Category Archives: history

Bombs Away for Kansas City; Sweep for the Birds; Gem for the Battlehawks. Blues for the Blues. But first, some history for today.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

May 6, 1917—-Bob Groom of the St. Louis Browns throws a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox a day after the Browns’ Ernie Koob had no-hit the Sox at Sportsman’s Park. The catcher for both games was Hank Severeid, the only catcher in MLB history to catch no-hitters on two consecutive days.  Groom went on to an 8-19 record that year and finished his ten  year career a year later.  Ernie Koob was 6-14 that year and out of baseball after another year and a five-year record with the Browns of 23-31.

The Browns were 57-97 that year, seventh in the then-eight team America League which is about what they usually were before they left St. Louis after the 1954 season to become the Baltimore Orioles (of which we will have some news in a few more paragaphs)

Baseball Reference records, “The St. Louis Browns are perhaps history’s worst Major League franchise. The Browns existed from 1902 to 1953 in the American League and managed just 11 winning seasons over that span. They lost more than 100 games eight times, finishing dead last in the AL 10 times. They finished as high as second in the AL standings just three times. The Browns won just one pennant, in 1944, when the majors were not at full strength due to World War II.”  (To which we add that they lost in six games to the Cardinals during the “trolley car series,” when all games were played in old Sportsman’s Park.

But for two days in 1917, the Browns were untouchable.

 

Severeid went on to a solid career, ten of his years with the Browns for whom he caught 100 or more games eight times. He had a solid major league career (.289 career batting average) and spent several more successful years as a minor league catcher and manager. He died in 1968 at the age of 77, still the only catcher to get pitchers through no-hitters on successive days.

Only one pitcher has ever thrown back-to back no-hitters: Johnny Vander Meer of the Reds beat the Boston Bees (later the Braves) on June 11, 1938 and no-hit the Brooklyn Dodgers in his next start June 15.

The only time there have been back-to-back no-hitters involving the same two teams was in 1968 when Gaylord Perry of the Giants beat Bob Gibson of the Cardinals 1-0 and the next day when the Cardinals’ Ray Washburn beat the Giants the next day 1-0. The last two outs he got that day were future Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Willie McCovey.

Those two games are the only time in MLB history there have been no-hitters in two consecutive games.  The second Browns no-hitter had been in the second game of a double header. 

That’s your baseball history lesson for the day. Now let’s look at the history being made by today’s players.

(Royals)—The Kansas City Royals started their week against the Chicago White Sox last night  after finishing their previous week with a team-record seven home runs in one game.  They polished off the Baltimore Orioles 11-6 to go three games over .500 at 19-16.

It was a historic game for catcher Luke Maile, who homered for his first hit with the Royals. He’s the 29th player in team history to have a home run as his first hit.

Cole Ragans already was playing at a historic level going into the game. Although he’s just 1-1 with a 4.40 ERA so far this year, he has struck out 11.16 batters per nine innings through five starts this year and has allowed 0.69 home runs per nine innings.  OptaSTATS says only two other pitchers since 1901 have ever started a season with allowing fewer than 0.80 homers and at least 11 strikeouts through fifty starts with a team are Nolan Ryan and Kevin Gausman.,

We all know who Nolan Ryan is. But Kevin Gausman? He’s bounced around among five teams in thirteen years, has a career record of 104-105.

Ragans was dominant in his return to the mound Monday, tying a season-high with 11 strikeouts in five innings as the Royals shut out the Chicago White Sox 3-0 at Kauffman Stadium. With that, the Royals continued their current hot streak. KC won its 12th game in 14 tries and also improved its season record to 20-16.

Ragans didn’t appear to show any ill effects from his earlier problem.

(CARDINALS)—-A double-header sweep of the Mets gets the Cardinals within three games of break-even 35 games into the season. They can thank Mike McGreevy, who was called up from Memphis by a rule that lets teams add an extra player for doubleheaders. McGreevy relieved Andre Pallante in second game when the bases were loaded and there was only one out in the fourth inning. McGreevy shut down the Mets on one hit and one walk the rest of the way, struck out five, and got the Mets to hit into five groundouts.

The Cardinals had won the first game 5-4

Alex Burlison broke out of his season-longer homerless streak with a two-run rip in the first game. In fact, he hadn’t hit a home run since last August 17. He’d had only three extra base hits so far this season.

The Cardinals kept rolling last night, beating Pittsburg 6-3 in a series opened. Home runs by Jose Berrero hitting his first home run since 2023 with Alex Burlison and Wilson Contreras adding shots of their own to give the Cardinals the lead.

