Dan's Almanac
May 14, 2024: Being an Almanac of Movies for the Day, A Lawyer's Almanac, The Nixon List, A Carter Glossary, A Shakespearean Chronology, A Guide to the Presidents, and Editorials and Miscellany
Movies for the Day
Which of today’s three movies would you watch (May 14)?
Sensation Seekers (1927) is a dramatic romance about a flapper and a minister. The latter marries another to save his reputation. This silent film stars Billie Dave, born May 14, 1903, in New York City. A very worthwhile movie. *****
Las Vegas: An All-Star 75th Anniversary (1987) is a music and comedy spectacular. Las Vegas was founded May 15, 1905. This TV show won an Emmy for Costume Design. ***
Tar (2022) is a psychological drama set within the world of Western classical music. Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tar, a world reknowned composer and conductor in Europe. Cate Blanchett, born May 14, 1969, won a Golden Globe for her performance and the movie was nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture. ***
A Lawyer’s Almanac
Strickland v Washington (1984)
The United States Supreme Court decided Strickland v Washington (466 US 668) on May 14, 1984. This case interpreted the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and set forth the Strickland Test to determine whether there was ineffective assistance of counsel. The majority opinion in the capital punishment case, penned by Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor whose 2002 official portrait is below, held two standards had to be met to find a Constitutional deprivation of effective assistance of counsel: (1) did counsel’s performance fall below an objective standard of reasonableness; and (2) did counsel’s performance give rise to a reasonable probability that if counsel had performed adequately, the result would have been different. The defendant in the case was executed within months of the Court’s decision.
The Nixon List
Sam Rayburn (1882-1961)
Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1947, 1949 to 1953, and 1955 to 1961. He was born January 6, 1882, in Tennessee. He was educated at East Texas Normal College (graduated 1903) and University of Texas School of Law (admitted to the Texas Bar in 1908). He was a Member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1907 to 1913 and Speaker of that House from 1911 to 1913. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1913 to 1961. He had a short marriage in 1927 that ended in divorce. He was a powerful legislator and advisor to Presidents and mentor to President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1940s and 1950s when Johnson was a Congressman and then Senator. Democrat Rayburn died November 16, 1961, age 79. The Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., is named after him and Texas boasts the Sam Rayburn House Museum and the Sam Rayburn Library and Museum. See Hardeman, D.B., and Bacon, Donald C., Rayburn: A Biography, 1987. A United States postage stamp honoring Rayburn is below. Rayburn was no fan of Richard Nixon. In 1952, Nixon went too far for President Harry Truman and Rayburn in his use of innuendo and even explicit statements tying leading Democrats to the Communists. For example, on October 27, 1952, in Texarkana, the Associated Press quoted Nixon as telling a mixed crowd from Texas and Arkansas “that President Truman and Adlai Stevenson are ‘traitors to the high principles’ of the Democratic party. He said they tolerated and defended Communists in the government.” Rayburn has been quoted as saying in 1954 that, “So far as we are concerned, his name is mud.” And that Nixon had the cruelest face of all the thousands of Congressmen with whom he had served.
The Carter Glossary
India Elections (1977)
In 1977, India held elections after Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party, the only ruling party independent India had known, were voted out of power. The opposition forces joined together to form the unofficial Janata Party (symbol below) which won a majority in the Indian Parliament and formed a government. The new Prime Minister was Morajai Desai, who served in that post from March 4, 1977, to July 15, 1979.
A Shakespearean Chronology
The Addled Parliament (1614)
The Addled Parliament is the name give to the Parliament which met in April 1614, after three years without one under James VI and I. It dissolved in June 1614, without accomplishing anything. The Speaker for the Addled Parliament was Ranulph Crewe (shown below), a last minute choice with little previous relevant experience.
A Guide to the Presidents
Frances Cleveland (1864-1947)
First Lady Frances Cleveland was born July 21, 1864, in Buffalo, New York. She graduated from Wells College in Aurora, New York, in 1885. Cleveland Hall at the college was named after her and was built in 1911. She married President Grover Cleveland on June 2, 1886, at the White House. He was 49 and she was 21. They honeymooned at Deer Park in the Cumberland Mountains in western Maryland. She was First Lady from June 2, 1886, to March 4, 1889, and from March 4, 1893, to March 4, 1897. After Cleveland’s death in 1908, she remarried to Thomas J. Preston Jr. in 1913. He was a professor at Wells and the marriage ended with her death on October 29, 1947, at age 83 in Baltimore. She is buried in Princeton, New Jersey, next to President Cleveland. They had a home in Princeton. The Clevelands’ daughter Esther was the first child of a President to be born in the White House. Frances’s portrait from 1886 is shown below.