Category Archives: people

A Noisy Awakening 

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Nancy’s newest birth anniversary was last Friday. I took her out to eat and then to see a movie.

Kind of the way things were back in our courting days.

We went to our GQT Capital 8 Theatre and we bought our popcorn and our sugar-free soft drink and sat down in some nice roomy seats.  Just as the pre-movie trivia game was about to start for the three of us in the theatre, one of the theatre employees told us tornado sirens were blowing and we needed to take refuge in the bathrooms.

After an hour or so in what became two unisex bathrooms, the theatre folks gave us passes for some other night.

So we went back Saturday with our visiting daughter Liz, used our free passes and our free concessions tickets and settled into watch A GREAT AWAKENING.

We watched the charming young lady from Noovie host the various short word games or trivia questions and then theatre exploded with a deafening display of the latest in DOLBY sound technology.   Then the previews came on—one movie featuring real people and four or five featuring cartoon people.  All at beyond maximum volume, apparently to make the explosions that replace plots in today’s flicks more fearful.

Finally, we got to the feature. It was so loud I took out my hearing aids and even then it was so loud that I decided, as I told Nancy and Liz later, that I was eager to see the movie on TV so the sound level wasn’t so distracting as to spoil the story.  I walked out of the theatre that night feeling exhausted.

Not only that, but the popcorn was mediocre.  I get better popcorn at a convenience store on the other side of town.

Come to think of it, the best part of the experience was being able to go to the men’s restroom without some women in there, too.  It was a safe experience in the bathroom but a danger to my hearing in the auditorium.

The movie?  Pretty good for an almost-Hollywood production. Interesting story that, on reflection, lacked a little of the sophistication in story-telling and dialogue that the major studios produce.

It was produced by Sight & Sound Films, a Christian-themed spinoff of Sight and Sound Theatres, the company that has produced Biblical-themed shows in Branson for some time. In case you missed the point the movie was trying to make, the producers give it to you during the credits: “True liberty comes through Jesus Christ.” I found the statement in conflict with what I had just watched (or endured).

The movie tracks the unusual relationship between the passionate English Methodist evangelist George Whitefield (he pronounced it as if it had no “e” in the middle), who was trained as a stage actor, and the calculating and politically savvy printer, later inventor and sage who was a key to writing the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, played impressively by John Paul Sneed.

Franklin realized he could profit from printing Whitefield’s sermons. Whitefield realized he could reach more people if he allowed Franklin to print and circulate his words.

(George Whitefield—The Genevan Foundation   (With his “lazy left eye” sometimes George Whitefield was derisively called “Dr. Squintum” by his many detractors)

Whitefield is portrayed by a young and handsome actor with no English accent and no resemblance to the real Whitefield an instantly-inspirational figure who spoke to thousands who quickly became “saved” by his dynamic sermons.  Franklin is the Franklin of our familiarity—a Christian, generally, who differ from those who think the only way to God is through Christ, which is Whitefield’s message.

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Ozymandias Trump  

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President Trump’s insatiable need to memorialize himself, whether it’s by putting his name on a long-standing building such as the Kennedy Center, minting gold coins, putting his signature on our currency, building a disgracefully tacky ballroom onto the White House, building a Trump Arch in Washington and now we have seen the plans for his presidential library.

All of this is his vain effort to immortalize himself as something far more than what he is brings to mind a couple of 19th Century British poet friends who engaged in a friendly competition to see whose work would be published first. They probably had heard the announcement that the British Museum had acquired an eight-ton statue of Rameses II.

Both had experienced the classical education of the day, which probably led them to a story by the First Century, BCE, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who described a great Egyptian statue with the inscription, “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. if any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my works.”

Horace Smith wrote:

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder — and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

The better-known of the poems is the one with the same name, Ozymandias¸ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, considered one of the greatest of the English romantic poets, who drowned in a sailing accident at the age of 29.  This is the one we are most likely to see in our English textbooks and in the compilations of great poems.

I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The poem is considered a commentary on the impermanence of power and the fleeting of time.  Litcharts.com puts it this way:

The speaker relates a story a traveler told him about the ruins of a “colossal wreck” of a sculpture whose decaying physical state mirrors the dissolution of its subject’s—Ozymandias’s—power. Only two upright legs, a face, and a pedestal remain of Ozymandias’s original statue, and even these individual parts of the statue are not in great shape: the face, for instance, is “shattered.” Clearly, time hasn’t been kind to this statue, whose pitiful state undercuts the bold assertion of its inscription. The fact that even this “king of kings” lies decaying in a distant desert suggests that no amount of power can withstand the merciless and unceasing passage of time.

Less poetic but nonetheless powerful on its own is a quote attributed to General George S. Patton; you might recognize it as it was spoken by George C. Scott at the end of the movie about the general:

““For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

Donald Trump  doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who would know who Percy Bysshe Shelley was (it has been widely reported that he seldom reads anything, even his daily security reports—there have been stories that staff members dumb them down for his short attention span) and while it would not be surprising to learn that he did see the Patton movie, he likely is incapable of understanding that all of his efforts to immortalize himself will someday be nothing more than the equivalent of a pile of ancient stones in the desert of history, an ancient 21st Century Ozymandias.

(Image credits: Statue—Society of Classical Poets; Trump Library—Youtube)

Reaching To the Stars

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They’re there.

