Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

The year was 1973­: Two roads diverged

In 1973, Donald and Fred Trump were engaged for two years in a battle with the DOJ: “..specifically a case that charges Donald Trump, Fred Trump and their company of race bias in housing rentals. …It was one of the largest cases of the time.”

Michael Kranish

Washington Post


At 26, in 1973, Donald J. Trump commenced his lifelong legal battles — federal and state suits and countersuits numbering 4095 before he assumed the office of President in 2016 and 90 since assuming then losing the office in 2020. Of these 90 post-presidency suits (12 pending) Trump has won but one against his niece, Mary.

Trump legal suits over five decades range from Casino to contracts, employment, personal injury, campaigns, taxes, defamation, obstruction of justice.

Also in 1973, the New York Times (NYT) in a published profile of the younger Trump birthed a myth of Donald Trump as first in his Wharton graduating class (BA in Real Estate, 1968) – a myth fully debunked in a 1988 NYT investigative article that found few members of his relatively small class knew or knew of Trump, the class commencement program did not list him with any distinction, the self-declared “super genius” was found on no Wharton dean’s list. Trump has restricted any educational institute from making public his grades or test scores. Donald J. Trump has never received an honorary degree from any academic institution or acknowledgement of generous gifting (including Wharton).

In contrast, in 1973, Joe Biden, at age 30, was elect to the U.S. Senate sticking his arm out to all he encountered: “Hi, I’m Joe Biden — the new senator from Delaware.”

One month after his election, Biden’s wife and one year old daughter were killed in an automobile crash that spared his two toddler sons. Biden took his Senate oath of office in the Wilmington hospital chapel. He served in the Senate for six terms.

Biden’s first year in the Senate, the 93rd Congress, was replete with major events and governmental action: the passage of Roe vs Wade, Kissinger appointed Secretary of State, LBJ’s death, Nixon to China, Paris Accords/Church Amendment ending the Vietnam War, VP Agnew resigned, replaced with Ford, Endangered Species Act passed as was the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Saturday Night Massacre led to first steps toward a Nixon impeachment (Nixon sidestepped impeachment with his resignation in 1974). Oddly the Roe vs Wade Scotus decision of 1973 was also scandalously leaked however back in 1973, the culprit, a Scotus clerk, was identified.

1973, was a significant turning point in the lives of two prominent Americans for their choices, their character and their occupation of the Oval Office. Trump’s 2024 rhetoric is of a third-world U.S. status, demise and resentment are the tone, projections, and unrealities — his vita is replete with court cases, TV ratings, bankruptcy, screaming false headlines, brand surges and plunges, declarations of personal exceptionalism. Biden, in stark contrast, has 2024 rhetoric, acts and deeds that bespeak pride, promise, progress by the nation, peoples of talent and will. Biden’s vita — outcomes of his life choices — has a plethora of domestic and international honors, steadfastness and accomplishments. He isn’t perfect, not flawless — yet Biden, in raw contrast to Trump, doesn’t promote bullying, urge foul play, threaten intentional harm of others.

Time to turn the lights back on a nation with many shortcomings but scores of decades of betterment — of talent and achievement. In the turmoil of an election year, 2024, can we still hear succinct wisdom: twelve score and six years ago “...our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburgh Address

Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Millerton News and The News does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Tenmile Distillery is making history the old-fashioned way

Tenmile Distillery is making history the old-fashioned way

Cheers! The Revolutionary Whisky Series at Ten Mile Distillery, each named for a significant battle of the American Revolution, celebrates America at 250.

D.H. Callahan

In December 2024, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau officially established the Standard of Identity for American Single Malt Whisky. It was the first new classification in more than half a century, creating new possibilities for American distillers. One of the distilleries taking advantage of this new landscape is Wassaic’s Tenmile Distillery. It is well positioned to make history because Tenmile has always honored traditional whiskey-making practices.

