tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20984999190728066652024-03-13T03:28:52.602-04:00To Find the Principles"In fiction, the principles are given, to find<br> the facts: in history, the facts are given,<br> to find the principles; and the writer<br> who does not explain the phenomena<br> as well as state them performs<br> only one half of his office."
<br><br>
Thomas Babington Macaulay,<br> "History," <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, 1828Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.comBlogger852125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-41123603325398918682017-04-09T23:40:00.000-04:002017-04-09T23:40:22.923-04:00For Palm Sunday: A Palm Sunday DonkeyFrom the vaults: One of the most charming pieces of Easter religious sculpture is the depiction of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://68.media.tumblr.com/bb982671a844d08061d8b0bccd961a1f/tumblr_inline_nm08hbyqPA1s0zerk_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://68.media.tumblr.com/bb982671a844d08061d8b0bccd961a1f/tumblr_inline_nm08hbyqPA1s0zerk_1280.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
When British General Allenby entered Jerusalem as conqueror in December 1917, he made a point of doing so on foot.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="height: 0; padding-bottom: 75.0%; position: relative;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tz6NoJ60ztE?ecver=2" style="height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; width: 100%;" width="480"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2015/03/palm-sunday-donkey.html" target="_blank">Full original post</a>. Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-70580060566287386432017-04-01T12:27:00.000-04:002017-04-01T22:11:01.700-04:00Amherst College Picks Emily Dickinson as New Sports Mascot<span style="font-size: large;"><b>In Surprise Move, Amherst College Picks Emily Dickinson as New Sports Mascot</b></span><br />
<b>Edged Out Leading Contender: “Fighting Poets”</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XDMM1Vvn0KA/WOAQmApxfhI/AAAAAAACrug/IhQwzd1v96UaqKsEkqMSN2eb09qehq0hACLcB/s1600/Emily%2BDickinson%2BPurple%2BWhite.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XDMM1Vvn0KA/WOAQmApxfhI/AAAAAAACrug/IhQwzd1v96UaqKsEkqMSN2eb09qehq0hACLcB/s640/Emily%2BDickinson%2BPurple%2BWhite.png" width="467" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of Emily Dickinson from <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/holdings/edickinson/dickinsondag" target="_blank">Amherst Colleges Archives and Special Collections</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The long wait is over. Although the official announcement is not
expected until sometime next week, sources inside the Amherst College
administration revealed that, after months of controversy and
speculation, they have chosen poet Emily Dickinson as their new sports
mascot, replacing eighteenth-century British military leader Lord
Jeffery Amherst, considered by many to be politically and morally
unacceptable in this day and age. The move came as something of a
surprise because, among the five finalists announced to the public,
“Fighting Poets” was widely expected to get the nod. A few trustees,
gathered for cocktails in the <a href="http://30boltwood.com/" target="_blank">elegant and dimly lit bar</a> of the <a href="http://www.lordjefferyinn.com/about/" target="_blank">Lord Jeffery Inn</a> (spoiler: yes, it’s
ironic, but that name isn’t changing yet), late Friday night spoke on
condition of anonymity about the process that had just concluded.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A Background of Controversy</b><br />
<br />
The decision arose from the intersection of longstanding concerns and
recent protests. For years, Native Americans and their allies have
protested both the appropriation of American Indian culture and the
related use of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/opinion/clevelands-unthinking-racism.html?_r=0" target="_blank">racist stereotypes as emblems of sports teams</a>.
American campuses have been roiled in conflict for several years over
histories of white supremacy as well as continuing issues of
institutional racism, but it was the recent <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/students-are-protesting-racism-on-college-campuses-what-are-their-demands/106721" target="_blank">activism associated with the Black Lives Matter</a> movement that <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/amherst-students-demand-no-free-speech-signs-or-else.html" target="_blank">brought things to a head at Amherst</a>. <br />
<br />
The figure of Lord Jeffery Amherst, after whom the college’s sports
team—the “Lord Jeffs”—was named, is <a href="https://consecratedeminence.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/oh-lord-geoffrey-amherst-was-a-soldier-of-the-king/" target="_blank">no stranger to controversy on campus</a> and beyond.
In this case, the issue was not a symbol that appropriated Native
American culture, and instead, one associated with its destruction. As
almost every Amherst resident and Amherst College student soon comes to
learn, Amherst sought to exterminate Native Americans (“this execrable
race”) during the “French and Indian War” through an early form of
biological warfare by <a href="http://www.amherstbulletin.com/Archives/2016/02/f26smallpox-hg-022216" target="_blank">giving them smallpox-infested blankets</a>.
<br />
<br />
For a long time his ubiquitous emblematic presence caused the administration no
discomfort. The College commissioned elegant representations of him on
“collectible” Wedgwood china.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZyFjZw1gZRM/WOAUCKVFZ8I/AAAAAAACrus/f7z-2cM6IIA8x9iB_Ro-hGHnUttVqPnzACLcB/s1600/Jeffery%2BAmherst%2BWedgwood%2BLord%2BJeff%2BLibrary%2B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZyFjZw1gZRM/WOAUCKVFZ8I/AAAAAAACrus/f7z-2cM6IIA8x9iB_Ro-hGHnUttVqPnzACLcB/s400/Jeffery%2BAmherst%2BWedgwood%2BLord%2BJeff%2BLibrary%2B.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wedgwood plate on display in the library of Lord Jeffery Inn</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rfYUqcL7tUU/WOAXN-KN9lI/AAAAAAACru4/lbN9EgN4c1YnGfqQWWltl1Bhkm0QbiZBgCEw/s1600/Jeffery%2BAmherst%2Bcup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rfYUqcL7tUU/WOAXN-KN9lI/AAAAAAACru4/lbN9EgN4c1YnGfqQWWltl1Bhkm0QbiZBgCEw/s320/Jeffery%2BAmherst%2Bcup.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a great way to start your day: old Amherst College dinnerware</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And as late as the 1960s, a stylized
depiction of Lord Jeff hunting down Indians was considered a
light-hearted scene with which to greet the young WASP males of the “One
Percent” as they began their day in the dining commons. <br />
<br />
That
dinnerware was in the meantime quietly removed, but the presence of Lord
Jeff as sports mascot remained. When students of color and their allies
rose up in protest in the fall of 2015, <a href="https://sports.vice.com/en_us/highlight/amherst-students-seek-condemnation-for-colonial-mascot-lord-jeff-who-deals-in-smallpox-blankets" target="_blank">he became an obvious target</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcFDwxwIA0E/WOAY6efV_7I/AAAAAAACrvE/ulWpj7k5WVg1oXFCQw0cm23ELMIv2GmNACLcB/s1600/Amherst%2BLord%2BJeff%2Bprotest%2Bposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QcFDwxwIA0E/WOAY6efV_7I/AAAAAAACrvE/ulWpj7k5WVg1oXFCQw0cm23ELMIv2GmNACLcB/s400/Amherst%2BLord%2BJeff%2Bprotest%2Bposter.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amherst Uprising protest poster, Frost Library, November 2015</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>A Symbol of Changing Times</b><br />
<br />
The administration took the protests seriously, and <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/president/statements/node/620480" target="_blank">President Caroline “Biddy” Martin returned to campus</a> from her travels to meet with
protesters. In January 2016, the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/26/amherst-college-drops-mascot-named-for-british-general-who-advocated-giving-native-americans-smallpos/cu8cXJwPnIRblFB1WpFWJJ/story.html" target="_blank">College announced that it was giving Lord Jeff the heave-ho</a>. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sah1s0yyj-s/WOAQitirrlI/AAAAAAACruk/ZrikFZqDNLMXpreMedH3gujCK8GVRut0QCEw/s1600/No%2BJeffery%2BAmherst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sah1s0yyj-s/WOAQitirrlI/AAAAAAACruk/ZrikFZqDNLMXpreMedH3gujCK8GVRut0QCEw/s640/No%2BJeffery%2BAmherst.jpg" width="468" /></a></div>
<br />
In late October, the College announced a <a href="http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/10/amherst_college_to_drop_lord_j.html" target="_blank">public process to select a new mascot</a>. By the end of the year, having received 2045 suggestions, the <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/mascot/semifinalists" target="_blank">Mascot Committee chose 30 semifinalists</a>. On Saint
Patrick’s Day 2017, the College announced <a href="http://www.gazettenet.com/Amherst-College-mascot-finalists-revealed-8741448" target="_blank">five finalists</a>, to be winnowed
through an online voting process ending March 31.
They were:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>“Fighting Poets”</b> (“celebrates multiple poets who have taught, studied or
written poetry in association with the college or town of Amherst")</li>
<li><b>“Mammoth”</b> (a reference to fossils in the <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/museums/naturalhistory/collections" target="_blank">Beneski Museum</a>)</li>
<li><b>“Purple and White”</b> (the College colors)</li>
<li><b>“Valley Hawks”</b> (“would reflect pride in the campus bird sanctuary and the college’s other connections to avian studies”)</li>
<li><b>"Wolves"</b> (“Known for their keen senses, intelligence and power, wolves
collaborate and care for one another in packs, but they can also
represent individuality and independence")</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>Trustee Coup? “Fighting Poets” or not “Fighting Poets”: that was the question</b><br />
<br />
Some of the 2045 suggestions were easy to reject for one reason or
another. For example, although “Hamsters” was considered clever by some
because Hamster is an anagram of Amherst, it is also the nickname of
students at nearby Hampshire College. “A’s” was unimaginative. And
“Pride” was just plain mystifying. A younger left-leaning trustee
provided particular insight into the deliberations. In his view, it was
much like the Trump White House: characterized by chaos and infighting.<br />
<br />
The trustees faced a dilemma. Four of the five finalist names
were anything but inspiring. Until just recently, “Fighting Poets”
therefore seemed to be headed for victory: it was clever, had a light
touch, and referred to the college’s intellectual legacy: Emily
Dickinson <a href="https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/mount_holyoke" target="_blank">did not attend Amherst College</a>--it was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/21/science/education-the-all-male-college-vanishing.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">among the last of the Ivies to go coed (1975), and only after great resistance</a>–but her family was associated with the <a href="https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/node/73" target="_blank">founding</a> and <a href="https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/node/82" target="_blank">administration</a> of
the College, and Amherst owns the <a href="https://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/" target="_blank">Dickinson Museum</a>, which <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g29510-d106809-Reviews-Emily_Dickinson_Museum-Amherst_Hampshire_County_Massachusetts.html" target="_blank">attracts thousands of visitors to the town</a>. Robert Frost <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/holdings/frost" target="_blank">taught at Amherst College</a>, and <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/library" target="_blank">the library</a> is named after him. And Richard Wilbur, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards, is an
alumnus (<a href="https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/holdings/wilbur" target="_blank">Class of ’41</a>). <br />
<br />
Still, as trustees weighed the choice, doubts arose. To begin with, none
was really familiar with poetry. A few thought they had encountered
Frost or Dickinson in a freshman English class but could not recall much
else. Some remembered having seen Richard Wilbur at a dinner and admiring
his tweed jacket. “Too bad that Joyce Kilmer didn’t go to Amherst,” one
elderly gentleman mused over a Bone Dry Sapphire Gin Martini. “I really
liked that <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/joyce-kilmer" target="_blank">poem about trees</a>. But we didn’t let girls in back then.” “Wilbur who?” asked another. “Wasn’t he the guy on that show with
the talking horse?” he snorted, as he took a sip from his third Macallan
18 Year Old Sherry Oak 1992.<br />
<br />
A more politically aware younger trustee raised doubts even about Robert
Frost: the poet came from a racist white nationalist family and was
<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/robert-frost-darkness-or-light" target="_blank">named for Robert E. Lee</a>. His official biographer described him as (<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2014/03/05/Was-Robert-Frost-a-monster-New-letters-compilation-offers-insights/stories/201403050016" target="_blank">in the words of a reviewer</a>) “a nasty piece of work, cruel to his family, dismissive and
contemptuous of other writers, a liar and a manipulator.” The same
reviewer summarized a fictional portrait of the poet by Joyce Carol
Oates as: “racist, sexist, loathsome, bullying.” “’Fighting poets’?!”
the trustee asked with some exasperation. “<i>For</i> the Confederacy? <i>Against</i>
women? It would be worse than ironic if, after the anti-racist protests
on campus, we picked <i>this</i> guy. Just what kind of message are we
sending?!”<br />
<br />
“Besides,” another worried, “we might just be opening
ourselves up to ridicule. “What are our boys going to yell when these
‘<i>Fighting Poets</i>’ take to the gridiron? You know that Haverford College
football cheer: ‘<a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/25127/7-memorable-sports-chants" target="_blank">Kill, Quakers, Kill!</a>’ Come on. It’s the worst of both
worlds.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Purple and White Privilege: we’re the trustees and can do pretty much what we want</b> <br />
<br />
A group of more traditionally minded trustees therefore tried to come up
with an alternative. When asked how they could circumvent the choices
developed through an open public process, one who works in corporate law
replied that it was perfectly legitimate, in the spirit if not the
letter of the charge: “After all, you folks in town did the same thing:
you held a flag contest calling for designs based on the theme of <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2010/11/run-what-up-flagpole-and-see-who.html" target="_blank">‘the book and the plow’</a>—which, I’ll have you know, was <a href="https://archive.org/stream/reportoftownofam00amhe/reportoftownofam00amhe_djvu.txt" target="_blank">the invention of an Amherst College professor</a>—and then <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2012/01/we-seem-to-have-winner-in-flag-contest.html" target="_blank">chose the book and three sheaves of grain</a>—even though they’re not a plow and no one ever grew
wheat in Amherst. Sauce for the gander, you know. Anyway: we’re
the trustees and can do pretty much what we want.”<br />
<br />
This trustee faction settled on the figure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._McCloy" target="_blank">John McCloy</a> as the new mascot. He was
an alumnus, a major figure in twentieth-century American law, finance,
politics, and government, and served on the Warren Commission: an ideal
representation of Amherst men in the service of the nation. And of
course he was male. That plan fell apart when a young leftish trustee
pointed out that, as Assistant Secretary of War, McCloy had <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/John_McCloy/" target="_blank">played a decisive role in the notorious internment of Japanese Americans</a>, had refused to believe
stories of Nazi artocities, and then, as High Commissioner for postwar
Germany, had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/books/ultimate-insider-ultimate-outsider.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">commuted or reduced the sentences of many of the worst Nazis</a>:<br />
<br />
“So: you’re dumping a guy who wanted to poison Indians but didn’t
actually manage to do so—and replacing him with a guy who put loyal
Americans in prison—and let German war criminals out? Bright move.”
Besides, he added with a wink, “Just think about the nicknames: If the
Lord Jeffs are known as ‘the Jeffs,’ then the ‘John McCloys’ would be
known as ‘the Johns.’ I. Don’t. Think. So. Look, if you guys aren’t
going to take the need for social change seriously, why don’t you just
be done with it and call the team “Purple and White Privilege?”<br />
<br />
Ironically, although he spoke those words with bitter sarcasm, they
broke the logjam. The trustees began to think in concert about how to
spin or improve upon the five final options. It was thus that they hit
upon the idea of casting aside the generic “fighting poets” and singling
out Emily Dickinson. It was an easy choice and a unifying one. For
those on the left, it was thinking outside the box and a means to
underscore the College’s commitment to diversity and modern values. For
the conservatives, it was a cynical, cost-free choice. The Lord Jeff
mascot was a clear liability, easily thrown off the back of the sleigh
to appease the wolves. Choosing a woman as emblem would also help to
distract attention from damaging news reports concerning an aggressive
masculine sports ethos, ranging from <a href="http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article/2013/02/13/elephant-room" target="_blank">rape culture</a>
to <a href="https://theindicator.wordpress.amherst.edu/special-reports/mens-cross-country-maintained-misogynistic-racist-email-chain" target="_blank">racist and misogynistic e-mail exchanges</a>. Above and beyond that, the move would secure the future of athletics at
Amherst. It is an open secret that, when the trustees reluctantly
accepted former President Tony Marx’s demand for emphasis on greater
ethnic and racial diversity, the quid pro quo was increased financial
support for the sports teams. Was it only a coincidence that, when the
trustees selected the first woman president as his successor, they chose
Biddy Martin, a self-described “<a href="https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2011summer/19thpresident/node/332751" target="_blank">crazed sports fan</a>”? The choice of Emily Dickinson as mascot thus hit the trifecta, solving
numerous problems at once, changing things without really changing
things.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hW77aLjngAs/WOAu0wVwsrI/AAAAAAACrvY/kiIS5UCDQYk0Pa7JH52D8yQX6xrHrJKnACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B02.51.26.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hW77aLjngAs/WOAu0wVwsrI/AAAAAAACrvY/kiIS5UCDQYk0Pa7JH52D8yQX6xrHrJKnACLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B02.51.26.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">even on March 31, search
engines still show the description of the team under its old moniker</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>Early Reaction</b><br />
<br />
Discreetly presented with the breaking news on Friday evening in the bar of the
Lord Jeff, one professor of English sitting nearby looked up from her
Chocolate Appletini and said, “Wow, that’s really disruptive!”
“<i>Transgressive</i>, even!” chimed in her colleague from comp lit, giggling
slightly as she took a sip from her squid-ink-garnished Firenze-Palermo
cocktail. A member of the Hampshire College faculty known to be well
versed in both academic and town politics happened to be at the bar, as well:
“You know if I were conspiratorially minded—which I’m not: only idiots
believe in conspiracy theories—I’d say that this was a cunning plan by
the Emily Dickinson Museum to get the College finally to pay attention
to its most valuable cultural resource. Everyone knows that, even though
Biddy Martin was trained in literature, she has never really shown much interest in the Museum. She’s set foot there like, what: once in her life?
