John Cleary, and Kent State

On November 7th, an obituary appeared in The New York Times about John Cleary, whose name I was not familiar with (though I remembered, distinctly, a well-known--and grim--picture of him, from the cover of an issue of Life magazine in May of 1970).  Mr. Cleary died on October 25th at age 74. 

When I read about his death, I looked in my apartment for the 1970 Life magazine issue (an image of which appeared in the Times obituary).

I have perhaps fifteen or twenty issues of Life that I saved, from the 1960s and early 1970s--and thought I had the issue with Mr. Cleary on the cover.  I did have it (image at left); it was stored with other old magazines in a closet. 

The magazine's cover photograph, taken by Kent State University student Howard Ruffner, is riveting. It shows Mr. Cleary, on his back, after having been shot in the chest, when Ohio National Guard troops began firing at Kent State students. It was May 4th of 1970. Students were protesting the American incursion into Cambodia, an expansion of the Vietnam War; they were also protesting the presence of the National Guard on the Kent State campus. 

Mr. Cleary was not taking part in the protest. As seen in the photo on Life's cover, he is being given aid by other students.

There had been protests at the university, during the daytime, on May 1st. Near midnight, and after midnight, vandalism and confrontations with police took place in the city of Kent.  Wikipedia indicates those involved "appeared to be a mix of bikers, students, and transient people." Five police officers, according to the website, were injured by thrown beer bottles. Later, on May 2nd, local police were told by an informant that the campus R.O.T.C. building would be destroyed. At the request of the city's Mayor, Ohio's Governor sent the National Guard to the university. By the time the Guard arrived, the night of May 2nd, the R.O.T.C. building was burning.

Two days later, on May 4th, four students were shot and killed by Guardsmen at Kent State. One of the students, Sandra Lee Scheuer, was shot while walking to class.  Another of those killed was Bill Schroeder. A close friend was quoted in Life: "He wasn't a participant [in the protest] and he wasn't just a bystander. He was open-minded.  He went there to observe." Of Jeffrey Miller, who was also killed, his father said: "Jeff stood up for what he believed and he didn't believe in violence."  The father of student Allison Krause, also killed, said:  "She spoke her mind, because we taught her to...She felt the war in Cambodia was wrong.  Is this dissent a crime?  Is this a reason for killing her?"

Nine other students were injured that day.  One of them, Dean Kahler, was shot in the back, and paralyzed from the waist down.  

A 2024 story about Mr. Kahler is featured on the Kent State University website.  The story includes the following, about Mr. Kahler, and May 4th:

He’d never been to [a protest] and wanted to see what it was all about. So, he and some fellow students residing in Wright Hall decided to go. Soon after they arrived, National Guardsmen and campus security told the students they were illegally gathered and they needed to disperse.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense,” Dean explained. “We all thought we had the right to assemble on our own campus and to redress our grievances with our government. If I could lend my voice to the disagreement with the policy of invading Cambodia, I would do that.”

With John Cleary's death, on October 25th, five of those injured--including Dean Kahler--survive him.

The New York Times obituary about Mr. Cleary included his recollections about the shootings, from an oral history undertaken in 2010 by Kent State. Times reporter Michael S. Rosenwald wrote:

On May 4, a Monday, a large protest was scheduled for noon on the university commons. After attending his morning classes, Mr. Cleary borrowed a camera from a classmate and headed over.

“I went to kind of just see what was going on and observe the protesters,” he said.

After students ignored an order to disperse, the guardsmen launched canisters of tear gas. Mr. Cleary snapped some photos, then decided to head to a nearby building for his next class.

The guardsmen moved in.

“I wanted to get one last picture of them before they went over the crest of the hill, so I was kind of getting my camera, I was winding it, getting ready to take another shot and suddenly, they just turned and fired,” he said. “It was like this volley of gunshots.”

A bullet struck him in the chest.

“I guess the best way I can describe it is like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer,” Mr. Cleary said. “It just really knocked me down.”

The story also said:

As he lay on the ground bleeding, several students rendered first aid. Howard Ruffner, a Kent State student working that day as a freelance photographer for Life, snapped an image of the moment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/us/john-cleary-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U8.Zdju.ValWE6Yfv02-&smid=url-share

In addition to the cover photograph used by Life, other pictures by Mr. Ruffner from that day appeared inside the magazine.

Another Kent State student, John Filo, took what was no doubt the best-known of the photographs taken that day: a picture of 14 year-old Mary Ann Vecchio, who was at the site of the Kent State protest; she had run away from her home in Florida and was hitchhiking across the country. She had been talking with student Jeffrey Miller.  Moments later, Mr. Miller was shot, and killed instantly, and Ms. Vecchio's anguished reaction, as she crouched next to Mr. Miller's body, was captured by Mr. Filo. The image was seen throughout the world; Mr. Filo was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph.

