#Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Ronald Reagan

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

For more than 70 years, a slender volume written by a dockworker who died in 1983 has been handed around by presidents, would-be presidents, journalists, students, and more as a guide—decade after decade—to epochal and baffling events. 

Published in 1951 in the shadow of World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union, Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements became one of President Dwight Eisenhower’s favorite books. As the former Supreme Allied Commander of European forces during World War II, Eisenhower saw firsthand the rise of mass movements and how they turn destructive. During one of the nation’s first televised presidential press conferences, he cited the book, turning it into a bestseller. 

Hoffer, often called “the longshoreman philosopher,” was admired across the political aisle. In 1967 he was an overnight guest of President Lyndon Johnson at the White House. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Years after Hoffer’s death, his book was rushed back into print and sold briskly when, in the new millennium, people turned to The True Believer to explain the attacks of 9/11. Decades before the terrorists commandeered the planes, Hoffer wrote: 

All the true believers of our time declaimed volubly. . . on the decadence of the Western democracies. The burden of their talk is that in the democracies people are too soft, too pleasure-loving, and too selfish to die for a nation, a God, or a holy cause. This lack of a readiness to die, we are told, is indicative of an inner rot—a moral and biological decay.

Since then, journalists have cited the book as a source to explain both the creation of the Tea Party on the right and the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left. 

In 2016, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to better understand her opponent Donald Trump and his followers, read what she later wrote was Hoffer’s “exploration of the psychology behind fanaticism and mass movements, and I shared it with my senior staff.”

For readers today, Hoffer’s descriptions of the nature of these movements and the people who join them are timelier and more trenchant than ever. The book—the paperback edition is fewer than 170 pages—is divided into 125 “chapters” ranging from a few sentences to several pages. These are mostly epigrammatic observations that build into a portrait of the personalities and forces that create mass movements.

As The Wall Street Journal wrote: “If you want concise insights into what drives the mind of the fanatic and the dynamics of a mass movement at their most primal level, may I suggest an evening with Eric Hoffer.”

I first learned of The True Believer in the summer of 2020. I was out of the U.S. getting my PhD in psychology at the University of Cambridge. I had already begun publishing my own social observations, which led to an interview with a Dutch media outlet on cancel culture. The interview was posted and got a lot of views, which prompted the head of the outlet to take it down because he felt I was too sympathetic to the canceled.

I wrote a piece in Quillette on the irony of being canceled for expressing my thoughts on the canceled, and noted, “The U.S. used to export Coca-Cola, television shows, and music. Today, we export outrage, deplatforming, and social mobbing.”

A fellow student in my program saw the piece and told me I had to read The True Believer. I did, and like Eisenhower, it quickly became one of my favorite books. There were passages—published in 1951!—that seemed to describe how the rise of intellectual and social orthodoxy on campus, and across a growing number of institutions, stifles debate and free expression. More than that, Hoffer captured how in the age of smartphones and social media, people fear the consequences of uttering a single wrong word. He wrote:

[I]n a mass movement, the air is heavy-laden with suspicion. There is prying and spying, tense watching, and a tense awareness of being watched. The surprising thing is that this pathological mistrust within the ranks leads not to dissension but to strict conformity. Knowing themselves continually watched, the faithful strive to escape suspicion by adhering zealously to prescribed behavior and opinion. Strict orthodoxy is as much the result of mutual suspicion as of ardent faith. 

[...] Hoffer also described how language gets enlisted as a marker of who really is a true believer:

Simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer. He seems to use words as if he were ignorant of their true meaning. Hence, too, his taste for quibbling, hair-splitting, and scholastic tortuousness.

I wonder what Hoffer would make of a world in which some words are so pregnant with meaning that the phrase “pregnant women” has become verboten. […]

One of the key and enduring insights of The True Believer is that frustration is the fuel of mass movements. Frustration, though, doesn’t arise solely from bleak material conditions. Hoffer argued, “Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some.”

He points out in the years leading up to both the French and Russian Revolutions, life had in fact been gradually improving for the masses. He concludes, “The intensity of discontent seems to be in inverse proportion to the distance from the object fervently desired.” […]

In a passage in The True Believer that is reminiscent of today’s idea of the “horseshoe theory”—that is, political extremes have more in common with one another than with moderates—Hoffer wrote, “When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are usually ripe for any movement. . . . In pre–Hitlerian Germany, it was often a toss-up whether a restless youth would join the Communists or the Nazis.” One of his most famous aphorisms is this:

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. . . . Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil.”

[cozyaliensuperstar7]

Eleanor Rosalynn Carter née Smith; (August 18, 1927 – November 19, 2023) was an American writer and activist who served as the first lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981, as the wife of President Jimmy Carter. For the decades she was in public service, she was a leading advocate for numerous causes, including mental health.

Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, graduated as valedictorian of Plains High School, and soon after attended Georgia Southwestern College, where she graduated in 1946. She first became attracted to her husband, also from Plains, after seeing a picture of him in his U.S. Naval Academy uniform, and they married in 1946. Carter helped her husband win the governorship of Georgia in 1970, and decided to focus her attention in the field of mental health when she was that state's first lady. She campaigned for her husband during his successful bid to become president of the United States in the 1976 election defeating incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford.

Carter was politically active during her husband's presidency, though she declared that she had no intention of being a traditional first lady. During his term of office, Carter supported her husband's public policies as well as his social and personal life. In order to remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. Carter also represented her husband in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, including as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. He found her to be an equal partner. She campaigned for his re-election bid in the 1980 election, which he lost to Republican Ronald Reagan.