But she always has time to go to a football game or tweet about sports. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HnYYfSEPlIE/WOAxxq5Rp9I/AAAAAAACrv0/mj3n73hdCM0Llf9PgrORApjRFMue3kTmQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.00.10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="97" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HnYYfSEPlIE/WOAxxq5Rp9I/AAAAAAACrv0/mj3n73hdCM0Llf9PgrORApjRFMue3kTmQCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.00.10.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrjP4ofaWes/WOAx3iBzbfI/AAAAAAACrv4/JYmabcN0CQ4zojXMwahrFTBzbxk0jBD3ACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B18.59.24.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrjP4ofaWes/WOAx3iBzbfI/AAAAAAACrv4/JYmabcN0CQ4zojXMwahrFTBzbxk0jBD3ACLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B18.59.24.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oDRI18Mhnkc/WOAx8YdXOuI/AAAAAAACrv8/Ck10M-J3wo4eqP8G6Se8frEXJM7tfG29wCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.00.41.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oDRI18Mhnkc/WOAx8YdXOuI/AAAAAAACrv8/Ck10M-J3wo4eqP8G6Se8frEXJM7tfG29wCLcB/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.00.41.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2alu0g2VdYw/WOAyWdmvPDI/AAAAAAACrwA/M7V_vBGvyrkM2NFCe9aCod-9drLzf-aPwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.05.39.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2alu0g2VdYw/WOAyWdmvPDI/AAAAAAACrwA/M7V_vBGvyrkM2NFCe9aCod-9drLzf-aPwCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-01%2Bat%2B19.05.39.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
With teams named after Emily Dickinson, she’d finally <i>have</i> to pay
attention. It’s absolutely brilliant.” With that, he returned to his
Vieux Carré and discussion of the upcoming Town Meeting with his two
female companions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Jeff, John, Dick, and Harried</b><br />
<br />
Reached via telephone on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the
Amherst College Office of Communications said that President Martin, on
her way out of town for a full weekend of men’s tennis matches at Tufts,
both women’s and men’s lacrosse at Middlebury, and women’s outdoor
track and field at the Tufts Snowflake Invitational, would not be
available for comment until late next week or whenever there is a break
in the College’s sports schedule.<br />
<br />
We pointed out that, although the choice of mascot was bold, there was
one fly in the ointment. If the “Lord Jeffs” had been known as “the
Jeffs,” then the “Emily Dickinsons” might come to be popularly referred
to as "The Emilys"--or: “The Dicks.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RjMAxbn4REQ/WOAwSoDLahI/AAAAAAACrvk/NPldCbSVca0ZWNljrdpGImK0fuwKY-TeQCLcB/s1600/Amherst%2Bt-shirts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RjMAxbn4REQ/WOAwSoDLahI/AAAAAAACrvk/NPldCbSVca0ZWNljrdpGImK0fuwKY-TeQCLcB/s640/Amherst%2Bt-shirts.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
There was a brief but painful silence on the other end of the phone
line. “Oh.” Pause. “We hadn’t thought of that. Boy, is our face red.”
Another pause. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. First, I’ve got to
check my calendar. Remind me: what day is this?”<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-74164258972869438852017-01-02T14:38:00.000-05:002017-01-03T04:18:38.845-05:00Happy New Year, 2017 (and good riddance, 2016)!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Wishing all my friends a very happy new year!</b></span></div>
<br />
A greeting from the vaults.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2gxsYc7gyk/UO0l54GRvLI/AAAAAAAAF34/DnjpTZKGlpQCwyvNNYiiHUGPZE0dqNaOwCPcB/s1600/PragNJ.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2gxsYc7gyk/UO0l54GRvLI/AAAAAAAAF34/DnjpTZKGlpQCwyvNNYiiHUGPZE0dqNaOwCPcB/s640/PragNJ.600.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This is a sentimental old favorite from my collection: nothing special
in itself, just an old greeting card from Czechoslovakia that I
inherited from my father. The winter scene depicts Prague Castle and St.
Vitus' Cathedral viewed from the hill of Strahov Monastery, circa 1930.<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "zapfino"; font-size: 9.0pt; text-transform: uppercase;">š</span><span style="font-family: "zapfino"; font-size: 9.0pt;">ťastný Nový rok!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "zapfino"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Boldog Új
Évet!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "zapfino"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Prosit
Neujahr!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "zapfino"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Happy New
Year!</span></div>
<br />
<i>From the past</i>: one of my 2014 New Year's entries featured <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2013/01/prosit-neujahr-imperial-and-royal.html" target="_blank">a greeting card from an Austro-Hungarian railroad unit during World War I</a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<b>And: Good riddance, 2016!</b><br />
<br />
For a variety of reasons, a lot of us have been saying that, even though we face 2017 with certain anxieties, we won't be sad to see 2016 use the exit.<br />
<br />
Several publications, noting the national mood, decided to consider some other years, for comparison, and perhaps consolation:<br />
<br />
• <i>Smithsonian</i> helpfully offered "<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-2016-only-most-recent-worst-year-ever-180961609/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia" target="_blank">Why 2016 Is Only the Most Recent Worst Year Ever</a>:<br />
This year has been miserable for many, but it has plenty of competition from its predecessors in the 20th century."<br />
<br />
• Not to be outdone, Charles Nevin in the <i>New York Times</i> made a foray as far back as 75,000 years about but drew most of his examples from the last two millennia (give or take): "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/2016-worst-year-ever.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=1" target="_blank">2016: Worst. Year. Ever?</a>"<br />
<br />
Still, I won't miss 2016.<br />
<br />
Not nearly as bad as <a href="http://observer.com/2016/12/the-butchers-bill-of-1916-battle-of-verdun-france-wwi/" target="_blank">1916</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer" target="_blank">1816</a> or many another year I could think of: You think you had it rough? what about 1941? 1348? But it's the lousy year we've had to deal with, so: good riddance. You can't be gone too soon for me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pMff6IYBuAE/WGtg-pnix3I/AAAAAAACmC8/_tF2w7J4RFoNUpP74BveL7dmqiPL-XRDACLcB/s1600/CruiCala.det001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pMff6IYBuAE/WGtg-pnix3I/AAAAAAACmC8/_tF2w7J4RFoNUpP74BveL7dmqiPL-XRDACLcB/s320/CruiCala.det001.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-83030518099181617672016-12-28T00:45:00.000-05:002017-01-05T00:37:56.485-05:00Christmas Decorating With the Nazis: Literary Tree OrnamentsThe Nazis were nothing if not culturally acquisitive. Although harshly critical of modernist art and literature, they portrayed themselves as the heirs and custodians of the great European and German national cultural traditions (the mirror image of the German Marxist claim). In some cases, the appropriation was easy. In others, a certain amount of manipulation or disingenuous treatment was required.<br />
<br />
In the literary realm, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21935869?selectedversion=NBD3108498" target="_blank">the great Weimar Classicist writers</a> and friends Goethe (1749-1832) and Schiller (1759-1805) stood at the center of the effort, though not all the works of these humanistic authors readily lent themselves to the messaging of a racist and dictatorial regime. Although Goethe's "Faust" could, with some gymnastics, be held up as the portrait of the archetypal "Germanic" soul, Schiller's drama <i>Don Carlos</i> proved awkward when audiences applauded the line, "Sire, give us freedom of thought!" And in 1941, Hitler requested that Schiller's anti-tyrannical drama <i>Wilhelm Tell</i> no longer be performed. Be that as it may, a general emphasis on the <i>Nationalliteratur</i>, reinforced by selective quotation, remained an effective overall policy.<br />
<br />
The glorification of the national cultural tradition extended to <i>Kitsch</i> and collectibles. These small glass Schiller Christmas ornaments (c. 30 x 35 mm) were given to donors at street collections for the Winter Relief Work effort in March 1941. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PmqBwXIlBX8/WGn_VWBEP1I/AAAAAAACmA0/rADZTZvQ8Qou8Z7lZSURjlIXskOVviEoQCLcB/s1600/Schiller%2BXmas%2Bornament.1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PmqBwXIlBX8/WGn_VWBEP1I/AAAAAAACmA0/rADZTZvQ8Qou8Z7lZSURjlIXskOVviEoQCLcB/s640/Schiller%2BXmas%2Bornament.1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dv1m6kkFXp4/WGn_uAjEONI/AAAAAAACmA4/pl9sbrmEQa0tZN31pRX_MWymu2I8FHubwCLcB/s1600/Schiller%2BXmas%2BGreen%252C%2BBlue.640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dv1m6kkFXp4/WGn_uAjEONI/AAAAAAACmA4/pl9sbrmEQa0tZN31pRX_MWymu2I8FHubwCLcB/s640/Schiller%2BXmas%2BGreen%252C%2BBlue.640.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Some recipients may actually have used them as tree decorations, but the Winterhilfswerk also offered an album for collectors.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEwofZnM39I/WGoh8o-wUlI/AAAAAAACmBc/5mYLa-OZ41oz_dEKIF5jO6SHKogwpnmvwCLcB/s1600/Koepfe%2Bberuehmter%2Bdeutscher%2BMaenner%2BWH%2B1940-41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEwofZnM39I/WGoh8o-wUlI/AAAAAAACmBc/5mYLa-OZ41oz_dEKIF5jO6SHKogwpnmvwCLcB/s640/Koepfe%2Bberuehmter%2Bdeutscher%2BMaenner%2BWH%2B1940-41.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://www.zvab.com/buch-suchen/titel/koepfe-beruehmter-deutscher-maenner/autor/winterhilfswerk/" target="_blank">Antiquariat Wolfgang Friebes, Graz</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The series,"Heads of Famous German Men," included Hitler (featured on the album cover above), historical
military leaders, and artists and composers from Dürer to Wagner. Goethe
and Schiller were, along with philosopher Immanuel Kant, the only literary figures. <br />
<br />
It was a travesty of the German intellectual tradition. On the other hand: if only other countries took their literary heritage so seriously that they felt the need to co-opt and distort it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[updated images] Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-81602223670469573872016-12-27T01:40:00.000-05:002017-01-03T03:43:16.094-05:00Christmas Decorating With the Nazis: From the War Diary of a German GirlThis is a document that my father acquired during his service with the US Occupation Government in Germany after World War II: confiscated, or just found in his office or quarters—I don’t know. It is described as a “war diary” <i>for</i> a young girl. Normally speaking, a war diary (<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegstagebuch" target="_blank"><i>Kriegstagebuch</i></a>) is an official German record of a military unit or department, or occasionally, a private record kept by a combatant. The extension of this term—rather than, say, scrapbook—to a gift made <i>for</i> a child is indicative of the culture of militarism and indoctrination under the Third Reich. (more background at the bottom of the page)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * </div>
<br />
The Christmas entries are particularly instructive.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Weihnachten with the Wehrmacht</b> <br />
<br />
24 December 1940<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CNVAc7I5Z3M/WGI1PbcWRCI/AAAAAAACl7I/9Pu4txQMJ-Qwt9rP8Eoh_51xtIlUB4oEwCLcB/s1600/KTB%2BWeihnachtsbaum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CNVAc7I5Z3M/WGI1PbcWRCI/AAAAAAACl7I/9Pu4txQMJ-Qwt9rP8Eoh_51xtIlUB4oEwCLcB/s640/KTB%2BWeihnachtsbaum.jpg" width="496" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Our soldiers, too, decorate the Christmas tree, for it connects them <br />
with the homeland and recalls many a pleasant hour."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In one of the most famous military broadcasts of the War, German radio shared transmissions from the Arctic Circle and Stalingrad to Africa as soldiers sang "Silent Night."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nOZZkYrFl6I" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
Of course the tendency to seize upon Christmas as a respite from combat was not unique to Germany. 101st Airborne <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/crossroads/2016/12/24/schmitz-christmas-eve-bastogne/95830496/" target="_blank">veteran Art Schmitz recalled</a> being surrounded by the Germans at Bastogne in 1944. Hearing "Radio Berlin doing a request broadcast: German civilians asking for Christmas carols to be played for their soldiers serving in Narvik, Norway; Italy; or Novosibirsk, Russia," the Americans decided to sing their own Christmas carols. "There was 'The First Noel,' 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' and others before we began 'Angels We Have Heard on High.' What we heard was the sound of angels of death overhead." A Nazi air raid began and the singing ceased, but the memory remained.<br />
<br />
The diary pages for the two days of Christmas (celebrated for two days in Germany) epitomize the blending of the military-propagandistic and bourgeois-sentimental.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CDqUdCL81z8/WGikw17B1CI/AAAAAAACmAE/XFn-RiMG5HwO4navcdL01EWACHo83xOoACLcB/s1600/KTB%2B25.12.40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CDqUdCL81z8/WGikw17B1CI/AAAAAAACmAE/XFn-RiMG5HwO4navcdL01EWACHo83xOoACLcB/s640/KTB%2B25.12.40.jpg" width="504" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">25 December<br />
The Führer on Christmas with his personal Guard Regiment<br />
The Commander of the Guard Regiment<br />
SS Lieutenant General Sepp Dietrich, greets the Führer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-omYi-8ZTPVk/WGikw2RT9kI/AAAAAAACmAI/kKrZKP6F9CcLXubwapn71F66ncK2NRk_wCLcB/s1600/KTB%2B26.12.40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-omYi-8ZTPVk/WGikw2RT9kI/AAAAAAACmAI/kKrZKP6F9CcLXubwapn71F66ncK2NRk_wCLcB/s640/KTB%2B26.12.40.jpg" width="484" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">26 December<br />
Santa Claus with the Führer's escort team</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The sketch of the evergreen branch with a candle (<a href="https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/holidays-and-celebrations/christmas/the-german-christmas-tree/" target="_blank">a tree-decorating tradition maintained up to the present</a> in some circles, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-38435765" target="_blank">though not without risk</a>) is the only original art work in the book.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<b>Compromised Christianity</b> <br />
<br />
Nazism was ideologically anti-Christian, but it readily availed itself of Christian imagery and symbols not only because they were familiar, but also because they were particularly well suited to convey the fascist message of "palingenetic" ultranationalism, or the urgent need for national regeneration: the propaganda film "<a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-triumph-of-the-will-1935" target="_blank">Triumph of the Will</a>" begins, after all, by speaking of Germany's "crucifixion" by the Versailles Treaty and "rebirth" after the advent of Hitler.<br />
<br />
Christmas was in many ways the ideal holiday for the Nazis: a
convenient means to affirm their connection with mainstream society (for
even their most barbarous acts were committed in the name of
decency and middle class values) as well as to impart their own
inflection to it. Christmas was of course common to both Catholic and Protestant Germans, but the latter connection was most fruitful, for Lutheranism was associated with the national identity and heritage: the revolt against Rome; the translation of the Bible, which laid the foundations for the modern German language; and (at least according to popular tradition) even the introduction of the Christmas tree. Further, the natural-seasonal aspects of the holiday, which coincided with the winter solstice, were multivalent, allowing for easy identification with either a Christian or a Nordic-pagan message (or some combination of both), as the need dictated.<br />
<br />
Finally, the holiday, with its themes of both domesticity and light versus darkness, could incorporate varying ideological messages about the relation between battle front and home front, depending on the course of the war: from the early expectations of peace and national renewal, to later, increasingly bitter denunciations of the barbarous enemy--whether the advance of the Red Army or the allied air campaigns against German cities--as a motivation to fight for the preservation of the innocents at home.<br />
<br />
Thus, the page facing the photo of the soldier trimming the Christmas tree was devoted to a an address by Hitler.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Nazis as the Peace Party? </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-858DAf_ZWHM/WGi9T6vhH5I/AAAAAAACmAY/0yt8l9p6YNwn-PRf5LZSAENT9zjmgR9wgCLcB/s1600/KTB%2B24.12.40%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-858DAf_ZWHM/WGi9T6vhH5I/AAAAAAACmAY/0yt8l9p6YNwn-PRf5LZSAENT9zjmgR9wgCLcB/s640/KTB%2B24.12.40%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
24 December<br />
<br />
Prepared for the Final Call!<br />
<br />
When this war will have ended, then there will begin in Germany a great process of creation, then a great "Awaken!" will resound throughout the land. Then the German people will cease the manufacture of cannons and begin with the work of peace and task of reconstruction for the masses in their millions!<br />
<br />
And then from this labor will arise that great German empire of which a great poet once dreamt. It will be a Germany to which every son is attached with fanatical love, because it will be a home even for the poorest.<br />
<br />
Adolf Hitler!</blockquote>
If this strikes us as preposterous as well as utopian, it is because we are so detached from the perceived reality in that time and place. Today we associate Hitler and Nazism primarily with war, but we need to recall that this was not always the case, at least domestically. Another book that my father acquired was a propaganda <a href="https://www.smith.edu/news/2008-09/cigaretteexhibition-120.php" target="_blank">album of cigarette cards</a> issued to commemorate the first year of the new regime (1934), which it praised as "<a href="https://archive.org/stream/Cigaretten-Bilderdienst-Der-Staat-der-Arbeit-und-des-Friedens/Cigaretten-bilderdienst-DerStaatDerArbeitUndDesFriedens-EinJahrRegierungAdolfHitler1934103S.ScanFraktur#page/n0/mode/2up" target="_blank">The State of Labor and Peace</a>."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PD1HSQ_I_40/WGjAtBxia4I/AAAAAAACmAg/oR8RMdtGxxwfRUkomtcLmOoxDqbTfogqACLcB/s1600/Staat%2BArbeit%2BFrieden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PD1HSQ_I_40/WGjAtBxia4I/AAAAAAACmAg/oR8RMdtGxxwfRUkomtcLmOoxDqbTfogqACLcB/s400/Staat%2BArbeit%2BFrieden.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
<br />
Indeed, as Ian Kershaw so clearly demonstrated in his modern classic, <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-hitler-myth-9780192802064?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank"><i>The Hitler Myth</i></a>, Hitler succeeded for so long precisely because he was credited not only with achieving domestic recovery but also securing--without war--the consensus international goals of the military and geographic revision of the <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/versailles_menu.asp" target="_blank">Versailles Treaty</a>. This presumed evidence of his genius as a leader reinforced his standing among the loyal and cut the ground out from under the would-be critics. When war finally broke out in 1939, the German people, fully aware of what had happened in 1914, were more sober and anxious than enthusiastic, but the relatively easy victories in Poland and then in the west following the end of the "Phony War" in 1940 merely reinforced Hitler's reputation for wisdom and infallibility.<br />
<br />
What the mother writing this diary--and the rest of the public--did not know was that peace was in fact further away than ever: on 18 December 1940, Hitler had ordered the military to <a href="https://www.welt.de/geschichte/zweiter-weltkrieg/article150055088/Fall-Barbarossa-begann-wie-ein-Sandkastenspiel.html" target="_blank">prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union</a>, even if the war against Britain was not brought to a conclusion.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>From Peace Party to Pagan Turn</b><br />
<br />
Thus, when Himmler greeted the SS and their families in the 1943-44 volume of the holiday annual <i>Weihe Nacht</i> (a deliberately archaic spelling of Christmas, connoting pagan origins), it was in a very different tone:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Women and mothers! Men of the SS and Police!<br />
<br />
Implacably harsh is the enemy power, against which we have to defend and augment the Reich as the legacy of our ancestors and obligation for our children. Once again the season of the solstice and Christmas summons us to the gathering of clans [a term with a pagan-racial tinge] and families. Once again the task in the longest night of the year is to yearn for the victory of the sun with the faithful trust of our ancestors. May this deep faith in the victory of the light characterize us more deeply than ever today, when we in the privacy of the family or comrades kindle our lights. The lights on the green boughs will, spanning the distances that separate comrades in the front lines and the women and children at home, form bridges between hearts.<br />
You mothers and women truly stand, as in all the great hours of destiny of our Teutonic-German past, truly also personally in battle. The enemy's dishonorable conduct of the war has reduced to rubble the homes of many, and yet you have lost neither courage nor faith. The harsher the struggle, the more cordially the clans must close ranks . . . .</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<b>Background</b><br />
<br />
<i>The culture</i> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
About a generation ago, there was a rather sterile but revealing debate among scholars of women’s history. One view, which passed for a radical political and feminist stance of a sort, maintained that, because Nazism was a masculinist racial system, women could not have been complicit in the crimes of a regime that also oppressed them. A countervailing and more plausible view called attention to their neglected role as “accomplices,” providing the stable private sphere supportive of the tasks of the politically and militarily active males. As others pointed out, one does not have to choose between victim and accomplice: it was entirely possible for Aryan women, individually and collectively, to be both.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://uwpress.wishttps//uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2431.htmc.edu/books/2431.htm" target="_blank">In 1935, Hitler declared</a>, “I would be ashamed to be a German man if only one woman had to go to the front. The woman has her own battlefield. With every child that she brings into the world, she fights her battle for the nation. The man stands up for the <i>Volk</i>, exactly as the woman stands up for the <i>family</i>.” The continuation of that battle meant raising girls to understand the culture and course of warfare.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>The bibliographic object
</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BVivxHuAWFw/WGIzZXSY9eI/AAAAAAACl68/0g0QbcyMHfQ44H6ajlhnOHGSPCs7KdrigCEw/s1600/KTB%2BTitel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BVivxHuAWFw/WGIzZXSY9eI/AAAAAAACl68/0g0QbcyMHfQ44H6ajlhnOHGSPCs7KdrigCEw/s640/KTB%2BTitel.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The document takes the form of a notebook of blank pages (c. 16 x 25 cm, with lines ruled in with pencil), bound in faded purplish boards with a black cloth spine. A handwritten label (in an indeterminate hand) on the cover calls it “Kriegstagebuch For [name],” whereas the title page, in the large printing of a child’s hand reads, “Mein Kriegstage Buch [sic].” By contrast, the text entries are all in an immaculate version—thus evidently an adult hand—of the <a href="http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm" target="_blank">Sütterlin German script</a> taught from 1915 through 1941: under the Nazi regime, the only one from 1935 on.
