Bella Abzug, Superstar?

Reading a very, very long story in last Sunday's New York Times about the clash of feminism and the civil rights movement in the Democratic presidential campaign (oh, the humanity!), THE SCRAPBOOK's eyes were hypnotically drawn to the photograph used to illustrate the piece. It shows the late Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.), Gloria Steinem, and Jesse Jackson, evidently standing in a congressional hearing room sometime in the early 1970s.

THE SCRAPBOOK was, at first, delighted by the spectacle. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, and this photograph provides one salient reason. There is Rep. Abzug, wearing her trademark hat, but also encased in a wallpaper-style, broad-checked skirt and clunky belt. Beside her, in what looks like a form-fitting Danskin leotard and tinted aviator glasses, stands feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Keep this vision in mind the next time you see Ms. Steinem receiving yet another Ivy League honorary degree.

Jesse Jackson's appearance speaks for itself. From the tip of his carefully coiffed Afro to the crease in his stone-washed jeans, the Reverend Jackson's appearance fairly screams SEVENTIES! to the innocent reader. There's the droopy, Fu Manchu mustache, the mutton-chop sideburns, the vest with the tasseled rings for buttons--all exquisitely accessorized with that gigantic medallion around his neck. (Remind us, the next time we bump into the Reverend Jackson, to ask him where that medallion is today.)

But then, THE SCRAPBOOK's mood turned serious. To begin with, there's a fourth celebrity in the picture, just to Jackson's left, that the Times doesn't identify in its cutline. But THE SCRAPBOOK could hardly fail to recognize Dr. George Wiley (1931-1973), founder and head of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Dr. Wiley was a near-constant presence in progressive circles in those days, deploying his brigades of welfare matrons to "sit-in" at beleaguered social service agencies around the country. It tells us something of the tenor of the times that there could be a protest organization devoted to welfare "rights," and it tells us something about the present moment that the Times leaves Dr. Wiley (deliberately?) unmentioned.

Come to that, THE SCRAPBOOK was startled to observe that the Times identifies these dubious political actors as "superstars of their eras." Superstars to whom? Bella Abzug could not be elected to the U.S. Senate from that bluest of blue states, New York--losing the 1976 Democratic primary to Daniel Patrick Moynihan--or win a campaign for mayor of New York City, or even return to Congress from Manhattan or Westchester County. And while Gloria Steinem and Jesse Jackson--and, we suppose, Dr. George Wiley--have their admirers, they are a distinct, and shrinking, minority of Americans.

You have to operate in pretty rarefied circles--or a left-wing echo chamber--to think of Abzug, Jackson, and Steinem as "superstars" of any era.

Oh, and by the way, is that Dr. Benjamin Baby and Child Care Spock (1903-1998) looming over Ms. Abzug's left shoulder?

New Matthews Show to Launch: Softball

The Associated Press reports on Chris Matthews's apology for saying that Hillary Clinton's political success is owed to the fact "that her husband messed around":

Matthews discussed those remarks at the opening of his show 'Hardball' Thursday, the same day feminist leader Gloria Steinem and the heads of four prominent women's groups complained in a letter to his boss that Matthews had shown a pattern of sexism. "Was it fair to imply that Hillary's whole career depended on being a victim of an unfaithful husband? No," Matthews said. "That's what it sounded like I was saying and it hurt people I'd like to think normally like what I say [and], in fact, like me."

If that's his hardball, send him back to the minors.

Good Education News . . . No Joke

A tip of THE SCRAPBOOK homburg to the three high school sophomores in Racine--Connor Leipold, Tim Pastika, and Kyle Simpson--who were notified last week that the faint, blurry dot they spotted in successive digital images from a Calvin College telescope is in fact a previously undiscovered asteroid.

An email from Pastika to the Volokh Conspiracy blog sheds more light on the achievement:

My classmates and I were recently given a choice between making a color picture (of nebulas, stars, etc.) or looking for new asteroids. Personally I thought that searching for asteroids would be so much cooler than making a picture because we might actually discover something new. However, many of the classmates were scared off by the thought of extra homework. The funny thing is we probably had to do less work than any of the other students.

Kudos, as well, to their science teacher, Calvin College alum Andrew Vanden Heuvel, for setting up the project.