After leaving the White House in 1981, Carter continued to advocate for mental health and other causes, and wrote several books. She and her husband contributed to the expansion of the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity. Carter was the second-longest-lived first lady after Bess Truman, and was the longest-married first lady. She and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. She died on November 19, 2023, two days after it had been announced that she had entered hospice care.

[bm2ab]

Arrivals & Departures . 26 March 1930 – 01 December 2023 . Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. O'Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A moderate conservative, O'Connor was known for her precisely researched opinions. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered a swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first four months of the Roberts Court. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was an Arizona state judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

O'Connor usually sided with the Court's conservative bloc but demonstrated an ability to side with the Court's liberal members. She often wrote concurring opinions that sought to limit the reach of the majority holding. Her majority opinions in landmark cases include Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. In 2000, she wrote in part the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore and in 1992 was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that preserved legal access to abortion in the United States. On July 1, 2005, O'Connor announced her retirement, effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005 and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.

During her term on the Court, O'Connor was regarded as among the most powerful women in the world. After retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as the chancellor of the College of William & Mary. In 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama

[justforbooks]

Michael King Jr., commonly known as Martin Luther King Jr., was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Sr..

King participated in and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with some success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were several dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963, forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and, in 1964, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.

On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and the most populous county in Washington State was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Works

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958)

The Measure of a Man (1959)

Strength to Love (1963)

Why We Can't Wait (1964)

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

The Trumpet of Conscience (1968)

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (1986)

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998), ed. Clayborne Carson

"All Labor Has Dignity" (2011) ed. Michael Honey

"Thou, Dear God": Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits Collection of King's prayers. (2011), ed. Lewis Baldwin

MLK: A Celebration in Word and Image Photographed by Bob Adelman, introduced by Charles Johnson

King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities. On October 14, 1964, King became the (at the time) youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the U.S. In 1965, he was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee for his "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty." In his acceptance remarks, King said, "Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free."

In 1957, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. Two years later, he won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity." Also in 1966, King was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In November 1967 he made a 24-hour trip to the United Kingdom to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University, being the first African-American to be so honoured by Newcastle. In a moving impromptu acceptance speech, he said:

There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.

In addition to being nominated for three Grammy Awards, the civil rights leader posthumously won for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1971 for "Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam".

In 1977, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was posthumously awarded to King by President Jimmy Carter. The citation read:

Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet.

King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

King was second in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In 1963, he was named Time Person of the Year, and in 2000, he was voted sixth in an online "Person of the Century" poll by the same magazine. King placed third in the Greatest American contest conducted by the Discovery Channel and AOL.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of Eubie Blake who died February 12, 1983 in Brooklyn, New York

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake, was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works.

Eubie Blake was born February 7, 1887, at 319 Forrest Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the many children born to former slaves Emily "Emma" Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive childhood. John Sumner Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks.

Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003—U.S. Census, military, and Social Security records and Blake's passport application and passport—uniformly give his birth year as 1887.

Blake's musical training began when he was four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’ around". When his mother found him, the store manager said to her, "The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent." The Blakes purchased a pump organ for US$75.00, making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from a neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist for the Methodist church. At age 15, without his parents' knowledge, he began playing piano at Aggie Shelton's Baltimore bordello. Blake got his first big break in the music business in 1907, when the world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans's Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan club" in Baltimore. Blake played at the Goldfield during the winters from 1907–1914, spending his summers playing clubs in Atlantic City. During this period, he also studied composition in Baltimore with Llewellyn Wilson.

According to Blake, he also worked the medicine show circuit and was employed by a Quaker doctor. He played a Melodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon. Blake stayed with the show only two weeks, however, because the doctor's religion didn't allow the serving of Sunday dinner.

Blake said he composed the melody of the "Charleston Rag" in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old. It was not committed to paper, however, until 1915, when he learned to write musical notation.

In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music, which was still quite popular. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with the performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville musical act, the Dixie Duo. After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated songs they had written, and had a book written by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musical also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way." Rudolf Fisher insisted that Shuffle Along "had ruined his favorite places of African-American sociability in Harlem" due to the influx of white patrons. The reliance on "stereotypical black stage humor" and "the primitivist conventions of cabaret," in the words of Thomas Brothers, made the show a hit, running for 504 performances with 3 years of national tours.

Blake made his first recordings in 1917, for the Pathé record label and for Ampico piano rolls. In the 1920s he recorded for the Victor and Emerson labels among others.

In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee de Forest in de Forest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process: Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, featuring their song "Affectionate Dan"; Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs, featuring "Sons of Old Black Joe" and "My Swanee Home"; and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River, featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection in the Library of Congress collection. He also appeared in Warner Brothers' 1932 short film Pie, Pie Blackbird with the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, and Noble Sissle. That same year he and his orchestra provided as well most of the music for the film Harlem Is Heaven.

In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee, proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895, when both attended Primary School No. 2, at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910, Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.

In 1938, Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She died later that year, at the age of 58. Of his loss, Blake said, "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time."

While serving as bandleader with the USO during World War II, he met Marion Grant Tyler, the widow of the violinist Willy Tyler. Blake and Tyler married in 1945. She was a performer and a businesswoman and became his valued business manager until her death in 1982. In 1946, Blake retired from performing and enrolled in New York University, where he studied the Schillinger System of music composition, graduating in two and a half years. He spent the next two decades using the Schillinger System to transcribe songs that he had memorized but had never written down.

