Paula Hawkins (1927-2009)

It may seem odd to longtime readers of Blast Off! to see an obituary to a Republican here, let alone a fairly favorable one. But I have personal reminiscences of Paula Hawkins, who died on Friday at the age of 82, and while I no longer agreed with her politically, I always thought of her as a good Floridian and a fine person.

Hawkins (right, with President Reagan and iconic Florida congressman Claude Pepper) served one term in the U.S. Senate and it happened to coincide with my junior and senior year in high school in Broward County. At the time, I was a loyal Republican (like my parents), and although I wasn't old enough to vote, I supported Hawkins and many of her positions, which were colored significantly by her Mormon faith. I have met many members of Congress over the years, but Paula Hawkins was the first: I met her while participating in the Close Up government studies program in Washington, D.C., in 1983, and I remember her as charming and informative without being condescending to a bunch of kids. She invited us to visit the Florida House, a Capitol Hill residence owned by and dedicated to the people of Florida doing business in or touring the nation's capital, and I remember marveling at (of all things) the free orange juice available there. I regularly stopped by the Florida House, America's only "state embassy, even as a D.C.-area resident in the late '80s and I always credited Sen. Hawkins with bringing it to my attention.

Paula Hawkins was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who once described herself as "feminine" as opposed to "feminist" and who opposed the Equal Rights Amendment as contributing to the "downfall of the father's responsibility to support the family." Nevertheless, I always respected her and am sorry to witness the death of yet another icon of my childhood.

More proof that Republicans want people to be dumb and stay dumb

Yes, we know that the Republican Party, especially here in Florida, wants people to have as little education and exposure to information (beyond the propaganda on Fox News) as possible. But rarely is it stated so bluntly.

I was reading an obituary of former GOP congressman and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp this morning when the following passage struck me:

But despite [Kemp's] looks and charisma, he did poorly on the national stage. His economic concepts, which he sold on the stump with the zeal of a fundamentalist preacher, seemed wonkish and failed to convert voters. His campaign style was seen as undisciplined and impatient. Political analysts saw him as unwilling to play politics in a manner what would bring victory at the polls.

"If I could remove two-thirds of your knowledge and three-fourths of your vocabulary, I could make you into a decent candidate," veteran Republican consultant Edward J. Rollins recalled telling him.

Well, there it is. Sure, you have to know how to "play politics" to some extent, but President Obama proved during his campaign that you don't have to talk down to the American people to be successful at the polls. Republicans, on the other hand, as Ed Rollins so cogently stated, would rather have their candidates, like their voters, largely devoid of knowledge, intelligence, and curiosity.

Okay, GOP, now that you've had your proudly uncurious, knowledge-free president, how did that work out for America? I'll answer my own question with three words: Worst. President. Ever.

A tragic week for baseball

Yes, I know this generally is a politics blog. But I've been an avid baseball fan since 1971, when I was 5, and so the news today of the deaths of two iconic figures in the sport has rattled me a bit, especially after last week's death of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, just 23, as the result of being struck by a drunk driver.

Today we lost the inimitable voice of Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas and the once-wondrous, always eccentric pitcher Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.

I admittedly didn't hear a lot of Phillies broadcasts over the years, but every so often, the AM dial would find Harry Kalas' distinctively sonorous voice. Kalas (right) was one of the last of a generation of legendary baseball broadcasters with whom I literally grew up, a number that includes the Dodgers' Vin Scully, the late Jack Buck of the Cardinals, the Tigers' great Ernie Harwell, and the voice of my favorite team for so long, the Orioles' Chuck Thompson. At a time when nearly every game in every sport is broadcast on television and endlessly dissected in innumerable highlights shows, I can't help but smile when I think back on driving at night on some lonesome highway somewhere during the '80s and '90s and listening to Kalas and his contemporaries literally create a very visual game with just their words and inflections. (Kalas also was well known for his narration of NFL Films productions, having taken over some years ago for the legendary John Facenda.) Fittingly, Kalas collapsed in the broadcast booth while preparing to call yet another Phillies game.

