November 4, 2022 • 40 mins
EPISODE 70: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: It goes without saying Trump should not merely already be under indictment - he should be under 24/7 guard in a SuperMax Prison. But he's not. So we have to view last night's leak about the Department of Justice considering a Special Trump Counsel as "good news." (2:45) CNN's report says the Special Counsel would be appointed as soon as Trump officially declares he's running (he came close last night at one of his Cult Rallies) (3:53) CNN also reported something strange: that DOJ has hired two high-priced prosecutors in advance, just in case they do decide to prosecute. Are you kidding? Who does this? You don't hire guys away from Law Firm Partnerships 'just in case' (5:55) Plus CNN discovered one of the hirings because the guy UPDATED HIS LINKED-IN PROFILE! (8:23) In actual stuff that's happened, CREW, which got a New Mexico County Commissioner removed from office for insurrection based on the 14th Amendment, says it will sue to get Trump similarly barred from serving (11:00) All of which leads me to invoke 19th Century British Prime Minister William E. Gladstone and an immortal quote about him supplied by one of his fiercest critics, Henry Labouchere.
B-Block (14:25) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Calto, in New York (15:17) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Golly, I guessed right: Elon Musk IS willing to sell YOUR Twitter identity to somebody else. I think we call this "blackmail." Plus CNBC fires Shepard "I Come From A Town Full Of Secrets" Smith. (17:54) IN SPORTS: World Series Game 5 Nailbiter; maybe those Phillies Powder Blue unis aren't good luck; and an imperfection in Don Larsen's 1956 Perfect Game you may not know about. Finally, Kyrie Irving is suspended. (24:37) WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A lawyer age-shaming the victim in an indecent exposure case and a medical school that played with the 1918 Influenza vie with Laura Ingraham for the honors
C-Block (29:57) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: "The Luck Of Jad Peters."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
It goes without saying that Donald Trump should not merely
(00:27):
already be under indictment. He should already be under seven
guard in a super max prison. But he is not.
And so we have to view last night's leak from
the Justice Department that it is considering a special Trump
counsel as good news. Any movement is good news. Any
leak is good news. Any pushback against the narrative that
(00:47):
you cannot prosecute the greatest criminal in American history because
he was president is good news. CNN quoted sources familiar
with the matter who said that d o J officials
have debated naming a prosecutor a special counsel when Trump
makes his campaign to seize power again official. As you know,
(01:08):
he has been pretending he was not running since noon
on January. Last night in Iowa, he told one of
his cult rallies that he will quote very very very
probably do it again. So they should get ready. You bet.
Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely
spark a political firestorm. CNN notes, ignoring that not indicting
(01:32):
this active candidate for the White House would also surely
spark a political firestorm and don't call me surely quote.
While no decision has been made about whether a special
counsel might be needed in the future, d o J
officials have debated whether doing so could insulate the Justice
Department from accusations that Joe Biden's administration is targeting his
(01:53):
chief political rival. Obviously, you and I already know what
CNN does not when Trump is prosecuted, and the use
immunity that Justice gave his Lackey cash part l on
Wednesday is more support for the timeline of an espionage
indictment in the first week of January when he is prosecuted.
Nothing will insulate the Justice Department because Trump's supporters in
(02:16):
the Republican Party, in the other seditionist and terrorist organizations
of this country, in the brainwashing media led by Fox
News and news Max, they will self martyr as they
self martyr over anything related to Trump. It is their essence.
But there are two other details in the CNN Special
Council story that continued to point to impending indictments of Trump,
(02:40):
and I don't even think the CNN reporters understand what
they have here more than what they describe as signs
of activity inside that sleepy little town of Garlandville. Quoting
their story, the Justice Department is also staffing up its
investigations with experienced prosecutors, so it's ready for any decisions
(03:02):
after the mid terms, including the potent ential unprecedented move
of indicting a former president. Who does that, who does
it in that sequence, who first hires very expensive lawyers
before making the decision whether or not to use them,
Not even the government is that wasteful. The CNN story
(03:24):
notes the move I've noted here the reassignment of terrorism
and espionage prosecutor David Raskin from the January six insurrection
beat to the Trump Stolen Documents beat, but it adds
a second, previously unreported roster expansion. David Rhodi, a prosecutor
turned defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy
(03:45):
cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators, has joined
the Department of Justice conspiracy cases. You say government cooperators,
You say cash Patel, You say turns out in a
previous spin in the U. S. Attorney's Office for the
Southern District of New York, this I Rhodie prosecuted terrorism,
(04:07):
money laundering, bribery, racketeering, and good old obstruction of justice.
Sounds like Trump's kind of guy. But wait, there's more,
CNN adds Mr Rohadi quote left a lucrative partnership at
the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks
to become a senior counsel at d o J in
(04:29):
the Criminal Division in Washington, according to his linked In profile.
According to his LinkedIn profile, come on forgetting for a
moment the absurdity of that. How did you find out
they added a conspiracy prosecutor in the Trump group? Well?
I saw it on his LinkedIn profile. The question repeats itself,
(04:53):
Who does this? Who gets a high priced corporate defense
attorney to quit a partnership to join the Department of
Justice just in case, maybe on the off chance they
finally decide to prosecute Trump. Perhaps they did not hire
Dave Rhody back from White Shoe Law Partners, Inc. To
(05:16):
have him sit around inside the glass which they can
break in case of an emergency. When Garland flips a
coin and it comes up heads. I will give far
right critics of the Justice Department's handling of this these
last few weeks. Credit for one thing. Well placed individuals
inside d o J have done a pretty damn good
(05:37):
job of getting around this ludicrous do nothing, say nothing
that might affect any election. You and I know it
is ludicrous because doing nothing, saying nothing in and of
itself affects the election. But if you didn't want to
stick to the rule, you didn't have to go leaking everything.
You could have indicted Trump when it became clear he
had stolen documents detailing another nation's nuclear capabilities, and stolen
(06:01):
documents about China and Iran, and stolen documents that would
give way U s intelligence assets and maybe get some
of our spies and moles and sources killed. So still,
we try to be of good cheer, even as we
recognize that earlier action, earlier recognition that Trump's tenure in
the Whitehouse should make the willingness to prosecute him stronger
(06:23):
and not weaker, might have impacted the mid terms in
some positive way. I was asked yesterday by a reporter
why I keep pounding CNN's new management for trying to
keep its news coverage straight down the middle. I pointed
out that when one party is dedicated to preserving democracy
even for when they themselves lose elections, and the other
(06:46):
party is dedicated to destroying democracy even when they win elections.
Covering them both straight down the middle is like taking
the same journalistic and ethical approach to the murderer and
the murder victim, pending whatever the Justice Department does. Hang on,
let me see if anybody is updated their linked in
(07:07):
profile to I just indicted Trump, pending what they may
or may not do. The strongest action against him to
date has just been made by the Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics in Washington CREW, which said yesterday that when
Trump does formally declare his bid to again take over
our country, Crew will sue to get him disqualified from
(07:30):
ever again holding office. This, of course, would be under
section three of the fourteenth Amendment, which originally barred Civil
War Confederate leaders from trying to regain power in the
Union by disqualifying anyone who had engaged in insurrection against
the Constitution when they had sworn to protect the Constitution.
It sounds like a ridiculously long shot, but Crew has
(07:52):
already made it stick. When a new Mexico judge ordered
Coy Griffin a January six, insurrectionist removed from his position
as County Commissioner of Otero County. There it is useful
to periodically remind ourselves that all of this is still
as insane as it was the day Trump came down
that goddamned escalator in the lobby of the Bad Taste
(08:16):
Building over here on Fifth Avenue a week ago. This morning,
a fervent maga lunatic, a believer in the big lie
about the election, a q and on cultist of Pizza
Gate idiot in short, one of Donald Trump's henchman, broke
into the home of the Speaker of the House of
(08:36):
Representatives with the intention of torturing her with a hammer
until she told him some kind of truth he wanted
to hear, and when she was not there, he instead
fractured her husband's skull and then admitted to police on
tape that this was a political suicide mission to stop
the Democrats and their quote lies coming out of Washington.
