Quote of the Day (Philip Roth, on Loneliness)

“There is no protest to be lodged against loneliness—not all the bombing campaigns in history have made a dent in it. The most lethal of manmade explosives can't touch it.”— Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Philip Roth (1933-2018), American Pastoral (1997)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Bewitched,’ Milking the Mother-In-Law-As-Witch Bit for All It’s Worth)

Endora [played by Agnes Moorehead]: [casting a spell over humorless son-in-law Darrin Stephens]: “To avoid the shock of sudden wit,/ we'll start from scratch—bit by bit!/ A chime will cause your brain to whirl,/ your jokes will cause their hair to curl!”— Bewitched, Season 5, Episode 27, “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” original air date Apr. 15, 1971, teleplay by Ed Jurist, directed by William Asher

It’s true that Bewitched got tons of comic mileage at out of recurring characters like Doctor Bombay, Uncle Arthur, Samantha’s father Maurice, Mrs. Kravitz, and Aunt Clara.

But the old reliable standby, as far as I’m concerned, was Samantha’s mom Endora. 

The show’s writers (including future Same Time, Next Year playwright Bernard Slade) must have had a great deal of fun not only concocting her bon mots at the expense of what she regarded as her witless, antagonistic mortal son-in-law, but also rhyming spells like the above that she would continually use to torture him.

Agnes Moorehead received six Emmy nominations, along with a reliable paycheck for the eight seasons that Bewitched was on the air. She made no bones to interviewers that she had an accomplished career before she signed up for the sitcom, including Oscar nominations for The Magnificent Ambersons, Mrs. Parkington, Johnny Belinda, and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. The impression left was that this role as the acid-tongued witch mother was beneath her.

Was Bewitched formulaic? You bet. But Ms. Moorehead furnished much joy over the years to its fans. I wish she could have enjoyed that aspect of her job a bit more.

This Day in Art History (John Constable, Masterful English Landscape Painter, Born)

June 11, 1776— John Constable, who labored for more than a quarter-century before the British art establishment and buyers recognized the uncommon sensitivity and beauty of his landscape paintings, was born at East Bergholt in Suffolk, England.

The contrast with the other great English landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner (only a year older), could hardly be starker:

* Constable, not elected to the Royal Academy till age 52, found considerable favor in his last decade; Turner, the youngest Academician when elected 25 years earlier, polarized the public with his late works.

*Constable was deeply devoted to his sickly wife Maria Bickness and their seven children; Turner was a perfectionist who often shunted aside those closest to him.

*Constable held traditional beliefs in the Anglican Church; Turner was a thoroughgoing iconoclast.

*Constable, according to art critic John Ruskin, was “an industrious and innocent amateur blundering his way to a superficial expression of one or two popular aspects of common nature,” while this influential Victorian not only bought works from Turner but watched him create in his studio.

(To understand how Constable and Turner became bitter rivals—including a pivotal 1831 incident involving placement of their paintings in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition—see this fine 2018 blog post by art historian and an independent lecturer Cindy Polemis.)

For the longest time, though several documentaries were made about him, Constable didn’t possess the kind of cantankerous, eccentric personality that attracted feature film creators, as his contemporary and rival did when Mike Leigh made his 2014 biographical drama Mr. Turner. He still hasn’t had an extended cinema treatment.

But in 2024, “The Painters,” a segment of the regionally distributed movie Once Upon a Time in Suffolk, dealt with Constable’s friendship with John Dunthorne, with whom he competed to impress a young lady in need of a new portrait.

In one sense, the personalities of Constable and Turner were expressed through their subject matter. The turbulent Turner was fascinated by stormy weather, as in his 1824 watercolor Brighthelmston, Sussex. Constable looked to the tranquil, lush English countryside, reflecting his belief, as noted in Robert Cumming’s Art: A Visual History, that “nature, with its freshness, sunlight, trees, shadows, streams, and so forth, was full of moral and spiritual goodness.”

For a nation plunging in earnest into the Industrial Revolution, such Constable paintings as The Hay Wain and Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree (1821), as well as The Leaping Horse (1825) depicted an exquisite but fragile natural landscape in danger of being lost.

Quote of the Day (Lord Bertrand Russell, on the Three Great Passions of His Life)

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” — British philosopher, mathematician, social critic, and Nobel Literature laureate Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1956)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ on a Looming Financial Scandal)

[The investment bank Phillips Berenson has collapsed, and rumors circulate in “The City,” London’s central business district and financial center, that it’s due to financial chicanery. Another bank, the more venerable Bartlett's, is also in trouble, having lent it so much money. Its chair, Sir Desmond Glazebrook, confers with Prime Minister James Hacker about a government bailout for his institution.]

James Hacker [played by Paul Eddington]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Sir Desmond Glazebrook [played by Richard Vernon]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Hacker: “Well, uh... only what I read in the papers.”

Glazebrook: “Oh, good. Yes, well, they're in a bit of trouble, that's all. They lent a bit of money to the wrong chaps. Could happen to anyone.”

Dorothy Wainwright [Hacker’s political adviser] [[played by Deborah Norton]: “So you haven't heard any rumors?”

