Boston Red Sox Quiz: 1) Who was Rookie of the Year in 1961?
2) Who was A.L. batting champ in 1960 and ’62? 3) Name the
two to win 20 games in the 60s. 4) Who are the only two to hit
50 home runs in a season? 5) Name the five with 1,200 or more
RBI in their Red Sox careers. 6) What two are tied for most
lifetime wins at 192? Answers below.
Virginia Tech
Our thoughts and prayers are with the students, their families,
the staff and the entire Blacksburg community. April 19 is the
anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and back then a
chaplain on the scene said:
“The most asked question is ‘Why’? And all I could say was that
I didn’t know.”
—–
Jackie Robinson
With the official anniversary of his Brooklyn Dodgers debut last
Sunday, I have to add some thoughts, via the work of others, on
the topic.
But first, it was disappointing seeing Barry Bonds insist on
wearing Robinson’s No. 42 to commemorate the historic
moment. “He means a lot to all of us,” Bonds said. “To me,
Jackie Robinson really changed baseball as a whole.”
Of course Jackie is upstairs looking down on Bonds with total
disgust. Robinson was a man of integrity. Bonds is a loathsome
soul. Tragically, Bonds also says he feels good physically these
days. But back to a real American hero…Jackie.
George Will / Washington Post
“Like many New Yorkers leaving home for work on April 15,
1947, he wore a suit, tie and camel-hair overcoat as he headed
for the subway. To his wife he said, ‘Just in case you have
trouble picking me out, I’ll be wearing number 42.’
“No one had trouble spotting the black man in the Dodgers’
white home uniform when he trotted out to play first base at
Ebbets Field. Suddenly, only 399, not 400, major league players
were white. Which is why 42 is the only number permanently
retired by every team….
“To appreciate how far the nation has come, propelled by what
began 60 years ago today, consider not the invectives that
Robinson heard from opponents’ dugouts and fans but the way
he had been praised. ‘Dusky Jack Robinson,’ as the Los Angeles
Times called him, alerting readers to the race of UCLA’s four-
sport star, ran with a football ‘like it was a watermelon and the
guy who owned it was after him with a shotgun.’”
[The preceding is from Jonathan Eig’s “Opening Day: The Story
of Jackie Robinson’s First Season.”]
“After the opening two games against the Boston Braves, the
Dodgers played the Giants at the Polo Grounds in Harlem. The
president of the National League, fearing excessive enthusiasm,
suggested that Robinson should develop a sprained ankle. He
did not, and the crowds were large, dressed as if for church –
men in suits and hats, women in dresses – and decorous. Soon a
commentator wrote, ‘Like plastics and penicillin, it seems like
Jackie is here to stay.’”
Robinson died of diabetes at the age of 53, the same age Babe
Ruth was when he died. Will writes, “Ruth reshaped baseball;
Robinson’s life still reverberates through all of American life.
As Martin Luther King Jr. who was 18 in 1947, was to say,
Robinson was ‘a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before
freedom rides.’
“ ‘Robinson,’ writes Eig, ‘showed black Americans what was
possible. He showed white Americans what was inevitable.’ By
the end of the 1947 season, America’s future was unfolding by
democracy’s dialectic of improvement. Robinson changed
sensibilities, which led to changed laws, which in turn
accelerated changes in sensibilities.
“Jack Roosevelt Robinson’s middle name was homage to the
president who said ‘speak softly and carry a big stick.’
Robinson’s deeds spoke loudly. His stick weighted 34 ounces,
which was enough.”
Dave Anderson / New York Times
[Robinson signed his contract after the Dodgers played an
exhibition game at Ebbets Field with Robinson’s minor league
Montreal Royals.]
“When that game ended, still in his Montreal uniform, Jackie
Robinson, 28, a four-letter athlete at UCLA and an Army
lieutenant during World War II, entered the Dodgers’ clubhouse.
“ ‘As I remember, he walked in with Branch Rickey Jr.,’ said
Ralph Branca, a 21-game winner for those pennant-winning
Dodgers that season, referring to the son of the Dodgers general
manager who had signed Robinson to shatter organized
baseball’s color line. ‘There weren’t any lockers available, so
Jackie had to hang his clothes on a couple of nails on the wall
near the trainer’s room. Then somebody handed him a white
uniform with 42 in blue numbers on it.’
