Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

The whole world (well, a little of it) is watching …

July 26, 2016

US politics
Ron Fournier watched day one of the Democratic National Convention so you didn’t have to, and chronicles 30 things, four of which were last week, and 10 of which are between later this week and November:
Hillary Clinton, her advisers, and their allies at the Democratic National Committee watched Donald Trump’s nominating convention in Cleveland with smug satisfaction.

Team Trump had insulted Ohio’s governor, approved a Melania Trump speech that plagiarized Michelle Obama, lied about the plagiarism, and allowed Ted Cruz to expose party divisions in a prime-time speech.

“Hey @Reince,” Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted GOP chairman Reince Priebus. “I’m in Cleveland if you need another chair to keep your convention in order.”

Schultz reflected the Democratic establishment’s false sense of security. Headed to their convention in Philadelphia, Democrats felt more united than Republicans, better organized, and less vulnerable to the long-term disruption of a populist insurgency.

All hell broke loose.

WikiLeaks released 20,000 emails stolen from DNC computers, proof of the worst-kept secret in Democratic politics: The party worked against socialist-populist Bernie Sanders to ease Hillary Clinton’s path to the nomination. The FBI said it would investigate whether Russia hacked the DNC to influence the U.S. election.

All hell broke loose.

“Lock her up!” chanted Democratic activists in the streets of Philadelphia. These Sanders supporters carried signs and wore T-shirts that called for Clinton’s indictment, channeling those GOP delegates in Cleveland who drew rebukes for defying old rules of political decorum.

Schultz cut a deal with the Clinton team to resign, effective upon the conclusion of the convention. She planned to open and close the gathering with remarks lauding her leadership.

All hell broke loose.

Addressing delegates from her home state of Florida, Shultz chastised an unruly crowd carrying signs reading “Division!” and “EMAILS.” She said, “We know that the voices in this room that are standing up and being disruptive, we know that is not the Florida we know.”

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” crowd members chanted. Schultz scurried out of the room.

Sanders himself tried to prevent a show of disunity on the convention floor,pleading with his supporters to back Clinton. Having promised his followers “a revolution,” he now fed them bitter pragmatism. “Brothers and sisters,” Sanders said, “this is the real world that we live in.”

All hell broke loose.

While the streets filled with a sweaty mass of angry Sanders supporters—mostly young and white and disconnected from the political system—the Clinton team told Shultz she couldn’t address the convention.

Sanders sent his supporters a text message, urging them not to protest on the convention floor.

All hell broke loose.

As the convention came to order, hundreds of Democrats protested outside. “No, no, DNC—we won’t vote for Hillary!”

Inside, Cynthia Hale mentioned Clinton’s name during the opening prayer. Some delegates booed, others chanted for Sanders.

There would be more protests.

Eventually, Clinton likely will regain control of her convention. Like in Cleveland, the desire to defeat a hated enemy will overcome internal differences. The blues will line up against the reds, Wall Street will support both teams, Clinton will win in November, and the status quo will declare victory over change. Populist unrest will broaden and intensify.

Or Trump will win. He won’t keep his promises, because he never does. He won’t make America any greater than it already is. He might make it worse. The status quo will declare victory over change. Populist unrest will broaden and intensify.

Whether it’s Clinton or Trump, historians will note how a billionaire celebrity took over the GOP with an anti-trade, anti-immigration nativism, setting fire to the political playbook that guided campaigns for the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st.

Today will be long remembered, too. Sanders couldn’t calm the churning of his supporters and, as in a mutiny aboard a pirate ship, the deckhands have seized control from the captain.

This could be the start of something big inside the Democratic Party. What if, for instance, Sanders’s coalition banded together with Black Lives Matters to create Tea Party-like takeover of the Democratic Party?

The American public has lost trust in virtually every social institution—schools, churches, businesses, charities, police, courts, and the media—because those entities have been slow to adapt to sweeping economic, demographic, and technological changes.

People have witnessed disruption in the retail, entertainment, and financial industries—in virtually every institution except for government and politics. In an era of choice and technological efficiency, the American voter is given a binary choice and gridlocked government.

Most Americans want something better than what the Democratic-Republican duopoly crams down their throats.