Glazebrook: “Oh well, there are always rumors.”

Dorothy: “Of bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation, insider dealing?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, come, come, dear lady, those are strong words.”

Dorothy: “So they're not true?”

Glazebrook: “Well, there's... there are different uh, different ways of looking at things.”

Dorothy: “What's a different way of looking at embezzlement?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, well, of course, if a chap embezzles, you have to do something about it.”

Hacker: “Have a serious word with him?”

Glazebrook: “Absolutely. Usually it's just a chap who's advanced himself a short-term, unauthorised, unsecured, temporary loan from the company's account, and, uh, invested it unluckily. You know, horse falls at the first fence, that sort of thing.”— Yes, Prime Minister, Season 2, Episode 4, “A Conflict of Interest,” original air date Dec. 31, 1987, teleplay by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, directed by Sydney Lotterby

You can keep your Benny Hills. When it comes to British TV humor, Yes, Minister, and its equally waggish follow-up, Yes, Prime Minister, are the shows for me. These UK political satires aired in the Eighties, and the closest we’ve had stateside has been the more potty-mouthed Veep. I wish they would be broadcast as often this side of the Atlantic as The Honeymooners.

The government bailouts of risk-happy financial institutions at the heart of the above dialogue is something that has rightly enraged American taxpayers, with the Bush I-era savings and loan scandal and the Global Financial Crisis of the “oughts.” But something else intrigued me about this episode: that title, “A Conflict of Interest.”

That concept has been a part of American life since the founding of the republic, including the establishment of the First National Bank and, more starkly, slaveowning lawmakers who passed legislation benefiting themselves at the expense of other human beings.

But these ethically questionable interactions of government and business have ramped up, to an unprecedented degree, under the current administration.

President Trump, his family, and his Cabinet have profited so abundantly and shamelessly from such transactions—and following their trail has been so complex—that many, if not most, Americans have given up trying to keep track of it all. It’s much easier to follow the Epstein files (though, truth be told, financial interests are an often-overlooked part of this still unresolved scandal).

The outcome is what you might expect. None of the departments in the executive branch make even a pretense now at the relatively gentle coaxing of the truth from Sir Desmond employed by PM Hacker and his aide Dorothy. The regulatory agencies that could have raised alarms were emasculated by Trump and Elon Musk’s Orwellian-titled Department of Government Efficiency.

The path was paved for this through three Supreme Court decisions that gave the Trump Administration virtual carte blanche to transform the government into an endless slot machine for themselves and their allies:

*In Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Trump v. District of Columbia) (2021), the justice vacated lower courts’ rulings involving allegations that, as president, Trump benefited from the hotels and restaurants that he owns, violating two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution known as the emoluments clauses.  

* In Trump v. United States (2024), the GOP-appointed majority ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers, and at least presumptive immunity for all other official acts—a decision opening the door to Trump lawlessness in his return to power.

* In Murphy V. NCAA (2018), the court invalidated a federal ban on states legalizing sports gambling—opening the way to, as Drew Hutchinson’s May Bloomberg Law article noted, is opening companies to “questions about insider trading, reputational and legal risk, and whether internal policies address this new environment.” And what do you know—Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to Kalshi, one of the two major prediction market platforms, and a major investor in another, Polymarket.

As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett noted, “If Trump dictates how prediction markets develop, while his family profits, it will make Washington look (even more) like a corrupt casino. So, too, if insider trading goes unchecked.”

Over the last 560 days, the Trump family has taken in an estimated $2.7 billion, according to “Trump’s Take,” a real-time financial tracker documenting the cash and gifts that the President and his family have received by selling the presidency.

All the money-making schemes—ventures that would have been certainly regarded as undignified under all his predecessors, and even unconstitutional—have just kept coming: Trump Bibles, fragrances, gold cell phones; the $TRUMP Meme Coin; "America's 250th Anniversary" hats; and a luxury resort proposal by son-in-law Jared Kushner in Albania that has drawn more than a week’s worth of protest in that nation over the potential environmental damage it may cause.

Then there is the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) scheduled for the White House South Lawn on June 14—not so coincidentally, Trump’s birthday.

Leave aside whether this tacky $60 million spectacle would have been better staged in the Roman Coliseum under an ancient emperor’s gaze, or even whether the event offers Trump ally and UFC chief executive Dana White direct access to the White House for a prime marketing opportunity.

Lost in all of this is that Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in the parent company of UFC, TKO Holding Group—a little more than two weeks after he began promoting the event.

Conflict of interest, anyone? Well, as Sir Desmond might say, there are “different ways of looking at things.”

Though they will never be able to overtake their lord and master when it comes to quantity and audacity, the Trump Cabinet is doing its best to do well financially at the country’s expense. This online resource from the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) itemizes all the ways that each Trump Cabinet member has engaged in conflicts of interest. They are worth exploring in depth, but I’ll just highlight some of the more egregious ones:

*Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who, after his evasive talk about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, should change his surname to “No-Good-Nick”) is now coming under scrutiny for his relationship with Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer.

* Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned around $2.5 million in referral fees from 2022 through September 2025 from Wisner Baum, a law firm suing Merck, the maker of the HPV vaccine Gardasil—putting RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism in an ever worse light, if that’s possible.

* Education Secretary Linda McMahon was required to divest from financial holdings that posed possible conflicts of interest, but does not appear to have done so as of July of last year, according to a complaint filed with the Office of Government Ethics by the CLC.

In keeping with PM Hacker’s question—“Have a serious word with him?”—if the “him” in question is Trump, I say “Yes.” And let that word, as soon as mathematically and electorally possible, be “impeachment.”

Quote of the Day (Jayne Anne Phillips, on How ‘Writers Defy Time’)

“Do writers hate to write? I don’t think so. The sense of difficulty arises from the fact that writers defy time, writing words against the erasure of things and lives. We stand in an avalanche of forgetfulness, resisting the sway of disappearance. Faced with mortality, we mourn what we might have understood and communicated, not in opinion or advice but in the delivery of an invented world we might have saved. Writing, we cross the divide between self and others word by word. In the very act of completing the work, we are separated from it. One way or another, the writer loses writing: the writer loses the book. Opposing oblivion, we begin to understand: language is the way in and the way out.”—American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer Jayne Anne Phillips, Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir (2026)

The image accompanying this post, of Jayne Anne Phillips reading at the 2024 Gaithersburg Book Festival, was taken May 18, 2024, by Frypie.

This Day in Baseball History (Ryne Duren Sets League Consecutive K’s Record)

June 9, 1961—With a new team and new pitching role, Ryne Duren—a right-handed hurler with a reputation for having as little control of himself as over his overpowering fastball—looked on the verge of turning over a new leaf, striking out an American League record seven consecutive Red Sox on his way to 11 in 6 2/3 innings, in the veteran’s first start in his major-league career.

An All-Star reliever with the New York Yankees, Duren had been traded the month before to the expansion Los Angeles Angels when his off-the-field behavior became increasingly erratic. His new manager, Bill Rigney, saw enough potential to convert him to a starter.

For a while, the experiment worked splendidly. Three weeks later, he earned some revenge against the Bronx Bombers, not only fanning a career-high 12 batters in eight innings on his way to a 5-3 victory but even uncharacteristically contributing to his own cause by singling in two runs.

But the emotional vulnerability afflicting Duren even when batters feared his fastball returned when he was at his zenith in 1961, while getting ready to play in his third All-Star game in four years. The news that his two-week old infant son Craig had died sent Duren on an alcoholic spree that ended his marriage and, four years and three teams later, his professional career.

In a way, Duren’s notoriously poor eyesight (his Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, observed, “he had several pair of glasses, but it didn’t seem like he saw good in any of them”) was symbolic. 

An alcoholic in deep denial, he did not see how much his drinking was endangering his performance, his livelihood, his teammates, and his family for too long. Out of baseball after 1965, he was reduced to a series of dead-end jobs and living in a flophouse and made two suicide attempts.

Fortunately, the story of Ryne Duren doesn’t end there. After a 22-month treatment in DePaul Hospital in Milwaukee, he became sober, and from 1968 to his death at age 81 in 2011, served as an addiction counselor, advising not only youths about how to avoid or forsake alcohol and drugs but also many current and former major leaguers.

One, Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle, was in denial when Duren initially tried to coax him into recognizing his problem. But when the slugger finally embraced sobriety in 1994, his decision to publicly reveal his registration at the Betty Ford Clinic was influenced by his fellow ex-carouser’s public example.

“That guy [Duren] when he was playing ball, was a wreck and he whipped it,” he told friend Bill Hooten, according to Jane Leavy’s Mantle biography, The Last Boy. “He got around talking, and he does a lot of good. If I can go out there and come back and the fact that I’ve whipped the drinking can help somebody else, then sure, I want that known.”

Duren was one of a small but significant group of ex-ballplayers who, after recognizing their problem, went on to help others as substance abuse counselors, including, most prominently, Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “Sudden Sam” McDowell of the Cleveland Indians, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and 1970s journeyman Michael Jackson. I am sure there are others who played different positions, but all of the people I just mentioned were pitchers.

I became interested in this subject for several reasons: a couple of friends who are substance abuse counselors, my long-time fascination with everything related to the New York Yankees, and my interest in baseball history.

In the case of the latter, I have thought often about another friend who, through his career, has become a mother lode of baseball history. He told me once that the incidence of alcoholism in America’s pastime was high. It was possible, he thought, that as many as one out of four Baseball Hall of Famers had drinking problems. 

One, “Big Ed Delahanty,” died from a fall into the Niagara River after a drunk-and-disorderly incident; other past members, such as Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Hack Wilson (whom I profiled in this 2010 post), are well known; and more recent ones have not been publicized, so to protect their privacy I will leave that to disclosures by themselves or their eventual biographers.

Quantifying substance abuse among past ballplayers is difficult, but my reading indicates that the problem was common. 

