A Look Back at Life Magazine March 7, 1949

Ever since Gilda retired two months ago our lives have changed in obvious and some not so subtle ways. We no longer wake up before 6 am to get Gilda to work in Manhattan. We often can stay in bed past 9 or even 10 am, and I am talking weekdays! With eight hours or more of sleep I believe my apnea is diminishing. 

I won’t bore you with more details (maybe in another post) except to say that her retirement meant we were able to celebrate my 70th birthday together all day Wednesday. Truly enjoyable. 

But to return to my opening comment about changes to our lives for one more example, Gilda has embarked us on a decluttering crusade worthy of Marie Kondo. Having tackled our attic in pre-retirement mode, she thrust her shovel into the detritus of our children’s former bedrooms and the living room. Marie Kondo says jettison anything that doesn’t give you joy. Of course, that presumes joy is shared, or not, by both partners. As a mild hoarder I can attest that I find more joy in our miscellaneous possessions than Gilda does. 

Which brings me to the central theme of this blog. Gilda wanted to throw out a collectible issue of Life magazine dated March 7, 1949, the day after I was born. Now, I know many people collect facsimiles of a newspaper front page of their birth day, not realizing that the stories reveal what happened the day before their birth. 

Life magazine was a weekly back then. Each issue costs 20 cents; yearly subscriptions $6. 

Leafing through the edition I retrieved from the disposal pile, I paused to read interesting editorial and advertisements as current back then as they are today.  Israel was a topic of debate in 1949, the year after its founding. A letter to the editor from Walter Fried of New York, N.Y., stated “I am glad to see that your attitude toward the new state of Israel has changed” from being against the formation of the new state “or rather you were against the way in which it was formed.”

Turning the page I came across an ad for an Anglia economy car built by Ford in England. What intrigued me was the gas mileage for the 4-cylinder two-door vehicle—up to 40 miles per gallon! Most cars today cannot match that efficiency. 

Bryce Harper just signed a 13-year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies for $330 million. It is part of free agent legacy in baseball attributed to the actions of Curt Flood in 1969 and later by Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith in 1975. But how many of you know about Danny Gardella and his 1949 battle to invalidate the reserve clause that bound players to their teams even after their contracts expired? Read more about Gardella’s bid to crack the reserve clause by clicking on this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Gardella

Presidential pique with journalists as well as presidential cussing did not begin with Donald Trump. Or with Harry S. Truman. Life noted his displeasure with Drew Pearson, reporting, “Pearson approached the President face to face after a press conference—and some observers had the impression Truman would gladly have taken a swing at Pearson if a Secret Service man had not moved in.” 

Jim Acosta of CNN, are you paying attention?

Life further noted that Truman used the term “s.o.b.” in public, a rare display of vulgarity by a president back then, but apparently not in the age of Trump. 

A few weeks ago the military was chastised for the poor condition of housing for servicemen and their families. Here’s a headline from Life: “New Army Has a Housing Scandal. It finds that Fort Dix GIs live in shacks and even a chicken coop.”

Inside Life’s 138 pages fashion was presented, as well. The big trend of the day—“Slit skirts, they show a little more leg.” The slits could be from four to nine inches long, in back or up the side of the skirt. 

“The new style has an interesting by-product: under the right conditions of light and motion a spectator can catch a fleeting glimpse of the long-veiled upper calf and knee.” 

Sacré bleu! Can nothing be left to the imagination!?!

With the failed Trump-Kim Jong-un summit in Vietnam fresh in mind, here’s Life’s March 7, 1949, nine page report, “Indo-China: It is rich, beautiful colony which France may lose.”

The prescient series of articles came five years before France withdrew from Vietnam after its defeat at Dien Bien Phu and 26 years before the last American died in a war that took 58,220 U.S. lives and some 3.2 million Vietnamese from the North and South. 

Life ceased weekly publishing in 1972, the year I began my career as a journalist. 