The contents consist of dated entries—generally excerpts from or summaries of press reports, speeches, and the like—accompanied by photographs clipped from newspapers and magazines. Unfortunately, the book covers only the period November 1940 to early February 1941; the reason for that choice is unclear. Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-34755736317612158492016-12-27T00:03:00.000-05:002016-12-27T00:03:16.093-05:00An 18th-Century French NativitySince we've been on the subject of <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2016/12/merry-christmas-2016_25.html" target="_blank">Baroque Christmas art and depictions of the Nativity</a>, I'll share this little piece from my collection.<br />
<br />
It's a French eighteenth-century pencil sketch with sepia wash, on laid paper (c. 40 x 25 cm, with no apparent watermark).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZNqDAUoO4kU/WGHt-QS9SjI/AAAAAAACl6k/XBN9jaT4uicmrpo62vCGeYx4qybrDwFUgCLcB/s1600/Xmas%2BFr%2BC18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="416" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZNqDAUoO4kU/WGHt-QS9SjI/AAAAAAACl6k/XBN9jaT4uicmrpo62vCGeYx4qybrDwFUgCLcB/s640/Xmas%2BFr%2BC18.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The geometry suggests to me that it was a sketch for a wall painting, but that's just my best guess. <br /><br />Oddly enough, the depiction of the central figures of the Virgin Mary and Christ child seems somewhat awkward in comparison with that of the flanking shepherds, who observe the miracle in quiet dignity.<br />
<br />
In any case, the piece just radiates the spirit of the period.Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-43712534956719884042016-12-25T23:48:00.000-05:002016-12-26T23:22:19.493-05:00Merry Christmas, 2016Wishing a merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the holiday!<br />
<br />
Here, from a past post, are two images of the Nativity from southwest German eighteenth-century bibles. (<a href="http://habentsuafatalibelli.blogspot.com/2013/01/artifact-of-moment-reflections-on.html" target="_blank">Full story</a>.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AP2I7QQWFe0/UOkWMB1abVI/AAAAAAAAF2g/V9PKsaV37focRML-N90nei-WTsplfSvXwCPcB/s1600/CottaNativity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="324" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AP2I7QQWFe0/UOkWMB1abVI/AAAAAAAAF2g/V9PKsaV37focRML-N90nei-WTsplfSvXwCPcB/s640/CottaNativity.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-305KqPGPzUM/UOu-mTybbGI/AAAAAAAAF20/FsI3ob4yHQsfZOgK3joIHhH4U61UJFocACPcB/s1600/SchrammNativity1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-305KqPGPzUM/UOu-mTybbGI/AAAAAAAAF20/FsI3ob4yHQsfZOgK3joIHhH4U61UJFocACPcB/s640/SchrammNativity1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-80863297079668320492016-12-25T16:17:00.000-05:002016-12-25T16:17:15.933-05:00Happy Hanukkah, 5777Wishing a happy Hanukkah to those of my readers who celebrate that holiday.<br />
<br />
In lieu of writing a new piece, I'll just share this image of a menorah from last year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V-uTT48Pc-M/Vmdjitcse6I/AAAAAAAAIAs/PrCYSpjW_cE/s1600/Hanukkah%2BCoin%2B1973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V-uTT48Pc-M/Vmdjitcse6I/AAAAAAAAIAs/PrCYSpjW_cE/s1600/Hanukkah%2BCoin%2B1973.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Israel Hanukkah coin, 1973, depicting eighteenth-century Iraqi menorah</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Full background on the coin and its subject matter <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2015/12/happy-hanukkah-to-my-readers-and.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-70860095266499334072016-12-22T05:38:00.000-05:002016-12-22T14:21:08.773-05:00Human Rights Day 2016This year, as every year, Amherst celebrated Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/" target="_blank">promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> (10 December 1948).<br />
<br />
Members of the Amherst Select Board have few ceremonial duties, none of them obligatory. Still, I do relish the ones that have both historical and civic meaning. Participating in this commemoration, like those held on <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2016/11/veterans-day-in-amherst.html" target="_blank">Veterans Day</a>, <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2010/06/31-may-memorial-day-in-amherst.html" target="_blank">Memorial Day</a>, and the <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/search/label/9-11" target="_blank">9-11 anniversary</a>, is among such quasi-obligations that I value most. The others are held in spring or summer weather. This one, by contrast, is the most universal in significance but the least well attended, held on what invariably proves to be one of the most frigid days in December, as we remind ourselves that winter has not even begun. The fact that the event usually takes place after dark, by electric candle light, only adds to the sense that we are doing something important, keeping something very important alive.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>"Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong"</b><br />
<br />
Attendance is also low, however, because, whereas the other dates are established US holidays, this one is not. Few of us know of the Declaration, and even among those who are familiar with it, few are aware of the real story. At best, we "know" that Eleanor Roosevelt had something to do with it. Well, not that much, and she certainly was not the only one. I always refer people to an admirable article by the equally admirable and courageous <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/02/suspension_of_conscience.html" target="_blank">Gita Sahgal</a>, a founder of the Centre for Secular Space. She <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/gita-sahgal/who-wrote-universal-declaration-of-human-rights" target="_blank">reminds us of two crucial points</a>:<br />
<br />
(1) "Many of the assumptions about who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are wrong. The less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document must be told in today's world."<br />
<br />
<br />
(2) That in turn should serve as a rebuke to those on both right and left who dismiss the notion of human rights as, respectively, a sign of liberal elitist weakness or a reactionary bourgeois affectation, not to mention those who claim an exemption from these universal standards for a particular culture or faith.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Universal Human Rights--and now, more than ever, the rights of immigrants </b><br />
<br />
This year's ceremony was a little bit different. Because the anniversary fell on a weekend, <a href="http://amherstma.gov/648/Human-Resources-Human-Rights" target="_blank">Human Resources and Human Rights</a> Director Deborah Radway and the Human Rights Commission decided to begin in the afternoon and daylight, at 4:00 p.m.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFD00Y0-XmA/WFuiXZYEyrI/AAAAAAACl3o/1F4utduuH_Y9yK7A4xOAb0QEJe9RlmoQACLcB/s1600/IMG_0223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFD00Y0-XmA/WFuiXZYEyrI/AAAAAAACl3o/1F4utduuH_Y9yK7A4xOAb0QEJe9RlmoQACLcB/s640/IMG_0223.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
And, given the toxic climate surrounding the recent presidential campaign and the rise of new nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment, the Select Board proclamation of the holiday explicitly reaffirmed the Town's decision (represented by a Town Meeting vote of 2012) to do the utmost to protect the rights of immigrants, including the undocumented, from what was regarded as unnecessary and excessively aggressive government intervention:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Key excerpt:<br />
<br />
<div class="WordSection1">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .15pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></i></div>
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="letter-spacing: -.05pt;"></span></span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";">Then THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Town of Amherst and its officials and employees,<br />
<br />
to the extent permissible by law, shall not participate in federal law
enforcement programs relating to immigration enforcement, including but
not limited to, Secure Communities, and cooperative agreements with the
federal government under which town personnel participate in the
enforcement of immigration laws, such as those authorized by Section
287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Should the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts enter into an agreement or Memorandum of Agreement
regarding Secure Communities, the Town of Amherst shall opt out if
legally and practically permissible. To the extent permissible by law,
immigration detainer requests will not be honored by the Amherst Police
Department. Municipal employees of the Town of Amherst, including law
enforcement employees, shall not monitor, stop, detain, question,
interrogate, or search a person for the purpose of determining that
individual’s immigration status. Officers shall not inquire about the
immigration status of any crime victim, witness, or suspect, unless such
information is directly relevant to the investigation, nor shall they
refer such information to federal immigration enforcement authorities
unless that information developed is directly relevant. The use of a
criminal investigation or arrest shall not be used as a basis to
ascertain information about an individual’s immigration status unless
directly relevant to the offenses charged.”</span><br />
<br />
(<a href="http://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/37049" target="_blank">Full text here</a>)</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2Fq8qLoWsM/WFunrbYzT8I/AAAAAAACl38/O3hMPt6cHbECujA8Q1a7afF8M85wDwf_QCLcB/s1600/IMG_0225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K2Fq8qLoWsM/WFunrbYzT8I/AAAAAAACl38/O3hMPt6cHbECujA8Q1a7afF8M85wDwf_QCLcB/s640/IMG_0225.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Above: Amherst political notables take part in the reading of the Declaration. At left: Select Board Member Andy Steinberg, State-Representative-elect Solomon Goldstein-Rose, Town Manager Paul Bockelman. </div>
<br />
For the record, this is the first time that I (or anyone else, as far as I can tell) can recall a Town Manager taking part in this event: big props to Paul, who doesn't even live here yet on a permanent basis and is still commuting from Somerville.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-egwog2cexLQ/WFunvOMEvSI/AAAAAAACl4A/y7oqcdpAvXUxZMxjtWnEDBVzMjQuz8aVQCLcB/s1600/IMG_0229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-egwog2cexLQ/WFunvOMEvSI/AAAAAAACl4A/y7oqcdpAvXUxZMxjtWnEDBVzMjQuz8aVQCLcB/s640/IMG_0229.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amherstma.gov/849/Human-Rights-Commission" target="_blank">Human Rights Commission Chair Matthew Charity</a> gives the nod to the next reader.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDbbl8oy1Cg" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
<a href="http://amherstma.gov/65/Health" target="_blank">Amherst Health and Community Services Director Julie Federman</a> and <a href="https://amherstsurvival.org/about/staff/" target="_blank">Amherst Survival Center Director Mindy Domb</a> read the first two articles of the Declaration.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Resources</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2015/02/marking-human-rights-day-in-amherst.html" target="_blank">Human Rights Day in Amherst</a>: the 2015 post, describing the origins of the Declaration, with still and video footage from Amherst commemorations, 2011-2014.Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-789929553884952812016-12-22T00:16:00.000-05:002018-12-18T23:36:20.918-05:0018 December 1916: Battle of Verdun EndsThe Battle of Verdun, which had begun on 21 February 1916, at last came to an end on 18 December. The meat-grinder, as it came to be known, occasioned some 700,000 to 900,000 French and German casualties--among them at least 300,000 dead.<br />
<br />
The medal below was issued by the city to the defenders. As historian and security expert John Schindler notes in a piece written on this week's centennial: because of the French system of rotating units in and out of Verdun, "virtually every division in the French army fought at Verdun at some point in 1916."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vZ_t4PpGReU/WFt9w2DZmqI/AAAAAAACl3Y/RJcUPmitZn4LABL2bhODqopKbxKHdFnagCLcB/s1600/Verdun%2BMedal.o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vZ_t4PpGReU/WFt9w2DZmqI/AAAAAAACl3Y/RJcUPmitZn4LABL2bhODqopKbxKHdFnagCLcB/s320/Verdun%2BMedal.o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Details in the <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2016/02/21-february-1916-battle-of-verdun-begins.html" target="_blank">post from the February anniversary.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<br />
<i>Resources</i><br />
<br />
"<a href="http://observer.com/2016/12/the-butchers-bill-of-1916-battle-of-verdun-france-wwi/" target="_blank">The Butcher’s Bill of 1916: Europe’s Blood-Drenched Year of Horror</a>:<br />
A century ago, Europe was busy killing itself—a nightmare we still live with today," <i>Observer</i>, 17 Dec. 2016<br />
<br />
John Schindler (@20committee) places the Battle of Verdun in the context of other bloody operations of 1916, including the Somme (intended to relieve the pressure on France arising from Verdun), and the lesser known battles in other theaters: Isonzo, on the Italian Alpine front, and Russia's Brusilov offensive against Austria-Hungary.Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-47749089511303315622016-12-16T22:33:00.003-05:002016-12-22T02:11:44.916-05:00Rally Against Veterans' Flag Convoy and in Support of Hampshire College.As noted in the <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2016/12/from-protest-rally-against-hampshire.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, Hampshire College's decision to resume flying the American flag in the wake of the protest by a veterans' group led the organizers to cancel the second demonstration scheduled for a week later. However, another group, the "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/328189400885313" target="_blank">American Flag and Thin Blue Line Convoy</a>," decided to go ahead with their showing of the flag along a route running from UMass via Amherst College to Hampshire. In the meantime, a group of leftist Pioneer Valley activists hurriedly organized a counter-demonstration on the Amherst Common.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Raise our struggle! (We have markers)</b><br />
<br />
Both events were small. The Convoy claimed just over 200 participants. The counter-demonstration was even smaller. When I arrived fewer than 10 minutes before the announced start time of 10:00, there were only three people there, just starting to make signs. "We have magic markers if you want to help," one of them told me ("and glitter," another helpfully added). Even when the event got going, between 10:15 and 10:30, there were only between about two and three dozen people present. By the end, the total was over 100, and perhaps around 150 by my count--still a far cry from the 1500 that the organizers claimed for their veterans' protest at Hampshire a week earlier.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iPhR6eiCBGA/WFOqxClbtkI/AAAAAAAClyE/djHprGK-kN4fFOi58A_4-DvPvr4hXbZ5gCLcB/s1600/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bsigns%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iPhR6eiCBGA/WFOqxClbtkI/AAAAAAAClyE/djHprGK-kN4fFOi58A_4-DvPvr4hXbZ5gCLcB/s640/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bsigns%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O3xqJq_BR2w/WFOqxFu7QJI/AAAAAAAClyA/CUlAkSatbWUgZei7U9p8fTq2ZtvxPBwnwCLcB/s1600/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bsigns%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O3xqJq_BR2w/WFOqxFu7QJI/AAAAAAAClyA/CUlAkSatbWUgZei7U9p8fTq2ZtvxPBwnwCLcB/s640/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bsigns%2B2.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
Whereas the veterans' protest was sharply focused on a single issue and a clear outcome --"Raise the Flag!"--the program of the present event, called "Raise Our Struggle," might best be called eclectic: a counter-demonstration against the convoy, combined with wide-ranging demands for social justice and denunciation of the bigotry and racism associated with the election campaign of Donald Trump, as well as a call for "hands off Hampshire College," in response to the abuse that the latter was suffering for its flag policy.<br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1837832793094971/" target="_blank">event announcement</a> epitomized the grab-bag approach and generalized, flailing, post-election anguish:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A rally and gathering in defense of our plural and diverse communities in Amherst and beyond.<br />
<br />
In Amherst and communities across Western Massachusetts, some of us are proud of our country and the flag, and others are not, but all of us recognize that Hampshire College has been subject to an unprecedented attack on their community's autonomy and character as a progressive and critical space. Reactionary nationalist forces have invaded their community with direct racist and xenophobic threats to impose a political vision that erases the experiences, voices, and history of immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ communities, youth, Muslims, indigenous people, Jews, other marginalized and oppressed communities, and the working class. Elected officials and politicians, from local Democrats to Donald Trump have spurred on and defended this assault, more concerned about the American flag than the proliferation of hate crimes and open bigotry in our communities.<br />
<br />
This is not about any symbol. This is about human beings. The assault will not stop at Hampshire College. The same forces want to lay siege to communities of color, college campuses, and progressive institutions of the marginalized and the working class. They fly the thin blue line and celebrate the police, not for their own safety or peace, but to shield police and the state from scrutiny, from checks on the violence daily inflicted on black, brown, and working class neighborhoods. Forces of reaction wish to wrench apart our communities , not in the name of freedom, liberty, or patriotism, but dominance, blind authority, vulgar power, and profit.<br />
<br />
We humbly recognize that we are on stolen land, and we need to respond with stewardship in solidarity with indigenous peoples, not to reclaim territory for nationalism and imperialism. We must do our part in Amherst, but free our hearts, minds, and bodies to support the struggles of frontline communities across this country and the world. We will not forget our past, our history, our struggles for liberation and freedom.<br />
<br />
An Injury to one is an injury to all!</blockquote>
The first remarks by a Springfield activist addressed the theme of social justice in the age of Trump. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NSALCZIMdxc/WFOqnHRrnzI/AAAAAAAClx8/OfA4-cccskEn93_g8Rqo3yAak2ZQRanfgCLcB/s1600/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bstarts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NSALCZIMdxc/WFOqnHRrnzI/AAAAAAAClx8/OfA4-cccskEn93_g8Rqo3yAak2ZQRanfgCLcB/s640/Raise%2BOur%2BStruggle%2Bstarts.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><br />"What do we want? Free speech!"</b><br />
<br />
About 20 minutes later, demonstrators took up positions along the sidewalk and in the crosswalk at the intersection of Pleasant and Spring Streets as the convoy approached.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XdHLJrr1XaQ/WFOrmEd8xYI/AAAAAAAClyQ/qlZT5CiKwD4qG7oDnzbLbqCndeRtpfltgCLcB/s1600/Flag%2Bconvoy%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XdHLJrr1XaQ/WFOrmEd8xYI/AAAAAAAClyQ/qlZT5CiKwD4qG7oDnzbLbqCndeRtpfltgCLcB/s640/Flag%2Bconvoy%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U-zMY7XNRcE/WFOrmLu0CMI/AAAAAAAClyM/PeDe_bOkA6Ap1FnNQjQuX8dJTvMjrWFmwCLcB/s1600/Flag%2Bconvoy%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U-zMY7XNRcE/WFOrmLu0CMI/AAAAAAAClyM/PeDe_bOkA6Ap1FnNQjQuX8dJTvMjrWFmwCLcB/s640/Flag%2Bconvoy%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The convoy organizers had asked "that there only be
american flags, thin blue line pro police flags, gadsen [sic] flags, or flags
pertaining to any branch of military. No confederate flags."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Blocking the street (a violation of the law) in order to stop the convoy, they shouted, "What do we want? Free speech!" (Other chants included: "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.")<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzDTR7e2tyY" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
A sheriff's car accompanying the convoy (a service the convoy
