January 9 was Richard Nixon’s 106th birthday

January 11, 2019

[We’ve been preoccupied here in Bathtubland, with family issues; but somehow I let Richard Nixon’s birthday go by without a comment. We really need to remember Nixon now, and why he left the presidency early. So, a couple days late.]

President Richard Milhous Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, on January 9, 1913.

Interesting to see so little public acknowledgement of Nixon’s presidency and his trials and vexations, which history offers insight and perhaps solutions to problems the nation has today.

Some views of Richard Nixon.

National Archives and Records Administration image: Nine-year old Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1922. National Archives Identifier: 306-PSD-68-3769.

National Archives and Records Administration image: Nine-year old Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1922. National Archives Identifier: 306-PSD-68-3769.

Richard Nixon, age 15, holding his violin, ca 1927-1928. Richard Nixon learned to play the violin, clarinet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion. When he was 12, Richard was sent to live and study music with his mother’s sister in central California. He returned home six months later and eventually discontinued his studies, but his love of music continued. Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

Richard Nixon, age 15, holding his violin, ca 1927-1928. Richard Nixon learned to play the violin, clarinet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion. When he was 12, Richard was sent to live and study music with his mother’s sister in central California. He returned home six months later and eventually discontinued his studies, but his love of music continued. Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

Richard Nixon with two friends, Fullerton High School, Fullerton, CA, circa 1929. (Surely someone could identify the other two men. I wonder who they are? What happened to them?) Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum Identifier: WHPO-B-0199.

Richard Nixon with two friends, Fullerton High School, Fullerton, CA, circa 1929. (Surely someone could identify the other two men. I wonder who they are? What happened to them?) Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum Identifier: WHPO-B-0199.

1945 photograph of Lt. Commander Richard Nixon wearing his Navy uniform. When Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 he wore his Navy uniform as he declared at the time that he did not have a civilian suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

1945 photograph of Lt. Commander Richard Nixon wearing his Navy uniform. When Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 he wore his Navy uniform as he declared at the time that he did not have a civilian suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Richard Nixon, with wife Pat and daughters Tricia and Julie, watch the antics of their pet cocker spaniel

Vice-President Richard Nixon, with wife Pat and daughters Tricia and Julie, watch the antics of their pet cocker spaniel “Checkers” while on a weekend visit to the Jersey Shore in Mantoloking, NJ, August 16, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House before the Vice President’s Ambassador of Goodwill tour departure to the Far East, October 5, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House before the Vice President’s Ambassador of Goodwill tour departure to the Far East, October 5, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Nixon spars with Premier Khrushchev before reporters and onlookers, including Politburo member Leonid Brezhnev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, in Moscow, 1959. Nixon and Khrushchev are photographed in front of a kitchen display – the impromptu exchanges came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Nixon spars with Premier Khrushchev before reporters and onlookers, including Politburo member Leonid Brezhnev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, in Moscow, 1959. Nixon and Khrushchev are photographed in front of a kitchen display – the impromptu exchanges came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Nixon’s life offers many interesting twists and turns. His Watergate scandal rather overshadows much of the rest — I think high school textbooks do not spend enough time on telling why Nixon was considered a good candidate for the presidency after losing to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, nor do they dwell enough on the effect of the Cold War on his career, and his effect on the Cold War. Check your kid’s U.S. history book — is the Kitchen Debate even mentioned?

Nixon would have been 105 years old on January 9. We might pause to reflect, and learn, from his life and trials.

More:

A wreath-laying ceremony commemorating President Richard Nixon’s 105th birthday is moved indoors because of rain. The wreath was placed by a large photo of the 37th president in Yorba Linda on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Orange County Register caption: A wreath-laying ceremony commemorating President Richard Nixon’s 105th birthday is moved indoors because of rain. The wreath was placed by a large photo of the 37th president in Yorba Linda on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

2 Comments | History, Presidents, Richard M. Nixon | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

January 9 was Richard Nixon’s birthday

January 10, 2018

President Richard Milhous Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, on January 9, 1913.

Interesting to see so little public acknowledgement of Nixon’s presidency and his trials and vexations, which history offers insight and perhaps solutions to problems the nation has today.

Some views of Richard Nixon.

National Archives and Records Administration image: Nine-year old Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1922. National Archives Identifier: 306-PSD-68-3769.

National Archives and Records Administration image: Nine-year old Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1922. National Archives Identifier: 306-PSD-68-3769.

Richard Nixon, age 15, holding his violin, ca 1927-1928. Richard Nixon learned to play the violin, clarinet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion. When he was 12, Richard was sent to live and study music with his mother’s sister in central California. He returned home six months later and eventually discontinued his studies, but his love of music continued. Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

Richard Nixon, age 15, holding his violin, ca 1927-1928. Richard Nixon learned to play the violin, clarinet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion. When he was 12, Richard was sent to live and study music with his mother’s sister in central California. He returned home six months later and eventually discontinued his studies, but his love of music continued. Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

Richard Nixon with two friends, Fullerton High School, Fullerton, CA, circa 1929. (Surely someone could identify the other two men. I wonder who they are? What happened to them?) Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum Identifier: WHPO-B-0199.