They’re mad as hell and, as evidenced in Cleveland and Philadelphia, they’re just starting to realize how powerful they are. They don’t need to take it anymore.

All hell is going to break loose.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on The whole world (well, a little of it) is watching …
Freedom, openness and American business

July 26, 2016

US business, US politics
Charles Koch is concerned about where business in this country is going, with good reason given one regulation-happy presidential candidate and one anti-free-trade presidential candidate:

I was born in the midst of the Great Depression, when no one could imagine the revolutionary technological advances that we now take for granted. Innovations in countless fields have transformed society and radically improved individual well-being, especially for the least fortunate. Every American’s life is now immeasurably better than it was 80 years ago.

What made these dramatic improvements possible was America’s uniquely free and open society, which has brought the country to the cusp of another explosion of life-changing innovation. But there are dangerous signs that the U.S. is turning its back on the principles that foster such advances, particularly in education, business and government. Which path will the country take?

When I attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s, I quickly came to appreciate that scientific and technological progress requires the free and open exchange of ideas. The same holds true for moral and social progress. I have spent more than a half-century trying to apply this lesson in business and my personal life.

It was once widely accepted that progress depends on people challenging and testing each other’s hypotheses. This leads to the creation of knowledge that, when shared, inspires others and spurs the innovation that moves society forward and improves lives. It is a spontaneous process that is deeply collaborative and dependent on the contributions of others. Recall Sir Isaac Newton’s statement that he achieved so much by “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Scientific progress in seemingly disparate fields creates opportunities for fusion, which is where the greatest innovations often occur. The British writer Matt Ridley has brilliantly described this process as “ideas having sex.” Today, this creation-from-coupling is evident in, for example, the development of driverless cars, which combine advances in transportation and artificial intelligence. When seen through this prism, the opportunities for life-altering innovation are limitless.

Despite our enormous potential for further progress, a clear majority of Americans see a darker future. Some 56% believe their children’s lives will be worse off than their own, according to a January CNN poll. A Rasmussen poll released the following month found that 46% believe America’s best days are behind it. Little more than a third believe better days lie ahead.

I empathize with this fear. The U.S. is already far down the path to becoming a less open and free society, and the current cultural and political atmosphere threatens to make the situation worse: Growing attacks on free speech and free association, hostile rhetoric toward immigrants, fear that global trade impoverishes rather than enriches, demands that innovators in cutting-edge industries first seek government permission.

This trajectory takes the U.S. further away from the brighter future that is otherwise within reach. Resisting calls to exclude, divide or restrict—and promoting a free and open society—ought to be the great moral cause of these times. The most urgent tasks involve the key institutions of education, business and government.

Education in America, and particularly higher education, has become increasingly hostile to the free exchange of ideas. On many campuses, a climate of intellectual conformity has replaced open debate and inquiry, stifling discussion on a host of topics ranging from history to science to economics. Dissenters are demonized, ostracized or otherwise treated with scorn and derision. This disrupts the process of discovery and challenge that is at the root of human progress. Holland embraced this philosophy—best expressed by the phrase “Listen even to the other side”—in the 17th century, contributing to it becoming the most prosperous country in the world at the time.

Similarly, in business the proliferation of corporate welfare wastes resources and closes off opportunity for newcomers. It takes many forms—direct subsidies, anticompetitive regulations, mandates, tax credits and carve-outs—all of which tip the scales in favor of established businesses and industries. The losers are invariably the new, disruptive and innovative entrepreneurs who drive progress, along with everyone who stands to benefit from their work. Just ask the citizens of Austin, Texas, who recently lost access to Uber after a campaign backed by its competitors in the taxi industry.

Government, which often has strong incentives to stifle the revolutionary advances that could transform lives, may be the most dangerous. The state often claims to keep its citizens safe, when it is actually inhibiting increased individual well-being. See, for example, the FDA’s astronomically expensive and time-consuming drug-approval process, which University of Chicago professor Sam Peltzman argues has caused “more sickness and death than it prevented.” These kinds of harmful barriers to life-enhancing advances exist at every level of government.