“Branca welcomed Robinson with a handshake; so did a few
other Dodgers.
“ ‘Some of the Southern guys didn’t shake his hand,’ Branca said
in a telephone interview, ‘but it wasn’t dramatic. I don’t think
anybody really grasped the social importance of what was
happening. He had been in Montreal and he was just another
ballplayer who could help us win.”
Kevin Kernan / New York Post
[On Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s daughter.]
“ ‘My dad was such a good father,’ explains Sharon, who was six
when Jackie retired from the Dodgers after the 1956 season. ‘He
never brought his anger home. He was a giant of a man, but he
was quite gentle and he worked his anger out through sports and
being an activist. I was his only daughter and we had a very
tender, loving relationship. He had to be away a lot but he
always called, was always sending my mother flowers. He was
so reliable. And when he would come home, he would share
what he was doing.’….
“ ‘As a family, my father taught us that we had to work together
toward change,’ she says. ‘Our first family event was in 1963
when he had a jazz concert at our home and we raised money for
Dr. [Martin Luther] King. My brothers and I had to sell hot dogs
and sodas to make money to get activists out of jail, we were
raising bond money.’”
Kernan related a story between pitcher Don Newcombe and
Jackie. Newcombe told Kernan:
“ ‘Back in 1949 when I first joined the team I had my second or
third start against the Pittsburgh Pirates. I had an 11-1 lead in the
third inning and I started getting smart, started experimenting. I
looked up and I had the bases loaded, no outs with Ralph Kiner
coming to bat.’
“Jackie called time and walked to the mound. This is what he
told the 6-4, 225-pound pitcher:
“ ‘Newcombe, why don’t you just take that uniform off and go
on home. You don’t want to pitch here.’
“ ‘What are you talking about Jackie?’
“ ‘You’re fooling around, you got the bases loaded and Ralph
Kiner is going to hit one over that short wall and you’re not
going to get the win and maybe we’re not going to get the win as
a team. And if you don’t like what I’m saying to you, let’s go in
the clubhouse and settle it.’
“Newcombe made the smart decision not to go into the
clubhouse. Robinson then told him, ‘Get yourself together and
stop acting like a clown out here on this mound.’
“Newcombe did just that.
“ ‘I struck Kiner out, and got the side out and we won the game.
I never forgot that and I never let it happen again in my whole
career with the Dodgers. Jackie didn’t believe in losing. When
you go out there, you go out there to win, whether it was
baseball, playing cards or playing the racehorses.’”
Newcombe, like Sharon Robinson, also stresses that people need
to know what Jackie did for the civil rights movement.
Newcombe, now 80, told Kernan:
“Martin Luther King sat at my dinner table in 1968, 28 days
before he died in Memphis. He said to me during our dinner,
‘Don, you and Jackie and Roy [Campanella] will never know
how easy you made it for me to do my job with what you men
did on the baseball field.’
“Remember, Martin was still in theology school when we were
out on the baseball field, doing what we were doing. We didn’t
meet Martin until 1954 in Montgomery when we played an
exhibition game. Jackie and I and Roy and Larry [Doby] were
all doing it and putting our lives on the line. Imagine Martin
Luther King saying that after what he endured. People can’t
forget what Jackie has done.”
Mets owner Fred Wilpon grew up near Ebbets Field and pitched
batting practice to the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson. [Wilpon
was famously best friends with Sandy Koufax in those days and
was a solid high school pitcher in his own right.]
“Jackie was not only a Hall of Fame baseball player, Jackie’s life
was the life of an American hero. In my view he could have
been a great president of the United States. He launched the
Freedom National Bank, and that was unheard of in those days.
Jackie was always thoughtful of the community and how can we
make it better for everyone.”
[Ed: By the way…in reading the above, think David Robinson,
today.]
*I actually have just a bit more on Robinson the ballplayer for
next chat. But in the last two weeks we’ve explored the
tremendous contributions of two giants of Black America, Eddie
and Jackie Robinson. It’s sad to think, however, how few of
today’s youth know their stories. Then again from the studies
you all see, kids these days know so little American history,
period.
