Zeus Of Course

 

My friend Adair keeps accusing me of being a narcissist. I finally figured out how to shut him up. Today I says to him, "Adair, if I were identifying myself with a Greek mythological character, it wouldn't be Narcissus." Adair falls into my trap. "Well, who WOULD you campare yourself to?" I was quick to respond. "Why, Zeus of course!" Adair has not spoken to me since.

Romeo

 

I ran into Romeo today.  Wherefore art thou, Romeo?  Well, today he was at the Superior Grill on 280.  He was looking for Juliet.  I hated to say anything to Romeo---kept it to myself that I saw Juliet the other day with Charles Barkley.  It's none of my business so I stay out of it.

The fog machine is in high gear this morning as in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."  I can barely see out my front door and my brain has yet to clear if in fact it does clear today.  Foggy with a chance of meat balls is the forecast.  Toto is over behind that curtain talking to some man.  Maybe things will clear up.

Lincoln Once More

 New biographies of Abraham Lincoln inevitably invite the question: Why does the world need another? It is said that only Jesus of Nazareth has been the subject of more books, and he had an 1,800-year head start. Yet one can fairly claim that this is a golden age, rich with work that illuminates more than repeats — the age of encyclopedic Michael Burlingame, politically acute Sidney Blumenthal and multifaceted Harold Holzer, among others.

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Lincoln sustains such interest because his life is the casting of an unusually elusive and complicated character amid the drama of the United States’ greatest crisis, which reverberates even now. In the latest study of that life, biographer Jon Meacham gives us a Lincoln for the present moment, when the statuesque figures of American myth are being arraigned at the bar of 21st-century standards. “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” is a book-length answer to the tangled question of the Civil War president’s relationship to slavery.

“This book,” Meacham writes, “charts Lincoln’s struggle to do right as he defined it” — that is, to pursue the “ultimate extinction” of slavery, as he phrased it — “within the political universe he and his country inhabited.”

That political universe bears uncomfortable, but illuminating, parallels to our own. Lincoln’s time was one of passionate intensity, of loud voices and closed minds, of demagogues who exploited public opinion and conflict-averse officeholders who cowered in fear of it.

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Lincoln knew from boyhood, Meacham demonstrates, that slavery was evil and made a mockery of America’s founding rhetoric. He was not satisfied, however, to be morally correct. He wanted to be an effective force for change. And he perceived that ending slavery would require immense force and power — both political and persuasive — which he pursued deliberately, cunningly and tirelessly.

The story is enlivened by the sheer improbability of it all. This man who sought historical immortality had his beginnings in a family known mainly for its abject poverty and sexual promiscuity. He had no education to speak of. He was homely in some eyes and downright ugly in others. The greatest orator of his era spoke in a high-pitched, grating drawl. He was an inept suitor and socially awkward.

In a democratic republic, the force that cannot long be ignored is the roar of public opinion, a rough beast easily aroused but led with great difficulty. Lincoln genuinely respected public opinion, unlike those politicians who believe the secret of success is learning to fake a sincere regard for the people. He was of the people; he knew what it was to be looked down upon, underestimated, deplorable. He knew the latent possibilities of ordinary humans as well as their manifest limitations.

There’s much to praise in Meacham’s delightfully original book. I’ll pull out just one such gem, for it illustrates the timeliness of the author’s approach to the fathomless depths of his subject. He reminds us that Lincoln came of age in a country “roiled by debates about democracy and public life.” The technology of political clamor was rapidly advancing as newspapers multiplied and the telegraph shrank distances. “To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it,” French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville observed, is “the only pleasure that an American knows.”

Sounds like Twitter.

In this context, Lincoln’s early address to the temperance society of Springfield, Ill., takes on fresh importance. Other biographies mention this 1842 event as another rung along Lincoln’s rise. But in Meacham’s account, Lincoln speaks to our time as well as his own. Righteous lecturing is no way to win people to a cause. “To be hectored and condemned; to be told that they were wholly wrong” was for Lincoln “a path not to reform but to intransigence,” Meacham writes. “If you would win a man to your cause,” he quotes Lincoln, “first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”

“On the contrary,” the young frontier politician continued, “assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself.” The “head and heart” of the person one wishes to change become as impenetrable as “the hard shell of a tortoise.”

This insight into human nature guided Lincoln along the tortured road to emancipation. To the last sentence of his last monumental speech, Lincoln acted with malice toward none, with charity for all. If this made him less than a perfect scourge of human prejudice and cowardice, it made him a more effective politician. Lincoln got results.

Opinion by David Von Drehle

David Von Drehle writes a twice-weekly column for The Post. He was previously an editor-at-large for Time Magazine, and is the author of four books, including "Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year" and "Triangle: The Fire That Changed America."  

