POPnews - October 3rd

[Artist Kota Ezawa's take on the OJ Simpson Verdict is elegance
itself, whereas most people's reaction to the verdict has been
anything but elegant - my own very much included.]
1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd - prince of Gwynedd in Wales - became the first prominent person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered, after being dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury on orders from England's King Edward I. His executioner, a man named Geoffrey, was paid 20 shillings (or £1) to carry out the arduous, gruesome task.

1739 - The Treaty of Nissa was signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russo-Turkish War.

1835 - The Staedtler Company was founded, in the German city of Nuremburg.

1849 - American author Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances - not that there's anything mysterious about finding someone drunk and unconscious in a gutter in Baltimore - just that in his case there was; it was the last time he would be seen in public before his death.

1863 - US President Abraham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

1873 - Captain Jack and his companions were hanged for their part in the Modoc War.

1908 - The newspaper Pravda was founded in Vienna by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles, to be smuggled into Russia.

1918 - Bulgaria's Tsar Boris III acceded to the throne upon the abdication of his father Ferdinand I.

1929 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, or 'Land of the South Slavs'.

1932 - Iraq gained its independence from Great Britain.

1942 - A German V-2 rocket launched at Peenemünde became the first man-made object in space.

1951 - The Shot Heard 'Round the World - one of the greatest moments in the history of Major League Baseball - occurred when the New York Giants' Bobby Thomson hit a game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, to win the National League pennant after being down 14 games.

1952 - It was announced in the United Kingdom that tea rationing would end after 12 years.

1955 - Captain Kangaroo, starring Bob Keeshan, debuted on CBS on the same day The Mickey Mouse Club debuted on ABC.

1957 - Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems was ruled not obscene, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, City Lights Bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti managed to convince Judge Clayton Horn of the work's 'redeeming social importance'.

1962 - As part of NASA's Project Mercury, Sigma 7 was launched from Cape Canaveral, with astronaut Wally Schirra aboard for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight around the world in space.

1964 - The first-ever Buffalo Wings were made, at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.

1990 - East and West Germany were reunited; the anniversary of the event is celebrated as German Unity Day.

1995 - O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of the brutal murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
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"Fragile" by Sting

It was more than twenty years ago now that Sting released one of my favourite songs of all time; back then, of course, I was a callow youth, but the years have only deepened my appreciation of his sensitive lyrics. Yet, for all his skill as a songwriter, it's the voice that gets me every time. On days when I'm feeling fragile (a surprising number of them, truth be told) it's one of those things that helps me keep going.

Fragile first appeared on Sting's 1988 album …Nothing Like the Sun. Although it has a perfectly nice video, for the usual reasons, I'm not able to embed it here; instead, I've included this performance of the song recorded live in Italy on September 11th, 2001. Initially a tribute to Ben Linder, an American civil engineer murdered in 1987 by Nicaraguan Contras, the song has become increasingly identified with the 9-11 Attacks.
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Nat Turner: Prophet of Doom

Hearing the voice of God - as Nat Turner claimed he did - is all well and good, if that's what you're into; even heeding your own inner voice can have positive results, as untold generations of artists well know. But arming people and going on a killing spree because someone says God told him to do it is an utter folly, and will never end well...

Being preternaturally gifted (literate, for instance, when most American blacks weren't) was never going to win Nat Turner - born this day in 1800 - any friends, especially among whites. Yet he was described by contemporary sources as holding certain whites in a kind of thrall, and by all accounts he was a gifted preacher as well; he was even known by the sobriquet 'The Prophet'.

Still, the 50 or so whites killed during the two-day rebellion he lead could never have been worth the 200 blacks killed in its aftermath. Nor could the loss of his own life have served any real purpose, since he must have known that news of Nat Turner's Rebellion would ultimately be suppressed by whites for the sake of public order. Following his abortive rebellion his home state of Virginia, which had been on the verge of abandoning slavery as unworkable, actually saw an increase in the practice.

It's popular to consider Nat Turner a hero for the part he played in the struggle against tyranny, and had he escaped (as he did when he was 21, only to later return) he could have become an abolitionist like Frederick Douglass, another learned and charismatic man. Nat Turner could have done so much more than he did, been so much more than he was, and ended his life a far greater hero than the murdering thug he became had he simply obeyed the Sixth Commandment from that book he was so fond of reading.
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Gratuitous Brunette: Sam Roberts

Canada is one of those countries that sends its purveyors of mediocrity (and you know who you are) overseas or merely over the border, while keeping its genuine talent to itself... It's a little game we like to play called Sucka! - perhaps you've either played it yourself, or else been played by it...

Such is the case with birthday boy Sam Roberts, whose career has gone up and up, from strength to strength, while remaining almost entirely within the confines of Soviet Canuckistan; until today, this is, when it all came crashing down with his inclusion amongst the ranks of the Gratuitous Brunette. Now he's naught but fresh perv material for an insatiable troll.

