Eyes on Havana Harbor: This Date in History

  • Thread starter Thread starter donbosco
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 1K
  • Views: 371K
  • Off-Topic 
BTW, thank you for planting "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" as one of the longest lasting earworms I've had in years. ;)

Such a great song and I hadn't thought about it in a long time.
 
BTW, thank you for planting "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" as one of the longest lasting earworms I've had in years. ;)

Such a great song and I hadn't thought about it in a long time.


How about the woman that inspired the song singing it at the age of 91 (only 2 months ago I believe).

 
If you love the game you owe some gratitude to these guys. “Today (Feb 13) in 1923, the first all-Black basketball team—the New York Renaissance—was established by Bob Douglas in Harlem. They won the 1939 World Championship. Douglas was the first Black man in the NBA Hall of Fame, guiding the Rens to a 2,318-381 record.”
 
IMG_3543.jpeg

When the character of Sheriff Andy Taylor first appeared in an episode of ‘The Danny Thomas Show,’ aired on February 15, 1960, he was more a bad cop than a good one and in some early episodes of his own show Griffith continued in that role - as an opportunist and slightly mean-spirited trickster. Indeed, sarcasm morphing in to a smidgen or two of sadism is typical enough in rural humor to make it downright hurtful as southern novelists have shown out at times.

Public teasing can come off as mean and go too far. The spectacle of Addie’s decomposing corpse, transported by the poor Bundrens, is an example from Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying.’ The mockery of Boo Radley in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ hits a similar spot where kidding becomes cruel. In both cases the grittiness of The South drenches us in sweaty matted dust not easily washed away.

But that’s not the Andy that we love — we know now that Griffith made a conscious move away from that sort of representation by the second season. And it’s a good thing for us all - if any of you have seen ‘Face in the Crowd’ you know the kind of malevolence that Griffith could muster up. Thankfully Sheriff Taylor stepped away from that and toward the honest, wise, and thoughtful lawman that we guarded the wise and the simple with a heart of gold.
 
Last edited:
IMG_3556.jpeg

#OTD (Feb. 15) in 1898 an explosion of “unknown origin” sank the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor. 266 died. A blockade of Cuba ensued and war with Spain began in late April. The Terms ‘Yellow Journalism’ and Empire are key to understanding this war—as are Exceptionalism and Racism.

Today the rattling of sabres mixes with the low, steady murmurs of greed, all umbrella-cloaked in protestations of fake pro-democracy sentiments as once again grasping imperialism rears its head in Washington. All that backfilled with a Kiplingesque cadence reciting “The White Man’s Burden” and marching, soaring, and sailing to reoccupy Havana Harbor and bring 21st century Real Estate values to Olde Havana —once and for all.

The “Yellow Journalism” of the historical papers inspires anew a branch of the media so thoroughly propaganda that William Randolph Hearst himself would pale at the brazen product while admiring the thrall enveloping so many, so completely. Even such as he could not have imagined a cultish following so utterly ovine.

Many morning papers of February 16, 1898 shouted to the nation of the tragedy - many called for revenge. Covetous gazes had long spied south into the Caribbean from the Colossus of The North and the sinking of The USS Maine was the spark that worked to take in territory in the region. Serendipitous by the figuring of most in current calculations, designs on the region under trumpism, while easily matching the greed, appear destined to surpass the previous lawlessness.
 
Last edited:
Although Hearst denies he said this, Diogenes would have never taken a second look at him.


William Randolph Hearst, a prominent newspaper publisher, is credited with saying "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" to artist Frederic Remington in 1897. The quote, often cited as a key example of yellow journalism, allegedly came in response to Remington's report that there would be no war in Cuba.
 
“Henry Berry Lowry was a great, great man” goes the song. #OTD 1872 Lumbee Legend Henry Berry Lowry & accomplices made their last raid in Robeson Cty, taking $28K. He disappeared 4 days later & was never publicly heard from again. The story is complex & debated. Start reading here:

https://ncpedia.org/biography/lowry-henry
That would be the rough equivalent of 750,000 today.
 
Back
Top