Month: January 2009

Poll Tax

The 24th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the required 38th state on January 23rd just 45 years ago.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Virginia ratified the Amendment in 1977, North Carolina in 1989 and Alabama in 2002. Mississippi rejected the 24th Amendment in 1962. Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina have never ratified the Amendment.

Poll taxes had been imposed late in the 19th century primarily as a means of keeping African-Americans from voting. In some instances, individuals whose parents and grandparents had voted were exempt from the tax — and, of course, the parents and grandparents of nearly all black voters had been slaves.

At the time the Amendment was approved, only five states still had a poll tax in federal elections: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. A Supreme Court decision in 1966 declared poll taxes unconstitutional for state elections under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.

January 23rd

Today is the birthday

… of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The Senator is 85.

… of actress Jeanne Moreau. She’s 81. Moreau is best known for French New Wave films Jules and Jim (1962) and The Bride Wore Black (1968). Roger Ebert:

This is ridiculous, I told myself. You’ve interviewed Ingmar Bergman. Robert Mitchum. John Wayne. You got through those okay. Why should you be scared of Jeanne Moreau? Simply because she’s the greatest movie actress of the last 20 years? Simply because she’s made more good films for great directors than anybody else? Simply because something in her face and manner has fascinated you since you sat through “Jules and Jim” twice in a row? She’s only human; it’s not like she’s a goddess.

But I suspected that she was.

… of Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. The poet and playwright is 79.

… of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, 56.

… of Princess Caroline of Monaco, 52.

… of Mariska Hargitay. Jayne Mansfield’s daughter is 45. (She was in the car when her mother was killed in 1967.) Ms. Hargitay plays Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

It’s the birthday of Humphrey Bogart, born on this day in 1899. Bogart was nominated for the best actor Oscar for Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny and The African Queen; he won for The African Queen. According to The Writer’s Almanac (2004):

[Bogart] was expelled from Massachusetts’ Phillips Academy and immediately joined the Navy to fight in World War I, serving as a ship’s gunner. One day, while roughhousing on the ship’s wooden stairway, he tripped and fell, and a splinter became lodged in his upper lip; the result was a scar, as well as partial paralysis of the lip, resulting in the tight-set mouth and lisp that became one of his most distinctive onscreen qualities.

And, born on this date in 1910, was Django Reinhardt. the first significant jazz figure in Europe — and the most influential European in jazz to this day. Play Jazz Guitar.com has some interesting background:

A violinist first and a guitarist later, Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt grew up in a gypsy camp near Paris where he absorbed the gypsy strain into his music. A disastrous caravan fire in 1928 badly burned his left hand, depriving him of the use of the fourth and fifth fingers, but the resourceful Reinhardt figured out a novel fingering system to get around the problem that probably accounts for some of the originality of his style. According to one story, during his recovery period, Reinhardt was introduced to American jazz when he found a 78 RPM disc of Louis Armstrong’s “Dallas Blues” at an Orleans flea market. He then resumed his career playing in Parisian cafes until one day in 1934 when Hot Club chief Pierre Nourry proposed the idea of an all-string band to Reinhardt and Grappelli. Thus was born the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which quickly became an international draw thanks to a long, splendid series of Ultraphone, Decca and HMV recordings.

The Red Hot Jazz Archive has some on-line recordings of the Quintette of the Hot Club of France.

Edouard Manet, an artist whose works include both the Realist and Impressionist traditions of 19th-century France, was born on this date in 1832. Click here to view Manet’s painting “On the Beach” (1873) and here for his painting of Monet in his floating studio (1874).

Roots

The 12-hour mini-series Roots premiered on this date in 1977. According to the Encyclopedia of Television:

Roots remains one of television’s landmark programs….For eight consecutive nights it riveted the country. ABC executives initially feared that the historical saga about slavery would be a ratings disaster. Instead, Roots scored higher ratings than any previous entertainment program in history. It averaged a 44.9 rating and a 66 audience share for the length of its run. The seven episodes that followed the opener earned the top seven spots in the ratings for their week. The final night held the single-episode ratings record until 1983, when the finale of M*A*S*H aired on CBS….