Stuff
–An extraordinary event happened in the NBA the other day.
Commissioner David Stern suspended one of the top referees,
Joey Crawford, for failing “to meet the standards of
professionalism and game management we expect of NBA
referees,” as Stern put it in a statement. “Although Joey is
consistently rated as one of our top referees, he must be held
accountable for his actions on the floor, and we will have further
discussions with him following the season to be sure he
understands his responsibilities.”
Crawford, whose father is famous baseball umpire Shag
Crawford and the brother of current umpire Jerry, crossed the
line on Sunday in a game between San Antonio and Dallas.
Crawford issued a technical foul to Tim Duncan, and then with
Duncan sitting on the bench, laughing with a teammate,
Crawford teed him up again.
Duncan told The San Antonio News-Express afterwards, “Before
he gave me the two technical fouls, he made a call and I was
shaking my head, and he walks down and stares at me. He says,
‘Do you want to fight? Do you want to fight?’ I didn’t say
anything to him there, either.”
Duncan, one of the few model player/citizens in a league filled
with losers, is nonetheless known as a whiner when it comes to
the officials, but nothing more. Duncan said Crawford had a
vendetta against him, though Stern denied this.
Michael Wilbon / Washington Post:
“Commissioner David Stern needed to do something. Six
months after making it a point of emphasis that referees crack
down on excessive player behavior, the NBA simply could not
let one of its referees slide for throwing Tim Duncan out of a
game for laughing after Crawford said to him, ‘Do you want to
fight?’
“The NBA’s behavior campaign, which had been in effect for
about two years, wouldn’t have a shred of credibility if Stern had
just given Crawford a warning….
“But not many of us saw this coming. Stern suspended Crawford
indefinitely, which is a stunner. Stern said that Crawford didn’t
particularly think he’d done anything wrong, and might decide
on his own to be done with officiating NBA games for good –
which is another stunner….
“ABC’s microphones caught Crawford telling Spurs Coach
Gregg Popovich that Duncan’s unpardonable sin was laughing at
him. You could read Crawford’s lips as he said the words
‘making a mockery.’ Duncan, incredulous, left the floor and
uttered a profanity, which earned him a $25,000 fine. The
episode isn’t subject to interpretation because it was captured on
camera from multiple angles. Crawford was making the case
that Duncan’s belly-laughing was an attempt to show up the
referees. But Stern indicated that that excuse would not fly, that
this had nothing to do with enforcing the early-season point of
emphasis to assess technicals to players who slam the ball on the
floor or run the other way pulling their jerseys over the heads.”
But as Wilbon further notes, by throwing Duncan out, the Spurs
lost the game and a chance at a No. 2 seed in the playoffs,
meaning Phoenix gained the potential home court advantage in a
match-up with San Antonio in the second round, the winner
presumed to then face Dallas in the conference finals.
There are conspiracy theorists that Wilbon doesn’t deny have a
point. The league, and the networks, don’t want the charisma
challenged Spurs facing off against the Mavs, even though last
year’s 7-game series between the two was the best basketball in
decades. They’d prefer the Suns. Of course Stern had to crack
down on Crawford to prevent this kind of talk from dominating
the games rather than the play on the court.
–We hereby nominate Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s daughter,
Jacquelyn, for “Dirtball of the Year,” Bar Chat category. The
former heavyweight champion has been forced to sue her
because she has been in control of all his contracts, product
endorsements and other business papers and has reportedly
deprived her father of all manner of royalties and payments. Joe
is hurting financially these days. Nice kid.
–You want some good news? According to the World Wildlife
Fund, four litters of Amur leopards, the world’s most endangered
cat, have been identified in a census in Siberia. No more than 34
of these incredibly beautiful animals (I just saw a picture) remain
in the wild.
–But then there is this one…
“Girl injured in freak attack by sea lion”
I read this story in a Hong Kong paper; then Bob S. passed along
a different version.
From Agence France-Presse:
“An Australian teenager is lucky to be alive after she survived
being mauled by a sea lion while surfing. Ella Murphy was
attacked by the creature, thought to weigh about 880 pounds, as
she stood on a surfboard being towed behind a boat Saturday.
