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| Via The Blue Torch |
January 3, 2026
Venezuela
Rachel Maddow on Venezuela: “There are very few Americans right now who have any idea why the United States did this. If this was about drug trafficking then why did President Trump just pardon the former President of Honduras who was convicted of sending hundreds of tons of drugs into the US?”
America is now a dictatorship
Sam Smith - With the unconstitutional powers used by Donald Trump against Venezuela and the assumption that one man has the right to execute these powers, it is fair to say that America's days as a democracy are over and we are now under a dictatorship. Further, the free press - illustrated by the weakness of its challenge to this historic disaster - is doing to little to rescue us.
The comments of a president treating the takeover of Venezuela as acorrect function of his office was one of the most bitterly sad TV shows I have ever seen. While his paste proposed takeover of Greenland could be dismissed as hype, the same can't be said of Venezuela. After all, he did it.
Our president feels its is proper to take over another country that he doesn't like. That is not something allowed by a constitutional democracy but rather a sure sign that dicatorship is now par for the course.
The Jan 6 case
ABC News - A former FBI agent accused of egging on rioters to attack police during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol is now serving in the Justice Department as part of the so-called "Weaponization Working Group," sources familiar with the appointment confirmed to ABC News.
Jared Wise was on trial when he was pardoned as part of President Donald Trump's sweeping series of pardons and commutations for nearly all of the more than 1,500 individuals charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
According to sources, Wise is now serving in the department as an investigator and counselor to Ed Martin, the former interim D.C. U.S. Attorney, whose permanent nomination to the post was rejected by Republican senators concerned over his past vocal advocacy for Jan. 6 rioters and other controversial actions he took in Trump's first four months in office.
Wise was charged in May 2023 and later indicted, with prosecutors pointing to videos showing him yelling "Kill 'em!" repeatedly as rioters attacked police outside of the Capitol building. He also allegedly entered the building for roughly nine minutes and then continued shouting at police.
“You guys are disgusting," Wise allegedly said in body camera footage recorded by law enforcement. "I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can’t see it. . . . Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”
Tesla sales dropped again inn 2025
Axios - Tesla vehicle sales declined for a second consecutive year in 2025, hitting a low since 2022. The figures put CEO Elon Musk's company behind Chinese competitor BYD as the world's leading electric vehicle maker.
Tesla said it delivered 1.64 million in 2025, down 9% from the previous year..
- Sales suffered in 2025 over backlash to Musk's political ties to President Trump. They were also hurt by the expiration of a $7,500 tax credit that was phased out by the Trump administration at the end of September.
What One of the Boats Trump Struck Was Carrying
New Republic - Detritus from one of the Caribbean boat strikes has washed up on the Colombian peninsula, and it’s not what the White House claimed.
The boats apparently wrecked in a November 6 strike arrived on Colombia’s Indigenous-governed Guajira Peninsula two days later with two mangled bodies and torched jerrycans. But at least one of the vessels also carried evidence of the drugs it was smuggling onboard, reported The New York Times: emptied packets of marijuana.
The Trump administration has justified its unfettered air strike campaign on the basis that small watercraft in the Caribbean were funnelling fentanyl into the U.S. To further legitimize the militaristic response—which so far has killed at least 107 people since early September—the president purported that the boats were run by “narcoterrorists” from Venezuela, and designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction.”
But marijuana, a drug synonymous with the “peace and love” movement of the 1960s, is about as far from a tool of war as you can get. The substance is already legal in the vast majority of the U.S.: 40 states permit its use for medicinal purposes, while 24 states allow residents to get high for any reason whatsoever.
Earlier this month, Trump himself signed an executive order to expedite the process of reclassifying weed from a Schedule I drug—which are considered to have high abuse rates with little to no medical application—to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act.
Overall, there seems to be little evidence that the boats have been headed toward the United States. In a classified meeting with U.S. lawmakers two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and State Secretary Marco Rubio revealed that the Trump administration was aware the boats were bound for Europe rather than America. They also disclosed that the administration had no intelligence indicating that fentanyl was coming out of Venezuela, but rather that some of the boats were believed to be carrying cocaine.
Trump increases illegal war against Venezuela
Time - President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States had captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after carrying out a "large-scale" strike against the country.
Axios - President Trump is already being blasted by congressional Democrats for ordering strikes on military targets in Caracas, as part of an overnight operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.
The lawmakers say the president blatantly overstepped his authority by not seeking congressional authorization for the operation beforehand.