Unleashing innovation, no matter what form it takes, is the essential component of truly helping people improve their lives. The material and social transformations in my own days have been nothing short of astonishing, with a marked improvement in well-being for all Americans. If the country can unite around a vision for a tolerant, free and open society, it can achieve even greater advances, and a brighter future for everyone, in the years ahead.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Freedom, openness and American business
Presty the DJ for July 26

July 26, 2016

Music
Today in 1965, the Rolling Stones were to release “Beggar’s Banquet,” except that the record label decided that the original cover …

… was inappropriate, and substituted …

… angering one member of the band on his birthday.

The number one single …

… and album today in 1975:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for July 26
Do Nothing for anyone but Clinton

July 25, 2016

media, US politics
The Washington Post has interesting news for the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia today:

Wikileaks posted a massive trove of internal Democratic National Committee emails online Friday, in what the organization dubbed the first of a new “Hillary Leaks” series.

The cache includes nearly 20,000 emails and more than 8,000 file attachments from the inboxes of seven key staffers of the DNC, including communications director Luis Miranda and national finance director Jordan Kaplan, according to the Wikileaks website. The emails span from January 2015 through late May and are presented in a searchable database.

The cache appears to contain sensitive personal information about some donors, including Social Security numbers, passport numbers and credit card information.

The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. …

The Democratic Party has had its share of cybersecurity woes recently. Last month, the DNC acknowledged that its systems had been breached. …

Crowdstrike, the firm brought in by the party to clean up after that hack, said the company discovered that two separate hacking groups associated with the Russian government had infiltrated the DNC’s systems.

One of the groups, dubbed Cozy Bear, had been monitoring the emails and chats since gaining access last summer, Crowdstrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch told The Post.

Another, which the firm called Fancy Bear, targeted opposition research files. That group broke into the DNC’s systems in April, setting off the alarm bells that resulted in the discovery of both infiltrations.

The Russian government has denied involvement in the breaches.

The lefty site US Uncut is not amused:

The worst fears of Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been officially confirmed in the latest batch of DNC emails released by WikiLeaks.

On Friday, the whistleblowing website leaked approximately 20,000 emails that were allegedly sent by top Democratic National Committee staffers like chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who referred to a top Bernie Sanders aide as a “damn liar“) national press secretary Mark Paustenbach, and communications director Luis Miranda. This data dump is “Part One” of a series from WikiLeaks they are calling the “Hillary Leaks,” and Guccifer 2.0 has taken credit for the hack behind this first set of emails from the DNC.

The emails show an unprecedented level of collusion between top party officials and political reporters at establishment newspapers, as well as DNC staffers obviously favoring Hillary Clinton while devising ways to attack Bernie Sanders.

In one email with the subject line “Bernie narrative,” Paustenbach ponders a way to attack the Sanders campaign as “never having their act together” with Miranda, suggesting they plant a narrative in the media that the Vermont senator’s presidential campaign “was a mess.”

Despite Wasserman Schultz repeatedly denied allegations that she was favoring Hillary Clinton in the primary, but WikiLeaks’ emails expose her treating the Sanders campaign as an adversary.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her staff contemplate ways to smear Sanders’ position on Israel/Palestine affairs with her communications team in one exchange, with Wasserman Schultz saying “The Israel stuff is disturbing” in reference to Sanders’ platform committee appointees attempting to include language denouncing the occupation of Palestinian territory in the party platform. The email also shows that “HFA” (Hillary for America) fronted the idea of Israel/Palestine as “an ideal issue to marginalize Bernie on,” suggesting that DNC staffers were in communication with the Clinton campaign and cooperating on attack strategies against Sen. Sanders.

Party officials even sunk so low as to devise how to use Bernie’s religious views against him, according to emails analyzed Sam Biddle of The Intercept. In an email with the subject line of “No Shit,” DNC CFO Brad Marshall appears to strategize on how to alienate Sanders from Southern Baptist voters:

It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.

Marshall followed up shortly after to add, “It’s these Jesus thing.” DNC CEO Amy Dacey replied with “AMEN.” The email was also send to Miranda and Paustenbach.

Marshall emailed the Intercept after publication of their story to insist he was “probably” talking about a surrogate and not Sanders in this email, and the Intercept has followed up to ask what surrogate he could have meant. Marshall has yet to respond to that request as of this writing.

