RlP Hal Holbrook
my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020
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02-02-2021, 02:25 PM
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director and writer. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show he developed, Mark Twain Tonight!, while studying at Denison University, performing as Mark Twain. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain.[1] He would continue to perform his signature role for over 60 years, only retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in film.[2]
Holbrook made his film debut in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). He later gained international fame for his performance as Deep Throat in the 1976 film All the President's Men. He played Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 miniseries Lincoln and 1985 miniseries North and South. He has also appeared in such films as Julia (1977), The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Wall Street (1987), The Firm (1993), Hercules (1997), and Men of Honor (2000).[3][4] Holbrook's role as Ron Franz in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007) earned him both Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.[1] In 2009, Holbrook received critical acclaim for his performance as recently retired farmer Abner Meecham in the independent film That Evening Sun.[5] He also portrayed Francis Preston Blair in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012).[6][7] In 2003, Holbrook was honored with the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush.[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Holbrook from IMDB: Actor (136 credits) Charlie (rumored) 2017
Hawaii Five-0 (TV Series)Leonard Patterson - Waimaka 'ele'ele (2017) ... Leonard Patterson 2017
Grey's Anatomy (TV Series)Dr. Lewis Clatch - 'Till I Hear It from You (2017) ... Dr. Lewis Clatch 2017
An American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story (TV Movie)Reinhold Niebuhr (voice) 2017
Bones (TV Series)Red Hudmore - The Final Chapter: The New Tricks in the Old Dogs (2017) ... Red Hudmore 2015
BlackwayWhizzer 2010-2014
Sons of Anarchy (TV Series)Nate Madock - Red Rose (2014) ... Nate Madock - Home (2010) ... Nate Madock - Caregiver (2010) ... Nate Madock - Oiled (2010) ... Nate Madock - So (2010) ... Nate Madock 2014
Planes: Fire & RescueMayday (voice) 2013
Rectify (TV Series)Rutherford Gaines - Modern Times (2013) ... Rutherford Gaines 2013
Monday Mornings (TV Series)Dr. Arvin Wayne - The Legend and the Fall (2013) ... Dr. Arvin Wayne 2013
SavannahJudge Harden 2012
Promised LandFrank Yates 2012
LincolnPreston Blair 2010-2011
The Event (TV Series)James Dempsey - Cut Off the Head (2011) ... James Dempsey - You Bury Other Things Too (2011) ... James Dempsey - Face Off (2011) ... James Dempsey - A Message Back (2011) ... James Dempsey - Inostranka (2011) ... James Dempsey Show all 10 episodes 2011
Water for ElephantsOld Jacob 2011
Good Day for ItHec 2010
Flying LessonsHarry Pleasant 2009
Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas (TV Movie)Dean Davis Winters 2009
That Evening SunAbner Meecham 2008
KillshotPapa 2008
ER (TV Series)Walter Perkins - The Chicago Way (2008) ... Walter Perkins - Truth Will Out (2008) ... Walter Perkins 2007
Into the WildRon Franz 2006
NCIS (TV Series)Mickey Stokes - Escaped (2006) ... Mickey Stokes 2006
The Sopranos (TV Series)John Schwinn - The Fleshy Part of the Thigh (2006) ... John Schwinn 2005
The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine (TV Movie)Narrator (voice) 2005
Hope & Faith (TV Series)Edward Shanowski - A Room of One's Own (2005) ... Edward Shanowski 2003
The Street Lawyer (TV Movie)Arthur Jacobs 2003
Good Morning, Miami (TV Series)Jim Templeton - Subterranean Workplace Blues (2003) ... Jim Templeton - Her Place or Mine? (2003) ... Jim Templeton 2003
ShadeThe Professor 2001-2002
The West Wing (TV Series)Asst. Secretary of State Albie Duncan - Game On (2002) ... Asst. Secretary of State Albie Duncan - Gone Quiet (2001) ... Asst. Secretary of State Albie Duncan 2002
Becker (TV Series)Mr. Humphries - And the Heartbeat Goes On (2002) ... Mr. Humphries 2002
PurposeTom Walker 2001
The Legend of the Three Trees (Video short)Narrator (voice) 2001
The MajesticCongressman Doyle 2001
Haven (TV Movie)Harold L. Ickes 2000
The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus (Video)Ak - Master Woodsman of the World (voice) 2000
Family Law (TV Series)Judge Richard Lloyd - One Mistake (2000) ... Judge Richard Lloyd 2000
Men of Honor'Mr. Pappy' 2000
The Outer Limits (TV Series)Justice Oliver Harbison - Final Appeal (2000) ... Justice Oliver Harbison 2000
Waking the DeadIsaac Green 1999
A Place Apart (TV Movie)Narrator 1999
The BachelorRoy O'Dell 1999
The FlorentineSmitty 1998
My Own Country (TV Movie)Lloyd Flanders 1998
Beauty (TV Movie)Alexander Miller 1998
Rusty: A Dog's TaleBoyd Callahan 1998
Judas KissSenator Rupert Hornbeck 1998
Walking to the WaterlineMan on the Beach 1998
HushDr. Franklin Hill 1997
Nova (TV Series documentary)Narrator - Super Bridge (1997) ... Narrator (voice) 1997
The Third Twin (TV Movie)Pete 1997
All the Winters That Have Been (TV Movie)Uncle Ren Corvin 1997
HerculesAmphitryon (voice) 1997
Operation Delta Force (TV Movie)Admiral Henshaw 1997
Eye of GodSheriff Rogers 1997
Cats Don't DanceCranston (voice) 1996
The Battle of the Alamo (TV Movie documentary)Narrator 1996
Carried AwayDr. Evans 1996
Innocent Victims (TV Movie)Bob Hennis 1995
She Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal (TV Movie)Adm. Kelso 1995
A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester (TV Movie)Wild Bill McKenzie 1994
A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Grimacing Governor (TV Movie)Wild Bill McKenzie 1990-1994
Evening Shade (TV Series)Evan Evans - I Left My Ring in Evening Shade (1994) ... Evan Evans (credit only) - The Odder Couple (1994) ... Evan Evans - Mama Knows Best (1994) ... Evan Evans (credit only) - Wood Climbs to New Heights (1994) ... Evan Evans - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wood? (1994) ... Evan Evans (credit only) Show all 93 episodes 1994
A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lifestyle (TV Movie)William McKenzie 1993
The FirmOliver Lambert 1993
Bonds of Love (TV Movie)Jim Smith 1990
A Killing in a Small Town (TV Movie)Dr. Beardsley 1986-1989
Designing Women (TV Series)Reese Watson - Nightmare from Hee Haw (1989) ... Reese Watson - Come on and Marry Me, Bill (1989) ... Reese Watson - Reservations for 12, Plus Ursula (1988) ... Reese Watson - Reservations for Eight (1988) ... Reese Watson - How Great Thou Art (1988) ... Reese Watson Show all 9 episodes 1989
Sorry, Wrong Number (TV Movie)Jim Coltrane 1989
Fletch LivesHam Johnson 1989
Day One (TV Movie)Gen. George Marshall 1988
Emma: Queen of the South Seas (TV Mini-Series)Jonas Coe - Episode #1.4 (1988) ... Jonas Coe - Episode #1.3 (1988) ... Jonas Coe 1988
The Fortunate Pilgrim (TV Mini-Series)Dr. Andrew McKaig - Episode #1.3 (1988) ... Dr. Andrew McKaig - The Fortunate Pilgrim (1988) ... Dr. Andrew McKaig - The Fortunate Pilgrim (1988) ... Dr. Andrew McKaig 1988
I'll Be Home for Christmas (TV Movie)Joseph Bundy 1988
The UnholyArchbishop Mosely 1987
Wall StreetLou Mannheim 1987
Plaza Suite (TV Movie)Sam Nash 1986
North & South: Book 2, Love & War (TV Mini-Series)Abraham Lincoln - March 1865 - April 1865 (1986) ... Abraham Lincoln - December 1864 - February 1865 (1986) ... Abraham Lincoln (credit only) - May 1864 - Late Autumn 1864 (1986) ... Abraham Lincoln - September 17, 1862 - Spring 1864 (1986) ... Abraham Lincoln - July 1861 - Summer 1862 (1986) ... Abraham Lincoln Show all 6 episodes 1986
Dress Gray (TV Mini-Series)Gen. Charles Hedges - Episode #1.2 (1986) ... Gen. Charles Hedges - Episode #1.1 (1986) ... Gen. Charles Hedges 1986
Under Siege (TV Movie)President Maxwell Monroe 1985
Behind Enemy Lines (TV Movie)Col. Calvin Turner 1985
North & South: Book 1, North & South (TV Mini-Series)Abraham Lincoln - Episode #1.6 (1985) ... Abraham Lincoln - Episode #1.5 (1985) ... Abraham Lincoln (credit only) - Episode #1.4 (1985) ... Abraham Lincoln (credit only) - Episode #1.3 (1985) ... Abraham Lincoln (credit only) - Episode #1.2 (1985) ... Abraham Lincoln (credit only) Show all 6 episodes 1984
I Am Joe's Skin (Short)Joe's Skin (voice) 1984
The Three Wishes of Billy Grier (TV Movie)Grandpa Grier 1984
George Washington (TV Mini-Series)John Adams - Episode #1.3 (1984) ... John Adams - Episode #1.2 (1984) ... John Adams - Episode #1.1 (1984) ... John Adams 1984
Celebrity (TV Mini-Series)Calvin Sledge - Part 3 (1984) ... Calvin Sledge - Part 2 (1984) ... Calvin Sledge - Part 1 (1984) ... Calvin Sledge 1983
The Star ChamberBenjamin Caulfield 1982
Girls Nite OutJim MacVey 1982
CreepshowHenry Northrup (segment "The Crate") 1981
The Killing of Randy Webster (TV Movie)John Webster 1980
The Kidnapping of the PresidentPresident Adam Scott 1980
Omnibus (TV Series)Host 1980
Off the Minnesota Strip (TV Movie)Bud Johansen 1980
The FogFather Malone 1979
Natural EnemiesPaul Steward 1979
When Hell Was in Session (TV Movie)Cmdr. Jeremiah A. Denton 1979
The Legend of the Golden Gun (TV Movie)J.R. Swackhammer 1979
Murder by Natural Causes (TV Movie)Arthur Sinclair 1978
The Awakening Land (TV Mini-Series)Portius Wheeler - The Solitary - Part III: The Town (1978) ... Portius Wheeler - The Solitary - Part II: The Fields (1978) ... Portius Wheeler - The Solitary - Part I: The Trees (1978) ... Portius Wheeler - The Solitary 1977
Capricorn OneDr. James Kelloway 1977
JuliaAlan 1977
RitualsHarry 1977
Our Town (TV Movie)Stage Manager 1975-1976
Great Performances (TV Series)Theater in America Host - Ah, Wilderness! (1976) ... Theater in America Host - Beyond the Horizon (1975) ... Theater in America Host 1976
33 Hours in the Life of God (TV Movie)Dr. Simon Abbott 1976
MidwayCmdr. Joseph Rochefort 1974-1976
Lincoln (TV Mini-Series)Abraham Lincoln - The Last Days (1976) ... Abraham Lincoln - Crossing Fox River (1976) ... Abraham Lincoln - The Unwilling Warrior (1975) ... Abraham Lincoln - Prairie Lawyer (1975) ... Abraham Lincoln - Sad Figure, Laughing (1975) ... Abraham Lincoln Show all 6 episodes 1976
All the President's MenDeep Throat 1974
The Girl from PetrovkaJoe 1973
Magnum ForceLt. Briggs 1973
Jonathan Livingston SeagullThe Elder (voice, uncredited) 1973
Pueblo (TV Movie)Capt. Lloyd Bucher 1972
They Only Kill Their MastersDr. Warren G. Watkins 1972
That Certain Summer (TV Movie)Doug Salter 1972
Appointment with Destiny (TV Series documentary)Narrator - Surrender at Appomattox (1972) ... Narrator 1971
Goodbye, Raggedy Ann (TV Movie)Harlan Webb 1971
Suddenly Single (TV Movie)Larry Hackett 1971
Travis Logan, D.A. (TV Movie)Matthew Sand 1970-1971
The Bold Ones: The Senator (TV Series)Senator Hays Stowe - A Single Blow of a Sword (1971) ... Senator Hays Stowe - George Washington Told a Lie (1971) ... Senator Hays Stowe - Some Day, They'll Elect a President (1971) ... Senator Hays Stowe - A Continual Roar of Musketry: Part 2 (1970) ... Senator Hays Stowe - A Continual Roar of Musketry: Part 1 (1970) ... Senator Hays Stowe Show all 8 episodes 1970
The Magical World of Disney (TV Series)Mitch Collins - The Wacky Zoo of Morgan City: Part 2 (1970) ... Mitch Collins - The Wacky Zoo of Morgan City: Part 1 (1970) ... Mitch Collins 1970