Evan Woodbery - 100 Things Auburn Fans Should Know and Do -Notes

 This book was published in 2012 so it doesn't include the Malzahn era.  The only weakness with this book is that it is all football----no basketball, baseball, or other sports.  Surely Auburn people want to know about Charles Barkley and Tim Hudson.

#1  The 2010 season, a magical football season with a once in a lifetime Heisman QB.

#2  The 1957 National Championship team.  Incredible run: a perfect season.  A halfback named Lloyd Nix was the QB.  Nix threw the ball all of 60 times during the season completing 33.  Halfbacks were Tommy Lorino and Bobby Hope with fullback Billy Atkins.  First undefeated season since 1932 and first unbeaten season since 1913.  What a defense!  The Tigers gave up an astounding 2.8 points a game and pitched 6 shoutouts.  Of the 28 points scored against them all year one touchdown was from an interception return.  This team beat Alabama 40 to 0.  Administrator Bill Beckwith masterfully  campaigned for Auburn to win the AP title.

#3  The first Auburn-Alabama game at Jordan-Hare. I have never liked The Iron Bowl even though I think Coach Jordan came up with that term. You cannot emphasize enough how big this game was. Alabama people said they would never play Auburn in Auburn.  They were wrong.  Playing that game in Birmingham giving Alabama a home field advantage becaume an anachronism.  This was a game Auburn HAD to win and win it they did 30-20.  Eventually Alabama moved their game from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.  The Tigers won 9 to 0 the first time in Tuscaloosa in 2000.

#4  Coach Jordan grew up in Selma, born on September 10, 1910, nicknamed "Shug" because of his fondness for sugar cane.  He enrolled at Auburn in 1928 and became a 3-sport letterman including baseball as a left-handed pitcher.  He was an assistant coach at Auburn for Chet Wynne.  During World War II he was part of the Normandy invasion and received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.  After one season with the Miami Seahawks he joined Wally Butt's staff at Georgia.  Auburn picked Earl Brown over Shug in 1947 but after a winless '47 season he was named Auburn's head football coach in 1951.  In 25 years he won 175 games.  He served five years on the Auburn Board of Trustees after his retirement after the 1975 season and died at 69 in 1980.

#5  The undefeated 2004 team should have been named National Champions at least after USC was stripped of the title.  After the disappointing 2003 season I remember seeing watching the opening game against Louisiana-Monroe.  Though Auburn won handily, I didn't see anything to make me think this team would go unbeaten.  Number 2 is all this team got though it should have been #1.  

#6  The glory of "Punt, Bama, Punt!"  will always live in the annals of Auburn lore.  Blocking two punts back-to-back both returned for touchdowns by the same two Auburn players is hard to top.  The bumper stickers "Punt, Bama, Punt" were everywhere.  The most stunning Auburn win over Alabama.

#7  The history of Jordan-Hare first named Auburn Stadium started on November, 1939 when Dick McGowan threw to Babe McGeHee for a touchdown the game ending in a 7-7 tie with a stadium capacity of 7,500 all on the west side of the field.  The name was changed to Cliff Hare in 1949 and capacity was raised to 21,500.  Jordan's tenure saw an additional 40,000 seats added.  Upper decks were added in 1980 and 1987.  In 2005 the name became "Pat Dye Field at Jordan-Hare Stadium."  Other amenities have been added over the years including the 3 million dollar high definition scoreboard.  As of the writing of this book Auburn's winning percentage at home is 80%.  

#8  Bo knows.  I saw recently where Bo said Deon Sanders would make a great Auburn football coach.  We may get to find out if this is true.  Bo was truly the best athlete to eve suit up at Auburn.  Watching him run with football is still a treat.  Watching his athleticism on the baseball field is a treat.  We will never see his likes again.

#9  When Pat Dye became the Auburn football coach in 1981 you knew from the start that he was a winner.  He instilled confidence and pride in the Auburn people.  Bo knows, but Auburn people knew from the beginning that Coach Dye was going to lead Auburn to great things, and he did..  He started like all good coaches start by recruiting impact players like Bo Jackson.

#10  Until Cam Newton came along Pat Sullivan was the exemplar of Auburn's greatest quarterback.  I was there for his first varsity game in September of 1969.  I never will forget his first pass, a long pass down the field, incomplete.  Everybody cheered that incomplete pass amazingly because we saw that he was an athletic QB like we had never seen before.  

