Ferndale Film Festival

12/01/2024

People are not widgets, but are flesh, bones and souls. And public policy should inure to the good of all, and not just the few, in the same spirit with which Henry Ford once declared “I will build a car for the great multitude…so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”

On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford’s innovation of the full-chassis assembly line began churning Model Ts off at the Highland Park plant on…

10/31/2024

Houdini’s body was taken to the W. R. Hamilton and Company Funeral Home on Cass Avenue, where the remains were embalmed and stored there in a bronze coffin with a glass lid, which Houdini had intended to use as a prop for his act. The coffin was then placed in a crate and shipped by truck back to Michigan Central Station, where his body was taken by train to New York. Or so we think.

On this day in 1926, Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis at Detroit’s…

10/30/2024

Welles and company’s brilliant writing, production and Foley sounds were so masterful, perhaps as many as a million radio listeners believed a real Martian invasion was underway as bedlam broke out across the country. Who would do such a thing?

On October 30, 1938, boy-genius radio producer Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater players scared the pants off America with a…

10/24/2024

On this day in 1901, 63-year-old charm school teacher Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. After losing her husband in the Civil War, the New York-born Taylor moved all over the US before settling in Bay City, Michigan, around 1898.

An active and adventuresome woman, after commencing her young widowhood, Taylor found herself in a series of noteworthy scrapes. She survived a house fire in Chattanooga, an earthquake in South Carolina, and was held at gunpoint by highwaymen during a stage coach robbery in rural Texas.

"Blow away," she told the Texas bandits, as depicted in her memoir. "I would as soon be without my brains as without money." Of course, Taylor had $800 cash secreted in her dress at the time.

In July 1901, teaching the wealthy scions of Bay City to waltz, curtsy, bow and use the right fork was a tough racket, so reading an article on the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, she learned of the growing popularity of two enormous waterfalls located on the US-Canada border. Inspired by the derring-do of Houdini and others, Taylor had her brain storm; the widow would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

And here the details of the lesson enthrall. On her 63rd birthday, the the custom-crafted, white oak barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and Taylor climbed in, along with her lucky heart-shaped pillow. After screwing down the lid, boatmen used a bicycle tire pump to compress the air in the barrel. This hole was plugged with a cork, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, south of Goat Island and headed toward Horseshoe Falls.

Bobbing helplessly toward the brink, Edson felt a momentary calm perched atop the edge, before plunging into the cataract below. Churning and rolling first behind and then in front of the violent, watery veil, boatmen and spectators rushed in for a retrieval.

The trip itself took less than twenty minutes. "Good God!" shouted one of her shocked rescuers, fellow daredevil Carlisle Graham, upon opening the barrel, "She’s alive!" And with that, a woman had had beaten the very Falls which had years earlier claimed the life of British Captain Matthew Webb, the first human to swim the English Channel unaided.

After the journey, Annie Taylor told the press "If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat...I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall."

Taylor briefly earned money speaking about her experience, but was never able to build much wealth. Her manager, Frank M. Russell, ran off with her barrel, and most of her savings were depleted by private detectives hired to find it (and if you've ever met Frank P. Bonnette, you know how those characters can behave). The barrel briefly surfaced in Chicago, only to permanently disappear some time later.

Taylor spent her final years at the Falls, posing for photographs with tourists at her souvenir stand, attempting lucrative trades on the New York Stock Exchange, briefly speculating on a second plunge in 1906, trying to write a novel (harder than it looks), re-constructing her 1901 plunge on film (which was never seen), working as a clairvoyant, and providing "magnetic therapeutic treatments" to local residents.

Annie Taylor passed in 1921 at age 82, relatively peniless but so front-page famous that we just devoted 627 words to her 122 years to the day after her stunning victory over the Falls. She is interred in the "Stranger's Rest" section of Oakview Cemetary in Niagara County, and like any good clairvoyant, she loves visitors, so do drop in.