The extraordinary attack follows months of pressure from the Trump Administration on Maduro to cede power in the South American country over long-standing accusations of involvement in drug trafficking and election rigging.
It represents the largest U.S. military operation in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, and is the second major military campaign launched by the president since returning to office a year ago.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Maduro and his wife had been "captured and flown out of the Country," adding that the operation "was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement."
Axios - American interventionism is back, in Trumpian technicolor, Axios' Dave Lawler reports.
- In just under a year, Trump has conducted massive strikes on Iran's nuclear program, bombed six additional countries, most recently Nigeria, appointed himself chair of a governing board for Gaza, and sent a massive flotilla to Venezuela to blow up drug boats and, it's now clear, to depose a sitting world leader.
- He's done most of that without seeking approval from Congress or trying to build any kind of international legitimacy.
Axios - President Trump is already being blasted by congressional Democrats for ordering strikes on military targets in Caracas, as part of an overnight operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.
The lawmakers say the president blatantly overstepped his authority by not seeking congressional authorization for the operation beforehand.
The strikes were reportedly carried out against Venezuelan anti-air and other military targets in order to protect U.S. personnel carrying out Maduro's capture.
Republicans have praised and defended the move, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) saying Trump "likely" acted under his authority in Article II of the U.S. Constitution to defend American troops overseas.
January 2, 2026
Life expecdtancy
Democrat states have life expectancies that are on par with Canada, Germany, and Poland.
While Republican states have life expectancies on par with Honduras, North Korea, Bangladesh, and Nicaragua.
Canada - 81.6
Hawaii – 80.7 years
Germany - 80.5 years
Albania - 79.6
Washington – 79.2 years
Minnesota – 79.1 years
Massachusetts – 79.0 years
Connecticut – 78.9 years
New Jersey – 78.8 years
New York – 78.7 years
California – 78.6 years
Poland - 78.51 years
Colorado – 78.5 years
New Hampshire – 78.4 years
States with the lowest life expectancy, and some countries to compare:
Mississippi – 71.9 years
West Virginia – 72.8 years
Honduras - 73 years
Louisiana – 73.1 years
Alabama – 73.2 years
North Korea - 73.6 years
Tennessee – 73.8 years
Arkansas – 73.8 years
Kentucky – 74.0 years
Oklahoma – 74.1 years
New Mexico – 74.5 years
Bangladesh - 74.6 years
South Carolina – 74.8 years
Nicaragua - 74.9 years
Canada - 81.6
Hawaii – 80.7 years
Germany - 80.5 years
Albania - 79.6
Washington – 79.2 years
Minnesota – 79.1 years
Massachusetts – 79.0 years
Connecticut – 78.9 years
New Jersey – 78.8 years
New York – 78.7 years
California – 78.6 years
Poland - 78.51 years
Colorado – 78.5 years
New Hampshire – 78.4 years
States with the lowest life expectancy, and some countries to compare:
Mississippi – 71.9 years
West Virginia – 72.8 years
Honduras - 73 years
Louisiana – 73.1 years
Alabama – 73.2 years
North Korea - 73.6 years
Tennessee – 73.8 years
Arkansas – 73.8 years
Kentucky – 74.0 years
Oklahoma – 74.1 years
New Mexico – 74.5 years
Bangladesh - 74.6 years
South Carolina – 74.8 years
Nicaragua - 74.9 years
Workers
Brian Allen - Under Donald Trump, America has now seen seven straight months of manufacturing job losses.
Polls
Newsweek - Trump’s approval rating among Americans earning $50,000 or less has fallen to 31 percent, with 65 percent disapproving, according to a late December YouGov/Economist poll, which interviewed 1,550 U.S. adult citizens from December 26-29 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points...
Support has dropped among those earning $50,000 to $100,000, with Trump’s net approval slipping from -10 in October to -17 in December. Only 40 percent now approve of his performance in this segment of the electorate, according to the December YouGov/Economist poll.
Trump regime
Fedeal judges find the Trump regime repeatedly lying.
Democratic Conservation Alliance - Donald Trump just nominated disgraced ex-Congressman Steve Pearce to run the Bureau of Land Management. Pearce has a long, ugly record of blatant anti-conservation: ❌ Tried to sell off our public lands NPR - Somali American childcare center operators in Minnesota report that they have received violent threats and seen vandalism after right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video alleging fraud at their establishments. Following the video’s release, the Trump administration cut federal funding to childcare centers, not just in Minnesota but across the country. |
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Dr Mary L Trump
Dr Mary L Trump (Neice of Donald Trump) - In less than nine months, Donald Trump and his cronies have enacted nearly half of the Project 2025 agenda. And friend, it’s already eroding our democracy as designed.