#11  I have never and will never like the moniker "The Iron Bowl."  It's the Auburn-Alabama game period.  The first game was played in Birmingham in 1893 at Lakeview Park where about 500 fans watched Auburn win 32 to 22 on a converted baseball field.   In 1907 the game ended in 6-6 tie.  Forty-one years the game resumed in 1948.  A disagreement, not a fight, ended the competition for forty-one years.  Birmingham was chosen as the site with Legion Field seating 44,000 at the time.  Alabama won the first game in 1948 but Auburn won a stunning upset 14-13 in 1949.  This game is different and always will be.

#12  Jimmy Hitchcock was Auburn's first All-American football player in 1932.

#13  Mike Donahue is one of the most fascinating figures in Auburn sports history.  In the 1910's it was common for colleges to use irregulars, players who were not even students at the institution, on their football teams.  Coach Donaa never did this.  He coached honestly.  He used regular students and coached them up his way.  A Yale grad only 5' 4" tall, he stepped off the train in Auburn in 1904.  Unlike Pat Dye, Mike Donahue did not look like a football coach and probably did not talk like one either.  I suspect he was the only Yale grad to grace the Auburn football sidelines.

Donahue learned football under Walter Camp at Yale.  He came to Auburn after John Heisman.  He led Auburn (called API then) to four one-loss seasons and three undefeated seasons with an overall record of 99-35 and 5.

He was also Auburn's first basketball coach and had other supervisory duties.  In his spare time he taught English, math, history, and Latin.  A real Renaissance man if ever there was one.

For Coach Donahue basketball was a contact sport.  No fouls were called for they only slowed up the game.

You'll never read about another football coach like Coach Donahue.  He tried to develop well-rounded young men as well as developing good football players.

Donahue was lured away from Auburn after the 1922 season by LSU, but he did not have the same success at LSU as he did at AUBURN.

He later coached at Springhill College in Mobile.

#14  I fondly remember Auburn-UGA in 1971 when Pat Sullivan put on a show and performance which clinched his Heisman Trophy.  Auburn rolled 35 to 20 in Athens,

#15  Written by George Petrie, the Auburn Creed is Auburn's enduring philosophy.

I believe that this is a practical world and I can count only on what I earn.  Therefore, I believe in work, hard work.

I believe in education, which gives me the knowledge to work wisely and trains my hands and my mind to work skillfully.

I believe in honesty and truthfulness, without which I cannot win the respect and confidence of my fellow men.

I believe in a sound mind, in a sound body and a spirit that is not afraid, and in clean sports that develop these qualities.

I believe in obedience to law because it protects the rights of all.

I believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with my fellow men and mutual helpfulness and brings happiness to all.

I believe in my country, because it is a land of freedom and because it is my home, and I can best serve that country by "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God."

And because Auburn men and women believe in these things, I believe in Auburn and love it.

#16  The 2010 comeback in Tuscaloosa was certainly one of the most satisfying wins in Auburn history.  Trailing 24 o 0 the Tigers come back to win 28 to 27. on their way to the undisputed National Championship.   Improvable, but it happened made all the more pleasurable by beating that insufferable egotist Greg McElroy.

#17  George Petrie---Auburn's First Football Coach---A Great University Leader.  David Housel talks about the "Auburn Man."  Some people have suggested that Housel is the prototypical Auburn Man.  I say no.  The prototypical Auburn Man is George Petrie.  He not only started football at Auburn; he was a distinguished academic, at one time head of the Graduate School.

#18  Auburn really was the best college football team in 1983, but ESPN championed Miami after they Hurricanes beat Nebrasks on their home field in the Orange Bowl which I advocate won the recognition.  Auburn played an incredible schedule in '83 losing only to Texas.  Miami lost to Florida.  The Canes jumped from #5 to #1 after the home field victory.  Auburn was relegated to #2.  I call this Auburn's deserved but unrecognized  national championship.  

#19 Cam Newton was a once in a lifetime quserterback. The controversy over his recruitment is long past.

#20  The first Auburn-Alabama was on February 22, 1893 at Birmingham's Lakeview Park.  The game was no without controversy.  Football was considered a brutal and unsafe game.  Many faculty members opposed this barbaric sport.  But the game was a hot ticket.  Auburn brought 226 fans.  Auburn's headquarters was the Florence hotel, adorned in orange and blue.  The Tigers prevailed 32 to 22.

#21  Tiger Walk has to be experienced first hand, the only way to understand it.  It was spontaneous but became organized in the late 80's.  The greatest on was in 1989 when Alabama came to Jordan-Hare for the first time.  Now Tiger Walk also goes on the road.

#22  Media Watch.  Nothing to say.

#23  The history of Auburn's football uniforms.  Fortunately our uniforms have been mostly stable over the years, and I like it that way.  Constant uniform changes are not attractive.

