Category Archives: Nostalgia reviews

Thank God Jesus wasn’t conservative…

If Jesus had been conservative we might all be Muslim (i.e. and e.g., “no Battle of Poitiers“)…

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I have no idea why this “March 2021” post comes up as the main page for this blog when you Google “georgiawasp.” The notes give a fuller story, but there are newer posts. (The latest, A reminder: Great politicians STILL sell hope, at right.) Meanwhile, I’m working on the problem…

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What with the Coronavirus pandemic and the demands of working three days a week, it’s been tough to do posts on a consistent, timely basis. (See How Often Should You Blog in 2020?) But not for lack of topics or ideas. It’s because I blog mainly to learn, and for my own satisfaction. That means I “take enough time to do the job right,” not be consistent.

And I last posted here back on April 17, almost two weeks ago. So on this last day of April, 2020, I’m juggling four or five possible blog posts. Like “Memories of Lori,” based on listening today to the Urban Cowboy soundtrack. (A movie that I saw back in 1980 with a lovely young copy editor at the St. Pete Times.)

Or a post on possible answers for really stupid Facebook posts. (Like my earlier Fighting right-wing distortions on Facebook.) So for this quick-response post I’ll go back to some thoughts I revisited five months ago, that have been percolating a good long while.

The topic is a favorite theme of mine – or Meme – that goes, “If so-and-so had been conservative, we’d all be ____!” And by the way, I take issue with today’s conservatives only because a reporter’s job – and by extension a blogger’s – is “challenge the prevailing quacks.”

And today’s conservatives are definitely the “prevailing quacks.”

For one example, “If the Founding Fathers had been conservative, we’d all be singing ‘God save the Queen’ at the start of our baseball games.” (If we weren’t playing cricket instead.) The idea – and the irony if not the incongruity – is that today’s conservatives act like they’re the only real Americans. The problem is that our forefathers came to this country mostly to get the hell away from conservatives – the ones who tended to stay back home.

In plain words, those old-time conservatives didn’t have the guts to put up with the challenges of creating a New World. It was the Independents and Dreamers who did all that.

Then there’s this, “If Jesus had been conservative, we’d all be talking Yiddish.” (“Oy vey,” to which might be added the Seinfeld meme, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”)

Or in the case of this post’s headline – “Thank God Jesus wasn’t a conservative” – the Punch line thereof would be: “Otherwise we Americans might all be Muslim.”

But don’t take my word for it. Kenneth Clark said that in his 1969 book Civilisation: “Without Charles Martel‘s victory over the Moors at Poitiers in 732, western civilization might never have existed…” And by western civilization he meant western Christian civilization.

Which again means that if Jesus had been conservative – as many ostensible Christians claim today – there would have been no viable force to stop the “Islamic advance into Western Europe.”

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There’s a bit of background in the notes about how I happened on to Clark’s observation…

But – to cut to the chase – here’s the connection between Charles Martel and Jesus not being conservative. The idea is that if Jesus had been conservative, He wouldn’t have started the New Religion – the “New Testament” – that eventually bore His name. And Judaism would likely have stayed a relatively small religious movement. (Without the proselytizing that is such a trademark of Christianity, it would have been confined to the fringes of the eastern Mediterranean.)

In plain words, there would be nothing to stop Islam from taking over Western Europe.

At page 17 in his first chapter, “The Skin of Our Teeth,” Clark noted how close Western civilization came to be snuffed out. That is, with Fall of the Roman Empire, life in what we call the Middle (or “Dark“) Ages was generally nasty, brutish and short.

For one example, during those 500 years or so it was rare person indeed who could read or write. (“[P]ractically no lay person, from kings and emperors downwards, could read or write.”) And as Clark noted, it was only in the Church that reading and writing were preserved. “We survived because … for centuries practically all men of intellect joined the Church.” And it was Church scribes who preserved not only reading and writing, but also the classics of antiquity. “In so far as we are heirs of Greece and Rome, we got through by the skin of our teeth.”

Which is one reason to thank God that Jesus wasn’t conservative.

Another reason is that if Jesus had been conservative – and Judaism stayed a small religion without Christian proselytizing – there would be no Charles Martel, the French warrior-king (and “Hammer“) who saved Christian Europe. As historian Edward Gibbon noted:

[H]ad Charles fallen, the [Muslim armies] would have easily conquered a divided Europe… [T]he Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.

See Battle of Tours – Wikipedia. But that didn’t happen. Instead – and again cut to the chase – after many long centuries of struggle, mayhem and death, we now have a clearly-defined separation of church and state. Which started (arguably) with Charles Martel, an effective combination of ardent Christian, powerful military leader, and Independent.

Although Charles Martel ( d. 741)is one of the most noted heroes in Christianity when studying one of the many violent encounters between Christian and Muslim forces, Charles “The Hammer” Martel was no marionette of the Church. He was quite an independent and practical thinker as a military leader and as a politician.

To which we could add, “Martel was an Independent, just like Moses and Jesus!” (And like me, for that matter. See A reminder: “I’m an INDEPENDENT (Voter).”)

Which is another way of saying that after Martel’s victory at the Battle of Tours (or Poitiers) neither the Church nor the governments of Europe gained complete control. The result was a “dynamic tension” between the two forces, which turned out to be a blessing.

That is, Charles Martel “begat” Charlemagne – actually his grandson – who has been called “the father of Europe.” (He “united parts of Europe that had never been under Frankish or Roman rule.”) Which again wouldn’t have happened without Martel’s victory at Tours.

The point is that in the fullness of time, Charlemagne traveled to Rome, where the Pope crowned him “emperor.” (At a Mass on Christmas Day, 800, “when Charlemagne knelt at the altar to pray, the Pope crowned him Imperator Romanorum (‘Emperor of the Romans’) in Saint Peter’s Basilica.”) Charlemagne later thought that episode was a mistake, in that it gave the pope a pretext of “supremacy” over him. (And future secular rulers.) Which led Clark to note:

But historical judgments are very tricky. Maybe the tension between the spiritual and worldly powers throughout the Middle Ages was precisely what kept European civilisation alive. If either had achieved absolute power, society might have grown as static as the civilisations of Egypt and Byzantium.

(Clark, 20) And that – clearly – would have been the situation if Jesus had been either conservative or liberal. Instead, He and God seem to have worked together to maintain the Dynamic Tension that exists “even to this day,” between spiritual and worldly powers here in America. And why Jesus and God made sure that the foundations of American democracy included Freedom or religion and the separation of powers.

The result is that – whatever you might say about American democracy today – it is definitely not “static.” In short, if Jesus had been conservative, we here in America might have to see all our women togged out in those silly burqas, or otherwise covering themselves up…

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Re: The “foul-up” resulting in this old (April 2020) post being made so prominent right now. Maybe it’s a sign from God? See for example Sign From God Meme – Image Results, including the one featuring various church billboards, including the one billboard saying, “Well, you did ask for a sign.”

Also on the not-up-to-date main page: Here’s the original note, when the April | 2020 | The Georgia Wasp started coming up as the main page. Here’s the note I wrote for that SNAFU:

I have no idea why this old post – from April 2020 – comes up as the main page when you Google “georgiawasp.” Something happened on the evening of April 3, 2021, and I’m not sure what. I was writing up the new post, Revisiting March 2020, that I finally published on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021. For another more-recent post, click on An Updated ‘Geezer Guide to Supplements…’ Meanwhile, I’ll work on fixing the problem.

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The upper image is courtesy of Umayyad invasion of Gaul – Wikipedia, rephrased in the main text as “Islamic advance into Western Europe.” The main point: “The Umayyad invasion of Gaul occurred in two phases in 720 and 732. Although the Muslim Umayyads secured control of Septimania, their incursions beyond this into the Loire and Rhône valleys failed. By 759 they had lost Septimania to the Christian Franks.” The caption for the painting: “The Battle of Tours” – also called the Battle of Poitiers – “in 732, depicts a triumphant Charles Martel (mounted) facing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of Tours. Painting (1837) by Charles de Steuben.” See also the link Reconquista:

The Reconquista (Portuguese and Spanish for “reconquest”) was the period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula of about 780 years between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.

