Category Archives: people

Uncertainty

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I want to talk to you today about my greatest hero and about his life and his times which resonate in these uncertain days.

I want to tell you about helping George Clooney make a movie.  But Clooney, whose work I admire, is not the hero of this story.

Back about 2005, I was wrapping up my second chairmanship of my profession’s national organization, the Radio-Television News Directors Association (now the Radio Television Digital News Association) when George Clooney’s production company reached out to us to help with some information about Edward R. Murrow.  I also was the organization’s historian so the response fell to me.

Edward R. Murrow was, and is, my hero. To be involved, even in such a minor way as I was in producing an Oscar-nominated Murrow movie produced by George Clooney—who can be as serious as a heart attack in his work although many of his movies are light-hearted—is one of the most important distinctions I have gathered.

Murrow had given his greatest speech at our convention in 1958, three months after See It Now was killed by CBS boss William S. Paley. It’s known as the “wires and lights in a box” speech.  It’s also considered his professional suicide speech because he was critical of the early network television news decisions as he warned: “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box….”

Here’s the entire speech, should you choose to listen, from our convention more than 65 years ago:

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I provided the background information and a copy of the organiztion’s 1958 logo for the opening and closing segments of the movie.  You won’t see my name or that of RTNDA in any of the credits, but that was my contribution. I am not bothered by the omission. It was, after all, a minuscule part of the story.

When the movie came out, RTNDA had a reception in Washington where Clooney, Strathairn, and Grant Heslov (who played a young Don Hewitt, the creator of Sixty Minutes), attended.  I have a signed movie poster in my loft office.

Seventy-one years ago, he said:

“If we confuse dissent with disloyalty–if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox–if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought.”

McCarthyism was ramping up in America at the time.  There are those who feel we are in our greatest peril since then, perhaps greater.  Reading these words reminds us that we as a people have been where we are before and we have survived because reporters such as Murrow (and we still have some today although we are also bombarded by many on the other side) refused to back away or had no fear in confrontations with demagogues. The story of a free nation seems to be cyclical, which is one reason to study unvarnished history.

His most famous broadcast was “See it Now” on March 9, 1954 when he used McCarthy’s own words to condemn him, concluding:

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.

“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it–and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

David Strathairn recreated those remarks with great effectiveness in the movie.

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I invite you, especially if you are a reporter today or a young person wanting to be a reporter in this rapidly changing world of journalism, to watch this 1975 program about Murrow, produced by the BBC.

:Bing Videos

And I invite you to read this column from constitutional lawyer John Whitehead, written in 2005 when the movie came out. It seems appropriate now:

The Rutherford Institute :: Edward R. Murrow: “We will not walk in fear, one of another.” |

I close with Murrow’s words that are a challenge to all of us when there are those who believe they can seize power because they can intimidate a nation.

“This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities.”

 Murrow reaches out to us seventy years after that broadcast. All we have to do is remove “Senator McCarthy” and fill in another name and we will understand the challenge we as citizens must not avoid meeting.

One of Murrow’s journalism descendents, Dan Rather, used to close his broadcasts with the word, “Courage.”

May all of us, we who are not descended from fearful men and women, find it in 2024.

 

Big D in Dallas; a W in Columbia and KC; and a Couple of Goodbyes

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—The catchy lyrics are from a Broadway musical show decades ago:

Hooray for Big D
My, oh Yes
I mean Big D, little double l-a
Big D, little a, double l-a
Big D, little a, double l-a-s!

We saw a lot of Big D in the Cotton Bowl Friday night in the big stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play football.  Missouri and Ohio State waged a defensive trenth war for three quarters before Missouri broke through with two long, time-consuming scoring drives in the last twenty minues to claim a 14-3 win, their first bowl win against a top-ten team since the Tigers beat fourth-ranked Navy and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Belino in 1961.

The win was a statement victory for Missouri. The coaches and the players alike look at the win as an indication that Tiger football is back as a legitimate contending program with a solid core for 2024 that will be strengthened by new recruits and portal players.

How important a statement was this game?  For Missouri, it was a huge national story. Here’s what The New York Times senior college football writer, Ari Wasserman, said:

Mizzou was the program that walked off the field at AT&T Stadium as winners. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing game, a win in a New Year’s Six Bowl over a blue-blood program was the chef’s kiss for a Tigers football program that is trying to build something special.

 

This Mizzou win was proof that there was nothing flukey about this season, not even the close loss against Georgia in which the Tigers had a chance to win in the fourth quarter.

The best part? Cook is coming back. Wide receiver Luther Burden III, who made a game-clinching touchdown catch with 5:12 remaining, is coming back. And the Tigers had a handful of big transfer portal wins in December to ensure this roster is athletically equipped to do it again next year.

Imagine that.  From The New York Times no less.

