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brookstonalmanac · 2 years ago

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Events 6.22

217 BC – Battle of Raphia: Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt defeats Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom. 168 BC – Battle of Pydna: Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeat Macedonian King Perseus who surrenders after the battle, ending the Third Macedonian War. 813 – Battle of Versinikia: The Bulgars led by Krum defeat the Byzantine army near Edirne. Emperor Michael I is forced to abdicate in favor of Leo V the Armenian. 910 – The Hungarians defeat the East Frankish army near the Rednitz River, killing its leader Gebhard, Duke of Lotharingia (Lorraine). 1527 – Fatahillah expels Portuguese forces from Sunda Kelapa, now regarded as the foundation of Jakarta. 1593 – Battle of Sisak: Allied Christian troops defeat the Ottomans. 1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in, after heated controversy. 1774 – The British pass the Quebec Act, setting out rules of governance for the colony of Quebec in British North America. 1783 – A poisonous cloud caused by the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland reaches Le Havre in France. 1807 – In the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, the British warship HMS Leopard attacks and boards the American frigate USS Chesapeake. 1813 – War of 1812: After learning of American plans for a surprise attack on Beaver Dams in Ontario, Laura Secord sets out on a thirty kilometres (19 mi) journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. 1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the Trail of Tears. 1870 – The United States Department of Justice is created by the U.S. Congress. 1893 – The Royal Navy battleship HMS Camperdown accidentally rams the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship HMS Victoria which sinks taking 358 crew with her, including the fleet's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon. 1897 – British colonial officers Charles Walter Rand and Lt. Charles Egerton Ayerst are assassinated in Pune, Maharashtra, India by the Chapekar brothers and Mahadeo Vinayak Ranade, who are later caught and hanged. 1898 – Spanish–American War: In a chaotic operation, 6,000 men of the U.S. Fifth Army Corps begins landing at Daiquirí, Cuba, about 16 miles (26 km) east of Santiago de Cuba. Lt. Gen. Arsenio Linares y Pombo of the Spanish Army outnumbers them two-to-one, but does not oppose the landings. 1907 – The London Underground's Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway opens. 1911 – George V and Mary of Teck are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1911 – Mexican Revolution: Government forces bring an end to the Magonista rebellion of 1911 in the Second Battle of Tijuana. 1918 – The Hammond Circus Train Wreck kills 86 and injures 127 near Hammond, Indiana. 1940 – World War II: France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918. 1941 – World War II: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. 1942 – World War II: Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the Axis capture of Tobruk. 1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by US Congress. 1944 – World War II: Opening day of the Soviet Union's Operation Bagration against the Army Group Centre. 1944 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill. 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Okinawa comes to an end. 1948 – The ship HMT Empire Windrush brought the first group of 802 West Indian immigrants to Tilbury, marking the start of modern immigration to the United Kingdom. 1948 – King George VI formally gives up the title "Emperor of India", half a year after Britain actually gave up its rule of India. 1962 – Air France Flight 117 crashes on approach to Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe, killing 112 people. 1965 – The Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea is signed. 1966 – Vietnamese Buddhist activist leader Thích Trí Quang was arrested as the military junta of Nguyen Cao Ky crushed the Buddhist Uprising. 1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing national attention to water pollution, and spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. 1978 – Charon, the first of Pluto's satellites to be discovered, was first seen at the United States Naval Observatory by James W. Christy. 1979 – Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him. 1984 – Virgin Atlantic launches with its first flight from London to Newark. 1986 – The famous Hand of God goal, scored by Diego Maradona in the quarter-finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup match between Argentina and England, ignites controversy. This was later followed by the Goal of the Century. Argentina wins 2–1 and later goes on to win the World Cup. 1990 – Cold War: Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin. 2000 – Wuhan Airlines Flight 343 is struck by lightning and crashes into Wuhan's Hanyang District, killing 49 people. 2002 – An earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw strikes a region of northwestern Iran killing at least 261 people and injuring 1,300 others and eventually causing widespread public anger due to the slow official response. 2009 – A Washington D.C Metro train traveling southbound near Fort Totten station collides into another train waiting to enter the station. Nine people are killed in the collision (eight passengers and the train operator) and at least 80 others are injured. 2012 – Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is removed from office by impeachment and succeeded by Federico Franco. 2012 – A Turkish Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter plane is shot down by the Syrian Armed Forces, killing both of the plane's pilots and worsening already-strained relations between Turkey and Syria. 2015 – The Afghan National Assembly building is attacked by gunmen after a suicide bombing. All six of the gunmen are killed and 18 people are injured. 2022 – An earthquake occurs in eastern Afghanistan resulting in over 1,000 deaths.

#Events

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aurianneor · 2 months ago

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Restricting individual wealth

The Gracchi brothers brothers, Gaius and Tiberius, were tribunes, the equivalent of our deputies, and they wanted to tackle the problems of the time. The rich were few in number but owned almost all the land. As they produced all the cereals, they agreed among themselves to set a high price and brought in foreigners to work for very low wages that Roman citizens would not accept. By 133 B.C., Rome was plunged into widespread poverty, which tormented the city. The Gracchus brothers passed a law called property, which stated that property had a limit in quantity, beyond which it was toxic for society, and a limit in use, according to which just because it’s mine doesn’t mean I can do what I want with it. The Gracchi brothers were seized by the rich and their henchmen and thrown into the Tribe. What followed was 100 years of civil war between the plebs and the rich, before Emperor Augustus established the laws of the Gracchus brothers, taking advantage of the turmoil caused by the death of Julius Caesar (who had won the civil war by fighting the ultra-rich). Four hundred years of peace and prosperity followed.

In 1930, in France, judges created the public water utility, nationalizing the sources. This showed that private property is not sacred. They expropriated the owners, and that was normal. Léon Blum was harassed and left office.

Labour’s 1945 victory in the UK led to the expropriation of mine owners. Ownership is not absolute. Owners became less wealthy and this drove them below the toxic limit.

Franklin D. Roosevelt led major campaigns to nationalize energy, raw materials, armaments and roads, and introduced public granaries (the state buys food to guarantee prices). The group prevailed over private property. If ownership went against the group’s interests, nationalization could be considered. He took the assets appropriated by the ultra-rich and redistributed the gains for the general good. The New Deal brought prosperity to America for 40 years. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the only American president to have been elected four times, and he died in office. He had strong public support. The United States is reputed to be capitalist by nature, but this is a myth. When presented with a very socialist program, the people embrace it. Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 11/9 used polls to prove that Americans’ aspirations are not capitalist. 70% are for health insurance, 62% are for unions, 58% are against supporting banks, 61% for raising the minimum wage, etc. (cf. American people’s choice).

Franklin D. Roosevelt – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

New Deal – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

On November 24, 2013, a law was passed in Switzerland limiting wages to 250 times the minimum wage. This means that for the highest wages to rise, the lowest wages must be increased. The rich are very happy in Switzerland. By way of comparison, in France in 2019, CAC40 bosses earned 1128 times the salary of their most modest employees.

In Ukraine in 2022, President Zelensky took advantage of exceptional war powers to nationalize the banks, TV channels and industries owned by the oligarchs. The oligarchs were so wealthy that they decided everything in the country, while the Ukrainian coffers were empty.

When Elon Musk intervenes in the war in Ukraine, it’s too much. When Mark Zuckerberg promotes Trump’s election to enrich himself, it’s too much. When someone is rich enough to have their own space program or has more money than a country, it’s too much. When your decisions can ruin the lives of millions of people even though you weren’t elected, it’s too much. When the richest 1% of humanity emit 100 times more greenhouse gases than the other 99%, it’s too much.

These people deserve to be rich, but not that rich. They have never given back to society what society gave them in the first place. They offer philanthropy in return, but it’s selective solidarity because they decide how much and to whom they give the money. The society has trained their employees with schools and universities; they are healthy thanks to hospitals, there are roads, railroads and airports to transport their goods. There is a police force and an army to protect them, and a justice system to enforce their rights. There are natural resources to feed their industries, and so on.

What’s more, they influence politicians to pay less tax and inheritance tax. Most of the richest people inherited. They have done nothing for society. They don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

Les 1 % les plus riches ont empoché plus de 40 000 milliards de dollars au cours des 10 dernières années, alors que le niveau d’imposition des plus riches atteint des niveaux historiquement bas – Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org/fr/communiques-presse/les-1-les-plus-riches-ont-empoche-plus-de-40-000-milliards-de-dollars-au-cours

Les riches menacent-ils la démocratie – Arte: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/109816-010-A/les-riches-menacent-ils-la-democratie/

Columbia University believes that $100 million is the limit. It’s more than enough for the individual and not enough to be toxic.

Limit On Wealth – Stephen H. Unger: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/wealthLimit.html)

What, if Anything, is Wrong with Extreme wealth – Ingrid Robeyns: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/19452829.2019.1633734?needAccess=true&role=button

Having too Much – Ingrid Robeyns: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0338

Capitalisme américain, le culte de la richesse (1/3) | ARTE: https://youtu.be/0j1UDBqR-oM?feature=shared

Faire casquer les riches | Capitalisme américain, le culte de la richesse (2/3) | ARTE: https://youtu.be/uccQqNg2tF8?si=3hep4x297rSSZ7Bu

Elon Musk: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): https://youtu.be/Eo3zORUGCbM?si=TUxpdymb6rV3Xd2x

Noir Désir – L’homme pressé: https://youtu.be/by1RRP9wa_Y?si=mK5wb4sZn3YnRsB8

World’s five richest men double their money as poorest get poorer – The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2024/jan/15/worlds-five-richest-men-double-their-money-as-poorest-get-poorer

The cost of extrême wealth: https://costofextremewealth.com

La ploutocratie, les riches au pouvoir ? – France Inter: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/zoom-zoom-zen/zoom-zoom-zen-du-jeudi-04-avril-2024-8390390

Épisode 1/4 : Rends les terres ! Réforme à Rome, va te faire voir chez les Gracques – France culture: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/le-cours-de-l-histoire/rends-les-terres-reforme-a-rome-va-te-faire-voir-chez-les-gracques-1597994

Super-héritages : le jackpot fiscal des ultra-riches – Oxfam France: https://www.oxfamfrance.org/rapports/super-heritages-le-jackpot-fiscal-des-ultra-riches/

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Limiter la richesse individuelle: https://www.aurianneor.org/limiter-la-richesse-individuelle/

A slice of the cake: https://www.aurianneor.org/a-slice-of-the-cake/

The richest 1% are at war with the rest of the world: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-richest-1-are-at-war-with-the-rest-of-the-world/

