founders of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

On the Senate side, Senators Waldo P. Johnson and Trusten Polk were expelled on the same day.  They were among fourteen senators expelled early in the Civil War because they had gone to the Confederacy.

Trusten Polk served 51 days as governor in 1857, the shortest term of any Missouri governor, before becoming a U. S. Senator.  Early in 1861 he called for constitutional amendments protecting slavery and argued they should contain wording that prevented them from being appealed.  He, and Johnson, did not return to Washington for the 1862 meeting of the Congress.  On January 10, 1862, the Senate voted 35-0 to expel him for disloyalty, a day after receiving a committee report recommending expulsion..  He was part of General Price’s Arkansas command until Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him presiding judge of he Trans-Mississippi Department.  He was captured in 1863 and imprisoned at Johnon’s Island prison camp in Ohio. When his health turned bad, he was given parole.  He returned to Arkansas and was part of Price’s final raid into Missouri in 1863. When the defeated Price fled back to Arkansas, Polk went with him, fleeing to Mexico for a sort time at war’s end before coming back to St. Louis and resuming his law career.

Waldo Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1860. He served about ten months before he was expelled on the same day Polk was kicked out. The Senate voted 36-0 to get rid of him, also a day after getting a committee report recommending expulsion. Same reason as Polk: disloyalty. During the war, he recruited a battalion that fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge, near  Bentonville, Arkansas, a Confederate defeat. In 1863 he was appointed to the Confederate Senate. He fled to Canada after the war and eventually got a presidential pardon and returned to his home in Osceola to resume his legal practice.  He presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1875.

Clark, Reid, Polk, and Johnson paved the way for the possible expulsion of George Santos. They were kicked out for political disloyalty.  So, too, he might be.  Disloyalty to common morality, to his constituents, to the law.

Is there guilt enough?

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Sports: Football Tigers Can’t Get Over the Hump; Basketball Tigers crack the century mark; Chiefs stifle Miami. And a Racing Champion is Crowned  

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers have proved they can play with the big guys. Now they have to prove they can beat the big guys.  Thirteen penalties, some at crucial moments, and a couple of bad passes led to a 30-21 loss to Georgia, the nation’s number one team in the AP and USA Today Coaches poll (but #2 in the bowl playoff list).

Missouri went into the game ranked 14th in the polls but 12th in the playoff list.  The loss likely dooms Missouri’s changes for an SEC division title or one of the playoff bowls but its performance likely impressed several top-level bowl scouts.

Missouri traded leads with Georgia and the game was in doubt until the four-minute mark when a Georgia interception led to a field goal that boosted the Bulldogs’ lead to nine points.  The game turned in the fourth quarter when a Brady Cook pass aimed at a receiver cutting across to the left was intercepted by 300-pound defensive lineman Nazir Stackhouse, who lumbered deep into Tiger territory before going down.

The game stats showed Missouri out-rushed Georga and had more tackles for loss on defense. Cody Schrader toughed his way to 112 yards rushing with a touchdown in the fourth quarter that tightened the game.  But Missouri couldn’t get a dagger play that would put them back on top.

Tiger Kicker Harrison Mevis helped Missouri to a first-half tie with a 38-yard field goal  and gave the Tigers a second-half lead at 13-10 when he hit from 42 yards out, a kick that made him the top scorer in MU football history.

Next up for the Tigers is Tennessee. Both teams go into the game at 7-2.  Tennessee beat up on Connecticut 59-3 Saturday. Both teams are likely to be ranked in the second half of the top 20 going into that game. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—What many thought would be a shootout became a tight defensive win for the Chiefs Sunday. The Chiefs’ 21-14 win was the result of an tough and opportunistic defense that held Miami scoreless in the first half and sealed the win with a huge play that stopped a Miami drive for a tying score in the closing seconds.  Kansas City scored 21 points in the first half, with the ultimate winning points coming on a 59-yard fumble return by Bryan Cook.

Perhaps most satisfying for Kansas City fans was that the fumble was by former Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who caught what was intended to be a screen pass two yards behind the line, but was immediately hit by defender Trent McDuffie and dropped the ball, which was scooped up by Mike Edwards. Edwards, about to be taken down, lateraled the ball to Cook who streaked down the sideline for the touchdown.

The Chiefs couldn’t score in the second half but Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa let a shot at tying the games slip through his fingers—really slip.  The last snap for the Dolphins went slightly to his right and off his fingers. He fell on the ball, but it was Chiefs’ ball with seconds left.

