From The Wall Street Journal:
How Jesse Helms Made a Difference
By JOHN FUND

July 5, 2008

If Ronald Reagan was the sunny and optimistic face of modern conservatism, the uncompromisingly defiant exemplar of it was Jesse Helms, who died yesterday at age 86.

While Reagan has undergone a revisionist makeover by many historians who now recognize his accomplishments, Helms is still the conservative liberals most love to hate. But while they still disdain his views, many liberal groups are now using their own forms of the rhetorical and campaign techniques that Helms honed to perfection.

Jesse Helms was an influential television commentator in North Carolina when he decided to leave the Democratic Party, winning a U.S. Senate seat as a Republican in 1972. He went on to win four more terms, with a reputation as the Senate's most principled warrior on behalf of social conservatism, anti-Communism, limits on union power, and an assertive foreign policy that rejected State Department caution. Like Reagan, many of his views appear to have been validated. Others, such as his blind spot on racial issues and mean-spirited comments against gays were troublesome, but even the stubborn Helms made moves to modify his image in those areas late in life.

Two events early in his Senate career showcased Helms's unflinching nature and his political skills. In 1975, he engineered a visit to the U.S. by Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn over the objections of the State Department, which forbade its own employees from attending a major Solzhenitsyn speech in Washington. State also blocked a proposed visit to the White House, leading Helms to accuse President Gerald Ford of "cowering timidly for fear of offending Communists."

That incident helped spur Reagan to challenge Ford for the GOP nomination the next year. Reagan lost the first five primaries, and he entered the North Carolina contest broke and under pressure to pull out. But Helms and his chief strategist Tom Ellis refused to give up. They employed Helms's huge, direct-mail list to build a grass-roots army of volunteers and raise money to air 30-minute speeches by Reagan across the state.

Emphasizing the Panama Canal "giveaway" and smaller government, Reagan won an upset victory and was able to battle Ford all the way to the GOP convention. He showed such strength at the convention that Ford invited him to deliver off-the-cuff remarks to the delegates. Reagan was so inspiring that some of Ford's own delegates exclaimed, "We just nominated the wrong candidate." Reagan later acknowledged how Helms's intervention rescued his political career.

But that level of success eluded Helms in a Senate where he was almost always outvoted. Rather than seek compromise, he staked out firm positions that attracted publicity for his causes. He was often able to block appointments he considered too liberal and was the first to highlight United Nations corruption, an issue on which he was clearly ahead of his time.

He also stumbled. His anticommunist fervor led him to back authoritarian regimes in Chile and Argentina far more than he should have. His 1983 opposition to a Martin Luther King holiday – he railed against King's associations with communists – was myopic and a throwback to a discredited past.

The issue of race will always cast a shadow on Helms's legacy. He could never understand why he was viewed by many as a bigot, having run one of the most integrated TV stations in the South and often hiring blacks on his staff. His criticisms of affirmative action and forced busing were on the mark. But as conservative scholar John Hood notes, "he failed to marry every criticism of government overreaching with calls for the South's social and moral transformation and clear denunciations of racist business owners."

Indeed, the mainstream media rarely put Helms's career in context the way they did, for example, with Sam Ervin, a Democrat who served with Helms in the Senate from North Carolina before retiring in 1975. Ervin was the leading legal strategist against Civil Rights legislation, and he largely crafted the Southern Manifesto against Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. But Ervin was the man who chaired the Watergate hearings that helped bring down Richard Nixon, and his views on civil rights were almost never mentioned. Both Helms and Ervin were courtly, principled conservatives. Only one became a cartoon media villain.

Contrary to his reputation, Helms did change his mind. For his first decade in office he opposed aid to Israel and in 1982, after that nation invaded Lebanon, called for "shutting down" relations. But after learning more about Israel's security fears during a visit there in 1985, and receiving assurances that officials there could support some military sales to moderate Arab nations, he became Israel's stalwart ally. "It was a complete switch," recalls Morris Amitay, former executive director of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.

Helms also softened on both AIDS and Africa. He developed an unlikely friendship with the rock star Bono, who convinced Helms to back AIDS funding and alleviate poverty in Africa by channeling more foreign aid through private sources.

But that kind of détente was rare. Most liberals delighted in baiting Helms and he reciprocated: He crowed about how disappointed CBS anchor Dan Rather looked in announcing his upset victory on election night in 1990. But liberals did pay attention to Helms, and gradually adopted some of his methods.

It was Helms who first sent his own foreign policy advisers overseas to second-guess the executive branch's foreign policy. Many liberals have no qualms in doing the same today. One liberal consultant told me he learned from Helms's ability to distill complicated ideas to a level that connected with ordinary people. His mastery of new media techniques and technology convinced many liberals they had to invest in the Internet and build up the passions of their base.

Jesse Helms was a major influence on American conservatism, but his career provides a blueprint for anyone who represents an embattled minority viewpoint. You can, with persistence and unflinching determination, change the political odds in your favor.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com

The Loss of Independence
by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted 07/04/2008 ET

Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown.

Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington's army truly attain America's independence at Yorktown.

Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states, while politically independent, were dependent upon Europe for the necessities of their national life. Without French ships and guns, French muskets and troops, the Americans could not have forced Gen. Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.

Cornwallis would have sailed away, as Gen. Howe had from Boston.

Indeed, absent the 1778 alliance with France, our Revolution would have been a longer bloodier affair and might not have succeeded.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, both Washington and Hamilton were determined to make America's political independence permanent, and to begin to cut the umbilical cord to Europe.

In the Constitution that came out of that convention, the states were prohibited from imposing any tariffs on the products of other states, thus creating the greatest common market in history, the United States of America. Second, the U.S. government was empowered to raise revenue by imposing tariffs on foreign goods, but explicitly denied the power to impose taxes on the incomes of American citizens.

And as Hamilton set the nation onto a course that would ensure economic independence, Washington took the actions and made the decisions that would assure our political independence.

First, he declared neutrality in the European wars that followed the French Revolution of 1789. Second, he sought to sever the 1778 alliance with France, a feat achieved by his successor, John Adams.

