Monday, September 21. 2009
3rd in a series
Althea Gibson, born in 1927 the child of sharecroppers, was named by the Associated Press as Female Athlete of the Year in 1957 and 1958. Living in Harlem, her early training was nurtured by fellow Blacks, such as prizefighting great Sugar Rae Robinson, who recognized her natural talents. Gibson was considered the female Jackie Robinson, breaking the color barrier in tennis. The 5-foot-11 right-hander had a strong serve and preferred to play an attacking game. An athletic woman, she had good foot speed, which allowed her to cover the court. As the years went on, she became more consistent from the baseline.
However, that wasn’t enough to break through the color barrier, until the leading female tennis player in the US spoke out on her behalf, and behalf of the sport. Forced to play in what was basically a segregated sport, at age 23 Gibson was finally given the opportunity to participate in the 1950 US Championships after the World #1 champion from 1936-1940, Alice Marble wrote an editorial for the July 1, 1950 edition of American Lawn Tennis Magazine. Marble said, "Miss Gibson is over a very cunningly wrought barrel, and I can only hope to loosen a few of its staves with one lone opinion. If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it's also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites.... If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it's only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts." Marble said that if Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, "then there is an uneradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed."
Gibson was now able to compete against the best players from around the world because the color barrier had been broken. Gibson's game improved to where she won the 1955 Italian Championships. The following year, she won her first Grand Slam titles, capturing the French Championships in singles and in doubles with her partner, Jewish Englishwoman Angela Buxton. Buxton had run into discrimination from other players and the tennis establishment along the same lines as those experienced by Gibson, so the two joined forces and achieved great success. Buxton was the first Jewish champion at Wimbledon, and Gibson was the first champion of African descent. An English newspaper reported their victory at Wimbledon under the headline "Minorities Win."
Gibson reached the top of her game in 1957 and 1958 in winning at Wimbleton and the US championship. It wasn’t until 1999 that another Black woman won the US national tennis title, Serena Williams, or 2000 at Wimbleton, Venus Williams. Venus Williams paid tribute: “For players like myself and a lot of other African-American players on the tour, Althea Gibson paved the way for us.”
Tennis players made no money in the 1950s, and Gibson’s finances worsened over the years. In 1992, she suffered a stroke. A few years later, Gibson called Buxton and told her she was on the brink of suicide. Gibson was living on welfare and unable to pay for rent or medication. Buxton arranged for a letter to appear in a tennis magazine. Buxton told Gibson nothing about the letter, but Gibson figured it out when her mailbox started to bulge with envelopes full of checks from around the world. In total, nearly $1 million came in.
In 2003, at the age of 76, Gibson died in New Jersey due to respiratory failure.
"If it hadn't been for her," says Billie Jean King, winner of 12 Grand Slam singles titles, "it wouldn't have been so easy for Arthur (Ashe) [the first Black man to win the U.S. Open (1968), Australian Open (1970) and Wimbledon (1975)] or the ones who followed." If it hadn’t been for those who challenged discrimination, Althea Gibson would not have had the chance to pave the way for others and for sport.
From: Wikipedia, ESPN, Washington Post, Sports Encyclopedia
Why this flu has taken up as much hysterical bandwidth as the hysterical global warming hysteria is beyond me. I guess media needs exciting "content" - just as we do here.
But this seems ridiculous. It's just a flu, for heaven's sake. It's not airborn AIDS or plague.
For my excitement, a good new Bolognese recipe works very well.
A quote from Mankiw's excellent op-ed in the NYT:
Imagine that someone invented a pill even better than the one I take. Let’s call it the Dorian Gray pill, after the Oscar Wilde character. Every day that you take the Dorian Gray, you will not die, get sick, or even age. Absolutely guaranteed. The catch? A year’s supply costs $150,000.
Anyone who is able to afford this new treatment can live forever. Certainly, Bill Gates can afford it. Most likely, thousands of upper-income Americans would gladly shell out $150,000 a year for immortality.
Most Americans, however, would not be so lucky.
The pleasant village of Eze (tomorrow's photos) lies right between Nice and the strange, elegant, tax-dodging and mega-yacht haven of Monaco which, as I understand it, is supported by gambling. No taxes. I never went to the Casino. Not my cuppa tea. Not a Yankee sort of thing - except as a rare goof.
