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Show Video biography She spent her life saying 'no' to war Park City News Thursday, January 27, 1983 Page B3 byRickBrough In 1917, Montana Representative Jeannette Rankin cast the first vote by a woman in any parliamentary parliamen-tary body in the world. The vote in Congress was against American participation par-ticipation in World War I. And it marked a course for her entire career, said video-maker video-maker Ron Bayly. "People sometimes have a moment that they will have to defend forever," he said. Bayly and Nancy Landgren Land-gren were the producer-directors producer-directors of "Jeannette Rankin: The Woman Who Voted No," a television piece which was a finalist at the U.S. Film and Video Festival. It was written by Susan Cohen Regele. World War I wasn't the onlv conflict that Rankin opposed, op-posed, said the video-makers in an interview with The Park City Newspaper. Though she lost office in 1918, she ran again for office in 1940, and war-wary citizens elected her. She was just in time to cast the only vote, after Pearl Harbor, against U.S. entry in the Second World War. In response, the Montana voters ousted her at the next election. Rankin lived long enough, they said, to rally support against the Vietnam War. Before she died in 1973, she ran for her old seat so she could vote against another war. Despite her record, Rankin was not an all-out pacifist. "She believed that America should fight to defend its own shores," said Bayly. When she arrived in Washington as the first woman elected to high federal office, she was a suffragette suf-fragette interested in progressive legislation and women's right to vote. She decided, though, that peace must come before progress. "After voting to fight, the House passed a resolution to consider only bills relating to the war effort," said Nancy Landgren. "She came to feel that war constantly interfered inter-fered with social progress." In the years after World War I, Rankin was out of office. of-fice. But she was a lobbyist for peace groups in Washington in an era when Americans were disillusioned with foreign conflicts. She took an even lonelier stand against war in 1941, said Bayly and Landgren. She cast the only vote against again-st war. As in the first World War, she alienated her own colleagues in the feminist movement, and many others. "A guard had to escort her around Capitol Hill," said Bayly. After the war, she took care of her mother until she died in 1947, and traveled a great deal. "In India, she felt the people were most tuned in to pacifist feeling," said Bayly. "She was a little discouraged, because she had now seen many cycles of war." In the Vietnam protest era, her name was used to rally support. But her methods were different from the student. "She liked to organize people at a grassroots level," said Landgren. Lan-dgren. "She would go to high schools to talk." The Rankin family name is well known in Montana, said Nancy. The most famous member ot the family isn't Jeannette, but her brother Wellington, a businessman remembered as a scoundrel capitalist. "A lot of people still hate him because he did things like using convict labor," said Landgren. Nevertheless, Jeannette stayed close to her family and her brother all her life. Despite her pacifist background, Rankin's political sympathies were hard to peg down. She was a Republican in the Teddy Roosevelt progressive tradition. "She admired Eisenhower because she thought he would know what war is like," said Bayly. "She worked for Barry Goldwater because it looked to her like he would keep us out of the Vietnam conflict. And then she turned around and supported McGovern in 1972." She didn't always get along with leaders in the suffragette suf-fragette movement. In fact, the producers said, D.C. politicians of all stripes wondered in 1916 what they were getting with this woman from the West. "They had this idea she would pack six-guns and sit around using the spittoon," said Bayly. "But if anything, Jeannette overcompensated She always dressed very properly." Sixty-five years later, Americans still know little about Rankin. Her native Montanans are just beginning begin-ning to remember her. A statute was recently erected at the Montana state capitol. But she had not received a video biography. So the Montana Mon-tana Committee for the Humanities gave the go- Greetings from Dr. Bop! Yes, even Dr. Bop goes to the movies. This past week Dr. Bop went to see "Smithereens" at the film festival. Dr. Bop heard it was about punks and punk rockers in New York City. They are Dr. Bop's favorite breed of wild animal species, so Dr. Bop was excited to see "Smithereens." Dr. Bop saw. Dr. Bop puked. Dr. Bop hated ''Smithereens" with a passion. That movie, to put it in the nicest terms Dr. Bop is able to summon, performed a terminal lip-lock on the big wazoo