Mad Men

“I woke up this mornin’

And none of the news was good

And death machines were rumblin’

Cross the ground where Jesus stood.”

    “Jerusalem,” Steve Earle

 “John Walker’s Blues” on Steve Earle’s 2004 CD “Jerusalem,” which I’ve been playing recently, spurred controversy because of its sympathetic treatment of the so-called “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh.  While its doubtful that Lindh ever did anything threatening to the U.S. other than be at the wrong place at the wrong time, he was brutalized when our troops took him prisoner and handed a 20-year prison sentence.  He’s in a prison in Terre Haute, studying ancient Islamic texts, working on a liberal arts college degree, and recently sued to be allowed to hold daily prayer group sessions.

The last Egyptian president who tried to make peace with Israel got assassinated for his trouble.  Hope springs eternal, but the first democratic elections in Egypt ever, taking place over the past two days, will probably bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power.  The frontrunner is Mohammed Morsi, who vows to put his country on an Islamic basis.  His main rival, Ahmed Shafiq, was Mubarak’s prime minister and a law-and-order man.  Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is so powerful Time called him King Bibi.  He’s an archconservative, but sometimes that’s what it takes to make bold breaks with the past – like Charles de Gaulle pulling France out of Algeria.

Ryan Shelton showed me how to insert photos into the Adobe template for volume 42, which includes blog entries starting in April 2010.  On the first page is a sexy shot of Lady Gaga, one of the only photos that doesn’t have a specific Region connection. 

Jonathyne Briggs walked me through how to show a video and a movie off YouTube to his two classes Thursday while he’s in Florida.  At the condo handyman Jason fixed a fan and several other things on Toni’s to-do list.  After finding the venison salami too salty for my taste, I gave the rest to him.

On “Mad Men” Don came home late after drinking and flirting all afternoon with sexy Joan, causing Megan to throw a snit fit.  It seems just a matter of time before Don cheats on her even though she is a trophy wife.  He already has in a fantasy dream.

For speaking gratis at the Maria Reiner Senior Center I got invited to the “Margaret Kuchta Spirit of Volunteerism Celebration.”  The event, named for a former mayor, was at the Hobart Community Center near Lake George, which was formed over 150 years ago when George Earle dammed Deep River to provide for his grist mill that grinded grain.  I received a pin, ate pizza, salad, and apple strudel, and told director Pam Broadaway I could talk this fall on the “Roaring Twenties in the Calumet Region.”  Entertainment was a magician, and Mayor Snedecor, whom I’d met when I talked to Kiwanians, greeted me warmly. Maria Reiner was a wealthy widow who left all her money to benefit Hobart seniors.  Born in Germany, as was her husband, whom she met at the beach, and evidently was wealthy due to something her husband invented and patented.  Childless, she died at age 94 and bequeathed her inheritance to causes that benefit Hobart seniors.

The 76ers honored Allen Iverson (AI) prior to game six of their series against Boston.  What a big heart he had during his playing days.  In 2001 with virtually no star teammates, he led Philadelphia to the NBA finals and scored 48 points in an overtime win in game one against a Lakers team led by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.  During the five-game series he averaged 35 points.  The crowd gave AI a thunderous ovation.  Perhaps inspired, the Sixers, coached by Doug Collins, won to force a game seven. Collins and AI are among the six most popular Sixers of all time, along with Julius Erving, Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone, and Charles Barkley.

I showed Jonathyne’s 11:30 class the 1994 film “Colonel Chabert,” based on an 1832 novella by Honore de Balzac.  The hero marries a former prostitute and, fighting for Napoleon, is so severely wounded at the 1807 Battle of Eylau, he’s thought to be dead and tossed into a mass grave. Years later he finds his wife married to a Restoration scumbag. The theme demonstrates the contrast between moral integrity and grasping materialism, compromise versus honor.  In the role of Chabert is Gerard Depardieu, who has played Jen Valjean in “Les Miserables” and even author Balzac.  I recall first seeing him co-starring with Andie MacDowell in “Green Card” a love affair that started out a marriage of convenience.

The afternoon movie was Russian progagandist Sergei Eisenstein’s “October: Ten Days That Shook the World” (the title taken from John Reed’s book).  Commissioned to celebrate the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution, it was first shown in 1928.  Joseph Stalin had recently purged Leon Trotsky and demanded that all positive references to him be stricken.  Since live music originally accompanied showing, a soundtrack was added in 1966.  Born in 1898, Eisenstein’s two previous movies were “Strike” (1924) and “Battleship Potemkin” (1925, the latter about a 1905 mutiny against Tsarist officers.  Perhaps his greatest film was “Alexander Nevsky” (1938), about a Russian prince who defends the motherland against an invasion led by Germanic knights.  The motive was to rally countrymen against the Nazis.  Ironically, soon after its release, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, and the film was suppressed.  It was re-released after Hitler callously invaded the Soviet Union.

The Hagelbergs took us to a Parkinson’s fundraiser at Avalon Manor in Merrillville.  The theme was “Evening in Paris” and a style show featured clothing from Elizabeth Fashions and John Cicco’s, the latter worn by men who, for the most part, hammed it up.  The women models, most of whom were on the planning board, including boutique owner Elizabeth Woodbury (front row, third from left), seemed to be having fun.    

Many of the blind auction items came from local merchants or the Michael J. Fox Foundation.  Two gentlemen were pouring free champagne, one so sparingly I gravitated to the other one.  I ran into Pamela Lowe, whose husband, IUN’s chancellor, is recuperating from back surgery, and filmmaker Nick Mantis, who is listening to old audiotapes of Jean Shepherd’s NY radio show and hopes to use clips in his documentary about Northwest Indiana’s “Bard” so that Shepherd would appear to be narrating.

Fred McColly was on campus to help start a community garden on property at the southwest edge of the campus that previously was a vacant lot.  I saw about a dozen folks participating when I drove to Country Lounge to have lunch with former student Jackie Gipson, who has been enjoying, as have I, watching good friends Doc Rivers and Doug Collins try to outsmart one another in the Boston-Philly series. 

A Jeopardy category entitled “Spelling by the Stars” featured the song titles RESPECT (Aretha), LOLA (Kinks), YMCA (Village People), SATURDAY Night (Bay City Rollers), and GLORIA (by Van Morrison and Patti Smith), which, surprisingly, two people missed.