The Great White HopeCameron 1970
The People Next DoorDavid Hoffman 1970
A Clear and Present Danger (TV Movie)Senator Hays Stowe 1969
The Name of the Game (TV Series)Mayor John Adrian - The Perfect Image (1969) ... Mayor John Adrian 1969
The Whole World Is Watching (TV Movie)Chancellor Leonard Graham 1969
The F.B.I. (TV Series)Christopher Simes - The Fraud (1969) ... Christopher Simes 1968
The BrotherhoodMan at table (uncredited) 1968
Wild in the StreetsSenator Johnny Fergus 1968
Off to See the Wizard (TV Series)Narrator - Wild World (1968) ... Narrator 1967
Coronet Blue (TV Series)Carey Thomas - Faces (1967) ... Carey Thomas 1966
CBS Playhouse: The Glass Menagerie (TV Movie)Her Son 1966
Preview Tonight (TV Series)- The Cliff Dwellers (1966) 1966
The GroupGus Leroy 1966
The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series)Abraham Lincoln - Episode #19.22 (1966) ... Abraham Lincoln 1954-1959
The Brighter Day (TV Series)Grayling Dennis - Episode dated 2 January 1959 (1959) ... Grayling Dennis - Episode dated 1 January 1959 (1959) ... Grayling Dennis - Episode dated 31 December 1958 (1958) ... Grayling Dennis - Episode dated 30 December 1958 (1958) ... Grayling Dennis - Episode dated 29 December 1958 (1958) ... Grayling Dennis Show all 6 episodes 1955
Mr. Citizen (TV Series)Don Gallagher - Late for Supper (1955) ... Don Gallagher
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-02-2021, 02:30 PM
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-03-2021, 05:18 AM
Born in The Bronx, New York, Sweeney was the son of James, a city bus driver, and Agnes, a domestic worker, both Irish immigrants. Sweeney's family moved to Yonkers in 1944, where Sweeney attended St. Barnabas Elementary School and graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School. Sweeney's father took him to numerous union meetings, and it was there that Sweeney began his lifelong commitment to the American labor movement.[1][3][4][5]
Sweeney enrolled at Iona College in New Rochelle in 1952. Sweeney worked as a grave-digger and building porter to pay his tuition, and joined his first union at this time. In 1956, he graduated with a degree in economics.[1][4][5]
After graduation, Sweeney became a clerk at IBM. But his commitment to the labor movement led Sweeney to take a two-thirds cut in pay to become a researcher with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in 1956 (now UNITE HERE).[1][4]
In time, Sweeney met Thomas R. Donahue, then a union representative with the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU, now the Service Employees International Union or SEIU). Donahue asked Sweeney to leave the ILGWU, and he became a contract director with BSEIU Local 32B in 1960. BSEIU changed its name to the Services Employees International Union in 1968. In 1972, Sweeney became assistant to the president of Local 32B in addition to his existing duties as contract director. He was elected to the executive board of Local 32B the same year. In 1973, Sweeney was elected vice president of the local.[1][4]
In 1976, John Sweeney was elected president of Local 32B. He resigned his position as contract director.[1][4] Three months after taking office, Sweeney led the 45,000 members of SEIU out on a surprise strike against the New York Realty Advisory Board a day before the union's contract was due to expire. After 17 days, the union won a new contract with significant wage and benefit increases.[6] In 1977, Sweeney merged Local 32B with Local 32J to form Local 32BJ.[7] In 1979, Sweeney led the maintenance workers of Local 32BJ out on strike again, and won additional contract improvements.[8]
In 1980, Sweeney was elected president of the national SEIU.[1] Sweeney continued to serve as president of Local 32BJ until mid-1981, and drew a salary as a consultant to the local until 1995.[9] Under Sweeney's tenure, SEIU made rapid gains in membership. The union began the decade with about 625,000 members. However, Sweeney began pushing for rapid expansion into new sectors and base areas. SEIU joined with the National Association of Working Women to organize office workers, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) to organize nursing home workers. The union also dramatically expanded its reach among maintenance workers in the health care field and business offices.[5][10]
Sweeney also pushed for mergers with a number of other unions, absorbing the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) and other public employee unions.[5][11]
By 1993, SEIU had more than one million members. It was the first AFL-CIO union to reach the million-member mark in more than 20 years. But while Sweeney had emphasized the organization of new members, about half of its growth had come through merger.[12] Sweeney initiated other changes at SEIU as well. The union began pushing for stronger federal laws in the area of health and safety, sexual harassment, and civil and immigrant rights. It also advocated for legally-mandated paid family leave, health care reform and a raise in the minimum wage. Internally, Sweeney devoted nearly a third of the union's budget to organizing new members and pushed for stronger diversity in the union's ranks.[13]
In 1995, Sweeney and a small group of other national union presidents approached AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland and asked that he retire. Dissatisfaction with Kirkland's leadership had grown in the early 1990s. There were a number of issues: Failure to pass labor law reform in President Bill Clinton's first term, failure to stop the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), failure to achieve health care reform, failure to pass legislation banning the permanent replacement of strikers, and failure to shift public discourse in a more liberal, pro-union direction. The fact that Kirkland was traveling in Europe while the U.S. Senate was considering the ban on permanent replacements was seen as all too indicative of his real priorities. Most frustrating of all was Kirkland's lackluster response to the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. He seemed blatantly uninterested, even hostile, to plans calling for a more aggressive political program.[9][14][15][16][17][18][19]
The opposition to Kirkland came to a head at the mid-winter AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Bal Harbour, Florida, February 19–20, 1995. Since the start of the new year, Sweeney had twice held meetings with Kirkland to tell him that key members of the executive council were disappointed with his leadership and that he should step down in favor of secretary-treasurer Thomas R. Donahue.[14][15][17][18][20][21]
The weekend before the executive council meeting, 11 union presidents on the executive council agreed to form a "Committee for Change." The group was committed to removing Kirkland as president of the AFL-CIO. The group included Sweeney; Gerald McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Owen Bieber of the United Auto Workers (UAW); George Becker of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA); Ron Carey of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT); Arthur Coia of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA); Wayne Glenn of the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU); Frank Hanley of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE); George Kourpias of the International Association of Machinists (IAM); Sigurd Lucassen of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC); and Richard Trumka of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Together, these unions had sufficient votes to remove Kirkland at the October AFL-CIO convention and elect a new president.[14][15][18][20][21][22]
The first choice of the Committee for Change was AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Thomas R. Donahue, who had developed a reputation as an effective innovator. He had lobbied for the creation of an AFL-CIO committee to examine changes in the workplace, pioneered the federation's communication efforts (including the construction of a television studio at AFL-CIO headquarters) and led the campaign against NAFTA. But Donahue refused to challenge a man whom he had served loyally for nearly 16 years.[14][15][17][20][22][23]
Kirkland refused to resign or retire. The executive council meeting turned rancorous. The dissident members of the executive council argued for a change in leadership and policy. But Kirkland pointed to his administration's policies and initiatives and claimed that the dissidents were disloyal and power-hungry.[14][18][19][21]
On May 8, 1995, Donahue announced he was resigning as secretary-treasurer effective at the October AFL-CIO convention. The next day, Kirkland announced he was running for re-election.[14][15][18]
The Committee for Change decided to run its own candidate against Kirkland. McEntee was considered too abrasive and had aggressively pursued disputes with other unions to be a consensus candidate. Trumka was considered too young and too militant. In contrast, Sweeney had a reassuring demeanor, an amiable personality and many friends on the executive council. He also would be seen as the "organizing candidate" the group wanted.[9][19][24]
The group also agreed to nominate Trumka as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. The group also proposed to create a new office, that of executive vice-president, charged with mobilizing state federations and central labor councils and reaching out to minorities and women. The new position was also a way of ensuring that there would be an executive position which could be filled with a woman or a minority, thus gaining additional political support for the dissidents. The Committee for Change recruited Linda Chavez-Thompson, a member of the AFL-CIO executive council, a vice-president of AFSCME and an activist on the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.[19][22][24][25]
On June 13, the Committee formally announced its slate of candidates and the name of its platform, "A New Voice for American Workers." The slate of candidates became known as the "New Voice" slate. Shortly thereafter, 10 more unions announced their opposition to Kirkland's re-election. Now a total of 21 unions representing 56 percent of the delegates to the convention were opposed to Kirkland's presidency.[19][22][24]
Faced with such discouraging numbers, Kirkland announced that he would resign effective August 1.[14][19][22][23]
With Kirkland's resignation, the principal reason for Donahue's reluctance to run for president disappeared. The same day as Kirkland's announcement, Donahue withdrew his retirement announcement and said he would now run for the presidency of the AFL-CIO.[14][19][22]
In the interim, however, support for Donahue among the dissident unions (which had changed its name to the "New Voice" slate) had dissipated.[23]
At the August AFL-CIO executive council meeting, Donahue was elected by unanimous vote as the new AFL-CIO president. For the office of secretary-treasurer, the council elected Barbara Easterling, secretary-treasurer of the Communication Workers of America. Easterling announced that she would run with Donahue in October.[24][26]
