Challenger, Curmudgeons, and Freedom Day

Thursday, January 27^th -- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Day

American composer and songwriter Jerome Kern was born on this day in 1885. Among his scores for stage and screen were such memorable songs as "Ol' Man River," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "I Won't Dance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "All the Things You Are," and "The Last Time I Saw Paris." If you can't hum every one of these songs or conjure up a great performance of them in your memory, you don't really know music.

The World War II siege of Leningrad was lifted on this day in 1944. Russia's second-largest city and former capital (called St. Petersburg whenever Communists didn't rule) was bombed by the Germans for 430 hours starting on September 4, 1941. The suffering of the people of Leningrad during the 880-day siege was one of the greatest tragedies of WWII. More than half the population of Russia's second-largest city died during the winter of 1942. (The novel Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah is partly set during the siege.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on this day in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. He began performing at age three and composing at age five, and he was trotted out and exhibited all over Europe by his impresario-father.

Friday, January 28^th -- Challenger Day

Twenty-five years ago today at 11:39 a.m., the Challenger space shuttle exploded 74 seconds into its flight and about 10 miles above earth. Killed were teacher Christa McAuliffe (who was the first ordinary citizen in space) and six crew members: Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ellison S. Onizuka, A&T alumnus Ronald E. McNair, and Gregory B. Jarvis.

Welsh-born Explorer Henry Morton Stanley was born on this date in 1841. In an era when Africa was still largely unmapped, Stanley led the expedition to find missing missionary-explorer David Livingstone, who had not been heard from for more than two years. Stanley began the search on March 21, 1871, and finally found the explorer at Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, on November 10, 1871, whereupon he asked the question, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" which became famous because its utter lack of emotion was so very British.

Saturday, January 29^th -- Curmudgeons Day

A curmudgeon is strictly defined as "an ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions," but in recent decades seems always to be linked to the words "beloved old," so that it's now an almost affectionate term. By calling someone an "old curmudgeon," you recognize their dissatisfaction without recognizing any obligation to do anything about it, so that it is, in effect, a way to marginalize the perpetually miserable. Even when someone calls himself a curmudgeon, he's generally saying, "Don't mind me, I'm always stubbornly unhappy."

Probably the best-known curmudgeon was W.C. Fields, whose persona both on and off screen was entertainingly displeased and unlikeable. That is why his birthday -- this date in 1880 -- was chosen for Curmudgeons Day, though the founders of the day call curmudgeons "crusty yet insightful wags who consistently apply the needle of truth to the balloons of hypocrisy and social norms." In my experience, however, curmudgeons rarely have any special insight into what's true; they simply prefer their own ignorance and prejudices to those of other people.

Great Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov born today in 1860. He is especially remembered for The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, and "method acting" was born with Stanislavski's production of Chekhov's first play, The Seagull, which is why Stanislavski's seminal book An Actor Prepares is usually published with a depiction of a seagull on the cover. Chekhov's place are invariably misunderstood today by actors and directors who insist on playing them as ponderous tragedies from the start; what Chekhov wrote were light-hearted, witty comedies that gradually devolve into tragedies, with the bewildered characters not quite sure what happened to their pleasant lives. In other words, what he wrote was reality without foreknowledge.

The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, California, on this day in 1847. In 1846, as newly penniless Mormons were fleeing the American mobs that drove them out of their city of Nauvoo in Illinois, the U.S. government -- which had done nothing to protect them from their enemies -- came to their relief by enlisting 500 of their men into the only religiously-based unit in the history of the U.S. military in support of the American side in the Mexican War. All of them donated their $42 pay, given them in advance at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, to the Mormon Church, which used the $30,000 actually received to feed the refugees from Nauvoo and buy wagons and supplies for the trek west to the Salt Lake Valley.

Leaving Council Bluffs, Iowa, on July 16, 1846, the 500 men of the Mormon Battalion (and the 50 women and children who accompanied them) marched through Mexican territory for 2,000 miles -- the longest march in modern military history -- at first under the command of non-Mormon James Allen, and then, from Santa Fe on, under West Pointer Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke. Along the way they established the first wagon route from Santa Fe to southern California, later called the "Santa Fe Trail"; their historic arrival is commemorated every year in San Diego's Old Town with a military parade.

