The Ukraine's almost unbearable bravery

It's a parlor game we all play. We ask ourselves, from the comfort of our homes, sitting on our comfy couches, sipping tea: what would YOU do if...

You saw someone bullying a Muslim girl because she was wearing a hijab? Would you say something? Do something? Step in to protect and defend the child? Rally others to help intervene? Would it depend on whether the bully was a physically imposing man? Or a skinny kid?

What would you do if fou saw Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd's neck? Would you yell at him? Jump on Chauvin's back to stop him? (Remember, Chauvin and the other cops with him have guns.) Film it on your phone? 

Most of us don't have to make decisions like this. Maybe we've seen some bullying, but mostly we're not first-hand witnesses to the truly terrible things. We hear about it on Twitter, we see it on the 6 o'clock news, we breeze through an article in the paper. We can tell ourselves we'd speak up, knowing we weren't there. Knowing we may never have to.

What if the stakes were a lot higher. The downside - your life - of doing anything, taking a stand, a lot greater?

What if you were in Nazi Germany? Would you have hidden a Jewish friend? A Jew who wasn't a friend?

Would we have been big brave? Or a little brave - maybe a furtive wave to someone you knew being marched off to the train station for deportation? Or not brave at all?

And what if your country were being invaded, the enemy at the gates of your town, nearing your neighborhood? Would you flee? Would you stay away from your windows and just wait and see what happened next? Watch out your window, peering out from behind a curtain? Would you yell at the enemy? Hurl an insult? Hurl a brick? Step in front of them?

Chances are, this is a circumstance most of us will never have to face. 

Not so for the people of Ukraine.

And, damn, if they're not demonstrating incredible bravery, sometimes unbearably so.

We've all seen the pictures, read the stories.

The grandmother who gave the Russian soldiers sunflower seeds to put in their pockets so that something good would come of their being in the ground.

The old man, arms outstretched, standing in front of a Russian tank.

The tough bald guy, in his jeans and black leather jacket, cigarette dangling from his mouth, picking up a Russian mine and carrying it in his bare hands from the middle of the road to the woods where, if it went off, no one would be harmed.

The people armed with old World War II guns, preparing to
use them if they needed to.

The kids learning how to make Molotov cocktails.

The woman who gave birth in the subway station.

The 13 Snake Island defenders who told the Russian warship to 'fuck off' before the Russians blew them to bits.

I'm sure everyone in Ukraine isn't ultra-brave. There are plenty who aren't. Who are doing what, no doubt, most of us would do. They're cowering under their beds. Or are sitting, stunned, in state of denial. They're trying to flee with their families. 

But we've seen so many instances of bravery that's almost unbearable that you really have to believe it's something of a Ukrainian national characteristic. These folks are just incredibly tough and brave.

There leaders are good models.

President Zelensky, of course, is outstanding in his bravery. Sure, it helps that he has a background as a performer. He's a brilliant communicator, and he knows how to sell it, with near insouciant ease. And he has been just magnificent.

We have so few real heroes. This guy is one. 

Who wouldn't follow Zelensky into battle? 

I might not pick up a gun, but I'm thinking (hoping) that if I were in Kyiv, I'd be putting together some Molotov cocktails. Or at least rolling some bandages. 

Zelensky, along with other political leaders, are on Putin's kill list.

Maybe, with the whole world watching, Putin won't dare it. But he's so evil, so insane, so unhinged, such an unprincipled thug, that no one would put it past him. 

The threat to Ukraine's leaders (and their families) is very real. Putin has no problem ordering the murder of his enemies, the assisted "suicides" of those who cross him. 

The bravery being shown by Ukraine's leaders, and by the Ukrainian people, is amazing. Inspiring. 

I'm also in awe of the bravery of the Russian citizens, who risk arrest and unknown brutality, to come out and protest Putin and his war in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities. 

I'm no stranger to protest. 

I came of political age picketing for Cesar Chavez and the grape workers, and marching against the Viet Nam War.

Since 2016, I have participated in a dozen - maybe more - protests. The Women's March of January 2017. Rallies in defense of immigrants, Black lives, science, the environment, gun laws...

The worst risk I ever faced was getting tear-gassed at the Department of Justice during the 1969 Mortarium march. My friend Joyce and I missed the tear gassing because it was a bitter cold day and we ducked into a Walgreen's to buy yellow, shed-o-rama blankets for $3 a piece to see if they would help warm us up. They didn't. They just shed yellow wispy material all over our pea jackets (knock offs from Mickey Finn's Army-Navy store). Some of the folks we'd come down to DC were tear-gassed. On the bus on the way home, we caught faint whiffs of it.

Other than that, other than the heckling of bystanders and, at one of the anti-Trump marchers, vague threats to the crowd made by a few thugs carrying assault weapons. (I assume they were for intimidation purposes only.) 

Oh, and one time a store owner whose store I was picketing on behalf of the grape workers shoved me. In retrospect, I don't blame him. We should have stuck to chain stores, not mom and pops. Which, after that episode, we pretty much did.

Yesterday, I stood for a while in the Boston Public Garden, in solidarity with the brave people of Ukraine.

Walking across the street to join in this rally took no courage on my part. Nothing brave about it. All my protests have ever cost me is time. But joining the pro-Ukraine protest felt like a little something.  And it did feel good to be doing a little something.

So did making a donation to Chef Jose Andres World Central Kitchen, which is helping feed Ukrainian refugees in Poland. And a donation to some young Ukrainian journalists, who are so bravely covering what's happening in their country.

Bravery isn't an imagined parlor game for Ukraine. They're playing for keeps. And it does this old heart good to see how spectacularly, almost unbearbly, brave these Ukrainians are. 

Slava Ukraini!

Moonlighting - have I got a second job for you!

Plenty of folks moonlight. Economically, plenty of folks have no choice. And even if they do have an economic choice, plenty of folks like having a little extra jingle in their pockets. (Who doesn't?)

I'm guessing that Ralph Petty, who in his last year working for the Midland (Texas) County DA's Office made over $150K as an assistant prosecutor, was in that little extra jingle category. Not that $150K is such a fortune these days. But I'm a guessing that you can get by pretty well in Midland (Texas) on that kind of a salary.

Petty didn't spend his freetime stamp collecting, bowlng, skeet shooting, making ships in a bottle, or putting his feet up and watching House Hunters International. 

No, siree!

For years, he moonlighted as a paid clerk for the same judges before whom he argued his cases on behalf of the state. In some cases, he helped write the judges’ orders on his own cases.

According to attorneys for at least one of those defendants, death row inmate Clinton Young, working as a judicial clerk gave Petty access to confidential information that gave him an unfair advantage as a prosecutor.

Even if he did not use this information, Young’s attorneys said, Petty’s special relationship with the judges shattered the appearance of impartiality, which is one of the keys to the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial.

All told, Petty – who is now 78 and left the DA’s office in June 2019 – performed legal work for at least nine judges involving the convictions of at least 355 defendants whom he prosecuted...