While the Chiefs offense again struggled to put big points on the board, the defense forced Miami to punt five times in the first half, more times than they have punted in any full game all year.  The first-half shutout was the fewest points scored in a first half in the Dolphins’ last forty games. And the scoreless first half was the first since last year’s Christmas loss to the Packers. Tagovailoa’s 193 yards passing in the game was his lowest total of the season. And Hill never could break free, finishing with eight catches for 62 yards.

The Dolphins shut down Travis Kelce, who had only three catches for 14 yards.  But his final catch of the day put him a yard past Tony Gonzalez former team record of 10,940 yards receiving. He broke the record in his 152nd game.  Gonzalez reached the 11,000 yard mark in his 191st game. Kelce needs only 59 yards to get there and become only the fourth tight end in NFL history with 11,000 yards.

He still needs a lot of work to catch Gonzales, who caught passes for 15,127 yards.  Others who topped 11K yards: Jason Witten, who had 13,046, and Antonio Gates, with 11,841.

There are some other Gonzalez records within Kelce’s reach. He’s within 46 receptions of Gonazalez’s 916 catches and is within three of the 76 touchdowns Gonzalez scored while with the Chiefs.

Hill had told his teammates not to let Kelce out of their sight.  If that’s what they did, the Dolphins were soft on a lot of others. Patrick Mahomes completed passes to nine receivers. Kelce, Hardman, and Gray had three each. Nobody else had more than two.

The win makes the Chiefs the first NFL team to win games in four different countries: Germany, Mexico, England and——*

(TIGER ROUNDBALL)—We got our first look at this year’s talent assembled by Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates last night.  Missouri opened with a 101-79 win against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Sean East II, with 21 points lead the team in scoring as Gates gave fans a first look at a dozen players.  Tamar Bates played ten flashy minutes and scored 18 points including 10 within a minute and a half.  Aiden Shaw chipped in with five blocks and nine rebounds as the team racked up 17 assists with only 13 turnovers.

The new Tigers shot 56% from the field, 40% from behind the line.

The Lady Tigers opened their season with a 72-61 victory over Belmont, with new players, including freshmen, scoring all of the points in the first quarter.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals will play a special game in a special place next June 20—Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States.  They’ll play the Giants in a game honoring the Negro Leagues.

A special guest for the game will be Willie Mays, who played at Rickwood Field as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons.  Tickets will be hard to come by—the stadium seats only 11,000.

The park opened August 18, 1910, the realization of a dream by Birmingham industrialist Rick Woodward, who asked Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack to help him design it.

Want to take a look?

https://youtu.be/FW9_nQDMDCo

Rickwood Field was shared by the Birmingham Barons, a white team, and the Black Barons. Future Hall of Famers played on the diamond through the years, as the park’s history tells us:

History of Rickwood Field | Rickwood Field

Now, on to the end of NASCAR for the  year—

(NASCAR)—-The checkered flag has fallen on the 2023 NASCAR season with two winners at Phoenix: Ross Chastian gets the race but Ryan Blaney gets the Cup after a day of close racing among the remaining competitors for the championship.

Chastain, Blaney, Kyle Larson, and William Byron—the latter three being in contention for the Cup—raced each other intensely for almost sixty laps including a pit stop and a restart after a caution flag.  Blaney’s car owner, Roger Penske, had to tell Blaney to turn down his intensity as he battled Chastain, assuring him he could with the championship by conserving his car and settling for a secod-place race finish.

Blaney contented himself to second place after that, finishing 1.2 seconds behind Chastain with Larson third and Byron fourth.  The fourth driver who entered the race running for the championship, Christopher Bell, broke a brake rotor just past the one-third mark and finished last.

Blaney becomes the fourteenth driver in NASCAR’s 75-year history to win a Cup championship before turning thirty (Jeff Gordon did it three times).  The youngest was Bill Rexford in 1950.

He sees the championship as a responsibility in addition to being an accomplishment because the championship brings a platform. “I feel like if you get the privilege to be a champion of your sport, it is part of your job to promote your sport and do the best you can to be the best champion that you can,” he said afterwards. “I think it’s part of your job to kind of, hey, embrace it, push the sport. You have this awesome platform now to where you’ve done something incredible; use that, promote the sport. I’m excited to see what happens this offseason, see what comes up, to where you’re not only growing yourself, you are growing the sport of NASCAR as well.”