Opposition to the New Voice slate was led by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Communication Workers of America (CWA). AFT president Albert Shanker argued that the dissidents should have brought their concerns before the executive council, where, after discussion and deliberation, a decision about Kirkland's fate could have been made. Shanker also argued that exposing the labor movement's internal disputes to labor's enemies seriously risked weakening the labor movement. Finally, Shanker argued that the New Voice slate's attempt to mobilize state and local labor bodies in favor of one candidate risked politicizing the AFL-CIO and destabilizing it in the long run.[16][21][27]
The New Voice group, however, understood that their only hope for success was to move the debate out of the executive council. In the executive council, each union—no matter how small—had an equal vote. A group of 20 small unions could make binding decisions even though their membership might be far less than that of their opponents. But at the AFL-CIO convention, each union was allotted delegates proportional to the size of its membership. At the convention, a coalition of large unions could triumph even if they did not represent a majority of unions. It would have been foolish for the New Voice slate, whose base was in some of the largest unions in the AFL-CIO, to pursue their goals in the executive council where their votes counted for less.[17]
A public debate over the AFL-CIO's future had rarely been seen in the history of the American labor movement.[16][28] The New Voice ticket campaigned intensively for the support of the state federations and central labor councils (CLCs), each of which was entitled to send one delegate to the convention. Normally, few of these bodies sent delegates to the quadrennial convention. But New Voice slate actively recruited delegates, and allegations were made that the slate had agreed to pay travel and housing for delegates if they agreed to support Sweeney. Sweeney also promised that more attention would be paid to these bodies, which the New Voice ticket saw as important in supporting locallabor actions and enlarging the federation's political capabilities. Donahue refused to campaign for votes among the state federations and central labor councils, arguing that it would politicize the AFL-CIO and weaken the post-election consensus among the AFL-CIO's various bodies.[23][25]
By August, it was clear that the New Voice slate would win at least two-thirds of the state federation and CLC votes. Donahue reversed his decision and campaigned for votes among these delegates, but his action came too late: Most of the votes were already locked up.[28]
Both sides hired professional public relations firms to help manage their campaigns, which included media strategies, slogans, graphics, leaflets, press releases, T-shirts, opposition research, posters and videotaped speeches. The candidates also used 'free' media extensively, appearing on 'Meet the Press,' National Public Radio's 'Talk of the Nation,' the Public Broadcasting Service's 'MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour,' C-SPAN and other shows.[29]
Despite Donahue's energetic campaigning, it soon became clear that his candidacy was profoundly limited by his ties to the Kirkland regime. Donahue was forced to defend the status quo and deny the magnitude of the labor movement's problems when he believed otherwise.[23][28]
The New Voice political platform persuaded many unions to abandon the status quo. Sweeney called for a major expansion of the federation's role in organizing by: spending $20 million a year on hiring and training thousands of new organizers; mobilizing over 1,000 college students for summer organizing; creating a "Sunbelt Organizing Fund" to sponsor organizing in the South and Southwest; and establishing a separate Organizing Department. Sweeney also proposed creating a Center for Strategic Campaigns to coordinate all national contract campaigns; creating a Strategic Campaign Fund to provide grants to unions in difficult organizing and contract fights; creating a Strike Support Team of organizers that could be deployed to help support strikes; and establishing a Pension Investment Clearinghouse to provide information on how pensions are invested and to help mobilize investments in support of organizing. Sweeney also called for a modification of labor's political tactics and withdrawal of support for Democrats who did not support labor's agenda. Sweeney recommended creating a National Labor Political Training Center to recruit and train candidates and political campaign directors, and establishing a Labor Center for Economic and Public Policy that would develop policy analysis, support the federation's legislative agenda and expand the political activities of the state federations and central labor councils.[5][9][14][15][23][25]
Finally, Sweeney argued that it was time to revamp the AFL-CIO itself. The New Voice platform promised more effective consultation with state federations and central labor councils, better ties with women and minority groups, expansion of the executive council to insure more women and minority representation, creation of the office of executive vice-president, annual meetings of the general board, restructuring of the trade and industrial departments and a rule that no one over the age of 70 could run for any executive office.[25]
Partly in response to the New Voice platform and partly because he believed change was, in fact, needed, Donahue began to implement some of the New Voice reforms. He diverted revenue from the Union Privilege program into a new organizing fund that would eventually pay out $20 million a year. He increased the budget of the Organizing Institute, approved plans to double the number of organizers recruited and trained each year, and obtained executive council approval to provide no-interest loans to support striking unions. Donahue also diverted Union Privilege money to train 500 activists to work in the 1996 congressional elections.[26]
At the AFL-CIO convention in New York City, a record-breaking 1,047 delegates gathered to determine the AFL-CIO's future. When the votes were finally counted on October 25, 1995, John Sweeney had secured the support of 34 unions representing 7,286,837 members, or 57 percent of the AFL-CIO's membership. As a result of New Voice efforts, the number of delegates from state federation and local central labor councils rose from 186 at the 1993 convention to 488 in 1995.[30][31]
The New Voice ticket then asked the convention to implement its platform. Subsequently, the convention voted to provide state federations with representation on the AFL-CIO general board, which had previously been open only to national union presidents. The convention also expanded the AFL-CIO executive council from 33 to 54 members. Sweeney offered these new seats to previously unrepresented unions. The expansion nearly doubled representation for women and minorities on the council. The expansion had the added advantage of enabling both Sweeney supporters and Donahue loyalists to sit on the council, encouraging reconciliation. A 'unity slate' of executive council members was announced by Douglas H. Dority, president of the UFCW and a key Donahue supporter, and Gerald McEntee. The unity slate helped avoid the threat of disaffiliations from the labor federation.[32][additional citation(s) needed]
Soon after taking office, Sweeney initiated several programs intended to reverse the decline in union membership and recruit more new members, especially younger people. The AFL-CIO's organizing and field mobilization programs were separated.[9] The Field Mobilization department was given control over the AFL-CIO's regional offices, which were reduced from 12 to four. Sweeney set a goal of spending one-third of the federation's budget on organizing by 1998.[33] An ad hoc executive council committee was established to come up with an organizing strategy for the South and Southwest, while the Union Summer program was established to recruit and deploy college-age activists.[33][34] A new department, the Working Women's Department, was created and charged with developing ways to give working women a voice and to inject that voice into the labor movement's deliberations.
Two new centers were also established. The new political training center's mission was to train political operatives and assist affiliates in training their staff in political work. The transnational corporate research center's mission was to help unions in organizing and/or contract battles with international corporations.
In August 1996, Sweeney created a Corporate Affairs Department. The department included three new centers: the Center for Workplace Democracy (to deal with labor-management partnerships), the Center for Worker Ownership and Governance (to deal with pension and investment issues) and the Center for Strategic Research (to assist affiliates with research in comprehensive campaigns). The department also was given responsibility for collecting statistics and conducting research on collective bargaining.
In May 1997, Sweeney announced four new organizing programs. The first program was an AFL-CIO-based effort to provide logistical, organizational and training support for state and local unions which wanted to create organizing programs. The second program 'Senior Summer', a program to leverage the labor movement's retirees by training retired workers in organizing and political operations. The third program was the "Union Cities" effort to encourage large central labor councils to be more active and effective, and to encourage smaller CLCs to merge or work more closely to enhance their influence. Lastly, the 'Street Heat' program funneled funds and staff to CLCs and unions so that they could develop rapid-response teams of union members to picket and/or protest when workers were intimidated, coerced or fired.
In October 1998, Sweeney renamed the AFL-CIO's 30-year-old Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI). It was now known as the Working for America Institute. Instead of focusing on education and training for displaced workers, the department's new mission was to promote economic development, act as a think-tank and policy development foundation, and lobby Congress on economic policy.
But dissatisfaction began to build once again within the AFL-CIO. The elimination of a number of constitutional and administrative departments, such as the Industrial Union Department, was seen as a strike against those unions which had not supported Sweeney. The directorship of the AFL-CIO Organizing Department was a revolving door, organization of new members had not markedly increased and many unions had taken to raiding one another to increase membership. A number of unions were unhappy with what they saw as AFL-CIO criticism of their organizing programs.[35]
In May 2000, the United Transportation Union disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO over a jurisdictional dispute. It was followed in April 2001 by the Carpenters union, which claimed that Sweeney's organizing efforts had failed and that the AFL-CIO structure must be abandoned.