Article 5, Section 4 of the charter and bylaws of the Democratic Party requires the DNC chair to remain impartial during the primary process, a rule that Schultz seems to have violated in these emails:

In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.

Tom Cahill has found …

… nine of the most egregious examples of the DNC actively working with the media and the Clinton campaign to smear Sanders:

1. The DNC’s communications director was eager to point out negative angles for Sanders stories

Luis Miranda, the national communications director for the DNC, is seen in two separate email chains briefing reporters with both Politico and the Wall Street Journal. In one email thread with Politico’s Daniel Strauss, Miranda told Strauss that he would “point out… some of the issues” with Sen. Sanders’ DNC committee appointments “off the record” with Strauss to help him write his story. Strauss initially asked for Miranda to send the list of appointments over “with no fingerprints attached.”

In another email thread dated May 11 of this year, Miranda is seen briefing the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler on Sanders’ committee appointments, complaining that Sanders continued to demand fair representation on the DNC’s platform committee despite DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s concessions to the Sanders campaign.

2. Debbie Wasserman Schultz privately called Clinton the “presumptive nominee” while accusing Sanders of not being a Democrat

After DNC national press secretary Mark Paustenbach shared a link to a Politico article in which Bernie Sanders complained about the Democratic Party not treating him fairly, Wasserman Schultz responded curtly, questioning the Vermont senator’s Democratic credentials.

“Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do,” Wasserman Schultz said of Sanders, who has caucused with and campaigned for House and Senate Democrats for decades.

In another email dated May 1, more than a month of voting to go before the final primaries were over, Paustenbach shared an article written by Politico’s Daniel Strauss in which Bernie Sanders promises a contested convention. Wasserman Schultz’s response was simply, “So much for a traditional presumptive nominee,” in reference to Hillary Clinton.

3. DNC officials worked closely with the Hillary Clinton campaign to respond to Sanders’ money laundering allegations

After the bombshell story of the Hillary Victory Fund broke, in which the Clinton campaign was accused of funneling 99 percent of the money meant for down-ballot Democratic candidates back to her own campaign, the DNC helped the Clinton campaign do damage control in the media.

Paustenbach forwarded an email from Politico’s Ken Vogel on April 29 to Miranda and DNC CEO Amy Dacey asking detailed questions about the Hillary Victory fund. He then wrote that he had spoken with the Clinton campaign, who suggested a series of talking points to be used.

However, the collusion went deeper, with Luis Miranda shown in various emails drafting talking points to be used by the Clinton campaign in response to the Hillary Victory Fund’s money laundering allegations. In the thread dated May 4, Clinton campaign spokesman is seen badgering Miranda asking for the draft for a Medium post defending the Clinton campaign’s questionable fundraising strategies.

4. A Politico reporter agreed to allow the DNC to edit his stories

Bernie Sanders’ supporters should feel at least partially vindicated, as their suspicion of the DNC working closely with establishment media has been confirmed in at least one thread.

In one particularly damning exchange, Mark Paustenbach is seen referring to an “agreement” with Politico’s Ken Vogel to let the DNC pre-screen one of his stories before they’re sent to Vogel’s editors.

“Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his editors as long as I didn’t share it,” Paustenbach wrote to Luis Miranda. “Let me know if you see anything that’s missing and I’ll push back.”

5. DNC staff automatically dismissed interview requests from “Bernie bros”

In the wake of the Hillary Victory Fund fallout, DNC staffers were seen dismissing interview requests for Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the money laundering allegations due to the political affiliations of the interviewers themselves.

A May 4 email chain between Pablo Manriquez — the DNC’s broadcast media booker — and Luis Miranda shows the two contemplating whether or not Wasserman Schultz should do an interview with SiriusXM radio’s David Guggenheim about the Hillary Victory Fund.

“Not sure if we’re talking about the Bernie Bro’s latest accusations. If not will just say we can’t join. Lmk!” Manriquez wrote to Miranda.

“Wait, this is a shit topic. Where is Guggenheim? Is he a Bernie Bro?” Miranda asked.

“Must be a Bernie Bro,” Manriquez replied. “Per Mark [Paustenbach]’s sage, I turned him down flat (and politely) and inquired into opportunities next week to talk about something else.”