The sentences of those Petty helped convict range from probation to the death penalty. Seventy-three of them remain imprisoned. Many have since died. (Source: USA Today)

Petty wasn't sneaking around. His moonlit work was all above board "sanctioned by county officials and documented in public invoices."

I don't know about you, but even by Texas judicial standards, this sounds like incredibly bad judgement on the part of the judges and the assistant DA and those sancitioning county officials. I mean, "help[ing]write the judges’ orders on his own cases." Come the f on!

Petty was part of the legal team that convicted Young in a high-profile capital murder trial two years later. Petty’s roles in the case included amending Young’s indictment, examining witnesses at a pretrial hearing and writing the instructions that jurors took with them to deliberate.

On April 11, 2003, those jurors returned a guilty verdict and sentenced Young to death.

What neither the jurors nor Young’s attorneys knew at the time was that Petty was clerking for the judge presiding over the case, John Hyde, who since has died.

“It is a breach of ethical conduct by both of them,” said Elsa Alcala, a former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge referring to Petty and the judge. “I don’t know what they were thinking.”

Hard to believe that thinking had much of anything to do with this. It was all about the doing and the probably not incidental jingle in the pocketing. 

The good news is that, even deep in the heat of Texas, Clinton Young has been granted a new trial. He's out on bail.

It's not clear that anything - disbarment, prosecution, clawback of his moonlight loot - will happen to Petty. He's 78 now, retired. What are they going to do to him?

Petty has many defenders, even among defense attorneys he opposed in court. They claim that Petty's an honorable man, and never would have given a judge an opinion that wasn't throroughly based on the law. That may well be, but pardon me while I cough, cough. 

Especially given that, last winter:

...Petty declined to attend a hearing in Young’s case that was scheduled to determine whether his misconduct should result in a new trial for the death row inmate. In a letter to the court, Petty said he was in poor health and feared contracting the coronavirus.

“My appearance at a hearing on the Clinton Lee Young matter should not include a possible death sentence,” he wrote.

Clinton Lee Young's death sentence. Now that's a different matter entirely.

Petty could have attended from his own home. The hearing was held via videoconference. Through his lawyers, Petty also said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to provide incriminating testimony at the hearing.

Not that there's anything even vaguely POS-y about taking he Fifth Amendment. No, siree.

Whatever happens to Clinton Lee Young, that's some jury in Texas' doing. But I'm pretty sure there's going to be some tightenting of the moonlighting rules for assistant prosecutors down there. 

There's gold - or is it fraud? - in them thar hills. (Cui bono in action.)

There is virtually NO evidence of 2020 election fraud. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

The handful of cases of fraud that have been found mostly seem to involve folks who didn't realize that, as convicted felons, they weren't eligible to vote. (In the most noted instances,a couple of Black people have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for this outrage.) Or the cases involved Trump voters who knowingly and deliberately cast ballots on behalf of dead relatives who would have voted for DJT. If only they were alive. Or who chose to vote in both Florida and their home state.  (In all the instances I'm aware of, all the fraudsters were white. I think one of them was jailed for a

couple of days. For the others: zero, zip, nada, zilch.)

But the lack of evidence hasn't prevented Trump, his cultists, and many members of the GOP who know better, from trumpeting about election fraud. (A stunning 70% of Republicans - 70%! - claim to believe that Joe Biden didn't win, Trump did.)

All this we wuz' robbed nonsense, and the accompanying phoney baloney braying about the need for election integrity is resulting in all sorts of state laws aimed at voter suppression, i.e., laws that suppress voters who are most likely to vote Democratic. 

And, naturally, all this fake alarm is creating opportunities to cash in.

Special ink designed to be sensitive to temperature changes. Nearly invisible “stealth numbers” that can be located only using special ultraviolet or infrared lights.

Those are among the high-tech security features that would be required to be embedded on ballots under measures proposed in at least four states by Republican lawmakers — all promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was marred by mass fraud — in an attempt to make the ballots as hard to counterfeit as passports or currency. (WaPo)

As it so happens, these security approaches require special paper. And, as it so happens, there may be just one company - Authentix, out of Addison, Texas, that makes this paper. And, as it so happens, Authentix has been buddying up to GOP lawmakers to make sure they know all about how their product can be used to combat non-existent fraud.

The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said has included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.

"Identically worded" is how a lot of laws being pushed by special interests get slipped into actual laws for all sorts of awful things. The groups who want a law passed hand lazy legislators prewritten bills (generally accompanied by a political donation), and away we go. 

All this foolishness, if it ever gets put into action, is going to cost taxpayers plenty. Special ink. Special papers. Special machines to read the special ink on the special papers.

But, hey, as long as someone can make a buck. And as long as the right-wingers can keep their 'we wuz robbed' narrative going, undermining Biden, undermining democracy, undermining every election result that doesn't fall in their favor. 

Very similar to when the for-profit prison companies (and prison guard unions) lobby for stricter sentencing guidelines. Build, baby, build more prisons! Hire, baby, hire more guards!

And so many other sordid situations, too numerous and disheartening to count.

There may be no fraud in our elections, but there's gold in them thar hills.

But before we go bulk ordering special inks, special paper, etc. - in the name of preserving election integrity - surely we need to ask the age-old cui bono question: just who benefits from this????

The case of the missing road tests

Other than having to execute a Y-turn, I don't remember a thing about my road test. Oh, and it was a nice warm spring day. My scant memories are not surprising, as I got my driver's license over 60 years ago. But there was definitely a road test. 

Most of my prep for the road test was me behind the wheel, my father in the passenger seat. Our preliminary practice outings in St. Joseph's Cemetery, where you couldn't do all that much harm - at least to the living - if things got out of control. Then we went out on a road trip, mostly on Worcester's Mill Street, a wide drag known at The Speedway. 

My closest high school friend Marie's father was the traffic cop on The Speedway. But we never got stopped. I'm pretty sure I was driving slowly (and nervously). 

I remember very little about driving with my father. He wasn't the world's most patient person, but I never remember him yelling or doing anything to upset me. 

At about the same time I was learning to drive, my mother - at the advanced age of 46 - was learning as well. My father took her out to the cemetery, but it did not go well. So my mother enrolled in a driver's school to learn the ropes from someone completely neutral.

In a sense, my mother's driver's ed (on-the-road classes) was the opposite of mine in terms of her on-the-road instructor.

Before I headed out with my father, with whom I did just fine, I went out a few times with a nasty driving instructor, Francis I. [Irish last name redacted], who took me out for the first time up and down the steepest hill in Worcester. Which at the time was ice-covered. He spent the entire hour screaming at me. All I remember of his shout-fest was "hands at 10-2."

I think I went with him once more, before quitting driver's ed.

I picked it up again in the spring, with my father. 

To get the insurance discount, I believe that teen-age drivers had to have six road lessons at a driver's school, so I'm sure I went back. Just not with Francis I. [Irish last name redacted]. I believe my final road instructor was Terrance O'Hara, a very sweet guy who I'd already taken the classroom "training"course with. Mr. O'Hara was a school teacher moonlighting at Carey's Auto School. Drive with Care(y).