From firing tens of thousands of federal workers and replacing them with those loyal to Donald, to weaponizing the Justice Department against critics while protecting him and his allies, to gutting protections for our environment, our health, our civil rights, and so much more, the Trump regime has made clear that they’ll answer to no one but Donald and the billionaires bankrolling his chaos..
From firing tens of thousands of federal workers and replacing them with those loyal to Donald, to weaponizing the Justice Department against critics while protecting him and his allies, to gutting protections for our environment, our health, our civil rights, and so much more, the Trump regime has made clear that they’ll answer to no one but Donald and the billionaires bankrolling his chaos..
Gen Z
The Guadian - Amid a nationwide decline of teaching, .... a striking number of gen Z graduates are entering the classroom, despite longstanding concerns over pay and conditions.
Teach For America (TFA), a non-profit education organization, experienced a near 43% increase in applicants for teaching fellowships over the past three years.
A generation whose formative years were spent in isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown is “craving human connection and experiences that feel real”, suggested Whitney Petersmeyer, TFA’s chief growth and program officer. “Teaching is the job where they can find that.”
Gen Z is “responding to the opportunity for purpose and responsibility at a time where many entry jobs feel uncertain or disconnected from impact”, she added.
Jeffrey Epstein
NPR - Two weeks past the legal deadline, the Justice Department has failed to release all of the Jeffrey Epstein files in its possession. The few public documents the DOJ released feature heavy redactions that appear to exceed the limits intended by the law. The government also says some of what was released shouldn’t be trusted. All together, the lack of transparency has fueled the flames of old and new conspiracy theories regarding the convicted sex offender’s life and death.
As we start the year, many people believe that President Trump is one of the powerful few keeping the public in the dark about Epstein, NPR’s Stephen Fowler says. The White House disagrees with that notion. Fowler says he is watching in the coming weeks to see what Congress will do about the DOJ's failure to meet the deadline, especially since the law doesn’t include punishment or enforcement mechanisms.
Members fleeing Congress
The Hill - GOP lawmakers are fleeing for the exit in droves, with many pointing to a Congress that they argue has grown too dysfunctional and a demanding schedule that leaves little time for their families.
More than 50 lawmakers in both parties have announced decisions to leave their seats, scrambling the calculus on both sides of the aisle ahead of next year’s high-stakes midterms.
The wave of exits could be particularly ominous for Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. The number exiting is nearly on par with 2018, a dismal midterm year for the GOP.
Some lawmakers frustrated with inaction on Capitol Hill plan to run for governor and other state-wide offices, while others are stepping back from public office altogether.
More than 50 lawmakers in both parties have announced decisions to leave their seats, scrambling the calculus on both sides of the aisle ahead of next year’s high-stakes midterms.
The wave of exits could be particularly ominous for Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. The number exiting is nearly on par with 2018, a dismal midterm year for the GOP.
Some lawmakers frustrated with inaction on Capitol Hill plan to run for governor and other state-wide offices, while others are stepping back from public office altogether.
January 1, 2026
Starting seventy years of journalism
Sam Smith - Seventy years
ago I was introduced to what would become a lifetime of journalism. I was a
student at Harvard College and decided to join its radio station, thanks in part to having already become a fan
of Edward R. Murrow. I covered events on
campus as well as sessions of the Cambridge City Council. including a story of
a councilmember who wanted to pave Havard Yard and turn it into a parking lot.
In my sophomore year (1956). I
got a summer job in Washington with the all news station WWDC. They liked my work enough that they offered me
a job when I graduated. The downside of this was that I no longer felt pressure
to do well academically my last two years and I ended up on probation. But the
job came through anyway and the rest of my life was started.
Here is an excerpt from my memoir
which appeared originally in Washington History:
Sam Smith - In the spring
of my sophomore year I read in Broadcasting magazine that WWDC, an independent
station in Washington, DC, was developing a major news operation. Most stations
at the time just ripped and read copy from the wires; the exceptions were
usually network affiliates.
I immediately added WWDC to a
list of 40 stations -- all the others in New England -- to which I sent summer
job applications. The 40 New England stations rejected or ignored me, but WWDC
took me on. And so I returned to my native Washington, which my family had left
when I was ten.
