Cleveland Sports Forum

Apr 17, 2:04 PM EDT

In North, Civil War sites, events long 'forgotten'

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
Associated Press


FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) -- The gravesite of a Union Army major general sits largely forgotten in a small cemetery along the Massachusetts Turnpike.

A piece of the coat worn by President Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated rests quietly in a library attic in a Boston suburb. It's shown upon request, a rare occurrence.

A monument honoring one of the first official Civil War black units stands in a busy intersection in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse, barely gaining notice from the hustle of tourists and workers who pass by each day.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, states in the old South - the side that lost - are hosting elaborate re-enactments, intricate memorials, even formal galas highlighting the war's persistent legacy in the region. But for many states in the North - the side that won - only scant, smaller events are planned in an area of the nation that helped sparked the conflict but now, historians say, struggles to acknowledge it.

"It's almost like it never happened," said Annie Murphy, executive director of the Framingham History Center in Framingham, Mass. "But all you have to do is look around and see evidence that it did. It's just that people aren't looking here."

Massachusetts, a state that sent more than 150,000 men to battle and was home to some of the nation's most radical abolitionists, created a Civil War commemoration commission just earlier this month. Aging monuments stand unattended, sometimes even vandalized. Sites of major historical events related to the war remain largely unknown and often compete with the more regionally popular American Revolution attractions.

Meanwhile, states like Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri not only established commissions months, if not years ago, but also have ambitious plans for remembrance around well-known tourist sites and events. In South Carolina, for example, 300 Civil War re-enactors participated last week in well-organized staged battles to mark the beginning of the war.

To be sure, some Northern states have Civil War events planned and have formed commemoration commissions. Connecticut's 150th Civil War Commemoration was set up in 2008 and has scheduled a number of events and exhibits until 2015. Vermont, the first state to outlaw slavery, started a similar commission last year to coordinate activities statewide and in towns.

And some Massachusetts small non-profit and historic groups are trying to spark interest through research, planned tours and town events.

But observers say those events pale in comparison to those in the South.

That difference highlights Northern states' long struggle with how to remember a war that was largely fought on Southern soil, said Steven Mintz, a Columbia University history professor and author of "Moralists and Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers." For Northern states like Massachusetts, Mintz said revisiting the Civil War also means revisiting their own unsolved, uncomfortable issues like racial inequality after slavery.

"We've spent a century and a half turning (the war) into a gigantic North-South football game in which everybody was a hero," Mintz said. "In other words, we depoliticized the whole meaning of the war. And insofar as it was captured, it was captured by the descendants of the Confederates."

Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group open to male descendants of veterans who served in the Confederate armed forces, boast 30,000 members across the Old South.

The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War has 6,000 members.

Kevin Tucker, Massachusetts Department Commander for the Sons of the Union Veterans, said some Northern descendants don't even know they're related to Union veterans. "I found out after my father did some research and discovered that my great-great-grandfather had collected a Union pension," said Tucker, of Wakefield. "Until then, I had no idea."

Mark Simpson, 57, South Carolina commander of Sons of Confederate Veterans, said his family knew for generations about his great-great-grandfather's service in the Confederacy. "I visit his gravesite every year and put a flag down," Simpson said. "He is real to me."

Mintz said the North has another factor affecting its Civil War memory: immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. He said those populations, and more recent immigrants, sometimes struggle to identify with that war compared to more contemporary ones.

Then, Mintz said, after the Civil War a number of Northerners moved West - and to the South.

History buffs with the Framingham History Center in Framingham, Mass., a town where residents say "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first sung, said they are using the sesquicentennial to bring attention to long-forgotten local Civil War sites and personalities. Included in a planned event is a celebration at Harmony Grove, site of many anti-slavery rallies where abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison famously burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution and called it a "pact with the Devil."

Today, only a small plaque in front of a house announces the historic site now surrounded by industrial lots, train tracks and a motorcycle shop.

Volunteers also hope to raise around $1 million for Framingham's dilapidated Civil War memorial building to repair its cracked walls and leaky ceiling. The building houses a memorial honoring Framingham soldiers killed in the war and an American flag that flew over the Battles of Gettysburg and Antietam. (Murphy said the flag was discovered in the 1990s after being forgotten in a case for 90 years.)