In the 1970s and 1980s, public interest in Blake's music rekindled following the release of his 1969 retrospective album, The 86 Years of Eubie Blake.

Blake was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. He was featured by leading conductors, such as Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler. In 1977 he played Will Williams in the Jeremy Kagan biographical film Scott Joplin. By 1975, he had been awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, the University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth. On October 9, 1981, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.

Eubie!, a revue featuring the music of Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, Andy Razaf, Johnny Brandon, F. E. Miller, and Jim Europe, opened on Broadway in 1978. The show was a hit at the Ambassador Theatre, where it ran for 439 performances. The production received three nominations for Tony Awards, including one for Blake's score. The show was filmed in 1981 with the original cast members, including Lesley Dockery, Gregory Hines and Maurice Hines. Blake performed with Gregory Hines on the television program Saturday Night Live on March 10, 1979.

Blake continued to play and record until his death, on February 12, 1983, in Brooklyn, five days after events celebrating his purported 100th birthday(which was actually his 96th birthday).

He was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His headstone, engraved with the musical notation of "I'm Just Wild About Harry", was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society. The bronze sculpture of Blake's bespectacled face was created by David Byer-Tyre, curator and director of the African American Museum and Center for Education and Applied Arts, in Hempstead, New York. The original inscription indicated his correct year of birth, but individuals close to him insisted that Blake be indulged and paid to have the inscription changed.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 17, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

The crisis in Texas continues, with almost 2 million people still without power in frigid temperatures. Pipes are bursting in homes, pulling down ceilings and flooding living spaces, while 7 million Texans are under a water boil advisory.

Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, put on Facebook: “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!... If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! [sic]…. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts…. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves!... Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!” “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish [sic],” he said.

After an outcry, Boyd resigned.

Boyd’s post was a fitting tribute to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who passed today from lung cancer at age 70. It was Limbaugh who popularized the idea that hardworking white men were under attack in America. According to him, minorities and feminists were too lazy to work, and instead expected a handout from the government, paid for by tax dollars levied from hardworking white men. This, he explained, was “socialism,” and it was destroying America.

Limbaugh didn’t invent this theory; it was the driving principle behind Movement Conservatism, which rose in the 1950s to combat the New Deal government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and promoted infrastructure. But Movement Conservatives' efforts to get voters to reject the system that they credited for creating widespread prosperity had little success.

In 1971, Lewis Powell, an attorney for the tobacco industry, wrote a confidential memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce outlining how business interests could overturn the New Deal and retake control of America. Powell focused on putting like-minded scholars and speakers on college campuses, rewriting textbooks, stacking the courts, and pressuring politicians. He also called for “reaching the public generally” through television, newspapers, and radio. “[E]very available means should be employed to challenge and refute unfair attacks,” he wrote, “as well as to present the affirmative case through this media.”

Pressing the Movement Conservative case faced headwinds, however, since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a policy that, in the interests of serving the community, required any outlet that held a federal broadcast license to present issues honestly, equitably, and with balance. This “Fairness Doctrine” meant that Movement Conservatives had trouble gaining traction, since voters rejected their ideas when they were stacked up against the ideas of Democrats and traditional Republicans, who agreed that the government had a role to play in the economy (even though they squabbled about the extent of that role).

In 1985, under a chair appointed by President Ronald Reagan, the FCC stated that the Fairness Doctrine hurt the public interest. Two years later, under another Reagan-appointed chair, the FCC abolished the rule.

With the Fairness Doctrine gone, Rush Limbaugh stepped into the role of promoting the Movement Conservative narrative. He gave it the concrete examples, color, and passion it needed to jump from think tanks and businessmen to ordinary voters who could help make it the driving force behind national policy. While politicians talked with veiled language about “welfare queens” and same-sex bathrooms, and “makers” and “takers,” Limbaugh played “Barack the Magic Negro,” talked of “femiNazis,” and said “Liberals” were “socialists,” redistributing tax dollars from hardworking white men to the undeserving.

Constantly, he hammered on the idea that the federal government threatened the freedom of white men, and he did so in a style that his listeners found entertaining and liberating.

By the end of the 1980s, Limbaugh’s show was carried on more than 650 radio stations, and in 1992, he briefly branched out into television with a show produced by Roger Ailes, who had packaged Richard Nixon in 1968 and would go on to become the head of the Fox News Channel. Before the 1994 midterm elections, Limbaugh was so effective in pushing the Republicans’ “Contract With America” that when the party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1952, the Republican revolutionaries made him an honorary member of their group.

Limbaugh told them that, under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Republicans must “begin an emergency dismantling of the welfare system, which is shredding the social fabric,” bankrupting the country, and “gutting the work ethic, educational performance, and moral discipline of the poor.” Next, Congress should cut capital gains taxes, which would drive economic growth, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and generate billions in federal revenue.

Limbaugh kept staff in Washington to make sure Republican positions got through to voters. At the same time, every congressman knew that taking a stand against Limbaugh would earn instant condemnation on radio channels across the country, and they acted accordingly.

Limbaugh saw politics as entertainment that pays well for the people who can rile up their base with compelling stories—Limbaugh’s net worth when he died was estimated at $600 million—but he sold the Movement Conservative narrative well. He laid the groundwork for the political career of Donald Trump, who awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a made-for-tv moment at Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address. His influence runs deep in the current party: former Mayor Boyd, an elected official, began his diatribe with: “Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute!!”