Working class racism: https://www.aurianneor.org/working-class-racism/

Solidarité Hélvétique: https://www.aurianneor.org/solidarite-helvetique-democratie-semi-directe/

Wall Street (1987): https://www.aurianneor.org/wall-street-1987/

Freedom and coexistence: https://www.aurianneor.org/freedom-and-coexistence/

Tomorrow – Chap 4: La démocratie: https://www.aurianneor.org/tomorrow-chap-4-la-democratie-the-panama/

Qui se cache derrière le drapeau?: https://www.aurianneor.org/qui-se-cache-derriere-le-drapeau/

Quelle époque!: https://www.aurianneor.org/quelle-epoque-soyons-daccord-emmanuel-macron/

Illegitimate authorities: https://www.aurianneor.org/illegitimate-authorities/

Ecoterrorism: https://www.aurianneor.org/ecoterrorism/

You can’t get enough… Enough!: https://www.aurianneor.org/you-cant-get-enough-enough-the-same-companies/

“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-world-has-enough-for-everyones-need-but-not/

Cut out the middleman: https://www.aurianneor.org/cut-out-the-middleman/

Housing: https://www.aurianneor.org/housing/

Retirement pensions: https://www.aurianneor.org/retirement-pensions/

Living with dignity: https://www.aurianneor.org/living-with-dignity/

The Rust Belt: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-rust-belt-2/

Representation of capitalism trying to take all the resources and trying to make workers live nothing but work: https://www.aurianneor.org/representation-of-capitalism-trying-to-take-all-the-resources-and-trying-to-make-workers-live-nothing-but-work/

“Capitalism will eat democracy; unless we speak up”: https://www.aurianneor.org/yanis-varoufakis-capitalism-will-eat-democracy/

Simon Sinek – Start with why: https://www.aurianneor.org/simon-sinek-start-with-why-bonuses/

When you have a hammer in your hand everything looks like a nail.: https://www.aurianneor.org/when-you-have-a-hammer-in-your-hand-everything/

The Red and the Yellow: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-red-and-the-yellow-red-scarves-against-yellow/

Le référendum est une arme qui tue la violence: https://www.aurianneor.org/le-referendum-est-une-arme-qui-tue-la-violence-oui/

Le levier économique: https://www.aurianneor.org/le-levier-economique-charles-stewart-parnell/

Fed up with strikes? Ask for referendums!: https://www.aurianneor.org/fed-up-with-strikes-ask-for-referendums/

The Modern “chiffon rouge”: https://www.aurianneor.org/the-modern-chiffon-rouge/

Rich: https://www.aurianneor.org/rich-it-was-a-beautiful-day-and-the-scenery-was/

What I am worth depends neither on market nor on race: https://www.aurianneor.org/what-i-am-worth-depends-neither-on-market-nor-on-race/

My hormones want admiration: https://www.aurianneor.org/my-hormones-want-admiration-i-want-to-shine-im/

Dans les territoires ultramarins, une population en colère exclue du progrès: https://www.aurianneor.org/dans-les-territoires-ultramarins-une-population-en-colere-exclue-du-progres/

Work, it’s an all-or-nothing option: https://www.aurianneor.org/work-its-an-all-or-nothing-option/

Législatives 2024: choisir la gauche ou la droite: https://www.aurianneor.org/legislatives-2024-choisir-la-gauche-ou-la-droite/

2024 UK general election: choosing the Right or the Left.: https://www.aurianneor.org/2024-uk-general-election-choosing-the-right-or-the-left/

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denimbex1986 · 2 years ago

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'When McCarthyism swarmed over America, I was still living in France. It’s still hard to comprehend how one demagogue with several followers managed to terrorize an entire nation. How was one hysteric able to endanger the very foundations of American democracy?

Naturally, there were logical reasons — the Korean war, the Soviet atomic developments, the spread of Communism and its aggressive ambitions. The most powerful country in the world had at once lost its monopoly on all its domains. Suddenly Stalinism’s real face was revealed and so doubts about Roosevelt’s loyalty to the Russian dictator wasn’t a costly mistake. Bringing forth circumstances for an irresponsible demagogue with an answer to everything and a scapegoat for all sins.

It’s difficult, practically impossible, to digest that era’s psychosis. Seems to me the same is true for many American citizens. They recall the events, but avoid speaking about them. It’s almost a taboo topic: it’s not to be investigated, in order not to open an old wound, an ancient shame.

I mention this now because of an innocent coincidence. I had the opportunity to see Heinar Kipphardt’s play about the Oppenheimer investigation at the Lincoln Repertory Theatre. The experience was so deep, I felt an obligation to report to readers, despite the fact that I’m not a professional theater critic, nor do I want to infringe on my critic colleague’s boundaries.

Why did the play cause me to shudder? With its content and presentation, it ripped through me and made me hopeful once more about the individual’s struggle, and the visions of artists and dreamers.

It shook me up due to its portrayal, its truth. Robert Oppenheimer intrigued me for years: his poetic genius, his tragic fate. Despite a deeply felt humanism, he created the atomic bomb: despite being pro-communist in the 1930’s, he remained loyal to America: despite being a notable Jew, he remained at a distance from Yiddishkeit.

How does one weave together so many contradictions? How to clarify so many childish errors (during the investigation against him) and such an acute mind? What did he wish to achieve, and did he achieve it and if so, when?

As I mentioned, I wasn’t living in America when, as a result of the McCarthyist psychosis, the sadly, well known investigation began about Oppenheimer’s loyalty. But I read everything about the case—and am not any smarter for it.

It often seems to me that he was a pretentious intellectual, dancing at several weddings at once, while worshiping several gods simultaneously. He wanted to develop weapons, but not have to use them: befriend communists, but toss their ideas; engage with international political issues but only as a scientist not as a politician. His identity was so split, so variously defined that he alone didn’t fully know what he thought.

And so, at his apex, as well as in the darkest moments of his career, he presented critical introspective questions having to do with human knowledge: at what point are we remaining loyal and to whom? At what point must we step up and say ‘enough?’ Those questions rattle all atomic thinkers. They know that today they are sitting in secure laboratories toying with abstract concepts the results of which could be the destruction of millions of souls. Intellectuals aren’t free from similar doubts. One can fool around with words in order to write a poem or allegory. But how did Oscar Wilde put it? “One man’s poetry is another man’s poison.” Not for nothing did Oppenheimer at the time of the first atomic bomb explosion recall passages from the “Baghavad Ghita”: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In the last several generations the Angel of Death has had the final say.

My interest in Oppenheimer also has to do with his being current. It’s no coincidence that so many young people are going to see the play. They identify with his struggle, with his lonely battle against uncomfortable authority, with his protest against bellicose instincts that rage throughout government circles. The college students attempting to revolt against biological weapons production, for example, are following in Oppenheimer’s footsteps. His problem was that he hadn’t created any positive theories. We know what had to be done, but how do we save humanity from suicide. Even Oppenheimer didn’t preach de-weaponization, at a time when the Communist bloc is strengthening its military capability. What is to be done? Oppenheimer had no answer for that. It seems there is no answer.

Oppenheimer embodied the questions, not the answers. He endlessly posed riddles, not solutions, and so we must go see him at Lincoln Theatre. Him? Yes. The actor portraying him—a tall, intelligent and palpably Jewish young man named Joseph Wiseman—has so fully incorporated his character that he resembles him physically.

Wiseman, one of the best actors on the English language stage, plays his role with such sensitivity, with such restraint that it’s simply impossible not to be moved. Each word sounds right, he doesn’t stumble. Thanks to him, Oppenheimer is clearly depicted. He answered many of my qualms. I have much to say about Wiseman, but, as I mentioned, I’m no theater critic; I’m merely a witness of Oppenheimer and Joseph Wiseman.'

#Elie Wiesel #Oppenheimer #Joseph Wiseman

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anthonybialy · 2 years ago

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Liberated Fort

Braxton Bragg had nothing to brag about. His tactics were as disagreeable as his choice of team. Consistent ignominy from someone who was less than a historical footnote shouldn’t come to mind frequently. Thanks to removing his name from a rather prominent fort, we can remember to forget someone who hated America so much that he quit it.

The biggest objection to naming one of America’s biggest military installations Fort Liberty is the lack of a new honoree. Find a deserving person instead of a concept. They couldn’t think of someone to commemorate? That’s unless it’s named for Jeff Liberty, in which case I apologize to his spirit and ancestors. I hope the Army is more inspired in strategy than they are in titling headquarters. The new name is generically unimaginative even if I’d like to go on the record as being pro-liberty.

Fans of the civilization that’s led to comforts such as air conditioning and voluntary exchange are understandably defensive. Anyone appreciative for freedoms available in the one country founded on the notion they exist is long past sick of monuments literally being torn down. At the same time, handing out participation trophies isn’t a new phenomenon. A second place finish in a war with two entrants is one of several reasons Bragg’s side failed to inspire.

You’d think open rebellion would be something the military would not want to celebrate, and you’d finally be correct. At least don’t suck at it if you’re going to reject your nation. Bragg embodied losing on behalf of the cause of owning others. Leave his name behind with his thought process.

That was just the person to not honor or emulate. Some corrections actually get it right, which feels odd in a very enlightened era where noting genders gets one banished. Internal kvetchers freak out about our beloved autonomous nation, which is merely a side benefit. Fans of the winning side remain thankful that the Confederacy relied on thick-skulled nitwits whose limited frontal lobes only allowed them to envision frontal assaults. Bragg made the case against white supremacy.

But entire decades are now being condemned, including the current one. Figuring everyone in the past is as racist as we are in the present is what leftists do instead of learning a trade. An ironically reactionary habit destroys worthwhile memories. The only thing worse than, say, condemning Teddy Roosevelt because his statue is misinterpreted by pinko lunatics is the way they’ve been granted final say.

Fretting that every name change means history’s deletion is an understandable but imprecise reflex. Contemporary struggle sessions have conditioned those suspicious of woke maneuvers to figure every new moniker is designed to appease political correctness. But the Trumpian impulse of thinking anything your foes oppose must be awesome is fraught with peril even if the guess is correct most of the time. Declining to honor Civil War silver medalists should create common ground.

Blanket statements only seem to cover everything. The technique of outright condemnation is preferred by America’s loathers. Painting with the broadest brush Home Depot stocks is yet one more tiresome tendency from those who think everything everywhere is racist. Make sure to not emulate social justice warriors. Use that absolute certainty to ironically scrutinize on case-by-case basis, which is one courtesy they never reciprocate.

