ABC News

Dear Commons Community,

The United States can be proud that it elected Trump, a  convicted felon, to be its president.  Trump was sentenced yesterday to no punishment in his historic hush money case, a judgment that lets him return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.  As reported by The Associated Press.

With Trump appearing by video from his Florida estate, the sentence quietly capped an extraordinary trial rife with moments unthinkable in the U.S. It was the first criminal prosecution and first conviction of a former U.S. president and major presidential candidate. The New York case became the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will.

And the sentencing came 10 days before his inauguration for his second term. In roughly six minutes of remarks to the court, a calm but insistent Trump called the case “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.” He maintained that he did not commit any crime.

l”It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and, obviously, that didn’t work,” the Republican president-elect said by video, with U.S. flags in the background. Beside him at his Mar-a-Lago property was defense lawyer Todd Blanche, whom Trump has tapped to serve as the second-highest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administration. After the roughly half-hour proceeding, Trump said in a post on his social media network that the hearing had been a “despicable charade.” He reiterated that he would appeal his conviction.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old to up to four years in prison. Instead,

Merchan chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first president to take office with a felony conviction on his record.

Trump’s no-penalty sentence, called an unconditional discharge, is rare for felony convictions. The judge said that he had to respect Trump’s upcoming legal protections as president, while also giving due consideration to the jury’s decision.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” said Merchan, who had indicated ahead of time that he planned the no-penalty sentence. As Merchan pronounced the sentence, Trump sat upright, lips pursed, frowning slightly. He tilted his head to the side as the judge wished him “godspeed in your second term in office.”

Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside. One group held a banner that read, “Trump is guilty.” The other held one that said, “Stop partisan conspiracy” and “Stop political witch hunt.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

The norm-smashing case saw the former and incoming president charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count. Yet the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him in November to a second term.

Prosecutors said that they supported a no-penalty sentence, but they chided Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout the case.

“The once and future president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.

Afterward, Trump was expected to return to the business of planning for his new administration. He was set later Friday to host conservative House Republicans as they gathered to discuss GOP priorities.

The specific charges in the hush money case were about checks and ledgers. But the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise.

Trump was charged with fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them and that he did nothing wrong.

Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.

“For this I got indicted,” Trump lamented to the judge Friday. “It’s incredible, actually.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial, and later to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s date, citing a need for “finality.”

Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Hail to the chief felon!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

All nine Supreme Court justices expressed deep skepticism of arguments made by the social media company TikTok yester that a law forcing its Chinese parent company to sell its U.S. subsidiary would unconstitutionally violate its free speech rights.

At issue is a bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden that would prevent app stores from carrying TikTok or updates to the existing app unless ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, sells its U.S. subsidiary TikTok Inc. to a person or entity not controlled by the laws of a foreign adversary nation. ByteDance has stated that it will not sell its U.S. subsidiary, and TikTok Inc. states that it will shut down if the law goes into effect Jan. 19.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

The case pits questions of national security and data protection against free speech protected by the First Amendment. When Congress passed the law, lawmakers expressed concerns that the Chinese government could use TikTok to either manipulate the American public or use the vast data it has collected from the 170 million American users, including direct messages, to blackmail, coerce or recruit individual Americans who may join the military or serve in government positions in the future. Chinese law, which has jurisdiction over ByteDance, could require companies to hand over data to government intelligence services.

TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco argued that the law unconstitutionally burdened the speech rights of the U.S. corporation TikTok by seeking to prevent it from using ByteDance’s algorithm and by raising concerns about potential content manipulation.

“One thing is clear, it’s a burden on TikTok’s speech, so the First Amendment applies,” Francisco said. “The act is content-based from beginning to end. It applies only to social media platforms that have user-generated content except for business, product and travel reviews.”

While the justices believed that there were First Amendment issues presented in the case, none of them — liberal or conservative — appeared to buy this argument alone. They noted that the law targets ByteDance, a foreign corporation subject to Chinese laws, which does not have First Amendment protection.

“You’re converting the restriction on ByteDance’s ownership and the algorithm into a restriction on TikTok’s speech,” Justice Clarence Thomas said in response to Francisco’s argument.

“Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked.

Francisco disputed that ByteDance had ultimate control over TikTok but acknowledged that for TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. it needed to use the algorithm controlled by ByteDance and to transmit user data to ByteDance in order to maintain and update that algorithm.

Data security was one of the chief reasons given by Congress for enacting the law targeting TikTok and central to the arguments before the court. The Chinese government has engaged repeatedly in the illegal collection of sensitive data on Americans: It hacked the Office of Personnel Management in 2015 to get information on 20 million federal government workers and obtained the financial data of 145 million Americans by hacking the credit scoring company Equifax in 2017. The greatest concern the government presented to the court is that users, in particular younger users, could be subject to blackmail or espionage recruitment if they obtain positions in the military or government in the future.

“Data collection that seems like a huge concern for the future of the country,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said.

Francisco conceded the real risk of data collection and interest for the government, but insisted the First Amendment considerations should outweigh that. He also argued Congress did not consider less restrictive alternatives to divestiture such as mandating disclosures about data security and content manipulation.

To make his point that speech rights were at the core of the case, Francisco repeatedly stated that the law would force TikTok to shut down in the U.S. on Jan. 19. Some of the justices rebutted this argument.

“You keep saying shut down. The law doesn’t say TikTok has to shut down. It says ByteDance has to divest. If ByteDance divested TikTok, we wouldn’t be here, right?” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said.

When it came time for Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar to defend the law, the justices appeared to press her on the finer points and distinctions in her argument as they crafted what appears likely to be their own reasoning for upholding the law.

Justice Elena Kagan pressed Prelogar on the meaning and importance of the threat of potential “covert” content manipulation on TikTok by the Chinese government that the U.S. claimed as a reason for forcing the app’s sale. Nonplussed by this argument, Kagan forced Prelogar to pivot to the stronger justification of data security.

The operation of TikTok requires a “wealth of data about Americans” to go back to China, creating a “gaping vulnerability” since the Chinese government can force ByteDance to hand over that data, Prelogar said. She added that ByteDance had already come under investigation for accessing TikTok for Americans’ data in order to surveil U.S. journalists.

Tick, tick, tick!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied Donald Trump’s emergency plea to halt his criminal sentencing in New York, all but ensuring it would proceed as planned today.

In a brief unsigned order, a five-justice majority noted that Mr. Trump was not facing jail time and that he could still challenge his conviction “in the ordinary course on appeal.”

Although Mr. Trump had argued that being sentenced 10 days before his inauguration would distract from the presidential transition, the majority held, “The burden that sentencing will impose on the president-elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial.”

The majority included Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor; Amy Coney Barrett; Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Four of the court’s conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — noted dissents without providing reasons.

The sentencing is now free to move forward on Friday morning in the same Lower Manhattan courtroom where Mr. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that had endangered his 2016 presidential campaign. The president-elect has indicated he plans to appear virtually.

After a series of unsuccessful legal maneuvers in New York State courts, the former and future president had hoped to prevail before a friendlier audience: a Supreme Court with a 6-to-3 conservative majority that includes three justices Mr. Trump appointed during his first term.

But the court opted to stay out of the case, despite having come to Mr. Trump’s rescue in a string of other recent matters. In July, the justices granted former presidents broad immunity for official acts, undermining a separate criminal case against Mr. Trump in Washington.

The show of independence from five of the justices in connection with the New York case — less than two weeks before the inauguration — capped the former and future president’s frenzied campaign to stave off the embarrassing spectacle of a sentencing. After months of delay, the sentencing will now formalize Mr. Trump’s conviction, cementing his status as the first felon to occupy the Oval Office.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Mr. Trump, declined to comment.