I'm pretty sure she never hit the road with Francis I. [Irish last name redacted.] My father bringing her to tears would have been quite enough. 

Anyway, my mother - who never became a confident and highly-skilled driver - passed her road test, too. 

But a couple of thousand drivers in Massachusetts got their licenses without having to hit the road. 

Four Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles workers have been fired after 2,100 drivers were given licenses without taking a road test.0All of those-2 drivers will now have to take the test in the next ten days or their licenses will be suspended.

The agency notified law enforcement back in 2020 after a Registry supervisor noticed suspicious activity at the Brockton customer service center.

Investigators found that, starting back in April 2018, about 2,100 people had been given drivers licenses by two road test examiners at the Brockton center without ever taking a road test.

The two examiners and two service center employees were fired. (Source: CBS Local)

No hands 10-2? No parallel parking? No rotary? No Y-turn? No road test???

Notices went out to the "Registry 2,100" informing them that they had to pass a road test within ten days - or have their license suspended. If they flunk, they'll be issued a learner's permit. 

I'm pretty sure that working for the Registry isn't all that onerous. 

Maybe the pay's not great, but probably more than employees would earn in the private sector. And with better benefits and security.

So why risk it by not taking care of their assigned tasks?

Oh, maybe giving road tests was nerve-wracking. And if you flunked someone, you might have gotten a fair amount of abuse. But it seems like a relatively cushy job with not a ton of heavy lifting. 

Were these folks just lazy? Were they getting kickbacks from folks who couldn't pass the road test?

Anyway, it seems like a pretty foolish course that the Registry Four may well be regretting.

As for giving 2,100 drivers ten days to retake the test, I call ridiculous.

How about looking at the records, and letting anyone who hasn't had a moving violation keep their license without having to take a road test.

Seems like a colossal waste of time and resources to just declare these licenses valid.

And speaking of valid/invalid this reminds me of a situation that has arisen in Arizona where, for nearly twenty years, a Catholic priest was saying "we baptize" rather than "I baptize." So a bishop has declared all those baptisms invalid, and folks that were "illegally" baptized have to schedule a do-over. And it gets worse. (Of course.) Their first holy communion and confirmation are downstream sacarments that are, thus, invalidated as well.

Apparently, this isn't the first time it's happened. 

Over the past few years, a couple of ordained priests in other dioceses found out that their baptisms from back in the day were - having been 'we' rather than 'I' baptisms -  invalid, rendering the priests' ordinations invalid, and any marriages or baptisms they performed invalid, as well. 

Seems like someone should be able to wave some incense and/or holy water around and declare all these sacraments valid.

Gotta love the Catholic Church's reasoning, fo' sho. 

Oy, just oy.

At least those Massachusetts drivers who've been caught up in the (latest) Registry scandal aren't saddled with any down the road problems. Unless someone decides that everytime they used their license as a form of ID they were committing fraud... (Let's not give them any ideas.)

Many brave cars are asleep in the deep, so beware

By now, the situation may be resolved - or at least on its way to resolution - but I'm writing this on Saturday (2/19), and at the mo' the Felicity Ace is still adrift in the middle of the Atlantic. Abandoned by her crew after a fire broke out, the Felicity Ace was bound for Rhode Island, with a boatload of cars on board. Most of the nearly 4,000 cars are luxury vehicles - Porsches, Audis, and 189 Bentleys - and while their fate is still unknown, I'm one of those picky consumers who would be demanding an all new $300K Bentley, rather than one that had been exposed to heat, smoke, and toxic fumes for days on end. A new paint job wouldn't quite do it for me.

Between covid shipping disruptions, the chip shortage, and covid.period, it's been a rough couple of years for those who want new cars. And since the Felicity Ace was heading for New England, it's no surprise that some of those impacted by the fire are locals. 

Joshua Vavra and his wife, Lyndsey, have been waiting since November to climb behind the wheel of their $65,000 Porsche Macan SUV. Vavra, who lives in Chester, N.H, says he found out about the fire while visiting Rennlist, a website frequented by Porsche enthusiasts.

“Wouldn’t it be terrible if my wife’s car is on there?” he wondered.

Sure enough, a phone call to his Porsche dealer in Stratham, N.H., confirmed the suspicion. He doesn’t know whether the Macan is unscathed or reduced to a burnt out hulk.

“For now, they’re recommending that we re-place the order,” Vavra said. (Source: Boston Globe)

I'd be going with that re-place request, rather than take a chance on something that looked fine but was damaged goods.

Vavra isn't, of course, alone. Many of those luxe 'mobiles were already spoken for. 

One of those spoken for was a fellow with a custom Boxster on order. 

Matt Farah, a car enthusiast and editor of the Smoking Tire, is one of the customers who believes his vehicle is stuck at sea. Farah tweeted that he had been waiting since August for a 2022 Boxster Spyder that was modified to his specifications. The vehicle, which he declared as “the best sports car of all time, hands down,” has a retail price of about $123,000.

But when he got the call from his dealer, he was left disappointed and stunned.

“My car is now adrift, possibly on fire, in the middle of the ocean,” he wrote.

While he’s not sure if his car survived the fire, Farah said it’s likely the vehicle will need to be rebuilt.

“Odds are a new build and hopefully not another 8 months wait for it,” he tweeted. (Source: WaPo)

I'd say the odds on are about 1,000/1. Maybe even 10,000/1.

Unless that Boxter had been swaddled in fire- and heat-proof protection - and even then - it just seems impossible that a car on that ship hasn't suffered a boatload of damage.

I'm reminded of three things.

One is all those cars that were severely damaged by the waters of Hurricane Katrina, but which were dried out, made to run enough to get through a test drive, and shipped north for resale. When the VIN numbers were checked, it was discovered that many of them had been totaled, and shouldn't have been sold. Vroom, vroom.

The second sitch was closer to home.

Many years ago, a small, local grocery/liquor store had a fire, and had to total all the food and booze that had been on site. A lot of the inventory had smoke/soot - i.e., obvious - damage. All of the inventory had been exposed to heat levels that rendered it unfit for consumption. So, the owner got an insurance payout to cover the losses. Which didn't stop him from looking things over, picking out items that looked okay, and proceeded to sell them at his second store. (Water and wine were two of the items I remember.) The owner was caught and charged with insurance fraud. Oops, oops.  

Of course, it may just be me, but it's hard to dredge up all that much sympathy for someone who's buying a $65K or $122K Porsche, and who's now going to have to undergo some delayed gratification here. And yet it's been such a tough couple of years, and someone wanting to lift their spirits with a fun new car... Not my cup of tea, but I bought plenty of things I didn't need during covid just because I could. 

And, of course, I feel bad for the dealers that are being hit by this.

The car buyers, even if they've made a downpayment, won't be out anything. They'll just have to wait. 

The manufacturers will no doubt be covered by the shipping line insurance.

