Southern Bookman

Farewell, Cokie Roberts and Sander Vanocur

Cokie Roberts and Sander Vanocur represented different eras of Washington TV journalism.

Roberts died Tuesday in Washington at age 75 and Vanocur Monday night in California at 91.

Vanocur, best known for reporting on the Kennedy administration for NBC News, personified the male-dominated news business of the 1960s. Roberts was among a generation of women journalists who demolished those gender barriers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Roberts, like Vanocur, was a Washington insider. Her father, Hale Boggs, for years represented New Orleans in the U.S. House and was House speaker when he died in a plane crash in Alaska. Her mother, Lindy Boggs, took her husband's place after his death and served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Roberts grew up breathing politics, giving her an empathy for politicians unusual for a journalist.

A glamorous correspondent in the days when TV overcame newspapers as Americans' dominant news source, Vanocur was a prominent persona during John F. Kennedy's ground-breaking administration. He was the last of a four-member panel of reporters who questioned Kennedy and Richard Nixon in their 1960 debate, which changed the course of news and politics.

Reporting on Kennedy's witty and sophisticated news conferences and his trips and speeches. Vanocur with his haughty air and polished sentences was the TV counterpart of the "Best and Brightest" who served in Kennedy's cabinet. One of my most vivid childhood memories is watching a choked-up Vanocur report on Kennedy's assassination. He was one of the last journalists who interviewed Robert F. Kennedy.

A solid, insightful reporter, Roberts excelled as one of the first of a new era of TV pundits, giving insider commentary about Washington. During her career, opinion grew as prevalent as objective news reporting.

Sophisticated and knowledgeable, she presented a folksy yet informed personality. Her gossipy, gently humorous commentaries brought comfort as partisan politics grew more hostile.

Starting out at NPR before a superstar career at ABC, Roberts was also a noted author of books detailing women's contributions to American history. While at ABC, she continued to do commentaries for NPR, and wrote a newspaper column.

Vanocur thrived when the three TV networks dominated the airwaves. Roberts rose to prominence during the last years of that dominance. She witnessed the rise of cable news and the Internet and the decline of network news.

They spanned a time when Americans' trust in the news and government receded. Roberts flourished as a believable voice as Americans' political unity frayed. Now, the country is fractured into political tribes believing their own realities.

 

 

 

 

Historic Atlanta landmark threatened as Rock Spring Presbyterian disbands

The Tudor Revival Rock Spring Presbyterian Church rises above the commercial clutter of Piedmont Road, a vision from a vanishing culture.

After years of declining membership and finances, the church founded in the 1870s by some of Atlanta's most illustrious pioneer families has decided to disband, according to a report by Channel 11's Jeff Hullinger, himself an Atlanta institution.

The fate of the church designed by Welsh architect Charles  H. Hobson and completed in 1923 remains unclear. A developer bought surrounding acres from the church for $1.9 million in 2018 to build nine high-end houses, as reported by The AJC's all-time great freelance writer, H.M. Cauley.

Lovers of the old church and its historic cemetery fear the building will be torn down for commercial uses. The landmark was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, which might save it.

The church's demise will end its many community services, as well as the live Nativity scenes that marked the Christmas season for generations of Atlanta families. Those programs didn't bring in money as the church's membership aged and young families moved to more dynamic congregations.

Following the campaign to save the historic 152 Nassau Building downtown, where Fiddling John Carson recorded the first national country and western hit record in the 1923, Atlanta risks losing another essential landmark. Rock Spring, named like nearby Rock Springs Road for a spring that once flowed in the area, could be purchased by a more thriving congregation, or converted into an arts center or concert hall.

I've never visited the church, but its commanding presence as I drove down Piedmont Road gave the comfort of faith and tradition. The church on the hill was one of those places that defined my conception of Atlanta as a true city. The building's destruction would take away another piece of Atlanta's soul.

 

Harper Lee loved Bear Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide

"To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee had catapulted to fame when the Saturday Evening Post in March 1963 published an article alleging that Georgia athletics director Wally Butts and Alabama football coach Bear Bryant had fixed a game.

A  friend of Bryant and a rabid Alabama football fan, the author of the 1960 best-selling novel was consumed by the charges, along with football followers around the Southeast.

Lee in a letter to her agent, Maurice Crain, wrote a detailed account of the scandal, according to reporter Ben Cohen's fascinating article in Friday's Wall Street Journal. "A wonderful letter from Nellie Harper Lee," Crain scribbled on the envelope. The letter is at Columbia University, Cohen said.

