Great Depression

It's not landmark TV. But "The Great Depression" is good enough to go out of your way to see.The seven-hour documentary, which starts tonight at 9 on MPT (Channels 22 and 67), is produced by Henry E. Hampton, of "Eyes on the Prize" fame. While it's not in a league with "Eyes" or Ken Burns' "The Civil War," it's only a cut or two below that level."The Great Depression" is the story of America in the 1930s, when the economic system collapsed, turning the American Dream into a nightmare of hunger and desperation for millions.

I was flabbergasted by Stanley Glinka's recent letter criticizing President Obama's performance in office ("Obama made U.S. weaker, more vulnerable," Oct. 31). He obviously lives in a different country than the rest of us. Let me point out that over the last 32 years the White House has been occupied for 20 years by Republicans and 12 years by Democrats, counting President Obama's first term. So I marvel during this campaign season at how, according to the Republicans, all the nation's problems supposedly begin and end with President Obama.

An hour isn't a lot of time to tell the story of the Great Depression. But Maryland Public Television does much with the time it has in "Maryland in the Great Depression" at 9 tonight on channels 22 and 67.The report is a locally produced companion piece to "The Great Depression," which was made by WGBH in Boston and aired nationally on PBS last month. MPT's production focuses on Maryland in the 1930s.It starts with historians telling us about the political figures of the day, such as Gov. Albert Ritchie.

While The Sun has ably covered the upcoming election, I feel you should better highlight some important context. Four years ago, America faced its greatest economic crisis in generations. Employment was plummeting, and a second Great Depression appeared possible. Since taking office, President Barack Obama has worked tirelessly to stabilize the economy and rebuild America's middle-class. This hasn't always been easy, but we are moving in the right direction. We now have steady job growth, and recovery is underway.

PARIS -- President Clinton asked American broadcasters last week to give free time to political candidates. He proposed that the Federal Communications Commission make this a condition for authorizing broadcasters to switch to digital technology.He meant this to be a backfire lighted against the campaign-money conflagration threatening his White House. It is actually an essential remedy to the most important crisis of democracy the United States has experienced since the Great Depression.

Michael Rolle, a veteran of Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, has started a new job: umpiring junior varsity high school softball for $20 a game. It's not the direction he thought his career would take when his last serious contract ran out two years ago. Since then, Rolle's only stint as a software engineer has been at a start-up that laid him off after one month. "I see everybody spending all their days going to networking meetings, calling their friends, doing all the various things people tell you to do, and after months of that, they're still looking," said Rolle, 57, of Cupertino, Calif.

MOSCOW -- There was a time when Russians pitied Americans.Bystanders during the Great Depression of the 1930s, they felt vindicated in their belief in Soviet progress. But who wouldn't extend some sympathy toward the victims of the breakdown of capitalism?"Oh, my God, such a rich country, such a big country," says historian Edward Ivanian, recounting the way people thought back then and smiling ruefully at how history has turned. "And those poor people done in by the bankers, their wealth just poured down the drain."

You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they're too damn greedy.-- Herbert Hoover to author Mark SullivanAs Wall Street concludes yet another wobbly week, it can't help but serve as a reminder to investors that historically October, not April, may be the cruelest month.It is, after all, the 70th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929, which presaged the Great Depression and successfully wiped away all traces of the unbounded boom and prosperity that followed the end of World War I.For those not quite old enough to remember the really big one, the 554-point skid in 1997 and the 191-point plunge in 1989 are recent reminders of the vagaries of Wall Street.

For stock investors, October can be a scary month. Some of the biggest market crashes occurred in the month of falling leaves and Halloween, notably the largest single-day drop in October 1987 and the 1929 collapse that led to the Great Depression. "October is a strange month," said Russ Koesterich, U.S. equity strategist for State Street Corp. in Boston. "You have a lot of climactic bottoms in October, and it's not unusual to have a dramatic crash." In each of the past five years, stocks have fallen from highs in late summer to a bottom in September or October.