Richard Nixon with two friends, Fullerton High School, Fullerton, CA, circa 1929. (Surely someone could identify the other two men. I wonder who they are? What happened to them?) Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum Identifier: WHPO-B-0199.

1945 photograph of Lt. Commander Richard Nixon wearing his Navy uniform. When Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 he wore his Navy uniform as he declared at the time that he did not have a civilian suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

1945 photograph of Lt. Commander Richard Nixon wearing his Navy uniform. When Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 he wore his Navy uniform as he declared at the time that he did not have a civilian suit. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Richard Nixon, with wife Pat and daughters Tricia and Julie, watch the antics of their pet cocker spaniel

Vice-President Richard Nixon, with wife Pat and daughters Tricia and Julie, watch the antics of their pet cocker spaniel “Checkers” while on a weekend visit to the Jersey Shore in Mantoloking, NJ, August 16, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House before the Vice President’s Ambassador of Goodwill tour departure to the Far East, October 5, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House before the Vice President’s Ambassador of Goodwill tour departure to the Far East, October 5, 1953. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Nixon spars with Premier Khrushchev before reporters and onlookers, including Politburo member Leonid Brezhnev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, in Moscow, 1959. Nixon and Khrushchev are photographed in front of a kitchen display – the impromptu exchanges came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Nixon spars with Premier Khrushchev before reporters and onlookers, including Politburo member Leonid Brezhnev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, in Moscow, 1959. Nixon and Khrushchev are photographed in front of a kitchen display – the impromptu exchanges came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Nixon’s life offers many interesting twists and turns. His Watergate scandal rather overshadows much of the rest — I think high school textbooks do not spend enough time on telling why Nixon was considered a good candidate for the presidency after losing to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, nor do they dwell enough on the effect of the Cold War on his career, and his effect on the Cold War. Check your kid’s U.S. history book — is the Kitchen Debate even mentioned?

Nixon would have been 105 years old on January 9. We might pause to reflect, and learn, from his life and trials.

More:

A wreath-laying ceremony commemorating President Richard Nixon’s 105th birthday is moved indoors because of rain. The wreath was placed by a large photo of the 37th president in Yorba Linda on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Orange County Register caption: A wreath-laying ceremony commemorating President Richard Nixon’s 105th birthday is moved indoors because of rain. The wreath was placed by a large photo of the 37th president in Yorba Linda on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

3 Comments | History, Presidents, Richard M. Nixon | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

July 24 – Arrival Day: Journey’s not over until you get there; we are not there yet

July 24, 2015

There’s a lot of encore material here — I think about this in the middle of the summer, and July 24 is a good day to commemorate arrivals: It’s Arrival Day. It’s Touchdown Day.

July 24 – almost the end of the month, but not quite.

  • July 24, 1847: A larger contingent of Mormons, refugees from a literal religious war in Illinois and Missouri, entered into the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young, who famously said from his wagon sick-bed, “This is the place; drive on!”

In Utah, July 24 is a state holiday, to celebrate the date in 1847 that the Mormon refugees arrived in Salt Lake Valley and began to set up their agriculture and schools.  In Salt Lake City, bands from across the state and floats from many entities form the Days of ’47 Parade.  When I marched with the Pleasant Grove High School Viking Band, the route was  5 miles.  We had only one band uniform, for winter — I lost nearly 10 pounds carrying a Sousaphone.

When the Mormons got to Salt Lake, after a couple of months’ trekking across the plains (then known as “The Great American Desert,” the Great Basin and the Mojave being little known), and after being on the run for well over a year, they got right down to priorities.  Summer was nearly gone, and crops had to be planted quick.  Within a couple of weeks, the Mormons dammed local streams to create irrigation systems to grow what they could before fall (this is, popularly, the first major crop irrigation set up in America); they’d started to lay out plans for settlements, with straight streets based on Cartesian-plane grids:  The first serious community planning?  And they began construction of schools, knowing education to be one of the most important attributes in the foundation of free societies, a position Mormons have reneged on recently in Utah.  Water, communities, schools.

Heck, that’s a good campaign platform today. It’s with sadness I note few people run on such a platform, instead begging voters to be afraid of others who are different in some fashion. Fear quenches no thirst, makes no place for families, nor educates any curious child. Utah’s Mormon pioneers were on the right track. We’ve run out of the ruts, and we are not there yet.

Utahns will be flying their U.S. flags today.  (Remember, President Obama proclaimed this a period of mourning, through July 25; flags should fly half-staff where possible.)

Maybe spending a few weeks struggling across a prairie and risking your life focuses you on the important stuff.  How would it improve America if we put more people on a bus to Omaha, put them out there, and said, “Hike to Salt Lake City from here.”

They’d focus.  Can we start with Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell? Ted Cruz couldn’t make the journey. Donald Trump would die of sunburn. Wisconsin Gov. Ahab Walker would find no one to swindle, and talking down teachers and community builders wouldn’t be popular among fellow trekkers.

Ah, the good old days!

July 24 features a number 0f other arrivals, too.

