Anita Bryant Dry, Entertainer & Anti-Gay Activist, 84

[Jason]

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2025/01/10/entertainer-former-miss-oklahoma-and-anti-gay-activist-anita-bryant-dry-dies-in-edmond-at-84/775884

Anita Bryant Dry, a former Miss Oklahoma, entertainer and anti-gay
activist, has died. She was 84.

Bryant was born on March 25, 1940, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, where her
family nurtured her Christian faith. She became known as Anita Bryant
Dry after marrying former astronaut Charlie Dry, who preceded her in
death. According to the obituary submitted by her family, she died on
Dec. 16 at her Edmond home, surrounded by family and friends.

She pursued music and performance, and had her own television show at
the age of 12. She was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1958 at age 18. Her hit
records like "Paper Roses" and "Till There Was You" blazed up the music
charts, leading to guest appearances on "Dick Clark's American
Bandstand" and other television programs.

She was particularly known for her stirring singing performances such as
her rendition of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Her talent led to
numerous prominent singing engagements, over the years. She sang for
President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House and traveled with actor
Bob Hope on his holiday tours to entertain for U.S. troops abroad,
according to her obituary.

The celebrity also sing at the Super Bowl in 1971 and cohosted the
nationally televised segment of the Orange Bowl Parade for nine years,
according to her obituary. She also became famous for her television
commercials touting Florida juice and Coca-Cola.

In the late 1970s, Bryant became well known as a vocal anti-gay activist
and organized opposition to the movement for LGBTQ rights by founding an
organization called Save Our Children.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Jason
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2025/01/10/entertainer-former-miss-oklahoma-and-anti-gay-activist-anita-bryant-dry-dies-in-edmond-at-84/775884
Anita Bryant Dry, a former Miss Oklahoma, entertainer and anti-gay
activist, has died. She was 84.
Bryant was born on March 25, 1940, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, where her
family nurtured her Christian faith. She became known as Anita Bryant
Dry

Had never heard that name for her,actually...the name by which she
was famous was "Anita Bryant"...and sticking a Dry on the end makes
one think of whether there was an "Anita Bryant Wet".
I suppose she used her married name socially and was no longer
active professionally but most people aware of her didn't
associate her with that name.

Post by Jason
after marrying former astronaut Charlie Dry, who preceded her in
death.

(Last April).
Charlie Dry was a "test astronaut" who never actually went
into space in his years on the NASA roster.

Post by Jason
According to the obituary submitted by her family, she died on
Dec. 16 at her Edmond home, surrounded by family and friends.
She pursued music and performance, and had her own television show at
the age of 12. She was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1958 at age 18. Her hit
records like "Paper Roses" and "Till There Was You" blazed up the music
charts, leading to guest appearances on "Dick Clark's American
Bandstand" and other television programs.

Her peak of fame being so long ago leaves me surprised she was
only 84.

Post by Jason
She was particularly known for her stirring singing performances such as
her rendition of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Her talent led to
numerous prominent singing engagements, over the years. She sang for
President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House and traveled with actor
Bob Hope on his holiday tours to entertain for U.S. troops abroad,
according to her obituary.
The celebrity also sing[sic] at the Super Bowl in 1971 and cohosted the
nationally televised segment of the Orange Bowl Parade for nine years,
according to her obituary. She also became famous for her television
commercials touting Florida juice and Coca-Cola.

Certainly the "Florida sunshine tree" jingle is what I remember her for.

Post by Jason
In the late 1970s, Bryant became well known as a vocal anti-gay activist
and organized opposition to the movement for LGBTQ rights by founding an
organization called Save Our Children.

Phraseology that assumes that the "LGBTQ" are correct in claiming
what they purport to be their "rights",which I see as being denied
their actual rights to assistance in suppressing,and protection
from,their "LGBTQ-ness".

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[bryan_styble]

That theorizing about her increasingly using the name Anita Bryant Day
sounds sound.

And the late Day sounded on-key* in this stand-out appearance at a
Tupperware convention for the home-party sales associates, part of a
industrial promotional film the Tupperware suits financed.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
-----------------------
* Look for the Bryant performance at about 24:00 into that corporate
promotional film. (The lounge-lizard style male singer at about 26:15
sure knows how to belt out a tune, too.)
=================

[MJ]

My favorite role of hers was as a character in the "Howard the Duck"
comic book. She had a giant orange for a head and proclaimed that "A day
without imposing my morality on others is like a day without sunshine."

--

[bryan_styble]

Appreciate the referral to "Howard the Duck", a film I've been avoiding
seeing for years; I thought the idea for its source comic book was
preposterous enough, only to be compounded when some Hollywood suits
decided to actually shoot a live-action (kinda sorta) movie out of that
downright dumb premise.

But as an Anita Bryant defender, you've given me a good excuse to screen
it sometime. It can't be as bad as all the negative reviews it received
during its original-run release, can it?

As for defending Bryant, I thought she was unfairly treated by the left
way back when she started her anti-guy efforts. While I'm about as far
from a Christian as a Jewish convert can be, I always thought the late
Bryant was just sincerely (and NOT "hatefully"), defending her Christian
beliefs and thus not worthy of the scorn and vicious rhetoric her stance
was provoking. (I gather that's why she retreated to Oklahoma and quit
showbiz, in fact. And can't say as I blame her for that reluctant
reaction.)

Oh yes: sorry for mis-reading her married-name as "Day" instead of Dry;
not sure if that textual slight was due to my aging and failing
eyesight...or merely a function of my longstanding bias in favor of all
things Doris Day.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[MJ]

Oh, jeez, Bryan.....AVOID the "Howard" movie!! It's absolutely horrid
and has NOTHING to do with the excellent comic book.