Our “Star Sailors” travelling farther away from their source of life than anyone ever has traveled before, are circling the Moon today, four thousand miles beyond the flight of three men of Apollo 13, seeing parts of the noon only mechanical recording system have seen.

They are spending about six hours in their Orion spacecraft photographing places on the back side of the moon. And then they will sling shot back for a fiery return to our blue marble

Fifty-seven years ago, at Christmas 1968, three men from the planet earth saw what only had been seen with telescopes and the naked eye for millennia. Apollo 8’s Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders described the black and white images we saw of a gray and black world below them as they looped around the moon.

To those of us who could not take our eyes from our television screens showing us a desolate place almost a quarter-million miles away, the event was astounding. All of the science fiction we had read since we were in grade school dissolved in the reality of what we and the rest of his precious planet were witnessing along with those three men.

The men of Apollo 8 later showed us color photographs of earthrise over the Moon and the first photograph of the round blue marble as they left it behind and to which they gratefully returned.

It was Anders who is credited with seeing the entire earth at a glance who likened it to a fragile “little Christmas tree ornament against an infinite backdrop of space, the only color in the whole universe we could see. It seemed so very finite.” This image from Apollo 8 was the first time we saw what they saw—how alone we are.

The four astronauts aboard the Artemis II flight these five decades later, are the first people since December 1972 and Apollo 17 to let us see it again. To a new generation, to whom the daring dash to the Moon by Apollo 8 is only a page in a history books, the adventure is renewed.  Its goal, different from the Apollo landings, an exciting reach for humanity, perhaps re-establishes a focus on something greater than petty politics and near-constant wars.

Perhaps in these and other photographs to come will end decades of looking inward and increasingly finding the worst of ourselves and once again lift us to rediscover a time when, as one of the original Apollo astronauts said, “nothing was impossible.”

It brings back echoes of President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 when called for this country to send astronauts to the moon and bring them back safely.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. 

He saw he mission to the Moon would “serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skill.”

A new generation now picks up that challenge as the last of the old generation waits to learn what “new knowledge is gained, what new rights will be won and used for the benefit of all people.”

Carl Sagan, an astronomer of another generation whose television series Cosmos explained the wonders of the universe and mankind’s place in one tiny place in the vast emptiness of space, once showed a photograph taken far, far, farther away than these from Apollo and Artemis.

The photograph taken from 3.7 billion miles from us show only a tiny blue dot.  “Look again at that dot,” he said. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

The next step will be to send a new generation of Moonwalkers to make the dangerous descent,  to find new discoveries, and—we all hope—leave new footprints behind before they come home.

Geologist Harrison Schmitt was the last man to set foot on the Moon, the only true scientist to be there so far.  But Mission Commander Gene Cernan was the last man to leave a footprint on the Moon as he climbed the ladder to the Lunar Lander behind Schmitt.  He looked forward to the return and had some advice for the next people who step onto the lunar soil:

Cernan told Politico a few years ago:

There are times when I find myself almost involuntarily gazing at the moon — looking back on a time in my life that seems unreal. Oh, I’ve been there, all right, and know that my last footprints, along with Tracy’s initials, will be there forever — however long forever is. But it is not the past that any longer challenges me, but rather the future. Our destiny is to explore, discovery is our goal — curiosity being the essence of human existence. I often ask myself if we will ever go again where humans have never been before and see again what has never been seen before. The answer is absolutely yes.

In 1969, the world took a giant leap into the future as the result of that one small step by Neil Armstrong. Many more steps were to follow Neil’s, launching us into a new era of science, technology and, perhaps most important, discovery led by a new generation of young, eager scientists, engineers and educators who were inspired to accept the challenge and committed to see their dreams fulfilled. Today’s media coverage of that epic moment seems to many like science fiction. But it wasn’t. It was science fact and continues to this day to have significant impact on our lives, on our future, and, indeed, on the entire world. The benefits that have followed were hardly imaginable at the time. One of the core lessons from Apollo is that the greatest advances in science and technology happen as a byproduct of the bold steps we take when committing ourselves to expanding human knowledge and understanding. Perhaps the most important byproduct of Kennedy’s vision that took us to the moon is the passion inspired in the hearts and minds of those generations who follow in our footsteps.

We have again reached a challenge in human history. The moon, Mars and beyond — they are calling. The technology and systems to again reach for the stars are now within our reach. The benefits are there for us to claim. However, it will take the will of the American people, a sustained political commitment, and, once again, a leader with foresight and vision. Now is the time for America to recognize with pride our nation’s exceptionalism, regain our leadership in space and lead the free world on the next giant leap for mankind.

Today’s highly evolved and improved answer to Apollo is the Space Launch System and the Orion crew exploration spacecraft. Together they can open the door to the future, providing the capabilities we need, allowing us to finally reach the furthest frontiers of space. NASA and industry are making significant progress with the development of these deep space systems. American workers across the nation are making the probability of future space exploration again attainable. If I can call the moon my home before today’s generation was even born, what challenge can be beyond their reach? The driving force is the understanding that human space exploration is essential to the vitality of our nation, providing untold opportunity for generations to come.

Bipartisan support for space has remained strong since the days of Sputnik continuing to the present time. With determined leadership from the administration and ongoing support from Congress, we can enable NASA and industry to complete their work to build the systems we need to explore beyond the moon.