Still, it's been a good run as these things go - five albums* of suitably jangly college rock, numerous festival performances, and guns to die for. Oh, and the videos! Mustn't forget those. Among my favourites are Brother Down, Them Kids, and of course Where Have All the Good People Gone...

*Technically four albums - 2000's Brother Down, 2003's We Were Born in a Flame, 2006's Chemical City, and 2008's Love at the End of the World - plus an EP, 2002's The Inhuman Condition, but who's counting?
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"Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" by Don McLean

Since the expected thing to do would have been including the video for American Pie along with birthday wishes for Don McLean, I have instead included Vincent (Starry, Starry Night).

Although... Since the expected thing would be for me to do the unexpected thing, the unexpected thing I did should have been entirely expected. I mean, what did you expect?

A n y w a y... I love this song. It's beautifully sung by Don McLean, and it's about Vincent Van Gogh. Enjoy.
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A Closer Look At Annie Leibovitz

In 1970, within a year of its founding, Annie Leibovitz - born on this day in 1949 - came to work for Rolling Stone magazine; by 1973 she was named its chief photographer, at the age of 24.

In her professional capacity, Leibovitz was responsible for influencing the look of the rock industry bible, which under her tenure trended towards larger and brighter pictures, often incorporating elements of whimsy - especially on its cover.

Known for her collaborative ability - which has been responsible for many unique portraits - since 1983, she's also done much work for Vanity Fair, albeit in a more straightforward style.

In 2007 she became the first American photographer to create a portrait of England's Queen Elizabeth II. While the photos are exemplary, filmmakers producing a documentary entitled A Year with the Queen tried to pull a BS reality-TV trick and re-edit the footage to turn the Queen into a diva and Leibovitz into an idiot. Fortunately, the stunt blew up in their faces; unfortunately, the Queen no longer has it in her discretion to send those responsible for sedition to the Tower of London.

More recently Leibovitz's high-living ways have brought her to a pretty pass with regards to her home and worst of all, her most precious resource - her photo archive; the more sensitive pundits among us (myself most humbly included) have put this down to the recent death of Leibovitz's long-term lover, Susan Sontag. Here's hoping the coming years find this issue sorted out...
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Rock Hudson

Despite the media circus that followed him from Hollywood to Paris and back again in the last months of his life, Rock Hudson's innate stoicism served him well. He died as he had lived - with dignity; his career, however, had often tested the durability of that dignity.

Although his sexuality was the biggest open secret in town, it only was so because studio executives were able to blackmail him into the most ludicrous situations in his movies; he seemingly couldn't appear on-screen with Doris Day, for instance, without somehow ending up in her dressing gown. No doubt the closet cases among the higher-ups laughed the loudest at such emasculatory hijinks being aimed at the pampered pretty boy they'd extorted into doing it.

By the time he died of AIDS on this day in 1985 he had given the disease a famous face and brought about the greatest mobilization of star power in history, headed by the force of nature known as Elizabeth Taylor.
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"Don't You Want Me" by Human League

At the forefront of the British New Wave were bands like The Human League (from Sheffield), and at the forefront of The Human League was birthday boy Phil Oakey, who's been with the band since it formed in 1977.

In the age of vinyl, Don't You Want Me sold 1.4 million units, one of which resides in the record collection of the Pop Culture Institute; although Oakey didn't like the song, in terms of sales and radio play it was their biggest hit, reaching #1 in the UK in 1982 and the US in 1983. Naturally the song's original video has been hijacked by the usual suspects, but this live performance gets the point across just as well*.

Oakey it seems has come to terms with the track's success, but still refers to the song as 'overrated'; perhaps it's more a case of The Human League - and the rest of their output - being under-rated in relation to it.

*Since a) it's being lip-synced, and b) it shows Oakey at his gender-bending best.
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Happy Birthday Kelly Ripa

As Hayley Vaughan on All My Children, birthday gal Kelly Ripa was destined to suffer the kind of anonymous fame that dogs most soap stars - hugely popular amongst fans of the show, yet virtually unknown to anyone else.

As herself on Live with Regis and Kelly she broke through to the mainstream with a bubbly personality and a self-deprecating manner, both of which are great assets to a television presenter. Fans agree; the show's ratings have steadily increased since February 2001, when she was hired. She even parlayed her chipperness into a sitcom role, playing Faith Fairfield on Hope & Faith for three seasons, making her one of the hardest working people in show business.

Speaking of great assets, she's been married to super-hot Mark Consuelos since eloping in 1996; together they have three children: Michael, Lola, and Joaquin.
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Remembering... Graham Greene

Both Catholicism and Communism feature extensively in the works of Graham Greene; in both cases his disillusionment with each of them is evident. If the moral ambivalence inherent in either of these 20th Century forces gave Graham Greene the impetus for the novels he wrote it was humanism, rather than than anything else, which lit his way out of the darkness.