Third, in his Farewell Address, the greatest state paper in U.S. history, Washington admonished his countrymen to steer clear of permanent alliances and to stay out of Europe's wars. Rarely in the 19th century did the United States divert from the course set by Washington and Hamilton.

In 1812, however, James Madison, goaded by "war hawks" Henry Clay and John Calhoun, and ignoring the counsel of the Farewell Address, declared war on Britain and came near to seeing his nation torn apart.

Had it not been for the Duke of Wellington's preoccupation with Napoleon and Andy Jackson's rout of a British invasion army at New Orleans, America might have been split asunder. In 1814, New England was on the verge of seceding, and the British had in mind splitting off the vast Louisiana territory. As it was, Madison had to flee the Washington, when a British Army came up the Bladensburg Road to burn the Capitol and Madison's White House.

After peace in 1815, however, Madison signed the Tariff Act of 1816 to prevent British merchants from dumping goods into the United States to kill America's infant industries that had arisen during the war and to prevent British merchants from recapturing the U.S. markets they had lost.

For most of the 19th century, the nation followed the economic policy of Hamilton and the foreign policy of Washington -- and was richly rewarded. By the first decade of the 20th century, America was the most independent and self-reliant republic in all of history.

And by staying out of two world wars of the 20th century until many of the bloodiest battles had been fought, America emerged in 1945 economically and politically independent of all other nations.

During the Cold War, however, Americans came to believe that a temporary alliance, NATO, was necessary to prevent Joseph Stalin's empire from overrunning Europe and turning the balance of power against us. To help our wartime allies and former enemies Japan, Germany and Italy to their feet, we set aside Hamilton's policy and threw open the American market to the goods of Free Europe and Free Asia.

These should have been temporary alliances and temporary measures. Instead, they were made permanent.

No longer free of foreign entanglements, as Thomas Jefferson urged, we now have commitments to defend 50 countries. The old Hamiltonian policy of "Prosper America First" has given way to worship of a Global Economy, at whose altars we sacrifice daily the vital interests of our own manufacturers and workers.

"Interdependence" is now the desired end of the new elite.

And so we have become again a dependent nation. We borrow from Europe and Japan to defend the oil of Europe and Japan in the Persian Gulf. We borrow from China to buy the goods of China. We are as dependent on foreign borrowing as we are on foreign oil.

And the questions arise: If the men of '76, who led those small and vulnerable states, were wiling to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for America's independence, what is the matter with us?

Do we not value independence as they did? Or is it that we are simply not the men our fathers were?

Happy Independence Day.

R.I.P. Sen. Jesse Helms 1921-2008

“The destruction of this country can be pinpointed in terms of its beginnings to the time that our political leadership turned to socialism. They didn’t call it socialism, of course. It was given deceptive names and adorned with fancy slogans. We heard about New Deals, and Fair Deals and New Frontiers and the Great Society.”

From The News & Observer:
Jesse Helms dead at 86
By Rob Christensen, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - Former U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, the son of a Monroe police chief who rose to national prominence as one of the leading lions of the American right, died early this morning. He was 86.

During a political career that began with his election to the Raleigh City Council in the late 1950s and included 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Jesse Alexander Helms endeared himself to conservatives throughout the country.

Helms became known as “Senator No” for his constant battles against everything from increased government spending to civil rights legislation to communism to the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms was even willing to wage war against fellow Republicans if he felt they were straying from the conservative agenda, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

But as beloved as he was by conservatives, many of whom became part of his potent political organization, Helms was a lightning rod for criticism from liberals and moderates. Whenever Helms was up for re-election, liberals from throughout the country poured money into the campaign of his Democratic opponent.

Helms was once called the “Prince of Darkness” by the chairman of the national Democratic Party.

“Whether you liked his politics or not, he was a national force able to deliver for his constituents," Gov. Mike Easley said in a statement. "We last appeared together when the Navy named a submarine after North Carolina at his request. He certainly didn’t shy from controversy and you always knew what his positions were. Whether we were working together to stop international drug trafficking or opposing each other on the campaign trail, he was always a gentleman to me.”

Personally, Helms could be the picture of the courtly Southern gentleman and entertain guests with stories of his past. Despite his many years in Washington, Helms avoided the social scene so endemic to the nation’s capitol. Instead, he preferred quiet evenings at home with Dorothy.

But Helms also could be cantankerous, particularly with the reporters who worked for the newspapers and television stations that Helms often criticized as pushing a liberal agenda. He was sometimes accused by other senators, including those in his own party, of being obstructionist and mean-spirited.

A longtime smoker, Helms had suffered many health problems in recent years, including prostate cancer and Paget's disease. Helms was born on Oct. 18, 1921 in Monroe, where his father did double duty as the town police and fire chief. With an older brother and younger sister, Helms was a straight-arrow who earned solid if unexceptional grades in school.

"He was a regular old boy — long-legged and bug-eyed,” his former high school principal once said.

Helms briefly attended Wingate College near Monroe before leaving for Wake Forest College. He quit after a year to begin a career as a journalist, working for the next 11 years as a newspaper and radio reporter.

During those years, Helms worked as a sportswriter and news reporter for The News and Observer and as assistant city editor and city editor for The Raleigh Times. He also had a three-year hitch with the Navy during World War II when he wrote press releases at an installation on the North Carolina coast.

While he went on to become a vocal critic of The News & Observer throughout his political career, Helms did find something he liked at the newspaper. While working at the N&O, Helms met Dorothy Coble, editor of the society page. They were married in 1942.

Unlike most successful politicians, Helms did not grow up with politics in his blood. It was not until after he got married and began to talk with his father-in-law, a political conservative, that Helms began to show some interest in politics.

In 1950, Helms got his first taste of North Carolina politics through his work for conservative Raleigh attorney Willis Smith in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. The race, which pitted Smith against liberal U.S. Sen. Frank Porter Graham, was once called the most overtly racist campaign since the turn of the century.

But Helms, while acknowledging his support of Smith, repeatedly downplayed his role in the campaign. Nonetheless, it seemed to plant the seed for what would become a tremendously successful political career for Helms.

Helms worked briefly as Smith’s administrative assistant in Washington, only to leave to work for the segregationist presidential campaign of Sen. Richard B. Russell of Georgia.