Racing is in his blood.  His father, Dave, ran 473 Cup races in a 17-year career. His grandfather and an uncle also were racers. He won his first race at the age of nine in a quarter midget.  He won in NASCAR’s top series three times this year and finished in the top ten in half of the 36 races. He has finished in the top ten in points in seven of his eight full-time seasons.

The race was the finale for Kevin Harvick’s career.  He led 23 laps early in the race but his car lost some of its handling as the sun faded. He finished seventh, the 21st consecutive top-ten finish at Phoenix.

The next race that counts toward the 2023 championship is only 101 days away, the Daytona 500, February 18.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen has won the Grand Prix of Brazil with Lando Norris in a McLaren and Fernando Alonso in an Aston Martin sharing the podium with him. The victory extends his record for most wins in a season, now at 17.  Each race is a new recordfor Verstappen this year.  Even if he fails to win any of the final two races, will finish the year having won more than 77% of the races on the schedule.  That would break the record set in the hearly days of F1 when Alberto Ascari won six of he eight races in 1952. He has won 32 races (so far) in the last two seasons, another record. He’s been on the podium nineteen times this year, another  record. His 922 laps-led is also a new record. He will far surpass the record for the greatest winning margin for a championship. Sebastien Vettel won the title by 155 points ten years ago. Verstappen leads his nearest competitor by 256. He has a record run of 39 consecutive races leading the points. He has won eleven times from pole this year, another record.

Verstappen has led the championship standings across two seasons, since the Spanish Grand Prix of May 2022, and is guaranteed to end the season with a record run of 39 races in a row as leader.

*The United States, of course!!!

(Photo credit:  NASCAR/Chris Gaythen/Getty Images)

Bigots are People, Too

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And don’t they deserve to be represented in our Congress just as the rest of are?  Those of us who are saints?

One person’s bigot is another person’s saint.  But which one is which?

The question has been played out in our dysfunctional Congress where easy name-calling has taken the place of hard work and consensus.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia might have grounds to complain about bigot-abuse after Vermont Congresswoman Becca Balint of Vermont went off on her a few days ago on the floor of the House of Representatives.  And Representative Rashida Tlaib of Minnesota might complain of bigot-abuse from Greene. In fact she has. We’ll get to that later.

Greene had introduced a resolution to censure Representative Tlaib, a Muslim, for participating in a pro-Palestine rally that Greene claims is “an anti-American and anti-Semitic Insurrection.” She also claimed that Tlaib “followed Hezbollah’s orders to carry out a day of unprecedented anger.”  It took her five minutes to explain her resolution.

Video: Marjorie Taylor Greene Introduces Resolution to Censure Rashida Tlaib | C-SPAN.org

Balint was on the floor hours later with her counter-resolution that took her eleven minutes to sum up what she sees as Green’s sins.

Video: Rep. Balint Offers Resolution Censuring Marjorie Taylor Greene | C-SPAN.org

Tlaib has called Greene’s resolution “unhinged” and has said it is “deeply Islamaphobic and attacks peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates” who want a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. “I will not be bullied, I will not be dehumanized, and I will not be silenced,” she said. “I will continue to call for ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home. I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence.”

This exchange puts us in mind of a song from the motion picture South Pacific.

(Video) You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught – Song from South Pacific by Rodgers & Hammerstein (rodgersandhammerstein.com)

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein were attacked, especially in the South, for putting the song in the musical.  James Michener, who wrote the story in his book Tales of the South Pacific on which the play was based, told Hammerstein biographer, “The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in.”

When the play was presented in Georgia, State Representative David C. Jones considered the son a threat to the American way of life because it sanctioned interracial marriage. Some suggested the song was inspired by Communists.

Hammerstein wrote to one critic, “I am most anxious to make the point not only that prejudice exists and is a problem, but that its birth in teaching and not in the fallacious belief that there are basic biological and psychological and mental differences between the races.”

The play came out in 1949.  The movie came out in 1958. The song was kept for the film. It has been recorded many times since in various forms.  And the lyrics are still powerful.  And accurate.

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught

In today’s world we see the accuracy of this song being played out in so many places, even in the halls of our national government and in some of our statehouses.  We see blatant efforts being made to make sure our children—and even we adults—are “carefully taught,” and we are seeing some places, including some of our pulpits, where edicts and laws are being issued to make sure  our children and our grandchildren are “carefully taught” to “hate and fear.”

Maintaining silence in the face of those who profit personally or politically by that careful teaching should never be an option. Let us be  unafraid to learn our history, warts and all as Tom Benton would put it.