Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, January 3, 2021
through
Saturday, January 9, 2021
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It’s Saturday, January 9, 2021
Welcome to the 993rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Five people are dead, and that’s not the bad part
Crowd at the Jan 6 2021 Pres Trump Rally
Dr Dannielle - https://www.flickr.com/photos/191615548@N05/50807455126/
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2.0 Commentary
It’s great to be an American.
It’s great to see that the system works.
Trump’s last few weeks in office have been disgraceful.
We’re watching a sick man resist the appellation “Loser!”
The First Loser will soon be evicted and then wither away.
He’ll be noisy.
Destructive.
But he will wither.
The Republican Party will look at itself in the mirror and,
“OMG! What have I become?”
Republicans will battle many primaries to defeat the monster that has it in its grasp.
Not easily, but eventually the moderates will win out.
Will return to the right-wing party of moderation and compromise.
As to my personal Quarantine:
The first unusual contact was Sun, the 2nd. Friday, the 8th, is day 5.
Still feeling fine.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
The work today was all on Sacco and Vanzetti.
Met with other participants to discuss the organization and to show them the site I have in mind.
Met with dear friend Cindy, a freelance bookkeeper, enlisting her help for the project.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
"One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child."
~Maria Montessori
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday night dinner was Braciolettine di Pollo, in this case Quail.
Stuffed the birds with mortadella, Romano cheese, American cheese, a drip of garlic oil and fresh thyme.
Tied each with kitchen string.
I seared the birds for color and removed while I deglazed the pan with madeira wine and chicken stock.
After adding mushrooms I had fried yesterday, I returned the birds and slow-roasted them.
Delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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On January 6, 2021, supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol during a joint session of the United States Congress during which the United States Electoral College vote was to be certified, affirming the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States. Over the course of January 5 and 6, supporters of President Trump had gathered in Washington, D.C. to attend a rally held by the President and to protest against the result of the 2020 presidential election. Trump and his supporters and allies were demanding that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress reject President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
On the morning of January 6 (EST), protesters gathered for the rally, a planned event on the Ellipse where attendees heard speeches from President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Rudy Giuliani. The demonstration culminated in a riot, in which the Capitol was occupied by Trump supporters. The event occurred after numerous earlier attempts by Trump and his supporters to overturn the election results had failed.
During the initial rally, Trump encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" and "take back our country", and asked his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, while Giuliani called for them to engage in “a trial by combat”, and similar language used by Donald Trump Jr. Subsequently, a pro-Trump mob marched on Congress and eventually stormed the building. Congress was in session at the time, conducting the Electoral College vote count and debating the results of the vote. As the protesters arrived, Capitol security evacuated the Senate and House of Representatives chambers and locked down several other buildings on the Capitol campus. Protesters broke past security to enter the Capitol, occupying the evacuated Senate chamber while guards drew handguns to prevent entry to the evacuated House floor. Several buildings in the Capitol complex were evacuated, and all buildings in the complex were subsequently locked down.
An intruder, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by law enforcement officers during a standoff outside the House chamber and later died of her injuries; three others died as a result of medical emergencies throughout the day. Three improvised explosive devices were reported to have been found: one on Capitol grounds, and one each at the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee offices.
Trump reacted to the storming by telling the protesters to "go home in peace"; he also described the protesters as being "great patriots" and "very special", expressing "love" for them, and attributing the storming to a stolen election. As a result, Twitter temporarily locked Trump's account and removed three of his tweets for violations of their civic integrity policy.
The riots and storming of the Capitol were described as insurrection, sedition, and domestic terrorism. Some news outlets labeled the act as an attempted coup d'état by Trump. The incident was the first time the Capitol had been overrun since the 1814 burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812.
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It’s Friday, January 8, 2021
Welcome to the 992nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Maria Montessori
Unknown author - Nationaal Archief
Doctor Maria Montessori (1870-1952) Italiaans pedagoog en arts
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2.0 Commentary
We figured it out.
Of all that went on Wednesday night, what pissed me off most was the reportage bemoaning what other nations, other world leaders are going to think about America.
Please.
Please.
We were born of a revolt against the world’s only 18th century superpower.
