The Morning Delivery

Meet Me in St Louis: World Series Milestones and Historic Firsts

Game One of the 107th World Series kicks off on Wednesday night at Busch Stadium in St Louis, when the Cardinals take on the red hot Texas Rangers with Chris Carpenter taking to the hill against C.J. Wilson.

St. Louis, no stranger to the post-season, has won 10 Series titles, second to the New York Yankees who have 27 world championships tucked under their belt.

This will be the Rangers second straight World Series appearance; the outstanding pitching of the San Francisco Giants, especially from the likes of the lanky Tim Lincecum last year, frustrated the Texas bats as the Giants easily won the Series in 5 games.

This year, gargantuan hitting from both the Cardinals and Rangers is expected to be the order of the day, which will feature sluggers like Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz and David Freese swinging for the fences.

So as we prepare for the first pitch, here are a few feats, facts, and historic firsts about the Fall Classic to chew over.

• The St Louis Cardinals, who defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games in 1967, were the first team to receive the original World Series trophy, the Commissioner’s Trophy.

• In 1908, Billy Murray introduced "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," a catchy melody that became baseball's anthem. It featured music by Albert Von Tilzer and lyrics by Jack Norworth.

• The championship has been won by the home team 51 of 106 times or 48. 1 percent of the time.

• The winner of Game One has won the championship 65 times or 61.3 percent of the time.

• Among the 35 seven-game World Series, the home club has won Game Seven 20 times.

• Only three teams — the 1985 Royals, 1986 Mets and 1996 Yankees — have lost the first two games at home and then have gone on to win the World Series.

• Only four teams in World Series history have won Game One and been swept in the next four. They are:  the 1915 Phillies, 1942 Yankees, 1969 Orioles and 1983 Phillies.

• Eleven teams have lost consecutive World Series.

• The first time lights were used during a World Series Game came on October 9, 1949 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, in the top of the ninth inning (4:50 p.m.EST) in the fifth and final game.

• The first night game in World Series history came on October 13, 1971 when the Baltimore Orioles played at Pittsburgh in Game Four at Three Rivers Stadium.

• The first time all-games were played at night for a World Series was in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals squared off against the St Louis Cardinals.

• There have been 55 extra-inning games in World Series history. All together, American League clubs have won 28; the National League 24, with three games ending in a tie. Home teams have been won in 34 of the 55 extra-inning games.

• The largest attendance for single game in World Series history was 92,706 on October 6, 1959 in Game Five played between the Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

• The shortest World Series game was 1:25  on October 14, 1908 when the Chicago Cubs blanked the Detroit Tigers, 2-0 in Detroit

• The longest 9 inning night game in World Series history was 4:19 when the Boston Red Sox beat the Colorado Rockies, 10-5 in Colorado.

• The longest extra-inning World Series night game (14 innings) was on October 25, 2005 when the Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros 7-5 in Houston.

• In 1960, Bobby Richardson of the New York Yankees became the only World Series MVP from a losing team.

• Only two players have won the World Series MVP as rookies: Larry Sherry in 1959 and Livan Hernandez in 1997.

• Jack Quinn of the Philadelphia Athletics, who was 47 years old when he played in the 1930 World Series, was the oldest player to have played in the Fall Classic, followed by Jamie Moyer of the Philadelphia Phillies who was 45 during the 2008 World Series.

• The youngest player on a World Series roster was Fred Lindstrom of the New York Giants who in 1924 was 18 years/10 months.

• In 1903, there was only 1 foreign born player on a World Series roster; 2 in 1912; 3 in 1916; 9 in 1972 and 1975; 15 in 1995; and 16 in 2003, 2007, and 2010.

• The first designated hitter to bat in World Series play was Lou Piniella of the New York Yankees in the second inning of Game One in 1976. He doubled to right field and later scored on a sacrifice by Graig Nettles.

• In 4 World Series appearances, Christy Mathewson tossed 10 complete games, and 4 shutouts, a major league record, while posting a 1.06 ERA in 101.2 innings pitched.

• In 11 World Series appearances Whitey Ford had a record 94 strikeouts.

• There have been a total of 840 home runs in World Series history (472 by American League clubs and 368 by National League clubs).

• There have been 10 inside-the-park home runs in World Series history. The first was slapped by Patsy Dougherty of the Boston Americans on October 2, 1903, when leading off in the bottom of the first against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The last was recorded by George “Mule” Haas of the Philadelphia Athletics during the seventh inning on October 12, 1929 of Game Four in the 1929 World Series against the Chicago Cubs.

• There have been 54 walk-off wins in World Series history. Overall, the American League has won 32; the National League, 22.

• Detroit’s Goose Goslin was the only player to have two game-ending hits in a World Series game with RBI singles in 1934 and 1935.

• The first radio broadcast of the World Series was in 1921.  Grantland Rice provided telephone play-by-play over a special three station hookup on KDKA (Pittsburgh), WJZ (Newark) and WBZ (East Spring field, MA).

• NBC provided the first telecast of a World Series in 1947. Commentators Bob Stanton, Bill Slater and Bob Edge called the action. NBC’s telecast was beamed to New York City, Washington, Philadelphia and Schenectady.

• In 1951 NBC presented the first coast-to-coast telecast. Jim Britt and Russ Hodges handled the commentary.

• FOX Sports with play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and analyst Tim McCarver enters its 16th season as the official network broadcaster of Major League Baseball.

• Major League Baseball game telecasts of the 2011 World Series will be re-transmitted in 20 different languages and broadcast in more than 220 countries and territories.  

Bill Lucey
[email protected]
October 18, 2011

Source: Major League Baseball Press Office

  

The Fading American Dream

``I have learned this, at least, from my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’’ -

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Eloquent words from Henry David Thoreau’s classic in 19th century America; but how exactly is that moving expression put into practice in the 21st century?

And what exactly is the American Dream?

In the 21st century, that belief might mean landing your own reality show or getting noticed on American Idol, but for the vast majority of Americans -the ideal of getting ahead by holding a steady job with good compensation seems to have been swept out to sea.

 James Truslow Adams is thought to have coined the phrase, ``American Dream’’ in his 1931 study, ``The Epic of America’’ when he wrote: ``If the American dream is to come true and to abide with us, it will, at bottom, depend on the people themselves.’’

Ever since then, the phrase has been sprinkled throughout the text of speeches delivered by U.S. presidents. Jimmy Carter said the ``American Dream endures’’; Richard Nixon invoked the phrase in his 1968 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention; as did Ronald Reagan in his October, 1982 address to the nation; and George W. Bush in 2002 said: "If you own your own home, you're realizing the American Dream"

But the prospect of achieving the American Dream has gone through some tumultuous headwinds in the last two decades.

Imagine that just 10 years ago in December 2001, 71 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll believed that the youth would have a better life than their parents. That sentiment has now been sliced to 44 percent, the lowest it has ever been dating back to 1983.

Considering a reported 46.2 million Americans now live below the official poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the highest its been in 52 years, another 14 million without jobs, including an unemployment rate of 16 percent for blacks, 11.3 percent for Hispanics, and 24.6 percent for teenagers, while home ownership has plunged to 65.1 percent, the biggest drop since the Great Depression, the American Dream, for many, is nothing more than an antiquated concept reserved for political stump speeches and 19th century New England Transcendentalists.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the ``American Dream’’ as the ideal that ``every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.’’

How does that ideal hold up today?

In 1994, according to a Roper Starch Worldwide report, 64 percent thought the American Dream was harder to achieve than it was in the past. When the Great Recession hit in 2008, a ``Rockefeller Foundation/Time Campaign for American Workers Survey’’, reported that 45 percent of its respondents thought that even by working hard and playing by the rules, the American Dream was unattainable. And most recently, a 2010 survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University reported that 57 percent (of 1, 202 unemployed respondents) believed that no matter how determined they are, hard work does not guarantee success. And as yet another portent of what the future holds: just a third of its panelists believed they will recover financially and return to where they were before the crippling recession took hold with 61 percent not expecting to recover their economic station in life.

Despite the fears of the future, of a double-dip recession, the despair among the unemployed of ever landing on their feet again, the feeling that exploding debt has prevented the country from keeping pace economically with the two Asian giants (China and India); despite all this fear and feeling of hopelessness-Americans, by and large, still refuse to believe our best days are behind us by holding fast to the notion of the American Dream one day becoming a reality if not in their lives than in their children’s and future generations.

According to the Pew Economic Mobility and the American Dream Survey conducted in March, 2011, 37 percent believe they will reach the American Dream in their lifetime; 68 percent say they have achieved or will achieve the American Dream, and 54 percent believe they will be better off 10 years from now.

Thankfully, there have been recent examples of individuals achieving the American Dream right in front of our eyes. "Only in America is my story possible." Barack Obama would say many times on the campaign trail, retelling his story of being raised by single mother (his Kenyan father having abandoned them when he was 2), but through hard work, determination and the resiliency so characteristic of the American spirit-rose from his underprivileged childhood to earn an Ivy League education; win election as an Illinois State Senator, then U.S. Senator before becoming the first African-American U..S president in the nation’s history.

So too with Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican, raised in a housing project in the Bronx, N.Y.by a single mother (her father died when she was nine) only to become editor of the Yale Law Review, later appointed to the federal bench by H.W. Bush, and in August, 2009 was confirmed the first Hispanic justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

And it took the death of Steve Jobs, age 56, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc., to realize just how much this Silicon Valley native achieved in such a short period of time. Jobs, as is widely known, was the brainchild of the iphone, ipad, and other revolutionary digital devices who achieved success by dint of his creative ingenuity, despite his humble beginnings. In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs told the graduates after dropping out of Reed College (Portland, Ore) in 1972 (because he felt he was draining his parents’ finances), ``I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.’’

Unfortunately, individual success stories like President Obama, justice Sotomayor, and Mr. Jobs-inspiring as they might be-are still rare, the exception rather than the rule in a country that is beginning to lose its exceptionalism that once was the hallmark of the country. More and more, it seems, Americans are dependent on government if they hope to shovel themselves out of their economic plight.

The Pew survey additionally reported that as many of 83 percent of respondents want the government to either provide opportunities for the poor and middle class to improve their economic situations, prevent them from falling behind or both.; a sentiment, interesting enough, that had bi-partisan support with 91 percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans agreeing.

And yet all Americans seem to witness day after day, week after week is a dysfunctional government in Washington, unable to develop bipartisanship in passing bills when the country needs them the most; only compounding citizens’ loss of faith in government, and making them feel all the more powerless in changing the financial disorder in their lives.

As Alex Keyssar, professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard University tells me, the biggest fear Americans have is ``that the system is structured in such a way that an individual can’t solve his or her own problem through their own initiative or find their own answers.''