My bosses were two Texas liberals
-- news director Joe Phipps and his assistant Bob Robinson. Short and bald,
Phipps appeared a bespectacled and ambulatory small mouth bass. When excited
his eyeballs almost rubbed against his glasses. His voice ebbed and flowed
between 1950s broadcast fog and full-blown southern oratorical eruption.
Robinson, on the other hand, had an unflappable Texas drawl. A tall man with
white hair, Robinson was as imperturbable as Phipps was instantly reactive.
My initial task -- writing nine
newscasts a day -- interned me in a small corner room with just enough space
for one window, four news tickers, two typewriters, several phones, reams of
yellow copy paper, even more rolls of yellow ticker paper and a maximum of four
human beings.
Each newscast was expected to be
different, whether the news had changed or not. Three of the newscasts occurred
during evening drive time and were 30 minutes apart. This coincided with the
most likely period for accidents and thunderstorms. Since WWDC paid $1 to $5
for every news tip it aired, I would be regularly inundated with accounts of
fallen limbs and fender benders as I struggled to write three newscasts in an
hour and a half. Often the copy ended up like this:
Reports of
damage done by this afternoon's thunderstorm are pouring into the WWDC
newsroom. At least six houses are on fire, nine accidents have occurred and
numerous trees and hot wires have fallen across roads. Police and electric
company officials say their phones have been jammed. . .
That newscast probably cost $13,
representing the number of incidents I managed to squeeze into one
double-spaced page -- all typed in caps with the errors blacked out by a soft
copy pencil.
The news tip system worked pretty
well, although I sometimes suspected that the volunteer rescue squad
dispatchers were calling us before they sent out their equipment, since once
the dispatch had been aired, anyone with a scanner could call in the item. And
on at least one occasion an employee at WTOP even earned a dollar for phoning
in a news tip that he had heard on WMAL.
One of our regular callers was
Dan. Matching Robert Frost's paradigm for the good life, Dan's vocation and
avocation had become one. He sat in his apartment surrounded by police and fire
scanners waiting for tragedy to strike somewhere in the metropolitan region. He
would then call and hoarsely whisper the news: "This is Dan, Sam. I've got
a body for you." And another buck went to Dan.
Writing constantly soon became
tiresome and I discovered various ways to amuse myself. One was to pick a word
for the day and then see in how many newscasts I could use it. It had to be
something like evince or piqued because my
goal, unlike that of station management, was to raise the general tenor of the
WWDC sound. This quixotic effort came to a halt when a blue paper memo from
Bill Robinson made it clear that he had noticed and didn't think much of my
unsanctioned vocabulary lessons.
o
In the late fifties WWDC was the
area's top rated station, but it maintained this status with substantial help
from exclusive broadcast rights to the Washington Senators games. Absent
baseball, WWDC dropped to second or third in evening listening, behind WTOP and
WRC, although keeping its lead in the daytime.
WWDC was sometimes known as
Bubbly Bubbly DC. The song had come from a jingle house, one of the new
parasites of the business -- a firm that provided stations with customized
musical fillers. Knowing that the same jingle, slightly reworked, was being used
by stations all over the country was a reminder of the illusions one could
create in a medium where no one saw what you were doing.
.
FRED
FISKE INTERVIEWS ACTOR TAB HUNTER
[DC Public Library, Washington Post]
Washington radio had always been
a bit different, though -- ever since a local morning man named Arthur Godfrey
started making fun of his advertisers on the air. At least one of them, a
furrier named Zlotnik, the man to see "when your wife is cold,"
became famous mainly as a result of Godfrey's comments about the dirty stuffed
bear in front of his store.
Washington in those days was run
by three commissioners appointed by the president. Many, though, assumed
correctly that the real commissioner was the director of the very white Board
of Trade. The local papers routinely listed the race of victims and
perpetrators in crime stories. A Washington Star veteran recalled "the
grieving widow who called me one day after I'd done an obit about her late
husband, in which I had referred to him as a D.C. native. 'He wasn't no
native,' she shrieked. 'He was as white as you or I!'" And when I went to
cover the annual Brotherhood Week luncheon at a local hotel, a reporter leaned
over and said, "Do you notice the only Negroes in this place are the
waiters?".
