And Angela Davis is still alive, too? Incredible! I mean, some of us still remember the Marin County courthouse shootout, and are not highly inclined to forgive or forget. And yet, even though many of us own deer rifles, Angela Davis is still alive. So much for the claim that we right-wingers are the dangerous, violent, and oppressive people.
Strom Thurmond isn't the only survivor of the 1948 presidential campaign. Pete Seeger makes an appearance in the volume of Mencken's journalism on the campaign of that year. Seeger made a musical appearance -- which Mencken praised -- at the Progressive (i.e., Commie) Party convention that nominated Henry Wallace.
He's in his eighties. I know this because I actually heard his appearance at the rally last Saturday, while listening in my car to the coverage of the rally on WBAI, N.Y.'s long-lived Commie-front "free radio" station.
He said something like, "I can't sing too good anymore as an 80-year-old man, you'll all have to help me by joining in..." and he then proceeded to mutilate "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in a most cringe-worthy fashion.
Not to make fun of the elderly, but, aah, screw it. He couldn't remember the words and whatever voice he once had went bye-bye long ago, like his common sense. He mostly warbled the words while strumming one chord on his guitar, all the while goading the crowd of freezing idiots to sing along. His style was hilariously like a geriatric William Shatner, declaiming the lyrics ("where TREES made out of LEMON DROPS...").
It went on and on, with the crowd attempting half-heartedly to sing along while clearly begging for it to mercifully end, as I was doing.
It was the funniest thing I ever heard. There's gotta be a tape of it somewhere on the Net.