#24  Terry Beasley was the best wide receiver in Auburn history.  He had such blazing speed and he seemingly never dropped a pass.  These were the Sullivan to Beasley years 1969 to 1971.  Unfortunately Terry had health issues off the field.  Lots of depression and mental health issues.  He suffered 16 concussions across his Auburn and NFL career.  He cam out of Lee High School in Montgomery.  He admitted that both UA and Auburn offered illegal at the time inducements although Alabama offered more.  He thought Auburn was a more down-to-earth and friendlier campus that UA.    After his football career ended he had various personal problems in addition to health problems.  His business went under, a divorce, and stress.  One reason also to pick Auburn is that he knew Pat Sullivan was also headed to Auburn.  I get the impression that in his heart he always wanted to go to Auburn.

#25  How the SEC came to be, a long and complicated story, and the story continues with Texas and Oklahoma waiting in the wings.

#26  The Wreck Tech tradition was alive and well when I started at Auburn as a freshman in the fall of 1968.  Students were supposed to parade in their pajamas but I did not do so.  Coach Jordan spoke at the Tech pep really.  He would speak at the Tech and Alabama pep rallies.  That's how strong the Georgia Tech rally was.  Tech was once in the SEC, but opted out somewhere in the 60's.  On September 2, 2005, Auburn temporarily reinstitute the pajama paraded before Auburn opened the season against Tech.  Auburn-Georgia was a staple of Southern football from 1906 to 1987.  Tradition is that the pj parade started with Auburn's first home game against Tech in 1896.  The first game was played on a field behind Samford Hall.  Auburn won in a big upset in 1955 at Grant Field in Atlanta.  Tech missed two extra points as Auburn won 14 to 12.

#27  I met David Housel as a freshman in 1968 as Housel was a senior.  He went on to be a journalist, a member of Auburn's journalism faculty, an SID, and AD.  His service to Auburn University is immeasurable.  At the same time, I have never been a big Housel fan though I cannot say why.

#28  Recruiting at Auburn has always been mainly in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida though basketball great John Mengelt came from Indiana and Jason Campbell came from Mississippi.

#29  Auburn has always had a strong strength and conditioning program.

#30  The author lauds Jim Fyffe and rightly so, but I wish he had talked the complete history of Auburn's radio football and basketball announcers.

#31  The Auburn-LSU rivalry is a good one and is mostly recently a modern one.  I remember a time when we did not play LSU every year.  This before 1992 when the schedule started featuring LSU as our big early season conference game.

#32  Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams were our best running back combo, and now Cadillace is our interim coach.

#33  John Heisman coached at Auburn.  Hard to believe, but yes he did.

#34  As Auburn announces a new AD let us not forget  the most important AD in Auburn history: Jeff Beard who was hired in 1951 when Auburn's athletic fortunes were at its lowest ebb.  The athletic department was losing money.  Jeff Beard immediately hired Shug Jordan as head football coach---under Earl Brown the football team was winless in 1950--- and he started putting the athletic department in the black.  Beard-Eaves Coliseum was named after him.  Starting in 1951, Alabama native Jeff Beard put Auburn athletics on the right path forward.

#35  Zeke Smith was a native of Uniontown, a small city in Alabama's Black Belt.  He won the Outland Trophy as the nation's best interior lineman in 1957.  Tracy Rocker would win the Outland in 1988.  I wonder how much Zeke Smith weighed.

#36  Interesting read on Gene Chizik.  The author is writing in 2012 which turns out to be Chizik's last season at Auburn.  The author praises Chizik.  He spoke too soon.

#37  Henry Harris was Auburn's first black basketball player in 1968.  He was a freshman when I was a freshman.  James Owens in 1970 was our first black football player.  Owens was knows as "The Big O."  Auburn was criticized in some quarters for using mostly as a blocking bank.

#38  Jason Campbell was a highly recruited  QB recruit out of Taylorssville, Mississippi.  Tommy Tuberville was recruiting him at Ole Miss.  Campbell came to Auburn with Tuberville.  Campbell had the misfortune to deal with four OCs in four years.  He received mostly criticism as best I can remember.  That dissipated 2004 with the undefeated season.  I am not sure what Campbell has done after his mediocre NFL career except that he is now a color commentator on the Auburn football radio broadcasts.

#39  Not much is said anymore about Senator Tuberville's Auburn coaching career.  He reached the pinnacle with the undefeated 2004 season and it all went downhill from there including the i'll fated firing of Al Borges and the hiring of Tony Franklin in 2008.  I question Tuberville's intelligence in the hiring of Franklin whose style of spread offense was clearly ill-suited for the SEC.  I question his political intelligence when he does not know the three branches of the Federal Government.  Yes, Tuberville calls a good ole country boy.  I would amend that to say he is a good ole country bumpkin.

