Wednesday

Day 25: December 31, 1971

And, so ends my time in the year 1971 - 25 days. This was the shortest year I will ever live, and yet the year wherein I may have accomplished the most. I emerged relatively intact (despite a slightly torpedo-shaped head, which the docs have assured my Dad will squash out nicely long before the torment of adolescence makes it unbearable - just in case though he's looking at hats and thinking about the swim team). My gastronomic taste has gone from colostrum to breast milk, and I have successfully imprinted on my parents who will shoulder much of the blame for my progress (or lack thereof) for the next 20 or so years...

Day 24: December 30, 1971

The New York Review of Books

Volume 17, Number 11 · December 30, 1971

The Case Against B.F. Skinner

By Noam Chomsky
Beyond Freedom and Dignity
by B.F. Skinner

Knopf, 225 pp., $6.95

A century ago, a voice of British liberalism described the 'Chinaman' as 'an inferior race of malleable orientals.'[1] During the same years, anthropology became professionalized as a discipline, 'intimately associated with the rise of raciology.'[2] Presented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: What is the scientific status of the claims? What social or ideological needs do they serve? The questions are logically independent, but the second type of question naturally comes to the fore as scientific pretensions are undermined. The question of the scientific status of nineteenth-century racist anthropology is no longer seriously at issue, and its social function is not difficult to perceive. If the 'Chinaman' is malleable by nature, then what objection can there be to controls exercised by a superior race?