With SLS/Orion we are ready to seek out what the heavens have to offer — it is time for our nation’s leaders to commit to a clear logical destination, a mission, a goal with a timetable, plotting a course of new discovery. It is time to re-ignite, to re-energize the meaning of American exceptionalism. It is time to recognize what it takes to inspire young minds to dream big and accept the challenges their generation faces. We have the responsibility to provide them the direction and the opportunity to once again reach beyond their grasp in leading mankind into the future of discovery.

In a later interview, Cernan said, “Their future is going to depend on what we did a half a century ago. I’d like to be here to congratulate them, to thank them, and ask them what people ask me all the time, ‘What did it feel like?’

”Enjoy. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t take anything for granted. Be prepared for what you don’t expect to happen, and know that you, whoever you are, can do it. Not only can you do it, but can do it better than it’s ever been done before.“

Gene Cernan didn’t make it to this day. He died nine years ago.

Those who are sharing their view of the Moon with all of us here on “the good green earth” of Apollo 8’s Christmas message are the table-setters for those who will next land. Perhaps in this new era of exploration we will rediscover a belief in ourselves that has been dwindling since those days when “nothing was impossible.”

Only four of those who walked on the Moon survive.  Buzz Aldrin is 95 and in poor health. Dave Scott is 93. Charlie Duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon at age 36, is now 90. And Harrison Schmitte, the geologist who later became a U.S. Senator from New Mexico, also is 90. A dozen other men flew to the moon but did not walk upon it. Only Fred Haise of Apollo 13 survives from that group.

Just for the record: The remaining Apollo capsules were used to send nine astronauts to Skylab, our first space station. Joe Kerwin, 94, Jack Lousma, 90, and Edward (Hoot) Gibson, 89 are still with us.

Lousma and Haise were involved in the early flights of the Space Shuttle, as was moonwalker John Young (who died in 2018 as the only man to fly in the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle programs). Vance Brand, who would have commanded Apollo 18 if the program had not been cancelled, took part in the Skylab and Shuttle programs. He will be 95 next month.

NASA doesn’t plan a Moon landing until September 2028. We hope at least one of this generation will be here to welcome that crew back home.

(Earth pictures: NASA; Apollo astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, an accomplished artist who spent the rest of his life depicting that earlier era of moon flights died in 2018. His work that gave its name to the title of this entry, is signed by more than twenty of the Apollo astronauts. Several of his prints are available through Novaspace.com or on various other internet sies)

 

IGNORANCE

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Any good journalist abhors ignorance, even personal ignorance. Consumers of our products in all of their forms probably have no idea of the number of stories, programs, and books that spring from seeing something and thinking “?” and then learning the answer.

Most people don’t have or don’t take the time to pursue an answer. But it’s the old “who, what, when, where and how” that defines the journalist’s mind and the journalist’s work product.

I often have told people that it is the unknown that journalist face at the start of every day that makes getting up long before the rooster crows and staying up long after the sun sets. At the end of the day we have done something that science says is impossible: We have made something out of nothing. It’s called “news,” the unpredictability of life captured and the story told, a vanquishing of ignorance—-sometimes whether you want it vanquished or not.

Ignorance is dangerous whether it is in common courtesies, traffic codes, health warnings, but especially in politics where ignorance not only is preyed upon by candidates and advocates but by those who have been given great responsibility.

We are alarmed by steps being taken to erase the unpleasant parts of our past and to be dishonest about our heritage and the responsibilities we have as citizens to conquer our baser relations with others, based on how we have overcome them in the past.

Today’s observation was triggered by the appearance of President Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who recently denied to host Joe Kernan of  CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the President’s interest in Greenland amounts to American imperialism:

“When has the United States engaged in imperialism? Never. Europe has engaged in imperialism. The reason the Danish have Greenland is because of imperialism.”

When has the United States engaged in imperialism? How about two centuries of it.  We would not be the United States if it was not for imperialism.

I reached onto my bookshelf for Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire, a volume Landry should read if he wants to rise above the ignorance that soaks this administration. What might we call the administration’s takeover of Venezuela and its threatened takeover of Cuba and Greenland and the earlier blabbering of making Canada the 51st state if not “imperialism?”  Added to that discussion is the frequent dismissal in this administration that Puerto Ricans are not Americans.

The administration in its efforts to cleanse or whitewash our history prefers we are ignorant of many things including that the imperialistic spirit was part of this nation from the beginning, when early explorers operating under an already-ancient papal proclamation that it was proper to seize lands from “infidels,” claimed lands occupied for thousands of years by others in the name of God and Country.

Just 55 years after the landing of businessmen the a few religious dissenters landed at Plymouth, the first war broke out between Europeans and Native Americans when the Europeans wanted to expand the borders of Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island. It was the beginning of a 200 year-plus takeover of territories occupied by dozens of previously independent nations.

Two especially egregious examples are the subjugation of the Cherokees, a people with their own constitution and their own written language, with their own plantations is six southern states, their own capital and their own system of slavery.  They were given a new territory to occupy in the 1830s so the Europeans could have their ancestral lands.

Throughout the rest of the 19th century, similar measures were enforced with the forced movement of other nations, some of whom wound up in the same place, a place set aside for Indians. But the attraction of unassigned territory in that area created the 1889 Land Rush when 50,000 settlers roared in to take over the area. The now-“American” area was recognized in 1907 as the state of Oklahoma.  Not until seventeen years had passed did the people displaced through the decades and now disrupted by the land rush—the people of the Indian nations forced there— become recognized by congressional action as American citizens although it was not until 1948 that Congress passed the Indian Voting Rights Act.

