Hello/Goodbye: June

Born, June 1979
Jun 1st - Santana Moss, American football player
Jun 5th - Pete Wentz, American musician (Fall Out Boy)
Jun 8th - Derek Trucks, American guitarist
Jun 8th - Pete Orr, Canadian baseball player
Jun 12th - Wil Horneff, Englewood NJ, actor (Ghost in the Machine, Sandlot)
Jun 12th - Dallas Clark, American football player
Jun 17th - Nick Rimando, American soccer player
Jun 19th - Quentin Jammer, American football player
Jun 20th - Charlotte Hatherley, English guitarist (Ash)
Jun 20th - Charles Howell III, Professional Golfer
Jun 20th - Cael Sanderson, Olympic Wrestler
Jun 20th - Lani Billard, Canadian actress
Jun 21st - Chris Pratt, American actor
Jun 22nd - Joey Cheek, American speed skater
Jun 22nd - Brad Hawpe, American baseball player
Jun 23rd - LaDainian Tomlinson, American football player
Jun 24th - Craig Shergold, British internet folklore subject
Jun 24th - Petra Němcová, Czechoslovakian-born model
Jun 24th - Mindy Kaling, American actress and TV producer
Jun 25th - Katie Doyle, American actress and reality television star
Jun 25th - Busy Philipps, American actress
Jun 25th - Richard Hughes, Scottish footballer
Jun 27th - John Warne, American musician (Relient K; Ace Troubleshooter)
Jun 27th - Kim Gyu-ri, South Korean actress
Jun 29th - Abs Breen, English singer
Jun 30th - Matisyahu, Hasidic Jewish Reggae singer
Jun 30th - Rick Gonzalez, Hispanic-American actor

Died, June 1979
Jun 2nd - Jim Hutton, actor (Ellery Queen), dies of liver cancer at 45
Jun 3rd - Arno Schmidt, writer, dies at 65
Jun 6th - Jack Haley, actor (Wizard of Oz), dies of cancer at 79
Jun 7th - Forrest Carter, American author (b. 1925)
Jun 9th - Cyclone Taylor, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1884)
Jun 11th - John Wayne, actor (Green Berets, True Grit), dies at 72
Jun 13th - Darla Hood, actress (Our Gang 1935-45), dies at 47
Jun 15th - Ernst Meister, writer, dies at 67
Jun 16th - Nicholas Ray, American film director (b. 1911)
Jun 17th - Lou Frizzel, actor (Dusty Rhoades-Bonanza), dies at 58
Jun 29th - Lowell George, rocker (Mothers of Invention, Little Feat), dies at 34

The Way We Work

Those of us who toil in the cube farms of America are well versed in the use of spreadsheets and word processors, now pretty much exclusively Word and Excel.  It's hard to imagine doing work by hand anymore.  This was not always the case, of course.  Our work lives changed in June 1979 with the announcement of the first commercial spreadsheet, VisiCalc, and the release of the first commercial word processing software, Wordstar.  

Visicalc, which would be released on the Apple II later in 1979, was the work of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston in the winter of '78-'79.  The next year, they founded Software Arts to manufacture the software, to be distributed exclusively for the Apple II, elevating the Apple from a hobbyists' toy, to a business tool.  It was also was one of the softwares bundled into the IBM PC in 1981.

WordStar was developed by MicroPro International, led by its owner, Seymour Rubenstein and their chief developer, Rob Barnaby.  Originally devloped for the CP/M operating system, it was released in June 1979.  It was reconfigured for DOS computers and by 1983, it was the leading commercial product in word processing.  Curiously, it became the processor of choice for William Buckley, who used the product for the rest of his career, even years after other, more user friendly options appeared.

Saturday Flashback: Let's Go!

The Cars had their breakthrough the previous year, but it was the release of Candy-O in June of 1979 that locked them in.  Featuring an original Alberto Vargas pinup style cover, especially commissioned for the album, Candy-O would be a teenage favorite that year.  A strong sophomore release with several great songs, the boys from Boston (although Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr are from Ohio) hit gold with "Let's Go", one of my favorite pop singles of the year.  Enjoy!

Parliamentary

The first international election in history took place between June 7-10, 1979--  the election of a European Parliament.  There were 81 seats up for grabs in the each of the four leading nations:  France, Italy, West Germany and the UK.  The Netherlands had 25, Belgium 24, Denmark 16, Ireland 15 and Luxembourg 6.  Previously, member nations sent representatives that had already won office in their home countries.

The campaigns varied.  Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt campaigned in several countries, but former French President Jaques Chirac used it as a dry run for a potential 1981 match with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.  Voter turnout was mixed, as well.  In the UK was low, under a third, but all other countries saw over 50% participation.  Italy saw over 80% of its citizens vote.

Ultimately, the European Parliament hasn't meant much, sort of a continental UN.  But the ramifications continue today.  We recently saw that Greece entered the European Economic Community in the spring of '79.  Now?  Their economic condition, in the absence of able leadership, might bring the entire Eurozone down.  A toothless European Parliament can only sit and watch...

Saturday Flashback: Rockpile

On June 9, 1979 (the day I graduated from college), two of the best records of the year were released:  Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust and Dave Edmunds' Repeat When Necessary.  They were really records by the same band:  Rockpile.  Edmunds and Lowe (along with Billy Bremner and Terry Williams) had been touring together as Rockpile since 1976, but due to their own solo contractual obligations, they could not record as such.  They would actually get it all together in 1980, put out a band record, Seconds of Pleasure, and then promptly ... break up.