-Bill Lucey

[email protected]

October 17, 2011

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Web Sites to Keep in Mind

John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development (Rutgers University)

Economic Mobility Project (Pew Charitable Trusts)

Roper Public Opinion Archives (The Mood of America)

Center for the Study of the American Dream (Xavier University)

Poverty Highlights (U.S. Census Bureau)

Will Chris Christie's Time Ever Come Again?

 

``We just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives when they're happening. Back then I thought, well! there will be other days. I didn't realize that...that was the only day.’’

            -Dr. Archibald 'Moonlight' Graham ''-Field of Dreams''

 
                                                                                                                                AP

When the burly Chris Christie announced Tuesday in front of a packed news conference in Trenton of his decision not to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012, because ``now is not my time’’, many agreed with his decision, reasoning the New Jersey governor, only 49, and his star still rising within the GOP- is like a bottle of fine wine-that still needs additional fermenting, before his quest for the presidency becomes a reality.

But what if his time never comes again? What if 2012 turns out to have been Christie’s only real shot at the top prize, but he passed it up—and years later comes to regret it.?

Life, after all, is filled with regrets and missed opportunities of the times when we should have taken our opportunity when it presented itself-but passed it up because we thought the time wasn’t quite right; whether it was a marriage proposal, a lucrative job offer, seeking out a long lost relative, offering our apology for a past misdeed or going on that dream vacation that never did materialize.

So too is history filled with regrets by characters who missed golden opportunities. The combustible Ty Cobb once said that if he had to do it all over again,`` I would have had more friends’’, while Ted Williams would probably had doffed his cap during his final game at Fenway Park when fans stood for several minutes chanting ``We Want Ted!’’ Actress Bette Davis, meanwhile, turned down the role of Scarlet O’Hara in ``Gone with the Wind’’; and Burt Ward who played Robin on the popular television series ``Batman’’ (1966-1968) was pursued by director Mike Nichols to play the role of Benjamin Braddock in the Graduate (a role that changed Dustin Hoffman’s life forever), but Ward opted instead to renew his contract with the television series and was soon never heard from again.

Soon after delivering a powerful mesmerizing keynote address at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, New York Governor Mario Cuomo catapulted to rock star status as he was quickly hounded by party regulars and supporters to throw his hat in the ring and abandon Albany for Washington D.C.

Christie indicated in his press conference there is still too much unfinished business to attend to in New Jersey; and so it would be unfair to his constituents to walk away after just 20 months in office.

Similarly, Mr. Cuomo decided to stay in Albany and dismissed all suggestions of pursuing the presidency when he  told Joe Klein of New York Magazine in 1987: ``I'd wake up in the morning thinking about Dubuque instead of Albany. ``I couldn't run for president’’, Cuomo explained, `` with one hand and running with the state with the other.''

Whether Mr. Cuomo came to regret the decision not to pursue the presidency when his popularity was at its highest point-is just a matter of conjecture. The former New York governor once said that `` I have no regrets about anything that's happened in my life. If anything, I've gotten a good deal more than I deserved and I'm working very hard to come to as close as I can to deserving it.''

Still, you  wonder how much time Mr. Cuomo reflects on those exhilarating days of the 1980’s when he was one of the most sought after politicians in the country, a popularity he was never able to recapture as the years wore on and especially after he was denied a fourth term as governor in losing to George Pataki in 1994.

But arguably one of the most star-crossed examples of a political figure wasting a golden opportunity was Hillary Clinton who chose not to seek the Democratic nomination in 2004. 

After winning the U.S. Senate race in 2000, Clinton quickly earned her stripes by serving on the Armed Service Committee, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and voting against two major tax cuts proposed by the Bush Administration. In 2003, she released a 562-page autobiography, ``Living History’’ about her years in the White House as First Lady and dealing with the embarrassment of her husband’s extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. The book set first week sales for a non-fiction work and went on to sell more than one million copies in the first year of its release.

In their book, `` Game Change’’  political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin document just how close Mrs. Clinton came to seeking the Democratic nomination in 2004.  The author’s point out Steve Ricchetti , who served as Bill Clinton’s deputy White House chief of staff,  told Mrs. Clinton she was facing a ``Bobby Kennedy moment’’ with an unpopular war and a divided electorate and that the time was ripe given her popularity to announce her candidacy. So serious was Clinton that she even held a closed door sit down meeting with her husband, her daughter Chelsea, former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, former deputy chief of staff at the White House, Evelyn Lieberman, and Cheryl Mills, who defended Mr. Clinton during his impeachment trial.  She polled them all on whether she should run. The sole dissenter was her daughter Chelsea who advised her to finish her Senate term otherwise voters would never forgive her.

In the end, Mrs. Clinton listened to her daughter despite all the those who urged her to run; because as she told Solis Dolis, ``I’d be crucified’’ by the media if she abandoned the Senate.

Little did Mrs. Clinton know that a new upstart in the Senate;  a rising star in the Democratic party, Barack Hussein Obama would attract a new legion of followers when he delivered a spellbinding keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston. Ever since that speech, the junior senator from Illinois’s popularity grew to a fevered pitch, so that by the time the primary season of 2006 and 2007 was in full bloom-Hillary’s once rock solid base was beginning to fragment and her narrative of becoming the first female U.S. president was being overshadowed by a more compelling narrative; that of the first African-American president.

One can’t help but wonder just how much that tete-e-tete that Mrs. Clinton conducted with senior advisors and her husband and daughter before deciding not to run in 2004, still haunts her to this day.

Mr. Christie is more or less banking that President Obama will be re-elected, which will then open the electorate up to his fresh ideas in 2016.

But if Obama is as beatable as some predict and his soundly defeated by a Mitt Romney, Christie may have to wait until 2020 to make a lunge for the presidency; and by then it is conceivable that he might be damage goods, depending, of course, on his legislative track record with New Jersey voters in a battered economy.

It’s too soon to tell if Christie will come to regret his decision not to seek the presidency; but for his sake I hope he doesn’t one day many many years from now come to repeat the memorable line spoken by Dr. Archibald 'Moonlight' Graham '' in the motion picture Field of Dreams: `` Back then I thought, well! there will be other days. I didn't realize that...that was the only day.’’

 -Bill Lucey
[email protected]
October 6, 2011

You've Got Mail: USPS and its Storied History

 
Post Office Department mail wagon in Washington, D.C., 1916

 
Letter Carrier Delivering Mail, 1908

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If video killed the radio star; the Internet may have buried the Post Office.

It’s hard to believe that U.S. Mail carriers, about as American as apple pie and baseball are in danger of having their jobs slashed (by 220,000 people, from its current 653,000);, facilities closed (more than 3,600), while customers may receive mail less often as the U.S. Post Office deals with a crippling $5.5 billion deficit, putting in danger workers’ health care benefits for the next 75 years. 

The reason for the Department’s financial woes isn’t hard to understand: junk advertisement that used to  be placed in home mail boxes, now floods inboxes on our home computers, while letter writing, a lost art in the age of twittering and texting has become as obsolete as reading your morning newspaper with a bowl of Corn Flakes. The bulk of consumers now paying bills electronically while conducting their shopping online, eliminating the need for department store catalogues, are two other major reasons most often cited for the high reduction of mail being processed.

This year alone,  the Department has  processed 167 billion pieces of mail, down 22 percent  from 2006 with some predicting the volume of mail could plunge to as low as 118 billion pieces by 2020.

So as the Postal Service tries ways to desperately get its fiscal house in order, this might be a fitting time to look back at the evolution of mail delivery,  which started at a Boston tavern in 1639, while reviewing significant dates and milestones  in the Post Office’s history as we recall how our neighborhood  letter carriers trudged through the slush and pounding rain, navigated choppy waters, faced mountains of snow drifts and fended off a brigade of Pit Bulls, German Shepherds, and Doberman Pinschers with long sharp teeth all in order to provide first rate service to their customers.

• In 1639 Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston is named repository for overseas mail.

• Governor William Penn creates Pennsylvania’s first Post Office in 1683.

• In the colonial era, overseas mail often was brought to taverns and coffee houses.

• Central postal organization came to the colonies after 1692, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown, whose settlements dominated the Atlantic seaboard, for a North American postal system.

• Benjamin Franklin served as the first Postmaster General (1775-76) after being appointed by the Continental Congress.

• Two postmasters became U.S. Presidents later in their careers— Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman.

• Other famous postmaster's include: John Brown (Abolitionist), postmaster, Randolph, PA,  Bing Crosby (Singer and actor), clerk, Spokane, WA,  Walt Disney (Producer), substitute carrier, Chicago, IL.; Rock Hudson (Actor), letter carrier, Winnetka, IL, Charles Lindbergh (Aviator), contract airmail pilot, Adlai E. Stevenson (Vice President)t, First Assistant Postmaster General.

• In June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” in Article I, Section 8. A year later, the Act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), continued the Post Office and made the Postmaster General subject to the direction of the President.

• The Post Office moved from Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, D.C., became the nation’s capital.

• From 1802 to 1859, postal laws required carriers to be free white persons.

• From 1799 to 1815, a letter was based on the number of sheets; so, for example, a letter would cost 20 cents a sheet if traveled 301 to 500 miles and 25 cents a sheet if traveled more than 500 miles.

• By the end of 1819, the Post Office served citizens in 22 states, including the newest states of Illinois (1818) and Alabama (1819).

• In 1823, Congress declared waterways to be post roads

• In 1828, there were 7,530 Post Offices and 29,956 postal employees, mail contractors, and carriers, making the Department the largest employer in the executive branch.

• By 1840, private mail delivery systems were set up in several cities, including Philadelphia and New York in which they competed head-to-head with government sponsored penny posts.

• The Post Office Department issued its first postage stamps on July 1, 1847.

• Alexander M. Greig’s City Despatch Post, a private New York City carrier, issued the first adhesive stamps in the United States on February 1, 1842. The Post Office Department later bought Greig’s business and continued the use of adhesive stamps to prepay postage.

• The number of letters carried each year by the U.S. Post Office increased from about 27 million in 1840 to 161 million in 1860.

• On March 3, 1847, Congress authorized United States postage stamps with the first ones going on sale le in New York City, July 1, 1847. One stamp, priced at five cents, depicted Benjamin Franklin. The other, a ten-cent stamp, featured George Washington.

NOTE: George Washington has appeared on more U.S. postage stamps than any other person.

• In 1858, Albert Potts received a patent for a mailbox built into a lamppost; and within a year, more than 300 boxes were attached to lampposts throughout the city of Philadelphia; while 574 lampposts were in place in New York, below 55th Street by 1860.