Coach Drink was over the top in the post-game interview:

“We scored 14 points in the fourth quarter! We put our fist up, and we said we’re not givin’ in! We’re faster, stronger, tougher than you in the fourth quarter! And we got an elite edge, and we’re not gonna be denied! Now we’re the Cotton Bowl champs! M-I-Z!”

And the large Missouri crowd roared, “Z-O-U!”

Missouri’s defense was so fierce that the Buckeyes never reached Missour’s red zone.  They punted eight out of the eleven times they had the ball. Missouri, the number one red-zone offense in the country with conversions 54 of 55 times there, finally reached the OSU red zone three times but waited until the fourth quarters to score twice.   The teams went six for 31 on third downs but were four for four on fourth downs.

Yes, Ohio State played most of the game with a third-string freshman quarterback and without their leading receiver. But the Buckeyes could never spring their strongest running back nor could the offensive line keep black shirts out of the backfield. Missouri, which averaged more than 400 yards a game, couldn’t do much offensively either until the last twenty minutes.  The Dallas Morning News correctly labeled the game a “slugfest.”

The two teams combined for only 104 yards in the first quarter, 188 in the first half. The defenses recorded eight tackles for losses.  At game’s end, Ohio State had only 203 yards of total offense, only 97 on the ground. Missouri got most of its yardage in the late third quarter and in the fourth, starting with an eight-play 95-yard drive culminating in Cody Schrader’s seven yard power run into the end zone, and finishing with a bullet pass from Brady Cook to to Luther Burden III after a 91-yard drive.

It is somehow appropriate that Schrader and Cook both finished with 128 yards, Schrader rushing and Cook passing. Schrader finished his career with 1627 yards, a Tiger record that broke Tyler Badie’s mark set in 2021. Cook’s passing for only 128 yards was uncharacteristically low.  But Ohio State allowed only one quarterback to throw for more than 200 yards this year and had allowed only 13 touchdowns and only 1,769 passing yards (the fewest in the nation) all season. Cook’s pass to Burden stretched his number of games with at least one TD pass to seventeen.

Missouri held Ohio State to its lowest point total in the Brian Day era—Day is 56-8 in his career at OSU but he has some fans barking about the Buckeyes’ losses to Michigan in the last game of the last two years and following disappointing bowl games.

Drinkwitz joins Warren Powers as the only two coaches in Tigers history to take their teams to bowls in their first four years, with Powers doing it 1978-1981.

(BIG DRINK)—He came into this season on the brink.  At the end of the year, MU has decided it wants to keep Drinking. The University has extended Eliah Drinkwitz’s contract through 2028. He became the first Tiger to be SEC Coach of the Year since Gary Pinkel in 2014. He finished third in balloting for the AP national coach of the year. (ZOU!!!)

(Basketball)—The pre-conference season time for sorting out the core lineup has ended for Dennis Gates and his Tigers basketball players.  Now it’s conference time. They’re 8-5. Only Vanderbilt (5-8) had a worse pre-conference record. Ole Miss was undefeated in 13 games. South Carolina went 12-1.  Eight teams scored more points than the Tigers did.  Nine teams gave up fewer points that Missourl.

The Tigers polished off Central Arkansas 92-59 Saturday. They open conference play next weekend against Georgia.

(CHIEFS)—It’s been a struggle they’re not used to, but the Chiefs have clinched their division title again with one game left—aganst the Chargers next weekend. It’s their eighth straight division title.

Again, they started slowly, trailed 17-7 at one point before scoring 18 second-half points to beat the Bengals 25-17 while a ferocious defense shut down Cincinnati. Crossing the goal line remains a problem, however. The game was won on the toe of Harrison Butker, who hit six field goals (the record is eight by Rob Bironas of the Tennessee Titans, in 2007).

We finish with a little racing.

(CHECKERED FLAGS)—NASCAR and IndyCar have lost two champions in the last week.

Cale Yarborough ran in both series.  He was a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, the first to win three titles in a row.  He was 84.

He won the Daytona 500 four times and the Southern 500 five times. His 83 career victories are tied for fifth on the all-time win list. He won 69 poles, fourth on the all-time list and holds the modern era record with fourteenof them in a row.  In his younger days he was an unusual three-sport athlete who had a football scholarship to Clemson, was a Golden Gloves boxer, and a racer.  He gave up his Clemson scholarship one weekend when a race conflcted with a football game and he decided to race.

He also competed in four Indianapolis 500s.  His first 500 was in 1966 when he qualified 24th in the 33-car field only to become one of 11 drivers eliminated in a first-lap crash and was awarded 38th place.  He was 17th the next year and did not race at Indianapolis again until 1971 when he finished 16th.  His last race at IMS was in 1972 when he started next-to-last and came home tenth.

The winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500, Gil de Ferran, died of an apparent heart attack while driving in an event in Florida with his sone.  De Ferran won the European Formula Thee title in 1992. Although he tested for the Arrows and Williams F1 teams, he was never signed.

