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.