That right-hand poster is really clever. But the trailer didn't do much for me. It seemed to be almost all Beatles songs. Which is OK in its way -- I rather liked middle-period Beatles, at least by comparison with anything else that wasn't classical or folk. But even if my eyes were up to movie-going, it's hard to see that as a reason to sit through a whole movie.
NYT opinion: Forget Self-Driving Cars. Bring Back the Stick Shift. [Click] “Technology meant to save us from distraction is making us less attentive.” And there are even data indicating that standard transmissions cause us to drive more safely (at the very end of the article).
Oh, on our trip to San Jose and back the other day, the hills and fields were verdant with grass, the wild mustard blooms were spectacular, and lupine and poppies were beginning to bloom, along with many other wildflowers. Oak trees were beginning to leaf out. More unsettled weather (including snow, rain and warm intervals) expected into April. Yesterday evening a thunderstorm formed to our north and we saw lightning. There was a report of a small tornado. The reservoirs are full and having to release water to make way for snowmelt. The river below our house seems to have risen another couple of feet—a good eight feet or maybe ten in the past ten days or so, I think. No flooding to speak of, though. And now I had better get to work in the yard—our tangelo needs to be pruned back pretty hard.
We’ve been singing a feminist anthem for decades and didn’t even know it George F. Will: Say goodbye to football. Baseball is the true American pastime.
Baseball is older than the Republic, but that's not the only reason columnist George F. Will says it has an edge over football. (Kate Woodsome, Patrick Martin, James Pace-Cornsilk/The Washington Post) By Henry Olsen Columnist March 27 at 3:26 PM
Nearly a million Americans will belt out our nation’s unofficial second anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” during Thursday’s Opening Day games. Few will know that the famous tune is actually a feminist anthem.
The lyric that nearly every American knows by heart is actually the song’s chorus. The song begins with a verse that introduces its subject, Katie Casey, a “baseball mad” single woman.
Katie loves “the hometown crew.” Just to see them, “every sou, Katie blew," all her money, in other words. The songwriter, Jack Norworth, is already a bit subversive here. Virtually every person who attended games in 1908, when the song was penned, was male. And why not, since the games were all played in the daytime and women were most likely slaving away at home with children or toiling at work in low-wage jobs? But it gets better.
The next lines establish Katie as a woman with her own mind and will. “Her young beau” calls to “see if she’d like to go to see a show.” But “Miss Kate said no”! Instead, she says, “I’ll tell you what you can do: / Take me out to the ballgame.”
Yes, the chorus that baseball fans belt out every game during the seventh-inning stretch is what a single woman tells her prospective boyfriend what he can do to get her attention.
Simone de Beauvoir or Gloria Steinem couldn’t have said it better themselves. Katie is the Cosmo Girl writ large, a woman who doesn’t need a man or wait for someone else to guide her life. She does what she wants, when she wants to, on her own terms.
The following verse, even more forgotten than the first, continues in this vein. Katie’s at the game, but the beau is dropped entirely. Instead, she’s yelling at the umpire and leading the crowd in cheers. When the hometown team is tied, she leads the crowd in song, teaching them the famous chorus to lift the spirits of her squad. A strong woman who’s also a leader of men!
Major League Baseball has been sitting on a gold mine for decades, clueless of the cultural treasure that it alone possesses among the major sports. Football and basketball have a long history of objectifying woman as cheerleading sex symbols, as any glance at the sidelines of a modern game will tell you. Baseball, however, has never adopted the sexist approach even as its popularity wanes and television ratings drop.
MLB should use the true background of its most popular element to revive interest in the game. Starting next season, Commissioner Rob Manfred should designate the first Saturday after Opening Day as “Katie Casey Day.” Fans should be taught the song’s first verse, of course, but the day can do so much more. It should highlight the women’s professional league immortalized in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own.” More importantly, it should honor the ongoing vibrant female softball teams that flourish on college campuses and produce fantastic athletes — and millions of fans.
The NCAA women’s softball World Series attracts nearly 1.5 million viewers per game each summer, often higher than the nationally broadcast regular season baseball games it competes with. Softball great Jessica Mendoza has already broken the gender barrier as a baseball sportscaster by spending three seasons as a color analyst for ESPN’s "Sunday Night Baseball" and recently joining the New York Mets in an advisory capacity. Imagine how much more talent and fans MLB could recruit if it embraced its heritage as a vehicle for female empowerment.
