Who are th 12 greatest women alive today in the United States?

A Chilean writer asked this of the National League of Women Voters, and the League is now asking us. They want to see "a range of occupation, residence and temperament," and these must be "women who have made their own way, without the assistance of father or husband." Ha ha. That last condition excludes a lot of women who probably think they are pretty great.

The NYT contends that the 12 greatest women "are women that have never been heard of outside of their own homes, and seldom appreciated there; who have put aside their own ambitions ... to build careers for which their husbands got credit." But the League is looking for famous women, so the Times names 12 famous women: Geraldine Farrar, Edith Wharton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Molla Mallory, Alice Paul, Ida Tarbell, Jane Addams, Amy Lowell, Minnie Maddern Fiske, M. Carey Thomas, Mary Pickford, and Agnes Repplier. Ah, but "six of the twelve have never married," and the married ones are all childless. "Let those who think it is easy to manage a first-rate career and a first-rate home simultaneously find an explanation for that."

Well, my first attempt at an explanation would be to guess that the NYT composed its list of twelve with an eye toward who was childless. But, yet, it's certainly true that it's not easy to balance career and family. Why can't we factor that in as we select the greatest women? First, you say the really greatest women are the ones who put aside all career ambitions for the sake of the family, and then you present us with a list of great women who are all childless. It's obvious what you want to say. You want to warn women away from careers. Unless we are willing to abandon the hope for a good family, we should forget about having a career. This is a terrible message. Try harder to find good examples of women who have balanced family and work and show us how they have done it — or modern women should toss this reactionary newspaper aside. We deserve better.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1922.

Tough anti-Communists reject "moral equivalence."

Walter Goodman reports in the NYT:

The use of the term ''moral equivalence'' is generally attributed to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the former United States Delegate to the United Nations, in her sharp criticism of that point of view.... She traced the willingnss [sic] of some in the West to believe there is ''not a dime's worth of difference betwen the two regimes'' in part to ''semantic manipulation'' by the Russions [sic] designed to ''delegitimize Western democracies and to detach the allegiance of its citizens.''

Various prominent neoconservatives were there: Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, William J. Bennett, Michael Novak. There are so many typos in this article! Kristol's name is spelled "Kirstol." I think the neocons are making the NYT nervous. Attention is called to the fact that the meeting was sponsored by the State Department — AKA the "State Depratment"— which prohibited the use of the funds for ''publicity or propaganda." Does that mean conservatives must be balanced by liberals? That's a stretch. In any case, it seems that liberals — e.g. Noam Chomsky — turned them down.

But what really interests me here is Tom Wolfe, who gave the dinner talk, titled, as the Times writes it: ''The Intellegent coed's Guide to Socialism.'' (They're dum.) I'd love to get the text of this speech. Here's the summary — devoid of quotes that might convey Wolfe's hilarious, lively style:

[H]e suggested that intellectuals are attracted to socialism because it seems in ''good taste.'' In addition, he drew attention to what he called the ''secret promise'' of socialism, that intellectuals will wind up with power.

Sounds apt! This idea that people support the political theory that will bring them power... isn't it a political theory? Isn't it Marxism? But of course, Tom Wolfe must be a big right-winger or he wouldn't be speaking at that outrageous, State Depratment-funded, publicity-seeking propaganda fest.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1985.

"Natural laws? There are none. We make them and then attribute them to nature."

The NYT tries to explain the physics of "Young Professor Heisenberg." Is there any truth? Apparently it's all mere probabilities:

Why, then, do engineers and chemists undertake to build bridges or make rayon, confident that their plans will be realized? Because lumps of matter are merely statistical effects. In their vast conglomerations of atoms and electrons conflicts and agreements combine to form a colossal average that seems to obey the "laws of nature."

Meanwhile, in Berlin, Lady Grace Drummond-Hay reports to the NYT that she has spoken with General Hermann Wilhelm Goering and he has assured her that Germany is producing "one fully equipped military plane every three days" and that it's absurd to think — as newspapers have reported — that Germany is adding several hundred military planes every week. Lady Grace surmises that the reason Germany "is evading disclosure of the size of her air fleet is not because it is larger than the world thinks but because it is smaller."

It's hard to know what's going on in this world.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1935.

"At first only a few went overboard, but as the decks got hot the men saw their only chance was in the water..."

"Standing near the stern were two small boys, huddled up in a corner and too frightened to move. The flames were almost upon them, but they did not seem to realize their danger."

A thrilling account of the fire on The Bremen.