He came to the United States and won championships in one of the IndyCar series in 2000 and 2001. In the 2003 Indianapolis 500, he outdrove Penske teammate Helio Castroneves, finishing 2.29 seconds ahead of his Brazilian countryman and denying Castroneves a chance to win three 500s in a row.

DeFerran retired from open wheel racing after that win and drove in the American LeMans’ Series for a time.

In qualifying for the California 500 in October, 2000, DeFeran set a world’s closed-course speed record of 241.428 mph. The record still stands.

de Ferran was just 56.

(Photo Credits:  Drinkwitz, The Spun; Yarborough, WRTH;; de  Ferran, IMS)

A Christmas Carol Some Christians Wouldn’t Want to Sing

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A final thought about Christmas before we focus on the challenges of 2024:

Ken Kehner, the extremely talented pianist who accompanies our great Director of Music Ministry and incredible organist, Greten Hudepohl, at the First Christian Church here in Jefferson City,played a Christmas hymn during our communion service yesterday.  I recognized it on about the second note as one of my favorites.

It’s one of the Alfred Burt carols and it’s too bad that they are not better known or more frequently performed.

Alfred Burt was the son of a Michigan Episcopal cleric who graduated from the University of Michigan in 1942 as an outstanding student in music theory, and played trumpet, primarily jazz trumpet, in orchestras and bands.  But once a year, for 15 years between 1942 and 1954, he carried on his father’s tradition of writing a Christmas carol that was sent out to friends instead of Christmas cards. He was only 34 when he died.

Actually, Burt wrote the music and Wihla Houston, the organist at the senior Burt’s Church wrote the lyrics.

In 1951, they produced “Some Children See Him:”

Some children see Him lily white
The baby Jesus born this night
Some children see Him lily white
With tresses soft and fair.

 

Some children see Him bronzed and brown
The Lord of heaven to earth come down
Some children see Him bronzed and brown
With dark and heavy hair.

 

Some children see Him almond-eyed
This Savior whom we kneel beside
Some children see Him almond-eyed
With skin of yellow hue.

Some children see Him dark as they
Sweet Mary’s Son to whom we pray
Some children see him dark as they
And they love Him, too.

 

The children each in different place
Will see the baby Jesus’s face
Like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace
And filled with holy light

 

O lay aside each earthly thing
And with thy heart as offering
Come worship now the infant King
To his love that’s born tonight. 

This should be a hymn/carol of our time, a time when some who are convinced only their interpretation of Jesus is acceptable or that skin color is a measure of humanity, opportunity, and place, or that believe origins presently or long ago define the quantity of equality to be granted.

But there will be some calling themselves Christians who will reject the idea that other faces see the face of Jesus differently.

Alfred Burt had lung cancer.  He died on February 7, 1954, just two days after he finished scoring the last of his songs, “The Star Carol.”

Ten years later, the singing group “The Voices of Jimmy Joyce, recorded Burt’s carols. It has been in my heart for all these years since.  Although Christmas already is fading from our lives and memories on this New Year’s Day, it might be worth listening to Alfred Burt’s carols that I hope stay with you, too, from Christmas to Christmas.

(58) Jimmy Joyce – This Is Christmas: The Complete Collection Of Alfred S. Burt Carols in 4k (1964) – YouTube

A grander performance was done by the Boston Boys Choir and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus accompanied by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the baton of John Willliams, the great movie theme composer.

(58) John Williams: The Carols of Alfred Burt – YouTube

Alfred Burt, who died 70 years ago this year, gave us a great and abiding gift with the carols he and Wihla Houston composed.

Would that we could see each other the way “Some Children See Him.”

Let’s See How This Plays Out 

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Your faithful observer is a Protestant who believes that a faith that is so much based on love, whether it is toward one’s enemies, or in following as much as I can Jesus’ comment record in John 13: “A new command I give youL Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” can in so many ways pas judgment on who can love who.

My congregation lost some members a few years ago when our minister announced that he was a pastor for the congregation but a minister to all of God’s people and that he would, therefore, perform same-sex marriages (he had been approached by a same-sex couple wanting a marriage ceremony several weeks earlier).

A few days ago, Pope Francis allowed priests to bless same-sex couples.  The declaration has been described by The New York Times as “his most definitive step yet to make the Roman Catholic Church more welcoming to L.G.B.T.Q Catholics and more reflective of his vision of a more pastoral, and less rigid, church.”

It seems to be a major step away from the church’s long-held doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman. It is not, however, a complete break from that doctrine because the new policy refers only to “blessing,” not sanctioning marriage, a sacrament, a ceremonial rite of the church. The new rule makes that clear.

The Vatican says the blessing should not be part of any formal service but instead should be done during a private meeting with a priest, during a pilgrimage, or during a visit to a shrine or during a prayer recited in a group.

