Richard Ben Cramer on Joe DiMaggio: The Mirror Of A Nation

A while back, I wrote a post about Joe DiMaggio.

Then, while reading an article written about him after his death, I found a quote that I really liked:

“In Joe, the nation found a mirror for its best self. In the hard-knuckled ’30s, he was the Sicilian immigrant’s son who came from nothing, made it big. As the war drew nearer, he was our can-do poster boy, getting hits every day through the summer of ’41. In the war, he sacrificed his best years but came back as a winner—bigger than ever. In postwar wealth and ease, he was our Broadway Joe, squiring Miss Americas at the Stork Club…until he wooed and won, in Marilyn Monroe, the most beautiful girl America could dream up. And even when he lost that girl for good, in 1962, he was us, at the start of our decade of assassination and bereavement. He was, at every turn, our idea of the American hero—one man we could look at, who made us feel good. For it was always about how we felt…with Joe. That’s how it worked. No wonder we strove, for six decades—the nation, its presidents, its citizens, almost everyone—to give Joe the hero’s life. It was always about us.”

War Hero

Two political posts in a row? Yuck. I’ll keep this one short.

Everyone knows that John McCain was a war hero and a POW in Vietnam. What I wasn’t aware of were some of the impressive circumstances of his time in captivity. From Wikipedia:

“In mid–1968, McCain’s father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, and McCain was offered early release. The North Vietnamese made that offer because they wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer of repatriation; he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.”

If only being a war hero were all it took to make someone a viable presidential candidate, I think we’d have a winner.

Obama Like Jackie Robinson?

Apparently, making ridiculous statements runs in the Jesse Jackson family.

Today, Jackson’s son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) compared Barack Obama to baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson.

I suppose some legitimate comparisons could be made (Robinson being the first black player in the Major Leagues in the 20th century, Obama potentially being the first black U.S. president), but the comparison that Jackson Jr. actually made doesn’t seem to apply:

“Barack Obama has the capacity to hit, but he is in the situation where he can’t hit back, which Jackie Robinson could not do…He had to be able to run the bases, even though the crowd was jeering the first African-American on the field.”

As I wrote some time ago, the description of Robinson is accurate (he agreed not to fight back when verbally attacked for the first three years of his career), but I don’t know why that makes him like Obama—I certainly haven’t noticed Barack refraining from “hitting back” at any point throughout the campaign.

The Jungle on Jesus

Towards the end of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a Socialist ex-preacher rails on the way a capitalist society has twisted the character of Jesus:

“And why should Jesus have nothing to do with his church—why should his words and his life be of no authority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was the world’s first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement; a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for—for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and the tyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, in the most explicit language, denounced wealth and the holding of wealth: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!’—‘Sell that ye have and give alms!’—‘Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!’—‘Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation!’—‘Verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven!’ Who denounced in unmeasured terms the exploiters of his own time: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!’—‘Woe unto you also, you lawyers!’—‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ Who drove out the business men and brokers from the temple with a whip! Who was crucified—think of it—for an incendiary and a disturber of the social order! And this man they have made into the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial civilization! Jewelled images are made of him, sensual priests burn incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listed to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty divinity…” (emphasis mine)

Capitalism isn’t the great problem of the world as Sinclair might suggest, and socialism isn’t the great solution, but I think he’s hit upon a lot of truth here.

How Christians (myself included) get so mixed up about wealth is beyond me.