Some rebrands emphasize righteousness. Renaming the USS Chancellorsville for American hero Robert Smalls celebrates a badass who escaped slavery by using signals he had learned while manning a Confederate ship to dupe his captors. Fooling CSA military members by dressing as one of their captains is as brave as it is hilarious.

Nobody deserves a ship featuring his name more than a guy who stole one from the people who fought to keep him enslaved. The only way to improve the designation is if his replaces a Union loss, which it thankfully does.

History’s more complex than the simpleminded claim. Condemning or lauding everything is suspiciously easy. It’s worth the effort required to discern the difference between acknowledging events and honoring certain players. Noting having an installation bear one’s name is a tribute and not a mere acknowledgment of previous existence does not constitute a revisionist rewrite.

The chance to mock is the reward inadvertently provided by ingrates. It’s an obligation to scoff at sanctimonious lunatics trying to recast America as a diabolical entity created to perpetuate racism. Notice they never leave the most oppressive place they could have been born despite their protestations regarding the alleged resemblance the naughtiest version of Germany.

But not every new sign on an old facility is a surrender to aspiring autocrats using 1984 as an instruction manual. We’re free to not laud twits, jerks, or jerky twits just because they happened to be born before us. Presuming previous generations got every naming correct is as foolish as wholesale rejection of great humans whose sacrifices brought us much good. Use the fort’s new namesake judiciously.

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simpsonatartcenter · 2 years ago

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Rough Draft

The Japanese American war fueled tension between Japanese Americans and the United States government. This built-up tension from the government came to a head the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On this day Japanese Americans were suddenly considered enemies living on American soil. This new status and the highly xenophobic climate of our nation culminated to create deleterious effects for the hearts and souls of Japanese Americans everywhere, threatening the present and derailing a secure future. The devastation the proceeded continues to echo into our present and shape the future.

Two months after the attack on pearl harbor President Franklin D Roosevelt signed executive order 9006. As a result over the next 6 months 122,000 Japanese Americans indiscriminate of age or gender were sent to concentration camps and held as prisoners. Over the duration of the internment artist and people who never intended to create were thrown into a situation that demanded some form of escape. The art created during this time served as a means of coping and surviving the uncertainty and cruelty of the situation. It is important to acknowledge that for every piece of artwork retained during this time, others have been lost and some artist have been forgotten entirely. Although there appears to be a lot of historical records regarding these events have come to light, documentation of art making in the concentration camps has appeared to be more elusive.

In the book The View from Within artist and creative leader Chiura Obata, “laid great faith in the power of the creative spirit and its ability to provide hope to individuals as well as entire communities.” Many people that never created art did so only while interned in order to cope with their circumstances. Chiura Obata was even able to start the Tanforan art school and with great success while interned in the second largest concentration camp in America. Obata’s work suggests two important views such as, “the necessity of maintaining perspective, the never-ending cycle of change, and an unwavering faith in the power of creativity to better the life of the artist as well as the lives of fellow internees.” Art continues to transcend memories of the human experience, acting as a medium of change, documentation, and exploration of the moment.

Japanese American artist Isamu Noguchi was living on the west coast at the time. He recalled after hearing the news about the attack on Pearl harbor that he, “was no longer just American but Nisei.” He was excluded from the mandatory order but rather submitted himself to be “self-interned.” Because of his background Noguchi felt he could relate to the hardships of other Japanese Americans and by living alongside them and learning form their struggles and similarities he could, “serve the cause of democracy.” He wrote, “ I began to see the peculiar tragedy of the Nisei as that of a generation of transition accepted neither by the Japanese nor by America.” He spent seven months in Manzanar were he created work such as a piece labeled my Arizona. The experienced weighed heavily on his optimistic integrity, for he was subjected to circumstance that lend him no comradery. He could only and with repetition prove his innocence as he was subject to persecution for reasons completely outside his control. This narrative rooted in shame is shared amongst many Japanese Americans who like Noguchi use patriotism as a means of proving innocence in order to escape persecution and ultimately have a place to call home.

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ladyeliot · 4 years ago

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It’s been a long, long time

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Summary: You never knew what fate had in store for you, as if it was testing what it had offered you one day it took away from you the next. It was almost four years after Steve gave himself up to save the world, but you had never given up hope of being with him again.

Warnings: Angst. Disappearance. Fluff ending.

Word count: 2883

A/N: Captain America First Avenger / Avengers Endgame. Some of the dialogue is taken from the film. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Song: It’s been a long, long time - Harry James

1949.

The rumours of his possible return were fading with time, but hopes were not falling.

Nearly four years had passed since the end of the Second World War, and the consequences were soon felt worldwide, especially by those who had survived that tragic period. You had been present from start to finish, being a potent participant in the covert operations linking the US and the UK. Although you had not been on the front line fighting as a soldier, you had been on the front line commanding the actions they would take. In 1939 you became a member of the British Royal Military, then a recommendation from a superior officer led to you joining the Special Operations Executive, a British spy agency, changing your destiny, causing MI5 to contact you, and then you were seconded to the Strategic Scientific Reserve, a top-secret Allied war agency during World War II, created by President Roosevelt. Too many things happened in a single year, too many things that would change the course of your history, but the most important was yet to happen.

In 1943 you were assigned to Colonel Chester Phillips' training base, known as Camp Lehigh, where you were assigned to supervise the candidate division of Project Renaissance, the project that changed everything. Project Renaissance was a highly secret project run by the United States Government. Its aim was to create super soldiers to be deployed during World War II against the Axis powers, thus having a great advantage in strategic warfare, however things didn't go as planned and they only had one success, a young man from Brooklyn named Steve Rogers.

You could never deny that you didn't notice him the first moment you saw him, he instantly caught your attention in two ways. The first of them was his physical shape, he stood out for his small stature compared to the other cadets, and his physical appearance looked sickly, although his medical record didn't say anything about it. On the other hand, the other aspect that impressed and inspired you was his courage and endurance to face each of the tests they had to pass, as well as his cunning, all of which won you over, as well as the generals of the project, as he was selected for the Renaissance project. The time you spent together at Camp Leigh made you realise the determination and humility he possessed, traits that the other members of the group, or any other man you had met before, possessed only to a slight degree.

The day the experiment was carried out, that is, the injection of the Super Soldier serum into Steve was another turning point in your life, the young man who went into that machine was not the same as the one who would come out of it, at least for everyone present, a human being went in and a super soldier came out, although for you he was still the same Steve Rogers with 30 centimetres more height and greater muscle mass. From then on he became the secret weapon that would overthrow Hitler, as the leader of the project, Dr. Erskine, was killed which meant that Steve was the only one of his kind.

You would have liked to have been able to say that your relationship was moving towards a more effective environment, but you were really living in a period of war, plus your character did not easily fit in with the word love, it never really did, or rather, you had never shown any interest in any man. You were rude, you had suffered enough harassment in your job, a job by and for men, to become insensitive in several cases. You were selective with your friends and also with the people you could trust, that's why every time you felt any affection for someone you stopped it, and that's what happened with Steve at the beginning.

Frankly, there were not too many moments to show your affection for each other, nor to enrich it, but every occasion that brought you together, there were certain feelings in the air that were never expressed in words. You encouraged him to be more than a lab rat or a fair hand for the soldiers at the front, you also helped him from your position with the missions, which after his triumph in rescuing the soldiers of the 107th infantry, were assigned to him. You complemented each other, you understood each other in many aspects that no one had ever understood, you had faith in him and he in you, that is why deep inside you were waiting for the day when the war would end to discover what it would be like to be able to dance with him without any worries around you, but it was not that simple.

As if the universe itself was mocking you, everything it had offered you was taken away in a breath. Even if you had never extrapolated it, your heart shrank every time he marched on a mission in enemy territory, you used to find yourself behind the controls of the base of operations that commanded his missions waiting for his voice or news from him to indicate what the situation was, but the last time what you saw was different. It was all a consequence of your attack on HYDRA HQ, you had worked out a strategy to take out their leader, the Red Skull, Steve was inside and you later came in with the assault guard and became part of the operation. Things had gone a little shaky during the operation, as the Red Skull managed to gain access to a ship and almost escaped from the place, but at that moment you appeared as if you were a breath of air together with Colonel Chester Phillips to offer him the last chance for Steve to finish him off and gain access to the inside of the ship that was about to escape, but not before sharing your first and last kiss. Every day you remember the last words you said to him in person "Go get him." before watching him jump into the plane and disappear into the snowy mountains.

After that, the ship became a direct path to death unbeknownst to you. A few hours later, from the command post, you managed to maintain a direct connection with the ship, specifically with Steve who was still inside it.

"Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?" you all heard from the intercom.

"Steve, is that you? Are you alright?" your heart raced as it did every time he was away from you on a mission.

"Y/N! Schmidt's dead.

That brought a breath of relief that neither of you had experienced for a long time, you could see a little light at the end of the tunnel that was getting closer and closer to you, but what you heard next put the light out again.

"What about the plane?" you asked still worried about his situation.

"That's a little bit tougher to explain," Steve's words were choppy.

It really was complicated, the plane was loaded with explosive devices and was clearly headed for New York City, that meant there was only one possibility and you all knew what it was. You tried to talk him out of it, to find a new solution, but time was running out.

"Y/N, this is my choice," a lump formed in your throat at those words. "Y/N?"

"I'm here," you managed to say with watery eyes and a hand to your lips.

"I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance," you heard through the intercom, as a sharp gust of air rushed in between his words.

"Alright," you hid a soft sob. "A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club."

"You got it," he said firmly, making it seem real that he was going to show up there on Saturday.

"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late. Understood?"

"You know, I still don't know how to dance," a wistful smile appeared on your face at his words.

"I'll show you how. Just be there," you said almost begging him.

"We'll have the band play somethin' slow," Steve picked up the pace of his words, "I'd hate to step on your...

That was the last time you heard his voice, the line connecting the intercom to Steve went static with a soft continuous noise, that's when the tears flowed freely down your cheeks.

"Steve? Steve? Steve?"

Of course, life puts us all to the test, we believe we need redemption for the acts committed in the past, that often makes us lose hope that better times will come. Almost four years have passed since those last events, since you shared your first and last kiss with your Captain America, since you heard his last words and since you felt that thing called love. Now your life had been turned upside down, you had dreamed for too long of meeting him, of seeing his face again and not only through those war films, but your life went on and you couldn't keep yourself stuck thinking about him, that's why you had decided to leave the Strategic Scientific Reserve and go into a new project with Howard Stark, called S.H.I.E.L.D.