Like Boyd, other Texas politicians are also falling back on the Movement Conservative narrative to explain the disaster in their state. The crisis was caused by a lack of maintenance on Texas’s unregulated energy grid, which meant that instruments at coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants froze, at the same time that supplies of natural gas fell short. Nonetheless, Governor Greg Abbott and his allies in the fossil fuel industry went after “liberal” ideas. They blamed the crisis on the frozen wind turbines and solar plants which account for about 13% of Texas’s winter power. Abbott told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity that “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” Tucker Carlson told his viewers that Texas was “totally reliant on windmills.”

The former Texas governor and former Secretary of Energy under Trump, Rick Perry, wrote on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s website to warn against regulation of Texas’s energy system: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” he said. The website warned that “Those watching on the left may see the situation in Texas as an opportunity to expand their top-down, radical proposals. Two phrases come to mind: don’t mess with Texas, and don’t let a crisis go to waste.”

At Abbott’s request, President Biden has declared that Texas is in a state of emergency, freeing up federal money and supplies for the state. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent 60 generators to state hospitals, water plants, and other critical facilities, along with blankets, food, and bottled water. It is also delivering diesel fuel for backup power.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[blackkudos]

Pearl Bailey

Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special, Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale.

Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. She received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1976 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988.

Early life

Bailey was born in Newport News, Virginia, United States, to the Reverend Joseph James and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey. She was raised in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in nearby Norfolk, Virginia, the first city in the region to offer higher education for black students. Blues singer Ruth Brown from Portsmouth, Virginia was one of her classmates.

She made her stage-singing debut when she was 15 years old. Her brother Bill Bailey was beginning his own career as a tap dancer, and suggested she enter an amateur contest at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia. Bailey won and was offered $35 a week to perform there for two weeks. However, the theatre closed during her engagement and she was not paid. She later won a similar competition at Harlem's famous Apollo Theater and decided to pursue a career in entertainment.

Career

Bailey began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia's black nightclubs in the 1930s, and soon started performing in other parts of the East Coast. In 1941, during World War II, Bailey toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman. For her performance, she won a Donaldson Award as the best Broadway newcomer. Bailey continued to tour and record albums in between her stage and screen performances. Early in the television medium, Bailey guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town.

Her support of female impersonator Lynne Carter led him to credit Bailey with launching his career.

In 1967, Bailey and Cab Calloway headlined an all-black cast version of Hello, Dolly! The touring version was so successful, producer David Merrick took it to Broadway where it played to sold-out houses and revitalized the long running musical. Bailey was given a special Tony Award for her role and RCA Victor made a second original cast album. That is the only recording of the score to have an overture which was written especially for that recording.

A passionate fan of the New York Mets, Bailey sang the national anthem at Shea Stadium prior to game 5 of the 1969 World Series, and appears in the Series highlight film showing her support for the team. She also sang the national anthem prior to Game 1 of the 1981 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.

Bailey hosted her own variety series on ABC, The Pearl Bailey Show (January – May 1971) which featured many notable guests, including Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong (one of his last appearances before his death).

Following her 1971 television series, she provided voices for animations such as Tubby the Tuba (1976) and Disney's The Fox and the Hound (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of Hello, Dolly!. In October 1975, she was invited by Betty Ford to sing for the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a White House state dinner, as part of Middle-Eastern peace initiative.

She earned a degree in theology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1985 at age 67. Here she was a student of Wilfrid Desan.

Later in her career, Bailey was a fixture as a spokesperson in a series of Duncan Hines commercials, singing "Bill Bailey (Won't You Come Home)". She also appeared in commercials for Jell-O, and Westinghouse.She also did some free -spirited commercials for Paramount Chicken.

In her later years Bailey wrote several books: The Raw Pearl (1968), Talking to Myself (1971), Pearl's Kitchen (1973), and Hurry Up America and Spit (1976). In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford. Her last book, Between You and Me (1989), details her experiences with higher education. On January 19, 1985, she appeared on the nationally televised broadcast of the 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala, the night before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. In 1988 Bailey received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan.

Personal life

On November 19, 1952, Bailey married the jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London.

They later adopted a son, Tony, in the mid-1950s. A daughter, Dee Dee J. Bellson, was born April 20, 1960. Tony Bellson died in 2004. Dee Dee Bellson died on July 4, 2009, at the age of 49, five months after her father, who died on Valentine's Day 2009.

Bailey, a Republican, was appointed by President Richard Nixon as America's "Ambassador of Love" in 1970. She attended several meetings of the United Nations and later appeared in a campaign ad for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.

She was awarded the Bronze Medallion in 1968, the highest award conferred upon civilians by New York City.

Bailey was a very good friend of actress Joan Crawford. In 1969, Crawford and Bailey joined fellow friend Gypsy Rose Lee in accepting a USO Award. In the same year, Bailey was recognized as USO "Woman of the Year". Upon the passing of Crawford in May 1977, Bailey spoke of Crawford as her sister before singing a hymn at her funeral. U.S. Ambassador and American socialite Perle Mesta was another close friend of Bailey. In the waning days of Mesta's life, Bailey visited her frequently and sang hymns for her.

Death

Pearl Bailey died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia on August 17, 1990. Following an autopsy, Dr. Emanuel Rubin, professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology at Jefferson Medical College, announced the cause of death as arteriosclerosis, with significant narrowing of the coronary artery. Bailey is buried at Rolling Green Memorial Park in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Remembrances

The television show American Dad! features Pearl Bailey High School.