A few of my random shots of Monaco and Monte Carlo below -
Continue reading "Photos of my summer trip: A road sign"
Sunday, September 20. 2009
I was fortunate to attend a private party at which New Orleans' Sonny Landreth played this weekend. A few guys wore their Rock and Bowl bowling shirts: you don't see those too often up here. Mr. Landreth performs at Rock and Bowl regularly.
I guess slide-guitarist Landreth can play anything, but he does like to rock the blues with a Louisiana twist. He's the kind of guy who is in the music, not the audience. Here's a Youtube, with the band he plays with now. He writes songs and sings too, but not on this piece in which he sings through his guitar. Turn your volume to max:
"Ask yourself as you start your day, "Are you incorporating God into your plan?".
And if you are, then why are you not incorporating yourself into God's plan?"
via Slower Pace
Saturday, September 19. 2009
My friends R.J. DelVecchio, USMC combat photographer in Vietnam, and Mike Benge, former POW, were guests of Admiral Jeremiah Denton, today, September 19, at the POW/MIA Ceremony held in Washington, D.C.
"The POW MIA Remembrance Ceremony"
As you entered the banquet hall this evening, you may have noticed a small table in a place of honor. It is set for one. This table is our way of symbolizing the fact that members of our profession of arms are missing from our midst. They are commonly called POWs or MIAs, we call them "Brothers." They are unable to be with us this evening and so we remember them.
This Table set for one is small -- Symbolizing the frailty of one prisoner alone against his oppressors. Remember!
The Tablecloth is white -- Symbolizing the purity of their intentions to respond to their country's call to arms. Remember!
The single Red Rose displayed in a vase reminds us of the families and loved ones of our comrades-in-arms who keep the faith awaiting their return. Remember!
The Red Ribbon tied so prominently on the vase is reminiscent of the red ribbon worn upon the lapel and breasts of thousands who bear witness to their unyielding determination to demand a proper accounting of our missing. Remember!
The Candle, the candle is lit -- Symbolizing the upward reach of their unconquerable spirit. Remember!
A Slice of Lemon is on the bread plate to remind us of their bitter fate. Remember!
There is Salt upon the bread plate -- Symbolic of the families tears as they wait. Remember!
The Glass is inverted -- They cannot toast with us this night. Remember!
The Chair -- The chair is empty. They are not here. Remember!
Remember! -- All of you who served with them and called them comrades, who depended upon their might and aid, and relied upon them, for surely, they have not forsaken you. Remember!
Remember! -- Until the day they come home, Remember!
Here’s some photos that DelVecchio took:
Formations from all the armed services parade
The flag of every state is carried past the reviewing stand
The Missing Man Formation flyby
No Man Left Behind are more than words; they’re our creed.
New POW liberation sculpture to be erected in San Diego.
How did I get stuck with this link job this weekend? Oh well, there's no heavy-lifting, and I spent all day doing garden and yard work.
The O goes for the Full Ginsberg. It has never worked before. It makes you look desperate.
Right-wingers killed the Kennedys? That's news to me. This is nuts. JFK was killed by a Cuba-linked Commie, and RFK by some sort of Moslem fanatic. No, it was not "you and me" despite the doubtless deep wisdom of Mick Jagger.
50 things that are getting killed by the internet
The Dark side of cooperation
Update on the global fisheries. h/t, Jungleman
Unbelievable: Albright to Russians: The US wants to be weaker. What's up with that? Is weakness a way to try to get love?
Insty:
SO IF, AS MICHELLE OBAMA SAYS, women are “crushed” under our health care system, then how come they live longer than men?
A Canadian doc: I quit when they put doctors under state control.
Related: 56% now oppose Obamacare, whatever it is.
Race-bait as we say, not as we do. Jules
ACORN and the Catholic church: A legacy of big hearts and small brains
Did you see Chris Wallace's comment on his treatment by the WH? He is not amused.
Taxing the heck out of the poor and the middle class. And everybody else, too. We are supposed to want to slave for our wise masters in Washington. I am happy to work at any job at all - I can dig a ditch, cut down trees, carry rocks, push a wheelbarrow, or drive a tractor all day - but I do not like to work for those jokers. They are the Maggie's Farm we have trouble with.
Related: Medved on the two attitudes towards America. I think it's correct.
What Socialism will do for you: California's 12.2% unemployment. Why work?
