I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.
Les Green (X3); the woman in the lower right is Agatha
Back in February 2020, I had planned a research trip to the Broome County Clerk’s office to look at a particular law case. But the March sojourn was postponed for some reason.
The story of the trial appeared in the Binghamton Press, starting on 27 Oct, p. 5. “Negro minister to go on trial.” “The Reverend Raymond Cone, negro minister, charged with being the father of a child born out of wedlock of Miss Agatha Walker, 25 years old*, of 14 East street, a teacher in this Sunday school**, will go on trial in Children’s Court tomorrow before County Judge Benjamin Baker.”
In late September, my friend Cee and I went to the clerk’s office, and I was assured that the information I sought would NOT be there. This is contrary to what I was told 19 months earlier on the phone. In any case, we could not find it. We were directed to the Family Court office.
The person I talked with said that the boss was away, but that I could provide a narrative. So I wrote a request for the trial transcript. I was told back at the county clerk that I might well be denied because Family Court records are sealed for reasons of privacy.
Thank God it was Thursday
But we were given a glimmer of hope by a lawyer who gives advice once a week in the county courthouse. He pointed to 22 NYCRR 205.5, Privacy of Family Court records.
Frankly, I’m not seeing it in the text, but he had researched a similar case in June 2021. He explained that my request could be denied because Family Court records are sealed. But I could appeal to a state appellate judge. I might note, for instance:
1. All of the parties – Raymond Cone, Agatha Walker Green, and the child, my father, Les Green, are all deceased. 2. I am directly related to the participants. 3. Many of the details, including the conclusion by Judge Baker in January 1927 that Rev. Cone was acquitted, was widely known because it was published in the Binghamton newspapers.
* She was actually 24, and 23 when the event occurred on January 6, 1926 ** I understand she headed the Sunday school
The American West is running out of water—and Big Oil, of all things, can help fix it.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: PFAS and Voting Rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuf1m1VGu8Y Call Your Senator to Support the Equality Act
I saw the stories about the Facebook outage but kept reading it as the Facebook outrage. How Facebook’s Response To Whistleblower Could Make Their Crisis Worse. Incidentally, when Facebook was down, I went to Is It Down Right Now but it TOO was down. I ended up using Down For Everyone or Just Me and Is Your Website Down Down Right Now?
Albany Med prize winners: Coronavirus vaccine was years in the making.
Cognitive Bias Is Influencing Forensic Pathology Decisions
I had gone to the dentist this month to get a tooth uncapped because a cavity developed. It is one of those things that might have been prevented but for COVID. Anyway, they said, “We’re going to do an impression.” I knew what they meant, but my mind wandered to Rich Little doing John Wayne or Richard Nixon.
More Empathy Means Better Care, Less Medical Liability.
A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Color Again.
People with vitiligo debate whether to treat or embrace their condition
Race in America
Calls to Ban Books by Black Authors Are Increasing Amid Critical Race Theory Debates
How Do We Dismantle Structural Racism in Medicine?
Manhattan Street Names Tied to Slavery Listed from A to Z.
Meet The First 2 Black Women To Be Inducted Into The National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Bruice’s Beach in California can return to descendants of a Black family in a landmark move.
Byzantium Shores, no. ForgottenStars, si!
I’ve been following Jaquandor at Byzantium Shores for well over a decade. He’s another upstater from the other end of the Erie Canal. His birthday is 45 years to the day after my late father’s.
He started blogging in 2002, over three years before I did. Eventually, he’s let the pseudonym go. Now Kelly Sedinger is blogging at ForgottenStars.net, where he promotes his books, two of which I have. He knows a ton about classical music, many of which I have linked to. I don’t quite get the pie in the face thing, but that’s OK.
Coverville 1374: Cover Stories for John Mellencamp, Bob Geldof, and Chrissie Hynde.
The First Moonwalk? Bill Bailey tapping to an instrumental version of the Larks’ hit “The World is Waiting for Sunrise” performed by the Paul Williams Quartet
Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour 2021 will be on the road, maybe in a town near you, between Nov 26 and Dec 23 with Richard Elliot, Rick Braun, Jonathan Butler, and… Rebecca Jade!
Paul Simon turns 80, and I needed to find an angle. Ten years ago, on this date, I wrote about my favorite Paul Simon solo cuts. And ten years ago on November 5, on Art Garfunkel’s birthday, I noted my preferred Simon and Garfunkel tracks.
There are some artists whose music I tend to continue to buy because I’ve enjoyed their body of work. Not necessarily every album but most: Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen come to mind.
I continue to buy Paul Simon-related albums. Paul Simon Songbook is the 1965 album of solo Paul, most of which ended up on early S+G albums. It didn’t come out on CD until 2006.