Any genetic susceptibility to alcohol was worsened by the environment of past decades: clubhouse drinking as a means of celebrating or even simply unwinding after games; late-night games followed by after-hours companionship; travel and isolation from family and friends on the part of young men who still feel invulnerable; and stressed-out managers in no condition to preach after leaving their own difficulties in the bar.

Today’s players struggling with addiction, though, benefit from changes in the game and society since Duren’s time in baseball:

*Alcoholics Anonymous has become a better known and recognized form of help;

*Awareness of fitness and nutrition includes substance abuse prevention and recovery, as well as liquid alternatives such as cherry juice, smoothies, and protein shakes;

*Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement has formalized the process of evaluation, treatment and recovery;

*High payrolls have increased the incentive for owners and general managers to become proactive about abuse, including some teams that have banned alcohol use in clubhouses and on planes;

*Social media decreases the likelihood that alcohol-fueled indiscretions will be hushed up and perpetuated;

*The stigma of admitting to substance abuse has lowered;

*Many players see marijuana as an acceptable alternative to alcohol.

Other Yankees had longer, more consequential careers than Duren, but even while playing—well before his great contributions to substance abuse awareness among athletes—he had impacted the game as a pitcher.

When he entered games, the slang used for his position was “fireman,” the relief pitcher designated to prevent or contain the damage from mound emergencies. Nowadays, with the use and responsibility of these hurlers refined and defined, they are called “closers.”

After being acquired from the Kansas City A’s midseason in 1957, Duren took over the fireman/closer niche that Joe Page had once occupied for the Yankees. He soon became a fan favorite, with his routine recounted vividly in Marty Appel’s Yankee history, Pinstripe Empire:

“…scaling the low right-field bullpen fence, glancing at the auxiliary scoreboard to check the situation, tossing the warm-up jacket to the waiting batboy, kicking the dirt off his spikes against the rubber, and then firing his first warm-up pitch into the backstop (to frighten the waiting hitter).”

Quote of the Day (Arnold J. Toynbee, on How Man Achieves Civilization)

"Man achieves civilization, not as a result of superior biological endowment or geographical environment, but as a response to a challenge in a situation of special difficulty which rouses him to make a hitherto unprecedented effort."—English historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), A Study of History: Volume I: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI (1987)

Quote of the Day (Jason Roeder and Mike Sacks, With a ‘Realistic’ H.S. Yearbook Inscription)

“I'm the kid you'll see on CNN talking about changing the world and you'll think, Wait a minute, isn't that the same guy who threw up on his sneakers in Algebra II and then cried so hard his mother had to pick him up? That guy became successful?! —Ronnie.”— American humorists Jason Roeder and Mike Sacks, “Shouts and Murmurs: Realistic High-School-Yearbook Inscriptions,” The New Yorker, May 25, 2026

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Reinhold Niebuhr, on ‘The Illusion of Strong Men and Nations’)

“It is the illusion of strong men and nations that power is the basis of security. There is some justification for the illusion, for, in so far as human society is governed by physical force, obvious strength, whether it be military or economic, may be counted upon not only to defeat the actual foe, but to reduce the potential foe to the impotence of fear. The strongest bully in a gang is rarely challenged to prove his prowess, and a nation which possesses obvious economic or military advantages may indulge in idiosyncrasies and commit errors which would prove fatal to less favored nations…..Power is dangerous both to those who wield it and to those who are affected by it. It gives those who wield it a false sense of security which absolves them of the necessity of thinking carefully upon the issues involved in their action.”— American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), “Perils of American Power,” originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1932, reprinted in The American Idea: The Best of “The Atlantic Monthly” (2007)

Niebuhr wrote this passage not long into the Age of Dictators that ensued in Europe after the bloodshed of World War I and the resulting socioeconomic collapse. The truth he propounded is emerging ever more strongly now, in another period when strongmen learn that the omnipotence of mortals, even those with seemingly absolute power, is an illusion.

Song Lyric of the Day (Cat Stevens, on ‘The Old Schoolyard’)

“Remember the days of the old schoolyard
When we had imaginings
And we had all kinds of things.”— British singer-songwriter and musician Yusuf/Cat Stevens, “(Remember the Days of the) Old Schoolyard,” from his Izitso LP (1977)
 
In the Seventies, I bought and listened incessantly to every Cat Stevens song I could, until the Izitso LP. I couldn’t imagine that by the end of the year, he’d convert to Islam, starting enormous changes in his life—and that this would turn out to be the last song collection of his that I’d own.
 
At the time of its release 49 years ago this week, “Old Schoolyard” represented something of a comeback for Stevens after the commercially disappointing Numbers collection. This song reached #33 on the Billboard Top 100, the last time to date he’s achieved that distinction.
 
Maybe to the extent that it was successful, it was because “Old Schoolyard” tapped into baby boomers’ wistfulness and nostalgia. That’s certainly why it, along with another tune from the LP, “Child for a Day,” made such an impression on me at this time, when I was looking forward to senior year of high school, wondering what college would bring—and thinking back to what really wasn’t so long ago, to my own elementary school days.
 
Now in my retirement years, it all feels so much longer and far away. With another June here and another age cohort saying goodbye to this environment, do the younger generations go through something of the same thought process—or, in this digital age, are they too caught up in the present moment to consider how they and the world have changed?
 
