"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
It’s a beautiful thing to see how many of this crowd — and so many pro-life religious folks I’ve encountered – are praying for Barack Obama. They love their country and want better for it than legal abortion. They know the power of prayer, and if anything could make him reconsider abortion …
Originally, the artist planned to dress "Freedom" in a Phrygian cap -- a simple, soft, peaked red hat, also called a "liberty cap." A classical motif, the hat had become such a common symbol of political revolution that it eventually ended up on the official seal of the U.S. Senate.
However, as the informative website of the Architect of the Capitol notes, after Secretary of War Jefferson Davis objected to the sculptor's intention to include a liberty cap, Crawford replaced it with a crested Roman helmet. Why the objection? Because, in the rising abolition movement, the liberty cap had been adopted as a symbol of freed slaves.
Davis, of course, resigned from the Senate in 1861 and accepted appointment as president of the Confederate States of America. In a cruel irony, the complex casting and assembly of the sculpture was overseen by Philip Reid -- a slave at the foundry.
At Obama's swearing-in, the "Statue of Freedom" will gain another level of meaning. Hats off.
An excerpt from Presidential Courage by Michael Beschloss:
Sunday, March 4, 1905, Roosevelt took his oath on the East Front of the Capitol.
On the eve of his inauguration...TR received an extraordinary gift from his old family friend, Secretary of State John Hay -- a heavy gold ring, including six strands of hair mounted under a tiny oval pane of glass. With the ring came a handwritten note from Hay:
'The hair in the ring is from the head of Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Taft cut it off the night of the assassination, and I got it from his son - a brief pedigree.
'Please wear it tomorrow, you are one of the men who most thoroughly understand and appreciate Lincoln. I have had your monogram and Lincoln's engraved on the ring.
'Longas, O utinam, bone dux, ferias, Praestes Hesperiae.'
Hay had had the ring engraved with the initials "A.L." and "T.R." He knew how proud TR would be to have his name joined with that of his hero.
Roosevelt pledged that the Lincoln ring would remind him to "put human rights above property rights."
The strands of hair on the ring had been cut away by a doctor just after Lincoln's shooting to look into his open wound. Charles Taft, another physician who treated Lincoln, willed the strands to his son, who sold them to Hay for one hundred dollars a month before Roosevelt's inauguration.
~ Via the Theodore Roosevelt Association's page on Facebook
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Above: President-elect Theodore Roosevelt takes the oath of office on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol, March 4, 1905.
The Irish Elk's score of 23 on this political quiz places him somewhere between Colin Powell and George Bush the Elder.
So news the president-elect dined last night at George Will's house with Bill Kristol, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer was greeted here as a hopeful sign.
If the O does indeed turn out to be the second comingofBush Père, then gun the cigarette boats and full speed ahead. Things could be worse.
slownoman (3 weeks ago) one of the great mysteries of music is how playing with this much joy, this much life, this much truth, can come from a man so deeply- suicidally, really- troubled. Bix's playing on this song is audible poetry- just phenomenal.
Corrie121 (2 months ago) My favourite Bix recording. Absolutely brilliant!
joomuck (8 months ago) I suppose that listening to 'Sorry' was as close to the truth as when Eddie Condon stated that listening to Bix was like hearing a girl say yes. My Uncle, who played with Paul Whiteman, introduced me to Bix when I was 15 and it was the beginning of a life long romance with his music. Hopefully, some place, Bix and Louis are playing together. #
News that those fecund staples of the Discovery Channel the Duggars welcomed their 18th bundle of joy reminded Irish Elk of a celebrated Groucho Marx anecdote:
The most infamous remark of Groucho's You Bet Your Life years supposedly occurred when he was interviewing a contestant with a remarkably large number of children:
GROUCHO: "Why do you have so many children? That's a big responsibility and a big burden."
MRS. STORY: "Well, because I love my children and...I love my husband."
GROUCHO: "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."
And, oh, what sharp edges Richard John Neuhaus had. He wrote and wrote and wrote--a discipline of writing that almost every other writer I know has told me feels almost like an indictment: 30 books, and innumerable essays, and all those talks he flew around to give. And, just as an incidental, 12,000 words a month poured out in the column, The Public Square, that anchored every issue of First Things, the magazine he founded...
I remember him, sitting on the couch, taking me through the argument of a book he had just finished reading--and making the argument clearer than the author had ever managed. I remember his puffing on his cigars, and his constant jaywalking across the streets of Manhattan in utter confidence that the cars would stop, and his Lutheran-style preaching, and his bad coffee. I remember the way he would tilt his head when he smiled, and the way he used his hands when he talked, and the brilliant conversation about a book only a month back.
Only a month. But in that time, for those who knew him, the world has been inverted. Present still are all the noise and bustle of New York, the work in the office, the ringing phones, the demands for attention. But they all seem weak and gray and ghostly. Only his absence now is real.
The gist…Retrieve and share the first sentence of the first blog post of each of the twelve months of (r.i.p.) 2008.
Here, then, is the Irish Elk Year in Review in 12 Sentences (give or take a sentence or two): *
Jan. 1, 2008: Tea sets & missing teeth: The national pastime of Moosejaw and Medicine Hat is a game after the Monarchist's heart, with hard-fighting players, stitched and toothless, who bow to the Queen, and are rewarded for their icy bloodletting with Hyacinth Bucket-worthy Edwardian hardware like the Lady Byng Trophy.
Feb. 2, 2008: Phil? Ned Ryerson wishes you a Happy Groundhog Day. (With Portuguese subtitles. Bing de novo!)
March 2, 2008: Canada in a Box: The Canadian past, as stored in old cigar boxes.
April 1, 2008: Zip, the What-is-it: Born in 1842 as William Henry Johnson, Zip the Pinhead was one of P.T. Barnum's biggest stars in the 19th century, performing as "The Man-Monkey," "The Missing Link," and the "What is it" -- the last what an incredulous Charles Dickens reportedly asked on seeing him at the Barnum Museum.
May 5, 2008:A Belated Happy St. Tammany's Day: The Roman Catholic Boys for Art (Ivy League Division) hope it is not too late to raise a walrus-tusk-stirred toast of New England rum to Dartmouth's hidden Hovey Murals.
June 2, 2008: Big Maybelle Smith: "I Ain't Mad At You"
July 2, 2008: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: "In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls...This is the great reward of service. To live, far out and on, in the life of others;...to give life's best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal."
Aug. 1, 2008: Exit Manny. Don't let the door hit you on your malingering, overpaid, baggy-pantsed arse.
Sept. 1, 2008: Purgatory Chasm ~ Sutton, Mass., Labor Day 2008. We saw the Corn Crib and Lovers' Leap, but missed the Fat Man's Misery. The name we gave the great rock to slide down at the entrance: the Devil's Wedgie.
Oct. 1, 2008:Nota Bene: Say what you will about the crazy old right-wing Manchester Union Leader in the William Loeb days, it made no pretense about its bias. The same can't be said for today's Boston Globe, which not only has shelved any sense of objectivity in covering the presidential election, but is resorting to outright dishonesty in its role of shilling for the Democrats.
Nov. 1, 2008: "Our Good and Honest Taft" ~ A waltz by Annie R. Waln Bassett, 1908
Dec. 1, 2008: Hot Stove: Uni Watch wades through the baseball pictures in the Life Archive.
* In some cases of multiple posts the top or most interesting post has been chosen.
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