Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktPosting this a bit early, as I think there will be no MP this morning.
1996 – After two children and 15 years of marriage, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana, formally agree to a divorce. The couple had already been separated for four years, and had been negotiating for over 6 months on a final settlement. Almost a year to the day later, on August 31, 1997, Diana will be killed in a car crash in Paris. Charles will eventually go on to marry his long-time mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, in 2005. The news of the divorce produced much sadness among many followers of the British Royal family, but for those of us who have always considered the royal family to be an expensive and foolish anachronism, we couldn’t have cared less.
1963 – On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech to 250,000 people who had come for the March on Washington, demanding voting rights and an end to racial segregation. The speech, popularly known as the I Have A Dream speech, will be delivered 8 years to the day of the racially charged murder of Emmett Till (see below) and will come to be seen as one of the most famous and stirring speeches in American history.
1955 – Emmett Till a black teenager from Chicago visiting family in Money, Mississippi, is brutally beaten, shot in the head, and dumped into the Tallahatchie River. His mangled body will be found 3 days later. Till was killed by Roy Bryant, the husband of a white woman with whom Till was reported to have flirted a few days earlier, and JW Milam. Till’s uncle, Mose Wright, positively identifies the two men who took Till from Wright’s house on the night of the murder, but a jury will acquit the two men nonetheless, on the grounds that the mangled body could not be positively identified as Till. A year after the acquittal, protected by double jeopardy laws, the two will admit to and describe the murder to Look magazine. Till’s murder and the subsequent outrage over the verdict is regarded as a pivotal event in the history of the then infant Civil Rights movement.
1948 – Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope opens in theaters. Inspired by the true murder committed by Loeb and Leopold, Rope depicts the story of 2 young men who, just for kicks, murder their “friend” and then hold a dinner party with the trunk holding the body as the center piece of the party. Starring Jimmy Stewart, the film is best known for the absence of many conventional cuts, as large portions of the film are shot as a single, continuous scene. Although a canister of film could only hold 10 minutes of film, several scenes last for well over 10 minutes, which was accomplished by timing movements so that as the canister ran out, an actor would walk past the front of the camera, briefly blacking it out, allowing the change of the canister to occur without an obvious cut in the action. Hitchcock apparently didn’t like the film, and called it a failed experiment, but it is one of my favorite Hitchcock films. Interestingly, the initial scene shown in the trailer below isn’t actually in the film at all.
Filed under: This Day in History |
All Things in Moderation 
The full name of the I Have A Dream rally was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. According to a reporter who covered the event for the Washington Post, WaPo barely mentioned King’s speech in their two dozen stories on the event.
It seems that most of the reporters were stationed to cover the riots which never erupted. It was John Lewis, not King who was the emphasis of the WaPo lead story although the Nazi counter-protesters did get a mention.
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Here are some reflections of activists, journalists, entertainers and just regular Americans who were at the March on Washington and what it meant to them.
MARCO SWADOS, 65
Public relations, retired
I was 15 in 1963 and my dad, who was a freelance writer, had been writing about the march, and I’d gotten to go with him on many interviews. What I remember most from the actual march is crowding into one of the trains leaving from New York for D.C. and I was a kid in a sea of black and white faces. We rode down with a union delegation and what struck me was the mix of blacks, or Negroes — that was the word back then — with whites.
You didn’t see that often in those times and I thought it was very moving. I had never experienced anything like it before. All the men wore their union caps identifying their local. It was very exciting. I do remember Dr. King speaking, but my strongest memory is just being there at my dad’s side, the two of us surrounded by thousands. I’d never seen such a gathering of humanity before. I’ll never forget it.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dream-50-activists-back-historic-day-article-1.1435993
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It’s not the retrospective by Jonah Goldberg that Scott was looking for, but here is National Review on the legacy of King:
I’m trying to figure out where this fits in the annals of understatements.
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Interesting segment on PBS last night about Whitney M. Young, Jr and the Urban League vis-a-vis King. I.e. programs vs protest. Worth a watch.
Richard M. Nixon among others delivered his eulogy when he died in a swimming accident in 1971.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/powerbroker/
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Regarding the retrospective on King from National Review, to the extent that King’s message is reduced to merely securing existing rights such as voting and is stripped of it’s economic and anti-war components in order to make it part of the American canon, it does him a disservice.
In some ways, the old fights were more honest than the current gauzy retrospectives.
http://prospect.org/article/socialists-who-made-march-washington
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jnc,
Great article. Good historical context. John Blake at CNN also talks about how conservative efforts to co-opt King’s message are confused at best and often fairly revisionist.
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jnc;
…to the extent that King’s message is reduced to merely securing existing rights such as voting and is stripped of it’s economic and anti-war components in order to make it part of the American canon, it does him a disservice.
Since King’s legacy is very much dependent upon reducing his message to its racial component of securing existing rights for blacks, perhaps those who ignore his socialism are actually doing him a favor, not a disservice.
King the fighter for racial equality under the law deserves a holiday in his name. King the socialist deserves a lot less respect.
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Dana Milbank earlier this week snarkily mocked black conservatives claiming to be the heir to King’s legacy.
At least it has been demonstrated that there are more African-American conservatives than members of the New Black Panther Party. By at least a factor of fifty.
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OMFG!
One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity “just muscular enough not to get mocked”
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77184921/
Thanks America, I’m sure Obamacare is totally worth it.
Jesus, does Obama hate brown people.
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Troll, we can’t have a situation like this on our hands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yjNbcKkNY
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I’d argue that they are appropriating his message for their own agenda.
King himself placed his economic message front and center of his agenda, along with his anti-war message.
Were he alive today, he could well be one of the Obama administration’s biggest critics.