From various “Today in History” features, AP, New York Times, and others, not in chronological order:

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returned to the Earth, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong — Aldrin and Armstrong having landed on the Moon.  In our celebrations of Apollo 11, and in our remembrances of President Kennedy, we may forget, though young kids rarely miss it, that Kennedy didn’t just say ‘Let’s put a guy on the Moon by 1970.’  Getting back safely was a key part of the challenge.

    First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

    On July 24, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 returned, safely.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ

Would there be a Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ, had the Mormons settled somewhere other than Utah? Wikipedia photo

  • July 24, 1866: Tennessee became the first of the Confederate States, the former “state in rebellion,” to be readmitted fully to the Union, following the end of the American Civil War. (Does Tennessee celebrate this anniversary in any way?)
  • July 24, 1911:  On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham arrived at Machu Picchu in Peru.  We still don’t know all the reaons the Incas built that city on the top of very high mountains.  Cell service was not a factor.
  • July 24, 2005: Lance Armstrong won his seventh consecutive Tour de France bicycle race. Little did we know then, the journey wasn’t over. (Lance Armstrong is no relation to Neil Armstrong.  Did I need to point that out?)
English: Cropped image of Richard Nixon and Ni...

Nixon advance man William Safire claimed later than he’d set up the famous “debate” between Eisenhower’s Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959. Nixon argued that the technology on display made better the lives of average Americans, not just the wealthiest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • July 24, 1959: Visiting Moscow, USSR, to support an exhibit of U.S. technology and know-how, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged Soviet Communist Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Khrushchev in a volley of points about which nation was doing better, at a display of the “typical” American kitchen, featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher.  Khrushchev said the Soviet Union produced similar products; Nixon barbed  back that even Communist Party leaders didn’t have such things in their homes, typically, but such appliances were within the reach of every American family.  It was the “Kitchen Debate.”Try explaining this to high school U.S. history students.  The textbooks tend to avoid this story, because it stops the class.  That’s a sign it should be used more, I think.  Does the Common Core even touch it?Nixon’s arrival as a major political force in the Cold War grew clear from this event.  The pragmatic stakes of the Cold War were drawn in stark contrast, too.  It’s interesting to ponder that microwave ovens were not part of the exhibit.

Cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1974, explaining the showdown between President Richard Nixon and the Special Prosecutor, playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Image copyright by Time Magazine.

  • July 24, 1974: In U.S. vs. Nixon, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to turn over previously-secret recordings made of conversations in the White House between Nixon and his aides, to the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate affair and cover-up.  Nixon would resign the presidency within two weeks, the only president to leave office by resignation.
  • July 24, 1975: An Apollo spacecraft splashed down after a mission that included the first link-up of American and Soviet spacecraft.  (The Apollo mission was not officially numbered, but is sometimes called “Apollo 18″ — after Apollo 17, the last trip to the Moon.)

More:

Salt Lake City, Utah, L. Hollard, photographer, 1912. Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

Library of Congress image caption: Mormon Temple Grounds, Salt Lake City, Utah, L. Hollard, photographer, 1912. Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991 [The building on the far right? That’s the old Hotel Utah, where Kathryn and I had a great wedding reception with plenty of champagne considering our many Mormon family and friends — some of whom may have sampled a little to see what they usually missed. It was such a great reception that the owners of the hotel, the LDS Church, stopped holding wedding receptions there and shortly closed it as a hotel; now it’s an office building with a fantastic lobby that makes any sensible person wistful for what used to be.]

Hoping not to arrive painfully on touchdown:

Ogden, Utah, Pioneer Days Rodeo Friday, July 19, 2013. Photo by Brian Nicholson

Bareback rider Jerad Schlegel of Burns, Colorado, clings to his horse as it falls to the dirt during a re-ride at the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo Friday, July 19, 2013. Photo by Brian Nicholson (go see his blog)

Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.

Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.

 

2 Comments | Apollo Project, Fly your flag today, History, Moon, Richard M. Nixon, Space Race | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

If you’re not remembered as much as Millard Fillmore . . .

January 10, 2014

The University of Buffalo honored Millard Fillmore today in a graveside ceremony on Thursday — postponed from Fillmore’s birthday on January 7 due to cold and icy weather.

Is Fillmore forgotten as much as many claim?

Compare to notes on the births of other presidents.

Richard Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 (same year as my mother!)  He’d be 101 today, and still not a crook in his view.

US Senate History tweeted:

Not quite so good as a graveside ceremony.  Funnier picture, perhaps.

But consider Andrew Johnson.  His birthday was a couple of weeks ago, on December 29.

Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808. His father’s death when the boy was three left the family in poverty. From age fourteen to age seventeen, young Johnson was apprenticed to a tailor. He then moved with his mother and stepfather to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he established himself as a tailor. Johnson never attended school but taught himself to read and write—he all but memorized the U.S. Constitution—and after his 1827 marriage to Eliza McCardle, a shoemaker’s daughter, acquired a good common education under her tutelage.