Last year, I got the collected "Howard" comic books which have been
reprinted in book form (two volumes). For reasons unknown to me, the
Anita Bryant story is missing! I'm only guessing that there is some
legal reason, although she is never mentioned by name. When Howard
smashes the giant orange head to expose the woman beneath, there is no
question who it is, but is that really enough to ban the whole story?
Could not have the Anita head been blocked out?

As far as I can tell, nothing else has been left out. The whole episode
featuring the Rev. Moon June Yuck and his followers, The Yuckies, are
there, and there's no question who that is aimed at (for people our age,
anyway), for example. So, why The Orange Queen? If anyone out there
knows, please speak up. It really bugged me to see it missing.

I guess "Howard" is the only comic book I was really into, and I was a
young adult by the time it started. The later magazine and newspaper
comics were really bad. Almost as bad as the movie. But, if anyone here
is around the age of Bryan and I (we're both 70) and have a fairly good
memory of current events of the 1970s, check out the original "Howard"
comic books. You'll have a blast!

-MJ

--

[Louis Epstein]

Post by MJ
My favorite role of hers was as a character in the "Howard the Duck"
comic book. She had a giant orange for a head and proclaimed that "A day
without imposing my morality on others is like a day without sunshine."

The whole idea of morality collapses if one doesn't
accept that there can be only one.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[bryan_styble]

Note to Louis:

I guess my failing eyesight not only didn't spot the Dry-not-Day error,
but I ALSO mis-read your Bryant/HowardTheDuck point. So I gather she
DIDN'T appear in that much-ridiculed film, but was instead merely
lampooned in the original-source comic book?

As I implied, I never READ that comic, despite several Marvel fans
encouraging me to give it a try way back when. But given the NUMEROUS
Marvel Comics ill-conceived titles [Thor, Submariner, X-Men, Captain
America and The Avengers, most notably but not exclusively], I never saw
reason to invest any effort in reading them, and thus was oblivious to
that Anita Bryant putdown you cited (and nonetheless am grateful for
your alerting us all to it).

And yep, I'll grant most of the many competing DC characters were ALSO
nearly as silly in premise as those ridiculous Marvel characters cited
above. (Indeed, about the only so-called superhero comic which WASN'T
preposterous in premise was Batman...simply because he had ZERO
super-powers nor was an alien.)

(And yeah, Louis, your "wet" gag should have tipped me off that the late
Bryant married a (test)-astronaut by the name of Dry, not Day.)

SPEAKING OF WHICH: I read about 30 years ago--in a Gregg
Easterbook-penned piece for Newweek, if I recall correctly--that by that
point back then, a mere 600-odd American, Soviet and other people had
ever been in space since Yuri Gagarin pioneered that ever-perilous
practice on Wednesday, April 12, 1961.* (Of course, some of those
space-faring individuals--like the still-living and quite-storied Story
Musgrave** [long since retired from the NASA astronaut corps]--are a
veteran of MULTIPLE launches, but should still just be counted once in
the total.)

But by this point in 2025, that figure surely must be over 1,000 I would
think--but despite sme effort for years now have been unable to find a
current figure. Meanwhile, you Louis, seem to laboriously keep track of
such statistics better than I could ever muster, so I bet you can
enlighten us all as to what the CURRENT total is. (Including, of
course, those two astronauts still stranded up on the International
Space Station.)

So, Louis: do you know the correct tally as of January 2025, give or
take an astronaut or cosmonaut or two? (Thanks in advance!)

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
* Precisely a century to the day of ANOTHER spectacle up in the sky:
the Confederate bombardment of Ft. Sumpter from Charleston, South
Carolina, beginning about 4:30 am on Friday, Aoril 12, 1865.
** Among the MANY fascinating aspects of that arguably-greatest of the
ALL the NASA astronauts was the odd fact that Musgrave was for a while
at his Houston-area home hassled by the late Margaret Ray, the same
eventual-suicide*** who repeatedly and famously dogged David Letterman
inside his Connecticut home.
*** The ever-troubled Ray calmly and quite deliberately sat down in
front of an oncoming locomotive chugging down a Colorado railway on
Monday, October 5, 1998.

[Travoltron]

I only knew her as a punchline in reruns of 70s sitcoms.

EX: the dummy Bob Campbell to Jodie Dallas: "I love Anita Bryant!"

[Louis Epstein]

Post by bryan_styble
I guess my failing eyesight not only didn't spot the Dry-not-Day error,
but I ALSO mis-read your Bryant/HowardTheDuck point. So I gather she
DIDN'T appear in that much-ridiculed film, but was instead merely
lampooned in the original-source comic book?
As I implied, I never READ that comic, despite several Marvel fans
encouraging me to give it a try way back when. But given the NUMEROUS
Marvel Comics ill-conceived titles [Thor, Submariner, X-Men, Captain
America and The Avengers, most notably but not exclusively], I never saw
reason to invest any effort in reading them, and thus was oblivious to
that Anita Bryant putdown you cited (and nonetheless am grateful for
your alerting us all to it).

You appear to be conflating things I said with things the person
who goes by Mary Jane Watson's nickname (but bears no resmblance) said.

