Day: February 27, 2006

Treasures still exist.

Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.

The photos had been in a box marked: “Keep. Do Not Sell.” But at the time they were taken, the newspaper didn’t want to draw attention to the racial discord of the 1950s and 1960s, news photographers from the period said.

“The editors thought if you didn’t publish it, much of this would go away,” said Ed Jones, 81, a photographer at The News from 1942 to 1987. “Associated Press kept on wanting pictures, and The News would be slow on letting them have them, so they flooded the town with photographers.”

Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.

Several photos vividly show the segregation in the South at the time, including the disparity among school buildings and the different lines for blacks and whites, even at the jail as the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth posts bail after an arrest.

Others show confrontations: a police officer shoving a demonstrator, black children hit with the spray of a firehose, crowds heckling demonstrators on their knees, Freedom Riders being arrested, and whites throwing bricks at cars and blocking blacks from entering “whites-only” areas.

One photo shows a Ku Klux Klan rally with men wearing hoods but their faces uncovered. Others show National Guardsmen with their guns drawn, protecting a bus in one and rounding up rioters protesting a black student’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi.

Some of the unpublished photos are online, here.

All I can say is, has a certain geographical place, way way deep underground, suddenly froze over?

When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America’s ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary General Kofi Annan is wrong; and leading international human rights groups have unwisely put their preference for multilateral consensus ahead of their duty to fight for the strongest possible human rights protection. A once-promising reform proposal has been so watered down that it has become an ugly sham, offering cover to an unacceptable status quo. It should be renegotiated or rejected.

Yeah, that’s the New York Times. It must have been a hard one for them to swallow, especially when the focus of their praise is someone like John Bolton, the recess appointee anointed by the great satan they call George W. Bush.

Strange days indeed.

This is wrong, very wrong.

After 11 days, Saddam gets hungry and calls off his hunger strike.

Weaver died today from cancer. He was probably best known as Sam McCloud in the TV Series ‘McCloud’ which ran from 1970 to 1977. He started his career much earlier though.

Weaver was a struggling actor in Hollywood in 1955, earning $60 a week delivering flowers when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, “Gunsmoke.” By the end of his nine years with “Gunsmoke,” he was earning $9,000 a week.

When Weaver first auditioned for the series, he found the character of Chester “inane.” He wrote in his 2001 autobiography, “All the World’s a Stage,” that he said to himself: “With all my Actors Studio training, I’ll correct this character by using my own experiences and drawing from myself.”

The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to audiences, especially with his drawling, “Mis-ter Dil-lon.”

At the end of seven hit seasons, Weaver sought other horizons. He announced his departure, but the failures of pilots for his own series caused him to return to “Gunsmoke” on a limited basis for two more years. The role brought him an Emmy in the 1958-59 season.

In 1966, Weaver starred with a 600-pound black bear in “Gentle Ben,” about a family that adopts a bear as a pet. The series was well-received, but after two seasons, CBS decided it needed more adult entertainment and cancelled it.

I’ll remember Dennis Weaver best as a guy being chased by a truck in the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Duel’.

I was very young when I first watched this made for TV movie. What freaked me out the most was the ending…the truck going over the cliff, the door swinging open, and the question – Did the driver get out? Is he still on the loose?

Good stuff.

The Tampa Tribune runs an editorial column today directed at Hillary Clinton which begs her not to run for the White House in 2008. Here’s the meat:

If you run for president, chances are good that you’ll secure your party’s nomination. But realistically, how do you think you can win the White House? You are the most polarizing figure in the Democratic Party, and your negatives among likely voters are prohibitively high. Many people simply don’t trust you. You may share your husband’s name, but what people liked about him is not transferable to you.

That’s about right. Hillary surrounds herself with some pretty smart people. That’s not the problem. The issue is, her people don’t know how to stand up to her, so they become worthless as influencers. Husband Bill is just as worthless, for the same reasons. He owes Hillary. It doesn’t matter if she can’t win. He’s fully enlisted and already at work.

Hillary is the only one who can react to the pleas of others in her party who don’t want her to run. If she respects their opinion, she won’t run. If she thinks they don’t know squat, she’ll run. It’s that simple.