Ok, so Billy Joel had to teach me some recent world history since the school’s curriculum barely reaches WWII! Sad, but true. Also, some of these items reflect “pop culture” of an era. Anyway, I have done some extensive research on the topics Billy Joel sings about, but I cannot find anything on only a few items…it’s been bugging me!
Can you fill me in about the following:
a) (1949) Johnnie Ray
b) (1958) Starkweather
c) (1958) Homicide - any specific event?
d) (1961) Stranger in a Strange Land - was this an existential novel?
e) (1962) Ole Miss
f) (1962) Liston beats Patterson
g) (1963) British Politician Sex - specifics?
Also, some curious notes or mistakes?:
(1953) Nasser & Prokofiev? Nasser was pres of Egypt; Prokofiev(s) could be Russian pianist or inventor of MASER (pre-LASER).
Any clue to the connection referenced here?
(1958?) Children of Thalidomide = 1962!
(1960) Belgians in the Congo? I found the French giving Congo independence in 1960.
No mention of Belgium.
Any help on any of these items would be appreciated. When answering, please specify to which item(s) you are referring! Thanx!
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
Starkweather - Charles Starkweather. Went on a killing spree in the midwest. Movie called Badlands with Dennis Hopper & Sissy Spacek was about it.
Stranger in a Strange Land - was this an existential novel? - It would probably be better if you just read it. I picked it up a few years ago to re-read, and discovered that Heinlein wrote a very sexist novel. Granted, the times in which it was written and all like that, but still.
(1962) Ole Miss - Mississippi State University. I believe they cleaned up that year?
(1962) Liston beats Patterson - You really haven’t been able to find anything about this? I’m a decidedly non-sports guy, and I’ve heard about this.
(1963) British Politician Sex - Profumo Scandal, trust me, you’ll be able to find this.
Children of Thalidomide = 1962! - Are you surprised at the date? Or are you genuinely confused as to what this is about?
Belgians in the Congo? I found the French giving Congo independence in 1960. - 'Twas Belgium that gave independence to Congo (read: ran like hell before the whole place imploded), in 1960. It was known as the Belgian Congo up to that point. Read The Poisonwood Bible. Not for facts, just an interesting take on what happened at that time.
Thalidomide was a pil given to pregnant women (I think to counter morning sickness?). The unforseen side effects were most distressing. Severely malformed extremeties, in many of the babies exposed in utero. It made for a tragic but very informative documentary that wound up on PBS. I don’t know if the Beeb originally produced it or not. Since this happened only in Great Britain, I’d assume you can find the name of the doc on a BBC web site.
Hence the handle, “Children of Thalidomide”. The Heinlien novel is incredible. Buy, read, memorize, there will be a Blue Book exam at the conclusion of this event.
Cartooniverse
If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel.
Good Heaven! You never heard of Stranger in a Strange Land?
Arguably the late Robert Heinlein’s (1907-1988) biggest and most influential novel, Stranger is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a young man born on Mars, raised by Martians when his parents (and the rest of the crew of the first Mars-Earth expedition) kill themselves off, and “rescued” the second expedition. Stranger is noted for its characters’ experimental attitudes towards sex and religion (Smith started out as a plot device, allowing a person of human genetics but alien culture to view Earthly customs without prejudice); it introduced the word “grok” and the terms “water sharing” and “nest” (very roughly equivalent to “commune”, but I won’t go into the many differences here) to the English language.
The Country Formerly Known As Zaire was a Belgian colony (the Belgians, incidentally, were about the worst colonials and colonialists in the world). The territory was the Belgian Congo, then Congo/Leopoldville (to distinguish it from the former French colony of Congo/Brazzaville), then Zaire, and, last I heard, is back to Congo again. It’s colonial and post-colonial history is one of incredible mismanagement, incompetence, corruption, and not a small admixture of outright evil; I can’t do this tragedy justice in a single post.
“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means
Johnny Ray was one of the pre-Bill Haley singers who was considered a founding father of Rock and Roll. The song he’s most remembered for today is “Cry.”
Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi, was ordered to integrate in 1962. If you can’t find anything there, try looking under “James Meredith.”
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
“Ole Miss in 1962” refers to the University of Mississippi- specifically up until that point it was a “whites only” school. President Kennedy ordered the federal government to carry out a court order admitting James Meredith, a black student, to the University of Mississippi. This was against the local gov’t’s wishes.
And the link I provided is from a white supremacist website founded by the idiot Barrettt named in the story. Follow it at your own discretion- I am not a proponent of the views put forth there.
“Children of Thalidomide = 1962!” I thought this was given as a tranquilizer as well as an anti-emetic. It was also used in the USA.
I don’t know how it got into mainstream USA use or how much damage it did but I do remember children without fingers or hands or other limb deformities. It was a disaster.
Lack of or inadequate testing. IMHO it was after this that a real clamp down began on what pregnant women should or should not ingest began.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
“I thought this was given as a tranquilizer as well as an anti-emetic. It was also used in the USA.”
I believe Thalidomide was never given FDA approval for use in the US. Therefore it would not have been widely used here as it would be illegal for a doctor to prescribe it.
Thalidomide was a European disaster and a great boon to the FDA. The FDA had not approved it and a number of U.S. women went to Europe to procure it. Their kids, sadly, suffered as a result. This is one reason that Thalidomide gets dragged out when arguments about the “too slow” approval procedures of the FDA are criticized by AIDS activists.
Liston vs Patterson was the heavyweight title in boxing (back when there was only one and it meant something). Patterson had held the title for almost six years (relinquishing it for one year to the Norwegian(?) Ingemar Johansson–see My Life as a Dog). Liston was a poor guy with a prison record who was treated (unfairly) as a goon by the press, but who upset the popular Patterson in the first round.
A followup. When Thalidomide was being used in the 50’s and 60’s in Europe, an American drug company applied for FDA approval. The FDA administrator in charge of their application denied it until further test data could be provided. When reports of deformed children came from Europe the application was withdrawn. Some people see this as th FDA doing what it is supposed to by preventing dangerous drugs from getting to market. Others claim they are getting credit for simply dragging their feet. Whatever the case, Thalidomide received FDA approval in 1998 for the treatment of Leprosy according to information found at an FDA web site.
That isn’t a nitpick; that’s a correction.
(That was also why I put a question mark after his name–I simply could not remember which Scandihoovian country he came from (although I knew it wasn’t Denmark or Finland).