Despite substantial investment in politics, the AFL-CIO had not succeeded in restoring the Democrats to a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Some union presidents began to argue that the AFL-CIO should stop spending money on political causes and divert resources to organizing new members.
Prominent among the dissatisfied leaders was Andrew Stern, president of SEIU and a Sweeney protege.[36]
The growing unrest within the AFL-CIO became public when Sweeney announced on September 18, 2003, that he planned to run for another four-year term at the federation convention in the summer of 2005. When Sweeney had first been elected of the AFL-CIO in 1995, he had proposed a constitutional amendment which would bar anyone 70 years of age or older from seeking executive office. The proposed amendment was never acted on, but Sweeney promised the convention he would not remain in office beyond the age limit he had proposed. Many inside the labor movement felt that Sweeney's announcement was designed to forestall any candidacy by a dissident leader.
Shortly after the March 2004 executive council meeting, Andrew Stern announced the formation of the New Unity Partnership (NUP). Joining Stern were the presidents of UNITE HERE, the Teamsters, the Laborers, UFCW and the Carpenters.[37] Stern had begun working with these union leaders in the fall of 2003 to create a set of principles to reform the labor movement. Although NUP's existence had been revealed in October 2003,[36] the group did not announce its platform until March 2004.[citation needed]
The NUP platform included a number of proposals. First, the AFL-CIO should mandate the merger of smaller unions with larger ones, and the AFL-CIO must redraw and enforce jurisdictional lines along those of major industries, or "core jurisdictions." Second, a number of AFL-CIO departments (including health and safety, education, and civil and human rights) must be merged or eliminated. Third, political spending must be significantly reduced in favor of major new AFL-CIO spending on organizing.[36][37]
![[Image: 220px-John_Sweeney_at_Oct._4th_Internati...r_Walk.jpg]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Sweeney_at_Oct._4th_International_Labor_Leader_Walk.jpg) Sweeney told the press he would initiate an internal discussion of Stern's views after the November 2004 presidential election, with a goal of creating a proposal by July 2005. But Stern declared that this would be too late for consideration at the AFL-CIO's biennial convention.
Implementation of criticisms[[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Sweeney_(labor_leader)&action=edit§ion=11]edit]
At the August 2004 AFL-CIO executive council meeting, Sweeney attempted to implement some of NUP's criticisms by announcing the formation of a task force to investigate organizing the Wal-Mart grocery and discount department store chain. Sweeney also announced the creation of an Immigrant Worker Project to oversee the federation's work on immigrant rights and organizing efforts.
On November 10, 2004, Sweeney announced a process and timeline for considering reform of the AFL-CIO. Sweeney said he would chair a committee composed of the federation's 25-member executive committee which would make reform recommendations to the February 2005 AFL-CIO executive council meeting.
In January 2005, Stern announced that the New Unity Partnership had disbanded.[38] Its purpose had been to create discussion over the future of the labor movement, Stern said, and that goal had been accomplished.[citation needed]
At the March 2005 AFL-CIO executive council meeting, however, no consensus on reform emerged. Instead, the executive committee of the AFL-CIO recommended that the federation earmark half of all income for political and legislative mobilization. The executive committee also recommended rebating up to millions of dollars to unions which spent at least 30 percent of their budget on organizing. There appeared to be little support in the executive committee for mandatory mergers.
But several former New Unity Partnership members disagreed with these proposals. The Teamsters demanded a 50 percent of dues to member unions, as well as streamlining the AFL-CIO by moving many of its functions out of the headquarters to the state and local field operations, eliminating other functions, and reducing the size of the executive committee.
In May 2005, Sweeney formally submitted the executive council's proposals to the AFL-CIO convention for consideration in July.
On June 16, Stern and his allies announced the formation of a new organization, the Change to Win Coalition. The Change to Win Coalition included five unions: SEIU, UFCW, the Laborers, UNITE HERE and the Teamsters. They were joined by the Carpenters on June 27[39]. The Change to Win Coalition released a set of proposals for reforming the AFL-CIO that largely reflected its member union's proposals.[40]
In mid-June, the AFL-CIO executive council voted to submit Sweeney's reform plan to the AFL-CIO convention in July. Discussion on the outstanding proposals from the February meeting continued, but no consensus was reached.
Additional counter-proposals were proposed throughout the summer. The Change to Win Coalition union presidents sought and received authority from their governing bodies to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO, but it became clear that the Change to Win coalition could muster only a third of delegates at the AFL-CIO convention.
On July 22, 2005, the United Farm Workers (UFW) joined the Change to Win Coalition.[41]
On July 25, 2005, as the AFL-CIO convention got under way, SEIU and the Teamsters announced that the negotiations had failed and that they were disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO. The same day, SEIU, the Teamsters, UFCW and UNITE HERE announced that their delegates would boycott the AFL-CIO convention.
Sweeney angrily denounced the disaffiliations. Gerald McEntee called the disaffiliation threats a power-play, claiming that the Change to Win coalition had demanded that Sweeney announce his retirement within six months and endorse a replacement of their choosing.
With the Change to Win unions boycotting the AFL-CIO convention, Sweeney's re-election and the adoption of his reform plans became a foregone conclusion.
On July 29, UFCW disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO, bringing the total number of members lost to 3.6 million of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members.
On September 14, 440,000-member union UNITE HERE disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO.
The breakaway unions formed a new labor federation, Change to Win, on September 27, 2005.
Both Sweeney and Change to Win reached out to one another after the break-up of the AFL-CIO, although the relationship was difficult. Sweeney primarily focused on stabilizing the AFL-CIO and its state, area and local bodies financially, structurally and politically. Sweeney kept a relatively low profile, seeking the spotlight only during disputes with Change to Win or when addressing national issues such as immigration policy.
Sweeney retired as President of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009,[2] and has been President Emeritus since then. He won the "Roving Ambassador for Peace" award from the World Peace Prize Awarding Council in 2016, because of his long-standing devotion to social justice and fair employment opportunities for American workers.[42]
P
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-03-2021, 10:59 AM
(02-03-2021, 05:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I read the book that Mar. Sweeney wrote in 1997 titled “America Needs a Raise”. This was around the time that the issue of vast income inequality became well noticed even though a Democrat occupied the White House. In many people’s minds though Bill Clinton was a Republican in Democrat’s clothing, as was Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. And while Sweeney’s book made a convincing argument that it was time for a revival of unionism in the country, he refused to treat the labor union as a God the way many officials and workers had previously done, admitting that unions the way they were needed to take some of the blame for what went down over the previous few decades.
02-05-2021, 05:13 PM
superb actor Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer CC (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor whose career spanned seven decades. He gained recognition for his performances in film, television, and theatre. Plummer made his Broadway debut in 1954, and continued to act in leading roles on stage playing Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano (1974), Iago in Othello, as well as playing the titular roles in Macbeth, King Lear, and Barrymore. Plummer also performed in stage productions J.B., No Man's Land, and Inherit the Wind. Plummer was born in Toronto and grew up in Senneville, Quebec. After appearing on stage, he made his film debut in Sidney Lumet's Stage Struck (1958), and won great acclaim with audiences for his performance as Captain Georg von Trapp in the musical film The Sound of Music (1965) alongside Julie Andrews.[1] Plummer portrayed numerous major historical figures, including Roman emperor Commodus in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in Waterloo (1970), Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009), Kaiser Wilhelm II in The Exception (2016), and J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World (2017). Plummer also appeared in such films as Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992), Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001), Terrence Malick's The New World (2005), David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Mike Mills' Beginners (2011), Rian Johnson's Knives Out (2019), and Todd Robinson's The Last Full Measure (2019). Plummer received various accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a British Academy Film Award; he is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting, and the only Canadian. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 82 for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to win an acting award, and he received a nomination at the age of 88 for All the Money in the World, making him the oldest person to be nominated in an acting category.[2] Edward Everett Horton hired Plummer to appear as Gerard in the 1953 road show production of André Roussin's Nina,[17] a role originated on Broadway by David Niven in 1951.[18] Plummer made his Canadian television debut in the February 1953 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation production of Othello, starring Lorne Greene as the Moor.[19] His American television debut was also in 1953 on a Studio One episode entitled "The Gathering Night", as an artist who finds success just as his eyesight begins to fail him. He also appeared throughout the 1950s on both dramatic showcase programs like The Alcoa Hour, General Electric Theater, Kraft Television Theatre, and Omnibus and episodic series. In 1956, he appeared with Jason Robards and Constance Ford in an episode entitled "A Thief There Was" of CBS's anthology series Appointment with Adventure. Plummer made his Broadway debut in January 1953 in The Starcross Story, a show that closed on opening night. His next Broadway appearance, Home is the Hero, lasted 30 performances from September to October 1954. He appeared in support of Broadway legend Katharine Cornell and film legend Tyrone Power in The Dark Is Light Enough, which lasted 69 performances from February to April 1955. The play toured several cities, with Plummer serving as Power's understudy.[5] Later that same year, he appeared in his first Broadway hit, opposite Julie Harris (who won a Tony Award) in Jean Anouilh's The Lark. After appearing in Night of the Auk, which was not a success, Plummer appeared in Elia Kazan's successful Broadway production of Archibald MacLeish's Pulitzer Prize-winning play J.B.; Plummer was nominated for his first Tony as Best Actor in Play. (J.B. also won Tonys as Best Play and for Kazan's direction.) He appeared as Jason opposite Dame Judith Anderson in Robinson Jeffers' adaptation of Medea at the Theatre Sara Bernhardt in Paris in 1955. The American National Theatre and Academy production, directed by Guthrie McClintic, was part of Le Festival International. Also in 1955, he played Mark Antony in Julius Caesar and Ferdinand in The Tempest at the American Shakespeare Festival (Stratford, Connecticut). He returned to the American Shakespeare Festival in 1981 to play the title role in Henry V.