(ST. LOUIS BLUES)—The coach has turned into a pumpkin for the St. Louis Blues. There will be no Cinderella story for them this year.

Once almost written off as a playoff team, the Blues stormed through the last third of the season to make it in the field.  Down two games to none to Winnipeg in the first round of the playoffs, but Blues came back to force a seventh game.

The Blues led by two goals with less than two minutes to play but the Jets tied the game with 1.6 seconds left and got the game winner at the 16:30 mark of overtime.

(FOOTBALL)—-Spring pro football reached the halfway mark in the regular season last weekend.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—Two weeks after losing their first game of the year to Arlington, the St. Louis Battlehawks put together what was called a “defensive gem,” against the same team, 12-6.

The Arlington Renegades had  scored thirty points three times this year, including the first game against St. Louis, in Arlington.

Battlehawks linebacker Pita Taumoepenu was the key to the St. Louis defense. With less than two minutes to play, Taumoepenu slapped the ball out of the hands of Arlington’s quarterback and two teammates pounced on it. It was the fourth turnover forced by the Battlehawks, the second within the final five minutes.

The win keeps St. Louis’ title hopes alive as they go to 4-2 on the season and get back to 2-2 in their UFL conference.

Now we move to sports with another turnoff the wheel.

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou heads to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with momentum rarely seen in INDYCAR—winning three of the first four races of the season and already building a big lead as he runs for his fourth series championship.

Palou calls his start from the pole and his win on the road course at Barber Motorsports Park “the best race” of his career. He led 81 of the 90 laps. “It was a perfect day, a perfect weekend,” Palou said. “The car was amazing, super-fast. I had a ton of fun. I was a bit lonely there, but I loved it. It was an amazing day.” He was lonely, it seemed. His margin of victory over Christian Lundgaard was sixteen seconds. Penske driver Scott McLaughlin, who had won the last two races at the track, finished third.

Palou’s worst finish in the firs four races is second.

Next up will be two races at the track that gives the series its name, a race on the infield road course next weekend and then the crown jewel of the year for the series, the Indianapolis 500, where Josef Newgarden will try to become the first driver to win three 500s in a row.

(NASCAR)—Consider last weekend’s NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway a breakthough run for defending Cup champion Joey Logan, who avoided trouble as he worked his way from 27th starting position to victory circle. It’s his first top-five finish of the year.

He had worked his way up to second place behind Michael McDowell but took the lead with four laps left in regulation.  McDowell, a lap later, got into some dirty air behind Ryan Blaney and wrecked. He finished 26th.

Blaney was passed by Ross Chastain, who had started 31st, on the restart. It’s Chastain’s best finish of the year.

Nobody led more laps than Kyle Larson  but the best he could do at the end was fourth.

For the first time after 21 straight races, Denny Hamlin did not finish on the lead lap. He lost an engine early. His string of 21 straight top fives is the eighty longest in NASCAR history.

(FORMULA 1)—Oscar Piastri picked up his fourth win of the year in the Grand Prix of Miami. Teammate Lando Norris came home behind him.

(Photo credits: Severeid–Becket Marketplace; Palou–Rick Gevers, Indianapolis 2024)

 

 

 

Make America—

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America.

Let us NOT make America great again—

—because it has never been what those who mouth the slogan promote.

The reality is starkly different.  We should not want the greatness that is being advocated by the slogan-sayers.

The poem, Let America be America captures what we have never been but can be yet.

Not “again,” but to be the America we erroneously think we have been.

The poem comes from a member of one of the many minority communities to whom America’s greatness is not what was, but what is yet to be, people who do not seem to be part of the Trumpian equation of future greatness.

THIS is what we should be striving for in the words of the great African-American poet Langston Hughes of Joplin, Missouri ninety years ago when the ideals of America seemed far, far away for the racially and economically dispossessed.

Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

 

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

 

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

 

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

 

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Langston Hughes died in 1967 while our country was locked into a great struggle to be what American could be.  We are locked in another great struggle today to make America again—-but, in truth, it is a struggle to degrade the greatness it already was and the greatness it must still try to become.

—-a greatness the great slogan-speaker will never understand.

 

I am glad I don’t drink coffee

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—And that I bought my new car last year.

—And that I bought the new televisions for our new home last month.

—And that I bought my new wardrobe (I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last couple of years) late last year and early this year.

—And that I do not need the latest technological tweak that comes in a cell phone.

—And that I was prudent in my younger years and set up a retirement program that will let me afford at least the two eggs I have each morning for breakfast.

—And that, although I am a descendant of farmers, I am not one.