(08:57):
D C. And his party's candidates are favored to take
the House or the Senate or both next Tuesday instead
of scratching into prison walls. How many more years they
have to serve before they are eligible for parole. It
is madness, and it results from the good guys playing
(09:19):
by the rules while the fascists break all of them
and wine when caught and fundraise on getting away with it.
And so I am thinking today of the nineteen century
British Liberal Member of Parliament Henry la Boucher, who complained
of the ceaselessly pious and infinitely holier than now Prime
(09:40):
Minister W. E. Gladstone quote. I don't object to Gladstone
always having the ace of Trump's up his sleeve, but
merely to his belief that the Almighty put it there
(10:08):
still ahead. Basketball's Kyrie Irving suspended finally for anti semitism.
I told you Ellen Musk's idea of selling blue check
marks was blackmail, and now it turns out, yeah, it's blackmail.
In the wake of the dubious World Series No Hitter,
there's something about the nine World Series Perfect Game that
was anything but perfect. You've probably never heard about it before.
(10:30):
Prosecute officials who made bad COVID decisions, Laura Angram says,
does she know who the lead official was who made
the bad COVID decisions? And it's Friday's with Thurber this
time his story of the man who boasted one time
too many about how good fortune was saving him from disaster.
The luck of Jad Peters coming up. That's next. This
(10:52):
is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead.
Laura Ingram wants to prosecute government officials who left up
the COVID pandemic. You mean, like uh Trump, I gotta say,
(11:15):
I did not see that coming. And as predicted, Elon
Musk is going to blackmail public figures. Pay me for
your authentication check mark, or maybe I'll sell your identity
to somebody else. Worst person's coming up first. In each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom
you can help. Every dog has its day. Do not
let cal Too's breed pitbull mislead you. He was a
(11:36):
spray and his reaction to people feeding him in the pound.
He wags his tail, he takes the treat gently, he
doesn't tense up. He's grateful for every act of kindness,
and he likes the other dogs. He does not like
being on death row at the New York Pound. It
is a nightmare there. On top of the usual overcrowding
and rushed to kill, there's a pneumonia outbreak. Calto's only
(11:57):
chance to get out as if we pledge to help
a rescue group pull him out. He has almost no
pledges right now. He's a good dog. Where his only chance.
If you can play edge, do so by replying to
my tweets, either in my personal account or he will
be the pinned tweet in my account for dogs in need.
Thank you for helping Calto and for retweeting him. Pot
(12:25):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions, dateline San Francisco. As I guessed the other day,
Elmo Muskrat's plan to sell Twitter blue check marks to
anybody who asks is not populism nor fairness. It's blackmail.
The New York Times has seen internal documents. The new
form of blue checks will not involve verified identities. You
(12:49):
will not have to prove you are you. You will
only have to go pay Elmer. In other words, if
I don't give him eight bucks a month to be
Keith Olberman with a check mark, you can give him
eight bucks a month and you can be Keith Olberman
with a check mark. What Elston hasn't counted on, of course,
is that if he does that to say I don't
know Taylor Swift. She could then sue him for eleven
(13:11):
billion dollars. The Times also reports Elbert wants to partner
with celebrities to let tweeters pay to send them direct messages.
Congrats Elon Musk if just invented stalking prediction. At this rate,
Twitter will be down to four d and fourteen users
by next May date. Line Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. CNBC
(13:32):
has canceled The News with Shepherd Smith. It is the
latest of about two hundred different programs the network has
tried since the Clinton Lewinsky scandal ended and it moved
Chris Matthews to MSNBC. I mean, I'm being serious about this,
but this represents something bigger. For at least fifteen years,
various executives at NBC News, at MSNBC, at CNBC were
(13:55):
Jones ng like you wouldn't believe to hire Shepherd Smith's
mostly because of his ratings at Fox News, just as
they hired Megan Helly because of her ratings at Fox
News and Greta ancest In because of her ratings at
Fox News, without ever once recognizing that the Fox audience
would watch an ice cube melting if the ice cube
(14:16):
could insult liberals and demean minorities. Shepherd Smith rarely did
any of that stuff, but ratings wise, he slipped streamed
around such programs. Either way, this does permit me to
repeat the Saturday Night Live two thousand eleven sketch punchline
with Bill Hayters Shepherd Smith. It's either the seventh or
eighth GOP debate. Good evening. I'm Shepherd Smith, and I
(14:39):
come from a Town full of Secrets and date line
twelve eleven sixth Avenue, New York City, front page of
its website last night about the release of Paul Pelosi
from the hospital, with the headline at Fox News reading
Nancy Pelosi addresses husband's quote assault on quote by suspected
(14:59):
illegal immigrant. That address again is twelve eleven sixth Avenue.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(15:23):
is countdown with Keith in Sports Game five, Jeremy pain
your the rookie shortstop who was so good the Houston
Astros let Carlos Korea walk singled in the first run,
then homered for the second one, and then Philadelphia native
Chas McCormick made a leaping catch for the Astros against
the center field fence for the game's pen ultimate out,
(15:45):
as Justin Verlander ended his World Series winless streak that
stretched back to the year two thousand and six. The
Astros beat the Phillies three to two, and that's how
much they now lead the World Series by. As it
shifts back to Houston for Game six Saturday night, what
happened to that Phillies to one lead. It was noted
that this was the first time the Phillies had worn
(16:07):
their powder blue uniforms in a World Series game since
Game two of the series of Night three, which I
covered for CNN. What most observers left out of that
observation was as Game two of the nineteen eighty three
World Series began, the Philadelphia Phillies had just upset the
Dodgers three games to one to make the series. They
had won fifteen of their last eighteen regular season games,
(16:30):
and they had just beaten the Orioles in Game one
to take a one nothing lead in the nineteen eight
three World Series, and then overnight they turned from the
hottest team in baseball into a squad of old timers.
The Phillies lost four games in a row to lose
the World Series in five. They only scored seven runs
in those four games. That winter. They got rid of
(16:51):
future Hall of famers Pete Rose, Tony Perez, and Joe Morgan.
I'm guessing on Rose I could get in in the
year sixty two. They also got rid of outfielders Gary
Matthews and Bob Darner, and pitchers Larry Christensen, Willie Hernandez,
and Ron Reid. Didn't reach the Series again for another decade.
And another note about the combined no hitter by the
Astros in Game four of the World Series on Wednesday Night,
(17:13):
at which I was not alone in taking a lot
of shots. In fairness, I should take this opportunity to
point out that the only one picture no hitter in
World Series history, the Perfect Game in the World Series
by Don Larson of the Yankees, was aided by a
vital fact that got lost in the folds of history
until a kinescope of the TV broadcast of Larsen's Perfecto
(17:36):
was discovered in two thousand nine. In the third inning,
the play by play announcer Mel Allen asks the director
of the broadcast to pan the crowd in the bleachers
at Yankee Stadium Alan notes that the demand for tickets
was so large that day sixty four thousand, five nineteen
fans attended. Sixty four thousand. The Yankees did something unusual
(17:59):
to make a little more money. They took down the
so called batter's eye in underfield and they sold hundreds
of bleacher seats that usually would not be sold because
you'd be sitting behind this giant tarpel and called the
batter's eye and short in a day game with the
crisp New York October combination of sun and shadow, the
big black square that batters would see behind the picture
(18:23):
as he releases the ball. Put there so they can
see him release the ball. It was not there that day.
The background as consecutive Brooklyn Dodger hitters got nothing off
Don Larson, was people, many of them in white shirts.