But what happens to the dealers? 

I have no idea what percentage of a car's price goes to the dealer, but it's not zero. 

So this could be a major loss.

Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye on this one. Hope they don't have to scuttle the ship - that could be an environmental disaster. Hope they can put the fire out and tug the Felicity Ace back to a safe harbor to be dismantled and salvaged.

And the third thing I'm reminded of?

As a kid, I was wild about Shirley Temple. Now I find her movies creepy and pervy in the extreme, but as a kid, I loved her, and even had a Shirley Temple doll. In one of her movies, darling little Shirley, in all her pouty cuteness, sings "Many Brave Hearts Are Asleep in the Deep."

Which in my weird beebee brain was translaed into "Many Brave Cars Are Asleep in the Deep." So, caveat car buyer, even if your car isn't sleeping with the fishes, it may not be salvageable. 

Amazing how the mind works, no?

That's Washington's Birthday to you, bub!

When I was a kid, it was Washington's Birthday. And it was celebrated on February 22nd. None of this Monday holiday/long weekend folderol. For kids, the day it was celebrated mattered not, as whatever day W's B-day fell on was during our winter vacation week. (It goes without saying that, as a working adult, I grew to love those long weekends...)

Whatever day Washington's Birthday fell on, my mother usually made a chocolate sheet cake with vanilla frosting, studded with maraschino cherries. And she usually made sure that the ice cream on hand was cherry vanilla.

What I wouldn't give for a piece of that cake! As for cherry-vanilla ice cream, I'm going with a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia - an improvement on plain old cherry vanilla, since it adds bits of chocolate. 

Somewhere along the line, the name of the holiday transitioned to Presidents' Day. Or President's Day. Or Presidents Day. 

But the official federal holiday remains Washington's Birthday. 

States do their own thing, and, in Massachsuetts, we stuck with Washington's Birthday. Which I wasn't actually aware until just now was the case, but which I'm fine with. 

Beats having to asterisk the holiday and add a list of the presidents you believe should be omitted from any celebration and honor whatsover. (Looking at you, DJT.)

In munging around, I did find this useful map. It's from 2019, so a bit dated. But it's interesting to see how the day is observed (or not) around these not-so United States. Sticking with Washington's Birthday has to be one of the few tings Massachusetts has in common with North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, that's for sure. And there's no way I'd ever live in Utah, but I like that they split the day with Abraham Lincoln, my all time fave.  

Other than eating some Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, I will be doing little or nothing to celebrate today. Maybe I'll avoid the news (i.e., stay off MSNBC and Twitter) so that I won't have to spend one iota of energy stressing about Trump and the majority of the Republic Party trying to tear the country apart and install an authoritarian white nationalist regime.

 Maybe I'll rejoin Ancestry and see whether I'm related to Joe Biden, who has some roots in County Louth, not far from where one pair of my great-grandparents hail from. 

And maybe I'll reread what I had to say last year, when I wrote about my favorite presidents. 

Actually, I couldn't wait and went ahead and did my reread. Agree with it all.

Happy Washington's Birthday to my favorite presidents. You know who you are!

Sometimes there's an explanation. Sometime's it's "The Towering Inferno."

For a long while there, I was a Sudoku fiend. And I got really good at. Not "do the puzzle in pen" good at it, which is how I handle most crossword puzzles. But pretty darned good.

I'd print puzzles off the web. I'd buy books full of challenging puzzles.

And if I was sitting in front of the TV - especially if there was a ballgame on - I was working some Sudoku.

After quite a hiatus, I picked up one of the old books and puzzles and found that I still enjoy doing it.

Admittedly, I'm not quite as sharp as I was, but I think I'll build my math brain muscles back up over time.

To mark the occasion of my return to Sudoku, I even ordered a new pencil sharpener, as the cheesy little ones I had took forever to get a Number 2 Ticonderoga into fighting shape.

I had only completed about one-third of the 270 puzzles in the book I found, so this one will be with me for a while. (Once baseball season starts - I guess that should be if baseball season starts - I should be able to breeze through the remainder.)

What puzzles me is the list I found on a blank back page of the book.

Now, I find all sorts of stray notes I've made to myself. They're on stray pieces of paper, PostIt notes, the cover of a magazine, the back of an envelope. They're phone numbers with no name attached. (Should I call to see who answers? Nah. The moment has passed.) Names with no context. (Who is Ginny H, and why was it important for me to write her name down?)

Some of the notes I recognize as book titles. Others are movies. Or a series that someone recommends I start binging on. 

Sometimes the note is a few shopping list items. (Is this how I ended up with five different bottles of stainless steel appliance cleaner? Which doesn't include the container of stainless steel appliance wipes.)

Sometimes there's blog post idea. Sometimes I can't read my writing.

But the list I found on the back blank page of the Sudoku puzzle book was a true puzzler: a set of the names of entertainers - many long dead - alongside the names of two TV shows, one of which I rarely watched and couldn't stand.

So what do these folks have in common?

Fred Astaire
Robert Wagner
O.J. Simpson
Paul Newman
William Holden
Faye Dunaway
Jennifer Jones
Richard Chamberlain
Steve McQueen
Robert Vaughn
Eva Marie Saint
Dabney Coleman|
Maureen McGovern
Gregory Sierra - at least I think it says Gregory Sierra; he's the name that came up when I googled "Gregory Se", which is all I could make out of my scrawl)
Olan Soule
Michael Moriarty
Olan Soule (yes, he's there twice)

The two TV shows are The Brady Bunch (rarely watched/couldn't stand) and Barney Miller, which I liked and watched regularly. Gregory Sierra, who acted in the show, would explain Barney Miller. But The Brady Bunch? I mean, it would make some sort of internal sense, in a nonsense sort of way, if Maureen McCormick's name had been on my list. She played Marcia Brady. (And while I think of it, what was up with Carol Brady's first husband? Dead? Divorced? Deadbeat? Why did the girls all start using he last name Brady? And did the kids ever talk about their MIA bio parents? Weird, huh?)

As for the list...

Whatever triggered Fred Astaire in my brain way back when, following him up with Robert Wagner fits, as Fred played Bob's father on the series It Take a Thief. But what put O.J. next on the list? And why would O.J. lead me to Paul Newman, an actor I was very fond of. And an actor who, the older he got, just grew more handsome and sexier. 

Next up was William Holden, who I always rather liked. Stalag 17. Sunset Boulevard. Sabrina. He also appeared in a one of the all-time clunker-great disaster movies, Towering Inferno, which also featured Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, who appears a few names down on my list.

He starred in Network with Faye Dunaway, which couples them. And earlier he'd starred with Jennifer Jones in Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, one of the all-time tear-jerking romantic films. So there's that. 

But how did Richard Chamberlain make the list? I could understand if it had been a list of actors I had a crush on, as I was mad about him. Dr. James Kildare, my first serious actor boyfriend. (I was 11 when Dr. Kildare first aired.)

Steve McQueen comes next. Oh, why not?

