BACK to Blog Posts

I just read in Mike Sporn's blog about a great article he read in Mike Barrier's Blog ( egads, this is getting incestuous!)about author Naomi Klein. She has a new book out with cool opinions on our current economic disaster.

courtesy flaggman.files.com

Well, it turns out Naomi Klein is the granddaughter of Phil Klein, the great Disney-Animator activist. Member of some early radical groups like the John Reed Society, His politics got him blacklisted by Max Fleischer, Blacklisted by Walt Disney, Blacklisted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and more. "My late grandfather, Philip Klein, who worked as an animator for Walt Disney, taught me a valuable lesson early in life: always look for the dirt behind the shine."

http://www.michaelbarrier.com/#ofcabbagesandkleins.

I got a lot from interviews with Phil and his brother Izzy Klein, an early NY Guild president. I have in my collection Phil Klein's notice from Disney firing him in 1941. Mike Barrier does a nice piece and he was very helpful to me with stuff for DRAWING THE LINE, even if it scares me when I hear the man reads the New Republic. They call Naomi's politics Old Left, but today I call them RELEVANT!


----------------------------------------------------------
Quiz: What does a Mahout do in his Howdah?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What were Rice Christians?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/10/2008
Birthdays: Martin Luther, Guiseppi Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding one of the first women animators, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 49, Sharon Osbourne is 55.

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost become open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all. The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising is put down and the Church responds with a period of forced baptisms.

1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty R&B record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country , not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taayy !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- The U.S. Congress voted to give war making powers to President George W. Bush over Iraq. The U.S. invasion began the following March. Her inability to properly explain her yes vote, arguably cost Hilary Clinton her chance at the presidency in 2008.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What were Rice Christians?

Answer: In the 1920’s when Christian missions were planted across China, the Missionaries would offer free meals to peasants to hear their sermons. Their compound would fill up with hungry people and the excited Missionaries would write home how many converts they were getting. Then when the food ran out, the people would all get up and leave. In Toronto the Hare Khrishnas offer a similar deal to homeless people. So Rice Christians became a term for people who espouse a cause not out of personal conviction, than what they can get out of it.


RSS