That sounds like health insurance. Hospital linens. Balloon deliveries. Balanced meals. The company of loved ones. Skilled practitioners. Familiar walls. Facing death with comfort.
Too bad our laws didn’t, and still would not, permit Buddy Miley that level of dignity instead of a roadside hotel in the company of strangers. At least he had the best of brothers in Jimmy.
AFTERWORD
Mark Kram Jr. wrote an important book about dignity and death but also about brotherly love. The latter sounds like a cliché but that’s really what he captured by recounting the story of Buddy and Jimmy. I was eager to encapsulate what he’d written for my column readers, but I don’t recall why I didn’t also offer my two degrees of separation to Buddy Miley. His injury occurred in 1973, when I was 11 and growing up a community away in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In those days, the War Memorial Field stadium at my future high school, Central Bucks West, would be filled to a 10,000-person capacity every Thanksgiving Day, when “West” would play its crosstown rival, Central Bucks East. This really was our community at worship. The game was played in late morning to avoid interrupting family meals later in the day, and everyone in town turned out. Then, West was a powerhouse, and East, which opened in 1969, would wait until 1980—my senior year in high school—to win its first Thanksgiving classic.
Moments before one of those glorious, Rockwellian Thanksgiving days when I was a boy, I have clear recollection of Buddy Miley being wheeled onto the field to thunderous applause. He was from a neighboring town, but all the attendees, including the kids, knew his name and story. Many years passed before I’d hear his name again, in 1997, in stories about his death at the hands of Dr. Kevorkian. And so, when Kram wrote his book, I was naturally interested to learn the full history of the young man whom I, as a young boy, saw receiving that ovation. I played football (as did my brother) on the same field they wheeled Miley on that day in the early 1970s and today I can’t help thinking, “There but for the grace of God go I.” What a shame that later in life, when he’d had enough, there was nowhere for him to turn but to Dr. Kervorkian in a roadside Quality Inn.
WARREN’S SHAKY HISTORY
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, June 10, 2012
ELIZABETH WARREN, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in what is arguably the second-hottest race in the nation, Massachusetts’s, was the recipient of a Lindback Award at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. The awards, established in the name of the onetime president and principal owner of Abbotts Dairies, recognize distinguished teaching at Penn.
Warren’s recognition was noted in a 2005 “Minority Equity Report.” The document (still accessible online) was prepared by the Minority Equity Committee at Penn, which was established to “undertake a systematic review of the status of minority faculty at the university.” Table 11 of the report lists the names of the 112 Lindback Award recipients from 1991 through 2004, eight of which appear in boldface italics.
Three of those professors are African American. Three are Asian. One is Puerto Rican. And then there is Elizabeth Warren, William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law.
That Warren’s name appeared in bold and italics designated her as a minority, just like the African American, Asian, and Puerto Rican Lindback recipients.
Did Warren derive professional benefits from describing herself as a minority while she was at Penn and Harvard? That question continues to dog her candidacy. Her difficulty answering it has made it much more than the speed bump it might have been on a fast track to the seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy.
For nine years, while she was teaching at the University of Texas and Penn, Warren also listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools’ directory. Who provides such information to the academic reference? The faculty members themselves.
Warren only stopped listing herself as such in 1995, just after she was hired by Harvard. But while she was at Harvard, the Crimson newspaper reported that the university’s faculty included one Native American: Warren. And when she received tenure there, another Crimson story said she was the first woman with a minority background to receive tenure.
All of which would be well and good if Warren could substantiate her claim of Native American ancestry, which is a federal requirement when universities report diversity data. Thus far, she has not, and by her own admission, her connection to American Indians is remote.
Ever since this issue was raised by the Boston Herald in April, Warren has stumbled in her efforts to explain her claims of minority status. She initially sought to minimize the controversy by saying she had merely hoped “that I’d get invited to some lunch group or some—maybe some dinner conversation, and I might find some more people like me . . . people for whom Native American is part of their heritage and part of their hearts.” That didn’t silence the questions.
Finally, after five weeks of trying to dodge the matter, Warren sought to quell the controversy with an e-mail to supporters that read, in part:
The people involved in recruiting and hiring me for my teaching jobs, including Charles Fried—solicitor-general under Ronald Reagan who has publicly said he voted for Scott Brown in 2010—have said unequivocally they were not aware of my heritage and that it played no role in my hiring. Documents that reporters have examined also show I did not benefit from my heritage when applying to college or law school. As I have confirmed before, I let people know about my Native American heritage in a national directory of law school personnel. At some point after I was hired by them, I also provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.
In a subsequent conversation with the Boston Globe’s Brian McGrory, Warren insisted that the Harvard and Penn law schools hired her because of her scholarship and teaching abilities, not to increase the diversity of their faculties. She says she told the law schools she was Native American after she was hired. But she has not asked the schools to release hiring records that might substantiate her claim.
That her opponent, Republican senator Scott Brown, has kept up the pressure is no surprise.