09/30/2024

On this day in 1955, cultural icon James Dean dies at age 24 in a horrible wreck on U.S. Route 446 in California. Dean was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed “Little Bastard,” headed to a car race in Salinas, with his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich, when they were involved in a head-on collision with a car driven by a 23-year-old college student Donald Turnaspeed.

Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m. Wuetherich, thrown from the car, survived the accident and Turnaspeed escaped with minor injuries; a coroner's inquest cleared him of wrongdoing.

Born February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica while still in grade school. Very close to his mother Mildred, the first of many female figures who could "understand him," Dean was sent back to Indiana after Mildred passed from cancer when Dean was just nine.

Living on his Aunt and Uncle's farm in Fairmount, Dean sought the counsel of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater.

According to some, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years." In 2011, it was reported Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death.

Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law.

He soon transferred to UCLA, changed his major to drama, and was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began training in James Whitmore's workshop, and by January 1951, he had dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career in the most uncertain of arts. Thespianism.

Initially Dean scored some television and small-role film work, before he moved to New York City, where he continued appearing in advertising, plays and TV programs and studied at the Actors Studio under legendary coach Lee Strasberg. With strong notices coming in for his growing body of work, Hollywood began calling.

Dean returned West, and rose to stardom in 1955 with his role as Cal Trask in East of Eden; he reportedly beat out Paul Newman for the part. Dean’s performance in the film, based on the John Steinbeck novel, earned him a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. It was the first time in Oscar history that an actor was nominated after his death.

The young actor’s next film was “Rebel Without a Cause,” also released in 1955, in which he played rebellious teen Jim Stark. The film, which co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, turned Dean into the poster boy for disaffected youth and cool.

Dean’s final film “Giant,” released in 1956 after his death, was an epic tale of a Texas cattle rancher and his family. Dean starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson and was nominated posthumously for a second Oscar for his performance as Jett Rink.

James Dean’s meteoric success as an actor enabled him to pursue his passion for racing cars and motorcycles, giving further voice to his passion, intellect and angst. A nurse by-standing at the Dean crash site detected a weak pulse, but said "death appeared to have been instantaneous" due to a broken neck and other mortal trauma.

Despite his short life and brief acting career, Dean endures as a Hollywood icon. Buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana, fans continue to flock to his grave every year and still more pay tribute to Dean at a memorial located near the accident site in Cholame, California, known as James Dean Junction.

08/23/2024

Sadly, not from The Onion.

08/17/2024

The sole survivor of the crash was four-year-old Cecelia Cichan of Tempe, Arizona. Romulus firemen found her still belted in her seat, faced down, covered in blood and soot. She was found several feet from the bodies of her mother, Paula Cichan, her father Michael and her six-year-old brother David. Cecelia sustained severe burns and fractures to her skull, collarbone, and left leg. She arrived at the hospital initially in critical condition, but later managed to make a full recovery.

On August 16, 1987, Northwest Flight 255 crashed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, killing 156 people. A four-year-old…

08/14/2024

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law. Flanked by ranking members of Congress, the 32nd President ratified an historic act guaranteeing an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.

Largely a measure to implement "social insurance" during the Great Depression of the 1930's, when poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50 percent, the act was an attempt to limit the unforeseen and the unprepared for dangers in the modern life, including old age, disability, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widow(er)s with and without children.

The idea of a federally funded pension plan was popularized by Francis Townsend in 1933, and the influence of the "Townsend Plan" movement on debate over social security persisted into the 1950s. Early debates on Social Security's design centered on how the program's benefits should be funded.

Some believed that benefits to individuals should be funded by contributions that they themselves had made over the course of their careers. Others argued that this design would disadvantage those who had already begun their careers at the time of the program's implementation because they would not have enough time to accumulate adequate benefits.

Social Security is funded primarily through payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (F**A) or Self Employed Contributions Act Tax (SECA). Tax deposits are collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the two Social Security Trust Funds.

The average monthly Social Security benefit for December 2019 was $1,382. The total cost of the program for that year was $1.059 trillion or about 5 percent of GDP for 2019.

