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Yesterday, today and tomorrow
NEWS BULLETIN ARCHIVES
Also see NevadaLabor.com's Statewide U-News Roundup

[[EDITOR'S NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, historical items appear courtesy of longtime Nevada reporter Dennis Myers' Poor Denny's Almanac. Items highlighted in blue are of particular interest to labor. Copyright © 2006 Dennis Myers.]]

Update: Friday, Sept 22, 2006, 4:15 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863. [New York Times/AP e-headlines]

Reno NAACP leader and educator Ben Newsome dies
Memorial service set Saturday, Sept. 23, for longtime union member

On Sept. 22, 1892, the Nevada State Journal reported "There are three parties in Nevada to-day contending for supremacy. Two of them, the Republican and Democratic, represent Wall street ideas, which, as is too well known, bode no good to the State."; in 1892, in Portland, Oregon, a grand jury indicted Billy Hennessey, Gus Herget and Jack Dempsey for participating in a prize fight at the Pastime Athletic Club, with Billy Maber and Billy Smith the fighters, Herget and Hennessey the seconds, Dempsey the referee; in 1919, defying a year of corporate terrorism designed to discourage a strike, 365,000 steel workers led by communist William Z. Foster went on strike in fifty cities; in 1927, Jack Dempsey lost to defending champion Gene Tunney as a result of the famous "long count"; in 1937, the U.S. government condemned bombing of civilians by Japan in Nanking; in 1939, Hollywood director Hal Roach announced that he had selected Logandale, Nevada, as the site for filming of a dinosaur/caveman movie that did not yet have a title (it would become One Million B.C., starring Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr. and Victor Mature and its dinosaur footage would be recycled for use in many later films); in 1944, fierce fighting by German units drove allied forces entirely out of Germany, while Soviet forces captured their fourth eastern European capital by taking Tallinn, Estonia; in 1944, Maurice Chevalier's secretary received a post card from him in hiding, where he went to escape "cleansing" committees that sprang up in France after D-Day, the post card dispelling rumors that he had been shot as an alleged collaborator: "Telling the truth about me, you will silence the backbiters. I eagerly wish to return to Paris as soon as I can get transportation and to contact again my beloved public. I hope they will be glad to hear the new songs I learned during my temporary seclusion."; in 1944, U.S. War Food Administration supervisor for Nevada Dan Ronnow said $21,150 was available to have the national school lunch program in the state again and he was waiting for applications from local school districts to determine how far the money would go; in 1949, the Las Vegas city commission voted to recommend that Governor Vail Pittman end rent control; in 1954, using an old red-baiting technique on behalf of Republican U.S. House candidate Cliff Young, GOP leader Les Gray said that Democratic candidate Walter Baring's voting record on labor issues was similar to that of leftist New York congressmember Vito Marcantonio; in 1955, water from Lake Mead reached Las Vegas for the first time; in 1955, it was announced that a U.S. Navy oil tanker would be named the U.S.S. Truckee; in 1955, the Nevada board of regents expressed their unhappiness with a $25,000 Nevada Legislature investigation of the autocratic administration of University of Nevada President Minard Stout and especially with the rumored appointment of UCLA political scientist Dean McHenry to head the probe; in 1956, attorney George Franklin was awarded $190,000 in his libel suit against Las Vegas Sun publisher Hank Greenspun; in 1961, a memorial service was held at the University of Nevada in Reno for Dag Hammarskjold, U.N. secretary general killed in a plane crash; in 1965, a dedication ceremony for the first Port Arthur, Texas, traffic light that used traffic flow patterns to operate, designed to make an intersection safe, was delayed for thirty minutes when a car and an ambulance collided in the intersection; in 1965, the U.S. Post Office objected to plans to name a town in California's El Dorado County "Tahoe" because "traditionally the name 'Lake Tahoe' has encompassed the entire geographic area surrounding the lake"; in 1971, Don Schellback, designer of the state flag of Nevada, died in Tucson; in 2004, a London to Washington flight was diverted when it was learned that Yusuf Islam, AKA Cat Stevens, was on board and Bush administration officials later said he was barred from flying into the U.S. because they claimed he had an association with terrorists — even though he had met in Washington the previous May with White House officials seeking his help with "faith based" efforts (in 1989 Islam/Stevens had endorsed Iran's death sentence against author Salman Rushdie and supported Saddam during the first Gulf War).