With that realization, the real achievement on that day was
not Don Larson's perfect game. It was the fact that
(18:45):
his Yankee teammates somehow managed to get five hits off
Sal Magley. The picture of the Brooklyn Dodgers, including a
home run by Mickey Mantle, Thank you, Nancy Faust. And
(19:09):
finally somebody did something about Kyrie Irving. The Kanye West
of the National Basketball Association. He has been suspended indefinitely
by his team because they say he is quote currently
unfit to be associated with the Brooklyn nets Man. For
that to be true, you have to be really unfit.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had asked for an apology about
(19:31):
the anti Semitic associations Irving had made, and he did
not get it. And then reporters asked Irving for a
straight up yes or no? Do you have anti Semitic beliefs? Now?
The correct answer to that question, if it ever comes
up in your life ten million times out of ten million,
even if you really do, the correct answer is always no,
(19:53):
I don't. But Kyrie Irving could not bring himself to
say even that having anti Semitical leagues. Again, I'm gonna repeat,
I don't know how the label becomes justified because you
guys asked me the same questions over and over again.
But this is not going to turn into a spinner
house cycle of questions upon questions. I tells you, guys
(20:16):
how I felt. I respect all walks of life and
embrace all walks of life. That's where I sit. I
think people want yes or no, I cannot be anti
Semitic if I know where I come from. I cannot
be anti Semitic if I know where I come from,
(20:37):
or being suspension will last at least five games. He
knows where he's going for the five games, while he
is confident he knows where he comes from, or whatever
that garbage was, he said. The FBI last night was
busy warning citizens of nearby New Jersey of credible information
of a broad threat to synagogues in that state. Two
other important notes from sports. The greatest punter in the
(20:59):
history of football, college or pro has died. Ray Guy
of Southern Mississippi and the gun Raiders was seventy two.
He'd been sick for a while. In fourteen years, he
had three punts blocked and more than his punts landed
inside the opposition's twenty yard line. And Sunday is the
New York City Marathon. Runners can usually rely on the
(21:20):
usual early November temperatures high forties, low fifties. The forecast
for Sunday somewhere around seventy degrees with eighty five percent humidity.
Good luck out their kids ahead Fridays with Thurber and
(21:49):
his relative who used to boast about how something told
him to avoid the sinking ship for the collapsing lumber yard,
and then one day that's something stopped warning him. The
luck of Chad Peters coming up first, the daily round
Up with the miscreants, morons and Donning crew refect specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze
(22:10):
the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. I know this will
feed into COVID paranoia, but you know, don't. Don't worry
about that, worry about this. The website The Intercept reports
that on the first Friday of September in two thousand eleven,
a researcher in a lab a block from Central Park
in New York was working on an experiment with a ferret,
(22:31):
and the ferret had been infected with the influenza strain,
the first pandemic, the one that killed maybe fifty million
people worldwide. The ferret bit the scientist, and bit so
hard that it went through two pairs of gloves and
broke skin. I'm thinking the ferret was mad at being
infected with the influenza strain. Anyway, the problem here is
(22:54):
Mount Sinai responded by giving the researcher a flu shot,
giving him a respirator mask and a prescription for tamiflu,
and sending him home. Obviously he did not wind up
spreading it around the world and causing a new round
of flu in two thousand November. That's not the point.
They never found a good treatment for that flu let
(23:16):
alone a vaccine, so why is anybody screwing around with it?
Let it lie dormant. The runner up. William J. Briggs
the second, the attorney for Josh Primo, the player the
San Antonio Spurs dumped last week at the repeated accusations
that he indecently exposed himself to multiple women, at least
three of them, including the team's psychologist, Dr Hillary Coffin.
(23:41):
The team did not renew Dr Coffin's contract, and she
said yesterday she would now file criminal complaints, and she
sued the San Antonio Spurs and the player Primo, saying
Primo exposed himself to her nine different times. Primo's attorney
Briggs with this response to imply the doctor was coming
(24:01):
on to Primo, quoting Briggs in an act of betrayal
against her young client. Dr Coffin, who is forty years
Old falsely claims Josh Primo exposed himself. Dr Coffin's allegations
are either a complete fabrication, a gross embellishment, or utter fantasy. Wow,
(24:22):
so age shame the woman claims she lied or was
having a fantasy about this basketball kid. It's an interesting
strategy by Primo hiring a lawyer who might be a
bigger scumbag than he is. But our winner or Ingram
a new kick for Eva Braun with a Fox show
and a deviated septum. Prosecuting governor government officials for their
(24:46):
bad responses to COVID Now amnesty from the CONVID police,
she wrote in a retweet zero. This was a retweet
of her own video segment from her Fascist Festival show,
which itself asked the rhetorical question she had Darren me,
amnesty for officials who made this asterians call bitness, Asians
(25:06):
prosecuting officials who made disastrous COVID decisions. I have to
say I did not see Laura Ingram coming out in
favor of indicting Trump for how he handled the pandemic.
Laura Drake that bleach Ingram two days worst person in
(25:28):
the world to the number one story on the countdown,
and this being the Friday edition, this is the day
I give you a break from my endless career reminiscences
(25:49):
that takes us to the morning of August three, and
instead I bring you some of the timeless classics of
James Thurber. Thurber wrote a lot about his family, and
has time has gone by, especially since his death, we
have found doubt that his family promptly wrote a lot
back to and about him, and a lot of those
writings had swear words in them. Thurber's brothers were particularly
(26:14):
unhappy with how they were portrayed, even though their names
were changed in all the stories. Other family members said
a lot of the stories that Thurber wrote were often
well embellished. But in Thurber's defense, it's fiction. It's supposed
to be embellished. That's why they paid him for it.
Otherwise it would be stenography. I mean, I really would
(26:35):
not bet money that the luck of Jad Peters from
thurber collection The Middle Aged Men on the Flying Trampiez.
And what a title that is, The middle Aged Man
on the Flying Trapeeze. I'm not gonna bet money that
this is accurate, especially the finale. But so what not?
(26:56):
Long ago a book was actually put out that tries
to present the facts of each of the James Thurber
stories about his family, about his life in Columbus, Ohio,
about his marriages. It's interesting, but kind of misses the point.
Maybe it's true, maybe it ain't, but it certainly is
the luck of Jad Peters by James Thurber. Aunt Emma
(27:21):
Peters at eighty three, the year she died, still kept
in her unused front parlor on the table with Jad
Peters's collection of lucky souvenirs a large, rough fragment of rock,
weighing perhaps twenty pounds. The rock stood in the center
of a curious array of odds and ends. A piece
of tent canvas, a chip of pine wood, a yellow telegram,
(27:45):
some old newspaper clippings, the cork from a bottle, a
bill from a surgeon. Aunt Emma never talked about the
strange collection, except once during her last days, when somebody
asked her if she wouldn't feel better if the rock
were thrown away. Let it stay where Elizabeth put it,
She said, all that I know about the souvenirs I
(28:07):
have got from other members of the family. A few
of them didn't think it was decent that the rock
should have been part of the collection, but Aunt Lizabeth,
Emma's sister, had insisted that it should be. In fact,
it was Aunt Lizabeth Banks who hired a man to
lug it to the house and put it on the
table with the rest of the things. It's as much
(28:30):
God's doing as that other cladded chap, she would say,
and she would rock back and forth in her rocking
chair with a grim look. You can't taunt the lard,
she would add. She was a very religious woman. I
used to see her now and again at funerals, tall, gaunt, grim,
but I never talked to her if I could help it.