[20] Plummer made his debut at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1956, playing the title role in Henry V, which subsequently was performed that year at the Edinburgh Festival. He played the title role in Hamlet and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night at Stratford in 1957. The following year, he played Leontes in The Winter's Tale, Bardolph in Henry IV, Part 1, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Plummer's film career began in 1958 when Sidney Lumet cast him as a young writer in Stage Struck. That same year, Plummer played the lead in Nicholas Ray's film Wind Across the Everglades (1958). That same year, he appeared in the live television drama Little Moon of Alban with Julie Harris, for which he received his first Emmy Award nomination. He also appeared with Harris in the 1958 television adaptation of Johnny Belinda and played Torvald Helmer to Harris' Nora in a 1959 television version of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. Plummer also starred in the television adaptations of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story (1959), George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1960), Jean Anouilh's Time Remembered (playing the role of Prince Albert originated by Richard Burton on Broadway),[21] and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1962). In 1964, his performance of the Gloomy Dane in the BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore garnered him his second Emmy nomination. In 1960, he played Philip the Bastard in King John and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. In 1962, he played the title roles in both Cyrano de Bergerac and Macbeth, returning in 1967 to play Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra.[20][22] . In April 1961, he appeared as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He also appeared with the RSC in May 1961 in the lead role of Richard III. He made his London debut on June 11, 1961, playing King Henry II in Jean Anouilh's Becket with the RSC at the Aldwych Theatre, directed by Peter Hall. The production later transferred to the Globe for a December 1961 to April 1962 run.[20] For his performance, Plummer won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor.[23] [/url] In 1963, he was the subject of a short [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Board_of_Canada]National Film Board of Canada documentary, 30 Minutes, Mister Plummer, directed by Anne Claire Poirier.[24] Plummer did not appear on the film screen for six years after 1958 until he played the Roman emperor Commodus in Anthony Mann's epic The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). His next film, the Oscar-winning The Sound of Music, made cinematic history, becoming the all-time top-grossing film, eclipsing Gone with the Wind.[25] He was in Inside Daisy Clover (1965), then played World War Two agent Eddie Chapman in Triple Cross (1966) and had a support role as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Night of the Generals (1967). Plummer was cast to replace Rex Harrison for the film adaptation of Doctor Dolittle. This decision was later reversed, but Plummer was nonetheless paid $87,500 for signing the contract. At the same time, Plummer was performing in the stage play The Royal Hunt of the Sun and his whole Dolittle participation was so brief that Plummer never missed a performance.[26] Plummer had the title role in Oedipus the King (1968) and The High Commissioner (1968), playing an Australian in the latter. Plummer was one of many stars in Battle of Britain (1969) and was Atahualpa in The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969) and the lead in a musical, Lock Up Your Daughters (1969). Plummer appeared less frequently on Broadway in the 1960s as he moved from New York to London. He appeared in the title role in a 1963 production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which did not succeed, but he had a great success in Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun, playing conquistador Francisco Pizarro to David Carradine's Atahuallpa; both performances were "stunning," as Plummer did wonders "of extraordinary beauty and deep pain" in playing his complex character.[27] (In the 1969 film adaptation, Plummer would take the title role.) Plummer remains widely known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp due to the box office success and continued popularity of The Sound of Music (1965), a role which he once described as "so awful and sentimental and gooey".[28] He found all aspects of making the film unpleasant, except working with Andrews, and he avoided using its name, instead calling it "that movie", "S&M", or "The Sound of Mucus".[29] He declined to attend the 40th Anniversary cast reunion, but he did provide commentary on the 2005 DVD release. He relented for the 45th anniversary and appeared with the full cast on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 28, 2010. In 2009, Plummer said that he was "a bit bored with the character" of Captain von Trapp. "Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. And the subject matter is not mine. I mean, it can't appeal to every person in the world."[1] However, he admits that the film itself was well made and was proud to be associated with a film with such mass appeal. "But it was a very well-made movie, and it's a family movie and we haven't seen a family movie, I don't think, on that scale for ages."[30] 1 From June 1971 to January 1972, he appeared at the National Theatre, acting in repertory for the season. The plays he appeared in were Jean Giraudoux's Amphitryon 38 directed by Laurence Olivier;[31] Georg Büchner's Danton's Death (director Jonathan Miller); Adrian Mitchell's Tyger; Luigi Pirandello's The Rules of the Game; and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night at the New Theatre in London. From May to June 1973, he appeared on Broadway as the title character in Cyrano, a musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Anthony Burgess and Michael J. Lewis. For that performance, Plummer won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. Later that year, he played Anton Chekhov in Neil Simon's adaptation of several Chekhov short stories, The Good Doctor.[32] Another notable play in which he appeared was the 1974 adaptation of Arthur Miller's After the Fall, in which he played Quentin (a part originated on Broadway by Jason Robards)[33] opposite Faye Dunaway's Maggie. On screen, Plummer portrayed the Duke of Wellington in Waterloo (1970). The Pyx (1973) was his first Canadian film. He also appeared in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) (playing Rudyard Kipling) alongside Michael Caine and Sean Connery. He also appeared in the comedy The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), alongside Peter Sellers and The Silent Partner (1978) opposite Elliott Gould . He appeared in Aces High (1976), International Velvet (1978), Murder by Decree (1979) (playing Sherlock Holmes). Plummer appeared in Lovers and Madmen at the Opera House, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. in 1973 and in Love and Master Will at the same venue in 1975.[34] Love and Master Will consisted of selections from the works of William Shakespeare on the subject of love, arranged by Plummer. His co-stars were Zoe Caldwell, Bibi Andersson and Leonard Nimoy. Plummer played "Edgar" in E. L. Doctorow's Drinks before Dinner with the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public/Newman Theatre in New York City in 1978. He appeared as Herod Antipas in the television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977) alongside the ensemble cast which included Laurence Olivier, James Earl Jones, and James Mason. In the 1980s, he appeared on Broadway in two Shakespearean tragedies, Othello, playing Iago to James Earl Jones' Moor, and the title role in Macbeth with Glenda Jackson playing his lady. His Iago brought him another Tony nomination. Plummer appeared in the five-time Emmy Award-winning television series The Thorn Birds (1983) alongside Barbara Stanwyck, and Jean Simmons. In film Plummer appeared in the romantic drama Somewhere in Time (1980), the drama Eyewitness (1981), the comedy Dragnet (1987) and Shadow Dancing (1988). Plummer has also done some voice work, such as his role of Henri the pigeon in An American Tail (1986), the villainous Grand Duke of Owls in Rock-a-Doodle (1991), He appeared with Jason Robards in the 1994 revival of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land and had great success in 1997 in Barrymore, which he also toured with after a successful Broadway run. His turn as John Barrymore brought him his second Tony Award (this time as Best Actor in Play) and a Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actor in a Play.From 1993 to 1995, he narrated the animated television series Madeline, for which he received an Emmy Award, as well as the animated television series The World of David the Gnome.[35] Plummer continued acting in films including the science fiction film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Spike Lee's biographical drama Malcolm X (1992), Mike Nichol's drama Wolf (1994), Taylor Hackford's psychological drama Dolores Claiborne (1995), and Terry Gilliam's science fiction drama 12 Monkeys (1995). One of Plummer's most critically acclaimed roles was that of television journalist Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's biographical film The Insider (1999), for which he was honoured with several critics' awards for Best Supporting Actor, though a corresponding Academy Award nomination did not materialize.[36] In 2000, Plummer starred as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe in the Primetime Emmy Award-winning Nuremberg (2000) starring Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox and Max Von Sydow. the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the Emmy-winning The Moneychangers (for which he won his first Emmy Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series). That same year he co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and a documentary by Ric Burns about Eugene O'Neill. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his performance in Our Fathers and reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond. He was the narrator for The Gospel of John. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and the Black. Plummer reprised his role from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in the video game Star Trek: Klingon Academy. In 2011, he provided the voice of Arngeir, speaker for the Greybeards, in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.[37] In 2004, Plummer appeared as a presenter in the CPAC documentary series The Prime Ministers. He appears in the third episode, "John Abbott" (as Plummer is Abbott's great-grandson). In 2002, he appeared in a lauded production of King Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller.[38] The production successfully transferred to New York City's Lincoln Center in 2004.[39] He was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his 2004 King Lear and for a Tony playing Henry Drummond in the 2007 revival of Inherit the Wind.[40] He returned to the stage at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in August 2008 in a critically acclaimed performance as Julius Caesar in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff; this production was videotaped and shown in high-definition in Canadian cinemas on January 31, 2009 (with an encore presentation on February 23, 2009) and broadcast on April 4, 2009 on Bravo! in Canada. Other successes include his roles as Dr. Rosen in Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind (2001), Arthur Case in Spike Lee's film Inside Man (2006), and the philosopher Aristotle in Alexander, alongside Colin Farrell. In 2004, Plummer briefly played John Adams Gates in Disney adventure film National Treasure. George Clooney's drama Syriana (2005), the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs (2005), Terrence Malick's historical drama The New World (2005), and the romantic dramaThe Lake House (2006). In 2009, Plummer gave a voice performance for Pixar's animated film, Up where he played the antagonistic Charles Muntz, that same year he also lent his voice in Tim Burton-produced action/science fiction film 9 playing elder leader 1. In January 2010, Plummer received his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of author Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009).[41] Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview that aired on March 7, 2010,[42] Plummer added, tongue-in-cheek, "Well, I said it's about time! I mean, I'm 80 years old, for God's sake. Have mercy." On Oscar night, March 7, 2010, however, he lost to Christoph Waltz.[43] In 2009 and 2010, Plummer starred in two stage to screen adaptations of the Stratford Festival productions of Caesar and Cleopatra and The Tempest. Both productions were directed for the stage by Des McAnuff and produced by Barry Avrich. The Tempest won Plummer a Canadian Screen award for Best Performance in a Performing Arts Program. In 2011, he appeared in the feature-length documentary The Captains. The film, written and directed by William Shatner, sees Shatner interview Plummer at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Theatre where they talk about their young careers, long lasting friendship, and Plummer's role as Chang in Star Trek VI. The film references that Shatner, two years Plummer's junior, was the other's understudy in a production of Henry V at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. When Plummer had fallen ill, Shatner took the stage, earning his first big break.