—And that I went to a state university before the federal thought police dictated how I could learn by punishing how it taught.

—And that I worked for people to whom “fair” and “balanced” actually meant “fair” and “balanced.”

—And that I experienced the long fight for acceptance of DEI and witnessed the good that has come from its eventual and painful acceptance.

—And that my study of history shows acquiescence to the words and deeds of demagogues, dictators, and authoritarians is never the answer; that resistance, refusal, and an understanding of rights is essential to defending and enhancing freedom

—for all of us.

.AND

—that courage and boldness will have greater political rewards than cowardice and fear in the face of intimidation and threats.

In the early, dark, days of the American Revolution, with Washington’s army on the run and seeking safety by fleeing across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania, one among those retreating troops—born an Englishman but who had come to recognize tyranny as an evil—began to put his thoughts on paper, not about retreat but about the importance of resistance and counterattack.

His name was Thomas Paine and the pamphlet he wrote in those fearful days became a rallying point for the nation fighting to be born. It has been described as, “an important catalyst for the rise in popular support for the revolution” that Paine envisaged as the start of “a worldwide struggle against oppression and for the rights of the average man.”

His colleagues sometimes called him “Common Sense” Paine because of that pamphlet. As he and his fellow troops headed for Pennsylvania, he began writing a follow-up pamphlet.  He would call it, when published in November of 1776, The American Crisis No. 1.

This is a time to recall the opening words of that pamphlet:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Four score and seven years later, also in November, Abraham Lincoln told a large crowd gathered at the cemetery near Gettysburg:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Our national soul is under great trial and trying to appease a tyrant, as the world learned in Europe in the 1930s, is not the answer. This is no time for Paine’s “summer soldier and sunshine patriot.” It is time to remember Lincoln’s call that those who sacrificed so much before us “shall not have died in vain,” and that we must protect “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” and make sure that “it shall not perish from the earth.”

For those who are greatly alarmed at the perilous direction of our country, we turn again to Paine who wrote, in part:

It is surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them…Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary apparition would upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world.

It is a comforting thought that things that most alarm many of us will not endure, and in the end will remind us that having seen them and survived or defeated them will leave us wiser if not stronger.

But we cannot wait them out.

Resistance is” the only choice for those who witness each day the efforts to make us less free. Our generations must never be found guilty of esteeming too lightly the benefits that we have accepted too cheaply,” as Paine said.

The United states has led the “worldwide struggle against oppression and for the rights of the average man ” but it cannot lead the world in that fight if it does not fight it within itself.

Acquiescence only leads to more loss. It is we the people who must fight for the defense of our freedoms that are based on a government of, by and for all of us.  We, not he, will make America great again.  And we must be unafraid to fight him who imperils everything we have become to ourselves and to the oppressed world through 250 years of struggle and achievement.

Anything less makes us traitors to ourselves.

 

 

The Meaning of a Wisconsin Election

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When a people choose vindictive self-service over broader public concern, they make an eventually correctible mistake.

When Congress replaces responsibility for the many with loyalty to one, a nation is in trouble.

When courts replace justice with ideology, a nation might be lost.

We live in and often must endure our own humanness. But there are protections that we must trust within our political system that keep our mistake from becoming our destruction.

This is such a time.

The current administration has attacked the courts and the “unelected judges” who are overturning unconstitutional executive orders, preferring that the court system get out of the way. We can be grateful that our founders made the court a road block to injustice.

Elected? The dangers of an elected judiciary were on plain view in Wisconsin a few days ago where an effort was made to buy a seat on the state supreme court for someone designated as a Trump supporter who would tilt the court majority politically toward Trump.

It has become obvious to many within the last few days that they were mistaken when they accepted without question the promises given last year by Donald Trump.  Now, they must place their hope with a Congress in which some are beginning to question their loyalty to him and wonder if they have the courage to remember their responsibility.

In the end, though, it is the courts that have the ultimate responsibility for saving our nation.

The courts cannot completely nor immediately reverse the course set by the mistake. But the courts are our ultimate and final refuge—

—-which is why the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election was so critical, not just for Wisconsin, but for all of us; not just because of WHO was elected but because of WHAT was rejected.

History has shown liberal or conservative-tilting courts are not always as clearly divided as the labels we attach to their individual members seem to indicate they will be. There is a middle ground that often is the resting place for compromise on carefully designed decisions. And it is that middle ground on the finest points of a case that might produce no major progress but will save us from any major regression.