She liked funerals, and she liked to look at corpses,
(28:53):
and that made me afraid of her. Just back of
the souvenir table at Aunt Emma's on the wall hung
a heavy framed full length photograph of Aunt Emma his
husband Jad Peters. It showed him wearing a hat and
overcoat and carrying a suitcase. When I was a little
boy in the early nineteen hundreds and was taken to
(29:15):
Aunt Emma's house near Sugar Grove, Ohio, I used to
wonder about that photograph. I didn't wonder about the rock
and the other objects, because they weren't put there until
much later. It seemed so funny for anyone to be
photographed in a hat and overcoat and carrying a suitcase,
and even funnier to have the photograph in large to
(29:36):
almost life size and put inside so elaborate frame. When
we children would sneak into the front parlor to look
at the picture, Aunt Emma would hurry us out again.
When we asked her about the picture, she would say,
never you mind. But when I grew up, I learned
the story of the big photograph and of how Jad
(29:56):
Peters came to be known as Lucky Jad. As a
matter of fact, it was Jad who began calling himself
that once. When he ran for a county office and lost,
he had Lucky Jad Peters printed on his campaign cards.
Nobody else took the name up, except in a scoffing way.
(30:17):
It seems that back in when Jad Peters was about
thirty five, he had a pretty good business of some
kind or other, which caused him to travel around quite
a lot. One week, he went to New York with
the intention of going on to Newport later by ship.
Something turned up back home, however, and one of his
employees sent him a telegram reading, don't go to Newport, Urgent,
(30:37):
you return here. Jad's story he was that he was
on the ship ready to sail, and the telegram was delivered.
It had been sent to his hotel, he said, a
few minutes after he had checked out, and an obliging
clerk had hustled the messenger boy on down to the dock.
That was Jad's story. Most people believed when they heard
(30:58):
the story that Jad had got the wire at his hotel,
probably hours before the ship sailed, for he was a
great on an adorning a tail at any rate, whether
or not he rushed off the ship just before the
gang plank was hauled up, its sailed without him, and
some eight or nine hours out of their harbor, it
sank in a storm, with the loss of everybody on board.
(31:19):
That's why he had the photograph taken and enlarged. It
showed him just as he was when he got off
that ship, he said, And that is how he came
to start his collection of lucky souvenirs. For a few years,
he kept the telegram and the newspaper clippings of the
ship disaster tucked away in the family Bible, but one
(31:39):
day he got them out and put them on the
parlor table under a big glass bell. From eight up
until nine, when Jad died, nothing much happened to him.
He is remembered in his later years as a garrulous,
boring old fellow whose business slowly went to pieces because
of his lack of industry, and who finally settled down
on a small farm near sugar Grove and barely scraped
(32:01):
out an existence. He took to drinking in his sixties
and from then on made Aunt Emma's life miserable. I
don't know how she managed to keep up the payments
on his life insurance policy, but some way or other
she did. Some of her relatives said among themselves that
it would be a blessing if Jad died in one
of his frequent fits of nausea. It was pretty well
(32:25):
known that Aunt Emma had never liked him very much.
She married him because he asked her to twice a
week for seven years, and because there had been absolutely
nobody else she cared about. She stayed married to him
on account of their children, and because her people always
stayed married. She grew in spite of Jad to be
a quiet, kindly old lady as the years went on,
(32:45):
although her mouth would take on a strained, tight look
when Jad showed up at dinner time from wherever he
had been during the day, usually from down at Prentice's
store in the village, where he liked to sit around,
telling him about the time he just barely got off
the domed boat in New York Harbor, and adding tales
more or less fantastic of more recent close escapes he
(33:08):
had had. There was his appendicitis operation. For one thing,
he had come up out of the ether, he would say,
just when they had given him up. Dr Benham, who
had performed the operation, was annoyed when he heard this,
and once met Jad in the street and asked him
to quit repeating the preposterous story. But Jad added the
(33:29):
doctor's bill to his collection of Talisman's anyway. And there
was the time when he had got up in the
min idol of the night to take a swig of
stomach bitters for a bad case of heartburn, and had
got hold of the carbolic acid bottled by mistake. Something
told him he would say to take a look at
the bottle before he uncorked it, so he carried it
to a lamp, lighted the lamp, and he'd be goddamn
(33:50):
if it wasn't carbolic acid it was. Then he added
the cork to his collection. Old Jad got so that
he could figure out lucky escapes for himself in almost
every disaster and calamity that happened in and around her grove. Once,
for example, a tent blew down during windstorm at the
Fairfield County Fair, killing two people and injuring a dozen others.
(34:14):
Jad hadn't gone to the fair for the first time
in nine or ten years that year. Something told him
he would say to stay away from the fair that year.
The fact that he always went to the fair when
he did go on a Thursday, and that the tent
blew down on a Saturday didn't make any difference to Jad.
(34:36):
He hadn't been there, and the tent blew down and
two people were killed. After the accident, he went to
the fairgrounds and cut a piece of canvas from the
tent and put it in the parlor table next to
the cork from the carbolic acid bottle. Lucky Jad Peters.
I think Aunt Emma got so that she didn't hear
(34:58):
Jad when he was talking, except on evenings when neighbors
dropped in, and then she would have had to take
hold of the conversation. Shouldn't steer it away from any
opening that might give Jad a chance to tell of
some close escape he had had. But he always got
his licks in. He would bind his time creaking back
and forth in his chair, clicking his teeth, not listening
(35:21):
much to the talk about the crops and begonias and
the latest reports on the Spencer's feeble minded child. And
then when there was a long pause, he would clear
his throat and say that that reminded him of the
time he had a mind to go down to Pulland's
lumberyard to fetch home a couple of two by forest
(35:41):
to show up the chicken house, Will sir. He had
potted around the house a little while and was about
to set out for Pullands when something told him not
to go a step. And it was that very day
that a pile of lumber in the lumberyard let go
and crushed Grant Pullan's legs, so it had to be amputated,
will sir, he would say. But Aunt Emma would cut
(36:06):
in on him at this point. Everybody's heard that old chastnat,
she would say, with a forced little laugh, fanning herself
in quick strokes with an old palm leaf fan Dad
would go sullen and rock back and forth in his chair,
clicking his teeth. He wouldn't get up when the guests
rose to go, which they always did at this juncture.
(36:27):
The memento of his close escape from the Poland lumber
Yard disaster was, of course, the chip of pine wood.
I think I have accounted now for all of Jad's
souvenirs that I remember, except the big rough fragment of rock.
The story of the rock is a strange one. In
August County engineers were widening the channel of the Hocking
(36:50):
River just out of the side of Sugar Grove, and
had occasion to do considerable blasting out of riverbed rock.
I have never heard Clem Warden tell the story himself,
but it has been told to me by people who have.
It seems that him was walking along the main street
of Sugar Grove at about a quarter to four when
he saw Jad coming along toward him. Clem was an
(37:11):
old crony of Jad's, one of the few men of
his own generation who could tolerate Jad and the two
stopped on the sidewalk and talked. Clem figured later that
they talked for about five minutes, and then either he
or Jad said something about getting on, so they separated,
Jad going on towards Prentice's store slowly on account of
his rheumatic left hip, and Clim going in the other way.
(37:35):
Clem had taken about a dozen steps when suddenly he
heard Jad called him, say clam, Jad said. Clem stopped
and turned around, and there was Jad walking back toward him.
