Category: History

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Behold a Pale Hose

Even though I’ve been away from Chicago more than half my life — and when you get down to it, I grew up in the suburbs, not in the city — most of my family is still in and around the city and I follow what goes on there with more than passing interest. With the sports teams, too. And even though my brothers and I grew up with a Cubs allegiance I blame on my father, the Sox getting into the World Series is news.

Dad’s pulling for them, I think mostly because Mom and her brothers were all big Sox fans and, yeah, they’d love to see it happen. They’d love it especially because this kind of thing happens so seldom in Chicago. The Sox were the most recent visitors to the Series, having last played there (and lost) in 1959. The Cubs last trip was summarized by the late Steve Goodman:

“You know the law of averages says:

Anything will happen that can.

That’s what it says.

But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant

Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

So talking to Dad just now, he said: “It would be great to see them go all the way” — win the World Series. No debate there, though I’ll confess I’ve never had much love for the Sox under their current ownership and have never set foot inside the sadly misconceived stadium they built to replace Comiskey Park, the ballpark in which the Sox had played since 1910. The old place was decrepit by the exacting, fussy standards of our age; but it had history on its side and a certain trashed elegance that might have been revived.

But that’s a detour. Let’s turn back to my dad. Yes, it would be great to see a World Series winner in Chicago. In fact, it would be the first in his 84 years (he was born too late for the Golden Age of Chicago baseball, which seems to have coincided with the Roosevelt (Teddy, not FDR), Taft, and Wilson administrations.

OK — I’m on board. Go Sox.

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‘Spectator Patriotism’

By way of my brother John:

Christopher Dickey, a Newsweek columnist and thoughtful critic of the Iraq war (translation: I agree with him) has a good piece this week reflecting on John Gregory Dunne and Dunne’s interest in patriotism:

“John was interested in patriotism. He was fascinated by the real substance of it, which he saw as diametrically opposed to what he called “the spectator patriotism” exploited by the Bush administration as it went looking for wars. There was something (it took a while for John to put his finger on it) in the fact that several people he knew had children on active duty: historian Doris Kearns had a son, John himself had a nephew, I had a son. We had people we loved in uniform doing what they saw, and we understood, imperfectly perhaps, as their duty to defend the values and the dreams that are the United States of America. But why were there so few from this circle of acquaintances if the cause was so great?

“John would rage. He was articulate and funny then and always, but such was his passion that I remember him as almost inchoate when he talked about the bastards who wouldn’t end their Global War on Terror, which was conceived in rhetoric and dedicated to their re-election, yet would send America’s sons and daughters on futile errands of suffering and slaughter.

From past experience, I’ve seen evidence that Dickey actually reads the responses to his columns. So I spent some time writing one. The inequity of sending our military volunteers to suffer the consequences of their leaders’ ineptitude and dishonesty is an unresolved problem for the entire society and one we’ll be living with for decades (just as we’re still living with the legacy of having sacrificed so many conscripted soldiers in Vietnam). My “answer” to Dickey:

“I think Dunne’s sense of this issue, and yours, is spot on as far as it goes. Sacrifices must be shared. We must not fight wars to which we’re not fully committed (though bear in mind that that standard kept us out of World War I for nearly three years and, absent Pearl Harbor, probably would have kept us out of World War II indefinitely).

“But what do we do with that knowledge? Do we get behind people like John Conyers and Charles Rangel and demand the draft be reinstated? There’s an attractive school of thought that a universal draft — if one were started, I’d hope that women would be conscripted, too — would give everyone a personal stake in the war in Iraq and make the civilians who launched this thing more accountable. I’m not sure I buy that — more than half the Americans who died in Vietnam were killed *after* the Tet offensive, when the anti-war movement was already rolling along. Yet, a fair draft, perhaps with a national service alternative, *could* democratize the war and perhaps counter a tendency, which Bush encourages with no shame or sense of irony, to lionize the warriors, cozen up to them, and cast those who don’t support his military adventure as fifth columnists.