But in '79 the boys were still releasing "solo" records.  Lowe scored a major hit from his, the power pop gem, "Cruel to be Kind".  The video features the band, with Edmunds acting as chauffeur, and Lowe recreating his nuptials to Carlene Carter, daughter of June...

Edmunds had a lesser hit with his nice cover of Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk":

Enjoy!

Neither Moral Nor a Majority

There are few bigger political players in the last 33 years than the religious right. Time and again, we’ve seen republicans shuffle over to Liberty “University” to pay fealty to the christianists. The primary vehicle for fundamentalist political activity was the Moral Majority, founded in June of 1979. The above reference to Liberty ties directly to Jerry Falwell, the Baptist preacher who is generally credited with the creation of the MM. As it turns out, Falwell needed a push to get into the fight over abortion and other “values” issues.

In fact, in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, the protestants in the anti-abortion movement were vastly outnumbered by catholics, led by long-time republican operative Paul Weyrich. (Weyrich, in 1984, said: “We are different from previous generations of conservatives... We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country.”)

Falwell was more concerned about something closer to home: the revocation of tax-exempt status of racially segregated christian schools. It took Weyrich, who named the group, to get Falwell, Pat Robertson and the rest to form the Moral majority:

"I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed," Weyrich recalled in an interview in the early 1990s. "What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation."

In 1979, at Weyrich's behest, Falwell founded a group that he called the Moral Majority. Along with a vanguard of evangelical icons including D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson and Tim LaHaye, Falwell's organization hoisted the banner of the "pro-family" movement, declaring war on abortion and homosexuality. But were it not for the federal government's attempts to enable little black boys and black girls to go to school with little white boys and white girls, the Christian right's culture war would likely never have come into being. "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," former Falwell ally Ed Dobson told author Randall Balmer in 1990. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something."

The “Majority” would become a key ally in Reagan’s election and would grow in influence throughout the 80s, although their specific influence would wane toward the end of the Reagan years, and the group would disband in 1989. But the influence of the religious right has continued to this day-- look at the nonsense being spewed by the likes of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachman. As with so much of the right’s agenda since 1979, it’s always back to the future…

Coincidentally, 1979 was also the year that George Soros started his own social policy endevours, giving the right their favorite foreign bete noir:

In 1979 Soros began his philanthropic activities by providing funding for black students to attend the University of Cape Town in South Africa. To date he is chairman of the Open Society Institute and has founded many charity organizations that are active in more than 50 countries including Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States.

Happy

A true icon of American pop culture made it's debut in June of 1979:  McDonald's Happy Meal.  It's hard to imagine going to the Arches without seeing the latest product tie-in being used to pimp fast food to the little ones. Commonly blamed for contributing to childhood obesity rates, the Happy Meal was even banned in San Francisco for their use of toys, although Mickey D's kinda found a way around it.

Interestingly, while obesity rates in children have skyrocketed, from 4.2% in 1979 to 17% in 2006, the calories in a typical Happy Meal have dropped from 600 in '79 to to 375 today.  But let's face it, the toys and the notion of "fun" (enhanced by a "Playland" or "Playplace") are all designed to sell burgers and fries--  and not just to the kids.  Parents' waistlines have been expanding, too.  So for all you moms and dads out there who've suffered the "pester power" used by kids to get happy, you can point to 1979 as when it all started.

Spill

The Gulf of Mexico is still recovering from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  During the spring and summer of 2010, almost 5 million barrels of oil escaped before the leak was capped, although the real amount will probably never be known.  It was clearly the worst oil spill in the Gulf, but it was hardly the first.  They're all too frequent in the region, often hurricane-related, but the next biggest was the Ixtoc 1 spill that took place on June 3, 1979.

Spewing 3 million barrels into the Gulf it wouldn't be contained until the following March.  It was in much shallower water (170 feet as opposed to the 5000 foot depth in the BP spill), but it still took nine months to cap.  The spill started in the same way as BP, with an explosion, and the same efforts were made to stop it by injecting mud and debris into the hole.  Chemical dispersants were also used.  Prevailing currents directed the slick toward Texas, so officials had some time to prepare.  Cleanup was also helped by bad weather.  Hurricane Frederic punished New Orleans, but pushed tons of oil away from the beaches in Texas.  (Fun fact:  1979 was also the year hurricanes began being named for men.)

While it's beyond discouraging that so little was learned from this spill, there is perhaps hope for the areas affected by the Deepwater spill based on how fully the Gulf seems to have come back from Ixtoc, including the survival of zooplankton and coral that in some cases has grown around and over the oil.  Time will tell...

The Pope

Many people in this country credit Ronald Reagan for ending the Cold War.  (I'm sure his previous six predecessors would have something to say about that.)  In reality, the Soviets were already on borrowed time as the 70s ended.  Two things happened in 1979 that I think signaled the beginning of the end.  In December, the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan;  and on June 2 the Pope visited Poland.

Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II, had been elected to the papacy the previous fall after the death of John Paul I, who'd only been pope himself for 33 days.  Wojtyla was the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century, a native of Poland.  (He was also the youngest in over a century.)  First ordained in the year after the war, he was elevated up to Archbishop of Poland in the early 60s and by the early 70s was in Rome in the College of Cardinals.  A fervent anti-communist, he made it a point to visit his homeland in the first year of his papacy.