A gifted orator, Johnson quickly ascended the political ladder. In 1829, he won his first office, as an alderman. In steady succession he became mayor of Greeneville, a member of the Tennessee state legislature (1835-37, 1839-43), U.S. congressman (1843-53), governor of Tennessee (1853-57), and U.S. senator (1857-62). In Congress, Johnson supported the annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War, and sponsored a homestead bill that anticipated the 1862 Homestead Act. He also was the only Southern senator who firmly supported the Union and remained in the Senate throughout both the secession crisis and the Civil War. In the spring of 1862, after federal forces captured portions of Tennessee, President Lincoln appointed him military governor of the state, an office he held despite constant danger to his life.

Two years later, influential moderates such as William Seward worked to secure Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, as Lincoln’s running mate on the Republican Party ticket. According to a May 20, 1865, editorial in Harper’s Weekly, Seward had seen in Johnson “that his fellow-Senator, a land-reformer, a stern Union man, a trusted representative of the people of the South as distinguished from the planting aristocracy, was the very kind of leader by whom the political power of the aristocracy was ultimately to be overthrown in its own section.”

After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, little more than a month after their inauguration, Johnson assumed the presidency. His administration ran more smoothly in the foreign than the domestic arena: in 1867, Secretary of State Seward purchased Alaska and helped negotiate France’s withdrawal of troops from Mexico.

If nothing else, Johnson is notorious for having been the first president to be impeached (he was acquitted at trial by the Senate; best account probably in John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage).

Was there much of a peep in popular media on his birthday?

Any note?  I didn’t find it except in a very few of the “Today in History” columns.

Johnson may be forgettable, though — not considered a good president (who could be following Lincoln!).

What about Woodrow Wilson?  His birthday also cropped up a couple of weeks ago, on December 28, the day before Johnson’s.

It is not needful or possible at this time, whilst yet he lives, to say that Wilson is a Washington or another Lincoln, but he is a great American. He is one of the great presidents of American history.

Rabbi Stephen A. Wise in a tribute to Woodrow Wilson.
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election, 1918-1920

Anyone notice?  I mean, anyone outside of Staunton, Virginia, his birthplace?  (Well, yeah — see below.)

What is a fair measure of ignominy? If the world forgets the great man’s birthday, is that a sign?

Photo by Michael Bupp, The Carlisle Sentinel:

Photo by Michael Bupp, The Carlisle Sentinel: “For 88 years, there has been a Woodrow Wilson Birthday Association of Cumberland County that organized an annual observance around Dec. 28 to remember Wilson. Pat Stumbaugh is the current treasurer and has been involved in the association since she was a little girl.”

More:

Leave a Comment » | History, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

July 24 – Arrival Day: The journey’s not over until you get there

July 24, 2013

There’s a lot of encore material here — I think about this in the middle of the summer, and July 24 is a good day to commemorate arrivals: It’s Arrival Day.

July 24 – almost the end of the month, but not quite.  In Utah, July 24 is usually a state holiday, to celebrate the date in 1847 that the Mormon refugees arrived in Salt Lake Valley and began to set up their agriculture and schools.  In Salt Lake City, bands from across the state and floats from many entities form the “Days of ’47” Parade.  When I marched with the Pleasant Grove High School Viking Band, the route was  5 miles.  We had only one band uniform, for winter — I lost nearly 10 pounds carrying a Sousaphone.

When the Mormons got to Salt Lake, after a couple of months’ trekking across the plains (then known as “The Great American Desert,” the Great Basin and the Mojave being little known), and after being on the run for well over a year, they got right down to priorities.  Summer was nearly gone, and crops had to be planted quick.  Within a couple of weeks, the Mormons had dammed local streams to create irrigation systems to grow what they could before fall (this is, popularly, the first major crop irrigation set up in America); they’d started to lay out plans for settlements, with straight streets based on Cartesian-plane grids:  The first serious community planning?  And they began construction of schools, knowing education to be one of the most important attributes in the foundation of free societies, a position Mormons have reneged on recently in Utah.  Water, communities, schools.

Maybe spending a few weeks struggling across a prairie and risking your life focuses you on the important stuff.  How would it improve America if we put more people on a bus to Omaha, put them out there, and said, “Hike to Salt Lake City from here.”

They’d focus.  Can we start with Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell?

Ah, the good old days!

July 24 features a number 0f other arrivals, too.

From various “Today in History” features, AP, New York Times, and others:

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returned to the Earth, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong — Aldrin and Armstrong having landed on the Moon.  In our celebrations of Apollo 11, and in our remembrances of President Kennedy, we may forget, though young kids rarely miss it, that Kennedy didn’t just say ‘Let’s put a guy on the Moon by 1970.’  Getting back safely was a key part of the challenge.

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish

On July 24, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 returned, safely.

July 24, 1847: A larger contingent of Mormons, refugees from a literal religious war in Illinois and Missouri, entered into the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young, who famously said from his wagon sick-bed, “This is the place; drive on!”

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ

Would there be a Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ, had the Mormons settled somewhere other than Utah? Wikipedia photo

July 24, 1866: Tennessee became the first of the Confederate States, the former “state in rebellion,” to be readmitted fully to the Union, following the end of the American Civil War. (Does Tennessee celebrate this anniversary in any way?)