Helms returned to Raleigh as executive director of the N.C. Bankers Association, setting up home on Caswell Street in the Hayes Barton neighborhood where he lived until he died.

Jesse and Dorothy Helms raised two daughters in Raleigh, as well as a son who they adopted as a nine-year-old from a children’s home in Greensboro after reading a newspaper story in which the boy said he wanted a mother and father for Christmas.

In 1957, at the age of 36, Helms won his first political race and a seat on the Raleigh City Council. He served two terms on the council, earning a reputation as a conservative gadfly as he fought against everything from putting a median strip on Downtown Boulevard to an urban renewal project. It was a sign of things to come for Helms.

And it was television that helped him realize his future. In 1960, while still a member of the city council, Helms took a job as a commentator for WRAL-TV in Raleigh. Viewers throughout Eastern North Carolina suddenly began to hear Helms as he railed against the civil rights movement, the liberal news media, and anti-war churches.

Helms said the civil rights movement was infested by communists and “moral degenerates.” He called Social Security “nothing more than doles and handouts.” He described Medicaid as a “step over into the swampy field of socialized medicine.”

In 1970, at the urging of his daughter, Helms switched his registration from Democratic to Republican. Two years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate and was swept into office by a Nixon landslide. Helms was the first Republican senator from North Carolina since Reconstruction.

It was the start of a long and remarkably successful career in the Senate that saw him become the leader of the New Right political movement that helped usher the likes of Ronald Reagan into power.

"Two things that were happening the 70s were the Cold War and the realignment of conservative Democrats to the Republican Party," said Carter Wrenn, former political advisor of Helms' during the Congressional Club years. "Jesse was both a leader of, and a creature, of that movement.

"You can't really separate the growth of the Republican Party from Jesse’s career. In 1972, there hadn't been a Republican elected to the Senate or governor in the 20th century."

From the beginning, Helms did things differently than most senators. In a world where give-and-take is the key to success, Helms refused to play the game of compromise. Rather than get together with opponents to work out their differences, Helms preferred to stand his ground in defeat.

While other senators tried to make their mark by shepherding legislation through the Congress, Helms often made his mark by trying to block legislation that he found objectionable. He became a master of the Senate rules, and never hesitated to use them to his advantage, even if it angered his colleagues in the Senate.

“Compromise, hell!” Helms once wrote. “That’s what has happened to us all down the line — and that’s the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at the time?”

After Helms had conducted an unsuccessful filibuster against a gas tax hike proposed by President Reagan, Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming said: “Seldom have I seen a more obdurate and obnoxious performance.”

Helms often used racial cues to inject his campaigns with the divisive politics of race. The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black targets were frequent targets of Helms’ speeches and fund-raising letters.

Although Helms denied he was a racist, his work in the Senate often seemed at odds with the interests of blacks.

He has worked in the Senate against civil rights legislation, such as extension of the Voting Rights Act, and domestic programs favored by blacks. He sponsored measures barring court-ordered school busing for integration, and was the leading Senate supporter of the apartheid regime of South Africa.

In 1983, Helms made headlines throughout the country when he made sensational charges as he waged a filibuster against an effort to make King’s birthday a national holiday.

“All his public life, he has done and said things offensive to blacks, and to anyone sensitive to racial nuance,” Ernest B. Furgurson wrote in his 1986 biography of Helms, “Hard Right, the Rise of Jesse Helms.”

About 6 weeks old, but seems like appropriate news for

the Fourth of July. And it's a great list....

SHANE the Greatest Western Movie of All Time
Western Writers of America Announces

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

SHANE, director George Stevens' classic 1953 movie about a weary gunfighter caught up in a
land war between Wyoming ranchers and farmers, is the greatest Western movie
of all time, Western Writers of America has announced.

For top honors SHANE, which Pulitzer Prize-winning Western novelist A.B.
Guthrie Jr. adapted for the screen from Jack Schaefer's novel, edged HIGH
NOON, the 1952 movie that won Gary Cooper his second Academy Award as Best
Actor.

Western Writers of America, a nonprofit organization of more than 600
professional writers, founded in the 1950s to promote and honor the best
literature about the American West -- including screenwriting -- announced the
100 Greatest Western Movies of All Time on Thursday, June 12, at Scottsdale's
Chaparral Suites during the association's annual convention.

"This year has been incredible," WWA Executive Director Paul Hutton said.
"Cormac McCarthy's brutal little contemporary Western NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
did great at the box office, taking in over $60 million and was nominated for
a Best Picture Oscar. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen got nominations, too. Paul
Thomas Anderson also was nominated for THERE WILL BE BLOOD, his amazing
adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil, with his lead actor Daniel
Day-Lewis winning the Oscar."

Members voted on their top 10 Western movies, and the ballots were
tabulated at the WWA offices at the University of New Mexico.

No. 3 was THE SEARCHERS, director John Ford's powerful 1956 story about a
vengeful Texan's quest to find his two nieces, taken by Comanche Indians,
based on Alan LeMay's novel. No. 4 was BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, the
1969 movie that first teamed Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Kevin Costner's
Academy Award-winning DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990), from Michael Blake's novel,
rounded out the top five.

Rounding out the top 10 were director Sam Peckinpah's bloody,
end-of-the-West opera THE WILD BUNCH (1969); Howard Hawk's first Western, RED
RIVER (1948), which gave John Wayne one of his best roles; the surprise cult
O.K. Corral favorite TOMBSTONE (1993), starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer;
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), a Western retelling of Japanese director Akira
Kurosawa's brilliant SEVEN SAMURAI, and OPEN RANGE (2003), which starred
Robert Duvall in another Costner-directed movie.

"It's not the Top 10 I would come up with," says incoming WWA president
Johnny D. Boggs, "but that's the fun of lists like these. It prompts lively
debate, and members of Western Writers of America can be as passionate about
Western film as they are about literature of the West."