Tired of Too Much Trump? Fatigue Factor Sets In

The fatigue factor is setting in. Donald Trump and his gang that couldn’t shoot straight is overwhelming me. There’s too much to write. If I miss a day the accumulated copy weighs me down. So here’s a “in case you missed it”  blog including random thoughts on news of the days of jaw-dropping, head shaking awe …

Did you see Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wax ecstatic about the lack of protesters and dissenters in Saudi Arabia during Trump’s transactional relationship building trip to the desert kingdom?

“[The] thing that was fascinating to me was there was not a single hint of a protester anywhere there during the whole time we were there,” Ross told a global audience on CNBC. “Not one guy with a bad placard…”

Even after the CNBC newswoman suggested Saudis do not have the freedom to protest, Ross maintained his devotion to the repressive regime. 

Here are two reports you might want to read about the incident: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wilbur-ross-trumps-saudi-visit_us_5922dd3ce4b03b485cb31054 and http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/22/news/wilbur-ross-saudi-protests/index.html …

Bibi’s Slip of the Tongue: After Trump’s visit to the Western Wall, Israeli prime minister Bib Netanyahu lauded him for being the “first acting president” to stand before Judaism’s holiest site. 

Bibi had it right. Though he meant to say “sitting president,” Trump’s presidency is an act, an act of arrogance, idiocy, cruelty, meanness and braggado. 

Trump’s buffoonery was on display during their press conference when he volunteered that he didn’t mention Israel during his meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office, thus providing tacit recognition that he spilled confidential information to our adversaries. 

Compare Notes: After visiting Yad Vashem, the memorial to six million Jews slain during the Holocaust, in Jerusalem Tuesday, Trump left the following note signed by him and his wife, Melania: 

“It is a great Honor To Be Here With All of My Friends.

So Amazing & will Never Forget!”

After his July 23, 2008, visit to Yad Vashem, candidate Barack Obama wrote:

“I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim “never again.” And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims but as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.”   

CBSnews.com provided more context: “Then-president George W. Bush inscribed a brief message-- ‘God bless Israel’-- a few months earlier, in January 2008.

“Bill Clinton, who visited the memorial in his first term, was optimistic about the prospects for Middle East peace when wrote this in the book:

‘Today we have come one step closer to the time when the people of Israel will live in peace with all of their neighbors, when the awful events of death and destruction memorialized here will be banished to the past.’ 

  

“During her time as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent in the 2016 election, left the following note in March 2009:

“‘Yad Vashem is a testament to the power of truth in the face of denial, the resilience of the human spirit in the face of despair, the triumph of the Jewish people over murder and destruction and a reminder to all people that the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten,’ Clinton's note said. ‘God bless Israel and its future.’”

Okay, our current White House occupant is not a wordsmith. You’d think, however, that someone, someone in the administration would know better, would know the proper way to convey a message that is more than just “amazing.” 

Apparently not.

Killer Eyes: Last month Arkansas, with the approval of the U.S. Supreme Court, rushed to execute as many death row inmates as it could before its lethal chemical cocktail mix could no longer be used. 

I’ll forego commenting on the appropriateness of capital punishment, but I would suggest one change to the execution protocol. I would like any district attorney, governor and judge who favors an execution to have to witness the administration of said death penalty. It might not cut down on the number of executions but it would remove any shield they may have in meting out the ultimate punishment.

Comp Time Blues: There was a time several years back when human resources consultants advised that employees wanted more free time than more wages for overtime work. That idea is being incorporated in the Trump Administration’s proposals that comp time replace overtime pay.

Back when I worked for The New Haven Register chalking up comp time was the norm. There was, however, one flaw, a big flaw, in that practice—I was still required to file all the stories I would normally have to submit. 

Channeling Presidents: Unless I missed it, I must admit I was surprised Trump did not channel President Harry S. Truman when it came to defending his daughter’s creative talent. 