Income derived from Social Security is currently estimated to have reduced the poverty rate for Americans age 65 or older from about 40 percent to below 10%. In 2018, the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund reported that the program will become financially insolvent in the year 2034.

Some serious pencil-sharpening must occur fairly soon, MAGA or no-MAGA......

08/13/2024

On this day in 1521, following a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés captured Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men promptly levelled the city, captured and then killed Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. Such were the followers of the Blessed Virgin when riled by gold and such.

Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunter-gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the remarkable sophisticated Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua.

At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitlán. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and a brisk burn-rate on victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept open rebellion at bay.

The conqueror of this advanced society, young Spanish-born noble Hernán Cortés, came to Hispaniola in the West Indies in 1504. In 1511, he sailed with Diego Velázquez to conquer Cuba and twice was elected mayor of Santiago, the capital of Hispaniola. In 1518, he was appointed captain general of a new Spanish expedition to the American mainland. Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, later rescinded the order, and Cortés sailed without permission.

Cortes visited the coast of Yucatán and in March 1519 landed at Tabasco in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche with 500 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. There, he won over the local Indians and was given a female slave, Malinche–baptized Marina–who became his mistress and later bore him a son.

Marina knew both Maya and Aztec and served as an interpreter. The expedition then proceeded up the Mexican coast, where the ambitious Cortés founded Veracruz, mainly for the purpose of having himself elected captain general by the colony, thus shaking off the authority of Velázquez and making him responsible only to King Charles V of Spain.

At Veracruz, Cortés trained his army and then burned his ships to ensure loyalty to his plans for conquest. Having learned of political strife in the Aztec empire, Cortés led his force into the Mexican interior. On the way to Tenochtitlán, he clashed with local Indians, but many of these people, including the nation of Tlaxcala, became his allies after learning of his plan to conquer their hated Aztec rulers.

Upon hearing of the approach of Cortés, with his frightful horses and sophisticated weapons, Montezuma II tried to buy him off, but Cortés would not be dissuaded. On November 8, 1519, the Spaniards and their 1,000 Tlaxcaltec warriors were allowed to enter Tenochtitlán unopposed.

Montezuma believed them to be divine envoys of the god Quetzalcatl, who was prophesied to return from the east in a “One Reed” year, which was 1519 on the Aztec calendar. The Spaniards were greeted with great honor, and Cortés seized the opportunity, taking Montezuma hostage so that he might govern the empire through him. His mistress, Marina, was a great help in this endeavor and succeeded in convincing Montezuma to cooperate fully.

In the spring of 1520, Cortés learned of the arrival of a Spanish force from Cuba, led by Pánfilo Narvez and sent by Velázquez to deprive Cortés of his command. Cortés led his army out of Tenochtitlán to meet them, leaving behind a garrison of 80 Spaniards and a few hundred Tlaxcaltecs to govern the city. Cortés defeated Narvez and enlisted Narvez’ army into his own.

When Cortes returned to Tenochtitlán in June, he found the garrison under siege from the Aztecs, who had rebelled after the subordinate whom Cortés left in command of the city massacred several Aztec chiefs, pushing the population to the brink of revolt. On June 30, under pressure and lacking food, Cortés and his men fought their way out of the capital at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, or “the Night of Sadness,” many soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasures hoarded by Cortés sank. Montezuma was killed in the fighting–in Aztec reports by the Spaniards, and in Spanish reports by an Aztec mob bitter at Montezuma’s subservience to Spanish rule. He was succeeded as emperor by his brother, Cuitláhuac.

During the Spaniards’ retreat, they defeated a large Aztec army at Otumba and then rejoined their Tlaxcaltec allies. In May 1521, Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán, and after a three-month siege the city fell. This victory marked the fall of the Aztec empire. Cuauhtámoc, Cuitláhuac’s successor as emperor, was taken prisoner and later executed, and Cortés became the ruler of a vast Mexican empire.