WWA's membership roster is filled with writers who are no stranger to
Hollywood, including screenwriters Kirk Ellis, Steve Harrigan, C. Courtney
Joyner, Andrew J. Fenady, Stephen Lodge, and Miles Hood Swarthout, whose
father, the late Glendon Swarthout, wrote the novel THE SHOOTIST, which became
John Wayne's last movie. Bill Gulick (BEND OF THE RIVER, THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL)
and Max Evans (THE ROUNDERS, THE HI-LO COUNTRY) saw two of their novels
adapted for the screen. Hutton, Boggs and fellow members Michael F. Blake, Win
Blevins, Brian Garfield, and Arthur Winfield Knight have written extensively
about Western film.

In 2009, WWA plans to announce the 100 Greatest Western Television Movies,
Series and Miniseries of All Time during the convention in Oklahoma City.

For information on the WWA convention, call the organization's executive
director's office at (505) 277-5234 or log on to
http://www.westernwriters.org.

The complete list follows:

WWA Top 100 Westerns

1. Shane
2. High Noon
3. The Searchers
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Dances with Wolves
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Red River
8. Tombstone
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Open Range

11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
13. True Grit
14. The Shootist
15. Stagecoach (1939)
16. Unforgiven
17. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
18. The Outlaw Josey Wales
19. Ride the High Country
20. Jeremiah Johnson

21. The Cowboys
22. My Darling Clementine
23. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
24. Rio Bravo
25. The Ox-Bow Incident
26. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
27. Lonely are the Brave
28. Will Penny
29. Hud
30. Winchester '73

31. Little Big Man
32. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
33. The Grey Fox
34. The Alamo (1960)
35. Silverado
36. Ulzana's Raid
37. Once upon a Time in the West
38. Rio Grande
39. The Rounders
40. The Big Country

41. The Hi-Lo Country
42. Duel in the Sun
43. Fort Apache
44. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
45. The Last Picture Show
46. The Grapes of Wrath
47. Bad Day at Black Rock
48. The Long Riders
49. The Tall T
50. Cat Ballou

51. Tumbleweeds
52. The Iron Horse
53. Man of the West
54. Seven Men from Now
55. The Big Trail
56. Three Godfathers
57. Hell's Hinges
58. The Wind (1928)
59. The Westerner
60. Support Your Local Sheriff

61. They Died with Their Boots On
62. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
63. The Professionals
64. The Cheyenne Social Club
65. El Dorado
66. Thunderheart
67. The Virginian (1929)
68. A Man Called Horse
69. Hombre
70. Barbarosa

71. Chisum
72. The Big Sky
73. Young Guns
74. Destry Rides Again
75. Junior Bonner
76. Angel and the Badman
77. Warlock
78. The Misfits
79. No Country for Old Men
80. Monte Walsh

81. Four Faces West
82. The Naked Spur
83. The Gunfighter
84. High Plains Drifter
85. Devil's Doorway
86. Law and Order (1932)
87. Coroner Creek
88. Valdez is Coming
89. Hondo
90. The Man from Laramie

91. The Unforgiven (1960)
92. Broken Arrow
93. Bend of the River
94. Giant
95. Blazing Saddles
96. The Culpepper Cattle Company
97. Three Bad Men
98. Pursued
99. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
100. The Great Train Robbery (1903)

SOURCE Western Writers of America

Captain James Jack rides to Philadelphia with the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.

The First Declaration of Independence
By George Will

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. -- The impatient patriots here had splendidly short fuses in 1775. Those who tilled the startlingly red clay or who lived in the town named for George III's wife Charlotte might have been bemused had they foreseen the annual hoopla that commemorates July 4, 1776.

What occurred that day in Philadelphia might have been a Declaration of Independence, but the first such was enacted here on May 20, 1775. Presbyterians, meaning most Mecklenburgers, were incensed by Anglican meddling from London, such as the Vestry and Marriage Acts of 1769, which imposed fines on Presbyterian ministers who conducted marriage ceremonies. Marriage as a political issue is not just a recent phenomenon.

On May 19, 1775, the day before the Mecklenburg convention met to act on such grievances, a rider arrived with news from Massachusetts about the April bloodshed at Lexington and Concord. The next day, Mecklenburg's convention declared:

"We the citizens of Mecklenburg County do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the mother country. ... We do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people ... to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor."

Thus did a settlement on the fringe of the British Empire declare war on that empire. It used language -- note, especially, the last nine words -- that is echoed in the 1776 declaration, for reasons explained in a new book, "The 4th of July and the Founding of America," by Peter de Bolla of King's College, Cambridge. He is fascinated by Americans' fascination with the fact, such as it is, that their country had, as few nations can claim, an "originative moment." But what, and when, was it?

The Declaration of Independence was not signed that day by the 56 persons whose signatures would eventually adorn it. Perhaps no one signed it that day; the evidence is murky. Still, uncountable millions believe otherwise because they have seen John Trumbull's painting, in the U.S. Capitol's rotunda, depicting Thomas Jefferson, at the center of six colleagues, holding "his" Declaration on July 4, as though for signing.

What Congress actually did that day was agree to print and publish the Declaration authorized two days earlier. So, was July 2 what de Bolla calls the "punctual moment"? John Adams thought that day "will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America."

What was voted on July 2 was, however, really decided on July 1. But on June 28, Congress considered Jefferson's draft of the Declaration, so was the die then cast? Or was it cast on June 10, when Congress voted that "a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration"? The Declaration was first actually declared -- read aloud to a crowd (at the State House, now Independence Hall) -- on July 8.

De Bolla says that unlike certain events, such as an earthquake or the beheading of a monarch, the birth of a nation has "a different kind of temporality," one constructed as a tradition. This is true even of the United States, which did not, like Germany and France, emerge over millennia from history's mists.

Fifty years later, less than two months before his (and John Adams') death on July 4, 1826, Jefferson was determinedly protective of his reputation as (he directed his tombstone to declare this) "author" of the Declaration. Still, he candidly acknowledged that it "was intended to be an expression of the American mind," not "aiming at originality of principle or sentiment." Hence, "all its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day."

Certain politically charged rhetorical tropes were then society's common property. Writing shortly before his death, Jefferson affirmed his belief that "the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." Those words were as stirring then as they had been when one of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers declared from the scaffold, "I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden."

