I've never given much thought to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I know that he was a US Senator from New York, and that before that he served in some capacity in four Presidential administrations. I know that Richard Nixon loved him even though he was a Democrat, and that he had some controversial things to say about race and welfare. That's where my knowledge ends.
Because I'm a presidential campaign geek, I've been reading The Making of the President 1964, not because 1964 is a compelling race, although it is a compelling race despite the landslide outcome, but because nearly all of White's books are out of print, and this is one I found in a used bookstore. So far the most interesting reading is this statement by Moynihan, made in the summer of 1964:
"What are the issues in this campaign? 'Issues' are talk about what's already happened or happening...But these aren't issues, really. Only a handful of people can see the advance issues. Can you explain that the greatest issue twenty years from now may be what's beginning in our knowledge of the human cell, and biology, and reproduction? Can you explain that we're beginning to be able to control our environment, maybe even change the weather - and discuss what we should do about it? Or can you talk about what we have to do to keep old people from growing lonely? Or can you ask them whether they think the purpose of industry should be changed from making things to making jobs?
Maybe we're entering a new phase of government. Maybe the old legislative phase is coming to an end, the time when you passed a new law which set up a new bureau with a new appropriation to run new machinery. What lies ahead may not be problems answerable by law, or by government at all. But that's nothing you can discuss now in 1964 - that's years and years ahead."
Has anybody ever gotten the future so right? Too bad Lyndon Johnson couldn't abide by him (Moynihan was a big Bobby Kennedy supporter); too bad we can't all see the future, standing there right in front of us.
Showing posts with label correcting the record. Show all posts
Showing posts with label correcting the record. Show all posts
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Real Independence Day
Independence Day is July 4 because that's when the Declaration of Independence was signed and the colonies broke off from Great Britain, right? Wrong. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been introduced in June. "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival," John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail. "It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more." As usual, Adams was mostly correct, but a little off.
The Declaration had been written as a way of explaining the vote for independence to colonists and British alike. Congress spent the next two days debating and revising the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. But they didn't sign it then. Most delegates didn't sign the document until August 2. More importantly, the Declaration is an explanation and an explanation only. The radical thing was the approval of the initial resolution.
In short, today is the real Independence Day. Go ahead, be pedantic about it: start eating and drinking two days early. It's the patriotic thing to do.
The Declaration had been written as a way of explaining the vote for independence to colonists and British alike. Congress spent the next two days debating and revising the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. But they didn't sign it then. Most delegates didn't sign the document until August 2. More importantly, the Declaration is an explanation and an explanation only. The radical thing was the approval of the initial resolution.
In short, today is the real Independence Day. Go ahead, be pedantic about it: start eating and drinking two days early. It's the patriotic thing to do.
Monday, April 27, 2009
A Change Is Gonna Come
It's been hard to spend time in front of the computer when summer has arrived inexplicably early and I can sit on my porch for hours reading, particularly when I'm reading an engrossing book. Here's a little rhetorical game: name the most important change that happened in America in the 1960s. Student protests? Civil rights? Sexual revolution? A movement from the "conformity" of the 1950s to various "freedoms"? That's what I would have thought, but I would have been wrong. What's true is, in a sense, the reverse: the most important, most lasting, change to emerge from the 1960s was the conservative movement, the rise of the right. The lasting effect of 1960s liberalism was almost 30 years of conservative Republican rule. Without the upheavals of the 1960s, Nixon would in fact have become a political footnote. Reagan might never have seemed so darn sensible.
Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of American Consensus, finally out in paperback, provides not only a lively history of the 1964 Presidential race, but demonstrates how wrong have been assumptions about the results of that race. Johnson won in a landslide. Goldwater was a raving fanatic. How was it, then, that within a year of his historic victory Johnson was beleaguered, how was it that ultimately his Presidency is remembered as "failed"? Perlstein charts the grassroots growth of the conservative movement, demonstrating that Goldwater lost as much because of an ineffective campaign as because of any love for Johnson, and showing how, as early as 1962, the seeds of conservatism had begun to germinate.
Many accounts of the early 60s discuss passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills as culminations, victories in a long-fought struggle. I've read many an account of Mario Savio on top of the paddy wagon in Berkeley birthing the Free Speech Movement, and of the mop-topped Beatles revolutionizing pop music. Hidden underneath these accounts, though, is the fact that for many Americans these events were not triumphs but confusing tragedies. The Great Society? The War on Poverty? Government, overreaching. The British Invasion? Long-hairs, their guitars blaring noise. Free Speech? Ingrates, coddled by state-provided education. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act became law. Shortly thereafter, our first summer of riots ensued. Americans watched Harlem erupt in flames live on TV. The fact that government could not legislate consensus was demonstrated even as Johnson intensified his attempts to do just that. Most Americans abhorred upheaval, preferring perhaps not conformity so much as stability.
Goldwater turned out to be a terrible campaigner, articulating his ideas with statistics and boring recitations of the logistics of military hardware. By the end of the 1964 campaign, though, a politician emerged who was able to couch conservative notions in an emotional pitch, who was able to talk about "us" and "them" without sounding like he wanted to blow up the world or blow apart America society. His name was Ronald Reagan. His role campaigning for Goldwater was his springboard to the California Governor's mansion, and the rest, as they say, is history. Hopefully it is a history Perlstein will undertake. Now that he has shown how a movement was born and grew, perhaps he'll next describe its apotheosis.
Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of American Consensus, finally out in paperback, provides not only a lively history of the 1964 Presidential race, but demonstrates how wrong have been assumptions about the results of that race. Johnson won in a landslide. Goldwater was a raving fanatic. How was it, then, that within a year of his historic victory Johnson was beleaguered, how was it that ultimately his Presidency is remembered as "failed"? Perlstein charts the grassroots growth of the conservative movement, demonstrating that Goldwater lost as much because of an ineffective campaign as because of any love for Johnson, and showing how, as early as 1962, the seeds of conservatism had begun to germinate.
Many accounts of the early 60s discuss passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills as culminations, victories in a long-fought struggle. I've read many an account of Mario Savio on top of the paddy wagon in Berkeley birthing the Free Speech Movement, and of the mop-topped Beatles revolutionizing pop music. Hidden underneath these accounts, though, is the fact that for many Americans these events were not triumphs but confusing tragedies. The Great Society? The War on Poverty? Government, overreaching. The British Invasion? Long-hairs, their guitars blaring noise. Free Speech? Ingrates, coddled by state-provided education. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act became law. Shortly thereafter, our first summer of riots ensued. Americans watched Harlem erupt in flames live on TV. The fact that government could not legislate consensus was demonstrated even as Johnson intensified his attempts to do just that. Most Americans abhorred upheaval, preferring perhaps not conformity so much as stability.
