What It Is

Mark Knopfler at his most Mark Knopfleresque.  From his 2000 solo album.

The Drinking Dens Are Spilling Out
There's Staggering In The Square
There's Lads And Lasses Falling About
And A Crackling In The Air
Down Around The Dungeon Doors
The Shelters And The Queues
Everybody's Looking For
Somebody's Arms To Fall Into
And It's What It Is
It's What It Is Now

There's Frost On The Graves And The Monuments
But The Taverns Are Warm In Town
People Curse The Government
And Shovel Hot Food Down
The Lights Are Out In City Hall
The Castle And The Keep
The Moon Shines Down Upon It All
The Legless And Asleep

And It's Cold On The Tollgate
With The Wagons Creeping Through
Cold On The Tollgate
God Knows What I Could Do With You
And It's What It Is
It's What It Is Now

The Garrison Sleeps In The Citadel
With The Ghosts And The Ancient Stones
High Up On The Parapet
A Scottish Piper Stands Alone
And High On The Wind
The Highland Drums Begin To Roll
And Something From The Past Just Comes
And Stares Into My Soul

And It's Cold On The Tollgate
With The Caledonian Blues
Cold On The Tollgate
God Knows What I Could Do With You
And It's What It Is
It's What It Is Now
What It Is
It's What It Is Now

There's A Chink Of Light, There's A Burning Wick
There's A Lantern In The Tower
Wee Willie Winkie With A Candlestick
Still Writing Songs In The Wee Wee Hours
On Charlotte Street I Take
A Walking Stick From My Hotel
The Ghost Of Dirty Dick
Is Still In Search Of Little Nell
And It's What It Is
It's What It Is Now
Oh It's What It Is
What It Is Now

Cause, May I Introduce You To Effect?

From a recent Austin (Texas) American Statesman story about rising property taxes:

“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.

“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

There is no one to step in and address the big picture other than us.

Although, on the other hand, Ms Gardner may be right and it is time for They to take some responsibility.

The Boys Of Pointe Du Hoc

President Reagan's address given on the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings.  A speech recognizing the contribution of those from every nation that landed on the beaches that day and the challenges facing a still divided Europe forty years later.

Today on the 70th anniversary of D-Day we are almost as distant from Reagan's speech as he was from the actual landings.  The youngest surviving Americans who landed that day are now in their late 80s.

Tank Man

On the night of June 3-4, 1989 the China People's Liberation Army moved to end the non-violent democracy protests that had for several weeks rocked several Chinese cities, most prominently at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.  That night, hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians were killed and the demonstrations crushed.

On the morning of June 5, on Chang'an Avenue just outside Tiananmen, a street that THC and every other tourist to Beijing has been on, the confrontation that most Westerners remember took place creating the indelible image of the event.  A man carrying two shopping bags and whose identity remains unknown twenty five years later placed himself in the middle of the road and for several moments blocked a long parade of tanks.  That solitary man remains the symbol, not just of what happened at Tiananmen, but of every person who has had the courage to stand and risk their lives against oppression and that is why the image endures.
(From Wikipedia)
Twenty five years later he is known only as Tank Man.  A Google search on "Tank Man Tiananmen" gives 584,000 results and Wikipedia has a Tank Man article but his name is still a mystery.

Below is a wider shot (also from Wikipedia) showing the entire column of tanks (Tiananmen is in the upper left and center of the photo) and Tank Man is in the lower left.
 
In 2009, a street level photo of Tank Man was published.  Taken by an AP photographer, Terril Jones, who did not realize for several weeks what his photo contained, it shows two young men fleeing the approaching tanks.  Just to the right of the running man on the left is the small figure of Tank Man, already standing in the middle of the road.
The video at this link which THC strongly recommends viewing contains more information on the confrontation. The tanks try to maneuver around Tank Man but he moves to block them and then, amazingly, climbs onto the lead tank and speaks with one of the crew members.  The video ends with him being hustled off of the street by bystanders.  Even that last event is shrouded in mystery - some observers say it was the State Security Police that hustled him off, others that it was concerned bystanders, friends or other protesters trying to save his life.

The Chinese government maintains it does not know who he is or what happened to him.  Is he alive?  Dead?  Imprisoned?  The images and videos linked here are all blocked in China (for that matter, all Google based blogs like this one, are blocked) and knowledge about what happened in Tiananmen in 1989, including the existence of Tank Man, is limited within the country.  China is a great country and THC has enjoyed his many visits and his friends there but the day must come when there is a government that tells what it knows about the identity of Tank Man or when he or those who know him feel free to disclose his identity.  We hope that is sooner rather than later.

Forgotten Americans: Cumberland Posey Jr & Sr

Seventh installment in the Forgotten Americans series 

From 1937 to 1945 the Homestead Grays won eight Negro League Baseball pennants.  The most legendary of the Negro League teams (only challenged by the Kansas City Monarchs) and led by the great slugger Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard (of whom it was said "Trying to sneak a fastball past him was like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster"), the Grays were owned by Cumberland Willis Posey Jr who started as a player on the then semi-pro Grays in 1911, became manager in 1916 and finally owner in 1919.  "Cum" Posey, as he was known, came from a remarkable family.