What de Bolla calls "the intricate history of the nation's founding document" does not and should not inhibit Americans from asserting the truth that their nation originated on July 4, 1776. They hold that to be a self-evident truth, which means they have decided to believe it, thereby making it a self-validating tradition. So there.

From The Daily Mail: Over a year old, but this is epic...
Ricky Gervais and John Travolta
go head to head on the dancefloor
By KRISTINA PEDERSEN

30 March 2007

One is responsible for perhaps the most cringeworthy dance routine in television history. The other made his name as the white-suited, snake-hipped disco king of the 1970s.

Yet when they met, it was Office star Ricky Gervais giving John Travolta tips on how to move on the dancefloor.

The Saturday Night Fever star got a lesson in decidedly unfancy footwork when he appeared on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.

The 53-year-old actor had been demonstrating the swivel-hipped steps which made him famous in the classic 1977 film about the disco craze which gripped that decade

You sure that's a good move? Travolta looks far
from convinced as Gervais gets into his stride

Gervais performs the dance on a classic episode of his hit series
The Office

But his professional display took a distinct downturn after Gervais decided to put his rather less impressive oar in.

As the audience erupted with cackles and guffaws, the 45-year-old showed a nonplussed looking Travolta how it really should not be done.

Scroll down for more

Travolta finally accepts he is in the presence of greatness

In an almost direct copy of the now-classic routine he performed in series two of The Office, Gervais started off by stomping up and down on the spot before attempting some furious arm swinging reminiscent of an upside down windscreen wiper.

He finished the "dance" off with a badly executed breakdance move where he linked his hands and moved them in a ripple effect.

Gervais's unlikely dance lesson did not go unwasted however, as Travolta deftly copied each hideous step of his routine.

Although it could be said that the Hollywood star executed his version with slightly more finesse.

And Travolta obviously impressed Gervais, because the comic offered him a guest starring role in the final episode of Extras. Travolta said: "I'll probably do anything Ricky Gervais says."

The Hollywood star, in London to promote new film Wild Hogs, told Ross how he had wanted to play James Bond in Casino Royale.

But British actor Daniel Craig was picked to play the secret agent.

Travolta said: "I wanted to do James Bond but the new guy is awesome, the one I've liked the most since Sean Connery."

The actor also revealed how much he disliked turning fifty.

He said: "I didn't go through a mid-life crisis but you start wondering how many summers you have left, it took me about a year to get over."

Travolta also enthused about his passion for planes.

He said: "I can live on my plane, I love acting first and flying just happens to be another passion for me."

The Daily Mail revealed that the star had urged people to "do their bit" for the environment, despite owning five jets.

This is not the first time that the dance, unleashed by character David Brent, has been faithfully copied.

Actor Les Dennis re-enacted the routine in a commercial to promote comic relief earlier this month.

Gervais is currently doing a nationwide comedy tour called "Fame".

MCCAIN: PUMP THIS! by Ann Coulter

July 2, 2008

Well, I guess we're all pretty relieved we didn't drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge back in 2002. What a disaster that would have been.

The vote on ANWR was almost entirely along partisan lines, with all Republicans, except a handful of "moderates," voting for drilling, and all Democrats, except a handful of sane Democrats like Zell Miller, voting against drilling.

John McCain opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because he polled soccer moms and found out they were against drilling. They thought it sounded too much like going to the dentist. McCain wanted to ensure that he remained beloved by the two pillars of his base: "centrists" and New York Times reporters.

Even Sen. Chuck Hagel voted for drilling in ANWR. But John McCain, "our" candidate, voted against it.

I guess we're beginning to see the problem of basing a political platform on the passing fancies of "centrists." These are people who have no opinions because they know nothing about national issues. They're the ones who check the "not sure/no opinion" box on polls regarding the legalization of cannibalism.

You can't blame them: They're not being paid to know something about national issues. Those people we call "senators" and "representatives."

But now, astronomical gas prices have forced even soccer moms to spend 10 minutes looking at a problem that their leaders were supposed to be thinking about for years. And the soccer moms are saying: Drill! Drill! Drill! Bobby, come down off of there! Stop hitting your sister! Where was I? Oh, yeah ... Drill! Drill! Drill!

Consequently, McCain recently switched his position to go along with the centrists. See, that's the downside of having chosen all your political positions by polling centrists: The moment they acquire any knowledge, they'll realize you're an idiot.

It's always the same argument. Year after year, the "moderate Republicans" so respected at The New York Times harangue us to dump the Christians, the conservatives, the Swift Boat Veterans, the "right-wing extremists," the gun-and-God clingers and the fanatical pro-lifers from our party so we can repel every American who voted for Ronald Reagan in order to win the votes of people like Christine Todd Whitman.

Yes, by all means let's clear out all that deadwood and pave the way for a 49-state landslide! (For the Democrats.)

McCain followed the Times' strategy to a T. He called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance." He called the Swift Boat Veterans "dishonest and dishonorable." He has denounced every Christian minister who tries to endorse him. Over the years, McCain has ostentatiously attacked every issue of importance to conservatives and embraced every crackpot liberal idea, including the left's latest plan to exterminate the human race, called "global warming."

Two weeks ago, McCain skipped the capitol prayer breakfast in California, instead appearing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at an environmental event in nearby Santa Barbara. Schwarzenegger's absence marked the first time a governor skipped what has come to be known as "the governor's prayer breakfast." I guess in the world of moderate Republicans an environmental event qualifies as a religious observance.

The keynote speaker at the breakfast, Hollywood producer Mark Joseph, quoted a recent cover article in Christianity Today by professors Daniel Taylor and Mark McCloskey that said:

"In premodern times, the courage of a leader often had to be physical. In the last 500 years it is more often moral. Moral courage is the ability to do what's right even when it is deeply unpopular, even dangerous. Courage is only found where there is the genuine possibility of loss -- loss of friends, reputation, status, power, possessions or, at the extremes, freedom or life."

No wonder McCain and Schwarzenegger skipped it.