Goldwater turned out to be a terrible campaigner, articulating his ideas with statistics and boring recitations of the logistics of military hardware. By the end of the 1964 campaign, though, a politician emerged who was able to couch conservative notions in an emotional pitch, who was able to talk about "us" and "them" without sounding like he wanted to blow up the world or blow apart America society. His name was Ronald Reagan. His role campaigning for Goldwater was his springboard to the California Governor's mansion, and the rest, as they say, is history. Hopefully it is a history Perlstein will undertake. Now that he has shown how a movement was born and grew, perhaps he'll next describe its apotheosis.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Plastics
The last time I watched The Graduate I was around the same age that Dustin Hoffman was during filming (29, for those of you interested in trivia). I watched it again last night at around the same age as Mrs. Robinson (mid-40s, although Anne Bancroft was only 35 during filming, and that's it for trivia). All those years ago I experienced the film as the comedy/satire it's marketed to be, but age tempered my reaction. Yes, it is, in places, a very funny film, but it's ultimately an extremely sad, if not bitter, statement about post-war American bourgeois culture.
The film was released, and set, in 1967. Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college and returned to his ancestral Pasadena home. From the establishing shots through the first half of the film he is portrayed as isolated, alone, and adrift. He walks zombie-like through LAX, attempts to disengage from the graduation party filled with his parents' friends, in fact appears to have no friends or social circle of his own. He is cut off from his parents' generation, the scuba suit in the suburban swimming pool just a literalization of his ennui. With the exception of Elaine, no one in his life even has a first name; not even a summer of sex with Mrs. Robinson personalizes her to the point where she can be named.
The affair itself does nothing to ground Benjamin, offering as it does only sex without real human contact. When he and Mrs. Robinson finally, at Ben's insistence, spend a few minutes talking, it only serves to show how cut off all human beings are from one another in this particular plastic-worshiping culture, rather than how they might engage. Benjamin's elders have nothing to offer him, and he can't imagine finding a home in their world.
On the other hand, although critics have interpreted the film as a statement on the "generation gap," Benjamin is equally estranged from his peer group. This is evidenced not only by the fact that he appears to have no peer group, but also in his character itself. He is clean-cut, polite, obedient. His disaffections are never turned outward. Unlike his contemporaries, he does not protest, demonstrate, grow out his hair, experiment with drugs. Before Mrs. Robinson he's even a virgin. His generation's preoccuations - free speech, free love, civil rights, Vietnam - are neither mentioned nor alluded to. His generation provides him no more succor than that of his parents.
His one act of rebellion, one moment of engagement, is his single-minded pursuit of Elaine, a pursuit that borders on the monomaniacal. He and Elaine in fact hardly know each other, and the fact that he feels so connected to her speaks more about the lack of connections in his life than it does about their relationship. The film appears to end in truimph, as Elaine flees the church with Benjamin to get on that bus and escape the marriage her parents have forced her into.
Look again at that final shot, though, and you see that this is as much a moment of confusion as it is of triumph. We see them looking out the back window, laughing as they are driven away. We then cut to the other passengers, turning in their seats to stare at the couple. They are isolated, cut off from the family at the church behind them and from the adults on the bus in front of them. This echoes the opening shot of the film, where a close-up of Benjamin's face pulls away to reveal the other passengers on the plane taking him home to LA, each in separate seats, each in separate worlds. The film dissolves to black with a shot of the couple sitting, staring ahead, blank looks on their faces. They don't know what to say, they don't know what to do, they don't know where the bus is heading. They may be "free," but they are also lost.
We end exactly where we began. Benjamin has achieved his quest only to find not the holy grail but instead a long road to nowhere on a bus filled with strangers. The greatness of this film lies not in the moments of pure comedy for which it is remembered but instead in the fact that pure comedy can be found even in this vast, desolate, uniquely American wasteland.
The film was released, and set, in 1967. Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college and returned to his ancestral Pasadena home. From the establishing shots through the first half of the film he is portrayed as isolated, alone, and adrift. He walks zombie-like through LAX, attempts to disengage from the graduation party filled with his parents' friends, in fact appears to have no friends or social circle of his own. He is cut off from his parents' generation, the scuba suit in the suburban swimming pool just a literalization of his ennui. With the exception of Elaine, no one in his life even has a first name; not even a summer of sex with Mrs. Robinson personalizes her to the point where she can be named.
The affair itself does nothing to ground Benjamin, offering as it does only sex without real human contact. When he and Mrs. Robinson finally, at Ben's insistence, spend a few minutes talking, it only serves to show how cut off all human beings are from one another in this particular plastic-worshiping culture, rather than how they might engage. Benjamin's elders have nothing to offer him, and he can't imagine finding a home in their world.
On the other hand, although critics have interpreted the film as a statement on the "generation gap," Benjamin is equally estranged from his peer group. This is evidenced not only by the fact that he appears to have no peer group, but also in his character itself. He is clean-cut, polite, obedient. His disaffections are never turned outward. Unlike his contemporaries, he does not protest, demonstrate, grow out his hair, experiment with drugs. Before Mrs. Robinson he's even a virgin. His generation's preoccuations - free speech, free love, civil rights, Vietnam - are neither mentioned nor alluded to. His generation provides him no more succor than that of his parents.
His one act of rebellion, one moment of engagement, is his single-minded pursuit of Elaine, a pursuit that borders on the monomaniacal. He and Elaine in fact hardly know each other, and the fact that he feels so connected to her speaks more about the lack of connections in his life than it does about their relationship. The film appears to end in truimph, as Elaine flees the church with Benjamin to get on that bus and escape the marriage her parents have forced her into.
Look again at that final shot, though, and you see that this is as much a moment of confusion as it is of triumph. We see them looking out the back window, laughing as they are driven away. We then cut to the other passengers, turning in their seats to stare at the couple. They are isolated, cut off from the family at the church behind them and from the adults on the bus in front of them. This echoes the opening shot of the film, where a close-up of Benjamin's face pulls away to reveal the other passengers on the plane taking him home to LA, each in separate seats, each in separate worlds. The film dissolves to black with a shot of the couple sitting, staring ahead, blank looks on their faces. They don't know what to say, they don't know what to do, they don't know where the bus is heading. They may be "free," but they are also lost.