On his “From My Desk at Home” blog, Steven Pereira—a couple of years older than me—offers an especially thoughtful meditation on childhood as a life stage for both Stevens and himself.

Quote of the Day (Nicolas Cage, Adding an Unforgettable Detail to an Already Memorable Film Scene)

[Among the rich lore of legends associated with the film “Vampire’s Kiss,” pictured here, David Marchese asks star Nicolas Cage if it’s true that he asked to have “hot yogurt poured on your toes” during an intimate scene.]

Cage: “There was some yogurt. There wasn’t hot yogurt, and I think I was administering the yogurt to myself.”

Marchese: “But why?”

Cage: “I don’t really remember.”

Marchese: “It’s better that you don’t.”

Cage: “Probably.”— Oscar-winning American film actor Nicolas Cage, interviewed by David Marchese, “Nicolas Cage Made Himself A Legend. Then He Had to Live With It,” The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 2026

Well, I’m glad we got that squared away. I think.

Faithful reader, do you recall perhaps the most bizarre interview ever conducted on David Letterman’s Late Show? Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix made the late-night host uncomfortable with his long hair, unkempt beard, and gaseous musings—until admitting a year later that it was all staged for a mock documentary.

I wonder if the same phenomenon is going on—and has been for years—with Nicolas Cage. Stories like the one above are only marginally less nutty than the ones retailed for years about him (including the urban legend that the actor actually is a vampire).  

Did the actor, bored by what Joni Mitchell called “the star-making machinery,” decide to have a little fun with his interviewer?

It wouldn’t be the first time that a celebrity spun a few fables for an all-too-credulous reporter or talk-show host. Bob Dylan was famous for that. The late director David Lynch and Twilight star Robert Pattinson were also known to have invented a tale or two.

Cage didn’t stop with that little yogurt yarn.

He disputed that he’d taken an aquarium from the Museum of Modern Art (actually, he says, it was a Lucite box that covers artifacts, and he had “used it as an enclosure for a king snake”).

And he acknowledged having jumped as many as four beer kegs in his childhood, and of even planning a “hoop of fire” around the whole until a sensible adult came and took it away.

Please—enough already! Nobody can be this crazy. It’s all a put-on—right?

Quote of the Day (F. Scott Fitzgerald, on an Invitation to an Early June Wedding)

“There was the usual insincere little note saying: ‘I wanted you to be the first to know.’ It was a double shock to Michael, announcing, as it did, both the engagement and the imminent marriage; which, moreover, was to be held, not in New York, decently and far away, but here in Paris under his very nose, if that could be said to extend over the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, Avenue George-Cinq. The date was two weeks off, early in June.”—American novelist and short-story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), “The Bridal Party,” originally printed in Saturday Evening Post (August 9, 1930), reprinted in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (1989)

F. Scott Fitzgerald and a June wedding—how could I resist blogging about this? Well, as you see, I couldn’t.

But “The Bridal Party” is of interest for another reason: it was Fitzgerald’s first piece of fiction to take into account the Great Crash of the prior autumn. Though the bridegroom in the story, we are told, is “heavily involved” in the stock market, nobody knows how much he had lost on Wall Street: “Anyhow, nobody ever tells you the truth.”

Fitzgerald would later address this financial and cultural cataclysm more fully and piercingly in several essays that form the heart of his posthumous collection The Crack-Up.

This Day in Cold War History (Tensions Spike at JFK-Khrushchev Vienna Summit)

June 3, 1961—Any hopes that John F. Kennedy harbored for easing superpower tensions were quickly discarded when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev badgered and bullied the inexperienced American President in their first and only face-to-face meeting.

The importance of the Vienna Summit did not lie in any agreements concluded, but instead in the attempt made by the cool, aristocratic, 43-year-old JFK and the volatile, 67-year-old former peasant to take the measure of the other. The differences between the democracy and the Communist dictatorship they headed were heightened by their temperaments.

When the talks, conducted in the US and Soviet embassies in this nonaligned Central European city, ended the following day, Kennedy noted carefully to the pack of reporters that no issues had been settled. Privately, to those he trusted more, he was blunter.

“He just beat the hell out of me,” JFK told influential New York Times columnist James Reston. “It was the worst thing in my life. He savaged me.”

Kennedy was unprepared for this diplomatic drubbing. Suffering from intense back pain and Addison’s Disease (an adrenal insufficiency that causes persistent fatigue and muscle weakness), he had brought with him to the summit a physician to celebrities, Dr. Max Jacobson.

Injections administered by “Dr. Feelgood” temporarily relieved the President’s symptoms (even giving him such a sense of euphoria that he bounded down steps to greet Khrushchev on the first day).

But the mixture of “vitamins” may have contained amphetamines, which, diplomatic historian Michael Beschloss observed in his superb The Crisis Years, can cause “nervousness, garrulousness, impaired judgment, overconfidence, and, when the drug wears off, depression.” 

