“The Boss,” as he was called by those under him, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born in Gori, Georgia, in the Russian Empire in 1878.His father, “Besso,” became a drunk, and beat his wife, “Keke,” and son.They moved a lot, and finally Besso abandoned Keke and Iosif.Keke, born a serf, was a tough, but righteous and religiously pious woman; she also beat her son. Keke wanted her son to be a priest.
Gori was a rough and poor town.Street gangs and crime were common, and Iosif, small but wiry, was known to participate in the fighting.Nevertheless, Iosif was a good student.The Russian language was required in the Russian empire, and Iosif learned it, but always had a Georgian accent. Education was by rote and corporal punishment was rampant; one teacher rapping the students’ knuckles if their eyes wandered. Iosif won a scholarship to Seminary at the age of 16.The seminary was very Spartan, dogmatic, and severe corporal and psychological punishment was normal.
In the seminary, he discovered revolutionary material, including Darwin and Marx, destroying his belief in religion.“They are lying to us,” he said to a fellow student. Living a double life, one secret, at night, he got involved in Georgian revolutionary activities. He had chosen the name “Koba,” a Russian, fictional Robin Hood-like character. There, quite a few other students became revolutionaries from that Seminary at that time. Ioseph was dismissed for not taking an exam just before graduating, maybe because he couldn’t pay the rapidly rising fees.He had become a revolutionary, joining an organization that later became the violent part of the Communist party, the Bolsheviks. It was a life of safe houses, forged documents, and secrecy.Koba was brilliant at organizing workers and also mixing with criminal elements. He collected and directed “enforcers” like Kamo, a brutal, violent, sociopath.While in prison, he became the boss of the prisoners: he was inured to physical punishment.
Sent to Baku by the revolutionary committee, Koba ordered the murders of many Black Hundreds (right-wing supporters of the Tsar), and conducted protection rackets and ransom kidnappings against the oil tycoons of Baku. He also operated counterfeiting operations and robberies. He befriended the criminal gangs; Koba’s gangsterism upset the Bolshevik and Menshevik intelligentsia, but he was too influential with Lenin and indispensable to be opposed.As a revolutionary in Tsarist times, he was arrested eight times and escaped seven times, before the Russian Revolution in 1917; but he changed the facts after he was General Secretary, obscuring one of his arrests. It was suspected by some of his fellow Bolsheviks that Koba was a double-agent, a provocateur, for he seemed to go to-and-fro without any visible support, without difficulty, and was not arrested with everybody else in a particular Tsarist roundup.Koba, most likely known by Lenin as a double-agent, played the game well, with internal party members sometimes sacrificed for the cause. No doubt Koba used this policy for his own purposes also. At one point, when complaints were getting serious, he was arrested, and rumors were dropped for the time being. Continue reading →
It was evident from the start that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was a dutiful daughter.
In Albert, King George VI‘s, reign characterized by war, social change and the beginnings of the dissolution of the British Empire, he was a successful king who raised the prestige of the monarchy, after he was propelled into the limelight, that he did not seek. He left his daughter Elizabeth, a stable throne and diamond studded Crown, but also a world heating up with a Cold War.
Family, country, and duty is of prime importance to the Guardians.
It was evident from the start that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was a dutiful daughter.
On her 21st birthday, before she was Queen, she had decided to pledge to do her duty: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
“He is a just a kid, but he is going to be the great broadcaster,” I remember that is what Red said about him in 1958.
You were right, Red: The Greatest Sportscaster ever.
Ok, I am biased. I am from Southern California born in 1950. It was a slower time, a simpler time for us kids.
He has been a Sportscaster ALL MY LIFETIME, he has been my favorite Sportscaster ALL MY LIFE ever since I became aware of the outside world of sports. But EVERYBODY agrees with me. (They better).
“It’s time for Dodger baseball! Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good (afternoon/evening) to you, wherever you may be.”
In 1958 and onward that Golden Voice was heard by us in Southern California. Koufax, Wills, The Duke… Sutton, Garvey, Fernando, Hershiser…
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
In fact, he lost partially because of his efforts in behalf the nation. However, it hasn’t been widely recognized that the most impactful, beneficial, and long lasting effect of his decision, wasn’t the decision that he is known for, reviled for, and awarded for.
Both sides could protest the appointment of George as mediator, walk out with big fan fare. Heck, they could strut like battling Peacocks for another 400 years — pride a’ struting. Not listening and talking over each other. Power parading and violent protesting. George would just go home, where he belongs, back to America — just as my namesake ancestor had done about 300 years ago.
What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel, got to go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin
You got no money, you got no home
Spinnin’ wheel, all alone Talkin’ ’bout your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel turn
— Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Or — enough with the violence and the peacocking. The world is moving out, if their people can’t get down to business — the business of living, get with the business of dying.
If it’s peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
— Laura Nyro
They had publically walked out on him. But George called them afterwards: he was still here, he would provide mediation between the two sides…
“WHEN I BEGAN THE NEGOTIATIONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND I WAS THE CHAIRMAN BY THE REQUEST OF THE BRITISH AND IRISH GOVERNMENT. IT WAS QUITE VOCAL OPPOSITION TO MY SERVING IN THAT POSITION BY SEVERAL OF THE PARTIES WHO WALKED OUT WHEN I CAME IN TO TAKE THE CHAIRMAN’S SEAT. IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND WE HAD A VERY CONTROVERSIAL AND STORMY BEGINNING. I CALLED A MEETING FOR LATER THAT DAY AND AFTER THE MEETING FINISHED I TELEPHONED THE LEADERS OF THE PARTIES WHO HAD WALKED OUT OF THE TALKS. I SAID LOOK, YOU MADE YOUR POINT. ALL KINDS OF PUBLICITY, YELLING AT ME AND SO FORTH. WHY DON’T YOU GUYS COME BACK NOW.”