#40  Coach Harsin I assume was not a booster club or rubber chicken circuit person.  According this author Tuberville and Chizik loved such meetings.

#41  Most Auburn fans remember Jimmy "Red" Phillips as a receiver, and he was a great receiver, but his greatest contribution to the team in 1957 was on defense.  

#42  Auburn has a memorable and successful bowl record.  I honestly  cannot ddmdm df my vifxxg Auburn  bowl game.  Auburn played two Gator Bowls in 1954, the only SEC team go play in the same bowl twice in a yr.  We all remember the 1982 Alabama game. the blowout in 1969, and the come-from-behind in 1970.  Of course, 2010 is the best of all.

#43  Great student athletes.

#44  The Eric Ramsey mess.

#45 Vince Dooley.  Apropos to switch ahead to Coach Dooley.

Vincent Joseph Dooley was an American college football coach. He was the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs from 1964 to 1988, as well as the University of Georgia's athletic director from 1979 to 2004. During his 25-year head coaching career, Dooley compiled a 201–77–10 record. Wikipedia

Born: September 4, 1932, Mobile, AL

Died: October 28, 2022, Athens, GA

Spouse: Barbara Meshad Dooley (m. 1960)

Children: Derek Dooley

Grandchildren: John Taylor, Julianna, Peyton

Parents: William Dooley, Nellie Dooley

Siblings: Bill Dooley

Vince Dooley grew up in Mobile and McGill Catholic High School.  He played QB for Shug Jordan.  When Joel Eaves left as Auburn's basketball coach to become the AD at Georgia, he hired the Auburn freshman football coach Vince Dooley.  The rest is history as they say.  After retiring as the Bulldog's football, Dooley remained as AD for many years.  He coached old-fashioned right wing football.  Known and respected throughout the college football world, Vince was one of th good guys in college athletics.

#46  In the old days fall football practice started with two-a-days.  Now since college football is year around, there are no longer the traditional two-a-days.

#47  Tucker Frederickson may have been Auburn/s best all-around football player.  He played both running back and defensive  back.

#48  On November 21, 1942,  Auburn upset Georgia 27 to 13 for one of Auburn's greatest football victories

#49  It's the Auburn University Marching Band, and I like it that way.  We don't need no silly nicknames for our band.

#50  Auburn played Villanova to a 7-7 tie on January 1, 1937 in Havana, Cuba, in the Bacardi Bowl.  It was a very competitive game played under a hot sun.  Attendance was about 12,000.  Funny seeing the picture of some action in this book with the players not wearing face guards.

#51  The author says that Aubie turned 33 in t912 so I guess that means he is 45 today.  The concept of Aubie began as a cartoon in the Birmingham Post-Herald by artist Phil Neel in 1959.  Aubie made his first appearance in his current form at the 1979 SEC basketball tournament as Auburn upset favored Vanderbilt.   The competition to play Aubie from the Auburn student body is fierce.

#52  For some reason the pregame eagle flight has never been a big deal to me.

#53  Learn how to tailgate at Auburn.  Always been a huge deal.

#54  When Auburn is on the road.

#55  The Amazins of 72.

#56  Always talk of powerbrokers behind the scenes.

$57  Walter Gilbert was a great Auburn football player.

#58  The Tigers were undefeated in 1913 and should have claimed a national chmpioiship but didn't.

#59  Tracy Rocker was the backbone of the great 1988 defense.

#60  Crowd control is always important.

#61  I remember when Auburn had the 9 picks against Florida in 1969.

#62  I remember when Jimmy Sidle was the last QB to lead the nation in rushing in 1963.  He was our first great dual threat quarterback.

#72  The 1950 Auburn football team might have been the worst Auburn team ever.  Vince Dooley did it was this worst football team he ever saw.  Earl Brown was replace by Shut Jordan the next year.

#74  Kendall Simmons.  Coaching changes at Auburn after Coach Harsin, the OC,and the tight ends coaches were fired October 31.  One result is that with elevation of OL Coach Friend to co-offensive coordinator. Kendall Simmons has moved from an analysis position to offensive line coach.  Simmons had a long and successful NFL career.  I bet he will do a good job.

#75  The Toomer's lemonade thing has never been a big deal to me.

#76  Bring the kids to the game.

#77  Much commentary on Terry Bowden's time at Auburn.  Fantastic start then he flamed out.  Several coaching jobs after Auburn including now at Monroe, but he has never regained the lusteer he started with.

#78  Doug Barfield had a rough five years following Shug Jordan.  Some Auburn fans say he never had a chance.  I say he did have a chance but by 1980 Auburn did not win a single conference game paving the way for Pat Dye.  Barfield made $48,000 his last year.  Hard to believe.