The photo to the left of the paragraph beginning “But don’t take my word for it” is courtesy of Kenneth Clark Civilisation – Image Results. The quotations from Clark are from the hardcover book version of his Civilisation (TV series), pages 18 and 20. And for an interesting sidelight on “Sir” Clark, see A new book reveals Kenneth Clark was also a bed-hopping, wife-stealing rogue.

Though ostensibly a happily married man with a dutiful and caring wife … he couldn’t keep his manicured hands or his swooning heart away from other women. He was a serial adulterer, a constant seeker of affairs, even [the] wives of his close friends. This upright pillar of the Establishment was … as one of his detractors put it most succinctly, ‘a frightful s**t’.

As to “Christian civilization,” see How Sir Kenneth Clark Defended Christian Civilization on PBS.

And here’s some background on how I happened on Clark’s observations. I used to exercise seven hours a week. Over two of those hours included stair-stepping. (With a 28-pound weight vest and ten pounds of ankle weights.) And those two or more hours of stair-stepping were exceedingly boring. So to pass the time – and aside from listening to music on my iPod Shuffle – I watch VHS tapes, hooked up to a flat-screen TV. And my VHS collection includes a Box Set of Clark’s Civilisation (TV series). And some time ago – while stair-stepping an hour or so – I heard again Clark’s saying that Charles Martel saved western Christian civilization. (It was like a “sign from God…”) A side-note: I now exercise some eight hours a week, but have cut down on the “weighted” stair-stepping.

For more on the topic of Jesus-as-not-conservative, see The Story of the Law: Rene A. Wormser, 1962 paperback edition, by Rene A. Wormser, at page 32. Briefly, Wormser used 29 pages to describe Moses’ role as “law-giver,” but only two to cover Jesus. Mostly, he wrote, because Jesus simply “preached what Jewish liberals had taught.” That is,”Jewish liberal thought had already produced the fine flowering of ethics which we now know best from Jesus’ lips.” For more on Wormser himself, see RENE A WORMSER, 85, LAWYER – (Obituary) The New York Times.

The lower image is courtesy of Coronavirus Mask – Image Results.

On “Mad Men” – Revisited…

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A revamped ad agency – “Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce” – near the end of Mad Men‘s Season 3…

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I don’t have cable TV. What I do have is a flat-screen TV and DVD player. And I’m cheap, so most DVDs I view come from the local library. So starting last summer I got hooked on Mad Men, the TV drama “about one of New York’s most prestigious ad agencies at the beginning of the 1960s…”

The series originally ran from 2007 to 2015. It lasted for seven seasons and 92 episodes. The time frame in the series ran from March 1960 to November 1970. Which means it brings back a lot of memories, although I was still in elementary school when that time-frame began.

The early episodes were usually quirky, sometimes funny and sometimes unsettling. Most characters “smoke like chimneys,” and the advertising executives can’t seem to go an hour without visiting each other’s office and offering each other a drink. (“They’re always getting sloshed.”) In another example, one early episode showed Don Draper’s first wife – Betty – visiting a psychiatrist. But later that night the doctor calls Don and goes over the session, nearly word for word, and closes by saying Betty is a “clearly disturbed young woman.”

In another early episode the Drapers go on a picnic. At the end Don finishes his beer and tosses the can off into the distance. And Betty takes the family blanket and nonchalantly shakes it out, leaving the pristine sight now trashed by the family’s garbage. (Did I mention that while emi-retired, I work part-time at the local branch of Keep America Beautiful. See Whatever happened to … Cassidy?)

That little vignette really “got me riled.” (So to speak.)

But the series did get me wondering. I’m 68 now, and a few years back I got hooked on the idea of a “do-over,” going back to high school – for example – and starting over, but armed with all the knowledge I now have about all that’s happened since I graduated. That would be nice I suppose, but it might also have gotten me “burned at the stake.” (Or the functional equivalent of knowing way too much about what happens in the future. “Telephones without wires? Magical cards that you can buy things with? Somebody get the torches and pitchforks!”)

Or as Bonnie Prudden – at left – put it in one of her exercise books: Suppose you could go back in time, but in a way that you knew what was going to happen, but couldn’t do anything to change it? (If you had to go through all the good things and bad you experienced, including all the heartaches you went through “learning life’s lessons.”)

Something like that happened as I started watching Mad Men’s Season 4. Through the magic of the Wiki | Fandom website, I could tell what was going to happen before it happened. But I also knew beforehand that if it was too unsettling or uncomfortable, I could fast-forward through it. (Like the “lipstick on Peggy’s teeth” incident.)

So, would it be nice if we could do that in real life? Know when something bad was going to happen, and be able to “fast forward” through it? Or maybe not. (As it says in Psalm 119:7, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your [God’s] statutes.” I.e., learn life’s lessons.)

Which – in a way – brings up the time I wrote the first draft of this post, last summer after I had gotten back from my May trip to israel. (See “Back from three weeks in Israel.”)

I had just finished watching Episode 6, Season 1, “Babylon.” It was about the day after Mother’s Day in 1960, at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency. Don Draper,the main protagonist, and his co-workers “meet with executives from the Israeli Board of Tourism to discuss marketing strategies. Don, unsure of what strategy to use, meets Rachel Menken for lunch under the guise of asking her for input because she is Jewish.”

The episode detailed various clandestine meetings between Don and several women – he’s quite the philanderer, through all 92 episodes – including a woman named Midge.

Don, as is his habit, starts to put the moves on Midge at her apartment, but their “bout” is interrupted when Midge’s beatnik friend – Roy – knocks at the door loudly. Awkward introductions follow, with Don sitting on Midge’s bed with his shoes off. A battle of wits follows, both at the apartment and later at the Gaslight Cafe – at right – “to watch Midge’s friend perform.”

Roy – the boyfriend – ridicules Don for the “emptiness of advertising and mass consumption.” In turn, Don ridicules Roy for his youth, “vanity and flightiness.” But their bickering is interrupted when a trio of Midge’s friends take the stage. They start singing a haunting, beautiful song. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”

And I said to myself, “That’s Psalm 137!”

As indeed it was, verified by the episode link in Mad Men – Wikipedia, which tells of the trio performing “a song about the Jews’ mourning their exile from Zion in Babylon (Psalm 137 as arranged by Philip Hayes).” But the really moving thing was how it affected Don, normally portrayed as the personification of worldly cynicism. And I knew of it because of a post in my companion blog, “If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem.” (Which I posted on April 18, 2019.)

Which brings up the fact that – “through the magic of the Wiki | Fandom” – I now know what happens to Midge. (The lovely young brunette in the picture below.) She finds a new boyfriend, Perry, and he turns her into a heroin addict. She then meets Don outside his new office in “Blowing Smoke,” Episode 12 in Season 4. She is “noticeably skinnier,” and invites him back to her dilapidated apartment to meet Perry, “her husband.” When Midge leaves the room Perry subtly hints that Midge will do “anything” if Don buys one of her paintings. (Saying “the two of them are ‘not possessive’ of one another.”) Don gives Perry 10 dollars to buy groceries, but when he leaves, Midge says “Perry is just going to take the money and ‘put it into his arm.'”

in due course Don leaves the apartment after giving Midge $120 in cash for one of her paintings. (A lot of money in those days.) So maybe it pays not to know too much about the future. Anticipating the first Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston prize fight would have been fun; I could have made a lot of money betting on it. (Except I was only in 7th grade.) But then too I would have known about the Kennedy Assassination coming up – which I lived through again, watching Mad men – and been powerless to stop it. (Except for maybe getting locked up.)

Or knowing the lovely “Midge” pictured below would turn into a heroin addict…

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The upper image is courtesy of Mad Men Season 3 – Image Results.

Re: “Season 4.” The full link-cite is Season 4 | Mad Men Wiki | Fandom.