Kansas city Bishop James Johnston says the declaration “recognizes that God desires the good for all persons, including those in objectively irregular same-sex or heterosexual relationships, and if one reaches out for God’s assistance, that should not be denied.”  But he emphasizes that it would be a mistake to say the Church is “now approving or validating same-sex unions or unions which are outside of marriage.” A blessing does not signify the approval of the union but “allows for ministers to bless people in these difficult situations that they may be assisted by God’s grace along the path of conversion and salvation.”

The St. Louis Archdiocese describes those who seek the blessings as sinners.   “When we seek out a blessing, we come as sinners to receive God’s grace and mercy inour lives,” says statement from the archdiocese. “Blessings serve to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better and to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness.”

The statement refers to the blessings as “an expression of the Church’s maternal heart…a reminder that we nurture and promote the Church’s closeness to people in every circumstance n which they might seek God’s help and grace.”

The statement is aimed at more than LGBTQ couples.  It also applies to people who have divorced and remarried without getting an annulment of the first marriage.

About the same time the Pope’s declaration was making news headlines, NBC was reporting, “Moe than 500 bills targeting LGBTQ people were introduced in state legisltures around the country in 2023.  Of those bills, 75 became law, including two in Missouri banning gender-affirming care and restricting participation in school athletics.”

One of the most potent moral forces in the Missouri Capitol for decades has been the Missouri Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the Catholic Church. I recall its opposition to legislation allowing the cessation of brain function to be a definition of death. And its opposition to abortion has never weakened.

Now the Vatican has softened its stance on LGBTQ issues. Will that action trigger any softening of conservative faith-based lobbyists on anti-LGBTQ legislation?

In matters of faith dictating law, will there be an emphasis more on pastoring than on rigid judging?

But then, how does rigid judging agree with loving one another?

And which should prevail in our lives and in our laws?

Let’s see how the Pope’s declaration carries out in our government halls and in the quiet rooms of our homes whether we be Catholic or Protestant.

Or even nothing at all.

Suppose—-(A Brief Christmas Thought)

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Suppose the only thing we know about Abraham Lincoln was written by a few of the members of his cabinet many years after his assassination.

Suppose nobody had thought him important enough to preserve the cabin in which he was born (the one on display in Kentucky has a lot of questions about its validity) and mark it as a historic site.

Suppose none of his writings survived and only a few of his speeches and only a few anecdotes of what he said were preserved.

Suppose the address of the place where he died was lost to history.

Suppose nobody got around to taking his picture.

What would we think of Abraham Lincoln today?

Would there be a Lincoln’s birthday holiday?

—-such as the person’s birth billions of people are celebrating now?

Must have been a pretty remarkable guy.

The one we’re whose birth we’re celebrating  today.

This One Joins Legendary Defenses

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But this time it didn’t work.  REALLY didn’t work.

The story has been told that one of Missouri’s colorful early lawyers once had a client who had been accused of libeling another person. In his closing argument, the lawyer told the jury his client could not be found guilty of libel because he was such an inveterate liar that nobody would believe him and since nobody would believe anything he said, his remarks could not have slandered the plaintiff.

The story says the jury was sympathetic to that plea and the liar was found not guilty.

Such an argument came to mind a few days ago while listening and watching and reading of of the defense attorney for Rudy Giuliani in Giuliani’s trial for defaming two Georgia women with his lies about the 2020 election. He  had said he would take the stand in his own defense and prove that everything he had said was true. His attorney did not let him testify.

The defense, in the end, was an effort to evoke sympathy from the jury for the day’s equivalent of Missour’s 19th Century liar.  Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Sibley, told jurors, “We made the decision not to have my client testify because these women have been through enough. These women were victims and, as the court has ruled, my client has committed wrongf ul actions against them.”

Sibley might have made some jurors’ jaws mentall drop when he said, “I have no doubt that Mr. Giuliani’s statements caused harm; no question about it. But just because these things happened, it doesn’t make my client responsible for them.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!

“When you see my client’s state of mind, you’re going to say, ‘You should have been better but weren’t as bad as the plaintiff’s make you out to be,” Sibley said, because, “Rudy Giuliani is a good man.  I know that some of you may not think that. He hasn’t exactly helped himself with some of the things that have happened in the last few days. The idea of him being a racist, or him encouraging racist activity, that’s a really low blow. That’s not who he is. He overcame negative stereotypes.” .

“I know he’s done things that are wrong. I know these women have been harmed. I’m not asking for a hall pass on that,” Sibley said. But damages had to be “in some way tied to what the actual damages are.”  They had to be “more closely related to the actual damage number.”

And just what would be that “actual number?”

Sibley pleaded for the jury to have mercy on Giuliani, whom he described as a “flat earther” who would never quit believing  his own lies. Sibley harkened back to the days when “America’s Mayor” was a unifying force in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. “This is a man who did great things. If he hasn’t been so great lately, I want you to judge him by the entire character of who he is.”