He was greeted by adoring throngs when he knelt and kissed the ground upon his arrival, a gesture that would become his trademark.  His visit had been opposed by the current Polish regime, as well as by Leonid Brezhnev as being too inflammatory.  They were right.  This visit encouraged the Poles to organize and inspired many in the country to begin pushing back against the communist regime.

The next year strikes erupted first at Lublin and then in Gdansk, which would emerge as the birthplace of Solidarity.  In 1983, JPII would meet with Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize that year.  By 1989, Walesa would form the first non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc and the USSR itself would collapse in 1991.  The Pope's visit in 1979 proved to be a tear in the Iron Curtain that became a mortal wound. 

Hello/Goodbye: May

Born, May 1979

May 2 - Jason Chimera, Canadian ice hockey player
May 2 - Roman Lyashenko, Russian ice hockey player (d. 2003)
May 4 - Wes Butters, British broadcaster
May 4 - Lance Bass, American singer (*NSYNC)
May 5 - Vincent Kartheiser, American actor (Angel, Mad Men)
May 9 - Rosario Dawson, American actress
May 9 - Andrew W.K., American musician
May 9 - Brandon Webb, American baseball player
May 12 - Andre Carter, American football player
May 12 - Steve Smith, American football player
May 13 - Michael Madden, American musician (Maroon 5)
May 14 - Dan Auerbach, American musician – Black Keys, Akron OH
May 16 - Evan Ferrante, actor (Funny or Die)
May 19 - Barbara Nedeljakova, Slovak actress
May 22 - Maggie Q, American actress
May 23 - Brian Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player
May 23 - Rasual Butler, American basketball player
May 24 - Tracy McGrady, NBA forward
May 24 - Frank Mir, American UFC fighter
May 26 - Elisabeth Harnois, American actress
May 26 - Mehmet Okur (Memo), Turkish basketball player
May 28 - Jesse Bradford, American actor
May 28 - Ronald Curry, American football player
May 28 - Monica Keena, American actress
May 29 - Casey Sheehan, American soldier; son of Cindy Sheehan (d. 2004)


Died, May 1979
May 9th - Cyrus S Eaton, Canada/US multi-millionaire, dies at 95
May 9th - Lan Adomian, composer and Lincoln Brigade vet, dies at 73
May 11th - Joan Chandler, actress, dies at 55
May 11th - Lester Raymond Flatt, musician (Flatt and Scruggs), dies at 64
May 16th - Asa Philip Randolph, labor leader & civil rights pioneer, dies at 90
May 24th - Jan Arvan, actor (Red Skelton Show, Zorro), dies
May 25th - John Arthur Spenkelink, American murderer, controversially executed at 30
May 26th - George Brent, actor, dies at 75
May 29th - Mary Pickford, actress, dies at 86

Push Play 2: the IXI

This might be the craziest thing I found while digging through 1979. We've already seen the introduction of the compact disc, and in a few weeks we'll hear about the release of the Walkman, but the real breakthrough in terms of personal digital music came this week in 1979 with the creation of the iPod.  That's right--  the iPod.

Kane Kramer, a "serial inventor", dreamed up the idea as a 23 year old in the UK.  He applied for a patent on his device, which he called the IXI, in 1981, which was awarded in 1985.  Sadly for him, he could no longer afford to keep up the payments on the patent and was forced to let it lapse in 1988, after which the design became public domain.

Kramer's story came to light in 2006 when Burst.com sued Apple for copyright infringement and Apple hired Kramer as a "consultant" for the trial, during which images of his creation were released. It wasn't just that he came up with the device, he also envisioned the online store from which users would purchase and download songs.  (The original capacity of the IXI was only enough for one song!)  He even addressed issues of piracy and copyright infringement.

Kramer is still in there pitching, serving as the Chariman of the British Inventors Society.  But even though he wasn't able to reap the rewards, his invention completely changed the way we listen to music.

MIssing

Etan Patz has been in the news this week.  Etan was a six year old boy living in New York City when he disappeared on the morning of May 25th, 1979.  He was never found and was declared legally dead in 2001. It was just a few days ago that a man confessed to his murder.  His disappearance sparked at first a furious effort in the NYC area which would grow into a larger movement to find missing children,  He was the first child to be pictured on a milk carton.  His became the face of the movement and in 1983, Reagan would declare May 25th as National Missing Children Day.

In the intervening years, efforts to locate missing children have continued to grow from the work of John Walsh, whose son Adam disappeared two years later, to the development of the Amber alerts which can now be received via text.  But the case of Etan Patz was the one that first created coordinated community responses to missing children.

Same As It Ever Was ... Since 1979

It's been 31 years since Jimmy Carter was president and yet for the republicans it's still 1979. Whether it's Romney himself or one of his stooges stand-ins, like Bobby Jindal, these guys are still running against Carter.  A lot of this is based on the Cult of Reagan, in that for Reagan to be the bestest president evah, of necessity he had to've saved us from the worst.  And the most liberal.  We'll hear more about Carter and Reagan later, but it's amazing that after all these years, Carter's still the villain.  But mention George Bush (you remember him ... two term president just four years ago?) and ... crickets.