The lower image is courtesy of Mad Men Babylon – Image Results.

Remembering the Okefenokee…

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An “alligator mississippiensis,” prevalent in the Okefenokee Swamp – where I kayaked – twice…

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This May I’ll be making a two-week pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (As part of a local church group.) Which makes this a great time to remember some past pilgrimages. Like my two separate overnight-camping ventures into the Okefenokee Swamp. (Shown at left.)

I wrote of those Okefenokee trips in several posts: Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee” (11/7/15), “Into the Okefenokee” – Part II (11/15/15), “Into the Okefenokee” – Part III (11/24/15), “There he goes again…” (5/30/16), and “There he goes again” – Revisited (5/31/17).

The original Operation Pogo noted that my fascination with the Okefenokee started – at age 10 or so, back in the 1960s – when I saw the movie Swamp Water, starring Walter Brennan:

The part I remember best was watching Walter Brennan getting bitten in the face by a snake. In the scene, he kneels over and parts the bulrushes to get a drink. (Of “swamp water,” while hiding from John Law in the Okefenokee.) As Walter [kneels], the viewer can see a grinning cottonmouth off to his right. (The viewer’s left.) The grinning cottonmouth then proceeds to bite him “right on the cheek.” I’ve been fascinated ever since…

Part of that fascination also came from the old Pogo comic strip. (It ran from 1949 to 1975.) It starred Pogo Possum, was set in the Okefenokee, and featured “social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters:”

Pogo is set in the Georgia section of the Okefenokee Swamp; Fort Mudge and Waycross are occasionally mentioned. The characters live, for the most part, in hollow trees amidst lushly rendered backdrops of North American wetlands, bayous, lagoons and backwoods.

Also, note that my original “Pogo” post was very long. It clocked in at over 1,600 words in the main text, and over 2,000 words including the notes. Since then I’ve cut down on blog-post wordage, mostly because the average reader has the attention span of a gerbil. (You could Google “ideal number of words for a blog post.” One site – Forbes – said that for one thing, “most people only read between 20% to 28% of a post” anyway…)

1445698042386 “Revisited” noted my second fun trip into the Okefenokee, from the west entrance into the Okefenokee east of Fargo, Georgia. (In the “tagalong” combo at right; a kayak with a rubber dinghy trailing behind.) “Among other things I saw some fifty alligators during the first hour of paddling.” After that I stopped counting…

I camped at the CANAL RUN shelter, “some nine miles in from the Foster State Park launch site.” And … because it was so early in the season the canoe-only trails were much vegetated-over. Which meant that many times I had to “butt-scootch” my kayak over a barely-sunken log, and sometimes had to stick my hand out, grab another log and finish pulling the kayak [over]. The last time I reached my left hand out I saw a patch of white. It turned out to be yet another gator … “smiling” nicely at what he no doubt thought was a tasty new snack.

In case I’m being too subtle, that “tasty new snack” would have been my left hand.

And speaking of “pilgrimages” – and why I do things like camp overnight in the Okefenokee (twice) and fly to places like Jerusalem: I addressed that topic in my companion blog. See for example, On St. James, Steinbeck, and sluts. (The “sluts” came from Robert Louis Stevenson.)

That post noted that on a true pilgrimage – usually by and through such things as “the raw experience of hunger, cold, lack of sleep” – we can quite often “find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings.” (And to that might be added, mosquitoes, snakes and great numbers of alligators.) The post added that a true pilgrimage can be “one of the most chastening, but also one of the most liberating” of personal experiences.

I certainly felt “chastened” at almost having my left hand chomped by a “smiling” gator.

1445624973384 And speaking of being chastened: “One thing I learned is that – in the Okefenokee – there are precious few places to stop and take a break… The shelters – for day use or overnight – are few and far between. As a result, the ol’ keister got extremely sore by the end of the second day. (Not to mention blisters on my palms…)” That is, in this swamp there are few “shores” to speak of. Just a “line of reeds that an alligator can mash down.” And where a wandering kayaker – for example – steps off at his own peril, as shown above left.

Also, one time I was paddling through a very narrow canal when I saw a big bull gator – who eventually submerged. This was on the canoe trail to Monkey Lake. As I paddled over the water where the gator had been, I could swear he came up and nudged the bottom of my kayak. I figured it was an accident, at least the first time. (But the second time?)

That added some spice to the trip.

Then there was the time I miscalculated my canoe-speed, and ended up paddling – late in the dark of night – through what seemed like miles of water lilies. (Well after 8:00 p.m., as noted in Okefenokee … Part III.) Which led me to think, as I paddled through the swamp in the dark: “That Monet guy can take his stinkin’ water lilies and ‘stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine.’”

That is, the canoe only trail to the Cedar Hammock Shelter is – or was – loaded with water lilies…

I discovered a nasty thing about water lilies. They’re hard enough to paddle through during the day, when you can see what you’re doing… [But] in a kayak – in the dark and in a hurry – your paddle tends to grab great wads of swamp weed. Then the paddle tosses the soggy lily-entrails – wet and cold – all about your head and shoulders.

But such are the things that make for a great pilgrimage! (At least in hindsight…)

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Poster for the 1941 film, Swamp Water.

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The upper image is courtesy of Alligator – Wikipedia. The caption: “American alligator (A. mississippiensis).” For more on the upcoming two-week pilgrimage, see “On to Jerusalem!”!”

Re: “Pogo,” running from 1949 to 1975. Cartoonist Walt Kelly (1913–1973) fell ill in 1972, and was unable to continue the strip. The strip continued for a short time with reprints, and cartoons from other artists. But Kelly’s widow ultimately decided to discontinue the strip “because newspapers had shrunk the size of strips to the point where people could not easily read it.” Also, one of the reasons I liked the strip was because – in hindsight – it seems rather prescient, as seen at left.

I took the photograph of the alligator basking on the “line of reeds.” (From a safe distance.)

The lower image is courtesy of Swamp Water – Wikipedia. That article noted the 1941 Jean Renoir film “starring Walter Brennan and Walter Huston, produced at 20th Century Fox, and based on the novel by Vereen Bell. The film was shot on location at Okefenokee Swamp, Waycross, Georgia, USA. This was Renoir’s first American film. The movie was remade in 1952 as Lure of the Wilderness, directed by Jean Negulesco.”

On a 2013 kayaking “adventure…”

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Cartoon depicting a man standing with a woman, who is hiding her head on his shoulder, on the deck of a ship awash with water. A beam of light is shown coming down from heaven to illuminate the couple. Behind them is an empty davit.

A bit of hyperbole – regarding a 2013 early kayak trip that left me “all wet …”

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March 20, 2019 – There I was, in the middle of a local lake around here, on a fine sunny summer afternoon. I was happily paddling away in my spandy-new kayak, when suddenly…

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There’s more on that early adventure later, but first a note. It’s now Lent, 2019, and so a time to prepare for Easter. That can include prayer, penance, “repentance of sins, almsgiving, and self-denial.” And for many people, that means giving up something. On the other hand, some people add a discipline “that would add to my spiritual life.” (See Lenten disciplines: spiritual exercises or ego trip?) Like last year for Lent I gave up yelling “Hang the sonofabitch!” at every mention of Donald Trump. This year I’ll do the same thing. For one thing, it ended up netting the Easter-day United Thank Offering a little over $25 in penalties. (At 25 cents a pop.) But this year I felt the need to add something else. To “add a discipline,” etc.

So for this Lent I’ll try to add – to prepare – a reasoned, thoughtful treatise on why I think a Trump presidency will be a constitutional crisis on par with Watergate, though not yet on par with the Civil War. (Not yet.) Beyond that, for this Lent I will try mightily to understand why some Americans still support him, without saying, “What are you, a bunch of dumbasses?”

That’s going to be the hard part…

So hard in fact that it’s going to take so much time I won’t be able to do a new post in a reasonable time after the last one. (From March 5, Didn’t we try this “Wall” thing before?)