July 24, 1911:  On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham arrived at Machu Picchu in Peru.  We still don’t know all the reaons the Incas built that city on the top of very high mountains.  Cell service was not a factor.

July 24, 2005: Lance Armstrong won his seventh consecutive Tour de France bicycle race. Little did we know then, the journey wasn’t over. (Lance Armstrong is no relation to Neil Armstrong.  Did I need to point that out?)

English: Cropped image of Richard Nixon and Ni...

Nixon advance man William Safire claimed later than he’d set up the famous “debate” between Eisenhower’s Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959. Nixon argued that the technology on display made better the lives of average Americans, not just the wealthiest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1959: Visiting Moscow, USSR, to support an exhibit of U.S. technology and know-how, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged Soviet Communist Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Khruschev in a volley of points about which nation was doing better, at a display of the “typical” American kitchen, featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher.  Khruschev said the Soviet Union produced similar products; Nixon barbed  back that even Communist Party leaders didn’t have such things in their homes, typically, but such appliances were within the reach of every American family.  It was the “Kitchen Debate.”

Try explaining this to high school U.S. history students.  The textbooks tend to avoid this story, because it stops the class.  That’s a sign it should be used more, I think.  Does the Common Core even touch it?

Nixon’s arrival as a major political force in the Cold War grew clear from this event.  The pragmatic stakes of the Cold War were drawn in stark contrast, too.  It’s interesting to ponder that microwave ovens were not part of the exhibit.

Cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1974, explaining the showdown between President Richard Nixon and the Special Prosecutor, playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Image copyright by Time Magazine.

July 24, 1974: In U.S. vs. Nixon, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to turn over previously-secret recordings made of conversations in the White House between Nixon and his aides, to the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate affair and cover-up.  Nixon would resign the presidency within two weeks, the only president to leave office by resignation.

July 24, 1975: An Apollo spacecraft splashed down after a mission that included the first link-up of American and Soviet spacecraft.  (The Apollo mission was not officially numbered, but is sometimes called “Apollo 18″ — after Apollo 17, the last trip to the Moon.)

More information:

Hoping not to arrive painfully on touchdown:

Ogden, Utah, Pioneer Days Rodeo Friday, July 19, 2013. Photo by Brian Nicholson

Bareback rider Jerad Schlegel of Burns, Colorado, clings to his horse as it falls to the dirt during a re-ride at the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo Friday, July 19, 2013. Photo by Brian Nicholson (go see his blog)

1 Comment | Apollo Project, History, Moon, Richard M. Nixon, Space Race | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Presidents and umbrellas

May 19, 2013

A few photos from history:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower with Indian President Rajendra Prasad, in India

Two Countries, One Umbrella – President Dwight D. Eisenhower with Indian President Rajendra Prasad, in India, December 11, 1959 (anyone have the year?)

President John F. Kennedy

Aide holds umbrella for First Lady Jacqueline and President John F. Kennedy, inaugural night, 1961.

Aide holds umbrella for First Lady Jacqueline and President John F. Kennedy, inaugural night, 1961.

President Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson in Honololulu 1966, with umbrella

President Lyndon B. Johnson arrives for church services in Honolulu, February 6, 1966, during Vietnam negotiations. To Johnson’s immediate right, Rep. Spark Matsunaga; on Johnson’s left, a Secret Service agent. National Archives photo

President Richard M. Nixon

Nixon campaigning in the rain in Hawaii, 1960

Caption from The AtlanticWire: In 1960, Richard Nixon pledged to campaign in all 50 states. He was not even rewarded for this foolishness with nice weather in Hawaii.

My memory is that no other presidential candidate has campaigned in Hawaii since then.  Has any other candidate campaigned in Alaska?

NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas Paine holding umbrella for Nixon

Collection: NASA Great Images in Nasa Collection Title: Nixon and Paine at Apollo 12 Launch Full Description: Dr. Thomas Paine, NASA Administrator, shields First Lady, Mrs. Richard M. Nixon, from rain while the President and daughter Tricia, foreground, watch Apollo 12 prelaunch activities at the Kennedy Space Center viewing area. Following the successful liftoff, the President congratulated the launch crew from within the control center. Date: 11/14/1969 NASA photo, on Flickr

The image of Nixon in the rain was captured several times.

Nixon, staff and security, in the rain

From the AtlanticWire: Even amid his staff and security, Nixon looks like a lonely man helpless against the elements. (AP photo?)

President Gerald R. Ford

Gerald Ford in the rain

Wally McNamee photo, University of Texas Center for American History.  UPI caption for their photos:  As Betty Ford holds the umbrella, a military aide rushes forward to assist President Ford as he trips and falls on the lower steps of the plane ramp following his arrival in Salzburg, Austria on June 1, 1975. (UPI Photo/Files)

President Ronald Reagan:

President Reagan in the rain

Undated photo of First Lady Nancy and President Ronald Reagan being sheltered on an airport in an unnamed place. Image from BigotBasher.