We end exactly where we began. Benjamin has achieved his quest only to find not the holy grail but instead a long road to nowhere on a bus filled with strangers. The greatness of this film lies not in the moments of pure comedy for which it is remembered but instead in the fact that pure comedy can be found even in this vast, desolate, uniquely American wasteland.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
St. Pat's Trivia
I don't have a drop of Irish in my blood, but as it turns out my ancestors made an important contribution to the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in the United States. Back in Ireland, for centuries March 17 was a holy feast day. People would attend Mass in the morning, then go home and celebrate. Until the 1970s pubs were even closed, hard as that is for Americans to believe. Because March 17 always falls during Lent, Bishops would waive the stricture against meat, and celebrants would consume the traditional feast of Irish bacon and cabbage.
Early Irish immigrants to the US were either upper middle-class or in fact wealthy, but the potato famine brought wave after wave of poor Irish to our shores. Many of them congregated on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where they lived in a ghetto neighboring the Jewish and Italian ghettos. Discrimination kept them poor, and their poverty meant that they couldn't afford the luxury of bacon. The immigrants took a cue from their Jewish neighbors and discovered corned beef, a cheap alternative to bacon. And so we have my great-grandparents, living in poverty somewhere around Hester Street, to thank for today's preponderance of corned beef and cabbage. Sometimes cliches are true: we are all a little bit Irish today.
While I'm on the topic I have one final bit of St. Paddy's trivia. The color normally associated with Saint Patrick is blue. The wearing of green began a couple hundred years ago in the US, and was a show of solidarity with the Irish struggle for independence from England. OK, one last note of trivia and then I'm really done: Saint Patrick was undoubtedly an important guy, but he couldn't have driven all the snakes from Ireland, because Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. The terrain doesn't support them. Happy green drinking to all!
Early Irish immigrants to the US were either upper middle-class or in fact wealthy, but the potato famine brought wave after wave of poor Irish to our shores. Many of them congregated on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where they lived in a ghetto neighboring the Jewish and Italian ghettos. Discrimination kept them poor, and their poverty meant that they couldn't afford the luxury of bacon. The immigrants took a cue from their Jewish neighbors and discovered corned beef, a cheap alternative to bacon. And so we have my great-grandparents, living in poverty somewhere around Hester Street, to thank for today's preponderance of corned beef and cabbage. Sometimes cliches are true: we are all a little bit Irish today.
While I'm on the topic I have one final bit of St. Paddy's trivia. The color normally associated with Saint Patrick is blue. The wearing of green began a couple hundred years ago in the US, and was a show of solidarity with the Irish struggle for independence from England. OK, one last note of trivia and then I'm really done: Saint Patrick was undoubtedly an important guy, but he couldn't have driven all the snakes from Ireland, because Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. The terrain doesn't support them. Happy green drinking to all!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Stop Calling Me Names
Sunday's Times Styles section contained yet another article about Baby Boomers, and once again I got thrown into that mix because I was born in 1963. Boomers are defined as being born between 1946 and 1964. I don't know why 1964 or how that started, but I can say this: it's wrong. I'm not a Boomer, I have little in common with Boomers. Someone born in 1946 could well have been my parent. Stop categorizing me that way.
Baby Boomers grew up on Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club. I didn't. I watched Match Game. Baby Boomers were inspired by JFK. He died a month after I was born. Remember that famous picture of Bill Clinton shaking Kennedy's hand? I wasn't alive when that was taken. How does that have anything to do with me? Boomers grew up on the Beatles. When the Beatles broke up, I was listening to Disney soundtracks. My childhood lacked Beatles. Jackson 5 yes, Beatles no.
Boomers remember Vietnam, Woodstock, Kent State. These were defining events for Boomers. I remember none of that. I do remember Watergate, but that was only because of my father's obsession. I was too young to understand it or really care about it in any personal way. The defining political event of my younger years was probably the hostage crisis and then Iran Contra. Whatever that makes me, it's not a Boomer.
I was too young to be a hippie, or even a post-hippie. People my age became yuppies, if they became anything at all. More people my age grew up into political conservatism than grew up into dissent or liberalism. The civil rights and anti-war movements were things we studied. The 1960s was a thing we studied - I'm young enough to have taken a course on the 60s in college - not something we participated in. I am neither culturally nor politically a Boomer.
Later "generations" - X, Y, Millennials, whatever you want to call them - have tended to be thrown together in 10-year chunks. Why does the Boomer "generation" span nearly 20 years? It shouldn't. It's wrong. I'm tired of it. I simply am not of the same generation as someone born in the late 40s. We grew up in different cultures, different societies. Some commentators try to acknowlege this by calling my and my peers "late Boomers." If you have to separate us from the pack like that, maybe we don't belong in the pack to begin with.
When did the baby boom end, then? Maybe it was 1964 when the number of births per year decreased, but in terms of generational groupings, I think 1961 is the cut-off for Boomers. Anyone born after Kennedy's inaugural is something else. I don't know what we are, but we're. not. Baby. Boomers.
Baby Boomers grew up on Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club. I didn't. I watched Match Game. Baby Boomers were inspired by JFK. He died a month after I was born. Remember that famous picture of Bill Clinton shaking Kennedy's hand? I wasn't alive when that was taken. How does that have anything to do with me? Boomers grew up on the Beatles. When the Beatles broke up, I was listening to Disney soundtracks. My childhood lacked Beatles. Jackson 5 yes, Beatles no.
Boomers remember Vietnam, Woodstock, Kent State. These were defining events for Boomers. I remember none of that. I do remember Watergate, but that was only because of my father's obsession. I was too young to understand it or really care about it in any personal way. The defining political event of my younger years was probably the hostage crisis and then Iran Contra. Whatever that makes me, it's not a Boomer.
I was too young to be a hippie, or even a post-hippie. People my age became yuppies, if they became anything at all. More people my age grew up into political conservatism than grew up into dissent or liberalism. The civil rights and anti-war movements were things we studied. The 1960s was a thing we studied - I'm young enough to have taken a course on the 60s in college - not something we participated in. I am neither culturally nor politically a Boomer.
Later "generations" - X, Y, Millennials, whatever you want to call them - have tended to be thrown together in 10-year chunks. Why does the Boomer "generation" span nearly 20 years? It shouldn't. It's wrong. I'm tired of it. I simply am not of the same generation as someone born in the late 40s. We grew up in different cultures, different societies. Some commentators try to acknowlege this by calling my and my peers "late Boomers." If you have to separate us from the pack like that, maybe we don't belong in the pack to begin with.
