Different take on the news

I need to get a different take on the news for a while.

You start writing a blog post, and sometimes, at some point, it just loses its joy.

Yeah, I was going to write about the lying Ryan Lochte and the other Olympic swimmers, and how he particularly was the Ugly American abroad. And Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada downplaying their actions may be a case of white male privilege– OK, probably is, while the black girls’ hair is analyzed.

And I was going to write about the Louisiana flooding and whether there was enough media coverage – the New York Times acknowledged it was slow on the story, but I saw it daily on TV – and which politician should visit when, and whether Obama was responsible for Katrina.

And there’s this story about Donald Trump’s health report that was released in December of 2015, when most people thought it was bogus. So why is it a big news story only NOW? Because there are folks with a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton’s health, which Trump has helped spread, which the Democrats are contradicting.

Plus stuff about Paul Manifort and the Russians, and California fires, and explaining that this story about Obama banning the Pledge of Allegiance is bogus. I had thoughts on all of it. But then I realized something, that was just for a while, a little more important to me.
llws
That is: a team from Maine-Endwell, NY is in the Little League World Series, after going 19-0. The hamlet of Endwell is in Broome County, where Binghamton, my hometown, is the county seat. “It’s the first time in over 35 years that a team from anywhere other than New York City has represented the Mid-Atlantic region in Williamsport.”

M-E won its first LLWS game on Thursday, 7-2, over a team from New England, Warwick North (Rhode Island). The team will play today in the double-elimination tournament, which means that, if they should lose today, they’re not yet eliminated.

I need to get a different take on the news for a while and may take a hiatus from the cares of the world, especially on Facebook. Instead, I will concern myself with fastballs and turning the double play, for a little while. Well, except for the stuff I’ve already written, and if something REALLY big happens…

Music Throwback Saturday: Shape of Things

This would be the iteration of the Yardbirds with Jeff Beck, after Eric Clapton left, and before Jimmy Page joined.

max frostBlame Chuck Miller for getting The Shape of Things in my head. For his K-Chuck Radio: More Forgotten 70’s Hits, half of which I’d never heard, I wondered which version of the title song the Headboys played. As it turns out, it a different iteration altogether, and now that I heard it, it was vaguely familiar.

One of my few singles purchases in the 1960s was The Shape Of Things To Come by Max Frost And The Troopers, written by the prolific Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. I remember it being a very short song, less than two minutes, and with a red label.

What I did not know until far later was that the attributed band was in fact “a fictional rock music group created for the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, released in 1968. The film featured Christopher Jones as the highly influential singer Max Frost.” It only got to #22 on the US charts, which surprised me; I thought it was a bigger hit. But it stayed two weeks at #2 in Canada.

It was only around then that I heard an earlier song with a similar name. The British invasion group the Yardbirds had recorded The Shape of Things, arguably “can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic.”. This would be the iteration of the band with Jeff Beck, after Eric Clapton left, and before Jimmy Page joined. It was a #11 single in the spring of 1966 in the US, getting to #3 in the UK and #7 in Canada.

The Headboys was a Scottish group, and their Shape of Things to Come only got to #67 on the US pop charts, and #45 on the UK charts, in 1979, a classic one-hit-wonder.

The Shape of Things – the Yardbirds. Listen HERE or HERE.

The Shape Of Things To Come – Max Frost and the Troopers. Listen HERE or HERE.

The Shape of Things to Come – the Headboys. Listen HERE or HERE.

Bill Clinton is 70

bill_clintonBill Clinton has long confounded me. In 1992, I was somewhat suspicious of the guy some of the nastier pundits dubbed Slick Willie. I certainly did not vote for him in the primary, choosing either former Senator Paul Tsongas (MA) or now-governor Jerry Brown (CA).

I watched Clinton pretty much every time he was on TV, from that surreal saxophone playing on The Arsenio Hall Show to that less-than-comfortable interview, along with Hillary, on 60 Minutes.

Ultimately, I picked him for the general election, making Bill Clinton the first person in my 20+ years of voting for President who actually WON. It may have been because I had tired of Reagan’s third term of George H.W. Bush, with a President so isolated that he didn’t understand a pricing scanner.

Like so many before them, Bill and Hillary failed to enact a health care plan. I didn’t fault them, but it was a lot of political capital spent. Meanwhile, in other areas, I was disillusioned.

After promising to end the ban on gays in the military, the compromise was “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” which was quite unsatisfactory to me, in some fundamental way, worse than the ban. And he attacked the safety net that was welfare as though he were a Republican. His emphasis on more incarceration, which he has since repudiated, did not win me over.

And I had serious doubts about the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was supposed to create greater competition among providers, so that, theoretically, someone would compete with Time Warner Cable in this market; I had my doubts, and they seem to have been justified.

I did not vote for Bill Clinton in 1996, choosing Green Party candidate Ralph Nader instead. But when he was ultimately impeached for cheating on his wife – OK, lying to Congress about cheating on his wife – it seemed like an inappropriate use of Congressional power. In retrospect, it was especially galling when the Republican leadership had engaged in arguably more reprehensible activities.

In mid-September 1998, I happened to have been staying at Boston Park Plaza Hotel when Vice-President Gore, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and other dignitaries were going to be at the hotel for a fancy (read: high-priced) fund-raising dinner.

I looked from my upper story room saw several hundred protesters. They were split about 50/50 between those who were upset with the President and the effect his behavior had on the country, and those outraged by Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor, who put all of the lurid details about Bill and Monica Lewinsky on the Internet at a level with may not be noteworthy now, but assuredly was then.

(Ironically, Ken Starr got booted from his position at Baylor University, for his poor handling of a sex scandal. Monica Lewinsky gave a famous TED talk about the effect of the scandal on her, and cyberbullying generally.)