[44] That same year, Plummer appeared in David Fincher's English-language film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Stellan Skarsgård. The film was a critical and commercial success. Earlier that year, Plummer received his second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Mike Mills' independent comedy drama film Beginners (2011) starring Ewan McGregor, and Mélanie Laurent. Plummer was announced as the winner at the 84th Academy Awards. Plummer's win made him, at age 82, the oldest actor to win an Academy Award. When he accepted the award, he quipped "You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?".[45] Plummer returned to the Stratford Festival in the summer of 2010 in The Tempest as the lead character, Prospero (also videotaped and shown in high-def in cinemas), and again in the summer of 2012 in the one-man show, A Word or Two, an autobiographical exploration of his love of literature. In 2014, Plummer presented A Word or Two again, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.[46] In 2015 he starred in the Atom Egoyan directed thriller Remember starring alongside Martin Landau and Bruno Ganz. In November 2017, Plummer, who was director Ridley Scott's original choice to play J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World,[47] was cast to replace Kevin Spacey in the then-already completed film. The move came amid numerous sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations made towards Spacey. All scenes that had included Spacey were re-shot with Plummer. Co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams were part of the necessary filming.[48] The decision was made not long before the scheduled release date of December 22. TriStar Pictures intended to meet that release date in spite of the tight re-shooting and editing schedule; it was eventually pushed back to December 25.[49][50] For his role, Plummer earned Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. At the age of 89, he appeared in a leading role in Departure, a 2019 Canadian-British TV series by Global for NBC Universal about the disappearance of a trans-Atlantic flight.[51] He starred as murder mystery writer Harlan Thrombey in Rian Johnson's ensemble mystery film Knives Out alongside Ana de Armas, Daniel Craig, and Chris Evans.[52]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
boxer Leon Spinks.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Leon Spinks, who won Olympic gold and then shocked the boxing world by beating Muhammad Ali to win the heavyweight title in only his eighth pro fight, has died. He was 67. Spinks, who lived his later years in Las Vegas, died Friday night, according to a release from a public relations firm. He had been battling prostate and other cancers. His wife, Brenda Glur Spinks, and a few close friends and other family members were by his side when he passed away. A lovable heavyweight with a drinking problem, Spinks beat Ali by decision in a 15-round fight in 1978 to win the title. He was unranked at the time, and picked as an opponent because Ali was looking for an easy fight. Spinks, who lived his later years in Las Vegas, died Friday night, according to a release from a public relations firm. He had been battling prostate and other cancers. His wife, Brenda Glur Spinks, and a few close friends and other family members were by his side when he passed away. A lovable heavyweight with a drinking problem, Spinks beat Ali by decision in a 15-round fight in 1978 to win the title. He was unranked at the time, and picked as an opponent because Ali was looking for an easy fight. He got anything but that, with an unorthodox Spinks swarming over Ali throughout the fight on his way to a stunning win by split decision. The two met seven months later at the Superdome in New Orleans, with Ali taking the decision this time before a record indoor boxing crowd of 72,000 and a national television audience estimated at 90 million people. “It was one of the most unbelievable things when Ali agreed to fight him because you look at the fights he had up to then and he was not only not a top contender but shouldn’t have been a contender at all,” promoter Bob Arum said Saturday. ”He was just an opponent but somehow he found a way to win that fight.” Spinks would lose the rematch to Ali in New Orleans and fought for the title only once after that, when he was stopped in the third round in 1981 by Larry Holmes. He continued fighting on and off into the mid-1990s, finishing with a record of 26-17-3. Spinks, with a big grin that often showed off his missing front teeth, was popular among boxing fans for both his win over Ali and his easygoing personality. But he burned through his earnings quickly, and at one point after retiring was working as a custodian at a YMCA in Nebraska, cleaning locker rooms. He later was part of a group of ex-fighters who had their brains studied by the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. Spinks was found to have brain damage caused by a combination of taking punches to the head and heavy drinking, though he functioned well enough to do autograph sessions and other events late in his life. “He was a good soul,” said Gene Kilroy, who was Ali’s business manager when he fought Spinks and became friends with the fighter. Spinks won the light heavyweight division at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, beating Sixto Soria of Cuba in an upset to become one of five U.S. fighters to win gold. His brother, Michael, who would later become heavyweight champion himself, won the middleweight gold, and Sugar Ray Leonard took the welterweight title. https://apnews.com/article/montreal-cf9b...57afe3650e
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-07-2021, 06:21 AM
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — A slain FBI agent was remembered for her strength, infectious laugh, love of family and commitment to protecting children during a memorial service Saturday.
Agents Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, and Daniel Alfin, 36, were gunned down Tuesday while serving a search warrant at the Broward County home of a child pornography suspect. The service for Schwartzenberger was held at the Miami Dolphins’ football stadium. A separate service for Alfin will be held there Sunday. “There are no good words to make sense of a loss like this, no good words for a day like Tuesday, or like today,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “There’s a heaviness in our hearts and a burden unlike any other, because there is nothing more devastating to the FBI family than the loss of an agent in the line of duty.” Schwartzenberger’s casket was draped with an American flag as it was brought out to the field as bagpipers played. The flag was later folded into a triangle and presented to her family by Wray. She was given a 21-gun salute during the service. “Laura chose to be part of a team that spends their days in darkness confronting the very worst parts of humanity. It’s a job with high stress, high emotional toll and high burnout,” Wray said of the agent, who was originally from Pueblo, Colorado. “Laura never stopped. She’d talk to anybody and everybody about protecting children from predators online.” Federal government officials who attended the service with Wray were Acting U.S. Attorney General Monty Wilkinson and President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. “During her 15 years as an FBI Special Agent, Laura Schwartzenberger was selfless, tireless, brave and committed to protecting some of society’s most vulnerable: its children,” Wilkinson said in statement. Sherwood-Randall also praised Schwartzenberger’s service to the nation, calling her “an American hero who dedicated her life to keeping our country, our citizens and especially our children safe.” The shootings marked one of the bloodiest days in FBI history in South Florida and among the deadliest nationally as well, according to the FBI website. Suspect David Huber, 55, killed himself before he could be arrested. https://apnews.com/article/nfl-football-...89fffb85c4
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-10-2021, 08:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-10-2021, 08:52 PM by Eric the Green.)
I started tuning into rock n roll on the radio, instead of just hearing what was going around, in the Summer of 1964. Probably the first song I heard was "Under the Boardwalk" by The Drifters. But certainly one of the first was "Where Did Our Love Go" by The Supremes, the #1 hit of the time. The vocals and the sound was a bit strange and unfamiliar to me, and I wasn't too impressed. My first favorites instead were surfbeat songs by such artists as The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and of course I wanted to get into Beatlemania and pretty soon I was a big fan.
But the Supremes next song, "Baby Love," had a big impact on me. The instrumental break got to me first, and then the whole song touched my heart. It is the premiere example of the great Motown Sound and all it can be. It moved up my list of favorites to the top over a few weeks. My friends and family were not especially pleased with my choice, though. Edward Berwick, for example, who posts on facebook these days, was not too happy back then when I told him I had finally replaced "Little Honda" by The Beach Boys with Baby Love as #1 on my list. He was helping me get interested in Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison. And a bit later when I told my Mom who my new favorite was, and showed her the cover of the "Where Did Our Love Go" album I had recently bought and was playing, she looked askance at me and scowled, "you mean, those GIRLS???" She and Dad were used to me raving about Beethoven since childhood. "Come See About Me" followed quickly and was my next #1, very beautiful stuff. I realize now how important the vocalists are to shaping a song. "Dancing in the Street" which became my #3 song of all of 1964 behind the two Supremes songs, would have been nothing without Martha Reeves. She shaped it and made it what it was. But of course the Motown Sound was the big thing. People don't always realize what the PBS documentary on it showed, that the musicians who created the Motown Sound were expert musicians and arrangers who came from the big bands. The brilliant songwriters like Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier as well as Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson were behind Motown's success too. Is there a better-written song than "My Guy?" And Smokey's follow-up "My Girl" by the Temptations featured the Detroit Symphony. The Supremes went on to have many #1 hits and became the most successful vocal group ever. They broke through a lot of color barriers too. Mary Wilson was like the #2 vocalist of the Supremes behind Diana Ross, the lead singer. And when Diana left in 1970 to go solo, Mary was the leader. She helped make songs like "Stoned Love" and "Nathan Jones" great. She was a standout guest on the PBS "My Music" shows that focused on the sixties. I was shocked to hear she suddenly died yesterday at age 76, even though she looked great and was about to release new songs. She also wrote a book about the Supremes and was an activist and charity donor. She was a fine lady and I will miss her. So here's Baby Love, enjoy; and I will add "Stoned Love" too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wilson_(singer)
02-11-2021, 03:38 PM
Did we miss George Shultz? The steady hand in the Reagan Administration, he likely kept things from spiraling into a mess. He could say no and make it stick without acting despotically. Trump could have used someone like him, but convincing someone who knows everything is really difficult.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-12-2021, 06:25 PM
Chick Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) Jazz fusion legend.
Keyboardist helped Miles Davis usher in the fusion revolution and founded his own game-changing groups, including Return to Forever https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music...t-1127283/ ![[Image: 220px-Chick_Corea_Kongsberg_Jazzfestival...650%29.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Chick_Corea_Kongsberg_Jazzfestival_2018_%28170650%29.jpg/220px-Chick_Corea_Kongsberg_Jazzfestival_2018_%28170650%29.jpg) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Corea Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist.[3][4] His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards.[5] As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever.[4] Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, he is considered one of the most influential jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.[6] Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 23 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times.[7]
Steve Barrera
[A]lthough one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. - Hagakure Saecular Pages
02-12-2021, 06:31 PM
Rowena A. Morrill (September 14, 1944 – February 11, 2021) was an American artist known for her science-fiction and fantasy illustration, and is credited as one of the first female artists to impact paperback cover illustration.[1] Her notable artist monographs included The Fantastic Art of Rowena, Imagine (in France), Imagination (in Germany), and The Art of Rowena and her work has also been included in a variety of anthologies including Tomorrow and Beyond and Infinite Worlds.