Re Russia, Lowry with A Masterstroke of Weakness. Most nations only respect power, whether you like it or not.
 The autumn hawk migration has begun around here. It's a wonderful phenomenon.
I had a Red-Shouldered (as in photo) high overhead this morning, but on the hills in September you can find "kettles" of Broad Wings - possibly our most commonly-seen fall migrant hawk on the Atlantic Flyway, circling as they ride the morning thermals up to catch a long free, coasting ride south until they reach the next thermal updraft.
The identification of raptors is difficult, and I have no skill at it but I have a couple of pals who are. Like so many things, you have to learn from an expert: a book is almost useless because hawks are almost always seen in flight and, during migration, usually at fairly high altitudes so you only have a profile and, perhaps, a flight style. Furthermore, many migrants are immature first-year birds without the mature plumage.
The species pass by in phases. In late October and November come the most interesting ones: rugged birds like eagles, Goshawks, and Rough Leggeds.
I easily identified my passing Red Shouldered because of the "windows" in his wings.
(Speaking of migration, I have seen almost no migrating Monarch butterflies this year. In fact, far fewer butterflies in the gardens all summer than usual. Missed them because, in my view, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are part of the vitality and fun of gardens.)
The five Irish women of Celtic Woman talk about their song "O, America" as a gift for their adopted country and offer it as a free download to military members.
 As you know, Irving Kristol died yesterday at 89.
Memorandum has a good selection of essays on Kristol's life this morning.
From a WSJ piece, this was from a 1975 Kristol WSJ commentary:
Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform, Dec. 15, 1972
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics. . . .
It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed." Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.
Roger Kimball's piece yesterday quotes this bit from Kristol:
The truth is that ideas are all-important. The massive and seemingly solid institutions of any society — the economic institutions, the political institutions, the religious institutions — are always at the mercy of the ideas in the heads of the people who populate these institutions. The leverage of ideas is so immense that a slight change in the intellectual climate can and will — perhaps slowly but nevertheless inexorably — twist a familiar institution into an unrecognizable shape.
 Footsteps of Angels
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
It's a nice little village between Nice and Monaco. Might be painless to spend a few days there sometime. (We were on the lowest of the two or three mountain roads - the road Grace Kelly died on.)
Friday, September 18. 2009
Steaming past the Golf de Roses on the Costa Brava, at cocktail hour. I do not know what that UFO was.
Mary Travers died, at 72.
In old Nice. Taxes are so high there, and incomes so low, everybody rides Organdonorcycles:
 Travel tips: "Come to Denmark. Our women are easy." (Photo of an easy Danish Pastry from Theo.)
Driscoll:
The far left Common Dreams Website drops the mask and exclaims, “Climate change is not an environmental issue. It’s about resources and global justice, about the future direction of capitalism, about where the next wars will be.”
Is anybody listening to the doctors?
75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.
Kling: Not What They Had in Mind: A History of Policies that Produced the Financial Crisis of 2008
The O:
So I just want everybody to know, Congress will have time to read the bill. They will have time to debate the bill. They will have all of August to review the various legislative proposals. When we come back in September, I will be available to answer any question that members of Congress have. If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what’s going on, I will be happy to do that.
But it just ain't true.
How green energy can be an environmental disaster
Jules on the O:
...as long as this opposition = racism story line is allowed to continue unchallenged, it ultimately reflects badly on him. Because it is an insult and a condescension for his prominent supporters to refuse to let him govern as anything but a black man.
Related, from Anchoress:
In her most recent rambling discourse Maureen Dowd writes that President Obama is “at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension.”
Is that true? Have we had 9 months of “racial turbulence” or have we had about six weeks of it, spurred on in great measure by a press/punditry corps has been wondering “is this opposition actually racism?” since the springtime Tea Parties, but really starting panting the question once the August townhall meetings got hot and it became clear that the Democrats were not effectively selling their bill.
Related, from Kimball:
In our culture, the charge of racism is not only a conversation-stopper it is a thought-stopper. We cannot publicly tell the truth about race, so the charge of racism always carries with it not only an element of intimidation, but also an element of exposure. Everyone knows that Al Sharpton, say, is a mountebank, but we must be chary of saying so because of his race.