Meanwhile, on the same day, we bid farewell to one of baseball's true characters. In 1976 at the tender age of 21, Mark Fidrych burst onto the scene. He had earned his nickname of "The Bird" because of his peculiar mannerisms on the mound and his shock of curly blond hair reminiscent of Sesame Street's Big Bird (as Sports Illustrated showed us at left). While talking to the ball and fussing with the dirt on the mound all the way, Fidrych was the story of the '76 season as he won 19 games for the Detroit Tigers and led the American League with a 2.34 earned run average. He was the AL's Rookie of the Year and finished second in the Cy Young Award voting to Baltimore's ace, Jim Palmer. Everyone figured Fidrych would have many more shots at a Cy Young Award, but in spring training in '77, he suffered a knee injury and, later that year, a torn rotator cuff that essentially ended his career. Failed comebacks in 1980 with the Tigers and 1981 with his hometown Boston Red Sox never dimmed his celebrity, although he preferred a quiet life at home with his family.

It's a sad day for this baseball fan, but I can't help but smile as I remember two of baseball's truly memorable personalities.

Tony Snow (1955-2003)

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow died this morning at the age of 53. Tragically, he died far too young.

I always learned that if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all.

Jesse Helms (1921-2008)

A tribute (sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy) to the late former senator from North Carolina:

He's an unrepentant racist,
A fuckin' racist, do or die!
A real live nephew of Beelzebub,
Died on the Fourth of July.

Sorry. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

Besides, in 1990, while living in North Carolina, I had the distinct honor of voting against Jesse Helms and for his opponent, Harvey Gantt. So, in some small way, I'm entitled to a little snark. (I never claimed to be civil ...)

UPDATE (6:13 pm 7/4/08): Changed the wording a bit. The old version didn't scan quite right.

Tim Russert (1950-2008)

No, I didn't have any respect for Tim Russert's faux-journalistic enabling of the Bush crime syndicate through his rah-rah support of the illegal "war" in Iraq and his constant fluffing of maladministration officials, but this is one "liberal blog" that doesn't celebrate anyone's death. So RIP Li'l Russ.

No matter what his political bent and inability to challenge the Right, he seemed like he enjoyed his life and his family. He was only 58 -- much too young.

UPDATE (7:36 am 6/14/08): The hagiography is getting a bit much. As of this moment, it's still all Punkinhaid, all the time on all three major cable news networks. I can almost understand MSNBC's constant coverage -- after all, Russert was an NBC stalwart -- but to see "Remember Tim Russert" continuing on Fox News, let alone CNN's ongoing he's-still-dead treatment just goes to show everyone that the world Inside the Beltway and In the Village is vastly different than what we live in the rest of the country. I've even seen stories on Russert's death on ESPN and on the NFL Network.

Look, Russert's death is tragic and sad and unfortunate and all that, but he wasn't the president or the pope or even known at all to a vast majority of the American public. Sorry, Villagers, it's true. I'm quite confident more Americans knew, for example, who Heath Ledger was than knew of Tim Russert, yet the imbalance of coverage in their respective deaths is so far out of proportion to their news value, it's amazing.

Hey, Villagers, I'm sorry your friend died, but there's still an illegal war in Iraq and massive flooding in the Midwest and impeachment proceedings beginning in the House ... you know, real news. But I suppose it would be too much to ask you to do your jobs. After all, you haven't shown that you can do that for years now ...

Harvey Korman (1927-2008)

Sad news about the death today of actor and comedian Harvey Korman.

I grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show, as so many of us of "a certain age" did, and that's when I first learned of Korman's comedic talent. Later, of course, I saw Blazing Saddles and History of the World: Part I and thought he was ideal to play the smarmy roles he did in those films.

But what really will stick with me is when I visited my lifelong best friend Kimberly, who lives in Las Vegas, in 2005, and to celebrate my 40th birthday, she got us tickets to the Stardust to see Korman with Tim Conway. The two, naturally, were brilliant together, as they always were on Burnett and elsewhere ... and even though we were the youngest people in the audience or nearly so, we roared with laughter like everyone else.

Now, like the Stardust not long ago, Harvey Korman is gone. And there's a little less comedy in the world now.

Charlton Heston (1923-2008)

Although I'm sure I'm not the first, in true Blast Off! spirit, let me contribute my tasteless joke to commemorate the death of überconservative icon Charlton Heston:

Time to pry the gun from his cold, dead hands!