Let’s add some context to this:  Twenty-five years ago, a prominent Democrat was accused of (pardon the vulgarity here) diddling an intern.  Bill Clinton said, “There’s nothing going on between us,” to his top aides. When a grand jury asked him a question to the effect, “Is there anything between you and Miss Lewinski, Clinton answered with this masterpiece of gold-medal verbal gymnastics:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is…If ‘is’ means is and never has been…that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement…Now if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relatons with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no and it would have been completely true.”

If there ever were created an Encyclopedia of Jabberwockey, the statements of Bill Clinton and Joseph Sibley would have to be featured.

Giuliani was Giuliani after the jury nailed him with a $148 million judgement: “The absurdity of the number really underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding. I am quite confident that when this case gets before a fair tribunal, it will be reversed so quickly it’ll make your head spin. The absurd number that just came in will help that, actually.”

It would not be surprising if an appeals court reduces the damage awards; they sometimes do that while upholding the defamation judgment.

Regardless of what happens on appeal, this jury sent a message to others who have espoused the “stolen election” lie and who are facing their own defamation suits from voting machine companies and from other election workers. They should be very nervous.

If reports are true, Giuliani has little money and many creditors.  Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss might see little or no cash.  But they have received justice.  Whether they ever can get their lives back, though, is questionable.

Is there any amount that could make these women whole again?  Ruby Freeman says people with bullhorns standing outside the house where she had lived for 20 years, shouting racist insults, have forced her to leave  her house and move time and again, her belongings in her car.

Shaye Moss said she’s afraid to leave house, fears being lynched, and that she’s received death threats repeatedly.

Sibley urged the jury to “send a messge to America that we can come together with compassion and sympathy. And I think we need that.”

Let’s just hold hands and sing Kum by ya, in other words. Shaye and Ruby can lead it off.

Giuliani’s state of mind.  We’re so tired of hearing the word “unhinged” used for him and for his leader and others in that merry band, but we don’t have hours to spend with the big dictionary at the back of the classroom to find a better one.

How did it reach this point?  How could a great man in 2001 fall so far in less than twenty years?

We have referred in a past column to Giuliani as the most pitiful person in American politics. He is likely to stand in history as a great example of the dangers of falling in thrall to a person of no morals, of no respect  for anyone else, of no goal but power. It is telling that Giuliani’s Pied Piper has never shown on his own social platform or political stages any responsibility for the actions taken by Giuliani on behalf of his leader.

It is possible to have pity on someone but have no sympathy for them.  What he and his leader have done to these women, to many others, and to the nation itself deserves stern judgement. The jury has inflicted what Sibley has called a financial “death penalty” on Giuliani. So be it.  He has never personally asked for mercy; he has, in fact,  shown no remorse for what these people have gone through because of his words and has blamed others for what he has said. He threw gasoline on his own fire during the trial when he told reporters , “Everything I said about them is true,” and he reiterated that the women “were engaged in changing votes,” remarks that the judge suggested could lead to another defamation lawsuit.

After the verdict Giuliani remained defiant—”I don’t regret a damn thing,” he said. So much for coming together with compassion and sympathy.

This is why we have jury trials.  A dozen people who struggle to achieve justice from injustice is one of the greatest parts of our democratic system. There are plaintiffs and there are defendants. And then there are the heroes of our democracy, the jurors.

The Governor and the Book

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I see that Governor Parson has written a book.  It will be released next March but some excerpts have been made available to the press.  He calls it No Turnin’ Back.

I look forward to buying one.  Maybe he’ll have a signing at Downtown Book & Toy. I’ll be near the front of the line, I hope.  Ernie and Hazel, the bookstore cats, probably will have to be locked away because the line is likely to stretch a good distance down High Street.

It’s going to be a historic book because Mike Parson has been a central figure during some major points of history.  He came into statewide office as Lt. Governor, set to fill the role as Senate President and preside over the chamber in which he had just served eight years, while Eric Greitens careened throughout the capitol as a governor who antagonized most of the people he needed to make into allies.

Then came the historic day when Greitens announced his resignation as governor, getting out of town before he could be run out of town.  Suddenly Mike Parson—who was tending to his cattle on his southwest Missouri farm that day—became THE top guy in state government.

Then Covid hit. And for stress-laden month after month, Parson had to steer the state through shortages, uncertainties, and deaths.

We haven’t asked him but we have asked several former governors about the toughest decisions they had to make.  The most frequent answer has been that it was the decision to allow an execution to go ahead.

No governor serves without making mistakes. Some are mistakes they know pretty quickly they made. Others will emerge with the passage of time that places conduct within context. We don’t have much doubt that Governor Paron will recognize what he could have done differently or done better.  But at the time, somebody had to do something, and once done there is no turning back, which is why the title is appropriate.