When did the baby boom end, then? Maybe it was 1964 when the number of births per year decreased, but in terms of generational groupings, I think 1961 is the cut-off for Boomers. Anyone born after Kennedy's inaugural is something else. I don't know what we are, but we're. not. Baby. Boomers.
Monday, January 12, 2009
For Every Winner, a Loser
Well, a week and a half of sleep and more sleep has left me healthy, wealthy, and wise. OK, OK, but one out of three ain't bad, right? I finally saw Milk yesterday, a film that features some terrific performances and that is very well-made, and a film that I recommend, although I didn't learn anything new about Milk's life or his times. I did leave the theater thinking the same thing I thought after reading The Mayor of Castro Street and watching The Times of Harvey Milk, which was what the story would look like told from Dan White's point of view.
Something clearly happened that left White deeply disturbed. Although the notion that Twinkies made him do it remains laughable, whether the murders were premeditated or not they would seem to have resulted from some sort of derangement that one would think wasn't apparent during the election. White (and Milk) had been elected just a little over a year before the murders, and White was popular during the campaign. He came into office with a bright political future ahead of him. How did he go from that to depressed and homicidaly angry? Milk hints that White may have been gay himself but repressed and closeted; other treatments of the story paint him as simply homophobic and racist. I don't think either simplification explains things.
It's interesting to note that White represented a district that was mainly white and working-class, but that also included San Francisco's largest and most notorious housing project. White was the only candidate in his district who campaigned in the project, befriending many of the residents and garnering the support of the local gang. Yes, he was the candidate of the police and firemen's unions, but he was also the candidate of a large black underclass.
When he first took office, White befriended Milk. Milk was one of only three city hall colleagues invited to the christening of White's child. Before White's resignation, the San Francisco supervisers were split ideologically, with six conservative and five liberal members. White often voted with the liberals his first months in office, thereby shifting the balance of power. White was willing to vote with Milk and other liberals in exchange for getting their votes for his legislation, and the undoing of this loose coalition was a large part of White's undoing.
The city wanted to open a youth treatment center in White's neighborhood, and one of his campaign promises was to block this, claiming that the treatment center would make the streets of his district less safe. Natrually collecting the necessary votes was difficult in part because no one wants to vote against "youth" and in part because if the center wasn't in White's neighborhood, well, where would it be located? No one wanted in in their district, of course. White did find four votes besides his own. After a conversation with Milk, he believed that Milk would vote with him. On the day of the vote, he invited a number of constituents and neighborhood leaders to witness the defeat of the center. Instead, Milk voted against White, claiming that White had misunderstood him. White was humiliated before the supervisors, the press, and his constituents. He never got over this, and at this point began opposing anything Milk proposed, speaking out in the press against the gay community and liberals in general.
In the meantime, Milk's profile and legislative influence was growing, in part because of his visibility in the fight against Proposition 6, which would have barred gays not only from teaching but from holding any job in the California public school system. This story got national attention, as did Milk. While White felt more and more ineffectual, Milk seemed to be more and more powerful. Milk's defining piece of legislation was a civil rights ordinance stating that the city would not discriminate based on sexual preference. It passed with only one dissenting vote: White's. Not only did White feel betrayed by Milk, he felt betrayed by what he thought was his conservative coalition.
In the meantime, White had been required by city law to quit his position as a firefighter once elected. At that time supervisors were considered part-time employees, and White found that he could no longer support his family on the part-time salary. He opened a fast-food restaurant on the newly-constructed Pier 39, but that venture proved backbreaking and was failing. He tried to garner support for a pay raise for supervisors, but no one would introduce or second such legislation.
Feelings of failure as a husband, father, and legislator led White to resign his post at supervisor. We all know what happened next: he reconsidered, asked Moscone to appoint him to the seat he'd just resigned, was rebuffed in part because Milk and other liberals saw the opportunity to get another liberal vote out of the seat, snuck into city hall, killed Moscone and Milk.
To me, his story isn't just of latent homosexuality or of intolerance but also of failure and frustration, and of being on the wrong side of history. It's a tragedy as much as Milk's life ended in tragedy. Milk's story, and Milk the biopic, is history as told from the other, brighter end, where principles we all now believe in have triumphed (or mainly triumphed, considering the success of Proposition 8). White's story, on the other hand, is history as seen by a confused but well-meaning person trying but unable to live through change successfully. I don't defend him, but do try to understand him.
Something clearly happened that left White deeply disturbed. Although the notion that Twinkies made him do it remains laughable, whether the murders were premeditated or not they would seem to have resulted from some sort of derangement that one would think wasn't apparent during the election. White (and Milk) had been elected just a little over a year before the murders, and White was popular during the campaign. He came into office with a bright political future ahead of him. How did he go from that to depressed and homicidaly angry? Milk hints that White may have been gay himself but repressed and closeted; other treatments of the story paint him as simply homophobic and racist. I don't think either simplification explains things.
It's interesting to note that White represented a district that was mainly white and working-class, but that also included San Francisco's largest and most notorious housing project. White was the only candidate in his district who campaigned in the project, befriending many of the residents and garnering the support of the local gang. Yes, he was the candidate of the police and firemen's unions, but he was also the candidate of a large black underclass.
When he first took office, White befriended Milk. Milk was one of only three city hall colleagues invited to the christening of White's child. Before White's resignation, the San Francisco supervisers were split ideologically, with six conservative and five liberal members. White often voted with the liberals his first months in office, thereby shifting the balance of power. White was willing to vote with Milk and other liberals in exchange for getting their votes for his legislation, and the undoing of this loose coalition was a large part of White's undoing.
The city wanted to open a youth treatment center in White's neighborhood, and one of his campaign promises was to block this, claiming that the treatment center would make the streets of his district less safe. Natrually collecting the necessary votes was difficult in part because no one wants to vote against "youth" and in part because if the center wasn't in White's neighborhood, well, where would it be located? No one wanted in in their district, of course. White did find four votes besides his own. After a conversation with Milk, he believed that Milk would vote with him. On the day of the vote, he invited a number of constituents and neighborhood leaders to witness the defeat of the center. Instead, Milk voted against White, claiming that White had misunderstood him. White was humiliated before the supervisors, the press, and his constituents. He never got over this, and at this point began opposing anything Milk proposed, speaking out in the press against the gay community and liberals in general.