Moderate Republicans like McCain have taken to heart liberals' admonition that Ronald Reagan's appeal had absolutely nothing to do with his conservative philosophy. Don't be like him! You'll lose the soccer moms! Liberals assure us that Reagan won landslide elections because Americans were mesmerized by his sunny disposition and corny jokes. If that's true, why isn't Al Roker president?

The irony is, the only people McCain can count on to vote for him are the very Republicans he despises -- at least those of us who can get drunk enough on Election Day to pull the lever for him. In fact, we should organize parties around the country where Republicans can get drunk so they can vote for McCain. We can pass out clothespins with his name as a reminder and slogan-festooned vomit bags. The East Coast parties can post the number of drinks necessary for the task to help the West Coast parties. For more information, go to getdrunkandvote4mccain.com.

Not being ignorant "centrists," we know what a world-class disaster B. Hussein Obama will be. Meanwhile, the centrists McCain spent years impressing with his outraged denunciations of conservatives, Swift Boat Veterans and Christians will be voting for Obama. They think he's cute.

How many times do we have to run this experiment?

Taking the advice of Democrats, Republicans ran "moderates" for president in 1944, 1948, 1976, 1992 and 1996. All lost. Republicans also ran a "moderate" for president in 1988, but that was unwittingly -- both to us and, fortunately, to the voters. In other words, in the language of the market, the best tip on "moderate Republicans" is: SELL!

But now, apparently, we have to run the experiment again. This year, moderate Republicans have hit the jackpot. John McCain is the Platonic ideal of a "moderate Republican."

To paraphrase Richard Nixon on George McGovern in 1972: Here we have a situation where moderate Republicans finally have a candidate who almost totally shares their views. Now we'll see what the country thinks.

Angelina Jolie as Fox, a member of an ancient order of assassins.

From The New Yorker: Anthony Lane, as usual, is absolutely right here and as accurate as the review from Dirty Harry. A highly entertaining film in spite of itself.
“Wanted”
by Anthony Lane

What is it like being Timur Bekmambetov? No artist should be confused too closely with his creations, but anybody who sits through “Wanted,” Bekmambetov’s new movie, will be tempted to wonder if the life style of the characters might not reflect or rub off on that of the director. How, for example, does he make a cup of coffee? My best guess, based on the evidence of the film, is that he tosses a handful of beans toward the ceiling, shoots them individually into a fine powder, leaves it hanging in the air, runs downstairs, breaks open a fire hydrant with his head, carefully directs the jet of water through the window of his apartment, sets fire to the building, then stands patiently with his mug amid the blazing ruins to collect the precious percolated drops. Don’t even think about a cappuccino.

The great thing about Bekmambetov is that even the mildest of devices spur him into helpless exaggeration. “Wanted” begins with a flashback, but not for him the gentle glance over the past month, or the childhood cameo; instead, up comes the dauntless title “1000 years ago.” One day, presumably a wet Thursday, a secret society of medieval weavers suddenly decided to create an even more secret society of global assassins. This was done, apparently, to maintain “the balance of the world,” a principle reiterated later in the film, but the episode leaves you panting to know more. Why weavers? Why not potters, or pastry cooks? Until now, I never made the connection between haberdashery and homicide, but “Wanted” is determined to prove the link, and viewers will certainly think twice before joining their local knitting circle. Mind you, we never discover who orders the kills: it could be governments, businessmen, or bishops. Is the whole film no more than totalitarian housecleaning posing as democratic do-gooding, and, if so, who will screen it for Vladimir Putin?

We now leap a thousand years to Chicago, or, at any rate, to an outsider’s overheated fabrication of the city. Bekmambetov was born in the Soviet Union, and this is his first film set in the United States, but “Wanted” never feels solidly American, and not just because James McAvoy keeps slipping into his native Scottish. He plays Wesley Gibson, who loathes his existence. Given that it involves both accountancy and cuckoldry, he may have a point, and the twitchy Gibson is the heir of a hundred other movie mice, headed by Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment.” Bekmambetov, however, is simply unable, or unwilling, to let such quiet desperation sink in. Instead, he pumps up the sound (the click of a stapler resounds like a rivet gun) and stuffs his camera into people’s faces for the sake of a bulging closeup. This is the filmmaking equivalent of prodding someone in the chest with a forefinger as you’re telling a joke, and it means that the tone remains the same, at yelping level, when Gibson’s life is changed. A pity, because it’s quite a shift; one moment he’s waiting alone in a grocery store, and the next Angelina Jolie is standing by his side. End of mousehood.

Ms. Jolie is, I am pleased to report, in splendid form. Watch her as she runs along the top of a speeding train and, approaching a tunnel, lies back like a sunbather and lets the roof of it swoosh over her, basking in the satisfaction of a near-miss and, by extension, in the world’s unflagging worship of her cool. “Get away from me,” McAvoy shouts to her at one point, and she gives an ineffable smile, charmed by the absurdity of the request. You don’t tell Angelina Jolie to go away; she tells you. In “Wanted,” she plays Fox, one of the fraternity of killers, who informs Gibson that his father was the doyen of the group, that he was wiped out only the day before by a rogue operator, and that he, weedy Wesley, must learn the ropes and avenge this foul, unnatural crime. Hamlet was under the same obligation, but, lacking access to high-powered rifles and exploding rats, he took longer to finish the job.

Gibson is introduced to the chief assassin, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who teaches him how to bend a bullet in mid-flight. “Let your instincts guide you,” he advises, having clearly enjoyed his time at the Obi-Wan Kenobi School of Karmic Weaponhood. To achieve a satisfactory bend, you have to whip the pistol round like a discus thrower, a skill soon perfected by our hero. As nonsense goes, this has a certain gusto and glee, and what dismayed me was that Bekmambetov felt the need to spice it with the addition of coarsely chopped violence. What looks set to be a boyish, pop-eyed fantasy—if Angelina Jolie kicks out your windshield and asks you to take the wheel while she sprawls on your hood and shoots at the vehicle behind, you can hardly refuse—warps into a welter of bloodletting. The knife work is especially cruel, and it puts parents into a quandary: their teen-age kids are the ideal (probably the sole) consumers of this loud, silly dream about a furtive brotherhood, but they are also precisely the wrong people to be told that stabbing is a talent to be envied, and, worse still, that its effects wear off in a nice hot bath. As foreheads burst asunder, and as Gibson caps the mayhem by firing repeatedly through the back of a dead man’s head, I wanted to ask: Is this the true legacy of “Pulp Fiction”—that the fiction would lose all credibility and make way for actual human pulp?