Post by bryan_styble
And yep, I'll grant most of the many competing DC characters were ALSO
nearly as silly in premise as those ridiculous Marvel characters cited
above. (Indeed, about the only so-called superhero comic which WASN'T
preposterous in premise was Batman...simply because he had ZERO
super-powers nor was an alien.)
(And yeah, Louis, your "wet" gag should have tipped me off that the late
Bryant married a (test)-astronaut by the name of Dry, not Day.)
SPEAKING OF WHICH: I read about 30 years ago--in a Gregg
Easterbook-penned piece for Newweek, if I recall correctly--that by that
point back then, a mere 600-odd American, Soviet and other people had
ever been in space since Yuri Gagarin pioneered that ever-perilous
practice on Wednesday, April 12, 1961.* (Of course, some of those
space-faring individuals--like the still-living and quite-storied Story
Musgrave** [long since retired from the NASA astronaut corps]--are a
veteran of MULTIPLE launches, but should still just be counted once in
the total.)
But by this point in 2025, that figure surely must be over 1,000 I would
think--but despite sme effort for years now have been unable to find a
current figure. Meanwhile, you Louis, seem to laboriously keep track of
such statistics better than I could ever muster, so I bet you can
enlighten us all as to what the CURRENT total is. (Including, of
course, those two astronauts still stranded up on the International
Space Station.)
So, Louis: do you know the correct tally as of January 2025, give or
take an astronaut or cosmonaut or two? (Thanks in advance!)

Not off the top of my head...though the Wikipedes likely
have a tally.

Post by bryan_styble
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
the Confederate bombardment of Ft. Sumpter from Charleston, South
Carolina, beginning about 4:30 am on Friday, Aoril 12, 1865.

Fort Sumter's ordeal a century prior to Gagarin's 1961 flight
was of course in 1861,not 1865,leaving aside the "Aoril" typo;
but the anniversary event I most associate with the Gagarin flight
is the one twenty years LATER (April 12,1981),when the first
Space Shuttle took off under the command of John Young,former
commander of Gemini and Apollo missions,who I later saw give
a speech at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention (he
apparently had to fly himself there after an airline booking
failed to work out).

Post by bryan_styble
** Among the MANY fascinating aspects of that arguably-greatest of the
ALL the NASA astronauts was the odd fact that Musgrave was for a while
at his Houston-area home hassled by the late Margaret Ray, the same
eventual-suicide*** who repeatedly and famously dogged David Letterman
inside his Connecticut home.
*** The ever-troubled Ray calmly and quite deliberately sat down in
front of an oncoming locomotive chugging down a Colorado railway on
Monday, October 5, 1998.

Not to be confused with the Washington State governor who
changed her name from MargUERITE Ray.
(Annoys me that her chosen name evokes the Confederates).

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Louis Epstein

Post by bryan_styble
I guess my failing eyesight not only didn't spot the Dry-not-Day error,
but I ALSO mis-read your Bryant/HowardTheDuck point. So I gather she
DIDN'T appear in that much-ridiculed film, but was instead merely
lampooned in the original-source comic book?
As I implied, I never READ that comic, despite several Marvel fans
encouraging me to give it a try way back when. But given the NUMEROUS
Marvel Comics ill-conceived titles [Thor, Submariner, X-Men, Captain
America and The Avengers, most notably but not exclusively], I never saw
reason to invest any effort in reading them, and thus was oblivious to
that Anita Bryant putdown you cited (and nonetheless am grateful for
your alerting us all to it).

You appear to be conflating things I said with things the person
who goes by Mary Jane Watson's nickname (but bears no resemblance) said.

Post by bryan_styble
And yep, I'll grant most of the many competing DC characters were ALSO
nearly as silly in premise as those ridiculous Marvel characters cited
above. (Indeed, about the only so-called superhero comic which WASN'T
preposterous in premise was Batman...simply because he had ZERO
super-powers nor was an alien.)
(And yeah, Louis, your "wet" gag should have tipped me off that the late
Bryant married a (test)-astronaut by the name of Dry, not Day.)
SPEAKING OF WHICH: I read about 30 years ago--in a Gregg
Easterbook-penned piece for Newweek, if I recall correctly--that by that
point back then, a mere 600-odd American, Soviet and other people had
ever been in space since Yuri Gagarin pioneered that ever-perilous
practice on Wednesday, April 12, 1961.* (Of course, some of those
space-faring individuals--like the still-living and quite-storied Story
Musgrave** [long since retired from the NASA astronaut corps]--are a
veteran of MULTIPLE launches, but should still just be counted once in
the total.)
But by this point in 2025, that figure surely must be over 1,000 I would
think--but despite sme effort for years now have been unable to find a
current figure. Meanwhile, you Louis, seem to laboriously keep track of
such statistics better than I could ever muster, so I bet you can
enlighten us all as to what the CURRENT total is. (Including, of
course, those two astronauts still stranded up on the International
Space Station.)
So, Louis: do you know the correct tally as of January 2025, give or
take an astronaut or cosmonaut or two? (Thanks in advance!)

Not off the top of my head...though the Wikipedes likely
have a tally.

Post by bryan_styble
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
the Confederate bombardment of Ft. Sumpter from Charleston, South
Carolina, beginning about 4:30 am on Friday, Aoril 12, 1865.

Fort Sumter's ordeal a century prior to Gagarin's 1961 flight
was of course in 1861,not 1865,leaving aside the "Aoril" typo;
but the anniversary event I most associate with the Gagarin flight
is the one twenty years LATER (April 12,1981),when the first
Space Shuttle took off under the command of John Young,former
commander of Gemini and Apollo missions,who I later saw give
a speech at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention (he
apparently had to fly himself there after an airline booking
failed to work out).

Post by bryan_styble
** Among the MANY fascinating aspects of that arguably-greatest of the
ALL the NASA astronauts was the odd fact that Musgrave was for a while
at his Houston-area home hassled by the late Margaret Ray, the same
eventual-suicide*** who repeatedly and famously dogged David Letterman
inside his Connecticut home.
*** The ever-troubled Ray calmly and quite deliberately sat down in
front of an oncoming locomotive chugging down a Colorado railway on
Monday, October 5, 1998.

