Month: February 2007

Petula Clark – 1961

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/sttropez.flv 400 300]

Here’s Pet on American TV for the first time, still with her old style and look, and still unknown in this country. Only one month before this she had married Claude Wolff.

Moving to France, close to 30, Pet transformed herself yet again. It was a change for the better, because she was seen as the woman she was, and not as the girl the English remembered.

Pratt Attack – 9

Parley PrattMitt Romney is no longer governor of Massachusetts. Now he’s running for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.

Being a resident of the state (or, like Virginia, “Commonwealth”), I feel Romney did one thing worthy of note. He forced Billy Boy Bulger, brother and protector of the infamous crook Whitey, out as president of the University of Massachusetts. Other than that, I’m inclined to agree with Mike Dobbs‘ opinion of Mitt Romney.

What does this have to do with my family name? Romney’s great-great grandfather was the infamous Mormon leader and polygamist Parley Pratt. Yes, the very same Parley Pratt who had 11 — no, 12! — wives, and was murdered in 1857 by the former husband of one of them. Whew!

Here’s the story of the Romney-Pratt connection:

Polygamy a prominent feature in Romney’s family tree

By Jennifer Dobner, Associated Press Writers | February 24, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY –While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.

Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Continue reading Pratt Attack – 9

Classical Music Scandal Admitted

Following up on my previous post about pianist Joyce Hatto, her husband now admits to the fraud.

Cherished music wasn’t hers
Husband admits to doctoring CDs

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | February 27, 2007

An international classical music scandal that has built steadily over the past week and flared across the Internet broke open with a confession yesterday. Now it seems the remarkable story of pianist Joyce Hatto was, indeed, too good to be true.

While she was alive, Hatto’s recording career appeared to be nothing short of a miracle. In a tale that was equal parts “Shine” and “The Natural,” the reclusive pianist, who stopped performing concerts in the 1970s because of illness, became one of the most prolific classical recording artists of her time, with more than 100 CDs to her name.

In 2005, Richard Dyer, then a Boston Globe critic, wrote that Hatto “must be the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of.” Hatto died of cancer at 77 last year, having developed, late in life, an enthusiastic following of music buffs .

Click here for full article.

I was surprised to read that Richard Dyer is no longer with The Boston Globe. But now I recall, come to this of it, that he had retired. There was an announcement a year or so ago. Just as well, because he would have had to leave anyway, after this.