Or it could have been that Greene, in his work as a novelist and playwright, was attempting to exorcise the hypocrisy that comes with being a spy.

Whatever it was, as he saw it, the great quest of the modern age was finding something to believe in. Whether a Church that made Princes of men who were supposed to be in service of the poor, or a creed that did likewise, in neither case were they morally honest, and it was their dishonesty that was poisoning the well of society.

Gradually, it was people (including himself) he came to believe in most; if some of those people found their faith in religion, or in politics, or even art they were the lucky ones.

Greene is perhaps best known for his 1938 novel Brighton Rock, which shows a seamier side of that seaside resort than its boosters would prefer; another of the major controversies in which he found himself involved was his 1937 criticism of the film Wee Willie Winkie, featuring nine-year-old Shirley Temple, of which he said that Temple displayed 'a certain adroit coquetry which appealed to middle-aged men'. One of the first attempts in modern times to condemn the sexualization of children in media, the subsequent libel lawsuit shut the magazine that had published it, Night and Day, as well as inspired Greene to take a long trip to Mexico to avoid imprisonment.

Born on this day in 1904, Graham Greene died in April 1991, having published extensively in every genre from verse to essays.
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"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" by Groucho Marx

When the late Groucho Marx performed Lydia the Tattooed Lady on The Dick Cavett Show in September 1969 he was almost eighty... Meaning this performance may not be Groucho at his best - although it does showcase the particular charisma of the man; then again, I may be hopelessly biased, since the first performance of this song I'm familiar with is by a certain amphibian made of green felt.

He famously said that he'd never belong to any club that would have him as a member, but Groucho Marx - who was born on this day in 1890 and died in August 1977 - never lived to see the foundation of London's Groucho Club in 1985, which has since become a regular haunt for those in the British media and arts establishment.
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In Memoriam: Mahatma Gandhi

Today is known as Gandhi Jayanti in India, a cause for both celebration and prayer on the occasion of the birthday of Mohandas K. Gandhi, more commonly known as Mahatma (which means Great Soul). It's a national holiday there, and it's no coincidence the United Nations chose the date to serve as the International Day of Non-Violence in June 2007, making this the observation of that day as well.

The Father of the Nation espoused a philosophy he called Satyagraha which advocated the use of civil disobedience in place of violence; in 1930 he led the Dandi Salt March in opposition to British taxation, and in 1941 he founded the Quit India movement. He was also passionate when it came to abolishing India's caste system by uplifting the so-called Dalits; his mentorship of a young Jawaharlal Nehru alienated the younger man from his upper-caste Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmin family, but also virtually assured Gandhi's protege leadership of the newly created India in August 1947.

As with so many other people who have advocated non-violence, the utterly peaceful Gandhi met his end at the hands of an assassin, Nathuram Godse (an activist with Hindu Mahasabha) in January 1948. It had been the fifth such attack on the life of Gandhi.

Although Gandhi was opposed to the death penalty, and would have been opposed to it even in the case of his own assassin, Godse was executed at Ambala Jail alongside co-conspirator Narayan Apte in November 1949, having consistently pleaded guilty and confessed to having committed the crime. The only reason he gave is that Gandhi's tolerance towards Sikhs and Muslims had enraged him - all of which only served to illustrate Gandhi's point that violence (whether committed by individuals or by the state) only begets more violence.
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POPnews - October 2nd

[Was Edith Galt Wilson the first woman to effectively (if not officially) serve as President of the United States, or was she just another in a long line of efficiently feisty First Ladies?]
1187 - Saladin captured Jerusalem, ending 88 years of rule by the Crusaders.

1535 - Jacques Cartier arrived at Hochelaga, establishing the city of Montreal.

1552 - Ivan the Terrible conquered Kazan when his sappers finally breached the city's walls.

1780 - John André, British Army officer during the American Revolutionary War, was hanged as a spy by American forces at Tappan.

1814 - At the Battle of Rancagua Spanish Royalist troops under Mariano Osorio defeated the rebel forces of Chilean patriots Bernardo O'Higgins and Jose Miguel Carrera.

1835 - The Texas Revolution began with the Battle of Gonzales, when Mexican soldiers attempted to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encountered stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.

1919 - President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke while still in office; during the remaining 17 months of his term First Lady Edith Galt Wilson served as the de facto President, even unto guiding his hand when forming his signature. The extent of the President's disability was hidden from the public until after his death in 1924, although the extent of her involvement in the Presidency has never been suitably explored.

1928 - Opus Dei was founded by St. Josemaría Escrivá.

1935 - Italian forces commanded by Benito Mussolini and led by Rodolfo Graziani invaded Abyssinia; during the conquest and occupation many grave atrocities were committed.

1967 - Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first black Supreme Court Justice in US history.

1968 - A peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City ended in the Tlatelolco massacre.

1970 - A Martin 4-0-4 aircraft carrying the Wichita State University football team, administrators, and supporters crashed near Silver Plume, Colorado, killing 31 people.

