Wounded Knee

The following is from The Library of Congress, posted on the Today in History page for this date in 2004, but not posted this year:

On December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee Creek, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, some 500 soldiers of the United States Seventh Cavalry opened fire on approximately 350 Lakota (Sioux) Indians of Chief Big Foot’s Miniconjou band. At the end of the confrontation, between 150 and 300 Sioux men, women, and children, including Chief Big Foot, were dead. This event marked the end of Lakota resistance until the 1970s. Apart from the few minor skirmishes that followed, the Wounded Knee massacre ended the Indian Wars.

In many ways, the massacre resulted from the Ghost Dance movement. The movement was led by a Paiute named Wovoka who claimed to have had a vision that the “Old Earth” would be destroyed and a new one created in which Native Americans could live as they had before the coming of the European. He preached that the only way to survive the impending apocalypse would be to faithfully perform the Ghost Dance and the ceremonies associated with it.

Continue reading Wounded Knee

Mary Tyler Moore

… was born in Brooklyn on this date in 1936 (some sources say 1937).

From The Museum of Broadcast Communications, The Encyclopedia of Television:

On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore played Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman “making it on her own” in 1970s Minneapolis. MTM first pitched her character to CBS as a young divorcee, but CBS executives believed her role as Laura Petrie was so firmly etched in the public mind that viewers would think she had divorced Dick Van Dyke (and that the American public would not find a divorced woman likable), so Richards was rewritten as a woman who had moved to the big city after ending a long affair. Richards landed a job working in the news department of fictional WJM-TV, where Moore’s all-American spunk played off against the gruff boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner), world-weary writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) and pompous anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). In early seasons, her all-male work environment was counterbalanced by a primarily female home life, where again her character contrasted with her ditzy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) and her New York-born neighbor and best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper). Both the show and Moore were lauded for their realistic portrayal of “new” women in the 1970s whose lives centered on work rather than family, and for whom men were colleagues rather than just potential mates. While Moore’s Mary Richards’ apologetic manner may have undermined some of the messages of the women’s movement, she also put a friendly face on the potentially threatening tenets of feminism, naturalizing some of the decade’s changes in the way women were perceived both at home and at work.

49ers

On this date 49 years ago Tobin Rote threw for four touchdowns and ran for another as the Detroit Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 59-14, in the NFL championship game. It was the Lions’ third title of the Fifties, all over the Browns.

Since then the Lions have missed 40 out of 49 post seasons (counting this year) and are 1-9 in games when they did make it. Only the Cardinals have done worse.

For nearly all of that time the Lions have been owned by William Clay Ford, grandson of Henry and son of Edsel Ford. The Lions aren’t exactly built Ford tough.

Best anti-Comcast line of the day, so far

“The answer is that, at least in my recent experience with the nation’s biggest cable company, Comcast, the high-definition DVR it supplies is just awful.”

Walt Mossberg in a discussion of TiVo and DVRs. And Walt doesn’t even live in Albuquerque where, I assure you, Comcast does even less for its customers than seems to be the case in, say, the San Francisco or Washington, D.C. areas.

Don’t spend it all in one place

What is the telephone tax refund?

The telephone tax refund is a one-time payment available on your 2006 federal income tax return, designed to refund previously collected federal excise taxes on long-distance or bundled services. It is available to anyone who paid such taxes on landline, wireless, or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service.

Why is the government refunding these taxes?

Several recent federal court decisions have held that the tax does not apply to long-distance service as it is billed today. The IRS is following these decisions and refunding the portion of the tax charged on long-distance calls. The IRS is also refunding taxes collected on telephone service under plans that do not differentiate between long distance and local calls including bundled service.

The telephone tax continues to apply to local-only service, and the IRS is not refunding taxes charged on local-only service.

The IRS will refund to you the taxes on long-distance or bundled service billed to you for the period after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006. Taxpayers should request this refund when they file their 2006 tax returns.

Who is eligible to request the telephone tax refund?

In general, any individual, business or nonprofit organization that paid the tax for long distance or bundled service billed after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006 is eligible to request the refund.

Internal Revenue Service

“Individual taxpayers can take a standard amount from $30 to $60 based on the number of exemptions claimed on their tax return.”

Last Ford story

During the second day of the two days spent sorting through his garage looking for items for the Ford Museum, President Gerald Ford asked to borrow my pen. It was a simple Skilcraft felt marker (Skilcraft is the long-time government contractor) and the former president looked surprised even peeved when, as we finished late that afternoon, and he was saying thanks for the help, I asked for my pen back.

“Oh, I want to save it and give it to one of my grandchildren,” I said.

I swear Ford actually glowed at this simple flattery as he handed the pen to me.