I wish more governors had done what he is doing. History will paint its own picture. But self-portraits have value, too.

Jim Spainhower, who was a former State Representative and later a two-term State Treasurer and a 1980 primary election challenger to Joe Teasdale, was also a minister of my denomination, the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ.  He wrote a book called Pulpit, Pew, and Politics.

He told me when my first book was published, “Now you can start your prayers by saying ‘Oh though who also hast written a book.’”

Mike Parson is a man of faith, as you will hear if you click on the two-parts of an interview Ashley Byrd of the Missourinet did with him.  He, too, will soon be able to begin his prayers with those words.

Maybe we’ll greet each other at the book-signing with those words.

He talks with the Missourinet’s Ashley Byrd about the book and about his life and his governorship on these links:

Gov. Parson writes autobiography, but not to prepare a run for another office (LISTEN TO INTERVIEW PT. 1) – Missourinet

Gov. Parson: This office is not about yourself, it’s a much higher calling than your last name (LISTEN – PT 2 INTERVIEW) – Missourinet

(We thank our friends at The Missourinet for the photo.)

Dictator For A Day 

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Who wouldn’t like to be Dictator For A Day?   Let’s be honest.  What would  you dictate?

How about world peace?

Economic stability?

Real opportunities to achieve the American Dream?

Or to define the American Dream?

An unending supply of money to donate to programs to feed the hungry, house the ill-housed, give everybody a chance for however much education they might need to reach  their goals, help crime victims, cure diseases, etc.?

Then what would you do on the second day?

—Because you’ve only been a dictator for one day?

Wouldn’t it be smart on the first day to dictate that your authority extended for the rest of your life?   (I’ve always wondered by people who rub the lamp and find a genie in their midst granting them three wishes didn’t immediately wish for unlimited wishes.)

Our former president says he won’t be a dictator except on the first day when he’ll build the wall and drill, drill, drill. We hope he doesn’t get a cramp in his hand from signing all of his executive orders.

One day of a dictatorship is 24 hours too many.

A long-ago friend of mine once remarked after listening to a public office holder proclaim upon his inauguration that God intended him to be in that office, “Never trust a politician with a messianic complex.”

Let’s take a big leap beyond that.

Never, ever, trust a politician who says he wants to be a dictator for only one day, or denies obvious thoughts of being a dictator far longer. An old limerick warns us against placing trust in such a person:

There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Values 

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It’s easy to get irritated by somebody who claims their values are somehow universal and by reference also must be my values if I am to be a good American or a good Christian, or a good something that only they can judge.

This has been going on for a long time in our political system.  The most prominent promoters of this presumption today are those labeled White Christian Nationalists.  They seem to have superseded so-called Evangelicals in their oppressive assumptions that they are righteously entitled to set a moral tone for me and for my nation.  Some folks combine the two into Evangelical White Christian Nationalists.

This issue has come up in recent days with a letter that Rep. Chris Dinkins, the Majority (Republican) Caucus Chair in the Missouri House, sent to Governor Parson that begins “I am writing to bring your attention to a matter of great concern regarding the resettlement of refugees from Gaza in our state. As a dedicated representative of the people of Missouri, I believe it is crucial to take a proactive stance on this issue and safeguard the well-being and safety of our citizens.”

She wants to keep people out “whose beliefs systems are rooted in anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments.”

She continued later, “Our state has a responsibility to protect its citizens and uphold the values that define us as Americans.”

Just what values is she talking about? “We cannot afford to compromise the safety and security of Missourians by allowing the potential entry of individuals who may harbor hostility towards our nation and its allies,” she says.

Potential entry?  Individuals who may harbor hostilities?  (Actually, the correct word to use in this circumstance is “might.”  As used to teach my reporters, might is prospective; may is permissive.  You might hit me in the nose but you may not.)

The kind of rhetoric in her letter is abhorrent.  We already have a gutful of this kind of conspiracy garbage from a presidential candidate who wants us to think all of those crossing our southern border are fentanyl-carrying killers, thieves, and rapists.

The timing of her letter is atrocious, coming about the same time three Palestinian students were shot while walking down the street near the University of Vermont in Burlington.  Police say two of them are United States citizens and the third is a legal resident of the United States. They were speaking Arabic and two of them were wearing keffiyehs, a headdress worn by Palestinians.

We will learn, eventually, if their shooter thought he should take action against “individuals who may harbor hostility toward our nation.”

What are our national values today? Are they such that we should remove the Statue of Liberty and Emma Lazurus’ invitation to send us the tired and the poor, the wretched refuse of other lands, those yearning to breathe free, the homeless and the tempest-tossed?

Many of those we idealistically have said are welcome are now stereotyped by politicians who seek success by fueling distrust and hate toward people who are not that much different from our own ancestors just a few generations ago.