1992 - The Carandiru Massacre took place following a riot in São Paulo's Carandiru Penitentiary.

1993 - Hard-line communists in Moscow staged an uprising against the popularly elected President Boris Yeltsin, whose series of reforms designed to make a capitalist democracy out of the former Soviet Union proved unpopular resulted in the bombing of that city's White House.

1997 - The Amsterdam Treaty was signed, significantly expanding the Treaty on European Union.

2002 - The Beltway sniper attacks began; they would eventually last over three weeks, until the shooters - John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo - were finally arrested.

2005 - The Ethan Allen tour boat capsized on Lake George in Upstate New York, killing twenty people.

2006 - Charles Carl Roberts murdered five girls during a shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before committing suicide himself.

2007 - President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea walked across the Military Demarcation Line into North Korea on his way to the second Inter-Korean Summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
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Harry Hill: Hornophone Virtuoso

Birthday wishes go out to Harry Hill, who gave up a career as a doctor to become a stand-up comedian. Sounds like a fair trade to me. After all, laughter is supposed to be the best medicine.

From his first show, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner on BBC's Radio 4 to his current show Harry Hill's TV Burp, the good doctor delights audiences with his surreal take on life.
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Pop History Moment: The LA Times Bombing

On this day in 1910 the Los Angeles Times Building - at the corner of First and Broadway in downtown LA - was destroyed by a bomb consisting of 16 sticks of dynamite planted in Ink Alley, which ran behind the building. Originally the bomb's timer had been set to go off at 4 AM - when the building would have been empty; instead, the bomb actually went off just after 1 AM, as many staff were finishing for the day. 21 employees were killed and 100 injured in the ill-timed blast, mostly in the ensuing fire caused by damage to a nearby gas main*, of which the bombers had seemingly been unaware. Not only was the Times Building destroyed but the neighbouring building which housed its printing press also went up in flames.

The next day unexploded bombs were discovered at the home of the Times' union-busting publisher Harrison Gray Otis, as well as at the home of F.J. Zeehandelaar (secretary of the pro-business Merchants and Manufacturers' Association), the Alexander Hotel, and the Los Angeles County Hall of Records (then under construction by the non-union Llewellyn Iron Works). All were thought to be related, and the work of a single bomber or group; in those days, and given the selected targets, unionists were the most likely suspects.

John J. ('J.J.') and James B. ('J.B.') McNamara of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers were arrested in April of the following year for their parts in the December bombing of the Llewellyn Iron Works and put on trial for their role in both acts. Responsible for their capture was private detective William J. Burns, who would later become head of the Bureau of Investigation (before its mandate became federal); Burns was rabidly opposed to unions and their members. The manner of the capture of the McNamaras has also been the source of much controversy, as it involves more forcible confinement and possible torture than it does police procedure.

The brothers McNamara were defended in court by Clarence Darrow, who'd been hired by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL); Darrow believed the men were guilty, but didn't believe it had been their intention to kill anyone, and so he had them plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. Muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens - who spoke to the men while in custody - also believed they were guilty, but that their crime was a form of justifiable homicide, given how strenuously the robber barons were working to deprive the working man of a decent livelihood.

J.B. dutifully confessed to setting the bomb at the Los Angeles Times and received a life sentence, while J.J. served ten years hard labour for the bombing of the Llewellyn Iron Works. After his release J.J. became an organizer for the union. The entire story has been retold in the 2008 book American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum.

*Those who weren't were crushed when the building's second story collapsed onto the ground floor.
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POPnews (US) - October 1st

[New York City's George Washington Bridge is the only direct above-ground road connection between the island of Manhattan and the American mainland, making for a most dramatic gateway while traveling in either direction.]
1800 - Spain's Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo ceded Louisiana to France's Louis Alexandre Berthier via the secretive Third Treaty of San Ildefonso; due to the uncertain cartography of the times, the territory included in the subsequent Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was disputed (which confusion was only partially settled by the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819).

1890 - Yosemite National Park in California was established by the US Congress.

1891 - California's Stanford University officially opened with a co-ed student body of 559 and 15 faculty; among those students in attendance on that propitious day was future President Herbert Hoover who, because he was the first student to reside in dorm, thereafter claimed to be the school's first student.

1903 - The Boston Americans, now known as the Boston Red Sox, met the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Huntingdon Avenue Grounds in the first World Series; Boston won the series 5-3.

1908 - Henry Ford introduced the Model T, with a price tag of $825; the so-called Tin Lizzie would remain a perennial bestseller until it was discontinued in favour of the Model A in May 1927, and has been named the 20th Century's most influential automobile. A full decade after its discontinuance Upton Sinclair published The Flivver King, an expose of life under the Ford regime at the height of Model T-mania which later brought about the unionization of the company that made them.

1910 - A large bomb destroyed the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, killing 21.