Update: Thursday, Sept 21, 2006, 7:19 a.m. PDT — On this date in 1883, the Nevada Board of Equalization called officials of the Central Pacific and Virginia and Truckee railroads to appear before it and show cause why their tax assessments should not be increased; in 1894, the Washoe County convention of the People's Party began in Reno, reportedly the largest assemblage in county history (the party was affiliated with Nevada's Silver Party, and People's Party presidential nominee James Weaver carried Nevada in 1892); in 1897, the Marysville Appeal reported that two conductors in charge of trains that collided in August near Marysville, California, had been blacklisted from railroad employment throughout the nation; in 1897, there was a Ferris Wheel at S. J. Hodgkinson's drug store in Reno; in 1911, responding to rumors that the old high school in Reno was torn down when it was in excellent condition, school district trustees released a contractor's report listing numerous deficiencies in the structure; in 1916, Republican presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes attacked President Wilson for trying to overthrow the Mexican government; in 1937, The Hobbit was published; in 1939, Nevada FHA administrator H.H. Scheeline told the Las Vegas Rotary that more than 100 homes had been constructed in the city; in 1939, Governor Edward Carville declared Nevada's diamond jubilee on October 31 a state holiday, closing all state and local government offices, and asked private employers to do the same; in 1949, Whittlesea Radio Taxi owner Victor Whittlesea called his cabs off the roads after a Reno strike produced picketing in Las Vegas; in 1953, two gambling licenses were approved for new resorts on the Las Vegas strip — the Casa Blanca and the Sunrise; in 1961, President Kennedy nominated Eva Adams of Nevada to be director of the U.S. Mint; in 1961, Nevada District Judge Richard Waters removed Carson City Assessor Jack Schumacher from office for neglect of duty; in 1965, Lightnin' Hopkins performed at the Matrix on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, with Jefferson Airplane as the opening act; in 1972, commenting on Oregon's efforts to keep people from moving to that state, Nevada Governor Mike O'Callaghan said Nevada might have to do the same; in 1974, Walter Brennan, the only three-time Academy Award winning male actor, died in Oxnard, California.; in 2004, Arthur Miller's last play Finishing the Picture, debuted at Chicago's Goodman Theatre with Heather Prete, Matthew Modine, Harris Yulin, Linda Lavin and Stacy Keach in the cast (the play dealt with Miller's experience with Marilyn Monroe during the filming in Nevada of The Misfits, with Prete playing Monroe and Modine playing Miller).

Update: Friday, Sept 22, 2006, 4:58 a.m. PDT — Union folksingers appear at Reno peace rally
                     UPDATE FROM THE RALLY, Reno Gazette-Journal 9-22-2006

Update: Thursday, Sept 21, 2006, 2:43 a.m. PDT — TRAVELING THE HAUNTS OF AMERICA

For more information contact George Mann (646) 283-7688

Julius Margolin, who just turned 90, and fellow singer and film producer George Mann, who is somewhat younger, will perform as part of the Declaration of Peace event in downtown Reno on Thursday, Sept. 21. For time and location, see below.

Do not underestimate the portent which Julius Margolin represents.

This nonagenarian is a reminder of both Christmas past and Christmas yet to come. He was born in 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson won re-election by promising to keep the country out of the European war. We entered WWI shortly after the election. Julius grew up during the Roaring Twenties, which presaged a nation now crucified on the thorns of the Reagan Bush.

Julius was a young man when Woody Guthrie and Ernest Hemingway rode the rails of a starving, devolving America as she fell victim of the last glut of greed which ended in 1929.

Julius was there when labor was finally honored with respect in this country under the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
And now, this tireless artist travels the byways of this land — your land — echoing the alarm of those who have gone before, warning that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

There is no time like the present to visit this ghost of Christmas past and harbinger of Christmas yet to come.

Step forward and hear George and Julius in Reno today, then let the word go forth from this time and place that the cycle is coming full circle once again.

Make dust ahead of it or become dust beneath it. The choice is yours.

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew Barbano

9-22-2006 UPDATE — IRONY OF IRONY

From: Arthur Shostak
Subject: On Missing Joe Glazer, Labor's Troubador
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:02:06 -0400

Brothers and Sisters - Let's bow our heads for a moment of silence - a really fine and true friend of Labor has passed.

From: catherwoodWIT@cornell.edu
Date: September 21, 2006 4:42:34 PM EDT
Subject: Workplace Issues Today

WORKPLACE ISSUES TODAY
M.P. Catherwood Library
School of Industrial & Labor Relations
Cornell University

Thursday, September 21, 2006

"LABOR'S TROUBADOR" DIES AT 88. Joe Glazer, the singer-songwriter known as Labor's Troubador, who played cowboy tunes on a $5.95 mail-order guitar as a boy in the Bronx, then sang songs of solidarity on picket lines and union halls and once on the White House lawn, died on Tuesday at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 88. First an employee of the textile workers union, then the rubber workers union, Mr. Glazer, a burly, affable man, marshaled his booming baritone and thumping guitar to rally union loyalists and sympathizers in almost every state and 60 countries. See "Joe Glazer, 88, a Singer and Songwriter for Labor, Dies" by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, Sep 21, 2006. (Free registration may be required.)

