Richard Nixon and His 1975 Grand Jury Testimony

Thanks to a federal judge's ruling, President Richard Nixon's 1975 grand jury testimony has been released to the public. The comments so far are fascinating. In the excerpt noted in today's LA Times, Tricky Dick talks about the buying and selling of ambassadorships, the quality of State Department careerists, and Nixon's opinion of certain nations.

Who needs memoirs when Nixon's grand jury testimony is far more compelling reading?

The photograph shows Prescott Bush, father of George H.W. Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush, fixing Richard Nixon's lid.

Adobe Waves White Flag Over Flash for Mobile Browsers

Adobe HQ in San Jose

Adobe, which had been called out by the late Steve Jobs over its Flash platform for mobile browsers, called it quits today. The firm pulled the plug on Flash for mobile browsers and (intriguingly) TV. It will instead focus on cloud computing, "service," and subscription based initiatives. The move could end up being the smartest thing Adobe ever did, but time will tell.

The "Good Morning Silicon Valley" column from siliconvalley.com is pretty good, although some of the zdnet.com commentators also offer some useful insights into the Adobe announcement. Meanwhile, in our "recession-was-so-last-year" economy, Adobe will let ten percent of its workforce go.

Two Pennsylvania Joes -- Frazier and Paterno -- RIP

Joe Frazier Connecting Against Ali

This was a tough day for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as two of its sports icons died.

One was the former heavyweight champion of the world, Joe Frazier. He died from liver cancer at age 67. "Smokin' Joe" fought the honorable fight against cancer and against other adversaries throughout his life. He'll always be associated with Muhammad Ali and their three justly famous bouts. Later, when Frazier struggled, especially financially, he carried himself with a champion's dignity. "Work is the only meanin' I've ever known," Frazier once said, according to today's New York Times obit.

Billy Joe Frazier (the champ's full name) was a decent man cast into the indecent world of big-time boxing and media. The corruption that sullied others, such as Ali's self-seeking entourage, did not personally stain Frazier (his backers are another story). I work with someone who knew Frazier and has a faded photo of the champ tenderly holding my colleague's infant grandson. As with many who make their living in the demimonde of violent entertainment, Frazier was gentle outside the arena. He also understood and fought for certain ideals. No one openly questioned Joe Frazier's integrity -- except Muhammad Ali. Events have proven that Ali's accusations were unfair, willful distortions designed to excite the public and a mostly cynically adoring (and mostly Caucasian) media.

As today's LA Times obit demonstrates, Joe Frazier left this earth with dignity, the respect of his peers, and the attention of the world. The other Pennsylvania Joe, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, cannot say that. It is ironic that Joe Frazier would be universally hailed while Joe Paterno would be universally scorned. However, today's revelations in philly.com and elsewhere that Paterno's former right hand man sexually molested pre-teen and teenage boys for years kills "JoePa," both professionally and personally. There's no excuse, no "oops," no fall guy for Paterno's apparent willful negligence. Decades of achievement, a program that resisted financial corruption, a rare "clean" head coach -- all of it has come crashing down with a startling, disturbing "thud." Now a man who probably could have won for governor of Pennsylvania and won in a landslide vote cannot walk down the street without a great sense of humiliation and guilt. It is a shocking finale for a coach who holds the record for most college football victories. Much more troubling is Paterno's impact on the boys whose lives were marred by JoePa's silence. They know -- in ways that cannot be eradicated -- that Mr. Clean let the devil loose in his own house, a world over which Paterno had nearly complete control. The dishonor and shame will stay with Paterno for the remainder of his days, and linger after he has passed.

In the third, epic Ali-Frazier fight outside Manila, Smokin' Joe's trainer Eddie Futch waved the white flag before the beginning of the 15th and final round. "Sit down," he said. "It's all over. Nobody will ever forget what you did here today." Those moving words were true -- and remain true -- for Joe Frazier. They also are true, but in a dark way, for the disgraced Joe Paterno.