But why Robert Vaughn? Sure, I watched Man from U.N.C.L.E., but I watched to see David McCallum, who played Illya Kuryakin to Robert Vaughn's Napoleon Solo.

Eva Marie Saint I only know from On the Waterfront. So why aren't Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, and Lee J. Cobb keeping her company on my list? Why, oh why?

And what brought Dabney Coleman to my mind? Just looked him up to prompt me about how and why he made the list. Found a probable answer. Dabney Coleman, it turns out, was in the Towering Inferno. Clicking through on the link to that film: treasure trove!

In addition to McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and in her final role, Jennifer Jones. (Source: Wikipedia)

Bing, bing, bing, and bing! Other than the Susans, Blakely and Flannery - people I've never heard of - all of those actors are on my list.

Still doesn't explain Eva Marie Saint. Or Clarence Williams III of Mod Squad fame. 

It does explain the presence of singer Maureen McGovern. Best known for "There's Got to Be A Morning After," from The Poseidon Adventure, another all-time clunker-great disaster movie, Moe - if I may be so bold - also sang The Towering Inferno theme. 

This brings us to Olan Soule - who made it onto my list not once, but twice! 

Olan Soule is best remembered by me for his role as Captain Midnight's sidekick. (Captain Midnight: stupid kids' show of the 1950's). As it turned out, he also had a role in - you guessed it - The Towering Inferno. He doesn't make the list on TTI's page on Wikipedia, but the movie does get a mention in Olan Soule's wiki bio. 

I am now breathing a sigh of relief about my list, and what I suspect might be its origins. 

I'm guessing that my husband and I were watching The Towering Inferno, and I was sitting there with my Sudoku book in my lap, only half paying attention to the movie. While we were watching, Jim was probably keeping up a running commentary on the number of well known actors who appeared in the film, and for some reason, I started jotting them down. Jim had excellent face recognition, but maybe he thought someone was Eva Marie Saint who wasn't Eva Marie Saint. Maybe one of the Susans?

Ditto for Clarence Williams III. Maybe there was a young Black actor that Jim mistook for Clarence Williams III.

This leaves Michael Moriarty as the odd actor out.

Sure, he could have been another misrecognition. But, on my list, he's actually in a column by himself, with nothing else in it but - a couple of inches below his name - the words Brady Bunch, and Barney Miller. 

I always found Michael Moriarty a bit weird and creepy, which explains why he occupies a spot by himself.

How he got there, I'll never know.

Anyway, dropping down to the bottom of the page, I have Olan Soule's name in there for the second time. Because he's on their twice, he gets the picture.

(And, yes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.)

Sometime's, as it turns out, there is an explanation. And this time it's The Towering Inferno.  

What a relief!

Twisted Sister?

Having spent sixteen years within the confines of the Catholic educational system, I've known plenty of nuns in my day.

Few of then measured up to the beau ideal of the gorgeous and radiant Sister Benedict (played by the gorgeous and radiant Ingrid Bergman), the tubercular nun that Father O'Malley (Bing Crosby) crossed swords with - and crushed on - in Bells of St. Mary's.

Even if they weren't quite Sister Benedict, I knew plenty of good nuns - women with heart, soul, goodness, kindness, and intelligence. And there were plenty who were mean and/or nasty and/or bullying and/or bitter and/or hypocrites of the highest order and/or batshit crazy.

But I never met one who I would have thought capable of embezzling nearly a million bucks from the school they were running.

Several years ago, I wrote about Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, a nun who apparently didn't take that vow of poverty any too seriously. 

The Los Angeles native embezzled more than $835,000 from the Catholic school in Torrance, Calif., where she was principal to pay for 10 years of personal expenses, including her many gambling trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, according to federal prosecutors. The tuition checks and funds sent to St. James Catholic School between 2008 and 2018 that were stolen by Kreuper equaled “the tuition of 14 different students per year,” prosecutors said. (Source: WaPo)

Well, bless me, Father, Twisted Sister Kreuper fessed up and now, at the age of 80, she's just been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison, guilty of wire fraud and money laundering. She was also ordered to pay back the money she stole. Just how an imprisoned nun is going to be able to do that is a bit beyond me. She's not likely to get another teaching job at her age. Even if she did, teaching in parochial school doesn't pay as well as teaching in a public school. And what might be a source of making up the restitution dollars - gambling - is a bit too risky, especially with the not-so-good sister's history. So the slots and blackjack are out.  

“I have sinned, I’ve broken the law and I have no excuses,” Kreuper said at the sentencing over Zoom. “My actions were in violation of my vows, my commandments, the law and, above all, the sacred trust that so many had placed in me. I was wrong, and I’m profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering I’ve caused so many people.”

Which is better than her initial response:

“When confronted, the defendant admitted to stealing the money,” [prosecutor Poonam] Kumar said. “She claimed that the salary differential between nuns and priests meant she was owed this money, which is inconsistent with the vow of poverty she took.”

It's certainly true that nuns were treated piss-poorly. They were paid little - if anything - to staff the schools they taught in. And, unlike priests, nuns - most? all? - never had pension money set aside for their old age. So they're now broke. The assumption back in the day was that the younger nuns would subsidize the old, retired nuns. But they're not making younger nuns the way they used to, and typical congregations are now made up of lots of older nuns in need of care - and nobody and no money to care for them.

Yet one more disgraceful thing the Catholic Church has done for and to people.

I get periodic requests to support the order of nuns I had. And I still find in my mail periodic requests to my long dead mother to support the order of nuns who taught her back in Chicago in the 1920's and 1930's. 

I'm sure the fact that Sister Kreuper was an embezzler isn't going to turn a lot of hearts towards donating to the upkeep of her order. 

Anyway, Sister Kreuper apparently didn't realize she had a gambling problem. Her attorney said:

“During the time period this was happening, she had no idea this was happening. She just enjoyed gambling,” he said. “It wasn’t until the house of cards came crashing down that she realized what she had done and started to go therapy, where she realized this addiction was a contributing factor.

He added, “It’s not meant as an excuse. It’s an explanation.”

Explanation accepted. 

Still, what a crazy story.

Didn't nuns used to sit around the convent recreation room playing Crazy Eights for pins?

Anyway, I don't see what imprisoning this old nun is going to accomplish. There can't be that many embezzling, gambling nuns out there that need to get warned off bad behavior.

So what's the purpose? Sure, she done bad, but in the grand scheme of things...

Sister Kreuper's sentence starts in June, and I'm guessing she'll make the most of it. She may never become a Sister Benedict, but I bet there's some goodness and kindness in her that might prove helpful to the other prisoners. Hope so, anyway.

Good luck, Sta'!

 

 

A not so great imposter

As a kid, I was fascinated by the story of Ferdinand Demara, a.k.a. "The Great Imposter." 

Among his many exploits, Demara impersonated a monk (several times), a psychologist (he worked as a college psychology
instructor), and a surgeon, in which role he served in the Canadian Navy during the Korean War and successfully operated on a number of the wounded. (Tony Curtis impersonated Demara in the 1961 movie recounting his exploits.)