![[Image: 65df5270fb985a913bd2cc7deabff867.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/65/df/52/65df5270fb985a913bd2cc7deabff867.jpg) ![[Image: a49b93e030db4835232d6176214bc18747af5a57v2_hq.jpg]](https://pm1.narvii.com/6758/a49b93e030db4835232d6176214bc18747af5a57v2_hq.jpg) ![[Image: swan-boat-of-galadriel-rowena-morrill.jpg]](https://www.theonering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/swan-boat-of-galadriel-rowena-morrill.jpg) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ![[Image: 451416.jpg]](https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1515832258p8/451416.jpg)
Steve Barrera
[A]lthough one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. - Hagakure Saecular Pages
02-17-2021, 02:45 PM
Rash Libel... terrible person.
Rush Limbaugh was a college dropout when he began his combustible radio career, repeatedly losing gigs as a deejay and news-talk host; he spent much of 1974 jobless and living in his parents’ basement in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Almost five decades later, Limbaugh kept a fleet of black luxury sedans in his garage, including a $450,000 Maybach 57S, traveled on his private Gulfstream 550 jet, and owned a fabulous oceanfront Palm Beach estate befitting America’s biggest and most politically influential AM radio star—and surely among the richest—who ever mastered the medium. Limbaugh—whose wife Kathryn confirmed on Wednesday that he died at 70 after a yearlong and very public battle against lung cancer—struggled through personal adversity, including obesity, four rocky marriages, and an addiction to opioid painkillers that earned him humiliating publicity and a criminal charge (later dropped after the completion of court-ordered therapy) of felony prescription fraud. Yet in his final two decades of life, he managed to dominate conservative talk radio even after near-total deafness—somewhat remediated by a cochlear implant—required him to hire a former court reporter to sit in his Palm Beach control room and instantly transcribe listener phone calls so he could converse in real time on the air. Born Rush Hudson Limbaugh III into a distinguished and rabidly Republican family of judges and lawyers in the nearly all-white southeast Missouri town on the Illinois border, he ultimately commanded an adoring national audience of as many as 20 million listeners—“dittoheads” in Limbaugh-speak—and became by some accounts (especially from his Democratic detractors) the de facto leader of the GOP and a right-wing media ecosystem built on demonizing its opponents, especially feminists and people of color. He either befriended or tormented five U.S. presidents, depending on their party affiliation, and treasured a fan letter from his hero, Ronald Reagan. “I know the liberals call you ‘the most dangerous man in America,’ but don’t worry about it, they used to say the same thing about me,” the 40th president wrote to Limbaugh in December 1992. “Keep up the good work.” Bill Clinton, the 42nd president, and Barack Obama, the 44th, regularly grumbled about Limbaugh’s savage, often satirical—and, in Obama’s case, racist—critiques. Cape Girardeau in the ’50s was hardly a bastion of civil rights or racial equality and enlightenment. In 1952, just two years before the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed separate public schools for white and black students in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the city built its white students a brand new school, Central High, while Black students continued to attend the aging Cobb High School. As Limbaugh biographer Ze’ev Chafets wrote, “Cape Girardeau took its high school basketball very seriously and sometimes contended for the state title. The 1953 team was expected to be a powerhouse, but word got around that the kids from Cobb were even better. ‘An informal game was arranged between Central and Cobb High,’ says historian Frank Nickell. ‘Cobb won. Shortly thereafter, Cobb mysteriously burned down.’” During the 2008 presidential campaign, Limbaugh aired a parody of “Puff the Magic Dragon”—sung by a white man doing an Al Sharpton impersonation—titled “Barack the Magic Negro.” In March 2012, Obama exacted revenge of sorts when Limbaugh’s advertisers deserted his syndicated radio show en masse—and he was forced to issue a highly uncharacteristic apology—after he called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying to a House committee in favor of mandatory birth control services as part of the Affordable Care Act. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, the whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary; yes, it’s ugly. — Michael Steele “I don’t know what’s in Rush Limbaugh’s heart, so I’m not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology,” Obama acidly told the White House press corps after he phoned Fluke to offer his moral support. “What I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse.” By then, Limbaugh had long been a popular punching bag for Democrats and liberals of every stripe. Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken, a future U.S. senator from Minnesota, scored a No. 1 bestseller with his satirical 1996 book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. Former Clinton White House adviser Paul Begala, meanwhile, delighted in lampooning the radio icon’s fearsome clout in the GOP: “The real leader of the Republican Party in America today is a corpulent drug addict with an AM radio talk show.” Limbaugh gave as bad as he got. His visceral contempt for fellow baby boomers Bill and Hillary Clinton even extended to their then-12-year-old daughter Chelsea, to whom he referred (on his short-lived television show) as “the White House dog.” President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions were fodder for such Limbaugh parodies as “Mrs. Jones You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” a perverse homage to Paula Jones, sung by a Clinton impersonator, and “The Ballad of the Black Beret,” a Monica Lewinsky sendup. https://www.thedailybeast.com/rush-limba...es&via=rss
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-22-2021, 07:19 AM
One of the leading figures in Christian contemporary music, Carman:
Carmelo Domenic Licciardello (January 19, 1956 – February 16, 2021), known by his stage name Carman, was an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, television host, life coach,[1] and evangelist. An Italian American, Carman was born in Trenton, New Jersey.[2] As a child he performed in his mother's band; as a teen, he found some success performing at casinos in Atlantic City.[3] While attending an Andraé Crouch concert, he became a born again Christian, and embraced evangelical Christianity.[3][4] In 1980, he made a custom album titled God's Not Finished with Me. The following year, he was invited by Bill Gaither to tour with The Bill Gaither Trio.[5] After relocating to Tulsa, Oklahoma, he released a moderately successful eponymous debut album (later issued as Some-o-Dat)[2] in 1982[6]—which contained mostly novelty songs. Then, with the release of the album Sunday's on the Way in 1983, a string of CCM chart successes started, beginning with the title song. As he continued his music career, he established the nonprofit organization Carman Ministries.[2] With the 1985 release of The Champion came his first number-one song, of the same name. His first number one album on Christian charts, Revival in the Land, followed in 1989.[3] Between 1987 and 1989, he was named Charisma magazine's readers' choice for favorite male vocalist.[6] In 1990 and 1992, Billboard named him the Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year.[3] in 1995 he translated some of his songs into and released his first Spanish-language album, Lo Mejor. Heart of a Champion, a 30-song retrospective was released in 2000.[6] He was nominated for four Grammys and sold over 10 million records.[3] It is believed he holds the world record for the largest single Christian concert in history.[3] In the first, he was the main act in August 1993 in Johannesburg, South Africa with more than 50,000 in attendance.[7] The following year he performed a free concert at Texas Stadium October 22, 1994 with 71,132 attendees,[2][6] and 80,000 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.[8] Beyond his music career, he participated in various television productions and interview duties as a host for both the Trinity Broadcasting Network in general and its flagship program Praise the Lord.[9] In 2001, Carman starred in the film Carman: The Champion.[2][10] In late March 2013, he announced a Kickstarter campaign for a new album and music video. A short time later, he announced an upcoming 60-city tour, as well, additionally noting that the online fundraising campaign had raised more than $230,000 within several weeks.[11] In November 2011 Carman was the passenger in a car that was struck by a truck from oncoming traffic. The accident took place just outside the church where his appearance was scheduled. He performed the concert, but collapsed afterward and required surgery to repair internal injuries.[12] Carman began battling cancer, multiple myeloma, in 2013 and he was given a prognosis of only three to four years to live.[13][14] By early 2014, Carman claimed medical tests indicated his body was free of cancer. He then continued preparing for his Live Across America album and tour.[15] When the cancer went into remission, he attributed his healing to the faith of his fans.[3] He pledged to his Facebook and Kickstarter supporters to begin his "No Plan B Tour" as soon as he regained his health.[16] Later that same year he toured the eastern United States.[16] In December 2017, at the age of 61, Carman married Dana. His new family included one son, five daughters and nine grandchildren.[17] In January 2020, Carman announced his cancer had returned.[18] He resumed live concert church tours June 2020.[19] Carman died on February 16, 2021 at a Las Vegas, Nevada, hospital after a series of complications resulting from surgery to repair a hiatal hernia, 28 days after his 65th birthday.[3][20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carman_(singer)
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-23-2021, 02:19 PM
Minister of Petroleum of Saudi Arabia during the Energy Crisis of the 1970's:
Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Arabic: أحمد زكي يماني; 30 June 1930 – 23 February 2021) was a Saudi Arabian politician who was Minister of Oil (Petroleum) and Mineral Resources from 1962 to 1986, and a minister in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for 25 years. With degrees from various institutions including New York University School of Law, Harvard Law School, and a doctorate from the University of Exeter, Yamani became a close adviser to the Saudi government in 1958 and then became oil minister in 1962. He is known for his role during the 1973 oil embargo, when he spurred OPEC to quadruple the price of crude oil. In December 1975, Yamani and the other OPEC ministers were taken hostage by the notorious terrorist Carlos (the Jackal) in Vienna, Austria. The hostages were released after two days riding an airplane across North Africa, even though Carlos was ordered by his superiors to execute Yamani and his Iranian counterpart Jamshid Amouzegar. In October 1986, King Fahd dismissed Yamani. He also dismissed Abdulhady Hassan Taher, who was the founder of Petromin oils (now part of Aramco) and had a major role in the Saudi oil history. In 1990, Yamani founded the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a market analysis group. His negotiation style, as remarked on by Henry Kissinger, was to wine and dine other dignitaries until the point of fullness and lethargy, before beginning protracted negotiations (Reader's Digest, circa 1970). He died on 23 February 2021 in London, aged 90, to be later buried in his hometown, Mecca.[12]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-23-2021, 02:26 PM
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers.[2] He was the author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration. Ferlinghetti was best known for his first collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), which has been translated into nine languages, with sales of more than one million copies.[3] Ferlinghetti turned 100 in March 2019, leading the city of San Francisco to proclaim his birthday, March 24, "Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day".[4]