"Every man turned into a devil. We ran fighting and clawing and scratching and swearing for the ladder leading up to the deck. We found the hatches battened down. Great God, how the men did curse!... They pounded against the iron hatch. They pounded until the blood ran. Through the iron grating we saw flames...

"It was like hell down there. The men tore their clothes off... The men down at the bottom did not fight any more. One by one they just fell down and lay still. A big man near me said we ought to pray. Near me a fellow who had done a lot of fighting and cursing began to cry. Then he prayed."

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1900.

"I... would very much enjoy seeing in the White House a lady President..."

"and, should she happen to be married, what one might call a prince consort, were we not so terribly democratic."

A letter to the editor, complaining that the Women's Party hasn't put up a female presidential candidate.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1923.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Doyle go to Coney Island.

This is, apparently, huge news. Look at the size of the article, replete with quotes that show him scrambling for something nice to say when pressed about what he thought of the place:

"Coney Island doesn't give one time to think. I'm trying to get myself together. I must do that before I can think. But I certainly had a good time."

Later, he said he liked the dancing, and he seemed surprised to find refined dancing there.

He refused to discuss Coney's lights, noises, and exciting attractions. They didn't need discussion, he said. They spoke for themselves.

I think it's easy enough to read between the lines there. He didn't like it! He "shot the chutes," rode "the seemingly perilous Whip ride," and toured "the ridiculous Crazy Village."

But check out this article, published yesterday, that shows him expressing a lot of opinions — about suffragists, plumage laws, and New York skyscrapers. ("It seems as though some one had gone over the city with a watering pot and stupendous buildings had grown up overnight as a result.")

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1914.

"Is this woodsy metaphor a foretaste of the amenities in which political women will deal?"

That's the daintily phrased question by Mrs. A.N. George of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. She's offended by the reference to "the tactics of the pole-cat when badly frightened" that appeared in a resolution by the New England Woman Suffrage Association.

Cat fight!

The suffragists were denouncing the anti-suffragists for saying that the woman suffrage will lead to loose morals. It's slander! So send out another slander. Pole-cat!

And these are all women. You know, I believe in woman suffrage, but I had thought that women would bring a kinder, gentler tone to politics. George is cleverly demonstrating the kind, gentle tone on the anti side trying to make her point that the woman suffragists really are coarse and low. They said pole-cat. They put it in a resolution. It's bad enough to say it, but what an embarrassing demonstration of lack of understanding of politics to put pole-cat in a resolution.

I'm on the side of the suffragists, you know, so it troubles me deeply to see them look so bad next to the highly refined Mrs. George. But Mrs. George is a woman too, and I have to say that she has some excellent political skill. Women will win suffrage soon enough, I think. And the Mrs. Georges of the country will step up and vote. They can vote for legislators who will pass laws regulating morality if they're worried about morality. Come on, Mrs. George! Wouldn't that be better?

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1922.

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated today.

President Harding spoke of Lincoln as a "natural human being with the frailties mixed with the virtues of humanity." And Chief Justice Taft spoke of Lincoln's "Christ-like character."

"21-INCH WAIST PASSES.; Boston Corset Maker Says Women Have Grown Stouter."

Oh, no! With the "no-corset fad," we've become fat! It's embarrassing to admit it, but now the average waist measurement for women is 28 inches! And men have been suffering the same fate as they've changed from belts to suspenders. Is it not enought to eat sensibly and exercise? Do we really need bondage to keep us from ballooning?

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1922.

"Should he be introduced as a Neanderthal man, a bigot, a warmonger, looking out at us from the 19th century?"

Asked "the youthful-looking former Hollywood actor" Ronald Reagan, introducing Barry Goldwater. Is that sort of satirical edge going to help him best Nelson Rockefeller in next Tuesday's California primary?

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1964.

"Mr. Clark's quintet... swirl their hair around their foreheads instead of wearing it in a beefeater bob."

Thanks to the NYT for explaining how to tell the difference between a Dave Clark 5 hairdo and a Beatles hairdo — assuming you know what the hell a "beefeater bob" is. (I'm picturing some guy saying "Hi, I'm Beefeater Bob.") The Times notes that the DC5 played Carnegie Hall and claims that the "big question" was whether they got their fans to scream more than the Beatles did 2 months ago.

The determinant in such cases is how much of the music, if any, can penetrate the sustained sound emitted by the votaries.

Yeah, that is the way the NYT insists on continuing to write in the modern world. The newspaper is hopelessly square. Where is the mod newspaper that I want to read now?