A ray of justice from the Supreme Court.  However, four justices dissenting is an embarrassment to the legal system!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Jimmy Carter’s funeral was a service for the ages.  I had intended to only watch a few minutes but ended up watching the entire event.  Eulogies by family and friends were most touching and culminated by tributes from the late President Gerald Ford (delivered by his son), President Joe Biden, and the Reverent Andrew Young.  They emphasized how this simple, family  man from Plains, Georgia, rose to lead our country and beyond.  Common themes included references to his public service, compassion, and character.  There was spiritual music selections throughout the event that included a rendition of “The Road Home” by the Cathedral Choir, “Amazing Grace” by Phyllis Adams, “Imagine” by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood (see video below), and “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” sung by the U.S. Marine Orchestra and Armed Forces Chorus.

In sum, a fitting tribute to Carter who was a man of the world!

Tony

In captivity the quality of life for elephants is greatly reduced Elephant Guardians of LA

Dear Commons Community,

Elephants, the largest land mammals on Earth, live in matriarchal family groups led by the eldest female. Known for their highly social nature, they exhibit remarkable traits such as affection, empathy, and even grief. With a lifespan ranging from 50 to 70 years, their longevity is influenced by factors like habitat conditions, food availability, predators and human activities such as poaching and habitat destruction. They are just one of the most incredible and fascinating animals on earth.

Elephants that live in zoos, however, have a much shorter lifespan, and things like lack of exercise, stress, and certain health issues, such as obesity or joint problems, all contribute to this. Yet many zoos still display these amazing, majestic creatures. For twenty years, In Defense of Animals has been releasing their 10 Worst Zoos for Elephants in North America list and it will make you think twice before visiting these beautiful creatures at your local zoo.

In Defense Of Animals says, “In the wild, elephants thrive into their 60s, raising calves well into their 50s and roaming up to 30 miles daily. In zoos like Los Angeles Zoo, where enclosures are thousands of times smaller than their natural range, elephants are dying decades prematurely.

According to Bob Jacobs, Professor of Neuroscience at Colorado College, “It’s likely that zoos contribute to premature aging of elephants through the cumulative effects of prolonged stress (with its neural consequences) and acceleration of health issues like foot and digestive problems.”

As heartbreaking as all of this is, here is the list for 2024.

2024 List of the 10 Worst Zoos for Elephants:Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens, Calif.

1. Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens, Calif.
2. The Bronx Zoo, N.Y.
3. Edmonton Valley Zoo, Canada
4. Cameron Park Zoo, Waco, Texas
5. Two Tails Ranch, Williston, Fla.
6. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs, Colo.
7. Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center, Kan.
8. Little Rock Zoo, Ark.
9. Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Ohio
10. Phoenix Zoo, Ariz.

In a wonderful sign of progress, In Defense of Animals is honoring a zoo with its new Path to Progress Award. Forty-one zoos have closed or pledged to close their exhibits. By retiring its lone African elephant, Osh, Oakland Zoo has offered a blueprint for compassionate care that other zoos must follow. Actors Mayim Bialik and James Roday Rodriguez are among the celebrities calling for all zoos to follow this humane example and retire elephants to true sanctuaries.

“Premature aging and death are the unavoidable consequences of keeping elephants in captivity,” said Courtney Scott, Elephant Consultant for In Defense of Animals. “We are heartened by the progress of 41 zoos that have closed or pledged to close their exhibits and delighted to present our first-ever Path to Progress Award. However, time is running out fast for elephants like Billy and Tina. We demand that all zoos urgently follow Oakland Zoo’s path to progress by granting early sanctuary retirement to all their suffering elephants before it’s too late.”

I will have to think twice about visiting The Bronx Zoo.

Tony

Video courtesy of ABC News Australia

Dear Commons Community,

Massive wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area left neighborhoods in ruins yesterday, killing at least five people and threatening landmarks made famous by Hollywood as desperate residents escaped through flames that spread out of control with help from hurricane-force winds. As reported by multiple news media.

Three major blazes that erupted just a day earlier grew substantially while winds scattered embers far and wide. The fires blanketed the city with a thick cloud of smoke and ash and destroyed homes across the metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena, home of the famed Rose Parade.

One of the fires was the most destructive in the modern history of the city of LA and reduced grocery stores and banks to rubble, leveling entire blocks.

With thousands of firefighters already attacking the flames, the Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty and out-of-state firefighters to help. The winds temporarily stopped aircraft from dumping water from above until they were able to resume flights.