The Saturday Evening Post's article was based on Atlanta businessman George Burnett's claims that he had overheard a telephone conversation in which Butts disclosed Georgia Bulldog plays and formations to Bryant before a 1962 game won 35-0 by the Crimson Tide. Burnett said that while trying to make a long-distance call, he had somehow gotten connected to the former Georgia football coach and Bryant.

Butts won a $3.06 million judgment in a libel suit against the Post, while Bryant reached an eventual settlement of $460,000. The case, which advanced to the Supreme Court, reportedly played a role in the Saturday Evening Post's demise.

While the controversy transfixed the South, as reported in this 1963 article by famed Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins, Lee's had received greater fame from a 1962 movie based on the now-classic novel. Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch and his heroic defense of a black man accused of rape in a segregated small town in Alabama.

Cohen's article says that Lee followed college football all of her life, even listening to Paul Finebaum's Alabama-biased college football talk show. Along with her allegiance to Alabama, Lee rooted for Auburn when the Tigers weren't battling the Crimson Tide in the annual Iron Bowl.

Lee was also a close friend of former Auburn coach Pat Dye, to whom she wrote a number of letters. Dye, who once called her book "To Kill a Blackbird," refused to disclose the letters' contents to Cohen.

Other famous names of Alabama football lore rise in the article. Lee believed in Bryant's innocence because scrappy All-American linebacker Lee Roy Jordan supported his coach. Jordan came from a town near Lee's Monroeville, and Lee believed in Jordan's honesty.

Lee remained a prolific letter writer, while not publishing another novel during her lifetime. The posthumous "Go Set a Watchman" was an early version of "To Kill a Mockingbid." A recent book says that Lee never finished a planned nonfiction book about an Alabama minister accused of several murders.

The new revelations enhance Lee's renown as a writer of letters. Her gifts in the genre were revealed several years ago in retired Auburn professor Wayne Flynt's collection of letters between him and Lee. Giving an endearing portrait of the author, the collection presents her views on religion, politics, Hollywood, the South, writing and fame.

Perhaps Cohen's piece will lead to the publication of a collection of Lee's college football letters. The writer of a masterpiece that inspires new generations of readers, she's also worthy of a complete letters collection.

A woman who during her life counted as friends Truman Capote, Maurice Crain, Bear Bryant, Gregory Peck, Pat Dye and Lee Roy Jordan had an expansive, intellectually adventuresome personality that such a collection would honor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September arrives, but summer remains

In years past, we would have enjoyed a touch of autumn by now.

September no longer marks the end of summer. Temperatures remain in the mid-90s. The continuing heat affects wildlife. Yesterday, I chased off a crazed squirrel that had run up our glass-paneled back door.

I still look forward to the season changing, the arrival of fall, the promise of new beginnings. As is my custom, I played "Try to Remember" on the piano. I'll play the wistful song from "The Fantasticks" all month, meditating upon the passage of youth and time's quickening pace. I'll also seek to learn "September Song" at last.

As climate change progresses, I wonder if future generations will enjoy the coming of autumn, cooler days, the eruption of color.

 

Ken Burns tunes up for country music

I was dismayed to hear that Ken Burns had turned his guns on country music.

Like many others, I was transfixed by Burns' Civil War series. Along with many Southern boys of my generation, I prided myself on detailed knowledge of famous battles and personalities.

But Burns put the war in a broader context, uncovering new information and giving fresh perspectives on characters like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.

But I grew disenchanted by Burns' series on baseball and jazz. He embalmed both American institutions beneath a barrage of cliches, overblown pronouncements, commentary from talking heads, and archival material. His earnest, overly reverent approach fell short of expressing the simple beauty of baseball and jazz.

Nor did I care for Burns' look at the Vietnam War. His attempt at balance in discussing American war motives was misguided. In truth, Burns' treatment wasn't the reason I quit watching the show. Reliving the era was just too painful.

After seeing a couple of previews, including a concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, I'm hopeful about Burns' country music series.

While countless books have been written on the Civil War and baseball, country music has received less scholarly attention, although it has generated a substantial literature. That gives Burns a less trammeled perspective from which to view country music.

Country music is loved by a broader audience than jazz, touching upon more aspects of American culture. Jazz's appeal narrowed with the rise of bebop and abstract music, while country's has widened. Country encompasses a broader variety of musical genres, including jazz.

Country has not been burdened by the semi-mystical panegyrics that have weighed down baseball with cliches and overwrought nostalgia. Burns' baseball series was plagued by seeking to match those pastoral views of the game.