Not to be confused with the Washington State governor who
changed her name from MargUERITE Ray.
(Annoys me that her chosen name evokes the Confederates).

(To continue the daisy-chaining free-association,the Wikipedes
report that she once gave a science award to a future noted
scientist with a name very close to that of a deceased onetime
a.o regular).

Post by Louis Epstein
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[bryan_styble]

Yikes--a couple mega-typos there for sure, Louis; if my single-eye
vision gets even worse (and I suspect it shall, perhaps soon), I'll act
on my pledge to cease posting (even though right now it sure seems to
you and other readers that I've ALREADY ceased proofreading).

Yes, I too figured Wiki would have that total-humans-in-space tally, but
I couldn't find it, despite more than a couple attempts. (And those
were before my left eye went south on me in November, so I can't
attribute it to my seriously substandard sight these days.)

But whatever the accurate tally as of 2025 is--whether lower or higher
than 1,000--they're rare people indeed. So how precious few the total
is has always been in my mind whenever I've met an astronaut (and even
interviewed a few) from time to time, realizing how truly rare their
experience is among the 8 billion or so of us humans on this planet.

And of course it's ALSO a testament to how highly trained they are; me,
I woulda washed out in the first week of one of those "space camps"
young folks sometimes attend, had I ever tried to spend a summer at one.
I feel privileged to have been born in 1954, for I was just old enough
to remember Sputnik (was a week shy of age 3 on Friday, October 4, 1957)
and how EVERYONE was talking about "science" (whatever that meant to a
2-year-old) all weekend after the news broke the next day on Saturday.
(And NO, I DIDN'T watch the premier of "Leave It to Beaver" that same
Friday night...but I caught young Jerry Mathers and company a few weeks
later, and yep, quickly a regular viewer.)

And then, as a 6-year-old when Gagaran and Shepard launched, I was old
enough to understand what it meant that we were now all in a truly new
era, The Space Age. Thus all our astronauts are true American
heroes...though the TikTok crowd these day of course are more impressed
with so-called "influencers", I'm sure.

Yeah, I knew the first shuttle test flight in 1981 with moonwalker John
Young and Bob Crippen aboard was also on April 12th--and clearly recall
their Sunday launch and their glorious return on Tuesday the 14th like
both were yesterday--but I didn't want to overload the posting, so I
left that uncited. (Probably just as well, as with my failing eyesight
I might have accidentally typed that as April 12, 1781*.)

Oh, I thanks for not suggesting my 1861-not-1865 typo was evidence that
I quite idiotically thought the Civil War started the month it actually
ENDED...though we've both seen general-knowledge polling data that
suggests far too many young persons these days sometimes can't even
answer which CENTURY it took place in, much less even which decade.
(But they sure can tell which lookalike Kardashian is which, can't
they?)

Speaking of the Civil War (and taking note of your Andrew Jackson
animus), I'm guessing you've no problem with tearing down all the
Confederate statues? Or am I selling you short on that issue, Louis?

Indeed, I've spoken with people occasionally who even want to see the
"Confederate White House" in Richmond demolished; you onboard with that
idea? Me, I'm a preservationist to the core, and don't want to see the
Nazi death camps bulldozed, the Mansion Family murders house razed, or
ANY monuments to the past razed.

Well, Hitler and Saddam statues even I make a rare exception for
there--but otherwise, even sites of murderous mayhem I think should be
preserved for historical purposes. (For instance, I'm glad I was able
in 1999 to see in person the Milwaukee apartment building where Jeffrey
Dahmer did his horrific thing before locals demolished it.)

And yeah, I suppose my preservationist bias is at least in part a
function of the fact that I come from a family whose modest wealth came
from my father's residential construction company. Indeed, on visits to
hometown St. Louis, I spend more time driving past those homes where I
witnessed** my father's crew laying the brickwork for than I do at my
father's Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery grave. (Because those
homes ABOVE the ground are still being lived in to this day--and thus
are his legacy more than his bones six feet under are.)

So what do you say, Louis--was the Confederacy such a historical stain
that Jefferson Davis's home in Richmond should fall like Richmond did,
or do you see just a smidgen of legitimacy in the so-called Lost Cause?

By that I mean that many Southerners sincerely thought the war was about
sovereignty and thus principle...at least before that legendary White
House executive action dated January 1, 1863 (even though as all history
students know it ONLY applied to those already-severed states which
Lincoln had zero control over, and thusly was inapplicable to
slaveholding states like Maryland and Missouri).

And no, I'm NOT biased on account of having now retired to a former
Confederate state; while I have lived in three of those 11 states at one
point or another (Texas, South Carolina quite briefly, and now Florida),
MOST of my life and career have been spent in the Midwest North, the
East and the far West. Rather, I'm just a fellow who tries to
understand the thinking of those with whom I politically disagree.

Now that I know you are looking forward to looking at the
quite-dour-appearing Harriet Tubman (rather than the stately-appearing
Andrew Jackson) on the $20 bill, I'm anxious to hear what you think
should be done (if anything) with the Confederate White House, and for
that matter too, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
* Which I'm guessing you well know was a month before William Hershell
discovered Uranus and about seven months before the British surrender at
Yorktown.
** Worked as a laborer for Stibal Bricklaying the summer before Boston
University in 1973--and yeah, if I wasn't the boss's son, I would have
been surely fired the first week...as little ol' tenderfoot me sure
ain't cut out for construction-site toil.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by bryan_styble
Yikes--a couple mega-typos there for sure, Louis; if my single-eye
vision gets even worse (and I suspect it shall, perhaps soon), I'll act
on my pledge to cease posting (even though right now it sure seems to
you and other readers that I've ALREADY ceased proofreading).
Yes, I too figured Wiki would have that total-humans-in-space tally, but
I couldn't find it, despite more than a couple attempts. (And those
were before my left eye went south on me in November, so I can't
attribute it to my seriously substandard sight these days.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nationality
gives numbers (all in the 600s) for various definitions of "space".