Camping Out in Starbucks

In the unlikely setting of Fox Business, an article discusses "Starbucks Etiquette." I don't think the piece was a well-written one. However, the topic was a clever choice and does touch on a phenomenon obviously apparent to anyone walking into a Starbucks.

The article notes that some people make plans to stay for hours at a Starbucks. Some of them use the coffee shop as a sort of mobile office. Some have nowhere else to go. Others really do patronize Starbucks for the coffee. What do you do?

I've done my share of hanging out in a Starbucks. I meet people there, particularly in New York. Few friends and acquaintances can afford the disturbingly high price of a more refined New York cup of coffee. Diners, once a City mainstay, are vanishing faster than gas stations in the suburbs. That eliminates venues for a cheap cup of coffee and the implicit compact that one can linger at diner counter seating. Given the dreadful economic realities of life in Gotham (and elsewhere in the United States), where else can I indulge in my version of cafe society?

I hold to a theory that most adults go to Starbucks because they grew up going to McDonald's. They're used to the experience and truly only feel comfortable in a contemporary environment similar to the one in which they were socialized. Is that why someone would pay five dollars for a custom-made latte?

For the record, I'm not writing this at a Starbucks. I'm not writing it in a McDonald's, either. But I'm comfortable where I am now -- in bed.

Sandra Day O'Connor Going Strong at 81

Chief Justice Warren Burger Swearing In Sandra Day O'Connor, 1981

For a long time, I thought that Supreme Court justices were similar to popes. Their confidence in the strength of their own arguments paralleled a belief in their own legal infallibility. They all seemed ancient, as pontiffs do. Popes don't retire; the Supremes typically don't, either.

The refreshing exception was Sandra Day O'Connor. She retired to take care of her ailing husband. Her legal perspective came from a rancher's life, unique for top-tier judges and elite attorneys. (By contrast, four Supreme Court justices spent their formative years in New York City.) She was also the first female Supreme Court justice, placed into nomination by conservative Ronald Reagan.

The Washington Post ran a feature on O'Connor, with the lead noting her recent visit to the National Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. It's a good story to read, and includes her controversial advocacy for electing judges versus appointing them.

"Lost" Steve Jobs Interview To Appear in Selected US Movie Theatres

Steve Jobs, circa 1997

Yesterday's LA Times reported that an allegedly "lost" video interview with the late Steve Jobs will be shown in nineteen movie theaters across the United States. The footage, shot during Jobs' curious interregnum between his Apple management tours, came from the 1996 miniseries Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires.  The Times story and a related siliconvalley.com article provide details; each piece is worth reading for their unique spins on the film's release.

The stories share a common element -- Mark Cuban and the Landmark Theatres chain which he owns. Cuban has skin in the tech game, the media game, and the entertainment game (via the NBA Dallas Mavericks and his interest in acquiring a major league baseball franchise).

Cuban's ownership stake, if any, in the movie, was not noted in either media story.

If you want to believe the cover story related to siliconvalley.com about the "lost" film, be my guest. The article states that a VHS copy of the filmed material, left in a garage for over a decade, was the basis for the soon-to-be-released film. I'm not buying it. VHS tapes stored in uncontrolled environments for prolonged periods of time tend to deteriorate. Garages, even in Silicon Valley, have temperature control issues. The Times' version cites a different origin of the material.

What's most interesting, of course, is that Jobs is not around to threaten or initiate litigation to stop the viewing. It's safe to say that Jobs' "passion" for control -- and his fangs -- would have quickly emerged.

Getty Museum's Legal Issues Over Armenian Bible Continue

Detail from circa 13th Century Armenian Bible

In recent years, top-layer museums have become embroiled over holdings which, in certain cases, have dodgy provenance. Marquee names, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, have made splashy settlements over allegations of harboring looted artifacts and treasures. A repeat actor in the art world's mercantile shadows is LA's Getty Museum. Its most recent controversy involves a legal fight over custody of beautiful pages of a nearly eight-century-old illuminated Armenian Bible.