“Here’s the thing: I have two draft-age sons. I don’t know how I’d sleep if they and their friends were under arms now and their commanders were as casually deceitful and incompetent as the crew we have in charge now. For me, the principle of the thing — that it’s unfair and undemocratic to impose the war sacrifice on a small slice of society, even if they volunteered for service — is at war with my personal horror at the further ruin of young lives to so little apparent purpose. I also wonder about the equity of codgers like me (my draft number was supposed to come up in 1972, but it was never called) sending the young ones off to kill and be killed. If there’s going to be a national sacrifice, all the non-retired generations should be made to play a part beyond our penchant for uttering fine phrases.”

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In Memoriam

By way of Lydell, who heard this on Air America this morning:

Theodore Roosevelt Heller

Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans. [Emphasis added.] Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals, Douglas MacIsaac, funeral director 847-229-8822, www.cjfinfo.com. Published in the Chicago Tribune on 10/10/2005.

(Historical note: The place Mr. Heller is being interred in a couple of hours is close to but not the same as the Waldheim (Forest Home) Cemetery where the Haymarket martyrs are buried.)

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Slainte, Brian/Flann/Myles

A day late and almost moreso, let me say "happy birthday" to one of the billions of our fellow earthlings who can no longer appreciate it. But unlike nearly all of those, this one — Brian O’Nolan/Flann O’Brien/Myles na gCopaleen (note to judy b: that gC combo is, for once, not a typo) — has occasioned uncounted hours of literary fun and amazement to uncounted masses, but most importantly to me and my friends.

He — Brian O’Nolan, who later became those other fellows — was born 94 years ago yesterday in Ireland somewhere. Through the usual peculiar circumstances of genius and screwed-up upbringing and abusive strait-laced education, he produced many thousands, or hundreds of thousands of pleasing words. In his mid-20s, he produced a novel that was a send-up of Joyce, modernist fiction and literary experimentation, Irish mythology and classic poetry, and, probably, people like me. The novel is called "At Swim-Two-Birds," and has gained enough currency that, well, it’s still in print. His second novel, "The Third Policeman," has built enough of a reputation that no less than the University of California at Berkeley, my current and no doubt temporary paycheck provider, has placed it more than once on its unofficial summer reading list. (For O’Nolan/O’Brien’s part, he reportedly became so upset by early rejection of this manuscript that, in reflecting on the nature of his story, he attempted to destroy it as sacrilegious).

There will be a centennial in six years’ time, with many tributes to one of the half- (or two-thirds-) recognized geniuses of 20th century letters. Until then, you might entertain yourself with — with what? With this short passage from "At Swim-Two-Birds":

"… The stout was of superior quality, soft against the tongue but sharp upon the orifice of the throat, softly efficient in its magical circulation through the conduits of the body. Half to myself, I said:

Do not let us forget that I have to buy “Die Harzreise.” Do not let us forget that.

“Harzreise,” said Brinsley. There is a house in Dalkey called Heartrise.

Brinsley then put his dark chin on the cup of a palm and leaned in thought on the counter, overlooking his drink, gazing beyond the frontier of the world.

What about another jar? said Kelly.

Ah, Lesbia, said Brinsley. The finest thing I ever wrote, How many kisses, Lesbia, you ask would serve to sate this hungry love of mine?–As many as the Libyan sands that bask along Cyrene’s shore where pine-trees wave, where burning Jupiter’s untended shrine lies near to old King Battus’ sacred grave:

Three stouts, called Kelly.

Let them be endless as the stars at night, that stare upon the lovers in a ditch–so often would love-crazed Catullus bite your burning lips, that prying eyes should not have power to count, nor evil tongues bewitch, the frenzied kisses that you gave and got.

Before we die of thirst, called Kelly, will you bring us three more stouts. God, he said to me, it’s in the desert you’d think we were.

That’s good stuff, you know, I said to Brinsley. A picture came before my mind of the lovers at their hedge-pleasure in the pale starlight, no sound from them, his fierce mouth burying into hers.

Bloody good stuff, I said.