A brief lull

May 1979 was pretty quiet, for our purposes. A few tidbits from that month…

• Elton John became the first western pop star to play both Israel and the USSR
• At the same time that Village People’s “In The Navy” was at the top of the charts here, Dan White was convicted of manslaughter in the death of SF Mayor George Moscone, and the ruling was marked by the White Night Riots.
• The following week, Pope John Paul ordains the virulently anti-gay Navy admiral John J O'Connor as a bishop
• Canada follows the UK and precedes the US by moving right politically to elect the conservative Joe Clark to succeed Pierre Trudeau as PM
• Israel begins to return Sinai to Egypt
• European Market accepts Greece as member
• The USSR conducts two nuclear test while Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT II

 

The Iron Lady

On May 4th, 1979, Margaret Thatcher was appointed as the first woman PM in British History.  She's already been in Parliament for twenty years, having first been elected in 1959, and had been a force in the party for ten.  In the early 70s, she was secretary for education and science, becoming famous as "Thatcher, milk snatcher,” after her abolition of the universal free school milk scheme.  This approach to government would be the hallmark of her time as PM.

She would lead the conservative resurgence in the west, becoming a close ally to Ronald Reagan.  She would also be the first leader in the west who would regard Mikhail Gorbachev someone they could work with.  She would also perfect the "conservative as victim" attitude so common with her brethren on the right here in the states, as seen in statements like, "If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn't swim."  

Thatcher presided over 10 years of conservative rule with all the policies that we've seen here with Reagan and those that have followed:  lower taxes (especially on the wealthy), attacks on unions, the dismantling of social programs, etc.  Her legacy lives on...

Hello/Goodbye: April

Born, April 1979

Apr 4 – Heath Ledger (d. 2008)

Apr 7 - Adrián Beltré, Dominican baseball player

Apr 8 - Jeremy Guthrie, American baseball player

Apr 9 - Keshia Knight Pulliam, Newark NJ, actress 


Apr 9 - Albert Hammond, Jr., American guitarist (The Strokes)


Apr 9 - Keith Nobbs, American actor


Apr 10 - Shemekia Copeland, American singer


Apr 10 - Rachel Corrie, American activist (d. 2003)

Apr 12 - Claire Danes, NYC, actress

Apr 12 - Paul Nicholls, English actor


Apr 13 - Baron Davis, American basketball player


Apr 18 - Michael Bradley, American basketball player


Apr 18 - Kourtney Kardashian, American reality television skank star

Apr 19 - Kate Hudson, American actress

Apr 21 - James McAvoy, Scottish actor


Apr 22 - Daniel Johns, Australian musician (Silverchair)


Apr 23 - Barry Fratelli, Scottish bassist (The Fratellis)


Apr 23 - Yana Gupta, Indian actress & model


Apr 23 - Jaime King, American actress


Apr 27 – Jacquelyn Burnham, American Librarian, Akron OH

Died, April 1979

Apr 4 - Edgar Buchanan, actor (Uncle Joe-Petticoat Junction), 77


Apr 4 - Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani president, 51


Apr 6 - Milton Ager, US composer, 85


Apr 10 - Nino Rota, Italian composer (Torquemada), 67


Apr 23 - Blair Peach, New Zealand-born anti-fascist (b. 1946)


Apr 29 - Julia A Perry, US composer/conductor, 55, Akron OH


Apr 29 - Hardie Gramatky, American author and animator, “Little Toot”, 72

Saturday Flashback: Pop Muzik

The single Pop Muzik broke in the UK in the Spring of 1979, but didn't come out here until that fall.  Released by "M", it had a synthesized pop sound that reminded many people of Devo, which sparked rumors that M was Mark Mothersbaugh.  In fact, the guy behind M was a Brit named Robin Scott.  Along with people like Gary Numan, Scott helped to popularize the synth pop sound that would come to define one of the biggest sounds of the 80s.  Enjoy!

Default

Much was made in 2011 of the possibility of a US default. The republicans were rightly castigated for playing games with the financial credibility of the United States to pursue their slash-and-burn policies. It seemed unthinkable that they would risk sending us over the debt cliff for the first time since the beginning of the republic. As it turns out, that last part wasn’t exactly true.

On April 26th 1979, the US Government went briefly into default. The reasons are depressingly familiar:

Investors in T-bills maturing April 26, 1979 were told that the U.S. Treasury could not make its payments on maturing securities to individual investors. The Treasury was also late in redeeming T-bills which become due on May 3 and May 10, 1979. The Treasury blamed this delay on an unprecedented volume of participation by small investors, on failure of Congress to act in a timely fashion on the debt ceiling legislation in April, and on an unanticipated failure of word processing equipment used to prepare check schedules.

The United States thus defaulted because Treasury’s back office was on the fritz.

The situation was small and temporary, but it was real and had the consequence of sharply raising the interest rate on T-bills for several months, essentially increasing the cost of government borrowing .