I hadn't thought about Demara in years - probably not in the twenty years since I watched Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can," the saga of yet another pretty great impostor, Frank Abegnale. Among his other "gigs," Abegnale faked being a doctor, as imposters often do, and faked being a Pan Am pilot. 

Demara (and Abegnale) came to mind when I read about Robert Edward Golden, who was recently apprehended in Portland, Oregon for impersonating a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent.

If someone were going to impersonate a DEA agent, the "normal" thing to do, of course, would be to roust guys with drugs and take off with the money and the drugs. Although you might get into some hot water if you messed with a drug kingpin, it seems to me that you could get away with playing this game for a while. After all, the guys with the drugs and the money aren't exactly likely to call the police and say 'I wuz robbed.' 

But, no, Golden -  with his silver Dodge Charger souped up with red and blue lights, and his "DEA POLICE" tactical vest, and his fake credentials, and his rubber-ball-shooting/looks real weaponry, and his handcuffs - was pretending to be training someone to be a DEA agent. 

In a criminal complaint filed Thursday, federal prosecutors allege that Golden was impersonating a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and, over the past year, duped an unsuspecting woman into thinking she was “in fact in training to be a DEA agent.”

“Golden said he and [the woman] were into ‘cosplay’ (costume play) and that is why they had the police tactical vests with DEA/Police patches” and other fake items, according to the affidavit. (Source: WaPo)

Turns out it was some elaborate cosplay, and he was the one into it, not the dupe who actually thought she was being trained. 

To help convince the woman that she was a DEA agent trainee, Golden gave her a badge, took her on nighttime surveillance ride-alongs and accompanied her to shooting practice, court documents say. He also allegedly brought her to meet homeless people so they could form relationships and be used as potential informants.

I can't imagine how credulous and brain dead this woman was that she thought that this was the normal, legit path to becoming a DEA agent. Someone clearly not bright enough to be a DEA agent. And where and how did they find each other? Craigslist? In a bar? (Great pickup line: hey, baby, would you like to be a fed?) Ah, well, at least she got some shooting practice out of it, and made friends with some homeless folks. That, and, thanks to those red and blue lights - purchased, along with the other fake paraphernalia, online - getting to zip through traffic. Wheeeee.....

Court documents show Golden was released to await trial after agreeing to several conditions, including counseling, mental health evaluations and random drug tests. If convicted, he faces a fine and up to three years in federal prison.

Unless evidence of actual real-fake drug stops emerges, I don't imagine that Golden will do any prison time. I do hope he gets the mental health counseling - and comes up with a simpler cosplay. Whatever happened to dressing up like Batman and visiting sick kids in hospitals? Guess that's so pre-covid.

Wonder what Ferdinand Demara would make of all this. I suspect he'd consider it rank amateur hour. 

And the second prize is...

When I was a kid, I wanted my mother to go on "Queen for a Day" and win something. Ship 'n Shore blouses. A clothes dryer. (Admittedly, a dryer would have been a self-serving prize, as one of my regular chores was hanging the laundry out, and gathering it in.) 

I never thought through what her sob story would be. She didn't really have one. But I wanted to see her in the fur stole, wearing a crown, holding that spray of roses. And coming home with some loot.

My father? He was plenty competitive and athletic. He could have gone on "Beat the Clock." 

Personally, I could see myself on "Password," "The Match Game," or "College Bowl."

Later on, when it was still possible for a normally intelligent person with a head full of miscellaneous info to win, I thought I might do okay on "Jeopardy." (That was back a long while ago, when there was less stuff to know. Now when I watch "Jeopardy," which I do on occasion, there's no way I can answer half the questions, which didn't used to be the case. Sometimes I can't even figure out what type of answer they're looking for...)

In my game show watching heyday, I rather liked "The Price is Right," and thought host Bill Cullen - always pushing up his glasses, like I did - was kind of cute.

But I never envisioned myself as a contestant, and certainly could never imagine myself a contestant in the current incarnation, when you have to do something or wear something or carry something that will capture host Drew Carey's attention.  

But Catherine Graham of Marshfield, Massachusetts, has always wanted to be on "Price." She's younger than I am, but she, too, watched as a kid. And maybe even saw Bill Cullen in action.

Anyway, last fall, Catherine was in California to visit her daughter, and applied to be an audience member - an item on her bucket list - and was contacted for an interview. She has a nice personality, the outgoing kind they look for, and she made the cut. 

So she and her husband flew back out to California in December to attend the show. 

There was no guarantee that she'd get chosen to actively participate, but luck was with her, and she was picked to be a contestant. She made it through a few rounds of good guessing (snagging a firepit and a loveseat), and then advanced to the round where you might win big. 

When Catherine Graham made it to the stage during a December taping of “The Price is Right,” her head filled with fantasies of the prizes she might walk away with.

A shiny new sedan with leather seating? A luxury cruise with a week’s worth of free massages? A trip to a tropical island, far from the harsh Boston winter?

That sure would have been nice. Instead, she wound up winning a vacation that she’s quite familiar with as a New England resident.

In a twist of fate that has sparked an outpouring of sympathy for Graham, the Marshfield resident walked away from her game show appearance with an all-expenses-paid journey up Interstate 93 to the faraway land of ... New Hampshire. At least she won’t have to worry about the hassle at the airport. (Source: Boston Globe)

Not that a trip to New Hampshire can't be wonderful.

New Hampshire has some gorgeous scenery and some very nice resorts. You can sign me up for a spa day at the Mount Washington Resort any old day. 

But the prize wasn't to one of the very nice resorts surrounded by gorgeous scenery.

It was to stay in The Hotel Concord, which looks like a fine little boutique hotel, but it's in Concord.

Sure, it's the capital of the Granite State, but I'm not sure what you'd find there to occupy you in Concord for five days. (Last summer, I spent a night in the capital of Vermont. If Montepelier's any indication of what life in a small state capital is like, it ain't much.) The trip did include a rental car, and New Hampshire isn't all that big, so you could drive to see the sights. Why, you could even drive to Montpelier, Vermont. 

Anyway, five days in Concord, NH, even if you're not from around here is not all that glamorous. Let alone for someone who lives next state over and has been there plenty of times already.

“I have been to New Hampshire a billion times,” said Graham, laughing about the odds of winning a vacation to somewhere so close to home. “It’s a beautiful state — I love it — but I would really like to have gone on a cruise around the world, or someplace exotic.”

When Carey announced the prize destination:

“It was so funny. My face says it all,” said Graham, who for a brief moment on camera looked like someone who had just been pranked. “I just laughed. [I was thinking] ‘Great. It couldn’t have been Tahiti, or Hawaii?’”

Graham turned down the plane ride and rental car - and hopefully won't have to pay taxes on those items. Come September, she and her husband will drive up to New Hampshire, where they can Live Free or Die to their hearts' content.

But what a prize! Maybe second prize was ten days in Concord, NH.

