This and That
April’s preview, Iran, FDA’s and CDC’s new bosses, asking “How are you?” cargo theft of AI by foreign gangs, Ernest Hemingway and Cesar Chavez claims
Twenty years ago this week, a movie debuted in theaters which changed my life. I wrote a review at the time for a movie website. My article introduced the reader to an unusual foreign film, The Lives of Others, made in Germany as the motion picture debut of its screenwriter and director. Eventually, notably, after my review was published and widely read—it became one of the site’s top-ranked articles—the film won awards, gained limited and muted praise (usually for dubious reasons) and became successful. It’s a powerful motion picture.
The Lives of Others is laced with hope, even optimism, despite its setting in Communist Germany. I wrote at the time that the film dramatizes altruism, though it’s also gilded by egoism. Later, I wrote an extensive review of its release on home video. Read the whole review for a limited time for free on my author website.
Meanwhile, here’s the rest of this and that for the paid subscriber, starting with Autonomia’s monthly report on what’s missed that matters in next month’s unknown, forgotten or marginalized dates in history:
April 1: Pittsburgh’s first skyscraper, the Oliver Building, opened on this date in 1910. Read the skyscraper’s history. Read about the capitalist for whom it was named.
April 2: Elian Gonzalez, the child refugee from Communist Cuba, met and was interviewed by the first journalist—this writer, Scott Holleran—at his home in Miami, Florida in 2000. Read my article about Elian’s saga. Also, Hans Christian Andersen, author of The Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling was born on this date in 1805.
April 3: Doris Day was born on this date in 1922.
April 5: “You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.” —Booker T. Washington, was born on this date in 1856. Today is Easter.
April 6: “Allegheny Lane,” my short mystery, was published on this date in 2025. Listen to me read my fiction aloud.
April 10: Author David Halberstam was born on this date in 1934.
April 13: The restored print of Howard Hawks’s motion picture Rio Bravo co-starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson and Ricky Nelson premiered at Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on this date in 2023 (read my movie review). Also on this date in 1949, author Christopher Hitchens was born. America’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was born on this date in 1743.
April 14: President Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate soldier on this date in 1865. I made my Weight Watchers solo coaching debut on this date in 2025.
April 15: Leonardo da Vinci was born on this date in 1452.
April 18: We the Living was published on this date in 1936. Read my first review of Ayn Rand’s fiction—her first novel—here.
April 22: Communist child refugee Elian Gonzalez was seized at gunpoint by the United States government and forced to live in a dictatorship on this date in 2000. This marks the first time in history the American government forcibly removed a refugee from living in a republic based on rights to be repatriated to a dictatorship.
April 25: Elon Musk bought Twitter on this date in 2022.
April 26: My short story, “Sesame Flanagan,” debuted on this date last year in Classic Chicago magazine. Listen to me read his fable aloud.