“The animal was close to charging the 13-year-old girl a second
time as she floundered in the water off the coast of Western
Australia when she was rescued by the driver of the boat, Chris
Thomas.
“ ‘You can only describe it as like a white pointer [shark]
jumping out of the water,’ he said. ‘It was really sort of movie-
like. This thing just exploded in a full-on, frontal attack. It
actually lined her up. It jumped out of the water at her and hit
her head-on. It must have been traveling at an enormous speed.
It opened its mouth and grabbed her head. It latched on.’”
Ella suffered only a broken jaw and lost three teeth.
Now some marine scientist joker told the AP that the sea lion’s
behavior was so bizarre because the animal may have been trying
to play with the girl.
You’ve gotta be kidding me. Playing with her? Hardly. And
what’s more worrisome, of course, is that unlike killer whale’s
and tiger sharks, sea lions can create havoc on land as well.
We take safety seriously here at Bar Chat and for this reason I’m
warning everyone to not only stay out of the water until further
notice, but whatever you do don’t go to the circus.
–And as if the above isn’t bad enough, “hazers” have been
attempting to keep sea lions away from the chinook salmon run
on the Columbia River in Oregon. From John Ritter of USA
Today:
“In greater numbers every year, sea lions swim more than 100
miles up the Columbia from its mouth at the Pacific Ocean to
Bonneville as endangered salmon congregate in April and May
on their way upriver to spawn. Last year, biologists identified at
least 80 sea lions at the dam.”
Freakin’ sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal
Protection Act, for crying out loud. There are only about 20
billion of the a-holes. What are we protecting them for?! [OK,
the paper says ‘only’ 300,000 roam the Pacific coast. But that’s
more than enough for comfort, as well as survival….though I’d
like to see a national referendum on the issue in ’08, quite
frankly.]
Well these hazers ply the waters and fire rubber bullets at the sea
lions to keep them from devouring all the salmon, but the bullets
just bounce off! “Some of them barely feel it,” says Robert
Stansell, a fisheries biologist. “When you hit them point-blank,
they’ll just turn around and look like a mosquito bit them.”
Goodness gracious. Sounds like the Air Force needs to be called
in, know what I’m sayin’?
But maybe the sea lions have met their match. Four Indian tribes
on the lower Columbia that have cultural ties to the salmon (a
great source of Omega-3, by the way) are outraged at the
animals. Yes, it’s time for a reenactment of Little Big Horn.
Any surviving sea lions can petition for a memorial later on, if
they so wish.
–Big news…and no surprise to yours truly having been to my
fair share of zoos around the globe.
Orangutans have supplanted chimps and gorillas as the world’s
most intelligent animal, according to a study.
“It appears the orangutan may possess a privileged status among
human kindred,” said James Lee, the Harvard University
psychologist behind the research. Chimps and orangutans share
96% of their DNA with humans.
Alas, orangutans face extinction, which makes the few breeding
programs at zoos and primate research centers critical.
But what makes orangutans special over chimps? Researchers in
Borneo found them capable of tasks well beyond that of J. Fred
Muggs and his brethren. For example, orangutans are able to
make fashionable rain hats out of leaves. Another little known
fact is that orangutans were the first to recognize that if you
made up a story about the efficacy of ethanol, corn prices would
rise, so they’ve been major players, and winners, in the
commodities markets the past year or so. [Being based in
resource rich Borneo, they’ve also been trading metals, natural
gas and oil contracts.]
Meanwhile, the spider monkey is #3 on the list of non-human
primates in order of intelligence (though most of the time I’d
place humans themselves around #9). That’s surprising. What
isn’t surprising, however, is the fact baboons are way down at
#11. Great fighters, I think you’d agree, but not exactly general
material, if you catch my drift. They need someone to tell them,
“Go…take that village!”
–We have a new “Idiot of the Year” candidate…Prince William.
I wish I could have talked to both him and the Queen Mum
before their collective decision to dump Kate Middleton. Bad
move.
–Cartoonist Brant Parker died. He was co-creator of “The
Wizard of Id” along with Johnny Hart, who himself died just
eight days earlier; Hart having also drawn “B.C.”
Kind of makes you wonder if they were using tainted ink from
China, doesn’t it?