The 1846 Mexican war made one-third of Mexico part of the United States. Fifty years later, we went to war with Spain and fought the Philippine War to claim that land.

Immerwahr looks at 1941 as an example of our imperialist holdings: Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states. But these also were NOT foreign countries: Philippines, Puerto Rico, Panama Canal Zone, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. (Panama was Panamanian but it was leased to the United States at the time.) One out of eight people in the United States lived outside the 48-state “logo map” as he calls it.

He also notes a “stream of smaller engagements” that have bought at least parts of other nations under our control for military bases. He cites 211 times that American troops have been deployed to 67 other countries since 1945.

The book came out before Venezuela and Iran.

Immerwahr concludes the introduction to his book, “At various times, the inhabitants of the U.S. Empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured, and experimented on. What they haven’t been, by and large, is seen”

Landry asked, with his ignorance on full display, “”When has the United States engaged in imperialism?”  The truth is in Immerwahr’s book should he care to read it although this seems to be an administration led by a President whose questionable reading habits and abilities have been much discussed and whose preference for historical literacy seems non-existent, a “blessing” he demands be extended to all of us in a year when accurate recall of our history should be our guiding interest.

We leave you with these cautionary words from President Calvin Coolidge:

“It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”

And ignorant.

 

 

A Congressman Steps Down; Thousands Protest 

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It would be nice if the headline reflected reality.  But in the case of Congressman Sam Graves, a native of Tarkio in the far northwest corner of Missouri, it’s not his retirement that has triggered the protests.  We’re going to offer some quick, surface, observations about these two separate events and how Missouri’s chaotic 2026 elections just got more interesting.

I remember Sam Graves mostly because he caused me some sleepless nights. More on that later.

Sam is now 62. He has served 26 of those years in Congress. He might just be hitting his prime and he’s leaving. The website legistorm.com calculates the average age of members of the U.S. House is 58 (for all of Congress it’s 61.5). However, he has served twice as long as the average length of service for U.S. Representatives. In fact, Graves is 32nd in seniority among the 435 members of the House (the Dean of the House is Kentucky Congressman Harold Rogers who is 88 and in his 45th year, his 23rd term and he will seek a 24th.).

The longest-serving Congressman from Missouri was Clarence Cannon, from Elsberry, in northeast Missouri. He died in office after 41 years 69 days and planning for more before a fatal heart attack in 1964. He ranks 29th as the longest-serving member of the U.S. House, 49th  on a list that also includes Senators.

In 1963, the year Graves was born, country music star Jim Reeves put out a song by fellow singer and songwriter Bill Anderson called “I’ve Enjoyed About as Much of This as I Can Stand.”  We don’t know if he has heard the song but in joining 35 other Republicans who are leaving, we wouldn’t be surprised if several of them felt that way (there are 21 Democrats who have decided there’s more to life, too).

Already, several fellow Republicans and at least three Democrats have filed or expressed an interest in filing for his seat and it would be no surprise if the numbers did not increase on both sides.

The Sixth Congressional District is a rural one that covers the entire sparsely-settled rural north Missouri—36 of our 114 counties. It has been solidly conservative for a long, long time.

But the political climate nationwide seems to be changing. Last weekend there were at least 33 “No Kings” rallies in Missouri, nine in the Kansas City area, eight in the St. Louis area, thirteen outstate and three more in northwest Missouri.

Here is something to ponder for the sixth district.  A “No Kings” rally in Quincy, Illinois—not listed among 33—probably had some attraction for some northeast Missourians in the sixth district. TEN of the scheduled rallies on the Missouri side of the Mississippi were in Graves’ present district.  Ten of them. Excelsior Springs, Harrisonville, Kearney, Liberty, Platte City, Madison, Moberly, Maryville, Chillicothe, and St. Joseph.

The “No Kings” movement has survived the winter and the Trump administration’s headline activities from Minnesota to Iran.  The sixth district will not have an incumbent with all of the vote-getting power that goes with incumbency.

The sixth district—in whatever form it winds up being after legislative action and courts reviews—might be more in play than it has been for two decades. And both parties know it full well.

Getting back to Sam—pardon the unfamiliarity but he was “Senator” when I covered him in the legislature and the last time I saw him I called him, “Sam,” an uncharacteristic familiarity that I almost never allow myself with present or past political figures.

There he is from the Missouri Official Manual (the Blue Book by more familiar name) for his first term in the Senate. He was in the Senate for the last years of Democrat-domination of state government.  I recall that he was collegial with good relationships on the other side of the aisle.

But the main thing about him that I recall is that he kept me up all night on at least two occasions.  Sam was not afraid of a filibuster but he rarely took a leading role and didn’t do it so often as to be tiring—as some have done more recently. And he was entertaining, something most filibuster participants never approach.

There were some senators after him who were so boring that I gave one of them a list of books to read that would at least educate those who had to endure them.  Sadly, the list went unused.

He talked about being a poor farm boy whose only pet, a three-legged dog named “Tripod,” was the star of some of his stories. The best performance, however, was the night he threatened to read the names of every high school student in his district who was graduating that year. Every time he was interrupted, he started over. As I recall, he finally forced a compromise on the issue under discussion—which is what filibusters should be for if participants respect them.

