Although this is the photo of Sam Schaefer from THE DAILY TAR HEEL, when I downloaded it, the file was named "Sam Bagley".
I'm not sure what to make of that.
1. Yesterday, when I sent out broadcast email to 500 of the last blog post, I offered to REMOVE anyone from my email list, and Sam and one other person, a PR agent in New Jersey, asked me to. I will continue to honor such requests, and even took off Edmund White, whom I've had some in-person discussions with, a couple of days ago, and he and the 2010 then-Publisher of Alyson Books, Don Weise, not only when previously head of Carrol+Graf had conspired to give Edmund a half-million dollar advance on a DOG of a book -- and that TANKED Carrol+Graf Publishers as an independent entity -- I eventually learned that Don Weise had never intended to publish my Williams memoir.
Edmund White
Anyone knowing about GAY RIGHTS knows that Edmund was at the very FOREFRONT of the fight against AIDS in the 1980s, but a few years ago in interview with CNN, Edmund claimed that Reagan and his HATEFUL Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop (whom Edmund White RAILED AGAINST through the 1980s), were the BEST FRIENDS gay people could have back then.
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Don Weise
I have LESS RESPECT for these two people than almost anyone else on earth -- but I took Edmund off without protest, and I'll take YOU off too, if you ask. Few of the people who ask off would merit comment about that on this blog.
>>> SO HERE IS MY EMAIL EXCHANGE, followed by my somewhat RUDE SURPRISE after I sent it:
Hi Sam -- I'll be happy to remove you from the list, and wish you the very best.
I haven't been reading YOUR work, either, so I checked it out today. Your credited pieces, ending last fall, are a little fluffy, but you were only a sophomore then. Things change fast during college years. I was surprised that the TAR HEEL's photo of you has someone else's name on the file, but I assume it is you. Opinion Editor is an important post.
You have a very young and fresh face -- which can be deceiving. Perhaps you have had a privileged life -- mine was more insulated than privileged. Someone pointed out yesterday, that in a photo of me and Tennessee Williams taken in 1981 when I was 30, I looked 22. And after all the jailings on false charges and false nut-house commitments at the hand of the New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David, and all the attempts on my life and being held by drug mafia in Mexico several times -- I still look young for my age.
I see you are a history and public policy major -- and actually from Chapel Hill. Maybe you know some of my relatives. I've only heard the nicest things about Betty Kenan, who is shown only to give money to Democrats, while Tom and his buddies only give to the Republican Party. Despite my many criticisms of the wealthy Kenans, they ARE the backbone of your great university, and are mostly to be commended most highly.
My niece is currently a junior there, and her brother and my sister both got undergraduate degrees there. I've been on campus many times since 1971. My great hope is that you (your school) can settle the scandals in sports and Confederate/Ku Klux Klan leaders getting buildings or places named for them to honor the Kenan-Confederate alliance. If you have studied North Carolina history, you know the place the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection played as the only actual Coup d'Etat in US History, stealing the political positions, wealth, and many lives of black folks, and despite the Kenan Family spending a fortune to cover their involvement up, it was caused largely by William R. Kenan, Sr. (actually the ONLY Confederate credited with breaching Washington, DC defenses and taking a clear shot at Lincoln, whom he missed, but did kill his aide), whose son, Jr., became one of the world's largest philanthropists benefiting university education.
Such is life.
I have particular interest in one of your Ku Klux Klan-honoring buildings, in that I had ties to Klan Wizard Venable. I see that the old Venable Hall and ROTC building were torn down for the NEW Venable Hall to be built. That would have been a GREAT time to rename it, but I guess the pro-Ku Klux Klan forces on campus were too powerful then.
But instead of ranting about what it says about the University to continue honoring the Klan, I'll tell you something good about Mr. Venable, whose two stills from the Prohibition era when he was major of Stone Mountain, Georgia had been in what became my back yard -- and his uppity-negro-hanging tree in my front yard (the latter, I learned about many years after building there and moving in). It seems Mayor Venable, besides singlehandedly BRING BACK the Ku Klux Klan in the Twentieth Century -- and the Klan met yearly right out of town and marched through it until the mid-1990s -- also had a grocery store, and through the Great Depression, he loaded up his pick-up truck with groceries that he then distributed to the poorest black families in town -- and they could NOT VOTE back then.
In appreciation for that (and despite all the rest of it), about 1990 or so, older black residents got up a petition to name a city park after Venable. IMMEDIATELY, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other similar people rode satellite trucks into town to stop it -- and they DID stop it, given the "optics" of the situation -- and that is what I love about the South: it is VERY COMPLICATED!!!
So I only wish the BEST for UNC -- and for your education. May the University solve these problems which seem endemic, due to the wealthy Kenans, ASAP!!!
Scott
On Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 11:48 PM, Sam Schaefer - Opinion Desk, wrote:
Hi Scott,
Would you mind removing this email address from your list? I gotta be honest. I don't read any of your emails.Best,
Sam SchaeferThe Daily Tar Heel | Opinion Editor
>>> HERE'S THE RUB:
I did more research and discovered that Venable Hall is named for a different Venable (although likely a relation): Francis Preston Venable (as above). His father was Aide-de-Camp for General Robert E. Lee.
James R. Venable, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Preston Venable was ALSO an esteemed chemist and chemistry professor at UNC, and served as its Chancellor for a time. William R. Kenan, Jr. was his research assistant when they isolated the gas Acetylene, and all books on Kenan History are a bit cagey about this, usually terming things about like this: "WRK, Jr. isolated Acetylene as a student at UNC, leading to the development of Union Carbide." The implication has always been that Kenan isolated the gas, but Venable stole the credit, and conspired with others to build Union Carbide, leaving Kenan in the dust.
But now I'm seeing that William R. Kenan, Jr. got to travel the world working for Union Carbide -- and established his reputation as a scientist doing so.
So who knows???
After Francis Preston Venable resigned as University Chancellor, he filled one of the first Kenan Chairs for Professorships funded by William R. Kenan, Jr., so Will may have learned his lesson about politics and MOVED ON.
But I did want to show everyone my mistake.
And INTERESTING that none of my UNC correspondents noticed my error before I did. You would THINK they would have the most interest in my CORRECTING my error, no???
Scott
This goatee, circa 2001, was also a mistake.
>>> ADDED BONUS:
Americans Are Leaving Religion Behind and It Scares the Hell Out of the Christian Right
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