The 1969 song "We Got More Soul" by Dyke and the Blazers includes Bailey in its roster of icons.

A dress owned by Bailey is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

[projectorstv1]

Heaven: A New Message from Billy Graham

Heaven: A New Message from Billy Graham

  Awards and honors Graham was frequently honored by surveys, including “Greatest Living American” and consistently ranked among the most admired persons in the United States and the world. He appeared most frequently on Gallup‘s list of most admired people.  Since 1955, Graham was recognized by Gallup a record 55 times (49 times…

[todaysdocument]

Today we honor the life and service of George H. W. Bush

President George H. W. Bush stands on the edge of the flight deck aboard the guided missile cruiser USS BELKNAP (CG-26), 12/1/1989. Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files, 1982 - 2007. Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1921 - 2008.

Born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Mass., George Bush became a decorated naval pilot who flew torpedo bombers during World War II. He was shot down on September 2, 1944 while completing a mission over Chi Chi Jima Island and, tragically, lost his two crewmen William “Ted” White and John Delaney. By the time he was honorably discharged in September of 1945, Lieutenant Junior Grade Bush had logged 1,228 hours of flight time, 126 carrier landings and 58 combat missions. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the U.S. Navy Air Medal with two gold stars. Mr. Bush graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1948 with a degree in economics, and immediately moved to Texas with his wife Barbara and eldest son George W. to begin making his way in the oil business. 

President Bush's career in politics and public service began in February of 1963, when he was elected chairman of the Harris County (Texas) Republican Party. He was elected in 1966 to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas' Seventh District and served two terms. Before serving as vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan, President Bush held a number of senior-level positions: Ambassador to the United Nations (1971-1973); Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973-1974); Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China (1974-1976); and Director of Central Intelligence (1976-1977). 

In 1980, Mr. Bush lost his first bid for the Republican presidential nomination to former California Governor Ronald Reagan, but accepted a spot on the GOP national ticket and served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. In that position, Mr. Bush managed federal deregulation and anti-drug efforts, and headed the Reagan administrations’ effort to combat terrorism. In foreign policy, President Reagan dispatched Vice President Bush at a pivotal and contentious time to help manage negotiations with key NATO allies leading to the deployment of Pershing II missiles in West Germany – a critical turning point in the Cold War. 

Sworn in as the 41st President of the United States on January 20, 1989, George Herbert Walker Bush helped usher in a new and more hopeful geopolitical era marked by the spread of freedom and free markets. During his historic term in office, the West prevailed in the Cold War; the Soviet Union gave way to a democratic Russia; the Berlin Wall “fell” and Germany was unified within NATO; and President Bush signed two treaties to drastically reduce the threat of nuclear war. After Iraq’s unprovoked invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Bush forged an unprecedented coalition of disparate nations to uphold international law. His deft handling of this international crisis enabled him to convene the Madrid Peace Conference later in 1991. Throughout his presidency, George Bush worked closely with his international counterparts, including Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in ways that advanced America’s interests in peace and economic opportunity.

via the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum

[pearlsinthehouse-blog]

Pearl Bailey - Performer Esteemed by U.S. Presidents

Written by Art Manke, the musical play "Pearl’s in the House" shares the story of Pearl Bailey, an American actress and singer who lived from 1918 to 1990. As "Pearl’s in the House" shows, Bailey befriended and performed for more U.S. presidents than any other female performer in history. Known for playing Dolly in the African American version of the Broadway musical, "Hello, Dolly!", Bailey began to perform for the U.S. Armed Forces in 1941. Her performance at Dwight D. Eisenhower's second inaugural ball marked her first appearance before a U.S. President. A memorable encounter involved President Lyndon Johnson and his wife joining her onstage after the curtain call for a performance of “Hello, Dolly!” in Washington, D.C. President Richard Nixon named Bailey “Ambassador of Love” in 1970. Moreover, under Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, she served as a representative to the United Nations. President Reagan honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988. Bailey used her reputation to further multiple causes, including AIDS research. She gave the keynote address at World Health Organization's first international conference on AIDS in 1988. Though she received criticism for not speaking out enough on the subject of racial injustice, she hoped that the way she lived, with love, would inspire equality.

[thinkveganworld]

Here’s something I wrote years ago on a subject that’s being discussed lately - the subject of Nazis in the Republican Party.  What’s interesting to me is that Democrats and the corporate media are now using Cold War propaganda tactics and fear-mongering against Russia - tactics Republicans once used to justify and prop up fascists.  People need to know and understand history to avoid repeating it.  When anyone is surprised I don’t seem horrified with what’s going on today regarding the resurgence of Nazi influence, I want to tell them it’s because I’ve seen it all before (even recently).  What’s going on now has been in the works for a long time and is the logical outcome of the facts I’m describing in what follows.

Nazis and the Republican Party

In his book Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy, award winning investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S.  These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party’s “ethnic outreach committees.”  

Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party.

Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll “for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare,” among other purposes. The most important Nazi employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After Germany’s defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U.S. certain concessions in exchange for his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up Cold War propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S. perceptions of the Cold War.

Journalist Russ Bellant (Old Nazis, The New Right, And The Republican Party) shows that  Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network.  Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary’s Jews.  Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush’s coalition to resign.

According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:

    Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council’s executive director, and head of “Bulgarians for Bush.” Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

    Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of “Romanians for Bush.” Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

    Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

    Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

    Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP’s Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

    Bohdan Fedorak, leader of “Ukrainians for Bush.” Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on the Bush team’s inclusion of Nazis (David Lee Preston, “Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links,” September 10, 1988.) The newspaper also ran an investigative series on Nazi members of the Bush coalition. The article confirmed that the Bush team included members listed by Russ Bellant.