In the meantime, Milk's profile and legislative influence was growing, in part because of his visibility in the fight against Proposition 6, which would have barred gays not only from teaching but from holding any job in the California public school system. This story got national attention, as did Milk. While White felt more and more ineffectual, Milk seemed to be more and more powerful. Milk's defining piece of legislation was a civil rights ordinance stating that the city would not discriminate based on sexual preference. It passed with only one dissenting vote: White's. Not only did White feel betrayed by Milk, he felt betrayed by what he thought was his conservative coalition.
In the meantime, White had been required by city law to quit his position as a firefighter once elected. At that time supervisors were considered part-time employees, and White found that he could no longer support his family on the part-time salary. He opened a fast-food restaurant on the newly-constructed Pier 39, but that venture proved backbreaking and was failing. He tried to garner support for a pay raise for supervisors, but no one would introduce or second such legislation.
Feelings of failure as a husband, father, and legislator led White to resign his post at supervisor. We all know what happened next: he reconsidered, asked Moscone to appoint him to the seat he'd just resigned, was rebuffed in part because Milk and other liberals saw the opportunity to get another liberal vote out of the seat, snuck into city hall, killed Moscone and Milk.
To me, his story isn't just of latent homosexuality or of intolerance but also of failure and frustration, and of being on the wrong side of history. It's a tragedy as much as Milk's life ended in tragedy. Milk's story, and Milk the biopic, is history as told from the other, brighter end, where principles we all now believe in have triumphed (or mainly triumphed, considering the success of Proposition 8). White's story, on the other hand, is history as seen by a confused but well-meaning person trying but unable to live through change successfully. I don't defend him, but do try to understand him.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Would You Like a Side of Acorns with that Seal?
We know that sometime after the harvest of 1621 the Plymouth colonists shared a feast with their native neighbors. Although we don't know what they did eat, we have a good idea of what was not included on the menu. Surprisingly, some foods that we consider Thanksgiving staples did not appear on the original groaning board.
Ham, for example. Although the colonists had brought pigs with them from England, there's no evidence that they had butchered a hog at this point. They probably did eat wild turkey, goose, venison, or grouse; it's just as likely that the first Thanksgiving included some fatty and nutritious seal, which at the time was plentiful in the waters surrounding Cape Cod.
Although cranberries might have appeared on the table, the colonists lacked sugar, so their wild turkey was not adorned with cranberry sauce. There's little doubt corn was part of the meal, but it would have been dried corn at this time of the year. The season for fresh corn had ended before the harvest.
Neither sweet potatoes or potatoes were common in New England at this point in time, so if you're planning a historically accurate Thanksgiving you can leave these off the menu. The residents of Plymouth Plantation certainly had no notion of the marshmallow and, remember, no sugar, so candied sweet potatoes would have been as foreign a concept to them as General Foods International Coffee.
It goes without saying that not even Squanto possessed a ready supply of french cut green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and Durkee dried onion rings, doesn't it?
Finally, historians have uncovered no evidence of a Puritan recipe for pumpkin pie. In fact, the colonists not only lacked sugar, they lacked milk; no cows made the crossing on the Mayflower. Pumpkin would have made an appearance at the feast, maybe even stewed pumpkin, but no pumpkin pie.
Enjoy whatever you've decided to cook tomorrow. Rejoice in the fact that you're not huddled around a fire pit eating seal and are instead quaffing quantities of beer glued to the illuminated box of football. Plus ca change...
Ham, for example. Although the colonists had brought pigs with them from England, there's no evidence that they had butchered a hog at this point. They probably did eat wild turkey, goose, venison, or grouse; it's just as likely that the first Thanksgiving included some fatty and nutritious seal, which at the time was plentiful in the waters surrounding Cape Cod.
Although cranberries might have appeared on the table, the colonists lacked sugar, so their wild turkey was not adorned with cranberry sauce. There's little doubt corn was part of the meal, but it would have been dried corn at this time of the year. The season for fresh corn had ended before the harvest.
Neither sweet potatoes or potatoes were common in New England at this point in time, so if you're planning a historically accurate Thanksgiving you can leave these off the menu. The residents of Plymouth Plantation certainly had no notion of the marshmallow and, remember, no sugar, so candied sweet potatoes would have been as foreign a concept to them as General Foods International Coffee.
It goes without saying that not even Squanto possessed a ready supply of french cut green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and Durkee dried onion rings, doesn't it?
Finally, historians have uncovered no evidence of a Puritan recipe for pumpkin pie. In fact, the colonists not only lacked sugar, they lacked milk; no cows made the crossing on the Mayflower. Pumpkin would have made an appearance at the feast, maybe even stewed pumpkin, but no pumpkin pie.
Enjoy whatever you've decided to cook tomorrow. Rejoice in the fact that you're not huddled around a fire pit eating seal and are instead quaffing quantities of beer glued to the illuminated box of football. Plus ca change...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Day Fun Facts
Long lines at the polls are predicted for this Election Day, which can certainly be a pain. Waiting in line is really nothing compared to what Americans once had to go through in order to cast a ballot, though. Perusing the history of Presidential elections is enough to make one happy to be voting in 2008 rather than 1808.
We elect Presidents on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Why? you ask. Well, we originally didn't vote for the President, but for the electors who chose the President. We still do this in that the popular vote determines who will make up the Electoral College, but originally those electors weren't pledged to any candidate. Presidential candidates' names didn't even appear on the ballot. On the one hand we didn't have a deluge of yard signs, robocalls, and advertising before elections, but on the other hand Presidents weren't exactly elected by the people. Back then Senators also weren't directly elected; they were appointed.
Anyway, states held elections any time they wanted, so long as the electors could make it to the capitol by December 3, the date they would choose the President. Because travel could take a while by horse or carriage, elections took place any time between mid-October and mid-November. Sometimes electors had trouble making it to the capitol in time, though, so it was decided to choose one national Election Day. Early November seemed best because the harvest was over then (remember those good old agrarian days?) and the electors would have a month or so to get to Philly or, later, DC. The white men of property (expanding suffrage is the real hallmark of our electoral history, but I'm not going to go into that here) needed to travel to get to the polling place to vote on electors. In those days caucusing or balloting took place in cities, towns, county seats, and everyone lived on farms, sometimes a day away. So, Monday was no good, because you'd have to travel on the Sabbath to arrive by Monday, and Wednesday was market day, when people needed to be in town but were busy selling and trading. Tuesday was deemed the least disruptive day to hold elections. National elections originally took place the first Tuesday in November, but then one year that fell on November 1 and everyone complained it was too early, so it was changed so that elections could never fall on November 1. Now November 2 is the earliest possible date, November 8 the latest.