1926 - An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye; he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft, and the combination of the two would later literally prove his downfall.

1931 - Work was completed on the George Washington Bridge between upper Manhattan and Fort Lee, New Jersey; originally designed by Cass Gilbert as a concrete- and stone-clad structure, when work began in October 1927 the financial crisis of the Great Depression made this aspect of the design budgetarily infeasible, and it was subsequently abandoned. The resulting tracery of bare beams make the bridge a much-loved landmark in New York City as-is, not to mention well-used; more than 100 million cars cross it every year.

1940 - The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered America's first superhighway, opened to traffic.

1942 - The USS Grouper torpedoed the Japanese freighter Lisbon Maru not knowing she was carrying 1800 Allied PoWs from Hong Kong, 800 of whom drowned in the disaster; while the Axis vessel was at fault for not bearing the appropriate markings, an untold number of those who died were shot by Japanese officers for attempting to escape the sinking ship.

1947 - The F-86 Sabre flew for the first time at California's Muroc Dry Lake.

1957 - In God We Trust first appeared on American paper money, though it had begun appearing on US coins as early as 1861.

1958 - NASA was created to replace NACA.

1961 - Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run of the season, breaking Babe Ruth's record of 60 set in 1927.

1962 - The first broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was aired.

1964 - The Free Speech Movement was launched at the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Apthecker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others

1971 - Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida; EPCOT Center would open on the same day in 1982.

1979 - Pope John Paul II began his first trip to the United States.

1987 - The Whittier Narrows earthquake shook the San Gabriel Valley, registering as a magnitude 5.9.
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"7 Seconds" by Youssou N'Dour with Neneh Cherry

Birthday wishes go out today to Youssou N'Dour, the Senegalese songster who in 1994 teamed up with Neneh Cherry to record 7 Seconds; a pan-European and multi-lingual effort, it topped charts throughout the Continent and around the world, in some nations breaking duration records. The song's theme concerns that moment of purity when a baby is born, before it discovers the pain of the world, and is accompanied by a stylish video, which was directed by French fashion photographer Stéphane Sednaoui.
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Happy Birthday Mr. President

The presidency of Jimmy Carter was plagued by the times in which it occurred; it's unlikely any President - even one of the most popular ones - could have surmounted the myriad challenges presented by the difficult times of the late 1970s...

Carter's post-Presidency, however, more than redeems his rather dismal single term in the White House. After all, most ex-Presidents routinely do a couple of years of high-paid speaking, scoop a hefty advance for writing their memoirs, and then retire to a life of golf and fishing, before finally taking up a career of drooling into their bib. That is to say, those who don't get shot while on duty.

Carter, on the other hand, did the speaking, wrote the memoirs (and more than 20 other books besides), built houses with Habitat for Humanity (making it a household name in the process), won the Nobel Peace Prize (one of only three US Presidents to do so), and monitored elections in several developing democracies. The fact that no one's tried to shoot him for doing all that can only mean that he is some kind of an alien.

In 1982 he established the Carter Center in Atlanta, adjacent to his Presidential Library, with the stated goal of advancing human rights and alleviating suffering; currently, projects at the center benefit people in 70 countries worldwide. Going against tradition, he's decided not to be buried there, but will spend his eternity in front of the home where he's lived his whole life, in Plains.

Nearly twenty years after leaving the White House, President Carter was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for all his good works, the most important of dozens of others he's received; today he turns a spry 86, and shows no signs of letting up, for which millions - if not billions - of people around the world are grateful.
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POPnews (UK) - October 1st

[In March 1978 the seminal Mod revival band The Jam released their fourth single, News of the World, which - despite only attaining the #27 position on the UK charts - persists in Britain's popular culture to this day largely for having been chosen as the theme tune of the satirical current events panel show, Mock the Week, hosted by Dara Ó Briain; the song's video - among the world's first - was shot on the roof of the Battersea Power Station.]
959 CE - Edgar the Peaceable became the first King to rule a united England; his reign represents the pinnacle of the Anglo-Saxon era.

1843 - John Browne Bell began publishing News of the World in London under the motto 'All human life is there'; then, as now, the paper's version of 'all human life' tended toward the seamier end of the spectrum and appealed to those people who, for whatever reason, enjoy reading about it.

1946 - Mensa International was founded by Roland Berrill and Dr. Lancelot Ware.

1985 - Rioting erupted in both the Liverpool neighbourhood of Toxteth and Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark.

2004 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair underwent heart surgery.
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"The Lonely Goatherd" by Julie Andrews and The Muppets

I may be wrong, of course*, but I think I'd find this funny even if I wasn't high; it's birthdame Julie Andrews - long a fan of Jim Henson's creations - on The Muppet Show, singing The Lonely Goatherd which she did in Episode 217. The number not only contains a gorgeous model of an alpenhaus, but also an appearance by one of my favourite obscure Muppets, Annie Sue. Now that's what I call entertainment!