Journalist Martin A. Lee, has written for The Nation, Rolling Stone, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other esteemed publications. In his book The Beast Reawakens, Lee confirms that during both the Reagan and Bush years, the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach arm recruited members from the Nazi émigré network.

Lee says that the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach division had an outspoken hatred of President Jimmy Carter’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), an organization dedicated to tracking down and prosecuting Nazi war collaborators who entered this country illegally.  Republican Pat Buchanan attacked Carter’s OSI after it deported a few suspected Nazi war criminals.

According to Lee, public relations man Harold Keith Thompson was principal U.S. point man for the postwar Nazi support network known as die Spinne, or the Spider. In the late 40s and early 50s.  Thompson worked as the chief North American representative for the remaining National Socialist German Worker’s Party and the SS. Lee writes that the wealthy Thompson gave generously to Republican candidates Senator Jesse Helms and would-be senator Oliver North. Thompson’s money gained him membership in the GOP’s Presidential Legion of Merit. Lee says Thompson also “received numerous thank-you letters from the Republican National Committee.” Those letters are now in the Hoover Institute Special Collections Library.

Christopher Simpson writes in Blowback that in 1983, Ronald Reagan presented a Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, to CIA émigré program consultant James Burnham.  Burnham was a psychological warfare consultant who promoted something called “liberationism.”  Just before the 1952 election, the CIA worked up a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign aimed at selling Americans on expanding Cold War activities in Europe. Part of the guiding theory (given the name “liberationism”) was the idea that certain Nazi leaders from World War II should be brought in as “freedom fighters” against the USSR.

Reagan said that Burnham’s ideas on liberation “profoundly affected the way America views itself and the world,” adding, “I owe [Burnham] a personal debt, because throughout the years of traveling on the mashed-potato circuit I have quoted [him] widely.”  Reagan may not have known Burnham’s theories were based on his work on projects that enlisted many Nazi collaborators, but it seems that Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey or former CIA Director, Vice President George Bush, would have informed him.

At a May 9, 1984, press conference, writer, Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal said, “Nazi criminals were the principal beneficiaries of the Cold War.”  The Cold War mentality, hyped by Reinhard Gehlen and other Nazis, became the shelter for tens of thousands of Nazi criminals. Helping the far right in this country to promote Cold War hysteria became the Nazi war criminals’ “reason for being.”  As Christopher Simpson says, the Cold War became those criminals’ means "to avoid responsibility for the murders they had committed.”

Journalist Seymour Hersh says Christopher Simpson’s Blowback is “the ultimate book about the worst kind of Cold War thinking, in which some of our most respected statesmen made shameful decisions that they mistakenly believed to be justified.”  To this day, says Simpson, the U.S. intelligence agencies hide the scope of their post-World War II collaboration with Nazi criminals.

Are Republicans such as George H. W. Bush, Oliver North, and Jesse Helms, aware they have been assisted by Nazi collaborators?  Bush once worked for the CIA and should have known about the nature of the Nazis in his ‘88 campaign. No doubt he knows the history of Nazi/CIA collaboration. Whether or not Bush knew of the fascists’ involvement in his campaign, the Republican Party should have done a far better screening job.  One thing is certain: The intelligence agencies know the scope and extent of Nazi involvement with the political right in this country.  It is a shame they keep it hidden from the majority of the American people.

Again, today Democratic Party leaders are joining Republicans in manipulating the public using propaganda techniques very similar to those of Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels.  See my earlier posts on a must-watch Chris Hedges interview with NYU media studies professor Mark Crispin Miller for specific details and reference sources.  I recommend William Shirer’s books in addition to the Simpson book mentioned above and another of his called The Splendid Blond Beast.

[richardnasti-blog]

About Richard Nasti

Based in New York, Richard Nasti has served as executive vice president of H.J. Kalikow & Company for more than three decades, providing solutions in the real estate development, construction, and management spheres. Also with an extensive track record of public service behind him, Richard Nasti engaged as U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato’s chief counsel in the early 1980s and informed numerous legislative and compliance initiatives.

Prior to joining his current firm in 1987, Richard Nasti held a position in the Urban Mass Transportation Administration under President Ronald Reagan as regional administrator. In the mod-1990s, Mr. Nasti achieved appointment by New York’s governor to chair of the Stony Brook University Council. His sustained efforts boosted the institution’s research capacities to world-leading levels, and in 2009, he headed the presidential search committee.

Richard Nasti presently engages with the university to enhance fundraising efforts as a member of the Stony Brook Foundation. He also chairs the school’s Center for Italian Studies, with a focus on furthering Italian-American scholarship. In 2012, Richard Nasti received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Cavalieri or Knight, from the Italian government. He is also a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom.

[patuloca]

LET'S MAKE THIS DREAM A REALITY Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. Martin Luther, King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs he was the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr. King participated in and led marches for colored people's right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War. In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities.  Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.  #ihaveadream #martinlutherking #martinlutherkingday2022 #blm #ourhistory https://www.instagram.com/patuloca/p/CY2q-_CNpdv/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bm2ab]

Arrivals & Departures . 26 March 1930 – 01 December 2023 . Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. O'Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A moderate conservative, O'Connor was known for her precisely researched opinions. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered a swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first four months of the Roberts Court. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was a judge and an elected official in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

On July 1, 2005, O'Connor announced her retirement, effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005 and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.