Harvard fights fiercely, as it is wont to do

Anything to do with Harvard University is always a big deal around here - even for those of us whose closest tie to that modest little school in Cambridge is eating at Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage, just across the way from Harvard Yard. 

When that anything to do with Harvard is positive - a Nobel Prize! - we get to take a bit of second- or third-hand pride in living in such close proximity to greatness. Hub of the Universe! Smartest place to live in the whole, wide world.

When that anything to do with Harvard is negative - office space for Jeffrey Epstein! - we, of course, do a rapid course reversal and the old schadenfreude kicks in. Harvard! Such arrogant a-holes! What do you expect!

Whether + or - , Harvard makes news, and the latest bit to make news is the story about three (female) graduate students who are suing Veritas Central for failing to act on accusations that anthropology processor John Comaroff engaged in sexual harassment. 

When the accusations surfaced a few years back, Harvard had put Comaroff on (upaid) leave. But other than that, the women argue, their complaints were largely shrugged off. 

Initially, much of the reaction focused on a specific incident, a meeting with student Lilia Kilburn (one of the three women suing) during which:

Professor Comaroff repeatedly described various ways in which Ms. Kilburn would be raped and killed in South Africa — approximately 3,000 miles away from Central Africa — because she is in a same-sex relationship,” the suit says.

Comaroff’s attorneys acknowledged the conversation he had with Kilburn about fieldwork abroad while traveling with her same-sex partner, but they said going over the risk of sexual violence was a “necessary conversation for her safety.” (Source: NBC News)

Concern for student safety. Sound advice regarding her well-being. Reasonable enough.  

And reasonable enough for a group of fellow faculty memers to jump into the fray to support their colleague. 

The day after Comaroff was placed on unpaid leave, 38 faculty members signed an open letter calling him an “excellent colleague” and expressing dismay at Harvard’s decision, adding that they would feel “ethically compelled to offer the same advice” to a student considering studies in a country with such prohibitions.

I can't reel the names of very many Harvard faculty members off the top of my head, but writer, scholar, and TV personality (Finding Your Roots) Henry Louis Gates is one of them. He signed. As did historian Jill Lepore, writer Jamaica Kincaid, and Paul Farmer (Doctors Without Borders). 

Harvard fights fiercely, and circling the wagons is part of their fighting repertoire. 

Then last week, the lawsuit filed by Kilburn, Margaret Czerwienski, and Amulya Mandava provided a lot more detail about what went down with Comaroff. They claim he:

... “kissed and groped students without their consent, made unwelcome sexual advances, and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained.” When women did seek help from university officials, the lawsuit adds, Harvard “brushed them aside and opted to protect its star professor over vulnerable students.”

The students’ complaint, filed in Massachusetts federal court, alleges Harvard’s eventual probe into Comaroff’s alleged harassment “only exacerbated [their] nightmare” by prolonging the process, allowing the professor to “tamper with evidence” by intimidating potential student witnesses, and sharing Kilburn’s private therapy records with Comaroff.

Comaroff then used these notes to “gaslight” Kilburn during the university investigation, the lawsuit claims, and tell her “that she must have imagined that he sexually harassed her because she was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.” She says she developed this condition, however, as a result of his sexual misconduct. (Source: The Daily Beast)

It certainly sounds as if Comaroff has been at his creepy behavior for years, decades even, as he supposedly has a history of harrassing behavior at the University of Chicago, where he taught for many years before being wooed to Harvard in 2012. And he's the sort of old goat who makes a ho-ho laugh out of it, too. 

During an October 2017 dinner attended by faculty and grad students, Comaroff was allegedly so bold as to compare himself to Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie producer and convicted rapist. “They’re coming for me next!” Comaroff said, according to the lawsuit.

And his wife - who is also on the Harvard anthropology faculty - got in on the act, too. 

His wife Jean then allegedly scorned accusers who report serial predators like Weinstein, saying, “Whatever happened to rolling with the punches?”

I have sometimes felt that the Me Too movement spends too much me too time on smaller, micro offenses, when they should be focusing on larger, more serious issues. But ignoring those smaller, micro offenses - which is what my generation tended to do: shrugging things off, 'boys will be boys', rolling with the punches, rolling our eyes - helped create an environment where a lot worse things can and did happen. 

So, good for these young women for standing up, knowing, I'm quite sure, that it will jeopardize their professional opportunities.

They're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. GOOD ON THEM!

Anyway, there's a lot more detail on a lot more bad behavior on Comaroff's part. And, of course, a lot more denial from Harvard. 

But the additional information on salacious behavior on Comaroff's part prompted 35 or the 38 to retract their support for Comaroff. (Source: Harvard Crimson - write fiercely, Harvard Crimson!)

I know myself, and I know that I, too, could have knee-jerked my way into signing the letter in support of Comaroff. He's a friend. I find him kind of amusing. He's just a harmless old goat who was just giving sage advice. He never grabbed my ass. 

Yep. I might have signed. 

And then, as more information emerged, I would probably have unsigned.

As for Harvard, they just need to do better. Those of us who live in the occasional reflection of their mighty glow hope they improve. But knowing how fiercely they tend to fight when under attack, I ain't counting on it. 

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"Fight Fiercely Harvard" is a satirical Harvard fight song written by Tom Lehrer. 

Belated thanks, Mr. Lincoln

When I was a kid, we celebrated Washington's Birthday. It was a day off from school, and part of a weeklong mid-winter vacation. We celebrated the big day on February 22nd. Somewhere along the line, the holiday turned into one of those Monday holidays that gives us a long weekend. And somewhere along the line, the feds changed the designation of the holiday to one that honored all presidents, which is mostly - but not always - a good thing. 

(Washington was actually born on February 11th, but that was according to the Julian calendar. In the mid-1700's, we switched to the Gregorian calendar, which rejiggered George Washington's bday to February 22nd.)

As I mentioned, celebrating Presidents' Day is mostly a good thing. We actually have more than a few presidents who are worth celebrating.

Prince among them - if prince is the right word: Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12th in 1809. 

Last year, to honor Abraham Lincoln, I doffed my virtual stovepipe hat to this great man, our greatest president, IMHO.

But wait, there's even more to say about this great man. And that is that he was also good. A good man who, in 1847, made a donation to Irish relief for those suffering from the Great

Famine.

My Irish ancestors were not Famine Irish.

They made it through An Gorta Mór - the Great Hunger - and got on the boat in the 1870's.

They were lucky to have survived. It's estimated that one million died of the hunger, and another one million emigrated. This out of a population of only eight million.

Lincoln made a donation of $10 - which translates into about $500 in today's terms. 

Not a tremendous sum, but it was probably a fairly hefty amount for a not-yet-forty married man with a couple of kids, whose typical fee for handling a case was two, five, ten bucks. 

That year, he was serving his one and only term in Congress. (At the time, he was a Whig.) I couldn't find what members of the House were making in the 1840's, but senators received a per diem of $8. 

Assuming the House pay was equal, Lincoln donated more than a day's pay to help the Irish out. 

