1.11.2021 – sustain a number

sustain a number
questions neither so simple
nor so trivial

Adapted from the book, The Architecture of Happiness (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all its ardour and paradoxes—than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside of the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are they considered to present philosophical problems—that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are inundated with advice on whereto travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go, even though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial, and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia, or ‘human flourishing’.

Adapted from the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton.

According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

Neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

1.10.2021 – state, inclination

state, inclination
of the day, we judge by
the sky’s complexion

Adapted from William Shakespeare from his play, Richard II.

Big Bill writes in Act II Scene 3;

Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:

Jesus said, recorded in Matthew 16:2-3:

When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’

The old rhyme in my head goes:

Red Sky at Night
Sailor’s Delight
Red Sky in the Morning
Sailor take warning

Of course to be complete I have to include:

Red Sky at Night
Sailor’s Delight
Red Sky in the Morning
Your Barn’s On Fire!

Jesus went on to add, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

I have very pleasent memories of the many, many meteoroligiists that I had the pleasure of working with in 20 years of online news.

When most most folks see Allison Chinchar now on CNN they see a top notch Meteorologist.

I think of how Allie would burst into my office and empty a bag of Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter cups on my desk before she asked for something she needed online.

I think of Paul Ossmann one time when I was chatting with the weather team at WXIA in Atlanta.

Paul was hunched over his computer and kept muttering profanity.

I asked what was up?

Paulie responded that no matter what model he ran, Atlanta was smack dab in the middle of an upcoming massive snow storm.

His alarm was real.

The storm he saw coming is now known as the Blizzard of January 2011.

I never got out of the house for the next week.

They are a hard working dedicated bunch of scientists and broadcasters who enjoy their role and embrace the public trust in their masthead to inform their audience.

But still, as folks say, everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.

How often do they get it right?

How often do they get it wrong.

And yet Jesus said that we DO know how to interpret the appearance of the sky.

So we got weather forecasting right.

And we know that record.

How can we every expect to even imagine we might be able to get anything in the future right.

Or as Sir Humphrey Appleby said (In Yes Minister) about unforeseen problems, “If I could foresee them, they wouldn’t be unforeseen.”

Lucky for us Jesus still has the anwser.

It is in Matthew 6:34 that Jesus says this:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

It was a clear white sunny morning today in the Low Country.

No sailors need to take warning.

My barn isn’t on fire.

Heading to the beach.

Tomorrow is scheduled to arrive in 24 hours.

1.9.2021 – old voices, concerns

old voices, concerns
getting a grip on today
what will history say

I saw today that Helen Viola Jackson has died.

She was thought to be the last living widow of a Civil War verteran.

The reports state she married her much-older neighbor, 93-year-old James Bolin, in September 1936 during the depression with the idea she might inherit his pension.

My Great Great Grand Father was a Civil War veteran.

Wound in action and married after he returned home, I like to tell folks I came THIS close to not being here.

Grandpa also got a pension of 8 dollars a month after surviving being shot through the lungs in 1862.

I was going to cite to Helen Viola Jackson as an example of living history but since she just died, well, you know what I mean.

A voice from the past.

There was another voice from the past this week and like many surprise voices from the past, some surprise was connected to the fact that the person in question was still alive.

Browsing through the World Wide Web this past week I can across an opinon piece by none other than Danial Ellsberg.

Danial Ellsberg.

If there is a name that evokes more memories and little understanding of the Vietnam War era, I do not know whose name it would be.

Ellsberg has a big role in the anti Vietnam War effort during the Johnson era and while what he did had nothing to do with Watergate and the Nixon era, it had everything to do with Watergate and the Nixon era.

Ellsberg was a Pentagon staffer who had growing misgivings about US involvement in Vietnam,

The Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara (one time President of Ford Motor Company – another story for another time) asked that a report be compiled.

The report was to be titled “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.”

Daniel Ellsberg got the assignement and produced an 11 volume report.

ELEVEN VOLUMES!

Mr. Ellsberg’s report came down heavily on the side that said Vietnam was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong enemy.