–Funny story from Golf Week’s “Forecaddie” column and the
Masters.
“Tiger Woods was playing a Masters practice round by himself
the Sunday afternoon prior to the tournament (April 1) when an
Augusta National member and his wife strolled up. [Remember,
Sunday before the Masters, the course still is open to members.]
“Woods took off his cap and pleasantly greeted his new friends,
and they chatted a bit. All of a sudden, the member asked
Woods, ‘Tiger, do you mind if my wife and I join you?’
“He might as well have asked Woods if he could hit a small
bucket with Tiger’s SasQuatch.
“Now, anyone who knows that Tiger Woods snaps on his game
face during a practice round for a major championship can
imagine that his foundation shook at the very sound of that
inquiry. Let’s put it this way: The request was greeted with
silence and shock.
“The tension was broken when the member told Woods that he
was only kidding. April Fools. It was one of the best golf
‘gotcha’s’ we’ve ever heard. Woods broke up in laughter, as did
his caddie, Steve Williams. Woods playfully said that he wasn’t
sure he could beat the member’s wife at golf. ‘She’s too good
for me,’ he said, smiling.” [Just imagine how the wife was
cooing after.]
–We wish Jairo Miguel, the 14-year-old matador, well in his
recovery from being nearly gored to death in a Mexican ring.
Miguel had left Spain to escape his country’s ban on young
bullfighters, only to have a bull named ‘Hidrocalido’ (the 8th son
of Taurus) rush him at top speed, lift him up in the air, and carry
him several yards “with one horn firmly lodged in his thorax.”
[Mark Stevenson/AP]
Yikes.
“I’m dying, dad, I’m dying,” government news agency Notimex
quoted Jairo as saying immediately after the goring. His father is
also a well-known bullfighter who came with him to Mexico
from Spain. In Spain, you must be 16 before you can even begin
training and can’t kill a bull in the ring until he or she is 18.
Back in 1970, when I was 12, I attended a bullfight in Spain with
my brother and parents and to this day that’s as nervous as I’ve
ever been at any kind of sporting event. [Yes, it’s a sport.]
–Dr. Bortrum passed this one along from the desk of Alan J.
Hurd, president of Materials Research Society. [It’s obvious
between Bortrum and yours truly which one has the PhD and
which one graduated Summa Cum Lousy.]
“The CEO of a major U.S. corporation recently remarked,
‘Today, 18% of my workforce is non-U.S. In 10 years it will be
50%.’ A competitor U.S. organization is 23% non-U.S. and 31%
of its top performers are non-U.S. Yet only 12% of the U.S.
population is non-U.S.-born….
“Most of us already work in an institution with an international
flavor. What about the U.S. corporation that expects to be 50%
non-U.S. in 10 years? It’s the National Basketball Association!
And the competing organization whose all-star performers are
one-third non-U.S. is Major League Baseball! Globalization is
everywhere.”
–The Knicks have lost 15 of 18 games since Madison Square
Garden chairman James Dolan extended coach Isiah Thomas’s
contract, even though the Knicks were 29-34 at the time.
–The New Jersey Nets, looking ahead to playing in Brooklyn
one of these days, still need to sell tickets for next season at the
dreadful Meadowlands/Continental Arena, so they are already
offering ‘buy one season ticket, get one free!’ Pitiful.
–Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer received
a ton of favorable publicity after both her team’s performance in
the NCAA basketball tournament and in the wake of the Imus
controversy. But in the interest of full disclosure, I can’t help but
relate a little tale from the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick.
“While Imus turned (Stringer) into an overnight national
spokeswoman for social integrity, would it would be impolite
(and impolitic) to recall her recruitment of Shalicia Hurns to RU?
“Hurns, a 6-foot-3 rebounding machine from Indianapolis,
previously had been thrown out of two other colleges, once after
she was arrested for drugs and a hit-and-run accident. That
didn’t stop Stringer or RU.
“In 2004, Hurns made it three-for-three. She was tossed from the
RU team after her arrest (and eventual conviction) for a five-hour
ordeal during which she bound and beat her girlfriend, an RU
student.