Highly cooperative themselves, Providers are skilled in maintaining teamwork among their helpers, and are also tireless in their attention to the details of furnishing goods and services. Wherever they go, Providers happily give their time and energy to make sure that the needs of others are met, and that social functions are a success. [Please Understand Me II]
George John Mitchell, Jr. (born August 20, 1933) is an American lawyer, businessman and politician. A Democrat, Mitchell served as a United States Senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995 and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995.
Since retiring from the Senate, Mitchell has taken up a variety of positions in politics and business. He has taken a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, being specifically appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland (1995–2001) by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009–2011) by President Obama. He was a primary architect of the 1996 Mitchell Principles and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and was the main investigator in two “Mitchell Reports”, one on the Arab–Israeli conflict (2001) and one on the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball (2007)
The Troubles, called by locals of Northern Ireland, were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process that included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations, the complete decommissioning of the IRA’s weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of the British Army from the streets and sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement. The agreement reiterated the long-held British position, which successive Irish governments have not fully acknowledged, that Northern Ireland would remain within the United Kingdom, unless a majority of Northern Irish vote otherwise.
The British government recognised for the first time the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from both nationalists and republicans. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland (which was suspended from 14 October 2002 until 8 May 2007), wherein the government must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties.
Although the number of active participants was relatively small, the Troubles touched the lives of many in Northern Ireland on a daily basis, sometimes spreading into England, the Republic of Ireland, and, occasionally, parts of mainland Europe.
The Disputes in the Middle East continue. Nobody has been able to mediate a peace in that region, including George, despite his yeoman efforts. It will probably another hundred years before all the power parties exhaust themselves and their victims.
Guardians pride themselves on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working. Family is everything.
“From my parents, I learned a very strong work ethic, and all of my brothers and sisters all worked from the earliest days of life right through to the present time.”
George Mitchell was born in Waterville, Maine. His father, George John Mitchell, Sr. (born Joseph Kilroy), was of ethnic Irish descent but was adopted by a Lebanese family when he was orphaned.Mitchell’s father was a janitor at Colby College in Waterville, where Mitchell was raised. Mitchell’s mother, Mary (née Saad), who emigrated to the United States in 1920 from Bkassine, Lebanon, at the age of eighteen.
George talked about his mother’s experience.
“… USUALLY AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE, WE TALK ABOUT LEBANON OFTEN WITH MIST IN HER EYES. IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL AND THE AIR IS CLEAR.
AND AFTER ARRIVING IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE AGE OF 18 YEARS OLD, SHE RETURNED TO LEBANON ONLY ONCE LATE IN HER LIFE AFTER HER FATHER DIED. SHE RETURNED TO THE VILLAGE WHERE SHE GREW UP WITH FRIENDS IN THE HOUSE IN WHICH SHE HAD BEEN RAISED. AND THAT IS WHERE MY MOTHER STOOD AND PAUSED AND WITH THE GREAT EMOTION AND SAID THEY SHOULD SEE AMERICA. AND IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL. THE AIR IS PURE IN THE AIR IS PURE, THE AIR IS GOOD.
OH, AMERICA, MY AMERICA.
SHE HAD LITTLE FORMAL EDUCATION, SHE COULD NOT WRITE ENGLISH, SHE SPOKE WITH AN ACCENT AND SHE WORKED IN A TEXTILE MILL. SHE WAS GENEROUS AND LOVING AND STRONG AND WISE. AND SHE UNDERSTOOD CLEARLY THE MEANING OF AMERICA.
AND TO ME, NO ONE HAS EVER SAID IT BETTER. OH, AMERICA, MY AMERICA.”
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” spoken by Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
Reverence for Life
How do you “truly” climb into another’s skin and walk around? It is a hard thing to do, well. For that person may be a different kind of person from you, from a different time, and from a different place.
Each year an individual is awarded from each of the Four Temperaments: Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, and Rational. And we acknowledge this year’s passing of well known individuals who exhibited their Keirsey Temperament, In Memoriam.
The awards are given to individuals who are usually “famous” and have significantly impacted the world, as to illustrate and highlight the Four Temperaments. Keirsey Temperament Theory maintains all four Temperaments play important roles in society and we need all kinds of people to use their developed natural talents, to do the best at what they do best.
But he was The Best of California’sGold, for thirty years.
In Memoriam
He was the same on camera as off camera. He was a people person. “Huell Howser, who turned his folksy reporting style featuring an unrepentant Tennessee drawl and gee-whiz approach into television gold.”
Stephen Grover Cleveland [22nd and 24th President] was a man who knew how to say “no.” During his two terms in office he issued more than six hundred vetoes, four hundred and thirteen of them in his first term alone. This was more than the combined vetoes of all the twenty-one Presidents before him and more than any other President except Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Blog of David Mark Keirsey 