6. Wasserman Schultz demanded an apology from MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski for suggesting she resign

On May 18, after an MSNBC Morning Joe segment aired featuring Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski suggesting Wasserman Schultz “rigged” the primary for Hillary Clinton’s benefit, Wasserman Schultz wrote a furious email to Luis Miranda asking him to contact the president of MSNBC and demand an apology from Brzezinski.

“This is the LAST straw,” Wasserman Schultz wrote. “Please call Phil[…] Griffin. This is outrageous. She needs to apologize.”

Two hours later, Wasserman Schultz wrote an email to NBC News political director and Meet the Press host Chuck Todd with the subject line “Chuck, this must stop.” Miranda responded to Wasserman Schultz’s earlier email saying, “Since you already went to Chuck I’ll wait for his response.”

Later that evening, Miranda sent an email to Chuck Todd with a list of talking points about how Wasserman Schultz has remained a neutral arbiter of the primaries, and asked him to send the talking points to Scarborough and Brzezinski. Both seemed to agree that arranging a call between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Mika Brzezinski was a bad idea.

7. DNC staffers knew Sanders would destroy Wasserman Schultz in a one-on-one segment

An April 24 email thread was particularly revealing in that Luis Miranda and Wasserman Schultz staffer Kate Yglesias Houghton felt Wasserman Schultz stumbled in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace about the Hillary Clinton email scandal, and that the team should do their best to keep the DNC chairwoman away from any segment with Bernie Sanders.

“She can’t take Sanders on directly, it would turn into a fight,” Miranda wrote to Houghton. “[A]ny time it’s DNC Chair vs Sanders, DNC Chair is going to lose.”

8. DNC staffers seemed to know Clinton would be the nominee with nearly two months of voting left

Even before the polls closed during the April 26 primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, DNC Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer casually revealed to DNC events director Ellen Thrower that the DNC was already planning its collaboration with the Clinton campaign, even though Clinton hadn’t secured a majority of pledged delegates and there were still millions of Democrats in multiple states who hadn’t voted.

“What was the Amy [Dacey] meeting all about??” Thrower asked.

“It was basically just a general check-in meeting where she thanked us for being flexible as we wait for a nominee and said that she and [DNC National Finance Director Jordan] Kaplan are in the process of figuring out what our collaboration with Hillary’s people will look like once she gets it.”

9. The DNC may have had plants inside the Sanders campaign

As Wasserman Schultz was preparing to speak at a Democratic Party event in Alaska, Luis Miranda and Kate Houghton were attempting to learn more about a Facebook event set up by Sanders supporters in Alaska to “counter” Wasserman Schultz’ appearance. Both seemed to have the impression that Alaska Democratic Party executive director Kay Brown would be able to glean knowledge about the counter-event’s organizers and participants.

“There’s no way Kay doesn’t have someone who can get her intel. We need to push them,” Miranda wrote.

“Kay told me she has friends inside the Bernie organization there who may be able to provide some more information,” Houghton replied.

Schultz resigned as DNC chair Sunday, but not from her Congressional seat. Hillary’s response was to hire Schultz for her campaign. Mission accomplished. There will be no repercussions to Hillary directly seeing that there appears to be no smoking gun back to her. As I’ve been saying for decades, there is no way anyone can be too cynical about the Clintons.

I wonder how Comrade Bernie and his supporters (including a majority of Wisconsin Democratic voters) feel about this. I have been saying the fix has been for Hillary for months, and this is proof. If Sanders gives one bit of support for Clinton or for Democrats, he will be giving approval of the DNC’s campaign against himself.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Do Nothing for anyone but Clinton
Presty the DJ for July 25

July 25, 2016

Music
Today in 1964, the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” hit number one and stayed there for 14 weeks:

Today in 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival and played with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The controversy was that Dylan played electric, not acoustic, guitar.

Contrary to myth, Dylan didn’t leave after three songs because he was upset at the crowd’s reaction. Dylan left after three songs because those were the only songs the band knew. He did return to play two acoustic songs at the behest of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Today in 1969, Crosby, Stills and Nash performed at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

The band asked Neil Young to join them at the end of the concert, and liked the result so much they asked him to join the band.