Did Khrushchev, who had risen into Joseph Stalin’s inner circle by staying alert to threats and weaknesses of rivals, notice any of these signs of the drug in the man facing him?

While Kennedy carried with him to Vienna physical problems that could have hampered his performance, Khrushchev brought psychological ones that complicated the talks.

Psychiatrists have formulated “the Goldwater rule” to warn against assessing the mental health of a candidate without examination by a professional.

But, given totalitarian regimes’ barriers to unfettered access to information, the US Central Intelligence Agency may have come as close as anyone ever will in a 1961 “personality sketch” which concluded that Khrushchev suffered from “hypomania,” associated with “lability of mood and with rapid shifts to anger or depression.”

That condition would explain many, if not all, of Khrushchev’s shifts from earthy humor to violent outbursts like his notorious shoe-banging episode at the United Nations, as well as impulsive tactical moves that caught both Western adversaries and ostensible Kremlin colleagues off guard.

The failed American-backed invasion of Cuba only six weeks before the summit furnished Khrushchev with a cudgel against Kennedy—a pointed reminder that the U.S. had not only interfered with another country in the Western Hemisphere but that it had been inept and impotent in doing so.

But Khrushchev also sought to convert a Soviet disadvantage—a swelling exodus of refugees from Communist-controlled East Berlin to the Western-oriented sector of the city—into yet another weapon against JFK. The US must either agree to a settlement favorable to East Berlin in six months, he insisted, or the USSR would forge its own agreement with it that would leave it free to cut off Western access to the city.

"Force will be met by force. If the US wants war, that's its problem. It is up to the US to decide whether there will be war or peace,” Khrushchev told JFK.

“Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war,” Kennedy answered. “It will be a cold winter."

Khrushchev’s ultimatum and loose talk about nuclear weapons stunned the American. I wrote earlier that no agreement was reached in Vienna, but it would be a mistake to say there were no consequences. JFK went home and, after consulting with advisers, delivered a televised address to the American people in which he called for:

*an additional $3.25 billion in defense spending,
*doubling and tripling of draft calls,
*calling up reserves,
*raising the Army's total authorized strength,
*increasing active duty numbers in the Navy and Air Force,
*reconditioning planes and ships in mothballs, and
*minimizing the number of Americans that would be killed in a nuclear attack through a new civil defense program.

Under intense internal pressure from the Politburo, Khrushchev erected the Berlin Wall and resumed above-ground nuclear testing after the summit. The most dangerous period of the Cold War, climaxing over a year later in the Cuban Missile Crisis, ensued.

Quote of the Day (Susan Sontag, on Compassion, ‘An Unstable Emotion’)

“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do—but who is that 'we'?—and nothing 'they' can do either—and who are 'they'—then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.” — American critic, novelist, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist Susan Sontag (1933-2004), Regarding the Pain of Others (2002)

Quote of the Day (William James, on Pragmatists)

“A pragmatist turns his back resolutely and once for all upon a lot of inveterate habits dear to professional philosophers. He turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power. That means the empiricist temper regnant, and the rationalist temper sincerely given up. It means the open air and possibilities of nature, as against dogma, artificiality and the pretence of finality in truth.”— American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910), Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Burns and Allen Show,’ As Gracie Receives Friendly Advice)

[Fearful for her son Ronnie’s safety over the news that he wants to move to Greenwich Village, Gracie concocts a plan: to visit his apartment disguised as beatnik model “Mona Lisa.”]

Gracie Allen [played by Gracie Allen, right]: “I think I know a way of finding out about Ronnie without him knowing I'm there.”

Blanche Morton [played by Bea Benaderet, left]: “Look, Gracie, before you do whatever it is you're thinking of doing, would you take a little friendly advice?”

Gracie: “Well, sure.”

Blanche: “I think it's going to be silly.”

Gracie: “Oh, Blanche, this is no time to give me silly advice when I'm worrying about Ronnie!”— The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Season 6, Episode 7, “Ronnie Moves to the Village,” original air date Nov. 14, 1955, teleplay by Harvey Helm, Keith Fowler, Norman Paul, and William Burns, directed by Frederick De Cordova

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Gorman Beauchamp, on the Vatican Amid ‘A Veritable Tsunami of Apology’)

“We live amid a veritable tsunami of apology. The Catholic Church, which, of course, has much to apologize for, has, of late, offered mea culpas to Galileo, the Jews, the gypsies, Jan Hus, whom it burned at the stake in 1415, even to Constantinople (now Istanbul) for its sacking 800 years ago by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, an event for which the late John Paul II expressed ‘deep regret.’ No wonder that a group in England, claiming descent from the medieval Knights Templars, is asking the Vatican to apologize for the violent suppression of the order and for torturing to death its Grand Master Jacques de Molay in 1314, an apology timed to commemorate the 700th anniversary of that fell deed.”— American literary critic and scholar Gorman Beauchamp, “Apologies All Around,” The American Scholar, Autumn 2007

Almost lost in the hoopla over last week’s release of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical about AI (which I will try to discuss sometime in the near future), was his apology for the Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery and centuries-old slowness over condemning the practice.