O'Connor usually sided with the Court's conservative bloc but demonstrated an ability to side with the Court's liberal members. She often wrote concurring opinions that sought to limit the reach of the majority holding. Her majority opinions in landmark cases include Grutter v. Bollinger and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. She wrote in part the per curiam majority opinion in Bush v. Gore and was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

During her term on the Court, O'Connor was regarded as among the most powerful women in the world. After retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as the Chancellor of the College of William & Mary. In 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

[justforbooks]

I.M. Pei, world-renowned architect who revived the Louvre, has died at age 102

I.M. Pei, the versatile, globe-trotting architect who revived the Louvre with a giant glass pyramid and captured the spirit of rebellion at the multi-shaped Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died at age 102. Pei's death was confirmed Thursday to The Associated Press by Marc Diamond, a spokesman for the architect's New York firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. One of Pei's sons, Li Chung Pei, announced that his father had died early Thursday in his Manhattan home.

Pei's works ranged from the trapezoidal addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the chiseled towers of the National Center of Atmospheric Research that blend in with the reddish mountains in Boulder, Colorado.

His buildings added elegance to landscapes worldwide with their powerful geometric shapes and grand spaces. Among them are the striking steel and glass Bank of China skyscraper in Hong Kong and the Fragrant Hill Hotel near Beijing.

His work spanned decades, starting in the late 1940s and continuing through the new millennium. Two of his last major projects, the Museum of Islamic Art, located on an artificial island just off the waterfront in Doha, Qatar, and the Macau Science Center, in China, opened in 2008 and 2009.

Pei painstakingly researched each project, studying its use and relating it to the environment. But he also was interested in architecture as art —  and the effect he could create.

"At one level my goal is simply to give people pleasure in being in a space and walking around it," he said. "But I also think architecture can reach a level where it influences people to want to do something more with their lives. That is the challenge that I find most interesting."

Deborah Berke, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, told CBS News in a phone interview Thursday night "there was no doubt Pei was a genius."

Berke, who met Pei some time ago, described him as "elegant and a gracious gentleman" and pointed out the importance of his earlier work, including his legacy at the New College of Florida in Sarasota where he designed the original three clusters of dormitories in the 1960s.

"They were beautiful, regionally appropriate modern buildings," Berke said, "that illustrated early college life."

Pei, who as a schoolboy in Shanghai was inspired by its building boom in the 1930s, immigrated to the United States and studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He advanced from his early work of designing office buildings, low-income housing and mixed-use complexes to a worldwide collection of museums, municipal buildings and hotels.

He fell into a modernist style blending elegance and technology, creating crisp, precise buildings.

His big break was in 1964, when he was chosen over many prestigious architects, such as Louis Kahn and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston.

At the time, Jacqueline Kennedy said all the candidates were excellent, "But Pei! He loves things to be beautiful." The two became friends.

A slight, unpretentious man, Pei developed a reputation as a skilled diplomat, persuading clients to spend the money for his grand-scale projects and working with a cast of engineers and developers.

Some of his designs were met with much controversy, such as the 71-foot faceted glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre museum in Paris. French President Francois Mitterrand, who personally selected Pei to oversee the decaying, overcrowded museum's renovation, endured a barrage of criticism when he unveiled the plan in 1984.

Many of the French vehemently opposed such a change to their symbol of their culture, once a medieval fortress and then a national palace. Some resented that Pei, a foreigner, was in charge.

But Mitterrand and his supporters prevailed and the pyramid was finished in 1989. It serves as the Louvre's entrance, and a staircase leads visitors down to a vast, light-drenched lobby featuring ticket windows, shops, restaurants, an auditorium and escalators to other parts of the vast museum.

"All through the centuries, the Louvre has undergone violent change," Pei said. "The time had to be right. I was confident because this was the right time."

Another building designed by Pei's firm — the John Hancock Tower in Boston —  had a questionable future in the early 1970s when dozens of windows cracked and popped out, sending glass crashing to the sidewalks, during the time the building was under construction.

A flurry of lawsuits followed among the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., the glass manufacturer, and Pei's firm. A settlement was reached in 1981.

Berke called the Hancock Tower a "handsome building" that "surprisingly stood the test of time."

No challenge seemed to be too great for Pei, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which sits on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Pei, who admitted he was just catching up with the Beatles, researched the roots of rock 'n' roll and came up with an array of contrasting shapes for the museum. He topped it off with a transparent tent-like structure, which was "open —  like the music," he said.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan honored him with a National Medal of Arts. He also won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1983, and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1979. President George H.W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992.

Pei officially retired in 1990 but continued to work on projects. Two of his sons, Li Chung Pei and Chien Chung Pei, former members of their father's firm, formed Pei Partnership Architects in 1992. Their father's firm, previously I.M. Pei and Partners, was renamed Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

The museum in Qatar that opened in 2008 was inspired by Islamic architectural history, especially the 9th century mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. It was established by the tiny, oil-rich nation to compete with rival Persian Gulf countries for international attention and investment.

Ieoh Ming Pei was born April 26, 1917, in Canton, China, the son of a banker. He later said, "I did not know what architecture really was in China. At that time, there was no difference between an architect, a construction man, or an engineer."

Pei came to the United States in 1935 with plans to study architecture, then return to practice in China. However, World War II and the revolution in China prevented him from coming back.

During the war, Pei worked for the National Defense Research Committee. As an "expert" in Japanese construction, his job was to determine the best way to burn down Japanese towns. "It was awful," he later said.