Jad had taken about six steps when suddenly he was
flung up against the front of Matheny's Harness store like
a sack assault, as Clem put it. By the time
(37:56):
Clem could reach him, he was gone. He never knew
what hit him, Clem said, and for quite a few
minutes nobody else knew what hit him either. That somebody
in the crowd that gathered found the big muddy rock
lying in the road by the gutter. A particularly big
shot of dynamite set off in the river bed had
hurtled the fragment through the air with terrific force. It
(38:18):
had come flying over the four story Jackson building like
a cannon ball, and it had struck Jad Peters squarely
in the chest. I suppose old Jad had not been
in these grave two days before. The boys at Prentices
quit shaking their heads solemnly over the accident and began
making funny remarks about it. Cal Gregg's was the funniest, well, Sir,
(38:44):
said Cal. I don't suppose none of us will ever
know what it was now, but something must have told
Jad to turn around. The luck of Jad Peters by
James thurber Well, Sir, and then all the diamonds I
(39:15):
can do here. Thanks for listening. Follow this podcast. If
you're not doing so already, Tell a friend, stop a neighbor,
punch a passers by. We're number one among news and
political podcasts not produced by any network. I'm greedy, I
want more. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninthier, was arranged, produced and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
(39:36):
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle. Guitarist based in drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been
arranged and performed by no horns allowed. The sports music
is the Alderman theme from ESPN two, which was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy a ESPN Inc. Musical comments
(39:57):
from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was John Deane and well sir, everything else
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while
we still can. A new episode on Monday. Until then
(40:18):
on Keith Alderman, Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and well sir,
good luck. Countdown with Keith old Reman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(40:39):
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
It goes without saying that Donald Trump should not merely
(00:27):
already be under indictment. He should already be under seven
guard in a super max prison. But he is not.
And so we have to view last night's leak from
the Justice Department that it is considering a special Trump
counsel as good news. Any movement is good news. Any
leak is good news. Any pushback against the narrative that
(00:47):
you cannot prosecute the greatest criminal in American history because
he was president is good news. CNN quoted sources familiar
with the matter who said that d o J officials
have debated naming a prosecutor a special counsel when Trump
makes his campaign to seize power again official. As you know,
(01:08):
he has been pretending he was not running since noon
on January. Last night in Iowa, he told one of
his cult rallies that he will quote very very very
probably do it again. So they should get ready. You bet.
Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely
spark a political firestorm. CNN notes, ignoring that not indicting
(01:32):
this active candidate for the White House would also surely
spark a political firestorm and don't call me surely quote.
While no decision has been made about whether a special
counsel might be needed in the future, d o J
officials have debated whether doing so could insulate the Justice
Department from accusations that Joe Biden's administration is targeting his
(01:53):
chief political rival. Obviously, you and I already know what
CNN does not when Trump is prosecuted, and the use
immunity that Justice gave his Lackey cash part l on
Wednesday is more support for the timeline of an espionage
indictment in the first week of January when he is prosecuted.
Nothing will insulate the Justice Department because Trump's supporters in
(02:16):
the Republican Party, in the other seditionist and terrorist organizations
of this country, in the brainwashing media led by Fox
News and news Max, they will self martyr as they
self martyr over anything related to Trump. It is their essence.
But there are two other details in the CNN Special
Council story that continued to point to impending indictments of Trump,
(02:40):
and I don't even think the CNN reporters understand what
they have here more than what they describe as signs
of activity inside that sleepy little town of Garlandville. Quoting
their story, the Justice Department is also staffing up its
investigations with experienced prosecutors, so it's ready for any decisions
(03:02):
after the mid terms, including the potent ential unprecedented move
of indicting a former president. Who does that, who does
it in that sequence, who first hires very expensive lawyers
before making the decision whether or not to use them,
Not even the government is that wasteful. The CNN story
(03:24):
notes the move I've noted here the reassignment of terrorism
and espionage prosecutor David Raskin from the January six insurrection
beat to the Trump Stolen Documents beat, but it adds
a second, previously unreported roster expansion. David Rhodi, a prosecutor
turned defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy
(03:45):
cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators, has joined
the Department of Justice conspiracy cases. You say government cooperators,
You say cash Patel, You say turns out in a
previous spin in the U. S. Attorney's Office for the
Southern District of New York, this I Rhodie prosecuted terrorism,
(04:07):
money laundering, bribery, racketeering, and good old obstruction of justice.
Sounds like Trump's kind of guy. But wait, there's more,
CNN adds Mr Rohadi quote left a lucrative partnership at
the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks
to become a senior counsel at d o J in
(04:29):
the Criminal Division in Washington, according to his linked In profile.
According to his LinkedIn profile, come on forgetting for a
moment the absurdity of that. How did you find out
they added a conspiracy prosecutor in the Trump group? Well?
I saw it on his LinkedIn profile. The question repeats itself,
(04:53):
Who does this? Who gets a high priced corporate defense
attorney to quit a partnership to join the Department of
Justice just in case, maybe on the off chance they
finally decide to prosecute Trump. Perhaps they did not hire
Dave Rhody back from White Shoe Law Partners, Inc. To
(05:16):
have him sit around inside the glass which they can
break in case of an emergency. When Garland flips a
coin and it comes up heads. I will give far
right critics of the Justice Department's handling of this these
last few weeks. Credit for one thing. Well placed individuals
inside d o J have done a pretty damn good
(05:37):
job of getting around this ludicrous do nothing, say nothing
that might affect any election. You and I know it
is ludicrous because doing nothing, saying nothing in and of
itself affects the election. But if you didn't want to
stick to the rule, you didn't have to go leaking everything.
You could have indicted Trump when it became clear he
had stolen documents detailing another nation's nuclear capabilities, and stolen
(06:01):
documents about China and Iran, and stolen documents that would
give way U s intelligence assets and maybe get some
of our spies and moles and sources killed. So still,
we try to be of good cheer, even as we
recognize that earlier action, earlier recognition that Trump's tenure in
the Whitehouse should make the willingness to prosecute him stronger
(06:23):
and not weaker, might have impacted the mid terms in
some positive way. I was asked yesterday by a reporter
why I keep pounding CNN's new management for trying to
keep its news coverage straight down the middle. I pointed
out that when one party is dedicated to preserving democracy
even for when they themselves lose elections, and the other
(06:46):
party is dedicated to destroying democracy even when they win elections.
Covering them both straight down the middle is like taking
the same journalistic and ethical approach to the murderer and
the murder victim, pending whatever the Justice Department does. Hang on,
let me see if anybody is updated their linked in
(07:07):
profile to I just indicted Trump, pending what they may
or may not do. The strongest action against him to
date has just been made by the Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics in Washington CREW, which said yesterday that when
Trump does formally declare his bid to again take over
our country, Crew will sue to get him disqualified from
(07:30):
ever again holding office. This, of course, would be under
section three of the fourteenth Amendment, which originally barred Civil
War Confederate leaders from trying to regain power in the
Union by disqualifying anyone who had engaged in insurrection against
the Constitution when they had sworn to protect the Constitution.
It sounds like a ridiculously long shot, but Crew has
(07:52):
already made it stick. When a new Mexico judge ordered
Coy Griffin a January six, insurrectionist removed from his position
as County Commissioner of Otero County. There it is useful
to periodically remind ourselves that all of this is still
as insane as it was the day Trump came down
that goddamned escalator in the lobby of the Bad Taste
(08:16):
Building over here on Fifth Avenue a week ago. This morning,
a fervent maga lunatic, a believer in the big lie
about the election, a q and on cultist of Pizza
Gate idiot in short, one of Donald Trump's henchman, broke
into the home of the Speaker of the House of
(08:36):
Representatives with the intention of torturing her with a hammer
until she told him some kind of truth he wanted
to hear, and when she was not there, he instead
fractured her husband's skull and then admitted to police on
tape that this was a political suicide mission to stop
the Democrats and their quote lies coming out of Washington.
(08:57):
D C. And his party's candidates are favored to take
the House or the Senate or both next Tuesday instead
of scratching into prison walls. How many more years they
have to serve before they are eligible for parole. It
is madness, and it results from the good guys playing
(09:19):
by the rules while the fascists break all of them
and wine when caught and fundraise on getting away with it.
And so I am thinking today of the nineteen century
British Liberal Member of Parliament Henry la Boucher, who complained
of the ceaselessly pious and infinitely holier than now Prime
(09:40):
Minister W. E. Gladstone quote. I don't object to Gladstone
always having the ace of Trump's up his sleeve, but
merely to his belief that the Almighty put it there
(10:08):
still ahead. Basketball's Kyrie Irving suspended finally for anti semitism.