• On April 3, 1860, the Pony Express began its run through parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California; and ended October 26, 1861, after the transcontinental telegraph line was completed.

• Prior to 1863, mail was delivered only from Post Office to Post Office. Citizens were required to pick up their own mail, although in a few cities, they could pay an extra two-cent fee for letter delivery or use from private delivery firms.

• An Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, and made effective on July 1, 1863, provided that free city delivery be established at Post Offices, requiring Americans for the first time to write their home address on all mail.

• The Act of March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. 704), additionally determined the postage for a letter on its weight and eliminated all differences based on distance and the number of sheets in a letter.

• Joseph William Briggs, a Cleveland, Ohio  postal clerk, is credited with conceiving the idea of free city delivery while regularly noticing long lines of customers trying to keep warm as they waited patiently in line in the winter of 1862 to pick up their mail.

• By June 30, 1864, free city delivery had been launched in 65 cities nationwide, with 685 carriers delivering mail in such major cities like Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. By 1880, 104 cities were served by 2,628 letter carriers, and by 1900, 15,322 carriers provided service to 796 cities.

• Beginning in 1868, city letter carriers were required to wear a uniform; the uniform was blue-gray with black trim.

• Austria issued the first post card in 1869. The United States followed in May 1873.

• On September 16, 1875, the first exclusive mail-train is put in service leaving New York and arriving in Chicago the following day after a journey of 26 hours.

• Prior to 1888, letter carriers worked 52 weeks a year, usually 9 to 11 hours a day from Monday through Saturday, and if necessary, part of Sunday.

NOTE: In 1888, Congress declared that 8 hours was a full day’s work and that carriers would be paid for additional hours worked per day. The 40-hour work week began in 1935.

• Carriers walked as many as 22 miles a day, carrying up to 50 pounds of mail with delivery twice a day to homes and up to four times a day to businesses. The second residential delivery was discontinued on April 17, 1950, in most cities; and the weight limit of a carrier’s load was reduced to 35 pounds by the mid-1950s and remains the same today.

• In 1893, the first U.S. commemorative stamps, honoring that year’s World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, were issued. The first stamp honoring an American woman was the eight cent Martha Washington stamp of 1902; the first to honor a Hispanic American was the one-dollar Admiral David Farragut stamp in 1903; the first Native American honored with a commemorative stamp was Pocahontas in 1907; and in 1940, Booker T. Washington became the first African American to be honored with a 10 cent stamp.

• On October 1, 1896, rural free delivery service began in Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla in West Virginia. Within a year, 44 routes were underway in 29 states.

• The Parcel Post began on January 1, 1913, spurring the growth of the marketing and merchandising mail-order houses. Sears, Roebuck and Company, for example, handled five times as many orders as it did the year before and doubled it five years later.

• The Post Office Department originally painted its motor vehicles red, white, and blue but changed the color to vermilion red beginning in February 1913; switching to green, red, and black in October of that year. By 1915 the Department returned to a red, white, and blue color scheme for its vehicles. The color scheme reverted to red, white, and blue in 1954, and then to white in 1979.

• On May 15, 1918, the Post Office Department began scheduling airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C.; while the first commercial airmail flight in the United States took place February 15, 1926.

• As of March 1, 1923, customers were required to provide mail slots or receptacles, eliminating the need for the carrier to knock on a citizen’s door to hand them the mail personally.

• In 1930, more than 10,000 trains transported mail.

• Rewards for postal offenders (sparked by a rash of train robberies) were offered as early as 1877; the largest $2.5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual(s) who mailed anthrax in 2001 — still stands.

• In 1954, the title “postal inspector” was first officially used.

• Due to the explosion of suburban growth, the Post Office Department begins to motorize city delivery routes by the 1950’s.

• Postmaster General J. Edward Day announced that the ZIP Code would begin on July 1, 1963.

• By 1965, only 190 trains carried mail, by 1970, the railroads carried virtually no First-Class; and on  April 30, 1971, the Post Office Department terminated seven of the eight remaining routes. The last railway post office, which operated between New York and Washington, D.C., on Penn Central/Conrail, made its final run on June 30, 1977.

NOTE: Although Amtrak stopped carrying mail in October 2004, the nation’s freight railroads continue to carry mail through their intermodal service.

• Curbside cluster boxes were introduced by the Post Office in 1967.

• On August 12, 1970, President Nixon signed into law Public Law 91-375, the Postal Reorganization Act.

• Effective July 1, 1971, the Post Office Department was changed into the United States Postal Service, an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States.

• In 1994, the Postal Service launched its public Internet site

• In 1998, the Paterson, New Jersey, Post Office was designated the “Larry Doby Post Office,” honoring the Hall of Fame outfielder who was the first African American to play baseball in the American League.
NOTE: Approximately, one in six public laws passed by the 108th Congress (2003-2004) concerned the naming of a postal facility in honor of an individual.

• In 1991, overall mail volume dropped for the first time in 15 years. Total mail volume began to grow again and, from 1992 through 2000, it reached record levels. Beginning in 2001, however, the Postal Service again saw a slight reduction in total mail volume compared to the previous year. In 2002, total mail volume dropped to 202.8 billion pieces, down nearly five billion pieces from the previous year.

• In 2001, the Postal Service formed a business alliance with FedEx, using FedEx’s air network for the domestic air transportation of U.S. Mail and allowing the company to place self-service collection boxes on postal property.

• In 2006, 224,400 letter carriers delivered mail in the nation’s, while an estimated 37 million homes and businesses were served by the Postal Service’s rural letter carriers.

• Dog sleds were used to transport mail in Alaska until 1963. Today, mail is deposited by parachute on some Alaskan routes. During the winter, snowmobiles carry mail in the highlands of Utah, Colorado, and Montana.

• The first triangular postage stamp was issued in 1997 and the first round stamp in 2000.

• By 2008, the Post Office began to reduce its workforce with mail flow controller positions eliminated and supervisory positions downsized.

• According to Postmaster General/CEO Patrick R. Donahoe, speaking before Congress on September 6, 2011, the Postal Service ended Quarter III of fiscal year 2011 (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $3.1 billion; net losses for the nine months which ended June 30 amount to $5.7 billion and the Department is currently projecting a net loss of up to $10 billion by the end of this fiscal year, depending on interest rates.

 

Did You Know That….?

• The oldest Post Office still in its original building (since 1816) is located in Hinsdale, NH.

• Clinton is the most common Post Office name. Madison is second, and Franklin and Washington are tied for third.

• The five most common street names in the country are Second, Park, Main, Maple and Oak.

• The longest Main Street in America is located in Island Park, ID (83429) — it's 33 miles long.

• There are more than 42,000 ZIP codes in the country.

• The easiest ZIP Code to remember is 12345, belonging to General Electric in Schenectady, NY.

• The longest regular rural route is Route 2 in Gridley, KS. The carrier travels 182.8 miles daily and delivers to 258 boxes.

• The shortest rural delivery route is Route 42 in Henderson, NV. The carrier travels 2.9 miles daily and delivers to 952 boxes.

• The Postal Service moves mail using planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, float planes, hovercrafts, T-3s, street cars, mules, snowmobiles, bicycles and feet.

 

Daily Averages for the U.S. Post Office

• 563 million — number of mail pieces processed and delivered.

• 136 million — dollars paid to postal employees in salaries and benefits daily
 
• 22,112 — number of passport applications accepted

• 407,267 — number of money orders issued

• 7 million — customers served at more than 36,000 retail locations.

 

U.S. Post Office by the Numbers 

• 67 billion — revenue in 2010, in dollars

• 171 billion — total number of mail pieces processed in 2010; 167 billion pieces for 2011

• 23 million — average number of mail pieces processed each hour

• 391,000 — average number of mail pieces processed each minute

• 1.9 billion — dollar amount paid every 2 weeks in salaries and benefits.

• 574,000 — number of career employees

• 41.5 million — number of address changes processed in 2010

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
September 29, 2011

Source: Historian, United States Postal Service; ``The Postal Age’’ By David M. Henkin; ``Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse’’ By Richard R. John; ``Sorting Letters, Sorting Lives’’ By Linda B. Benbow.

***

Web Sites to Keep in Mind:

National Postal Museum

The Railway Mail Service Library

Pony Express Timeline (Pony Express Museum)

Postal Rates and Historical Statistics

Postmaster Finder

The Future of Social Security? ``Just the Facts Ma,am''

 

Ever since Gov. Rick Perry of Texas suggested that Social Security is nothing but a ``ponzi scheme’’ during a recent Republican Presidential debate, the rhetoric about whether the troubled underfinanced system is worth saving or done away with has sparked some heated debate about a program representing approximately one-fifth of the federal budget and provides retirement, disability and survivors' benefits to over 50 million Americans.

Though Mr. Perry has been heavily criticized for his ``ponzi scheme’’ remark, others, both Democrats and Republicans, are conceding Social Security is in desperate need of reform if it hopes to survive the coming decades ahead.

So as a way to lower the decibel level of the Social Security war of words being waged in the political arena, I compiled some of the most updated data available on the current state of the Social Security system  with the hope it is in line with Sgt Joe Friday’s indispensible directive : ``Just the facts Ma’am.’’

• The Social Security system is funded by a payroll tax of 12.4 percent up to a maximum amount of income ($106,800 in 2010). Half of the tax is paid by employers and half by employees.

• Ninety-six percent of wage earners in the country pay Social Security taxes, with most of them paying more in Social Security taxes than they do in federal income taxes.

• The largest group of workers not covered by Social Security consists of about one-quarter (5.7 million in 2007) of state and local government employees.

• According to the Congressional Research Service, as of June 2011, there were 54.8 million Social Security beneficiaries. Sixty-four percent of beneficiaries were retired workers and 15 percent were disabled workers. The remaining 21 percent were survivors or the spouses and children of retired or disabled workers. Currently, Social Security covers an estimated 156.9 million workers.

• In 2010, for the first time since the ratification of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, Social Security’s annual outlays will exceed its annual tax revenues, the Congressional Budget Office projects.

• When Social Security operates with a cash flow deficit, the program cashes in federal government securities to supplement current Social Security tax revenues.

• When there are no surplus governmental receipts, the increased spending for Social Security from the general fund can only be paid for by the federal government raising taxes or other income, reducing other spending, or borrowing from the public.

• The Social Security Administration’s 2011 Annual Report projects that the Social Security trust fund will remain solvent until 2036. Social Security benefits scheduled under current law can be paid in full until that time.

• Beginning in 2023, program expenditures are projected to exceed total income (tax revenues plus interest income) and trust fund assets will begin to be drawn down to help pay for benefits and administrative expenses.