Here are two Wikipedia links, about Mary Ann Vecchio, and John Filo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Vecchio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Filo

Here, too, is the 1970 song "Ohio," written by Neil Young and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The song was released the month after the Kent State shootings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9INnMMwvnk&list=RDJ9INnMMwvnk&start_radio=1

(Photo above, © Howard Ruffner, Time Life, and Getty Images.)

What a surprise

ESPN.com Headline:  "Sources: Trump wants Commanders' new D.C. stadium named for him"

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46892115/trump-wants-commanders-stadium-named-him

White House reporter Sid Davis, and the Kennedy assassination

The link, below, is for an October 26th New York Times obituary of journalist Sid Davis.   Mr. Davis died on October 13th, at age 97.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/obituaries/sid-davis-dead.html?smid=url-share

As recounted in the Times obituary:

In 1959, Mr. Davis was hired as a White House correspondent by Westinghouse, which then had a national network of five television stations and seven radio stations in major markets. After a brief turn reporting on President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he covered the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations as chief of the 18-member Westinghouse Washington bureau.

He joined NBC News in 1977 as the Washington news director. He was NBC’s Washington bureau chief from 1979 to 1982 (and a vice president from 1980 to 1982), and senior correspondent from 1982 to 1987, covering the Reagan administration.

From 1987 to 1994, Mr. Davis was director of programs for the Voice of America, and until 1998 he directed worldwide Voice of America programming, in charge of 1,500 people working in 46 languages.

Much of the Times obituary, however, concerns his coverage of the 1963 Kennedy assassination.

On November 22nd, Mr. Davis was in a press bus in the presidential motorcade in Dallas. He filed reports, by phone, from Dallas's Parkland Hospital, and was subsequently one of three reporters who witnessed the swearing-in of Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One.  The other journalists were Merriman Smith of UPI--who later was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the assassination--and Charles Roberts of Newsweek.  

Mr. Smith and Mr. Roberts then flew to Washington on Air Force One. Yet, as described in the Times obituary, Mr. Davis "stayed in Dallas to brief the press corps on the swearing-in ceremony and his observations aboard Air Force One. He had been chosen as a pool reporter by a White House aide, not by fellow journalists, but he regarded it as a solemn obligation to represent, and report to, the press corps."

From the obituary:

Tom Wicker, who covered the assassination [for the Times], was awed by Davis’s briefing.“It ranks as one of the most generous acts by a reporter that I can remember,” he wrote in Times Talk, a staff publication. “Davis put together a magnificent pool report on the swearing-in, read it off, answered questions and gave a picture that so far as I know was complete, accurate and has not been added to.”

Diane Keaton (1946-2025)

I loved seeing her, on-screen.  Her talent, at both comedy and drama, was awesome. She was brilliant--so deeply funny, and charming, and serious--in 1977's Annie Hall, with Woody Allen (for which she won a Best Actress Oscar). And superb in so many other roles--including the 2003 romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give, with Jack Nicholson (which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination).

There is a significant scene in Annie Hall which I particularly enjoy, and admire.  It is not a comic scene. She sings in a nightclub, for about two and a half minutes, the 1940s song "Seems Like Old Times." Her vocal, at the link below, is really lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p32OEIazBew&list=RDp32OEIazBew&start_radio=1

October 7th

Remembering, on the second anniversary of October 7th, the sickening, gruesome attacks which took place in Israel: the twelve hundred people who were murdered by Hamas (aided by such terrorist groups as Palestinian Islamic Jihad). Some civilians, it has been reported, also took part in the attacks.

And, remembering the breathtaking extent of the cruelties, the terror, that day: the burning of homes with their residents inside, the hunting of victims, the rapes (which, it has been reported, included gang rape), the reported acts of mutilation of victims' bodies, the countless other depravities. 

And, of course: the kidnappings of some 250 people--babies, children, adults, and elderly people, taken into Gaza as hostages.

Twenty hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza; it is also believed that the bodies of twenty-eight others, who were either killed on October 7th or who died afterward, remain held by Hamas.

One prays that the peace deal currently on the table will be agreed to (or at least mostly agreed to), that all of the hostages (living and dead) will be released to their loved ones, that Hamas will lay down its arms and will leave Gaza, and that we will see the beginning of the end of the suffering of the Palestinian civilians.

Rob Reiner, and early television

The noted film director and actor Rob Reiner was interviewed on 60 Minutes Sunday night.  He talked about his life and career, and his new film, Spinal Tap II, a sequel to the original Spinal Tap movie, which was released in 1984, and was the first film he directed. He later directed such movies as A Few Good Men, The American President, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, and Stand By Me.