“Stringer, at the time, told USA Today that she doesn’t regret
recruiting Hurns. ‘I’m not calling it a mistake,’ she said. ‘I
don’t apologize for anything.’”
And that’s a memo………
–“For Better or For Worse” is all about April these days, just as
the selfish kid would like it, as her family ponders whether or not
to buy the Stibbs home for John and Elly, while Michael and
Deanna would take over the current Patterson abode were that to
be the case. “What about me?” April is begging. “Where am I
going to live?” “Nothing’s going to be the same.” Oh shut up.
Your parents busted their butts to give you a great life and a
comforting environment and all you can do is complain. Some
of us are real tired of your act, kid. Plus it looks like you’ve aged
10 years in two strips, let alone the fact your weight continues to
fluctuate, panel by panel, as violently as your mood swings. Get
a grip. You think life is tough now, April? Just wait another five
years.
–I caught up with “The Sopranos” second episode. Man, it’s
going to be a dark, dark ending. Just who is going to pull the
trigger on Christopher? As for “Entourage,” it’s Cabo, baby!
Top 3 songs for the week 4/13/74: #1 “Bennie And The Jets”
(Elton John) #2 “Hooked On A Feeling” (Blue Swede) #3
“TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” (MFSB featuring The
Three Degrees)…and…#4 “The Lord’s Prayer” (Sister Janet
Mead…huh) #5 “Come And Get Your Love” (Redbone) #6
“Sunshine On My Shoulders” (John Denver) #7 “Best Thing
That Ever Happened To Me” (Gladys Knight & the Pips…I’ll
cut them some slack after last time) #8 “Seasons In The Sun”
(Terry Jacks) #9 “Oh My My” (Ringo Starr) #10
“Mockingbird” (Carly Simon & James Taylor…absolutely
dreadful…)
Boston Red Sox Quiz Answers: 1) Rookie of the Year, 1961:
Pitcher Don Schwall. 2) Pete Runnels won the batting title in
both 1960 and 62. 3) 20-game winners in the 60s: Bill
Monbouquette, 20-10, 1963. Jim Lonborg, 22-9, 1967. 4) Only
two to hit 50 homeruns: David Ortiz, 54, 2006; Jimmie Foxx, 50,
1938. 5) Five with 1,200 RBI: Carl Yastrzemski, 1,844; Ted
Williams, 1,839; Jim Rice, 1,451; Dwight Evans, 1,346; Bobby
Doerr, 1,247. 6) Roger Clemens and Cy Young both won 192 in
a Boston uniform. Interestingly, Clemens was 192-111 and
Young was 192-112.
Next Bar Chat, Monday pm.
———-
And for the upcoming Earth Day….our annual missive.
Rachel Carson
We have a tradition here at Bar Chat, honoring Rachel Carson on
Earth Day (April 22). Of course I do this to prove to my critics
that I’m really a closet greenie. And now….the Rachel Carson
story.
Born May 1907 in a 5-room farmhouse in Springdale, Pa.,
Carson always had a certain fondness for nature, though she
grew up wanting to be a writer. Then while at Chatham College
a science teacher convinced Rachel to change her major from
English to Zoology.
Meanwhile, back during World War II, the U.S. military had
been making great use of an insect spray, DDT, which was
particularly effective in fighting lice and other disease-carrying
insects. But the effect on humans was little tested. Following
the war, however, E.I. DuPont, the manufacturer, had large
stockpiles of DDT left over and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture championed its use.
We didn’t know it at the time, but DDT wasn’t the only potential
problem. By the late 1950s, the daily flushings from industries
and cities were turning America’s waterways into sewers.
Rachel Carson was now an editor with the Fish and Wildlife
Service and she thought our nation was acting too quickly in
approving and using various chemicals and pesticides so she
sought to do a formal study. But when no one seemed interested
in supporting this effort, Carson turned to marine biology and
began a broad look at the earth’s life-support system in 1958.
The main subject of her 4-year study was the effect on wildlife of
the new poisons being produced by the likes of DuPont.
Carson’s work would thrust the concept of environmentalism
into the mainstream of human thought.