Kelly, invisible to my left, made a slapping noise.

The best I ever drank, he said.

As I exchanged an eye-message with Brinsley, a wheezing beggar inserted his person at my side and said:

Buy a scapular or a stud, Sir.

This interruption I did not understand. Afterwards, near Lad Lane police station a small man in black fell in with us and tapping me often about the chest, talked to me earnestly on the subject of Rousseau, a member of the French nation. He was animated, his pale features striking in the starlight and his voice going up and falling in the lilt of his argumentum. I did not understand his talk and was personally unacquainted with him. But Kelly was taking in all he said, for he stood near him, his taller head inclined in an attitude of close attention. Kelly then made a low noise and opened his mouth and covered the small man from shoulder to knee with a coating of unpleasant buff-colored puke. Many other things happened on that night now imperfectly recorded in my memory but that incident is still very clear to me in my mind. Afterwards the small man was some distance from us in the lane, shaking his divested coat and rubbing it along the wall. He is a little man that the name of Rousseau will always recall to me. …"

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Tammy: Here and Gone

Yesterday, I wrote in reference to almost-unknown Hurricane Stan (now in a much reduced state over southern Mexico, dumping possibly ungodly amounts of rain) that Tammy was next up on the list of Atlantic hurricane names. “Bring it on,” I brightly wrote. And less than 24 hours, the tropical cyclone gods responded — they’re big fans of this blog — and Tropical Storm Tammy spun up out of nowhere just off the northeastern Florida coast. Now, less than 18 hours after the National Hurricane Center put out its first Tammy advisory, the storm has already moved inland to squall for a while before dissipating.

The reason I’m so excited is that there are only two names left in the 2005 list: Vince and Wilma. In the event they’re used, any subsequent storms will be named for letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, etc.).

According to a not-entirely-clear (to me) table on the NOAA website, the last year there were as many as 19 named storms (Tammy is this year’s 19th) was 1995. The only year on record with more Atlantic tropical storms was 1933, when 21 were observed. The NOAA report on darned interesting hurricane facts also notes that the latest observed hurricane in the Atlantic was Alice, on December 31, 1954.

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Keeping the Cronies Out

By way of Volokh.com: A nice piece of historical analysis of the Miers nomination appears on the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal. The author, Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Boston University, argues that the founders envisioned the Senate’s advice and consent as an effective barrier to a president nominating his buddies to high office, including the court. Barnett quotes Alexander Hamilton on this proposition:

“To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.”

Barnett then states the obvious question about the new nomination:

“Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers’s only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president? Would the president have ever picked her if she had not been his lawyer, his close confidante, and his adviser?”

Alexander Hamilton looks like a real idealist, though, in imagining that the Senate might provide an effective check on a president who doesn’t care about the appearance of cronyism in appointments or of deadly incompetence on the part of those who have been installed in the executive branch (I’m thinking more of the architects of the Iraq war than those who botched the post-Katrina operation).

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Junkmail, Joys of

Audubon

Two things about this recent mailing from the National Audubon Society (which isn’t strictly junkmail, except for its execution):

First: The brand-new permutation of my name. I usually use my middle name (Daniel), and have a "Jr." appended to my official full name. Also, Kate uses her pre-Dan-era family name, Gallagher. The combination of those factors leads to lots of entertaining (to us) permutations, Dan B. Gallagher being only the most recent. We get lots of mail for Kate Brekke and Kate Brekke Jr. We get the occasional mailing for Stephen and Dan Gallagher. Once not too long ago, an offer arrived for Gallagher Gallagher. If nothing else, it makes it easy to spot the obvious unrequested garbage.

Second: I like the Audubon Society, or the idea of the Audubon Society. They seem reasonable, too. Their mailing said that joining at the $15 level would really help. That’s less than a quarter-tank of gas. But the nobility of the cause and the modest expectations of the direct-mail appeal aside, what attracts my attention is the name of the society’s president: John Flicker. Remarkable because the flicker is one of the more familiar birds from the woods back in Illinois (and one that Audubon himself painted; compare that to the painting of the same species by 20th century master ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson; and just for fun, check out the flicker photographs on a U.S. Geological Survey resource page).