Missouri originated a system that avoids the fight we recently saw in Wisconsin that featured a concerted effort to buy a seat on the Supreme Court. It is regrettable that we still allow people to try to buy part of our state constitution by financing multi-million dollar petition campaigns (last year’s sports wagering campaign in which the casino industry spent more than $40 million to get 3,000 more people to vote for sports wagering than voted against it after a misleading campaign is an example) and they can bankroll candidates for the legislature in an effort to buy laws.

But because our highest court judges are not elected, they cannot be bought.

Chief Justice Laura Denvir Smith, who also was the Chair of the Appellate Judicial Commission, told the Missouri Senate Rules Committee in 2007:

Judges are not intended to be politicians, choosing sides based on political considerations, or what the judge’s neighbors, fundraisers or special interest groups might think was best.  Deciding cases based on the judge’s or another’s perception of what is popular or politically expedient is inconsistent with one’s duty as a judge and is just plain wrong.  

The judicial branch of our democracy instead must be neutral, seeing that the laws are applied fairly, and providing stability in the law so that there is consistency in the rules by which people live their lives.  Although some court decisions are not popular, popularity is not the benchmark of quality in the judicial branch: The nature of our business is such that half the people are unhappy because they lost and some of the ones who won are unhappy because they don’t think they won enough.  

In every case, from a marital dissolution that only affects the couple and their children to an issue of constitutional validity, the role of the judicial branch is to resolve disputes neutrally and fairly based on the facts that are presented in court.  If they are doing their job correctly, judges decide based on the law and the facts, not based on the possible political ramifications of different results.

Sometimes the public, the parties and even the judges deciding a case are unhappy with its outcome, because the law may not produce a result that accords with our personal preferences. But if you ask those same people, when they have a case in court, whether they want a judge to pre-decide it based on the judge’s views of what will look good in the newspaper the next day, or, instead, whether they want a judge who will come to court with an open mind, listen to their side of the case, and reach a fair decision – they will pick the open mind and the fair decision – every time.

No one wants to worry that the case will be decided against them because the other side, or the other side’s lawyer, gave a large contribution to the judge’s election campaign, or to those politicians who appointed or nominated the judge for office.  Missourians learned long ago, before they adopted the nonpartisan plan, that is exactly what can and does happen when politics becomes a key factor in determining who will be a judge.

Missouri was the first state to adopt a non-partisan judicial selection process somce adopted by a majority of the states, although some states have added their own tweaks.

Although we adopted our plan in 1940 in an effort to take as much politics as possible out of the judicial selection process, the issue goes back to our first Constitution that was written in 1820 and had to be accepted by Congress before Missouri was allowed to become the 24th state.

That Constitution had the governor nominating judges at all levels and if the senate gave its consent to his nomination, the judges cold serve until they were 65 as long as they engaged in “good behavior.” But if the legislature found a judge having badly, it could by a two-thirds vote in each legislative chamber, ask the governor to remove a judge.

In the next couple of decades, though, Missourians began to doubt the wisdom of that latter point because it made the courts subservient to legislative politics and legislators were too influenced by special interests. Missouri became one of the states that decided the answer was judicial elections, legalized here in 1850.

By the start of the Twentieth Century and the machine politics of the time—the Pendergast family’s control of Democrat politics in its home town of Kansas City and in much of Missouri and the Butler machine in St. Louis, for example—the public became concerned that the judiciary’s independence was in doubt.

Beginning in 1903, when four state senators were indicted for taking bribes to vote on legislation specifying ingredients for Missouri-made baking powder and the supreme court overturned the first conviction and sentence and the other three cases never went to trial, there was suspicion that the supreme court had its own “boodle” scandal.

The Pendergast grip on Democratic politics statewide in the 1930s led to a push for adoption of a nonpartisan court plan known as “merit selection.” It was part of a national movement aimed at assuring our courts would be a true third branch of government.

When the legislature refused to hold an election on the proposal, an initiative petition forced a vote—and Missouri voters bought the idea in November, 1940.  When the legislature put a repeal of the plan on the 1942 ballot, voters strongly rejected it.

When our present state constitution was adopted in 1945, the plan was not touched.

The plan was limited to judges of the Missouri Supreme Court and courts of appeals. It also applied to some lower courts, including the probate courts, in the city of St. Louis and Jackson County. Other counties were given the option of adopting the plan.  But only six of our circuit courts have been put under the non-partisan plan, recognized nationally as The Missouri Plan.

Here is how it works:

A nonpartisan judicial commission, the Appellate Judicial Commission, solicits applications, interviews candidates and picks three finalists. The commission has three citizens appointed by the governor, three lawyers appointed by the Missouri Bar, with the chair being the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The commission picks three finalists whose names are made public, and the governor makes the final choice.

