8.24.2021 – a symbol, a tool

a symbol, a tool
of history people find
very attractive

Growing up, in my house there was a complete or near complete set of the Random House Landmark books.

If we missed any the library at my elementary school and the local branch library had the rest.

The Voyages of Christopher Columbus, The Landing of the Pilgrims, Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, Paul Revere and the Minute Men, Our Independence and the Constitution.

According to Wikipedia, Landmark Books children’s book series published by Random House from 1950 to 1970, featured stories of significant people and events.

Wikipedia states, “David Spear, writing in the American Historical Association’s news magazine, says that the series “lured an entire generation of young readers” to the history discipline, “including many of today’s professional historians.”

Sign me up for that.

Understand that a lot of history in these books was, for lack of better word, sanitized (?) or maybe, politically correct FOR 1950.

The book on Custer’s Last Stand for example presents a fairly unfair image of the Native American cause.

It also ends with the General Custer and his brother Tom as the last two men standing and that they are killed together and fall into each others arms.

As Director Raoul Walsh said of his movie, ‘They Died with Their Boots On,’ on the same topic, “It wasn’t the way it happened. But it was the way it should have happened.”

(That being said who cannot be stirred in the early scenes of the movie that takes place during Custer’s Civil War career, leading the Michigan Calvary Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg with Errol Flynn yelling, “Ride You Woverines!”)

Those books stayed with me in my brain and some are on my bookshelf today.

One that I read several time was Captain Cortés Conquers Mexico by William Weber Johnson.

One modern review states, “Without posing the question of the rights or wrongs of the Spanish conquistadores, Mr. Johnson has presented the figure of Cortes, conqueror of Mexico, in as favorable a light as possible.”

I’ll go along with that.

I will say on my own behalf that I kept yelling at the Aztec’s to just send everybody and attack, you got them outnumbered 200 to 1.

You can just smother them.

Reading and re-reading the account of La Noche Triste I liked how the Aztecs chased Cortes out of Tenochtitlan even when I knew Cortes was coming back.

I remember that the author pointed out again and again that the conquistadores all carried swords made of the FINEST TOLEDO STEEL.

The author referred to these swords like they were wonder weapons.

The weapons that made the conquest possible.

This thought came to mind when I read this morning that “Toledo’s last swordmakers refuse to give up on their ancient craft”.

The article recounts the trials and tribulations of artisans as they strive to maintain the Toledo Sword.

The article sub title reads, “Famed since Roman times, the Spanish city’s artisans are all but extinct. But a reprieve is at hand from the TV and film.”

The article ends with a quote from one of the swordsmiths, “It’s a symbol, it will always be a symbol. It is a tool of history that people find very attractive.”

I found this interesting as the world just passed the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán.

Just last week in the same online newspaper was the article, “Don’t call us traitors: descendants of Cortés’s allies defend role in toppling Aztec empire.”

The article states, “The conquest is a singular event in Mexican history, seen both as a moment of national trauma and the founding act of the nation – and it remains deeply controversial.”

It remains deeply controversial.

No kidding.

Unfortunate truths.

I believe that was Mr. Al Gore’s movie.

Social History or the history of how people lived in their day to day lives making a living as swordsmiths versus narrative history, the history of the great road scrapper that made and remade the world every day or the history of how those swords were used.

I guess we can be happy that the craft needed to create a sword to the high standards of 500 years is kept alive.

The sword, we can recognize, as a symbol, a tool of history.

A tool that people find very attractive.

But tool that a played a key role in a deeply controversial conquest.

Two sides, maybe more to every story.

Maybe someday people will go to the Smithsonian and in the window marked 2020s there will be some face masks.

The text with the masks could read, “In the Covid Era Decade of 2020, these masks were embraced as a way to protect yourself and others from Covid and at the same time rejected as an expression of Government intrusion and over reach of authority.”

I doubt that any artisan will be making masks the way they were made in 2020.

And I am sure that a mask will be a symbol and it will always be a symbol.

I am sure it will be a tool of history that no one will find very attractive.

PS – AL Gore DID NOT invent the internet NOR did he say that. He did say that “I took the initiative in creating the internet.” Which is true so far as he was on the committee that funded early efforts of a PUBLIC INTERNET and in the big picture I got no problem with what he said so far as everyone who voted yes on the committee for funding can say the same thing. That being said saying what he said shows the fundamental lack of understanding between the internet and the world wide web.

