Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

The year was 1973­: Two roads diverged

In 1973, Donald and Fred Trump were engaged for two years in a battle with the DOJ: “..specifically a case that charges Donald Trump, Fred Trump and their company of race bias in housing rentals. …It was one of the largest cases of the time.”

Michael Kranish

Washington Post


At 26, in 1973, Donald J. Trump commenced his lifelong legal battles — federal and state suits and countersuits numbering 4095 before he assumed the office of President in 2016 and 90 since assuming then losing the office in 2020. Of these 90 post-presidency suits (12 pending) Trump has won but one against his niece, Mary.

Trump legal suits over five decades range from Casino to contracts, employment, personal injury, campaigns, taxes, defamation, obstruction of justice.

Also in 1973, the New York Times (NYT) in a published profile of the younger Trump birthed a myth of Donald Trump as first in his Wharton graduating class (BA in Real Estate, 1968) – a myth fully debunked in a 1988 NYT investigative article that found few members of his relatively small class knew or knew of Trump, the class commencement program did not list him with any distinction, the self-declared “super genius” was found on no Wharton dean’s list. Trump has restricted any educational institute from making public his grades or test scores. Donald J. Trump has never received an honorary degree from any academic institution or acknowledgement of generous gifting (including Wharton).

In contrast, in 1973, Joe Biden, at age 30, was elect to the U.S. Senate sticking his arm out to all he encountered: “Hi, I’m Joe Biden — the new senator from Delaware.”

One month after his election, Biden’s wife and one year old daughter were killed in an automobile crash that spared his two toddler sons. Biden took his Senate oath of office in the Wilmington hospital chapel. He served in the Senate for six terms.

Biden’s first year in the Senate, the 93rd Congress, was replete with major events and governmental action: the passage of Roe vs Wade, Kissinger appointed Secretary of State, LBJ’s death, Nixon to China, Paris Accords/Church Amendment ending the Vietnam War, VP Agnew resigned, replaced with Ford, Endangered Species Act passed as was the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Saturday Night Massacre led to first steps toward a Nixon impeachment (Nixon sidestepped impeachment with his resignation in 1974). Oddly the Roe vs Wade Scotus decision of 1973 was also scandalously leaked however back in 1973, the culprit, a Scotus clerk, was identified.

1973, was a significant turning point in the lives of two prominent Americans for their choices, their character and their occupation of the Oval Office. Trump’s 2024 rhetoric is of a third-world U.S. status, demise and resentment are the tone, projections, and unrealities — his vita is replete with court cases, TV ratings, bankruptcy, screaming false headlines, brand surges and plunges, declarations of personal exceptionalism. Biden, in stark contrast, has 2024 rhetoric, acts and deeds that bespeak pride, promise, progress by the nation, peoples of talent and will. Biden’s vita — outcomes of his life choices — has a plethora of domestic and international honors, steadfastness and accomplishments. He isn’t perfect, not flawless — yet Biden, in raw contrast to Trump, doesn’t promote bullying, urge foul play, threaten intentional harm of others.

Time to turn the lights back on a nation with many shortcomings but scores of decades of betterment — of talent and achievement. In the turmoil of an election year, 2024, can we still hear succinct wisdom: twelve score and six years ago “...our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburgh Address

Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.

Kathy Herald-Marlowe
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
film

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Seeing isn’t always believing. Sometimes it’s the lack of a defined picture that can be the most compelling. And when Alex Harvey of Shinbone Alley sings his supernaturally charged sea shanties and street ballads, the unseen will be downright scary. On Oct. 30, the historically inclined storyteller and performer will create a spooky evening of forbidden tales and yarns through a carefully chosen series of songs at Spencertown Academy of Arts.

The repertoire for the performance is a bit fraught. Over the years, Shinbone Alley has explored the world of folklore through music. Though the group usually features two musicians, Harvey, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, will be performing solo. That is, of course, unless you include the spirits.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield

Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield
Vieux Farka Touré
Proivded

Desert winds rarely blow into the Berkshires, but on Nov. 5, they will carry the Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa music to Race Brook Lodge.

That evening, Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” and Moroccan musician Samir LanGus will play at the lodge’s Event Barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a benefit for the foundation Touré directs.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.