So for the time being, I offer up this in-betweener. It’s about an early adventure I had back a few years ago. (2013 or so.) In turn, it will be related to the new book I’ll be doing, tentatively titled “My adventures in old age.” (See for example, On Brinkley, Clooney, and aging gracefully, which spoke in part of Seeing Old Age as a Never-Ending Adventure.) That post in turn cited an online article, 11 Smart Things About Getting Older, and an early post I pity the fool. (Where I said, “I pity the fool who doesn’t … push the envelope, even at the advance stage of his life.”)

November 10, 2014 photo IMG_4332_zps47e076b9.jpg So, back to my early-on kayaking adventure… Here’s what happened. I was on the way back from Biloxi and a canoe trip on Lake Pontchartrain. (Which led the following year to On canoeing 12 miles offshore, and the “siesta-at-sea” image at left.) So on the way back – in 2013 – I stopped at an Academy sporting goods store and found a reasonably-priced eight-foot kayak for a mere $149. That in turn led to me adding kayaking to my weekly exercise routine.

I did two early “voyages” without mishap, and figured I had this kayaking stuff down pat. (Except for the part about getting in and out, gracefully or otherwise.) On my third kayaking venture, while trying to “mount” the kayak at the Lake Kedron boat ramp, the thing tipped over a bit too far. As a result, what seemed like a small quantity of water got into the kayak.

I didn’t want to go through the trouble of looking ridiculous or clumsy – getting out of the kayak and then back in – so I figured, “No problem, I’ll just put up with the water sloshing around the ‘bilges‘ until I finish up, in an hour or so.” So I paddled down to the other end of the lake and was heading back home, after 45 minutes or so. Just then I noticed what seemed to be a bit more water than I remembered sloshing around the seat.

I kept on paddling along, but my thoughts then turned to the water that had been left over after my prior canoe voyages – for example, “Naked lady on the Yukon,” which came a bit later – and how I’d been able to get that water out. Then, while still paddling, I glanced back – a bit – and noticed that the back end of the kayak seemed to be much lower than the front.

That’s when I discovered a big difference between a kayak and a canoe. I couldn’t get a really good view because a kayak is kind of awkward to move around in, and in fact is quite “sensitive.” (Not to say “tippy.”) So I couldn’t do a good check on the back-end of the kayak, which in turn – eventually – led to this thought: “You know, I’ll bet there’s a drain plug somewhere on this craft. I wonder where it is? I’ll have to check the manual when I get back.”

"Untergang der Titanic", a painting showing a big ship sinking with survivors in the water and boats Then, paddling around a bend in the lake, I noticed that the ol’ kayak was really getting sluggish and hard to maneuver. So – discretion being the better part of valor – I reluctantly started heading to the mucky, muddy shoreline, figuring I’d better stop and get this stupid water out. But it was too late. I hadn’t made much progress toward the shore when – in a kind of reverse-Titanic denouement – the aft-end started sinking faster than I could paddle, and I found myself and my trusty craft sinking into Lake Kedron.

In seconds I found myself out the back of the boat, which by now had filled with water. I tried to hold on to the two-ended paddle, and push the stupid thing to shore. (Thinking all the while, “What? This thing will never sink. It’s supposed to be freakin’ unsinkable!!!”) I also tried to find the cheap deck-shoes I’d had on, the shoes I had bought just last week, somewhere still inside the boat. (Knowing from past experience what it’s like to come ashore in muck and mire, in bare feet.)

I found the shoes but then had to get them on my feet, while holding the paddle and kayak, and trying to push it ashore. Aside from all that, I had weights on my wrists; I wanted to get more bang for my exercise buck, as it were. (See resistance training.) Plus I kept checking for my car keys, in my upper left shirt pocket. (Where I figured they’d never get wet.) And that’s not to mention the Ipod Shuffle I’d also stuck in the upper right shirt pocket, for use in case I got bored paddling and needed some music. (Again, figuring that in my shirt pocket it’d never get wet.)

To make a long story short, I finally made it to the mucky, mirey shore, and not-gracefully-at-all managed to heave the thing up far enough on shore to get what seemed like tons of water out. And that’s when I noticed – there, at the very back of the kayak – the drain plug that only moments before I’d been wondering about. Somehow, the plug had worked itself out, and gradually, over the course of an hour or so, the little bit of water from my “opening mount” had shifted to the rear, thus enabling even more water to come in with each stroke.

So there, on the mucky short of Lake Kedron, right down the hill from some fancy-schmancy house – whose residents are likely even now yucking it up over the schmuck in the kayak that sunk that afternoon – I learned: 1) that there is a drain plug in my kayak, and 2) where it’s located, and 3) how to plug it back in (albeit after-the-fact).

So anyway, after the fact i did a little write-up – which formed the basis of this post – and sent it out in a number of emails, to family and friends. Most people got a kick out of it, but my older (local) brother – not the out-of-state one I do all my latest adventure with – wrote back, “I don’t think I’da told that story!” To which I can only say: “Hey, I’m secure in my masculinity!”

Besides, there’s always this little bit of wisdom from “Robert Matthew Van Winkle:”

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The upper image is courtesy of Sinking of the RMS Titanic – Wikipedia.

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I edited and/or updated the original (2019) post on January 26, 2023. And added the following “ex post facto” updates. On a Trump constitutional crisis, Google January 6, 2021. I still have the kayak, but not the drain plug. It got lost, and I now cover the drain plug with Scotch tape. And I don’t use wrist weights anymore when kayaking. And now back to the original notes:

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Re: The idiom “all wet.” See Etymology – Origin of … ‘all wet’ – English StackExchange. In the sense used in the lead caption, “entirely mistaken,” misguided, or wrong. The site dates the idiom back to 1909, and notes that by 1924 it was common “that humorists could use it as a punchline:”

Modern American slang is an institution that certainly merits as much approval as condemnation. It is so tersely expressive. But sometimes its application doesn’t fit. “You’re all wet,” says the youth of today [in 1924] when he wishes to convey the idea that in his mind, your opinion or action or attitude in the matter under discussion is wrong.

Re: “Reverse-Titanic denouement.” As shown in the main-text illustration, the Titanic went down bow-first, while my kayak on Lake Kedron went down “stern first.” The main-text painting’s caption: “‘Untergang der Titanic,’ as conceived by Willy Stöwer, 1912.” See also “The sinking, based on Jack Thayer‘s description. Sketched by L.P. Skidmore on board Carpathia.” (Shown at left.)

The original post had an “overturned kayak” image, courtesy of Overturned Kayak – Image Results. To which I originally added this sentiment: “Okay, my ‘early adventure’ wasn’t quite this bad – but it was humiliating!” And the photo-image was accompanied by an article, “How to recover a capsized kayak to the upright position?” Some good advice: Don’t leave too much water in the bilges…

Re: “Secure in my masculinity.” See also Secure in your masculinity – Asexual Musings and Rantings, for some interesting observations.

The lower image is courtesy of Learn From My Mistakes – Image Results. Those “Results” includes the quote from Vanilla Ice, a.k.a. “Mr. Winkle.” He is the “American rapper, actor, and television host,” born in South Dallas, raised in Texas and South Florida, “known professionally as ‘Vanilla Ice.'” Born in 1967, his initial success faded by 1994, when he “began using ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. During periods of heavy drug use, Ice received many tattoos from artist acquaintances. According to Ice, he ‘was in [his] binge days. [He] didn’t even realize how many [he] was getting.’ Ice attempted suicide with a heroin overdose on July 4, 1994 but was revived by his friends.After being revived, Ice decided that it was time to change his lifestyle.” So he knows whereof he speaks, in terms of mistakes.

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Didn’t we try this “Wall” thing before?

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“Memorial to the Victims of the [Berlin] Wall, with graffiti, 1982….”

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There’s been a lot of talk – lately and for the last two years – about Donald Trump’s wall. (The “colloquial name for a proposed expansion of the fence that makes up the Mexico–United States barrier during the presidency of Donald Trump.”) Which led me to wonder:

“Isn’t this like ‘deja vu all over again?'”