It was unusual for the month of January to have that warm morning out, although it was actually quite comforting as it had brightened up your day, and even when you got home you opted to start cooking to the rhythm of whatever song was playing on the radio, which was unusual for you. The open windows allowed the sun's rays to stream into the living room, offering that homely touch that the little house in the middle of a residential neighbourhood lacked. Due to your countless projects and missions in the SSR you had not been able to enjoy home life as much as you would have liked, although it was really your decision, that house was too quiet and too big for you alone, although the radio offered you the company you sometimes needed.

As if it were a special event you had brought out the table linen and arranged the table in the parlour to eat there for the first time, normally you used the table in the kitchen, for you did not waste too much time on your meals, but this day was a new beginning, a new year, a good time to work out new habits. You opted to open a bottle of wine, which had been a gift from your dear friend Howard Stark, and poured yourself a glass while you waited for the chicken to make its acquaintance in the oven. The rhythmic melody of Nat King Cole along with your glass of wine lifted spirits that hadn't been this high for some time.

"Love is all that I can give to you," you intoned as you walked around the kitchen.

The midday seemed to be going smoothly, until a crashing noise from the front door brought you to a screeching halt. "Ogh, Mrs. Foster," you said to yourself before taking a sip from your glass of wine to fill your spirits. Mrs Foster was the neighbour from across the street who was always knocking on your door whenever she could, hoping to whisper about the other neighbours and glean as much information about you as possible, the funny thing was that she always barged in at the most inopportune times.

"I'm coming!" you exclaimed, taking off your apron and placing it on the counter. "I'm there!"

When you reached the front door you took five seconds to exhale the air inside you, position your dress correctly, take another breath, roll your eyes and expose a wide grin before you very quickly lowered the door handle. We've been talking before about all the turning points that changed your life and shaped your destiny, okay, that was one of them, maybe the most important one of all, the one that set the rest of your life on track.

"Hello Mrs. Fos-!"

Your voice disappeared, your vocal cords seemed to break at that moment, your wide, false smile also vanished as if it had never been on your face, your eyes seemed to have no eyelids and your lungs ran out of air, leaving you breathless. What you saw when you opened that door was your whole life, every moment appeared in front of you as if it were a frame. They say that happens when you are about to die, but it happened to you when the person you had loved had returned from the dead and was prostrate before you. You couldn't tell whether your reaction was the most humane or what someone else would have done in your place because you had never met anyone who had. Soldiers sometimes took long months to return home after the war ended, but it had taken Steve almost four years to do so.

Perhaps there had been hundreds or thousands of times you had imagined that moment, and now you didn't know what to do, your limbs were stiff, you were grateful for it or you would have collapsed in those moments. You kept holding the doorknob tightly, while he stood there on your porch staring at you, not knowing what to do. They were the longest minutes of your whole life, or maybe they were only a few seconds, you didn't know how time worked in those moments, but that didn't matter, your emotions recovered when you looked into his eyes, those blue eyes that you had dreamed of so many nights and they were watery, that was the sign that told you that this was not a dream, it was real life.

The air opened again and passed through your lungs in the form of a gasp, you shared the wateriness of his eyes in yours and in a moment you were wrapped in his arms. You could feel him again, or rather you could feel him around you for the first time. His arms were around your back bringing your body closer to his.

"You're... here." you murmured against his chest almost afraid that your words would make him disappear again.

"I'm home," he whispered against your forehead before kissing it and pulling away to look at your face.

It really was him, you noticed the odd changed feature, as if the years had passed him by more quickly, but there was no doubt that it was Steve. He placed his hands on your cheeks cradling your face, that sensation made you close your eyes as you placed your hands on his. Gingerly, you felt his breath collide against you and the longing for his lips that had haunted you for so many years came to an end.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, leaning his forehead against yours.

"No, you're home," you murmured, taking his hand and bringing his palm to your lips.

The open windows of the living room let out the melody of the radio, as if it were one of those Hollywood feature films with its own soundtrack. For a few long minutes you stood there on the porch of your house, oblivious to everything around you, oblivious to curious stares or if the chicken was burning in the oven, there was nothing more relevant than the two of you.

After a few minutes without taking your eyes off each other you took his hand and went inside your home, there were no unnecessary questions, no comments that could break the moment, your gazes were pleased to observe each other and as if your thoughts were connected and the person in charge of playing the songs on the radio knew it, one of Steve's favourite songs began to play. Harry James' voice came into the room, giving you the moment you had wanted for four years in your case, but for Steve it had been many more.

“Never thought that you would be

Standing here so close to me

There's so much I feel that I should say

But words can wait until some other day”

His arm found position around your waist and your face found position on his chest. You listened to his heartbeat work to the rhythm of the melody, you could never have imagined ever feeling like this again, you would have made a pact with the devil on too many occasions to feel it. It was so unreal that you had to lift your face from his chest to look at his face again, to find out if it really was Steve in front of you, it was.

“Kiss me once, then kiss me twice

Then kiss me once again

It’s been a long, long time

Haven't felt like this, my dear

Since I can't remember when

It’s been a long, long time”

Life had offered you a new opportunity to enjoy it together, and you were never going to miss it.

“You'll never know how many dreams

I've dreamed about you

Or just how empty they all seemed without you

So kiss me once, then kiss me twice

Then kiss me once again

It's been a long, long time”

Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

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woman-loving · 4 years ago

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The “Homosexual Traitor” and US Anti-Gay Purges

Selection from The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, by Eric Cervini, 2020.

According to the Russians, Colonel Alfred Redl of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had slightly graying blond hair and a “greasy” outward appearance. He spoke “sugar-sweetly, softly.”

Beginning in 1901, Redl worked as a high official in Austria’s Evidenzbureau, where he single-handedly built its counterespionage program. He had more access to classified information than perhaps anyone else in the empire.

In Vienna, Redl’s homosexuality was an open secret. He often appeared at society events with his longtime “nephew,” and he maintained several other affairs. He had no reason to be fearful of exposure, since even the emperor’s brother enjoyed cross-dressing and the occasional army officer.

Redl closely guarded his work as a double agent, however. During his service in the Evidenzbureau, he offered Austrian war plans to the Italian military attaché in exchange for cash. An Italian intelligence officer later recalled it “required no effort” to recruit him. Redl simply mailed envelopes full of Austrian secrets and received thousands of krone in return.

He then began sending military plans to the Russians, too. Redl became fabulously wealthy, lavishing gifts on his lovers and driving two of the empire’s most expensive automobiles. For years, no one seemed to question how he afforded such extravagances on his government salary.

In May 1913, after Austrian counterintelligence officials intercepted a Russian letter containing six thousand krone, they staked out the Vienna post office to identify its recipient. They were appalled to discover Redl.

The army wanted to keep the matter quiet, since public knowledge of treachery at such a high level would have been a profound humiliation. After following him to his hotel, Redl’s own protégé handed him a pistol. Army officials always maintained that Redl voluntarily took his life.

News of the colonel leaked, fact became intertwined with fiction, and the myth of the homosexual traitor came into being. A Berlin newspaper described Redl’s “homosexual pleasure palace, filled with perversities.” The Austrian Army needed a scapegoat for the 1.3 million casualties in that first year of World War I, so it blamed Redl and the larger, more insidious “homosexual organization” that protected him within the military.

Three years later, when a young Allen Dulles, the future CIA director, arrived in Vienna to work at the U.S. embassy, he found everyone still whispering about the homosexual spy who had lost the First World War for the empire.

By the end of World War II, America had become a more open place for homosexuals, but they also confronted novel threats conjured by a political coalition that exploited the uncertainty of the new world order. In 1945, only months before President Roosevelt died, Republicans and Southern Democrats formed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In the 1946 midterm election, after Republicans pledged to “ferret out” threats to the “American way of life,” they won the first congressional majority in sixteen years.

In March 1947, President Truman established the Federal Employee Loyalty Program, and the government began investigating its employees to determine their loyalty. Three months later, the Democrat-controlled Senate Committee on Appropriations warned about “the extensive employment in highly classified positions of admitted homosexuals, who are historically known to be security risks.” The committee empowered the secretary of state with “absolute discretion” to purge employees, including homosexuals, who threatened national security.

In September 1949, America learned that the Soviet Union had detonated its first nuclear weapon. In October, eleven Communist leaders were convicted for advocating a violent revolution in America, and in December, China fell to the Communists.

On January 21, 1950, a jury convicted suspected spy Alger Hiss of perjury.

On February 3, authorities arrested physicist Klaus Fuchs for nuclear espionage.

And on February 9, Junior Senator Joe McCarthy stood before a women’s club in Wheeling, West Virginia, and announced, “I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

Nobody else had seen the list. When reporters caught him at an airport and demanded to see it, he offered to show them—then realized he had left it in his baggage. His number of alleged Communists soon changed from 205 to 57. “Rarely,” The Washington Post declared, “has a man in public life crawled and squirmed so abjectly.”

On the evening of February 20, McCarthy arrived on the Senate floor with an overstuffed briefcase that purportedly contained his list of Communist-linked security risks in the State Department. For six hours, he provided a warped summary of eighty-one cases, relying on unproven allegations from a three-year-old congressional investigation. “In short, the speech was a lie,” concluded historian Robert Griffith.

Two of the cases involved alleged homosexuals, who were “rather easy blackmail victims,” explained McCarthy. It was a shrewd maneuver: what editorial board or politician would dare argue that sexual deviants belonged in the federal government?

McCarthy would later recuse himself from hearings on the issue of homosexuals in the government. At forty-one, the senator was unmarried, and the issue raised questions about his own sexuality.

Other Republicans took the lead. A week after McCarthy’s Senate speech, his colleagues coerced Deputy Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy, a security official testifying in defense of his department, into making a startling admission. In only three years, he admitted, ninety-one homosexual employees had resigned upon investigations under Truman’s loyalty program.

And with that, as the New York Post referred to it, the “Panic on the Potomac” began. Conservative newspapers leapt upon the admission. Congress scheduled hearings. Homosexuality, observed a columnist on Meet the Press, became “a new type of political weapon” that could “wreck the Administration.” The chief of the Washington Vice Squad testified there were “3,750 perverts employed by government agencies.” Republican senator Kenneth Wherry alleged the Soviets were using a list of American homosexuals—originally compiled by Hitler—to blackmail federal employees for government secrets. Washington, he said, faced an “emergency condition.”