Day 23: December 29, 1971 - Top 100 Hits of 1971


1 "Joy to the World"...................................Three Dog Night
2 "One Bad Apple"......................................The Osmonds
3 "Maggie May".........................................Rod Stewart
4 "It's Too Late"......................................Carole King
5 "Knock Three Times"..................................Dawn
6 "Indian Reservation".................................The Raiders
7 "Shaft"..............................................Isaac Hayes
8 "Want Ads"...........................................Honey Cone
9 "What's Going On"....................................Marvin Gaye
10 "Just My Imagination"...............................The Temptations
11 "Never Can Say Goodbye".............................The Jackson Five
12 "Rose Garden".......................................Lynn Anderson
13 "Jesus Christ Superstar"............................Murray Head
14 "Gypsies; Tramps & Thieves".........................Cher
15 "Mr. Big Stuff".....................................Jean Knight
16 "Superstar".........................................The Carpenters
17 "Go Away Little Girl"...............................Donny Osmond
18 "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".......................Paul McCartney
19 "Treat Her Like a Lady".............................Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose
20 "Spanish Harlem"....................................Aretha Franklin
21 "Mama's Pearl"......................................The Jackson Five
22 "Have You Seen Her".................................The Chi-Lites
23 "Yo Yo".............................................The Osmonds
24 "One Less Bell to Answer"...........................The Fifth Dimension
25 "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"...................The Bee Gees
26 "Put Your Hand in The Hand".........................Ocean
27 "I Feel the Earth Move".............................Carole King
28 "Don't Pull Your Love"..............................Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
29 "My Sweet Lord".....................................George Harrison
30 "Doesn't Somebody Want to Be Wanted"................The Partridge Family
31 "Rainy Day's and Monday's"..........................The Carpenters
32 "Stay Awhile".......................................Bells
33 "Family Affair".....................................Sly and the Family Stone
34 "Proud Mary"........................................Ike and Tina Turner
35 "Stick Up"..........................................Honey Cone
36 "Lonely Days".......................................The Bee Gees
37 "For All We Know"...................................The Carpenters
38 "Brown Sugar".......................................The Rolling Stones
39 "Imagine"...........................................John Lennon
40 "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"...............Joan Baez
41 "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)"......................Marvin Gaye
42 "Bridge Over Troubled Water"........................Aretha Franklin
43 "Take Me Home Country Roads"........................John Denver
44 "Got To Be There"...................................Michael Jackson
45 "It Don't Come Easy"................................Ringo Starr
46 "She's a Lady"......................................Tom Jones
47 "Bring the Boys Home"...............................Freda Payne
48 "I Think I Love You"................................The Partridge Family
49 "You've Got a Friend"...............................James Taylor
50 "Ain't No Sunshine".................................Bill Withers
51 "It's Impossible"...................................Perry Como
52 "Love Story"........................................Andy Williams
53 "Smiling Faces Sometimes"...........................The Undisputed Truth
54 "Hot Pants".........................................James Brown
55 "Chick a Boom"......................................Daddy Dewdrop
56 "I Am, I Said"......................................Neil Diamond
57 "Stoned Love".......................................The Supremes
58 "Me and Bobby McGee"................................Janis Joplin
59 "Baby I'm a Want You"...............................Bread
60 "Do You Know What I Mean"...........................Lee Michaels
61 "What the World Needs Now is Love"..................Tom Clay
62 "Sweet and Innocent"................................Donny Osmond
63 "Mr. Bojangles".....................................Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
64 "Draggin' the Line".................................Tommy James
65 "Reason to Believe".................................Rod Stewart
66 "Tears of a Clown"..................................Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
67 "Free"..............................................Chicago
68 "Immigrant Song"....................................Led Zeppelin
69 "Story in Your Eyes"................................The Moody Blues
70 "Peace Train".......................................Cat Stevens
71 "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You"................Wilson Pickett
72 "Scorpio"...........................................Dennis Coffey
73 "Love the One You're With"..........................Isley Brothers
74 "Black Magic Woman".................................Santana
75 "What You See is What You Get"......................The Dramatics
76 "Your Song".........................................Elton John
77 "If I Were Your Woman"..............................Gladys Knight and the Pips
78 "I've Found Someone of My Own"......................Free Movement
79 "Thin Line Between Love and Hate"...................The Persuaders
80 "That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be".....Carley Simon
81 "She's Not Just Another Woman"......................Eighth Day
82 "Pay to the Piper"..................................Chairmen of the Board
83 "Trapped By a Thing Called Love"....................Denise La Salle
84 "Make it Funky".....................................James Brown
85 "Cherish"...........................................David Cassidy
86 "Hymn 43"...........................................Jethro Tull
87 "Won't Get Fooled Again"............................The Who
88 "Funky Nassau"......................................Beginning of the End
89 "Brand New Key".....................................Melanie
90 "Rock Steady".......................................Aretha Franklin
91 "Stoney End"........................................Barbra Streisand
92 "Inner City Blues"..................................Marvin Gaye
93 "If You Could Read My Mind".........................Gordon Lightfoot
94 "All I Ever Need is You"............................Sonny and Cher
95 "Another Day".......................................Paul McCartney
96 "River Deep, Mountain High".........................The Supremes and The Four Tops
97 "American Pie"......................................Don McLean
98 "Signs".............................................Five Man Electrical Band
99 "If You Really Love Me".............................Stevie Wonder
100 "Sweet City Woman".................................The Stampeders

Day 22: December 28, 1971 - Music Power Survey

WABC Music Power Survey for Week of 28 December 1971


                                             
TW LW
1. Brand New Key - Melanie (Neighborhood) *2 weeks #1* 1
2. Got to Be There - Michael Jackson (Motown) 2
3. American Pie - Don McLean (United Artists) 3
4. Family Affair - Sly & the Family Stone (Epic) 4
5. Scorpio - Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band (Sussex) 5
6. Have You Seen Her - The Chi-LItes (Brunswick) 6
7. Old-Fashioned Love Song - Three Dog Night (Dunhill) 7
8. Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves - Cher (Kapp) 8
9. Cherish - David Cassidy (Bell) 9
10. All I Ever Need Is You - Sonny & Cher (Kapp) 10
11. Baby I'm-a Want You - Bread (Elektra) 11
12. Let's Stay Together - Al Green (Hi) 12
13. Hey Girl - Donny Osmond (MGM) 13
14. Clean-Up Woman - Betty Wright (Alston) 14
-----------------------------------------------------------------
15. Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes (Enterprise) 15
17. Sugar Daddy - The Jackson 5 (Motown) 17
19. One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - The Honey Cone (Hot Wax) 19
21. You Are Everything - The Stylistics (Avco) 21
22. Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are) -
The Temptations (Gordy) 22
24. I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing -
The Hillside Singers (Metromedia) 24
26. Sunshine - Jonathan Edwards (Capricorn) 26
27. Respect Yourself - The Staple Singers (Stax) 27
28. Drowning in the Sea of Love - Joe Simon (Spring) 28
29. Stones - Neil Diamond (Uni) 29
70. Hallelujah - Sweathog (Columbia) 70
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John & Yoko & the
Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir (Apple)