How did we do it?
We figured it out.
We melded thirteen countries into one nation.
How did that get done?
We figured it out.
And after the national blood bath of the Civil War?
How did we come back together?
We figured it out.
A few mentally-limited loudmouth crackpots egged on by the most powerful man in the world, a skewed man, causing a little disruption?
We will figure that one out, too.
That’s a relatively easy one.
Let’s look at it a different way.
The morons who invaded our Capitol are not America.
So they cannot be a disgrace to us.
They are not us.
We are America.
Even while under lockdown, our legislative leaders spoke to each other, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and the Vice-President. (Strangely, not to the President. Very strange.)
They decided to move forward this night to continue the work of certifying Joe Biden’s election.
This night.
In the face of the insurrection.
All of our leaders in agreement.
They are America.
We are America.
We are not a (expletive deleted) disgrace.
We were attacked.
We figured it out.
Let’s lighten up.
On my personal quarantine countdown, I’m eleven days away from emerging from a close contact with someone not in my household.
I took my temperature: 98.5.
OK.
Why did I?
After a poor night’s sleep last Monday night, I expected a good night’s sleep on Tuesday.
I didn’t get it.
My eyes closed at 9.30pm and I went to bed.
But I woke at 12.30am, to stay.
I made a chicken soup with six quail, a total weight of two pounds.
The thing is that difficulty sleeping has often enough presaged a cold or some other ailment.
I thought of my quarantine and took my temperature.
Fine.
Them I tasted my soup.
Delicious.
Taste buds still working.
Worked for ninety minutes while, in the background, following the Georgia Senate race.
Energetic.
So, okay.
No covid today.
I’ll try to get back to sleep now.
Very tired when I got out of bed, to use my time effectively, I went food shopping at Whole Foods.
On return, I prepared six quail to be cooked tomorrow as Chicken Braciolettine.
Took a brief nap and then worked on blog.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
Am working on listing the requirements of the Boston Arts Commission for installing art on city property.
It’s tedious.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.”
~Leonardo da Vinci
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Amazingly, a lot of agreement that Trump should be removed by virtue of incapacity.
Blog meister responds: D’accord.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
What to do when you are surprised with 24 fresh quail?
Think.
Weigh.
Decide. That the easiest method is to slow-roast six of them.
That’ll buy a day.
The roast was so easy that just hours later I made the second easiest dinner: Soup, with six of them – two pounds total.
Of which I ate some on Wednesday night.
Lovely.
And just hours after that I shopped and stuffed six more and tied them for cooking on Thursday as Chicken Braciolettini. While I stuffed, I also fried seven ounces of a mix of mushrooms to add them into the Madeira Sauce I’ll be making with the Braciolettini on Thursday, leaving the last six. They to become Cacciatore on Thursday for service on Friday or Saturday.
Note that six quail are just right for Kat, Will, and I.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy.
At an early age, Montessori enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer. She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she graduated with honors in 1896. Her educational method is in use today in many public and private schools globally.
Working with non-disabled children in the Casa dei Bambini in 1907, Montessori began to develop her own pedagogy. The essential elements of her educational theory emerged from this work, described in The Montessori Method in 1912 and in The Discovery of the Child in 1948. Her method was founded on the observation of children at liberty to act freely in an environment prepared to meet their needs.
Montessori came to the conclusion that the children's spontaneous activity in this environment revealed an internal program of development, and that the appropriate role of the educator was to remove obstacles to this natural development and provide opportunities for it to proceed and flourish.
Accordingly, the schoolroom was equipped with child-sized furnishings, "practical life" activities such as sweeping and washing tables, and teaching material that Montessori had developed herself. Children were given the freedom to choose and carry out their own activities, at their own pace and following their own inclinations. In these conditions, Montessori made a number of observations which became the foundation of her work. First, she observed great concentration in the children and spontaneous repetition of chosen activities. She also observed a strong tendency in the children to order their own environment, straightening tables and shelves, and ordering materials. As children chose some activities over others, Montessori refined the materials she offered to them. Over time, the children began to exhibit what she called "spontaneous discipline".