By 1962, having been convinced by friends to write a protest
article on the widespread use of DDT to control mosquitoes,
Carson published her first piece in The New Yorker, later
expanding it to a book, “Silent Spring.” It would prove to be one
of the most influential works of the 20th century. As writer /
editor Harold Evans notes, “She had the scientific training, she
had the reverence for life in all its forms and she had the literary
ability to make the subject readable.”
Here are just a few selected passages:
“There was once a town in the heart of America where all life
seemed to be in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in
the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of
grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of
bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple
and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across
a backdrop of pines….
“Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began
to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community;
mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and
sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death.
The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the
town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new
kinds of sickness appearing among their patients….
“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example – where
had they gone?….
“….Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer
visited them, for all the fish had died….
“No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new
life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves…..
“It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that
now inhabits the earth – eons of time in which that developing
and evolving and diversifying life reached a state of adjustment
and balance with its surroundings….Given time – time not in
years but in millennia – life adjusts, and a balance has been
reached. For time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern
world there is no time.”
The book was purposefully divided into two sections because
Rachel had to address different constituencies. The first part was
an ecology primer that millions of ordinary readers could
understand, while the second was an argument against the
chemical industry’s scientists. The book connected the new “age
of poisons” and “nature’s web on interwoven lives” to the
everyday existence of her readers.
Knowing she would face fierce counterattacks, Carson concluded
with a huge 55-page appendix of “principle sources.” The
invitation was to “tear it apart if you can.” The chemical
industry blasted her, the conclusions labeled “baloney.” Ezra
Benson, Eisenhower’s former Secretary of Agriculture, said
Carson was “probably a Communist.” She was accused of being
a hysterical woman who loved animals more than humans.
Two years into “Silent Spring” Rachel was stricken with cancer,
yet she felt a solemn obligation to finish the book.
“The beauty of the world I was trying to save has always been
uppermost in my mind,” she said. “That, and anger of the
senseless, brutish things that were being done…if I didn’t at least
try I could never again be happy in nature.”
President Kennedy had his Science Advisory Committee
evaluate Carson’s findings and the prestigious group validated
her thesis.
Then in 1963 the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave
her an award:
“A scientist in the grand literary style of Galileo and Buffon
(French naturalist), she had used her scientific knowledge and
moral feeling to deepen our consciousness of living nature and to
alert us to the calamitous possibility that our short-sighted
technological conquests might destroy the very sources of our
being.”
Rachel Caron died on April 14, 1964. The pesticide DDT was
banned in 1972.
[Sources: American Heritage magazine; “The American
Century,” Harold Evans; “The Century,” Todd Brewster and
Peter Jennings; “Muckraking!” edited by Judith and William
Serrin.]
**BUT…we’re not finished. In a piece by Tina Rosenberg on
DDT in the Sunday Times Magazine, 4/11/04, she claims that
today DDT can help those suffering from malaria in Africa and
elsewhere. Rosenberg thus blames Rachel Carson for countless
deaths.
As Rosenberg writes, “The move away from DDT in the 60’s
and 70’s led to a resurgence of malaria in various countries…
those that then returned to DDT saw their epidemics controlled.
In Mexico in the 1980s, malaria cases rose and fell with the
quantity of DDT sprayed.”
Rosenberg adds this about Carson’s classic work.
“Carson detailed how DDT travels up the food chain in greater
and greater concentrations, how robins died when they ate
earthworms exposed to DDT, how DDT doomed eagle young to
an early death, how salmon died because DDT had killed the
stream insects they ate, how fiddler crabs collapsed in
convulsions in tidal marshes sprayed with DDT….
“Rachel Carson started the environmental movement. Few
books have done more to change the world.
“But this time around, I was also struck by something that did
not occur to me when I first read the book in the early 1980’s. In
her 297 pages, Rachel Carson never mentioned the fact that by
the time she was writing, DDT was responsible for saving tens of
millions of lives, perhaps hundreds of millions…
“ ‘Silent Spring’ is now killing African children because of its
persistence in the public mind. Public opinion is so firm on DDT
that even officials who know it can be employed safely dare not
recommend its use.”
[And while we’re at it, I thought I’d reprise the following.]
Richard Nixon and the Environment
Back during the campaign of 1968, neither Richard Nixon nor
opponent Hubert Humphrey discussed the environment . After
all, a poll taken following Nixon’s election showed that only 1%
believed it was the most important issue facing the new
president. Shortly after taking office, for example, Nixon told
Henry Kissinger of a meeting he had had with the Sierra Club.