It used to be that we voted by voice, yea or nay, or by throwing colored rocks or beans in a pot, yellow for Thomas, blue for Silas, etc. Those beans were a pain to count, though, and in lean years maybe even a waste of beans. In the meantime political parties had come to prominence (George Washington and John Adams actually had no party affiliation), and the system of direct election of people rather than electors had been devised. When you're voting for people for a bunch of offices beans become too complex, so the paper ballot made the most sense.
In order for the white men to vote, they had to bring a ballot with them. In other words, no ballots were provided by the government or local board of elections. By now pretty much all white men could vote, but not all of them could read. That didn't matter, since pre-printed ballots were provided by the political parties. You could also cut them out of the newspaper, if you could read and afford a newspaper, but why bother when the Whigs or Know-Nothings or Democrat-Republicans were happy to give you your already completed ballot? These were ususally printed on long and narrow pieces of paper and were commonly referred to as "tickets," and this is where the phrase "party ticket" was born.
Once someone gave you your ballot you had to get it to the Judge of Elections. Actually, I should rephrase that: Once someone gave you a stack of ballots, you had to get them to the Judge of Elections. Yes, you could hand in as many ballots as you could carry. This was the nineteenth century version of "absentee voting." Handing in the ballots was probably easier said than done.
The "polls" then consisted of a room where the Judge collected ballots. Voters weren't allowed in the room, however, in an attempt to ensure the integrity of the process. Probably also because many of the voters were blind drunk, but I'll get to that in a minute. One had to pass ballots to the judge through a window or a slot. To get to said slot or window, one had to make one's way through a throng of people milling around, attempting to prevent ballots of one party or another from being cast. The whole process resembled a violent video game come to life: Grand Theft Voting. Fights, even riots, were common on Election Days of yore.
The fact that votes were routinely purchased with liquor undoubtedly had a lot to do with this. Party bosses would hand out ballots in the back room of saloons. Anyone willing to cast a ballot would be treated to some rum, ale, whatever drink was at hand. Anyone willing to mill around and prevent the other guy's ballots from being cast could also expect a free drunk that day. Yes, I'm primarily talking about cities here, but farmers also enjoyed a drink or two while visiting the county seat. Election day violence, and bribery with alcohol, were one of the arguments for Prohibition in the first place, and were the reason that bars remained closed on Election Day even at Prohibition's end.
In short, we've come a long way, even if every once in a while an election hinges on a hanging chad or two. So go vote - the worst that will happen is a wait in line - and then go drink, because come tonight you'll be either happy or sad, or a little of both, and this long exhausting process will finally be over, and, most importantly, the bars will be open.
We elect Presidents on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Why? you ask. Well, we originally didn't vote for the President, but for the electors who chose the President. We still do this in that the popular vote determines who will make up the Electoral College, but originally those electors weren't pledged to any candidate. Presidential candidates' names didn't even appear on the ballot. On the one hand we didn't have a deluge of yard signs, robocalls, and advertising before elections, but on the other hand Presidents weren't exactly elected by the people. Back then Senators also weren't directly elected; they were appointed.
Anyway, states held elections any time they wanted, so long as the electors could make it to the capitol by December 3, the date they would choose the President. Because travel could take a while by horse or carriage, elections took place any time between mid-October and mid-November. Sometimes electors had trouble making it to the capitol in time, though, so it was decided to choose one national Election Day. Early November seemed best because the harvest was over then (remember those good old agrarian days?) and the electors would have a month or so to get to Philly or, later, DC. The white men of property (expanding suffrage is the real hallmark of our electoral history, but I'm not going to go into that here) needed to travel to get to the polling place to vote on electors. In those days caucusing or balloting took place in cities, towns, county seats, and everyone lived on farms, sometimes a day away. So, Monday was no good, because you'd have to travel on the Sabbath to arrive by Monday, and Wednesday was market day, when people needed to be in town but were busy selling and trading. Tuesday was deemed the least disruptive day to hold elections. National elections originally took place the first Tuesday in November, but then one year that fell on November 1 and everyone complained it was too early, so it was changed so that elections could never fall on November 1. Now November 2 is the earliest possible date, November 8 the latest.
It used to be that we voted by voice, yea or nay, or by throwing colored rocks or beans in a pot, yellow for Thomas, blue for Silas, etc. Those beans were a pain to count, though, and in lean years maybe even a waste of beans. In the meantime political parties had come to prominence (George Washington and John Adams actually had no party affiliation), and the system of direct election of people rather than electors had been devised. When you're voting for people for a bunch of offices beans become too complex, so the paper ballot made the most sense.
In order for the white men to vote, they had to bring a ballot with them. In other words, no ballots were provided by the government or local board of elections. By now pretty much all white men could vote, but not all of them could read. That didn't matter, since pre-printed ballots were provided by the political parties. You could also cut them out of the newspaper, if you could read and afford a newspaper, but why bother when the Whigs or Know-Nothings or Democrat-Republicans were happy to give you your already completed ballot? These were ususally printed on long and narrow pieces of paper and were commonly referred to as "tickets," and this is where the phrase "party ticket" was born.
Once someone gave you your ballot you had to get it to the Judge of Elections. Actually, I should rephrase that: Once someone gave you a stack of ballots, you had to get them to the Judge of Elections. Yes, you could hand in as many ballots as you could carry. This was the nineteenth century version of "absentee voting." Handing in the ballots was probably easier said than done.
The "polls" then consisted of a room where the Judge collected ballots. Voters weren't allowed in the room, however, in an attempt to ensure the integrity of the process. Probably also because many of the voters were blind drunk, but I'll get to that in a minute. One had to pass ballots to the judge through a window or a slot. To get to said slot or window, one had to make one's way through a throng of people milling around, attempting to prevent ballots of one party or another from being cast. The whole process resembled a violent video game come to life: Grand Theft Voting. Fights, even riots, were common on Election Days of yore.