organizers paid for) halted and prudently allowed the protest to go on for a few moments. Frustrated, the convoy participants made u-turns and found an alternate route. A moment later, an Amherst police vehicle arrived. The officer advised the demonstrators that they were not allowed to block a public way, and they returned to the Common.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>"We're badass!"</b><br />
<br />
Jubilantly proclaiming that they were "badass" for having briefly interrupted the progress of convoy, they continued with their program.<br />
<br />
School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage, the only Amherst elected official to participate (though in a private capacity), spoke of social justice, denounced the outside politicians who had taken part at the Hampshire College protest last week, and criticized Amherst's government for not intervening.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3QBstkZ19C8/WFOuDizyPQI/AAAAAAAClyg/F0FSxg2Uh0kp28N-KjWn9po_vZSLEvf7wCLcB/s1600/Vira.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3QBstkZ19C8/WFOuDizyPQI/AAAAAAAClyg/F0FSxg2Uh0kp28N-KjWn9po_vZSLEvf7wCLcB/s640/Vira.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(The Business Improvement District had nothing to do with the rally. <br />
The sign was presumably left over from the "Merry Maple" celebration.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>"Hands off Hampshire College" </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BTiN0cKEgco/WFOy91po2XI/AAAAAAACly0/rCpwPGNkNHENYCUfFbFSE8K79VuYiSOGACLcB/s1600/Hands%2Boff%2BHampshire%2BCollege.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BTiN0cKEgco/WFOy91po2XI/AAAAAAACly0/rCpwPGNkNHENYCUfFbFSE8K79VuYiSOGACLcB/s640/Hands%2Boff%2BHampshire%2BCollege.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
Hampshire College professor Uditi Sen (my colleague in history) defended the institution's decision to remove the flag, offering what might be characterized as the predominant view among the faculty and administration.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eMwFisktvuc" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
Few outside the academy may share this view (or even understand the argument that she was trying to make), and that is their right--but the nature of that disagreement makes all the difference.<br />
<br />
Mount Holyoke student and conservative activist <a href="http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/western_mass_republicans_pac.html" target="_blank">Kassy Dillon</a> covered the convoy and the demonstration on the Common on social media, <a href="https://youtu.be/OZWk_V8i97s" target="_blank">mocking the College</a> and the protesters. That, of course, is her right, as well. Part of her coverage included live commentary of the rally via <a href="https://www.periscope.tv/w/1jMJgAkjyXOKL" target="_blank">Periscope</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXsNJ102exU/WFO3awxMuqI/AAAAAAAClzE/alHxs-W2a_MFUOKUpNV9DVTh2wNUke9ZQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.59.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXsNJ102exU/WFO3awxMuqI/AAAAAAAClzE/alHxs-W2a_MFUOKUpNV9DVTh2wNUke9ZQCLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.59.09.png" width="420" /></a></div>
<br />
Unfortunately, some of the respondents to the feed chose to offer particularly hateful responses (for which, it should be stressed, one cannot hold Ms. Dillon responsible). They ranged from the childish to the racist and full-blown neo-Nazi.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-09_j1UJ1eLk/WFO3H-z89uI/AAAAAAAClzA/EjOxJ1Zc_mA5LJqq3VO0oqCG5p034aFyQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.42.22.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-09_j1UJ1eLk/WFO3H-z89uI/AAAAAAAClzA/EjOxJ1Zc_mA5LJqq3VO0oqCG5p034aFyQCLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.42.22.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HPcAIFRhLqQ/WFO52RtNcbI/AAAAAAAClzU/XXul3BmmLxMinx9UbxVAaLMoFKkUD2RmACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.03.03.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="542" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HPcAIFRhLqQ/WFO52RtNcbI/AAAAAAAClzU/XXul3BmmLxMinx9UbxVAaLMoFKkUD2RmACLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.03.03.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZYmJ-C296M/WFO6ITzwJhI/AAAAAAAClzc/Fuyvn_dk_zwDp18OL8JaSKVxkoA0ES7nQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.27.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="526" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZYmJ-C296M/WFO6ITzwJhI/AAAAAAAClzc/Fuyvn_dk_zwDp18OL8JaSKVxkoA0ES7nQCLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.27.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-quQQXD9Gkkk/WFO6IXevXPI/AAAAAAAClzY/QVQbtvLhMpYXs7KYTUaOWMdXs22Tk3-NACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.51.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="522" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-quQQXD9Gkkk/WFO6IXevXPI/AAAAAAAClzY/QVQbtvLhMpYXs7KYTUaOWMdXs22Tk3-NACLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.51.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-865fxNpB-7Y/WFO6VzxFecI/AAAAAAAClzg/QjGvjzn9YPshVsB-HJH4C_STZGtOd_ZGQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.04.28.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="534" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-865fxNpB-7Y/WFO6VzxFecI/AAAAAAAClzg/QjGvjzn9YPshVsB-HJH4C_STZGtOd_ZGQCLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.04.28.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nEDVcY3_PUs/WFO6n3GKFMI/AAAAAAAClzo/81PiqH9Hgu88_VUuGNuPKIfE3VOy3WxgQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="524" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nEDVcY3_PUs/WFO6n3GKFMI/AAAAAAAClzo/81PiqH9Hgu88_VUuGNuPKIfE3VOy3WxgQCLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B18.45.01.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2d2tqKGlmrg/WFO6n37di-I/AAAAAAAClzs/vXADfzEekywYfioXzas34BHrHqTDLSgCACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.04.50.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="530" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2d2tqKGlmrg/WFO6n37di-I/AAAAAAAClzs/vXADfzEekywYfioXzas34BHrHqTDLSgCACLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-04%2Bat%2B19.04.50.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
It was a perfect illustration of the toxic political landscape at the intersection of internet journalism and social media. Often it's not even so much the actual reports as the unmoderated responses and "talkbacks" that are the problem. Here, the problem is all too evident.<br />
<br />
And 2017 is not even upon us.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
Press coverage<br />
<br />
In contrast to the brief and bland report on <a href="http://wwlp.com/2016/12/04/american-flag-covered-convoy-passes-by-hampshire-college/" target="_blank">WLLP Channel 22</a>, the <i>Springfield Republican</i>'s Mary Serreze (<a href="https://twitter.com/maryserreze" target="_blank">@maryserreze</a>) did <a href="http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/amherst_protesters_trucks_amer.html" target="_blank">a notably thorough job of covering the event</a> from the standpoint of both parties.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-38084375472693963802016-12-16T02:03:00.002-05:002016-12-22T19:43:34.680-05:00From the Protest Rally Against the Hampshire College Flag Policy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In response to students' anger and fear in the wake of the presidential election and their protests that the American flag represented racism and oppression, Hampshire College controversially decided on a temporary removal of the national symbol in hopes of calming the situation and fostering dialogue.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-py1KlbpWbiI/WEvVM8BG_II/AAAAAAAClkk/CGOwNETu2p8qQIkXFkPdNHFZ212lbtE-wCPcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2Bgone%2B19%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-py1KlbpWbiI/WEvVM8BG_II/AAAAAAAClkk/CGOwNETu2p8qQIkXFkPdNHFZ212lbtE-wCPcB/s400/HC%2Bflag%2Bgone%2B19%2BNov.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
The public reaction surprised the College (but hardly anyone else): incredulity and outrage.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1228711827202640/" target="_blank"><b>"Peaceful Demonstration of Freedom--Stand With Old Glory"</b></a><br />
<br />
Amherst’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmherstVFW/?fref=ts" target="_blank">Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 754</a> organized a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1228711827202640/" target="_blank">mass protest on the Hampshire College campus</a> for the Sunday after Thanksgiving (November 27). A large crowd from around New England--particularly but not
exclusively veterans and their families--gathered at the entrance to the College on Route 116. Although the press put the size of the crowd at around 400, the organizers, who issued over 5,000 invitations via social media, estimated
attendance at 1,500 to 2,000: which is to say, greater than the <a href="https://www.hampshire.edu/discover-hampshire/hampshire-at-a-glance" target="_blank">annual enrollment at the College</a>. <br />
<br />
I was present, along with a few other members of the faculty and student body.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y8JVFF3AndY/WE0Y8utANzI/AAAAAAAClok/bsFG-OQwb2QZnQJwRSWqFkPMqD5McfynQCEw/s1600/Rte.%2B116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y8JVFF3AndY/WE0Y8utANzI/AAAAAAAClok/bsFG-OQwb2QZnQJwRSWqFkPMqD5McfynQCEw/s640/Rte.%2B116.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTkOlSm3aQI/WE0bZPpo69I/AAAAAAAClow/dNBOos0ORzkwb7g2KaqoiMCFroxNEeJugCEw/s1600/IMG_0032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTkOlSm3aQI/WE0bZPpo69I/AAAAAAAClow/dNBOos0ORzkwb7g2KaqoiMCFroxNEeJugCEw/s640/IMG_0032.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Veterans represented multiple generations and wars.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-39ilhjnG_bQ/WE0VejvQ09I/AAAAAAACloQ/cvp7n-4r3MsLzvzemjXpidUecembp_SGQCLcB/s1600/elderly%2Bvet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-39ilhjnG_bQ/WE0VejvQ09I/AAAAAAACloQ/cvp7n-4r3MsLzvzemjXpidUecembp_SGQCLcB/s640/elderly%2Bvet.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lr5uLdcWuwo/WE0WFgHsOaI/AAAAAAACloU/dyqSQi7V_lMDu8mr2RgPPYfmGiOem4wKACLcB/s1600/IMG_0065%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lr5uLdcWuwo/WE0WFgHsOaI/AAAAAAACloU/dyqSQi7V_lMDu8mr2RgPPYfmGiOem4wKACLcB/s640/IMG_0065%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Not exactly the alt-right</b><br />
<br />
In the wake of the presidential election and the tensions that it engendered, many in the Hampshire and wider Amherst community (who did not bother to attend or were scared to do so) leaped to the
conclusion that the event was a gathering of right-wing extremists
and hatemongers. On the contrary, the organizers took care to avoid giving the formal program any particular political slant. In fact, the
most prominent speakers were centrist or
left-liberal Democratic politicians: State Rep. John Velis (Westfield), Springfield
Mayor Domenic Sarno and Councillor Kateri Walsh, and Northwestern
District Attorney David Sullivan. Several of the speakers were non-white and immigrants. A member of the local veterans' color guard was transgender.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mcOQjse0wm0/WE0clQwR57I/AAAAAAAClo4/0OXrqvv-JQYKacmtSms36WFGIdMRCWCggCLcB/s1600/speakers%252C%2Bpodium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mcOQjse0wm0/WE0clQwR57I/AAAAAAAClo4/0OXrqvv-JQYKacmtSms36WFGIdMRCWCggCLcB/s640/speakers%252C%2Bpodium.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">not exactly the "alt-right"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br />Outside interference?</b> <br />
<br />
The presence of the regional political figures caused no little consternation among the
Hampshire faculty, who complained in high dudgeon that outsiders were interfering in our internal affairs and attempting to intimidate the College. It is an ironic argument. The politicians were simply exercising the same right of free speech about an issue of deep concern as the students who burned the flag and the President who banned it. (And, for the record: in my many years of working here, I had never known the College to bow to the wishes of any outside force, least of all, provincial politicos.)<br />
<br />
Still, even neutral outsiders remarked on
the unusual presence of these visitors. (Most
expressions of surprise focused on the presence of Mayor Sarno, who, as a
friend of mine from beyond the walls of the academy drily observed, "has never even
come to pee in Amherst.") The most parsimonious explanation is, however, generally the most plausible. (It <i>is</i> possible to overthink an issue.) The cynical consensus among outside observers was
that the aim was grandstanding rather than intimidation. Seeking to score easy points with their base is, after all, what politicians do. But politicians also have convictions. The idea that the flag had powerful emotional meaning for them, and that they therefore cared sincerely and deeply about its presence or absence, is a difficult one for the academic mind to grasp.<br />
<br />
Rep. Velis is not
just a politician from the Pioneer Valley, but also an Afghanistan
veteran. As for DA Sullivan, he is a frequent attendee at events in
Amherst, and he moreover has extensive professional experience in
military affairs, having served as a civilian <a href="https://northwesternda.org/district-attorney-david-e-sullivan" target="_blank">lawyer for service personnel</a> and most recently, working to establish a new <a href="http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/judges_officials_vow_support_f.html" target="_blank">veterans' court</a> providing treatment for trauma disorders and substance abuse. Mayor Sarno, too, paid tribute to the veterans, but he explained that the flag had further personal significance for him.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The flag of a nation of immigrants</b><br />
<br />
Sarno was one of several speakers who highlighted the role of immigrants. The flag had special meaning for him as the son of Italian immigrants who had experienced Fascism and survived the Nazi occupation of Italy in hiding. To them it had been a symbol of hope and freedom. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yAzpY5GRdGE" width="560"></iframe> </div>
<br />
Event organizer Victor A. Nunez Ortiz came to the United States when his family fled the Salvadoran civil war. He served in the Marines even before becoming a US citizen. He refers to this experience when introducing the next speaker.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bse6J65Ml_0" width="560"></iframe> </div>
<br />
Another veteran who had served in the US military as an immigrant non-citizen was Veasna Roeun of Connecticut: a survivor of the Cambodian genocide.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n12keZDHe-0" width="560"></iframe></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b></b><br />
<br />
<b>A Progressive Speaks</b><br /><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGo0OyL-83A/WFxxYwts_AI/AAAAAAACl4c/hKJwyDtecRYWmcSC_Q9uoKWjLXyyLTSRQCLcB/s1600/Bonnie%2BMacCracken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGo0OyL-83A/WFxxYwts_AI/AAAAAAACl4c/hKJwyDtecRYWmcSC_Q9uoKWjLXyyLTSRQCLcB/s640/Bonnie%2BMacCracken.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<b></b><br />
<b><br /></b>Here<b>, </b>well known local civic and political figure Bonnie MacCracken speaks. She read a poem about <a href="http://www.bluestarmothers.org/about-us" target="_blank">Blue Star Mothers</a>. Bonnie, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Bonnie_MacCracken" target="_blank">a candidate in the recent Democratic primary election</a> for state representative from the third Hampshire district, is a member of the Democratic State Committee and has long been active on behalf of progressive social causes, among them racial and economic justice (especially housing issues) and early education.<br /><br /><b><br />And the right?</b><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The red meat right-wing exception in this program was the brief address by Mount Holyoke student and conservative activist <a href="http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/western_mass_republicans_pac.html" target="_blank">Kassy Dillon</a>, who focused her remarks on a critique of the College and its students. She explained, "I wrote the first story" about the flag flap, adding that the Hampshire student who had passed on the news to her was now "being bullied by other students."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_BYdVJtmIS0" width="560"></iframe> </div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Racism and extremism?</b><br />
<br />
Despite repeated assertions that Confederate flags and other racist symbols were on display, neither I nor anyone I subsequently spoke with saw them--and no one has to date produced any photographic proof. It does not seem unreasonable to conclude--given the nature of the controversy, and what I saw--that many in the crowd were to the right of center, but that is not the same thing as "alt-right" "white supremacists." <br />
<br />
To be sure, there were a few displays that I could I could have done without: this anti-UN flag, for example (though without talking to the owner, it was impossible to tell whether it represented standard arch-conservative gripes about "anti-American" multilateralism or something notably more rancid).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xwmnOtqy62Q/WE0A6Cq6rMI/AAAAAAAClnM/YXuISKvv0dQAVJRIVsjxl0jYy6eK3GSfACLcB/s1600/Don%2527t%2Btread%2B%252B%2BUN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xwmnOtqy62Q/WE0A6Cq6rMI/AAAAAAAClnM/YXuISKvv0dQAVJRIVsjxl0jYy6eK3GSfACLcB/s640/Don%2527t%2Btread%2B%252B%2BUN.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
I also spotted several "Don't Tread On Me" flags. The right-wing "Tea Party" movement adopted the Gadsden Flag (as it is more properly called) in 2010, though as everyone should know (and Mount Holyoke <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125184586" target="_blank">historian Joseph Ellis explains</a>), it is a venerable emblem of the American Revolutionary era, appropriated in the meantime by various groups as a symbol of protest. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-828nGcx-LHI/WEz_-nmL3BI/AAAAAAAClnE/e4I-6Mn4D3kfg2ZT6qkNV6gQksUSBDM3QCLcB/s1600/Don%2527t%2Btread%2Bon%2Bme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-828nGcx-LHI/WEz_-nmL3BI/AAAAAAAClnE/e4I-6Mn4D3kfg2ZT6qkNV6gQksUSBDM3QCLcB/s640/Don%2527t%2Btread%2Bon%2Bme.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
On the whole, the tone was respectful of the College. Of course, the organizers could not regulate who showed up, and a few of the signs were obnoxious and juvenile. One placard (referring to Vladimir Putin or just left over from the Cold War?) advised Hampshire students: if you don't like it here, go get an education in Russia. Another, in what the creators no doubt considered a masterpiece of wit, relied on hackneyed scatological imagery.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L1GOflvi1iI/WEz-5phHQJI/AAAAAAAClm8/1HyH4T4TzYITaXPwAmKdUiWNgA-zNPhqgCLcB/s1600/Protest-%2BHampshire%2BCollege%2Bdegrees.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L1GOflvi1iI/WEz-5phHQJI/AAAAAAAClm8/1HyH4T4TzYITaXPwAmKdUiWNgA-zNPhqgCLcB/s640/Protest-%2BHampshire%2BCollege%2Bdegrees.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
By contrast, this sign, playing on the <a href="https://www.hampshire.edu/library/chapter-9-origins-of-hampshire-institutions#19B" target="_blank">Hampshire College motto</a>, took a lighter approach, and was perhaps marginally more effective.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MikQD0D9zA0/WE0B_2Tz5SI/AAAAAAAClnY/XmSAEwohhP0F-X-EL1-Nkv6dwTVUPjw2gCLcB/s1600/To%2Bknow%2Bis%2Bnot%2Benough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MikQD0D9zA0/WE0B_2Tz5SI/AAAAAAAClnY/XmSAEwohhP0F-X-EL1-Nkv6dwTVUPjw2gCLcB/s640/To%2Bknow%2Bis%2Bnot%2Benough.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
The
organizers had <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1228711827202640/" target="_blank">stressed the need for civility</a> prior to the event:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
this a PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION OF FREEDOM as citizens of our United States of America. . . Families will be present and order is to be expected.</blockquote>
At the rally itself, they reiterated this request and moreover made a point of thanking
the College for allowing them to meet on campus property. Here, veteran
and Purple Heart recipient Micah Welintukonis of Connecticut, who presided over much of
the event, offers
to provide microphone time to the President or any other administrators
who might be present (none were) and then leads the crowd in the chant,
"Raise that flag!" </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4g7_Ec5ssI" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>A confrontation</b> <br />
<br />