“This goes right to the integrity and character of a person,” Brown has said. “When you check that box, you’re getting benefits [for] people who have historically been discriminated against.”
He raises a legitimate point. The silence thus far from those minorities who are the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action is curious. If and when they demand to know whether Warren played the Native American card inappropriately, this issue could go from curiosity to deal-breaker.
AFTERWORD
I suspect I’m dead to Senator Warren for having written this column. Not long after CNN debuted my program on Saturday mornings, an acquaintance of my wife’s reached out to me and (unsolicited) offered to put me together with Senator Warren. The intermediary was a woman with impressive credentials who had worked in a senior advisory capacity to Warren. “Are you interested in paying a call on her on Capitol Hill, and maybe doing an interview?” Of course. I remember that I tried to follow up, as did my producer, TC. But nothing ever came of the overture. I’m sure it was because someone on the senator’s staff put both our names in a search engine and found this column.
I have great respect for Warren’s intelligence and abilities as a retail politician, although I’m not convinced her progressivism can be sold nationally. Time will tell. Go on YouTube and watch her 2011 seemingly spontaneous “You didn’t build it” speech at what looks like a coffee klatch in Andover, Massachusetts, and you can’t help being impressed by her ability to communicate on her feet. In fact, when President Barack Obama tried to replicate that mantra during his 2012 campaign, he couldn’t, not even working with a script. So she has some real, raw political talent, honed, I am sure, in Ivy League law school classrooms using the Socratic teaching method.
But this aspect of her resumé about which I wrote remains a blemish. She held her
self out and was recognized as being a minority faculty member. Until and unless her employment files are released, I think it’s fair to assume she made her “minority” status known to the schools at the time of her hire. Is this a deal breaker to her advancement? Only if minority groups to whom her identification could have been detrimental make it an issue—not just conservative outlets.
By the way, we tried to book Warren for my SiriusXM and CNN programs when she was in the midst of a publicity tour for her 2017 book, This Fight Is Our Fight. No luck. As I said, dead.
ZEPPELIN COMMUNICATION
BREAKDOWN
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, November 25, 2012
DAVID PETRAEUS, Lance Armstrong, Led Zeppelin: All my heroes are falling.
The first two have gotten enough attention, so let me tell you a story about the third.
Led Zeppelin will be recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts next weekend, which comes on the heels of the band’s new concert movie, Celebration Day. The film was recorded in 2007, when the band reunited for its first headline show, a tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. Eighteen thousand lucky fans saw the performance at London’s O2 Arena; 20 million other requests for tickets were denied.
Zeppelin was one of those bands whose liner notes I studied in my suburban bedroom in the ’70s. But I never got to see them perform before their career was cut short by the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980. That’s why I was elated when they reunited five years ago, with Bonham’s son Jason playing in his stead, amid talk that a tour would ensue. But the tour never happened.
So the closest I’ve ever gotten to the band was last month, when I attended the premiere of Celebration Day at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. The screening was followed by a news conference with the band: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham.
A journalist a few rows in front of me asked the band about rehearsing for six weeks to play just one concert. It struck me as a circuitous way of asking about the possible tour that was on everyone’s mind, and there were a few murmurs in the audience suggesting that the reporter had identified the elephant in the room. But the band reacted as if he had told the emperor he had no clothes. The only answer came from lead singer Plant, who called the reporter a “schmuck.” It didn’t sound as if he was kidding.
A question or two later, I tried to introduce a little levity by saying I wanted to follow up on the question asked by the “schmuck.” (No one laughed.) I then congratulated the band on the release of the movie, which I said was terrific. I was very reverent. “But,” I said, I doubted it would “quench the thirst” of fans who want to see Led Zeppelin “in the flesh.”
In response, one of my heroes started making a snoring noise. The rest sat in stony silence. Plant glared at me. Finally, after a few pregnant moments, John Paul Jones said softly, “Sorry.” They hadn’t refused to answer the question so much as they’d been completely dismissive of it.
I sat down a bit chagrined, though I was heartened when a reporter from CNN followed up on my question, as did the legendary classic rock DJ Carol Miller. (Neither got more of an answer.) And there was further proof that this was the most important question in the room, when both Rolling Stone and the New York Times focused on it in writing about the movie launch.
Leaving the news conference, I asked my field producer, Paul Lauricella, what had just happened. “Wow,” he said. “Their contempt for that question was palpable. Shouldn’t they be grateful we still care about them? Shouldn’t they be dragging their 60-year-old butts on stage before Jason Bonham has grandchildren?”
Former Philadelphia DJ Denny Somach, the author of Get the Led Out: How Led Zeppelin Became the Biggest Band in the World, was also in the room. I later asked him whether he thought the band had played its last live show.
“I don’t think they have,” he said. “I think they are looking at what the Rolling Stones are doing—playing multiple dates in a few cities. I know for a fact that Jimmy [Page] is sitting at home playing his guitar and waiting for Robert to call.”
If Somach is right, the band might indeed give the public what it wants. Just don’t ask them about it unless you want to be treated like a schmuck.