More than 1,000 structures were destroyed, and many people were hurt in the fires, including first responders, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

Images of the devastation showed luxurious homes that collapsed in a whirlwind of flaming embers. Swimming pools were blackened with soot, and sports cars slumped on melted tires.

“This morning, we woke up to a dark cloud over all of Los Angeles. But it is darkest for those who are most intimately impacted by these fires. It has been an immensely painful 24 hours,” LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said.

Like ‘living inside of a fireplace’

At least 70,000 people were ordered to evacuate — a number that kept changing because evacuation orders were continually being issued, officials said. The flames marched toward highly populated and affluent neighborhoods, including Calabasas and Santa Monica, home to California’s rich and famous. Hollywood stars, including Mark Hamill, Mandy Moore and James Woods, were among those forced to flee.

In Palisades Village, the public library, two major grocery stores, a pair of banks and several boutiques were destroyed.

“It’s just really weird coming back to somewhere that doesn’t really exist anymore,” said Dylan Vincent, who returned to the neighborhood to retrieve some items and saw that his elementary school had burned down and that whole blocks had been flattened.

The fires have consumed a total of about 42 square miles (108 square kilometers) — nearly the size of the entire city of San Francisco.

Jennie Girardo, a 39-year-old producer and director from Pasadena, said she was alarmed when her neighbor came to check on her.

“When I opened my door, it smelled like I was living inside of a fireplace,” she said. “Then I also started to see the ash. And I’ve never seen that in my life. Like raining ash.”

Fast-moving flames allowed little time to escape

Flames moved so quickly that many barely had time to escape. Police sought shelter inside their patrol cars, and residents at a senior living center were pushed in wheelchairs and hospital beds down a street to safety in the foothills northeast of LA.

One of the fires ripped through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin’ USA.” In the race to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

“People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags,” said Kelsey Trainor, who escaped while ash fell all around and fires burned on both sides of the roa

Higher temperatures and less rain mean a longer fire season

California’s wildfire season typically begins in June or July and runs through October, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, but January wildfires are not unprecedented. There was one in 2022 and 10 in 2021, according to CalFire.

The season is beginning earlier and ending later due to rising temperatures and decreased rainfall tied to climate change, according to recent data. Rains that usually end fire season are often delayed, meaning fires can burn through the winter months, the association said.

Dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, which has not seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.

The winds increased to 80 mph (129 kph) Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service, and could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills

Landmarks get scorched and studios suspend production

President Joe Biden pledged to sign a federal emergency declaration after arriving at a Santa Monica fire station for a briefing with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom posted on X that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel to combat the blazes. He also dispatched National Guard troops to help.

“We are absolutely not out of danger yet,” Los Angeles city Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley said.

The fires burned through Temescal Canyon, a popular hiking area surrounded by dense neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes, and also jumped famous Sunset Boulevard, burning parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions, including the 1976 horror movie “Carrie” and the TV series “Teen Wolf.”

Several Hollywood studios suspended production, and Universal Studios closed its theme park between Pasadena and Pacific Palisades. The Getty Villa, a campus devoted to art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome, said its structures and collection were safe.

As it grew, the fire burning in the Pacific Palisades became the most destructive fire in the modern history of the city of Los Angeles.

With an estimated 1,000 structures destroyed and the flames still growing Wednesday, it is far more destructive than the Sayre fire in 2008 that destroyed just over 600 structures, according to statistics kept by the Wildfire Alliance, a partnership between the city’s fire department and MySafe:LA. Structures refers to homes and other buildings.

Before that, a 1961 Bel Air fire stood for nearly half a century as the most destructive fire in the city’s history. It burned nearly 500 houses in the tony hillside enclave, including homes of actor Burt Lancaster, Zsa Zsa Gabor and other celebrities.

Residents were urged to limit water usage. Los Angeles Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said the city’s water systems that service homes and businesses were working effectively, but “they are not designed to fight wildfires.”