At one point, though, one saw how things might have taken a more dangerous turn. Toward the end of the event, the organizers wanted the participants to assemble near the large Hampshire College sign for a group photo that they hoped would go viral. As they asked people to move away from the sign so that the wording would be visible, we saw a young man sitting on the ledge in front of it, giving people the finger with both hands. The organizers, at first thinking he was one of their own, mocking Hampshire College, chided him for his vulgarity. It turned out, however, that he was a Hampshire student flipping off the demonstrators rather than the College and seeking to spoil their photo op. The crowd became more agitated. Several people seemed prepared to remove him by force and others tried holding a flag in front of him to block him from view but the speaker urged them to remain peaceful and let the campus police provide order. The speaker engaged in some mild taunting of the hapless student but also offered him the microphone. After a few minutes of this standoff, things quieted down.<a href="http://www.gazettenet.com/Hundreds-rally-at-Hampshire-College-American-flags-in-hand-to-protest-college-s-decision-not-to-fly-it-6407907" target="_blank"> Subsequent press reports</a>
described some uglier aspects of the confrontation, but from where I was standing at the time, near the podium, I could see and hear none of that.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IxEI2DuU6Rg" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Coming to a close</b><br />
<br />
As the rally wound down, attendees sang "God Bless America."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wJKWwNApTfo" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
In the low-key conclusion to the event, the speaker reminded attendees that "we are all Americans" and urged them to tell the College: "raise our flag!"</div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cFHDFpvXkZg" width="560"></iframe> </div>
<br />
<b><br />Postscript</b><br />
<br />
The veterans had planned to return a week later for a second rally, but when the College suddenly announced on December 2 that the flag was going back up, they <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1228711827202640/permalink/1243084975765325/" target="_blank">canceled the event</a> as what they called an "act of faith":<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-uhq3ITsU8/WE0LhHOIEFI/AAAAAAACloA/jWyLpia4PIg82RNwZU0COgux4vK-TRzIACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-11%2Bat%2B03.16.35.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="579" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2-uhq3ITsU8/WE0LhHOIEFI/AAAAAAACloA/jWyLpia4PIg82RNwZU0COgux4vK-TRzIACLcB/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-11%2Bat%2B03.16.35.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Indeed, the best outcome of this sorry mess would be a dialogue between veterans and campus community, and there are some signs that this may in fact occur. Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-17366165124198645942016-12-16T01:02:00.000-05:002017-06-09T03:48:12.793-04:00Hampshire Flag Watch: Going, going, . . .gone?! and . . . now back?<br />
By now practically everyone in the country has heard the story, regardless of whether you read the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/us/hampshire-college-flag-veterans-protest.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0" target="_blank"><i>New York Times</i></a> or watch <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/28/veterans-protest-at-massachusetts-college-that-removed-us-flags.html" target="_blank">Fox News</a>. It was with a mixture of fascination and horror that I watched the slow-motion political train wreck that was the Hampshire College flag controversy unfold over more than a month. <br />
<br />
Another metaphor that we use for a self-inflicted, completely avoidable disaster is: own goal.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyYMZ4XN_X3y8jdql1HW7OpoZbhIOyhQ0dQ7i-CrDXc1S-yTOM2b3uE7WJsV27Zt0upjV-l3kCnjJWE03GH6A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
For anyone who has been in a coma or perhaps just shell-shocked by the Trump victory and therefore unable to read a newspaper, watch TV, or surf the web, here's the elevator-speech version.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Take Down the Flag!</b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba5UMcYyquM/WEvI4YFOg4I/AAAAAAACljc/KvzQRxeyzW0qkHZ2fYdtwEqpLtPkl3wfACLcB/s1600/Take%2BDown%2Bthe%2BFlag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ba5UMcYyquM/WEvI4YFOg4I/AAAAAAACljc/KvzQRxeyzW0qkHZ2fYdtwEqpLtPkl3wfACLcB/s640/Take%2BDown%2Bthe%2BFlag.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hampshire student chalk protest: Take Down the Flag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The election of Donald Trump as President
on November 8 prompted some Hampshire College students to express their opposition to
the institution’s flying the US flag, which they denounced as a symbol
of racism and oppression. College President Jonathan Lash listened politely but did not act on their demand. The next night, a group of
students lowered the US flag to half-staff. On the night of 10 November,
parties unknown burned the flag. It was the eve of Veterans Day. On November 12, the Trustees, having restored the flag, announced that they
would fly it again at half-staff in deference to student concerns: “both to acknowledge the grief and pain
experienced by so many and to enable the full complexity of voices and
experiences to be heard.”<br />
<br />
It was immediately clear to me it was an untenable policy: it simply could not last. I decided to watch what happened, for the historical record.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 3 (14 November)</b> </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auRq0NiR05o/WEvP9_Q9kxI/AAAAAAACljs/iiBk0hhLxno8knAPTA1zzZKKKGIdeEbigCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B3%2B14%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auRq0NiR05o/WEvP9_Q9kxI/AAAAAAACljs/iiBk0hhLxno8knAPTA1zzZKKKGIdeEbigCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B3%2B14%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
For <b>Day 4</b>, the middle of the first week, I thought three shots were in order: </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
general, close-up and night-time</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CO5quiyZTa4/WEvQHzXNJLI/AAAAAAACljw/MnNr2hQkB5o_OqlpRe8aPzkeEDfZr38fwCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B4%2B15%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CO5quiyZTa4/WEvQHzXNJLI/AAAAAAACljw/MnNr2hQkB5o_OqlpRe8aPzkeEDfZr38fwCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B4%2B15%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzTZd6MauoU/WEvQIjxMtNI/AAAAAAAClj0/3wTr8Luv8XExFD_u_KwlPiAGSJr4VHuEACLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B4.2%2B15%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzTZd6MauoU/WEvQIjxMtNI/AAAAAAAClj0/3wTr8Luv8XExFD_u_KwlPiAGSJr4VHuEACLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B4.2%2B15%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWGw-gk2ebU/WEvQI4is2bI/AAAAAAAClj4/qMOoOtLZ_Iso-uRawksifhzvWNJA86JoQCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B4.3%2B15%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bWGw-gk2ebU/WEvQI4is2bI/AAAAAAAClj4/qMOoOtLZ_Iso-uRawksifhzvWNJA86JoQCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B4.3%2B15%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 5 (16 November)</b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cEWprDKtAhM/WEvQ0Lou2RI/AAAAAAAClkA/hj4EAqJwvqolKVYSLw0_YHw47YYcEM0dgCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B5%2B16%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cEWprDKtAhM/WEvQ0Lou2RI/AAAAAAAClkA/hj4EAqJwvqolKVYSLw0_YHw47YYcEM0dgCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B5%2B16%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 6 (17 November)</b></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mZTu9l2U9X8/WEvRXSZzvBI/AAAAAAAClkI/qmb3ZEQBC98qAmsvf9cPZgZ9uf7Pv5OJwCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B6%2B17%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mZTu9l2U9X8/WEvRXSZzvBI/AAAAAAAClkI/qmb3ZEQBC98qAmsvf9cPZgZ9uf7Pv5OJwCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B6%2B17%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 7 (18 November)</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BE_m3wd8ymo/WEvRmreC_gI/AAAAAAAClkQ/dJONnpv9kKUEbDIsRJVp6oOCv-jiMuwMwCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B7%2B18%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BE_m3wd8ymo/WEvRmreC_gI/AAAAAAAClkQ/dJONnpv9kKUEbDIsRJVp6oOCv-jiMuwMwCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B7%2B18%2BNov.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0qAane48Fzo/WEvRnJGr6mI/AAAAAAAClkU/gLa4w0iTE5sc_hgnh01Z7VuaEalH4AiVQCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2B7%2B18%2BNov%2Bdial.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0qAane48Fzo/WEvRnJGr6mI/AAAAAAAClkU/gLa4w0iTE5sc_hgnh01Z7VuaEalH4AiVQCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2B7%2B18%2BNov%2Bdial.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
This is the only "dialogue" or "conversation" about the flag that I personally witnessed. (Evidently, the promised process happened in a series of "focus groups," but the vast majority of us were not involved. I certainly heard nothing.)<b><br /></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Negative space</b><br />
<br />
Well, that didn't take long. The only thing more peculiar than the decision to fly the flag at half-staff for an extended period was the policy that soon replaced it. After only a week, on 18 November, the College announced, “we
will not fly the U.S. flag or any other flags at Hampshire for the time
being.” This, we were told, was so that we could discuss the meaning of the flag without the disturbing presence of (wait for it . . . ): the flag.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>19 November: naked and alone</b></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-py1KlbpWbiI/WEvVM8BG_II/AAAAAAAClkg/e0Ft7s_JBKAhA59H-EcsqEkIsn6lhFongCLcB/s1600/HC%2Bflag%2Bgone%2B19%2BNov.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-py1KlbpWbiI/WEvVM8BG_II/AAAAAAAClkg/e0Ft7s_JBKAhA59H-EcsqEkIsn6lhFongCLcB/s640/HC%2Bflag%2Bgone%2B19%2BNov.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Raise the Flag!</b><br />
<br />
A few days later, the press descended on the College.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbcMtD54tak/WEzqEUkqIBI/AAAAAAAClmY/A-RGoZnxYgki19Xkb8ZyOahIROYLBcR_QCLcB/s1600/IMG_9963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbcMtD54tak/WEzqEUkqIBI/AAAAAAAClmY/A-RGoZnxYgki19Xkb8ZyOahIROYLBcR_QCLcB/s640/IMG_9963.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">November 22: filming an absence</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JNLtIN-jL3A/WEzqIpBg85I/AAAAAAAClmc/UUr8AvvlHzsZE-OgcECbtRFzxEiSwfZAgCLcB/s1600/IMG_9967.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JNLtIN-jL3A/WEzqIpBg85I/AAAAAAAClmc/UUr8AvvlHzsZE-OgcECbtRFzxEiSwfZAgCLcB/s640/IMG_9967.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
When the outside world learned of the decision, the most common
reaction was one of anger and incomprehension. The only surprising thing was that the College, with all its intellectual wattage, was, well . . . surprised. Any ordinary person would have seen this coming.<br />
<br />
Amherst’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmherstVFW/?fref=ts" target="_blank">Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 754</a> organized a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1228711827202640/" target="_blank">mass protest on the Hampshire College campus</a> on 27 November, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. People from around New England--particularly but not
exclusively veterans--gathered at the entrance to the College on Route 116. The organizers estimated
attendance at over 1,500 to 2,000: which is to say, greater than the typical <a href="https://www.hampshire.edu/discover-hampshire/hampshire-at-a-glance" target="_blank">annual enrollment at the College</a>.<br />
<br />
The event was nonpartisan in intention
(and largely in practice) and the speakers included several
left-liberal Democrats. I attended the
rally to observe for myself. Although some <a href="http://www.gazettenet.com/Hundreds-rally-at-Hampshire-College-American-flags-in-hand-to-protest-college-s-decision-not-to-fly-it-6407907" target="_blank">subsequent press reports</a>
described at least one confrontation involving aggressive or offensive
behavior, what I saw was by and large respectful and disciplined. The
organizers stressed the need for civility and made a point of thanking
the College for allowing them to meet on campus property. They offered
to provide microphone time to the President or any other administrators
who might be present (none were).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4g7_Ec5ssI" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pYlmoyLh8_0/WEzrRlUJcXI/AAAAAAAClms/dFuaQKAu0QMHfIleFY_BUNI8L_shUCx1wCLcB/s1600/IMG_0050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pYlmoyLh8_0/WEzrRlUJcXI/AAAAAAAClms/dFuaQKAu0QMHfIleFY_BUNI8L_shUCx1wCLcB/s640/IMG_0050.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Press coverage, both local and national, was heavy.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s7sGfpoFyQU/WEzpklFu5MI/AAAAAAAClmU/VSyw0URWOsQVZC2jbLyv5M8h3q1tswqSACLcB/s1600/IMG_0062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s7sGfpoFyQU/WEzpklFu5MI/AAAAAAAClmU/VSyw0URWOsQVZC2jbLyv5M8h3q1tswqSACLcB/s640/IMG_0062.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The College soon faced a torrent of abuse in the form of angry phone calls and emails, as well as far harsher talk on social media--much like <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2012/09/9-11-and-amherst-why-do-they-hate-us_13.html" target="_blank">what the Town itself has experienced</a> in the wake of controversies over flying the <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/search/label/9-11" target="_blank">9-11 commemorative flags</a> or other contentious debates.<br />
<br />
<br />
November 29: I have no idea what these temporary fences near the flag were intended to accomplish.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TS-p5HKbGnE/WEvp7FlDwAI/AAAAAAAClkw/f4A3w9wzZfQrBNqWLh_HU5IwhhCeO-m4QCLcB/s1600/IMG_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TS-p5HKbGnE/WEvp7FlDwAI/AAAAAAAClkw/f4A3w9wzZfQrBNqWLh_HU5IwhhCeO-m4QCLcB/s640/IMG_0078.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Back to normal?</b><br />
<br />
On 2 December, the <a href="http://www.gazettenet.com/Hampshire-College-president-Jonathan-Lash-on-raising-the-flag-again-on-campus-6646444" target="_blank">the College suddenly announced</a> that the
flag was being returned to its customary position on the main campus
flagpole. Crisis over, but no problems solved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BDCAvcMZg7Q/WEzb6Pblo0I/AAAAAAAClmA/hn4X0rqKogcdDfojPPpjSHPlstn4YcjnQCLcB/s1600/US%2Bflag%2Breturns%2Bto%2BHampshire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BDCAvcMZg7Q/WEzb6Pblo0I/AAAAAAAClmA/hn4X0rqKogcdDfojPPpjSHPlstn4YcjnQCLcB/s640/US%2Bflag%2Breturns%2Bto%2BHampshire.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yADKrbRZAQU" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
After I took my pictures, a woman passing by said, "a lot of people doing that today."<br />
<br />
<br />
There is a well known political dictum: when you're explaining, you're losing. The College has created a dedicated <a href="https://www.hampshire.edu/news/2016/11/29/background-on-hampshire-college-flag-decision-november-2016#nov18" target="_blank">web page to explain its recent flag policy</a> to the public. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-prSfMJ_VThM/SH-SNJvqYTI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/ExT0yNhXm-oHPjG8duBY1-L2Tv7QRdjcACPcB/s1600/magstud%25231.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-prSfMJ_VThM/SH-SNJvqYTI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/ExT0yNhXm-oHPjG8duBY1-L2Tv7QRdjcACPcB/s1600/magstud%25231.jpg" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7urJIsa32U/SIOUXWg3hDI/AAAAAAAAAY0/fn46wXbC6xwZYzXpkvMy9xdgyB1l8rrQgCPcB/s1600/rudedog%25232.KL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7urJIsa32U/SIOUXWg3hDI/AAAAAAAAAY0/fn46wXbC6xwZYzXpkvMy9xdgyB1l8rrQgCPcB/s1600/rudedog%25232.KL.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>Coming attractions</i> <br />
<br />
- photos of the protest rally against the College<br />
- a more detailed look at the controversy<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-5012739409230214242016-12-07T23:06:00.000-05:002016-12-08T02:26:47.793-05:00Army Diary, 7 December 1941: "Ill tidings from the Far East"From my father's World War II diary, written in Scotland:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U3QN0LAxsnc/WEjgJl7ZvHI/AAAAAAAClTE/VnHGmHnniGIDYXWMP3m2XOhyanrRETTNACLcB/s1600/MW%2BDiary%2BPearl%2BHarbor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U3QN0LAxsnc/WEjgJl7ZvHI/AAAAAAAClTE/VnHGmHnniGIDYXWMP3m2XOhyanrRETTNACLcB/s640/MW%2BDiary%2BPearl%2BHarbor.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
7.XII. News from the Pacific</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Pearl Harbour - Guam - Philippines<br />
Ill tidings [literally: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/misery-3" target="_blank">Job</a>'s message/tidings] from the Far East<br />
<br />
9.XII. Roosevelt's Speech </blockquote>
The reasons for the dating are unclear: The early morning attack on Pearl Harbor is listed under 7 December, as one would expect. Although the news appeared in <i>The Scotsman</i> and other papers on 8 December, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/7/newsid_3494000/3494108.stm" target="_blank">BBC announced it on radio</a> on the day of the event. President Roosevelt delivered his <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/day-of-infamy" target="_blank">"Infamy" speech</a> to a joint session of Congress at 12:30 p.m. on 8 December, so the entry under 9 December (assuming it is not just a scribal error) may, given the time difference and schedule of the army day, reflect the fact that the diarist got the news from the papers rather than the wireless.<br />
<br />
It certainly would have been grim news: Since the start of November, the
British had lost the aircraft carrier "Ark Royal" and the battleship
"Barnham." In Africa, the Nazis briefly crossed the Egyptian frontier,
while in Europe, they advanced to the gates of Moscow (though the
Soviets launched a counteroffensive on 5 December).<br />
<br />
Grim news, to be sure, but in the long run a positive development to the extent that it finally brought the United States into the war and brought badly needed support to Britain on the western front.<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-22385488402760224412016-12-07T23:00:00.000-05:002016-12-08T00:25:29.743-05:00December 7 1941: "AIRRAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL"This simple message announced the attack on Hawaii 75 years ago.<br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-07?loclr=eatod" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a> reproduces the document in its post for the anniversary:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.loc.gov/static/managed-content/uploads/sites/10/1941/12/naval-dispatch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="515" src="https://www.loc.gov/static/managed-content/uploads/sites/10/1941/12/naval-dispatch.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
"A
hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl
Harbor, Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the United
States Pacific Fleet, to all major navy commands and fleet units
provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl
Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT
DRILL"<br />
<br />
<br />
As chance would have it, when I shared this post on Twitter, one of my tweeps informed me that the <a href="http://museumofworldwarii.org/" target="_blank">Museum of World War II in Natick</a> also has <a href="https://twitter.com/lizl_genealogy/status/673167619327983616" target="_blank">a version of the document</a> in its collections. (Another destination to add to my list.) It would be interesting to know how many others are extant.<br />
<br />
<br />
Among other items mentioned in the LOC blog post:<br />
<br />
• an annotated script from the NBC news broadcast on that day<br />
<br />
• a description of folklorist Alan Lomax's response to the crisis. Best known today as a collector and chronicler of folk music, he put his ethnographic bent to work in the service of oral history, recording the reactions of ordinary people across the country.<br />
<br />
The post includes this sample:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My first thought was what a great pity that… another nation should be
added to those aggressors who strove to limit our freedom. I find myself
at the age of eighty, an old woman, hanging on to the tail of the
world, trying to keep up. I do not want the driver’s seat. But the
eternal verities–there are certain things that I wish to express: one
thing that I am very sure of is that hatred is death, but love is light.
