Happy Juneteenth...
I have previously, in this space, mentioned On Juneteenth, an outstanding book of essays from 2021, by the distinguished historian, and Harvard professor, Annette Gordon-Reed.
Here is the book's amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Juneteenth-Annette-Gordon-Reed/dp/1631498835/ref
Professor Gordon-Reed's 2008 work, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History, and the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
The book, below--The Picture Dictionary for Children--was a favorite of mine, during early childhood.
I have several books from childhood, and when I happen to look at them (or even, simply, see their spines on one of the bookshelves in the apartment), I'll often get a sense (usually a somewhat vague sense, to be sure, but a sense nonetheless) of that which I felt looking at them when I was very young.
The dictionary was originally published in 1939 by Grosset & Dunlap; subsequent editions were brought out in 1945, 1948, and 1958 (the latter, two years after I was born). The book's title page indicates that the 1958 edition was "Completely Revised," including new pictures. All of the pictures in the book are drawings, as opposed to photographs.
I was looking through the book recently, and noticed something which I found amusing.
The book includes an entry for "radio" (see image below), which features a drawing of a large, old-fashioned radio (the kind which was a piece of furniture, and which had a place of prominence in many homes, during radio's most popular years as a medium).
The book also includes a definition of the word "broadcast" (see below), which includes, likewise, a reference to radio.
Yet the 1958 edition, interestingly, does not have an entry for "television," despite television's ubiquity at the time (and whose rise, as a cultural force, had been accompanied by a significant decline in radio's popularity). There are, in the book, definitions of telegram, and telephone (see image)--but not television. I also looked up abbreviations for television, on the off-chance they might have been included--such as "TV," and "Tee-Vee." "Tee-Vee" had been employed as a written abbreviation during the medium's early years--in some newspapers and magazines, for example. But neither abbreviation--as with the word television itself--appears in the dictionary I very much enjoyed as a child.
Influence--influences of many sorts (literary, popular culture, art, sports, science, etc.)--can be found in unexpected places.
Below is an image from the book The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris. The book was published in hardcover by Little, Brown in 1973. A paperback edition was released by Ticknor & Fields in 1991.
There are many images of baseball cards in the book, including one from 1955, for the player Wilmer "Billy" Shantz. In 1954, he was a catcher with the Athletics, during their final season in Philadelphia; he stayed with the team in 1955, for its first season in Kansas City.
His baseball career began in 1948. In addition to his time with the Athletics, he played for various Minor League teams; a good deal of his career was spent with Triple A teams. In 1959 and 1960 he played for the New York Yankees' Triple A club in Richmond, and in 1960 was brought back to the Majors and played in one Yankees game. It was his last Major League appearance.
He returned to the Richmond team for two seasons. He then stayed in the Yankees' Minor League system for the remainder of his career--which ended in 1969--as a player/coach, and as a manager.His brother was pitcher Bobby Shantz, who had a lengthy Major League career, and was the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1952.
The card below, from the Bowman company, is made to look like a television set; the picture of Mr. Shantz serves, ostensibly, as the television image. (The bottom of the card, at its center, says, for emphasis, "Color TV.")
The authors wrote: "Around 1955, the creative people in the bubble gum game, starved as they were for new marketing and promotional techniques, decided that perhaps it was time to take advantage of the latest national craze--television."
It is a singularly unfortunate and sorrowful development--the death of CBS Radio News, which will take place today.
At its height, CBS Radio newscasts were carried by more than 1000 stations; its newscasts, most recently, have been heard on some 700 stations.
I've spent much of my life as a CBS News watcher (via The CBS Evening News, on television), and a CBS Radio News listener (on various stations in cities where I've lived). The newscasts on CBS Radio--sturdy, dependable, and appealing--were conveyed in the routinely straightforward, unadorned vocal styles of its anchors and reporters.
CBS's journalists, during the radio network's history, included, of course, the brilliant and seminal correspondent and commentator Edward R. Murrow.
Mr. Murrow began reporting from Europe in the late 1930s, during the period leading up to the 1939 start of World War Two, and was based in London during the war. CBS did
not at the time have its own dedicated London facility; Murrow broadcast from a sub-basement studio within the BBC Broadcasting House.
In addition to reporting from the studio, Mr. Murrow also reported from London's streets, and from bomb shelters and rooftops, during the aerial Blitz carried out by Germany.
He also reported, notably--and deeply movingly--from Buchenwald, the day after the German concentration camp was liberated in 1945.
His broadcasts from Europe, which I have listened to on
record albums, on tapes, and online, were compelling, eloquent, stirring.
Here is one one of his London rooftop reports--probably from the roof of the BBC building--from September of 1940:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za2Lus0CkRc
Here, too, is Mr. Murrow, on his television program See it Now, in 1954 (produced with Fred Friendly), discussing Senator Joseph McCarthy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwGQGM9X69o
There were a great many other notable radio voices on CBS, through the years--including the eminent broadcaster Robert Trout. He was one of the most significant CBS News figures during the 1930s, prior to Murrow's ascendance, and remained a prominent voice on the network for decades. He assisted Murrow, it has been written, regarding Murrow's understanding of, and use of, radio. In the book Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (Little, Brown, 1969), author Alexander Kendrick (who worked for Murrow as a reporter during World War Two) wrote that Trout "persuaded [Murrow] that the microphone...should not be declaimed to...but used casually as an instrument of communication, like a telephone."