The only better filibuster story-teller than Sam Graves was Senator Danny Staples of Eminence.  I made sure I turned on my recorder whenever he asked another member, “Senator, did you know…..” because I knew what was coming.  The State Historical Society has several hours of Staples’ recordings. There are hundreds of other cassettes in the oral history collection that I have to listen to and label one of these days and there has to be some Sam Graves stories on them.  Or on the memory chips we used in later recorders.

He was a work horse not a show horse in his political career, as we observed him up close and from a distance. He’s young enough to have a long and prosperous K-Street career in Washington. K-Street is a street known for its offices of the special interest groups.

The folks in the sixth district would be well-served to seek out another work horse in November.

-o-

The Sounds of Their Voices

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I’ve been working on some of the history of my church and once again I have become curious about how the denomination’s founders sounded when they spoke, exhorted, preached, etc.

Two of the group that established the denomination were former Scottish Presbyterian ministers who broke with the church over limits in participation at the Lord’s Table.  But both men had been born and raised in Ireland. One live 57 years after coming to this country. Did he still sound Scots-Irish at the end?

When Andrew Jackson shouted his favorite oath, “By the Eternal!” did he have a southern accent? It probably wouldn’t have been as deep as the accents we associate with Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, but would there have been something?

Did Benjamin Franklin speak as Howard DeSilva portrays him in the musical 1776 or as Robert Preston portrayed him in the musical some years earlier, Ben Franklin in Paris?

Two people in particular intrigue me, one because I’m a native of Illinois and wonder about Abraham Lincoln’s voice at Gettysburg,  and the other because he is such a towering historical figure and a national founder, Thomas Jefferson.

Lena Torres has written about Jefferson on soundcy.com:

Descriptions suggest he spoke with a soft, measured tone, reflecting his reserved and thoughtful nature, while his Virginia upbringing likely influenced his accent, which would have been characteristic of the Tidewater region. Additionally, his extensive education and role as a diplomat may have imbued his speech with a formal, articulate quality. While we can only speculate, piecing together these details offers a glimpse into how one of America’s Founding Fathers might have sounded.

Thomas Jefferson’s voice, though lost to time, likely carried the distinct cadence of Tidewater Virginia, a region steeped in colonial history. This accent, shaped by the linguistic currents of 18th-century Britain, would have been a hallmark of his speech. Imagine a voice that blended the formality of British English with the emerging nuances of American pronunciation—a linguistic bridge between the Old World and the New…

A practical way to approximate Jefferson’s accent is to listen to recordings of modern British Received Pronunciation (RP) and then soften it with the gentle rhythms of the American South. Think of it as a hybrid—not quite British, yet not fully American as we know it today. For instance, the word “water” might have sounded more like “wah-tuh,” with a subtle elongation of the vowel, a relic of his British-influenced upbringing.

She writes a lot more at Unveiling Thomas Jefferson’s Voice: Reconstructing The Third President’s Speech | SoundCy

And Lincoln?  Was he like some actors who have portrayed him—Gregory Peck, or Raymond Massey, as deep voices and deliberate delivery, or the softer and higher-pitched voice of actor Royal Dano at Disneyland ((2098) GREAT MOMENTS WITH MR. LINCOLN Restored Disneyland Vinyl LP – YouTube 28:19 in for the audio animatronic figure’s speech)

A 2011 article for Smithsonian Magazine quotes Lincoln researcher Harold Holzer liked the way actor Sam Waterston (of Law & Order fame) voiced him in Ken Burns’ documentary about the Civil War and in other performances (Sam Waterston Reading The Gettysburg Address #gettysburg #gettysburgaddress).

But the closest might have been Daniel Day Lewis’ interpretation in the movie Lincoln. (Lincoln “Now” scene)

(He explained in an interview how he developed it (BBC News – Daniel Day-Lewis on finding Lincoln’s voice).

Holzer says in the article, “Lincoln’s voice, as far as period descriptions go, was a little shriller, a little higher…People said that his voice carried into crowds beautifully. Just because the tone was high doesn’t mean it wasn’t far-reaching.”

Getting back to Jefferson, Torres has some thoughts about then and now:

…In a world where loudness often equates to importance, Jefferson’s soft-spoken, low-pitched, and deliberate style reminds us of the power of restraint. Whether in leadership, education, or personal interactions, adopting a measured tone can elevate your message, making it more memorable and impactful. Experiment with this approach in your next presentation or conversation, and observe how a quieter, more intentional voice can command respect and foster deeper engagement.

I hope we rediscover that in our political discourses.

 

 

It’s Time to Order Another Obelisk 

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The Missouri Veterans Memorial at the Capitol is a quiet place,  of a slow-moving cascade of water flowing into a reflecting pool around which people can ponder how much is lost to war.

And how much will be.

To the east of the pool is a shaded walk that takes visitors past nine memorial obelisks remembering the nine wars in which Missourians have fought since statehood in 1821—Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and finally the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, less than a year after the ninth obelisk was dedicated—after an end date of that long war was determined—it is time to plan for a tenth one.

As this is written, no Missourian has been killed in Trump’s War—-which is not what it will be called in the black granite when the tenth obelisk is installed.  As of now, it probably will say “Iran War,” but it’s too early to carve anything into stone because we don’t know what the scope of this conflict will finally be.

Nor, apparently, does the man who ordered it. He started the war and now he is whining that NATO is giving him no help.

