Thoughts at Random

A rather remarkable book

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:35:14 GMT

When Christian Appy's book Working-Class War came out in 1993 I did not read it. At that point reading time was scarce and I knew it was based on his Doctoral thesis so, expecting a bunch of academic mumpitz, I passed it by.
I had since read his Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides and found that quite good.
I was in The Raven bookstore in Cambridge last week and came upon a copy. A glance in the index told me he cited Herr fairly frequently and since I'm writing about Herr I picked it up.
It's really rather remarkable. He takes information from Oral Histories, Vets rap groups, memoirs, novels and histories and weaves together a compelling portrait of Vietnam veterans, their war experiences and how those experiences interacted with their expectations to form them into complex, frequently troubled men and women whose world was forever changed in ways that they may or may not fully understand. While he clearly views the war as a travesty he avoids the ideological cant that mars many books both for and against the war and obviously works hard to maintain some degree of objectivity. He does a particularly good job at understanding and explaining why so many vets who themselves questioned the war were so adamantly opposed to the majority of the anti-war movement.
It is, unfortunately, out of print but if you come across a copy give it a try. I know I sincerely regret not reading it when it first came out.

Writer's Block: Technology & My Future

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:08:28 GMT

How do you think technology will impact your future?

Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.

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In his inaugural address President Kennedy said "Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life."
It was true then and it's true today.
It is not technology that will impact the future, but the ways we choose to use that technology.

Writer's Block: Two Truths and a Lie

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:11:42 GMT

Post two truths and a lie about yourself as an answer to Writer's Block. Have people guess which is the lie in the comments.

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The fastest I've ever driven is 156.7 mph
I've never been able to gt past the first chapter of The Satanic Verses
I love Brussels, Belgium

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:05:37 GMT

Through a strange confluence of circumstances I've been working eight days a week since returning from vacation. Typically I'm in the office by 5AM and work until it's time to go home, decompress a bit, eat dinner and then get to the work I've brought home.
I work in what I euphemistically call my study but is actually more of a midden. Besides the usual bookcases and filing cabinets there are stacks of books I've referred to and not reshelved, a stack of files I've pulled to refer to and not put back, several stacks of paper that eventually I'll file, several stacks of paper that eventually I'll give up on and recycle and, of course, my desk.
The surface of my desk has its own stacks, a lazy susan full of impedimenta, several containers of writing implements (how the hell did I get through school with 1 Papermate 98?) and just enough space for a sheet of paper and my laptop. My desk predates the laptop and has a rectangular compartment that used to hold the tower of my computer. It now holds two large three ring binders full of stuff that I refer to frequently. On top of these is an old Sperry Topsiders box full of stuff that really is quite useful, honest, I swear.
Sometime after midnight, as I was reflecting on the unintended hilarity of an engineer trying to be literary ("this code is a real Aegean stable") I heard a slow, scraping sound and looked down to see one of the binders move out of the compartment by a couple of inches. Fatigue and the nature of the room conspired to make this unremarkable. A few minutes later the other binder slid out by a few inches. For a while the binders alternated moving a few inches at a time. Just as this was beginning to capture my interest both binders fell to the floor, the shoebox fell to the bottom of the compartment, loud feline oaths were heard and Bailey shot out of the compartment, collided with a stack of reference books, hissed at the falling books, turned around and scratched the offending shoebox. He then climbed up on my lap, jumped from there to the desktop and settled in on the keyboard of my laptop.
I looked at my watch, realized I'd have to get up in three hours and went to bed.

Writer's Block: Investigations of a Female Nature

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:47:42 GMT

Who is your favorite lady detective from movies, books, or TV?

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Mary Russel from Laurie King's re-vistations of Sherlock Holmes' "retirement".