I told you Ellen Musk's idea of selling blue check
marks was blackmail, and now it turns out, yeah, it's blackmail.
In the wake of the dubious World Series No Hitter,
there's something about the nine World Series Perfect Game that
was anything but perfect. You've probably never heard about it before.
(10:30):
Prosecute officials who made bad COVID decisions, Laura Angram says,
does she know who the lead official was who made
the bad COVID decisions? And it's Friday's with Thurber this
time his story of the man who boasted one time
too many about how good fortune was saving him from disaster.
The luck of Jad Peters coming up. That's next. This
(10:52):
is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead.
Laura Ingram wants to prosecute government officials who left up
the COVID pandemic. You mean, like uh Trump, I gotta say,
(11:15):
I did not see that coming. And as predicted, Elon
Musk is going to blackmail public figures. Pay me for
your authentication check mark, or maybe I'll sell your identity
to somebody else. Worst person's coming up first. In each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom
you can help. Every dog has its day. Do not
let cal Too's breed pitbull mislead you. He was a
(11:36):
spray and his reaction to people feeding him in the pound.
He wags his tail, he takes the treat gently, he
doesn't tense up. He's grateful for every act of kindness,
and he likes the other dogs. He does not like
being on death row at the New York Pound. It
is a nightmare there. On top of the usual overcrowding
and rushed to kill, there's a pneumonia outbreak. Calto's only
(11:57):
chance to get out as if we pledge to help
a rescue group pull him out. He has almost no
pledges right now. He's a good dog. Where his only chance.
If you can play edge, do so by replying to
my tweets, either in my personal account or he will
be the pinned tweet in my account for dogs in need.
Thank you for helping Calto and for retweeting him. Pot
(12:25):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions, dateline San Francisco. As I guessed the other day,
Elmo Muskrat's plan to sell Twitter blue check marks to
anybody who asks is not populism nor fairness. It's blackmail.
The New York Times has seen internal documents. The new
form of blue checks will not involve verified identities. You
(12:49):
will not have to prove you are you. You will
only have to go pay Elmer. In other words, if
I don't give him eight bucks a month to be
Keith Olberman with a check mark, you can give him
eight bucks a month and you can be Keith Olberman
with a check mark. What Elston hasn't counted on, of course,
is that if he does that to say I don't
know Taylor Swift. She could then sue him for eleven
(13:11):
billion dollars. The Times also reports Elbert wants to partner
with celebrities to let tweeters pay to send them direct messages.
Congrats Elon Musk if just invented stalking prediction. At this rate,
Twitter will be down to four d and fourteen users
by next May date. Line Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. CNBC
(13:32):
has canceled The News with Shepherd Smith. It is the
latest of about two hundred different programs the network has
tried since the Clinton Lewinsky scandal ended and it moved
Chris Matthews to MSNBC. I mean, I'm being serious about this,
but this represents something bigger. For at least fifteen years,
various executives at NBC News, at MSNBC, at CNBC were
(13:55):
Jones ng like you wouldn't believe to hire Shepherd Smith's
mostly because of his ratings at Fox News, just as
they hired Megan Helly because of her ratings at Fox
News and Greta ancest In because of her ratings at
Fox News, without ever once recognizing that the Fox audience
would watch an ice cube melting if the ice cube
(14:16):
could insult liberals and demean minorities. Shepherd Smith rarely did
any of that stuff, but ratings wise, he slipped streamed
around such programs. Either way, this does permit me to
repeat the Saturday Night Live two thousand eleven sketch punchline
with Bill Hayters Shepherd Smith. It's either the seventh or
eighth GOP debate. Good evening. I'm Shepherd Smith, and I
(14:39):
come from a Town full of Secrets and date line
twelve eleven sixth Avenue, New York City, front page of
its website last night about the release of Paul Pelosi
from the hospital, with the headline at Fox News reading
Nancy Pelosi addresses husband's quote assault on quote by suspected
(14:59):
illegal immigrant. That address again is twelve eleven sixth Avenue.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(15:23):
is countdown with Keith in Sports Game five, Jeremy pain
your the rookie shortstop who was so good the Houston
Astros let Carlos Korea walk singled in the first run,
then homered for the second one, and then Philadelphia native
Chas McCormick made a leaping catch for the Astros against
the center field fence for the game's pen ultimate out,
(15:45):
as Justin Verlander ended his World Series winless streak that
stretched back to the year two thousand and six. The
Astros beat the Phillies three to two, and that's how
much they now lead the World Series by. As it
shifts back to Houston for Game six Saturday night, what
happened to that Phillies to one lead. It was noted
that this was the first time the Phillies had worn
(16:07):
their powder blue uniforms in a World Series game since
Game two of the series of Night three, which I
covered for CNN. What most observers left out of that
observation was as Game two of the nineteen eighty three
World Series began, the Philadelphia Phillies had just upset the
Dodgers three games to one to make the series. They
had won fifteen of their last eighteen regular season games,
(16:30):
and they had just beaten the Orioles in Game one
to take a one nothing lead in the nineteen eight
three World Series, and then overnight they turned from the
hottest team in baseball into a squad of old timers.
The Phillies lost four games in a row to lose
the World Series in five. They only scored seven runs
in those four games. That winter. They got rid of
(16:51):
future Hall of famers Pete Rose, Tony Perez, and Joe Morgan.
I'm guessing on Rose I could get in in the
year sixty two. They also got rid of outfielders Gary
Matthews and Bob Darner, and pitchers Larry Christensen, Willie Hernandez,
and Ron Reid. Didn't reach the Series again for another decade.
And another note about the combined no hitter by the
Astros in Game four of the World Series on Wednesday Night,
(17:13):
at which I was not alone in taking a lot
of shots. In fairness, I should take this opportunity to
point out that the only one picture no hitter in
World Series history, the Perfect Game in the World Series
by Don Larson of the Yankees, was aided by a
vital fact that got lost in the folds of history
until a kinescope of the TV broadcast of Larsen's Perfecto
(17:36):
was discovered in two thousand nine. In the third inning,
the play by play announcer Mel Allen asks the director
of the broadcast to pan the crowd in the bleachers
at Yankee Stadium Alan notes that the demand for tickets
was so large that day sixty four thousand, five nineteen
fans attended. Sixty four thousand. The Yankees did something unusual
(17:59):
to make a little more money. They took down the
so called batter's eye in underfield and they sold hundreds
of bleacher seats that usually would not be sold because
you'd be sitting behind this giant tarpel and called the
batter's eye and short in a day game with the
crisp New York October combination of sun and shadow, the
big black square that batters would see behind the picture
(18:23):
as he releases the ball. Put there so they can
see him release the ball. It was not there that day.
The background as consecutive Brooklyn Dodger hitters got nothing off
Don Larson, was people, many of them in white shirts.
With that realization, the real achievement on that day was
not Don Larson's perfect game. It was the fact that
(18:45):
his Yankee teammates somehow managed to get five hits off
Sal Magley. The picture of the Brooklyn Dodgers, including a
home run by Mickey Mantle, Thank you, Nancy Faust. And
(19:09):
finally somebody did something about Kyrie Irving. The Kanye West
of the National Basketball Association. He has been suspended indefinitely
by his team because they say he is quote currently
unfit to be associated with the Brooklyn nets Man. For
that to be true, you have to be really unfit.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had asked for an apology about
(19:31):
the anti Semitic associations Irving had made, and he did
not get it. And then reporters asked Irving for a
straight up yes or no? Do you have anti Semitic beliefs? Now?