Once known as the national pastime, baseball is more and more a regional sport as its appeal declines to younger generations. The genre once derided as "hillbilly music" has increased its popularity, with a range of innovative artists and musical styles.

Like the Civil War, country gives Burns a broader framework for examining different parts of American society. While known as Southern white people's music, country was influenced by black artists and has grown to include Cajun music, Western swing, rockabilly and urban pop. Country music like the Civil War gives Burns a broad palette.

Plus, I love Dolly, Loretta, Jimmie, Ernest, Bob, Hank, Sara, Mama Maybelle and many others. I hope Burns plays a lot of country songs and cuts down on the talking heads.

 

Hospital stay shows benefits of business-based health-care system

Back home after nine days in Piedmont Hospital, I'm grateful for life's daily blessings.

My stay in the Buckhead hospital where my three children were born and received care for a series of childhood scrapes and where my wife and I have undergone several medical procedures made me even more skeptical about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plans.

I'm covered by Medicare, supplemented by the private insurance company I kept when I accepted a buyout from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution now 12 years ago. Piedmont's quality of care strengthened my support for our private-based health-care system.

As David Leonhardt noted in Monday's New York Times, Sanders and Warren's plan to abolish private insurance companies is highly unpopular except for a narrow segment of Democratic supporters. I don't know how a profit-based hospital like Piedmont would fare under the Sanders-Warren plan, but making it a public hospital like Grady would be a mistake.

During my Piedmont stay, I was amazed at the number of people employed by the hospital, from nurses and personal-care attendants to dining service employees, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and doctors. The Piedmont staff is a microcosm of Atlanta.

Two years ago, I spent a week at Grady because of the same heart condition. Grady's care was excellent, but I found Piedmont's more comprehensive and responsive to my needs. I fear the Sanders-Warren proposals would bring an erosion of care in both hospitals.

Joe Biden's public-private health care system would preserve the strengths of the present system, while enhancing Obamacare's gains. Rather than Medicare for All, a Medicaid expansion would benefit millions. As Leonhardt points out, the Sanders-Warren plan would be disastrous for the Democrats' effort to win back the White House and Senate.

After receiving another up-close view of the American health system, I'm happy to be back home, grateful for the benefits of our health-care system.

 

 

$20 milliion for Amazon Rainforest? Soccer stars, golfers receive more than that

The G7 nations pledged a pathetic $20 million to help stop the Amazon Rainforest fires.

Rory McIllroy won $15 million in winning the Tour Championship golf tournament Sunday.

I'm sure a Brazilian soccer star would receive more money from a European team.

Leonardo DiCaprio's foundation pledged $5 million in Amazon aid.

But the world's richest nations could only come up with $20 million. Our fine president didn't even deign to attend the meeting called to discuss the Amazon emergency. The smoke and flames are fake news to him.

When Notre Dame burned last spring, $1 billion in contributions were raised in two days.

But the destruction of the rainforest called the Earth's lungs brings pocket change.

Now it appears that Brazil's thug president Jair Bolsonaro will reject the G7's woeful offer.  I can't really blame him; the European pledge looks condescending.

Bolsonaro probably would not use the money for the Amazon fires anyway. $20 million's not a lot to stop the destruction of the Amazon, but some Bolsonaro crony surely would welcome it.

The G7 probably spent $20 million on state dinners during the meeting in France. Or on gowns for the first ladies.

The Amazon keeps burning as the world does nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

Museums, music venues mark the places where Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers stamped country music

A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter traveled in a primitive automobile over treacherous mountain roads to reach a recording session in Bristol, Tenn., in August 1927.

The group later called "The Carter Family" overcame flat tires and mechanical problems to make it to Bristol from their rural home in southwest Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. The young Maybelle, Sara's cousin and A.P.'s sister-in law, was eight months pregnant. Later, the shy young mountain girl would gain fame as "Mother Maybelle," the queen of country music.

Nowadays, the trip is much easier, as recounted in an article in Sunday's New York Times Travel section. Bristol, and the neighboring  East Tennessee tri-city towns of Johnson City and Kingsport, have built museums, music venues and tourist attractions to mark the 1927 sessions, known as "the big bang of country music," although country hits had been recorded previously in Atlanta and elsewhere.

The birth of country music route extends into Bristol, Va., just across the state line from its Tennessee twin city, and farther into the Virginia Mountains, where the "Carter Fold" presents musical performances at the Carter home.  Now crowds flock to the isolated mountain valleys where the music was born.