Album Cuts:
Black Dog - Led Zeppelin (Atlantic)
Para los Rumberos - Santana (Columbia)
Everybody's Everything - Santana (Columbia)
Footstompin' Music - Grand Funk Railroad (Capitol)
Song of Long Ago - Carole King (Ode)
Oh Yoko! - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (Apple)
Bitterblue - Cat Stevens (A&M)
Beware of Darkness - George Harrison (Apple)
Wah-Wah - George Harrison (Apple)
Awaiting On You All - George Harrison (Apple)
Jumping Jack Flash (medley) - Leon Russell (Apple)
Youngblood (medley) - Leon Russell (Apple)
It Don't Come Easy - Ringo Starr (Apple)

Action Albums:
Santana - Santana (Columbia)
Imagine - John Lennon (Apple)
American Pie - Don McLean (United Artists)
Teaser & the Firecat - Cat Stevens (A&M)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (Atlantic)
Music - Carole King (Ode)
Grand Funk Railroad - Grand Funk Railroad (Capitol)
Bangla Desh Concert Album (Apple)

All American of the Week:
Chuck Leonard - 10:30PM - Midnight, Monday - Friday
10:30AM - 4:30 PM, Sunday

Day 21: December 27, 1971 - A Beef Against Big Mac

Under countless pairs of golden arches, the supersuccessful McDonald's hamburger chain is quietly changing "more than 7 billion sold" to "more than 8 billion served," a gambit designed to strengthen its No. 1 position among the nation's fast-food outlets. The U.S. Government has awarded the chain another first: Department of Labor lawsuits charging 14 Milwaukee-area McDonald's restaurants with sex discrimination—against men.

Actually, say McDonald's officials, the men were boys: high school students working the evening hours for the then-minimum wage of $1.30 per hour. But when the boys are in school during the noontime rush, housewives come in to work from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Since few of them would work for $3.90 per day, McDonald's devised a "short-shift premium" to bring noon wages up to as much as $2 an hour.

The Government originally opened its case against McDonald's by suing two Chicago outlets, which quickly settled. Now, however, McDonald's vows it will resist, citing as precedent the commonplace nighttime differential paid in factories. Says John Hatch, a McDonald's attorney: "We won't pay one cent of back wages without a fight."

Day 20: December 26, 1971 - Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum - How About a Little Fun?

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum - How About a Little Fun?
by Walter Kerr
The New York Times - December 26, 1971



So far as I am concerned, they can throw away the rest of Inner City and just let a lady named Linda Hopkins stand there all night, tapping one foot slightly, opening her composed mouth to let miraculous sounds come out of it, reaching out her arms to the balcony as though to complete its curve and make the whole world come full circle, shaking her head very slightly in deep private worry as she stalks to the portals, done with a song. She is magnificent. She is also a person, not a poster.

Most of Inner City is composed of posters, real ones and people who seem to have been scraped from billboards. Cardboard cutouts of crooked Congressmen are lowered from the flies, shadowy Magritte figures slip through receding tile walls, enormous Gaugin heads loom over young mothers who live in housing projects higher than the elevator goes. Adapted from a volume of latter day lyrics by Eve Merriam, "The Inner City Mother Goose", the new entertainment at the Barrymore is a Tom O'Horgan collage which does indeed manage to catalogue every conceivable urban complaint - the drug scene, cheating grocers, telephone recordings, geraniums that die in their window-boxes - but which does so with a minimum of wit. Its animated human figures are constantly preaching; but the preachments are straightforward slogans that might as well have been tacked up on walls ("There are crowds but you're always alone," "There's not enough space and I can hardly breath") and you yearn, after a time, for a line with some sass and surprise to it.