• After the trust funds are exhausted, which is projected to occur in 2036, the program would operate using current Social Security tax revenues, sufficient to pay only an estimated 77 percent of benefit payments scheduled under current law in 2036 and about 74 percent of scheduled benefits in 2085.

• Between 2010 and 2030, the number of people aged 65 and older is projected to increase by 78 percent, while the number of workers supporting the system is projected to increase by 7 percent.

• During the 111th Congress, four Social Security reform measures were introduced with none of them receiving congressional action. Again, during the 112th Congress to date, several Social
Security reform measures have been introduced; but none have received congressional action

• An indication of the success of Social Security is attributed to the fact that between 1959 and 2009, the poverty rate for Americans age 65 and older dropped from 35.2 to 8.9 percent.

• According to the Urban Institute, even though the Social Security program was not designed to be the sole financial resource for retirees, in 2008 nearly a quarter relied on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income

• According to the Social Security Administration, 50 percent of the workforce has no private pension coverage; while 31percent of the workforce has no savings set aside specifically for retirement.

• By 2036, there will be almost twice as many older Americans as today – from 41.9 million today to 78.1 million.

• From 1984 to 2009, Social Security generated surplus tax revenues.

• The average Social Security benefit is $1,170 a month, or about $14,000 a year

• The full retirement age is now 66 and will increase to 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

• Nine out of ten individuals age 65 and older receive Social Security benefits.

• Social Security benefits represent about 41 percent of the income of the elderly.

• More than 50 million Americans – living in about one in four households – receive Social Security benefits, with about 70 percent going to retired workers and families, and the rest going to disabled workers and survivors of deceased workers

• In 2009, a record number of Americans filed for Social Security benefits, many opting to retire early.

• Retired workers and their dependents account for 69 percent of total benefits paid.

• Disabled workers and their dependents account for 19 percent of total benefits paid

• About one in eight of today’s 20-year-olds will die before reaching age 67.

• A much higher share of Americans retire before age 63 today than in 1970.

• Workers eligible for full retirement at age 67 will receive just 70 percent of their full pensions each month if they retire at 62. If the full retirement age is moved to 68, those who retire at 62 would receive only 65 percent of their full pensions.

• In fiscal year 2010: Medicare and Medicaid ate up 21 percent of federal spending; Social Security consumed 20 percent; Defense consumed 20 percent. Other mandatory spending, such as  veterans’ compensation, unemployment Insurance, and food stamps consumed 17 percent; leaving only 16 percent for everything else, including veterans’ health care, homeland security and law enforcement, education and student aid, roads and bridges, food and drug inspection, energy and the environment.

-Bill Lucey
September 15, 2011
[email protected]

Source:  The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform; The Urban Institute, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office; Social Security Administration; The Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force.

***

Web Sites to Keep in Mind

Congressional Budget Office: Social Security InfoGraphic (By the Numbers, Long Term Projections)

Congressional Budget Office: Social Security Policy Options

National Commission on Fiscal Responsiblity and Reform

Bipartisan Policy Center

The Urban Institute: The Future of Social Security

Social Securities' Annual Trustees Report

9/11: 10-Year Anniversary Guide of Facts, Stats and Historic Footnotes

 

With the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11 just days away, Americans will undoubtedly, as in prior anniversaries, mourn the thousands of innocent lives that were lost in Lower Manhattan on a day that began with clear blue skies-but in a blink of an eye-turned into a plume of black smoke when the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed like dominoes in front of millions of a shocked and traumatized television audience.

But unlike past anniversaries, this is the first 9/11 anniversary in which we take comfort in knowing the ruthless mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, is no longer lurking somewhere in the foothills of Afghanistan or Pakistan, thanks to the US Navy SEALS tracking and eventually gunning him down  in Pakistan's northern city of Abbottabad.

Americans will also remember the 9/11 anniversary by reflecting on how much the world has changed over the last 10 years; and how vulnerable we really were prior to a terrorist attack on our own soil.

So as a way to consider how 9/11 impacted our lives and shaped public policy, I assembled some historical facts and statistics related to the dreadful day that refuses to recede from our memories.

• In an effort to combat terrorism after 9/11, President George W. Bush signed into the law the Patriot Act on October 26, 2001, a bill consisting of 342 pages, 156 sections, and giving the FBI and CIA expanded powers to tap phones, monitor Internet traffic, and allow federal agents to obtain business and personal records. The Senate approved the bill (98-1), followed by the House of Representatives in a 357-66 vote.

• The USA Patriot Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

• On March 4, 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed revisions to the Patriot Act (280 to 138), which placed curbs on the act’s powers, including protecting libraries from government intrusion and creating judicial oversight.

• According to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, 414 local, county, and state resolutions have been passed condemning the Patriot Act as a violation of civil liberties.

• According to the New York Chief Medical Examiner’s Office, as of August 2011, out of 2753 reported missing from the World Trade Center, 1122 victims have not been identified; leaving 1631 which have been identified.

• According to ``Bowker's Books in Print'' database, in the U.S. publishing market alone as of August, 2011, there have been 1,742 books written about 9/11, which includes fiction, pictorial books, and juvenile literature.

• According to The Foundation Center, 1,339 foundations, corporations, and other institutional donors made gifts in response to 9/11, which exceeded $1.1 billion in more than 4,500 gifts for relief and recovery efforts and for issues related to the attacks, including bioterrorism and civil rights

• The September 11th Fund of the United Way of New York City/New York Community Trust received $163 million, surpassing all other organizations; the American Red Cross Liberty Disaster Relief Fund received $150 million

• Foundations and corporations in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) provided 52 percent of all giving.

• The Social Security Administration estimates that $250 million in benefits have been paid out to people affected by the September 11 tragedy.

• The World Trade Center consisted of 7 buildings, including one hotel, spread across 16 acres of land. The buildings connected by an underground mall and concourse.

• The Twin Towers (1 WTC, or the North Tower, and 2 WTC, or the South Tower) were the signature structures, containing 10.4 million square feet of office space.

• Both towers had 110 stories, were about 1,350 feet high and were square; each wall measured 208 feet in length. On any given workday, up to 50,000 office workers occupied the tower, and 40,000 people passed through the complex.

• Each tower contained three central stairwells, which ran essentially from top to bottom, and 99 elevators.

• As of 9:00 a.m. units that were dispatched (including senior chiefs responding to headquarters) included approximately 235 firefighters. These units consisted of 21 engine companies, nine ladder companies, four of the departments’ elite rescue teams, the department's single Hazmat team, two of the city's elite squad companies, and support staff.

• According to the Congressional Research Service, the cumulative total appropriated from the 9/11 for war operations, diplomatic operations, and medical care for Iraq and Afghan war veterans is $1.283 trillion including: $806 billion for Iraq; $444 billion for Afghanistan; $29 billion for enhanced security; and $6 billion unallocated .

• According to Paul Colford, Director of Media Relations at The Associated Press, the first AP news bulletin on 9/11 moved on the A wire at 8:53 a.m with the headline: ``Plane crashes into World Trade Center, according to television reports’’; and it was AP’s own Jerry Schwartz who first coined the term ``Ground Zero’’  at 12: 29 p.m on 9/11, when he wrote: ``Emergency vehicles flooded into Lower Manhattan. No one knew what happened; the towers target of a terrorist bombing in 1993; seemed to be ground zero once again.''

• The first time the term ``9/11’’ was used to describe the terrorist attack on American soil was in a Bill Keller column in The New York Times on September 12, 2001: ``Correspondent: America’s Emergency Line: 9/11’’

• There were six Pulitzer Prizes directly awarded to journalists for 9/11 coverage and two more related to Afghanistan, which later entered the picture, according to Sig Gessler, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes and a special faculty member of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

• The 9/11 Memorial will be dedicated on September 11, 2011 on the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in a ceremony for victims’ families. It will open to the public on September 12, 2011, and will welcome visitors who have reserved free advance passes.  The 9/11 Memorial Museum will open in September 2012, a year after the Memorial.

Highlights of the Museum include:

• The names of 2,983 victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 will be listed on bronze parapets surrounding the pools.

• 8,151 tons of structural steel will be used in the Memorial and Museum when complete, more than what was used to build the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

• 485,919 gallons of water will be held in each Memorial pool.

• The Memorial pools will be approximately 200 feet in length.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created in the wake of 9/11 to strengthen the security of the nation’s transportation systems while ensuring the freedom of movement for people and commerce.

    • Since 9/11, TSA has screened nearly 5 billion passengers, detected approximately 50 million prohibited items, including 4,600 firearms during airport checkpoint screening.

    • Since the agency’s inception, TSA has screened approximately 4 billion checked bags. Every checked bag is screened for explosives.

    • Approximately 500 advanced imaging technology machines are deployed at 78 airports nationwide. Since the technology has been deployed, more than 300 prohibited, dangerous, or illegal items have been detected on passengers.

    • Today, TSA recurrently checks over 20 million airline passengers, flight crew and transportation-related employees on a daily basis against the federal watchlist and identifies known or suspected terrorists working in, or seeking access to, the Nation’s transportation system.

According to the New York City Comptroller’s Office:

    • Total private employment in NYC fell by 97,500 jobs from August to December 2001, and reached a low in August 2003 with a total loss of 167,100 jobs. By June 2011, private employment added 76,000 more jobs than had existed prior to the attacks.

    • Since 9/1, the manufacturing sector has lost more than 80,000 jobs and the financial activities sector has lost more than 41,000 jobs. Although the City’s financial sector rebounded after 9/11, employment in this sector has not reached pre‐attack levels. The financial sector’s share of total City jobs has decreased from 12.8 percent to 11.6 percent. The manufacturing sector has decreased from 4.2 percent to 2.0 percent of total jobs.

    • The Fire Department uniformed headcount decreased by 3.9 percent in the fiscal year immediately after 9/11 (more than 2 percent of FDNY uniformed personnel perished on 9/11) but by FY 2005 had rebounded to pre‐9/11 levels. Headcount levels dropped below 9/11 levels in FY 2010 as a result of the City's budgetary constraints and has remained below since then

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
September 8, 2011

Source: 9/11 Memorial and Museum Press Office; The Foundation Center;  Transportation Security Administration; Office of NYC Comptroller John C. Liu; The 9/11 Commission Report
***

Selection of Front Pages on September 12, 2001

U.S. ATTACKED
The New York Times, September 12, 2001

Terrorists Hijack 4 Airliners, Destroy World Trade Center, Hit Pentagon: Hundreds Dead
The Washington Post, September 12, 2001

NEW DAY OF INFAMY,
Boston Globe, September 12, 2001

BASTARDS!
San Francisco Examiner, Sept 12, 2001

Darkest Hour
Denver Post, September 12, 2001

ACT OF WAR
Hartford Courant, September 12, 2001

OUTRAGE,
The Atlanta Constitution, Sept 12, 2001

`EVIL ACTS'
The Miami Herald, September 12, 2001

IT'S WAR,
The New York Daily News, September 12, 2001

TERROR HITS HOME.
The Houston Chronicle, September 12, 2001

UNTHINKABLE
The Salt Lake Tribune

For additional front pages related to 9/11, SEE, Newseum’s interactive archive

 ****

September 11th Events Planned by NFL and MLB

September 11th had a direct impact on the professional sports world as well. The tragic terrorist attack led the NFL to cancel the second week of the season on September 16, 2001, while Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig cancelled games through September 16, making it only the third time in MLB history that games were cancelled due to war or national security reasons.