Walter Cronkite

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:02:25 GMT

Like most people my age my memories are full of Walter Cronkite. Particularly the emotion that sometimes seeped into his broadcast.
The obvious grief reporting President Kennedy's death.
The dismay reporting the riots at the 68 Democratic convention.
The dejection of his post-Tet report that the war was at a stalemate.
The almost overpowering awe when man first walked on the moon.
I have vivid memories of Cronkite, Huntly, Brinkly, Severied and Howard K. Smith. All of these memories are tied in with the events I heard them report.
Of the crowd that followed I remember only Peter Jennings.
I spent yesterday thinking about the differences between the anchors of his generation and the current anchors.
Walter Cronkite gave the impression that he existed to bring events into our lives.
Today's crop seems to think that events happen to bring the anchors into our lives.

Change at a glacial pace.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:58:39 GMT

There are times that being an Episcopalian gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
One such time was March of 2004 when a gay man was installed as Bishop of New Hampshire.
This action set off a minor firestorm within the Episcopal Church and a full scale conflagration withing the Anglican Communion (a grouping of all the spawn of the Church of England around the world).
There are other times when I want to dope slap the bishops and tell them to get on the stick.
It has been five years since Gene Robinson's installation and the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church is only now formally debating allowing the consecration of same-sex marriages where they are legal!
In my opinion this is unconscionable hypocrisy ,if a gay man can be a Bishop why can't the church afford the same rights to a gay couple that they afford a straight one?
Answer: Because it would piss off the Anglican communion again and the House of Bishops hasn't got the guts to tell them that we will not perpetuate injustice and if they wish to try and stop us we'll just walk out on them.
There are times and places where what foriegn policy wonks call Realpolitik, meaning take what you can get even if it's not ideal, is appropriate. I do not believe that this is one of them. I believe that the church should fully recognize and support human rights, and the sub-grouping gay rights, and refuse to formally associate with groups that would deny them.
Many consider this a harsh position. Perhaps it is but it is my position and it is a position I could not deviate from and consider myself a christian.

Deportee

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:15:01 GMT

Today would be Woody Guthrie's 97th birthday.
Woody was already too sick to perform when I started getting into folk music but his influence was everywhere. The simple, direct lyrics of his songs had a huge impact on the way people wrote and his tendency to put new words to old tunes liberated many gifted lyricists who couldn't quite come up with tunes yet. Both of these had a huge effect on the young Bob Dylan. He later took these traits and blended them with explorations into Surrealism to write some of the signature songs of our times.
There were some who disliked the "unpolished" nature of Woody's performance style, I especially think of The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, but even "prettied up" the lyrics of Deportee, Dusty Old Dust, Do-Re-Me and, of course, This Land is Your Land carried powerful messages and helped shape a generation's early commitment to justice and equality.
I wish I could meet Woody and thank him. Not so much for all the things I mentioned above but for all the fun I've had over the years singing his songs.

To Look For America

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:21:12 GMT

Driving up to New Harbor on the Fourth we saw signs as we approached Wiscasset advertising the parade and the chicken barbecue. We looked at our watches and saw it was nearly parade time and debated stopping to watch. Debate was cut short as we got to the main street and traffic was stopped for the parade. We rolled down the windows, turned off the engine and enjoyed the parade.

There was the County Sheriff's color guard, the high school band, floats from civic organizations and business; the cub scouts did drill team tricks on their bicycles; the local stock car hero towed his racecar on a flatbed. Then there were some truly venerable farm tractors, a trailer with the grills warming up for the chicken barbecue and what seemed like the whole fire department with red lights flashing.

With the parade complete they opened the road and we continued on toward New Harbor.

That evening we sat on the dock. Occasionally a lobster boat, converted to pleasure by the addition of lawn chairs and coolers, brought a family back from an excursion.

My mind turned back to Boston where thousands had stood in lines to have their picnic baskets searched before being let on the Esplanade to hear the big concert. Right about now the Pops would be finishing the 1812 Overture and getting ready to whip the crowd into a frenzy with The Stars and Stripes Forever.