Which brings us to the Berlin Wall:

[The] guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989… [S]tarting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin… The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) … and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state…

East Germany also called the Wall its “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart,” while the West Berlin city government referred to it as the “Wall of Shame.” Wikipedia also noted that the East German government took the action because of its “brain drain problem.”

In other words, people who wanted the promise of freedom were kept in virtual prison:

In the West, the Berlin Wall was regarded as a major symbol of communist oppression. About 5,000 East Germans managed to escape across the Berlin Wall to the West, but the frequency of successful escapes dwindled as the wall was increasingly fortified. Thousands of East Germans were captured during attempted crossings and 191 were killed.

(Berlin Wall built – HISTORY.) Which brings up the question: “Do we really want to be like East Germany? Do we really want to build a ‘major symbol of oppression?'”

Ronald Reagan – for one – said no. He – like most if not all presidents before him – bought into the idea of America as a unique “city upon a hill.” That idea in turn is based on what Jesus said in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world. You cannot hide a city that has been built upon a mountain.” (From His parable of Salt and Light in the Sermon on the Mount, seen at right.)

To give you some background on the American take on that idea: In 1630, the Puritan “father” John Winthrop cited Matthew 5:14 at the end of his lecture or treatise, “A Model of Christian Charity.” That sermon (lecture, or treatise) languished in obscurity for over 300 years. That is, until the beginning of the Cold War – which included the building of the Berlin Wall. That’s when “Cold War era historians and political leaders made it relevant to their time, crediting Winthrop’s text as the foundational document of the idea of American exceptionalism.” (Which included Thomas Jefferson’s seeing America as the world’s great “Empire of Liberty.”)

President-Elect John F. Kennedy quoted the phrase during an address in January 1961:

We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less awesome than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within. History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required.

(Which itself is from Luke 12:48.) In other words, America is special, and because it’s special, all Americans have unique and special responsibilities. For one thing, we have a special responsibility not to be “just like other countries.” We don’t want to build walls, either to keep freedom-seeking people out, or to keep smart people from leaving the country.

Which is pretty much what Ronald Reagan said, over and over again. And this even though, politically, he was the exact opposite of John F. Kennedy. But they both agreed on the idea of the United States as a “city upon a hill.”

For example, in his Election Eve address (November 3, 1980), Reagan spoke of his Vision for America: “I have quoted John Winthrop’s words more than once on the campaign trail.” Reagan added that Americans – at least in 1980 – were still “every bit as committed to that vision of a shining ‘city on a hill'” as the long-ago people who settled this country.

Finally – in that speech – he said Americans weren’t “white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill.”

And Reagan repeated the theme yet again in his 1989 Farewell speech to the nation:

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life … a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

Which – in its way – mirrored just what Jesus said in John 6:37: “I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.” So whose side are you on? Hopefully, Jesus and Ronald Reagan…

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The upper image is courtesy of Berlin Wall – Wikipedia.

The “farewell speech” link is to Opinion | Ronald Reagan’s Hopeful Farewell – The New York Times, by John Meacham. Dated January 10, 2019, the piece was sub-titled: “His last speech as president was about his faith in America and its people. Our current president could not be more different.”

The lower image is courtesy of Mr Gorbachev Tear Down This Wall – Image Results. See also Tear down this wall! – Wikipedia, which included this from the 1987 speech: “We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.”

Remembering the “Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!”

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The “Chilkoot Trail” isn’t really a trail, it’s just “one big pile of &%#@ rocks after another!!!“

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Back in 2016, my brother, nephew and I hiked the Chilkoot Trail. People call it “the meanest 33 miles in history,” and I found out why – the hard way. After that adventure, my nephew – just out of the Army – headed back east to start the fall term at Penn State. My brother and I went on to take two canoes “up” the Yukon River – paddling 440 miles in 12 days.

Once back home I posted “Naked lady on the Yukon,” on August 28, 2016. (The events of that trip were still fresh in my mind, for one reason or another.) I later posted Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 1 and Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 2, on September 7, 2016.

I guess I’ll have to revisit “Naked lady” in more depth later on. (Deep sigh.) But for now it’s enough to say:

I just got back from two weeks canoeing the Yukon River… And the “mighty Yukon” is the last place on earth I would expect to see a [naked] lady sun bathing. But one moment, out of nowhere, there she was…

You can see the full story in the 8/28/16 post. But for the metaphorical lead picture above left, you’ll have to imagine no sand. “(And no ‘Bikini Bottom,’ for that matter.)”

Which brings us back to the “Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!”

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The “Chilkoot” starts in Dyea, Alaska. And Dyea is pronounced “DIe-eeee,” maybe prophetically. (Like, “that’s what you feel like doing once you get on the &$%# Trail!”) It ends in Bennett, British Columbia. That’s where you end up waiting, a long afternoon, with other hikers who’ve shared your ordeal. (Of four days or more.) There’s only one train, at 3:15 in the afternoon, so all the footsore hikers get a chance to sit on something besides rocks, and pitch their tents to dry out.

Which brings up the fact that the number of hikers is strictly limited; you have to get a special permit to even start. And they keep track of who gets where and when.

Like on the second afternoon – on the way to “Happy Camp,” seen in part at right. That late afternoon I was “dragging tail” and the light started fading, so a nice lady ranger came out to help me, along with a nice husky young gent who carried my pack the rest of the way.*

That’s when I experienced the phantom pack phenomenon. It’s not unlike the “phantom limb” sensation, but leaves you weaving and rolling like a drunken sailor.

That was one time I got to “if I could have cried I would.” (Hey, I’m secure in my masculinity.)

Another thing: The nice lady ranger felt so bad for me she let us three stay in her private facility – the one above right – which meant we didn’t have to pitch our tents in the dark. (She also gave us juice boxes, like “heaven on earth.” I could have sworn they were raisin juice, but my older brother later said raisins are just dried-up grapes. It may have been the delirium, or the relief…)

Another excuse? “Hiking the Chilkoot Trail is sheer torture for someone – like me – with only one good eye and and thus no depth perception.” (For more detail see the February 2017 post, On that nail in my right eye.) So my word of advice: If you have only one good eye and no depth perception, take it slow and easy, and be ready to let the other hikers pass you by.

More good advice: Anyone hiking the trail is advised that if they have to get airlifted out – like for a twisted ankle or such – the cost will be a cool $28,000.00. Which brings up another point rangers make in the process of getting your permit to hike the trail: Watch out for the bears!

A historical note: The Chilkoot’s claim to fame started with the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99. That “transformed the Chilkoot Trail into a mainstream transportation route to Canada’s interior.” Also, the only other route to the gold fields was through White Pass. (Up to 1899, when a railroad was built from Skagway to the Yukon.) So which route was better? Pioneer Mont Hawthorne said there wasn’t much difference: “One’s hell. The other’s damnation.”

13 Dead Horse Gulch Another side note: White Pass was also called “Dead Horse Trail,” apparently renamed by Jack London: “Nearly 3,000 pack animals died. Drivers rushing over the pass had little concern for beasts. Exhausted horses starved, were hurt on rough ground, became mired in mud and fell over cliffs.”

Which also gives you a feel for “hiking the Chilkoot.”

Which in turn brings up the question: Why the hell would you do such a thing?

One answer can be seen in a post from my companion blog, On St. James, Steinbeck, and sluts. It spoke in part of the “value of such pilgrimages in general.” For example:

We were speaking of pilgrimages. More to the point, of why an otherwise-relatively-sane 65-year-old [at the time] would either hike the Chilkoot Trail or spend 12 days canoeing 440 miles on the Yukon River. That of course brings up St. James the Greater…

And James is the Patron Saint of Pilgrims. On that note, the post cited the book Passages of the Soul: Ritual Today. (James Roose-Evans.) It said a pilgrimage – like a 12-day canoe trip on the Yukon or a “hike” on the Chilkoot &$%# Trail – “may be described as a ritual on the move.”