When a vacancy occurs, the commission seeks applicants and encourages the public to nominate well-qualified candidates for consideration. The commission reviews the applications of lawyers who wish to join the court and selects which applicants it will interview, then conducts those interviews in public. The commission then deliberates in a closed meeting to select a panel of three nominees for the governor’s consideration.

The governor has sixty days to announce his choice. If the governor fails to make a pick, the commission re-convenes and fills the vacancy. That has never been necessary.

The new judges then serve at least a year but then have to stand for retention in a statewide vote. The vote does not involve opposing candidates. It only asks citizens if the judge should be kept in office. There is no campaigning although the Missouri Bar’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee (made up of lawyers and non-lawyers) gives voters information about each of the judges up for retention so informed votes can be cast.

Although all counties can adopt this procedure, only a few use it. Only six jurisdictions do evaluations and hold non-partisan circuit judge elections—St. Louis city and county, Clay, Jackson, and Platte Counties in the Kansas City metro area, and Greene County (the Springfield area).

The plan is recognized as one that keeps politics out of judicial selection as much as possible. Unlike the federal system in which a President can reward friendly lawyers with juicy judicial appointments, this plan creates a process that sends up three people whose qualifications are based n their understanding of the law and the proper administration of it. There is no Senate approval of nominees, which would run the risk of politics being a major part of the process.

It does not keep those who want to degrade the legal system for their own protection or benefit from complaining about “unelected activist judges.”  But, having learned how it operates, this system might make it clear that some of the current attacks on the judiciary have no grounds, at least not here and not in our appellate court system.

The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan is the greatest protection we have against those who want to replace justice with ideology.

 

I Have a New Necktie

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–and I’m going to use it to make a point (other than the one at the end of the tie).

You probably have heard the old saying about a person who wears his (or her) heart on his or her sleeve.  How about wearing some of your family heritage around your neck?

It can become a reminder of who you are, or part of you.

While we were in Scotland last summer, we went into a couple of tartan shops.  Knowing that the older I get, the older my knees look, I knew that I could not wear the kind of clan tartan my Scottish ancestors wore.

I hinted broadly that a tartan shirt or a tartan necktie would look pretty good, though, as a Christmas present. But, alas, my Lady was too distracted by starting our eventual move to a new zip code to remember my hints.

(Actually, Nancy is recognized in Scotland as a Lady, which makes me a Laird, because she owns some land there.  She has read all of the Outlander books and we watch the TV series each week, which led me a few years ago to buy her a piece of land in the auld country.  I think it is an entire square foot of land in a Scottish land preserve.)

Anyway—

A few weeks ago I took the matter into my own hands and I ordered a tartan- patterned necktie.

This is the ancient tartan of MacDonald of Clan Ranald. A more modern tartan is available, but this great grandson of Ranald McKechnie, a Scotsman who arrived in Kansas in the 1870s via Canada, wanted to wear his older roots around his neck.

We are a very old batch of folks, all the way back to the 12th Century, and we were somewhat inhospitable. In fact, we were downright hostile.  We were known as being warlike. In fact—and this might mean something to Outlander followers—my ancestors helped defeat the Clan Fraser in the 1544 battle of Kinloch Lochy, also known as the “Battle of the Field of the Shirts” because the warriors fought on such a hot day that men on both sides discarded their shirts. When this vicious battle was over, only five Frasers and eight MacDonalds were still alive.

The home of my clan was Castle Tiorim. It remains, although it is unhabitable.

The MacDonalds were on the British side during the Jacobite rebellion that was dramatized in the books and on Outlander. Scottish Prince Charlie made a bid to get his father installed on the British throne but was routed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, fought on a field near Inverness that we visited last June.

After hearing our tour guide describe the battle, I remarked that the circumstances reminded me of the American Battle of  Bunker Hill (which was fought on Breed’s Hill). He commented that the sons and grandsons of the MacDonalds at Culloden were part of the victorious British forces that day in Boston.

So much for any hopes of being a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.

The point of this journey through a family history that probably holds little interest for you is just this:

History, your history, can be an exciting thing to explore if you look beyond dates on tombstones and, instead, at the events of the dash—the mark between the dates  of birth and death—because our ancestors did not exist in a vacuum. Learning about the events they witnessed either in person or from a distance humanizes them, brings them closer, and often explains why they wound up where they did—and an understanding of how  you wound up where you are.

The history most of us took in elementary and secondary school, the kind taught chronologically while ignoring the social and economic issues that drove the nation to be what it was, earned the reputation of being boring.

It is like Kansas, or at least the popular view of it.  Kansas, however, is NOT boring.