Murrow did not, I would suggest (listening to him today), sound particularly casual, though perhaps his style was regarded as casual during its time. Nonetheless, as reported by Alexander Kendrick, Trout's advice to Murrow--invoking the intimacy of a telephone--evidently had its intended effect. One makes note of Murrow's typically low-key, low-register, restrained--yet distinctly authoritative--vocal manner. His voice had a gravitational quality to it; its force pulled one in, in a striking and, yes, intimate way.
There were many others, who reported for CBS Radio, working for Murrow--such as William L. Shirer, Eric Sevareid, Larry LeSueur, Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith, Richard C. Hottelet, Mary Marvin Breckinridge, and Winston Burdett.
The network featured other anchors and correspondents, through the decades--including Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Christopher Glenn.
More recently, the network's correspondents or anchors included Peter King, Dan Raviv, Tom Foty, Jim Krasula, Peter Maer, Cami McCormick, Sam Litzinger, Mark Knoller, Bill Whitney, Allison Keyes, and Jim Chenevey.
When the closing of the radio news division was announced, in March, a New York Times story noted that CBS Radio News "had been whittled down to a handful of correspondents in recent years and is unprofitable, a person familiar with the company said." The story also said this:
In a staff memo on Friday, Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, and Tom Cibrowski, the president, observed that the radio network had “served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927.” But because of “a shift in radio station programming strategies” and “challenging economic realities,” the company concluded that it was “impossible to continue the service.”
The same story quoted Dan Rather, the former anchor of television's CBS Evening News, who during his career was also, as referred to above, heard on CBS Radio. The story noted that after the announcement of the radio network's closure, Mr. Rather had written on Facebook that
“the end of CBS News Radio breaks my heart.” He recalled listening to its broadcasts from his childhood home in Texas and feeling inspired to pursue a career in journalism.
Concluding his elegy, Mr. Rather noted his gratitude that many of the original CBS radio broadcasts, the ones that had mesmerized him as a child, were preserved for future generations to hear.
“They are available on YouTube,” he wrote.
Here is a video, from Facebook, of a CBS Radio newscast from 2016, with anchor Jim Chenevey, whose broadcasts I enjoyed. He left the network in 2020. FYI: when the video appears, it will likely need to be unmuted. You may, therefore, miss the distinctive CBS Radio News musical "sounder," at the start of the newscast--and therefore may wish to re-start the video, to be able to hear it. The notes of the sounder remained the same for decades, but there were different musical arrangements of it, over time.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153902659215885
Lastly, while CBS Radio News may have become unprofitable, the shutting of the network was, I think, a misguided and regrettable decision. While I am guessing it is unlikely, perhaps CBS's new management might soon reverse course--and recognize that it has lost more than it has gained, by abandoning such a distinguished and reliable source of news.
Two days ago, on May 17th, President Trump posted the following image on his social media platform, Truth Social. The image showed the length of wars through American history--including, as indicated, the "Iran Excursion," one of Trump's preferred phrases for the current war.
Was this a sleight-of-hand effort to misstate the war's length? Did the president think nobody would notice the discrepancy?
Or was Trump not even aware of the discrepancy?
Perhaps he was too busy thinking about the construction of his ballroom--which he discusses incessantly--or the changes at the Reflecting Pool, or the new Washington, DC passports bearing his image, or the currency which will soon bear his signature. Or maybe he was, at the time of the post, wrapped up in his belief, despite all evidence, that he actually won the 2020 election--which he talks about all the time. Or maybe he was busy thinking about the $1.776 billion fund--announced the day after the above post appeared--created for Trump supporters, who will be able to file claims asserting they were wronged by the Department of Justice during previous administrations--which would include the rioters at the Capitol on January 6th.
Trump says this, of the nearly two billion dollar fund: "I know very little about it...I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation, but this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated."
The idea of the fund is just sickening.
We also learned today that the plan includes the following addendum, providing potential enormous benefits to Trump, as described in this New York Times report:
The Justice Department has granted President Trump, his family and businesses immunity from ongoing inquiries into their taxes, a potentially lucrative arrangement that could shield the president from significant financial liability.
The provision, quietly inserted on Tuesday as a supplement to a remarkable deal that also created a $1.8 billion compensation fund aimed at benefiting Mr. Trump’s allies, protects the president, his relatives and his businesses from pending audits and tax prosecutions.
The one-page document, signed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Mr. Trump, his family members and businesses.
Evidently, the prohibitions outlined in the addendum do not include potential investigations of Trump, his family and businesses that might concern future tax returns, but that is small comfort. The deal given to Trump, et al., as part of the $1.776 billion plan (like so much of what Trump says, does, or signs off on), is jarring, and alarming.
Barry Blitt is known for his routinely superb editorial cartoons and illustrations, and for his great wit. His work (for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020) appears regularly in The New Yorker, and, not infrequently, on the magazine's cover.
Here is a new drawing by him, from the cover of The New Yorker's May 11th & May 18th double issue, which focuses upon America's upcoming 250th anniversary. The drawing is titled "Red, White, and Kinda Blue."
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(Image © Barry Blitt, and The New Yorker)
The opinion piece, which appeared in the online edition of the Times on April 26th, is titled "Meet the New Leader of the Free World."
The leader Mr. French is referring to is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mr. French writes, at the end of his essay, that "you cannot threaten the free world and lead it at the same time. No nation can match American might, but for the first time in my adult life, the moral and strategic heart of the defense of liberal democracy doesn’t beat in Washington. It doesn’t beat in London or Paris or Berlin or Ottawa, either. It’s in Kyiv, where a courageous leader and a courageous people have picked up the torch America has dropped."