Montessori continued to develop her pedagogy and her model of human development as she expanded her work and extended it to older children. She saw human behavior as guided by universal, innate characteristics in human psychology which her son and collaborator Mario M. Montessori Sr. identified as "human tendencies" in 1957. In addition, she observed four distinct periods, or "planes", in human development, extending from birth to six years, from six to twelve, from twelve to eighteen, and from eighteen to twenty-four. She saw different characteristics, learning modes, and developmental imperatives active in each of these planes, and called for educational approaches specific to each period. Over the course of her lifetime, Montessori developed pedagogical methods and materials for the first two planes, from birth to age twelve, and wrote and lectured about the third and fourth planes. Maria created over 4,000 Montessori classrooms across the world and her books were translated into many different languages for the training of new educators. Her methods are installed in hundreds of public and private schools across the United States.
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It’s Thursday, January 7, 2021
Welcome to the 991st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
A polling judge administering an oath to a voter.
An 1846 painting by George Caleb Bingham showing a polling judge administering an oath to a voter
George Caleb Bingham - ang.Wikipedia
The painting shows a polling judge administering an oath to a voter, surrounded by various worrisome behavior throughout the scene.
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2.0 Commentary
Fever, cough, and difficulty breathing are the most common symptoms of the coronavirus. If you’re experiencing these symptoms and think you may have been exposed to COVID-19, contact your health care provider.
I’m counting down from 1/3/21 when I had dinner with a new friend.
12 days left to end of quarantine.
And note this.
The CDC has changed their priority list.
I am now moved forward to Group 2, phase one: persons over 75.
Perhaps I’ll be closer to late February than to March.
I’ve been getting an inordinate number of checks to my television Emergency Alert signals.
If an actual emergency, the signal would be followed by directions from the government.
For the next 12 days that is Trump.
What if within that 12-day period an Emergency Test comes over the airwaves followed by Trump stating that he has declared martial law until the riots in Washington DC or until the showdown with Iran has been resolved.
Citizens should not have to entertain such scenarios.
Such is the state in which the Trump Administration has left us.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
My work on these projects was limited to Sacco and Vanzetti and consisted of a series of texts/emails/phones explaining, asking, responding.
Takes time.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“I have offended God and mankind because
my work didn't reach the quality it should have.”
~ Leonardo Da Vinci
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Many communications re: Sacco and Vanzetti.
I’m happily surprised that the entire Italian community is supportive of my efforts.
I thought that the attention being given to Christopher Columbus memorials might detract from my own efforts.
Blog meister responds: So wonderful! Thank you.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Today’s dinner was a slow-roasted quail.
I slow roasted them [I ate two].
Then I broiled tehm close to flame just to brown them.
Then I brushed them with a marinade of gochujang, maple syrup, and kimchi vinegar. and left them in a very hot oven for six minutes.
They were delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Elections in the United States are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels.
At the federal level, the nation's head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, through an Electoral College.
Today, these electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected by the people of each state.
There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature.
There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages; as well as for special districts and school districts which may transcend county and municipal boundaries.
According to a study by political scientist Jennifer Lawless, there were 519,682 elected officials in the United States as of 2012.
While the United States Constitution does set parameters for the election of federal officials, state law, not federal, regulates most aspects of elections in the U.S., including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state's electoral college, as well as the running of state and local elections. All elections—federal, state, and local—are administered by the individual states.
The restriction and extension of voting rights to different groups has been a contested process throughout United States history. The federal government has also been involved in attempts to increase voter turnout, by measures such as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The financing of elections has also long been controversial, because private sources make up substantial amounts of campaign contributions, especially in federal elections. Voluntary public funding for candidates willing to accept spending limits was introduced in 1974 for presidential primaries and elections. The Federal Elections Commission, created in 1975 by an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act, has the responsibility to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of U.S. presidential elections.
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It’s Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Welcome to the 990th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Brown quail ("Coturnix ypsilophora")
Duncan Wright - Own work
The Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophorus), Tiritiri Matangi Island, New Zealand
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2.0 Commentary
For the first time in a while I’ve ‘hung out’ with someone not in my regular routine who joined me for dinner Sunday night January 3.
Xandra had just returned from a covid-careful three days in Arizona.