But not while Miss Hopkins is handy. Miss Hopkins opens the evening, rocking in strict rhythm to a sleepy-street beat, stopping to chat about the neighborhood stores that have had gala openings and quick closings, and you not only know at once that you like her, you are sure you're going to like it.

She is then kept under wraps until about the middle of the first act, when she softly, sadly begins to speak of one of her many men (the one "who relaxed me all out") and gently drifts into a tune that tells of her desperate middle-of-the-night needs. her desperation is controlled, solemn, honest; she never presses an inch beyond what she truly means; she pauses to listen for wavelengths that will tell the God's truth. Then she lets pain escape her, pain in the shape of a musical strain pitched so high that piccolos could not reach it; there aren't any octaves up there. She uses a trick that is no longer fashionable, dropping her voice from quivering song to intimate speech while a dreamy bar piano keeps her company; and you don't care about fashions any longer, you care about what she might have to say. She ambles away in a bathrobe, finally, stocky, confident, containing her own power and sorrow.

Thereafter she is again under wraps - while her chatterbox and sometimes strident companions rap around her - until virtually 10 o'clock. At the last possible moment she is once more unleashed, this time to make the evening's only hopeful statement ("I Believe") with an organ in the pit sounding less ample than her own effortless tones. It's not really the song that's hopeful; it's rather vague about what anyone can look for in today's unnatural jungle. What's hopeful is herself, firm, warm, head up. I wish that adapter/director O'Horgan had not at this point decided to help the lady out. With his customary talent for never letting better than well enough alone, he supplies her with seconding voices from the stage boxes, trying to develop a hand clapping response that is simply an intrusion on what we are all too happy to be listening to. But Miss Hopkins survives, and will.

No, I would not throw everything else out. An attractive, faintly rueful girl named Paulette Ellen Jones appears early in the second act to describe the day she rescued a bloody stranger on her doorstep, cleaned his face as best she could, sent him on his way and then hurried to work, late, but somehow conscious of having lived for a moment. Suddenly there is a long trembling pause, which Miss Jones sustains perfectly through our puzzlement, before her lip begins to quiver and her eyes glaze over. I won't describe what follows, but it is the work of a young actress of extraordinary intuition and authority; the direct, simple passage has the impact the show has been looking for and only rarely finds.

For the most part Inner City is all true and lamentably trite. The nursery rhymes, which keep promising inspired kickers, are given easy, off-the-top endings: "Fee, Fi, Fo Fum, I smell the blood of violence to come." "Tom, Tom, Uncle Tom's son, it's getting harder to find one." "If you haven't got a half a dollar, God mug you." The jokes, which are generally and safely kept at arms length by rapid accompaniment from the pit, can't get beyond "Mayor Lindsay is a John, the Statue of Liberty is Humphrey in drag." The sociology, which is with us all the time, is penny-plain, linguistically flat: "Every day, in every way somebody's making a deal," "Knock him down and kick him around and that's law and order," "It's so easy to get a gun and shoot anyone." The visual illustrations are literal and without endings: while a member of the company is reciting instructions for getting through the streets without losing one's shirt, another is stealing the silver bag tucked beneath his arm. These things are merely done; there isn't much fun in them.

I should say that the staging is, by Mr. O'Horgan's standards, modest, even reserved. The raked stage is flanked by receding black portals and, for a good bit of the time, kept free of decoration. The accent is on the performers, the lyrics are invariably clear, helen Miller's agreeable score can be heard as melody, not beat alone. (The phrase for "If wishes were horses," well sung by Delores Hall, is especially felicitous.) There is an occasional painterly image that evokes a time of day or a place in space: oblivious men in topcoats shuffling through canyons of red brick, reading their newspapers.