More than 100 schools were closed due to fire risk. Southern California Edison shut off service to thousands because of safety concerns related to high winds and fire risks. More than 1.5 million customers could face shutoffs depending on weather conditions, the utility said.

Several Southern California landmarks were heavily damaged, including the Reel Inn in Malibu, a seafood restaurant. Owner Teddy Leonard and her husband hope to rebuild.

“When you look at the grand scheme of things, as long as your family is well and everyone’s alive, you’re still winning, right?” she said.

See below for images of the fires in Los Angeles.

Tony

A structure burns in a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Residents of a senior center are evacuated as the Eaton Fire approaches Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo)

A residence burns as a firefighter battles the Palisades Fire. AP Photo/Eugene Garcia.

The Palisades Fire burns in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, on Jan. 7, 2025.  Ethan Swope via Associated Press.

Dear Commons Community,

I want  the visitors to Tony’s Thoughts to know that it will be down two-three days next week due to hosting migration.  Here is the notice from the CUNY Commons Administration.

“I wanted to let you know that the Commons hosting migration that we announced last month will begin in one week, at 10:30am Eastern on Wednesday, January 15th. Because of the size and complexity of the data involved, please expect the Commons to be unavailable for 48-72 hours after the migration starts. During the downtime, we will update our status blog regularly.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading  Jimmy Breslin:  The Man Who Told the Truth, by Richard Esposito. It is a fine biography of the Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who worked for several New York City newspapers during a career that spanned more than forty years.  He covered many of the major stories of his day including the Son of Sam Murders, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, the Central Park Five, Occupy Wall Street, etc.  Breslin was also an accomplished author and his book about the Catholic Church, The Church That Forgot Christ, published in 2004 is excellent. He was also a “quintessential  New Yorker” who had a keen eye for telling a story from the perspective of an everyday person.  Esposito also tells us about Breslin’s personal life, his drinking, his obsessive personality, and his sadness.  His first wife died young as did his two daughters.  As a lifelong New Yorker, I found this biography bringing back many memories and providing insights of events that dominated the news for decades.

Here is the url for an interview conducted by PBS with the author:  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/reporter-jimmy-breslin-remembered-in-new-biography-as-the-man-who-told-the-truth

Good book!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Peter Yarrow of the foll-music trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, is dead at the age of 86.  For people in my generation, Peter, Paul and Mary were megastars in the 1960s with songs like Blowin’ in the Wind and If I Had a Hammer. Anyone who saw them sing Blowin’ in the Wind at the 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. March on Washington, will never forget their performance.

I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Yarrow at Hunter College.  In the early 2000s, my colleague, Janet Patty, had organized a series of talks on the theme of social and emotional learning, during which Mr. Yarrow was a speaker. His message was that of a caring human being concerned about people especially those who for one reason or another were oppressed or marginalized in  society.

Below is an obituary courtesy of Variety.

May he rest in peace!

Tony

Variety

Peter Yarrow, Singer With Folk Legends Peter, Paul & Mary and Co-Writer of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ Dies at 86

Jem Aswad and Chris Willman

January 7, 2025 at 12:21 PM

Peter Yarrow, one third of the chart-topping 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary — which helped popularize Bob Dylan as the voice of a generation — co-writer of the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” and a prominent social activist, died Tuesday morning at his home in New York City “with his family by his side,” a rep confirms to Variety. Yarrow had been battling cancer for four years; he was 86.

Peter, Paul and Mary were a leading light of the booming folk-music scene of the early 1960s, which famously centered around the nightclubs and cafes of New York’s Greenwich Village. Yarrow had begun singing while a student at Cornell University and performed in New York and at the Newport Folk Festival, where he was spotted by manager Albert Grossman, who had a vision of “an updated version of the Weavers,” the legendary folk group featuring Pete Seeger. Singers Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers were soon recruited and, using Stookey’s middle name, Peter, Paul and Mary were born.The trio signed with Warner Bros. Records and achieved success quickly with their first singles, “The Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer,” and won two Grammy Awards in 1962. But it was their cover of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” released in June of 1963, which they performed while standing beside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the historic March on Washington that August, that truly made them into a cultural force, not to mention superstars.

