First Fireside Chat, The Banking Crisis, March 1933

FDR

Roosevelt’s first “fireside chat,” delivered just days after being sworn in as president, was one of his finest.  The entire banking system had collapsed prior to the speech. His task was to reassure Americans that their deposits were safe.  More important, he had to assure them that the government knew what it was doing in reorganizing and certifying the soundness of banks that were to reopen in days, so that the panic of the days before the shutdown of the banks would not be repeated.  Calling the closure a “bank holiday” was a delightful rhetorical slight of hand.  But the entire speech, and Roosevelt’s warm delivery (addressing “My Friends”) engendered a sense of confidence in his listeners that Hoover had been unable to engineer. The day the banks reopened, deposits exceeded withdrawals in all the major cities in the country. 

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The Need to Remember: Fighting Back Against Bigotry toward Asian Americans

American HIstory, Covid-19 crisis, Memory, World War II

The shocking attacks against Asian Americans in 2021 are outgrowths of a long history of bigotry against these, our fellow citizens. Besides bringing shame to America’s claim of “liberty and justice for all,” these attacks flow from the ignorance of too many Americans in this history of bigotry, especially of the worst violation of civil liberties in all of American history, the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. To defeat this legacy of bigotry and to break with this sorry past, Americans must first learn to remember.

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“Darkness,” from A Tale of Two Cities (Book Three, Chapter 12)

Audio narration, Tale of Two Cities

Carton reconnoiters the Defarge’s wine shop in this episode, and learns of Madame Defarge’s dark plans for the Evremonde family. Dr. Manette, out of the trauma of his son-in-law’s imminent execution (and its connection to his own testimony), returns to his shoemaking once again. Carton instructs Jarvis Lorry on what he should do the next day to save the Evremondes.

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Book Three, Chapter Thirteen: “Fifty-Two,” from “A Tale of Two Cities”

Audio narration, Tale of Two Cities

This is where the plot finally comes together. Carton visits Darnay to change places in LaForce, with the aid of chloroform. Barsad takes Darnay to Lucy and all but Jerry and Miss Pross board the carriage and leave to flee Paris for England. Dickens is herein a master of suspense, which builds to a crescendo near the end of the chapter. Next Chapter: “The Knitting Done.”

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Final Episode from A Tale of Two Cities: “THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER”

Audio narration

I have finally crossed the finish line! My audio narration for Librivox is finally complete, with all forty-five chapters now in the can. I can now say “it’s a wrap.” And what a terrific chapter to end on. Dickens is at his most reflective. A novel of horror somehow has wended its way to a chapter that produces a happy ending for all, at least for all of the good-hearted and well-intended. Dickens even has kind things to say about Parisians and the French, which is quite startling coming from such a prototypical British writer. This is not history but it is magnificently philosophical, spiritual and transcendent, perhaps the best specimen of the age of Romanticism that ever flowed from the pen of men.

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Book the Third, Chapter 14 of A Tale of Two Cities: “The Knitting Done”

Tale of Two Cities, Uncategorized

Madame Defarge discovers that her prey, Lucy, Little Lucy and Dr. Manette, have fled her clutches and are on the country roads of France, fleeing for England, What she does not know is that her most important enemy, Charles Darnay, is with them, having exchanged places in Laforce prison with Sidney Carton. Standing between Madame DeFarge and death for the fleeing prey is Miss Pross. Who will win the battle to the death? Listen to find out.

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“The Substance of the Shadow” from Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities

Audio narration

In this chapter, Dr. Manette’s long-buried message, found in the Bastille by Ernest Defarge, is used to condemn Charles Darnay, son-in-law of the good doctor and husband of his fair daughter, to death at the Guillotine!  In vain does Dr. Manette protest that he no longer condemned the entire Evremonde family to the last of its line, now that the latest Marquis, dear Charles, has his head on the block.   Madame Defarge is confidant that her use of the doctor’s note of condemnation will foil the doctor’s effort to free Charles.

And, not only that: She has plans to dispatch Lucy and little Lucy, as Evremondes themselves as well as the doctor, hoping that they too will be shaved by the revolutionary razor.  What will stand between Charles and the bloodthirsty wishes of Madame Defarge?  Spoiler alert: Where is Miss Pross as all this is going on?

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