Their story doesn't end there, however. After their discharge, some former Battalion members stopped near Sacramento, California, on their way to the Mormon Church's new headquarters in Salt Lake City, to earn money to supply themselves at Sutter's Mill, and were there when gold was discovered, launching the California Gold Rush. The Mormon veterans brought back $17,000 in gold to contribute to the economy of the Mormon colonies in Utah -- and Forty-Niners passing through Salt Lake City on their way to the gold fields also gave the Mormons an economic boost as they supplied themselves for the journey across the wastelands of Nevada.

Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven," was published anonymously on this day in 1845 in New York's Evening Mirror newspaper. The poem was a sensation -- it would be reprinted at least 16 times in various periodicals and books that same year -- and soon Poe's authorship was revealed. But the celebrity status Poe enjoyed as a result of "The Raven" did nothing to relieve his poverty -- Poe had received a total of $15 for the poem. The classic lines "Once upon a midnight dreary" and "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore'" were recited by thousands of schoolchildren, and appeared in hundreds of anthologies -- as well as in parodies -- to this day. I, for one, cannot understand the poem's appeal; even as a child, I thought it to be nothing but pseudo-portentous twaddle. But then, I've never been much of a fan of horror, Poe, or gloomy emotional poetry.

Sunday, January 30^th -- Franklin Roosevelt Day

On this day in 1969 the Beatles performed together in public for the last time in a show on the roof of their Apple Studios in London, England. It was interrupted by police after they received complaints from the neighbors about the noise.

On this day in 1798, the first brawl in the US House of Representatives broke out during an argument between Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont and Roger Griswold of Connecticut, when Lyon spat in Griswold's face. A resolution to expel Lyon from Congress was introduced, but the measure failed and Lyon maintained his seat.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on this day in 1882. Elected as the 32nd President of the United States in 1932, he was the only president to serve more than two terms. Others might easily have served more than two terms, but all FDR's predecessors modestly followed George Washington's wise example and declined to run for a third term. FDR was elected four times, even though his health was so bad the fourth time that he died on April 12, 1945, only a few months into the term. His primary achievements in the fourth term were, first, to give in to Stalin on every major point in the "big three" conference at Yalta -- shutting Churchill, who might have resisted Stalin, out of much of the deliberations, and listening to Communist spy and American State Dept. official Alger Hiss while he did; and, second, to choose Harry S Truman as his Vice President, who surprised everyone by being a tougher and, by my measure, better President than his predecessor.

Roosevelt is regarded as a great president by many; what all can agree on is that he was one of the most powerful and politically astute. When the Supreme Court blocked many of his attempts to remake America along socialist lines, he attempted to add six new justices to the Supreme Court; since they would all be appointed by him, they would have joined with Roosevelt's existing allies on the court to form a reliable majority. Then there would have been no limit to his power, since he had huge majorities in both houses of Congress. This would have thwarted the checks and balances of the Constitution and made him, in effect, dictator for life.

But Roosevelt's image of invincibility was shattered by the public resistance to the court-packing scheme, and so while he got the "for life" part, he wasn't able to become the dictator. All of this, of course, would have been "for the good of the people," though none of his economic policies managed to end the Great Depression and, in the view of many economists, tended to worsen and prolong it. However, his enactment of Social Security and his efforts to supply England and keep it alive when Churchill stood alone against Hitler were solid achievements well worth honoring. Perhaps he put America in its worst danger of losing the Constitutional protection of democracy since the Civil War, but the Constitution survived the test of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Monday, January 31^st -- Social Security Day

The first Social Security check was issued on this day in 1940, to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, who received her first monthly retirement check in the amount of $22.54. Fuller had worked for three years under the Social Security program (which had been established by legislation in 1935). The accumulated taxes on her salary over those three years were $24.75. She lived to be 100 years old, collecting $22,888 in Social Security benefits.

Dentist and author Zane Grey was born on this day in 1872. He is known for writing more than 80 very popular books, most of them set in the American West; the most popular was Riders of the Purple Sage. If you've never heard of him, don't be surprised. His fame faded along with the popularity of the Western in American culture.

Inspire Your Heart with the Arts Day is intended as a day to experience art in your life. Say the promoters, "Food sustains you as a human, art inspires you to be divine." We are encouraged to go to an art museum, browse through an art book at the library, enroll in an art class or commission an artist to paint or sculpt something. Personally, I will be stunned if anyone is thereby inspired to "be divine." We are also encouraged to "read your favorite poem out loud. Go to a concert or play. Sign up for dance lessons."