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Media Advisory — Declaration of Peace September 21
September 19, 2006
Contact: Lisa Stiller (775) 232-2823

What: The Declaration of Peace is a nationwide campaign to establish by September 21, 2006 a concrete and rapid plan for peace in Iraq, including:

- a prompt timetable for withdrawal of troops and closure of bases - a peace process for security, reconstruction and reconciliation - a shift of funding from war to meeting human needs.

If this plan for peace is not created and activated by Congress by September 21, the International Day of Peace, Declaration signers across the U.S. will engage in nonviolent action in Washington, D.C. and in communities throughout the nation.

When: Thursday, September 21, from 4-7 p.m.

Where: Bruce R. Thompson Federal Building, southeast corner of Liberty and S. Virginia in downtown Reno

Who: The Reno Anti-War Coalition and Sierra Interfaith Action for Peace.

For national information, see: http://declarationofpeace.org/

==

At 9:29 PM +0000 9/18/06, georgemann@att.net wrote:

Julius and I are on our way to Salt Lake City from San Francisco.

We're driving by Reno and wanted to stop in to the labor council to drop info about the new "Hail to the Thieves" CS, which features Billy Bragg, U. Utah Phillips, Anne Feeney, The DC Labor Chorus and many other singers singing against the Bush regime.

From: georgeandjulius@att.net
To: barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us,
Subject: "a Union Man" Film/Concert in Reno, 9/21?
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:55:31

Hello Andrew, Chris, Barbara and Rich:

You will recall I was in touch with you last fall about this film... Julius is turning 90 and we are going to be on the road in late September. Hoping you can work together to host this event. We do a two-hour presentation —1 hour film, then a Q & A with Julius and ending with a concert set of folk/labor songs.

Website: http://www.georgeandjulius.com/

Here's a description of the film:

Julius Margolin, at 90, is a living legend in the New York City labor movement. He's been active since the 1930s in the CIO, National Maritime Union and Local 52 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, which he has represented in the Central Labor Council for 32 years. A tireless fighter for justice, equality, and against war, Julius embarked on a new career in 1999, making music and CDs with George Mann while still hitting picket lines and organizing workers in New York City and around the United States.

A Union Man: The Life and Work of Julius Margolin is the story of his life through his eyes as well as those he's met along the way. Featuring guest appearances by Utah Phillips, Faith Petric and former NMU Vice President Joe Stack, as well as concert performances, it's an affectionate portrait of a rank-and-file activist still fighting for justice as he approaches 90.

This will be an event full of labor and social history as well as songs from the last 100 years.

George Mann and Julius Margolin
Pro-Labor, Anti-Bush folk music

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November 22d 1916/Reno Evening Gazette

FEDERATION DOESN'T FAVOR DRILL IN SCHOOLS

Andrew Furuseth Opposes Idea Of Resolution but It Is Passed, Anyway

BALTIMORE, Md., Nov. 22. — Delegates to the convention of the American Federation of Labor this morning engaged in a warm debate over a resolution which protested against the teaching of militarism in the public schools.

The preamble set forth that "the secretary of war has communicated with public school authorities in various parts of this country in inquiring if they are willing to introduce military training of the boys in the schools and stating that the war department would provide instructors and rifles and ammunition."

The committee to which the resolution was referred recommended nonconcurrence on the ground that the resolution was "non-contentional" and deemed it of no importance.

Andre Furuseth, chairman of the committee, declared that while he was opposed to any increase in the standing army, it was his belief that "men who will not fight and women who won't be mothers are an abomination in the world."

The convention adopted the resolution and authorized the appointment of a committee to draw up another resolution touching on phases of militarism not brought out in the first one.

[Courtesy of journalist-historian Dennis Myers]

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Update: Wednesday, Sept 20, 2006, 2:02 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 20, 1855, Judge Orson Hyde organized Carson County, Utah, in what is today Genoa, Douglas County, Nevada. [Nevada Magazine calendar]