I-70 is boring.  But a few miles off it is where you will discover life, past and present.

So it is with genealogy. Dates are boring most of the time. But what those ancestors did and what was around them in the years of the dash is where you will find understanding of them and maybe a bit of yourself.

 

 

The Immigrants 

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I had planned on a more frivolous entry for today, but Monday I read Barbara Shelley’s commentary on The Missouri Independent website and I think it is far more important than anything I could offer.  She was an respected reporter with the Kansas City Star in my reporting days and remains a respected observer of our times. In this entry, she puts human faces onto the victims of President Trump’s vicious immigration policies that show no concern for who is hurt by them—people or our nation.

Once in America, immigration was a sign of our greatness, of our country’s promise, and our ancestors (yours and mine) came here to seek it. Now those people are villainized with lies from our President.

It is heart-breaking for one who memorized in his school days Thomas Wolfe’s Promise of America to read Barbara’s description of what President Trump has brutally cancelled in our national character. Perhaps you memorized it, too:

” So, then, to every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.”

Here’s her commentary about the crushing of that promise:

Friends and family arrived bearing flowers. Smiling volunteers pointed the way to seats.

Everyone loves a naturalization ceremony. I attended one recently at a branch of the Kansas City Public Library and watched 71 new American citizens swear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. Even more immigrants had taken the oath earlier in the day.

“This room is full of the most brilliant minds that the world knows,” Wasim Khan, a cultural leader, told the group. “You guys are the teachers. You know what it takes to be here.”

After the ceremony, as League of Women Voters volunteers swooped in to invite the new citizens to register, I asked a few people how long they have been in America.

Eight years, 12 years, too many years to count.

Naturalized citizenship is a long, expensive process and everyone who achieves it does so through a combination of grit and good fortune.

I’ve attended several of these ceremonies over the years to cheer on people I’ve had the privilege to know.

One was a piano teacher who came here from Kyrgyzstan to study at American universities. Several others arrived as refugees. They overcame language barriers and all the hardships of poverty to arrive at their naturalization ceremonies as educated, hardworking contributors to their communities.

The recent ceremony was no different from others I’ve witnessed, but I couldn’t summon the usual measure of joy.

Rather, I kept wondering what a naturalization ceremony will look like once the xenophobic policies of the Trump administration have been fully brought to bear.

Last year, I signed up to participate on a team that would sponsor a refugee family, in cooperation with a resettlement agency. I told myself that it would be a satisfying act of resistance in case Donald J. Trump won the presidency.

Along with others, I welcomed a family of eight at Kansas City’s airport on a snowy evening 12 days before Trump’s inauguration. They were exhausted and one person was ill but they were here and we were ready to introduce them to America.

We had no idea how difficult that was going to be.

Within a week of taking office, Trump had slammed the door to new refugee admissions and cut off funding for the families who had recently arrived.

The resettlement community had anticipated the first move. It was gobsmacked by the second. With an executive order, Trump wiped out money that was supposed to pay for rent and utilities, medical screenings and other services for hundreds of people who had entered the United States legally in the last 90 days.

Agencies went into emergency fundraising mode, but Trump’s action was crippling. The agency I volunteer for lost nearly $1 million of federal money it had counted on. Part of that amount was already spent in rent deposits and other costs.

It’s nearly impossible to cover a gap like that through donations. Within weeks two agencies in Kansas City laid off close to half their staffs. A smaller nonprofit laid off its entire refugee services staff. A mid-Missouri agency shut down its resettlement program.

My role in the resistance now includes scanning job ads for something that might work for adults who speak only a little English and will have to ride to work on the bus. I’ve become familiar with the difficulties of booking an appointment at the local Social Security office — and good luck once Elon Musk gets through with that program.

The family that my team works with was routed from their ancestral home and spent years in limbo in a neighboring country. The adults are fully aware that the leader of the United States does not want them here.

Their status is legal, but they are afraid. They grieve family members left behind in a refugee camp, clinging to hopes of a reunion that may not happen in this lifetime.

In my head, I construct sentences that begin with “at least.”

At least they aren’t here on humanitarian parole status — a category of immigrants more endangered than refugees.

At least they have a place to stay, a small rental house in a hollowed-out part of Kansas City. A recent New York Times story reported on newly arrived refugees in St. Louis languishing in motels on highway interchanges because the resettlement agency there was unable to pay apartment leases.

At least members of my family have friends. Immigrants from their home country have sought them out and embraced them.

The situation could always be worse. But it is bad enough.

Refugee resettlement is a way of participating in the global good. Therefore, it is not a priority in Trump’s “America First” agenda.