before sticking it in painful fashion where the sun don't shine. "Smithereens" was the pits. Dr. Bop admits that he really didn't comprehend "Smithereens." It confused Dr. Bop. Dr. Bop doesn't like to be confused. Dr. Bop suspects that pretentious, avant-garde, avant-garde, pseudo-intellectuals were responsible for this cinematic atrocity. Dr. Bop thinks that those pretentious rascals were intentionally inten-tionally trying to mix him up when they made "Smithereens." Dr. Bop doesn't like to be mixed up. And believe it or not, Boppers, Dr. Bop tried as hard as he could not to be mixed up over "Smithereens." Dr. Bop even went so far as to fetch his festival guide book and read what it had to say about "Smithereens." The guide book said: '"Once I dreamed the world already blew up ten years ago right to smithereensand people were just floatin' around on pieces of it, not even realizing what had happened.' "The words belong to Wren--nineteen, determined and haunted by dreams. The pieces of her world are abandoned train yards along the Hudson River, an East Village tenement, a lower Manhattan Xerox shop. She searches rock clubs for a connection, pastes self portraits on subway walls and throws herself at any stranger carrying a guitar. Her plan is to escape her working-class background through the songs and celebrity of new wave rock music. '"Smithereens' is an explosive new film, jolting, funny, poignant, full of the authentic grit that is New York City. This was the only American independent film to be honored at the last Cannes Film Festival. It will blow you away!" Hardly. So anyway, even after reading that bloated summary, Dr. Bop didn't understand "Smithereens." And Dr. Bop liked the film even less. Dr. Bop didn't get "blown away" by "Smithereens." Bored away is more like it. And Dr. Bop knew that there was at least one other person at the Egyptian Theatre last Saturday night who felt exactly the same way. That was the hard-core punker type (black leather jacket with threatening emblems, chains hanging from the belt, spiked butch haircut, etc.) who sat in the front row. He drank several brews and watched "Smithereens" "Smither-eens" for as long as he could stand it. He sometimes screamed out the words "brain death" at the characters on the screen. He did that several times. The people in the movie couldn't hear him, of course. Eventually, the punker type became totally disgusted with the proceedings. About a half hour into the flick, he got to his feet, shuffled to the center aisle, shouted a random obscenity and threw a full bottle of beer at the screen. Then he walked out. Like Dr. Bop, he knew that the people at the Cannes Film Festival wouldn't know true punk if it came up and barfed on them. This week's Dr. Bop special award of merit for contributions to the local rock 'n' roll scene above and beyond the call of duty goes to KPCW disc jockey, Robo. Robo is amazing. Dr. Bop listens to that party animal's show every Wednesday night in total awe of Robo's near miraculous ability to play primo rock 'n' roll nonstop for three solid hours. Almost every song Robo plays, Dr. Bop loves. Keep up the good work, Robo! And all you Boppers be sure and listen to the Robo show every Wednesday night you can. It's an amazing spectacle of pure guts rock 'n' roll. It's almost the best show on KPCW 91.9 FM. Almost. Cause even Robo himself would probably have to admit that there is one rock 'n' roll radio show that even outclasses the magnificent Robo spectacle. That show is, of course, none other than the Dr. Bop show which airs on KPCW every Friday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. So be sure and tune in and listen to Dr. Bop every week. You, too, Robo. Conditions continue to worsen at the financially beleagured Cowboy Bar. Already in Chapter 11 bankruptcy (the kind where you're basically bankrupt but they give you a second chance and everybody pretends you're not bankrupt), the bar now appears to be headed for even direr straits. Rumors of internal' power plays among major stockholders are circulating. Predictions for the bar remaining the sort of impressive showcase club it is now range from moderately hopeful to dismal. For the time being, the club is fulfilling contractual commitments with those artists already booked. The upcoming John Bayiey and Pure Prairie League concerts will take place at the Cowboy as scheduled. As will Monday's air band finals. But beyond that, who knows? For the time being, look for the Cowboy Bar to be open only two or three days per week at best. One final note to Dr. Bop's dear colleague at the Park City Newspaper, fellow columnist, Gary Heins. You know him the guy smoking the pipe next to the big bold words "Smoking the Special Mixture" in the first section of the Newspaper. Anyway, it seems to Dr. Bop that Gary's commentaries have been pretty morose recently. Lots of