Young joined, then quit, then rejoined, then quit. (I am told by someone more conversant than me with CSNY that Young didn’t like merely being a member of the group.)

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for July 25
Presty the DJ for July 24

July 24, 2016

Music
Today in 1964, a member of the audience at a Rolling Stones concert in the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England, spat upon guitarist Brian Jones, sparking a riot that injured 30 fans and two police officers.

The Stones were banned from performing in Blackpool until 2008.

Today in 1967, the Beatles and other celebrities took out a full-page ad in the London Times calling for the legalization of …

… marijuana.

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for July 24
A Saturday morning cartoon

July 23, 2016

media, US politics
From the Freedom’s Defense Fund:
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on A Saturday morning cartoon
Presty the DJ for July 23

July 23, 2016

Music
Today in 1963, high school student Neil Young and his band, the Squires, recorded in a Winnipeg studio a surf instrumental:

Today in 1965, the Beatles asked for …

The number one single — really — today in 1966:

Today in 1979, Iran’s new ruler, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, banned rock and roll, an event that inspired a British band:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for July 23
Star Trek before (or instead of) Kirk

July 22, 2016

Culture, media
They Boldly Went (the non-infinitive past-tense, or something) writes about Star Trek with its original captain, who was not played by William Shatner:

One of the main (and some would say the single largest) difference between “The Cage” and what came after is the man sitting in the center seat. Originally named Robert April (and then changed to James Winter for a single draft), the character that would become Christopher Pike was created with a very different actor in mind: Lloyd Bridges.

Roddenberry reported in The Star Trek Interview Book that he approached Bridges even before he’d written “The Cage,” because he had a definite sort of captain in mind, someone who could pull off military gravitas but still have sufficient charm to be compelling for the audience. Bridges, however, wasn’t interested in doing science fiction, which at the time meant Flash Gordon serials and Captain Video to the vast majority of people in the entertainment industry.

Among the forty or so actors that Roddenberry looked at seriously were Peter Graves, Robert Loggia, Jack Lord, Leslie Nielsen and even William Shatner, but that certain something that Roddenberry wanted was missing. Majel Barrett even recommended that he talk to James Coburn, but the man who would become Flint was at first rejected because he was judged insufficiently sexy by the production team.

After some reconsideration, though, Coburn’s name appeared a second list of names submitted to NBC that included Patrick O’Neal and Jeffrey Hunter, an actor whose most famous role had been playing John Wayne’s nephew in the western classic The Searchers. Despite the fact that Coburn and O’Neal elicited “a strong reaction” from the NBC team, Roddenberry thought Hunter had a magnetism and coolness that the role required. He even joked that Hunter’s performance as Christ in the 1961 bomb King of Kings meant that he could easily command a starship.

When we watch “The Cage” now, it’s immediately obvious how different Christopher Pike is from the man who’d succeed him in the center seat. We see a man who’s burdened by command, someone who is haunted by the deaths of two crewmembers in the recent past and is actually considering resigning his commission instead of continuing to send young people to death.

At the time, Roddenberry and director Robert Butler believed Hunter perfectly embodied the character that’d been conceived from the beginning as a far-future Horatio Hornblower, a complex personality whose drive and position alienated him from the rest of the crew. Even as he experienced the loneliness of command, Pike’s character was written to feel the plights of others. Hunter’s sober, deliberate performance is fine (especially in the context we’re used to seeing it now), but it’s easy to see how the network found his calculating, thoughtful manner off-putting.

Despite the network’s notes on the matter, Roddenberry and his team wanted to keep Hunter in the center seat and refit the character and the show around him. Hunter’s wife Barbara felt otherwise and let her feelings be known almost as soon as the pilot screening at Desilu ended. She thought her husband was above science fiction and pressured him to walk away.

Within two weeks of the pilot’s screening, Hunter wrote to Roddenberry to let him know that he wasn’t going to continue with the project despite the fact that NBC had made the unprecedented decision to give the show another shot. Roddenberry’s return correspondence shows the esteem with which he held the actor. He wrote: “I am told you have decided not to go ahead with Star Trek. This has to be your decision, of course, and I must respect it. You may be certain I hold no grudge or ill feelings and expect to continue to reflect publicly and privately the high regard I learned for you during the production of our pilot.”