Two Teenagers – The Singles 1957-1961. This includes many of the recordings of the duo BEFORE they were Simon and Garfunkel, both as a duo (Tom and Jerry, e.g.) and solo artists, (Jerry Landis, Artie Garr, et al.) Worthwhile.
In 2012 (I think), I sent my copy of Graceland (1986) to a friend of mine Who Had Never Heard It. Then I bought another copy with a few remixes of songs, though NOT the 12″ inch version of Boy In The Bubble, alas.
I got Stranger to Stranger in 2016, when it came out. It took a few plays for it to “take” in my ear, but I like it.
Do it again
The most interesting concept is 2018’s In The Blue Light , a “fresh perspectives on 10 of the artist’s favorite (though perhaps less-familiar) compositions drawn from the five-decade span of his illustrious solo career.” Four songs are from You’re The One (2000), but none are from Graceland.
“Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club gave the album a B- and wrote, ‘It would be easy to get bogged down in treating Blue Light as a compare/contrast exercise, but what’s most impressive about is the way that it sounds more or less of a piece as its own record.'”
The status of the Native American or American Indian in the United States is most peculiar. This article reminded me that the centennial of the Indian Citizenship Act is coming up in 2024.
As you may know, Article I, Section 2 reads: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.”
Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power To… regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
Even the Fourteenth Amendment notes: “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”
Silent Cal
From the article: “The Indian Citizenship Act [was] signed into law on June 2, 1924, by President Calvin Coolidge. As the very title of the legislation states, the act made all Indians in the United States citizens of the United States.”
According to the act, … all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided that the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.
“The debate [following the 14th Amendment] was so pronounced that the Senate Judiciary Committee pondered the issue. In 1870 it rendered its verdict:
… the 14th amendment to the Constitution has no effect whatever upon the status of the Indian tribes within the limits of the United States…
“Strangely enough in the infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857, the frequently reviled Chief Justice Roger Taney had argued that American Indians could, in fact, become citizens. The caveat was that it had to be under congressional and legal supervision. In 1924, that is exactly what Congress did.”
This leads to some interesting arguments about how “to address what it means to be an Indian Nation today in the 21st century.” Read some more about the implications of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
Sometimes I have to relearn the lesson. Part of my sadness this year involved the passing of three members of my church in 2021. But that’s not the totality of it. It was that there was no service to recognize any of them. Well, until this week.
Rev. Dr. Hugh G. Nevin died on January 22. Before my time there, he served as a temporary fill-in clergy. If I were to say he was a decent man, it would sound like faint praise. But it really isn’t. He displayed wisdom and grace, always.
He was a basso profundo in our choir, hitting those low notes that were beyond my range. Although he and his wonderful wife Vaughn ostensibly retired from the choir, they would participate in the special music that the choir, prior to the pandemic, performed a few times a year.
His service will be held, FINALLY, at the First Presbyterian Church at 1 p.m. on October 16. “COVID-19 protocols are in effect and masks are required. Reception outdoors following the service, weather permitting only.”
Willard
Will McMorris was in the Tuesday morning Bible Guys. The change to ZOOM was a struggle for him. His technological prowess made me feel like Steve Jobs. But he tried very hard.
Will was one of the few non-black-adjacent folks to show up at the Black History Month meetings. He was a very curious guy, in every sense of the word. I know he went through a bunch of stuff, some of which he told me about in great detail, which occurred long before I ever met him.
Will died on March 8 after having a stroke and a fall. He indicated that he wanted. He had not reached three score and ten. His brother said that Will wanted a memorial service at FPC, with a time of “food and conversation” afterward. There will be a time of an in-person service one of these weeks.
Go ask Alice
When the church e-blast indicated that Alice Schrade had died on September 1, my wife knew that I must not have read my email. For she knew that I adored Alice, and Alice adored me. When one of my pastors got the word of her passing, they said they immediately thought of me. Alice and I often hugged and talked regularly about almost anything: race, church, politics, and especially social justice.
Her obit noted: She was “involved working for the Interfaith Focus breakfast program and the food pantry. Alice loved to travel and in 1992 went to Guatemala where she fell in love with the country and its people. She became involved in promoting justice issues for the people affected by the violence and worked to promote the weavings of the highland women. She promoted Mayan Hands to raise money to support Guatemalan weavers.”
As with Will, “A memorial service will be held in the First Presbyterian Church of Albany at a future date.”
The Problem with 
Paul Simon turns 80, and I needed to find an angle. Ten years ago, on this date, I wrote about my favorite Paul Simon 
The status of the Native American or American Indian in the United States is most peculiar. This 