#79  As Carnell Williams makes his debut 11/5/22 as Auburn's interim head football coach, it is good to remember that he initially committed to Tennessee. The Cadillac was the top recruit in Alabama in the winter of 2000 and Tommy Tuberville considered him a once in a lifetime prize.  Tuberville responded by visiting Williams in his home in Atalla with his entire coaching staff.  At first he did not ask Williams to renounce his commitment to Tennessee but merely visit Auburn and give the Tigers a chance.  Cadillac eventually realized he preferred Auburn.  Ronnie Brown also committed to Tennessee but also changed his mind.

#80  The game in Tuscaloosa in 2000 was cold but all I remember iss that we were there and Auburn won 9 to 0.

#81  Fob James is not one of my favorite people.  He was a terrible governor and a complete buffoon even though  he played for Auburn and left Auburn as our all-time leading rusher at that time.

#82  Auburn's nickname, the Loveliest Village, comes from the Oliver Goldsmith poem.

#83 Auburn's athletic facilities have continually improved over the decades.  The new football complex just opened is the latest example.

#84  Dameyune Craig was a great AU QB, but my recollection is that he never quite achieved the greatness we expected for such a gifted dual threat quarterback.

#85  I remember the win over Florida in 2001.  The Gators came in ranked # 1 in the country and Auburn won 23-20 on a clutch Damon Duval 44-yd field goal.

#86  The 1968 Auburn-Alabama freshmen game was an incredible comeback wiin for Auburn a sign of things to come Sullivan and Beasley.  Trailing 27 to 0, the Tigers stormed back with 36 unanswered points to stun the Tide.  What a great win111

#87  Many great Auburn placekickers..  Maybe Al Del Drreco was the best.  In my time as a student I remember Rat Riley.

#88

#89   When Carlos Rogers was playing I did not realize how good he was.  He was the highest AU defensive back ever drafted by the Redskins in 2005.  Our of Augusta, Georgia, Rogers liked Coach Ciizik who was DB coach.

#90  Jay Jaobs was Auburn AD as of the writing of this book.  I am not sure how much he is remembered and respected.  I guess it would depend on how you ask.  My recollection is that after Auburn he took a job in the Univ. of Florida AD department.                                  

Bouie on Reconstruction

 I write frequently about the Reconstruction period after the Civil War not to make predictions or analogies but to show how a previous generation of Americans grappled with their own set of questions about the scope and reach of our Constitution, our government and our democracy.

The scholarship on Reconstruction is vast and comprehensive. But my touchstone for thinking about the period continues to be W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Black Reconstruction,” published in 1935 after years of painstaking research, often inhibited by segregation and the racism of Southern institutions of higher education.

I return to Du Bois, even as I read more recent work, because he offers a framework that is useful, I think, for analyzing the struggle for democracy in our own time.

The central conceit of Du Bois’s landmark study — whose full title is “Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880” — is that the period was a grand struggle between “two theories of the future of America,” rooted in the relationship of American labor to American democracy.

“What were to be the limits of democratic control in the United States?” Du Bois asks. “Was the rule of the mass of Americans to be unlimited, and the right to rule extended to all men regardless of race and color?” And if not, he continues, “How would property and privilege be protected?”

On one side in the conflict over these questions was “an autocracy determined at any price to amass wealth and power”; on the other was an “abolition-democracy based on freedom, intelligence and power for all men.”

The term “abolition-democracy” began with Du Bois and is worth further exploration.

Abolition-democracy, Du Bois writes, was the “liberal movement among both laborers and small capitalists” who saw “the danger of slavery to both capital and labor.” Its standard-bearers were abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and radical antislavery politicians like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stephens, and in its eyes, “the only real object” of the Civil War was the abolition of slavery and “it was convinced that this could be thoroughly accomplished only if the emancipated Negroes became free citizens and voters.”

It was also clear, to some within abolition-democracy, that “freedom in order to be free required a minimum of capital in addition to political rights.” In this way, abolition-democracy was an anticipation of social democratic ideology, although few of its proponents, in Du Bois’s view, grasped the full significance of their analysis of the relationship between political freedom, civil rights and economic security.

Opposing abolition-democracy, in Du Bois’s telling, were the reactionaries of the former Confederate South who sought to “reestablish slavery by force.” The South, he writes, “opposed Negro education, opposed land and capital for Negroes, and violently and bitterly opposed any political power. It fought every conception inch by inch: no real emancipation, limited civil rights, no Negro schools, no votes for Negroes.”

Between these two sides lay Northern industry and capital. It wanted profits and it would join whichever force enabled it to expand its power and reach. Initially, this meant abolition-democracy, as Northern industry feared the return of a South that might threaten its political and economic dominance. It “swung inevitably toward democracy” rather than allow the “continuation of Southern oligarchy,” Du Bois writes.