It really is an amazing holiday to be celebrated in such disparate ways but I couldn't help thinking that John Adams would have found the Wiscasset celebration more familiar. And I'm pretty sure I know what he would have told the cop who wanted to search his picnic basket.

Writer's Block: Childhood Firsts

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:06:58 GMT

What was your first word?

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Why? My generation questioned authority.

Down on Copperline

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:27:14 GMT

When my father's parents came to this country they settled in a small town in New Hampshire. My father left but his parents stayed there. His brother stayed there and married a local girl. One of their daughters still lives there, as do her daughters and new grandson. In fact the daughter with the son lives in the house my aunt and uncle lived in until they got too old and frail to keep it up.
I loved going up there with my father. As we approached I could literally see the tension and aloofness fall off of him.
I never lived there but as a kid spent as much time as possible there and still go up as often as I can.
I went up Saturday for my aunt's 90th birthday. Like many wonderful places it's been developed almost past recognition but in me it's still the same sleepy little refuge that it was back then.
James Taylor wrote a song called Copperline about the area of Carolina where he grew up.

Thought I'd go back as if I could.
All spec house and plywood.
Tore up, tore up good
down on Copperline.
It doesn't come as a surprise to me,
doesn't touch my memory.
I'm lifting up and rising free
down on Copperline.

I know it's about Carolina. I've been to that part of Carolina. But to me it's about New Hampshire, because that's home.

They Wanted a Buzz But I Can Only Bellow.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:06:15 GMT

Have I mentioned that I hate hype?
I'm better than I used to be. Back when I was a kid I got so sick and tired of people telling me that Huck Finn was the greatest American Novel that I got turned off of Sam Clemins for decades.
There's nothing like flogging something to death to turn me agin it.
Take football, for example. I don't enjoy football, I never have. But I don't hate it. Until the Superbowl hype starts. And continues. And continues. And then continues some more until I explode in a frenzy of loathing, scream at the TV and suppress the urge to rear-end cars with New England Patriots stickers. (Which reminds me; why do the NBA finals last longer than the regular season?)
This is probably a large part of the reason I don't watch movies, especially "blockbusters". There seems to be this cycle of five weeks of hype followed by three weeks of endlessly reported box office figures followed by five weeks of hype about the DVD release. By the time all this is done the mere mention of the movie will send me into a rage. Opie's recent allegations that the Vatican tried to interfere with his filming of yet another Dan Brown badly cobbled together bit of gobbledygook is the only time in my life I firmly aligned myself with the Vatican. I'm sick of Opie, sick of Dan Brown and sick of Tom Hanks. A plague on all their houses even if it does come from the Vatican.
What brought all this grouchiness to a head is that there are several things going on in the world that I'm interested in. When I tried to catch a few minutes of news this morning while slurping #1 coffee all I got was the fact that it was raining (my window told me that, I didn't need their radar) and Michael Jackson. Now, I'm sure that there are people deeply touched and saddened by his death, maybe even more than were saddened by his life, but give me a break. Even my usually reliable BBC World Service was all Michael Jackson.
Hence I'm grouchy.
Did I mention that I hate hype?

When I Can Tell At Sight a Mauser Rifle From a Javelin

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:53:04 GMT

A book I was reading last night quoted a 1967 Time magazine article as describing General William Westmoreland as "the paradigm of a military professional" which struck me as very close to being the very model of a modern major general.

From the Pearls Before Swine Department

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:15:00 GMT

I was walking back to my car at MIT when I was accosted by a young man wearing a badly cut light brown suit with a dark purple shirt and a black tie.
"I beg your pardon," that peculiar sound of a Yorkshire accent trying to speak Oxbridge, "but can you direct me to the Faculty Club?"
"Certainly." I give directions. "While you're there do look in on the bar. They stock the liquor in Klein Bottles."
Blank stare.
They just don't make geeks like they used to.