Okay so Chief of Staff General Omar Bradley said that about Korea, but it fits here for this narrative.

Mr. Ellsberg was dismayed at the lack of attention his report received.

Mr. Ellsberg famously related that the only way you could really get something across to Secretary McNamara was to find out when he was flying to Vietnam and then somehow get yourself on the plane and you had 18 hours to talk to the Secretary and he couldn’t get away.

The report was kept under wraps during the Johnson years.

But the Vietnam War stayed on the front pages.

The Nixon Era began and the Vietnam War stayed on the front pages with every indication that the war would get bigger.

Mr. Ellsberg felt he had to act.

Mr. Ellsberg gave the report to the New York Times.

The New York Times published part of the report with the promise that the entire report was coming.

Even though the report was an indictment of the Johnson Administration, the Nixon Government took steps in court to stop publication.

The Nixonians cited National Security.

The Nixon reasoning was that the report said the war was both stupid and wrong and since they had the report when they took over, the were even more stupid and more wrong than Johnson to continue the war.

A Court set a restraining order in place and told the New York Times to stop printing the report.

The Washington Post got a copy of the report (strange how this things get around even then) and started printing.

The case quickly and I mean quickly got to the Supreme Court and the Supremes decided 6-3 in favor of the New York Times and the long and inglorious history of the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 was out there for all to read.

So what could the Nixonians do?

The could discredit Mr. Ellsberg.

The Nixonans knew that Mr. Ellsberg had been driven to seek psychiatric help.

The Nixonians broke into the office of Mr. Ellsberg’s Psychiatrist to get their hands on his case notes to prove that Mr. Ellsberg was crazy.

This did not work out too well for the Nixonians.

Not that they learned any lessons from this.

The Nixonians, if nothing else, felt they now knew what to do if they needed information.

When the Nixonians decided they wanted to know what the Democratic National Committee was doing they resurected the Ellsberg plan and broke in to the DNC Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC.

This also did not work out to well for the Nixonians.

That is how a very minor, low level Pentagon staffer entered the history books.

For a couple of years there its seems to me that you could not watch or listen to the news without hearing the words Ellsberg, Ellsberg Breakin or Pentagon Papers.

I haven’t heard the name in years however.

And here he was writing about his concerns about possible war plans for an attack on the middle east.

To be sure, he said, such PLANS are being considered.

Mr. Ellsberg even wondered out loud if the people working on these plans might be using his old desk.

Mr. Ellsberg wrote that he hoped if this was happening that who ever was working at his old desk would have his old feelings but have more courage and be a whistle blower for peace and release this information so these plans could be stopped.

Mr. Ellsberg said he was a whistle blower.

But that he waited too long.

Mr. Ellsberg wrote “I will always regret that I did not copy and convey those memos – along with many other files in the top-secret safe in my office at that time, all giving the lie to the president’s false campaign promises that same fall that “we seek no wider war” – to Senator Fulbright’s foreign relations committee in September 1964 rather than five years later in 1969, or to the press in 1971. A war’s worth of lives might have been saved.“

A war’s worth of lives might have been saved.

Old voices voicing old concerns.

History has been kind to Mr. Ellsberg.

Kind of an anti-hero hero.

I am often asked my opinion on how history might treat our current man in the oval office.

And I consider Mr. Ellsberg.

Mr. Ellsberg wishes he could have done more to prevent the Vietnam War.

A war that lasted 20 years and in the end resulted in American casualties of 58,318 dead (47,434 from combat) and 303,644 wounded.

In his words, Mr. Ellsberg thinks that had he acted sooner, a war’s worth of lives might have been saved.

Right now in a pandemic lasting less than a year over 350,000 Americans have died.

I don’t have to ponder much as to how history will judge this feller currently in office.

1.8.2021 – all fools in town on

all fools in town on
our side, ain’t that big enough
a majority?

From the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

In the scene, the grifters, the King and Duke are arguing about overstaying their welcome too long with a family they have convinced they are long lost relatives.

