Year: 2009

Baseball: The Summer of 1960

Baseball: The Summer of 1960

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As a sequel to 1960, let’s take 2019. See “Nats Win!”

Until 2019 I was a frus­trat­ed fan of the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als, as I was the old Wash­ing­ton Sen­a­tors. As a New York school­boy in the Fifties, I’d go up to Yan­kee Sta­di­um to root for the Sen­a­tors when they were in town. Always wore my navy blue cap with the white block “W.” Big, scary Bronx voic­es would shout: “Hey, kid—the Wash­ing­ton section’s in the bleachers.”

The Sen­a­tors were peren­ni­al heart­break­ers, although in mid-1952 they were only five games out of first place and con­sid­ered to be pen­nant con­tenders.…

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bulldog
(Photo by Oxfordian Kissuth, Creative Commons)
Bulldog Not: Say it isn’t So

Bulldog Not: Say it isn’t So

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"As a long-time bulldog owner (you have met various of my much-loved mutts) I am at once delighted and appalled by what is being proposed. The Kennel Club (if you want an historic parallel, think of the Gestapo or George Orwell's Thought Police) is now demanding changes to what is known as the written standard for some dogs—not just bulldogs, but other breeds too. They will eventually get their way, but it will take decades of selective breeding to produce a series to a “new” standard." —Graham Robson

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Kemp
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson with Former Secretary Jack Kemp in front of Jack’s portrait, HUD Headquarters, 12 March 2008. (Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, public domain)
Jack French Kemp 1935-2009

Jack French Kemp 1935-2009

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“Dash of greyhound, slipping thongs…”

On Eleuthera, where we spent many win­ters, there was fas­ci­na­tion with U.S. Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. A virtue of island is that racism, in the sense we all know it, doesn’t real­ly exist. Our easy-going trop­i­cal strand fea­tures smiles of wel­com­ing locals and friends who have known each oth­er for years. It just doesn’t seem to mat­ter whether the face in front of you is black or white.

So it was per­fect­ly nat­ur­al for the wife of our local gro­cer to ask me in 2008: “Is it pos­si­ble for a non-white to be elect­ed President?”……

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O’Reilly, Churchill and “Poison Gas”

O’Reilly, Churchill and “Poison Gas”

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A famous quote from the Viet­nam War, alleged to have been made by a U.S. pilot but actu­al­ly uttered by jour­nal­ist Peter Arnett, was: “…it became nec­es­sary to destroy the town to save it.” I was remind­ed of it when Bill O’Reilly on Fri­day May 8th destroyed Churchill in order to save him.

Intent on dis­prov­ing Barack Obama’s non-quote of Churchill (“We don’t tor­ture”; see “Oba­ma, Churchill and Tor­ture”), the Fox News Chan­nel com­men­ta­tor, con­duct­ed an “inves­ti­ga­tion,” which turned out to be a phone call to a pro­fes­sor at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, whose name I for­get.…

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Re-Rat Awards to Senators Gregg, Specter

Re-Rat Awards to Senators Gregg, Specter

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In Finest Hour 142, Spring 2009, I proud­ly pre­sent­ed the Churchill Re-Rat Award (issued infre­quent­ly) to Sen­a­tor Judd Gregg (R.-NH), who accept­ed nom­i­na­tion as Pres­i­dent Obama’s Sec­re­tary of Com­merce but then with­drew, say­ing he could not bal­ance “being in the Cab­i­net ver­sus myself as an indi­vid­ual doing my job.” Gregg’s nom­i­na­tion had sewn fear among con­ser­v­a­tives who learned that NH’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov­er­nor, John Lynch, would appoint a lib­er­al Repub­li­can in his place. 

On 26 Jan­u­ary 1941 Win­ston Churchill, who had desert­ed the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty for the Lib­er­als in 1904 but oozed back into the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty in 1925 (after being appoint­ed Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer the pre­vi­ous year by Con­ser­v­a­tive Prime Min­is­ter Stan­ley Bald­win) remarked to his pri­vate sec­re­tary John Colville: “Any­one can rat, but it takes a cer­tain amount of inge­nu­ity to re-rat.”…

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Printed Signatures and “Painting as a Pastime”

Printed Signatures and “Painting as a Pastime”

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I recent­ly acquired Paint­ing as a Pas­time, reprint­ed 1965.  Across  from the title page is the mem­o­rable pho­to of Mr. Churchill at an easel.   Under this pho­to is his sig­na­ture.  The sig­na­ture seems authen­tic,  how­ev­er I am not an expert and am unsure.  For this edi­tion, is there a  sig­na­ture that has been print­ed under the pho­to?  —W.R.