Presumably the Treasury IT infrastructure is today more robust than it was back then, and with interest rates that have been around zero for years, the immediate costs would not spike the way it did then, but this event proved even a small, short-lived default could be disastrous. Given the willingness of the teabaggers in Congress to play chicken with the full faith and credit of our (and their) government, we may still find out just how bad it could be…

h/t Donald Maron

Killer Rabbit

On April 20 1979, one of the weirdest occurrences in presidential history happened involving Jimmy Carter and a rabbit.  On a short vacation back home in Plains GA, Carter decided to do a little fishing at a nearby pond.  At some point, a crazed rabbit swam toward Carter's boat "hissing menacingly". The President waved it away with an oar, it changed direction and swam away. End of story, right?  Unfortunately for Carter, no.  His press secretary Jody Powell let slip to a reporter and the story broke. Big time.  The Washington Post put the bunny story on page one complete with a cartoon takeoff of the famous "Jaws" movie poster entitled "Paws."

There were no Secret Service agents present while The President was defending himself.  There was a photographer, however, and he captured the moment for posterity.  Carter was miffed that White House staff didn't believe what happened, so he insisted that the photos be blown up and distributed, so of course they leaked, as well.  Apparently there were no other major events at the time, so this became a big story.

But it was more than a silly and embarrassing tale.  It became a metaphor for Carter's presidency:  a feckless man flailing away at his problems, in this case a bunny rabbit.  It's still comedy gold to the right.  He'd just presided over the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, was thought to have handled Three Mile Island well, but this trifling event still diminished him further in the eyes of many Americans.  The rest of the year would do little to change that.

Of course, a lot of us thought of this when the story came out...

h/t Cecil Adams

Saturday Flashback: Kate Bush

Kate Bush has always been an acquired taste.  She was never that well known here in the states save for her Hounds of Love LP that featured "Running Up That Hill"which came out six years later.  I hold her personally responsible for Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan, even Lady Gaga (a little) and Florence of the Machine.  Kate didn't release anything in 1979, but in April of that year she hit the road for her first-- and last-- tour.  For a variety of reasons, she's never toured again.  This tour was also notable in that it featured the first ever use of the now ubiquitous wireless headset mic.  Here she is later in the year with a couple from her Xmas special.  Enjoy!

 

Saturday Flashback: Squeeze

Another great new band from the UK, because of legal issues they were originally known as "UK Squeeze" here.  They would hit gold a coupla years later with "Tempted".  Their Cool for Cats LP was released on April 9, 1979.  Here they are with the title track.  Enjoy!

The Prime Minister

On April 5, 1979 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan was executed.  He was overthrown in the summer of '77 in a coup that many suspect involved the CIA.  Bhutto, while having mixed relations with the Soviets, had implemented a number of socialistic policies in Pakistan.  He also led the country to develop nuclear weapons.  As the US opposed all those things, in't not inconceivable that Washington had a hand in his downfall in favor of General Zia-ul-Hac, the overt leader of the coup.  Moreover, while Bhutto had enjoyed a strong personal relationship with Nixon, Carter was opposed to him from the beginning of his presidency.

His daughter, Benazir, maintained that he was executed because the US did not want a nuclear Pakistan.  (She would herself become a leading Pakistani politician, serving two terms as prime minister and was running a third time when she was assassinated in December 2007.)  The US did oppose Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons, but learned to accept it in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.   The US would begin pumping money into Pakistan as part of the efforts to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan.  The relationship would through continue 9/11 with mixed results.

And We're Live In 3 ... 2 ... 1979: Nickelodeon

April 1st, 1979 was also the day the Nickelodeon network went on the air.  Technically, it was a relaunch of the Pinwheel Network which had been around since 1977 in the Columbus OH market.  This was one of the first networks devoted to kids' programming and has grown into a multimedia empire with TV networks, cruises, theme parks and hotels.  I also blame this network for the constant recycling of 60s sitcoms into movies, as Nick at Night introduced those shows to a whole new generation in the 80s.

And getting slimed is still cool...

Iran: Islamic Republic

On April 1, 1979, a referendum was held, the outcome of which was that Iran was declared an Islamic Republic.  This act formally deposed the Shah, who had left country in January.  The officially announced vote totals claimed that over 98% of the vote was for the new republic.

Work would continue on a new constitution that would be passed later in the year, but it was on this day Iran officially became an Islamic state.

Saturday Flashback: Hit ME!

Ian Dury and the Blockheads recorded "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" in late '78, but it hit the top of the pops in the UK and was released here in early '79.  Dury was steeped in the British Music Hall tradition and put out a string of hits, the best remembered being "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll".  He also did some acting, and an excellent biopic of him was put out a few years ago starring Andy Serkis.  Here's Dury and the Blockheads doing "Hit Me" at the Concerts for Kampuchea later in 1979.  Enjoy!

Conspiracy

On March 29, 1979, the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations released their report on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  While the committee still backed the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three times at Kennedy, killing him with the third shot, it also found, based on acoustic analysis, that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy".

The committee also found credible testimony that was used by Jim Garrison ten years earlier in the trial against Clay Shaw, to this day the only person who has been tried in court as having anything to do with Kennedy's murder.  That trial was the basis for Oliver Stone's movie JFK.  Conspiracy theories about Kennedy's assassination had been around since November 23, 1963.  But this was the first time any government agency acknowledged the probability of a conspiracy.  This report and Stone's film locked in the notion of a conspiracy that still remains.

The committee also held that while James Earl Ray was the shooter who killed Dr. King, there was also the "likelihood" there was a conspiracy involved.  Coincidentally, this was also the week in 1979 that a joint session of Congress would convene that resulted in the first proposed legislation for MLK Day.  That measure would go down to defeat, but the day honoring Dr. King would be declared in 1983.  The day remains controversial, and speculation about King's murder continues to this day...