I will keep a 14-day countdown for evidence of infection, a little more antsy as we approach the Feb-March timetable that the Massachusetts government is projecting for my vaccination.
Donald Trump.
Enough said.
After a decent handling of the juxtaposition of the holidays, the weekends, and the days of the week,
I succumbed.
On Monday, at 12.30pm, without an appointment I walked out for a manicure. At the shop’s entryway I saw a new, clumsily handwritten sign of the door, Closed Tuesdays.
“Oh no! Today must be Tuesday.”
I looked in through the window and saw that no one was in the store.
That confirmed it and I left for my espresso.
Talking to my friends there, the baristas, I discovered that today was indeed Monday, which I had initially thought.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
My time went into disseminating the piece on Sacco and Vanzetti I completed a couple of days ago.
The response has been gratifying.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.”
~Leonardo Da Vinci
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Richard C re: a special request for quail.
The Quail should be arriving tomorrow. I am off but Peter and Nino are here. Give them a call in the morning to confirm.
Until next time.....
Rich Case
Meat Manager
Roche Bros.
Downtown Crossing - 121
617-456-5111
rcase@rochebros.com
Blog Meister responds: Great! Thank you.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night Xandra and I each enjoyed a 12oz boneless pork chop
which I slow-roasted and finished with a mustard-vinegar pepper glaze topped by toasted breadcrumbs.
Delicious.
With an Old Raj Gin and Tonic for me.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes.
Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New World quail are placed in the family Odontophoridae.
The species of buttonquail are named for their superficial resemblance to quail, and form the family Turnicidae in the order Charadriiformes.
The king quail, an Old World quail, often is sold in the pet trade, and within this trade is commonly, though mistakenly, referred to as a "button quail".
Many of the common larger species are farm-raised for table food or egg consumption, and are hunted on game farms or in the wild, where they may be released to supplement the wild population, or extend into areas outside their natural range.
In 2007, 40 million quail were produced in the U.S.
The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy.
Years ago I had a home on Cape Cod and ,daily, a family of quail quietly and carefreely walked up to our home and hung out for a bit. We loved watching them.
BTW: The quail Roche Bros sells weigh 4oz each. Diners need at least two each.
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It’s Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Welcome to the 989th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Battle of Princeton by John Trumbull
John Trumbull - Yale University Art Gallery
The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777 displays several events at the Battle of Princeton.
At the center, American General Hugh Mercer, with his horse beneath him, is mortally wounded.
At the left, American Daniel Neil is bayoneted against a cannon.
At the right, British Captain William Leslie is shown mortally wounded.
In the background, American General George Washington and Doctor Benjamin Rush enter the scene.
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2.0 Commentary
So the holidays are over.
No more excuses.
I didn’t fare too badly: three pounds gained I really would like to lose.
That would put me in a starting position to challenge the weight goal I’ve been unsuccessfully pursuing these last three years.
My walking has been reduced by the cold weather.
So unpleasant to just dress up for it.
I do walk some but miss the daily three-mile walk to and from the Newbury Street Thinking Cup and its outdoor café.
My weight-lifting has gone to pot.
After the last gym reopening, I struggled but did regain my prior strength.
Then the government shut done the gyms again.
Ever play Monopoly and pick up that card that directs: “Go to jail. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.00?
That’s where my weight-lifting is.
Otherwise, no significant pain or illness.
Pretty good overall.
Loving that daily, the news reportage takes more time with the hopeful vaccine and its problems than it does with the gloomy virus and its death knell.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
Have done extensive work on gathering the facts of the case which I posted yesterday. (Just scroll down a bit and you’ll find it.)
Now I’ll work on the status of a memorial to them as victims of social injustice
and how to get it off dead-center and into public display.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation,
for when you come back to your work
your judgment will be surer.
Go some distance away because then
the work appears smaller and
more of it can be taken in at a glance and
a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.”
~Leonardo da Vinci
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Tommy D who previewed the Sacco and Vanzetti piece in today’s post:
Right on!
Love your writing style.
Blog meister responds: Thanks!
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I enjoyed a simple slow-roast (200* oven) roast chicken dinner with my new friend Alexandra.