Reagan at the White House, in the rain:

White House staff shelter President Reagan's waving. Freakout Nation image

White House staff shelter President Reagan’s waving. Freakout Nation image

President George H. W. Bush:

G H W Bush in the rain July 1989, AtlanticWire

Barbara Bush held the umbrella for President George H. W. Bush in July 1989 (in Italy?). From The AtlanticWire.

G H W Bush in the rain, late 1989

President George H. W. Bush found himself in the rain again, in late 1989. AtlanticWire image

President Barack Obama:

Obama at Lincoln National Cemetery, Memorial Day 2010

President Barack Obama took the stage amidst a downpour at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois, on Memorial Day. He announced that the event was being canceled because of the severe weather, and he told the crowd to seek shelter, May 31, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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9 Comments | Barack Obama, History, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Before the fight: Ford and Reagan, October 31, 1974

December 5, 2012

Historian Michael Beschloss Tweeted out a wonderful photo:

President Gerald Ford, former-Gov. Ronald Reagan, October 31, 1974, Century Plaza

October 31, 1974: President Gerald Ford, right, met with former-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, at the Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy Micheal Beschloss.

Who took the photo?  What was the event?  Beschloss asks on Twitter, why two drinks on Ford’s side of the table, and none on Reagan’s?

Looks like it’s a photo by David Hume Kennerly, the White House photographer in the Ford administration.  The photograph was taken with film, probably in black and white to save money and because it was the best way to get images for print media at the time.  Few newspapers ran color photos as a regular feature.  Electronic still photography at the time occurred in laboratories as tests.  As a pragmatic matter, media to store such photographs electronically were impractical — a large mainframe computer might have 256 kilobytes of memory for such storage, or enough for photo of poor resolution.

Kennerly’s site said this meeting came around a black-tie Republican fund-raiser in Los Angeles, at the then-swanky Century Plaza Hotel.

Vanity Fair’s David Friend called it “L.A. Noir” in a 2007 article on a book of photos by Kennerly:

Today, the image conveys a touch of Rat Pack swagger, an architectural elegance, and a hint of the California glamour that Reagan would eventually import to Washington. At the time, however, Kennerly, who had won a Pulitzer for his work in Vietnam, considered the picture too dark and brooding; he almost overlooked the frame on his contact sheet. But that darkness captured something of the spirit of the time: less than three months before, Watergate had forced Richard Nixon from office; inflation, unemployment, and gas prices were on the rise; and the U.S. was facing defeat in Vietnam.

The picture also caught the sometimes frosty relationship between the two leaders. Both Reagan and Ford, after all, would nix the 1980 “dream ticket” idea, floated by some Republican mandarins, to draft Ford as Reagan’s vice president. And Ford, during his unsuccessful 1976 campaign against Jimmy Carter, resented Reagan’s political infighting. “Truthfully,” Ford confessed to Kennerly years later, “I was upset when he challenged me [for the ’76 Republican nomination]. I thought it was unwise for a Republican to challenge a sitting Republican president. We had a pretty bitter contest. It was a head-to-head, knock-down, drag-out affair.”

“I study this picture now,” says Kennerly, “and it looks like a scene from The Godfather”—which had won the best-picture Oscar the year before.

Were I to guess, with a bit of education, I’d say both glasses belonged to Ford, one a cocktail, one water.  Reagan tended to avoid alcohol.

A great photograph, a tribute to the artistry and craftsmanship of Kennerly, especially with film; it also poses as a time capsule, freezing convention in GOP big-money fundraising, dress for men of influence and means, architecture, and so much more.

David Kennerly

Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer, and White House photographer, David Hume Kennerly; TEDxBend image

 

Not before the deluge, not after it, but during the storm.  Nixon was three-months gone from the White House.  Vietnam’s peace agreement was a year-old, but it was seven months to the final invasion of South Vietnam by the communist North that would force the U.S. retreat, and “reunify” Vietnam under communist rule.  The Cold War still raged.  Iran was considered a U.S. puppet.  Mao Zedong still ruled in China.  Elvis Presley still ruled in Memphis.  AIDS was unknown.  Computers were accounting machines taking floors of entire buildings.  Portable telephones were expensive devices that hogged power and generally required at least an automobile to be attached to power the thing.

Barack Obama was 13.

It was a different time.

More:

 

4 Comments | Gerald Ford, History, History images, photography, Ronald Reagan | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

July 24 – reflecting on a day of arrivals

July 24, 2012

July 24 – almost the end of the month, but not quite.  In Utah, July 24 is usually a state holiday, to celebrate the date in 1847 that the Mormon refugees arrived in Salt Lake Valley and began to set up their agriculture and schools.  In Salt Lake City, bands from across the state and floats from many entities form the “Days of ’47” Parade.  When I marched with the Pleasant Grove High School Viking Band, the route was  5 miles.  We had only one band uniform, for winter — I lost nearly 10 pounds carrying a Sousaphone.

Ah, the good old days!

From various “Today in History” features, AP, New York Times, and others:

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returned to the Earth, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong — Aldrin and Armstrong having landed on the Moon.