*Always a strong possibility with me.
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Happy Birthday Julie Andrews

As part of our ongoing celebration of the world's most fabulous people the Pop Culture Institute would like to wish one of the most fabulous - namely, Dame Julie Andrews - all the best. I mean, it's only fair; whether on stage or screen, in recordings or in person, she's always given us all her best...

Born on this day in 1935, Andrews was a child actor in English music halls who made her Broadway debut all the way back in 1954, in the musical The Boy Friend; she followed it up with My Fair Lady (opposite Rex Harrison) in 1956, and Camelot (opposite Richard Burton) in 1960.

Handily making the jump to movies, Andrews was offered the title role in Mary Poppins as her film debut but had to turn it down because she was pregnant; Walt Disney held up production in order to wait for her, and when the film was finally released in 1964 Disney's patience paid off... Although Andrews had originated the role of Eliza Doolittle on stage she'd been passed over for the film version of My Fair Lady in favour of Audrey Hepburn, only to be offered Mary Poppins as a kind of consolation prize; yet it was Andrews who received that year's Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn - some consolation indeed! Despite the fact that the press tried to bait the two into a rivalry, both Andrews and Hepburn were far too classy to fall for that.

Proving that she was no fluke, Andrews' film follow-up was The Sound of Music, the all-singin' all-dancin' juggernaut that had the von Trapp family and their nun/governess defeating both the Anschluss and the Nazi menace seemingly all by themselves; it made so much money a new number - the kazillion - had to be made up to calculate the profits. Such success allowed Andrews the luxury of choosing idiosyncratic material, and boy did she ever! That one career could contain (among others) those films already mentioned plus Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star!, 10, S.O.B., and my personal favourite Victor/Victoria is a testament to the lady's immense talent.

Although at one time blessed with perfect pitch - and a four octave range besides - surgery to remove non-cancerous nodules from her throat did a Little Mermaid trick on her, and she will never sing again. Andrews filed a malpractice suit against the doctors who did the deed, but it might as well have been a class-action suit filed by her legions of fans. Despite the loss of her unique gift, her career has experienced a resurgence in the 21st Century, largely as a result of her many other gifts: namely charm, style, and verve. As one of the few people in the entertainment business whose appeal is truly universal it shows no sign of dimming; in fact, since she's started writing books, it can safely be said that the career of Dame Julie Andrews is going stronger than ever. I can almost hear Eliza Doolittle exclaiming 'PHWOOO-AAAR!'
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Remembering... Laurence Harvey

He was renowned for playing cads - the kind of men who treat women like shit but who, because they're tall and thin and devastatingly handsome and have posh British accents, never lack for women to treat like shit - and he did it very well indeed. Onscreen, at least...

Yet behind his suave and supercilious exterior dwelt a secret; this quintessentially English actor with the plummy voice was actually born in Lithuania, to Jewish parents.

From his appearance in I Am A Camera (1955) to his star making turn in Room at the Top (1959) he struggled to find success, and once he'd found it he didn't disappoint; Expresso Bongo (1960), BUtterfield 8 (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and Darling (1965) all display him at his cool, sexy best.

Born on this day in 1928, Laurence Harvey died in November 1973.
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"Venus" by Shocking Blue

Birthday wishes go out today to Mariska Veres, singer with Dutch beat combo Shocking Blue, whose song Venus went all the way to Number One around the world in 1970; following the band's breakup in June 1974 Veres continued in a solo career until Shocking Blue's brief reunion in 1984, around the same time Bananarama had a hit of their own with the song.

Born on this day in 1947, Veres died of cancer in December 2006, singing right up to the end...
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POPnews - October 1st

[The Siege of Acre was the first engagement of the Third Crusade, which devastated Europe's aristocracy by pitting the good Christians of Europe - who came to the defense of the Kingdom of Jerusalem on the orders of Pope Gregory VIII and his successor Clement III - against Saladin.]
331 BCE - At the Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III.

1189 - Gerard de Ridefort - grandmaster of the Knights Templar since 1184 - was killed at the Siege of Acre.

1829 - South African College was founded in Cape Town; it was later separated into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.

1894 - Cape Town's Owl Club held its first meeting.

1936 - Francisco Franco's rise to power at the helm of the Nationalists was nearly complete when he was named Generalísimo of the National army and Jefe del Estado (Head of State); following the end of the Spanish Civil War in April 1939 he served as Spain's dictator until his death in November 1975.

1938 - Nazi Germany stole annexed the Sudetenland.

1939 - After the month-long Siege of Warsaw, Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht occupied the city.

1946 - The opening round of the Nuremburg Trials closed; 24 prominent surviving Nazis were tried, four of whom were acquitted and 1 of whom committed suicide before the trial opened.

1949 - The People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong.

1960 - Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1961 - Following a truly bewildering colonial past which saw it passed between Germany, France, and the United Kingdom from 1884 onwards, East and West Cameroon merged as the Federal Republic of Cameroon and finally attained its independence from all of them.