In 1948, New York City real estate developer William Zeckendorf hired Pei as his director of architecture. During this period, Pei worked on many large urban projects and gained experience in areas of building development, economics and construction.

Some of his early successes included the Mile High Center office building in Denver, the Kips Bay Plaza Apartments in Manhattan, and the Society Hill apartment complex in Philadelphia.

Pei established his own architectural firm in 1955, a year after he became a U.S. citizen. He remained based in New York City. Among the firm's accomplishments are the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Pei's wife, Eileen, who he married in 1942, died in 2014. A son, T'ing Chung, died in 2003. Besides sons Chien Chung Pei and Li Chung Pei, he is survived by a daughter, Liane.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[texasthrillbilly]

The famous and sometimes dubious Ozark Hillbilly Medallion

By Paul Johns

From left, an Associated Press photo of President Harry Truman with his medallion and certificate. A 1948 Southwest Missouri State College commencement program denoting J.C. Penney as the guest speaker. A photo of Missouri native James Cash Penney, one of the recipients of the medallion. The Springfield Chamber of Commerce’s Ozark Hillbilly Medallion.

MOzarkers have long had a love-hate relationship with the stereotypical and dismissive term “hillbilly.” Once used derisively, and now used as a marketing tool by area businesses who cater to tourists, it is defined by Dictionary.com as: “often used with disparaging intent and perceived as insulting, implying that a person who lives far away from a town or city lacks culture or education. However, this term is also used in a humorous way without intent to offend, and it is sometimes a positive term of self-reference.”

The Springfield Chamber of Commerce could be singled out as an organization that certainly helped give it the latter part of that definition. For a number of years the chamber gave visiting celebrities an “Ozark Hillbilly Medallion” and a certificate proclaiming them an “Honorary Ozark Hillbilly.”

One has to wonder how some of the folks who received this award regarded that “honor.” Surely most of them took it in stride and even saw the good humor inherent in the award. But one wonders if some of them didn’t throw it into the nearest trash receptacle on the way out of the facility.

One president of the United States and one future president were given the award in June 1953 when they visited Springfield. Harry Truman was there for a reunion of the 35th Division of the U.S. Army. He was given the award at a breakfast at the Shrine Mosque.

Ronald Reagan was in Springfield at the same time to attend the world premier of the movie “The Winning Team,” in which he played the starring role.

The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library contains a copy of Truman’s acceptance speech.

In it, he said, “I appreciate this medal. It is very seldom that the president ever gets a medal. He usually gets brickbats. But when he does get a medal, he highly appreciates it.”

Perhaps he truly appreciated the award because he was born in southwest Missouri.

Reagan’s acceptance speech, as quoted in the newspaper, said that he would treasure the Hillbilly Award as a souvenir of his trip to Springfield. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, however, contains no reference to his Ozark Hillbilly Medallion.

A complete list of the recipients was not found by this researcher, but searches of old records and Springfield newspapers revealed 16 medal awardees. They were the two presidents, four military generals, a congressman, several entertainers, several businessmen and a doctor.

Gen. John J. Pershing was the first on that recipient list. He was awarded the medal and certificate in 1928. Ironically, like Harry Truman, he also served in the 35th Division during World War I and was attending a reunion of the 35th in Springfield. And like Truman, he was also a Missouri native.

Another general from Missouri, Omar Bradley, also received the award. Bradley was in charge of the First United States Army during the invasion of Normandy. After the war, he was Army chief of staff and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The third general was Matthew Ridgway, who also served as the Army chief of staff. In 1986 he also was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by another Hillbilly Medallion recipient, President Ronald Reagan.

In 1956, Gen. Homer Litzenberg was given the Hillbilly Medallion. Litzenberg commanded the 7th Marine Regiment during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir and later was the inspector general of the Marine Corps. He was presented the Hillbilly Medallion by Dr. Durwood G. Hall, who was president of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce at that time.

Congressman Dewey Short from Galena was given the Hillbilly Medallion in April 1955. Short was presented the medallion on national television during an episode of ABC-TV’s “Ozark Jubilee” that was broadcast from the Jewell Theater in Springfield.

Missouri native James Cash Penney, who started J.C. Penney, was also a recipient of the medallion. It’s not known what year, but it might have been in 1948 when he was in Springfield to give the commencement address at Southwest Missouri State College.

Two other recipients were given the medallion when they were also in Springfield in connection with college events. In 1972, Charles Hoffman, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, received the award when he was in Springfield to get a honorary Doctor of Science degree from Drury College.

Hoffman’s papers are archived in the Special Collections at Marshall University in West Virginia, and they include his framed certificate as an honorary Ozark Hillbilly from the Springfield Chamber of Commerce.

And in 1974, jazz musician and bandleader Stan Kenton was given the award when he was at Drury for his six-day “Jazz Orchestra in Residence Program” and to receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

Other recipients of the medallion were Gerard Klomp, president of the National Association of Retail Grocers, in 1951, and the president of Southwestern Bell, Edwin M. Clark, in 1956.

Still others were actor and comedian Joe E. Brown; Nelson King, who was called, “The King of Country Deejays”; Ralph Story, host of the television game show “The $64,000 Challenge”; and Johnny Olson, the television announcer for “To Tell The Truth,” “What’s My Line?” “Match Game” and “The Price is Right.”

All these diverse men were named an “Honorary Ozark Hillbilly and is therefore Now and Forever given Open Season on all the joys and hospitality of the Ozark Country.” 

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