Post by bryan_styble
But whatever the accurate tally as of 2025 is--whether lower or higher
than 1,000--they're rare people indeed. So how precious few the total
is has always been in my mind whenever I've met an astronaut (and even
interviewed a few) from time to time, realizing how truly rare their
experience is among the 8 billion or so of us humans on this planet.
And of course it's ALSO a testament to how highly trained they are; me,
I woulda washed out in the first week of one of those "space camps"
young folks sometimes attend, had I ever tried to spend a summer at one.
I feel privileged to have been born in 1954, for I was just old enough
to remember Sputnik (was a week shy of age 3 on Friday, October 4, 1957)
and how EVERYONE was talking about "science" (whatever that meant to a
2-year-old) all weekend after the news broke the next day on Saturday.
(And NO, I DIDN'T watch the premier of "Leave It to Beaver" that same
Friday night...but I caught young Jerry Mathers and company a few weeks
later, and yep, quickly a regular viewer.)
And then, as a 6-year-old when Gagaran and Shepard launched, I was old
enough to understand what it meant that we were now all in a truly new
era, The Space Age. Thus all our astronauts are true American
heroes...though the TikTok crowd these day of course are more impressed
with so-called "influencers", I'm sure.

My parents told me they held me in front of the television set
for Shepard's launch but the earliest launches I remember watching
are Gemini 6 and 7 (the pair that docked in orbit).

Born in February 1961 I'm still in the running for last person
born before manned spaceflight...but would rather that take a
very long time to resolve!

Post by bryan_styble
Yeah, I knew the first shuttle test flight in 1981 with moonwalker John
Young and Bob Crippen aboard was also on April 12th--and clearly recall
their Sunday launch and their glorious return on Tuesday the 14th like
both were yesterday--but I didn't want to overload the posting, so I
left that uncited. (Probably just as well, as with my failing eyesight
I might have accidentally typed that as April 12, 1781*.)
Oh, I thanks for not suggesting my 1861-not-1865 typo was evidence that
I quite idiotically thought the Civil War started the month it actually
ENDED...though we've both seen general-knowledge polling data that
suggests far too many young persons these days sometimes can't even
answer which CENTURY it took place in, much less even which decade.
(But they sure can tell which lookalike Kardashian is which, can't
they?)

I have seen a report from a library saying someone (I think in
the government) had asked them for military video of the revolutionary
war "or War of 1812 at the latest".

Post by bryan_styble
Speaking of the Civil War (and taking note of your Andrew Jackson
animus), I'm guessing you've no problem with tearing down all the
Confederate statues? Or am I selling you short on that issue, Louis?

Confederate=villainous.

Post by bryan_styble
Indeed, I've spoken with people occasionally who even want to see the
"Confederate White House" in Richmond demolished; you onboard with that
idea? Me, I'm a preservationist to the core, and don't want to see the
Nazi death camps bulldozed, the Mansion Family murders house razed, or
ANY monuments to the past razed.

I despise the trend of turning mass-murder sites into lasting
marks on the map for the murderers (most obviously at the World
Trade Center site but I trace this back to a woman named Gloria
Salas who got the ear of McDonald's heiress Joan Kroc and had
a restaurant that was shot up turned into a park rather tan
restored.The Columbine school library and Sandy Hook Elementary
School were both meticulously TOTALLY destroyed (library books
and all) in order to allow no trace of resilience.

Post by bryan_styble
Well, Hitler and Saddam statues even I make a rare exception for
there--but otherwise, even sites of murderous mayhem I think should be
preserved for historical purposes. (For instance, I'm glad I was able
in 1999 to see in person the Milwaukee apartment building where Jeffrey
Dahmer did his horrific thing before locals demolished it.)
And yeah, I suppose my preservationist bias is at least in part a
function of the fact that I come from a family whose modest wealth came
from my father's residential construction company. Indeed, on visits to
hometown St. Louis, I spend more time driving past those homes where I
witnessed** my father's crew laying the brickwork for than I do at my
father's Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery grave. (Because those
homes ABOVE the ground are still being lived in to this day--and thus
are his legacy more than his bones six feet under are.)

In my mother's home city of Bergen,Norway,there is a historic district
https://thehiddennorth.com/a-guide-to-gamle-bergen/
called "Gamle Bergen" (Old Bergen) where a brochure says (translated)
"Welcome to our great-grandparents' town!"...but MY great-grandfather
who lived there actually made his living tearing down and replacing
buildings of the vintage Gamle Bergen preserves.He and his wife moved
around to live near his worksites,until business fell of during the
Depression,which was when my grandmother's brief marriage ended and
she and my mother moved in with her parents...my grandmother stayed
in that home until 1971.

Post by bryan_styble
So what do you say, Louis--was the Confederacy such a historical stain
that Jefferson Davis's home in Richmond should fall like Richmond did,
or do you see just a smidgen of legitimacy in the so-called Lost Cause?
By that I mean that many Southerners sincerely thought the war was about
sovereignty and thus principle...at least before that legendary White
House executive action dated January 1, 1863 (even though as all history
students know it ONLY applied to those already-severed states which
Lincoln had zero control over, and thusly was inapplicable to
slaveholding states like Maryland and Missouri).

However,Lincoln's authority was legitimate and that of
those holding control of that territory was not.

