Here is your open thread for April 14, 2020.
Loretta Lynn turns 88 years old today.
On April 14 in 70 CE, the emperor’s son took four Roman legions and surrounded a small city in BFE Nowheresville that he was preparing to destroy in a display of imperial might. Titus had no clue that he was about to dramatically reshape two religions and the history of the world in ways that would outlive his little empire.
On April 14, in 1434, they took a deep breath and laid the foundation stone for a new cathedral in Nantes, France. They started building it knowing full well that nobody there would live to see its completion. Nor would their children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or great-great-great grandchildren. (The Nantes Cathedral wasn’t finished until 457 years later.)
I know I just posted this Reinhold Niebuhr quote a few days ago, but I think about what it took to start a project like that and I’m reminded of this again: “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”
“Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows.” In the early morning of April 14, 1561, multiple people reported seeing something very strange in the skies above Nuremberg. [Insert “I’m not saying it’s aliens …” meme here.]
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was founded on April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia by Anthony Benezet, Ben Franklin, Robert Purvis, and a bunch of Quakers. Like those who laid the foundation stone in Nantes, none of the founders of America’s first abolition society would live to see the completion of the work they began. “Nothing worth doing is …”
Noah Webster copyrighted his first dictionary on April 14, 1828. A troubling number of Americans believe this was an act of plenary verbal inspiration, revealing that they don’t understand what dictionaries are, what they’re for, how they came to be, or how they necessarily change over time. (These poor folks will cite “The” dictionary as if they’re citing “The” scriptures, demonstrating a refusal to understand any of those.)
President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back by a traitor on April 14, 1865. It was the first of countless acts of violence intended to overturn the founding of the United States of America. Among the most notable recent such acts of terroristic violence was the Roberts Court’s insistence that hundreds of polling locations in Milwaukee should be shut down, forcing black American citizens to line up, in person, at only five polling locations during the middle of a pandemic. John Wilkes Booth wold have been proud to see that.
The Azusa Street Revival began on April 14, 1906, in Los Angeles. Before that, “Pentecostal” was a useful adjective to refer to the radical inclusiveness and communal salvation described in the first half of the book of Acts.
The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912.
Hall-of-famer Marvin Miller was born 103 years ago today. Rod Steiger was born 95 years ago today. He absolutely deserved the Oscar he won for In the Heat of the Night. You can watch him thinking in that movie.
Frank Serpico turns 84 today. “We create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer, and not the other way around,” he wrote. The cops who set him up to get shot were never prosecuted. If he gets a second term, Trump’ll probably give them the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Julie Christie turns 80 today. Lothaire Bluteau turns 63. Have you seen Jesus of Montreal? (I need people to see this movie so that we can argue about whether it uses the story of Jesus to explore the meaning of theater or if it uses the meaning of theater to explore the story of Jesus. It’s really quite good.)
Peter Capaldi turns 62 today. I liked the 12th Doctor. I loved Malcom Tucker.
Greg Maddux turns 54 today and can probably still throw a baseball precisely where you can’t quite hit it. Anthony Michael Hall turns 52. Philadelphia bar-owner Rob McIlhenney turns 43 today. So does Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Abigail Breslin turns 24 today, so if you saw Little Miss Sunshine in a theater, you’re old.
Today is “Black Day” in South Korea — a national day of commiseration for people who didn’t have anybody to celebrate Valentine’s Day with. Here, again, I wish I had a .gif of Martha Plimpton throwing her drink at a TV romance in 200 Cigarettes, because Black Day is basically that, only with like-minded friends, and tasty noodles.
Talk amongst yourselves.
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