On this date in 1793, Dr. John Mason gave a sermon complaining about the secular nature of the United States Constitution and its failure to endorse or even mention God — "that very Constitution which the singular goodness of God enabled us to establish does not so much as recognize His being! Yes, my brethren, it is a lamentable truth; a truth at the mention of which, shame should crimson our faces."; in 1873, Nevada was represented at the California state fair in Sacramento by 20 Native Americans — men, women, and children; in 1873, six workers were killed when a fire broke out in the Belcher Mine in Virginia City, spread to the Yellow Jacket and Crown Point, and was followed by an explosion; in 1873, Reno Congregational minister F.R. Girard was directed by the American Home Missionary Society to go to San Bernardino and Rev. W.J. Clark of Iowa City, Iowa, was named pastor of Reno's Congregational Church to replace Girard; in 1876, on page three, the Nevada State Journal reported that E.A. Brown had been named agent in Idaho, Nevada and Utah for the Leininger shackle, "the most secure shackle ever invented. Prisoners are absolutely safe when this shackle is placed on them."; in 1977, hunters were using boats on Washoe Lake because they were experiencing too much difficulty in killing ducks from the shore; in 1879, Storey County, normally known for mining and the Comstock Lode, was experiencing a farming boom — four acres of onions and six of wheat and "a whole raft of small patches devoted to other kinds of products"; in 1907, in San Francisco, U.S. Senator George Nixon of Nevada and his business partner George Wingfield announced that Goldfield Con, the huge mining corporation, would pay a ten cent per share dividend; in 1932, ghost dance prophet Wovoka died on the Walker Lake Reservation; in 1938, the National Automobile Club announced that work would soon begin on a portion of the Tahoe/Ukiah highway, 2.1 miles running between LeTrianon and the Scotts Valley Road; in 1949, superintendent of schools Walter Johnson said Las Vegas schools were facing double sessions — and the baby boom had not even hit the schools yet; in 1958, at Blumstein's Department Store in New York City, Martin Luther King, Jr., was stabbed in the chest by an unstable African-American woman while he signed copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom (rushed into surgery at Harlem Hospital, surgeon Aubre Maynard made the incision over King's heart in the shape of a cross: "Since the scar will be there permanently...it seemed somehow appropriate."); in 1964, the Beatles played the last concert of their Canadian/U.S. tour, a charity event at New York's Paramount theatre (and that night Ed Sullivan reran their third appearance on his show); in 1965, on his way down the mountain from chopping down 4,862-year-old Prometheus, one of the trees in the bristlecone pine grove above the 10,000-foot level on Wheeler Peak (bristlecone pines are the second oldest living things known, after an 11,700 year old creosote bush in southern California), U.S. Forest Service employee Fred Solace had a heart attack and died (the press was told, and gullibly reported, that he was gathering bristlecone pine cones); in 1972, at the AFL/CIO convention in Las Vegas, George Meany and Steelworkers president I.W. Abel quashed a movement to endorse George McGovern's presidential candidacy by throwing their personal prestige into the fight with slashing attacks on McGovern; in 1973, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in three straight sets and, on the same day, Jim Croce died in a Louisiana plane crash; in 1971, the Nevada Gaming Policy Committee held a hearing on a proposal allowing bookmakers to accept telephone wagers after Governor Mike O'Callaghan received a federal warning against the idea; in 1978, the television series Vegas debuted, lasting three years.

Nevada State Journal/September 20, 1890: Nevada's decline is now a thing of the past and our sister States have commenced to observe the power of a new life. Sweep the croakers into the mire and let the live rustlers push us to the front where we are able to blow our own horn with a true American blast.

Update: Tuesday, Sept 19, 2006, 2:57 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 19, 1874, Nevada superintendent of schools Orvis Ring was recovering in Lodi from surgery performed in San Francisco; in 1877, the day after its performance in Reno's opera house, the Tom Thumb troupe left Reno for Virginia City; in 1881, President James A. Garfield died eleven weeks after being shot, the longest period of presidential disability until Woodrow Wilson and Vice-President Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as president; 1911, the Nevada State Journal urged businesspeople to support a locally published city directory in preference to another published by a national firm because the national one was "published outside the state and every cent contributed to it is taken outside the state" [EDITOR'S NOTE: All money taken in by the current version of that paper is wired to the Gannett chain in Rochester, NY, at the close of every business day. MORE...]; in 1927, Charles Lindbergh visited Reno for three and a half hours on a flying national tour sponsored by millionaire Harry Guggenheim; in 1938, in Carson City, John Vallarde was sentenced to 18 months in McNeil's Island federal prison and fined $500 for violating the Mann act by transporting a woman from Utah to Nevada "for immoral purposes"; in 1943, Cass Elliott was born in Baltimore; in 1945, President Truman appointed Harold Burton as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court and the Senate confirmed Burton the same day without any scrutiny; in 1957, the Eisenhower administration detonated an underground atomic bomb at Area 12 in Nevada, then lied about the worldwide detectability of the test in order to avoid a nuclear test ban treaty, a lie later exposed by journalist I.F. Stone in his legendary I.F. Stone's Weekly; in 1958, an atomic bomb code named Eddy was exploded in Nevada, the last such test before a one-year U.S./Soviet testing moratorium took effect; in 1969, the California Board of Regents adopted a resolution ordering the president of the University of California at Los Angeles to fire instructor Angela Davis for being a communist; in 1992, Adrian Cronauer, the disk jockey who was the model for the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, taped a campaign spot for the Bush campaign, attacking Bill Clinton as a liar; in 2000, the 1914 Fernley/Lassen Railroad Depot on Fernley's Main Street was placed on the Nevada Register of Historic Places.