Further, the book said that through “the raw experience of hunger, cold, lack of sleep,” we can often find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings. (And that’s especially true when the “majesty and permanence” of God’s creation included “all those &$%# rocks!”)

Finally, the book noted that such a pilgrimage – such ritual on the move – can be “one of the most chastening, but also one of the most liberating” of personal experiences.

I certainly felt “chastened” after we got back to Skagway from the Chilkoot Trail. (Although the 10-of-12 beers that my nephew and I shared – of the two six-packs I bought – helped a lot too…) But as I said in I pity the fool, “I pity the fool who doesn’t do pilgrimages and otherwise push the envelope, even at the advance stage of his life.”

Besides, my Chilkoot Trail experience made the Happy Camp “raisin juice” taste great!!!

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To repeat, the Chilkoot Trail is just “one big pile of &%#@ rocks after another!!!“

(And this is one of the smooth parts…)

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The upper image is courtesy of Chilkoot Trail – Image Results. From a post, “What the Chilkoot Trail Taught Me about Leadership – Pt. 6,” posted on February 2, 2016, “by mgauthier.” A highlight:

We endured miserable weather throughout the day – cold, rainy and very windy… At times, especially hiking up to and down from the summit I was quite frightened as I was afraid we would either be blown off the mountain or slip careening down the mountain.

I knew the feeling… Also, this review-post borrowed liberally from On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 1 and Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 2.

Re: “Up” the Yukon River. Like the Nile River, the Yukon flows north, which makes it unusual.

Re: “Husky young gent who carried my pack the rest of the way.” My brother and just-out-of-the-Army nephew also took turns carrying my pack part of the way to “Happy Camp.”

Re: “But as I said in I pity the fool…” There followed a loose translation of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s saying, “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.”

Re: The book Passages of the Soul: Ritual Today. The book also noted that a healthy sense of ritual “should pervade a healthy society, and that a big problem now is that we’ve abandoned many rituals that used to help us deal with big change and major trauma.”

Re: The negative tone of this post. My brother thought my post “Hola! Buen Camino!” – Revisited was also too negative; too “complaining” in general. So I posted “Buen Camino!” – The Good Parts.

Some people reading “Hola! Buen Camino” might think I had a lousy time in my five weeks hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. For example, there was my comment on the first 10 days – after starting in Pamplona – being “pretty miserable. My left foot constantly throbbed, until it blistered up and got tough…” But there were lots of good things that happened during those 30 days on the Camino…

But “fun stuff doesn’t make for good drama.” See What Elements Make for [Good Drama]?

If your drama doesn’t have a juicy, complex, emotional, heart-wrenching, personal, intelligent, connectable role for an actor – it’s dead in the water. And as a side note, don’t be afraid to inject some comedy into your dramatic scenes. Except for Schindler’s List, every single drama listed above has more than one moment of levity. However, there is one thing that every good drama needs no matter what the story is. It’s more than a trend – it’s the mandatory ingredient – CONFLICT. Drama is based on conflict. And not just any conflict, but one that is powerful, relatable, and complex enough to propel a story forward…

And BTW: That hike on the Camino de Santiago in Spain took place in the fall of 2017.

The lower image is courtesy of Chilkoot Trail – Image Results. See also Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site – Parks Canada: “The Chilkoot Trail is a 53 kilometre / 33 mile trip through history and one of North America’s most fabled treks.” The trail crosses the international boundary between the U.S. and Canada and is “co-operatively managed by Parks Canada and the US National Park Service.”

On Nehru jackets, Madras shirts, and the magic of “spin”

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The Beatles – at the height of their mid-1960’s fame – sporting their “trendy” Nehru jackets…

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Over the past year I’ve accumulated a number of draft posts: Draft posts that have remained unpublished “even to this day.” So for this post I started with some odds and ends.

One such “scrap” had to do with Nehru jackets. They were the “hip-length tailored coat for men or women, with a mandarin collar,” as featured by the Beatles – and others – in the early 1960s:

The jacket began to be marketed as the Nehru jacket in Europe and America in the mid 1960s. It was briefly popular there in the late 1960s and early 1970s, its popularity spurred by growing awareness of foreign cultures, by the minimalism of the Mod lifestyle and, in particular, by the Beatles and subsequently the Monkees.

Note also that the word “trendy” first came into use around 1962. (What a great decade!)

And here’s another BTW: Jawaharlal Nehru – seen above right and for whom the jacket was named – “never wore a Nehru jacket.” The point being that – while I never got to wear a Nehru jacket in the 1960s (when I was in high school) – I did get to wear a Madras shirt.

Madras shirts – and pants and jackets – also became popular in the 1960s. The name came from the Indian city of Madras, now called Chennai. (Located near the southern tip of India, the city is now nicknamed “The Detroit of India,” with more than one-third of India’s automobile industry.) And the “Madras shirt” is definitely a lesson in spin doctoring.

1954 Hathaway Madras Shirt Ad The original idea was a “lightweight breathable fabric suited to a humid tropical climate.” (Like Florida, where I used to live.) And today’s Madras is basically a check-patterned cotton cloth, in three varieties. The most interesting of the three is bleeding Madras.

For us the story began when a textile importer – and ultimately Brooks Brothers – loved the fabric’s low price. But the seller never mentioned that it “required utmost care when laundering because the color would run out if it wasn’t gently washed in cold water.”

As a result, “Customers were furious when they saw the colors run that ruined their expensive summer apparel.” Lawsuits were threatened, but ultimately a solution of “sheer marketing genius” was arranged. An attorney for Brooks Brothers arranged a meeting with an editor from Seventeen magazine, about a new “miracle handwoven fabric from India:”

In the following issue, the editor ran a seven-page article about fabric titled “Bleeding Madras – the miracle handwoven fabric from India.” And since pictures say more than 1,000 words, they added beautiful photographs with the caption “guaranteed to bleed.” Within a days [sic] of the magazine hitting the newsstands, Brooks Brothers was flooded with thousands of requests for the Madras items and it became an overnight success.

And who couldn’t help but fall in love … with either the dashing “Hathaway gent” in the photo above left, or “Mad Men‘s” Pete Campbell? (As shown below.) And speaking of lessons in spin doctoring: I just Googled “spin conor lamb” and got 16,900,000 results.

Which just goes to show: Fashions like Madras may come and go, but spin goes on forever!

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Mad Men - Pete Campbell in Bold Sportscoat

“Mad Men – Pete Campbell [center] in Bold [Madras] Sportscoat…”

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The upper image is courtesy of “https://sep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-73969762682587/beatles-45-rpm-picture-sleeve-i-ll-cry-instead-b-w-i-m-happy-just-to-dance-with-you-32.gif.” See also File: Beatles I’ll Cry Instead.jpg (Wikipedia). As to Nehru jackets in general, see Nehru jacket – Wikipedia, and/or The Nehru Jacket Guide — Gentleman’s Gazette.

Re: “Trendy.” The Merriam-Webster definition included a note that the first-known use of the word came in 1962. For other “first words” from 1962, see WORDS FROM THE SAME YEAR.

Re: “Spin conor lamb:” Those results included New GOP spin: Conor Lamb is a secret Republican, and Paul Ryan Is Dizzy From The Spin He’s Putting On Conor Lamb’s Victory (dailykos.com).

The lower image is courtesy of Madras Guide – How the Shirt, Pants & Jackets Became Popular (Gentleman’s Gazette). See also Mad Men – Wikipedia, which noted the character Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) was a “young, ambitious account executive from an old New York family with connections and a privileged background.” Further, “Campbell is often shown cheating on his wife, and is not above manipulating and blackmailing women to get them to sleep with him.”

See also prescience, foreboding, and/or foreshadowing…

On a totally unrelated note: The original title for this of draft post was “On Nehru jackets, Madras shirts – and other odds and ends.” As to such odds and ends, see also Dictionary.com, which noted that this term – for a “miscellany of leftovers, outsizes, scraps,” or “unmatched bits” – came to its present meaning in the mid-1700s. Some future posts will likely feature more “odds and ends…”

Movie review: “The Post” – It wasn’t REALLY 6-3!