The immigrants whom I witnessed as they became naturalized citizens last month represented 36 nations, including some of the most troubled, like Haiti, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

They had cleared a high bar to get to the ceremony. All of them passed a civics test that most Americans would find daunting. They were deemed to be of “good moral character,” a standard that we don’t necessarily demand from our nation’s leaders.

Congratulations to the new Americans. May we always find a path for them.

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Or, may we rediscover the greatness that provided a path for them and have the courage to admit the disgrace we have allowed our President to bring to the Promise of America.

All They Did—-

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It will take a while, maybe several years, before some high school students living in an unincorporated area of 140 people of central Missouri fully appreciate what they have done.

They have won the State High School 2A basketball championship. But it’s more than just a trophy for the town of Eugene.

The exhilaration that comes from championships is a temporary thing. It might linger for several hours or for a few days before life takes over.

But legacies are eternal. And they have created a legacy.

All these students did was to give their little community where the number of students in the Cole R-V School District outnumbers the population of the community by more than four to one, the first state championship in community history—in any category.

The best at something in the entire state of Missouri, population 6.2-million.

It was not exactly a “Hoosiers” moment because they did not beat the dominant big-city team for the title, but to Eugene, Missouri, it IS a “Hoosiers” moment because it is the first time the school has won a state title in anything.

For the rest of their lives they will bound together by this historic event, For the rest of their lives they will be remembered as members of the first team in school history that—-

The chance to be a state champion comes rarely. Even if there are more trophies in the future, theirs will be the historic one, the one that says for the first time, Eugene was the best of its kind in the whole state.

They shall grow old, but they will always be young when others look at their trophy decades from now. They’ll be the ones every team to come wants to be like.

All they did was to give a120-year old community —that has never thought itself big enough to incorporate as a real town —the chance to proclaim itself the best of its kind in Missouri.

And these children shall become legends.

 

Patrick and Volodymyr

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A country facing tyrannical control.  Enemy forces are at the gate. Should an effort be made for a cease fire or even full peace?  How great a price will be paid either way?

The other day I picked up a book containing a speech that might have been given 250 years ago. The style of public speaking has changed a lot in that time. But the situation and he sentiments of he remarks are appropriate for our time.

…The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

We don’t really know how accurate the account of this great American speech is. There was no transcript taken at the time in the Virginia House of Burgesses. .Author Willam Wirt reconstructed it in his 1817 biography of Patrick Henry, leading some historians to question its authenticity.

Whether these words were fully spoken 250 years ago, on March 23, 1775 or whether they were partially made up or completely made up by Wirt 208 years ago, the situation and the sentiment have a certain resonance as the President of Ukraine deals with Russia’s war on his country and the demands by Ukraine’s (former?) ally that it turn over a major part of its economy to the United States and a significant part of its territory to Russia.

We doubt that our president ever read the speech or, if he did, that he ever understood its importance to our nation’s attitude about ourselves or others who share our democratic vision.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”

What should be OUR answer in today’s world? We already know his answer. Chains and slavery.

Of Mice and MAGA

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The situation would be hilarious if it wasn’t so frightening.

We have a President who daily seems to get more petty, more vengeful, and less understanding of the country he unfortunately was elected to lead.

Example one:  One of the many lies that dominated his speech to Congress last week, lost in the avalanche of other irresponsible claims and accusations, came when he congratulated hit man, Elon, for uncovering a federally-financed program to change the gender of mice.

My friend Derry Brownfield would call stuff such as this, “ignorance gone to seed.” The mental Kudzu that is this administration’s crop is as invasive to democracy as the real weed is to the southern countryside.

The program that produced this totally-undeserved presidential scorn has to do with transgenic mice, which are used in biomedical research to study how human tissue reacts to disease and the cures or potential cures for those diseases. Do not expect Trump to ever correct himself.

In fact, it’s his newest factoid and he’ll beat the blood out of transgender mice.

Second: Trump has cut off $400 million in grants and other federal funds to Columbia University because some pro-Palestinian demonstrations took place on the campus. He also has threatened  cutoffs to other schools that allow “illegal” protests. Forget the First Amendment’s protection of speech and the right of assembly. If Prosecutor, Judge, and Jury Donald Trump decides events or words are “illegal” in his mind, then they’re illegal and he again will demonstrate his capacity for retribution aimed at those who think differently than he does—-assuming he thinks at all.

The third, and far more egregious thought this man had is the late-week decision to erase history from the Pentagon’s records.