Update: Monday, Sept 18, 2006, 12:39 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 18, 1874, articles of incorporation were filed in Oregon for a railroad to run from Winnemucca in Nevada to the Columbia River country "via Goose Lake valley, and Sprague river valley to the middle fork of the Willamette; down north of the river to Springville, Lane county; thence on the west side of the river to Portland; thence to the Columbia river."; in 1907, a Reno real estate man threatened to bring to the attention of the county grand jury the conditions in a basement being used as a classroom for the overflow of South Side School students, but school board member M.R. Walker defended its use, saying it was not unhealthy or unsanitary; in 1908, three days after a coroner's jury found the Giroux mine in Ely had been negligent in protecting the health and safety of its miners, another miner died in the Giroux mine, bring the total fatalities to six in three different incidents; in 1911, the Reno Evening Gazette reported "Numerous complaints have come to the Gazette that women in this city are being insulted on Reno's streets and that in some instances the men who insult them have been bold enough to grasp the women and walk with them, notwithstanding their protests, and their attempts to get away."; in 1924, actress Edna Purviance, the Lovelock, Nevada, woman who was Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in all his early films, testified at the arraignment of Horace Greer, accused of shooting Denver oil man Courtland Dines at a late night Hollywood party attended by Purviance and actress Mabel Normand, a crime that plagued Purviance's public image and damaged her career; in 1939, plans were being made for a $1,260,000 expansion of the Hawthorne naval ammunition depot; in 1940, Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again was published; in 1948, there was a milk shortage in Reno, leading to rumors that dairy cattle were being butchered because of skyrocketing beef prices; in 1957, the California Labor Federation raised the spectre of pushing for impeachment of President Eisenhower if he failed to resolve the Little Rock integration crisis quickly; in 1957, U.S. District Judge Oliver Carter denied San Jose physicist Wallace Hendricks' petition to stop an atomic test in Nevada on grounds that it would poison the air; in 1970, Jimi Hendrix died; in 1978, WKRP in Cincinnati premiered on CBS; in 1986, Crime Story, a television series set in Las Vegas, debuted on NBC, lasting 43 episodes until May 10, 1988 (the last episode ended in a season-ending cliffhanger that was never resolved because the series was cancelled before the next season started).

Update: Sunday, Sept 17, 2006, 2:24 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 17, 1862, Union forces hurled back a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War battle of Antietam. With 23,100 killed, wounded or captured, it remains the bloodiest day in U.S. military history. [New York Times/AP e-headlines]

On this date in 1787, the drafting of the United States Constitution was completed; in 1908, a letter arrived in Reno from Catholic Bishop O.W. Whitaker, who previously operated the girls school in Reno (on the site of today's Whitaker Park), saying that he was going blind; in 1900, the Virginia and Truckee Railroad ran a special train to Reno to take people from the Comstock, Empire, Carson City and Franktown to the state fair; in 1911, Reno's new amusement park on Belle Isle ended its first season; in 1923, Hank Williams was born; in 1948, as the postwar red baiting period warmed up, a group called the Committee on Zeal for American Democracy was formed at Reno's State Building, part of an effort promoted across the nation by the National Security Agency; in 1956 in Clay, Kentucky, where the National Guard was on hand to protect four African-American children trying to enroll in school, the parents of the children gave up and said they would send the children to a blacks-only school in Providence, several miles south; in 1956, Nevada Labor Federation President Harry De Paoli of Reno faced a reelection challenge from James "Sailor" Ryan of Las Vegas at the state convention in the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas; in 1967, after being instructed by Ed Sullivan not to include the word "higher" when singing Light My Fire on the Ed Sullivan Show (the band agreed), the Doors sang it anyway — with emphasis — and were told by a show producer that they would never do the Sullivan show again ("Hey, man, we just did the Sullivan show," Jim Morrison replied); in 1972, M*A*S*H debuted on CBS; in 1985, at a news conference five years into his presidency, President Reagan finally spoke the acronym AIDS in public: "[I]ncluding what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing. And we have $100 million in the budget this year; it'll be 126 million next year. So, this is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer."; in 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported, falsely, that Iraqi soldiers had removed Kuwaiti babies from incubators and left them on the floor to die, a tale repeated by the Washington Post, President Bush the Elder (at least ten times), USA Today, the Associated Press and a member of the Kuwait royal family posing as a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl at a congressional hearing [MORE on the key lie which launched the Gulf War @ BARBWIRE 11-11-2001]; in 1993, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa released an analysis of the Nevada Plan For Public Land (an argument that Nevada owned all federally managed land in the state) that concluded the federal government had "firm control on the management of public lands"; in 2001, explosions at a Minden aerosol recycling plant left one person dead and four hospitalized [MORE @ U-News Archives].