Rep. Dinkins has ambitions for higher political office in 2024.  Perhaps she should publish a supplement to the letter she released online that outlines in specific and detailed form what she thinks are my values as an American citizen—and what your values have to be to be a good American citizen.

Governor Parson is on the wrong side of Dinkins’ values on this issue, and so, I hope, are most Missourians and Americans.  He wasted no time in throwing her proposal in the ash can, telling reporters, “You don’t have the authority to do that to start off with. I mean, anybody’s been around a little bit, the federal government can place refugees anywhere they want to without asking your permission. First of all, there’s this big difference between Palestinian people, and the people of Hamas. Hamas are terrorist groups that attack our country and hate who we are. We don’t want them here. But I don’t think you want to take everybody that’s from Palestine to make them as bad people. I don’t know that.”

There’s another prominent figure whose recent remarks put people like Dinkins in their places. Bill Bradley, the Crystal City native whose basketball exploits in high school and college led to a ten-year career in the NBA (that was delayed by more two years while he was a Rhodes Scholar and then in the Air Force Reserve) and three-terms as a U. S. Senator from New Jersey.

Our friend, Tony Messenger, wrote in his November 23 Post-Dispatch column about remarks Bradley gave during the Musial Awards event in St. Louis a few days earlier when Bradley received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the organization that promotes humanity and sportsmanship—

“Never look down on people you don’t understand.”

Tony noted the comment came four days after the St. Charles County Council considered a resolution opposing the International Institute’s program to make the St. Louis metro area a destination for certain Hispanic immigrants. The council did not take action.

The St. Louis metro area has been a haven for many immigrants including large numbers of Germans, Italians, and Irish people in the 19th Century whose cultures still thrive in that city—te German culture spreading well into the heart of the state. More recently, St. Louis has opened its arms to those fleeing from Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine in addition to many coming from Latin America.

Kansas City also has been a magnet for immigrants. In fact, it has the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce which works in eight counties on both sides of the state line and bills itself as “the birthplace of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (in) Washington, D.C.”

The immigration story of the St. Louis area and all of Missouri started even earlier than the 19th century. When Spain controlled Missouri, it welcomed French Canadian immigrants who were central to the defeat of an invading British force that convinced Native Americans it was in their best interests to try to capture St. Louis in 1780.  French citizens in Spanish St. Louis defeated that force in what is the westernmost battle of the American Revolution.

The Spanish government in control of what is now Missouri also invited another group to migrate here.

Americans.

George Morgan, a Philadelphia merchant and entrepreneur, was invited by the Spanish Crown in 1788 to create a colony on the west bank of the Mississippi River.  A couple of years later he created the town of New Madrid.

Some of the early American immigrants who came here were illegal aliens: Protestants, practicing a faith that was once illegal in Catholic Spanish Missouri.  Protestant ministers from the Illinois country used to cross the Mississippi under cover of night and provide services in darkened Missouri homes.

Tony concluded is column, “It is heartbreaking that officials would now look down on such immigrants — the latest chapter in another generation of an American journey. Once a year, the Musial Awards help remind us that it is our shared humanity that makes us great. This year, a big man from a small town in Missouri gave us the words that should echo in our heads, as we move from one political crisis to another. The solution that escapes us is more often than not to treat those with whom we disagree with respect and understanding.”

I want to add this from Vine DeLoria who wrote the best-seller decades ago, Custer Died for Your Sins: an Indian Manifesto:

“The understanding of the racial question does not ulti­mately involve understanding by either blacks or Indians. It in­volves the white man himself. He must examine his past. He must face the problems he has created within himself and within others. The white man must no longer project his fears and in­ securities onto other groups, races, and countries. Before the white man can relate to others he must forego the pleasure of denying them. The white man must learn to stop viewing history as a plot against himself.”

We wonder what Chris Dinkins would say to Bill Bradley.

Bill Bradley was and All-American as a college basketball player.  His example as an All-American in deed as well as in word is the value worth having. It is those who follow the Dinkins/MAGA ideal who are the aliens to the American spirit.

 

The Shrinking Book of Numbers

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Two things of note happened in our household during Thanksgiving week.  On the day itself, Nancy and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Only 56 of them.

The national record for longest marriage is that of Herbert Fisher Sr. and Zelmyra George Fisher, who made it to 86 years, 290 days before Herbert died on February 27, 2011.  Here’s the happy couple on their wedding day:

We are within 30 years and change of setting a new United States record.

The all-time record is held by Karam and Kartari Chand, who were married in India but lived in England when Karam ended 90 years, 291 days of married life by dying on September 30, 2016.  He was 110.

So we’re 34 years and change from setting a new world’s record.

We haven’t discussed it but I’m in if she is.

Incidentally, the longest current marriage is between Evert Stolpe and Annni Lepisto Stolpe, who are still hitched in Narpes, Ostrobothnia, Finland after (as of Thanksgiving Day in the USA) 82 years, 244 days.