Darryl Pearce (1960-2008)

I just learned the sad news of the passing of a blogfriend. Darryl was a usually-late-night regular over at Eschaton.

He was an interesting dude. RIP, Darryl -- you will be missed.

Evel Knievel (1938-2007)

The iconic daredevil Evel Knievel died today here in Florida (Clearwater) at the age of 69.

I always feel a little misty when an important figure from my youth passes from the scene. I had all of the Evel Knievel accessories: the motorcycle, the dirt bike, even the fold-out camper/RV (known as the "Scramble Van") and the Snake River Canyon rocket. Of course, the ramps and jumping equipment were foremost, as many of my Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars served as easy pickin's for the Next Great Jump.

Thanks for the memories, Evel.

I should go back to bed

Damn.

I slept for 11 hours last night, only to wake up this morning and discover that my fraternity brother Luciano Pavarotti had died and that Fred Thompson (the Crumpled Paper Bag) announced his candidacy for president on the fucking Tonight Show.

This day is going to suck.

"Wild Bill" Hagy (1939-2007)

As I get older, I'm increasingly reminded of my past by the deaths of celebrities. A very special memory came with the news this morning of "Wild Bill" Hagy's passing at the age of 68.

If you were a Baltimore Orioles fan in the 1970s and early '80s, you knew Wild Bill, or at least who he was. He gained notoriety in 1979, in a pennant-winning season that saw the beginnings of "Oriole Magic," with his famous O-R-I-O-L-E-S body spelling cheer in Section 34 of the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I was born six blocks from Memorial Stadium, and I'm an Orioles lifer. As he was to a lot of people, Wild Bill was special to me, even though I never met him ... but I wish I had.

My favorite example of what kind of guy Wild Bill was involves his reaction to a stadium beer ban in 1985:

In 1985, Mr. Hagy began a boycott of Memorial Stadium because he was no longer allowed to bring his own beer in a cooler. The night before the ban went into effect, he downed nine or 10 beers by his count and then launched his empty cooler from the upper deck onto the field.

He was also distressed at the declining state of the team.

The Orioles tried to bring him back to lead a last cheer during the final game at Memorial Stadium in 1991. But he turned down the request, continuing the boycott.

Yet, although Wild Bill was a man of admirable principle, he also understood Oriole Magic:

He returned, far more quietly, a few years after the team moved to Camden Yards.

He was there Sept. 6, 1995, when Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game. After Mr. Ripken took his lap along the outfield wall, Mr. Hagy led his signature O-R-I-O-L-E-S chant. "This is probably the most amazing love-in you'll ever see in Major League Baseball," he said that night.

Last month, Mr. Hagy traveled to Cooperstown, N.Y., on a bus to watch Mr. Ripken's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. There, he led one last cheer for the fans sitting on the hillside with him.

Mr. Hagy continued to attend Orioles games at Camden Yards until this year. "I don't think most of the people around me know who I am," he told The Sun in 2004, "and that's OK; I kind of like it that way."

I'm actually welling up a bit as I type this. I was 13 during the 1979 season, and I'll never forget the heartbreak of the seven-game Series loss to the "We-Are-Family" Pirates that year, after the O's were up three games to one. I remember as a freshman in college when I ran through the halls of my dorm when the Birds beat the Phillies in Game 5 to wrap up their 1983 World Series title. I had tears pouring down my cheeks on that memorable night in '95 when Cal broke the consecutive games record. Wild Bill punctuated those memories and many more, and I can still mimic the Wild Bill cheer to this day.

Thanks for the memories, Wild Bill.

Merv Griffin (1925-2007)

I'll take "Obituaries" for $600.

I'm sorry to hear of the passing today of entertainer, talk show host, and game show impresario Merv Griffin, who died of prostate cancer at the age of 82. I know he was a Republican and a close friend of the Reagans, but I'm not honoring Merv for his politics ... just for his unique impact on my own life.

I vividly remember seeing his talk show when I was young, but as a former (and future) Jeopardy! contestant, I have a special respect and appreciation for Griffin's contribution to television and, indeed, American popular culture. He created both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, which today reign as the most watched game shows in television history.