(Not coincidentally, Dylan was also managed by Grossman, Although the new Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” does not dramatize how much the trio popularized his music in the early ’60s, Yarrow’s character appears in the film, played by Nick Pupo, seen engaged in debate as a founding member of the board of directors of the Newport Folk Festival.)

The trio would score many hits over the following years — including with the Yarrow-co-written “Puff the Magic Dragon” — yet would remain indelibly associated with those early years. Later in his life Yarrow would focus intensively on social activism and spoke often against the war in Vietnam and on other subjects.

The group’s initial run came to an end in 1970 when they broke up and pursued solo careers. Beyond his own albums, Yarrow had a No. 1 hit as a songwriter with “Torn Between Two Lovers,” recorded by Mary MacGregor, which topped the Hot 100 for two weeks in 1976.

Peter, Paul and Mary first reunited in 1972 to perform at a benefit for George McGovern’s presidential campaign. They came together again in 1978 at an anti-nukes concert. Thereafter, they resumed regular touring and often played dozens of shows a year, which continued until Travers died in 2009.

In an interview for the podcast “The American Radio Show,” Yarrow looked back on the trio’s early success. “The first album that we did had songs on it such as ‘If I Had a Hammer,’ ‘Lemon Tree,’ ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ And that album had quite a lot of success and was up near the top of the charts. The second album had ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ on it. The music had shifted from popular music to music that had become the soundtrack of the consciousness of the change that was going on in America, and our music was a bridge for many people to the music of Bob Dylan, for example.

“‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ was just a kids’ song. But I had no idea it would become so successful. When we sang ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ Bob Dylan was unheard of. He’d recorded a demo of that song, but that was it. The same for ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ by John Denver and ‘In the Early Morning Rain’ by Gordon Lightfoot. We recorded songs based on a different process from that used in commercial music. We recorded songs that really got to us, that moved us, that reached our hearts. The success was a result of that. You can’t reduce the success of the music of the ’60s to a formula involving arrangements and musical presentation. It was a matter of finding the songs, and going to the heart of the songs, and then creating something that we really wanted to share.”

Yarrow was memorialized Tuesday by family and cohorts. His daughter Bethany said:  “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life. The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest. Driven by a deep belief that a more compassionate and respectful world is possible, my father has lived a cause driven life full of love and purpose. He always believed, with his whole heart, that singing together could change the world. Please don’t stop believing in magic dragons. Hope dies when we stop believing, stop caring, and stop singing.  He may have been a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, but his passion and music touched people of all ages and political stripes around the world. “

His longtime bandmate, Noel Paul Stookey (“Paul” of Peter, Paul and Mary), stated: “Being an only child, growing up without siblings, may have afforded me the full attention of my parents, but with the formation of Peter, Paul and Mary, I suddenly had a brother named Peter Yarrow. He was best man at my wedding and I at his. He was a loving ‘uncle’ to my three daughters. And, while his comfort in the city and my love of the country tended to keep us apart geographically, our different perspectives were celebrated often in our friendship and our music. I was five months older than Peter — who became my creative, irrepressible, spontaneous and musical younger brother — yet at the same time, I grew to be grateful for, and to love, the mature-beyond-his-years wisdom and inspiring guidance he shared with me like an older brother. Politically astute and emotionally vulnerable, perhaps Peter was both of the brothers I never had… and I shall deeply miss both of him.”

Stookey and Yarrow performed shows together as a duo in the late 2010s, up through as recently as last summer. A review of a joint appearance in Minneapolis in 2017 said, “Any concern that I had that the duo would be incomplete without Mary disappeared soon after these two near-octogenarians took the stage. Their two guitars and still near-perfect vocals made for an incredible and passionate evening of music… Those attending expecting only a night of nostalgia with these 1960s protest singers received much more: it was a night of night of reinvigoration for the causes of peace and a better world.” Included in the Peter-and-Paul reunion shows was a new song of Stookey’s called “Work Together,” described as “reject(ing) calls to put the election behind us and work together on the Trump agenda… Always the rebel, Peter Yarrow insisted on taking a knee in protest at the concert – even though pulling it off had the expected level of difficult for a man his age.”