It’s here that we see the contradiction inherent in the alliance between Northern industry and abolition-democracy. The machinery of democracy in the South “put such power in the hands of Southern labor that, with intelligent and unselfish leadership and a clarifying ideal, it could have rebuilt the economic foundations of Southern society, confiscated and redistributed wealth, and built a real democracy of industry for the masses of men.”

This — the extent to which democracy in the South threatened to undermine the imperatives of capital — was simply too much for Northern industry to bear. And so it turned against the abolition-democracy, already faltering as it was in the face of Southern reaction. “Brute force was allowed to use its unchecked power,” Du Bois writes, “to destroy the possibility of democracy in the South, and thereby make the transition from democracy to plutocracy all the easier and more inevitable.”

In the end, “it was not race and culture calling out of the South in 1876; it was property and privilege, shrieking to its kind, and privilege and property heard and recognized the voice of its own.” What killed Reconstruction — beyond the ideological limitations of its champions and the vehemence of its opponents — was a “counterrevolution of property,” North and South.

Why is this still a useful framework for understanding the United States, close to a century after Du Bois conceived and developed this argument? As a concept, abolition-democracy captures something vital and important: that democratic life cannot flourish as long as it is bound by and shaped around hierarchies of status. The fight for political equality cannot be separated from the fight for equality more broadly.

In other words, the reason I keep coming back to “Black Reconstruction” is that Du Bois’s mode of analysis can help us (or, at least, me) look past so much of the ephemera of our politics to focus on what matters most: the roles of power, privilege and, most important, capital in shaping our political order and structuring our conflicts with one another.

-Jamelle Bouie in the NY Times 10/25/22

Adam Hochschild on History

 A fundamental and critical question: What is history? And why does history matter?

History formed who we are, and unless we understand how we came to be, we're not going to be able to make a turn for the better. Unless we understand how we got to where we are right now, we're not going to be able to understand the dangers we face, the possibilities we face and find heroes and heroines to inspire us. Those are some of the reasons we need to study history.

-Adam Hochschild in Salon.com

Cursive Writing Out

 The dumbing down continue with disastrous results in history education.

Given a current generation of students in which so few can read or write cursive, one cannot assume it will ever again serve as an effective form of communication. I asked my students about the implications of what they had told me, focusing first on their experience as students. No, most of these history students admitted, they could not read manuscripts. If they were assigned a research paper, they sought subjects that relied only on published sources. One student reshaped his senior honors thesis for this purpose; another reported that she did not pursue her interest in Virginia Woolf for an assignment that would have involved reading Woolf’s handwritten letters. In the future, cursive will have to be taught to scholars the way Elizabethan secretary hand or paleography is today.

-Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust

Michael Gerson

 

During his last campaign, Trump warned suburban White women that “low-income housing would invade” their neighborhoods. Now he teases that he might run in 2024 “to take back that beautiful, beautiful house that happens to be white.” Even using the language and argumentation of the playground, Trump does his damage. He implies that the institutions of American government are and should be White dominated. He directly defends the segregation of housing. He encourages the idea that minorities are aggressors against Whites.

And Trump effectively gives permission to other MAGA fools. “They want crime,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said about Democrats at a recent Trump rally. “They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”

In MAGA world, the incitement of white grievance is the strategy. Such appeals are inseparable from racism. And they reopen a wound that nearly killed the patient before. It is politics at its most pernicious.

Tyler Kepner - The Grand Stage - Notes

 This book is a history of the World Series written by the baseball writer for the New York Times.  The parts of it that are of the most interest are the older accounts since although I keep up with MLB my interest is mostly in talking baseball history.

In the opening pages the author talks about the mystique of the World Series while acknowledging that the Super Bowl commands the most public interest now but they are fundamentally different in that the Super Bowl lasts maybe four hours whereas the World Series is a best of series of up to seven games, a difference in the nature of each sport.

I say the glory of the World Series still works for me although in the world at large it may not be the glory it used to be.

What you know:  The 1919 White Sox conspired to throw the World Series.

What you might not know:  The Reds were the better team anyway.

Shoeless Joe Jackson has the most hits in the game with 12 and he hit .375.  He had the only home run by either team.  He took money to lose---$5,000.  A grand jury acquitted Jackson and his teammates of conspiracy in August of 1921, but Commissioner Lands banned them all from baseball for life.  P. 39

What you know: Babe Ruth called his shot in the 1932 World Series.

What you might not know:  Charlie Root give it up----and never lived it down.

This author seems to think that Ruth held up two fingers to check with the umpire that it was two strikes, but he did not point to centerfield.

Charlie Root says Ruth did not point so he lived the rest of his life remembered for something that never happened.