When I go back to Jeopardy! this fall, I'll think of, and thank, Merv.

Bush crime syndicate: corrupt and ignorant

You have got to be kidding me.

Maybe Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and his staff are just in denial. Or maybe they don't read the papers, thus missing the sad news that Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) died Monday, seven months after he was diagnosed with leukemia.

Whatever the case, Leavitt's office called Thomas's office late Thursday afternoon to request a meeting with the late senator.

[...]

[A Thomas aide], Cameron Hardy, confirmed that the late senator's office "did get a call from HHS staff today to see whether our boss wanted to meet with nominees. HHS was following up with us because they hadn't heard from us since early May. It's been an emotional and tough week for us, so I'm sure that it wasn't taken well. However, it's not every day that a sitting senator passes away either. Thanks."

Jeebus. Is anyone in D.C. paying attention to anything besides The Sopranos finale and Hillary's wardrobe?

In memoriam: Jennifer Ingrum (1972-2005)

I hope you'll indulge me in another personal moment ... I was messing around on Google, looking up former students of mine, and I just discovered that a special student of mine when I worked as an instructor with the Close Up Foundation died in 2005 at the age of 32.

When I knew Jennifer Ingrum, she was a student at Gallatin High School in Tennessee. We corresponded for a while during my master's degree program at Vanderbilt University, but unfortunately we never saw each other again, despite the proximity of Gallatin to Nashville.

I'm moved and touched more than I can say to see that she led an honorable and selfless life:

Maybe Ingrum felt a certain affinity for HBO's ["Sex and the City"] since she, too, was a young, attractive single woman making her way in the big city, but the affinity was only skin-deep. A teacher at John Philip Sousa Middle School in Anacostia [a D.C. neighborhood], there was nothing shallow, nothing frivolous about Ingrum, except for the fun and silliness she shared with her family of friends in her beloved Capitol Hill neighborhood.

"She threw herself into life," said [Rigel] Oliveri, a Justice Department civil rights lawyer [and Ingrum's college roommate].

Jennifer Lee Ingrum, who died of melanoma March 28 [2005] at age 32, grew up in the comfortable small-town atmosphere of Gallatin, Tenn., where she was a cheerleader, an athlete and class salutatorian. She and Oliveri met in 1990 as freshmen at the University of Virginia. Oliveri recalled that her friend, strong-willed, outspoken and idealistic, sat in on classes she wasn't taking just to satisfy her hunger to know.

[...]

[Upon moving to D.C.] Ingrum found jobs waitressing, first at Hamburger Hamlet in Georgetown, and then on Capitol Hill at Tunnicliff's Tavern and at Jimmy T's. To her collection of people, she added her co-workers and tavern regulars.

But she wanted to do more with her life, and she wanted it to involve at-risk children. Still waitressing at night, she began volunteering with Horton's Kids, an Anacostia organization that provides tutoring and mentoring to neighborhood children.

In 1995, she got a job as the education coordinator at the Langston/Carver Boys and Girls Club in Northeast Washington. Within a year, she became the club's director.

"She loved it," Oliveri recalled. "She had her friends buy Christmas gifts for the kids, arranged sports teams and had friends coach. The girls who came to the club particularly loved her."

Ingrum decided she could be an even more effective advocate for at-risk children as a classroom teacher, so in 1997, she went to Harvard University for a master's degree in education. After two years in graduate school and a year teaching at a charter school in suburban Boston, she came home to her Capitol Hill neighborhood.

She was accepted by the DC Teaching Fellows program and got a job teaching children with emotional and behavioral disorders in a self-contained classroom at Sousa.

The article goes on like that ... I've no idea if her experience learning about government in D.C. through Close Up (and, in part, from me) had any impact on her decision to teach in D.C. as an adult. But, I hope you'll forgive me if I go ahead and think so.

I don't know whether it's proper to say, Jennifer ... but I'm proud of you.

Now Falwell finds out whether he was right

Wow -- see what happens when I'm in a meeting for the afternoon and away from the news?

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

Atrios makes some great points about Falwell's opinions during his life. Who can forget Falwell's immortal words, "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals"?

And what about his commentary on 9/11?

Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's anger against America.