Nobody withstands scrutiny anymore—generals, athletes, rock stars. Maybe they never could. Maybe it’s time to stop scrutinizing them and just appreciate their talents.
AFTERWORD
In October 2014, “Liberal Paul” Lauricella and I returned to Manhattan for another Zeppelin-inspired event. It was Paul’s birthday and I took him to a New York Times “TimesTalk” featuring Robert Plant. I’d been to a few TimesTalks, and they are a terrific opportunity to get up close to cultural icons in a beautiful setting inside the Times Building on 41st Street. (I once saw the entire cast of Breaking Bad with another friend, Greg Stocker, one memorable night in this same setting.)
Plant had recently released the album Lullaby and . . . The Ceaseless Roar and was interviewed by the Times’s chief pop music critic, John Pareles, in front of a live audience of about 300 people. Well, Pareles didn’t have the temerity to ask Plant about a possible Led Zeppelin reunion even though it was on everyone’s mind. And when the audience was invited to ask questions, it looked as though none of us was going to confront the elephant in the room, either. Having been famously smacked down by the entire band as noted in this column, I had no interest in moving from my seat. But then, the final questioner, a fan who looked about 13 years old, indelicately did what all the adults were afraid to do, asking Plant, “What is your relationship with Jimmy Page and will you ever perform with him?”
Surprisingly, Plant didn’t seem agitated by this young fan and gave a thoughtful answer, as well as a little advice and encouragement. He said things like “You haven’t felt this yet, but you might like somebody today and it might be difficult later on down the line” and “Very good question—and you brought the house down. Well done. . . . Nobody we knew asked you to say that, did they?”
It was the lecture equivalent of Plant finishing the evening with “Stairway.”
By the way, if you want to watch me ask the band about reuniting, as described in the original column, you can view it here: youtube.com/watch?v=fpa-Zbt7Nqw.
THE TEACHER WHO
OPENED A MIND
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, June 9, 2013
IT’S THE TIME OF YEAR when our attention turns to graduates and their commencement speakers. But at a lunch with a friend last Friday, our conversation was about the often unacknowledged: the teachers for whom we’re grateful.
I said that I’d been fortunate. My list is long, a product of a sound, K-12 education in the Central Bucks public schools, followed by four years at Lehigh University and three more at Penn Law. There are so many to whom I owe so much. But one in particular.
David Curtis Amidon Jr.
Truth be told, I was admitted to Lehigh as a legacy by virtue of my father and brother having received degrees before me. Before I arrived on campus, a fraternity brother (of my own brother) recommended that I use an elective to “take anything” taught by Professor Amidon. So sound was the advice that I ended up taking a course with him every single semester—eight different enrollments. I’ve never read so much nor thought so deeply.
Professor Amidon’s reading list was enough to bankrupt you in the university bookstore. It was nothing for him to require the reading of a half-dozen books per semester. The payoff for me came in the form of an academic awakening. My subpar SATs were forgotten when, four years later, I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, largely due to his tutelage, and was accepted at an Ivy League law school.
What I didn’t tell my friend at lunch is that a few years had passed since I’d spoken to my mentor. So I called him that very afternoon and learned from his wife, Ann, that she’d been meaning to reach out to me. Professor Amidon is recovering from a stroke and is also dealing with the debilitating effects of diabetes at a rehab f
acility in the Lehigh Valley.
Last Saturday I visited unannounced.
Amidon will soon be 78. Despite the physical setbacks, his mind remains razor-sharp. I turned down the Fox News in his room so that we could have a political conversation of our own, and took note of the loss of his trademark beard. He’d always looked like Marx while speaking like Lincoln.
The first sign that he hadn’t missed a beat came when an orderly walked into the room to check on him. My professor introduced the man to me by name, adding that he hailed from Cameroon and was desirous of being a doctor. That’s pure Amidon.
See, the first day of class was always a treat. He’d slide his finger down the roster and proceed to tell each student more about their ethnicity and hometown than any of us knew ourselves. This was pre-Google. He could do that just by studying a surname. Ethnicity and genealogy mattered to him, and his interest was infectious. He was such a revered figure at Lehigh that they created a special platform—the Department of Urban Studies—consisting of one faculty member, him. And when he retired in 2008, after more than 40 years of instruction, so too did the department.
I used to access his office after hours, in Room 358 of Chandler-Ullmann Hall (circa 1883), via a rickety wooden stair, to find him always ensconced amid his books, which were stuffed floor to ceiling, each acting as a sponge for the aroma of his cigars.
But class is where he shone. Actually, “professor” doesn’t fully describe him. He was a “lecturer” in the finest sense of the word. And each hour-long assemblage was a command performance. Thirty years later I can still recall the registrar’s numbered listing of his courses, such as “US 363,” which was a class called “Philadelphia: Development of a Metropolis.” This was no recap of our Founding Fathers. We read George Lippard’s 1844 novel, The Monks and Monk Hall (582 pages!), and E. Digby Baltzell’s Philadelphia Gentlemen, among others.
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right Page 28