Update: Saturday, Sept 16, 2006, 12:39 a.m. PDT — On Sept. 16, 1974, President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders. [New York Times/AP e-headlines]

On this date in 1871, the Nevada State Journal claimed that the Washo, Bannock, Pit River and Paiute tribes were stockpiling ammunition and arms: "We believe that it means murder and plunder — war upon the isolated settlers of our valleys before next Spring." [EDITOR'S NOTE: Manufacturing a WMD scare is apparently nothing new.]; in 1874, Myron Lake was reported to be running for "county dad" (Washoe County commissioner); in 1874, the Carson Index asked why the Nevada congressional delegation had not been able to obtain money for Nevadans who "furnished money, rations, animals and arms" for the 1860 war by whites against the Pyramid Lake tribe; in 1908, Reno businesspeople met with members of the Nevada Railroad Commission to plan strategy for opposing the Southern Pacific Railroad over freight rates before the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission; in 1911, a legal notice was published inviting bids on a new Truckee River bridge; in 1914, U.S. House candidate Thomas Andrew of Massachusetts said he would campaign around his district by aeroplane; in 1914, Margaret Foley of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association spoke at a street meeting at Second and Virginia Streets in Reno, after which she would campaign in Gardnerville, Virginia City, Dayton, Silver City, Mason, Yerington and Carson City, then return to Reno to speak every night during the fair, all as part of the campaign to amend the Nevada Constitution in the November election to allow women to exercise their right to vote; in 1925, B.B King (Riley B. King) was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi; in 1949, Las Vegas Little Theatre and Bird Cage performer Barbara Knudson was signed to a seven year contract with Paramount Pictures, with her first role in The Great American Tragedy with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor (probably A Place In The Sun, based on Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy); in 1956, Klaus Landsberg, who produced the first telecast of an atomic test in Nevada, died of cancer in Los Angeles; in 1964, Shindig debuted on ABC with Sam Cooke hosting and the Wellingtons, the Everly Brothers, the Righteous Brothers and unknown Bobby Sherman performing alongside the famed go-go dancers; in 1972, Earl Robinson and David Arkin's Black and White by Three Dog Night, written by Robinson and Arkin in 1955 to celebrate Brown vs. Board of Education, hit number one on the Billboard chart; in 1977, Procter Hug, Jr., of Reno was sworn in by Vice-President Mondale as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; in 1977, after Reno municipal court sent a letter to Lloyd Compton of Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, telling him his fine for running a red light in Reno was $25, he sent a money order for $10 and $15 in Saudi riyals.

Update: Friday, Sept 15, 2006, 12:15 a.m. PDT — Union construction flagger seriously injured. Laborers' Union Local 169 flagger Tina Smith, a resident of Fernley, is in Washoe Medical Center with broken ribs, a punctured lung and other injuries suffered in a Monday, Sept. 11, accident on Interstate 80 near the California state line (eastbound near mile marker 6, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol). No information has been issued as to whether or not a citation has been issued. According to NHP and other reports, a DHL driver trying to avoid rear-ending a vehicle in front of him slammed on his brakes and swerved into Ms. Smith in the construction zone. She may be released from Washoe Med as soon as today. (FYI: Penalties for construction zone traffic violations increased.)

UPDATE 9-21-2006: Three citations were issued in this incident. More soon. Stay tuned.

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On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the civil rights era.
[New York Times/AP e-headlines]