The correct answer to that question, if it ever comes
up in your life ten million times out of ten million,
even if you really do, the correct answer is always no,
(19:53):
I don't. But Kyrie Irving could not bring himself to
say even that having anti Semitical leagues. Again, I'm gonna repeat,
I don't know how the label becomes justified because you
guys asked me the same questions over and over again.
But this is not going to turn into a spinner
house cycle of questions upon questions. I tells you, guys
(20:16):
how I felt. I respect all walks of life and
embrace all walks of life. That's where I sit. I
think people want yes or no, I cannot be anti
Semitic if I know where I come from. I cannot
be anti Semitic if I know where I come from,
(20:37):
or being suspension will last at least five games. He
knows where he's going for the five games, while he
is confident he knows where he comes from, or whatever
that garbage was, he said. The FBI last night was
busy warning citizens of nearby New Jersey of credible information
of a broad threat to synagogues in that state. Two
other important notes from sports. The greatest punter in the
(20:59):
history of football, college or pro has died. Ray Guy
of Southern Mississippi and the gun Raiders was seventy two.
He'd been sick for a while. In fourteen years, he
had three punts blocked and more than his punts landed
inside the opposition's twenty yard line. And Sunday is the
New York City Marathon. Runners can usually rely on the
(21:20):
usual early November temperatures high forties, low fifties. The forecast
for Sunday somewhere around seventy degrees with eighty five percent humidity.
Good luck out their kids ahead Fridays with Thurber and
(21:49):
his relative who used to boast about how something told
him to avoid the sinking ship for the collapsing lumber yard,
and then one day that's something stopped warning him. The
luck of Chad Peters coming up first, the daily round
Up with the miscreants, morons and Donning crew refect specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze
(22:10):
the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. I know this will
feed into COVID paranoia, but you know, don't. Don't worry
about that, worry about this. The website The Intercept reports
that on the first Friday of September in two thousand eleven,
a researcher in a lab a block from Central Park
in New York was working on an experiment with a ferret,
(22:31):
and the ferret had been infected with the influenza strain,
the first pandemic, the one that killed maybe fifty million
people worldwide. The ferret bit the scientist, and bit so
hard that it went through two pairs of gloves and
broke skin. I'm thinking the ferret was mad at being
infected with the influenza strain. Anyway, the problem here is
(22:54):
Mount Sinai responded by giving the researcher a flu shot,
giving him a respirator mask and a prescription for tamiflu,
and sending him home. Obviously he did not wind up
spreading it around the world and causing a new round
of flu in two thousand November. That's not the point.
They never found a good treatment for that flu let
(23:16):
alone a vaccine, so why is anybody screwing around with it?
Let it lie dormant. The runner up. William J. Briggs
the second, the attorney for Josh Primo, the player the
San Antonio Spurs dumped last week at the repeated accusations
that he indecently exposed himself to multiple women, at least
three of them, including the team's psychologist, Dr Hillary Coffin.
(23:41):
The team did not renew Dr Coffin's contract, and she
said yesterday she would now file criminal complaints, and she
sued the San Antonio Spurs and the player Primo, saying
Primo exposed himself to her nine different times. Primo's attorney
Briggs with this response to imply the doctor was coming
(24:01):
on to Primo, quoting Briggs in an act of betrayal
against her young client. Dr Coffin, who is forty years
Old falsely claims Josh Primo exposed himself. Dr Coffin's allegations
are either a complete fabrication, a gross embellishment, or utter fantasy. Wow,
(24:22):
so age shame the woman claims she lied or was
having a fantasy about this basketball kid. It's an interesting
strategy by Primo hiring a lawyer who might be a
bigger scumbag than he is. But our winner or Ingram
a new kick for Eva Braun with a Fox show
and a deviated septum. Prosecuting governor government officials for their
(24:46):
bad responses to COVID Now amnesty from the CONVID police,
she wrote in a retweet zero. This was a retweet
of her own video segment from her Fascist Festival show,
which itself asked the rhetorical question she had Darren me,
amnesty for officials who made this asterians call bitness, Asians
(25:06):
prosecuting officials who made disastrous COVID decisions. I have to
say I did not see Laura Ingram coming out in
favor of indicting Trump for how he handled the pandemic.
Laura Drake that bleach Ingram two days worst person in
(25:28):
the world to the number one story on the countdown,
and this being the Friday edition, this is the day
I give you a break from my endless career reminiscences
(25:49):
that takes us to the morning of August three, and
instead I bring you some of the timeless classics of
James Thurber. Thurber wrote a lot about his family, and
has time has gone by, especially since his death, we
have found doubt that his family promptly wrote a lot
back to and about him, and a lot of those
writings had swear words in them. Thurber's brothers were particularly
(26:14):
unhappy with how they were portrayed, even though their names
were changed in all the stories. Other family members said
a lot of the stories that Thurber wrote were often
well embellished. But in Thurber's defense, it's fiction. It's supposed
to be embellished. That's why they paid him for it.
Otherwise it would be stenography. I mean, I really would
(26:35):
not bet money that the luck of Jad Peters from
thurber collection The Middle Aged Men on the Flying Trampiez.
And what a title that is, The middle Aged Man
on the Flying Trapeeze. I'm not gonna bet money that
this is accurate, especially the finale. But so what not?
(26:56):
Long ago a book was actually put out that tries
to present the facts of each of the James Thurber
stories about his family, about his life in Columbus, Ohio,
about his marriages. It's interesting, but kind of misses the point.
Maybe it's true, maybe it ain't, but it certainly is
the luck of Jad Peters by James Thurber. Aunt Emma
(27:21):
Peters at eighty three, the year she died, still kept
in her unused front parlor on the table with Jad
Peters's collection of lucky souvenirs a large, rough fragment of rock,
weighing perhaps twenty pounds. The rock stood in the center
of a curious array of odds and ends. A piece
of tent canvas, a chip of pine wood, a yellow telegram,
(27:45):
some old newspaper clippings, the cork from a bottle, a
bill from a surgeon. Aunt Emma never talked about the
strange collection, except once during her last days, when somebody
asked her if she wouldn't feel better if the rock
were thrown away. Let it stay where Elizabeth put it,
She said, all that I know about the souvenirs I
(28:07):
have got from other members of the family. A few
of them didn't think it was decent that the rock
should have been part of the collection, but Aunt Lizabeth,
Emma's sister, had insisted that it should be. In fact,
it was Aunt Lizabeth Banks who hired a man to
lug it to the house and put it on the
table with the rest of the things. It's as much
(28:30):
God's doing as that other cladded chap, she would say,
and she would rock back and forth in her rocking
chair with a grim look. You can't taunt the lard,
she would add. She was a very religious woman. I
used to see her now and again at funerals, tall, gaunt, grim,
but I never talked to her if I could help it.
She liked funerals, and she liked to look at corpses,
(28:53):
and that made me afraid of her. Just back of
the souvenir table at Aunt Emma's on the wall hung
a heavy framed full length photograph of Aunt Emma his
husband Jad Peters. It showed him wearing a hat and
overcoat and carrying a suitcase. When I was a little
boy in the early nineteen hundreds and was taken to
(29:15):
Aunt Emma's house near Sugar Grove, Ohio, I used to
wonder about that photograph. I didn't wonder about the rock
and the other objects, because they weren't put there until
much later. It seemed so funny for anyone to be
photographed in a hat and overcoat and carrying a suitcase,
and even funnier to have the photograph in large to
(29:36):
almost life size and put inside so elaborate frame. When
we children would sneak into the front parlor to look
at the picture, Aunt Emma would hurry us out again.
When we asked her about the picture, she would say,
never you mind. But when I grew up, I learned
the story of the big photograph and of how Jad
(29:56):
Peters came to be known as Lucky Jad. As a
matter of fact, it was Jad who began calling himself
that once. When he ran for a county office and lost,
he had Lucky Jad Peters printed on his campaign cards.
Nobody else took the name up, except in a scoffing way.