NATO, the people he has spent the last several years insulting and threatening, seems content to letting President Trump stew in his own juice.  NATO is more about protecting Ukraine (remember Ukraine, Mr, President?) and itself than helping President Trump.

The Coalition of the Willing has become the Coalition of the Unwilling.

To refresh our minds:  then-President George W. Bush declared at a NATO summit in 2002 that if Iraq President Saddam Hussein did not disarm (he was accused of having weapons of mass destruction), that the United States would assemble a “coalition of the willing” to do it for him.

Saddam didn’t. So George Bush’s United States and troops from 48 other countries backed the plan. Four countries eventually put boots on the ground—us, the UK, Australia, and Poland). More than three dozen other countries provided some troops but not major numbers. Some don’t even had standing armies but provide other kinds of help.

The coalition did not hold and it became a topic of political ridicule (Busch had offered foreign aid to participants, a policy that one columnist termed “a coalition of the billing” and another observer considered “a coalition of the shilling.”) By mid-2009 everybody but the United States and the United Kingdom coalition had backed away.  The Coalition of the Willing was considered ended in 2010.

President Bush assembled his coalition before the fight began.  President Trump just barged right in—BOMBED his way right in—to a new war and did not ask for help until Iran fought back and closed the Straits of Hormuz. Only then did he look for friends in NATO only to find he didn’t have very many anymore.

He’s watching his foreign policy by sledgehammer wielded by amateurs turn into quicksand. He is so desperate that he has lessened some sanctions against Russia—imposed as a reaction to the invasion of Ukraine—in an effort to relieve some pressure on the oil supply which seemingly could help finance further Russian operations against Ukraine, if we understand where this policy is leading.  He’s firing missiles the way kids fire bottle rockets on July 4th while China watches our war-making or defensive armaments dwindle and also watches Taiwan. The early talk about not using troops is ominously sounding like —using troops.

Some observers have suggested that Iran is Trump’s Ukraine.

“Some people will die, I guess,” the President has said.

Order the tenth obelisk. Too bad the state can’t send the bill for it to President Trump.

A few weeks ago, my state representative, Dave Griffith, asked me if I could find how many Missourians died in the wars of the eighth and ninth obelisks (Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan).  I could not locate numbers but I did find a website that listed the names of all of the military people who died in those conflicts. I picked out the Missouri names and sent them to him.

Their names won’t be on the obelisks although the number of those who died will be someday.

Their names are on their own monuments scattered throughout the graveyards of Missouri and elsewhere, unfortunately soon to be joined by similar monuments from Trump’s War.  Here is the list from President Bush’s War, with the date of official notification.  We pray their tragic coalition will not be joined by a new coalition from Mr. Trump’s War, but we fear it will be.

Let us know if your loved one killed in these long wars is not on the list.

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The Boodle Scandal, part Two

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Monday we promised you an opportunity to see a forgotten Missouri political, one of the most sensational ones of the Twentieth Century. Muckraker Lincoln Steffens described how money can distort public policy, a common and visible public concern today.

What was this scandal about?  An innocent everyday-used substance that is part of our diet today. Steffens’ magazine article is long. As you read it, you might think, “Nothing has changed.”  We’ll comment afterward what happened to some of the participants in his historic controversy.

Enemies of the Republic

Lincoln Steffens

[Reprinted from McClures, VOL. XXIll, October, 1904 No.6]

THE POLITICAL LEADERS WHO ARE SELLING OUT THE STATE OF MISSOURI, AND THE LEADING BUSINESS MEN WHO ARE BUYING IT – BUSINESS AS TREASON-CORRUPTION AS REVOLUTION

EVERY time I attempted to trace to its sources the political corruption of a city ring, the stream of pollution branched off in the most unexpected directions and spread out in a network of veins and arteries so complex that hardly any part of the body politic seemed clear of it. It flowed out of the majority party into the minority; out of politics into vice and crime; out of business into politics, and back into business; from the boss, down through the police to the prostitute, and up through the practice of law, into the courts; and big throbbing arteries ran out through the country over the State to the Nation-and back. No wonder cities can’t get municipal reform! No wonder Minneapolis, having cleaned out its police ring of vice grafters, now discovers boodle in the council ! No wonder Chicago, with council-reform and boodle beaten, finds itself a Minneapolis of police and administrative graft! No wonder Pittsburg, when it broke out of its local ring, fell, amazed, into a State ring! No wonder New York, with good government, votes itself back into Tammany Hall!

They are on the wrong track; we are, all of us, on the wrong track. You can’t reform a city by reforming part of it. You can’t reform a city alone. You can’t reform politics alone. And as for corruption and the understanding thereof, we cannot run ’round and ’round in municipal rings and understand ring corruption; it isn’t a ring thing. We cannot remain in one city, or ten, and comprehend municipal corruption; it isn’t a local thing. We cannot “stick to a party,” and follow party corruption; it isn’t a partizan thing. And I have found that I cannot confine myself to politics and grasp all the ramifications of political corruption; it isn’t political corruption. It’s corruption. The corruption of our American politics is our American corruption, political, but financial and industrial too.

Miss Tarbell is showing it in the trust, Mr. Baker in the labor union, and my gropings into the misgovernment of cities have drawn me everywhere, but, always, always out of politics into business, and out of the cities into the state. Business started the corruption of politics in Pittsburg; upholds it in Philadelphia; boomed with it in Chicago and withered with its reform; and in New York, business financed the return of Tammany Hall. Here, then, is; our guide out of the labyrinth. Not the political ring, but big business,-that is! the crux of the situation.

