When a young baby boomer was fantasizing about flying in a B-17, however, nobody told him of the risks involved. Sure, being a tail gunner would be fun…until the guys on the other side start shooting back.
The story of Chester Gillette and his drowned girlfriend went viral more than 100 years ago. In 1906 the dominant medium was the newspaper. Then as now, sex sold. Sex and murder sold even better, especially when it had undercurrents of class conflict. Also, the whole sorry incident was embellished by yellow journalism, as fake …
Shakespeare occupies a unique place in educational circles. Even though he is a dead white male (406 years ago, if you’re keeping score), his plays are so embedded in western culture, it is impossible to ban him from the curriculum. High school English students are doubtless made aware of the fact that in Shakespeare’s day, …
Marketing baseball to females is nothing new. It is almost as old as professional baseball itself. The New York Gothams (later the Giants) had a Ladies Day in 1883. It offered free admission to ladies in the hopes of hooking them on the game. Then they would presumably come back as paying customers. Sounds like …
Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. – Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) One of the most famous moments in baseball history occurred on August 19, 1951, when Eddie Gaedel (a midget or little …
If you wanted to compile a list of legacy corporations in America, you would have to put Procter & Gamble at the top of the list. P&G was founded in Cincinnati in 1837 by two immigrants, one English (Proctor) and one Irish (Gamble). To add a bit of historical perspective, at the time there were …
It’s often said (or at least whispered) that women are not funny. The relative paucity of female comics (or the humorlessness of the few that are out there) is often cited as evidence, but rumor has it that there are women (feminists excluded, of course) with a sense of humor, even if they abhor the …
In 1975 I was working at a TV station when The Eiger Sanction was released. We aired a series of advertisements for this Clint Eastwood (as actor and director) movie that attracted a great deal of attention from the women in the office. I still remember one co-worker gushing like a teenager: “Oh, he’s so …
League Baseball is big business, and like any modern corporation MLB genuflects to DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion). It’s important to get those words in alphabetical order because you don’t want the acronym to be DIE. Of course, MLB lives up to DEI on the field, since the players are recruited from all over the world. This expansion …
My regular light rail travels regularly take me past a mural that depicts a plumber standing tall above a crowd of people with planet earth in the background. The picture is captioned “The plumber protects the health of the nation.” Now I have heard any number of stories about what is or is not in …