Quote:If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of Ferlinghetti published many of the Beat poets and is considered by some as a Beat poet as well.[10] Yet Ferlinghetti does not consider himself to be a Beat poet, as he says in the 2013 documentary Ferlinghetti: Rebirth of Wonder: "Don't call me a Beat. I was never a Beat poet."[10] Ferlinghetti penned much of his early poetry in the vein of T. S. Eliot.[11] Ferlinghetti told poet and critic Jack Foley, "Everything I wrote sounded just like him."[11] Yet, even in his poems inspired by Eliot such as Ferlinghetti's "Constantly Risking Absurdity," Ferlinghetti is ever the populist as he compares the poet first to a trapeze artist in a circus and then to a "little charleychaplin man."[11] Critics note that Ferlinghetti's poetry often takes on a very visual dimension as befits this poet who is also a painter.[12] As the poet and critic Jack Foley states, Ferlinghetti's poems "tell little stories, make 'pictures'."[13] Ferlinghetti as a poet paints with his words pictures full of color capturing the average American experience as seen in his poem "In Golden Gate Park that Day: "In Golden Gate Park that day/ a man and his wife were coming along/ ... He was wearing green suspenders ... while his wife was carrying a bunch of grapes."[12] In the first poem in A Coney Island of the Mind entitled, "In Goya's Greatest Scenes, We Seem To See," Ferlinghetti describes with words the "suffering humanity" that Goya portrayed by brush in his paintings.[11] Ferlinghetti concludes his poem with the recognition that "suffering humanity" today might be painted as average Americans drowning in the materialism: "on a freeway fifty lanes wide/ a concrete continent/ spaced with bland billboards/ illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness."[14] Ferlinghetti takes a distinctly populist approach to poetry, emphasizing throughout his work "that art should be accessible to all people, not just a handful of highly eSoon after settling in San Francisco in 1950, Ferlinghetti met the poet Kenneth Rexroth, whose concepts of philosophical anarchism influenced his political development. He self-identifies as a philosophical anarchist, regularly associated with other anarchists in North Beach, and he sold Italian anarchist newspapers at the City Lights Bookstore.[18] A critic of U.S. foreign policy, Ferlinghetti has taken a stand against totalitarianism[clarification needed] and war. While Ferlinghetti has said he is "an anarchist at heart", he concedes that the world would need to be populated by "saints" in order for pure anarchism to be lived practically. Hence he espouses what can be achieved by Scandinavian-style democratic socialism.[19] Ferlinghetti's work challenges the definition of art and the artist's role in the world. He urged poets to be engaged in the political and cultural life of the country. As he writes in Populist Manifesto: "Poets, come out of your closets, Open your windows, open your doors, You have been holed up too long in your closed worlds ... Poetry should transport the public / to higher places / than other wheels can carry it ..." On January 14, 1967, he was a featured presenter at the Gathering of the tribes "Human Be-In," which drew tens of thousands of people and launched San Francisco's "Summer of Love." In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[20] In 1998, in his inaugural address as Poet Laureate of San Francisco, Ferlinghetti urged San Franciscans to vote to remove a portion of the earthquake-damaged Central Freeway and replace it with a boulevard. "What destroys the poetry of a city? Automobiles destroy it, and they destroy more than the poetry. All over America, all over Europe in fact, cities and towns are under assault by the automobile, are being literally destroyed by car culture. But cities are gradually learning that they don't have to let it happen to them. Witness our beautiful new Embarcadero! And in San Francisco right now we have another chance to stop Autogeddon from happening here. Just a few blocks from here, the ugly Central Freeway can be brought down for good if you vote for Proposition E on the November ballot."[21] The result was Octavia Boulevard. In March 2012 he added his support to the movement to save the Gold Dust Lounge, a historic bar in San Francisco, which lost its lease in Union Square. Alongside his bookselling and publishing, Ferlinghetti painted for 60 years and much of his work was displayed in galleries and museums throughout the United States.[22] In 2009, Ferlinghetti became a member of the Honour Committee of the Italian artistic literary movement IMMAGINE&POESIA, founded under the patronage of Aeronwy Thomas. A retrospective of Ferlinghetti's artwork, 60 Years of Painting, was staged in Rome and Reggio Calabria in 2010.[23] Jducated intellectuals."[15] Larry Smith, an American author and editor, stated that Ferlinghetti is a poet, "of the people engaged conscientiously in the creation of new poetic and cultural forms."[6] This perception of art as a broad socio-cultural force, as opposed to an elitist academic enterprise, is explicitly evident in Poem 9 from Pictures of the Gone World, wherein the speaker states: "'Truth is not the secret of a few' / yet / you would maybe think so / the way some / librarians / and cultural ambassadors and / especially museum directors / act" (1–8). In addition to Ferlinghetti's aesthetic egalitarianism, this passage highlights two additional formal features of the poet's work, namely, his incorporation of a common American idiom as well as his experimental approach to line arrangement which, as Crale Hopkins notes, is inherited from the poetry of William Carlos Williams.[16] Reflecting his broad aesthetic concerns, Ferlinghetti's poetry often engages with several non-literary artistic forms, most notably jazz music and painting. William Lawlor asserts that much of Ferlinghetti's free verse attempts to capture the spontaneity and imaginative creativity of modern jazz; the poet is also notable for frequently incorporating jazz accompaniments into public readings of his work.[17] More at Wikipedia
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
02-24-2021, 07:58 PM
Prolific Romanian-Israeli composer. I never heard of him. Should I have?
Sergiu Natra (12 April 1924 – 23 February 2021) of international reputation was one of the greatest and most creative classical composers in the world.[1] Among NATRA's important creations: "Symphony in Red, Blue, Yellow and Green", "Horizons Symphony", "Invincible Symphony", "Tongues of Fire Symphony", "Memories Symphony", "Future In The Past symphony", "The Meaning Of Life Symphony", "Earth and Water Symphony", "2020 Symphony", "Secrets Symphony", "Variations for Piano and Symphony orchestra", "Song of Deborah for symphony orchestra and voice", "Sacred Service for symphony orchestra". Among his well-known compositions for the harp: "Music for Violin and Harp", "Sonatina for Harp", "Prayer for Harp", "Divertimento for Harp flute and Strings orchestra", "To be Free", "Commentaires Sentimentaux", "Ode To The Harp" and "Trio in One Movement no. 3". Natra was born in Romania in April 1924 into a family with Austrian, German and Czech origins. As a child he studied piano and and took up music studies in 1932. He continued his studies at the Jewish conservatory until 1942, and graduated from the Music Academy of Bucharest in 1954.[2] He studied, among others, theory, composition and orchestration with Leon Klepper and modern music with Michael Andricu.[citation needed] He began composing at an early age and his symphony orchestra composition "March and Choral" earned him the status of a modernist in Romania. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed this work in 1947 under the direction of Edward Lindenberg. Natra received many composition awards for his creations, including for "March and Choral", "Divertimento in ancient style" for symphony string orchestras, the George Enescu award for composition in 1945 and for "Suite for symphony orchestra" in 1951 when he received the National Prize for Composition.[citation needed] In 1961, Natra and his wife, Sonia, a sculptor and multidisciplinary artist, emigrated to Israel.[1] A year later, conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performed the "Horizons Symphony for symphony string orchestra", which was the last piece he had written in Romania, and the "Music for violin and harp", performed by the violinist Miriam Fried and the French harpist Françoise Netter.[citation needed] Besides composing music, Natra taught music, including at Tel-Aviv University, where he taught music of the 20th century, composition, and analysis of forms. He was a professor at the Music Academy in the Tel-Aviv University until 1985. Among his students were Lior Shambadal, Yehonatan Berick, and Sally Pinkas. Natra and his wife Sonia, had two sons, Danny and Gabi.[3] He died in February 2021 at the age of 96.[4] Natra was a composer with a clear European orientation, who had a clear personal stamp and a particular writing style with melodic flow, atonal language, polyphonic idea, gradual development and shaping of motive material.[citation needed] He made use of a rich palette of sound-colors, unusual instrumental combinations, central registers of instruments (and voices), playing techniques which are natural and comfortable and succeed in producing optimal sound, texts in a new language, with its fresh rhythms and sonorities.[citation needed] An extended list of works and their respective audio and video recordings is to be found at Natra's site
The main source of the above list is the composer's documentation and archive. Additional references are found in:.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] [44] R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiu_Natra
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
03-01-2021, 05:50 PM
Football player and sportscaster Irv Cross:
Irvin Acie Cross (July 27, 1939 – February 28, 2021) was an American professional football player and sportscaster. He played cornerback in the National Football League (NFL) and was a two-time Pro Bowl selection with the Philadelphia Eagles. Working with CBS, Cross was the first African-American sports analyst on national television. He was an initial co-host of The NFL Today, the first network football pregame show to be completely live. After playing college football for the Northwestern Wildcats, Cross was selected by Philadelphia in the seventh round of the 1961 NFL Draft. He played six of his nine NFL seasons with the Eagles. He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams before returning to the Eagles and finishing his playing career. While he was playing, Cross was also a radio and TV sports reporter in Philadelphia. He joined CBS in 1971, where he worked until 1994. The Pro Football Hall of Fame awarded him the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award in 2009, becoming the first black person to receive the award. He was also an athletic director at Idaho State University and Macalester College. Cross became an analyst and commentator for CBS Sports in 1971, when he became the first African American to work as a sports analyst on national television.[1] In 1975, he teamed with Musburger and Phyllis George on The NFL Today, the first completely live network pregame show,[2] which he co-hosted from its inception in 1975 through 1989.[8] He became the first black to co-anchor a network sports program.[2] In addition to his work on CBS's NFL coverage, Cross called NBA basketball, track and field, and gymnastics at various times for the network. He stayed with CBS through 1994.[8] Cross served as athletic director at Idaho State University from 1996 to 1998.[11] He then was the director of athletics at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota for six years until June 2005.[12] He was the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Minnesota until May 2010, and returned to football commentary for the Twin Cities' Fox station KMSP-TV.[1] Cross was the 2009 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award – the award, given annually by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, recognizes "long-time exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football."[8] He was the first black person to receive the award.[10]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
03-01-2021, 05:52 PM
(It may be ironic, but I consider sports pre-game shows the worst time-wasters on the air. One forgets what was said or shown in them after the game starts. But somehow I remembered Irv Cross).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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