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Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and “The Post” staff get news from an old-timey (3-channel) TV…

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The Post (film).png I just went to see The Post, the “2017 American political thriller” featuring Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee. (The publisher and executive editor of the Washington Post – respectively – at the time in question.)

It brought back a lot of memories.

The film – set in June 1971 – covered the month when both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran afoul of the Nixon Administration. Specifically, both newspapers ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, charged – essentially – with treason. At stake – also essentially – was the future of freedom of the press in the United States. (You know, that pain-in-the-ass part of the First Amendment of the Constitution?)

The Washington Post was perhaps best known for its coverage of Watergate scandal:

[From 1972 to 1974], in the best-known episode in the newspaper’s history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press’ investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal; reporting in the newspaper greatly contributed to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

However, The Post (film) covers an earlier time: June, 1971.

That was when first the New York Times, then the Washington Post began running a series of articles based on the Pentagon Papers. (The 47-volume, 7,000-page assessment of the history of the Vietnam War. It was ordered in 1967 by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and ultimately concluded that the war was “unwinnable.” The papers were “turned over (without authorization) to The New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, a senior research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.”)

The Nixon Administration charged Ellsberg with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property – i.e., the Pentagon Papers – for which he faced a possible 115 years in prison. And the substance of The Post (film) is that “Kate” Graham herself faced criminal prosecution, not to mention personal bankruptcy and the loss of the “family paper.” (The Post (newspaper)

An aside: The paper had been “in the family” since 1933. That’s when Katharine’s father – Eugene Meyer – bought the paper in a bankruptcy action. “In 1946, Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law, Philip Graham” – Katharine‘s husband – who died in 1963. (Which itself offers some interesting drama…)

The point being that Katharine Graham had a lot to lose…

I could write a lot about The Post as both film art and a commentary on how history tends to repeat. (My original title for this “article” – to avoid a redundant “Post post” – was “Movie review: ‘The Post’ – and history repeating itself…”) And I will do more “posts on ‘The Post'” in the future.

But for today I’ll focus on journalism and its place in American law.

All the President's Men book 1974.jpg For one thing, I majored in journalism because of “Woodstein” and the film All the President’s Men. For another, after graduation in 1976 I went to work for the St. Petersburg Times – now the Tampa Bay Times – for five years. Then I went to law school intending to become a reporter specializing in the law and legal proceedings.

Which could explain my focus for today’s review.

Near the end of the film, the staff of the Washington Post got a telephone call – on a rotary phone, no less – announcing the Supreme Court’s decision. At stake was not only freedom of the press, but also the personal and financial future of Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee. (U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell was quoted as saying, “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.”)

The announcement? “We won, 6-3!” (Or words to that effect…)

My first reaction? That the scariest part of the movie was that – back in 1971 – three Supreme Court Justices seemed to agree with the Nixon Administration.

And if that was true back then, what would happen today if the Trump Administration took a similar stand, from its own Enemies List? Or worse, if Trump goes on to pack the Court? But – after further review – it turned out that Chief Justice Warren Burger – together with Justices John Harlan and Harry Blackmun – dissented only because of the “haste of the proceedings:”

[Burger] argued that in the haste of the proceedings, and given the size of the documents, the Court was unable to gather enough information to make a decision… The Chief Justice did not argue that the Government had met the aforementioned standard, but rather that the decision should not have been made so hastily.

Which doesn’t mean the dissenters favored the government. It only meant they thought the decision should not have been made so quickly. (See New York Times v. United States.)

To give some perspective, the Times published its first article on June 13, 1971, while the Washington Post began publishing its own articles on June 18. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments from the various parties on June 25 and 26, and rendered its decision on June 30, 1971.

Which means the whole process – from the first publishing to the government’s law suit to the final decision by the Supreme Court – took less than three weeks. But in normal certiorari proceedings, “cases take approximately 12 to 24 months from the day they are petitioned until the Supreme Court issues a decision.”

On the other hand, the average schmuck trying to fix a decision in a state court must first “exhaust all state remedies” – which can take years – and such cases are rarely granted review.

At any rate, the fact that the three dissenting justices only felt the decision was rendered too quickly made me feel a bit better, and not so panicky.

At least for now… In the meantime, consider this from one Thomas Jefferson:

…were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

I’ll be writing more reviews of The Post in the future.

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The upper image is courtesy of The Post (2017) – IMDb. Text and/or images were also gleaned from The Post (2017) – IMDb and Pentagon Papers – Wikipedia.

RE: “That pain-in-the-ass part of the First Amendment.” That Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Re: The Pentagon Papers saying the Vietnam war was “unwinnable.” The study also indicated that presidential administrations beginning with Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower also routinely lied to the American people as to why the war was necessary in the first place.

The photo to the right of the paragraph “To give some perspective,” is captioned “The Monday, July 21, 1969, edition, with the headline ‘The Eagle Has Landed’‍ – Two Men Walk on the Moon.”

Re: The “normal” length of time for Supreme Court proceedings. See How long does a US Supreme Court case take – Answers.com: “More commonly, cases take approximately 12 to 24 months from the day they are petitioned until the Supreme Court issues a decision.” Re: “Average schmuck” and “exhausting state remedies.” See SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, (courtesy of “law.cornell”), and U.S. Supreme Court: Failure to Exhaust Remedies Is an Affirmative Defense.

And as another aside, Chief Justice Warren Burger also argued that the Times should have discussed the possible societal repercussions with the Government prior to publication of the material.

The lower image is courtesy of Thomas Jefferson – Wikipedia. As to the quote, see also Jefferson’s preference for “newspapers without government, Jefferson on Politics & Government: Freedom of the Press, and/or Jefferson’s Warning to the White House | Time.com.

On George McGovern’s “KMA” buttons…

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Unlike many Republicans – past and present – George McGovern actually served his country…

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It’s the Thursday after Christmas Day. So those holidays are over, and the end of 2017 is near. Which means it’s time to look back at 2017. And for me especially, that means looking back at some draft blog-posts that I started this past year, but never got around to finishing.

One of the posts was on George McGovern and his famous “KMA” buttons. But first a note: In the 1972 presidential election, only about four people in America – including me – voted for McGovern. Richard Nixon won in a landslide, but neither he nor Vice-president Spiro Agnew served out their terms of office. (Agnew resigned in less than a year over allegations he took bribes as Governor of Maryland. Nixon resigned over the Watergate Scandal in August 1974, illustrated above right.)

Which means that my vote for McGovern in 1972 is one of the proudest moments of my life.

In case you’ve forgotten, that election in 1972 was famous for Republican dirty tricks. (Including but not limited to the infamous “Canuck letter” that led to Ed Muskie’s tears of anger.)

But since then I’ve gotten used to underhanded Republican campaign tactics. Like the fact that some stay-at-home conservatives in 1972 also took issue with McGovern’s service in World War II. And just for the record, McGovern served in combat with the the 741st Squadron of the 455th Bombardment Group of the Fifteenth Air Force, stationed near Cerignola, Italy.

He was commissioned a pilot in the Army Air Forces and flew 35 missions over enemy territory. He piloted a B‑24 Liberator that he named “the Dakota Queen,” in honor of his wife Eleanor. (And won the Distinguished Flying Cross.)

But my favorite story about George McGovern came much later in his life. It happened late in the 1972 campaign and involved his confronting a heckler from the Richard Nixon camp. (Though it was not Donald Segretti):

McGovern was giving a speech and a Nixon admirer kept heckling him. McGovern called the young man over and whispered in his ear, “Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, why don’t you kiss my ass?” The heckler confirmed this to an inquiring journalist and the remark was widely reported. By the following night, “KMA” buttons were being worn by people in the crowds at McGovern rallies. Several years later, McGovern observed Mississippi Senator James Eastland looking at him from across the Senate floor and chuckling to himself. He subsequently approached McGovern and asked, “Did you really tell that guy in ’72 to kiss your ass?” When McGovern smiled and nodded, Eastland replied, “That was the best line in the campaign.”