Post by bryan_styble
And no, I'm NOT biased on account of having now retired to a former
Confederate state; while I have lived in three of those 11 states at one
point or another (Texas, South Carolina quite briefly, and now Florida),
MOST of my life and career have been spent in the Midwest North, the
East and the far West. Rather, I'm just a fellow who tries to
understand the thinking of those with whom I politically disagree.

Lifelong Northeasterner and glad of it.

Post by bryan_styble
Now that I know you are looking forward to looking at the
quite-dour-appearing Harriet Tubman (rather than the stately-appearing
Andrew Jackson) on the $20 bill, I'm anxious to hear what you think
should be done (if anything) with the Confederate White House, and for
that matter too, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy.

Anything that glorifies rather than deplores the Rebellion
is better demolished.
Context is important in how things are remembered.

Post by bryan_styble
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
=================
* Which I'm guessing you well know was a month before William Hershell
discovered Uranus and about seven months before the British surrender at
Yorktown.
** Worked as a laborer for Stibal Bricklaying the summer before Boston
University in 1973--and yeah, if I wasn't the boss's son, I would have
been surely fired the first week...as little ol' tenderfoot me sure
ain't cut out for construction-site toil.

And did you attend any of Isaac Asimov's lectures when at BU?
I think he did one a year.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Lenona]

Post by Louis Epstein

Post by MJ
My favorite role of hers was as a character in the "Howard the Duck"
comic book. She had a giant orange for a head and proclaimed that "A day
without imposing my morality on others is like a day without sunshine."

The whole idea of morality collapses if one doesn't
accept that there can be only one.

I think Butterfly McQueen (from "Gone with the Wind," for those who
don't remember) put it best when someone, maybe in the 1970s, asked for
her opinion on gay rights:


"The only thing I want to know is whether the person is kind or unkind."


How much more moral can one get?

[David Carson]

Post by Lenona
I think Butterfly McQueen (from "Gone with the Wind," for those who
don't remember) put it best when someone, maybe in the 1970s, asked for
"The only thing I want to know is whether the person is kind or unkind."
How much more moral can one get?

A person can be kind while committing fraud, theft, adultery, pedophilia,
and all other manners of depravity and evil. That is absolutely the worst
standard for morality I have ever heard of.

David Carson

[bryan_styble]

I'm a fan of those limited portions of Butterfly McQueen's acting career
I've screened, and have never seen her in a filmed interview, though
I've read a couple brief ones. Still, I'd never heard her odd
"definition" of morality. I was struck by the fact that at least in her
final years she declared that was an absolute atheist, something I would
not have expected.

I'm all in for being always being kind no matter how fervent and angry
your ideology, and that's a big reason I try my best to maintain a
polite mien. But Sir Carson is precisely correct in his critique and
flat-out rejection of her stated standard for morality--and for his
listed reasons.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[Lenona]

Post by David Carson

Post by Lenona
I think Butterfly McQueen (from "Gone with the Wind," for those who
don't remember) put it best when someone, maybe in the 1970s, asked for
"The only thing I want to know is whether the person is kind or unkind."
How much more moral can one get?

A person can be kind while committing fraud, theft, adultery,
pedophilia,
and all other manners of depravity and evil. That is absolutely the worst
standard for morality I have ever heard of.
David Carson

Excuse me. I realize that children who are still struggling in their
vocabulary lessons might not yet understand the difference between
"kind" and "superficially polite." What's YOUR excuse? Hint: True
kindness is not about dishonesty, violence, or superficial behavior; I
thought everyone knew that.

Consider the polite, seemingly friendly con artist played by Ryan O'Neal
in "Paper Moon." By definition, a criminal is not a nice person, period.
Also, gangsters may or may not be loving, generous parents, but there is
nothing "kind" about forcing your kids to grow up in a criminal family.
(The same rule applies to adulterous parents, when you think about it -
after all, adultery tends to lead to great unhappiness for the kids,
whether a divorce happens or not.)

Not to mention that McQueen, as a black woman born in 1911, obviously
meant "kind to EVERYONE." Why would she truly respect anyone who was
two-faced, since she certainly had to fight against plenty of racism,
dishonesty, and discrimination during her Hollywood career? (Btw, she
got a degree in political science in her 60s, from New York City
College.)

And here's an example of someone who DID understand that being gracious,
smooth and polite doesn't make one "kind."

Namely, Agatha Christie. In one of her 1940s novels, she created an
elderly female character who, as a rich hostess, is charming, funny,
vivacious, and has elegant manners, but, as a younger cousin of hers
points out when she's not there, "she's not a bit kind." (In fact, she's
borderline amoral - but smart enough not to do anything illegal.)

Finally, John Hockenberry may be a great journalist, but even aside from
the more recent accusations against him, I always knew he wasn't a truly
kind person or someone to be trusted - or someone I would even want to
be pen pals with. How? Because in his memoir, he admitted to slashing
the tires of strangers just for parking in spots for handicapped people.
IIRC.

[Lenona]

Post by Lenona
And here's an example of someone who DID understand that being gracious,
smooth and polite doesn't make one "kind."

Correction: I should have said "another example."

[Lenona]

And, we've all heard of the horrors of gay teens being forced into
"conversion therapy" (as in the 2016 bestseller/movie "Boy Erased: A
Memoir").

From Wikipedia:

"Conley's hope is that his story will expose ex-gay groups and gay
conversion therapy programs as lacking in compassion and more likely to
cause harm than cure anything, especially when participants are told, as
he was, that they are "unfixable and disgusting over and over again.' "



My point is that while there MAY be "formerly gay" adults who were
forced into the therapy as children/teens and benefited from it, one
thing I have NEVER heard of is multiple gay adults (or even one) who
wish they HAD been forced into the therapy when they were minors. So
maybe they should be left to CHOOSE the therapy (or not) after they turn
21 or so?