Our political corruption is a system, a regularly established custom of the country, by which our political leaders are hired, by bribery by the license to loot, and by quiet moral # support, to conduct the government of city, state, and nation, not for the common good, but for the special interests of private business. Not the politician, then, not the bribe-taker, but the bribe-giver, the man we are so proud of, our successful business man-he is the source and the sustenance of our bad government. The captain of industry is the man to catch. His is the trail to follow.

We have struck that trail before. Whenever we followed the successful politician his tracks led us into it, but also they led us out of the cities-from Pittsburg to the State Legislature at Harrisburg; from Philadelphia, through Pennsylvania, to the National Legislature at Washington. To go on was to go into state and national politics and I was after the political corruption of the city ring then. Now I know that these are all one. The trail of the political leader and the trail of the commercial leader are parallels which mark the plain, main road that leads off the dead level of the cities, up through the States into the United States, out of the political ring. into the System, the living System of our actual government. The highway of corruption is the ” road to success.”

Almost any State would start us right, but Missouri is the most promising.

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The Boodle Scandal, Part One

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I want to take you back to the early Twentieth Century when muckraking reporters such as Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Upton Sinclair, and Jacob Riis—to name a few—were writing powerful newspaper and magazine articles exposing the ugly underside of government and business and the partnerships between the two that sometimes amounted to a betrayal of our country or our state for their personal or corporate benefit.

Today we call them investigative reporters, people who burrow into the inner workings of business/government relationships that corruptly enrich a few and harm the many—not unlike too many things we are seeing today at the national and even the state levels wherever you might live.

In our entries today and on Wednesday we are going to bring you Lincoln Steffens’ “Enemies of the Republic” from the October, 1904 issue of McClures magazine.  But first, we need to set the stage.

“Boodle” in those days referred to bribery.  A boodler was one who gave or who accepted bribes to influence public policy.

The story of the great boodle scandal in Missouri came to me many years ago in researching the stories of the ministers of my church in Jefferson City and the brief career here of Crayton S. Brooks, a fiery temperance preacher who came to what was then a pretty wide open town particularly when the legislature was in session every other year.

On Sunday evening, March 1, 1903 Rev. Crayton S. Brooks—whose preaching earlier had led to the closing of pool halls and gambling houses—asserted from his pulpit at the First Christian Church four blocks from the Capitol that “there were $1,000 bills being exchanged in Jefferson City by men not in the habit of handling such amounts of money,” the implication being that they were buying votes in the legislature.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Joseph J. McAuliffe happened to be in one of the pews that night and wrote about the sermon. There is a lot I wish we knew about their relationship  and why a St. Louis reporter “happened” to be at the church that night, but we do know that Brooks admired St. Louis prosecutor Joe Folk for his earlier work to bring down Ed Butler, the St. Louis political boss and had made a trip to St. Louis earlier in the year, although the accounts do not say why, leaving the door open to some speculation.

Representative Edward Eversole of St. Louis was named to lead a committee investigation and started summoning witnesses from among the lobbying corps. He said, “We saw men we wanted standing about the corridors and lobby of the Capitol four deep, but as soon as one or two were served there was a wild stampede and the greatest time you ever heard of getting out of town.”

He investigation eventually led to the indictments of four Senators who were accused of taking bribes for their votes on a bill concerning the ingredients of baking powder. Steffans will explain that in  his article.  Lieutenant Governor John Adams Lee, who planned to run for governor in 1904, was exposed as the middle man who delivered the bribes from the Royal Baking Powder Trust to the four legislators, resigned and fled to Chicago.

Steffens’ article said, “There is nothing partisan about graft. Only the people are loyal to party. The ” hated” trusts, all big grafters, go with the majority. In Democratic Missouri, the Democracy is the party of “capital.” The Democratic political leaders, crying down the trusts, corner the voters like wheat, form a political trust, and sell out the sovereignty of the people to the corporation lobby. And the lobby runs the State, not only in the interest of its principals, but against the interest of the people.”

In 1992, Missourians adopted term limits, an amendment that missed the target it should have hit and as we have seen in the years since opened the door to loss of legislative independence and replaced it with—too often—outside influence.  As it was put in 1992, adoption of term limits will end corporate memory in the legislature and the power to set public policy will pass from the legislative chambers to the hallways.

I watched it happen. Only after term limits went into effect did I hear the sponsor of a bill ask someone with an amendment, “Have you run this by so-and-so in the hall?” The question became unnecessary as cell phones proliferated and lawmakers could get messages while debating bills.  House and Senate rules ban lobbyists from the legislative floors.  But the cell phone’s texting app puts them there electronically.

Ineffective campaign spending limits and a U. S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations are, for political speech purposes, to be considered “people,” have had a profound effect on who gets access, how much of it they get and how they become manipulative of the process.

Understand that this is not saying all of our elected officials are crooked or can be bought. We have to trust the people we elect but we also must be aware of the awful pressures they endure to serve and the all-consuming world they live in for four intense months every year. Political courage sometimes is weakened in that climate because they are human and we sometimes are disappointed when the podium we put them on is not as high as we think it is.

We voters have a responsibility to pay attention to the issues they are dealing with so that our lawmakers are regularly reminded who they really work for.