dark and dreariness. Snap out of it, buddy. Cheer up, Gary. If you're feeling kind of blue do what Dr. Bop do. Put the gnarliest, loudest, gawdaw-ful gawdaw-ful rock 'n' roll record you can get your paws on y'know, Van Halen or the Ramones or Hendrix or something else loud and nasty and turn the volume up to ten and sit as close to the speakers as you can get. Ideally, holding a good-sized book shelf speaker in each hand at point blank range from either ear. After about ten minutes of such Dr. Bop treatment you won't feel down at all. Your ears may bleed a little, but you'll be too numb to care. And if that doesn't work, Gary, just come on by the Cowboy Bar on Monday night and see the air band finals and hear the Dr. Bop band. It'll do you good. And it'll only cost you three bucks. And remember rock 'n roll is for the young. Or at least the young at heart. So H'Wt get too grown up. ahead to the project. First, the research involved in-volved digging up all the news and magazine articles, which took about two or three months of part-time work. It was harder to find old newsreels. "There's nothing filed under 'Rankin,' so you look under 'Suffragettes' or 'World War I,'" said Bayly. Sloppy scholarship makes the job harder. They discovered the National Archives Ar-chives in Washington had her listed as a congresswomen from Colorado, and still does! In finding people who remembered Rankin, bayly said they had a lucky meeting with two people who had recently moved to Montana Mon-tana from Georgia (where Rankin spent much of her latter life.) "We mentioned the project on Jeannette, and they said, 'Oh, she spoke all the time at the Unitarian Church.' That led us to many other people in Georgia who knew here." The video-makers also talked to such modern figures as Bella Abzug and Ralph Nader. The most memorable interview, said Bayly, was with Roger Baldwin, who founded the American Civil Liberties Union in the late 1910s. (While Rankin voted against WWI in Congress, Baldwin was serving time as a Conscientious Con-scientious Objector. ) The aging protestor was dying of emphysema when he taped the interview with Bayly and Landgren. "He was more pessimistic about conditions today than we would have hoped for," said Ron. Nevertheless, Baldwin was so stirring he may be the subject of their next video biography. Another possibility, said Bayly and Landgren, is the Western novelist A. B.Guthrie. The two video-makers certainly cer-tainly got off to a good start with "Rankin" a positive, inspiring piece about "The Woman Who Said No." Trivia Test o , s s Jim Black New Trivia face After a week of new films in Park City, it's only appropriate that the winner in Trivia Corner is a new face. The aforementioned face (above) is that of Jim Black, who won himself a free sandwich, courtesy of the Main Street Deli. Jim knew that "yabba-dabba-doo" was Fred Flintstone's happy hap-py expression; that Massachusetts was the only state to be won by George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election; and that Kaili Vernoff played the Cat in the Missoula Playhouse production of "Pinocchio." A week ago, nobody knew Jim from Adam. Now he's a millionaire; he owns a 80-acre estate in California ; and he has a Hollywood contract to replace one of the Dukes of Hazzard if they should ask for a raise. You too can attain such overnight fame and fortune. Just answer the questions below, then contact the Park City Newspaper at 649-9014 or come to our offices at 419 Main St. before Tuesday noon. 1. What name was Junta Kinte forced to adopt by his evil white masters in the TV series "Roots?" 2. From the movie "Wizard of Oz": what was the message written in the sky by the Wicked Witch of the West? 3. What is the name of Judy MacMahon's husband-to-be? Balloon Bouquets Only $20 for bouquet of 15. Parties & special orders available. Phone 649-3295 Sam. -12 midnight r Even the smallest ads are read! MOUNTAIN FLORA MCRIORPLANTCARE FRESHFLOERS WEDDINGS Plcdsecall: 801649-6910 Kkvv If4 lr'"'X TP Now open for Lunch SANDWICHES Hamburger Pastrami French Dip au jus Corned Beef Tuna Melt Ham & Cheese Turkey & Cheese Grinder SALADS Crab Louie Stuffed Artichoke Tuna Salad Chicken Salad 11:00 -3:00 p.m. 649-9338 438 Main Street i 3$v) PARK CITY CQWB&Y r This Friday & Saturday Night JOHN BAYIEY Reggae Extraordinare $6.00 cover at the door Monday, Jan. 31 KPCW Air Band Finals featuring Dr. Bop Grand Prize $250.00 Register by 5:00 p.m., Jan. 28th Call George 649-9004 $3.00 cover to benefit KPCW -COMING ATTRACTIONS Feb. 3-5 Feb. 9 Feb. 16-19 SILVERADO MONTANA PBRE PRAIRIE IEACS2 Happy Hour 4-7 Tickets on sale at Cosmic Aeroplane, Smokey's Records, allZCMI stores, Salt Palace & Cowboy Bar Liquor Store. For dinner reservations and Information please call 649-4146 ! Ami I 1 r fit ! 1T V fc) frlM iiM.iNMtJ.Aitu JAliM4Jt4At.iMi''1 " '.Jaii-Pi Jni.il J i.m i i ,. |