Lucille Bogan

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:47:56 GMT

natevw sent me a cd of Lucille Bogan recordings (thanks Nate!). Although she only recorded from about 1923 to 1935 her work had a huge impact on other blues men and women. Unbelievably I had no recordings of her, even under her psuedonym of Bessie Jackson although I'd heard many recordings, especially Shave 'em Dry which she recorded with Josh White.
I'm telling you this because I had to go to MIT this morning. I was listening to the CD on the way in and while stopped at a light a kid crossing the street stopped and knocked on my window. I rolled it down and he asked what I was listening to. I told him. He wrote the name down in a pocket notebook and told me he was going to look for the CD. "That woman's got some voice!"
I couldn't have said it better myself.

It's Raining!

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:49:14 GMT

Hereabouts it's been raining steadily since about 1913.
There was a time when this did not bother me, I simply put on a waterproof layer and went about my business.
That was before I moved to the suburbs and had to drive everywhere. Many cars seem to have a device that is activated with the windshield wipers. This device injects extra levels of stupid into the driver. For reasons that any third grader can understand wet pavement increases the time/space needed to accelerate or decelerate. Most drivers think that it decreases the time/space needed.
So a car ahead of me is stopped waiting for a gap in traffic to take a left turn. A gap appears. Driver of car stands on gas and spins wheels, driver of car coming in opposite direction stands on brakes. Car decelerating loses traction and slows fitfully, car accelerating gets traction and shoots like a rocket into car decelerating. That part of the intersection not blocked by two dead cars is a tire slashing debris field.

So, we continue to continue
to pretend
our lives will never end
and chassis never bend
with the rainfall.

Thank God it was just reality

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:07:21 GMT

There is a young woman who works in this building who always dresses like it's 1969; jeans, boots, and what we used to call a peasant blouse. She has long, straight hair parted in the middle. Yesterday I saw her drive up in a VW microbus camper and thought I was having a flashback.
It turns out her father was doing some repair work on her car and she was borrowing his.

Adventures in Academia

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:07:46 GMT

Sometimes, for the sheer hell of it, I don my Captain Spaulding Explorer uniform and venture into the dark pit of Academic Literature. Sometimes this is quite valuable, sometimes a dead waste of paper and sometimes downright funny.
When it's funniest is when you get a professor who, after a long day of faculty meetings and ignoring students, likes to come home and watch the television. Since everything they do must, by definition, be Intellectually Important they need to justify this habit by cloaking it in scholarly raiment.
One of my favorites is a "historian" who was able to discern the degree of anti-war sentiment in the country by a close analysis of Star Trek episodes. Last night I read the same "historian" interpreting the Beverly Hillbillies as a thinly veiled attack on the American Consumer Society and acquisitiveness in general. It was all assertions and no defense of those assertions. It was, essentially, shoddy work.
After I stopped laughing I asked myself how it could be that this idiot had a teaching job and had been published while my friend Alan, a true historian if there ever was one, works in a bookstore. Is there something in the PHD process that turns a student's mind to self-important mush? Is this why college level education is declining in quality?

A Rustic Interlude

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:34:58 GMT

As some of you know liddle_oldman natevw floundah and I went to the same shool. I'm told another schoolmate is on LJ but damned if I can find her.
Anyway, I thought you might like to see what it lloks like.

This is the veiw from the building the science classrooms were in.

This is from near the main administration building.
.
This is the main administration building. At various times it was also used as classroms and dormitories.

The Kids Are Alright

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:32:34 GMT

One of the reasons I enjoy my contact with kids is that they come up with some very cool ideas.
The kids at the local voc-tech have been very active in a number of civic activities, from Habitat for Humanity to cooking for the Senior Center. They also raise a ton of money for the Public Library.
I was talking with some of them yesterday and some of the Auto Mechanics kids put forward an idea and asked who they should work with on it.
Their idea was that people in such strained circumstances that they need the food pantry are probably ignoring maintenance of their cars. They want to establish a program for Food Pantry clients that will provide free oil changes every three months. They'd eventually like to expand it to other services but figured they'd start out small. They got the school to let them use the shop after class (under supervision) and to dispose of the waste oil (they burn it for heat), and they got the teachers to agree to supervise. They need to round up donations of oil and filters and get the Pantry organization to issue vouchers to their clients.
The Who was right, the kids are alright.