The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to Honduras in 1524 and in 1528 returned to Spain to see the king. Charles made him Marqués del Valle but refused to name him governor because of his quarrels with Velázquez and others. In 1530, he returned to Mexico, now known as New Spain, and found the country in disarray. After restoring some order, he retired to his estate south of Mexico City and sent out maritime expeditions from the Pacific coast. In 1540, he returned to Spain where he was neglected by the court as a gilipolas, or do*****ag.

He died in 1547, presumably alone and bereft of genuine affection.

08/10/2024

CURATED FROM THE GREAT LAKES AND SEAWAY SHIPPING NEWS: 1890--TWO FANNIES (three-mast wooden bark, 152 feet, 492 gross tons, built in 1862 at Peshtigo, Wisconsin) was carrying 800 tons of iron ore on Lake Erie when a seam opened in rough weather. The crew kept at the pumps to no avail. They all made it into the yawl just as the bark sank north of Bay Village, Ohio. CITY OF DETROIT tried to rescue the crew, but the weather prevented and only two men got to her. The tug JAMES AMADEUS came out and got the rest of the crew, including the ship’s cat, which was with them in the yawl. 1906--JOHN H. PAULEY (formerly THOMPSON KINSFORD, wooden propeller steam barge, 116 feet, 185 gross tons, built in 1880 at Oswego, New York) caught fire at Marine City, Michigan. Her lines were burned through, and she then drifted 3 miles down the St. Clair River before beaching near Port Lambton, Ontario, and burning out.1969--The EDMUND FITZGERALD set the last of many cargo records during the 1960s. The FITZGERALD loaded 27,402 gross tons of taconite pellets at Silver Bay on this date. This record was broken by the FITZGERALD’s sister ship, the ARTHUR B. HOMER, during the 1970 shipping season.

Auf der Klippe we have 66 degrees under partly cloudy skies, WSW winds gusting to 19 knots, pressure steady at 30" and 10 miles visibility. CSL ST-LAURENT is downbound for Montreal, JOYCE L VANENKEVORT is upbound for Calcite, and all is gusty and well.

08/06/2024

Notwithstanding contemporary and revisionist hand-wringing regarding the eventual two-pulls on the nuclear trigger, Japan had formulated Operation Ketsu-go, the final act of Japan’s “Holy War.” Contemplating mobilization of 60-plus million civilians armed and trained with hand grenades, swords, sickles, knives, fire hooks, and bamboo spears joining with the regular forces, the US braced for a populace committed to “inflicting tremendous casualties on US forces...." The Joint Chiefs estimated the US would experience 1.2 million casualties, with 267,000 deaths; USN mortality figures ranged as high as 800,000 US lives potentially lost.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:16 a.m. local time, the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay dropped atom bomb “Little Boy” over the city of Hiroshima. The…

08/04/2024

On this day in 1944, acting on tip from a Dutch informer, the Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in the sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. Her diary miraculously survived the war, overlooked by the N***s that discovered the hiding place; nearly all of Anne's family and friends living and hiding in the "secret annex" perished in the N**i death camps.

After 80 years, historians and observers still ponder what force of will or divinity preserved her voice in order that countless millions would hear it, heed it and vow never again.

Early on in the N**i regime of Adolf Hi**er, Anne’s father, Otto Frank (1889–1980), a German businessman, fled with his wife and two daughters to live in Amsterdam. In 1941, after German forces occupied the Netherlands, Anne was transferred from a public school to a Jewish one for less visibility.

On June 12, 1942, she received a red-and-white plaid diary for her 13th birthday. That very day she began writing in the book: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”

When Anne’s older sister Margot came under a deportation order, presumably to a forced-labor camp, the Franks went into hiding on July 6, 1942, in the backroom office and warehouse of Otto Frank’s food-products business. With the aid of a few non-Jewish friends, among them Miep Gies, who smuggled in food and other provisions, the Frank family and four other Jews remained behind the woodwork; Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son, Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer lived in cramped quarters together with the four Franks in the secret annex.