[Kenny McCormack]

Post by Lenona
And, we've all heard of the horrors of gay teens being forced into
"conversion therapy" (as in the 2016 bestseller/movie "Boy Erased: A
Memoir").
"Conley's hope is that his story will expose ex-gay groups and gay
conversion therapy programs as lacking in compassion and more likely to
cause harm than cure anything, especially when participants are told, as
he was, that they are "unfixable and disgusting over and over again.' "

The problem with this theory is:

What if they (the religious anti-gay types) are actually right???
What if the existence of gay people brings plagues upon us all?

The answers to the above questions are:

1) If true, it changes absolutely everything. Then all the arguments
that you and others make, that stress "tolerance", become irrelevant.

2) It's absurd. But billions of people worldwide believe it.

(Including, I think, Louis. He's never really identified, but he sounds
like he might actually be a Catholic. And they believe this nonsense.)

[Lenona]

I can't find the pages online, but in that Dan Savage book I mentioned,
starting somewhere between pages 15 and 18, he talks about how the
existence of conversion therapy is a not-so-subtle message to the more
violent members of the religious right that gay PEOPLE have no right to
exist - and that those listeners should "do" something about the gay
strangers in their midst.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Lenona
I can't find the pages online, but in that Dan Savage book I mentioned,
starting somewhere between pages 15 and 18, he talks about how the
existence of conversion therapy is a not-so-subtle message to the more
violent members of the religious right that gay PEOPLE have no right to
exist - and that those listeners should "do" something about the gay
strangers in their midst.

Savage has a great deal of skin in the game,of course...
and deliberately misconstruing justified criticism of
deliberate ACTS as personal animus against those prone
to (and therefore in need of pressure to refrain from)
engaging in those acts is self-interested nonsense from
those seeking to evade deserved censure for their
misbehavior.

Penalizing theft does not express hatred for kleptomaniacs,
penalizing drunkenness does not express hatred for alcoholics,
and the day you stop hating the "sin" you become harmful to
the "sinner" by writing him off as a helpless slave of his
worst nature.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Kenny McCormack

Post by Lenona
And, we've all heard of the horrors of gay teens being forced into
"conversion therapy" (as in the 2016 bestseller/movie "Boy Erased: A
Memoir").
"Conley's hope is that his story will expose ex-gay groups and gay
conversion therapy programs as lacking in compassion and more likely to
cause harm than cure anything, especially when participants are told, as
he was, that they are "unfixable and disgusting over and over again.' "

What if they (the religious anti-gay types) are actually right???
What if the existence of gay people brings plagues upon us all?
1) If true, it changes absolutely everything. Then all the arguments
that you and others make, that stress "tolerance", become irrelevant.
2) It's absurd. But billions of people worldwide believe it.
(Including, I think, Louis. He's never really identified, but he sounds
like he might actually be a Catholic. And they believe this nonsense.)

Seriously??

I have made very clear that I am a plain-vanilla theist who
rejects all religions and their putatively sacred texts with
the same great vigor with which I reject atheism.

That the species is sexually dimorphic determines same-sex sexual
activity to be irrational and desire for it to be disordered...it's
simple logic.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[David Carson]

Post by Lenona
Excuse me. I realize that children who are still struggling in their
vocabulary lessons might not yet understand the difference between
"kind" and "superficially polite." What's YOUR excuse? Hint: True
kindness is not about dishonesty, violence, or superficial behavior; I
thought everyone knew that.

That's a pretty snotty response from someone who is trying to advocate
that kindness is tantamount to morality. When I replied to you, I
blasted the _idea_ you expressed, but I did not personally criticize
you _at all_. That would have been unkind.

Post by Lenona
Consider the polite, seemingly friendly con artist played by Ryan O'Neal
in "Paper Moon." By definition, a criminal is not a nice person, period.
Also, gangsters may or may not be loving, generous parents, but there is
nothing "kind" about forcing your kids to grow up in a criminal family.
(The same rule applies to adulterous parents, when you think about it -
after all, adultery tends to lead to great unhappiness for the kids,
whether a divorce happens or not.)
Not to mention that McQueen, as a black woman born in 1911, obviously
meant "kind to EVERYONE." Why would she truly respect anyone who was
two-faced, since she certainly had to fight against plenty of racism,
dishonesty, and discrimination during her Hollywood career? (Btw, she
got a degree in political science in her 60s, from New York City
College.)
And here's an example of someone who DID understand that being gracious,
smooth and polite doesn't make one "kind."
Namely, Agatha Christie. In one of her 1940s novels, she created an
elderly female character who, as a rich hostess, is charming, funny,
vivacious, and has elegant manners, but, as a younger cousin of hers
points out when she's not there, "she's not a bit kind." (In fact, she's
borderline amoral - but smart enough not to do anything illegal.)
Finally, John Hockenberry may be a great journalist, but even aside from
the more recent accusations against him, I always knew he wasn't a truly
kind person or someone to be trusted - or someone I would even want to
be pen pals with. How? Because in his memoir, he admitted to slashing
the tires of strangers just for parking in spots for handicapped people.
IIRC.

You're redefining "kind" so that it basically means the same thing as
"moral" so as to support your initial proposition that the best--nay,
only--gauge of morality one needs is kindness. Do you not see that's
what you're doing?