Cum's father was Cumberland Posey Sr, the son of freed slaves, born in 1858 in Maryland.  Starting as a deck sweeper on a riverboat Posey Sr was fascinated by mechanical equipment and exhibited an aptitude for the subject rising to become a stroke engineer on a riverboat.  Overcoming a lot of resistance he eventually became what is thought to be the first African-American licensed as an engineer in the United States moving on to design riverboats and owning his own riverboat company.  Settling in Homestead, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh, with his wife Angelina, who was the first African-American woman to graduate from Ohio State University, Posey also had a talent for business in general, investing in, and owning, several other enterprises including Diamond Coke & Coal Co, the largest black owned company in Pennsylvania.
(Posey Sr)
He was also the chief investor and President of the Pittsburgh Courier, the African American newspaper for the region.

Posey Sr's success allowed him to raise his family in a large mansion in Homestead.  He died in 1925.
(Posey homestead; this picture and one above from Black History in Pennsylvania)
The eldest of his four children was Cumberland Posey Jr, born in 1890.

From his youngest days, Posey Jr showed he was a talented athlete and his best sport was the newly invented game of basketball.  He led Homestead High to championships and then went off to Penn State where he became the first African-American to play intercollegiate sports for that institution.  Though only 5'9" he made the basketball squad in his sophomore year (freshman could not play at that time).
(1913 Penn State basketball team, Cum Posey seated on right, from Can-of-Corn)

Posey was much more interested in sports than in studying and poor grades led to him leaving Penn State.  He was clearly very intelligent and driven but one reads into his history a streak of rebelliousness and we wonder how his father reacted to all of this.  He then enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh becoming known as one of the best basketball players in the country before exhausting his eligibility without graduating.

The young man then gave a third try to college under unusual circumstances enrolling at Holy Ghost College (now known as Duquesne University) while passing himself off as a white man (Posey was light-skinned) named Charles Cumbert.  He was the leading scorer on the basketball team and captain of the golf team before finally dropping out once again (he was enshrined in the University's Hall of Fame in 1988 under his real name). 

Throughout this entire time, Posey had also helped create and lead a black semi-pro basketball team that eventually became known as the Loendi Big Five, helping him to gain a reputation as one of the leading black atheletes in America and culminating in a run of four straight Colored Basketball World Championships from 1920-23.  Of that period, the Interstate Tattler, another African-American newspaper, declared "The mystic wand of Posey ruled basketball with as much éclat as Rasputin dominated the Queen of all the Russias.”
(photo from BlackFives)
Parallel to his basketball career, Posey also pursued an interest in baseball, joining the forerunner of the Homestead Grays in 1911 and becoming the team manager in 1916 around the team he left Duquesne. And to fill his spare time he played football for the semi-professional Homestead Grays and managed the Homestead Grays Boxing Club.
(as player with the Grays)
Cum Posey helped to build the Grays into a powerhouse over the years.  Even before the championship streak began in the late 1930s, he'd recruited great players like Oscar Charleston and Judy Johnson to play for the Grays. He is often given credit for discovering Josh Gibson, considered the greatest Negro League slugger and compared by many to Babe Ruth and eventually Cum became the driving force of the Negro National League, taking over as its Secretary in 1937.

Cum Posey Jr died of lung cancer in March 1946 a year before Jackie Robinson reintegrated Major League Baseball.  It would have been interesting to see how Cum would have adjusted to the new world.  He was a tough and smart competitor and would have more than stood his own against any Major League owner of the 1920s, 30s or 40s.  A Pittsburgh Courier sportswriter summed it up:

"Some may say he crushed the weak as well as the strong on the way to the top of the ladder.  But no matter what his critics say they cannot deny that he was the smartest person in Negro baseball certainly the most successful."

(Owner of the Grays)
Cum Posey Jr was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006 joining his players mentioned above.

SOURCES:
BlackFives.org
Can of Corn.com
Black History in Pennsylvania
SABR Bio Project 

An Epic Tirade

We've just passed the 31st anniversary of the epic tirade of Lee Elia, manager of the Chicago Cubs on April 29, 1983.  The Cubs were having a tough start to the season (what else is new?) and were 5-14 at that point when Lee decided to let a few local reporters know what he thought of his team and of Cubs fans.  Elia survived the immediate fallout from his outburst but was fired in August.  He's gone on to a long baseball career managing the Philadelphia Phillies, coaching for the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, Orioles and Mariners and currently as special assistant to the GM of the Atlanta Braves.

This rant actually makes Earl Weaver look tame.  Don't play the video at work or around the kids.For more background this is a funny 2013 interview with the reporter who recorded the rant.