Look, here's how they describe the DC5's clothes:

They wear high, tight, wight collars, black jackets and what were once known as "ice cream pants."

Ice cream pants! Again, a helpful description. What the hell are ice cream pants? You know, I know what the Dave Clark 5 look like. These descriptions only make me wonder what these other references are. Descriptions are supposed to work the other way around.

In challenging the sonic inspirational qualities of the Beatles, Mr. Clark had one more man than the first group and two particularly penetrating instruments (saxophone and electronic keyboard) that the Beatles lack.

Congratulations on figuring out the the Dave Clark 5 has 5 guys in it.

Would it kill you to say something interesting?

The Clark group appears to play louder than the Beatles.

But you still couldn't hear them. That's the main point, as far as the Times can see. Oh, these noisy, noisy groups, and their noisy, ridiculous fans. You know the day will come when they'll figure out how to turn all the instruments and microphones up and we won't hear the girls scream anymore. We'll go deaf, of course, but before we do, we'll get to hear our favorite bands play.

Anyway, the Dave Clark 5 played for 24 minutes (the same as the Beatles). 24 unheard minutes. What pleasure. Well, they filled out th show with 2 "folk-singing groups" but it just bored the DC5 fans. And the NYT doesn't even tell us the names of those folky groups. Man, talk about getting no respect. The Dave Clark 5 fans don't care about them and the NYT won't even name them.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1964.

"Unknown Man Commits Suicide."

"An unknown man, believed to be from New York, committed suicide on Saturday night in the woods back of the brownstone Episcopal church at Fort Lee by shooting himself. He was about sixty-five or seventy years of age, was six feet in height, and well but slimly built. He is clean shaven and bald, with a little gray hair on each side of the head."

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT WAS: 1899.

''This Administration has been philosophically opposed to appointing people to any job on the basis of race or sex."

So says Gary L. Bauer, assistant to President Reagan, insisting that "it would be absurd to turn around and start appointing people based on sexual preference" to a public policy committee devoted to the AIDS epidemic. The committee has no openly gay members, and gay activists think it ought to have one. There is so much fear about AIDS testing. The most important thing is to find a cure, but, meanwhile, let's think carefully about the point of testing. What good does it do to learn you have a fatal disease when nothing can be done? Yes, you need to avoid spreading it, but everyone — especially anyone in a risk group — would do well to behave as if they or their partner is infected. I don't pretend to know what's best here, but isn't it a good idea to have representatives of the gay community on the committee? With so many people — young people — dying, is it really so important to make a philosophical point about affirmative action?

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1987.

"There is little use in trying to beautify Central Park West if the line serving it terminates in the black belt of Harlem."

That's the objection of J. Bowie Dash, a director of the Central Park West and Columbus Avenue Association, about the proposed extension of the subway in New York City. The Association wants the route bent eastward so Harlem residents don't flow downtown.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1922.

"Will no one weep for tulips?"

A million tulip bulbs — that could live through the winter and bloom next spring — will be cruelly burned to ashes because they are aliens. They came into the United States duty-free to appear at the World's Fair, but now they must be destroyed. Maintaining the federal government's tariff structure is more important than beauty — more important than life. I saw those flowers. I am crying as I write this.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1939.

"Jews in Berlin were warned today that the 'ghetto' law forbidding them to live in Aryan-owned houses would soon be enforced..."

"... and they had 'better seek lodging in Jewish-owned houses now to avoid having quarters assigned to them by the city government.'"

The NYT reports today.

The law, proclaimed May 4, stipulates that Jewish householders must take in Jews at present living in "Aryan-owned" houses.

At the same time certain sections of Berlin — some of which were formerly regarded as "Jewish districts" because of a predominance of Jewish inhabitants — were declared "Aryan districts where Jews are not permitted to live."

These districts include the fashionable Tiergarten district, the near-by Luetzowplatz, the Potsdammerstrasse — one of the more important business streets — the Tauentzienstrasse, the Kurfuerstendamm, the Bayerisches Viertel and the Hansa Viertel. Both of the last-named formerly were largely populated by Jews.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1939.

"President Reagan and the lawyers he has put in charge of protecting civil rights should stand ashamed."

"Racial hatred is not tax-exempt, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a lopsided vote."

The NYT excoriates the Reagan Administration:

On what basis could the Administration have sided with private academies claiming a religious basis for discriminatory admissions? It's hard to think of any basis other than pandering to the religious right. Courts have repeatedly ruled that such schools are not entitled to pick the taxpayer's pocket for money to finance racial bias. And three previous Administrations, of both parties, obeyed the courts. Ronald Reagan tried to sneak past a change in this policy with a quiet announcement.

