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Why Nora Bayes? Let me tell you a story…

I learned about Nora Bayes (1880-1928) while mounting a production of a “lost” musical, George S. Kauffman’s Hollywood satire “Hollywood Pinafore,” which was essentially a parody of Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic, “H.M.S. Pinafore.” Nora was mentioned in a laugh line in the script, so the 1941 show assumed that the audience knew who she was. I had never heard of her, so I did some research. She was a fascinating character, and a huge vaudeville and Broadway singing and comedy star, household name huge. “Over There” was one of her biggest hits; another was “Shine on Harvest Moon,” which she wrote with her second husband (she ultimately had five), Jack Norwith. He also wrote “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” another Bayes standard. According to one online biography, Bayes Bayes “provided some flamboyant, indeed extreme, examples of the broad social changes happening in the United States in the early twentieth century, namely the questioning of traditional roles for women as well as the challenges to male political and economic power that marked the women’s movement of the time.”

I almost wrote about her in April. As regular readers here know, I believe it is the our duty to honor the memories, accomplishments and cultural influence of past figures in American history, because the more we remember, the more we learn, and the wiser and more ethical we are. Somehow Nora Bayes, famous as she one was, had been in an unmarked grave for 90 years.  On April 21, a group of Nora Bayes enthusiasts placed a granite headstone over her plot. The New York Times told the strange tale here.

Now I think of Nora Bayes every time I hear “Over There,” “Shine on Harvest Moon,” and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” Maybe you will too.

1. Truth in labeling. Major League Baseball has sent a team to Japan to play a series of exhibition games against a Japanese All-Star team, reviving a long-time tradition that had been suspended for several years. As you may know, the U.S. was critical in introducing baseball to Japan, and sent several major stars there to help get the sport established. Playing in Japan is mostly a lark for the American players, but the games are taken very seriously by the Japanese. In the first two games, the MLB All-Stars have lost, greatly pleasing the locals.

I don’t begrudge the Japanese fans their David and Goliath fantasies, but calling the U.S. team “All-Stars” is misrepresentation. For example, one of the pitchers who got clobbered in the last game, a 9-6  contest that began with the Japanese team jumping out to a 9-0 lead, was a Red Sox pitcher named Brian Johnson. I like Johnson, a crafty swing-man who had some good moments last season, but he’s a lifetime 6-6 pitcher who was left off the Red Sox post-season roster, and will have to battle to stay in the majors next season. I know you can’t sell tickets if the U.S. team is called the “All the players we could talk into coming to Japan Team,” but that’s what it is.

2. Tit for Tat  may be funny, but it’s not ethical. Representative Dan Crenshaw, the veteran who was mocked last week on Saturday Night Live for his disfiguring war wound, appeared on the show last night to mock the appearance of his tormenter, Pete Davidson. Crenshaw was unusually poised for a pol on a comedy show, and the bit successfully got Davidson and SNL, which had been widely criticized for its nasty routine, off the hook. Clever. Successful. Funny. Still wrong, however. This represents an endorsement of Donald Trump ethics, as well as the endlessly repeated rationalization for the non-stop ad hominem attacks the President has inflicted on him daily by the news media and others. The President famously—infamously around here—has always said that if you attack him, he’ll attack you back harder. His haters argue, in turn, that their tactics are justified by his. This is how the culture got in the escalating spiral to Hell it is in. I don’t blame Crenshaw: if he hadn’t accepted the invitation to get funny revenge on Davidson, he would have looks like a petty jerk. Nonetheless, he has now officially become part of the problem, not just a victim of it.

3. Stop making me defend President Trump Dept.  You see, I am kicked around on Facebook for not just falling meekly into line and declaring that everything Donald Trump does is an outrage and proof that he should be impeached. I tell you, it’s tempting. The mass bullying campaign to herd everyone into the undemocratic effort to overthrow an elected President using relentless criticism and flagrant double standards has been effective in stifling others, and it also serves as a kind of mass cultural hypnosis. I don’t like defending Trump. He is doing serious damage to his office, as are his unhinged foes, who are apparently willing to destroy the nation, democracy, and the Constitution to “save” it from him. But I will not be intimidated out of pointing out the revolting pettiness, hypocrisy and unfairness of his critics. Two examples surfaced yesterday.

• An esteemed commenter wrote, “Did you know that Trump sold a Medal of Freedom to Sheldon Adelson’s wife?” I’m sure the commenter really believes this, but it is false, and unfair. The accusation is based on President Donald Trump decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom  to the wife of one of the Republican Party’s most prominent patrons. Mrs. Adelson has performed some community services, but there is no doubt that her husband’s contributions are the main reason she is receiving the honor. That does not mean the honor was “sold.” Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, said: “The Medal of Freedom has always been awarded based on service, as the award is intended. Trump uniquely envisions government service as a business for self-enrichment, and so it comes as no surprise at all that Trump would award an otherwise honorable medal to Adelson on the grounds of who gives him the most money.”

This is so disingenuous it gives me cramps. As is often the case, Trump does openly and defiantly what other Presidents have done with more guile. I looked at Barack Obama’s use of the same award, and I say “use” with purpose. Presidents use that award to appeal to various voting blocs, mollify critics, and to reward party loyalty. To suggest that the awrd is an objective measure of service or the quality and quantity of a citizen’s contributions to the nation and society is laughable.

Obama gave medals to Barbra Streisand (not Angela Lansbury), Robert Redford (not Jack Nicholson) , Meryl Streep (not Jodie Foster); Stephen Spielberg (not Martin Scorsese)—and Robert DeNiro (not Al Pacino). Huh…why them? You know why: each has been a major donor or fundraiser for the Democratic Party. That alone elevated them above other equally or more qualified recipients on a non-partisan basis. No, they didn’t “buy” their honors. But without the cash, those honors would have been given to someone else.

Like most awards and honors, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a PR tool, and has no integrity whatsoever. I don’t disagree that the award being awarded to Mrs. Adelson is the among most flagrant example of this yet, but the “I’m shocked–shocked!” hypocrisy of Democrats is ridiculous.

• Worse, however, is the faux social media outrage over President Trump cancelling a scheduled commemoration at a French cemetery for soldiers and marines killed during World War I yesterday. The White House cited the rain and security issues. The usual anti-Trump chorus on Facebook and Twitter as well as some officials in Britain and the United States that Trump had “dishonored” U.S. servicemen.

Most of the social media furies could name a single battle of the Great War. Ask them about Alvin York or “Black Jack” Pershing, and they almost certainly will answer “Who?” The rest of the world honors Armistice Day; the U.S. has effectively erased the war and our war dead from its collective memory, now making it a day to honor all living veterans. (Memorial Day honors the dead ones.) The schools don’t teach World War I. While there are elaborate and much-visited public memorials in Washington, D.C. to World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, even the Spanish American War, the city’s World War I memorial is small, virtually unvisited, and hidden away. If you saw this picture, would you know what it was?

The President is 72 years old. He isn’t in France to honor veterans; that was just a ceremonial event added to his schedule. Maybe he didn’t feel well. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he, or his advisors, felt that he needed to conserve his energy rather than stand in a French drizzle. I don’t know, but I, unlike the vicious anti-Trump mob, don’t presume the worst possible interpretation of everything the President of the United States does. What are they doing to honor the veterans of the Great War? There’s a WWI memorial in most U.S. cities, or close by. Are they visiting it? Why not? The President sent a representative to yesterday’s ceremony. That’s sufficient.

The pettiness, and the fact that it never ends and that its purveyors never tire of it, is what I take away from this non-scandal.