This year, on the 10-year anniversary, which just happens to fall on the first week of the NFL season, all games in each of the broadcast windows (1:00 PM, 4:15 PM and Sunday Night Football) will feature a special video introduction followed by performances of “Taps” from near the sites of the attacks, and moments of silence. For the 1:00 PM games, (the Baltimore Ravens hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers) “Taps” will be performed in Shanksville, PA while the 4:15 PM games, (the Washington Redskins hosting the New York Giants) will feature a rendition from Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA. NBC’s Sunday night game (the Dallas Cowboys visit the New York Jets) will include a performance from Hoboken, NJ, looking across the Hudson River to Ground Zero. Coaches, players and local first responders and other heroes will come together to hold field-length American flags for the playing of the National Anthem prior to each game.

It was announced recently that the National Football League and the NFL Players Association will contribute $1 million to three memorials and two charities related to the events of September 11, 2001. In addition, the NFL and NFLPA will donate all proceeds from the sale of auction items from games played on Sunday, September 11.  These items, which fans can bid on at www.NFL.com/Auction, will include game-worn autographed player jerseys, coaches and player hats, and commemorative game coins used during those games.

Major League Baseball teams, meanwhile, will be wearing flags on hats and the backs of jerseys, a special video will be played, a remembrance logo will be on each field, and each club is coordinating a service-oriented activity. In addition, each club is honoring public servants, first responders, and members of the military, while many are allocating free tickets for them as well.

Select Minutes of Events on September 11, 2001

5: 53: a.m.:  Hijackers Mohamed Atta and Abdulazis Alomari board a Colgan Air Flight from Portland to Boston, Ma.

7: 59: a.m.:  Flight 11 (American Airlines Boeing 767-223 ER, 23, 980 gallons of fuel, 81 passengers, nine flight attendants, and two pilots) takes off from Boston’s Logan Airport.

8:00 a.m.:  President Bush receives an intelligence briefing with a brief reference to a heightened ``security risk’’ having been reported during the summer, but not alarming enough for him to place a call to National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.

8: 13 a.m.:  Flight 11 is hijacked; flight attendant Amy Sweeney witnesses three of the hijackers storming the cockpit at approximately 8: 20 a.m.

8: 14: a.m.:  Flight 175 (Boeing 767-222, 23, 980 gallons of fuel, 56 passengers, seven flight attendants, and two pilots, flying to Los Angeles) takes off from Boston’s Logan Airport 16 minutes after the scheduled 7: 58 a.m. departure time.

8: 20 a.m. Flight 77 (Boeing 757-223, with 11, 489 gallons of fuel, 58 passengers, four flight attendants, and two pilots)  departs Dulles Airport outside Washington for Los Angeles, 10 minutes after its 8: 10 scheduled departure.

8: 20 a.m.: Four hijackers from Flight 77 rise from their seats in the business class and shoot or stab passenger Daniel Lewin who was sitting in the row in front of them.

8:20 a.m.: Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal.

8: 20 a.m.:  Flight attendant Sweeney uses an AirFone to call Boston’s Logan Airport to tell them that hijackers have stabbed two first class flight attendants, Barbara Arestegui and Karen Martin, while also informing them that the hijackers brought a bomb into the cockpit. Sweeney was still feeding information to the flight service manager (Michael Woodward) right up until the plane crashed.

8: 34 a.m.: Flight controllers hear a hijacker on Flight 11 tell passengers: ``Nobody move, please, we are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves.’’

8: 35 a.m: President Bush’s motorcade leaves for Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fl.

8: 38 a.m.:  The talkback button on Flight 11 stops working, an indication that the hijackers have replaced pilot John Ogonowski.

8: 42: a.m.:  Flight 93 (Boeing 757, 38 passengers (out of 182 seats), five flight attendants, and two pilots departs Newark International Airport bound for San Francisco, Calif.,  41 minutes late.

8: 46 a.m.:  Flight 11 slams into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, striking the 93rd-98th floors in the 110 story building, approximately 1,360 people die.

8: 46 a.m: Two French documentary filmmakers with their cameras rolling 10 blocks away from the WTC, capture a distant image of the first crash.

8: 48 a.m.:  CNN is the first major network to show footage of the crash with anchor Carol Lin saying: ``This just in. You are looking at …obviously a very disturbing live shot there-that is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers.''

 8: 50 a.m.: The last radio contact with Flight 77 is made when the pilot asks for clearance to fly higher. Six minutes later, the plane doesn’t respond to a routine instruction.

8: 50 a.m.:  Flight 175, already off course, makes a complete U-turn and starts heading north toward New York City. About this time, a flight attendant reports the plane has been hijacked.

8: 52 a.m.: ABC breaks into regular programming to report the crash.

8: 54 a.m.:  Flight 77 from Washington veers off course over Southern Ohio, turning to the Southwest.

8: 55 a.m:  President Bush’s motorcade arrives at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, a visit intended to outline his education policies.

8: 55-9:00 a.m.: President Bush first learns of the crash when advisor Karl Rove takes the president aside to inform him of the tragedy.

8: 58 a.m.: Brian Sweeney of Flight 175 calls his wife and leaves the following the message: ``We’ve been hijacked and it doesn’t look good.’’

9:03 a.m.: Flight 175 hits the South Tower (Tower Two) of the WTC; the plane strikes the 78th-84th floors in the 110 story building. Approximately 100 people are killed or injured in the initial impact; 600 people in the Tower eventually die.

9: 03 a.m.: The WTC is evacuated before the second Tower is hit.

9: 12 a.m.:  Renee May, a flight attendant on Flight 77, uses a cell phone to call her mother in Las Vegas to inform her that her flight has been hijacked.

9: 17 a.m.: FAA shuts down all NYC Airports.

9: 20 a.m.: Conservative American television commentator (and lawyer) Barbara Olson, wife of Theodore (Ted) Olson, Solicitor General at the Justice Department, calls to inform him that the hijackers (on Flight 77) used knives and box cutters to hijack the plane.

9: 21 a.m: The New York City Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in NYC.

9: 27 a.m:  Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett calls his wife to tell her that the plane has been hijacked with a bomb on board.

9: 28 a.m.:  CNN, citing The Associated Press, report that U.S. officials think the attacks are believed to have been carried out by terrorists.

9: 29 a.m.:  President Bush delivers a speech while still inside Booker Elementary School: ``Today, we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Centre in an apparent terrorist attack on our country."

9: 32 a.m.:  The New York Stock Exchange closes.

9: 37 a.m.: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon with approximately 125 people on the ground, later determined killed or missing.

9: 37 a.m.: Vice President Dick Cheney telephones President Bush to tell him the White House has been targeted and to stay away from Washington.

9: 40 a.m.:  Flight 93 transponder signal is turned off.

9: 41 a.m.:  Flight 93 passenger Marion Britton calls a friend to tell him two people have been killed and the plane has turned around.

9: 43 a.m.:  President Bush learns of the attack on the Pentagon as he reaches Sarasota Airport.

9: 45 a.m.: The White House is evacuated.

9: 48 a.m.: The Capitol Building is evacuated.

9: 57 a.m.: Passengers and hijackers struggle in the Flight 93 cockpit.

9: 58 a.m.:  Passenger Todd Beamer aboard Flight 93, indicates on a phone call they plan ``to jump’’ the hijacker in the back of the plane who has the bomb.

9: 59 a.m.:  Richard Clark, counterterrorism tsar orders all prominent land mark buildings and all federal buildings in the U.S. evacuated; and all harbors and borders closed.

10: 00 a.m.: Flight 93 passenger Elizabeth Wainio tells her stepmother, ``Mom, they’re rushing the cockpit. I’ve got to go, bye.’’

10:06 a.m.: Flight 93 crashes into a Pennsylvania countryside, just north of Somerset County Airport about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and 124 miles or 15 minutes from Washington, D.C.

10: 06 a.m.: According to Newsweek, U.S. intelligence pick up communications among bin Laden associates relaying the following message: ``We’ve hit the targets.’’

10: 08 a.m.: Armed agents surround the White House.

10: 10 a.m.: The U.S. military is put on high alert.

10: 13 a.m.: More prominent buildings in Washington are evacuated.

10: 15 a.m.: The front section of the Pentagon building hit by Flight 77 collapses.

10: 28 a.m.:  The WTC North Tower collapses, 102 minutes after hit by Flight 11.

10: 53 a.m.: New York’s Primary elections, already in progress, are postponed.

11: 00 a.m.:  More skyscrapers and tourist attractions are evacuated, including Walt Disney World, the Philadelphia Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Seattle’s Space Needle and the Gateway Arch in St Louis.

11: 45 a.m.: Air Force One lands at Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport Louisiana.

12: 36 p.m.: President Bush delivers a second speech, which airs 30 minutes later, saying: ``Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended.’’

1: 02: p.m.:  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls the President and calls for war: ``This is not a criminal act. This is war.’’

1:02 p.m.: New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani orders an evacuation of Manhattan, south of Canal Street.

1: 27 p.m.:  A state of emergency is declared in Washington.

1: 30 p.m.:  Air Force One leaves Louisiana and flies to Nebraska Offutt Air Force Base, the location of the U.S. Strategic Command.

4: 00 p.m.:  CNN reports there are good indications that bin Laden is involved in the attacks, based on ``new and specific’’ information since the attacks.

4: 10 p.m.:  The WTC Building 7 is reported to be on fire.

4: 30 p.m.:  The WTC Building 7 area is evacuated.

4: 33 p.m.: Air Force One leaves Nebraska and heads toward Washington.

5: 20 p.m.: The WTC Building 7 collapses; no one is killed.

6: 54 p.m.:  President Bush arrives at the White House.

7: 00 p.m.:  Secretary of State Colin Powell returns to Washington from Lima, Peru.