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It was the “socialism” part I remember my father railing against.
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Sigh:
“Former president Bill Clinton was even more forceful about what he views as the misplaced priorities of the country.
“A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon,” Clinton said. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/march-on-washington-commemorated-by-thousands-gathering-at-lincoln-memorial/2013/08/28/035de730-0ff7-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story_1.html
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jnc:
“Former president Bill Clinton was even more forceful about what he views as the misplaced priorities of the country.
“A great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon,” Clinton said. ”
I don’t know what is more depressing to me…that Clinton has so much contempt for the public that he thinks this kind of tripe will resonate with voters, or that there actually are voters with whom this kind of tripe does in fact resonate.
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Geez, I had no idea I could pick up a full auto m-60 when I renew my driver’s license.
What a lying asshole. Do us a favor and spend your time banging interns ratet than opening your worthless yap.
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More retailer’s screwin’ their employee’s. apparently Costco requires slave labor.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/costco-s-second-class-citizens.html
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President Obama was interviewed on the Newshour tonight. He spoke about Syria, but was not asked about Congressional authorization. Apparently everyone just assumes it’s irrelevant.
This struck me as an interesting rationale for action:
This could have just as easily been a justification for attacking Iraq.
The argument being made is that there’s a greater than one percent chance that Syria’s chemical weapons could one day be used against the United States as Syria works with terrorists, so the United States is justified in utilizing preemption here to prevent that.
The One Percent Doctrine is alive and well.
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J, I read that and thought of, who was it? Condi Rice? Cheney? That talked about a possible mushroom cloud that got the left all butthurt.
Cue protests and large paper mâché puppets!
*crickets*
Wut? I’m confused.
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Wow!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/so-whats-it-going-to-be,33662/?ref=auto
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jnc: Why the sigh over Clinton’s comment? I’m puzzled.
As an aside, while the humidity is taking some getting used to, I’m really, really enjoying being in Baltimore (finally)!
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Michi, because it’s patently false. You have to have a photo ID and pass a background check to buy a gun.
If someone wanted to be cute, they would introduce the Illegal Voting and Gun Purchase Prevention Act and make the requirements for both identical. Could be strange bedfellows on that one.
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Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly “true”.
You have to have a photo ID and pass a background check to buy a gun.
If you buy a gun from a private party, something some of us, probably including Bill Clinton, would like to change, all you need is money. You could go to a website like armslist and connect with a private seller or buyer, no questions asked.
I think Clinton could have made his point much better. Republicans are cynically trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist and may disenfranchise citizens while denying a problem that costs lives.
I came across this piece when I was trying to promote universal back ground checks. Maybe there’s a better way to solve this problem than Federal Legislation.
So Gibbon hooked up with his academy buddy Brian Mancini, and two years later the pair launched a website they thought was destined to fill a natural void in the online marketplace: Armslist, a website devoted specifically to the private sales of guns and related gear. The site allows private sellers to offer guns for sale to other private purchasers. Buyers can contact sellers via phone or email to set up the sale, and avoid going through a federal background check or even leaving a paper trail. Such transactions are more anonymous than purchasing a weapon at a gun show, where people who can’t pass a background check can buy large quantities of guns.
Armslist quickly took off. By 2011, it was one of the largest online gun sites in the country, with more than 13,000 active listings for firearms. The site also had another, more dubious distinction: Weapons obtained through the site have been tied to the murders of four people and one suicide. An undercover New York City investigation (PDF) found that the site likely was a major conduit for illegal gun sales. Investigators discovered that 54 percent of the sellers they contacted through the site were openly willing to sell firearms to people who admitted they couldn’t pass a background check (which is a felony, incidentally).
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/want-buy-gun-without-background-check-armlist-can-help
Starting the holiday weekend a bit early here so hope you all have a good one…………see you on the other side.
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I’ll bet that those Syrian chem weapons were bought at a fire sale discount from Uncle Saddam’s WMD emporium at fire sale prices, say about 10 years ago.
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I’ll bet that those Syrian chem weapons were bought at a fire sale discount from Uncle Saddam’s WMD emporium at fire sale prices, say about 10 years ago.
Back when the Iraq War was going so swingingly well for us there was some saber-rattling that we needed to go ahead and invade Syria while the tanks were still gassed up because that is where the all the WMDs got shipped to. There was perhaps a grain of truth to that.
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Lms, you still need some form of value, money, something to trade to get a gun. Voting is non transactional.
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Can I make a personal request? I know that the media like to call chemical weapons “WMD”, but they aren’t. They are unconventional weapons, but they aren’t WMD–nukes are.
And Iraq never had any chemical weapons to ship to Syria by that time. Syria undoubtedly got them fair and square by buying them from us and Russia.
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Harvard study concludes that gun banning does not reduce murder rate.
Click to access Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
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Syria’s chemical weapons program was developed with assistance from France and Russia, mostly through dual use items, i.e. things that also are used by the pharmaceutical industry.
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“Michigoose, on August 29, 2013 at 7:49 am said:
Can I make a personal request? I know that the media like to call chemical weapons “WMD”, but they aren’t. They are unconventional weapons, but they aren’t WMD–nukes are.”
Problem with this is that’s also the definition that the UN uses. Nuclear, chemical and biological.
I think the premise is anything that can spread outside of the original target area.
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Problem with this is that’s also the definition that the UN uses.
Then the UN is also wrong. 🙂
Chemical (and biological) weapons don’t actually destroy anything–they just kill or sicken people; nukes, on the other hand, are quite destructive as well as causing long-term damage.
All three are classified by the military as unconventional weapons, but only nuclear is WMD. This is something that has been bugging me for years. I don’t expect to change many minds. . .
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