According to historian Christine Kinealy, a famine scholar, Lincoln had something of a soft spot in his heart for the Irish:

"I suppose Lincoln always had a great affinity for the Irish and their plight. He knew and recited Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock and his favorite ballad was Lady Dufferin’s poem ‘The Lament of the Irish Emigrant’ set to music." (Source: Irish Central)

Maybe it was because he was poor. Maybe because he had known the sorrow his mother's dying when he was a young child. Maybe it was just because he was a good and kind man.

Lots of people from all around the world made donations in this long-ago pre-GoFundMe world. President James Polk gave $50. Even Queen Victoria made a donation, which is pretty rich, considering that it was her government's policies that were killing the Irish. 

The Irish who came to Amerikay - many of them Famine Irish - helped pay Mr. Lincoln back by fighting in the Civil War. (It's estimated that 150,000-200,000 Irishmen fought for the Union, accounting for nearly 10% of the troops. Another 20,000-40,000 are said to have fought for the Confederacy.)

Anyway, I didn't need another reason to like and admire Abraham Lincoln, but helping provide relief for Ireland would, in fact, be another reason to do so. Who knows? Maybe the money he gave helped feed the Trainors in County Louth, the Joyce's in Mayo, the Rogers in Roscommon. (I know, I know. Non-earmarked donations are fully fungible. Still, it's a thought.)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln. And belated thanks.

Rebranded

Well, the Washington Football Team (formerly known as the Washington Redskins) have chosen a new name for themselves. They're now the Washington Commanders. They didn't rebrand without a fight. The pressure's been on the team for years to replace the odious name "Redskins" with something that wasn't perceived as a slur against Native Americans.

As replacement names go, they could have done worse. Commanders has something of a DC connection: Commander in Chief and all that. 

But they've left themselves open to being called the W.C., and dubbed the Commies.

Me? When I first heard the name, I thought of The Commodores. The muscial group I tend to confuse with The Spinners, not the Vanderbilt Commodores, who took their name from the nickname for their founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt. 

Would that the Commodores, errrrr, I mean Commanders, had taken the rebranding opportunity to pick a new color scheme.

I suppose that would have sent their fans into a spin, but if there's a worse color combo than maroon and gold, I don't know what it is. And I'm not just saying that just because I don't like Boston College, which also sports those colors. (Oh, no. Just checked. Washington's colors are burgundy and gold; BC's are maroon and gold. Burgundy, which combines red and purple, is marginally better than maroon, which combines red and brown. But just marginally. In either case, burgundy/maroon and gold is not my favorite color combo.)

Washington is not the only team with a recent rebrand.

The Cleveland Indians are now the Guardians. 

It certainly made sense for them to dump their mascot, Chief Wahoo, with his big toothy grim and crazy eyes, an image as offensive to Native Americans as the name Redskins. 

Anyway, while they were retiring Chief Wahoo, they jettisoned the name Indians.

Maybe I'd feel all boo-hooey if I'd grown up a fan of the Cleveland Indians - baseball is such a game of nostalgia - but I rather like the new designation, named for some statuary on a bridge near their field. The statues are officially called the Guardians of Traffic, which "symbolize progress in transportation. Each Guardian holds a different vehicle in its hands: a hay wagon, covered wagon, stagecoach, a 1930s-era automobile, as well as four types of motorized trucks used for construction." (Thanks, Wikipedia.) And these art nouveau buds are just fabulous. Wish we had them around here. I might just have to go to Cleveland to see them. And, of course, to watch the Guardians play the Olde Towne Team.

Rebranding is nothing new for the Cleveland baseballers. They started out as the Bluebirds, and spent some time as the Naps (after star Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie), before settling on the Indians, which may or may not have been a shout-out to a Native-American baseball star Louis "Chief" Sockalexis, who played for an earlier, National League incarnation of Cleveland baseball called the Spiders. (Great name, that, but it would probably ick too many fans out. Arachnophobia - fear of spiders - is a big one.)

Over the years, many college and high school teams have also moved away from Indian-related names, including a local high school that just dumped the name Sachems in favor of the Red & Black. Personally, I don't see anything pejorative about the name Sachem, which is another word for Chief, but I think it was a matter of getting rid of any iconography that uses Native American images. 

Another sports rebranding, which took place 25 years ago, changed the name of the NBA team Washington Bullets to the Wizards. This was to get away from reflecting the gun violence in DC, and supposedly because the team's owner was a friend of Israeli PM Itzak Rabin, who was gunned down by an assassin in 1995. Reason enough. And, while the name the Wizards isn't particularly intimidating to the opposition, it sure is fun.

Companies and products also rebrand. 

Facebook is now Meta. (Good luck with that one. You can run, but you can't hide.) And Aunt Jemima pancake syrup and mix are now Pearl Milling Company, which speaks to the brand's origins. I can understand the company wanted to get rid of Aunt Jemima, an image that relied on the racist trope of the smiling Black servant. But I think they should have looked a little further for a replacement. I just don't see Pearl Milling catching on or ever becoming iconic or beloved.

I worked for a company that had as its flagship (and sometimes only) product something called ATF, which stood for Automated Test Facility. This was during the time of Waco, when the ATF was prominently in the news. To make matters worse, a component of our product was the ATF Agent. I can assure you that our product's name brought out the crazy conspiracy theorists all over the place. I remember one trade show kook ranting to me about the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I can't remember the connection he was making to Waco and our product, but it sure was clear in his fevered little mind.

Despite encounters like this, we never bothered to change the brand. 

Just as well.

The company was acquired and the product (and most of the company) was put out of our misery.

Rebranding occurs in the non-sports entertainment world, too. As in the Dixie Chicks, who no longer wished they were in the land o'cotton and became the just plain Chicks.

And as in Lady Antebellum, the Grammy-winning country group that decided that the word antebellum had way too many uncomfortably racist connotations and turned themselves into Lady A, which had been their nickname all along, and which they'd trademarked back in 2010.

Turns out there was an African American blue singer, based in Seattle, who was also using the name Lady A - and had been since the 1980's.

Anyway, Lady A(ntebellum) decided to take on Lady A(nita White).

First, they tried to work things out amicably, but it seems that Lady A(nita White) was looking for $10M for her good name ($5M for herself, $5M to charity). This doesn't seem like all that much, given what the members of Lady A(ntebellum) are all worth individually. (Lots.) And given that Lady A(netbellum) made their name change in the name of Black Lives Mattering.

Looks like Black Lives Matter more at the aggregate level than at the individual level when it comes to an individual Black life mattering.

Anyway, Lady A(ntebellum) ended up suing Lady A(nita White). And Lady A(nita White) countersued.

They've just settled, but the details of the agreement haven't as yet come to light. 

Guess we'll find out when we see whether Lady A(ntebellum) and/or Lady A(nita White) are still using Lady A. 

Rebranding. Sometimes it's just not all that easy.

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This post was prompted by an brief story that appeared in the Washington Post.