Mr. Reiner, who is 78, was also interviewed in the September/October issue of the AARP Bulletin.  He was asked about his father, Carl Reiner, who had a long and distinguished show business career--as an actor, comedian, writer, and director. He created television's Dick Van Dyke Show--and, memorably, acted on the show, as TV star Alan Brady. He also appeared as a performer in early television--which included his starring role on Your Show of Shows, which aired Saturday nights on NBC, from 1950 until 1954.

Rob Reiner said this, in the AARP interview, about early TV: "Oddly enough, my father was on television before we had a television.  We bought one in 1951 so we could see him on Saturday nights." 

I have no doubt this was true of many television performers of the era--that they may not have had a TV set when they began performing in the new medium.

In 1949, my mother was living with her parents; she had graduated from college in 1948.  She had appeared in a Broadway music and comedy revue, Small Wonder, from the fall of 1948 until the show closed in January of 1949. Soon after, she began singing on The Stan Shaw Show, a weekday musical program on TV's DuMont Network; she sang on the show until early March, when the program left the air. From March until July, she sang on a weeknight musical show on the network, Teen Time Tunes, with the musical group The Alan Logan Trio.  Shortly after Teen Time Tunes began airing, she turned twenty-one. 

Her family, at the time, didn't own a TV set, and so my grandparents would go to Macy's, in New York City, to watch her on the store's demonstration models. 

Early in the year, my parents had met at a party, and began dating; they would marry in August of 1949.  My father was in his medical residency at the time, and he didn't have a TV set either. In order to see my mother sing on Teen Time Tunes, he would often go to the DuMont Network studio on Madison Avenue, and (while there was no studio audience for the program) would watch the show in person.

The indictment of James Comey

One of the most striking things I have learned, since the beginning of the second Trump presidency, appeared in a March 2025 online story in The Atlantic, by the writer Peter Wehner.  Mr. Wehner worked in the administrations of three Republican Presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.  

His March piece in The Atlantic was titled: "Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable."

Mr. Wehner wrote, in his piece, that Trump's desire for vengeance is nothing new--that it goes back decades:

Revenge has long been a central theme for Donald Trump. In a 1992 interview with the journalist Charlie Rose, Trump was asked if he had regrets. Among them, he told Rose, “I would have wiped the floor with the guys who weren’t loyal, which I will now do. I love getting even with people.” When Rose interjected, “Slow up. You love getting even with people?” Trump replied, “Absolutely.”

Here is the video of the interview with Charlie Rose. The above comments appear at approximately 41 minutes from the video's start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QQqioef19k

Here, too, is the link to Mr. Wehner's piece in the March 20, 2025 Atlantic:

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/political-enemy-retribution-efforts/682095/?gift=Tcay7nmVziC9n3Jf9Qllm6NqcjM7ax8BygQt0VIicMI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

As Mr. Wehner noted, at the outset of his Atlantic piece, Trump famously said the following, during his last campaign for the presidency:  "For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution." 

While on the first day of his second presidency, in 2025, Trump set free all of those convicted of, or charged with, crimes related to the events of January 6, 2021, including those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers on that day--some 140 officers were injured at the Capitol on January 6th--his primary interest, regarding retribution, clearly concerns himself.  

And now, there has been the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.  

As The Washington Post reported on Thursday:

The case against Comey marks the most significant step to date in Trump’s campaign to deploy the Justice Department to avenge personal grievances and prosecute those he perceives as his enemies. The president’s demands during the weekend that Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly charge Comey and others flew in the face of long-standing norms meant to shield the Justice Department from direct political interference from the White House.

Last week, the White House forced out the previous top prosecutor on the case after he declined to seek an indictment and replaced him with one of Trump’s former personal attorneys.

That successor, Lindsey Halligan — now interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia — personally presented the case against Comey to the grand jury on Thursday, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Before she was sworn in Monday, Halligan had no prosecutorial experience.

Trump claimed today that the indictment of Mr. Comey was "about justice, really. It's not revenge."

Yet, as The Washington Post story on Thursday noted, attorneys for Comey are "likely to point to the fact that before Thursday’s indictment the case had been rejected by Erik S. Siebert, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney who had been overseeing the investigation. He concluded there was insufficient evidence to move forward with a prosecution, The Post has reported."

The Post story continued:

Siebert resigned last week under intense pressure from the Trump administration, in part because of that decision. Trump appointed Halligan as his replacement because, the president said, she would “get things moving.”

Since Halligan was sworn in Monday, several attorneys in the Eastern District of Virginia shared a memo with her laying out concerns with the strength of the evidence, two people familiar with that meeting said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about those internal deliberations. Nevertheless, Halligan opted to move forward.