This same reporter called me at 2
a.m. the morning after the funeral of Sweet, Precious Daddy Grace, the colorful
bishop of the United House of Prayer for All People. "I'm down here
waiting for them to choose Daddy Grace's successor," he whispered into the
phone, "and I'm the only white person here. How about coming down?"
Later, in January 1961, I made my
only foray into the real world of network television. I was hired for Kennedy's
inauguration by CBS News as a news editor. Along with fellow WWDC newsman Ed
Taishoff, I sat all day capped with a headset in a ballroom of the Hotel
Washington , turning phone calls from CBS correspondents into stories then
placed on Walter Cronkite's personal news ticker. If there was one thing Ed and
I knew, it was how to take news from callers, turn it into copy and get it on
the air fast.
After the summer of 1956, I
returned to Harvard even more determined to go into radio. I was elected WHRB's
station manager but two weeks later received an official letter stating that
"the Administrative Board voted to place you on probation instead of
severing your connection with the University." It had been my second
unsatisfactory term as a result of my infatuation with radio; among the
penalties would be the surrender of my new post. Nonetheless, and in the
tradition of the college's station, I continued on the air under a pseudonym
and comforted myself with the thought that WWDC had asked me to come back. I
toughed it out and eventually graduated without honors but with a job.
I returned to WWDC in the summer
of 1959 upon graduation from Harvard. I started working for Deadline Washington
on my off-days and after work on other days -- putting in 12-14 hour stints.
Often I would be on joint assignment for Deadline and WWDC.
WWDC also received feeds from
other stations. For example, when Nikita Khruschev was visiting the US, we
arranged for a mid-western station to give reports of his tour of an American
farm.
WWDC's news fleet consisted of
two vehicles, a Nash Rambler station wagon and an Isetta minicar. The light
blue Rambler had WWDC NEWS, in reverse image, painted on its hood in large dark
blue letters, thus allowing the sign to be read correctly in a rear view
mirror. The style would become common, especially with ambulances, but at the
time was the sort of novelty WWDC loved.
The Rambler had an even more
startling, albeit unintentional, characteristic. The front seats of Ramblers
folded down to become beds. Unfortunately, this capability had developed an
anarchistic streak in our model, resulting in a tendency for the driver's seat
back to become prone whenever sturdy brake pressure was applied, say at an
ordinary stop light.
The Isetta, an Italian import,
was far smaller than any car on the road today, and powered by a motor scooter
engine. It had four wheels, but they were tiny and the two in back were almost
adjacent to each other. You sat in what amounted to little more than a cockpit
with barely enough room for a 210-pound reporter and a radio telephone. The
door doubled as the entire front end, with the steering wheel swinging out of
the way for entrance and egress. More than once I pulled up to a wall or post
only to remember that I had blocked my own getting out.
AN ISETTA OF THE SAME MODEL THE AUTHOR DROVE AS A RADIO NEWS REPORTER.
It was not the best way to cover
the news. The Isetta had a flank speed of 50 mph on flat, good pavement, and it
practically had to be pedaled up hills. This sometimes interfered with arriving
promptly at the scene of a distant fire, murder or drowning. Nonetheless, no
one at WWDC would admit that novelty in this case had gotten a bit out of hand.
Besides, the Isetta's light carriage allowed me to push it out of mud and sand
in which a heavier car would have become mired.
Everything was simpler. Even the
US Capitol which I wandered around with my mike and tape recorder like it was
my apartment building. Even the US Capitol Police force was comprised mainly of
young men benefiting from the patronage granted their fathers by various
members of Congress. It was a fairly pleasant crowd and you knew you were not
just dealing with a law enforcement officer but perhaps a grad student whose
dad was a buddy of the majority leader.
My favorite Hill cop story from
the period involves a friend who was a bagpipe -playing Lebanese Catholic from
Boston who knew everyone in the Democratic Party and worked for a number of
them including Massachusetts governor Foster Furcolo and, later, Ted Kennedy.
She was on her way to an LBJ State of the Union from Boston but was late and
arrived from the plane still carrying her bagpipe case in which rested not only
the instrument but some pita bread her sister had made.
In a hall crowded with some of
America's most powerful, my friend was told by a Capitol police officer to open
the bagpipe case. The officer was disturbed by what he found inside.
"Don't worry," said my friend. "It's just a bagpipe and some
pita bread. . . Call your chief and tell him Terri Haddad is here with her
bagpipes. He knows me."
The officer did and at the other
end the Capitol Hill police chief issued one blunt order: "Tell her to
play “Danny Boy."