Given the current state of American culture, very little contemporary art is actually intended for the enjoyment of ordinary people; it's usually specifically designed to exclude us so that the cultural elite can feel superior by liking the deliberately unlikeable. Fortunately, there is plenty of non-contemporary art around for our enjoyment; my heart is mostly inspired by art from now-dead artists.

Tuesday, February 1^st -- Freedom Day

Besides being Black History Month, which starts today, February has been designated as the month for several other causes:

Bake for Family Fun Month: This is a happy thought. In honor of National Pie Day last week, my wife taught our 16-year-old how to bake her flawless pie crust. As a result, I got a wedge of banana cream pie, my daughter had a lesson in pie-making from a longtime master, my wife and daughter had several happy and cooperative hours together, and many people in years to come got whatever excellent pies our daughter makes. Learning how to make chocolate chip cookies from my older sister and learning how to make spice cake with penuche icing, as well as salmon loaf and many other dishes, from my mom were many of the best days of my childhood -- and as a result, I can, alone in a kitchen, put together creditable meals and desserts without repeating a recipe for at least a couple of weeks. Get your daughters and sons into the kitchen and teach them, in an atmosphere of patience and pleasure!

Library Lovers Month: I love libraries so much that I never check out their books. This is because I carry on a fervent dialogue with the authors of the books I'm reading, which results in marginal notes, savage underlining, and endless dog-earing. Better if I own my own books, I think.

National Bird-Feeding Month: I'm glad I didn't wait for February to start feeding birds; though that is usually the month when birds have exhausted most of their most plentiful sources of food, this winter they've needed what I offered them since December. Besides, birds are kind of stupid and it takes them a while to notice the food you've left out for them. So if you put up bird feeders early in February, don't be surprised if you aren't visited by gangs of avian diners until March. Then again, they might discover you immediately and festoon your patio or yard with augean evidence of their alimentary plenitude before the week is out.

Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month: There's a month for this? Regular readers of Uncle Orson Reviews Everything will note that I am a shopping cart fanatic -- on my walks through the neighborhood, I sometimes scoop up as many as five or six carts that have been strewn like confetti along my route push them up the hill to Harris-Teeter. Every now and then I find a Food Lion cart that has somehow migrated from Church Street to Elm, and then I ponder on the vicissitudes of cartly existence, and how I might be frustrating all the hopes and dreams of a cart that has desperately been trying to get as far from Food Lion as possible. To carts, I may be a villain; but I don't care. Returning carts is a civilized thing to do.

Both director John Ford (1895) and actor Clark Gable (1901) were born on this date.

Freedom Day is the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's approval of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Unbelievably, there are boneheads in the world so fanatically politically correct and so utterly ignorant of historical context that they call Lincoln racist for having supported proposals about slavery that fell short of what said boneheads think he should have done. The fact is that Lincoln was an adamant opponent of slavery and supporter of the rights of blacks in America, and without his bold actions there is a good chance that blacks would have remained enslaved in America at least as long as they were in Brazil, and perhaps longer.

People who claim that American slavery would have ended without a northern victory in the Civil War would do well to look at how Brazil ended slavery "peacefully." First, Brazil had the example of America's bloody war to spur them toward emancipation; they began gradually in 1871 by declaring that the children of slaves were all born free -- which doesn't really help much when their parents remain enslaved. Only seventeen years later, in 1888, was slavery fully abolished -- when Emperor Dom Pedro II was away in Europe and his daughter, Princess Isabel, signed the Golden Law in his absence. The reaction of the outraged slaveowners set off a parliamentary crisis that ended with the abolition of the monarchy and the exile of the royal family. Slaveowners, as a group, do not voluntarily give up their slaves.

So let's keep in mind that Black History Month begins with the 146^th anniversary of the day that Abraham Lincoln's stubborn pursuit of victory over the South set American blacks free. If he had not been reelected in 1864, George McClellan, as president, was committed to a negotiated peace that would have let the South go ... with their slaves still in chains. Freedom Day is Lincoln's achievement.

It is no coincidence that Freedom Day was also the day chosen by North Carolina A&T students Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain to launch their sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter on Elm Street in Greensboro back in 1960.

Robinson Crusoe Day is the anniversary of the rescue, on February 1, 1709, of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who had been put ashore (in September 1704) on the uninhabited island Juan Fernandez, at his own request, after a quarrel with his captain. His adventures formed the basis for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. It's "a day to be adventurous and self-reliant." Self-reliant ... do Americans even know what that means anymore? If Robinson Crusoe were set today, Crusoe would have died on the beach complaining about how government efforts to save him were inadequate and too slow, and he was going to sit there in protest until they arrived.

