POTUS Bush, Clinton, and Bush Conclave At The Pope's Funeral

Comparing himself favorably to Mr. Clinton is the latest in a series of recent moves by Mr. Bush to strengthen relations with the man who vanquished his father in 1992. The thaw comes after years in which Mr. Bush talked of the need to 'restore honor and dignity to the White House' in the post-Clinton era. Click here to link up to the full story of The Three Presidential Pals.

POTUS 13 - Pres. Millard Fillmore: Another Partial Term President

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Unlike elevators, they don't skip the number 13 for Presidents. Not that President Fillmore experienced bad luck. . .or much good luck either. . .

President Zachary Taylor konked out early in his second year in office and Millard Fillmore finished his term. As President, he signed the Compromise Measure of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Compromise Measure may have helped stave off the Civil War for ten years. It was unpopular with both factions, and The President was not nominated by his party for another term.
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The Greatest Generation?

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Tom Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation about the generation preceding mine; the generation that fought World War II and stomped The Nazis (eventually). We saw a great show of unity briefly, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, but in World War II the entire country solidified to go to war. Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, black, yellow, red, white, men and women, college educated and high school dropouts all signed up to fight The Axis. That includes my parents, a city girl and a farm boy. Above, in the pictures on the left and the right. . .is my father, Corporal John Brummet. He was discharged from the army shortly before the war. After Pearl Harbor, he then enlisted in the Navy, and served in the South Pacific.

In the middle, in the Marine uniform, is Betty Brummet, my mom. During the war, she worked for a time as a riveter at Boeing; she was Rosie The Riveter. She later enlisted in the Marines, following the footsteps of her father, William Jennings Bryan Jones. He served in World War I, and when we entered World War II, he enlisted again even though he was in his mid-40's. The Seattle 'paper published pictures of my mother and grandfather together in uniform. That picture caused my mom's mom (divorced from WJB Jones) to disown her. They later reconciled. More or less. From my family, at least, everyone came home in one piece.
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A Salute To The Republican Party

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POTUS 20: Pres. James Garfield

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President James A. Garfield, (POTUS 20) is another short-timer, whose Presidency ran from March 1881 - September 1881. His term in office ran about 200 days. He was shot by a deranged lawyer, but survived; he was finally killed, 80 days later, by his team of doctors.

We mainly remember him today as one of the assasinated Presidents. His assassin, attorney Charles Guiteau believed that God had ordered him to kill the President. Guiteau stalked the President for weeks, and passed up one opportunity to shoot Garfield because his wife was present.

He was the first left-handed President. He sometimes entertained friends by writing Latin with one hand and Greek with the other (woah!). He was the last president born in a log cabin.
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A Keith Haring Mural Shortly Before Its Destruction

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This is a Polaroid of a Keith Haring mural shortly before it was painted over (!!). You can see that taggers had already been making inroads on the painting. . .
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Hillbilly Cred

Click to enlarge - Jack and Dell Galvin, 1953

To prove that I do have Hillbilly cred, I submit this photo. It's 1953 and I am teething on my step-grandfather Dell's hook arm. He lost his hand at a sawmill or on the railroad (there was another missing limb in the family and I can't remember which was which).
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POTUS 37: Pres. Richard Milhous Nixon - Tricky Dick And The Comedy Of Errors

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When I lived in NYC, we used to visit The Ex-President's house (All This Is That, December 8, 2004).

President Nixon was actually the last of the liberal Republican presidents--social spending was at an all-time high under The Nixon Administration. The country, however, seemed to visibly crumble under the domestic spying, break-ins, misinformation campaigns, Kent State, prosecution of the Chicago 7, massive anti-war demonstrations, the bombing of Cambodia, hardhats and Hell's Angels attacking peace marchers. . .and all the other outrages committed and encouraged by Nixon's henchmen, a band of misanthropic thugs. President Nixon's long smoldering resentments, doubts about his own self-worth, and his paranoia about The Kennedys would eventually sink his presidendcy.

The war against North Vietnam raged on with increased troop levels, saturation bombing, napalm napalm napalm, and massive body counts. The body count became a feature of every nightly news broadcast. On the plus side of the ledger, President Nixon reached out to both Russia and China, and set the stage for the later upheavals in Russia, up to and including the fall of communism. He opened China up to diplomacy and trade and sat with Mao Zedong.

