History of the Day: 11/14

Happy 86th birthday to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). The BBC had its finest hour in WWII as it kept the British people connected and informed during the German bombings, including the bombing of Coventry, which happened on this day in 1940. The cathedral at Coventry still has a peace chapel which features a cross made from two, charred timbers left over from the attacks.

Happy birthday to Leopold Mozart and Johann van Beethoven, each composers and each fathers of more famous sons, Amadeus and Ludwig. Vicarious much? Today is the birthday of another composer, Aaron Copeland, called "the dean of American composers," although, as NPR noted on his 100th birthday, he's an unlikely hero. He composed Fanfare for the Common Man, which ranks in the top 10 of my all-time favorite classical compositions. I think, if I were to wake up to it every day, I'd have a much brighter view of the world. Here are his thoughts on elevator music:

I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights.

Booker T. Washington died on this day in 1915, at the age of 55. His mother was a slave, but he raised himself up and founded the Tuskegee Institute to help others do the same. Although he experienced oppression in ways that most modern Americans couldn't even dream, he still was able to say:

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

What's interesting is that he was considered kind of a traitor to African-Americans in his day, especially by W.E.B. Dubois. If you will permit me a gross generalization, Washington advocated vocational education rather than overt pursuit of civil rights believing that, eventually, minorities would be perceived as equals and accepted. Dubois advocated claiming civil rights immediately as, you know, it was guaranteed by the Constitution and all (especially after the 14th Amendment). You can really hear the contrast in their ideas in Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech (here's a clip of a recording of Washington delivering it) and Dubois' criticism of that same speech.

What's interesting is that it took both ideas to achieve the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s. When Rosa Parks went to prison for that bus ride, know who she called? Not Martin Luther King Jr. Not the NAACP. Not a lawyer. She called a former Pullman Porter, an uneducated railcar worker who had achieved something skin to middle class standing by pure, hard work. He got the wheels moving and brought in King. It was the Porters who financed the Civil Rights movement at first. It took both the laborer of Washington and the "talented tenth" of Dubois to facilitate the changes that took place.

The contrast between ideologies of how to deal with race is no more evident than in the person of Condoleeza (from the Italian con dolcezza, "with sweetness") Rice, born on this day in 1954. She grew up in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, a Presbyterian minister named John Wesley Rice (how does a Presbyterian minister get named "John Wesley"?), simultaneously armed himself to protect his family from the KKK and spoke out against the methods (not the goals) of the Civil Rights leaders in his area. He advocated Booker T. Washington's position, telling his daughter she would need to be "twice as good" in order to make it in the hostile world. So, Rice did that. Today, Rice is the first African-American woman to serve as Secretary of State, putting forth public policy in stiletto boots. But she has had terrible things said about her, such as:

• Harry Belafonte called her, and other blacks in the Bush administration, "black tyrants."
• Bill Fletcher Jr. of the Trans-Africa Forum said she was "only black by accident."
• The Black Commentator Magazine said, "A black woman who doesn’t know how to talk to black people is of limited political use to an administration that has few black allies."

Rice, in addition to her duties in the White House, is a concert pianist. She once performed with Yo-Yo Ma. She prefers the music of Brahms who, she said, is "passionate, but not sentimental." I think that tells you everything you need to know about her.

Another musician, who is definitely sentimental, is Yanni who shares his birthday with Rice. Here is one of his songs. I don't know the name, but I'm sure it's something like The Infinite Beyond or Flowers of Tomorrow.

Speaking of really popular people without talent, today is also the birthday of Claude Monet, born on this day in 1840. Actually, I really like him, although many of his contemporaries derided him. Here is a review of one of his paintings:

Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.

That painting, called Impression, was what gave the name to the artistic and musical movement known as Impressionism. Monet had this to say about the painting:

Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground....They asked me for a title for the catalogue, it couldn't really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: 'Put Impression.'

Another interesting thing about Monet is that he (pictured here) looks remarkably like Robert de Niro.

Finally, Georg Hegel died on this day in 1831. He was a German philosopher primarily known for his theory of dialectical reality. A Thesis gives rise to its opposite, its Anti-Thesis. The two resolve in a union or Synthesis. Hmmmm .... let me try again. "A" gives rise to "Not-A" which, in turn, resolves into "B". No ... not quite. OK, Celtic music has its anti-thesis in Gospel music which resolve in Country music. Country music has its anti-thesis in Blues music which resolves as Rock'n'Roll. Rock has its anti-thesis in Rap which, I guess, resolved into Kid Rock. Thus, Kid Rock represents the pinnacle of music so far?

Good grief, I hope I'm wrong. I guess that explains how Marx was able to use the Hegelian dialectic to explain Marxism. I suppose this could be used to explain American politics. Federalists gave rise to anti-Federalists which resolved into the Democrat-Republicans. The Democrat-Republicans gave rise to the Whigs which resolved into Abraham Lincoln's Republicans. Then, the Republicans gave rise to the new Democrats, at which time they switched places and positions entirely and now have merged into what is essentially a huge Federalist party. So, I guess that means they'll give rise to ... Libertarians?