As the Agatha Christie quote you presented illustrates, the words kind
or kindness _do_ refer mainly to the way a person presents him or
herself superficially. Gentle, sympathetic, polite, etc. It can also
speak to deeper qualities, like generosity. Kindness is a perception
we have of others; a judgment we make about them based upon things we
observe about them. But because no one is omniscient, neither
Butterfly McQueen nor anyone else can possibly know who is "kind to
everyone." That's what makes it such a terrible yardstick. Kindness is
a virtue, yes, but it and all of the attributes we associate with it
can coexist in a person who commits heinous and despicable acts when
alone or in other company. Sadly, it is often their kindness that gets
people to trust them, believing that because they appear kind to them,
they must also be moral.

David Carson

[Lenona]

Post by David Carson

Post by Lenona
Namely, Agatha Christie. In one of her 1940s novels, she created an
elderly female character who, as a rich hostess, is charming, funny,
vivacious, and has elegant manners, but, as a younger cousin of hers
points out when she's not there, "she's not a bit kind." (In fact, she's
borderline amoral - but smart enough not to do anything illegal.)

As the Agatha Christie quote you presented illustrates, the words kind
or kindness _do_ refer mainly to the way a person presents him or
herself superficially. Gentle, sympathetic, polite, etc.

The only person in the book who thinks the elderly hostess IS kind is a
female guest who's too much of a dunce to notice that multiple people
are pulling the wool over her eyes - until the evidence (regarding
another character) is right in her face. Only the clever female cousin
of the hostess tells her the minor truth about the hostess - if somewhat
gently.


It can also

Post by David Carson
speak to deeper qualities, like generosity. Kindness is a perception
we have of others; a judgment we make about them based upon things we
observe about them. But because no one is omniscient, neither
Butterfly McQueen nor anyone else can possibly know who is "kind to
everyone." That's what makes it such a terrible yardstick. Kindness is
a virtue, yes, but it and all of the attributes we associate with it
can coexist in a person who commits heinous and despicable acts when
alone or in other company. Sadly, it is often their kindness that gets
people to trust them, believing that because they appear kind to them,
they must also be moral.

We can't always know, true. However, anyone who makes it to 30 without
so much as running a red light (and almost hitting someone), and who
also has a LONG record of being generous and self-sacrificing is very
seldom a secret criminal or emotional abuser. Also, in this century,
FAMOUS people, at least, who aren't criminals but who have rotten
private personalities can't hide that for very long, what with cameras,
former employees, and amateur spies everywhere. Does anyone really
think, by now, that Dolly Parton (well-known for her incredible
munificence) has any skeletons in her closet?

(I heard recently that Bill Maher is prone to making nasty remarks about
the looks of female strangers at airports who don't even know he's
there. But then, I never thought that HE was that likely to be a
more-or-less nice guy the way George Carlin apparently was, offstage.)

[Lenona]

Post by Lenona
Does anyone really
think, by now, that Dolly Parton (well-known for her incredible
munificence) has any skeletons in her closet?

That reminds me:

Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Louisville, Kentucky, has said, in recent years, that young couples (of
any religious status, I take it) who CAN reproduce - but who refuse to
do so, long-term - are engaging in "moral rebellion." (Why didn't he
just call them "immoral"?)

And, to my knowledge, Dolly Parton's non-parent status has nothing to do
with infertility - whether hers or her husband's.

So why has no one, I believe, ever called HER bad or anti-religious for
not having children? (Obviously, a woman's choosing NEVER to have
children was considered far more radical in the 1960s and 1970s, whether
she said it out loud or not.)

Maybe because she's been so kind to so many OTHER, poor children, who
were already here and needed her help?

(And to get back to the earlier conversation, what was ever "kind," 60
years ago, about gay people who were so afraid of leaving the closet
that they ended up deceiving and marrying the wrong people, just to fit
in, only to cause great unhappiness to their spouses and children? Sure,
the dating pool might or might not be smaller these days, for both gays
and heterosexuals, but at least there's more honesty.)

[Lenona]

Besides which, were you seriously suggesting that gay marriage (between
consenting adults, obviously) should be a felony, just as pedophilia and
grand theft are? If so, why? If not, why in the world do you think it's
civilized to imply it's on the same level?

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Lenona
Besides which, were you seriously suggesting that gay marriage (between
consenting adults, obviously) should be a felony, just as pedophilia and
grand theft are? If so, why? If not, why in the world do you think it's
civilized to imply it's on the same level?

As with the complained-of categorization by orthodox Catholics of
the ordination of women,the shared element with the things with
which it is lumped is the clear-cutness of the wrongness,regardless
of the unshared attributes.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Kenny McCormack]

Post by Lenona
Besides which, were you seriously suggesting that gay marriage (between
consenting adults, obviously) should be a felony, just as pedophilia and
grand theft are? If so, why? If not, why in the world do you think it's
civilized to imply it's on the same level?

About 50% of US voters are OK with several of the things you list.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by bryan_styble
That theorizing about her increasingly using the name Anita Bryant Day
sounds sound.

Dry,D-R-Y,not "Day".
Or else why would I have made the "Wet" joke?

Post by bryan_styble
And the late Day sounded on-key* in this stand-out appearance at a
Tupperware convention for the home-party sales associates, part of a
industrial promotional film the Tupperware suits financed.
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
-----------------------
* Look for the Bryant performance at about 24:00 into that corporate
promotional film. (The lounge-lizard style male singer at about 26:15
sure knows how to belt out a tune, too.)
=================
http://youtu.be/kbPjGl0vii4

Between Leisure Suit Larry and Wayne "I Love Me" Fontaine Jr.,
has no one found a way to make lounges lizard-free?

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Lenona]

Check this out (pp 102-103)

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Kid/q_QMdueEEpAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22dan+savage%22+anita+bryant+rainbow&pg=PA103&printsec=frontcover


"The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get
Pregnant"

By Dan Savage, 2000.