Yes; it’s a print­ed sig­na­ture, present in every copy of the book. When Churchill actu­al­ly signed copies, it would usu­al­ly be on the first free end­pa­per, or occa­sion­al­ly on the title page. 

Paint­ing as a Pas­time, Churchill’s charm­ing essay on his chief hob­by (and oth­er hobbies—he is also big on books) was first pub­lished in The Strand mag­a­zine in 1921, reprint­ed in Thoughts and Adven­tures, and final­ly pub­lished as a vol­ume in its own right in 1948.…

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Torture, Obama, Churchill

Torture, Obama, Churchill

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Tor­ture Top­ics: In his press con­fer­ence of 29 April 2009, in response to a ques­tion on the dis­clo­sure of top secret mem­os on the use of “enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion meth­ods,” Mr. Oba­ma said:

I was struck by an arti­cle that I was read­ing the oth­er day talk­ing about the fact that the British dur­ing World War II, when Lon­don was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, ‘We don’t tor­ture,’ when the entire British—all of the British people—were being sub­ject­ed to unimag­in­able risk and threat….the rea­son was that Churchill under­stood — you start tak­ing short­cuts, over time, that cor­rodes what’s best in a peo­ple.…

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Lectures and Book Signings

Lectures and Book Signings

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Churchill by Himself

LECTURES AND BOOK SIGNINGS

10 May 2010: Toron­to. Annu­al Din­ner, Inter­na­tion­al Churchill Soci­ety of Canada.

11 Sep­tem­ber 2009: Churchill For Today: “Shall We All Com­mit Sui­cide?” and Churchill’s oth­er futur­ist essays: pan­elist and mod­er­a­tor. 26th Inter­na­tion­al Churchill Con­fer­ence, West­in St. Fran­cis Hotel.

7 May 2009, Boston: Eng­lish-Speak­ing Union and New Eng­land Churchillians, Union Club, 6PM.

3 May 2009, Detroit: Win­ston Churchill Soci­ety of Michi­gan, Dear­born Inn, 5:30PM.

2 May 2009, Chica­go:  Churchill Friends of Greater Chica­go, Fair­mont Hotel, 6PM.

30 Novem­ber 2008, Dal­las: “Churchill by Him­self.” North Texas Church­llians, Pap­padeaux Seafood Kitchen. Pre­sen­ta­tion and book signing.

30 Novem­ber 2007, Boston: “Churchill and Ire­land: Notable Pro­nounce­ments on Ire­land, 1901-1948.” New…

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Definition of “Fanatic”

Definition of “Fanatic”

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Can you ver­i­fy whether or not Churchill said: “A fanat­ic is some­one who won’t change his mind and won’t change the sub­ject”?  —T.M., Ontario, Canada

 

Sor­ry, it’s not Churchill. From Churchill by Him­self, the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix (unat­trib­uted quotes), page 574: “Often attrib­uted to Churchill or Pres­i­dent Tru­man. Ralph Keyes, edi­tor, The Quote Ver­i­fi­er, writes: ‘It’s a quo­ta­tion I see often, but with­out a source. I doubt that it’s Tru­man, or, if he ever said it, that the quo­ta­tion orig­i­nat­ed with him.'”

 …

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“Where does the family start?”

“Where does the family start?”

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We would like per­mis­sion to use the fol­low­ing quo­ta­tion in a fam­i­ly his­to­ry book we are pub­lish­ing in the sum­mer. “Where does the fam­i­ly start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl – no supe­ri­or alter­na­tive has yet been found.” The book will be pub­lished in Hebrew and Eng­lish, hard­back, 40 pages, colour, ini­tial print run 1,500 in each lan­guage. —J.B.

Thanks for ask­ing, but you don’t need per­mis­sion from the Churchill lit­er­ary inter­ests to reprint a sin­gle brief quo­ta­tion. How­ev­er, your punc­tu­a­tion is a lit­tle off. It should read (with excla­ma­tion mark)…

“Where does the fam­i­ly start?…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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