The fact that votes were routinely purchased with liquor undoubtedly had a lot to do with this. Party bosses would hand out ballots in the back room of saloons. Anyone willing to cast a ballot would be treated to some rum, ale, whatever drink was at hand. Anyone willing to mill around and prevent the other guy's ballots from being cast could also expect a free drunk that day. Yes, I'm primarily talking about cities here, but farmers also enjoyed a drink or two while visiting the county seat. Election day violence, and bribery with alcohol, were one of the arguments for Prohibition in the first place, and were the reason that bars remained closed on Election Day even at Prohibition's end.
In short, we've come a long way, even if every once in a while an election hinges on a hanging chad or two. So go vote - the worst that will happen is a wait in line - and then go drink, because come tonight you'll be either happy or sad, or a little of both, and this long exhausting process will finally be over, and, most importantly, the bars will be open.
Friday, July 25, 2008
A Correction in the Market
I took a nap in the pool yesterday afternoon and clearly got up on the correct side of the float. The tree people arrived, the yard is clean, the neighbors brought me a check, the sale contract for my business will be signed this afternoon. If my old house had sold the reversal of fortune would have been complete. There's always today, however. Have a nice day!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Happy Birthday, Nation
Independence from England was declared on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution stating as such. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, it was decided further clarification on this decision was needed, and that a formal declaration of the reasons for independence should be drafted. Both Adams and Franklin turned down the job, which fell to Jefferson. The Congress voted approval of the declaration on July 4. Hancock signed it and sent it off to the printer so that couriers could disseminate it throughout the colonies. Everyone then went home and grilled some hot dogs.
You have several options for celebrating the birth of our country tomorrow. You can write or sign a radical document, or you can stay home and grill some hot dogs. Either way, don't hold the sparkler too close to your eyes.
You have several options for celebrating the birth of our country tomorrow. You can write or sign a radical document, or you can stay home and grill some hot dogs. Either way, don't hold the sparkler too close to your eyes.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Big-Ass Book of the Week
For the past month, I haven't been happy if I haven't been reading a 700-page tome, preferably about Richard Nixon. I think that, without realizing it, I've been privately commemorating the Senate Watergate hearings, held 35 years ago this summer. Or maybe election year politics have just made me interested in elections of the past. For whatever reason, I spent all my free time two weeks ago devouring Nixonland, then last week moved on to The Last Campaign, the story of RFK's 82-day long 1968 bid, and have now just finished Richard Reeves' President Nixon: Alone in the White House.
Nixon's rise and fall, and rise and fall again, and final rise and fall, have always interested me probably because it all feels so much like a Greek tragedy. Sure, he was "tricky", "dirty", paranoid, whatever you want to call him, but he was also a brilliant politician. He invented the politics that the Republican right have used to keep themselves in power for most of the past 40 years, after all. It's sad because he probably would have accomplished his goals - bringing order to the streets and an end to Vietnam - without illegally wiretapping anybody, and without using the IRS and FBI for political purposes. He undoubtedly would have been re-elected without spying on the DNC and then covering it up, as well. But his worse nature got the better of him, as it did throughout his life.
Nixonland led me to believe that I was right to admire him as a politician even if I can't admire him as a human being, but the Reeves book has led me to admire him for something completely different: for becoming President despite being clearly and obviously insane. I mean, he was more than just a little bipolar, and more than just a little paranoid. He was completely looped, and would have benefited from at least one of Eagleton's electric shock treatments. Read the book and you'll marvel at the fact that a person of his mindset could not only become President but also rack up some successes, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
Crazy cleaves to crazy, so it's no wonder CREEP's operatives were a sandwich or two short of lunch. Yes, of course I refer to G. Gordon Liddy. We all know what they did; what's less known is the original plan, called Operation Gemstone. Liddy presented the plan to Mitchell and Dean with one hand bandaged, because he'd held it in a candle's flame to demonstrate the pain he would endure in the name of loyalty. Here's the plan, as quoted by Reeves:
"We need preventive action to break up demonstrations before they reach television cameras. I can arrange for the services of highly trained squads, men who have worked successfully as street-fighting squads for the CIA...Teams that are experienced in surgical relocation activities. In a word, they can kidnap a hostile leader with maximum secrecy and a minimum use of force. If, for instance, a prominent radical comes to our convention, these teams can drug him and take him across the border...I have secured a option to lease a pleasure craft docked on the canal directly in front of the Fountainbleu Hotel. It is more than sixty feet long, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for both sight and sound...We can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat. These are the finest call girls in the country. They are not dumb broads, but girls who can be trained and programmed..."
Mitchell rejected this plan, not because of its absurdity, but because it would have been too expensive. Give me something cheaper, he said. Colson says focus on bugging and stealing documents, that we can afford. We all know what happened next.
My father hated Nixon with a passion that would have led Liddy to exile him to the pleasure boat. He hated Nixon so much he made me, at the age of 9, sit with him and watch the Senate hearings, all 37 days of them, televised that summer of 1973. I didn't get much of it, except that I thought John Dean was cute. I get it all now, though, and for the first time in my life I understand my father's hatred. We want this stuff in a situation comedy, we want it in a work of fiction. We don't, however, want it in the White House.
Nixon's rise and fall, and rise and fall again, and final rise and fall, have always interested me probably because it all feels so much like a Greek tragedy. Sure, he was "tricky", "dirty", paranoid, whatever you want to call him, but he was also a brilliant politician. He invented the politics that the Republican right have used to keep themselves in power for most of the past 40 years, after all. It's sad because he probably would have accomplished his goals - bringing order to the streets and an end to Vietnam - without illegally wiretapping anybody, and without using the IRS and FBI for political purposes. He undoubtedly would have been re-elected without spying on the DNC and then covering it up, as well. But his worse nature got the better of him, as it did throughout his life.
Nixonland led me to believe that I was right to admire him as a politician even if I can't admire him as a human being, but the Reeves book has led me to admire him for something completely different: for becoming President despite being clearly and obviously insane. I mean, he was more than just a little bipolar, and more than just a little paranoid. He was completely looped, and would have benefited from at least one of Eagleton's electric shock treatments. Read the book and you'll marvel at the fact that a person of his mindset could not only become President but also rack up some successes, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
Crazy cleaves to crazy, so it's no wonder CREEP's operatives were a sandwich or two short of lunch. Yes, of course I refer to G. Gordon Liddy. We all know what they did; what's less known is the original plan, called Operation Gemstone. Liddy presented the plan to Mitchell and Dean with one hand bandaged, because he'd held it in a candle's flame to demonstrate the pain he would endure in the name of loyalty. Here's the plan, as quoted by Reeves:
"We need preventive action to break up demonstrations before they reach television cameras. I can arrange for the services of highly trained squads, men who have worked successfully as street-fighting squads for the CIA...Teams that are experienced in surgical relocation activities. In a word, they can kidnap a hostile leader with maximum secrecy and a minimum use of force. If, for instance, a prominent radical comes to our convention, these teams can drug him and take him across the border...I have secured a option to lease a pleasure craft docked on the canal directly in front of the Fountainbleu Hotel. It is more than sixty feet long, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for both sight and sound...We can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat. These are the finest call girls in the country. They are not dumb broads, but girls who can be trained and programmed..."