I want to contribute to the civilization of the world but…when I look
at the holocaust that is going on in the world today, I’m almost ready
to let go…”</blockquote>
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-24601416790781731452016-12-04T02:46:00.002-05:002016-12-17T00:51:37.343-05:002 December 1805: Battle of Austerlitz. Mementos of the killing field.<div style="text-align: left;">
On the first anniversary of the creation of the Empire, Napoleon won "the greatest battle of [his] career" when he defeated the forces of Austria and Russia at <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/michael-adams/austerlitz-battle-two-emperors" target="_blank">Austerlitz</a> (Slavkov) near Brünn (Brno) in Moravia. The triumph was so decisive that it ended the War of the Third Coalition and forced Austria to sue for peace.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ACAgDZrRvIo/WEPHLsnZvZI/AAAAAAAClO4/sPLoMkf4AqA0Fh9J_sVqr9egDNVhGR2OACLcB/s1600/FrMi%2BAusterlitz%2Bbattlefield.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ACAgDZrRvIo/WEPHLsnZvZI/AAAAAAAClO4/sPLoMkf4AqA0Fh9J_sVqr9egDNVhGR2OACLcB/s1600/FrMi%2BAusterlitz%2Bbattlefield.600.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tskzqZOC2iY/WEPHYFcum9I/AAAAAAAClO8/XoiSnpqRG4Uv_ef4_xrao4oEBjunzRyMgCLcB/s1600/FrMi%2BAusterlitz%2Bscene.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tskzqZOC2iY/WEPHYFcum9I/AAAAAAAClO8/XoiSnpqRG4Uv_ef4_xrao4oEBjunzRyMgCLcB/s1600/FrMi%2BAusterlitz%2Bscene.600.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Emperor's encampment at Austerlitz after a drawing made on the scene the morning of the battle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wg2TkWKqK1M/WEPHafE_BaI/AAAAAAAClPA/AhTb37K-z2AkD0CuH6j0PTkG8sKF1H5bgCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BAusterlitz%2Bbattle%2B%252B%2Bgenls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wg2TkWKqK1M/WEPHafE_BaI/AAAAAAAClPA/AhTb37K-z2AkD0CuH6j0PTkG8sKF1H5bgCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BAusterlitz%2Bbattle%2B%252B%2Bgenls.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battle of Austerlitz: The Emperor gives his orders to the Marshals</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yYaWpzZlpP0/WEPHh6dOXTI/AAAAAAAClPE/wj_OJUeXWkMnaTvINQ-NB2Njcebikh5fwCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BAusterlitz%2BRapp%2B%252B%2BNap.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yYaWpzZlpP0/WEPHh6dOXTI/AAAAAAAClPE/wj_OJUeXWkMnaTvINQ-NB2Njcebikh5fwCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BAusterlitz%2BRapp%2B%252B%2BNap.600.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Rapp brings the Emperor news of the victory at Austerlitz</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The above engravings are from Abel Hugo, <a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k289521/f1.item.zoom" target="_blank"><i>France militaire. Histoire des armées françaises de terre et mer de 1792 à 1837</i></a>, 5 vols. (Paris: Delloye, 1838)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Pictured here are pieces of ammunition recovered from the battlefield.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJ1ZtEF0sSw/WEPG5BmOGPI/AAAAAAAClOs/dTCFTCawwtwDb66hFRh79RUHWlxan1--gCLcB/s1600/Austerlitz%2Bammo.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJ1ZtEF0sSw/WEPG5BmOGPI/AAAAAAAClOs/dTCFTCawwtwDb66hFRh79RUHWlxan1--gCLcB/s1600/Austerlitz%2Bammo.600.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
• Iron canister shot: a tin of 112 balls (61 for a four-pounder gun) could be used with devastating effectiveness against infantry at a range of some 300-500 meters</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
• Lead <a href="http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_2.htm#infantrycombatmuskets" target="_blank">musket</a> ball</div>
<br />
One has to pause to remind oneself of the terrible damage that such large but low-velocity projectiles did, especially in the <a href="http://www.napoleonicsociety.com/english/riaudwars.htm" target="_blank">absence of modern medicine and sanitation</a>.<br />
Casualties amounted to one eighth of the French forces and one third of the Austro-Russian. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uz2jbqi6r2A" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-7226098002131218582016-12-03T21:34:00.000-05:002016-12-14T01:50:40.626-05:003 December 1800: Battle of HohenlindenThe Battle of Hohenlinden east of Munich in 1800 was in some sense the predecessor of the later battle of Austerlitz (1805). The great victory at the latter ended the War of the Third Coalition by forcing Russia to withdraw its forces and Austria to sue for peace, leaving England to fight alone.<br />
<br />
In the campaign of 1800, Napoleon's victory at Marengo (June 14) stands out as the stuff of legend but, despite the initiation of peace talks with Austria, the war continued. It was in fact the great victory by General Moreau at Hohenlinden near Munich half a year later that turned the tide of the war. His subsequent advance threatened Vienna, which signed an armistice on Christmas Day. Subsequent French gains in Italy led to the defeat of the Second Coalition and the Peace of Lunéville in February of the following year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DXbKpvVMs-U/WEPK_g1n7jI/AAAAAAAClPY/uGmZ2W9dKSoREPlpZ6F9qJJ-82VWcS1OwCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BHohenlinden.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DXbKpvVMs-U/WEPK_g1n7jI/AAAAAAAClPY/uGmZ2W9dKSoREPlpZ6F9qJJ-82VWcS1OwCLcB/s1600/FrMil%2BHohenlinden.600.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Map from Abel Hugo, <a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k289521/f1.item.zoom" target="_blank"><i>France militaire. Histoire des armées françaises de terre et mer de 1792 à 1837</i></a>, 5 vols. (Paris: Delloye, 1838)<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CzjXh142AD4/WE4MQgkIP8I/AAAAAAAClpI/hT_cObZg5E4fo9RF7mePa8bgkC9N36klACLcB/s1600/Moreau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CzjXh142AD4/WE4MQgkIP8I/AAAAAAAClpI/hT_cObZg5E4fo9RF7mePa8bgkC9N36klACLcB/s640/Moreau.jpg" width="366" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean Victor Marie Moreau (1863-1813)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is another connection between Marengo and Hohenlinden. The former was Bonaparte's first major victory after assuming power, and he was determined to aggrandize his role--even to the point of rewriting history--at the expense of the commanders who actually saved the day. He therefore resented Moreau's fame after the German battle, viewing the general as a potential rival. The latter was foolish enough to contemplate such a role for himself and became embroiled in a royalist plot that led to his imprisonment and then exile in the United States in 1804. Historical opinion today is more inclined to affirm Moreau's essentially republican sentiments but fault him for his bad judgment and political ambition (the latter driven in part by his wife). He fell at the Battle of Dresden, fighting with the Russian forces in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon.<br />
<br />
<br />[added image]<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-70461201700476748302016-12-02T03:54:00.001-05:002016-12-02T04:09:37.195-05:00Civic Forum: The Velvet Revolution of November 1989 and BeyondBecause I'm teaching my course on modern East Central Europe again this fall, it seems an appropriate time to remember the so-called "Velvet Revolution" (a sappy term I never liked) in the course of which dissidents peacefully forced the hard-line Czechoslovak communist regime from power in 1989.<br />
<br />
The driving force behind the revolution were the dissidents such as Václav Havel, associated with the <a href="https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/628" target="_blank">Charter 77</a> human rights movement. As the spirit of protest spread throughout the bloc in the fall of 1989, they organized themselves as the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Forum" target="_blank">Civic Forum</a>" (Občanské fórum, OF).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z45rtlQfEnU/WEEu2x-G6dI/AAAAAAAClMU/uMEvaX06aCES2pg9c-HJJGOClPYa0pbtgCLcB/s1600/FullSizeRender%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z45rtlQfEnU/WEEu2x-G6dI/AAAAAAAClMU/uMEvaX06aCES2pg9c-HJJGOClPYa0pbtgCLcB/s640/FullSizeRender%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I acquired this small--I guess you would call it a (?)--mini-placard some years ago in a Prague antiquariat. It displays the name of the organization against the background of the Czechoslovak flag. It is the size of a small bumper sticker (193 x 63 mm.) but is printed on stiff (now yellowed) pasteboard and thus lacks adhesive, which makes me wonder what its intended use was: for display in apartment or store windows? (After all, Havel's famous essay on "<a href="http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=eseje&val=2_aj_eseje.html&typ=HTML" target="_blank">the power of the powerless</a>" anchors its notion of "living in truth" in the story of those who agree vs. decline to accede to the regime's supposedly meaningless and harmless demand that they place its propaganda signs in their windows.) For display in an automobile? And when? The dampstaining at the bottom suggests that it was actually placed in a window where it would have been subject to condensation arising from a heated interior in cold weather.<br />
<br />
It is at once an inspiring and a sad memento. Although <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/search/label/Bohemica" target="_blank">Czechoslovakia</a> had been an island of liberal democracy among the post-World War I successor states that drifted toward authoritarianism, it became one of the most hardline communist states after 1948, and indeed, its leaders (in contrast to those of Hungary and Poland) refused even to nod to the de-Staliniziation "thaw" in the wake of Krushchev's denunciation of Stalin's crimes in 1956. Following the short-lived and optimistic episode of the "Prague Spring," crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks in August 1968, the regime pursued a quietly brutal policy of "normalization."<br />
Despite this long history of resistance to reform, the communist regime collapsed in only ten days in 1989 in the face of determined citizens <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution#Jingled_keys" target="_blank">jingling their keys</a> and refusing any longer to be afraid. Former dissident Václav Havel became president at the end of December 1989. <br /><br />By 1991, however, the movement split into conservative-capitalist and liberal factions. The latter triumphed in the elections of 1992, and the latter passed from the scene. A cautionary tale about politics in more ways than one.Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-79537357277591012992016-11-28T15:16:00.000-05:002016-12-08T01:18:57.827-05:00My Little Book-Historical Connection to Alice's RestaurantThis book is my copy of the English edition of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_von_Salomon" target="_blank">Ernst von Salomon</a>'s bestselling <i>Fragebogen (The Questionnaire </i>[1951]).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8VsOBylMB0/WEj7Sp7ubOI/AAAAAAAClTU/F6qUy-gnrhI3MpiQH3LUTEGl48o6ZC5GQCLcB/s1600/Fragebogen%2BEinb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8VsOBylMB0/WEj7Sp7ubOI/AAAAAAAClTU/F6qUy-gnrhI3MpiQH3LUTEGl48o6ZC5GQCLcB/s640/Fragebogen%2BEinb.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Von Salomon (1902-72) was a German right-wing extremist of the interwar years, implicated in several acts of political violence, including the assassination of German Prime Minister Walther Rathenau. Though he never gave up his extremist beliefs, he moved in heterodox arch-conservative circles and claimed that he never became a Nazi. He was nonetheless briefly imprisoned as one after the War. Several years after his release, he published his memoirs, for which he sarcastically employed the format of the lengthy questionnaire (<i>Fragebogen</i>) on past political activity that the Allied occupation forces used to implement their de-Nazification policy.<br />
<br />
The translator is the World War II intelligence officer and novelist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Fitzgibbon" target="_blank">Constantine Fitzgibbon</a>,
who also produced the English version of the memoirs of Auschwitz
Commandant Rudolf Höss. Ironically, his half-brother Louis Fitzgibbon
became a noted Holocaust denier. <br />
<br />
The late <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PrYwT3eI3wcC&lpg=RA1-PA117&ots=TvtGF5pTkN&dq=ernst%20von%20salomon&pg=RA1-PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Robert Wistrich was unsparing</a> in his portrait of von Salomon as a typical "noble fascist" (as the German term has it): a violent extremist who had contributed to the death of German democracy and then claimed to have moral or practical qualms about the vulgar Nazis and their terror, yet profited from the regime and its backing, and after the war was unrepentant, drawing a false moral equivalence between Nazism and Allied occupation. The book, he said, "was a bitter, cynical personal testament, which exposed his utter indifference to questions of guilt and repentance."<br />
<br />
The blurbs on the back cover, among my all-time favorites in this genre, are in the same spirit as Wistrich's sketch. (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/27/world/hugh-trevor-roper-89-dies-historian-of-hitler-s-last-days.html" target="_blank">Hugh Trevor-Roper</a> was the historian of Tudor-Stuart England who, while working as an intelligence officer in 1945, was tapped to write the account of <i>The Last Days of Hitler</i> [1947].) <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/dJGL_t5W-JLLQ9l1Rid6EifMgUS8Dt0_vwfk1rkFeav-ggAwp2tUI5JWEr7-KWY6yXGXJEEXYxiHsMrGmZpEV1WoBDGNSdHljvo7tHeej9XjmOMJCEki7j4jNCBwWE0kGCTCYpPwO8wO6YRmy7mvnVw5N61_ugISW6PQmhcqZP90ABottqtYYbf1qKbkPlVDdItO4ncuqsFqnQaTTVXt7vVq4ta5x9fYxiIxwzWwMFf8N6-_FX71sNFZnG3IwDe-9fpEKDiefcQZ7PS2oxHYGBdnWUX0nHUB9FNyhyp1YcosfCctj-i_CGVGraEjJQj7ukO6spgA9LNKXF0uyjMrubo4wpJEEmN-dbJdr9Irnl3U8yOonp4MsYvGzHhZVDRkvEMNskdZg_eBM2zUOQW-bsQ8OnSp4TVaEmuHYEuReTs2shsxyxohVt2RnudYNmlpqsaOjs6fqthKVhvsdnWoiAKaG9XbWje5rIH8GOKVqgn0pogjKiEui9_1rZNqYsUlsGOgrY1RBDgG20qhY2fPkd-hCTI66SINcVoOC8x15Xj9UDIQUpMIReVHLrYBvrgVrLDBnC0CGlycG3ipalbH9XK3ao9mlmxvaDrIlTCQ3TUtnCQ7BA=w452-h602-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/dJGL_t5W-JLLQ9l1Rid6EifMgUS8Dt0_vwfk1rkFeav-ggAwp2tUI5JWEr7-KWY6yXGXJEEXYxiHsMrGmZpEV1WoBDGNSdHljvo7tHeej9XjmOMJCEki7j4jNCBwWE0kGCTCYpPwO8wO6YRmy7mvnVw5N61_ugISW6PQmhcqZP90ABottqtYYbf1qKbkPlVDdItO4ncuqsFqnQaTTVXt7vVq4ta5x9fYxiIxwzWwMFf8N6-_FX71sNFZnG3IwDe-9fpEKDiefcQZ7PS2oxHYGBdnWUX0nHUB9FNyhyp1YcosfCctj-i_CGVGraEjJQj7ukO6spgA9LNKXF0uyjMrubo4wpJEEmN-dbJdr9Irnl3U8yOonp4MsYvGzHhZVDRkvEMNskdZg_eBM2zUOQW-bsQ8OnSp4TVaEmuHYEuReTs2shsxyxohVt2RnudYNmlpqsaOjs6fqthKVhvsdnWoiAKaG9XbWje5rIH8GOKVqgn0pogjKiEui9_1rZNqYsUlsGOgrY1RBDgG20qhY2fPkd-hCTI66SINcVoOC8x15Xj9UDIQUpMIReVHLrYBvrgVrLDBnC0CGlycG3ipalbH9XK3ao9mlmxvaDrIlTCQ3TUtnCQ7BA=w452-h602-no" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
I acquired this at <a href="http://paulsbookstore.com/" target="_blank">Paul's Books</a>,
one of the great used bookstores in Madison, WI (I went to school with
the kids and knew the late owner, as well as his widow, who
maintained the store and always greeted me effusively whenever I
returned in later years). I bought it because I was taking classes and doing research on Nazism. It turned out to command my interest for other reasons, as well.<br />
<br />
It has to be one of the more unusual items in my library: because it is an "<a href="https://www.abebooks.com/books/rarebooks/author-signature-signed-inscribed/association-copies.shtml" target="_blank">association copy</a>," valued for the connection to the author or owner rather than for its intrinsic nature. In this case what makes the book unusual is not just the fact that it made its way from the northeast to the midwest, but the "Alice's Restaurant" connection. How it got to Paul's bookstore, I have no idea.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Alice's Restaurant</b><br />
<br />
Many (particularly those who lived through or developed an affection for the era of the counterculture) will know this modern folk classic and the backstory. If not, the Massachustetts Cultural Council's "<a href="http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=342" target="_blank">Mass Moments</a>" explains:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[On November 28, 1965] 20-year-old Arlo Guthrie was convicted of littering in the Berkshire County town of Stockbridge, and the song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" was born. The son of legendary musician Woody Guthrie, Arlo and a friend were spending Thanksgiving with Alice and Ray Brock at the couple's home in a former church. Alice asked the boys to take a load of trash to the town dump. When they arrived, they found that the dump was closed, so they threw the trash down a nearby hillside. Guthrie turned the story of their subsequent arrest and court appearance into a best-selling record.<br />
<br />
The story of "Alice's Restaurant" begins and ends at a church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. By the 1960s, the small, pine Gothic Revival building had lost its congregation. The Episcopal diocese put the building up for sale, and in 1964, Alice and Ray Brock purchased it. After a formal de-consecration ceremony, the young couple moved in.<br />
<br />
The Brocks were a creative and charismatic pair who had been influenced by Jack Kerouac and other members of the Beat Generation. Ray was an architect and woodworker, Alice a painter and designer. Both worked at a private school in nearby Stockbridge. They transformed the former church into a quirky but welcoming place where their students and other young people could find refuge from "establishment pressures," especially the Vietnam War and the draft.<br />
<br />
Ray and Alice served as surrogate parents for the young women and men who camped out, sometimes for weeks at a time, at the church. The neighbors were not happy about the arrangement. They viewed the Brocks and their guests as drug-using, long-haired hippies. Agitated residents honked their car horns and yelled as they drove past; they wrote letters to the editor protesting the presence in their community of what they called a "beatnik commune."<br />
