Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

During recent Fourth of July ceremonies, I was reminded that I was taught that it was disrespectful to applaud after the national anthem for several reasons. You don’t applaud after an anthem or hymn. And you don’t applaud the performer because the point is to honor the country’s symbol, which requires no applause, not to praise the performer. I am willing to bet, however, that many people think they are doing right when they clap after the last bar.

Mark Clague in his interesting book O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of The Star-Spangled Banner suggests that each week at NFL games different patriotic songs be played starting with the National Anthem. In following weeks perhaps America the Beautiful, Lift Every Voice, God Bless America, This Land Is Your Land, and My Country ’Tis of Thee would accompany the raising of the flag. I think that this is a good idea for all American sports and should also be the norm for baseball’s seventh inning stretch’s patriotic song.

It seems odd to me that hospitals now release patients after giving them a goody bag containing a toothbrush, warm socks, maybe soap, etc.. But I use some of the stuff I received recently.

Who was the innovator who first started mowing patterns onto sport fields?

“It takes two to speak truth—one to speak and another to hear.” Thoreau.

I wrote the following in this blog’s post of June 30, 2023, titled “The Job Comes with Pay, Power, Prestige . . . and Criticism . . . and Billionaires’ Gifts”:

“Congress has a limited sort of check on the Supreme Court. It can pass a new law if the Court has wrongly interpreted a statute. I am pretty sure that this has happened, but I can’t come up with an example. Perhaps someone can help me out.”

My friend Dean came to my rescue, referring to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Ledbetter worked as a supervisor for the Goodyear Tire Company for nineteen years. As she neared retirement, she learned that she was being paid significantly less than men doing the same work with equal or less seniority. She sued Goodyear under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court overturned her trial court victory. The Civil Rights Act contained a statute of limitations that required a suit for pay discrimination within 180 days of the discrimination. The Court held that the clock started ticking with the first discriminatory paycheck even if employees had no way of knowing they were being screwed. Of course, in a place where employee pay is not public knowledge few would know immediately of the discrimination against them. Ledbetter was working for Goodyear for over a decade before she learned that she was being shortchanged in comparison to men. Under the Court’s interpretation, if a company could keep its discrimination hidden for half a year, it was in the clear. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pact Act of 2009 in essence overruled the Supreme Court by amending the Civil Rights Act so that the 180-day statute of limitation starts anew with each discriminatory paycheck or compensation. And, oh yes, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion that allowed corporations to discriminate was Samuel Alito. He was joined by John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas.

The time, alas, has come to consider moving to a “retirement” community. We were at an open house for such a facility along with a half-dozen other couples. I started chatting with a man in a beautiful blue shirt. After we introduced ourselves to each other, we drifted apart to get some cheese cubes and meet others. After the illustrated presentation, the blue-shirted attendee came over to me and said, “It was nice talking with you. I hope we meet again, but, sorry, my memory isn’t what it once was. What was your name again?” I paused for quite a bit and finally replied, “When do you need to know?”

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“Cooking starts with your hands, the most important and basic of all implements.” James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking.

“Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there’d even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.” Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry.

“The man called the ‘Emperor of New York’ was also known as Shields Green.” Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.

“In October there were yellow trees.” Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These.

“My earliest memory of Leon dates back to the 1960s, when he was living in Paris with his wife, Rita, my grandmother.” Philippe Sands, East West Street.

“Bill Rankin sat motionless before his typewriter, grimly seeking a lead for the interview he was about to write.” Earl Derr Biggers, Behind That Curtain.

“I have been told by many people that I have an unusual way of looking at the world.” Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

“The telltale sign that you are at the wedding of a rich person is the napkins.” Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming.

“As his chauffeur nosed the sleek black Rolls Royce through the dawn streets of Paris, Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale had little inkling that his actions over the coming months would have such immense historic significance, or that he would end up serving as a role model for the world’s most famous (fictional) secret agent, ‘007’ – James Bond.” Damien Lewis, Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy.

“On a bright, unseasonably warm afternoon in early December, Brandon Trescott walked out of the spa at the Chatham Bars Inn on Cape Cod and got into a taxi.” Dennis Lehane, Moonlight Mile.

“On March 15, 1889, hurricane winds struck Samoa’s Apia Harbor in the South Pacific, catching two anchored American warships by surprise.” Mark Clague, O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of The Star-Spangled Banner.

“There is a glorious part of England known as the Donheads.” Jane Gardam, The Man in the Wooden Hat.

“Night had fallen in the rugged oil-boom city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the squad of detectives appeared on a downtown street.” Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.

“Certainties for architecture students are few.” Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“There was a time when the world’s largest airport sat in the middle of western Pacific, around 1,500 miles from the coast of Japan, on one of a cluster of small tropical islands known as the Marianas.” Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia.

“In those days, I was the one who came down from Nazareth to be baptized by John in the River Jordan.” Norman Mailer, The Gospel According to the Son.

“In the U.S. elections of 1834, the balance of power in Congress was up for grabs, and the tide was turning against President Andrew Jackson.” Mark Clague, O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of The Star-Spangled Banner.

“Have you ever seen a town fall?” Fredrik Backman, Us Against You.

“To understand a civilization, consider its heroes.” David Gelles, The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy.

“Otto Burke, the Wizard of Schmoose, raised his game another level.” Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker.

“Of the many times John C.Frémont visited St. Louis, the most auspicious came in 1845.” Steve Inskeep, Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War.

“Money, Mississippi, looks exactly like it sounds.” Percival Everett, The Trees.

“Throughout the spring morning of April 14, 1876, a huge crowd, largely African American began to assemble in the vicinity of Seventh and K Streets in Washington, D.C.” David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

“Mike always teased me about my memory, about how I could go back years and years to what people were wearing on a given occasion, right down to their jewelry or shoes.” Ann Packer, The Dive From Clausen’s Pier.

“In the winter of 1921, Knud Rasmussen invited about one hundred of Copenhagen’s eminent citizens—politicians, artists, journalists and business leaders—to join him at the city’s prestigious Palace hotel for a special dinner.” Stephen R. Brown, White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen’s Fearless Journey into the Heart of Arctic.

“Like a beast, the net came steaming up the ramp and into the sodium lamps of the trawl deck.” Martin Cruz Smith, Polar Star.

“The first thing I need to do is convince you something has changed.” Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized.

“That winter was the warmest in a hundred years.” Robert Stone, Outerbridge Reach.

“Legend tells us that the gerrymander originated in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts.” Nick Seabrook, One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America.