See McGovern presidential campaign, 1972 – Wikipedia. And again just for the record, Senator James Eastland was a Democrat – like McGovern – but who supported the Conservative coalition, and was “known nationally as a symbol of Southern support for racial segregation.” But this was when Southern Democrats were effectively Republicans:

Mississippi was effectively a one-party state, dominated by conservative white Democrats since the disfranchisement of African Americans with the passage of the 1890 state constitution. The state used poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses to exclude African Americans from the political system. Therefore, winning the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election.

But this was also a time when political rivals could “sup with their enemies.” In the photo at right, Eastland shared a moment with noted northern liberal – and a very young – Ted Kennedy.

You can see this photo – or one much like it – at Kennedy got Senate assignments in boozy meeting (N.Y. Daily News, 9/30/15). At the time Eastland chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee:

After he slammed three drinks, Kennedy staggered away with the three assignments he wanted the most… “It’s quarter to eleven, and I’m barely able to get up. So of course I go back to my office [and] walk in there smelling like a brewery. Here’s our little senator, 30 years old; he’s been down here two weeks, and he’s stiff as a billy goat at 10 in the morning.” Kennedy said Mississippi’s Sen. James Eastland poured him a drink as soon as he arrived to the 1963 meeting. “Bourbon or scotch?” the chairman asked.

But of course Eastland’s legendary drinking – or Kennedy’s for that matter – is a whole ‘nother subject entirely. The point is that back in the good old days, politicians still had a sense of humor. (Even to the point of chuckling over an arch-enemy’s “best line in the campaign.”)

And in a very big sense politicians as a group were eminently more likeable than they are today. (See also On Reagan, Kennedy – and “Dick the Butcher.”) But the main point I’d like to make is that I wish George McGovern could have hung around long enough to run in the 2016 presidential election. That way he could have told someone else to “kiss my ass!”

For that alone, George McGovern would have made a great president…

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Donald Trump

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The upper image is courtesy of George McGovern – Wikipedia. In other versions of the “KMA” story, McGovern was appearing in Battle Creek, Michigan, on November 2, when a Nixon admirer heckled him. McGovern told the heckler, “I’ve got a secret for you,” then said softly into his ear, “Kiss my ass.” The incident was overheard and reported in the press, and became part of the tale of the campaign. See also “George, Heckler Exchange Words”. The Spartanburg Herald. November 3, 1972. p. B8. For an account of his passing – by Fox News – see Former Senator George McGovern, ’72 Democratic presidential nominee, dies at 90.

For still other takes on the 1972 campaign, see Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘7 – by Hunter Thompson and illustrated at left, The Boys on the Bus – and/or One Bright Shining Moment. Also, reference was made to Boller, Paul F., Presidential Campaigns: from George Washington to George W. Bush, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0195167163, at page 340.

And for one of my takes on Southern Democrats like Eastland , see Blue Dogs and the “Via Media.” For yet another take on the politicians of yesteryear, see “Great politicians sell hope.”

The lower image is courtesy of businessinsider.com/donald-trump-has-been-fired. I first used a smaller version in Reagan, Kennedy – and “Dick the Butcher,” but then used the photo as a “parting shot” in the December 15, 2017 post, On “Pyrrhic victories.”

(There seems to be a trend here…)

Last year at this time…

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“Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge,” during the winter of 1777-78, and as noted last June 23…

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Stephen Dobert standing on rock near False Summit looking south toward Skagway, Alaska. Last year at this time I was training for a four-day “hike” on the Chilkoot Trail.* (Well- and deservedly known as the “meanest 33 miles in history,” and as ilustrated at right.)

I was also getting ready – last year at this time – to canoe 440 miles down the Yukon River, in Canada.* That canoe-trip started three or four days after the hike, and took 13 days.

This year at this time I’m in training to hike 450 miles in 30 days on the Camino de Santiago, in Spain, in September.

Between last June and this June we’ve had a contentious presidential election, and an even more contentious beginning-of-the-Trump Administration. So I’ve decided to focus on some things I can actually have an impact on. (And that won’t drive me crazy trying to keep up with all the lies and counter-lies.) Things like my upcoming pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago.

Which means that in the near future I’ll be starting a series of posts, detailing what I expect the hiking trip to be like. I’ll refer to those posts during the hike itself. Then, once the hiking trip is over, I’ll do a post-mortem, to see how close my fantasy matched with reality.

But first, here’s a look back at last year at this time. (Vis-à-vis “fantasy matching reality.”)

In “The Sweetest Place on Earth” – posted last June 23 – I noted “the difference in those who can work with others to come up with viable solutions to our problems, as opposed to those who just ‘curse the darkness.'” Which seems strangely prescient, as was this cartoon:

In that post I also noted the now-apparently-obsolete idea that “great politicians sell hope.” (An idea which now seems far more honored in the breach.) But a reminder: In this post I am trying to “focus on things I can actually have an impact on.” Which brought up the idea of “65 being the new 30,” and on my then-just-turning 65, and so being eligible for Medicare:

There’s a lot of living left to do after age 60…

Christie Brinkley: Still Stunning in a Swimsuit at 60! Or age 65 for that matter. And a BTW: The post included a photo of Christie Brinkley, with the comment, “Now that’s turning 60!”

And speaking of reasons why it’s great to live in this country: I followed-up that June 23 post with On the Independent Voter. (Posted July 5, 2016.) Which made that a great time to bring up Independence Day:

Independence Day is a day of family celebrations [of] the American tradition of political freedom… Independence Day is a patriotic holiday for celebrating the positive aspectsof the United States… Above all, people in the United States express and give thanks for the freedom and liberties fought [for] by the first generation of many of today’s Americans. (E.A.)

Those Independent Voters – “who don’t align with either major political party” – could well have taken their cue from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” Which presents the biggest problem facing such “Independents:”

“One must always choose the lesser of two weevils!”

Of course it remains to be seen whether Americans chose the “lesser of two weevils” in last November’s election. But who knows? It may turn out that – like America under the Articles of Confederation – things had to get much worse before they could get much better…

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The upper image is courtesy of Valley Forge – Wikipedia.

“Note” also that an asterisk in the main text indicates a statement supported by a reference detailed further in this “notes” section. Thus as to the “hike’ on the Chilkoot Trail,” and “canoeing 440 miles ‘down’ the Yukon River, in Canada:” The image of the Chilkoot Trail is courtesy of Explore the Chilkoot Trail, and/or the National Park Service. The caption: “Looking South From False Summit, Chilkoot Trail.” As to my experience, see On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 1, and On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 2, both of which have photo-image mishaps which need to be addressed. As to the 13-day Yukon River trip, see “Naked lady on the Yukon…“

Another note: The Yukon canoe trip went from Whitehorse to Dawson City. As to the emphasized “up:” The Yukon is like the Nile in that it flows north, unlike many other rivers. Thus when paddling down the river – with the current – one is actually paddling north, and thus “up.”

The quote “things had to get worse before they could get better” is one I remembered from reading The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, by Joseph Eilis. (Or “Words to that Effect.”) Ellis wrote about the four men who “shaped the contours of American history by diagnosing the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation.” (Note the emphasized phrase “systemic dysfunction.”) Another note: Ellis’ book is not to be confused with The Second American Revolution, by John W. Whitehead. That book ostensibly seeks to be a Christian “fundamentalist manifesto,” and/or to lay “the foundation and framework for fighting the tyrannical, secularist, humanistic power, which has separated our country from its Judeo-Christian base and now dominates this nation and its courts.”

The lower image is courtesy of pinterest.com. See also Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – YouTube, Lesser of Two Evils – TV Tropes, Reader Opinion: Clinton v Trump and “the lesser of two weevils, Master and Commander: A Movie Review – Maccabee Society, and/or Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – Wikipedia.