Apprehensions that Roots would flop shaped the way that ABC presented the show. Familiar television actors like Lorne Greene were chosen for the white, secondary roles, to reassure audiences. The white actors were featured disproportionately in network previews. For the first episode, the writers created a conscience-stricken slave captain (Ed Asner), a figure who did not appear in Haley’s novel but was intended to make white audiences feel better about their historical role in the slave trade. Even the show’s consecutive-night format allegedly resulted from network apprehensions. ABC programming chief Fred Silverman hoped that the unusual schedule would cut his network’s imminent losses–and get Roots off the air before sweeps week.

Silverman, of course, need not have worried. Roots garnered phenomenal audiences. On average, 80 million people watched each of the last seven episodes. 100 million viewers, almost half the country, saw the final episode, which still claims one of the highest Nielsen ratings ever recorded, a 51.1 with a 71 share. A stunning 85% of all television homes saw all or part of the mini-series….Today, the show’s social effects may appear more ephemeral, but at the time they seemed widespread. Over 250 colleges and universities planned courses on the saga, and during the broadcast, over 30 cities declared “Roots” weeks.

It was a national, shared cultural experience.

NewMexiKen co-sponsored a symposium at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1979, that included Alex Haley, the author of Roots. Haley, who also wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X, was a very self-possessed and self-assured speaker, confident yet pleasant and informal. He spoke for some time without notes, telling the story about the story — that is, how he learned about his family. Along with the Archivist of the U.S. and my history professor co-host, I sat on the stage behind Haley as he spoke and could see the rapture on the faces of his listeners. To an audience of genealogists this was the Sermon on the Mount.

Best story of the week, so far

Kiss My Big Blue Butt is the home of Susan DuQuesnay Bankston who wrote the website formerly known as The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.

As she says, “I live in Richmond, Texas, in heart of Tom DeLay’s old district. It’s crazy here. No, seriously, it’s triple z crazzzy.”

Click to read about her neighborhood and her husband’s yard sign. Three posts — January 18, 19 and 20. Or click the 18th and scroll up.

LOL I promise.

The Famous Fingers Were Live, but Their Sound Was Recorded at the Inauguration

It was not precisely lip-synching, but pretty close.

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the National Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

NYTimes.com has the story.

And the Oscar nominees are

BEST PICTURE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

BEST ACTOR
Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn, “Milk”
Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon, “Revolutionary Road”

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry, “The Reader”
David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard, “Frost/Nixon”
Gus Van Sant, “Milk”

Details on the Do-Over

From the press pool report via Talking Points Memo:

At 735 pm, Roberts administred the oath of office again to obama in the map room. Robert gibbs said the wh counsel, greg craig, believes the oath was fine Tuesday, but one word was out of sequence so they did this out of a “an abundance of caution.”

“We decided it was so much fun…” Obama joked while sitting on a couch.

Obama stood and walked over to make small talk with pool as roberts donned his black robe.

“Are you ready to take the oath?” Roberts asked.

“I am, and we’re going to do it very slowly,” obama replied.

Oath took 25 seconds.

After a flawless recitation, roberts smiled and said, “congratulations, again.”

Obama said, “thank you, sir.”

Smattering of applause.

“All right.” Obama said. “The bad news for the pool is there’s 12 more balls.”

Good lines

An excerpt from New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones’s take on the Neighborhood Ball:

[R]ight before Denzel Washington introduced the biggest rock stars of the night, who strolled out as if they only had maybe one or two other balls to hit. Mr. Obama was in black tie, Mrs. Obama, Jason Wu. Quite reasonably, President Obama asked the crowd, “How good-looking is my wife?” Nations melted, seas calmed, hostilities paused. More to the point, every other First Couple understood that notice had been served. Even you, Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy, will have a tough time outshining an Obama.

The Obamas danced to Beyoncé’s version of Etta James staple, “At Last.” I didn’t expect this to be my weepy moment, but it was. These two gorgeous people were doing something so specifically American, sweet, mudane, and unprecedented. It was America’s first real prom, the dream of soda pop and radio for everyone. That said—this is still the music business, and performing an Etta James song is still cross-promotion when you’ve still got your Etta James picture in the theatres. Good going, B.

Odd

It appears that my next door neighbor, who has flown the U.S. flag in front of his house virtually every day since 9-11, stopped flying it this week.

I haven’t had a chance to ask him what’s up. I’m not sure whether it will bother me more to find out he’s a racist, or just that he doesn’t acknowledge that voters have a choice and it’s still his country whatever the result. Disturbing.

Going to the Source

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but “show your faith by your works,” that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine, The Crisis, December 23, 1776

Today, President Obama’s conclusion (as written):

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.