Fred Wallace, the town's historian, said that more importantly, volunteers wanted to bring attention to General George H. Gordon, a long-forgotten Union hero from Framingham who was a prolific writer and organizer of the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. "I don't understand how this man was lost to history," said Wallace, who has researched Gordon's life and is now writing a biography on him. "He was in the middle of everything."

During a recent afternoon, Murphy took a reporter and photographer to Gordon's gravesite, which she said would be included in a planned walking tour. But Murphy couldn't locate the site and a cemetery official needed to comb through maps to find it.

Murphy said putting the pieces together of Gordon's life is part of the fun, even when it surprises residents.

"When I was told that I lived in what used to be a barn of Gen. Gordon's horse," 81-year-old Ellen Shaw said, "I was like ... General who?"

Since then Shaw has joined history buffs in searching for what they believe is a marker announcing the gravesite of Ashby, Gordon's horse in many battles. She hasn't located it on her property.

"I hope I find it one day when I'm just walking around outside," Shaw said. "Then I can say, 'Glad to meet you. Sorry we forgot about you.'"

Not as much damage here as there was about 2 weeks ago. At the same time there are areas nearby that were hit pretty hard. Further east got the worst of this storm.

I'll never forget flying into North Carolina from some city that I have forgotten not long after Hurricane Floyd.

I noted fires from the air, and later realized what I had seen was the burning of livestock carcasses to prevent disease after the storm.

Actually, in the fall of 1999, I think it was a pretty good chance I was flying from Philadelphia or Boston to Charlotte.

PETALUMA (KCBS) – Back in the day, Lester Chambers was nothing short of a local rock ‘n roll legend. The Petaluma resident and Mississippi native was lead singer for The Chambers Brothers, which hit the big time in the 60s with hits like “Time Has Come Today.”

Ironically, recently, he felt that he himself was running out of time.

“I was very ill and at the same time homeless,” the now 71-year-old described his recent run of bad luck.

KCBS’ Mike Sugerman Reports:

About The Bay: Music Legend Emerges From Homelessness In The Bay Area And Sets His Sights On A Comeback
That was just six months ago – the result of a lifetime of fighting cancer, tumors, back and eye problems, which were only exacerbated by financial troubles. He was squatting in a Sonoma County studio.

“You know how you can get into a tailspin? Big at the top and small at the bottom, well the big top went all the way down to the bottom,” he explained the fall after his incredible, meteoric rise. “And left me spinning around in the mud.”

Friends from back in the day, including Yoko Ono, pitched in to help Chambers find a more suitable housing situation and medical care – ensuring he had a legitimate shot at getting back on his feet.

Now, another friend, the legendary guitarist and “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” co-writer Steve Cropper is coming out to perform with Chambers at Yoshi’s in San Francisco on Thursday night.

Chambers planned to sing a number of Cropper’s songs during what he hoped would be his official comeback concert.

“I’m singing better than I ever did, ever did before,” he declared emphatically. “I’ve been extremely blessed, again.”

What a comeback it could be – it wasn’t that long ago that audiences screamed at the mere sight and sound of Chambers and his siblings.

Not only was Chambers the lead singer of the group, he garnered a reputation for making the cowbell a legitimate musical instrument.

If all goes well on Thursday night, it just may be that Chambers’ time has come – again.

“I’m so better, it ain’t funny,” he remarked. “I am so better, I can’t wait to tell the world.”

Whodathunkit? A Kenyan won the Boston Marathon!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/sport ... athon.html

A dose of some real country blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikxLNaAYu5k

And a dose of some blues harp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98U_nHIa ... re=related

Mortenson vows to continue, as Krakauer charges deceit



Posted: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:15 am | Updated: 8:29 am, Tue Apr 19, 2011.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

Greg Mortenson, who became Bozeman's hometown hero for his inspiring work building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, vowed Sunday to continue his work despite a highly critical "60 Minutes" investigation, and then on Monday was targeted by an even more scathing Jon Krakauer article entitled "Three Cups of Deceit."

Krakauer, author of "Into Thin Air," charged that Mortenson has made millions of dollars from his speaking tours promoting "Three Cups of Tea" and other best-selling books, that his books are "full of lies" designed to inflate the myth of Greg Mortenson, and that because of dysfunctional management, many of the schools started by his charity Central Asia Institute have become empty "ghost schools."