After resigning in disgrace in August, 1974, Nixon hid out in California a couple of years, and then moved to NYC. He went on to write numerous books on foreign policy, and unofficially (with no public fanfare) advise every President until the day he died. If you want a fascinating read on Richard Nixon, check out Chris Matthew's book Kennedy And Nixon. I've read many books about Richard Nixon, and I probably enjoyed this one the most.
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The Month They Tried To Kill Me

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It wasn't they so much as circumstance, my inexperience, the public hospital system, MedicAid, the New York Blackout and my poverty all colluding to nearly snuff me.

Son of Sam was on the loose in Brooklyn and Queens. The temperatures were in the upper 90s. I was on the job trail. On July 13, when I got back to our loft in Brooklyn, my back was killing me. I sat down and noticed it wasn't my back at all; it was my chest. My arm and back felt numb and I could barely breathe.

Was I having a heart attack? I called Keelin at the deli where she worked. "What should I do?" "Call 911!"

I called 911. I said I was having a heart attack. An hour later, no ambulance had arrived. I called again. Fifteen minutes later, a beat cop rang our buzzer. I let him in. I wasn't having a coronary, but something was really wrong. The friendly cop was able to raise an ambulance.

The ambulance brought me to the E.R. at Long Island College Hospital. It took the attending physician about five seconds to diagnose a spontaneous pneumothorax, or, a collapsed lung. People have collapsed lungs every day--usually athletes or people who've been jostled in an accident, or have been stabbed or shot.

A resident put a chest tube in, after giving me Novacaine to numb the scalpel's bite.

That night, the lights went out. From my window in the hospital I could see the World Trade Center. It was dark. The New York blackout of 1977 was on. Looting and fires broke out all over the city. Over 4,000 people were arrested. They re-opened The Tombs in downtown Manhattan, to warehouse all the arrestees.

At Long Island College Hospital, the backup generators fired up immediately. Alas, the air conditioning did not. It was around 104 degrees that day. It was at least 100 in the hospital by ten o'clock. The kitchen was closed, and they served us sandwiches and juice and fruit. It was the best food I would eat for three weeks.

It's not difficult to install a chest tube. I later learned how to do it advanced first aid. Yet, somehow, the hapless resident--Dr. Bucobo--f***ed it up. Normally, it takes a day or two for a collapsed lung to heal. It had been a week. Someone finally realized that the tube was in The Wrong Place. They chopped another hole in my chest and re-installed the tube. The resident and his intern came in once a day. If I survived these F-troop MDs, it would be a miracle.

Two days later, my new friend Jan Newberry, came to see me. I couldn't speak. I was in incredible pain. My fever was 104 and climbing. My breathing was shallow because it hurt to breathe. My blood gas was not promising. Jan called Keelin, who raced down and somehow convinced them they were killing me.

Things looked marginal for my continued existence. The pneumothorax was now complicated by double pneumonia. They hooked up a lung suctioning machine, put me on large doses of morphine, and pumped me full of vitamins, major antibiotics, stool softeners, sleeping pills every night, and other potions and elixirs. The morphine helped. When I was finally on antibiotics, the fever broke. After two grim days, I slowly began to recover. I was going to live. The only thing I cared about was the next dose of morphine.

After twenty days in LICH, the chest tube was removed. It felt great not to have to lug that box around (the chest tube ran into a box with water in it, which kept the lung pressurized as it repaired itself). The next day, they kicked me out. I was back on the streets of New York.

They caught Son of Sam the next month. He was our neighbor for a long time after that--we lived across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention.
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The World Trade Center From The Promenade

Click to enlarge - Jack in Brooklyn Heights, ca. '78

When we first lived in NYC, we lived in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, just on the edge of downtown Brooklyn. One of our favorite walks was to Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade, with its fantastic views of the lower Manhattan skyline. We often walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to downtown.

The World Trade Center had just been finished. I liked going to the observation deck for the views of, I think, four states.

We went to the Avant-Garde fair there (in '78 or '79). Andy Warhol and Alen Ginsberg were wandering among the crowd. The Talking Heads were there. John Lennon and Yoko Ono hired a skywriter to write messages over the WTC plaza. I can't remember the message, but it was something like "Get Peace If You Want It."

I also liked to view the huge Joan Miro Tapestry (click to see the mural) in the lobby of one of the towers. I was a Miro fan, and loved to sit and stare at the gigantic tapestry. I do not believe it survived the attacks. /jack
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Treachery

Senator Orrin Hatch Speaks

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of
human life [1].

[1] Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican, is the Senior Senator from Utah