That kind of thing usually was a matter for Soviet Premiers in the 20th Century and for conquering tribes thousands of years ago. Chipping off all of the carved words and records of deeds of former rulers was fairly common when their land was conquered. It has continued in a material sense in areas of the Middle East infected with the Taliban and other brutal bands.  Erase the history of a people. Erase their culture. Erase the people.

In his rabid drive to erase anything from the public mind that encourages equal opportunity,  Defense Secretary—Pete Hegseth—has ordered, as the Associated Press says, “tens of thousands of photos and online posts“ that emphasize Diversity, Eqality, and Inclusion removed from the department database.

When the AP published its story last week, and when officials confirmed this looney program, more than 26,000 images had been slated for removal with an outlook that the total removals might reach six figures.

The main priority might be the most childish of all—remove ALL content in that archive that was published during the Biden administration, regardless personhood.

Erasing history—and that’s what this is—has eliminated the stories of a lot of people who overcome the prejudices of their day long before DEI became an epithet.  But they’re being erased because they are not one of “us,” as defined by our President.

By far the most inane victim of this purge of the image files is the elimination of images of Enola Gay. THE Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb in world history in 1945. So far, however, the current administration has not towed the real airplane out of the Smithsonian installation at Dulles International Airport and broken it up. .

The airplane already has survived a decades-long controversy over whether it should be put on public display, not because of it’s “gayness” but because some felt displaying it would glorify the use of nuclear weapons against human beings.

The rabid rush to eliminate images of the first women, the first black person—the first minority of any kind—to achieve something notable in military service has put a spotlight on the bomber which is named for pilot Paul Tibbets’s mother. The spotlight also has been put on people who are committed to narrowness in thought, in speech, and in their corrupted definition of leadership.

One of the targeted photos is of Marine Corps PFC Harold Gonsalves, a Mexican-American who threw himself onto a Japanese grenade at Okinawa to save the lives of others. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. But he has a Hispanic name and that appears to be enough to erase him from that database of history.

Author Richard Cohen comments in his book, Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped History,  observes, “History has ever been a harbor for dishonest writing—a home for forgers, the insane or even ‘history-killers’ who write so dully they neutralize their subjects…

”Most countries at one time or another have been guilty of proclaiming false versions of their past. The late 19th-century French historian Ernest Renan is known for his statement that “forgetfulness” is ‘essential in the creation of a nation’—a positive gloss on Goethe’s blunt aphorism, ‘Patriotism corrupts history.’ But this is why nationalism often views history as a threat. What governments declare to be true is one reality, the judgments of historians quite another. Few recorders set out deliberately to lie; when they do, they can have great impact, if only in certain parts of the world.”

We are seeing the truth of Cohen’s remarks in the lies being circulated in Washington that seek to modify, if not destroy, our past as well as corrupt our present.

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Great? 

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We have a place at the end of these entries for people to respond to them. I hope the Trumpers will do that today—

And explain how last week’s disgusting performance in the meeting with Ukraine’s President in any way makes America Great.

To whom?

Well, Russia thinks America is great.  Donald Trump thinks browbeating and bullying the president of a country fighting off takeover from a cruel, controlling, all-powerful despotic leader of a gigantically larger country makes our America great, at least in his own self-dominated mind.

HERE’S how American can be great—–but Trump’s own cruel, controlling, all-powerful self-image won’t let him do it:

Persuade his good friend Vlad to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Withdraw.  Offer Russia security protections against invasion from Ukraine.

He won’t do it. He can’t do it. He’s already speaking from Vlad’s pocket when he accuses Ukraine of starting the war.

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1939 had accused Poland of invading Germany; England of launching a blitzkrieg against Germany in 1940, Hawaii of bombing Tokyo in ’41.  Imagine if Truman accused South Korea of starting a war in 1950 by invading North Korea.  Or if George H. W. Bush had charged Kuwait with invading Iraq in 1990.

Just think how much greater we would be now if those presidents hadn’t made the mistakes Trump refuses to make today.

The greatness of America on the world stage is gone and it is becoming smaller in the international rear-view mirror.  It’s even growing smaller in our own rear-view mirror with every day of crude butchery of our own government, with every day that the faceless bureaucrats who try to make our government work for US are threatened with the loss of their jobs by people who have little appreciation for laboring on behalf of other people.

So tell me, Trumpers, in the dialogue box at the end of this entry, just how Trump is making our country great by doing the things to his own people that he is doing.  Look ahead, and tell me how our lives will be better a year from now.

Don’t send me an email.  My name is on every one of these entries. I expect those with differing opinions to have enough courage to stand behind their words with their names.

Make me think how great my country is today.  Make me proud of my president.  Make me sufficiently grateful.