When the first 6 or seven computers were created, scientists realized that people were up and awake at Harvard when they were asleep out on Berkeley and if the computer could be connected or ‘net worked’ or on an inter net, folks out east could use the computers out west. So the INTERNET (Hardware, computers, cables and such) has been around since day one pretty much. Back in the day when I worked at the Grand Rapids Public Library almost every library collection in the world could be connected through our terminals. When the GRPL local database went down I would tell patron’s that I could tell them what was on the shelf at the Sorbonne in Paris, I just couldn’t tell them what was on that shelf over there. I have to add that when we connected those terminals to other libraries the message PHONE RINGING would display on my screen. I loved connecting to libraries all over the world thinking there is a phone ringing in a basement in Berlin right now. If the connection was not accepted it would time out and stop. One night I was trying to connect to Oxford and the connection would not shut down. Not knowing what to do at the end of the night I turned off the terminal and weeks. It was weeks before I stopped worrying that I was going to be given a bill for a 24 hour long long distance phone call. It has to be pointed out this goofy interest and waste of time is a direct line connection to that job I have now.

The World Wide Web came around in the 1990 and its the content that LIVES on the internet.

8.17.2021 – experiences teach

experiences teach
appalling reluctant lack
imagination

In the book, Potsdam : the end of World War II and the remaking of Europe by Michael Neiberg, the author writes, “As the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote at the end of the war, “The man of the East cannot take the Americans seriously,” because “they have never undergone the experiences that teach men how relative their judgments and thinking habits are.” Because neither the Americans nor the British had suffered as Eastern Europe had, Milosz concluded, “their reluctant lack of imagination is appalling.”

To underline what the Russian’s suffered in World War 2, Mr. Neiberg presents data on relative civilian deaths.

As Mr. Neiberg writes, “The difference in the numbers of civilian deaths puts the case even more starkly.”

Mr. Neiberg cites:

An estimated 14.6 million Soviet civilians died in World War 2.

The British lost 67,100 civilians.

The Americans lost 1,700 civilians.

Mr. Nieberg then states, “Sometimes smaller numbers tell the story better. To cite one poignant example, the city of Stalingrad, which had a prewar population of 850,000, had just nine children with both parents still alive at the end of the war.”

I am not in a position to confirm or dispute these numbers.

I do not doubt the statement, “Because neither the Americans nor the British had suffered as Eastern Europe had, their reluctant lack of imagination is appalling.”

A lack of imagination.

I feel you have to excuse people who have lack of imagination.

My problem is an over abundant imagination.

My family is full of anecdotes about “Mike telling stories again.”

BUT a reluctant lack of imagination.

An active choice to choose to not have or use imagination.

That is an indictment.

I cannot imagine is one thing.

I will not imagine is another.

The latter in many cases, is appalling.

I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

If you visit there, you can tour the Gerald R. Ford Museum.

When it was built in its distinctive triangle shape, political satirist Mark Russell said it was because there wasn’t enough stuff to hang on four walls.

Ever since, locals have been working to come up with more stuff to prove Mr. Russell wrong.

One historical artifact you can see is the ‘Saigon Staircase.”

While it is NOT the stairway that reaches to the very top of the US Embassy that you see in all the photographs it IS a stairway you had to take to get to that stairway.

It still WAS part of the only way out of Saigon when the US pulled out.

Maybe its me but not really a highlight of the Ford Administration.

But they try to make it fit.

When the exhibit was opened back in 1999, former President GR Ford, said, “No doubt each visitor will interpret this staircase and its historical significance for himself. For many, it was both a way out of a nightmare – and a doorway into something incomparably better. To some it will always be seen as an emblem of military defeat.”

President Ford said, “… it symbolizes man’s undying desire to be free.”

I do not know how anyone could look at that stairway and the photographs of the US exit from Vietnam and not have the imagination to apply those images to the present time.

How can you look at those photographs with the idea of man’s undying desire to be free and not have the imagination that this could, would happen all over again?

Should not the experience have taught something?

Leaving Afghanistan was a way out of a nightmare.

The reluctant lack of imagination of what would happen once the US pulled out, is appalling.

Neither here nor there but I also came across a another speech the other day.

The speaker said:

Every gun that is made,

every warship launched,

every rocket fired signifies … a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,

those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers,

the genius of its scientists,

the hopes of its children.

The year was 1953.

The speaker was then President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Also known as Supreme Allied Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Ike doesn’t get a lot of credit today.

I was taught that one of the criticisms of Ike as President is that he never had to handle a major crisis.

I was also taught that Ike never had to handle with a major crisis because he was the type of President that kept major crises from happening.

As Supreme Allied Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, I think Ike had a pretty good idea of what war was and what war did.

I think he most likely had the imagination to understand what the Russians went through.

I think when Ike said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies … a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he knew what he meant and and he meant every word.

His grandson David (husband of Julie Nixon which allowed Richard Nixon to introduce himself as General Eisenhower’s Grandson’s Father-in-Law) was asked if he thought his Granddad would be best remembered for being a General or being a President?

David replied along the lines of, “This country has had 40 plus Presidents. The world has had one Supreme Commander.”

Experiences teach.

If there is the imagination to learn.

