Excerpt–October 1968: “Rev. Arthur Blessitt and His Place”

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His Place, Late 1960's
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(Hollywood)


Jeff, Eleanor, Pam, and I were hanging out at Wallich’s, though not much happening.

Eleanor met up with Jim, her new guy, and split.

Before Pam, Eleanor and I had been getting close, but now we seemed to be pulling away. Maybe it was because she was still in high school... 

News Clip--October 19, 1968: Nixon Presidential Campaign

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Regional pacts...can prevent a local conflict from escalating into world war. The regional pact thus becomes a buffer separating the distant great powers from immediate threat–and the danger of a Social conflict escalating into world war is thereby reduced. A regional pact would provide a buffer between the United States and the Soviet Union in future flare-ups.


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drerxn
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New Text: 1968--The Year That Shaped a Generation

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Jennifer Semple, high school graduation picture (1968)
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For baby boomers, 1968 was a defining year, a year in which we, as a generation, lost our 1950's innocence. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy simply added another sickening dimension to President Kennedy's assassination four and a half years earlier.

President Kennedy had been assassinated at a time when, essentially, 1950's values were still in place and the shameful significance of the Viet Nam War was still unclear.

Jennifer and Olive Semple, June 5, 1968
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Posts moved to Memoir Madness: 

Outtake: 1968 –The Year that Shaped a Generation (Jennifer’s Viewpoint)

 

Outtake: 1968 –The Year that Shaped a Generation (Documentary)



News Clip--October 17, 1968: First Anniversary of "The October 17th Movement"

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Photo from alternet.org
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A year ago today (1967), “The October 17th Movement” was created by radical New York women dissatisfied with the increasing conservatism of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Their manifesto includes,

Radical feminism recognizes the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression wherein women are categorized as an inferior class based upon their sex. It is the aim of radical feminism to organize politically to destroy this sex class system.

As radical feminists we recognize that we are engaged in a power struggle with men, and that the agent of our suppression is man insofar as he identifies with and carries out the supremacy privileges of the male role. For while we realize that the liberation of women will ultimately mean the liberation of men from their destructive role as oppressor, we have no illusion that men will welcome this liberation without a struggle....
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Ms. America, Up Against the Wall


Maisonpop93
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The oppression of women is manifested in particular institutions, constituted and maintained to keep women in their place. Among these are the institutions of marriage, motherhood, love and sexual intercourse (the family unit is incorporated by the above).
Source for Manifesto
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News Clip--October 16, 1968: Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos Give "Black Power" Salute

Public Domain Photo by Angelo Cozzi (Wikipedia)

During the Olympics awards ceremony for the 200 meter race, Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) give the “black power” salute. 

Photo: Gold medalist Tommie Smith (center) and bronze medalist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200 m race at the 1968 Summer Olympics; both wear Olympic Project for Human Rights badges. Peter Norman (silver medalist, left) from Australia also wears an OPHR badge in solidarity with Smith and Carlos. 


Source

Source
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Mexico City, 1968: Actual Footage From the 200m Final


Justinglewis

1. Tommie Smith (USA)
2. Peter Norman (AUS)
3. John Carlos (USA)



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News Clip--October 15, 1968: Cheap Thrills Album Goes Gold

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The Cheap Thrills album, by Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, goes gold. The album was released in August.


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"Summertime," Sung by Janis Joplin (Cheap Thrills Recording Session)



MantasiaHater says,

Janis and Big Brother and the Holding Company recording Summertime for their Columbia album Cheap Thrills. The album was released in late 1968 and sold over one million copies that year. Shortly after the release of Cheap Thrills, Janis left the band to pursue a solo career in music.

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News Clip--October 14, 1968: Beatles Wrap Up Recording the White Album

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***Video removed because it was taken down on Youtube***
Go directly to Youtube for another version:



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The last recording session for The Beatles White Album wraps up, after John Lennon records the 32nd and final song, “Julia,” He tapes it alone, twice singing to his acoustic guitar accompaniment, this song the only one released by The Beatles on which John performs alone.

Source 1

Source 2

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News Clip--October 14, 1968: Apollo 7 Astronauts Broadcast From Space

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Left to right: Eisele, Schirra, Cunningham
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The first live telecast from space is broadcast from Apollo 7. Astronauts Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham give a tour of the inside of the Apollo 7 spacecraft and show views through the windows.

Source 1

Source 2
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News Clip--October 12, 1968: Mexico City Olympics Opening Ceremony

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Nineteenth Olympic games open at Mexico City, Mexico. Norma Enriqueta Basilio Satelo is the first woman to light Olympic flame.

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News Clip--October 11, 1968: Revolution in Panama

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Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid, elected president for the third time and twice ousted by the Panamanian military, is again ousted (for the third time) as president by the National Guard after only 10 days in office.


A military junta government is established, and the commander of the National Guard, Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos, emerges as the principal power in Panamanian political life.


Torrijos' regime is harsh and corrupt, and will have to confront the mistrust of the people and guerrillas backing the populist Arnulfo Arias. However, he is a charismatic leader whose populist domestic programs and nationalist foreign policy appeals to the rural and urban constituencies largely ignored by the oligarchy.