Citizen cynicism is easy to come by and is a reflection on the citizen who refuses to maintain at least a modicum of awareness and is therefore less likely to be “cornered like wheat.”

That is where the reporter has a place—to expose as well as report. A good reporter has to have a bit of the spirit of Lincoln Steffens inside and our media must recognize the responsibility they have to be unafraid to rake muck when necessary.

Good reporters do not want to be liked by the people they report about. Nor do they want to be hated. They do hope to be respected as a necessary element of a free society. And they should be conscious of their responsibilities to citizens on both sides the aisle. They also must be unafraid, and expect those who employ them to be unafraid, too.

On Wednesday, you will read Lincoln Steffens’ Enemies of the Republic. It, unfortunately, has elements of truth that you will recognize in our present times.

(Picture Credit: Brooks—St. Louis Republic

The Missouri  Optimist

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Two years from now, we will observe the sesquicentennial of the publication of the first edition of the Blue Book, the Official State Manual as it is more formally called. Secretary of State Michael McGrath published it in 1878 not only to list the people and agencies that constituted Missouri government then but to use it as a one-man state chamber of commerce.  Amidst his extensive horn-blowing, we find some things still true of ourselves. We also find some things to which we still should aspire almost 150 years later.

This is his Foreword to “The Almanac and Official Directory of Missouri:”

MISSOURI. It is a truth that must be admitted, that very many outside of Missouri, and some even in it, know but little of its vast resources or of its immense wealth and unexampled prosperity, and when told scarcely believe it, so great is the extent and magnitude thereof.

There is no territory of equal size on the continent which contain so varied and such large quantities of the most useful minerals. Missouri may safely challenge the world to produce a Superior in this respect.

It is estimated by those who have computed the quantity of Iron in Pilot Knob and Iron Mountain, that there is, above the surface of these mountains alone, iron sufficient to afford an annual supply of 1,000,000 tons for two hundred years.

Lead and Zinc Ores are found almost everywhere in South Missouri, and the lead mines of Granby, Joplin, and Mine LaMotte, are almost inexhaustible.

Iron and Coal underlie some of the richest lands in the State. In many cases it is difficult to determine whether the agricultural or mineral resources are most remunerative. If Missouri were as densely populated as England, it would have a population of 25,000,000, and by the extent and diversity of its resources is far better able to support this vast number in competency and independence than England is to maintain its present population. This seems incredible but is nevertheless the fact.

 Missouri presents to the farmer conditions of soil and climate favorable to his calling. The richness of the soil cannot be surpassed. Farms, after bearing without artificial fertilization twenty-five successive crops, have failed to show scarcely any decrease in productiveness; water is abundant, and streams and springs are found in every portion of it,

Its climate is delightful; the winters are short and mild, and the summers long and temperate. In Missouri, agriculture will compensate the skillful and industrious follower with independence and wordly riches. To it manufacturers are invited, with the offer of rich facilities, and if natural adaptation, be any evidence of the future, Missouri will at no distant day become the workshop of the Great Valley of the Mississippi.

It is unnecessary to enumerate the articles that ought to be manufactured in it; there is scarcely a want or luxury of domestic manufacture known to the human family but what can be readily supplied from it. Railroads traverse all portions of the State, and reach almost every city, town and village in it.

Missouri, being already rated the fifth State in the confederation, and soon to become the fourth with an area exactly equal to that of all the New England States put togeiher, and once and a half as large as tbe great State of New York; and in the City of St. Louis, now the third in size and population in the Union, as its Metropolis, it requires no prophecy to foretell the millions who will within the next twenty years seek homes within it.

A calculation based upon the census is all that the prediction demands. The present population, according to the last State census of 2,100,000 is entirely insufficient to develop her vast resources, and it therefore seeks the co-operation of colonists from the Eastern, Northern, and Southern States, and of the sturdy and industrious immigrants who annually arrive in this free country, fleeing from oligarchal and despotic governments, to better themselves. It invites also the overcrowded of the seaboard cities of this country, to cross the father of waters and make their homes within her.

Missouri may be regarded as offering greater inducements, as to climate, soil and fertility to the farmer, artisan, laborer, colonist and immigrant than any of the other States or parts of the country. Missouri promises to all a cordial welcome, and liberal compensation for labor. Millions may settle within her borders without exhausting the ample means in store for them. Her schools, both public and private, are the best in the country.

It may be said without fear of contradiction that Missouri is today the most prosperous and best governed State in the Union. In fact, no location in the Republic presents a more encouraging field for the honest laborer or the aspiring citizen.

Tbe contentions of the war have long since disappeared. Liberalism and toleration in politics and religion, are noted characteristics of her people. They are generous, hospitable and enterprising. Among them poverty and humble birth present no barrier to the attainment of wealth, distinction and honor. True merit is the criterion of success, and is fostered by hearty encouragement and profitable recognition.

Occupying, as she does already, a front rank among the States of the Union, it is easy to forecast her future as one of glory and renown! M. K. McG.

We recognize this is a certain amount of puffery intended to promote Missouri and we frankly see the same sort of thing today although in modern language.

One line jumps out, however.

The present population, according to the last State census of 2,100,000 is entirely insufficient to develop her vast resources, and it therefore seeks the co-operation of colonists from the Eastern, Northern, and Southern States, and of the sturdy and industrious immigrants who annually arrive in this free country, fleeing from oligarchal and despotic governments, to better themselves.

Would he write that about us today?