Stanley Kaplan died. From Minding the Campus:
As a Jew with a degree from a public university (City College), Kaplan felt that he had been discriminated against in his attempt to gain admission to medical school. So he turned standardized tests into a weapon to be used by students who might otherwise have no chance of getting into a quality university. With high scores, he reasoned, they could not be ignored.
In doing so, Kaplan called the test makers' bluff. The College Board, which sponsors the SAT, and Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the test, had long maintained that the test was not coachable. Kaplan exposed this as the blatant and self-serving falsehood that it was.
Thursday, September 17. 2009
We buzzed through Nice on a round-about visit to Ese a couple of weeks ago. I bought a container of French framboises (smaller and less sweet than American supermarket raspberries, but possibly more intense flavor), and Mrs. BD bought some candied figs to snack on.
This is no cute Farmer's Market: it's the market. Meat and cheese and butter and breads and everything else you need to make a decent French meal. Here are the grapes and various varieties of figs:
A little more of beautiful Nice below:
Continue reading "My summer vacation: The marketplace in Nice"
 I am still catching up on some of the abundance of Maggie's posts from the couple of weeks while I was away. Did you read Dr. Bliss' My School, Part 1 and Part 2?
I just did. Interesting - and inspiring. You have to spend big bucks to get this sort of exciting and demanding secondary education in America, because the unions now own the public schools, and people like her Headmaster would or could never get a public school teaching certificate.
Why anyone would need college after that is beyond me. (Well, I know...you supposedly need the piece of paper.) College used to be "higher education" for the most highly-motivated, serious scholars who were totally turned on by learning and ideas. Am I Rip Van Winkle?
What happened while I dozed?
Photo: Old little red schoolhouse in Westport, CT, where the kids learned more than they do today.
 Honduras: For the first time in this country's history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.
W.H. collects Web users' data without notice
More details of Baucus' bill. Who would like this? More grim details at WaPo.
Why Dems are balking at health care reform
From Doug Ross, on What do Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd and Mike Lupica have in common?
ObamaCare -- Unlike previous Democrat efforts to implement socialized medicine, if you oppose Barack Obama's form of National Socialized Democrat health care, you're a Nazi racist bastard. That is, according to:
• Jimmy Carter
• Maureen Dowd
• Mike Lupica
• and numerous other liberal crackpots.
Even though Republicans, Libertarians and those who support the United States Constitution have been fighting socialized medicine for 75 years, your opposition represents: RACISM. You're all f***ing racists, get it?
Screw the Constitution! Screw the Bill of Rights! Screw the Declaration of Independence! You've got a President with a slightly different skin color: you're not allowed to express dissent! You're all racists! So shut the hell up, you wingnuts!
Simpson at Am Thinker:
As I reported last September, and as Glenn Beck and others have reported since then, ACORN was created specifically to execute the Cloward Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis across our country. This series of videos demonstrates in microcosm how ACORN workers promote the strategy.
We linked to Cloward-Piven last year thus: "Here's an excellent explanation of it. Yes, it's Alinsky/Gramsci-type strategy."
From Why are liberals still angry?
See things from their point of view. The most fundamental principle liberals have is that they are all very, very smart, and everyone should listen to them. Nothing angers them more than something that challenges them to reexamine that core tenet. And that’s why they were so delighted by the election of President Obama and further wins in the House and Senate. For a moment they thought the American people had recognized liberals as their superiors and said to them: “Please! Smart people! Lead us and tell us what to do!”
Of course, it is quite obvious right now that that’s not at all what the election was about.
How Waxman-Markey would be a gigantic middle-class tax. As the guy says:
... it is - make no mistake - a tax on the middle class of huge proportions. This is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme and a bureaucracy-building program for the Federal government.
More than that, it will lead to additional costs for everything that uses energy. Food will cost more, the things you buy will cost more, eating out in a restaurant will cost more - everything will cost more. A lot more. So the hit will be amplified. It will cost jobs, steal wealth and ruin us as a great nation.
That is it will cost whatever jobs, wealth and greatness is left after the ObamaCare health care “reform” robs us and our children of the future.
And it will not do one darn thing about dropping carbon in the atmosphere - something its crafters realize full well. It is a lie, top to bottom.
Wednesday, September 16. 2009
Stormy dawn on my annual San Jose, California deer hunt last weekend. Good place to blog from!
A happy hunter with his first coast black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) taken last weekend near San Jose.
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