When that produced a storm of criticism, the President claimed he was legally bound to grant the tax exemptions. He had the gall to say that if Congress wanted to forbid them, it would have to pass another law. Congress rightly refused to dignify that ploy with an answer. The Court now explains that Congress has already given it - in laws passed over 90 years and reaffirmed twice since 1976.

Here's that "lopsided" decision in Bob Jones University v. United States. The lone dissenter is — as anyone could have guessed — William Rehnquist. How much "gall" are we talking about? Enough to make Congress seem noble for not passing more specific legislation? Rehnquist wrote:

The Court points out that there is a strong national policy in this country against racial discrimination. To the extent that the Court states that Congress in furtherance of this policy could deny tax-exempt status to educational institutions that promote racial discrimination, I readily agree. But, unlike the Court, I am convinced that Congress simply has failed to take this action and, as this Court has said over and over again, regardless of our view on the propriety of Congress' failure to legislate we are not constitutionally empowered to act for it.

Why let Congress off the hook? It's a shame that all this litigation was necessary.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1983.

1. "Carpers, critics and killjoys" and 2. "reactionaries."

2 targets of the National Socialist party, as the NYT reports:

All the party speakers are scheduled for a whirlwind campaign that like some famous American newspaper mergers will combine the best features of both previous efforts.

Hmmm.... I'm not sure the NYT is taking the Nazis seriously enough. Like a newspaper merger? That's strange.

The new treason law provides decapitation as the extreme penality for conspiracy against the State, but whether the régime will go to the length of chopping off any notable heads is presently open to some doubt.

Notice the jocose use of the word "notable"? Does the NYT think the Nazis are just posturing?

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1934.

"Racial minorities cannot be racist in the U.S.A." and "all whites are racist in the U.S.A."

2 statements in a NYC teachers' training manual. The "Lora Training Handbook: A Leader's Guide" — now withdrawn — was a response to an order by U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in a class action case about the disproportionate number of minority school kids who were getting assigned to special ed classes for the emotionally disturbed. The city was supposed to sensitize teachers to the problems of racism.

Here's the earlier NYT report on the manual:

One excerpt declares, ''In the United States at present only whites can be racists, since whites dominate and control the institutions that create and enforce American cultural norms and values.''

Another passage says: ''Even if an individual white American is free from all conscious racial prejudices, he/she remains a racist, for he/she receives benefits distributed by a white racist society through its institutions. . . . They do not have to consciously decide to oppress racial minorities in order to be racist.''

At another point, the handbook advises instructors that ''challenges are to be expected'' on the book's contentions that ''racial minorities cannot be racist in the U.S.A.'' and that ''all whites are racist in the U.S.A.'' The manual, Mr. Hikind noted, then provides instructors with ways to respond to such challenges.

Elsewhere... the manual declares, ''In order to change a racist society, all persons, particularly white persons in the U.S., must actively choose in some instance to question and go against authority, rules and values, in order to behave in an anti-racist way and fight a racist system"...

What is the conventional wisdom in academia is highly inflammatory when quoted to the general public. People don't want to hear that they are racist. I understand that the idea is to loosen up set ideas and to get people to rethink their perceptions and assumptions, but a different approach is going to be needed.

THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1987.

"The ideal thing is to have a home near a small city where there are girls and movies."

Here's a report on the "rest homes" and service clubs in Australia for our servicemen on leave from battle. A Red Cross worker says our boys get along "awfully well" with the Australian girls — because they "speak the same language." I wish there was more in these meager reports! Do they get along well just because they speak the same language — and our boys are simply happy to be around any girls? Or is there something particular about Australians? Australians! I don't know anything about these girls. In my mind, they are just girls — speaking English. But they are making our boys happy. Thanks, Australian girls. I have a picture of them, those girls, with our boys. It's a vague picture, but it means something to me. Australian girls and American boys, going to the movies. What movies? What movies are playing in that small city in Australia? The article says the boys' favorite item on the rest home/service club menu is milk, and that they pick milk — and are healthier than the boys in the last war — because "health education has borne fruit." It's a wholesome image I'm getting from this tiny article: milk-drinking boys, going to the movies with English-speaking Australian girls. What movie are they seeing? I'm just going to go ahead and picture "Yankee Doodle Dandy."



THE YEAR THAT BLOG FORGOT IS: 1943.