Truman’s daughter Margaret received less than flattering reviews for her singing from The Washington Post, prompting the plucky president to write the music critic, “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”

To my knowledge Trump did not similarly respond to savage reviews of Ivanka’s book “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success” (http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5907a3f8e4b05c3976819069?section=us_arts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=culture+shift+05-05-2017&utm_content=culture+shift+05-05-2017+Version+A+CID_420012b2802ea993f727cb880db1ee08&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=READ+MORE&ncid=newsltushpmgspecialculture+shift+05-05-2017)

We should also hope Trump does not channel one of his presidential heroes, Andrew Jackson, who defied a Supreme Court ruling, famously stating, “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” 

Given all his judicial involvements Trump may well have to confront judgments not to his liking. 

He might find comfort in conjuring up the image of Woodrow Wilson, often considered a great president for “making the world safe for democracy,” but who discriminated against Afro-Americans and immigrants he thought were a threat to national security.

“I am sure the country is honeycombed with German intrigue and infested with German spies,” Wilson wrote in 1915 to one of his advisors. 

Once America entered the war against Germany, Wilson signed the Sedition Act of 1918 which restricted speech and the expression of opinion that criticized the government or the war effort. Convicted offenders could be imprisoned for five to 20 years.

Perhaps it is a good thing Trump is not a student of history.

Do Nothing Congress II

The parallels to events of our time are eerily similar.

In the third and fourth years of a Democrat’s initial term as president of the United States, a Republican-controlled Congress repeatedly and stubbornly undermined his agenda. The GOP favored pro-business bills. The president advocated for civil rights, more unemployment compensation, universal health care. As the election campaign heated up, the president wound up maligning the Congress for thwarting his proposals as much as he ran against his opponent.

That 1948 campaign is perhaps best known for the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” Chicago Daily Tribune headline mockingly raised up for the cameras by the real winner, President Harry S. Truman. But to election buffs, Truman’s labeling of the legislature as the “Do Nothing Congress” is perhaps a more telling perspective on how events will unfold in the 15 months before the 2012 elections.

To secure a second term, to secure the type of support required for his progressive plans, Barack Obama will have to champion not only his credentials but he also will have to convince voters of their need for a Democratic majority in the House and Senate. One without the other will result in continued stalemate at the federal level. Truman’s Do Nothing Congress attack worked. It can work again, but only if Obama vigorously stumps for Democrats across the land.

Unless he’s a very good actor, Obama does not have the same feistiness Truman possessed. He does have a temper, but he’s cool, too cool, in public. After nearly three years in office, after three years of trying to portray a presidential-above-the-fray demeanor, Obama has left too many of his supporters wondering about his commitment to Democratic, progressive principles. Plus, they wonder how good a poker player he is (Truman, fyi, loved playing poker), considering his failed attempts to roll back the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy and the lack of any revenue enhancement provisions in the recent debt ceiling deal. When your opponent (John Boehner) boasts he got 98% of what he wanted, it’s hard to find backers for a stake in the game.

Yet that is what Obama must do. He must re-invigorate the coalition of voters who elected him in 2008. He must campaign in lock-step with congressional candidates. He must convince the disenchanted that sitting out the election, abstaining, is not really an opt-out choice. Not voting for the lesser of two evils, or as a protest against his performance, is, in fact, support for the worst candidate. People in opposition usually are more passionate than those content with the status quo, so they’ll turn out to the polls in droves.

Obama and the Democrats also have to contend with the misguided suggestion by Starbucks founder and CEO Howard Schultz for a boycott of campaign contributions to all incumbents until they act more responsibly and compromise their rigid positions. Was he not listening to Boehner’s remarks? Did he not hear or read how Democrats caved so a debt ceiling deal could be reached? Withholding funds from Democratic incumbents would only exacerbate Washington’s problems, unless Schultz seeks a Republican/Tea Party mandate, a result seemingly incompatible to his previous socially progressive positions.

Obama must define for those on the fence what a Republican/Tea Party win would mean: a more conservative-leaning Supreme Court; an anti-labor, anti-working class White House and Congress; less enforcement of civil rights; attacks on the separation of church and state; tax policies more favorable to the wealthy; fewer consumer protections; less environmental regulation; weakened food and product safety laws; less emphasis on education and the introduction of questionable science; restrictions on medical research; elimination of universal health care. The list could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the point.