Krakauer concluded that while Mortenson has been a tireless advocate for girls' education and established dozens of schools that benefitted tens of thousands of children, he has "recklessly betrayed" the public's trust, "damaging his credibility beyond repair," and that the only way to salvage CAI would be for it to sever ties with Mortenson.

Attempts Monday evening to reach Mortenson for comment on Krakauer's allegations were unsuccessful.

Over the weekend, Mortenson and the Bozeman-based Central Asia Institute mounted a vigorous defense against Sunday's "60 Minutes" report, issuing written statements and giving interviews to Outside Magazine.

"But we're in this for the long haul," Mortenson told Alex Heard, Outside Magazine's editorial director, "and what I'd ask supporters of CAI to remember is that we're still completely committed to what really matters: building schools for kids in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Viking Press, Mortenson's Penguin Group-owned publisher, issued a statement Monday, saying, "Greg Mortenson's work as a humanitarian in Afghanistan and Pakistan has provided tens of thousands of children with an education. ‘60 Minutes' is a serious news organization and in the wake of their report, Viking plans to carefully review the materials with the author."

The allegations prompted strong reactions from readers across the country. In written comments posted on websites of the Bozeman Chronicle, New York Times, Outside and elsewhere, reactions ranged from condemnations of "60 Minutes" for a "hatchet job" that damaged a good-hearted man fighting for a worthy cause, to others that questioned whether Mortenson has been lying and defrauding the public.

In the Outside Magazine article, which can be read at outsideonline.com, Mortenson defended the "Three Cups of Tea" story of how he first came to promise to build his first school in the village of Korphe, Pakistan, as based on true events, though he conceded literary license had been taken by condensing multiple visits into one.

He told Outside that in 1993 he stumbled exhausted into Korphe after failing to climb K2, the world's second highest peak, had tea with a village elder and spent two or three hours there, before leaving to rejoin his climbing party. It wasn't until a year later, he admitted, that he promised to build a school. In the book, he described spending a much longer time recovering his health in Korphe and making his promise.

Krakauer, however, charged that Mortenson originally was trying to build a school at another village entirely, Khane, and quotes from Mortenson's first 1994 plea for funds in the American Himalayan Foundation newsletter. He charges that when Mortenson switched to Korphe, he was breaking his promise to Khane.

In his 71-page article, published online at http://www.byliner.com, Krakauer charged that Mortenson's spending of CAI money is "accountable to no one." Krakauer alleged that the pennies donated by U.S. schoolchildren to CAI's Pennies For Peace program haven't all been spent on supporting overseas schools, as promised.

Krakauer quoted Gordon Wiltsie of Bozeman, the respected photographer for National Geographic and former CAI treasurer, as saying, "'Greg regards CAI as his personal ATM.'" Wiltsie resigned from CAI in 2002.

The three-member CAI board, of which Mortenson is one member, issued a statement Saturday saying though it receives no money from Mortenson's book royalties or speaking tours, "Greg has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars" and "worked for the organization without compensation for a number of years."

Krakauer charged Mortenson has been paid at least a $21,792 stipend every year since 1995 from the AHI Hoerni/Pakistan Fund; that Mortenson charged $100,000 on CAI credit cards without providing any receipts; that he spent millions in CAI funds on chartered jets and advertisements for his books; and received a $700,000 advance for his second book.

Krakauer also charged Mortenson has earned millions from 60 paid speaking events a year. Krakauer conceded Mortenson does give many talks for free, without charging his average $30,000 fee.

Those free talks include the 2007 speech to Montana State University's first Freshman Convocation and the 2009 all-day lectures to Bozeman public school students and community members at the MSU Fieldhouse, organizers of those events said Monday.

"He was captivating and it was terrific," said Greg Young, vice provost of undergraduate education at MSU, who organized the Freshman Convocation.

Young said news stories about the allegations didn't seem to consider "the whole picture."

"He's been working tirelessly, putting himself in danger. It seemed like a witch hunt," Young said.

Mortenson told Outside that when a law firm raised concerns about CAI finances, he personally paid for a second law firm to do an analysis, and since mid-January, he has started paying for all his own travel. He said the experts found that he, the books and the charity are all "intricately woven. They said CAI needs me, and I'm really the only reason CAI can exist right now."

The experts concluded that "we've done nothing wrong," Mortenson said, but they've recommended greater separation between him and the charity. He promised to release the report soon.