And yes, I still have the pen nearly 28 years (and six grandchildren) later. Haven’t decided which one to give it to, yet.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson

… was born in Staunton, Virginia, on this date in 1856.

After graduating from Princeton in 1879, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia for one year. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a doctoral degree.

Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. He became President of Princeton in 1902. His commentary on contemporary political matters led to his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910 and as President in 1912.

Wilson was the second of two sitting American Presidents to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. (Theodore Roosevelt was the other.)

Another Ford story

As NewMexiKen has written elsewhere (I just reposted one item), I had several meetings with President Gerald Ford in the years after he left the White House. On one occasion I helped him go through items in his garage in Rancho Mirage, California, to find things for the Ford Museum.

One of the items we ran across in a garage stuffed full was a mover’s wardrobe holding six suits. These had been packed when Ford left his home in Alexandria, Virginia, to move to the White House when Nixon resigned in August 1974. The whole event was rather unprecedented, of course, and Ford had forgotten the suits packed some four-and-a-half years earlier. He asked that the wardrobe carton be taken into the house.

The next day we ran across another wardrobe with another six suits hanging in it. This time he was more circumspect. He asked that it be taken into the house but, he said, “Don’t let Mrs. Ford see it. She wouldn’t let me keep the suits in the other one.”

The former most powerful man on earth was nervous that his wife wouldn’t let him save some old suits. There was a whole lot of Mr. Ford’s character in that incident, I thought — qualified ego, self-deprecating humor, thrift. All characteristics we might find worthy today if you ask me.

[Among other items we found during the time in the garage was the typewriter Ford said he’d used at Yale Law, and one of his baby shoes.]

Gerald Ford

NewMexiKen had several meetings with President Gerald Ford in the years after he left office in 1977. In fact it can be said that on one two-day occasion in 1979 I helped him clean his garage. The most astonishing incident, however, was in 1981.

The Gerald R. Ford Museum was about to be dedicated in Grand Rapids. As the representative of the National Archives nearest Ford’s retirement office in Rancho Mirage, California, I was called with an urgent request. It seemed flags had not been ordered for the replica Oval Office in the Museum. President Ford would lend them his. I was asked to go to his office, pick them up and ship them to Michigan.

The next morning I was ushered into the former President’s office. He was standing at his desk browsing through some papers. After the routine “Hello, Ken” and “Hello, Mr. President” exchange, I went about my business with the flags. He continued his business with the papers.

The U.S. flag was on a brass stand with two wooden staff pieces screwed together at the middle and a brass eagle, wings outstretched, at the top, about seven feet from the floor. I unscrewed the two pieces of the staff, a task made difficult by the weight of the flag and the eagle above.

As I began to lower the top half at an angle, the eagle took flight. It was just set on the top of the staff, not screwed on as it should have been.

Stop and picture this. The former President of the United States is a few feet away. His gorgeous White House presidential desk is even closer. And we have a brass eagle weighing several pounds in free fall. I’m holding the flag and can’t do anything but watch.

Poor President Ford I thought, he is about to be in the news for being clunked (or worse!) by a flagpole eagle in his own office — and this after years of being portrayed by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live as a clumsy, stumble-prone klutz. (In reality Gerald Ford was an All-American football player at Michigan in the 1930s and still looked exceptionally fit at 68.)

It wasn’t my fault the eagle hadn’t been attached but I was about to be a footnote to history.

Amazingly, the eagle missed Mr. Ford. Even more miraculously, it missed the historic desk and fell harmlessly to the carpet with a thud.

The former President had to have noticed. He never said a word. For that alone he has my enduring admiration.

Rest in Peace, Mr. President.

[Previously posted in slightly different form.]

December 27th is the birthday

… of Scotty Moore. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 75.

Scotty Moore served as Elvis Presley’s guitarist from 1954 to 1958, widely regarded as Presley’s golden years. Moore was a participant in the historic early sessions at Sun Recording Studio that mark the birth of rock and roll. It was on Monday, July 5th, 1954, that Presley, Moore and bassist Bill Black broke into bluesman Arthur Cruddup’s “That’s All Right” in a freewheeling style that brought together country and blues. They took a similarly approach to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” With these spontaneous breakthroughs, conceived in the most innocent and intuitive way, both sides of Elvis Presley’s legendary first single—and the first new strains of rock and roll—were in the can. Notably, the single (Sun 209) was credited to “Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill.” (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

… of John Amos. Adm. Percy Fitzwallace (West Wing), Toby (Kunta Kinte as adult) and J.J.’s father (Good Times) is 67.

… of Cokie Roberts. The daughter of Hale and Lindy Boggs is 63.