Not only have they talked their way into the family but into the will of the recently dead, Peter Wilks, and they stand to walk away with the bulk of the dead man’s fortune.

But the Duke second thoughts about they whole deal and has to be convinced again.

Mr. Twain writes “the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay.”

This leads the King to say, “What do we k’yer? Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”

I feel that somehow I know just how Mr. Twain felt when he thought up these lines.

I also feel like I know someone who could be described as Mr. Twain described the Undertaker about whom was written, “He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn’t no more smile to him than there is to a ham.”

1.7.2021- How it all started

How it all started
Well, that was some weird shit … now
the fat lady sings

“Well, that was some weird …”

So commented someone in attendance at the Trump Inaugural 4 years ago.

So commented someone in attendance at the Trump Inaugural 4 years ago just minutes into the Trump Administration as Trump finished his Inaugural Address to the nation.

Remember that speech?

The one where Trump said, “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

When he finished someone turned to the people nearby and said, “Well, that was some weird shit.”

That someone was George W. Bush.

By some accounts President Bush said it out loud to Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton herself tells the story that way.

More than anyone knew, President Bush summed up the speech and previewed the next four years.

Four years that are ever so slowly coming to an end.

It was Yogi Berra who famously said “it ain’t over until its over“.

This gets repeated in close athletic contests all the time.

Another phrase that gets used a lot, especially in late game, come from behind unexpected victories , is that “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.“

The statement is supposed to be a reference to attending opera performances, especially performances of Wagnerian Opera’s that last for a week or more.

The message is you know the opera is over when the fat lady sings.

Another story on the phrase I have in my head is that the fat lady singing was the traditional closing act back in Vaudeville days.

It also seems to me that the last act was bad on purpose as it made the crowd want to go home.

Much like Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport is designed to help the crowd appreciate and look forward to their own homes even more.

And for some reason I always thought the fat lady sings was a Yogi Berra saying.

So I was surprised to feed the phrase into the Google and learn that the phrase is of relatively recent origin.

According to Wikipedia, “The first recorded use appeared in the Dallas Morning News on March 10, 1976:
Despite his obvious allegiance to the Red Raiders, Texas Tech sports information director Ralph Carpenter was the picture of professional objectivity when the Aggies rallied for a 72–72 tie late in the SWC tournament finals. “Hey, Ralph,” said Bill Morgan, “this… is going to be a tight one after all.” “Right”, said Ralph, “the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

1976?

I was sure it went back much further than that but who wants to argue with Wikipedia.

As Mr. Berra said, “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”

Wikipedia states that: “The phrase is generally understood to be a reference to opera sopranos, who were traditionally overweight. The imagery of Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and its last part, Götterdämmerung, is typically used in depictions accompanying uses of the phrase.”

Wikipedia also lists phrases with similar meanings
“It ain’t over till it’s over“, a phrase popularized by baseball player Yogi Berra.
“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”, a well-known saying which originated in the 16th century.
“The future isn’t carved in stone“, a phrase meaning that the future can always be changed.
“Nothing is carved in stone” or “It isn’t carved in stone.” a phrase meaning a situation or plans can be changed.

The last one calls to mind when my Father died back in January of 1988.

1988?

Boy, Howdy! But does that seem like a long time ago.

When my Father’s tombstone was delivered we all went out to see it.

The stone cutter had made a mistake common to the month of January and the tombstone displayed the year of death as 1987.

We all looked at the stone and we looked at the date and we looked at each other.

As I remember it my brother Steve looked around and said, “What can we do? It IS carved in stone!”

My Dad would have liked that.

But I digress.

I was struck by the Wikipedia entry about my phrase in question and that it stated it is understood to refer to the Götterdämmerung in Wagner’s opera cycle.

Feed Götterdämmerung into the google and the google says that a Götterdämmerung is a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder.

Well if that doesn’t make you put the coffee down and quote President Bush I don’t know what will.

It is time for the fat lady to sing.

Maybe she has been singing for some time.

I feel like I have wanted to go home and appreciate home for some time.

And the song she is singing is, “Well, that was some weird shit.”