RCA Victor scout Ralph Peer, who had captured Fiddlin' John Carson in Atlanta four years before, recorded several mountain artists during the 1927 Bristol sessions. But the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers made the foundational recordings of country music, setting a course for popular song as well.

Rodgers,  formerly a railroad brakeman in Mississsippi, ventured beyond the primitive string-based sound with the bluesy, jazzy "T for Texas," or "Blue Yodel." The record about love gone wrong and rambling across the country reflected an urban sensibility that would make Rodgers the first big crssover country star.

Sometimes discounted as a musician in comparison with black blues pioneers like Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Rodgers in his brief career cut short by tuberculosis towers over country and popular music.

He's not a guitar virtuoso like Johnson, but his chord progressions influenced later bluegrass and country guitarists. While his yodels now sound old-fashioned, he wrote memorable lyrics that tell stories of cinematic documentary authenticity. He also was a jazz pioneer, recording with Louis Armstrong and other black musicians, and expressing the dislocations of American urbanization in songs like "Miss the Mississippi and You." The theme of country people finding alienation after moving to the city would be common in country music, and American literature.

But to me the Carter Family recordings are truly miraculous, unworldly music that brings something new into the world. AP Carter, who had gatheerd most of the group's songs at rural gatherings, often giving himself songwriting credit, was a conventional singer at best. His braying, nearly off-key voice, overwhelm some of the songs. But his strong voice chimes with Sara's on the memorable "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone."

But his wife, Sara, was a rare, mesmerizing talent. Her mountain pronunciations, otherworldly high notes, and haunting vocal shadings, display the virtuosity of a natural genius. She was a uncommon singer who understood her gift without need of instruction. A groundbreaking artist, she brought to American music a wildness, a sense of adventure, an experimental newness. Like Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, she changed the course of American music.

And she was not the only native genius on the recordings. Maybelle Carter's guitar playing, partially learned from a black man named Lesley Riddle, set the templet for all future guitar gods. Maybelle's combination of rhythm and lead playing still echoes in Nashville recordings. She's up there with Louis Armstrong and Johnson as early 20th century musical innovators.

Peer himself had misgivings when the bedraggled Carters rolled in from the Virginia hollers.

"They wander in," Peer told Lillian Borgeson during a series of interviews in 1959. "He's dressed in overalls and the women are country women from way back there. They looked like hillbillies. But as soon as I heard Sara's voice, that was it. I knew it was going to be wonderful."^[

 

Amazon fires a threat to humanity

The Amazon burning looks like the apocalypse.

Fires bringing afternoon darkness to Sao Paulo, 1,500 miles away, were deliberately set, an activist seeking to save the rainforest said on the Chris Hayes show Thursday night.

She said the arsonists were encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing loon who wants agricultural development of the home of countless species and generator of 20 percent of the world's oxygen.

Hayes pointed out that the Amazon, which absorbs carbon as the world's main barrier against climate change, is now spewing tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Rather than taking any effective action to stop the fires, Bolsonaro launched a twitter feud with French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants G7 leaders meeting this weekend to discuss action on the Amazon emergency. Bolsarno accused Macron of meddling in Brazilian affairs, while displaying total befuddlement about stopping the conflagration. To him, short-term economic gains take precedence over the world's survival.

While Donald Trump's plan to buy Greenland is fatuous, perhaps the world can purchase whatever's left of the Amazon from Brazil and other countries and make the rainforest a global preserve. Of course, Trump would object, seeing the Amazon as a great place for a hotel and golf course.

In April, Macon vowed to rebuild Notre Dame after the world watched in horror as the ancient cathedral burned. The Amazon can't be rebuilt. Once it's gone, it's gone forever

 

Jay Inslee's exit a blow to Democratic campaign

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ended his presidential campaign Wednesday night, a serious blow for the Democratic Party.

Inslee based his campaign on climate change as the world's dominant issue, calling for a massive effort to reduce its threat to humanity. An articulate, informed and pleasant campaigner, Inslee presented a range of other progressive ideas.

The large number of candidates in the first two presidential debates gave Inslee less time than he deserved. Lesser candidates such as John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard and the goofy Marianne Williamson received more attention than he did. CNN was especially egregious in silencing Inslee.

Inslee in withdrawing told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that he believed he'd succeeded in making climate change a main campaign issue. On the day after Inslee's withdrawal, Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a major green energy proposal.

But Inslee's loss will weaken future debates and lower the energy needed to defeat Donald Trump.