<br />
It was in this context that police officer Bill Obanhein reacted so strongly when the church group was implicated in the Thanksgiving trash dump. That evening, the Brocks received a call from Obanhein. He had spent "two very unpleasant hours" going through the debris until he found an envelope with the Brocks' name. Alice confirmed that Arlo and his friend were the culprits. Obanhein summoned the boys to the police station.<br />
<br />
"Officer Obie" later admitted that he had no sympathy for longhaired, nonconformist teenagers, although he conceded that they were basically "good kids." He decided to give them a scare and make an example of them so that the town would have no more trouble with hippies. He arrested the pair and put them in a jail cell until a furious Alice Brock bailed them out. Two days later, they appeared before a blind judge and his Seeing Eye dog, who "viewed" Obanhein's photo evidence of the trash dumping and convicted the two young men of littering. He fined them $25 each and ordered them to clean up the trash.<br />
<br />
After paying the fine and completing the cleanup, Arlo Guthrie began composing what would take up one entire side of his first album. Eventually 18 minutes long, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" evolved slowly over the next two years. The first verses written recounted the events of Thanksgiving 1965. Later Arlo added lyrics critical of the Vietnam War. When Alice Brock opened a restaurant in Stockbridge in early 1969, the song found its refrain, "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant." Then, finally, there was the draft. Called before his New York City draft board for a hearing on his fitness for military service, Arlo faced a final question: "Have you ever been arrested?" In the song, his conviction for littering saves Arlo Guthrie from the draft. In reality he was classified 1A, but his lottery number never came up.</blockquote>
I first learned of the incident when I was in middle school. We were having a sleepover at a friend's house, and when we got up the next morning, my friend's mother said, "Alice's Restaurant is on." Because her name was Alice, I at first thought she was just referring to her breakfast menu, but then she played the album in its final version with the Vietnam lyrics, and I made another step forward in my cultural literacy.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A Birthday in Massachusetts </b><br />
<br />
Back to the book. The owner, whose rather conventional <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/search/label/Ex%20Libris" target="_blank">bookplate</a> graces the inside cover, wrote a long inscription on the flyleaf, recounting bicycle travels in Massachusetts with friends, culminating in a birthday celebration at which several friends signed the volume.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BiJ2ac1_CKU/WEEa8n235bI/AAAAAAAClK8/GfqCE0zqMyYDiaVSfAK39vi1GZsSTnMCwCLcB/s1600/FullSizeRender%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="434" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BiJ2ac1_CKU/WEEa8n235bI/AAAAAAAClK8/GfqCE0zqMyYDiaVSfAK39vi1GZsSTnMCwCLcB/s640/FullSizeRender%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2pMfk4uLn0I/WEEYrpoyp_I/AAAAAAAClKw/22GnirfvXDIvlprxUWAx_aVBt8ozQg9DQCLcB/s1600/FullSizeRender%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2pMfk4uLn0I/WEEYrpoyp_I/AAAAAAAClKw/22GnirfvXDIvlprxUWAx_aVBt8ozQg9DQCLcB/s640/FullSizeRender%2B2.jpg" width="502" /></a></div>
<br />
The last two names are those of Ray and Alice Brock. Not a book I would ask my close friends to sign, and an odd circumstance for future hippies, perhaps, but such are the discreet charms of book history.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Resources</i><br />
<br />
"<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/08/26/things-about-arlo-guthrie-alice-restaurant-its-anniversary/n9KOboD8L9X32UownPPFtK/story.html" target="_blank">51 things about Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ on its 51st anniversary</a>" (<i>Boston Globe</i>)<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-81525137326123070772016-11-26T03:27:00.001-05:002016-12-02T02:24:25.235-05:00Post-Thanksgiving Book History PostWhat to do on that long Thanksgiving weekend after you've eaten your fill and watched too much TV? Turn to your books (or collections).<br />
<br />
In this case, it's the <i>ex libris</i>, or bookplate: an interesting testimonial to <a href="https://www.blogger.com/This%20is%20My%20Book.%20%20Yale's%20bookplate%20collection%20spans%20the%20centuries%20and%20the%20globe.%20By%20Alex%20Beam%20|%20Mar/Apr%202010%20%20Alex%20Beam%20%E2%80%9975%20is%20the%20author%20of,%20most%20recently,%20A%20Great%20Idea%20at%20the%20Time:%20The%20Rise,%20Fall,%20and%20Curious%20Afterlife%20of%20the%20Great%20Books.%20Arts%20of%20the%20Book%20Collection%20Arts%20of%20the%20Book%20Collection%20Arthur%20Vance's%20bookplate,%20donated%20to%20Yale%20by%20the%20Brooklyn%20Museum,%20heads%20off%20loans%20at%20the%20pass.%20View%20full%20image%20previous%20image%201%202%203%204%205%206%207%208%209%2010%2011%20next%20image%20%20The%20bookplate,%20which%20emerged%20in%20the%201400s%20as%20a%20way%20to%20adorn%20a%20book%20with%20its%20owner%E2%80%99s%20coat%20of%20arms,%20has%20evolved%20over%20the%20centuries%20into%20an%20artistic%20genre%20of%20its%20own.%20Artists%20specialize%20in%20it;%20collectors%20swap%20pieces%20old%20and%20new,%20and%20sometimes%20commission%20a%20plate%20not%20for%20their%20books,%20but%20for%20its%20own%20sake.%20%20The%20Yale%20library%E2%80%99s%20collection,%20estimated%20at%20near%20one%20million,%20is%20one%20of%20the%20largest%20in%20the%20world.%20It%20is%20a%20collection%20of%20individual%20collections,%20donated%20by%20devoted%20bibliophiles%E2%80%94including%20one%20who%20fled%20Europe%20during%20World%20War%20II%20with%20only%20two%20bags,%20one%20of%20them%20filled%20with%20bookplates%20(and%20books).%20But%20because%20the%20collection%20is%20largely%20unprocessed,%20it%20is%20also%20largely%20inaccessible.%20%E2%80%9CWe%20have%20such%20a%20huge%20collection,%E2%80%9D%20says%20arts%20librarian%20Jae%20Rossman.%20%E2%80%9CThis%20is%20probably%20going%20to%20take%20us%20ten%20years.%E2%80%9D%20Beyond%20a%20small%20circle%20of%20librarians%20and%20scholars,%20few%20have%20ever%20seen%20its%20contents.%20%20Click%20on%20our%20slide%20show%20to%20see%20a%20tiny%20fraction%20of%20Yale's%20holdings.%20%20%20Alex%20Beam%20%E2%80%9975%20ruminates%20on%20why%20book%20owners%20mark%20their%20literary%20territory%20with%20personalized%20art.%E2%80%94The%20Editors%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Psychology%20of%20the%20bookplate%20%20%E2%80%9CThis%20book%20belongs%20to%20me.%E2%80%9D%20For%20over%20five%20centuries,%20that%20has%20been%20the%20message%20conveyed%20by%20every%20bookplate,%20whether%20printed%20and%20hand-tinted%20for%20Hildebrand%20Brandenburg%20in%201480%20or%20mass-produced%20for%20Barnes%20&%20Noble%20or%20Amazon.%20(Yes,%20they%20sell%20bookplates.)%20Think%20of%20a%20bookplate%20as%20a%20wedding%20ring%20binding%20the%20reader%20to%20the%20book,%20and%20vice%20versa.%20The%20symbolism%20isn%E2%80%99t%20so%20far%20apart:%20ownership,%20possession,%20desire.%20%20For%20centuries,%20books%20were%20precious.%20The%20first%20book%20printed%20with%20movable%20type,%20the%20Gutenberg%20Bible,%20was%20and%20is%20an%20object%20of%20veneration,%20and%20even%20three%20centuries%20later,%20books%20(as%20opposed%20to%20pamphlets)%20were%20artisanal%20productions.%20Samuel%20Johnson%E2%80%99s%20famous%20Dictionary%20of%20the%20English%20Language,%20published%20in%201755,%20initially%20sold%20at%20a%20rate%20so%20low%20it%20was%20reissued%20in%20affordable%20weekly%20installments.%20Books%20retained%20scarcity%20value%20for%20almost%20another%20century,%20until%20the%20era%20of%20the%20nineteenth-century%20%E2%80%9Cdime%20novel,%E2%80%9D%20the%20throwaway%20precursor%20of%20today%E2%80%99s%20paperback.%20%20Bookplates,%20often%20beautiful%20adornments%20to%20things%20of%20beauty,%20signify%20figurative%20possession%20as%20well.%20%E2%80%9CEx%20Libris%20Alex%20Beam,%E2%80%9D%20meaning%20%E2%80%9CFrom%20the%20Library%20of%20Alex%20Beam,%E2%80%9D%20found%20on%20the%20inside%20covers%20of%20Anthony%20Powell%E2%80%99s%20series%20Dance%20to%20the%20Music%20of%20Time,%20would%20suggest%20not%20only%20that%20I%20owned%20the%20books,%20but%20that%20I%20had%20read%20them%20too.%20(Especially%20the%20tenth%20volume:%20Books%20Do%20Furnish%20a%20Room.)%20Here%20desire%20bleeds%20into%20possession;%20I%20do%20own%20them,%20and%20I%20wish%20I%20had%20read%20them%20all.%20%20Lastly,%20a%20bookplate%20expresses%20the%20desire%20to%20be%20possessed,%20to%20inhabit%20the%20book%20itself.%20Look%20at%20the%20bookplate%20of%20Edith%20Treuhoff,%20sitting%20at%20her%20table,%20in%20front%20of%20her%20window,%20on%20a%20perfect%20day%20.%20.%20.%20inside%20her%20book!%20The%20book%20isn%E2%80%99t%20just%20an%20object,%20it%20is%20an%20imaginative%20territory,%20a%20world%20often%20represented%20in%20this%20collection%20by%20the%20stars,%20or%20by%20the%20moon.%20Who%20doesn%E2%80%99t%20want%20to%20live%20there?%20Along%20the%20banks%20of%20the%20Mississippi;%20in%20the%20whaling%20boat%20with%20the%20peg-legged%20madman;%20heck,%20I%20can%20lose%20myself%20driving%20the%20streets%20of%20Los%20Angeles%20in%20a%20beat-up%20limousine%20with%20Michael%20Connelly%E2%80%99s%20Lincoln%20Lawyer.%20Better%20there%20than%20here.%20%20Where%20are%20we%20now?%20Books%20are%20changing%20from%20physical%20to%20virtual%20objects.%20Cushing%20Academy,%20a%20tiny%20prep%20school%20in%20central%20Massachusetts,%20achieved%20nano-fame%20by%20making%20electronic%20readers%20available%20in%20its%20library.%20Today%E2%80%99s%20curiosity%20is%20tomorrow%E2%80%99s%20Freshman%20Orientation%20Day%20on%20the%20Old%20Campus.%20%20The%2025-cent%20paperback%20took%20us%20halfway%20there;%20now%20we%20have%20fully%20arrived.%20The%20physical%20book%20does%20not%20exist,%20and%20has%20no%20value.%20The%20digital%20book%20has%20no%20front%20or%20back%20covers;%20there%20is%20no%20place%20to%20assert%20ownership,%20and%20there%20is%20nothing%20to%20own.%20The%20%E2%80%9Cdigital%20delivery%20module%E2%80%9D%20is%20a%20piece%20of%20molded%20plastic%20made%20in%20China,%20encasing%20a%20few%20memory%20chips.%20That%20is%20not%20the%20book,%20that%E2%80%99s%20the%20%E2%80%9Creader.%E2%80%9D%20Wait,%20I%20thought%20I%20was%20the%20reader.%20Oh,%20never%20mind.%20%20Electronic%20bookplates?%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20think%20so.%20%E2%80%9CWe%20have%20created%20a%20library%20for%20you%20on%20Amazon.com,%E2%80%9D%20the%20manufacturer%20of%20the%20popular%20Kindle%20says,%20but%20I%20know%20they%E2%80%99re%20just%20kidding.%20If%20they%20had%20created%20a%20library%20for%20me,%20they%20would%20have%20included%20In%20Every%20Face%20I%20Meet,%20by%20Justin%20Cartwright,%20or%20Richard%20Holmes%E2%80%99s%20Dr.%20Johnson%20and%20Mr.%20Savage.%20Their%20library%20exists%20on%20a%20server%20farm,%20where%20real%20estate%20is%20cheap.%20My%20library%20is%20here,%20in%20this%20room%20where%20I%20am%20writing.%20%20%E2%80%9CThis%20books%20belongs%20to%20.%20.%20.%20no%20one.%E2%80%9D%20Welcome%20to%20the%20future,%20a%20less%20intimate%20and%20a%20less%20ornamented%20place.%20%20%20https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/2750-this-is-i-my-i-book" target="_blank">evolving habits of book ownership</a>, and since the late nineteenth century, a profitable and collectible small graphic genre (<a href="http://uvamagazine.org/articles/ex_libris/" target="_blank">1</a>, <a href="http://old.seattletimes.com/html/books/2017279910_ar20bookplates.html?syndication=rss" target="_blank">2</a>) in its own right.<br />
<br />
This one was created by the <a href="https://www.massmayflower.org/" target="_blank">Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants</a> (not my ancestors, God knows--though I do know more than one student who can claim membership in <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1985-11-28/news/vw-9301_1_mayflower-society" target="_blank">that elite club</a>). Founded in 1896, the organization soon decided that it needed an ex libris to accompany donations it made.<br />
<br />
An "American Letter" by Charles Dexter Allen of Hartford (Nov. 9, 1897) in the British <i>Journal of the Ex Libris Society</i> announced a competition:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Society of Mayflower Descendants offers two prizes, one of fifty dollars and the other of twenty dollars, for a book-plate design. The plate is to be 4 1/2 by 3 inches, and the design in the centre should be 2 1/4 by 1 3/8 inches. Above this should be the title, "Society of Mayflower Descendants in Massachusetts," and at the bottom, "Presented by," with space for date and name of donor. The office of the Society is in the Tremont Building, Boston.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
--<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T-REAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PR134&dq=society%20of%20mayflower%20descendants%20bookplate%20%22presented%20by%22&pg=PR134#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Vol. 7 (1897): 178-79</a>, quotation from 178</blockquote>
</blockquote>
The following year, Allen reported on the winners. He began with an apology for his long silence: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So many months have gone by without a communication from the American correspondent, that I feel assured these present lines will be read as a decided novelty, and I am not certain that an introduction is not in order ! But really during the hot and hottest months there seemed little doing in matters of interest to book-plate collectors, though, in fact, discoveries were being made, new plates were being designed and engraved, and the ongo of matters was not wholly interrupted. But with the return of weather that makes one think of the fireside and indoor delights, correspondence is resumed and matters of general interest are passed about from one to another.</blockquote>
He reported on the creation of the smallest bookplate in the world (for a miniature book), and then, not bothering with a transition, launched into an update on the Mayflower contest:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Within a few months a competition for a bookplate was advertised by the Society of Mayflower Descendants in Massachusetts, and at a meeting held last March the first prize, fifty dollars, was awarded to Mr. Charles E. Heil, of Jamaica Plain, and the second, twenty dollars, to Mr. Theodore Brown Hapgood, jun., of Boston. At this meeting the sixty-eight designs submitted in competition were exhibited. The successful design has been printed in black with red capitals, and makes a very showy appearance. The lettering is good, and the pictorial design represents two Puritans, one in the layman's dress and one in the soldier's, standing by the sea-shore. At a little distance rides the Mayflower. Mr. Hapgood's design, printed wholly in black, represents the Puritan and his wife en route to church along the bleak shore, gun on shoulder, and clad in the sombre habiliments of the day. The old-style lettering and ornamentation are very pleasing, and one is impressed with the spirit of the design, which is in complete harmony with the picture and with the traditions the Mayflower Society endeavours to keep alive.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
--<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vM9RAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA171&dq=ex%20libris%20society%20of%20mayflower%20descendants%20in%20Massachusetts&pg=PA171#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Journal of the Ex Libris Society</i>, 8 (1898): 171-72</a>; here 172</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<a href="http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/index.cfm?rows=10&q=&page=1&start=0&fq=name:%22Heil%2C%20Charles%20E%2E%22" target="_blank">Heil</a> (1870-1950), a member of the newly founded <a href="http://www.societyofcrafts.org/" target="_blank">Boston Society of Arts and Crafts</a> (1897; today, the oldest such organization in the nation) came to be best known for his <a href="http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/snow-bunting-252629" target="_blank">ornithological painting</a> and has been called a <a href="http://www.victoriachick.com/heil.htm" target="_blank">second Audubon</a>. Hapgood (1871-1938), by contrast, devoted more time to the world of book art, from <a href="https://bindings.lib.ua.edu/designerbios/hapgood.html" target="_blank">binding</a> design, title pages, and illustrations, to the <a href="http://www.bookplate.org/article/bookplates-theodore-brown-hapgood" target="_blank">ex libris</a> (along the way finding time for ecclesiastical vestments and other artistic pursuits).<br />
<br />
Below is Heil's winning design, from my small collection. The reddish ink has a metallic cast, which, viewed from some angles, causes it to reflect light. The back is gummed.<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jWZk9SkosU8/WEEhmMRBUeI/AAAAAAAClLM/BgD1g-0676k14aaovwXV6iV-w-0xkLiMACLcB/s1600/Mayflower%2BExlibris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jWZk9SkosU8/WEEhmMRBUeI/AAAAAAAClLM/BgD1g-0676k14aaovwXV6iV-w-0xkLiMACLcB/s640/Mayflower%2BExlibris.jpg" width="466" /></a></div>
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Reviewing a bookplate exhibition by the Boston Arts and Crafts Society at Copley Hall in 1899, the journal of the Berlin Ex-libris association called this piece "<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KakaAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA98&dq=ex%20libris%20mayflower%20descendants&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">a very beautiful plate!</a>"<br />
<br />
I might quibble with that. Even aside from the generally retrograde aesthetic (the minimal nod to modish art nouveau taste in the left marginal column notwithstanding) and corresponding social-political doctrines, the highlighting of the key initial letters on the left is bizarrely violated by the awkward breaking of the word, "Descendants." It is jarring, conflicts with the supreme principle of legibility.<br />
<br />