The food and the company worked well together.
We had store bought vegetables.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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The Battle of Princeton was a battle of the American Revolutionary War, fought near Princeton, New Jersey on January 3, 1777, and ending in a small victory for the Colonials.
General Lord Cornwallis had left 1,400 British troops under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood in Princeton.
Following a surprise attack at Trenton early in the morning of December 26, 1776, General George Washington of the Continental Army decided to attack the British in New Jersey before entering the winter quarters.
On December 30, he crossed the Delaware River back into New Jersey.
His troops followed on January 3, 1777.
Washington advanced to Princeton by a back road, where he pushed back a smaller British force but had to retreat before Cornwallis arrived with reinforcements.
The battles of Trenton and Princeton were a boost to the morale of the patriot cause, leading many recruits to join the Continental Army in the spring.
After defeating the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776, Washington withdrew back to Pennsylvania.
He subsequently decided to attack the British forces before going into winter quarters.
On December 29, he led his army back into Trenton.
On the night of January 2, 1777, Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek.
That night, he evacuated his position, circled around General Cornwallis' army, and went to attack the British garrison at Princeton.
On January 3, Brigadier General Hugh Mercer of the Continental Army clashed with two regiments under the command of Mawhood.
Mercer and his troops were overrun, and Mercer was mortally wounded.
Washington sent a brigade of militia under Brigadier General John Cadwalader to help them.
The militia, on seeing the flight of Mercer's men, also began to flee.
Washington rode up with reinforcements and rallied the fleeing militia.
He then led the attack on Mawhood's troops, driving them back.
Mawhood gave the order to retreat, and most of the troops tried to flee to Cornwallis in Trenton.
In Princeton, Brigadier General John Sullivan encouraged some British troops who had taken refuge in Nassau Hall to surrender, ending the battle.
After the battle, Washington moved his army to Morristown, and with their third defeat in 10 days, the British evacuated southern New Jersey.
The battle (while considered minor by British standards) was the last major action of Washington's winter New Jersey campaign.
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It’s Monday, January 4, 2021
Welcome to the 988th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Sacco and Vanzetti Protest London
Much more than “No story. Just two wops in a jam,” city editor, New York Call, 1920.
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2.0 Commentary
Wow!
Some exciting political happenings this week:
The Georgia vote.
The other Georgia vote.
The veto override of the defense bill.
Accusations re: the vaccine dissemination.
The acceptance of the electoral college vote.
The nearing Inauguration.
Pending judicial ruling on punishing students for unpleasant speech outside of school.
The growing reportage of vaccinations and lives saved.
The slightly diminishing reportage of covid testing and lives lost.
I repeat:
Some exciting political happenings this week:
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti
I’ve been working on a thumbnail detail of the history of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial along with a tracking of the Sacco and Vanzetti sculpture by Gutzon Borglum.
The ultimate goal is a public memorial to the two men, victims of a grossly prejudiced trial.
Although a thumbnail, the piece is still long.
But some of us will enjoy it.
I hope many.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
I wanted a roof for every family, bread for every mouth, education for every heart,
light for every intellect.
I am convinced that the human history has not yet begun -- that we
find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric.
I see with the eyes of my soul how the
sky is diffused with rays of the new millennium.
~Bartolomeo Vanzetti
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from a friend,
Hey Dom,
Your daughter is right--loved the bit about your grandparents. Makes me think of the books you love so much with their honesty and raw beauty--The Neapolitan Novels by Ferrante. I have only read the better part of the first one, but the flavor tastes the same.
Blog meister responds: Thanks, my friend.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night we had maple-mustard coated salmon steaks.
For vegetables, we bought a variety of three quarter-pound tubs: green beans, beets, and roasted squash.
Meanwhile we’ve been doing a good job eating off the refrigerator.
It now has some empty space and no food has gone bad.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Committee for a Visible Bronze Memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti
A thumbnail presentation.
1920
April 15
A gang of men committed the double murder of Frederick Parmenter, Paymaster, and Alexander Berardelli, his guard, during a Bridgewater, Ma unsuccessful payroll robbery of $15,776.51.