Wednesday, February 2^nd -- Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is quite possibly the stupidest holiday ever to afflict two supposedly advanced nations, the U.S. and Canada. No doubt that's why Harold Ramis chose it as the title and pretext of his brilliant 1993 romantic comedy Groundhog Day, the only movie in which I actually liked performances by Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, or Chris Elliott.

The fact is that everything about Groundhog Day except the groundhog originated with the feast of Candlemas, which commemorates the presentation of baby Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. The old belief was that if the sun shines on Candlemas Day, six weeks of deep winter will ensue. (During the Little Ice Age from 1350 to 1850, this happened pretty much whether the sun shone on Candlemas or not; but the belief probably originated during the 500 years of warmth before, when the global climate was warmer than it is today.)

An old Scottish rhyme had it that "If Candlemas is fair and clear/There'll be two winters in the year." Only in America would people find a way to link Candlemas with a rodent.

This is Sled Dogs Save Nome Day. When a diphtheria outbreak was diagnosed in Nome, Alaska, (population 1,500), on Jan. 21, 1925, the nearest adequate supply of antitoxin serum was in Anchorage. Bitter winter temperatures made air delivery impossible, so 300,000 units of serum were sent by train to Nenana, Alaska, the nearest train station. On Jan 27^th, in temperatures of 40 and 50 degrees below zero, twenty mushers drove scores of dogs to make the 674-mile journey to Nome in 127 hours. The lead dog for the first 350 miles was Togo, and Balto was the lead dog on the final 53 miles -- but Balto got all the credit.

The frozen serum arrive at 5:30 a.m. on February 2^nd, and once it was thawed and administered, there were no more diphtheria deaths. Balto became a national hero, and a statue was erected in his honor in New York City's Central Park. Togo was apparently ignored. Our younger kids loved the 1995 movie Balto, in which the title role was voiced by Kevin Bacon.

The war between Mexico and the U.S. formally ended on this day in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, signed in the village for which it was named. The treaty provided for Mexico's cession to the US of the territory that became the states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, in exchange for $15 million from the U.S. In addition, Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande.

Since the War of 1812 was mostly about trying to conquer Canada, the Mexican War was pretty much a second try, this time farther south and west. In both Texas and California, American colonists declared "independence" from Mexico without asking the opinions of the Mexican citizens living there (they were against it), expecting the U.S. to send military forces to back up their "independence" until they could be admitted as states.

Texas was annexed by the U.S. as a slave state -- with the right to split itself into five states whenever it wanted, thus guaranteeing that slave states could maintain their control of the U.S. Senate. (Pro-slavery forces were adamantly opposed to states' rights in that era and right on up to the Civil War -- they wanted to impose slavery on all the new territories.) The California "revolution" was conducted by deniable agents of the U.S. government (John C. Fremont was apparently charged with that responsibility by America's most imperialistic President, James K. Polk).

The Mexican government, in the midst of great turmoil, was incapable of accepting Polk's offer to buy California and New Mexico (the rest of the territory between Texas and California) -- governments that were willing to agree to the purchase kept getting thrown out of office. In those days the Rio Grande had never been accepted by Mexico as the southern border of Texas -- they put it much farther north -- so when American troops marched to the Rio Grande it was considered an invasion of Mexican territory and war ensued.

American victory was not assured -- Mexicans fought fiercely in defense of their homeland, aided by endemic diseases. But without a strong central government and lacking funds to equip and supply an adequate army, the Mexicans were defeated and stripped of more than half their territory, and were paid a hopelessly inadequate sum for it. Many of those who believe this was the most unnecessary and unjust war America ever fought, consider the legal northern boundary of Mexico to still be the border between California and Oregon. Therefore, Mexicans who enter the territory south of that line that by rights should still be Mexican are not illegal immigrants at all; they are the true owners returning to property stolen long before. This is not, however, a widespread or popular view.

And one should keep in mind that I do have a peculiar view of the Mexican War: My Mormon ancestors left American territory and colonized at the Great Salt Lake specifically so we could live under the (weak and distant) Mexican government and get away from U.S. persecution. We arrived only to have the depressing news that we were still in America after all. Soon the U.S. government sent troops to invade and occupy Utah ... to encourage the Mormons to be obedient American patriots. Since then the conquered and oppressed Mormons of Utah, once staunch Democrats, have become the most Republican state in the union. Ain't history fun?