July 24, 1847: A larger contingent of Mormons, refugees from a literal religious war in Illinois and Missouri, entered into the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young, who famously said from his wagon sick-bed, “This is the place; drive on!”

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ

Would there be a Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and organ, had the Mormons settled somewhere other than Utah? Wikipedia photo

July 24, 1866: Tennessee became the first of the Confederate States, the former “state in rebellion,” to be readmitted fully to the Union, following the end of the American Civil War.

July 24, 2005: Lance Armstrong won his seventh consecutive Tour de France bicycle race.

English: Cropped image of Richard Nixon and Ni...

Nixon advance man William Safire claimed later than he’d set up the famous “debate” between Eisenhower’s Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959. Nixon argued that the technology on display made better the lives of average Americans, not just the wealthiest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 24, 1959: Visiting Moscow, USSR, to support an exhibit of U.S. technology and know-how, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged Soviet Communist Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Khruschev in a volley of points about which nation was doing better, at a display of the “typical” American kitchen, featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher.  Khruschev said the Soviet Union produced similar products; Nixon barbed  back that even Communist Party leaders didn’t have such things in their homes, typically, but such appliances were within the reach of every American family.  It was the “Kitchen Debate.”

Cover of Time Magazine, July 22, 1974, explaining the showdown between President Richard Nixon and the Special Prosecutor, playing out in the U.S. Supreme Court. Image copyright by Time Magazine.

July 24, 1974: In U.S. vs. Nixon, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to turn over previously-secret recordings made of conversations in the White House between Nixon and his aides, to the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate affair and cover-up.  Nixon would resign the presidency within two weeks, the only president to leave office by resignation.

July 24, 1975: An Apollo spacecraft splashed down after a mission that included the first link-up of American and Soviet spacecraft.  (The Apollo mission was not officially numbered, but is sometimes called “Apollo 18″ — after Apollo 17, the last trip to the Moon.)

More information:

5 Comments | Apollo Project, History, Moon, Richard M. Nixon, Space Race | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Facebook-fiends-and-Twitterists? “I’ve got them on the list.”

May 26, 2012

Believe it or not, this post is about education leadership, or its lack.

It is said that Gerald Ford once said of Richard Nixon’s “enemies list,”

“Anybody who can’t keep his enemies in his head has too many enemies.”

Richard Nixon, had he acknowledged the sentiment, probably could have devised a way to pare his list not exactly in keeping with Gerald Ford’s good-guy intentions.  More than one way to pare a list, if you know what I mean.

My mind wandered off to enemies lists when I discovered this week that one of our former administrators had actually kept lists of teachers — and probably other support people — and threatened more than one with “placement on the list.”

What school of school leadership taught that?  The Monty Python School of How KnNot to Do It?

English: 1919 D'Oyly Carte Opera Company publi...

1919 D’Oyly Carte Opera Company publicity poster for The Mikado, featuring the character of the Lord High Executioner. Illustration by J. Hassal.

The only appropriate response when learning of such a list is to ask, “Who appointed you Lord High Executioner?”

Do you disagree?  Lists of enemies do not denote the great leader.  They denote someone who either saw “The Mikado” and missed all the jokes, or didn’t bother to see the thing at all.  Who can follow someone who doesn’t know the jokes from “Mikado,” and consequently, falling victim to the trap warned of by Santayana’s Ghost, falls right into the trap?

It’s silly.  It’s lampooned well enough in Gilbert and Sullivan‘s masterpiece of bureaucracy farce that any leader, even a Modern Major General, would know better than to do it.

Notice I did NOT say, “know better than to let it be known that the list existed.”  I said “know better than to do it.

What’s that?   You are unfamiliar with the song of which I speak?  Here, watch Opera Australia show how it’s done (at least, how it’s done Down Under where there are, unbelievable as it may be, climate denialists and people who are obnoxious about Facebook and Twitter):

DVD Available Now: http://bit.ly/HCzeWc

Mitchell Butel of Avenue Q fame sings “I’ve Got a Little List” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. This excerpt is from the cinema/DVD recording of Opera Australia’s 2011 production at the Arts Centre, Melbourne.

Lyrics:
As someday it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list. I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.

There’s the idiot denouncing with enthusiastic tone
All football teams but his and every suburb but his own.
The man who sits beside you on the plane and wants to talk,
Whose jabbering inspires you to jab him with your fork.
Your aunty with the moustache who insists on being kissed.
They’d none of them be missed, they’d none of them be missed.

(He’s got them on the list! He’s got them on the list!
And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!)

Those whinging letter writers and those pundits in the press.
That opinion columnist, that bore would not be missed.
That trendy thing in opera if the plot seems like a mess,
That nice surtitlist!
(Surtitles: ‘This song is not on my list. Normal transmission will resume shortly’)
The politician prancing round in speedos tightly packed,
He thought it cool but really it just showed us what he lacked.
And Canberra’s leading red-head who’s afraid of stickybeaks,
Who’d like to keep her fumbles and mistakes off Wikileaks.
Australian Idol singers who pathetically persiiiiiiiiiist.
They’d none of them be missed. They’d none of them be missed.