Mortenson also said that since December 2010, when CAI raised $8 million in donations, he has cut back on advertising and book purchases by 80 percent and removed his name and books from the CAI website. Since then, donations have decreased dramatically, so that instead of expecting to increase donations from last year's $23 million, he now expects them to fall to $15 million.

CAI will have to become "a more bureaucratic organization," Mortenson said, "that can go on without me in the near future."

Asked by Outside what he would say to the millions of people who are unsure whether to believe in him and CAI, Mortenson said he took responsibility, that he wasn't a good manager, but was making changes.

"This whole experience has taught me to be even more humble, and to slow down and delegate," he said.

Yesterday I went in to San Francisco to taste a little of the 105th Anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

There's a 105 plus year old fountain near Geary and Market that stayed operational after the quake.....when almost no other fountains or fire hydrants did. It's a landmark because it allowed 1906 firefighters to save a major portion of the flame engulfed city.

It's tradition for people to gather at the fountain at 5:12AM.....the moment the quake struck....and lay wreaths and such. I didn't make it at 5:12AM for THAT ceremony.


The piece of the ceremony that got my attention was the post ceremony "Blood Mary Breakfast and Brunch" held at Lefty O'Doul's. Likely one of the best bars and eating places in America for baseball fans.

Photos of Lefty and Joe DiMaggio and others including Marilyn Monroe of the era cover the deep bar in the otherwise touristy area of the Powell Street Cable Car turntable.

http://www.leftyodouls.biz/


I made the Bloody Mary time.

A good time was seemingly had by all.

Just to "shake some things up," a 3.4 quake was felt by many in the Bay Area yesterday afternoon.

rocky raccoon wrote:A dose of some real country blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikxLNaAYu5k

Thanks, JC


I never knew a 9 string guitar even existed.

TFISC/C - I am trying those beans today.

This is not satire!

Zsa Zsa Gabor to become new mother at 94, husband says

By Alan Duke, CNN

April 19, 2011 7:19 a.m. EDT

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband wants his 94-year-old wife to become a mother again using an egg donor, artificial insemination and a surrogate mother, Prince Frederic von Anhalt told CNN Thursday.


"I've gone through the initial steps of donor matching and blood work and next week the donation process will begin," von Anhalt said.

Gabor's only child, Francesca Hilton, described herself as shocked when told of the plan Thursday.
"That's just weird," Hilton said.

Von Anhalt, 67, said he is working with Dr. Mark Surry of the Southern California Reproductive Center in Beverly Hills. CNN calls to the center have not been returned.

Gabor has suffered major health problems in the last year, including hip replacement surgery and a leg amputation. She has been unable to walk since a 2002 car accident.

"I'm a retired guy," von Anhalt said. "I can take care of it."

Gabor talked about adding a new baby to the family when they got married 25 years ago, and she brought the topic up again in recent months, he said.

One reason is their desire to have someone carry on the famous Gabor name. None of her two sisters left an heir and her only child does not use the Gabor name, von Anhalt said.

Francesca Hilton, 64, is Gabor's only child, the product of her second marriage to hotel magnate Conrad Hilton.

She told CNN that her full name is Constance Francesca Gabor Hilton.

The process, which includes finding an egg donor and a surrogate mother to give birth to the baby, will cost about $100,000, von Anhalt estimated.

The prince, who acquired his royal title when he was adopted as an adult by a German woman, is Gabor's ninth husband.

He has complained in recent months about financial burdens caused by his wife's hospitalizations. While he put their Bel Air, California mansion up for sale earlier this year, he said he is not actively marketing it.
"In life you need something to live for," he said. "If my wife passes away before me, I have nothing to live for."

The Hungarian-born actress, the second of the three celebrated Gabor sisters, is famous for her many marriages and strong personality as well as her acting prowess.

Her more prominent films include John Huston's Toulouse-Lautrec biopic, "Moulin Rouge," in 1952, "The Story of Three Loves" in 1953, "The Girl in the Kremlin" in 1957, and Orson Welles' 1958 cult classic, "Touch of Evil."

gaylord perry wrote:TFISC/C - I am trying those beans today.

Let me know how you and yours like them. They hit my taste buds pretty well.

Well, I think they were more bother than they were worth, although it didn;t' cost much to make them. Ig I ever cook beans again, I am using the crock pot!