NEW YORK -- Anybody remember the Great Chicken War of 1963?Most people probably don't. Wars over chickens or oilseeds don't stir the public passion as wars for God and country do. But their consequences can be equally ruinous.In the Great Chicken War, Europeans were threatening American chicken exports, so President John F. Kennedy rose to the occasion and slapped a 25 percent tariff on Volkswagen microbuses.Later the war expanded and became known as the Turkey and Brandy War as the Europeans hit another U.S. food bird and Washington took aim at French cognac.

What debate were you people watching ("Biden connects," Oct. 14)? The only thing I saw was a man with ideas for getting this country out of the worst four years economically since the Great Depression and a laughing hyena. Really, how low can The Sun sink in it's editorial positions? Maybe you guys will go down with your leader and after 55 years of reading your (gag) newspaper I won't have to cancel my subscription. All that's left for me in your paper is the comics (and I'm not talking about the editorial page even though it's tough to tell the two apart)

I beg to differ with the premise set forth by columnist Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in his article concerning Jewish voters and President Barack Obama ("Can Jewish voters be sure of Obama's commitment to Israel?" Sept. 2). I care deeply about Israel, and I believe that Mr. Obama has been and will continue to be a good friend and supporter of Israel. However, as an American, I will vote for the person who has saved our country from a great depression and will work on behalf of middle class and poor people in spite of the lack of Republican cooperation.

Warning: What you are about to read is a deeply cynical view of the 2012 election. If you're looking for puppies and rainbows, check back with me another time. Many conservatives feel like this is the most important election in our lifetimes because we desperately need to reverse the damage done by the Obama administration and get the economy moving again. Indeed, each of the remaining GOP hopefuls makes some version of this argument. They will fix what President Barack Obama (or Washington)

"No greater obligation faces the government than to justify the faith of its young people in the fundamental rightness of our democratic institutions. " Franklin Roosevelt spoke those words in 1936 as he signed the extension of one of the New Deal's most innovative initiatives, the National Youth Administration (NYA). Part of the Works Progress Administration and lobbied for by Eleanor Roosevelt, the NYA was a response to the catastrophic levels of unemployment and poverty faced by young people during the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON - -The government report Thursday that the nation's unemployment picture took an unexpectedly sharp turn for the worse after four straight months of moderately encouraging news was a sobering jolt to hopes that the economy might gradually be getting back on track. The overall unemployment rate edged up just a notch, to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June, but the loss of 467,000 payroll jobs made it clear that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression was far from over - at least for American workers.

The Baltimore Sun is looking for people who lived in Maryland during the Great Depression to find out how it affected their lives, families and communities. If you have memories that you'd like to share, and don't mind being interviewed on camera, please contact us at 410-332-6935 or anica.butler@baltsun.com.

Gore can't go over Bradley's head. He has to fake him out and drive to score.Congress dismantled the last of the reforms designed to prevent another Great Depression. Wall Street is excited.Anyone can have a good idea. Obtaining funding for it from the tobacco settlement takes talent.Those d--- Yankees come back to haunt the nation every Halloween.

The Baltimore Sun is looking for people who lived in Maryland during the Great Depression to find out how it affected their lives, families and communities. If you have memories that you'd like to share, and don't mind being interviewed on camera, please contact us at 410-332-6935 or anica.butler@baltsun.com.

Will bill-payers also get public bailout? Friday's Baltimore Sun noted that approximately 11 percent of all Marylanders with home loans have either missed payments or are on the verge of foreclosure ("A record 11.1% of Md. home loans distressed," March 6). This will surely raise eyebrows in Washington as lawmakers scramble to have the government offer low-rate refinancing to those in such dire straights. But while this news offers a sober reflection on today's economy, what will happen to the other 89 percent of homeowners, who apparently manage their money properly?

There is a maxim that raises the hackles of most people. It is this: All things end badly. Who wants to believe that? It's so grim, so lacking in uplift, such a bummer of an observation that once, when I mentioned this to a young woman whose mother had just died of a wasting disease, she recoiled in shock and said, "That's not true," rejecting the notion of bad endings even while experiencing the pain of significant loss firsthand. The departure of George W. Bush and his not-so-merry band from executive power in Washington is further evidence of things ending badly, especially when contrasted with the widespread euphoria greeting the man who replaced him yesterday as president.