The Senate committee tasked with solving the homosexual problem, led by Democrat Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, began closed hearings in July. Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the director of the government’s new Central Intelligence Agency, testified first. He arrived with a thirty-eight-page statement, and ten of those pages chronicled a “classic” case, one “known all through intelligence circles,” an example that would leave “no doubt as to the fact that perversion presents a very definite security risk.”

Of all the intelligence available to the CIA, its director chose to rest his case against homosexuals on the forty-year-old story of Colonel Redl. In Hillenkoetter’s retelling, Redl had been an “honest” man who found himself in an imperial army with unforgiving policies against homosexuality. The Russians hired a young newsboy, who “became very intimate” with Redl. Next, they broke into the colonel’s room and caught him in an “act of perversion.” After threatening to expose him, the Russians gained copies of the Austrian war plans prior to the outbreak of violence.

And so a single urban legend, the telling of which was almost entirely, verifiably inaccurate (in fact, a 1907 Russian diplomatic cable had falsely labeled Redl “a lover of women”) became the primary piece of evidence that guided federal employment policy toward homosexuals for decades to come.

The CIA director then explained the “general theory as to why we should not employ homosexuals or other moral perverts in positions of trust.” He gave thirteen reasons to the senators.

1. Homosexuals experience emotions “as strong and in fact actually stronger” than heterosexual emotions. 2. Homosexuals are susceptible “to domination by aggressive personalities.” 3. Homosexuals have “psychopathic tendencies which affect the soundness of their judgment, physical cowardice, susceptibility to pressure, and general instability, thus making a pervert vulnerable in many ways.” 4. Homosexuals “invariably express considerable concern” about concealing their condition. 5. Homosexuals are “promiscuous” and often visit “various hangouts of his brethren,” marking “a definite similarity to other illegal groups such as criminals, smugglers, black-marketeers, dope addicts, and so forth.” 6. Homosexuals with “outward characteristics of femininity—or lesbians with male characteristics—are often difficult to employ because of the effect on their co-workers, officials of other agencies, and the public in general.” 7. Homosexuals who think they are discreet are, in reality, “actually quite indiscrete [sic]. They are too stupid to realize it, or else due to inflation of their ego or through not letting themselves realize the truth, they are usually the center of gossip, rumor, derision, and so forth.” 8. Homosexuals who try “to drop the ‘gay’ life and go ‘straight’ … eventually revert to type.” 9. Homosexuals are “extremely vulnerable to seduction by another pervert employed for that purpose by a foreign power.” 10. Homosexuals are “extremely defiant in their attitude toward society,” which could lead to disloyalty. 11. “Homosexuals usually seem to be extremely gullible.” 12. Homosexuals, including “even the most brazen perverts,” are constantly suppressing their instincts, which causes “considerable tension.” 13. Homosexuals employed by the government “lead to the concept of a ‘government within a government.’ That is so noteworthy. One pervert brings other perverts. They belong to the lodge, the fraternity. One pervert brings other perverts into an agency … and advance them usually in the interest of furthering the romance of the moment.”

The testimony of subsequent intelligence officials echoed that of the CIA director, and the Hoey committee’s final report primarily drew from the testimony of its lead witness, sometimes verbatim. As the Hoey report concluded, homosexuals were ipso facto security risks. Colonel Redl remained its only example.

Hillenkoetter’s thirteen principles became official government doctrine. The government incorporated the Hoey report into its security manuals, forwarded it to embassies, and shared it with its foreign allies. “The notion that homosexuals threatened national security,” explains historian David Johnson, “received the imprimatur of the U.S. Congress and became accepted as official fact.” When the federal government needed to justify its homosexual purges, it simply pointed to the Hoey report.

Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952 with the help of the slogan “Let’s Clean House” and whispers that his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, had homosexual tendencies. Three months after his inauguration, Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which expanded the government’s purging authority—originally given to the State Department—to all federal agencies. Any employee who exhibited “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct” had no place in the federal bureaucracy. With a Republican in the White House, the purges became less of a spectacle and more of a quiet, well-oiled machine. In Eisenhower’s 1954 State of the Union, he boasted of removing 2,200 security risks in only a year.

McCarthy’s downfall came later that year, but the purges remained alive, as did the rumors that always seemed to saturate America’s capital. After two Republican senators learned that the son of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming, a Democrat, had been arrested in Lafayette Park, they gave Hunt a choice. He could withdraw from his 1954 reelection campaign or face the publicity of his son’s homosexual arrest. The Senate was virtually tied. If Hunt resigned, he risked shifting power to the Republicans.

On the morning of June 19, 1954, Senator Hunt, a straight victim of antigay political blackmail, entered his Capitol office and shot himself with a .22-caliber rifle.

#alfred redl #austria hungary #mccarthyism #lgbtq history #united states #suicide cw #homophobia #homosexual traitor #the deviant's war

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dc-earth53 · 4 years ago

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0013 - Hawkman (Katar Hol/Carter Hall)

Age: 43 (physical), 103 (mental).

Occupation: Museum curator, adjunct professor, adventurer.

Marital status: Widowed

Known relatives: Shiera Saunders Hall (wife, deceased), Hector Hall (son, deceased), Hippolyta Trevor Hall (daughter-in-law, deceased), Daniel Hall (grandson), Norda Cantrell (godson).

Group affiliation: Justice Society of America, formerly All-Star Squadron.

Base of operations: Stonechat Museum, St. Roch, Louisiana

Height: 6’1”

Weight: 195 lbs.

History:

c. 1280 B.C: Prince Khufu is born in Egypt.

c. 1255 B.C: Khufu, along with his beloved Chay-Ara, the wizard Nabu, and champion Teth-Adam, come across the wreckage of a Thanagarian ship, laden with the mysterious Nth metal. The two use the alien technology to bring peace to their land and build incredible wonders.

C. 1240 B.C: Khufu and Chay-Ara are murdered by the priest Hath-Set, destined to be reincarnated into new bodies.

1917 A.D: Khufu is reincarnated into the body of newborn Carter Hall.

1940 A.D:

When on a trip to Egypt as an archaeologist, Hall regains the memories of his life as Khufu, using the hawk imagery of the Egyptian deity Horus to become Hawkman.

Carter meets Shiera Saunders, the reincarnation of Chay-Ara, and she becomes Hawkgirl, fighting by his side.

Hall and Saunders first encounter Dr. Anton Hastor, the modern reincarnation of Hath-Set.

The pair become founding members of the Justice Society of America, with Hall acting as their first chairman.

1941 A.D: President Franklin Roosevelt calls on Hawkman and the rest of the JSA to join the war effort, fighting on the home front as members of the All-Star Squadron.

1947 A.D: Hall and Saunders first encounter Jim Craddock, the Gentleman Ghost.

1951 A.D: As part of a scheme from Per Degaton, the Justice Society is called before the House Un-American Activities Commission, and forced to either reveal their true identities, or disband. Hall, alongside many of his comrades, choose to disband the team.

1953 A.D: Hall and Saunders are married, and have a son, Hector. They also discover the kingdom of Feithera, and adopt one of the avian humanoid natives, Norda, as their godson.

1979 A.D: Hall and Saunders are murdered by Hastor, and reincarnate as Thanagarian police officers Katar Hol and Shayera Thal.

18 years ago: Hol and Thal come to Earth, becoming members of the Justice League of America, and fast friends with Ray Palmer, the Atom.

14 years ago: Hol severs ties with Thanagar after the planet declares war on neighboring planet Rann.

10 years ago: Thal dies and Hol is gravely injured while helping to repel the invasion of Earth by an alien alliance that included Thanagarians among their number. When Hol comes to, Carter Hall’s memories and personality have re-asserted themselves.

7 years ago:

Hall joins the newly reformed Justice Society alongside Kendra Saunders, the latest reincarnation of Chay-Ara and Shiera’s grand-niece.

Hall becomes the curator of the Stonechat Museum in St. Roch, Louisiana.

5 years ago:

Ray Palmer is murdered by his ex-wife, Jean Loring, under the control of Eclipso. In response, Hall nearly murders Loring in cold blood, only stopped by the intervention of Kendra.

Hall is called upon to fight in the war between Rann and Thanagar. He remains on Thanagar after the war to help mediate the newly brokered peace between the planets, serving as a member of the Thanagarian police force.

3 years ago: Carter returns to Earth, only to be swept up in the Blackest Night. He and Kendra are seemingly killed by the reanimated Black Lantern corpse of Ray Palmer, but survive as they weren’t killed by Hath-Set.

1 year ago: Carter learns of many of his past lives in a vision, and embarks on a journey to rediscover himself.

Present day: Carter continues serving as a member of the Justice Society of America, while also trying to reconcile his past lives with his present existence.

Commentary:

Oh, Hawkman. You and your partner are somehow only the second most confusing characters in all of DC continuity, thanks to Donna Troy and her rat’s nest of backstories. For the uninformed, there are essentially two major incarnations of Hawkman: the reincarnated Egyptian prince and the space cop. DC themselves had one hell of a time figuring out which Hawkman they wanted to use, merging them both into one Hawk-God figure during Zero Hour before eventually settling on Carter Hall as the primary Hawkman. (And then, of course, the Justice League cartoon had to use the Thanagarian versions of the Hawks just to complicate matters.)

Thankfully, Robert Venditti came up with a simple and elegant explanation in his Hawkman series: Khufu and Chay-ara’s spirits reincarnate through space and time. Khufu = Katar = Carter = about a hundred others, including Hawkmen of Rann and Krypton. It’s a really simple retcon that adds a lot of depth to the character’s history and opens up new avenues for storytelling, and that’s what I’m going with here.

Another interesting wrinkle in this timeline is that only the reincarnated Hath-Set can kill the Hawks, and is fated to eventually in every reincarnation. That means that during the Blackest Night, the Black Lanterns’ attempts to recruit the Hawks to their cause are all for naught. In addition, something unprecedented happens during the Invasion, when Shayera dies but Katar survives, meaning their spirits don’t move on quite as intended, resulting in Kendra Saunders being Hawkgirl with no memories of her past lives while Carter asserts control of Katar’s body.

Character-wise, Hawkman is sort of a blend between Indiana Jones and Conan the Barbarian, being an adventurer-archaeologist scouring the world for treasures, but also giving no quarter in combat and unafraid to roll some heads. He’s very dedicated to his partner, even if she’s hesitant to embrace destiny and reciprocate his feelings, as Kendra is.

Carter Hawkman’s appearance has stabilized into the look you see above after several costume changes during the Golden Age. It’s suitably badass and Conan-esque. Katar’s costume, being a Thanagarian police uniform, had more coverage and actual armor befitting his role.