And so for the chief, she did and
then was allowed to repack her instrument and go hear the speech.
Before long, I knew Washington
and its environ like a cab driver and could quickly compute such arcane
calculations as the shortest route from the White House to a six alarm fire in
Upper Marlboro. I also knew every press room in town.
My favorite was at the District
Building, which one entered through swinging doors reminiscent of a frontier
bar. Inside were three desks, a center table and a worn-out sofa. The stuffing
was coming out of the sofa and the covering was greasy and black from years of
resting heads. After Watergate, a sign was posted above the press room sofa. It
read, "Carl Bernstein slept here."
Complementing the novelty of the
station's news fleet was its collection of still rare battery operated tape
recorders. These devices were about three inches thick, five inches wide and
ten inches long.
The recorders were so new that
the engineer's union had initially insisted it send a member out with all
reporters using one. Fortunately for the future of news radio, this particular
piece of featherbedding was scotched. The tape recorders, however, presented a
number of other challenges -- including a deep sensitivity to temperature. More
than once I returned from an outdoor winter taping -- a burial at Arlington
cemetery or a fire -- only to find my recorded voice sounding like Porky Pig as
the batteries returned to full power once back in the studio.
Whatever the machines' faults,
there were fewer than a dozen stations and networks in Washington that had
them, so even a neophyte reporter such as myself had easy access to the most
senior politicians.
In a manual on WWDC news
reporting that I wrote in 1960, shortly before leaving the station, I outlined
some of the peculiarities of the technology:
The various
machines operate in various ways at various times. For example, they have
different proper recording levels and sometimes these change after the machines
have been repaired. . .
Do not let the
speaker hold the mike unless he is in such a position that you can not
comfortably reach him. Saliva does not help the mike crystal.
Covering events
with you on the local level will be the three daily papers, an occasional wire
service man, and sometimes a man from WMAL The basis of successful operation
alongside these other news people is largely intuitive and is worked out by
experience. But if the WMAL cameraman asks you to move the mike a little to the
left, you should do so as long as it does not hamper your work. If you need to
get through a crowd of reporters with a mike, polite requests combined with the
proper quantity of physical pressure will assure entrance.
There are many
events at which over a hundred reporters will be present. Obviously, a
dog-eat-dog attitude could easily result in chaos. A scoop is one thing, but it
doesn't mean cooperation is eliminated.
Covering
national stories, the networks present a problem. The network engineers and
cameramen try to intimidate new independent newsmen and like to play tough.
Some of their requests are responsible. Sometimes they just are trying to give
you a hard time. It gains you nothing to get angry. Be good natured whenever
possible; otherwise go about your business ignoring them . . .
In time this
policy pays off. One cameraman, without being asked, gave me the idea for the
paper clip mike holder. NBC's Johhnie Langanegger repaired a transformer for
me. A cameraman named Skip lent me a screwdriver at a crucial moment. These men
have a job to do and take a certain pride in being old-timers at it. It helps
to remember this . . .
After the
conference there is a mad rush for the few phones available. So the simplest
thing to do is to go the People's Drug Store on the corner of 17th &
Pennsylvania Ave, buy a cup of coffee, sit down at a table and write your story
in relative peace.
 |
THE AUTHOR, 2nd FROM RIGHT, INTERVIEWS JFK RIGHT AFTER HE ANNOUNCED HIS PRESIDENTIAL CANIDACY.
Photo by Hank Walker, Life Magazine.
The stories I covered for WWDC
ran from Eisenhower news conferences, to an interview with Louis Armstrong, to
the murder of the former head of an Illinois college who was found "stark
naked, beaten and dying" in a room of the seedy Alton Hotel, murdered by a
male carnival worker.
My mind became centered on other matters -- such as getting into Coast Guard Officer Candidate
School before my draft board got me. But I know those months changed me even as
they changed the country. I no longer thought of the Capitol as a cathedral,
the exciting had turned a little tawdry, the right choice was less certain and
the important no longer peremptorily apparent.
I had stopped noticing the shine
of the marble. The floors of the House and Senate office buildings became
harder, the hallways darkened, and the doors that lined them seemed to conceal
more than they invited. Even on foggy and rainy evenings, the Capitol dome no
longer floated in the sky but sat lumpy and leaden on top of the Hill, waiting
for a new story to begin.
PHOTOS
WASHINGTON HISTORY, MLK LIBRARY, WASHINGTONIANA DIVISION
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