Mitchell rejected this plan, not because of its absurdity, but because it would have been too expensive. Give me something cheaper, he said. Colson says focus on bugging and stealing documents, that we can afford. We all know what happened next.
My father hated Nixon with a passion that would have led Liddy to exile him to the pleasure boat. He hated Nixon so much he made me, at the age of 9, sit with him and watch the Senate hearings, all 37 days of them, televised that summer of 1973. I didn't get much of it, except that I thought John Dean was cute. I get it all now, though, and for the first time in my life I understand my father's hatred. We want this stuff in a situation comedy, we want it in a work of fiction. We don't, however, want it in the White House.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Foundation Myths
I'm a sucker for pop history, so I always greatly anticipate Tony Horwitz' books. His most recent, A Voyage Long and Strange, doesn't disappoint. A visit to Plymouth Rock leads Horwitz to contemplate the 130 years or so of exploration and colonization of the new world that took place between Columbus and the Pilgrims, and to wonder why most of us know so little about it. Horwitz retraces the steps of Coronodo, De Soto, and John Smith, a voyage of discovery of our nation's founding myths, and the ways these myths have, over the centuries, become received as "fact."
Ponce de Leon wasn't looking for a Fountain of Youth; not even the Spanish were that gullible, although they were plenty gullible, spending years and expending men and fortunes schlepping all over the heartland looking for the Seven Cities of Gold. Sir Walter Raleigh never once set foot in Virginia, although his years of flirting with Elizabeth I had netted him title to pretty much the entire east coast. Roanoke's lost colonists weren't lost so much as abandoned; their leader returned to England to get fresh supplies and manpower, but because he hitched rides on ships more interested in piracy than colonization, and because of the war with Spain that culminated in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it took him five years to return to the colony. At that point the colony had been abandoned, the settlers either massacred by or living with the natives.
Pocahontas may or may not have saved John Smith's life. Natives often put captives through a ritual where their life would be threatened, then dramatically saved, before adopting the captives into their tribe. Plus, Smith was a known exaggerator, Pocahontas was only ten at the time, and a similar story of near execution had been earlier been published by a Spanish conquistador. Pocahontas married John Rolfe, not John Smith. She returned to England with him, had children, enjoyed life in Tudor London. She fell ill and died a few days after they boarded a ship to return to Virginia; she's buried somewhere in Gravesend, England.
The Pilgrims didn't land on Plymouth Rock, which makes sense if you think about it for only a millisecond: who steers a wooden ship towards a rock? They weren't even called "Pilgrims" until the 19th century. Squanto and friends might have shown up to share a harvest meal with the Pilgrims, but this wouldn't have been the first Thanksgiving; that would have taken place almost a hundred years earlier, between the Spanish and the Plains Indians.
At any rate, Thanksgiving wasn't a national holiday until the Civil War, when Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November, 1863 as a day of Thanksgiving to recognize the sacrifices made for the Union. Lincoln didn't mention turkey or Pilgrims, and neither did FDR, when he moved the holiday back a week in 1939 at the urging of merchants eager to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.
There's plenty more to be learned from Horwitz' book, which I heartily recommend. I want to particularly thank him for teaching me something I've wondered during every drive through Rhode Island on my way to Provincetown: it's landlocked, so why is it called Rhode Island? Turns out Verrazzano thought the mainland was in fact Block Island. The terrain reminded him of the Greek island Rhodes. His name stuck although it was probably a good PR move in the way that Greenland was so named in the hopes of attracting settlers. Because really, would you move to Rhodeland, or Rhodia? I didn't think so.
Ponce de Leon wasn't looking for a Fountain of Youth; not even the Spanish were that gullible, although they were plenty gullible, spending years and expending men and fortunes schlepping all over the heartland looking for the Seven Cities of Gold. Sir Walter Raleigh never once set foot in Virginia, although his years of flirting with Elizabeth I had netted him title to pretty much the entire east coast. Roanoke's lost colonists weren't lost so much as abandoned; their leader returned to England to get fresh supplies and manpower, but because he hitched rides on ships more interested in piracy than colonization, and because of the war with Spain that culminated in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it took him five years to return to the colony. At that point the colony had been abandoned, the settlers either massacred by or living with the natives.
Pocahontas may or may not have saved John Smith's life. Natives often put captives through a ritual where their life would be threatened, then dramatically saved, before adopting the captives into their tribe. Plus, Smith was a known exaggerator, Pocahontas was only ten at the time, and a similar story of near execution had been earlier been published by a Spanish conquistador. Pocahontas married John Rolfe, not John Smith. She returned to England with him, had children, enjoyed life in Tudor London. She fell ill and died a few days after they boarded a ship to return to Virginia; she's buried somewhere in Gravesend, England.
The Pilgrims didn't land on Plymouth Rock, which makes sense if you think about it for only a millisecond: who steers a wooden ship towards a rock? They weren't even called "Pilgrims" until the 19th century. Squanto and friends might have shown up to share a harvest meal with the Pilgrims, but this wouldn't have been the first Thanksgiving; that would have taken place almost a hundred years earlier, between the Spanish and the Plains Indians.
At any rate, Thanksgiving wasn't a national holiday until the Civil War, when Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November, 1863 as a day of Thanksgiving to recognize the sacrifices made for the Union. Lincoln didn't mention turkey or Pilgrims, and neither did FDR, when he moved the holiday back a week in 1939 at the urging of merchants eager to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.
There's plenty more to be learned from Horwitz' book, which I heartily recommend. I want to particularly thank him for teaching me something I've wondered during every drive through Rhode Island on my way to Provincetown: it's landlocked, so why is it called Rhode Island? Turns out Verrazzano thought the mainland was in fact Block Island. The terrain reminded him of the Greek island Rhodes. His name stuck although it was probably a good PR move in the way that Greenland was so named in the hopes of attracting settlers. Because really, would you move to Rhodeland, or Rhodia? I didn't think so.
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