… of Gerard Depardieu. The actor who has played more famous characters than even Charlton Heston (Cyrano De Bergerac, Jean de Florette, Christopher Columbus, Honoré de Balzac, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Porthos, Auguste Rodin, Franco, Danton) is 58.

… of David Knopfler. The other Knopfler is 54, not old enough to be in dire straits yet.

Marlene Dietrich was born on this date in 1901. Miss Dietrich was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for the 1930 film Morocco.

Old story with a new ending

Grandpa likes to tell The Sweeties® childhood stories using their names for the lead characters. For example last night The Three Pigs were Reid, Mack and Aidan. Since I was telling the story to Aidan he got the brick house.

Grandpa: So the wolf huffed and puffed and huffed and puffed but he couldn’t blow the brick house down. Do you know what happened next Aidan?

Three-year-old Aidan: I turned into the Black Power Ranger and killed the wolf.

Longest sentence of the day, so far

“The movie, inspired by the real-life story of Diana Ross and the Supremes, is probably the first musical in 50 years to channel the extravagant spirit and smooth Technicolor glory of Vincente Minnelli — creator of such iconic films as “An American in Paris” — and yet it’s harnessed to a real, and realistic showbiz story about the rise of an aspiring African American girl group, in which the talented but hefty singer Effie Jennifer Hudson gets shoved out of the spotlight by her lover and manager, Curtis Jamie Foxx, to make way for Deena Beyoncé Knowles, the more attractive singer in the group who has broader crossover appeal.”

Rachel Abramowitz in the Los Angeles Times as reported by David Carr in The New York Times, who says, “In the spirit of the season, the Bagger is going to send Ms. Abramowitz a box of periods, so she won’t always have to use commas.”

December 21st is the birthday

… of Joe Paterno. The football coach at Penn State is 80.

… of Phil Donahue. The talk show host is 71.

… of Jane Fonda. The two-time Oscar-winning actress is 69. Miss Fonda has been nominated for the best actress Oscar six times, winning for Klute and Coming Home. She was also nominated for best supporting actress for On Golden Pond.

… of Frank Zappa. He’s 66.

… of Carla Thomas. Gee Whiz, she’s 64.

… of Michael Tilson Thomas. The director of the San Francisco Symphony is 62.

… of Samuel L. Jackson. Mace Windu is 58. Jackson was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.

… of Chris Evert. The tennis hall-of-famer is 52.

… of Jane Kaczmarek. Malcolm’s mom is 51.

… of Ray Romano. Raymond is 49.

… of Kiefer Sutherland. He’s 40.

… of Julie Delpy. The actress, who was nominated for a writing Oscar for Before Sunset, is 37.

The Gift of the Magi

By O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), 1906.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two
at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and
the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent
imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

Continue reading The Gift of the Magi

It’s better to give

Christmas shopping in the U.S. has been a reliable source of anxiety and stress for well over a century. “As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the great question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape it has come to assume in recent years,” the New York Tribune wrote in 1894. But recently millions of Americans, instead of trudging through malls in a desperate quest for the perfect sweater, have switched to buying gift cards. The National Retail Federation expects that Americans will buy close to twenty-five billion dollars’ worth of gift cards this season, up thirty-four per cent from last year, with two-thirds of shoppers intending to buy at least one card; gift cards now rival apparel as the most popular category of present. This is, in part, because of clever corporate marketing: stores like gift cards because they amount to an interest-free loan from customers, and because recipients usually spend more than the amount on the card—a phenomenon that retailers tenderly refer to as “uplifting” spending. But the boom in gift cards is also a rational response to the most important economic fact about Christmas gift giving: most of us just aren’t that good at it.

James Surowiecki in an interesting little essay on gifting. There’s more including this key point: “My idea of what you want, it turns out, has a lot to do with what I want.”

Good lines

• Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel, on the most lucrative jobs in sports: “1. Bengals’ bail bondsman; 2. Grant Hill’s surgeon; 3. Dennis Erickson’s real-estate agent.”

• Steve Schrader of the Detroit Free Press, on Lions QB Jon Kitna on pace to be sacked 63 times this season: “He gets sacked so much, they ought to ask if he’d prefer paper or plastic.”

Sideline Chatter

The Solstice

The Solstice is Thursday evening at 5:22 PM Mountain Time (7:22 Eastern, 4:22 Pacific). The sun begins its six-month trek north at that time.

Don’t forget your science homework this week. As the sun sets Thursday, take note of its direction in relation to neighborhood landmarks — trees, other houses, water towers, what have you. Write it down, make a diagram, or take a photo. Compare and contrast with your notes from June 21st and September 23rd.