Hello/Goodbye: March

Born, March 1979
Mar 4th - Jon Fratelli, Scottish singer (The Fratellis)
Mar 6th - Erik Bedard, Canadian baseball player
Mar 8th - Tom Chaplin, English singer (Keane)
Mar 8th - Andy Ross, American guitarist (OK Go)
Mar 9th - Chingy, American rapper
Mar 11th - Benji & Joel Madden, American musicians (Good Charlotte)
Mar 11th - Elton Brand, American basketball player
Mar 12th - Pete Doherty, English musician
Mar 13th - Johan Santana, Venezuelan baseball player
Mar 14th - Chris Klein, American actor
Mar 15th - Kevin Youkilis, American baseball player
Mar 16th - Rashad Moore, National Football League player
Mar 17th - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player
Mar 18th - Adam Levine, American singer (Maroon 5)
Mar 18th - Danneel Harris, American actress
Mar 19th - Hedo Türkoğlu, Turkish basketball player
Mar 20th - Freema Agyeman, British actress (Doctor Who)
Mar 20th - Bianca Lawson, American actress
Mar 22nd - Juan Uribe, Dominican baseball player
Mar 23rd - Mark Buehrle, American baseball player
Mar 24th - Lake Bell, American actress
Mar 25th - Lee Pace, American actor
Mar 27th - Michael Cuddyer, American baseball player
Mar 30th - Norah Jones, American singer and pianist

Died, March 1979
Mar 1st - Dolores Costello, actress ("The Goddess of the Silent Screen" and Drew Barrymore’s grandmother), dies at 73
Mar 2nd - Mollah Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish leader, dies at 75
Mar 2nd - Richard Sykes, British ambassador, assassinated in Holland
Mar 11th - Victor Kilian, actor, dies at 88
Mar 16th - Jean Monnet, French economist/advocate of European unity dies at 90
Mar 19th - Al Hodge, actor (Capt Video), dies at 65
Mar 19th - Richard Beckinsale, actor and Kate’s father, dies at 31
Mar 22nd - Ben Lyon, actor (I Cover the Waterfront, Indiscreet), dies at 78
Mar 28th - Emmett Kelly, circus clown (Weary Willy), dies at 80
Mar 30th - Airey Neave, British MP (Conservatives), killed by terrorist bomb

Meltdown

The worst commercial nuclear accident in the US took place on March 28th, 1979 at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  The station was comprised of two units, TMI-1 and TMI-2, owned and operated by Metropolitan Edison and General Public Utilities Corporation.  Both units were designed by Babcock and Wilcox, a US company that had been in the business of power generation for a century.  Construction for TMI-1 began in 1968 and was completed in 1970.  It went online in 1974.  TMI-2, however, had a more troubled existence.  Construction started in 1969 but was not completed until 1978, with Number 2 going online in December of that year.  It was only in operation for 90 days before the accident.

A malfunction of the cooling system of TMI-2 caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core.  This resulted in what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called a "significant release of radiation" the following day.  By March 30, the governor and the head of the NRC advised pregnant women and small children in the area to evacuate.  Jimmy Carter famously visited the facility on April 1.

In the end, while the amount of radiation was indeed significant, the government estimated the average amount of radiation received by area residents was equivalent to a "chest x-ray".  Others have indicated it was equivalent to receiving half a year's normal "background radiation" in one shot.  Although there were no specific fatalities, there were reports of increased infant death downwind from TMI, as well as reduced fertility in animals.  The BBC reported in 2002 that there was no exceptional rise in cancer deaths in the area in the intervening years.

TMI-2 was brought under control within 10 days, after which it was permanently closed.  The cleanup, at a cost of a billion dollars, wasn't completed until 1993.  Fun fact: TMI-2 is currently owned and maintained by First Energy of Akron.  TMI-1 came back online in 1985.  Except for a quickly contained leak in November 2009 which kept it offline for two months, it has been in operation ever since.  In fact, its license was renewed in September of 2009, keeping it active until 2034.

It's often thought Three Mile Island was the death knell of the nuclear power industry.  It certainly had an impact on public perception.  According to the NY Times, support for nuclear power was at an all time high in 1977 at 69%, but fell to 46% after the accident.   In reality, for a number of reasons development for future plants was already going down.  No new plants had been approved since the accident, although some were built that were already scheduled for construction.  That said, the first new plant plant to be designed since the accident was recently approved for construction.

Coincidentally, the accident took place two weeks after the release of The China Syndrome, the story of a news crew at a nuclear plant during a meltdown.  All of this produced one of SNL's finest moments, "The Pepsi Syndrome", broadcast just 10 days after the accident on April 7th. It's also one of the longest, at 14 minutes, but do yourself a favor and check it out.  Stay tuned for a special guest as well as a future senator.


Pepsi Syndrome from Lou Jacob on Vimeo.

Peace

On March 26th, 1979, history was truly made with the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. The negotiations for the treaty were accomplished the previous fall when Menachem Begin of Israel, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Accords.  Begin and Sadat would share the Nobel Peace Prize of 1978 for their efforts.