8: 30 p.m..: President Bush delivers his third speech of the day on live television in which he outlines the Bush Doctrine: ``We will make no distinction between terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.’’

11: 30 p.m..: Before retiring for the evening, President Bush writes in his diary: ``The Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century took place today…We think it’s Osama bin Laden.’’

Source: ``The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute By Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11-and America’s Response.’’ By Peter Thompson and the Center for Cooperative Research (Harper, 2004).

****

Web Sites to Keep in Mind:

9/11 Memorial

September 11th Anniversary Events in NYC

September 11 Web Archive (Library of Congress)

September 11 Television News Archive

A Memorial List of Victims at the World Trade Center

The 9/11 Commission Report

Legislation Related to the Attack of September 11, 2001

World Trade Center Statistics (Skyscraper Museum)  

Who's the Fairest of Them All? : A Preview of State Fairs

 

The "Krispy Kreme Doughnut Burger’’  hit a hole-in-one with patrons at the Mississippi State Fair last year.

***

With August and September being popular months for State Fairs across the United States, I thought I would preview some of the most popular food items and unusual entertainment attractions being offered this year.

But first a little history.

The Berkshire Agriculture Society, under president Elkanah Watson, held the first modern agriculture fair in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on September 24-25th, 1811. By 1858, 898 agricultural fairs were held across the U.S.; and by the 1990s, 125 million Americans annually attended agricultural fairs.

 The main functions of these fairs in the 19th century were educational in scope. They were held so that farmers could meet other dirt farmers and exchange their experiences, learn the latest developments in machinery and new techniques in husbandry in order to improve upon their land.

There wasn't much in the way of entertainment at these early fairs, mainly stock and crop exhibits, and occasionally even some political exhortations. Abraham Lincoln attended the Wisconsin State Fair in 1859, speaking from a platform wagon under a tree, where he stressed the importance of building a better relationship between the farm and the city.

By the turn of the 20th century, State Fairs began to feature more and more entertainment to amuse fairgoers, such as with horse shows and bringing more of a carnival atmosphere to the venues.

At the 1910 California State Fair, for example, aviator Charles K. Hamilton, known for flying faster than a mile a minute (a world record at the time) performed some flying stunts; and in 1913, the California State Fair organizers would demonstrate trains crashing head-on, resulting in a plume of black smoke shooting high in the air.

These days, fair organizers don’t have to resort to crashing trains and low-flying planes to keep the local patrons entertained. Ever since Hopalong Cassidy, Lassie, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans appeared on the grandstand at the Ohio State Fair in 1956, celebrities have become more common at these annual affairs.

Fair organizers have additionally become spectacularly more creative whipping up food selections, along with offering a diverse smorgasbord of amusing attractions since the Agricultural Fairs of the 19th Century.

Here, then, is a sampling of attractions at State Fairs being held this year in the weeks and months ahead.

Maryland
The Maryland State Fair (August 26-September 5, 2011) features Brian Shankman, a.k.a. "The Candyman" who deep fries a variety of items from Buck Eyes to Candy Bars to Pop Tarts.

Entertainment at the fair will include Swifty Swine Racing & Swimming Pigs. In this unusual contest, pigs are named after celebrities - This year, Pig Master Zach will make the crowd go hog wild when he races Sowie Mandell, Sowlena Gomez, Kevin Bacon, Brad Pig, Arnold Swarzenhogger, Lindsay Loham and other celebrity porkers.

Also, in  ``Masters of the Chainsaw’’,  Marty Long, will turn a 3-foot-tall log into a detailed work of art, including bears, eagles, Maryland Terrapins, Baltimore Ravens, and more using a variety of chainsaws.
And coming back for the third consecutive year will be the Arm wrestling USA/Maryland Classic for both men and women classes.

Utah
At the Utah State Fair (September 8-18, 2011)  some food items that will absolutely melt in your mouth,  include: alligator on-a-stick, alligator sausage sandwiches, alligator burger, alligator ribs smoked, frog legs, Rocky Mountain oysters, rattle snake, elk burgers, yak burgers, kobe beef burgers, crawfish, ostrich on-a-stick, ostrich burger, ostrich sausage sandwiches, python, venison burger, antelope sandwiches, black bear burger, raccoon on-a-stick, beaver on-a-stick, hand dipped exotic corndogs (buffalo, alligator, venison), scorpions, chocolate covered scorpions, crickets, chocolate covered crickets, larve, ant candy, chocolate covered ants, suckers (in different flavors and bugs), deep fried jelly beans, deep fried butter, and maggot melt sandwich.

And as a stink preview, each year, Odor Eaters sponsors a stinky sneaker contest in which each winner earns a trip to the national contest. Last year’s state winner from Utah won the national contest.

Minnesota
At the Minnesota State Fair (August 25-September 5, 2011), some top selling food items hot off the grill will include: walleye on-a-stick, spaghetti & meatballs on-a-stick, 1/3 lb. slab of bacon on-a-stick, key lime pie on-a-stick, espresso on-a-stick, fried fruit on-a-stick, hot dish on-a-stick, and ostrich on-a-stick,  among others.

A wildly popular entertainment draw at the Minnesota State Fair is ``The Princess Kay of the Milky Way Competition’’ in which young women raised in dairy farming families compete to be crowned Princess Kay of the Milky Way and be the ambassador for Minnesota’s Dairy Industry for the coming year. Princess Kay and her court of 11 each have their heads carved in a 90 lb. block of butter (one per day of the fair) in a rotating cooler.

Also featured is a Crop Art Competition in which seeds and crop remnants are used to create fine art.

Alaska
At the Alaska State Fair (August 25-September 5, 2011), the 16th Annual Cabbage Weigh-Off will be held in which the winner is awarded $2,000.  Crops entered into Alaska’s Fair, currently hold 9 records in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Another unique feature of the Alaska State Fair, which they probably can safely call their own, is the Moose Calling Contest in which contestants belt out some lively grunts and rhythmic humming as a way of romancing the moose.

North Carolina
At the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh, NC,  (October 13-23, 2011), fried foods much like at other state fairs will be in full swing, with deep fried items consisting of Peanut Butter & Jelly, Pecan Pie, Twinkies,  Bacon & Cheese Mashed Potatoes Bites,   Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookies,   Chocolate Pie, Honey Buns, Pumpkin, Frito Pie, and Brownies.

Other items to be had include: Alligator on a stick, Mashed potato martini (mashed potatoes, chili and cheese served in a martini glass), Pig lickers (chocolate covered bacon), and   1 lb. Foot long All Beef Hotdog, with chili and coleslaw on a Potato Roll.

In spite of all the fun food items and entertainment attractions, what fair organizers are most proud of is their Food Lion Hunger Relief Day, which is the largest one-day canned food drive in the state. Fairgoers can exchange four cans of food for one free admission ticket, with all of the food donated delivered to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. Last year, they collected 247,569 pounds of food.

Texas
Not only is Texas famous for ten gallon hats, its chili, oil and the Big Bend National Park, but  the Texas Fair has now earned the title of being the ``Fried Food Capital of Texas.’’  This year at the State Fair of Texas (September 30-October 23, 2011) some hot selling food items include: fried Coke (as in Coca-Cola), fried beer, and deep fried peaches and cream.

Nebraska
The Nebraska State Fair (August 26-September 5, 2011)  will be serving chocolate covered you name it, including potato chips, bacon, cheese curls, rice crispy treats, chicken;  along with dishing out fried cream cheese and bacon on a Stick, fried peaches, fried cookie dough, fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, and fried candy bars. 

Mississippi
At the Mississippi State Fair, scheduled for October 5-16, 2011, a highly talked about food item last year was the "Krispy Kreme Doughnut Burger’’, which will more than likely make an encore this year. New this year will be Fried Kool-Aid and Ring of Greens (Turnip greens in the center of cornbread).

The scheduled entertainment includes: A Mr. Leg’s contest; Mother/Daughter Look-A-Like contest; and a Beard contest.

New Mexico
The New Mexico State Fair (September 9-25, 2011) will include an annual Rooster Crowing contest and a Spam Sculpting contest.

Virginia
At the Virginia State Fair (September 29-October 9, 2011) In addition to Hot Wisconsin Cheese, elephant ears, and funnel cakes to satisfy your hunger pangs, the Virginia State Fair will be entertaining patrons with Racing Pigs, a chairsaw artist, Giant Pumpkin Contests, and a Cowboy Mounted Shooting Contest in which cowboy-clad riders compete at shooting balloon targets in between barrels.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 21, 2011

 

A New Chapter in America's Reading Habits Has Begun

 

When it comes to America’s reading habits, the writing is on the wall; or rather it’s on Amazon’s Kindle Reader or Apple’s ipad or some other electronic platform.

It seems like every other week, another independent bookstore is raising the white flag and closing its doors, unable to keep up with the rising tide of consumers embracing e-books as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

In July, Border’s, the nation’s second largest bookstore, drowning in debt and unable to find a buyer, announced it was closing its remaining 399 stores by the end of September when its liquidation is completed.

Meanwhile, Amazon with its Kindle Reader is posting robust sales, as it positions itself to profit handsomely from the publishing revolution, away from print to electronic platforms.   In 2011, according to a company spokesperson, Kindle book sales, combined with the continued growth in Amazon's print book sales, have resulted in the fastest year-over-year growth rate for Amazon's U.S. books business, in both units and dollars, in over 10 years.

Amazon’s chief rival, Apple is also benefiting from the publishing revolution.  The Apple ibookstore has over 200,000 books catalogued for consumers to choose from; and since it first launched in 2010, 139 million books have been downloaded from 2,500 publishers in 20 categories, including all six major publishers.

And as yet another indication of the growing popularity of e-books, the Pew Internet & American Life Project  published a study in June, which reports that the share of adults in the United States who own an e-book reader doubled to 12 percent in May, 2011 from 6 percent in November 2010.

So as the reading public begin ,albeit reluctantly,  to shift their reading habits away from print books to electronic platforms in the months and years ahead, what follows is a statistical snapshot  of the e-book industry in the United States.

• 64 percent of all publishers now publish e-books

• 74 percent of trade publishers publish e-books.

• 56 percent of students bought an e-book because the book was required reading

• Estimated consumer spending on e-books in 2011 is $1.3 billion

• 19 percent of book buyers will likely buy an e-reader in next 12 months.

• The number of e-book checkouts at the New York Public Library in December 2010, was a record 36,000.

• A report by the Association of American Publishers shows that e-book sales were up 165 percent in 2010 from 2009, while hard-copy sales for that period only rose 3.6 percent.