A second pilot was commissioned and the production team went back to its list of performers to see who might be the next captain of the Enterprise. Once again, Lloyd Bridges and Jack Lord were considered (with the former getting his second offer after Roddenberry screened “The Cage” for him to prove how Trek would be different) but it was William Shatner who got the role that would define his career.

Hunter’s career was in freefall after Star Trek, dominated by appearances in foreign-made B-movies like 1969’s Viva America. He auditioned for the role of Mike Brady inThe Brady Bunch in 1968 but lost to Robert Reed. Hunter’s last TV appearance was on an episode of Insight in 1969.

On a flight back from filming in Spain, Hunter suffered stroke-like symptoms with paralysis in his right arm and loss of speech. Doctors believed that injuries he’d received on the set of the movie may have caused them, Shortly after, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fell in his home. He died during surgery to repair the skull fracture that he suffered, just one week before “Turnabout Intruder,” Star Trek’s final episode, was aired.

Captain Pike and science officer Spock, who seemed to have usual human emotions …

… unlike the Enterprise’s first officer, known in the pilot as “Number One.” Has anyone seen her and Nurse Chapel in the same room at the same time?

“Book ’em, Spock”? No, that wouldn’t have worked, though Lord certainly would have had command presence. (Recall that in “Hawaii Five-O” Steve McGarrett was a former naval commander in intelligence.) Bridges would have been a different captain than either Hunter or Shatner, though roles are written for the actors playing them.

Nielsen, on the other hand, had already done science fiction, the classic “Forbidden Planet,” which certainly inspired Roddenberry.

It’s impossible to say what kind of captain Hunter would have been based on one pilot. On the other hand, Shatner would have played the first pilot differently from Hunter. The scene with Pike and the keeper where Pike finally captures him is intensely done:

(The group is apparently dozing when the Magistrate opens the hatch to get the laser pistols Pike dropped there. He grabs him and pulls him into the cage, and starts to throttle him)
PIKE: Now you hold still, or I’ll break your neck.
VINA: Don’t hurt them. They don’t mean to be evil.
PIKE: I’ve had some samples of how good they are.
(the Talosian appears to be a vicious monster)
PIKE: You stop this illusion, or I’ll twist your head off. (it stops) All right, now you try one more illusion, you try anything at all, and I’ll break your neck.
MAGISTRATE: Your ship. Release me or we’ll destroy it.
VINA: He’s not bluffing, Captain. With illusion they can make your crew work the wrong controls or push any button it takes to destroy your ship.
PIKE: I’m going to gamble you’re too intelligent to kill for no reason at all.
(Pike hands the Magistrate over to Number One and picks up the laser pistols, firing them at the glass wall. Then he puts one to the Magistrate’s head)
PIKE: On the other hand, I’ve got a reason. I’m willing to bet you’ve created an illusion this laser is empty. I think it just blasted a hole in that window and you’re keeping us from seeing it. You want me to test my theory out on your head?

Remember that NBC rejected the first pilot for being “too cerebral.” Hunter looks like he’s either going to fire the laser or shove it through the Magistrate’s skull.

It’s interesting that the author brings up Horatio Hornblower, and the book Hornblower seems to accurately describe Pike. The movie Hornblower (played by Gregory Peck), however, accurately describes Kirk. Peck’s Hornblower is not “alienated from his crew” like the novels’ Hornblower is. Kirk might be closer to an excellent naval model for a starship captain, Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey, though Aubrey had not been created yet when Star Trek premiered.

All this comes to mind with not only the 50th anniversary of The Original Series, but the new series coming up. Read here if you want my input on what the new series should and shouldn’t have.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Star Trek before (or instead of) Kirk
50, or 25 or 6 to 4, but does anybody really know what year it is?

July 22, 2016

media, Music
CBS Sunday Morning profiled Chicago earlier this week, interviewing three of the four original members. Watch here.

Also interviewed is newbie guitarist Keith Howland, who has only been with the group for 21 years. Howland noted that the original members were the same age Howland now is when he joined. Which means that Chicago has been group for approximately Howland’s entire life. (And mine.)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on 50, or 25 or 6 to 4, but does anybody really know what year it is?