May 05:
Nicola Sacco, a shoe operative in Stoughton, Ma, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a self-employed fish-peddler on Suassos Lane, an alley in north Plymouth, Ma, were arrested for the crime.
May 09
A group of fellow anarchists, lead by Vanzetti's 23-year-old close personal friend Aldino Felicani, an immigrant himself and a printer by trade, formed the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee and over the courtroom-years, raised over $300,000 for the pair’s legal defense.
Aldino Felicani was friendly, open, and guileless, talked to everybody, listened to everybody, learned from everybody. Felicani, the Defense Committee treasurer and driving force, devoted his life to the cause of the two anarchists whose arrest, trial and execution bitterly divided Americans in the nineteen-twenties. Aldino spent a good deal of his time in the North End, plying his craft for the Italian-language daily, La Notizia, located on Battery Street, the first address of the Defense Committee.
Though it was, from its beginnings, an organization made up of working-class radicals, the composition of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee altered as the case gained publicity.
Most notably, journalist Gardner Jackson, a liberal sympathetic to labor and radical causes, quit his job at the Boston Globe to work full time for the Committee. ‘Jackson brought in a respectable, social, liberal element,’ Felicani recalled. ‘We were now able to reach people we never could have dreamed [of] reaching before.’
Like Harvard law school professor, later Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, so incensed by the Sacco and Vanzetti matter that he risked his career and reputation by not only being an outspoken public figure and writer on the case, but by significantly funding and advising the Committee’s work.
September 11:
Two indictments were returned against the defendants for the murders.
September 28:
The defendants pleaded ‘not guilty’.
1921
May 31-July 14
The trial lasted seven weeks. The evidence should have brought in a ‘not guilty’ verdict, but, quoting from the Atlantic magazine March, 1927 issue, “In 1921 the temper of the times* made it the special duty of a prosecutor and a court engaged in trying two Italian radicals before a jury of native New Englanders to keep the instruments of justice free from the infection of passion or prejudice. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti no such restraints were respected. By systematic exploitation of the defendants' alien blood, their imperfect knowledge of English, their unpopular social views, and their opposition to the war, the District Attorney invoked against them a riot of political passion and patriotic sentiment; and the trial judge connived at—one had almost written, cooperated in—the process.”
(*The author is referring to the ‘Red Scare’. The First Red Scare occurred during the years 1917-1920 and was caused by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the impact of World War One in America.)
From the Inquiries Journal Blog, By Adrienne M. Naylor, 2010, VOL. 2 NO. 01 | PG. 1/1
“The anti-immigrant, anti-anarchist prejudice of the judge, jury and prosecution alike was profound. Judge Webster Thayer, who not only tried the two, but presided over and gleefully denied all motions for a new trial, was quoted as calling the two ‘anarchistic bastards.’**
One of the jurors, in conversation with a friend who believed the pair to be innocent, snapped, ‘Damn them, they ought to hang anyway!’
The prosecution regularly dwelled on the citizenship and radicalism of the defendants, factors that had little to do with a well-orchestrated payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts.”
(**More details: In 1924, referring to his denial of motions for a new trial, Judge Thayer confronted a Massachusetts lawyer: "Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?" the judge said. "I guess that will hold them for a while! Let them go and see now what they can get out of the Supreme Court!" The outburst remained a secret until 1927 when its release fueled the arguments of Sacco and Vanzetti's defenders.)
The men were convicted despite scant, questionable physical evidence and multiple eyewitnesses who placed them both elsewhere at the time of the crime. Tejada says it’s because the narrative of the trial was not dominated by the facts of the case, but rather by four other factors: "Their anarchist beliefs, their labor activism, their Italian ethnicity and their draft dodging during World War I."
GBH News
It didn’t help that during their testimony the men spoken broken-English and used the wrong vocabulary.
1922-1923
Eighteen months
For more than six years the Sacco-Vanzetti case was before the courts of Massachusetts.
Six motions for a new trial are filed.
The trial, blatantly tainted with its anti-radicalism and anti-Italian sentiments, aroused interest far beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts and even of the United States. The case became one of those rare causes célèbres of international concern.