Writer's Block: Grimm Question

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:22:52 GMT

What was your favorite fairy tale as a child?

Submitted By wolfy284

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"...with liberty and justice for all."

From the Department of Futile Gestures

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:06:21 GMT

Thursday, June 4 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In preparation the Chinese government has already shut down access to Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr.
Since that day the picture of a lone man standing in front of a T-59 tank has never been far from my mind. It was a brave and optimistic act but futile. In the end the Chinese army killed hundreds, possibly more than a thousand, and it is illegal in China to discuss it.
It is legal to discuss it here but there's too much money to be made in China to protest about it.

It's All Henry's Fault

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:45:48 GMT

Back when I was in college we took a kid from Oshkosh, Wisconsin to Harvard Square. What impressed him was not the kid walking around with a monkey on his head but that nobody else noticed.
Harvard Square is a lot different now.True it still attracts small groups that think a silent vigil outside the T station will materially help the people of Tibet (sorry, Myanmar) but all the funky little stores where you could buy things that were perfectly good and excessively groovy have been replaced with the kind of chain stores you can find in almost any mall anywhere in the country. The kids are a lot more grim, too. This is probably because they're about to graduate, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, with no job prospects.
One thing that hasn't changed is the square's ability to attract Conspiracy Theorists.
When I was there last week a couple of Earnest Young Things were canvassing for Amnesty International. Heading for a stationary store that still carries narrow ruled pads I noticed that one of them had been beset with a well known Kissinger Whacko. He's not like the other Kissinger Whackos who blame everything in the last 40 years on Kissinger, he blames everything that ever happened on Kissinger. As I got closer I saw that the Earnest Young Thing's eyes were glazed over and heard that he was droning on about how Kissinger's evil spirit was behind the War of the Roses.
It's nice to know some things haven't changed.

The Further Adventures of Bailey the Wonder Cat

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:01:35 GMT

Mrs. Blevins came home last night, put her purse on the sofa and ran to her study to check e-mail. Bailey hopped up on the sofa, sniffed the purse, said "How nice, a pillow!", put his head down on it and slept peacefully.
Until her cell phone rang.

Late in the Evening

Wed, 27 May 2009 10:37:19 GMT

Happy, Day Nine
This was planned to be a general rant about the wonderful music I've heard over the years, the joy it's given me and the incredible people it's brought to me. But the chance arrival of an Artie Shaw CD last night changed it to memories of one specific person I did not meet through music but whose love for music was part of our deep and lasting bond.
I speak of my Father-in-law. His collection of jazz recordings was exceeded only by his knowledge of the music. He had no musical training beyond basic sight-singing but he had the visceral understanding of it that no amount of teaching can give you. Whenever we were together jazz was in the background. It didn't matter if we were in the car, on the back porch or passing the port around the table, jazz was in the background. Many nights he and I sat late into the evening, sipping whiskey, listening to music, talking about the music and swapping stories of hanging around musicians. My epic win was hearing him reminisce about The Red Onion Jazz Band, a Dixieland band that worked New York and New Jersey back in the sixties and seventies, and I pulled out a recording.
One Christmas he gave us a big box of tapes and a four inch three ring binder. The tapes were copies of rarities from his collection and the binder was annotated notes of the music on the tapes. He must have spent the best part of a year putting it together. I still spend hours with it twenty years on.
Sometimes, when it's late and the music's been on for hours and the whiskey is going down smooth I'll play one of his favorites and look across to the club chair he used to favor and there he'll be with a glass and a Camel, keeping time. If music had given me nothing else, this would be more than I could repay.