Images of Christmas – New York City

Rockefeller Center Christmas, New York City (27 December 2008)

I was born and raised in New York City. Sadly, the Bronx was not Manhattan and I didn’t get to see much of downtown before I escaped Gotham altogether in 1970. In 1974, during the Winter break, I returned from graduate school and spent some time in the city.

When I lived in New York, my biology interests meant more of my limited Manhattan time was spent in the American Museum of Natural History. Directly across Central Park from Natural History is the Metropolitan Museum of Art…a place I learned to appreciate later in life.

Neapolitan Baroque Christmas Tree,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (1974)

Since the mid-60’s, after the materials were donated to the Met, a magnificent display of 18th century Italian decorations and a nativity scene is exhibited there during the Holiday season. The link includes individual pages with descriptions for each of the 233 figures in the exhibit.

Creche, Metropolitan Museum of Art (1974)

Amazing Midtown store decorations and window displays draw crowds throughout the holiday season. After all, the po’ folk can’t afford what Tiffany’s, Cartier’s, Bergdorf-Goodman et al are selling but we can ogle the merchandise and their creative settings.

Manhattan Holiday Window Decoration (27 December 2008)

As I write this, it is below freezing here and much of the country is dealing with some serious winter weather…not the time I would want to slowly wander the streets of New York…although it would keep the crowds down. I believe everyone should get to Manhattan at Christmas-time at least once in their lives. See the tree and ice skate in Rockefeller Center, visit the holiday markets…indulge in our national winter festival.

Saks Fifth Avenue Display, New York City (27 December 2008)

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

We’ll be back in 2018.

State Capitols – Montgomery, Alabama

Alabama Capitol in Montgomery (18 October 2008)

Constructed: 1851-52

Architect: Barachias Holt

State Admitted to Union: December 14, 1819 (22nd)

State Population (2010): 4,779,736 (23rd)

My State House Odyssey was introduced in 2011 with New Hampshire. In the years since, forty-eight state capitols were visited but the stories of only twelve were posted…the last one was Madison, Wisconsin in May, 2016. Unable to create or stick to a schedule or basis for rolling out the stories, I have acknowledged that some capitol stories might be spurred by news events.

Last year, the three branches of Alabama state government found themselves in a wonderful harmonic convergence of scandal. At the time, the back pages of the Washington Post (that so-called rag of fake news and liberal propaganda) reported on how the highest ranking ‘public servants’ (quaint term that) in all three branches of state government were in the soup. While the governor was canoodling with a staff member and about to be impeached, the Speaker of the House was convicted of a dozen felony ethics violations and sentenced to prison. Not to be outdone, the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court was removed from the bench after he was also found guilty of ethics violations. How could I ignore this trifecta of government malfeasance?

BUT WAIT!

One of the miscreants has launched himself back into the national spotlight. With Roy Moore all over the media and an important election pending, I give you the Alabama capitol in Montgomery.

In 2008, we were just up the road in Birmingham for Adrienne and Tim’s wedding and took the morning to zip down to the capitol. It was a beautiful, Autumn Saturday morning and so quiet, they closed Dexter Avenue, the wide thoroughfare that ends at the capitol steps…to a soapbox derby race. The grounds were empty and the building was open for tours. Perfect.

Alabama had five previous territorial and state capitals in several locations. It was decided that centrally-located Montgomery would be the sixth and final capital. Andrew Dexter, he of today’s soapbox derby track, founded the city and donated ‘Goat Hill’ as the site for the capitol. A previous capitol burned down in 1849 just two years after it was completed and this one has served the state ever since. I must confess I did not even try to enter the State House a block away, where the current House and Senate have resided since 1985. It was time to return for the wedding. I’ll have to complete the documentation when I return to the neighborhood.

Jefferson Davis Stood Here (18 October 2008)

One doesn’t have to go far in this capitol to find reminders of the gallant, glorious past. On the top step of the west (front) entrance to the building is this marker that says –

Placed by

SOPHIE BIBB CHAPTER

Daughters

Of the Confederacy

On the spot where

JEFFERSON DAVIS

Stood when inaugurated

President of C.S.A. 

Feb. 18, 1861

Confederate War Memorial, Alabama

State Capitol, Montgomery (18 October 2008)

In 1898, 33 years after the Civil War ended, the state added a memorial to the Confederate war cause. There’s more to say about that but it will have to be in another posting…one that comes with a parental warning. The photo here was taken before the Charleston church massacre. That event caused the South Carolina state house to famously remove the ‘Stars and Bars’ from their capitol grounds. Alabama quietly made a similar gesture by removing four versions of the Rebel flags from its monument.

Horace King’s Stairs (18 October 2008)

Horace King was a talented engineer, architect and bridge-builder. He was also a freed slave. He was so good, the Alabama legislature passed a special bill that excused him from their manumission laws so he could stay in the state and continue working. Otherwise, freed slaves had to leave the state. Two magnificent spiral staircases are one of the signature attractions in the old capitol and are attributed to him.

Old Alabama Senate, Montgomery (18 October 2008)

There are reminders of the ‘Lost Cause’ in the front and the back of the old capitol. Inside are other significant points of interest. Two weeks before Jeff Davis took the oath, delegates from the seceding states met in this Senate chamber to form and organize the new country.

I wish the citizens of Alabama (and the nation) good luck in this pivotal election tomorrow.

Reply to All - A Cautionary Tale

With apologies to the artist, I did replace 
his ‘accidentally’ with ‘purposely’

I started drafting this earlier this year when Congress prepared to approve Rick Perry (Dept. of Energy) to head the agency he once couldn’t remember but wanted to disband and Scott Pruitt (EPA) to lead the agency he sued half-a-dozen times. At the time, I was reminded of one of the high (and low) points of my career in the energy business.

The recent news about how Google fired a disgruntled engineer after he wrote a manifesto complaining about diversity and the biological basis for women’s poor performance in the tech field also prompts this personal story.

The year was 2000. I was doing my best to manage environmental issues for a major electric utility company. The company had an active Public Affairs department and one of the things they did was compile and e-mail news items to top executives and corporate staff like me who represented the company externally.

With the presidential election only a few days away, our Corporate Communications people wanted us to see the statements made by Michigan governor John Engler. As George W. Bush’s state campaign manager, he criticized the Clinton-Gore energy record. In his statement, he attacked the Democrats for “failing to develop a coherent energy policy.”

I don’t recall if October 25, 2000 was a particularly bad day for me but children, do not do what I did. I drew upon my experience in the business and hit ‘Reply to All’ with the following:

“While it is convenient for Republicans to charge the current administration with not having any energy policy, that is one characteristic that has united ALL the administrations back to the oil crisis in the mid-70’s. Despite the upheavals and implications of the OPEC embargo, Three Mile Island, the natural gas crisis that lead to the Fuel Use Act and other upsets, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush did no more to encourage, let alone establish a coherent energy policy than did Carter or Clinton. I would suggest if candidate Bush wants to show he is more attuned to the need for a national energy policy, he should talk about more than drilling for oil in Alaska”.

Within hours, I received an e-mail from the corporate center advising me that this kind of communication was not well-received in certain quarters. See the ‘top executives’ part earlier. This was a ‘CLM’ (career limiting move) on my part.

So, for you budding corporate drones out there and anyone else who feels obliged to make a point. Think twice about who will see it.