The two condemned Italian anarchists were and still are often invoked as a symbol of protest against the inequity sometimes found in American society and its criminal justice system. As visited upon Nicola and Bartolomeo, that inequity the inspiration of works of drama, art, and music from the time of their execution to the present. The cry for social justice is as timely today as it was more than a hundred years ago and Bartolomeo’s words as poetic and heart-rending as any ever spoken by victims.
1925
The month is unknown to me
The Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee moved to its Hanover Street location in 1925 and remained there until the men were executed.
A plaque was placed on the site in 1976 and rededicated in 2007.
1927
April 9
The defendants final appeal was rejected and Judge Thayer sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death by electrocution for the week of July 10, 1927.
In Court, hearing their death sentence decreed, Bartolomeo stood up and said to the judge, "If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not failures. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident.
"Our words, our lives, our pains, nothing! The taking of our lives--lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler--all! That last moment belongs to us--that agony is our triumph."
Governor Alvan T. Fuller delayed the executions until later that summer. After being arrested while picketing outside the State House, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay pleaded her case to the governor in person and then wrote an appeal: "I cry to you with a million voices: answer our doubt ... There is need in Massachusetts of a great man tonight."
Others who wrote to Fuller or signed petitions included Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. The president of the American Federation of Labor cited "the long period of time intervening between the commission of the crime and the final decision of the Court" as well as "the mental and physical anguish which Sacco and Vanzetti must have undergone during the past seven years" in a telegram to the governor.
Benito Mussolini, the target of two anarchist assassination attempts, quietly made inquiries through diplomatic channels and was prepared to ask Governor Fuller to commute the sentences if it appeared his request would be granted.
Fuller refused all entreaties.
From the death house, Sacco wrote to a friend:
"[I]n our coffin will lay our friends' optimism and our pessimism. What I wish more than all in this hour of agony is that our case and our fate may be understood in their real being and serve as a tremendous lesson to the forces of freedom--so that our suffering and death will not have been in vain."
Some of Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s last words were inscribed on the Gutzon Borglum sculpture, to wit: "What I wish more than all in this last hour of agony is that our case and our fate may be understood in their real being and serve as a tremendous lesson to the forces of freedom so that our suffering and death will not have been in vain."
August 23
In Charlestown, MA, Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were burned in the prison’s electric chair shortly after midnight.
August 25
The bodies were laid in state at the Langone Funeral Home at 383 Hanover Street, Boston.
“Three days and three nights, people came in droves,” William Langone said. “The coffins were open.” Estimates are that twenty-thousand sympathetic and empathetic visitors passed through the funeral home.
Aug. 29
The gigantic funeral cortege of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti marched over streets strewn with lowers from the North End to the Forest Hills Cemetery.
Some of the floral pieces were so huge it required half a dozen men to carry them. (Boston Post photo)
The two men were cremated at Forest Hills.
Seven years prior, when news first broke of their arrest, the city editor from the New York Call magazine had dismissed the outrage: “There’s no story here. Just two wops in a jam.”
Bad guess. The two wops went on to make international headlines.
Millions of people around the world were outraged at the mistreatment of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti--and expressed their outrage at countless demonstrations.
Protesters took to the streets in Africa, Berlin, Warsaw, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Rome, Moscow, Barcelona, Milan, Havana, Tokyo and Lisbon--not to mention across the U.S. In Paris, large angry crowds descended on the US Embassy. There were mass vigils and rallies from Casablanca to Caracas, Munich to Mexico City. Support in Argentina (lots of Italians in Argentina) was especially strong, igniting a general strike in Buenos Aires and later attacks on US firms and banks. Demonstrators clashed with police in London, Paris and Geneva.
They kept vigil on the night of the execution. A notable response came in the Walsenburg coal district of Colorado, where 1,132 out of 1,167 miners participated in a walkout which morphed into the Colorado coal strike of 1927.
And their supporters marched with the two Italian victims of social injustice as the funeral procession drove them to their burials.
Nowhere was more support demonstrated for the men than in Boston’s North End of Boston where the funeral procession started. The bodies were carried into the funeral cars and the solemn procession started, slowly – the sidewalks were packed and spilling over, The entourage grew rapidly, soon exceeding two hundred thousand people*, many of them themselves Italian immigrants, many of them arm in arm.