The first steps to Camp David and the treaty would be the so-called Sinai I and II treaties, both the work of Henry Kissinger in an effort to reduce Soviet influence in the Middle East by bringing Egypt into closer US orbit.  After Egypt and the rest of the Arab states were defeated in the Six Day War of 1967, it became important to Sadat to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula lost in the conflict.  He tried war, attacking Israel in the Sinai in 1973, and then peace, boldly visiting Israel in 1977 and delivering a speech to the Knesset.

Begin, a long time hardliner, formed the Likud Party in 1973 as a "consolidation" of right wing parties in Israel.  He led them to power in a landslide in May of 1977.  Many perceived Begin as having the upper hand at Camp David.  He had little to lose if nothing were accomplished.  Sadat, on the other hand, needed to re-secure the Sinai for economic and historic reasons.

Carter ably pushed and prodded the two to agreement at Camp David.  (Some thought the Nobel should have gone to him.)  The treaty signed in March of '79 reflected the two main frameworks of the Accords.  The first focused on Israel and Egypt, calling for a phased withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai and the normalization of relations between the two countries.  The second, larger in scope, was to provide for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement based on UN Resolution 242.  Adopted by the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the The Six Day War, 242 is essentially a land for peace swap with Israel relinquishing the territories won in that conflict.

The  Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was the first peace agreement between Israel and any of its neighbors. Despite events in the intervening years, it still holds today, although recent events in Egypt may change that.  It has also served as a template for future accords, the best example of which was Clinton's efforts at Camp David in 2000.

But it has also had unintended, and perhaps not too unintended consequences.  Prior to 1979, Egypt was largely seen as the leader of the Arab world, especially as concerned Israel.  After the treaty was signed and Egypt essentially gave up that role, the region has gone through upheaval that continues to this day.  Iran was about to become a theocracy and Saddam Hussein was months away from power in Iraq.  The moderation that Egypt had historically supplied to the area was no longer a factor.  There is some thought that Begin accepted the terms of Camp David so Israel could claim compliance with UN 242 and the reticence of Israel in terms of giving up any more land bears that out.  Indeed, settlements in those territories have continued to grow.

A major issue is that the two frameworks were not linked, the success of one was independent of the other.  Sadat in particular was vilified by many in the region as having abandoned the Palestinians.  When he signed the treaty, he also signed his death warrant.  He was assassinated in October of 1981 by Egyptian Islamic Jihad.  The fatwa was issued by the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman and one of the leaders was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became bin Laden's number two man.

This was an historic peace agreement.  The peace between Egypt and Israel has lasted, and the legacy of this treaty, good and bad, lives on.

March Madness

On this day in 1979, the most-watched NCAA Men's Basketball Championship was played between Magic Johnson's Michigan State University and Larry Bird's Indiana State.  They met for the first time the previous summer during the 1978 World Invitational Tournament for Team USA, throwing no look passes at each other.  So while they were certainly aware of each other, this was the first time they'd face each other as opponents.  Magic had a great season, landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and leading the Spartans to a 26-6 record.  Bird had an even better year, taking the Sycamores to their first ever NCAA tournament sporting a perfect 33-0 record.  This was before the days of ESPN (although they would go live later in the year), accordingly not many fans had seen Indiana State, who lived in the shadow of Indiana and Purdue.  So few people had seen Bird play prior to the championship that some were surprised he was white.  It's difficult to imagine today that a team would get that far in the season with so little known about them.

The game itself wasn't the best ever.  MSU focused their defense on Bird, holding him to a meager 7-21 from the floor, and won 75-64.  Magic may have won the title, but Bird won the awards, snagging both the Wooden and Naismith Player of the Year trophies.  But this was the start of something big.  College hoops would never be the same.  Consider the explosive revenue growth alone:  in '79, NBC paid $5.2 million for the broadcast rights to the game;  by 1982, CBS outbid them and paid $48MM and by 1985, it would go up to $96MM.  Interestingly, though, this game remains the gold standard for viewership.  More than 35 percent of all TV sets were tuned into Magic and Bird.  That record still stands.

This game began a classic rivalry of truly fierce competitors who ultimately became the closest of friends.  (When Magic announced he had AIDS in 1991, the first call he took was from Larry Bird.)  Many sports pundits credit their play for reviving the NBA in the 80s and making the month of March as mad as it is.  These two men are rightly recognized as pillars of the game and are still celebrated today...  on Broadway, even

The Final Frontier?

The first functional space shuttle, Columbia, was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center on this date in 1979.  Not even 10 years after the moon landing, and just a few years after the end of the Apollo Program, the new shuttle program was to represent America's future in space.  The Columbia had its first "maiden flight" earlier in the month perched atop a larger aircraft to test aerodynamic principles.  One of the results of that first flight was the loss of thousands of temporary and permanent thermal tiles.  The first official launch was actually scheduled for November of 1979, but was delayed because of continued problems with the tiles.  The Columbia, of course, was the shuttle that disintegrated upon re-entry in 2003 because of thermal tile malfunction.  That said, the vehicle was spaceworthy enough to complete 27 missions before its final, fatal mission.

The Shuttle program was indeed the future of the space program for over 30 years, from its maiden voyage (Columbia) on April 12, 1981 until the final flight of the Atlantis which landed safely on July 21, 2011.  With funding cuts in the last several years the future of the space program and particularly manned space flight is in jeopardy, with the most promising options being commercial, as opposed to government, ventures.  Overall, despite the tragedies of the Columbia and Challenger missions, the program was a success, with 134 successful launches and 133 safe returns out of a total of 135 missions.  Where we go next is up in the air...