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club," hosted by Robertson.

"Jerry, that's my feeling," Robertson responded. "I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population."

Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has "got to take a lot of blame for this," again winning Robertson's agreement: "Well, yes."

Then Falwell broadened his blast to include the federal courts and others who he said were "throwing God out of the public square." He added: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

And now, of course, he presumably knows (or knew) ... the rest of the story.

I always learned that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all. So I'll stop there, and let Falwell's own words speak volumes.

UPDATE (4:34 pm 5/15/07): And didja see who was first out of the gate in making statements of condolence?

Sen. John McCain, [Liberty University's] commencement speaker last year, said Tuesday that his prayers were with Falwell's family.

"Dr. Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country," McCain said.

STFU, Saint John.

Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) (1929-2007)

Another landmark on the roadmap of my life, both political and personal, is gone, with the passing of Tom Eagleton (right, at a rally last year for Claire McCaskill) yesterday.

A St. Louis native, Sen. Eagleton perhaps was best known for having to withdraw as George McGovern's running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket in 1972, when he revealed that he had undergone psychiatric treatment for depression. Today, that would probably be viewed as an asset (seeking treatment, that is), or at least as a non-issue, but 35 years ago that was a doozy of a political liability.

Eagleton's withdrawal and eventual replacement on the ticket by Sargent Shriver constitutes one of my earliest political memories, along with the assassination attempt on George Wallace that same summer of '72. I have vague memories of the election that year, shortly after which I turned 7, and Watergate (1972-74) is pretty solid in my mind, but I definitely recall the media frenzy (by 1972 standards) over Eagleton's situation.

Many years later, as an adult in the mid-'90s, I had the privilege of clerking for a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals in St. Louis, and my judge was a close personal friend of Sen. Eagleton. Quite a few times, I would pick up the phone in the judge's chambers and hear a gruff voice bark out, "Is the Judge there? This is Eagleton." I never had the privilege of meeting the man in person, but he was treated with great respect and reverence among those with whom I associated in the St. Louis legal community, and I admit to feeling a bit of a thrill whenever I spoke with him on the phone, as though I were talking to history.

Tom Eagleton was one of the true "fire-eating" Democrats in the Senate. Although as a devout Catholic he opposed abortion, he was well known for his virulent opposition to the Vietnam War. I like to think of someone like Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) as a successor to Sen. Eagleton, in spirit if not completely in ideology.

That Eagleton, he was one of a kind.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007)

I've just learned that Molly Ivins passed away today.

Only a few days ago, I posted a get well note to her.

While I didn't read her column as frequently as I would have liked in recent years, still, it was her voice as much as any other that led me into blogging and helped me crystallize my commitment to liberal opinions and causes. Even though I never met Molly, I'll miss her.

Another one bites the dust

Former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, darling of the Reagan Republicans, died early this morning at her home in Bethesda, Md., at the age of 80.

One of the champions of the conservatism that has morphed into the near-totalitarian state we now "enjoy," Kirkpatrick drank the 9/11 Kool-Aid and became a fervent neo-conservative.

And she didn't really care much for international law, either:

I know one thing. I know the prisoners in Guantanamo are being treated under the laws of combatants. And that is quite different from the Geneva Conventions. They were arrested in the course of seeking to kill Americans in an ongoing war.

I say to-MAY-to, you say to-MAH-to.

My enduring memory of Jeane Kirkpatrick comes from the Commencement ceremony at my college in 1986. It was the year before I graduated, and I was singing in the choir (as I did every year). Amb. Kirkpatrick was the speaker.

There was a tradition among graduates back then to smuggle champagne corks into the basketball arena, then pop them throughout the ceremony to see if they could reach the scoreboard suspended high above them. On this day in '86, someone mis-aimed either intentionally or inadvertently and shot a cork about 100 feet toward the dais. It landed in the flower arrangement at the base of the podium where Amb. Kirkpatrick was speaking. She couldn't have missed it if she tried.

To her credit, she paused briefly, looked down into the flowers, looked back up with a somewhat bemused expression on her face, and continued her address.

Anyway, we're still trying to dig out of the mess that she and her ilk helped create over the last twenty years. So, goodbye, Jeane. Hope you like it hot.