1964 - The Shinkansen bullet train service began between Tokyo and Osaka.

1965 - Indonesia's General Suharto crushed a coup attempt aimed at unseating President Sukarno; millions of Indonesians were killed in its aftermath, which included the liquidation of the Communist Party. Suharto's real motive, however, appears to have been a plot to seize power for himself, which he did in 1967.

1969 - Concorde broke the sound barrier for the first time.

1975 - At a fight dubbed the Thrilla in Manila Joe Frazier was defeated by Muhammad Ali in the 14th round; despite trash-talking prior to the fight, Ali was magnanimous in victory, praising Frazier for 'bringing out the best' in him.

1978 - Tuvalu gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1982 - Sony launched the first CD player designed for the consumer market.

1991 - New Zealand's Resource Management Act went into effect.

2005 - 23 died and 129 were injured by suicide bombers in Bali.
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In Memoriam: Truman Capote

How to put all the pieces of Truman Capote together so they fit...

That the beautiful brazen youth who started writing three hours a day when he was 11 could be so knowing in his early works is a testament to his precocity; that the adult Capote could be so comfortable in his sexuality at a time when most of his fellows still conducted their lives in shadow makes him a kind of paragon for those of us who are openly ourselves today.

But for all that he's a paragon, surely he's also a cautionary tale; as booze and drugs took his beauty, bitterness crept in, leaving behind a brittle, bitchy parody...

Oh well, at least his talent went last, leaving in it's wake a dozen masterworks of fiction and reportage, including a sublime fairy-tale of New York City in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and In Cold Blood, which represents no less than an entirely new genre (now rather dully called creative nonfiction) which is so omnipresent these days I may be doing it now without even knowing it.

Born on this day in 1924, Truman Capote died in August 1984 following a long battle with both alcoholism and an even greater monster: himself.
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"Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers

Here are Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers in action on The Frankie Laine Show, which was their first national television appearance. I love that there's a bit of banter beforehand, and that it looks like they're all having such fun...

Incidentally, The Teenagers were one of the first integrated groups; three of them were black and two Hispanic. Nothing unusual about that today, but in 1956 it represented a bold step forward.
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Remembering... Frankie Lymon

Frankie Lymon was famous young, as lead singer of The Teenagers; what we know now (that either wasn't known then or else was and was nonetheless disregarded) is that youth and fame are usually a lethal cocktail, as they certainly were in this case...

When their first single Why Do Fools Fall In Love? became a smash hit in 1956 the Harlemite was just 14, a precocious entertainer and songwriter who had a natural rapport with audiences and a kind of poise when dealing with showbiz veterans that is almost eerie to behold.

In that year alone the group charted 7 singles between the Pop and R&B charts (although none of them were as successful as that first one), and the group morphed from The Teenagers to Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Early in 1957, Lymon went solo, which was career suicide; typically, it was a greedy record executive's idea, and in his zeal for ever more golden eggs, George Goldner ended up killing the goose.

Addicted to heroin by the age of 15, Frankie Lymon was found dead of an overdose of the drug in May 1968, aged only 25. Incredibly, legal problems dogged his estate (mainly involving songwriting credits, royalties, and which of his three wives was entitled to what); they weren't settled until 1992.
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Happy Birthday Fran Drescher

As she has admitted to Larry King, Fran Drescher's whole life has been about taking negative events and turning them into positives...

Goodness knows, she's certainly had ample opportunities.

In 1985 she and a friend were raped at gunpoint during a home invasion, which her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson was forced to witness; she later saw her assailants sent to prison for it, and after much counseling and soul-seeking claims to be at peace with an event that would ruin almost anyone else's life.

Obviously, Fran is not almost anyone else, and her positive approach paid massive dividends; less than a decade later was the star of a smash-hit TV series called The Nanny which is one of the funniest shows in recent memory. The show made her a household name and, for better or worse, put her voice into many American homes.

Then, shortly after The Nanny went off the air, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer; detected early, it is now gone. Along with her return to TV (in the short-lived Living with Fran) she's written two volumes of memoirs and is currently engaged in lobbying Congress in aid of her charitable appeal Cancer Schmancer.

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I am a fan of hers on Facebook, and enjoy following the lady's activities now as much as I ever have...
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Now Showing: "The Flintstones" Original Intro

Until I originally posted it here on this day in 2008, I'd never seen this original opening to Season 1 of The Flintstones; since then I've availed myself of the first season of the classic Hanna-Barbera sitcom on DVD, and have had 'a gay old time' reliving all those classic moments I first watched as a kid. Although I must claim a preference for the brevity of the more classic intro, this is definitely an eye-opener. I especially love that it shows so much more of Bedrock than the later, more familiar opener.