What you know: Don Larsen threw a perfect game in Game Five of the 1956 World Series.

What you might not know: Clem Labine threw a 10-inning the next day.

Clem Labine was the premier relief pitcher of the 1950s.  Pitching relief was the job he preferred.  Starting was not his goal.  He liked the presssure of relieving.

Labine made nearly 500 relief appearances in his career but only 4 starts.  Walter Alston named him the starter the day after Larsen’s perfect game at Ebbet’s Field.  This would only his fourth start of the season.

Before today’s specialized pitching Labine just pitched.  45

Labine’s shutout in 1956 one of only three shutouts in World Series history.  His great 10-inning shutout in ’56 was forgotten before Larsen’s perfect game.   P. 45

Labine gave up the final hit in Jackie Robinson’s career before Robinson retired when the Dodgers tried to trade him to the Giants.  P. 46

What you know: Bill Mazeroski’s homered to win Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

What you might not know:  Hal Smith’s home run was more important.  P. 47

I remember asking a salesman in the family fabric business in 1960 who won the first game of that Series.  I wanted the Yankees to win.  He told me the Pirates won 6 to 4.  I was disappointed to hear that.

What you know: Carlton Fisk homered to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

What you might not now: The winning pitcher was Rick Wise.

No comment.

What you know: A bad call crushed the Cardinals in the 1985 World Series

What you might not know: The Cardinals deserved to lose.

About History

 With the House Jan. 6 committee hearings now behind us (in all probability), the question for history will be what they meant and what they accomplished. That question is impossible to answer now with any clarity. It will be answered by future historians, political scientists and other experts years or decades from now. 

In his influential 1961 book "What is History?" E.H. Carr answered the title question this way: History is a continuous "process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past." In other words, history is not a neutral set of facts separate from the observer. Historians, like other scholars, have agency and subjectivity. They inhabit, exercise, serve, and are driven and impacted by the currents of power (what have been described as "regimes of truth") in their societies.

With the understanding that the history of this chapter in America's democracy crisis is still being created, I have allowed myself to reach a tentative conclusion: The House Jan. 6 committee hearings were anticlimactic.

-Chauncey Devega in Salon.com

It Has Already Happened Here 2

 It was a system that, as the legal scholar and former judge Margaret A. Burnham wrote in “By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners,” rested on “the chronic, unpredictable violence that loomed over everyday Black life.” In one of many such episodes detailed in the book, Burnham recounts the last moments of Henry Williams, a Black G.I. killed in 1942 by an Alabama bus driver named Grover Chandler for what Chandler perceived as “impudence on the part of the young soldier.” Rushing to escape the bus after being assaulted by the driver, Williams spilled his laundry on the ground. “As he turned to pick it up, Chandler fired three shots, one hitting Williams in the back of the head. He died instantly right there on Chandler’s bus.”

All of this took place while the United States was fighting a war for democracy in Europe. Which is to say that for most of this country’s history, America’s democratic institutions and procedures and ideals existed alongside forms of exclusion, domination and authoritarianism. Although we’ve taken real strides toward making this a less hierarchical country, with a more representative government, there is no iron law of history that says that progress will continue unabated or that the authoritarian tradition in American politics won’t reassert itself.

If we do see even greater democratic backsliding than we’ve already experienced over the past decade — since the advent of Donald Trump, yes, but also since the decimation of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder — there’s no reason to think that most elites, and most people, won’t accommodate themselves to the absence of democracy for many of their fellow Americans. After a time, that absence of democracy may become just the regular order of things — a regrettable custom that nonetheless should more or less be left alone because of federalism or limited government. That, in fact, is how many politicians, journalists and intellectuals rationalized autocracy in the South and reconciled it with their belief that the United States was a free country.

In his 1909 biography of John Brown, W.E.B. Du Bois reflected on the legacy of the antislavery martyr with an observation about what it does to a society to tolerate exploitation, degradation and unfreedom. “The price of repression is greater than the cost of liberty,” he wrote. “The degradation of men costs something both to the degraded and those who degrade.”

American traditions of authoritarianism have shaped American traditions of democracy in that they frame our ideas of who, exactly, can enjoy American freedom and American liberty. They degrade our moral sense and make it easier to look away from those who suffer under the worst of the state or those who are denied the rights they were promised as members of our national community.

As we look to a November in which a number of vocal election deniers are poised to win powerful positions in key swing states, I think that the great degree to which authoritarianism is tied up in the American experience — and the extent to which we’ve been trained not to see it, in accordance with our national myths and sense of exceptionalism — makes it difficult for many Americans to really believe that democracy as we know it could be in serious danger.

In other words, too many Americans still think it can’t happen here, when the truth is that it already has and may well again.