A couple of days later, I came across Beauchamp’s appraisal of expressions of regret by major nations and institutions over past injustices. If he took in the pontiff’s more recent statement, I can’t imagine he regarded it with anything other than cynicism.

To some extent, Beauchamp’s outburst was understandable, as he wrote it when cries for reparations, most notably for slavery, began to gain steam in legislatures across the country. Still, there seemed something altogether too categorical with his concluding sour plea, “No more apologies.”

Within a couple of years, the Grouchy Gus persona adopted by Beauchamp spread through American conservative circles. Although Barack Obama never used any form of the words “apology” or “sorry,” his remarks to foreign countries about America’s past tangled history in his first term fed a myth that he had done so.

It all climaxed in Mitt Romney’s charge during his 2012 debates with the President that he had been on an “apology tour”—a phrase that Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in a different context, would have called “boob bait for the bubbas,” or tough-sounding rhetoric meant to turbo-charge populist hordes. It was not one of the shining moments of Romney's career, and one that I'm sure he would prefer that people forget.

During his first year at the Vatican, Pope Leo was extremely cautious, making some moves that helped mollify the Church’s right wing that had smarted over the more spontaneous Pope Francis (e.g., calling for “generous inclusion” of those attached to the Latin Mass). But I’m afraid that President Trump’s increasingly intemperate outbursts (including, this weekend, his third) about Leo have neutralized that effort toward internal unity.

One sign of the end of this era of good feeling came in Christopher Tremoglie’s essay a few days ago in the conservative Washington Examiner, which posited that the pope and other liberals should have saved their breath, because it was African chiefs, waging war on fellow rulers and selling as chattel to whites, who were really responsible for the African slave trade.

Leo is not engaging in the “woke culture” or “white guilt” that has led Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and other GOP politicians to interfere in how Americans learn about the greatest stain in our history.

Instead, experience—in dealing with emerging Third World countries considering their relationship to Catholicism, and in tracing mixed-race Black creoles on his mother’s side of the family—has taught Leo how complicated and wounding the Church’s attitude towards slavery has been over the centuries.

It started with ecclesial institutions owning slaves themselves in the Middle Ages, and continued with Renaissance popes legitimizing the quest of Spanish and Portuguese conquerors to subjugate and seize the lands of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ" anywhere, according to Nicole Winfield's article for the National Catholic Reporter.

Africans now account for roughly 20% of the Church’s population worldwide. Moreover, it is growing rapidly not just in overall numbers but also, in contrast to what has been happening in the U.S. and Western Europe, in terms of seminarians, priests, and nuns.

For conservatives holding the line against any changes, if the Church hopes to retain its ban on clerical celibacy, it will have to import to the U.S. many of these African-trained religious personnel. And to appeal to these people entering the ranks of the religious, the church must own up to its past terrible mistakes related to the continent.

But another aspect of acknowledging past injustices, whether the Vatican’s or the West’s in general, is being lost. Formally admitting these mistakes not only has the potential to heal the wounded but to remind others why they would feel this way in the first place.

Slavery perpetrated over centuries, for instance, permeated virtually every aspect of culture and commerce over much of the world. Given that all-pervasive influence, nobody should imagine that it would not leave psychic stains on those it injured.

All the same, don’t be surprised if the pope’s right-wing critics begin to resurrect that “apology tour” bit. Only the next time, I want that “tour” to be comprised of Donald Trump and his supporters displaying proper penitence for denouncing a not-at-all-radical pontiff trying to speak plainly about the facts of history.

Quote of the Day (Plutarch, on ‘Uneducated Generals and Leaders’)

“Uneducated generals and leaders are oftentimes tripped up and toppled over by their innate foolishness. For they establish their lofty power upon a pedestal that has not been leveled, and so it cannot stand upright. Moreover, just as a builder’s rule is first established straight and unbending, and then is used to correct the alignment of everything else through adjustments and juxtapositions with respect to it, in the very same way those who govern must first achieve governance of themselves, straighten out their souls, and set their character aright, and then they should assimilate their subjects to themselves. For the one who is tipping over cannot straighten up someone else, nor can the ignorant person teach, the disorderly establish order, the disorganized organize, the ungoverned govern.”— Greek historian, biographer, and essayist Plutarch (c. 46-120 AD), "To an Uneducated Leader," in How To Be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership, translated by Jeffrey Beneker (2019)

Song Lyric of the Day (Mel Brooks, With Rediscovered Lines for ‘Springtime for Hitler’)

“Maybe other men have vigor and dash
But other men don't have that mustache.” —Oscar- and Tony-winning American comic actor-writer-director Mel Brooks, quoted by Jason Zinoman, “Mel Brooks Donates His Archives to Museum,” The New York Times, May 14, 2026

At some point before the film The Producers was released, Mel Brooks decided to discard the above lyrics for the tune that is its uproarious climax.

I’m not sure why he did so. The only reason I can come up with is that “Springtime for Hitler” already had so many hilarious lines that the audience would never remember this couplet for the ages.