Next: Hawkwoman and then Ray Palmer.

#dc #dc comics #earth 53 #profile #hawkman #carter hall #katar hol #justice league of america #justice society of america

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ucflibrary · 4 years ago

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Each December, the UCF Libraries’ Featured Bookshelf celebrates the favorite books of employees of the UCF Libraries. And you know a major thing about librarians and library staff? They love talking about their favorite books. The books listed below are some of the favorite books we read in 2020.

Click on the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for our favorite 2020 titles. These 20 books plus favorites from previous years are also on display in the 4th floor Reading Room of the John C. Hitt Library.

And if you find someone has checked the one you’re interested in out before you had a chance, did you know you can place an interlibrary loan and have another copy sent here for you? Click here for instructions on placing an interlibrary loan.

A Furious Sky: the five-hundred-year history of America's hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin From the moment European colonists laid violent claim to this land, hurricanes have had a profound and visceral impact on American history-yet, no one has attempted to write the definitive account of America's entanglement with these meteorological behemoths. Eric Jay Dolin presents the five-hundred-year story of American hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus' New World voyages, to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the escalation of hurricane season as a result of global warming. Populating his narrative with unlikely heroes such as Benito Vines, the nineteenth-century Jesuit priest whose revelatory methods for predicting hurricanes saved countless lives, and journalist Dan Rather, whose coverage of a 1961 hurricane would change broadcasting history, Dolin uncovers the often surprising ways we respond to natural crises. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo With beauty, grace, and honesty, Castillo recounts his and his family’s encounters with a system that treats them as criminals for seeking safe, ordinary lives. He writes of the Sunday afternoon when he opened the door to an ICE officer who had one hand on his holster, of the hours he spent making a fake social security card so that he could work to support his family, of his father’s deportation and the decade that he spent waiting to return to his wife and children only to be denied reentry Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Dark Matter: a novel by Blake Crouch A mind-bending, relentlessly paced science-fiction thriller, in which an ordinary man is kidnapped, knocked unconscious--and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew. "Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. He awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before him, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Do Nothing: how to break away from overworking, overdoing, and underliving by Celeste Headlee We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to "hack" our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. This manifesto helps us break free of our unhealthy devotion to efficiency and shows us how to reclaim our time and humanity with a little more leisure Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook A study of the complex and political figure of Eleanor Roosevelt begins with her harrowing childhood, describes the difficulties of her marriage, and explains how she persuaded Franklin to make the reforms that would make him famous. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

From Here to Eternity: traveling the world to find the good death by Caitlin Doughty Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes. She introduces deathcare innovators researching body composting and green burial, and examines how varied traditions, from Mexico's Dias de los Muertos to Zoroastrian sky burial help us see our own death customs in a new light. She argues that our expensive, impersonal system fosters a corrosive fear of death that hinders our ability to cope and mourn. By comparing customs, she demonstrates that mourners everywhere respond best when they help care for the deceased and have space to participate in the process. Suggested by Katy Miller, Student Learning & Engagement

Indelicacy by Amina Cain A cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society, and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor - social and erotic - but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps another and more drastic solution is necessary Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu Every day Willis Wu leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy-- and he sees his life as a script. After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he has ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him in today's America. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. Suggested by Katie Kirwan, Acquisitions & Collections

Paradise Lost: a life of F. Scott Fitzgerald by David S. Brown In this comprehensive biography, Brown reexamines Fitzgerald’s childhood, first loves, and difficult marriage to Zelda Sayre. He looks at Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway, the golden years that culminated with Gatsby, and his increasing alcohol abuse and declining fortunes which coincided with Zelda’s institutionalization and the nation’s economic collapse. Suggested by Andrew Hackler, Circulation

Recursion by Blake Crouch Reality is broken. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. Suggested by Mary Rubin, Special Collections & University Archives

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh Brosh’s second book includes humorous stories from her childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic by David Quammen This work examines the emergence and causes of new diseases all over the world, describing a process called "spillover" where illness originates in wild animals before being passed to humans and discusses the potential for the next huge pandemic. The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia; but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. As globalization spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, penetrating ever deeper into the furthest reaches of the planet, we encounter strange and dangerous infections that originate in animals but can be transmitted to humans. The author tracks this subject around the world. He recounts adventures in the field, netting bats in China, trapping monkeys in Bangladesh, stalking gorillas in the Congo, with the world's leading disease scientists. He takes the reader along on this quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and he asks the terrifying question: What might the next big one be? Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there's a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels--she was an ardent fan of the Winter White House resident just down the road, and a founding member of the POTUSSIES, a group of women dedicated to supporting their President. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, the President immediately declares that Kiki was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee A year after a whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind: avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. But the administrators see men as the sole guardians of science. When a doctor she idolizes marries a friend of hers in Germany, Felicity believes he could change her future. A mysterious young woman will pay Felicity's way, if Felicity will let her travel along-- as her maid. Soon they're on a perilous quest that leads them across the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Power of Now: a guide to spiritual enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Much more than simple principles and platitudes, this book takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light. In the first chapter, Tolle introduces readers to enlightenment and its natural enemy, the mind. He awakens readers to their role as a creator of pain and shows them how to have a pain-free identity by living fully in the present. The journey is thrilling, and along the way, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Scarlet Sisters: sex, suffrage, and scandal in the gilded age by Myra MacPherson A fresh look at the life and times of Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, two sisters whose radical views on sex, love, politics, and business threatened the white male power structure of the nineteenth century and shocked the world. Here award-winning author Myra MacPherson deconstructs and lays bare the manners and mores of Victorian America, remarkably illuminating the struggle for equality that women are still fighting today. Suggested by Dawn Tripp, Research & Information Services

The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: selected literary and philosophical writings by Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick has established himself as a major figure in American literature. The landscape of his imagination features a wealth of concepts and fictional worlds: Nazi-rule in a postwar nightmare; androids and the unification of man and machine; and an existence that no longer follows the logic of reality. This first-time collection assembles his nonfiction writings essays, journals, speeches, and interviews. In these writings he explores issues ranging from the merging of physics and metaphysics to the potential influences of "virtual" reality and its consequences to a plot-scenario for a potential episode of "Mission: Impossible," to the challenge that fundamental "human" values face in the age of technology and spiritual decline.". Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

The Wild Heart of Florida: Florida writers on Florida's wildlands selected and edited by Jeff Ripple and Susan Cerulean Coming from a variety of backgrounds--fiction, journalism, poetry, and environmental writing--the writers turn their talent to one thing they have in common--a love for Florida’s natural beauty and a commitment to preserve it. Their essays--some old favorites, most appearing here for the first time--are both a celebration and a pointed reminder of what we stand to lose. Suggested by Rebecca Hawk, Circulation

There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool The Age of Darkness approaches. Who will stop it... or unleash it? For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations-- until they disappeared a hundred years ago. All they left behind was one final prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world's salvation-- or the cause of its destruction. Will it be a prince exiled from his kingdom? A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand? A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart? A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone? Or a dying girl on the verge of giving up? Suggested by Pam Jaggernauth, Curriculum Materials Center

#featured bookshelf #ucf library #ucf #suggested reading #staff favorites #booklr

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englishchinesetranslations · 4 years ago

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“Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind”

Theodore Roosevelt

“Malthus has been vindicated; reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it’s an economic mess, and there’s no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to

the village.”

Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation, stated such,

ironically, in 1984:

“A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”

Ted Turner, in an interview with Audubon magazine

“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels.

Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get

the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population

is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian

government, even fascism, to reduce it....” “Our program in El Salvador didn’t

work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too

goddamned many people.... To really reduce population, quickly, you

have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill

significant numbers of fertile age females....” The quickest way

to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or

through disease like the Black Death....

Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that

pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like

would fit the bill.... But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of

mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human

intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can

be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider – Founder and Secretary, respectively,

TheClub of Rome, The First Global Revolution, pgs 104-105, 1991

A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an

uncontrolled multiplication of people.... We must shift our efforts from the

treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will

demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.

Stanford Professor ” Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb

“In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per

day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it is just as bad not to say it.”

J. Cousteau, 1991 explorer and UNESCO courier

I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today”

and, “We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox.”

Dave Foreman, Sierra Club and co founder of Earth First!

“We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion,

about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is

the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren’t enough people

left to do a great deal of ecological damage.”

Mikhail Gorbachev

“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore

order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that

there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that

threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to

deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When

presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the

guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”

Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Dr. Henry Kissinger New York Times, Oct. 28, 1973

Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third

world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of

minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries”.

Dr. Henry Kissinger

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” and “The elderly are useless eaters”

Dr. Henry Kissinger

“World population needs to be decreased by 50%”

Dr. Henry Kissinger

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major

crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

David Rockefeller

“War and famine would not do. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and

fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be

solved. AIDS is not an efficient killer because it is too slow. My favorite candidate

for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola

Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years.

“We’ve got airborne diseases with 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing

humans. Think about that. “You know, the bird flu’s good, too. For everyone who

survives, he will have to bury nine”

Dr. Eric Pianka University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert,

showed solutions for reducing the world’s population to an audience on

population control

“The present vast overpopulation, now far beyond the world carrying capacity,

cannot be answered by future reductions in the birth rate due to contraception,

sterilization and abortion, but must be met in the present by the reduction of

numbers presently existing. This must be done by whatever means necessary.”

Initiative for the United Nations ECO-92 EARTH CHARTER

“In South America, the government of Peru goes door to door pressuring women

to be sterilized and they are funded by American tax dollars to do this.”

Mark Earley in The Wrong Kind of Party Christian Post 10/27 2008

"Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the state to be unfit mothers

should be sentenced to take contraception for a prescribed period of two years.”

Marjo Van Dijken (author of the bill in the Netherlands) in the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/04/humanrights-women

“Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature”

Anonymously commissioned Georgia Guidestones

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to

lower human population levels.”

Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the

World Wildlife Fund

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents

hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use

contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for

childbearing.”

David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

“The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover

cutting the Fallopian tubes.”

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Frankly I had thought that at the time Rome was decided, there was concern

about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t

want to have too many of.”

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the

optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various

countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might

remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some

power to enforce the agreed limits.”

Obama’s Science czar John P. Holdren: From a book he helped write ‘Ecoscience’

“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world

government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent,

all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there

is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly

evil in intent.”

Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 that

was shot down by the Soviet Union

P.S. And there's this:

“No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to

worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian

Initiation.”