And there is, just to keep the franchise, the usual O'Horgan waste. A huge mousetrap is hauled across the stage floor. Three unsteady masked figures in what seem butterfly shrouds wave their arms in counterpoint for a moment or two. An American flag is composed of ashcans. At the end of the evening the curtains part to reveal an enormous white structural sculpture made up of birdcages, bicycles, dressmakers' dummies, automobile doors and ironing boards. None of these products of Mr. O'Horgan's pop-art dreams need have been wrong as such. It's simply that he doesn't use them. He plants them onstage as objects unrelated to what the company is doing at the time and lets them rest there, heavy, expensive, extraneous. (A few members of the company do begin to clamor, feebly, into that final structure but quickly retreat from it as though it might not be safe.) If the director can encourage half-jokes in passing about organic foods, he might give half a moments thought to organic staging. he might even have contributed the cost of his jungle-gym to some inner city, somewhere. The show can do nothing with it.

Copyright The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.


Day 19: December 25, 1971 - My First Christmas

Merry Christmas

Sunday

Day 18: December 24, 1971 - My first Christmas Eve & A Story of Tragedy and Survival in the Amazon

Peruvian Airlines Electra crashes at headwaters of Amazon, killing all except Juliane Margaret Koepcke found days later.

17-Year-Old Only Survivor in Peruvian Accident

By Patrick Mondout

On Christmas Eve 1971, a Peruvian airliner was struck by lightning in an area of heavy turbulence at 21,000 feet and crashed into a the Amazon. Miraculously, a German teenager survived the crashed and walked out of the jungle nine days later.

The LANSA (Lineas Aereas Nacionales Airlines) Lockheed Electra L-188 had taken off from the Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima a little after 11:00 p.m. on a flight to Pucallpa, Peru. About a half hour after takeoff and at about 21,000 feet, the aircraft entered a thunderstorm and heavy turbulence.

The Electra, known as Mateo Pumacahua, was struck by lightning which sparked a fire. The pilots immediately had difficulty controlling the aircraft as systems began failing and it soon went into a dive. While the crew attempted to level out the plane, the fire and turbulent forces on the wings caused the right wing and most of the left wing to separate from the aircraft. The aircraft came crashing down in a mountainous region of the Amazon.

Juliane Margaret Koepcke had a broken collarbone and was unconscious for an unknown amount of time but had survived the crashed still strapped in her seat. When she came to, she set out in vain to find her mother. Maria Koepcke, her mother and a leading Peruvian ornithologist, was dead.

Rescue crews searched for the aircraft without success. Koepcke would have to save herself. Several previous trips to the Amazon with her parents had taught her much about the jungle. Her studies at the German High School in Lima, which were preparing her for a career as a zoologist (like her father, who she was attempting to visit), would no doubt help as well.

Koepcke found a stream and began nine days of wading through knee-high water and fighting off swarms of insects and leeches. On the ninth day, she found a canoe and shelter. Then she waited.

Hours later, local lumbermen returned and found her. They tried to get her to eat but she was quite sick and refused. Insects had buried eggs in her skin and they were beginning to hatch. One of the men poured gasoline on her and, as she told the London Daily Mail, "I counted 35 worms that came out of my arms alone."

The men offered what assistance they could provide but it was too late in the day to start the journey back to civilization; she slept one more night in the jungle before the men took her on the final seven hour journey via canoe down the river to a lumber station where she was airlifted to a hospital.

When rescue crews finally located the aircraft with Koepcke's help, they discovered that as many as 14 others had survived the initial crash but were unable to seek help as the teenager had and died awaiting rescue.

Koepcke is now a biologist in Germany and her ordeal was the subject of the 1999 Werner Herzog documentary Wings of Hope.

An Italian movie starring Susan Penhaligon was released in 1974 and was alternatively called The Story of Juliane Koepcke and Miracles Still Happen. It was so bad that it remains out of print in any medium. The story was also the subject of a 1979 children's book called Crash in the Jungle by Jim Alderson.