“What is the Sierra Club?” Kissinger asked. Two years later,
though, the polls had changed. The environment was now the #1
issue among 25% of the people.
Nixon, ever the pragmatist, saw an opportunity to champion a
movement that was beginning to stir and so in his 1970 State of
the Union Address he declared, “Clean air, clean water, open
spaces – these should once again be the birthright of every
American.” The result was the Clean Air Act of 1970, which
forced the auto industry to meet emission standards. [Granted,
Detroit didn’t initially do a great job at this, but it was a start.]
Well, the first Earth Day was also in 1970 and 10,000 schools,
2,000 colleges and almost every town in America took part.
100,000 celebrated in New York City, alone, and the
environmental movement was officially born.
At the time environmental responsibilities were looked after in
various departments of the Federal Government; Interior for
water, Health, Education & Welfare for air quality, and the
Department of Agriculture regulated pesticides. Nixon then
proposed, just two months after the first Earth Day, the creation
of the Environmental Protection Agency to take over the
scattered functions while giving the EPA greater regulatory
power. The agency opened its doors on December 2, 1970 and
the first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, was a strong leader.
Did Richard Nixon champion the environment for political
reasons? Perhaps. Should anyone care? Of course not, the man
got things done. That’s just my opinion….I paid for this site!
[Source: “One of Us,” Tom Wicker]
Gaylord Nelson
But while President Nixon ended up being a friend of the
environment, a three-term Democratic senator from Wisconsin,
Gaylord Nelson, was, like Rachel Carson, a true founder of the
modern environmental movement.
Nelson died at the age of 89 in 2005 and the following is from an
obituary by Patricia Sullivan of the Washington Post.
“One of the leading environmentalists of the 20th century, (aside
from founding Earth Day) Nelson also co-sponsored the 1964
Wilderness Act and sponsored or co-sponsored laws that
protected the Appalachian Trail and banned the pesticide DDT,
Agent Orange and phosphate detergents. He backed fuel
efficiency standards in vehicles and strip-mining controls. He
wrote the first environmental education act. He once proposed a
ban on the internal combustion engine, as an amendment to the
Clean Air Act.”
Nelson originally came up for the idea of Earth Day in 1969 after
visiting an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, Ca., one I
remember vividly from the pictures in LIFE magazine. The
senator was also a leader in the anti-war movement at the time
(Nelson was one of just three senators to vote against funding for
U.S. ground troops in Vietnam) and while reading of a “teach-
in,” decided to adapt that principle as a way of promoting
environmental awareness.
Sen. Nelson then hired a fellow by the name of Denis Hayes, a
student at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, to
organize Earth Day. Both were staggered that 20 million turned
out across the country, April 22, 1970.
Hayes commented upon Nelson’s death, “(The senator)
recognized the partnership between traditional conservative
issues and the new emerging urban and industrial issues. Largely
forgotten is that he was the first and most important to help us
build bridges between environmental concerns and organized
labor.”
One of Gaylord Nelson’s closest friends was Nixon defense
secretary Melvin Laird. The two had served together in the
Wisconsin state senate and were known to argue on the floor, but
then adjourn for dinner and drinks after.
“There was no closer political friendship and love between two
opposite party members in the history of Wisconsin politics than
that of Gaylord and me,” Laird said.
And there was this classic story of the two when they both ended
up in Washington.
“Late one night at the Army and Navy Club, after arguing
whether the ‘hotline’ to Moscow was at the White House or the
Pentagon; Laird summoned his driver, loaded Nelson into the
back seat with him and took him over to the Pentagon command
center, where service members on duty must have been stunned
to see the defense secretary and the antiwar Democrat stroll in.”
[Patricia Sullivan / Washington Post]
“I said, ‘Right there is the hotline, and I’m going to have them
run through an experiment with it right now’ and have them call
Moscow,” Laird said. Nelson finally admitted he was wrong.
So we salute Gaylord Nelson. An old-time senator in the purest,
best sense of the word; unlike the 80 or 90 jerks that people the
place today.