6.18.2021 – defy ignorance

defy ignorance
of vested prejudices
vested interests

17 syllables, 7 words and more situational application than you can shake a stick at, if that’s your idea of a good time.

If I started listing the different situations in the current news cycle that these 7 words could be applied, the list would soon be hiring than the Empire State Building and its 102 floors.

I adapted today’s haiku from a “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West” written by Wallace Stegner and published in 1954.

Major John Wesley Powell was the one armed explorer of Wonderful World of Disney fame who rafted down the Colorado River in 1869 and located the Grand Canyon and invented a tourist sport at the same time.

Major Powell also served as the second Director of the United States Geological Survey, a post he held from 1881–1894.

When Mr. Stegner wrote about Major Powell, Stegner was able to comment about the problem of living out west.

Living out in the American West where there was LOTS of SUNSHINE, LOTS of WILD FIRES and VERY LITTLE WATER.

Mr. Stegner was able to comment about as Major Powell noticed that there would be issues.

Major Powell published in 1878 a government paper titled: Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States.

According to one account, Major Powell, “. . . unflinchingly described the scarcity of water, and summarized that much of the American south-west, if it must be settled, should be settled lightly and modestly. Overpopulate it, and it will be unforgiving.”

According to Mr. Stegner, “As a government scientist, Major Powell was now defying ignorance. He was taking on vested interests and the vested prejudices by which they maintained themselves.”

As one account puts it, Major Powell was a sage.

And what does sage mean?

According to the online Merriam-Webster it means:

Wise through reflection and experience.

Proceeding from or characterized by wisdom, prudence, and good judgment.

One (such as a profound philosopher) distinguished for wisdom.

A mature or venerable person of sound judgment.

So what happened to Major Powell and his report?

No one listened to him.

6.2.2021 – I grew up with life

I grew up with life
But I never outgrew it
too often forget

To steal from Sir Walter Scott:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said
School year is over.
Summer is here.
Let me stay in bed.

(the last three lines are mine)

I am now old enough to be considered old I guess.

If I get hit by a car crossing the street, the headline will start; “elderly pedestrian …”

Well so what?

Can’t stop the clock.

As for getting old with life, there is only one other alternative unless you happen to have a goofy portrait locked up in the attic.

There are some things though that I hope stir your soul no matter the time of your life.

Sunny days.

Sun on the water.

Snow days.

If I happen to hear that schools are cancelled somewhere, anywhere, due to snow, inwardly, I smile and outwardly I laugh.

AND I want to stop working and take a snow day even though I haven’t measured snow on the ground (Devil’s Dandruff) in years.

End of the school year.

I hear talk of year round school and I have heard all the arguments in favor and against and the history of the development of the ‘school year’ around the farm based economic year and now the pressures to find summer day care.

Yes yes and yes.

NEVERTHELESS!

That day.

That morning.

That minute.

When it really sunk in.

To quote Maya Angelou, “singin’ and swingin’ and gettin’ merry like Christmas” deep down in the center of your soul.

The words for today’s Haiku I adapted from President Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama wrote the forward to the “The Complete Peanuts.”

An anthology published in 2016.

Mr. Obama wrote, “Like millions of Americans, I grew up with Peanuts. But I never outgrew it.

Wherever I lived, wherever I travelled, I could find those three or four panels in the paper each morning. And Charlie, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Franklin and the gang brought childhood rushing back.

That’s what made Charles Schulz so brilliant – he treated childhood with all the poignant and tender complexity it deserves. He gave voice to all its joys and anxieties – a spectrum of emotions that run from the start of a new baseball season to the anguished “Augh” that comes with losing the big game. He explored the emotions that we too often forget kids feel until we’re reminded that we once felt them ourselves. Hope. Doubt. The exquisite pain of unrequited love. The self-exploration of what it means to be different. The comfortable knowledge that it’s all going to be OK – even if Lucy’s advice isn’t very good.

For decades, Peanuts was our own daily security blanket. That’s what makes it an American treasure.”

Childhood with all the poignant and tender complexity it deserves.

He gave voice to all its joys and anxieties

Summer time.

You don’t have to sign up.

It’s free.

School is out.

I grew up with life.

I hope I never outgrow it.

I hope I do not too often forget the fun of doing nothing.

5.20.2021 – I saw him and he

I saw him and he
saw me at same time, Second bite,
one that broke the bones

And other reason to stay out of the woods.

Taken from “Second bite is one that broke the bones’: Alaska man describes bear mauling”

“Allen Minish was alone and surveying land for a real estate agent in a wooded, remote part of Alaska, putting some numbers into his GPS unit when he looked up and saw a large brown bear walking about 30ft (10 meters) away.”

This is better (or worse) than the story from down here in the low country and the dog and the alligator.

That headline was, “Didn’t even have time to bark!”