I’m not sure what to make of the Clinton Foundation. The goals appear noble, but at least the appearance of scandal troubles me.

Bill Clinton is generally seen as a great asset in his wife’s Presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2016, but I remain unconvinced. His astonishingly bad judgment in meeting with Loretta Lynch while Hillary was being investigated over her emails boggles. He ended up besmirching the reputation of Lynch and FBI Director Comey while making the eventual non-indictment look like the fix was in.

But at the Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton stopped embarrassing Hillary with an emotional speech, telling “an intimate story of how they fell in love and built a remarkable political partnership.

“The…former president chronicled his wife’s accomplishments from working to end housing discrimination to launching a children’s advocacy group in Arkansas to negotiating peace deals as secretary of state.”

A Daily Kos writer proclaimed that the speech was a success because even his dad liked it, and he was no Bill Clinton fan.

I continue to be fascinated by the 42nd President. He is the big kid mesmerized by the balloons at the DNC, and a master manipulator, Rhodes scholar smart, yet perplexingly inept. The term used a lot back c 1998 about him was compartmentalization. If it were true then, I think it’s more accurate now.

I think Hillary, as a woman, takes more heat for the sins of “the Clintons” than he does. He’s more personable, has that flirtatious twinkle in his eye.

What YOUR take on Bill Clinton?

Margaret Hannay (and David)

Margaret Hannay started coming back to church for several Sundays.

david and margaret hannayThis is a story about this picture of Margaret Hannay and her husband David. They’ve been members of my church for a number of years.

They met in college, fell in love, and got married very young, at 19 or 20, despite their parents’ understandable reservations. They celebrated 50 years married last August.

They’ve both been active in church, serving on committees, teaching, and are professionally accomplished. (Here are some of Margaret’s books.)

But that doesn’t really explain the picture.

In my capacity of the head of the Black History Month committee, I solicited the opinion from others about who should be awarded kente cloths. The kente is a community honorific developed in Ghana. We discussed a few names.

But once someone had suggested the Hannays, the conversation was over. It was the obvious choice. Why?

Because virtually everyone who has entered our church, at least as long as I’ve been attending, has been warmly welcomed by Margaret and David. And not just saying hello, but in the active listening that allows for new visitors to be able to connect with others to create community. Every church member, whether long-timers or newbies, would agree,

At the time of the decision to award them, Margaret was in remission from cancer. But by the time we were going to award the kente cloth, she was receiving treatments again, and was not able to attend church.

In the end, we decided to give a kente cloth to David, and another for him to give to Margaret. And a week or so later, I received this lovely photo of the Hannays in their kente cloths.

And then, an unexpected treat: Margaret Hannay started coming back to church for several Sundays, weak, but with her usual positive spirit. Everyone wanted to be with her, talk with her, hold her hand, without taxing her energy.

It was sad, but not surprising, that Margaret Hannay died early the morning of August 11. There will be a memorial service on Sunday, August 28 at 1:00 p.m.

My favorite Hannay story: a few years back, about ten of us went out to lunch at a Thai fusion restaurant near the church. Margaret helped The Daughter negotiate the menu to avoid peanuts since both were allergic. At the end, they picked up the bill, explaining that they always wanted to have a dinner party, but it was a lot of work, and they live far enough away that people get lost finding their house, and some other excuses. But we knew what they really meant.

The Hannays have been stellar examples of Christian hospitality. My condolences to David, their daughters, granddaughters, their friends, family, and the church community. Read Margaret Hannay’s obituary, which I purloined from the NYT.

First Ladies National Historic Site

“Being pretty, fashionable, and a leader of the younger set in Canton did not satisfy Ida Saxton, “

saxton-houseWednesday, July 13, 2016, Canton, Ohio

The Wife, knowing she and the Daughter would likely tire of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, looked in some AAA guidebook, and stumbled upon the First Ladies National Historic Site, also in Canton.

There is an Education & Research Center where the museum is housed. But we spent the bulk of our time at The Ida Saxton McKinley Historic Home, which is a “brick Victorian house, built in 1841 and modified in 1865.” It had fallen into private hands for a long while, as a retail store space, and as apartments.

But in the 1990s, the house was restored, furnished in the style of the late 1800s. “Costumed docents provide tours, and exhibits focus on President and Mrs. McKinley, photos of First Ladies, and Victorian decorations.” Here’s a description.

Ida Saxton McKinley was the elder daughter of a socially prominent and well-to-do family. Her father, James A. Saxton, was a banker, who had his two daughters educated them well in local schools before “sending off to Europe on the grand tour.

“Being pretty, fashionable, and a leader of the younger set in Canton did not satisfy Ida, so her broad-minded father suggested that she work in his bank.” She fell in love with “Maj. William McKinley, who had come to Canton in 1867 to establish a law practice.”

Her life turned difficult. She soon suffered from various ailments, including epilepsy and phlebitis. In a short span, her mother, and both her daughters died; one child died in infancy, the other of typhoid fever before she was four. And, of course, her husband was assassinated in 1901.

I admit that I’m very weak when it comes to remembering the 19th century First Ladies. There was Dolley Madison, who saved the Washington portrait, the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln, and “Lemonade” Lucy Hayes, who abhorred liquor.

Naturally, then, we bought a placemat, listing all the first ladies. Both John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson were widowed, then remarried, while President. James Buchanan never married, and his niece served the function of First Lady.

I can imagine going back to First Ladies National Historic Site and studying more history. Though on the National Parks Service list, this venue was not free with my Senior Pass, but we did get in at a reduced rate.

Canton is only about an hour from Cleveland, and the site was anticipating some delegates from the Republican National Convention, taking place a few days later.

Ramblin' with Roger
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