The United States is a much different nation than it was when “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” first appeared. It is a country with a lot more Katie Caseys, and that’s something to celebrate. An annual Katie Casey Day celebration can help MLB grow and help our country advance. How about it, Commissioner Manfred?
Yeah, I sure don't recognize that as a feminist anthem! "I am woman, hear me roar" maybe, but asking to be taken somewhere and fed? Nope, definitely NOT feminist!
In a similar vane(sp?) and from only four or five years earlier, "Meet Me in St. Louie" also deals with a young lady with a mind of her own. If memory serves, the verse goes like this:
When Louie got home to the flat He took off his coat and his hat He looked all around but no wifie he found So he said, "Where can Flossy be at?"
A note on the table he spied He read it just once then he cried It said, "Louie, dear,it's too slow for me here So I think I will go for a ride"
Then the familiar chorus:
Meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair Don't tell me the lights are shining anyplace but there We will dance the hoochie coochie I will be your tootsee wootsee If you will meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair
I have a vague recollection of a second verse continuing the tale of Louie and Flossy, but the details, alas, are lost in the mists of fading memory.
I think I saw the trailer a while back--it looked REALLY GOOD!
ReplyDeleteNBC News: First Democratic debate set for Miami, June 26-27 [Click] Twelve debates this time around, with selection of candidates based on multiple criteria. Candidates should be well vetted this time.
ReplyDeleteNBC News: First Democratic debate set for Miami, June 26-27 [Click] Twelve debates this time around, with selection of candidates based on multiple criteria. Candidates should be well vetted this time.
DeleteChristian Science Monitor: Challenge for 2020 Democrats: How to rise above the pack [Click] Pretty thin on factoids, but claims Buttegieg has passed both the 65,000 supporter standard and the 200 donors in each of 20 states standard; no reference cited.
That right-hand poster is really clever. But the trailer didn't do much for me. It seemed to be almost all Beatles songs. Which is OK in its way -- I rather liked middle-period Beatles, at least by comparison with anything else that wasn't classical or folk. But even if my eyes were up to movie-going, it's hard to see that as a reason to sit through a whole movie.
ReplyDeleteCatching up from last thread: It's heartening to see the Poor People's Campaign getting exposure in major outlets like The Guardian.
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed.
DeleteBrexit: MPs asked to vote on withdrawal agreement only [Click]
ReplyDeleteNYT opinion: Forget Self-Driving Cars. Bring Back the Stick Shift. [Click] “Technology meant to save us from distraction is making us less attentive.” And there are even data indicating that standard transmissions cause us to drive more safely (at the very end of the article).
ReplyDeleteNYT Editorial: ‘Extreme Partisan Gerrymandering Is a Real Problem,’ Says Kavanaugh. He’s Right. [Click] A bit of a surprise to me.
Strange Things Are Happening Every Day: Algeria [Click]
Unrecognized as such, a feminist anthem known to all. [Click]
NASA has an awkward history with the whole women-in-space thing [Click] “We regret to report it isn’t just the lack of medium-sized spacesuits.”
Climate change is already endangering US tree fruit harvests. [Click]
Oh, on our trip to San Jose and back the other day, the hills and fields were verdant with grass, the wild mustard blooms were spectacular, and lupine and poppies were beginning to bloom, along with many other wildflowers. Oak trees were beginning to leaf out. More unsettled weather (including snow, rain and warm intervals) expected into April. Yesterday evening a thunderstorm formed to our north and we saw lightning. There was a report of a small tornado. The reservoirs are full and having to release water to make way for snowmelt. The river below our house seems to have risen another couple of feet—a good eight feet or maybe ten in the past ten days or so, I think. No flooding to speak of, though. And now I had better get to work in the yard—our tangelo needs to be pruned back pretty hard.
Paywall in the way. So what's the feminist anthem?
Delete"Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
DeleteShhhh... Here's the text of the article:
We’ve been singing a feminist anthem for decades and didn’t even know it
George F. Will: Say goodbye to football. Baseball is the true American pastime.
Baseball is older than the Republic, but that's not the only reason columnist George F. Will says it has an edge over football. (Kate Woodsome, Patrick Martin, James Pace-Cornsilk/The Washington Post)
By Henry Olsen
Columnist
March 27 at 3:26 PM
Nearly a million Americans will belt out our nation’s unofficial second anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” during Thursday’s Opening Day games. Few will know that the famous tune is actually a feminist anthem.
The lyric that nearly every American knows by heart is actually the song’s chorus. The song begins with a verse that introduces its subject, Katie Casey, a “baseball mad” single woman.