From Dirty Harry's Place: A pretty much on the money review...
Wanted: A review

Wanted is pure B-movie kick-assification, with a plot so audaciously stupid you forgive the stupid and embrace the audacity. The studio pitch must’ve went something like this: Shane Black writes Office Space.

Sold!

Never for a moment did I believe, buy into, or connect to anything happening up on the screen. But it was a midnight show, four-hours past my bedtime, and sleep never entered my mind.

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a put-upon cube rat who hates his mediocre, milquetoast existence. Through a mouthful of jelly donut, his boss takes all her life-disappointments out on him and his girlfriend’s cheating with his best friend. In unnecessary voice-over, Wesley tells us it wasn’t meant to be this way. He was sure he was destined for great things. Great things finally arrive in the package of Fox (Angelina Jolie), who immediately turns his life upside down in a spree of delicious, kinetic, sometimes a little too shaky-cammed, violence.

Wesley was born with a particular gift when it comes to the use of weapons, especially guns, and the art of assassination. It’s a genetic thing passed down by his father. But now his father’s dead and only Wesley — after some training — has what it takes to kill the man who killed dear old dad.

Sloan (Morgan Freeman) is the leader of this thousand-year-old fraternity of assassins. In one of the plots oddest choices, their front is a working textile mill and the kill-orders arrive via fate woven into the cloth on a giant loom. Immediately, Wesley’s in over his head with a violent training regimen preparing him for a final confrontation with the world’s number-one assassin.

Unfortunately, Jolie doesn’t have enough to do. The story is all about Wesley and his journey. She disappears for long stretches leaving McAvoy to carry the show. He’s a fine actor, but his performance is frequently over-the-top with desperate attempts at the kind of fish-out-water humor Bob Hope perfected in the womb. The movie would have benefited greatly from more of Jolie’s cool purr and business-like approach to mayhem.

Other than watching Morgan Freeman in a movie with voice-over where he’s not the one doing it, there’s nothing original about Wanted. The twists don’t. The big surprise doesn’t. The plot’s an excuse to string together action scenes and do the coolest stuff with bullets since The Matrix.

But, good heavens, it’s watchable. Especially at midnight in a theatre packed with teenagers. About a half-hour in my skepticism lifted, I let myself go, reminded myself it was summer, and thought, ”This is kind of perfect.”

The Wars of Religion Return
by Patrick J. Buchanan

Last week's clash between Dr. James Dobson and Barack Obama is but the latest skirmish in a war that dates back to the time of Christ. At issue: What is Christian truth? Does the true Christian put social peace ahead of his duty to make God's Law man's law?

In a speech in June 2006, Obama, citing the Book of Leviticus, which declares homosexuality an abomination, noted that Leviticus also says the eating of shellfish is an abomination and condones slavery.

Moreover, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is "a passage so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," said Obama.

"Even ... if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States ... whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or with Al Sharpton's?"

Barack was saying that, since Christians disagree deeply over what is biblical truth, why fight? Let us "try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than have religion divide us."

In Catholicism, this is the heresy of indifferentism, which holds that one religion is just as good as another and all religions can be a path to salvation. The Pew poll out last week reveals that 82 percent of Protestants believe there are multiple paths to salvation, as do 79 percent of Catholics and 57 percent of evangelicals.

A striking development. For did not Christ say, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"?

Dr. Dobson is having none of it. Tuesday, he accused Obama of "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology."

"(H)e is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," said Dobson. "Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the life of tiny babies?"

"What he (Obama) is saying here is that unless everyone agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe."

Dobson has no small point. For in his litany of moral heroes, Barack himself selected no "can't-we-all-just-get-along?" Christians.

Indeed, Obama celebrates the Underground Railroad and the abolitionists who, to end slavery, took us over the brink into Civil War. He invokes the defiant marchers of Selma Bridge and Dr. King, who chose confrontation and tore the nation asunder rather than see segregation endure.

Obama, however, is now preaching a kumbaya Christianity where leaders who believe abortion is the killing of the innocent unborn are to set their convictions and cause aside in the name of ecumenical amity.

It is Dobson who, in his intolerance of perceived evil, seems in the tradition of the abolitionists, and Barack who appears more like the milquetoast believers of whom Christ said he would spit them out of his mouth because they were neither hot nor cold and whom Dante consigned to the deepest reaches of hell.

Does social peace require the toleration of manifest evil?

In the Roman Empire before Constantine, Christians accepted martyrdom rather than burn incense to Caesar. Thomas More went to his death rather than assent to the divorce of the Henry VIII, declaring, "I am the King's good servant, but God's first."

A disciple of Gandhi, Dr. King is celebrated as a champion of civil disobedience against the injustice of segregation. What would Obama say to massive civil disobedience by those who believe the killing of 50 million unborn children since Roe v. Wade is a greater evil than segregating folks by race in public accommodations?

Would an Obama, who hails the abolitionists and Dr. King, condemn them as divisive? Was not that the charge thrown up at Dr. King?

The divide between Dobson and Barack is mirrored among many who profess the Christian faith. It split the Baptists. It is splitting the Episcopalians. A traditionalist minority has severed communion over female bishops and homosexual marriages.

Barack has a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution if he thinks it requires us to give up fighting for justice because it may be divisive, says Dobson. Here, too, he has a point.

The unbridgeable divide between the two portends a troubled future. Can Americans ever come together if we are divided in our deepest beliefs about morality and truth, where one side believes gay marriage is moral progress, the other holds it a moral outrage; where one side views abortion to be a mighty advance for women's freedom, the other sees it as legalization of mass slaughter of unborn babies?

There can be no peaceful coexistence in a cultural war because it is at root a religious war. Far into the future, Americans seem fated to face each other again and again "at some disputed barricade."

From Asbury Park Press:
Boardwalk fortune teller Madam Marie dies
STAFF REPORT

It was one line from a Bruce Springsteen song that made the boardwalk fortune teller world famous. And now, "Madam Marie'' has passed away.