• E-Book sales were $90.3 million in 2011, growing 202.3 percent vs. February 2010. Downloaded Audiobooks were $6.9 million, an increase of 36.7 percent., according to the Association of American Publishers.

• Year-to-date 2011 vs. YTD 2010: E-Books increased by 169.4 percent while all categories combined of print Trade books declined by 24.8 percent.

• Overall, 67.2 percent of libraries offer e-books, an increase over the past two years from 65.9 percent and 55.4 percent respectively.

• Urban (86.8 percent) and sub­urban (79.8 percent) libraries were more likely than rural (51.7 percent) libraries to provide e-book services.

• While an increase in e-book services was reported across the metropolitan status categories, suburban libraries reported the greatest increase over last year (6.6 percent).

• While library e-book circulation is still very low compared to print book collections, all interviewed libraries reported significant increases in e-book circulation. To cite one example: The Contra Costa County (CA) Library reported that circulation for down­loadable e-books increased from 38,004 in 2009 to 56,560 in 2010. The library’s downloadable audio-book collection also experienced growth in use, from 27,338 in 2009 to 45,589 in 2010.

• On May 19, 2011, Amazon reported that its e-book sales surpassed both its hardcover and paperback business.

• The Kindle Store has over 950,000 books; 800,000 of these are $9.99 or less with millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books available to read on Kindle. 

• In 2010, the publishers surveyed by the Association of American Publishers saw 8.3 percent of domestic net sales from e-books.

• Overall, print sales are down about 25 percent across the United States.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 3, 2011

Source:  Publisher’s Weekly; American Library Association’s 2010 -2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study; Association of American Publishers

 

Bestsellers in Kindle eBooks for the Week of July 25, 2011

1.) The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2.) The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

3.) Now You See Her by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

4.) A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard.

5.) Caribbean Moon (A Manny Williams Thriller) By Rick Murcer.

6.) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

7.) Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) By Suzanne Collins.

8.) Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

9.) Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) By Suzanne Collins

10.) Stealing Faces by Michael Prescott

Source: Amazon

Top Rated in Kindle eBooks
http://www.amazon.com/gp/top-rated/digital-text/154606011/ref=zg_bs_tab

***

Most Downloaded Books from the Library (United States)

Published on August 1, 2011

Adult Fiction

1. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Penguin USA, Inc.) Months on the list-26

2. Smokin' Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich (Random House Publishing Group) Months on the list-4

3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) Months on the list- 26

4. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (Algonquin Books) Months on the list-12

5. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (Random House Publishing Group) Months on the List-10

6. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) Months on the list- 27

7. The Confession, by John Grisham (Random House Publishing Group) Months on the list- 28
 
8. The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) Months on the list-23

9. Dead Reckoning, by Charlaine Harris (Penguin Group USA, Inc.) Months on the list-8

10. Chasing Fire, by Nora Roberts (Penguin Group USA, Inc.) Months on the list-6

Adult Nonfiction

1. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House Publishing Group) Months on the list-28

2. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson (Crown Publishing Group) Months on the List-7

3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (Crown Publishing Group) Months on the List-28

4. If You Ask Me, by Betty White (Penguin Group USA, Inc.) Months on the List-3

5. Heaven is for Real, by Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson Inc.) Months on the List-2

6. The 4-Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss (Crown Publishing Group) Months on the List-21

7. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, by Chelsea Handler (Grand Central Publishing) 26

8. Decision Points, by George W. Bush (Crown Publishing Group) Months on the List-25

9. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua (Penguin Group USA, Inc.) Months on the List-18

10. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company) Months on the List-24

Source: OverDrive, Inc

NOTE:  OverDrive is a leading full-service digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, and other digital content, which provides services for publishers, libraries, schools, and retailers, while serving millions of end users globally

 

Like Madalyn O'Hair, is Casey Anthony the Most Hated Woman in America?

 
Madalyn O'Hair with her sons outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963.

 
Casey Anthony last seen fading into the thin night air on the morning of July 17th

***

Is Casey Anthony the most hated person in America?

Before her stunning acquittal of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse on July 5th in the death of her two-year old daughter Caylee, Ms Anthony, 12 days later, walked out of the Orange County Jail in Orlando, Fl, a free woman.

There was no welcoming wagon waiting to celebrate her newfound freedom; only a SUV provided by her lawyer in she was whisked away deep into the Florida night with no one knowing for certain where she was headed. Maybe she flew to L.A., possibly Arizona, or maybe she never left the Sunshine State at all; but the chances she reunited with her parents seem remote.

This country has a long history of outcasts, shunned by society, with little choice but to head for seclusion after losing grace with the court of public opinion:  O.J. Simpson was the most notorious outcast in America before being sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2008 (with the possibility of parole in nine years) on charges of kidnapping and armed robbery. Aristotle Onassis, Richard Nixon, John Edwards, and even Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner were all forced to head for the hills, lock the doors tight and remain out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

Though all these characters had their share of enemies; they also had their share of supporters who were willing over time to overlook their past transgressions, gaffes, and crimes and misdemeanors. Even Simpson was allowed to wile away the days on the golf course without anyone threatening his life.

With Casey Anthony, despite being acquitted by a jury of her peers, despite no smoking gun linking her to the murder, despite now learning she never Googled the term “chloroform” 84 times as the jurors were led to believe when they deliberated, the court of public opinion and Nancy Grace still deem her public enemy number one.

According to her legal team, Ms. Anthony has been issued death threats; others are plotting revenge, convinced she got away with murder; still others on Twitter and Facebook have suggested in no uncertain terms that she is a dead woman if she is recognized in public.

With so many enemies, it is almost as if Casey Anthony has become the John Dillinger of the 21st century with everyone in pursuit of her, wondering which town she’s living; and perhaps like Dillinger’s case, which movie theater she will be spotted leaving before being ambushed by enemies.

Before Casey Anthony, the most hated woman was Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who much like Ms. Anthony became the most despised woman in America as a result of a court decision.

 On June 17, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington School District v. Schempp, banned mandatory prayer and Bible reading in public schools. And though she wasn’t directly involved in the decision, O’Hair took up the torch for the atheist cause and took much of the credit for banning prayer in public schools.

Like the Casey verdict, the public was shocked and angry over the Supreme Court decision; the public anger grew even more pitched once they became acquainted with Ms. O’Hair’s foul language and blatant disregard for American religious customs.

In a 1964 interview with the Saturday Evening Post, O’Hair said she had nothing but abuse, hate, and vilification heaped upon her. `` She could find no work and her credit had been cut off. She had become impoverished and had been forced to sell some of her personal possessions to survive’’ the magazine reported.

Like O’Hair, Casey Anthony doesn’t know how she will support herself, other than the money, reportedly $537.68 she left jail with. Possible book deals, exclusive interviews, photo-ops, and the selling of movie rights of her murder trial are the only cards that have been dealt to her.

Even when the dust settles, and Casey Anthony takes up residence somewhere, she might still be in danger of being confronted with her enemies spitting at her, windows of her home damaged from prowlers heaving stones and rocks, her flower garden trampled on, her electricity short-circuited, tires of her car slashed, and gun shots fired at her house, all real possibilities that Ms. O’Hair confronted in her lifetime. In another interview, O'Hair said she was called a “dirty atheist,” an “anti-Christ,” a “slut,” and a “masculine lesbian bitch.” She also received mountains of letters with threats to “kill you, kill you, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.”

If that’s not hate, I don’t know what is.

The hate directed at Ms O’Hair kept going unabated right up until August 28, 1995 when David Waters, a former employee who O’Hair charged with stealing funds from her organization, abducted her, along with her son Jon Garth Murray, and Robin Murray (Madalyn’s granddaughter), forced them to withdraw $500,000 from their bank accounts, killed them and tossed their dismembered bodies in a grave, just outside of San Antonio, Texas.

The fate of Casey Anthony is uncertain. Some experts claim she’ll never live a normal life again without a deceptive makeover, a new name, while finding another country to live in. Others are confident Ms Anthony, only 25, will eventually be able to rehabilitate herself in the court of public opinion, come out from the rubble and begin to rebuild her life brick by brick.

Until the next chapter of her life begins, however, at least for now, Casey Marie Anthony will have to live with the epithet once bestowed on Madeline O’Hare; that of being the most hated woman in America.

-Bill Lucey
July 21, 2011
[email protected]

Journalists in which the word ``Retirement'' just isn't in their Vocabulary

 
Bill Gallo, recently deceased New York Daily News cartoonist, stressing over his latest creation.

 
Sid Hartman, sports columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune still meeting his deadlines

***

A moment of silence surely must have been observed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it was reported recently that Jane Scott had died at the age of 92, after spending 38 years as The Plain Dealer’s rock critic in Cleveland, Ohio, before her retirement in 2002. Scott spent the first 12 years of her journalism career at the PD on the society pages, beginning in 1952.

Despite her  long celebrated career at Ohio’s largest newspaper, interviewing the likes of Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen, along with a host of other rock icons, the ``World’s Oldest Teenager’’ as she was dubbed, was 83 when she retired from the PD in 2002. Quite a feat by any stretch, but believe it or not, there have been other U.S. journalists who have advanced to age 83 and beyond and are still cranking out stories for their publications.

One of the oldest in the Buckeye state and perhaps the United States is Pershing C. Rohrer of the Record Courier, a daily newspaper in Kent, Ohio (Portage County) who was recognized as Ohio’s oldest working journalist by the Ohio Newspaper Association last year on his 92nd birthday. Rohrer will turn 93 in November.  Though retiring from the newspaper in 1989 as a full-time employee-``Persh’’ as he’s known to friends and colleagues,  still writes seasonal bowling and golf pages throughout the year that publish in the Sunday editions, according to Sports Editor Tom Nader.

Born on Nov. 11, 1918 in Cumberland, Md.  (on Armistice Day, the official end of World War I), Rohrer was named after legendary American Army commander General John J. Pershing and later served briefly in the U.S. Defense industry during World War II.

After the war, his journalism career took root at the Dominion News of Morgantown, W. Va.; the News-Herald of Suffolk, Va.; The Messenger in Athens, Ohio and the Courier-News in Plainfield, N.J.

In 1952, he became the Sports Editor of the Evening Record, which later became the Record-Courier, a position he held until 1958 when he joined the Indianapolis Times, then later the Crescent-News in Defiance, Ohio.

In 1962, Rohrer returned to head the Record Courier Sports Department and would continue in that position for 27 years before retiring on January 1, 1989.

In addition to being recognized by the Ohio Newspaper Association, Rohrer was inducted into the United Press International’s Sportswriters Hall of Fame in 1985.