During this time, Anne wrote faithfully in her diary, recounting day-to-day life in hiding, from ordinary annoyances to the fear of capture. She discussed typical adolescent issues as well as her hopes for the future, which included becoming a journalist or a writer. Anne’s last diary entry was written on August 1, 1944. Three days later the annex was discovered by the Gestapo, which was acting on a tip from Dutch informers.

The Franks and fellow lodgers were transported to Westerbork, a transit camp in the Netherlands, and from there to Auschwitz, in German-occupied Poland; Anne and Margot were transferred to Bergen-Belsen the following month. Anne’s mother died in early January, 1945 just before the evacuation of Auschwitz on January 18.

It was established by the Dutch government and other scholars that both Anne and Margot died in a typhus epidemic in February or March 1945, only weeks before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. Otto Frank was found hospitalized at Auschwitz when it was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.

Friends who searched the hiding place after the family’s capture later gave the lone survivor, Otto Frank, the papers left behind by the Gestapo. Among them he found Anne’s diary, which was published as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, originally in Dutch. Precocious in style and insight, it traces her emotional growth amid adversity. In it she wrote, “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart.”

Anne's diary, which has been translated into more than 65 languages, is the most widely read account of the Holocaust, and Anne is probably the best known of Holocaust victims. The Diary was also made into a play that premiered on Broadway in October 1955, and in 1956 it won both the Tony Award for best play and the Pulitzer Prize for best drama. A film version directed by George Stevens was produced in 1959.

Meanwhile, each year not less than 1.2 million visitors walk through the Anne Frank House and secret annex at Prinsengracht 263, presumably in quiet, reverent horror and sadness.

If, after reading this brief summary, folks in the US can still seek to re-embrace our recent past in which antisemitc incidents rose by 35 percent upon the violent sentiments of Charlottesville, the Tree of Life massacre and January 6th "peaceful protests," it may be time for robust, if not religious self-examination.

07/31/2024

DETROIT, MI--(AP)--While he remains missing and presumed dead for decades, Teamster president James Riddle Hoffa's comb has resurfaced in the home of a retired police detective.

DNA confirmation was recently provided by Oakland University Medical School, according to the collector, who requested anonymity. "I won it in a three-day card game. I had already bet my pants and underwear. Don't tell my wife or she'll kill me," said the cautious owner, Frank P. Bonnette.

Mrs. Bonnette did not respond to requests for comment by press-time.

07/29/2024

On this day in 1588, off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called “Invincible Armada” is defeated by Queen Elizabeth I's English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. After days of bombardment and a brilliant assault by British fire ships, fanatical King Phillip II's dream of religious conquest was dashed on the rocks and silty bottom of the Channel.

By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain in October, half of the original Armada was lost and some 15,000 men had perished. Queen Elizabeth’s decisive defeat of the Invincible Armada made England a world-class power, introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, ended the era of boarding and close-quarter fighting, and made her the very first English rock star.

Elizabeth I (September 7 1533 – March 24 1603) was made Queen of England and Ireland from November 17, 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the last monarch of the House of Tudor. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was beheaded two-and-a-half years after Elizabeth's birth, reportedly while Elizabeth looked on. Anne's marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-brother, sickly Edward VI, ruled for only six years until his death in 1553, aged 15 years.

On his deathbed, Edward bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey, a 15-year-old first-cousin once-removed, ignoring the legal claims of his two half-sisters Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary. Lady Jane in turn reigned for nine full days before being deposed by Mary I and remanded to The Tower; she was beheaded and according to some, eventually memorialized in a pretty cool Rolling Stones song on the Aftermath album.

Mary I was no great shakes herself; short, stout, and of peculiarly unpleasant visage. A hysterically devout Roman Catholic, she reigned for only five years to her own death but wreaked havoc, working to return England to Catholicism, restoring papal authority and undoing various reforms to the English church instituted by half-brother Edward. She also resurrected laws against heresy, saw to it not less than 300 Protestants were burned alive at the stake, and married douche-weasel Prince Philip of Spain, a dead-ringer for Donald Trump Jr., and an ill-fated loser whose Armada was whooped by Elizabeth on this day.