Marie Castello, who had told fortunes since the 1930s and became famous for her presence and predictions on the Asbury Park boardwalk, died Friday, her great-granddaughter, Sally Castello said today.

Family members were attending morning services today, Castello said.

The psychic reader and advisor was 93. She became known worldwide from Bruce Springsteen's homage to her in his music.

"Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie,'' Springsteen sang in his 1973 song, "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)'' "for tellin' fortunes better than they do."

"That was just the Boss,'' said Asbury Park Deputy Mayor Jim Bruno. "She was never arrested. But Springsteen turned her into an icon.''

Bruno remembers his own run-in with the psychic.

"I was a 12-year-old kid,'' he said. "And I don't remember what I was doing, but I remember her chasing me away from her shack. Her death is a real loss.''

It was also somewhat unexpected.

''She really wasn't sick. She just wasn't feeling well,'' Castello said. ""She was very, very strong until the day she died.''

Madam Marie bragged that she had told the fortunes of everyone from Judy Garland to Springsteen himself. Legend has it that she told Springsteen he was going to be a success. Springsteen later joked that she told all the musicians that.

And Springsteen never forgot Madam Marie.

"He always comes by to say hello," she told Press columnist Bill Handleman in May. "He knows where he came from."

Word of Castello's death spread along the Asbury Park boardwalk over the weekend. The American flag flying over the Convention Hall-Paramount Theatre complex was lowered to half staff in her honor, and it remained that way today.

"Of course, Madam Marie is our longest running tenant here on the boardwalk. ... She's an Asbury Park tradition,'' said Gary Mottola, president of investments for developer Madison Marquette, the lead partner in a joint venture with Asbury Partners to restore or rebuild the boardwalk's entertainment buildings. "We felt that honoring her by lowering the Convention Hall flag to half staff is the right thing to do.''

Marie Castello closed down her regular operations on the boardwalk in the mid-1990s after a dropoff in business. She continued telling fortunes in Ocean Township.

But Sally Castello is one of the family members who still does readings at the Madam Marie booth not far from Convention Hall on the boardwalk.

"The booth will always be there," Marie Castello said in May. "The Temple of Knowledge, that's a landmark, that's nostalgia, they'll never tear it down."

A meme from the RMAS message board: Didn't spend but a couple of minutes thinking about this. It's interesting to see where my choices ended up, with the top 4 between 1974 amd 1980, and the next two over 20 years later. Quite a span of quality work.
Bruce Springsteen Studio Albums
Favorites Ranking

1. Born to Run
2. The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
3. The River
4. Darkness on the Edge of Town
5. Magic
6. The Rising
7. Tunnel of Love
8. Born in the USA
9. Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
10. Lucky Town
11. Human Touch
12. Nebraska
13. Seeger Sessions
14. The Ghost of Tom Joad
15. Devils and Dust

From baltimoresun.com:
The Babe went to bat for black players
David Steele

June 29, 2008

Oh, was Linda Ruth Tosetti ever asking for it. Raise yet another pedestal for her grandfather, Babe Ruth? Make Jackie Robinson share Major League Baseball's singular honor with someone who seems saturated in praise from every segment of American culture? Pit these two iconic figures, and all the accompanying baggage, against each other?

Tosetti wants Ruth's number retired throughout baseball, too, and from here, the answers she gave colleague Rick Maese last week to the obvious question - why? - weren't good enough.

Then came a truly thought-provoking reason. She gave it on a national radio show last week, indicating that her grandfather did more to give credit to the great black ballplayers of his era than most people know. Ruth barnstormed with the Negro leaguers back in the day, Tosetti told the hosts, and he told baseball officials that if they really were interested in winning, they would give those players a chance in the then-segregated big leagues.

Really?

Really.

At least it's plausible. It's well documented Ruth filled most of his offseasons touring the country for exhibition games. There are less-documented reports of games against all-black teams. Practically undocumented was that his fellow big leaguers were often less than enthusiastic about playing with or against blacks.

Ruth apparently not only wasn't opposed to it, but he also embraced and enjoyed it. It might be because he knew grinding poverty or because his appearance inspired insults generally reserved for blacks, from schoolmates and, later, from opposing players.

Whatever the reason, Ruth and black baseball routinely expressed mutual admiration for each other. Black ballplayers of the day often named him as one of their idols.

Therefore, figures one biographer, it stands to reason that Ruth would make his feelings known about those players. Bill Jenkinson spent close to three decades rigorously researching home run history and turned part of that research into a nonfiction book released in 2007, The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs.

"Babe Ruth was not an intellectual; he certainly was not well educated. But he did appear to be pretty intelligent," Jenkinson said last week. Although he had no direct evidence of Ruth's advocacy, he added: "The way he lived his life, it's fair to say that he was the first effective proponent for the integration of baseball. He was enormously influential, and he went out of his way to demonstrate to the white power structure of Major League Baseball that this is what should be done."

Plus, he said, "He had a great natural empathy for his fellow man."

As far back as 1918, Ruth played games against famous all-black teams, Jenkinson said. When Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees in 1920 and took his fame to a new level, Jenkinson added, half the games in his postseason barnstorming tour were against black teams.

"It sent a tremendous signal ... an enormously powerful message," Jenkinson said. Of course, it's one baseball chose to keep ignoring. That's baseball's fault, not Ruth's, just as it wasn't his fault that knuckleheaded fans chose to later use him as a club to beat up those who threatened his records.

Besides playing, Jenkinson said, Ruth would sit with black players in the dugouts, talk and socialize with them before and after games and mingle in the segregated stands. He scheduled games in locations where interracial competition was not only against local norms but also against the law.

Does this make Tosetti's case to retire Ruth's number stronger? Jenkinson says yes. I still believe this honor should remain solely with Robinson - call it a long-overdue apology - and that baseball should come up with another creative way to immortalize Ruth.

But I believe that aspect of Ruth's legacy deserves far more recognition. It's not the official honor his granddaughter seeks, but she should be proud of how, 60 years after his death, Ruth's image keeps getting better.