Studies show (What The Average Marriage Length In US Says About Your Divorce Risk (fatherly.com) that the highest risk of divorce happens within the first two years of marriage, before there are children to complicate things. The possibilities flare up between years 5-8, the infamous “Seven Year Itch” period. But years 15-20 are average but growing because in this time of late marriages, people reach their 50s, the kids are gone, and who wants to stick around with this person through their declining years when there’s fun to be had?  “Gray Divorce” is increasing.

Apparently, we missed our chances.  Now, we’re stuck with each other, which is fortunately very good for both of us.

When I sent my parents a letter informing them of the upcoming nuptials in 1967, my father wrote back to note of congratulations and hope that we would be as happy as my parents had been.  “We never thought about divorce,” he wrote.  “Murder, sometimes, but never divorce.”

Or something like that.

Bowling Green University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research published a study that only seven percent of American marriages make it to 50 years or more.

Hooray for Us!!!

The second thing that happened during Thanksgiving week was the arrival of the telephone book.

The 1967 phone book was the first one in Jefferson City to have my name in it.  Right there, Priddy, Bob  1519 E. Miller Street.  It was a third floor attic turned into an apartment reached by a laong narrow flight of stairs. The kitchen was the biggest room in the place.  I lived there for about three months before we moved in together after returning from our Thanksgiving Holiday honeymoon in St. Louis (how old-fashioned that must seem in today’s relationships).

The house number later was changed when the city decided to renumber houses so that there was some logic to addresses (so first responders had a better idea where the fire was or the heart attack or the overexuberant family disagreement).

We later moved to an apartment closer to my work, which was a radio station in a building that no longer exists on Capitol Avenue (the radio station doesn’t exist in Jefferson City, either—it’s one of several radio formats crammed into a single building in Columbia).  Then to a rented house where our Ericofon sat on the floor between the bedroom and the living room.

(Have you seen the video of two 17-year olds trying to figure out how a dial phone works?  Check it out at (107) Hilarious video show 17 year old teenagers baffled by rotary phone – YouTube or another example at (107) Rotary Phone Challenge for Students in 2022 – YouTube).   I’d hate to see them figure out an Ericofon, which was the first phone Nancy and I had as a married couple.

For any younger readers: the dial was on the bottom and there was a button that was pressed when the phone was put down that disconnected the call.

Look back at that 1967 phone book’s cover showing Capital City Telephone Company serving Jefferson City. But there also was Midstate New Bloomfield, Midstate Centertown, Mistate Taos, Midstate Brazito, Midstate Eugene and dial St. Thommas. It had 77 pages of residential numbers with “favored businesses”—meaning they paid more—set in bolfface and 128 Yellow Pages advertising businesses by category.

(United Telephone moved in in the early 70s.  One day I spied a company pickup truck with the first name of the company misspelled, “Untied,” on one of its doors.  I quickly called the newspaper, which ran an embarrassing picture on the front page the next day.)

The phone book for 2020-2021 was 234 Yellow Pages and 70 White Pages. It was small and obviously a lot thinner than that historic 1967 book.  But it was about half the size, top to bottom and side to side—about the dimensions of what is known in the book biz as a “trade paperback” edition—about the size of my Across Our Wide Missouri books. But way thinner.

The new pre-Thanksgiving book had 16 pages of “featured businesses.”  It has 118 Yellow Pages.  And it has only twelve white pages—people who still have land lines.

Nancy found the names of a couple of friends on those pages. I have learned of a couple of other wons.  I felt a strong urge to call them, land line to land line, to celebrate our distinctions.  But I was interrupted by dinner.

Here’s the cover of the new one.

Look at the list of towns. It takes 21 of them to generate just twelve white pages.  I’m not sure how important it is for somebody from Tipoton, 36 miles to the west on Highway 50, to have my home number in Jefferson City but what few people there have phones that don’t fit in their pockets have it now.  Same goes for people in Syracuse, 41 miles away from our house, or Otterville (where the James gang pulled one of its last train robberies), 49 miles away, or Smithton, named for railroad promoter George R. Smith who was so disappointed the town didn’t want a railroad that he moved a few miles farther west and founded another town that would be more welcoming—naming it for his daughter Sarah whose nickname was “Sed” and therefore the town became Sedalia.

Well, we got a little carried away there. But the phone book lets a person with a landline 54 miles west of my landline to call me.  The number is small enough we might invite everyone to a picnic at the Memorial Park Pavilion. We will provide a small Waldorf Salad, without marshmallows because I can’t eat them anymore.

Phone books are one of many commonplace things that remind us of the changes in our world over time.

Fifty-six years of marriage and phone books.  And phones.  We now have three numbers, two of which reside in our pockets unless we’ve forgotten where we put them.

Has anybody ever kept track of how many hours in a year we spend looking for our cell phones?

Anyway—

56 years of family and phones.  And we’re in no mood to hang up.

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