Still, I am very glad to have this historically significant piece in my collection. I don't have a copy of the second-place design, but one day ... who knows?Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-56691539587221681712016-11-24T19:43:00.003-05:002016-12-02T02:25:13.959-05:00Over the River and to Northampton? Did You Know Thanksgiving Poem Author Lived Here?ICYMI: last month, I posted a short piece on Lydia Maria Child, best known as the author of "Over the River and Through the Wood." Less well known is the fact that she resided in our area as a member of a utopian and abolitionist community, a story preserved and told by the David Ruggles Center in Florence.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cK8S5o8H5QI/WEEh0Agh68I/AAAAAAAClLQ/dwPkdW48AfA-tGj4TZAumH4tP476I4uFwCLcB/s1600/Child%2Bletter%2B2%2Bsign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cK8S5o8H5QI/WEEh0Agh68I/AAAAAAAClLQ/dwPkdW48AfA-tGj4TZAumH4tP476I4uFwCLcB/s640/Child%2Bletter%2B2%2Bsign.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-20-1880-death-of-lydia-maria.html" target="_blank">Read the rest</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-38829426533158165272016-11-24T19:26:00.001-05:002016-11-24T20:56:23.311-05:00Thanksgiving 2016: Link Dump and From the Vaults<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KgCYrQSVgAU/UNa7FBc9sCI/AAAAAAAAFiI/H0S6jiGcBMMSMgjFbp5YGpo5qdfTci3EQCPcB/s1600/ThanksgivingEconDevel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="462" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KgCYrQSVgAU/UNa7FBc9sCI/AAAAAAAAFiI/H0S6jiGcBMMSMgjFbp5YGpo5qdfTci3EQCPcB/s640/ThanksgivingEconDevel.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I tend to post something about Thanksgiving every year, so, rather than writing up a long new piece, I'll just share some items in this week's news, along with links to older posts.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>In the news</b>:<br />
<br />
• From the Library of Congress: <a href="http://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2016/11/thanksgiving-day-1918/?loclr=eaptb" target="_blank">Thanksgiving at the end of World War I</a>, ranging from President Wilson's proclamation ("This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice. God has in His good pleasure given us peace.") to posters.<br />
<br />
• From <i>Tablet</i>: Ed Simon, "<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/218163/pilgrims-american-jewish-holiday?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=915b3d7cd8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-915b3d7cd8-206640790" target="_blank">Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims’ American Jewish Holiday</a>: How the biblical narrative of Exodus helped shape the founders’ idea of a secular nation with liberty for all"<br />
<br />
• From New England Historical Society: "<a href="http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-englands-first-thanksgiving-maine-style/?utm_source=NEHS+ACTIVES&utm_campaign=c9a8119bbc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_66a9ef2b02-c9a8119bbc-139482977" target="_blank">New England’s First Thanksgiving – Maine Style</a>:<br />
New England’s first Thanksgiving celebrated by European colonists (the American Indians had harvest celebrations of their own long before) came in 1607 in Popham, Maine."<br />
<br />
• From <i>Business Insider</i>: Jeremy Bender, "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/thanksgiving-evacuation-day-2016-11" target="_blank">How Thanksgiving took the place of an awesome military celebration</a>" [British evacuation of New York, 1783]<br />
<br />
• From <i>Smithsonian</i> (2011): Lisa Bramen, "<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/thanksgiving-in-literature-719722/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia" target="_blank">Thanksgiving in Literature</a>: Holiday readings from Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Philip Roth and contemporary novels that use Thanksgiving as the backdrop for family dysfunction"<br />
<br />
• From <i>Scientific American</i>: Dana Hunter, "<a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/the-real-story-of-plymouth-rock/" target="_blank">The Real Story of Plymouth Rock</a>. Learn about the erratic past of one of America's most famous rocks" [history, mythology, geology]<br />
<br />
• From Pilgrim Hall Museum: <a href="http://www.pilgrimhallmuseum.org/more_thanksgiving_recipes_past.htm" target="_blank">More Thanksgiving Recipes from America's Past</a> (1671 through World War II) <br />
<br />
• And finally, since half of the seasonal articles about Thanksgiving present manifest untruths and distortions of history, while the other half take as their task the correction of these errors (in the process committing more of their own), former Chief Curator of Plimoth Plantation Jeremy Bangs offers, via History News Network (from 2005):<br />
<br />
"<a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/15002" target="_blank">The Truth About Thanksgiving Is that the Debunkers Are Wrong</a>."<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<b>From the vaults</b>:<br />
<br />
<br />
• 2008 <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2008/11/inevitable-thanksgiving-piece.html" target="_blank">The Inevitable Thanksgiving Piece</a>
: focusing on food and fable as well as historiography: how the holiday
came to assume its familiar form. Among my minor favorites are the
mystery of the cranberry (pregnant insects?! wtf?) and Pilgrim drinking
habits (a shot and a brew).<br />
<br />
• 2009 <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-day.html" target="_blank">Thanksgiving Day (Thanksgiving Again)</a>:
brief piece with focus on historiography--contrasting historical
approaches of the focus on material culture and the larger narrative
(including the long-term consequences), exemplified by James and
Patricia Deetz on the one hand and Nathaniel Philbrick, on the other
(with links to a variety of topics, from the date of the holiday to
presidential turkey pardons and the relation between poultry and
dinosaurs).<br />
<br />
• 2010 (a) <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2010/11/annual-thanksgiving-history-buffet.html" target="_blank">The Annual Thanksgiving History Buffet</a>:
a smorgasbord of topics, starting with foodways (eels and sweet potato)
and moving on to the conservative canards about Pilgrims, socialism,
and capitalism.<br />
<br />
• 2010 (b) <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-miscellany.html" target="_blank">Thanksgiving Miscellany</a>: e.g. never rocked to the Turkey Gobbler's Ball? Here's your chance.<br />
<br />
• 2010 (c) (I must have been on a roll that year): <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2010/12/13-december-1621-fortune-sails-from.html" target="_blank">13
December 1621: The "Fortune" Sails from Plymouth to England (and why
the Pilgrims were neither "socialists" nor "capitalists")</a><br />
<br />
• 2012: <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2012/12/22-december-1620-pilgrims-land-at.html" target="_blank">22 December 1620: Pilgrims Land at Plymouth Rock (and post-Thanksgiving postprandial link dump)</a><br />
• 2014 <a href="http://tofindtheprinciples.blogspot.com/2014/11/post-thanksgiving-digestif-cheers-and.html" target="_blank">Post-Thanksgiving Digestif (cheers and fears)</a>: Emily Dickinson, historic beverages, the turkey industry, Black Friday and late capitalism<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-47395747534532329522016-11-20T15:13:00.000-05:002019-11-18T23:00:03.974-05:0018 November 1830: Death of Adam Weishaupt, founder of the IlluminatiOn 18 November 1830, Adam Weishaupt (b. 1748), founder of the <a href="http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/illuminati.html" target="_blank">Illuminati</a>, died, age 82. Rarely does the modest achievement of a man stand in such disproportion to his historical reputation: the Illuminati stand at the center of one of the world's most enduring conspiracy theories, stretching from the debates over the French Revolution to today's popular culture. (Look it up yourself: it will be a good exercise in information literacy, i.e. separating real historical knowledge from <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html" target="_blank">bullshit</a>.)<br />
<br />
What I am sharing here is the title page of a little treasure from my personal library: the second edition of the second volume of Weishaupt's <i><a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/apology/" target="_blank">Apology</a> of Discontent and Dissatisfaction</i> (1790) a rather tedious (by modern standards; the readers of the eighteenth century were made of hardier stuff) dialogue about religion, philosophy, social change, and the meaning of life: at 366 pages. The book is unbound and remains in its worn blue interim paper wrapper, as issued. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/3fpxxBkG3cWusqFhct45ct7Ully7mKV5P8q3t8tc4e8GKpMdomz7sbrehSrt7VllvNM00mTJnF0=w356-h571-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/3fpxxBkG3cWusqFhct45ct7Ully7mKV5P8q3t8tc4e8GKpMdomz7sbrehSrt7VllvNM00mTJnF0=w356-h571-no" width="396" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
What makes it special to me is actually less the authorship (though that is important) than the ownership: the title page bears the signature of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Christian_II,_Duke_of_Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg" target="_blank">Friedrich Christian, Hereditary Prince of Augustenborg</a>, in Denmark. In 1791, he granted the great German poet Friedrich Schiller a three-year pension to support him during a period of ill health. Schiller expressed his gratitude by setting forth his evolving ideas about aesthetics in <a href="http://www.friedrich-schiller-archiv.de/briefe/briefe-an-herzog-von-augustenburg/" target="_blank">a series of letters</a> to the Prince, which formed the basis for his influential philosophical treatise, <a href="https://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Schiller-s--ldquo-Aesthetic-Education-rdquo---2223" target="_blank">On the Aesthetic Education of Mankind</a> (periodical publication, 1795; book edition, 1801).<br />
<br />
Friedrich Christian reigned as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg from 1794 until his death in 1814. The stamp of the famous Fyens (=Funen) Diocesan Library of Odense appears on the title page and inside cover, and a manuscript note on the latter indicates the book passed to that institution in 1816. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/f_7wpfnCZc760TSOFotQl_FM3olAuVisgHzjI5BayK70S24DTA8zycBz689ZIIH5h8TQyR8LGnc=w366-h571-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/f_7wpfnCZc760TSOFotQl_FM3olAuVisgHzjI5BayK70S24DTA8zycBz689ZIIH5h8TQyR8LGnc=w366-h571-no" width="408" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.sdu.dk/bibliotek/om+biblioteket/om+samlingerne/fyensstift" target="_blank"><br /></a>
Created in 1813, the library reflected the theological needs of the clergy but was dedicated to "maintaining the scientific spirit and increasing the sum of knowledge for anybody in the province who loves science." By the 1830s, the Citizen's Library operated out of the same building. In the course of the twentieth century, the collection was merged first with that of the Odense Central Library and then the <a href="http://www.sdu.dk/en/Bibliotek/Om+biblioteket/Om+samlingerne/Odense" target="_blank">Library of the University of Southern Denmark</a>.<br />
<br />
The theological volumes (3,000 out of the total collection of 30,000) <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sRCvCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA195&ots=WtdiLkA7pR&dq=Fyens%20library&pg=PA195#v=onepage&q=Fyens%20library&f=false" target="_blank">passed to the Library of Fuller Theological Seminary</a> in 1948. (This volume appears in the <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012390781" target="_blank">1902 catalogue</a> under the category of Christian Morality, subheading Mixed Moral Writings.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-70000427175187998002016-11-17T13:00:00.000-05:002016-12-02T02:36:35.153-05:00Veterans Day in Amherst<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-11?loclr=eatod#veterans-day" target="_blank">Veterans Day</a> is one of those quiet but pleasant holidays in Amherst. Attendance at our modest commemoration is small: far lower than on Memorial Day, which entails a much larger celebration and occurs in generally more pleasant weather, as befits the de facto beginning of the summer vacation season.<br />
<br />
Perhaps for that reason, it seems more intimate: not just that the group is smaller, but that it is composed of people who feel a personal or family connection to the holiday, especially veterans and their families. The attendees also seem more representative of the real diversity of Amherst.<br />
<br />
A few photos from this year's event, which I attended with other Town officials, including fellow Select Board members Alisa Brewer and Doug Slaughter, Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek, Planning Director Christine Brestrup.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/f5V_pOJz3bCg4CxYvENqjLZRV9GbGe9HTOcps4S9llcN7JyBu_qZdVl37c29rUrFYmxLZg8u-h0=w738-h554-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/f5V_pOJz3bCg4CxYvENqjLZRV9GbGe9HTOcps4S9llcN7JyBu_qZdVl37c29rUrFYmxLZg8u-h0=w738-h554-no" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Rev. Anita Morris, chaplain for the Amherst Veterans of Foreign Wars, gives the invocation as Veterans' Agent Steve Connor (who organizes the event each year) holds down her papers in the breeze.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UNXP964ho4M/WEEj7MjomZI/AAAAAAAClLk/fjzvBHLyfukzQyFT6bp7pqeYvhUsVIpuwCLcB/s1600/Alisa%2BIMG_9851.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UNXP964ho4M/WEEj7MjomZI/AAAAAAAClLk/fjzvBHLyfukzQyFT6bp7pqeYvhUsVIpuwCLcB/s640/Alisa%2BIMG_9851.JPG" width="478" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Select Board Chair Alisa Brewer offers greetings on behalf of the Town of Amherst </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h_13p43sd58/WEEkIZTDF2I/AAAAAAAClLs/3q_ZmjEz3lU4XFtr4nMhFWK8DQhg5j02ACLcB/s1600/Victor%2BIMG_9855.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h_13p43sd58/WEEkIZTDF2I/AAAAAAAClLs/3q_ZmjEz3lU4XFtr4nMhFWK8DQhg5j02ACLcB/s640/Victor%2BIMG_9855.JPG" width="478" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://veteransadvocacyservices.org/bios/" target="_blank">Victor A. Núñez Ortiz</a>, Salvadoran immigrant, Iraq veteran, and Vice President and Chief Operation Officer of Veterans Advocacy Services.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mz6IwvsitX4/WEEkPB0xBLI/AAAAAAAClLw/J0ZOFXD9VWUjvw3MUiHrsoAdjR4yLLuOQCLcB/s1600/Thompson%2BIMG_9854.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mz6IwvsitX4/WEEkPB0xBLI/AAAAAAAClLw/J0ZOFXD9VWUjvw3MUiHrsoAdjR4yLLuOQCLcB/s640/Thompson%2BIMG_9854.JPG" width="478" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Amherst native and veteran (Marines; Air Force Reserve) Charles Thompson <br />
(service in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters as well as Europe, Asia) delivers the keynote<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098499919072806665.post-29984162022485968572016-11-15T13:00:00.000-05:002016-12-08T01:21:14.357-05:00November 11, 1920: Interment of the British Unknown SoldierThe mass slaughter of the Great War prompted contemporaries to find new ways to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sites-Memory-Mourning-European-Cultural/dp/110766165X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479864175&sr=1-1&keywords=Jay+Winter+memory" target="_blank">remember and mourn</a>. The fact that many of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Soldiers-Reshaping-Memory-World/dp/0195071395/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479872911&sr=1-1&keywords=fallen+soldiers" target="_blank">millions of fallen</a> remained unidentified led to the suggestion one of their number be honored at a national commemorative site. The tombs of both the British and French Unknowns were dedicated on the anniversary of the Armistice in 1920, the former at Westminster Abbey (pointedly placing the commoner alongside the kings), the latter at the Arc de Triomphe. (The <a href="http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Tomb-of-the-Unknown-Soldier" target="_blank">US Unknown</a> was interred in Arlington Cemetery a year later.)<br />
<br />
This card dates from the dedication of the British tomb.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a4albWpR5Qk/WEj7kV8d7OI/AAAAAAAClTY/jdM13RoBBakqU7vMB-KvA_P3aWUWHDIcQCLcB/s1600/UnknownSoldInvUK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a4albWpR5Qk/WEj7kV8d7OI/AAAAAAAClTY/jdM13RoBBakqU7vMB-KvA_P3aWUWHDIcQCLcB/s640/UnknownSoldInvUK.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The Christian symbolism so often associated with national memory is evident on the exterior, which seems to feature forget-me-nots and/or violas rather than the <a href="http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/how-we-remember/the-story-of-the-poppy/" target="_blank">poppy</a>, which acquired its iconic commemorative status (reproduced in silk) the following year.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NsYDrhYmXbk/WEj7rG2PhSI/AAAAAAAClTc/cziI7bjtae0cfJFFYphrCwh8xiSkKIpzwCLcB/s1600/UnknownSoldInvUK.2jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NsYDrhYmXbk/WEj7rG2PhSI/AAAAAAAClTc/cziI7bjtae0cfJFFYphrCwh8xiSkKIpzwCLcB/s640/UnknownSoldInvUK.2jpg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />Pictured at left of the interior is the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/cenotaph.shtml" target="_blank">Cenotaph</a> (commemorating the war dead but containing no body) in Whitehall by Sir Edwin Luytens, dedicated on the same occasion. It replaced a temporary structure that he had designed for the Victory (Peace) Parade in 1919. The Poetry Library lists the poem among its "<a href="http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/queries/lostquotes/?id=875" target="_blank">lost quotations</a>," whose source remains to be identified. <br />
<br />
The anniversary of the end of the war, originally called Armistice Day, became Remembrance Day (the closest Sunday to November 12; since 1945) in the Commonwealth and <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-11?loclr=eatod#veterans-day" target="_blank">Veterans Day</a> (1954) in the US. Jim Waldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03742319601988946767noreply@blogger.com0