Source (text and photos): Wikipedia

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News Clip--October 11, 1968: Apollo 7 Launch

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Apollo 7 Launch (NASA, Public Domain Photo)
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Apollo 7 launches, carrying Walter Schirra, Jr., Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham.


The spacecraft makes 163 orbits in 260 hours.

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Apollo 7: Oct. 11, 1968


momo2007x
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Mission Highlights

Apollo 7 was a confidence-builder. After the January 1967 Apollo launch pad fire, the Apollo command module had been extensively redesigned. Schirra, who would be the only astronaut to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, commanded this Earth-orbital shakedown of the command and service modules. Since it was not carrying a lunar module, Apollo 7 could be launched with the Saturn IB booster rather than the much larger and more powerful Saturn V. Schirra wanted to give Apollo 7 the callsign "Phoenix" (the mythical bird rising from its own ashes) in memory of the loss of the Apollo 1 crew, but NASA management was against the idea.

The Apollo hardware and all mission operations worked without any significant problems, and the Service Propulsion System (SPS), the all-important engine that would place Apollo in and out of lunar orbit, made eight nearly perfect firings.


Apollo 7 in space (NASA, Public Domain Photo
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Even though Apollo's larger cabin was more comfortable than Gemini's, eleven days in orbit took its toll on the astronauts. The food was bad, and Schirra developed a cold. As a result, he became irritable with requests from Mission Control and all three began "talking back" to the Capcom. An early example was this exchange after Mission Control requested that a TV camera be turned on in the capsule:

SCHIRRA: You've added two burns to this flight schedule, and you've added a urine water dump; and we have a new vehicle up here, and I can tell you this point TV will be delayed without any further discussion until after the rendezvous.

CAPCOM: Roger. Copy.

SCHIRRA: Roger.

CAPCOM: Apollo 7 This is CAP COM number 1.

SCHIRRA: Roger.

CAPCOM: All we've agreed to do on this is flip it.

SCHIRRA: ... with two commanders, Apollo 7.

CAPCOM: All we have agreed to on this particular pass is to flip the switch on. No other activity is associated with TV; I think we are still obligated to do that.

SCHIRRA: We do not have the equipment out; we have not had an opportunity to follow setting; we have not eaten at this point. At this point, I have a cold. I refuse to foul up our time lines this way. ("Apollo 7 Air-to-Ground Voice Transcript," pp.117-118) Warning: HUGE download.
Exchanges such as this would lead to the crew members being passed over for future missions. ("Encyclopedia Astronautica") But the mission successfully proved the space-worthiness of the basic Apollo vehicle.

Goals for the mission included the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft (Gordon Cooper had broadcast slow scan television pictures from Faith 7 in 1963) and testing the lunar module docking maneuver.

First orbit: perigee 231 km, apogee 297 km, period 89.78 min, inclination 31.63 deg., weight: CSM 14,781 kg.

The splashdown point was 27 deg 32 min N, 64 deg 04 min W, 200 nautical miles (370 km) SSW of Bermuda and 13 km (8 mi) north of the recovery ship USS Essex.

For nearly 30 years the Apollo 7 module was on loan (renewable every two years) to the National Museum of Science and Technology of Canada, in Ottawa, along with the space suit worn by Wally Schirra. In November 2003 the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. requested them back for display at their new annex at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Currently, the Apollo 7 CM is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum located next to Love Field in Dallas, Texas.

Apollo 7 was the only manned Apollo launch to take place from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34, as all subsequent Apollo (including Apollo-Soyuz) and Skylab missions were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

As of 2008, Cunningham is the only surviving member of the crew. Eisele died in 1987 and Schirra in 2007.

Mission insignia

The insignia for the flight showed a command and service module with its SPS engine firing, the trail from that fire encircling a globe and extending past the edges of the patch symbolizing the Earth-orbital nature of the mission. The Roman numeral VII appears in the South Pacific Ocean and the crew's names appear on a wide black arc at the bottom.

Capsule location

The Apollo 7 Command Module is on display at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, Dallas, Texas

Depiction in fiction

Portions of the Apollo 7 mission are dramatized in the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode entitled "We Have Cleared the Tower."



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Outtake: Letter from Hollywood to Cynthia*

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Jennifer and Olive Semple, June 5, 1968, the day that Jennifer left for Hollywood.
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I can only imagine what Cynthia must have thought when she read the letter.

Was she alarmed?

Did she think, “I don’t know this Jennifer; this isn’t the slightly kooky Jennifer I grew up with. This is a wild, rambling Jennifer, who’s into illicit drugs and indiscriminate sex.”

So it seemed.

But much of that letter was exaggerated, hyped to present a persona invented not to inform but to impress.

Cynthia was not impressed; she was terrified at what she thought I had become and turned the letter over to my grandmother, Olive Semple.

Post moved to MemoirMadness.com


"Jennifer Juniper," Donovan Leitch, 1968 (YouTube)

Jefferson Airplane

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Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love"

Jefferson Airplane performing live both "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. More
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