IN MEMORY Addie Mae Collins Denise McNair Carol Robertson Cynthia Wesley

On this date in 1906, Father Thomas Tubman returned to Reno from a conference with the Sacramento Catholic bishop in Grass Valley with approval for a new cathederal in Reno, with construction slated to start by September 22d; in 1906, Reno schools were taxed "to the uttermost" with nearly 1,500 students, 139 more than in 1905; in 1911, Harry Goodwin, a baseball player with the Reno Overland team, was adjudged insane by a Sacramento court and committed to a Napa asylum; in 1911, a coroner's jury empaneled in White Pine County to look into the August 23d deaths of three miners in the Giroux mine found the three had died of smoke and gas inhalation and found that Giroux Consolidated Mines had been extremely negligent in caring for the health and safety of its workers; in 1921, Portland, Oregonians were debating where to put their upcoming world's fair, with a dozen sites in and around the city being considered for the Atlantic-Pacific Highways and Electrical Exposition; in 1921, George Ramsey rode the legendary Indian motorcycle from San Francisco to Reno in seven hours, 45 minutes, beating by an hour the previous record set on a Harley Davidson (Ramsey made it from Verdi to Reno in 18 minutes); in 1934, U.S. Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota, a Republican chairing the senate investigation of arms trafficking, said that U.S. arms manufacturers were "calloused to rottenness", used U.S. warships as "sample cases" in marketing their arms in other nations, were "instrumental in provoking war scares, arousing suspicion between friendly nations and blocking disarmament efforts", used bribery freely, ignored U.S. treaty commitments, and benefited from collusion with the U.S. war and navy departments in obtaining release of patent rights and secret designs; in 1934, a survey by State Government, the magazine of the American Legislators' Association, said that half the states had turned to sterilization to control "defectives" and criminals and that more than 16,000 people had been sterilized since Indiana passed the first law in 1907; in 1934, the New Deal and Democratic leaders were at war with labor, with National Recovery Administration director Hugh Johnson denouncing a national textile strike that was in its second week with 14 dead and troops mobilized in six states and Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge preparing to use national guardsmen as strikebreakers; in 1934, the U.S. Public Works Administration announced an acceleration of plans to construct or improve tribal hospitals around the nation, including at the Western Shoshone agency in Nevada; in 1934, after T.O. McKinnon of Mina, Nevada, offered a $25 reward to the person who found the house that was stolen from him, W.G. Emminger claimed part of the reward for finding the roof; in 1949, President Truman disassociated the U.S. government from Nevada U.S. Senator Patrick McCarran's visit to fascist dictator Francisco Franco of Spain, saying the senator was not speaking for anyone but himself; in 1949, a news report said Las Vegas city commissioners were preparing to end rent control; in 1963, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed by Ku Klux Klan members, killing four girls attending a Sunday service at which the sermon was titled "The love that forgives"; in 1966, construction on the proposed new Reno television station KTVN was halted because KOLO went to court to appeal the license award to KTVN by the Federal Communications Commission; in 1972, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas ordered bail for the "Fort Worth Five," who had been jailed by a Texas judge for three months on contempt for refusing to testify about gun running to Ireland.; in 1972, University of Nevada, Las Vegas enrollment went over the 6,000 mark, to 6,005, six percent over the previous year's 5,657; in 1977, Nevada supreme court justices hearing a case challenging the Nevada open meeting law's requirements that judicial administrative meetings (but not other court proceedings) be open were caustic toward the legislators‚ exempting themselves from the law.

Update: Thursday, Sept 14, 2006, 12:35 a.m. PDT — On this date in 1959, the Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar surface. [New York Times/AP e-headlines]

On Sept. 14, 1904 , a Washoe County coroner's jury accused train engineer L. Isoard of causing a train wreck near Laughton's hot springs on September 12 in which two people were killed and 28 (including Isoard himself) were injured; in 1906, the City of Reno was developing a plan for signal lights to be flashed from the top of the new city hall to summon police or other uses; in 1913, a day after a cloudburst caused a flood that swept away homes in Goldfield (killing five people and damaging the power station), lights were restored while dinner was being served by candlelight and orchestras played; in 1932, in Gardnerville, alcohol prohibition agents arrested Jose "Tony" Dettling, owner of Dettling's pool hall, after they found a false wall behind which were barrels of whisky; in 1932, the Reno Central Trades and Labor Council met to plan how to lure the American Federation of Labor national convention to Reno; in 1949, members of the Las Vegas city commission said wartime rent control in the city should end within a month; in 1959, the first human made object on the moon was the Soviet rocket Luna 2, which was crashed into Palus Putredinis; in 2003, Emily Rose Christian was born, the first child born on Pitcairn Island in 17 years.

