Compassion, Dignity, Love, Honesty, Service and more

My Sunday movie was this afternoon, the 1922 silent film Robin Hood starring Douglas Fairbanks. As was the case a few days ago it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater with live piano accompaniment by David Drazin. This was quite an ambitious film for the time, 2:15 in length and includes many large crowd scenes. It was also the most expensive at that time. And it’s a good one. It also does a good job of explaining the Robin Hood story. The story opens with King Richard the Lion-Hearted preparing to head off for the Crusades. The Earl of Huntingdon (Fairbanks) does well in a jousting match and Richard appoints him as his second in command. Before they leave Huntingdon encounters Lady Marian. Prince John, Richard’s brother, knows he will rule England while Richard is gone and connives to make sure Richard and Huntingdon don’t return. And John is a tyrant. Huntingdon hears about it and leaves Richard to return to England, where he becomes Robin Hood, stealing from the rich (John and his allies) and giving to the poor (the commoners oppressed by John). They build a community in the Sherwood Forest, actually a pretty good response to tyrants. From there it is all about defeating John and his allies and returning Richard to the throne. There are, of course, lots of plot twists and close calls along the way and lots of battle scenes, both big and small. In all a pleasant day to spend the afternoon. I’ve now heard two silent film accompaniments by David Drazin. This one required him to play nonstop for 2:15. Alas, I’m not all that impressed with his music. I didn’t think it highlighted the emotions of the score all that well. Fairbanks was so athletic in this movie I had to look up how old he was when it was made. Wikipedia says he was born in 1883, so 39 when it was released. I came home from the movie to read the news that Jimmy Carter died. “Jimmy Who?” The Atlanta newspaper quipped when he announced his run for president in 1976. His time as president is now being assessed as much better than voters thought in 1980 when they replace him with Reagan. There are a lot of summaries of his life online, such as this one by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos. Navy officer. Governor of Georgia. President of the United States, where he achieved a peace deal between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, but was thwarted by the Iran hostage crisis. Then came the work of the Carter Center. Monitoring elections around the world. Nudging governments towards democracy. Pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Building homes through Habitat for Humanity. Routinely teaching Sunday School. And that’s barely the highlights. Meteor Blades, Kos Emeritus, pulled together quotes about Carter. One of those is by Kate Riga at TPM:

Some found Carter to be prescient, almost prophetic, in his concern about climate change and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some found him to be ahead of his time in his diversification of the federal judiciary and preservation of wide swaths of Alaskan wilderness. Some found him to be distinctly unsung, with little attention given to his brokering of peace with the Camp David Accords and emphasis on global human rights. And some just liked him. A serious, intelligent, faithful, deeply honest man who spurned political expediency and burned through hundreds of pages of memos a day, he preached self-restraint, stewardship and commonality to an electorate that cast him off four years later for the glib excesses of Ronald Reagan.

His concern for climate change included putting solar panels (maybe for heating water) on the roof of the White House. Reagan removed them. When Carter went into hospice care, 22 months ago, there were a flurry of articles and cartoons praising him. I saved many to use when he died (which I thought would be in just a few months) and lost a few in the turmoil of social media sites. Chris Britt drew a cartoon of Habitat for Humanity houses Built by Jimmy Carter labeled Grace, Compassion, Dignity, Humility, Faith, Love, Honesty, Courage, and Service. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote in March 2023 that in 1980 Ben Barnes, the youngest speaker of the Texas House went with Gov. John Connally to the Middle East to convince Iran not to release the hostages. This was part of a plan to get Reagan elected. At the time of this article Barnes told the story, saying, “History needs to know that this happened.”

The plot was simple enough. Connally and Barnes traveled “to one Middle Eastern capital after another” over the summer of 1980, as U.S. hostages were being held in Tehran. On every one of those stops, they passed along the same message for the new leadership in Iran: Don’t make a deal with Carter. Wait for Reagan. He’ll give you a much better deal. When they arrived back in the United States, Connolly checked in with Reagan’s campaign chair, and future Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Casey. For his role in “torpedoing” Carter’s chance at reelection, Connolly hoped to be rewarded with the job of Secretary of State. He was not. Completely ignored in this strategy was that every day of captivity put the lives and health of the hostages in Iran at risk. In addition, the military planned and attempted to execute a rescue operation in which eight U.S. service members died and another four were injured. Prolonging the crisis created a risk every day to the lives of those in Iran, and to members of the U.S. military. It also created ongoing harm to U.S. standing abroad and to national security in general.

Ted Littleford posted a cartoon. On one side is the nasty guy wearing a MAGA hat and the caption “The Republican idea of what Jesus would do.” On the other side is Carter in a Habitat hat and holding a hammer and drill with the caption, “The Democratic idea of what Jesus would do.” In an article from April 2023 Walter Einenkel of Kos listed links to 27 stories about Carter. Just a few titles: Jimmy Carter is the voice of sanity and morality in a nation that’s dying for lack of either. Unstoppable Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter heading to Nashville for Habitat for Humanity’s 2019 project. 44 years ago, on his first full day in office, Jimmy Carter pardoned draft resisters, including me. Jimmy Carter calls for a return to publicly funded elections. Jimmy Carter: “Jesus would approve gay marriage.” An AP article from May 2023 discussed the stories of three political prisoners that Carter rescued from dictators. An AP article from June 2023 discussed the close relationship Carter had with the family of Martin Luther King. Towards the end is this:

During the first half of Carter's long life, “he had to navigate in a society, in a culture where, as a white person, you were expected to hate and see Black people in a very demeaning way,” Bernice King said. Considering the whole of his life, she said, “I think he managed that very well.”

JekylInHyde of the Kos community posted cartoons and memes in tribute to Carter. My favorite is in the comments. It shows a photo of Carter at a Habitat build with the caption, “This is what it looks like when a real Christian actually does something to make America great again.” I’m relieved that Biden is the one to preside over Carter’s funeral. That other guy wouldn’t show the proper respect. And Carter very much deserves that respect. Paul Berge’s cartoons regularly appear in gay newspapers. In March 2023 he created a cartoon of Carter’s words from a Huffington Post interview in 2012. I saw it in Between the Lines. Carter says that Jesus never said gay people should be condemned. Jesus reached out to people who were despised. Carter concluded:

The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasize that we should go to and share with them our talent, our ability, our wealth, our influence. Those are the things that guide my life.

In the cartoon Jesus replies:

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jimmy Carter very much understood what Jesus taught us.