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Things Aren’t Getting Worse

Odd and ends to keep in mind when you begin to feel like the idiots have taken control (of course, it’s just a partial list; consider it in progress):

The Wisdom of Crowds, 18th Century Style: An estimated one-third of the colonial population at the outset of the American Revolution supported the British. One-third were on the fence. One-third bought into the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing enough to actively support the rebellion.

Keep Your Damned Foreign Books: After the British burned the Library of Congress during the war of 1812, former President Thomas Jefferson offered to help re-establish it by selling his large personal library to the government. Representative Cyrus King of Massachusetts argued against the purchase because he objected to the ideas that might be found inside Jefferson’s collection: “It might be inferred, from the character of the man who collected it, and France, where the collection was made, that the library contained irreligious and immoral books, works of the French philosophers, who caused and influenced the volcano of the French Revolution. The bill would put $23,999 into Jefferson’s pocket for about 6,000 books, good, bad and indifferent, old, new and worthless, in languages which many cannot read and most ought not.”

Nice Phrase — Now Get Lost: In the Senate campaign of 1858, in which Lincoln memorably argued that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” he lost.

Evolution for the Hell of It: In the 1925 “Monkey Trial,” in which John Scopes was put in the dock for violating a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, Scopes was convicted. The law under which Scopes was prosecuted stayed on the books until 1967.

See? The idiots always been in control, or waiting in the wings.

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The Historical Hurricane

Two new storms — Philippe and Rita — have come to life. Next on the list would be Stan. Stan, the casual hurricane. Of course, there’s not much in these storm names. The relaxed-sounding Mitch (1998) spawned a disaster in Central America that in many ways dwarfs the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

There’s all sorts of documentation about who chooses the names and what the names are. The basic principles in naming are first to create a universal reference for forecasters and other officials and second to personify the storm in a way that makes the phenomenon concrete for the public. However, I haven’t come across any explanation of how the actual names are picked — how Mitch or Stan make it, for instance, and Mikhail and Shlomo don’t. Mostly it’s the desire to keep the names short and sweet and familiar.

But do you want a storm to sound friendly? I mean, Katrina had previous connotations for me that made it easy to imagine the storm as an awesome and potentially destructive force of nature. But Stan? What does that bring to mind? Stan Laurel. He might get you into trouble with the wife, but how much real damage could he do?

Which is why I’ve always (privately, until now) advocated a system that uses names of particularly destructive people — anyone from big-league despots down to well-known criminals. Hurricane Stalin. Hurricane Huberty. That way, you could convey the potential menace of tropical cyclones and deliver a history lesson at the same time.

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September 17 Notebook

–Happy Constitution Day. Senator Robert Byrd inserted a provision into a spending bill last year — later approved by Congress and signed by the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — that directs schools that get federal money to conduct some sort of educational program every year on or around September 17th. That’s the date in 1787 the Constitution was signed. The requirement is actually a pretty loose one. The University of California set up a Constitution Day website, and doing that little bit would have complied with Byrd’s law. (At UC Berkeley, the occasion will be marked with a panel discussion at the law school, open to anyone).

–Happy 143rd anniversary of Antietam. Well, yes, happy might not be the word. After the battle that consumed a beautiful summer day in the woods and cornfields around Sharpsburg, Maryland, “nearly 6,000 men lay dead or dying, and another 17,000 wounded. … The casualties at Antietam numbered four times the total suffered by American soldiers at the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.” (From “Battle Cry of Freedom,” by James McPherson).

Beyond the carnage, the North’s strategic victory gave Lincoln political breathing space to promulgate the Emancipation Proclamation.

–Happy Harvest Moon. It’s tonight.

–Happy birthday to Dominic Hickey, born in Berkeley on this date in 1983, while I played with his older brother Dylan and my son Eamon in a park down the street from his folks’ place. He’s a senior this year at UC Irvine. Hey, it seems like yesterday,