Moods For Moderns

This was the week in 1979 that, after hearing NewWave and Punk records for over a year, I finally saw live what all the fuss was about.  On Tuesday March 20th, I saw Elvis Costello at the Cleveland Agora.  (To date, I've now seen him twelve times.)  His Armed Forces LP had just come out, and we'd already devoured his previous two records.  I was on spring break (my last as an undergrad) and went with some friends up to the Cleve.  Amazing show.  Unlike a lot of new bands, Elvis and his always top-notch backing band The Attractions could actually play their instruments.  And people danced! It should be noted that this was just 5 days after the infamous incident that took place in Columbus OH with Elvis getting into a nasty drunken argument with Bonnie Bramlett and Steven Stills.  Here's Elvis and the boys later in the year with "Oliver's Army"

Two nights later, I had my first opportunity to dig into the Kent-Akron music scene.  The first wave was already over, with Devo and others breaking out.  Version 2.0 was even better with dozens of great young bands. On March 22nd, I went to see the then kings of the scene, Hammer Damage.  Made up of Donny Damage on vox and rhythm guitar, Mike Hammer on drums, both from the Rubber City Rebels (part of the first bunch out of Akron along with Devo) with Scott Winkler on bass and George Cabaniss on lead, they played LOUD, tight songs with blistering guitar breaks and hilariously juvenile lyrics. How loud were they?  After spending the night parked in front of George's Marshall stack, the pressure on my head was so great all the fluid drained from my sinuses.  My ears rang for three days.  It was the first time I'd ever danced, in the sense that I just got up and started jumping around.

Damage would own Kent and Akron that year, culminating with a sweet gig opening for the B-52s at the Agora that fall.  By the end of the year, George would leave to play with The Dead Boys. The others picked up some other players and stuck it out for a few years. But they were just one of many great bands in the area:  The Action, Trudee and the Trendsetters, Unit 5, The Nelsons, Wild Giraffes (from Mentor), Human Switchboard, The Adults, and on and on.  It was an amazing scene that's still celebrated today with various bands reuniting periodically.  I'll have more on Kent-Akron happenings later in the year, but for now here's Hammer Damage with one of their best: "Laugh".  Enjoy!

And We're Live in 3 ... 2 ... 1979: C-SPAN

Brian Lamb, CEO and Founder of C-SPAN stepped down today, the 33rd anniversary of its first broadcast of US House proceedings on March 19th, 1979, a speech By Al Gore, then a representative from Tennessee.  Lamb had first conceived of the concept in 1975, envisioning a non-profit outlet for live telecasts of Congressional sessions as well as other activities.  C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network) began to televise the Senate starting in 1986.  In time, the network would also broadcast sessions of the Canadian and British Parliaments, as well as other events, although numerous requests to televise the US Supreme have not been granted.  Today, there are three C-SPAN channels as well as C-SPAN radio, carried on XM Radio.  This was the first outlet for sustained live coverage of government proceedings and it has done much to promote not for profit, non partisan transparency in government.  Cheers, Brian!

All About the Currencies

The direct step toward a European currency was taken on March 13, 1979 when the European Economic Community created the ECU, or European Currency Unit, to be the "unit of account" for the European Monetary System (EMS). Described as a "currency basket", it was essentially pooling of member currencies to prevent fluctuations in value.  

In addition to the ECU, the EMS also featured an exchange rate mechanism where each currency had an exchange rate linked to the ECU.  There was also a credit mechanism with each country transferring 20% of its currency and gold reserves to a joint fund. The ECU would survive until the reunification of Germany as well as financial panics in 1992 led to calls for a more unified currency.

The ECU was the direct predecessor of the current Euro.  Three months after its creation, the first direct elections to the European Parliament would take place.  The political and financial framework of modern Europe was now in place.

Saturday Flashback: Graham Parker

Graham Parker was lumped in with Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello in the all-important "Angry Young Man" category but wasn't as big, at least in the states.  With his crack band, The Rumour, he released what many regard as his finest record in March 1979, Squeezing Out Sparks, which made a lot of "Best Of" lists back then.  Here he is with "Protection".  Enjoy!

Push Play 1: the CD

As we've seen, this was still the era of the LP record.  The beginning of the end of that dominance took place on March 8th, 1979 when Phillips first demonstrated the compact disc player.  The format for the actual disc had not been finalized, but that would start to take shape later in the month when Phillips would partner with Sony to develop a standard format.  (Fun fact: they had to change the size of the disc when Sony insisted it must be large enough to contain all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, which was 74 minutes.)

It would take a few more years for this technology to hit commercial, but when it did, the CD would revolutionize they way we listen to music.  And now it's the CD's turn to fend off new technologies. We'll hear about that soon...

Saturday Flashback: Guilty Pleasures

While the musical focus here has been and will remain New Wave, I do have some rather suspect favorites that were radio hits in 1979.  This is surely the nostalgia talking, but I still like these cuts anyway. YMMV.  Enjoy!  (Or not...)

Hey...  at least this guy used to play with Nick Lowe!

The models he would have "playing" behind him in the 80s looked better than these dudes...

OK ... there's no excuse for this one.  Whatever.