David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations

(People will shortly be expected to line up to take the COVID vaccination, with its

Luciferase enzyme)

#depopulation #henry kissinger

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years ago

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Events 3.4

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth). 306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia. 852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources. 938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs. 1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany. 1238 – The Battle of the Sit River is fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Rus'. 1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam. 1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland. 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV. 1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean. 1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth. 1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter. 1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. 1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England. 1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston. 1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. 1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility. 1791 – The Constitutional Act of 1791 is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario). 1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state. 1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4. 1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales. 1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario. 1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated. 1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia. 1849 – President-elect of the United States Zachary Taylor and Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading to the erroneous theory that outgoing President pro tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day. 1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the "Stars and Bars") is adopted. 1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress. 1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London. 1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 8,094 feet (2,467 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII. 1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300. 1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people. 1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State. 1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later. 1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed. 1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives. 1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President of the United States. He was the last president to be inaugurated on March 4. 1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet. 1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree. 1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena. 1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin. 1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90. 1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba, killing 100. 1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7. 1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people. 1966 – In an interview in the London Evening Standard, The Beatles' John Lennon declares that the band is "more popular than Jesus now". 1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew. 1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament. 1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500, mostly in Bucharest, Romania. 1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister. 1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States. 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus. 1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days. 1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex. 1999 – Mizan Zainal Abidin of Terengganu is crowned as Sultan of Terengganu (Malaysia) 2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA. 2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission. 2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. 2012 – A series of explosions is reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, killing at least 250 people. 2015 – At least 34 miners die in a suspected gas explosion at the Zasyadko coal mine in the rebel-held Donetsk region of Ukraine. 2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved. 2020 – Former Daredevil Nik Wallenda is the first person to walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. 2021 – According to some QAnon supporters, former US President Donald Trump will be inaugurated, putting guards at the capitol on high alert, out of fear of another attack on the US capitol.

#Events

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theculturedmarxist · 5 years ago

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My dad was born in 1917. Somehow, he survived the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919, but an outbreak of whooping cough in 1923 claimed his baby sister, Clementina. One of my dad’s first memories was seeing his sister’s tiny white casket. Another sister was permanently marked by scarlet fever. In 1923, my dad was hit by a car and spent two weeks in a hospital with a fractured skull as well as a lacerated thumb. His immigrant parents had no medical insurance, but the driver of the car gave his father $50 toward the medical bills. The only lasting effect was the scar my father carried for the rest of his life on his right thumb.

The year 1929 brought the Great Depression and lean times. My father’s father had left the family, so my dad, then 12, had to pitch in. He got a newspaper route, which he kept for four years, quitting high school after tenth grade so he could earn money for the family. In 1935, like millions of other young men of that era, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a creation of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal that offered work on environmental projects of many kinds. He battled forest fires in Oregon for two years before returning to his family and factory work. In 1942, he was drafted into the Army, going back to a factory job when World War II ended. Times grew a little less lean in 1951 when he became a firefighter, after which he felt he could afford to buy a house and start a family.

I’m offering all this personal history as the context for a prediction of my dad’s that, for obvious reasons, came to my mind again recently. When I was a teenager, he liked to tell me: “I had it tough in the beginning and easy in the end. You, Willy, have had it easy in the beginning, but will likely have it tough in the end.” His prophecy stayed with me, perhaps because even then, somewhere deep down, I already suspected that my dad was right.

The COVID-19 pandemic is now grabbing the headlines, all of them, and a global recession, if not a depression, seems like a near-certainty. The stock market has been tanking and people’s lives are being disrupted in fundamental and scary ways. My dad knew the experience of losing a loved one to disease, of working hard to make ends meet during times of great scarcity, of sacrificing for the good of one’s family. Compared to him, it’s true that, so far, I’ve had an easier life as an officer in the Air Force and then a college teacher and historian. But at age 57, am I finally ready for the hard times to come? Are any of us?

And keep in mind that this is just the beginning. Climate change (recall Australia’s recent and massive wildfires) promises yet more upheavals, more chaos, more diseases. America’s wanton militarism and lying politicians promise more wars. What’s to be done to avert or at least attenuate the tough times to come, assuming my dad’s prediction is indeed now coming true? What can we do?

It’s Time to Reimagine America

Here’s the one thing about major disruptions to normalcy: they can create opportunities for dramatic change. (Disaster capitalists know this, too, unfortunately.) President Franklin Roosevelt recognized this in the 1930s and orchestrated his New Deal to revive the economy and put Americans like my dad back to work.

In 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney capitalized on the shock-and-awe disruption of the 9/11 attacks to inflict on the world their vision of a Pax Americana, effectively a militarized imperium justified (falsely) as enabling greater freedom for all. The inherent contradiction in such a dreamscape was so absurd as to make future calamity inevitable. Recall what an aide to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scribbled down, only hours after the attack on the Pentagon and the collapse of the Twin Towers, as his boss’s instructions (especially when it came to looking for evidence of Iraqi involvement): “Go massive — sweep it all up, things related and not.” And indeed they would do just that, with an emphasis on the “not,” including, of course, the calamitous invasion of Iraq in 2003.

To progressive-minded people thinking about this moment of crisis, what kind of opportunities might open to us when (or rather if) Donald Trump is gone from the White House? Perhaps this coronaviral moment is the perfect time to consider what it would mean for us to go truly big, but without the usual hubris or those disastrous invasions of foreign countries. To respond to COVID-19, climate change, and the staggering wealth inequities in this country that, when combined, will cause unbelievable levels of needless suffering, what’s needed is a drastic reordering of our national priorities.

Remember, the Fed’s first move was to inject $1.5 trillion into the stock market. (That would have been enough to forgive all current student debt.) The Trump administration has also promised to help airlines, hotels, and above all oil companies and the fracking industry, a perfect storm when it comes to trying to sustain and enrich those upholding a kleptocratic and amoral status quo.

This should be a time for a genuinely new approach, one fit for a world of rising disruption and disaster, one that would define a new, more democratic, less bellicose America. To that end, here are seven suggestions, focusing — since I’m a retired military officer — mainly on the U.S. military, a subject that continues to preoccupy me, especially since, at present, that military and the rest of the national security state swallow up roughly 60% of federal discretionary spending:

1. If ever there was a time to reduce our massive and wasteful military spending, this is it. There was never, for example, any sense in investing up to $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to “modernize” America’s nuclear arsenal. (Why are new weapons needed to exterminate humanity when the “old” ones still work just fine?) Hundreds of stealth fighters and bombers — it’s estimated that Lockheed Martin’s disappointing F-35 jet fighter alone will cost $1.5 trillion over its life span — do nothing to secure us from pandemics, the devastating effects of climate change, or other all-too-pressing threats. Such weaponry only emboldens a militaristic and chauvinistic foreign policy that will facilitate yet more wars and blowback problems of every sort. And speaking of wars, isn’t it finally time to end U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan? More than $6 trillion has already been wasted on those wars and, in this time of global peril, even more is being wasted on this country’s forever conflicts across the Greater Middle East and Africa. (Roughly $4 billion a month continues to be spent on Afghanistan alone, despite all the talk about “peace” there.)

2. Along with ending profligate weapons programs and quagmire wars, isn’t it time for the U.S. to begin dramatically reducing its military “footprint” on this planet? Roughly 800 U.S. military bases circle the globe in a historically unprecedented fashion at a yearly cost somewhere north of $100 billion. Cutting such numbers in half over the next decade would be a more than achievable goal. Permanently cutting provocative “war games” in South Korea, Europe, and elsewhere would be no less sensible. Are North Korea and Russia truly deterred by such dramatic displays of destructive military might?

3. Come to think of it, why does the U.S. need the immediate military capacity to fight two major foreign wars simultaneously, as the Pentagon continues to insist we do and plan for, in the name of “defending” our country? Here’s a radical proposal: if you add 70,000 Special Operations forces to 186,000 Marine Corps personnel, the U.S. already possesses a potent quick-strike force of roughly 250,000 troops. Now, add in the Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions and the 10th Mountain Division. What you have is more than enough military power to provide for America’s actual national security. All other Army divisions could be reduced to cadres, expandable only if our borders are directly threatened by war. Similarly, restructure the Air Force and Navy to de-emphasize the present “global strike” vision of those services, while getting rid of Donald Trump’s newest service, the Space Force, and the absurdist idea of taking war into low earth orbit. Doesn’t America already have enough war here on this small planet of ours?

4. Bring back the draft, just not for military purposes. Make it part of a national service program for improving America. It’s time for a new Civilian Conservation Corps focused on fostering a Green New Deal. It’s time for a new Works Progress Administration to rebuild America’s infrastructure and reinvigorate our culture, as that organization did in the Great Depression years. It’s time to engage young people in service to this country. Tackling COVID-19 or future pandemics would be far easier if there were quickly trained medical aides who could help free doctors and nurses to focus on the more difficult cases. Tackling climate change will likely require more young men and women fighting forest fires on the west coast, as my dad did while in the CCC — and in a climate-changing world there will be no shortage of other necessary projects to save our planet. Isn’t it time America’s youth answered a call to service? Better yet, isn’t it time we offered them the opportunity to truly put America, rather than themselves, first?

5. And speaking of “America First,” that eternal Trumpian catch-phrase, isn’t it time for all Americans to recognize that global pandemics and climate change make a mockery of walls and go-it-alone nationalism, not to speak of politics that divide, distract, and keep so many down? President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that only Americans can truly hurt America, but there’s a corollary to that: only Americans can truly save America — by uniting, focusing on our common problems, and uplifting one another. To do so, it’s vitally necessary to put an end to fear-mongering (and warmongering). As President Roosevelt famously said in his first inaugural address in the depths of the Great Depression, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear inhibits our ability to think clearly, to cooperate fully, to change things radically as a community.

6. To cite Yoda, the Jedi master, we must unlearn what we have learned. For example, America’s real heroes shouldn’t be “warriors” who kill or sports stars who throw footballs and dunk basketballs. We’re witnessing our true heroes in action right now: our doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel, together with our first responders, and those workers who stay in grocery stores, pharmacies, and the like and continue to serve us all despite the danger of contracting the coronavirus from customers. They are all selflessly resisting a threat too many of us either didn’t foresee or refused to treat seriously, most notably, of course, President Donald Trump: a pandemic that transcends borders and boundaries. But can Americans transcend the increasingly harsh and divisive borders and boundaries of our own minds? Can we come to work selflessly to save and improve the lives of others? Can we become, in a sense, lovers of humanity?