Among those killed by Mary were Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury and an adviser to kings Henry VIII and Edward VI, and Mary’s father and brother. Mary herself, in turn, lives on at weekend brunches within the tomato-based hangover-cure cocktail bearing her nickname.

Finally in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel, a new concept. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England.

It was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line; she never did, despite numerous courtships. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity, wisdom, curiosity and occasional whimsy, and ushered in an era of English civic and cultural life unparalleled to this day. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the era, and she caused Cate Blanchett to win a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Best Actress nomination.

And thusly, finally, the lesson endeth.

07/28/2024

A function of this lurching societal progress was the Great Migration in the 20th century, when millions of Black families left slave-like conditions in the Jim Crow South seeking work in northern industrial cities. Detroit’s Black population ballooned 20-fold from around 6,000 in 1910 to 120,000 in 1930, and by 1920, 80-plus percent of Detroit’s Black men were employed in the city’s auto and related industries.

July 28, 1868, following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment was officially adopted into…

07/19/2024

Come join the Twilight Sentinels at Oak City Grille July 31st for the mirth and magic of music on International World Ranger Day.
Yes, they are all still alive. Be there, Aloha....

See The Twilight Sentinels at Oak City Grille on July 31st

06/22/2024

On this day in 1950, the pamphlet-style screed Red Channels is released, purporting to name 151 actors, writers, musicians, broadcast journalists, and others in the context of Communist manipulation of the entertainment industry. Among those fingered were Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Burgess Meredith, Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Artie Shaw.

The pamphlet was a special edition of the publication "Counterattack," a periodical produced in turn by American Business Consultants, Inc., the proto-right-wing think tank founded by textile importer-John Bircher Arthur Kohlberg and three disgruntled FBI agents.

The tract came three years after formation of the original House Un-American Activities Committee, and three months after Joe McCarthy's infamous speech in Wheeling WV. It shrilly claimed active Communist efforts through "(S)everal commercially sponsored dramatic series used as sounding boards, particularly with reference to current issues in which the Party is critically interested: 'academic freedom,' 'civil rights,' 'peace,' the H-bomb, etc . . . With radios in most American homes and with approximately 5 million TV sets in use . . . ."

In its format, Red Channels listed the 151 professionals in entertainment and on-air journalism whom it clearly implied were among "the Red Fascists and their sympathizers" in the broadcasting field. Each of the names was followed by a raw list of ostensibly telling data, with the sources of evidence varying from FBI and HUAC citations to newspaper articles culled from the mainstream press, industry trade sheets, and such Communist publications as the Daily Worker.

Scores of those individuals named in the full Hollywood Blacklist lost employment, income and standing within their communities, and often, their own families. In the end, Red Channels caused some of those named to be blacklisted, Pete Seeger among them, and to fight publicly to prove their “loyalty” to the United States. Still others caved in to the pressure to repudiate their political pasts and provide the HUAC with names of other suspected prominent leftists.

Several of those who named names, like director Elia Kazan and writer Bud Schulberg, argued for years after that they had made an ethically proper decision. Others, like actor Lee J. Cobb and director Michael Gordon, who gave friendly testimony to HUAC after suffering on the blacklist for a time, "conceded with remorse that their plan was to name their way back to work."

And then there were those more gravely haunted by the choice they had made; in 1963, actor Sterling Hayden declared, "I was a rat, a stoolie, and the names I named of those close friends were blacklisted and deprived of their livelihood."

For the most handy modern analog, look to the hysteria surrounding QAnon, "groomers," the "Woke Mob," Antifa, BLM, "Illegals" and the "Stop the Steal" folks. So here, our story of ignorance, cruelty and hysteria posing as patriotism and decency endeth.