This was the second LANSA Electra in a year to crash killing 90+ people. LANSA withdrew the aircraft from service shortly thereafter. Ironically, LANSA had purchased Electras after one of their Lockheed L-749 Constellations had crashed in 1966.

We received the following email from Rebecca Lyon who lost both of her parents on this flight:

The LANSA flight was from Lima across the Andes to Pucallup. My husband whose brother Nathan was on the plane tells me the storm that came in was huge. As the turbulence increased for the airplane, the crew urged the pilot to return to Lima. Being Christmas Eve he decided to fly on so the passengers would be able to enjoy the holiday (flight recorded via my husband). Most of the passengers were Peruvian returning home from school.

My parents, Roger and Margery Hedges, taught children of the staff and missionary's (Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) aka Wycliffe here in the states) located in Yarinacocha not far from Pucallup. There were three others from SIL on board, Nathan Lyon, 13 (my husbands brother), Harold Davis, 47 and David Eriksson, 19.

As the afternoon progressed Mr. Lyon, who was a pilot, had been listening on the radio. The plane did not arrive and no replies were received at ground control in Pucallup. Shortly afterwards the plane was declared missing.

On December 31, Jerrie Cobb, one of the only women to pass astronaut training, flew down from Columbia to help with the search. January 2, 1972 hunters brought the only survivor, Juliana Koepcke, 17 out of the jungle. She was able to provide details that led to the location of the wreck. January 5, 1972 pieces of the wreck were sighted around 10:00a.m.. That morning Floyd Lyon, father of Nathan, was flying with Jerrie Cobb. They circled the wreck to mark the location for other searchers.

By January 13, 1972, ninety bodies hade been recovered and 52 identified. Nathan and David were buried on January 12th and my parents with Harold Davis on the 14th. SIL has a small cemetery in Yarinacocha where their remains lay today.

To the best of my knowledge the cause of the crash was determined to be human error and structural failure. Juliana Koepcke has said she saw flames on the right wing leading to speculation that the plane was hit by lighting. Soon after the plane broke apart or exploded scattering wreckage over a mile and a half. LANSA airlines had a poor reputation in Peru. They had been granted a number of extensions of their flight permit after a suspension in September of 1970 (because of a crash a few weeks earlier). The extension was due to expire December 31, just days after the Christmas Eve crash. In January 1972 their flight permit was cancelled.

I could go into way more detail but this is really the nut of the story. Juliana Koepcke now lives in Germany. She was part of a documentary, Wings of Hope, made by Werner Herzog.

Thank you for sharing this with our readers, Rebecca.

Source: The Survivor. Newsweek. January 17, 1972: 39.

Day 17: Decmber 23, 1971

Corey Haim is born

Day 16: December 22, 1971

U.N. General Assembly ratifies Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General

Saturday

Day 15: December 21, 1971 - My first winter begins

O Radiant Dawn
What sorcery
within a night
has made a city street
into a fairy glade?

Winter begins! The name "winter" comes from a Germanic term meaning "time of water" and refers to the seasonal precipitation. The winter solstice—the moment when the sun's apparent path is farthest south from the Equator—is used to officially mark winter's beginning. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter begins on the "shortest day" of the year, December 21 or 22, and lasts until March 20 or 22, the beginning of spring, marked by the vernal equinox, when day and night are equal in length. In the United States, this winter's solstice occurs on December 21 at 2:21 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 7:21 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time. Those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, today celebrate the beginning of the summer season.

In his extended meditation on the winter landscape, "A Winter Walk," Henry David Thoreau reflects:

Now commences the long winter evening around the farmer's hearth, when the thoughts of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are by nature and necessity charitable and liberal to all creatures. Now is the happy resistance to cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and thinks of his preparedness for winter…

Henry David Thoreau, "A Winter Walk,"Excursions, p.134.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920


Day 14: December 20, 1971


Pakistan president Yahya Khan resigns