The Flintstones, of course, made its television debut on this day in 1960, and was the first animated series in American prime-time to last more than three seasons until The Simpsons attained (and, indeed, surpassed) this landmark in 1992.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of James Dean

Even though he had just two feature films - Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden - to his credit (and had just completed work on his third, Giant, eight days earlier) James Dean's career was off to a roaring start on this day in 1955 when he got off to a roaring start of his own; en route to a car race in Salinas at the wheel of his newly bought Porsche 550 Spyder - one of only 90 in existence, customized by Batmobile designer George Barris and named 'Little Bastard' by Dean's friend and vocal coach Bill Hickman - the 24-year-old actor met his untimely end.

Dean was traveling in a sort of convoy with his friends Lance Reventlow (who drove ahead in a station wagon with Bill Hickman and photographer Stanford Roth, who'd planned to photograph Dean at the races) and Rolf Wütherich; at about four in the afternoon Dean and Wütherich were heading west on U.S. Route 466 (later State Route 46) near Cholame when they were hit head on by Donald Turnupseed. Turnupseed suffered a few cuts and facial lacerations, Wütherich was thrown free of the car and suffered a broken jaw among his injuries, but Dean was badly injured. He was taken by ambulance to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital where he died at one minute to six that evening. His last words were reportedly 'That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us.'

His death sent Dean's already burgeoning cult of personality into the kind of overdrive he'd only experienced in life in his Porsche; even now, half a century later, aspects of his brief life from his sexuality to his apathy towards acting are endlessly discussed seemingly at every opportunity. For what it's worth, while there is some talk of a curse on Dean's car, at least there's never been any talk of a conspiracy surrounding his death. He is buried in Fairmount, Indiana (where he was raised) has been memorialized at various locations including the junction where he was fatally injured, and references to him are peppered throughout pop culture - from songs by the Eagles and the Goo Goo Dolls to Robert Altman's 1981 play-cum-1982 film Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, both of which were written by Ed Graczyk.


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POPnews - September 30th

[Here Luciana Serra camps it up as Queen of the Night, performing the so-called Queen of the Night aria (aka Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen or "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart") from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.]
653 CE - Having served as Archbishop of Canterbury since being consecrated by Paulinus of York at Lincoln in 627 CE, Saint Honorius died; he was succeeded by Deusdedit, who in March 655 CE became the first British-born Anglo-Saxon to hold the post.

1399 - Henry IV proclaimed himself King of England after deposing his cousin Richard II.

1744 - France's Prince of Conti alongside Spain's Infante Felipe and the Marquis de la Mina defeated the forces of King Charles Emmanuel III of the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo.

1791 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last opera, The Magic Flute, debuted at Vienna's Theater auf der Wieden; the first woman to assay the now legendary role of Queen of the Night was the composer's sister-in-law, Josepha Hofer.

1888 - Jack the Ripper claimed two more victims - Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

1901 - Hubert Cecil Booth patented the first electric vacuum cleaner.

1906 - Writers Manuel Curros Enríquez and Xosé Fontenla Leal founded the Real Academia Galega, the Galician language's foremost authority, with Manuel Murguía as its first president; because the Galician culture was still considered illegal in Spain at the time, the Academy was forced to open in the Cuban capital of Havana.

1938 - Britain, France, Germany, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement - which Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain famously stated would bring about 'peace for our time' but which the majority of historians today would excoriate as an inexcusable act of appeasement towards a totalitarian regime.  As it turns out, ceding the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Hitler was akin to chumming shark-infested waters, and because of it within a year Europe would be embroiled in World War II...

1947 - The New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers faced off at Yankee Stadium in the first game of the first televised World Series; the Yankees would go on to win the game 5-3 and the series 4-3.

1949 - The Berlin Airlift ended.

1954 - The US Navy submarine USS Nautilus was commissioned under the command of Eugene P. Wilkinson as the world's first to be powered by a nuclear reactor; the Nautilus - actually the fourth US Navy vessel to have been given that name officially - had been launched by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower on January 21st.

1962 - César Chávez founded the United Farm Workers with Dolores Huerta.

1965 - General Suharto rose to power after an alleged coup by the Communist Party of Indonesia; in response, Suharto and his army massacred over a million Indonesians suspected of being communists.

1967 - BBC Radio 1 was launched; its first programme was presented by Tony Blackburn.

1989 - During the so-called Revolutions of 1989 West Germany's Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made a speech from the balcony of the German embassy in Prague confirming that thousands of refugees from East Germany who'd been bivouacking in the embassy's gardens would be given passage to West Germany.

1990 - The Dalai Lama unveiled the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Ottawa; alas, if Stephen Harper succeeds in attaining a majority government it's slated to be turned into urinals, reflecting his government's opinion of human rights.

1991 - The democratically elected government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from office by a military junta led by Raoul Cédras.

1994 - Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground closed after eighty-eight years of service.

2005 - Controversial drawings of the prophet Muhammed were published in Denmark by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten; as much as I believe in my own right to republish them here, I'm too young to die. The link to Wikipedia will have to do.
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