(*This was a Boston record for any outdoor gathering; a record that remained unapproached until the Tom Brady era and Boston’s first Super Bowl Parade.)
This is a view of the procession from Tremont Street.
In the next piece, I’ll lay out the status of the memorial effort.
As always, for those who would like to participate in the group, A Visible Bronze Memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti, contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com
No.
You don’t have to be Italian to help out.
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It’s Sunday, January 3, 2021
Welcome to the 987th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Ghirlandaio’s Visitation
1486-90
Fresco, width 14 3/4 ‘
Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
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2.0 Commentary
Watching the complaints attending the dissemination of the covid vaccine.
And am heartened.
The more screen time devoted to the cure, the less we have to hear again and again and again how dire our situation is.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Tomie T from So Carolina:
Love your reminiscences of your grandparents.
We lived with my maternal grandparents from 1944 until their deaths.
They were wonderful, caring, loving, giving people.
My grandfather, John Bryson, was a coal miner and eventually a superintendent of mines in Alabama.
His family immigrated from Wales.
My grandmother, Florence Grace Greene, was a blue-eyed blond who grew up on the family farm in Ragland, Alabama - the family was not wealthy, but they had river bottom land and were prosperous farmers. By prosperous, I meant they made a living and were not in debt. They were not affluent by any means.
Her family immigrated from Ireland.
My paternal parents were mean as hell and to my knowledge, never did anything for anybody.
My grandfather was an engineer of sorts - mining- a philanderer.
My grandmother grew up in a children's home somewhere in South Alabama.
They had several thousand children - one happened to be my father who supported them. All family celebrations ended up in an argument.
Never once did my brother or I ever receive a birthday card much less a Christmas gift from these people.
Yet, we took care of them until they died.
I think most families have dysfunctional components and our memories are based on our own perceptions and experiences.
Blog Meister responds: Tommie, I think you must be right because your experience sounds so much like my own.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night was ‘live off the refrigerator’ night’. No stove involved.
The menu included leftover turkey with gravy served with three prepared vegetables bought from Whole Foods in Boston: roast butternut squash, beet salad, and cole slaw.
We also had some leftover pasta and half a plate of the tournedos dinner from last night.
I made a gin and tonic with Old Raj gin.
A great kick.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnails
Domenico Ghirlandaio’s The Visitation, the second scene in the lower section of the right wall, is found in the Tornabuoni Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Novella. The painting portrays Our Lady and St Elisabeth, accompanied by women wearing the costumes of the day.
The right wall in the Chapel tells the story of Saint John the Baptist in the same seven picture areas as the story of Mary is told on the wall opposite.
The two stories meet in the fresco the Visitation, in which the two mothers-to-be, the young Mary and the aged Elizabeth are depicted.
Along with the two birth scenes, the Visitation is one of the most important pictures in the entire chapel. The meeting of the Virgin Mary and Saint Elizabeth in the center was painted quickly and easily.
Ghirlandaio then uses the remaining space to display a little of everything that his brush is capable of producing and that his donor stipulated in the contract: landscape and cities, animals and plants, a bold use of perspective, classical buildings and reliefs and, not least, portraits of noble and beautiful women.
Various women spectators are witness to the event. Among them Vasari identifies "... Ginevra de' Benci, a most beautiful girl". The person he refers to is standing on the right, though it is much more probable that she is actually Giovanna degli Albizzi, who in those very years became the wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni.
In the background of the visitation, side by side, are features that reflect the two sources of Ghirlandaio's pictorial inspiration: classical art and Flemish painting. On the right, the classical era is represented by a building with sculptural decorations, while the men seen from behind, leaning over wall, are derived from superb Flemish paintings - Jan van Eyck painted such figures in the background of his so-called Rolin Madonna about 1436 (now in the Musée du Louvre), and Rogier van der Weyden created a variation on this idea in his Saint Luke Painting the Virgin (now in Boston). Ghirlandaio uses the classical reliefs and the strong horizontal line of the wall below them to establish a link with the next scene, the Angel Appearing to Zacharias.
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