Katie loves “the hometown crew.” Just to see them, “every sou, Katie blew," all her money, in other words. The songwriter, Jack Norworth, is already a bit subversive here. Virtually every person who attended games in 1908, when the song was penned, was male. And why not, since the games were all played in the daytime and women were most likely slaving away at home with children or toiling at work in low-wage jobs? But it gets better.
The next lines establish Katie as a woman with her own mind and will. “Her young beau” calls to “see if she’d like to go to see a show.” But “Miss Kate said no”! Instead, she says, “I’ll tell you what you can do: / Take me out to the ballgame.”
Yes, the chorus that baseball fans belt out every game during the seventh-inning stretch is what a single woman tells her prospective boyfriend what he can do to get her attention.
Simone de Beauvoir or Gloria Steinem couldn’t have said it better themselves. Katie is the Cosmo Girl writ large, a woman who doesn’t need a man or wait for someone else to guide her life. She does what she wants, when she wants to, on her own terms.
To be continued
Continued from above
DeleteThe following verse, even more forgotten than the first, continues in this vein. Katie’s at the game, but the beau is dropped entirely. Instead, she’s yelling at the umpire and leading the crowd in cheers. When the hometown team is tied, she leads the crowd in song, teaching them the famous chorus to lift the spirits of her squad. A strong woman who’s also a leader of men!
Major League Baseball has been sitting on a gold mine for decades, clueless of the cultural treasure that it alone possesses among the major sports. Football and basketball have a long history of objectifying woman as cheerleading sex symbols, as any glance at the sidelines of a modern game will tell you. Baseball, however, has never adopted the sexist approach even as its popularity wanes and television ratings drop.
MLB should use the true background of its most popular element to revive interest in the game. Starting next season, Commissioner Rob Manfred should designate the first Saturday after Opening Day as “Katie Casey Day.” Fans should be taught the song’s first verse, of course, but the day can do so much more. It should highlight the women’s professional league immortalized in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own.” More importantly, it should honor the ongoing vibrant female softball teams that flourish on college campuses and produce fantastic athletes — and millions of fans.
The NCAA women’s softball World Series attracts nearly 1.5 million viewers per game each summer, often higher than the nationally broadcast regular season baseball games it competes with. Softball great Jessica Mendoza has already broken the gender barrier as a baseball sportscaster by spending three seasons as a color analyst for ESPN’s "Sunday Night Baseball" and recently joining the New York Mets in an advisory capacity. Imagine how much more talent and fans MLB could recruit if it embraced its heritage as a vehicle for female empowerment.
The United States is a much different nation than it was when “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” first appeared. It is a country with a lot more Katie Caseys, and that’s something to celebrate. An annual Katie Casey Day celebration can help MLB grow and help our country advance. How about it, Commissioner Manfred?
Here's a link to the video embedded in the article (I hope!):
DeleteBaseball is older than the Republic, but that's not the only reason columnist George F. Will says it has an edge over football. - Click
"Take me out to the ball game"
ReplyDeleteYeah, I sure don't recognize that as a feminist anthem! "I am woman, hear me roar" maybe, but asking to be taken somewhere and fed? Nope, definitely NOT feminist!
DeleteSee above. Indeed, Miss Katie Casey is an independent girl after Helen Reddy's own heart, and mine.
DeleteIn a similar vane(sp?) and from only four or five years earlier, "Meet Me in St. Louie" also deals with a young lady with a mind of her own. If memory serves, the verse goes like this:
DeleteWhen Louie got home to the flat
He took off his coat and his hat
He looked all around but no wifie he found
So he said, "Where can Flossy be at?"
A note on the table he spied
He read it just once then he cried
It said, "Louie, dear,it's too slow for me here
So I think I will go for a ride"
Then the familiar chorus:
Meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair
Don't tell me the lights are shining anyplace but there
We will dance the hoochie coochie
I will be your tootsee wootsee
If you will meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair
I have a vague recollection of a second verse continuing the tale of Louie and Flossy, but the details, alas, are lost in the mists of fading memory.
The Domecrats have another presidential candidate: Wayne Messem. He's apparetnly the Mayor of Miramar, Florida, wherever that me be.
ReplyDeleteWell put, Bill.
DeleteEuropean press gets popcorn out for another chaotic day of Brexit [Click] “The latest twist was likened to a TV saga, and no one knows what the ending will be”
ReplyDelete