The LA Times reported today on a judge's recent decision to encourage the opposing parties in the lawsuit to "compromise."  What that means is anyone's guess. The Times story does a good job of summarizing the case, its background, and its context in the larger, thorny issue of the right to acquire and keep portions of another nation's artistic patrimony. If you think the question is one of simple morality, just take a moment to imagine the Louvre without its "found" works. (Napoleon, for example, did a splendid job moving art work to the museum. The French government has not returned any of it, at least that I'm aware of.)

I don't know where the justice is in the current lawsuit against the Getty Museum. However, we all can take a moment to admire the exquisite artwork at the heart of the case. (The above image is a detail of one of the pages at issue in the court proceedings.) The pages were certainly created by a wonderful artist, who in all likelihood was a true believer in the spiritual world embedded in the Bible. We are fortunate that this work, and other artistic  from distant epochs, remain available and visible to us today.

The Fiction of the GOP's Voter Fraud Claims

Today's Miami Herald includes a report on US Senator Bill Nelson's request for a Federal inquiry into new voting laws recently enacted in various states. The purpose of the new laws, Nelson suspects, is to muzzle likely Democratic Party voters. In most cases, Republican governors or GOP-controlled legislatures have put new statutes on the books which mandate heightened identification requirements for voter registration.

The GOP stance on this issue is that they're simply trying to prevent "massive" voter fraud and to thwart illegal immigrants from casting ballots in American elections. I wondered where these enormous numbers of fake voters could be found. I've voted, with the exception of one year, annually for more than three decades. I've voted in squalid inner cities and prosperous suburbs. I grew up in a small, very Republican town. I was too young to vote at that time, but my parents did vote and took the privilege seriously. They got accustomed to the election officials wearing GOP badges inside the polling area. No one ever complained or called the ACLU.

In all of these venues, the concept of waves of people appearing en masse at a polling station was simply a ridiculous notion. Those experiences led me to conclude that Republican efforts to inhibit the right to vote to as many people as possible is simply shameful. The action casts doubt on the validity of the Republican claim (especially the Tea Party faction's assertion) that they represent the majority of Americans. If that claim were true, the Republicans would want to register as many people as possible, so as to add the weight of numbers to their argument.

The Miami Herald article notes that investigations of voter fraud conducted over the years have conclusively shown the GOP assertions to be without merit. Among the probes was a federal investigation during the George W. Bush regime. (That investigation was especially ironic, given GOP's high-stakes voter fraud in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.) Yet, the Republican Party's baseless allegations continue, with plenty of people buying into them.

Voting is fundamentally connected to the rights of free speech and assembly. In the iterations of Occupy (fill in the blank), municipalities have squirmed over enabling these constitutionally guaranteed rights. What the Occupy phenomenon has brought to light is that those rights need to be reasserted, regardless of political perspective.

Volvo Says Goodbye to Station Wagons

In the movie Crazy People, Dudley Moore cooks up an ad campaign based on telling consumers the truth.  One of his pigeons is Volvo, for which Moore uses the hook line "Buy Volvos: They're Boxy, But They're Good." It's a funny sequence which you can see via this YouTube link.

The square, sensible Volvo station wagon lampooned in Crazy People, alas, has met its end. Volvo's new Chinese owners have decided to stop producing arguably Volvo's most iconic automobile. The story, as reported in Yahoo! Autos, also notes other auto headed for termination, including Ford's Crown Victoria. (Those who kept a wary eye out for unmarked cars were characteristically attentive when they spotted a dark colored Crown Vic in their rearview mirror.)

For years, Volvo station wagons were associated with politically liberal, somewhat prosperous people. My unscientific survey suggested that crowd moved over to hybrid vehicles a few years ago. Ironically, hybrids tend to be boxy. Sometimes, they're even good.