(He’s got them on the list! He’s got them on the list!
And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!)

And the purists who insist piano music stops at Brahms,
I’ll put them on the list, and make them sit through Liszt.
On Saturday night the mob at Flinder’s Street all singing psalms,
I wish they would desist, and their happy claps resist.
That music theatre sequel that they promised would be good,
“Love never dies” they say, but I confess I wish it would.
That Frenchman and the other one who judge My Kitchen Rules,
Who give new definition to the label ‘Kitchen Tools’.
That morning television host who’s funny as a cyst,
Gold Logies he has kissed, but it’s time to kiss my fist.

(He’s got them on the list! He’s got them on the list!
And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!)

Then the merchant banker wankers and the bonuses they flout,
And the subprimortgagist, I’ve got him on the list!
The governments like lapdogs rushing in to bail them out,
To their mills it’s simply grist, so I’ve got them on the list.
Retirees who migrate to the country to make wine,
And Britney Spears for accidentally showing her ‘vagine’.
Those climate change deniers who don’t like the carbon tax,
Who haven’t read the science and don’t really know the facts.
The women on the tram who at Spring Carnaval got pi– really drunk!
Narelle! Where are my shoes?!
They’d none of them be missed. They’d none of them be missed.

(You may put them on the list. You may put them on the list.
And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!)

There’s the ticket holder next to you who cannot work their phone,
And cannot get the gist. I’ve got her on the list!
Who leaves it on or switches to that dreadful silent drone… Vrrrrrr Vrrrrr Vrrrrr
Facebook fiends and Twitterists are also on the list.
And people who inflict on us full cycles of the Ring,
I’d rather ride a valkyrie than hear Brunhilde sing.
And all commercial managements who want to cast a star,
They couldn’t get one this time, they got me, so there you are.
Or worst of all the actor who’s an extra lyricist,
I don’t think he’d be missed, so I’ve got him on the list.

(You may put them on the list! You may put them on the list!
And they’d none of them be missed! They’d none of them be missed!)

Your shock at Gilbert and Sullivan’s sounding so astonishingly contemporary comes through even the internet.  How could they know?

I’m not sure what the original script said, having never done that particular operetta.  Somewhere, the practice  arose to have someone spice up the lyric to this tune, to the times, to the city in which the operetta is performed, and to thezeitgeist of the audience.  Fans of G&S wait to see what and whom the “supplemental lyricist,” or “extra lyricist” poked at.

Even composers of silly operetta tunes understand that what is said, and what is done, needs to be molded to the local circumstances — and that in no case should a bureaucrat keep a list of enemies.

Compare Opera Australia’s version with that of the venerable G&S troupe, D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, about 20 years earlier, 1990 or 1992, on BBC2, in London:

Of course, you may think by my lampooning of list makers that I, myself, should be on some list.  Aye, there’s the rub.

Take a look and listen to Eric Idle’s version of the song from th 1987 English National Opera production, with which Opera Australia may wish to take some exception.

In the English speaking world, wherever the works of Gilbert and Sullivan exist in book, on the stage, in oratorio, on record, tape, CD, DVD or Blu-Ray, people know leaders become comic fops instead when they make “a little list” of the names of the people they wish to be rid of.

Educated people know that.  Education people should know that, too.

More (not necessarily endorsed by Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub):

 

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5 Comments | Education, Education Administration, Music, Richard M. Nixon | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

July 24: Touchdown Day!

July 24, 2010

From various “Today in History” features, AP, New York Times, and others:

July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returned to the Earth, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong — Aldrin and Armstrong having landed on the Moon.

July 24, 1847: A larger contingent of Mormons, refugees from a literal religious war in Illinois and Missouri, entered into the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young, who famously said from his wagon sick-bed, “This is the place; drive on!”

July 24, 1866: Tennessee became the first of the Confederate States, the former “state in rebellion,” to be readmitted fully to the Union, following the end of the American Civil War.

July 24, 2005: Lance Armstrong won his seventh consecutive Tour de France bicycle race.

July 24, 1959: Visiting Moscow, USSR, to support an exhibit of U.S. technology and know-how, Vice President Richard Nixon engaged Soviet Communist Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Khruschev in a volley of points about which nation was doing better, at a display of the “typical” American kitchen, featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher.  Khruschev said the Soviet Union produced similar products; Nixon barbed  back that even Communist Party leaders didn’t have such things in their homes, typically, but such appliances were within the reach of every American family.  It was the “Kitchen Debate.”

July 24, 1974: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President Richard Nixon had to turn over previously-secret recordings made of conversations in the White House between Nixon and his aides, to the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the Watergate affair and cover-up.  Nixon would resign the presidency within two weeks, the only president to leave office by resignation.

July 24, 1975: An Apollo spacecraft splashed down after a mission that included the first link-up of American and Soviet spacecraft.  (The Apollo mission was not officially numbered, but is sometimes called “Apollo 18” — after Apollo 17, the last trip to the Moon.)

Leave a Comment » | History, History of Science, Reconstruction, Soviet Union, Space exploration, Space Race, U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Repbublics) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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