In an April 2024 interview with the Duluth Reader prior to a tour stop there, Yarrow talked about music and its relation to social movements, past and present.

Folk music “still exists, it still has a place,” he said last year, “but it’s a very minor place compared to pop music. And pop music is, to a large degree, a wasteland. It’s not so with certain artists. I mean Lady Gaga has a hell of a conscience; Alicia Keys sings about it and she walks the walk, and so does Taylor Swift, who is a beacon of feminism for teenage girls: Don’t allow the repression that you feel from young men your age to become a reflection of your self-confidence, your essence or self-esteem. Because you are powerful, you are the voice and you can meet them in mutual terrain rather than simply be reactive to the male-dominant culture that we’ve inherited.” Yarrow even likened Swift’s lyrics to “Peter Paul and Mary! Except she isn’t singing to peaceniks, she’s singing to young women who are hopefully not going to allow themselves to be repressed by a male culture of dominance that has brought us to where we are today.”

He continued, “I mean, it is the oppressed people of the world — you know the biblical invocation, ‘the meek shall inherit the earth.’ Look who’s strengthening now — the women. Can you imagine what’s has happened with women with the ‘Pussy March,’ etc. etc. I mean, my God, women are showing up and saying ‘I will not!’ And the oppressed! The LGBTQ showed up and the Black community with Black Lives Matter — the first national gathering of a movement that completely blanketed America where the people, instead of saying ‘where are the people in the streets now that these terrible atrocities have occurred?’ The people were in the streets. And also the students! The students who have been organized…

“We are talking about marginalized people coming into their own. Now, while the Trump reality is growing in its metastatic way, we also have the coalescence of those who have been oppressed to feel their strength. And alas, we don’t have music to accompany that the way we did in the Civil Rights and Vietnam War movements. But nevertheless those movements are in progress.”

Of his recent shows, Yarrow said, “It’s really a remarkable phenomenon because the kind of warmth and enthusiasm and caring, that was once just expected and taken for granted, is reignited amongst people when they sing together, songs like ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ or ‘Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.’ It’s phenomenally moving because it kind of asserts the spirit that bound us together so powerfully so many decades ago and still is in our in our culture and in our hearts and in our DNA. In the era of the animosities of our time, it’s something that’s so restorative to people, so confirmational. No, we’re not gone, no, we still believe in something together. Yes, we still have positive advocacy. Truth, fact, is not a moving target. There are real facts that exist. We have to understand that the dangerous slide of the culture and politics into this polarized, hate-filled perspective is not something that necessarily has to subdue us.”

After Yarrow’s death was announced, his daughter Bethany encouraged donations to her father’s cause: “To honor my father and his legacy In lieu of flowers or any other kind of gift, please consider making a contribution to his not-for-profit, Operation Respect, an anti-bullying program that has been implemented in over 22,000 schools internationally, helping to create the next generation of empathetic, caring, respectful citizens. It would bring him great joy and peace to know that his life’s work of will continue on.”

He is survived by his wife Marybeth, son Christopher, Bethany and granddaughter Valentina.

Dear Commons Community,

Over the weekend I had a medical issue concerning a possible kidney stone. I went to my GP, Dr. Richard Strongwater, who has been my primary care physician for thirty years.  He is excellent if you are looking for a doctor in Westchester, NY.  During the examination, he was recording our entire discussion and making verbal notes, all which were also being recorded on the EPIC EHR (Electronic Health Record)  Generative AI Program being accessed on his laptop.  At the end, he showed me the AI summary of my examination, connections EPIC made to my medical history, and possible prescriptions.  Dr. Strongwater could not praise the EPIC EHR system enough.  It saved him an incredible amount of time that he would have had to spend writing the summary, reviewing my health record, and providing me with a prognosis.  As an aside, he mentioned that Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital was making a major investment in EPIC to expand its capabilities.

EPIC is an example of the fact that AI is here and that it is expanding into all of our lives, even the vital areas of primary health care.

Tony