Update: Wednesday, Sept 13, 2006, 8:23 a.m. PDT — On this date in 1847, the U.S. executed thirty prisoners of war, members of the St. Patrick's Battalion, a body of Irish, German, and Scottish soldiers — many of them deserters from the U.S. — who fought against the U.S. aggression against Mexico, bringing to 48 the number of the battalion so treated (of 5,000 U.S. deserters in the disreputable war against Mexico, only the San Patricios were executed; ceremonies honoring them are held each year in Mexico and County Galway); in 1862, Private Barton Mitchell of the 27th Indiana found three cigars wrapped in Robert E. Lee's special orders 191, which provided Union General George McClellan with information on Lee's plans (the CIA web site calls it "one of the most important pieces of intelligence ever presented to a general in battle") that conceivably made it possible for McClellan to win the war in a single day (he was quoted saying "If I can't whip Bobby Lee with this, I shall gladly go home"), but he dithered indecisively for 18 hours and lost the benefit of the fantastic find, instead ending up in the bloody battle of Antietam (where 23,000 men were killed in a single day) and eventually — on November 7 — prompting President Lincoln to finally cashier McClellan; in 1900, University of Nevada Professor N.E. Wilson addressed the California Dairymen's convention in Sacramento on "The Alkali Test for Lactic Acid in Cream"; in 1907, the divorce case of the president of the Mine Owners Association and his wife in Goldfield was generating talk with her saying "Major Stanton has beaten me time and again. I have suffered intolerably since I have been with him. My statement that he threw a lamp at me is absolutely true. I have been told that Major Stanton has been married five times before and I believe it." and him saying "The girl is not 16, but nearer 20. I never had an idea that she was so spiteful — She acted coolly and threw money away. My housekeeper warned me against her."; in 1907, federal officials moved into San Francisco to deal with an outbreak of plague, and the death from the disease of the Chinese Six Companies corporation president spread panic; in 1911, in Denver, a man was granted a divorce from his wife after he testified she was "politics crazy" (the Reno Evening Gazette later suggested that Nevada divorce lawyers add the grounds to their repertoire); in 1921, in New York, Beatrice Andina asked for a legal separation from her husband of 41 years, Peter Andina, because after he started going to motion picture shows, he became too cross to live with; in 1921, movie comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the screen's most popular performers, was indicted for rape and causing the death of actress Virginia Rappe during a wild party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco (Arbuckle was found not guilty but his career was destroyed); in 1939, a man from Westwood, California, married his Santa Cruz girlfriend from his bed in Washoe General Hospital after he arrived in Reno and was hit by a hit and run driver; in 1944, a photograph was taken from a U.S. bomber at Oswiecim, Poland, showing bombs falling from the plane's bomb bay directly over the crematoria at Auschwitz Birkenau (although they were physically over Auschwitz at the time the photo was snapped, the forward momentum of the bombs actually carried them to a nearby I.G. Farben industrial complex), demonstrating that the U.S. had the ability to shut down Auschwitz by bombing if it chose; in 1965, Yesterday b/w Act Naturally by the Beatles was released in the U.S. (Capitol 5498, not released as a single in England); in 1967, after a judge approved topless waitresses in New York City, Mayor John Lindsay's administration scrambled to find a way to cover them up again; in 1967, the Del Webb Corporation sold the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas and announced plans to use the money on three other Webb properties — the Sahara and the Mint in Las Vegas and the Sahara Tahoe; in 1972, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that the next Oscar ceremonies would be a tribute to Charlie Chaplin, including a special Oscar and the return of Chaplin to the United States to accept it (Chaplin had traveled abroad in 1952 and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover arranged to have his reentry permit revoked after he left; Chaplin's first leading lady, from 1918 to 1923, was Edna Purviance of Lovelock, Nevada); in 1972, the Nevada Supreme Court postponed oral arguments in a court case to determine the ownership of the polluted riverbed of the Carson River; in 2000, after pleading guilty to a technical violation, former U.S. nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was set free by federal Judge James Parker with an apology for his persecution by federal investigators.

Update: Tuesday, Sept 12, 2006, 12:54 a.m. PDT — On this date in 1885, the cornerstone of Morrill Hall, the first building on the new state university campus in Reno, was dedicated {Nevada Magazine calendar}; in 1896, news reports said that Robert Fitzsimmons and James Corbett had agreed for fight for the heavyweight championship (after being rejected by other states, the fight was held in Nevada on March 17, 1897); in 1900, the Virginia Evening Chronicle in Virginia City called for efforts to kill the "unholy scheme" — a state constitutional amendment to make lotteries legal that had already been approved by the 1899 Nevada Legislature and needed to be approved by the 1901 legislative session; in 1908, an Ely mining engineer who was an addicted gambler killed himself by taking potassium of cyanide; in 1939, the Public Works Administration, a Depression era agency that constructed public works around the nation, declined two proposed Las Vegas projects — a $30,500 sidewalk project and a $126,680 street project; in 1949, U.S. Representatives Norris Poulson of California, Fred Marshall of Minnesota, and Wayne Aspinall of Colorado, speaking in Boulder City, called for three more dams on the Colorado River (the Bridge Canyon project, Kanab Creek project and Marble Canyon project); in 1949, a labor meeting was held on plans to acquire the troubled Biltmore Hotel for a Clark County labor temple; in 1956, Nevada organized crime figure Joseph "Doc" Stacher was stripped of his U.S. citizenship by a federal court judge in Los Angeles on grounds he