(30:17):
It seems that back in when Jad Peters was about
thirty five, he had a pretty good business of some
kind or other, which caused him to travel around quite
a lot. One week, he went to New York with
the intention of going on to Newport later by ship.
Something turned up back home, however, and one of his
employees sent him a telegram reading, don't go to Newport, Urgent,
(30:37):
you return here. Jad's story he was that he was
on the ship ready to sail, and the telegram was delivered.
It had been sent to his hotel, he said, a
few minutes after he had checked out, and an obliging
clerk had hustled the messenger boy on down to the dock.
That was Jad's story. Most people believed when they heard
(30:58):
the story that Jad had got the wire at his hotel,
probably hours before the ship sailed, for he was a
great on an adorning a tail at any rate, whether
or not he rushed off the ship just before the
gang plank was hauled up, its sailed without him, and
some eight or nine hours out of their harbor, it
sank in a storm, with the loss of everybody on board.
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That's why he had the photograph taken and enlarged. It
showed him just as he was when he got off
that ship, he said, And that is how he came
to start his collection of lucky souvenirs. For a few years,
he kept the telegram and the newspaper clippings of the
ship disaster tucked away in the family Bible, but one
(31:39):
day he got them out and put them on the
parlor table under a big glass bell. From eight up
until nine, when Jad died, nothing much happened to him.
He is remembered in his later years as a garrulous,
boring old fellow whose business slowly went to pieces because
of his lack of industry, and who finally settled down
on a small farm near sugar Grove and barely scraped
(32:01):
out an existence. He took to drinking in his sixties
and from then on made Aunt Emma's life miserable. I
don't know how she managed to keep up the payments
on his life insurance policy, but some way or other
she did. Some of her relatives said among themselves that
it would be a blessing if Jad died in one
of his frequent fits of nausea. It was pretty well
(32:25):
known that Aunt Emma had never liked him very much.
She married him because he asked her to twice a
week for seven years, and because there had been absolutely
nobody else she cared about. She stayed married to him
on account of their children, and because her people always
stayed married. She grew in spite of Jad to be
a quiet, kindly old lady as the years went on,
(32:45):
although her mouth would take on a strained, tight look
when Jad showed up at dinner time from wherever he
had been during the day, usually from down at Prentice's
store in the village, where he liked to sit around,
telling him about the time he just barely got off
the domed boat in New York Harbor, and adding tales
more or less fantastic of more recent close escapes he
(33:08):
had had. There was his appendicitis operation. For one thing,
he had come up out of the ether, he would say,
just when they had given him up. Dr Benham, who
had performed the operation, was annoyed when he heard this,
and once met Jad in the street and asked him
to quit repeating the preposterous story. But Jad added the
(33:29):
doctor's bill to his collection of Talisman's anyway. And there
was the time when he had got up in the
min idol of the night to take a swig of
stomach bitters for a bad case of heartburn, and had
got hold of the carbolic acid bottled by mistake. Something
told him he would say to take a look at
the bottle before he uncorked it, so he carried it
to a lamp, lighted the lamp, and he'd be goddamn
(33:50):
if it wasn't carbolic acid it was. Then he added
the cork to his collection. Old Jad got so that
he could figure out lucky escapes for himself in almost
every disaster and calamity that happened in and around her grove. Once,
for example, a tent blew down during windstorm at the
Fairfield County Fair, killing two people and injuring a dozen others.
(34:14):
Jad hadn't gone to the fair for the first time
in nine or ten years that year. Something told him
he would say to stay away from the fair that year.
The fact that he always went to the fair when
he did go on a Thursday, and that the tent
blew down on a Saturday didn't make any difference to Jad.
(34:36):
He hadn't been there, and the tent blew down and
two people were killed. After the accident, he went to
the fairgrounds and cut a piece of canvas from the
tent and put it in the parlor table next to
the cork from the carbolic acid bottle. Lucky Jad Peters.
I think Aunt Emma got so that she didn't hear
(34:58):
Jad when he was talking, except on evenings when neighbors
dropped in, and then she would have had to take
hold of the conversation. Shouldn't steer it away from any
opening that might give Jad a chance to tell of
some close escape he had had. But he always got
his licks in. He would bind his time creaking back
and forth in his chair, clicking his teeth, not listening
(35:21):
much to the talk about the crops and begonias and
the latest reports on the Spencer's feeble minded child. And
then when there was a long pause, he would clear
his throat and say that that reminded him of the
time he had a mind to go down to Pulland's
lumberyard to fetch home a couple of two by forest
(35:41):
to show up the chicken house, Will sir. He had
potted around the house a little while and was about
to set out for Pullands when something told him not
to go a step. And it was that very day
that a pile of lumber in the lumberyard let go
and crushed Grant Pullan's legs, so it had to be amputated,
will sir, he would say. But Aunt Emma would cut
(36:06):
in on him at this point. Everybody's heard that old chastnat,
she would say, with a forced little laugh, fanning herself
in quick strokes with an old palm leaf fan Dad
would go sullen and rock back and forth in his chair,
clicking his teeth. He wouldn't get up when the guests
rose to go, which they always did at this juncture.
(36:27):
The memento of his close escape from the Poland lumber
Yard disaster was, of course, the chip of pine wood.
I think I have accounted now for all of Jad's
souvenirs that I remember, except the big rough fragment of rock.
The story of the rock is a strange one. In
August County engineers were widening the channel of the Hocking
(36:50):
River just out of the side of Sugar Grove, and
had occasion to do considerable blasting out of riverbed rock.
I have never heard Clem Warden tell the story himself,
but it has been told to me by people who have.
It seems that him was walking along the main street
of Sugar Grove at about a quarter to four when
he saw Jad coming along toward him. Clem was an
(37:11):
old crony of Jad's, one of the few men of
his own generation who could tolerate Jad and the two
stopped on the sidewalk and talked. Clem figured later that
they talked for about five minutes, and then either he
or Jad said something about getting on, so they separated,
Jad going on towards Prentice's store slowly on account of
his rheumatic left hip, and Clim going in the other way.
(37:35):
Clem had taken about a dozen steps when suddenly he
heard Jad called him, say clam, Jad said. Clem stopped
and turned around, and there was Jad walking back toward him.
Jad had taken about six steps when suddenly he was
flung up against the front of Matheny's Harness store like
a sack assault, as Clem put it. By the time
(37:56):
Clem could reach him, he was gone. He never knew
what hit him, Clem said, and for quite a few
minutes nobody else knew what hit him either. That somebody
in the crowd that gathered found the big muddy rock
lying in the road by the gutter. A particularly big
shot of dynamite set off in the river bed had
hurtled the fragment through the air with terrific force. It
(38:18):
had come flying over the four story Jackson building like
a cannon ball, and it had struck Jad Peters squarely
in the chest. I suppose old Jad had not been
in these grave two days before. The boys at Prentices
quit shaking their heads solemnly over the accident and began
making funny remarks about it. Cal Gregg's was the funniest, well, Sir,
(38:44):
said Cal. I don't suppose none of us will ever
know what it was now, but something must have told
Jad to turn around. The luck of Jad Peters by
James thurber Well, Sir, and then all the diamonds I
(39:15):
can do here. Thanks for listening. Follow this podcast. If
you're not doing so already, Tell a friend, stop a neighbor,
punch a passers by. We're number one among news and
political podcasts not produced by any network. I'm greedy, I
want more. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninthier, was arranged, produced and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are
(39:36):
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle. Guitarist based in drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been
arranged and performed by no horns allowed. The sports music
is the Alderman theme from ESPN two, which was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy a ESPN Inc. Musical comments
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from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was John Deane and well sir, everything else
is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while
we still can. A new episode on Monday. Until then
(40:18):
on Keith Alderman, Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and well sir,
good luck. Countdown with Keith old Reman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
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Host
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