Single malts are often associated with Scotch whisky. Perhaps that’s why, years before the new standard was adopted, Tenmile hired Shane Fraser, a Scottish master distiller with 30 years of experience at some of Scotland’s most prestigious distilleries. Fraser began designing the distillery from the ground up. Alongside owner and general manager Joel LeVangia, he emphasized time-honored traditions, favoring hands-on craftsmanship over the increasingly automated methods used by larger producers. When it comes to making the best whisky possible, Tenmile believes in learning from the past. That philosophy extends beyond the distilling process.

Keep ReadingShow less
business

The magic of Belinda Sinclair

The magic of Belinda Sinclair

Belinda Sinclair

Dean Chamberlain
Sinclair’s show explores the ways women have been practicing forms of magic for centuries, and there is plenty of history to tell.

Belinda Sinclair is the kind of magician who impresses people who don’t like magic. Her tricks are mind-boggling. Her stories are captivating. And if she picks you to write your name on a card, get ready to be wowed. Repeat attendees of her shows, of which there are many, take almost as much delight in watching new jaws drop as they do in seeing an illusion reach its astonishing conclusion.

Since the summer of 2025, Sinclair has been baffling local audiences at the Hughes Memorial Library in West Cornwall, but her magical run comes to a close at the end of August.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

“Nixon in China” comes to Tanglewood

“Nixon in China” comes to Tanglewood

Renée Fleming, Andris Nelsons and Thomas Hampson.

Hilary Scott

On Friday, July 17 at 8 p.m. in the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood, two of the greatest American voices of their generation, soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Thomas Hampson, join Music Director Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a performance of excerpts from John Adams’ groundbreaking opera “Nixon in China.” The piece, performed earlier this year in Boston and at Carnegie Hall in New York City, is a highlight of a program that also includes “Meditations on Grace” (2024) by BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon, and the melodic and technically demanding Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber.

Fleming is internationally celebrated for her vocal and dramatic artistry, as well as for her advocacy for the powerful impact of the creative arts in health. Hampson has long been recognized as one of the most innovative musicians of our time and has received countless international honors for his singular artistry and cultural leadership. Both performed in “Nixon in China” earlier this year at the Paris Opera under the baton of Kent Nagano.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Local playwright revisits Revolutionary moment in “Rebel Town”

Local playwright revisits Revolutionary moment in “Rebel Town”

The cast and crew of “Rebeltown: The Musical.”

Jack Sheedy

John Alan Segalla was working in Boston a few years ago, giving historic tours at the site of the Boston Tea Party. Now, as America celebrates 250 years as a nation, the Canaan native is about to debut a new version of his original musical, “Rebel Town,” inspired largely by the Boston Tea Party, the protest that helped launch the American Revolution.

“It wasn’t until I got to Boston and learned the Tea Party story that I fell in love with this moment in history, and I saw the story as wildly compelling and very important, and really a story that was very misunderstood, mistaught in schools,” Segalla said at a recent rehearsal in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, ahead of the show’s July 10 opening.

Keep ReadingShow less
performances

An invitation to paint a community mural in Torrington

An invitation to paint a community mural in Torrington

Community mural design by Macayla Muzzulin will be painted by volunteers on July 11 in Franklin Plaza in Torrington.

Provided

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, Five Points Arts in Torrington will host a community mural project celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Volunteers of every age and artistic ability are invited to help paint a 20-by-6-foot mural designed by artist Macayla Muzzulin. The mural will be completed in one day, transformed from a numbered outline into a permanent public artwork along the river in downtown Torrington.

“We firmly believe art is for everyone,” said Five Points founder and executive director, Judith McElhone. “It’s so great to be able to do this with such talent, and with Launchpad artists, volunteers and staff there to help.”

Keep ReadingShow less
murals

Free sinonó concert launches Wassaic Project’s music season

Free sinonó concert launches Wassaic Project’s music season

Gridley Chapel at The Wassaic Project.

Lucia Iandolo

The Wassaic Project will host its first musical act of the season at the Gridley Chapel on Saturday, July 11. The event is free and was made possible with funding from a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Officially opening in October, the Chapel will come alive with the sounds of sinonó, a trio featuring vocalist and composer isabel crespo pardo, cellist Lester St. Louis and bassist Henry Fraser. The group draws on Latin American folk and classical chamber music to create what it calls “poemsongs.”

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.