7. Finally, we must extend our love to encompass nature, our planet. For if we keep treating our lands, our waters, and our skies like a set of trash cans and garbage bins, our children and their children will inherit far harder times than the present moment, hard as it may be.

What these seven suggestions really amount to is rejecting a militarized mindset of aggression and a corporate mindset of exploitation for one that sees humanity and this planet more holistically. Isn’t it time to regain that vision of the earth we shared collectively during the Apollo moon missions: a fragile blue sanctuary floating in the velvety darkness of space, an irreplaceable home to be cared for and respected since there’s no other place for us to go? Otherwise, I fear that my father’s prediction will come true not just for me, but for generations to come and in ways that even he couldn’t have imagined.

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963 and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92.

Early life

Lena Horne was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She was reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family, and both sides of her family were through a mixture of African, Native American, and European descent and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated people. Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class African American community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1894–1976), was a granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron; she was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Edna's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Horne was raised mainly by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother. From 1927 to 1929, she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, who later served as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old. She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved to her father's home in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

Career

Road to Hollywood

In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. Horne made her first screen appearance as a dancer in the musical short Cab Calloway's Jitterbug Party (1935). A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she made her first records, issued by Decca. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Cafe Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months when she was hired by former Cafe Trocadero (Los Angeles) manager Felix Young to perform in a Cotton Club-style revue on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called The Duke is Tops (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream, featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. Horne made her Hollywood nightclub debut at Felix Young's Little Troc on the Sunset Strip in January 1942. A few weeks later, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In November 1944, she was featured in an episode of the popular radio series Suspense, as a fictional nightclub singer, with a large speaking role along with her singing. In 1945 and 1946, she sang with Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

She made her debut at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Panama Hattie (1942) and performed the title song of Stormy Weather based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall, (1943), at 20th Century Fox, while on loan from MGM. She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (1943), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that her films had to be re-edited for showing in cities where theaters would not show films with black performers. As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline. A notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, although one number from that film was cut before release because it was considered too suggestive by the censors: Horne singing "Ain't It the Truth" while taking a bubble bath. This scene and song are featured in the film That's Entertainment! III (1994) which also featured commentary from Horne on why the scene was deleted prior to the film's release. Lena Horne was the first African-American elected to serve on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors.

In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), she performed "Love" by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Horne lobbied for the role of Julie LaVerne in MGM's 1951 version of Show Boat (having already played the role when a segment of Show Boat was performed in Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946) but lost the part to Ava Gardner, a personal friend in real life. Horne claimed this was due to the Production Code's ban on interracial relationships in films, but MGM sources state she was never considered for the role in the first place. In the documentary That's Entertainment! III, Horne stated that MGM executives required Gardner to practice her singing using Horne's recordings, which offended both actresses. Ultimately, Gardner's voice was overdubbed by actress Annette Warren (Smith) for the theatrical release.

Changes of direction

By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She made only two major appearances for MGM during the 1950s: Duchess of Idaho (which was also Eleanor Powell's final film); and the 1956 musical Meet Me in Las Vegas. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her affiliations in the 1940s with communist-backed groups. She would subsequently disavow communism. She returned to the screen three more times, playing chanteuse Claire Quintana in the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter, Glinda in The Wiz (1978), which was directed by her then son-in-law Sidney Lumet, and co-hosting the MGM retrospective That's Entertainment! III (1994), in which she was candid about her unkind treatment by the studio.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premier nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In 1957, a live album entitled, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, became the biggest-selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA Victor label at that time. In 1958, Horne became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) which, at Lena's request featured her longtime friend Adelaide Hall.

From the late 1950s through to the 1960s, Horne was a staple of TV variety shows, appearing multiple times on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, and The Bell Telephone Hour. Other programs she appeared on included The Judy Garland Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Andy Williams Show. Besides two television specials for the BBC (later syndicated in the U.S.), Horne starred in her own U.S. television special in 1969, Monsanto Night Presents Lena Horne. During this decade, the artist Pete Hawley painted her portrait for RCA Victor, capturing the mood of her performance style.

In 1970, she co-starred with Harry Belafonte in the hour-long Harry & Lena special for ABC; in 1973, she co-starred with Tony Bennett in Tony and Lena. Horne and Bennett subsequently toured the U.S. and U.K. in a show together. In the 1976 program America Salutes Richard Rodgers, she sang a lengthy medley of Rodgers songs with Peggy Lee and Vic Damone. Horne also made several appearances on The Flip Wilson Show. Additionally, Horne played herself on television programs such as The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Sanford and Son in the 1970s, as well as a 1985 performance on The Cosby Show and a 1993 appearance on A Different World. In the summer of 1980, Horne, 63 years old and intent on retiring from show business, embarked on a two-month series of benefit concerts sponsored by the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. These concerts were represented as Horne's farewell tour, yet her retirement lasted less than a year.

On April 13, 1980, Horne, Luciano Pavarotti, and host Gene Kelly were all scheduled to appear at a Gala performance at the Metropolitan Opera House to salute the NY City Center's Joffrey Ballet Company. However, Pavarotti's plane was diverted over the Atlantic and he was unable to appear. James Nederlander was an invited Honored Guest and noted that only three people at the sold-out Metropolitan Opera House asked for their money back. He asked to be introduced to Lena following her performance. In May 1981, The Nederlander Organization, Michael Frazier, and Fred Walker went on to book Horne for a four-week engagement at the newly named Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City. The show was an instant success and was extended to a full year run, garnering Horne a special Tony award, and two Grammy Awards for the cast recording of her show Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The 333-performance Broadway run closed on Horne's 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that same week, she performed the entire show again to record it for television broadcast and home video release. Horne began a tour a few days later at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) during the weekend of July 4, 1982. The Lady and Her Music toured 41 cities in the U.S. and Canada until June 17, 1984. It played in London for a month in August and ended its run in Stockholm, Sweden, September 14, 1984. In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for the show, which also played to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984. Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects. A proposed 1983 joint recording project between Horne and Frank Sinatra (to be produced by Quincy Jones) was ultimately abandoned, and her sole studio recording of the decade was 1988's The Men in My Life, featuring duets with Sammy Davis Jr. and Joe Williams. In 1989, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1995, a "live" album capturing Horne's Supper Club performance was released (subsequently winning a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album). In 1998, Horne released another studio album, entitled Being Myself. Thereafter, Horne retired from performing and largely retreated from public view, though she did return to the recording studio in 2000 to contribute vocal tracks on Simon Rattle's Classic Ellington album.

Civil rights activism

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of black servicemen", according to her Kennedy Center biography. Because the U.S. Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she staged her show for a mixed audience of black U.S. soldiers and white German POWs. Seeing the black soldiers had been forced to sit in the back seats, she walked off the stage to the first row where the black troops were seated and performed with the Germans behind her. After quitting the USO in 1945 because of the organization's policy of segregating audiences, Horne financed tours of military camps herself.

She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated. She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC, and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws. Tom Lehrer mentions her in his song "National Brotherhood Week" in the line "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek" referring (wryly) to her and to Sheriff Jim Clark, of Selma, Alabama, who was responsible for a violent attack on civil rights marchers in 1965. In 1983, the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal.

Horne was a registered Democrat and on November 20, 1963, she, along with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman John Bailey, Carol Lawrence, Richard Adler, Sidney Salomon, Vice-Chairwoman of the DNC Margaret B. Price, and Secretary of the DNC Dorothy Vredenburgh Bush, visited John F. Kennedy at The White House, two days prior to his assassination.

Personal life

Horne married Louis Jordan Jones, a political operative, in January 1937 in Pittsburgh. On December 21, 1937, their daughter, Gail (later known as Gail Lumet Buckley, a writer) was born. They had a son, Edwin Jones (February 7, 1940 – September 12, 1970) who died of kidney disease. Horne and Jones separated in 1940 and divorced in 1944. Horne's second marriage was to Lennie Hayton, who was music director and one of the premier musical conductors and arrangers at MGM, in December 1947 in Paris. They separated in the early 1960s, but never divorced; he died in 1971. In her as-told-to autobiography Lena by Richard Schickel, Horne recounts the enormous pressures she and her husband faced as an interracial couple. She later admitted in an interview in Ebony (May 1980) that she had married Hayton to advance her career and cross the "color-line" in show business.

Horne had affairs with Artie Shaw, Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli, and the boxer Joe Louis.

Horne also had a long and close relationship with Billy Strayhorn, whom she said she would have married if he had been heterosexual. He was also an important professional mentor to her. Screenwriter Jenny Lumet, known for her award-winning screenplay Rachel Getting Married, is Horne's granddaughter, the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet and Horne's daughter Gail. Her other grandchildren include Gail's other daughter, Amy Lumet, and her son's four children, Thomas, William, Samadhi, and Lena. Her great-grandchildren include Jake Cannavale.

From 1946 to 1962, Horne resided in a St. Albans, Queens, New York, enclave of prosperous African Americans, where she counted among her neighbors Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and other jazz luminaries.

Death

Horne died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 2010. Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York. Thousands gathered and attendees included Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Her remains were cremated.

Legacy

In 2003, ABC announced that Janet Jackson would star as Horne in a television biographical film. In the weeks following Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl, however, Variety reported that Horne had demanded Jackson be dropped from the project. "ABC executives resisted Horne's demand", according to the Associated Press report, "but Jackson representatives told the trade newspaper that she left willingly after Horne and her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, asked that she not take part." Oprah Winfrey stated to Alicia Keys during a 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she might possibly consider producing the biopic herself, casting Keys as Horne.

In January 2005, Blue Note Records, her label for more than a decade, announced that "the finishing touches have been put on a collection of rare and unreleased recordings by the legendary Horne made during her time on Blue Note." Remixed by her longtime producer Rodney Jones, the recordings featured Horne with a remarkably secure voice for a woman of her years, and include versions of such signature songs as "Something to Live For", "Chelsea Bridge", and "Stormy Weather". The album, originally titled Soul but renamed Seasons of a Life, was released on January 24, 2006. In 2007, Horne was portrayed by Leslie Uggams as the older Lena and Nikki Crawford as the younger Lena in the stage musical Stormy Weather staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (January to March 2009). In 2011, Horne was also portrayed by actress Ryan Jillian in a one-woman show titled Notes from A Horne staged at the Susan Batson studio in New York City, from November 2011 to February 2012. The 83rd Academy Awards presented a tribute to Horne by actress Halle Berry at the ceremony held February 27, 2011.

In 2018, a forever stamp depicting Horne began to be issued; this made Horne the 41st honoree in the Black Heritage stamp series.

#06/30 #05/09

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