Archive for March 15th, 2012

March 15th, 2012

Whither The Ides of March

by Marie

   Mort de César, Vincenzo Camuccini, 1798

Caesar:
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

Caesar:
What man is that?

Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Julius Caesar
Act 1, scene 2, 15–19

The narrative from E-notes on Shakespeare quotes:

It is Lupercalia, an ancient Roman religious holiday. Caesar, the Roman  dictator, makes his appearance before the “press” (crowd) in the streets. From out of the crowd, a soothsayer issues his famous warning. And Caesar, a very superstitious man, isn’t the sort to take a soothsayer lightly.

The “ides” of March is the fifteenth; which day of the month the ides is depends on a complicated system of calculation Caesar himself established when he instituted the Julian calendar, a precursor of our own. The ides of January, for example, is the thirteenth; the ides of March, May, July and October is the fifteenth.

The importance of the ides of March for Caesar is that it is the day he will be assassinated by a group of conspirators, including Brutus and Cassius. Despite numerous and improbable portents—the soothsayer’s warning, some fearsome thundering, his wife’s dreams of his murder, and so on – Caesar ventures forth on the ides to meet his doom.

Shakespeare borrowed this scene, along with other details of Caesar’s demise, from Plutarch’s Life of Julius Caesar.  An English translation was readily available, but its precise phrasings weren’t quite dramatic enough for Shakespeare’s purposes. Where he has the soothsayer declaim, “Beware the Ides of March,” the more prosaic original notes merely that the soothsayer warns Caesar “to take heed of the day of the Ides of March.”

Thus,  the soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar - ”Beware the Ides of March” – has forever marked that date and those words with a sense of  foreboding.

This play was popular with my  Sophomore English classes “back in the day” at Lowell High School. Is it still read and discussed?

CategoryCulture, Education, History, Politics | Comment2 Comments »

March 15th, 2012

Mr. Smith leaves Wall Street: all hail the non-Gordon Gekko by Marjorie Arons-Barron

by Tony

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons -Barron’s own blog.

Memo to Elizabeth Warren: wrap your arms around Greg Smith and get him to endorse your candidacy. The just departed Goldman Sachs vice president slammed the door loudly when he walked out, faulting the culture of overbearing greed at the Wall Street giant. According to Smith, everything at Goldman Sachs was about profit and nothing was about the well-being of the clients, who were referred to in a variety of disparaging ways, obviously behind their backs.

A key question is whether and to what extent Smith, a South African native (of Lithuanian Jewish heritage) and Stanford grad, had raised questions inside the firm about its contempt for its clients. If he had, his concerns still might have fallen on deaf ears. But that would make all the more understandable his dramatic op ed declaration in yesterday’s New York Times about why he was voluntarily leaving his $500,000 job. Perhaps not surprisingly, today’s Wall St. Journal dealt with the story only in a single article on how Goldman Sachs is doing damage control. Columnist David Weidner mocks Smith’s apparently recent discovery about Goldman’s longstanding business practices, noting “such idealism is only a priority after the profits have been booked.”

Reportedly Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said a couple of years ago that the company “is doing God’s work.” He may be alone in his theology. It played a key role in the financial meltdown, partly by repackaging securities, slicing them and dicing them, selling the garbage to unsuspecting clients and then betting against them in the marketplace. Goldman Sachs has denied any wrongdoing even when a judge thought differently.

In corporate culture, Smith’s public criticism is a no-no, a sign of extreme disloyalty, which could make it difficult for him to find other employment on Wall Street. That’s the buzz in the financial media. But, if I were a Wall St. CEO and had confidence that my company performed according to high ethical standards, I might want to hire him immediately as a marketing distinction. That would send a message that a firm can have its client’s interests in the forefront and that we can, indeed, do well by doing good. Alas, that may be too much to ask.

I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts in the comments section below.

CategoryUncategorized | CommentNo Comments »

March 15th, 2012

1989 Lowell St Patrick’s Day Breakfast

by DickH

Back by popular demand, two clips of the late Ken Harkins at the podium for the 1989 St Patrick’s Day breakfast in Lowell. Ken is truly missed, especially when this breakfast rolls around each year:
 

 

CategoryHistory, Lowell | Comment3 Comments »

March 15th, 2012

Lowell’s Franco-American School

by DickH

One of the regular stops on my Lowell Cemetery tour is the grave of Frederick Ayer. Mr. Ayer and his brother, James C. Ayer, attained enormous wealth and success through the sale of patent medicine. Frederick branched out into other areas, becoming the primary owner of the American Woolen Company which owned more than 60 mills throughout New England, including those involved in the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence. Also of note; Frederick’s daughter Beatrice in that same year married a young Army cavalry officer named George S. Patton (which is why there is a portrait of that famous World War Two general handing in the lobby of the Lowell Memorial Auditorium). When the Frederick Ayer family lived in Lowell, they resided in a large brick house at the corner of Pawtucket and School Street. The house, pictured above, is familiar to us today as the front portion of Lowell’s Franco-American School.

Because I’m constantly mentioning the Franco-American School in my historic talks, I’m happy to pass along news of an upcoming event sponsored by the school. On Friday, April 27, 2012 at 7 pm at Mt. Pleasant Golf Club, the Franco-American School will hold its annual fund raising auction, this year with a Wild West theme. More information about the event is available here.

CategoryHistory, Lowell | Comment1 Comment »

March 15th, 2012

Bread & Roses Strike in Lowell

by DickH

Lawrence undoubtedly is the name that comes to mind whenever the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 is discussed, but there was also an associated strike in Lowell that year, known to historians as The Lowell Textile Strike of 1912. On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 6 pm at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum (115 John St, Lowell), a number of Lowell-centered organizations will present a program on the Lowell strike. To register or for more information, contact the Tsongas Industrial History Center at 978/970-5080 or tihc@uml.edu.

CategoryHistory, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

March 15th, 2012

Massachusetts Loses Maine “Missouri Compromise” of 1820

by Marie

MassMoments reminds us that today’s state of Maine began as a separate colony in the 1620s but from the 1650s until 1820, it was part of Massachusetts. The selling of  public land in Maine for debt relief in the 1790s saw the landscape and demographics change. As thousands of families from Massachusetts flocked to northern and interior Maine, the center of life was no longer  focused just on the southern coastal tip  – and like Massachusetts on shipping and trade. Discontent fanned talks of separatiom and independence. Finally, in the summer of 1819, the people of Maine voted so overwhelmingly for statehood that Massachusetts could no longer ignore the issue. However, the question was not just in the hands of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts – the agreement for statehood required approval of the President and the U. S. Congress.  The issue of slavery reared its ugly head.

On This Day...

      …in 1820, Massachusetts lost over 30,000 square miles of land as its former province of Maine gained statehood. Mainers had begun campaigning for statehood in the years following the Revolution. The Massachusetts legislature finally consented in 1819. What no one in either Massachusetts or Maine foresaw, however, was that Maine’s quest for statehood would become entangled in the most divisive issue in American history — slavery. Most Mainers supported abolition. They were dismayed that their admission to the Union was linked to the admission of Missouri as a slave state. This controversial “Missouri Compromise” preserved — for a few more decades — the delicate balance between pro- and anti-slavery forces in the U.S. Congress.

Read the full article here at Massmoments.org.

CategoryGreater Lowell, History, Politics | CommentNo Comments »