***
Another U.S. journalist 92 years young at a U.S. daily is Sid Hartman, sports columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, who wrote his first column for the Minneapolis Daily Times on September 11, 1945; and 66 years later, he’s still meeting his deadlines and even can be heard weekdays on radio in the Twin Cities (WCCO AM-830 at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m.)

Journalism school wasn’t quite in Hartman’s DNA. He skipped college; in fact he was a high school dropout and started selling newspapers (the Star Tribune, of course) at age 12; worked his way up to a clerk, then reporter before becoming a full-time columnist.

Instead of wondering who Sid interviewed, a better question might be who hasn’t this celebrated veteran interviewed.  The subjects of past columns read like a Who’s Who of high profile sports personalities, including:  George Steinbrenner, Bobby Knight, Lou Holtz, Carl Yastrzemski, and former Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Bud Grant.

According to SI columnist Steve Rushin, who profiled him in 2005, Hartman once followed New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath into the shower to interview him, introduced Bobby Knight to Ted Williams, and drove to the airport with Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford after the funeral of Roger Maris.

During his extended career chronicling some of the most well-known sports celebrities in the country, Hartman orchestrated trades for the Minnesota Twins due to his close relationship with team executives; he scooped competitors when Bud Grant returned from retirement to coach the Vikings, attributable once again to his close relationship with Grant. ``Name a major moment in Minnesota sports, and Sid was there and probably had his hand in making the news’’, said Dennis Bracken, Assistant Sports Editor at the Star-Tribune. 

***
Right on Hartman’s heels as far as longevity goes is Ed Pope, sports columnist for The Miami Herald, who has  been writing columns at a mad pace for the Herald now for over 50 years, beginning in 1956. 

As you might imagine, Pope’s mountain of notebooks have documented some of the biggest stories in South Florida over the last five decades, including being present at the Miami Touchdown Club when Joe Namath guaranteed victory before Super Bowl III. Pope witnessed every one of the Dolphins 17 wins during their historic undefeated season of 1972; he was at the Orange Bowl on January 2, 1984 to report the Miami Hurricanes upset of the undefeated and number one ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers; and later that year, saw Doug Flutie sling a Hail-Mary pass with no time remaining to wide receiver Gerard Phelan to give Boston College a stunning 47-45 win over the defending champion Hurricanes.

Though officially retired, Pope now 83 years-old, still turns out crisp insightful opinions on all the major sports, contributing an estimated 50 to 100 columns a year for the Herald.

While Pope is often recording athletes making history, this legendary sports columnist has made his share of history himself.  He became the youngest sports editor in history when he landed at The Athens (Ga.) Banner- Herald at age 15 in 1943.  He’s been inducted into a number of hall of fames, including, The Florida Sports Hall of Fame, the Orange Bowl Hall of Fame and football writers wing of the Pro and College Football Halls of Fame; and just last year The Miami Dolphins named their press box the ``Edwin Pope Press Box’’ in tribute to his 54 years of local coverage with the Herald and 45 seasons of Dolphins coverage.

Former New York Post sports columnist Jimmy Cannon once called Pope, `` the best writer of sports in America."

***
Prior to Pope, another long time veteran at the Herald was Jack Kofoed, a newspaper columnist for 57 years before his death in December, 1979 at the age of 85. He was a columnist for 44 years at the Herald, beginning in 1944; and before that worked at the New York Telegram and New York Post during the 1920’s and 1930’s. All told, during his 67-year career as a newspaperman and columnist, Kofoed authored 13 books (he was working on his 14th when he died), wrote more than 1,200 magazine pieces and some 17,000 columns during an extensive career that began in 1912 at the age of 18 when he landed a sports reporting job with the Philadelphia Ledger. The Philadelphia native’s columns at the Herald could be found on the comic page where in addition to sports topics, he liked to delve into nostalgia and relive the good old days.  As Kofoed himself once said,   "Oldtimers always think the old days were the best days. I plead guilty."

It would be an understatment to say  Kofoed was a little long in the tooth. Former Herald executive editor, Doug Clifton recalls, ``he [Kofoed] was so old and frail news room wags would make book on whether he was going to successfully get from the elevator to his desk without expiring on the way.’’

***
Just a few months ago, a dark cloud hung over the newsroom at the N.Y. Daily News, when it was learned that legendary sports cartoonist Bill Gallo, 88, died of complications from pneumonia on May 10th, ending a career that spanned 70 years with the News (beginning in 1941 as a picture clerk when he was fresh out of high school) in which he sketched 15,000 cartoons, including the 1971 Joe Frazier Muhammad Ali title match; Thurman Munson’s tragic death in 1979, a number of Rocky Marciano and Joe Namath illustrations, along with regular characters ``Basement Bertha’’,  ``Yuchie’’, and ``General Von Steingrabber’’, a character depicted donning a martinet with a spiked Prussian helmet which closely resembled the one-time combustible owner of the New York Yankees.

In 1998, Gallo was awarded the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Cartoonists Society.

Though he came on board right out of high school, Gallo left the paper in 1942 to enlist in the Marines during World War II and saw combat with the Fourth Marine Division in the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima.

After the war, he came back to the News in 1945 to work as a caption writer, layout artist and reporter while taking advantage of the GI bill by enrolling at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts) and Columbia University. Gallo’s first full-scale illustration of two middleweights, George Johnson and Moses Ward, was published in April, 1954; and in 1960 after the death of his mentor, Leo O'Mealia, he was named the Daily News’ sports cartoonist.

Though primarily known for his creative sketches, this multi-talented cartoonist also liked to write about his favorite passion: boxing in which he received the James J. Walker Award from the Boxing Writers Association and the Champions Award from the Downtown Athletic Club. Gallo was also inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Besides writing about boxing, he also chronicled his unsettling experiences in World War II and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

***
The cross-town rivals of the Daily News, The New York Post boasts of the longevity of Archer Winsten, who was their movie critic for 50 years, beginning in 1936. Winsten died at the age of 92 in 1997; and had been retired since 1986.

As testimony to his keen insight, Winsten’s was particularly proud of being the only local reviewer to give the thumbs up to Carl Dreyer's ''Day of Wrath’’, a chilling movie made during the period of the Nazi occupation of Denmark; and is now considered one of the most masterful black and white films ever made. Winsten was also one of the first reviewers to put his stamp of approval on the of the 1949 classic ''All the King's Men.’’

Despite the long years of perceptive, sharply written reviews, this Seattle native and Princeton graduate didn’t exactly work himself to the bone; which just added another hue to his colorful personality. He liked to rise at noon, play some handball, relax in a hot tub; and by about four in the afternoon head to the movie theaters from his Bronx apartment.  He then dashed to The Post newsroom where he would pound out his reviews until after midnight.  After leaving the Post, he often liked to end his evening relaxing at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem until almost dawn.

Nice work if you can get it!

Before turning his attention to movies full-time, Winsten wrote a column ''In the Wake of the News,’’, his first assignment when he landed at The Post in 1933, which dealt with all the quirky happenings in the city.

***
Rounding out the list of long-time employees at U.S. dailies would be motor sports writer for The Los Angeles Times, Shav Glick, who was 85 when he retired in 2006. Glick died in October 2007 at the age of 87 at his Pasadena home of complications from melanoma.

Glick developed a flair for writing at young age; at age 14 he already had his first byline with the Pasadena Post; then covered a variety of sports with the Star-News, the Los Angeles Mirror before being hired by The Los Angeles Times in 1962. He was 48 when he made the transition to motor sports . ``  "In 1969, I was suddenly thrust into racing," he once said. "I had no background in racing as such.’’

Despite his apparent inexperience in motor racing, Glick remained on the beat for 37 years, covering everything with wheels on it, including: super speedways, road racing, drag racing midget cars, and even stock cars racing on ice.

As a ringing endorsement to his exceptional reporting, Glick in 1994 was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Novi, Mich., distinguishing himself as the first writer for a general circulation daily newspaper to earn such an honor and joining other notables such as Roger Penske, Tony Hulman, and J.C. Agajanian in the same category.

Aside from his motor sports triumphs, Glick usually caught people’s attention once they learned he was a friend and classmate of Jackie Robinson at Pasadena Junior College. Glick, in fact, chronicled many of Robinson’s feats well before he broke the color barrier in the Major Leagues while a reporter at the Pasadena Star-News. Glick also had the good fortune of watching Ted Williams play high school baseball in San Diego; and once interviewed a 14-year old up and coming golfer who showed plenty of potential: Tiger Woods.

***
In addition to U.S. daily newspapers, there have also been a number of long-time employees at U.S. weeklies, including:

• Mattiebelle Woods, considered the first lady of the city’s black press, was a social columnist with the Milwaukee-Courier since 1962 until her death in 2005 at the age of 102, and was believed to be the oldest working reporter in the United States. Woods career began in 1952 as a columnist with the Milwaukee edition of the Chicago Defender.

Her column called ``Partyline’’ followed the social happenings of the black community.  The list of high-profile personalities she interviewed over the years included:  Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Vera Erickson, who worked at the Molalla Pioneer in Oregon for more than 35 years died in her daughter’s arms on April 16, 2009 at the age of 92.  Erickson, a Canton, Ohio native, and a pipe welder at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland during World War II, was a proofreader and columnist, turning out such columns as  “Clarkes Highland News,” “Ampersandia,” “The Cookery Nook” and “Library Lore.”

Until illness confined her to bed a month before her death, Erickson showed up at the paper like clockwork every Monday to proofread pages, many times staying late into the evening. And when macular degeneration set in, depriving her of her eyesight, she continued with her proofreading duties using a magnifying lamp.

Erickson is believed to have been Oregon’s oldest working journalist.

• J.S. Moran, Editor Emeritus of the Springfield Sun in Kentucky was a month shy of his 100th birthday when died in 1988. He received extensive press coverage when he was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 1985 on his 97th birthday.

In particular, Moran was known for his award-winning column, ``Through My Bifocals'', a widely read column in Washington County.  During his long career as a journalist and outstanding citizenship, Moran directed the care of 400 refugees from the ravages of a flood in Louisville in 1937; he was named writer of the year in 1969 by the Kentucky Farm Bureau, and was a correspondent for the Louisville Herald-Post and Courier-Journals. One of his most memorable quotes which stood as a motto of how he conducted his life was that ``it’s not the high cost of living that’s damaged this country, it’s the cost of high living.”

At the time of his death, Publishers' Auxiliary, a newspaper trade publication, verified that Moran was the oldest working journalist in the country. According to his great grandson Sam Edelen, Moran purchased the Sun, located in Washington County in central Ky., in 1916 for about $1,500 and ran it until 1973, when Landmark Communications (now LCNI ) purchased it and a handful of other small town papers.

-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
July 15, 2011