These lines, by the way, were part of the first draft of his Oscar-winning screenplay, along with other treasures from his multi-decade career now given to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY—a wonderful museum that also contains contributions from George Carlin, Lily Tomlin, Lenny Bruce, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and Brooks’ longtime friend, Carl Reiner.

This Day in Baseball History (Willie Mays Clubs 1st HR)

May 28, 1951—Decisively ending an 0-12 hitless streak that seemed to confirm his initial fears about joining the major leagues, 20-year-old New York Giants rookie Willie Mays hit the first of his 660 career home runs.

In his first at-bat at the team’s home, the Polo Grounds, their newly installed center fielder smacked an offering from star Boston Braves southpaw Warren Spahn over the left-field fence, for what was also his first career hit.

My blog post from 10 years ago briefly reviewed the amazing career of the man that many have proclaimed the best all-around ballplayer of all time. But I think it’s worth spending a little time here on his introduction to the big leagues, as well as how it compared and contrasted with that of rookie and legendary Hall of Famer, Mickey Mantle.

These two were not the only future Hall of Famers to experience difficulties when first exposed to the big leagues. Others, such as Willie Stargell, Brooks Robinson, Pie Traynor, and Roberto Clemente, had relatively subpar campaigns even over their first five seasons, as demonstrated in this 2012 Jim McLennan post on the “AZ Snake Pit” blog.

But the spotlight shone more intensely in New York, the media and sports capital of America—and Mays wasn’t yet over his yips at the plate. He then proceeded to go on another hitless streak: 0-13. At this turning point in his career, as he sat sobbing in front of his locker, he found reassurance from a manager not otherwise known for being soft-hearted: Leo Durocher.

Though he had clashed with Jackie Robinson while managing the Brooklyn Dodgers, Durocher took a gentler approach with this less mature but still immensely talented player now under his wing.

When Mays repeated what he had told him previously while in the Giants’ top minor-league club, the Minneapolis Millers—i.e., that he doubted his ability to hit major-league pitching—Durocher answered, “As long as I’m the manager of the Giants, you are my center fielder. … You are the best center fielder I’ve ever looked at.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, and justifying his manager’s confidence, Mays went on a 14-for-33 tear. He sparked the team’s thrilling pennant run that season, winning Rookie of the Year honors with 20 home runs, 68 RBIs, and a .274 batting average in 121 games—not to mention playing dazzling defense.

There couldn’t have been a more dramatic contrast to another much-heralded outfielder that year, Mantle. Though some veteran New York Yankees like Hank Bauer sought to make him comfortable, the “Commerce [Oklahoma] Comet” was well aware that he was regarded as an interloper and ultimate threat to job security by the Bombers’ proud but fading superstar fixture in center field, Joe DiMaggio.

In contrast to Durocher, Yankee manager Casey Stengel—after successfully overriding the advice of general manager George Weiss that their hot young prospect was not ready for the majors—felt the need to send Mantle back to the minors when his strikeouts began to mount.

It’s now part of Bomber legend how a tough-love visit from Mantle’s father Mutt led his son to surmount his funk and for Stengel to call him back up—as the team’s current rightfielder and centerfielder-in-waiting—in late August. Mantle ended the season hitting .267 with 13 home runs, 65 RBIs, and a .792 OPS.

While Stengel managed Mantle for the first 10 years of his career, Durocher only benefited from having Mays in his lineup for three. (The “Say Hey Kid” served in the Army from May 1952 through March 1954, causing him to miss most of one season and all of another, and his manager was fired after a third-place finish in 1954.)

Nevertheless, that short period of time was enough to make the crusty Durocher speak glowingly about him for the rest of his life, as seen in this passage from his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last:

“If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you right in the eye and tell you that Willie was better. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw and field. And he had the other magic ingredient that turns a superstar into a super Superstar. Charisma. He lit up a room when he came in. He was a joy to be around.”

If Durocher served as a kind of proud surrogate father to his young superstar, Stengel often acted as a demanding, frequently disappointed one to his. Early to see Mantle’s immense gifts, he also frequently grew frustrated with him for not paying attention to constructive construction and for not measuring up to a standard for what he could be.

The dissing of his best player may have reached a nadir in 1959, when Stengel listed Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto as his best players, according to Jane Leavy’s The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood. Pressed by Bauer about this noticeable exclusion, Stengel answered, “You gave 110 percent every time you were in the lineup.”

I couldn’t finish this post without looking at one particular aspect of this landmark game in the career of Mays.

The at-bat against Spahn was not only an indicator of his future greater greatness, but also a sign of his comfort at the plate against the Hall of Fame hurler. In 253 plate appearances against him, Mays hit 18 homers (the most he accumulated against any pitcher), while batting .305. with a .955 OPS.

Since the run he gave up to Mays was his only one in his 4-1 victory, Spahn took the first round-tripper by Mays in stride, joking later, “For the first 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch."

I suspect that it was harder for him to accept another he yielded in July 1963, when, on the mound for the Milwaukee Braves, he lost his chance at outdueling the (now San Francisco) Giants’ Juan Marichal in the 16^th inning when, after 16 innings and 201 pitches, he watched his chance at a complete-game shutout disappear through  Mays’ solo HR.